The AI bubble is a symptom of our wider economic problems. It’s the last thing masking the bigger systemic issues — so they don’t show up in the macro numbers. Just on the ground. But the US bombed…
  • corbin@awful.systemsEnglish
    9·
    1 day ago

    I agree on the big points but think capitalism is more subtle than that.

    Capitalism does cost efficiency incredibly well. It doesn’t do robustness, because redundancy costs money. So blocking one strait can stop the world.

    At some point, neoliberalism stops being the best lens for understanding the world. This is a great case in point. Capitalism is not cost-efficient; the economy wastes about two or three hours of labor for every productive labor-hour, and that shows up in pricing. Any long-lived economy builds up redundancy; what capitalists believe is that redundancy cheapens everything by creating competition, and regardless of whether that’s true, it certainly doesn’t indicate inefficiency. The actual reason that blocking Hormuz has global effects is because we have been overextending our fertilization capabilities for over a century and many parts of the world can no longer sustain their own local nitrogen cycles.

  • lurker@awful.systemsEnglish
    5·
    2 days ago

    On the subject of AI and the war in Iran, it feels pretty likely to me that the DoD will explode Anthropic with criminal/legal charges in August like they threatened to (unless Dario steps down), which will definitely be ugly

    • gerikson@awful.systemsEnglish
      3·
      22 hours ago

      Nah, Anthropic got an injunction against the “supply-chain risk” designation the other day, and I don’t think Team Trump-Hegseth has enough mental endurance to remember going after them.

      • lurker@awful.systemsEnglish
        3·
        16 hours ago

        Oh really? Damn didn’t know that. Wouldn’t be surprised if Trump somehow manages to bypass the injunction, because Trump. You are right they could drop it due to their old person mental fatigue but they could keep chasing because this is a deeply petty and childish administration

      • YourNetworkIsHaunted@awful.systemsEnglish
        2·
        16 hours ago

        I doubt they have the individual or institutional capacity to go after them in a timely and competent fashion, but there’s plenty of time before August for someone to remind them about it, especially since this was a way for Anthropic and friends to reclaim some positive space in the news cycle. I can see some bad news for the bubble and/or war hitting in, say, June and causing Amodei to break out the “we stood up to trump” story again, which will in turn remind the dodderer-in-chief that they were gonna try and do something about that guy.