Eric Lawton
EricLawton@kolektiva.social
<p>Natural philosopher (STEM background), retired IT Architect.<br />Supporting public policy based on kindness, respect and evidence.</p><p>Linux Android </p><p>Canadian, UK and (sadly) former EU citizen.</p><p><a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/systemsThinking" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>systemsThinking</span></a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/socialSystems" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>socialSystems</span></a><br />(mostly on website)<br /><a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/solidarity" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>solidarity</span></a></p><p>Cis, het</p><p>Settler on the traditional territories the Mississauga branch of the Ojibwa Nation.</p>
Posts
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Overnight, Meta deleted all her accounts. AI customer service won’t let her reach a human | CBC News https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/meta-accounts-deleted-ai-customer-service-9.7364543?cmp=rss > Toronto resident Jasmine Ault says Meta disabled her accounts overnight, without giving her a reason, and that she's been unable to get past their AI chatbots to speak to a human to resolve the error. Experts say without regulation enforcing the right to speak to a human, this will keep happeni...
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Ontario is launching free flu and COVID-19 shots next week as vaccination rates decline https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/ontario-is-launching-free-flu-and-covid-19-shots-next-week-as-vaccination-rates-decline/article_11a300ef-cc7f-41ac-8f2e-a41e9f3f216c.html > Starting Sept. 28, high-risk individuals, including hospital patients and workers, long-term care residents and staff, and people aged 65 and older will be able to get flu and COVID-19 shots. I'll be in line at my local pharmacy....
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Trump super intelligence: Will the president’s attempt to rebrand AI work? - BBC News https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cqy4z9pv4w0po Only DJT could look at an error-prone dangerous chatbot and think its intelligence far exceeds his own.
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Why is the Trump administration calling bike lanes ‘DEI’? | Dave Schilling | The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/sep/13/trump-administration-bike-lanes-dei > The government apparently has an issue with paths for cyclists. Take it from someone who can’t ride a bike: this makes no sense And Ontario's Doug Ford is the same. He's only anti-Trump in wanting himself to be in charge, not Trump #NeverVoteConservative #ONpoli
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Israel’s Chief Rabbi says Palestinians are not a people and have no rights https://www.aljazeera.com/video/newsfeed/2026/8/22/08-22-26-israel-rabbi-palestinians-clip?traffic_source=rss > Israel’s Chief Rabbi denied Palestinians are a people, claimed Gaza for Jews and called for its destruction and return. Pure evil #Gaza
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Canadians overwhelmingly demand wealth tax after Kevin O’Leary says it will make him move away https://www.thebeaverton.com/2026/08/canadians-overwhelmingly-demand-wealth-tax-after-kevin-oleary-says-it-will-make-him-move-away/ > OTTAWA - Pollsters report a split among Canadians over the idea of higher tax on the assets of wealthy individuals, though support skyrockets after noting that Kevin O'Leary has vowed that he will respond to a wealth tax by moving far away. (Apparently I need t...
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Breadmaggedon A vignette from my short career as a bread factory worker, in which a co-worker accidentally destroyed a lot of bread. And a bad-tempered man was stunned into silence. http://ericlawton.org/2026/08/02/breadmaggedon/
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Europe is burning – and if Trump’s war on the climate is not met with sanctions, things will only get worse | Alexander Hurst | The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/jul/30/europe-burning-trump-war-climate-sanctions-white-house > The White House seems committed to ecocide. The EU should harness the power of the single market to force it to change course, says Guardian Europe writer Alexander Hurst #climate #StopOil #stopTrump
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98.98% opposition to Doug Ford’s new endangered species law revealed | The Narwhal https://thenarwhal.ca/ontario-endangered-species-law-opposition/ > Internal Ministry of Environment analysis shows ‘confusion’ and concerns about ‘negative impacts on Ontario’s biodiversity’ raised over the Species Conservation Act, under Bill 5 > The Doug Ford government weakened Ontario’s species-at-risk law despite feedback from thousands of residents, conservation experts, municipal representatives, F...
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Claude, ChatGPT: AI labs buy, scan, shred millions of rare books | news.com.au — "Once that information has been extracted and encoded into an AI model, the delivery mechanism has served its purpose." So the purpose of a book is to enrich Big Tech? 😡 Anthropic described the project as “our effort to disruptively scan all the world’s books” in an internal memo, which noted “we do not want it to be known that we are pursuing this project”. I guess not. https://www.news.com.au/tech...
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Israeli crackdown in occupied West Bank intensifies, settlers cause mayhem "Crackdown"? Or state terrorism? https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/7/26/israeli-crackdown-in-occupied-west-bank-intensifies-settlers-cause-mayhem?traffic_source=rss > The surge in violence comes after four Palestinians and two soldiers were killed in a gunfight on Friday.
