Notices by Will Tuladhar-Douglas (yetiinabox@todon.nl)

Yet more solid science for solarpunk: mycobatteries.

https://phys.org/news/2025-05-versatile-fungi-based-material-resistant.html

200 vultures poisoned by poachers seeking body parts for lucrative international trade. They laced the carcass of an elephant. 80 survived because of fast rescue by South African wildlife rangers.

https://www.straitstimes.com/world/vultures-rescued-from-mass-poisoning-in-south-african-game-reserve

Just as with the white rhino, poachers know that if they kill more vultures, and the vultures become scarce, the price goes up. It's a perverse incentive to actually drive desirable animals to extinction.

Don't it always seem to go, that you don't know what you've got till it's gone...

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-56732-x

One of the challenges in the practice of engaged Buddhism is finding the middle way between compassionate action and attachment to politics.

From the 37 Practices of the Bodhisattvas, by Gyalse Tokme Zangpo (translation by Adam Pearcey)

གཉེན་གྱི་ཕྱོགས་ལ་འདོད་ཆགས་ཆུ་ལྟར་གཡོ། །
དགྲ་ཡི་ཕྱོགས་ལ་ཞེ་སྡང་མེ་ལྟར་འབར། །
བླང་དོར་བརྗེད་པའི་གཏི་མུག་མུན་ནག་ཅན། །
ཕ་ཡུལ་སྤོང་བ་རྒྱལ་སྲས་ལག་ལེན་ཡིན། །

The practice of all the bodhisattvas is to leave behind one’s homeland,
Where our attachment to family and friends overwhelms us like a torrent,
While our aversion towards enemies rages inside us like a blazing fire,
And delusion’s darkness obscures what must be adopted and abandoned.

https://www.lotsawahouse.org/tibetan-masters/gyalse-thogme-zangpo/37-practices-all-bodhisattvas

On the importance of herbaria, botanic gardens, seed banks, and all...

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-025-02644-4

This week I'm training as a Unison shop steward. I'm in a room full of people who are asking questions like "Will I lose my job because I stand up for other workers?" and "How do we make good jobs now and work for a livable planet for our kids?". We're learning employment law and how to run meetings that are safe and energizing and work-shopping each others' challenges.

And then I read about Musk revealing himself, and my kid tells me they're having nightmares about Trump coming to our house to kill us because we sprawl outwith lots of his wee little boxes, and I guess it's going to be like this for a long while, innit.

#union
#antifa
#organize
#ecoanarchism

@cstross @pzmyers

the problem with the Templeton lot is that they push a terrifyingly narrow version of religion in which everything reduces to a pleasantly intolerant Christianity, but claim to represent (or defend against atheists and communists) some imaginary "universal human religiosity". Nasty. They are also one of the only sources of funding for research in religion, and they pay lots to folks who will wear their theories. Nasty, nasty.

@drmaddkap

They're not. I get that you're asking a rhetorical question, but I used to teach university ethics classes, including a wonderful class called Radical Practical Ethics. Lots of educators, mentors, and usefully difficult people do indeed challenge us.

The question might better be phrased,
Why would any teacher use their position of power and authority to distract their students with artificially individualised moral riddles rather than analyse the structures and processes of collective oppression and inequality in play at this very moment - and how to dismantle them?

...which is another rhetorical question, I suppose, but it does get us closer to answering the original question.

When life gives you a platform for suffering beings, you can crave the audience and imagine you are helping, or work together to tear down the stage and the walls that keep all of you in the theatre.

@GarethDennis
Having read through your delightful manifesto, I am left with a few questions.

1) sea level rise and existing rail routes. Even at only 5m of sea level rise, many bits of existing rail networks, certainly in the UK, will be compromised. If we are planning rail infrastructure for 100+ years, doesn't this mean we have to reroute rather than maintain?

