Doctora Malka Older

@older

nerd with narrative disorder • humanitarian • sociopunk • evidence-based creativity • speculative resistance • predictive fictions • INFOMOCRACY • THE MIMICKING OF KNOWN SUCCESSES • …AND OTHER DISASTERS • GlobalVoices.org • opinions my own

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Doctora Malka Older@older· 6d

my pinned tweet for years was "I write for the people whose names get underlined in red by microsoft word" and...this is why. (no shade to the lovely people at the MIT Press reader, who changed it immediately as soon as I pointed it out)

a screenshot from my essay. You can see the byline: "By: Malka Older" and some truncated text as well as the corner of an image of the cover of the book and the image caption: "Martha Older’s essay appeared in an annotated version of Jules Verne’s “From Earth to the Moon.” "Martha" is underlined three times in orange by me

Doctora Malka Older@older· 14d

JUST skimmed a piece in the Harvard Gazette that totally validates this "any little bit is better than doing nothing" news.harvard.edu/gazette/stor...

"In a 2019 study in JAMA Internal Medicine that looked at all-cause mortality in some 16,000 older women, Lee and colleagues found that women who averaged 4,400 daily steps had a 41 percent reduction in mortality over sedentary women, and mortality rates progressively improved with more steps until they leveled off at about 7,500 steps.

Later research has shown that sedentary adults start to rack up benefits from movement with just an extra trip around the block — 500 to 1,000 steps.

The findings are heartening, Lee said.

“For people at the lower end [of physical activity], people who do nothing, they see a recommendation to get 10,000 steps and they think, ‘I can’t do that, so I might as well not get started,’” she said. “But with the research, now we can tell them that any little bit is better than doing nothing.” "

Doctora Malka Older@older· 14d

"The most troubling ethical problem with Nolan’s Odyssey concerns the decision to film part of the movie in the occupied territory of Western Sahara, thus normalising the ongoing violence against the indigenous Sahrawi people. It is particularly galling that Nolan used this land simply as a visually striking backdrop for a film that centres, aggrandises and redeems the hero of a territorial war on account of his belated and partial acknowledgment of his own guilt."

Doctora Malka Older@older· 14d

laser-scalpel right to the hypocrisy www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

"But the representation of Odysseus as a reluctant warlord makes a nonsense of the movie’s imagined world. We are not shown that war or killing are bad, only that good men sometimes feel bad about it – a very different point. Any serious depiction of violence, ancient or modern, must show the perspectives of the victims as well as the perpetrators, and the Homeric poems easily clear the bar – but Nolan doesn’t. The Trojans are dehumanised by their masks; we know none of them by name or face. The hands of Odysseus and Telemachus are bloodied only by the most righteous, computer-game modes of killing, and we feel no pity or horror at the deaths of their victims, whether Trojans, giants, suitors or slaves. During the sack of Troy – which he supposedly organised – Odysseus gazes around in bewilderment and horror, as if he has never seen a massacre before."

for being a coward, a liar and a schemer. The film asks us both to be horrified at war and to celebrate the action-movie sequences in which the reluctant warrior finally gets his hands on his bow and the blood starts flowing. The massacre of the suitors

Doctora Malka Older@older· 15d

fucking 🌲

"in flames and vehicles explode. Yet again, we watch a male character’s desperate quest to recover and/or avenge a female love object. I had hoped that Nolan’s affinity "

Doctora Malka Older@older· 16d

I see your George Clooney and Catharine Zeta-Jones in Intolerable Cruelty and raise you

Jennifer Lopez and George Clooney in Out of Sight

Doctora Malka Older@older· 16d

just some events going on, seems normal

a screenshot from the explore tab: "1. Political Events [hot label]"

Doctora Malka Older@older· 19d

Got my copy! I have to say it's kind of thrilling to see my name signing a footnote in a book by JULES 20k VERNE!!!

the cover of Jules Verne, FROM THE EARTH TO THE MOON, Annotated for our Space Age, Edited by Anastasia Kimchynskaya Translated by WAlter James Miller
cheeky essay & footnote contributor peeking out from behind the book

Doctora Malka Older@older· 23d

☺️ bookriot.com/best-science...

Infomocracy
by Malka Older

What frightening witchcraft did Malka Older tap into to predict our age of oligarchy and corruption? Science fiction is a genre known for often unnervingly prescient tales, and we count this fast-paced and thinky sci-fi political thriller among them. Debuts don't always make a big splash but when you publish a book that both entertains and sharply points to growing rot within our political system in a year like 2016, you're bound to get attention. This book landed on so many Best Ofs and I suspect we'll be pointing back at it (all too often) in the years to come.

