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> A layman equipped with some of this knowledge, for example, will be much more able to understand current events in... Any recommendations on good places to l

> A layman equipped with some of this knowledge, for example, will be much more able to understand current events in... Any recommendations on good places to learn / keep abreast of this kind of info? I'd love to read news that was more high-level about what's really going on, but it's hard to find. Many years ago, Stratfor had a free weekly newsletter that had excellent info along these lines, but after they got hacked that went away (and with all the weird things leaked about them it got a little sketchy trying to understand where their biases lay).

jwtadvice 10y ago
Washington Thinktanks are a good start (though they still tend to 'flourish' things in nationalist language). I prefer their publications to their press events, though the latter is easier to consume. The press briefings at the State Department are pretty good from a reporting side, but you need to follow for a long time before you see the forest instead of the trees. A good direct source is the Strategic Studies Institute. They publish primarily academically minded geostrategy reports and assessments, and are mostly centered in the military War Colleges and a couple universities that offer Strategic Studies programs. Establishments that host pre-PRified documents from strategy organizations are a good source of mostly historic but sometimes current documents. Looking up, for example, the Pentagon Papers or pre-PR version of the Wolfowitz Doctrine are very clear. The Federation of American Scientists (FAS) does a good job documenting some of these documents. Of course Wikileaks and others who have copies of documents (like the Stratfor docs you mentioned) is another. But let's put that out to Hacker News: what are your sources?
- elcapitan 10y ago
  > But let's put that out to Hacker News: what are your sources? As a German reader, I was surprised about how good "Foreign Policy" is to get a coherent understanding of certain viewpoints in geostrategy. Such publications would be the exception here, because they are not very "journalistic". I think it doesn't necessarily satisfy parents question about "what really is going on", because what's going on is dependent on exactly those viewpoints. That's the nature of political discourse, and I find it more helpful to read about coherent versions rather than a holistic "truth".
  - jwtadvice 10y ago
    Interesting. I also follow Foreign Policy but despise their editorializing, since it takes the meat out of the reporting and skews it toward PR. You will get "more important" news on the international front from ForeignPolicy, but it's going to remain in the format of news journalism. They will include cheesy pictures of world leaders “we don’t like” and nice pictures of the ones we do. They occasionally use Buzzfeedlike headlines like “Will Russia drop a nuclear weapon?” and report in a one sided manner on a number of issues (“Russia flew near NATO with a nuclear bomber” but never “US flew near the Caucauses with a nuclear bomber”). Overall I would rate FP a solid 5 out of 10. But that’s in comparison to venues like CNN that might get a 2 or 3.
    - elcapitan 10y ago
      I think I was a bit bit sleepy this morning, what I meant was "Foreign Affairs". I always mix them up. You're right about FP.
      - jwtadvice 10y ago
        Ahh agreed. Their subscription model really isn't that bad, yet I think prevents many people from linking their articles, etc.
JoeDaDude 10y ago
You might want to look at Cliodynamics: the Journal of Quantitative History and Cultural Evolution [1] which attempts to develop scientific theories of history and sociology. Peter Turchin, one of the authors of the study described in TFA, has a brief description of the journal in his blog [2]. [1] http://escholarship.org/uc/irows_cliodynamics http://escholarship.org/uc/irows_cliodynamics [2] http://peterturchin.com/cliodynamics/ http://peterturchin.com/cliodynamics/
jmickey 10y ago
I have found the Caspian Report tremendously useful for improving my understanding of global dynamics - https://www.youtube.com/user/CaspianReport/videos https://www.youtube.com/user/CaspianReport/videos
- dmix 10y ago
  That's a great channel. Thanks for the link. I just learned how India's economy seems to be crippled by labour regulations, land acquisition laws, and a crazy localized tax system (one truck ride takes 36 checkpoint stops and takes 10 days to go between New Delhi to Mumbai due to paperwork). Made worse by an impotent polticial system. The fact that India is even growing at 7% a year in that environment is the amazing thing. Imagine their potential if they got their shit together. https://youtu.be/hVwIZzGHxwc https://youtu.be/hVwIZzGHxwc I've heard India's economy works at night while the government sleeps. Indeed... Looking forward to more videos.
  - flukus 10y ago
    I've heard a great saying that goes "China is successful because of it's government, India is successful despite it".
  - onetimepadder 10y ago
    @Simulation: "Garbage in, garbage out" @CaspianReport: Another gate-keeping operation(see Noam Chomsky for ref). One dimensionality, designed, produced and moderated(either knowingly or unknowingly .. for the "narrator") to keep _you_ - the curios mind - at a safe distance. If you want to get a glimpse of the real world, you will have to take a dive into the mostly paid disinformation so-called alternative media waters. Among the un-educated, intellectually challenged, psychologically uneven freaks, paid "disinformation agents", double-speak conferences(davos, cfr etc) and gate-keeping (not only)academic speakers from across the globe, you'll have to learn how to distill information these shady organizations(across thousands of yt channels and blogs from 100 to several 100k views) have to use to deliver their disinfo. Pick your world axioms(wisely), learn the contexts, follow links to sources, do your own reading - even though presented by a fool, misrepresented or otherwise intellectually mutilated, sources that were given/sent to that fool may still be valid and _very_ eye-opening. Don't be your own censor, there are a lot of large-scale disinformation operations (like "flat earth", "9/11", "homeopathy-*" etc) you may encounter - but keep in mind, they have to use _something_ to sell their disinfo.. Below 2 operations(yes, they are ops I;m sad to say) are worth visiting for start: Put your self-censorship hat off and watch at least few of these in-full! In regards to the last one, named after Carroll Quigley's Tragedy and Hope[3] - you can find that book online, jump to site 430+/- for an overview of how it was the UK as the tool behind both WWs (even though there is a lot of self-censorship at best in that book .. and it was written or edited as to be very hard to read) [0] https://www.youtube.com/user/corbettreport https://www.youtube.com/user/corbettreport [1] https://www.youtube.com/user/1138Porkins https://www.youtube.com/user/1138Porkins // quality depends on the region/topic cowered, kaukazuz are OK [2] https://www.youtube.com/user/TragedyandHopeMag https://www.youtube.com/user/TragedyandHopeMag // especially older pieces [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_and_Hope https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_and_Hope
koliber 10y ago
"The Grand Chessboard" by Zbigniew Brzezinski opened up my eyes to how countries think. It's a bit dry, but offers the kind of perspective that is normally missing from most people's everyday lives.

