Brian Klaas

@brianklaas.bsky.social

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Associate Professor in Global Politics @UCL. Author of “Fluke." Writer @TheAtlantic. Host, Power Corrupts podcast. The Garden of Forking Paths Substack.

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Keir Starmer became Britain’s new Prime Minister. His first decision: he must hand write orders on whether to use nuclear weapons if London is obliterated in a surprise attack. They’re the Letters of Last Resort. He’s likely writing them now. My latest: www.theatlantic.com/internationa...

Now Keir Starmer Has to Decide if He’d Use Nukeswww.theatlantic.com Becoming the British prime minister means giving top-secret orders—immediately—that could determine the fate of the world.

This year, the UK election is on the 4th of July and the American election is on Guy Fawkes day.

These most recent reviews of FLUKE are the kinds of reactions I dreamed of when writing it. It was a book that upended my own worldview as I wrote it, so it’s extremely gratifying to see how much it has made others think differently—which is, I think, one of the core purposes of reading.

It’s my birthday so I wrote about the history of birthdays, explained why people die more often on their birthdays (wish me luck today!) and included some interesting brain food about how AI is being used to save zebras. www.forkingpaths.co/p/another-tr...

Another trip around the sun OR Raphael's deadly debauchery and the AI Zebraswww.forkingpaths.co In the immortal words of Dwight Schrute: "It is your birthday." I'm spending part of it with you fine folk, giving your brains something that I hope will be worthy of celebrating.

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Bravo, @brianklaas.bsky.social www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc...

Calls for Biden’s Withdrawal Are a Sign of a Healthy Democratic Partywww.theatlantic.com The party that’s rallying around a convicted felon, whatever he may do, is the one to worry about.

The Democratic party’s discussion about Biden is what normal political parties do: some dissent is a sign of healthy politics. By contrast, Trump has transformed the GOP into a cult of personality where nobody questions the lying authoritarian felon…or else. My latest:

Calls for Biden’s Withdrawal Are a Sign of a Healthy Democratic Partywww.theatlantic.com The party that’s rallying around a convicted felon, whatever he may do, is the one to worry about.

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I wrote about medieval service magicians—and why they were both more effective and less harmful than many spiritual practices such as “the law of attraction” or “healing crystals” are today. www.forkingpaths.co/p/why-manife...

Why "manifesting" is far more irrational than using a medieval service magicianwww.forkingpaths.co In the medieval past, people would routinely employ "cunning folk" or "service magicians" to help them. They were much more effective, rational, and ethical than many spiritual practices today.

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Can recommend. The introduction alone will stagger you

My publisher has insinuated that if I do not share this graphic, highlighting this accolade for FLUKE, that I may find myself on the wrong side of a cliff edge, my legs cartoonishly bicycling like Wile E. Coyote, and “we wouldn’t want that to happen would we?!” so I shall tremblingly click “Post.”

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We fixed a broken, half-century old robot from 15 billion miles away using a radio and our monkey brains and that is goddamn amazing.

GUESS WHO IS SENDING BACK DATA FROM ALL FOUR OF ITS OPERATIONAL SCIENCE INSTRUMENTS?? Voyager 1 we love you

Woke up to the lovely news that Amazon named my new book—Fluke—as one of the best books of 2024 (so far).

The Supreme Court just overturned the ban on bump stocks. Bump stocks allowed the Las Vegas mass shooter to fire more than 1,000 rounds in just over ten minutes. What possible justification is there for allowing an ordinary civilian to own one? US gun policy is just beyond insane.

It's the Guns.www.forkingpaths.co America is the only rich democracy that features the routine mass slaughter of its citizens with guns. Why does this happen? The data show a really clear picture: It's the guns. Yes, it's that simple.

Niche post, but I’m open to queries from prospective PhD students particularly for ideas related to concepts in my latest book—Fluke (chaos theory in social science, contingency, complexity, causality, debates on geographical determinism, evolutionary theory in social science).

Are there universal traits of human minds that have evolved across all cultures? I wrote about a fascinating new book—“Inheritance”—which says that we universally have three shared impulses: to conform, to believe, and to belong. www.forkingpaths.co/p/inheritanc...

Inheritance: How Evolution Shaped Our Brains and Forged the Modern Worldwww.forkingpaths.co A new book by a renowned anthropologist and one of the smartest thinkers of our times provides a sweeping account of human history, latching onto three traits that humans share across time and space.

Hours before meeting with his probation officer, Trump went on a bizarre rant about rising shark attacks (untrue), mandated batteries (untrue) and how boats that are heavy will sink (really, really untrue). I wrote about Trump’s “banality of crazy.” www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc...

Trump Rants About Sharks and Everyone Just Pretends It’s Normalwww.theatlantic.com Par for the course. Trump is Trump. But imagine the response if Joe Biden had said it.

If you, like me, struggle to get away from your phone, your email, and digital life, consider reading this piece I wrote on the “moronic inferno,” how to escape it, and why I turned my phone black and white. www.forkingpaths.co/p/the-moroni...

