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The tradition lives on. Many contemporary AI systems do not so much mimic human thinking as they do the less imaginative minds of bureaucratic institutions; our machine-learning techniques are often programmed to achieve superhuman scale, speed and accuracy at the expense of human-level originality, ambition or morals.
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A nihilist is someone who dedicates himself to not giving a shit, who thinks all meanings are shit, and who yearns with all his heart for the “aesthetic pleasure” of seeing the shit hit the fan. Arguing with a nihilist is like intimidating a suicide bomber: The usual threats and enticement have no effect. I suspect that is part of the appeal for both: the facile transcendence of placing oneself beyond all powers of persuasion. A nihilist is above you and your persnickety arguments in the same way that Trump fancies himself above the law.
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The main factors undermining the prospects for US prosperity are mostly the result of its own political decisions. Unsustainable fiscal deficits, questionable trade policy, a high level of inequality, crumbling infrastructure, underperforming schools, and unaffordable health care are the result of domestic choices. Whether or not Americans come to grips with those issues has little to do with China or India.
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For what comes next, however, Mr Trump needs a strategy, not just tactics. A starting point must be to promote America’s values. Mr Trump acts as if he believes that might is right. He shows a cynical disdain for the values America enshrined in global institutions after the second world war. If he follows that course America will be diminished as an idea and as a moral and political force. When America competes with China as a guardian of a rules-based order, it starts from a position of strength. But any Western democracy that enters a ruthless race to the bottom with China will—and should—lose.

Chinese Engagement

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In this paragraph, you will be nodding at least twice per sentence. You are already thinking about sharing the think piece on Twitter because it will make you look smart to people you want to impress. For the people you don’t want to impress, you will share it on Facebook to infuriate them. The think piece describes this phenomenon as social signaling, which you already knew.
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This is a think piece

“You are definitely smart and well-informed.”

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The most successful modern brands make one thing abundantly clear: approval is a hell of a drug. The best way to sell a discretionary good in a saturated market is to convince people that others will approve of them if they purchase that good. And in case it wasn’t clear, in our world, every good is discretionary, and every good exists in a saturated market. Crucially, this does not mean people don’t buy “better versions of themselves;” in fact, the opposite is true: purchasing a better version of ourselves is inextricably linked to purchasing a version of ourselves that we believe will afford us approval, or validate us.
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Float Predictor was developed as part of the Aerocene project, with Argentinian artist/philosopher Tomás Saraceno. He wants to leave behind the violence of the Anthropocene — the geological era defined by human beings’ defilement of the planet — and usher in what he calls the “Aerocene…an era of ecological awareness, in which we learn to float together, live together in the air, and come to an ethical commitment with the atmosphere and the planet earth,” as Saraceno puts it in a TED Talk.
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In a cynical light, humans are a resource-hungry virus that can’t be happy with what we have and won’t stop until the universe is ours. In a more generous light, that’s pretty much the definition of life. It blossoms, it adapts, it consumes. It fills every nook and cranny it can, from steaming cracks in the ocean floor to the polar ice caps. Without it, the universe would be sterile.
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However, it’s (sort of) rewarding to think about milestones, and take pause to think about other titans of industry and how we measure success. First off, firms that become the most valuable in the world (e.g., PetroChina, IBM, Cisco, Microsoft) typically go on to underperform the market. Most blame the law of large numbers. However, maybe this will change due to networking effects. The media will see this as a reflection on the health of tech. Sort of. I’d argue that, similar to the Dow, Apple’s stock has become the wellness index for the global rich. Apple commands 14% of the global smartphone market, and the rest is (mostly) Android. However, Apple garners 87% of the profits from the smartphone market. Consumers have two choices, spend a shit-ton of disposable income on a luxury item or get a phone for free and have your data/privacy molested.
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Out of the mouths of Messrs King, Miller and Trump, “border” basically means “the purity of the national stock” and “open” basically means “defilement.” “If we don’t have borders,” Mr Trump has said, “we don’t have a country.” As it happens, America does have borders, and is a country.  What Mr Trump means, and what his supporters hear, is that a country is a people of a unified ethnicity, and a drift towards a different, more varied complexion must be stopped.
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Supercomputer Thinking...
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