Brazilians went to the polls on October 4 to elect a president, governors, members of the Chamber of Deputies and two-thirds of the Federal Senate. Only a few hours after polling stations closed, the election produced its biggest surprise.
From a Western perspective — by which I mean North America and the European Union — we have entered an era of growing confusion. If we relied solely on the Western mainstream media for information, it would be difficult to understand what is happening with regard to current conflicts.
Let me make it perfectly clear: the talk of “safeguards” and “guardrails” for AI is at best a misleading metaphor, at worst an impossible gamble. This is because the way a guardrail works is the exact opposite of how AIs work.
The battle for the Bab al-Mandeb Strait is no longer simply another episode in Yemen’s protracted war. It has become a test of who can defend Yemen’s strategic coastline, protect one of the world’s most important maritime corridors, and provide a credible alternative to further devastation and an es…
With Ethiopian forces having taken the northern town of Zalambessa, bordering on Eritrea, the region is at a crossroads. To put it simply: Will Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed send his troops, supported by the Tigray Peace Force (TPF), into the neighboring nation? The decision is critical.
Kayce Atencio was 19 when he suffered a heart attack caused by an undiagnosed congenital defect. It nearly killed him. The medical bills that followed devastated his finances and impacted his credit, making it difficult for Atencio to secure a lease or mortgage.
Editor-in-Chief Atul Singh and FOI Senior Partner Glenn Carle, a retired CIA officer who now advises companies, governments and organizations on geopolitical risk, discuss the imminent revolution in space and the space economy.
In a previous phase of my conversation with Kimi, we focused on how AI can be designed to promote what we might call the “Socratic ideal” of human dialectic. This encompasses practices that range from collaborating on Albert Einstein-style “thought experiments” to the discipline of non-linear critic…
As a writer and editor, I’ve always been attracted to alliterations — whether true or stereotypical or just fun. When applied to nationalities, one can come up with terms like “the boisterous Brazilians,” “the fashionable French,” “the stoic Swedes,” “the spirited Spaniards” or “the amiable Australi…
Editor-in-Chief Atul Singh and FOI Senior Partner Glenn Carle, a retired CIA officer who now advises companies, governments and organizations on geopolitical risk, discuss the growing breach between Canada and the United States.
Editor-in-Chief Atul Singh and FOI Senior Partner Glenn Carle, a retired CIA officer who now advises companies, governments and organizations on geopolitical risk, examine the pressures facing Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) and the House of Saud.
Two years ago, I kicked off New Zealand’s first cult conference, which will be live-streamed around the world again next month. When I mention my latest endeavor to someone new, I usually get two reactions.
A genuine Devil’s Advocate spends time poring over the biographies of potential saints to determine whether the exceptionally virtuous life of each candidate reflects a state of grace that will justify designating them officially as examples to emulate.
Editor-in-Chief Atul Singh and FOI Senior Partner Glenn Carle, a retired CIA officer who now advises companies, governments and organizations on geopolitical risk, examine September 2026’s most notable developments.
I spent five wonderful years in Ithaca, New York, as a grad student at Cornell University during the 1980s. It’s where I got married and had my first child, where I got my PhD and where I had my first full-time teaching job at nearby Ithaca College.
Few figures in contemporary technology and politics generate as much contradictory commentary as entrepreneur and venture capitalist Peter Thiel. Depending on the lens, he appears as a visionary investor, a philosophical contrarian, a kingmaker of the American right, or, in darker readings, an archi…
In recent months, Bahrain — the only Gulf state that is home to a Shiite Muslim majority and a prime target of Iranian retaliatory strikes in the Islamic Republic’s on-off tit-for-tat war with the United States — has rounded up scores of religious scholars whom authorities accuse of conspiring with…
In April, I spent four days in a role nobody photographs. I was the Mandarin–Hungarian translator between Chinese executives and European dealers at Foton Motors’ Global Media Day in Beijing, standing between two men who each thought they understood exactly what the other one had just agreed to.
Professor George Akerlof was born in New Haven, Connecticut, in 1940, the son of a Swedish-born chemist at Yale. He got his bachelor’s degree at Yale in 1962 and his doctorate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1966, in the department of Robert Solow and Paul Samuelson.
When someone thinks their own life got worse because someone else’s got better, the ballot box stops choosing governments and starts handing out punishment. The best diagnosis of the average Brazilian came in a one-minute statement by Felipe Nunes, the founding partner of Quest, a Brazilian polling…
In a recent column, I suggested a logical workflow with regard to the use of AI in a learning context. If we wish to see what following this workflow might mean in a real educational context, we need first to examine what human faculties are at play, how they structure the motivation to learn and…
In June, the US unemployment rate sat at 4.2%. Real GDP grew at a 1.5% annual pace the same quarter. Together, those two numbers suggest the economy is fine, maybe cooling a little.
“Today’s problems come from yesterday’s solutions” — Peter Senge, The Fifth Discipline European colonialism continues to shape global migration despite the formal dissolution of many European empires. Decolonization transferred political sovereignty to newly independent states.
The cyborg is not a distant fantasy — it is already embedded in everyday life. In 2024, the Delhi High Court ruled that a deceased cancer patient’s cryopreserved sperm was inheritable property, allowing his parents to have a child using his genetic material after his death — a process known as posth…