The "Moronic Inferno" and "the Fidgets," OR Why My Phone is Now Black & Whitewww.forkingpaths.co Modern life is frenetic, fidgety, structured around routine dopamine hits. It's a serious problem. But is it new? And what are we to do? I present to you: a new theory of distraction.

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I’m so far behind in my newsletter-reading, but this one deserves to be shared, late or not…

I visited two cemeteries in Normandy — one American, one German — and reflected on what it means to remember the dead today, the 80th anniversary of D-Day. It raises questions of collective responsibility, free will, justice, and why we remember. www.forkingpaths.co/p/a-tale-of-...

A Tale of Two D-Day Cemeterieswww.forkingpaths.co Reflections, for the 80th anniversary of D-Day, on my recent trip to the American — and German — military cemeteries in Normandy.

One of the great things about independent bookshops is that when you give a talk at them they might put out a special sign where someone perfectly draws the cover of your book in chalk, like this:

A Tale of Two D-Day Cemeterieswww.forkingpaths.co Reflections, for the 80th anniversary of D-Day, on my recent trip to the American — and German — military cemeteries in Normandy.

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“We control nothing, but influence everything” writes @brianklaas.bsky.social in Fluke, exploring how seemingly random happenings and actions can profoundly shape our lives. Read the review by Ulviyya Khalilova. wp.me/p2MwSQ-hmF

Fluke: Chance, Chaos, and Why Everything We Do Matters – reviewwp.me In Fluke, Brian Klaas explores the phenomenon of chance, examining how seemingly random happenings and actions can profoundly shape our lives. Klaas skilfully interweaves different perspectives – f…

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Is change driven by stable, long-term trends? Or does history pivot on the tiniest details? Hard question, as we can’t go back in time. But an ongoing long-term evolution experiment allows us to ‘play God’— @brianklaas.bsky.social explains: buff.ly/3xYZ60v via @behscientist.bsky.social

Is It All a Fluke? Lessons From Playing God in the Long-Term Evolution Experiment - by Brian Klaas - Behavioral Scientistbuff.ly It’s easy to believe that small, chance moments don’t make a material difference on our lives and societies. But a long-running evolution experiment suggests that life’s course may come down to the ra...

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Joe Biden has to deal with what I call the “inversion of reality” and “delusions of gloom.” Polls show voters are badly misinformed—often the opposite of the truth—on key issues that makes them systematically pessimistic—and the media is partly to blame. www.forkingpaths.co/p/joe-biden-...

Joe Biden and the Inversion of Realitywww.forkingpaths.co Americans are terribly misinformed about the state of the economy—at the expense of Joe Biden—and the media is partly to blame for it.

Voters understand politics through schemas—mental shortcuts that condense complex reality into cognitive shorthand. Rishi Sunak and the Tories are screwed because the schema for voters is overwhelmingly that the country is broken—and that the Tories broke it. www.forkingpaths.co/p/schemas-an...

Schemas and the Political Brainwww.forkingpaths.co Understanding how cognitive shortcuts work when processing new information is crucial to understanding modern politics—and it's a facet of cognition that Republicans manipulate extremely effectively.

Well that’s a plot twist: I finally get UK citizenship and I get to vote in my first British general election on…the 4th of July.

Trump has, in the last few days, floated the idea of seizing power to remain in office for an unconstitutional third term and posted a clip saying he would create a “unified Reich.” The Reich story is currently the *13th* story, on the New York Times. The “banality of crazy” in action, as I explain:

The Case for Amplifying Trump's Insanitywww.forkingpaths.co The "Banality of Crazy" has warped American politics, as few voters recognize just how deranged, delusional, and dangerous Donald Trump is...because the press rarely reports on his routine insanity.

The tale of how one clockmaker solved the problem of longitude—which helped build empires and unleash the Industrial Revolution—is a thriller worth your time. My latest, linking neurons, naval history, sea turtles, and the best named admiral of all-time: www.forkingpaths.co/p/the-thrill...

The Thrilling Tale of Longitude and Our Neurons of Navigationwww.forkingpaths.co "Where am I?" is a crucial question for survival. Answering it, from the sci-fi discoveries of navigational neurons to a master horologist forgotten by history, is a tale worth your time.

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Digging the latest from @brianklaas.bsky.social : the construct of puzzles vs. mysteries echoes @h4wkm0th.bsky.social 's weather vs. climate problems, where it's dangerous to assume that an unbounded problem (mystery/climate) can be solved with just MOAR DATA (puzzle/weather).

The Perils of Moneyballing Everythingwww.forkingpaths.co Data analytics are increasingly defining our world. In some systems, that's wise and wonderful. In others, it laces catastrophic risk into a complex world that's more Calvinball than Moneyball.

I had a great time speaking to the wonderful Dan Snow about three historical “what ifs” from my new book—FLUKE. These tiny details changed the course of history forever. t.co/PQF7KY59gI

Dan Snow's History Hit: The Atomic Bomb & Civil War Cigars: Greatest 'What Ifs' from Historyt.co We think of history as a neat chain of predictable events; but what if the truth is far wilder than that? Today, we're talking about the pivotal forces of randomness and chance, and how tiny moment...