iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Squirrel the Riveted @rivetedsquirrel.bsky.social · 08/11/2025

“In a world of widely distributed abundance”

In particular, we expect the future to provide new and hopefully better ways to live a fulfilling life, and for more people to experience such a life than do today. It is true that work will be different, the economic transition may be very difficult in some ways, and it is even possible that the fundamental socioeconomic contract will have to change. But in a world of widely-distributed abundance, people’s lives can be much better than they are today.

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Squirrel the Riveted @rivetedsquirrel.bsky.social · 24/01/2025

Like anything, context matters. Find common ground on the right stuff.

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Squirrel the Riveted @rivetedsquirrel.bsky.social · 20/01/2025

Said goodbye to the sweetest chinchilla yesterday.

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Squirrel the Riveted @rivetedsquirrel.bsky.social · 05/01/2025

“It’s one banana, Michael. What could it cost, $10?”

Social media post (Hacker News perhaps?)

If all farmers suddenly disappeared tomorrow we'd go hungry for a little bit before we figured it out and were just fine. And that's because it's a job that literally anyone could do. We have the farmers we do because they're the ones who inherited a shit ton of land from their great grandfather, not because they have some highly specialized set of skills the rest of us couldn't possibly figure out with just a few google searches.

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Squirrel the Riveted @rivetedsquirrel.bsky.social · 02/01/2025

Final note. The ethical debate here is philosophical, not scientific. It is impossible to determine the ethical course of action without speaking of what it means to live.

There's one study I came across when researching for this episode in the Journal of Medical Ethics, and it was asking whether universities should mandate third-dose COVID-19 boosters. And they estimate that to prevent one hospitalization over a six-month period, you'd have to vaccinate between, roughly, 31,000 to 42,000 young adults. In order to do that, you're getting a handful of adverse events and up to 5,000 adverse reactions that would "interfere with daily activities." And as a result of that, they cor lude that university booster mandates are unethical because they don't take into account the low risk this group faces with Omicron, which was the wave at the time, and they're just not proportionate, among other reasons.

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Squirrel the Riveted @rivetedsquirrel.bsky.social · 02/01/2025

This bit is interesting. I feel like medicine is far more often closer to Bedard’s definition of public health, e.g. doctors treating us as statistical numbers on a spreadsheet even when we are speaking face to face. Her definition of medicine is how it ought to be practiced but rarely is.

Bedard: There are sort of two levels in thinking about how you answer that. First of all, there's a really important distinction to be made between public health and medicine, right? Public health is the creation of policy and intervention meant to apply to groups of people or universally across population in the interest of the many. Medicine is the practice of helping people improve their own health that's practiced individually with the patient in front of you.

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Squirrel the Riveted @rivetedsquirrel.bsky.social · 02/01/2025

I don’t care so much about how these things are coded, I feel like that obscures the horseshoe theory aspect of this which is that historically, skepticism about drugs and public health institutions exists all along the political spectrum.

And what I think is really important to recognize is: Really until the pandemic, a lot of what Kennedy talks about-the idea that government and Big Pharma are in cahoots with one another, and that we're overprescribing medications to ourselves, especially to our kids; the idea that we're poisoning the environment with toxins; the idea that food companies are tempting kids with high-sugar, high-fructose, dyed products that then are contributing to a childhood-obesity epidemic—all of those things, I think, coded as liberal critiques of the medical establishment until very recently.

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Squirrel the Riveted @rivetedsquirrel.bsky.social · 29/12/2024

They’re not ripping each other to shreds, they’re debating. Internal debates are healthy, you guys should try it more often.

Micah @rincewind.run • 11h
what's happening on twitter right now shows just how important it was for left of center people to leave it earlier
these assholes need a target, and deprived of their preferred options they are ripping each other to shreds.

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Squirrel the Riveted @rivetedsquirrel.bsky.social · 15/12/2024

They haven’t confirmed these cases were bird flu yet.

"The infected cats died after severe worsening of their illness, and subsequently tested positive for influenza A, a rare result in cats," the release stated.

Health officials are considering these
"suspected H5 bird flu cases" and confirmatory testing is underway.

