2026-01-17 20:45:00
2026年1月14日，丹麦哥本哈根美国大使馆外聚集了举着格陵兰旗帜的抗议者，他们举行名为“格陵兰属于格陵兰人”的抗议活动。| Martin Sylvest Andersen/Getty Images 自美国宣布将“接管”委内瑞拉并逮捕总统尼古拉斯·马杜罗以来，特朗普政府就公开在拉丁美洲其他地区提出类似的干预行动。然而，特朗普最关注的国家并不是他的对手，而是他的盟友——格陵兰。格陵兰是北约成员国，长期以来都是美国的合作伙伴，但该国多次成为特朗普的攻击目标。这些主要通过单方面行政行动实施的威胁，再次引发了关于国会是否应作为总统权力的制衡机制的讨论。而随着特朗普进入他的最后一个任期，甚至一些共和党人也开始表现出一些明显的担忧。
今天，《今日解释》节目主持人Astead Herndon与CNN高级记者Annie Grayer进行了对话，探讨国会如何回应这些情况，以及共和党内部的分歧可能如何发展。以下是他们对话的节选（已删减部分内容以提高清晰度和简洁性）。完整版节目内容更丰富，欢迎在Apple Podcasts、Pandora和Spotify等平台收听。
在2026年，而不是2025年，我们是否可以期待更多共和党人与特朗普划清界限？当然，共和党人知道这是选举年，他们正受到关注，我们开始看到一些裂痕的迹象。但我要强调的是，每当有真正的共和党分裂迹象出现时，比如我们在国会山看到的战争权力投票情况，特朗普及其团队都非常擅长通过公开和私下压力来保持共和党人的团结。然而，随着共和党人开始竞选并需要考虑如何在竞选中阐述他们目前在国会所采取的行动，特朗普这样做会变得越来越困难。许多温和派共和党人正在审视日程安排，意识到他们必须在2026年为自己找到一条不同的道路。
特朗普的对外干预主义显然成为共和党与其关系中的最新焦点。我们确实看到有五位共和党人与白宫划清界限，支持了战争权力决议。这是什么变化导致的？许多共和党人公开表示支持特朗普的行动，并认为不需要国会干预。但显然在幕后，有五位共和党参议员强烈认为，这种行动确实需要国会的介入。我们看到的是特朗普真正的压力策略，以及成为他党派成员意味着什么。投票后，特朗普立即在Truth Social上点名了这五位共和党人，并表示他们不应再被选入国会。这些是他的党内成员。
现在，有些共和党参议员已经公开反对特朗普，比如兰德·保罗、丽莎·默克沃思和苏珊·柯尔森，但托德·杨和乔什·霍利却让总统和其团队感到意外。因此，这两位成为了他们试图拉拢的对象。但事实证明，特朗普团队对这些参议员施加了巨大压力，特别是前参议员鲁比奥，他与这些参议员有个人关系，能够与他们会面，提供更多信息并给予他们保证，确保他们不会越过红线。杨和霍利都表示，他们的红线是不希望美军在委内瑞拉地面作战。因此，共和党人从这次事件中获得了一些好处。但你也可以问，到底发生了什么变化？答案就是特朗普及其团队对这些共和党人施加的全方位压力。
目前，国会中的共和党人对在格陵兰使用军事力量持什么态度？我们看到的分歧可能比委内瑞拉更大，而且这些反对者并非特朗普的常规批评者。共和党参议员们似乎在问：“我们为什么要在格陵兰这样做？”显然，人们并不支持军事行动：众议院议长和共和党参议院领袖都表示，对格陵兰采取军事行动并不是个好主意。至于购买格陵兰的提议，参议院武装部队委员会主席、来自密西西比州的罗杰·威克（Roger Wicker）在与丹麦官员会面后表示，我们不应该谈论购买格陵兰的问题。这并不是丹麦官员所希望的。许多共和党人，甚至更多地在私下，都希望特朗普不要真的采取行动。因此，我认为共和党人试图不提前与特朗普的立场划清界限，他们不想在看到特朗普具体行动之前就明确表态。但与此同时，他们也有些忐忑，甚至在暗中希望特朗普会放弃这个想法，不再继续推进，而他所说的关于格陵兰的事情最终不会实现。
目前，国会是否有意愿限制总统的这种权力？如果超越战争权力决议来看，是否有关于国会自身角色的讨论？成员们是否在谈论这个问题？这是一个非常重要的议题。我认为这就是为什么战争权力决议投票如此重要，因为这个问题已经成为民主党和共和党共同关注的焦点。这不再是一个党派问题，而是关于保护国会这一立法机构的机构本身，尤其是在对外干预方面。更具体地说，当我向共和党人提出这个问题时，他们指出近年来的一些历史事件表明，国会，尤其是涉及战争权力方面，已经逐步让渡了权力。例如，奥巴马时期对利比亚的轰炸和前往巴基斯坦追捕本·拉登，这些行动都是在没有国会批准的情况下进行的。因此，现在的情况确实将这一问题再次推到了聚光灯下。但要真正理解这一点，我们还得回溯更久远的历史。国会已经逐步让渡权力，而我们现在正面临这种潜在的危机。我认为我一直在报道中的真正问题是：什么红线会让人们真正说“够了”？到目前为止，我还没有找到答案。
Since the United States announced it would “run” Venezuela and captured President Nicolás Maduro, the Trump administration has openly floated similar interventions elsewhere in Latin America.
But the country Donald Trump has fixated on most isn’t an adversary — it’s an ally. Greenland, a NATO member and longtime partner of the United States has repeatedly found itself in the president’s crosshairs.
These threats, delivered largely through unilateral executive action, have once again raised questions about Congress’s role as a check on presidential power. And with Trump in his final term, even some Republicans are showing small but notable signs of concern.
Today, Explained co-host Astead Herndon spoke with Annie Grayer, a senior reporter at CNN, about how Capitol Hill is responding — and where those fractures inside the GOP may be heading.
Below is an excerpt of their conversation, edited for length and clarity. There’s much more in the full episode, so listen to Today, Explained wherever you get podcasts, including Apple Podcasts, Pandora, and Spotify.
Do we expect more Republicans breaking more with Trump to change now that it’s 2026 and not 2025?
Well, certainly Republicans know it’s an election year. The spotlight is on them, and I think we’re starting to see some openings for cracks. But I put so many caveats there because whenever we think there could be an opening for a real Republican split, as we saw play out on the Hill with the war powers vote, Trump and his team are really good at keeping Republicans in line through a public and private pressure campaign.
But his ability to do that is going to get increasingly more difficult as Republicans start campaigning and have to figure out how to run on what Republicans in Congress have done so far. There are a lot of moderates who are looking at the calendar, looking at what’s coming in 2026 and know that they have to carve out their own lane here.
Trump’s foreign interventionism definitely seems like the latest flash point in the GOP relationship with him. We did see five Republicans break with the White House and support that war powers resolution. What changed?
A lot of Republicans were publicly saying, I fully support how this operation went down and that this does not need an intervention from Congress. Clearly behind the scenes there were five Republican senators who felt very strongly this actually does require an act of Congress and congressional intervention. What we saw play out is Trump’s true pressure campaign and what it means to be a Republican in Donald Trump’s party.
Immediately after the vote, Trump took to Truth Social and name-checked all five of those Republicans and said they should not be elected to Congress again. These are members of his own party. Now, some of these Republican senators are in opposition to Trump, like Sens. Rand Paul, Lisa Murkowski or Susan Collins, but Todd Young and Josh Hawley — that really took the president and his team by surprise. So those were the two that they focused on, thinking that they were going to be the ones they could peel off.
But what we saw here was the role that Secretary Rubio played, who’s a former senator, who has personal relationships with all of these individuals and was able to sit with these senators, give them more information and give them assurances on their red line. Both Todd Young and Josh Hawley said that their red line was they did not want boots on the ground in Venezuela.
So Republicans did get something out of it. But you can ask yourself what really changed, and it really is the full-court press that these Republicans received from Trump and his team.
What have Republican members in Congress been saying about the military use of force in Greenland?
So Greenland, we are seeing an even bigger break potentially than what we saw with Venezuela and from a cast of characters that aren’t the usual critics of Trump.
Republican senators specifically are sort of like, what are we doing here with Greenland? Certainly people are not on board with military force: the speaker of the House, the leader of the Republican Senate, have said military action in Greenland would not be a good idea.
And then even when it comes to the purchase of Greenland, you have the chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS), who came out of a meeting with Danish officials and said, we should not be talking about the purchase of Greenland. That’s not what these officials want.
