William E. S. McNeill

Well, that's me and (the safety of) vaccines, and (the reality of) climate change, and various other things.

I think we'll need some details here ...

Can't gaps of various sorts be reasons? The sinkhole caused the house to collapse. The failure of the defendent to appear in court is a reason to think them guilty.

What is common knowledge in your field, but shocks outsiders?

Academic publishers make vast profits, but don’t pay royalties to academics. Instead, universities pay publishers to make the research that the universities have funded widely available, and then pay them again to access other research.

stunning

Seagull proudly perched on a "no seagulls" sign

Los Angeles 2025

Always interested in the correlation between men who think that being a Real Man is something few manage and those who tell us that only 'adult human female' could define 'woman'.

Wtf
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

A biblical hatred is engulfing both sides in the Gaza conflict – and blinding them to reason | Jonathan Freedland Israel starving Palestinians, two killings at a Jewish museum: both are atrocities. But vanishingly few can see it, says Guardian columnist Jonathan Freedland

On hunger as a weapon of war, a murderous attack on a Jewish museum - and the blindness of hatred. Latest column www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

We did the math on AI’s energy footprint. Here’s the story you haven’t heard. The emissions from individual AI text, image, and video queries seem small—until you add up what the industry isn’t tracking and consider where it’s heading next.

“Data centers in the US used somewhere around 200 terawatt-hours of electricity in 2024, roughly what it takes to power Thailand for a year.” A quarter to a third of which is due to #AI. #AIEthics www.technologyreview.com/2025/05/20/1...

Anyway, it's the British dream to be an island of strangers isn't it? Locked away in our little castles, twitching the curtains?
The ideal ...

lol humans

No woke mind virus in Lincolnshire. It’s mostly peas.

Whether it's Hillary Clinton sharing risotto tips on a private server or Pete Hegseth using the nuclear codes as his password on Pornhub, both parties have ignored our nation's security.

A landscape photo of a heavy sky with mammatus cloud formations looming over a sandy beach with pools of blue water.

Big sky at West Wittering.

Classic 'illiberal democracy' playbook a la Orban and Erdogan.

joe paterno is in hell @nicemuscles Follow く black mirror is written by one stoned british dude who just mutters shit like wot if ya mum ran on batteries 4:45 PM - 30 Dec 2017

New season of Black Mirror is out, so it's time to share the tweet:

Sullivan Wins Simon Award - Daily Nous Emily Sullivan, associate professor of philosophy at Utrecht University, is the winner of the 2025 Herbert A. Simon Award for Outstanding Research in Computing and Philosophy. The Simon Award "recogni...

The 2025 Herbert A. Simon Award goes to...

Definitely the plan!

Today is American Liquidation Day

This should be etched on the DOGE letterhead

Russian scientist working at Harvard detained by Ice at Boston airport Kseniia Petrova was returning to the US from a trip to France when officials revoked her visa and detained her

This story is amazing (& the first in which I see a friend’s name, Leon Peshkin. No doubt not the last.) A top scientist, she avoided all protest in the US. She only was a dissident in and of her native country — Russia.

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Isn't it that every object instantiates a property - hence is not identical with it?

Russian, Chinese and North Korean state-sponsored hackers being issued redundancy notices.

Sophie Keeling - 'Standpoints, Knowledge, and Power: Introducing Standpoint Epistocracy', available open-access:

enemies of the people, of course ...

Thoughts too cheap to matter.