2025-11-26 Wed
Published:
- LLM image recognition is already cracking one of the hardest problems in digital humanities - handwriting recognition
- Research: A European way of war: Towards doctrine to defend against Russia, without the US
- Luxury surveillance: People pay a premium for tracking technologies that get imposed unwillingly on others
- Bluesky thread: Learning how to live with already weak-God-like and increasingly powerful technologies
- “Enough!”: Great 1947 Social Democratic posters from Finland
- “Fascism begins the moment a ruling class, fearing the people may use their political democracy to gain economic democracy, begins to destroy political democracy in order to retain its power of exploitation and special privilege.”
LLM image recognition is already cracking one of the hardest problems in digital humanities - handwriting recognition
The Writing Is on the Wall for Handwriting Recognition (Dan Cohen, Nov 25 2025)
Gemini transcribed the letter perfectly: it figured out that the right side is the beginning of the letter, not the left (the letter actually continues on the other side of the paper, which accounts for the discontinuity between the two sides we are viewing); it left off the periods where Boole also (oddly) omitted this punctuation; and it includes a self-reflective analysis of where it might be wrong and provides alternative readings.
Even wilder, when you click on a “show thinking” tab, Gemini provides a long discourse on its approach and minute details about word choices: […] This thinking goes on for almost 2,000 words, and what’s remarkable is that it is essentially a verbalization of what you’re taught to do in a paleography class: assess the overall document first, determine key features, study letter shapes and strokes across the letter to refine your understanding of the particular script, consider context and word/phrase possibilities, think about the coherence of content, grammar, and usage, identify any contractions, proper names, and other oddities, etc.
Research: A European way of war: Towards doctrine to defend against Russia, without the US
Good overview; notes that in terms of population, economy and armed forces, Europe shouldn’t have trouble deterring Russia. But of course the question is in the will. By that traditional measure of war-making potential, GDP, Russia should’ve already lost.
Abstract
Recent changes in US foreign policy and strategic posture have forced Europe to think about meeting its security needs without US support. One issue that requires a particular focus is the question of how to deter and defend against Russia in a conventional war. This article attempts a high-level assessment of European military capability, and considers whether existing military doctrine is adequate. It argues that Europe should maintain its focus on NATO’s manoeuvrist mode of war fighting and identifies key capability gaps that need to be filled for (a) a coalition of the willing and (b) Europe as a whole to be able to fight in this way. It cautions against an unduly defensive, attritional method of fighting, based on conscript armies, as playing to Russia’s strengths instead of our own.
https://doi.org/10.1177/17816858251344493
Luxury Surveillance (Chris Gilliard and David Golumbia July 06, 2021)
One of the most troubling features of the digital revolution is that some people pay to subject themselves to surveillance that others are forced to endure and would, if anything, pay to be free of.
Consider a GPS tracker you can wear around one of your arms or legs. Make it sleek and cool — think the Apple Watch or FitBit — and some will pay hundreds or even thousands of dollars for the privilege of wearing it. Make it bulky and obtrusive, and others, as a condition of release from jail or prison, being on probation, or awaiting an immigration hearing, will be forced to wear one — and forced to pay for it too.
Bluesky thread: Learning how to live with already weak-God-like and increasingly powerful technologies
@jmkorhonen.fi on Bluesky November 26, 2025 Learning how to live with already weak-God-like and increasingly powerful technologies is the defining challenge for this century👇. The climate and environmental crises, as well as many other aspects of the polycrisis , are to a large extent caused by societal lack of self-limiting capability.
@jmkorhonen.fi on Bluesky Ofc one big fly in this ointment is that with increasingly powerful technologies, risk taking can be very dangerous. Even risk societal ruin. (“Oops, we just broke democracy.”) Especially when many games are rigged to the format “heads I win, tails the taxpayer foots the bill (and bails me out)”.
It is partly a consequence of our societal models dating from the age of sail, while technology has marched on. But for the most part, it is caused by our hesitation to limit the powers individuals and small groups can amass, if the power is economic - that is, control over economic resources.
These increasing and increasingly hazardous concentrations of wealth and power have many harmful effects. They give the few who have managed to climb to the top extraordinary power - and insulation from the effects of their mistakes. Which causes them to be surrounded by sycophants and grifters.
Concentrated decision making tends to lead to more and more costly mistakes. Like planned economies ought to have taught us. This would happen even if the oligarchs were 100% altruistic. But they are often sociopaths. Usually surrounded by yes men unlikely to criticize the Genius Leader.
But wait, there’s much more! Another extremely pernicious effect of great inequalities & vast concentrations of wealth is that it incentivizes cutthroat competition. A “competitive society” and its steep pyramid of inequality incentivize grind and hustle by the prospect of winning… and losing.
A competitive, steeply unequal society needs losers. Those who can’t or won’t do what it takes to stay in the hedonic treadmill of status competition. And at least some losers must suffer terrible consequences. Pour encourager les autres.
The more horrible the consequences of losing, the greater the control the system - and those on top of the dunghill of inequality - have over the people. (The prospect of winning big also helps. But not nearly as much.)
When people are constantly afraid of losing what status they’ve managed to achieve, and have to genuinely fear poverty, they have little time or incentives to cooperate in anything that could seriously threaten the pyramids of power. They are easier to divide and rule. Easier to exploit.
And they are less likely to support the setting of safe limits to the uses of technology, or to the abuses of the environment and others. Because it is very easy to frame any limits as threats to their already precarious position. That’s why we see these unholy coalitions of oligarchs and workers.
This is not just my theory, as many must have recognized. And it’s not just theory. I once did a literature review of the effects of democracy and equality on environmental protection. (Sadly, only in Finnish so far.)
[sorsafoundation.fi Tutkimuskatsaus: demokratian instituutiot auttavat kestävyyssiirtymässä · Kalevi Sorsa -säätiö](https://sorsafoundation.fi/tutkimuskatsaus-demokratian-instituutiot-auttavat-kestavyyssiirtymassa/) It’s somewhat complicated, and democracy doesn’t guarantee good outcomes (although weight of evidence suggests it does increase their probability), but the TL;DR is that countries with better social safety nets and smaller inequalities are generally much better at setting environmental limits too.
And a big reason is because the people in such countries - like Nordic social democracies - are more free. Social democracies aren’t utopias, but by and large, their inhabitants have more real freedoms they can actually enjoy. Including the freedom to pursue limits to destructive behaviors.
I wrote this from personal experience almost 8 years ago (!!!). Still think it holds quite well. Even if Finland ‘s current right-wing government is hell-bent on reducing our real freedoms, by dismantling what’s left of our greatest achievement: the welfare state.
[jmkorhonen.net Finland is the land of personal freedom, and that’s why I love it](https://jmkorhonen.net/2017/12/05/finland-is-the-land-of-personal-freedom-and-thats-why-i-love-it/) (Also archived here.)
(If you are interested in delving deeper, the Capability Approach to freedoms, originated by Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum, is the theory to go. Very much recommended! Even a lowbrow dilettante engineer like me gained many useful insights.)
“Enough!”: Great 1947 Social Democratic posters from Finland
Posters from the 1947 recruitment campaign “Enough!” of the Finnish Social Democratic Party.
“Enough False promises Price hikes Forced [sham] democracy”
Aimed at Communists, who threatened to take power after WW2.
Jo riittää – taistelevaa sosialidemokratiaa
Tommy Douglas on fascism
“Fascism begins the moment a ruling class, fearing the people may use their political democracy to gain economic democracy, begins to destroy political democracy in order to retain its power of exploitation and special privilege.”
— Tommy Douglas