Age of Anger: A History of the Present
by
Pankaj Mishra
Published 26 Jan 2017
K., A Rebours (1884) ideology, theory of Ignatieff, Michael immigrants anarchists in USA fin de siècle as great age of migration hate-mongering against Polish émigrés in Turkey racism towards after Brexit vote imperialism, Western backlashes in name of traditional society creation of ‘long-term losers’ by decolonization exporting of modernity French German institutionalization of racism by Italian justifications for violence legacy for nation states of Napoleon neo-imperialism nineteenth-century expansion of Rhodes on Spanish American colonies and Tocqueville see also British Empire; post-colonial states India author’s upbringing in caste system and European mystical doctrines gods and goddesses independence (1947) Indian Mutiny (1857) and individualism inequality in Kashmiri and Naga insurgencies Maoist guerrillas in Marx on modernization nuclear tests (1998) post-independence writers and artists and Herbert Spencer universal suffrage in Young India see also Hindu nationalism individual, liberal universalist ideal of attempts to impose by force and capitalist modernization Enlightenment inception of failed universalization of fin de siècle rejections of and French Revolution German counter-tradition and Mill Napoleon’s politicization of and new post-war ‘Western Model’ notion of self-expansion and the philosophes promoted by privileged minority rational choice-making capacity Rousseau as critic and Sorel worldwide spread of individualism and Bakunin and creeping despotism culture of competition and mimicry and digital media dominance of since 1990s and Dostoyevsky’s writings and globalization and ISIS and Mazzini neo-liberal fantasy of nineteenth-century rise of Ayn Randian clichés rational egoism notion rhetoric of self-empowerment and rise of ressentiment in USA war of all against all Indonesia industrial revolution inequality as abetted by intellectual classes in India in nineteenth/early twentieth century present-day intellectual and artist class ‘comprador intelligentsia’ fin de siècle as first apostles of nationalism and French Revolution in India in Muslim countries support of despotic modernizers and Voltaire-Rousseau battle see also German Romantics; philosophes Iqbal, Muhammad IRA Iran Khomeini’s rule Khomeini’s velayat-e faqih (guardianship by jurist) revolution (1978) Shah of Shah’s repressive security apparatus US and UK backed coup (1953) Iran-Iraq war (1981–8) Iraq First Gulf War (1990) invasion of (2003) Ireland ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) appeal of birth of destruction as a creative passion and individualism intellectual forefathers and ‘narcissism of small difference’ use of internet Western bafflement at Islam Jalal Al-e-Ahmad writings and Atatürk cartoons lampooning Prophet Mohammed clash of civilizations thesis and Erdogan and European fin de siècle ‘experts’ on first generation of Islamists and Hindu nationalism intellectual and artist class Iranian revolution (1978) Italian invasion of Libya (1911) Naipaul on pan-Islamism in post-colonial states and Rashid Rida Shiite tradition Sunni tradition and Voltaire Western campaign to ‘reform’ Islamism, Radical 9/11 terrorist attacks al-Suri’s jihad strategy appeal of and Christian eschatology as disconnected from Islamic faith historical continuity explanations ideological eclecticism intellectual forefathers and ‘jihad’ and local defences of autonomy mimetic violence as product of modern era and pseudo-explanations and struggle against sensuousness and urbanization World Trade Centre attack (1993) see also ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) Israel Italy assassination of Umberto I (1878) Bakunin’s influence Carboneria city states constitutionalist revolt (1820–21) failings of unified state far-right resurgence in Fascism fin de siècle migration and First World War and ‘Free State of Fiume’ imperial ambitions industrialization Lazzaretti in Tuscany literature Marx on militarism in late nineteenth century Northern League post-WW2 period Risorgimento Sorel’s influence in unification Young Italy see also Mazzini, Giuseppe Jabotinsky, Vladimir Ze’ev Jacobi, Friedrich Jacobins Jahn, Friedrich Ludwig James, Henry Japan Jena-Auerstädt, battle of (1806) Jews see also anti-Semitism Jihadi John jingoism Johnson, Samuel Joyce, James, Ulysses (1922) Jünger, Ernst Kalimantan, Indonesia Kang Youwei Kant, Immanuel Kashmir Kasravi, Ahmad Keats, John Kepler, Johannes Keynes, John Maynard Khamenei, Ali Khan, Ayub Khomeini, Ayatollah post-revolutionary reign of terror Kierkegaard, Soren Kipling, Rudyard Kitaro, Nishida Kleist, Heinrich von Klopstock, Friedrich Gottlieb Kölcsey, Ferenc Korner, Theodor Kotkin, Stephen Kropotkin, Peter Kuliscioff, Anna Kyle, Chris, American Sniper Kyoto School of philosophy de Lafayette, Marquis de Lagarde, Paul de Lamartine, Alphonse de Lamennais, Abbé Félicité Words of a Believer (1834) Lang Lang (pianist) Le Pen, Marine Lebanon Lees, Edith Lenin Leroux, Pierre Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim Lewis, Bernard Li Shizeng Liang Qichao liberalism, classical Adam Smith’s theory ideal of pursuit of individual interests see also free market ideology; neo-liberalism Libya Lichtheim, George Locke, John Lohia, Rammanohar Loughner, Jared Louis Vuitton Louis XIV, King of France Lu Xun Luce, Henry Luther, Martin Macpherson, James, Ossian fraud de Maistre, Joseph Malatesta, Errico Mali mandarin culture Mandela, Nelson Mandelstam, Osip, ‘My Age, My Beast’ (1918) Mann, Heinrich Mann, Thomas Mannheim, Karl Manzoni, Alessandro Mao