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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.

• Our readingkorrents.com

  Marco Rubio is struggling to hire talented staff and is settling for loyalists who follow his instructions instead.

  America

  Their words

  This suggests that Rubio is having some difficulties hiring anyone with talent and is settling for a putz who will do what Rubio tells him to do on Latin America.

  The Devolution of the Policy Planning Staffdanieldrezner.substack.com

Economist and Nobel laureate. Wrote a New York Times column for 25 years until December 2024 and now publishes several times a week on Substack.

• Our readingkorrents.com

  Reducing trade deficits and reviving manufacturing would not end the resentment fueling right-wing authoritarian movements.

  Their words

  Crude economic factors don’t explain the fascist shift in Germany. And Trumponomics, even if it worked (which it doesn’t) wouldn’t end the resentment feeding our own authoritarian movement.

  Neo-Nazis and the Impotence of Trumponomicspaulkrugman.substack.com

Economist specialising in global income inequality; formerly lead economist in the World Bank research department, now at the CUNY Graduate Center and author of the Global Inequality and More newsletter.

• Lovedrcmnd.app

  The Coming Storm: Power, Conflict, and Warnings from History

  Their words

  It is a quick read, an excellent book whose main virtue is not, in my opinion, direct analogy with the World War I, but a treatment of how in a multipolar world relatively small international events, misunderstandings, idiosyncratic fits of leaders, “hubris and fear” (as Westad often writes), resentment of the elite and of the public prodded by the media, can produce colossal miscalculations which then produce even more colossal wars and, in the era of the weapons of mass destruction, may end the civilization.

  branko2f7.substack.com

Writer and teacher on productivity and personal knowledge management. Author of Building a Second Brain and founder of Forte Labs, which runs the course of the same name.

• Our readingkorrents.com

  Under rising uncertainty, people should shorten their planning horizon rather than invest in a distant future.

  Their words

  When uncertainty rises, your horizon should become shorter-term.

  fortelabs.com

Founded CD Baby in 1998 and sold it in 2008, giving the proceeds to a charitable trust for music education. Since then a writer and speaker: five books and 550+ articles, published first at sive.rs, which they hand-code and keep free of advertising.

• Our readingkorrents.com

  Facts deployed as weapons in an argument can win the exchange without settling the disagreement.

  Their words

  Facts can win a battle but not a war.

  What is “the truth” really for?sive.rs

Vice chairman of Ogilvy & Mather Group, the advertising agency; author of Alchemy (2019) and the Wiki Man columnist at The Spectator.

• Our readingkorrents.com

  Giving technologists and management consultants power over decisions optimises a business for something far from what its customers care about.

  Their words

  When you allow tech bros too much power over decision-making along with their running dog lackey in kind of management consultancy, you're optimizing for something which may be very very distant from what your real world customers really care about.

  youtube.com

Software engineer and engineering leader at Canonical, working on Ubuntu; writes about his homelab, Nix and tooling at jnsgr.uk.

• Usesrcmnd.app

  Starship

  Their words

  I switched to zsh around 2013 and have used it every day since: starting with the infamous Oh My Zsh, powerlevel9k, and subsequently powerlevel10k, and finally settling on Starship with a couple of zsh plugins such as zsh-autosuggestions and zsh-syntax-highlighting.

  jnsgr.uk

Writer on a lost civilisation of the Ice Age; wrote Fingerprints of the Gods and presented Ancient Apocalypse. Archaeologists reject the claims, which he disputes at length.

• Our readingkorrents.com

  The same afterlife journey along the Milky Way turns up in cultures too distant in space and time to have shared it, so it is an inheritance from one remote common source rather than a coincidence.

  Their words

  And I don’t feel that that can be a coincidence. I feel that what we are looking at is an inheritance of an idea, a legacy that’s been passed down from a remote common source to cultures all around the world, and that has taken on a life of its own within those cultures.

  youtube.com

First Amendment lawyer and former federal prosecutor; writes The Popehat Report and explains what the law actually says when people shout about free speech.

• Our readingkorrents.com

  The cancel-culture argument now mostly shields the powerful from criticism rather than protecting the powerless from being silenced.

  Their words

  In my view, too many critics of “cancel culture” are recklessly promoting not the speech of the powerless, but the censorious resentment of the powerful.

  My Free Speech Means You Have To Shut Uppopehat.substack.com

Deep-learning researcher and Turing Award laureate; founder of the Mila institute.

• Our reading nowkorrents.com

  AI research is on a good trajectory overall — good for science and good for society — and existential concerns will only become relevant in the distant future.

  Their words, before

  Reading the book had not changed my fundamental belief that, in balance, we were on a good trajectory with AI research: good for science and good for society with expected positive impacts in many domains.

  Their words now

  I now believe that I was wrong and short-sighted to ignore that dual-use nature. I also think I was not paying enough attention to the possibility of losing control to superhuman AIs.