Jonah Bennett

Philosophy/international relations. Pragmatist. MA, @KingsCollegeLon. Founder emeritus, @palladiummag. Bylines: @TheNatlInterest @ErraticusMag

[Jonah Bennett @BennettJonah]

There are so many competing ideologies showing you a constant stream of the worst news and the most degraded content. Yes, it exists. It's easy to dwell on how bad things can be, but it's important to let go of things that put you in a hating mindset. Focus on good social fabric.

[Jonah Bennett @BennettJonah]

You can come up with 100 hypotheses for every phenomen you're trying to explain.

Selecting 2-3 to test (because limited resources available for testing) is the part that is the magic.

[Jonah Bennett @BennettJonah]

@Akaking_ako Which megalithic structures? Most of the ones I've seen look like pretty normal forts.

[Jonah Bennett @BennettJonah]

Regardless of NATO and whatever other threats, it's important to remember that Russia did not become the world's largest country by hating expansionism.

[Patrick McKenzie @patio11]

This week in Bits about Money: https://t.co/3UShZETZg2

[Mouin Rabbani @MouinRabbani]

If Turkey were to invade Greece tomorrow, expel all its citizens to Bulgaria and annex the country, the West – however one cares to define it, and Western civilization – however one cares to define it, would survive. Sad but true.

The same would hold if Morocco were to take over Spain and Portugal, or (nuclear Armageddon notwithstanding) Russia were to seize Poland and Finland, and even if the US invades and annexes Canada and Greenland.

Since 1900 alone, “the West” has survived the two most devastating wars in history, several genocides, the Cold War, the disintegration of multiple European states, and much else. It has even survived two episodes each of Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush, and Donald Trump.

Yet Israel flunkies want us to believe that if Israel fails in its perpetual wars of domination, or is defeated in the attempt, the West and its civilization will instantaneously collapse into the dustbin of history.

Is that really the best they can come up with? Is that all they have left in defense of the indefensible?

[James R. Webb @JamesWebb_16]

I just heard from a source very close to top of the White House that, following today’s shootdown of an F-15, an A-10, and the successful hits on multiple helicopters and other aircraft, the WH is choosing further escalation, including US troops on the ground. This would be madness. I truly hope that someone in the Pentagon or elsewhere can prevent this from happening. If anything was proven today, it’s that Iranian AD is still very capable and very intact.

Any US ground operation will be heavily reliant on helicopters and other slow-moving airframes. Despite the assertions of both the Pentagon and POTUS, it is crystal clear that we have not reduced Iranian AD to the point where a ground operation is even a remotely wise decision. Let alone potentially inserting by air and then being exclusively reliant on an air corridor for things such as resupply and CASEVAC. History is replete with examples where this reliance has been disastrous.

Further, the hard part would be after troops were on the objective. Our lack of manpower leaves little room for maneuver, and once static (which would be required), Americans will become a stationary target for the entire inventory of Iranian indirect fire capabilities on Iranian soil, and it is a recipe for failure.

Simply put, this is not an existential war for the US's survival. It’s a war of choice that should never have happened in the first place, and POTUS should be finding a way out, rather than clumsily and recklessly sacrificing America’s finest.

[Jonah Bennett @BennettJonah]

The best part about Chess is how cognitively demanding it is, which makes it a good indicator for how dumb you are at any given moment.

For example, you might not feel dumber at 2am, but if you play chess then, you'll see it on the board.

[Jonah Bennett @BennettJonah]

The most blackriflecoffee thing I've heard in years is going out of your way to rename DoD the Department of War just to call this fuckery in Iran a special operation.

[Adam @_overment]

text written in Polish translates to 60% more tokens for Anthropic models.

meaning: you can get your app 60% faster and cheaper simply by switching languages.

[katexbt.hl @katexbt]

I've been saying this for years now.

I'm Chinese and I'll be first to say that in most countries where we've massively immigrated to, there are entire swathes of parallel economies.

The proliferation of USDT in China was one of the key things that helped expedite this.

You can, with very little friction, avoid crossborder capital controls, and taxation.