- S. Zainab Williams

The Mimicking of Known Successes
by Malka Ann Older

This multi-award-nominated sapphic, Holmes-esque mystery manages to create a gaseous world that feels lived in. A man goes missing on a Jupiter colony, and Investigator Mossa tracks clues all the way back to the university where her ex-girlfriend, Pleiti, researches how to return to Earth. Together, the two investigate the disappearance, which leads them to larger questions concerning humanity's place on Earth—and their place with each other.

- Erica Ezeifedi
Buy Now

Doctora Malka Older@older· 25d

"Our generation has hope. This is a Haitian crisis, and it must be resolved by Haitians. Young people and women must be part of the country’s solution." globalvoices.org/2026/07/14/i...

"Jenerasyon pa nou an gen espwa. Se yon kriz ayisyen, li dwe rezoud ant ayisyen. Fòk jenn yo ak fanm yo fè pati solisyon peyi a." [English translation in the body of the post]

Doctora Malka Older@older· 29d

a deep cut: screenshot from sirens showing the stellar cast around a table

Doctora Malka Older@older· Jul 7

"There is a moment that many stateless people know well.

It comes when someone asks for a passport, a birth certificate, a national ID card, or proof of nationality. For most people, these are routine documents, bureaucratic details of modern life. For a stateless person, that simple request can unravel into a conversation far more complicated than anyone expects."

Doctora Malka Older@older· Jun 28

"Sublimation by Isabel Kim" matching replies 20 minutes apart

Doctora Malka Older@older· Jun 19

I just got one of those ai book promotion scams, sent to my work email, entirely in (according to Google Translate language detection) Slovak. More disturbing, though, is the last paragraph:

screenshot from part of a google translate page, with on one side: "tomto druhu premyslenej sci-fi. Našla som presne tie miesta, kde sú príležitosti pre túto sériu.

Je jedna vec, o ktorej si myslím, že ťa prekvapí, ako slovenskí čitatelia vnímajú politickú fikciu v porovnaní s českými čitateľmi. Môžem ti to poslať do hodiny."
on the other: "found exactly the places where there are opportunities for this series.

There is one thing I think will surprise you about how Slovak readers perceive political fiction compared to Czech readers. I can send it to you within the hour.'

Doctora Malka Older@older· Jun 17

may I offer you an alternative image (for clarity and also to make it seem less like a pleasant european holiday)?

the outside of the international criminal court including the sign identifying it as the Cour Pénale Internationale/International Criminal Court

Doctora Malka Older@older· Jun 5

On the @globalvoices.org homepage, below the featured stories from around the world, the Spotlight on gender diversity, and special coverages, you'll find the most recent translations by @globalvoiceslingua.bsky.social, with translators credited of course! Maybe there's a language you miss reading?

Global Voices Lingua
Our community translates Global Voices stories into dozens of languages. Learn more about Lingua »
русский
Коренное сообщество Пакистана торвали борется за спасение реки
Written (English) by Zubair Torwali
Translated (русский) by Anastasia Pestova
Español
¿Por qué no funcionaron la desinformación rusa, la propaganda del Gobierno y la campaña generada por IA en las elecciones de 2026 en Hungría?
Written (English) by Guest Contributor
Translated (Español) by Allison Llantén
srpski
Смеће као ресурс: Како заједнице у Мозамбику претварају отпад у климатска решења
Written (Português) by Tirso Sitoe
Translated (English) by Liam Anderson
Translated (srpski) by Dijana Djurickovic

Doctora Malka Older@older· May 21

saw this and went to look why some GOP politician I'd never heard of was trending this time and it took me like five posts of wondering why no one was mentioning Congressperson Delay to figure it out

Doctora Malka Older@older· May 5

Would like to know HOW, exactly and precisely with receipts, the answers to these questions would be used to "promote fairness and diversity"

Demographic info
Help promote fairness and diversity on LinkedIn by answering a few questions.

Doctora Malka Older@older· May 5

LinkedIn using your inferred interest in *Adblocking* to tailor ads for you.

Doctora Malka Older@older· May 1

Post your warning sign

a triangle showing the rear of a bovine and a presumably related puddle

Doctora Malka Older@older· Apr 28

flawed and doomed crypto-genius and possible spy, def a woman, come on

the cryptography genius in Sneakers, giving his lecture

Doctora Malka Older@older· Apr 27

another movie in this genre is Adventures in Babysitting, suburbanites venturing into the big scary city & getting car trouble. Rewatched a few years ago was struck by how there was a much more attractive PoC possible love interest that was completely ignored in favor of sad assassin from scandal