iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Dan Gay @dangay.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Northern intlectuals like to proclaim the death of neoliberalism, but it stumbles on in the majority world. “Their extreme focus on deregulation, on lifting subsidies and so on did not take into account the downtrodden.” Syria’s free-market experiment - giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/...

giftarticle.ft.com

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Dan Gay @dangay.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Yeah exactly. I don't read him that much as he seems pretty out of touch. Old-skool tory stuff won't cut it any more, not that it ever did. Maybe I shouldn't have fallen for the clickbait.

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Dan Gay @dangay.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

All in all Ganesh seems to have churned out a nasty, negative retort in a fit of pique at a Labour PM who finally made a decent speech and floated some decent policies. One of the worst pieces i've read in the FT for a long time.

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Dan Gay @dangay.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Some countries do manage to include all postcodes in growth. There are certainly much more equal countries than Britain that have also shared growth much better - eg. Norway, Sweden, Denmark, France, Germany, the low countries.

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Dan Gay @dangay.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

"The growth must also touch “every postcode”, as if that ever happens anywhere," says Ganesh. Austerity and the resulting underinvestment caused Britain's decade of stagnation and inequality. The precious little growth that's occurred has been terribly distributed. The UK doesn't need more cuts.

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Dan Gay @dangay.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

"A Labour government exists to steer cash to its own people until the economic waters close over it." "Its own people?" What does that even mean? Only Labour voters? Does Ganesh mean the working or middle classes? Wouldn't steering cash to them be a good thing, given decades of rising inequality?

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Dan Gay @dangay.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

"His inner self comes out in blurted, half-withdrawn remarks." Eh? Was he listening to a different speech? Burnham was nothing if not emphatic. Fault the emotional stuff, yes, but not the strength of delivery.

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Dan Gay @dangay.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

"The question is whether it wants growth more than it wants other things: equality, sovereignty, climate goals, low immigration." That's just bad economics: not all of these things involve trade-offs. Eg. equality, climate goals and economic growth are absolutely compatible.

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Dan Gay @dangay.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

"Even when he argued for unpicking Brexit, he framed it as a means of controlling immigration as much as a spur to trade." No that's not what he said. He mooted the idea of closer EU relations mainly for trade-related reasons. He didn't actually say Britain should rejoin the EU, as Ganesh implies.

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Dan Gay @dangay.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

It's hard to know where to start with this misleading, depressive response to Burnham's speech by Janan Ganesh in the FT today. The PM didn't say he 'doesn't care' about growth. Because he didn't make it the centre of his speech doesn't mean he thinks it's unimportant. www.ft.com/content/3b92...

ft.com

At least Burnham doesn’t pretend to care about growth

Unlike his predecessors, Britain’s prime minister is a fairly honest stagnation-ist

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Dan Gay @dangay.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Aha, it seems like it's a postponement of the entry into force of the methane regulation.

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Dan Gay @dangay.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

It's OK world, rest easy! The EU Commission is now working on it at a technical level. Whatever it is.

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Dan Gay @dangay.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Worth a listen. The social and political awareness of some contemporary economists contrasts with the physics-envious mathematicians who taught me a few decades ago. Maybe i'm out of touch with academia but it does seem as though things might be improving in some quarters. youtu.be/aNYDMfdD6pg?...

youtu.be

Nobel Economist Warns: AI WILL DESTROY Democracy | Aaron Bastani meets Daron Acemoglu

YouTube video by Novara Media

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Dan Gay @dangay.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

The party is supported by France’s billionaires. Never mind the country walking (nothing sleepy about it) toward fascism, unfortunately the rise of the far right sets back the chances of making the super-rich pay their way.

dangay.substack.com

We need to tax billionaires

The mass upward transfer of riches in recent decades has lent the super-rich unsurpassed power, driving inequality and distorting perceptions and politics. It’s one of the great challenges of the age.

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Dan Gay @dangay.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Yesterday France moved closer to fascism after the far-right Rassemblement National quadrupled its number of seats in the Senate. This is the former National Front, one of whose founders was in the Waffen SS. Marine's dad was imprisoned for holocaust denial, dismissing it as a 'detail of history'.

