Milan B
@MilanBrahmbha11
Followers
2K
Following
5K
Media
129
Statuses
2K
Economist, ex-World Banker veering mildly heterodox, curious about literature, history, politics, philosophy, and, yes, economics.
Joined December 2022
Kissinger on Trump and 'The Cunning of Reason.'. The Financial Times's man in Washington Edward Luce took Henry Kissinger out for lunch in 2018. Luce tried every which way to corner Kissinger into a direct comment on Trump, but his aged quarry easily evaded the pursuit. Except
93
574
2K
Kissinger: . "I think Trump may be one of those figures in history who appears from time to time to mark the end of an era and to force it to give up its pretences. It doesn't necessarily mean that he knows this, or that he is considering any great alternative. It could just be.
5
102
424
Third, Kissinger hints that the era which is ending may indeed deserve to go. Trump is forcing it to give up its pretences. To be clear, there were not one but two post-war liberal international orders. The first prevailed during the Cold War, from say 1948 to 1989. This was.
7
58
319
@hotdamhistorian Incorrect. Like all Americans, Indian Americans are obsessed with status. But caste is hardly relevant. It would, for one thing, sharply reduce the pool of high status potential mates available to their children.
7
6
235
First, Kissinger thinks Trump may already be a substantial figure in world history, not, alas, some bizarre printer's error that his opponents hope to erase from its pages. Second, he's not just any historical figure but one who marks the end of an era. This much should be.
2
33
240
Historic individuals who mark the end of "eras" by forcing them to "give up their pretences," without necessarily being aware of what they are doing - this is a language and dynamic that Kissinger draws from George Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel's "Lectures on the Philosophy of History"
2
39
237
Fourth, says Kissinger, Trump could play a world-historical role without necessarily knowing what he is doing. This idea may challenge many Trump-critics, who work with a historical model in which good results can flow only from good people with good intentions, not from some.
5
31
230
@Judah_Grunstein Very rare to see this level of superior trolling nowadays, even among the gifted.
5
4
196
@Noahpinion You perhaps misinterpret the situation. India is aligned *against* China, not with the US.
2
4
195
Kissinger himself talked about the influence of Hegel on his thinking in an astonishingly frank and wide-ranging conversation with Mao Tse-tung, in Beijing, on November 12, 1973:. Chairman Mao: And the philosopher of your motherland, Hegel, has said—I don’t know whether it is the
8
45
176
@SarahTheHaider These are upwardly mobile people. They assimilate to whatever is the culture of the American upper middle and upper classes.
4
1
173
@TheEmissaryCo The book clearly downplays the contribution of Hinduism relative to Buddhism.
4
16
166
"According to Hegel, universal history is the realization of the Idea of Reason in a succession of National Spirits. These are manifested in the deeds of heroes. However, the Idea of Reason does not work itself out in history in a manner which would seem reasonable on the.
1
25
168
In sum:. "Hegel's view is that the passion for self-aggrandizement leads the great men of history to become the instruments of an ulterior rational design of which they themselves may remain oblivious and to which, without being clearly aware of it, they are sacrificed: 'This may.
1
25
148
@stillgray @GeromanAT Some people are so deeply invested in anti-Americanism that they are ready to oppose any popular struggle on the sole .ground that it might also benefit the US in some way. Reminiscent of the maoists so deeply opposed to the Soviet Union that they were happy to back the.
4
7
139
Tucker stresses that it is not the ordinary human desires for mere happiness, pleasure or enjoyment that Hegel has in mind here. For "those world-historic individuals whose passions drive them on to 'deeds of universal scope'. the aim was not to be happy: 'they wanted to be
3
24
134
Notes. [1] Robert C. Tucker. "The Cunning of Reason in Hegel and Marx." The Review of Politics. Vol.18, Number 3 (July 1956), pp. 269-295. [2] William T. Weber. "Kissinger as Historian: A Historiographical Approach to Statesmanship." World Affairs. Vol. 141, Number 1 (Summer.
