Henry Farrell
Professor of international affairs at Johns Hopkins SAIS and co-author, with Abraham Newman, of Underground Empire: How America Weaponized the World Economy.
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What they believe
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An individual cannot simultaneously be authoritative, general, and prolific.
The point, as the title of this post suggests, is that this is a genuine trilemma. Assuming ordinary human limitations, an individual poaster can’t really do all three at once.
programmablemutter.comSaid 13 Oct 2026This on korrents
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Ideas forming the 'ideology of technological salvation' helped inspire the development of so-called frontier AI models.
This heady concoction of ideas helped inspire the development of the so-called frontier models that have reshaped thinking about AI over the past four years.
programmablemutter.comSaid 2 Oct 2026This on korrents
The bold line is korrents’ wording; the quote is theirs. These 2: what they wrote before what they said aloud, one per source, newest first.
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As its own page →Hiding
19 October
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13 October
From one piece The Pundit’s Trilemma 2 beliefs · programmablemutter.com
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Their words
For better or worse, a certain kind of self assurance seems to attract mass readership.
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Their words
The point, as the title of this post suggests, is that this is a genuine trilemma. Assuming ordinary human limitations, an individual poaster can’t really do all three at once.
2 October
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Their words
This heady concoction of ideas helped inspire the development of the so-called frontier models that have reshaped thinking about AI over the past four years.
What AI debates have to do with alchemyprogrammablemutter.com
22 September
From one piece Machine god metaphors eat your brain 2 beliefs · programmablemutter.com
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Their words
The answer is that the metaphor shrinks rather than expands your horizons of the possible, forcing you to focus on the single overwhelming question of what Machine Jesus is going to do as soon as he descends from that gleaming cloud.
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Their words
Metaphors are the fundamental abstraction layers in modern AI debates.
20 September
From one piece International relations has a problem with the future 3 beliefs · programmablemutter.com
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Their words
Creating institutional forms that can incorporate diversity and respond flexibly to a changing environment while maintaining legitimacy in the eyes of citizens is the fundamental project of state capacity that faces us.
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Their words
the value of standard social science approaches, which attempt to discover long term regularities, is likely to depreciate in relative terms until the system settles down again.
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Their words
The feedback loops that drive system change are both "highly destabilizing and difficult to predict."
15 September
From one piece Canada is cosying up to Europe 3 beliefs · programmablemutter.com
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Their words
This means that highly transformative institutions will often look identical to ineffectual talking shops and indeed be identical to ineffectual talking shops.
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Their words
So long as Canada is irrevocably plugged into the US economy, military and other arrangements, it's liable to get stuck with choices that run counter to its national interests.
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Their words
The European Union is big - the third largest economy in the world, but it has great difficulty in transforming economic strength into geopolitical clout.
12 September
From one piece How should social science think about AI? 3 beliefs · programmablemutter.com
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Their words
I suspect that some of the labs' willingness to put money into the social sciences stems from the realization of senior people that the practical build out of AI is highly unpopular in the U.S and their urgent desire to figure out how to sugarcoat the pill so that it will get swallowed
How should social science think about AI?programmablemutter.com
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Their words
a recognition that AI is powerful (and will reshape power relations among humans) but that the consequences will flow messily through multiple complex processes that we really need to start mapping and understanding
How should social science think about AI?programmablemutter.com
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Their words
the best way to think about AI is as another social, political, cultural and economic shock in the series of shocks that have been underway over the long industrial revolution.
How should social science think about AI?programmablemutter.com
27 August
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Their words
AI's development is being steered, right now, by a small self-selecting group of business leaders and investors.
13 August
10 August
9 August
8 August
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17 July
15 July
6 July
29 June
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Likedrcmnd.app
Number Go UpTheir words
Zeke Faux’s great book, Number Go Up
6 February
1 December 2025
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Lovedrcmnd.app
The Singer of TalesTheir words
That question is explored in another extraordinary book, Albert B. Lord’s The Singer of Tales
15 October 2025
22 August 2025
19 August 2025
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Lovedrcmnd.app
Breakneck: China's Quest to Engineer the FutureTheir words
Dan Wang suggests in his fantastic forthcoming book, Breakneck: China’s Quest to Engineer the Future
5 August 2025
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Lovedrcmnd.app
The Concept of RepresentationTheir words
But they are in part supported by one of the great books of modern political theory, Hanna Pitkin’s The Concept of Representation
17 July 2025
12 July 2025
20 June 2025
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Lovedrcmnd.app
AegyptTheir words
Crowley is one of the great unrecognized novelists of our time, and his Aegypt novel sequence seems exactly on point for the strange days we live in.
