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Damien Gimenez

@damiengimenez.fr
67 followers 50 following 274 posts

Engineer and independent writer. I examine how ideals, ideologies and technology have shaped Western societies from the early modern period to the present. damiengimenez.fr/home

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Damien Gimenez @damiengimenez.fr · 30/09/2026
Literature has long been caught between two requirements: lyricism — sincerity and singularity — and formal beauty and quality, traditionally associated with classicism. This enlightening op-ed shows how the latter already contained the possibility of automation. www.lemonde.fr/article-offe...
lemonde.fr
William Marx, professeur au Collège de France : « Nous entrons peut-être dans une période où la littérature sera produite en grande partie par des machines, pour des machines »
TRIBUNE. L’intelligence artificielle bouleverse le monde littéraire alors que la tendance est aux textes sincères et rares. Dans ce contexte, le cas de Thélyson Orélien était voué à faire polémique, a...
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Damien Gimenez @damiengimenez.fr · 29/09/2026
Western politics are so overwhelmed by conservative and authoritarian forces, corporate and technological power, and debt that they increasingly reduce to managing emergencies and budgets, amid constant mutual accusation.
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Damien Gimenez @damiengimenez.fr · 26/09/2026
In Paris, Leo XIV stated that new technologies must not become “another instrument of domination and injustice”, and renewed his appeal for peace. In contrast to contemporary economic and geopolitical competition, the Pope’s ethical discourse questions the moral foundations of politics.
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Damien Gimenez @damiengimenez.fr · 26/09/2026
As energy prices soar, Emmanuel Macron has urged the EU to postpone new methane reporting rules for oil and gas importers. This illustrates the tension between environmental and prosperity values, and the predominance of the latter over the former. www.reuters.com/business/ene...
reuters.com
France urges EU to postpone methane reporting requirements
French President Emmanuel Macron has written to the European Commission urging it to postpone new methane reporting rules for oil and gas importers, arguing ​they could create legal risks for importer...
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Damien Gimenez @damiengimenez.fr · 26/09/2026
As with nuclear and biological weapons, this week’s talks on AI safety show that competition does not exclude cooperation when states face a common threat.
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Damien Gimenez @damiengimenez.fr · 22/09/2026
Amazon's drones are another brick in the dystopian world we're entering. Maybe in the future, cities will differ according to their citizens' relationship with technology. And people will choose where to live partly on that basis. www.nytimes.com/2026/09/21/u...
nytimes.com
It’s Raining Boxes: Amazon Drones Overwhelm a Texas Suburb (Gift Article)
In Richardson, a fleet of drones has started to deliver goods quickly. But the noise is drowning out life for some residents: ‘We can’t live like this.’
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Damien Gimenez @damiengimenez.fr · 21/09/2026
When you dismiss memories of slavery, fascism or Nazism, it's not only a matter of identity, pride, understanding, equality or security. There is also nostalgia for domination. www.nytimes.com/2026/09/21/w...
nytimes.com
The Fuel That Feeds Europe’s Far Right: Nostalgia and Lost Pride (Gift Article)
The populist emphasis on national identity and threats to it, real and imagined, finds a deep response in voters adrift in a world they no longer understand.
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Damien Gimenez @damiengimenez.fr · 21/09/2026
4/4 Yet causality can be distributed without responsibility disappearing. Employees, managers, companies and governments may all make decisions while responding to historically produced constraints and incentives that themselves constitute implicit cultural building blocks.
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Damien Gimenez @damiengimenez.fr · 21/09/2026
3/4 This may be especially unsettling in English-speaking cultures, where individual responsibility has long been a central value. When responsibility seems to dissolve into systems, there may be a tendency to restore it by identifying individuals, companies or governments to blame.
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Damien Gimenez @damiengimenez.fr · 21/09/2026
2/4 Beyond individual and group responsibility, companies respond to economic incentives: productivity, costs or competition. These pressures do not erase responsibility, but they are part of the causal process. AI may reveal structural constraints more than individual failures.
