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Founder of the Free Software Movement and the GNU Project, original author of GNU Emacs and the GNU General Public License, and long-time president of the Free Software Foundation.

• https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/aug/13/ukraine-cathedrals-gaza-archives-iran-erase-history-war https://stallman.org/archives/2025-jul-oct.html#23_October_2025_(oldest_urban_centres_on_planet_gaza_history) *Ukrainian cathedrals, Gaza’s archives, Iranian squares - modern war is systematically erasing human history [in places which are bombarded].* Israel's bombardment of Gaza has destroyed many centuries-old buildings.

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Economist; writes In My Tribe, and wrote The Three Languages of Politics.

• Carter’s end

  A Presidency falls to Iran and Afghanistan

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Economics professor at the University of California, Berkeley and a former Deputy Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury. Author of Slouching Towards Utopia and writer of the Grasping Reality newsletter.

• Osama bin Laden’s one concrete strategic goal was to end the American military presence in the Gulf and on the Arabian Peninsula. A generation later, Donald Trump’s war on Iran has apparently delivered it for him: **(SEMI-)CROSSPOST: RICK PERLSTEIN: Bush’s War Is Finally Over: Al Qaeda Has Won** & U.S. airstrikes are apparently now being launched off of carriers supplied from Diego Garcia 3000 miles away from Tehran, and from Muwaffaq Salti in Jordan 900 miles from Tehran… 1/

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Forecaster, founder of FiveThirtyEight, author of The Signal and the Noise and On the Edge. Writes Silver Bulletin, where the predictions come with numbers and the numbers are later checked against what happened.

• How popular is the Iran War?

  Silver Bulletin approval ratings for the ongoing conflict.

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Founder and CEO of Social Capital, a venture firm; co-host of the All-In podcast and an early Facebook executive. Writes an annual letter and a weekly newsletter on markets and technology.

• JD Vance on AI, Entitlement Fraud, Iran War, Israel, H-1B Abuse & the Midterms

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President of the European Commission since 2019; previously Germany's defence minister.

• I condemn the Houthi attack against Saudi Arabia. We stand in solidarity with our Gulf partners in the face of relentless attacks by Iran’s proxies. We will continue working with our partners for safe, free navigation through the Strait of Hormuz and for stability in the Middle East. We all have a stake in this.

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Founder and former CEO of Zynga, the social-games company behind FarmVille, Zynga Poker and Words with Friends; says he founded ten companies in all, and wrote Life at the Speed of Play.

• Wheres the hollywood celebs? @RoKhanna @SenSanders . This is actual state run torture and killing of innocent civilians. Why does nobody care about the atrocities occurring in Iran right now?
  Quoting@visegrad24Iranian twin sisters Taraneh and Romina Rahimi were beaten until their faces were badly swollen and bruised, suffered broken elbows, knuckles and feet, and had much of their hair ripped out as they were dragged between prison cells. Taraneh has now been sentenced to death by hanging, while Romina w…

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Economics professor at the University of California, Berkeley and a former Deputy Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury. Author of Slouching Towards Utopia and writer of the Grasping Reality newsletter.

• CROSSPOST: DAN DREZNER: The Trump Administration Strategy Fail

  Dan’s subheadline: “They have no idea what they are doing in Iran or Canada”; it’s Trump who draws parallels between Canadian clown-show-tiff-of-choice & killing nearly all of Iran’s leaders...

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Economic historian at Columbia; writes Chartbook on economics, geopolitics and history, and wrote Crashed and The Deluge.

• Top Links 1220 European bond worries. Iran oil squeeze. The toughest prisoner of them all & guitar Baroque.

  Great links, images, and reading from Chartbook Newsletter by Adam Tooze

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Economics professor at the University of California, Berkeley and a former Deputy Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury. Author of Slouching Towards Utopia and writer of the Grasping Reality newsletter.

• Interest Rate-Hike Expectations: CHART OF THE DAY

  Expected short-term interest rates in 2028 are one percentage-point higher than they would have been otherwise because of Trump’s war on Iran. Is that a big shift or a small one?

  interest ratesRelated

Economist; Ronald A. Kurtz Professor of Entrepreneurship at MIT Sloan, former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, and co-author of 13 Bankers and Power and Progress.

• When Will the Iran War End? - Power and Consequences Episode 27 https://t.co/qiVPrg6mMH via @YouTube Not soon - expect oil prices to stay high and volatile

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Zurich-based value investor who ran the Aquamarine Fund from 1997 to 2025 and wrote The Education of a Value Investor. He hosts the VALUEx gathering in Klosters and publishes a podcast and newsletter.

• The Iran that I know and love
  Quoting@DrNeilStoneBeautiful song Beautiful culture Beautiful talented people of Iran Both murdered by the regime in January 2026

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Economics professor at the University of California, Berkeley and a former Deputy Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury. Author of Slouching Towards Utopia and writer of the Grasping Reality newsletter.