Zedong al-Maqdisi, Abu Mohammed Marat, Jean-Paul Marinetti, Filippo The Futurist Manifesto (1909) Marx, Karl The Communist Manifesto (1848) view of history Marxism dialectic dream of universal utopia see also Communism masculinity crisis of in nineteenth century fixation with manliness and Hindu nationalism machismo of Napoleon New Man in fin de siècle Mateen, Omar Maududi, Abu Al-Ala May, Theresa Mazzini, Giuseppe non-European disciples religion of humanity ‘Third Rome’ plan McEwan, Ian, Amsterdam (1998) McKinley, William, assassination of (1901) McLuhan, Marshall McVeigh, Timothy media see also digital communications Meinecke, Friedrich messianism, revolutionary metric system Metternich, Prince Mexico Meyerbeer, Giacomo Michelet, Jules Michels, Robert Mickiewicz, Adam Micklethwait, John Middle Ages Middle East division into mandates Israeli assault on Lebanon (2006) see also individual countries Miglio, Gianfranco Mill, John Stuart mimesis and Adam Smith’s theories appropriative mimicry and commercial society Herzl’s’Darwinian mimicry’ mimetic desire national emulation and ressentiment and Rousseau and violence and Westernizing dictators Mishima, Yukio modernity Anglo-America as maker of modern world Enlightenment inauguration of and European imperialism fin de siècle rejections of German counter-tradition and Khomeini latecomers to Marshall Berman’s definition and mimetic desire modernization from above and Naipaul’s ‘mimic men’ and post-colonial nations reappearance of mythic volk violent history of and Voltaire-Rousseau battle West vs Islam binary see also Enlightenment; individual, liberal universalist ideal of; progress, Enlightenment/modern notions of; Western society (the West) modernization theory Modi, Narendra Mohammed, Khalid Sheikh Montaigne Montesquieu Persian Letters (1721) The Spirit of the Laws (1748) Mosaddeq, Mohammad Mosca, Gaetano Most, Johann Muenzer, Thomas Mukerjee, Radhakamal Mumbai Munif, Abd al-Rahman, Cities of Salt (1984) Mussolini, Benito Myanmar Naipaul, V.
…
For it primarily describes a pattern of mental and emotional behaviour as the landscape of modernity extended from the Atlantic West to Europe’s heartland, Russia and further east; it explains how the impending end of the old order – with all its economic, social, religious, political, ethnic and gender traditions – and the promise of the new order created, often near simultaneously, global structures of feeling and thinking. And it sees ressentiment as the defining feature of a world where mimetic desire, or what Herzl called, approvingly, ‘Darwinian mimicry’, endlessly proliferates, and where the modern promise of equality collides with massive disparities of power, education, status and property ownership. * * * Unconventionally fusing genres, and crossing disciplinary boundaries, this book will be justified, I hope, by the degree to which it clarifies the extraordinary global upheavals that have provoked its writing.
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To this monumental divergence from the path of the Enlightenment and the French Revolution we owe many fateful innovations, including nationalism. Rousseau, a guiding light for the German Romantics, proved to be more prescient than his Enlightenment compatriots in condemning commercial society based on mimetic desire, as a game rigged by and in favour of elites: a recipe, in other words, for class conflict, moral decay, social chaos and political despotism. Little did the elites foresee that their basic assumption of stability, bound up with the guarantee of rights to a restricted number of individuals, would be overthrown, first by an ambitious rising class of the bourgeoisie insisting on perpetual growth and dynamism, and then the masses clamouring to catch up.
Boom: Bubbles and the End of Stagnation
by
Byrne Hobart
and
Tobias Huber
Published 29 Oct 2024
(As an example, consider the rise of innumerable TikTok investor influencers.) Mimetic desire, he explains in his 1972 book Violence and the Sacred, is deeply antagonistic in nature and operates as the engine of social rivalry and conflict. In contrast to mere imitation, which refers to the positive effects of copying someone else’s behavior (which facilitates learning, for example), mimetic desire—desiring the other’s desire—opens up a deeply violent dimension. Exploring anthropology, religious history, myth, and works from Shakespeare and 19th-century literature, Girard shows that the same pattern repeats itself over and over again. Mimetic desire accumulates under the social surface until the tension is violently discharged in a sacrificial event.
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From railway stock promoters in the British railway mania of the 1840s to Bernie Madoff, Elizabeth Holmes, Sam Bankman-Fried, and other various and sundry crypto scam artists today, the history of bubbles and crashes is littered with the symbolic bodies of investors, speculators, and fraudsters that society needed to sacrifice in order to recover from the destabilizing effects of financial manias. Therefore, bubbles are not only effective vehicles for parallelization and coordination, they are also spontaneous mechanisms of autoregulation that convert and channel conflictual mimetic desires to productive use. In sum, markets collectivize contagious mimetic desires and suppress their violent discharge. The market achieves a quasi-sacred status in our desacralized culture; it represents a transcendent absolute, irreducible and beyond human understanding and control. The forces of the market can only be interpreted but not truly known.