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Damien Gimenez @damiengimenez.fr · 21/09/2026
1/4 Does AI really “dissolve responsibility”? If someone is asked to use AI to complete an assignment but is given too little time to check its answers, how much responsibility lies with that person—and how much with the organisation that created those conditions?
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Damien Gimenez @damiengimenez.fr · 21/09/2026
A French collective, including politicians and scientists, is urging presidential candidates to declare a “climate emergency”. How could it be funded when France is already struggling to produce a budget? Something like a Zucman tax would only be a first step. www.lemonde.fr/article-offe...
lemonde.fr
L’appel de Yann Arthus-Bertrand, Jean Jouzel, Noël Mamère, Laurence Tubiana… : « Nous demandons au premier ministre et aux candidats à la présidentielle de s’engager à décréter l’urgence climatique »
TRIBUNE. Le climat doit devenir une priorité de l’Etat, et cette priorité doit être traduite dans l’ensemble des politiques publiques, soutient, dans une tribune au « Monde », un collectif de personna...
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Damien Gimenez @damiengimenez.fr · 20/09/2026
“IBM has already demonstrated energy savings of up to 10,000-fold on event-driven tasks, compared with conventional digital architectures”. theconversation.com/your-brain-r...
theconversation.com
Your brain runs on 20 watts. Could brain-inspired computing do the same?
Neuromorphic technology is reimagining how computers should work.
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Damien Gimenez @damiengimenez.fr · 17/09/2026
Europe wants its own direct-to-device satellite constellation, in particular to become independent of US solutions. This initiative illustrates how damaging the lack of cooperation can be for both nature and the economy. www.lemonde.fr/article-offe...
lemonde.fr
L’Europe cherche la solution dans la téléphonie mobile par satellite
Les grands opérateurs du Vieux Continent, dont Orange, veulent bénéficier de cette technologie pour couvrir les régions dépourvues d’antennes-relais, et entendent favoriser l’émergence d’une constella...
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Damien Gimenez @damiengimenez.fr · 14/09/2026
China's spy chief's warnings reinforce the logic of the AI arms race: you need better AI models to fight AI threats. Economic and geopolitical competition tends to prevail over public interest or virtue. www.nytimes.com/2026/09/14/w...
nytimes.com
China’s Top Spy Chief Warns A.I. Is a Threat to Party Rule (Gift Article)
Even as Beijing urges the United States not to hype the dangers of A.I., its own spy chief is framing the technology as a threat to the Communist Party’s security.
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Damien Gimenez @damiengimenez.fr · 13/09/2026
Picture taken on a beautiful trek this week. In the foreground, the Clarée Valley; in the background, the Écrins massif.
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Damien Gimenez @damiengimenez.fr · 13/09/2026
Fear of A.I. is not enough to counter economic incentives and the pursuit of geopolitical power, which are deep-rooted cultural motives. www.nytimes.com/2026/09/13/u...
nytimes.com
As Fears of A.I. Catastrophe Magnify, Washington Stirs, but Mostly Slumbers (Gift Article)
President Trump has been at the forefront of the “what-me-worry?” crowd, refusing to engage on how to balance the risks and rewards of A.I.
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Damien Gimenez @damiengimenez.fr · 13/09/2026
Thomas Piketty advocates a "new development model [that] enables sustainable prosperity for all". While I agree with prioritising education, health and culture, I doubt prosperity can be sustainable and remain a democratic value. www.lemonde.fr/article-offe...
lemonde.fr
Thomas Piketty : « Pour sortir des contradictions actuelles, il faut repenser la prospérité dans le respect des limites planétaires »
CHRONIQUE. L’adaptation de l’économie au dérèglement climatique doit aller de pair avec la démocratie économique, l’autogestion, l’égalité politique et territoriale et la démarchandisation, estime l’é...
