I wonder if Yarvin has since changed his opinion about AI. He seems to have a naive view of intentionality. Would love to hear him have a conversation with Nick Land.
Also, can we stop using "Straussian" to simply mean "subtextual"? I heard Cowen basically confess that that's how he uses it. Straussian reading should mean a subtextual reading of a thinker who has reasons to hide their true meaning, more precise
Near the end, he made a comment about Africa being a human farm, since it imports 90% of its food. This appears to be completely made up.
According to Grok, subsaharan Africa imported $43B, exported $35B of agricultural products in a recent year. So it’s not even close to true, and it seems to substantially discredit his comments in that section.
(I found the statistic implausible, so I had to look it up. I don’t think I’m misunderstanding his claim.)
Consider adding food aid (and farm aid, like farm equipment aid) into your calculation. I haven’t done the math myself, but some countries in Africa have huge shares of their GDP made up by foreign aid/charity, and that’s probably not included in some of the trade balance calculations.
Maybe, though that doesn't seem apples to apples to say that checks we cut to the national government (presumably we don't send it directly to farmers?) should be debited against the balance of agricultural product movement across borders.
Assuming that large subsidies are made to farms, like we have in the US, I would guess that the function of that is to suppress food prices for consumers rather than making it possible to grow the food at all.
Unless there's something I'm missing, I still think the plain understanding of "being able to produce their own food" is met, or at least roughly in the ballpark.
Needs more order -- art
Needs more chaos -- academia
5?
Fantastic discussion, sounds like you both enjoyed it too. Thanks for putting in the time and effort.
I wonder if Yarvin has since changed his opinion about AI. He seems to have a naive view of intentionality. Would love to hear him have a conversation with Nick Land.
Also, can we stop using "Straussian" to simply mean "subtextual"? I heard Cowen basically confess that that's how he uses it. Straussian reading should mean a subtextual reading of a thinker who has reasons to hide their true meaning, more precise
Near the end, he made a comment about Africa being a human farm, since it imports 90% of its food. This appears to be completely made up.
According to Grok, subsaharan Africa imported $43B, exported $35B of agricultural products in a recent year. So it’s not even close to true, and it seems to substantially discredit his comments in that section.
(I found the statistic implausible, so I had to look it up. I don’t think I’m misunderstanding his claim.)
Consider adding food aid (and farm aid, like farm equipment aid) into your calculation. I haven’t done the math myself, but some countries in Africa have huge shares of their GDP made up by foreign aid/charity, and that’s probably not included in some of the trade balance calculations.
Maybe, though that doesn't seem apples to apples to say that checks we cut to the national government (presumably we don't send it directly to farmers?) should be debited against the balance of agricultural product movement across borders.
Assuming that large subsidies are made to farms, like we have in the US, I would guess that the function of that is to suppress food prices for consumers rather than making it possible to grow the food at all.
Unless there's something I'm missing, I still think the plain understanding of "being able to produce their own food" is met, or at least roughly in the ballpark.
In any same country, he'd be arrested for sedition. No wonder your nation is a laughingstock.