19
21
129
Should we be surprised to find one of the most consequential American Secretaries of State of the 20th century unleashing Hegelian tropes over lunch at the Jubilee restaurant in Midtown Manhattan?. Perhaps not, especially when we read of those primarily German historians who most.
2
19
99
@MoreBirths @bryan_caplan You're assuming dense housing causes low fertility. But the causality may run the other way. i.e. people who choose low fertility prefer dense housing. Or both may be caused by other independent forces.
2
2
90
@martyrmade India, going its own way as usual, is backing Armenia with arms sales. In terms of geopolitics, there seems to be an Armenia-India-Iran triangle facing off against an Azerbaijan-Turkey-Pakistan triangle. Why and how exactly that should be so, don't ask me. .
11
8
83
@walterkirn There is actually a deadly serious constitutional proposal on the table here: that the presidency should be a ceremonial function, like the English queen. 'Policies and substance' should rest elsewhere, behind the scenes, with 'the seasoned professionals.'.
12
12
78
@Noahpinion After India and Taiwan, China will turn its attention to Russia, against whom it has enormous territorial claims. Were it not for the reckless and stupid policy of NATO expansion in Europe, Russia would be treating China as its no.1 long-term security threat, instead of being.
2
2
74
@GOP The poor deluded groypers in the comments here didn't know that Trump is the most liberal Republican president since about Eisenhower. Sad!.
2
1
67
@razibkhan Americans could make one of their greatest contributions to human welfare by voting in a reformist government that abolishes all tax exemptions and subsidies for so-called charitable foundations and non-profits.
1
1
54
@Saiarav I should revisit Hegel and Tucker's paper to refresh on their examples. But how about Mao himself, who thought he was building communism when he was, in fact, clearing the ground for one of the most radically exploitative capitalisms ever.
3
3
55
@arya_amsha You forgot the pleasures of lecturing the world about climate change while living almost entirely off fossil fuels.
2
1
48
@wesyang It's a pity @wesyang is giving credence to this stupid but extraordinarily effective smear campaign. When you grapple with the actual data, it's hard to avoid the conclusion that the incidence of r*pe in India is a good deal lower than in, say, the US.
A prolific anti-Indian discourse asserts that India has uniquely high rape. No evidence is provided beyond lurid reports on individual cases. Statistics suggest, however, that rape in the US, for example, is higher, or, at best, no less than in India. A thread. 1/. @omarali50.
1
2
44
@TheEmissaryCo It's a strain that runs through those of Dalrymple's works that I have read. He works mostly by ignoring or downplaying Hinduism, one-sidedness, and sometimes direct attack. "Golden Road" needs a much more stringent review than it has received thus far.
1
7
38
@naomi2009 Naomi, the same report shows that British-Pakistanis are, unfortunately, among the worst performers. Why this difference would be a great casestudy for you to write up.
4
1
38
@witte_sergei The USSR would have been crushed fighting Germany on its own. Given the choice between nazi global hegemony and a US-USSR Cold War, Churchill definitely made the right choice from the perspective of pretty much everyone in the world - even the British, whose economy grew far more.
30
4
38
@DivaJain2 Garment and textile small businesses will tell you their biggest problems are bureaucratic red-tape and corruption. Big Business is doing fine. Small business, not so much.
2
4
32
Among prominent figures in the British conquest of India was the soldier, administrator, and scholar Sir John Malcolm. Testifying to a Commons committee in 1832, Malcolm described the prosperity of the Maratha lands he saw during the Second Anglo-Maratha War of 1803-05. A🧵. 1/8
1
7
26
@FreightAlley The way this ends is for China - the country with the biggest share in world trade - to have a quiet but firm talk with its friend Iran.
3
0
30
@GoodwinMJ How about simply doing what should have been done in the first place: arrest, try, convict, and sentence law-breakers to stiff prison sentences in a completely color-blind manner?.
