Henry Farrell
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19 October
18 October
16 October
14 October
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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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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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, in the piece's order there
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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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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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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, in the piece's order there
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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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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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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, in the piece's order there
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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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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
From one piece The Acemoglu Wars Are All About AI 3 beliefs, in the piece's order there
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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.
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What we do know from economics, is that trajectories of technological development are often associated with increasing returns.
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AI's development is being steered, right now, by a small self-selecting group of business leaders and investors.
13 August
From one piece No-One Makes You Shop at Amazon 3 beliefs, in the piece's order there
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korrents.com
People tend to overestimate their own talent and underestimate the structural advantages that amplify their success.Their words
we are systematically likely to overestimate our own individual awesomeness, and to underestimate the external power asymmetries that magnify our voices.
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korrents.com
As societies rely more on coordination than coercion, the power to shape beliefs and knowledge grows in importance.Their words
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.
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korrents.com
Success in cultural and professional fields is driven more by chance and path dependence than by talent.Their words
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
10 August
9 August
From one piece John Crowley has died 2 beliefs, in the piece's order there
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John Dee, who appeared in Flint and Mirror as well as several other Crowley novels, was not just a wizard but an imperial propagandist.
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korrents.com
Ireland's colonial wars helped set the template Britain later applied elsewhere in its empireTheir words
The brutal war and its aftermath set some of the parameters for what Britain did later in other parts of the world.
8 August
From one piece We're stuck in Philip K. Dick's imagined universe 3 beliefs, in the piece's order there
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Their words
All of these grand visions hide truths that are messier, more sordid and more contingent.
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korrents.com
A writer can be artistically important for revealing new possibilities without being technically skilled at prose.Their words
you can be a great writer, revealing possibilities that others haven't seen, without always being a good one.
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optimismSilicon Valleyconsciousness
Their words
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.
7 August
From one piece The downside of robot solutionism 3 beliefs, in the piece's order there
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korrents.com
AI-driven bureaucratic systems will develop their own internal politics and be gamed by the people subject to them.Their words
(and it will be gamed - AI bureaucracies will absolutely have their own politics)
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korrents.com
Once a technological arms race begins, escalation can be hard to stop even if it leaves everyone worse off.Their words
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.
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korrents.com
Solving a systemic problem by doubling down on the same approach risks creating uncontrollable feedback loops.Their words
As a general matter, trying to solve a systemic problem by doubling down risks creating out-of-control feedback loops.
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
24 June
12 June
5 June
28 May
26 May
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.
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