They still think what Palo Alto brought to the table was computer science

Tuesday, April 14th, 2020

Most Americans remember when Washington couldn’t build a website, Mencius Moldbug says, and Palo Alto bailed it out:

They still think what Palo Alto brought to the table was computer science.

Actually, plenty of people in DC can code just fine. What Palo Alto brought was the ability to execute at scale. Back then, some website seemed important. Now we know what important means.

Posted in Business, Policy, Technology | 4 Comments »

Comments

  1. CVLR says:
    April 14, 2020 at 1:30 pm

    Never in history has it been technically easier to control a communicable disease — even one without a vaccine or a cure.
    Yet this technology does not work on its own. Here too we see a test not only of our government, but of our form of government. Nonmedical interventions have to work uniformly and perfectly. Our system of government is incapable of achieving this.

    Here’s an analogy. Suppose you manage a wildlife reserve in Montana — stocked with ten thousand elk. Suddenly this herd is attacked by mad elk disease, for which there is no vaccine or cure. What can you do? Nothing.

    So let’s change the rules. Every elk on your ranch is tagged. It has a number and a tracking chip. There is no vaccine or cure for mad elk disease — but there is a test. You also have a fleet of small, birdlike drones which can land on an elk, and test it — and big ones which can capture and transport live elk.

    I can’t wait to be tagged like wildlife.

  2. Harry Jones says:
    April 14, 2020 at 2:54 pm

    The incidence rates are lower in the places that got hit first. Even if you don’t believe the data from China and Iran, you have neighboring countries to look at.

    This looks to me like it burns itself out. The US and Europe look bad now because they haven’t exhausted their fuel yet.

    It may be herd immunity. The asymptomatic who have recovered without ever knowing they had the virus become a silent majority.

    The northeast of the US looks especially bad. Having once lived there, I blame it on a generally unhealthy environment.

    The west of Europe also looks much worse than the rest of Europe. I have no idea why.

    Everybody take zinc and stay warm. Can’t hurt.

  3. Wang Wei Lin says:
    April 15, 2020 at 7:00 am

    I started to read the Medium article. I just couldn’t make it. My summary of the article was: America sucks! We need a dictator!

  4. Christopher says:
    April 16, 2020 at 8:42 pm

    “America” already has a dictatorship, hidden by a maze of bureaucratic “institutions”; the effect is anarcho-tyranny, mitigated by incompetence and carelessness.

    Clarifying the power structure (like butter) would expose it and give up the game. Americans are already tracked like elk, but to sell them trinkets and give them speeding tickets.

Leave a Reply