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AmrikeeAkbar


				

				

				
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joined 2022 September 14 04:22:46 UTC

				

User ID: 1187

AmrikeeAkbar


				
				
				

				
0 followers   follows 0 users   joined 2022 September 14 04:22:46 UTC

					

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User ID: 1187

I'd definitely read the piece if you ever get around to it.

A belated thanks! Added to my to-read list.

Thank you, added that to my TBR

Anyone have any good references on market consolidation? I'm investigating the idea that economies of scale lead to a small percentage of firms controlling large sections of the market. Any literature on this would be appreciated.

Stalled out on "Democracy in America". Its not that it lacks insight or is badly written, its just...a long winded nineteenth century book, i guess? And it seems like it may suffer from its success, being one of those books whose key points have already passed into the broader culture in some way.

Been a minute since I logged in here, but I wanted to respond that I'd be interested to read that. What technologies exemplify this trend?

Two from my endless pile. Both labor intensive so who knows when, if ever, I'll get around to them:

Globalization, Fragility, and Monoculture - Basically, an exploration of the idea that modern economic conditions facilitate economies of scale in which commodity production and distribution is highly centralized, for reasons of cost i.e. the huge percentage of the worlds semiconducturs traditionally manufactured in Taiwan. This also facilitates standardization of design in these products. The analogy in the natural world would be the ability of certain species, hyper-optimized to fill a certain ecological niche, to flourish and crowd out potential competitors. This is well and good until something happens to disrupt the status quo; the product or organism that was perfectly adapted to one set of conditions is often too specialized to adapt when those conditions change. None of these ideas are terribly new of course. Since Covid, lots of people have been thinking about the idea that globalization is pretty fragile. Both John Robb in the security sphere and Nicholas Nassim Taleb have arguably been preaching similar ideas long before they started to enter mainstream currency. The issue, I think, is that the mono-cultural model tends to be very profitable in the short-to-medium term. Hyper-specialization is what allows for explosive growth, which is what hordes of slavering venture capitalists and would-be venture capitalists are always seeking. Not sure anyone has addressed the explicit tradeoff between growth and security/systemic diversity and the compromises that we may be forced to make on that front in a generation or two.

A tale of two elites - Arguably since the end of the civil war, the United States has largely been run by people associated with political and financial centers of power in the Northeast of the country. Broadly speaking, they tend to have similar educational (Ivy League) and professional backgrounds (often lawyers, academics, or some other wordcel-esque job), and place a great deal of emphasis on technocratic credentialism. The emergence of silicon valley as a possible rival center of power, with its own culture, norms, and ideals could set conditions for a major change. Again, hardly an original idea, but not one I've seen explored in depth to my own satisfaction

For a long time I've been thinking I need to make it a rule to tell someone if I enjoyed reading something they wrote. This is another data point in favor of making that a rule.

Likewise

Be very interested to read the Putin thing

Would be very interested in the Orthodox Church/Ukraine Situation

Great comment, thanks!

Wanted to reiterate what others have already said, that I appreciate you taking the time to post this review and I will likely add the book to my ever-growing TBR list. If I could ask a follow up question - does the author posit a reason emotions were running so high? I get that there was a climate of fear and paranoia which contributed to the Terror, but what was the mechanism by which this climate emerged?