Tuur Ruytjens

中国政府对日本的敌意，本来就不是因为历史，不是因为领土，历史和领土的仇恨故事，只是编给老百姓听的理由。 真正的原因，是日本民主制度存在的本身。 一个说中文的地方可以自己选领导人——这叫台湾。 一个儒家文化背景的国家可以建立成熟的民主法治——这叫日本。 这两个地方最危险的地方不是它们的军队，而是它们的制度。因为它们的存在，戳穿了一个流传已久的谎言：中国人不适合民主。 所以必须让老百姓恨它们。用历史，用领土，用民族情绪。让老百姓永远盯着伤口和仇恨，永远看不见伤口另一边的人，过着什么样平等的日子。 但同样是专制的朝鲜，没有敌意。同样腐败的缅甸，哪怕窝藏着坑害中国人的诈骗园区，也没有敌意。因为朝鲜和缅甸不是镜子，它们是同类。镜子才危险，镜子可以照出来自己与正常人的差别。 日本的国会每天开放参观，政府食堂市民随便吃，公务员和老百姓坐在同一张桌子前，公务员对老百姓的服务态度谦虚亲和。那才是公仆的本色。 这是制度的气质，是权力对人民本来就需具备的态度。 中国政府不怕穷国，不怕乱国，只怕一件事——怕老百姓看见，原来一个正常的国家可以不是这样的。 敌对日本和台湾的本质，不是两国之间的恩怨，是一个专制制度对民主制度的本能恐惧。是统治者害怕失去压榨国民权力的恐惧……

@CartoonsHateHer i really-really-really think my wife looks really good in overalls ('salopette' in belgian french/flemish). so she often wears them - partly because she likes them herself, partly because she knows i like it. this.is.simple. this.is.the.way.

Lame answer on my part, but my husband really likes them. I never really wore jumpsuits before him but he made it clear he prefers them over dresses almost 100% of the time. So eventually I started really liking them too.

The U.S. military and the Chinese military are both obsolete as of today. But in a war, China would be able to retool its military very quickly into a drone-centric force, thanks to its huge industrial base. America would not. noahpinion.blog/p/all-non-dron…

@tomkopi @GermanSimply_ ooooh! wait until you encounter the dutch. they'll give you an earful of their 'opinion' whether they know anything about the subject or not. *especially* if they know all of a rat's fart about it. (fleming here. much more 'separated by same language' than 'muricans and brits.)

@GermanSimply_ 11. German bluntness If you ask a German for his opinion on something be prepared to hear something you don't like. They don't sugarcoat something to do you a favor.

Everyone tells you about Germany's efficiency. The punctuality. The engineering. The order. Nobody warns you about the other things. The things you only discover after you've already moved there. 10 of them. Right here. 🧵🇩🇪

@CartoonsHateHer one of my exes (pale blonde, big blue eyes) has a 'black african' figure (extreme hourglass, especially bottom half) and *did* gripe about it - not because of how it looks but because in Belgium it's pretty much impossible to find jeans that fit that kind of buttocks.

I was getting made fun of for having a small butt when I was literally 11 and weighed 90 lb. I cannot remember a time when people were like "Wow I wish my ass was smaller." But I think this might not be universal?

I feel like we need to make it clear if we think "big butt" is a good or bad thing, because the way I was raised, having a small butt was considered BAD even as early as like, 2000. You *wanted* it to be big. I think some people still think "big butt" is self deprecation.

Taiwan and Ukraine should cooperate much more closely and rapidly to develop Taiwan's drone arsenal, especially sea drones.

Teaching in the age of LLMs: I failed 4 students, for the first time ever. I also gave more A+'s than ever before. In previous years, students realized after the first or second HW that they weren't in Kansas anymore and needed to work hard. No more. Just solve it with LLMs. But then the midterm arrives, and they can answer 0 of 40 questions. Do they reform their ways? Nah, they just decide to "give up" on class, assuming they'll get a B, or a C, or whatever, because they submitted HW and got decent grades on those. And never before have they encountered a professor who will dare fail them. The flip side is that the most "agentic" students now have the world's best tutor at their disposal. They deeply understand the material and aced my (intentionally very difficult) exams. As if we live in "The Diamond Age". Inequality galore. From my vantage point, "the permanent underclass" appears to be about agency, not assets.

