As the “monitoring of the situation” reached whole new levels, I took some time to touch grass today. I don’t think I opened more phone more than a dozen times before writing tonight.
So many mutuals are teaching themselves automation skills by building situation monitoring boards that maybe the Department of War doesn’t need Claude. It was charmingly easy to keep up. Which is a very distorted and dystopian way of living out the hard realism of kinetic power in real time.
If America is backstopping Loyld’s of London shipping insurance, then to repeat a Keanu Reeves meme style. Yeah I’m thinking that America is back. But I’m getting to old for this shit. It’s all TV tropes now as we unmoor in the propaganda. Which is run by an honest to goodness critical theorist who trained with Jurgen Habermas.
So instead I stared out over the horizon as the wind gently brought fresh air in from across a wide open vista. I enjoyed my friend’s company as we talked about jhanna meditation and compute pricing. We saw a seal winning along the shoreline. I put on sunscreen twice as we stayed out in the sun.
How luxurious is it I had long leisurely in-person time with a friend. Not all of my business is with friends but I cherish the ones with whom I do.
We walked and talked and broke for lunch and discussed problems from the most abstract to the most precise. Having given the world so much access to all of human creation and taste, did the market provide an original version of the driftwood horse decoration or has there only ever been the mass market design? Neal Stephenson fans get it. Baudrillard too.
Fashion people and technology people worry about these questions of taste because they are questions of control and tooling. The source culture of engineering culture shared context. How abstract is too abstract? What is enough to enable the builder to use your tool?
It was good to be outside in the sun with someone and talk. That activity needs no shared context beyond humanity. We have missed it in the hubbub.
Isn’t it funny how just as the internet is losing its humans, the humans who met only thanks to the marvels of the network are finding new offline systems? The network can reprogram itself.
I have dear friends and successful investments that I have spent hardly a single moment commingled in time and place with. I imagine that age is either just beginning or just ending and I am not sure which. So today I was outside in the sun talking. I don’t know if we made any progress but maybe I’ll only know in the far future.
I don’t feel terrific so I’ll keep this as a ramble but with some links. I fear some sort of Rubicon has was crossed, which we will only recognize in hindsight, in the fight for property rights in America versus the tyranny of failing state capacity.
I am referring to the contract dispute between foundation model developer Anthropic and American Secretary of War Hegseth that boiled over on Friday night as some sort of Murderbot surveillance subplot parsed only by lawyers, policy wonks and anyone who remembers the patriotism of Chelsea Manning.
Right before America and Israel went all Epic Fury on Iran over the weekend, somehow it was felt a messy public fight between defense contractor and the civilian oversight of our military was ok? Good thing everyone is too distracted to care.
The best writing on this so far has been Dean Ball (who worked in this Trump administration on its AI position statement not so long ago) who feels that Hegseth took an approach on renegotiating a contract with a frontier AI model developer that has consequences.
Loosely and I am missing much Anthropic had its previous contract to parse classified documents in the Department of Defense (now the Department of War) negotiated by the prior administration. Some aspects of this contract wasn’t going to work for the Trump administration. Anthropic didn’t want to change it and Hegseth threatened to call Anthropic a supply chain risk unless it complied. They didn’t and Sam Altman signed a deal.
Anthropic is essentially using the contractual vehicle to impose what feel less like technical constraints and more like policy constraints on the military
This is all complicated by the model developer having wishes for frontier AI development to be nationalized and for their work in particular to be safeguarded by a different political administration. It has become a right versus left thing as it was bound to do.
Now Anthropic gets to enjoy the full throated defense of its industry peers and even conservative policy makers like Dean, because our current state capacity is not what I’d call excellent when it comes to our civilian government capacity. Honestly our military still seems to be crushing it.
Secretary Hegseth looked a bit like he was over reaching in his command that he get his demands met. Americans are very touchy about surveillance of if’s citizens and much less touchy about autonomous weapons so it’s natural to be a bit suspicious if you are a millennial who remembers the Global War on Terror. If you are Zoomer who doesn’t know who Chelsea Manning is please go ask Claude.
However it’s not at all clear that Hegseth’s original negotiations were out of hand as of course it’s the state who decides legal use not the private company and we are meant to have laws, judicial process and all the rest. It’s just that we don’t. So what on earth do we do about it? Trust me bro is not a policy.
The tension that has gripped geopolitics since the America build up began in the Middle East in late January, came to a dramatic head today.
