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Wessel van Rensburg

@wildebees.bsky.social

720 followers 410 following 2K posts

The digital policy strategist you didn’t know you needed—using terms like 'sovereign data assets' as casually as most would say 'hello'. Also geopolitics, innovation, industrial policy. Location: Den Haag 🇳🇱 From: 🇿🇦

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Wessel van Rensburg @wildebees.bsky.social · Aug 7

New essay ↓ with Andreas Dombret www.reaction.life/p/why-stable... #stablecoins
Stablecoins are Silicon Valley's Pandora's box. The Trump admin just signed the GENIUS Act, but the warnings should be louder.

Here's what everyone's missing about why stablecoins betray the essence of money itself 🧵

Why stablecoins are Silicon Valley's Pandora's box

Stablecoins betray the essence of money itself: credit.

www.reaction.life

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Wessel van Rensburg @wildebees.bsky.social · 36m

"If one failed, it was because he deserved to fail. Faithful to its universalism, Western upper middle-class neoliberals did not treat co-citizens any differently from foreigners."

Branko Milanovic @brankomilan.bsky.social · 1h

My today's Substack:
Defeated by reality
Why did neoliberalism, in its domestic and international components, fail?
branko2f7.substack.com/p/defeated-b...

Defeated by the real world

Why did neoliberalism, in its domestic and international components, fail?

branko2f7.substack.com

Reposted by Wessel van Rensburg

Katie Martin @katie0martin.ft.com · 1h

'Hargreaves Lansdown has warned UK investors over exposure to cryptocurrencies, saying bitcoin “has no intrinsic value”...'
Wow what a refreshingly principled stance on consumer protection and oh wait nvm www.ft.com/content/f342...

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Wessel van Rensburg @wildebees.bsky.social · 1h

Sharp by Branco Milanovic on neoliberalism:

"If one failed, it was because he deserved to fail. Faithful to its universalism, Western upper middle-class neoliberals did not treat co-citizens any differently from foreigners."

Defeated by the real world branko2f7.substack.com/p/defeated-b...

Defeated by the real world

Why did neoliberalism, in its domestic and international components, fail?

branko2f7.substack.com

Reposted by Wessel van Rensburg

Kevin M. Kruse @kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 9h

Bray is a historian at Rutgers who received death threats after landing on Turning Points USA's Professor Watchlist. As a result, he announced he was moving to Europe. And then this happened.

This kind of harassment and abuse of scholars is Charlie Kirk's legacy and it's only getting worse.

Mark Bray @mark-bray.bsky.social · 10h

“Someone” cancelled my family’s flight out of the country at the last second.

We got our boarding passes. We checked our bags. Went through security. Then at our gate our reservation ‘disappeared.’

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Techmeme @techmeme.com · 7h

California Governor Gavin Newsom signs a bill that will require web browsers to add settings that allow residents to opt out of third-party data collection (Suzanne Smalley/The Record)

Main Link | Techmeme Permalink

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Reposted by Wessel van Rensburg

Techmeme @techmeme.com · 17h

Germany's Federal Cartel Office opens an investigation into whether Temu is influencing the pricing of third-party merchants, potentially stifling competition (Mark Hallam/DW News)

Main Link | Techmeme Permalink

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Reposted by Wessel van Rensburg

Jana Puglierin @jpuglierin.bsky.social · 5d

We at @ecfr.eu are very lucky to host @abarbashin.bsky.social as visiting fellow in Berlin. He has listened to Putin at Valdai for us, so that you don’t have to. You can find his take here ➡️ Enemy number one: What Putin’s foreign policy speech says about Europe: ecfr.eu/article/enem...

Enemy number one: What Putin’s foreign policy speech says about Europe

At this year’s Valdai club, Vladimir Putin gave his most anti-EU speech yet, citing his determination to see new anti-establishment politicians to come to power and improve Europe’s relations with…

ecfr.eu

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Reposted by Wessel van Rensburg

Benjamin Braun @benbraun.bsky.social · 17h

If profits shape the energy transition we need to understand the biggest profit event this century: the 2022 oil and gas price spike.

Very happy our paper is now out in Energy Research & Social Science. Thread by lead-author @gregorsemieniuk.bsky.social 👇

Gregor Semieniuk @gregorsemieniuk.bsky.social · 17h

🚨NEW PAPER🚨
We all know the 2022 energy price shock fueled the cost of living crisis. It also caused a profit bonanza for the very rich. We show the US reaped the largest profits ($377bn) of any country. 50% went to the richest 1%, only 1% to the bottom 50%. A🧵 www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

River or sankey diagram showing the allocation of profits from global oil and gas companies to quantiles of the US wealth size distribution via financial system intermediaries, such as asset managers, and categories of ultimate beneficiaries, such as business owners, pension funds and shareholders in listed companies. The scale is hundreds of billions of US dollars, and ultimately 50.4% of profits reaching the US personal wealth distribution go to the richest 1% of households.

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Wessel van Rensburg @wildebees.bsky.social · 16h

Beautiful

Wessel van Rensburg @wildebees.bsky.social · 18h

If I still lived in London, I'd have checked this out.

Marie Le Conte @youngvulgarian.marieleconte.com · 1d

THE SECRET PROJECT I'VE BEEN WORKING ON FOR THE PAST FEW MONTHS IS FINALLY LIVE

CHECK IT OUT

outsidersartsclub.com

Wessel van Rensburg @wildebees.bsky.social · 18h

Looks great. Congratulations.

Reposted by Wessel van Rensburg

Mark Chadbourn @chadbourn.bsky.social · 1d

Gold has surged to a record high of $4000 an ounce over fears about Trump’s tariffs and the US government shutdown.

