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Gilbert Oddstream

@oddstream.bsky.social
278 followers 88 following 143 posts

Programmer, gamer, cyclist, reader, eremitic, idler, European, hatred of ads, appalled by neoliberalism, supporter of 'make lying wrong again', inexplicable fondness for raccoons. Born at 317ppm.

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Gilbert Oddstream @oddstream.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
The “billionaires are clever, therefore they should run things” rests on a questionable transfer of competence: being excellent at accumulating wealth in one sphere does not prove that someone understands healthcare, education, democracy, urban planning, ecology, or social welfare.
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Gilbert Oddstream @oddstream.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
A beggar’s mistake harms no one but the beggar. A king’s mistake, however, harms everyone but the king. Too often, the measure of power lies not in the number who obey your will, but in the number who suffer your stupidity. ~ R Scott Bakker, The Judging Eye
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Gilbert Oddstream @oddstream.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
“Isn’t it funny how we were taught to be afraid of witches, but not the men burning them.”
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Reposted by Gilbert Oddstream
Anonymous @youranoncentral.bsky.social · 22/07/2026
You can argue for any political ideology or system of government you like, but if it does not treat women equitably and recognize them as fully human, it has already failed and deserves to collapse.
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Gilbert Oddstream @oddstream.bsky.social · 18/07/2026
"Advertising may be described as the science of arresting human intelligence long enough to get money from it." ~ Stephen Leacock
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Gilbert Oddstream @oddstream.bsky.social · 02/05/2026
“If a monkey hoarded more bananas than it could eat, while most of the other monkeys starved, scientists would study that monkey to figure out what the heck was wrong with it. When humans do it, we put them on the cover of Forbes.”
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Gilbert Oddstream @oddstream.bsky.social · 05/03/2026
Based on his career military experience, Butler discusses how business interests commercially benefit from warfare. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Is_...
en.wikipedia.org
War Is a Racket - Wikipedia
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Gilbert Oddstream @oddstream.bsky.social · 20/02/2026
As studies in the US by Christopher Achen and Larry Bartels show, the great majority of voters possess no useful political information at all. Without the time or tools needed to understand politics, we are led blithely into the arms of people who would destroy us.
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Gilbert Oddstream @oddstream.bsky.social · 17/01/2026
Our system of "democracy" has been set up by the rich for the rich. The system is built to encourage good "little" people to fight other "little" people. Division and distraction. Look over there while we get on with helping ourselves to your cash.
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Gilbert Oddstream @oddstream.bsky.social · 14/01/2026
substack.com/@garrykaspar...
substack.com
Garry Kasparov (@garrykasparov)
Dictators attack weakness, and offers of negotiations and peace are interpreted as weakness. "If you really wanted to stop me, you would. You don’t, so you are weak and so I attack."
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Gilbert Oddstream @oddstream.bsky.social · 14/01/2026
truepublica.org.uk/united-kingd...
truepublica.org.uk
The Route Out of the Failures of Capitalism - TruePublica
The failure of modern capitalism continues. Western democracies were enthralled by its promise of economic growth, innovation, and prosperity
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Gilbert Oddstream @oddstream.bsky.social · 08/01/2026
“I always say the truth is best even when we find it unpleasant. Any rat in a sewer can lie. It's how rats are. It's what makes them rats. But a human doesn't run and hide in dark places, because he's something more. Lying is the most personal act of cowardice there is.” ― Nancy Farmer
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Gilbert Oddstream @oddstream.bsky.social · 05/01/2026
Hey, Starmer: Chamberlain tried appeasement - how did that work out? You stand up to a bully, otherwise they just don't stop. The era of procrastination, of half-measures, of soothing and baffling expedients, of delays is coming to its close. In its place we are entering a period of consequences.
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Gilbert Oddstream @oddstream.bsky.social · 05/01/2026
A broader reading of history shows that appeasement, no matter how it is labelled, never fulfils the hopes of the appeasers. -- Ronald Reagan
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Gilbert Oddstream @oddstream.bsky.social · 01/12/2025
As Sir Terry Pratchett once put it, it’s as if even the most intelligent person has this little blank spot in their heads where someone’s written: “Kings. What a good idea.”