…
As Chapter 7 shows, fracking, for all its environmental downsides, has largely liberated America from the dangers of being dependent on a static yet declining industry. Bubbles also offer a partial escape from the trap of constantly comparing oneself to others. According to René Girard’s theory of mimetic desire, recently popularized among the Silicon Valley set by Peter Thiel, our wants tend to be borrowed from other people. We want not what we desire on our own but what we think other people desire. 152 This leads to a cycle of copying and competition, which, according to Girard, results in violence.
On the Edge: The Art of Risking Everything
by
Nate Silver
Published 12 Aug 2024
The envy-based economy is like a child in a room full of toys who wants to play with the exact toy that his sister or brother is playing with—and nothing else. According to the French historian René Girard—Peter Thiel’s favorite philosopher[*16]—this tendency to mirror what other people covet, what he calls “mimetic desire,” is at the very heart of the human condition. And when you combine mimetic desire with modern-day meme culture—“mime” and “mimetic” have the same Greek root word, mīmēma, meaning that which is imitated—you’ll wind up with prices for NFTs that fluctuate wildly as collectors signal to one another what should be a focal point and what is out of style.
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For instance, if you bet Lakers +5 at DraftKings and Celtics -3 at FanDuel, you’ll hit the middle and win both bets if the Celtics win by exactly 4 points. The equivalent of a middle involving moneylines rather than point spreads is a scalp. Midriver*: The region of the River centered around finance and investing, particularly Wall Street. Mimetic desire: The idea proposed by René Girard that people imitate what others covet. This can contribute to market instability because assets may become focal points due to collective coveting rather than their intrinsic worth. See also: envy-based economy. Mining (crypto): The computationally intensive practice of solving cryptographic puzzles to verify transactions on the blockchain—as a reward, miners receive new Bitcoins (or other cryptocurrencies) on a quasi-random basis.
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R., 220, 224, 230, 421–22, 424, 471 mean, 489 mean-reversion, 489 media, 26, 27 See also social media median, 489 megalothymia, 468, 489 Meme Creation of Value, 314–16, 411, 489 meme stocks, 310, 489 Mencken, H. L., 72–73 Mickelson, Phil, 197n middle (sports betting), 489 Midriver, 21, 489 Miller, Ed, 134–35, 172, 177n, 186 mimetic desire, 330–31, 489 See also conformity Mindlin, Ivan “Doc,” 195 mining (crypto), 489 misclick, 489 misogyny, 68, 118–19 Mitchell, Melanie, 450, 459 mixed strategies, 58, 60, 63, 425–26, 490 Mizuhara, Ippei, 173 model mavericks/model mediators, 446–47, 490 models abstract thinking and, 23 AI existential risk and, 446–48 vs. algorithms, 478 defined, 490 sports betting and, 179–80, 182 Moneyball, 137, 145, 153, 171, 179–80, 489 moneylines (sports betting), 183, 490 Moneymaker, Chris, 12, 43, 68, 493 Monnette, John, 103–4 moral hazard, 30, 261, 490 moral philosophy consequentialism, 359, 481, 533n deontology, 359, 368, 481, 482 game theory and, 367–68 impartiality, 358–59, 360–61, 366–67, 368, 377, 487, 533n, 538n modern value proposal, 469–72 moral parliament, 364, 470 overfitting/underfitting and, 362–68 rationality, 372–73, 495 River-Village conflict and, 30–31 See also effective altruism; rationalism; utilitarianism Morgenstern, Oskar, 22, 50–51 Moritz, Michael, 247, 248, 258, 259, 265–66, 271 Moskovitz, Dustin, 338–39 Motte-and-bailey fallacy, 490 “move fast and break things,” 250, 270, 419, 490 Mowshowitz, Zvi, 370 Murray, John, 174, 177, 208 Musk, Elon AI existential risk and, 406n, 416 Sam Altman and, 406 autism and, 282, 284 competitiveness and, 25–26 cryptocurrency and, 314–15 cults of personality and, 31 culture wars and, 29 effective altruism and, 344 luck and, 278, 280 megalothymia and, 468 OpenAI founding and, 406 poker and, 251 politics and, 267n resentment and, 277, 278 risk tolerance and, 229, 247–48, 251, 252, 264–65, 299 River and, 299 River-Village conflict and, 26–27, 267n, 295 secular stagnation and, 467 mutually assured destruction (MAD), 58, 421, 424–27, 488, 490 N Nakamoto, Satoshi, 322–23, 496 narcissism, 274–75 Nash equilibrium defined, 47, 490 dominant strategies and, 55 everyday randomization and, 64 in poker, 