4
1
30
@PhiloCrocodile The best English invocation to the Muse was by TE Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia) in his 1932 translation. By 'best,' I mean the one that burst upon me altogether unexpected, like a thrilling clap of thunder, one cold, long-ago winter's day in some humble industrial inner-city.
2
2
25
Though I'm a conservative by temperament, I do enjoy watching Prof Alan Lester thrash these neoimperialist culture-war ideologues who want to block objective, critical study of and teaching about the British Empire.
🧵1/13 .Enough. The @Telegraph has gone too far with its condemnation of teaching about colonial history. There's at least three brainless statements from this latest piece of concocted outrage (& more to come):.
1
4
21
@creation247 Beautiful buildings are public goods. Anyone can get pleasure looking at them without having to buy a ticket. Communities that care for such public pleasures pay for the higher cost of beauty through taxes or charitable contributions. Those that don't get the ugly on the right.
1
3
22
Note that Vance is not asking Europeans for any special treatment for X. He is asking them to respect free speech generally. “So what America should be saying is, if NATO wants us to continue supporting them and NATO wants us to continue to be a good participant in this military.
And so it starts:. JD Vance says US could drop support for NATO if Europe tries to regulate Elon Musk’s platforms
5
7
25
@vjgtweets Grounded I think in a deeply ingrained loathing for polytheism, of which Hindus are the largest and most unrepentant outpost left in the world.
Suppose you think the activists who attack old statues and deface beautiful paintings might be expressing a sort of religious rage. Then, you won't be surprised that the smashing of idols is no new thing among monotheists. 1/
0
2
25
@Prashant_Garg_ Why sad? Economists bring to the table important concepts like opportunity cost that may otherwise not be sufficiently prominent in discussion of climate policy.
2
0
22
A prolific anti-Indian discourse asserts that India has uniquely high rape. No evidence is provided beyond lurid reports on individual cases. Statistics suggest, however, that rape in the US, for example, is higher, or, at best, no less than in India. A thread. 1/. @omarali50.
1
2
22
Robert Wright and AI savant Gary Marcus contest "Does AI Understand Things?" Marcus argues forcefully that Large Learning Models (LLMs) are both stupid and dangerous. This raises a question in my middlebrow, mercenary mind: how good an investment are Big Tech companies whose.
I had a great time discussing and at times debating AI with the illustrious and contentious @GaryMarcus. You can watch here or listen on my Nonzero podcast.
0
4
14
@jonatanpallesen Indian immigrants in Denmark commit less crime than even Germans and British. Assuming I have read the left part of this table correctly. .
5
0
20
@Tristimdorion @witte_sergei Sure. But (1) Hitler had to keep large forces in the West to fight Britain. (2) The US provided Russia with huge flows of arms and finance but would not have entered the war without continued British resistance. These 2 factors made a huge difference. Without them, Russia would.
5
1
21
@phl43 No, "non whites" do not "irreflectively" side with Palestinians. Indian Hindus are notoriously pro Israel. The Chinese populace (if not their government) generally admire Israel and Jews for their success in life. I suspect lots of African Christians would also back Israel. Just.
5
3
19
@ElbridgeColby @TheEconomist You can't get more loyally 'Old Establisment' than 'The Economist.' They're running scared, Mr. Colby!.
2
0
18
@ProfDBernstein The resentment and drive for status, position, and respect among the relatively unintelligent is probably among the top 2-3 social dynamics of the last 20 years.
0
4
17
@heimbergecon This sounds ideal. Cancel the last 30 odd years of EU empire building, return to friendly, independent European nation-states that share an economic common market.
0
3
16
@DivaJain2 I laughed out loud when I read about this Moitra lady's "bitter custody battle" with her ex-partner over their pet rottweiler, Henry. Not Heera or Himmat, mind you, but Henry. Made my day.
0
1
16
@kikumbhar Respectfully, Modi is correct to the extent that ancient Indians did not much invade lands outside the subcontinent. On the other hand, everyone knows that the greatest epics of ancient India are all about war *within* the subcontinent. So, either way, reference to a supposed.
