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silverscribed.bsky.social
Christopher Silver
@silverscribed.bsky.social
320 followers 460 following 140 posts
Recovering freelance journalist/embattled early career academic: researching journalism, culture and place. 🏳️‍🌈🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿✊ https://www.christopher-silver.com/
www.christopher-silver.com
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silverscribed.bsky.social
Christopher Silver @silverscribed.bsky.social · Aug 11
Lots of debate recently on the state of Scottish cultural life - with plenty of omissions. For me it all comes back to the bigger (older) challenge of accommodating an avant-garde in a small country. Some provocative lessons from IHF here:
www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/culture/art/...
Ian Hamilton Finlay’s revolutionary instincts
What the centenary of Scotland’s avant-gardener reveals about the crisis in our cultural life
www.prospectmagazine.co.uk
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petergeoghegan.bsky.social
Peter Geoghegan @petergeoghegan.bsky.social · 1h
This is a crucial point

And why the ‘stay on X/Twitter so you don’t cede the public square’ is such a nonsense argument

It isn’t Hyde Park, it’s a billionaire controlled algorithm *designed* to spread far right ideologies
jameschalmers.bsky.social James Chalmers @jameschalmers.bsky.social · 9h
A lot that could be said about this but if you look on Twitter it’s noticeable that the replies and quote tweets are *overwhelmingly* telling him he shouldn’t have apologised and even attacking him for doing so. That’s the feedback loop certain users are plugged into now, and it has consequences.
Calgie @christiancalgie · 30m I wish to apologise to Zarah Sultana MP for my inappropriate response to a message on X. It was wrong of me to do so and I am sorry. Taking a break from X to prioritise my mental health.
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big-iron.bsky.social
Big Iron @big-iron.bsky.social · 1d
The cybertruck is a massive men's rights win. Finally a car that she won't take in the divorce.
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silverscribed.bsky.social
Christopher Silver @silverscribed.bsky.social · 10h
Actual practice becomes secondary to the ability to demonstrate, measure or perform someone else’s idea of what that practice ought to be. Institutions are moulded in the image of those at the top - so swathes of your working life is given over to performing the image of a role you will never occupy
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silverscribed.bsky.social
Christopher Silver @silverscribed.bsky.social · 10h
I think this is a general consequence of two decades of precarity. If you’re not hyper-vigilant and essentially willing to reapply at any point - or undergo a constant process of micro-justification of the costs associated with your job - you’re toast.
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silverscribed.bsky.social
Christopher Silver @silverscribed.bsky.social · 10h
I think it’s important for those of us who have “arrived” at a point of relatively stable employment in the knowledge economy to remind everyone who seeks to do so that the actual experience involves a constant low level defence of that employment.
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will-davies.bsky.social
Will Davies @will-davies.bsky.social · 1d
This is one of the most lucid discussions of Britain’s current conjuncture (and of liberalism’s more generally) that I’ve heard
lrb.co.uk London Review of Books @lrb.co.uk · 1d
‘Whether they're most concerned about restoring inequality of men over women, of global cultures, of races or religions, or of economic orders and hierarchies, there's a push back against that principle of equality.’

Alan Finlayson on the online right, on the pod: podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/t...
On Politics: The Online Right (and Left)
Podcast Episode · The LRB Podcast · 15/10/2025 · 1h 15m
podcasts.apple.com
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gaudipern.bsky.social
Bo Thompson @gaudipern.bsky.social · 4d
The use of AI to marionette a woman whose tortured existence was spent trying to carve her own life and identity out of the space men forced her into is both damningly macabre and a surprisingly perfect encapsulation of the problems with this ghoulish use of technology.
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silverscribed.bsky.social
Christopher Silver @silverscribed.bsky.social · 5d
Imagine attaining the summit of global statecraft only to find out that you're tasked with participating in a post Apprentice finale green room love-in broadcast live to billions. Imagine having to stand there knowing that the slightest murmur of truth or solemnity could tank your nation's economy.
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agrayarchive.bsky.social
The Alasdair Gray Archive @agrayarchive.bsky.social · 6d
🎓 PhD Researchers! Apply for a 3-month paid internship with @sgsah.bsky.social exploring the Alasdair Gray archive. Creative, flexible, self-directed. Deadline: 31 Oct 2025. Open to SGSAH PhDs. www.sgsah.ac.uk/e_t/i_ar/202...
The Alasdair Gray Archive
Archival Immersion: A Self-Directed Project at The Alasdair Gray Archive
www.sgsah.ac.uk
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raxkingisdead.bsky.social
rax ‘levon honkers’ king @raxkingisdead.bsky.social · 8d
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When Klein scolds that "we have to live here with each other" he is making a statement about who it is he is getting ready to live with and who he is getting ready to live without, and most gallingly he is ignoring the fact that when it comes to supremacists all of us have been living with them already all along. Nobody is suggesting mass deportation of white supremacists, or the dissolution of straight marriages, or stripping away health care for conservatives. The troops and the cops weren't ever sent down primarily white streets, masked kidnappers aren't terrorizing white churches or corporate courtrooms. These supremacist hatemongers are being criticized, yes, and opposed, yes, and yes the culture of violence they have created sometimes ricochets back on them, but we are living in the country they demanded on having. We are all now experiencing the Republican proposition for humanity. Many of us are demanding they stop pursuing this proposition, and Republicans and other supremacist hatemongers insist this demand represents violence against them. Klein, by drawing the lines where he draws them, is agreeing with Republicans about this.
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tedmccormick.bsky.social
Ted McCormick @tedmccormick.bsky.social · 11d
Much good stuff in here but this is the heart of it
This is the grain of sand at the center of the pearl of my ire, because "we are going to have to live here with each other" is the exact premise that Republicans do not agree with any of us about, and while Klein in his remarks pays lip service to some of the recent proofs of this clear fact, his analysis of what to do about it he excises this reality entirely. In his mind, he and Kirk were just two guys, both trying to change the country for what they thought was good. It's a bond. Never mind that what Kirk thought was good was the American military in the streets of Chicago, and mass kidnapping in service of a white ethnostate, and the end of bodily autonomy for women and queer people, and so forth. In the Klein world, moral clarity about abuse is polarizing, and polarization, not abuse, is the problem to solve.
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silverscribed.bsky.social
Christopher Silver @silverscribed.bsky.social · 12d
I don’t think it applies to local government. You need a recognised sub state office to be able to leverage opposition to central government - First Ministers, Mayors, Governors can take on a bigger representative role in a way that a council leader can’t.
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roberthutton.co.uk
Robert Hutton @roberthutton.co.uk · 14d
"Our credible plan is also an acrostic."

