Edward Barrow

@ejoftheweb.bsky.social

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A Londoner living in France: woke liberal socialist, empiricist. Likes food, dancing, gardening, interested in politics, economics, environment. Likely to block denialists of any stripe.
Signal: ejoftheweb.57

Posts Replies Media

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Edward Barrow

I saw this because @allochthonous.bsky.social shared it, and clicked on it because I thought, well, I could do with a bit of good news. But it kicks off in Boone County Family Restaurant, Poplar Grove, IL, literally 5mins from where my husband grew up. 😱😂

Wow: “If you grow an acre of corn, it will produce 900 gallons of ethanol, which will get you about 25,000 miles for a Ford F-150...which is, not bad I guess. But let’s say we put solar on that same acre. It will produce enough electricity every year to drive my Lightning 550,000 miles.”

Forty Acres and a Sense of Hopesubstack.com Sunshine on a Cloudy Week

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Edward Barrow

Reply to

drow zelensky

I mean, also, look, I accept I am more pro-capitalism than 99.9 per cent of this website, but I am once again begging that people at least not romanticise pre-modern society, a nightmare that basically every thinker, capitalist and communist alike, wanted to escape.

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Edward Barrow

Reply to

Richard K

Worth going back to Keynes' dictum that "anything we can do, we can afford" and thinking hard about what each of those words means.

Just crossed the border by TGV into Spain for a w/e in Barça. Sunday evening will be interesting.

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Edward Barrow

Cold fact.

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Edward Barrow

This is fair. That said, I want EVERYONE to resist the urge to use computational metaphors for the brain and the mind. Computational metaphors are how we get AI bros claiming their generative algorithms are "creative" or "think." They're a short slide away from mechanistic models of the body.

This is true for all diseases. We barely know how the body works. It is a moist walking computer which is so complex we don’t understand how the chemicals turn into thoughts.

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Edward Barrow

Academia's original sin is forcing the most knowledgeable, talented, and passionate scientists, educators, and scholars to move every 1 to 4 years chasing postdocs. The kinds of community level changes we need to fight climate change need people who can commit to those communities.

I'll say it again. It's not the 8.4% of the electorate who voted fash we should be worried about, it's the 40% who didn't vote.

Tice and Farage are just a pair of over-promoted golf club grifters. Their playbook is polished populism but they are essentially clueless.

Starmer's Bank-of-England moment should be the Ministerial Code - creation of an independent regulator of ethics and standards in government where the final arbiter isn't like the actual PM.

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Edward Barrow

Reply to

Matt Thrower

Quite. People are freaking out about four Ref MPs. I’m thinking the party is massively under-represented and that in itself presents dangers. (Similarly, Labour has twice as many MPs as it should have.)

Big picture polling fail no wipeout

Have Labour been very savvy or very stupid in letting Farage win?

I fucking love Baroness Warsi

Labour should remember the 40% who didn't vote. Engaging them is the secret weapon to defeating Reform. Because if Labour don't Reform did.

Galloway is such a vain popinjay

oh fuck off kinnock going on about 20mph

Estate agents should not be allowed to operate from retail premises.

Drove from 🇫🇷 to Brixton y'day. All through S. London, no evidence of an election. Not a single poster for any party. Turnout, or lack of it, could be the joker in the pack. I don't think it'll be 1992 all over again, but....

@samfr.bsky.social Your seat-by-seat predictions are brilliant, absolutely epic work. Cheeky question - do you have them anywhere as a spreadsheet to be used as a bingo-card tomorrow night for us weirdos?

Furthest I've been: N. Nordkapp, Norway E. Ha Long, Vietnam S. Souillac, Mauritius W. Chicago, USA

Furthest I've been N: Orkney Islands, Scotland E: Dubrovnik, Croatia S: Miami, FL W: San Francisco, CA

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Edward Barrow

One of the things that saddens me about the normalising of the far right is that parties of “the sorta left” have moved to accommodate bigots as they believe “the masses” are far shittier than they actually are

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Edward Barrow

Why do we celebrate entrepreneurs for chasing passive income but condemn the idea of universal basic passive income as making people lazy? Both strategies aim for financial security without daily work. Let's normalize a financial floor for everyone, not just the investment-savvy with enough capital.

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Edward Barrow

The real activism starts on Friday. The Tories will never change but a Labour govt - individual MPs - can feel the pressure. Lots of newcomers in the next Parliament. Turn up the volume and write more letters. Remind them how they’re there at every opportunity, scrutinise your MP’s voting.

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Edward Barrow

Whether the far right talks and dresses like Russell Brand or like Nigel Farage, it leads in only one direction: The persecution of minorities, scapegoating as a substitute for policy and the triumph of capital over humanity.

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Edward Barrow

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Edward Barrow

JK Rowling, Terf author famous for writing about underage children, thinks LOLITA is a "Tragic love story" Not only is she a hateful bitch, she's a STUPID, hateful bitch.

Oh god another half an hour of this

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Edward Barrow

I support everyone’s right to vote as seems best to them. Having said that if you have the choice of a moderate Left government (vs a fascist Right) & you choose not to vote for them because you’re so angry with them for not being further to the Left… I reserve my right to find that reasoning silly

I am British and excited about our upcoming moderate Left government. There are things I disagree with them on! That’s OK, I can give my all to influencing them and they might actually pay attention, unlike a right wing government which definitely won’t.

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Edward Barrow

and even if someone thinks "well I don't like/look at porn so why should it be a priority for me?" it's important to remember that when christofascists say "porn" they also mean age-appropriate comprehensive sex education, media with queer/trans people in it, and picture books about gay penguins.

I know smut may seem like a frivolous thing to be upset about, but crushing it is part of fascism. Controlling all forms of sexual expression is fascism. Only allowing certain kinds is fascism. Smut peddlers are always canaries in the coal mines.