Vega Theory

1. In search of the Biden Doctrine (Foreign Policy Research Institute).
2. The great cyber surrender (Demos).
3. The toll of the black belt’s wastewater crisis (The New Yorker).
4. Why political leaders are never to blame (The Atlantic).
5. Cyber-enabled foreign interference in elections and referendums (Australian Strategic Policy Institute).
6. AI can run your work meetings now (Wired).
7. To compete, invest in people (CSIS).
8. What US democracy can learn from ancient Greek philosophy (New Statesman).
9. The coming anti-COVID restriction backlash (National Review).
10. Big picture: robodebt, politics and poverty (The Saturday Paper).

1. How Biden can free Americans from student debt (The New Yorker).
2. Why Joe Biden should lead a reboot of NATO (The National Interest).
3. How ‘prestige, status and power’ led to Australia’s war crimes (The Saturday Paper).
4. One man’s search for the DNA data that could save his life (Wired).
5. The fraught politics facing Biden’s foreign policy (The Atlantic).
6. Can Joe Biden’s team become a progressive administration? (New Statesman).
7. It was a good day for democracy (Slate).
8. Pete Evans and the Black Sun (The Guardian).
9. What is ASEAN? (Council on Foreign Relations).
10. America after COVID-19 (American Enterprise Institute).

1. The myths that bind Obama and Thatcher (The Atlantic).
2. How venture capitalists deform capitalism (The New Yorker).
3. Why Moscow’s snowless winters are a warning to the world (New Statesman).
4. The psychology of being “over” COVID-19 (Slate).
5. For some workers, school never closed (The Nation).
6. Congress is eyeing face recognition and companies want a say (Wired).
7. Achieving levelling up (Demos).
8. Data unpacked: China’s rising assertiveness (CSIS).
9. Voices of the middle class (Brookings Institution).
10. The Biden popular front is doomed to unravel (The New Republic).

1. The strange friendships of “The Left Hand of Darkness.” (The New Yorker).
2. How many Americans are about to die? (The Atlantic).
3. Trump’s lost cause (Slate).
4. Hazard pay was just a brand exercise (The New Republic).
5. Trump’s newest expert on vote fraud spent years boosting QAnon (MotherJones).
6. Debt and a new common framework (CSIS).
7. The lopsided telework revolution (RAND Corporation).
8. The case for a U.S. carbon tax (Council on Foreign Relations).
9. The hyper-rhetorical presidency (American Enterprise Institute).
10. History and the tragic hero (Hoover Institution).

1. Will Trump burn the evidence? (The New Yorker).
2. The Supreme Court’s Obamacare bait and switch (The New Republic).
3. Is Donald Trump conducting a coup? (New Statesman).
4. This film examines the biases in the code that runs our lives (Wired).
5. Racism isn’t everyone’s priority (The Atlantic).
6. Worst. Transition. Ever. (Slate).
7. Sustainable infrastructure in the Amazon (CSIS).
8. Provocations toward a Biden administration will fail (Council on Foreign Relations).
9. The role of AI and big data in military operations (Hudson Institute).
10. The politics of joy (The Nation).

1. The crisis of American democracy is not over (The Atlantic).
2. Trump has never been more dangerous than he is now (The New Republic).
3. The Biden era begins (The New Yorker).
4. What happens if Trump won’t concede (Slate).
5. How terror returned to the streets of Europe (New Statesman).
6. Trump broke the Internet. Can Joe Biden fix it? (Wired).
7. Another record-breaking fire season shows the need for a comprehensive strategy (RAND Corporation).
8. Engendering hate (Demos).
9. The future of translatlantic policy towards Russia (CSIS).
10. Red state recovery, blue state recession (American Enterprise Institute).

The latest issue of Finance and Society journal has a (Goldsmiths) forum on critical macro-finance: an emerging theoretical and empirical inquiry into macroeconomics, the asset economy, and the global financial order. The F&S forum has articles by Fabian Pape (University of Warwick), Daniela Gabor (UWE Bristol), Samuel Knafo (University of Sussex), and others. Highly recommended for political economy readers.

Western countries are experiencing a wave of violent attacks against places of worship, stores, schools and other crowded locations. The perpetrators of these attacks explain their actions as necessary to stem an “invasion” of immigrants which threatens the very existence of the white race. At the same time, many of the same countries have experienced very similar attacks motivated by a particularly contemporary form of misogyny. Known as incels, an abbreviation of involuntary celibate, young men in this community believe they are denied sexual partners by feminism and societal norms of male attractiveness. These two series of attacks are generally understood to be separate (if overlapping) forms of extremism. In this article I contend that the concept of white genocide central to white nationalism and misogynistic incelism are more intertwined than it appears. Misogyny and the notion of white genocide are mutually escalatory. Rather than separate and complementary forms of extremism, the two ideologies converge to create a single more volatile worldview, one which makes its proponents more prone to the use of violence. Misogyny and white genocide are synergistic, their effect greater than the sum of their parts.

Dr Chris Wilson at the University of Auckland, New Zealand has an interesting new article in Terrorism & Political Violence journal on the mindset that drives some white nationalists and incels to engage in violent terrorist attacks. Dr Wilson’s thesis of a “mutually escalatory” dynamics links ideas and subcultures to action. He provides evidence for a shared ideology of hatred that influences both violent actors.