Connections #1

Links with little commentary

Writing is thinking. There’s more than a little to be said for buckling down and trying to figure out in words, sentences, and paragraphs the ideas swirling around in one’s own mind. I’m very grateful to have the opportunity to jot down and share my musings here with all of you.

But sometimes there’s more swirling going on — in the discourse as well as in the longer term projects that are brewing — than I can manage to wrap my head around and actually write about with any kind of coherence. In such occasions, I hope you don’t mind if I share links that I’m alternatively pondering, need to read again, vehemently disagree with, am jealous I didn’t write myself, and so on. It is left as an exercise to the reader to distinguish which is which. Please leave a comment here if you see connections or if this list makes you think of something else that needs to be added to my reading pile.

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1. Henry Farrell has quickly become the definitive chronicler and theorist of the AI and Silicon Valley world’s that are increasingly remaking our own. This missive is an important one.

The Sorrowful Tale of the Dread Pirate Roberts

2. I’ve already praised Heatmap’s coverage of the Trump era in my last post, but I’ll just share one more from Robinson Meyer here: Trump’s Energy Agenda Is Uninhibited — and Incoherent.

   What we learned about “energy dominance” on Day One.

3. Adam Tooze’s LRB review of More and More and More: Trouble Transitioning

4. Ed Luce’s Lunch with the FT with the sunny historian Doris Kearns Goodwin gives a fun spin to “I’ll have what she’s having.”

5. Samantha Hancox-Li in Liberal Currents, which I have to agree with Chris Hayes has been killing it recently, has this indictment of the Democratic Party elites, particularly on governance in blue states. The Crisis of Democratic Governance

   State Democrats have failed to deliver what the American people want.

6. The iconoclastic Branko Milanovic pulls no punches here.

How the mainstream abandoned universal economic principles

7. Robert F. Worth’s 2020 profile of the UAE’s Mohammed bin Zayed (MBZ). Mohammed bin Zayed’s Dark Vision of the Middle East’s Future

   The enigmatic leader of the U.A.E. may soon emerge as the region’s most powerful figure. What does he really want?

8. Amna K. Akbar in n+1: Malm and Mangione

   What will it take?

9. Kevin Elliott’s bluesky posts on his political typology Three Games of Politics