SpinozasHeresy @SpinozasHeresy@social.cleverlibre.org

Mark Twain, born on this day in 1835, on racism, how religion is used to justify injustice, and what his mom taught him about compassion https://www.themarginalian.org/2014/10/24/mark-twain-on-slavery-empathy-compassion/

As right-wing extremists are re-platformed everywhere from Twitter to Mar-a-Lago, it’s more important than ever that we hold our journalists, researchers, & others to high standards of accountability when it comes to reporting on extremism and extremists. We need journalists who will tell us the truth, not stake out a position in the middle of two unequal sides. I keep coming back to this quote about reporting on the weather, but it was missing something — so I modified it to make it complete.

In the spirit of wanting more irreverent content on this platform, and speaking of predatory journals, today I was invited to contribute to a volume on new applications of aspirin.

My invitation came on the strength of a letter I wrote with Brian Wasik and Rich Lenski in Brit. J. Clin. Pharma. in which we noted that Scorsese had been misidentified as Kissinger in a previous report about misidentifications.

Anyway, the letter and my reponse.

Having now been on #Mastodon for 1 month, a few observations:

- Mastodon makes me realize how much the #Twitter algorithm maximized user outrage to boost engagement for profit. Gross. Here, my feed is interesting & supportive.

- There's a culture of kindness - at least so far. It's extremely appealing & should be normalized on & offline.

- Beyond reactions to toots, people share songs, poetry & ask great questions. I can't remember the last time I found social media to be fun.

@themotleycow @krishnadeltoso @eyssette @philosophy

check out: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/10/how-david-hume-helped-me-solve-my-midlife-crisis/403195/

I asked Jay Garfield about this and he was rather dubious!

Worth mentioning too: Pyrrho, the skeptic. Went to India with Alexander, met with yogis. His skeptical school got revived by folks like Cornelius Agrippa, to form the foundation of the scientific revolution. So that is Buddhism as a deep root of science.

On November 25, at the urging of a far-right troll, Elon Musk banned the @CrimethInc Twitter account.

Musk’s goal in acquiring Twitter had nothing to do with “free speech”—it was a partisan move to silence opposition, paving the way for fascist violence.

Please help us circulate our full statement:

https://crimethinc.com/TwitterBan

Please follow us on Telegram and Mastodon.

The flight of NASA's Artemis (purple) uses two very close encounters with the moon's gravity (green) to changes its trajectory to get back to the earth (blue.) Amazing.

@adamdavidson I just read this from Der Spiegel and it convinced me to leave. It's not a social network anymore it's a social experiment and we are the test subjects. I think they nailed it. Here is the link: https://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/apps/elon-musk-entsperrt-donald-trump-twitter-hat-keine-nutzer-mehr-sondern-nur-noch-benutzte-a-ddc72793-1c1b-47b2-89e7-fa179760a3f5

I'm a 59 year old African American woman. I've desegregated a town, a school system and many other spaces. When I discuss racism in this nation, I'm not going to ameliorate my speech for the comfort of anyone. I don't exist to comfort others about the reality of what I was born into - what we all live in together. If that's a problem for you, I suggest you embark on some self-reflection to determine what your actual role is within this system.
#racism #politics #blackmastodon

Have you ever seen an oak tree dance?

Britain is full of 'lost' rainforests, predominantly in the southwest and northwest of England, west Wales and the west coast of Scotland. There are other areas where the conditions are perfect too, like this one in the Peak District National Park.

When the rain starts and the cloud base drops into the rainforest, the trees come alive. Everywhere you look, there is magic and mystery.

#photography #woodland #trees #rainforest