Back in 1981, Maggie Thatcher launched her first recession to create her "Leaner, Fitter Britain". It was as needless as the recession we face next year, and, fortunately, it was much less severe. But it worked in the same way: it transferred wealth from most people to the elite. Back then, I was running my first business: a craft pottery, here in Auchencairn. We sold, mainly, to middle class tourists. But in 1981, the middle classes had their discretionary income cut sharply, so they didn't take holidays and they didn't buy craft work. >>>

Thinking about the privatisation of the English Health Service, about @richardbranson essentially using health service money to fund his space tourism, and about why there are some sectors capitalism should not be allowed to touch with a bargepole: >>> Mercenary armies, like Blackwater, have no incentive to create stable peace. On the contrary, if there were stable peace their business model would collapse. So they provoke, foment and escalate conflicts. This is against everyone's interests. >>>

A thought, arising from a dream, which is probably important and probably worth developing into an essay: part of the mess we're in, as a civilisation, is because, in law, we treat corporations as if they were persons. >>> For example, in the US, corporations have the right to make political donations, because they are legal persons. More generally, corportations may enter into contracts, sue and be sued, and own property, because they are persons. >>>

It just happens that wandering through Velen yesterday I picked up a crafting diagram for the Black Unicorn blade. I'd hardly have noticed – one picks up a lot of crafting diagrams in @witchergame – except that the Black Unicorn got a mention in #NightCityWire this week. >>> There are 'goodies' you can get, apparently, in @CyberpunkGame, if you connect your game to @GOGcom and you also have a copy of @witchergame linked to GOG. And one of those goodies is said to be the Black Unicorn blade.



>>>

Reading this piece by @tconnellyRTE I've finally come to an understanding of who Johnson truly is, and how we got into this mess. >>>

rte.ie/news/2020/0911… Johnson thinks he's Peter Pan. He's not: he's one of the Lost Boys. >>>

Thread: an analogy about the world's - and Scotland's - dilemma. It's long; bear with me, I think it's worth it. #1/18 We all understand what happens if you jump out of a plane with a parachute. Before you deploy the parachute, you will accelerated downwards under gravity, and you will continue to accelerate until you reach terminal velocity. #2/18

A bit of a thread about Scots language, Scots orthography, and erasure: how our past and identity are deconstructed.

So, let's start: how many letters are there in the alphabet?

>>> If you answered 26, go to the bottom of the class.

Next, how do you pronounce the last syllable of the placename 'Cockenzie'?

>>>

Another bloody thread on #ClimateEmergency. Sorry.

Current world enegy consumption per annum is about 14,000 million tons of oil equivalent, or about 162,820 terawatt hours. >>> That's equivalent to 1.8 million of the largest wind turbines currently available running at peak output all the time, or 5,701 nuclear reactors the size of Hinkley Point C. >>>

I think the main reason I listen to @PolGaloreScot is to be annoyed. Being annoyed is useful. It causes one to challenge one's own thought.

So this week, what they're being intellectually lazy about is federalism, and Scottish parties. I have blogged about federalism rather a lot, as folk may remember. The US, as everyone knows, allocates two seats in its Senate to each state, whether that's California with 39M people or Wyoming with 0.5M people. >>>

@PolGaloreScot @ScotParl @10DowningStreet The issue of whether #indyref2 happens before or after the 2021 Holyrood election is a tricky one. @RLMcAlpine in 'How to start a new country' makes a strong case for not having a Holyrood election between winning #indyref2 and independence. >>> @PolGaloreScot @ScotParl @10DowningStreet @RLMcAlpine Consequently we don't have time before and we don't really have much time after; my feeling is the best thing would be to hold it on the same day (6 May 2021). >>>

I have a diesel car, which has run 145,000 miles. Which would be the most carbon-efficient thing to do: run it for another 85,000 miles, or scrap it and buy a new electric car and run that 85,000 miles? The answer is not simple.
#ClimateEmergency >>> (Actually, there is a simple answer, which I shall come to later). >>>

#Brexit: We got into this mess because the @conservatives couldn't cope with the fact that we weren't the top power in Europe: because, while we won almost all of the votes Europe ever had, it wasn't quite totally all. >>> @Conservatives They couldn't cope with the fact that Germany was more influential than us - because Germany outperforms us at manufacturing, finance, exports, and, critically, diplomacy. >>>

Software people: I'm thinking about implementing dates for my post-scarcity operating system/language/environment. I could easily afford to devote 128 bits to the representation (actually I could allow more, but 128 seems enough). >>> 128 bits gives me slight more than 1 x 10³¹ years at one second resolution, which takes you a very long way towards the life expectancy of the universe. >>>

Two things that I'm thinking about as very serious issues this weekend:

1. Do you remember how quickly the Soviet Bloc collapsed? We're all thinking about life post-#Brexit as sort of muddling through, business as usual, but I think that's unlikely. >>> If there's no deal, if the borders clog up - both looking virtually certain just now - there will be a sudden, long lasting, critical shortage of fresh food. Britain isn't used to that. I believe there will be civil disorder. >>>

I commented briefly, and carefully, on this tweet a couple of days ago. But it's been gnawing away at the back of my mind, and I'm going to try again. Thread. >>>

https://twitter.com/IsraeliPM/status/1034849460344573952

There is, obviously and necessarily, a great deal of sensitivity about comparisons between Zionism and fascism. There is a necessary reluctance to make that comparison. >>>

https://twitter.com/IsraeliPM/status/1034849460344573952

The #GrowthComission report (yes, I'm struggling to read it, too) says:

"3.88 Maximising frictionless trade and market access with the rest of the UK and with Europe is of critical importance to the performance of the Scottish economy in the short and long term." This is almost certainly not possible, and absolutely certainly not in our gift. England and Wales (hereinafter #EW) seemed destined for a very hard crash out of the #EU. >>>

OK, look, sometimes people mess up. We all have times when we mess up. We all have times when we make two or three bad errors in succession. We're human. #1/23 The @newsundayherald is one of the important institutions of Scotland's news media. Admittedly it's less important now as our new media develops, but it was a big win for #Yes when, in 2014, it nailed our colours to its mast. #2/23

Does a social system with entrenched privilege systematically breed progressively nastier people? I suspect it does, and I shall argue it. Thread: >>> I used to believe that the reason the British elite are in general such noxious people was because our system of elite education is so bad; but I've begun to doubt that that's the whole story. >>>

We're going to face a decade of economic collapse - probably two. The welfare state will go - and because of Barnett consequentials, it will go in Scotland too. Civil dissent will be met with repression. >>> In those circumstances, secessionism is just another form of civil dissent, like trades unionism, to be crushed. We saw it in the 1980s, we see it today in #Catalunya. >>>