Democracy, Backsliding and the Need for a Weekly Radar

Introduction

In March 2026, the V‑Dem Institute published its tenth global Democracy Report: Unraveling the Democratic Era?

For the “ average global citizen ”, they conclude, the level of democracy is now back to where it stood in 1978. The gains of the so‑called “ third wave of democratisation ”, which began with Portugal’s Carnation Revolution in 1974, have been “ almost entirely eradicated ”.

ACTORS THE EU WILL NOT NAME

A FIMI-Methodology Assessment of US, Israeli and Aligned Network Interference in European Democracy

“those who want to destroy the Union are: Russia, American MAGA, and the European right wing led by Orbán. “1

(Donald Tusk)

1. A House of Cards Indeed
2. The Full OSINT FIMI Shadow Report
3. Open Letter to Kaja Kallas: The EU’S FIMI Blind Spot Is An Existential Threat
4. Footnotes

A House of Cards Indeed

Kaja Kallas is right that today’s wars are fought with lies and algorithms.

Engineering Escape Velocity - A 5 year Plan for Europe

This three-part Reckoning series began with a question about what China’s history, including its 19th-century failures and its 20th century successes, can teach Europe about its 21st-century moment of crisis. China failed to adapt to geopolitical changes in the 19th century and that mistake gave rise to a century of humiliation. China learned from that failure and is now a superpower.

The Stackelberg Trap and how Europe must deal with the American criminal enterprise, China & Russia

Continuing the series:

The Reckoning: A European Strategy For an Unstable World

1. The Stackelberg Trap — Europe Nearly Always Follows
2. The Opium Wars, Ambiguity & Chinese Realignment
3. A Network of Criminal Enterprises
4. Securing The Lagrange Point
5. The Age-Old Russia Question
6. Footnotes

" It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change."

…

Read →

Introduction

There’s a point where impunity is not a failure of the system, it is the purpose of the system. Some things shake our belief in justice and government to the core, anyone who has spent anytime with the Epstein case will feel the same. Justice is too often institutional force applied to the weak and vulnerable by the strong: ‘the strong do what they will and the weak suffer what they must ‘.

In this article I want to break down some key concepts about wealth and income distribution utilising concepts from thermodynamics and entropy to show how gamed current economies and societies are and, more importantly, how we can undertake long term policy changes to fix it.

The G20 recently released the Global Inequality Report,1commissioned by the G20 South Africa Presidency in November 2025 and led by Joseph E. Stiglitz. It characterises global inequality as an “emergency” and a “policy choice,” asserting that the negative trends can be reversed. The report finds that 83% of countries globally exhibit high income inequality encompassing 90% of the world’s population. This crisis is primarily driven by wealth concentration, which is far higher than income inequality.

…

Read →

**" Blame it on the black star
Blame it on the falling sky
Blame it on the satellite **
….**this is killing me “**1

In Part 2 we looked at the many risks arising from Elon Musk’s ownership of the social media platform X, his development of Grok and Grokipedia and his promotion of disinformation and hate.

In Part 1 we looked at how Musk takes all of the wrong lessons from the literary greats he apparently admires:

Elon Musk - Part 1: The Crusader Behind The Mask?

In this Part 2, we will examine the integrity of Musk’s views on free speech, and the engines of hate speech and disinformation he is developing.

1. Introduction
2. The Wizard Behind the Curtain?
3. Empathy or Moral Apathy
4. Misuse of Literary Heroes
   1. Tolkien’s Middle Earth
   2. Banks & The Culture Novels
   3. Dune & The Jihads
   4. George Orwell’s 1984
5. Techno-Villain Or Tragically Flawed Anti-Hero?
6. Masked Crusader Or Crusader Behind A Mask?
7. Footnotes

Introduction

Elon Reeve Musk was born on June 28, 1971, in Pretoria, South Africa. He has become one of the most controversial and confusing figures of the 21st century. He is possibly the richest man in the world (with an estimated wealth of around $400-500bn) and also one of the most fascinating – but not because of his wealth.

This article has been created using a new public AI Notebook:

Climate Change, Ecological Disaster and Civilisational Risks

The Notebook features a range of key scientific and cultural sources. The complexity of these issues and depth of the data lends itself to a publicly available database for people to conduct their own queries. I hope it is useful, particularly for a new generation more interested in solving the problems we face than getting rich whilst watching the world burn.

