Jim: Biotech is arguably AI’s most promising application.
Jim: James James: Granted, the Great Halfrican Uprising Media Spectacle presumably was astroturfed with real money—to the extent that the banks’ circulating credits can be described either as “real” or as “money”—which must then have found its way into the pockets of real people.
Jim: *A media spectacle involving Halfricans somehow, or a different media spectacle involving a rabble of white people wandering the premises of the so-called “People’s House”, one would not.
James James: Black Lives Matter may have been fleeting, but for the people who stole millions of dollars and bought multiple houses, the consequences were not fleeting. These short-term movements could also be conceptualized as temporary astroturf fronts for permanent political machines.
Jim: Politics ordinarily affects the distribution or redistribution of wealth, directly or indirectly, as its ends or as a byproduct. “Follow the money,” as they say. Thus, the enormous shorting of airline stocks just before 9/11 was politics, just as South Carolina’s tax cut on Boomers’ boats is politics, and Florida’s tax cut on Boomers’ houses is politics. By this metric, one would expect “hyperpoliticsR 21; to be something like the seizure of innocent...
Jim: There is hardly anything more unsettling than a parasite.
Jim: Bruce: honored. Isegoria: Thiel’s optimistic thought experiment, as excerpted, fails to suggest any awareness that material production has intrinsic value independent of its successful financialization. As a card-carrying member of the “investor” class, a group of “people” who “allocate capital” (i.e., redirect the allocation of the labor of engineers) in order to “seek returns” (i.e., extract free money), that he would be blind to unpriced,...
Bob Sykes: The US no longer has either the military or industrial base (and maybe not the quality of people) needed to control the Strait of Hormuz. The situation in the Gulf has changed radically since we invaded Iraq. Iran is much stronger in every way, especially in asabiyyah. Iran covers some 600,000 sq mi, and has a population of 92 M. By comparison, Western Europe. The EU and UK combined have a population of 430 M and an area of 1.2 M sq mi. Iran has a modern industrial economy, and is capable of...
Isegoria: You might also consider Thiel’s optimistic thought experiment.
Jim: Just think of it: * Billionaire * Homosexual * Recipient of CIA investment funds * Gives talks at CIA events * Capitalist * Most famously associated with PayPal, the definitive fintech company * Now famously associated with Palantir, the definitive private surveillance company * One of the earliest investors in FaceBook, formerly LifeLog * Funded the foremost rocket company, SpaceX * Funded one of the leading arms producers, Anduril * Many other things * Presumably a bunch of weird stuff that...
Jim: Thiel’s book, read adversarially, is shockingly revealing. I’ve long been intensely amused that he gets away with calling himself a libertarian.
Jim: Correction: The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
Isegoria: Thiel definitely warrants multiple posts. I first mentioned him as part of the PayPal mafia, back in 2007, and then as the head of Founders Fund.
Gaikokumaniakku: I only read Zero to One once, back in 2015 or so, but I should definitely give it another look. I encountered it back then as required reading for the interview process at a tech startup that ended up failing. Peter Thiel is an interesting character that could provide material for several blog posts.
Jim: Peter Thiel’s Zero to One is like The Protocols of the Elders of Zion for capitalist rent-seekers.
Bob Sykes: One of the reasons for the existence of EMT’s was the inability of medics and corpsmen from the Vietnam War to get work as nurses in hospitals and clinics. Nurses and their professional associations adamantly opposed formal recognition of the emergency skills of the men who had served in the war. Eventually EMT’s were added to fire departments as a way of letting the men use their skills, much to the benefit of everyone. The nurses’ resistance to recognizing these men was especially churlish...
Jim: Gaikokumaniakku: “Jim probably knows a lot more about capitalism than I do, and probably could teach me, but probably has better things to do with his time. If anyone wants to chime in with book recommendations, I’m all ears.” Zero to One, by Peter Thiel.
Eric Brown: Ah, no. Railroads got public land *after* building the railroad, not before. Even so, ~80% of the railroad companies got overextended and went bankrupt. Same thing happened with telegraph companies, though they didn’t get public land. There are obvious parallels with the internet and AI.
Gaikokumaniakku: “…’robber-baron capitalism’ was a rhetorical cudgel…” Consider how the USA built railroads. Self-serving crony capitalists got handouts of public land, then used that seed capital to build immense private wealth. These are not the people I point to when I want to indicate capitalism done properly. Jim probably knows a lot more about capitalism than I do, and probably could teach me, but probably has better things to do with his time. If anyone wants to chime in with book recommendations,...
