Chris Davies

Strategy geek, complexity fiend, helping organisations be better. Welshman in south London. Tweets in personal capacity etc etc.

[Chris Davies @crd37]

Outstanding list here. Am excessively jealous of Ben having been to all these!

[ben moores @benmoores2]

A thread on the 50 best fortifications to go and visit in the world according to me. They are all fun for at least one in the family. They are listed in reverse rank order as determined by how much fun, unique and awesome they are.

[Chris Davies @crd37]

Amazing.

Almost run over by a Stagecoach-operated bus in London today. Messaged them to complain and got a reply saying they don't have a depot in London....when they run 37 routes under contract for @TfL

[Chris Davies @crd37]

@wolfejosh @2112Power @DaddieTechno @johnelton @KyleSonlin A niche entry

[Chris Davies @crd37]

@wolfejosh @2112Power @DaddieTechno @johnelton @KyleSonlin Chief Restaurant Officer, McDonalds UK

[Chris Davies @crd37]

@AMAZlNGNATURE @Frances_Coppola @grok what is this showing?

[Chris Davies @crd37]

@realDonaldTrump @grok verify the tweet

[Chris Davies @crd37]

@Clockwisesss Tbf not sure how many of these mini markets Streatham High Road can sustain

[Chris Davies @crd37]

@Gills_Steve84 @anon_opin You do now. There’s a weird period in primary school where kids learn about the Heptarchy

[Chris Davies @crd37]

Definitely not this

[Elon Musk @elonmusk]

Tesla

[Chris Davies @crd37]

@twlldun Dydd gwyl dewi hapus!

[Chris Davies @crd37]

@tomhfh

[Chris Davies @crd37]

L to the OG…

[Collin Rugg @CollinRugg]

NEW: Mark Zuckerberg rips off his suit and starts performing in a blue jumpsuit at his wife's 40th birthday party.

What

The billionaire surprised his wife at her birthday party by wearing singer Benson Boone’s jumpsuit that he used during his 2025 Grammy performance of "Beautiful Things."

"Your wife only turns 40 once! Shoutout to Benson Boone for the jumpsuit and new single," Zuck said on IG.

[Balaji @balajis]

OK. Here's the issue.

There is a strong argument that Ukraine is THE climactic battle of the Thucydides Trap.

That is: the big war between the US and China is actually between their proxies Ukraine and Russia.

And this settlement — to this war — determines the next world order.

Because there won’t be a fight in Taiwan if NATO is defeated in Ukraine. Taiwan will just surrender to China because they know they won't get reliable Western military support.

And so will everyone else.

So, this may be the decisive moment when terms get negotiated with the China/Russia group for the next however many years.

That means that even if you think Ukraine was a disaster and Zelensky is a dummy, you don’t want NATO to be catastrophically defeated in Kiev like it was in Afghanistan.

That would be bad for Democrats, Republicans, Europeans, Japanese — just about everyone under the US security umbrella.

Instead you want the best possible outcome to this terrible war, under the circumstances.

Because the West may already have fallen into the Thucydides Trap. And if so, it should very carefully think about whether it can get out.

["Online Rent-a-Sage" Bret Devereaux @BretDevereaux]

One of the things that made the Roman Republic's alliance system in Italy - upon which was built the lion's share of Rome's victories - so successful was that the Romans handled the system tactfully.

Part of the 'deal' of the system was 'we won't humiliate you.' 1/

[Chris Davies @crd37]

A great example of Chesterton’s Fence - don’t take something away before you understand why it’s there.

America’s informal empire is a fantastically low cost lever for driving US wealth. The MAGA model risks throwing away that advantage bc it misunderstands that

[Balaji @balajis]

I get why nationalists and socialists oppose empire. Socialists think the US is exploiting the world, while nationalists think the US is exploited by the world.

And both actually have a point, on different dimensions, if you look through it from their respective lenses:

However, what's missing is the center-left and center-right defense of American Empire. In part this is because even the existence of this empire is not acknowledged. Despite having 750 military bases and the headquarters of the UN in New York, there is the pretense that this all somehow happened by accident.

But becoming global #1 in every category does not happen by accident. Wertheim's book documents exactly how and when the decision was made to seek empire: in 1940, after the fall of France, when the US realized that if they didn't build an empire then the Nazis (or, later, the Soviets) would.

However, unlike past empires, American Empire is a hidden empire — as Daniel Immerwahr points out. Unlike the British Empire, it's not referred to in explicitly imperial terms, even if countries are expected to obey DC and pay tribute by buying Treasuries.

Like the Soviet Empire, it's ideological yet invisible. And like the B2 Stealth Bomber, enormous resources were spent obscuring the empire of democracy, like they were for the empire of communism.

Anyway, this conversation is tricky because if you say "empire" then people instantly assume you're saying "empire is bad."

But it's not always bad. Sometimes it's almost self-defense. Because power abhors a vacuum — and if you do decide not to play for world domination, you may well be dominated by the one who does.

And that's the logic of empire.

This was understood generations ago. But today, neither left nor right fully appreciates what it took to build American empire. They just inherited it. They don't understand it.

Among other things, the far left doesn't realize that it required capitalism and trade. The nationalist right doesn't realize that it required democracy and allies.

Combining these was the only way to build the multibillion-person global trade union that underpins the US dollar. You couldn't do that with 77M Trump voters or 75M Democrats alone. You need trade partners, you need allies.

Otherwise, when you print $6T (as the US did from 2020-2022) it's spread not across 6B+ people worldwide but just ~330M Americans. Because inflation is taxation, that's a 95% drop in the effective tax base. You go from printing $1000/head to $20000/head, with all the obvious consequences.

Anyway, I completely understand why many US factions are tired of these abstractions. Because this concrete empire doesn't seem to be working for them. What isn't being considered is that things may get even worse, at least temporarily, if empire is retired.

I guess we'll see what happens.

[Chris Davies @crd37]

This insistence on these people's unique genius is exhausting

[Chris Davies @crd37]

Every major government reform from Solon on has involved controlling the Treasury. The only novel thing is the ease with which it's happened, thanks to the system now being digital.

William the Conqueror had to send people physically to go and appropriate the Treasury in 1066

[Alex Tabarrok @ATabarrok]

.@elonmusk really is a genius. In the history of how to reform government, no one to my knowledge suggested getting hold of the systems controlling personnel and payments. Obvious in retrospect but totally new play.

[Satya Nadella @satyanadella]

Jevons paradox strikes again! As AI gets more efficient and accessible, we will see its use skyrocket, turning it into a commodity we just can't get enough of. https://t.co/omEcOPhdIz

[Chris Davies @crd37]

I mean, the question ‘defending them from whom’ aside…the US has done pretty well from using its position to set the terms of trade for the entire capitalist world for the last 70 years….

[Matt Stoller @matthewstoller]

The Panama Canal, Canada, and Greenland all have one thing in common. The U.S. has to defend them and has to pay for that. Trump's view is that if we're going to defend them we should get something for it.

[Chris Davies @crd37]

Great @instituteforgov session on mission government with @Gilesyb @Samfr @nehal_davison & @cassia_rowland

Lots of references to needing a theory of change…strikes me we need better understanding of how complex systems work to do that