The vacuum at highest levels in talking about this dark turn in British life over the last few months HAS to end.

Even back in the 70s and 80s when I could be hassled by the police for walking while trans, no one ever tried to stop me pissing in the Ladies or tried to make me change into my swimsuit among men. There is no dignity or respect involved in taking away rights I have exercised freely for forty years

Richard Dawkins has a new book called "The war on science" in which he continues the war on science

Introducing slightly less cruel/damaging version of Farage's plans would not "outmanoeuvre Reform";would be an economic/ political own goal Far better to attack Reform/Tories for Powellite ethnonationalism & say migrants who come here, contribute & *choose* to stay are welcome -and become British.

The Saint Tonty ID app will use your phone’s sensors to automatically report the GPS coordinates of any pothole you drive over. www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/poli...

As someone who practiced, and taught, military interrogation: If you start talking, you will keep talking. If your interrogators have a specific agenda, the odds are very good you will fulfill it. Cops, almost always, have a specific agenda. The only way to win is not to play.

CHOTINER: And when was that? MY CAT: I mean at least 14 hours ago CHOTINER: Well hold on. You're telling me you haven't been fed at all today but if I look in your bowl here I see a- MY CAT: An untouched serving, I know, but if you'd let me finish- CHOTINER: Yeah, of course.

the Sea Peoples did nothing wrong.

Imagine, if you will, the replacement of the two words "Nigel Farage" in that message with "Jeremy Corbyn", and what noises you would be hearing as a result.

That's not an impossible project if the government wanted to take it on! It's just a lot of work and a set of problems that needs to be taken seriously.

To pull your other reply in, the obstacle to better correspondence isn't the user tapping the ID button rather than entering email - it's integration with council backend systems (and those of their private contractors) everywhere bsky.app/profile/dral...

So what I'm annoyed by here is ENORMOUS PROJECTS like this getting little throwaway lines as something that would add value to a digital ID. I am for state capacity, I am for making it easy for people to navigate the state - but this just doesn't have respect for the problem.

And everyone's app will have a little dial every citizen can twiddle to show how happy they are as proposed for Chile by Stafford Beer - Algedonic feedback

I’m really glad for these people that they’ve been able to come here without danger, but it’s absurd that their good fortune depends on someone else first having put themselves at risk in the Channel and then having the misfortune to be sent back. How can this possibly be a way to run a system?

At least three classic British TV comedy shows would have made a hilarious sketch about how they brainstormed this.

Fascinating issue, particularly re the loss of philosophical fluency in one's own language

Cannot stress enough how it is already possible to report potholes www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/poli...

Like, I'm not "digital ID solves no problems" (or even that problems that are already 'solved' can't be solved better) - but "would you like digital ID if it came packaged with other things you like? oh 62% of you would!!" just feels like they think you're stupid.

Argh. They can never propose a simple ID card that just verifies your identity. It always has bells and whistles. (Before attempting a project this big, might be worth investigating why Estonia is so good at implementing ambitious IT projects wheras we're just crap at them).

Wow. Fascinating to contemplate an offline life.

I had a boot who got shot in the leg and he had several surgeries over the course of the next few years until they finally amputated it below the knee about 4 years later. Movies love to portray minor gun shot wounds but they don't exist and Never have

I think it's less about time scales than agency. Anyone who know about deterrence theory knows the brinkmanship model, which is basically "you take incremental risks but if you go to far things go out of control and everyone dies." The question of agency (who starts the war and why/how) goes away.

To drive this home; when Kusanagi is trying to figure out why so many people treated to assassinate the Superintendent General of Police because a threat was broadcast, Aramaki says "In a play, even the audience is part of the performance". Kusanagi dismisses the thought but he was 100% correct

the "Laughing Man" and "Individual Eleven" plots in GITS: SAC are incredibly relevant right now

Quite. So many Labour people on this website visibly have no idea of just how bad things have got for ethnic minorities since they came on, and how their visible indifference lands.

He talked about financial desperation and about how the left didn’t even promise anything good these days (he had lived in Paris too so he shared his thoughts on that). But despite being despondent, he felt as if he had no other options. Where would I move, he said, this is happening everywhere.

