Alistair Kitchen Profile Banner
Alistair Kitchen Profile
Alistair Kitchen

@alistairkitchen

1,103
Followers
1,262
Following
340
Media
2,984
Statuses

New York via Australia
Joined August 2010
Don't wanna be here? Send us removal request.
@alistairkitchen
Alistair Kitchen
2 years
The Flemington Racecourse flood wall is some kind of perverse tragedy of the commons. A privately-owned floodplain refusing to take on water, ensuring worse flooding for the city of Melbourne.
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@alistairkitchen
Alistair Kitchen
2 years
Sorry but if you actively direct floodwater towards people’s homes, you’re doing something wrong, and we should have a legal framework capable of holding you to account.
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@alistairkitchen
Alistair Kitchen
1 year
damn who is the economy
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@alistairkitchen
Alistair Kitchen
2 years
shot, chaser, etc
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@alistairkitchen
Alistair Kitchen
4 months
@taliaotg
Talia Jane ❤️‍🔥
4 months
NYPD using LRAD telling the rally outside Columbia to “not disturb the barriers. Any altering… of the barriers will result in arrest. At this time, you are making unreasonable noise. You are directed to stop using sound devices.”
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@alistairkitchen
Alistair Kitchen
1 year
“I compare it to what I call Gotham City” is one of the all time lines
@Acyn
Acyn
1 year
Marjorie Taylor Greene on New York: It’s disgusting… It was repulsive, it smells bad. I think it's a very terrible place.
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@alistairkitchen
Alistair Kitchen
2 years
People in the comments tell me it’s state land leased to VRC
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@alistairkitchen
Alistair Kitchen
1 year
evergreen
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@JHWeissmann
Jordan Weissmann
1 year
Is there a single major economy in the world that’s obviously outperforming the US right now?
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@alistairkitchen
Alistair Kitchen
1 year
Something majestic about watching @naamanzhou explain Aussie Rules in the New Yorker
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@alistairkitchen
Alistair Kitchen
3 years
My new essay in @Meanjin tries to grapple with something that has perplexed me for years. It's government policy that about 1/20 Australian workers be unemployed at any one time. How come we never talk about that?
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@alistairkitchen
Alistair Kitchen
2 years
Young people may become more conservative when they finally inherit the capital hoarded by older gens, but they'll never revert to boomer levels. My sense (hope?) is we're a decade away from a massive realignment.
@julianoshea
Julian O'Shea
2 years
Millennials are doing their own thing. This graph of Australian political trends vs age is wild. #auspol
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@alistairkitchen
Alistair Kitchen
10 months
Last year, at the request of a pseudonymous collective of online scientists, 160 strangers voluntarily replaced their entire diet with potatoes for a month, weighing themselves daily.
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@alistairkitchen
Alistair Kitchen
3 years
. @thomas_violence did a funny tweet two days ago and i've already seen three screenshots of it floating around here each with 100k likes
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@alistairkitchen
Alistair Kitchen
4 years
The emergence of @jdcmedlock offers a rare moment of redemption for Twitter.
@Noahpinion
Noah Smith 🐇🇺🇸🇺🇦🇹🇼
4 years
Today on my blog I interview @jdcmedlock , the pseudonymous prophet of Twitter's Social Democrat movement. If he can't convince you to love higher taxes and universal benefits, no one can.
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@alistairkitchen
Alistair Kitchen
3 months
My piece about potatoes seems to be getting some attention again. Here it is ICYMI. TLDR: - potatoes may hold the cure to obesity - the pseudonymous scientists @mold_time tested it with volunteers from the internet - the results are extraordinary
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@alistairkitchen
Alistair Kitchen
2 years
Steve’s right here, but he’s missing a key group: centrists. The Australian centre has been drinking from the firehose of American politics for decades.
@SHamiltonian
Steven Hamilton
2 years
The worst version of Australian politics is the unthinking importation of American political fads. The right and left are equally guilty of it. Lefties talking about abolishing student debt. Right-wingers talking about voter ID laws. Totally brain dead. Incredibly cringe.
