Another problem was the dominance and profitability of rice farming and its hold over the political establishment. Agricultural subsidies kept the economic value of growing paddy and wheat artificially high, which prevented a natural
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“The Marxist constituency has remained as narrow as the conception behind it. The Communist Manifesto, written by two bright and articulate young men without responsibility even for their own livelihoods—much less for the social consequences of their vision—has had a special appeal for successive generations of the same kinds of people. The offspring of privilege have dominated the leadership of Marxist movements from the days of Marx and Engels through Lenin, Mao, Castro, Ho Chi Minh, and their lesser counterparts around the world and down through history. The sheer reiteration of the "working class" theme in Marxism has drowned out this plain fact.”
― Marxism: Philosophy and Economics
― Marxism: Philosophy and Economics

“Just consider how terrible the day of your death will be. Others will go on speaking, and you will not be able to argue back.”
― The Argumentative Indian: Writings on Indian History, Culture and Identity
― The Argumentative Indian: Writings on Indian History, Culture and Identity

“Should my Modern Turing Test for the twenty-first century be met, the implications for the global economy are profound. Many of the ingredients are in place. Image generation is well advanced, and the ability to write and work with the kinds of APIs that banks and websites and manufacturers would demand is in process. That an AI can write messages or run marketing campaigns, all activities that happen within the confines of a browser, seems pretty clear. Already the most sophisticated services can do elements of this. Think of them as proto–to-do lists that do themselves, enabling the automation of a wide range of tasks. We’ll come to robots later, but the truth is that for a vast range of tasks in the world economy today all you need is access to a computer; most of global GDP is mediated in some way through screen-based interfaces amenable to an AI. The challenge is in advancing what AI developers call hierarchical planning, stitching multiple goals and subgoals and capabilities into a seamless process toward a singular end. Once this is achieved, it adds up to a highly capable AI, plugged into a business or organization and all its local history and needs, that can lobby, sell, manufacture, hire, plan—everything a company can do, only with a small team of human AI managers who oversee, double-check, implement, and co-CEO with the AI.”
― The Coming Wave
― The Coming Wave
“Reading is the ultimate meta-skill that can be traded for anything else.”
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