Critical Spectator

2021-08-23 01:45:56 Here's my take on the implications of the collapse of Afghanistan on geopolitical order of the region - which will actually benefit America, as it's not a direct stakeholder in the area.
While American withdrawal was a total PR failure and is going to be a source of ridicule for decades to come, its impact on US interests is rather minimal.

This is not so for Afghanistan's neighbors - like Pakistan or the post-Soviet republics - as well as Iran, India and Washington's biggest rivals: China and Russia.

They may have ridiculed Americans for the disastrous incompetence in handling their exit but a closer look at the moves made by Moscow and Beijing reveals a great deal of unease about Afghanistan's future - and preoccupation with what the Taliban-governed country can inflict on them.

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https://www.criticalspectator.com/p/afghanistans-collapse-has-geopolitical

https://www.facebook.com/CriticalSpectator/posts/4129781120462917 Open / Comment

2021-08-21 01:56:20 Shopee is showing just how badly Alibaba is struggling away from its comfortable Chinese mainland. Despite billions in its pockets it can't compete with the nimble Singaporean startup, which may become the most successful international ecommerce business yet (besides Amazon, of course).

https://vulcanpost.com/757383/shopee-on-track-to-eclipse-alibaba-international-ecommerce-biz/ Open / Comment

2021-08-20 03:47:25 Today, my first take on Afghanistan: https://www.facebook.com/CriticalSpectator/posts/4121201247987571 Open / Comment

2021-08-19 04:08:12 https://quillette.com/2021/02/27/the-evolutionary-advantages-of-playing-victim/

"Newly published research indicates that people who more frequently signal their victimhood (whether real, exaggerated, or false) are more likely to lie and cheat for material gain and denigrate others as a means to get ahead. Victimhood signaling is associated with numerous morally undesirable personality traits, such as narcissism, Machiavellianism (willingness to manipulate and exploit others for self-benefit), a sense of entitlement, and lower honesty and humility."

Don't we just know it all? Open / Comment

2021-08-17 20:12:21 Here's evidence of what I observed myself - Facebook is throttling down reach for links and gives more circulation to image posts. Although, admittedly, it's quite extreme in Babylon Bee's case.

I have seen it time and time again - FB wants people to stay on its site and not click away to whatever you may be publishing, even if it's your own website.

I think it also detects links in text and image based posts, throttling them too. Open / Comment

2021-08-17 14:57:02 While I continue to be banned from FB for another few days, here's my latest for Vulcan Post about the effectiveness of vaccines and how the latest Delta surge around the world actually proves that they work very well.

https://vulcanpost.com/756790/global-covid-19-surge-proves-that-vaccines-work-very-well/ Open / Comment

2021-08-14 02:37:49 Imagine my shock

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/deansterlingjones/snopes-cofounder-plagiarism-mikkelson Open / Comment

2021-08-13 05:10:03 Here's something to consider about the circumstances of Saranjit Leyl's allegations.

https://www.facebook.com/CriticalSpectator/posts/4100046983436331 Open / Comment

2021-08-13 04:36:29 Btw. Facebook banned me for 7 days for, as far as I can tell, writing too quickly in Creator Studio, what triggered some bug, blocked me from writing and then banned even my entire personal profile.

Needless to say, I'm not going to be interacting much on the page for the next week... Open / Comment

2021-08-13 02:48:33 All three parts of my coverage of the accusations of racism at Mediacorp are now on the blog. Facebook posts will be up later - you can read it all on my site right now:

https://www.critical.sg/p/are-mediacorp-and-cna-discriminating-fe8

https://www.critical.sg/p/why-did-sharanjit-leyl-withold-her-d13

https://www.critical.sg/p/how-bbc-is-fabricating-news-stories Open / Comment