I use X to share on the things that interest me; philosophy, Ai, history, politics, nature and random thoughts.
Cape Town, South Africa
Joined October 2024
- Tweets13.7K
- Following598
- Followers1.1K
- Likes44.9K
Pinned Tweet
I will no longer talk to people who are determined to see me as an adversary
I will no longer talk to people who assign their own meaning to my words and intentions
I will no longer talk to people who project the hate in their own hearts onto me
I will no longer be responsible for the consequences of other people’s actions
Serbia has just experienced something
historic. On Sunday, 25 October 2026, a student-led movement defeated the country's long-serving ruling party in a parliamentary election, ending roughly 14 years of political dominance by Aleksandar Vučić and his Serbian Progressive Party.
What makes this extraordinary is that the movement grew out of student protests against government corruption. After almost two years of demonstrations, the students have achieved something that previously seemed highly unlikely: defeating the country's entrenched political establishment through an election.
Vučić has conceded defeat, and tens of thousands of people have taken to the streets of Belgrade to celebrate.
According to research published by the Centre for Eastern Studies on 21 October 2026:
75% of Student List voters favour closer relations with the EU rather than Russia.
Several candidates openly support European integration.
The movement has deliberately avoided taking a definitive position on EU membership.
Their central objective has been to remove the entrenched government, fight corruption and restore democratic institutions. They have prioritised those goals over foreign policy.
There are two major complications.
Russia: Serbia has historically maintained close ties with Russia. The Student List has indicated that it would not introduce sanctions against Moscow, despite many of its supporters preferring closer European relations.
Kosovo: The movement supports Serbia's constitutional position that Kosovo remains part of Serbia. The unresolved dispute is a major obstacle to EU accession.
Following yesterday's election, EU leaders welcomed the Student List's victory. EU enlargement commissioner Marta Kos said the door to membership remained open.
Whether they pursue membership will be one of the defining decisions of the new government.
Don’t chase a man - he knows exactly where you are - he’ll come and get you if he really wants you don’t you worry
Nurses are a very fascinating subset of human - I believe we should be paying nurses way way way more and that it should be a much more valued and “prestigious” role. A nurses job is no less important than a Drs (you learn this very quickly in a hospital) yet any person who has spent time in hospitals will have a story, or stories, about unkind and inhumane nurses.
Being a nurse is probably one of the toughest jobs in society so it’s no surprise that an underpaid person in a highly demanding role will become cold and bitter - but what are we doing about it??
There is also a big difference in the demeanour of nurses in state and private hospitals - if you observe a state hospital and then a private hospital, the cheerfulness of the nurses in a private hospital is offensive.
I believe the private sector has a responsibility towards the public sector - a percentage of private hospital profits should go to state facilities - IF, & ONLY IF, - state facilities have open source clarity and trail on all financials - the private sector should never fund corrupt state facilities
Trisha Packham retweeted
Twitter is such a bubble. I reached out to a few past teammates and clients to see if they had patched their PHP projects. They were like, "What?"
Trisha Packham retweeted
The Book of John ends in the most baller way…
“Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written.”
John 21:25
This is one time I wish I were not right but I have a feeling the internet being switched off is coming soon. I can’t say prepare because you can’t prepare for what you’re never experienced
I think there is a fundamentally different way to approach repeat offending, and it begins by changing the question we're trying to answer.
Instead of asking:
“How long should society punish this person for their crime?”
We also need to ask:
“What intervention will most effectively prevent this person from committing another crime, and what will that intervention cost society?”
These are different questions. A prison sentence might satisfy a requirement for punishment while doing relatively little to prevent the next offence.
We have a systems problem: the state spends money investigating, prosecuting, incarcerating and releasing an individual, only to repeat the process when that individual reoffends. Meanwhile, the victim, the next potential victim and society, bear costs that are often excluded from the prison budget
What is it within a human being that makes them capable of genuinely wanting to become different?
Because wanting to change, having the neurological capacity to change, and actually changing are three separate things.
If society is going to invest substantial resources in rehabilitating offenders, it makes sense to investigate the mechanisms that make rehabilitation possible rather than assuming everyone responds to the same interventions.
A person's capacity for moral transformation is not necessarily the same as their capacity to stop committing harmful acts.
Someone may never develop genuine remorse or empathy, yet still learn to regulate their behaviour. Conversely, someone may feel sincere remorse and desperately want to change but repeatedly fail to control their behaviour.
A large meta-analysis covering 116 studies found that imprisonment generally had no advantage over non-custodial sanctions in reducing later reoffending, and in some comparisons was associated with slightly more reoffending. That doesn't invalidate imprisonment's role in punishment or incapacitation, but it challenges the assumption that prison automatically produces safer behaviour after rele
South Africa already has community corrections, prison workshops, rehabilitation programmes and parole supervision. These are not new inventions.
What I would change is who takes responsibility for the entire outcome.
Currently, each department has its own responsibilities and budget. SAPS investigates. Prosecutors prosecute. Courts sentence. Correctional Services incarcerates or supervises.
A person might pass through all those institutions repeatedly without anyone being accountable for the total cost and consequences of that person's offending over time.
I would create a single longitudinal case record, supported by a named case manager, which tracks the offender's rehabilitation, supervision, criminal outcomes and costs across departments, with appropriate privacy protections.
Instead of measuring only how many people completed rehabilitation programmes, the state would also measure how many stopped offending, how much harm was prevented, how victims were compensated and what the total intervention cost.
There's a major incentive change here.
Rather than rewarding an institution for processing more people, you measure the sustained outcomes of the entire system. That does not mean paying agencies bonuses for keeping people out of prison, which could create dangerous incentives. It means public accountability for outcomes that matter.
I think there is a fundamentally different way to approach repeat offending, and it begins by changing the question we're trying to answer.
Instead of asking:
“How long should society punish this person for their crime?”
We also need to ask:
“What intervention will most effectively prevent this person from committing another crime, and what will that intervention cost society?”
These are different questions. A prison sentence might satisfy a requirement for punishment while doing relatively little to prevent the next offence.
We have a systems problem: the state spends money investigating, prosecuting, incarcerating and releasing an individual, only to repeat the process when that individual reoffends. Meanwhile, the victim, the next potential victim and society, bear costs that are often excluded from the prison budget
In May 2026, South Africa's Department of Correctional Services reported that prisons were 58% overcrowded. By 31 March 2026, the inmate population had reached 169,537.
On 13 October 2026, the department reported an average incarceration cost of approximately R482 per prisoner per day.
Annual incarceration cost:
R175,930
Illustrative 10-year cost:
R1.76m
(At today's rate, before inflation)
I don’t think people realise how many podcasters are paid intelligence - just think about it logically - we all know that when movie (and music obvs) stars began to hold huge public sway then said stars were intentionally propped up to shift public opinion and perceptions.
But people don’t listen to movie or pop stars anymore - who do they listen to? Podcasters :)