Politics and society — Alpha.Sources

Trying to make sense of the senseless

Noah Smith, an American columnist and Substacker, and historian Niall Ferguson both made the mistake last week of attempting to rationalise the Trump administration’s fumbling attempts to get Ukrainian peace talks underway.

Niall Ferguson appears to be making a completely reasonable point—one echoed by numerous other observers last week—that it was a mistake for the U.S. to publicly acknowledge that Ukraine can never become a full member of NATO and that the country must cede territory to Russia as part of any peace deal, even if both positions are widely accepted on the Western and Ukrainian sides of the negotiations. This, of course, was before Mr. Trump went on one of his ill-advised social media rampages, effectively accusing Ukraine of starting the war and labeling its sitting president a dictator.

A Millennial's Manifesto

Millennials, according to the internet, are people born between 1981 and 1996. That's a bit of a gap, so it will be useful to narrow down the definition of our protagonist somewhat. This is a story about a relatively old Millennial, born in 1984. It is not at all inconceivable that this person will have a different perspective from a namesake born in the middle of the 1990s. This is a bias that we must accept such as it is. Even more specifically, this is a story about European millennial, born in Denmark, who has ended up in the United Kingdom. He is married to a Canadian woman of Guyanese, and ultimately Indian, descent, who is now a naturalised English citizen. The melting pot is real, and millennials are sizzling in its cauldron.

A new feudalism?

I recently finished Techno Feudalism: What Killed Capitalism by Yanis Varoufakis, on audiobook read by the author himself. It offers an interesting perspective on modern capitalism or, in the opinion of the author, why capitalism as we know it is dead. Mr. Varoufakis writes from the left, which grants him a unique perspective inherent to that side of the political spectrum. Marxism is interesting primarily for its critique and diagnosis of capitalism’s structure, not for its purported inevitable end-result of a communist revolution. In this sense, Mr. Varoufakis’ book is an enlightening read.

What is Substack for?

Thus asks The Point—another magazine that I think you should subscribe to—based on a recent exchange between Becca Rothfeld, herself a writer for the Point, and Sam Kahn, who is as far as I can see a prolific Substacker. You can find the initial flurry, on Substack, via by following the link above from The Point. The subsequent exchange between Becca and Sam, hosted by The Point, comes in three chapters. So, we have a debate on the merits of Substack as a platform, which began on the platform itself, and is since hosted by the magazine employing one of the belligerents itself. Very meta!

In preview, Rothfeld is arguing the counter position to Substack, while Kahn is arguing the position in favour of the platform. It is a good discussion, and one that gets to the core of what Substack does well, what it doesn’t do well. It’s interesting, however, that the exchange neglects to mention one of the most glaring deficiencies of the platform, namely the economics of the consumers, the readers, a topic I discuss here.

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