iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Not just to be racist. Remember that most HE funding was cut in 2010-11 by the Coalition in service to austerity. It’s in service to corporations and the rich who don’t want to pay more taxes so we can fund these services. The racism is just an add on.

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John Lubbock @jwsal.bsky.social · 10h

“OpenAI’s annualized revenue — an estimated guess at a company’s income for the year — is roughly $20 billion lower than anybody had previously expected, including, it seems, OpenAI itself.” futurism.com/future-socie...

futurism.com

AI Bubble Teetering on the Brink as OpenAI Admits to Massive Financial Failure in Leaked Documents

It turns out that AI demand is significantly lower than expected, as OpenAI shaves $20 billion off its revenue expectations for 2026.

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John Lubbock @jwsal.bsky.social · 12h

Labour are reducing equality of opportunity while watching universities collapse and promising billions more for the military. Cultural and economic suicide.

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John Lubbock @jwsal.bsky.social · 13h

Wishful thinking here, Ian.

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Adam Bienkov @adambienkov.bsky.social · 14h

The contrast between the utterly sycophantic coverage this week of Kemi Badenoch, whose party has a truly atrocious electoral record under her leadership, and the utterly dismissive coverage of the Greens, tells you everything you need to know about media bias in the UK

adambienkov.co.uk

Why the Holborn and St Pancras By-Election Was a Good Result for the Green Party

The dismissive coverage of Zack Polanski’s party obscures a far bigger truth about the rise of the left in British politics

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Edward @fornbirkibeinn.bsky.social · 16h

Anecdotally what seems to be happening is that the Home Office is refusing all student visa applications from certain countries. The Treasury should have told them to knock if off years ago but at this point the FCO needs to tell them to stop trying to cause an international incident.

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Jake Grumbach @jakemgrumbach.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

New working paper: the Norwegian wealth tax was a huge success. The "exodus" of wealthy people never happened (less than 100 individuals left). Tax revenue increased by 71.5%. No changes in business activity or investment. www.nber.org/papers/w35854

Taxing Entrepreneurial Wealth: Evidence from
Norway, 2021-2025
Marius A. K. Ring
WORKING PAPER 35854|
DOl 10.3386/w35854
ISSUE DATE October 2026
Whether imposing higher taxes on business owners adversely affects business activity by constraining investment and inducing capitalist flight is a central question in the ongoing debate on how to tax the ultra wealthy. To shed new light, I exploit a series of related Norwegian reforms during 2021-2024 that increased dividend tax rates, removed migration-related capital gains tax loopholes, and nearly doubled the effective marginal tax rate on business wealth. These reforms spurred international debate and, allegedly, an "exodus" of Norwegian billionaires (Financial Times,
2023). While I document clear effects on migration, these responses are concentrated among the top 0.1% of the wealth distribution and mostly confined to 2022 and 2023. My results indicate that at most 100 individuals left due to the reforms. I find no evidence of significant outmigration or reduced inflows of startup founders or inventors. I estimate that absent any outmigration, wealth tax revenues would have increased by 75% from 2021 to 2024. Reform-driven outmigration lowers the revenue gain to 71.5%. My findings further show that outmigrating owners' firms remain economically active and do not reduce investment. In a broader set of analyses, I examine whether business outcomes are affected, regardless of whether owners outmigrate, since firms may reduce investment both due to liquidity constraints or distortions to owners' savings decisions. I compare firms owned by Norwegian individuals subject to the wealth tax with firms owned by foreigners and other tax-exempt entities. By merging historical ownership data from Orbis with the Norwegian shareholder register, I perform these analyses on both Norwegian and foreign-domiciled firms.
Across settings, I find no evidence that Norwegian-owned firms pay out more dividends or invest less after the reforms,…

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John Lubbock @jwsal.bsky.social · 16h

“Respected business title Quartz is using a single, hugely prolific journalist heavily aided by AI to produce nearly all its daily website reporting.” pressgazette.co.uk/publishers/d...

pressgazette.co.uk

Quartz website mainly produced by one AI-assisted reporter writing 50+ stories per day

Digital marketing expert Cris Tolomia appears to be making heavy use of AI.

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John Lubbock @jwsal.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

You should watch that Meet the Hitlers doc. There’s some British hack who goes round trying to get the descendants of Hitler’s nephew who moved to the US to talk and none of them want to of course.

