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charliefraggle.bsky.social

@charliefraggle.bsky.social
389 followers 1.2K following 2.6K posts

Not even a smug snake with a crown and two staffs complete with two extra, smaller snakes. May be a smug woman without crowns or staffs, lacking even small snakes. Have dogs and opinions, which seems less cool.

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Reposted by @charliefraggle.bsky.social
Sunder Katwala (sundersays) @sundersays.bsky.social · 11h
I find there is a weird lack of understanding among media producers of how the public think this foundational point was settled decades ago - but a determination to amplify the niche view
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James Butler @piercepenniless.bsky.social · 10h
And, you know, it might be that in a world characterised by mistrust and outright deception, a rediscovery of Reithian virtues now reinforced by a sense of independence from government might actually be a winning news formula.
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Sunder Katwala (sundersays) @sundersays.bsky.social · 15/07/2025
So those born in 1946 or 1956 would have experienced this as a change. For English-born minorities of 1974, what was contested when we were 10 became much more open by 1990. that the option existed was obvs settled when I was a young adults (1996 culture shift ratified this). Not a new 2010-15 idea!
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Sunder Katwala (sundersays) @sundersays.bsky.social · 21h
It was odd to discover how many liberal-left, centrist, conservative right opinion formers did not know how broad the consensus on this question was when the 'can Sunak be English' debate began **18 months** ago already!
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Matthew Buckley @physicsmatt.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
But we're in a time in the world when no one really wants to do anything so boring as "pay to support the institutions that do the hard dull work of developing knowledge." And when I say "no one" I don't just mean the fascists. Slopulism is everywhere and everyone wants the fast easy answer.
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Matthew Buckley @physicsmatt.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
My thoughts on the 700+ LLM papers on math and mathematical physics is less concern that LLMs can replace me and more concern that everyone from leaders to the population at large is willing to pretend that LLMs can replace me because "stop supporting research" seems have worldwide appeal.
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Sam Freedman @samfr.bsky.social · 21h
I can assure Conor that the rest of us are also tired of this stupid conversation which would end if he and his mates fucked off back to the pit they crawled out of.
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People's Government of the Pelargir Commune 🇺🇦🇱🇹🇵🇸🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 @dov.bsky.social · 22h
you know the funny thing about the MAGA viewpoint that America should move towards friendship with Russia to isolate China is that without being funny if Russia comes to blows with China I will unapologetically back China. I will go full 20 Cent Army
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Twlldun @twlldun.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
I mean, this. And let’s be honest here: the British liberal-left are all very prepared to - for eg - go to the wall to defend frankly ahistorical ideas about how long non-white people have had a significant presence in the U.K. and this isn’t really different in truthiness bsky.app/profile/altr...
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charliefraggle.bsky.social @charliefraggle.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
My body being a fleshy tabernacle seems Like the Third Option to dualism and materialism.
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Moby Dick @mobydickatsea.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
the soul is glued inside of its fleshy tabernacle, and cannot freely move about in it, nor even move out of it, without running great risk of perishing
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charliefraggle.bsky.social @charliefraggle.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
Fuck Paddington bear in particular
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Daniel Bellingradt @dbellingradt.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
Wrong answers only. My bet: thanks for all the fish.
Newspaper headline: Queen Elizabeth’s Final Diary Entry Contained Only Five Words.
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BeijingPalmer @beijingpalmer.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
there's a *strong* cultural inclination toward gambling in China for reasons I've never fully understood, but the CCP has largely kept it at the scale of betting with your friends over mahjong, not ruining your life on your phone. (The state-run lottery system is not great, though)
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charliefraggle.bsky.social @charliefraggle.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
No need to get personal jeees. Talk about catching strays
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charliefraggle.bsky.social @charliefraggle.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
I type out a comment and then delete it a lot. it’s crude, or mean, or talking to someone who clearly doesn’t want to chat. But like I love other people’s stupid comments. I’m probably actively depriving people of a change to laugh at my merely out of a sense of meaningless dignity. sorry everyone.
