AI, Crypto, and the Arms Race for Superintelligence: “We speak of an ‘arms race’ because there is some prospect of irreversible global lock-in. First, recursively self-improving machine intelligence introduces the possibility of rapid ‘takeoff’ scenarios, where the progress next year is not double but 3x the progress last year, then 4x the following year, and…
LINKS: Genuflection; Maps of Reality; Dionysian Vigor
Aeneas in Washington: “You can tell by the blood streaks on his face that he had yet to wipe any of it away. His hands are in penitent repose, palms slightly up. Out of context he appears to be in genuflection. It is at this moment, in all likelihood, that he first tasted the blood,…
WEEKEND LINKS: America’s Mandate; Atomic-Age Catholics; Disagreeable Men
Aborted: “At last, it appears that the Party of Chaos got its fondest wish: it aborted itself in the 2024 election.” A Climate Hypothesis: “If my hypothesis is correct, [a meridian halfway between the equator and the north pole] will be the new location of the global belt of deserts in the northern hemisphere, because…
WEEKEND LINKS: the Logic of Imperial Corruption and Decay; the King as Sacred Scapegoat; Machines with Increasing Intelligence
American Realignment: “The critical point is to sever the ropes holding down the American giant by destroying a dying progressive colossus and retooling the country into a new light and agile state fit for navigating the ultra-rapid 21st-century global environment: the ultimate network state. The model is the Promethean America that existed in the late…
MONDAY LINKS: Moving Through the Threshold of the Psyche; Inventing the Future; Disappearance of the Diminished Creed
Celluloid Caesar: “So, is Megalopolis a miraculous comeback to Coppola’s 1970s quality? No. Of course not. It’s absolutely as horrible as everybody says it is.” Make California Red Again: “The future is still invented in California and its influence on global culture remains critically important. California remains one of the most naturally beautiful places on Earth,…
MONDAY LINKS: Reformation; Blessings of Providence; and the Multiplication of Man’s Ends
A More Perfect Disunion: “Trump’s running mate in 2016 was Mike Pence, an Evangelical Neocon. His current partner is JD Vance, 40, a Catholic equally at home with reactionary rightism and technological futurism. Vance represents the beginning of a new sort of establishment, less comprehensive, more regional and eclectic, and archaeo-traditional in outlook: a faith…
A Cosmos Without God
Daniel Miller recently posted a piece on IM-1776 that’s deserving of high praise. It’s a provocative assessment of how the decades-long aftermath of World War II resulted in the gradual transformation of the West into something increasingly sinister. This transformation annihilates any posturing about the West (and perhaps America specifically) being an “anti-fascist” prototype. The…
Everywhere, Nowhere, and Now Here
Excerpted from Second Power Last month I attended the Nowhere Summit in Ecuador with several friends, old and new. Alex Petkas provides a good description of the event here: Technological, political, and societal change are happening at an alarming rate. There are huge, asymmetric opportunities for network-institution builders that simply did not exist 5 years…
MONDAY LINKS: California, Texas, Strangers
Always in the Arena: “Watergate turned the 37th president into a toxic symbol, and we are only just beginning to recover.” Atlas International: “When you have to rush to the hospital at 3AM, whose door will you knock on? Who will you ask to go into your house and get your kids and keep them…
Security in the Void
Recently I started looking deeper into Ernst Jünger, per the writings and discussions of some IRL friends, one of whom characterized Jünger as the rare breed of author who could write without subterfuge. And from another friend’s Instragram post this summer as he visited Junger’s home in Germany: Jünger was a strong candidate for most…
MONDAY LINKS: Seraphim; Harmonic Interludes; and Aloneness
And Suddenly Things Change: “Everything that can break is breaking: stock markets, bond markets, the galaxy of derivatives — bets on this and that, which will never be honored. Banks are next. Gold and silver are hanging in there for dear life just now, because they’re actually worth something.” Biblically Accurate Angels — Christianity’s Undisputed…
TUESDAY LINKS: Windswept Drama; a World on Fire; the Sound of God; Death on the Installment Plan
Frontier Cities: “Like many other moments in American history, we find ourselves at the advent of a technological innovation era that has the potential to significantly increase human freedom. We must grasp it. America must, as it has for centuries, set out toward that goal. We don’t need to colonize Mars, we don’t need new…