And there’s a lot of Republicans, even more so privately who I’m talking to who are kind of hoping that Trump isn’t serious about this. And so I think Republicans are trying to not get ahead of where the president is here. They don’t want to draw a firm line until they see exactly what Trump is going to do. But there is this sort of trepidation in this sort of, I don’t know, maybe even quiet finger crossing that Trump is going to drop this, he’s going to move on, and that what he’s saying about Greenland isn’t actually going to come to fruition.
Is there any kind of willingness for Congress to reign in that power right now, if we think even beyond the war powers resolution? How much is there discussion of Congress’s own role? How much are members talking about that?
It’s a huge topic of conversation.I think that’s why the war powers resolution votes were such a big deal because this question is front and center for both Democrats and Republicans. This is no longer a partisan question, but this is about protecting the institution of Congress, the legislative branch, and when it comes to the foreign intervention.
More specifically, when I’ve been asking this question to Republicans, they are pointing to a number of examples in recent history that show that the degradation of Congress, specifically when it comes to war powers, has been happening for a long time. If you go back to Obama and the bombing of Libya and going into Pakistan to get Osama bin Laden, those were things that happened without congressional approval.
And so yes, what’s happening right now is putting a real spotlight on the issue. But I think for people to really understand this, we have to go way back. This is something that Congress has sort of been ceding power bit by bit, and it finds us in this potential crisis that we’re in now.
And I think the real question that I continue to ask in my reporting, and I still don’t find an answer to, is what is going to be the red line that gets people to actually say, okay, enough is enough.
2026-01-17 20:00:00
2026年1月12日，德黑兰举行了一场支持政府的集会，安全人员在场。由于伊朗政府在1月8日切断了互联网，使9000多万人口陷入数字黑暗，因此很难了解该国的真实情况。镇压反政府抗议活动已导致至少2600人死亡，一些估计则高达20000人。根据美国的人权活动组织“人权活动家新闻社”（Human Rights Activists News Agency）的报告，已有超过18000名抗议者被捕。抗议活动始于12月底，最初是由于经济状况恶化，后来演变为更广泛的反政府运动，人们要求结束阿利·哈梅内伊的统治。目前，伊朗里亚尔是世界上最不值钱的货币，该国的通货膨胀率约为40%，使大多数民众难以负担基本生活必需品。伊朗正经历一场长期的经济危机，主要由制裁、政府紧缩政策以及去年与以色列的战争引发。许多地区，包括首都德黑兰，都面临严重的、持续的干旱，我在11月曾对此做过报道。政府还在1月8日切断了电话线路。尽管政府在周二放宽了一些限制，允许部分伊朗人本周进行国际通话，但许多人仍然合理地担心政府的监控。境外人士仍无法拨打伊朗国内的电话。周二，德黑兰的一些人向美联社表示，短信服务仍然中断，互联网用户只能连接到政府批准的本地网站，而无法访问国际网站。因此，埃隆·马斯克的星链（Starlink）——通过卫星接收地面终端的无线电信号，为难以到达的地区提供高速互联网接入——已成为伊朗人分享地面情况的重要工具。SpaceX已将星链服务对伊朗的数万用户免费开放，但由于伊朗政府去年将使用卫星互联网服务如星链定为犯罪行为，因此使用它的人面临重大风险。然而，许多伊朗人仍在使用星链。正如伊朗互联网权利组织Filter. Watch所指出的，政府试图干扰星链卫星信号，并积极搜捕他们认为在使用该服务的人。星链终端的新更新部分抵消了政府的干扰企图。自2022年星链启动以来，活动人士已将数万个终端走私进入伊朗。开发者还创建了工具，使星链连接可以超越单个终端。政治科学家、卡内基国际和平基金会高级研究员史蒂夫·费尔德斯坦（Steve Feldstein）通过电子邮件告诉我：“星链的一大问题是，它最终代表了通信的一个单一故障点。”尽管如此，星链仍然是伊朗人目前的最佳选择。“没有其他工具能像星链一样为伊朗公民提供如此广泛的可扩展性和经济性。”费尔德斯坦说。在虚假信息和故意模糊真相可能掩盖死亡人数或隐藏暴行发生的情况下，卫星——不仅仅是星链——正在证明其在揭露人道主义危机中的重要性。没有它们，世界将陷入黑暗。
卫星是人权问题
在信息封锁或无法进出的时期，卫星是唯一能够追踪人道主义危机的方式。11月，我的同事萨拉·赫尔施兰德（Sara Herschander）报道了苏丹内战，其中暴力程度之高，甚至可以从太空看到。由于通信中断，只有卫星图像和带有地理定位的社交媒体帖子提供了暴行的证据。目前，约有15000颗卫星在地球轨道上运行，近年来随着公司推出大规模卫星网络（称为“巨型星座”）以提供宽带互联网接入，这一数字迅速增长。其中大多数卫星位于近地轨道，距离地球表面最高可达1200英里。近地轨道上活跃的卫星中，超过三分之二属于星链巨型星座。请稍等一下，但如果你关心地球上的事，我们有一个必须担心的问题：太空交通。据预测，到2040年，地球轨道上将有超过56万颗卫星。我们发射的卫星越多，它们相互碰撞或碎片相撞的风险就越大。这可能导致大规模的服务中断，最坏的情况下，甚至引发所谓的“基瑟尔综合症”（Kessler syndrome）。这是一种连锁反应的碰撞现象，可能导致近地轨道变得无法使用，这意味着卫星发射将停止，我们的太空探索梦想也将终结，同时GPS、天气警报和卫星互联网等技术将受到严重干扰。但这是最坏的情况，SpaceX已经意识到这一点。该公司于1月1日宣布，计划在本年度内将4400颗卫星从距离地球表面342英里降低到298英里，以减少碰撞风险。2023年，联合国国际电信联盟估计，全球约有26亿人——占世界人口的三分之一——无法接入互联网。联合国认为互联网接入是一项人权。低轨道卫星变得越来越难以使用的一个被忽视的后果是，失去卫星互联网和图像，这将使我们无法看清真实情况。卫星图像是我们了解乌克兰、苏丹等冲突地区局势的重要手段。如果卫星受到威胁，真相也将受到威胁。
It’s difficult to know exactly what is happening in Iran since the government shut down the internet on January 8, plunging a nation of more than 90 million people into digital darkness.
Crackdowns against anti-government protesters have led to at least 2,600 deaths, although some estimates put the death toll at upward of 20,000. According to the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency, more than 18,000 protesters have been arrested.
The protests began in late December in response to dire economic conditions and took on a broader anti-government character as people demanded the end of Ali Khamenei’s rule. The Iranian rial is now the least valuable currency in the world. The country has an inflation rate of about 40 percent, making necessities unaffordable for most people. Iran is struggling through a long-lasting economic crisis, driven by sanctions, government austerity measures, and last year’s war with Israel. Many parts of the country, including the capital of Tehran, face severe and unrelenting drought, as I reported in November.
The government also cut phone lines on January 8. While the government eased some of these restrictions on Tuesday, allowing some Iranians to make international calls out of the country this week, many reasonably fear government surveillance. People outside the country remain unable to call Iranians. Several people in Tehran called the Associated Press on Tuesday, saying that text messaging services remain down and that internet users could connect to local government-approved websites but not to international ones.
So Elon Musk’s Starlink — which provides high-speed internet access in difficult-to-reach places via satellites that receive radio signals from user terminals on the ground — has become a lifeline for Iranians trying to share what is happening on the ground. SpaceX has made Starlink free for its tens of thousands of Iranian users, but since the Iranian government criminalized the use of satellite internet services like Starlink last year, they face substantial risk in accessing it illegally.
And yet many Iranians are using it anyway.
If satellites are in jeopardy, so is the truth itself.
According to Iranian internet rights group Filter.Watch, the government has attempted to jam signals from Starlink satellites and is actively hunting down people they believe to be using the service.
New updates to the Starlink terminals thwarted some of the government’s efforts to jam the signal. Since Starlink launched in 2022, activists have smuggled terminals into the country, and there are now about 50,000 hidden in the country. Developers have created tools to share Starlink connections beyond a single terminal.
“A big problem with Starlink is that ultimately it represents a single point of failure for communications,” Steve Feldstein, a political scientist and senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told me over email. Despite this, Starlink is the best option Iranians have. “No other tool provides as much scalability and affordability to Iranian citizens,” Feldstein said.
At a time when disinformation and intentional obfuscation can downplay the scale of death or hide that atrocities are occurring at all, satellites — and not just Starlink’s — are proving their place in uncovering humanitarian crises. Without them, the world will be left in the dark.