57–58, 60, 61, 62 prisoner’s dilemma as, 54 reciprocity and, 471 in sports betting, 58–60, 508n Negreanu, Daniel, 48–49, 66–67, 99, 100, 239, 508n nerd-sniping, 490 networking, 191, 197, 333 Neumann, Adam, 30, 281, 282, 283 neural net, 433–34, 490 New York Times, The, 27, 295 Neymar, 18, 82–83 NFTs, 325–26 apeing, 480 Bored Apes, 480 bubble in, 311, 312 DAOs and, 307 defined, 325, 490 focal points and, 330–34 profitability of, 331–32, 530n nits (gambling), 9, 114, 482, 490 Nitsche, Dominik, 49 nodes, 490 normal distribution, 491 nosebleed gambling, 491 NOT INVESTMENT ADVICE, 491 Noyce, Robert, 257 NPC (nonplayer character) syndrome, 378–79, 490 nuclear existential risk, 407, 420–30 Bayesian reasoning on, 423 game theory and, 58, 328, 420–21, 424, 426, 483 Kelly criterion and, 408–9 mutually assured destruction and, 58, 421, 424–27, 488, 490 nuclear proliferation and, 421, 540n odds of, 422–24 rationality and, 427–28 societal institutions and, 250, 456 stability-instability paradox and, 425 technological Richter scale and, 449 nuts (poker), 491 O Obama, Barack, 267 Occam’s razor, 491 Ocean’s 11, 142 Ohtani, Shohai, 173 Old Man Coffee (OMC), 491 O’Leary, Kevin, 301 “Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas, The” (Le Guin), 454n OpenAI AI breakthrough and, 415 attempt to fire Altman, 408, 411, 452n founding of, 406–7, 414 River-Village conflict and, 27 Oppenheimer, Robert, 407, 421, 425 optimism, 407–8, 413–14, 539n See also “Techno-Optimist Manifesto” optionality, 76–77, 99n, 116, 470, 491 options trading, 318–21 Ord, Toby, 352, 369–70, 380, 443 order of magnitude, 491 originating (sports betting), 491 orthogonality thesis, 418, 491 Oster, Emily, 348–49 outliers, 491 outs (poker), 491 outside view, 492 overbet (poker), 492 overdetermined, 492 overfitting/underfitting, 361, 361, 362–68, 492 P p(doom), 369, 372, 375–76, 380, 401, 408–9, 412, 416, 419, 442, 444–46, 455, 458, 492 See also existential risk Page, Larry, 259, 406 Palihapitiya, Chamath, 272, 277, 280 paper clip thought experiment, 372, 402, 418, 442, 487, 491 parameters, 491 Pareto optimal solutions, 492 Parfit, Derek, 364–65, 443–44n, 495 parlay, 492 Pascal, Blaise, 22, 457n, 492 Pascal’s Mugging, 22, 457n, 492 Pascal’s Wager, 457n, 492 patience, 258, 259, 260 payoff matrix, 492 Peabody, Rufus, 178–80, 181, 182–83, 191, 193, 195, 204, 517n Pepe, 492 Perkins, Bill, 374–75 Persinger, LoriAnn, 118 Petrov, Stanislav, 424, 426 p-hacking, 492 physical risk-takers, 217–21 Piper, Kelsey, 505n pips, 492 pit boss, 493 pits, 493 See also table games plurality, 470–71, 493 plus EV, 493 See also EV maximizing pocket pair, 41, 493 point-spread betting, 183–84, 493 poker abstract thinking and, 23–24 abuse and, 118 AI and, 40, 46–48, 60–61, 430–33, 437, 439, 507n asymmetric odds and, 248–49 attention to detail and, 233–34 bluffing, 39–40, 51, 70–75, 77, 78, 101, 509n calmness and, 221 cheating, 84, 85–86, 123–24, 126–28, 512n competitiveness and, 112, 118, 120, 243 concrete learning and, 432 corporatization of, 43–44 courage and, 222–23 deception and, 60 degens and nits, 9, 114, 482 edge and, 22, 63, 86 effective altruism and, 347–48, 367 estimation ability and, 237–38 fictional portrayals of, 45, 112, 134, 333, 487 game theory development and, 22, 50–51 game trees in, 61, 508n Garrett-Robbi hand, 80–86, 89, 117, 123–29, 130, 444–45, 512n gender and, 70, 82, 84, 100, 117–19, 511n Hellmuth’s career, 97–100 high-stakes cash games, 83–84, 115, 251–52 innovations in, 45–46 lack of money drive and, 243 language and, 439–40 mixed strategies and, 60, 63, 425–26 models in, 23–24 money and, 108–11, 120–21, 511n Elon Musk’s strategy, 251 origins of, 40 personality and, 111–17, 129–30 PokerGO studio, 48–49 post-oak bluffing, 64–65 prediction markets and, 370–71 preparation and, 233 prisoner’s dilemma and, 56–57, 508n privilege and, 82–83, 120–21 probabilistic thinking and, 41, 104–5, 127, 154n, 237 process-oriented thinking and, 226–27 race and, 118, 120, 121–22 raise-or-fold attitude and, 229–30 randomization and, 57–58, 63 regulation of, 13 scientific approach to, 41, 42–43 strategic empathy and, 225 tells, 7–8, 88, 99–104, 118, 233–34, 238, 437, 498 tournaments, 6, 7–8, 56, 154n, 503n variance and, 105, 106–11, 112 See also exploitative strategies; risk impact; solvers (poker); World Series of Poker Poker Boom (2004–2007), 12–13, 68, 315, 493 PokerGO studio, 48–49, 73, 77 polarized vs. condensed ranges (poker), 493 politics, 14–17 AI existential risk and, 458, 541n analytics