Nettlebrew

Until the 2010s, new tech seemed to be about enabling humans: ideas to celebrate. Now, with AI, synthetic biology etc, many techno-optimists are describing a dehumanised future that makes most of us pawns in someone else’s game. I think the first option is still there, but we have to make it so.

Hillary Clinton:

"The Trump administration's position towards Ukraine is disgraceful... The effort that Putin and Trump are making to profit off the misery and death of the Ukrainian people is a historic error and corrupt to the nth degree... He has betrayed the West. He has betrayed human values."

An utter tragedy. Science solved this problem, but a bunch of charlatans fucked everything up and brought it back

Erling Haaland and Mohamed Salah among Britain's biggest taxpayers on Sunday Times list Erling Haaland was Britain's highest taxed footballer last year, paying nearly £17 million to the Treasury.

Two immigrants top relevant Sunday Times list for most UK tax paid, as "patriot" multi-billionaire Ratcliffe lives as an immigrant in Monaco, to protect wealth so vast it is unspendable, while whining about immigrant UK care workers and NHS cleaners not pulling their weight.

FUCK RIGHT OFF, "SIR".

"I say! Are you Georgina?" The child in the opposite bed sat up and looked across at Anne. She had very short curly hair, almost as short as a boy's. Her face was burnt a dark-brown with the sun, and “Famous Five 01 - Five On A Treasure Island” By Enid Blyton 7 her very blue eyes looked as bright as forget-me-nots in her face. But her mouth was rather sulky, and she had a frown like her father's. "No," she said. "I'm not Georgina." "Oh!" said Anne, in surprise. "Then who are you?" "I'm George," said the girl. "I shall only answer if you call me George. I hate being a girl. I won't be. I don't like doing the things that girls do. I like doing the things that boys do. I can climb better than any boy, and swim faster too. I can sail a boat as well as any fisher-boy on this coast. You're to call me George. Then I'll speak to you. But I shan't if you don't." "Oh!" said Anne, thinking that her new cousin was most extraordinary. "All right! I don't care what I call you. George is a nice name, I think. I don't much like Georgina. Anyway, you look like a boy."

To give you an idea of how deranged the UK has become about gender stuff, here's Enid Blyton - the absolute avatar of classic English conservatism and a huge fan of racist "gollywogs" - casually describing a gender non-conforming kid in the 1940s and having their friends be totally cool with it.

There's a first time for everything, Nadhim Zahawi was telling the truth. London has indeed fallen.

🙄🇬🇧🙄🇬🇧🙄🇬🇧🙄🇬🇧
Love this! We are inundated with potholes!

#donaldtrump

You know the people of Dubai are wise & learned.
Take for example this female Dubai citizen.
She intelligently argues that all billionaires should be allowed to be ignorant, racist & fascist.
Why?
Because they er…
Um….
Erm…

Have lots of money.
That’s it
Have lots of money.
🤔

Just going to leave this here

Take Big Money Out of Our Politics British politics is awash with money from super rich donors. In 2023, two-thirds of all private donations came from just 19 people. These so-called ‘mega donors’ enjoy privileged access to political p...

A crypto investor just donated £9 million to the Reform Party. Right now, billionaires can pour unlimited money into our elections, effectively buying our democracy. Think that's wrong? Add your name to call for a cap on donations today: you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/ta...

A reminder of one of the loveliest pairs of siblings in the dictionary: ‘muscle’ and ‘mouse’. To the Roman imagination, the flexed biceps of a (typically naked) athlete resembled a rodent scuttling under the skin. ‘Musculus’, in Latin, means ‘little mouse’.

The will of the rich and powerful: Brexit and the Epstein files The Epstein files reveal the role of Brexit in a global network which stands to gain from undermining democracy itself

The Epstein files show that Brexit was never a “plucky British revolt”. In reality, Brexit was fed, and empowered, by an entire class of oligarchs and autocrats, who thrive on chaos, weak regulation and brittle institutions.

