Matt Mascarenhas

In my constituency, where my now-current MP stood (and came 2nd) consistently in multiple GEs, I've long wondered about a "formal system" where prospective parliamentary candidates could give us a ballpark idea of how they'd've represented us between elections, e.g, for each division – let's say in policy areas of their choice, for tractability – they vote.
We electors get to see all these (and our current MP's) votes and are more informed come election day.

2026-03-20 14:11:46 UTC

- reply

Isn't it enough to recognise that religions and these technologists use this kind of language to concentrate power? With their respective faiths in the myth of God (religion) and the machine (tech) being almost byproducts of this concentration.

2026-02-05 15:36:43 UTC

Couple of super lucid videos here (12-ish mins each) from Mike, focused in on Peter Mandelson and the people / companies in his orbit:
https://mas.to/@mikegalsworthy/116018572279898145
https://mas.to/@mikegalsworthy/116018590838875185
#note1azz…angf

2025-11-15 13:27:44 UTC

- reply

My guess is they get really good signal there by the look of that aerial!

2025-10-26 21:28:29 UTC

- reply

Ah right, sorry, sure! So the article has us all lumped together as the UK going back on racism. I'm wondering about splitting this down to only particular political traditions going back.
And with the "concentration of power" bit I'm alluding to: https://mas.to/@miblo/115243446708355437
I suppose this is informed by a recent thought that there are multiple political traditions running at once here and that, faced with bigotry, I'd like to say that comes from a tradition that has nothing for me.

2025-10-26 17:55:01 UTC

- reply

Maybe particular political traditions in Britain are, right? I mean, doesn't the suggestion of us all being one tradition itself come from the "concentration of power" tradition?

2025-09-28 21:03:15 UTC

- reply

Wow yeah, great work by Emma there.
Just want to say, Chris, your final sentence here is a beautiful example of how I'd like us to report on perspectives we don't share. Emma put the same idea like this – https://monkdebunks.substack.com/p/nothing-to-do-with-reform-the-myth#:~:text=they%20are%20gleefully,Minister – whose last seven words can be split off for a full-sentence direct quote, whereas someone trying to quote a full sentence from your way would have to start earlier, bringing in more context.
I think of this as split-resistant writing.

2025-09-21 17:24:04 UTC

- reply

Yeah, this totally chimes with stuff I've been thinking of lately. I have it that their ideology is "to concentrate power into the fewest possible persuadable hands, at each strata of society (starting at the home, going right the way out to the globe)". Education – like, decent education – being distributive, goes against such a concentration.
So while I have the Lib Dems as the "system-making party", the ones we're talking about I'm dubbing the "concentration campers".

2025-09-19 21:29:02 UTC

- reply

Legendary gig! :dragnheadphones:

2025-09-18 16:59:28 UTC

- reply

Yeah, dude, I think this is the first mention of Zack Polanski that I've seen here since the Greens' internal elections. Been really wanting some news about how they're getting on – maybe at least the Green councillors here would be in the know – and hope they can just get into their communicational stride.

2025-08-14 17:03:01 UTC

Great email today from @npub1sv0…rq9x about my service's upcoming migration to SOGEA. It links to their page on the topic https://www.aa.net.uk/etc/news/sogea-migrations-at-aa/ and I'm reminded of how I like to see AAISP's site as the Arch Wiki of internet connectivity info.

2025-07-25 17:32:02 UTC

- reply

Suppose I'm mildly curious to know what, if anything, is going on with the other groups proscribed that day, Russian Imperial Movement and Maniacs Murder Cult. I mean, the relative lack of reporting on them in itself adds to the difference between those two and Palestine Action.

2025-07-03 06:11:52 UTC

- reply

I wonder if it's worth thinking of technological change – let's here say improvement – in healthcare as "our ability to value health more highly". Then, if so, what if we could somehow factor this medical value explicitly into the economy, to go along with the usual financial value?

2025-06-22 18:27:15 UTC

- reply

At first glance I thought this was Bugs Bunny.

2024-11-13 02:23:55 UTC

- reply

What's it stand for, Department of Grift Enterprise?

2024-11-11 13:34:48 UTC

- reply

There are so many similarities, for me, between this tech-bro'dom and religion. Where the latter hit upon the idea of an individual's life after death to shroud the true believer's judgement, the former looks like it's going for the same idea at the broader species and climate level.

2024-11-10 13:50:59 UTC

- reply

For me, it'd be like wanting to buy a classical guitar to play acoustically, and then buying an electro-acoustic and never plugging it into an amp. It's the waste of resources – material, time, etc. – that could've been saved, or better spent making, say, the acoustics better.

2024-10-30 17:54:09 UTC

- reply

I voted "some other thing". Basically, replying with alt text tends to come across to me as akin to picking up on someone's spelling or grammar.
I personally value all three of these things, and would actually like us to have some well-integrated support for suggesting alt text in particular (also URLs, for those posts that are about a linkable thing, but don't link to it).

2024-08-04 11:56:15 UTC

- reply

Yeah, it's kind of an extension to the old adage: "you can lead a horse to water, but you can't keep them from spitting it out even if they appear to drink".