and, 254 contrarianism and, 242, 254n decoupling and, 25, 27 effective altruism/rationalism and, 377–78 election forecasting, 13–14, 16–17, 27, 137, 182n, 433, 448n EV maximizing and, 14–15 expertise and, 272 gambling and, 17, 504n NFTs and, 326 prediction markets and, 373, 374–75, 535n probabilistic thinking and, 15, 17 reference classes and, 448n River-Village conflict and, 27–28, 29, 30, 267–68, 271, 505–6n SBF and, 26, 341n, 342 Village and, 26, 267–68, 271 Polk, Doug, 65–67 polymaths, 493 See also fox/hedgehog model Ponzi schemes, 309, 337, 493 Population Bomb, The (Ehrlich), 412n, 463 Porter, Jontay, 173, 177 position (poker), 493 posthumanism, 499 Postle, Mike, 84 post-oak bluffing, 64–65 pot-committed (poker), 493 Pot-Limit Omaha (PLO), 487, 493 Poundstone, William, 396 Power Law, The (Mallaby), 286 precautionary principle, 493 Precipice, The (Ord), 369–70, 443 prediction markets, 369–75, 380, 493, 535n preflop (poker), 41, 493 preparation, 232–33 price discovery, 493 priors, 493–94; see also Bayes’ theorem prisoner’s dilemma, 52–57 AI existential risk and, 417 arms race and, 478 cryptocurrency and, 315–18 defined, 494, 507–8n dominant strategies and, 54–55 poker and, 56–57, 508n reciprocity and, 367–68 regulation and, 144 sports betting and, 205 trust and, 472 updated version of, 52–54, 53 probabilistic thinking AI and, 439 AI existential risk and, 445–46 asymmetric odds and, 255 vs. determinism, 253–55, 264, 482 distribution, 9, 491 effective altruism and, 367 importance of, 15–16 poker and, 41, 104–5, 127, 154n, 237 politics and, 15, 17 prediction markets, 369–75, 493, 535n slots and, 153–55, 155 sports betting and, 16–17 theory invention, 22 See also EV maximizing probability distribution, 494 process-oriented thinking, 180, 226–27, 495 Professional Blackjack (Wong), 136 progress studies, 494 prop bets, 180, 182–83, 494 prospect theory, 428n, 494 provenance, 494 public (sports betting), 494 pump-and-dump, 494 punt (poker), 494 pure strategy, 59, 494 push (sports betting), 494 pushing the button, 494 See also existential risk Putin, Vladimir, 421–22, 424, 425 put options, 480 Q quantification, 345–51, 352, 359–60, 364 quants, 494 quantum mechanics, 253n Quit (Duke), 90, 230 Qureshi, Haseeb, 338 R Rabois, Keith, 284–85, 286–87 race casinos and, 135–36, 513n poker and, 118, 120, 121–22 River and, 29, 506n VC discrimination and, 287–90 Rain Man, 136 raise-or-fold situation, 229–31, 494 rake (casino poker), 494 Ralston, Jon, 147 randomization, 57–58, 59–60, 63, 64, 426, 438, 494 See also variance range (poker), 494 rationalism AI existential risk and, 21, 457 defined, 352–53, 354, 495 effective hedonism and, 376 futurism and, 379 impartiality and, 377 politics and, 17, 377–78 prediction markets and, 369, 372–73, 380 River and, 343 tech sector and, 21 Upriver and, 20 utilitarianism and, 364 varying streams of, 355–56, 356, 380–81, 533n wealthy elites and, 344 rationality, 17, 54, 372–73, 427–28, 495 Rawls, John, 364 Ray, John J., III, 301–2, 303 rec (recreational) players, 495 reciprocity, 130, 367–68, 471–72, 495 reference classes, 448, 450, 452, 457, 495 regression analysis, 23, 495 regulation AI, 270, 458, 541n casinos, 134, 135, 143–44, 157, 513n, 514n poker and, 13 River-Village conflict and, 31 Silicon Valley, 269–70, 272 regulatory capture, 31, 269, 270, 495 reinforcement learning from human feedback (RLHF), 440–41, 442, 495 Reinkemeier, Tobias, 102–3 replication crisis, 179, 497 Repugnant Conclusion, 364–65, 403, 495 resilience, 116–17 results-oriented thinking, 495 retail bookmakers, 186–90, 187, 489, 518n return on investment (ROI), 477, 495 revealed preference, 495 revenge, 428–30 Rhodes, Richard, 418n, 496 risk aversion, 137, 268, 277, 427–28, 495 risk ignorance, 247–48, 264, 265, 266 risk impact, 87–97 attention to detail and, 235 Coates on, 89–91, 125 flow state and, 88, 93–94, 95, 126 Garrett-Robbi hand and, 125–26 sports and, 94 tells and, 88 Tendler on, 91–94, 125 risk-loving disposition, 495 risk-neutral disposition, 495 risk of ruin, 495 risk-taker attributes, 23–26, 217–18, 221–43 adaptability, 235–37 asymmetric odds, 248, 259, 260–62 attention to detail, 233–35 calmness, 221–22 courage, 222–24 estimation ability, 237–38 fragile ego, 223 independence, 31, 239–40, 249, 268 lack of money drive, 242–43 patience, 258, 259–60, 260 preparation, 232–33 process-oriented thinking, 226–27, 495 raise-or-fold attitude, 229–31 resentment and, 223, 277 risk tolerance, 26, 30, 227–29 strategic empathy, 