24 May 2025
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Recommendstheir ownrcmnd.app
Underground Empire: How America Weaponized the World EconomyTheir words
Nor do I do many promotional emails (this is the first in nearly a year), but if you want to provide some indirect support, and get what I sincerely think to be a very good book while you’re at it
1 May 2025
20 April 2025
3 April 2025
Nothing matches.
Beliefs
Korrents What they believe 28 beliefs — each backed by an exact quote.
Each is a — compiled by korrents.com, not by them: the one-line wordings are korrents', the quotes are theirs.
Recent
An individual cannot simultaneously be authoritative, general, and prolific.
The point, as the title of this post suggests, is that this is a genuine trilemma. Assuming ordinary human limitations, an individual poaster can’t really do all three at once.
The Pundit’s Trilemma Said 13 Oct 2026
A certain kind of self assurance seems to attract mass readership.
For better or worse, a certain kind of self assurance seems to attract mass readership.
The Pundit’s Trilemma Said 13 Oct 2026
Ideas forming the 'ideology of technological salvation' helped inspire the development of so-called frontier AI models.
This heady concoction of ideas helped inspire the development of the so-called frontier models that have reshaped thinking about AI over the past four years.
What AI debates have to do with alchemy Said 2 Oct 2026
Show 25 more
Metaphors are the fundamental abstraction layers in modern AI debates.
Metaphors are the fundamental abstraction layers in modern AI debates.
Machine god metaphors eat your brain Said 22 Sept 2026
The "machine gods" metaphor shrinks rather than expands one's sense of the possible, forcing focus solely on what a godlike AI will do.
The answer is that the metaphor shrinks rather than expands your horizons of the possible, forcing you to focus on the single overwhelming question of what Machine Jesus is going to do as soon as he descends from that gleaming cloud.
Machine god metaphors eat your brain Said 22 Sept 2026
The feedback loops driving major shifts in international politics are highly destabilizing and difficult to predict in advance.
The feedback loops that drive system change are both "highly destabilizing and difficult to predict."
International relations has a problem with the future Said 20 Sept 2026
Standard social-science approaches that seek long-term regularities become less useful during periods of systemic transition, until the system stabilizes again.
the value of standard social science approaches, which attempt to discover long term regularities, is likely to depreciate in relative terms until the system settles down again.
International relations has a problem with the future Said 20 Sept 2026
Building institutions that can incorporate diverse perspectives, adapt flexibly to change, and keep public legitimacy is the central challenge of state capacity today.
Creating institutional forms that can incorporate diversity and respond flexibly to a changing environment while maintaining legitimacy in the eyes of citizens is the fundamental project of state capacity that faces us.
International relations has a problem with the future Said 20 Sept 2026
The EU's large economic size does not translate into geopolitical clout.
The European Union is big - the third largest economy in the world, but it has great difficulty in transforming economic strength into geopolitical clout.
Canada is cosying up to Europe Said 15 Sept 2026
A country whose economy and military are deeply entangled with a dominant neighbor will keep getting stuck with choices that run counter to its own national interests.
So long as Canada is irrevocably plugged into the US economy, military and other arrangements, it's liable to get stuck with choices that run counter to its national interests.
Canada is cosying up to Europe Said 15 Sept 2026
Highly transformative institutions are often indistinguishable from ineffectual talking shops at the moment they are created.
This means that highly transformative institutions will often look identical to ineffectual talking shops and indeed be identical to ineffectual talking shops.
Canada is cosying up to Europe Said 15 Sept 2026
AI is best understood as another shock in the long series of disruptions from the industrial revolution, not a wholly novel phenomenon.
the best way to think about AI is as another social, political, cultural and economic shock in the series of shocks that have been underway over the long industrial revolution.