@HadleyFreeman @thetimes epic. possibly your best piece ever - a high bar.

Today’s @thetimes column: The Southampton Spy? C’est moi Southampton’s ‘spygate’ row reminds me of my own explosive error thetimes.com/article/8f0f52…

Just found out that they lost the debate. The speeches that won it must have been so powerful that trans activists are forgetting to share them.

MAGA foreign policy timeline: 2022 Why do we care about Ukraine? 2024 Why do we care about NATO? 2025 Why do we care about Europe? 2026 Why do we care about Taiwan? 2027 Why do we care about Japan and South Korea? 2028 Why do we care about Hawaii? 2029 Why do we care about Mexico? 2030 我们为什么关心加利福尼亚？

"No, I don't subscribe to this 'kindness' - I'll tell the truth instead." I spoke at the Cambridge Union last night about LGBs, children's safety and women's rights. Full video here:

The Atlantic piece by Robert Kagan is interesting not because it proves “America lost” or “Iran won”, but because it reveals how seriously parts of the US foreign policy establishment now view the Hormuz problem. Some of the article’s strongest points are actually correct IMHO: First, Hormuz does not need to be fully “closed” to create a strategic and economic crisis. A Strait that is selectively dangerous, politically conditioned or commercially unreliable already changes the entire equilibrium. As I explained in a Substack, it’s remarkably simple to stop vessel traffic. A threat is enough. Second, the key issue is not military maps but commercial confidence. Oil molecules do not teleport through Hormuz because politicians announce a ceasefire. Shipping is a human business run by fleet managers, insurers, charter desks and exhausted seafarers trying to avoid getting trapped in a warzone. That’s why I keep repeating: what matters is not some outbound Iranian or Indian tanker during a ceasefire window. That’s only a sign of people trying to escape the Persian trap. It’s noise. The signal is whether ballast vessels voluntarily go BACK INTO the Persian trap to restore normal tanker schedules. That is a much higher hurdle. I would certainly not send my vessel in there, not for any kind of premium. The article is also right that the current restraint by the US and regional actors reflects the enormous escalation risks tied to Gulf energy infrastructure. Markets still underestimate how vulnerable refining, LNG and export systems really are. But the article overreaches massively. “Checkmate”, “American surrender”, “Iran controls the global energy system”, “nobody can reopen Hormuz” etc. is rhetorical excess masquerading as inevitability. The current reality is not “can’t”, but “won’t yet”. The US, Israel, Japan/Korea, China, France/Britain (in other EU NATO combo), India or the Gulf states all ultimately possess plenty of latent military capability to destroy a (weak) Iranian military/resistance if political will emerges. The issue is that nobody wants to pay the political price of full escalation for now, which is entirely rational. A few weeks back this useless & under-resourced conflict wasn’t even on the radar. Why rush into a full blown war now? With what political support while diesel & jet fuel remains available? It’s early. Likewise, markets have a way to adapt. Painfully, slowly and with enormous friction, but they adapt. By H2 2027 we will see: - workarounds/bypass infrastructure; convoy systems, new insurance structures; - bilateral arrangements; altered trade flows; smuggling; new alliances etc; - and permanently higher geopolitical risk premia for the region (Asians in particular will be fat up with all this the Middle Eastern groundhog day bullshit, rightly so); Between now and then? A messy muddle-through phase attached to recessionary pressure, with significant pain in Asia & Africa and lesser pain in Europe and the US, huge inventory draws and massive SPR releases, inflation scares and periodic political panic. Meanwhile, forecasting neat “deal” outcomes is useless. Nobody knows: - how stable the Iranian regime really is, - how its populations react after a prolonged ceasefire and hyperinflation; - how long Western political tolerance for this nonsense lasts; - whether Israel escalates further; - how Saudi/UAE/TUR positioning evolves; - what China or India tolerate; - or when commercial shipping confidence returns (my biggest concern by far). There are simply too many moving parts and stakeholders, including global consumers which so far remained remarkably calm. That doesn’t have to stay that way. At some point they may demand to “bomb” it open. This is fog of war/peace territory. The most likely outcome for now is not a clean victory for anyone, but an ugly global shitty muddle-through regime with a proper recession by Q3, higher inflation & a structurally nervous energy market well into 2027.

