YouTube — Week of 2026-03-22 to 2026-03-26#

Watch First#

My top recommendation this week is the Hoover Institution’s Ayatollah Once: Don’t Block The Strait, a brilliant masterclass that intersects historical recession data with a stark warning about how the US-Iran war and a closed Strait of Hormuz could trigger a devastating global economic collapse.

Week in Review#

The entire week was completely overshadowed by the escalating US-Iran conflict, the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, and the resulting ripple effects across global energy markets and supply chains. Alongside this heavy geopolitical dread, we are seeing a flood of nuanced takes on AI integration, shifting away from generalized hype toward the pragmatic bottlenecks of chip manufacturing, massive energy demands, and biological data limits.

Highlights by Theme#

News & Business#

Coverage of the Middle East conflict is inescapable, ranging from The Financial Times reporting on a gamified White House propaganda video to The New York Times examining the severe global risks of striking Iran’s Kharg Island, which handles 90% of the country’s oil exports. On the macroeconomic front, 伊朗战争，和全球能源格局 by 小Lin说 masterfully maps the fragile global energy supply chain as the Strait of Hormuz shuts down. Meanwhile, Chinese channel 美投侃新闻 breaks down how this resulting oil shock is shifting Federal Reserve rate expectations and shaking up the stock market.

Learning & Ideas#

The Hoover Institution dominated the week with several deep dives, from Robert George discussing religious pluralism in higher education to a fascinating look at how 1920s Naval War College wargames literally mapped out WWII strategy against Japan. For Chinese speakers, Yuan Sir on LIFEANO CLUB delivered essential historical context, including a brilliant look at how Iranian Bazaari merchants historically allied with clerics before being crushed, and a darkly funny episode on how regimes use monarch portraits—sparked by Mojtaba Khamenei’s absurd use of a cardboard cutout for his succession ceremony. Additionally, Gao Xiaosong offered a highly entertaining cultural history of the linguistic and psychological divide between Beijing’s bureaucratic elites and its laid-back commoners in 晓松聊北京，北京是个什么样的地方.

Tech & AI#

The AI conversation matured significantly this week, with The Embarrassingly Simple Reason AI Can’t Cure Cancer arguing that algorithmic drug discovery is fundamentally bottlenecked by a lack of high-quality human biological data. We are also seeing a massive industry shift toward custom silicon, with ARM announcing a historic pivot to manufacture its own power-efficient AGI server chips, directly threatening Intel and AMD. To support this insatiable compute demand, 美投侃新闻 notes that Microsoft is leasing massive 700-megawatt data centers, underpinning TSMC’s aggressive growth targets.

Everything Else#

For a much-needed break from the news, GQ Taiwan has a fantastic retrospective with the creator and cast of Peaky Blinders breaking down the show’s most iconic moments and behind-the-scenes budget constraints. Finally, BBC Earth delivered pure visual escapism across multiple videos, featuring everything from mischievous urban macaques extorting tourists in India to deep-sea flapjack octopuses and red crabs battling invasive ants.