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Gilbert Oddstream @oddstream.bsky.social · 19/11/2025
“If you can’t paraphrase somebody else’s position in a way that they would agree with, you don’t understand it, and if you don’t understand it, you can’t debate it.”
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Gilbert Oddstream @oddstream.bsky.social · 19/11/2025
“Most people go through life with a whole world of beliefs that have no sort of rational justification. People’s opinions are mainly designed to make them feel comfortable; truth, for most people is a secondary consideration.” -- Bertrand Russell, from 'The Art of Philosophizing and other Essays'
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Gilbert Oddstream @oddstream.bsky.social · 09/11/2025
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Gilbert Oddstream @oddstream.bsky.social · 02/11/2025
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mor...
en.wikipedia.org
The Moral Basis of a Backward Society - Wikipedia
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Gilbert Oddstream @oddstream.bsky.social · 10/10/2025
No immigrant caused hikes in the price of energy, water, food, banking, insurance, internet; decline of manufacturing, lack of social housing; PFI; potholed roads; climate change; lack of skilled labour; crisis at universities. Neoliberalism did that. -- Prem Sikka
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Gilbert Oddstream @oddstream.bsky.social · 10/10/2025
A very specific Neoliberal tactic called Managed Decline. That's the standard technique of privatization: defund, make sure things don't work, people get angry, you hand it over to private capital. -- Noam Chomsky
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Gilbert Oddstream @oddstream.bsky.social · 17/09/2025
A beggar’s mistake harms no one but the beggar. A king’s mistake, however, harms everyone but the king. Too often, the measure of power lies not in the number who obey your will, but in the number who suffer your stupidity. – R Scott Bakker, The Judging Eye
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Gilbert Oddstream @oddstream.bsky.social · 17/09/2025
Leonardo da Vinci kept all of his notes in one big book. If he liked something he put it down. This is known as a commonplace book, and it is about how detailed your note-taking system should be unless you plan on thinking more elaborately than Leonardo da Vinci.
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Gilbert Oddstream @oddstream.bsky.social · 29/08/2025
cmarmitage.substack.com/p/i-research...
cmarmitage.substack.com
I researched every attempt to stop fascism in history. The success rate is 0%.
Once they win elections, it's already too late.
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Gilbert Oddstream @oddstream.bsky.social · 02/08/2025
www.theguardian.com/environment/...
theguardian.com
‘Self-termination is most likely’: the history and future of societal collapse
An epic analysis of 5,000 years of civilisation argues that a global collapse is coming unless inequality is vanquished
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Gilbert Oddstream @oddstream.bsky.social · 02/08/2025
“The three most powerful men in the world are a walking version of the dark triad: Trump is a textbook narcissist, Putin is a cold psychopath, and Xi Jinping came to rule China by being a master Machiavellian manipulator.”
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Gilbert Oddstream @oddstream.bsky.social · 01/08/2025
“History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce.” Karl Marx
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Gilbert Oddstream @oddstream.bsky.social · 01/07/2025
"JOURNALISM 101: If someone says it's raining, and another person says it's dry, it's not your job to quote them both. Your job is to look out the fucking window and find out which is true."
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Gilbert Oddstream @oddstream.bsky.social · 26/06/2025
A person who shows he cannot control his own words and tongue shows that he cannot control himself, and is unworthy of respect.
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Gilbert Oddstream @oddstream.bsky.social · 11/06/2025
The behaviour you walk past is the behaviour you accept.
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Gilbert Oddstream @oddstream.bsky.social · 19/05/2025
Today's compare and contrast: "Even as a young man, Vito Corleone became known as a “man of reasonableness.” He never uttered a threat. He always used logic that proved to be irresistible. He always made certain that the other fellow got his share of profit. Nobody lost."
