In the midst of the Interregnum there shall be no rest or so that is what it seems has been willed by God.

On the obvious issue of the Epstein Emails I have shared some reflections, but have also included additional notes which I feel are pertinent.

It would be extremely tempting to treat the Epstein saga as one of exceptionalism revolving around the personality-cult of one man rather than to see it as a systemic and network effect of global elites coalescing around nodes of capital from tech and finance to academia all working in coordination and harmony within the larger gambit of what is euphemistically referred to as the “Rules Based Liberal International Order”. The sordid details of the emails obscure a far more chilling reality of a form of banal social and cultural proceduralism that resembles cronyism and networked elite effects that operate cybernetically across diverse domains and fields driven largely it seems by flows of hyperfinancialism glove-in-hand with intelligence agency cogwar tactics. One should refrain I believe from referencing the occult and mystical voodoo for what is ultimately a political economy running around the premise of the “banality of evil”. Elsewhere, colleagues at SAIF have released new notes - telling diaries as it were reflecting on our age, which demands closer reading courtesy of Eco-Hollandi. I’ve personally tweeted in various places elsewhere that the sequence of 2001, 2008, and COVID emerges not as discrete ruptures but as successive waves in what Anna Greenspan’s cybernetic reading of capitalism might identify as an accelerating crisis-rhythm—each crash sending its ripples across the social field, yet never quite achieving the revolutionary transformation their magnitude seemed to promise. We find ourselves suspended in that morbid interval where the old order refuses its death and the new remains perpetually stillborn, each wave’s recession revealing the same scarred shore beneath. Mark Fisher’s capitalist realism names precisely this recursive trap: the waves grow higher, more devastating, yet the undertow always drags us back to the familiar coordinates of hyperfinancialist logic, as if the ocean itself has been enclosed.

A lovely little graphic - the believer of course dear reader is instructed to find the bridge

I’ve previously commented on Pax Silica with a focus on how the GCC and Israel can be a worthy interface and assume premier vassalage from the European Union to help shape American supremacy in the field, but this rather insightful piece from Reuters shifts the perspective to Africa.

I also found this infograph which is also a nice recap of what has been happening as GAE tries to reposition itself against Chinese dominance in the sector: I’ve long been pessimistic perhaps indulging Neo-Luddite impulses on the state of LLMs being the harbinger of cyberpunk dystopias, but this rigorous study from the Lancet on the use of medical LLMs in the interpretation and screening of breast cancer is a good tonic for cynical souls. The results are so impressive that it demands perhaps immediate implementation.

However, one cannot ignore instinct for too long and I found myself once again unimpressed by what Altman and co have unleashed with the current state of “self-publishing“ which I believe could be a real focal point in the Dark Age of Technology where readers are simply drowned in the infinite sludge and slop of female smut (as this of course is the most profitable and lucrative of publishing markets).

The Chinese though will not experience such a Dark Age, as they leverage the Question of Technology in creating Communist Solarpunk Futures - notable to see its aggressive and almost militant like push in green energy.

“China’s aluminium industry is undergoing a profound and systematic transformation,” Le Jiawen, Wenshan’s mayor, told local industry members at an event attended by the FT. “Industrial competition is shifting from a battle of scale and cost to a comprehensive contest of ‘green’ and ‘low-carbon’ advantages.” A new study now seems to confirm yet another victory for Neo-Luddites - that perhaps the dumbphone should be wajib as necessary immunization against cogwar machinations. Amidst the LLM circus, there is an aggressive militaristic impulse driving a lot of the aggressive expansion in capex (similar things are also of course unfolding in China under the auscpies of the CCP):

The past few years have dramatically shifted the landscape of capitalist competition—from one guided by neoliberal free market ideals to one saturated with geopolitical concerns. To understand the shift from neoliberalism to geopolitics, one must grok the relationships between states and their large technology companies. Such state-capitalist relationships have been central to earlier formations of imperialism—Lenin famously characterized the imperialism of his era as a merger between monopoly capital and great powers—and they remained influential throughout the 20th century. In recent decades, this took the form of a broad consensus between the tech and political elite about digital technology’s role in innovation, growth, and state power. See also Ben Wray‘s review of Srnicek’s timely work: Another sign of the Interregnum: Another cause for technoptimism is Apple‘s stunning performance against the intrusions of the FBI against an apprehended journalist - one could even venture to say that at this stage for the technically challenged instead of recommending GrapheneOS (which is the gold standard), the Apple ecosystem is a very accessible and worthy contender for second place in terms of digital privacy and sovereignty:

The court record shows what devices and data the FBI was able to ultimately access, and which devices it could not, after raiding the home of the reporter, Hannah Natanson, in January as part of an investigation into leaks of classified information. It also provides rare insight into the apparent effectiveness of Lockdown Mode, or at least how effective it might be before the FBI may try other techniques to access the device.

“Because the iPhone was in Lockdown mode, CART could not extract that device,” the court record reads, referring to the FBI’s Computer Analysis Response Team, a unit focused on performing forensic analyses of seized devices. The document is written by the government, and is opposing the return of Natanson’s devices.

The FBI raided Natanson’s home as part of its investigation into government contractor Aurelio Perez-Lugones, who is charged with, among other things, retention of national defense information. The government believes Perez-Lugones was a source of Natanson’s, and provided her with various pieces of classified information. While executing a search warrant for his mobile phone, investigators reviewed Signal messages between Pere-Lugones and the reporter, the Department of Justice previously said. Whilst much attention is focused on the Israelis and Iranians, Hellyer offers a peek inside perhaps the most consequential dynamic in the region - the relationship between the Saudis and Emiratis who have two rather contrasting visions for what a post-GAE regional order would look like.

And truly God knows best