Tom Goldsmith

"Ultimately, there is a real need to reshape the innovation discourse in Canada and its underlying power structures. We must move away from the constructed fictions that maintain a flawed status quo and towards a discourse and power structure that benefits real people across the country and beyond." Tom Goldsmith: Reflections on Said's "Orientalism" orbitpolicy.substack.com

I reflect on my rereading of Edward Said’s “Orientalism” and its relevance to understanding major events and trends worldwide, as well as how we can use it to think about Canadian innovation.

Reflections on Said's "Orientalism" Its relevance to understanding our present moment and to how we think about innovation in Canada in 2026

I get well into the weeds in this one: open.substack.com/pub/orbitpol...

Good thread on the masculinization of coding work, and how "AI agents" deepen the idea that coding as an IC is wholly individualistic.

Anthropic safety researcher quits, warning ‘world is in peril’ Other AI safety researchers have also left leading firms, citing concerns about potentially catastrophic risks.

The problems with AI are primarily ones of corporate power and governance—a tiny handful of billionaires are deciding the future of this increasingly powerful technology.

I tend to believe the whistleblowers here; but whether you do or not, the real problem is that the public doesn’t decide.

What they're drunk on is 1. conflating writing a check with actually *creating things and 2. being enamored with brutally predatory guys who are very loud. Their list has *multiple* repeat sexual predators. Multiple genocide enablers & advocates of fascism. These people PREVENT innovation.

Forbes 250: America’s Greatest Innovators The Forbes Innovator 250: America's Greatest Innovators showcases the visionaries shaping our future. Find the full list of great minds and the mark they are leaving on our history.

Time Magazine simply *does not know what innovation is*. The person who invented the spreadsheet, who invented the protocol that underpins the Internet, who pioneered DJ culture — all are living Americans. More importantly, the "lone genius" is a toxic lie... www.forbes.com/sites/alexkn...

Getting off US tech: a guide I’m in the process of dropping US tech services. Here’s how I did it, and options you should consider.

A big hat tip to @parismarx.com's excellent guide to getting off US tech, which was invaluable as I explored different options for services over the past 6 or 7 months. disconnect.blog/getting-off-...

Shunning Big Tech and Firms Complicit in Harm Aligning our words with our actions at an individual level.

Part of believing that words and actions need to align is practicing it ourselves. No one is perfect, but there are many ways we can build collective power to shape events, including through how we spend our money.

open.substack.com/pub/orbitpol...

one obama era hire, one trump 1st term hire, both served thru biden's run. fully trained for years. kind of a massive flaw in the argument that dems can restrain and retrain the gestapo and reform it.

Union questions why Global Affairs issuing layoff warnings before policy review Thousands of employees at Global Affairs Canada have been issued notices warning they may lose their jobs, months before a foreign policy review is completed to give the department updated priorities.

Canada: 2,600 of the 7,600 foreign affairs ministry staff have received layoff notices

There’s still no foreign policy or national security policy

But Carney did a pivotal speech at Davos so there’s that

cheknews.ca/union-questi...

I wrote for The Star about Carney delivering a pivotal speech about new global partnerships, then immediately laying off the very people who build said partnerships

www.thestar.com/opinion/cont...

Innovation, Power, and Politics On the importance of grappling with the systems underneath.

While we may wish that innovation could be separated from politics, that is impossible. Who gets to innovate, which innovations are developed, and what values they embody are questions where politics and power are inescapable. We have to grapple with that.

open.substack.com/pub/orbitpol...

Dear Prime Minister Carney: Following your speech in Davos many Canadians are watching to see if your government's actions align with your words. Surely your government knows about the role of AI in Israel's genocide in Gaza? 972mag.com/lavender-ai-...

Current status of the fundraisers for those killed by ICE:
Renee Good: $1,499,580
Alex Pretti: $1,289,249
Keith Porter, Jr. $302,423
Parady La: $45,848
Heber Sanchez Dominguez: $47,991
Luis Beltrán Yanez Cruz: $18,640
Victor Manuel Diaz: $2,538
Geraldo Lunas: $2,260
Luis Gustavo Núñez: $1,935

An infographic titled January 2026 update: A review of over 160 Injunction cases involving First Nations across Canada. The success rates for injunctions filed by governments, corporations, and FNs are compared

🚨 New injunction resources for organizers and land defenders from 8th Fire Rising! 🚨
First up, updated research by me and @shirip.bsky.social on injunction success rates for corporations, governments, and First Nations. See the stats and more at: 8thfirerising.ca/injunctions/

Payment processors were against CSAM until Grok started making it “The industry is no longer willing to self-regulate.”

wrote about an apparent policy change in the payments industry www.theverge.com/ai-artificia...

i’m here again to point out that Doug Ford thinks it’s fantastic that we’re equipping ICE

In my view, repression at home and thuggery abroad - most recently Greenland - are two sides of the same coin. Both reflect the worldview of people who think violence, power, threat and coercion are all that's required to push your agenda through & secure your interests.

Precisely.

And yes, foreign affairs is important - but so are the other 20,000+ folks who were laid off in a rush these last few weeks.

We can’t get where Carney says we’re going by decimating the civil service and relying solely on private capital. That way lies Mad-Max-madness.

Tom raises a point that I haven't seen made elsewhere: Carney invokes Václav Havel to set the frame of his speech but is fully focused on government and corporate elites and not citizens in his remarks. Yes, it's Davos but the audience for the speech was far beyond. That's a noteworthy omission.

An image of Mark Carney giving a speech at Davos. Above is the text: "The Performance of Ritual: The Hypocrisy of Carney's Davos Speech. Orbitpolicy.substack.com. Orbit Policy's Deep Dives"

Mark Carney's speech yesterday was one that mattered, going further than most other leaders would be willing to in calling out the falsehoods in our international system. Yet it was also riven with hypocrisy and perpetuates a disconnect between words and actions. open.substack.com/pub/orbitpol...

insider sports betting on regime change

What a future

There is plenty of blame to go around for all this — climate change, biodiversity loss, Trumpism, expansionism across the globe — but a 💩-ton of it can be apportioned to the oil & gas industry.

🇨🇦 is very invested in that toxicity, and Canadians can thus make change — if we have the guts to do it.

The fact that the First Nations whose land comprises the so-called 'ring of fire' are not parties to the agreement tells you everything you need to know.

July-December Book Reading Roundup Highlights from books I've read over the second half of the year

I've written about some of my favourite books of the year! It was a banner book-reading year for me, and some of the books I read have profoundly reshaped how I think about the world, so I've tried to do some very quick write-ups of some of the best.

open.substack.com/pub/orbitpol...

"high circulation of flu among school-aged kids could mean more instances of serious outcomes — many of which could be prevented by annual flu shots, even if they’re not a perfect match to this year’s dominant strain."

U.S. private-equity giant KKR sees opportunity in Canada’s infrastructure push Canada’s energy resources, proximity to the U.S. and access to global markets have caught the attention of the New York-based firm

Foreign Direct Investment is good when it builds new things that deliver positive ecconomic outcomes.

It is bad when it buys up existing assets and just extracts value.

U.S. private-equity giant KKR sees opportunity in Canada’s infrastructure push - The Globe and Mail share.google/TKDX62bmnid6...

New billion-dollar transit lines shouldn't get stuck for *this long* waiting at red lights.

That's why we're happy to see a motion coming to City Council this week to implement stronger transit signal priority and other measures to speed up LRTs - but it won't happen without your voice!

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Your ring camera is helping ICE deport people. Think about that.