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Gilbert Oddstream @oddstream.bsky.social · 09/05/2025
"Small acts of acquiescence, framed as necessary defensive measures, feel like the only reasonable course. But this is the fatal logic of appeasement: the belief that quietly yielding in small, seemingly temporary ways will mitigate long-term harm. It usually doesn’t." -- Steven Levitsky
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Gilbert Oddstream @oddstream.bsky.social · 07/05/2025
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It_Can%...
en.wikipedia.org
It Can't Happen Here - Wikipedia
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Gilbert Oddstream @oddstream.bsky.social · 05/05/2025
The happiest people are those who do the most for others. The most miserable are those who do the least. Booker T. Washington
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Gilbert Oddstream @oddstream.bsky.social · 05/05/2025
If you want to lift yourself up, lift up someone else. Booker T. Washington
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Gilbert Oddstream @oddstream.bsky.social · 19/04/2025
We have the internet and 24-hour news, and now we have millions of wilfully ignorant voters. This is no coincidence - see the Theory of the Masses en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darknes...
en.wikipedia.org
Darkness at Noon - Wikipedia
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Gilbert Oddstream @oddstream.bsky.social · 09/04/2025
Sic semper tyrannis is a Latin phrase meaning "thus always to tyrants". In contemporary parlance, it means tyrannical leaders will inevitably be overthrown. The phrase also suggests that bad but justified outcomes should, or eventually will, befall tyrants. It is the motto of the Virginia.
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Gilbert Oddstream @oddstream.bsky.social · 19/03/2025
I’m not sure it actually matters what we read. Our lives continue along the straight lines that have been set out for us. Fiction merely allows us a glimpse of the alternative. Maybe that’s one of the reasons we enjoy it.
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Gilbert Oddstream @oddstream.bsky.social · 18/03/2025
The only time you look in your neighbour's bowl is to make sure that they have enough. You don't look in your neighbour's bowl to see if you have as much as them -- Louie CK
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Gilbert Oddstream @oddstream.bsky.social · 17/03/2025
“To determine the true rulers of any society, all you must do is ask yourself this question: Who is it that I am not permitted to criticize?” -- Kevin Alfred Strom
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Gilbert Oddstream @oddstream.bsky.social · 16/03/2025
"I don't think people realize how the establishment became established. It simply stole the land and property off the poor, surrounded themselves with weak-minded sycophants for protection, gave themselves titles and have been wielding power ever since" -- Tony Benn
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Gilbert Oddstream @oddstream.bsky.social · 16/03/2025
"Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect." -- Frank Wilhoit
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Gilbert Oddstream @oddstream.bsky.social · 16/03/2025
Capitalism is not, as its defenders insist, a system designed to distribute wealth, but one designed to capture and concentrate it. The story capitalism tells about itself – that you become rich through hard work and enterprise – is the greatest propaganda coup in human history. – George Monboit
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Gilbert Oddstream @oddstream.bsky.social · 03/03/2025
Dignity at all times -- Eric Morecambe, The Morecambe & Wise Show, 1977 Christmas Special
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Gilbert Oddstream @oddstream.bsky.social · 03/03/2025
The less talent they have, the more pride, vanity and arrogance they have. All these fools, however, find other fools who applaud them – Erasmus, The Praise of Folly (1509)
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Gilbert Oddstream @oddstream.bsky.social · 03/03/2025
You’re increasing the volume in your voice, but no the logic in your argument – Volodymyr Zelenskyy
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Gilbert Oddstream @oddstream.bsky.social · 01/03/2025
Rule of thumb - any relationship is broken when one side first becomes disgusted by the other.
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Gilbert Oddstream @oddstream.bsky.social · 24/02/2025
The height of moral rectitude is to stand up to bullies. The greatest moral opprobrium is reserved for show-offs.
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Gilbert Oddstream @oddstream.bsky.social · 23/02/2025
POLITE NOTICE Customers are reminded that these newspapers contain the opinions of a small group of billionaires to influence public opinion and are not 100% factual or reflect reality. Please cross-reference everything you read. THANK YOU
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Gilbert Oddstream @oddstream.bsky.social · 20/02/2025
A strong nation, like a strong person, can afford to be gentle, firm, thoughtful, and restrained. It can afford to extend a helping hand to others. It is a weak nation, like a weak person, that must behave with bluster and boasting and rashness and other signs of insecurity. -Jimmy Carter
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