Jonathan Gilligan
@jgilligan.org
Integrating social & natural sciences & modeling to study impacts & responses to climate change | Behavioral approaches to climate policy | Nashville TN | They/them 🏳️🌈 🏳️⚧️ genderqueer | Jew | Impervious to onions and mustard | https://jonathangilligan.org
I learned as a child that disregarding what other people think and enjoying the stuff I like could bring violence down upon me.
I had to wait many years before I felt safe enough to unlearn that lesson.
I try in my small way to make the world safer for today's young oddballs than it was for me.
I had to wait many years before I felt safe enough to unlearn that lesson.
I try in my small way to make the world safer for today's young oddballs than it was for me.
November 11, 2025 at 3:44 AM
I learned as a child that disregarding what other people think and enjoying the stuff I like could bring violence down upon me.
I had to wait many years before I felt safe enough to unlearn that lesson.
I try in my small way to make the world safer for today's young oddballs than it was for me.
I had to wait many years before I felt safe enough to unlearn that lesson.
I try in my small way to make the world safer for today's young oddballs than it was for me.
I got most of the way through the first volume before it dawned on me that, OMG, that scene was Hector and Patroclus, and then everything else fell into place.
November 11, 2025 at 3:24 AM
I got most of the way through the first volume before it dawned on me that, OMG, that scene was Hector and Patroclus, and then everything else fell into place.
Don Winslow's Danny Ryan trilogy is the Iliad, the Aeneid, and Oresteia all retold as a Mafia war in Rhode Island.
November 11, 2025 at 3:21 AM
Don Winslow's Danny Ryan trilogy is the Iliad, the Aeneid, and Oresteia all retold as a Mafia war in Rhode Island.
Reminds me of Skinhead Hamlet. web.mit.edu/johanna/Publ...
https://web.mit.edu/johanna/Public/skinhead.hamlet
THE SKINHEAD HAMLET
Shakespeare's play translated into modern English as published in
the TOIKE OIKE, the art and literary newspaper of the University of
Toronto Engineering Society. [w/apologies ...
web.mit.edu
November 11, 2025 at 3:10 AM
Reminds me of Skinhead Hamlet. web.mit.edu/johanna/Publ...
Bro. Let me tell you about my man Al Khwarizmi and his whole Al Jabr jam.
Khwarizmi rules everything around me.
KREAM got the math, yo!
Polynomial roots!
Khwarizmi rules everything around me.
KREAM got the math, yo!
Polynomial roots!
November 11, 2025 at 2:49 AM
Bro. Let me tell you about my man Al Khwarizmi and his whole Al Jabr jam.
Khwarizmi rules everything around me.
KREAM got the math, yo!
Polynomial roots!
Khwarizmi rules everything around me.
KREAM got the math, yo!
Polynomial roots!
#1 on my list of the dopest inventions of all time.
And I love that people are writing good books orders of magnitude faster than I can read, so I'll never run out.
And I love that people are writing good books orders of magnitude faster than I can read, so I'll never run out.
November 11, 2025 at 2:43 AM
#1 on my list of the dopest inventions of all time.
And I love that people are writing good books orders of magnitude faster than I can read, so I'll never run out.
And I love that people are writing good books orders of magnitude faster than I can read, so I'll never run out.
An awful lot of billionaires become billionaires by having billionaire parents. But to be fair, that's just a variation on Powerball. And growing up in such a family might not cultivate an appreciation for the life of the mind.
www.investopedia.com/more-billion...
www.investopedia.com/more-billion...
More Billionaire Wealth Achieved Through Inheritance, Overtaking Entrepreneurship
A new UBS report shows that new billionaires in 2023 accumulated the majority of wealth by inheritance, not entrepreneurship, a trend that wealth managers see continuing.
www.investopedia.com
November 11, 2025 at 2:40 AM
An awful lot of billionaires become billionaires by having billionaire parents. But to be fair, that's just a variation on Powerball. And growing up in such a family might not cultivate an appreciation for the life of the mind.
www.investopedia.com/more-billion...
www.investopedia.com/more-billion...
Reposted by Jonathan Gilligan
What this policy will do is wreak havoc on intersex women who will have had no idea they were intersex until they are forced to undergo an invasive DNA test. They will be disqualified and have their entire lives upended. Athletes have completed suicide over this.
November 10, 2025 at 3:25 PM
What this policy will do is wreak havoc on intersex women who will have had no idea they were intersex until they are forced to undergo an invasive DNA test. They will be disqualified and have their entire lives upended. Athletes have completed suicide over this.
You know maybe it's me, it's a little fucked up maybe, but I'm mad how? I mean mad like I'm Ludwig of Bavaria? I'm delusional, or I'm furious, or I'm Alfred E. Newman, or I'm a character in a madcap comedy? What do you mean mad, mad how? How am I mad?
November 10, 2025 at 10:42 PM
You know maybe it's me, it's a little fucked up maybe, but I'm mad how? I mean mad like I'm Ludwig of Bavaria? I'm delusional, or I'm furious, or I'm Alfred E. Newman, or I'm a character in a madcap comedy? What do you mean mad, mad how? How am I mad?
This is a great point, but also I can't imagine why anyone good would want to be a university president. The job seems impossible, all-consuming, and thankless.
If I were offered the opportunity, I would turn it down because the job would destroy me.
