Seva
@seva.bsky.social
book: http://amzn.to/2oRD2yG. substack: https://hegemon.substack.com/
I’ve basically come around to the idea that liberalism is deeply unnatural to human psychology, which evolved in the context of communal living. It's the "delicate fruit of a mature civilization" as Acton put it, and takes constant effort to preserve
Abraham Lincoln had that dawg in him. cc @peark.es @proptermalone.bsky.social @rickywlmsbong.bsky.social
Seva@seva.bsky.social · 5d agobiggest surprise from the Lincoln bio I'm reading. The dude just loved to get into fistfights. He's cornered by a gang after beating their leader and yells: “I’m the big buck of this lick!” And they back down! Who knew the great emancipator had a little WWE in him?
by contrast, i think one of the most unexpected discoveries about LBJ is that, despite being famous for "the Johnson Treatment", he was very much a physical coward who, in college, would try to intimidate people with his height but then run away if his opponent refused to back down
About to go read the Gettysburg Address in my Macho Man voice.
Macho Man Randy Savage Promo
ALT: Macho Man Randy Savage Promo
static.klipy.com
biggest surprise from the Lincoln bio I'm reading. The dude just loved to get into fistfights. He's cornered by a gang after beating their leader and yells: “I’m the big buck of this lick!” And they back down! Who knew the great emancipator had a little WWE in him?
2026: russian conscripts in the kill zone and british prime ministers battling over who can last longer
"Time is a flat circle" has to be the worst aphorism. Circles are two-dimensional they are flat by definition. jesus christ
There’s a common misconception that it’s easy to get into shark assassination, but it’s basically impossible if you aren’t independently wealthy or have family connections
Draw a bunch of stuff, get really into ferns, go hiking on a lot of misty heaths, have gout
Seva@seva.bsky.social · last wk.the ideal academic life is being an eccentric Victorian lord. Invent a stamp licking machine at 22. Get elected to the Royal Academy for counting the beetles on your estate. Die in an arsenic explosion. The perfect life.
at this point if an undergrad asks about jobs in academia I nudge them toward something more practical like professional poaster (2026)
Seva@seva.bsky.social · last wk.at this point if an undergrad asks about jobs in academia I nudge them toward something more practical like shark assassin
the ideal academic life is being an eccentric Victorian lord. Invent a stamp licking machine at 22. Get elected to the Royal Academy for counting the beetles on your estate. Die in an arsenic explosion. The perfect life.
at this point if an undergrad asks about jobs in academia I nudge them toward something more practical like shark assassin
funny that 'mountain people' are now seen as tough and warlike considering they became mountain people only to escape the actually scary steppe people
Which makes you wonder if Operation Barbarossa did kill the Soviet Union after all, half a century later. Because the Soviets always acted as if a massive surprise invasion by the ‘imperialists’ was right around the corner, even to their own great economic detriment.
Michael Thrower Chowdhury@bevansadvocate.bsky.social · 2mo agoInteresting fact about the economy of the USSR. Effectively an element of the economic plan was to be constantly ready for war mobilisation. Hence, tractors were deliberately excessively large and heavy, so as to allow easy transition to tank production if needed.
when one of your last remaining allies says to your face that your war is pointless and must be stopped
Saddam Hussein finished writing his last novel a day before the US invaded. Make writing a daily habit and you'll be amazed at how many distractions just melt away.
I'll be honest: I have never decided not to take public transit because it is too expensive. when I decide not to take public transit it is because it is too slow or too infrequent or too logistically complicated or does not serve the places I want to go
Mayor Karen Bass@mayor.lacity.gov · 2w agoAs Chair, I’ll build a long-term financial plan to make Metro fare-free. I’ve fought for a world-class transit system my entire career because public transit should create opportunity for everyone.
alright I bought the hype and went to see it. It wasn't as terrible as Oppenheimer, is all I'll say
"it’s not a dictator but broad social and technological forces that are driving people toward slop ... Orwell thought the death of democracy would kill reading. It turns out the death of reading may be killing democracy."
Seva@seva.bsky.social · 2w ago"It would probably not be beyond human ingenuity to write books by machinery" he wrote in 1946.
"It would probably not be beyond human ingenuity to write books by machinery" he wrote in 1946.
Orwell on AI
The author of 1984 predicted that literature would be written by machines. But he was wrong about why.
open.substack.com
interesting to see all the reviews framing Odyssey around its veteran-trauma-PTSD themes. War as something that happens to soldiers’ psyches. This is I dare say a very umbombed mentality. Processing war as individual moral injury when the actual subject is collective destruction
Great article that goes beyond the empty free-speech debate, summarised in the following quote: "But the question is not just about censorship. It’s about whether a democracy is obligated to provide a frictionless commercial platform to an aggressor state’s cultural exports during wartime."
Seva@seva.bsky.social · 4w agoI have two young kids so I've suffered through my share of Masha and the Bear, which pops up practically by default on the junior Netflix channels. But until this controversy I had no idea of its reach. Propaganda or not, it’s certainly one of Russia’s most successful cultural exports.
"What do we owe an aggressor’s culture while the aggression is still going on? I don’t think the answer is a ban, but I’m certain it’s not a shrug." Great analysis.
Seva@seva.bsky.social · 4w agoI have two young kids so I've suffered through my share of Masha and the Bear, which pops up practically by default on the junior Netflix channels. But until this controversy I had no idea of its reach. Propaganda or not, it’s certainly one of Russia’s most successful cultural exports.
I have two young kids so I've suffered through my share of Masha and the Bear, which pops up practically by default on the junior Netflix channels. But until this controversy I had no idea of its reach. Propaganda or not, it’s certainly one of Russia’s most successful cultural exports.
Is Masha and the Bear Russian Propaganda?
I settle the debate once and for all
open.substack.com
I remember standing in those late-Soviet lines as a kid. The Public Aesthetics of the line are terrible. And the Gas Line is the opposite of Kuran's preference falsification: a public assembly of everyone privately doubting the government’s capacity to provide basic necessities.
