A very sceptical take on "Google’s snorefest of an I/O presentation" and the current point in "the latest hype cycle... how exhausting the whole thing has become a year and a half after the release of ChatGPT".The days of being on the inevitable path to AGI because Silicon Valley had "thrown so much capital and compute&quo;…

"All economic bubbles are hugely destructive, but some ... leave behind (useful) wreckage that can be salvaged":the first dotcom bubble left behind "cheap servers, office furniture and space... a generation of young people ,,, trained as web makers... technologists from non-technical backgrounds"crypto bubble: "a smatterin…

A wide-ranging overview and linkfest to studies showing that the prevalence and impact of political echo chambers are at least exaggerated, and a preview of the author's upcoming book on the subject, based on surveys held in France, Germany and the UK, where "the percentages of users who claim to often agree with the political content th…

[leaders are] usually busy furiously making believe that there is no decline. Instead of leading societies out of decline (which is what they should be doing), they’re working night and day manufacturing (or luxuriously reclining in) what I’ll call Unreality Bubbles... intelligentsias manufacture unrealities in eras of decline because their positi…