Lina Kahn is a national treasure and I await her return in the next administration.
No private person or company should have the power to eg hold the US space program hostage or use its communications networks to influence the outcome of a war!
Ted Cruz rewrote “No AI regs for states for 10 years” to get past the Senate Parliamentarian by selling signal space on broadband reserved for the military. “no regulation” clause will be in the OBBB AI MUST BE REGULATED NOW
Anyone who can't grasp the dangers of turning over vast swathes of communication to machines that have thus far achieved the intellectual curiosity of a bright sixth-grader isn't paying attention. I can spot AI-generated content within a couple of paragraphs. There's a sterile blandness, a banality to it that just doesn't resemble good writing, such as the professor churns out regularly. It's disjointed, as if a bunch of facts were sifted out of the internet and regurgitated in no particular logical scheme.
Organizing actual facts into logical arguments or explanations is a uniquely human intellectual skill that AI is just beginning to emulate. As the hype for an early Beatles tribute band went, not the real thing but an amazing simulation.
AI's abuse potential is already empirically obvious in academia and even legal briefing, with fictitious authorities cited to support what purports to be argument. In a chronic-distraction environment, that kind of cheating is dangerous. Do we want lazy intelligence officers phoning in what a bot gleaned? High courts relying on--or even citing themselves--false legal decisions? How about science?
So, now and for the foreseeable future, I vote for careful regulation over free rein for a technology that simultaneously holds great promise and great danger.
AI is already improving medical procedures, for instance, and can take over many boring tasks that can now be fully automated. And it's not as if you can stop technological progress in the first place. China is already a leader in the market too, so if you'd ban it, you'd basically allow China to have an extremely powerful tool to dominate the entire world while we just sit back and watch...
The medical profession is a caring profession. Why would we hand that over to an algorithm? It will only dehumanize what should be the human work of caring, making it more difficult for those who are providing care to do their jobs by becoming a measure for their work. Ask for an example if you want, I have one.
States will not be able to regulate AI for 10 years That provision WILL be in the OBBB. Do I have this right yet? Wish I could get an copy of this provision since Cruz rewrote it so I can see the actual language of it
and what do you suppose will happen after July 4, even if there are more millions out than on June 14? What is the 'plan'? Do you think that Trump and his clown show and his behind-the-scenes evil geniuses at Project 2025 will go away, either quietly or under protest? Why would they?
Pete Buttegieg was very competent at doing the job he was supposed to do. Anthony Blinken also. Lots of others.. for that matter, Gensler at the SEC - working to protect investors (and naive would-be investors) from new forms of scam, notably cryptocurrency.
Crypto now exists primarily to make the Trump Crime Family wealthy. Well, and all other mafiosi. Crypto is a ponzi scheme that exists primarily for criminal activity. Fleecing the gullible is just gravy.
But the Crypto industry is now buying off key Dem senators--like CA's Schiff--to get their new bill passed.
You obviously didn’t read the article you referenced. Buttigieg got blamed for a lot of stuff that was due to decisions that predated his tenure, sometimes by decades, and for other things outside his control.
Wow. After January 6th you're still just out and proud. Trump's cabinet doesn't have one member who is qualified. He actually has one cabinet member who had part of his brain (per his own autobiography) that was eaten by a parasite because he eats road kill, yet you feel you have any authority left to post here about Biden's cabinet. It would be amazing if it wasn't so pathetic.
Three other factors that have pushed high tech to Republicans have been the rise of unionization at places like Amazon; labor enforcement (e.g., Uber and Lyft and other industries of the like); and employees pushing back, sometimes too publicly for their “overlords” in support of gov programs within those companies that lead to distinctly non-liberal outcomes (e.g., support of genocide, ethnic cleansing, or state sanctioned violence). The latter certainly enforces the liberal university bias they believe exists.
She should be arrested for unlawful intimidation. Impersonating a federal official? Using powers she did not have to solve problems she had no legal power to affect. Social media cannot legally be attacked with trust-busting tools and it is illegal to try.
That may be, but Congress could certainly reintroduce the "Fairness Doctrine", the repeal of which under Reagan, facilitated the expansion of and monopolization of media by the right wing.
Well, not shot perhaps, but I do think that when this shitshow is over (and it will be over) we should prosecute those members of Trump's grisly gang who shredded the Constitution, who are guilty of human rights violations, suspension of habeas corpus, etc., with a trial along the lines of Nuremberg.
