Why did Trump's inner circle discount the effect of the closing of the Strait of Hormuz? Will the billionaires who bankroll him have second thoughts when global supply chains buckle? Maybe it has something to do with the illusion of a dematerialized economy....
open.substack.com/pub/peterdor...
Agreed, but the frame itself is the big problem, and maneuvering within it a much smaller one. Unfortunately, even many environmentalists talk about economic growth as if it were some evil genie -- not only misunderstanding econ but playing into the strategy of the corporates.
Isn't this an absurd question to ask people? Short of a nuclear holocaust, climate change is the biggest threat to economic survival, far beyond growth, we face. The question itself is the problem.
Yes -- zero sum thinking is wrong when DEI-ish people do it, and it's wrong when anti-DEI-ish people do it. There isn't a fixed amt of social justice out there to divvy up among different groups.
Also, anyone who has had to sit through a workshop led by corporate diversity trainers (that includes me) knows how dreadful that business can be. But the real world is a complicated mix that can't be reduced to its worst elements.
The Guastella piece is a nasty version of a decent argument. Universal programs are better than selective ones, and DEI in practice often employed toxic zero-sum thinking. But reversing the legacy of racism and sexism is also necessary. The "Who cares?" thing is lazy and vindictive.
Here's the thing about the sort of ceasefire. Trump, Vance and the rest have found it's OK to just make up stuff, deny what they just said, etc. in US politics. They get away with it. So now they do the same thing with a ceasefire agreement. "No, it doesn't say that." How will this turn out?
The core issue, IMO, is fungibility, which of course relates directly to the role of money. Provision of certain services may be fungible (exchangeable for other goods/services), but the service itself isn't. Health. Education. Engagement with nature. Money doesn't buy these.
$200B is far more than they are likely to spend on this war -- probably > 2x. It's another ploy to get a slush fund. Yes, oppo should be antiwar but also against giving Trump a big pile of money with no constraints on how he spends it.
Adam Tooze quotes Brookings' Michael O'Hanlon in the Financial Times questioning the Pentagon's $200B ask. I think the explanation is simple: as in the BBBill, Trump wants another giant slush fund, money he can move around at will. The war is a pretext.
Reason #6: It brings to the fore the issues that unite us so we can set aside our other differences. See the ketchup theory of demonstrations:
open.substack.com/pub/peterdor...
Personally, if I have to be teleported, let it be to a lobster shack in Maine, or a seafood curry place in Goa, or something like that. Distance is no object, right?
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...
Jeez, I was unaware. I published an article in it last year after receiving helpful reviewer feedback. The topic was clientelism; it was a bit iconoclastic, but nothing extreme. A slight dig at facile game theory.
More on the politics of anger, this time the anger of the agents of repression. And again, the point of departure is a recent Iranian film, the remarkable *The Seed of the Sacred Fig.*
open.substack.com/pub/peterdor...
These off-grid data center electrical generating systems will almost certainly become stranded assets, whether from the demand side (AI), the supply side (energy) or both.
www.nytimes.com/interactive/...
What does it mean that a movie that serves up long, repetitive stretches of angry screaming is getting rave reviews and racking up awards? Public displays of intense anger have been normalized, but where are they taking us?
open.substack.com/pub/peterdor...
Oil prices are going up because of the war on Iran. That's being seen by both left and right as a problem, but they would actually be good if they were being paid to ourselves and not oil companies or petrostates. Here's how to do it.
open.substack.com/pub/peterdor...
The right way is not to restrict recorded music but support lots of people learning and playing it. The world leader is Finland. I have a paragraph on this in my climate book. Fascinating story. One public music school for every 40K Finns.
Nothing I did, including of course pressing Esc, could stop it. I forced WP to close, reopened it, and the deletion continued. The only way to stop it was to reboot the computer. When it came up again, my document was almost empty, with no undo record. I lost hours of work.
Anyone out there a WordPerfect user? A *very* weird thing happened to me yesterday. I was finishing work on an important document, and I suddenly noticed my text was rapidly being deleted, character by character, as if an alien force had taken control of my backspace key.
rump is waging war on Iran with total lack of concern for US public opinion beyond performing violent domination for his hard core supporters. He shows no sign of worrying that this could cost him the next election. That makes it harder to work against the war: what's the lever?
You really have to read their communiqués to see how witless they were. The rest of us, who struggled to build broad support for radical social change, were undermined by their open disdain for 90% of the population. No nostalgia for Weather, please.
Yes to the vacuousness of OBAA, but the Weathermen as a benchmark of seriousness? Really? As a veteran of those years, let me say that Weather combined toxic white guilt with a worship of performative violence that would do Pete Hegseth proud.
www.nytimes.com/2026/03/08/o...
The important point is that the Trump admin displays almost no interest in influencing public opinion, beyond performing for their hardcore base. It's as if they don't think they are at risk from getting crushed in a future election.
www.nytimes.com/2026/03/02/o...
CNN's value is based almost entirely on intangible capital. Its workforce could migrate en masse to a media startup ("NNC") and the entity called CNN would be an empty shell. You'd just have to arrange a new set of media packages.
We went out for a picnic this evening to watch the sunset, but we had to beat an early retreat because my partner was being devoured by mosquitoes. Mosquitoes in February. In Portland.
My experience too. I wonder why. Maybe a strong pool of skilled kitchen workers -- good for consistency. And a critical mass of diners eager to explore and experiment, and who appreciate quality. The Daily O's dining coverage is weak, though. Is it all through word of mouth? (Literally?)
This is a terrible move in general, but one detail stands out: Among the majors that would be ended is the BA in music at Indiana University. This is a premier music program, and faculty/grad opportunities would have to be cut substantially.
www.insidehighered.com/news/governm...
