Raj Thamotheram
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rajtham.bsky.social
Raj Thamotheram
@rajtham.bsky.social
3.3K followers 10K following 2.6K posts
Formerly a sustainable finance guy who's also not fond of pandemics or genocides or fascists.

On here for as long as it helps us organise a centre left response to the polycrisis.

If we have something in common, feel free to send me a DM.
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rajtham.bsky.social
From an investment colleague:

"One could not be more delusional & ignorant of the staggering damage done by unregulated LLM deployment"

archive.ph/gqZti

softwarecrisis.dev/letters/llme...
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it" - Upton Sinclair
November 20, 2025 at 8:44 PM
rajtham.bsky.social
"Whichever way you look at it, the potential payoffs of A.I. adoption are staggering - for the economy, for social sectors, and, of course, for investors."

A sequel to "How I Learned To Stop Worrying & Love The Bomb"?

The author is chief economic adviser at Allianz

www.nytimes.com/2025/11/20/o...
Sounds like a sequel to "Dr. Strangelove Or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb"
November 20, 2025 at 8:39 PM
rajtham.bsky.social
Ta‑Nehisi Coates said this about the Dems but it's relevant to the media too, no?
"We are at a moment right now where people are asking themselves why can’t the Democratic Party defend this assault on democracy… and I would submit to you that if you can’t draw the line at [gncd], you probably can’t draw the line at democracy.”
November 15, 2025 at 3:57 AM
rajtham.bsky.social
Perhaps the UK & Israel's other allies are broadly ok with this strategy because Israel is doing their "dirty work"?

Merz is not diplomatic enough to keep quiet about this but I doubt it's just a German view.

The West also decided to eliminate the LTTE (Tamil Tigers). Another ignored genocide.
July 27, 2025 at 3:52 PM
rajtham.bsky.social
Interesting timeline!
July 8, 2025 at 6:47 PM
rajtham.bsky.social
Do you think the 'Hunger Games' is a good way to explain Gaza to low information voters?
Gaza isn’t Panem—but the parallels are chilling. Political Control Panem: Totalitarian Capitol rules 12 districts through fear and force. Gaza/West Bank: Israel imposes military occupation, siege, checkpoints, and airstrikes. Movement and life are tightly controlled. Spectacle and Dehumanization Panem: Children forced into televised death games to remind the poor who's in charge. Gaza: Civilian suffering is constant, broadcast globally—yet action is rare. Horror becomes background noise. Economic Exploitation Panem: Districts produce resources; Capitol enjoys luxury. Gaza: Blockade strangles the economy. Aid is restricted. Basic survival is a daily struggle. Violence as Discipline Panem: Peacekeepers punish dissent brutally. Gaza: Protests met with sniper fire. Cities bombed. Families displaced. Children killed. Survival Isn’t Rebellion Panem: Katniss defies the system by surviving. Gaza: Survival itself is resistance. And yet Palestinians keep organizing, speaking, enduring. Gaza isn’t fiction. It’s worse. And silence is complicity.
June 28, 2025 at 2:37 AM
rajtham.bsky.social
USA first
Israel second
Iran not in the top 3

Interesting?
June 26, 2025 at 6:32 PM
rajtham.bsky.social
Team Biden's complicity with war crimes.
Linkedin post from Josh Paul: "I've been asked a lot in the last 24 hours what I think of the recent revelations by a well-known former State Department Official that Israel has "without doubt" committed war crimes in Gaza, and that Israel's investigations, when they occur, are not credible. Since resigning I've made it a rule not to publicly comment on the actions of Executive Branch officials below the level of the Secretary - but in any event, I don't think there is anything new to say here, as Nixon's White House Counsel John Dean already said it in the wake of the Watergate scandal: "I was caught up in the web of loyalty and ambition, thinking I was serving the President’s interests by keeping things quiet. I had no sense of the larger consequences, no realization that what we were doing was wrong in any fundamental way. It was all about protecting the President, keeping the campaign on track, and maintaining the power structure of the White House. I told myself we were just managing a political problem, not breaking the law, and I let myself believe that the ends justified the means.” The Biden Administration’s wanton lawbreaking when it came to what was happening in Gaza - and the constant gaslighting that accompanied and facilitated it - was, in my mind, no less a scandal than Watergate, and in the context of its human impact, probably a greater one."
June 3, 2025 at 4:16 PM
rajtham.bsky.social
My poll (on Linkedin) sheds light on this.

64% of respondents say reputation management is the primary driver behind shifts in Western messaging on Palestinian suffering - elites are reacting to brand risk more than moral imperative. This underscores a crisis of conviction at the top.
Poll breakdown: • 64% say reputation management drives the shift • 19% credit youth, activists & Jewish allies • 10% point to geopolitics sidelining Palestine • 7% think militarized aid enables the status quo
May 27, 2025 at 7:19 PM
rajtham.bsky.social
My poll (on Linkedin) sheds light on this.