Satellites are effectively the only way to follow humanitarian crises during information blackouts or when no one can get in or out. In November, my colleague Sara Herschander reported on the Sudanese civil war, in which the violence is so severe the bloodshed is visible from space. Only satellite imagery and geolocated social media posts provided evidence of the atrocities due to a communication blackout.
Around 15,000 satellites currently orbit the Earth; the number has rocketed up in recent years as companies launch large satellite networks called megaconstellations to provide broadband internet access. Most of them are in low Earth orbit, up to 1,200 miles above the Earth’s surface. More than two-thirds of active satellites in low Earth orbit belong to the Starlink megaconstellation.
Bear with me for a second, but if you care about what’s happening on Earth, there’s one thing we have to worry about: space traffic.
By 2040, there will be more than 560,000 satellites in orbit. The more satellites we send up, the greater the risk that they will collide into one another or bits of space junk. This could lead to massive service disruptions, or in the worst case, lead to a phenomenon known as Kessler syndrome. That’s when a cascade of new collisions happens in a chain reaction, potentially rendering low Earth orbit unusable — meaning no more satellite launches, an end to our space exploration ambitions, and the severe disruption of technologies like GPS, weather alerts, and satellite internet.
But that’s a worst-case scenario, and SpaceX is aware of it. The company announced on January 1 that it plans to lower 4,400 of their satellites from 342 to 298 miles above the Earth’s surface over the course of the year to reduce collision risks.
In 2023, the United Nations’ International Telecommunications Union estimated that 2.6 billion people — a third of humanity — lack internet connectivity. The UN considers internet access to be a human right. An underappreciated consequence of low Earth orbit becoming increasingly unusable is losing satellite internet access and imagery that allows us to see past rhetoric.
Satellite imagery is how we know what is happening in conflict zones like Ukraine and Sudan. If satellites are in jeopardy, so is the truth itself.
2026-01-17 19:00:00
2026年1月9日，伊朗德黑兰的抗议活动中，示威者封锁了街道。| MAHSA/中东图片/法新社/盖蒂图片社
伊朗政权正处于困境之中。最近的抗议浪潮、政府的血腥镇压以及美国直接干预的威胁，都标志着该国现代历史上的一个重大转折点。目前，伊朗伊斯兰共和国的发展轨迹不可持续——如果不进行调整，经济的逐步崩溃和对反对声音日益依赖武力镇压，将导致政府陷入痛苦的缓慢衰亡。对许多人来说，这增加了政权更迭的可能性。至少有一些抗议者似乎支持流亡的伊朗前国王巴列维之子雷扎·帕尔拉维，他公开表示如果当前政权倒台，他愿意担任领导角色。然而，过去两周的事件也揭示了这种变革的障碍：热情但组织松散的反对派、愿意以暴力维持统治的政权、团结一致的精英阶层不愿看到政权被推翻，以及国际社会因缺乏选择和资源而束手无策。如果伊朗发生变革，它很可能来自政权内部，尽管这似乎是一个令人不快的前景。
历史上不乏非民主政权为了自保而进行内部调整的例子。伊朗领导人深知当前的困境，并很可能已达成共识，认为必须改变内外政策，以避免国家陷入灾难性的混乱和缓慢崩溃。然而，有一个因素阻碍了他们的行动：最高领袖阿里·哈梅内伊。现年86岁的他已担任此职超过30年。他的职位并非一成不变，而是利用这一职位塑造了“系统”（即伊斯兰共和国政权）及其内部结构。在伊朗与伊拉克战争期间，他曾担任总统，而作为一位中级宗教领袖，他被伊朗革命领袖霍梅尼选为接班人，于1989年成为最高领袖。他之所以被选中，是因为其革命热情，而非资历或管理能力。最初，哈梅内伊只是名义上的最高领袖，而非真正的最高权力者。他必须与其他政治强人分享权力，尤其是曾担任总统的哈桑·拉夫桑贾尼。与在现有体系内运作不同，哈梅内伊建立了一个平行体系。他通过“领袖办公室”将利益和资源分配给一个由“基金会”构成的网络，这些基金会形成了一个只有其忠诚支持者才能进入的影子经济。随之而来的还有“影子军队”——伊斯兰革命卫队，这支部队从革命的保镖发展为覆盖伊朗经济多个领域的军事工业复合体。伊斯兰革命卫队不仅是伊朗最强大的军事力量，而且比国家军队（阿塞什）更小但待遇更好、装备更精良。此外，它还涉足媒体、能源、建筑、武器等行业，所有这些都与哈梅内伊的办公室和本人紧密相连。因此，哈梅内伊对政权拥有如此大的权威，不仅因为他名义上是最高领袖和军队总司令，还因为国家最富有的机构和人物都与他有着数十年的联系。
在委内瑞拉，当美国突袭导致尼古拉斯·马杜罗下台后，副总统迅速接管政权，并迅速调整政策以应对政权面临的直接外部威胁。然而，只要哈梅内伊还活着，他的地位就很难被挑战，因为他就是维系“系统”的粘合剂。即便如今需要改变已显而易见，成功地将他排除或取代似乎也难以想象。
伊朗伊斯兰共和国已陷入绝境。该政权本就面临合法性下降的问题，现在又以令人震惊的暴力手段镇压了民众的抗议。仅靠武力统治已无法维持。许多精英阶层已经意识到这一点，并公开呼吁改革。然而，他们始终对哈梅内伊保持恭敬，因为他是关键决策者。许多他的决策显得顽固甚至不合理。例如，他不会允许与美国直接对话，也不会允许伊朗放弃要求拥有铀浓缩权的立场，尽管这将带来急需的制裁解除。他继续支持伊朗在地区内的代理人，包括真主党，尽管这些组织已成为伊朗的负担，消耗了国家急需的资金。哈梅内伊还保护腐败分子，阻碍对伊斯兰共和国脆弱的文官政府进行改革。他是一位强硬的保守派，迟迟不愿放松对女性强制头巾的规定，这项宗教要求由国家道德警察执行，而许多政权内部的精英阶层也承认，这一规定已成为反政府抗议的焦点。此外，他尤其反对向伊朗政治体系引入更多竞争和民主问责，命令由宗教人士主导的监护委员会取消他视为过于自由主义的政治人物的资格。他尤其不愿让与2009年绿色革命有关的曾经受欢迎的人物得到平反，认为他们是有危险的对手。
将伊朗转变为一个自由、民主的国家，可能是大多数伊朗人的愿望。但这种转变不太可能在伊斯兰共和国体制下实现。然而，如果进行内部调整，改善人民生活条件并部分理性化伊朗的外交政策，这种变革并非不可能。历史上有大量证据表明，独裁政权曾采取类似策略以避免解体。哈梅内伊年事已高，因此一旦他离开权力中心，伊朗可能有机会更早地进行重组，前提是过渡过程相对平稳。例如，邓小平在1960年代和70年代初的混乱之后，推动了市场改革和经济现代化，而毛泽东的去世为长期推迟的变革提供了关键契机。韩国在1980年代通过推动经济现代化和民主化，摆脱了朴正熙的独裁统治。在中东地区，阿拉伯海湾君主国在2010年代初的阿拉伯之春后，更加重视向民众提供实际的经济利益，因为这场运动推翻了多个长期独裁政权，并引发了其他国家的抗议和动荡。然而，伊朗的统治者是否会采取类似的策略尚不确定。由于许多精英阶层持有与最高领袖相同的顽固保守立场，他们可能会进一步加强镇压，最终导致更多暴力。但如果伊朗领导人决定拯救国家，摆脱他们造成的混乱局面，那么一旦哈梅内伊退出舞台，一个变革的契机可能会很快出现。
Iran’s regime is on the ropes. The recent wave of protests, the government’s bloody crackdown, and the US threat of direct intervention all mark a profound turning point in its modern history.
The Islamic Republic’s current trajectory is unsustainable — without a course correction, a gradual internal disintegration of the economy and the increasing reliance on force to suppress dissent will doom the government to a painful death, albeit a slow one.
For many, this has increased the possibility of regime change. At least some protesters seem to be supportive of Reza Pahlavi, the exiled son of the deposed Shah of Iran, who has openly auditioned for a leading role if the current government falls.
But the events of the last two weeks also illustrate the obstacles to such a transformation: an impassioned but disorganized opposition, a brutal state willing to kill to maintain its position, a unified elite who will band together to save their regime rather than see it overthrown, and an international community hamstrung by a lack of options and resources. If change comes to Iran, it will likely come from within the system, as unsavory a prospect as that might seem.
