Ash Sarkar

That sound you hear is the marketing machine cranking up! I wrote a book, and now that's your problem. The pitch? Everyone is black-pilled, the social contract is broken, but those responsible are richer and more powerful than ever. I'm explaining how they get away with it.

Remember this while seeing the fossil fuel industry and its many unofficial spokespeople piling on pressure to start fresh drilling in the North Sea. New drilling won't yield for years, and the longer we delay getting off fossil fuels, the more vulnerable we are to price shocks.

Bessent himself said it 👇 It's just too good, going to war against Iran and the outcome 3 weeks into it is they remove sanctions on Iranian oil. No scenarist could have written that one 😅 x.com/i/status/20346…

I'm going to make some obvious points. (1) Blowing up all the oil infrastructure in the Middle East is an insane idea, and may well result in a global economic crash and humanitarian crisis unrivaled in the lives of those now living. We're talking about the price of everything everywhere rising, from food to gas, at a moment when inflation was already high. All of that will be laid at the feet of the authors of this war. (2) The antebellum status quo of Feb 27, 2026 was just not that bad, but we're unlikely to return to it. Expect indefinite, long-term, ongoing disruptions to everything out of the Middle East. (3) Also assume tech financing crashes for the indefinite future. The genius plan to get the Gulf states caught in the crossfire has incinerated much of the funding for LPs, for datacenters, and for IPOs. Anyone in tech who supported this war may soon learn the meaning of "force majeure" as funding gets yanked. (4) Many capital allocators will instead be allocating much further down Maslow's hierarchy of needs, towards useful basic things like food and energy. (5) It's fortunate that all those progressives yelled about the "climate crisis." Yes, their reasoning about timelines was wrong, and much of the money was wasted in graft, but the result was right: we all need energy independence from the Middle East, pronto. It's also fortunate that Elon and China autistically took climate seriously. Now they're going to need to ship a billion solar panels, electric vehicles, batteries, nuclear power plants, and the like to get everyone off oil, immediately. (6) It's not just an oil and gas problem, of course. It's also a fertilizer problem, and a chemical precursor problem. Maybe some new sources will come online at the new prices, but it takes time to dial stuff up, particularly at this scale, so shortages are almost a certainty. That said, China has actually scaled up coal-to-chemicals[a,c] (C2C), and there's also something more sci-fi called Power-to-X[b] which turns arbitrary power + water + air into hydrocarbons. But all of that will need to get accelerated. I have a background in chemical engineering so may start funding things in this area. (7) Ultimately, this war is going to result in tremendous blame for anyone associated with it. It's a no-win scenario to blow up this much infrastructure for so many people. Simply not worth it for whatever objective they thought they were going to attain. But unless you're actually in a position to stop the madness, the pragmatic thing to do is: scramble to mitigate the fallout to yourself, your business, and your people. [a]: reuters.com/business/energ… [b]: alfalaval.com/industries/ene… [c]: reuters.com/sustainability…

This is literally the dumbest war in human history. No hyperbole.

With fossil fuel prices surging, decoupling electricity bills from gas prices has never been more important. Important briefing from @Cmmonwealth:

“A wake up call” the CEO of Britain’s biggest domestic energy firm told me last night about the possibility of long term impact to global gas and oil infrastructure… but he pointed to electrification as the main lesson, while domestic gas would be preferable to shipped gas:

“wake-up call that gets us to electrify more of our economy and get more of our energy from homegrown sources.”


"The irony is, right now, we're emailing millions of customers saying their energy prices are going to fall..."
"You can't protect yourself against these global markets forever."
 "Traders are really worried about how long it's going to take these facilities to get back online."
"Our electricity system's too inefficient. We need to reform that markets so that people get the benefits of our homegrown resources."
“my own view is that shipping gas around the world is more inefficient and has more leaks of methane than if you use local gas. But we shouldn't kid ourselves. North Sea gas wouldn't meaningfully bring the price down because we're paying the global price. If we got more out of the North Sea, it would simply be sold to other countries at these very high prices or here at these high prices. And we can't kid ourselves we're going to be self-sufficient in gas again. What we can do is have a much cheaper approach to electricity than we have today. Our electricity system's too inefficient. We need to reform that markets so that people get the benefits of our homegrown resources.