I prefer they just rocket off to Mars or “outer space.” It would be so refreshing to not hear about them. Not taxing them has been the absolute stupidest thing imaginable and we have both sides of the “aisle” to thank for that idiocy and lunacy. We don’t need corrupt and feckless centrist Democrats running the show anymore. We need progressive Democratic Socialists to save our democracy. We needed Bernie Sanders ten years ago. I just know in my gut he would’ve dragged Trump in debate and easily won the presidency in 2016. We again have corrupt, feckless centrist Dems to thank for that epic failure.
The moderates will remain in denial forever. Bernie would have easily beat Trump in 2016, if the Democratic money hadn't bought the primary for Hillary. Bernie should have run as an Independent. Progressives should run as Independents today, the Republican Lite Democrats are simply worthless.
I tend to agree and not just because I’m a Vermonter who loves Bernie. The Chuck Schumer’s and the Nancy Pelosi‘s of Congress need to leave to make room for a new generation of Democrats who fight and have a clear concise message for the American people. Melanie Stansbury, AOC, Jasmine Crockett embody this new generation of Democrats.
In Pelosi's defense, she did give us Obamacare. I know, I know, it's not single payer, it's a compromise, but it's still better than nothing - which is what the GOP wants us to have.
Bernie had trouble appealing to Black voters in 2016 and 2020. Without their votes it would have been a matter of which party has the most White voters, and since the 1960s Republicans have had more. Automatically assuming Bernie would have won without looking at the underlying voter numbers is wishful thinking.
Sadly, I'm not at all convinced that's true, because I think the "moderates" would have hobbled Bernie in exactly the same way they accuse him of crippling Hillary. I was literally seeing emails from NPR-brained acquaintances talking about how if those crazy radicals Sanders and Trump were the nominees in 2016, we should totally all just go third party behind a REASONABLE choice like that nice Mr. Bloomberg!
Sadly I don't think any of them will be called to account. I base this on the response of the Obama to the financial crisis and that of the Biden administration to Trump.
On the general topic of technology I note that once again it is dawning on people that technology is not a panacea but rather needs to be used thoughtfully. In the '70s there was a similar awakening. E.L. Schumacher "Small is Beautiful " and the works of Lewis Munford especially.
I think Obama's response to 2008 would have been much better if the GOP hadn't been so successful in paring back fiscal stimulus.
I suspect he was convinced by the financial people that it was necessary to go easy on them because they could totally crash the whole monetary system worldwide.
It's true the monetary system has to be defended because money is nothing more than confidence that it works. However, the big boys should have faced some punishment. Big problem, nothing they did was illegal. Unethical has hell, but not illegal. The big money people make the laws.
Stephen, as a society, we are in love with silver bullets. They travel at the speed of, hit their targets squarely in the nose, and our beastly problem is gone. D-E-A-D. That's what Marvel Comic Book lure tells us. Super Heroes and Super Feats are brought by high tech. Gen AI is the next silver bullet. Beware! Caveat, Dude! Beware!
Everything Paul says here is true. I am retired from high tech in financial services. I know the naivety firsthand. I also know how the industry big players rope individuals, ultimately International corporations, into their products and services, and because they are 600 lb gorillas, they own the marketplace and crush competition or acquire them until competition is no more
I fear that while all this is true, the average citizen has no clue about market dynamics and service pricing. They are simply mad as hell, and they are not going to take it anymore - along comes MAGA and its cult leaders. High-tech billionaires want regulators off their backs, add big financiers, and we get Trump and his witless minions.
How do we educate the electorate to these bold-faced truths? The Biden-Harris coalition failed miserably. Had they won the election, they would have been boxed in anyway. The Democrats have been losing the populist war for a long time.
We need new communication and voter education strategies now. Perhaps Substack and podcasts can help. It won't be WaPo for sure. QED.
Even FDR had trouble getting his agenda through after three years of the Great Depression and a supermajority in Congress. And he wasn’t the first president of his demographic, which may have contributed to Obama’s cautiousness.
Rich Libertarians live in a fantasy world where everything runs great without government intervention or taxes. Then, when a foreign government seizes one of their factories, suddenly they're big fans of the US Marine Corps.
Or if they need a massive bailout from the taxpayer like in 2008. Then they blame the government for 'fiscal irresponsibility' and demand austerity to pay for it. This is the 'free market'.
Bill Black once said of EMH/Ratex something like - "it's a model that assumes away market power and fraud, and therefore has about the predictive power you would expect"
In my experience, these libertarians and free market people are selective as to when libertarianism and the free market come into play.
For example, the libertarians that I have heard about want to do whatever it is that they want to do. But they often want to limit or control what other people can do.
