Loukas

Loukas, 1 month ago to random

If you see a long German or Swedish word, first of all, don't panic. It's more scared of you than you are of it. Secondly, take a closer look and you'll see it's actually just three normal words in a trenchcoat, huddling together to deter predators (French and English).

Loukas, 8 months ago to random

The normalisation of the extreme-right by the centre-right in Sweden went like this.

• we will never work with them.

• we happened to vote the same way as them.

• since we know they also like this policy, we will propose it. But we are not working with them!

• our policies are based on extreme-right support so it makes sense to talk to them

• a local council will be run with extreme-right support. But never nationally!

• YOLO national government with extreme right support, it's normal now

Loukas, 2 months ago to random

In the same way as "the cloud is just someone else's computer" - "AI decisions are just someone else's prejudices".

Loukas, 8 months ago to random

Autistic authors writing neurotypical characters:

"They were the kind of person who read between the lines without even knowing the lines were there.

A natural smile played on the face of their un-headphoned head, and they functioned executively down the stairs."

Loukas, 9 months ago to random Swedish

Hi, this is my looking for work post. I'm based in Stockholm, Sweden, and could work remotely.

I have a Swedish teaching certification for ages 10-18 in social sciences and history. I also have a masters in communication, with focus on social media. I have 14 years as a news reporter and producer at Swedish public radio.

I also do editing, Swedish-English translation, and I've worked in libraries and as a researcher.

Because of the unemployment money I currently get, I can't work freelance.

Loukas, 7 months ago to random

The fact that 'fifteen-minute cities' is now a dirty word really puts into perspective all the time people spent agonising over whether 'defund the police' and similar slogans were too radical.

Loukas, 1 year ago to random

Media literacy tip:

The surge of climate-change conflicts will be presented to us as "ethnic tensions lead to violence" in the newspapers.

The rise in climate refugees will be presented to us as "migrants seeking work."

When you try to read a new situation using the language of the old broken economic system it's hard to see what's happening.

Loukas, 10 days ago to random

Half a million displaced by floods in Brasil. Half. A. Million.

We're going to keep seeing these numbers and we're going to get numb to seeing them, and it'll be the new normal. https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/persistent-brazil-floods-raise-specter-climate-migration-2024-05-13/?taid=6642658ec92493000158bfd7&utm_campaign=trueAnthem:+Trending+Content&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm_source=twitter

Loukas, 11 months ago to random

JRR Tolkien wrote in an English rooted in the Britain of 100 years ago. For that reason we're starting to lose touch with the language used in the book.

This is a thread of words and references that I have noticed in my current read-through, which I think might easily be misunderstood.

Loukas, 8 months ago to random

Back in my day we didn't have social media. If you wanted to see a reply-guy you had to go to a public lecture and wait for the people to stand up at the end and say "not so much a question, more a comment..."

Loukas, 9 months ago to random

There's an old military saying, "Plans are worthless, but planning is everything". It means things never happen like you planned for, but the more you plan, the more options you have for responding.

In the context of social change I've been thinking it might be accurate to say "the organisation is worthless but organising is everything." The actual group or party may fail, but the fact that people have connected creates more social resources for people-power.

Loukas, 7 months ago to random

Usual warning: now is a time of chaotic breaking news. A lot of what you see will be old pictures and videos presented as happening 'now'.

It's better to take a deep breath and wait for things to be double- and triple-confirmed before you make your mind up.

A lot of media will all be running slightly different stories all based on one source, even many 'confirmations' will be false.

Loukas, 7 months ago to random

Loukas, 8 months ago to random

Hey, if you've started lurking here on Mastodon again and are wondering whether you should stick around, this post is me saying I hope you will. 🌈⭐

Loukas, 11 months ago to random

🧵Sometimes friends of mine say they feel guilt they aren't recycling more, or swapping out their lightbulbs for more efficient ones.

But those aren't really very important things to do to lower your emissions.

I think it's important that we all have a basic mental map of what really are the effective consumer choices.

This chart from Kimberly Nicholas and Seth Wynes at Lund University (2017) deserves to be more widely known.

Loukas, 10 months ago to random Swedish

I think a lot of the time we get frustrated with "people" because we assume that change happens in democracies when enough people want it. So we conclude the problem must be that enough people don't want it. The bastards.

No, historically democratic change happens when organisations and movements have made change happen. They are needed as instruments for people's desires.

We're currently living in an era with advanced machinery of government, but almost no organisation for democracy.

Loukas, 9 months ago to random Swedish

"Why didn't anyone protest when they knew the climate was being destroyed?"

"They did. And the leader of the main leftwing party called them contemptible."

• Scene from a British history class, 2123.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/keir-starmer-just-stop-oil-labour-b2388586.html

Loukas, 7 months ago to random

Wait until Texas sees what kinds of children's books we have in Swedish libraries.

Loukas, 7 months ago to random

I'm not aiming this at anyone in particular, but if you want to help someone who's having a bad time, especially who's depressed, try to find another way of helping instead of saying "is there anything I can do to help?"

That offer seems helpful but it means the person who is suffering now has a new task: finding you something to do.

Instead think of a way you can help and offer that.

It takes the burden onto yourself, and crucially it shows what level of help you actually mean.

Loukas, 8 months ago to random

1. Get annoyed by someone using the 'wrong word' in English.

2. Look up the right word.

3. See that it derives from exactly the same root as the 'wrong' word.

4. See that British newspapers just made an artificial division between the words in like 1927... or some English person translated the exact same Low German word two slightly different ways in 1703 for no reason at all.

5. Give up seeing them as wrong and right words.

Loukas, 8 months ago to random

Back in 1956 J.R.R. Tolkien had already discovered why a walk is so important for your mental health.

"Even an afternoon walk may have important effects [...] For if there is anything in a journey of sufficient length it is this: a deliverance from the plantlike state of helpless passive sufferer, an exercise however small of will, and mobility – and of curiosity, without which a rational mind becomes stultified."

Loukas, 9 months ago to random Swedish

Today I learned that Saturn's north pole is a hexagon-shaped storm.

And each side of the hexagon is longer than the distance around the Earth!

Loukas, 10 months ago to random Swedish

I would also say: don't tire yourself out trying to micromanage your carbon footprint. Use any spare energy you have after daily survival to harass the big emitters. https://fediscience.org/@helenczerski/110723295027002708

Loukas, 7 months ago to random

Sweden's organised crime makes more money from running private health clinics than from selling drugs, warns the agency for fighting economic crime.

So will the right-wing government now send in the military to stop privatisation?

https://sverigesradio.se/artikel/varningen-gangkriminella-driver-vardcentraler

Loukas, 9 months ago to random

There was a lot of panic in the news after 2015 about how the number of refugees coming to Sweden would somehow crash the economy.

Now, just 8 years later, Sweden's rate of labour market participation is the highest in almost 20 years.
https://officiell-info.se/@svtnyheter/110880462856693927