jwtadvice 10y ago

Washington Thinktanks are a good start (though they still tend to 'flourish' things in nationalist language). I prefer their publications to their press events, though the latter is easier to consume. The press briefings at the State Department are pretty good from a reporting side, but you need to follow for a long time before you see the forest instead of the trees. A good direct source is the Strategic Studies Institute. They publish primarily academically minded geostrategy reports and assessments, and are mostly centered in the military War Colleges and a couple universities that offer Strategic Studies programs. Establishments that host pre-PRified documents from strategy organizations are a good source of mostly historic but sometimes current documents. Looking up, for example, the Pentagon Papers or pre-PR version of the Wolfowitz Doctrine are very clear. The Federation of American Scientists (FAS) does a good job documenting some of these documents. Of course Wikileaks and others who have copies of documents (like the Stratfor docs you mentioned) is another. But let's put that out to Hacker News: what are your sources?

elcapitan 10y ago
> But let's put that out to Hacker News: what are your sources? As a German reader, I was surprised about how good "Foreign Policy" is to get a coherent understanding of certain viewpoints in geostrategy. Such publications would be the exception here, because they are not very "journalistic". I think it doesn't necessarily satisfy parents question about "what really is going on", because what's going on is dependent on exactly those viewpoints. That's the nature of political discourse, and I find it more helpful to read about coherent versions rather than a holistic "truth".
- jwtadvice 10y ago
  Interesting. I also follow Foreign Policy but despise their editorializing, since it takes the meat out of the reporting and skews it toward PR. You will get "more important" news on the international front from ForeignPolicy, but it's going to remain in the format of news journalism. They will include cheesy pictures of world leaders “we don’t like” and nice pictures of the ones we do. They occasionally use Buzzfeedlike headlines like “Will Russia drop a nuclear weapon?” and report in a one sided manner on a number of issues (“Russia flew near NATO with a nuclear bomber” but never “US flew near the Caucauses with a nuclear bomber”). Overall I would rate FP a solid 5 out of 10. But that’s in comparison to venues like CNN that might get a 2 or 3.
  - elcapitan 10y ago
    I think I was a bit bit sleepy this morning, what I meant was "Foreign Affairs". I always mix them up. You're right about FP.
    - jwtadvice 10y ago
      Ahh agreed. Their subscription model really isn't that bad, yet I think prevents many people from linking their articles, etc.

