I will not tell “the birds” to “go”; neither will I have the mad hubris to command the earth to circle the sun, links

AI tarpits. Pete Hegseth’s venmo.

RIP Professor Ogot.

“How a dangerous ideology, born in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, has moved from the fringes of tech culture to the heart of American governance. The story of how it begins starts sixteen years ago”:

The fusion of Austrian economics, techno-libertarianism, and Yarvin’s critique of democracy found its perfect vehicle in cryptocurrency and blockchain technology. As Pogue documents in Vanity Fair, Balaji Srinivasan emerged as a key figure who helped translate these abstract ideas into a concrete vision for restructuring society. However, his thinking increasingly aligned with neo-reactionary ideas, particularly around the concept of “exit”—the ability to opt out of existing political structures entirely. This shift from techno-libertarianism to neo-reactionary thought isn’t as large a leap as it might seem. Both ideologies share a deep skepticism of centralized authority and a belief in the power of technology to reshape society. The pipeline from techno-libertarianism to neo-reaction often follows a predictable path: It begins with a libertarian critique of government inefficiency and overreach. This evolves into a broader skepticism of all democratic institutions, seen as slow and irrational compared to the speed and logic of technology. Eventually, this leads to the conclusion that democracy itself is an outdated system, incompatible with rapid technological progress. The final step is embracing the idea that democracy should be replaced entirely with more “efficient” forms of governance, often modeled on corporate structures or technological systems.

Entrepreneurs are taught that old institutions are inefficient relics waiting to be displaced by something better. When applied to government, this logic leads directly to Yarvin’s argument: democracy is outdated “legacy code” that can’t keep up with modern complexity. The future, he and others argue, will belong to those who design and implement a superior system—one that runs more like a corporation, where leaders are chosen based on competence rather than elections. This is why neoreactionary ideas have found such a receptive audience among tech elites. If you believe that technology inevitably renders old systems obsolete, then why should democracy be any different?

Cybertruck unsafer at any speed: 

An analysis published Thursday by the auto news website FuelArc found that, in their one year of existence, the approximately 34,000 Cybertrucks on the roads had five fire fatalities, giving them a fatality rate of 14.5 per 100,000 units. That’s 17 times the fatality rate of the Ford Pintos, whose famously flawed gas tank design on the car’s rear end led to 27 reported fire fatalities in its nine years on the road, resulting in a fatality rate of 0.85 per 100,000 units, according to FuelArc.

Snoops on a train 

Dave and Elon. 

“​​I have written this so far in the third person because it felt as if there was no other way to write this, probably because I still feel shame about many of these things, so much so that I am reluctant to articulate these things within any of the various sorts of rooms in which I work or talk.” 

Warner Brothers dumping movies on youtube, sure, why not. 

Does RFK even lift?

Dumb nudges: 

Nudges never live up to their promise of seamless unconscious manipulation of behavior. Instead, they always announce themselves more or less clearly, spurring the subject to begin questioning what the nudger wants from them — and possibly rebelling against the intended outcome simply out of annoyance at the attempted manipulation. For this reason, nudges generally don’t work.

For context on the vice president retweeting this fucking guy, see his assertion that “Catholics need to rethink the nation-state. We have come a long way, but we still have far to go — towards the eventual formation of the Empire of Our Lady of Guadalupe, and ultimately the world government required by natural law.”

Salesforce AI dystopia: 

It is at this moment that the true terror sets in. This ad is not a sales pitch; it is a vision of the dystopia to come. The world depicted in this commercial is one where AI has come to dominate our lives. AI will be what intermediates you and other human beings, it will direct you where to go and what to do, it will give you what it decides to give you, its decisions are binding on you and others, its judgment is irreversible, and you will have to sit there and take it. 

Why we need Canadian oil.

Political Parties are illegal (what we have is worse).

Oh: “Global warming has accelerated since 2010 by more than 50% over the1970-2010 warming rate of 0.18 °C per decade”