For every pound spent on military Defence, we must demand at least an equal pound spent on environmental defence, because the former without the latter is futile. There is simply no point using military power to fight for a world that won’t sustain life.

Putin didn't invade Ukraine because of NATO. He invaded because Ukrainians were proving democracy works. Historian and Pulitzer Prize winner Anne Applebaum puts it plainly: Putin looked at Ukraine's democratic movement and thought, "If they can do it in Ukraine, then people could do it in Russia. So I need to crush this." That's the real threat Ukraine posed. Not missiles. Not borders. A working democracy next door. Applebaum frames the war as a fault line between the democratic and autocratic worlds. Russia isn't just trying to take territory. It's trying to erase Ukraine as a nation, reduce it to a colony, and send a message to every country that the post-1945 rules of Europe no longer apply. Those rules were simple: no invasions, no wars, borders don't change by force. Russia understood exactly what it was breaking when it crossed into Ukraine.

RT @Cherryopenmind: Only forensic journalism of this calibre can restore faith in the press and prevent figures like Farage from ever getti…

ElastOS is one user-owned system of four parts: Blockchain for identity, ownership and governance. Runtime for app permissions. PC2 for your personal cloud today. Carrier for private communication. This week brings key parts closer in practice. ➡️elastos.click/May-23-Update

This is an extraordinary document written by the research arm of China's spy agency (the powerful MSS, basically the CIA and the FBI all wrapped in one) that absolutely zero media has picked up on. As far as I can see, I'm the first person to write about it even though it was published (in Chinese) on May 13th on chinadiplomacy.org.cn, a website of China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The document contains perhaps the most authoritative description of where China thinks its relationship with the U.S. stands, and where it’s headed. The title of the report is “The Great Global Transformation and the Path to U.S.–China Coexistence” and I provide a full translation of it in my article, the link of which is at the bottom of this post. To summarize briefly the most important - and, perhaps, surprising - aspect of the document: China's spy agency - the one institution whose entire job is to worry about the U.S. threat - has largely stopped worrying. That's really what transpires from the document. They use a strategic framework borrowed from Mao's "protracted war" theory and, according to this framework, America's offensive phase is finished and China weathered the storm intact. The question is no longer "how do we survive America?" but "how do we manage America?" - and they're proposing a six-step relationship recovery program. I'll let you read the full document as well as my analysis of it here: open.substack.com/pub/arnaud…

RT @hopenothate: EXCLUSIVE: Reform UK’s Makerfield by-election candidate, Rob Kenyon, had a SECOND deleted social media account, and the ar…

The fish rots from the head. Corrupt from Don Sr down

I just got back from the Bitcoin Energy Summit in Lisbon and I have a question that won't leave me alone. First some context: Bitcoin mining is now stabilizing the grids of 7 nations, 4 agencies (including the Spanish Govt and the World's largest energy policy association) just called for more flexible demand being critical to the resilience of the grids of the future - and Bitcoin mining is the world's most flexible load resource by an order of magnitude. So in light of this my question is this: why is 95% of the Bitcoin adoption conversation about Bitcoin-as-money when Bitcoin-as-energy is already deployed on grids across 3 continents? Is it possible that energy is the Bitcoin usecase that paves the road for mainstream acceptance of Bitcoin in the West? I've been in this space for four years now. When I started, the conversation was "bitcoin mining wastes energy." A group of Bitcoiners including @thetrocro, @jyn_urso and others changed that. Then it became "ok maybe it doesn't waste energy, but it's not useful." @gladstein, @jack and others changed that too. But here's what I noticed in Lisbon. Three separate European organisations - the European Bitcoin Energy Association, Free Madeira, and the Institut National de Bitcoin in France - are all independently converging on the same conclusion. @geyer_rachel, Chair of EBEA said energy is what will move the needle for Bitcoin in Europe. @andreloja at @FREEMadeiraOrg said energy is the most topical issue in Europe right now. Bastien Desteuque (@Proxy18387764), directeur général at @BitcoinPolicyFr said they're focusing on mining because France has spare nuclear capacity and that's where the biggest opportunity is. Three organisations. Same conclusion. And that's before you get to what's actually being built. In Sweden, a man I coach runs ASIC hardware that earns almost two-thirds of its revenue from frequency regulation - keeping the lights on, responding in seconds to the need of the grid operator, and helping to stabilize the grid an incredible 11,247 times last year alone. (Yes, you read that sentence right). In Lisbon, I watched Kenji Tateiwa present a circular economy where bitcoin mining heat grows tropical fish and the CO2 gets converted to charcoal and micro diamonds. Bastian outlined how France's surplus nuclear energy could be absorbed by bitcoin mining by 2027. And outside the West, from stabilizing the economy of Bhutan post-covid to helping save Virunga National Park in Africa - Bitcoin mining was behind both events and many more. This phenomenon is a global one. The conversation has quietly moved from "does bitcoin mining help grids?" to "how many services can one machine provide?" We've been thinking about this like monoculture - one machine, one function. What I saw in Lisbon is permaculture. The same hardware doing frequency regulation, heat capture, Sats-minting ... and potentially in the near future - voltage regulation (something that would have prevented the 28 April 2025 Iberian Peninsular Blackout). I talked to Bitcoin founders after the keynote who told me the energy thesis had opened their eyes. These are people who worked to advance Bitcoin payment infrastructure, and they hadn't fully grasped this. Bitcoin solves a monetary problem the world is only beginning to understand. I'm more convinced of that than ever. And ... as we wait for that revolution to be fully grasped, the energy revolution is already here - deployed, generating revenue, stabilizing grids. It might just be the thing that opens the door for everything else. What other Bitcoin use case is this far along ... at least in the West?

