How it started / how it's going

"The aggressor is always peace-loving (as Bonaparte always claimed to be); he would prefer to take over our country unopposed." - Clausewitz

like a golden retriever spotting the UPS guy

OTD in 2008 Georgia decided to invade itself before voluntarily moving its border away from Russia which remains peaceful country surrounded by ceasefires & special military operations proving western appeasement works.

Knocking one out to the Sydney Sweeney advert but shaking my head so everyone else on the bus knows I disagree with it.

See also: 'At least the fascists got the trains running on time!' No they didn't, they just shot the people who pointed out they *weren't* running on time.

It’s a golden age for Cassandras.

Restaurants are not always owned by evil corporations, they are more often owned by people who are in the process of making the worst financial decision of their life.

"I have been teaching classes on genocide for a quarter of a century. I can recognize one when I see one." Omar Bartov, professor of Holocaust and genocide studies at Brown University. archive.ph/0dpn2

and we're going to be calling it the American Century of Humiliation, folks. the Century of Humiliation. we've never been humiliated like this before, folks, but now we're being humiliated in a big way in very many fields. big, strong men come up to me, crying, saying sir, the hegemon has fallen,

Here’s the bottom line for what’s going on with Grok - if the owner of the website is putting his thumb on the scale hard enough for the chatbot to turn into Goebbels, you should be deeply concerned about what he’s doing to the algorithm that you can’t so easily see, and what it’s doing to you

Reconstruction 2.0 needs to be much more brutal.

John: so it's agreed. We all lean heavily into the psychedelic movement. George: yeah, with strong Indian influences Ringo: and doggerel about groovy peaceful undersea adventures Paul: I want to write Oompah songs John: ... Paul: you know, brass band music that grandads like

🧵 I argue that we can understand the functioning of democracy through 3 core ideals, verification, deliberation and accountability. While no democracy fully achieves those ideals, this thread explains how MAGA destroys all three and inevitably results in democratic regression into authoritarianism.

They were careless people, Elon and Donald. They smashed up things and people, and then retreated back into their money and their vast carelessness.

Gonna give y'all some freebie headlines: MUSK DEPARTS, LEAVING TRAIL OF DESTRUCTION, DEFICITS, AND DEATHS MUSK SCORECARD: EMPTY PROMISES, FEDERAL WORKFORCE BRAIN DRAIN MUSK'S LEGACY: CAREER CIVIL SERVANTS REPLACED WITH INCOMPETENT WHITE NATIONALISTS DOGE HARMS WILL PERSIST FOR GENERATIONS

“I agree with Nick.” Kill the industry, you say? That sounds tough for that industry. Which industry was that again? Oh. The stealing industry? Maybe killing that industry wouldn’t be such a bad thing? Considering it’s kind of a bad industry. Unlike the other one, which it’s currently killing.

apparently Elon's gotten so mad about Grok not answering questions about Afrikaners the way he wants, xAI's now somehow managed to put it into some kind of hyper-Afriforum mode where it thinks every question is about farm murders or the song "Kill the Boer"

A core feature of the Trump regime is its embrace of "authoritarian democracy", as a battering ram with which to demolish any obstacle to its power. The very notion of "authoritarian democracy" can sound contradictory. But it's an old & dangerous idea, that needs to be better understood. [THREAD]

Bluesky is a retirement home for 39 year old millennials who are forcibly turning themselves into history dads (nongendered) so if you have a hot take about one of the more popular history dad wars you had better come strapped

I want a candidate in 2028 to create a vague impression that they will do Obama style looking forward not back admin, and then once in power put these people in jail and possibly give them the death penalty.

The dollar system has always been vulnerable to presidential whim @bhgreeley.bsky.social being clever as usual: - on.ft.com/3RLiCnD

my new theory is that once you have a certain amount of money and wealth you start to go crazy and detach from reality. that number is different for everyone. for me it's $20

BABE BABE WAKE UP I WROTE ABOUT THOMAS HOBBES AND AMERICAN POLITICAL FACTIONALISM othermeans.io/p/hobbes-the...