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John Lubbock @jwsal.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

There’s a documentary about people with the name Hitler and one of them is a Bolivian guy whose dad gave him the first name Hitler just to make him stand out. He had no idea who Hitler was till he moved to the US. vimeo.com/229732534

vimeo.com

Meet the Hitlers full film

This is "Meet the Hitlers full film" by Steve Prestemon on Vimeo, the home for high quality videos and the people who love them.

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John Lubbock @jwsal.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

"The candidate for the centre-left Ahora Nación party was elected mayor of Queropalca, a remote district in the Peruvian Andes." www.bbc.com/news/article...

bbc.com

Man named Hitler Mussolini elected mayor in Peru

The left-wing candidate won a narrow victory in a remote district in the Peruvian Andes, exit polls show.

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Mark Grimshaw @markgrimshawtism.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

A fascinating editorial decision from the BBC, to make the headline a scaremongering “AUTISM AND ADHD ARE BEING OVERDIAGNOSED”, and then, four bullet points later, have the author of the report quoted as essentially saying “nah, that’s bullshit, actually”.

ADHD and autism at risk of over-diagnosis, says report, as author warns of rise in mental ill health
Summary
• An official review in England finds there is a risk of people being over-diagnosed with
ADHD and autism - three key findings from the report
• As well as neurodevelopmental conditions, the review looks at mental ill health, particularly in younger people. Our health correspondent explains the difference
• It was commissioned earlier this year after Wes Streeting, then the health secretary, said there was an "over-diagnosis" of mental health conditions
• Speaking to Radio 4's Today programme earlier, review chair Prof Peter Fonagy said Streeting was "with respect, completely wrong"

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John Lubbock @jwsal.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

Brainwashed, Communist James Bond: ‘MI6 are fighting an imperialist class war against the people of post-imperial nations’ M, preparing espionage operations against Mossadegh in Iran: ‘Not now Bond, this is no time for plot exposition!’

The story involves the fictional British Secret Service operative James Bond, who had been posted missing, presumed dead, after his last mission in Japan. Bond returns to Britain via the Soviet Union, where he had been brainwashed to attempt to assassinate his superior, M. After being de-programmed by the MI6 doctors, Bond is sent to the Caribbean to find and kill Francisco
Scaramanga, the titular "Man with the Golden Gun"

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Dan Davies @dsquareddigest.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

Having grown up in Wales, I can testify that if you are actually worried about your culture and history being under threat, the thing to do is write poetry and songs, perform plays, tell stories and organise festivals, not just sit around whining.

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Ben Ansell @benansell.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

‘Culturally British by my standards’ is one of the most chilling phrases uttered in British politics. Entirely unsurprising to me who it’s from.

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Running Dog @runningdog.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Or sometimes as anyone with GB News relatives will know, you disagree about both facts and values, at which point it’s impossible to talk about politics at all so you learn nothing and just gradually (or rapidly!) stop talking.

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John Lubbock @jwsal.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

I’m being a bit cynical here but the profession does tend to lend itself to people with more money and education, and who grow up around politics.

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John Lubbock @jwsal.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

Yeah, usually ones with more privilege. Councillors get paid less than £18k expenses a year so it helps if you’re already rich.

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John Lubbock @jwsal.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

The closer you get to power the harder the decisions become. I was 17 votes away from being elected as a councillor in May and part of me is glad I’m not responsible for running a council that’s £1.1bn in debt.

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John Lubbock @jwsal.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

You are a hilarious clown who is so enmeshed in anti-Palestinian conspiracy theories that you are happy to justify genocide. Now I’m going to mute you. Goodbye.

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John Lubbock @jwsal.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

I think, sadly, that one is required to have a somewhat unusual ego to enjoy the scrutiny, humiliation and intrigue of party politics.

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John Lubbock @jwsal.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

My sister tells me that she had TV crews (who said they were) from both the BBC and ITV (but refused to show ID) sitting outside her house all day yesterday in Hackney under the mistaken belief that Zack Polanski lived there. He does not live there.

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John Lubbock @jwsal.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

Sorry this is just some weird anti-Communist conspiracy theory now. Everything’s just Soviet propaganda! Donald Trump is a Russian asset! It’s definitely true cos my FBPE pals say so!

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John Lubbock @jwsal.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

Shameful to have to pretend to be this stupid just so you don’t look like you’re criticising the Mad King.

