Kim

Nunquam minus solus quam cum solus.

[Kim @skimmerson]

@nntaleb @elusives_ So glad you took time to write that, I laughed myself out of my chair 😂
Cheers 🍷

[Arnaud Bertrand @RnaudBertrand]

This really shows once more that Trump really doesn't get China, which should really worry you if you're American.

The officials in question weren't "scared", they were serious and disciplined, which is a pretty meaningful difference.

There's a huge difference in culture when it comes to the spoken word between the West and China, especially at such high levels of government. At that level there isn't any room for unscripted or unprepared speech, especially when addressing the U.S. president. Why? Because when you speak it's not your word as an individual but the official position of the state, with immense implications.

This is something we've completely lost in the West (to the extent we ever had it): we're deeply unserious about the weight and discipline that official speech ought to require. We've normalized leaders speaking off the cuff, making jokes, lying constantly, and blurring personal opinion with state policy. The result, as we can all witness every day, is a complete shattering of trust, because we know words don't mean much.

In China however they take this stuff extremely seriously. I know it's cliché to cite Confucius when it comes to China but one of his most fundamental teachings is that trust is the foundation of everything: without trust the state collapses. Here's what's written in the Analects:
"Zigong asked about government. The Master said, 'Sufficient food, sufficient weapons, and the trust of the people.'
Zigong asked, 'If it could not be helped, and one of these had to be dispensed with, which should be foregone first?'
The Master said, "Dispense with the weapons.'
Zigong asked, 'If it could not be helped, and one of the remaining two had to be dispensed with, which should be foregone first?'
The Master said, 'Dispense with the food. From of old, death has been the lot of all men; but if the people have no faith in their rulers, there is no standing for the state.'"

That's the culture: maintaining trust is absolutely paramount, more important than even providing food or security.

As a result, when officials speak, you know every single one of their words was prepared by a team that weighed and considered every aspect in advance. Which is why, incidentally, they almost never do interviews and when they do, it sounds super boring because there's nothing spontaneous: the questions were received in advance and the guy just reads the answers that were prepared. It makes for terrible entertainment but they, unlike us, don't think that governing is supposed to be entertaining.

It's not the first time a US president is confused by this. Obama too in his book "A promised land" made similarly mocking remarks about his meetings with Hu Jintao. Quote: “As usual, my meeting with President Hu Jintao was a sleepy affair: Whatever the topic, he liked to read from thick stacks of prepared remarks [...] When it was my turn to speak, he’d shuffle through his papers, looking for whatever response his aides had prepared for him. Efforts to break the monotony with personal anecdotes or the occasional joke usually resulted in a blank stare."

So no, nothing to do with fear or being afraid to displease some "dear leader." This same discipline predates Xi and it constrains Xi - as it constrained Hu - just as much as anyone else at that table. It's institutional. It's not about a strongman keeping people in line: what Trump sees as people being "scared" is actually a 2,000-year-old tradition of treating official communication as an instrument of statecraft rather than personal expression.

But of course, to someone who governs by social media posts, the idea that words should be carefully considered before being spoken probably does look like very scary.

[Nora Loreto @NoLore]

I can't believe how many of us have lost so much for saying plainly that these genocidal monsters need to be stopped.

[Nassim Nicholas Taleb @nntaleb]

When 1) you only respect scholarly rigor, 2) come from a Christian community that survived (even thrived) under Islam for 14 C, 3) are avid reader of history in the ORIGINAL languages, you can be allergic to charlatans like @KonstantinKisin w/Netanyahu propaganda clickers.

Note the "dhimmi" fictions promoted by Zionists like Bat Ye'or is crap --it paid to be Christian & sometimes pay lower taxes than Muslims, & often lower taxes than under the Byzantines. See my piece on conversion & the minority rule.

[serènity @cultureartislam]

The real homeowners.

[Nassim Nicholas Taleb @nntaleb]

Total nonsense. Jesus is orders of magnitude more connected (both by blood and culture) to present-day Palestinians than to Mileikowski.

