Gareth Watkins
@garethwatkins.bsky.social
Writing in the New Statesman, Liberal Currents, New Socialist, Tribune, Vulture, Aftermath. Host of Death Sentence podcast.
The @bylinetimes.bsky.social does crucial work exposing Far Right networks into British academia and public sphere but I simply have no idea what this is purporting to reveal bylinetimes.com/2026/08/18/t...
The Peter Thiel-Linked Race Science Network that Penetrated Cambridge University and Targeted Jason Arday
The media's coverage of the academic's life was fuelled by the campaign of an established far-right network
bylinetimes.com
“X’s algorithm learns what you hate and shows you more of it, according to a new study just published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences” www.404media.co/xs-algorithm...
X's Algorithm Feeds Off Ragebait and Impacts Democrats More, Study Finds
X is driving engagement by making users fight in the replies.
404media.co
(Kill Bill sirens louder than the eruption of Krakatoa)
Annals of Unsurprising Results: Undocumented migration does not raise crime rates, huge study finds www.nature.com/articles/d41...
Undocumented migration does not raise crime rates, huge study finds
Analysis of neighbourhoods in more than 100 US cities finds no evidence that rising numbers of undocumented immigrants are linked with violent crime.
nature.com
One thing I remember and hardly anyone seems to is that there's a sort of sexual revolution interregnum when all sex was good (seen from the adult male perspective, which it mostly was) including sex with children, which was publicly defended. Feminism, mostly, is what changed that.
Big news! HYPERSCALE made the longlist for the FT/Standard Chartered Business Book of the Year Award. They call it a “a polemical on-the-ground investigation into the rapid spread of data centres and their impact on the environment and the communities where Big Tech is building them.”
You were selected to participate in the Duskbloods network test? NGL that's kind of problematic. You really should sit with what that means about you and consider the people you've hurt through your actions.
I've got a nutty idea: what about a game which as closely as possible replicates what it would be like to raid tombs using gymnastics and firearms? Lock me up for this insanity, but what if the game got out of the way of that experience? Literally section me, but isn't tomb raiding challenging?
Eurogamer@eurogamer.bsky.social · 22h agoTomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis, a remake of the first game, is getting RPG skill trees, crafting mechanics and a 'focus meter' www.eurogamer.net/tomb-raider-...
RE: The Atlantic, a few months after this issue a guy in El Paso went on a rampage targeting people he thought looked "Mexican"; he shot 45 and killed 23. when I read some journalists lines from his manifesto and Frum's essay and asked them who wrote which, they couldn't tell, I couldn't blame them
So, for something I'm thinking about writing: how do people feel about looking at the right wing through a psychological lens? Not *reducing* what they do to a mental illness, but making the argument that psychological drives play a major part in why individuals go Nazi. How does this idea sit?
How do we stop Nathan Cofnas from becoming a new name on the right? We can't stop him from being on podcasts and the like, but what can be done?
This is something the 'rising #ADHD diagnoses are just big pharma wanting to sell more meds' arguments seem reluctant to explain. If the whole thing is a huge complex plot to sell pills, why would those pills be so rare and hard to get? Like advertising a restaurant only accessible via jetpack
Dave Hemprich-Bennett@davehb.bsky.social · 21h agoI went off of ADHD meds because their terrible availability meant I was being shunted between methylphenidate variants with no titration period so frequently, they were doing more harm than good overall. Are ‘poor supply chains’ a social construct too? I’m lost as to what any of this really means
I think about this at least a dozen times a day.
One thing that MAHA in the US and the anti-disability crusade in the UK highlight is that it's not just that authoritarians love cruelty (and boy do they love cruelty), but they're actively opposed to care. It hurts them to see people being looked after or their lives made easier or safer.
Sam Turner@renrut-mas.bsky.social · 22h agoThe ADHD conspiracy and the gender critical movement and the Prof Arday story and the crackdown on disability support are all the same story. There is a default ideal human: a cishet non-disabled white male. The further you deviate from that ideal, the more suspect you become.
The ADHD conspiracy and the gender critical movement and the Prof Arday story and the crackdown on disability support are all the same story. There is a default ideal human: a cishet non-disabled white male. The further you deviate from that ideal, the more suspect you become.
We talk about falling standards, but it's been over sixty years and no-one has corrected the obvious typo in "Beatles".
It’s not much more complicated than: they are the only people who actually matter and they can do whatever they want to you, inferior pig-people who do not matter at all. Standards and rules tightly bind *you*, and there are few if any rules that they have to adhere to, as superior people.
In about three instances I hope it's a 'my agent booked this, I knew nothing about it, I'm not going to turn down ten grand' thing like when Kate Mulgrew ended up narrating a flat earth documentary.
biftechnoir@kenmegalopsuxos.bsky.social · yesterdayAella’s $18,000 slutcon thingy where she and a crack team will coach you on sex
The kind of 'now, there's no real evidence - but it is a fact' stuff highlighted here wouldn't make it past an editor at a low-rent SEO company churning out copy for local restaurants, but here it is in the New York Times.
it really is incredible once you see how much of this current moment of fascism is powered by the sentiment that i should be allowed to rule my child's life like an unquestioned king from cradle to grave
Michael Hobbes@michaelhobbes.bsky.social · 2d agolol come the fuck on
More writing about punk from me on @treblezine.bsky.social! I gathered up 10 of the best punk LPs from the past couple months, because every season is punk season, but especially summer
Treble@treblezine.bsky.social · 2d agoThe best punk albums of summer Downtown Boys, Cel Ray, Twisted Teens, Smirk and more www.treblezine.com/10-great-pun...
You could remake Ghost Dog today, post-The Raid and all the advancements in the language of action movies since The Matrix, but it would lack its charm - which is that Ghost Dog pretty much exclusively kills elderly Italian men who kind of waddle towards him.
“They’re Fascists”: Silicon Valley Journalist Gil Durán on “The Nerd Reich” Takeover of U.S. Politics https://www.democracynow.org/2026/8/17/theyre_fascists_silicon_valley_journalist_gil
“They're Fascists”: Silicon Valley Journalist Gil Durán on “The Nerd Reich” Takeover of U.S. Politics
Pt. 2 of our interview with Gil Durán, author of the new book, The Nerd Reich: Silicon Valley Fascism and the War on Democracy.
democracynow.org
End of the Beatles John Lennon movie: John was killed in New York in 1980. The guy who killed him thought there was a race of tiny people living in his bookcase and by killing John Lennon he would become their king. Seriously, look it up. Jared Leto put on a bunch of weight to play him.
Ngl this has me kind of mad. Someone made AI slop of my art to advertise some slop app. I’m so mad because I declined hundreds of sponsorship offers for apps that felt exploitative of vulnerable groups and ADHD-curing vitamins, I’m here feeling bad advertising my book and they just go and do this
My Tesco meal deal? BBQ beef McCoys, cheese and onion sandwich and a Red Bull. I call it the Heartbreaker.
“Hartley-Brewer belongs to a class of commentator for whom the barrel has no bottom. Performative cruelty is a professional advantage to them.” When the snowflakes pretend they played no part in the avalanche - @brokenbottleboy.bsky.social brokenbottleboy.substack.com/p/when-the-s...
When the snowflakes pretend they played no part in the avalanche
Reflecting on the media coverage of Jason Arday.
brokenbottleboy.substack.com
Iran doesn’t need to DDoS attack Bluesky. All it needs to do is post is “what if a DoorDash driver got caught by a speed camera on the way to someone who was having a bad day of executive function”
