Without a 2/3 majority, Poland's new government wasn't able to remove all remnants of the old regime. As a result, it lost a presidential election a mere 1.5 years after taking office. Orban's constitutional changes, on the other hand, create a much easier path for a total overhaul in Hungary.
For a point of comparison: Poland's PiS government received 35% of the vote in the last general election. Orban's Fidesz got 38%. But because Poland uses proportional representation while Hungary awards most seats by single-member district, PiS got 42% of the seats while Fidesz ended up with 28%.
The irony of Orban losing big due to the large number of seats chosen through single-member constituencies and lack of run-offs when he previously changed the constitution to create more single-member constituency seats and eliminated run-offs.
instituteofgeoeconomics.org/en/research/...
I wish I could end this on an optimistic note or provide a solution, but every tool that has historically been used to mitigate international violence has been broken, quite possibly beyond repair. If anything, we have yet to hit rock bottom.
It's clear that the great powers are unwilling to stop this violence (even when they're not the catalysts themselves). Middle powers are too busy trying to avoid getting sucked into the violence to do much to stop it. International law has completely collapsed. We're in for very bloody times.
Just in the past 4 years, we've seen largescale violence between Thailand and Cambodia; Armenia and Azerbaijan; Russia and Ukraine; Israel and Lebanon, Iran (twice); US and Iran (twice); and Afghanistan and Pakistan. Even within domestic politics, violence is ascendant, with numerous recent coups.
Since WWII ended, the likelihood of war has been low in much of the world. Even countries known for violence fought one war every 1-2 decades. The diplomatic cost of war has fallen so low that even countries that would be inclined to resolve disputes peacefully in the past may now opt for violence.
I know the world is going from one crisis to another, but I haven't seen much written about the implication of a shift to a much more violent world order. Violence has been legitimized in a way it hasn't been since the 1930s. The consequences have been minimal. The odds of war increase everywhere.
A graph of the Dow Jones from 1973 to 1982.
Here's the Dow Jones graph.
For anyone discounting the consequences of stagflation: Dow Jones was basically unchanged between the first Oil Crisis (1973) and 1982. That's almost a decade of 0% returns.
I'm old enough to remember the countless news stories explaining how oil prices don't entirely determine gas prices and that we shouldn't expect lower oil prices to automatically translate to lower gas prices. I guess that logic only works in one direction. finance.yahoo.com/news/oil-pri...
Strange how decreases in oil prices don't affect gas prices for months, while increases in oil prices affect gas prices within a day. www.nytimes.com/2026/03/07/b...
List of national rulers who've been in power since 2000: Hassanal Bolkiah Obiang Biya Museveni Mswati III Afwerki Rahmon Kagame Lukashenka Sassou Nguesso Abdullah II Guelleh Mohammed VI Putin
With Khamenei's death confirmed, there are now 14 national rulers (de facto) who've been in power for the entirety of the 21st century.
Dictators always claim that the tyranny is necessary for providing their people security. And yet, they consistently show themselves to be more proficient at butchering their own people than at protecting them.
What happened in Iran is the fate of any society where extra-judicial killings go unpunished. www.nytimes.com/2026/01/25/w...
Curious what happened to all the realists claiming that who leads a country is irrelevant and that all rulers pursue a hardcoded set of national interests.
During this time, the Germans managed to reach Moscow and be pushed back to Berlin - and Putin got stuck near Myrnograd.
It's amazing how the same people who had "crypto" in their profiles have suddenly transformed into AI experts. Can't wait for their next transformation.
Minus the whole Russian occupation of chunks of Moldova and Georgia and the NATO bombing of Republika Srpska and Yugoslavia.
And this is just the tip of the iceberg of recent crimes against humanity in Sudan. news.un.org/en/story/202...
If Maduro is overthrown, what stops regime loyalists from teaming up with cartels to seize control over chunks of Venezuela? And what would prevent a very violent civil war between various armed groups for control of the drug routes? No new government could assert control over the entire country.
And that's how ethnic Russians make up a majority of all but a handful of Russia's Asian regions.
Penguins fan. One gram of hope. Only need a de-aging machine.
By contrast, the correlation between an NHL team's point total in the previous season and its point total in the current season is 0.54.
Since it's that time of the year (when NHL fans have hope for their team based on its preseason performance), I decided to run some correlations between performance in the preseason and the ensuing season. The correlation is 0.08. A perfect correlation is | 1 |.
For the graphically inclined:
