On the partition of Europe, if you look at the situation in 1946/7 then there’s not much the US can do except resort to the A-bomb. But the Atlantic Charter forbids territorial gains and the Q is why similar conditions were not imposed on the USSR.
I’m not sure how urgent manpower is needed. Russia seems incapable of fighting a wider war at this point.
The Europeans will spend more on defence and Trump will claim this as a victory, but the reality is the entire continent will have turned against the US. Some victory.
BTW I’ve been thinking about your comment a couple of weeks ago a lot but still don’t know what to say!
Just a quick follow up note on recruitment. In Canada, recruitment has been abysmal. Suddenly it ticked up last month, quite spontaneously. We realize we have no deterrent atm, other than the potential threat of a forever guerrilla campaign.
There is an AI Pause community as well, which informs Bengio's perspective; the central figure is Eliezer Yudkowsi. I spent a few months last year struggling to wrap my head around his concerns regarding "alignment."
Thanks for your contributions, you've offered very needed clarity here.
I think there's a battle coming over taxation as jobs go to AI. Out of OpenAI and Silicon Valley, the lines is, "We'll need to switch to Corporation Tax". But from the UK's point of view that would be a total disaster. We'd then be engaged in tax competition with every tax haven on the planet for the right to tax a handful of gigantic corporations. It would bankrupt the state.
What we're probably going to need to do is to tax AI. Reversing Charles Babbage's original economic reasoning, one could say, "how much does it cost in humans do this work? And how much tax is paid on that in terms of income tax and national insurance? That determines the amount of tax that should be levied on AI for the work".
The IPPR touched on this in a report maybe 18 months ago.
There are a number of issues that need clarification but this article defines our current dilemma very well. Trump is an asshole and as such unreliable in any conversation about the future of Europe. Roosevelt was helpless in the division of Eastern Europe in 1945 as Russia had 9 million soldiers in the occupied territories. Churchill managed to rescue Greece from the Russian sphere and used the British Army to suppress the Communist Revolt that attempted to capture the country. Europe has been over reliant on American protection up until now and whether it can shake off that dependency is anyone’s guess. Germany, France and Britain must lead the way in boosting defence spending and assembling as large a force as possible, as soon as possible. The calling up of Reservists is the simplest way of doing this. You never know, but Trump might consider this a victory for his bullying. What is certain is that Ukraine must be supported in any decision they take over the cessation of hostilities. Russia must not be allowed to claim any victory that would encourage them to invade Ukraine sovereign territory again. One can imagine Chamberlain and his colleagues in 1938, terrified of a second war within 20 years, this time with air power a major component. Having been too old to serve in WW1 they had watched the slaughter for four years from positions of powerlessness. Starmer and the other leaders of major European powers must not accept anything that aids Putin, or Trump, to believe that the European concept of democracy is a pushover.
On the partition of Europe, if you look at the situation in 1946/7 then there’s not much the US can do except resort to the A-bomb. But the Atlantic Charter forbids territorial gains and the Q is why similar conditions were not imposed on the USSR.
I’m not sure how urgent manpower is needed. Russia seems incapable of fighting a wider war at this point.
The Europeans will spend more on defence and Trump will claim this as a victory, but the reality is the entire continent will have turned against the US. Some victory.
BTW I’ve been thinking about your comment a couple of weeks ago a lot but still don’t know what to say!
Just a quick follow up note on recruitment. In Canada, recruitment has been abysmal. Suddenly it ticked up last month, quite spontaneously. We realize we have no deterrent atm, other than the potential threat of a forever guerrilla campaign.
ICYMI: https://thetyee.ca/Analysis/2025/02/13/Do-Not-Test-Us-Trump/
You should be able to access that. This piece has been published at multiple media sites in Canada.
Cheers.
I'm so very happy you commented on Elliot Higgins' bsky thread and I could follow you here.
On AI I think you understand it exactly as the politicians do.
Unfortunately, the engineers and scientists central to development of AI see it further risks and are likely to understand it best.
Yoshua Bengio is a good source and was at the AI summit. The CFR just put out some "crazy things" clips: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/2G6xyfLaT6o
There is an AI Pause community as well, which informs Bengio's perspective; the central figure is Eliezer Yudkowsi. I spent a few months last year struggling to wrap my head around his concerns regarding "alignment."
Thanks for your contributions, you've offered very needed clarity here.
I think there's a battle coming over taxation as jobs go to AI. Out of OpenAI and Silicon Valley, the lines is, "We'll need to switch to Corporation Tax". But from the UK's point of view that would be a total disaster. We'd then be engaged in tax competition with every tax haven on the planet for the right to tax a handful of gigantic corporations. It would bankrupt the state.
What we're probably going to need to do is to tax AI. Reversing Charles Babbage's original economic reasoning, one could say, "how much does it cost in humans do this work? And how much tax is paid on that in terms of income tax and national insurance? That determines the amount of tax that should be levied on AI for the work".
The IPPR touched on this in a report maybe 18 months ago.
There are a number of issues that need clarification but this article defines our current dilemma very well. Trump is an asshole and as such unreliable in any conversation about the future of Europe. Roosevelt was helpless in the division of Eastern Europe in 1945 as Russia had 9 million soldiers in the occupied territories. Churchill managed to rescue Greece from the Russian sphere and used the British Army to suppress the Communist Revolt that attempted to capture the country. Europe has been over reliant on American protection up until now and whether it can shake off that dependency is anyone’s guess. Germany, France and Britain must lead the way in boosting defence spending and assembling as large a force as possible, as soon as possible. The calling up of Reservists is the simplest way of doing this. You never know, but Trump might consider this a victory for his bullying. What is certain is that Ukraine must be supported in any decision they take over the cessation of hostilities. Russia must not be allowed to claim any victory that would encourage them to invade Ukraine sovereign territory again. One can imagine Chamberlain and his colleagues in 1938, terrified of a second war within 20 years, this time with air power a major component. Having been too old to serve in WW1 they had watched the slaughter for four years from positions of powerlessness. Starmer and the other leaders of major European powers must not accept anything that aids Putin, or Trump, to believe that the European concept of democracy is a pushover.
Hi John - Sorry, I see now that my reply to this comment was accidentally posted separately. Please see above.