Alon (they/them)

The main impact of OpenAI's behavior on mathematics is going to be to make the practice more like the secretive work of Andrew Wiles 1986-93, proving Fermat's Last Theorem in secret and not telling people what he was working on until he was ready to publish to avoid getting scooped. @dollspace.gay

That's the reason mathematicians are upset. It's not status anxiety. AI *raises* the status of mathematicians: the demand for academic mathematicians is based on teaching, not research, and the mathematics of AI generates demand for math courses, esp. high-prestige advanced ones.

To somewhat push back: the Israeli electoral system is fine, actually. The trend the thread describes of personality vehicle parties is real, but it obscures the origin of it. It's not inherent to the system - it only emerged after Sharon broke Likud during the Gaza Disengagement.

What's true is that none of these new parties has a competitive primary process the way Likud and the Democrats (inheriting both Labor and Meretz) do. That said, the democratic deficit in both Likud and Labor/Meretz/Democratic primaries is extensive, featuring mass text spam that turns people off.

To somewhat push back: the Israeli electoral system is fine, actually. The trend the thread describes of personality vehicle parties is real, but it obscures the origin of it. It's not inherent to the system - it only emerged after Sharon broke Likud during the Gaza Disengagement.

In the 2015 election, Kahlon referred to himself as "Likud who trades land for peace." But he also immediately crawled into Netanyahu's coalition after the votes were counted and he turned out to be the kingmaker.

To somewhat push back: the Israeli electoral system is fine, actually. The trend the thread describes of personality vehicle parties is real, but it obscures the origin of it. It's not inherent to the system - it only emerged after Sharon broke Likud during the Gaza Disengagement.

Lieberman, originally heading a sectional interest party for Russian immigrants, is also ex-Likud (he worked for Netanyahu in the 1990s), but drifted in the same center-right direction as his voters became more assimilated into Israeli society and wanted a broad right-liberal direction.

To somewhat push back: the Israeli electoral system is fine, actually. The trend the thread describes of personality vehicle parties is real, but it obscures the origin of it. It's not inherent to the system - it only emerged after Sharon broke Likud during the Gaza Disengagement.

In a healthy party system, the Likud base would have forced Netanyahu out when the corruption investigations began and replaced him with Bennett, or if they wanted someone more moderate (which they didn't) then Kahlon. But this couldn't happen, so they had to get their own parties.

To somewhat push back: the Israeli electoral system is fine, actually. The trend the thread describes of personality vehicle parties is real, but it obscures the origin of it. It's not inherent to the system - it only emerged after Sharon broke Likud during the Gaza Disengagement.

So the personalist vehicle trend is really 2010s-and-onward. This comes from three places: ex-Likud politicians looking for new audiences, IDF chiefs, and Yair Lapid - and the first two are both reactions to Netanyahu's personal failings.

To somewhat push back: the Israeli electoral system is fine, actually. The trend the thread describes of personality vehicle parties is real, but it obscures the origin of it. It's not inherent to the system - it only emerged after Sharon broke Likud during the Gaza Disengagement.

Netanyahu was left with a shell of a party. It had 12 MKs in the 2006 election - and that wasn't even against Sharon but against Olmert, who inherited when Sharon had his stroke. That's how he could turn it into a personalist vehicle.

To somewhat push back: the Israeli electoral system is fine, actually. The trend the thread describes of personality vehicle parties is real, but it obscures the origin of it. It's not inherent to the system - it only emerged after Sharon broke Likud during the Gaza Disengagement.

The way Likud was governed at the time was, there was a group of several thousand members called the Likud Center, comprising party activists. These usually also selected the party list (Labor had a broader primary of all dues-paying members). They were the base of the party, with all that entails.

To somewhat push back: the Israeli electoral system is fine, actually. The trend the thread describes of personality vehicle parties is real, but it obscures the origin of it. It's not inherent to the system - it only emerged after Sharon broke Likud during the Gaza Disengagement.

The background to the Disengagement was this: in the 1990s, the mentality on the center and left was that there should be bilateral negotiations with the Palestinian Authority for a land-for-peace agreement (which is now called Two-State Solution in English). The Second Intifada made it unpopular.

Good article, but the graphic of the European rail network makes it look like we have a network rather than many disjointed national networks, with high cross-border fares on the Paris-London-Brussels triangle and low average speeds everywhere else due to low-speed gaps in infrastructure.