Read Max

• Two deeply upsetting photographs

  Greetings from Read Max HQ! Today’s post is a Read Max audiovisual product featuring cohost Sam Biddle, senior technology reporter at The Intercept.A quick interstitial reminder: Read Max is a subscription business! In order to devote the time I do every week to reading, writing, reporting, thinking, procrastinating, and all other activities essential to the production of this twice-and-sometimes-thrice-weekly newsletter, I need to “convert” readers into “paid subscribers,” a task I attempt to accomplish with these touts. If you find what I do valuable to you--if you think you learn something, or are entertained, or get mad in a productive way--please consider compensating me for that value for the unbelievably low price of $5 a month. Think of it like buying me a beer once a month in exchange for something like 20,000 almost entirely properly spelled and punctuated words of insight, argument, criticism, good sci-fi recommendations, and sometimes even humor. Yesterday Sam and I “went live” to talk about a set of new stories on tech’s ever-increasing ties to the defense industry:* A recent white paper from OpenAI outlining the company’s vision of A.I.’s geopolitical future, about which Sam wrote more here;* Mark Zuckerberg and Palmer Luckey burying the hatchet and partnering on a V.R. headset for the military; and* Palantir's controversial new role counting human beings for the U.S. government.What do these partnerships tell us about the present and future of the tech industry, A.I., and geopolitics?Also up for discussion: What’s going on at Apple? And two distinctly unsettling photographs, the first of Luckey and Zuckerberg breaking bread……and the second, a sort of wedding-announcement pic of former Apple designer Jony Ive and OpenAI C.E.O. Sam Altman:Please enjoy, here on Substack, or, without video, on any of your preferred podcast platforms! Get full access to Read Max at maxread.substack.com/subscribe

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• Escape from Slopworld

  Greetings from Read Max HQ! On Tuesday afternoon John Ganz of Unpopular Front joined me for an experimental “Substack Live” with only two brief interruptions (one when I fat-fingered an end to the stream and two when John’s internet cut out). Our chat started with a discussion of two expansive essays on the modern internet coincidentally published this weekend: Ross Douthat’s “An Age of Extinction Is Coming. Here’s How to Survive,” in The New York Times, and Jacob Silverman’s “Welcome to slop world: how the hostile internet is driving us crazy,” in the Financial Times. But, as is often the case, we also ended up talking about many other things, among them the imaginary of the tariffs, Parental Advisory stickers, a Canadian guy on Instagram who claims to have re-grown his foreskin, and much more. Check out the full video (stitched together) above, or listen to the audio on the podcast platform of your choice.A reminder, as always! Read Max exists thanks to generosity of paying subscribers, whose support lets me devote a full-time job’s worth of hours to all the research, reporting, thinking, and procrastinating necessary to put the newsletter together week in and week out. Paying subscribers not only receive an extra paywalled newsletter of (unbelievably good) recommendations of books, movies, links, and music, but also help subsidize the free stuff for the freeloaders, which is the kind of thing that gets you into heaven and further along on the karmic wheel. If you feel like you get roughly one beer’s worth of entertainment, information, distraction, or other kind of satisfaction from Read Max, please consider paying to subscribe. Get full access to Read Max at maxread.substack.com/subscribe

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• Which Houthi P.C. Small Group Member are you?

  Greetings from Read Max HQ! We’re back with another episode of [Untitled Read Max Audio Property]. This week, The Intercept’s Sam Biddle and Read Max’s Max Read discuss:* The hottest group chat in the galaxy: “Houthi PC small group.” What is the worst thing about this chat? What were the discussions with The Atlantic’s lawyers like? Is Sam more of a Michael Waltz or a J.D. Vance?* The “Abundance Agenda”: What distinguishes the program articulated in Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson’s new book from the techno-optimism of Marc Andreessen? What can we salvage from the idea of “abundance”? Which was the best arcology in Sim City 2000?A brief reminder: This podcast and the associated newsletter are 99.99 percent funded by the generous support of paying Read Max subscribers. If you’re enjoying the audio or textual products offered by Read Max, please consider upgrading to subscribe. For the price of roughly one beer a month, you’ll get access to the weekly paywalled “Recommendations” newsletter, plus the smug satisfaction of knowing you’re subsidizing the freeloaders who are increasing their I.Q. weekly by consuming Read Max. Articles discussed in the podcast* “The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Me Its War Plans,” Jeffrey Goldberg, The Atlantic* “Am I the J.D. Vance of My Group Chat?,” Katie Notopoulos, Business Insider* “The Abundance Agenda: A Review,” Matt Breunig, People’s Policy Project* “The Abundance Doctrine,” Mike Konczal, Democracy* “I Want to Believe in Abundance,” Joe Weisenthal, Bloomberg Get full access to Read Max at maxread.substack.com/subscribe

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  1:08:46
• What if "A.I." is just more surveillance?

  Greetings from Read Max HQ! Today, the first in what I hope will be a regular series with my old friend Sam Biddle, senior technology reporter at the Intercept and a former writer for Gawker and Valleywag, in which we discuss tech-industry news and b******t that otherwise wouldn’t make it into the newsletter. In this episode we’re talking:* A.G.I., A.I., and why we hate the term;* Sarah Wynn-Williams’ new book on Facebook and Facebook’s bizarre reaction to it; and* our favorite files from the J.F.K. release(Longtime subscribers will remember Sam as the author of the guest post “True Life: For reasons I don't fully understand I bought hundreds of Cold War-era military slides on eBay” and the source of the legendary post “Why is this cyber-education nonprofit selling a $13,000 occult artifact on eBay?”)Links to some of what we discuss in this podcast:* “The Government Knows A.G.I. Is Coming,” by Ezra Klein* “Powerful A.I. Is Coming. We’re Not Ready,” by Kevin Roose* “Should A.G.I. preppers embrace D.O.G.E.?” by Henry Farrell* “People Are Using AI to Create Influencers With Down Syndrome Who Sell Nudes,” by Emanuel Maiberg* The Cut’s “Book Gossip” newsletter on Careless People* “CIA, Walter Elder ‘Family Jewels’ memorandum for William E. Colby, ‘Special Activities,’ Secret/Sensitive/Eyes Only, June 1, 1973, 7 pp.” Get full access to Read Max at maxread.substack.com/subscribe

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  56:21
• The Silicon Valley canon and malformed publics

  Greetings from Read Max HQ! This week’s newsletter is a podcast episode with John Ganz of Unpopular Front and Henry Farrell of Programmable Mutter. We talk about Henry’s recent Bloomberg article about “the tech industry’s reading list” and whether or not my four-year-old will ever encounter a Tootsie Roll pop advertisement, or indeed any advertising campaign at all. Get full access to Read Max at maxread.substack.com/subscribe

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