Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Sal 🇵🇸🇺🇦

Dwayne Monroe @cloudquistador.bsky.social · 1d

In this sharply observed essay, my compadre and co-editor @harrysimmons3578.bsky.social applies Karl Kraus' century old assault on media and analysis of its impact on our thinking to current conditions. We have not improved. Indeed, we are worse off.

H.L. Mencken’s Winking Ghost @harrysimmons3578.bsky.social · 1d

Hear ye, hear ye, come on by and read my newest rag as I rant and rave about this world of ours: what I call our ‘World of Posters’

vdgasjournal.com/2025/10/07/t...

This World of Posters

Everyday I wake up (always a mistake) and do my best not to give any consideration to the media. Why should I? They are the knaves, of both higher and lower ambitions, who sell us whatever amount o…

vdgasjournal.com

2 1

Sal 🇵🇸🇺🇦 @sal46.bsky.social · 19m

This is an entirely new genre of young Tory and tbh I’m more comfortable with the ones in corduroys and blazers. 😳

1

Sal 🇵🇸🇺🇦 @sal46.bsky.social · 22m

1

Sal 🇵🇸🇺🇦 @sal46.bsky.social · 24m

It gives the impression that they’re going to be performing at Butlins.

1

Reposted by Sal 🇵🇸🇺🇦

Ronan Fitzgerald @rmkf.bsky.social · 45m

I sort of enjoyed this article, apart from the fact the Guardian itself three times a week runs an article that's like "I shouted at a waiter, and realised for years my true self had been suppressed"

Look out for number one! Selfish self-help books are booming – but will they improve your life?

If you yearn for an Ayn Randian existence of absolute self-reliance, there are plenty of bestsellers that can help. They may not make you happier though

www.theguardian.com

4 2 7

Sal 🇵🇸🇺🇦 @sal46.bsky.social · 41m

They’re not that good lol.

1 1

Sal 🇵🇸🇺🇦 @sal46.bsky.social · 52m

New indie band called ‘The 1974 Energy Crisis’ who specialise in barbed satire of British life and exclusively play children’s toy instruments. Debut single ‘Southwold Pier Suicide’ has received a rave review in The Quietus.

Dr Mark | 北马克 |🍉🇦🇺🇲🇾🇹🇭 @ajaanmark.bsky.social · 6h

Are they hoping to start a Young Tory cosplay trend on TikTok
www.thetimes.com/article/8c9a...

Meet the young Tories dreaming of a bright blue future

The Conservatives know they have a problem with Gen Z voters. At the party conference, The Times met a new breed of activists who are embracing the challenge

www.thetimes.com

1 5 17

Reposted by Sal 🇵🇸🇺🇦

Nick Harkaway @nickharkaway.com · 1h

I met someone recently who suggested the Tories would slowly revive after Reform implodes.

Dr Mark | 北马克 |🍉🇦🇺🇲🇾🇹🇭 @ajaanmark.bsky.social · 6h

Are they hoping to start a Young Tory cosplay trend on TikTok
www.thetimes.com/article/8c9a...

Meet the young Tories dreaming of a bright blue future

The Conservatives know they have a problem with Gen Z voters. At the party conference, The Times met a new breed of activists who are embracing the challenge

www.thetimes.com

4 4 27

Sal 🇵🇸🇺🇦 @sal46.bsky.social · 1h

I don’t doubt that he can be witty and charming.

1

Sal 🇵🇸🇺🇦 @sal46.bsky.social · 1h

Point taken. It’s the idea that the more people who want to sleep with you the better human being you must be that I struggle to get my head round.

1

Sal 🇵🇸🇺🇦 @sal46.bsky.social · 1h

Oh undoubtedly. People can be incredibly charismatic while also being selfish monsters. All I’m challenging is a simplistic retort of, “Well if you were a nice person women would want to go out with you.” 🙂

1 1

Sal 🇵🇸🇺🇦 @sal46.bsky.social · 1h

..but who over time you developed a connection with, then one day realised you’d fallen for. Now, if the ‘third spaces’ wherein that process can happen diminish, then dating will regress to something Darwinian & hierarchical. It just will, without that social context.

