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Stephen Barlow Profile picture
Stephen Barlow
@SteB777
Naturalist, Conservationist, Environmentalist and Nature Photographer (especially macro). Born at 314ppm. Woke (awake). https://t.co/B7XkkKho07
34 subscribers
Aug 10 • 25 tweets • 5 min read
This is the direct, suppression of free speech, with the police acting as an oppressive state arm, to silence what people are saying, to stop government embarrassment.

The only legitimate reason to arrest a protestor, is if they are threatening harm or violence, to others.
1/🧵 This has always been the role of the police, to prevent, protest turning into violent disorder, where the safety of others is threatened.

So if someone is threatening to, or encouraging others to set fire to an asylum seeker's hostel, and this is a credible threat, intervene.
2/
Aug 7 • 13 tweets • 4 min read
Recently, I created a thread about how and why the world is in a complete and utter mess.

Essentially, modern politics, has just become the puppets of powerful and wealthy oligarchs, and corporations, dancing around on string, to their tune.

1/🧵threadreaderapp.com/thread/1951559… Even if you totally forget about the climate and ecological emergency, social justice, the interests of ordinary people, fairness and corruption. Modern politicians are making a complete pig's ear of running our societies.
2/
Aug 4 • 17 tweets • 4 min read
"The head of Google’s DeepMind says artificial intelligence could usher in an era of ‘incredible productivity’ and ‘radical abundance’."

This is dangerously delusional. How did someone so stupid, get such a position?

1/🧵theguardian.com/technology/202… Let's get this clear, being stupid i.e. extremely unwise, is nothing to do with IQ and cleverness. Lots of very clever people, were also monumentally stupid.

You can be stupid, and clever.

2/
Aug 4 • 16 tweets • 3 min read
I want to briefly explain this phenomenon, I've seen develop in the last 15 years, certainly within the last 20 years, because I never saw it before then, and I have been walking in the countryside for over 55 years.
1/🧵 Those doing this, seem to have got the idea from commercial music festivals, which I am sure most have been to. Where supermarkets sell cheap tents etc, in the festival season, and where the tradition has developed, where you just leave the tent.
2/
Aug 4 • 20 tweets • 4 min read
I use harsh words for billionaire/oligarchs, politicians, corporations, and the media, which the oligarchs own and control, not out of hatred, but because they stubbornly refuse to moderate their behaviour, or see it as a problem.
1/🧵 In fact, I have suggested outreach to billionaire/oligarchs, to get them to see that it is in their personal interest, to address the many problems they are inducing, which will ultimately impact them i.e. appealing to their self-interest. And I have been criticised for it.
2/
Aug 3 • 11 tweets • 2 min read
I would like to thank everyone, who has responded positively to this thread.

It was written hurriedly this morning to someone who sent me an email, on some of these subjects. I turned my response into this thread.
1/🧵 It was rough and ready, but distilled what I had been thinking for some time. I had meant to write it out a few times, but it seemed so massive, so many aspects, so how would I cover it all?

Just how did we sleepwalk, into this mess?
2/
Aug 2 • 22 tweets • 5 min read
The world is in a complete and utter mess, on every level, due to insane, incompetent, and just evil leadership, and the manipulation by billionaires/oligarchs, pulling the strings of politicians.

It's becoming increasingly difficult for me to say anything constructive.
1/🧵 As most will know, I mainly commentate from the perspective of the climate and ecological crisis. Actually, ecological is every interaction. So when you see a genocide happening in plain sight, ruthless and uncaring politics, that is ecological.
2/
Jul 31 • 15 tweets • 3 min read
This is merely a placeholder, because I don't want to forget this, and I have to go out. However, I need to put this down, so I don't forget it.

I can explain why people are not taking the climate and ecological crisis, with a simple observable phenomenon.
1/🧵 People take their cues from those around them, especially their leaders. If they don't see other people, and especially their leaders, acting as if we are in a dire crisis, then they are going to find it very difficult to take the crisis seriously.
2/
Jul 30 • 18 tweets • 4 min read
One of the biggest problems having any sensible discussion about empathy, is that it is an ill defined term, which actually seems to refer to many different, and possibly contradictory phenomena. I find psychological discourses on empathy, very unhelpful.
1/ Most of the psychological discourses on empathy are very unhelpful, because they are actually talking about a concept, not actual experienced empathy, which does not always lead to compassion. They are too focused on verbal cognition, and concepts.
2/
Jul 30 • 9 tweets • 2 min read
The profound mistake, most are making about empathy, is it is not a general quality, or something that is switched on all the time. Actual empathy, is brief insight into someone or something else. It is not a general state of mind. Insight is also non-verbal.
1/🧵 People are confusing empathy, with compassion or sympathy, which are very different things. Empathy as a concept, not actual empathy, presumes that this compassion or sympathy is brought about, by empathetic insight. Not really.
2/
Jul 30 • 21 tweets • 4 min read
I will create a thread about this, because I can see that there are industrial levels of misunderstanding, particularly about what the term empathy actually means, which isn't what a lot of people think it means.

