Axel Schultz

[Sari Arho Havrén @SariArhoHavren]

Yes, and the countries that put their national corporations ahead of Ukraine are:
Greece
France
Italy
Germany
Austria
Portugal

Stop telling that you stand with Ukraine when in reality you are not willing to go the last mile.

“European companies, including Danish brewery group Carlsberg and Finnish energy group Fortum, suffered billions in losses in the initial months of the war as sanctions were imposed and Russian corporate entities were seized. Countries whose companies bore that impact are increasingly irritated by what they see as allies protecting their corporate interests or demanding solidarity from them.”

[Ryan Moulton @moultano]

One of the ways reading the Odyssey made that world seem foreign is that I got the sense that the audience of the time was always hungry and found the descriptions of feasts much more entertaining than I did.

[Adam Wren @aswren]

We know the outcomes of people that demonstrate such a propensity for violence this early in life. He’s very likely do something heinous at some point, a future rudakabana. Our justice system is not configured to deal with this at all

[Nathan Livingstone (MilkBarTV) @TheMilkBarTV]

Andrew Tate in Miami in 2025: "Come get me, arrest me. You think I sleep with a full phone of evidence. You think I don't wipe my phone every night."

CUT TO Andrew Tate in 2026 trying and failing to hand his phone off to his bodyguard while being arrested in Miami.

[François Valentin @Valen10Francois]

One of the weirdest stories in geopolitics

Azerbaijan has been funding every anti-French independence movements under the sun ever since France supported Armenia over Karabakh (including weapon sales)

As a result there is an annual summit against French imperialism in Baku and in New Caledonia the independence movement waves the Azeri flag... On top of infowars against France and all the lot

Now you have its president calling for the "liberation" of islands like Martinique who have been French longer than Nice or Corsica

The independence movements there are tiny, with the exception of New Caledonia which has held 3 referendums on independence. The locals voted to stay all 3 times.

Astonishing spite and dedication, but positively bizarre

[Martin Skold @MartinSkold2]

Goes to my argument from a while back that zero-sum status competition is killing the birthrate, not economic inputs.

[César A. Hidalgo @cesifoti]

Argentina’s behavioral crisis in the World Cup final has brought to light traits many of us in Latin America have internalized and that we need to come to terms with.

In many countries, emotional self-control and the ability to admit mistakes are seen as virtues. A behavioral problem in parts of Latin America is that there are social circles where the opposite is often celebrated.

This is the idea that someone who remains in control of their emotions is a coward or, depending on the situation, a traitor.

If someone offends you, your family, your team, the reaction that is celebrated in these circles is not restraint but flipping the table. The more berserk you go, the more you show that you care. That is a harmful value to hold, and also, one that many of us once shared. I certainly had it internalized when I left Chile 20+ years ago. In fact, I’ve spent much of my adult life trying to unlearn what I grew up believing was the socially acceptable behavior.

The second trait is an unwillingness to admit mistakes. You can always find an excuse, move the goalposts, or, once again, start a fight instead of publicly accepting that you’ve made a mistake. Admitting fault is a sign of weakness. Defending a losing position is a symbol of courage or, in sports, a test of loyalty.

Together, these two traits are behavioral dynamite. People explode because they cannot admit fault, and double down. Instead of learning from their mistakes, they become prisoners of them.

I grew up watching football with my father. When I was 10 or so, I was learning what was right and wrong from the way he interpreted the game. This included behavior both on and off the field. Only later in life did I realize that every penalty he called for, or contested, had little to do with the play itself. Whether a call was fair depended entirely on which team benefited. He was happy if his team received a nonexistent penalty or an opposing player got an undeserved red card.

These traits are among the things that pushed me away from the continent. They are certainly not exclusive to Latin America or the Southern Cone. I’ve encountered them in people all over the world. In an important sense, these are behaviors that all of us exhibit as children. What strikes me as unusual from the place I am from is having been part of social circles where these behaviors were not seen as flaws of character but as virtues to be admired, celebrated, and enforced.

These excessive forms of pride are not conducive to learning. They make it psychologically difficult to update one’s beliefs, accept responsibility, or improve. Although they become particularly visible in sports, they are by no means confined to them.

Something I am proud to have learned is to apologize quickly and often. Not because it is too difficult, but because it was like learning a new language at old age. That doesn’t mean becoming a pushover. But I’ve learned that a man who never apologizes cannot be a man of integrity, because we all make mistakes.

Argentina’s behavior on and off the field during the World Cup final was, to me, a particularly blatant expression of values that many people continue to defend. In some circles, these attitudes have become intertwined with ideas of national identity and loyalty. Yet they are shackles that ultimately limit our development, not because they make us lose a football match, but because they make it harder for us to learn from our mistakes.

