Damien Gimenez
@damiengimenez.fr
Engineer and independent writer. I examine how ideals, ideologies and technology have shaped Western societies from the early modern period to the present. damiengimenez.fr/home
Is Lula’s victory a positive sign for democracy? His measures for workers between the two rounds suggest a deft appeal to material interests. How secure is democracy if support for its defenders depends on their ability to deliver economic benefits? www.nytimes.com/interactive/...
Brazil Election Results in Maps: How Lula Came Back (Gift Article)
Maps show where Brazil’s progressive president surged ahead to win re-election, a dramatic reversal from the first round of voting.
nytimes.com
French economist O. Passet questions the centrality of the economy. Yet, like French political parties, he does not question prosperity as a goal. How can the economy serve human, social and ecological ends if achieving them still depends on growth that is slowing? www.lemonde.fr/article-offe...
« La social-démocratie en France n’a pas pris la mesure du rejet qu’elle suscite ni de sa responsabilité dans la droitisation des valeurs »
TRIBUNE. L’absence d’un socialisme réformateur dans le paysage politique français alimente un désir de rupture, de repli et de radicalisation à droite, analyse, dans une tribune au « Monde », l’économ...
lemonde.fr
Faced with AI automation, some young French workers are choosing manual jobs in which they can find fulfilment and act in accordance with their values. This shows an awareness of AI's impact on the economy, but also that work remains a core value. www.lemonde.fr/article-offe...
« Je n’ai pas la force de lutter contre l’IA » : face aux ravages de l’automatisation, une partie des jeunes se tourne vers des métiers manuels
De jeunes actifs, dont la profession a été vidée de son sens par l’intelligence artificielle générative, décident de se reconvertir dans des secteurs préservés.
lemonde.fr
“What politics must confront is the excessive role that consumption has come to play in the definition of social existence.” www.lemonde.fr/article-offe...
Manifestations du 17 octobre : « Lorsqu’une société fait de l’achat son principal mode d’intégration, c’est dans les magasins que la violence finit par resurgir »
TRIBUNE. Les pillages des magasins révèlent que les promesses de la société de consommation ne suffisent plus à canaliser les frustrations des citoyens, analyse le chercheur en sciences de gestion Ben...
lemonde.fr
JUST POSTED: Today at The NYT we are publishing a major investigation into how President Trump used his executive powers to expose millions of Americans to greater cancer risks. A six month-long investigation built on more than 10,000 pages of FOIA records. Read it www.nytimes.com/2026/10/24/c...
How Trump Gave the Worst Polluters a Free Pass (Gift Article)
The president temporarily waived clean-air rules for industrial facilities that spew cancer-causing gases. Then his appointees worked to gut the regulations altogether.
nytimes.com
This article illustrates a limitation of analyses anchored in past technological transitions: too little attention to whether productivity constraints, market concentration and pressures on demand are eroding the mechanisms that once sustained creative destruction. www.nytimes.com/2026/10/22/b...
For Clues About How A.I. Will Change Work, Look to the Past (Gift Article)
Economists hope earlier episodes of labor disruption, from the Industrial Revolution to the Great Depression, can help us prepare for the age of artificial intelligence.
nytimes.com
There is “a continent-wide exasperation over low salaries and high rents, an impotence in the face of global warming and a general anxiety about job prospects and the potential disappearance of the generous welfare benefits enjoyed by previous generations.” www.nytimes.com/2026/10/21/w...
Student Protests Mushroom Across Europe, Exposing Bleak Views of the Future (Gift Article)
Since high school students began protesting in France in September, they’ve been joined by young demonstrators in at least seven other European countries.
nytimes.com
Unlike medical or law schools, business schools are “organized explicitly around a private good: the pursuit of profit.” They “don’t just reflect our economic system — they actively manufacture its priorities and normalize its harms, training the future leaders”. www.nytimes.com/2026/10/18/o...
