guypatching.bsky.social

Vibes from Brazil

It’s very important to internalise that manufacturing has not been in decline since 1950, manufacturing *employment* has been in decline since 1950 and much of the decline happened when output growth was strongest.

At least Gaius Baltar had the good grace to be handsome

Evidence tech leaders know AI business relies on theft and knowingly pursued it is most relevant for court. But the biggest detail to me is their worry that putting content creators out of business means AI will get worse. If it’s so much smarter and better than us, have it create its own content.

Truly wild to have lived through moral panics about teenagers wearing hoodies and Muslim women wearing the head dress to now experience 'but is a large group of organised far right activists in balaclavas really that scary'

The AfD and Reform immigration policies are almost identical. There is no plausible reason for considering one far right and the other not.

Y'know there's something somewhat undermining about the roleplay one has with the Spotify DJ function "What's happening Guy, its ya DJ X" if one of the first tracks he "pumps you up" with is the theme from Stingray. #itisaboptho

every 6 months the Trump administration realizes lowering tariffs will lower prices, applies this insight to one specific good, and then proceeds to never introspect beyond that. It’s honestly beautiful in its stupidity.

May god grant me the wealth to be openly wrong about basic facts

Yep. One of the reasons Americans can coo over the services and products in Japan for example is that Japanese consumers basically have higher expectations and are more willing to vote with their wallets.

I think my most genuinely unpopular take is that a widely held and genuine consumer preference for cheaper, lower-quality goods, not private equity, is driving the decline in quality of consumer goods like clothing and housewares.

OK. So. Today. I am working on a spreadsheet and I keep saying "Riddle me this" when I find a problem/mysterry. I need to reach out to the community to police this behaviour and stop me being such a dick.

Discouraging an activity with a benefit-to-cost ratio of nearly 10:1. A triumph of policymaking.

Man this cameo is rubbish, not at all what was paid for. #farage

Solidarity with Anthropic. What kind of monster would automate the mass theft of intellectual property just to train an AI model?

Then came a new flashpoint: the "islands of strangers" speech. Labour, Lib Dem and Green voters reacted strongly against it, with Starmer losing net positive favourability among 2024 Labour voters for the first time, while receiving absolutely no credit from voters on the right.

Graph of Strait of Hormuz crossings since June 2025. See that little spike all the way on the right? The one that's much lower than the leftward 2/3 of the graph, and immediately crashes back down? That's what the US government and quite a bit of US media tell us is fully open, with normal traffic.

It is extremely important that Labour understands that the movement of voters between Lab and Ref was not the crucial factor, it was consolidation of the anti-Ref vote and Lab voters turning out in droves. Otherwise Burnham will make the same mistakes as Starmer in targeting only one set of voters.

Thanks, Vonnegut. 💜

The era of supply shocks cries out for a politician willing to be straight with people: these shocks make us poorer, we have to divide out the pain while sticking up our values. None of these measures pass that test

A gross act of cowardice and weakness which will fund Putin's war machine, and have little to no impact on the issue the government is trying to fix.

He was taking £100 Cameo jobs to say "I'm a little ducky, quack quack quack", but sure, I'll take your £5 million but don't expect any favours 🫠

Burnham another for my theory that looking like you enjoy/even relish public life is a pre-requisite for connecting with public. Starmer, May, Sunak, Reeves, Brown always look slightly pained. Johnson, Burnham, Farage, Polanski -even back to Blair/Cameron look like they relish it

Nigel Farage's beaming face is featuring heavily in the local elections coverage, but the truth is that the real architect of Reform's gains is the man whose disastrous 'Blue Labour' strategy we were confidently told would prevent them bylinetimes.com/2026/05/08/l...

Remarkable how accepted the double standard is when it comes to attacking voters. The right can have senior leaders call progressive voters every name under the sun. If some left wing Twitch streamer so much as hints the right aren't all economically anxious saints, we get 150 op-eds about it.

I’ve been hearing so much anger and disappointment from frontline workers about the BBC investigation into fraudulent asylum claims. One of the most damning responses has come from one of the experts they interviewed, solicitor Ana Gonzalez. It’s really worth reading her response in full:

I've frequently argued for higher taxes on capital/wealth/property. But these are a complement, not a substitute, for a progressive but broad-based tax system - which is how every successful social democracy funds public services/welfare state. Politicians peddling fantasy numbers doesn't help.

This tweet is highly defamatory and Martina Navratilova should be fired from BBC Sport for it. It demonstrates an horrendous level of hatred for a trans woman (who was cleared of all wrongdoing in a recent tribunal) because she is a trans woman.

1) Academic specialists make jargon when studying [thing] 2) A few activists/posters use [jargon] when criticizing [thing] 3) Right-wing media says all Dems’ want to [caricature using jargon] 5) “To win, Dems must stop saying [jargon] all the time, normal people don’t talk that way.” 6) Repeat 1

Immigration enriches our society and benefits our economy. Changing settlement rules will have financial consequences for us all - this video explains why and how. If truth matters to you when it comes to immigration pass it on. All data quoted in this video from Migration Advisory Committee.

late to this from James Marriott but it’s one of the best pieces I’ve read this year because going beyond day to day politics/struggles people share in focus groups it captures something bigger we hear - that we’ve passed our prime & it’s all been down hill for years www.thetimes.com/article/d123...

Another one who thinks the response to a global shortage of something which makes it more expensive is to subsidise people to buy more of it. Truly British politics is blessed with genius.

People like Andrew Neil will continue to earn fortunes for their lofty pronouncements despite being absolute fools ...

This is just morally wrong and I can't believe the Labour Party would tilt the scales so badly against not just workers, but vulnerable workers. The potential for abuse is huge. Imagine you are being bullied at work or worse. Awful policy.

In Denmark - the country Britain’s Home Secretary constantly cites as an inspiration - the ruling centre left party is don sharply to its worst ever vote share, while both parties to its left and on the radical right gain.

My economic anxiety!

Today in incessant reminders of the staggering anti-democratic ravages inflicted on this country by the Roberts court. “Billionaires made 19 percent of all reported federal campaign contributions in 2024, and are reaping the rewards.” www.nytimes.com/2026/03/09/u...

The current argument of the British right is that Muslims turned out in "blocs" with "family voting" to cast their ballots for a party led by a gay Jewish man, and this shows that multiculturalism has failed, voting is "sectarian" and we are in a crisis. Hmmmmmm.

Sometimes its the details that make one feel joi de vivre... Birdsongs, flowers, this

The "Guy that didn't throw himself into a pit of spikes for a free beer" argument depends entirely on a fictional version of Guy - one that didn't throw himself into a pit of spikes for a free beer, avoided getting hit by the spikes, and followed an uninjured life thereon. That Guy never existed.