Unfortunately threatening escalation after you have already killed Iran’s leadership and made it clear that you want regime change is unlikely to persuade Iran to back off. They believe they have less to lose than their adversaries and they are right

The consequence of years of having an 'Israel First' foreign policy.

Andrew’s lack of self-loathing spiked Clav’s cortisol

The inability to accept that Israel is very happy for the Gulf kingdoms to become failed states - as long as Iran does - is so striking. It’s quite possible that UAE, Qatar & Bahrain don’t survive this. Good luck with the ‘latest technology’ if no migrant workers want to come.

@Casey_Evans_ One of the things people get wrong about Meditations is thinking that Marcus Aurelius was issuing instructions. They're often more like little self-reproachments!

Brother is quoting a book called 'Meditations' to say that Marcus Aurelius didn't self reflect lmao

It's pretty obvious that Israel is setting fire to President Trump's potential off-ramps. Feel free to form your own normative judgments about that, but it's hard to deny it's taking place.

I think it's fine for people to establish red lines (no pun) basically where they want on this stuff, I won't lose sleep about it. But it is funny coming from the man who argued that "[V]irtue signalling consists of saying you hate things. It is camouflage. The emphasis on hate distracts from the fact you are really saying how good you are."

Amazing stuff from the guy who coined the term 'virtue-signalling'.

@ThatSalopian Booking myself in for yank-removal surgery asap.

@AyoCaesar We stand for office in this country, not run.

Dethrone? Just run for office, there's an election every four years!

A new video appears to show an Israeli aircraft dropping white phosphorus on a town in southern Lebanon on Sunday night, ahead of a ground offensive that began on Monday. Lebanese commentators shared the video - which Novara Media has verified - of an aircraft releasing a substance on a region flanked by mountains. It was published just days after Human Rights Watch (HRW) said that Israel unlawfully used the corrosive substance against Lebanese civilians on 3 March. On Monday morning, Israel said it had launched ‘limited and targeted ground operations against Hezbollah’ in southern Lebanon, Al Jazeera reported. White phosphorus is a corrosive, chemical substance dispersed in artillery shells, bombs and rockets that ignites when exposed to oxygen and causes indiscriminate damage, burning through human tissue and other materials alike. Its offensive use against civilians is illegal under international law. “The Israeli military’s unlawful use of white phosphorus over residential areas is extremely alarming and will have dire consequences for civilians,” said Ramzi Kaiss, Lebanon researcher at HRW earlier this month. Novara Media has geolocated the explosion to the small town of Khiam, in keeping with reports from the ground in Lebanon. Khiam is around 20km away from Yohmor, where HRW verified the use of white phosphorus earlier this month. The pattern of the explosion seen in the video is consistent with other incidents of white phosphorus fire by the IDF, previously documented by HRW in Gaza and Lebanon. Online, some commenters have contended that the ammunition appears to have been dropped between Khiam and the mountains themselves, therefore avoiding civilians. However, in the 15km between the town of Khiam and the mountains, seen in the backdrop of the video, are several villages: Mari, Darjat and Halta. Independent journalist Sarah Abdullah, who shared the video on Sunday night, wrote on X: “Israel is dropping white phosphorus on the village of Khiam in South Lebanon. On homes. On civilian areas. “This is a war crime. Not a peep from the international community. Not a word from the International Criminal Court.” HRW has previously accused the Israeli military of widespread use of white phosphorus between October 2023 and May 2024 across border villages in southern Lebanon, killing, severely injuring and displacing civilians. In 2013, the Israeli High Court rejected a petition to ban the use of white phosphorus on civilian populations after HRW exposed the IDF’s unlawful use of the substance during the 2008-2009 Gaza war. Subsequent Israeli military investigations have held no one responsible for these international human rights violations. There have been at least 859 people killed in Israeli attacks in Lebanon since the start of Israel’s expanded offensive on 2 March.

Somewhere out there monkey Sigmund Freud is patting himself on the back right now

@karlrgibson1 Did you read the follow-up tweet, or are you just vibing?

@AyoCaesar Fancy thinking that politics defines someone's values. 😂

Is it strange – or is it comparable to people who wouldn't date someone who has a different religion to them? I just think this is an expression of something most people share, which is they think having values in common is pretty important in a relationship.

If you did a survey asking "Would you date someone who holds significantly different values from your own?", most people would say no. But that's in the eye of the beholder - most people don't have strongly held politics!