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Pessimism As a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy In this week's the Europe Dispatch, Minna Ålander reflects on the dangers of demoralising elite pessimism.

phillipspobrien.substack.com/p/pessimism-...

Some much-needed corrective to an often doom-laden news cycle, especially about Europe. Would also note that this ‘elite pessimism’ also manifests in the cultural sphere by thinking their populaces are much more conservative than they really are.

Aardvarks on nature camera look like they're dancing

Text from an FAQ in Okbay et al 20222: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41588-022-01016-z a similar same statement is made in an FAQ in 2025: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.05.14.653986v1.supplementary-material Text reads: "The results of SSGAC studies have sometimes been used by online platforms, including some companies, to predict individual outcomes. We recognize that returning individual genomic “results” can be a fun way to engage people in research and other projects and to feed or stoke their interest in genomics. But it is important that participants/users understand that these individual results are not meaningful predictions and should be regarded essentially as entertainment. Failure to make this point clear risks sowing confusion and undermining trust in genetics research"

It is depressing, but all too predictable, how swiftly we’ve gone from the Social Science Genetic Association Consortium offering reassurances about the uses of behavioural polygenic scores to one of their lead authors marketing embryo selection for IQ

Well what's next, white supremacy at a Klan rally?

Liberal elites are often so convinced their own beliefs are unrepresentative of The Masses that they reflexively want to make concessions to illiberal policies that are, actually, not at all popular among The Masses

DN Debatt. "Fiaskot med textilsorteringen visar politikens haveri" DN Debatt. Lagkravet på textilsortering misslyckades. För verklig förändring krävs mer än regler – det handlar om våra vanor och hur vi värderar kläder.

"När ansvar för komplexa val läggs på individen utan att tillräckligt stöd eller struktur finns på plats, leder det sällan till hållbara resultat. I stället skapas frustration, osäkerhet och i värsta fall, som nu, ett växande sopberg."

www.dn.se/debatt/fiask...

Curate your own newspaper with RSS Escape newsletter inbox chaos and algorithmic surveillance by building your own enshittification-proof newspaper from the writers you already read

Newsletter: In a media landscape dominated by algorithmic feeds that aim to manipulate and extract, sometimes the most radical thing you can do is choose to read what you want, when you want, without anyone watching over your shoulder.

Here’s how to use RSS.
www.citationneeded.news/curate-with-...

YouTube video by saulcdr Rozalla - Lost In Your Ocean

www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKFH...

Some brit-inflected eurodance from the early 90s for a summer’s day :)

Exakt så. Högern har etablerat sin hegemoni genom att ständigt flytta gränser. Vänstern kan inte bara triangulera utan behöver förändra grunden på samma sätt.

En vänster som säger "men det här får man inte säga".
Sen efter en månad säger de det själva.
De är bara rädda för att ta första smällen.
Vi behöver inte bry oss om deras ängslighet.
Vi kör. Vi flyttar gränser.
De klagar. Men följer sedan tyst efter. När stormen lagt sig o acceptansen infunnit sig.

Analysis of simulated admixture data shows that ancestry-trait correlations can arise from environmental confounding when no genetic effect exists & be indistinguishable from a true, genetically caused correlation. Statistical controls can't fix this either! (kevinabird.github.io/CV/Bird_AABA...) 9/

‘Extreme wealth corrodes democracy’: The case for a maximum wealth limit ‘The challenge is not just that we’re seeing large and increasing inequalities across the world. The challenge is that there is a well-connected group of people who are actively rigging the political ...

The first book review of 'Limitarianism' in South Africa has just been published by Mark Heywood in The Daily Maverick:
www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2025...

A one story house sits upside-down on a dirt lot.

*looks up*
*looks down*
*looks up*
*looks down*
*turns blueprints over*

“Shit.”

National elites blaming Brussels? Never!

Funny, really.

The EU dismissed industrial policy even as China rose unchecked, only pivoting after the US launched the IRA - which was a response to China not Europe!

The EU upheld WTO rules zealously even as China ignored them for years—then abandons its religion under pressure from Trump.

No Accident: Four Structural Reasons Why the EU Did Not Get a Better Trade Deal As details on Sunday’s EU-US trade deal emerge, Europeans are split in two camps. Some believe the 15 percent tariff ceiling on most products is the best the EU could get from President Donald Trump’s...

15% tariffs, breaches of WTO rules, more tech dependency – the US deal is a far cry from what the EU wanted. This was not a one-off accident, but exposes longstanding structural weaknesses in EU trade policy that will affect any future negotiation. My analysis🧵 bst-europe.eu/economy-secu...

Though again, in Trump's case of course the protectionism isn't so much for protecting standards and equity (lower in the US anyway), but to shore up the power of national elites vis-a-vis all else.

Well, all the European startups got bought out by American companies. Now some say we just need to ape America and create the same kind of loose capitalism and overweening giants – but is the social & political dividend of that really what we want to live with? So maybe a little protection isn't bad

And as long as one can hurt the other more than themselves, one's relative position vis-a-vis the other can improve. Trump the coarse nationalist probably cares more about that than anything as basic as consumer welfare in an absolute sense.

A much more enlightened version is China's rise I'd say.

Isn't this ultimately a debate about the benefits - beyond only the economic - of protectionism? Few think Trump can really pull it off, but China certainly enjoys a geopolitical dividend from not having its IT sector dominated by FAANGs (unlike the EU!)

bsky.app/profile/fnix...

bsky.app/profile/fnix...

Rutte already waved the white flag for Europe. EU couldn’t go to the mattresses on trade with country that ensures their security. As long as Trump maintains that commitment/illusion, EU member states will pressure Commission to fold. That’s what happened here.

Interesting to see two European schools of thought developing on the EU-US trade "deal":

- realo-optimists emphasising damage limitation & EU dependence on US
- euro-sovereigntists emphasising failure to use EU tools and deter Trump with strength

Similar emergent dynamics on defence and digital.

Evergreen to shift blame to EU by national elites. I guess may be a form of saving face in front of the fact how much we depend on US militarily.

Die Linke steht in den nächsten Jahren vor der herausfordernden Verantwortung einzugestehen, dass realistischer Antifaschismus auch militärische Abwehrfähigkeit gegen die faschistoide und imperialistische Oligarchie Russlands heißt. Dann könnte es 2029 eine echte progressive Regierungsoption geben.

Better some pain for EU exporters than Russian tanks in the Baltics?

Right. Everyone talking about European vassalage, even colonization by America, leaves out the fact we don't have the hard power means for self-defense, largely because most for the longest time believed Russia and America would always be benevolent. Most all are guilty here, not just VdL & co.

It's a bit analogous to the insult & humiliation Zelensky had to infamously undergo in the White House a few months ago. But he simply didn't have the luxury to stand up and walk out if he wanted his nation to survive. EU in a similar position in the big picture. Hopefully less so after rearmament.