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@alistairkitchen
Alistair Kitchen
10 months
@BrandyLJensen a century of putting hams in bags... and nothing
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@alistairkitchen
Alistair Kitchen
10 months
@BrandyLJensen I'm reeling from the realisation that it's the latter?? who knew we had such restraint
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@alistairkitchen
Alistair Kitchen
3 years
. @rachelrwithers asks the right question: ‘A well-respected former Coalition MP accused the PM of “menacing, controlling” behaviour, of bullying and backgrounding against her...Why isn’t this major news?’
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@alistairkitchen
Alistair Kitchen
1 year
Still coming to terms with the discovery of an old, damaged, undeveloped roll of film I shot in Xinjiang at least 5 years ago
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@alistairkitchen
Alistair Kitchen
10 months
@mold_time If you've heard me talking obsessively about potatoes in the last year, this is why. My story of a pseudonymous collective of internet scientists trying to solve the mystery of obesity:
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@alistairkitchen
Alistair Kitchen
3 years
call me sonic the hedgehog cause i just got a boost
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@alistairkitchen
Alistair Kitchen
2 years
@TheOmniZaddy @aaron_renn 'Residential' is when as few people live in a street as possible
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@alistairkitchen
Alistair Kitchen
2 years
Urging all people in nyc to get amongst it today. Exquisite vibes. Best weather of the year. Not to be missed
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@alistairkitchen
Alistair Kitchen
3 years
I’m having a stroke
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@alistairkitchen
Alistair Kitchen
4 months
@prem_thakker All surrounded streets cleared and locked down. Hundreds of police, massive operation.
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@alistairkitchen
Alistair Kitchen
2 years
Warnie was at least 10x more famous than, say, Tom Brady, but the yanks wouldn’t know it. Good on the NYT.
@nytimes
The New York Times
2 years
Shane Warne, one of the greatest cricket players of all time, and a larger-than-life figure on and off the field, died Friday in Thailand. He was 52.
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@alistairkitchen
Alistair Kitchen
4 months
Columbia President Minouche Shafik's letter to the NYPD requesting force. The 'clear and present danger' was that some undergrads were camping on a lawn.
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@alistairkitchen
Alistair Kitchen
3 years
Now that Netflix has fired the organizer of the trans employee workout, let's revisit the famous Culture section of their website
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@alistairkitchen
Alistair Kitchen
2 years
Hey guys, as some of you know already, my health went really downhill this year. I’m headed back to Australia for a few months to convalesce and get the (universal) healthcare I need.
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@alistairkitchen
Alistair Kitchen
3 years
If that sounds odd to you, that's okay! We don't usually talk about unemployment that way. But we should.
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@alistairkitchen
Alistair Kitchen
4 years
Hi everyone. When covid pushed me out of the USA 10 months go, I left behind my apartment, my things, my friends, and my partner. I’ve been working US hours from Australia for months, but today I received a new visa. I’m coming back.
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@alistairkitchen
Alistair Kitchen
3 years
The current outbreak in Australia was predictable, predicted, and the preference of the federal government. The alternative - prompt vaccination and effective quarantine - was deemed too expensive.
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@alistairkitchen
Alistair Kitchen
2 years
bad news everyone. turns out the Australian media class functions to protect and reproduce a narrow political orthodoxy
@SHamiltonian
Steven Hamilton
2 years
Sophisticated question by Leigh Sales.
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@alistairkitchen
Alistair Kitchen
2 years
When you haven’t been to Australia
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@alistairkitchen
Alistair Kitchen
1 year
😔
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@alistairkitchen
Alistair Kitchen
7 months
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@yimbymelbourne
YIMBY Melbourne
7 months
Why is Brunswick—one of Melbourne’s trendiest suburbs—almost entirely restricted to low-density housing? Why can you only build two storey single dwellings around its plentiful train and tram stops? The answer: NIMBYs. 🧵
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@alistairkitchen
Alistair Kitchen
4 years
@bencjenkins Not interested. Working on a novel about burgeoning masculinity in a coastal town instead. There will be surfing and possibly footy. might be something in it
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@alistairkitchen
Alistair Kitchen
3 years
vaxxed
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@orientaljanedoe
jane chung
3 years
vaxxed
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@alistairkitchen
Alistair Kitchen
2 years
I’ve been feeling really down about career stuff and the future but today I remembered all my heroes died broke failures. we’re all good
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@alistairkitchen
Alistair Kitchen
4 months
The moral courage of these students puts so many to shame—shame that people desperately don’t want to feel. Watch out for bizarro behaviour over the coming days as people across the spectrum try to offload their bad feelings.
