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Willy De Backer BE @art4theark.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Carney's Strasbourg speech got a hero's welcome. Read against his Davos speech, it is the same extraction agenda: thirty-four minerals, pooled compute, LNG, just dressed in Goethe and a forest instead of Thucydides. Growth, not limits, remained the goal. wdebacker.substack.com/p/mark-carne...

wdebacker.substack.com

Mark Carney: from Davos to Strasbourg

He swapped Havel for Goethe and a forest. But growth, not limits, remained the prime political goal.

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Willy De Backer BE @art4theark.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Yesterday’s elections in Berlin and Meck-Pom confirm the analysis I made after Sachsen-Anhalt: the politics of growth and “more” is ending; the entrepreneurs of loss and resentment are winning. Weimar revisited, but against a more dangerous global background. wdebacker.substack.com/p/the-end-of...

wdebacker.substack.com

The end of German exceptionalism. What now?

The far right did not break Germany's firewall. The end of growth did.

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Willy De Backer BE @art4theark.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Great that Mark Carney discovered #Goethe. Maybe he should now also read Goethe's Zauberlehrling and draw the lessons for policies on #AI? wdebacker.substack.com/p/when-the-f...

wdebacker.substack.com

When the flooding cannot be stopped: who says no to AI?

The kill switch exists. Nobody in AI will ever feel obliged to use it.

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Willy De Backer BE @art4theark.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

EU Commission President von der Leyen opened her State of the Union 2026 with Dickens: "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times." She read it as reassurance. The novel it is based on is about a revolution. Read my analysis of this growth-first speech: careeu.substack.com/p/state-of-t...

careeu.substack.com

State of the European Union: Sowing the same seed

Von der Leyen quoted Dickens. She missed his real lesson: “sow the same seed of rapacious license and oppression over again, and it will surely yield the same fruit according to its kind”

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Willy De Backer BE @art4theark.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Listening to President von der Leyen's speech on the State of Europe 2026. Growth fundamentalism, accelerate PowerEU and Charles Dickens' "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times" used without understanding what the great author wrote about the French Revolution in this novel. #SOTEU2026

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Willy De Backer BE @art4theark.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

All the media are on fire about the dangers of AI and why we need a pause or a kill switch. What if two old literary works carry the answer? New essay on why the kill switch exists & why nobody will ever feel obliged to use it. wdebacker.substack.com/p/when-the-f... @aidaponcedelcastillo.com

wdebacker.substack.com

When the flooding cannot be stopped: who says no to AI?

The kill switch exists. Nobody in AI will ever feel obliged to use it.

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Willy De Backer BE @art4theark.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

How the movie 'Good Bye, Lenin!' explains why the #AfD won a state election, why every European newsroom covered it, and why almost all of the analysis missed the point. What it means for the rest of Europe and what comes next. My views on Substack: wdebacker.substack.com/p/the-end-of...

wdebacker.substack.com

The end of German exceptionalism. What now?

The far right did not break Germany's firewall. The end of growth did.

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Reposted by Willy De Backer BE

Armin Schaefer @arminschaefer.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

In diesem in der @pvs-journal.bsky.social veröffentlichten Aufsatz verorte ich Manows Buch "Spaltungslinien" in der Debatte zum Postliberalismus. Der zentralen Annahme, dass rechtspopulistische Parteien heute wirtschafts- und sozialpolitisch links stünden, widerspreche ich. rdcu.be/swtwc7WqF9ta

Titelblatt zum in der Politischen Vierteljahresschrift erschienenen Aufsatz "Ist rechts das neue links? Die postliberale Erklärung des Populismus". Der Aufsatz ist öffentlich zugänglich.

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Willy De Backer BE @art4theark.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

Follow-up: your paper finds transgressors named above and below at once, with the downward direction the opening for the radical right. Does mobilising those potentials require naming "die Schuldigen", or is that what makes them available to the AfD? #Antifa @tabouchadi.bsky.social

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Willy De Backer BE @art4theark.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

The link to this article does not work, unfortunately.

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Willy De Backer BE @art4theark.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

Linus, does the result & the huge support of AfD from workers change any of the insights you had in your 2026 paper 'Moral Disapproval' on the political consciousness of the working class? journals.sagepub.com/doi/epub/10.... @etui.bsky.social @andrewwatteu.bsky.social @ppochet.bsky.social

journals.sagepub.com

Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Subscription and open access journals from Sage, the world's leading independent academic publisher.

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Willy De Backer BE @art4theark.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

Democracy, we have a problem! #Saxony-Anhalt

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Reposted by Willy De Backer BE

Carolin Amlinger @camlinger.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

Was passiert mit Demokratien, wenn viele nur wenige oder gar keine Bücher lesen? Darüber und über eine junge Generation, die sich unter Druck gesetzt fühlt, mehr zu lesen, habe ich mit Maike Albath beim DLF Büchermarkt gesprochen: www.deutschlandfunk.de/der-niederga...

deutschlandfunk.de

Der Niedergang des Lesens? Carolin Amlinger stellt eine neue Studie vor

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Willy De Backer BE @art4theark.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

"Merz promised a Wirtschaftswende. Sunday's vote in Sachsen-Anhalt will show the real one." - Read my Substack on the upcoming #elections in #Germany's Saxony-Anhalt wdebacker.substack.com/p/the-real-g... @politico.eu @euractiv.de @taz.de @zeit.de

wdebacker.substack.com

The real German ‘Wende’

A chancellor promised a radical turn. Sunday’s vote in Sachsen-Anhalt will show the real one.

