Mark Blackburn

Technoecologist, homebody, Bears fan

[Mark Blackburn @m455954]

@Selene_Mariposa You want to complain! Look at these shoes. I've only had them three weeks and the heels are worn right through. If you complain nothing happens, you might as well not bother, my back hurts, it's not a very fine day and I'm sick and tired of this office.

[Wild Wasteland Memes @Wasteland_Memes]

One moment to leave my box then I'll get back in it.

If you're uneducated enough to have an issue with the British government rightly making this statement, lemme put it very simply:

-49,000 slave owners, approx 0.19% of the population at the time, were given money to buy them out of owning slaves. British taxpayers paid to free the slaves.

-For decades during the 19th century, Britain dedicated 1/6th of it's entire Navy specifically to seek and capture other nations' slave ships to free the slaves on board. The economic cost was bore by the taxpayer. 2,000 British sailors lost their lives.

-During the US Civil War, Pres Lincoln blockaded Cotton exports from the USA. This put more than half a million working Britons out of already very poorly paid work. After months, the mill owners worked a deal with the US govt to reopen trading. More than half a million working class Britons voted AGAINST the deal citing that they didn't ever want to work with goods produced from slavery again.

About half as many (24,000 ish) Brits died from malnourishment, disease etc in the affected cotton factory communities as a direct result of that action as ever owned slaves.

-Britain paid £400,000 to Spain to convince it to stop its slave trade. It also placed diplomatic pressure on France to stop them too.

Of every empire that ever took part in slavery, Britain is the ONLY ONE that grew a conscience, stopped its own, and then set out to stop everybody else without any outside encouragement.

And it is also the only one that has maintained a successful and genuinely beneficial diplomatic network to lift up and empower its former territories- the Commonwealth- which has helped ex-colonies outperform their peer nations in almost every way ever since.

Not to mention endless and unwavering humanitarian relief when a hurricane rips through their islands every season, or when an earthquake buries their brothers and sisters under their own houses.

The British taxpayer has bore the cost of all of that. Britons voted in favour of that responsibility in the 19th century, decades before anybody else grew a conscience of their own- even African Kingdoms such as the Asanti Empire who only stopped slaving when Britain took over Ghana and made it illegal.

You reparationsit types don't harass modern-day Turks over the 6-8 million slaves that passed through the Ottoman Slave trade, or modern-day Ghanaians for the millions that the Ghana and Asanti empires captured, abused, and traded in the Trans-Sharan and Transatlantic trades. You don't even get on at the Arab and African countries who still enable slavery today. Why?

There is no other demographic/nation/country for which people feel so empowered to blame the crimes of the most miniscule proportion of its ancestry, which were undone and atoned for by exponentially more of its ancestry, on an entire diaspora that has lived for generations with no direct culpability in said crimes.

Every population in the world has been a victim to another population at a given time. The following paragraph should be the one that sticks from this whole rant:

The working class, poor, destitute British man and woman who rotted in workhouses for centuries had more in common with their African slave counterparts than they ever did their compatriot masters. That's exactly why they bloody well did something about it. British people en masse stood WITH the slaves. Not with their feet on their necks.

Reparationism towards the British nation is just politics of division, meant to absolve commonwealth governments of their own failures towards their people at the expense of a population who have never committed the crime they are demanding reparations for, and whose ancestors paid the human and economic price for for the last 2 centuries.

This is the last post I'll make on the matter.

[Mark Blackburn @m455954]

@TheExpanseRPG Can’t wait!

[The Expanse: Osiris Reborn @TheExpanseRPG]

Giveaway time!
We are giving away 5 Steam keys for The Expanse: Osiris Reborn Beta, which will start on April 22!

Follow us, like, repost, and comment to participate!
We will announce the winners on April 21.

Please keep your DMs open, so we can reach you if you win!

[Wilkie (Richard Wilkinson) @WilkieisBack66]

Slave reparations!

I’m all in!

I’ve decided to personally gift £1 million Sterling to every single person my family ever enslaved.