How should social science think about AI? Said 12 Sept 2026
The right starting point for studying AI is treating it as genuinely powerful while its consequences unfold unpredictably through multiple complex social processes.
a recognition that AI is powerful (and will reshape power relations among humans) but that the consequences will flow messily through multiple complex processes that we really need to start mapping and understanding
How should social science think about AI? Said 12 Sept 2026
AI labs fund social science partly to manage the fact that the AI buildout is unpopular, seeking ways to make it more acceptable to the public.
I suspect that some of the labs' willingness to put money into the social sciences stems from the realization of senior people that the practical build out of AI is highly unpopular in the U.S and their urgent desire to figure out how to sugarcoat the pill so that it will get swallowed
How should social science think about AI? Said 12 Sept 2026
AI's development today is being directed by a small self-selecting group of business leaders and investors, not left unsteered.
AI's development is being steered, right now, by a small self-selecting group of business leaders and investors.
The Acemoglu Wars Are All About AI Said 27 Aug 2026
Technological development trajectories often display increasing returns, which entrench early paths and crowd out alternatives.
What we do know from economics, is that trajectories of technological development are often associated with increasing returns.
The Acemoglu Wars Are All About AI Said 27 Aug 2026
Elon Musk was flagrantly incompetent when he took on a government role, contradicting predictions that his business talent would translate there.
What we do know is that the actual Elon Musk that we have to live with on this here timeline was flagrantly incompetent in government, contrary to Noah's previous predictions.
The Acemoglu Wars Are All About AI Said 27 Aug 2026
Success in cultural and professional fields is driven more by chance and path dependence than by talent.
much cultural success is stochastic (the experimental evidence suggests that talent only moderately predicts success in culture markets), and that path dependence shapes chances of success
No-One Makes You Shop at Amazon Said 13 Aug 2026
As societies rely more on coordination than coercion, the power to shape beliefs and knowledge grows in importance.
If anything, I think that the book has gained very substantially in relevance, as more of our social structures have come to rely on coordination rather than violence.
No-One Makes You Shop at Amazon Said 13 Aug 2026
People tend to overestimate their own talent and underestimate the structural advantages that amplify their success.
we are systematically likely to overestimate our own individual awesomeness, and to underestimate the external power asymmetries that magnify our voices.
No-One Makes You Shop at Amazon Said 13 Aug 2026
Ireland's colonial wars helped set the template Britain later applied elsewhere in its empire
The brutal war and its aftermath set some of the parameters for what Britain did later in other parts of the world.
John Crowley has died Said 9 Aug 2026
John Dee functioned as an imperial propagandist, not merely a wizard figure
John Dee, who appeared in Flint and Mirror as well as several other Crowley novels, was not just a wizard but an imperial propagandist.
John Crowley has died Said 9 Aug 2026
Silicon Valley's actual trajectory increasingly resembles Philip K. Dick's paranoid, hallucinatory fiction rather than the optimistic space-age visions of Asimov and Clarke.
Increasingly, it is looking much more like the one anticipated by the drugged-up 1960s oeuvre of Philip K Dick, filled with deranged billionaires, machines that claim consciousness, hallucinated worlds and political breakdown.
We're stuck in Philip K. Dick's imagined universe Said 8 Aug 2026
A writer can be artistically important for revealing new possibilities without being technically skilled at prose.
you can be a great writer, revealing possibilities that others haven't seen, without always being a good one.
We're stuck in Philip K. Dick's imagined universe Said 8 Aug 2026
The grand visions promoted by today's tech titans conceal realities that are messier, more sordid, and more contingent than claimed.
All of these grand visions hide truths that are messier, more sordid and more contingent.
We're stuck in Philip K. Dick's imagined universe Said 8 Aug 2026
Solving a systemic problem by doubling down on the same approach risks creating uncontrollable feedback loops.
As a general matter, trying to solve a systemic problem by doubling down risks creating out-of-control feedback loops.
The downside of robot solutionism Said 7 Aug 2026
Once a technological arms race begins, escalation can be hard to stop even if it leaves everyone worse off.
Once an arms race has begun, strategic uncertainty means that it may be difficult to prevent escalation, even if it ends up making everyone worse off.
The downside of robot solutionism Said 7 Aug 2026
AI-driven bureaucratic systems will develop their own internal politics and be gamed by the people subject to them.