This is a historical continuum of locally evolved cultures. @DineshDSouza is a propagandist with poor historical understanding.

[Nassim Nicholas Taleb @nntaleb]

2/ And BTW Jesus was disowned by Jewish tradition, called by his Greek name "Yessu ha-Notzri", not Yehoshua. Often called "Ben Pantera" as the son of a supposed Roman-Phoenician soldier.

[Nassim Nicholas Taleb @nntaleb]

I watched them double up every time before a ceasefire, intensifying to cause maximal damage. And people think they act in good faith.

[matt bernstein @mattxiv]

one week ago, van jones said the reason people are pro-palestine is because of a paid propaganda campaign. today it’s revealed that he is a mentor in a paid zionist propaganda campaign

[Evan Hill @evanhill]

Fascinating work here tracing how the IDF recycled 3D assets from a cyberpunk sci-fi art project, the Scottish Maritime Museum and elsewhere to populate its widely-seen models of supposed enemy locations in Gaza, Lebanon and Iran. One of the most infamous, the alleged underground Hamas command center at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, used to justify an unprecedented assault on the biggest medical center in Gaza, was actually an animation the IDF had used the previous year, saying at the time it was a tunnel beneath a UN school.

[Assal Rad @AssalRad]

For no reason.

[Séamus Malekafzali @Seamus_Malek]

American intelligence officials have now confirmed to CBS News that Netanyahu ordered the drone attacks on the Sumud flotilla while it was docked in Tunisia, an attack launched from Israeli Navy submarines off the Tunisian coast.

[MSF International @MSF]

This morning, an attack carried out by Israeli forces killed Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) staff member, Omar Hayek, and seriously injured four others. The attack took place on a street where our teams were waiting to take a bus to the MSF field hospital in Deir al Balah, Gaza. 

All staff were wearing MSF vests, clearly identifying them as medical humanitarian workers.
We express deep sorrow and outrage over the killing, which occurs less than two weeks after another MSF colleague, Hussein Alnajjar, was killed by the Israeli forces, in Deir Al Balah.

Our thoughts are with Omar’s family and colleagues at this tragic time. Omar, 42 years old, is the fourteenth MSF colleague to be killed in Gaza since 7 October 2023.
https://t.co/C7Qglwa4DJ

[Nassim Nicholas Taleb @nntaleb]

Mature democracies have entered a dystopia: the smaller the injustice, the more extreme the response; the greater the injustice, the deeper the bureaucratic indifference.

[Paolo Mossetti @paolomossetti]

Several Italian cities are granting honorary citizenships and public awards to human rights lawyer Francesca Albanese, in defiance of the sanctions imposed by Trump and of Meloni's government, led by a postfascist, Trump-aligned party.

These are Bologna and Modena.

[Arnaud Bertrand @RnaudBertrand]

I don't think people are realizing what's happening with the Global Sumud Flotilla: it's potentially becoming extremely consequential.

Fact is, at this stage the flotilla is effectively escorted by multiple warships from 3 major countries: Spain, Italy and Turkyie.

The warships are all nominally there to "assist" and "rescue" the flotilla in case shit happens - that's the official story - BUT:
- They obviously have a very strong deterrence effect, so Israel will think twice before attacking
- I frankly cannot believe they wouldn't act if the flotilla gets attacked as this would be a major PR disaster for the governments in questions: your own citizens (including some MPs) getting attacked by Israel in front of your eyes in international waters (or Palestine territorial waters) and you watch it happen from your warship? Hard to see this happen, this is politically suicidal for a government.
- Logically speaking, why send actual warships if you haven't accepted the possibility there might be a confrontation? As the old military adage goes "don't draw your sword unless you're prepared to use it": if it was purely about assistance and rescue, they could have sent coastguard boats for instance. The "rescue and assist" framing is probably about plausible deniability to retain the most flexibility in the actions they can take, and in narrative management.

