Simon Adams
13K posts
This is excellent. Our universities and media, our celebrities and politicians, no longer understand guilt and scapegoating, nor contrition and redemption. As a result they distort everything into a destructive narrative that tears us apart from the inside.
We devour ourselves, and wonder why we’re falling apart, disintegrating, turning on each other.
BijanOmrani@BijanOmrani
New article @telegraph - the folly of our obsession with guilt (gift access in thread...)
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Simon Adams retweetledi
The Mykonos Vase: This is the Oldest Depiction of the Trojan Horse
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It’s interesting that someone who had such an impact on modern maths then swapped the algebra of geometry for the mystical contemplation, first with a Buddhist influence, and later towards something closer to a Catholic vision. Or is this just a natural continuation of peering deep into nature’s foundations?
Quanta Magazine@QuantaMagazine
When he was in his 20s, Alexander Grothendieck’s ideas changed the course of mathematics. Then in 1970, he quit. Eventually, he moved to a small village in the Pyrenees, where he lived as a hermit until his death in 2014. quantamagazine.org/how-alexander-…
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@ArmandDAngour Apparently it’s worse than that - most of them don’t even know what you mean when you say “It’s ten to three”…
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A teenager tells me he can’t read the time on an analog clock.
Is this common nowadays?
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“£Bns” 😂 It costs around the same as the Gambling Commission spends annually to regulate the National Lottery.
Or it’s about 6% of the Arts & Culture public funding, which is often spent on divisive stuff that’s extremely negative about Britain. But that never gets challenged by the bean counters.
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Winding down the Red Arrows is part of a broader retreat of the armed forces from public life. The Royal Tournament was once a pillar of British culture, as was the great British airshow. There used to be a dozen RAF station open days, but now there is only one official RAF airshow - at which the F35 makes only a cursory appearance, and most of the line up is classic aircraft in private hands. We have stopped showcasing our military. It plays no real part in boyhood anymore - and then the same pinheaded accountant class wonder why nobody wants to join the forces and any sense of national unity is collapsing.
They stopped the Royal Navy's Yeovilton Air Day because of Covid and then never re-started it, and I struggle to think of any military events north of the M62. The BBMF seldom ventures north of Bradford, and the main RAF presence is RIAT which is hundreds of miles away for most people, and costs £70 per adult. The airshow tradition is mainly upheld by small independent events, and though they are excellent, young people don't get the experience of being on an active military base. By the time I was of military age, I'd already been to RAF Valley, Cosford, Leeming, Culdrose, Alconbury, Finningley and Waddington.
Because of this, while I never joined the armed forces, I have maintained a lifelong appreciation for the armed forces and take a keen intertest in defence affairs. Politically, we suffer from defence illiteracy, and we're making it worse because defence of the realm is not integrated into public life.
cc: @thinkdefence @UKDefJournal
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@GingerBadger27 @FUDdaily @rawlimark There is a huge hole in the accounts because we don’t invest in things, and yes that includes the military. ‘Why inspire Johnny to join the army when we can fund a taxi to take Johnny to school with that money’ is exactly what got us here.
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@si_ad @FUDdaily @rawlimark wtf you on about? The world is more dangerous, there’s a huge black hole in the accounts - instead of wanting the Gment to spend more on vanity, go and spend your money on charities that benefit SP.
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@DernKala You know you can nowdays just Google things before you post them, if you’re not sure. You don’t need to even go down to the library to look them up.
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Galileo was killed or jailed by the church for saying the sun was not the center of the universe iirc
ʚɞ@rageinheels
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@GingerBadger27 @FUDdaily @rawlimark If your ‘bean counter’ worldview actually worked, then fine. As it is, it just leads to the decay and decline of everything. The trouble is that your changes are non reversible, because, by then, all your beans are needed just to keep everything from collapsing entirely.
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@FUDdaily @rawlimark It’s time to pack up the Red Arrows for good, or let BAE, or other defence contractors pay for them. You can still celebrate the armed forces - Armed Forces Day, donate to the fantastic charities that support them….we don’t need to be spending billions on vanity.
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@GregorysServant @RonSelgrat2ddg @emzanotti It’s so often that the fault we most see in others is the fault we most suffer from ourselves.
In this case it seems more like a projection, as more tradition-valuing boomers would recognise the category here even though they are not themselves part of it.
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@RonSelgrat2ddg @emzanotti Lol ... against judging people by groups are you?
