A review of 'Nine Lives', a memoir by ex-jihadist turned spy Aimen Dean, offering insights into al-Qaeda's operations and the challenges of counterterrorism. Longer summary

This review discusses Aimen Dean's memoir 'Nine Lives', which details his experiences as a jihadist turned British spy infiltrating al-Qaeda. The review highlights key insights from the book, including the motivations behind jihadism, the role of religious prophecies in terrorist strategies, the challenges of intelligence work, and Dean's perspective on countering radicalization. It also touches on the book's implications for understanding terrorist organizations, their tactics, and the complexities of counterterrorism efforts. Shorter summary

Commenters provide additional context and debate points from Scott Alexander's review of a Putin biography, covering Putin's rise, the author's objectivity, and comparisons to US politics. Longer summary

This post summarizes comments on Scott Alexander's review of a Putin biography. The comments provide additional context and perspectives on Putin's rise to power, question the objectivity of the book's author Masha Gessen, suggest Putin may be slightly less bad than portrayed, discuss Putin as a culture warrior, and express concern about the potential for US intelligence agencies to undermine democracy. Key points include the importance of Russia's economic collapse in the 1990s for Putin's popularity, debates over Gessen's bias and reliability, alternative explanations for some seemingly suspicious events, Putin's alliance with the Russian Orthodox Church, and discussion of whether US agencies like the FBI/CIA could potentially act in ways similar to Russia's FSB. Shorter summary

Scott Alexander evaluates predictions about the Russia-Ukraine war, analyzing the performance of prediction markets and individual pundits. Longer summary

Scott Alexander reviews various predictions about the Russia-Ukraine war, evaluating pundits and prediction markets on their accuracy regarding the invasion and Ukrainian resistance. He discusses the performance of Metaculus, Polymarket, Manifold Markets, and individual forecasters like Edward Luttwak, Anatoly Karlin, Richard Hanania, Dmitri Alperovich, Tyler Cowen, Samo Burja, and others. Scott notes that most failed predictions were based on political precommitments, while successful ones often aligned with biases that happened to match reality. He concludes that having a bias corresponding to the outcome is often more important than being smart when it comes to prediction success. Shorter summary