Seva @seva.bsky.social · 23/09/2026kind of op-ed that could have only been written in the innocent days of 2014 8323
Seva @seva.bsky.social · 21/09/2026it's brutal. the two great prophets of international relations are now tim snyder and john mearsheimer, two men thoroughly captured by their own theories 513912
Seva @seva.bsky.social · 17/09/2026hegemon.substack.comWe’re all going to die? What does IR theory say?global politics in the shadow of existential risk 2173
Seva @seva.bsky.social · 16/09/2026we should let switzerland win one war...just to see...they've been so patient 7220
Reposted by SevaYan Matusevich @ymatusik.bsky.social · 30/08/2026I remember listening to an interview of Laruelle on the Bear Market Brief podcast on whether Putin’s Russia fit the definition of fascism and just ultimately found the “well it’s complicated” answers completely besides the point. It felt like missing the forest for the trees. 1123
Seva @seva.bsky.social · 28/08/2026a blasphemous comparison for some, but that’s part of Laruelle's point: they are two prophets opposed in substance but united in form a clever but unsatisfying analogyhegemon.substack.comDugin and Snyder, Brothers in Arms?one side is genocidal, but the other is very annoying 0161
Reposted by SevaBrian Taylor @bdtaylor-su.bsky.social · 27/08/2026"You can’t entirely strip normative commitments out of cognition. The two process the world with moral certainty, and in that they share a temperament. Only one is a genocidal mystic." On point from Seva. 073
Seva @seva.bsky.social · 27/08/2026NATO condemns nuclear destruction of Berlin as a troubling escalation of Russian hybrid tactics 2465
Reposted by SevaOleksa Drachewych @odrachewych.bsky.social · 26/08/2026NATO nations have supported Ukraine since February 2022 and peace talks have rarely gotten anywhere. Nothing has changed except the war is more present "at home" for Russia. How does one escalate from genocide? Agree with Gabuev that risk of 🇷🇺 using tactical nuke is low. meduza.io/feature/2026...meduza.ioПутин готовится к эскалации войны с Украиной, заявили источники Bloomberg, близкие к Кремлю. Все больше чиновников в России думают, что он может применить тактическое ядерное оружие — MeduzaРоссия готовится к эскалации ударов по Украине, считая, что переговоры о мире зашли в тупик, сообщили источники Bloomberg, близкие к Кремлю. 2169
Seva @seva.bsky.social · 27/08/2026responding to Marlene Laruelle's recent essayhegemon.substack.comDugin and Snyder, Brothers in Arms?one side is genocidal, but the other is very annoying 0140
Seva @seva.bsky.social · 15/08/2026...some forgotten street art from the early aughtshegemon.substack.comBrooklyn Graffiti, a time capsuleIn the summer of 2005, while living in New York as a grad student, I walked around Brooklyn’s Park Slope and took photographs of the graffiti. 070
Reposted by Sevamtsw @mtsw.bsky.social · 10/08/2026its kinda insane that marine mammals wound up as the ocean's apex predators. it turns out milk is so good evolutionarily that it trumps breathing water *in the ocean* 231139134
Reposted by SevaNick Kodama @nickkodama.bsky.social · 09/08/2026fish: oh hey you're back early mammal: land's haunted 210917
Seva @seva.bsky.social · 09/08/2026imagine the arrogance it takes to be a marine mammal. you crawl out of the vast dark ocean and onto green sunny land and decide to crawl back in again? 1740928
Seva @seva.bsky.social · 08/08/2026when I leave the airport lounge to go to my gate and it turns out the flight is delayed 1364
Seva @seva.bsky.social · 07/08/2026looking for movies made for grownups that kids 4-8 would enjoy. things that have worked in the past: 2001 space odyssey fantastic mr fox 400 blows modern times the red balloon yellow submarine the spirit of the beehive others? 20142
Seva @seva.bsky.social · 07/08/2026so tired of living in the ominous first ten minutes of a scifi movie. When do we get to the second act where me and a group of friends have an exciting adventure. 7655
Seva @seva.bsky.social · 06/08/2026about to get controversial. an average pear is worse than an average apple, but a great pear is better than a great apple 18796
Seva @seva.bsky.social · 01/08/2026I’ve basically come around to the idea that liberalism is deeply unnatural to human psychology, which evolved in the context of communal living. It's the "delicate fruit of a mature civilization" as Acton put it, and takes constant effort to preserve 932838
Reposted by SevaPatrick Wyman @patrickwyman.bsky.social · 01/08/2026Abraham Lincoln had that dawg in him. cc @peark.es @proptermalone.bsky.social @rickywlmsbong.bsky.social 1246235
Reposted by SevaQuoProQuid @quoproquid.bsky.social · 01/08/2026by contrast, i think one of the most unexpected discoveries about LBJ is that, despite being famous for "the Johnson Treatment", he was very much a physical coward who, in college, would try to intimidate people with his height but then run away if his opponent refused to back down 1673
Reposted by SevaB. A. Friedman @bafriedman.bsky.social · 01/08/2026About to go read the Gettysburg Address in my Macho Man voice.static.klipy.comMacho Man Randy Savage PromoALT: Macho Man Randy Savage Promo 3928
