Syndicates of capital ⊗ Three modes of cognition

Syndicates of capital

Early in her piece, Jessica Burbank writes that “you’ll be surprised how quickly things click and how easily your mind makes connections when you absorb the news with a conception of syndicates of capital.” She’s right. Burbank defines these as groups of wealthy individuals whose primary objectives involve securing new capital flows and preserving existing ones. They operate in what she calls the “extralegal sphere”—she’s explicit that none of this is hidden, that their multi-billion dollar deals and contracts are publicly disclosed. States are just no longer the highest form of power globally. That role has shifted to these syndicates, which use state power where useful but circumvent it wherever possible.

Burbank extends political scientist Joseph Nye’s analysis of global power systems, arguing the transition from state-centred to syndicate-centred power began around 1920 (I’d say even earlier than that) and completed before 2020. The mechanism was largely neoliberal ideology: privatisation and free enterprise, enforced globally, created the conditions for capital accumulation through resource extraction and labour exploitation by multinational corporations. Her opening example grounds the theory in history—Patrice Lumumba’s 1961 assassination by the CIA, triggered not by Cold War ideology alone but by his challenge to the resource extraction apparatus in Congo. The state acted as enforcer for syndicate interests, a pattern she argues has only deepened since.

The sharpest part of the piece is her explanation of why “globalism” became a political slur. Syndicates actively benefit from populations rejecting global thinking, because any meaningful analysis of power across borders reveals their control. Fascism, in her reading, emerges as a reaction to syndicate dominance—nationalist movements attempting to reclaim military and economic control for state leaders—but syndicates typically co-opt fascist leaders rather than lose ground to them. The framework doesn’t name current figures, which is both its strength and limitation. It’s a framework for reading power rather than an exposé, and the kind of structural thinking I’ve been finding increasingly valuable in parsing world events. (Via KDO.)

Rather than states cooperating to develop a system of global governance, or succumbing to exogenous threats to sovereignty, state power eroded from within. Official government leaders today have less power than wealthy private citizens who demonstratively exert more control over economic policymaking and the use of military force. State leaders often directly serve syndicates of capital instead of the public or the state, though some try to do both. […]

Liberals insist that a right to sovereignty is lost when any of the fundamental principles of liberal society are missing within a state. This is when liberals label countries ‘failed states,’ and insist intervention by other states is justified. For example, if a state nationalizes natural resources through legitimate democratic processes, and therefore jeopardizes free enterprise (resource extraction by global ‘market’ forces), that state loses their right to liberty and self determination. […]

Liberalism was the driving dogma behind the establishment of free markets globally, which, in practice, was the violent enforcement of resource extraction and labor exploitation my multinational corporations. These conditions facilitated the accumulation of global capital in the hands of the few. Those few formed syndicates. Therefore, neoliberal hegemony catalyzed the shift of how world power is organized, facilitating the fall of an anarchic system of states, and the rise of syndicates of capital. Liberalism effectuated a new world order in which liberalism is obsolete. […]

The end the anarchic system of states is difficult to identify precisely because syndicates did not replace states. Instead, syndicates developed a new global power structure that includes states.

Three modes of cognition

One of the things that interests me in AI is all the discussions it has provoked around the various forms of intelligences and our understanding of them. Here Kevin Kelly explores what he sees as three distinct modes of cognition that together might compose intelligence. The first, knowledge reasoning, is where current large language models excel—the “super-smartness” that comes from ingesting every book and message ever written, that’s the bulk of today’s LLMs. The second, world sense, is spatial intelligence: an understanding of how objects behave in physical space, incorporating gravity, continuity, and common sense about physical reality. We’re talking world models and robotics, a field in emergence. The third, continuous learning, is the ability to improve incrementally from daily experience and mistakes—something humans do constantly but current AIs lack entirely. Other than memory systems and using user data for subsequent phases of model training, the idea of continuous learning is not yet really applied.

Kelly’s argument builds on his earlier piece proposing a “periodic table of cognition,” where he compared our understanding of intelligence to early (and wrong) theories of electricity. Intelligence, he argues, is not a single elemental force but a compound of dozens of cognitive primitives, much as water turned out to be a compound rather than an element. The three modes framework is a simplified version of that larger project, and it explains a specific puzzle: why AIs that surpass human expertise in book knowledge still can’t replace human workers. The answer is that knowledge reasoning alone is insufficient. Without world sense and continuous learning working alongside it, the compound we recognise as intelligence remains incomplete.

These are sometimes called world models, or Spatial Intelligence, because this kind of cognition is based on (and trained on) how physical objects behave in the 3-dimensional world of space and time, and not just the immaterial world of words talking about the world. […]

A major reason why AI agents have not replaced human workers in 2026 is that the former never learn from their mistakes while the latter, even if not as smart, can learn on the job, and can get better each day. […]

When AI experiences another sudden quantum jump in capabilities, it will likely be when someone cracks the solution for a continuous learning function. Human employees are unlikely to lose their jobs to AIs that can not continuously learn because a lot of the work we need done requires continuous learning on the job.

