I agree. I think Russia is approaching an inflection point in the coming months about whether to continue the war. In order to capture all of the Donetsk region (which is of questionable actual strategic value for Russia), Moscow may need to conduct another mobilization or

And then you have the dilettantes who just really really want to be someone special and in the know, or martyring themselves, then they switch sides if they don't get the attention they crave.

I also think journalists are extremely important, and they need to be able to devote substantial time to investigating and reporting, but you see so many of them go nuts or turn to conspiracy theorizing/trash gotcha content when their income gets threatened somehow.

I really don't know how to reconcile this with the need for professional politicians and journalists. If one doesn't devote a substantial portion of their life to civil service, the institutional knowledge just belongs to moneyed interest who can pay someone to be a professional.

I think it's really important for people that care about politics to have something else in their life that they can tie their self-worth and/or income to. If your job is politics and you're personally dependent on it, it's a recipe for going nuts or selling out. However,

Trump: Taiwan needs to buy more American products and more defense spending… Taiwan: okey, we’ll buy more American weapons Trump: no, that’s going to screw up my big visit with Xi

For a shocking number of ostensible adults AIs and LLMs fill the need for what they believe is a perfectly objective and neutral third party observer who can conclusively adjudicate interpersonal arguments for them always in their favor.

@cenkuygur How is it a mirror image? Which anti-Biden comedian was fired at the behest of Biden FCC chair Jessica Rosenworcel?

Jimmy Kimmel seems like an idiot with BlueSky brain, but let's not forget that Fox News lied so egregiously about how the election was stolen that they had to pay nearly a billion dollars over it... and the Biden admin never threatened Fox with removing their broadcast license.

Technically the lawsuit against CBS was by Trump, but threatening ABC with FCC license revocation seems to be the unspoken threat behind the lawsuit. Now he's suing the New York Times for 15 billion. https://t.co/Ct58xeAg6K

Liberal "cancel culture" was largely private institutions setting rules for speech. Trump and conservative cancel culture is government led. Examples: the anti-BDS pledges required of public employees, and using the federal government to get Kimmel and Colbert cancelled.

JON KARL: What do you make of Pam Bondi saying she's gonna go after hate speech? A lot of your allies say hate speech is free speech TRUMP: We'll probably go after people like you because you treat me so unfairly. You have a lot of hate in your hate. Maybe they'll have to go

A huge part of successful industrialization in the 20th century was the sharing of expertise between engineers in different countries in joint enterprises, factory visits, etc. American "reindustrialization" begins with scaring off people who still know how to make things.

Extremely bullish on antifashion capsule wardrobe minimalism. The quality of their stuff is actually amazing, they have so many proprietary fabric weaves and functional staple pieces you can't find anywhere else. Their merino knits especially hold up extremely well

Political violence is bad.

Giving credit where credit is due to a civil conservative making this point 👇

I miss Taiwan Twitter.

If everyone in the world were to live at US median income (so no inequality at all; everyone simply gets the US median), total global income would have to increase by 2.8 times. Bottom line: world-level redistribution is not going to solve the problem even if such a

Vivid illustration of audience capture.

Ok, this is a great post to make a point. Some Of you say I have "TDS" because I say Trump seeks to be an authoritarian. Well, a ton of people who adore Trump openly admit they'd like this. Why don't you arrive with THEM? Do they have TDS too? (Maybe a different variant?)