Mid-Week Updates, No 21

Turkey, Ukraine and Thiel

As more or less expected the presidential elections in Turkey last Sunday were extremely tight with incumbent Erdogan scoring a commendable 49.50% which just fell short of the required majority and thus, a run-off election will take place on May 28. Lots of rumours of vote rigging and stuffed ballot boxes, of course. It’s interesting to see how the candidates fared regionally, with Erdogan winning the Turkish heartland and his opponent Kiliçdaroğlu capturing the urban and coastal areas as well as Turkish Kurdistan. His take was around 45% so that means that Sinan Oğan, a right-wing candidate who took a little over 5% will drop out for the run-off, but he could direct his support to either candidate. It appears he is throwing his weight behind Kiliçdaroğlu in an “anything-but-Erdogan” move. We will see if all his followers will heed that call, the power of incumbency and his strong performance so far are giving Erdogan the best shot.

Ukraine

There are signs of progress on the Ukrainian side although not exactly the full counter-offensive that most were expecting. But the fact that there was so much talk about this happening maybe was an indicator that it would never happen at all, I mean the surprise element was pretty much gone. And it may also be that time for such an effort is beginning to run out as some argue.

Whatever it is, it remains an incredibly difficult conflict - both militarily and politically - where only incremental progress on the frontlines is possible and with that we are facing a really long and drawn out war. And that may strategically be what the US and NATO want some argue, slowly bleeding and degrading Russia to a point where it will be a neutered and powerless entity. It may be true that is the long term plan, but then it’s the Ukrainians who keep paying with their blood for all this. At least, finally, yesterday, we had some missile defence successes where Ukraine took down some of Russia’s most advanced missiles that were launched to attack Kyiv.

Thiel

If you have the time, do listen to Bari Weiss’ interview with Peter Thiel, in particular all the techies and venture people who are reading this. I find it fascinating how this once Silicon Valley icon has moved on in life and is reverting to the core questions that plague our times. He’s right that our society is failing to make real progress and that in particular applies to technology where we have hit a low point in real breakthroughs and discoveries. It goes back to my call for more focus on Deep Tech and away from endless consumer tech and useless apps. But if you listen to Thiel you can also hear the deeper frustration about not only the lack in technological advances, but the absence of meaning in modern societies. The absence of meaning, and indeed religion, has opened the door for alternate and threatening ideologies that - coupled with big tech and AI - may take us even further away from where we need to be. Have a listen, it touches on all the urgent themes of our times.