(This is, genuinely, the actual Conservative press release.)
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internethippo.bsky.social
The Ass is the father of the legs @internethippo.bsky.social · 15d
"We're going to create superintelligence" How about making outlook search work first. How about that
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futureeconscot.bsky.social
Future Economy Scotland @futureeconscot.bsky.social · 14d
🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 Who owns Scotland's offshore wind assets?

Our new interactive map with @cmmonwealth.bsky.social lets you explore who really owns ScotWind projects – and who stands to benefit

Highlights in 🧵
Explore the map 👉 www.futureeconomy.scot/scotwind
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aclu.org
ACLU @aclu.org · 15d
BREAKING: Our client Mario Guevara, an Emmy-winning journalist detained by ICE in retaliation for livestreaming law enforcement activity, will be deported tomorrow to El Salvador.

Mario and his family are being punished for his reporting. This cruelty is meant to stifle our free press.
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joshiherrmann.bsky.social
Joshi Herrmann @joshiherrmann.bsky.social · 16d
On their holiest day, Manchester’s Jews face their ‘darkest of moments’.

This is a superb and moving piece of reporting by my @manchestermill.bsky.social colleagues.

manchestermill.co.uk/on-their-hol...
On their holiest day, Manchester’s Jews face their ‘darkest of moments’
Amid fasting and prayer, terror comes to Crumpsall
manchestermill.co.uk
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spyhistorian.bsky.social
Chris Smith @spyhistorian.bsky.social · 17d
As a module leader and course director, I struggle to see how this can happen. Except that the RG over-recruit and there are so many students on courses nobody can monitor them.

share.google/a0rqaLfYUnCn...
Glasgow student took his own life after 'tragic' university error
Ethan Brown, 23, of Coatbridge, was told he didn't have the grades to graduate in December 2024.
share.google
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petergeoghegan.bsky.social
Peter Geoghegan @petergeoghegan.bsky.social · 19d
It’s the same again this morning!! What the hell is going on at 6 Music!!? Why is immigration the first item on almost every news bulletin?! 🤯
petergeoghegan.bsky.social Peter Geoghegan @petergeoghegan.bsky.social · 21d
Exact same thing this morning. First item on 6 Music News is a story about migrants trying to get on boats in France 🤯
petergeoghegan.bsky.social Peter Geoghegan @petergeoghegan.bsky.social · 29d
The main story on BBC 6 Music News this morning is that a ‘boat carrying migrants is on its way to France’

Delivered in the same upbeat tone as England winning the women’s Euros.

The migration ‘debate’ in this country is unmoored from reality, and the media-political complex is feeding it
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maxvonthun.bsky.social
Max von Thun @maxvonthun.bsky.social · 21d
“We studied more than 70 different elections that took place in 12 western European countries over several decades, and found that when mainstream parties take more anti-immigration positions, it leads to more support for the radical right, not less.”
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silverscribed.bsky.social
Christopher Silver @silverscribed.bsky.social · 23d
I do wonder if some elements of the leadership would rather face electoral oblivion than admit to the experience of the 2010s. You can’t project a coherent narrative while systematically revising even the most mundane connections with the recent past - a kind of centrist Stalinism in that respect!
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silverscribed.bsky.social
Christopher Silver @silverscribed.bsky.social · 23d
How endangered a species do journalists in Scotland have to become before civil society and the state step in to conserve what’s left?

STV to cut 60 jobs and axe north news programme www.bbc.com/news/article...
STV to cut 60 jobs and axe north news programme
The Scottish broadcaster is seeking £2.5m of savings by next year after announcing a £0.2m loss.
www.bbc.com
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purplepingers.bsky.social
Purplepingers ☭ @purplepingers.bsky.social · 25d
An update on that insane lease term where the landlord owns everything you create during the tenancy:
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davidrvetter.bsky.social
Dave Vetter @davidrvetter.bsky.social · 26d
Malignant normality around us: when my mum switches on her Samsung TV, this is the default screen. Far-right propaganda channel GB News perpetually appears at #1 on the presented list of channels.
A photo of a TV screen showing a list of TV channels, with prominent logos. At #1 is GB News, at #2 is The News Hour, and at #3 is CNN.
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