Jack McGovan

Does anyone have any recommendations for transcription software that can do English and German? Or, alternatively, just German?

Hi Josh, sounds like an interesting opportunity! Can you open your DMs or is it best to reach out another way?

Old tweet that says when I was young I thought things wre bad because solutions were complicated and now I'm old and realize things are bad because solutions are simple but will inconvenience affluent people (or those who aspire to be) and religious fanatics.

I didn't save this tweet but somebody did and it feels worth resurfacing

X is the megaphone of 21st century fascism and authoritariansim. It has poisoned public debate. It is a tool for bullying, abuse, and assault. X needs to disappear from our discourse. When people and institutions post there, it gives X credibility. It keeps it relevant. It's time to stop.

⚡2026 is a turning point. UK #climate & environmental activists face both crisis & opportunity.

Fascism rises, the #climate agenda is under attack, & political representation is urgent.

🧵A longish thread on why we must unite behind @zackpolanski.bsky.social & the @greenparty.org.uk 💚

What’s Sower about? A newsletter inspiring action through progressive ideas.

The article was published on my newsletter, Sower, in November. I took a social media break at the end of the year so just sharing this now, but do sign up to support my work and ensure you receive articles as soon as they're live.

In the article, I referenced @oisinmcgann.bsky.social's excellent essay where he makes the case that basic income for artists is a stepping stone to a wider basic income scheme for all – I recommend checking it out as well!

oisinmcgann.com/working-for-...

That’s along the lines of how Bennett views things as well—if you don’t support people to immerse themselves in the creativity industries, the well of talented people will run dry. “Our natural resource is the Irish psyche, really,” she said. “We've always punched above our weight in terms of writers, film, and you know more increasingly we're showing our strengths as visual artists.”

One of the most salient points was that you need to support people creating art, otherwise 1) the well of talent will run dry and 2) only the already wealthy will have the means to develop an art practice and succeed.

A basic income scheme is an investment in good culture and media.

McDermott used the money from the BIA to take more risks with her writing by experimenting with novels, flash fiction, and non-fiction. Still, she highlighted that she was in the privileged position to do so, as her husband has a stable income. One critique she had of the scheme was that disabled people who took the money would lose their disability benefits. “There is a push for diverse voices in the arts, but the financial support needed to encourage that diversity has been lacking,” she said.

All of the artists I spoke to had an overwhelmingly positive impression of the scheme, but there were some critiques: disabled people on the scheme lost other benefits, people in full-time employment got slots on the scheme, and not everyone loved the lottery system which decided who got it.

A report on the scheme was published in September, with results showing that for every euro of public money invested in the scheme, there was a 1.39 euro benefit to the economy. Unsurprisingly, a modicum of financial security led to lower feelings of anxiety or depression for the participants by 13 and 11 percentage points respectively. Whether correlation or causation, the artists were more likely to complete new works and participate in exhibitions, performances, or other audience-facing activities by 10 percentage points.

For every euro spent through the scheme, there was a 1.39 euro benefit to the economy.

For most of the artists themselves, however, the main benefits were more time to focus on their art, improved mental health and alleviating imposter syndrome.

How basic income benefited Irish artists Ireland introduced a basic income scheme for artists. It had huge benefits for their art, their mental health, and the economy.

Results from the Basic Income for Artists scheme in Ireland were published in September, and they showed the scheme was a huge success across every metric.

I spoke directly with some of the recipients to get their thoughts on the scheme and how it could be improved moving forward.

Elon Musk’s “Grok” is undressing women and showing them in swastika bikinis One woman targeted is a Jewish Holocaust survivor

The fact that so many ostensibly progressive people still use X is so demotivating. If we as a collective can't even stop using a social media website that was launched two decades ago, we have zero chance of dismantling infinitely more complex power structures that have existed for millennia.

This finding of "hidden" public support for green policies strongly echoes our work on pluralistic ignorance when it comes to non-car travel: most people support non-car travel more than car travel, but at the same time they believe this is a minority view

Blow for OpenAI in Germany as court rules song lyrics used illegally A German court ruled on Tuesday that OpenAI violated copyright on nine popular songs in a lawsuit that marked another attempt to prevent the free use of artists' content online. The Munich Regional Co...

Open AI loses copyright case in Germany.

Judge Elke Schwager summarized the case saying that if you want to build something and need components, "then you purchase them and do not use the property of others."

What’s really going on with AI and jobs? Record-breaking layoff reports, Amazon's mass firings, and a slump in entry level employment. Is AI behind it all?

How is AI *really* impacting jobs?

Henley Chiu, the CTO of Revealera, a jobs data analysis firm, analyzed 180 million jobs listings in 2024 and 2025, in an effort to find out. Chiu found an:

-8% drop in all jobs postings
-~30% drop in art, photography, writing jobs
-22% drop in journalism jobs

On Queer People in Climate and Energy Any queer person who works on climate and energy issues—utility issues, especially—in a technical capacity of any kind is a marvel. A statistical miracle. On my first day working on utility policy, I ...

Climate and energy is not immune to today's discourse.

"From what I've seen firsthand, utility policy advocates working on questions of finance, governance, and operations are primarily cisgender, straight (and mostly, white) men. Women, people of color, and queer people work separately..."

Yeah, news stories on bird flu (and antimicrobial resistance etc) have a real habit of not mentioning intensive animal farming, even though we know the H5N1 strain emerged on a commercial geese farm three decades ago.

