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David Merrett

@snakeydave.bsky.social

85 followers 190 following 200 posts

Social researcher, runner, climber, silly gaming man

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Economics 35%

Political science 25%

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David Merrett @snakeydave.bsky.social · Jan 12

Games completed 2025:

1. Lorelei and The Laser Eyes. Superb puzzle game with some narrative heft, improved no end by its use of survival horror aesthetics. Vivid, stylish, satisfying, I loved it.

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Reposted by David Merrett

Chris Schilling @schillingc.bsky.social · 2d

As an eternal optimist, I'm hoping that Zelda Williams' (rightly) excoriating takedown of AI registers more widely. Likening it to The Human Centipede is a really effective way to evoke disgust

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Reposted by David Merrett

Kieron Gillen @kierongillen.bsky.social · 4d

Statistically Backed Stereotypes for Each 40k Faction. Astounding. Motion for Deathwatch to be renamed to Hotwifewatch.

www.reddit.com/r/Grimdank/c...

Text tong to fit - it's a list of subreddit memberships for each of the 40k factions. Here's a sample...

r/AdeptusCustodes: gundam (19.71), airforce (19.20), daytrading (16.56), sandersforpresident (9.82), centrist (6.93). Conclusion: Ex-military guys with schizophrenic politics.

r/AdeptusMechanicus: pathfinder_rpg (14.05), adhdmeme (7.27), dankleft (6.07), theowlhouse (5.88), kerbalspaceprogram (5.39). Conclusion: Current stereotypes are pretty much correct.

r/BloodAngels: preppers (15.98), airforce (15.74), menslib (9.04), asktrp (9.01), asktrumpsupporters (8.45). Conclusion: Black Templars got nothing on these guys.

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David Merrett @snakeydave.bsky.social · 5d

My second purple (v7)! Faffed around at the end from nerves, but otherwise, it all felt fine.

Reposted by David Merrett, Nathan P. Kalmoe

trick van treat @derek.bike · 6d

and scene

a tweet by Dana Gould @danagould that says:

Thinking about Rush Limbaugh and how, now that he's dead, you never, ever hear about him. No one mentions anything he did.
Because what he did had no value.
It contributed nothing worthwhile to the culture. Nothing of lasting value.
He just made anger. Every day.
Rising, blooming & fading like a fart.
Then he died & was instantly replaced by a fleet of little replicas, farting fake fury five days a week.
Creating nothing of interest or artistic value to anyone.
Seriously, what an awful way to make a living.

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Reposted by David Merrett

Michael Hobbes @michaelhobbes.bsky.social · 8d

The media is going to learn absolutely nothing from this. The next time Democrats are in power, conservatives are just gonna rebrand "political correctness" to something new and we're gonna do it all over again.

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Reposted by Rosemary A. Joyce, David Merrett

Michael Hobbes @michaelhobbes.bsky.social · 8d

We're getting a wave of articles that are like, "gee willikers it sure seems like the people who complained about 'cancel culture' for years really like canceling people."

Yes! This was extremely obvious at the time and a lot of us pointed it out!

The Washington Post @washingtonpost.com · 8d

Some say canceling is an act of redress. Others blame it on a mob.

“People have used the word ‘cancel’ so loosely,” Ernest Owens author of “The Case for Cancel Culture,” said, “that everyone’s calling everything a cancellation.”

How cancel culture came for everyone

Few issues in recent years have united the American right as much as their professed hatred of cancel culture. That’s changing.

www.washingtonpost.com

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David Merrett @snakeydave.bsky.social · 8d

Cool

David Merrett @snakeydave.bsky.social · 8d

Incredible. I'm probably being dense but 'baking!'? Sound effect? Slang? Reference I'm missing?

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Reposted by David Merrett

Michael Hobbes @michaelhobbes.bsky.social · 9d

This piece gets at something that I've been struggling to articulate: We've seen this exact push-pull before. When Republicans were out of power in the 1990s they invented "political correctness" to pretend they were being censored. Then they went right back to censoring once they had power again.

