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I try to assess the role and – to a limited extent – the impact of these religious and secular civil-society movements upon contemporary Asian societies.
Prasenjit Duara • The Crisis of Global Modernity: Asian Traditions and a Sustainable Future (Asian Connections)
Fringe ideas are no longer fanciful theories but have become real political projects.
Doomscroll: Quinn Slobodian
Instead, we see the opposite—more evidence of diminishing returns to violence—which strongly implies that large conglomerations like the nation-state will no longer justify their huge overhead costs.
James Dale Davidson, Lord William Rees-Mogg • The Sovereign Individual: Mastering the Transition to the Information Age
On further reflection, however, it seemed to me that it was perhaps a conceit to think that modern societies had progressed so far beyond Melanesia, since Big Men—that is, politicians who distribute resources to their relatives and supporters—are ubiquitous in the contemporary world, including the U.S. Congress.
Francis Fukuyama • The Origins of Political Order
Theodore von Hippel,
Max Boot • Invisible Armies
But oligarchic power offers a darker temptation: why adjust predictions to match reality when you can bend reality to validate predictions? When Andreessen Horowitz anoints cryptocurrency as banking’s inevitable successor, the next step isn’t adaptation but activation—deploying Trump administration influence to transmute prophecy into policy. The c... See more
The New Legislators of Silicon Valley - The Ideas Letter
