| “I evolved a way of looking at paintings which was massively time-consuming and deeply rewarding,” the philosopher Richard Wollheim wrote in Painting as an Art. “For I came to recognize that it often took the first hour or so in front of a painting for stray associations or motivated misconceptions to settle down, and it was only then, with the same amount of time or more to spend looking at it, that the picture could be relied upon to disclose itself as it was.”
It takes no less time for our motivated misconceptions to subside when we read the news, or so I’ve found. Impressions rush on us when we scan the latest headlines or read the next post on social media. Real insight means time—and time means space in our lives, usually between one urgent thing and another. Which The Signal guards carefully. We don’t think you need more answers to consume; we believe you want good questions to consider—and explorations of them that stay with you, helping you think on your own.
Did you happen to see the recent report in The Guardian that intelligence officials in Israel are now relying on Microsoft servers in Europe to surveil Palestinians in Gaza? It’s amazing on the face of it, but what are the implications? Below, Matthew Ford’s new book considers the many ways in which the smartphone has changed modern warfare, helping us make sense of how the private sector has become the backbone of intelligence services and militaries around the world.
Or maybe you’ve heard people debating whether American colleges should rely solely on standardized tests or otherwise make more “holistic” assessments in their admission processes? What kinds of consequences would, say, scoring prospective students by “civility” have? A new research paper we get into this week sifts through reams of evidence from India, finding that subjective ideas about “fit” often smuggle in biases that end up punishing people from lower social classes.
When you have a moment … |
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A new kill chain
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| How are smartphones transforming modern warfare? |
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| March 10, 2022: Russian units from the 90th Guard Tank Division and the 6th and 239th Tank Regiments speed southwards on Highway M01 towards Kyiv, Ukraine. Suddenly, they come under fire by Ukrainian forces hidden behind the western tree line. A series of intense firefights ensue: Ukrainian troops launch what looks to have been either a rocket-propelled grenade or an anti-tank guided missile, which hits a tank and engulfs its turret in flames. Elsewhere, two Ukrainian T-62 tanks, supported by artillery, wipe out two Russian tanks and one armored personnel carrier. |
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| Hungry for an alternative to dystopian anger? Join a gathering of code breakers, hackers, and puzzle solvers. You’ll leave optimistic—we promise. |
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| DEVELOPMENTS |
Meanwhile
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| What we’re watching for this week’s despatch |
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- Gaza City is under siege. Israeli forces began military operations on Wednesday to seize control of Gaza City after the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu approved a plan that includes calling up 60,000 reservists and extending service for another 20,000—with Israeli military spokesman Effie Defrin saying forces are “holding positions on the outskirts of Gaza City.” The timing puts Netanyahu’s expanded military campaign in tension with renewed ceasefire negotiations led by Qatar and Egypt, leaving it unclear whether the prime minister sees the escalation as leverage for talks or as a substitute for them.
- Texas reshapes its political landscape. The state’s House of Representatives passed Republican-drawn congressional maps on Wednesday by a vote of 88-52, paving the way for the Republicans to gain up to five additional U.S. House seats after a standoff that saw Democratic lawmakers flee the state for two weeks before returning on Monday. Meanwhile, California’s Senate committee has already advanced competing maps designed to give Democrats five additional seats in response, with Governor Gavin Newsom promising a November ballot measure that would trigger the new districts only if Texas moves forward with its plan. The prospect of the country’s two most populous states engaging in retaliatory redistricting suggests American electoral map-making may be entering an era of permanent campaign-season maneuvering rather than once-a-decade adjustments.
- More federal forces descend on Washington, D.C. Six Republican governors in the U.S. announced deployments of more than 1,100 National Guard troops to the District of Columbia this week to support President Donald Trump’s federal takeover of the capital’s police force, with states including Mississippi, Louisiana, and Tennessee joining earlier commitments from West Virginia, South Carolina, and Ohio. The buildup brings the total military presence in Washington to more than 2,000 troops despite violent crime being at a 30-year low—and notably includes deploying states with cities that have higher murder rates than the capital. The deployment raises questions about how far Republican governors will continue enabling expansions of federal authority they’d normally, emphatically resist.
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| Each week, The Signal brings you a compact, effective briefing that helps you think for yourself … |
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around the world—become a member. |
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| Coming soon: this week’s member’s despatch.
See you Saturday … |
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| The cover of Farshad Akbari’s new album, Echoes of Nothingness, shows a sand-bleached skull sitting on dunes of empty desert as far as the eye can see … |
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