I’d like to have something positive to say today about the Artemis II mission, going further than we have traveled into space than ever before but it’s much too hard to pay attention to expensive achievements by NASA when your pale blue dot seems set on imploding itself, fourth turning style. But I’m always here for a joke about how we can’t engineer a toilet for zero gravity.
All anyone in finance can talk about is the short seller research firm Citrini that sent analysts to the Strait of Hormuz, only to discover via the mysterious analyst 3 that actually plenty of shit is getting through as long as you pay a toll to the militants holding it hostage, which plenty of people who are desperate for oil are absolutely doing. I am SHOCKED well not shocked exactly.
Meanwhile the Easter Bunny stares into the middle distance as an old man threatens another gerontocracy with obliteration. Not to put too fine a point on it but everybody is going to suffer no matter how this turns out.
And we wonder why Zoomers are all reactionaries. Gee, their older millennial siblings couldn’t possibly have any experience in these matters, could they? Doesn’t matter. They aren’t going to ask us even if we have actually lived through this entire charade once before.
Incidentally has anyone checked in on Condoleezza Rice recently? Seems like she might have something valuable to add here.
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.