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Reposted by David Merrett

Jonah Davidson @hangedman.bsky.social · 14d

I strongly believe in the breadth and influence of independent art, to grant us oblique angles on the world and ourselves.
But also every indie game is somewhere on this spectrum:

A triangular range chart labeled "Indie Game Vibe Check", where the three axes are "Enpoisoned", "Pumpy's Big Clumpy", and "Misty Cube". Each intersection features a game - Lunacid is the most Enpoisoned, Untitled Goose Game is the most Pumpy's Big Clumpy, and Manifold Garden is the most Misty Cube. Undertale is directly in the center, surrounded by Tunic (Pumpy), Void Stranger (Misty), and Star of Providence (Poison)

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David Merrett @snakeydave.bsky.social · 15d

Also, it's so dangerous to turn scientific claims into fodder for political debate because it encourages people to view those claims through a partisan lens.

David Merrett @snakeydave.bsky.social · 15d

I'm sorry, isn't this hugely irresponsible of LBC? Those claims were made wholly without merit; there's no reason to grant them the veneer of legitimacy by discussing them in this fashion, let alone clipping it like this. This is, functionally, medical misinformation.

LBC @lbc.co.uk · 16d

"We were told thalidomide was a safe drug and it wasn't..."

Nigel Farage says he has 'no idea' if Donald Trump is right about paracetamol being linked to autism.

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Reposted by Will Jennings, Steve Peers, Andrew Scott , and 9 more Will Jennings, Steve Peers, Andrew Scott, Tim Bale, Anand Menon, Jonathan Hopkin, David Merrett, Holger Hestermeyer, Steven Fielding, Ian Loader, James Connelly, Martyn Plummer

LBC @lbc.co.uk · 16d

"We were told thalidomide was a safe drug and it wasn't..."

Nigel Farage says he has 'no idea' if Donald Trump is right about paracetamol being linked to autism.

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Reposted by David Merrett, Tom Griffin, Christina Pagel

James Ball @jamesrball.com · 17d

I hear endlessly (including right now on the radio) that “the new consensus” is that Covid was “almost certainly” caused by a lab leak.

This might be a political “consensus”, led by the same White House that says tylenol caused autism. But it’s not the scientific one.

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Reposted by Jonathan Portes, Helene Rey, John Drury , and 2 more Jonathan Portes, Helene Rey, John Drury, Elizabeth Stokoe, David Merrett

Stephan Geering @stephangeering.bsky.social · 19d

Fantastic piece. This graph particularly caught my eye. What is going on here?

FT graph with data on most Important issues facing the country vs facing you personally showing a huge difference for immigration.

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Reposted by David Merrett

Michael Hobbes @michaelhobbes.bsky.social · 20d

Lia Thomas met the NCAA requirements for transition when she started competing as a woman. Did the right accept those standards? Or, if they disagreed, argue that they could be more stringent?

No. They said she was a man who was unfairly competing and pretended that there were no standards at all.

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Reposted by David Merrett, Farah Mendlesohn, Nathan P. Kalmoe

Michael Hobbes @michaelhobbes.bsky.social · 20d

As usual with this issue, Harris is calling for a compromise that already exists. Every sporting body has standards for how long athletes must be on hormones before they can compete as women.

The problem isn’t that we’re ignoring ‘reasonable concerns,’ the problem is that republicans are lying.

I agree with the concerns expressed by
parents and players that we have to take into account biological factors such as muscle mass and unfair student athletic advantage when we determine who plays on which teams, especially in contact sports,, Harris writes. "With goodwill and common sense, I believe we can come up with ways to do this, without vilifying and demonizing children."

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David Merrett @snakeydave.bsky.social · 21d

I use that phrase far too much, lol.

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Reposted by Will Jennings, Steve Peers, Andrew Scott , and 3 more Will Jennings, Steve Peers, Andrew Scott, Simon Wren‐Lewis, David Merrett, Ian Bruff

Marie Le Conte @youngvulgarian.marieleconte.com · 22d

think if you're broadly a centrist and were suuuuuper concerned about attacks on free speech from the left and so you decided to give the right a hearing then you need to realise you were taken for QUITE the ride (and don't really have anyone to blame but yourself)

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Reposted by Anna O. Law, Joe R. Feagin, Mark D. White , and 5 more Anna O. Law, Joe R. Feagin, Mark D. White, Amir Attaran, David Merrett, Christian Fisch, Simon Lester, David R. Shumway

Ezra Klein @ezrakleinbot.bsky.social · 22d

"All I can say for me in the work I do is that I want to create a space that takes our disagreements seriously, that takes the stakes of them seriously, the consequences for people seriously, but does so without deepening our divisions irreparably. We are going to have to live here with each other"

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Reposted by Steve Peers, David Merrett

Ezra Klein @ezrakleinbot.bsky.social · 22d

"I had friends say to me, look, we can oppose political violence without whitewashing this guy. I spent some time thinking about that over the weekend...and my reaction honestly is that it is too little to just say we oppose political violence."

