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Simon Frankel Pratt

@simonpratt.bsky.social
3.1K followers 164 following 1.8K posts

Political scientist at the University of Melbourne. Formerly of other places. Research: war, intelligence, innovation, and normative change in international politics. Cat paparazzo. He/Him 🇨🇦🏳️‍🌈✡️

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Reposted by Simon Frankel Pratt
Avishay BSG (Ben-Sasson-Gordis) @avishaybsg.bsky.social · 3h
The co-pilot seems to have tried to crash it into the ground with a full cabin of (mostly Israeli) civilians. Was stopped by his pilot that got stabbed in the process passengers interfered and another crew on the flight landed it in Saudi Arabia. Israel’s treating it as a terror attack for now.
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Wesley Morgan @wesleymorgan.bsky.social · 8h
And here is a thread linking to articles that describe how, within the IDF, to-the-foundations earthmover demolitions became the norm in Gaza. It wasn’t because of orders from IDF high command, really—it was a highly successful bottom-up revolution by the extremist reservists who had the earthmovers
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Brooke Harrington @ebharrington.bsky.social · 9h
One of the things to come from GamerGate was the gamification of torturing real, live women...hounding them out of their homes, making them look over their shoulders for years. It was treated as a joke, nbd, the work of a few bad apples--as all terrorism against women is--& that failure leads here.
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Albert Pinto @70sbachchan.bsky.social · 21/02/2026
Wait what theconversation.com/the-worlds-2...
theconversation.com
The world’s 280 million electric bikes and mopeds are cutting demand for oil far more than electric cars
Electric vehicles get all the press – but it’s the smaller unsung two wheelers cutting oil demand the most.
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Simon Frankel Pratt @simonpratt.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
This is true, but I do think there has long been more basis to mistrust Hamas on this versus the PLO, whose policy shift was more visible, better documented, and clearly linked to changes in institutions and diplomatic instruments.
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Simon Frankel Pratt @simonpratt.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
This is pretty critical. In my opinion, there is really no realistic alternative to a 2SS beyond ethnic cleansing. Moreover, Israelis seem confident they will be the ones doing the cleansing but I think this confidence is misplaced in the longer term.
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Simon Frankel Pratt @simonpratt.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
She's been pretty, evidently problematic for years, but I feel as though it's mask off or maybe a descent into madness, recently.
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Joshua Foust 🪖🎮 @joshuafoust.com · 28/09/2026
1. These companies steal research. I don’t think there’s any other way to n out this. OpenAI and Anthropic use scientists’ own work against them to steal credit and short cut work with none of the hard conceptual development.
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Joshua Foust 🪖🎮 @joshuafoust.com · 28/09/2026
The important thing to know about the Starship launch today is that Elon Musk is directly responsible for an unfathomable number of people dying preventable deaths and has never faced a single consequence for it.
cnn.com
One year on from dismantling of USAID, study projects that global aid cuts could lead to 9.4 million deaths by 2030 | CNN
It’s been one year since the Trump administration dismantled the US Agency for International Development (USAID), with aid cuts leading to the closure of HIV clinics in South Africa, the termination o...
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Mike Boylan-Kolchin @mbkplus.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Once again, I gotta say: you cannot treat anything you’re feeding into an AI as anonymous. There are enormous ethics implications for, e.g. referees who are clearly uploading others’ unpublished papers without consent, let alone health care professionals or law enforcement
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Simon Frankel Pratt @simonpratt.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
This is broadly correct except for gamified day trading and, crucially, trading in speculative assets and their derivatives. The crypto era has massively increased the prominence of this second category.
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Simon Frankel Pratt @simonpratt.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
(image of bagpipes) 'continuous low pitch'
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Michelle Cohen @docmcohen.medsky.social · 26/09/2026
It's been a rough week, and ranting is my therapy. I wrote about the seemingly COVID conspiracist-inspired shooting at my local synagogue and the simultaneous promoting of COVID conspiracism by Jesse Brown. medium.com/@michelle.co...
medium.com
Guns, Threats, and the Clown King of Jewish Safety
It’s been a bad week. It’s been a weird week. I awoke Monday to photos of bullet holes in the beautiful stained-glass windows of my local…
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Simon Frankel Pratt @simonpratt.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
I think this is a great question. I think it probably has to do with the comparative prominence of Marxists among UK elite feminists, but I'm sure there's more to the story.
