Antoine Bousquet
@ajbousquet.bsky.social
Martial Empiricist | Author of 'The Scientific Way of Warfare' & 'The Eye of War' | Currently has nukes & AI on the brain | Swedish Defence University
Daniel Ellsberg in 1959 on the political uses of madness, the extraordinary case of Adolf Hitler & its implications in a nuclear age: "What Hitler was, no man - we must hope - aspires to be. But what Hitler knew, others can learn and use. And win with it - until they fail, and smash all humankind."
November 13, 2025 at 3:29 PM
Daniel Ellsberg in 1959 on the political uses of madness, the extraordinary case of Adolf Hitler & its implications in a nuclear age: "What Hitler was, no man - we must hope - aspires to be. But what Hitler knew, others can learn and use. And win with it - until they fail, and smash all humankind."
“There was never from about 2 weeks from the time I took charge [of the atomic bomb] project any illusion on my part but that Russia was our enemy and the project was conducted on that basis.”
- General Leslie Groves, testifying at the J. R. Oppenheimer hearing in 1954
- General Leslie Groves, testifying at the J. R. Oppenheimer hearing in 1954
October 29, 2025 at 8:11 AM
“There was never from about 2 weeks from the time I took charge [of the atomic bomb] project any illusion on my part but that Russia was our enemy and the project was conducted on that basis.”
- General Leslie Groves, testifying at the J. R. Oppenheimer hearing in 1954
- General Leslie Groves, testifying at the J. R. Oppenheimer hearing in 1954
🚨 CALL TO PAPERS 🚨
Honoured to be delivering a keynote at the 8th International PhD Congress at Ca' Foscari University of Venice held from 18 to 20 February 2026. call to papers is out for contributions on "systems and knowledge." Deadline: 09 November 2025 www.unive.it/web/en/8275/...
Honoured to be delivering a keynote at the 8th International PhD Congress at Ca' Foscari University of Venice held from 18 to 20 February 2026. call to papers is out for contributions on "systems and knowledge." Deadline: 09 November 2025 www.unive.it/web/en/8275/...
September 26, 2025 at 8:14 AM
🚨 CALL TO PAPERS 🚨
Honoured to be delivering a keynote at the 8th International PhD Congress at Ca' Foscari University of Venice held from 18 to 20 February 2026. call to papers is out for contributions on "systems and knowledge." Deadline: 09 November 2025 www.unive.it/web/en/8275/...
Honoured to be delivering a keynote at the 8th International PhD Congress at Ca' Foscari University of Venice held from 18 to 20 February 2026. call to papers is out for contributions on "systems and knowledge." Deadline: 09 November 2025 www.unive.it/web/en/8275/...
Words to ponder as we develop thinking machines whose inner workings are increasingly inscrutable and whose discoveries might soon surpass our understanding... From Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition (1958)
September 9, 2025 at 7:16 AM
Words to ponder as we develop thinking machines whose inner workings are increasingly inscrutable and whose discoveries might soon surpass our understanding... From Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition (1958)
Hiroshima National Peace Memorial Hall. The red ball indicates the hypocentre of the nuclear explosion on August 6, 1945.
August 6, 2025 at 11:14 AM
Hiroshima National Peace Memorial Hall. The red ball indicates the hypocentre of the nuclear explosion on August 6, 1945.
“Scientists aren’t responsible for the facts that are in nature. It’s their job to find the facts. There’s no sin connected with it – no morals. If anyone should have a sense of sin, it’s God. He put the facts there." (Percy Bridgman, Robert Oppenheimer's undergraduate teacher)
July 16, 2025 at 9:56 PM
“Scientists aren’t responsible for the facts that are in nature. It’s their job to find the facts. There’s no sin connected with it – no morals. If anyone should have a sense of sin, it’s God. He put the facts there." (Percy Bridgman, Robert Oppenheimer's undergraduate teacher)
Einstein on relative difficulty of physics and politics (from John Herz, International Politics in the Atomic Age, 1959)
July 6, 2025 at 7:07 PM
Einstein on relative difficulty of physics and politics (from John Herz, International Politics in the Atomic Age, 1959)
The Sedan crater left by the shallow underground nuclear test (104kt) conducted in Nevada in July 1962 for research into using nukes for construction projects. 390m wide by 100m deep, it helped determine that ancient craters formed on earth and beyond result from meteor strikes, not volcanoes.
July 1, 2025 at 9:28 AM
The Sedan crater left by the shallow underground nuclear test (104kt) conducted in Nevada in July 1962 for research into using nukes for construction projects. 390m wide by 100m deep, it helped determine that ancient craters formed on earth and beyond result from meteor strikes, not volcanoes.
Leo Szilard, How to Live with the Bomb and Survive (1960)
June 19, 2025 at 10:49 AM
Leo Szilard, How to Live with the Bomb and Survive (1960)
The message is classic autocratic rhetoric (the infallible leader), cloaked in usual ironic overstatement. The past tense anticipates Trump's political "martyrdom" & nostalgic hagiography ("if only we'd listened!"). Pure Trumpism: grandiose self-aggrandisement & plaintive victimhood in one package.
April 8, 2025 at 7:39 AM
The message is classic autocratic rhetoric (the infallible leader), cloaked in usual ironic overstatement. The past tense anticipates Trump's political "martyrdom" & nostalgic hagiography ("if only we'd listened!"). Pure Trumpism: grandiose self-aggrandisement & plaintive victimhood in one package.