(and it will be gamed - AI bureaucracies will absolutely have their own politics)
The downside of robot solutionism Said 7 Aug 2026
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Recommends rcmnd
rcmnd What they recommend 7 things — each backed by an exact quote.
Compiled by rcmnd.app, not by them: the quotes are theirs, and each links to the post it was copied from.
Recent
Liked Number Go Up
Zeke Faux’s great book, Number Go Up
programmablemutter.com 29 Jun 2026
Loved The Singer of Tales
That question is explored in another extraordinary book, Albert B. Lord’s The Singer of Tales
programmablemutter.com 1 Dec 2025
Loved Breakneck: China's Quest to Engineer the Future
Dan Wang suggests in his fantastic forthcoming book, Breakneck: China’s Quest to Engineer the Future
programmablemutter.com 19 Aug 2025
What others say about Breakneck: China's Quest to Engineer the Future →
Show 4 more
Loved The Concept of Representation
But they are in part supported by one of the great books of modern political theory, Hanna Pitkin’s The Concept of Representation
programmablemutter.com 5 Aug 2025
Loved Aegypt
Crowley is one of the great unrecognized novelists of our time, and his Aegypt novel sequence seems exactly on point for the strange days we live in.
programmablemutter.com 20 Jun 2025
Recommends Underground Empire: How America Weaponized the World Economy
Nor do I do many promotional emails (this is the first in nearly a year), but if you want to provide some indirect support, and get what I sincerely think to be a very good book while you’re at it
programmablemutter.com 24 May 2025
their own
What others say about Underground Empire: How America Weaponized the World Economy →
Loved The Siren's Call: How Attention Became the World's Most Endangered Resource
This is why I think that The Siren’s Call is a very important book.
programmablemutter.com 9 Mar 2025
What others say about The Siren's Call: How Attention Became the World's Most Endangered Resource →
Where they publish
Site henryfarrell.net His personal academic site, listing his books and public writing.
Recent
- Does Silicon Valley Dream of Philip K. Dick? 10 Aug 2026 “Silicon Valley likes to dress its ambitions in the glistening garb of science fiction from the 1950s, when authors such as Isaac Asimov and Arthur C Clarke spun tales of humanity spreading through the stars. But what k…
- The Most Important Foreign Policy Speech in Years 6 Feb 2026 A Conversation with Ezra Klein. “Beneath Carney’s analysis of what is happening is an idea I’ve been following for some time: weaponized interdependence. This idea comes from the international-relations theorists and pr…
- How Civil Society Can Beat Trumpism: NYT 15 Oct 2025 “The struggle over regime change is about whether the aspiring authoritarians can subdue civil society. Their strategy is to play divide and conquer, rewarding friends and brutally punishing opponents. They win when soc…
Show 7 more
- The Weaponized World Economy: Cover story for Foreign Affairs 22 Aug 2025 When Washington announced a “framework deal” with China in June, it marked a silent shifting of gears in the global political economy. This was not the beginning of U.S. President Donald Trump’s imagined epoch of “liber…
- The Enshittification of American Power 17 Jul 2025 Back in 2022, Cory Doctorow coined the term “enshittification” to describe a cycle that has played out again and again in the online economy. Entrepreneurs start off making high-minded promises to get new users to try t…
- AI as Governance 12 Jul 2025 Political scientists have had remarkably little to say about artificial intelligence (AI), perhaps because they are dissuaded by its technical complexity and by current debates about whether AI might emulate, outstrip,…
- Crypto is a threat to the US Financial System 24 May 2025 With Dan Davies – for the New York Times This has been a good week for America’s crypto interests. The Genius Act, which legitimates a kind of cryptocurrency called stablecoins, advanced in the Senate, and on Thursday,…
- The Abundance Debate We’re Not Having 1 May 2025 The best way to read Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson’s new book is to take the authors at their word. Abundance is what is usually called a “policy book,” but Klein and Thompson don’t quite offer a traditional policy agen…
- Reining in Our Tech God-Emperors 20 Apr 2025 What happens to politics when the voice of the people blurs together with the voices of self-appointed god-emperors like Elon Musk? We are about to find out. More at Democracy Journal.