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Simon Frankel Pratt @simonpratt.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Pessimistic but not unrealistic
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Josie Glausiusz @josiegz.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
"I saw with my own eyes the military strikes against the university buildings. A video emerged showing the demolition of all of the university buildings, a complete leveling of the site." A day in the life of Mahmoud Seydam, university lecturer in Gaza. www.theguardian.com/global-devel...
theguardian.com
‘First there’s the gruelling task of trying to charge my laptop’: a day in the life of a university lecturer in Gaza
As the war in Gaza approaches its fourth year, the Guardian follows five ordinary Palestinians as they go about their lives. Each tells the story of their day, revealing the terrible toll of the confl...
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Joshua Foust 🪖🎮 @joshuafoust.com · 24/09/2026
Wrote out some thoughts on those racist arcade games from the other week… I am not terribly thrilled with them.
joshuafoust.leaflet.pub
Gameful Propaganda Comes Home
About those racist Trump arcade games…
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Clara Jeffery @clarajeffery.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
We just dropped a bombshell investigation into ChatGPT's role in the Tumbler Ridge mass shooting. Incredible reporting from @markfollman.bsky.social that will have far-reaching effects...hopefully: www.motherjones.com/media/2026/0...
motherjones.com
ChatGPT helped the Tumbler Ridge school shooter focus on guns, tactics, and terror, our investigation reveals
OpenAI’s chatbot fed the shooter’s violent fantasies and planning up to the massacre.
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Michael Shurkin @michaelshurkin.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
The war has started in Ethiopia. This could easily become the worst human catastrophe of the century. I wrote this in February. The situation has become more complex, and more dangerous. shurkin.substack.com/p/the-loomin...
shurkin.substack.com
The Looming Disaster in the Horn of Africa: A Primer
A major war is imminent in East Africa.
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Simon Frankel Pratt @simonpratt.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
A few days ago in Belleville, in a small city between Toronto and Ottawa, a gunman came to the synagogue and Canada almost had its own Bondi massacre. A police officer paid with blood to save those inside. Antisemitism is an extreme threat and we cannot afford for it to be a political football.
cbc.ca
Synagogue shooting was deliberate hate attack: Belleville, Ont., police | CBC
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Avishay BSG (Ben-Sasson-Gordis) @avishaybsg.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
This, like the rest of this poorly attended speech, is aimed at his domestic audience.
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Simon Frankel Pratt @simonpratt.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
I don't think this is ever good for Jewish people and communities.
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Simon Frankel Pratt @simonpratt.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
this is quite the mistake
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Simon Frankel Pratt @simonpratt.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
This is a shocking number, and may rise to the level of an atrocity crime if many of these deportees have been subject to abuse or effective statelessness.
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Mark Stout @markstout.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Would be interesting to know why Trump changed his mind. Article doesn’t say.
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Elise Thomas @elisethomas.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
If an individual did this, we'd treat it as a crime. We should treat this as a crime too, and hold OpenAI liable for what its models, under its supervision, did. www.abc.net.au/news/2026-09...
abc.net.au
OpenAI agent hacked Medicare portal, PM says
Anthony Albanese says he has spoken to the Open AI chief executive to express his concern about the incident and the length of time it took the tech company to inform the government of the breach.
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Foreign Affairs @foreignaffairs.com · 24/09/2026
There are real parallels between the development of nuclear technology and the buildout of AI systems, but the atomic age “cannot provide a ready-made blueprint for the problem that AI poses,” write @claroche.bsky.social and @nktpnd.bsky.social.
foreignaffairs.com
The Trouble With the Nuclear-AI Analogy
In humanity’s quest to constrain the dangers from fast-advancing artificial intelligence, many have looked to the most revolutionary technology that preceded it: nuclear weapons.
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Simon Frankel Pratt @simonpratt.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
A reminder that the obliteration of Gaza triggers a range of secondary victimhood and risk, especially to women and girls.