Opinion | I Teach at a Business School. It’s Time to Shut Them Down. (Gift Article)
Students come in with noble intentions and leave with flawed expertise.
nytimes.com
1/4 The questions in this Pew Research study illustrate a broader problem concerning the concept of prosperity: its vagueness. Asking about “the kind of life you want” measures income against an individual’s unspecified aspirations. www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/...
Many Americans Are Struggling to Afford Basic Necessities
44% of Americans had trouble paying for a basic necessity in the past year, with lower-income adults hit hardest.
pewresearch.org
“We still have opportunities to avoid some of the worst outcomes through rapid emissions reductions, climate adaptation and broader societal changes.” So we won't avoid the worst outcomes... www.scientificamerican.com/article/clim...
Climate scientists issue a sobering diagnosis about Earth's 'vital signs'
“The climate emergency is already here”
scientificamerican.com
John Ioannidis, professor at Stanford University’s medical school: “Holmes is in jail, but the recipe of her success has been even more widely adopted”. www.scientificamerican.com/article/here...
A decade after Theranos imploded, here’s what scientists want you to know
A viral documentary has everyone talking about Elizabeth Holmes’s fraudulent blood testing start-up again—but scientists never stopped
scientificamerican.com
Social media creates a funhouse mirror that distorts public opinion I have a new article explaining how social media amplifies extreme voices, fuels moral outrage, and makes us think other people are far more hostile and polarized than they really are. issues.org/social-media...
An interesting but slanted summary of France's financial predicament. Even if Macron’s “whatever it takes” policy and missteps are backfiring, that doesn't imply that “painful” measures must be dictated by the markets... www.nytimes.com/2026/10/15/o...
Opinion | France Is on the Brink (Gift Article)
A fiscal crisis threatens to bring the country to ruin.
nytimes.com
In Columbus' own writings "the conquest and colonization of the Western Hemisphere were inseparable from religious conversion. His actions echoed in subsequent generations, evident in other Europeans’ efforts to spread Christianity in the Americas." theconversation.com/columbus-own...
Columbus’ own writings reveal how tightly religion and conquest were intertwined from the start
The ‘Book of Prophecies’ shows how Columbus recast brutal colonization as a divine mission.
theconversation.com
This Pew Research survey illustrates the centrality of economic concerns in American democracy. What if a choice must be made between prosperity and democracy? www.pewresearch.org/politics/202...
Pascal Lamy, former WTO Director-General: “No one imagined—who did back then?—that China would grow by 10% annually for twenty years, and that this would fill the coffers of a state that would remain governed by a form of economic Leninism and state capitalism.” www.lemonde.fr/article-offe...
Pascal Lamy, ancien directeur de l’OMC, fait son mea culpa : « Nous avons fait une erreur de parallaxe historique avec la Chine »
L’ancien commissaire européen au commerce propose la mise en place d’un nouvel outil pour réduire les déséquilibres commerciaux avec la Chine.
lemonde.fr
Levitsky and Way argue in the Journal of Democracy that "Unlike incumbents in most competitive authoritarian regimes, the Trump administration faces a robust, well-endowed opposition", which is "a product of economic development." muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/articl... in @jodemocracy.bsky.social
David Robinson contrasts “wisdom” and “care” with the AI industry’s “perpetual sprints”. This echoes the tension between virtue and interests I’ve been exploring this year.
Adrienne LaFrance@adriennelaf.bsky.social · 3w agoNew just now in The Atlantic: David Robinson resigned this week. He was among the longest-tenured employees at OpenAI—and oversaw safety reports on 12 frontier launches. He is very worried: “The time for trial and error is over.” You can read his essay here: www.theatlantic.com/technology/2...
Literature has long been caught between two requirements: lyricism — sincerity and singularity — and formal beauty and quality, traditionally associated with classicism. This enlightening op-ed shows how the latter already contained the possibility of automation. www.lemonde.fr/article-offe...
William Marx, professeur au Collège de France : « Nous entrons peut-être dans une période où la littérature sera produite en grande partie par des machines, pour des machines »
TRIBUNE. L’intelligence artificielle bouleverse le monde littéraire alors que la tendance est aux textes sincères et rares. Dans ce contexte, le cas de Thélyson Orélien était voué à faire polémique, a...
lemonde.fr
Western politics are so overwhelmed by conservative and authoritarian forces, corporate and technological power, and debt that they increasingly reduce to managing emergencies and budgets, amid constant mutual accusation.