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Dan Gay @dangay.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Most of these are broad slogans, not policies. It's like a secondary school version of a manifesto - except most kids would be kinder.

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Dan Gay @dangay.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Exactly, and the list of guests dining with Xi is why the risk of a US-China conflict is exaggerated. US-China corporatism shares common cause. The 65 wars currently going on are bigger problems. www.npr.org/2026/06/09/n...

npr.org

Conflicts are on the rise globally, at the highest level since WWII, data shows

Global conflicts surged to the highest number tallied by Uppsala Conflict Data Program. Fatalities were the highest on record since 1994, with approximately 244,600 people killed in conflict in 2025.

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Dan Gay @dangay.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

The LSE's appointment of Rory Stewart as a Professor in the Dept. of International Relations mainstreams someone who's part of the problem, not the solution. Colonial governor in an illegal war; misunderstanding of basic economics; opposition to fair taxation... substack.com/@dangay/note...

substack.com

Dr Dan Gay (@dangay)

The London School of Economics has appointed Rory Stewart as Professor in Practice in the LSE Department of International Relations. What's disturbing is the mainstreaming and legitimisation of some...

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Dan Gay @dangay.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

Thanks, informative and scary. This in particular sums up the seductive slipperiness of the far right: "Le Pen can set the line in favour of the lower pension age, while Bardella privately reassures his newfound friends in MEDEF that he will do his utmost to lobby for a higher one when in power."

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Dan Gay @dangay.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

The recommendations to improve data and connectivity are a bit hackneyed. But I fully agree with the need to "improve analytical and negotiating capacity to assess digital trade commitments and help shape emerging rules." Negotiations support is sometimes under-prioritised but is vital.

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Dan Gay @dangay.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

Another sage warning from UNCTAD on the growing services trade digital divide. Logistics, finance, design and data management are increasingly built into all production. Least developed countries are falling behind. unctad.org/news/digital...

unctad.org

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Dan Gay @dangay.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

A simpler public tender system sounds good but is just the sort of industrial policy that the EU criticises in the likes of China. Surely it could also face challenge via WTO Govt Procurement Agreement (even though GPA only has 49 members and doesn't include China)? www.reuters.com/world/china/...

reuters.com

EU proposes simpler public tender rules, 'Buy European' criteria to cut foreign dependence

The European Commission has proposed new rules for public tenders that would create an EU-wide platform to improve access and slash paperwork for companies, and give ‌EU governments the option to exc...

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Reposted by Dan Gay

Jess Miers 🦝 @jmiers230.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

In recent cases, it's not that AI somehow "escaped containment" or "went rogue." That's anthropomorphizing at best. It's more like if a Boston Dynamics robot dog nudged open an already open door and walked in.

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Dan Gay @dangay.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

That said, Amodei is still talking up his IPO.

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Dan Gay @dangay.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

In this, it's a bit like the atomic bomb on steroids - AI doesn't have to possess intelligence to be capable of massive harm. What if an agent swarm hacked a lab and let a nasty virus out? It's being developed faster than we need. Nobody understands it properly and it's largely unregulated.

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Dan Gay @dangay.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

AI isn't going to result in some godlike super-consciousness that overtakes human intelligence, but machine learning and massive computing power without our understanding and control could unleash enormous damage. Tech leaders call for AI slowdown - giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/...

giftarticle.ft.com

Rivals Altman and Musk rally behind Dario Amodei’s call for an AI slowdown

Warring tech bosses unite behind warnings that humans could lose control of the technology

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Reposted by Dan Gay

Adam Bienkov @adambienkov.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

Asked if the Government considers the masked thugs swarming British ports “far right” Andy Burnham’s spokesman replies that “it's an operational matter for the police to set out their response to the protests on the ground. So I will leave them to respond to that.”

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Dan Gay @dangay.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

Thank God for those financial market analysts, propping up democracy like they do. Without them how would us poor simpletons understand those trade-offs?🙄

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Dan Gay @dangay.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

Smart glasses: “The biggest advance in pervert technology since the trenchcoat.”😂 “We will never have more money than billionaires but we can always be funnier and more interesting,” says an EHE co-founder.

