mastodon 4.8.0-nightly.2026-10-06Proceeding by experiment
https://markfoden.com
If we can it's important we pay for what we value
"To put it bluntly, as a nonprofit we don’t have investors or profit-minded board members knocking during hard times, urging us to 'sacrifice a little privacy' in the name of hitting growth and monetary targets."
@Mer__edith@mastodon.world and Joshua Lund of @signalapp
“Bluesky is in a dangerous place: not because it is backed by VCs, not because it is a for-profit entity, but because it has captive users and no constraints. It's a great party in a sealed building with no fire exits”
Bluesky vs Mastodon vs mainstream social media by @pluralistic@mamot.fr https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic/113861208533472641
“‘You may think it’s a long way down the road to the chemist’”
Essay by Katie Mack, discovered through her new newsletter @AstroKatie@mastodon.social
https://aeon.co/essays/our-cosmic-horizon-is-both-unreachable-and-closer-than-ever
"The power of the precedent is huge here ... the UK would be first to implement a law [that would allow the scanning of] every message you sent before you sent it"
"It [then] becomes easy for any other country to point and say the UK did it and the UK certainly is a democracy so how can you say this is a move towards authoritarianism?"
Part of a well worthwhile interview with Meredith Whittaker (President of Signal) @Mer__edith@mastodon.world
The Guardian stops posting on X - a good thing
#guardian #x #twitter
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2024/nov/13/why-the-guardian-is-no-longer-posting-on-x
"Avoid pronouncing the phrases everyone else does. Think up your own way of speaking, even if only to convey that thing you think everyone is saying."
One of 20 excellent pieces of advice by Timothy Snyder on avoiding (quite possibly imminent) tyranny
Absolutely fascinating prog explaining that cardio exercise, whilst vital for all sorts of reasons, doesn’t help us lose weight: the trick is to change our diet
UK and US neck and neck in consumption of ultra-processed foods (if you’ll forgive the expression)
Do anyone else’s toes curl at the use of the word “unleash”?
Some thoughts in response to the left/right framing of political argy-bargy
"We have to be able to close the loop between policy and implementation" - @pahlkadot@mastodon.social
Yes! In complexity it's utterly, glaringly obvious that progress is otherwise impossible
https://www.statecraft.pub/p/what-can-the-brits-teach-us-about 1/2
A compelling contribution to the assisted dying debate from my MP Kit Malthouse. Watch from 1h29m23s
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0025lxm #AssistedDying
“Unsurprisingly, when the frenzy is over, we discover we have solved almost none of our problems”
Excellent piece by George Monbiot on elections and alternative forms of democracy
Shouldn’t we be experimenting with assisted dying before asking MPs to choose in an all or nothing vote?
Maybe a temporary bill to allow a few people wishing to die to do so under strictly controlled conditions - with MP observers?
As it says in the article, it may be 10 years before the next opportunity.
