Tyler Kolota

If we’re revamping USAID, why not divert all funds to the highest-impact per dollar interventions? Musk volunteers should read “Best Things First” by Bjorn Lomborg for how to save 4.2million_lives/yr & create $1.1trillion_GDP/yr, all for $47billion/yr. #USAID

More people should help solve really worthy problems like hundreds of thousands of kids whose childhoods are just constant malaria cases with aches/shakes/fever/chills/headaches/nausea/vomiting. ourworldindata.org/a-never-endi...

Today's episode of The Ezra Klein Show. Chrystia Freeland, the former Canadian deputy prime minister, explains why her country chose to fight back against Trump. open.spotify.com/episode/2lpb... youtu.be/pDZ7BaZDoe8?...

Alleged hack suggests -Gulf rulers gave Trump’s son-in-law ~$2billion -Another $1billion at Israel central bank for his personal benefit, /w notice to Netanyahu -Kushner bought a warlord, a mercenary & a hit man -Maybe no authorization for Kushner foreign acct access www.rawstory.com/jared-kushne...

Secret accounts, alleged payments to shadowy figures, and spies watching his phone are among the bombshell claims about Jared Kushner in a new book excerpt published Thursday by Vanity Fair.

I recently interviewed Dan Osborn, a mechanic running for the U.S. Senate in the great state of Nebraska.

If Trump wasn’t the way he is, I’d question why the younger & more relevant to the future partner would take the blame over the older / spent / dying partner.

I don’t care what side of the aisle you’re on, nobody should support this kind of deception. They created a fake pamphlet to spark trans outrage and sent it to every home in Texas. Then their paid shills continued the outrage on social media. Politics is broken.

Hegseth turned to holy-war rhetoric in part because no national security interested soldier could sensibly back this administration & the GOP has been ignoring / kicking out it’s national security interest/voters for the evangelicals/populists for a long time. #GOP #hegseth #USA #Ukraine #Russia

The CIA could just do the funniest thing at this meeting

Halloween horror stories in 2 pictures

Why are they causing so much suffering, is it incompetence or malice? At some point you stop caring whether it is incompetence or malice & just want them gone.

This is pathetic. Ukraine tested Starlink speed restrictions in Europe and had no issues - the restrictions only exist in Ukraine. The Trump administration is actively helping Russia kill Ukrainians - and risking the lives of US and NATO advisors in Ukraine.

Perfect is the enemy of the good Democracy is the worst system except for all the others Newtonian physics is wrong but sufficient for most things Utilitarianism is good enough for most things & extending to its conclusions helps many act better under many different philosophies

I just fulfilled my annual pledge today by donating 21% of my income this year to clean water projects in DRC and Somalia. The biggest aid cuts took place over a year ago, but because of runways & emergency bridge funding, some of the worst effects are still to come. We can help reduce them.

@michaelburns.bsky.social @michaelburns.bsky.social how much do you hate this? open.substack.com/pub/forethou...

I defend US health aid a lot bc it is one of the best things in the budget for lives saved or suffering averted per $, but if Casey Handmer & Terraform Industries really displaces most oil/gas /w solar synth gas it may do more per yr for democracy & incomes than all the non-health/econ/political aid

USAID Cut Misinfo: “No rise 2025 death rates” USAID ran mortality surveys in many countries & now deaths aren’t counted claude.ai/share/a7cf37... “No excess South Africa & Egypt deaths” Wealthiest recipient countries /w least programs & least bad hand-offs to country govs claude.ai/share/885249...

These large funders look big, but they actually are tiny in comparison to individuals. I've also modeled the "third wave of philanthropy" (per @nanr.bsky.social) AI-based funders here, which will represent a substantial addition, but still just a segment of the larger picture.

