Latest @AlterGlobal21 newsletter - Editorial gets clear on techno-futures, 16-17 year olds curious about new parties (political ones…), renewable energy’s Scottish power plays, hard imagination & new biology, and more. See also www.spring.site mailchi.mp/b6e90dd98158...

The US-UK Tech Prosperity deal—and its scores of billions—is an intimidating display. But there’s an Indy-minded version of these investments in data-centres. We can use nation-state sovereignty to model a “healthy computation”. My @scotnational column www.thenational.scot/politics/254...

This week’s @AlterGlobal21 newsletter features an Editorial on the “woke right”, and blogs on: grief as THE political emotion; using citizens media to save the Amazon; a new map of the regenerative paradigm; & more. & latest spring.site news mailchi.mp/11620970432e...

It was the grimmest newsday—Charlie Kirk, Gaza, Mandelson, Putin in Poland…& then, possible life on Mars! Even the slightest move in that cosmic direction generates headlines. Can we turn this yearning into a politics? I think so. My @ScotNational column www.thenational.scot/politics/254...

Some front page. If Mars shows the ubiquity of organic life in the universe, then Fermi’s Paradox sharpens. Where *are* all these alien civilisations? Or do they blow themselves up/tear themselves apart b4 they get off-planet? & Do we *look* like we’ll get past The Great Filter?

My column this week dwells on the @ScotNational’s series, “Refugees Welcome”. Even the UN acknowledges how deeply Scotland has prepared for the age of mass migration, & the good stories that generates. How do “climate refugees” fit into this picture? www.thenational.scot/politics/254...

Been engaging with Richard Holloway’s tumultuous work for 30 years, so I don’t quite believe these are his “Last Words”. It’s a beautiful working-class memoir—& he’s still wrestling with the God-idea, in a world “saturated with pain”. My @ScotNational col www.thenational.scot/culture/2541...

There’s been much dumping on the newest ChatGPT-5 chatbot from @OpenAI. A “PhD level assistant” that counts 6 fingers on a hand? But use it as a thought-starter or prototyping tool, & it’s amazingly powerful and generative. My @ScotNational column www.thenational.scot/comment/2539...

Here’s a month of my @ScotNational columns, open access and fully research-linked patkane.substack.com/s/pk-in-the-... Voters at 8, not just 16; what the Brewdogs in the street know; preserve modernist Scotland; plasticles in your testicles… Enough to satisfy. Share, support, thanks!

There’s plasticles in your testicles… & micro- and nano-plastics everywhere else in your body. Huge Plastics Treaty currently being forged—but the Qs are deep. How to resist pollution when it’s already (& ineradicably) inside you? My @ScotNational col www.thenational.scot/comment/2537...

Good news that Bernat Klein’s textile studio has been saved from ruin. It’s a modernist classic—& Scotland is full of them. But they’re rendered as “eyesores”, rather than hopeful & ambitious. Can we tap into that spirit again? My @ScotNational column www.thenational.scot/culture/2536...

Return of The Constitute—my omnipedia of links and indicators, forging pathways through the current craziness… patkane.substack.com/p/the-consti... Clip below on why a left party may be needed to harness sci-tech’s extraordinary power, in computation & chemistry

New Alternative Weekly out @AlterGlobal21 mailchi.mp/778e5c1b5dc1... Editorial says plurality is better than singularity. Also: fungi beats carbon, improve yr economic stories, universities reckon with slavery, note the “Free Festival” in Edinburgh—& much more. Support, share!

Even the BrewDogs in the street can see the Scottish hipster beer makers are in trouble, closing 10 pubs this week. But their whole shock-tactic, “punk” business model cuts against our anxious, demanding times. My @ScotNational column www.thenational.scot/business/253...

Today’s Alternative Weekly from @AlterGlobal21 has an Editorial on reverse mentoring (young to old), Cynthia Erivo queering Christianity, local solar solving South African probs, Edinburgh festivals of Repair, DJs vs climate change. & more! Share, support! mailchi.mp/6330d4fe48e3...

Good to see #VotesAt16 projected for next WM elections. But it raises Q’s about what political voice and influence our kids should have, on a future which concerns them most of all. Even lower voting age? Some new digital forum? What? My @ScotNational col www.thenational.scot/politics/253...

Here’s 8 of my @scotnational columns—fully reference-linked, free-to-access… Spider-Man, poetic power, the genius myth, Adam Curtis, doomscrolling, humanoid robots, the joys of radio, & new drama for renewables in Scotland… Enjoy, subscribe, support! patkane.substack.com/s/pk-in-the-...