Congratulations to Greenland’s new government and Premier-elect Jens-Frederik Nielsen. You deserve partners who respect you and treat you as equals. And the European Union is proud to be such a partner for you.

I have been doing entirely too much earnest posting about deep things recently, I need to do a proper thread about hippo testicles or something just to keep myself sane. Oh by the way hippos have migratory testicles.

If you're at the point of anti-woke moral panic that you're questioning whether NORTHERN IRELAND needs public investment in equality and inclusion initiatives, it's safe to say you're out of your fucking mind.

When I worked in UK academia I recall hearing of a Japanese man who was baffled at how Britain had decided to run its universities like firms. “Why? Your universities are excellent and your firms are terrible.”

603,628 KM² 🇺🇦🇪🇺

All my life I have studied democratization and autocratization. My 1st field trip was to newly democratic Argentina. I then added autocracies to my portfolio: Cuba, Ven, etc. I think I can recognize the stages of transition to authoritarianism. Here are the boxes Trump has already checked off.

Once again I am leaving the Munich Security Conference in a low mood. Amongst all the noise, the US signalled their plans for Europe, so things are becoming clearer. But things are clearly not good. This is what we now know, and what we have to do about it:🧵1/17

Ukraine's independence and territorial integrity are unconditional. Our priority must now be strengthening Ukraine and providing robust security guarantees. In any negotiation, Europe must have a central role. Our Weimar+ statement ↓

Hello, before you get blackout drunk watching Taylor Bowl II, I've written about the dismantling of institutions in the United States. This is an original topic, and I think I'm the first to do it. othermeans.io/p/to-kill-a-...

Been seven years since I first read this, on the English language's *completely universal but totally invisible* adjective hierarchy, and I can honestly say I've thought about it most days since.

What’s his beef against USAID in particu….oh. Wow.

of course that's your contention. you've just seen the Nvidia share price. so naturally you think Jevons' paradox is relevant. pretty soon you'll get a copy of the innovators dilemma and you'll be talking about incremental catch up. a term after that you'll be all Hal Varian and network effects

The world where AI is cheap and useful and the techbros and VCs get cleaned out

I wrote a review of A COMPLETE UNKNOWN: the brand new Bob Dylan bio pic. And I guarantee you it is totally unlike any other critique of the film that you are ever going to run in to. merrillmarkoe.substack.com/p/a-complete...

Auschwitz was at the end of a long process. It did not start from gas chambers. This hatred was gradually developed by humans. From ideas, words, stereotypes & prejudice through legal exclusion, dehumanization & escalating violence... to systematic and industrial murder. Auschwitz took time.

Folks can debate on whether or not this really was a Nazi salute. I think it was—but add the salute to the quote and decide for yourself… “The future of civilization is assured.” This is white supremacy at work and we are in danger.

When Musk denies that he did a big ol Nazi salute during the inauguration, remember this, from Jean-Paul Sartre, 1944.

I know it's a tired cliche, but imagine Biden launching his own coin. New York Times for the next 40 weeks: "Crypto Chaos at the White House: Biden’s Shameless Coin Slammed" "'Tone-Deaf and Greedy': Furious Watchdogs Blast Biden’s Embarrassing Token Scheme"

Evening.

Absolutely hate “we went too far” revisionist history. “We all believed women and it went too far.” No we did not all believe women. I was there

I just asked my pharmacist if my ear was a bit blocked and he had a look and SCREAMED and told me to go to A&E immediately so off I go, gang!

Despite never wanting to write about this again, I have written about whether or not we should take Trump's rhetoric around things like using military force against Greenland seriously, even if the ideas aren't presented seriously. othermeans.io/p/everything...

The total destruction and personal ruin of Musk, Bezos, and Zuckerberg should be an important liberal goal