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Vituperative Erb @vituperativeerb.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
You see a lot of this in philosophy and political theory where these guys are constantly putting up some variant of “has anyone thought about this thing [that St. Augustine was fighting with people about]”
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Vituperative Erb @vituperativeerb.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
I think one reason it’s good to have a liberal arts education in the classic sense is that you don’t then spend time trying to invent the concept of “intellectual pursuits” from first principles
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Elizabeth Taylor @elizabethtaylor47.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
Aside from that, a huge issue that we have as a nation in 2026 is that many of our institutions have lost or are losing credibility. The EHRC, Ofcom, the BBC - if these were properly governed, independent and empowered they could provide stronger checks and balances
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James Austin @jamesdaustin.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
I have this aame tension. In theory I am very in favour of community decision making, direct democracy, citizens assemblies etc. But then I actually experiance those systems, see why turns up and the results... and realise it tends to be *far* less representative than rep democrscy
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Jim Rossignol @rossignol.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
This gets said constantly, but it worth reiterating: Games Workshop being bigger than fishing is important to shout about because you wouldn't know it from government talking points, which are rarely about anything creative or artistic. Growth won't involve fish or steel, it will involve goblins.
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lastpositivist.bsky.social @lastpositivist.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
I have this category in my mind of Genteel Mid-20th Century WASPs that includes Mr Rogers, Rawls, Auden, and CS Lewis, and I think they were trying to create or sustain this social and political sensibility that isn't really my favourite but which we're sorely missing now it's lost its status.
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Robert Hutton @roberthutton.co.uk · 06/10/2026
Quietly moving tribute to Jeffrey Archer.
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BeijingPalmer @beijingpalmer.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
the UK has three industries: higher education, whisky, and Games Workshop.
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Paul Bernal @paulbernal.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
If you just substitute the words 'working age' for 'fighting age', suddenly the arrival of youngish men and women doesn't sound threatening. Rather, it sounds like exactly what we need for an ageing population.
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Dmitry Grozoubinski @explaintrade.com · 05/10/2026
Was that a different time? A more innocent and norm-centric era? Maybe. But I think if Jon Ossoff included in a speech a line like "Trump's core voters are dumbass racist hayseeds" it wouldn't be a page 24 story below the fold.
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lastpositivist.bsky.social @lastpositivist.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Keep thinking about this, because it's actually hard to square all my beliefs. I like devolved and direct democracy in some ways and also technocratic sophistication in others. Basically unless we can exactly recreate the 1920s Vienna workers' education movement I am doomed. Awash in contradictions!
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William B. Fuckley @opinionhaver.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
The kind of person you want running for congress will likely have multiple other six figure opportunities. Running for a competitive seat is legitimately one of the worst white collar professional experiences you can have. You need to make it more attractive to select for more normal people.
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William B. Fuckley @opinionhaver.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
It would likely solve a non-trivial number of problems with the kid of person who opts to run for Congress to pay them $500k in exchange for stricter financial disclosure and be a rounding error in the federal budget. We’ll never do it because of THOSE FATCAT POLITICIANS!!!!, a bipartisan brain-worm
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William B. Fuckley @opinionhaver.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
An irritating thing that judges will do in gerrymandering court cases is do a whole “no I’m a simple country lawyer who don’t understand no fancy statistics” posturing. Fuck you! You should! It’s your goddamn job!
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Sunder Katwala (sundersays) @sundersays.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Jacob Rees-Mogg - "anybody who has a British passport is equally British or English" A possible view - but relatively few migrants or natives to UK + England have seen it like this. The consensus is mostly on an 'inclusive nativism' of birthplace + sincere identification x.com/Jacob_Rees_M...
