Interesting Things on the Internet: December 23rd 2019

• The retreat of "scientific selfishness," a literature review. A good article with an excellent embedded video of a talk, debunking the idea that we're all rational self-interested actors, and showing that given a framework or default expectation of cooperation, we'll tend to act accordingly. That chimes with my experiences in both open source and, even more so, the DoES Liverpool community.
• Boris Johnson’s sweeping victory is a disaster for the country, but he cannot deliver on his false promises. Here’s how to survive and resist because his nemesis will come. "Change starts at the bottom. It will be a long, cold, hard winter of Tory rule, but under the snow the shoots of a new society are waiting. But only if we do something. If you do something. Boris Johnson’s Government won’t even notice the good you are doing, let alone try to stop it."
• Mass Canvassing as a Political Action. My mate Julian has been out trying to make a difference, when the best I managed was some clicktivism. As he says, we need to get out to meet people in the new swing areas and start to build some understanding between each other.
• “Link In Bio” is a slow knife. A good post from Anil Dash about Instagram/Facebook's attempts to slowly erode the value of the web. Instagram has long been web--hostile but that plus their recent API changes that prevent any new clients from accessing data are making me reconsider using it at all.
• Towards a Radical Brexit. This is the sort of proposal that's been sorely lacking from either side of the Brexit debate - what could be better about the choice rather than how the opposing choice would be terrible. I'd rather we were in the EU trying to improve it, but if we leave then I'd be happy with heading for one or all of these proposals.
• Please for the love of Blarg, Start a Blog. Yes. Always. Writing things into the public record is important for all of us, and owning our own patch of the Internet is important. Build something that will last, don't just skim stones across the social media seas, even if it is fun every now and then to pitch one that skips a few hops before it sinks without trace.