u/Fit-Stress3300

I'm 1/3 in and it a very run-of-the-mill political book with basic history leasons.

However, I'm disapointed with the editors that let these repeating patterns too close to one another.

There are 30 instances of this pattern with "not only". Some of then on the same page.

These are the ones in the introduction:

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"In the US, this is not only less common socially and culturally, but often looked down upon on the basis that “religion and politics” are private topics, not to be discussed in polite society."

*"*Not only does this polarize society and diminish the ability of the population to engage with disagreement, but it promotes misinformation."

"Hosting a political talk show means not only being informed about the latest political developments but also confronting the most extreme manifestations of the nation’s polarization."

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The problem compounds with the use of merely:

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"This was partially “merely” racism and xenophobia, but it was also used to suggest that Obama was actually an illegitimate president and not entitled to hold the office."

"Proving that this was merely a political strategy and not an actual Republican value"

"This is not merely an intellectual exercise or thought experiment, but rather a predilection with real-world implications".

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I, personaly, don´t care if he used AI to edit the text, but it is disapointing not paying attention to details like these. It is the job of the editor to keep the flow of the text and catch repeating and over used phases.

Covid broke Elon's musk brain for good. It feels October 7th had a similar effect in Sam's.

People have been calling him a "islamophobe, biggot, racist" for nearly 20 years. I never felt he was really racist, I agreed that Islam is a malign force in the world and that the left is too condensendent with them.

However in the last podcast episode following his jovial interview with Ben Shapiro and his coments about Hassam Piker and Mandani made me worrie for his mental health.

I dislike Hassam as much as Shapiro, however I fail to see them in equal footing inside their respective parties.

Shapiro has large and direct influence over many Republicans in Congress and right wingers around the world. What millionaire/billionaires are funneling money to Hassam? I don´t think the Qatari are that generous as AIPAC and others.

Sam sounds almost like Joe Rogan when complaining about "woke culture". He cites minor events in random study groups in random universities as evidence of "leftist crazyness".

I believe he still has the best of intentions in helping the Democrats wining in 2028. But he is traveling a dangerous path that is putting him close to Elon and Joe Rogan world view.

I don't remember in the book the ship's logs being a point of contention between Blackthorn and the Portugueses.

The Letter of Marque would probably be in Latin but that would just say that the ship can engage against enemies from the Dutch Crown/Republic(?).

The Japanese would probably understand that as metters of war and not crimes.

Most of tech giants Q1 FR are in and AI spending is still growing strong.

I myself am experiencing the pressure of spending more on AI tools for my job and my side projects.

I have a MAGAN portfolio that is performing relatively well despite Microsoft issues.

Anyway, back to the topic.

For the last couple of months I've not been following SG podcasts (because of my side projects) as much as before. But I noticed that I barely listened to any mention of his "Unsubscribe!" movement that he started after the shootings in Minneapolis.

As I said, I'm pressured to spend more on AI. So, unfortunately, I'm helping their sustain their insane valuation.

Anthropic has speedrunned the enshitification of Claude Code, and Gemini CLI is not even close as a alternative, so I had to subscribe to Open AI Code. And now Elon is groping Cursor, so there are nowhere to run.

Anyway, I think I can morally justify my spending considering they are all losing money with compute power and higher energy costs - thanks to Trump attacking Iran.