A kerfuffle over the department of war’s contract to use the current best in class AI deployed on hyperscaler approved sandbox clouds naturally took up a lot of the energy the night before the real story got going. Great distraction work.
Iran launched large salvos of ballistic missiles and drones targeting U.S. bases across the Gulf and against the UAE, Qatar and Bahrain as part of a wider regional response.
The airspace being closed across the region, a lot of moving pieces at play means one can only pray for those in harm’s way. And that cooler heads can convince old generals not to use their youth for death.
I don’t feel all that well myself. I am glad to be far from the region. I have inflammatory symptoms popping up after my dental work but I hope it is soothed by antibiotics and now a dose of steroids.
I am itchier than seems sensible. I don’t know why but maybe general stress likes to compound itself with irruption.
I’d like to enjoy fair weather and beautiful sunsets before things change for the worse. I’ll do my best to work for things to go better but it’s a big job and we all must work towards it as best we can.
Citrini is capable of super human persuasion before AI reached super human general intelligence and it has been strange.
As the market sell off was playing out, a flood of “Contra Citrini” essays emerged immediately from players as varied as Joe WiesenthalJohn Loeber, Will Manidis, even proper economists like Alex Imas. The co-author Alap Shah went onto TBPN. Fun fact he was Sheel Mohnot’s roommate in college.
I am unclear if white collar workers are in a frenzy about are doing their existing jobs or if they have even noticed the danger. As a real time update from a fellow investor had us both laughing. An intern couldn’t manage a basic research task. The intern asked them how to get to the Founders Fund’s website.
We may need the bull case for AI, as the bear case for white collar workers acquiring any intelligence in their education process is rather unconvincing.
For some reason “how do I get to the founders fund website” started me singing an old tune sung by Dionne Warwick “Do you know the way to San Jose?”
Do you know the way to San Jose? I’ve been away so long I may go wrong and lose my way Do you know the way to San Jose? I’m going back to find some peace of mind in San Jose
LA is a great big freeway Put a hundred down and buy a car In a week, maybe two, they’ll make you a star
Weeks turn into years, how quick they pass And all the stars that never were Are parking cars and pumping gas
The song was used in another completely different “science fiction story goes viral”context. Maybe it’s in my mind as automated virology lab unleashing apocalypse, is a AI doomer staple also recently in the discourse.
Do you know the way to San Jose? Or if Helix is available for download.
In 1968 you could return to San Jose from Los Angeles and start a relatively normal life as one of the stars who never made it. Pumping gas and parking cars. If we get too close to the sun of artificial intelligence success we don’t have a San Jose to run to. You can’t get away there as it’s filled with just the part of technology folks peddling dreams as unrealistic as the ones down in Hollywood.
I spent most of yesterday on an airplane. I flew nearly 12 hours along the polar routes to go from Heathrow to America’s west coast. I flew British Airways and was disinclined to spend the many pounds for internet access.
Alas this meant I missed the rollout of the joyful flight of one of my favorite investments. Valar Atomics began its journey from California to Utah just as I too was flying. Me and the reactor I angel invested in were both up in the air like bluebirds and sunshine.
HILL AIR FORCE BASE, Utah, Feb 15 – The U.S. Departments of Energy and Defense on Sunday for the first time transported a small nuclear reactor on a cargo plane from California to Utah to demonstrate the potential to quickly deploy nuclear power for military and civilian use.
The agencies partnered with California-based Valar Atomics to fly one of the company’s Ward microreactors on a C-17 aircraft — without nuclear fuel — to Hill Air Force Base in Utah. Via Reuters
I tear up just thinking of the incredible accomplishments of millions of people coordinating together across centuries that these technologies represent.
It’s easy to think of ourselves as being small in the vastness of time and space. I almost cannot believe I was handed such gifts in this life, but I can claim a small but early part in Valar’s story.
U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright and U.S. Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment Michael Duffey on board a C-17 cargo plane that transported Valar Atomics’ Ward nuclear microreactor from March Air Force Base in California to Hill Air Force Base in Utah, at the Hill Air Force Base in Utah, U.S., February 15, 2026. On the right, with the American flag and the Valar logo on his jacket is our CEO Isaiah Taylor
Just a little over three years ago I sent Isaiah a message on Twitter. We had a lot in common and I felt a kinship with this young entrepreneur. It was before he had even begun the incorporation work on Valar. He was working on something else, but I trusted his quiet intelligence and admired his humble inquisitiveness. We kept in touch as he mapped out his path.