Today Elon Musk became the world’s first trillionaire. He’s also directly responsible for millions of deaths. Here are just some of the people who would still be alive if he hadn’t—with no warning or contingency measures—chosen to put USAID through the wood chipper

Donated $250 to Screwworm Free Future. One of the highest impact orgs you can give to if you care about animals & reducing suffering. www.every.org/screwworm-fr... #screwworm #doge #gop #donate #animals

Donating to elections? Very high impact per $: Anita Earls for NC SC seat, is key in state redistricting/voting rights cases secure.actblue.com/donate/earls... Dan Osborn in close Senate race as an independent /w strong #democrats support secure.actblue.com/donate/danos... #republicans #gop #vote

A widespread screwworm outbreak in Texas could cause $1.8 billion in economic losses, according to the USDA.

has any man ever been more vindicated? x.com/stuartbuck1/...

youtu.be/WuALf98P_BQ?...

Guys, how do you invent a vaccine? Or even wilder, how do you invent a vaccine during your PhD?! In a new episode of Hard Drugs, we talked to someone who did just that: @kat-a-collins.bsky.social! Plus: • Why did the first malaria vaccine take so long? • Could we make better vaccines today?

Knew AI energy use is worse than water use, but the @andymasley.bsky.social piece is insane Water use estimates /w several almost order of magnitude issues open.substack.com/pub/andymasl...

"Meetings are held, emails are sent, phone calls are made, and something like 520,000 children die of malnutrition, diarrhea, tuberculosis, malaria, and HIV." prospect.org/2026/05/22/w...

elon musk had his brain melted by right wing twitter slop and illegally shut it down. six figure body count plus a new strain of ebola is ravaging africa as we speak. the discourse is about whether they hired enough conservatives to justify not torpedoing the agency. illegally, i might add

“The incredibly unpopular ruler, whose time is split between insane wars no one wants and building golden monuments and palaces honoring himself, has changed the rules so only his party can win elections” is a story that often ends on a scaffold

Maybe just too many videos with bad tech bros & mustache twirling Palantir types, but I’m feeling like we now have a surprisingly large number of people on the “People are a means to technology” side over the “Technology is a means for people” side.

I've been saying we need a progressive DOGE that actually focuses on making government work well rather than undermining it. But we need a better name. So how about DOPE: the Department of Public Excellence.

Some people say we don’t build beautiful things anymore and, like, lol. Motherfuckers, we built this:

Irrigated corn for ethanol withdraws 40 times as much water from aquifers as all American data centers will collectively consume onsite in 2028

Corn ethanol serves no purpose and is purely a handout to farmers. It costs more and emits more than normal petroleum. And it takes up half as much land area as all urban and suburban land in the US. If we replaced the land with solar, we'd get 3x as much power as the US uses.

And as I’ve written, when the destruction of USAID did get attention, it was often through sanitized and rationalized versions of what happened, because the truth was too sinister and idiotic to acknowledge open.substack.com/pub/timhirsc...

Still feel like "Musk and his crew of incels destroyed a bunch of stuff they didn't understand and thereby hastened the deaths of millions of children" did not get the public attention it warranted.

Hungary’s voters spoke out forcefully against far-right bullshit and isolationist policies. Good.

Trump must be removed from office. He has no capacity to do the job, and he’s destroying the US and the world with incoherent flailing. He thinks he can bully and blackmail the whole world and will start WW3 or nuke someone eventually. He absolutely cannot he allowed to continue.

The Secretary of State attending a UFC fight while wartime diplomatic negotiations fail would generate an explosive, front-page, above-the-fold headline for any previous administration

I really wonder if the only realistic way to unwind the Iran situation is regime change… in the US. If you could remove this administration and force them to face real justice it creates enough of a break for the rest of the world to turn to Iran and push it to ease its hold on the Strait.

Constitutional lawyer here. I don't think it would violate the Constitution for the VP/Cabinet to invoke the 25th Amendment, but the intended constitutional remedy for this behavior is impeachment & removal. The fact that that remedy is politically impossible is a scandal and a crisis.

The biggest story in the world right now is that the president of the United States is a demented old man who takes pleasure in torturing and killing people and is committing crimes with impunity. And yet most legacy media outlets are too cowardly to tell it like it is.

This Reddit post is formatted like a joke but it’s actually a very dry recitation - at times, direct quotes - of America’s public war strategy over the last month. This can’t go on. This is deranged. Impeach and imprison.