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Squirrel the Riveted @rivetedsquirrel.bsky.social · 10/12/2024

There’s a preserve along the Huron River near me that has old grey beaver chewed trees from many years ago. It was always sad to see them. Yesterday the wife and I took a walk and…

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Squirrel the Riveted @rivetedsquirrel.bsky.social · 28/11/2024

Gratitude, sure, but also hard to square the “undeniable” need for undocumented migrant workers with the working conditions they face. Not to mention the omnipresent threat of deportation, which employers can and do use to keep workers from speaking out.

DAILY KOS
The need for migrants to supply our food chain is undeniable and even more so as convicted felon and President-elect Donald
Trump promises mass deportations when he takes office.
"Mass deportations could affect our entire dairy industry throughout the U.S.," Maine dairy farmer Jennifer Tilton Flood told Newsweek. "The idea of mass deportations is frightening and scary, just on a humane level, with regards to our community."

This vague data set reflects at least 12,300 migrant workers who live in Virginia's "350 migrant labor camps." Notably, the Virginia Dapartment of Health cited that the regulations on conditions at these camps
including AC, heat and clean water-have not been revisited
"in over 20 years."|

LA Cooperativa released a report in 2023 revealing that 75% of California's farm workers were
undocumented immigrants.
While the West Coast state has historically advocated for workers' rights, many of California's farm workers (i.e., migrants) do not receive protections such as minimum wage, overtime pay, and other benefits.

When it comes to the U.S.'s top turkey states, Minnesota is also migrant-reliant-and officials have openly acknowledged the state workforce's dependency on
migrants.
This state in particular saw a flood of migrants-some of them minors-working in meatpacking facilities across the state, sometimes being subjected to subhuman living conditions.

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Squirrel the Riveted @rivetedsquirrel.bsky.social · 27/11/2024

Ah yes, GDP per capita, totally sensible way to measure poverty in pre-industrial times

“Reconstructions of living conditions over the long-run suggest that when Malthus wrote these words in 1789, he was right about t'e past. As the visualization here shows, GDP per capita - the average income of people - had remained extremely low.“

“GDP per capita - the average income of people - had remained extremely low” is highlighted

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Squirrel the Riveted @rivetedsquirrel.bsky.social · 22/11/2024

Oh come on. Which crucial US national security secrets?

First page of wikipedia article: "Edward Joseph Snowden (born June 21, 1983) is an American former NSA intelligence contractor and whistleblower[4] who leaked classified documents revealing the existence of global surveillance programs. He became a naturalized Russian citizen in 2022."

"leaked classified documents revealing the existence of global surveillance programs" is highlighted.

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Squirrel the Riveted @rivetedsquirrel.bsky.social · 20/11/2024

Very good thread on medicalization (translating to English with Google Translate, apologies for any errors!)

"It is part of life to feel the body in different ways. All setbacks and sensations are not the business of care. Would like to argue that we have far too much medicine and care rather than too little today. Resources are certainly needed, but the population's perceived need for care will never be met."

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Squirrel the Riveted @rivetedsquirrel.bsky.social · 16/11/2024

Good time for the left to step up and nominate a DNC chair that can set a new direction for the party. If not now then when?

“The new four-year term for the role begins in March and includes more elemental tasks than just choosing political vendors: The next chair will be responsible for setting the 2028 primary calendar as well as determining presidential debate parameters, not to mention framing the party's midterm message and marshaling its fundraising efforts across the map.“

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Squirrel the Riveted @rivetedsquirrel.bsky.social · 15/11/2024

Consider this line of argument against one that project confidence in the robustness of evidence for vaccine efficacy, strong enough to stand up to the renewed scrutiny that it will undergo if Kennedy is confirmed.

"*We shouldn’t underestimate the consequences of even subtle shifts in messaging about the importance of vaccines*. It can cement distrust among those already opposed to them and nudge a larger segment of the public feeling uncertain about their value into that more distrustful camp — after all, those views aren’t fringe anymore; they’ve been spoken into the mainstream by the nominee for HHS secretary."

