Stories and links that are of interest or relevance to leaders, strategists, campaigners and organisers.
Inequality and the economy
Bullshit Jobs Are Money Laundering
Thinking the Bullshit Jobs Discourse Is Bullshit Is Total Bullshit
Irving Wanders (@irvingwanders.bsky.social)
Really good clear article. I worked as an economist in the public sector for a good while and one of the reasons I left is because it became increasingly clear government policy isn’t particularly responsive to economic evidence.
Fixing the housing crisis isn’t complicated, governments just don’t want to do it
The easiest way to boost the supply of housing in Australia would be for governments to build new houses. And the easiest way to provide affordable rental accommodation would be to rent the new government-built houses to people at affordable rents. Fixing a housing crisis is not complicated.
Richest 0.001 percent of people now have more wealth than poorest half of humanity
‘The benefits of globalization and economic growth have flowed disproportionately to a small minority’
Global affairs
Palantir CEO Says Making War Crimes Constitutional Would Be Good for Business
Alex Karp vows to use his “whole influence” on immigration and defense policy.
The real target of Trump’s Venezuela war is in the United States.
The goal is def regime change – and not just where you think.
Unions
Workers Voice Network: stories that unite
The Workers Voice Network: stories that unite course will train and support a group of trade union members and representatives to safely create impactful digital content that challenges far-right narratives online.
“Strength in numbers” or “Past victories”: What persuades workers to join?
In our recent polling work on what connects with non-unionised workers, we asked people to choose the most convincing argument. Two messages pulled ahead…
Workers’ rights
It is not so much money that makes the world go around, as bankers.
Some notes towards a labour history of bankers.
More Perfect Union (@moreperfectus)
Santa Fe is now the first city to tie the minimum wage to the cost of rent. The Santa Fe City Council voted to raise its minimum wage from $15/hr to $17.50 by 2027 — but they also added another provision. Future increases will factor in inflation, and the price of housing.
Data, tech and privacy
Woman Hailed as Hero for Smashing Man’s Meta Smart Glasses on Subway
A New York subway rider has accused a woman of breaking his Meta smart glasses. She was later hailed as a hero.
27.6% of the Top 10 Million Sites are Dead
An analysis of the top 10 million websites reveals that over a quarter are inactive, highlighting the web’s shifting landscape. Using a high-performance scraper, we processed these domains efficiently to uncover the scale of digital decay.
AI and the future of work
A trillion dollars is a terrible thing to waste
The machine learning community is finally waking up to the madness, but the detour of the last few years has been costly.
“You heard wrong” – users brutually reject Microsoft’s “Copilot for work” in Edge and Windows 11
Angry users are telling Windows giant that they’re “not a baby” and don’t need a chatbot “shoved” in their face.
The Rent Is Too Damn High: Did Trump Just ‘Bless’ Using AI to Jack Up Rents?
Trump Antitrust chief Gail Slater ended the DOJ’s big antitrust case against alleged software rent-fixing conspirator RealPage. The company’s lawyer says the DOJ has now ‘blessed’ their product.
Grace Blakeley (@graceblakeley)
I’m not worried that the AI bubble will hearald the end of capitalism as we know it. I don’t even think it’s going to lead to the end of the AI boom. I am worried that it is going to result in a massive upwards transfer of wealth from ordinary people to some of the wealthiest and most powerful human beings on the planet – and, in the process, further endanger our democracies.
Microsoft Scales Back AI Goals Because Almost Nobody Is Using Copilot
Google’s Gemini is on pace to push Copilot into third place.
“New Ways to Corrupt LLMs”
The wacky things statistical-correlation machine like LLMs do – and how they might get us killed
Campaigning, communications and social media
Society, media, news and culture
This Christmas, Don’t Talk about Politics
Why arguing with your family about politics won’t change their minds — and what actually will
One of the biggest microplastic pollution sources isn’t straws or grocery bags – it’s your tires
Every few years, the tires on your car wear thin and need to be replaced. But where does that lost tire material go? The answer, unfortunately, is often waterways, where the tiny microplastic particles from the tires’ synthetic rubber carry several chemicals that can transfer into fish, crabs and perhaps even the people who eat them. We are analytical and environmental chemists who are studying ways to remove those microplastics – and the toxic chemicals
