Mistranslations, pomp and circumstance

Back on September 2, 2013, I used the phrase ‘purported boy-wonders in our midst’ at NewApps. A day later (so on 3 September, 2013), I reported that my use was in a “satirical context.” The 3 Septembe...

A note on Keynes’ “Economic Possibilities…”

office of budget irresponsibility, part 2

Great links, images, and reading from Chartbook Newsletter by Adam Tooze

Lots of pomp, limited substance in the Xi-Trump meetings. But before we get to a discussion of the Trump-Xi bonhomie, it is worth highlighting the signals from the Monday State Council Executive Meeti...

In the last year a number of people either told me about Tacitus or strongly implied I should read Tacitus (including a ‘ref #2’ on a paper I subsequently abandoned).

Ineos founder Sir Jim Ratcliffe tells the BBC he thinks the country is "on the slide" and calls for more investment in the North Sea.

The clearest and most cost-effective route to genuine public control of England's water is through public ownership.

Support for free markets has died, partly for bad reasons.

Regarding that Economist article ...

One of the minor oddities of Spinoza’s Political Treatise (hereafter: TP) is that chapter VII goes over the same model of ordered monarchy that was handled in chapter VI.

This is exactly the right way to write about Left stupidities in 2026

Great links, images, and reading from Chartbook Newsletter by Adam Tooze

When I was visiting Tulane last year, Mario Juarez Garcia renewed my interest in The Spirit of the Laws. And so I am reading anew.

How long will Reform’s new leader last?

Fairly quickly into his modeling treatment of what I’ve been calling ‘ordered monarchy,’ Spinoza introduces the striking claim that all polities are “always put at greater risk on account of” their ow...

office of budget irresponsibility, part 1

There are other ways of thinking about AI

The Politburo held its September meeting Monday and announced that the Fifth Plenum will convene October 26-29. The PRC officially confirmed that Xi will travel to the US to meet with Trump from Sept...

On my reading (recall) of Spinoza’s Political Treatise (hereafter: TP), as announced in TP 1.6, the book is engaged in comparative modeling.

Big structures and large processes are back, baby

Headhunting and mandatory abortions among the Siraya of Taiwan

Today’s post is an aside to my two recent posts (recall here; and here) on the project of comparative modeling in Spinoza’s (1677) Political Treatise (hereafter: TP).

Chinese scholars on strategic stability, trade, AI safety and Taiwan ahead of Xi’s meeting with Trump

thinking out loud and showing traces of reasoning

Two union leaders warn that waste, repair and recycling jobs risk becoming Europe’s next low-pay, high-hazard market.

Lukács and the Recovery of Class Transitivity

A structured U.S.-PRC government dialogue on strategic artificial intelligence risk reduction - The US and China should be talking about AI safety and governance, and while I am skeptical this can hap...

Wandering around an infinitely complex, ever-changing world. Click to read The Garden of Forking Paths, by Brian Klaas, a Substack publication.

What can they give each other?

One of the oddities of our age is that there are two apocalyptic sensibilities that have captured two almost completely distinct groups of the scientifically literate not least among the youth: one ca...

what happens when the human isn’t central to the loop

The present post presumes familiarity with the concept of a ‘recursive tradition,’ which I learned from Duncan Bell.

Technical change is an issue of what capitalism does to workers.

Spinoza’s Political Treatise (Tractatus Politicus: hereafter: TP) was first published alongside his Ethics in 1677. And because of that we can be somewhat confident that it circulated even if actual d...

Economics, politics and philosophy for a new era

A guidebook to methods and methodology, encouraging deeper engagement across the philosophy of science and beyond.The last twenty years have seen multiple

The global war on terror, born from the ashes of the twin towers, perpetuates itself by constantly seeking new targets

In re-reading bits of David Hume’s History for yesterday’s post (here) on Duncan Forbes’ discussion of the role of Puritanism in Hume’s argument, I noticed a passage that was part of the first edition...

I strongly suspect that Duncan Forbes’ book’s, Hume’s Philosophical Politics (Cambridge University Press, 1975; my references are to the page-numbers in the reissue of 2010), high reputation, such as ...

One of the oddities in the reception of Strauss by his friends and admirers is that his writings have been decoupled from the Cold War.

Great links, images, and reading from Chartbook Newsletter by Adam Tooze