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Pat Kane @patkane.bsky.social · 1d

New Alternative Weekly out from @AlterGlobal21 mailchi.mp/93f31dc80583.... Editorial on how to beat hopelessness—posts on @audreyt, @KateRaworth, Tim Jackson, Jane Goodall, engaging w/ Reform, the digital “Eurostack”. As well as stories from spring.site. Enjoy, support!

Pat Kane @patkane.bsky.social · 1d

“We have paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions and god-like technology” (EO Wilson). Only an explicit “peace culture” will correct this picture

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Pat Kane @patkane.bsky.social · 1d

It’s just the utter fragility of our everyday lives it induces. But also the massive challenge to the human capacity for ingenuity—how can we so misapply itr? What culture do we need that it can be safely applied? Iain M Banks our outlier and prophet…

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Pat Kane @patkane.bsky.social · 1d

Modernity is a dark joke. A 112 min movie that examines the 20 mins response time to a rogue nuke fired from Asian landmass. “Nice interview, Ms Bigelow! Next, the Booker Prize!”🤯Remains basis of my support 4 Indy: it’s 1 small step away from annihilation www.metacritic.com/movie/a-hous...

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Pat Kane @patkane.bsky.social · 4d

As one myself, I enjoyed #TheHack’s story of heroic journalists revealing their own profession’s phone hacking. But what of the widespread resentment & powerlessness that produces the appetite/demand for these star-toppling stories? My @ScotNational col www.thenational.scot/comment/2551...

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Pat Kane @patkane.bsky.social · 6d

Super upload of my open-access @ScotNational Saturday columns. Richard Holloway’s Last Words, handling the Nomad Century, technology both motherly & surveillant, Indy strategy, & cosmology for the soul… Enjoy, support! patkane.substack.com/s/pk-in-the-...

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Pat Kane @patkane.bsky.social · 7d

New edition of Alternative Weekly out mailchi.mp/4818b7814af8... - crossing a 7th planetary boundary, drones and the sky, soul-enhancing video, the mirrorball of Glasgow’s poets—& an editorial on the clash of youth uprisings. See www.spring.site also. Enjoy, share, support!

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Pat Kane @patkane.bsky.social · 11d

“Papers, please!” It’s the opening line from Casablanca—& it captures the fears that an national iD system is a tool for coming tyranny (and/or Starmer’s anti-immigration pandering). Can Indy be an opp to build systems a lot better? My @ScotNational col www.thenational.scot/politics/254...

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Pat Kane @patkane.bsky.social · 15d

Latest @AlterGlobal21 newsletter - Editorial gets clear on techno-futures, 16-17 year olds curious about new parties (political ones…), renewable energy’s Scottish power plays, hard imagination & new biology, and more. See also www.spring.site
mailchi.mp/b6e90dd98158...

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Pat Kane @patkane.bsky.social · 18d

The US-UK Tech Prosperity deal—and its scores of billions—is an intimidating display. But there’s an Indy-minded version of these investments in data-centres. We can use nation-state sovereignty to model a “healthy computation”. My @scotnational column www.thenational.scot/politics/254...

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Pat Kane @patkane.bsky.social · 22d

This week’s @AlterGlobal21 newsletter features an Editorial on the “woke right”, and blogs on: grief as THE political emotion; using citizens media to save the Amazon; a new map of the regenerative paradigm; & more. & latest spring.site news mailchi.mp/11620970432e...

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Pat Kane @patkane.bsky.social · 25d

It was the grimmest newsday—Charlie Kirk, Gaza, Mandelson, Putin in Poland…& then, possible life on Mars! Even the slightest move in that cosmic direction generates headlines. Can we turn this yearning into a politics? I think so. My @ScotNational column www.thenational.scot/politics/254...

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Pat Kane @patkane.bsky.social · 27d

Some front page. If Mars shows the ubiquity of organic life in the universe, then Fermi’s Paradox sharpens. Where *are* all these alien civilisations? Or do they blow themselves up/tear themselves apart b4 they get off-planet?