History is replete with nondemocratic governments course-correcting to save themselves from destruction. Iran’s leadership are well aware of their predicament, and there is likely a quiet consensus that the country must change its domestic and foreign policy to avoid a catastrophic slide into chaos and slow collapse.
There is one thing standing in their way: Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
Now 86 years old, Khamenei has held his post for more than three decades. It has not been a static role; rather, Khamenei has used his post to shape the nezam, or “system” as the Islamic Republic’s regime is generally known, and his position within it.
A mid-ranking cleric and president during Iran’s bloody war with Iraq, Khamenei was selected by the republic’s founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, to be his successor as supreme leader in 1989. Khamenei was chosen for his revolutionary zeal, rather than his seniority or managerial acumen.
Initially, Khamenei was supreme leader but not supreme. He had to share power with other political heavyweights, most notably Hasan Rafsanjani, who served as president throughout much of the 1990s.
Rather than work within the existing system, Khamenei built a parallel one. He used the bayt-e rahbari, or Office of the Supreme Leader, to distribute patronage and largesse through a network of “foundations” that functioned as a shadow economy only his loyal supporters could access. With a shadow economy came a shadow army: the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which grew from the praetorian guard of the revolution into a military-industrial complex sprawling across much of Iran’s economy. The IRGC is not just Iran’s most powerful military outfit — smaller, but better paid and equipped than the national army, or Artesh — but a conglomerate covering media, energy, construction, arms, and other industries, all closely linked to Khamenei’s office and person.
This is why Khamenei exercises such authority over the regime. It is not just because he is nominally supreme and commander-in-chief of the military, but because the country’s richest and most powerful institutions and actors are linked to him through decades of association.
In Venezuela, leader Nicolás Maduro’s removal after a US raid left room for the vice president to take over the government and quickly adjust policy to quell an immediate outside threat to the regime’s rule. But so long as Khamenei is alive, his position atop the regime is unlikely to be challenged, as he is glue holding the nezam together. A successful internal effort to sideline or remove him is hard to contemplate, even as the need for one has become self-evident.
The Islamic Republic has reached a dead end. Already suffering from declining legitimacy, the regime has now suppressed a popular revolt with breathtaking violence. It cannot rule by force alone. Many of the elite know this and have been vocally expressing the need for reform. Yet they always do so while paying obeisance to Khamenei, who remains the key decisionmaker.
Many of those decisions look stubborn, even irrational. Khamenei won’t condone direct talks with the US, nor will he permit Iran to back away from demanding the right to enrich uranium, despite the fact that a nuclear deal would bring desperately needed sanctions relief. He continues to decree support for Iran’s regional proxies, including Hezbollah, which Iran supplied with some $1 billion last year, despite the fact that these groups have become liabilities that drain the country of badly needed cash. Khamenei shields corrupt figures within the network of the bayt and stymies efforts to apply reform to the Islamic Republic’s ramshackle civilian government.
A rigid hardliner, he has dragged his feet on relaxing mandatory hijab for women, a religious headcovering requirement enforced by state morality police, something many of the regime’s elite acknowledge is necessary given how much it has become a rallying point for anti-government protests. And he is especially averse to opening Iran’s political system to more competition and democratic accountability, directing the cleric-dominated Guardian Council to disqualify politicians he deems too liberal. He has been especially averse to allowing formerly popular figures linked to the 2009 Green Revolution to be rehabilitated, seeing them as dangerous rivals.
Iran’s transformation into a liberal, democratic nation is likely the desire of most Iranians. It is unlikely to happen under the Islamic Republic.
But a course-correction that improves living conditions and rationalizes (to some extent) Iran’s foreign policy is not impossible, and there is ample historical evidence of authoritarian systems taking that route to save themselves from disintegration. Khamenei’s advanced age makes it much likelier that Iran will have a chance to reorganize itself sooner rather than later once he departs the scene, provided the transition is relatively smooth.
China under Deng Xiaoping embraced market reforms and pursued aggressive economic modernization following the chaos of the 1960s and early 1970s, with leader Mao Zedong’s death in 1976 providing a key opening for long-deferred changes. South Korea pursued economic modernization and democratization in the 1980s following the one-man rule of Park Chung-hee. In the Middle East, Arab monarchies in the Persian Gulf became much more conscious of delivering real economic benefits to the people following the Arab Spring in the early 2010s, which toppled longtime authoritarian governments in multiple countries while raising fears of similar protests and uprisings elsewhere.
There is no guarantee that Iran’s rulers opt for such a strategy. There is ample scope for Iran to fall deeper into crisis, as its elite — many of whom share the obstinate hardliner views of the supreme leader — double down on more repression and ultimately more violence against any sources of dissent.
But should Iran’s leaders decide to rescue their country from the spiral of chaos they have inflicted upon it, an opening may appear soon, once Khamenei exits the stage.
2026-01-17 04:00:00
2026年1月15日，德黑兰恩格拉布广场上悬挂着一幅巨大的横幅。| 新华社/盖蒂图片社
伊朗抗议者真的能指望美国“出手相助”吗？这是特朗普总统本周早些时候在Truth Social上承诺的，他还表示“伊朗爱国者应继续抗议，夺取你们的机构！！！”早在1月2日，特朗普就曾威胁称，如果伊朗继续杀害抗议者，美国将“准备就绪”发动袭击，并随后多次发出类似言论。然而，自那以后，抗议活动已蔓延至全国，而伊朗政权的镇压也愈发残酷。尽管全国范围的互联网中断使得外界难以准确了解伊朗国内的实际情况，但人权组织估计，可能已有12000至20000人丧生。无论如何，伊朗政权显然无视了特朗普的警告。
几天前，特朗普似乎倾向于对伊朗政权目标发动军事打击，这是自去年6月美国袭击伊朗核设施以来的首次。但周三，他却显得更加犹豫，称“重要消息来源”告诉他伊朗的杀戮已经停止，并表示美国将“观察并看情况如何发展”。据报道，以色列和一些阿拉伯国家政府已敦促特朗普暂时不要采取军事行动，担心引发地区报复。尽管暴力可能正在减缓，但这种减缓可能更多是因为伊朗政权担心美国干预，而非抗议活动本身开始减弱。
然而，局势仍然复杂多变——抗议活动和反制措施都可能再次爆发，而美国政府内的一些强硬派仍呼吁特朗普采取更加强硬的行动。尽管特朗普以他独特的方式处理这一危机，但美国是否应使用军事力量阻止海外的大规模杀戮这一基本困境，曾多次困扰他的前任总统。
特朗普的国家安全团队似乎在是否干预的问题上存在分歧，但据CNN报道，特朗普本人认为必须兑现威胁以维护自身信誉。他说：“他现在设定了一个红线，他觉得必须采取行动。”每当华盛顿的国家安全讨论中提到“红线”时，所指的都是奥巴马在2013年拒绝对叙利亚阿萨德政权采取军事行动的先例。当时，阿萨德使用化学武器杀害了数百名平民，而奥巴马曾表示这是“红线”，将改变他是否介入冲突的判断。特朗普多次指责奥巴马未能执行这一“红线”，导致阿萨德政权在任期初期犯下更多暴行。尽管特朗普在第一次竞选期间对叙利亚的干预并不特别热衷，甚至曾提议与阿萨德合作对抗极端组织“伊斯兰国”，但最终他还是下令对2018年的一次化学武器袭击进行空袭。
政治学家可能对“信誉”这一概念持怀疑态度，但特朗普显然认为在国际舞台上不能表现出软弱。如果以2013年的叙利亚为先例，可能促使特朗普采取行动，那么2011年的利比亚则可能成为他犹豫的另一个例子。当时，美国领导的北约空袭行动旨在阻止卡扎菲政权对的黎波里反对派控制的城市班加西发动屠杀。虽然推翻了卡扎菲的独裁政权，但利比亚随后陷入内战和混乱，导致北非地区出现武装冲突和大规模移民。如今，大多数美国人记得“班加西”事件，不是因为2011年阻止了屠杀，而是因为2012年发生的袭击事件，导致两名美国外交官和两名CIA特工丧生。
特朗普的军事行动是否达到了目标？尽管没有导致新的伊拉克或越南式战争，但其行动的效果并不明显。在特朗普的两次导弹袭击后，阿萨德政权仍继续屠杀平民，包括使用化学武器。也门、伊朗和委内瑞拉的军事行动也没有阻止胡塞武装对红海商船的袭击，或对以色列的攻击。尽管“午夜锤行动”对伊朗的核计划造成了一定损害，但并未“彻底摧毁”它。正如以色列分析师丹尼尔·西特里诺维奇所指出的，美国在应对伊朗问题上正面临某种战略困境。“通过有限、短期的行动，无法实现具有决定性战略成果的可信路径。”他写道。简短、迅速、低风险的行动对削弱政权或支持反对派作用不大，而长期、高成本的行动则可能引发报复，并且在美国国内可能缺乏公众支持。据昆尼皮亚克大学本月的一项民意调查，70%的选民反对对伊朗抗议者采取军事行动。
特朗普很少在政治上方便的时候低调地宣称胜利，无论实际情况如何。例如，他不断列举自己声称结束的战争清单。另一方面，如果伊朗的暴力已经减缓，他可能借此机会宣称胜利，而无需实际干预。然而，这对伊朗人民的帮助却微乎其微。
回顾1991年2月15日，老布什总统在“沙漠风暴行动”开始一个月后发表演讲，呼吁伊拉克军队和人民自行采取行动，迫使萨达姆·侯赛因下台。这一信息通过广播和传单传播至伊拉克，数千名伊拉克人响应号召，包括叛变的士兵、南部什叶派和北部库尔德人，他们早已希望推翻政权并发动大规模起义。然而，如果这些伊拉克人期待美国支持他们的起义，他们最终会失望。美国在两周后宣布停火，尽管停火协议禁止美军使用固定翼飞机，但萨达姆的军队仍使用直升机镇压起义。尽管这一行为违反了协议的精神，但布什政府选择不介入，担心伊拉克完全崩溃或引发另一场“越南战争”般的冲突。随后，多达6万名什叶派和2万名库尔德人死于镇压行动。
很难判断特朗普呼吁伊朗人“继续抗议”是否激励了他们冒着死亡或监禁的风险走上街头。这次抗议背后的经济和政治不满早于特朗普，而且抗议活动在没有他鼓励的情况下就已经开始。但可以肯定的是，尽管推动民主和国家建设并非该政府的优先事项，特朗普仍视抗议为削弱对手的工具。这场斗争远未结束，军事干预仍有可能发生，但伊朗人民恐怕不会是第一个在美国鼓励下反抗独裁政权，却最终发现美国愿意支持他们的程度有限的案例。
Is help really “on its way” for Iran’s protesters?
