chor pharm ness
keeps showing up in feeds.. esp michel’s.. adding page this day via tweet from michel bauwens [https://x.com/mbauwens/status/2081122287265132757?s=20]:
* “A token does not measure intelligence. It measures activity inside a machine.” https://thecuttingfloor.substack.com/p/tokens-as-industrial-energy
Check out what Chor Pharn has to say about the topic.
notes/quotes from chor pharm substack about page [https://thecuttingfloor.substack.com/about]:
Notes, fragments, and signals from a world entering maintenance.
I write from Singapore *about how the future becomes real before we have the words for it. The subjects are AI, China, America, money, work, state capacity, fertility, cities, and institutions. **The deeper question is what machine civilisation is doing to human life: who remains necessary, what becomes cheap, what becomes scarce, and what forms can still bind.
*to me: 1\ nothing to date has been legit real.. all in sea world and/because 2\ once we put words to it (language as control/enclosure, marsh label law, et al) no longer able to be ‘real’.. no longer organism as fractal et al
**so to me.. the deeper question is – what are the conditions for us to be legit free.. and do we have the means to facil that detox back/to us
My recurring claim is that machine surplus is not human surplus. A society can become more capable while becoming less inhabitable. So these essays track both the machine economy being built — chips, energy, capital, logistics, payment systems, firms, states — and the human economy around it: dignity, care, love, work, trust, public goods, rituals, and meaning.
again.. since forever.. mufleh humanity law et al
to me – ‘machine econ’ we need is tech as nonjudgmental expo labeling to facil the seeming chaos of a global detox leap/dance.. for (blank)’s sake.. and/because the ‘human econ’ we need is the thing we’ve not yet tried/seen: the unconditional part of left to own devices ness
[‘in an undisturbed ecosystem ..the individual left to its own devices.. serves the whole’ –dana meadows]
ie: bachelard oikos law et al.. via a sabbatical ish transition
I have written two short books, Metabolic Sovereignty and Civilisation After Progress. The newer work extends them into machine civilisation, Asia, weak signals, and the problem of inhabitable futures
again.. to me.. ‘inhabitable’ since forever.. hari rat park law et al
Cancer has changed the tempo. It came, went, and is back again. This is not a cancer diary. But recurrence has made me less patient with empty futurism and systems talk that never touches life.
this is me from ie: on the ground ness to warning ness
Bodies matter. Time matters. Care matters. The future matters only if someone can live in it.
to me.. for that to happen.. 1\ has to be all of us and/because 2\ need a means that is not perpetuating the same song.. the whac-a-mole-ing ness of sea world.. of not-us ness.. of part\ial ness.. perpetuating survival triage.. for (blank)’s sake..
note: on survival ness: survival is a means to survive things as they are.. so to me.. not a legit alt.. it’s triage.. perpetuating survival triage.. so a temp band aide per se.. that will /can help now.. but only for short term.. because it still doesn’t get to the root of the problem.. so it won’t offer/lead-to legit change/life/freedom.. et al.. so.. to me.. it’s still a cancerous distraction to the dance
Me revisiting my old neighbourhood, Shanghai, 22 Mar 2026
notes/quotes from page michel linked above:
Tokens as Industrial Energy – When intelligence becomes cheap enough to waste – july 2026
The first mistake is to think of a token as a word.
The second is to think of a token as intelligence.
A token begins as a narrow technical unit: the fragment by which a model receives and generates information. It appears on an invoice because something must be counted. But a million tokens from one model are not equivalent to a million from another. One model may spend five times as many tokens reaching the same answer. Another may produce fewer tokens and still require far more human checking. The same quantity can yield a working program, an elegant answer, a failed chain of thought or an ocean of machine filler.
graeber violence/quantification law et al..
nothing to date has gotten to the root of problem because we can’t seem to let go of measuring ness et al..
legit freedom will only happen if it’s all of us.. and in order to be all of us.. has to be sans any form of measuring, accounting, people telling other people what to do
A token does not measure intelligence. It measures activity inside a machine.
rather.. intellectness as cancerous distraction
This seems to weaken the idea of tokens as industrial energy. In fact, it clarifies it.
Industrial systems rarely begin with the perfect unit. They begin when someone finds a crude quantity that can be placed on a meter. Once something can be counted, it can be billed. Once it can be billed, it can be budgeted, routed, subsidised, rationed, traded and purchased in advance. The meter does not merely describe the industry. The meter helps call the industry into existence.
The token is not the kilowatt-hour of intelligence. Not yet. It is closer to the machine-hour before the factory has agreed what counts as useful work: an imperfect measure of activity that nevertheless allows capital, infrastructure and organisations to begin arranging themselves around it.
That is enough to change civilisation.
to me.. civilization ness has already ‘changed’ us.. to not-us – ie: black science of people/whales law et al
II.
Most of this activity will not look intelligent. It will look repetitive, mundane and wasteful.
to me.. intellect ness is already a cancerous distraction
That is precisely the point.
The relevant question is not whether a system wastes tokens. It is whether it can convert cheap failure into useful success.
rather.. whether a system facils the conditions for people to be legit free.. again.. hari rat park law et al
VI.
Civilisation is built from the work.
to me.. we need to let go of both.. aka: gupta roadblock law et al
VII.
Tokens become industrial energy when intelligence stops being admired as capability and starts being consumed as throughput.
to me.. the ‘intell’ ‘data’ we need is self-talk as data
need 1st/most: means (nonjudgmental expo labeling) to undo hierarchical listening – so we can hear what’s already on each heart as global detox in order to org around legit needs
The token is not intelligence. It is the imperfect meter through which civilisation is learning to spend intelligence continuously. The first AI-industrial society will not necessarily be the one with the cleverest machine or the largest token count. It will be the one that closes the losses between electricity and useful cognition—and has learned what to do with the waste. The meter was never the point. The work was.
again.. to me.. these are cancerous distractions.. irrelevant s.. to legit free people
again.. nothing to date has gotten to the root of problem
legit freedom will only happen if it’s all of us.. and in order to be all of us.. has to be sans any form of measuring, accounting, people telling other people what to do
how we gather in a space is huge.. need to try spaces of permission where people have nothing to prove to facil curiosity over decision making.. because the finite set of choices of decision making is unmooring us.. keeping us from us..
ie: imagine if we listen to the itch-in-8b-souls 1st thing everyday & use that data to connect us (tech as it could be.. ai as augmenting interconnectedness)
the thing we’ve not yet tried/seen: the unconditional part of left to own devices ness
[‘in an undisturbed ecosystem ..the individual left to its own devices.. serves the whole’ –dana meadows]
there’s a legit use of tech (nonjudgmental exponential labeling) to facil the seeming chaos of a global detox leap/dance..
ie: whatever for a year.. a legit sabbatical ish transition
otherwise we’ll keep perpetuating the same song.. the whac-a-mole-ing ness of sea world.. of not-us ness.. of part\ial ness.. perpetuating survival triage..
for (blank)’s sake..
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be you. 