😂 It would be the first negotiation in history in which both sides tried to surrender to the other!

A trillion sophisticated-sounding words instead of admitting the most obvious fact: the policy of painfully and artificially restricting military aid to Ukraine in hopes of “avoiding escalation” and “making Putin come to his senses” was catastrophically wrong, deeply misguided, and irresponsible. It only gave the aggressor advantages, time, and the protection to fully mobilize its war machine for a long-term war.

In the 21st century, tyrants have been winning on the streets, in social media, and sometimes even at the ballot box. But increasingly, they are losing on the battlefield. noahpinion.blog/p/tyrants-are-…

Rightists who thought they could reject liberalism and progressives who thought they could go beyond liberalism are both discovering that their ideas are incapable of successfully governing an advanced society.

It’s incredible that this 2017 caricature has become reality.

It’s literally God’s oldest rule not to do this.

*BRITISH WRITER PENS THE BEST DESCRIPTION OF TRUMP* Someone asked "Why do some British people not like Donald Trump?" Nate White, an articulate and witty writer from England wrote the following response: A few things spring to mind. Trump lacks certain qualities which the British traditionally esteem. For instance, he has no class, no charm, no coolness, no credibility, no compassion, no wit, no warmth, no wisdom, no subtlety, no sensitivity, no self-awareness, no humility, no honour and no grace – all qualities, funnily enough, with which his predecessor Mr. Obama was generously blessed. So for us, the stark contrast does rather throw Trump's limitations into embarrassingly sharp relief. Plus, we like a laugh. And while Trump may be laughable, he has never once said anything wry, witty or even faintly amusing – not once, ever. I don't say that rhetorically, I mean it quite literally: not once, not ever. And that fact is particularly disturbing to the British sensibility – for us, to lack humour is almost inhuman. But with Trump, it's a fact. He doesn't even seem to understand what a joke is – his idea of a joke is a crass comment, an illiterate insult, a casual act of cruelty. Trump is a troll. And like all trolls, he is never funny and he never laughs; he only crows or jeers. And scarily, he doesn't just talk in crude, witless insults – he actually thinks in them. His mind is a simple bot-like algorithm of petty prejudices and knee-jerk nastiness. There is never any under-layer of irony, complexity, nuance or depth. It's all surface. Some Americans might see this as refreshingly upfront. Well, we don't. We see it as having no inner world, no soul. And in Britain we traditionally side with David, not Goliath. All our heroes are plucky underdogs: Robin Hood, Dick Whittington, Oliver Twist. Trump is neither plucky, nor an underdog. He is the exact opposite of that. He's not even a spoiled rich-boy, or a greedy fat-cat. He's more a fat white slug. A Jabba the Hutt of privilege. And worse, he is that most unforgivable of all things to the British: a bully. That is, except when he is among bullies; then he suddenly transforms into a snivelling sidekick instead. There are unspoken rules to this stuff – the Queensberry rules of basic decency – and he breaks them all. He punches downwards – which a gentleman should, would, could never do – and every blow he aims is below the belt. He particularly likes to kick the vulnerable or voiceless or female – and he kicks them when they are down. So the fact that a significant minority – perhaps a third – of Americans look at what he does, listen to what he says, and then think 'Yeah, he seems like my kind of guy' is a matter of some confusion and no little distress to British people, given that: • Americans are supposed to be nicer than us, and most are. • You don't need a particularly keen eye for detail to spot a few flaws in the man. This last point is what especially confuses and dismays British people, and many other people too; his faults seem pretty bloody hard to miss. After all, it's impossible to read a single tweet, or hear him speak a sentence or two, without staring deep into the abyss. He turns being artless into an art form; he is a Picasso of pettiness; a Shakespeare of shit. His faults are fractal: even his flaws have flaws, and so on ad infinitum. God knows there have always been stupid people in the world, and plenty of nasty people too. But rarely has stupidity been so nasty, or nastiness so stupid. He makes Nixon look trustworthy and George W look smart. In fact, if Frankenstein decided to make a monster assembled entirely from human flaws – he would make a Trump.

The president of the United States posting from an official government account an image of the chair of the Federal Reserve being thrown in the trash. There are no words or precedents for this.