I think this is the author's thesis: "The software industry has shifted its entire value proposition from “we make tools that help you make or save money” to using political clout and the dollar...
I think this is the author's thesis: "The software industry has shifted its entire value proposition from “we make tools that help you make or save money” to using political clout and the dollar hegemony to capture, control, and loot entire sectors of the various economies of the world."
And it's one I don't think is right. Most of the decision makers I've spoken to who use AI are interested in it because it improves productivity for some tasks - I've certainly seen it in my work in accounting and finance. I haven't heard anyone tell me that they're interested in AI for dollar hegemonic purposes.
"It’s also what makes analysis so fraught because the US is over as a global power. Getting beat by a cash-starved, under-resourced, extremist state struggling to quell internal unrest is not something that happens to global superpowers."
This is a huge claim to say that the US is over as a global power. While the Iran war has been poorly executed and poorly conceived; and reduces its standing in the world - it's also a small fraction of committed US military power and doesn't hold a candle to what was deployed for Afghanistan or Iraq.
"The EU suffers from the double bind of being protectionist of its industries – that’s literally what it’s for – while at the same time explicitly allowing direct attacks on those industries and its single market because the US tech industry"
The EU member states didn't have to adopt a protectionist viewpoint. Broadly, the EU member states have economies that are harder for companies to innovate in, harder to grow in, and harder to invest in, and harder to build in compared to the US. That stymied their economic growth and reduced their peoples' wellbeing. That's not the US' fault.
"The petrodollar bargain where the world’s biggest oil producers agree to only sell oil for dollars – propping up the dollar and forcing countries to buy the currency in excess of what their direct economic relationship to the US would require – has been falling apart in slow motion over the past few year"
The US as reserve currency isn't because the US bullied oil producers into only selling in dollars. The causation is the other way around. Most foreign dollar denominated transactions - oil included - is done in dollars because the US has the strongest economy and the most stable currency. That's also why whenever there is economic shocks, there is a flight to safety to us dollars. Ie, people use dollars because it has the backing of the largest economy and hopefully most stable government to transact in - not because the oil producers - a rather diverse mix of countries who are not particularly US friendly - are secretly in cahoots with the US government.
AI can be a productivity boost while simultaneously being a tool of hegemonic control and coercion. The US isn't going out and holding a gun to people's heads telling them to use AI, but it...
AI can be a productivity boost while simultaneously being a tool of hegemonic control and coercion. The US isn't going out and holding a gun to people's heads telling them to use AI, but it certainly can use protectionist economic policy (control over who gets access to graphics cards being a prime example), try to pass inane legislation that prevents states from regulating AI separately to give them an incredibly lax regulatory environment, and in general allow tech CEOs deep deep access to government agencies and lobbying (see all of the tech CEOs standing behind Trump at inauguration). There's a symbiosis here between big tech companies and US power. Tech companies get a lax tax + regulatory environment, government contracts for compute, and the knowledge that the US will back up their foreign prospects just like it has for any other major US economic sector. In return the US government gets huge amounts of data access (FISA, five eyes, etc) and biasing of information flows towards pro American/pro Western viewpoints.
The US is not over as a global superpower and it probably never will be, but it could be very similar to how Russia or England remain as global powers. It's certainly not the monopolar juggernaught of the 90's and 2000s anymore though. It's over indexed on technological overmatch in a way that isn't likely to matter in most conflicts it fights in while absolutely ballooning the budget and leaving itself unable to operate a long term conflict. If the requirement for global superpower is ability to pinpoint first strike a target anywhere in the world, that capability will probably always be retained. At the very least the US will maintain a potent nuclear capability. If the requirement is to enact regime change to promote pro western or at least pro western business interests then the US is not doing so great in the last two decades. Instead of Iraq and Afghanistan (Iraq a costly wash and Afghanistan a costly failure) I'd point to Venezuela as the prime example of the US military retaining superpower status.
I also think saying that the US expanded a small part of its military power against Iran is a mild understatement or at least not clear cut, the US has thrown a lot of assets at the region and expended much of them in an unsustainable way. Missile and interceptor stockpiles are way down and the gaps in the US navy's ship capacity are visible (not enough minesweepers or destroyers to really do an effective job). It's too early to tell the actual cost but the government asking for an extra $500B for defense is not a good sign. The US can ride on the investments it made in previous eras for only so long before more huge expenditures will be needed to modernize. So far the US has failed in various efforts to modernize military hardware (primarily with several classes of ships but the f35 was a costly success and current efforts to update rifles is... dubious) when a key advantage has been huge technological overmatch.