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Willy De Backer BE @art4theark.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

Care EU: A founding statement This weekend I started a platform on Substack to discuss how we can redefine the European Union's mission from PowerEU to CareEU careeu.substack.com/p/care-eu-a-...

careeu.substack.com

Care EU: A founding statement

Why I am launching a platform for re-imagining Europe’s mission

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Willy De Backer BE @art4theark.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

Zelensky gives high award to tech caesar who wants to erase democracy and European Union. Maybe EU leaders should rethink support for Ukraine?

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Willy De Backer BE @art4theark.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

"Loss, limits and protection are the engine of the coming decade: the more the climate breaks, the harder people hold on to the way of life that is breaking it." - the bigger picture behind our failure to deal with the 'new abnormal'. #ClimateChaos www.linkedin.com/pulse/climat...

linkedin.com

Climate disruption does not do politics

Many of the people I have worked with for forty years hold a quiet conviction. It runs roughly like this: the worse the ecological disruption becomes, the riper the conditions for the necessary social...

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Willy De Backer BE @art4theark.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

On this 21 July, Belgium's National Day, I wrote about one of the most haunting novels of world literature: Jean Ray's "Malpertuis" and why it should be read in our crisis times. #ReadingForTheWorldToCome #Literature www.linkedin.com/pulse/jean-r...

linkedin.com

Jean Ray's "Malpertuis": when captured gods turn vicious

In my post on E.T.

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Willy De Backer BE @art4theark.bsky.social · 06/07/2026

"Football unites the world" (#FIFA), but only after 'America First' - anyone has any worries about the decisions of the referee in the upcoming match? - the Belgian team should just go home, leave this hypocrisy and have the King hand them the World Cup statue in Brussels

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Willy De Backer BE @art4theark.bsky.social · 22/06/2026

My take on the #G7's show in Evian and Versailles: "A civilisation does not announce its own ending. It throws a decadent dinner in palaces of gold, with the new ‘Sun King’ shining in all his mirrors." #AI #AIGovernance #DigitalSovereignty www.linkedin.com/pulse/%C3%A9...

linkedin.com

Évian, Versailles: the ultimate Faustian bargain

Évian-les-Bains, 17 June 2026. The heads of state of the world's seven wealthiest economies sit down to a working lunch with the high priests of artificial intelligence on the shores of Lake Geneva.

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Willy De Backer BE @art4theark.bsky.social · 12/06/2026

My critical evaluation of Mazzucato's 'Common Good Econmy' and Piketty's et al 'Global Justice Report': "two of the most rigorous progressive economists of our time are writing for a world we no longer live in and leave the global authoritarian turn unanswered" www.linkedin.com/pulse/two-pr...

linkedin.com

Two progressive economists write for a world we no longer live in

Two important economic studies landed on the same day, 4 June 2026. French economist Thomas Piketty and 44 co-authors published the Global Justice Report.

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Willy De Backer BE @art4theark.bsky.social · 05/06/2026

@annapuzio.bsky.social Dieses Interview zu Magnifica Humanitas kommt zu ähnlichen Schlüssen wie mein LinkedIn-Beitrag vom Sonntag: die Umdeutung von "more than human", der Widerspruch zu Anthropic, der intakt bleibende Anthropozentrismus. www.linkedin.com/pulse/from-h...

linkedin.com

From humility to grandeur: comparing Magnifica Humanitas and Laudato Si'

In May 2015, Pope Francis opened Laudato Si' with a canticle. "Praise be to you, my Lord, through our Sister, Mother Earth.

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Willy De Backer BE @art4theark.bsky.social · 01/06/2026

My eco-centric reading of the new encyclical compared to Pope Francis's Laudato Si': "The climate pope may have been silenced in this encyclical but the biophysical alarms will continue to go off." #AI @ecodenker.bsky.social www.linkedin.com/pulse/from-h... @timhowles.bsky.social

linkedin.com

From humility to grandeur: comparing Magnifica Humanitas and Laudato Si'

In May 2015, Pope Francis opened Laudato Si' with a canticle. "Praise be to you, my Lord, through our Sister, Mother Earth.

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Willy De Backer BE @art4theark.bsky.social · 27/05/2026

Magnifica Humanitas is a return of the pre-ecological #encyclical: 'Creation as community of creatures", planetary boundaries, the critique of human exceptionalism: the additions from Laudato Si' are in retreat. @timhowles.bsky.social

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Willy De Backer BE @art4theark.bsky.social · 02/04/2026

The contrarian views on #Artemis by a space child who was 16 in 1969 - "This is the last convulsion of an extractivist civilisation that has never accepted limits, now preparing its own evacuation while the planet burns." #Limits #HumanExceptionalism www.linkedin.com/pulse/artemi...

linkedin.com

The Artemis retrotopia: when 1969 becomes the future

"Here am I floating 'round my tin can, far above the moon. Planet Earth is blue, and there's nothing I can do.

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Willy De Backer BE @art4theark.bsky.social · 09/03/2026

Will "Epic Fury" lead to "Epic Recession"? #Iranwar

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