Spoke to a Turkish cabbie last night, who talked about how the English left felt as if it had disappeared; how he felt unsafe and vulnerable while watching the far-right get more popular. He was in his sixties, living in a tiny flat, and called himself one of the lucky ones. Quietly heartbreaking.

CHOTINER: these people, they can be dangerous PROFESSOR X: so can anyone, but yes CHOTINER: training is important PROFESSOR X: it's critical CHOTINER: let's talk about the danger room PROFESSOR X:

Imperium in shambles after Leman Russ falls to Nurgle then gets killed by an Eldar goddess attempting to steal fruit from the tree of life but the Iron Warriors defect to the loyalists after the Administratum agrees to issue Peturabo a Certificate of Superiority to Rogal Dorn Who is Dead.

in pleasant internet news, Mark Catley's deadly sharp parodies of evangelical music are on Soundcloud. I still think of "All Glory to the Wealthy" whenever I see the prosperity gospel preached ('All glory to the wealthy/the mafiosi men/the military profiteers with business acumen')

Show trials of regime opponents, Lysenkoism in the public health ministry, commissars overseeing television comedy, the leader pounding his shoe on the podium at the UN then eating it

BBC: ahhh… the political masterminds at Reform and their maestro Farage are unstoppable.. tomorrow belongs to them… Farage: today I’m announcing my “punch every nurse” policy

Chotiner: So you disclaim any responsibility for the massacres perpetrated by the World Eaters? Emperor: Of course. Chotiner: And their cannibalism? Emperor: I condemn it unequivocally. Chotiner: So why did you initially form the VIII and IX Legions as armies of cannibalistic outcast child-soldiers?

Kind of amazing how UK news media still remains obsessed with the structurally limited impact in economic terms of small boats even as this potentially terminal havoc works its way through key UK industrial supply chains on.ft.com/3Ihb8YF

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article... Ah, a chance for some gratuitous cruelty. The Home Office won’t miss that.

This is just amazing news. I hope it gets rolled out to people in UK and EU soon. What a proof of the value, necessity and profound joy of scientific research. 🥹

Voters in 2024: We can’t vote for the libs because they’re just not *normal* enough. The people who rule America in 2025: As you can see from the 1256 Papal bull “Florbum Blorbo,” it’s okay to keep your ground up wife in the freezer if the computer tells you to do it.

It isn't just people like Thiel or even the p(doom) people running around SF. even the founder of reinforcement learning has this bizarro powerpoint about how humanity must accept rule by its AI overlords

I really do encourage you to play through it and collect all of the Codex entries. The whole thing of "advanced transhuman company that also is the base for a demonic cult" thing is getting more and more prescient

i mean the whole Doom 2016 plot was supposed to be (before they did the Big Lore thing) tongue in cheek but its really too much on the nose these days bsky.app/profile/aelk...

we are ruled by an esoteric cult

Chotiner getting to the whole "semi-clone of your dead wife that's 14 and which you have a suspiciously close relationship with" part would make Gendo truly crash out

Chotiner: Do you have a backup plan? Any way to stop this? Hayden: I found a really angry armored man sealed in a sarcophagus. They call him 'the Doom Slayer'. Chotiner: As in, Buffy the Slayer? Hayden: no, DOOM Slayer

Chotiner: Circling back to Pierce, why did you two fall out? Hayden: She belongs to an satanic death cult and has given her allegiance to the wicked Hell priests. Chotiner: And you merely siphon off unused energy from damned souls they haven't finished consuming, right? Hayden: Correct.

Chotiner: I don't follow? Umbral Plains? Hayden: We send expeditions to Hell, Mr. Chotiner. The Umbral Plains is one such location there. Chotiner: I thought the UAC is an energy corporation. Hayden: It is Chotiner: So why do you send expeditions to Hell? Hayden: It's free energy, Isaac

sycophants and collaborators

I know Nigel is British, but for the record, the FDA refused to approve thalidomide for morning sickness. I think this is important to emphasize, because I've seen MAHA types try to specifically try to use it to demonize the FDA.

In a sane media culture, this would be the end of him.