I would have loved to have had ChatGPT when I had to do a few modules in formal methods, I'd say it would have eaten through the BS I had to wade through

Another great post by one of the nations best public intellectuals.

I love Bret. His outreach work is exactly my cup of tea.

It is unfortunate that the Ivory Tower can't recognize it though. His path to tenure is closed at this point. Yet any school would have a gem if they prompted him.

His star really is rising and his reach is widening. I can;t wait until he gives up the ghost and decides to go to some think tank or another and really makes the dough.

I was just exposed to this banger if you're an appreciator but not aware https://xcancel.com/BretDevereaux/status/1742957031353466903

You could fit in most senior directors, consultants and sales VPs into that bucket comfortably.

Organisations have evolved to deal with them. In fact, all the rules and procedures, checks and compliance procedures are there precisely to allow the organisation to survive despite its members.

What new concept evolves society the mental-immunity necessary to survive these radically destructive _ideas_? (Ie. corporations are people)

If revolution is the old answer to oppressive organizations together with its tragic loss of life, then… where’s our cure for cancer?

Companies are not people, but they certainly are highly evolved collective organisms that extract resources from the rest of the ecosystem.

Ok, I’ll bite - why sales VPs?

Mediocre sales leaders I've found treat pipeline stagnation as a motivation problem rather than fixing the underlying issues with training, lead qualification, or sales collateral. Previous company had a sales pipeline tanking, and the "brilliant" Sales VP thought bringing forward a sales off-site to get the best performing reps together to motivate them. Net result, pipeline tanks further, VP waits a few months and leaves, and the reps all get upset at missing their targets for a full quarter.

I'm just waiting for my current company to have a Sev 1 CritSit so I can document the bejesus out of the root cause and expose our non-technical AI evangelist leadership as the sort of goons most of the senior development staff already suspect.

Only by walking us into some revenue or customer impacting failure - through inappropriately having junior devs doing senior level things - will some sense of sanity start to prevail again.

Oh man, if only. The top brass driving this screaming frenzied MORE AI crusade will never face the firing line no matter what happens. It will either be a) "mistakes were made" and nobody is really at fault because we're all trying to change the world or fellate the future or whatever the line is, or b) James, Sam, Jesse, and the rest of Team B (none of whom are truly top brass) are getting fired out of a cannon into the sun as a warning to the rest of the plebs.

This is a nothing burger of a story.

As someone who is being actively "encouraged" to be more collaborative with a few non technical political type managers merely for the appearance of it, this rings true. Collaboration is great if you don't have a clue and can coast on someone's coattails.

Fun times in Caracas. Interested to see what future Mafia film will use this a backdrop.

> I am amazed that people take Hal Puthoff at his word that he has worked on all these secret projects for decades even though he cannot describe in definitive terms what the actual outcomes of those programs were.

This is one hundred perfect my view on this, and things are more than suspicious when suddenly being asked to get into the weeds on some technical aspect these guys start citing national security to keep things vague.

A lot more of Max Hastings than I would care to admit. But boy, can than man write a ripping yarn.

That's terrible. If the NTSB had flagged this flaw before then someone failed with an inspection regime or maintenance.

The NTSB doesn't ever accept the "sometimes bad things happen, shrug" excuse and kudos to the professionals there.