ICE announced yesterday that foreign students at schools that only instruct online this fall (which includes my alma mater Harvard) must leave the US. I was a foreign student on an F1 visa and would have been distressed by this. More importantly there are quite a few foreign students for whom there is not enough time, or not enough money, or even worse a threat to their lives in their home countries. This is yet another one of those recent US policies where the only plausible assessment is th...

ICE announced yesterday that foreign students at schools that only instruct online this fall (which includes my alma mater Harvard) must leave the US. I was a foreign student on an F1 visa and would have been distressed by this. More importantly there are quite a few foreign students for whom there is not enough time, or not enough money, or even worse a threat to their lives in their home countries. This is yet another one of those recent US policies where the only plausible assessment is th...

Watching what is happening in the United States, my adopted home country, is incredibly painful. I have seen the last few days coming for years based on the ever more untenable income and wealth distribution combined with militarization of the police and their ongoing unchecked brutality, especially against black people. You can browse back through Continuations and find many posts speaking to these topics, such as this one from 2014. I have a lot more thoughts about this moment in history an...

Watching what is happening in the United States, my adopted home country, is incredibly painful. I have seen the last few days coming for years based on the ever more untenable income and wealth distribution combined with militarization of the police and their ongoing unchecked brutality, especially against black people. You can browse back through Continuations and find many posts speaking to these topics, such as this one from 2014. I have a lot more thoughts about this moment in history an...

At the moment it appears as if Bernie Sanders might become the Democratic nominee. Bloomberg having entered the race means that the centrist vote is split four ways between Bloomberg, Biden, Buttigieg and Klobuchar. On the left there are only two candidates with Sanders and Warren. A lot can still change of course, especially with Super Tuesday coming up and there could be a brokered convention. But for the sake of this post, let’s assume it is Sanders. I would still vote for Sanders in the g...

At the moment it appears as if Bernie Sanders might become the Democratic nominee. Bloomberg having entered the race means that the centrist vote is split four ways between Bloomberg, Biden, Buttigieg and Klobuchar. On the left there are only two candidates with Sanders and Warren. A lot can still change of course, especially with Super Tuesday coming up and there could be a brokered convention. But for the sake of this post, let’s assume it is Sanders. I would still vote for Sanders in the g...

On this last day of the 2010s here is a recap with a single theme: we are fighting the battles of the past instead of inventing the future. We are doing that at a time when humanity is facing an extinction level threat in the climate crisis that also represents our single biggest opportunity for transformation. The ongoing debate about capitalism versus socialism is fundamentally caught up in the industrial age. It assumes that ownership and control of physical capital are paramount at a time...

On this last day of the 2010s here is a recap with a single theme: we are fighting the battles of the past instead of inventing the future. We are doing that at a time when humanity is facing an extinction level threat in the climate crisis that also represents our single biggest opportunity for transformation. The ongoing debate about capitalism versus socialism is fundamentally caught up in the industrial age. It assumes that ownership and control of physical capital are paramount at a time...

Today is the impeachment vote in the House of Representatives. It will be fascinating to see if any Republicans at all will support impeachment in the House. In an extraordinary display of abdication of any allegiance to the United States constitution, Senators Mitch McConnell and Lindsay Graham have already indicated that they have no interest in conducting a fair trial in the Senate but will instead take all their cues from the White House. The damage that the Republicans are doing here to ...

Today is the impeachment vote in the House of Representatives. It will be fascinating to see if any Republicans at all will support impeachment in the House. In an extraordinary display of abdication of any allegiance to the United States constitution, Senators Mitch McConnell and Lindsay Graham have already indicated that they have no interest in conducting a fair trial in the Senate but will instead take all their cues from the White House. The damage that the Republicans are doing here to ...

The discussion around taxing wealth, and in particular billionaires, has been illuminating. Not in the sense of learning something new but rather seeing who is willing to make or defend bad takes instead of engaging in any level of critical thinking. To make it clear on where I am on this issue, I am in support of a wealth tax, although I think there is a lot of room for discussion on how to best accomplish this. There are a few takes out there though that particularly bother me. The first is...

The discussion around taxing wealth, and in particular billionaires, has been illuminating. Not in the sense of learning something new but rather seeing who is willing to make or defend bad takes instead of engaging in any level of critical thinking. To make it clear on where I am on this issue, I am in support of a wealth tax, although I think there is a lot of room for discussion on how to best accomplish this. There are a few takes out there though that particularly bother me. The first is...

I will resume writing about the climate crisis next week, but today it feels appropriate to return to the topic of Trump. My last post was about the need to resist Trump’s return to cruelty as a means of politics. I am happy that this resistance has been building and most importantly that the Democrats appear to finally have found the courage to impeach the president. The longrunning prior calculation about how impeachment might affect the election was misguided, as I previously argued in a p...

I will resume writing about the climate crisis next week, but today it feels appropriate to return to the topic of Trump. My last post was about the need to resist Trump’s return to cruelty as a means of politics. I am happy that this resistance has been building and most importantly that the Democrats appear to finally have found the courage to impeach the president. The longrunning prior calculation about how impeachment might affect the election was misguided, as I previously argued in a p...

Humanity has a long and sad history of cruelty to other sentient beings including fellow humans. This is one of the darkest and saddest aspects of our selves and one we have struggled to overcome. Much progress has been made since the Middle Ages when public torture was common. And yet our progress comes from a relatively thin veneer of culture, barely restraining what remains a deep capacity for cruelty. Among Trump’s worst influences is his embrace of cruelty as a means of politics. It is t...

Humanity has a long and sad history of cruelty to other sentient beings including fellow humans. This is one of the darkest and saddest aspects of our selves and one we have struggled to overcome. Much progress has been made since the Middle Ages when public torture was common. And yet our progress comes from a relatively thin veneer of culture, barely restraining what remains a deep capacity for cruelty. Among Trump’s worst influences is his embrace of cruelty as a means of politics. It is t...

The question of “How Much is Enough?” isn’t just the title of an excellent book by Edward and Robert Skidelsky, but has come to be at the forefront of political debate. We are finally discussing such topics as a wealth tax and openly questioning whether there should be billionaires altogether. At the same time we are being treated to the spectacle of one billionaire flirting with a run as an independent candidate for the US presidency and another taking to Medium to fight extortion by a publi...

The question of “How Much is Enough?” isn’t just the title of an excellent book by Edward and Robert Skidelsky, but has come to be at the forefront of political debate. We are finally discussing such topics as a wealth tax and openly questioning whether there should be billionaires altogether. At the same time we are being treated to the spectacle of one billionaire flirting with a run as an independent candidate for the US presidency and another taking to Medium to fight extortion by a publi...

NOTE: I will resume posting excerpts from my book World After Capital next Monday. The field for the 2020 Democratic Party presidential primary has over a dozen declared candidates, including widely known names such as Senators Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, Cory Booker and Bernie Sanders. And on top that there are people like former Mayor Michael Bloomberg and former Vice President Joe Biden who could enter the race at any time and immediately be contenders. And yet all of these voices are...

NOTE: I will resume posting excerpts from my book World After Capital next Monday. The field for the 2020 Democratic Party presidential primary has over a dozen declared candidates, including widely known names such as Senators Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, Cory Booker and Bernie Sanders. And on top that there are people like former Mayor Michael Bloomberg and former Vice President Joe Biden who could enter the race at any time and immediately be contenders. And yet all of these voices are...