His lack of ego instantly marked him as special, as it meant he could hear even the hardest criticisms. His fortitude was clear. He could incorporate what was necessary into his mission, a skill usually developed much later in life.
It’s rare to build trust so early on, and yet we both did. I told him I’d back anything he did so long as he was the CEO. Little did I know just how lucky I would end up as his very first backer.
You might think you will have doubts in high risk early stage investing. But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t believe in him from day one. I knew he was on a mission bigger than any of us. I knew it and he knew it. For God and country as they say.
That faith was required, as it was tested in rapid succession again and again over the next three years. Chewing glass is part of every startup. Even when you go as rapidly as Valar has gone, there are harsh conditions, brushes with death, and moments of utter joy in between.
Not only did we write a first check in the angel round, but in tight spots before the seed closed we wired follow on within minutes when a concern about a cash flow question arose. We put together special purpose vehicles. Nothing could jeopardize this mission. I’d invest more if I could.
We weren’t always the ideal investors as we struggled to showcase to bigger and better firms our conviction. Not too long ago it was all about being asset light and software as a service. Thankfully the execution always outshone the skeptics and we were ahead of the times. And while the skepticism was fierce, Isaiah never wavered. Neither did I.
And you can better believe that I am looking forward to July 4th this year. We promised the president we’d be turning on the reactor, so there is much to be done between now and then.
Even the Department of Defense (War?) is writing swan songs about Valar from the Pentagon Twitter account
At March Air Reserve Base, California, yesterday, a next-generation nuclear reactor was loaded aboard a C-17 Globemaster III aircraft for transport to Hill Air Force Base, Utah. The reactor will eventually head to the Utah San Rafael Energy Lab for testing and evaluation.
The Ward 250 is a 5 megawatt nuclear reactor that fits into the back of a C-17 aircraft could theoretically power about 5,000 homes.
For military use, such a reactor could provide energy security on a military base ensuring the mission there need not depend on the civilian power grid, and in military operations overseas, such reactors would mean U.S. forces could operate without concern that an enemy might cut fuel supplies.
A reactor such as the Ward 250 also means greater energy security for the entire United States. It is firmly in line with President Donald J. Trump’s executive orders to reshape and modernize America’s nuclear energy landscape.
The president signed four executive orders designed to advance America’s nuclear energy posture, May 23, 2025. Those include “
Michael P. Duffey, the undersecretary of war for acquisition and sustainment, said the partnership between the War and Energy Departments is critical to advancing the president’s nuclear energy initiatives.
“It’s clear to me that advancing President Trump’s priority on nuclear energy depends on close coordination between the Department of Energy and the Department of War,” Duffey said. “This partnership ensures advanced nuclear technologies are developed, evaluated and deployed in ways that strengthen energy resilience and national security.”
The future of warfare is energy-intensive, he said, and includes AI data centers, directed-energy weapons, and space and cyber infrastructure. The civilian power grid was not built for that, and so the War Department will need to build its own energy infrastructure.
“Powering next generation warfare will require us to move faster than our adversaries, to build a system that doesn’t just equip our warfighters to fight, but equips them to win at extraordinary speed,” Duffey said. “Today is a monumental step toward building that system. By supporting the industrial base and its capacity to innovate, we accelerate the delivery of resilient power to where it’s needed.”
Secretary of Energy Chris Wright said that with small reactors like those transferred from March Air Reserve Base to Hill Air Force Base, the United States is aiming for a nuclear energy renaissance.
“The American nuclear renaissance is to get that ball moving again, fast, carefully, but with private capital, American innovation and determination,” Wright said. “President Trump signed multiple executive orders that have unleashed tremendous reform of all the things that stopped the American nuclear industry from moving.”
Part of that effort, he said, will mean that by July 4, three small reactors will be critical — or running smoothly.
“That’s speed, that’s innovation, that’s the start of a nuclear renaissance,” Wright said. By
Ahhh how I missed London. I miss it in the same way I miss Hong Kong and even Frankfurt. So many cities are no longer places for Americans. I need nowhere else to go mind you, my edge of the American empire will be flooded soon enough, it’s just that I miss being welcomed.
It’s just I’d gotten used to the freedom of our constitutional rights seemingly applying everywhere. Team America was an ok joke by true sons of the mountain west libertarian in South Park’s Matt and Trey. Now it seems like a drop out attitude of Gen X. I am still on Team America.
