I'm about to sign off for the year - actually, I was ready to do it yesterday, but then I happened upon a brief piece of writing that was so perfect that I decided I'd do one more edition of Pluralistic for 2025.

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If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

pluralistic.net/2025/12/18/sel

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The Earth from space. Standing astride it is the Wall Street 'Charging Bull.' The bull has glowing red eyes. It is haloed in a starbust of red radiating light. Image: Sam Valadi (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/132084522@N05/17086570218/ CC BY 2.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/
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