224–25 venture capital and, 248–49 See also contrarianism risk tolerance consequences and, 30 COVID-19 and, 6–7, 8–9, 10, 10 decision science on, 427–28 degens and nits, 9, 114, 482 founders and, 247–48, 251, 252, 264–65, 337, 403 gender and, 120 insufficiency of, 90 life expectancy and, 10–11 luck and, 116 Elon Musk and, 229, 247–48, 251, 252, 264–65, 299 poker and, 113–14 as River attribute, 26, 30, 227–29 River-Village conflict and, 29, 30 SBF and, 334–35, 397–403, 537–38n slots and, 168 sports betting and, 179, 196 statistical distribution and, 9 table games and, 165–66 venture capital and, 249, 264 Village and, 137 See also physical risk-takers River, the Archipelago, 22, 310, 478 autism and, 282–84, 525n collegiality within, 249–50 concrete learning and, 432n cultural domination of, 137–38 decoupling and, 24–25, 26, 27, 352, 505n defined, 495 demographics of, 29, 506n effective altruism and, 343 fictional portrayals of, 112 gender and, 29, 117, 506n Las Vegas veneration of, 139 map of, 18, 19, 20–26 megalothymia and, 468 name of, 18, 42, 504n obsession and, 196 prediction markets and, 371–72, 493 process-oriented thinking and, 495 quantification and, 352 race and, 29, 506n rationalism and, 343 SBF’s presence in, 299 self-awareness and, 417 venture capital and, 249–50 See also risk-taker attributes; River-Village conflict river (poker), 42, 495 River-Village conflict, 26–31 culture wars and, 29, 272–73 decoupling and, 27, 482 higher education and, 294–96 moral hazard and, 30 moral philosophy and, 30–31 politics and, 27–28, 29, 30, 267–68, 271, 505–6n regulatory capture and, 31, 269 risk aversion and, 493 Silicon Valley and, 26, 267–75, 290, 295, 505n RLHF (reinforcement learning from human feedback), 440–41, 442, 495 Robins, Jason, 184, 186 robustness, 495 Rock, Arthur, 257, 296 rock paper scissors, 47, 58 Roffman, Marvin, 151 Rogers, Kenny, 229 roon, 410–13, 417, 442, 443, 452, 459–60, 501, 539n Rounders, 45, 112, 134, 333, 487 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 54 Roxborough, Roxy, 178 rug pull (crypto), 496 rule utilitarianism, 368, 500 Rumbolz, Mike, 138, 142, 153, 167, 186 running good/rungood, 496 Russell, Stuart, 441 Russian roulette, 496 r/wallstreetbets, 314–15, 317–18, 321, 411, 489, 496 Ryder, Nick, 415n, 430–31, 433, 479 S Sagan, Scott, 425, 426 Sagbigsal, Bryan, 127 Saltz, Jerry, 329, 331n, 484 sample size, 496 sampling error, 489 Sassoon, Danielle, 401 Satoshi (cryptocurrency), 496 SBF.
The Knowledge Economy
by
Roberto Mangabeira Unger
Published 19 Mar 2019
One of the traits of the knowledge economy, even at the relatively superficial level of production engineering, is to allow for the destandardization or customization of goods and services and for a mass market in such products, at widely accessible prices rather than in the small-scale and relatively expensive form of craft manufacture. This characteristic potential of advanced manufacturing and knowledge-deep services gives more room to mimetic desire. To a large extent, we want what others want. Beyond the bare necessities of the preservation and reproduction of life, human desire has no fixed content. It is easily kidnaped by the example of others, which gives it the content that it lacks. The customization that is enabled by the new most advanced practice of production makes it possible for there to be more that can be desired, and more desire to imitate, while maintaining under the disguise of imitation the semblance of individual craving.
Merchants of Truth: The Business of News and the Fight for Facts
by
Jill Abramson
Published 5 Feb 2019
With the exception of Rupert Murdoch, all of them began giving their stories to Facebook in the hopes of luring a portion of its enormous audience. Advertisers, meanwhile, were coming in droves, responding to Facebook’s promise of a mass audience that could be precisely targeted. Zuckerberg’s early backer Peter Thiel was a student of the philosopher René Girard, who came up with the concept of “mimetic desire” and invoked it to explain Facebook’s essence. “Man is the creature who does not know what to desire, and who turns to others in order to make up his mind,” Girard wrote. “We desire what others desire because we imitate their desires.” In other words, monkey see, monkey do. When Girard died in 2015, the Times’s obituary noted that his ideas had moved Thiel to make his initial investment in Facebook: “[He] saw Professor Girard’s theories being validated in the concept of social media.”