Progress Update

1. AI Notebook
2. Introduction: A Democracy Staring at the Abyss
3. The Blueprint for Autocracy: Deconstructing Project 2025
   1. Central Ideology and Policy Goals
   2. Implementation and Funding
4. The Hungarian Model: An Authoritarian Blueprint
5. Progress Tracker Since Inauguration
6. Implementation By Executive Order
7. Implementation: Personnel and Structural Consolidation
   1. The Personnel Purge and Loyalty Appointments
   2. The Parallel Mechanism: Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)
8. Key Policy Areas of Implementation
   1. Energy, Climate, and Environmental Deregulation
   2. Dismantling Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI)
   3. Fiscal Control and Spending Cuts
   4. Education and Public Services
   5. Project Esther
   6. Immigration
9. Immigration and Border Security
   1. Targeting and Sensitive Locations:
   2. The Scale of Current and Planned Enforcement
   3. Arrest and Detention Capacity
   4. Policy Changes Driving Scale
   5. The Use of Foreign Prisons and Conditions for Deportees
   6. Intended Scope of Mass Deportations Envisioned by Project 2025
10. Divergences and Extensions Beyond the Blueprint
11. A New International Order: The Global Implications
12. A Call for Democratic Defence: The Path Forward
13. Conclusion: The Work of Millions
14. No Kings - October 18 2025
15. Footnotes

AI Notebook

I have created an AI notebook with many sources of information on Project 2025 and tracking how it is being implemented (which you can use to query aspects of the Trump & MAGA regime change). This overview of where we are has also been created using it (with minor tweaks).

“I feel that the four big AI CEOs in the U.S. are modern-day prophets with four different versions of the Gospel ..telling the same basic story that this is so dangerous and so scary that I have to do it and nobody else.”1

(Max Tegmark)

We enter a new age of AI , with some American snake-oil salesmen promising AI (and themselves) as a saviour to solve all of our ills (a new era of ‘psychohistory’ - but more Wizard of Oz style). Thank goodness for Demis Hassabis.

This collection of thematic AI news sources is provided in the hope that people will better understand the plight of Palestinians and the ethical degradation of Israel and its Western allies. There must be a better vision for the future of Israelis and Palestinians.

It might be hard for readers to believe, based on the below, but I actually consider myself pro-Israel (in the Gideon Levy vein) and pro-Palestinian (and one day a free Palestine) - but not the terrorists leaders of Israel or in Gaza. If you read my ‘Canto for David’, you can see my attempt to wrestle with god, godlessness and the recycling of suffering in the Israel-Palestine story and history.

The Blueprint for an Authoritarian Regime

“a systemic, ruthless plan to undermine the quality of life of millions of Americans, remove critical protections and dismantle programs for communities across the nation, and prioritize special interests and ideological extremism over people.“1

(Democracy Forward)

The following article has been researched manually largely based on sources you can find and review here:

Russia, Israel, the USA and the far-right in Europe

1. Introduction
2. A new Axis powers?
3. United Nations vote
4. What is the European far-right?
5. What drives this rise of extremism?
6. The rise of the hard/far-right
7. Israel: Likud, Kahanism & the rise of a fascist state
8. Israel and Europe
9. Trump, MAGA & Russia
10. Russia’s involvement in Europe
11. Hungary: a key node
12. America’s influence
13. The UK (and Brexit)
14. An alliance of cannibals
15. Empathy
16. Footnotes

Introduction

This is an unofficial companion article to the recent European EEAS Report on Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference Threats.1

The first article in the European Reckoning series.

“**I’m here today to directly and unambiguously express that stark strategic realities prevent the United States from being the primary guarantor of security in Europe. ”**1

US Secretary of Defence, February 12, 2025.

AI Podcast Version

I have also created an AI podcast version (if you are interested in trying it out):

Democracy Delayed

Like many poets and prophets, Leonard was (we hope) not wrong - just early.

**"It ’s coming to America first / The cradle of the best and of the worst / It’s here they got the range /And the machinery for change / And it’s here they got the spiritual thirst / It’s here the family’s broken / And it’s here the lonely say / That the heart has got to open / In a fundamental way / Democracy is coming to the U.S.A"**1

…

Read →

Table of contents

1. AI Podcast Version
2. Introduction
3. Towards an invariant foundation of ethics for life
4. Compossibility is key
5. Building axioms, laws and principles
6. Direct decentralised democracy
7. The Consensus Engine and DAO
8. Modern democracies are largely symbolic

AI Podcast Version

I have created an AI podcast version with additional information from my article ‘Direct Decentralised Democracy’:

Table of contents

1. AI Podcast Version
2. Introduction
3. Economics and the Use of Resources
4. The Global Financial Crisis (GFC)
5. Equality is not a useful aim
6. Freedom of action and inequality
7. Thomas Piketty
8. Useful vs Inefficient Inequalities
9. The Physics of Freedom
   1. The Optimal Equality Target: 0.5 (Gini 0.5)
   2. The Life-Time Analogy
10. Participatory democracy
11. Further reading
12. Footnotes