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John Lubbock @jwsal.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

Yeah all of them are Will Ferrell

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Laura Webster @lauraewebster.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

So there's this Tel Aviv Scrabble club which appears to be co-ordinating a flood of spurious complaints about The National's coverage of Gaza, resulting in literally hundreds of Ipso processes for us to go through. Let me explain ...

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John Lubbock @jwsal.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

Well Santa’s workshop is outside the UK so I guess our labour laws don’t apply.

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John Lubbock @jwsal.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

True, that’s why the Green group voted against it on the basis of a lack of affordable housing.

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John Lubbock @jwsal.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

£35 per day to be an Elf? In this economy?

Indeed job advert offering £35 per day to be ‘Santa & Elf actors’

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John Lubbock @jwsal.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

Apparently the ex German spy chief arrested for espionage for a foreign country was really, really good friends with the head of Israel’s Mossad. www.aljazeera.com/amp/news/202...

aljazeera.com

German ex-spy chief arrested for treason: What we know

Former top spy August Hanning led the Federal Intelligence Service from 1998 to 2005.

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John Lubbock @jwsal.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

A ton of London property. Companies owned or managed by people in Gulf dictatorships are building skyscrapers all over the place. London Square is owned by UAE, for example.

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yaoi gagarin @mel.bzky.team · 08/10/2026

usually every bigotry is either The Animalistic Subhumans Are Coming For Our Women or The Scheming Puppeteers Have Secret Control Of All Of Society. transphobia is fun because it is, in this regard, nonbinary

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John Lubbock @jwsal.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

I’m sitting in King’s College A&E listening to an Irish guy explain to doctors that he has come in because he hasn’t eaten in 2 days, has been kicked out of temporary accommodation, and that his phone has been hacked and he’s ’surrounded by spy cameras’.

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flyingrodent @flyingrodent.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

I get responses with weird theories for why this happens but, for real: relentless massacre and destruction is not a factor because it is only incidental to the core point Rafa and others have always been making, and that key, non-negotiable point is: Fuck you, we are in charge, shut up, fuck off.

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John Lubbock @jwsal.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

You don’t have to agree with me, but to ignore the reality of what Zionism means in favour of this fluffy abstract notion which ignores reality, that suggests to me that you are conveniently ignoring reality and the facts we’ve all seen over the last few years.

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John Lubbock @jwsal.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Now you can argue for you preferred definition of the term which ignores how it actually functions, but the moment you say that Zionism necessitates the displacement of another pre-existing people, well that’s racist if you ask me.

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John Lubbock @jwsal.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

The idea that the Jewish people must have a national homeland is a product of the European period of colonialism and nationalism, and by choosing a location with a pre-existing population by definition has led it down the path of ethnic cleansing of those people.

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John Lubbock @jwsal.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

The idea that there’s only one definition of Zionism, which you have decided is the most charitable version, is clearly false. Again, it ignores the material reality that Zionism as practiced is currently engaged in the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people.

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John Lubbock @jwsal.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

The idea that Zionism is racist is an invention of the USSR authorities ignores the obvious fact that Zionism is responsible for an ongoing genocide. It removes agency from Jewish antizionists who decided it was racist long before the 70s, and refuses to engage with Zionism as practiced.

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John Lubbock @jwsal.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

But whatever your definition is, we can all look at what the material reality is on the ground. Go have a look at Gaza on Google Maps if you want to see the reality of Zionism.

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John Lubbock @jwsal.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

There isn’t one central definition of Zionism, that’s why this is complicated, because we are not talking about the same things. This is kinda Semiotics 101.

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John Lubbock @jwsal.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

There are many good reasons that the oppression of Palestinians has salience within geopolitics, and I don’t think it behooves any productive conversation to throw around accusations of racism as essentialising explanations.

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John Lubbock @jwsal.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Your suggestion that the GPEW is obsessed with Israel smacks of a bad faith accusation of Antisemitism. Considering that we have a Jewish leader nationally, and in my local GP-run council, I find that suggestion rather silly.

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John Lubbock @jwsal.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Well I disagree, because Zionism is about creating a nation state that affords full legal rights to one specific ethnically defined group, and by necessity the legal discrimination against the native population of Palestine. I think this is why it’s good we are having this conversation.

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John Lubbock @jwsal.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

OpenAI should be asked to pay compensation to the Wikimedia Foundation.

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John Lubbock @jwsal.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

I think this is a good example of how transphobia is used to police the bodies and appearance of all women, as it is at its heart a misogynistic form of gender essentialism which punishes anyone considered outside the norm.

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