In Paris, Leo XIV stated that new technologies must not become “another instrument of domination and injustice”, and renewed his appeal for peace. In contrast to contemporary economic and geopolitical competition, the Pope’s ethical discourse questions the moral foundations of politics.
As energy prices soar, Emmanuel Macron has urged the EU to postpone new methane reporting rules for oil and gas importers. This illustrates the tension between environmental and prosperity values, and the predominance of the latter over the former. www.reuters.com/business/ene...
France urges EU to postpone methane reporting requirements
French President Emmanuel Macron has written to the European Commission urging it to postpone new methane reporting rules for oil and gas importers, arguing they could create legal risks for importer...
reuters.com
As with nuclear and biological weapons, this week’s talks on AI safety show that competition does not exclude cooperation when states face a common threat.
Amazon's drones are another brick in the dystopian world we're entering. Maybe in the future, cities will differ according to their citizens' relationship with technology. And people will choose where to live partly on that basis. www.nytimes.com/2026/09/21/u...
It’s Raining Boxes: Amazon Drones Overwhelm a Texas Suburb (Gift Article)
In Richardson, a fleet of drones has started to deliver goods quickly. But the noise is drowning out life for some residents: ‘We can’t live like this.’
nytimes.com
When you dismiss memories of slavery, fascism or Nazism, it's not only a matter of identity, pride, understanding, equality or security. There is also nostalgia for domination. www.nytimes.com/2026/09/21/w...
The Fuel That Feeds Europe’s Far Right: Nostalgia and Lost Pride (Gift Article)
The populist emphasis on national identity and threats to it, real and imagined, finds a deep response in voters adrift in a world they no longer understand.
nytimes.com
1/4 Does AI really “dissolve responsibility”? If someone is asked to use AI to complete an assignment but is given too little time to check its answers, how much responsibility lies with that person—and how much with the organisation that created those conditions?
A French collective, including politicians and scientists, is urging presidential candidates to declare a “climate emergency”. How could it be funded when France is already struggling to produce a budget? Something like a Zucman tax would only be a first step. www.lemonde.fr/article-offe...
L’appel de Yann Arthus-Bertrand, Jean Jouzel, Noël Mamère, Laurence Tubiana… : « Nous demandons au premier ministre et aux candidats à la présidentielle de s’engager à décréter l’urgence climatique »
TRIBUNE. Le climat doit devenir une priorité de l’Etat, et cette priorité doit être traduite dans l’ensemble des politiques publiques, soutient, dans une tribune au « Monde », un collectif de personna...
lemonde.fr
“IBM has already demonstrated energy savings of up to 10,000-fold on event-driven tasks, compared with conventional digital architectures”. theconversation.com/your-brain-r...
Your brain runs on 20 watts. Could brain-inspired computing do the same?
Neuromorphic technology is reimagining how computers should work.
theconversation.com
Europe wants its own direct-to-device satellite constellation, in particular to become independent of US solutions. This initiative illustrates how damaging the lack of cooperation can be for both nature and the economy. www.lemonde.fr/article-offe...
L’Europe cherche la solution dans la téléphonie mobile par satellite
Les grands opérateurs du Vieux Continent, dont Orange, veulent bénéficier de cette technologie pour couvrir les régions dépourvues d’antennes-relais, et entendent favoriser l’émergence d’une constella...
lemonde.fr
China's spy chief's warnings reinforce the logic of the AI arms race: you need better AI models to fight AI threats. Economic and geopolitical competition tends to prevail over public interest or virtue. www.nytimes.com/2026/09/14/w...
China’s Top Spy Chief Warns A.I. Is a Threat to Party Rule (Gift Article)
Even as Beijing urges the United States not to hype the dangers of A.I., its own spy chief is framing the technology as a threat to the Communist Party’s security.
nytimes.com