3
2
18
Some good arguments for raising the voting age to around thirty.
What would the greatest of the ancient philosophers have thought about modern student protests? “Plato and Aristotle on youth and politics,” over at the blog:
3
6
18
@elonmusk Get some public economists on your team. They could help in figuring out not only how well money is being spent but also what needs spending on in the first place. ie costs and benefits of various public spending.
2
1
13
A couple of centuries later, John Malcolm’s writings remain interesting for students of India. His observations are valuable, first, as among the relatively few sources of information on economic and social conditions in eighteenth and early nineteenth-century India, though as
2
3
16
@Sargon_of_Akkad @pbleic A homely settled place for a time, true, but partly because tens of millions could get away from it by emigrating to the US and the settlement colonies. Without that safety valve, the country might have continued as divided and stressed as it was before, say, 1850.
0
0
13
Suppose you think the activists who attack old statues and deface beautiful paintings might be expressing a sort of religious rage. Then, you won't be surprised that the smashing of idols is no new thing among monotheists. 1/
1
4
26
@georgemagnus1 Well, China's real GDP relative to US continued rising. (First chart.) Its price level in dollar terms fell relative to US because of a burst of high inflation in the US and a rising and probably overvalued US exchange rate (ie a significant real depreciation and gain in China's
2
2
14
@DivaJain2 India's problem is mental colonization by fashionable Western nonsense channeled into policymakers' heads by foreign NGOs and development agencies.
2
1
16
@helios9098 @ElbridgeColby I wonder if there is an emerging case to simply nationalize the defense industry. For all the well-known inefficiency of bureaucracy, it may be better than the present fantastically expensive and unproductive mixture of bureaucracy with crony capitalism.
5
1
13
@sam_bidwell Looks like British underperformance was entirely due to a failure to recover from the financial crisis. Brexit is hardly noticeable on the chart and, if anything, was followed by mildly faster growth.
3
0
14
@FT Kissinger in 2018 probably had a better philosophical idea of Trump's place in history than Fukuyama today.
Kissinger on Trump and 'The Cunning of Reason.'. The Financial Times's man in Washington Edward Luce took Henry Kissinger out for lunch in 2018. Luce tried every which way to corner Kissinger into a direct comment on Trump, but his aged quarry easily evaded the pursuit. Except
2
1
15
@BrankoMilan How do you figure that for Russia? I think you yourself had a tweet that noted Russia's successful import substitution in the face of sanctions. That could not have been done without drawing on the country's substantial technological and industrial strengths. As for Ukraine, you.
5
0
14
@RenOfMen The anecdotal bad experiences of Western travelers tell us next to nothing about a country of 1.4 billion people like India. Try instead to look for some stats The homicide rate in India was 2.9 per 100,000 people in 2021, compared to 6.8 in the USA, for example, according to the.
0
0
9
@PR4change @stillgray @GeromanAT Indeed. It was one of the last battles of the Cold War. China/US/UK backed the Khmer Rouge against the Soviet Union backing Vietnam. My protest is against intellectuals who become such radicalized zealots for or against one or other superpower that they lose any desire to judge.
2
0
12
@YearOfTheKraken Sam Harris could have added China and Japan, neither of whom have room for this fanatical "one god" in their sophisticated traditional civilizations.
0
2
12
@PRoufos Nixon was quite correct on this point. Once currencies are floating, politicians should not waste their valuable time worrying about where they float.
1
0
13
@Evolving_Moloch India also had and has this kind of jumbling together and coexistence of very different socioeconomic/cultural/political forms.
0
0
13
@mboudry The Trisolaran aliens in 3-Body Problem rely on two strategies to block scientific progress on Earth. The technological strategy deploys high-dimensional quantum entities called "sophons," which block experimental science. The sociological strategy deploys misanthropic.
1
3
12
@EpsilonTheory By all accounts, Germany is already smashing itself to bits plunging headlong down a ravine of its own making.