Seva @seva.bsky.social · 01/08/2026biggest surprise from the Lincoln bio I'm reading. The dude just loved to get into fistfights. He's cornered by a gang after beating their leader and yells: “I’m the big buck of this lick!” And they back down! Who knew the great emancipator had a little WWE in him? 48104082
Seva @seva.bsky.social · 01/08/20262026: russian conscripts in the kill zone and british prime ministers battling over who can last longer 1281
Seva @seva.bsky.social · 30/07/2026"Time is a flat circle" has to be the worst aphorism. Circles are two-dimensional they are flat by definition. jesus christ 1510010
Reposted by Sevapassivelurker.bsky.social @passivelurker.bsky.social · 28/07/2026There’s a common misconception that it’s easy to get into shark assassination, but it’s basically impossible if you aren’t independently wealthy or have family connections 1251
Reposted by Sevabeetleship @dangbeetle.bsky.social · 28/07/2026Draw a bunch of stuff, get really into ferns, go hiking on a lot of misty heaths, have gout 0393
Reposted by Sevasina @rejectionking.bsky.social · 28/07/2026at this point if an undergrad asks about jobs in academia I nudge them toward something more practical like professional poaster (2026) 1497
Seva @seva.bsky.social · 28/07/2026the ideal academic life is being an eccentric Victorian lord. Invent a stamp licking machine at 22. Get elected to the Royal Academy for counting the beetles on your estate. Die in an arsenic explosion. The perfect life. 303454634
Seva @seva.bsky.social · 28/07/2026at this point if an undergrad asks about jobs in academia I nudge them toward something more practical like shark assassin 530142
Seva @seva.bsky.social · 27/07/2026funny that 'mountain people' are now seen as tough and warlike considering they became mountain people only to escape the actually scary steppe people 4684
Reposted by SevaZoomer Antimillenarian @surcomplicated.bsky.social · 27/07/2026Which makes you wonder if Operation Barbarossa did kill the Soviet Union after all, half a century later. Because the Soviets always acted as if a massive surprise invasion by the ‘imperialists’ was right around the corner, even to their own great economic detriment. 89111
Seva @seva.bsky.social · 26/07/2026maturity is realizing the third beer brings diminishing returns 12791
Seva @seva.bsky.social · 26/07/2026when one of your last remaining allies says to your face that your war is pointless and must be stopped 3594
Seva @seva.bsky.social · 25/07/2026Saddam Hussein finished writing his last novel a day before the US invaded. Make writing a daily habit and you'll be amazed at how many distractions just melt away. 2897
Reposted by SevaMaterialist Gnostic @walmsley.bsky.social · 25/07/2026I'll be honest: I have never decided not to take public transit because it is too expensive. when I decide not to take public transit it is because it is too slow or too infrequent or too logistically complicated or does not serve the places I want to go 1739136
Seva @seva.bsky.social · 24/07/2026alright I bought the hype and went to see it. It wasn't as terrible as Oppenheimer, is all I'll say 1190
Reposted by SevaPhilip Koop 🇨🇦 @philkoop.bsky.social · 23/07/2026"it’s not a dictator but broad social and technological forces that are driving people toward slop ... Orwell thought the death of democracy would kill reading. It turns out the death of reading may be killing democracy." 0202
Seva @seva.bsky.social · 23/07/2026"It would probably not be beyond human ingenuity to write books by machinery" he wrote in 1946.open.substack.comOrwell on AIThe author of 1984 predicted that literature would be written by machines. But he was wrong about why. 2161
Seva @seva.bsky.social · 21/07/2026interesting to see all the reviews framing Odyssey around its veteran-trauma-PTSD themes. War as something that happens to soldiers’ psyches. This is I dare say a very umbombed mentality. Processing war as individual moral injury when the actual subject is collective destruction 46112
Reposted by SevaBlackcal @blackcal.bsky.social · 08/07/2026Great article that goes beyond the empty free-speech debate, summarised in the following quote: "But the question is not just about censorship. It’s about whether a democracy is obligated to provide a frictionless commercial platform to an aggressor state’s cultural exports during wartime." 0252
Reposted by SevaDr Sarah Hudspith @sarahhudspith.bsky.social · 07/07/2026"What do we owe an aggressor’s culture while the aggression is still going on? I don’t think the answer is a ban, but I’m certain it’s not a shrug." Great analysis. 0183
Seva @seva.bsky.social · 07/07/2026I have two young kids so I've suffered through my share of Masha and the Bear, which pops up practically by default on the junior Netflix channels. But until this controversy I had no idea of its reach. Propaganda or not, it’s certainly one of Russia’s most successful cultural exports.open.substack.comIs Masha and the Bear Russian Propaganda?I settle the debate once and for all 7637
Seva @seva.bsky.social · 04/07/2026I remember standing in those late-Soviet lines as a kid. The Public Aesthetics of the line are terrible. And the Gas Line is the opposite of Kuran's preference falsification: a public assembly of everyone privately doubting the government’s capacity to provide basic necessities. 5568