That’s what President Donald Trump promised in a Truth Social post earlier this week, adding that “Iranians Patriots” should “KEEP PROTESTING – TAKE OVER YOUR INSTITUTIONS!!!”
Trump first threatened that the US was “locked and loaded” to launch strikes on Iran if it continued killing protesters on January 2, and has followed up with several similar messages. Since then, the protests have spread throughout the country, and the regime’s crackdown has become ever more brutal. Though a nationwide internet blackout has made it difficult to get an accurate picture of what’s happening on the ground in Iran, human rights groups believe between 12,000 and 20,000 people may have been killed. At the very least, we can say that the regime defied Trump’s warning to stop killing protesters.
Just a few days ago, Trump appeared to be leaning toward military strikes on Iranian regime targets, the first since the US bombed Iranian nuclear targets last June. But Trump appeared more equivocal on Wednesday, saying that “important sources” had told him that the killing in Iran had ended and that the United States would “watch and see” if it resumed. The governments of Israel and several Arab countries have reportedly urged Trump to refrain from strikes for now, fearing regional retaliation.
The violence may be subsiding, though that may be less because the regime is worried about US intervention than because the protest movement itself is starting to subside amid the unprecedentedly violent crackdown and communications blackout. Still, the situation is fluid —the movement and the backlash could resume, and influential hawks in the administration and on Capitol Hill are still calling for Trump to take stronger action.
While Trump has approached this crisis in his own unique way, the basic dilemma of whether the US should use military force to stop mass killing overseas is one that has repeatedly vexed his predecessors. It isn’t called a “problem from hell” for nothing. As he and his Cabinet weigh their next steps, they face difficult questions about the purpose and efficacy of American intervention that more traditional administrations have dealt with as well.
Trump’s national security team is reportedly split on whether to intervene, but according to a report from CNN, the president himself feels obligated to follow through on his threats in order to preserve his own credibility. “Part of it is that he has now set a red line, and he feels he needs to do something,” one official said.
Whenever “red lines” are invoked in national security debates in Washington now, the precedent being implicitly or explicitly referred to is Barack Obama’s decision in 2013 not to take military action against Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria. In that case, Assad had killed hundreds of civilians with chemical weapons, which Obama had previously said was a “red line” that would change his calculus about whether to intervene in the conflict.
Trump repeatedly referred to Obama’s failure to enforce the “red line,” blaming it for subsequent atrocities by the Assad regime during his first term. Though Trump had not been particularly enthusiastic about intervention in Syria during his first campaign, even suggesting the US should ally with Assad to fight ISIS, he ultimately decided to order the airstrikes that Obama had refused to in response to a chemical weapons attack in 2018.
Political scientists may be skeptical about the idea of “credibility” in foreign policy, but Trump clearly believes in the importance of not showing weakness on the world stage.
If Syria in 2013 is the Obama precedent that may sway Trump toward intervention, Libya in 2011 is the one that may sway him against.
In that case, a US-led NATO air campaign intervened to enforce a no-fly zone in Libya in order to prevent what many feared was an impending massacre by dictator Muammar al-Qaddafi’s forces in the opposition-held city of Benghazi. The intervention led to the overthrow of Qaddafi’s despotic regime, but also Libya’s descent into civil war and chaos, contributing to armed conflict and mass migration throughout North Africa. Most Americans remember “Benghazi” today not for the averted massacre in 2011, but for the attack that killed two US diplomats and two CIA contractors in the city the following year.
Could US intervention bring down the 46-year-old Islamic Republic? If so, what would come next? Iran hawks argue that the country’s widespread opposition and strong civil society signal that it’s unlikely to go the way of Libya or Iraq and devolve into civil war.
Perhaps that’s true. But the president has also consistently shown skepticism toward nation-building missions throughout both his terms, even as he’s intervened in multiple countries. In his military actions thus far, whether the Syria strikes and assassination of General Qassem Soleimani in his first term or the campaigns in Yemen, Iran, and Venezuela in this one, Trump has managed to defy critics who warned he was leading the US into a quagmire, always managing — so far at least — to keep the intervention limited and the backlash manageable.
But that brings up the next issue:
Though none of them turned into a new Iraq or Vietnam, it’s less clear whether Trump’s military actions accomplished their goals. Assad continued to massacre civilians, including with chemical weapons, after Trump’s two missile strikes in 2017 and 2018. The Houthis continued to attack ships transiting the Red Sea as well as Israel, even after the US concluded “Operation Rough Rider” last spring. Iran’s nuclear program was damaged, but not “obliterated” by “Operation Midnight Hammer.”
As the Israeli analyst Daniel Citrinowicz suggests, the US finds itself in something of a strategic dilemma when it comes to its Iran response. “There is no credible path to achieving a decisive strategic outcome through a limited, short-duration campaign,” he writes. A short, sharp, low-risk operation wouldn’t do much to weaken the regime or help the opposition. A long, costly campaign would raise the risk of blowback and would probably get little public support in the US. A poll by Quinnipiac University this month found 70 percent of voters opposed military action to support protestors in Iran.
Trump has rarely been modest about claiming victory when it’s politically convenient, regardless of the facts on the ground. See, for instance, the ever-expanding list of wars he claims to have ended. On the other hand, if the violence in Iran is already subsiding, it may give him an out to claim a win without actually intervening.
This doesn’t do all that much for the people of Iran, however.
On Feb. 15, 1991, about a month into Operation Desert Storm, President George H.W. Bush gave a speech saying that one way for the bloodshed to stop would be for “the Iraqi military and the Iraqi people to take matters into their own hands and force Saddam Hussein, the dictator, to step aside.”
The message was broadcast into Iraq along with leaflets calling for civilians and soldiers to rise up. Thousands of Iraqis responded to the call, including mutinying soldiers, Shiites in the south of the country, and Kurds in the North who had long hoped for the downfall of the regime and launched a mass uprising. But if these Iraqis were hoping the US would support their uprising, they were disappointed. The US declared a ceasefire two weeks later. Though forbidden from flying fixed-wing aircraft under the terms of the ceasefire, Saddam Hussein’s forces used helicopters to put down the uprising. Despite this violation of the spirit, if not the letter, of his deal with the US, the Bush administration chose not to intervene, fearing the complete collapse of Iraq or “another Vietnam” that would draw in US troops. As many as 60,000 Shias and 20,000 Kurds were killed in the ensuing crackdown.
