lastpositivist.bsky.social

I really think at its heart philosophy is one giant battle, taking place over many eras and nations, between people who are basically pleasant bureaucrats and people who are sexy murder poets, and it’s both super important and super boring that the pleasant bureaucrats must win.

The overwhelmingly consistent thing in every poll for the past couple of years is that the UK is basically evenly split between a Liberal Social Democratic Block and a Right Conservative Block.

What’s that you say? Liz has a new book out which even the Telegraph is saying is even more unhinged than the last one? Wonderful, I’ll post this then.

Attitudes in 2026 to free movement, to secure single market membership General public: 48-30 support (+18) Labour: 67-20 support (+47) LibDems: 65-21 support (+44) Green 64-20 support (+44) Conservatives 47-40 support (+7) (!) Reform: 39-46 opposed (-7) @britishfuture.bsky.social June 2026

I mean, the latter is pursuing a kind of Working Class that hasn't really existed (if it ever did) since 1975, so you just end up with frauds like Platner.

We need to get more Dionysian very quickly, and it's a great filter for chuds

Yeah start insinuating he has morning chai rather than coffee, say that he knocks things for 6 rather than hits a home run, allege that he is generally a clean living good boy who loves his mother and prays every Friday (pejorative).

they won't win a Leverhulme prize behaving like that!

The real tragedy of Dukakis was that Greeks weren't ethnic enough by the 1980s. Very sad.

By all accounts this is what most of the recent Reform media events have looked like. Bubble well and truly burst

the Cheesecake Factory thing is a little surreal for me because I once literally had this argument with an ex who thought it was a really nice and fancy restaurant. I felt like a little bit of a classist asshole and apologized, I was right tho, so thank you for vindicating me Obama.

Mélenchon is not exactly in the second category but he's definitely adjacent to it (in addition to being French rather than American)

while this *seems* true on the face of it as good empiricism and politics, next time there's an off-putting unprincipled white guy with a checkered past running for comptroller we leftists should probably shout down everyone pointing out the red flags until electoral loss becomes inevitable

Bernie was interesting because he seems to be the latter but is really more the former, which is why some leftists took the wrong lessons from his run

Michael Atiyah 🇪🇬: Fields Medal 1966 (also Abel Prize 2004), for K-theory. Ahmed Zewail 🇪🇬: Nobel for Chemistry 1999, for his work on femtochemistry. Omar M. Yaghi 🇯🇴: Wolf Prize 2018, Nobel for Chemistry 2025, for his work on reticular chemistry Naguib Mahfouz 🇪🇬: Nobel for literature 1988

"When the facts change I change my mind with them, pray tell what's your policy sir?" seems like a pwn by Keynes, but judging by the way many in our press talk about Brexit and Rejoining they would simply have no shame whatsoever in responding "I never update my opinion, and if you do you are evil".

Why are the people who accuse those talking about reversing Brexit of "living in the past" never asked about their own plans to rip up an international agreement that was first signed by the UK some 75 years ago?

Right. I meant that you need to be warm and personable and funny for the piety. Humourless and earnest (like Hegseth / Miller / Vance) would definitely not work for a religious person from an ethnic minority.

Most wholesome scandal ever?

It doesn’t make sense but it also doesn’t need to make sense because the important point is that Mamdani Not White Now if they were to accuse him of installing a cricket pitch. That would be an interesting direction

But how will the NYPD manage without their 11pm hoops?

generally speaking posting "mods, we're losing, send the cia to help me out please :(" is one of those things you want to keep implied rather than on your main feed

- The streets matter as much as online: yes, Janones’ groundbreaking Lula’s Army WhatsApp channel was key in securing the win, but it was the student movements that began less than 24h after the first round that showed the far-right the willingness of the people to fight for democracy. It ballooned.

Solar has overtaken nuclear. A decade ago it supplied 1% of the world's power. In 2025 it met three quarters of global demand growth. Almost nobody saw it coming. I spoke to Jocelyn Timperley at BBC Future about why. www.bbc.co.uk/future/artic...

So no one watched Sentinels eh?

One of the biggest parts of truly becoming an adult is being able to see something you find cringe and think "ah this just isn't for me" and move on. So many people are still living in their 14 year old mindset as 20+ year olds

This is just the maddest argument. These people would trap us in poverty to keep a decade old commitment, which no one ever actually made, to an electorate which no longer exists.

I know there's a lot going on but I feel it should probably be more of an above-the-fold story that members of Congress released a thoroughly documented report directly accusing the president of the United States of being a serial rapist.

Please God get rid of Netanyahu. I know the alternative isn't great but it's better than more of him with Ben Gvir and Smotrich.

I bet “teamwork makes the dream work” went so hard the first time someone said it (or maybe it flopped because the rhyme was too intense) Either way it’s midnight and I’m struck by how weird it is that “teamwork” and “group project” have such opposite connotations/ associations

Er just checked the updated org chart and I'm not seeing any upward path from me to you, shorty.

Like, Trump already has us on the brink of a for-real World War for no sane reason, just because he likes throwing his weight around and it didn’t occur to him that Iranians shoot back. The energy policy of the far right is going to destroy the lives of tens, hundreds of millions of people.

“If suburban moms become convinced of the righteousness of socialist politics, we might win. But what’s much more important to us is being self righteous online.”

I presume postdocs often dine at the Cheesecake Factory.

bluntly this is also what destroyed LBJ and led to the nixon landslide, yes vietnam also mattered and was probably #1, but the white working class was infuriated that black folks would also benefit from the great society programs