The world this week feels like a different one than the one we lived in last week. A little darker. A little weaker.
The flag are at half-staff not just for 9/11, but for Charlie Kirk. He was murdered doing the thing that made him beloved, debating anyone in open civic debate. Because when we stop talking, that’s when violence happens. The shooter is still at large. MSNBC pundits said some things, one was fired. Trump gave a statement or two. But Charlie’s words are best right now.
Unfortunately, that wasn’t the only heinous murder recorded on video. Ukranian Iryna Zarutska was murdered for no reason by someone arrested 14 times. The judge who last released him had no law background and no judicial experience. But what’s most terrifying is that nobody reacted. She sat there and bled out. Nobody helped for over a minute.
I don’t know what to do with either of these. Stalin famously said, “a single death is a tragedy, a million deaths are a statistic.” There are many tragedies today, Gaza and Ukraine chief among them. But I am not a believer in Peter Singer, and so these hit closer to home here, along with Annunciation, or the Minnesota politicians. These all feel like a part of the ongoing suicide of the West.
Were there other things this week? Dear God yes. Russian tested NATO with attack drones over Polish airspace and the Polish Prime Minister was not having it. And then fighters were deployed over the Baltics. France is deploying forces to Poland. Ukraine responds. Israel strikes at Hamas in Doha, Qatar.
Meanwhile, Nepal overthrows its government and the PM resigns. The French government collapses for the second time this year, and there are riots. Le Pen is excited. Banksy shows up with a new piece on the judiciary and the UK tries to remove it so quickly they make it better. Job numbers are down a lot.
Cargo falls off a ship. Oracle proves the AI bubble hasn’t burst yet, netting Ellison $100 billion net worth in a day. Trump stares at protesters at a DC restaurant. The iPhone is now orange. And thin. And AirPods that do auto-translation. Claude can do stuff now, if you trust it. SpaceX acquires EchoStar and their spectrum to go direct-to-cell. A lady steals a baseball from a kid and becomes Gollum. Sam Altman talks to Tucker and it gets dark.
I’ll be signing off Twitter for awhile now. The algorithms are tearing us apart.
St. Pier Giorgio Frassati and St. Carlo Acutis, pray for us.
On to the reading.
Timely
Words are not violence - “Don't give up, don't give in. Keep debating.”
College students increasingly believe violence is justifiable to stop speech - It’s not that we fail to live up to our aspirations, it’s that we’ve inverted what we even aspire to.
The death of the corporate job - There is opportunity in the emptiness.
When Countries Snap: Nepal's Breaking Point is a Warning and Example - A reminder if you think it can’t happen.
Timeless
Hillbilly Elegy: Disney Edition - A proper shaming if you’ve ever wondered how to think about all those fat, poor people at Disney.
Yes, Virginia, Bitcoin is a Risk Asset - Bitcoin is a belief and not an idea.
How To Think About AI Progress - Tyler Cowen on the coming capability fork.
The Clash of Civilizations? - A classic essay from Sam Huntington who said 30 years ago that “the conflicts of the future will occur along the cultural fault lines separating civilizations.”
Books
Cynical Theories: How Activist Scholarship Made Everything about Race, Gender, and Identity―and Why This Harms Everybody by Helen Pluckrose and James Lindsay - A readable history of how some interesting ideas from the Frankfurt school and postmodernism morphed and evolved into critical theory and a focus on power dynamics and then spread through academia.
Tweets
Some good ones, so you don’t need to scroll
Yes, the world is still amazing. Cheers!