Curated Nerd Stuff (25 May 2024)
Intermittently sharing what I find digging through the crates of life. Here’s the best and most interesting of what I came across the past couple weeks. ✌️
From the Archives
My December 2022 conversation with the charismatic genius, Daniel Immerwahr. Watch him wax hilariously about geopolitical grifters advising the national security state, and, separately, the politics of Star Wars.
Non-Sequitur
If Only We Had a Rules-Based International Order
What is the narrative anchor of US foreign policy if not the “rules-based international order” that the United States is actively spitting on?
Reading Politics & Policy
John McCumber, “America’s Hidden Philosophy,” Aeon Magazine
Thomas Meaney, “Masters of War,” Harper’s
Petra Molnar, “The Grim High-Tech Dystopia on the US-Mexico Border,” Jacobin
Spencer Ackerman, “ICC Indictments Deepen The Crisis of The 'Rules-Based International Order’,” Forever Wars Newsletter
Henry Farrell and Abraham Newman, “Consulting Firms Have Stumbled Into a Geopolitical Minefield,” Foreign Policy
, “Trade Wars are _____ Wars,” Origins of Our Time NewsletterEntertainment
Am loving The Sympathizer right now. It’s the rare show that I’m able to watch in real-time as each episode drops. The world-building of Vietnamese immigrants, the through-the-looking-glass portrayal of a spy with ambivalent feelings about his duty, the many dark sides of American culture…there’s a lot here, and it’s entertaining as hell.
My theory about why Robert Downey, Jr. makes so many appearances in the show is that we’re seeing Americans through the eyes of the protagonist, who literally sees Americans seeking to dominate and exploit—whether a spy, a politician, a film director, or a reactionary professor—as having the same face. Or it could just be nonsense. But I’d like to think that Downey is, to our hero (?), the face of the oppressor in every context.
I’m in a constant battle with my kid about what Spotify songs to play in the car. A lot of my hip-hop is too explicit, but pure pop makes me want to claw my face off. Then I found a playlist of clean ‘90s/’2000s hip-hop. “Promiscuous” with Timbaland and Nelly Furtado was on it—a good compromise. Brings back memories.