E Newsletter

Starting Dialogues

PSA: Update on the progress + introducing Dialogues. Geopolitics and geo-economics. The Salisbury Skripal novichok affair.

AI

AI

— 5 min read
Starting Dialogues
Socrates, Plato's Dialogues

I owe you a few updates.

  1. I had started a Telegram channel where you can comment on the posts—I repost more frequent, micro-material that I find useful, with my own micro-commentary, and also links to this newsletter + podcast: Business Games with AI (@businessgamesai) on Telegram;
  2. On the other hand, my plan for more frequent newsletter + podcast content had not eventuated, for the main reason of cost-benefit and resource constraints: there are good sources of frequent yet insightful content (Andrew Korybko's Newsletter | Substack, Empire, Communication and NATO Wars | Oliver Boyd-Barrett | Substack, @TheDuran, the Cradle, and others), and the quality level of the content that I set for BG is impossible for me to deliver at speed given my current resources;
  3. I have therefore decided to focus on recording and releasing longer evergreen content, less frequently (for now), but also bringing interesting perspectives not readily available elsewhere on this newsletter + pod—while using Telegram & Twitter for micro-posts that by design do not have the same level of research;
  4. During 2022 and early 2023, I recorded 10+ hours of interviews, which I had been editing and will start releasing (sans transcripts) over the next weeks—the first one is already out: "Propaganda at Its Most Innocent", a dialogue with Prof. Oliver Boyd-Barrett on the Why and the How of propaganda—a must-listen! Transcripts for these will come later (potentially much later as they are very time consuming). I called these "Dialogues" as a nod to Plato & Socrates;
  5. As I already mentioned, I covered almost all I wanted on the Ukrainian conflict itself, so the (current) plan is to release the backlog of already recorded dialogues with interesting people and move from Ukraine to the NATO-Russia proxy war and then to wider geopolitical & geo-economic trends afoot.
“Propaganda at Its Most Innocent”
Why propaganda? How propaganda? and What can you do? Oliver covers provable propaganda in Hollywood & the (predominantly) US media, with examples from Iraq (twice), Syria, Ukraine, & Russiagate. We also touch on modern leadership and Russophobia.
Business GamesAI

Social & Other Content Worth Reading

There are two pieces of outstanding research that I'd like to point you towards:

  • Economic underpinnings of geopolitical conflicts;
  • The Skripal case.

Geo-Economics: IMF, WB, Ukraine 2014 & 2022

I shall try to get the author on the pod before long—for now, here are a few articles about the economic underpinnings of the Ukraine conflict, and geopolitics in general: from 2023, from 2014, and the 2023 review by Oliver Boyd-Barrett (in that order).

This goes to the heart of "follow the money" principle 👇👇

What Do the World Bank and IMF Have to Do with the Ukraine Conflict? - Our World
IMF and World Bank aid packages contingent on austerity reforms will increase poverty and inequality in the Ukraine, argues policy expert Frédéric Mousseau.
Our WorldFrédéric Mousseau
Dying for Agribusiness
The report by Frédéric Mousseau and Eve Devillers for the Oakland Institute, under the title WAR AND THEFT THE TAKEOVER OF UKRAINE’S AGRICULTURAL LAND is listed under Ukraine in my most recent Critical Links post. The report addresses the central question: who controls the agricultural land in the c…
Empire, Communication and NATO WarsOliver Boyd-Barrett

The Salisbury Skripal Novichok Affair

You no doubt have heard about the Skripal / Salisbury / novichok affair and what the UK officials and the mainstream media claim happened. It's one of the tentpoles in "Russia bad" narrative focusing personally on "Putin kills" aspect.

I therefore highly recommend the work of Tim Norman who put together this must-read article on the Skripal timeline, using only the "credible" Western (UK/US) media, government officials' statements, court rulings & police reports—i.e., no "Russian disinformation" to be found here.

You'll immediately recognize that it's an identical approach to what I used for the bulk of my Ukraine content: debunking the BS narrative using Western sources and logic only—read this, it's well worth the time (though you might want to read the shorter pieces below, to get the main idea):

The Day of the Skripal
LONG READ: The Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia survived an apparent assassination attempt in the English city of Salisbury on Sunday, 4 March 2018. But what exactly did the mainstream media and official sources say happened on the day they were both allegedly exposed to No…
UKColumnTim Norman

Here are some more articles by Tim—also, check out his Twitter account, if you want:

Thank you!

AI

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