Dean
@deanthedisaster.bsky.social
Here because Twitter is all bots. I like science, economics, video games, animation, fantasy literature and adventurous sports. I also procrastinate engaging in all of it.
Look imma be honest I want to like bluesky but it's just filled with such lame annoying people blocklisting themselves into echo chambers that it's just kind of cringe being here
June 27, 2025 at 9:02 PM
Look imma be honest I want to like bluesky but it's just filled with such lame annoying people blocklisting themselves into echo chambers that it's just kind of cringe being here
About to start the last episode of The Leftovers. Don't want it to end :(
June 19, 2025 at 11:33 PM
About to start the last episode of The Leftovers. Don't want it to end :(
I just finished the main storyline of Expedition 33 and honestly I'm really frustrated with the final act. I think narratively it completely fumbles. I'll nest spoilers in a reply to myself ( can't remember if they show up on feeds in bsky? )
June 14, 2025 at 8:01 PM
I just finished the main storyline of Expedition 33 and honestly I'm really frustrated with the final act. I think narratively it completely fumbles. I'll nest spoilers in a reply to myself ( can't remember if they show up on feeds in bsky? )
I'm so sad to be starting season 3 of The Leftovers because this show has had me in a vice grip and I don't want it to be over.
June 4, 2025 at 11:53 AM
I'm so sad to be starting season 3 of The Leftovers because this show has had me in a vice grip and I don't want it to be over.
Reposted by Dean
Judi Dench-backed rebels seized a nature site 250 miles north of the capital today.
Why are they reporting it like it's a paramilitary coup?
May 31, 2025 at 11:45 AM
Judi Dench-backed rebels seized a nature site 250 miles north of the capital today.
Reposted by Dean
There are 2 previous historical cases of countries destroying their science and universities, crippling them for decades: Lysenkoism in the USSR and Nazi Germany. The Trump administration will be the 3rd.
It's not just budgets but research, institutions, expertise, and training the next generation.
It's not just budgets but research, institutions, expertise, and training the next generation.
May 31, 2025 at 4:43 AM
There are 2 previous historical cases of countries destroying their science and universities, crippling them for decades: Lysenkoism in the USSR and Nazi Germany. The Trump administration will be the 3rd.
It's not just budgets but research, institutions, expertise, and training the next generation.
It's not just budgets but research, institutions, expertise, and training the next generation.
I was told a few months ago when I was speaking to someone about wanting to pressure Labour to drop the two-child benefit cap how I was "assuming they have a conscience" and some usual stuff about capitalism and my naivete and here we are a few months later seeing the value of boring politics.
May 31, 2025 at 12:58 PM
I was told a few months ago when I was speaking to someone about wanting to pressure Labour to drop the two-child benefit cap how I was "assuming they have a conscience" and some usual stuff about capitalism and my naivete and here we are a few months later seeing the value of boring politics.
Reposted by Dean
brian was starting to think that maybe his mom wasn’t coming back
May 30, 2025 at 12:30 PM
brian was starting to think that maybe his mom wasn’t coming back
Reposted by Dean
The 2018 steel tariffs just called to remind you that steel is produced by a tiny sliver of the economy, but used as an input by a much broader swathe of manufacturers.
econofact.org/steel-tariff...
econofact.org/steel-tariff...
May 30, 2025 at 10:23 PM
The 2018 steel tariffs just called to remind you that steel is produced by a tiny sliver of the economy, but used as an input by a much broader swathe of manufacturers.
econofact.org/steel-tariff...
econofact.org/steel-tariff...
I do not take photos of myself often nor get people to take photos of myself often and this is really causing issues when I wanna update social profiles and look cool, which is obviously the most pressing reason to document your cherished memories
May 29, 2025 at 8:42 PM
I do not take photos of myself often nor get people to take photos of myself often and this is really causing issues when I wanna update social profiles and look cool, which is obviously the most pressing reason to document your cherished memories
GDP is not a good measure of societal prosperity and happiness, it would be far better if instead we measured things I personally value the most, which of course are the Objectively Best metrics of happiness and wellbeing.
May 29, 2025 at 7:44 PM
GDP is not a good measure of societal prosperity and happiness, it would be far better if instead we measured things I personally value the most, which of course are the Objectively Best metrics of happiness and wellbeing.
Reposted by Dean
Here’s hoping. Removing the two-child benefit cap will take 470,000 children out of poverty. observer.co.uk/news/nationa...
Starmer to scrap two-child benefit cap as Treasury told to find money | The Observer
Policy change will lift hundreds of thousands of children out of poverty after pressure from cabinet and MPs
observer.co.uk
May 25, 2025 at 6:31 AM
Here’s hoping. Removing the two-child benefit cap will take 470,000 children out of poverty. observer.co.uk/news/nationa...
Agreeing with this thread and saying it is truly exhausting how many people think their vibes and intuitions represent critical thinking, in Graeber's case "Bullshit jobs are jobs I don't see immediate value in without taking the time to research how they fit in the wider economic system".
Bullshit Jobs is truly one of the worst books ever written, not just for the abominable influence it’s had on the world (the worst since The Population Bomb in this respect) but because of how incredibly poorly written it is
May 27, 2025 at 4:49 PM
Agreeing with this thread and saying it is truly exhausting how many people think their vibes and intuitions represent critical thinking, in Graeber's case "Bullshit jobs are jobs I don't see immediate value in without taking the time to research how they fit in the wider economic system".