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Dan Gay @dangay.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

Tell me again we shouldn't use the f-word. “I think we should be doing 30 to 40 targeted assassinations per night,” Ben-Gvir said. “Not just those who pose an immediate threat. There are people there who don’t deserve to live . . . They are not even people.”

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Dan Gay @dangay.bsky.social · 09/08/2026

On 1984: “My recent novel is NOT intended as an attack on Socialism or on the British Labour Party (of which I am a supporter)” In 1937 he wrote after Spain he “at last really believe[d] in Socialism,” while becoming hostile to Soviet communism and its suppression of revolutionary socialist groups.

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Dan Gay @dangay.bsky.social · 09/08/2026

No, he was a democratic socialist. In Why I Write he says: “Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic Socialism, as I understand it.”

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Dan Gay @dangay.bsky.social · 08/08/2026

This is very good: "The hypnotic powers of Trump and Musk are often a phantasm, losing their pull if people decline to be entranced." Does Silicon Valley dream of Philip K Dick? - giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/...

giftarticle.ft.com

Does Silicon Valley dream of Philip K Dick?

His 1960s science-fiction visions are a guide to our age of erratic billionaires, wild space fantasies and glitchy, invasive technology

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Dan Gay @dangay.bsky.social · 16/07/2026

"For the half of humanity living on under $4,000 per year, development is a chief concern," writes Tim Hirschel-Burns in Jacobin, in a decent attempt to link opposition to the genocide in Gaza with the need dor a wider progressive US foreign policy. jacobin.com/2026/07/left...

jacobin.com

The Left Needs Its Own Foreign Policy

Outrage at US complicity in the war on Gaza has pushed many Americans to think about international politics for the first time. The Left should seize this moment to push its vision of how the global o...

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Dan Gay @dangay.bsky.social · 15/07/2026

China’s economy is growing more slowly, according to a report today. Many economists and China critics will wrongly seize on the news as proof that the Chinese model is failing and that the US and EU are doing better in comparison. It isn't, and they're not. substack.com/@dangay/note...

substack.com

Dr Dan Gay (@dangay)

China’s economy is growing slower than it has in decades, according to a report today. GDP expanded 4.3% in the second quarter on a year earlier, below official targets. Many mainstream economists a...

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Dan Gay @dangay.bsky.social · 15/07/2026

Turns out the US economy isn't trouncing Europe's quite as badly as everyone says it is. "the higher growth of productivity in the US tech sector (and so of US GDP per head) is questionable, not because it is wrong, but because this is a matter of judgment." giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/...

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Dan Gay @dangay.bsky.social · 15/07/2026

I hope they haven't sacked the folk who stack the Ferrero Rochers in those little pyramids on silver plates.

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Dan Gay @dangay.bsky.social · 14/07/2026

“We were outplayed.” “The Iranians are experienced negotiators and they brought teams of experts with them who knew these issues inside and out. The US did not, and so unilaterally put our side at a disadvantage.”

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Dan Gay @dangay.bsky.social · 14/07/2026

How global hegemony fades: "More than half of American ambassadorships were vacant, including high-status posts from Germany to Saudi Arabia... nearly 80 per cent of US embassies [in Africa] do not have an ambassador." giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/...

giftarticle.ft.com

RIP the US state department

America’s diplomats used to have global sway. Now they are besieged by their own president

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Dan Gay @dangay.bsky.social · 14/07/2026

Good point about agency: "Exposure to geopolitical shocks is determined not only by dependence on external markets... but also by a country’s capacity to influence the decisions that affect those flows and to defend its economic interests when disruption occurs. southasianvoices.org/ec-m-bd-n-sa...

southasianvoices.org

South Asia’s Gulf Dependence: Lessons from the Iran War – South Asian Voices

The war in the Middle East has exposed South Asia's economic dependence on Gulf countries, highlighting the need to build resilience.

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Dan Gay @dangay.bsky.social · 12/07/2026

Productive capacity for trade is becoming more and more important, as the emphasis moves away from only market access. And a sense of Southern solidarity seems slowly to be emerging amid the aid cuts and increasing US isolationism. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... (free, open access)

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

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