Henry Farrell

thumb|We can blame the English language for a lot of things. Henry Farrell is an Irish-born political scientist and blogger who is a professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. Farrell was one of the founders of the philosophy group blog Crooked Timber, is the author of academic and trade books including Underground Empire (2023, with Abe Newman), and is a frequent op-ed writer in The New York Times. Farrell is known for introducing the concept of "weaponized interdependence" in international relations; since 2022 he has written extensively about the political implications of artificial intelligence. Quotes Loose canons can give rise to loose cannons: the intellectual consequences of e.g. Atlas Shrugged, Zero to One, and The Sovereign Individual have mostly been pernicious. "Silicon Valley is an aristocratic culture", Programmable Mutter (2024-09-02) The authoritarian who wants to build a ruling coalition needs not only to make their success seem like a fait accompli. She also needs to persuade others that they will prosper rather than suffer from joining. The aspiring authoritarian needs to persuade allies that she (and they) will predate on outgroups, and that she will not predate on the allies themselves. "Absolute power can be a terrible weakness", Programmable Mutter (2025-04-17) Cf. Frank Wilhoit on conservatism: "in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect" We can blame the English language for a lot of things. But it is never going to become conscious and decide to turn us into paperclips. LLMs don’t have personalities, but compressions of genre that can support a mixture of ‘choose your own adventure’ with role-playing game. It is very important not to confuse the latter for the former. "Cultural theory was right about the death of the author. It was just a few decades early", Crooked Timber (2025-07-11) Instead of a pluralistic realm to be protected or left alone, [conservatives] see a “cathedral” of left ideology and argue that universities, non-profits, even multinational corporations are redoubts of the enemy that must be taken by storm. This is dingbat Gramscianism, as filtered through the mud-encrusted sieve of Curtis Yarvin Thought. "What is civil society, and why should we care?", Programmable Mutter (2025-10-27) There is a famous Mario Cuomo dictum that a politician should campaign in poetry and govern in prose. Donald Trump both campaigns and governs in the language of shitposts. His great tragedy is that this is all that he is capable of doing. "'Classy' is the one adjective that has never been used to describe Donald Trump", Programmable Mutter (2025-12-17) Inside every hungry entrepreneur, there is a bloated monopolist struggling to get out. "No-One Makes You Shop at Amazon", Programmable Mutter (2026-08-13) External links Henry Farrell (political scientist) Personal website Category:Bloggers Category:1970 births Category:Living people Category:Political scientists Category:Academics from Ireland Category:People from Dublin