Please form an orderly queue and bring:
• Ironclad documents proving my family personally enslaved you (bonus points if they include my great-great-grandpa’s signature and a Polaroid).
• Your birth certificate proving you were born before Britain abolished slavery on 1 August 1834.
• Proof you’re still alive (the gift can only be claimed in person, no ghosts, no estates, no “my ancestor told me so”).

Oh, and while you’re at it, maybe swing by the local cemetery with a shovel. I’m sure those poor souls buried since the 1800s would appreciate being dug up for their cheque. They’ve waited long enough, right?

Look, if we’re doing “reparations” for historical slavery, let’s do it properly: only to the actual victims. Not their great-great-great-grandchildren who were born free in the 20th or 21st century, sipping oat milk lattes while tweeting about “trauma.”

This isn’t justice, it’s a cosmic-level grift.

It’s like demanding the Roman Empire pay for the roads they built because some distant ancestor got conquered by Caesar. Or billing modern Italians for every Gaul who got turned into a slave 2,000 years ago.

Newsflash: No living person in Britain today was a slave under British law, and no living person in Britain today owned slaves under British law.

The people who suffered are dead. The people who profited are dead.

Their descendants, Black, White, Asian, mixed, whatever had zero say in it.

Chasing “reparations” from random taxpayers (including the descendants of abolitionists, coal miners, and people who arrived after 1834) isn’t healing historical wounds. It’s creating new ones while opening the most hilarious Pandora’s box in human history:

• Should Ireland demand reparations from Britain for the Potato Famine?
• Should Britain demand reparations from Denmark for the Viking slave raids?
• Should Italians bill Mongols for the sack of Baghdad?
• Should every African nation start invoicing each other for the centuries of tribal warfare and slave-trading that predated (and supplied) the transatlantic trade?

Where does the grievance chain end? 1066? The Bronze Age?
Lucy the Australopithecus getting stiffed on her cave rent?

Slavery was a universal human horror, practised by every civilisation from the Egyptians to the Aztecs to the Arabs to the Africans themselves (who sold millions into the trade).

Britain didn’t invent it.
Britain ended it, at massive cost, with the Royal Navy spending decades hunting slave ships while other empires kept right on going.

Demanding cash from people who never owned slaves, to give to people who were never slaves, isn’t “reparations.” It’s retroactive time-travel cosplay with other people’s money. It’s the ultimate participation trophy for historical victimhood: “My ancestor suffered, therefore I deserve a payout… even though I live in a free society with more opportunity than 99.9% of humans who ever lived.”

If you want actual justice, how about this radical idea:
Stop obsessing over who owes whom from 200 years ago, and start judging people by what they do today. Work hard. Build. Create. Don’t inherit grievances like their family heirlooms.

The desire for slavery reparations isn’t righteous anger. It’s lazy, entitled, historically illiterate greed dressed up as moral superiority, demanding a lottery win for a suffering you never endured, from people who never caused it.

My £1 million offer stands.
Just bring the paperwork.

And a time machine.

#Reparations
#Slavery

Oh, and fcuk you Lenny Henry.

[Six Point Sports @SixPointSports]

RT if you love Kyle Monangai

[Chicago Sports Zone @thechisports]

RETWEET IF YOUR TEAM WON THE NFC NORTH. #BearDown 🐻⬇️

[Chloe @chloekelly]

I LOVE ENGLAND

[Sharron Davies HoL MBE @sharrond62]

This government is punishing people who work hard, pay their taxes & try to save (rather than demand the state look after them) in retirement. If we also chase away entrepreneurs & the wealthy who will fund the hole they leave? So much for growing the economy! We will go bankrupt if this continues unabated for another 4yrs

[David Atherton @daveatherton]

On the 4th Aug 2024 made this speech against the backdrop of the Southport riots:

"I won't shy away from calling it what it is, far-right thuggery".

A Police Inspectorate report says it's entirely untrue. They found "no conclusive or compelling evidence that the 2024 disorder was deliberately premeditated & co-ordinated by any specific group or network".