• Paul Krugman’s Substack has become essential reading, and this piece exemplifies why: a clean takedown of the Trump-Bessent claim that Ukraine and “the conflict Iran” bear responsibility for high fuel prices today: **CROSSPOST: PAUL KRUGMAN: Imperialist Delusions & the Price of Fuel** Paul’s subheadline: “Trump & Bessent tried to betray Ukraine. Now they don’t have any cards”… https://braddelong.substack.com/p/crosspost-paul-krugman-imperialist > 2026-09-03

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Economist; Ronald A. Kurtz Professor of Entrepreneurship at MIT Sloan, former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, and co-author of 13 Bankers and Power and Progress.

• Can the U.S.-Iran conflict be resolved without China’s help? We think not:

  project-syndicate.org

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Economist; Ronald A. Kurtz Professor of Entrepreneurship at MIT Sloan, former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, and co-author of 13 Bankers and Power and Progress.

• New podcast episode: https://t.co/CA0rp35ZIf US-Iran War ends when China decides to help broker a deal (not soon)

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Political scientist writing Drezner's World on international relations, American politics and the marketplace of ideas; author of The Ideas Industry.

• Donald Trump Gives Up on American Foreign Policy

  His administration cannot win in Iran and he is not even trying anywhere else.

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Professor of international affairs at Johns Hopkins SAIS and co-author, with Abraham Newman, of Underground Empire: How America Weaponized the World Economy.

• The U.S. is still weaponizing dollars. Just not against Iran

  Dollar power is not in danger ... yet

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Economist; Professor of the Practice of Economic Policy at Harvard, nonresident senior fellow at the Peterson Institute, and Chairman of the US Council of Economic Advisers from 2013 to 2017.

• PCE inflation came in high. And the details were even more worrying than the headline as the risk of inflation mounting outside the tariff/Iran affected sectors. Core PCE annual rate: 1 month: 3.9% 3 months: 3.5% 6 months: 4.1% 12 months: 3.4%

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Writer and podcaster; co-author of Abundance with Ezra Klein, a staff writer at The Atlantic from 2008 to 2025, and host of the Plain English podcast.

• The U.S. Went to War to Take Away Iran's Superweapon. It Gave Iran a New One.

  Trump lost the country. The U.S. lost a half-hearted war. Israel lost an ally. The Middle East lost the illusion of security. Asia lost growth. Global trade lost a dependable artery.

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General partner at Andreessen Horowitz from 2013 to 2018 and CTO of Coinbase from 2018 to 2019; co-founder of Counsyl and Earn.com. Wrote The Network State (2022), free in full at thenetworkstate.com, and founded the Network School.

• (1) Most countries do not actually have a military. Instead, most countries outsource their security to the US (most common), to Russia (like Belarus), or to China (like North Korea, partially). Iran is unusual in that they're going it largely alone. They're also unusual in that they actually appear to be winning. And if Iran does manage to drive the US out of not just Afghanistan and Iraq, but the entire Middle East, they'll have unfortunately undermined the idea that America can or will provide any security guarantees at all. (2) So, with the withdrawal of the American Empire, every country…

  whitehouse.gov

  Quoting@Madeline_ZimmRoman Helmet Guy gets it. Reminds me of my book review of Balaji’s Network State, wherein I argue that yes, we still need the military 🤡

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Computer scientist and director of the MIT Digital Currency Initiative; her research covers distributed systems, databases and digital currency.

• How is it possible for Iran to collect dollars?
  Quoting@IranIntl_EnThe Central Bank of Iran has opened four accounts in rials, yuan, US dollars, and euros to receive toll payments collected by the Revolutionary Guard's Navy, a senior lawmaker said on Monday. Parliament will move to make the toll system binding law at its first session by approving a bill titled “H…

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Writes Very Serious, a newsletter on politics, the economy and culture, and hosts the podcast of the same name.

• Trump Is Failing the 'Big-Ass Truck' Test

  Trump's bargain with swing voters was that he would deliver a strong economy and they would look past his many defects. By attacking Iran, Trump has broken the deal.

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Founded Bridgewater Associates in 1975 and led it until stepping back from control in 2022. Author of Principles, The Changing World Order and How Countries Go Broke; publishes economic analysis at economicprinciples.org.

• The Big Thing: We Are In A World War That Isn’t Going To End Anytime Soon.

  For today, that is most importantly that the US-Israel-Iran war is just part of a world war that we are in and that isn’t going to end anytime soon.

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Professor of finance at NYU's Stern School of Business, known for his work on valuation. He publishes his data, spreadsheets and classes free at Damodaran Online and writes the Musings on Markets blog.

• The Market's Narrative: How Investors are pricing in the Iran War!

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Economist; Ronald A. Kurtz Professor of Entrepreneurship at MIT Sloan, former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, and co-author of 13 Bankers and Power and Progress.

• Direct link to today’s podcast episode: After Venezuela and Iran… Is Greenland Next? Both audio and recommended additional reading:

  powerandconsequences.com

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• Given what happened in Venezuela and what is currently happening in Iran… is Greenland next? Gary Gensler and I discuss in the latest episode of our podcast, Power and Consequences. Available wherever you prefer to get your podcasts

  podcasts.apple.com

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Independent AI policy researcher; led policy research at OpenAI from 2018 to 2024, latterly as senior adviser for AGI readiness.

• Iran and the opportunities and limits of an “IAEA for AI”

  The situation in Iran shows why an IAEA for AI would not be sufficient to prevent AI-related international crises.

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