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Prof Gavin Yamey MD MPH @gavinyamey.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Reminds me of what my friend in Taiwan told me She wanted to take her two young kids to Taipei Pride (the biggest LGBTQ+ event in Asia); she Googled “where are the family events at Taipei Pride?” & the Google AI summary said “it is inappropriate to bring children to a Pride event” 🤬😤😡
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Nathan Ruser @nrg8000.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
This shows the reality of Gaza in shocking resolution. I've scraped and exported all the imagery, totalling around 2.5 billion pixels at 13cm resolution, for safe keeping, in case they decide to take this imagery offline. If this happens, keep an eye out for access.
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Josie Glausiusz @josiegz.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
"My name is Ramadan Yaqoub Ghaban. I am 12 years old, from Beit Lahia. After breakfast, I go to work by the sea, at a cafe. I have not been to school since the beginning of the war, since the first day. I really loved reading. Arabic was my favourite subject." www.theguardian.com/global-devel...
theguardian.com
‘I’m afraid they’ll bomb the cafe where I work, or bomb me’: a day in the life of a 12-year-old boy in Gaza
Ramadan, 12, works in a cafe on the beach. He remembers enjoying school, playing and family barbecues before life became about survival
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Nathan Ruser @nrg8000.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
A BBC Verify investigation found that Apple Maps' censoring of Chinese Military and Government sites has included arbitrary detention sites in Xinjiang, including the prison where Ilham Tohti is detained. Watch the investigation.
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Starfire’s Deranged Neocon Foreign Policy Podcast @irhottakes.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
I don’t know why, but something about the one-two punch here strikes me as morbidly hilarious in a cosmic sort of way.
An engineer on the Claude AI subreddit explains his frustrations with artificial intelligence’s impact on his job  Claude responds with the most AI summary to ever AI summary
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Avishay BSG (Ben-Sasson-Gordis) @avishaybsg.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
If media coverage of the Democratic Party is to be believed, the entire party has become pro-Palestinian and anti Israel. We decided to actually check if that’s true (it’s not) and think about how Israel could respond to the changing landscape. I’ll try sharing some findings later.
inss.org.il
Three Camps, One Party: Democrats And The Future Of U.S.-Israel Policy | INSS
Much attention in the global media has focused on the wave of victories of left-wing critics of Israel in the U.S. Democratic primaries. The victory of Dr. Abdul El-Sayed in the Michigan primary for a...
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Henry Farrell @himself.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
From a note to a friend a couple of weeks ago "imo the reason text elemental is so good is because it captures the notion of something that is animate, but not conscious so much as an expression of the fundamental nature of the substance of which it is composed."
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Simon Frankel Pratt @simonpratt.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
I remember how outrageous these were in 2019. They have only gotten worse.
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Carla Winston @carlawinston.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
For context: www.ohchr.org/en/instrumen...
Article 2
For the purposes of this Convention, "enforced disappearance" is considered to be the arrest, detention, abduction or any other form of deprivation of liberty by agents of the State or by persons or groups of persons acting with the authorization, support or acquiescence of the State, followed by a refusal to acknowledge the deprivation of liberty or by concealment of the fate or whereabouts of the disappeared person, which place such a person outside the protection of the law.
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Peter Geoghegan @petergeoghegan.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
This story is incredible - and shows how much corruption and money laundering runs through fin tech (which makes it ripe for Kremlin operations) giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/...
giftarticle.ft.com
Kremlin-backed forgery scheme moved $6.9bn through global banks
FT finds thousands of Russian payments received by Standard Chartered, Citigroup and other international groups in vast leak from inside fintech A7
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The Guardian @theguardian.com · 20/09/2026
Baltic spy chiefs warn Moscow is preparing for more decisive action in Europe
theguardian.com
Baltic spy chiefs warn Moscow is preparing for more decisive action in Europe
Exclusive: intelligence officers warn campaign against Nato could intensify ‘in months, not years’ – but panic will play into Kremlin psy-ops European intelligence officials have raised the possibility of an imminent Russian test of Nato, with one saying a potential attack could come in a matter of “months not years”. The warnings came after Poland’s prime minister, Donald Tusk, told parliament that intelligence assessments suggest Russia may launch an attack with drones or missiles on Nato territory in the coming months, as part of efforts to prove that “article 5 is more theoretical than practical”. Continue reading...
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Brian Finucane @bcfinucane.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
The USG crusade to destroy the ICC seems primarily motivated by a desire to shield Israeli officials like Netanyahu and Gallant from accountability. Worth recalling that those two face charges related to using starvation as a method of warfare in Gaza.
