Maia

if karl popper was alive today he'd write one of those inexplicably lengthy airport books that's 70% liberal triumphalism about how things are better than in 1765 and 30% whining about stupid cancel culture bullshit

anthropic should rename claude for different nations like those ethnic trader joe's sub-brands. i have taken to calling it "claudio"

"war of choice" is the "unalive" version of war of aggression

Time to End the American-Israeli Alliance Alliances are built on shared interests. Those do not exist here.

time to cut em loose prospect.org/2026/03/05/i...

the rejection of international binding rules and an impersonal international order built on the fundamental equality of peoples and nations was (and is) a cornerstone of fascism

In defence of hand-wringers and pearl-clutchers To surrender the fight for international law is to accept worse outcomes and more civilian deaths

"Simply sighing in response to the new facts of life will not do. To surrender the fight for (admittedly imperfect) international rules is to accept worse outcomes and more civilian deaths" - terrific column by @robertshrimsley.bsky.social:

there's fundamentally a flawed understanding of the public where people just believe what they're told by party bosses, but centristly, and would never dare disagree with or desert them

Curbing the influence of criminals on public officials Better pay for politicians is associated with less corruption in public procurement.

Higher wages reduced corrupt procurement practices among Italian municipal executives, but increased the likelihood that those officials were subjected to criminal attacks, say researchers at Università Roma Tre and NYU. #econsky www.aeaweb.org/research/cha...

Bro a *majority* of people believe the UK shouldn't even defend itself *at all*. The bloodthirst of the establishment, especially when it comes to Muslims, is insane and unbelievable

well, today in floridly depressing news: the French helpline for female victims of male violence is facing "coordinated" attacks from men's rights activists, who keep calling up in the hope of making it harder for women to reach their services

okay so grey market chinese supplements are okay but vaccines and hormones are "untested" these people just think we're all stupid

I'm generally in favor of letting people take what they want (with appropriate warnings, limits on false marketing, and purity/quality assurances) but these peptides aren't benign. They blind and kill people, and they will be gray market imports with no assurance of quality or purity.

google gemini users / claude users

bro what

Great post on the emergence of clinical trials!
This section makes me wonder about "professionalization" in science in general. I do feel like many parts of the research process in my field are...surprisingly dilettantish.>

yeah, couldn't read it atm so bookmarked. that's a dynamic you see all the time - countless viral tweets on the tenor of "bad bunny doesn't represent me, i'm white and european, he's some savage banging a drum"

if only they hadn't been alienated by progressive issue positions on gender and race

a very important and completely unacknowledged part of this is "latin american racial relations" where people americans consider the same ethnicity don't actually see themselves that way - they see their own people as white and the others as some old timey slur

people didn't openly acknowledge musk was basically a nazi until like two months ago. he posted "you are saying the actual truth" to a nazi saying jews were behind the great replacement in 2022

if only they hadn't been inspired by progressive issue positions on gender and race

they will get away with it because europe has resigned itself to be a senescent, servile vassal state of the american, whatever their imperial endeavors

The surprising gender gap at the heart of America’s baby bust Gen Z men want kids. Gen Z women have questions.

Gen Z men want kids. Gen Z women have questions. www.vox.com/podcasts/480...

joining the war between lektion and selektion on the side of selektion

sophie ellis bextor, chappell roan, pinkpantheress and charli xcx are the exact same phenomenon, a nobody with a niche audience becoming a mainstream sensation through a single hit (viral) song

the “aesthetics of refusal” part here is very haunting but i would add a third bit of nostalgia: the moment before we realized that we would spend the rest of our lives dealing with the consequences of the digital equivalent of lead/asbestos/radium being stuffed everywhere

i feel like *music* is as strong as ever but the traditional music industry infrastructure is completely secondary to it. careers are made (and ended) by a single viral tiktok

The economics of night-time work [FREE TO READ] How the hours we spend at our job have changed over the years

This week I wrote about night-time work, which time-use surveys suggest has been (slowly) falling out of favour in the US.

as.ft.com/r/516c2024-c...

GO WOKE OR GO BROKE

germany is probably the most insane country on earth, some guy saying the iran war will raise their gdp growth by 0.5