Blogfog
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…airless post-human convenience…
“The immediate circumstances of the AI industry changed dramatically for its incumbent powers just days after Andreessen’s post due to the furor around the Chinese AI technology DeepSeek, whose success raised the question of whether you actually need $500 billion worth of infrastructure and world-historic energy consumption in order to make a fun little tool… Continue reading
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Cap wealth. And “cap” means different things…
“The single most ridiculous aspect of human history is how much of it has been driven by the goal of allowing a tiny portion of a large population to live in luxury.“ Continue reading
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Globalization is not what you think
Selections from The New Anarchists. It’s no longer new; David Graeber wrote it in 2002. • “The phrase ‘anti-globalization movement’ is a coinage of the US media and activists have never felt comfortable with it. Insofar as this is a movement against anything, it’s against neoliberalism, which can be defined as a kind of market… Continue reading
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National Energy Emergency?
The president, in its inaugural address, declared a “national energy emergency.” Why does it insist on existing in its own alternate (worse) reality? In our reality (“real reality”) the US is doing historically well in energy: Production, the light brown line, exceeds consumption (blue line) and while the nation both imports and exports energy products… Continue reading
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The orange baby
You know what I’m talking about. What I want to make very clear is that I think it’s most reasonably referred to as a “what” and an “it” rather than a “who.” It doesn’t operate like a person; a human. It’s never been part of our social fabric, as you can see by reading Lucky… Continue reading
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Stargate, eh?
Orange baby evidently just “announced” an initiative for building AI infrastructure. It’s big talk, mentioning half a trillion dollars (eventually, honest) and touting all sorts of “dominance” of AI research and development; an area that is not a good fit for the dumb thuggery underlying the whole idea of “dominance.” I find the hunger for… Continue reading
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It doesn’t have to be this way
In the US, we are too often unaware of the rest of the world, particularly the details about the rest of the world. This is a serious problem, because the rest of the world is figuring out a lot of things that evidently utterly stump us. Could it be the political forces that have eviscerated… Continue reading
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Dao De Jing by Laozi
These are from a new translation by Ken Liu: “A country teetering on the edge of a collapse is filled with patriots.” “The more people arm themselves, the more chaotic the country.” “Lords stride about in glorious clothes, carry sharp swords, eat so much good food that they’re sick of it, and hoard wealth beyond… Continue reading
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Want some mustard with those wünderbrats?
One side effect of money, at least when there’s a lot of it, seems to be that the recipient often comes to believe they are special in some way other than being fortunate and (often) having superior ability in a particular area. Many, many people have superior ability in a particular area, of course, but… Continue reading
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You can’t say we weren’t warned
Thirty-one years ago, in 1994, the Internet existed but not everybody knew that yet. Even those of us who did know about it didn’t always have an convenient connection; computers had only barely begun to be portable, and you certainly weren’t going to access much on that telephone in your home that had a handset… Continue reading
About Me
I’m Pete Harbeson, a writer (among other things) located near Boston, Massachusetts. In addition to writing my own content, I’ve learned to translate for my loquacious and opinionated pup Chocolate Bossypaws. No surprise, she mostly speaks in doggerel. You can find her contributions tagged with Chocolatiana.
Check out my newsletter, Artisanal Scribbles, where I’m grappling with writing, authentic human authorship, integrity, and the craft of beauty in the AI age. You can also find some of my old software projects at GitHub. Nothing very impressive. I mostly wrote tiny utilities in Python and shell scripts. I’m mostly retired from coding nowadays.
I find myself suddenly de-corporatized (their choice, not mine). To help keep the lights on, buy me a coffee!
Recent Posts
- Can’t keep a secret?
- Look to the rigging
- Ocean’s 128GB
- How much is that doggie in the window?
- Hang on, I’m busy
Categories
Artificial Intelligence
Chocolatiana
Essays
History, sort of
Immorality
Incompetence
Quotations
Resistance
Stories
Tales from the Forest
Technicalities
Tragedy
Unanticipated Consequences