“war has a way of creating a dynamic you don't control by changing the incentives in ways that can make things you would never have considered possible at the beginning seem inevitable later.” ~Philippe Lemoine www.philippelemoine.com/p/a-few-thou...

“There is a greater disparity among the richest 10 percent of Brazilians than among the remaining 90 percent of the population.” ~Rodrigo Toneto www.phenomenalworld.org/analysis/fis...

somewhere in these ashes there is a phoenix.

drafts.interfluidity.com/2024/09/04/i...

what if the strait just stays closed and the price encourages alternative supply?

a thing about the American electoral system is voters are given so few choices, it’s impossible to distinguish the degree to which votes represent preferences aligned with those they vote for vs dyspreferences against the few (most often one) meaningful alternatives.

the guilty massacre the guilty. and then the tables are turned.

if you define victory in term of destruction of the other side, then war becomes a positive sum game, both sides simultaneously can be victors!

july 4, 2026 would be a great day to convict and remove. see @cathygellis.bsky.social ht @davidakaye.bsky.social

if the alternative is escalation, i could eat TACOs every day.

Word of the day: “agnotology…the study of deliberate, culturally cultivated ignorance or doubt, typically to sell a product, influence opinion, or win favour, particularly thru the publication of inaccurate or misleading scientific data.” en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnotol... via @kevinbaker.bsky.social

To when would you date the beginning of the US turn to revisionism? I say it predates Trump, that a bit ironically the “people for a new american century” became its pioneers. When they thought they were asserting American power, they were undermining it.

surrealism hasn't usually been so bleak.

sometimes when you rip off the bandaid you just bleed out.

suffering is bad and should be prevented.

the iran war has changed the character of my sleep. and my sleep was not of admirable character to begin with.

i don’t really get, what would be the point of seizing Kharg Island? if it would be to strangle Iran’s ability to generate revenue from oil sales, can’t you just do that the way Iran does it to everyone else, by kettling the ships or disabling the pipelines that would transport the oil?

Hopeful, but not impossible! The original web seemed liberating, but it had subtle affordances that promoted scale and domination. It might not be likely, but it’s conceivable that the inverse is true of LLMs.

Is it a good outcome or a bad outcome if the result of Trump’s Iran venture is “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em”, if Trump finds an arrangement mutually beneficial (among corrupt elites) under which both sides accommodate and support one another’s domination of and emoluments from their home states?

brilliant indeed, by @kevinbaker.bsky.social.