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Abu Aardvark @abuaardvark.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
“Only about one-in-five Israelis (17%) and Palestinians (21%) say Israel and a Palestinian state could exist together in peace. Majorities in both places don’t think a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is possible.” www.pewresearch.org/global/2026/...
pewresearch.org
Many Israelis and Palestinians Say They Cannot Coexist Peacefully – and Explain Why
Israelis and Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem reflect on the viability of a two-state solution
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Josie Glausiusz @josiegz.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
It is imperative to assume that a person who says he will pursue people "through the streets, one by one" [...] will not rest until these goals are accomplished. If the [NAZA] filmmakers return to Israel, their lives may well be in danger. @haaretzcom.bsky.social www.haaretz.com/opinion/edit...
haaretz.com
Editorial | There will be blood: Threats against 'NAZA' directors are real - and dangerous
Israelis' extreme responses to a film that almost no one has seen have now turned into explicit threats and dangerous violence against the filmmakers and their
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New Lines Magazine @newlinesmag.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
More than 11 years after Saudi Arabia launched its military intervention in Yemen, the Houthi front has once again confronted Riyadh with the same strategic dilemma, only under more dangerous regional conditions.
f.mtr.cool
Houthi Advance Threatens Saudi Deterrence
The group’s advances on Yemen's western coast and a drone attack on the East-West Pipeline have put Saudi Arabia under pressure at both Hormuz and Bab al-Mandab. With Iran's reach curtailed elsewhere, Yemen has become one of Tehran's most consequential levers against Riyadh.
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Josie Glausiusz @josiegz.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
Without my son this Yom Kippur, I’m skipping repentance An article I wrote for @postopinions.bsky.social three years ago: www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/202...
washingtonpost.com
Opinion | Without my son this Yom Kippur, I’m skipping repentance
Without my son, the High Holidays present me with a dilemma.
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Henry Farrell @himself.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
"Perhaps the most useful role that the discipline of International Relations may play is ... as a generator of largely untestable and incompatible claims that can then help inform policy systems that are better adapted to work with many possible futures."
programmablemutter.com
International relations has a problem with the future
Then, so does everything else
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Simon Frankel Pratt @simonpratt.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
Horrifying thread. McMaster and Hamilton never used to be this unsafe for Jews. My grandfather was faculty there for years, my family well integrated into the small, vibrant, and now clearly unsafe Jewish community there.
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Cheryl Rofer @cherylrofer.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
I'm reading this article now and am wondering why I haven't seen more about it. It's by Dexter Filkins, who is knowledgeable in the areas of Kushner's "diplomacy." I'll keep comments closed until I've finished the article.
share.google
Jared Kushner’s Dollar Diplomacy
Jared Kushner represents the kind of Washington figure for whom public office serves as a means to extraordinary wealth.
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+972 Magazine @972mag.com · 18/09/2026
+972 condemns escalating threats against ‘NAZA’ directors A campaign of incitement by government ministers and far-right activists only proves how much Israel fears the truth — whoever is speaking it. www.972mag.com/naza-yuval-a...
972mag.com
+972 condemns escalating threats against ‘NAZA’ directors
A campaign of incitement by government ministers and far-right activists only proves how much Israel fears the truth — whoever is speaking it.
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Jason Leopold @jasonleopold.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
HUGE EXCLUSIVE from @bloomberg.com Inside the US ‘Kill Chain’ That Destroyed an Iranian School Pentagon investigators discovered that flawed intel, outdated imagery & overreliance on AI contributed to a missile strike that killed 123 children in Minab 🎁 www.bloomberg.com/graphics/202...
bloomberg.com
Inside the US ‘Kill Chain’ That Destroyed an Iranian School
Pentagon investigators have discovered that flawed intelligence, outdated imagery and an overreliance on AI contributed to a missile strike that killed 123 children in Minab.
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Ankit Panda @nktpnd.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Guessing we'll be seeing a lot of this in the coming months www.wsj.com/tech/ai/hack...
wsj.com
Exclusive | Hackers Used Anthropic’s Claude to Break Into OpenAI
A bug-hunting independent security research team was able to access OpenAI’s internal code system, exposing growing risks in automated cyber threats.
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