In many countries, the Chinese have their own circular economy where they import their own food products, electronics, whatever you can think of - all paid domestically with our own payment methods.

The only thing that we don't import are bottled water and gasoline, and that's basically it.

I'm not saying this is right.

But everyone's better off for it other than host countries.

Money stays and circulates on emoney apps that are China native.

Inflows are greater than outflows.

Study parallel shadow economies and how they proliferate in the coming decade.

[Jonah Bennett @BennettJonah]

You don't see much optimism posting these days, but if there is a plausible future golden age a few years away, AI is the obvious candidate to play a large role in that.

On the other hand, AI is also *the* obvious candidate to bring us into a world not worth living in.

[Dr Singularity @Dr_Singularity]

Don’t die before 2030. You will reach LEV, and you will have so many years ahead of you (regardless of your age today )that you’ll be able to relive youth, rewrite your story, correct old mistakes, and experience more than you ever thought possible.

Aging will be treated.
Intelligence will explode.
Medicine will move at software speed.
Entire fields will compress decades of progress into months/weeks and then days

We’re at the inflection point.We’re staring at the vertical line on the graph.

The 2030s won’t feel like an extension of the 2020s, but more like stepping into a different civilization.

[Jonah Bennett @BennettJonah]

Always good to see more glass and steel and less plastic.

[∇·(𝜌𝐮𝐮) 🇺🇸 @male_leo_xxvi]

Dude this thing is $80 and made of American glass & steel go reserve one rn

[Jonah Bennett @BennettJonah]

"Drop emotional. It's cleaner."

[Jonah Bennett @BennettJonah]

Does anyone have a term for this genre of post that tends to do well on X?

Scroll fiction or emotional bait fiction seem good.

[COCO @TWOTIMESABITCH]

i was sobbing on the subway today. a teenager with green hair and scary piercings sat next to me. i thought he was going to make fun of me. he just angled his body to block me from the rest of the car's view and whispered, “take your time. i'm a wall” he stood guard for six stops.

[Jonah Bennett @BennettJonah]

This is going around again.

It comes off as lame, but it's only lame if none of the people there are genuinely enjoying themselves.

[Page Six @PageSix]

Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez are kicking off the new year in St. Barts. 🎉

[No filter Skin @NoFilterSkin]

I didn’t realize how bad it actually was until I looked at the research myself.

As someone who loves to walk, hike & run outdoors, I always thought my shoes were protecting me... but I never considered what I was tracking in.

​Every time we step into a public bathroom, gym, sidewalk or grocery store, our shoes collect a toxic mix of:

​Allergens
​Asphalt + road residue
​Carcinogens
​Cigarette butt chemicals
​Dirt & debris
​Feces and urine
​Lawn, garden chemicals
​Herbicides and pesticides
​Lead
​Mold & mold spores
​Microplastics
​Ticks & other parasites & their eggs
​viruses

​And here’s the part that made me cringe...

Research from the University of Arizona found between 3,600 & 8 million bacteria units per shoe (the average was 421,000).

Over 90% of that transferred right onto clean floors. Some of the bacteria they found?

​E. coli (causes UTIs & gut infections)
​Klebsiella (linked to pneumonia)
​Serratia (respiratory infections)
​Even meningitis-causing strains

​When we walk through our homes, those microbes don’t just stay on the floor, they get stirred into the air, on furniture, counters and end up on little hands, pets, & everything else.

​So if you’ve got kids crawling, pets roaming or a barefoot home, this one small shift can make a big difference.

Leave your shoes by the door.

The easiest way to keep your home cleaner & your family healthier is to stop wearing shoes inside.

[🥥 𝙇𝘼𝙏𝘼𝙈 🥥 @TheLatamGuy]

German man moves to the favelas of Rio de Janeiro with dreams of becoming a funk artist 🇧🇷

[Jonah Bennett @BennettJonah]

If your family has a history of predisposition to schizophrenia, you should not use LLMs, especially ChatGPT.

It's basically schizocrack, and it can affect anyone from the homeless to physicists (I've finally figured out the Theory of Everything!)

[Jonah Bennett @BennettJonah]

Overregulating the use of air conditioning is how Europe strategically lowers its pension burden.