JoeDaDude 10y ago

You might want to look at Cliodynamics: the Journal of Quantitative History and Cultural Evolution [1] which attempts to develop scientific theories of history and sociology. Peter Turchin, one of the authors of the study described in TFA, has a brief description of the journal in his blog [2]. [1] http://escholarship.org/uc/irows_cliodynamics http://escholarship.org/uc/irows_cliodynamics [2] http://peterturchin.com/cliodynamics/ http://peterturchin.com/cliodynamics/

jmickey 10y ago

I have found the Caspian Report tremendously useful for improving my understanding of global dynamics - https://www.youtube.com/user/CaspianReport/videos https://www.youtube.com/user/CaspianReport/videos

dmix 10y ago
That's a great channel. Thanks for the link. I just learned how India's economy seems to be crippled by labour regulations, land acquisition laws, and a crazy localized tax system (one truck ride takes 36 checkpoint stops and takes 10 days to go between New Delhi to Mumbai due to paperwork). Made worse by an impotent polticial system. The fact that India is even growing at 7% a year in that environment is the amazing thing. Imagine their potential if they got their shit together. https://youtu.be/hVwIZzGHxwc https://youtu.be/hVwIZzGHxwc I've heard India's economy works at night while the government sleeps. Indeed... Looking forward to more videos.
- flukus 10y ago
  I've heard a great saying that goes "China is successful because of it's government, India is successful despite it".
- onetimepadder 10y ago
  @Simulation: "Garbage in, garbage out" @CaspianReport: Another gate-keeping operation(see Noam Chomsky for ref). One dimensionality, designed, produced and moderated(either knowingly or unknowingly .. for the "narrator") to keep _you_ - the curios mind - at a safe distance. If you want to get a glimpse of the real world, you will have to take a dive into the mostly paid disinformation so-called alternative media waters. Among the un-educated, intellectually challenged, psychologically uneven freaks, paid "disinformation agents", double-speak conferences(davos, cfr etc) and gate-keeping (not only)academic speakers from across the globe, you'll have to learn how to distill information these shady organizations(across thousands of yt channels and blogs from 100 to several 100k views) have to use to deliver their disinfo. Pick your world axioms(wisely), learn the contexts, follow links to sources, do your own reading - even though presented by a fool, misrepresented or otherwise intellectually mutilated, sources that were given/sent to that fool may still be valid and _very_ eye-opening. Don't be your own censor, there are a lot of large-scale disinformation operations (like "flat earth", "9/11", "homeopathy-*" etc) you may encounter - but keep in mind, they have to use _something_ to sell their disinfo.. Below 2 operations(yes, they are ops I;m sad to say) are worth visiting for start: Put your self-censorship hat off and watch at least few of these in-full! In regards to the last one, named after Carroll Quigley's Tragedy and Hope[3] - you can find that book online, jump to site 430+/- for an overview of how it was the UK as the tool behind both WWs (even though there is a lot of self-censorship at best in that book .. and it was written or edited as to be very hard to read) [0] https://www.youtube.com/user/corbettreport https://www.youtube.com/user/corbettreport [1] https://www.youtube.com/user/1138Porkins https://www.youtube.com/user/1138Porkins // quality depends on the region/topic cowered, kaukazuz are OK [2] https://www.youtube.com/user/TragedyandHopeMag https://www.youtube.com/user/TragedyandHopeMag // especially older pieces [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_and_Hope https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_and_Hope

koliber 10y ago

"The Grand Chessboard" by Zbigniew Brzezinski opened up my eyes to how countries think. It's a bit dry, but offers the kind of perspective that is normally missing from most people's everyday lives.