Filipe Campante

The problem with the horse-race coverage of Trump II is that, across the board, he is destroying nonzero sum arrangements: rule of law, institutions, collective goods, trade relationships, alliances.

So what the media portrays as a win for Trump is usually a net loss for everyone, including the US.

Katie Ledecky continues her reign in 800-meter freestyle in thrilling race at worlds

Go Porpoises!

www.nytimes.com/athletic/653... Katie Ledecky continues her reign in 800-meter freestyle in thrilling race at worlds

Not to pick on anyone in particular, but here’s why the positive responses to the Columbia “deal” were so obviously and predictably misguided. There is no “settlement” possible, only an unending loop of blackmail.

Favoring friends and disfavoring who supports the opposition? “Well, it’s always like that, right?”Gerrymandering to make it hard for the opposition to win? “Oldest trick in the book!” Interfering about independent agencies? “Do you remember that presidents X and Y complained about them too?”

Thinking more about this, and you see that the success of the “competitive” approach to authoritarianism comes from how it takes features of a normal democratic system, and just stretches them beyond recognition. But that process allows things to feel “normal” along the way.

It’s striking how the workings of a competitive authoritarian system have already been internalized by the mainstream political press. It is now officially “politics as usual”.

The speed with which the US is going full Peronist is nothing short of breathtaking.

Incorrect. Germany 7-1 Brazil in 2014 was the actual event that broke the space-time continuum, the Cubs winning — plus Leicester City winning the Premier League, Brexit, Trump, and all the rest — it all flows from that.

I said this months ago. Those who were counting on a Trump-induced economic meltdown saving democracy had the wrong model in their heads. www.nytimes.com/2025/07/31/o...

bsky.app/profile/fili...

I can prove to you that the US Constitution is fatally flawed & requires replacement.

All agree that any minimally adequate form of government must include a way to remove a chief executive for flagrant misconduct. Impeachment is the US's main way to do that, but it's entirely broken.

Their common ideology is authoritarianism. They both believe very deeply in it.

‘The Naked Gun’ Review: A Chip Off the Old Blockhead

Se isso aqui no Brasil não se chamar “Corra Que A Polícia Vem Aí De Novo”, é que a coisa anda mal… www.nytimes.com/2025/07/31/m...

A college football player named Dude Person

Proposal to replace "John Doe" with this

I will not be surprised if (when?) we learn that there was unusual trading in Embraer shares before the announcement of the tariff exception.

And the good graduate students wouldn't put up with that system either, bc competition would mean that they could get paid to write their papers without sharing credit, in the absence of a real capital input into the research.

The thing is, in lab sciences the lab matters *a lot* for the quality of the output. Work in the social sciences is more human-capital intensive, hence if you were to pay the graduate students and get credit on their papers, the papers would probably not be as good. That's why it doesn't happen.

That's not my point. If you could use the ERC grant to pay for other people to write papers and then you get credit for them, the research output would be sustained.

Absolutely. My sense is that, with the "deadwood" exceptions that certainly exist, everyone in (serious) academia is working their a**es off all the time. It's just a different mix of where the work is going, who gets credit for what, etc.

No one is coasting, it's different technologies that call for different kinds of input and output.

It would be equally misleading to think that the lab science professors are coasting on the work of their students and post-docs. When capital is important for research, the investment that creates it (getting + managing grants, etc.) is really important.

Bc they get more grants. Again: capital allowing for the maintenance of research output.

I think it's very misleading to point at this and say "aha, people start coasting after tenure in the woke humanities and social sciences!" -- which, I'm afraid, is definitely what will happen.

The simple explanation is: any discipline where research is capital-intensive allows for the maintenance of research output, bc the pre-tenure period created the capital (i.e. the lab) that will be used later. Other responsibilities crowd out research output when research is labor-intensive.

Eu sei, mas não estou vendo vídeo lá no conteúdo deles...

Tem uma versão desse vídeo com legenda em inglês, por acaso??

Trump has a lot of quislings in the academy and such, but a lot of very powerful institutions simply can't believe what is happening. they stand there like a jacklighted deer going "buhh? guhh?" while MAGA draws a bead on their forehead bsky.app/profile/unav...

And mind you, I’m sure Lula loves this framing, because he’s quite naturally using Trump’s truculence to his own political advantage. But it’s incorrect, and it assumes that the rule of law in Brazil is as frayed as it is in the US — and right now, believe it or not, it is stronger.

Americans may be unused to the notion, but the Brazilian president can’t order anyone to drop a prosecution. There can’t be anything like an Eric Adams case in Brazil, the executive has no role in any of this.

No One Is Defying Trump Like Brazil’s President

I’m sorry, but that is yet again very bad framing by the @nytimes.com. To say that Lula is “defying Trump” when Trump’s ask is stopping Bolsonaro’s prosecution, that’s BS. Lula literally *cannot* do that. www.nytimes.com/2025/07/30/w...

This is a really terrific piece that reads like an American tragedy: a smart and curious young man interested in history and technology bought into the online far-right ideas about govt and used his talents to eviscerate it.

Some thoughts 🧵