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Reposted by Damien Gimenez
World Inequality Lab @wid.world · 09/09/2026
We are now calling world leaders and governments to support the urgent establishment of the International Panel on Inequality (IPI) alongside @josephestiglitz.bsky.social @jayatighosh.bsky.social and 600+ economists and inequality experts www.nature.com/articles/d41...
nature.com
Why we need an International Panel on Inequality
Disparities in income and wealth are growing. A scientific assessment process can give governments the information they need to tackle them.
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Damien Gimenez @damiengimenez.fr · 08/09/2026
Frontier AI models are disrupting mathematics. This is not a baby step! www.nytimes.com/2026/09/08/s...
nytimes.com
OpenAI Says It Has Cracked One of Math’s ‘Millennium Problems’ (Gift Article)
The company’s announcement is the most dramatic sign yet that artificial intelligence is fundamentally transforming the field of higher mathematics.
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Damien Gimenez @damiengimenez.fr · 08/09/2026
No, I don't. I wrote a lot to determine my values! The degree of control is not obvious. To me, it depends on knowledge and reexamination. Some values are not questioned and some are not always explicit, like prosperity. That makes the control harder.
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Damien Gimenez @damiengimenez.fr · 08/09/2026
There's no confusion: the same incentives operate at both individual and collective levels. Moreover, I think it's harsh to criticise the term “evolution” on that basis. Metaphorical and anthropomorphic language is common in science, particularly in biology.
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Damien Gimenez @damiengimenez.fr · 08/09/2026
To what extent do *people* really choose? As part of societies driven by economic performance and geopolitical power, they act according to incentives they don't decide. For instance, *people* chose Trump.
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Damien Gimenez @damiengimenez.fr · 06/09/2026
6/6 Here, social science has limits. AI, other technologies and international competition force us not only to understand change, but to reconsider our values, our institutions and the kind of society we want. That requires not only social science, but philosophy.
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Damien Gimenez @damiengimenez.fr · 06/09/2026
5/6 The deeper phenomenon is not merely a competition for funding. It is a competition over who has legitimate authority to describe society, identify its problems and frame the possible answers: governments, scholars, corporations, or others.
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Damien Gimenez @damiengimenez.fr · 06/09/2026
4/6 From this perspective, pointing to liberal policies informed by social science cannot, by itself, restore its legitimacy among Republicans. It may even reinforce their perception that an intellectual elite has acquired disproportionate influence over public policy.
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Damien Gimenez @damiengimenez.fr · 06/09/2026
3/6 The Trump administration portrays parts of academia as ideologised, detached from taxpayers’ interests and producing research of “dubious public value”. Whether one agrees or not, this critique is part of the political struggle over the role of intellectual elites.
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Damien Gimenez @damiengimenez.fr · 06/09/2026
2/6 Highlighting AI companies’ interests casts light on a deep political and social problem. Yet it shows only one side of the coin. The decline of public funding for social science is itself part of a political and intellectual conflict.
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Damien Gimenez @damiengimenez.fr · 06/09/2026
1/6 This NYT op-ed makes an interesting case for funding the social sciences as AI transforms our societies. Its central concern: if public funding recedes, research may increasingly depend on AI companies—whose interests inevitably shape the questions being asked. www.nytimes.com/2026/09/06/o...
nytimes.com
Opinion | We Can’t Know Our A.I. Future if We Don’t Study It (Gift Article)
Just as A.I. is poised to change the world, we’re losing our best ways of studying what that change will look like.
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Damien Gimenez @damiengimenez.fr · 06/09/2026
French moderate politicians seem driven by a "spirit of defeat". How can they craft, while being honest, an enticing political offer amidst such a dire economic and geopolitical environment? www.lemonde.fr/article-offe...
lemonde.fr
Présidentielle 2027 : les risques d’une campagne à l’ombre de « l’esprit de défaite »
CHRONIQUE. De nombreux responsables politiques semblent avoir acté un duel entre le RN et LFI, et jouent déjà le coup d’après. Les partis de gouvernement peinent à proposer des idées nouvelles et s’en...
