going to be in tokyo for a couple of weeks. the plan is to walk around aimlessly but if anyone has other suggestions I'll hear it

“This is AI’s promise to every autocratic ruler: the ability to maintain control without delegating tasks to unreliable humans,” write @seva.bsky.social and Bruce Schneier.

The AI Autocrat

How technology empowers—and imperils—dictators.

foreignaffairs.com

hegemon.substack.com/p/the-dictat...

new piece in Foreign Affairs with @schneier.com on how autocrats are using AI to deal with scheming viziers. free access t.co/4Acu9eQwSE

kind of op-ed that could have only been written in the innocent days of 2014

it's brutal. the two great prophets of international relations are now tim snyder and john mearsheimer, two men thoroughly captured by their own theories

we should let switzerland win one war...just to see...they've been so patient

I remember listening to an interview of Laruelle on the Bear Market Brief podcast on whether Putin’s Russia fit the definition of fascism and just ultimately found the “well it’s complicated” answers completely besides the point. It felt like missing the forest for the trees.

Seva@seva.bsky.social · 2mo ago

a blasphemous comparison for some, but that’s part of Laruelle's point: they are two prophets opposed in substance but united in form a clever but unsatisfying analogy

a blasphemous comparison for some, but that’s part of Laruelle's point: they are two prophets opposed in substance but united in form a clever but unsatisfying analogy

Dugin and Snyder, Brothers in Arms?

one side is genocidal, but the other is very annoying

hegemon.substack.com

first dolly parton now this

Reuters@reuters.com · 2mo ago

Bosnian Serb general Ratko Mladic, convicted of genocide, has died, Serbian TV reports reut.rs/4qG64Pe

"You can’t entirely strip normative commitments out of cognition. The two process the world with moral certainty, and in that they share a temperament. Only one is a genocidal mystic." On point from Seva.

Seva@seva.bsky.social · 2mo ago

responding to Marlene Laruelle's recent essay

NATO condemns nuclear destruction of Berlin as a troubling escalation of Russian hybrid tactics

NATO nations have supported Ukraine since February 2022 and peace talks have rarely gotten anywhere. Nothing has changed except the war is more present "at home" for Russia. How does one escalate from genocide? Agree with Gabuev that risk of 🇷🇺 using tactical nuke is low. meduza.io/feature/2026...

Путин готовится к эскалации войны с Украиной, заявили источники Bloomberg, близкие к Кремлю. Все больше чиновников в России думают, что он может применить тактическое ядерное оружие — Meduza

Россия готовится к эскалации ударов по Украине, считая, что переговоры о мире зашли в тупик, сообщили источники Bloomberg, близкие к Кремлю.

meduza.io

responding to Marlene Laruelle's recent essay

Dugin and Snyder, Brothers in Arms?

one side is genocidal, but the other is very annoying

hegemon.substack.com

...some forgotten street art from the early aughts

Brooklyn Graffiti, a time capsule

In the summer of 2005, while living in New York as a grad student, I walked around Brooklyn’s Park Slope and took photographs of the graffiti.

hegemon.substack.com

its kinda insane that marine mammals wound up as the ocean's apex predators. it turns out milk is so good evolutionarily that it trumps breathing water *in the ocean*

Seva@seva.bsky.social · 2mo ago

imagine the arrogance it takes to be a marine mammal. you crawl out of the vast dark ocean and onto green sunny land and decide to crawl back in again?

fish: oh hey you're back early mammal: land's haunted

Seva@seva.bsky.social · 2mo ago

imagine the arrogance it takes to be a marine mammal. you crawl out of the vast dark ocean and onto green sunny land and decide to crawl back in again?

imagine the arrogance it takes to be a marine mammal. you crawl out of the vast dark ocean and onto green sunny land and decide to crawl back in again?

when I leave the airport lounge to go to my gate and it turns out the flight is delayed

looking for movies made for grownups that kids 4-8 would enjoy. things that have worked in the past: 2001 space odyssey fantastic mr fox 400 blows modern times the red balloon yellow submarine the spirit of the beehive others?

so tired of living in the ominous first ten minutes of a scifi movie. When do we get to the second act where me and a group of friends have an exciting adventure.

about to get controversial. an average pear is worse than an average apple, but a great pear is better than a great apple

[youth pastor voice] you know who else died on a hill?

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 · 2mo ago

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?

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