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Reposted by Steve Peers, David Merrett, Margot C. Finn , and 1 more Steve Peers, David Merrett, Margot C. Finn, Colm O’Cinneíde

Colin Murray @colinmurray.bsky.social · 25d

After the rivers of blood speech, precisely no one in the major parties patted themselves on the back and declared free speech to be alive and well. They declared Powell a pariah, and he was only able to re-emerge in public life as the incongruous unionist MP for South Down.

The Guardian @theguardian.com · 25d

Scale of ‘Unite the Kingdom’ march shows free speech ‘alive and well’ in UK, says minister – UK politics live

Peter Kyle said he was not ‘disturbed’ by huge Tommy Robinson-organised far-right protest but condemns violence against the police

www.theguardian.com

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Reposted by David Merrett, David R. Miller

Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 27d

Do any of the “Charlie Kirk did politics the right way” crowd have the courage to directly defend lying about election results, bussing people to Jan. 6, and advocating pardons of convicted seditionists? Does US politics need more lying, coup attempts and violence?

Or do they always keep it vague?

Self-Described "Deal Guy" @danancona.bsky.social · 27d

Ezra Klein and @theargumentmag.bsky.social people are in the same very lucrative business that Charlie Kirk was in: serving increasingly elaborate comforting narratives to people and groups in power. Status threat shapes everything in our political culture.

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Reposted by David Merrett

Patrick Dunleavy @patrickdunleavy.bsky.social · 27d

James Chapman
“Reform featuring in a quarter of all BBC News at Ten bulletins - far more than the Lib Dems, who have 18 times as many MPs, and far too often policy is unscrutinised, according to an authoritative new study. Something’s gone badly wrong at the BBC” www.theguardian.com/media/2025/s...

BBC under fresh pressure over extent of Reform UK coverage

Nigel Farage’s party featured in considerably more News at Ten bulletins than Lib Dems over six months, study finds

www.theguardian.com

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David Merrett @snakeydave.bsky.social · 27d

I grabbed it from a big Tesco before going to a friend's, thinking: "cool, Ghibli, we liked spirited away, something to watch tonight." Cut to us around midnight, lips quivering during the credits.

Reposted by David Merrett

Zoë “Baddie Proctor” Quinn @unburntwitch.com · 27d

There’s a lot of garden variety white supremacists out there, not every one of them funnels money to hate groups and pays Kyle rittenhouse a speaker’s fee or gets caught coordinating with the GOP to give them college students’ personal info or starts “professor watchlists” or

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Reposted by Shannon Vallor, Brendan Nyhan, Martin Paul Eve , and 3 more Shannon Vallor, Brendan Nyhan, Martin Paul Eve, David Merrett, Julia Lynch, James Goodwin

ryan cooper @ryanlcooper.com · 27d

TIL that for some people with irreparably damaged corneas, you can pull one of their teeth, drill a hole in it, install an artificial lens, sew it into their cheek (so tissue attaches), then pull it out and stick it in their damaged eye, and ... it works fine!?! www.nbcboston.com/news/health/...

Man, 34, is no longer blind after tooth is implanted in eye in 'crazy' surgery

Tooth-in-eye surgery sounds like science fiction, but it can help people with severely damaged corneas see again. A patient and his doctors describe what it's like.

www.nbcboston.com

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David Merrett @snakeydave.bsky.social · 27d

Yuck, fuck this.

View from the passenger seat of a car: England flags tied to lamp posts.

Reposted by David Merrett, Aurélien Mondon

Michael Hobbes @michaelhobbes.bsky.social · 28d

I don't like doing this. It feels fucked up to constantly point out the negative dimensions of someone who just died in a horrific, worrying way. But I would like the media to tell basic truths about this person and his impact on public life rather than resorting to euphemism and outright lies!

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Reposted by Shawn Cole, David Merrett, David R. Miller

Judah Grunstein @judah-grunstein.bsky.social · 28d

One thing the media's reticence to label Kirk an extremist has made jarringly clear is how scared they are of the people in power now who share his extremist beliefs.

In the space of nine months, they have internalized a fear of condemning racism, misogyny, homophobia and antisemiticism.

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