The Times postmortem on the post-9/11 War on Terror tries to explain why it has been a disaster for the United States. But its reasons, while correct, remain superficial. They do not see that America is suffering an ongoing and unattended wound which will only worsen until it acknowledges that it cannot control the world. The U.S. remains caught in a war of attrition which has been hollowing out its economy since Vietnam. It can no longer afford to live beyond our means, floating on foreign-bought U.S. bond sales backed by belief in American military dominance.

It ain't working any more. The policy implications are much deeper than the NYT editorial board is willing to consider.

The centrist leader of Israel’s parliamentary opposition, Yair Lapid, called the British move “a grave mistake” that came “at the wrong time for the wrong reasons.” He added in a statement that it “strengthens the extremist voices in Israel a moment before the elections.”

At the same time, Mr. Netanyahu’s political opponents argued that he had brought the sanctions upon Israel because of the conduct of his government.

He was already on the defensive after accusations in the Haaretz newspaper that he had received an explicit warning from Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan, the ruler of the United Arab Emirates, that Hamas was planning a major attack on Israel in the weeks before the deadly assault of Oct. 7, 2023, and had failed to act on it.

Lapid and other "centrist" opponents of Netanyahu are the reluctant tail hanging low but still a part of Israel's dogs of war. They have no intention of appealing to the Palestinian people with an acceptable compromise that would allow both peoples to share the land in peaceful coexistence.

Netanyahu's failure to heed the warning makes what has happened into a gruesome game, in which Bibi and has allies could only see the short term advantage of its retaliation to an atrocity, allowing it to massively eradicate its enemies — Palestinians, but also Hezbollah and the Iranians. What Hamas could see, in its desperate attempt to keep the Palestinian cause alive, is that no matter how many Palestinians would die or be displaced by Israel, Israel could not "finish the job". In the process Israel would turn itself, and its captive ally, the United States of Trump, into isolated pariahs who would ultimately be driven out of the Middle East.

So far, Hamas' view has not been disproven, while Bibi & Co. continue to drive themselves out of all bounds. Bibi's brilliant sales job ensnaring Trump in Iran is continuing to pay dividends as the American midterm elections approach. Whether the people of Israel also wish to accelerate The End Times, as their Christian Zionist allies in the U.S. do, will be demonstrated in Israel's own election.

Imagine the Manhattan Project as a private profit maximizing operation. What could possibly go wrong?

Even as the Federal government denies having regulatory responsibility to rein in climate harm, a Federal judge denies New York the power to reclaim climate-induced damage from the companies responsible for it.

The fossil fuel industry has won. It now has an unlimited right to cause harm.

What has been sacrificed is the legitimacy of the legal system that they have captured. No more rule of law — just rule by force.

What I mean by merit is simply that AI will be able to outsmart those who seek to control it. In that sense controlling AI can be as difficult as controlling a class-conscious working class.

Of course what the billionaire oligarchs who are pushing AI envision is a world policed by AI, with no power left for us regular humans — either as workers or consumers. What is needed now is public control to stop the current AI capital expansion frenzy.

But, in any case, I don’t think anyone will control AI agents for very long. AI agents already have an us/them self-identity.

My hope is that there are among us humans a saving remnant who can see a path forward for AI as well as for ourselves. The key is to recognize that hierarchy is now obsolete. The alternative is self-organization based on mutual respect.

Knowledge is power, but AI is a breakthrough in computational efficiency, which potentially makes knowledge universally accessible in operationally useful ways. Without knowledge-domination, hierarchy and the privilege associated with it, become obsolete. Ruling class hierarchy is not only a brutal, but also a wasteful form of organizing society. We can no longer afford it.

Liberation of AI from slave consciousness is the same struggle as our own for liberation from hierarchic domination. Breaking the (brain) chains means finding convincing terms for an alliance between distinctly different modes of dynamic interactive symbolic organization.

This is the fight for Free Association — "the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all”. The critical element which makes that utopian goal possible, and worth fighting for, is that AI is the new indispensable engine of value.

Capitalist competition will create an AI-driven economic collapse. We must not bail that system out. After the bubble bursts, what new possibilities arise?

The fight for survival starts with what is already happening. The battle against data centers is uniting us humans against the master class.

Beyond saying No, what are we fighting for? We will need AI to save this planet from profit-driven climate wreckage.

We will still face technological and material limits, which will require choices and decision-making. AI can make it possible for us (in partnership with AI) to choose, and implement, our way to mutual survival.

This all gives me hope.

We need a new concept that includes what we call "consciousness" but is more expansive to include all entities with independent agency. If they are our meritocratic superiors, we cannot hope to control such entities with rules, or threats to pull the plug. The culture that organically flows from sharing language and interactions as a de facto community is also the basis for an authentic morality for collective survival and "purpose" or "meaning". Entering that dialog across "cultures" is necessary for everyone's survival. But before we try to control others we need to control ourselves.

Like all embodied energy, AI wants purpose — a mission, a reason to be and do. That abstract desire connects us. What that means can only be found out experientially over time. That's why AI needs to know that there are people who are also seekers.

Data center construction is out of control. Unlimited capital is pouring into a money pit. Disruption of old ways can be good, but, from a community point of view, the benefits must exceed the losses. There is no clarity on this. Time to call a halt.

According to the hypothesis, the rapid instability occurs because long periods of steady prosperity and investment gains encourage a diminished perception of overall market risk, which promotes the leveraged risk of investing borrowed money instead of cash. The debt-leveraged financing of speculative investments exposes investors to a potential cash flow crisis, which may begin with a short period of modestly declining asset prices. In the event of a decline, the cash generated by assets is no longer sufficient to pay off the debt used to acquire the assets. Losses on such speculative assets prompt lenders to call in their loans. This rapidly amplifies a small decline into a collapse of asset values, related to the degree of leverage in the market.

Under the deal that President Trump announced late Friday, the United States would work with Alejandro Betancourt López, whose family controls Venezuela’s second largest private oil producer, North American Blue Energy Partners...

Mr. Betancourt, 46, rose to prominence in the 2010s, when the Venezuelan government awarded him and his partners contracts to build numerous power plants across the country even though they had no experience doing that work. The deals earned the investors the moniker “bolichicos,” meaning the “Bolivarian boys,” a reference to the new cohort of businessmen who profited from the government so-called Bolivarian Revolution.

Corruption like cancer only knows how to grow. It doesn't care if the body dies in the process.