It’s difficult to know to what extent Trump’s calls for Iranians to “keep protesting” motivated Iranians to take to the streets in spite of the risk of death or imprisonment. The economic and political grievances motivating this uprising predate Trump, and the marches began without any encouragement from him. But it’s also clear that while democracy promotion and nation-building are not major priorities for this administration, Trump saw the protests as a useful means of weakening an adversary.
This story is still far from over, and intervention is still very much on the table, but the people of Iran would hardly be the first to rise up against an autocratic government with America’s encouragement, only to find that there are limits to how far the US was actually willing to go to support them.
2026-01-16 21:30:00
如果你觉得身边的技术人员和你的时间线上的人都像是失去了理智，甚至比平时更疯狂，那这正是“Claude Code”带来的体验。如果你明白我在说什么，那你可能要么正在全神贯注地“ vibe coding”（一种充满激情的编程方式），快要进入数字狂喜的状态，要么就是冷汗直流，正在起草“我欢迎我们的AI统治者”的邮件。但如果你以为Claude Code听起来像《纽约时报》的一个文字游戏，还没尝试过，那么这篇FAQ就是为你准备的。
那么，Claude Code到底是什么？没错，它是一种AI工具，可以真正地在你的电脑上执行任务。实际上，它可以处理你电脑上做很多事情。当然，如果你是这篇FAQ的目标读者，那可能不是你，而是那些从不睡觉、从不拒绝、工作效率极高的专家程序员。
它能做些什么呢？说实话，列出它不能做的事情会更容易。但用户已经用Claude Code完成的一些任务包括：一个可以生成短信摘要的Spotify Wrapped程序；从邮件、新闻通讯等中提取信息的个性化每日简报；一个管理Pokémon卡的系统；一个个人DNA分析工具；以及一款“赛博朋克”风格的俄罗斯方块游戏。
你至少需要一个每月20美元的Claude Pro账户才能使用它——没有免费版本。
不过，它名字里有“code”（代码），难道我必须懂编程吗？不用担心！是的，Claude Code是设计用于“命令行界面”（CLI）的，也就是你不用点击图标或写正常句子，而是通过终端输入编程语言命令来操作电脑。哦，哦，哦！我看起来像1995年的《黑客帝国》里的安吉丽娜·朱莉吗？我不太明白你在说什么。没关系，我也不明白！虽然经验丰富的程序员能从Claude Code中获得最大收益（尽管他们也可能会经历更严重的存在主义危机），但使用Claude Code的学习曲线下降得比六旗游乐园的过山车还快，你甚至可以用普通的英语和较少的命令与它互动。当然，它在终端中使用起来会更笨拙一些，但说实话，我也不太信任我们俩能用好它。
总之，使用Claude Code的过程大致如下：1. 你告诉它你想做什么（修复错误或添加新功能）；2. 它会查看整个项目的代码库，包括实际代码、配置文件和测试文件，以理解当前情况；3. 它会编辑相关文件；4. 它可以运行测试或命令来检查是否破坏了其他内容；5. 它会不断迭代。在最好的情况下，它会自主完成整个循环：计划→修改→检查→修复。这就是为什么那些从事软件开发的人会感觉像是从无数小麻烦中解脱了出来。
不过，在最坏的情况下，它可能会删除你的文件、泄露你的信息，或者耗尽你的请求配额。这显然不是什么好事。但我想保留我的所有文件，至少是它们目前的样子。聪明的人啊，Claude Code具有一定的自主性，意味着它可以在较少监督的情况下执行任务。正如任何管理者都知道的，代理（agent）的好处（“它可以自主行动！”）同时也是它的弊端（“哦不，它刚刚自主行动了！”）。因此，如果你开始使用它，一定要非常明确地指示它，比如“不要删除任何东西，我真的很认真。”（幸运的是，默认情况下，Claude Code在执行不可逆操作前仍会提醒你。）
这有点像养育一个拥有超能力的5岁孩子。此外，也要记得备份重要文件。当然，你本来就应该这么做。
不过，我理解为什么这对程序员来说是个大新闻。但对其他人来说，这真的重要吗？当然重要！正如《未来完美》的编辑Dylan Matthews去年所写——借用AI作家兼投资者Leopold Aschenbrenner的一句话——令人担忧的最终结果是“远程工作的替代者”。简而言之，如果你是远程工作者，那你很可能大部分任务都是在电脑上完成的。比如我现在正在做的事情。虽然我不觉得自己在工作中在操作代码，但事实上，我每按一个键，都在间接地操纵代码。大型语言模型，尤其是像Claude的Opus 4.5这样具备复杂推理能力的模型，已经非常擅长思考、分析和编写代码，而且只会越来越好。
Claude Code就是当你给一个语言模型提供工具访问权限（如文件编辑、搜索、运行命令）时，它在你的代码库中执行任务的结果。换句话说，你可以通过设置一些规则（比如可以放宽或移除），让Claude Code在你的代码库中自主工作。因此，如果Claude Code是软件团队的“远程替代者”，那么Claude Cowork则是适用于大多数远程工作者的版本，它能将杂乱的输入转化为可用的输出，速度比你还能说“抱歉，我回头再说”更快。
哦，对了，现在你可能明白为什么Anthropic的CEO Dario Amodei警告说我们可能“在不知不觉中走进白领大屠杀”的局面，因为AI可能会迅速取代大量初级岗位。你试过Claude Cowork吗？还没有——目前Cowork至少需要每月100美元的Max账户，而我得攒钱应对“后工作时代”的到来。
等等，你不是应该是个带来好消息的人吗？没错，我就是！（点击此处订阅我们的通讯。）如果你仔细想想，我们可能看到的不是取代人类工作，而是重新安排工作，将员工转变为管理未来AI代理团队的管理者，负责设定目标、检查输出并做出判断。因此，在这个更乐观的未来里，我们都会成为《办公室空间》中的Bill Lumbergh，指挥我们的AI代理团队填写无数份TPS报告。
哦，这真是个勇敢的新世界，充满了AI代理！是的，我认为我们可以确定的一件事是，这一切将会变得越来越奇怪。而且，会越来越奇怪。但在此期间，除非你打算去破坏数据中心（请不要这么做），否则你真的可以通过这些工具显著提升你的工作效率，甚至改善你的生活。第一次真正创造出一个能正常运行的东西时，那种感觉真的很强大。就像我想象中米奇在《魔幻奇缘》中途时的感受一样。你记得那部电影是怎么结束的吗？最后他们幸福地生活在一起。
If it feels like the tech people in your life and on your timeline have collectively lost their minds — but, like, more than usual — that’s just the Claude Code experience at work.
Now if you know what I’m talking about, you’re either vibe coding so hard you’re about to dissolve into a digital rapture or you’re in a cold sweat and drafting your “I, for one, welcome our AI overlords” email.
But if you think Claude Code sounds like a New York Times word game you haven’t gotten around to trying out, this FAQ is for you.
Okay, so, what is it?
Right, you know how chatbots…chat? As in, write to you, talk to you, compose your college papers? Claude Code, which comes from the AI company Anthropic, is an AI tool that can actually do things with your computer. Actually, many of the things you can do with your computer. (Well, not you, if you’re the target audience for this FAQ, but someone who is an expert programmer who never sleeps, never says no, and works at an impressive speed.)
Do…like what things?
Honestly, it’d be easier to list the things it can’t do with a computer. But an incomplete rundown of what users have accomplished with Claude Code would include: a Spotify Wrapped program but for text messages; personalized daily briefs that pull in emails, newsletters, and more; a Pokémon card management system; a personal DNA analyzer; and a “cyberpunk” Tetris game. You will need at least a $20 a month Claude Pro account — no freebies for you.
…Cool? But it has “code” in the name — do I have to know something about programming?
No worries! Yes, Claude Code is designed to work in what’s known as a “command-line interface,” or the part of your computer where instead of clicking on icons or writing normal sentences, you type commands with a programming language into a terminal, aka the black screen where nerds are entering their code.
Whoa, whoa, whoa! Do I look like 1995 Angelina Jolie in the movie Hackers? I don’t know what any of that means.
It’s okay — neither do I!
It’s true that experienced programmers can get the most out of Claude Code (though they’re also the ones that are undergoing the deepest existential crises). But the learning curve for using Claude Code is descending faster than a Six Flags roller coaster, and you can increasingly interact with Claude Code more or less as you would with a chatbot if you want — with plain English and relatively few commands. Be warned that it’s clunkier than using it in the terminal, but honestly I wouldn’t trust either of us with that.
Bottom line, the process works like this:
In the best-case scenario, it closes the loop, mostly on its own: plan → change → check → fix. That’s why people who build software for a living are acting like they’ve been freed from a thousand tiny paper cuts.
In the worst case, it can, uh, delete your files, leak your secrets, or burn through your rate limits. Which would be bad.
