It's interesting to ask what's *really* going on with the reaction to the Supreme Court Ruling today. Because it's not as if anybody in Scotland particularly wanted a consultative referendum conducted by Holyrood without Westminster's approval.🧵 👇 What we wanted the court to say was that Scotland had the right to leave the UK if it chose to do so. Because that right is totemic for Scotland's self-esteem as a nation. What the court said is that we have no such right, which calls into question the meaning of nationhood.

1/2 Distressing experience @Tesco just now. 10.50pm near Chancery Lane tube after a work event I receive a text to get a sandwich for my son’s packed lunch tomorrow. I see a store, think I’m in luck, but I can only *enter* the store if I download the app & sign up to club card. 2/2 pragmatism had me download the app, but I said no to the club card. I can’t proceed to buy the sandwich and get home. There’s a barrier. I ask for help. The staff member takes my phone and changes my option to “accept club card”. I say no thanks. He says then you can’t get in

Three questions on #chessdrama are conflated and it helps to tease them apart.

1. Hans Neimann ever cheated at chess?

-Yes, he admitted to cheating twice in online chess, when he was 12 and 16 (he’s now 19)

Odds of cheating= c100%

(But does this make him “a cheater” today ?) 2. Has Neimann cheated “more and more recently” than he’s admitted?

- Carlsen believes so. Chess cheating expert Regan believes not.

There’s indicative computer evidence, Carlsen’s intuition, Chess.kom statement, Niemann silence, peer suspicion, but no ‘proof’.

Odds: c30%?

So much for #chessdrama

At @Perspecteeva we are calmly trying to avert the collapse of civilization. If that sounds more like your kind of scene, there's just *one week to go* to apply for the following jobs:

Director of Operations
Community Builder
Research Assistant

Short 🧵 First of all, a link to the relevant page on the website for those who want to get started. The deadline is the end of the day on October 3rd and we ask for a CV and letter in each case. We are also looking for new trustees and audio-visual consultants.
systems-souls-society.com/perspectiva-jo…

Q: Why don’t you want to play him?

A: He has cheated in the past and he might be cheating in the present.

Q: Which point is more important? Are you punishing him for past misdemeanours or do you have good reason to suspect he’s cheating now?

A: A bit of both.

#chessdrama Q: So the reason you think he might be cheating now is because he’s cheated in the past?

A: Yes

Q: Once a cheater, always a cheater?

A: I didn’t say that.

Q: Can you prove that he’s cheated in over the board play more recently?

A: It’s difficult to prove. But I do suspect.

131 days since Russia's invasion of Ukraine. I've been following the war closely for personal and professional reasons. What is happening in Ukraine matters even more than many believe, and we're hosting a fundraiser on Thursday to clarify that case:
emergeukraine.com As an international chess player, I faced opponents from the Soviet Union in 1990 just before it collapsed. I remember the red hammer and sickle flag near the board next to my Scottish saltire. In subsequent years I competed with Ukrainian and Russian players and befriended many.

Many speak of the present as an interregnum, as liminal, or simply a transition, but my preferred form of words comes from Zak Stein – *a time between worlds* - it gives the idea a poetic and mystical atmosphere for inquiry while also being an empirical claim. Thread 👇 This is the latter stages of a transformation of context that only occurs every 500 years or so. The meta-crisis is not ‘a lot of problems’ we may not solve, rather it is the character of this time between worlds, where one world system is dying but another has yet to be born.

Just finished watching #DontLookUp
Impressive!
I wanted to share what I liked about it before I forget.
Thread 👇 The movie is about a massive comet hurtling towards earth and our failure, first of all to face up to it, due to denial, distraction and displacement, and secondly to deal with it, due to mistaken priorities, the wrong people in power, and failure of global cooperation.

“I had mixed feelings about metamodernism until I realised it is about mixed feelings.”

Of the 250 people at the @whatisemerging gathering this weekend, about a quarter said they were there due to interest in #metamodernism.

Here’s what that means 👇

systems-souls-society.com/metamodernism-… “Metamodernism is a feeling, and all that constitutes the feeling and flows from it. When we consider the mystery of consciousness and the human drama playing out on this charming anomaly of a planet, feelings are far from trivial – they have cosmological significance…

.@Perspecteeva just posted 11 great videos from The Realisation Festival in early July.

Only 30 people attended due to COVID restrictions, so we are all the more grateful for the excellent work of @saintgiles and Charlie Moore and Alex Townley.

youtube.com/channel/UCr0bT… First, an overview of the Festival, and promissory note for future years where it will be larger.

The philosophical background concerns Perspectiva & St Giles House's shared connection to #Bildung.

We call it "A Festival of Unlearning and Reimagining".

Just back from a private dinner on climate finance. It was Chatham House Rules so I can’t say who was there or what they said, but I can say there was a lot of power and influence in the room. I was there as maverick philosopher to offer the occasional lateral perspective. I was also there because a few years ago I wrote this report:
Money Talks: Divest Invest and the battle for climate realism. thersa.org/discover/publi…