Recent content by philostam

Maybe. I think this war was a mistake by the US after Trump spent the whole of last year trying to lower the price of oil and running on "no war" promises. However, now that we are here, I think it's disengenious to portray it as complete disaster for the US. Iran is suffering too, especially if...

Sure, I get that Russia benefits from this conflict. China? Less so, I don't think they give a damn about Iran, they just want their oil from the Middle East (they import way more from Saudi and UAE than Iran). But more importantly, this symbolic support is to no use to Iranians when US is the...

I wouldn't pay too much attention to what they leak out in the media. Obviously both sides want to appear strong and appear to have escalation dominance. Another thing is to differentiate between preferences and constratins. Trump already proved many times that he has low pain tolerance (no...

I think US will try to TACO very soon (within 1-2 weeks), the issue this time is that the spillovers of the conflict may already be too broad. Iran may as well continue their drone operations in the strait of Hormuz. Then US may be forced to lash out more to impose more pain to force them to...

Mad Men is my favorite show. I keep telling that to everyone who asks, but they either didn't watch it or say "it was OK, a bit slow for me". I first watched it as a teenager around 2013 and just found it aesthetically so appealing. Later on second watch in 2017 I discovered its different layers...

I subscribed to Claude Code and played with it for last few days. While it does produce some nice scripts that I would not be able to do myself, this vibe-coding is only useful to the extent you have domain knowledge and know what you're doing. Meaning, human intelligence and knowledge are still...

I guess it's devil you know vs. devil you don't know. I'm suspicious of the AI worshipers. Their favorite slogan is "We must win the AI race or China will"...what does that even mean? China is leveraging the real economy/resources/manufacturing structure. That'll remain their focus. I think...

AI worshipers actually seem to think that their AI God will cause a total, discrete transformation of the world and that, say, year 2030, will be like year 0 and we will count time as before AI and after AI. And in the new world there'll be no poverty and economic growth will be 50% a year...

Lame speech. No wonder China is eating our lunch. EU apparatchicks care about applauses and approval (abstract power), meanwhile China gets its feedback from physics and reality (real power).

Hopefully I am wrong, but I think that the window for finding some solution for the Russia - Ukraine war has closed. I think Trump was willing to broker peace, but EU/Ukraine and Putin were not. The thing is now Russia is cornered. They cannot destroy/bomb Ukraine more than they already did...

If anything, US is pulling out of the conflict with China. I am glad to see that the more realist wing in US administration is in control. Fact is that US military is made in China, if one loks closely at the supply chains. There are crucial elements (like rare earths) which China has pretty...

Recently I watched an excellent 2017 movie about Churchill (Darkest Hours) when he first became PM in 1940, and during his famous "we shall fight on the beaches" speech, his main opponent in the war cabinet, Lord Halifax, summarized it with a fantastic line. He said Churchill has "mobilized the...

This one is the most scary for me: Firstly, you can just see in her face that she is possesed by some kind of demon. Second, her opinions are trash, her reasoning is trash, her personality is trash. She filmed this conversation with his dad (who is shocked and disappointed with her) and she...

His family seems decent and loving. This kid was radicalized in school and campus, and spent his whole days on reddit and discord as confirmed by his classmates. And his own father reported him to the police and brought him in. Another case of the mind virus taking a perfectly good kid.

I think it can be prevented in the left wing politicians and media de-escalate the situation. I've seen a hint of self-reflection after the Kamala/Biden election defeat, but now they're back to the "Hitler needs to be stopped" rhetoric. Someone has to take the moral high-ground. To be clear, I...