The right thing to do now is the least likely: offer an honest apology. If my interpretation is even partially correct, we are more likely to see the opposite. Never back down. Never apologize. Never control your emotions. There is such a thing as having the wrong values. I hope that one day we can do better.

[Luis Garicano 🇪🇺🇺🇦 @lugaricano]

In sports, Spaniards (and everyone else) people instinctively understand and support the market, even if it delivers high inequality. They understand this is how talent gets identified and selected and how effort is motivated from early on. I find it illuminating to think of why the sport exception- my guess: people like markets when they trust the outcome is actually merit-based.

[Dan Neidle @DanNeidle]

There’s a tacit conspiracy to never discuss this.

The Tories don’t want to admit they presided over redistribution from high earners to low earners.

And Labour doesn’t want to credit the Tories with it.

Right? Wrong? You decide. But it happened.

[Andy @PositivFuturist]

Let me tell you what I saw..

He showed me some YouTube short cartoons that he said he thought were hilarious.

I watched them, they had absolutely content, no real jokes - they were just empty garbage.

However..

What the video makers had done, is impose a video above them of some older kids (13-15) watching the shorts and laughing at them.

This was sending him a clear signal, older kids you look up to are enjoying this content - so you should too.

Except that they had reused the same 5 "laughing clip variation" on 100 of these shorts - ie/ they wern't even really watching them.

So I was basically observing a kid having his social development hijacked for attention by some unknown channel to maximise their ad revenue.

It was like watching a child being given access to a slot machine and unlimited debt.

[Martin Skold @MartinSkold2]

Whole problem with the American Empire, but it’s a genuine quandary: Because we’re part Venice/Amsterdam, rather than Switzerland, and because we use our sea power to keep foreign invaders off our shores and away from our commerce, we end up engaged in expeditionary warfare abroad.

The key - as per my original post - is just to keep it limited. I’ve suggested elsewhere that the American public will ignore a division-sized land deployment but no higher. And it’s worth noting that if it gets to that level, it’s in danger of going higher. In which case, you’re going to have to sell the public on a big war.

“Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee” is how sea powers manage their foreign policy. The US was most adroit at this in the late 19C, and - their scale notwithstanding - actually preserved this mindset through the World Wars. Afterward, less and less so - it became territorially trapped by what it had won.

But mostly, American strategic culture lacks an understanding of this. Somewhat like the Romans, we’re landsmen in a sea power’s role. And our empire therefore has Roman problems.

[Benjamin Schneider @urbenschneider]

This gets it backwards. The French believed high-speed rail would work in CA. They put forward a simpler, more constructible plan and reportedly even had investors lined up.

But the state rejected it.

America would have HSR if we listened to experts from other countries.

[Martin Skold @MartinSkold2]

All of the usual maxims apply, good and hard.

If you’re going to go to war, get it over with quickly. (Sun Tzu) But don’t assume you can, because wars escalate. (Clausewitz)

So only do it if you have to, clear the foreign policy decks of distractions and obstacles, and bring everything you have to bear on it. (Sun Tzu)

If fighting for limited aims, achieve a negotiating advantage and offer terms. (Clausewitz) Leave the enemy a face-saving way out and a military line of retreat in the process. (Sun Tzu)

But if that doesn’t work, be prepared to put everything you have behind it, because again, wars escalate. (Clausewitz)

Also, identify their critical vulnerability, because not everything you’re going to hit is important. Hit their center of gravity. (Clausewitz again)

But if possible, try to advise your sovereign not to waste money on this game. (Sun Tzu, all over the map)

[J.M. Goodwin @jmgwritten]

For the geographically challenged:

[Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias]

In hyper-capitalist Europe, beach commerce is ubiquitous but in the communistic United States it's extremely rare.

[Jonathan English @EnglishRail]

The Interstates were planned in a very different way from most infrastructure. They were built on New Deal-era ideas of universal service provision rather than based on evaluation of demand. That had major rebalancing effects on the whole country's economic geography. Link Below

[Noah Smith 🐇🇺🇸🇺🇦🇹🇼 @Noahpinion]

The UK is economically stagnating. Some believe the stagnation began in 2008, with the financial crisis; others think Brexit was the cause in 2016. The truth is, it's probably both, and more -- a degrowth mindset paired with political dysfunction.

https://t.co/9sTOZ2v3cL

[Noah Smith 🐇🇺🇸🇺🇦🇹🇼 @Noahpinion]

Here are the six main lessons I think we can learn from the UK's struggles:

[dev camp jo 🩵🦑 @DiaryofJo]

I know this is a joke but this is what “wine-dark sea” means btw

[Ադա 🇦🇲🏳️‍⚧️ @sadbathy]

Armenia could’ve had something like this (but with our own architecture) if we restored our historical centers, revivingmountainous Armenian architecture, instead of building the largest statue of Jesus