Claims

The fundamental metric to monitor for system collapse is the combination of education and free markets; as long as people are free to pursue their interests and innovate to solve problems (and are incentivized by hunger/profit), societies evolve solutions; loss of that freedom or incentive structure is the real danger

The death of the nation-state (not of organized government, but of the specific 19th-century model) is the most likely 'least expected' outcome; the nation-state was built from nationalism and industrialization; the periphery already doesn't function like nation-states (e.g. South Africa: gated communities for elites, dysfunctional government, informal slavery); the core will eventually look the same

The nation-state will not disappear entirely but will evolve into a different form; states control the men with guns and will eventually reassert control; tech companies and AI may challenge state authority, but historical precedent (East India Company, Hudson Bay Company) shows corporations always succumb to state power

One EU positive: recent geopolitical shocks (Ukraine, energy independence, hard power) have awakened European consciousness to the need for physical infrastructure and capability-building; defense spending increases to 5% GDP could benefit broader economic capacity—but only if done efficiently rather than captured by incumbent interests.

France's relationship with its former African colonies, characterized by cozy webs of personal, business, and military ties, is known as 'F AF' and is widely seen as a neocolonial hangover that military regimes in the region have moved to end.

Military regimes in Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger have established the Alliance of Sahelian States as a new regional security bloc and putative confederation to restore sovereignty and assert they can now fight jihadism without French constraints.

Regional negotiations without external influence could bring more lasting peace deals in the Sahel because previous attempts to forge peace accords led by France were seen as external impositions and were unpopular, but would require Sahelian governments to eventually realize they cannot defeat insurgents by brute force alone.

The Maha Kumbh provided a perfect political stage for the BJP to demonstrate Hindu credentials, with images of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Uttar Pradesh leader Yogi Adityanath appearing everywhere before and during the festival.

West Africa mining jurisdictions (Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Côte d'Ivoire, Sierra Leone, Guinea, Liberia) are guilty by association with political instability, but Rule distinguishes between traumatized-but-stabilizing societies with improving trajectories and those with genuine deterioration, requiring on-the-ground research to differentiate.

Montage (backed by Lundin group with 50-60 years of consensus-building experience) represents a higher-quality West Africa entry point than Toronto-based explorers because it has proven capability to align village-level stakeholders with company interest, not just federal governments, creating social license.

Naively dismissing the importance of collective emotional experience and spectacle as 'just superstition' is extraordinarily naive; if we pretend this human need doesn't exist, we're not eliminating it, we're leaving it unmet and vulnerable to capture by malevolent forces.

An irate, tireless minority keen on setting brush fires of freedom can prevail in changing the course of events, as demonstrated by Hong Kong's 1.4 million people protesting compared to weak US participation.

In the Great Chain of Being, the king occupies a position at the top of human hierarchy and rules by the grace of God and divine ordination, with legitimacy depending on consistency with natural law and divine ordinance, a framework that leads to the divine right of kings and a defense of Catholic absolutism.

The Great Chain of Being is an extremely conservative and backward-looking idea that legitimizes static feudal society by claiming God placed each person at a particular slot in the hierarchy for a reason; if the king is wicked, God will handle it rather than the subject rebelling, as rebelling would violate one's assigned function.

Following Aristotle, Aquinas prefers a mixed polity that is primarily monarchical because he thinks that is the most satisfactory way of arranging society, but the king governs only through the grace of God and his laws are valid only if consistent with God's laws (revealed will or natural law).

Natural law theory, derived from Cicero through Aquinas, becomes the foundation for civil disobedience: when positive law (human-made law) conflicts with natural law or God's revealed law, citizens can justifiably refuse obedience by appealing to a universal moral standard accessible to reason that supersedes positive law.

The danger in eliminating natural law theory is complete obligation to obey the state, leading to the Kantian-Hegelian German tradition of idealistic domination by the state, which carries dangers as great as or greater than the anarchic tendency toward judging and rejecting positive law.