- The Brewing Transatlantic Tech War 3 Apr 2025 How Silicon Valley Got Entangled in Geopolitics—and Lost Technology companies such as Alphabet, Meta, and OpenAI need to wake up to an unpleasant reality. By getting close to U.S. President Donald Trump, they risk losin…
Link verified 4 Sept 2026. Recent items update automatically from the channel.
Newsletter programmablemutter.com Programmable Mutter, his newsletter on technology, democracy and political economy.
Recent
- The Pundit’s Trilemma 13 Oct 2026 Authoritative, general, prolific: pick any two.
- What AI debates have to do with alchemy 2 Oct 2026 A review of Adam Becker’s book
- Machine god metaphors eat your brain 22 Sept 2026 There are other ways of thinking about AI
Show 17 more
- International relations has a problem with the future 20 Sept 2026 Then, so does everything else
- Canada is cosying up to Europe 15 Sept 2026 What can they give each other?
- How should social science think about AI? 12 Sept 2026 Big structures and large processes are back, baby
- The Acemoglu Wars Are All About AI 27 Aug 2026 Regarding that Economist article ...
- No-One Makes You Shop at Amazon 13 Aug 2026 Responding to Noah Smith
- John Crowley has died 9 Aug 2026 According to various sources, John Crowley has died.
- We're stuck in Philip K. Dick's imagined universe 8 Aug 2026 Hallucinations, rocket ships, deranged billionaires: how do we get out?
- The downside of robot solutionism 7 Aug 2026 Mapping the Abelard Snazz feedback loop
- Noah Smith's Review of Power and Progress is Very, Very Bad 17 Jul 2026 It should have been disowned, not republished
- The political economy of billionaire derangement 15 Jul 2026 The passions are devouring the interests
- The Supreme Court is corrupting American democracy 6 Jul 2026 One cannot hope to bribe or twist/ (thank God!) the U.S. chief jurist
- The U.S. is still weaponizing dollars. Just not against Iran 29 Jun 2026 Dollar power is not in danger ... yet
- What the Anthropic fight says about AI regulation 24 Jun 2026 Fables of the deconstruction of American power
- What would Muskism be without Musk? 12 Jun 2026 The mode of production behind the man
- The Peripheral 5 Jun 2026 William Gibson's best novel tells us a lot about where we are and where we might end up.
- AI as Social Technology 28 May 2026 The Astor Lecture at Oxford's Blavatnik School
- AI Isn't Management. Try Explaining That to Matthew Prince 26 May 2026 At last we have created the Corporation That Eliminates Middle Managers from classic management text Don't Eliminate the Middle Managers!
Link verified 4 Sept 2026. Recent items update automatically from the channel.
Bluesky @himself.bsky.social Where he posts short-form.
Recent
- Tired: I, Senator Charles Schumer, have two imaginary friends, Joe and Eileen O'Reilly, who advise me on all manner of middle class concerns. Wired: actually, let's call them the Baileys, so that they'll sell better to a national audience. Inspired ... 19 Oct 2026
- www.ft.com/content/d1e2... There's a pretty high bar already for Stupid Tech Imperialism under the second Trump administration. This clears it with ease. 18 Oct 2026
- about to hit 18 Oct 2026
Show 7 more
- My folk theory of one aspect of Everything That Is Happening is that for a long time we had technologies of making publics visible that seemed to compress political debate down into mostly-one dimension, but (a) that turned out to be shit, and (b) when other technologies came along, it was disrupted 18 Oct 2026
- Tentative evidence that Comrade @resnikoff.bsky.social praxis is bearing out 18 Oct 2026 publiccomment.blog
- going back to the 2-5x a day #weaponizedinterdependenceishappening tweeting stuff out days of @abenewman.bsky.social and my youth. 16 Oct 2026
- this is an excellent short piece - maybe the best I've seen on what Trump is doing to relations with allies. Western Europe is not, obviously, a geographic neighbor of the US, but it is stuck plumb in the middle of Trumpist's Near Abroad of the Imagination. 14 Oct 2026
- the true heads know that the preferred sequence is TMN, The Stone Table, and then they should call it a day. 13 Oct 2026
- ooh 13 Oct 2026
- www.nybooks.com/articles/202... this is very well done 13 Oct 2026
Link verified 4 Sept 2026. Recent items update automatically from the channel.
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