I don't have a solution to this. I thought if I lived by those values - of giving and gifting and caring I would be able to show another world was possible. But instead it just resulted in a exploitation and alienation. I had to learn to be selfish, and I know this harms me.

I find the whole defense of Israel's "right to exist" really bizarre because why do any States need to exist at all? And who gave them rights? This all falls back on believing that somehow Laws are Just and not just imaginary inventions without any justification.

MERRY CHIPMAS: I have a new @crikey.com.au piece about how a HUGE solar farm planned in north Aus planned to send power via cable to Singapore - but is now PIvoting To Data Centre As hydrogen projects collapse all over the place, the green export dream is dying... www.crikey.com.au/2025/12/23/d...

One of the greatest flaws of allopathic healing systems is the myth of universality, or at least the reliance on statistical norms which look at what works for "most people" rather than patterns of how bodies work with healing.

Capitalism is designed around untethering connection and community interdependence, and replacing it with a product you can buy. As such Gen AI is designed to do the same, but the grief and isolation that builds the machine seems to be at the heart of those directing and shaping its design.

The most strange thing about AGI is that it seems to be the dream project of people who are profoundly lonely and desperate to invent something that they can connect to. But the process of inventing it results in a product which actually makes people more lonely.

GenAI used to stir up fear and hate through disinformation faces no social media bans, and instead results in increased engagement. Meanwhile reminding people that a genocide is on-going despite the myth of ceasefire is a sure way to be shadowbanned. Is this really the world you want?

This is pretty interesting - Ecosia have now launched "the world's greenest AI". I think it's lacking *a lot*, namely: - Disclosure of energy consumption (absolute, but not even per-query??) - Disclosure of emissions - Still obviously massive problems w/ accuracy blog.ecosia.org/ecosia-ai/

i hope every single person who still buys harry potter merch or engages with that franchise is happy that they're literally making girl guides cry girl guides uk have been forced very much against their will to exclude trans girls. full statement is here: www.girlguiding.org.uk/information-...

We're so disconnected from reality that we are gamifying war, making profit off of it, and then justifying it by claiming it works as defacto polling to understand where conflict is about to happen. This is the real result of securitization policies: futurism.com/future-socie...

"Take away our ability to speak, and we can still think, reason, form beliefs, fall in love, and move about the world; our range of what we can experience and think about remains vast. But take away language from a large language model, and you are left with literally nothing at all"

I spend a lot of time wondering if leaders look at technofacist dystopic fiction, and instead of reading it as a clear warning, think "Yup, that's the kind of world I want to control"...

"In an internal memo from September, CEO Sam Altman said that OpenAI’s “audacious long-term goal is to build 250 gigawatts of capacity by 2033.” If Altman achieves this goal, OpenAI will need almost exactly as much electricity as India’s 1.5 billion people" Great @truthdig.com piece on chips ->

What we are experiencing is the end of performative liberal democracy as part of global politics. The veil of civility has been lifted to expose the entrenched corruption, and there's no going back from here. aje.io/x6b7jn

So I chaired a panel at Edinburgh's Radical Book Fair yesterday, about #WeirdPride and unruliness, with two fantastic queer, neurodivergent, nonbinary writers and activists: @acaciathorns.bsky.social and @cjdebarra.bsky.social. I loved hearing their thoughts on this. www.youtube.com/live/vTW_j-H...

I am so entraced by @kontinentalist.bsky.social way of publishing. It's engaging, told through data visualisation as much as the narrative form. For example, this used gameplay elements: kontinentalist.com/stories/popu...

So Edinburgh Council have decided the HUGE new data centre in South Gyle will not have to submit an Environmental Impact Assessment. This is despite having a power use demand akin to Edinburgh Airport, and that data centres are known to use up clean water supplies. inews.co.uk/news/data-ce...

I think this post by @parismarx.com addresses exactly what Glitch has been highlighting on how important the Online Safety Act actually is - in terms of regulation and preventing harm against marginalised / oppressed people. disconnect.blog/social-media...

The performance continues. The narrative of US vs China is like siblings squabbling than war, but is being used to justify mass military investment. The performance obfuscates us from seeing what is actually happening, and what the actual cost is. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

This is from a very prominent conservationist from Kenya

Our horror at the genocide in Gaza, at the mass murder of civilians on Oct 7 2023, and at today's atrocity in Manchester, comes in each case from the same, inherent part of our shared humanity. We need to assert that shared humanity as loudly as possible, and in as many practical ways as we can.

Trump's Deal is cementing the use of ethnic cleansing as suitable grounds for Development (aka corporate land grabs). USAID used to pretend that it was helping people, but now US policy is to openly support genocide to give billionaires land & power - exactly what was was denied to Palestinians.

Spoiler: it's not about growth. It's about SECURITISATION - the political shift which started with 9/11 & is designed around fear and control because it sees all things as threats. Starmer's actions are part of a global trend. Read a critique of the EU equivalent here: www.equinox-eu.com/mff2028/

Can someone please tell me which Edinburgh councillors have shares in Black Sheep Coffee? Because that's what's really overrunning the city, as well as private student housing.

How thousands of ‘overworked, underpaid’ humans train Google’s AI to seem smart www.theguardian.com/... | Contracted AI raters describe grueling deadlines, poor pay and opacity around work to make chatbots intelligent

I do miss Old Twitter, mostly for the kinds of connection and community I felt it facilitated at the beginning. But I guess we were all caught in the hype of social media connecting us rather than extracting from us back then. Also miss the international community that it fostered.

