“We do not yet know whether AI will develop a sense of self. We can be confident, however, that if an AI system does develop a sense of self, it will be because it serves a useful purpose for that system. That suggests to me that any intelligent system that has evolved to have a sense of self is likely to have good reasons to cling to it. I refer to AI to invite readers to ponder the motivations that humans have to cling to their individual identity rather than seeking to dissolve it or escape from it.” (04/02/26)
“It’s a conceit of foreign policy intellectuals to try to infer from statements and events a consistent doctrine underlying an administration’s activities. It should be clear by now that there is no such thing as a Trump doctrine. The administration itself tried to articulate such a doctrine last November when it went through the ritual of producing a National Security Strategy for the second Trump term. It’s clear today that that strategy document bears no relationship to actual administration foreign policy.” (04/02/26)
“The petrodollar, per Grok, refers to U.S. dollars earned by oil-exporting countries (primarily OPEC members, plus others like Russia and Norway) from crude oil exports. It is not a separate currency but simply dollars received in payment for oil. The term also describes the broader petrodollar system: the longstanding global practice of pricing and trading most international oil in U.S. dollars, which creates sustained worldwide demand for the dollar. … The decision by the West to freeze Russia’s foreign reserves (including US dollars and US Treasury bonds) was the first nail in the coffin for the dollar, obliging sovereign countries to favour stateless assets such as gold. The decision by the US to join Israel in military adventuring against Iran will likely prove the first nail in the coffin for the petrodollar (and similarly boost prospects for the likes of gold over the medium term).” (04/02/26)
“At the core of our sovereignty is the right to determine who is entitled to citizenship. The Fourteenth Amendment grants citizenship to people born in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof. On Wednesday, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Trump v. Barbara, a case concerning the lawfulness of President Trump’s commonsense executive order that restores the original understanding of birthright citizenship.” [editor’s note: Even before the 14th Amendment, the US practiced birthright citizenship from its founding, as did it its parent country. “Born here, citizen here” IS the original understanding – TLK] (04/02/26)
“The anarchist ‘movement’ (if we could apply such a concept to a decentralized group) was the beginning of modern global terrorism. The idea that killing, bombing, were a tactic to bring adversaries to the negotiating table, in the age of mass media, was a novel concept, in the late nineteenth century. It would be a model followed by various political sects to come. But anarchists did not want negotiations.” (04/02/26)
“On April 1, the Supreme Court began hearing arguments in Trump v. Barbara, a class-action lawsuit challenging the Trump administration’s executive order to ban birthright citizenship for the children of undocumented immigrants. Every lower court that has ruled on this issue thus far has found this executive order to be straightforwardly unconstitutional — and they are correct. The 14th Amendment is clear: ‘All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.'” (04/02/26)
“Donald Trump started an unconstitutional, reckless war without goals and with minimal planning. He failed to anticipate Iran’s entirely predictable response. No one, therefore, should be surprised that the war may end with the United States and its allies (or, rather, countries that used to be allies) worse off than when the war started.” (04/02/26)
“The world’s first major private geoengineering start-up must have known it’d have skeptics. The basic premise — dimming the sun to artificially cool the planet — has been called reckless by scientists and climate advocates; military analysts have said it has real security risks. (Don’t even get conspiracy theorists started.) Still, Stardust Solutions, an American-Israeli company planning to build a solar-reflecting system in the next few years, has enough fans that it raised $60 million in 2025. Now it’s trying to bring around the public and ease concerns over a technology for which its founders would prefer there wasn’t any conceivable global need.” (04/02/26)