0
0
13
@ben_golub Somebody told me India has been a bit less affected by the Microsoft crash because it had a backup system - aka lots of human employees who are putting in lots of extra hours.
1
2
11
@KeithWoodsYT It's like the man who was persuaded to give up wife-beating and lived peaceably with her for a while. Then, overcome by passion, he took to thrasing the poor woman once again, until, overcome by guilt, he gave it up a second time. Now he's down the pub every night boasting what a.
4
0
8
Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (“AMLO”) won a smashing electoral victory in 2018 on a “left-populist” platform that consigned establishment parties left and right to near irrelevance. Probably because it’s one of the more consequential populist breakouts from the
0
0
11
@nfergus @TheFP Niall Ferguson puts the faux shock over Joe Biden's senility into "the category of 'unknown knowns.' These are perfectly obvious dangers that decision-makers unconsciously or willfully ignore because they do not accord with their preconceptions." . This is not quite right. It is.
3
2
11
@aljhlester @KemiBadenoch This fallacious "false dilemma" type of argument has a mirror image among people who want to minimize the ill effects of imperialism on colonized countries. "But you are ignoring bad geography and rotten indigenous culture!" they will say. Well, no. Both things could be true.
0
3
12
Question: “In your opinion, was the substitution of our government for the misrule of the native princes the cause of greater prosperity to the agricultural and commercial part of the population?”. Malcolm: “I do not think the change has benefited, or could benefit, either the
1
1
11
@ElbridgeColby It's astonishing how many are banging on about "breaking" Russia in Ukraine when what is fast approaching is one of the great foreign policy debacles of the entire post-war period. We need rigorous analysis of how this happened and who to hold accountable. I won't hold my breath.
3
3
10
Perfect!.
0
0
11
"We're going to keep doing jokes here, right to the end." Now that's a comedian.
0
1
11
Am I wrong, or are we enjoying a minor cultural renaissance in just the last few days? Check out this exquisite pastiche of DJT. No malice, just funny. I'm guessing the author is rather less worried about getting bashed for "normalizing the fascist" than a week ago.
folks, my wonderful VP - and he's doing an amazing job by the way, just amazing, told me about these so-called RATIONALISTS. very interesting people in the bay area, very interesting. they have this website, less wrong - terrible name by the way, it should be called more right -
0
1
11
@timurkuran Wheat yields have fallen 75% over 7000 years? Seems to cut against usual ideas of rising productivity over the long run. Any theories, Prof?.
2
0
10
A 'thread of threads' on the Mahabharata from the Bhandarkar Institute, including an exposition of the 14 reasons for human sorrow by the dying warrior-sage Bhishma.
The Mahabharata Collection. -. A compilation of our 10 threads on the incredible epic of Mahabharata.
0
3
9
@HappymonJacob To summarize: under unipolarity, the world is extremely unstable and violent. Therefore, beware of multipolarity. There seem to be one or more steps missing in this argument.
0
0
10
@Fox_Claire Oh, come on Claire! It's sooo much nicer to be cozy indoors with a nice cuppa tea monitoring thought crimes on the internet than out there grappling with real villains!.
0
0
10
@phl43 It's reminiscent of Schumpeter's argument that capitalism/bourgeois society depended on the survival of pre-bourgeois moral norms (thou shalt not steal) that were at one time still zealously promoted by the upper/middle classes. But that it would fail as the bourgeois spirit of.
0
1
9
@DavidVeevers1 Great thread, thanks. The contrasts between the Hanse and the English companies also seem important. If I'm not mistaken, the Hanse appears to have been a much looser "network" compared to the formally structured English joint stock companies. And also without the backing of any.
0
0
9
@ElbridgeColby @SenDanSullivan Ukraine might not be an exemplar for Taiwan in the way the senator seems to think. The catastrophic damage Ukraine has suffered might help persuade Taiwan *not* to fight. It would be one of many unforeseen consequences from the folly of pushing NATO expansion beyond its proper.
2
0
8