flâneur

Suhan Gui

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on the atlas — 56

highlights — 23

  • Rather than some notional idea of perfect complementarity, it is the capacity to tolerate differences with generosity that is the true marker of the “not overly wrong” person. Compatibility is an achievement of love; it must not be its precondition.
    Opinion | Why You Will Marry the Wrong Person - The New York Times
  • every human will frustrate, anger, annoy, madden and disappoint us — and we will (without any malice) do the same to them. There can be no end to our sense of emptiness and incompleteness. But none of this is unusual or grounds for divorce. Choosing whom to commit ourselves to is merely a case of identifying which particular variety of suffering we would most like to sacrifice ourselves for.
    Opinion | Why You Will Marry the Wrong Person - The New York Times
  • The problem is that before marriage, we rarely delve into our complexities. Whenever casual relationships threaten to reveal our flaws, we blame our partners and call it a day. As for our friends, they don’t care enough to do the hard work of enlightening us. One of the privileges of being on our own is therefore the sincere impression that we are really quite easy to live with.
    Opinion | Why You Will Marry the Wrong Person - The New York Times
  • We seem normal only to those who don’t know us very well.
    Opinion | Why You Will Marry the Wrong Person - The New York Times
  • If you’re in a relationship that makes you a better version of yourself, whether you have a boyfriend, a girlfriend, or a partner, then own it. Don’t let anyone make you feel embarrassed for building something real. In fact, it might just be the most revolutionary thing you could do in this digital age of meaningless swipes and shallow self-empowerment
    No, Having a Boyfriend Isn't Embarrassing! - by hasif 💌
  • Couples who decide rather than slide also have more practice working together and are likely better at proactively talking through important life issues
    In Relationships, Be Deliberate - The Atlantic
  • Those who moved in together without a mutual commitment to marriage first had lower marriage quality down the line
    In Relationships, Be Deliberate - The Atlantic
  • like a spoiled child, the United States can afford to make epic mistakes without suffering the devastating consequences that other countries would face if they acted similarly
    China Against China: Xi Jinping Confronts the Downsides of Success
  • Political analysts as far back as Aristotle have noticed that oligarchies tend to oscillate between the pull of centrifugal forces, in which power is shared and spread widely, and centripetal forces, in which rule is centralized
    China Against China: Xi Jinping Confronts the Downsides of Success
  • Pakistan has experienced military dictatorships before, but today’s arrangement is not simply a return to the eras of Ayub, Zia, or Musharraf. There has been no coup, no suspension of the constitution, no abrogation of parliament. What makes this moment different, and consequential, is that the military now operates inside the democratic structure rather than apart from it. The generals have functionally taken over the political system without formally replacing it.
    Pakistan’s Quiet Coup | Foreign Affairs
  • Using leverage to enforce U.S. interests is hardly a new approach. Nor should it be controversial. At a time of extraordinary challenges to U.S. power around the world, it would be far stranger for the United States to cede its larger security agenda to the whims of a heavily armed client
    The Gaza Deal Is Not Too Big to Fail | Foreign Affairs
  • nited States will need to recognize the extent to which its long-term interests diverge from Israel’s and how often U.S. policy in the Middle East has been undermined by its closest ally in the region
    The Gaza Deal Is Not Too Big to Fail | Foreign Affairs
  • United States will need to recognize the extent to which its long-term interests diverge from Israel’s and how often U.S. policy in the Middle East has been undermined by its closest ally in the region
    The Gaza Deal Is Not Too Big to Fail | Foreign Affairs
  • the Europeans have shunned direct contact with Russia, instead using long-range propaganda to show the Kremlin what they think of Putin’s brutal policies. Yet declaring Putin a war criminal—however justly—does not help in negotiating an end to the war. It also keeps the Europeans out of the rooms where such negotiations happen. As U.S. and Russian negotiators began meeting behind closed doors, in Alaska and elsewhere, the Europeans watched from the sidelines, unable to insert themselves into talks or offer viable alternatives to a Russian-designedpeace in Ukraine
    Europe’s Delayed Reckoning With Russia | Foreign Affairs
  • Europe’s security is being decided elsewhere. Caught between a revisionist Kremlin and an indifferent White House, Europe is consistently outmaneuvered and often marginalized. The European Union’s failure to shape global geopolitical outcomes stems from its own foreign policy incoherence, including a historic over-reliance on the United States and an inability to develop a consistent strategy for dealing with Russia
    Europe’s Delayed Reckoning With Russia | Foreign Affairs
  • Autocrats can survive when repression is combined with the legitimacy won by effective performance
    Does the Bukele Model Have a Future? | Foreign Affairs
  • Client states have agency. As both Beijing’s experience dealing with Pyongyang and, to a lesser extent, Washington’s experience with Taipei demonstrate, these smaller partners are not mere pawns to be traded away. They can act unilaterally in ways that complicate their patrons’ strategic goals.
    China’s North Korea Problem | Foreign Affairs
  • What if generative AI isn’t God in the machine or vaporware? What if it’s just good enough, useful to many without being revolutionary? Right now, the models don’t think—they predict and arrange tokens of language to provide plausible responses to queries. There is little compelling evidence that they will evolve without some kind of quantum research leap
    AI Is a Mass-Delusion Event - The Atlantic
  • ChatGPT power users might be accumulating a “cognitive debt” from using the tool.
    AI Is a Mass-Delusion Event - The Atlantic
  • Indian policymakers still likely believe that the Pakistani military has been at least temporarily deterred from future adventurism because of its higher expected costs. That is not how Pakistan’s generals see it. They have emerged out of the crisis stronger and more determined to stand up to India, with their domestic position bolstered and their battlefield reputation enhanced
    The Next War Between India and Pakistan | Foreign Affairs
  • Rather than deterring its rival, India precipitated a retaliation that ended up burnishing the Pakistani military’s reputation and boosting its domestic popularity. Paradoxically, India’s retribution has handed the Pakistani army its biggest symbolic victory in recent decades. And that will hardly discourage Islamabad from reining in the proxy war against New Delhi or from risking future flare-ups between these two nuclear-armed states
    The Next War Between India and Pakistan | Foreign Affairs
  • The British were genuinely proud of their part in the ultimate Allied victory, but they tried to hide the sting of their declining global influence by spouting the cliché that the United Kingdom had managed “to punch above its weight” in the war and by clinging to their “special relationship” with the United States
    We Are Still Fighting World War II | Foreign Affairs
  • A lot of fans are basically fans of fandom itself. It’s all about them. They have mastered the “Star Wars” or “Star Trek” universes or whatever, but their objects of veneration are useful mainly as a backdrop to their own devotion. Anyone who would camp out in a tent on the sidewalk for weeks in order to be first in line for a movie is more into camping on the sidewalk than movies. Extreme fandom may serve as a security blanket for the socially inept, who use its extreme structure as a substitute for social skills. If you are Luke Skywalker and she is Princess Leia, you already know what to sa…
    The fandom menace: People, get a life! movie review (2009) | Roger Ebert