"Speaking this week at the Milken Institute’s Future of Health Summit, CDC Director Mandy Cohen alluded to what is at stake. “*I don’t want to see us have to go backward to remind ourselves that vaccines work*,” she said. Going backward means enough of a drop in vaccine adherence that we see outbreaks of previously eradicated diseases. Going backward would mean severe complications for some children. It will cost others their lives."

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Squirrel the Riveted @rivetedsquirrel.bsky.social · 11/11/2024

He was sounding the alarm pretty early x.com/matthewstoll...

Matt Stoller (@matthewstoller) on Twitter, January 28th, 2020: "We are going to start learning about supply chain dependencies now." He was quote tweeting Nikkel Asia who said: "Exclusive: Asian suppliers warn #Apple about #coronavirus impact"

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Squirrel the Riveted @rivetedsquirrel.bsky.social · 05/11/2024

Voted third party for President for the first time in my life. Probably won’t be the last

List of presidential candidates in Michigan. Box next to Jill Stein is filled in.

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Squirrel the Riveted @rivetedsquirrel.bsky.social · 05/11/2024

www.middleeasteye.net/news/us-elec...

Umar Farooq on Twitter: “this is a story about how grassroots efforts of a community looking to make their anger at the Dems known was taken by Dem strategists and turned into a political and media machine supporting the very candidate who is the target of that anger”

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Squirrel the Riveted @rivetedsquirrel.bsky.social · 04/11/2024

My wife is a willow weaver. Here’s a coffin she made (right) and a coffin base in progress (left). I made the “bodkins” (awls) for her with a blacksmith friend recently.

Willow coffin base with willow weaving tools, including two hand forged “bodkins” (awls).

A willow coffin with pine base and handles made of salvaged dock rope. Behind it is a row of live willow trees.

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Squirrel the Riveted @rivetedsquirrel.bsky.social · 29/10/2024

Can’t stand this kind of thing. Too black and white.

“Always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor never the tormented.”
Elie Wiesel

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Squirrel the Riveted @rivetedsquirrel.bsky.social · 06/10/2024

Overlook over Cathead Bay, Northport, MI

Picture of Lake Michigan, with sand dunes and scrubby forest in the foreground.

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Squirrel the Riveted @rivetedsquirrel.bsky.social · 04/09/2024

Feels like there’s an all out assault on third parties today. AOC / Jill Stein beef, segment on NPR claiming “nearly all third party candidates are spoilers”, and found this on my car at the library 😊

VOTE!
Your vote is your voice.
The cost of silence -
or a third-party vote — in 2024:
• Abortion rights nationwide
• Social Security and Medicare
• Robust voting rights
• Protection of our air, land, and water
• Safety for LGBTQ citizens
• The fight for unions, a living wage, and fair taxation
Two-thirds of Americans support these goals.
MAGA Republicans prefer:
• Cutting taxes for the rich and big corporations
• Gutting government at all levels
• Pitting Americans against each other
We are the majority - but it only counts if we vote.

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Squirrel the Riveted @rivetedsquirrel.bsky.social · 30/08/2024

I find it interesting that he used the word "hubris". I agree but I don't think he means it in the same way I would. I think what has been largely missing from the last four years is a sense that this virus is bigger than us and we cannot control it. www.theguardian.com/us-news/arti...

"A lack of testing, opaque data, political divides, poor healthcare access and a sense of hubris - all have plagued the Covid response, and now these errors are playing across the bird flu response, Gonsalves said."

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Squirrel the Riveted @rivetedsquirrel.bsky.social · 30/08/2024

I don’t think anyone has really been taken by surprise. Nobody actually thinks the virus has gone away. When we speak of “the pandemic” in the past tense we’re speaking of something else.

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Squirrel the Riveted @rivetedsquirrel.bsky.social · 30/08/2024

No we most certainly do not “have to return to 2020 pandemic measures”. thehill.com/opinion/heal...

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Squirrel the Riveted @rivetedsquirrel.bsky.social · 30/08/2024

“Wild distortions” like swing states actually having a say in who their president is

Chris Hayes (@chrishayes) on Twitter • Aug 23
I really feel duty bound to keep pointing out to people that the electoral college is an insane unworkable mess and creates wild distortions in the single most important election in the country that literally don't exist in any other election.

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