The end of the liberal world order, much ballyhooed by the WEF set, has me getting prepared to be seen as the enemy. It is even time to get used to being called fascists. I’m sure Nazi won’t be far off as the Germans must always take everything too far. Ironic no?
I fear if I don’t prepare to be truly sovereign, I may face a day as a refuge in the future if Americans can’t pull off its renaissance. Though I work hard toward that end.
I’ve done what I can to invest in the young entrepreneurs of the new era, and in the great state of Montana in particular, but victory is more article of faith than assured outcome.
The Munich Security Conference is, as it ever was, a flurry of events but now Marco Rubio is singing a love song to our birth continent. As if papering over the past year of slights and jabs is enough but it is the best a neoconservative in disguise can manage.
And so I had a layover in Heathrow and I saw the flavors of what is to come. And somehow that Prada song was on repeat everywhere I went.
London is still for the globalists, even if you are not a member of what William Gibson called the klept. As in kleptocracy. The Jackpot is here.
Reindustrialize they say, but look what happened to British Empire. The sun never sets? The sun barely rises on it now, and we’ve lost them to the unforeseen consequences of the generational contractual breach.
Add in the inflows of the commonwealth deciding the island will always be a destination for the 1% and London is a pricy place.
And so I think should I go to Selfridges as the song says? The Duty Free shops that makes up Heathrow hasn’t made a deal with them but I’ve got all the luxury options and high streeet choices at my disposal.
I was once deep in the world of travel retail and I bet you can guess who owns the biggest player in Heathrow. No not Arnault. It is, as you might expect, a competing regional power who certainly wishes non-doms weren’t facing wealth taxes in London. They are good to do business with incidentally.
And so I hear, over and over again, past seasons hits and remixes and think London might be the virtual world of Malthusian post Jackpot imaginings of the Cyperpunk progenitor. And we shall compete for clout and status in the same ways as always.
[Young Adz:]
Bout to take my lady Selfridges New drip on the way, uh-huh Rap nigga still sellin’ bricks Half a cake on the way, uh-huh Take a flight, she wanna take a Lyft Phone the molly man, he’s on the way, uh-huh I might take her The Shard, I might take her The Ritz It don’t matter, baby, I’m straight, uh-huh
[RAYE:] I feel like I’m in Prince’s house Purple paint all on the walls, uh-huh Sittin’ down on this fancy couch And I can’t see straight, I’m a state, uh-huh Twenty-two, I’m in Paris, baby Got strippers tits in my face, uh-huh Pull up in a Bentley, I want Christian, I want Fendi
I want Prada, ah-ah, ah-ah Ooh-ooh, ooh-ooh-ooh I already make that paper, I don’t need to chase no clout, wow I don’t usually pipe up, but I don’t like how you runnin’ your mouth, wow I already make that paper, I don’t need to chase no clout, wow
I already made that paper and I don’t need to chase no clout so now what?
I’m like George Clooney stuck in the liminal window of Heathrow for a brief moment. I am not of the country (I spent $22 to register myself with their visa mobile app as I sat in a purple corridor trying to input my biometric) so it feels all wrong.
I’m not exactly out of their control until I leave their airspace. But how much longer do any of these Anglophone countries have left?
I’m a dark Swede of dubious stock and many generations of me and mine adjusted to the Weberian Protestant work ethic. I don’t want Prada but I did enjoy working for them as a client.
The downside of living in a world where everyone posts all their luxuries, is regular people who spend too much time on Instagram worrying about things that wouldn’t add much to their lives. Instagram breeds discontentment for everyone.
My husband grew up ten minutes from a global international airport hub, and as such has unrealistic expectations of how quickly one can get from place A to B and how many legs a trip should have.
He longs for the most efficient trips complete with special passes, lines and hopefully a plane dedicated to just his crew and their final destination. I doubt I’ll manage to buy it for him but if one of my better seed investments pans out I’d acquire a gulfstream for his buddies to fly.
I’ll admit I’ve been a little spoiled as well, as by the time my family could afford to fly more regularly the old Stapleton airport had been replaced by a global United hub in Denver International Airport. A spookier more haunted airport there has never been (mind the killer blue Mustang and Masonic symbolism) but it flys connections everywhere.
Now we are in the spokes and farther from hubs. Flying can be a challenge for me as in the past fewer people abused disability requests like wheelchairs.