§ “Jobs below the AI” is the new “jobs below the API.” I haven’t read AI agents are recruiting humans to observe the offline world yet, and it’s not the first instance of AI hiring people, but just reading “Agents need us — as sensors, as verifiers, as bearers of liability — in ways we have barely begun to account for” immediately took me back >10 years ago, to the idea of “jobs below the API.” This piece on Forbes is the oldest in my bookmarks but likely not the source of the expression.

It’s roughly the same thing, then you were a tool under an algorithm accessed through an API, the Uber app assigning you rides. Now you’re a tool called upon directly by an AI. A digital agent tasking a carbon unit to grab a case and get it to another carbon unit, perhaps working for another AI.

Futures, Fictions & Fabulations

• Seneca Falls Convention · 2048 is a speculative event in the future, and at the real online even Artifacts from a Matriarchal Future. Tracey Worley will “share the methodology I used to create Seneca Falls 2048—a speculative project featuring artifacts from the 200th anniversary of the first women's rights convention. Then you'll make your own artifact from a matriarchal future. Think of it as practicing the future. Building muscle memory for worlds we can barely imagine yet desperately need.”
• Amy Webb launches 2026 Emerging Tech Trend Report. “This year, though, there’s a twist you won’t see coming—one that could change the way we track, understand, and act on trends forever. The theme is Creative Destruction. While there's no official dress code for the session, we do recommend you wear black.”

Algorithms, Automations & Augmentations

• Assembling the future: manufacturing + AI. “This also makes the third wave of automation the most accessible yet. Previous waves required specialized programming skills (G-code, PLC logic, robotic path planning). AI systems meet people where they are. Robots can learn tasks through imitating human behaviors; shop floor workers can query data in plain English. The interface to manufacturing automation is more approachable than it's ever been”
• The real AI talent war is for plumbers and electricians. “The AI boom is driving an unprecedented wave of data center construction, but there aren’t enough skilled tradespeople in the US to keep up.”
• A data center opened next door. Then came the high-pitched whine. “Unlike most of her neighbors, she preferred a supercomputing hub to a shopping mall, which might bring a crush of car traffic. She was even more pleased when she learned the data center would generate its own power — rather than connecting to the grid and driving up her electric bills. But then the data center turned on, along with the eight natural gas turbines powering it. Now her home is barraged by a high-pitch whine that she says has made her newly screened-in porch unusable.”

Built, Biosphere & Breakthroughs

• The strange and persistent psychological distance between us and climate disaster. “An analysis of dozens of previously published studies reveals people systematically underestimate their own vulnerability to climate threats.”
• The global journey of fast fashion’s discarded clothes. “Discarded garments often enter complex second-hand markets, with huge volumes ending up in places like Accra, Ghana, where unsellable clothing accumulates in waterways and landscapes. Researchers argue the real solution lies not just in recycling but in reducing overproduction, adopting circular design and encouraging consumers to buy fewer, longer-lasting garments.”
• BYD just killed your EV argument with a battery that competes with gas engines. “The Blade Battery 2.0, a new battery that can drive more than 621 miles on a single charge. In the process, the company has exposed just how far behind the rest of the EV industry has fallen. … BYD’s new charging architecture kills the ICE pit stop advantage entirely by pushing 1,500 kilowatts of peak power through a single cable, or up to 2,100 kilowatts if using a dual-gun setup. To understand the sheer power of that electrical flow, you have to look at the current industry standard.”

Asides

• GPS jamming and its use in the Iran war, explained. “Windward in its analysis identified 21 new clusters where ships’ AIS were being jammed in the region in the first 24 hours after the Iran war began. A day later that number had jumped to 38, Bockmann said. Maritime data and analytics company Lloyd’s List Intelligence said it had logged 1,735 GPS interference events affecting 655 vessels, each typically lasting three to four hours, between the start of the war and March 3.”
• Ailing “Megaberg” sparks surge of microscopic life. “By 2026, the iconic iceberg, sopping with meltwater and shedding smaller bergs as it moved into warmer ocean waters, put on one more show. The chunks of ice and frigid glacial meltwater left in its wake appear to have fueled a surge in phytoplankton abundance, known as a bloom, observed in surface waters by NASA satellites.”
• Mystery orcas from afar thrill Seattle-area whale watchers. “When somebody gets the thrill of seeing an orca in Northwest waters, that whale is almost always well known. Scientists have probably given it a number and documented its family tree, perhaps even its DNA. Whale lovers have probably given it a cutesy name, like Yoda or Kelp. … But on March 6, a trio of orcas showed up in Canada’s busy Vancouver Harbour, later heading south to Seattle, Tacoma, and Olympia, that were a mystery to scientists.”