…
R., 402 Knight Ridder newspaper chain, 26, 67, 226 sale of, 235–36 Knoxville, Johnny, 51, 57, 180 Koch brothers, 382 Kosinski, Michal, 278–79 Kurtz, Howard, 92, 93 Kushner, Jared, 224, 416 Laessig, Gavon, 314–15 Landman, Jon, 192 Larry King Live (TV show), 92 Larsen, Kaj, 355, 362 Last Week Tonight (TV show), 389 Lattman, Peter, 343–44 Laurence, Guy, 358 Law of the Few, 112 Leen, Jeff, 233 Lelyveld, Joe, 8, 152, 191, 372, 375, 429 Lennard, Natasha, 361–62 Leonhardt, David, 212, 381 Leopold, Jason, 178, 345 Lerer, Kenneth, 20–23, 24, 25, 31, 103, 123, 328, 344 Levien, Meredith Kopit, 375, 376 Levy, Cliff, 172 Lewandowski, Corey, 409 Lewinsky, Monica, 195, 239, 284 Lewis, Anthony, 421 Lewis, Luke, 311 Lexington Herald-Leader, 235 LGBT rights, 140 Libby, Lewis “Scooter,” 93, 198 Liberman, Megan, 135 Liberty Film Festival, 285 Libya, kidnapping of correspondents in, 208 Lichtblau, Eric, 215, 383–85 Lieberman, Joseph, 51–52 Lifetime, 335 Lily, The, 425 Lipton, Eric, 390 Lipton, Martin, 63 Lockheed Martin, 54–55 London Underground, 2005 terrorist attack in, 55 long-form journalism: as Marilyn Thompson’s specialty, 233–37 Post’s reputation for, 233 speeded-up news cycle as enemy of, 237, 417 Los Angeles Times, 3–4, 25, 236, 383 Baquet as editor of, 199 Tribune company’s purchase of, 226 wall between news and advertising departments crossed by, 71 Love, Reggie, 177 Loxodo (Post metrics tool), 267, 414 Luo, Patrick, 206 Lytvynenko, Jane, 340–41 Ma, Christopher, 95–96 Ma, Olivia, 95 McCain, John, 131, 132 McChrystal, Stanley, 130 McClatchy newspaper chain, 80, 94, 226, 236 McConnell, Mitch, 236 Macedonia, fake news industry in, 297–98 machine learning, 34–35, 109, 330–31 McInnes, Gavin, 42–43, 147, 148 American Conservative column of, 50 in buyback of Vice, 47 in exit from Vice, 58, 181, 369 as Proud Boys founder, 368 racism and misogyny of, 43–44, 46, 48–49, 50, 59 as Vice Media cofounder, 43–44 McIntire, Mike, 379 McKinsey & Company, 68–69, 71, 72, 193, 213 Magazine, Das, 279 Maher, Bill, 44, 178, 347 Mainland, Lexi, 203–4 Manafort, Paul, 382 Mansformation (TV show), 335 Marlow, Alex, 287 Marlow, Cameron, 16, 17, 104 Marra, Greg, 105 Marshall, Josh, 73, 94 Martel, Ned, 250 Martin, Trayvon, 111 Mashable, 344, 367 Massie, Chris, 313, 316 Mastromonaco, Alyssa, 177, 348, 363 Mayer, Jane, 196, 307, 382 Meet the Press (TV show), 339 Meme Magic Secrets Revealed (Gionet), 312 memes, definition of, 17 Menkes, Suzy, 211 Mercer, Robert, 306, 307 Mercer family, 279, 298, 307, 374, 382 Me Too movement, 210, 361, 392, 425, 426 metrics: Chartbeat and, 243–47, 262, 266 Post’s use of, 266–68, 414, 416 Times’s use of, 267, 425 Meyer, Eugene, 83 Miami Herald, 201 Mic, 275 Miller, Judith, 79, 80, 93, 385 Miller, Katherine, 305, 308–9, 316–17, 321 Miller, Zeke, 129, 135, 339 mimetic desire, 273 MIT Media Lab, 16, 18 Mohonk Group, 76 Mojica, Jason: journalistic credibility of, 356 sexual harassment accusations against, 361–63 Veltroni’s affair with, 359–61, 362 as Vice News head, 352, 356–57 Monde, Le, 113 Moore, Roy, 416, 425 Moretti, Eddy, 50, 160 Morgenson, Gretchen, 190 Morris, Errol, 180 Morris, Hamilton, 180–81 Morton, John, 261 Morton, Thomas, 148 appointed Vice website editor, 150 as archetypical Vice reader, 147 Gross Jar and, 149–50 Gullah moonshine video of, 155–56 and HBO weekly Vice show, 355 immersive videos of, 155–58, 171–72 inaccurate Uganda documentary by, 172 as media star, 180–81 on-air persona of, 155 Vice articles by, 150 Vice articles of, 151–52 Vice’s hiring of, 147–48 Mossberg, Walt, 240 Mother Jones, 324 Moynihan, Michael, 351 MSNBC, 377 MTV, 51–52, 57, 152–53, 154 Mueller, Robert, 382, 416 Muir, David, 427 Murdoch, Rupert, 28, 60, 67, 154, 177, 229, 420, 427 Vice investment of, 366 Wall Street Journal acquired by, 183, 229 Murphy, Eileen, 203 MySpace, 154 Narisetti, Raju, 266 digitally-experienced news staff hired by, 247–48, 249 in exit from Post, 251 named Post managing editor, 238 revenue-generating projects pushed by, 250 staff cuts by, 243 website metrics as focus of, 242–43, 245 website traffic increased by, 250–51 National Public Radio, 77 National Security Agency (NSA), Snowden leaks and, 80, 215, 259–60, 268, 382 native advertising, 40–41, 52, 71, 412–13 Abramson’s opposition to, 214, 215 authenticity and, 160 BuzzFeed’s use of, 120–23, 136–37, 337, 343 importance of verisimilitude in, 121, 136 as needing to harmonize with surrounding content, 161 Obama 2012 campaign and, 136–37 Vice Media and, 158–59 virality and, 122–23 Needleman, Deborah, 210 Negroponte, Nicholas, 16 Netflix, 329, 344 network news, declining audience for, 153 Nevins, Sheila, 178 NewFronts, 336 New Museum of Contemporary Art, 19 New Republic, 135, 139 News about the News, The (Downie and Kaiser), 89 news cycle, speeding up of, 5, 32–33, 98, 133–34, 185, 237 accuracy as victim of, 238 as enemy of investigative journalism, 383 internet and, 239–40 news fatigue, 26 NewsFeed (podcast), 342 news media: cuts to foreign desks by, 174 digital, see digital news media emotionally charged stories in, 111 female-centric projects of, 425 imperilled watchdog function of, 89 internet and unbundling of, 52 loss of public trust in, 3, 4, 80, 95, 185, 386–87, 424, 426–27 news media (cont.)
