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Listening to this while driving a tractor in the field is quite fun and gives the opportunity to catch up on @thenextbest.bsky.social

I analyzed dozens of reports from Russian municipalities and found a lot of fascinating insights about how Russian recruitment actually works. At the core, the recruitment machine is a multilayered system of quotas, going all the way from the Kremlin down to the smallest village.

Let's goooooooooo

Thanks for sharing! It really is wild

Fascinating episode about North Korea and the Kim succession question. And yes, I would listen to 45 min just on the KL assasination plot.

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War'n Banger, 10/10

Think that's a good point

If you're Xi Jinping and you watch the Iran War unfold, how does your estimate change? Again, we don't know. But if I'm in Beijing, it doesn't make me think that Americans are willing to risk serious pain to fight for some island 10,000 kilometres from home

Now it might be that American voters would be willing to pay a higher price (in terms of both blood and treasure) to defend Taiwan, but I'm really not sure that's the case. Aside from the obvious risk of nuclear apocalypse, that war would likely destroy the world economy. Thousands would die

Losing 100 soldiers is a normal Tuesday morning for Russia. For America, it would be a national catastrophe. This is a fundamental disadvantage for democracies: The Chinese and the Russians and the Iranians can burn through 10,000 men without worrying about losing power. Democratic rulers can't

I'm sure the Chinese are impressed by America's military power, but what good is the most powerful military in the world if you can't use it because a hundred or two hundred dead soldiers cause a huge political crisis? Would Trump really risk it? Beijing can see how worried he is by casualties

None of us know what's going on inside Xi Jinping's head, so this might well be the way he looks at the Iran War. But he could also conclude that the United States is unlikely to risk war with China because it is hugely vulnerable to casualties and rising gas prices. Plus, it doesn't have the ammo

The downside of the user base here is that there's very little good faith debate around big issues because most people seem to agree on most things. Plus, you probably won't learn much about Pakistan or Congo or Indonesia here because I guess about 97% of users are from the US, Europe or Canada

Which, in a way, is nice. I logged into Twitter for the first time yesterday in months and it's completely insane. Every now and then you find an interesting post but it's close to unusable. That's not the case here, which is neat

I'm sure scale is part of it. But also, a lot of the things that made Europeans and North Americans leave Twitter are probably less relevant for people from other regions of the world. As a result, this platform is mostly used by comparatively left-wing people from like 11 countries

One of the few things I miss from Twitter is how international it felt, at least comparatively. You'd find out about Indian protests or Nigerian elections or some tragedy in Paraguay. This might just be my feed, but Bluesky feels very focused on Europe + North America.

ROME (AP) — Four decades after the Chernobyl disaster spewed radiation across Europe and turned Italy off nuclear power, Premier Giorgia Meloni ’s government is laying the groundwork to bring it back as the country seeks to improve its energy security. apnews.com/article/ital...

The inevitable consequence of this is a loss of American influence in Europe

One of the reasons why wildfires are such a big deal in Europe is because people often live close to vegetation. Europe has the most widespread wildland-urban interface, where population centres meet with vegetation, with the WUI covering 15% of its land area (global average is just 4.7%)