My article at Pipeline. If man is a machine, as some think, then nothing changes. Things just go faster and machines take sides against machines.
Category Archives: Uncategorized
Avoiding the Fatal Confrontation
New at the Belmont Club. All along the entire First Island Chain in the Pacific, only Taiwan can fight like Ukraine. What does this mean for limited war?
Defense of the Philippines
US positions in Isabela and Cagayan imply a planned denial of the Luzon Strait to China in the event of an invasion of Taiwan. The position in Palawan suggests a defense of the Sulu Sea and the Central Visayas Inland Sea against the PLAN. Strongly implied: the Philippine Sea ports will be main supply route …
Cold War tourism
The Road of Bones
The singularity, but which?
You are hereby reassigned to the Department of Deadwood. Some think AI can be used to abolish government. China thinks AI can abolish both democracy and capitalism.
Disruptive
College graduates are AI replaceable, Woke activists are irreplaceable.
Spring offensives
The spring offensives in Ukraine are about to begin, with Putin thought to go for broke to take Kyiv.
And the temples of his gods
Gerard Vanderleun: December 26, 1945 – January 27, 2023
Our Better Demons
New at the Belmont Club. Are we facing a destructive period of renewal? Or can we finesse our way forward in history?
The Deprecation of Routine
You would have thought the bureaucrats would be among those most easily replaced by automation, but since it is the law of nature that govt never shrinks, it turns out that you can displace radiologists with AI but never a clerk. The lawyers may eventually lose this one. Automata charges by the microsecond, not by …
Gee Man
After the McGonigal story broke, the first question that came to mind was whether he was misdirecting everything. To use a Le Carre analogy: is there a Hans-Dieter Mundt? Some background.
The Invincible Man With the Badge
The silent victims of the British serial rapist cop have a lot in common with the impoverished victims of 3rd world extrajudicial executions. It is paralyzing fear of police and state power, not misogyny per se that terrifies them. Expanding the Woke state will not solve the problem.
Gerard van der Leun
It’s time for the important things. They will mostly be done for you. God will be with you; your loved ones attend you; your friends pray for you. There are a few preparations you must make alone, but I will follow when the time comes. Your friend Richard.
A Gathering of the Elect
When you have billions in common, you have a lot in common. My latest on the Pipeline.
What is Moscow Preparing For?
It’s safe to say the Pantsir air defense going up on Moscow rooftops is not meant to defend against US ICBMs but something else.
Building A Civilization of Discovery
Mistrust over the Davos project to reset the world and increasing doubts over whether health authorities fully anticipated the consequences of the anti-Covid MRNA vaccines have dismayed the proponents of governance. Are we facing an era of disorder or just learning to cope with uncertainty? The era of a unified narrative is probably over, felled …
They Can Always Classify Their Secrets
New at the Belmont Club. Maybe the Big Guys would care more about protecting data if they didn’t have all those extra ways of protecting it.
Control vs Adaptation
De-globalization must be stopped, environmentalists argue, because only a Global World has the institutional power to stop Climate Change. Without world government the planet is doomed. Conventional wisdom since Brave New World held that technology would make it easier for hierarchies to control things. What was less appreciated was technology would also increase complexity and …
The True Newspaper
Maybe we are living in a partial simulation with the parts we sense indirectly only through the media and the network consisting of complete fakes. I am fairly sure the keyboard under my fingers is real, but how do I know whether Elizabeth Warren is tribal, George Santos matriculated from Baruch or Nancy Pelosi’s ice …
In defense of longing
CS Lewis observed that our wishes, no less than our acts, are part of agency. Desires, petitions and prayers are not less futile than works simply because they may not succeed. Longing is legitimate in an interactive world and we should dare to live; dare to pray. Lewis returns to the theme of the poverty …