There is no lower specimen of the political class they you. You are a lying psychopath who, along with your vile party, should be consigned to history's dustbin.

You are creating a tinderbox of resentment, you are pushing the country too far towards the edge.

[Lachlan Phillips exo/acc 👾 @bitcloud]

I was in Extinction Rebellion for several years. I produced over 60 videos for them and helped with several protests.

I can tell you directly: It was never about the climate. It was about controlling you.

Specifically, it was about mobilising 3.5% of the population into permanent revolutionary protest in order to trigger a Communist revolution. (Per Trotsky, Sharp, Hallam, Mao)

This was told to me directly by some of the leaders of the organisation. I tried to organise some programs to help businesses lower their carbon footprints without lowering profit margins or impacting the GDP, and I was told in no uncertain terms that *solutions* were counter to the goals of the movement and that I should stop.

It was then that I started to realise their true motives, and understand that perhaps I was being taken for a ride.

I learned that Communist countries have had some of the WORST environmental records in existence. What XR was proposing - degrowth, agitation, "decolonisation", post-capitalism and every other agitprop buzzword - would effectively drop civilisation back to a pre-renewable era and force developing nations into a protracted industrial age, leading to ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE more carbon emissions than the incremental improvements found by market innovations.

Population density is a critical function of renewable energy infrastructure. You don't have a factory. You have a market ecosystem. That's how technology works. It blew my mind that they didn't understand this.

After years of pushing against fossil fuels, they were suddenly vehemently opposed to Elon Musk and his EVs. It was mind boggling to witness.

I realised that Musk had singlehandedly done more to reduce emissions than the entire climate activist movement combined. And it's not close. Mentioning this, I was met with bewilderment and anger.

It was very hard to come away from that experience with much sympathy for the activist left movement. At their best they were devoid of ideas and completely incapable of making meaningful technological or engineering innovations. At their worst, they were actively working against their own stated goals in order to maximise agitation and mobilise discontent toward a destructive revolutionary movement that would ultimately lead to measurably worse outcomes.

Applying Occam's Razor, it became apparent to me that the goal is Communist revolution, and all these random causes - climate, gender relativism, immigration, BLM, defunding police, Islamisation etc etc etc weren't about triumphing over injustices, but about agitating blocs of useful idiots into a perpetual state of protest in order to seize power and control in the name of Marxist Revolution.

I thought they were creators and visionaries. I was wrong.

True change comes from the builders.
Yes there are problems on this earth, but they'll only be solved by you tackling those problems, building useful things and helping to push the species forward.

If you're smart enough to contribute, you belong amongst the builders.

[Sharron Davies HoL MBE @sharrond62]

If you support single sex spaces for women that include bathrooms, changing rooms & sports please Rt & like. I firmly believe biological females have that right, to personal dignity & fair sport in the Uk but across the whole world. I’m prepared to stand up & be counted. Are you?

[Dan Burmawi @DanBurmawy]

Let me tell you why would a Muslim drive his car into a crowd of innocent people. I was raised Muslim, and I know exactly why this happens. It’s not poverty. It’s not oppression. It’s not even radicalization. It’s the logical outcome of Islamic doctrine itself.

It doesn’t matter if you’re a Muslim or not, we as human beings carry guilt deep inside us. We know we are not good enough, and we spend our life trying to redeem ourself through good deeds, thinking it will make the suffocating guilt go away.

Christianity for example offers a way out of guilt, a solution not based on your works but on Christ’s. Salvation isn’t earned, it’s given. You accept that you can’t redeem yourself, because Christ already did everything on your behalf. That means you’re free. Free to live, free to build, free to serve, free to love.

And when a Christian feels lost, broken, and in need of forgiveness, they can go to church, talk to a pastor or priest, and leave knowing they are forgiven.

Islam, on the other hand, doesn’t offer redemption, it weaponizes guilt. Instead of providing salvation, Allah exposes you, holds your sins over your head, and threatens you with hellfire and torture in the grave.

The Quran isn’t a book of peace, it’s a book of threats. It bullies Muslims into obedience through fear, humiliation, and punishment.

