Searching: posts, comments Sorted by: newest Page: 1 of 10 Results: 1-30 of 282
Written By: Res Publica - Date published: 10:32 pm, February 13th, 2025
The Stalinist Corollary to Godwin’s Law: As a leftist foreign policy discussion progresses, the probability of someone excusing authoritarianism in the name of ‘anti-imperialism’ approaches 1.Written By: Res Publica - Date published: 10:28 pm, February 13th, 2025
This "analysis" (if we're being generous) exemplifies the worst kind of tankie wishcasting: an obsession with reducing every geopolitical event to a simplistic anti-Western narrative, even at the expense of reality. The claim that the war is now over ...Written By: Res Publica - Date published: 8:13 am, February 9th, 2025
I suspect the Lithuanians, Poles, Estonians, Czechs, Latvians, Slovaks, Hungarians, Romanians, Bulgarians, and a host of other people would have a thing or two to say about the damage done by Russian imperialism. And I'm sure that the Tibetans are ...Written By: Res Publica - Date published: 9:31 pm, February 8th, 2025
Foreign policy isn’t a zero-sum game—but if we play it stupidly, everybody loses. Yet, here we have another knee-jerk critique of U.S. policy toward China that completely ignores the realities of Chinese foreign policy in its eagerness to paint America as ...Written By: Res Publica - Date published: 11:24 am, February 5th, 2025
Given the status quo of absolute power being in the hands of a group of clueless ideologues stumbling from one constitutional blunder to the next, it’s hard to see how you could do worse.Written By: Res Publica - Date published: 11:07 am, February 5th, 2025
That’s a fair point! But at this stage, it’s not just about whether bigger nations will stand up for us in trade disputes—it’s about whether an international order will exist to manage these disputes at all. Small states can either hang together, or Trump ...Written By: Res Publica - Date published: 11:01 am, February 5th, 2025
I guess it comes down to how you interpret the word "democracy." You could, as you are attempting to do, interpret it narrowly as simple majoritarianism: "the will of the people," and all that. But history has shown, particularly in the 1920s, 30s, and 40s ...Written By: Res Publica - Date published: 2:40 pm, February 4th, 2025
The border security upgrade was designed to keep fleeing illegals and Americans out. Can you blame them? In new commitments, he agreed to designate international drug cartels as terrorists and signed an intelligence directive, without providing details. ...Written By: Res Publica - Date published: 2:35 pm, February 4th, 2025
Which in itself is not 100% risk free, and relies on someone maintaining a reasonably level playing field for us to compete. If this is a sign that the USA is unilaterally abandoning the global consensus on free trade, I don't know if there is a market we ...Written By: Res Publica - Date published: 2:28 pm, February 4th, 2025
As a firm believer in realpolitik in international relations, I’m genuinely torn. There’s a certain irony in seeing Canada as the victim rather than the perpetrator of questionable trade practices. We’ve often been on the receiving end of their ...Written By: Res Publica - Date published: 2:18 pm, February 4th, 2025
I don’t think the Canadians are being weak-kneed. They’ve likely crunched the numbers and decided that a tariff’s damage would far outweigh the cost of a hollow, performative gesture toward solving a non-existent problem. With Trudeau already resigned, ...Written By: Res Publica - Date published: 10:18 am, February 4th, 2025
I happen to agree with you there: A truly independent foreign policy is a luxury we can ill afford as a small state. It just sticks in my craw that our best chance for preserving something of the rules based international order we rely on for our ...Written By: Res Publica - Date published: 4:55 pm, February 3rd, 2025
Diplomatic immunity doesn’t override a country’s immigration laws. A diplomat still needs a visa (if required) and must meet entry conditions. Any country can deny or revoke a visa at its discretion. New Zealand is a sovereign state, so yes, we absolutely ...Written By: Res Publica - Date published: 10:14 am, February 3rd, 2025
Not with Chris Pēnk in charge of immigration. The man can’t even be bothered to spell place names correctly, let alone ensure visitors to New Zealand meet our good character requirements. Although, Trump might be a loophole: he has no good character. ...Written By: Res Publica - Date published: 10:09 am, February 3rd, 2025
I fully agree that Israel's actions in Gaza constitute war crimes, and New Zealand has legal and moral obligations under international law when it comes to war criminals entering our country. However, this is one of those difficult situations where our ...Written By: Res Publica - Date published: 9:06 am, February 3rd, 2025
