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Bubblewrap

There was that time when they covered the tundra with bubblewrap in an attempt to stop the methane leakage. It didn’t exactly go to plan. As the permafrost melted, large quantities of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, were being released into the atmosphere, adding to the warming – a positive feedback loop. We had to …

Oi! Putin! Behave!
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Oi Putin! Behave!

This gaffiti appeared near where I live soon after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and it got me to wondering first, how Putin would respond if he saw it. I reckon, if it was translated into Russian, it would lose the colloquial meaning it has in English, which is kind of friendly, like something you’d say …

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How not to be a transphobe

Since I waded into the trans debate I’ve been accused of being a transphobe on several occasions, though it’s rarely been spelled out what I did to deserve that label, but the other day it was. So, according to evie.rose.music, believing that humans cannot change sex and accepting the dictionary definition of women makes one …

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Do you think we might be wrong again?

Someone posted this cartoon on Twitter, trying to suggest that those who argue against gender ideology are opposed to trans rights and are therefore on the wrong side of history. This is an argument I’ve heard a lot, but don’t think it holds.

Windrush
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Justice, Windrush and the family court

You obey the rules and you do the right thing but then the system shafts you. Were you naive to expect to be treated fairly? This is Britain, after all. Not Russia, or Turkey, or China, or the US even. We know the system’s not perfect. Things go wrong and people get hurt, you just …

By Unknown author - "How the Earth was Regarded in Old times", The Popular Science Monthly, Volume 10, part dated March 1877
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Simulations all the way down

The simulation argument states that one of the following must be true: the human species is very likely to go extinct before reaching a “posthuman” stage;  any posthuman civilization is extremely unlikely to run a significant number of simulations of their evolutionary history (or variations thereof);  we are almost certainly living in a computer simulation.  …

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How do we know what’s true?

Dear Professor People used to believe something was true because someone told them it was true, and that someone might have been a priest or a king or a parent or a book, but after a while people realised that wasn’t a very good way of telling what’s true from what’s not true. There were …

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On coronavirus, socialism and libertarianism

The coronavirus has shown that health is not just a private matter, it’s public, and if it isn’t it needs to be made public. And people are expecting to be bailed out by the government. There are demands for government intervention. You can’t let the market decide when the market is collapsing around you.

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On becoming a ghost

Three years ago I was ghosted by Mama Professor. Our relationship had ended years before, back in 2011, but due to the Professor we still saw quite a lot of one another, and there was some financial dependancy. At times it felt like being in a relationship.

Flat Earth map drawn by Orlando Ferguson in 1893
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The Professor and the Flat Earth Society

I got a phone call from the Metropolitan Police yesterday morning. Hello, it’s the Metropolitan Police here, a woman said. We’ve just been speaking with Mama Professor, though she didn’t call her Mama Professor but I’m going to. She won’t mind.