Elon Musk is boosting the British right - and this shows how Elon Musk is boosting the British right - and this shows how

Vital piece of investigative reporting from Sky. They've uncovered the X algorithm which feeds users extremist right wing material from the moment they join the site. It is a far-right radicalisation engine, by design.

news.sky.com/story/the-x-...

Capitalism Loves Competition. Nature Has Other Ideas. • The Revelator Social Darwinists use “survival of the fittest” as an excuse to privatize land or remove the social safety net. But that fails to recognize how nature really works.

When environmental educator Mona Shomali submitted this essay about the misuse of "survival of the fittest" to us at @therevelator.org, I couldn't wait to share it with our readers...

Capitalism Loves Competition. Nature Has Other Ideas. therevelator.org/social-darwi...

What if dinner was public infrastructure? A Scottish charity wants to reintroduce state-subsidised diners for all—a potentially a big ask in the current political climate.

A Scottish charity wants to reintroduce state-subsidised diners for all—a potentially a big ask in the current political climate. #universalbasicservices

www.sower.world/public-diner...

Happy to hear you found it interesting! If you're able to repost it and get some more eyeballs on it it'd be much appreciated 🙏

and big thank you to @ruxandragrrr.bsky.social as always for her edits!

Hi @georgemonbiot.bsky.social, I'm a long-time reader of your food systems work, and I've not seen you mention any of this before to the best of my knowledge. I think you might find it interesting!

Tagging some food systems people who might find this interesting @jandutkiewicz.bsky.social @rob-percival.bsky.social @mbolotnikova.bsky.social @slowfoodhq.bsky.social @foodrise.bsky.social @johngimi.bsky.social @whitneybauck.bsky.social

What’s Sower about? A newsletter inspiring action through progressive ideas.

This is the latest feature for my newsletter Sower.

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Of course, relying on the private sector for anything – unless you enjoy shit in your rivers, or an overpriced terrible rail system – isn't really a good idea either.

So what's the solution? Click through to the article to read more and find out!

The CanTeams project hosts community dining experiences at schools across England. So far, the project has served over 3000 people at over 50 events. “We're trying to turn schools into community hubs, and using activities and nutritious food to do that,” said Jonathan Harper, CEO of Future Foundations, the organisation behind CanTeams. “If you have a young person performing, singing, or doing something… [that] can help catalyse communities coming in.” Although the project primarily focuses on school children and their immediate families, there have been events involving pensioners or those in care homes. Harper told the story of one old lady who said she was scared of young people and therefore didn’t take the bus in the afternoons, who, after sitting side by side with teenagers and breaking bread with them, felt safe. In the future, he wants to create events where the wider community can come in to eat after the children leave.

Another project thinks community dining experiences in schools is a more politically-palatable solution. The CanTeams project has already ran 50 successful events across the country.

Not only does the concept use already established infrastructure, it has relied so far on philanthrophic funding.

But if public diners are so great, why did they disappear in the first place? Bryce Evans, a professor of modern world history at Liverpool Hope University who has written a book on the history of British Restaurants, told Sower in an email there were three main reasons they were shut down: the political will to keep them disappeared after the war ended; private retail trade rallied hard against state-subsidised dining and urged a return to the free market; and the central government cut funding.

British Restaurants were eventually closed down in the 1960s because of lobbying from the private sector, which raises a big sticking point: if they couldn't survive during a time of bigger public investment, what chance do they have in a world that's increasingly relying on the private sector?

More broadly, public diners could be a guiding light for a better food system. In a piece for The Conversation published late last year, Benjamin Selwyn, professor of international relations and international development at the University of Sussex, wrote: “subsidised community restaurants could serve seasonal dishes made with locally grown plant-based food, produced on farms that encourage wildlife through widespread tree cultivation, the use of cover-crops, and improvements to soil health.” Democratic input would also be important to make public diners work. Different demographics have cultural practices that should not only be reflected in what food is served, but also how it’s served. In places with large Muslim communities, for example, public diners should be accessible after sunset during Ramadan. Public diners could also act as a place of cultural exchange, where those from different backgrounds meet and explore cuisines from all over the world.

As they'd be public infrastructure, public diners could have guidelines to promote more climate-friendly diets and overhaul diets at a systemic level.

An important aspect, however, is that the diners should be democratic – those eating there should have a say in how they are run.

Public diners already have a history in the UK, where so-called British Restaurants offered places to eat during the wartime period of the 20th century. At their peak, there were 2000 situated across the UK, all of which were subsidised by the government. For comparison, there are around 1450 McDonalds in the country today. “Before we had a national health service, we had a national restaurant service,” said Chworow. An exhibition by Nourish Scotland demonstrating the history of British Restaurants, and how similar concepts exist in countries like Poland, Turkey, Mexico, and Singapore, is currently travelling around Scotland to raise public awareness. “We somehow seem to think, ‘Oh, no, the state couldn't do that’, and when you say, ‘No, actually, it has done that—and within our living memory’, it just allows people to go, ‘Oh, maybe we could do this again’,” said Chworow.

It might seem like a big ask, but state-subsidised dinners were already a thing in the UK during the wartime period of the 20th century – at their peak, there were more so-called British Restaurants than there are McDonalds today!

I grew up in the UK and had no idea of that history.