for sure, I came to know of the idea through Venkat + James Scott I think was primarily more popular in a leftist political setting prior to Venkat’s piece
Alpha for being first feels important for understanding the shift from the pre-printing press provenance first culture to the modern publicity-first approach which I have been thinking about since reading Ibn Khaldun: An intellectual biography last year.
(There is plenty more to say, but like most of your pieces, the ideas this sparked are bigger than the time I have to work things out.)
Feels like an updated version of “If you read what everyone else is reading, you will think what everyone else is thinking” (Murakami)
Another way to fight it is to read widely based on your own interests.
No disrespect to Venkatesh though James c Scott deserves the og claim to legibility no?
for sure, I came to know of the idea through Venkat + James Scott I think was primarily more popular in a leftist political setting prior to Venkat’s piece
Alpha for being first feels important for understanding the shift from the pre-printing press provenance first culture to the modern publicity-first approach which I have been thinking about since reading Ibn Khaldun: An intellectual biography last year.
(There is plenty more to say, but like most of your pieces, the ideas this sparked are bigger than the time I have to work things out.)
whats the Ibn Khaldun connection? I have not read that book
Curious about how this interacts with the divergentist thesis / the idea that LLMs accelerate divergentism that VGR sometimes writes about!
Nice piece btw! Can see why it resonates. What’s the connection with Oklahoma City btw