Reminds me of economies that skipped personal computers and laptops only to be revolutionised by the smartphone. Another type of computer, that does computer stuff, lower barrier for entry in some respects but it's much harder to get under the hood.
Reminds me of this post: AI is so hyped up that it's reached many people who have been entirely unaware of the world of automation over the past 40-50 years, and so they think it's something entirely brand new that needs LLMs.
Hans Reichel, Derek Bailey, Eddie Van Halen
@comic-sans-soleil.bsky.social @josiehypatia.bsky.social @notsaved.bsky.social
I just don't see Palantir's offering as having much to do with any of these questions. The most important questions. It's a tactical and operational tool that gets deployed once you're already committed to a dust-up. They're selling themselves on needing to fight now. Too fast, too much, too soon.
The From Russia With Love bromance is mutually assured myopia. Russia needs containment and patience. Feels like China is Russia's ally in name only, a colossal population that will need their ally's land. China's infrastructure is strong but vulnerable to climate change used as a war weapon.
The Artic is about naval and trade vessels equipped for that climate. The USA is a very long way behind there. Denmark and Greenland say they were open to deeper allegiance and expansion, which could have helped towards compensating. Less so now though. Trust is at an historic low.
A lot of the moves and rhetoric point to a clumsy lunge towards maritime trade supremacy. Panama, Greenland, arguably even Gaza (if the plan is to construct a shorter Ben Gurion Canal as a Suez alternative). Again, that's geography-driven, not software driven.
Take Greenland. The USA already had the relationships and optionality. Because they're captured wholly by a berserker mentality (not solely down to Palantir - but Thiel, Karp et al certainly haven't helped), they've charged at it with conflict rhetoric rather than as a strategic alliance.
We'll see chaotic and catastrophic extreme weather events in North America, probably this year due to El Nino, definitely more in years to come. How has Palantir prepped them for that? The only tool they've sharpened is state violence. How's that going to work against tornados and heat domes?
Iran was already destabilising. They were pretty vocal that they couldn't solve their own problems. They couldn't sustain Tehran due to water mismanagement exacerbated by climate change driving unprecedented subsidence! The clear frontrunner strategy was continued containment, not conflict.
Palantir's offering amounts to making a list, with neither user nor software inclined or equipped to check it twice to distinguish who's naughty and nice. It's a myopic gangster state tool, built for high volume shock and awe. If the only tool you have is a hammer the whole world looks like a nail.
Note China is creating options through technology and soft power. Russia is archaic in thinking so has low optionality, because of wet-bulb projections and China it can only move north and west or engage in software psyops. Their alliance won't last long when China needs to move north and west.
Palantir is amoebic, not strategic. Note the lack of thought leadership articles from Palantir providing early warning about Hormuz closure. Incredibly hard to control that geography, software alone won't cut it. In the face of climate change, the USA is blowing its load too soon.
The future will be the same as the past - geography will be the driver. We know this because of climate change. The variables are incredibly unpredictable, so strategy must depend on relationships and optionality. If software could simulate at this scale the tech bros would already be insufferable.
Some thoughts.
We're seeing the limits of software as hard power in Iran. AI may turn out to be more of a leveller for asymmetric strategies than a boost for conventional militaries.
Note that for Iran, Israel in Gaza and ICE in the USA Palantir is about volume and velocity, not veracity.
Palantir has published a condensed summary of the Technological Republic on X. An explicit alignment between the company and Karp's ideology.
threadreaderapp.com/thread/20455...
There's already a good critique here:
threadreaderapp.com/thread/20457...
We knew it, now we know that we know it.
Gonna take this thread full circle to create a Seth Cooke Brain Simulator.
Turn a simple idea into a feedback loop, the circular motion paradoxically sucks in everything while spitting out everything, gets you dizzy and amped up because you now contain everything and nothing, rest, then create.
ITS APRIL AND IVE ALREADY MADE 7 RELEASES
DO YOU MAKE MUSIC OR JUST PRETEND YOU DO ?
umbrog.bandcamp.com
I confuse the shit out of myself for ages, then pretend for ages.
Teach me master, for I am a worm.
More snippets.
Paul's blog isn't online any more but there's a copy of the whole interview here:
drive.google.com/file/d/1aSVn...
The interview covers my thinking up to 2018 before I shifted to other ways of working.
Goodbye NIFR. You were funny and smart and really annoying.
X marks the spot
That's it. All the main releases of the no-input field recording era.
There's an interview with Paul Margree that covers this moment in detail, just prior to the release of Selected Works for No-Input Field Recorder, while making the first Method of Loci piece.
Here's snippets relevant to NIFR:
I have most of GY's recorded output now, apart from the ones that are insanely expensive to track down. Absolutely a WHOLE DISCOGRAPHY project, you cannot go wrong. The best. Someone needs to do a box set reissue and book.
Highest possible recommendation to watch the 4k remaster of Akira in a cinema that has the best possible sound system so you can be awestruck at the hypersonic mix of Geinoh Yamashirogumi's glorious soundtrack.
You can watch them in either order - Episodes 25 and 26 first, or End of Evangelion. Totally up to you (other people are dogmatic, I am not).
The linked post is spoilerific, so read now with that warning or save for later if you want to unpack in company.
Eva has early hints as to where it's going, then a major turning point. Invest early and know that from Episode 16 onwards, that's where it gets its reputation.
Also - End of Evangelion is either a replacement for, or a supplement to, Episodes 25 and 26. Whether they contradict is up to you.
I bring a sort of Forbidden Vibe to InternalServerError that Rate Limit Exceeded don't really like
trying to post through it rn
"she" sounds super-compliant
revealing glimpse into how tech companies conceptualise the ideal female colleague
they didn't list "doesn't complain about your sexual advances" as a feature - but that's so easily engineered that it feels implicit
how disgusting can you make a single billboard ad?
And then there's all the other ethical issues that are baked in, that we've discussed before, that you can't get around because that's what the technology is. Sucks.
Both produced solid results. I'm still pretty deeply aggrieved - if my role was resourced adequately, I would be resourced to do that work. I am being asked to perform at a level that is unsafe - more productive than a human can actually be. That is a cause for concern.