Your Face Belongs to Us: A Secretive Startup's Quest to End Privacy as We Know It
by
Kashmir Hill
Published 19 Sep 2023
But his methods were extreme: He offered cash to anyone who could out the anonymous alleged victim in the story. Johnson did eventually identify her, but then accidentally posted a photo of the wrong woman, who was then harassed. He would later say he regretted the lengths he had gone to at GotNews, blaming the “intemperance of youth” as well as “mimetic desire,” a theory developed by René Girard, a French philosopher popular with the Silicon Valley set. In Johnson’s interpretation, enemies cannot help but mimic one another. If he became vicious and cruel, it was only to reflect the Gawker bloggers he despised. Johnson later claimed that he had done the muckraking at the behest of the government, saying he was an FBI informant tasked with drawing out domestic extremists by saying crazy things online.
The Contrarian: Peter Thiel and Silicon Valley's Pursuit of Power
by
Max Chafkin
Published 14 Sep 2021
Girard’s big idea—which Thiel would internalize and adopt as a guiding principle, both in investing and in life—was that people are motivated, at their core, by a desire to imitate one another. We don’t want the things we want, Girard argued, because we judge them to be good; we want them because other people want them. This “mimetic desire” was universal, leading to envy and, in turn, violence. Societies had historically used scapegoating—turning the violent impulse on a single, innocent member of the community—to channel and control these feelings, providing an outlet that staved off wars and mass killings. Oedipus, Joan of Arc, and Marie Antoinette had all been scapegoats, according to Girard, but the most important scapegoat was Jesus, whose sacrifice promised to lead humanity beyond the envious violence of the past.
The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America
by
George Packer
Published 4 Mar 2014
And the older generation in both institutions, law and finance—men who had come on in the midsixties and gotten their big reward in the seventies—was totally oblivious to the fact that it had become much harder for young people to move up. There was a philosophical dimension to his rolling quarter-life crisis, too. At Stanford he had attended a lecture given by a French professor named René Girard, which had led him to Girard’s books, and he became a devotee. Girard had developed a theory of mimetic desire, of people learning to want and compete for the same things, which attempted to explain the origins of violence. The theory had a sacred and mythic aspect—Girard, a conservative Catholic, explained the role of sacrifice and the scapegoat in resolving social conflict—which appealed to Thiel, offering a basis for Christian belief without the fundamentalism of his parents.
The Founders: The Story of Paypal and the Entrepreneurs Who Shaped Silicon Valley
by
Jimmy Soni
Published 22 Feb 2022
For one thing, he understood that the IPO process was lengthy. “Who knows where the world is going to be in three months? So let’s just get it started,” he thought. In college, Thiel had immersed himself in the work of a French literary theorist and philosopher of social sciences, René Girard, who was best known for a concept called “mimetic desire.” “Man is the creature who does not know what to desire, and he turns to others in order to make up his mind,” Girard wrote. “We desire what others desire because we imitate their desires.” Girard postulated that such imitation could produce rivalries and conflict, and that one ought to be on guard for it.
The Social Life of Money
by
Nigel Dodd
Published 14 May 2014
Money owes its existence not to the utility-maximizing homo economicus, but rather the Girardian individual (homo mimeticus), who copes with radical uncertainty through imitation (Dumouchel and Dupuy 1978). As a symbol of an authority that originates beyond the market and that can nevertheless enforce marketplace rules, money diverts mimetic desire and deflects violent struggle by channeling rivalry into contract. Thus there are two facets of money: it expresses the violence inherent in all social relations; on the other hand, it legitimizes power as the basis of its generalized acceptance. This is money’s regulatory function. Money therefore has “two souls—as a channel of social violence and vector of sovereignty” (Guttmann 2003: 210).