Owen Mathews

@[email protected]
20 Followers
51 Following
266 Posts
Programmer, teacher, and creative. Ex- instructional designer iOS/Swift.
Websitehttps://owenmathews.name
LinkedInhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/owen-mathews-b87244/
Owen MathewsJan 14

This by Adam Bonica: https://data4democracy.substack.com/p/the-wall-looks-permanent-until-it

“My deepest fear is not that we fail to survive this moment—it’s that we survive it only to return to the status quo that made it possible. That we exhale, declare victory, and leave in place the Electoral College, the filibuster, the gerrymandered maps, the money-soaked elections that allowed a minoritarian movement to capture the state in the first place. The point is not to get back to normal. Normal is how we got here.”

This is exactly correct.

The Wall Looks Permanent Until It Falls

On the optimism of preparation in a time of democratic decay.

On Data and Democracy
Owen MathewsJan 12
Paul CantrellJan 11

This week I’m thinking back to this powerful quote (long-circulating, origin unclear):

❝
Sometimes people use “respect” to mean “treating someone like a person”

and sometimes they use “respect” to mean “treating someone like an authority”

and sometimes people who are used to being treated like an authority say “If you won’t respect me I won’t respect you,” and what they mean is “If you won’t treat me like an authority then I won’t treat you like a person.”
❞

Re @fsinn: https://mas.to/@fsinn/115874975151407409

Francisca Sinn (@[email protected])

“The thread that runs through both is the assumption that an American exercising their constitutional rights must submit, without question, to a white man holding a gun. This is the larger meaning of federal agents from Immigrations and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Patrol in US cities. While they are attacking primarily people of color, the message they carry is directed at all Americans: you must do what the Trump administration and its loyalists demand.“ https://open.substack.com/pub/heathercoxrichardson/p/january-10-2026?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email

mas.to
Owen MathewsJan 4
Show threadPaul CantrellJan 3
Treating the US like a rogue state would be a seismic shift in international relations — a shift that slow-moving world will resist. But the US •is• a rogue state at this point, and other nations need to start treating it as such. Like…yesterday.
Owen MathewsDec 30

Or—just spitballing here—maybe we tax corporations and the ultrawealthy, supply a real safety net for all, and pass meaningful regulations.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/27/opinion/artificial-intelligence-jobs-worker-training.html

“I believe that every company benefiting from automation — which is most American companies — should follow this lead and dedicate 1 percent of its profits to help retrain the people who are being displaced.”

Opinion | Sal Khan: A.I. Will Displace Workers at a Scale Many Don’t Realize

Companies benefiting from A.I. should donate a small percentage of their profits to retrain the workers the tech will displace.

The New York Times
Owen MathewsOct 4
Show threadShantiniOct 4

It is so heartbreaking, so crushing to me that nothing we've been doing has been able to convince more than a handful of people to literally help a woman in her final trimester not be homeless, in a hot dirty tent, during a genocide. Like what are we doing? What is the point?

If you care, boost. If you care more, send $10.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vSCt4U_GrGJ8c5ptYH9P0QkW9ygyzO7r6C0EV5T2IBydBvTHg2aCvHAqgHgKgbbao09RAmM-Wceaahi/pubhtml?gid=1617420494&single=true

Divya funds/e-sims

Google Docs
Owen MathewsSep 29
ShantiniSep 29

Support has really stalled, which means that we might not be able to get our remaining family out of #Gaza City.

Please share widely and give what you can. Your impact will be doubled because we are matching up to 3000.

5344/7000 by TOMORROW

https://chuffed.org/project/hope-giving-circle

#Palestine #mutualaid #MutualAidRequest

Keep Hope Alive: a Gaza Giving Circle

We are a team of volunteers in the US and UK, led by two sisters passionate about helping our friends on the ground keep their families and neighbors alive with food, water, & shelter. We saw that their campaigns are extremely stagnant and wanted to find a way to direct steady help to them. We distribute your contributions equally every week for sustainable support.

Chuffed
Owen MathewsSep 28
ShantiniSep 26

Progress update: we’ve gotten 6 families out of Gaza city into the south. There are 2 left, and one is in an area where they are being bombed tonight.

Anything you can give helps. We have a few hundred more to go on today’s goal, but then there’s tomorrow’s goal.

#Gaza
#palestine
#mutualaid

https://chuffed.org/project/hope-giving-circle

Keep Hope Alive: a Gaza Giving Circle

We are a team of volunteers in the US and UK, led by two sisters passionate about helping our friends on the ground keep their families and neighbors alive with food, water, & shelter. We saw that their campaigns are extremely stagnant and wanted to find a way to direct steady help to them. We distribute your contributions equally every week for sustainable support.

Chuffed
Owen MathewsSep 23, 2025
Show threadShantiniSep 22, 2025

Still stuck at 170/479 and we need to make this goal by tonight!! This family needs to evacuate tomorrow.

UPDATE: £329/479

https://chuffed.org/project/123284-serajs-fundraiser

#MutualAid #MutualAidRequest #gaza #palestine #palestineaid

Owen MathewsSep 19, 2025

New blog post: On trans erasure.

https://owenmathews.name/blog/2025/09/on-trans-erasure.html

Owen Mathews - Blog

Owen MathewsSep 9, 2025
Ben ScheirmanSep 9, 2025

Congratulations, Tim Cook. This is the *least* excited I’ve ever been for an Apple Event.

I feel bad for my friends at Apple and all the hard working engineers building (*mostly) cool shit only to have it overshadowed by Tim sucking up a wannabe king.