I don't have a particular view on the EU, I'm an American who just goes to visit sometimes, but the idea that it "reduced their peoples' wellbeing" I don't agree with. If your measure is GDP per capita sure, US is doing better on that metric (which I think is a pretty terrible metric), but in terms of actual wellbeing? The EU seems to be doing just fine on that front, IMO better than the US by a wide margin.
Regarding the petrodollar, the US is not a neutral actor just standing on the sidelines - it's involved itself via sanctions (I think sanctions is probably the biggest one, weaponizing the US economy against those who don't want to play ball), military and economic alliances with Middle Eastern countries, and direct military action to help ensure that countries want to buy in dollars and not another currency. It's not the only factor, perhaps not the dominant factor, but it is certainly a tool that the US has an interest in keeping and does so.
I think my main point is not that the article is right, but more that it's not entirely wrong either. The US government and oligarchic elites are not neutral actors who operate in some open marketplace, they want the scales tilted towards them and take action to do so. The effectiveness of that is tied to the relative strength of the US on the world stage and that relative advantage is sliding, I'd argue sliding fast. The US has spent 250 years working to accumulate leverage in ways small and large across the entire world, unwinding that won't be fast! The last year though has dramatically quickened the pace and made the slide much more obvious.
If anyone is interested in watching this video, I assume it’s this one https://youtu.be/VTNmLt7QX8E?si=XnDd1MUKFh-pvAOe
Sitting in on a talk on autism diagnoses, one of a series of scientific talks, watching an animation they used as a diagnostic aid, hearing everybody around me laugh as if the shapes on the screen made sense, only then truly understanding myself, and feeling more alone than I have ever felt before or since.
If anyone is interested in watching this video, I assume it’s this one
Thanks for sharing, I was wondering about that and googling was giving me nothing. So autistic folks don't ascribe emotions to the little shape guys? They wouldn't see big triangle as a psychotic...
Thanks for sharing, I was wondering about that and googling was giving me nothing.
So autistic folks don't ascribe emotions to the little shape guys? They wouldn't see big triangle as a psychotic bully? Or is it the other way - is understanding those shapes as characters more an indicator of autism?
Almost everybody interprets the shapes as being people. This is an interesting article on the video that talks about all the various interpretations that people ascribe to the shapes....
Almost everybody interprets the shapes as being people. This is an interesting article on the video that talks about all the various interpretations that people ascribe to the shapes.
And this article focuses more on the autism interaction and why some autistic people take it differently, often more literally. Of course autism is a spectrum, and I’m sure some autistic people will perceive a story and some non-autistic people will fail to.
It’s an abusive father (big triangle) who is beating his wife (small triangle), then goes after the child (circle), the mother tricks the father by trapping him in the house and they both escape. Then the father has a fit and smashes their house.
I think this video and the articles honestly deserve their own post! Seems like we can get some good discussion out of it. (Sadly, I was mildly influenced by the above comment describing the...
I think this video and the articles honestly deserve their own post! Seems like we can get some good discussion out of it. (Sadly, I was mildly influenced by the above comment describing the triangle, so I didn't go into it totally blind. But even so, the story I got wasn't quite the same as yours.)
ooh! Let me write down mine before reading others' interpretation The big triangle (BT) is violent and the other two smaller shapes are afraid of it. When BT was outside shoving Small Triangle...
ooh! Let me write down mine before reading others' interpretation
The big triangle (BT) is violent and the other two smaller shapes are afraid of it. When BT was outside shoving Small Triangle (ST), Circle (C) is hiding inside the structure, still wished to help, but too afraid to do so. Then when BT went inside the building, and C was cowering, then moved forward doing little figure eights, my interpretation is that that was fawning behaviour meant to appease BT. Then C escaped and did a little dance around ST in circles, a celebration. Then they escape the violence together, leavening BT alone and more angry than before, destroying the structure.
It seems pretty "universal" to me..... Going to read the others' thoughts now and updating later
@unkz
Oh how interesting! I was unwilling to ascribe [edit: gender,] ages and relationships, and I was even reluctant to describe the structure as a house because I didn't feel like I had enough evidence to do so.
I wouldn’t say I was willing but rather the story seemed so explicit that I couldn’t see it any other way. After reading the various other interpretations from the first article, I can kind of...
