Pete

‘A Recipe for Idiocracy’ What happens when even college students can’t do math anymore?

So, maybe not the phones?
www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2025/1...

It doesn’t need to be either/or. Ive had a Kindle since 2011 but still read paperbacks too.

In other news look at councils projected cumulative deficit just on special needs costs over the next few years. Yikes.

A COHORT THEORY OF DRUG-DEATH EPIDEMICS - How supply shocks create them and generational turnover ends them ‘There’s a hole in Daddy’s arm where all the money goes, Jesus Christ died for nothing, I suppose’

Ive written about drug-death epidemics on my new Substack. How they begin and how they end.

open.substack.com/pub/postlibe...

The worst you can accuse Panorama of doing is making a misleading edit – and I’d dispute that! – to make *a point that was true*.

The programme aired without anyone seeing any issues with the edit. It was on iPlayer for a year without complaints. Donald Trump *did* incite Jan 6th.

I suspect being sued for a billion dollars by Donald Trump, who is about as popular as cholera in Britain, for saying something true about what Trump did (albeit with a bad edit) will probably do the BBC's public trust and approval ratings quite a lot of good in the end.

A COHORT THEORY OF DRUG-DEATH EPIDEMICS - How supply shocks create them and generational turnover ends them How supply shocks create them and generational turnover ends them

New essay.

I use the 18th century gin craze as a template to trace the trajectory of modern-day drug-death epidemics and to discern how the American opioid crises and the Scottish drug-death problems are likely to peter out eventually via generational turnover.

open.substack.com/pub/postlibe...

A COHORT THEORY OF DRUG-DEATH EPIDEMICS - How supply shocks create them and generational turnover ends them ‘There’s a hole in Daddy’s arm where all the money goes, Jesus Christ died for nothing, I suppose’

Ive written about drug-death epidemics on my new Substack. How they begin and how they end.

open.substack.com/pub/postlibe...

Attention on social media depends more on how you express yourself than on who you are - Nature Human Behaviour This study shows that how you express yourself is more influential than who you are in attracting attention on social media. Attention is easier to acquire than to sustain.

Goffman in the digital age
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

The private sector is supposed to be better value for money because it has a profit incentive. But if not regulated properly - and often it's impossible to regulate properly - the profit incentive makes it less efficient to the state.

Also highlights a point I spend a lot of time on in my book - the government is woefully bad at managing private contractors who endlessly rip us off. This is not more efficient.

Cowper’s Cut 398: Only really bad ideas can save us now My variations on the theme of Labour’s clue-deficit on health policy and politics are, alas, with us yet again this week. Sorry, innit. I’ll stop writing about it as soon as it stops being true. In ...

Unpaywalled for the next couple of hours: my latest column, which looks at why Labour’s health policy thinking is so remarkably bad. www.healthpolicyinsight.com/cowpers-cut-...

Smartphone use in a large US adult population: Temporal associations between objective measures of usage and mental well-being www.pnas.org/doi/full/10....

We mustn't forget the capacity of football to bridge divides in Israel. There are many sports-based peace initiatives in Israel eg Football for Peace. Hapoel Tel Aviv has had Israeli Arab players throughout its history & has a large Israeli Arab fanbase
This doesn't deny racism in Israeli football

Good result for Yorkshire in the Turkish League

67% of the goals Arsenal have scored in the Premier League this season have come from set plays - the highest proportion in the division.

Fundamental features of social environments determine rate of social affiliation www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Smartphone use in a large US adult population: Temporal associations between objective measures of usage and mental well-being | PNAS Smartphones are essential tools in daily life yet concerns persist about their potential effects on mental health and well-being. Research on these...

More null results in relationship between smartphone usage and mood (US adults)
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Next time somebody asks me what Bluesky is like, I'll send them this

he's going to do another moronic speech isn't he

Way past its prime: how did Amazon get so rubbish? Sick of scrolling through junk results, AI-generated ads and links to lookalike products? The author and activist behind the term ‘enshittification’ explains what’s gone wrong with the internet – and ...

This is so good from Cory Doctorow on all the tricks Amazon uses to get both consumers to pay more, and how businesses on the platform end up paying it 45-51 cents on every dollar.

Plus he rightly calls for regulatory change, not just individual consumer action
www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

Nottingham Forest's first home game in Europe since 1996 ends in defeat.

It means after six games in charge, Ange Postecoglou is still looking for his first win since replacing Nuno Espirito Santo.

Hollow words when almost every weekend in London protestors shout 'globalise the intifada' and 'Khaybar, Khaybar ya yahud' and nothing is done by your police to address antisemitism and extremism.

Americans increasingly see legal sports betting as a bad thing for society and sports Today, 43% of U.S. adults say the fact that sports betting is now legal in much of the country is a bad thing for society, up from 34% in 2022.

21% of men under 30 say they've placed an online sports bet in the past year, up from 9% in 2022.

16% of women under 30 have done it too, up from 6%.

In @theguardian.com - drop in support for digital ID since summer & govt announcement. From 54-18 support to 31-45 opposed, a real shift: suggests govt didnt get comms on use right, opponents did; but also risk govt unpopularity means they have reverse Midas right now
theguardian.com/politics/2025/…

Declan Rice has scored four goals in his last four Champions League games at the Emirates Stadium.

#ARSOLY

Comparison of points versus last season's results in corresponding fixtures.

+5 Tottenham
+4 Liverpool
+4 Man City
+2 Chelsea
-1 Arsenal
-2 Newcastle
-4 Man Utd
-10 Aston Villa

Arsenal (3.28) and Newcastle (2.55) have the two lowest Expected Goals Against tallies in the Premier League this season.

Next weekend is going to be a fun watch.

#NEWARS

Newcastle have failed to score in five of their last seven Premier League games.

#NEWARS