18 Sep 23 Monday Briefing
Slightly shorter but no less punchy
It was quite a week.
The United Auto Workers (UAW) start a strike historical in its proportions and symbolism but can they transform the US, Global South leaders at the G77+China summit issue a resounding nope against the current international order, Biden’s getting impeached and Romney is bowing out, and the archaeology world mourns the passing of Dr Damian Evans, who “played a critical role in discovering previously undocumented medieval urban areas near Angkor Wat” (via ).
On a personal note, besides finishing the *Bard of Blood* series, I participated in a knowledge management conference by hosting an AMA café whilst battling a dreadful stomach bug (put on hold by meds) and begged off an Agile Singapore meetup because of said bug 😭.
China calling, but will there be any takers?
It was during this conference on Thursday that an announcement dropped on gov.cn – a “new path towards integrated development”, but in my interpretation and several others at the conference, the first step into an already volatile and even more uncertain future for this region. If you think about it carefully, this is the first time that the PRC has been this unambiguous about outlining a formal, albeit soft, integration plan for reunification.
What happens next? Your take is as good as mine, but Trivium thinks there won’t be many takers. It could even be because the structural economic problems are starting to show in a very public way.
For now, at least, we can bask in Clarissa Wei’s admirable effort to push forward a thesis on Taiwanese cuisine.
I think more about the Mongol Empire and its Turkic descendant the Ottoman
Are you a man? Do you think of the Roman Empire on a weekly basis? This question has gone viral on TikTok, with interesting intersections of the manosphere and history nerdism. Grade A trolling aside, these men (and women) might find this new archaeological find of a lost Roman city occupying yet another week of their brains.
Assorted Reads
Whatever a shadow tanker network is, you’d want to read about it.
Lest we forget that pre-2022, Ukraine was more well known for its corruption and nothing much has really changed on that front.
Seeing the face of God in a… factory.
Maybe we’re all becoming marginal users of software