This isn't that that thread, even if it's a thread.
1/🧵 All I did, was to paraphrase what Elon Musk said about empathy, and he wasn't being original, as he was just parroting a right wing meme.

I merely stated the lack of empathy was the problem, to stimulate people to into thinking about what empathy is.

2/theguardian.com/us-news/ng-int…
Jul 28 • 26 tweets • 5 min read
"‘Climateflation’ could push up UK food prices by more than a third by 2050, report says"

As people know, I have been warning of "climateflation" food shocks for a very long time. Unfortunately, this study makes the same mistake others make.

1/🧵theguardian.com/business/2025/… It mistakenly focuses on this being a steady rise in food prices, due to an increase in extreme weather events.

This fundamentally misunderstands the nature and impact, of extreme weather events. Yes, there could be this upward steady rise, but that's not the real danger.
2/
Jul 25 • 26 tweets • 5 min read
On the subject of neoliberalism, which has a very sinister past, and maybe even more sinister now.

I want to briefly highlight what I think it actually is, which is very different to the theory of it.

1/🧵threadreaderapp.com/thread/1948044… I just want to give an outline. It is best understood, through the Chicago Boys, a group of economists who studied under Milt Friedman, and who were instrumental in the Pinochet regime, which was the first full-scale implementation of neoliberalism.

2/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_B…
Jul 23 • 23 tweets • 4 min read
Whilst I am on a roll with neoliberalism, I want to spell out how I think this neoliberal agenda was laid out in a very corrupting and manipulative fashion. I have never seen or heard anyone else say this.

This was derived from my own contemporary observation.
1/🧵 One odd thing that stood out to me, when the Thatcher government, first started implementing neoliberal policy in the UK. They tried to strictly constrain wage rises for ordinary people, whilst directly encouraging unlimited salary rises at the very top.
2/
Jul 23 • 17 tweets • 4 min read
I woke up with a very clear view of the massive problem we face.

A virtual neoliberal dictatorship, has been imposed on our societies, because all the main parties have secretly been taken over by neoliberalism. Yet, most of the public, has no idea what neoliberalism is.
1/ Yes, the public is baffled, by why no matter who they vote for, they bizarrely get the same nasty policy they hate. But they completely baffled, by why politicians, insist on imposing the same hated and stupid policy on them.
2/
Jul 22 • 23 tweets • 6 min read
I want to expand this, as it seems a lot are not getting what I'm saying and why.

The vast majority of the public, have no idea what neoliberalism is, or that the mainstream parties they vote for, all adhere to neoliberal ideology, as they don't declare it, and deny it.
1/🧵 The main problem with neoliberal ideology, is its invisibility, hence the title of George Monbiot and Peter Hutchinson's book and film about it, being called the Invisible Doctrine. George sums it up in the short trailer.

2/
Jul 22 • 12 tweets • 2 min read
I have just come up with an idea for how to unify a progressive alliance.

It could be called something like "Oppose Neoliberalism", and be a declaration of common cause, in opposing neoliberalism.
1/🧵 The idea would be to put the focus on the political parties (or their leadership), that secretly adhere to the tenets of neoliberalism, and to put clear water, between parties and leaders who support, neoliberalism, and those who oppose it.
2/
Jul 21 • 19 tweets • 5 min read
I think I need to reiterate this point, because we are being buried under a mass of disinformation and false argument.

I fully supported this statement in this thread, and I know of no credible supported evidence, that contradicts this point.
1/🧵 Any claim that business as usual BaU can continue for much longer, is not credible. It is an article of faith, by those who believe in our system now, as some sort of quasi religious tenet.

Below is the unrolled version of my thread.

2/threadreaderapp.com/thread/1942880…
Jul 21 • 26 tweets • 5 min read
"Climate change-induced food price shocks are on the rise and could lead to more malnutrition, political upheaval and social unrest as the world’s poorest are hit by shortages of food staples."

I have been warning about this for decades.

1/🧵theguardian.com/business/2025/… However, there is a fundamental flaw in the thinking of this research, which grossly under-estimates the threat from this danger, which I will outline here.

Most of these assumptions, mistakenly see a steadily increasing problem.
2/
Jul 17 • 13 tweets • 3 min read
This is part 3 of my thread, in which I want to return to my original theme of taxing rich, the very rich, not slightly better off. This both illustrates the obstacle, and the solution.
1/🧵 As I initially explained, despite over 75% of the UK public, wanting a wealth tax, this Labour government and all previous governments, will refuse to agree to it, because of neoliberal doctrine, which is essentially the credo of oligarchs.
2/
Jul 17 • 22 tweets • 5 min read
This is part 2 of the thread I just posted, as for some reason, Twitter is not allowing me to continue it in threaded style.

I was discussing how our system is rigged, and how our sense of freedom and democracy, is essentially illusory, as it's a rigged system.
1/🧵 When powerful individuals started taking over our societies 5-6,000 years (it wasn't like this for >95% of the existence Homo sapiens), they have learned how to perpetuate their control of our societies, in an evolutionary way.
2/