Evan O'Hara

“A similar danger now confronts some critics of the identity trap. Its opponents are united by what they oppose, not by what they endorse. This creates a temptation to outsource their moral judgments to their opponents. Instead of militating for a positive vision of the future, these critics of the identity trap have started to rail against anything that somehow seems “woke.” In other words, they have become guilty of what, drawing on an idea by Emily Yoffe, I once called 180ism: “the tendency of many participants in public debate to hear what their perceived enemies have to say and immediately declare themselves diametrically opposed.”
― Yascha Mounk, The Identity Trap: A Story of Ideas and Power in Our Time

“Rodrigo Duterte was not the first politician in the world to declare war on a domestic issue. Wars on poverty, pornography, hunger, obesity, cancer, and drugs have been launched and fought by presidents and potentates long before Duterte moved into Malacañang Palace. None of these wars have so far been won. None of that matters, because for the politician, the declaration is a victory”
― Patricia Evangelista, Some People Need Killing

“A little over a year after Hadi’s release, a UN report found that some 700,000 Palestinians had been arrested since the occupation began, equal to roughly 40 percent of all the men and boys in the territories.”
― Nathan Thrall, A Day in the Life of Abed Salama: A Palestine Story

“In polite company in Washington and Silicon Valley, it was easier simply to repeat words like multilateralism, globalization, and innovation, concepts that were too vacuous to offend anyone in a position of power. The chip industry itself—deeply fearful of angering China or TSMC—put its considerable lobbying resources behind repeating false platitudes about how “global” the industry had become. These concepts fit naturally with the liberal internationalist ethos that guided officials of both political parties amid America’s unipolar moment. Meetings with foreign companies and governments were more pleasant when everyone pretended that cooperation was win-win. So Washington kept telling itself that the U.S. was running faster, blindly ignoring the deterioration in the U.S. position, the rise in China’s capabilities, and the staggering reliance on Taiwan and South Korea, which grew more conspicuous every year.”
― Chris Miller, Chip War: The Fight for the World's Most Critical Technology