The audited financial statements, obtained by independent journalist Ed Zitron
I like that there is literally just one guy who bothers with looking into what increasingly seems like the only business that still matters to Western capitalism
This is meant as no discredit to his work but a surprising lot of his research is just being like the only guy who actually reads the “gajillion dollar investment into AI” stuff on a contract level to find out it’s “we’re going to build 8000 datacenters that’d use up more electricity in a month than has ever been produced”
Who would have thought that actually looking into things would be part of modern journalism. Not me! I thought they were just supposed to copy and paste state department press releases.
I know I know but in my heart I still think: Surely something of this much size and importance has at least a facade you gotta get past and doesn’t run, explicitly stated, on the idea that a wizard will do it
actually doing the reading is a big part of being good at any field. i remember being struck by Michael Hudson mentioning some minute detail of the latest like 500 page US treasury report and thinking like oh right dude is serious about his work and actually reads those cover to cover
You’d be surprised at how much ‘novel’ information you can gain on any particular subject by just reading public records and talking to people. People tend to be extremely siloed into their particular tasks, not having the time or energy to actually investigate the larger issue.
Literally this was how Marx did his research for Capital, though he focused alot more into mathematical modeling alongside that data.
However, much of this phenomena has to do with the fact that if someone within the organization discovers it, then they are usually obligated to fix it, even if they didn’t cause it, which discourages most employee investigation and reporting of issues, especially ones that the bosses are keen on pushing.
One of the funniest criticisms I hear leveled against Zitron is that he’s just a lone crank, and no-one else is saying the stuff he is. Obviously he’s milking the attention he’s getting (gotta get that bag), but I haven’t heard any coherent responses to his claims, nor have I seen anyone else pursue even the modest degree of journalistic effort that he puts into his blog. Modern mainstream journalism is in a state of complete flatlined, and at a time when there are bigger, crazier stories than ever to discover.
I like that there is literally just one guy who bothers with looking into what increasingly seems like the only business that still matters to Western capitalism
This is meant as no discredit to his work but a surprising lot of his research is just being like the only guy who actually reads the “gajillion dollar investment into AI” stuff on a contract level to find out it’s “we’re going to build 8000 datacenters that’d use up more electricity in a month than has ever been produced”
Who would have thought that actually looking into things would be part of modern journalism. Not me! I thought they were just supposed to copy and paste state department press releases.
Modern journalism is just stenography for the authorities
I know I know but in my heart I still think: Surely something of this much size and importance has at least a facade you gotta get past and doesn’t run, explicitly stated, on the idea that a wizard will do it
It’s a bit trite but in his video on plagiarism, hbomberguy points out that if something is really easy to check out, nobody does.
Kind of like how Karl Marx had a set of big naturals
actually doing the reading is a big part of being good at any field. i remember being struck by Michael Hudson mentioning some minute detail of the latest like 500 page US treasury report and thinking like oh right dude is serious about his work and actually reads those cover to cover
That’s why I have @grok read and interpret everything for me.
jk, of course. But that sort of thinking is probably why Zitron is the only dude actually reading these things.
You’d be surprised at how much ‘novel’ information you can gain on any particular subject by just reading public records and talking to people. People tend to be extremely siloed into their particular tasks, not having the time or energy to actually investigate the larger issue.
Literally this was how Marx did his research for Capital, though he focused alot more into mathematical modeling alongside that data.
However, much of this phenomena has to do with the fact that if someone within the organization discovers it, then they are usually obligated to fix it, even if they didn’t cause it, which discourages most employee investigation and reporting of issues, especially ones that the bosses are keen on pushing.
🤷 You can be ahead of the news/journalism most of the time on all sorts of topics when do basic investigation like that.
One of the funniest criticisms I hear leveled against Zitron is that he’s just a lone crank, and no-one else is saying the stuff he is. Obviously he’s milking the attention he’s getting (gotta get that bag), but I haven’t heard any coherent responses to his claims, nor have I seen anyone else pursue even the modest degree of journalistic effort that he puts into his blog. Modern mainstream journalism is in a state of complete flatlined, and at a time when there are bigger, crazier stories than ever to discover.
They really took the democracy dies in darkness mission statement to heart