RT @Cherryopenmind: Unfortunately, my school teacher is no longer with us to grade this piece through her golden rule of journalism: Who, W…

Why what we are doing is so important for digital ownership, security and new capital markets, must watch

The world's democracies are being targeted one by one. That has to stop. China has imposed trade boycotts on Australia, Lithuania, South Korea and Canada. Each time, the target stood alone. Each time, it worked. The answer is not self-sufficiency. It is collective action. Today I launch After the Rupture: An alliance of middle-power democracies led by a D-7: seven democracies representing 30% of the global economy, acting together on trade, technology, critical minerals and defence. Not a new institution. A coalition of the willing, and the able. Full paper → shorturl.at/33GOA

There’s no overstating how extraordinary this Atlantic article is, given the author and the outlet. As a reminder Bob Kagan is: - The co-founder of Project for the New American Century, probably the single most imperialist Think Tank in Washington (which is quite a feat) - A man who spent his entire life advocating for American military interventions, especially in the Middle East, and a vocal advocate of the Iraq war. He started advocating for intervention in Iraq before 9/11, which speaks for itself... - The husband of Victoria Nuland, an extremely hawkish former senior U.S. official (a key architect of U.S. policy in Ukraine, with the consequences we all witness today) - The brother of Frederick Kagan, one of the key architects of the Iraq surge In other words, we ain’t exactly looking at some sort of anti-imperialist peacenik. This is quite literally the guy Dick Cheney called when he needed a pep talk. And the man is writing in The Atlantic, the most reliably pro-war mainstream media outlet in the U.S. (also quite a feat). So when HE writes that the U.S. “suffered a total defeat” in Iran that has no precedent in U.S. history and can “neither be repaired nor ignored,” it’s the functional equivalent of Ronald McDonald telling you the burgers aren’t great: it means the burgers really, really aren't great. Extraordinarily (and somewhat worryingly, for me), his arguments for why this is such a defeat are virtually the same as those I laid out in my article “The First Multipolar War” last month (open.substack.com/pub/arnaud…). Here they are 👇 1) Vietnam/Afghanistan were survivable, this isn't He agrees that this war - and the U.S. defeat - is fundamentally different in nature from previous U.S. interventions. Where I wrote that the wars in Vietnam and Afghanistan didn’t change the equation much in terms of power dynamics (“in the grand scheme of things, the giant walked away with little more than a bruised ego”), Kagan writes that “the defeats in Vietnam and Afghanistan were costly but did not do lasting damage to America's overall position in the world.” And when I wrote that “it’s painfully obvious that the Iran war is of a qualitatively different nature” from these, he writes that “defeat in the present confrontation with Iran will be of an entirely different character.” Same point. 2) Iran will never relinquish Hormuz and uses it as selective leverage When I wrote that Iran has turned “freedom of navigation” on its head by establishing “a permission-based regime” through the Strait of Hormuz, Kagan arrives at the same conclusion: “Iran will be able not only to demand tolls for passage, but to limit transit to those nations with which it has good relations.” He also agrees that “Iran has no interest in returning to the status quo ante,” when I myself cited Iran’s parliament speaker Ghalibaf in my article, saying: “The Strait of Hormuz situation won’t return to its pre-war status.” Same point and virtually the same words. 3) Gulf states will have to accommodate Iran He agrees that most Gulf states will have no choice but to accommodate Iran, effectively making Iran into a, if not THE, dominant regional power. Kagan writes “the United States will have proved itself a paper tiger, forcing the Gulf and other Arab states to accommodate Iran.” On my end, I wrote that “the Gulf monarchies will eventually have to choose between two security propositions. One where they stay aligned with a distant superpower that [can’t protect them]. The other proposition being: make peace with the regional power that just proved it can hit [them] whenever it wants.” Which is not much of a choice… 4) Military impossibility to reopen Hormuz Kagan writes that “if the United States with its mighty Navy can't or won't open the strait, no coalition of forces with just a fraction of the Americans' capability will be able to, either.” On my end, in my article I cited Germany’s defense minister Boris Pistorius: “What does Trump expect a handful of European frigates to do that the powerful US Navy cannot?” The exact same argument. 