Natural law doctrine appears as a contemporary practical necessity and problem: the Nuremberg trials prosecuted Nazi officials without any positive law within the statutes of the prosecuting nations applying to them, yet the trials assumed some law must exist—this can only be understood as appeal to natural law as a universal standard of human behavior that supersedes positive law.

Many people have reservations about natural law theory, finding it implausible that normative rules can be derived simply through the exercise of natural reason, but the difficulty is that if one rejects natural law with Stalin, one must admit politics is purely a matter of power and either dispense with trials altogether or accept that some law beyond positive statutes must apply.

Natural law arguments are likely to persist in Western jurisprudence and will not be dispensed with, and interestingly they serve as a bulwark of freedom for the individual and freedom of individual conscience—a role that is quite non-scholastic or un-scholastic, showing that Aquinas's doctrine has had an unexpectedly liberating career in the history of Western philosophy.

Ovitz prefers the New York path where movement from capitalism to extreme socialism is fast enough to be rejected by the system, versus Canada's slow march into socialism which is harder to arrest because it happens incrementally.

Ovitz wanted to argue with the young socialist at dinner in front of the other 10 young people to get him to defend his position, but in one sentence Ovitz gave him, the kid couldn't defend it because it was indefensible.

Hamas plays a governance role in Gaza controlling aid distribution from the outside, so destroying Hamas infrastructure creates a prisoner management problem: you have a prison without a distribution system, leaving no good outcome—either occupation (which Israel won't do) or withdrawal (which allows Hamas to reform).

Saudi Arabia's older generation including King Salman are pro-Palestinian and want real concessions (self-rule, territory expansion, Israeli withdrawal from West Bank) as part of any normalization deal; the younger generation including Muhammad bin Salman doesn't care about Palestinians and wants normalization on pure strategic/economic terms.

China and Russia talk to each other but are not true allies; Russia and China have longstanding border disputes with Russian official policy being to nuke China if they cross the border; Russia and Iran fought over the Caucasus and disagree on Azerbaijan's independence.

In early 2021 Beijing and the whole country suffered widespread blackouts and brownouts but Xi didn't find out until September; he only learned about it when it came up on a Zoom call with Joe Biden, illustrating the complete breakdown of information flow to the top.

When a leader is in a dark room with no information making policy, they become desperate; but it's impossible to predict Xi's behavior because we don't know what information he actually has access to; without Xi speaking to anyone, there's no inner circle to tap, no emails to hack, so all predictions about Xi's behavior are guesswork.

Iran has no tools to affect the Gaza situation; Hamas was always considered a disposable asset by Iran; Hezbollah is a more valuable long-term partner for Iran due to Shia religious affiliation while Hamas is Sunni and considered apostates worthy of destruction.

Cold War Alliance worked because US accepted products from everyone and kept markets open to maintain economies around Soviet threat; now without overarching Soviet threat, US partnership is no longer based on anti-communism but on US terms where certain countries are part of US inner family (UK, Australia, Singapore, Japan, Israel) and there's little negotiation.

Xi Jinping has destroyed the country's capacity to generate and flow information up (covid deaths, consumer confidence, dissertations, political biographies), preventing a new generation of leadership from rising and destroying basic decision-making intelligence about what's happening in his own country.

Saudi Arabia, not Israel-Palestine conflict itself, is the key strategic actor determining market response and regional escalation; Saudi decision on normalization with Israel will reshape the entire Middle East alignment and will be made within one month based on whether the older pro-Palestinian generation or younger anti-Palestinian generation (MBS) gains control of foreign policy.

China's public siding with Palestinians will hurt China's relationship with Saudi Arabia long-term; Russia's public siding with Hamas will likely destroy the Russia-Israel relationship which both sides have worked hard to maintain; both countries are acting against their own interests due to pathological anti-American sentiment.

The US patrolled the Persian Gulf for decades because oil going to allies, not the US; the US doesn't care about that anymore; allies have to adjust expectations and tamp down national egos; Biden's trip was successful at making clear there won't be negotiation on core issues.