Tech billionaires didn’t misread science fiction. They performed an edit: keeping the frontier, the visionary, the chrome; cutting the public institution, the collective, and the warning. Every. Single. Time. My new piece is now up in Aeon.

Aeon Magazine@aeon.co · 3w ago

Tech billionaires like to claim their work is inspired by science fiction, but in truth, they are using its ‘chrome-plated aesthetic’ as a fig leaf to further what the social theorist Ali Rıza Taşkale labels ‘reactionary futurism’

My friend Mags has written a haunting and challenging essay about hatred and what it teaches us 💔

Assigned Media@assignedmedia.org · 3w ago

Magdalene Visaggio was once in seminary, training to become a Catholic priest. Now she's a snarky online trans girl like the rest of us. In a challenging new essay for Assigned, she writes about the toll being hated for who she is has taken on her psyche. assignedmedia.org/breaking-new...

That Telegraph post about "pathetic" Bsky users, posted on BSky, is a great example of how well the far-right media understand engagement and use ragebait as a weapon. A masterclass in using unserious means to achieve grimly serious ends.

NEW BLOG FOR YOU Google's energy consumption numbers in their new climate report are mind-blowing. 2 years ago they flipped from linear to exponential growth, and their climate impact is blowing out, too. A WILD testament to the obscene bloat and waste of GenAI: ketanjoshi.co/2026/07/01/g...

Another example of how these bad things are not inevitable.

Brent Toderian@brenttoderian.bsky.social · last mo.

“Helsinki hasn’t registered a single traffic-related fatality in the past year…Citing data that shows the risk of pedestrian fatality is cut in half by reducing a car’s speed from 40 to 30km/hr, city officials imposed the lower limit in most of Helsinki’s residential areas and city center in 2021.”

Europe's worst heatwave so far, in terms of heat stress measures and temperatures - brought to you by fossil fuels. New @wwattribution.bsky.social study showing how such deadly heat became possible in only a few decades. www.worldweatherattribution.org/fossil-fuel-...

The ongoing heatwave in Europe shows us that we need climate action now more than ever. The good news is that each of us has the agency to do something in our lives. I spoke with @charlotte-kukowski.bsky.social about a new climate action framework she and her colleagues have developed.

How to use your agency for impactful climate action

Although modern life makes many of us feel powerless, we all have agency to act and stop the climate crisis.

sower.world

🚨 New research by us! 📣 Most British drivers don't know how dangerous SUVs are to other road users, but adding information to SUV marketing materials seems to do almost nothing to change people's plans to buy SUVs Here's a 🧵 on why harder action is going to be needed 1/10

There's been a lot of talk about digital independence from US tech in Europe since Trump's sanctions of the ICC, but it seems to be local municipalities who are making the biggest strides to shift away – with civil initiatives left to fill the gaps in places with little political will. My latest ⬇️

Local municipalities are spearheading independence from US tech

Some municipalities are moving quickly to make Europe digitally independent from US tech, but civil initiatives are left to fill in the gaps where there is little political will.

sower.world

If you need a script for getting your company off Twitter, I WROTE YOU ONE. Multiple people have used it, successfully, to explain the legal liability your company incurs by forcing employees to be on a platform with child sexual abuse material. I will help you use it. anildash.com/2026/02/23/t...

Taking action against AI harms - Anil Dash

A blog about making culture. Since 1999.

anildash.com

Ketan Joshi@ketanjoshi.co · 2mo ago

I've been a broken record on this for three years and I'll be a broken record for as long as that fucking website exists: X is a viciously racist far-right organising platform that ONLY WORKS because a huge number of centrists, lefties and progressivs cannot stop propping it up

If anything was going to make me a doomer, it would be the failure of the progressive left to leave X in the face of this stuff. It genuinely feels like progressive public intellectuals think their hot takes and pithy tweets are more powerful than a billionaire-backed misinformation algorithm.

Sam Freedman@samfr.bsky.social · 2mo ago

We need leaders who can spell out what's happening clearly and with force.

I see a lot of charts everyday. Few make me go: THIS IS CRAZY. www.carbonbrief.org/ai-boom-mean...

HAPPY PRIDE, ISSUE 2 IS OUT NOW FOR SUBSCRIBERS!!! Check your email! 🪐🗡️🌈 Issue 2 will be free online on June 15th—but if you'd like to support a queer magazine AND read Issue 2 without waiting, you can snag a copy now! Ko-fi: ko-fi.com/s/3e872a158d Patreon: www.patreon.com/posts/others... (1/2)

I don’t know who wrote this (sorry if it was you) but I saw someone a few days ago say “why is AI inevitable and not renewable energy” and it just really laser focussed the private sector money narrative for me. Corporate interests always. Anyway back to the treadmill everyone.

