Byron Sharp

Are those stem cells or cells from the plant stem?! #pseudoscience

The world's greatest botanist died of starvation in a Soviet prison. His crime: refusing to say plants worked the way Stalin needed them to. 🧵

The Afroman Trial. -Cops raid Afromans house for bullshit reasons. -Steal money, break his door, fuck his house up. -No criminality found whatsoever, no charges at all pressed on Afroman. -Afroman spends the next 3 years making songs that make fun of all the officers involved by name, even using footage of the raid from his own CCTV cameras. -Songs had titles like "Randy Walters is a son of a bitch" and "Lick Em Low Lisa" accusing one of the officers of being a lesbian and sleeping with the other officers wives. -During the raid one officer looked like he was about to eat some lemon pound cake sitting on Afromans counter, Afroman made a whole album calling the officer fat. -The cops get mad and file a lawsuit for defamation. -Afroman turns up to court in a whole American flag suit. -Officers performatively mald and cry while listening to the songs really trying to oversell how badly the songs upset them. -One officer was suing because Afroman made a whole song about him saying he was fucking the officers wife. When the officer was asked if Afroman was really fucking his wife, he said "I don't know". Nuking his own case and establishing that there is a non-zero chance that Afroman might actually be fucking his wife. -As his only witness for the trial, Afroman brought a deputies EX FUCKING WIFE. -The jury ruled completely in favour of Afroman. This entire thing has been a great win for free speech and absolutely fucking hilarious.

England and Portugal. One of the oldest alliances in the world. Since 1386. 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🇵🇹 They had sailed together. Traded together. Gone to war together. But there was a moment when it nearly ended. And the reason was slavery. Portugal started the Atlantic slave trade. In 1444. For the next four centuries they transported more enslaved people across the Atlantic than any other nation on earth. Britain joined them. For a hundred years British ships sailed the same routes. British merchants made the same profits. Then in 1807, thanks to the will of the British people, they stopped. The Royal Navy, the most powerful fleet on earth, was sent to the African coast. Not to conquer. To hunt. Every slave ship it found, it seized. Every person on board, it freed. But the trade was still going. Under Portuguese flags. So Britain went to its oldest friend and made a demand. Treaty. Portugal agreed to restrict its slave trade. Britain pushed harder. Another treaty. Portugal banned the trade north of the equator. Britain pushed harder still. Another treaty. Portugal conceded the right to let the Royal Navy stop and search Portuguese ships on the open ocean. The alliance nearly didn't survive it. Six hundred years of friendship stretched to breaking point. Portugal called it betrayal. Britain called it justice. Portugal formally abolished the slave trade in 1836. Slavery itself in its African colonies, 1869. It took sixty years of pressure. Sixty years of treaties. Sixty years of Royal Navy ships on the water. The alliance held. It still holds today. The oldest in the world. These are the stories that don't make the history books. We find them. We tell them. If they matter to you, be part of us. proudofus.co.uk/support Be Proud Of Us. 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🇬🇧

@simongerman600 Individuals or households?

When the top 10% of consumers make up half of all spending, the economy can at the same time be technically going well while the majority of people struggle massively. This is the US right now. Hope that helps when thinking about societal problems.

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I too once fell for the seductive logic that population growth was an environmental catastrophe.

RIP Paul Ehrlich. I’m so glad you were so wrong about everything you predicted.

35 years after throwing off the yoke of Communism, Poland becomes the world's 20th largest economy. The warmth of capitalism is lifting an entire nation out of poverty. apnews.com/article/poland…

New @EhrenbergBass research bandt.com.au/ugly-or-just-p…

🚨To every Black person tempted by the antisemitic wave sweeping right now:🚨 Back when white mobs lynched us in the streets... When we had no money, no power, and literally no movement... Who stood with us? Who risked everything? The Jews. They weren't just allies—they were family in the fight. - Jewish leaders co-founded the NAACP in 1909 and funded/led it for generations when no one else would. - When Dr. King and our people were arrested, beaten, jailed—Jewish lawyers defended us for free, and Jewish money paid bail bonds and court fees while others turned away. - In Freedom Summer '64, half the white volunteers risking death to register Black voters? Jewish. - Rabbi Heschel marched arm-in-arm with MLK in Selma—our struggles linked forever. Without their blood, treasure, solidarity, and courage—there is no Civil Rights Movement as we know it. No Voting Rights Act. No dream realized. That's why I stand with the Jews. They were our only true friends when this country hated us—when doors slammed shut and ropes hung high. They showed up, bled, and built with us. So to my people joining this demonic, divisive hate today: Pause. Remember. Honor the alliance that freed us. Our histories are bound. Our freedoms were won together. Betray that, and you betray the very martyrs who died for our rights. Black-Jewish unity forged the dream. Don't let hate destroy it. I stand with my Jewish brothers and sisters—always. ✊🏾🤝✡️🇮🇱 Repost if truth > trends. If gratitude > division. If history matters. #BlackJewishAlliance #RememberOurAllies #StandTogether #CivilRightsTruth #NoToAntisemitism

A generation ago, Poland rationed sugar and flour while its citizens were paid one-tenth what West Germans earned. Today its economy has edged past Switzerland to become the world’s 20th largest with over $1 trillion in annual output. nbcnews.com/business/econo…

🚨Bill Clinton: "Palestinians were offered a state on the entire West Bank & east Jerusalem as its capital. Israel accepted, but Palestinians refused. They did not care about a homeland for the Palestinians. All they wanted was to kill Israelis." Follow me: @ItsCarterHughes

Two view of humanity. From a talk I gave some years ago. Relevant today.

In thinking of the legacy of Paul Ehrlich, the following by CS Lewis springs to mind: "Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."

@HumanProgress Don't be like Ehrlich. Spend your productive time and energy in the Good+Creation quadrant! Everything positive about society nowadays is because of normal folks and larger-than-life heroes alike who committed their lives to Good Creation, and outnumbered the Evil and Degrowth

.@mattwridley: Interesting parallels come to mind. 1. Malthus published his book on English overpopulation and overconsumption in 1798. Thereafter, the population of England rose, and the prices of wheat fell relative to wages. 2. Marx published Das Kapital in 1867, arguing that workers' wages would be squeezed to zero by capitalist competition (based on a much-debated and probably incorrect "Engels' Pause"). Thereafter, English wages skyrocketed. 3. Ehrlich published his book about coming global famines in 1968. Thereafter, global famines collapsed, and standards of living across much of the world rose.

Every. Single. Time

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Fuck that! 😂