Villain

“Donne-moi l’amour et l’argent.” | Tech and politics

[Aelfwine @Bokononisme]

So this is the battle line for the new cold war huh

[Alejandra Sarria @asarriamolano]

El mundo ardiendo y uno dizque “¿sí estan viendo mi pantalla?”.

[owen cyclops @owenbroadcast]

possibly my favorite meme

[Bauhasaurus @alejandrocsome]

El formato "podcast de xenomorfos" explicando incoherencias terrestres se está convirtiendo en mi favorito.

[AndrewMohawk⁽ⁿᵘˡˡ⁾ @AndrewMohawk]

The future of mankind

[Jash Dholani @oldbooksguy]

Nietzsche wrote in 1889 that overworking is a "modern vice." You get lost in a thousand little things that don't matter so you have an excuse to avoid the 2-3 big things that are heavy, difficult, and important. Work becomes a tool not for power, or even happiness, but evasion...

[Yishan @yishan]

The original architects of American global power did something very clever that no other empire had ever done before: they deliberately hid the instruments of their power.

Specifically, they institutionalized the hard power of the post-WW2 American military into a "rules-based international order" and the organizations needed to run it.

These include the UN, IMF, World Bank, NATO, and numerous philanthropic NGOs like (as has been in the news recently) USAID.

The reason they did this is because repeated use of hard military power is fragile and self-defeating: it engenders resentment and breeds defiance. The British learned this and used prototypical methods of institutionalization in the declining years of their empire, but their American successors perfected it.

(If you don't understand how this works, I will link a post in the replies explaining how one example works - NATO)

The more sophisticated rivals of the US obviously know what's up, so they try to oppose or circumvent these institutions, but obviously the institutions are backed by hard power in the end. It sounds fair enough to say "if you don't abide by the 'rules,' we will invade you." It works well enough because it it sounds more fair to say that than "if you don't do what we tell you, we will invade you." Rival governments aren't fooled, but a lot of their ordinary citizens are, and combined with media dominance and control of the reserve currency (economic dominance), it's enough to keep everyone in line.

An unanticipated problem seems to have arisen:

It turns out that if you hide the levers of power, your own successors may have trouble understanding them. Especially if you failed to educate them, or let various cultural forces undermine the indoctrination of your elites.

With that happening, once the new generation of elites gains power, they don't recognize that the complicated weird control panel you built that doesn't seem to do anything but costs $10 billion a year to maintain is actually how you're controlling everything around the world and they take it down to save money. All because you did too good a job hiding the levers of power.

Soft power isn't "soft." It's real power. It's just soft because it's hidden.

I don't know how to solve this problem because I think hidden levers of power are definitely better, but you have to train a priesthood generation after generation to understand them, and that kind of thing corrupts itself too. Open power is much more honest, but no one likes it and it's hard to hold on to.

[Roxana Kreimer @RoxanaKreimer]

Chat GPT es como Carlos Maslatón, nunca contradice al interlocutor. Si cuestionás lo que afirma, trata de entender tu punto de vista y seguir ese hilo. Es una forma de estar en el mundo.

[John B. Holbein @JohnHolbein1]

Wow! This project looks amazing.

In it, three scientists at Columbia, Michigan, and Maryland introduce VRscores: a measure of the partisan leanings of employers in the United States.

The dataset is constructed by linking U.S. voter registrations to online worker profiles.

The dataset covers the 2012-2022 period. VRscores capture the political affiliations of 21.8 million workers across 2.6 million employers.

Wow!

[Gonzalo Fiore Viani @FioreViani]

Las ideas de Max Weber sobre parlamentarismo y democracia tienen una relación directa con la crisis de valores democráticos que observamos en Occidente en la actualidad, especialmente en contextos donde la democracia parece estar en retroceso o en crisis de legitimidad. Va hilo:

[Thomas Piketty @PikettyWIL]

Europe must invest: Draghi is right
The report has the immense merit of challenging the dogma of fiscal austerity
https://t.co/NyiCuCTsrT

[The Dalbo Dog @Dalbodog]

This will always crack me up 😅

[Informal Economy @EconomyInformal]

Income Inequality (Gini Index, 2021-2023)

Colombia🇨🇴: 54.8
Brazil🇧🇷: 52.0
Zambia🇿🇲: 51.5
Panama🇵🇦: 48.9
Costa Rica🇨🇷: 47.2
Ecuador🇪🇨: 45.5
Paraguay🇵🇾: 45.1
Türkiye🇹🇷: 44.4
Mexico🇲🇽: 43.5
Central African Republic🇨🇫: 43.0
Chile🇨🇱: 43.0
Cameroon🇨🇲: 42.2
Bolivia🇧🇴: 40.9
Argentina🇦🇷: 40.7
Malaysia🇲🇾: 40.7
Phillipines🇵🇭: 40.7
Uruguay🇺🇾: 40.6
Peru🇵🇪: 40.3
Jamaica🇯🇲: 40.2
USA🇺🇸: 39.8
Suriname🇸🇷: 39.2
Bulgaria🇧🇬: 39.0
El Salvador🇸🇻: 38.8
Kenya🇰🇪: 38.7
Indonesia🇮🇩: 38.3
Togo🇹🇬: 37.9
Israel🇮🇱: 37.9
Chad🇹🇩: 37.4
Burkina Faso🇧🇫: 37.4
Dominican Republic🇩🇴: 37.0
Lithuania🇱🇹: 36.7
Senegal🇸🇳: 36.2
Vietnam🇻🇳: 36.1
Mali🇲🇱: 35.7
Thailand🇹🇭: 34.9
Iran🇮🇷: 34.8
Italy🇮🇹: 34.8
Portugal🇵🇹: 34.6
Benin🇧🇯: 34.4
Latvia🇱🇻: 34.3
Montenegro🇲🇪: 34.3
Georgia🇬🇪: 34.2
Bangladesh🇧🇩: 33.4
Spain🇪🇸: 33.9
Romania🇷🇴: 33.9
Tunisia🇹🇳: 33.7
Serbia🇷🇸: 33.1
Niger🇳🇪: 32.9
Greece🇬🇷: 32.9
India🇮🇳: 32.8
Luxembourg🇱🇺: 32.7
UK🇬🇧: 32.4
Estonia🇪🇪: 31.8
France🇫🇷: 31.5
Mongolia🇲🇳: 31.4
Cyprus🇨🇾: 31.3
Uzbekistan🇺🇿: 31.2
Austria🇦🇹: 30.7
Ireland🇮🇪: 30.1
Sweden🇸🇪: 29.8
Croatia🇭🇷: 28.9
Poland🇵🇱: 28.5
Bhutan🇧🇹: 28.5
Denmark🇩🇰: 28.3
Armenia🇦🇲: 27.9
Finland🇫🇮: 27.7
Belgium🇧🇪: 26.6
Czechia🇨🇿: 26.2
Netherlands🇳🇱: 25.7
Moldova🇲🇩: 25.7
Slovenia🇸🇮: 24.3
Slovakia🇸🇰: 24.1

@WorldBank

[ian bremmer @ianbremmer]

who's excited about tonight’s debate...