If you're reposting or loving this, I urge you to follow @lamemage.com -- you'll thank me.

civil.ge/archives/704...

It’s not enough to “win.” It’s also about all-of-society domination based on paranoia of “Derp State” foreign influence — or, more conservatively, seeing how far that argument can be pushed cynically. The loss of Western support is priced in.

This has no off-switch.

I do not think most civilians understand this point at all. Thanks for writing.

An unfortunate truth, I fear, is that most of the people voting for the anti-system parties would not educate themselves, even if content were free. Part of what we pay for is the "brand" of WOTR (or the NYT, or a good university) and *some* assurance of quality control, filtering disinformation.

WOTR has lots of free content but shelling out a bit to subsidize the full Kofman experience is not a bad value proposition, honestly, if you're in this space. Think about the subscription as supporting the artist directly, buying the swag at the shows, etc.

"Could the US have cobbled together a coalition ... to prevent violence and build a stronger state? My answer is no. In a situation dominated by master cleavages, an outside intervenor cannot change the basic flow of a conflict by ... arranging deals among a diverse set of domestic elites." /micdrop

Today I was listening to James C Scott (RIP) wax poetic about how if you only write for your discipline, you're halfway to alienated labor. This is obviously correct. The other side of the coin is how few superheroes like Jim achieve escape velocity from the economic/status periphery. Great post.

Arson indeed. It does make one wonder what taxpayers will wish we'd kept studying 30 years from now.