Mitch Gardepe

I'm the guy who steals pottery barn catalogs out of your mailboxes (he/him)

[Mitch Gardepe @GardepeMitch]

@MrFelted @MTSlive Ignoring the fact that everything, including rocks and sand, is conscious

[Mitch Gardepe @GardepeMitch]

@marcusseldon1 @DKThomp I’m not sure it applies there. Henrich’s is a theory of evolutionary development. AI is developing in a different environment with different conditions and incentives

[James Lucas @JamesLucasIT]

In 1963, New York City committed what one critic called an act of vandalism against its own soul. It tore down the most beautiful building it had ever built, and it has regretted it every day since.

The building was Pennsylvania Station, and for half a century it was one of the great rooms of the world...

It opened in 1910, designed by the architects McKim, Mead & White, and it covered eight acres in the heart of Manhattan. Its main waiting room was modeled on the Baths of Caracalla in ancient Rome, with ceilings that rose 150 feet into the air.

Sunlight poured down through vast steel-and-glass canopies onto the concourse below. To step off a train and walk up into that light was, for millions of arriving travelers, the moment New York announced itself.

A historian, Vincent Scully, famously wrote that, through it, one entered the city like a god. One scuttles in now like a rat...

Because in 1963, the railroad, losing money and sitting on immensely valuable land, sold the air rights above the station. The great building was condemned. Wave by wave, the pink granite columns were pulled down and dumped in a New Jersey swamp, and a low, windowless complex of Madison Square Garden and an office tower was built on top of the surviving tracks.

There was no law to stop it. At the time, nothing in New York protected a historic building from destruction, however beloved. Leading architects stood outside in protest as the demolition began. It made no difference...

But something came out of the loss. The destruction of Penn Station horrified the public so deeply that it gave birth to the modern preservation movement in America. New York passed its landmarks law in 1965, and that law would later save Grand Central Terminal from the very same fate.

In a way, Penn Station became more powerful in death than it had ever been in life.

It’s really true that we never truly know what we have until we lose it... the columns of Penn Station could not be saved. But every landmark that still stands in New York today stands partly because of what their loss awakened in the people who watched them fall.

Ada Louise Huxtable, the first architecture critic of The New York Times, wrote of the demolition in 1963: "The tragedy is that our own times not only could not produce such a building, but cannot even maintain it."

I started this newsletter because the people who came before us left us something extraordinary, and almost no one is teaching us how to see it anymore. Every week I try to. If that is something you would like to be part of, you can join here:

https://t.co/hgJUdR0Rb5

I write about beauty in all its forms. If you'd like to support the work, a paid subscription is what makes it possible.

[Ross Douthat @DouthatNYT]

Good chart for people looking for A.I. impact:

[Jonathan Haidt @JonHaidt]

If you're feeling powerless to do anything about the administration's assault on American values (and alliances, and rights...) Scott Galloway is orchestrating a way to apply economic pressure by unsubscribing to services from specific companies.

https://t.co/XPPYa0IVaR

[Edward Feser @FeserEdward]

It turns out that all those awkward and embarrassing moments we suffer through during the course of life are simply due to the absence of background music.

[James Lucas @JamesLucasIT]

Easily one of the coolest statues on Earth.

The bronze sculpture of Neptune rising from the sea at Melenara Beach in Spain.

[Mitch Gardepe @GardepeMitch]

@JasonKPargin It added A LOT to Adolescence for me

[Mitch Gardepe @GardepeMitch]

@politicalmath As a out-of-touch liberal I’m asking in good faith for someone to fill me in

[Mitch Gardepe @GardepeMitch]

@Madseno42 @voxdotcom That has nothing to do with what he was talking about

[Reid Southen @Rahll]

I'm tired of having to prove to people that generative AI systems infringe by default, so here's a megathread of images I've prompted you can use in your discussions.

Article by @GaryMarcus and myself at the end. 1/🧵

[Mitch Gardepe @GardepeMitch]

@mattyglesias Anecdotally I’ll say that it does save a ton of time with software development. I think people just need to get used to using it

[Mitch Gardepe @GardepeMitch]

@mehdirhasan If this is your last word I think you missed the point of Nate’s tweet

[Mitch Gardepe @GardepeMitch]

@GeorgistJoseph @SarahTheHaider I think this is the most compelling criticism

[Mitch Gardepe @GardepeMitch]

@mgoetzke @mp_256 @Vectoor @mattyglesias @elonmusk @neilsinhababu Matt didn’t explain the context in his tweet but this is what he’s worried about

https://t.co/SlvtsanfoG

[Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias]

There’s just no way to be supportive of free speech and also be maintaining massive PRC-dependent manufacturing and sales operations.

https://t.co/MWfqrO6KH9

[Mitch Gardepe @GardepeMitch]

@theneedledrop Big Thiefff

[Mitch Gardepe @GardepeMitch]

@letshav18702290 @delong @mattyglesias Where does Scott Alexander come into the picture?

[Mitch Gardepe @GardepeMitch]

@madmvd @Beedy_KH @arch_crimes Thank you.

[Mitch Gardepe @GardepeMitch]

@Beedy_KH @arch_crimes What’s the name of that first one?