When policymakers buy the hype, the public pays for it

 --- Eryk Salvaggio, in Most Researchers Do Not Believe AGI Is Imminent. Why Do Policymakers Act Otherwise?, Tech Policy Press, 19 Mar 2025

In context

Around the world, policymakers appear increasingly eager to satisfy the interests of tech firms that claim they can deliver AGI. Perhaps it’s natural—if you were a politician or a head of state confronted with a complex, interconnected set of problems with no immediate solution, you might crave the answer these companies are selling. And you might be more than a little hungry for the type of transformation that such technology might create under your leadership.

However, there is danger in making AI policy goals just as invested in the promise of AGI as are the tech sector's leaders. When policymakers buy the hype, the public pays for it.

ne vous faites pas si petit, vous n’etes pas si grand” (Don't make yourself so small, you’re not that big)

---C Scot Hicks and David V Hicks, translators of Plutarch, The Lawgivers: The parallel lives of Numa Pompilius and Lycurgus of Sparta, Circe (2019)

p. 49, Footnote on p. 49

Love of honor: The celebrated Greek philotimia (love of honor). For the Greeks, a false modesty (eironia, from which the English word “irony” derives), as seen in Theophrastus’ character sketches, is a vice. This character is often translated into English as The Hypocrite. As the French say, “ne vous faites pas si petit, vous n’etes pas si grand” (Don't make yourself so small, you’re not that big).

Plutarch's text, p. 48

The girls might even taunt a boy by name with an apt comment when catching him in a mistake, or in their songs they might single out someone for praise and thereby inspire a great love of honor and a competitive spirit in the young men.

Conspiracy culture gets the facts wrong, but the feeling is right

 --- Naomi Klein, in a July 2024 New Scientist interview about her latest book, Doppelganger: A trip into the mirror world.

In context

I call them conspiracy influencers because there really isn’t a theory. The theory moves around depending on where you’re going to get the traction. One minute they are railing against masks because covid-19 is just a cold, and the next minute, covid-19 is a bioweapon. People turn to these influencers because they are trying to make sense of the world.

And that’s where things get complicated, because they are tapping into a real feeling that something isn’t right. Conspiracy culture gets the facts wrong, but the feeling is right.

We live in a time of huge wealth creation, a time when we will probably see our first trillionaire soon. And yet everything that supports people’s well-being seems to be eroding. There’s a feeling that the system is rigged.

Conspiracy culture takes the sense that the system is rigged against you and says, well, it’s just those five people over there. It’s Bill Gates, and Klaus Schwab from the World Economic Forum and maybe some lizard people.

I wonder if one couldn't say that a lot of science and management experts get the facts right, but the feeling wrong. 

Science is always good for books. And adventure is good.

 --- Ruth Krauss, "How to write a book," How to make an earthquake, 1954, pp. 27-28

Text:

You can write books about anything. For instance, fruits. The first page could be a banana and the second page could be an orange and the third could be cherries, and like that. If you can't write yet, you could just draw. Then the book could be especially for someone who can't read yet.

Or, you could write a book for someone who can read only one word. You could draw a horse on the first page and write HELLO, and the second page could be a bear and write HELLO, and the third page could be a kitten and write HELLO, and the fourth could be a monkey and write HELLO, until as many as you want. At the end maybe you could write GOODBYE, just for fun.

If you can write well enough, you can tell a whole story and you could draw pictures with it too. One good story is about the table that wanted a chair, and then it got the chair and was happy and never lonely ever after. Or if you can't draw well, you could just write, if you can write.

Science is always good for books. And adventure is good.

I think this bit from Amy Timberlake's wonderful Skunk and Badger (Algonquin Young Readers, 2020, Ch. 6, p. 70) is a tribute to Ruth Kraus. This is at the end of the story Skunk told about Chicken Little the Mighty:

Skunk closed the book with a thump. “THE END.” 

The chickens broke into squawks. “Bock!” “Bock-bock!”

The tiny orange hen in Badger's arms tapped him with her beak. Badger nodded at her. 

That was a good story, he thought, sighing. Adventure and science made the best stories.

Tell me what you pay attention to, and I will tell you who you are

--- attrib. to José Ortega y Gasset (Man and Crisis, 1964), in Cindy Engel, Another Self: How Your Body Helps You Understand Others (2024:147)

Engle writes on p. 56

I  open this chapter with a quote from philosopher, José Ortega y Gasset: “Tell me what you pay attention to, and I will tell you who you are.” I would add, “Tell me to whom you pay attention, and I will tell you how you are feeling.”

Myths represent another way of understanding history, beyond the simply rational

 Anselm Kiefer, 1991(?), from an excerpt in the Wim Wender documentary Anselm: Das Rauschen der Zeit (2023).

In audio over what seems to be a 3rd party documentary about the Kiefer show at the Nationalgalerie in Berlin in 1991, the voice-over (in German, English subtitles provided by Wenders; time codes of the Wenders documentary)

[1:00:12] The world Kiefer shows isn't perfect with its morbid landscapes and environments. A master of subtle irritation. He produces large format myths. 

The 3rd party documentary then shifts to a recording of an interview or press conference with Kiefer in a gallery. An interviewer asks: 

[1:00:27] You were accused of your way of dealing with history, now you are accused of escaping into myth. How do you feel about this contradiction?

Kiefer replies:

[1:00:36] There is no such thing as 'escaping into the myth'. Because the myth is present. Myths represent another way of understanding history, beyond the simply rational. 

for God, to me, it seems, is a verb not a noun

 --- R Buckminster Fuller, in "No More Secondhand God," collected in No More Secondhand God and Other Writings By R. Buckminster Fuller 1971:22 (pdf) 

Excerpt

Here is true world democracy in the swift making;

a democracy which socializes all plenty

as that plenty is wrested from scarcity

by world-widening co-operative industry;

a democracy which, scientifically

seeking categorical validity for all the motivations,

taxes only inertia

and awards copiously its individuals

who radiantly expand the commonwealth;

awarding them out of the newly integrated wealth

captured from the unseen fresh fruits

of the limitless environment—

and not by the slightest impoverishment

of commonwealth,

either by mortgage

or individual indebtedness.

Here is God’s purpose—

for God, to me, it seems,

is a verb

not a noun,

proper or improper;

is the articulation

not the art, objective or subjective;

is loving,

not the abstraction “love” commanded or entreated;

is knowledge dynamic,

not legislative code,

not proclamation law,

not academic dogma, nor ecclesiastic canon.

Yes, God is a verb,

the most active,

connoting the vast harmonic

reordering of the universe

from unleashed chaos of energy.

And there is born unheralded

a great natural peace,

not out of exclusive

pseudo-static security

but out of including, refining, dynamic balancing.

Naught is lost.

Only the false and nonexistent are dispelled.