Link | Ulysse Sabbagh

May 11, 2025 ∞

René Girard on US-China

His thoughts on international relations come in his final book, Battling to the End (2009), a commentary on the military theorist Carl von Clausewitz, written as a dialogue with the literary critic Benoît Chantre. There, Girard describes geopolitical conflict as the result of mimetic desire: “Everyone now knows that the looming conflict between the US and China, for example, has nothing to do with a ‘clash of civilisations’, despite what some might try to tell us. We always try to see differences where in fact there are none. In fact, the dispute is between two forms of capitalism that are becoming more and more similar,” Girard wrote. He understood the trade war as the result of similarity rather than difference and believed it could lead to a conflict that would wipe out the world. He called it the apocalypse.

It is not too far fetched to view the US as become more illiberal and China turning towards finance and technology.

ft.com↗

May 11, 2025 ∞

The Most Valuable Commodity in the World is Friction

I think what we're witnessing isn't just an extension of the attention economy but something new - the simulation economy. It's not just about keeping you glued to the screen anymore. It's about convincing you that any sort of real-world effort is unnecessary, that friction itself is obsolete3. The simulation doesn't just occupy your attention, right, instead it replaces the very notion that engagement should require effort. Which is… wild.

From: The Most Valuable Commodity in the World is Friction

Nov 21, 2024 ∞

Nvidia's CEO defends his moat as AI labs change how they improve their AI models

“Foundation model pretraining scaling is intact and it’s continuing,” said Huang on Wednesday. “As you know, this is an empirical law, not a fundamental physical law, but the evidence is that it continues to scale. What we’re learning, however, is that it’s not enough.”

That's also what I would say, if the growth of my business depended on people buying my chips, which are the gold standard for pre-training.

Source: TechCrunch

Jul 1, 2017 ∞

Micro.blog too

This is a description

Jul 26, 2016 ∞

String of Attacks in Europe Fuels a Summer of Anxiety

1967: summer of love.
2016: summer of shit.

Jul 26, 2016 ∞

Amazon partners with U.K. government to test its drones

“While today’s agreement doesn’t exactly give Amazon permission to start drone deliveries, it marks a major step forward for Amazon’s ambitions in this area.”

Jul 26, 2016 ∞

News Publishers’ Facebook Problem

“Today, Facebook drives about 40% of all referrals and Google drives about 35%. Together then, they drive 75% of all referrals to news and entertainment sites. Google has plateaued and Facebook shows continuing, if slowing, share-of-referrals growth.”

Jan 28, 2015 ∞

The Shake Shack Economy

As Starbucks did for coffee, Chipotle and Shake Shack have changed people’s expectations of what fast food can be. The challenge for the old chains is that new expectations spread. Millennials, for instance, have become devoted fast-casual customers. So McDonald’s is now experimenting with greater customization, and has said that it would like to rely entirely on “sustainable beef.” The question is whether you can inject an emphasis on taste and freshness into a business built around cheapness and convenience. After decades in which fast-food chains perfected the “fast,” can they now improve the “food”?

A very interesting read.

Jan 9, 2015 ∞