Sánchez came to power in 2018 as a dead man walking. He has only ever led wobbly minority coalitions. Yet he has built a strong left-leaning project rooted in its own achievements: public investment, secure work, social openness. The result is a remarkably resilient government and a booming economy.

Macron won near-total power in 2017 (presidency + legislative dominance). He gave grand, sweeping speeches - but sought his majorities to the right, while the horizons of his project became gradually smaller. Today's France is marked by social unrest, political instability and a troubled economy.

There's a fascinating case study to be done on the different strategies of Macron and Sánchez. Both emerged, against the odds, from centrist milieux in the mid-2010s to lead their countries since 2017/18. But their fates are totally different.

Dagoth Ur would be considered a moderate in today's GOP

There's a Nash Equilibrium here too - if you think that the scaling hypothesis is both true and the dominant effect here, your competitors buying infrastructure compels you to try to beat them.

Do read the story. The potential mismatch between $ capital needs and the useful life of the resultant physical capital stock is the central conundrum here?

This is a great story with a big takeaway IMO. What characterizes AI investment is exceptionally high capex needs (like railways or grid) but with one big component— semiconductors—obsoleting/depreciating exceptionally fast (unlike RR or grid). Chip Transit Gloria Mundy www.wsj.com/tech/ai/ai-b...

politics and the pen baby!! great to see @vassb.bsky.social and many other fine individuals. (buy the book!! At the Trough: The Rise and Rise of Canada's Corporate Welfare Bums, available wherever fine books are sold!)

Well, I should hope so!

i thought he was doing OK - not amazing, but OK - until I got the Henry Kissinger Star Wars bit

Naught’s an obstacle, naught’s an angle to the iron way!

Yes, the Fields of Kummu are a most holy place indeed.

hotel for work trip to toronto is right next to congee queen, fuck yeah

Launch day 🚀 We’ve just released @chartlecc.bsky.social - a daily chart game! Your job is to guess which country is represented by the red line in today's chart. You get 5 tries, no other clues! Play today, come back tomorrow for a different chart with new data and share with your chart friends 📈

at the beginning of this year I would have said that the big US edges in any kind of long competition with China were 1) fundamental science and innovation leadership, 2) rule of law, 3) reserve currency, and 4) immigration. woops.

New Paper out in Development & Change (open access): "Opportunities for Latecomer Technological Catch-up in the Era of Renewables Capitalism" with @lindsaywhitfield.bsky.social onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... @devandchg.bsky.social

A Roundhead, watching a Vile Coalitione of Presbyterianſ (Trump, A.G. Sulzberger) and Papistſ (the Supreme Court) bringe Ruination upone a Greate Republick: wowe. We tolde you bro. We tolde you exactly this woulde happene.

Take a lesson from Trump: sometimes lose-lose is good if the other person loses more than you do!

I know different people like different things but I just walked two blocks and got a meatball sub and some blackberries and yerba mate all in the same trip why would you want to live in a suburb

“I’m strong and I want to have like fifty kids and a farm” of course you do. You’re twelve. “I don’t want to eat vegetables I think steak and French fries is the only meal” hell yeah homie you’re twelve. “Maybe if there’s crime we should just send the army” bless your heart my twelve year old buddy

working on a new unified theory of american reality i'm calling "everyone is twelve now"

This is the absolute best explanatory framework I've ever seen about this. It's not about being delusional, it's about the risk of one of your competitors winning the dollar auction www.fabricatedknowledge.com/p/the-roi-of...

Scream.

Could be worse. Probably will be.

This is what he has

liquid and leather, in equal measure. champagne glass, mix em together

I cannot imagine experiencing this and then having this guy say on national television that the person who loved my child the most wasn't his very real, human parents. I cannot imagine a more horrific, wounding insult than that.

PETERSON: The Mr. Clean Magic Eraser is very dangerous and I'm very worried about what it's doing to us. That you can simply erase mistakes? To suggest that such a thing is in fact "magic?" And Mr. Clean himself, sparkling, hairless? It's designed to set people on the left hand path. ROGAN: Woah.

really looking for more of a mammon vibe

Mr. President, we are putting Lord Vivec on the blockchain

medium rare earths

It's funny that the OP in this thread ended up being about Ezra Klein because that is exactly who I thought of

Arrh! A vampire. Go away!

This article, by Carleton PhD student Alexander Rudolph, should be on the front page of every Canadian newspaper. It highlights how the US can access all data on the government and military’s Microsoft servers, Canadian laws be damned. www.digitaljournal.com/tech-science...

I'm going to be a little provocative but I think if a similarly-structured pipeline program existed on the broad left it would be attacked as being elitist, inevitably insufficiently diverse, and the late-night schmoozing would be seen as inherently suspicious

17th century Puritan rapper named Increase Paper

Really excellent piece cooperlund.medium.com/the-virtues-...

northern spy apples, painted by amanda almira newton, 1912

Plan for Monpazier, France: 1284 AD. The typical design of bastides, fortress towns built to secure frontiers in late Medieval Europe. A form of algorithmic city planning: a walled grid with a church and market square at the center. A standardized plan that could be stamped out repeatedly.

Oh God... It was really WAS the United $nakes of Amerikkka the whole time

きもちいい。がんぼるぞい。 translation: It feels good.

I made a new mouth mechanism. I'm calling it Selectramatronics.

It's wild how much full employment has political aspects imo. The US is doing national socialism because the job market was right for like 10 months

Could be worse. Probably will be.

Israel is using Microsoft Azure to store recordings of every phone call made by Palestinians in the occupied territories, then using AI to analyze the contents and select targets. Microsoft is (dubiously) claiming ignorance.

plus ça change (the 1971 Nixon Shock)

I feel like Seattle has never had a Boring Normal Bad Mayor, they're always baroquely terrible. what's with that