I wouldn’t say I was willing but rather the story seemed so explicit that I couldn’t see it any other way. After reading the various other interpretations from the first article, I can kind of picture some of them but they seem very forced (as I’m sure most of those people would say about my interpretation, since my view wasn’t even mentioned and most people are in a totally different theme).
How interesting, it's like in the linked post, the person wouldn't not see it as a love story . Some of our minds immediately see explicit specifics, whereas some of us see things in abstractions...
How interesting, it's like in the linked post, the person wouldn't not see it as a love story . Some of our minds immediately see explicit specifics, whereas some of us see things in abstractions only unless other details are provided
I think this is the author's thesis: "The software industry has shifted its entire value proposition from “we make tools that help you make or save money” to using political clout and the dollar hegemony to capture, control, and loot entire sectors of the various economies of the world."
And it's one I don't think is right. Most of the decision makers I've spoken to who use AI are interested in it because it improves productivity for some tasks - I've certainly seen it in my work in accounting and finance. I haven't heard anyone tell me that they're interested in AI for dollar hegemonic purposes.
"It’s also what makes analysis so fraught because the US is over as a global power. Getting beat by a cash-starved, under-resourced, extremist state struggling to quell internal unrest is not something that happens to global superpowers."
This is a huge claim to say that the US is over as a global power. While the Iran war has been poorly executed and poorly conceived; and reduces its standing in the world - it's also a small fraction of committed US military power and doesn't hold a candle to what was deployed for Afghanistan or Iraq.
"The EU suffers from the double bind of being protectionist of its industries – that’s literally what it’s for – while at the same time explicitly allowing direct attacks on those industries and its single market because the US tech industry"
The EU member states didn't have to adopt a protectionist viewpoint. Broadly, the EU member states have economies that are harder for companies to innovate in, harder to grow in, and harder to invest in, and harder to build in compared to the US. That stymied their economic growth and reduced their peoples' wellbeing. That's not the US' fault.
"The petrodollar bargain where the world’s biggest oil producers agree to only sell oil for dollars – propping up the dollar and forcing countries to buy the currency in excess of what their direct economic relationship to the US would require – has been falling apart in slow motion over the past few year"
The US as reserve currency isn't because the US bullied oil producers into only selling in dollars. The causation is the other way around. Most foreign dollar denominated transactions - oil included - is done in dollars because the US has the strongest economy and the most stable currency. That's also why whenever there is economic shocks, there is a flight to safety to us dollars. Ie, people use dollars because it has the backing of the largest economy and hopefully most stable government to transact in - not because the oil producers - a rather diverse mix of countries who are not particularly US friendly - are secretly in cahoots with the US government.
AI can be a productivity boost while simultaneously being a tool of hegemonic control and coercion. The US isn't going out and holding a gun to people's heads telling them to use AI, but it certainly can use protectionist economic policy (control over who gets access to graphics cards being a prime example), try to pass inane legislation that prevents states from regulating AI separately to give them an incredibly lax regulatory environment, and in general allow tech CEOs deep deep access to government agencies and lobbying (see all of the tech CEOs standing behind Trump at inauguration). There's a symbiosis here between big tech companies and US power. Tech companies get a lax tax + regulatory environment, government contracts for compute, and the knowledge that the US will back up their foreign prospects just like it has for any other major US economic sector. In return the US government gets huge amounts of data access (FISA, five eyes, etc) and biasing of information flows towards pro American/pro Western viewpoints.
The US is not over as a global superpower and it probably never will be, but it could be very similar to how Russia or England remain as global powers. It's certainly not the monopolar juggernaught of the 90's and 2000s anymore though. It's over indexed on technological overmatch in a way that isn't likely to matter in most conflicts it fights in while absolutely ballooning the budget and leaving itself unable to operate a long term conflict. If the requirement for global superpower is ability to pinpoint first strike a target anywhere in the world, that capability will probably always be retained. At the very least the US will maintain a potent nuclear capability. If the requirement is to enact regime change to promote pro western or at least pro western business interests then the US is not doing so great in the last two decades. Instead of Iraq and Afghanistan (Iraq a costly wash and Afghanistan a costly failure) I'd point to Venezuela as the prime example of the US military retaining superpower status.