5) Global chain reaction Kagan agrees that this is a global strategic failure that fundamentally changes the U.S.’s position in the world. As he puts it: “America's once-dominant position in the Gulf is just the first of many casualties… America's allies in East Asia and Europe must wonder about American staying power in the event of future conflicts.” You’ll have guessed it, I wrote essentially the same thing: “Think about what it says if you’re Saudi Arabia, quietly watching your American-built defenses fail to protect your own refineries. Or any European country now facing the worst energy shock since 1973, caused not by your enemy but by your ally, and realizing that said ‘ally,’ supposedly in charge of ‘protecting’ you, couldn’t even protect Israel’s most strategic sites - when it’s the country with which it’s joined at the hip. I’m not even speaking about China or Russia who are seeing their worldview being validated on almost every axis simultaneously.” 6) Weapons stocks depleted, credibility shattered Kagan: “just a few weeks of war with a second-rank power have reduced American weapons stocks to perilously low levels, with no quick remedy in sight.” Me: “America’s most advanced weapons systems are much more vulnerable than previously thought - not theoretically, but in actual combat.” Kagan: “America's allies… must wonder about American staying power in the event of future conflicts.” Me: “The U.S. security guarantee has been empirically falsified in real time.” ----------- So, yup, Bob Kagan and I agree on nearly everything. I need a shower 🤢 Reassuringly though, we still differ on a few fundamental aspects. First of all, arguably the most important one, the moral aspect. In typical neocon fashion, his article contains not a word about the human cost of this war - not the 165 schoolgirls, not the devastation inflicted on Iranians during 37 days of bombing, not the toll this war is taking on the entire world through its devastating economic consequences (the economic devastation on ordinary people worldwide is referenced only as a political problem for Trump). For him, this is purely a strategic chess problem, morality and people don’t figure in his mental map. For me, the moral bankruptcy of this war isn't separate from the strategic failure - it is the strategic failure. Much like Gaza can only be a failure because of its sheer abjectness. Secondly, there is not an instant of reflection in the article on how we got there. Which is unsurprising because he personally, alongside his wife, his brother, and every co-signatory of every PNAC letter, spent a generation pushing for exactly this kind of confrontation. The man spend 30 years advocating for military dominance in the Middle East and hostility towards Iran, thereby forging them as an adversary and facilitating this very war that he now says has “checkmated” America. I know introspection has never been the neocon forte but at some point you have to stop setting houses on fire and then writing op-eds about how surprising the smoke is. Last but not least, we differ on what should be done. This is the funniest part of Kagan’s article - showing that the man is decidedly beyond salvation. On one hand he calls this a “checkmate” by Iran, and a U.S. defeat that can “neither be repaired nor ignored,” yet an the other hand his solution for it is… surprise, surprise… a bigger war still! He writes that what’s to be done is “engage in a full-scale ground and naval war to remove the current Iranian regime, and then to occupy Iran until a new government can take hold.” The arsonist's solution to the fire is a bigger fire ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ For my end, this was the conclusion of my previous article: "There is almost a Greek tragedy quality to U.S. actions lately where every move taken to escape one’s fate becomes the mechanism that delivers it. The U.S. went to war to reassert dominance - and proved it could no longer dominate. It demanded allies send warships - and revealed it had no real allies. It waged forty years of maximum pressure to break Iran before this moment came - and instead forged the very adversary now capable of meeting it. It started the war in part to have additional leverage over China - and handed the world the spectacle of begging China for help. The prophecy was multipolarity. Every American action to prevent it reveals it instead." I wouldn’t change a word. The only thing that's changed since I wrote it is that even the arsonists now smell the smoke. Src for the Atlantic article: theatlantic.com/internationa…

This is a brilliant investigative piece on Farage, the dark millions behind him and the double standards of so much British journalism. Read and retweet! Nigel Farage pocketing £5m from a donor shows he’s unfit for power app.prospectmagazine.co.uk/s…