Whenever people talk about veganism, it's almost always framed in terms of its environmental and ethical benefits. For my ten year anniversary, I wrote about the personal benefits of the practice and how it completely changed my relationship with myself and the world around me 🌱⬇️

How ten years of veganism enriched my life

Veganism is always lauded for its environmental and ethical benefits, but the personal impact can be enormous too.

sower.world

Here’s a video from the same podcast as linked in my previous post where you can hear the audio too. I love this because it really lays bare how LLMs fool us - but really they’re just slotting words into linguistic patterns that we’re familiar with. Genres like a podcast or LinkedIn post.

Welcome to blood profits season: where every major fossil fuel company announces windfall profits thanks to mass murder and the 2nd global fossil fuel price crisis this decade. We cannot stay trapped in this cage. Time to escape. New Al Jazeera op-ed live here www.aljazeera.com/opinions/202...

While I get why Polanski doesn't attack commercial aviation as an industry, and think it's smart he doesn't, this was a missed opportunity to advocate for more investment in rail i.e renewable-powered international rail networks, building local rail infrastructure in support, more jobs etc.

Matthew Holehouse@matthewholehouse.bsky.social · 3mo ago

The Green Party’s pivot from environmentalism to class politics in action: a demand to “prevent British holiday makers from being hit by jet fuel shortages”

"Why are all the journalists laid off now" this is why. Pretty simple.

It's great that we're preparing for a potential future bird flu pandemic, but it frustrates me to no end that these stories never mention that the H5N1 strain originated on a factory farm. In fact, they frame it almost as a *threat* to factory farms.

If a bird flu pandemic starts, we may have an mRNA vaccine ready

A final-stage trial has started of an mRNA vaccine against the bird flu strain infecting many animals – and occasionally people – worldwide

newscientist.com

Have you ever found yourself quoted online for something you never said? We've seen a few examples of academics having their voice used for quotes they never said in fake news websites and in AI chatbots – but think there's a lot more If that's you shoot me a DM or comment here #journorequest

There's a review of @premeemohamed.com's One Message Remains in today's Sower. Libby, the reviewer, found the fantasy story collection to be a hopeful look into how all of us, no matter whether we're inside or outside the imperial core, have the power to resist colonialism and its lack of empathy.

We all have the power to resist colonial narratives

No matter whether you're inside or outside of the imperial core, we all have the power resist colonialism—that's the core message of Premee Mohamed's One Message Remains.

sower.world

When people use AI for writing assistance, it can shift their political attitudes by autocompleting sentences in biased ways. Yet people are often unaware of the AI bias & it's influence This is not merely about the facts presented, but how autocomplete worlds www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Tonight in the ai reading group i was reminded of something that happened in 2006 after I dropped out of college, when I was living in a run-down old house next to jb alberto's in rogers park with a bunch of dudes. it was, as you can imagine, not clean.

The time between fossil fuel crises is just going to keep shrinking, until there's no discrete single "crisis" - just one unbroken prolonged state of global suffering due to fossil fuel unreliability The best time to ditch fossil fuels was 30 years ago. The second best time is now

An energy crisis is not a crisis for *everyone* Since the war in Iran started, oil companies in the EU have been getting an EXTRA €81.4 million in profit EVERY DAY as the prices of petrol and diesel go through the roof Governments and the EU must tax these profits to help ordinary people

Oil companies rake in €81.4 million extra daily in the EU as fuel prices soar - Greenpeace European Unit

EU governments must urgently tax fossil fuel profits to alleviate energy bills and to speed up investments in cheap, safe and home-grown renewables

greenpeace.org

When I was a student (1990s France), students smoked in classrooms between classes, in halls, in student meetings, etc, and it was seen as impossible to counteract (and I was shouted at for asking people not to).

Iris van Rooij 💭@irisvanrooij.bsky.social · 4mo ago

They: “We cannot ban AI from the classroom!” Us: “Would you allow students to smoke in class?” -- It is still possible to do the right thing. You can sign our Open Letter here: openletter.earth/open-letter-... 🖋️

The more I think about it, the more I hate @lintonbesser.bsky.social's implication here that allowing machine-generated plagiarism and fabrications in media+opinion is somehow "inevitable" Frankly, it seems to go against the entire existence of media watch? www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/e...

Microsoft is the priority target for @nogamesforgenocide.com given the tech corp's ties to the IDF, & small indie developer @allwillrise.bsky.social recently broke contract with Xbox to support the campaign. I spoke to them about their decision & why progressives must take up more space in games.

Why a small indie game developer put Palestinian liberation before profit

A small indie game developer joined the No Games for Genocide campaign, even though it meant giving a significant chunk of money back to Microsoft.

sower.world

New interview out! @jackmcgovan.bsky.social asked me all about @allwillrise.bsky.social and our decision to give back money to Microsoft as part of our support for @nogamesforgenocide.com. Good insightful questions, take a look: www.sower.world/all-rise-gen... #indiegames #boycott #freepalestine

Why a small indie game developer put Palestinian liberation before profit

A small indie game developer joined the No Games for Genocide campaign, even though it meant giving a significant chunk of money back to Microsoft.

sower.world