Turning Literature into Big Business, The Future of Intelligence, Daoist History

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𝐈𝐍𝐕𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐈𝐆𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐒:

𝐃𝐚𝐲𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐉𝐚𝐜𝐤𝐚𝐥: 𝐀𝐧𝐝𝐫𝐞𝐰 𝐖𝐲𝐥𝐢𝐞 𝐓𝐮𝐫𝐧𝐞𝐝 𝐋𝐢𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞 𝐈𝐧𝐭𝐨 𝐁𝐢𝐠 𝐁𝐮𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐬

Alex Blasdel | The Guardian | November 9, 2023

“Literary agents are the matchmakers and middlemen of the book industry, pairing writers with publishers and negotiating the contracts for books, from which they take an industry-standard 15%. In this capacity, Wylie and his firm, The Wylie Agency, operate on behalf of an astonishing number of the world’s most revered writers .... The agency’s list of more than 1,300 clients includes Saul Bellow, Joseph Brodsky, Albert Camus, Bob Dylan, Louise Glück, Yasunari Kawabata, Czesław Miłosz, VS Naipaul, Kenzaburō Ōe, Orhan Pamuk, José Saramago and Mo Yan – and those are just the ones who have won the Nobel prize.”

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐅𝐮𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐈𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞

Steve Hsu | Latecomer | 24th October 2023

We overestimate the technical risks of genetic engineering in humans. Editing a specific gene may cause side-effects in other genes, but these are foreseeable. On the other hand, we underestimate the social consequences of genetic engineering, if its benefits are captured by an existing elite. It may create a self-replicating class of rulers who are tall, beautiful, super-clever, and live for 200 years

𝐃𝐚𝐨𝐢𝐬𝐭 𝐇𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐲

Dingxin Zhao | Noema | 1st November 2023

A modest attempt to explain how Daoist philosophical precepts shape the teaching of history in China. Westerners tend to view history as a linear movement in the general direction of progress. The Daoist model is more dialectical. History is a constant rebalancing of forces. What is stronger now will be weaker later, and vice versa. This does not sum to “progress.” It is merely change.