Collections

The hacker class experiences extremes of a winner-take-all outcome of its efforts. On the one hand, fantastic careers and the spoils of some simulatio

Variety of work is the next point, and a most important one. To compel a man to do day after day the same task, without any hope of escape or ch

Now we have seen that the semi-theological dogma that all labour, under any circumstances, is a blessing to the labourer, is hypocritical and fa

Most AI backlash is economic anxiety coated in a veneer of social justice. Alfalfa farming consumes 19 times the water that data centers do; there’s n

“Diffusion lag” reflects a lack of product-market fit. Even AI optimists are still hitting practical roadblocks. That’s why detailed case studies are

Here are some things I’ve asked chatgpt recently: “why is Toblerone so popular at airport duty-free stores?” “give me a recipe for a chickpea tagine

Gen Z and the End of Predictable Progress - by kyla scanlon

What we’re seeing isn’t just a media trend. It’s a shift in the architecture of power. Attention → Speculation → Allocation. This is the new supply ch

Many people were outraged by what they regarded as his non-parliamentary use of medieval laws to raise money. The most notorious was ship money. This

Similarly, I wonder whether the creator economy, as it matures, will resemble less of its original promise (a way for people to do the things they lov

Perhaps this pattern of radicalisation followed by recuperation has even happened with each emergent technology – newspapers, novels, film, (pirate) r

Much of the pleasure of “generating content” — whether through a machine or by some other means, about oneself or about other things or about other th

Browsing the internet used to be a hobby of mine. Ever since my dad got us a modem when I was around ten, I spent hours at a time just looking at diff

What we’re seeing isn’t just a media trend. It’s a shift in the architecture of power. Attention → Speculation → Allocation. This is the new supply ch

‘The internet is forever’ has long been the refrain of neurotics who wring their hands over privacy. But, back in the earliest days of online interact

Though histories of capitalism tend to distinguish between three stages (market, monopoly, late), its story can be retold as one of an ongoing demater

The securitized subprime mortgages that triggered the global financial crisis demonstrated that even the most material of possessions—the home—was as

Principles

n this sense, Labubus do seem to be a defining moment of 2020s culture. For those interested in moving culture away from fads such as these, resistanc

The stasis debate is actually just about two specific topics: (1) whether 21st century culture offers the feeling of artistic progress, where new styl

In any case, it’s enough to make anyone feel crazy. Over the last decade we’ve watched — and while I’m talking about the tech industry, I think we can

One hallmark of our current moment is that when an event happens, there is little collective agreement on even basic facts. This, despite there being

Executive Function Theft (EFT) is the deliberate abdication of decision-making, tasks, and responsibilities that are perceived as administrative or re

It’s hard to talk about “masterpieces” because the concept trades on a theory of aesthetics that is controversial when spelled out (aesthetic value re

The inhabitants of /lit/ see themselves as the victim of anti-canon efforts, as the academy has sought to “decolonise” and expand the curriculum over

A reading revolution is taking place on this notorious message board, most famous for alt-right memes, anything-goes chatter, and large-scale coordina

How could gaining knowledge amount to anything other than discovering what was already there? How could the truth of a statement or a theory be anythi

That we can write the prompt or query is not an emblem of our freedom but of our surrender. We give up on what we think the words mean and let the mac

That is, they understand the purpose of chatbots and generative models to be the ability to force other people to see a particular version of reality.

Because you are human beings you are going to meet failure. You are going to meet disappointment, injustice, betrayal, and irreparable loss. You will

Status and Relatedness are stress/reward triggers and Attachment is a core human need. The exclusive "we" may reward Status for the ingroup members, b

It was only because I showed up and I paid attention," he said. "I looked for places to go. I looked for communities to join. I looked for ways to bec

In a model, agents are interchangeable. Consumer A and Consumer B have different preference curves, yes, but they respond to the same incentive struct

And I realised that if you ever hear someone explaining things in terms of a long list of caveats, the odds are good that you’re looking at tacit know

Tacit knowledge is knowledge that cannot be captured through words alone.Think about riding a bicycle. Riding a bicycle is impossible to teach through

A democratic cultural politics would be developmentalist — oriented to learning, growth and discovery — rather than presentist. All kinds of resources

Some assume that a fundamental property of the internet is that it is globally connected, but countries, such as Iran and China, who have built their

Comfort, however, is not the same as healing. The frequently-invoked (pop) culture war framework conjures images of a pitched battle between ‘queer fa

‘Fandom Has Toxified the World’: Watchmen Author Alan Moore on Superheroes, Comicsgate and Trump

I believe that fandom is a wonderful and vital organ of contemporary culture, without which that culture ultimately stagnates, atrophies and dies. At

A democratic cultural politics would be developmentalist — oriented to learning, growth and discovery — rather than presentist. All kinds of resources

The man we call an adventurer...is one who remains indifferent to the content, that is, to the human meaning of his action, who thinks he can assert h

If you’ve used all of your creative powers to come up with a cure for cancer and you want to follow a playbook for the FDA approval process, by all me