So what happens when a Muslim seeks redemption? They try to be better Muslims. They pray, fast, give to charity, go on Hajj, do everything Allah commands. But it never works. I know. I did it.

And no matter how much you pray, no matter how much you try, the guilt never goes away. Because deep down, every Muslim knows it’s not enough. Allah always demands more.

Allah loves those who die fighting against the infidels. That’s not an opinion, it’s in the Quran, in Hadith, in every lesson taught to children.

This is why Muslims, even the so-called "moderates," always hesitate to condemn terrorism. Because they know jihad is required by Allah. They might not be willing to commit it themselves, but they cannot say it’s wrong.

So when a Muslim fails to reach peace through religious rituals, they have two choices:

Give up, stop being devout, and learn to live with the guilt, or commit to jihad, because that’s the only way to be true to yourself.

The Quran spells it out clearly: “Kill those who do not worship Allah or obey the Prophet” (9:29).

So when a Muslim embraces this identity fully, killing infidels isn’t just justified, it’s joyful. It’s an act of:

✔ Saving yourself
✔ Obeying Allah
✔ Securing your eternity
✔ Finally escaping the crushing weight of guilt

This is why a Muslim can drive his car into a crowd of innocent people and feel nothing but satisfaction.
Because for the first time in his life, he finally believes he has done something worthy of redemption.

[Mark Blackburn @m455954]

@NVIDIAGeForce #GeForceRTX50

[Mark Blackburn @m455954]

@NVIDIAGeForce #GeForceRTX50

[Inevitable West @Inevitablewest]

🚨BREAKING: Keir Starmer has BANNED any member of parliament questioning him on the Southport coverup!

This is the action of a tyrant. This is an undeniable attack on democracy and government accountability.

[Mark Blackburn @m455954]

@alexarmstrong @rickygervais To plagiarise a Douglas Adams quote -
"It is a well-known fact that those people who must want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it.
To summarize: Anyone who is capable of getting themselves elected should on no account be allowed to do the job.”

[Konstantin Kisin @KonstantinKisin]

I don't understand why all these Tory MPs won't explain that, to quote Hitchens, "Islamophobia is a word created by fascists and used by cowards to manipulate morons". I was critical of what Lee Anderson said about Khan but this he actually did very well in his interview after.

Anti-Muslim prejudice exists. But Islam is a set of ideas and Islamism is a political ideology. You can disagree with ideas and political ideologies without being prejudiced.

What is more, the real conversation we should be having is that in Britain we have imported the civil war raging within the Muslim world.

Whenever anyone brings up the issue of Islamist terrorism, the response is always that Muslims are the biggest victims of this kind of terrorism world-wide. This is true but no one ever explains WHY.

And the reason is (massive oversimplification coming) that within the Muslim world, there is a battle between people who want to live in nation states and Islamists who want to impose Sharia law and create a Caliphate, I.e. a transnational religious entity under one religious ruler. It is the Islamists who are terrorising their fellow Muslims.

And we imported this problem into the West and then gave no protection or support to the normal Muslims and empowered the Islamists.

The Gulf states, for example, have no interest in becoming part of a Caliphate - they would quite like to maintain their hereditary monarchies thank you very much. Which is why they don't put up with Islamists at all.

We are much more tolerant of Islamist extremists than many Muslim countries. It would be hilarious if it wasn't so dangerous.

So, to summarise, there are some people who are bigoted towards Muslims. But highlighting the problem with Islamists is not only not anti-Muslim, it is a way of protecting most Muslims from the extreme minority. And it needs doing.

[Mark Blackburn @m455954]

@ToryVote_ No, a vote for Reform is a vote for Reform.

[Mark Blackburn @m455954]

@prwhittle From https://t.co/sOA6h0bHVl The largest ethnic group in Scotland is the white community, estimated to be around 96.02% of the population. The other substantial ethnic groups in the country includes:
Asians (2.66%)
African (0.56%)
Mixed races (0.37%)
Black (0.11%)