@bluepashminas
maryam مريم🇵🇸🍁
4 months
Just got out of jail after Columbia called NYPD to mass arrest 100+ students. I have been suspended and evicted from housing by Barnard. This has only strengthened my commitment to the movement for Palestinian liberation and I promise to continue fighting for divestment.
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@alistairkitchen
Alistair Kitchen
2 years
This is as good a time as any to say that I'm actively looking for work! I've worked in comms, project mgmt, and chief of staff roles. I like working in progressive politics but I'm not confined to it Please DM me if you have any (NYC or remote) leads - I'd be v appreciative🤗
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@alistairkitchen
Alistair Kitchen
3 years
We made it. Deleting Twitter for the next fortnight and about to sleep for two days, but thanks for following along at home 🙏
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@alistairkitchen
Alistair Kitchen
2 years
How good is this! Just weeks after @naamanzhou wins a Walkley, the articulate Australian lands TWO pieces in the @NewYorker !
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@alistairkitchen
Alistair Kitchen
3 years
The ding dong ditch of academic posting @lastpositivist
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@lastpositivist
Liam Bright
3 years
It's kinda weird that science bros still like to act like STEM is better than philosophy even though Berkeley definitively pwned science on behalf of philosophy way back in the day.
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@alistairkitchen
Alistair Kitchen
2 years
Last week the Greens became the only Australian party with an explicit anti-poverty proposal. It wasn’t perfect, but people on here lost their goddamn minds. Meanwhile, 13.6% of Australians live in relative poverty.
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@alistairkitchen
Alistair Kitchen
4 years
I was overcome by the urge to make this
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@alistairkitchen
Alistair Kitchen
2 years
Never before has Twitter’s tagline, “What’s happening?!”, been more appropriate
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@alistairkitchen
Alistair Kitchen
3 years
For the last few years I've written a low-quality low-effort newsletter to a small group of friends. In 2022 I'm opening the doors to everyone. Politics, criticism, memoir, economics, fiction and philosophy. Hopefully some of it will be good. Enjoy 😊
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@alistairkitchen
Alistair Kitchen
3 years
The news from Australia is just so tragic, so demoralising. Weeks of reminders of the vile misogyny at the core of our culture.
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@alistairkitchen
Alistair Kitchen
3 years
how it started how it's going
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@alistairkitchen
Alistair Kitchen
4 years
I love Americans
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@alistairkitchen
Alistair Kitchen
4 months
It is increasingly clear that the higher ed administrative class sees faculty and students as an unfortunate byproduct of their business model—to be managed and controlled.
@Northeastern
Northeastern U.
4 months
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@alistairkitchen
Alistair Kitchen
2 years
3 million Australians live in poverty. On the stories we tell ourselves to pretend that's normal:
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@alistairkitchen
Alistair Kitchen
3 years
Damn I wish this were true but the best anti-poverty program is one that distributes economic resources to people *unable* to exchange their labour for income.
@ninaturner
Nina Turner
3 years
The best anti-poverty program is a union ✊🏾
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@alistairkitchen
Alistair Kitchen
2 years
The crucial thing about Australia’s egalitarian myth is that it is the right myth to have. Our task is to make it real.
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@alistairkitchen
Alistair Kitchen
3 years
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@alistairkitchen
Alistair Kitchen
3 years
I came to the USA to learn from US progressive movement and here is what I have learned: - there is a terrifying amount of money - most orgs have no identifiable theory of change
@KateAronoff
Kate Aronoff
3 years
So much foundation money has gone to completely useless things these last couple of months. Tens of millions of dollars for basically nothing
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@alistairkitchen
Alistair Kitchen
2 years
I’ve been working on an essay lately about why there are so few ideas in Australian discourse. I think the reaction to the Greens’ two proposals this week helps explain why.