& Do we *look* like we’ll get past The Great Filter?

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Pat Kane @patkane.bsky.social · Aug 30

My column this week dwells on the @ScotNational’s series, “Refugees Welcome”. Even the UN acknowledges how deeply Scotland has prepared for the age of mass migration, & the good stories that generates. How do “climate refugees” fit into this picture? www.thenational.scot/politics/254...

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Pat Kane @patkane.bsky.social · Aug 23

Been engaging with Richard Holloway’s tumultuous work for 30 years, so I don’t quite believe these are his “Last Words”. It’s a beautiful working-class memoir—& he’s still wrestling with the God-idea, in a world “saturated with pain”. My @ScotNational col www.thenational.scot/culture/2541...

Pat Kane @patkane.bsky.social · Aug 16

There’s been much dumping on the newest ChatGPT-5 chatbot from @OpenAI. A “PhD level assistant” that counts 6 fingers on a hand? But use it as a thought-starter or prototyping tool, & it’s amazingly powerful and generative. My @ScotNational column www.thenational.scot/comment/2539...

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Pat Kane @patkane.bsky.social · Aug 13

Here’s a month of my @ScotNational columns, open access and fully research-linked patkane.substack.com/s/pk-in-the-... Voters at 8, not just 16; what the Brewdogs in the street know; preserve modernist Scotland; plasticles in your testicles… Enough to satisfy. Share, support, thanks!

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Pat Kane @patkane.bsky.social · Aug 9

There’s plasticles in your testicles… & micro- and nano-plastics everywhere else in your body. Huge Plastics Treaty currently being forged—but the Qs are deep. How to resist pollution when it’s already (& ineradicably) inside you? My @ScotNational col www.thenational.scot/comment/2537...

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Pat Kane @patkane.bsky.social · Aug 2

Good news that Bernat Klein’s textile studio has been saved from ruin. It’s a modernist classic—& Scotland is full of them. But they’re rendered as “eyesores”, rather than hopeful & ambitious. Can we tap into that spirit again? My @ScotNational column www.thenational.scot/culture/2536...

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Pat Kane @patkane.bsky.social · Jul 31

Return of The Constitute—my omnipedia of links and indicators, forging pathways through the current craziness… patkane.substack.com/p/the-consti... Clip below on why a left party may be needed to harness sci-tech’s extraordinary power, in computation & chemistry

The Constitute #4: Behind the doors of computation, new realities

And do we need some punky new left parties to harness its powerful benefits?

patkane.substack.com

Pat Kane @patkane.bsky.social · Jul 29

New Alternative Weekly out @AlterGlobal21 mailchi.mp/778e5c1b5dc1... Editorial says plurality is better than singularity. Also: fungi beats carbon, improve yr economic stories, universities reckon with slavery, note the “Free Festival” in Edinburgh—& much more. Support, share!

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Pat Kane @patkane.bsky.social · Jul 26

Even the BrewDogs in the street can see the Scottish hipster beer makers are in trouble, closing 10 pubs this week. But their whole shock-tactic, “punk” business model cuts against our anxious, demanding times. My @ScotNational column www.thenational.scot/business/253...

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Pat Kane @patkane.bsky.social · Jul 23

Today’s Alternative Weekly from @AlterGlobal21 has an Editorial on reverse mentoring (young to old), Cynthia Erivo queering Christianity, local solar solving South African probs, Edinburgh festivals of Repair, DJs vs climate change. & more! Share, support! mailchi.mp/6330d4fe48e3...

Pat Kane @patkane.bsky.social · Jul 21

Land is properly sulphurous

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Pat Kane @patkane.bsky.social · Jul 19

Good to see #VotesAt16 projected for next WM elections. But it raises Q’s about what political voice and influence our kids should have, on a future which concerns them most of all. Even lower voting age? Some new digital forum? What? My @ScotNational col www.thenational.scot/politics/253...

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