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Damien Gimenez @damiengimenez.fr · 01/09/2026
The historiography of democracy’s drivers casts light on the pitfalls of trying to make sense of politics from an economic or materialist standpoint. It may teach us a lesson for the future. damiengimenez.fr/wpdgi_articl...
damiengimenez.fr
Economic Development, Conflict, Political Culture and Equality: Drivers of Democracy from the Sixteenth to the Twentieth Century? - Damien Gimenez
Is the economy a driving force behind democracy or its gravedigger? – Article 4 In the aftermath of the Second World War, when Western societies had reduced their internal inequalities and were experi...
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Damien Gimenez @damiengimenez.fr · 28/08/2026
Are the Chinese overconfident in their government's ability to control AI? Are Americans overconfident that Big Tech can build a superhuman AI ? The question of model openness reveals cultural mindsets. www.nytimes.com/2026/08/28/b...
nytimes.com
China Sees Opportunity in America’s Recent A.I. Security Scares (Gift Article)
A leading Chinese A.I. start-up released its latest model and made the case that China’s embrace of open software is safer than Silicon Valley’s closed approach.
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Damien Gimenez @damiengimenez.fr · 28/08/2026
“We’re now seeing the dark side of digital technologies in a way that makes it possible for a cultural rejection, a cultural awakening that we can’t live this way”. What @jonathanhaidt.bsky.social has helped accomplish is remarkable. www.nytimes.com/2026/08/27/s...
nytimes.com
“Anxious Generation” Author Jonathan Haidt on the Meta Settlement (Gift Article)
In “The Anxious Generation,” he laid out the evils of social media for kids. The landmark Meta settlement seems to agree.
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Damien Gimenez @damiengimenez.fr · 26/08/2026
“Coding, Mr. Gates said, is the subject he knows best, and Claude’s abilities shocked him. “The idea that now these things are in a meaningful sense better than I am is like: What the hell?” he said.” www.nytimes.com/2026/08/26/t...
nytimes.com
Bill Gates Is Warning That A.I. Is More Dangerous Than Big Tech Will Admit (Gift Article)
In an hourlong interview, he said his industry was downplaying the risks, which he believes include mass unemployment and bioterrorism.
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Damien Gimenez @damiengimenez.fr · 22/08/2026
Whether driven by capitalist incentives or communist directives, humans are populating their societies with AI and robots. What may remain under human control is how this happens, not whether it happens: their spread is too deeply embedded in economic forces. www.nytimes.com/interactive/...
nytimes.com
A.I. Is Everywhere in China. See For Yourself. (Gift Article)
Take a walk with us through Beijing, where everyday A.I. can be useful, gimmicky, or unexpectedly funny.
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Damien Gimenez @damiengimenez.fr · 19/08/2026
Beyond the US, these arguments illustrate a broader problem: moderates/progressives can’t rely on economic competence (why not?), so they lower their standards to win. In doing so, they operate within an interest-based politics that devalues virtue—a trend whose genealogy runs through Montesquieu.
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Reposted by Damien Gimenez
Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
New from me: what would a grand coalition for government reform look like post-Trump? It should include both people who care about democratic backsliding and state capacity. But right now these groups aren’t really talking to one another. 🧵 donmoynihan.substack.com/p/what-could...
donmoynihan.substack.com
What could a post-Trump governance coalition look like?
It should be being built now
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Damien Gimenez @damiengimenez.fr · 16/08/2026
Debates about AI tend to polarise like political debates, and to politicise science. We should distinguish AI companies—which may fail to meet scientific standards without necessarily being evil—from LLMs (the technology), whose outputs depend on design, training, configuration and use.
