Dr. Patrick Brock

Researching Latin American speculative fiction and CoFuturism, former host of @theoryfrom and journalist working with AI at @valoreconomico

[Dr. Patrick Brock @alnitelang]

My essay on Brazilian Afrofuturism is out in @SFRAReview ! Many thanks to the editors and especially to @VirginiaLConn for the invitation.

@cofutures @theoryfrom @UniOsloHF

https://t.co/ki5mV74UVq

[Glenn Greenwald @ggreenwald]

All we did was send our military to the other side of the world, bombed Iran's bridges and elementary schools, then imposed a military blockade to crush their economy and population.

Then, out of nowhere, these deranged monsters shoot one of our peaceful liberatory helicopters.

These people only understand force! They're like from the 8th century.

[The Red Sea Monitor @redseamonitor]

65% of all Hormuz transits are now running dark. Transponders off. AIS silent.

It started with Iranian vessels evading the US blockade. It has spread to non-sanctioned commercial shipping across the entire Gulf.

UAE cargo dark transits have risen from near zero in early March to over 90% in recent weeks. Iraq, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait are all following. Running dark is no longer evasion. It is the only predictable way to move cargo through a strait Iran controls.

The PGSA vetting system made darkness rational for everyone. That is the most consequential thing Iran has achieved since February 28 and it has nothing to do with missiles.

[Thomas Fazi @battleforeurope]

Crazy that this is getting barely any coverage. This year’s European Press Prize was just awarded to an investigative report by the Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant. It is entitled “What the Wounds Tell” and in it the journalists Maud Effting and Willem Feenstra document the cases of 114 children in Gaza under the age of 15 who were struck by a single bullet to the head or chest. Almost all of them died or were left severely disabled. They chose to document only the cases of boys and girls under the age of 15 (though often much younger: aged 3, 4 or 7) because these are children who can be immediately identified as such. “A single bullet in these parts of the body is a clear indication that these children were deliberately targeted“, the two journalists write.

This is the article: https://t.co/YkZrpqBWBQ

[Olivier Schmitt @Olivier1Schmitt]

#WeekendReading. A fascinating book on how forecasting and predictions were organized in the USSR, and the socio-political consequences.
As a centralized and theological regime, the USSR relied on planning and forecasting for the organization of its economy and the achievement of socialism. But very quickly, methodological and epistemological problems were raised by Soviet scientists (what can we know about the future and how?). The book traces those debates in several fields (economic planning, social forecasting, military strategy, cybernetics, and later forms of systems thinking).
The politics of prediction became a way of organizing uncertainty, coordinating institutions, legitimizing decisions, and shaping the very futures it claimed to anticipate.
The book is both a presentation of the various epistemologies associated with prediction (with an interesting history starting with the antique “divination” and including the medieval “prognosis” before moving to modern epistemologies), and an intellectual history of a specific field in the USSR. Just one topic would already have been fascinating, but the author manages to weave together the two issues in the book.

For military organizations who tend to be fascinated with prediction in the age of AI, it is a reminder that predictive knowledge is embedded in institutions. Forecasting is not just about better data or better models, it is about who has authority to define uncertainty, whose expertise counts, and how political and bureaucratic systems turn projections into decisions.
I suspect that the medieval understanding of prediction as “prognosis” (understood as a “cumulative interpretation of consecutive events”) shares many similarities with the type of prediction embedded in military planning, but I need to think further about the implications.

[Trita Parsi @tparsi]

The magnitude of what just happened may take some time to sink in.

This is the first time Iran has struck Israel after Israel struck another country's territory (that is, not Iran).

This means that the battle lines have been moved.

Iran's deterrence had already been restored in the sense that Israel knew that any strike on it would be responded to.

But now, Iran has proven that it will also respond to Israeli strikes on Lebanon.

This is the first time in decades that a regional power has the means, capacity, and willingness to put hard power against Israeli military maneuvers or aggression against a third party.

Read full analysis here: https://t.co/CPawJ4TYdr

[The Baffler @thebafflermag]

“That a Yankee-inspired culture on Brazil’s frontier has been driven by China’s insatiable appetite for its commodities seems to be lost on supporters of both agribusiness and Bolsonaro, many of whom have indulged in anti-China rhetoric.”
https://t.co/eh7nqh1YB7

[Miles Cranmer @MilesCranmer]

This is an insane paper and I love it

https://t.co/DP8OR5NJf2

[Bojan Pancevski @bopanc]

The sanctions against Russia are so lax that even Putin's cronies are able to buy western jets and expand their luxury lifestyles.
My report via @WSJ https://t.co/dVLFZ7w4mL

[Dr. Patrick Brock @alnitelang]

What’s Eating ‘Putin’s Brain’?
Even Russia’s leading warmonger has run out of ways to justify the Ukraine invasion.
https://t.co/eo8XgvZRnd

[Sam Cowie @SamCowie84]

‘Good lord, what a smell’: can Brazil’s biggest city save a vital source of water from sewage, bacteria and organised crime?

