IR

I think about this line from @nntaleb a lot: "Writing must have some solemnity. Reading and writing, in the past, were the province of the sacred." It explains why I am uncomfortable with both Twitter and LinkedIn. LinkedIn is easy to explain: It instrumentalizes words for the purpose of money and clout—completely reverses the natural hierarchy of things, where money and clout should serve writing, which is among the only phenomena where distilled expressions of both the Logos and Beauty can meet in confluence. But LinkedIn desacralizes writing by making it the tool with which one engages in self-serving inauthenticity—an inauthenticity which is so obvious, and which is only multiplied by its ritual setting, in which one person's inauthenticity is met with inauthentic responses from others. Everyone there knows it's all fake, everyone is complicit, yet everyone does it, because we live in vile times in which doing this is rewarded. The place is a butcher-board for the desacralization of the written word. People on Twitter think this place is a lot better. Takes are smarter, and users are more authentic. Perhaps. The issue is that the deluge of information that comprises the core form factor of the platform fosters a lack of effort to both input and output. You're not meant to slow down, really chew on what is written here—likewise, you throw out thoughts in writing as if that means nothing. There are certainly a lot of things that are very smart here—in fact, the problem is that there are so many of them, that their glut inhibits a collective practice of intellectualism, which cannot be done in haste. And of course, most people aren't even trying to do that, even in haste; it's just information and ideas as ambience—again, a sheer insult to the sanctity of the written word. It's like when people go into great museums with icons and paintings with religious significance to various peoples, and quickly walk past them, minimally taking them in, just getting stimulated, taking photographs (another travesty, another discussion) and, if edified, only to 1% depth of the multitude of vitality and wisdom contained in those entities. (I have acquired the immense wealth of living a twenty-minute walk from the Met recently. I have gotten a membership, and my plan is to go once or twice a week, and going through the material at a rate that takes me a couple years to make it through the whole museum. It's much better this way. For those who say this can only be done in a place of geographical privilege, well, yes, but then if you are only visiting, still go at the same pace, picking just a handful of paintings you are really interested in to truly commune with.) As for this platform: This is the written word we're talking about. It isn't meant to be treated as (un)important as "tweets" ("posts" dignifies what happens here somewhat more, but the form factor remains the same, unless you're using, in vain obscurity, this platform for writing small essays such as this). I am suspicious of people who are consummate at scrolling. It suggests you do not treat writing—and by extension, reading—as something of particular significance. It's not something that matters, it's just something you do whenever and wherever, with a spirit of "whatever". Engagement in and of the written word loses so much of its value if it's not done as a rite—and both LinkedIn and Twitter are guilty of violating it by lending themselves to modes of engagement which, though outwardly different, are nevertheless forms of frivolity.

On the occasion of the ten-year death anniversary of Harambe, here's the monumental essay I wrote about him and internet culture/consciousness then. Interesting to see it now. The quondam cutting edge of the internet and memetics seems so... arcadian now. tinyurl.com/uzz4ywe7

Apple season is OVER. Peach season has BEGUN.

Full moon tonight. Sharad Poonam. I went to the waterfront obviously in time for moonrise. Stayed an hour. Saw few people just admiring, being present to moon. Most stop to click pictures, then walk on. Incredible resistance to accepting the recalcitrance of the moon to be photographed. One woman photographed for five minutes! It won't happen, miss! But no, people think the moon must be captured, and that the only thing to be done is to capture the moon. Sure sign of societal collapse.

Hello long time today I saw Dave Chappelle and two raccoons how are you?

The fact that the Epstein Files, more than anything else over the last decade, are leading to backlash, dissent and even desertion from Trump's core base is super interesting, not just as a reflection of current politics but also as a reflection of human psychology. Yeah the Epstein trafficking and exploitation ring was bad, but from a purely utilitarian standpoint, in terms of simply the amount of suffering brought about in reality, definitely, there is no comparison between, say, the Epstein circle's evils and policy level things—the tariffs, the budget/tax cuts—that affect (arguably negatively) exponentially more people. There are two ways in which the train of thought can go from here. One is that all policy matters are much more debatable in terms of net good or bad than this: The libs may say that deportations create more sadness than happiness, but MAGA can argue back that on the whole, this is what makes for the world with most flourishing, or at least the America with most flourishing or happiness, if that's what they care about. Even for military escalations in Eastern Europe or the Middle East, it's debatable if military aid, even while causing more suffering short-term, can make things better for everyone in the long run. There's no such parallel for the Epstein stuff: The only plus-side was some transgressive sexual pleasure for a small number of guys, which pretty much no one would consider as making up for the suffering that brought about. But the other direction in which it can go is that it's not about the arguability of what's worse. There are many core MAGA people who thought the tariffs are bad, and would even be affected by them personally, and who would perhaps even agree that from a simple human-well-being equation, the tariffs are worse. But the stridency of opposition that Trump's facing from this affair is at a different tenor. It's like the more intuitive moral framework isn't utilitarianism for most people, but what would fall more under virtue ethics: This stuff is just *bad*, and that's it. But is it actually "most further?" I might go further, or narrower. Is it maybe the case that insofar as the Epstein revelations implicated liberal/left-of-center/Democratic-aligned figures, liberals/left-of-center/progressive people care less and cared less than conservatives do about this? I have no data to back this up but my intuition is not. It fits our sense of things that being enraged morally egregious acts like this is much more of a RW thing than a LW thing, since it obviously tracks to RW priorities coming more from traditional frameworks and authority structures, which tend to prioritize individual virtue more than modern humanistic analyses that more influence liberalism and the left. But this also reminds me of the research that shows that liberals/progressives are more dopamine-driven, and conservatives more driven by serotonin and other "here and now" chemicals. It's like the brain chemistry of libs make them concerned about net consequences at abstracted scales into the future, which makes things like what Bill Clinton may have been up to with Epstein not that important, while the brain chemistry of conservatives makes them treat what Trump may have been up to with Epstein far more important. No value judgment about which kind of priming is better or worse of course; just quite interesting...