This couldn’t be clearer. Bannon’s texts to Epstein in mid July 2018 - “overthrowing May right now” and in “London with Boris” as well as his appearance on LBC with Nigel Farage are prettying damning evidence of a cross party plot with foreign backing

So glad to see George Cottrell being named in parliament yesterday. He was Farage’s head of fundraising when he convicted of an offence related to money laundering & is still close to & funding Farage. Crypto is an urgent democratic threat to the UK

Uproar as Reform policy chief threatens to defund Welsh university Martin Shipton Reform UK’s head of policy Zia Yusuf launched a culture war in Wales by threatening to withhold funding from Bangor University after its student debating society refused to host two lea...

Hello. Former Index On Censorship staffer here. To be very clear, having your request to speak at a society of which you are not a member does not count, in any sense whatsoever, as censorship. nation.cymru/news/uproar-...

Hell of a statement from Virginia Giuffre’s family to Ghislaine Maxwell: “You deserve to spend the rest of your life in a jail cell. Trapped in a cage forever, just like you trapped your victims.”

Scene is a spoof TV news item. The NEWSREADER is talking to camera from behind the desk. NEWSREADER: Now, here to discuss the smartphone ban in schools… We have with us, YouTube Shorts. [Pull back to show an anthropomorphised version of the YOUTUBE SHORTS screen, sat in the interviewee's chair across from the newsreader] NEWSREADER: Good morning. YOUTUBE SHORTS: Hi NEWSREADER: You Tube Shorts, you work in education... YOUTUBE SHORTS: Yes. I work in schools across the country teaching Epic Dance Fail, Try Not To Cringe Challenge and Al Slop. NEWSREADER: And will the proposed phone ban limit your ability to do your job? YOUTUBE SHORTS: No. I'll still be on all school laptops because YouTube is vaguely educational and Google have made me impossible to turn off. NEWSREADER: So children are being asked to do their homework on... ...the most advanced distraction machine ever created? YOUTUBE SHORTS: Well- I think a more constructive way to frame that question might be: Can IShowSpeed jump over a moving Lamborghini? [The newsreader silently looks at the screen on YOUTUBE SHORTS's front, where a YouTuber jumps over a Lamborghini. This continues for an awkward beat] NEWSREADER: Woah. NEWSREADER [returning to awareness]: What were we talking about? YOUTUBE SHORTS [pointing at the next Short which has appeared on its own front]: Look at this fat dog. [ends]

I like the govt's plan to ban smartphones and social media in schools but nobody's mentioned the glaring hole in it

The economic cost of Brexit has just been laid bare – and it’s devastating A decade on, the economic cost of Brexit has just been laid bare – and it’s devastating. Here's what the figures say.

"The economic cost of Brexit is no longer theoretical. It’s measurable, compounding – and devastating. Britain’s fastest-growing, most productive businesses before Brexit became the most damaged afterwards. Brexit punished the very companies that powered growth."
#RejoinEU 🇬🇧🇪🇺

Reform UK’s ‘Dear Neighbour’ Trick… MKII…

Goodwin just got BUSTED!!!!!!!!!!

23.45 SUPERB OWL ILX The Great Horned Bubo Virginianus takes on the Cloud Forest Screech Mega Scops Marshalli, live, in the annual competition to decide which bird of prey is the best.

Yes it's an old gag, but we have at least looked up the names of owls and, lordy, there's some beauts #SuperBowlLX #SuperBowl2026 #notjustsnowytawnyorbarn

"Dear Neighbour,
My name is Patricia Clegg. I'm a 74 year old pensioner and I'm writing to explain that my last letter wasn't a cynical piece of propaganda that blatantly breached election law..."

Palantir CEO laughs about profiting from killing Palestinians using AI.

He calls them 'Hamas' 'useful idiots' and 'mostly terrorists'.

But there is only one terrorist here, and Palantir are war criminals.

He can go to hell. A nasty, divisive, misogynistic tw@. I have no idea why BBC and other MSM are determined to push him to lead this country. All are traitors and Farage is the biggest of all. Alongside Mandelson who are both linked to the same spymasters. Lock them up!

The man who told reporters it’s time to move on from the Epstein files won’t shut up about the 2020 election.