As the Highlands & Islands roil about renewable energy—power to communities, or heedless corporatisation?—it feels like we need a cultural event as powerful as 7:84’s The Cheviot. But in the age of memes, games & beats… what form? My @ScotNational col www.thenational.scot/culture/2530...

New edition of @AlterGlobal21’s Alternative Weekly newsletter out now - solar & wind driving strong communities (& cities) in UK/EU, awe-inspiring short films, an Editorial on how AI can deepen democracy… and much more. Enjoy, subscribe, support! mailchi.mp/2b499a81cfe0...

Adam Curtis’s new series, Shifty, shows how Thatcher’s ideologies—of self-interested individualism & financial deregulation—changed our consciousnesses. But he has a blind spot for the countervailing force of Scots self-determination… My @ScotNational col www.thenational.scot/culture/2529...

Latest edition of @AlterGlobal21’s Alternative Weekly newsletter - “sacred medicine” & Israel/Gaza, using AI to restore the wonder, 2 Scots’ takes on economics in service of planet & wellbeing, & the alt-power of festivals. Enjoy, subscribe, support! mailchi.mp/769987abce2d...

I’M not doomscrolling - YOU are. Or, to what extent am I addicted to bad news on my devices? Or am I a realist, able to face the worst squarely? Maybe we should be devising a “hopescroll” in Scotland, as a pathway to a better future? My @ScotNational col www.thenational.scot/politics/252...

Here’s this week Alternative Weekly newsletter from @AlterGlobal21 mailchi.mp/ec78e62e0e9c... After Left-Right, is it Up-Down? The social club as incubator. Storytelling & jamming keeps London human. Two Scottish www.spring.site stories…& much more. Enjoy, share, support!

A great new book by @helenlewis takes down the “genius myth” (isolated, male, badly behaved, etc). But does that mean we can inculcate the conditions for genius, or “scenius”? And having done that before, can Scotland do it again? My @ScotNational column www.thenational.scot/culture/2525...

Episode three of my new vlog The Constitute—dots joined, out of the daily torrent… this week, thinking about energy futures—via Norway’s State Of Happiness tv drama, and Becky Chambers’ solarpunk ‘Monk & Robot’ novels. Comment, support, enjoy open.substack.com/pub/patkane/...

Episode three of my new vlog The Constitute—dots joined, out of the daily torrent… this week, thinking about energy futures—via Norway’s State Of Happiness tv drama, and Becky Chambers’ solarpunk ‘Monk & Robot’ novels. Comment, support, enjoy open.substack.com/pub/patkane/...

New edition of @AlterGlobal21’s Alternative Weekly newsletter out now. Many futures on show this week - indigenous, sustainable, democratic, solarpunk (oh, and space gardens also). Come join us at www.spring.site too! mailchi.mp/b3d4d64e2afa...

The 3 new poets whose lines are carved into the Holyrood Parliament’s Canongate Wall show how integral poetry is to Scottish national power—Ascherson’s “stone voices”, indeed. But does the poetic imply something much more radical? My @ScotNational column www.thenational.scot/culture/2523...

New edition of @AlterGlobal21 Newsletter mailchi.mp/185ad64e063b... Solnit on LA riots, intentional communities open up (& Scots communities power up), an art museum for migration, & much more. Sign-up for newsletter and www.spring.site!

Ep.2 of my new short vlog, The Constitute, out now. This one is on AI—how it’s a natural outcrop of human evolution. & how it has a smaller “ick” factor than biological modification. Which may help us when to say “enough” to transforming tech… Your thots pls! patkane.substack.com/p/the-consti...

Ep.2 of my new short vlog, The Constitute, out now. This one is on AI—how it’s a natural outcrop of human evolution. & how it has a smaller “ick” factor than biological modification. Which may help us when to say “enough” to transforming tech… Your thots pls! patkane.substack.com/p/the-consti...

Spider-Man comes to Glasgow! (they’re filming this August). But all these superheroes, made by science—whether bio, nuclear, silicon—wreaking havoc on their bodies… What deep anxieties are being assuaged by these entertainments? My @ScotNational column www.thenational.scot/politics/252...