I also think saying that the US expanded a small part of its military power against Iran is a mild understatement or at least not clear cut, the US has thrown a lot of assets at the region and expended much of them in an unsustainable way. Missile and interceptor stockpiles are way down and the gaps in the US navy's ship capacity are visible (not enough minesweepers or destroyers to really do an effective job). It's too early to tell the actual cost but the government asking for an extra $500B for defense is not a good sign. The US can ride on the investments it made in previous eras for only so long before more huge expenditures will be needed to modernize. So far the US has failed in various efforts to modernize military hardware (primarily with several classes of ships but the f35 was a costly success and current efforts to update rifles is... dubious) when a key advantage has been huge technological overmatch.
I don't have a particular view on the EU, I'm an American who just goes to visit sometimes, but the idea that it "reduced their peoples' wellbeing" I don't agree with. If your measure is GDP per capita sure, US is doing better on that metric (which I think is a pretty terrible metric), but in terms of actual wellbeing? The EU seems to be doing just fine on that front, IMO better than the US by a wide margin.
Regarding the petrodollar, the US is not a neutral actor just standing on the sidelines - it's involved itself via sanctions (I think sanctions is probably the biggest one, weaponizing the US economy against those who don't want to play ball), military and economic alliances with Middle Eastern countries, and direct military action to help ensure that countries want to buy in dollars and not another currency. It's not the only factor, perhaps not the dominant factor, but it is certainly a tool that the US has an interest in keeping and does so.
I think my main point is not that the article is right, but more that it's not entirely wrong either. The US government and oligarchic elites are not neutral actors who operate in some open marketplace, they want the scales tilted towards them and take action to do so. The effectiveness of that is tied to the relative strength of the US on the world stage and that relative advantage is sliding, I'd argue sliding fast. The US has spent 250 years working to accumulate leverage in ways small and large across the entire world, unwinding that won't be fast! The last year though has dramatically quickened the pace and made the slide much more obvious.
If anyone is interested in watching this video, I assume it’s this one
https://youtu.be/VTNmLt7QX8E?si=XnDd1MUKFh-pvAOe
Thanks for sharing, I was wondering about that and googling was giving me nothing.
So autistic folks don't ascribe emotions to the little shape guys? They wouldn't see big triangle as a psychotic bully? Or is it the other way - is understanding those shapes as characters more an indicator of autism?
Almost everybody interprets the shapes as being people. This is an interesting article on the video that talks about all the various interpretations that people ascribe to the shapes.
https://www.bps.org.uk/psychologist/our-storytelling-nature
And this article focuses more on the autism interaction and why some autistic people take it differently, often more literally. Of course autism is a spectrum, and I’m sure some autistic people will perceive a story and some non-autistic people will fail to.
https://musingsofanaspie.com/2014/04/08/interpreting-the-heider-simmel-animation/
Personally, my interpretation of the film was
It’s an abusive father (big triangle) who is beating his wife (small triangle), then goes after the child (circle), the mother tricks the father by trapping him in the house and they both escape. Then the father has a fit and smashes their house.
I’d be interested to hear other interpretations!
I think this video and the articles honestly deserve their own post! Seems like we can get some good discussion out of it. (Sadly, I was mildly influenced by the above comment describing the triangle, so I didn't go into it totally blind. But even so, the story I got wasn't quite the same as yours.)
ooh! Let me write down mine before reading others' interpretation
The big triangle (BT) is violent and the other two smaller shapes are afraid of it. When BT was outside shoving Small Triangle (ST), Circle (C) is hiding inside the structure, still wished to help, but too afraid to do so. Then when BT went inside the building, and C was cowering, then moved forward doing little figure eights, my interpretation is that that was fawning behaviour meant to appease BT. Then C escaped and did a little dance around ST in circles, a celebration. Then they escape the violence together, leavening BT alone and more angry than before, destroying the structure.It seems pretty "universal" to me..... Going to read the others' thoughts now and updating later
@unkz
Oh how interesting! I was unwilling to ascribe [edit: gender,] ages and relationships, and I was even reluctant to describe the structure as a house because I didn't feel like I had enough evidence to do so.I wouldn’t say I was willing but rather the story seemed so explicit that I couldn’t see it any other way. After reading the various other interpretations from the first article, I can kind of picture some of them but they seem very forced (as I’m sure most of those people would say about my interpretation, since my view wasn’t even mentioned and most people are in a totally different theme).
How interesting, it's like in the linked post, the person wouldn't not see it as a love story . Some of our minds immediately see explicit specifics, whereas some of us see things in abstractions only unless other details are provided
Its like the movie people under the stairs!