Interesting Links for 28-11-2022

[andrewducker]

1. The Women Who Rode Miles on Horseback to Deliver Library Books

(tags:library history women horses usa )

2. AI image generation is improving quickly

(tags:AI art )

3. America is a Christian Nationalist Hellhole, license plate edition

(tags:OhForFucksSake Christianity USA religion fascism driving )

4. One nice thing about Mastodon is that, for example, the EU can set up an instance and then you can trust every post on there is a verified EU institution/entity

(tags:Europe socialnetworking identity )

5. How supportive would Britons be of a family member coming out? (also compared to other countries)

(tags:LGBT polls )

6. French man wins right to not be 'fun' at work in wrongful termination case

(tags:work France fun law )

7. Ineos in talks with Rolls-Royce to build mini nuclear reactor and power Scottish chemical refinery

(tags:scotland nuclearpower viaDanielDWilliam )

8. The High-Temperature Superconductivity Mystery Is Finally Solved

(tags:physics )

9. How Stochastic Terrorism Uses Disgust to Incite Violence

(tags:disgust terrorism violence bigotry )

10. Power grid boost as two Scottish firms net £14m to work on energy storage systems

(tags:storage electricity scotland )

Comments

[nancylebov]

9. It seemed to me that old-fashioned anti-semitism was rougher stuff than more recent anti-semitism. I decided that the difference was newer material invokes fear and anger, but the older material also invokes disgust.

[adrian_turtle]

I agree. I think another part of the change is that there has been so much cultural pressure against bigotry in general. You have "I'm not racist, but..." where "doesn't everybody hate those people?" used to be a fairly mainstream attitude. Or "I'm not antisemitic, but those weird Jews who don't assimilate well enough are just icky." Even bigotry against GBLT has largely shifted to "I don't have anything against respectable people loving who they want, but those flamboyant weirdos..." The disgust is still there, but it's aimed at smaller groups. And the risk of violence is still there, but it's also more narrowly focused (which is especially dangerous, because those who are no longer threatened can fall out of solidarity with those who are still at risk.)

[poshmerchant]

These things aren't evenly distributed. A certain strain of bigotry against LGBTQ folks in the US is mutating into "informing kids that gay people exist is 'grooming'". I think it's related to the "informing kids that slavery happened is 'reverse racism'" movement there

[snippy]

They do, after all, believe that controlling minds starts with controlling the information those minds are allowed to experience. And that young minds, especially, are so weak they can be convinced into believing something different from what their parents/church want them to believe.

[melchar]

I would LIKE to have a week where I was not ashamed of being a citizen in the US. ONE WEEK. The eff-wittery with Tennessee just adds another plank to the structure of why I feel ashamed of my US citizenship again this week.

[mtbc]

While I loved various things about living in Tennessee, the sociopolitical stuff does make it easier to be glad of my having relocated to Scotland this year.

[cellio]

Yeah. This is not what my country is supposed to be, dammit. It's embarrassing. (Also scary and evil and stuff.)

[cmcmck]

5 Depends on the family. Mine very definitely weren't as you know which is why the upcoming time of year is such a hell hole for me. :o(

[calimac]

3) When I was a child, my parents arranged their will so that if they died, we would not be sent to the relatives in Tennessee, much as we loved those particular relatives. Because it was Tennessee. And they made sure I knew this.

8) I knew about the theory explaining superconductivity, so it's nice to see it confirmed experimentally. Reminds me of reading about the experimentalists who first split the atom in 1932 and, incidentally, proved that e really does equal mc2.

[andrewducker]

Very sensible of your parents. Some places you wouldn't want to condemn a child to.