2) More generally, it seems to me that one of the important insights rail planning demands is a ruthless honesty about the inevitable changes to the landscape that comes with thinking in terms of infrastructure for a century, not just a decade.

3) Mode share with flying - do you think air travel will remain a viable form of mass transport in a 50-year timeframe? Or will slower forms of long-haul travel again become normal?

Very, very desirable job alert.

@thecontinent is hiring someone to drive up distribution and circulation.

Go help fix the world.

Standing up to the PRC - https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3289790/paraguay-expels-chinese-diplomat-urging-lawmakers-sever-ties-taiwan

This is an interesting story not just because of Paraguay's determination to resist PRC pressure, but also because it shows how the PRC instrumentalizes international organisations like UNESCO. Another example; because - according to CCP doctrine - there are "no Indigenous people in China", Taiwanese Indigenous activists and intellectuals are often denied admission to international fora. The PRC government simply says they don't exist, so can't be represented.

Anarchism, memory, justice.

A 96 year old person says,

“Being an anarchist now is no different from 50 years ago. It’s a philosophy and a search for truth. What I want is unity, of Europe and, were it possible, of the whole world, without frontiers, a world in which we all understand each other.”

This person survived Franco's prisons.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/dec/03/its-about-justice-fighter-from-guerrilla-war-sues-spanish-government-for-1m

I have a request for the #ttrpg and #socialJustice folks.

Strap in; I don't usually do threads. But I need help from the angriest, un-White-est, un-eurocentric-ist corners, un-bound-by-gender-norm-ist corners of this place, the folks who play joyfully with their allies and kids because it's not a luxury, it's what we fight for.

(Sealions will be blocked instantly.)

My family---my children---love role playing games, and I have used collusive narratives with some rules, lots of world building, and dice since they were very small. But now that they are old enough to go looking on the internet, to read the rulebooks... we have a serious representation problem.

I guess it's (roughly) comparable to the systematic oppression in the #Fedi, though I really, really don't want to trivialise-by-comparison the appalling violence that Black heroes here are struggling to name and dismantle.

But when we look at the popular play-along videos or the books or whatever - we *are* the exotic at best, the horrors at worst. Everyone in those videos are the people who describe us as "the interesting family", the people who sabotaged our autism support groups with their instinctive racism, gender norms (and layer upon layer of other -isms).

1/n

The new government, unburdened by ideological conflict or any morals, expels refugees efficiently. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/oct/19/uk-deports-record-number-of-nigerians-and-ghanaians-in-single-flight

So about the #SocialWebFoundation announcement... This sentence sort of sums it up for me:
"Users on any platform can follow their friends, family, influencers, or brands on any other participating network."

So, not people but users.
No collaborators, organizers, activists, co-conspirators, fellow players, or colleagues, but influencers and brands.

It sounds like a dream from corporate USA, not an underground movement, mycorrhizal network, research collaboratory or emancipatory project.

I specifically do not want any influencers or brands in my timeline.

That is not what I want to build or live or love in.

PRC appears to have demanded that Paris museums erase the word 'Tibet' - but popular protests are having an effect.

https://www.phayul.com/2024/09/26/50970/

Tibetans and their supporters have been staging protests in Paris outside the Musée Guimet and the Musée du quai Branly. These museums both hold important Tibetan collections. Under pressure from the Chinese government the museums changed the name of the exhibits to remove the word Tibet. I believe the Guimet has restored the name Tibet, but so far the Branly has not.

https://www.phayul.com/2024/09/23/50953/

Y'know, I really just couldn't care less about efforts to link the Fediverse with Threads, or Bluesky, or whatever ofther privately owned cesspool people are flogging. I want walls and impregable barriers. I don't want any chance of infection.

This was my yesterday: https://www.thenational.scot/news/24528998.glasgow-university-strategy-help-refugees-settle-launched/

Today is 6 August. Practice peace, cultivate compassion, strive for wisdom.

May all beings be well.

#Hiroshima #Peace #Buddhist