But I would like to keep my files. Ideally all of them. In their current state of existence.
Smart person. Claude Code is agentic-ish, meaning it can carry out tasks with little to no supervision, and as any manager knows, the benefits of an agent (“it can act autonomously!”) are also the drawbacks of an agent (“oh no, it just acted autonomously!”).
So if you start messing around with it, be sure to be very, very explicit in your directions — like, “do not delete anything. I really mean this.” (Fortunately, by default Claude Code still taps you on the shoulder before anything irreversible.) It’s sort of like parenting a 5-year-old with superpowers.
Also, keep backups of anything important. But obviously you already do that.
Uh, sure…moving on, I understand why this is such a big deal for programmers. But does it really matter for the rest of us?
Sure does! As Future Perfect contributing editor Dylan Matthews wrote last year — borrowing a phrase from AI writer/investor Leopold Aschenbrenner — the scary endgame is “drop-in remote workers.”
Put simply, if you are a remote worker, it likely means you execute most of your tasks on a computer. Like I’m doing right now. And while I may not think of myself as manipulating computer code in my work, under the hood, that’s exactly what’s happening with every letter I press in this document.
Large language models — especially complex reasoning ones like Claude’s Opus 4.5, the preferred model for super-charged Claude Code work — are already very good at thinking, analyzing and writing, and they’re only likely to improve.
Claude Code is what happens when you take a language model and give it tool access — file editing, searching, running commands — inside your codebase, with guardrails you can loosen (or, regrettably, remove). In other words, if you’re a remote worker, Claude Code could conceivably “drop in” and do some, most, or maybe all of that work. If chatbots could really just advise, models like Claude Code can actually do.
And Anthropic is already trying to port that same “Claude with hands” feeling out of the programmer cave and into the rest of your digital life. That’s the idea behind the just-released Claude Cowork: Instead of pointing Claude at a codebase, you point it at a normal-person folder — your notes, docs, spreadsheets, PDFs, screenshots, the junk drawer of modern work — and it can read, organize, extract, and draft inside that space to produce real deliverables, not just suggestions.
If Claude Code is a drop-in remote worker for software teams, Cowork is the version that can drop into the work most remote workers actually do: turning messy inputs into usable outputs, faster than you can say “sorry, circling back.”
Uh oh.
Yes, now perhaps you understand why Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei warned that we could be “sleepwalking into a white-collar bloodbath,” with AI wiping out huge numbers of entry-level jobs fast.
Have you tried Claude Cowork?
Nope — Cowork currently requires at least a $100 a month Max account, and obviously I have to save up for the post-work apocalypse.
Wait, aren’t you supposed to be the Good News guy?
Indeed I am! (Sign up for the newsletter here.) And if you squint, you can argue that what we’re likely to see is less replacing human jobs than rearranging them, turning workers into managers of teams of future AI agents, responsible for setting goals, checking outputs, and making judgement calls. So I guess in this more optimistic future, we’ll all be Office Space’s Bill Lumbergh, directing our army of AI agents to fill out infinite TPS reports.
O brave new world, that has such agents in it!
Yeah, I think the one thing we can count on is that it’s going to get weird. I mean, weirder.
But in the meantime, unless you’re planning on going around sabotaging data centers — please don’t — you really can meaningfully improve your work and even your life if you begin to play around with these tools. The first time you actually create something that works is a pretty powerful feeling. Like I imagine how Mickey felt halfway through The Sorcerer’s Apprentice.
Do…you know how that ended?
And they all lived happily ever after.
// end of input
(Disclosure: Future Perfect is funded in part by the BEMC Foundation, whose major funder was also an early investor in Anthropic; they don’t have any editorial input into our content.)
2026-01-16 21:00:00
去年，Z世代观众去电影院的人数显著增加，这表明实体影院体验并未过时。如今，要吸引人们走进电影院并不容易，而流媒体巨头如Netflix（其于12月以830亿美元收购华纳兄弟探索公司）似乎希望你相信，未来的大型电影可能更难在影院上映。这项尚未获得监管批准的巨额交易几乎确认了多厅影院的衰落。在讨论此次合并时，Netflix联合首席执行官Ted Sarandos表示，虽然公司计划在影院上映华纳兄弟的影片，但他并不认为长期独家影院放映对观众来说是“消费者友好的”。这位科技高管或许有道理。尽管像最新《阿凡达》续集这样的CGI大片仍能创下超过10亿美元的票房，但去电影院看电影已不再如从前那样普遍。过去十年，电影票销售持续下滑，新冠疫情更是让这一趋势雪上加霜，票房一度暴跌。2023年的好莱坞罢工也进一步打击了影院的吸引力。在流媒体主导的当下，人们似乎更倾向于在家中观看电影，同时刷TikTok或YouTube。但最近的一些研究显示，并非所有人都在回避实体影院。年轻人显然对这项已有百年的娱乐方式情有独钟。根据Cinema United（全球最大的影院贸易协会）发布的年度《影院展览实力报告》，Z世代的观影人数去年增长了25%。同样，每年至少去影院6次的Z世代观众比例也从2024年的31%上升至去年的41%。而根据2025年国家研究集团的一项调查，更年轻的Gen Alpha群体对去影院的兴趣甚至更高。虽然45%的千禧一代和48%的Z世代表示更喜欢在影院观看电影，但Gen Alpha中有59%的人更倾向于影院体验。在流媒体吞噬发行商的背景下，年轻人似乎赋予了看电影这一曾经随意的活动更多的文化意义。例如，AMC的Stubs A-List会员计划，允许会员每周观看四部电影，如今在社交媒体上已成为一种文化现象。尼科尔·基德曼在AMC影院的开场白仍会引发观众的掌声。此外，电影记录平台Letterboxd和TikTok上的#FilmTok话题，将原本普通的观影活动提升为一种有生产力甚至带有智力成分的爱好。这些在线空间不仅鼓励人们去影院观看新电影，还促使他们在观影时戴上“影评人”的帽子。正如电影作家Will Tavlin所说：“年轻人喜欢去电影院。随着我们接触到越来越多的流媒体内容，人们意识到，‘其实出去和世界互动也很棒。’”这种热情正在挑战流媒体主导的叙事，即人们只想要在家看电影的体验。在社交媒体和人工智能盛行的时代，影院不仅提供了一种逃离数字世界、回归现实的体验，还成为对抗“数字脑腐”（digital brain rot）的一种方式。Rutgers大学的Rutgers Cinemas经理Alex DelVeecchio表示，年轻人其实并不喜欢待在家里。对于这一成长于网络时代的一代来说，流媒体并非像对上一代人那样具有革命性。DelVeecchio说：“这其实是第一代人一直拥有智能手机的一代，所以这些便利和我们喜欢的活动，他们早已习惯，因此在家流媒体并不显得特别。”尽管一些媒体高管认为流媒体的便利性胜过去影院，但年轻人对线下体验有不同看法，尤其是在经历了疫情封锁后。近年来，Z世代愿意为现场活动（如音乐会和体育赛事）花钱，部分原因是对错过体验的恐惧。随着影院尝试通过提供鸡尾酒、晚餐服务等方式提升吸引力，看电影已成为一种独特的社交活动，吸引人们参与其中。Tavlin认为，影院正在将多厅影院体验打造为一种“奢侈”。“他们提高了票价，以创造更特别的观影体验。”他说。这种新的影院体验通常包括一些“噱头”，例如特制商品，如著名的《沙丘》爆米花桶。根据国家研究集团2025年《电影未来》研究，38%的Z世代观众因为可以在座位上点餐而选择去影院。33%的观众则因为影院的沙发式座椅而愿意前往。尽管有些人认为如今的影院正在出售一种高价产品，但这些价格上涨与通货膨胀趋势相符。不过，对一些电影爱好者来说，这些额外的激励措施似乎对年轻人有效，甚至促使他们加入更实惠的忠诚计划。此外，如今的年轻人每天平均花六个小时盯着手机屏幕，而社交媒体上的活动日益增多。去电影院不仅让他们有机会离开卧室，还能观看比无休止的TikTok视频更吸引人或更有思想深度的内容，尤其是在这些平台充斥着人工智能模拟和“脑腐”内容的情况下。当然，年轻人的观影活动仍然与社交媒体密切相关，比如拍照或录制电影片段分享到网络上。他们刚看完电影就会在#FilmTok和Letterboxd上发布评论和评分。总体来看，围绕特定电影系列的在线粉丝文化正越来越多地融入到实际的观影行为中。值得庆幸的是，一些艺术电影发行商，如Neon、A24和Mubi，正通过可拍照的周边商品和强大的社交媒体存在感，吸引更广泛的观众群体。因此，电影的社交属性似乎正在说服更多人成为影迷。在流媒体平台掌控了最著名电影公司的时代，比如Netflix收购华纳兄弟、亚马逊拥有 MGM、迪士尼拥有20世纪影业，人们不禁思考未来影院还能提供什么样的体验。但也许这些体验会比以往更好。Tavlin认为，“好的电影最终会把观众带回影院”，而年轻人也逐渐意识到，他们正在被流媒体提供的低质量、流水线式内容所影响。今年，瑞安·库格勒的吸血鬼电影《罪人》成为15年来票房最高的原创电影，而日本动画电影《咒术回战》则成为美国票房最高的国际影片。恐怖电影《武器》成为票房黑马，而乒乓球题材电影《Marty Supreme》则在圣诞节上映时，创造了A24旗下单厅平均票房最高的纪录。预计Netflix与华纳兄弟探索的交易将在今年夏天完成，这将对流媒体行业构成重大胜利。正如一群担忧的电影制作人写给国会的信中所说，这项交易将“有效地给影院市场套上绞索”，使电影的影院上映窗口期缩短至两周甚至完全取消。然而，年轻人对影院的热情表明，未来的影院市场可能并不那么黯淡。他们是否能像他们曾为黑胶唱片复兴一样，为影院带来文化上的回潮？显然，他们对坐在黑暗的房间里，听尼科尔·基德曼的独白，与陌生人一起享受精彩故事充满热情。也许电影行业最终不得不重视这一点。
It takes a lot to get people to movie theaters these days — and it might get even harder to catch blockbusters on the big screen in the near future.
