The Belligerent Optimist

Hi folks. I used to do refugee support. Then I mapped social geometry and trust networks in revolutions for 5 years, was a diplomat for a bit, built a research transparency tool. Now I lead projects in democratic sustainability, disinfo response for local gov & citizen space policy. #Introduction

It's easy to be wrong when you're rich. And a lot of the very rich have been very wrong in their read of nature. But the rest of us shouldn't suffer for their Malthusian mistake. thebelligerentoptimist.civian.online#article/567a...

It's the idea that if someone is wild enough, you don't mess with them. In the US, that seems to be the government. But it needs to be how governments see their people. I like that for/about the French. We could all use a little more of that energy.

We've just deployed the latest version of our citizens' space policy platform. And it would be SO cool if folks could come and give it a go. Share your visions for the future and your priorities for the present + see how your vision lines up with others around the world. engage.celestialcommons.org

Whether you think space is important or not, what's happening will affect all of us. Come and join in our citizens' policy initiaitve!

We've just deployed the latest version of our citizens' space policy platform. And it would be SO cool if folks could come and give it a go. Share your visions for the future and your priorities for the present + see how your vision lines up with others around the world. engage.celestialcommons.org

Tens of thousands of Iranians being slaughtered. Continued suffering for Gaza. Yet the world is fixated on America. This is not me diminishing anything. ICE is awful. But we need to get radically better at processing more if we want to actually mount a serious challenge to the avalanche of evil.

With everyone saying "I didn't have xyz on my bingo card"... I decided to make one. I present - my 2026 bingo card.

I wish the Total Perspective Vortex was a real thing.

Gotta wonder if this whole thing would just evaporate if someone showed trump a globe instead of a Mercator projection.

Just think where we might be if everyone were just a tad less racist and a smidge less greedy.

This song is etched into my memory from childhood. It’s always been relevant. And it sadly will continue to be for some time yet.

The internet sucks. Time for a reboot. May I suggest…

All the coolest people were in Cairo

Hope is punk now. And being the eternal belligerent optimist I am, I guess that makes me cool. It took a while, but you were right all along Mum.

Age turns music from a parade of dreams to a procession of memories.

This (what the emperor said), but unironically. I’m sick of folks buying into the images authoritarians have painted on the inside of our eyelids. Democracy is the engine of human freedom and one of the best damn ideas we’ve ever come up with. It just needs fixing.

So here’s my pitch. A late night show, with all the trimmings, but they just pull randoms off the street and introduce/treat them like they’re ‘important’ celebrities. We got a great show for you tonight. Josh is here! He waited tables for 3 years and now he’s starting an animal shelter!

The Great War for Peace continues.

Just read that @nature.com is adopting transparent peer review across the board. www.nature.com/articles/d41... You folks should really look at using Stone - the free tool built explicitly for that purpose. Produces embedable records of review. www.writeinstone.com

Happy Captain Picard Day!

Mass protests > Military parades

Ok cool. Now take a page from the Arab Spring and do the same thing every week. Every. Week.

“…from a kingdom of gold, to one of rust and iron…” - Cassius Dio

League of Nations ❌ United Nations ❌ ________________ ❔ United Federation of Planets ✅

After gen Alpha and Beta get the ball rolling, gen Stable Release will bring it home and save us all.

Good news everyone! Depressed about the erosion of civil rights, the collapse of democratic institutions, the rise of authoritarianism and the fecklessness of liberal society in the face of unspeakable human suffering? Apparently the cure is cardio. Convenient.

I’ve been saying from the beginning that the one silver lining to this shit show was going to be watching the Elon and Trump relationship implode. It was always inevitable and it’s going to be glorious watching them try and leverage their largely overlapping cults against each other.

Brb. Running a highly uncoordinated psyop on myself to do better.

I know this might come across a little snide. That's not my intention. I just want to say that there are literally billions of people who deserve your sympathy. Most likely more than an ex president. Perhaps consider directing some of your outpourings their way.

When the 20th and 21st century get a proper retrospective one day, Gaza will be remembered as the quintessence of our cobweb of failure. A terminally incomplete liberal project that cultivates fecklessness, political aneurysm and systemic injustice. Not just allowing evil but formalising it.

The problem with our public intellectuals isn’t that they’re never right, it’s that they don’t publicly admit when they’re wrong. By ignoring or paving over the countless times and ways in which those voices given the most airtime have terrible takes, we fuel a culture of unaccountable error.

A few weeks ago, I posted a few lessons I'd learned from experiences alongside democratic movements and under authoritarianism. I've since expanded on it, and hope it can offer those of you experiencing, processing and facing down threats to democracy a reason (or two) not to lose hope altogether.

“I think this is gonna be more like the renaissance than the Industrial Revolution” - Sam Altman

Think globally. Buy locally. Act transdimensionally.

Tariffs xkcd.com/3073

Gee I wonder which economy will be able to pivot harder and faster to manufacture things locally. The country that has spent the last few decades building its industrial base or the country that has spent the last few decades dismantling it?

I’m afraid if you want the rest of the world to buy more of your shit you have to do one of two things. A) Have standards that make it not shit, which means regulation. B) Undercut prices, which means paying your workers next to nothing. Bonus option: AI automation and put everyone out of work.

The Netanyahu government has killed 50,000 people in Gaza & wounded 112,000. Two weeks ago, they broke the ceasefire and have since killed 322 children & wounded 600. The US must end its complicity. Tomorrow, I will force votes to block $8.8 billion in arm sales to Netanyahu.

According to one NZ economist the results of the Trump Tariffs is a big net negative for Americans and pretty decent positive boost for New Zealand. Thanks for the help Trump. #nzpol #nz #aotearoa www.rnz.co.nz/news/on-the-...

What's the bet they just found a list of territories (not countries), slapped it in G-Sheets and just skipped merrily down the right column tapping in numbers that 'felt' right.