Leo Kim’s piece is an ambitious mix of race‑track reportage, personal reflection, and theory‑driven critique. It braids together one night at a small Indiana speedway, the rise and collapse of Anderson’s auto industry and unions, and an abstract meditation on tech, AI, and “speed.” It poses a compelling central question—whether every technology invents its own kind of disaster—but does demand close attention to follow its dense imagery.
The dust doesn’t bother me much. By this point in the night, the round-and-round whirling of cars, combined with the alchemical mixture of exhaust, burnt rubber, and patriotic beer, has lulled me into a Midwestern trance. It must be the flatness that makes this region such a perfect catalyst for this kind of delirium. When Baudrillard drove through the expanse of the US, he wrote about speed as an erasing force whose “only rule is to leave no trace behind.” He was right to sense speed as a primal impulse in this unfurling stretch of country. Movement in the Old World is slowed by its narrow roads, latticed cities, and contested borders; it struggles to overcome the glacial pace of History. Drive a hundred miles and you’re bound to run into something. Not so in the Midwest. Nothing here interrupts the flow. There are no mountains to break the wind, no densities of skyscrapers to bisect the sky, no ravines to stop the sprawl. Everything moves towards terminal velocity. It is a landscape built for vortices and accelerating feedback loops: for flows of capital, weather, ideology, and machinery to intersect and (r)evolve into novel forms.
For decades, Southeast Asia has turned great-power rivalry to an economic advantage. By maintaining healthy ties with Washington and Beijing, ASEAN governments attracted investment, expanded trade and preserved room for diplomatic maneuver. The great-power race for artificial-intelligence dominance, however, is changing that bargain. As the United States and China build competing technology networks, neutrality may […]
The post US-China AI race turning ASEAN neutrality into a liability appeared first on Asia Times.
Amid renewed speculation about an early General Election, now is the time to look at whom to put money on as the next party leaders, says Mark Littlewood in his latest Political Betting column for the Daily Sceptic.
The post Who Will the Next Party Leaders Be? appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.
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