My ankylosing spondylitis has good days and bad days so on occasion I wish I had help with heavy bags, long lines and lugging stuff around.
Wheelchair access has alas become just another scam people run to board first, so I can no longer guarantee that I’ll even make my airplane given the lines and lines of maybe crippled as if you log disabled you often can’t even get your boarding pass from a kiosk. You have doomed yourself to the thousand person line.
Alas become used to popping Advil, throwing elbows and working my way to the front of the line filled with folks who know little of flying etiquette, status boarding times and the rest. If I can’t beat back a Balkan auntie seated in the back of the plane for my own seat at 2C then what sort of world traveler am I? I claim space but I don’t like it.
Yet as I stomp around smaller spoke airports I’ve learned it’s not too expensive to get a priority pass to private terminals. Groan I know.
In a few spots, it’s less than fifty bucks to skip check in with your airline, avoid security and passport checks with the whole airport by doing it in these terminals and they will drive you in a van to board the airplane first.
That means no more fighting for prime position in line to get prime position to board to get prime position on the bus to race up the staircase to the airplane before someone else blocks you.
I can’t imagine a better use of the time and money frankly. I could easily have arrived much later but I wasn’t sure how easy it would or wouldn’t be.
The demographic feels a bit petty oligarch with a cigar lounge and exotic alcohol but I’m just happy I haven’t had to do any heavy lifting for the moment. My bags are handled. I have food and water.
I feel a struggle to continue this writing experiment. I feel a struggle to continue on at all in a public fashion online as the world is refolded and restructured around us.
I am just so tired and I fear an early death as the life and treasure of my generation is squandered on the perpetuation of systems that no longer work. I was texting with my mother about her husband’s third knee surgery (ain’t Medicare great) as enormous protest raged outside my window. I am in the capital of a European nation where this is quite common.
This is the third large demonstration in the space of three weeks for an opposition party that is mostly made up of technocratic stooges trying to hide the sins of wars no one remembers except those who deployed in them. I happen to know people who did deploy in them or I certainly wouldn’t know that the opposition is made up of the siblings, children and social circle of a former dictator.
Every time they protest the roads are blocked and then it gets out of hand. Water canons are set on the fires the protestors set and then tear gas is thrown out and no one can get through the city center. I assume this is some flavor of controlled opposition as America and the EU both support the existing government.
This time there were drones above the entire affair and much of the rally seemed to be music that was a mix of Catholic liturgy and electronic dance music. A famous priest DJ performed in the city over the weekend so maybe it was him. Who knows.
Nothing is weirder than hearing O Fortuna played over riot dispersal water cannons. We don’t have that kind of cinematic drama in American protests. Honestly everyone here seems sick of it. Most of all the hotel staff and the diplomats that live in it.
I watched it unfold from a vestibule with a Ukrainian woman who said she hoped I’d stay safe. I told her I wasn’t worried as I’ve seen this before.
She was understandably more concerned than I was being a refuge in a country that no one would have thought would be more stable than Ukraine a generation ago. Socialists holding off nationalists is not a terribly equilibrium if you can afford it. America can’t but it seems plenty of Europe still can.
Yesterday I wrote that I had no gas in the tank. Today is not much better. I am barely keeping my head above the proverbial water line. I finished a major purchase which I thought would give me respite for a few days.
Alas changes in destination, an emergency dental appointment for a family member, and the promise of rest was more like a promise of fretful semi-consciousness.
After days of rushing around seem to have swept me off my feet and into bed I still am not quite rested.
I thought I was mended yesterday but it seems as if I’m on the second day of exaggerated sleeping patterns with long arcs of sleep in the wrong places and times. Add in a bit of overheating on top of it and something feels off.
It’s not unusual for me to absorb major changes and shifts throughout their unfolding via some migraine induced osmotic pressure. I feel the animal spirits and global vibes push in past my physical limits and I shut down. I hope I’ll reboot soon.
I am very fatigued today so I’ll excuse myself to get on with it. I have had a few eccentric missions and side quests keeping me quick as we all adjust to whatever this strange moment in the world might be.
I haven’t had too steady a course of sleep thanks to some of the overflow on this terse intersections with reality. A few of them are fun but we’d probably all agree it’s weird out there.
So I found myself taking a nap as I had a bit of a sleep deficit. Now I realize I could do well with a lot more sleep. So I’ll see myself out. The the lights off if you are the last one out.