Thanks Google

Qs for @nntaleb, if he would indulge: Have you read AI 2027? If so, what do you think? Are you simply skeptical of all prediction-attempts with matters as multivariate as this or do you think such efforts can be meaningful? How serious a threat do you think AI is?

See how modern, liberal culture approaches the experience of religion or communion with the Absolute. All about happy, positive vibes, smiley face. Of course, bliss and profound affirmativeness are at the foundation of the Absolute. But this is superficial happiness they are peddling. None of the poignant weight, the gravitas, awe, even terror, the passion, in the deepest sense, that genuine engagement with the Divine entails. Rather just cheap attempts to reside in a consumptory state of just pleasant sensations and feelings.

Informative article about rest-of-world dynamics. Frankly the whole world should get together and just form an alternative planetary order to the exclusion of America (the Economist doesn't say it so frankly). It's not that I wish ill upon America; it's just the most reasonable thing to happening in the rest of the world given that there appear to be no counteracting dynamics on its decay, and there is, to put things most fundamentally, great potential in existence that cannot be held back because of American dysfunction. And when I say no counteracting dynamics, I'm including both American left and right as part of the problem. The right has been co-opted by MAGA and its benightedness, and the there is little sign the left will get its priorities straight away from analyzing and steering everything in terms of its obsession with justice, equity, etc. Honestly both sides (in their dialectic) are reflections of end-stage liberalism, and while that played its role in history, the world needn't depend upon it. (Liberalism is genetically rooted in the UK, but there was always a reactionary pull against it there that America, where it really came to its consummation, never had. The geochemical possibilities of capitalist modernity in America also have enabled liberalism to reach terminal stage there first.) In terms of the nitty-gritty, one big question is the extent to which China would be part of an alternative world order. The rest of the world for legitimate reasons has gripes with it, but while the Economist equivocates about its inclusion in an alternative global economic architecture (fairly, because it is being descriptive, and right now it's not clear to what extent China will be integrated), I'm not sure whether such a new architecture can work without China. First of all, such an order would need a single powerful actor to stand up to the US, which will be a whiny, entitled child through this whole process, when needed. Second, Chinese economic heft is still undeniable and necessary. Third and fourth, more specifically and respectively, it is the second biggest AI actor in the world and that is important, and it is the biggest clean energy economy (both in supply and demand) and that by itself gets it brownie points for an embrace as of 2025. Of course, the rest of the world has issues with how Chinese protectionism also screws them over; I think that the cost/difficulty of turning a new page there is simply less than that of getting America to return to its prior position as global, anchoring lucida, and of forming a viable global architecture that can flourish without the US or China. This said, I buy the Economist's argument the EU may have more executive power in such an order. They neglect India, which they (fairly) call a strategic hedger along with a few other countries, and its transactionality in international affairs may reduce its standing to be the new executive, though I think things could change in India fast enough to make it possible (though they probably won't); especially if the rest of the world doesn't want a China-dominated order, India gains credence through that preference. But Europe, because of its trade partnerships, is now suddenly a bigger executive prospect in the world than it's been in almost a century: "The EU and its open-market allies could form a formidable bloc ... the open-market bloc is big enough to rebuild a trade order from the wreckage of Mr Trump's war." The big problem with what I'm envisioning is simply America's military might, and also now AI. I honestly could see Trump even getting into military retaliation, all the way up to nuclear punishment, against its former allies if they decide to go their own way. But that's another reason China has to be included. Still, the trade order is one thing, but it's not everything, and without a global security architecture that also doesn't need America, a trade order may be difficult to erect, and that may harder to do as things stand. And as for AI, I really have no predictions (at least here) to make about when and to what extent that will change all the equations. Like I said a few days ago, what has happened in the last couple weeks makes more than anything that has happened in the last several years for the abdication of America's role as chief operator (and beneficiary) of the global order, which is of epochal significance. It's not exactly a comfortable position to say this sitting in the USA right now, but if I were to take a solar system POV toward Earth, the rest of the world can and just needs to move on. It may even be better on the whole if it does. economist.com/finance-and-ec…