I'm not sure what's going to happen but as far as I can see there are 3 options:
1) Israel doesn't attack, the flotilla reaches Gaza, which means the blockade is breached and which is a major precedent
2) Israel attacks and the warships of all 3 nations let it happen, which will create a major public opinion disaster
3) Israel attacks and the warships fight them, and you effectively have war between NATO countries and Israel

I think you'll agree that whatever happens, it's consequential no matter what. What I suspect is that the governments in question are betting on Israel blinking first but that they're willing to follow through if Israel calls their bluff, they wouldn't have deployed the warships otherwise.

[Yanis Varoufakis @yanisvaroufakis]

TRUMP'S PERSONAL ANNEXATION OF GAZA, UNDER THE MANAGEMENT OF TONY BLAIR, IS THE US-ISRAEL CONDITION FOR PAUSING THE GENOCIDE IN GAZA. IT MUST BE REJECTED FORTHWITH!

The Trump-Netanyahu plan would be laughable if it weren't so dangerous for World Peace. To pause the genocide, Trump and Netanyahu demand the following:

1. Palestinians must agree to forfeit any political or human rights and to be annexed by… Donald J. Trump who will then appoint as Gaza’s Administrator Tony Blair, the former British Prime Minister whose Iraq exploits left him open to credible accusations of war crimes.

2. The UN plays no role except the distribution of humanitarian aid.

3. Indefinite occupation of Gaza by the US and Israel in the form of a new occupying force involving US allies – a new occupying force which will be controlled at will by Washington and Tel Aviv for as long as they deem necessary.

4. Complete partition of the Occupied Palestinian Territories, with Gaza separated legally from the West Bank and East Jerusalem, where Israel will be allowed to continue its ethnic cleansing unimpeded.

5. Release of the approximately 40 remaining Israeli hostages with the simultaneous release of 1,500 Palestinians, leaving approximately 13,500 Palestinians held hostage by the Israeli state in Israeli prisons

6. Palestinians to renounce their right to resisting the illegal occupation of their land.

Apart from the fact that such an agreement

· nullifies the International Court of Justice (which in June 2024 ordered Israel to withdraw immediately and completely from East Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Gaza), and
· abolishes both International Law and the United Nations’ obligation to enforce it,

it also makes a mockery of the recent decisions of the governments of Britain, France, Canada and Australia to recognise the State of Palestine—a state that, if the Trump-Netanyahu Plan is implemented, will not be possible without the consent of the US and Israel.

Notwithstanding that the Trump-Netanyahu plan is welcomed by many Arab countries, including the Palestinian Authority, we should not lose sight of the fact that international public pressure on Israel is bearing fruit. Even this shameful plan would not have come about without this pressure.

Now, therefore, is the time to increase this pressure even further, and not to be distracted by the Trump-Netanyahu demands, so that equal political and human rights can become a reality from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.

Otherwise, if the Trump-Netanyahu plan is implemented, it will return Humanity, officially, to the Law of the White Coloniser who chooses which land to occupy, which conquered peoples it will deploy as its agents, and which it will exterminate.

For this reason, DiEM25 calls on every party, every people, every human being to do whatever it takes to shoot down the arrogant, dangerous Trump-Netanyahu Plan – a plan that boils down to a last-ditch effort by those perpetrating, aiding and abetting our generation’s genocide to prevent Freedom and Equality from blossoming on the blood-soaked land of Palestine.

[Courtney Howard @Lulamaybelle]

Jonny Greenwood composing that #OneBattleAfterAnother score

[Nassim Nicholas Taleb @nntaleb]

This is the new Hasbara 2025: spread posts on social media by retards portraying Israel as the Western defense against Islam.

[Nassim Nicholas Taleb @nntaleb]

That is entirely backwards.
The Levant was the most stable area in the world between early 1800s and 1948, with squirmishes in 1860. Compare to Europe's devastating wars; 1803-15, 1833, 1846, 1848, 1853, 1870, 1897, 1914, 1939.