Yup. You just made me think of an excellent BBC doc about the topic, would highly recommend if you haven’t seen it:

Power of Nightmares

Hell no to Harris, she has negative charm every interview I’ve seen, like she has utter contempt for anyone else.

There were 4 opeds in the NYT over the weekend talking about Biden’s age, which felt remarkably candid for the elite rag it is. One of them in particular was an “interesting” idea where Biden is swapped out before the convention, but after the primaries / delegates are assigned. Democracy FTW (/s)

Now that I think about it though, why would the aides actually running the white house want a real leader? Seems like they have it pretty good as it is.

Yup, the same dynamic as the right and immigration. More to gain using as a political football instead. The tactics are from the same, cynical playbook, and partisans are happy to play along when it’s their team.

“They’re just like us!”

Definitely agree it’s not an Illuminati cabal meeting in hoods and masks.

But it’s not not that either - there’s lots of overlap on boards of directors and VCs invested in these companies. They’re in the same circles and probably play golf together. Or, they hang out on the tarmac before their Davos keynotes on saving the world.

Mission Accomplished?

/s

Great call out, I’ve been keeping up with that saga and it seems things never change when it comes to the US state department.

I’m beginning to feel that the instability caused by US hegemony is a feature, not a bug.

This rhetoric is insane and imaginary considering a number of constraints - army mobilization force, their failure to “eliminate” Hamas, escalating and fighting actual armies like Hezbollah. Even the prison ghetto policy obviously failed on October 7th, so what is the substance of their proposed policy here?

Although I suppose if all they need to do is be “parking lot” security guards it could be pretty quiet.

I really hope the US isn’t dumb enough to volunteer our service members to be their new police force.

Years of Saudi air strikes with US weapons systems ended in a victory for the Houthis. Not to mention causing one of the worst humanitarian situations of the 21st century.

WTF does the US think it’s gonna do other than escalate the situation (and continue the next record breaking humanitarian crisis)?

Ahh, interesting to read about the technique, thanks for the link. For anyone else curious, here’s a TLDR quote:

In 2021, researchers at Germany’s Technical University of Darmstadt reported that they had devised practical ways to crack what Apple calls the identity hashes used to conceal identities while AirDrop determines if a nearby person is in the contacts of another. One of the researchers’ attack methods relies on rainbow tables.

Why would China announce their zero day exploit to the Internet? FUDD.

“You can’t trust those iPhones, only trust Chinese company phones”. – CCP, probably

Great power competition / military industrial complex . AI is a pretty vague term, but practically it could be used to describe drone swarming technology, cyber warfare, etc.

Ha, I always knew this concept as PEBKAC - problem exists between keyboard and chair.

I see a number of things on your list I also enjoy (and some I haven’t seen so thanks for the recs!).

I’ve got a pretty long list, but I think only the first three are scifi in the space faring long run series sense. Including some others in the genre more broadly, in case any look interesting too:

• The Final Architecture, Adrian Tchaikovsky
• Altered Carbon, Richard K Morgan
• A deepness in the sky, Vernor Vinge
• The Acts of Caine, Matthew Stover
• Roadside Picnic, Arkady Strugatsky
• Broken Earth Trilogy, NK Jemison
• Nexus Trilogy, Ramez Naam
• Old man’s War, John Scalzi

Ditto on the Becky Chambers series. I actually liked the second book the most narratively, and if the OP likes Murderbot, they may really enjoy similar themes around artificial intelligence. I also really liked the final installment. It’s a familiar setup with strangers locked in a room together, but I found it very meditative. Also, it wraps up one series character’s journey to a decision that I found very profound.

Finally. The concept of war crimes being fairly applied, rather than used as a political tool, is easily dismissed when looking at a career like that of Kissinger.

I really enjoyed Behind the Bastard’s six part series on the man, would highly recommend for anyone interested in learning more.

I’m pretty sure that Amazon tried to do this with Kindle a few years ago and got sued by book publishers.

Ahh, it was audible.

It’s only a matter of time though before this sort of thing is ruled on and deals are inked. Open source is already getting pretty far too.

Yeah, modern CPU production is incredible and a pet interest of mine lately. I’d highly recommend the Asianometry YT channel if anyone wants to go deep.

https://youtube.com/@Asianometry

Thanks for sharing. I appreciate the coverage of actual diplomatic motions and communications. We are certainly moving out of the pax Americana and into a new multi-polar global order. At this point, I’ll be happy as long as it doesn’t end in nuclear confrontation / apocalypse.