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@alistairkitchen
Alistair Kitchen
2 years
If Matt Yglesias can build a decades-long career explaining economics without knowing what a basis point is, you can apply for that job you feel unqualified for.
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@alistairkitchen
Alistair Kitchen
4 years
@RadishHarmers One of the grains of rice 😎
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@alistairkitchen
Alistair Kitchen
2 years
@quantian1 Strict eligibility
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@alistairkitchen
Alistair Kitchen
1 year
This happened to me literally yesterday
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@alistairkitchen
Alistair Kitchen
3 years
George Scialabba is such a gift.
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@alistairkitchen
Alistair Kitchen
4 years
I wrote about democracy and the flimsy stuff that holds it together, for @Meanjin
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@alistairkitchen
Alistair Kitchen
1 year
sorry to succession post but “I’m a plant that grows on a rock and lives off insects that die inside of me” is a line that will be with us for decades to come
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@alistairkitchen
Alistair Kitchen
9 months
I saw this speech delivered by @hashtagoras on the Columbia steps. It was extraordinary. I hope you read it.
@DavidKlion
David Klion
9 months
One of my oldest friends, @hashtagoras , gave this phenomenal speech at Columbia, where he teaches. It's as eloquent an expression of why many Jews reject what Israel is doing in our name as I've read anywhere. It's also a defense of free speech on campus.
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@alistairkitchen
Alistair Kitchen
3 years
What really makes the US government unique is the confluence of two things: widespread procedural fetishism and just the worst procedures in the world
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@alistairkitchen
Alistair Kitchen
4 years
it's my birthday so here is my yearly birthday message: ✨ better worlds remain possible ✨
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@alistairkitchen
Alistair Kitchen
1 year
A lot of people say it’s bad that Elon has allowed Twitter to be swamped by bots. but they bolster my follower count and DM me in Japanese what I can only assume are messages of love and affirmation
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@alistairkitchen
Alistair Kitchen
1 year
two friends happened to text me pics at the same time
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@alistairkitchen
Alistair Kitchen
10 months
This makes the all-potato diet, if @mold_time ’s data is to be believed, among the most effective diets ever researched. ‘People lost more weight on the potato diet,’ they told me, ‘than, as far as we can tell, any other diet in the history of mankind.’
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@alistairkitchen
Alistair Kitchen
3 years
It would also let us see that our current Jobseeker payment, at its current rate, is an extraordinarily cruel way to treat a group of Australians the entire country depends on.
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@alistairkitchen
Alistair Kitchen
1 year
Mentioned to an American that I spent the day listening to the cricket. She thought I’d zeroed in on a single insect for 5+ hours. A broken people.
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@alistairkitchen
Alistair Kitchen
3 years
We predicted the vaccine supply problem in November last year
@KJBar
Karen Barlow
3 years
PM Morrison says there are a lot of "heroes of hindsight" re. Australian #covid19 vaccine supply #COVID19Aus
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@alistairkitchen
Alistair Kitchen
4 months
It doesn’t even bring profit! The Columbia portfolio underperforms the market! This is a case of mere ideology, *not* material interest.
@schizoreads
schizophrenic reads
4 months
I think it’s actually good to oversimplify things: this is happening because Columbia’s portfolio is profiting too much off of genocide for them to care what students and factually wants or thinks.
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@alistairkitchen
Alistair Kitchen
3 years
Anyway lfg!!!
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@alistairkitchen
Alistair Kitchen
4 months
I’ve spoken a lot to Tahlia this week. Her work is extraordinary and we are lucky to have her.
@taliaotg
Talia Jane ❤️‍🔥
4 months
I have covered tons of protests over the years and the cop response to Columbia University tonight was more than I’ve ever seen. It felt like they were using these student protestors as an excuse to play with their military toys.
