New blog entry: More in Sadness than in Anger: https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2026/02/more-in-sadness-than-in-anger.html

[highlandlawyer@mastodon.social]

@darwinwoodka @MedeaVanamonde @cstross
Well let's be fair about this: a national lottery. One person a week is to be sacrificed, drawn by lot; but the number of entries in the lottery is the number of <£$¥€> one has, & that wealth will be returned to the national pot. It could be you, but statistically it's much more likely to be a billionaire.

[darwinwoodka@mastodon.social]

@HighlandLawyer @MedeaVanamonde @cstross

I think it might go faster if we just ate the richest one every week though

[jguillaumes@mastodont.cat]

@jef @feorag @cstross the guillotine maybe the only technology that can save this century.

[atax1a@infosec.exchange]

@gjm @javierg @cstross iirc he lobbied for more money to the vaccine makers, and specifically not for more vaccines

[gjm@mathstodon.xyz]

@atax1a @javierg @cstross Noted. Is there some analysis somewhere of how that allegedly makes him responsible for millions of deaths?

(I can imagine how it might. I can also imagine how it might have been the actually-most-effective course of action but spinnable as responsible for millions of deaths by people who want to make him look bad. I can also imagine how it might be very impossible to determine whether what he did was actually good or bad either in expectation or in actual effects, which seems to me the most likely situation.)

[atax1a@infosec.exchange]

@gjm this does not appear to be a question in good faith so we're outta here

[gjm@mathstodon.xyz]

@atax1a Obviously you're under no obligation to answer any questions, nor to believe anything I say, but for what it's worth it was absolutely a question in good faith. I don't know exactly what Gates did and didn't do, it sounds like you know more than me, I had a bit of a look and didn't find anything definitive, and I'd like to know more.

[atax1a@infosec.exchange]

@gjm and we have better things to do with our morning

[medeavanamonde@beige.party]

@darwinwoodka @HighlandLawyer @cstross

Or Sacrifice them to Madame Pele on the Big Island.

[kaylaallen@wandering.shop]

@cstross @GinevraCat In the county in which I live, I’m theoretically “rich” because I’m in the upper quartile of income here, but people from places like the SF bay area scoff and describe anyone not making multiple millions per year as “poor.”

[highlandlawyer@mastodon.social]

@MedeaVanamonde @darwinwoodka @cstross
Aye, it's good to keep up the old traditions

[samantha42@infosec.exchange]

@jsl @trademark @cstross I do not declare myself an expert on UK politics, but the first past the post voting system, and one candidate per election area, makes it very hard for new parties to get started since people rightfully worry about “wasting” their vote.

[trademark@fosstodon.org]

@samantha42 @jsl @cstross The issue is not unique to the UK. In all countries the left is always prone to fragmenting into internecine war. In particular the Weimar republic had proportional representation when Hitler got elected. I wish people would care to actually study history and learn from the places that has avoided this(so far)...

[cstross@wandering.shop]

@HighlandLawyer @darwinwoodka @MedeaVanamonde That's going to reap an awful lot of middle-aged/middle-class skulls, though: 3000 middle-aged folks who own average homes (£0.3M each) = one billionaire-equivalent. Might be best to omit the family home from the notional wealth.

[kaylaallen@wandering.shop]

@cstross @GinevraCat And by “in the upper quartile,” I mean “just barely in it.” So I’m probably around the 75-80%, not the 99%, in a mostly rural county primarily depending upon being a commuter country for Reno.

[highlandlawyer@mastodon.social]

@cstross @darwinwoodka @MedeaVanamonde
Counterpoint- great method to reduce prices in the housing market.

[bashstkid@mastodon.online]

@HighlandLawyer @darwinwoodka @MedeaVanamonde @cstross Well, that’s a better basis for Omelas than the original …