road kill – Harold Jarche

On the last Friday of each month I curate some of the observations and insights that were shared on social media. I call these Friday’s Finds.

“Q. You know what AI is best at?

A. Propaganda”
—@GeorgeSnorwell

“I saw a post that asked: why is divestment political but investment is not? And I can’t stop thinking about it.” —@JackieGardina

“When you invent the ship, you also invent the shipwreck; when you invent the plane you also invent the plane crash; and when you invent electricity, you invent electrocution … Every technology carries its own negativity, which is invented at the same time as technical progress.” —Paul Virilio, Philippe Petit, Sylvère Lotringer (1999) Politics of the Very Worst

“Slack — available work capacity — is crucial for scaling and for organizational health in general.
People with slack have headspace and time to improve things, to think ahead, to sweep out the corners, to prepare for what’s coming next. And they will see these needs before management does.
‘Running lean’ eliminates slack. This only works for a while, and only if you have a flat org of highly self-actualized people who you give autonomy. And you’ll still burn people out eventually.

If you take away both slack and autonomy, (e.g. ‘running lean’ but with a stratified org) you get the worst of both worlds.

Laborers are expected to spend every billable moment working on work defined and prioritized by someone else. They are unable to use their intimate knowledge of the work to improve how things work, to prepare for what’s next, to keep things tidy and safe, because none of this has ‘value’ for management.

This is an organization that will grind itself to powder before it succeeds.” — Chris Ammerman

Slate: We’re All Roadkill Now

In a sense, roads are the ultimate expression of One Health, the concept that our own well-being is intimately linked to the planet’s. Roads simultaneously degrade nature and jeopardize human well-being: The same dirt highways that have carved up the Amazon also facilitate the spread of malaria; the same Los Angeles freeways pulverizing mountain lions are also responsible for the city’s dismal air quality. Scientists call the study of how roads influence nature ‘road ecology’, the subject of my recent book, Crossings — and nature includes us humans. Whether you’re a pedestrian or a porcupine, you live in the thrall of roads.

How Three Big Conspiracy Theories Took Root in Canada

It’s commonly assumed that education inoculates against conspiratorial thinking. However, schooling is not a foolproof safeguard against paranoid thinking. Despite Canada having one of the world’s most highly educated populations, a poll released in December 2023 by Leger found that 79 percent of Canadians believe at least one conspiracy theory, including hallucinations about Princess Diana being assassinated and global cabals of elites secretly pulling the strings. However, the conspiratorial thinking running rampant is neither new nor an imported phenomenon. Forms of fringe thought that are increasingly relevant today, including pseudo constitutionalism, conspiratorial anti-communism, and New World Order conspiracism, have historically appeared in Canada, including among the well connected and highly educated.

Sam Altman Is Full Of Shit

Open AI is built on a culture of deception, one that obfuscates the actual abilities of their technology, and every further successful obfuscation enriches an enterprise that lacks morality, clarity and respect for its users or the tech industry at large.

The same goes for Sundar Pichai of Google, Satya Nadella of Microsoft, and, of course, Mark Zuckeberg and anybody associated with Meta … because AI can’t, by definition, know anything.

“Why yes, I am absolutely wearing this cut-off tshirt with an image of Artemisia Gentileschi’s Judith Beheading Holofrenes that says ‘Girl Dinner’ to the talk I am giving this afternoon about tech-enabled abuse.” —@evacide