A very special delivery for David Attenborough, beloved by people (and animals) everywhere 💚 To honour Sir David’s 100th birthday, His Majesty The King is supported by a cast of stars from British nature to relay his handwritten message in time for the celebration at the Royal Albert Hall. Watch David Attenborough’s 100 Years on Planet Earth on @BBCiPlayer. youtu.be/I1D9YF0YapQ?si=6zcB…

The real value proposition we are working on is turning data into capital. Labour is increasingly headed to zero, so giving your time as a skill is less and less relevant. AI is driving the marginal cost of labour to zero, human wealth can no longer come from wages. Universal basic income = dependance and isn't sustainable. It must come from equity, owning the assets that machines consume. Think of it as turning your data into digital vending machines that pay you every time someone accesses them. This applies broadly: day-to-day personal data, ebooks, photos, art, music, audiobooks, podcasts, films, documentaries, video, dApps, plugins, games, 3D designs, personal AI, even real-world services like robotics-as-a-service, smart locks, and smart city infrastructure. The Agentic OS abstracts the complexity. You talk to an AI, share data, upload media, get support. Behind the scenes, it mints that activity into capital, spinning up thousands of vending machines you own. Sell to consumers, organisations, or AI agents alike. Or just keep the privacy of ownership. Income flows through tokenised royalties, tradeable down to 0.1%, opening new equity markets for a data economy anyone can join. Picture a fund allocating capital to buy up royalties for yield. Or a company aggregating thousands of data rights from vetted sellers into a single AI training package. This is the new economy and new infrastructure we're building. It's critical, and it keeps compounding. A good read: elacitylabs.com/blog/interne…

BREAKING: JAPAN'S LARGEST EXCHANGE JPX JUST TOLD BLOOMBERG IT WILL LAUNCH #BITCOIN AND CRYPTO ETFs WORLD'S 4th LARGEST ECONOMY IS OPENING TO BTC HERE WE GO 🚀

Putin is scared. His "fortress" is cracking and half his decrees are now secret — so Russians can't see how badly the regime is failing. Here's what he's hiding 👇 [1/11]

One of the most important weeks yet for ElastOS 🐘 Since last week ElastOS Runtime moved closer to a real desktop feeling, PC2 got stronger security, six core apps prepared for v1.2 launch, and the user experience keeps getting cleaner across the board

Two related questions: 1. How many ministers in UK gov know what Obsidian is? 2. On a scale of 1 to 10, how much would our civil service freak out were one of UK ministers to try and build something like this, let alone put it on GitHub? (A: >11) Bonus question: how quickly would the contents be FOI’d? (h/t @matthewclifford)

Palantir vient de publier son manifeste. Lisez-le. Pas pour ce qu'il dit sur la tech. Pour ce qu'il dit sur le politique. Sur l'idéologie de Karp et Thiel. Sur la guerre. Sur vous. Quand une entreprise privée se donne pour mission de définir qui doit être surveillé, ciblé, prédit, neutralisé, et qu'elle publie simultanément un texte expliquant pourquoi contester cela serait de la faiblesse civilisationnelle, on n'est plus dans la stratégie d'entreprise. On est dans la privatisation du souverain. Le droit de décider de l'ennemi, qui fut toujours le geste politique fondateur des États, est en train d'être racheté par une entreprise cotée au Nasdaq. Ce manifeste repose sur un seul tour de passe-passe, répété sous vingt formes différentes : rendre l'inévitable ce qui est en réalité un choix. Les armes à IA ? Elles seront construites de toute façon, alors autant que ce soit nous. La surveillance algorithmique ? La réalité géopolitique l'exige. Le réarmement de l'Occident, la hiérarchie des cultures, la disqualification du pluralisme comme naïveté dangereuse ? Simple lucidité face au monde tel qu'il est. C'est le geste idéologique par excellence : ne pas interdire la question, mais la rendre indécente. Ce que Palantir appelle réalisme est en fait une décision philosophique radicale : le conflit est la vérité permanente du monde, la délibération démocratique est une fragilité que l'adversaire exploitera, et une élite technologique privée est mieux placée qu'un peuple pour tirer les conséquences de cette vérité. C'est du schmittisme en hoodie. C'est littéralement la structure de leur pensée. Le danger n'est pas qu'ils soient fous. Le danger est qu'ils soient riches, cohérents, et déjà à l'intérieur des États. Palantir ne frappe pas à la porte des gouvernements pour vendre un outil. Elle arrive avec une cosmologie complète : voici comment fonctionne le monde, voici vos ennemis, voici pourquoi vous ne pouvez pas vous permettre de débattre, et voici notre contrat. Palantir est l'ennemie des peuples et de la démocratie. Ce qu'ils construisent, c'est un pouvoir technocratique que personne n'a élu et que personne ne pourra destituer.