Herewith an article that was published by INET a couple of weeks ago, and Evonomics more recently. I'm republishing it here as it's my 'blog of record' as it were, but also because it enables me to make notes to file as comments. Vice always comes disguised as virtue. No excep...
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I circulated this podcast in my newsletter last week indicating that I hadn't yet listened to it. Then I did. It was a doozy. In response to the question of what the West should actually do if Russia started using nukes, the interviewee’s body language held up for a paragraph...
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Frustrating Beijing’s ambitions to create a sphere of influence is overwhelmingly a diplomatic task, not a military one. (Cross posted from The Interpreter at the Lowy Institute) There was barely concealed panic in Australia when news broke that China had struck a security agr...
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I’m a Labor voter and I'll do as I've always done at the upcoming election by voting Labor again. Nonetheless… I think there are at least three Labor Party policy pillars that made sense once upon a time but now need overhauling due to their turning counterproductive to labour...
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Question: Given that history repeats, what year is this? Fifteen months ago, when Donald Trump’s rag-tag militias stormed the Capitol building in Washington D.C., I thought for a moment we might be living in 1923, witnessing the rebirth of western fascism. Such were the simila...
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Looking at Australian politics right now, one thing stands out: the federal ALP has become a little Shorist. That seems like a good idea. The federal ALP has gone a bit Shorist. I don't know how long it will last, or whether it's even a conscious strategy. But it's definitely...
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JlLFKUF_eA This video discussion, audio downloadable here, discusses the issues raised in this post. I've previously expressed some dissatisfaction with what I might call a 'one dimensional' understanding of the idea of liberty. This post explo...
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The international reaction to Russia's invasion of Ukraine is delivering China a message: its current approach to the world won't keep working much longer. Does that title above seem odd? Surely it's Russia that's losing in Ukraine – in May of 2022, anyway. China hasn't been d...
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uF61DWkX51U A quick browse of the self-help section of your local bookstore will show you that Stoicism has become popular in the last decade or so with a strong surge during the pandemic. In this week’s discussion, Peyton Bowman and I discuss t...
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'A wonderful, important and also a necessary book, which sets the records straight... and celebrates a remarkable quartet of women thinkers' Peter Conradi I’ve previously mentioned the two books on the Golden Age of female philosophy at Oxford and how thrilling I find the stor...
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I've spoken about what I call "strategisation" before . This involves dressing something up as particularly strategically apposite. The example I gave is this assertion: Services will continue to make a growing contribution to economic activity in Australia. It is therefore im...
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It’s a funny thing with names. Names given in jest and contempt are adopted by their targets. After over a decade of marketing consulting services as “Lateral Economics”, I decided it wasn’t so much a brand as a method and have given some talks to that effect. Anyway a new rec...
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VtGYDCm-gA Another great discussion with my friend Peyton Bowman . We began with a passage from William James on faith. Though the essay does discuss religious faith, I quoted it because it starts more mundanely, speaking of the way faith makes...
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31eH6ANhTcs I met Joe Trippi about a decade ago. I met him about a decade ago and was fascinated with his campaigning exploits — including taking Howard Dean from backmarker to presidential frontrunner in 2004. Many of the architects of the onli...
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https://youtu.be/CZVNmDuifes For over a year I've had something in my 'draft articles' file. It consisted of little more than a table like the one you see below. I'd love to enlighten you with an article that I'd slaved over for a few days trying to get to the bottom of things...
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My exposure to British journalism has been a bit of a culture shock. When I write for the FT there are fact checkers, who don't just check but add value with charts. The sub-editor gets back with proposed redrafts to clear them with me. Apart from picking up some spelling erro...
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This post began as a long tweet thread in response to Tim Dean's asking for my views on New Zealand's tilt toward proportional representation (PR). I've expanded it a little here, but it's still a short post. In any event it tries to crystalise something I think is important i...
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The twin threats of "hidden persuasion" and artificial intelligence have now convinced most of us that Google and its ilk are almost uniquely powerful. These threats are overrated. The digital giants can do less than we fear – and we risk regulating them where we should not. 1...
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https://twitter.com/InfiniteL88ps/status/1475453302653349890 Hi All. Just to let you know of a podcast I did with Jim O'Shaugnessey's program "Infinite loops". You can download it from this link . I've also done another one with Bernard Keane (who was an excellent discussant)....
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[caption id="attachment_35800" align="alignleft" width="2560"] Geoff as I remember him[/caption] As many readers will know, Geoff Harcourt one of Australia's distinguished economists died recently aged 90. Geoff was a good friend of my father's who occasionally stayed at our f...
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