Spotted in Chicago.
March 4, 2025 at 9:33 PM
Spotted in Chicago.
Nearing the event horizon of the idiocracy singularity.
February 22, 2025 at 1:01 PM
Nearing the event horizon of the idiocracy singularity.
U.S. Strategic Air Command's nuclear war plans, 1960 (from Fred Kaplan, Th Wizards of Armageddon)
January 24, 2025 at 10:54 AM
U.S. Strategic Air Command's nuclear war plans, 1960 (from Fred Kaplan, Th Wizards of Armageddon)
When AIs troll.
January 23, 2025 at 11:03 AM
When AIs troll.
“It’s maybe impossible to escape your own head, but I guess the secret is the prison cell just gets bigger and bigger and bigger and prettier and prettier and prettier.” ― David Lynch
January 16, 2025 at 7:38 PM
“It’s maybe impossible to escape your own head, but I guess the secret is the prison cell just gets bigger and bigger and bigger and prettier and prettier and prettier.” ― David Lynch
Sam Bankman-Fried (of FTX infamy) once said: “if you wrote a book, you fucked up, and it should have been a six-paragraph blog post.” Many people have gleefully highlighted this as evidence of SBF's failings after his very public downfall but I am haunted by this statement. (1)
January 14, 2025 at 11:31 AM
Sam Bankman-Fried (of FTX infamy) once said: “if you wrote a book, you fucked up, and it should have been a six-paragraph blog post.” Many people have gleefully highlighted this as evidence of SBF's failings after his very public downfall but I am haunted by this statement. (1)
As has been widely observed, asymetric killing has been a dominant trait of Western warfare over the past few decades. The drone strikes of the War on Terror are held up as a new level of killing with impunity, with autonomous AI-enabled weapons as the ultimate horizon of risk avoidance. 1/7
January 7, 2025 at 2:00 PM
As has been widely observed, asymetric killing has been a dominant trait of Western warfare over the past few decades. The drone strikes of the War on Terror are held up as a new level of killing with impunity, with autonomous AI-enabled weapons as the ultimate horizon of risk avoidance. 1/7
Levinas's privileging of infinity also resists the drive to totality of the nuclear existentialists. Rather than fold the Bomb back into a new historical purpose, Levinas invites us to stare into its abyssal opening onto infinity, an emissary of inhuman ‘forces without faces.’
January 3, 2025 at 10:52 AM
Levinas's privileging of infinity also resists the drive to totality of the nuclear existentialists. Rather than fold the Bomb back into a new historical purpose, Levinas invites us to stare into its abyssal opening onto infinity, an emissary of inhuman ‘forces without faces.’
Levinas's radical openness to the other implies that death and fear are first and foremost experienced in relation to others rather than as a solipsistic self, foregrounding the boundless responsibility that the prospect of human extinction places on each of us.
January 3, 2025 at 10:52 AM
Levinas's radical openness to the other implies that death and fear are first and foremost experienced in relation to others rather than as a solipsistic self, foregrounding the boundless responsibility that the prospect of human extinction places on each of us.
Perhaps we can find some illumination in the reflections of Emmanuel Levinas who took Western philosophy to task for systematically privileging self over other, freedom over justice, autonomy over heteronomy, totality over infinity.
January 3, 2025 at 10:52 AM
Perhaps we can find some illumination in the reflections of Emmanuel Levinas who took Western philosophy to task for systematically privileging self over other, freedom over justice, autonomy over heteronomy, totality over infinity.
Nearly 80 years on from Hiroshima & with nuclear tensions rising again, the problems of nuclear existentialism remain our own and so its failings should preoccupy us. Was its investment in fear misguided? Was it overly concerned with individual freedom and conscience?
January 3, 2025 at 10:52 AM
Nearly 80 years on from Hiroshima & with nuclear tensions rising again, the problems of nuclear existentialism remain our own and so its failings should preoccupy us. Was its investment in fear misguided? Was it overly concerned with individual freedom and conscience?
While simultaneously holding to a faith in Enlightenment reason and the totality of history, the nuclear existentialists place their hopes in a proselytism of fear intended to shake individual consciences from their denial and complacency. Evidently, this never happened.
January 3, 2025 at 10:52 AM
While simultaneously holding to a faith in Enlightenment reason and the totality of history, the nuclear existentialists place their hopes in a proselytism of fear intended to shake individual consciences from their denial and complacency. Evidently, this never happened.
Common to all the nuclear existentialists is a concern with the Bomb as the cardinal, inevitable, event in human history. The atomic clock cannot be turned back, humanity must either transcend its moment of greatest peril or disappear. The Bomb figured as historical necessity.
January 3, 2025 at 10:52 AM
Common to all the nuclear existentialists is a concern with the Bomb as the cardinal, inevitable, event in human history. The atomic clock cannot be turned back, humanity must either transcend its moment of greatest peril or disappear. The Bomb figured as historical necessity.
Once again, the problem is that our fear of the Bomb is 'too small.' 'Don’t fear fear,' Anders exhorts his readers in his Theses for the Atomic Age, 'have the courage to be frightened, and to frighten others, too. Frighten thy neighbour as thyself.'
January 3, 2025 at 10:52 AM
Once again, the problem is that our fear of the Bomb is 'too small.' 'Don’t fear fear,' Anders exhorts his readers in his Theses for the Atomic Age, 'have the courage to be frightened, and to frighten others, too. Frighten thy neighbour as thyself.'