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Reposted by Damien Gimenez
Emily M. Bender @emilymbender.bsky.social · 15/08/2026
This is a case study in pro-AI propaganda, and annoying enough to inspire a Saturday thread: bsky.app/profile/bren... 🧵>>
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Reposted by Damien Gimenez
Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 15/08/2026
You know that source of US power that's lingering due to network effects—so many use the dollar and dollar-denominated assets that it'd be a pain to switch, there's no alternative—the power we haven't managed to throw away yet? Yeah, we want to trash that one too. While calling it "America First."
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Damien Gimenez @damiengimenez.fr · 15/08/2026
Agreed. The US is once again stuck in a conflict because it overestimated its power.
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Reposted by Damien Gimenez
Erik Loomis @erikloomis.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
It’s not bad union leadership, a lack of union democracy, not enough organizing, or the other reasons union supporters and those who critique unions from the left usually provide. These are small factors, but the fundamental issue is that American employers will stop at nothing to eradicate unions.
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Erik Loomis @erikloomis.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
This Day in Labor History: August 13, 1887. Leathermakers in Newark, New Jersey, locked out their employees as a strategy to crush the Knights of Labor. Let's talk about the extremes American employers would go to in order to stay union free, even more so than in Europe!
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Damien Gimenez @damiengimenez.fr · 13/08/2026
“humanoids would respond to voice commands and theoretically solve problems and react to unforeseen events. They would never take a lunch break, join a union or require health insurance.” The debate on humanoids continues. I doubt they’re just hype. www.nytimes.com/2026/08/11/b...
nytimes.com
Robots That Walk and Talk Are Coming to Car Factories (Gift Article)
But experts warn they may not deliver the gains in efficiency that proponents claim.
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Reposted by Damien Gimenez
Center for American Progress @americanprogress.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
The Trump administration is using the authoritarian playbook to engineer minority rule and solidify power. Learn more about the 15 tactics CAP identified that Trump is using to establish an imperial presidency ⤵️ ampr.gs/4wZoaxY
ampr.gs
The Trump Administration Is Interfering in the 2026 Midterm Elections To Entrench the Imperial Presidency
The Trump administration has seized unprecedented control over the federal government and is now executing a plan to subvert the 2026 midterm elections—determined to entrench its power and continue it...
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Reposted by Damien Gimenez
Greg Sargent @gregsargent.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
"Declaring a national emergency doesn’t make Trump the election czar in this country. The United States Constitution does not give the president power over elections." On the pod, @rickhasen.bsky.social is so illuminating on Trump's new threat to declare emergency: newrepublic.com/article/2142...
newrepublic.com
Trump Blurts Out Vile Plot to Steal Midterms as GOPers Grow Unnerved
As Trump’s election-theft schemes grow darker, an election law expert explains why we must take his threats seriously, even if they’ll likely fail—and lays out how we can prepare for the worst.
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Damien Gimenez @damiengimenez.fr · 11/08/2026
Let’s take the nuclear-bomb analogy further: a genuine non-proliferation treaty presupposes some balance of power. If one player holds a monopoly, there is no treaty between equals—only domination.
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Damien Gimenez @damiengimenez.fr · 11/08/2026
Finally, there is a further systemic risk Reich does not explore: one firm or one country could gain a decisive technological lead and extraordinary economic or geopolitical power. Isn’t political liberalism, through its division and dispersal of power, one of the best ways to mitigate such a risk?
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Damien Gimenez @damiengimenez.fr · 11/08/2026
Then come security threats: cyber-capable models exploiting systems beyond their test environment, AI-assisted biological design, fraud, deepfakes and political manipulation. Some harms are already documented; others remain uncertain, but their potential scale makes them difficult to dismiss.
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Damien Gimenez @damiengimenez.fr · 11/08/2026
Others are environmental and local: greenhouse-gas emissions, rapidly growing electricity and water demand, pressure on household bills and local water supplies. This is why data-centre resistance can bring together progressives and MAGA voters, as Reich notes.
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