Or at least that’s what streaming giants like Netflix, which controversially acquired Warner Bros. Discovery in December, want you to think. The staggering $83 billion deal, which is still pending regulatory approval, all but confirmed the hastening demise of multiplexes. In discussing the merger, Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos stated that, while his company plans on releasing Warner Bros. projects in theaters, he doesn’t think long, exclusive theatrical runs for movies “are that consumer-friendly.”
The tech executive may have a point. While CGI-laden blockbusters like the latest Avatar sequel can still bring in more than$1 billion at the box office, going to the movies isn’t what it used to be. Ticket sales have been on the decline for the past decade, and they still haven’t completely recovered after falling off a cliff during the Covid-19 pandemic. (The 2023 Hollywood strikes didn’t help.) With the dominance of streaming services, it seems reasonable to assume that consumers simply prefer to watch feature films from their couches, where they can look at TikTok or YouTube at the same time.
But some recent research suggests that not everyone is avoiding the brick-and-mortar theater. Young people apparently can’t get enough of this century-old pastime.
Last year, there was a 25 percent increase in theater attendance for members of Gen Z, according to the annual Strength of Theatrical Exhibition report from Cinema United, the world’s largest exhibition trade association. Likewise, the number of Gen Z moviegoers who visit theaters at least six times a year rose from 31 percent in 2024 to 41 percent last year. Our youngest cohort, Gen Alpha, is even reporting higher levels of interest in going to the multiplex, according to a 2025 survey by the National Research Group. While 45 percent of millennials and 48 percent of Zoomers said they enjoy watching films on the big screen versus at home, a solid majority of Gen Alpha — 59 percent — said they favor the theatrical experience.
Amid the bleak reality of steamers swallowing up distributors, the once casual experience of moviegoing seems to have taken on some cultural gravity for young people. It’s become a joke — but an apt observation — that AMC Stubs A-List program, the top-tier subscription that allows members to see up to four movies a week, has become its own cult on social media. Nicole Kidman’s now-famous on-screen introduction at AMC Theatres still garners salutes and applause. Most visibly, the popular film-logging platform Letterboxd and #FilmTok, the corner of TikTok where users discuss the buzziest movies, have elevated a formerly mundane activity to a productive and even intellectual hobby. These online spaces have not only encouraged everyone to go out and see new movies but also pushed them to put on their critics hats while doing so.
“Young people like going to the movies. As we’re subjected to more streaming slop, people realize that, ‘Oh, it’s actually nice to go out and be part of the world.’”
Will Tavlin, film writer
This sort of enthusiastic engagement is complicating streamer-driven narratives that at-home movie experiences are all consumers want. In our social media-dominated, AI-addled times, theaters don’t just offer a refreshing dose of reality and connection but a way of combatting digital brain rot.
Alex DelVeecchio, general manager at Rutgers Cinemas on Rutgers University’s campus, says young people ultimately “don’t like to stay at home that much.” For an age bracket that grew up online, streaming isn’t necessarily the novel or groundbreaking technology that it was when introduced to older generations.
“This really the first generation that’s always had a smartphone,” DelVecchio says. “So these things that are big conveniences for us or things that we like to do — they’ve had it forever, so it’s not really all that special to be able to stream everything at home.”
Despite suggestions from some media executives that the convenience of streaming beats going to theaters, young people have a different way of thinking about in-person experiences, especially since they came of age during pandemic lockdowns. In recent years, Gen Z has shown their willingness to splurge on live events, like concerts and sports, partially for a fear of missing out. And as theaters try to be more creative to sell tickets by offering everything from cocktails to dinner service, moviegoing has become its own sort of unique outing that consumers want to be a part of.
“They’ve tried to make the multiplex experience more of a luxury,” says film writer Will Tavlin, citing AMC and Regal’s moves to install plush, reclining seats. “They’re jacking up the prices of tickets to make it more of a special experience.”
This new, theater experience tends to include, in Talvin’s words, “gimmicks,” like special-edition merchandise designed to go viral, such as the infamous Dune popcorn bucket. The ability to order food and drinks from your seat at certain theaters accounts for 38 percent of what’s driving Gen Z to the movies, according to the National Research Group’s 2025 Future of Film study. Couch-like seating (33 percent) is another notable draw.
The idea that once-affordable theaters now sell a premium product is controversial to some, although these increased prices track with inflation. Still, what might seem like unnecessary incentives to some movie lovers appear to be working on young people and even encouraging them to sign up for more cost-friendly loyalty programs.
There’s also the fact that young people today spend six hours a day, on average, looking at their handheld screens, as more activities take place on social media. Going to a movie theater doesn’t just give young people the opportunity to leave their bedrooms. It’s a chance to watch something that’s more engaging or more intellectually demanding than an endless TikTok stream, especially as these feeds become filled with AI simulations and brain rot content.
Of course, theater attendance for young people still includes a social media component, whether it’s taking pictures of the screen or even recording full scenes to share online. Moviegoers post reviews on #FilmTok and Letterboxd as soon as they leave their screenings. In general, the sort of online fan culture that follows specific movie franchises is creeping more and more into the act of moviegoing itself. It helps that arthouse distributors, like Neon, A24, and Mubi, are finding increasing success with general audiences, courting Gen Z with Instagrammable merchandise and a savvy social-media presence. All in all, the social side of moviegoing seems to be persuading more people to become cinephiles.
In a world where streaming platforms own the most iconic movie studios — Netflix is acquiring Warner Bros., Amazon owns MGM, Disney owns 20th Century Studios — it’s worth wondering what kinds of theater experiences will even be available in the future. They might be better than ever. Tavlin, for one, believes that “good movies ultimately get people back to the theater” and that young people are becoming more cognizant when they’re being sold less-than-high-quality, assembly-line products from streamers.
“Young people like going to the movies,” Tavlin says. “As we’re subjected to more streaming slop, people realize that, ‘Oh, it’s actually nice to go out and be part of the world.’”
This year alone, Ryan Coogler’s vampire flick Sinners became the highest-grossing original film in 15 years, while Japanese anime film Demon Slayer became the high-grossing international film in the United States. The horror film Weapons was a box-office hit, while the ping-pong movie Marty Supreme earned A24 its highest per-theater average (the film’s box-office gross divided the numbers of theaters it plays in) when it was released over Christmas.
The Netflix-Warner Bros. deal is expected to close this summer, and it will represent a major coup for the streaming industry. As a group of concerned filmmakers wrote to Congress in a letter, the deal would “effectively hold a noose around the theatrical marketplace,” shrinking the theatrical window for movies for as little as two weeks or eliminating it completely for certain projects. Still, the noticeable fervor around moviegoing signals a future that might not be so bleak.
Can young people do for movie theaters what they did for vinyl after records were pronounced dead, sparking a cultural resurgence and record-high sales? They’re clearly excited to sit in a dark room, listen to a Nicole Kidman monologue, and enjoy compelling stories with a group of strangers. Maybe the film industry will have no choice but to pay attention.