You are the content you consume.
Joined January 2010
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Here is a view of the Milky Way you have never seen. teapaw.org/skasa_outreach/status/…
Angie Hattingh retweeted
As society wakes up to the cult-like behaviour of the tech accelerationists - a few folk have been asking for this article of mine again. So here it is:
The Transhumanist Cult Test.
ewanmorrison.substack.com/p/…
Angie Hattingh retweeted
Massive Study Upends Common Understanding of Collectivism spn.s.gy/SGeuvu
Angie Hattingh retweeted
This is extraordinary! This rotten looking apple is 400 years old and worth 100,000 euros.
Made of fruitwood, it opens into two halves and inside each half is a complete tiny world.
It is from 1604 and shows the Seven Works of Mercy.
The artist hid his signature AV on a tiny column inside. By Albert Vinckenbrinck.
It goes to auction Nov 20 at Lempertz in Cologne.
Would you have guessed this was inside?
Angie Hattingh retweeted
It's a specious claim that artificial superintelligence will benefit everyone. Humanity's problems are not caused by a lack of intelligence, our problems are caused by greedy plutocrats like Zuckerberg. It's like a serial killer telling us we can stop serial killing by making serial killers smarter.
The argument hinges on the premise that humanity is suffering because we're just not smart enough to come up with the right solutions, when in reality that hasn't been the case for a very long time. Humanity has had the technology and resources to solve all its major problems for generations; we've just chosen to use our technology and resources making rich people richer instead.
We've long had the ability to end extreme poverty, to stop destroying our biosphere, to stop waging wars, to stop pillaging the global south at unfair prices, to stop imposing starvation sanctions, to end genocides, to remove money from politics, to institute true democracy, to create a well-informed electorate free from propaganda brainwashing, and to provide everyone with a decent standard of living. This hasn't failed to happen due to our lack of superintelligence, it has failed to happen because the people with the power and the money actively stop it from happening.
No amount of added cleverness is going to make plutocrats less greedy, make warmongers less bloodthirsty, make politicians less corrupt, make empire managers less tyrannical, make imperial propagandists less deceitful and manipulative, or make capitalists less exploitative and ecocidal. Give them artificial superintelligence and they'll just use it to grab up more money and control, just like they're doing with the AI of the present day.
We can already see that AI is not making the world a better place. It's already taking away jobs, facilitating war crimes and mass surveillance, poisoning art, and making people crazy and stupid. We're already witnessing the results of more intelligent AI. Continuing to say we just need the AI to be more intelligent is like taking a pill to get healthy, having a terrible reaction to the medicine, and then deciding we just need to dramatically increase the dose.
Artificial superintelligence isn't going to solve all our problems because our problems don't arise from insufficient intelligence. We don't need artificial superintelligence, we need basic human kindness. We need justice. We need ethics. No matter how much intelligence we add to the AI soup, it's never going to magically add up to simple human morality. Which is what we're actually going to need if we're going to create a healthy world.
We believe superintelligence will create significant new opportunities for all people and businesses. Meta already serves billions of people at scale and helps hundreds of millions of businesses reach customers. Today we are starting the next major pillar of our business, Meta Enterprise Platform, to help businesses use AI to grow and transform in new ways as well.
Angie Hattingh retweeted
48%.
That is the effective tax burden on someone earning R30,000 a month in South Africa. Same rate as someone earning R432,000 a month in a top European country.
The numbers sound wrong. They are not.
Where the 48% comes from.
PAYE is what people see on the payslip. It is not the whole picture.
VAT - 15% on almost everything. Every swipe. Every fill-up. Most people do not think of VAT as a tax. It is the largest single source of government revenue after income tax.
Fuel levy - built into every litre. Petrol at R26.92 inland includes roughly R3.80 in fuel levy and Road Accident Fund levy. That is a tax on getting to work.
Then there are the charges that look like fees but function like taxes. E-tolls. Municipal surcharges. Electricity tariffs with embedded levies.
Add the visible and the invisible - you get 48%.
The key difference with Europe.
In the Netherlands. In Denmark. In Germany. High taxes come with a social contract.
Free tertiary education. Universal healthcare that does not require medical aid. Childcare subsidies. Paid parental leave that covers an actual year. Robust unemployment support.
You pay 45%. And you get services back.
In South Africa you pay 48%. And then you pay again - privately.
Medical aid because public healthcare is collapsed. Security because policing is broken. Private schools because public education cannot be trusted. Solar panels or a generator because Eskom cannot guarantee power. Water tanks because the municipality cannot guarantee supply.
The middle-class earner pays twice. Once in tax. Once in escape.
Who actually pays.
There are about 8.3 million personal income taxpayers in South Africa. A relatively small slice of the population. The top earners supply most of the revenue.
Corporations optimise. The wealthy structure. Offshore trusts. Semigration. Emigration. The R30,000 earner cannot escape - it comes out before they see the money.
The base is narrow. The burden is concentrated. The services are not.
Why it accumulated this way.
No one designed this system. It grew.
Income tax funds the general budget. VAT funds the general budget. Fuel levy funds roads and the general budget. Each mechanism made sense when it was introduced. Each one expanded quietly.
Raising income tax visibly upsets people. Raising VAT is less visible - it is embedded in the price. Raising fuel levy is buried in the pump price. Municipal charges are non-negotiable.
The objective was not fairness to the middle class. It was revenue extraction with minimum political friction.
The uncomfortable part.
This is not a policy failure. It is a policy success. The system extracts efficiently. It offends quietly. And the people who carry it do not have the means to opt out.
The question is not whether 48% is too high.
It is how long the R30,000 earner can pay twice - once in tax and once in escape - before something breaks.
Angie Hattingh retweeted
In 2000, a cameraman in Berlin unknowingly recorded one of the most iconic rave videos ever
Opens grocery app. Goes to specials. Sees that every second row of products is NOT ON SPECIAL but is a SPONSORED AD. So now the specials section is harder to navigate and takes longer to go through. ENSHITTIFICATION
There are some clients that are homeopathic marketers: they water down the strategy and creative until there is just water.
Morning me: Tonight I'm going to read a book!
Evening me: I'm too tired to think. Must watch mindless tv.
It’s impossible to get useful content on this app anymore. It’s just filled with personal anecdotes and the most generic tik tok content.
Angie Hattingh retweeted
Bob Fosse in Little Prince movie, 1974 had a massive influence on Michael Jackson.
Angie Hattingh retweeted
Open Reel Ensemble performs a trio piece on the Jigakkyu, a custom folk instrument that generates shimmering analog sounds by bowing magnetic tape stretched across bamboo frames, with playback controlled via reel-to-reel tape recorders, August 2025.
I don't know why women would go on Love is Blind. Increasingly it is clear that the producers choices of men is piss poor. Season after season, these women are just leagues ahead of these men in terms of emotional maturity. It's not making men look good.
Angie Hattingh retweeted
2007 We make pizza
2017 We're a tech company that happens to make Pizza
2027 We're an AI company, but first we're reimagining Pizza