I remember Jesus talking about a group of people that we should listen to but shouldn't copy what they actually do 😏
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This is kind of the Synod on Synodality writ large:
Kids: “We would like [insert actual Catholic thing here, like confession].”
Nearby Boomer: “I bet the kids would really like [Boomer leftcath hobbyhorse they’ve loved since 1972].”
Kids: “No thank you.”
NB: *Not listening* “Let’s do it!”
Kids: “We’re right effing here.”
𝕊𝕀𝔸𝕋𝔼 𝕊𝔸ℕ𝕋𝕀@SiateSanti
L'Arcidiocesi di #Madrid non allestirà confessionali durante la veglia dei giovani durante la visita di Papa Leone XIV in Spagna il prossimo giugno. Saranno invece disponibili "spazi di ascolto" gestiti da operatori pastorali laici, pronti ad "accompagnare e dialogare con i partecipanti". 🤦🏻♂️
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Simon Adams retweetledi
THE NIGHT BEFORE HE WAS EXECUTED, THIS SAINT WROTE A LETTER.
His name was Miguel Pro.
He was only 36 years old.
A Jesuit priest in Mexico during the Cristero persecution, when the government made it illegal to be Catholic, illegal to celebrate Mass, and illegal to wear a priest’s collar in public.
So Father Pro went underground.
He disguised himself as a mechanic, a beggar, and even a businessman.
He smuggled the Eucharist to the dying in secret.
He baptized babies in hidden rooms.
He heard confessions inside moving cars.
Every day, he risked his life to bring Christ to souls.
When the government finally captured him, they wanted to make him an example.
They invited photographers, believing the image of a dead priest would humiliate the Church.
But Father Miguel Pro walked calmly before the firing squad.
He refused the blindfold.
Then he stretched out his arms in the shape of a Cross and cried out:
“¡Viva Cristo Rey!”
Long live Christ the King.
Moments later, they shot him.
But the photograph they took to destroy the faith became one of the most powerful images of Catholic martyrdom in history.
They tried to silence Christianity.
Instead, they gave the world a witness of fearless faith.
Father Miguel Pro was beatified by Pope Saint John Paul II in 1988.
If you are going through something painful today, remember this:
A 36 year old priest smiled in front of a firing squad because he knew Christ was worth everything.
His faith was not just words.
It was total surrender.
🕊️ Repost this for someone who needs courage today.
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Simon Adams retweetledi
@sama The errors we have assumed since the loss of the vertical with Ockham etc.
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what problem do you most hope AI will solve in the future?
maybe we can help!
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Simon Adams retweetledi
My mate Bouncer died yesterday. He’d lived with us for 13 years as a furry, purring, permanently migrating ornament.
I didn’t know I could feel such grief for a witless bag of bones who destroyed my favourite sofa and crapped in the shower tray.
Below is a picture taken on the day he selected me at the animal shelter.
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I don’t necessarily think this is a bad thing … *IF* the PHD evalution changes from what it is now, to something that contributes meaningfully to our current understanding. If that was achieved with the help of AI - why not. If you’re just producing regurgitated fodder, then you shouldn’t get a PHD. It could actually improve the reputation of PHDs…
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I just found something more indicting than this.
I'm writing a paper documenting the rise of AI in PhD dissertations. As you might predict, there's been an explosion in the use of AI to complete PhDs.
It's embarrassing: PhDs will increasingly not mean 'experts' on anything.
Crémieux@cremieuxrecueil
As of mid-2025, almost 2% of all citations on papers uploaded to the Social Science Research Network are hallucinated. On arXiv, PubMed Central, and bioRxiv, the rise in hallucinations has also been substantial. A new paper found this was just the tip of the iceberg🧵
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“When we said we would bring innovation, this is a great example of an innovative way to implement yet more stealth taxes on workers and business”.
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@g_gosden @CyberPunkCortes So Himalayan Balsam, Ash dieback fungus, Japanese knotweed, Signal crayfish, Giant Hogweed and the Asian hornet should all be encouraged to spread around the UK?
“Tiny little mind” 😂
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This is going to blow your tiny little mind.
Benedict Spence@BenedictSpence
No, it isn’t. We aren’t playing this game anymore, no matter how much you try to push it.
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Stop normalizing ‘Before Common Era’ (BCE) and ‘Common Era’ (CE).
Our history is under the Gregorian Calendar by these two periods:
🔹 Before Christ (BC) 🗿
🔹 Anno Domini (AD) ✝️
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