As someone who has organised and run successful local body campaigns in the past, it can be a hit and miss process. Sometimes you can put your heart and soul into a great campaign with an amazing candidate and still get absolutely thumped. Other times, ...Written By: Res Publica - Date published: 11:32 am, January 31st, 2025
Funnily enough, the subject of my master's research was a takedown of neoliberal public management models, privatization, and the growth of managerialism in the public sector. As for AI, it's an incredibly powerful tool. But we are only just scratching the ...Written By: Res Publica - Date published: 11:23 am, January 31st, 2025
Ok sure, open-source AI could certainly help Europe and India build competitive AI ecosystems. But independence depends on more than just access to code. Infrastructure, talent retention, regulatory frameworks, and investment all play a role. The real ...Written By: Res Publica - Date published: 10:32 am, January 31st, 2025
My judgement is also that scenario 2) is much more likely. Tech is now just another front in great power competition. Which, as an IT professional, scares the living daylights out of me.Written By: Res Publica - Date published: 10:30 am, January 31st, 2025
Good point Muttonbird: western consumers have overlooked stolen IP in Chinese-made products for decades. But the technology and strategic context matters. Selling cheap knockoff gadgets is one thing. Reshaping the global AI landscape to gain control over a ...Written By: Res Publica - Date published: 9:31 am, January 31st, 2025
You're absolutely right! AI is spectacularly overhyped. And like all bubbles, it will eventually burst. But what happens next matters. The crash won’t kill AI—it’ll just reshape the market, concentrating power in fewer hands. Normally, that process weeds ...Written By: Res Publica - Date published: 9:06 am, January 31st, 2025
As a data and AI engineer, my two cents on DeepSeek is that it will only be revolutionary under three conditions. Their claims about cost, speed, and hardware hold up. DeepSeek’s reported efficiency in training its model is impressive—but unverified. There ...Written By: Res Publica - Date published: 1:06 pm, January 29th, 2025
I think you missed the most important sentence in this article: And what this really shows is that the world of AI is febrile, unpredictable and overly reactive. This a dangerous combination Don't get me wrong. If DeepSeek's claims are valid, this ...Written By: Res Publica - Date published: 1:55 pm, January 28th, 2025
The app itself isn’t the core issue. It’s the training methods, data quality, and the underlying model that determine the long-term value of an AI product. Competition in AI is only fair and sustainable when it’s legal, equal, and held to the same ...Written By: Res Publica - Date published: 12:29 pm, January 28th, 2025
When it comes to Western tech, I worry less about the CIA stealing my data and more about it being sold to companies like Amazon, Facebook, or Palantir. The key difference is that, in most Western countries, there’s at least an expectation of a fundamental ...Written By: Res Publica - Date published: 12:24 pm, January 28th, 2025
The key challenge here isn't so much about user confidence or functionality—on the surface, DeepSeek doesn't offer much to differentiate itself from its competitors for the average consumer. For most users, it appears to be a cheaper alternative to the ...Written By: Res Publica - Date published: 10:59 am, January 28th, 2025
That's possible, sure. But that would undermine their main claim to fame: allegedly being able to train their models at a fraction of the cost and time of it's competitors using much less powerful hardware.Written By: Res Publica - Date published: 10:21 am, January 28th, 2025
Instead DeepSeek, the open-source workaround China developed, claims to deliver AI systems at a 100th of the expected cost of US AI models, without much need for fancy chips. The operative word in that sentence is claims. Thus far DeepSeek has not been ...Written By: Res Publica - Date published: 10:19 am, January 28th, 2025
AI and Data Engineer here: There’s no denying the impressive performance of DeepSeek-V3 and DeepSeek-R1 compared to ChatGPT, along with the appeal of their pricing model. However, I’m highly skeptical of some of the claims DeepSeek has been making: ...Written By: Res Publica - Date published: 6:35 pm, January 27th, 2025
Always happy to discuss modern Chinese political history and foreign policy. It's something of a hobby horse of mine. I think you also raised a valid point though. We always have to evaluate the policies and decision making of other countries and cultures ...
Recent Comments