Sal 🇵🇸🇺🇦 @sal46.bsky.social · 1h

Also, insofar that people do connect on the basis of an inner qualities (which of course many do), it’s often after having got to know each other first hand. I’m sure some of you have had the experience of getting to know someone at work or wherever who at first you thought nothing of…

1 1

Sal 🇵🇸🇺🇦 @sal46.bsky.social · 2h

But what I find especially dubious is the indexing of sexual desirability to inner, moral worth. Since when did those two things have anything to do with each other? They can converge, but they don’t have to. Love and lust are often blind to more elevated considerations.

2

Sal 🇵🇸🇺🇦 @sal46.bsky.social · 2h

I’m really not affirming some kind of misogynist narrative of ‘women like assholes.’ Tons don’t. But some do.

I’d only challenge the narrative that women are *inherently* virtuous beings drawn to benevolent men (a reverse sexism akin to the reverse racism of ‘the noble savage’)..

1

Sal 🇵🇸🇺🇦 @sal46.bsky.social · 2h

Boris Johnson is a POS but he has children all over the place, likely some he doesn’t even know about. And not as in the old days with the secretary or maid but rich, high-status women who’ve willingly chosen to go with him — presumably because his money and power is an aphrodisiac for them.

2 1

Sal 🇵🇸🇺🇦 @sal46.bsky.social · 2h

The idea that men are single because they have shitty politics is weird given endless examples of men with shitty politics attracting women — who also have shitty politics. I’m at a loss as to why sexual desirability is equated with being a good progressive person. There’s 0 evidence for that.

1 2

Sal 🇵🇸🇺🇦 @sal46.bsky.social · 2h

This shouldn’t even need pointing out, but terminal singledom is not a problem for Musk, Trump, Miller, etc. Some might have got dumped multiple times because they treated their partners like absolute shit, but they are definitionally not incels.

1

Sal 🇵🇸🇺🇦 @sal46.bsky.social · 2h

People seen to assume that the male loneliness epidemic is a MAGA talking point. I see no evidence of this — have never heard MAGA thought leaders use it. As far as I can make out it originated from some lib social science studies that sought to dispassionately explain male social disengagement..

Return of the Cmonstermacques @cmonmaque.bsky.social · 6d

The male loneliness epidemic is brand new. So is the rise of misogynistic influencers. Now excuse me while I pop in the VHS copy of “Magnolia” I rented from blockbuster.

1 1

Sal 🇵🇸🇺🇦 @sal46.bsky.social · 3h

There’s a loneliness problem.

Reposted by Sal 🇵🇸🇺🇦

Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 18h

“One of the negative consequences AI is having on students is that it is hurting their ability to develop meaningful relationships with teachers, the report finds. Half of the students agree that using AI in class makes them feel less connected to their teachers.”

Rising Use of AI in Schools Comes With Big Downsides for Students

A report by the Center for Democracy and Technology looks at teachers' and students' experiences with the technology.

www.edweek.org

10 98 200

Sal 🇵🇸🇺🇦 @sal46.bsky.social · 13h

Yep

1 1

Reposted by Sal 🇵🇸🇺🇦

Robert Evans (the Only Robert Evans) @iwriteok.bsky.social · 1d

as a kid growing up right-wing i regularly heard people express their desire for "a government so small I can drown it in the bathtub". imagine my surprise growing up to realize i was the only one who actually believed that.

120 670 4.1K

Sal 🇵🇸🇺🇦 @sal46.bsky.social · 14h

Apparently, the only thing standing in the way of this guy building a new Rome is democracy.

1

Reposted by Sal 🇵🇸🇺🇦

lastpositivist.bsky.social @lastpositivist.bsky.social · 15h

France asking for reparations from Haiti for losing their slaves is basically a moral monstrosity.

12 39 370