Our latest @guardian story with photos from the great @avenerprado

[Alexandra Prokopenko @amenka]

The wave of coverage about Putin "losing grip" on power missed the point. The conflict over internet shutdowns and Putin's approval ratings was bureaucratic, not political — a standoff between the FSB and the Kremlin's political managers ahead of Duma elections. The security establishment won. The shutdowns are now normalized. Framing for @CarnegieEndow this and what the classic Putin move of delegating the conflict down tells us about how the system actually works 👇👇
https://t.co/HxNHp3rg30

[The Red Sea Monitor @redseamonitor]

PROJECT FREEDOM lasted 48 hours. The quiet version has no name, no press conference and no announcement.

Ships are turning off transponders and hugging the Omani coast to avoid Iranian mines with US military assistance available if needed.

That is not just a tactical adjustment. It is an acknowledgement that Iran's position on the strait has forced Washington to work around it rather than through it.

Freedom of navigation enforced through press releases lasts 48 hours. Freedom of navigation enforced through dark transits along the Omani coast is not freedom of navigation.

Rubio said the strait does not belong to Iran. The US Navy is currently behaving as if it does.

https://t.co/UlmcpQ6lAY

[Adrienne LaFrance @AdrienneLaF]

You really have to read Ted Chiang on consciousness and AI—just published in The Atlantic:

https://t.co/z9eRSlkwQ8

[Noodles @criptopaul]

Let's decode what actually happened here.

Axios reported that Trump exploded at Netanyahu. Called him "fucking crazy." Said "you'd be in prison if it weren't for me." Said "everybody hates you now."

The journalist is Barak Ravid again, we talked about it. Israeli. Based in Washington. Covers the Netanyahu-US relationship for Axios, and every latest deals to calm the markets.

This is the same journalist who wrote the exact same type of story about Biden. There is literally a book chapter about this pattern. It is called "Fuming Biden." The same reporter. The same format. The same function. Different president.

Now watch the response.

Mark Levin, a close ally of both Trump and Netanyahu, did not deny the story. He demanded an FBI investigation into who leaked it. When your defense is "this should never have leaked" instead of "this never happened," you have confirmed the call happened.

But here is the part that matters.

Why would Levin, a friend to BOTH men, confirm the most explosive account of their relationship ever published?

Because it serves both.

Trump gets to look tough. Not Netanyahu's puppet. Willing to put Israel in its place. His base loves it.

Netanyahu gets cover. He "paused" the Beirut strike, but not because Iran threatened him. Because his "friend" asked him to. His base loves it too.

And look at what actually changed on the ground. Nothing.

Israel cancelled the Beirut strike. But the ground invasion of Lebanon continues. The IDF is still miles deep. A soldier died today from a Hezbollah drone. Netanyahu's office said: "position unchanged."

The performance was perfect. Trump gets the headline. Netanyahu gets the cover. The deal gets another 48 hours of "progress." Markets get a reason to breathe.

And the war continues exactly as planned.

This is the same playbook. Every time public opinion turns against the war, a story appears showing the US president is "furious" with Israel. It creates the illusion of restraint while changing nothing.

Biden was "furious" for 14 months. The war never stopped.

Trump is "furious" now. The ground invasion is expanding.

The visible game is: Trump controls Netanyahu.
The real game is: both men are performing for their audiences while the machine moves forward.

Nothing has been signed. Nothing has stopped. The war is not winding down. It is being managed.

Neither one controls the other. They walk arm in arm. Know that.

[Brian Winter @BrazilBrian]

Bolivia’s crisis is about more than Evo Morales — it’s about the difference between Paz the candidate and Paz the president, plus deeper changes in Bolivian politics, writes the always astute Gabriela Keseberg for AQ

https://t.co/rFHyuQtJor

[Financial Times @FT]

FT Exclusive: Four months after its establishment, the organisation’s financial fund set up by the World Bank has received no money from donors, according to four people familiar with the matter. https://t.co/yzANaf2mVN

[Dr. Patrick Brock @alnitelang]

https://t.co/J6599AEF2J

[Revista Supernova @RevSupernova_]

LOS FUTUROS PERDIDOS DE LA COMPUTACIÓN ARGENTINA | Del Proyecto Manhattan de la IA a Clementina y Oscar Varsavsky, Ernesto Román reconstruye otra historia de la computación y recupera una tecnología pensada para planificar el futuro.
https://t.co/UlD04mWrL3

[Katie Rogers @katierogers]

"Reporters and editors who get their ideas from their social-media feeds — which is most of them, most of the time — can mistake a paid simulation of public interest for the real thing and then make it real by covering it. "

https://t.co/jenxweDHCs

[The Tectonic @thetect0nic]

🚨 🇨🇳 🚢 Hours after Xi told Trump in Beijing that China "opposes the toll system" and the Strait "must remain open", China's UN ambassador blocked a U.S.-Bahraini Security Council resolution demanding exactly that.

Fu Cong: "We don't think the content is right, and the timing is not right."

China holds the UNSC presidency this month. Fu said if it were up to China, the resolution would not go to a vote. Both Russia and China vetoed a similar resolution last month, arguing it was biased against Iran.

Xi said one thing in the Great Hall of the People. China's ambassador said another at the UN.