Left: The data that Meta is collecting about you and profiting from when you install Threads. Basically everything.
Right: The data Mastodon is collecting about you when you install the Mastodon app. Nothing.
How does corporate for-profit surveillance work?
First, you install the app, and give it permission to collect all of this data... Your location, everything you click on and tap on, and it builds a profile about you.
Then they sell that data, they sell a profile of you.
Mar 10, 2022 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
The fascist movements trying to take away rights from trans people are not feminist, they do not support women's rights or human rights in any way, they are working against the most basic human rights. They are promoting hateful, violent, and deadly ideology.
Every day the right-wing lies about trans people and attacks on basic human rights remind me of exactly what the right-wing was doing to queer people in the 90s. Same lies, same attacks on education, same attempt to frame our existence as endangering children.
Mar 10, 2022 • 6 tweets • 1 min read
"When your life is always a part of your surroundings—in other words, when you are called back to yourself, in the present moment—then there is no problem."
— Shunryu Suzuki
"When you start to wander about in some delusion which is something apart from you yourself, then your surroundings are not real anymore, and your mind is not real anymore. If you yourself are deluded, then your surroundings are also a misty, foggy delusion."
— Shunryu Suzuki
Mar 10, 2022 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
"Joint Statement Of Opposition To Banning Scholars Based On Citizenship" from the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies.
"As international professional associations that foster the study of Slavic, East European, and Eurasian peoples and cultures, we are committed to promoting international communication among scholars of all countries and identities across the humanities and social sciences."
Mar 10, 2022 • 16 tweets • 3 min read
The existence of billionaires requires poor people. This is a fact that should be more widely understood. Monetary wealth doesn't magically appear, it comes from profit, and profit means both not compensating people and overcharging people. Profit is theft.
There's an incredible and powerful mythology at work in our societies that says some billionaires are good and helpful and some are harmful. Unfortunately billionaires can never help enough to make up for the harm caused by their very existence. Their existence is built on harm.
Mar 10, 2022 • 42 tweets • 7 min read
Pandemic policy everywhere is being decoupled from facts, data, and reality, to the extent it was ever even related to them. It's being set base on a mood, based on a sentiment in popular culture instead of public health principles. From schools to workplaces to nations.
There's a mood that says "pandemic is probably about over" sweeping through popular culture, and it has no basis in reality. And yet it's shaping policy everywhere. This is both deeply concerning and the status quo.
Mar 9, 2022 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
"There were moments during the Vietnam War when we were very close to despair. The war was dragging on and we did not see any sign that it would end. Every day, every night, people died, and the country was being destroyed by bombs and chemicals."
— Thich Nhat Hanh
"The young people came to me and asked, 'Thay, is there any hope that the war will end soon?' At that moment, we did not see any hope. We were very close to despair, because the war went on and on for a long time."
— Thich Nhat Hanh
Mar 9, 2022 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
I keep thinking every day about people who are elderly, disabled, trans, hospitalized, and all others who can be prevented from escaping when the horrors of war invade their homes. So many are trapped in war by violence and policy. We must demilitarize our planet and end all war.
"In Odessa, some older residents can not flee war."
There's a lot going on. Perhaps some of this will help. If we can stay in touch with both our heart and what's around us, and also the vast beauty of the universe, we are better able to respond helpfully to crisis, and be not just civil but generous and truly kind to others.
"You have to be aware that your emotion is just an emotion. It comes, stays for some time, and then goes away... You are more than your emotions. It is important to remember this."
— Thich Nhat Hanh
Mar 8, 2022 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
The woodlouse is an amazing crustacean. They live on land, in the water, in the desert. From underground lakes to high on mountains. In many sizes and forms. Some roll into balls. What I find really interesting is the common names for these. What do you call them where you live?
Hemilepistus reaumuri lives in "the driest habitat conquered by any species of crustacean."
