What could a changing global power landscape mean for our country's future policies and relationships with other nations?
Today's links Making sense of Trump's unscheduled sudden midair disassembly of the American empire: Don't mistake "powerful" for "durable." Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. Object permanence: Copyrighted law; Viral videos v cops; Crooked banker v tiny bat; "Infested"; Can the means of computation be seized? Upcoming appearances: Berlin, Hay-on-Wye, London, LA, Menlo Park, NYC, Edinburgh. Recent appearances: Where I've been. Latest books: You keep readin' em, I'll keep writin' 'em. Upcoming books: Like I said, I'll keep writin' 'em. Colophon: All the rest. Making sense of Trump's unscheduled sudden midair disassembly of the American empire (permalink) For generations, the American empire was the most powerful force on earth, and so we tended to assume that it was the most durable force on earth – surely anything so powerful must also be eternal? But power and durability aren't the same thing, as Le Guin reminded us with her oft-quoted maxim that "We live in capitalism, its power seems inescapable — but then, so did the divine right of kings": https://www.ursulakleguin.com/nbf-medal Monarchs may be powerful, but that power is derived from a manifestly incorrect belief in special blood, a belief that requires monarchs to inbreed. At best, this produces heads of state who can't stop bleeding and also can't tell you if their blood is blue or red; at worst, it yields heads of state who can't speak intelligibly, much less produce another generation of royals: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_II_of_Spain Oligarchy also produces a sequence of progressively weirder and more terrible rulers who rely on a mix of lies, flattery, coercion and personal cult nonsense to hold their coalition together in the face of mounting evidence for the system's bankruptcy. Thus Reagan begat GW Bush, who begat Trump, whose potential successors are a kennel of the least-charismatic chud podcasters ever to curse an RSS feed. Trump's second term has resulted in a rapid, unschedul