[FRIAM] Theil

[glen]

There's an interesting parallel between the Stross and Gellman pieces: Stross both laments and implicitly appreciates the bureaucracy of getting a book published, where Thiel's aggrieved by the bureaucracy of societal evolution.

It reminds me of the engineering-vs-biology dichotomy (yes, false, like all of them) I came to appreciate after being exposed to enough biomimetics (to kill a horse). Some of us see the world and think about how to change it, build a better world ... or perhaps destroy the world, whatever floats your inner engineer. And some of us see the world and are awestruck, hypnotized, baffled by its qualities (whether beautiful or horrifying). It's easy to give the latter a pass and denigrate the former when confronted with, say, butterflies or the Grand Canyon. And it's easy to give the former a pass when confronted with poverty and war.

But the next time you're at the DMV or arguing with some poor sucker manning the phones at the IRS, it can be useful to remember the falseness of the dichtomy. Similarly, when all you want to do is sleep under the stars and those damned gnats keep homing into your ears, it can be useful to think like an engineer.

Policy and science fiction aren't that far apart.

On 11/10/23 13:46, Marcus Daniels wrote:
> original.png
> Peter Thiel Is Taking a Break From Democracy <https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2023/11/peter-thiel-2024-election-politics-investing-life-views/675946/?utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share>

On 11/10/23 11:26, Roger Critchlow wrote:
> Text of Charlie Stross' talk to Next Frontiers Applied Fiction Day in Stuttgart on Friday November 10th, 2023, concerning where the techno-industrial elite found their horrible philosophies/secular religions.
> 
> https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2023/11/dont-create-the-torment-nexus.html 

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