Five Things: Russia, Putin, AI, Farmers, Good old Times
It's time to open this email and read five very interesting articles.
Wow, it’s Sunday Morning again! Grab a coffee and read this newsletter now!
I didn’t see this plot twist coming, but Saturday was all about the Wagner mercenaries marching towards Moscow, moving Russia towards a civil war. Hopefully this will give Ukraine an advantage in the next few days and weeks to push their counteroffensive forward. What I also didn’t think would happen: Lukashenko made a deal with Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin. The charges agains Prigozhin will be dropped and he will relocate to Belarus. If this were a movie, people would say that this development doesn’t make much sense.
Anyhow, do you know those people who always tell you the good old times were so much better? Are you one of them? Well, guess what? It wasn’t better. Thank your brain for believing this. Make sure to read the fifth article of this newsletter today.
Also, if you like this newsletter, please tell your friends about it!
Russia Slides Into Civil War
Anne Applebaum delivers a really good analysis of the fight between rival mafia gangs in Russia. This is very much a developing story, but it is save to say that Putin looks pretty weak right now and will probably face some real challenges in the upcoming weeks and months. (The Atlantic)
The Treacherous Path to a Better Russia
There will be a time without Putin, we just don’t know how long it will take. We will also find out how rotten Russia really is and my fear is, that Russia will stay the way it is no matter what. Or it will get even worse. (Foreign Affairs)
AI Is a Lot of Work
AI will make lots of jobs obsolete and it will also create lots of new ones. Some will be really amazing, high-paying jobs, others will be typical bullshit jobs, just with an AI twist. The big question will be: what happens to those who lose their jobs now and can’t get a new skillset in time to jump onto the AI bandwagon? (The Verge)
Farmers are Struggling With Climate Change, but Yields Continue to Rise. What’s Going On?
When I was a kid my dad and his father always discussed how the wheat was growing. My granddad was a farm-hand and my dad grew up on a farm. I really wonder what they would say about farming right now as the world gets wormer and farmers have to adjust to that. I, of course, could never spot the difference between oats, barley and wheat from a car like my dad and my granddad could. But I always had a thing for corn, even before I lived in Iowa. (Modern Farmer)
Your Brain Has Tricked You Into Thinking Everything Is Worse
Everything was better in the good old times? Not so fast. “Seventy-six percent of Americans believe, according to a 2015 Pew Research Center poll, that “addressing the moral breakdown of the country” should be one of the government’s priorities. The good news is that the breakdown hasn’t happened. The bad news is that people believe it has. As long as we believe in this illusion, we are susceptible to the promises of aspiring autocrats who claim they can return us to a golden age that exists in the only place a golden age has ever existed: our imaginations.” (New York Times)
That’s it. Have an amazing Sunday!