Yes, thank you. It seemed bizarre to me as I was reading the article that this point is not brought up at all. Of course, it’s impossible to perform controlled realistic experiments to disentangle the effects. But to not even acknowledge this crucial limitation in the research makes the reporting and research deeply flawed. The research would really need to take into account each conflict’s preconditions, which is a very daunting task, to become more reliable. I understand it’s hard to do this research, but it’s only fair to demand that researchers temper their conclusions based on to the limitations. That kind of rigorous approach doesn’t sell as many books or lead to as many media appearances though, sadly.

It also doesn’t help that the AI companies deliberately use language to make their models seem more human-like and cogent. Saying that the model e.g. “thinks” in “conceptual spaces” is misleading imo. It abuses our innate tendency to anthropomorphize, which I guess is very fitting for a company with that name.

On this point I can highly recommend this open access and even language-wise accessible article: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10676-024-09775-5 (the authors also appear on an episode of the Better Offline podcast)

Imagine if there was a candidate in the 60s that was obviously funded by the CCP and supported by its propaganda machine, which was plotting to surrender its country to the CCP, while being a vocal supporter of planned economics and thumping Mao’s little red book like the Bible. I think a lot of leftists would agree that such a party, though far-left on its face at least, would have been undemocratic at its core and not in the interest of the country itself.

It is in my mind very misleading to try to use an analogy with Bernie Sanders. Sanders, AFAIK, is not interested in upheaving democracy or selling out the country to Russia. This is fundamentally different from many current far-right parties in Eastern Europe.

Now, is it a wise strategy to straight up bar Georgescu’s party without explaining the reasoning as the article claims has been done? Perhaps not (though ample evidence supporting the decision has been provided previously by Romanian intelligence agencies). But one can understand why extreme measures might be called for to counter the electoral interference of a country that is actively invading your neighbor and has openly talked about wanting your country to become a puppet, too.

From ISW, "Georgescu has praised Russian President Vladimir Putin’s leadership and “wisdom” and claimed in 2022 that Ukraine is an “invented state.” ( https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/likely-kremlin-backed-election-interference-against-romania-threatens-bucharests ) Could you find a similarly extreme and anti-democratic view espoused by a “far-left” leader that you think non-tankie leftists commonly support? If you still don’t see how extreme Georgescu’s party is and why they can be rightfully called a Russian agent I highly recommend checking out the ISW article, actually it’s well worth reading either way. Georgescu was even too explicit a Russian stooge for other ultranationalists to stomach (for a while).