I feel like most "anti consumer culture" discourse just boils down to people imagining a hypothetical society and economy geared towards things they personally like and value and projecting that on to other people. You don't like a particular commodity? Then it's excessive and wasteful!
May 27, 2025 at 2:16 PM
I feel like most "anti consumer culture" discourse just boils down to people imagining a hypothetical society and economy geared towards things they personally like and value and projecting that on to other people. You don't like a particular commodity? Then it's excessive and wasteful!
Reposted by Dean
you should be intuitively suspicious of any subculture that tells you to cut yourself off from your core ties (family, friends, colleagues) with the subculture as an implicit or explicit replacement
February 13, 2025 at 6:33 AM
you should be intuitively suspicious of any subculture that tells you to cut yourself off from your core ties (family, friends, colleagues) with the subculture as an implicit or explicit replacement
Reposted by Dean
I'm with Kelly here: deeply interested in leftism as a political project but have no interest whatsoever in leftism as a subculture. the stakes of leaving this behind are hopefully clearer by the day
Saw someone say, "End your friendships with people who are going about life like nothing is wrong." I will never understand people who think that further isolating ourselves from everyday people who don't get it is going to save us. It's not. Your judgment and disdain will not save us.
February 13, 2025 at 3:01 AM
I'm with Kelly here: deeply interested in leftism as a political project but have no interest whatsoever in leftism as a subculture. the stakes of leaving this behind are hopefully clearer by the day
Scrolling Bluesky after Twitter feels like eating my vegetables vs a tub of ice cream
February 9, 2025 at 9:18 PM
Scrolling Bluesky after Twitter feels like eating my vegetables vs a tub of ice cream
Unsure how to get Bluesky posts to reach more people but I really want to learn more about the causes behind the UK's low rate of housebuilding. Conventional wisdom is a beurecratic planning system but I've also heard build out rates are slow even after planning permission granted? #BritishPolitics
January 17, 2025 at 12:13 PM
Unsure how to get Bluesky posts to reach more people but I really want to learn more about the causes behind the UK's low rate of housebuilding. Conventional wisdom is a beurecratic planning system but I've also heard build out rates are slow even after planning permission granted? #BritishPolitics
Honestly don't get why people thought the Luigi/UHC case was going to be some spark of the class war. Not a comment on the ethics here, but political violence has come and gone over and over for decades without revolution. Feels like a generational main character syndrome - none of this is new.
January 16, 2025 at 5:22 AM
Honestly don't get why people thought the Luigi/UHC case was going to be some spark of the class war. Not a comment on the ethics here, but political violence has come and gone over and over for decades without revolution. Feels like a generational main character syndrome - none of this is new.
Reposted by Dean
This Nature paper will probably *not* get the same level of media coverage and hype as the doomsday stories…
Has the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) weakened over the last decades? In our new study, we combine state-of-the-art CMIP6 models and observation-based estimates of the air-sea heat flux in the North Atlantic to show that the AMOC has not declined since the 1960s! 🌊
Atlantic overturning inferred from air-sea heat fluxes indicates no decline since the 1960s - Nature Communications
The AMOC is crucial for the global ocean overturning circulation and controls the climate around the North Atlantic. Here, the authors use 24 Earth System Models from the CMIP6 to demonstrate tha...
www.nature.com
January 15, 2025 at 7:13 PM
This Nature paper will probably *not* get the same level of media coverage and hype as the doomsday stories…
Reposted by Dean
January 14, 2025 at 5:01 AM
Today I used Operation Olive Branch's spreadsheet to donate to some fundraisers for Gazans and I found myself doomscrolling through the huge number of stories and just bawling my eyes out. So much pointless, entirely avoidable human suffering. How can anyone think this is worth doing?
January 3, 2025 at 1:32 AM
Today I used Operation Olive Branch's spreadsheet to donate to some fundraisers for Gazans and I found myself doomscrolling through the huge number of stories and just bawling my eyes out. So much pointless, entirely avoidable human suffering. How can anyone think this is worth doing?
Reposted by Dean
humanities people are just as anti-intellectual as STEM people.
the difference is that their brand of anti-intellectualism sounds more like “economics is a made up field to justify capitalism” and not “the door is red”.
both kinds empower midwits to be loud and wrong.
the difference is that their brand of anti-intellectualism sounds more like “economics is a made up field to justify capitalism” and not “the door is red”.
both kinds empower midwits to be loud and wrong.
December 3, 2024 at 5:44 PM
humanities people are just as anti-intellectual as STEM people.
the difference is that their brand of anti-intellectualism sounds more like “economics is a made up field to justify capitalism” and not “the door is red”.
both kinds empower midwits to be loud and wrong.
the difference is that their brand of anti-intellectualism sounds more like “economics is a made up field to justify capitalism” and not “the door is red”.
both kinds empower midwits to be loud and wrong.
Reposted by Dean
Every nominally democratic American ideology, from socialism through yimbyism to pure neoliberalism, eventually ends up at such frustration at the state of things that it literally cannot help itself but act like a dictatorship somewhere has figured out a better way of running society.
December 29, 2024 at 10:47 PM
Every nominally democratic American ideology, from socialism through yimbyism to pure neoliberalism, eventually ends up at such frustration at the state of things that it literally cannot help itself but act like a dictatorship somewhere has figured out a better way of running society.