@petealexharris@mastodon.scot
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petealexharris

@petealexharris@mastodon.scot

SF writer and software engineer.
#Languages, #science, #writing. he or they (shrug)
Glasgow (meetup) Writers Group and Glasgow SF Writers' Circle.
More random stuff at ello.co/petealexharris

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PaulNickson, to random
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Aaaaannyway, how close are we to WWIII now that most nations have given Ukraine permission to use their ordinance on Russian soil?

petealexharris,
@petealexharris@mastodon.scot avatar

@PaulNickson
Further away. If Russia get anything from the invasion of Ukraine, then next time it'll be Belarus, or Estonia. Or seeing the weakness of international solidarity, it'll be China vs Taiwan or India vs Pakistan.

Unless a new norm is enforced, that if you start a war you lose a war, sooner or later someone's going to start the big one.

The war has to end, and it's impossible for it to end by Ukraine giving up; nobody has authority to negotiate that. So they win, or we all lose.

toddo, to random
@toddo@sfba.social avatar

One thing: I really wish the MSM would stop saying "hush money to a porn star" and "cover up an affair". He was convicted of ELECTIONS FRAUD. This matters. Having sex (barely consensual if it all) with a porn actor is NOT illegal, nor is lying about it to your wife. Spending campaign money to influence an election by manipulation of information and the media: Illegal. This is about elections and core democratic principles.

petealexharris,
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@toddo and even that might be a grey area, but falsifying business records is unambiguously illegal, and that's what he was actually charged with and found guilty of.

And of course he did that. Fraud is his primary modus operandi.

simon_brooke, to random
@simon_brooke@mastodon.scot avatar

Lesley Riddoch here arguing, essentially, that we all have to bite our tongues, haud oor whischt, and vote , because "they're the only parliamentary route to . I count Lesley as a friend and as someone I greatly respect, but I think she's wrong here: there is no longer a parliamentary path to independence.

The Lesley Riddoch Podcast: Campaign Pains

Episode webpage: https://share.transistor.fm/s/981581dc

Media file: https://media.transistor.fm/981581dc/601cf266.mp3

petealexharris,
@petealexharris@mastodon.scot avatar

@Wen @simon_brooke There's a catch. Even if support for indy reaches 80%, people are unlikely to organise to do anything on the streets of Glasgow or Edinburgh that London would care about.

There is a parliamentary route, and it does need a huge pro-indy bloc of Scottish MPs but it also needs a minority WM government at risk of paralysis without Scottish cooperation. I don't think we'll get that this time.

simon_brooke, to Scotland
@simon_brooke@mastodon.scot avatar

Destroying the planet we live on -- the only planet we can live on -- is of course totally legal and even supported and subsidised by governments around the world (including 's).

But PROTESTING against destroying the planet? That's illegal. That's very, very illegal. Don't even think about doing that.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/may/23/alarm-as-german-climate-activists-charged-with-forming-a-criminal-organisation

petealexharris,
@petealexharris@mastodon.scot avatar

@SpaceJellyfish @simon_brooke
The next step after protest is direct action.

Politely providing more information about why you're protesting, to people who already know why and don't give a shit, is a retreat. It concedes their not giving a shit as an acceptable position which you will ultimately respect if they stick to it. And, no.

OK maybe there's a half-step in between, every 4 or 5 years, called voting. We should definitely do that as well. But as well, not instead.

petealexharris, to random
@petealexharris@mastodon.scot avatar

23 May
What gets in the way of your writing?

Lack of motivation and wasting time doing no-brain things. So, mild depression and background anxiety.

Also struggling with whether an idea is good enough or whether what I can do with it will be. I think that might be the same underlying cause tho.

futurebird, (edited ) to random
@futurebird@sauropods.win avatar

The bald eagle could have easily gone extinct. But we did all sorts of "woke" things protecting it legally, ran conservation and study programs, banned DDT (that was good for other reasons too) and in 2007 they were removed from the endangered species list.

Likewise pine forests could be dead from acid rain.

The ozone could have a huge hole.

We CAN take care of nature when we want to. And the successes have been worth it.

I feel like we forget this, you know?

petealexharris,
@petealexharris@mastodon.scot avatar

@cshentrup @futurebird

Humorous template images with text became a more relevant contribution to discourse than anything Richard Dawkins had to say, and we needed a word for them.

You don't really need a new word to express anti-intellectual scorn at careful thought, there have been plenty already. Even the phrase "virtue signalling" has a little life in it yet, I see.

petealexharris, to random
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A fresh hell? In this economy?

petealexharris, to random
@petealexharris@mastodon.scot avatar

It occurs to me what might be the reason why western authorities are reacting so brutally to protests against genocide in Gaza.

I doubt it's specifically some strategic need to keep Israel as an ally.

I think they're UNEASY that significant popular opinion suddenly objects to tens of thousands of brown people dying far away, if only in this one case.

They weren't expecting that to happen.

Their climate change strategy kind of hinges on us not caring about that.

petealexharris,
@petealexharris@mastodon.scot avatar

@nowan
I think that particular madness plays a part on the US right, but not so much in the UK, and the UK's far-right government are just as happy to let the genocide keep happening.

petealexharris, to random
@petealexharris@mastodon.scot avatar

German has all these great compound nouns like Schadenfreude, and since English is a Germanic language, there's no reason we can't have them too.

It's easy: whenever the spellchecker wants you to hyphenate a word, mutter "no, fuck you, this is my language" and hit Add to Dictionary.

JackTheCat, to random
@JackTheCat@mastodon.scot avatar

Clever move so soon after Keith said he wouldn't work with me SNP.

John Swinney urges Keir Starmer to work with him to end child poverty | The National

https://www.thenational.scot/news/24314567.john-swinney-urges-keir-starmer-work-end-child-poverty/

petealexharris,
@petealexharris@mastodon.scot avatar

@JackTheCat
It's probably the smartest tactical move in the run-up to the election: keep asking Keir Starmer to commit to various repairs to the damage of 14 years of Tory government, and every time he says he won't, stick it on a leaflet or a billboard with his big boiled-ham face next to a blue rosette.

petealexharris, to random
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May
How do you market your work?

I used to push harder to sell my books on the cursed bird site, but the atmosphere here is different, and also I now know it doesn't matter much, so I only occasionally mention my e-book bundle: https://gumroad.com/l/sHUm

Thousands of people who'd love at least some of my work are out there, but I don't know who they are, they'll probably never hear of my books, and if they do, they might not try them. I've made my peace with that.

petealexharris, to random
@petealexharris@mastodon.scot avatar

I had to go to the shops but it was warm enough for sandals, so the tyranny of socks is defeated for today at least.

Viss, to random
@Viss@mastodon.social avatar

on todays episode of "tell the public how to break your systems....

petealexharris,
@petealexharris@mastodon.scot avatar

@Viss
Enshrining incompetence as policy because competence is hard and confusing.

Wen, to conservative
@Wen@mastodon.scot avatar

I discovered hydrothermal vents, but I’m only known for finding the Titanic

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/may/09/robert-ballard-discovery-hydrothermal-vents-deep-sea-ocean-expeditions-titanic-aoe

'We invited biologists but they didn’t want to go because they said there’s nothing going on there. We constantly remind them they weren’t there when we made this historic biological discovery; we have to rub it in.’

petealexharris,
@petealexharris@mastodon.scot avatar

@Wen I just want to know if anyone tried to eat the beef clam.

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