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Instant access to Trump’s thoughts now costs $100,000 a month https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2026/07/instant-access-to-trumps-thoughts-now-costs-100000-a-month/ > Truth Social—where the president often moves markets—is offering faster access at a very high price. > Trump guarantees that he can post content elsewhere, provided he posts it on Truth Social six hours before he posts it anywhere else. #TrumpCrimes
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Israeli settlers set fire to mosques, cars and farm land in West Bank, Palestinians say There is something seriously wrong with "Western" governments supporting state-backed terrorism in our name. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cjrv77gl4deo > The latest attacks come two days after a clash between settlers and Palestinians near the village of Tell, which left four Palestinians and two Israelis dead. #Palestine #stateTerrorism
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Holly is having a good think, in the dappled shade from the wild grape vine. She decided it was snack time and went in. #Caturday
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More than 250,000 people flee wildfires in France and Spain | Wildfires | The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jul/25/wildfires-force-250000-people-to-evacuate-in-france-and-spain > Hundreds of firefighters battle blazes as strong winds drive fires towards Bordeaux and smoke prompts health warnings in Madrid Why are even "centrist" "Western" governments so pro-oil, anti-humanity that they pretend that there is no #climateEmergency ? #BigOil
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Linda McQuaig: Don’t be fooled, Big Oil is calling the shots, not Carney https://www.thestar.com/opinion/contributors/dont-be-fooled-big-oil-is-calling-the-shots-not-carney/article_66e5bff8-0a55-43bc-ac51-163758734f00.html > Big Oil demands Ottawa help them squeeze every dollop of bitumen from the ground — no matter how wildly fires rage across the country and how Trumpishly orange the skies > Carney is going along with Big Oil’s plans, not because he fails to grasp the severity of the...
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We Shouldn’t Assign Attributes For Life Only immutable and permanently important facts about the event of your birth should be assigned and recorded on your birth certificate. That excludes race, sex and number of fingers. #sex #gender #bigotry http://ericlawton.org/2026/07/22/we-shouldnt-assign-attributes-for-life/
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“Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action” ― Ian Fleming, Goldfinger Four times is a systemic issue — #SystemsThinking
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Why do I ridicule Trump, the rest of the Epstein class and their deluded followers? Because some wavering supporters are more likely to change if they think they're being made to look foolish than they are by reason.
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Trump, not Iran, is the world’s greatest danger. He’s a one-man weapon of mass destruction | Simon Tisdall | The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/jul/18/donald-trump-iran-world-danger-bombing-us > As the bombing starts again, it’s clear the president has dragged the US into a limitless fiasco – and the world into an economic quagmire, says Guardian foreign affairs commentator Simon Tisdall
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Yesterday's clear blue sky has been exchanged for a dark brown-orange, smelly sky. On the other hand it's a little cooler than yesterday. #wildfire
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Mark Carney spent a year gathering political capital. Now he’s spending it — along with billions of taxpayers’ dollars They are NOT "taxpayers' dollars". Why do the media and others keep using this phrase. It belongs to the general public. Nobody claims that when corporations spend money that it's "customers' money". The phrase implies that it's been illegitimately taken from people, as if thieves spent their "victims' money". https://www.t...
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Detained Gaza doctor almost unrecognisable after injuries in Israeli jail, lawyer says | Gaza | The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jul/06/detained-gaza-doctor-almost-unrecognisable-injuries-israeli-jail-hussam-abu-safiya > Hussam Abu Safiya faces ‘tangible danger to his life’ following 18 months in prison without charge or trial #Gaza #Palestine
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How can people get so angry at immigrants because they think they're "taking our jobs", but admire tech bros and their AI™s who openly admit they're taking our jobs? Against people who have different cultures but for machines with no culture at all. Against people who have different colours of skin but for machines with no skins at all. #racism
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‘In stories like this, the data and the methodology are key’: when private equity meets public service journalism | Data journalism | The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/membership/2026/jul/05/in-stories-like-this-the-data-and-the-methodology-are-key-when-private-equity-meets-public-service-journalism > A team from across the Guardian set out to investigate the full extent of private equity’s stake in Britain’s public and essential services. The scale and opacity posed many challenges...
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"Trump discloses 327 unreported stock trades made a day before his first tariff pause "The disclosure, more than 14 months after the purchases occurred, is the latest revelation to fuel calls for greater scrutiny of the president’s financial assets" The calls should be for impeachment. https://www.nbcnews.com/business/markets/trump-stock-trades-before-tariff-pause-rcna352723
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Banning transgender girls from school sports affects all children – why allowing strangers to scrutinize children’s bodies may put all girls at risk of harassment https://theconversation.com/banning-transgender-girls-from-school-sports-affects-all-children-why-allowing-strangers-to-scrutinize-childrens-bodies-may-put-all-girls-at-risk-of-harassment-285559 And it normalizes transphobia, putting all trans people at risk. And by normalising division and hate, it harms everyone's mental heal...
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Mark Carney calls carbon emissions targets a ‘not sustainable’ threat to national unity https://www.thestar.com/politics/federal/mark-carney-abandons-trudeau-era-carbon-emissions-targets/article_89b35724-50db-4038-8702-0073af1016a6.html > downgrading the country’s climate-change ambitions is necessary for *global stability* Is this satire? How will wrecking the #climate, causing mass migration, heat, drought, hurricanes, sea-level rise, … promote “global stability”? #CDNPoli #CanPoli
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Canada’s citizenship study guide has glaring omissions. Critics say it sanitizes the past https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/canadas-citizenship-study-guide-has-glaring-omissions-critics-say-it-sanitizes-the-past/article_c59aabc2-6e2f-4958-85a1-bc68aafa52da.html > The official source before taking the citizenship test has come under fire for the way it deals with Indigenous Peoples. It expects new Canadians to adopt the same shameful attitudes to Indigenous people as those born here. Ap...
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Shawn Micallef: Doug Ford’s attacks on Toronto got you down? Try these seven local democracy hacks to feel less helpless https://www.thestar.com/opinion/contributors/doug-fords-attacks-on-toronto-got-you-down-try-these-seven-local-democracy-hacks-to-feel-less-helpless/article_b238cdc0-3bd1-443c-a861-ba55db60f503.html > There effective ways to overcome the feeling of helplessness as a result of recent moves to take away local democracy in the province. But quickly before Ford transfers all...