"...bureaucracy should be primarily (perhaps even exclusively) responsive to the people at the top." THIS is the 'unitary executive' notion that both the Epstein class and the Koch class have been hammering into the 'discussion' for around fifty years. And they worked and worked and connived and manipulated until finally they'd fertilized a suitable 'unitary executive' sufficiently that, like an invasive species, he choked off all the more organic and diverse growth. They golf-carted him into the office, and in return for getting his hands on the checkbook, he's given them the keys to the store and a chainsaw. The pirates are owning the coasts and harbors now, and the bandits the plains and forests. Such as that remain. The coast guard and the sheriff's posses have been disarmed and disabled.
A bit of prose that rings ever more true for me. A cranky Welsh Anglican cleric, a hundred years ago:
"The Machine appeared in the distance, singing to itself of money. Its songs were the webs they were caught in, men and women together. The villages were as flies to be sucked empty. God shed a tear. "Enough! Enough!" he cried. But the Machine just looked at him, and went on singing." R. S. Thomas. from "other"
I look forward to a careful reading of "AI as Social Technology".
Oh, and I recommend the acerbicly cynical critic Ed Zitron for his ability to read the techbro's financials and pluck the legs off this developing fraud. Here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=or8butOTUp8
Even the Unitary Executive people don't believe that the Executive should be able to ignore the allocation of funding established by Congress. The Vought and DOGE people have turned American government into a "winner-take-all" model, where the GOP President and bare majorities in Congress don't even have to consider input from the other side. If allocated funds and established Departments don't toe the Administration line, then the funds will be left unspent and the Departments eliminated, unilaterally.
The Supreme Court is a little bit more complex; they will eventually, in some cases, rule against these unilateral actions, when they get around to hearing the case, after the damage is done. So, they preserve the facade of the Constitution while effectively allowing it to be buried alive.
And let's not forget that DOGE primarily gutted those agencies that were investigating Mu卐kRat's various companies. DOGE very effectively put a stop to that.
Interesting piece but you forgot the basic part of writing where every time you introduce a new acronym you write it out first. Not writing out acronyms the first time they're used tends to confuse readers
The essay is full of insights such as "AI reductions of public understandings make visible patterns that were previously too vast to easily discern, but at the cost of hiding details that do not fit the models’ abstractions." I doubt coarse-graining of AI as social technology is the best single perspective, since the cultural tech framing is also compelling, but thank you and Cosma for unleashing this productive hypothesis.
"...bureaucracy should be primarily (perhaps even exclusively) responsive to the people at the top." THIS is the 'unitary executive' notion that both the Epstein class and the Koch class have been hammering into the 'discussion' for around fifty years. And they worked and worked and connived and manipulated until finally they'd fertilized a suitable 'unitary executive' sufficiently that, like an invasive species, he choked off all the more organic and diverse growth. They golf-carted him into the office, and in return for getting his hands on the checkbook, he's given them the keys to the store and a chainsaw. The pirates are owning the coasts and harbors now, and the bandits the plains and forests. Such as that remain. The coast guard and the sheriff's posses have been disarmed and disabled.
A bit of prose that rings ever more true for me. A cranky Welsh Anglican cleric, a hundred years ago:
"The Machine appeared in the distance, singing to itself of money. Its songs were the webs they were caught in, men and women together. The villages were as flies to be sucked empty. God shed a tear. "Enough! Enough!" he cried. But the Machine just looked at him, and went on singing." R. S. Thomas. from "other"
I look forward to a careful reading of "AI as Social Technology".
Oh, and I recommend the acerbicly cynical critic Ed Zitron for his ability to read the techbro's financials and pluck the legs off this developing fraud. Here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=or8butOTUp8
Thanks for your work. It's important.
Tim Long, Just Up the Hill from Lock 15
Even the Unitary Executive people don't believe that the Executive should be able to ignore the allocation of funding established by Congress. The Vought and DOGE people have turned American government into a "winner-take-all" model, where the GOP President and bare majorities in Congress don't even have to consider input from the other side. If allocated funds and established Departments don't toe the Administration line, then the funds will be left unspent and the Departments eliminated, unilaterally.
The Supreme Court is a little bit more complex; they will eventually, in some cases, rule against these unilateral actions, when they get around to hearing the case, after the damage is done. So, they preserve the facade of the Constitution while effectively allowing it to be buried alive.
For me, at least, this was helpful beyond words. Thank you.
Goes to show: agreeing on the objective but not the justification for the objective means you don't actually agree on the objective.
And let's not forget that DOGE primarily gutted those agencies that were investigating Mu卐kRat's various companies. DOGE very effectively put a stop to that.
I did read the piece! Mr Shalizi and your essay on the Knight Columbia Institute website is particularly informative and interesting. Thank you.n
Interesting piece but you forgot the basic part of writing where every time you introduce a new acronym you write it out first. Not writing out acronyms the first time they're used tends to confuse readers
The essay is full of insights such as "AI reductions of public understandings make visible patterns that were previously too vast to easily discern, but at the cost of hiding details that do not fit the models’ abstractions." I doubt coarse-graining of AI as social technology is the best single perspective, since the cultural tech framing is also compelling, but thank you and Cosma for unleashing this productive hypothesis.