Mar 5, 2022 • 56 tweets • 9 min read
As Putin tries to justify his horrific invasion using history, listen instead to Ukrainian social scientist @Volod_Ishchenko. His research areas are protests and social movements, revolutions, radicalization, right/left politics, and nationalism. theintercept.com/2022/03/05/dec…
Volodymyr Ishchenko: Now, I would see Euromaidan as a kind of deficient revolution. A deficient solution for the crisis of political representation. It was a huge problem for all of the post-soviet states. Putinism... is another deficient solution.
Mar 2, 2022 • 13 tweets • 4 min read
When you look at other conflicts you often find war crimes are committed by both sides. And people tend to point only to the crimes of the side they oppose.
The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court already announced an investigation into possible war crimes and crimes against humanity in Ukraine, with the scope starting before the invasion. This will mean investigating crimes committed by any party, by all sides.
Mar 2, 2022 • 24 tweets • 7 min read
Afghanistan: 3.4 million people internally displaced by conflict, 5.7 million Afghans and host communities in five neighbouring countries in need of support, 24 million people in Afghanistan in need of vital humanitarian relief. unhcr.org/afghanistan-em…
Burundi: Over 333,700 refugees. The Burundian refugee situation is the lowest funded of any situation globally. unhcr.org/burundi-situat…
Mar 2, 2022 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
People often share this Thich Nhat Hanh quote, I see it every day: "Hope is important, because it can make the present moment less difficult to bear. If we believe that tomorrow will be better, we can bear a hardship today."
But, they don't usually share the next lines...
"But that is the most that hope can do for us—to make some hardship lighter.
When I think deeply about the nature of hope, I see something tragic. Since we cling to our hope in the future, we do not focus our energies and capabilities on the present moment."
— Thich Nhat Hanh
Mar 2, 2022 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
Something to try, if it helps.
Thich Nhat Hanh: "When suffering arises, the first thing to do is to stop, follow our breathing, and acknowledge it. Don’t try to deny uncomfortable emotions or push them down."
Breathing in, I know suffering is there.
Breathing out, I say hello to my suffering.
Mar 2, 2022 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
This map from 2019 shows the U.S. operating inside 40% of the world’s nations: "We found that, contrary to what most Americans believe, the war on terror is not winding down—it has spread to more than 40 percent of the world’s countries." smithsonianmag.com/history/map-sh…
The @CostsOfWar Project has an updated map and other figures: watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/fig…
Mar 1, 2022 • 16 tweets • 3 min read
Capitalism refuses to permit this approach to pandemic or climate change or any crisis because its foundational ideology is that profit matters more than lives. We have to say it: capitalism is both the reason for the crisis and the system that is preventing the solutions.
The pandemic has shown us so clearly that the dominant ideology of competition, which prioritizes profits over lives, is incapable of responding to crisis in a way that preserves and protect lives. It isn’t that nations can’t act, it’s that capitalism makes it unprofitable.
Mar 1, 2022 • 10 tweets • 2 min read
Excerpts from "Is It Ethical to Teach Mindfulness to the Military?" in "Zen and the Art of Saving the Planet" by Thich Nhat Hanh.
"When military and political leaders have wrong views, millions of people can be killed, millions of lives destroyed."
— Thich Nhat Hanh
Mar 1, 2022 • 13 tweets • 3 min read
Excerpts from a letter to President Biden and President Putin from Nobel Peace Prize laureate Mairead Maguire, written in April 2021.
"Dear President Biden and President Putin,
I write to you both as World Leaders to ask for your advice and help in these challenging times..."
Mar 1, 2022 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
.@KremlinRussia_E - Mr. President, Even though my nationality is U.S., I know that Russian people are my brothers. And I know that Ukrainian people are my brothers. And it is our brothers who are dying now in Ukraine. But you can stop this today.
.@KremlinRussia_E - Mr. President, this beautiful planet, our shared home, is big enough for all. Let us protect it together. Protect all people on it from war, division, destruction. We can do this today. You can care for our brothers by bringing them home. By ending this war.
Some people and institutions do try to engage in what they believe is "socially responsible investing" but those investments often only screen out some fossil fuels, some civilian guns, but not military weapons, or animal agriculture, or other major causes of the climate crisis.
How does corporate for-profit surveillance work?