64% of respondents say reputation management is the primary driver behind shifts in Western messaging on Palestinian suffering - elites are reacting to brand risk more than moral imperative. This underscores a crisis of conviction at the top.
Poll breakdown: • 64% say reputation management drives the shift • 19% credit youth, activists & Jewish allies • 10% point to geopolitics sidelining Palestine • 7% think militarized aid enables the status quo
May 27, 2025 at 7:19 PM
rajtham.bsky.social
"Stop the Dutch hand-wringing over Gaza"

from a leading Dutch expert on the Middle East
May 8, 2025 at 9:10 PM
rajtham.bsky.social
The Germans have been learning from the Canadians ! 💪🏾
May 5, 2025 at 2:49 PM
rajtham.bsky.social
There are real costs to trying to censor criticism of Israel / US support for Israel.
May 2, 2025 at 4:42 AM
rajtham.bsky.social
Labelling folk who criticise genocide, ethnic cleansing and collective punishment as "anti semitic" because it's being done by Israel isn't very smart if you really care about antisemitism.
May 2, 2025 at 4:27 AM
rajtham.bsky.social
Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.

🤦🏽‍♂️🤷🏽‍♂️
"The sketch showed a beleaguered Johnson flanked by two female suitors. To his right stood a voluptuous seductress bedecked with jewels and a mink stole bearing the words "Vietnam War." To his left was a scrawny, disheveled waif labeled "U.S. Urban Needs." The Johnson figure reassured them, "There's money enough to support both of you," but readers could hardly fail to grasp the president's hesitation.... In a speech on March 31, 1968, he called for negotiations and stunned the world by announcing that he would not run for re-election. The latter decision may have resulted primarily from Johnson's concerns about his health, but it flowed as well from his failure, perhaps inevitable, to paper over the tensions between his foreign and domestic goals. He could not, as he put it after leaving the White House, have both "the woman I really loved — the Great Society" — and "that bitch of a war on the other side of the world".
May 1, 2025 at 9:57 AM
rajtham.bsky.social
Remember when we used to make jokes about Aeroflot ?

🤦🏽‍♂️🤷🏽‍♂️
April 25, 2025 at 10:51 PM
rajtham.bsky.social
And in Palestine (Gaza)

www.linkedin.com/posts/faisal...
April 21, 2025 at 4:58 PM
rajtham.bsky.social
There's been very little commentary on Linkedin (the primary professional platform) from EU corporate types, bankers or investors from any country.

Even about the very obvious market manipulation, let alone the more "political' developments.

www.linkedin.com/posts/rajtha...
When I scan the list of people who've reacted positively to this & other posts on this topic, I see many different professionals including several senior corporate types. But I see very few investment professionals or folk from the hashtag#corpgov or hashtag#ESG worlds. Is market manipulation not a material ESG / corporate governance issue? Or are these insiders keeping silent because they, too, are gaming the system? Or may be this is just coincidence and the huge 1 day gains made by billionaires is nothing to worry about? Whatever, if we can't trust investment professionals to be performing their core fiduciary duty, does the industry have much of a future? Obviously this goes even more for those who have said they are in favour of good governance and or investing responsibly. If you can't comment in public, send me a DM and I can anonymise. ***** My reshare of a post about Rep Steven Horsford grilling Jamieson Greer on Trump’s sudden tariff reversal.
April 14, 2025 at 6:48 PM
rajtham.bsky.social
The bottom line is that the Israel lobby (which also includes Christian Zionists) has *huge* influence in the USA.
April 10, 2025 at 11:33 AM
rajtham.bsky.social
62% of US citizens oppose the U.S. taking over Gaza – including 49% who strongly oppose it – while only 15% favor Trump’s proposal and 22% say they aren’t sure.

But these figures by themselves don't matter because the USA isn't a functioning democracy.

Check out @anatosaurus.bsky.social
April 10, 2025 at 11:32 AM
rajtham.bsky.social
There's now a *huge* disconnect between what the U.S. public think and how U.S. politics operates on Israel vs Palestine.

A recent poll shows a significant shift in public opinion regarding Israel. 53% of U.S. adults now hold an unfavorable opinion of Israel, up from 42% in March 2022.
April 10, 2025 at 11:28 AM
rajtham.bsky.social
Have Wall Street titans woken up yet?!
April 9, 2025 at 5:42 PM
rajtham.bsky.social
Who are the big US law firms who have shown themselves to be cowards?
From a Chief Legal Officer (Karen Klein) "Over the course of my career, I have probably hired, or worked with or across from, several dozen law firms, including a significant portion of the AmLaw 100 and multiple boutique firms. Today I scoured the list of firms who signed the amicus brief backing Perkins Coie, and found all but two of those dozens missing from the list. I wrote messages thanking those whose firms signed on. For those who chose not to use your voice to support the rule of law, I won't call you out. I will remember. #ruleoflaw #leadership #integrity."
April 7, 2025 at 12:41 AM
rajtham.bsky.social
Even David Lammy isn't pro Israel enough now!

www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
Bloomberg headline "UK Backtracks After Lammy Says Israel Broke International Law"
April 6, 2025 at 4:50 PM
rajtham.bsky.social
Folk in cults learn slowly
April 5, 2025 at 7:24 PM