I HIGHLY recommend reading this great blog by @superrrnetwork.bsky.social on why they will not be using GenAI. It's such a powerful piece which I feel every organisation should read. It tackles so many of the issues of GenAI in an easy to read and well referenced way. superrr.net/en/blog/abou...

I've been noticing a lot more adverts with ethnically ambiguous People of Colour who look "alternative" invented by AI. They've all been for companies which embody racism. AI blackface for British military intelligence jobs? Or AI blackface for weapons / tech companies? 🤢

It sure looks like every last major tech firm is abandoning past commitments to end their use of fossil fuels. Particularly concerning given how we know that fossil fuel burning power plants are being built NOW with the explicit aim of powering data centers www.nationalobserver.com/2025/09/04/i...

Nigel Farage used to be the kind of person that the BBC would invite to speak on panels to be the token fringe person. Now the media actively share whatever nonsense he says as frontpage news. This isn't a coincidence. The more platform you give to the far right, the more they grow.

TBC it's not parody when I put it like that, Labour really genuinely are going with the message that Reform's basic message is correct but trying to say people should vote Labour anyway. I think this is suicidal comms, politically completely inept. bsky.app/profile/kier...

I've spent this evening reading about Queer / Trans "Indian" history - unfortunately it's not as diverse as I'd like - but I hadn't realised how much I needed to read about this. A big part of me yearns to travel to India and visit communities and sites of Queer and Trans importance.

Finding it fascinating to learn that NGOs and charities will do risk assessments before implementing anti-oppressionn changes BUT refuse to do the same when implementing tech changes, like uncritically using AI tools as ways of "cutting costs".

I wish @plutopress.bsky.social made more audiobooks. I keep having chats with disabled folks who want to read more interesting books (like Trans Femme Futures) but can't access them. Read-aloud tech tools aren't the same. What are the barriers? Is it the monopoly of Audible? Costs of production?

I wish people were aware of the kind of political economy shifts we're facing right now, and the world that is being built against us. The arrival of AI isn't so much about the technology but the political forces that are being shaped around it. Human rights is dead, securitization has won.

I've been reading some of Glitch's work on the OSA. While the implementation is sketchy, it's important not to dismiss some of the reasons why the Act came about: glitchcharity.co.uk/our-work/onl...

It's such a shame that so much research on colonial violence only acknowledges data collected by colonising forces. For example, 'the killing times' work that @theguardian.com never seems to credit local oral histories, but instead uses colonial literature, newspapers and report as evidence.

Former senior UN relief official Jan Eliasson has dismissed these air drops as an "ineffective sideshow". But of course, they're not aimed at stopping the genocide. Nothing Starmer does is aimed at stopping the genocide. Its aimed at managing the domestic politics of his complicity in the genocide.

Supporters of the UK government are now saying or implying that there's nothing much Britain can do. This feels like an attempt (conscious or otherwise) to exonerate Starmer et al. But it won't wash. Britain's stance matters and there are actions that it can take. Deep down, everyone knows this.

Today in the UK, the Online Safety Act (2023) came into force. This means that social media companies are required to undertake age verification for users in the UK to see "adult content". And who decides what is and is not "adult content"? The social media companies themselves.

It's incredible how this story keeps getting worse. In case anyone was unclear about the consequences of the Online Safety Act, this is @taliabhatt.itch.io's itch page viewed in the UK.

I'd love to know how r/AlJazeera is harming children so much you can't even find it on reddit. Unless you want to talk about how Palestinian children are not children in the eyes of the British government. I'm also FUMING at the AI response reddit gave instead.

The Online Safety Act comes into force as Britain's latest surveillance tool. So much effort to "protect children" without actually doing the work of actually protecting children - like, for example, tackling child poverty, increasing social housing, and actually properly investing in education.

I always vote for candidates rather than parties, but it doesn't surprise me that Corbyn doesn't want to join the Greens. Polanski is offering a lefty movement (which is what I argued for years ago when I was in the party), but there is also a strong establishment / centrist contingent.

I hold a lot of grief over my loss of faith, but to be able to still believe in Jainism today feels impossible if you are an anti-caste person. Despite Jainism explicitly positioning itself as a faith against Varna, it is now practised as fodder for Hindutva ideology.

This is exactly my tension with the "lefty" techno-utopian view. Why do you want to give your agency to a machine? What gives you the impression that it will ever be "objective" or "neutral" and not just repeat human error? And isn't the narrative of "humans are flawed" just myths of original sin?

I haven't watched Squid Game 2 or 3. I found the first harrowing enough - and when they actually decided to create a reality show about it, I was disgusted. But I can't help but draw parallels between what is happening in Gaza and scenes from Squid Game. When even access to food is a deadly game.

"Grok is not an anomaly; it is a mirror. It reflects, with algorithmic fidelity, the intellectual and moral bankruptcy of the ideology it was designed to serve." www.thedissident.news/the-algorith...

I wonder which American Tech company is now going to control all of our health data in the name of efficiency? And I wonder how this is going to be used to police and surveil us further.

On a side note, I do wish the Greens had lived up to the vision of the socialist party that @jeremycorbyn.bsky.social and @zarahsultana.bsky.social are now building. I really miss the vision that the Global Greens because it was about Internationalism. But times change.