escalation is when shoot back

funny how anti-tech bro sentiment has turned a big chunk of the left into copyright maximalists

Now that Israel has formally legislated for racial executions, it feels a line should have been crossed in Western discourse. Plausible deniability about the government's genocidal agenda is no longer an option.

I do think that fundamentally a lot of discomfort with effective altruism is because it just forces us to admit that we would in fact rather spend money on frivolities than on helping other people with necessities. But I'll admit it doesn't help that the EA world is full of eugenics-curious wankers.

Instead of trying to reduce fuel use via token appeals to individuals, albo could simply ask his state labor premiers to allow work from home

4yo going to sleep, has a brain wave: where do teachers sleep at night??? me: in their homes... 4yo: they have homes? me: yes... 4yo: they don't sleep at school?

The delirium is fading. Rubio admits they're close to giving up, potentially leaving Iran controlling the Strait, which it seized in the war. He suggests Iran may toll vessels, and wants Europe to solve this. This would be a clear and humiliating defeat. talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/rubio...

www.ft.com/content/4f09... Genuinely hard to overstate how much of a strategic defeat it would be for the United States if the war ends with effective Iranian control of the Strait.

Amazing. But it seems that the US is *assuming* that Iran will emerge from the war vastly stronger. able to either dictate or seriously contest sovereignty over the strait, exact tolls, etc.

Masterclass in the smooth brained piffle of the empty suits that dominate Aus's lightweight media Love the breezy take on the 70s oil shock - not much happened (except constitutional crisis, double-digit inflation, the end of full employment and the global dismantling of the post-war settlement)

Orwell has an entire bit about small landlords being the worst!

The answer is the US is running out of the good weapons. (Gift link) Why Trump only has a month left to end the war www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/faabd9b...

it is quite impressive actually how modern labor governments get away with large cuts to the public sector. often it's framed as "cuts to contractors and consultants", but in practice it's just an undirected efficiency dividend. media too low iq to ask questions.

everything good and cool in the federal public service

This war is more likely to end up doing regime change in America than in Iran

In a world where many democrats have embraced pie-in-the-sky middle class tax cuts, leave it to a democratic socialist like Mamdani to seriously engage with budgeting tradeoffs and embrace an efficient broad based property tax increase

“populism” isn’t a very meaningful term - it’s an aesthetic, a vibe. fine as a vague description of messaging style, but it doesn’t tell you anything about political philosophy or orientation.

Experts now warn prolonged war in the middle east could lead to: * A global food crisis (fertilizer) * Supply shocks for everything from plastics and pharmaceuticals to microchips * Spiraling stagflation www.theguardian.com/news/ng-inte...

I do not think the United States should strike nuclear power plants

war bad (we should do less)

hurtling towards global depression and geopolitical chaos, we have clowns at the helm

4yo has created a new game, “judo soccer”

USA hubris: believing you can unilaterally start and stop airstrike wars at pleasure, with no repercussions. But now they have an adversary that can trigger world historical global depression and mass scale chaos in the Middle East. They don’t seem to comprehend these strategic dynamics.

“victory” condition = please stop your devastating counter attack to the war we started

The Strait of Hormuz is not actually closed - it remains open for Iranian ships, exporting oil. USA lets them pass. This embarrassing asymmetry clashes with Trump et al's macho bluster but reflects a realisation that, due to oil, Iran has them over a barrel. USA will soon toss in the towel.

the real human impact of rate rises: landlord with 25 properties will feel sad increasing rents on all his tenants (and, as he says, never cutting them when rates come down) www.news.com.au/finance/econ...

Idea in western discourse that USA can simply stop wars whenever it feels “done”. But it has to ask Iran for peace. And we should not expect Iran to be a supplicant. Because: 1. Iran is winning 2. The US starts new wars whenever it pleases anyway, and it’s in Iran’s interest to create a deterrent.

Australia is one of the most important centres of the Lebanese diaspora in the West and I am pretty shocked that our government is not doing more to stop the chaos being wrought in Lebanon by our allies

woah, that’s a big literature

This is certainly one view you could take about how much ScoMo cared about the high chance a supposed deception of his would be found out. No idea why this second image is there.

For the same $6 trillion cost, you could crush child poverty with a child allowance and free childcare, fix unemployment insurance, do paid family, sick & medical leave, massively boost ACA subsidies, and eliminate child uninsurance with Medicare for Kids.

tonight the White House touched the stove and went oof ouch owie. Tomorrow? The stove shall beckon again

“Let that be a lesson to my fellow travelers on the Left: this whole AI thing does indeed have value, and not just for some Big Tech shareholders” open.substack.com/pub/publicpo...

Surely the US alliance can no longer be viewed as credible security for Australia. The only challenge is getting out. The US will punish us - and not just under Trump.

hear much concern re student ai use, but what about marker use? whereas (some) students have intrinsic interest in learning/writing, academics almost uniformly have zero interest in marking. ai marking is even harder to catch. in my opinion it’s more institutionally corrosive. what are unis doing?

this is a disaster of world-historic proportions. Non-massive cars are extinct

Re. That trump statement about the British coming in only at the end of wars. Apart from being ironic on a potentially record breaking number of levels, this is what alliances mean to the Americans: little if anything. Australians need to understand this.

unis trying to penalise ai writing is dubious enough, but some courses even ban ai brainstorming. this seems so odd. why bother with a rule that’s completely unenforceable? at most it might disadvantage a small number of students with atypically high levels of integrity.

ai critics need to get the story straight - is it always instantly recognisable slop? Or so outstanding as to push the outer limit of student capability? real talk: no one truly knows, not at a level of confidence required to legitimate punishment, whether via formal misconduct or bad marks

4yo: can you please me this? I don’t care if it’s boring, i’ll be an adult then.

📣 Reportedly only 140,000 out of the 480,000 Robodebt class action members have registered to receive additional compensation in the proposed settlement. If you're eligible, you have until 4pm tomorrow to register with Gordon Legal: robodebtsettlement.com.au

Paraphrasing Omar El Akkad, "One Day Everyone Will Always Have Been Against This". As: bodies pile up; direct & bloody consequences felt by guilty & innocent alike; indirect consequences & dreadful aftermath felt by all; & the true drivers finally revealed; we will ALL have been against this.

Australia: Go Iranian democracy! Go international law! Go USA! Hegsworth: “Regardless of what so-called international institutions say, [the war is] all on our terms, with maximum authority, no stupid rules of engagement, no nation building quagmire, no democracy building exercise"

Australia: War good because USA USA: War good because Israel Israel: War good because smite Amalek x.com/infolibnews/...

It's funny to me when people who love to go on about second order effects of economic policies and the challenges of central planning without local knowledge suddenly drop all of that when it comes to foreign policy.

Australia supports the war. Is it lawful? Not our problem! Also, we support the war. No further questions!

rules based order. you love to see it. you really do. rules. order. so many rules. so much order. you look at it and you say, “wow. that’s a lot of rules.” and you know what? it works. it just works. people said it couldn’t be done - but i built the greatest rules based order in history.

I’m beginning to think the United States is not a reliable negotiating partner, let alone a treaty partner or ally

Make film about how man’s condition causes uncontrollable curses & slurs, how ignorance of this leads to blame, stigma & social exclusion Movie wins at award night, but his condition causes uncontrollable curses & slurs thus blame, stigma & calls for social exclusion, now at mass scale incredible