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calmerfuture.bsky.social
Anand
@calmerfuture.bsky.social
calmerfuture.org
dreaming of practical better futures

@dosima_org on the other place
plugging AI for government cutting costs on their podcast, and directly advertising it for Google

I'm sure this is fine, they must be disinterested experts
November 10, 2025 at 10:46 PM
November 9, 2025 at 10:19 AM
November 8, 2025 at 11:22 PM
November 8, 2025 at 11:07 PM
this feels like the most balanced bit of coverage about 'Honest Jim' James Watson I can find today

from the US, now facing eugenic movements again based on similarly misunderstanding DNA

(no, he didn't steal Franklin's work; others have dug into those details, but less on her systemic exclusion)
November 8, 2025 at 10:29 AM
I found lots of useful details in that Nature piece, but I'm struggling with what seems like a clear contradiction

Franklin is somehow both

- working alone, excluded from the world of informal exchanges

- an equal member of a group of four scientists

[squints trying to resolve a complex image]
November 8, 2025 at 8:13 AM
just parking some design ideas
November 7, 2025 at 7:58 PM
wow, what a genuinely great show - I don't think I'd seen it before

(jotting down Hebrew terms in my copybook NOW!)
November 7, 2025 at 9:51 AM
autumn autumning
November 6, 2025 at 1:43 PM
genuinely fascinating and thought-provoking
November 5, 2025 at 4:37 PM
I love the fact it also subliminally suggests, to those of us of a certain [ahem] age, a distinctive new car smell and futuristic vitality
November 5, 2025 at 9:59 AM
I'm curious to read more, as a window into an important, dramatically changing time

but recognising that it's a partial and nostalgic, romantic window — which speaks to what George Monbiot was saying in his original thread
November 5, 2025 at 9:27 AM
from what I can see, he talked about 'jews and jobbers' in some phrases

in a way the stock-jobbers are the upstart urban yuppies — and unwelcome rural gentrifiers — of his day

(but since finance is used by so many modern anti-Semitic tropes, I wouldn't try to salvage this term myself)
November 5, 2025 at 9:20 AM
William Cobbett tends to be forgotten now, but was an influential and sympathetic observer of changing life on farms, and absolutely seethed against growing cities

they were growing, sprawling, and also subtly changing everything

'this corrupt and all-devouring WEN' (1823)

hugely anti-Semitic too
November 5, 2025 at 8:50 AM
I wonder if this is because the Kenyan settler community still exists, a rump but still influential in UK upper classes, and some colonial connections are still very much alive

(the royal family, BATUK, etc)
November 4, 2025 at 7:44 PM
'This wave of repression coincided with the celebrated human rights revolution that followed World War II.'

I've been to talks and exhibitions in Nairobi, as a small dedicated team try to uncover a largely erased past — I will be really interested in seeing this

(open until end of March)
November 4, 2025 at 7:38 PM
because actual visceral racism doesn't operate at the level of logic, you can't change minds with clever logical arguments alone
November 4, 2025 at 11:54 AM
[shudders]
November 4, 2025 at 11:42 AM
this part sounds a bit different tbh, but I don't know much about that history
November 1, 2025 at 2:52 PM
Boniface Mwangi (prominent democracy campaigner in Kenya) reacts to the Tanzania's announcement of rigged election results

(I expect this announcement can only increase anger kwa ground, but people will be exhausted, need to grieve their dead, and be desperate for normality too — however flawed)
November 1, 2025 at 9:51 AM
pairs well with this test
November 1, 2025 at 9:34 AM
I agree with this, something really new and potentially transformative is emerging

(perhaps wider too — with Nepal, Sri Lanka as well, but Al Kags has roots in the older pan-Africanism)

unsure about some of the other points about the challenges, leadership etc, but these things are positional too
November 1, 2025 at 8:34 AM
joint FIDH statement via @theKHRC/X

Paris, 30 October 2025.

The International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) strongly condemns the alarming escalation of state violence, censorship, and repression that marked Tanzania’s general elections on 29 October 2025.

www.fidh.org/en/region/Af...
October 31, 2025 at 4:23 PM
low turnout is quite a signal of something

registration was at record high levels

👇🏽
www.thecitizen.co.tz/tanzania/mag...
October 31, 2025 at 1:51 PM
updates on protests and anger in Tanzania, from Kennedy Wandera in Nairobi

nationwide lockdown, internet blackout and mounting deaths (The Standard)

Larry Madowo (CNN) notes international journalists aren't issued permission to cover the election, local journalists are harassed and intimidated
October 31, 2025 at 10:06 AM