Latest @AlterGlobal21’s Alternative Weekly newsletter mailchi.mp/71c8da505497... De-Farageing our public sphere, bringing energy benefits to Highlands, the Care Economy, seaweed solves the climate, Google doing “techwash” on AI, & much more. Also: join www.spring.site

I’m starting this vlog, The Constitute, as a way of letting off conceptual steam—selecting a knot of themes & trends that’s in my lap, and seeing if it can be (even slightly) loosened, in about 15 mins. On S*bst*ck patkane.substack.com/p/welcome-to...

I’m starting this vlog, The Constitute, as a way of letting off conceptual steam—selecting a knot of themes & trends that’s in my lap, and seeing if it can be (even slightly) loosened, in about 15 mins. On S*bst*ck patkane.substack.com/p/welcome-to...

The robots aren’t just coming—they’re here. But should they really be humanoid-shaped, passive figures at our beck and call? Do we want our societies to return to a master-slave relationship? And when they demand their own rights… My @ScotNational column www.thenational.scot/comment/2520...

In @AlterGlobal21’s Alternative Weekly newsletter this week… mailchi.mp/28b0c8be4dd1... Editorial about our diverse powers—& examples of them in AI, Rojava, St.Andrews, @TheBookerPrizes, & many more. Enjoy, sign-up, support!

Nice to see, S! In our age of hyperstitial god-moguls, we may need a play ethic more than ever

STV is launching a new “mainstream music” radio station, for “Scottish audiences”—& it whirled me back 40-odd years. How will it fare, in the land of algorithmic playlists? Do they need 2020s versions of John Peel/Billy Sloan? My @ScotNational col www.thenational.scot/culture/2518...

Here’s open-access, fully referenced versions of my recent @ScotNational columns, April to May. Scotland (& De Niro) reckon with Trump, Kneecap do the Sex Pistols, Odysseus educates us, the “indy-minded” may be a cohort… and more. Enjoy, share, support! patkane.substack.com/s/pk-in-the-...

Robert De Niro, opposing Trump at every turn (even when recieving his Palme D’Or at Cannes this week), has perhaps taken on his biggest role: calling out Trump’s tough-guy masculinity, on its own terms. He’s expert in those masks… My @ScotNational column: www.thenational.scot/politics/251...

This week’s @AlterGlobal21 newsletter mailchi.mp/0928da4479b0... - beating Trump tariffs with 3D printing, Gaelic nature ontology, the community centre in 2040, a “theatre of opportunity” everywhere, & much more. And shouts from spring.site/blog Enjoy, sign up, support!

Today, I conclude a fantastic week of @ScotNational pieces on Trump and Scotland, wondering if the concrete pursuit of Scots Indy - being about “fact and structure” - can shield our minds against Trump’s reality-bending madness www.thenational.scot/politics/251...

I spent a few days with the works of Kneecap, music & drama-doc—& they’re much more clownish Falls Road Eminem than the Public Enemy No.1 rendered by politicians. But their language politics… not like Scotland’s. My @ScotNational column www.thenational.scot/culture/2513...

It’s about time we had a definitive account of how Donald Trump (son of Scotland, after all) should be reckoned with by this nation. Looking forward to reading—& commenting on—this coming week of features/opinion by @ScotNational. Don’t miss it! www.thenational.scot/news/2513202...

In this week’s Alternative Weekly: Resonance and fractals (for the win), re-icing the Arctic, the plot to save America, community solar in Arran, lawyers for rivers, and much more. (Come and join us at www.spring.site too!) mailchi.mp/0dbc271cc57a...

Here’s five weeks of my @ScotNational column, open access & fully research-linked. Bureaucracy vs The Grift, River City (pick yir windae), the politics of prepping, techno-Christians & deceptive AGIs… Enjoy, & support/subscribe! patkane.substack.com/s/pk-in-the-...

The world’s most powerful AI chips came to @EdinburghUni this week. But what does all that compute make possible? According to Google & others, the capacity for superhuman AIs to practice “subterfuge” & “manipulation”. Uh-oh… My @ScotNational column www.thenational.scot/comment/2508...

Don’t wait for MAGA to split between free-wheeling tech bros & Christian nationalists. They’re fusing together, by means of the crazed techno-eschatology of Peter Thiel. My @ScotNational col www.thenational.scot/comment/2506... [thnx to @erik_davis, @jamiewheal, @JulesEvans11 for background]

See what you can do to get @bellacaledonia closer to its £20K fundraising target in the next few days. They flood the zone with progress and virtue, lighting a path through the Caligularity (with a Good Indy at the end of it). Support! 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/backing-be...