Foreign Policy: Germany’s New Politics of Cultural Despair

If the 1990s marked a high point for the New Right, the meaning of all this attention was debated; it became the stuff of op-eds and academic argument. One commentator, the Swedish sociologist Goran Dahl, saw the development as a revival of Weimar Germany’s conservative revolution—that broad movement of proto-fascist writers, academics, and activists who supplied an aura of respectability to the ultranationalist politics that culminated in Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich (a cause in which some, though not all, of those right-wing radicals would eventually enlist).[...]

One key to the New Right’s success, as Dahl predicted, has been its effort to capture a hip style of political engagement usually associated with the left. Starting in the late 1970s, the New Right appropriated environmentalism, anti-imperialism, and the sort of active citizenship for which the Greens became best known. Like the leftist counterculture that emerged from the 1968 student protests throughout Europe, the New Right is adept at styling itself as an “alternative milieu.” This is partly due to its origins in the same anti-establishment zeitgeist as the New Left, but it is also partly a self-conscious co-option of leftist notions, another way in which members of the New Right, as Weiss puts it, “seem to have learned from the left and offer themselves as ‘new ’68ers.’” [...]

As he shows, radical conservatism can accommodate a host of causes and enemies, with salvation of the West from a tide of Muslim immigrants the current favorites. But for today’s New Right, like the illiberal German right of earlier generations, the absolute enemy is always liberal modernity and the forces of universalism, which are seen as a threat to traditional identities and communities and the comforting authority they provide. [...]

Islamic fundamentalism, Weiss argues, is also an authoritarian revolt against the materialism and rootlessness supposedly spawned by liberal globalization. Ironically, Europe’s identitarians are ideologically closest not to their cosmopolitan fellow nationals but to the most pious among the Muslim immigrants who insist on holding onto their culture and religious identity.

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RSA: The Truth About Algorithms | Cathy O'Neil

We live in the age of the algorithm - mathematical models are sorting our job applications, curating our online worlds, influencing our elections, and even deciding whether or not we should go to prison. But how much do we really know about them? Former Wall St quant, Cathy O'Neil, exposes the reality behind the AI, and explains how algorithms are just as prone to bias and discrimination as the humans who program them.  

Wired: Estonia may actually have a use for the blockchain: green energy

The company began to use blockchain to link business buyers of energy – companies that buy electricity – directly with the producer, after striking a deal with Elering, one of Estonia‘s independent electricity and gas system operators. The idea was to use energy ‘tokenisation’ – by linking energy consumption and production data to the blockchain, in an attempt to digitise the country’s energy sector. Now the pilot project is yielding its first results.[...]

The bulk of energy in the Baltic country is produced by fossil fuels – only 18 per cent come from renewables. The main aim is to test the limits of what’s possible with blockchain technology, says WePower’s CEO Nick Martyniuk. At the same time it is trying to increase the percentage of eletricity generated from renewables. “Even though the cost of renewables has dropped significantly, small to medium size companies don't have a good way to start buying green energy.[...]

It's not clear, though, that scaling up will actually work, as it would mean using blockchain technology for data that is flowing at high speed and in huge volume. One concern is transaction capacity: WePower mainly uses the public ethereum blockchain that applies the so-called proof-of-work (PoW) approach that requires a lot of energy and computing power that only professional ethereum miners can provide (although ethereum may at some point switch to the environmentally-friendlier and easier “proof-of-stake” approach). So PoW means the transaction capacity might be limited, says Fei Wang, senior research analyst at Wood Mackenzie, energy research and consultancy firm. “This may not be an issue during the pilot phase, but this would be a hurdle if the project were to expand to a full commercial deployment.”

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Bloomberg: Poland’s Populists Are Suddenly Vulnerable

The party won a resounding victory when compared with local elections in 2014, based on the results tallied by Oct. 24. It took regions it didn’t control before. But it was clear the share of the vote was down from 2015, when the numbers swept it to power with a record parliamentary majority. Questions are being asked why it couldn’t build on that success. “People realized that Law and Justice isn’t immortal,” says Joanna Mucha, a lawmaker for the opposition Civic Platform group.

Until now, nothing seemed to faze the leadership. A protracted impasse with the EU over a power grab of the independent judiciary and public media and a confrontation with the U.S. and Israel over a law making it a criminal offense to suggest Poland played any role in the Holocaust were met with kudos among supporters. They bought into the narrative of a plucky government standing up for their nation against what the party calls “anti-Polonism.” In April, as relations with allies deteriorated, Law and Justice still commanded an average lead in the polls that was wider than its sweeping victory in 2015. It helped that the economy was—and still is—growing at a healthy clip. That’s because Poland is the biggest net recipient of EU aid, and consumers are enjoying Law and Justice’s increased spending on social welfare such as subsidies for families.[...]

“It’s a clear verdict that the populist revolution is getting weaker,” says Marcin Zaborowski, senior associate at Visegrad Insight, a journal of analysis and opinion focusing on central Europe. “It’s also a personal defeat for Morawiecki, who has been a better, modern face of the party, geared to more centrist voters, and this bid has failed. The result will weaken the position of Morawiecki within the party.”

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Reuters: Steve Bannon drafting curriculum for right-wing Catholic institute in Italy (SEPTEMBER 14, 2018)

Benjamin Harnwell, director of the Dignitatis Humanae Institute based in a mountaintop monastery not far from Rome, told Reuters Bannon had been helping to build up the institute for about half of its eight-year life.

Cardinal Raymond Burke, a leading Vatican conservative who is president of the Institute’s board of advisers, said Bannon would be playing a leading role there.[...]

Bannon’s increased engagement with the Institute demonstrates how his involvement in Europe extends beyond electoral politics to an effort to build a populist faction inside the Catholic Church.[...]

Harnwell said he founded the institute while working as an aide to a British Conservative European Parliament member. At the time, one of the legislature’s committees was trying to block Rocco Buttiglione, a confidant of Pope John Paul II, from becoming European Commissioner for justice and security.

During a confirmation hearing, Buttiglione, who was nominated to the European Commission by then-Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, described homosexuality as a sin and said the principal role of women was to have children. Amid political uproar, Buttiglione withdrew from consideration for the Commission.

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