If I were offered the opportunity, I would turn it down because the job would destroy me.
November 10, 2025 at 10:31 PM
This is a great point, but also I can't imagine why anyone good would want to be a university president. The job seems impossible, all-consuming, and thankless.
If I were offered the opportunity, I would turn it down because the job would destroy me.
If I were offered the opportunity, I would turn it down because the job would destroy me.
What will work? No one knows, so we need to keep trying lots of things, and observing which ones move the needle slightly toward the good, instead of insisting that there's only one right answer.
November 10, 2025 at 10:21 PM
What will work? No one knows, so we need to keep trying lots of things, and observing which ones move the needle slightly toward the good, instead of insisting that there's only one right answer.
I'm arguing more that the world is complicated, so there won't be any simple solutions to our problems.
Vote blue no matter who won't magically fix our problems. Neither will no voting. Neither will union organizing.
That doesn't mean any of these things is worthless. Just that none is sufficient.
Vote blue no matter who won't magically fix our problems. Neither will no voting. Neither will union organizing.
That doesn't mean any of these things is worthless. Just that none is sufficient.
November 10, 2025 at 10:21 PM
I'm arguing more that the world is complicated, so there won't be any simple solutions to our problems.
Vote blue no matter who won't magically fix our problems. Neither will no voting. Neither will union organizing.
That doesn't mean any of these things is worthless. Just that none is sufficient.
Vote blue no matter who won't magically fix our problems. Neither will no voting. Neither will union organizing.
That doesn't mean any of these things is worthless. Just that none is sufficient.
People have been trying that for more than a hundred years. It hasn't worked either.
Engels wrote a good piece in 1893 predicting that there would never be successful large-scale working-class political movement in the United States.
www.marxists.org/archive/marx...
Engels wrote a good piece in 1893 predicting that there would never be successful large-scale working-class political movement in the United States.
www.marxists.org/archive/marx...
Letters: Marx-Engels Correspondence 1893
www.marxists.org
November 10, 2025 at 10:02 PM
People have been trying that for more than a hundred years. It hasn't worked either.
Engels wrote a good piece in 1893 predicting that there would never be successful large-scale working-class political movement in the United States.
www.marxists.org/archive/marx...
Engels wrote a good piece in 1893 predicting that there would never be successful large-scale working-class political movement in the United States.
www.marxists.org/archive/marx...
Again: Vote Blue no matter who won't get Dems to field better candidates, and neither will staying home instead of voting for the lesser evil.
Neither strategy works. Just because one doesn't work does not mean that the other will work.
Neither strategy works. Just because one doesn't work does not mean that the other will work.
November 10, 2025 at 9:58 PM
Again: Vote Blue no matter who won't get Dems to field better candidates, and neither will staying home instead of voting for the lesser evil.
Neither strategy works. Just because one doesn't work does not mean that the other will work.
Neither strategy works. Just because one doesn't work does not mean that the other will work.
"Win by staying home and letting far-right Republicans win all the races." Do you see the problem yet?
November 10, 2025 at 9:56 PM
"Win by staying home and letting far-right Republicans win all the races." Do you see the problem yet?
Vote blue no matter who doesn't work.
Staying home also doesn't work.
Neither works.
Staying home also doesn't work.
Neither works.
November 10, 2025 at 9:50 PM
Vote blue no matter who doesn't work.
Staying home also doesn't work.
Neither works.
Staying home also doesn't work.
Neither works.
My point here is not that "vote blue no matter who" is always the best choice, but that your example of the elections last week is an example of "vote blue no matter who."
It was not an example of the Democrats changing because people stayed home.
It was not an example of the Democrats changing because people stayed home.
November 10, 2025 at 9:49 PM
My point here is not that "vote blue no matter who" is always the best choice, but that your example of the elections last week is an example of "vote blue no matter who."
It was not an example of the Democrats changing because people stayed home.
It was not an example of the Democrats changing because people stayed home.
Spanberger and Sherrill have both been strong supporters of military aid to Israel, which is exactly the thing that alienated so many progressive voters from voting for Harris.
But in VA and NJ, the intense anger against Trump made "vote blue no matter who" a winning strategy for Democrats.
But in VA and NJ, the intense anger against Trump made "vote blue no matter who" a winning strategy for Democrats.
November 10, 2025 at 9:40 PM
Spanberger and Sherrill have both been strong supporters of military aid to Israel, which is exactly the thing that alienated so many progressive voters from voting for Harris.
But in VA and NJ, the intense anger against Trump made "vote blue no matter who" a winning strategy for Democrats.
But in VA and NJ, the intense anger against Trump made "vote blue no matter who" a winning strategy for Democrats.
Spanberger and Sherrill are exactly the kind of middle-of-the-road "vote blue no matter who" candidates people were complaining about.
And they're good examples of why lesser-evil voting is good.
And they're good examples of why lesser-evil voting is good.
November 10, 2025 at 9:35 PM
Spanberger and Sherrill are exactly the kind of middle-of-the-road "vote blue no matter who" candidates people were complaining about.
And they're good examples of why lesser-evil voting is good.
And they're good examples of why lesser-evil voting is good.
Right. Neither vote blue no matter who nor not voting work. Neither is effective.
November 10, 2025 at 9:33 PM
Right. Neither vote blue no matter who nor not voting work. Neither is effective.