JD Carpentieri

So joyous

Not sure I buy Pinker’s theory (altho who knows?) but this from Elledge is vg. Too much of social media = purportedly intelligent people gleefully engaging in wilfully disingenuous readings of posts, seemingly for the joy of piling on

A classic case of irresponsible both-sidesism from the NYT. The story is that Trump and MAGA propagandists are lying about Portland to incite a conflict, not that there are different views of the matter.

Forget EVs. Cycling is revolutionising transport Pedal power is booming, spinning up a new culture war

By me this week - the happiest thing I've got to report of late, with a glorious trip over the summer to Montreal

"Forget EVs. Cycling is revolutionising transport."

www.economist.com/internationa...

Not really an overstatement to say that the test of a free society is whether or not comedians can make fun of the country's leader on TV without repurcussions.

JFC

JFC

Yes I know. If someone finished uni in 2008 they've never experienced a genuinely good labour market

It's not a model to be followed, but when my middle-aged friends say that don't see how any young person would choose the US over the UK, they're doing so from the privileged position of having well-paid jobs, decent housing and other "basics" that seem unattainable to many 20-something Brits

Britain’s graduates are being short-changed while America’s are rich University-level skills are in much higher and more lucrative demand in the US than the UK

Re current young people, I found this by @jburnmurdoch.ft.com illuminating www.ft.com/content/570d...

As the parent of a young adult dual US-UK citizen, this tension is very apparent to me. UK in theory has a better quality of life, but if my child can't get a decent job or afford to live on her own here, the US and its richer economy will look attractive, despite the politics

Legit question on your part, but what could they actually wear while redlining it in 30+ degree heat? A collarbone protector? A pelvic guard? (Maybe in the future there will be lightweight highly breathable padding but we're not in that future yet)

Pakistani Brits significantly outperform the average in school performance and are much more likely to go to university. So yes just racism from someone else whose mind has been destroyed by twitter.

Excellent reflections here about pile-ons: “The crucial thing to realise is that pile-ons are not an exchange of ideas. It is a process in which people try to establish their moral status in relation to yours, or rather the monstrous version of you they have invented”

Really impressed by how much better my students are at writing nowadays. I must be doing some amazing teaching

One thing I would like more people, and I mostly mean my fellow men, to understand is that no matter how smart you are, other people are also smart and some of them have tried to work on the same problems you’re working on. If a simple solution hasn’t been found yet, there probably isn’t one.

this is not true. many, many people are good thinkers without being good writers. people who *are* good writers tend to vastly overestimate what a component of intelligence it is. but I have edited many intelligent and thoughtful people who were at best average-to-mediocre writers ...

On holiday, I notice that there are wind turbines on the shore of Lake Garda, which very much makes me think that residents with a view of some incredibly mid Cotswold or other can put a sock in it.

this really does feel like an existential problem for democracies across the world actually - how do you tell people "no actually you do just have to trust us on basically most things, please stop googling stuff and thinking you know better than us, you dingbats" and get them to actually listen?

Yeh the irony of the overarching exchange is that W was himself doing 2 things that ensuckify social media: 1 misrepresenting others’ arguments and 2 responding more aggressively than he’d presumably do in a face to face discussion

Fair enough, but I think he’s mischaracterising the majority of the replies to his posts. The comments I saw mostly weren’t “I don’t cook so no one needs a kitchen“, they were more measured

I agree with your general position but if you read the quoted dude’s posts he’s misrepresenting/caricaturing the arguments being made against him. His own argument is a very strident & I think incorrect one that it should be illegal to provide ANY housing units without their own individual kitchens

Hey bluesky last week a waitress looked at my daughter, looked at me, asked if I was her grandfather. so I guess I’m autoverified right

So sad for Anisimova but man, Iga is playing I Would Trust Her To Perform Open-Heart Surgery-level tennis

Can I get a "what what”!?

What voters think nativism will mean: stop giving benefits to others, so you can focus resources on citizens

What it actually means in practice: stop giving citizens benefits, so you can focus resources on punishing others

Really is how it feels

I love these threads, possibly the best thing on social media

Bonding with the teenager over the insane plotlines of midsomer murders, it's the best

I used to be an anti-TV snob, but now one of my top parenting tips is to eat dinner as a family while watching trash telly