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David Alman @davidalman.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
“30% of your cash generator is knocked out by airpower” “Airpower is a failure because it can’t open the strait of hormuz in the dumbest war known to man” - me, a smart person (not directed at you, just at the hordes of airpower knowers)
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Anonymous Bureaucrat @bureaucratanon.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
One of my hotter takes is that the dominance of bourgeois values and all the attendant tastes, aesthetics, etc., how one navigates the world, was load-bearing for liberal democracies, and social media eliminating that as something aspirational or desirable has been broadly a disaster
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Elizabeth Taylor @elizabethtaylor47.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
This gaslighting is honestly jaw dropping. It’s not enough to take away our rights, but you also chide us for not pretending anything has changed?
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derek guy @dieworkwear.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
seeing conservative men debate how to dress online is very funny. can't dress up or wear interesting casualwear bc you've made any visible interest in dress to be a sign of homosexuality. but you feel the need to dress better bc you've linked dress to respectability. a prison of your own making.
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Jerry Chen @jcsalterego.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
In honor of engagement bait awareness month: what is the first piece of engagement bait you remember falling for?
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Danny Cherry Jr (twitter/Insta/tiktok: @Deecherrywriter) @deecherrywriter.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Like “climate change is real” versus “climate change is a hoax” ain’t a political disagreement, bruh
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Danny Cherry Jr (twitter/Insta/tiktok: @Deecherrywriter) @deecherrywriter.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
An opinion I’ve held for years that I don’t think I’ll ever change my mind on is that Americans have got to be one of the most propagandized populations in the world 
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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 05/10/2026
feels like at least part of what is happening is that a lot of people want politics to solve the "my life feels empty" problem and the populist right is directly appealing to them
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lastpositivist.bsky.social @lastpositivist.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
Not really able to handle Big Debate right now but isn't it just that some people are using "Zionism" to mean "the core proposition of a 19th century nationalist movement i.e. that the Jewish people get a state" some people to mean "the ideology of the present expansionist settler movement"...
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Will Cooling @willcooling.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
"When men stop believing in God, it isn't that they then believe in nothing: they believe in everything" really stands up better with every passing year, doesn't it?
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BeijingPalmer @beijingpalmer.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
I guarantee you there are Jesuits right now engaged in a skeptical but serious inquiry into the question of AI sentience and what the theological implications would be.
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Robert Black @hurricanexyz.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
It's funny that the talking point on here is "just admit you believe in dualism" Can't use that one on the Pope!
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Anil Dash @anildash.com · 03/10/2026
Just bumping into this again with people _reflexively_ using the word "grape" or a 🍇 emoji and not even realizing they're doing it. It's all part of the same system, where the men running these companies make platforms that don't even let people accurately describe the crimes that they enable.
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Alom Shaha @alomshaha.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
Unfortunately, on each occasion, I reacted with anger, instead of helping them to understand why they were mistaken. its very difficult listening to people who have, literally, every advantage in the world, talk to me as if they are somehow victimised, diminished by efforts to make the world fairer
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Stephen Bush @stephenkb.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Latest Badenoch: “If [Andy Burnham]’s not calling an election, why’s he talking about things happening in 2030?” - alarming the extent to which so much of our political class cannot process the idea of “planning for events four years in the future”.
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Giles Wilkes @gilesyb.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Mildly surprised how many people think "yeah Burnham's speech went down well but did you not notice how he failed to solve the (checks notes) 20 year growth and fiscal problems he inherited" is a devastating and insightful critique.
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rev. howard arson @theophite.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
they had carrot top write all the footnotes in pale fire
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franciscOOoOo👻 varela fan club @paleopragmatist.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
the thing that always struck me about greek life was how almost everybody is acting in some level of bad faith: everybody knows it's abt hedonism, privilege, and exclusion. students don't actually believe it's abt brotherhood and nobody they say this to believes that they believe it, either
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Brandon Friedman @brandonfriedman.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Pete is lost in terms of modern war. I use the example of this outgunned Ukrainian army officer who successfully terrorized a Russian unit for weeks because she "did the math." At the time, someone commented, "yeah, in combat, 'I did the math' beats 'I can do 100 pushups' every time."
Ukrainian female soldier: Okay, I said the idea is this: There is enough time to empty one full can of 32 grenades and be gone by the time the return mortar fire reaches us. I did the math.
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