Yuriy Akopov
@yakopov.me
420 followers 210 following 6.1K posts
True men don't kill coyotes https://yakopov.me
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yakopov.me
We probably should still be taxing the rich more aggressively, but that alone isn't a magic key to solving all our problems (not even close to that).
yakopov.me
Same here, if we take the wealth of the richest person in Britain to the last penny and somehow entirely in cash, that would allow to run the country for... 10 extra days (with the existing level of public services most people find too poor).
opinionhaver.bsky.social
Lot of people confidently missing the point in the replies to this: if every cent of Elon musks net wealth was liquid, which it isn’t, that’s not even enough money to run the govt for two weeks. The problem less that they have money, and more how they use that money in destabilizing ways.
liberalcurrents.com
“The problem with billionaires isn’t that they’re hoarding money that would otherwise pay for a Scandinavian social utopia. It’s that their money has become a source of wildly distorted political power that allows a few men with extremist views to wreak havoc on the rest of us.”
Reposted by Yuriy Akopov
opinionhaver.bsky.social
Lot of people confidently missing the point in the replies to this: if every cent of Elon musks net wealth was liquid, which it isn’t, that’s not even enough money to run the govt for two weeks. The problem less that they have money, and more how they use that money in destabilizing ways.
liberalcurrents.com
“The problem with billionaires isn’t that they’re hoarding money that would otherwise pay for a Scandinavian social utopia. It’s that their money has become a source of wildly distorted political power that allows a few men with extremist views to wreak havoc on the rest of us.”
Billionaires Are Hoarding Power, Not Money
Billionaire money has become a source of wildly distorted political power that allows a few men with extremist views to wreak havoc on the rest of us.
www.liberalcurrents.com
yakopov.me
(that meme with a picture of Ben Gvir captioned "When an indigenous POC speaks, I sit my ass down and LISTEN")
rutrollcap.bsky.social
Another banger by sensei Acczibit that was before the Oct 7 mess happened.
yakopov.me
For all its downsides, the UK does not really have "militarised police".
yakopov.me
"Without farmers you will starve!" (grows soybeans for China and corn for ethanol)
yakopov.me
Conservatives and reactionaries are different breeds (not unlike liberals and progressives).
yakopov.me
It was memory holed that in 2020 Silicon Valley and the whole adjacent ecosystem (Cummings et al. in the UK etc.) were very pro lockdown. COVID was a threat unrecognised by "the Blob", and it was coming from CHINA.
https://xcancel.com/g_shullenberger/status/1975216937040048501#m
Reposted by Yuriy Akopov
lizthegrey.com
stealing this phrase. "easier to move gigabits than gigawatts".
bigvalen.bsky.social
You do lose some power, even at 200kV.

The real problem is that grids are under enormous pressure to allow new connections, and can delay adding wind farms and solar parks for YEARS. This can be called stranded power, and big power users chase it.

It's easier to move gigabits than gigawatts.
yakopov.me
As to what sounds correct, I sometimes wonder what programming code looks like to an native English speaker. Some niche languages in Russia used "если...то" instead of "if...then" and it felt so cringe and wrong to me (and not just me)! Guess this was the lack of separation between the contexts.
yakopov.me
(it is not a dig trying to mirror the point, just using it as an opportunity to confess)
yakopov.me
Not exactly the same but I also feel a bit weird about the British media using "Taoiseach".
yakopov.me
I absolutely take this criticism and apologise for as long as you are equally as against the generalisation of any other group.
yakopov.me
How many rural people here in Britain thought "well, we should not do a hard Brexit, our fellow urban Brits would really hate that!"

Yet we are expected to nurse rural concerns and needs all the time.
yakopov.me
Deaths are already happening. How many people do you think say something like "wait, we should not kill USAID or send people to El Salvador! This is not what our urban compatriots WHO PAY FOR OUR HOSPITALS BTW would approve of!"
yakopov.me
BlueSky moment (laudatory)
preachypreach.bsky.social
Edward Behr’s (very good) memoirs with the unprintable name?
yakopov.me
I understand it's a 'no, it isn't a green light' then.
yakopov.me
That is a different question, and there are of course some older people who aren't like that, but if any generation can be generalised for their social and political views, it's them because they're least split as a group.
yakopov.me
If they should be treated as people without agency that must be shielded from the consequences of their own preferred policy, is that a green light to ignore their concerns in the future and just do what you think is better for them?
yakopov.me
In pretty much every major Western country the rural communities and their 'genuine concerns' have been totally dominating politics. It's time to try something else. If they still failed to extract any benefits despite being so overrepresented in political discussion, it's a terminal skill issue.
yakopov.me
Ref and the current form of Con are never going to refuse a coalition under a PR if the alternative is a centrist or a left wing government.

Anyway, I think PR *may* help in some specific scenarios but it is FAR from being a reliable firewall.
yakopov.me
Lab+LD+Grn+SNP coalition would a) never happen; b) if it does happen it'll fall apart very quickly. It's a 4 way coalition! Not many are like that even in countries with an established PR tradition.
yakopov.me
And in general, when you're hastily changing the voting system because it's your only hope it's already too late. See how the Tories changed the voting system for regional mayors hoping for a Tory win in London which then still didn't happen.
yakopov.me
Voting patterns under FPTP don't translate into the PR ones because a lot of voters choose a candidate tactically. Britain is a very conservative country politically, and PR will reflect that.

There are arguments for PR, some of them good, but it is not a good firewall against reactionaries.