Month: March 2023
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The Feudal Roots of Scaling
In recent years, there has been a growing concern about income inequality and the concentration of wealth among a small group of individuals in the United States. According to a report by the Institute for Policy Studies, the top 1% of Americans own more wealth than the bottom 90% combined. This concentration of wealth and…
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AI Value Added
The rise of artificial intelligence (AI) and automation technologies has led to concerns about the future of work and the potential displacement of human labor. Some have argued that these technologies will commoditize cognitive grunt work and make the human touch less valuable. However, this view is misguided, as AI and automation will actually make…
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Web3: A larp wrapped in Braudilliana inside a simulation
A larp wrapped in Braudilliana inside a simulation. Web3 is a concept that refers to the decentralized web, where data, applications, and services are no longer controlled by a central authority but are instead distributed across a network of nodes. This idea of a decentralized internet is a shift away from the current Web2 model,…
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Technowatermelons (TWM)
Techowatermelon: Big heavy looking outfit or startup that goes to pieces on first test. It’s a Nassim Taleb neologism. Nassim Taleb introduces the concept of the “techowatermelon” as a neologism to describe a startup that appears big and heavy-looking but ultimately falls apart upon its first test. This term is a metaphor for the fragility…
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Innovation/Large Exits
I think large exits are toast. The narrow focus is stifling, the incentives misaligned and the concentration will eat itself. I think that’s what the sudden concern with fractional reserve banking is suddenly about. By doing the headless chicken act they’re probably speeding up the outcome they all have been trying so hard to avoid.…
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LLMs
As someone who has spent years mastering complex verbal prestidigitation, I can say that the statement “Only verbally inept shape rotators are that impressed by GPTx” oversimplifies the issue. While it’s true that GPTx has limitations and can’t replicate the nuances of human language, it’s also true that the technology has shown impressive capabilities in…
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The Low Spark Of High-Heeled Live Players
The concept of live players is fundamentally incompatible with the often-used excuse of said player that’s they feel forced to act a certain way because of “woke”. This excuse fails to recognize the agency that individuals have over their own actions and decisions, and it highlights the contradiction between responsibility and progress that are central…
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The Banking Crisis of 1931
Fritz Thyssen was a prominent German industrialist who played a significant role in the 1931 European banking crisis. He was an investor in Creditanstalt, a major Austrian bank that had made risky investments in Eastern Europe. As a big shareholder of the bank, Thyssen withdrew his funds due to financial concerns, which sparked a run…
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Flat Space
In film, the concept of flat space is used to describe a style of visual storytelling that emphasizes the two-dimensional nature of the screen surface, rather than attempting to create the illusion of three-dimensional space. This style is often associated with avant-garde and experimental cinema, as well as with certain genres such as animation and…
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Deep Space
Deep space is a technique used in filmmaking to create a sense of depth and distance in a scene, typically by manipulating perspective and creating the illusion of three-dimensional space on a two-dimensional screen. There are a number of different elements that contribute to the creation of deep space, including perspective, size difference, movement, camera…