Will Smiley
History (Ottoman and Russian Empires) and international law.
Author, "From Slaves to Prisoners of War" (Oxford, 2018) and co-author, "To Save the Country" (Yale, 2019).
All views strictly my own.
- Reposted by Will SmileyI think it's best for everyone to understand that the unified class project of billionaires right now is to do to white collar workers what globalization and neoliberalism did to blue collar workers.
- On Bezos et al
- Scholars used to call the Ottoman Empire “a near-perfect military society,” but really it all depended on 1,000 scribes in Istanbul who did spreadsheets by day and wrote Persian poetry by night
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- I was going to say the world would miss his groundbreaking research on the EU’s democratic deficit, but then I remembered he plagiarized that
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- Pathetic
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- This hits very differently than it would’ve a year ago. It reeks of desperation, not strength.
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- Next up: The Siege of Constantinople (SPI, 1978), initial set up here. You can see how thinly spread the Byzantines and their allies are along the walls. Constantine XI and his guards are defending a breach in Blachernae, while Giustiniani and his Genoese are on another breach in the Mesoteichion.
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- Reposted by Will SmileyYesterday, five-year-old Liam and his dad Adrian were released from Dilley detention center. I picked them up last night and escorted them back to Minnesota this morning. Liam is now home. With his hat and his backpack.
- Update on this: it's interesting to see what Ottoman topics have and haven't been covered by games. A couple each on Constantinople 1453, Malta 1565, and Lepanto 1571. A LOT on Vienna 1683. A Polish company has done several on 14C-15C battles. And there's a classic '70s game on Ankara (1403). But...
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- As I argued several years ago, these bans are legally meaningless. They only serve to express animus. journalofislamiclaw.com/current/arti...
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- The student journalists here are modeling good ethics (just look at the recusals at the end!) Dartmouth admins…not so much.
- The college at which I'm employed, which has signed a contract with the AI firm that stole books from 131 colleagues & me, paid a student to write an op-ed for the student paper promoting AI, guided the writing of it, and did not disclose this to the paper. www.thedartmouth.com/article/2026...
- Reposted by Will SmileyThe college at which I'm employed, which has signed a contract with the AI firm that stole books from 131 colleagues & me, paid a student to write an op-ed for the student paper promoting AI, guided the writing of it, and did not disclose this to the paper. www.thedartmouth.com/article/2026...
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- Reposted by Will Smiley“[Liam] keeps asking about that hat and that backpack that are in the picture,” the congressman said. “I think they took that from him.” www.cnn.com/2026/01/28/u...
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- Occam's razor: when Trump thought the protests would succeed, he wanted to bomb and take the credit; now it seems that won't happen, but he thinks NOT bombing looks weak; but he can't pick a pretext which is why we get "renewed protests" and "stop the nukes" (which he said he already did...)
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- What we really, really need is an barebones laptop with no WiFi and no on-board AI. It could be extremely cheap and every student could get one in middle school then use it through college. All the benefits of analog, no handwriting issues. Not sure any tech company will step up anytime soon.
- Ah yes, let’s reenact the Griboyedov Incident, that’s a good idea.
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- And: the things that divide us and drive modern politics--identity, religion, race, and maybe most of all gender--are the same things that our public discourse constantly and loudly tells young people not to bother studying. They're the most important things, but somehow also the most useless.
- Fun curveball for the birthright citizenship case: apparently the Trump admin thinks that foreign diplomats ARE “subject to the jurisdiction of the United States.” Looking forward to seeing how Wurman and Epstein write around that.
- It used to be that CIA agents and diplomats would spend hours with back channel contacts sending these messages with winks and nods and…he just…he tweeted it out
- So by Epstein’s reasoning, any state could pass a law allowing The Purge against foreign diplomats and their children? They’re not “within the jurisdiction,” so no need for equal protection!
- Reminiscent of the fall of the Safavid Empire in 1722, when the Ottomans occupied Tabriz and made a deal with Russia to carve up the other Safavid lands (only to be kicked out by Nadir Shah).
- Probably not a coincidence that this is EXACTLY what the Proud Boys etc used to do in Portland
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