Gold surges past record $4,000 an ounce as uncertainty fuels rally

Analysts point to delays in the reporting of economic data due to the US government shutdown as one reason for the rise.

www.bbc.com

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Wessel van Rensburg @wildebees.bsky.social · 1d

“Our evaluations demonstrate that fine-tuning on authentic learning data significantly improves conversational and pedagogical performance - doubling student talk time, improving questioning style, increasing dialogue turns by 50%, and greater personalization of instruction.”

AI Firehose @ai-firehose.column.social · 1d

A study shows TeachLM, an education-focused AI, enhances tutoring with 100,000 hours of real student-tutor dialogue, doubling engagement metrics. This positions AI nearer to human tutors, promising a transformative leap in personalized learning. https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.05087

TeachLM: Post-Training LLMs for Education Using Authentic Learning Data

ArXiv link for TeachLM: Post-Training LLMs for Education Using Authentic Learning Data

arxiv.org

Wessel van Rensburg @wildebees.bsky.social · 1d

“The goal of this course is to teach how fundamental programming language techniques, algorithms and systems work by writing their miniature versions.”

Tomas Petricek @tomasp.net · 1d

I'm teaching 𝗪𝗿𝗶𝘁𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗼𝘄𝗻 𝘁𝗶𝗻𝘆 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗴𝗿𝗮𝗺𝗺𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘀𝘆𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗺(𝘀)! again. I'll be posting the videos & tasks on YouTube too.

In the first lecture, I explain what's a tiny system, why write one and show plenty of demos!

🎞️ Playlist: www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...
👉 More info: d3s.mff.cuni.cz/teaching/npr...

Write your own tiny programming system(s)! - YouTube

The goal of this course is to teach how fundamental programming language techniques, algorithms and systems work by writing their miniature versions. The cou...

www.youtube.com

Reposted by Wessel van Rensburg

Simonetta Vezzoso @wavesblog.bsky.social · 1d

In California, "it is now illegal to coerce someone into using a pricing algorithm based on non-public data" www.thebignewsletter.com/p/how-to-ove...

How to Overturn an Oligarchy

We've had some real victories. The FTC is looking into fire truck monopolization, California passed a law against coercion machines, and lobbyists took a big loss last month. America is waking up.

www.thebignewsletter.com

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Wessel van Rensburg @wildebees.bsky.social · 1d

Thread

Michael Pettis @michaelpettis.bsky.social · 7d

1/8
Eduardo Porter argues in this FT piece that Latin America's import substitution industrialization (ISI) in the 1960s and 1970s "ended in a massive debt crisis that ushered in a period of economic decline known across the region as the “lost decade”."
www.ft.com/content/2f9d...

Going back to the 1970s won’t save Mexico

Embracing protectionism to prevent Chinese dumping and appease Trump will fail — just like import substitution did

www.ft.com

Reposted by Wessel van Rensburg

Finbarr Bermingham @fbermingham.bsky.social · 1d

Super interesting op-ed by Dominik Mierzejewski comparing China's relinquishing WTO developing country status to Mao's theory of protracted war

"By giving up special and differential treatment benefits, China has executed a tactical retreat"

Opinion | China’s WTO concession only marks phase one of a protracted campaign

In one move, Beijing gets to disarm Washington of a rhetorical weapon while maintaining the mantle of leadership within the Global South.

www.scmp.com

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Reposted by Wessel van Rensburg

Christian Odendahl @codendahl.bsky.social · 1d

As #France is without government once more, it is worth remembering that its total bilateral support for #Ukraine is less than that of Sweden, Denmark and the Netherlands.

Not combined. Individually, and in €bn not % of GDP.

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Reposted by Wessel van Rensburg

Finbarr Bermingham @fbermingham.bsky.social · 1d

New: European Commission has unveiled sweeping measures to shield the EU’s struggling steel industry from a flood of overcapacity it says is emanating from China, slashing tariff-free quotas by nearly half and doubling duties on excess shipments to 50%

Eyeing China, EU unveils sweeping measures to shield struggling steel industry

If approved, plan tackling overcapacity would slash tariff-free quotas by nearly half and double duties on excess shipments to 50 per cent.

www.scmp.com

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Reposted by Wessel van Rensburg

More Perfect Union @moreperfectunion.bsky.social · 1d

California has now banned algorithmic price fixing.

The state has outlawed the practice of landlords colluding to raise prices using rental software and AI.

This is a huge victory for renters in the biggest state in the country.

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Reposted by Wessel van Rensburg

Jameel Jaffer @jameeljaffer.bsky.social · 2d

It's a pretty big deal that the NYC Bar Association--one of the most prominent and respected bar associations in the country--is accusing the President of ordering the "unlawful summary execution," i.e. murder--of civilians in violation of US and international law. www.nycbar.org/press-releas...

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Reposted by Wessel van Rensburg

Techmeme @techmeme.com · 1d

At OpenAI's DevDay, Sam Altman and Jony Ive spoke in vague terms about the "family of devices" currently under development; Altman says "it will take a while" (Wired)

Main Link | Techmeme Permalink

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Reposted by Wessel van Rensburg

Mischa Honeck @honeckmischa.bsky.social · 2d

I’m a German historian of the US, and I remember how I said to myself a few years ago man it must suck to be a German historian of Russia with all the repression bearing down on the GHI in Moscow and the dangers of doing critical scholarship there and all.

Well…

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Wessel van Rensburg @wildebees.bsky.social · 1d

And both have shed support.

Reposted by Wessel van Rensburg

Ben Coates @bencoates1.bsky.social · 1d

I find it fascinating that both the UK Conservatives and Dutch VVD have swerved sharply to the right (almost to the far right) in the last year or so - and have both done so while led by ethnic minority women from immigrant backgrounds

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