I think about this as being part of tech’s midlife crisis, and to differentiate tech from technology. Tech was a class of software that came up between 2000-2012ish that was genuinely disruptive and innovative, but now, over a decade later, is an established and mature business.

Underrated factor in the Trump-Witkoff-Kushner embarrassing Ukraine “peace” plan flop is the flood of praise they got for a Gaza plan that was also mostly “just tell everyone it’s over then think of how much money we’ll make.”

Couldn't happen to a worse guy...

PLAY CHESS appeared in the BBC's Christmas 1980 morning schedules with an unfathomably menacing (though beautiful) title sequence. It's got real 'old-school Soviet' vibes.

this” routine. Then told my students that important thing wasn’t to get good grades, but to treat grades as indicators of their interests and talents. Many will ignore this. But some have already told me this was a relief, and a way to get past parental pressure.

The Ukrainian front is not about to collapse. But the Russians want you to think that understandingwar.org/research/rus...

There’s something uniquely crass—terminally-online-15-year-old-in-the-basement energy —about the Trump administration that I don’t see in other authoritarians. Even Erdoğan and Orbán still project some sense of dignity and stateliness. I don’t see how this works to the advantage of MAGA

As good a summary as you’ll see

Trump’s simple-minded view is that countries will soak up any degree of bullying because they need access to the US market to keep their economies afloat. But we’re already seeing a slow pivot away from the US across the world. Once it’s gone, it’s gone.

I advocated for a radical, destabilising, and effectively irreversible project which has been an economic disaster. I now recognise it has been a disaster. However, luckily, I haven’t learned anything and it hasn’t led me to question my judgement in the slightest. Give me a column in the Telegraph.

AI won’t replace art, it will replace clipart. It won’t replace music, it will replace muzak. Cheap, ubiquitous, low quality… McDonalds exists but it didn’t replace proper chefs, from Michelin star pros to normies who Cook Pretty Good at home.

“We need something short and victorious to bring up the president’s poll numbers.”- Yeltsin adviser on the eve of Chechnya

One of the great trainings #art historians have is that we don’t just get hooked on what’s in the picture, we pay attention to what is not in front of our eyes as well. Everyone should try it, particularly when it’s about the #news. #ArtHistory #AcademicSky

In the Eurostar, you are not allowed to attack anyone with a spear. I think.

So... this just happened. archive.ph/2025.11.29-1...

Cool. So we're doing this now, are we? Total free for all. Raw power. Might is right. Get those centrifuges whirring everybody...

Excellent piece by @patrickwintour.bsky.social . "Europe has vowed to get its act together so often. Inertia, not Russia, may have become its own worst enemy". Failure of EU-UK talks on including the UK in SAFE programme of European defence procurement shows Europeans still don't realise danger.

The death of browsing is part of the reason art is the way it is now. Our opinions are largely fed to us by algorithms. Spending a spare 15 minutes wandering around a bookstore or comic shop or video rental place was how you found stuff you wouldn't ordinarily pick up and thereby expanded your taste

Authoritarianism needs the death of academic institutions because it needs the death of free discourse. And in a lot of places in the world, including where I’m from, they *did* destroy it with awful consequences. Here too it’s been a steady progression of turning universities into hedge funds.

The tide is turning. Even the Telegraph is now admitting the damage the Brexit deal has done to the economy.

I think about this every day.

“Not only have they instilled in us the eternal fear felt by slaves, but they’ve also instilled shamelessness. By using us, they can turn others into slaves.” — Soviet actor Georgiy Burkov, in his final interview (1990)

“Ich bin ein Clactoner”

When an allegedly US draft peace agreement includes a clause about the US mediating between NATO and Russia, and if the president keeps talking about NATO as if the US isn't part of it, this shouldn't be much of a shock. The US is ceasing to be a NATO ally.

Under Kemi Badenoch the Conservatives have ceded both the answer to 'what's the lever I pull to get the left out of power' to Reform and are rapidly on their way to ceding 'what's the least nutty option available to me on the right?' to Reform too.

I have been reading all the "students these days" threads from various sides and I have an essay's worth of thoughts -- there's a lot of complexity and heterogeneity that is hard to communicate on social media. There are a couple of things I will say here though. 1/

Rule of thumb. If someone says: "Look, that's just the way things are" Chances are they are benefitting from an injustice they don't want to talk about.

Someone tell him if he backs down from this threat he can count it as another war he ended

Right. This is normally a prelude to imminent war. But no one knows if the us president is serious or had a bad breakfast or is making an insane joke or had a stroke or whatever.

The ongoing American experiment with Peronism continues to fascinate…

Demolishing the East Wing of the White House before finalizing plans for what will be built above its ruins is a near-perfect metaphor for Trump's approach to economic policy. The only difference is the wrecking crew doesn’t claim the rubble is evidence of unprecedented growth.

This was always the deal. It had nothing to do with American interests, let alone democracy. It had everything to do with obliging Russian imperialism, so that American oligarchs could get paid. Sacrificing Ukraine for profit. Bottomless corruption, making the world safe for dictatorship.

Two significant takeaways from this: - done in broad daylight - done out of range and relative safety of Russian Navy & air power To compensate Russia would need to devote security teams to every tanker – which even then is no magic cure – at a time when they have manpower issues. Smart tactics.

Read this great WSJ story about how top Trump advisors think chucking Ukraine to the wolves is worth being able to do business with Vlad back-to-back with this great Guardian story about the repercussions of that judgement: www.theguardian.com/world/2025/n...

Result after roughly a year of European strategy to placate Trump - on the fundamental question of European security of our time, neither the major European states nor the EU are at the table, not even in the loop.

Exactly. The question is how the hell we get through the next 3 years when the regime is hellbent on ethnic cleansing, electoral malfeasance, and selling the country out to whoever will enrich Trump and his cronies.

Another superb appreciation from Tim; btw, I agree with everything Frankenheimer says about his action masterpiece. #FilmSky

one reason "great power competition" is a bad description of the emerging order is that an interlinked global kleptocracy does not care about national interests or rivalries

"No one's going to build a factory based on a tariff that's on on Monday, off on... Tuesday, the president's changed his mind by Wednesday, he gets hormonal by Thursday and someone says something nasty in the middle school cafeteria on Friday and they're back on again."

An often overlooked angle of the end of the Roman Republic is that all the strongmen who tried or became dictators first became billionaires. Pompey, Caesar, Crassus, Antony and finally Octavian were so rich that they could buy senators, legions and ships and be no match for the state's finances.

Black Friday is when the media whips people into a frenzy, then does stories where they scold these horrible frenzied people.

Been doing some reading on the War of 1812, and if this Venezuela thing does actually kick off then the title of “most incoherently motivated, poorly planned war in American history” may finally be in contention again.

Hard to see Tesla numbers recovering in Europe. Predictable outcome if you make a product designed to appeal to people you despise and who despise you.

Finally getting some theological clarity on the ethics of reclining in one’s plane seat

That politics requires a vastly different set of skills (and temperament) than does central banking, finance or business is a lesson voters have failed to learn time and again. Said otherwise, you can use econometrics to analyze the economy. Politics resists such definitive modelling.

Want an example of how populism at home leads to strategic corruption from abroad? Can’t be clearer than this. The rule of law doesn’t just protect citizens from their own rulers. It also protects them from foreign corruption and countries like Russia that specialise in it.

Time to ask: In whose interests is American foreign policy being conducted?

Automation I can get behind

The baseline structure of the US constitution can survive many things. What it cannot survive is the speaker of the house being an omega male who is completely submissive to the president and willing to surrender all of his power. Mike Johnson is genuinely groundbreaking in this regard.