Reading

Created
Wed, 01/11/2023 - 09:18

Big Tech is so profoundly different from other industries that it cannot be regulated like the trusts, cartels, or conglomerates of the past. After all, if regulators tried to break up Facebook or TikTok, they would be confronted by enraged users for whom the universal nature of these platforms is the reason they use them. […]

The post Big Tech Cannot Be Regulated – Project Syndicate op-ed appeared first on Yanis Varoufakis.

Created
Wed, 01/11/2023 - 07:40
Notes On The Structure Of American Imperial Collapse (State of the World 2023, #1)

The American empire is now in essentially unstoppable decline. Certainly there are things that could be done to stop it, but they will not be done, much as the British had to avoid WWI and not take profits by sending industry to the US.

(This is the first article on the state of the world, as promised in last year’s fundraiser.)

Everyone knows about comparative advantage, but what doesn’t get talked about is absolute advantage. In absolute advantage you have something people need that they can only get from you.

This can be weapons. It can be jets. It can be advanced computers. It can be the capital equipment (like lithography machines used to create semiconductors) used to make other things. Sometimes it can be a resource, like oil.

Created
Wed, 01/11/2023 - 04:34

If war is supposed to be the continuation of politics by other means, Israel’s assault on Gaza seems to be the continuation by other means of the absence of politics. It does not seem that Israel understands what its endgame is. Without a clear sense of an ending, there can be no answer to the […]

The post No Endgame in Gaza appeared first on The New York Review of Books.

Created
Wed, 01/11/2023 - 04:16
As Black History Month draws to a close, we’d like to recognise some of the individuals, organisations and initiatives, who inspire us through their work challenging racism within tech, policing and our wider society. Kids of Colour Kids of Colour is a project for young people of colour aged 25 and under to explore ‘race’, […]