Stephen Pimentel

My essay on “The Bronze Age of Globalization” is out on Palladium Magazine:

Two-tier justice is explained by the simple political reality that you only jail individuals from communities that do not violently riot in response. If a community will violently riot modern managerial democracies will try to turn a blind eye. Less costly.

Our civilization smears itself with miasma.

@JamesWHankins1 This raises the question of whether your previous post was pointing to a real problem or was merely a strawman.

That would be invidious. On the whole I think Straussians are fighting the good fight to preserve the legacy of the West. We don't need victims of friendly fire right now in America, but we shouldn't read texts without awareness of the history that shaped them and helps explain them. I've made the same criticism of 'great books' education more broadly.

@tszzl @deanwball Agree that much of the discourse around “humanity” is bullshit. There is nonetheless a simple and clear question about whether humans are to be benefited or replaced (where I don’t mean “replaced” in particular jobs; I mean absolutely.)

I’m very skeptical around weak language around “humanity” which launders many assumptions naively. the idea that all people’s objective function congeals effectively is not a foregone conclusion and is generally even a totalitarian idea

the governance of superintelligence will work very differently based on whether we try to make it work for: - the user - the “good”, broadly construed, as understood by the company - “humanity” (what the hell is that anyways) among many other possible hierarchies

@JustinBullock14 @tszzl That’s the wrong way to think about. Bad late-Enlightenment political philosophy.

@tszzl We do have some historical precedent for serious consideration on how to think about “humanity”.

@disclosetv Imagine being a member of the Church of England.

NOW - Dame Sarah Mullally is officially "enthroned" as the Archbishop of Canterbury, head of the Church of England, becoming the first woman to take the role in 1,400 years.

ARC-AGI-3 is an excellent, unsaturated benchmark.

@JamesWHankins1 Could you give a particular published example of such a bad application?

Philosophic esotericism is an indisputable fact, but not a universal one. Hence there is a tertium quid: the indiscriminate application of esoterism by followers of Strauss might add a few debits to weigh against the credit. Is a master not responsible for the hermeneutical vices of his followers?

“In the end, all our modeling and reasoning led us to ally with the 84 year-old socialist Bernie Sanders.”

@PabloPeniche Their wealth is often illiquid, both in the literal financial sense, but also in a broader metaphoric sense. The kind of agency that can acquire financial wealth is not the same as the kind of agency that can act in other spheres.

After meeting multiple billionaires, I realize that they are mostly powerless. Most normal people think that money gets you power (and some of these new-money billionaires thought so too!) but that is not the case.

Mark Zuckerberg illustrates just how difficult it can be to evade the innovator’s dilemma, even if you are fully aware of it, fully in control of your company, and willing to devote enormous resources trying to do so.

Spanish girl gets brutally gang-raped by migrants, ends up paralyzed and developing severe PTSD. The Spanish government offers her assisted suicide as a solution to all of those problems. IDK if that counts as a metaphor because they're doing it literally.

“We were anxious and depressed about the possibility of growth, so we opted for degrowth instead.”

An academic whose “research” is in philosophy “as a way of life” but still just writes papers about it.

Reminder that “thesis, antithesis, synthesis” is due to Fichte, not Hegel.

Order and liberty, in that order.

Guy who is unable to notice levels of dysfunction that would have horrified any normal person in 1920.

The first time I abandoned a girlfriend in the mountains was an accident. We had an argument about something trivial, and she decided to go off on her own for a bit to cool down. I insisted she stick to the trail, but she said she didn’t need me mansplaining how to find her way in the woods. So I dropped it. How does one manage to get lost on a mountainside, anyway? You just walk downhill until you hit a switchback or reach the valley. Common sense stuff. Well, she managed it. When she didn’t turn up by nightfall, I contacted the ranger station and they set out to find her. By 1am, I got tired of waiting and drove home. They called the next morning to say they’d found her in a makeshift den she’d dug beneath a deadfall. She was naked, gone completely feral, her face painted with menstrual blood. A ranger tried to wrap a blanket around her shoulders, and she bit a golf ball-sized gobbet of flesh from his shoulder. So they sedated her and took her straight to the nearest hospital. That was three years ago and she still hasn’t recovered human language. Needless to say, I acquired a taste for it. I’m up to a baker’s dozen now, not counting the one that found her way back to the car before I could drive off. But you never forget your first. Sarah will always have a special place in my heart.

Vibe coding a custom app just for a particular vacation trip.