Open Thread
Use to discuss topics unrelated to recent posts.
Ian Welsh
The horizon is not so far as we can see, but as far as we can imagine
Latest posts
How I Learned About Leaders & Human Nature
As a kid, my parents moved around a fair bit. I went to a lot of schools during my elementary years. It was instructive. From grade 3 to grade 6 1/2 I was at Emily Carr elementary school in Vancouver. The leaders on the male side were two boys: one red haired freckled Irish kid [ ]
Yes, There Is Reason To Believe Humans Can Do Better
Had a commenter in the last post say that humans always over-consume. When I said that commons had been stable for as long as centuries they answered that this was true, but that those families produced too many kids. Humans change how they do things. Once we didn t fly. Once there had never been democracy. [ ]
The Fundamental Political Question Of Production & Distribution
For those of us who want the purpose of government and society to be creating the best life for the most people there are two fundamental questions. First: how to produce what is good for people and produces a good life. Second: how to distribute what is good for people and produces a good life. [ ]
Maybe Early AI Adoption Is Stupid?
The thing about AI is that it takes previous costs (your engineers and their tools) and makes them more expensive. Often much more expensive: if you built your saas business before ai, your entire business was designed around one assumption which was that software has ~zero marginal cost. ai blows that up. every ai action [ ]
Defund The Police and Abolish Prisons?
Glenn Greenwald has an article in which he goes after AOC and others for the hysteria of the woke era (which is apparently behind us?) Most of it I agree with, but I m not entirely down with this: AOC, on Sunday, went on ABC’s morning news program with Jonathan Karl, where she was asked about [ ]
Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – August 09, 2026
Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – August 09, 2026 by Tony Wikrent The Biggest Skygazing Day of the Century Is Almost Here [YouTube] August 12, 2026 is the biggest skygazing day of the century. The Perseid meteor shower peaks under a completely moonless sky, the core of the Milky Way stands high in total [ ]
Open Thread
Use to discuss topics unrelated to recent posts.
The Continued Abandonment Of America’s Poor
Financialization and neoliberalism require everything to be looted so the rich can keep getting richer. First: The number of people enrolled in Medicaid and Affordable Care Act plans fell by more than 5 million in the last 12 months, according to a new report from the advocacy group Protect Our Care. The decline stems in [ ]
Understand China’s Plan To Become A Full Socialist State
“The banks, as we know, are centres of modern economic life, the principal nerve centres of the whole capitalist economic system.” Vladmir Lenin Deng had four principles for his changes to Chinese Communism: Upholding the socialist road (or socialist path). Upholding the people’s democratic dictatorship (originally often referred to as the dictatorship of the proletariat; [ ]