Barbara Holtz

#WomanLifeFreedom

East German & British, living in Cambridge mostly retweeting Politics, Equality, Technology & anything else I find interesting.

[Barbara Holtz @HoltzBarbara]

@defundthedmv Wait, they were all labor and deliver nurses?? Seriously?

[Barbara Holtz @HoltzBarbara]

@yuanyi_z @TheFP Thank you! I have been thinking a lot about the candidates (most probably also black) who were absolutely qualified for the job but were dismissed.

The racism of low expectations. Unbelievable.

[Simon Schama @simon_schama]

proving yet again that Jew- hatred is also moronic - defacing the statue of a man whose greatest philosophical work was written in Judeo-Arabic.

[Richard Ferrer @richferrer]

Haifa has Israel's largest Arab Christian community and more than 20,000 Arab Muslim residents. It is the world centre of the Baháʼí faith and home to @TechnionLive, a world-leading university where 30% of students are young Arabs being trained to become the next generation of scientists and engineers. Its graduates invented the USB flash drive, the PillCam and modern drip irrigation.

Haifa is precisely the tolerant, multicultural success story the fanatically obtuse @TheGreenParty claims to celebrate. Haifa ticks every progressive box. The only problem is it's in Israel. @hackneycouncil @zoegarbettgreen

[Sam Bowman @s8mb]

Is there an explanation that doesn’t make this sound psychopathic?

[Barbara Holtz @HoltzBarbara]

@DrMatthewSweet @beverleyturner GCHQ even put a welcome to Heron house post on Instagram, but .. hey...

[Simon Schama @simon_schama]

pathetic cowardice

[S Sebag Montefiore @simonmontefiore]

The Bund is fascinating but this review like Bund itself is a triumph of wish over reality. Bundists who werent killed by Hitler were shot by Stalin inc Alter Erlich Feffer Markish Bergelson many in the Night of Murdered Poets 1952. A dangerous world. Yet oddly the review just says: ‘Bund ceased operating in 1949.’

[Big Brain AI @realBigBrainAI]

Roger Penrose, Nobel Prize-winning physicist and mathematician, explains why we should stop calling it AI and start calling it "artificial cleverness":

He believes the entire field is mislabelled, and the label itself is doing damage.

His objection is simple but cuts deep:

"The name is wrong. It's not artificial intelligence. It's not intelligence. Intelligence would involve consciousness. Well, if it's a machine, it's not conscious."

For Penrose, people have confused raw computing power with genuine understanding.

"People have lost the plot. They've lost it in the power of computing. The thing is that computers have got so powerful that they've lost the thread of what they're doing. But I think consciousness is something different. It's not computational."

He believes the term itself has hypnotized people into a category error:

"People are so hypnotized. The trouble is that AI is a bad term. It means artificial intelligence. Now intelligence in my view is conscious. That's what intelligence is about."

So he proposes a rename. Artificial Cleverness. AC instead of AI.

To illustrate the distinction, Penrose draws on his experience teaching mathematics:

"You have mathematics students. Some of them understand what they're doing. Some are just clever. They can repeat what they've learned. They know how to do it very cleverly. They can calculate very well, but they don't necessarily understand what they're doing."

That gap, between calculating well and actually understanding, is the gap Penrose sees between today's machines and genuine intelligence.

Cleverness can be manufactured. Consciousness, in his view, cannot.

So the question worth sitting with: when we call a system "intelligent," are we describing what it does, or quietly assuming something about what it is?

[Eitan Fischberger @EFischberger]

The Melkite Patriarchate announced the cancellation of all public Easter celebrations in Syria for 2026 following attacks on Christian communities by Islamist terrorists.

Where are the 358,000 people who posted about the Cardinal in Israel yesterday?

[Dan Hitchens @ddhitchens]

Remarkable speech from Pam Duncan-Glancy (Independent):

“There will be countless disabled people in our constituencies who haven’t had the choice to have a shower in weeks. People who can’t choose when they go to bed. Some who will already be in bed.

“People who can’t choose what to eat. People who can’t choose to go out of their house, because it isn’t accessible. People tonight who can’t choose the care or the healthcare they need, including at the end, because it simply isn’t available for them.

“And crucially, there will be disabled people whose struggle is so hard that they’ve given up hope, given up fighting, and will be considering tonight taking their own lives.

“I know this, because I have been all of these people I’ve described. They live in fear every single day, worrying about what new limit someone else will put on their lives, and what little power they will have to change it. They live every single day without choice at all…

“In a world where so many have little or no choice, we can’t risk making death the only choice they ever have.”

[Chaya Eitan @ChayaEitan]

Seventy-five years ago, Iraq enacted a law stripping Jews of their citizenship. They were quickly stripped of their property and forced to leave Iraq. They represented nearly a third of the population, and the disappearance of Jews from the Arab world was one of the largest acts of ethnic cleansing in the twentieth century.

[Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський @ZelenskyyUa]

We received a request from the United States for specific support in protection against "shaheds" in the Middle East region. I gave instructions to provide the necessary means and ensure the presence of Ukrainian specialists who can guarantee the required security. Ukraine helps partners who help ensure our security and protect the lives of our people. Glory to Ukraine!

[Sana Ebrahimi Ledene @SanaELedene]

In less than 48 hours, the Islamic Republic slaughtered more than 32,000 Iranians; men, women, children.

Now Iranians have built a digital memorial to protect the names the regime tried to erase:
https://t.co/CmPeekeJn7

When you enter the site, you see a sky filled with stars.
Each star is a life stolen.
The red stars are children.

You can explore their stories. You can listen. You can remember.

And you can donate to keep their names alive.

#FreeIran

[נועה מגיד | Noa magid @NoaMagid]

Remember Hilly Solomon.

Brutally murdered by Hamas at the Nova Festival on October 7.

[Nazi Hunters @HuntersOfNazis]

FREEDOM FOR IRAN! 💚♛❤️

📍Berlin, Germany 🇩🇪

[Khosro K Isfahani @KhosroIsfahani]

As a former BBC journalist, I used to look up to @bbclysedoucet.

Describing state-organized rallies as a jolly "family festival" after the regime slaughtered tens of thousands, including many children and parents, is misguided and tone deaf, to put it softly.

[𝐍𝐢𝐨𝐡 𝐁𝐞𝐫𝐠 🇮🇷 ✡︎ @NiohBerg]

"34 million people came out"

Sure they did.

[UN Watch @UNWatch]

NO JOKE: The Islamic regime in Iran has just been elected as Vice-Chair of the U.N. Commission for Social Development, whose priority theme will be promoting democracy, gender equality, and ensuring tolerance and non-violence.

Chair: “I hear no objection.”