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Comment by jonstewart | Hacker News Reader

Palladium magazine was founded by Wolf Tivy and Jonah Bennett. It is funded by Peter Thiel. Jonah Bennett previously worked at The Daily Caller and he resigned from Palladium when it was discovered he had authored some racist messages and was friends with various white nationalists.

Palladium skews towards genteel neoreactionarism. It won't be as overtly racist as moldbug's website. Its authors will use big words, write fine sentences, and have some academic credentials (though tend to be outside the mainstream). There's an obsession with planned economies and China, a mixture of anxiety that the US remain dominant with a certain longing for China's policies, and an inability to see those two things can never be consistent.

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> It is funded by Peter Thiel.

Underrated comment. Always follow the money. If Thiel is funding it, it's to further his feudalism agenda. Not that it isn't worth a read, but with truck load of salt.

Thanks for this comment. It's been a strange journey for me following this magazine, where at first it seemed like they were writing about topics that other western media were not, but eventually it became dominated by well-worn talking points of the American right. Or perhaps the American right shifted in the direction of this magazine? Either way, it all started to feel a bit tedious so I gave up.

Their article 'Complex systems won't survive the competence crisis' was an interesting read and made some good points, it appeared that they were approaching the issue from a perspective of troubleshooting and rectification, i.e. genuine governance.

Other articles give the impression that they're more into the 'nuclear lifeboat'/'galt's gulch' strategy and give off sinister vibes. I personally wouldn't use the word 'cryptofascist' but others might.

Like you I have the same conclusion... interesting at first, gets alarming & repetitive.

Any recommendations for publications which cover similar topics?

I can't think of any other magazines that are likely to host articles such as ' “The Universe Wants Us to Take Her Clothes Off” With Grimes ' sorry

Sorry for being unclear. Other magazines which cover topics such as these:

> Their article 'Complex systems won't survive the competence crisis' was an interesting read and made some good points, it appeared that they were approaching the issue from a perspective of troubleshooting and rectification, i.e. genuine governance.

I think for intellectual commentary from the US perspective you can try The Atlantic & The New Yorker, there's another similar one but I forget the name.

For slightly less commentary and more facts The Economist is good, that's from a UK perspective.

If you're Australian, Quillette is the only one I know

I used to work in the space, so probably a mix of

  - Academic books (generally HUP, OUP, UCUP though the occasion PUP is alright)

  - White Papers from top tier think tanks (use the UPenn Rankings [0])

  - Axios and Politico - their target readership is aimed directly at those working on the Hill or Hill adjacent

Just sticking with these 3 types of resources should be enough.

Also, IGNORE anything on Twitter, Reddit, or HN. The lesswrong/r\credibledefense types are all idiots ime. Using an "objective" tone doesn't make rubbish "objective"

[0] - https://www.bruegel.org/sites/default/files/wp-content/uploa...

Axios and Politico

Both of these, in my experience, are dreck-tier sources and Politico was bought vaguely recently by Axel Springer which emits Business Insider, which is also a reddit-tier publication.

The only place I have ever seen the kind of sentiment you mentioned is on Reddit and then on LessWrong (not sure which came first).

Don't tell me about the resources I read to do my daily job.

Axel Springer hasn't touched the Politico operation (if it did, I would be the first to have heard).

And Axios is heavily used in the dealmaking community. They hired most of the ex-Protocol, Reuters, Bloomberg, NYT, TechCrunch, and Politico reporters who's beat was the intersection of dealmaking and policy.

The best way to combat the competence crisis, proven over centuries, would be to fund public education, yet it’s a curiously absent policy position in their publication (because, ick, taxes).

Public education is already very heavily funded. As of last report, the correlation between funding and student performance was negative, suggesting that additional funding is unlikely to achieve much.

Indeed. Money won't solve it. The crisis in education is cultural. It's profound, deep, and I think it will end us more surely than climate change, war or disease.

We're heading toward an inability to replicate our own essential cultural DNA, whether in institutions or in common values. We've become anti-intellectual, iconoclastic, lazy and idolatrous - and sadly one cause of this is technology and our misplaced belief in systems rather than human values - in certainty rather than toil.

"Competence" is a jolly complex thing. It's more than the ability to pull levers and operate systems that someone else put in place. It involves transcendent thinking, leadership and confidence, but also duty, patience, loyalty, love and dozens of other qualities we now think we "are better than".

> We've become anti-intellectual, iconoclastic, lazy and idolatrous

Perfect example of the crisis in education. (We've always been this way.)

> We've always been this way.

That makes it fine then.

Here's another perfect example, you have interpreted an empirical statement as being a normative one.

Flattered as I am about the perfection of my examples, I don't think exchanging dismissive one liners is really advancing the discussion. What shall we do about that?

No, the school system is heavily funded. Are TEACHERS heavily funded? Last I checked they still get paid peanuts and need to buy their own material out of that meager income.

Maybe, just maybe, the problem won't be solved by throwing more money at administration, but the administratorial class in the US hates hearing that they aren't god's gift to the world.

Yeah, as I said, the vibe I got from reading their other articles was that their solution to the problem was to pull up the drawbridge, galt's gulch style.

I'm reminded of that aspect of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy where a civilisation decides that a third of it's population isn't necessary and sticks them on a 'colony ship' telling them that the other two ships are 'still being built' then promptly dies out because they were, in reality, quite necessary. Who'd they ship off, I think it was pest controllers and hairdressers? I forget.

> Who'd they ship off, I think it was pest controllers and hairdressers? I forget.

The telephone sanitizers.

"Throw more money at X, and X will improve" is a very American way of thinking.

There are many more weak points in a complex system such as education than just money. Some weaknesses can indeed be exacerbated by extra money.

Giving, say, Acme University more money may well result in hiring of additional vice-provosts for lawn management, to the detriment of the students and faculty themselves.

What publication do you recommend instead?

The New Yorker

The Atlantic

Harper’s Bazaar

The Economist

Foreign Policy

Foreign Affairs

The New Republic

The Paris Review

The New Criterion

Really good list, very comprehensive. Can thoroughly recommend all of those and you've got a good mixture of art/culture and news/current affairs.

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