Nicholas Wright

Writer & #NUFC tragic.
We run campaigns, research & comms around the world for causes we believe in.
Now complaining from McLaren Vale SA

[Nicholas Wright @NicholasHWright]

To anybody who helped this to happen, thank YOU from myself and @thecommsman 🙏
... And if you haven't yet (and wld like a good read, while helping send an indigenous aussie to Uni) visit https://t.co/GGi6B5lVls! x

[George Eaton @georgeeaton]

The Starmer government was one of the most left-leaning we’ve had that was almost never identified as such.

[nhu 🇻🇳🇨🇳 @maisonlongan]

the US fucked up so bad you got footy fans on here defending a referee

[Lawrence M. Krauss @LKrauss1]

This is what the War on Science is all about. The effort to replace science by ideology in academia, business and government. That is why we wrote the book. Carole and Geoff are both contributors.. It is worth looking at.

[Camus @newstart_2024]

“We’ve reached the point where women are terrified to say what a woman is.”

Jordan Peterson nailed it on Piers Morgan Uncensored while discussing Macy Gray’s comments. She simply stated biological reality, got destroyed for it, and was forced into a groveling apology.

Peterson pointed out that the radical side has rejected reasonable conversation entirely, they see any pushback as domination, not dialogue. He compared purely subjective identity to the mindset of a two-year-old who can’t yet negotiate social reality.

It’s striking how quickly we went from “be kind” to punishing basic biological statements. Real conversation has been replaced by moral enforcement.

When one side refuses to negotiate identity or reality, society loses the ability to have honest discussions about fairness, especially in sports, spaces, and language.

[David Senra @davidsenra]

The mind is a powerful place and what you feed it can affect you in a powerful way

How @tobi got over his fear of public speaking:

“I  was terrified of public speaking until I sat down for like a week and every day I spent ten minutes just writing that I like public speaking.”

“ If you tell yourself or write something down 100 times about yourself, that writes it into the prefrontal cortex at such a deep level that your brain will start reconciling you to that.”

“It’s not a placebo. You actively change your prefrontal cortex.”

[Tim Shipman @ShippersUnbound]

Further to Blair. Literally every honest sensible person in all the main parties privately agrees with all these propositions:

- welfare spending is too high and is throwing good people on the scrapheap
- defence spending is too low
- the triple lock is unsustainable
- without cheap energy we cannot exploit the AI revolution
- we should be investing in EVERY form of energy: renewables, nuclear and the North Sea
- migration needs to be controlled to boost social cohesion and because the boats look like a huge failure of the state
- any new relationship with the EU will be imposed on us until we are stronger and cannot involve the closeness some desire without freedom of movement
- we are deeply embedded with America in ways which the public does not understand and cannot be told and however joyous it makes us feel to hate Trump, disengagement at the deep state level is not only wholly unrealistic but also undesirable
- Whitehall needs a total overhaul so specific project expertise and political appointees can be brought in quickly

Blair basically says all that.

The one thing he doesn’t say and which the same group of people agree on is this and it’s something Blair left behind:

- judges and quangos have too much power, are unaccountable and without redressing the balance in favour of parliament it is very difficult to do anything big fast
- the bare minimum that needs to change in this regard is to reform judicial review and planning law so we can put building and economic growth ahead of newts and NIMBYs

None of that above really ought to be up for discussion. It is all common sense but not one of our politicians will publicly say all of it

Whatever you think of Blair, engage with what he’s saying not how he makes you feel. The bare minimum we should expect from any leader is that they have an analysis of the current situation and a plan to deal with it which is as coherent and realistic as his intervention. Pretty well every critique I’ve read so far has failed to meet this requirement.

Over to Andy and Keir and Kemi and Nigel and Zack and all the others

[Jeff Bezos @JeffBezos]

Thank you. The important part is zeroing out taxes on the bottom half. Best way to put money in someone’s pocket is to not take it out in the first place. Bottom half is only 3% of total tax revenue. But it’s very meaningful to that person. Zero it out.

[John Rentoul @JohnRentoul]

Excellent from Janan Ganesh https://t.co/ylsgn8Ha3F

[Jonathan Haidt @JonHaidt]

Thanks to my friend and co-author @glukianoff for laying out what we actually wrote in The Coddling of the American Mind, and applying it in response to seven arguments made by those who objected to my selection as a commencement speaker:

https://t.co/3pGmtJp6NC

[Cameron Murray @DrCameronMurray]

I wonder what the gender pay gap discourse will look like when the gap reverses, as it has for full-time workers under age 30.

[Steve Rosenberg @BBCSteveR]

Just got this text from my Moscow mobile operator: “During preparations for and the holding of holiday events from 5-9 May temporary restrictions to mobile internet and text messaging are possible in Moscow and Moscow region. This may cause difficulties with cashless payments, use of ATMs and GPS services.”

[Charlie Bilello @charliebilello]

Insane stat: 0.1% of the accounts on Polymarket have earned 67% of the profits.

[Andrew Neil @afneil]

You’re the energy secretary. Yet you don’t seem to know that BP’s ‘excess profits’ come from its global oil trading division, which is not subject to UK ‘excess profits’ windfall tax, not from its North Sea activities, which are. Remarkable.

[Cooper Lawrence @CooperLawrence]

Why doesn’t 50 Cent just go on tour with Nickelback and call the tour “45 Cents” my god do I have to think of everything?

[Jonathan Haidt @JonHaidt]

The next time you hear someone say "The Australia bill did not work because many kids are still on social media!" remind them of the quote from Lao Tzu:

"A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. But if that first step is hard, then you should quit."

Except I'm not certain he said the second part of that.

Australia's leaders had the guts to take the first step.
Nobody expected it to work perfectly instantly, or ever.
It's the same with minimum age laws for cigarettes, alcohol, porn, and gambling.
The goals are to reduce harm and change the norms of childhood, which takes time.

As Julie Inman Grant (Australia's e-safety commissioner) put it, the true impact "won’t be measured in weeks or months but will likely be generational."
https://t.co/mgBuIUcQZ9

And actually, if you look at the graph shown below, of the % of underage teens with social media accounts before and after the law took effect, I'd say it's a very large effect size! For the law to be causing such a big reduction in its first few months is really encouraging.

Age verification technology will improve continuously, now that there's a market, in ways that increasingly protect privacy. And norms will change. And children will be less glued to their phones. For example, Australian boys are showing a "massive upsurge" of interest in fishing:
https://t.co/2zrezkVlL1

You can find the original article showing the graph here:
https://t.co/N7h3dkIzRR

[Crémieux @cremieuxrecueil]

The most exciting longevity trend right now is that we are actually beating dementia.

At a given age—70, 75, 80, etc.—the prevalence of dementia is down compared to what it was decades ago.

Today's 90-year-olds have less than half the risk of dementia that ones in 1984 did!

[Physics & Astronomy Zone @zone_astronomy]

The highest quality video of the moon was just released… this is so beautiful.

[All day Astronomy @forallcurious]

BREATHTAKING🚨: WOW! NASA just dropped this view of the moon’s far side!

[D.⛅ @Deep_Take001]

Wimbledon 2019.

[The Disrespected Trucker @DisrespectedThe]

I laugh harder at this video every time I watch it.