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@alistairkitchen
Alistair Kitchen
3 years
My first ever piece of published fiction is out behind the paywall at @OverlandJournal . I hope it resonates with someone out there. Writing is hard!
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@alistairkitchen
Alistair Kitchen
3 years
There is nothing compassionate about policy that offloads the cost of safety onto domestic violence victims.
@theage
The Age
3 years
A new compassionate provision for early access to super would allow domestic violence victims to apply for up to $10,000 of their super to be withdrawn “as an important last resort lifeline”.
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@alistairkitchen
Alistair Kitchen
4 years
I redownloaded Twitter for this
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@alistairkitchen
Alistair Kitchen
2 years
in a cafe where a girl has a makeshift sign with the words “I am a queer leftist - I just research the far right for work” propped next to her laptop screen
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@alistairkitchen
Alistair Kitchen
3 years
Second day at JFK trying to fly JFK > LAX > SYD. Can’t get off the ground because @AmericanAir don’t have enough crew.
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@alistairkitchen
Alistair Kitchen
10 months
The results were extraordinary. Those who ate nothing but potatoes for 4 weeks lost on average 10.6 lbs (4.8 kgs)– far more weight, in far less time, than other studied diets can boast.
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@alistairkitchen
Alistair Kitchen
10 months
@mold_time I wanted to understand how this was possible, what it meant for how we understand science, and whether a blog on the internet had really cracked the mystery of obesity.
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@alistairkitchen
Alistair Kitchen
2 years
Since I shared this essay I’ve had an amazing, terrifying number of people reach out to talk about chronic illness and the isolation that comes with it. In case there’s anyone else out there it might help, here it is again.
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@alistairkitchen
Alistair Kitchen
1 year
Twitter has really just turned into a qt farm huh. we’ve been reduced to recycling tweets from back when this site was funny
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@alistairkitchen
Alistair Kitchen
1 year
I’ve been saying
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@alistairkitchen
Alistair Kitchen
4 months
Hamilton Hall, Columbia University
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@alistairkitchen
Alistair Kitchen
2 years
I’ve been unwell for the last few years. To make sense of that I wrote this essay about pain and the problem of other minds. Hope you like it.
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@alistairkitchen
Alistair Kitchen
3 years
replies to this are deranged - @SHamiltonian has been repeatedly vindicated on covid; grow up - economists and public health professionals are responsible for an equal number of clangers these last two years - I cannot believe I am defending economics; look what you made me do
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@alistairkitchen
Alistair Kitchen
3 years
Doing so would allow us to get clear of some pretty messed up notions of "responsibility" and "obligations". We would see that we don't so much need people to "get a job" – we very literally need them to *not have* a job.
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@alistairkitchen
Alistair Kitchen
2 years
@PMacSwell I’d be curious to hear from experts, too. My sense is that reducing flood levels by 1270 mega litres would be significant — equivalent, as you say, to about a square km of low lying land.
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@alistairkitchen
Alistair Kitchen
4 years
Arriving in New York from Australia, this is all I can think of
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@alistairkitchen
Alistair Kitchen
2 years
I broke the sacred vow today and posted on LinkedIn. But I did it for a good reason! My job is coming to an end and I need a new one to stay in the US.
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@alistairkitchen
Alistair Kitchen
2 years
Sorry everyone but the media class functionally protects and shepherds a pro-capital ideological hegemony. Whether you’re a raving drip or Antonio Gramsci you’re basically bang on this one.
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@alistairkitchen
Alistair Kitchen
2 years
In ‘The Rhetoric of Reaction’ (1991), Albert Hirschman diagnoses three arguments conservatives use to justify inaction in the face of injustice: jeopardy, futility, and perversity. Following the #auspol Federal Election? Keep a look out for each of these over the next 6 weeks:
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@alistairkitchen
Alistair Kitchen
2 years
Why are we doing this again? Because those who once had a monopoly on speech now find that monopoly under threat.
@nytopinion
New York Times Opinion
2 years
“Free speech is predicated on mutual respect,” the Times editorial board writes. When public discourse in America is narrowed, it becomes harder to answer the many other urgent questions we face as a society.
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