The free-market people preach individual capitalism when they are making profits. But if they have losses, as happened so some in the 2008 recession, then it is time to "socialize" loses. If there is a profit, they keep all of it, if there is a loss the taxpayer picks it up.
Remember when Silicon Valley Bank collapsed just a few years ago? It's okay when government helps rich people:
> Bill Ackman, chief of hedge fund Pershing Square Capital Management and an advocate of self-regulation in the crypto industry who has resisted regulations at his investment fund, was among the earliest investors to sound an alarm on Thursday. He is a registered Democrat but has pushed back against what he describes as excessive government regulation and, in 2016, said he was “extremely bullish” about then-Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump. He argued that the fallout of SVB’s collapse could “destroy a long-term driver of the economy” since many venture backed companies had their money parked at SVB. He also said the government should consider a bailout or guarantee all deposits, and that regulatory intervention would be important to avert a larger banking crisis.
> The about face by the tech and investment luminaries didn’t go unnoticed. In response to the urgent tweets by Sacks for regulators to come to the rescue, one user said, incredulously: “Excuse me, sir. Suddenly the government is the answer?!?”
The recent New Yorker profile of Yarvin is illuminating. I was struck by how much of his behavior seems to be a performance of how Yarvin thinks a "deep thinker" behaves. He is a poseur, but also dangerous.
Exactly. And that is why the neofascist GOP supports Putin in Ukraine. Bannon and Dugin already met in 2008. Ideologically, Dugin, Bannon, Vance, Thiel, Musk, they all AGREE. That's the real story here. Russia did manage to destroy America from within, by winning over the GOP and tech billionaires. This IS the end of the ideological Cold War, it's just that now, American leaders are anti-democracy and pro-fascism.
“There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs."
It’s worse than simplistic libertarian ideology. For a lot of these tech leaders this is about more than just money and power, it has become the pseudo-religion trans humanism which promises immortality when the “singularity” is arrived at and human minds can meld with computers:
“Silicon Valley’s Obsession With AI Looks a Lot Like Religion”
Musk isn’t the only delusional tech mogul. Bryan Johnson, the head of the “Don’t Die”movement not only uses his son for transfusions of blood products, he also uses him for comparison with his own erections and posts those comparisons on Twitter.
“ Don't Die Tech Mogul Bryan Johnson Is in an Actual Penis-Measuring Contest—With His Teenage Son
“Raise children to stand tall, be firm, and be upright,” the proud papa wrote.”
This techno religious ideology they follow is proof that we need more humanities in schools. These tech bro “thought leaders” have so little literature, history and philosophy in their heads that they have to make up their own stupid theories to justify their selfishness. As an atheist I don’t follow the Catholic teachings I grew up with, but at least in Catholicism it says love thy neighbor and help the poor, something you will never see in their tech manifestos. To quote Val Kilmer’s character from the movie Real Genius, you can’t have science without philosophy.
Catholicism does not seem to have done anything but exacerbate JD Vance’s inhumanity. What seems to be happening to the uber-wealthy is that their money and status has elevated their egos and erased their empathy.
That is not really accurate. Vance got involved with extremist far right Catholicism through his handler Peter Thiel who has had an Opus Dei priest as his spiritual adviser since college. Opus Dei is a far right cult geared to recruiting the powerful (William Barr, Louie Freeh, Antonin Scalia) . Those people opposed — hated — Francis and now Pope Leo. In contrast Pope John Paul II and his successor Pope Benedict were both far right reactionaries who tried to undo the advances of Vatican II. They were part of an extremist backlash against Vatican II bringing Catholicism into the modern world and back to the teachings of Jesus.
Pope Francis started cracking down on Opus Dei and it’s a good bet Leo will finish the job.Francis also manages to appoint 80% of the cardinals, replacing the reactionaries John Paul II and Benedict appointed.
Pope Leo chose his name because the last pope with that name, Leo XIII, was the pope who authored Rarum Novarum, the basis for Catholic social justice. Leo III wrote it in reaction to the dehumanizing conditions for workers during the Industrial Revolution. He called for humane working conditions, living wages, trade unions. Leo XIVis already addressing this issue regarding the challenges to human values posed by AI.
“ 19th-century Catholic teachings, 21st-century tech: How concerns about AI guided Pope Leo's choice of name”
Also the Jubilee Commission which was co-chaired by liberal economist Joseph Stiglitz, just issued their report calling for a sustainable, people-centered world economy:
“ New Vatican report calls for global economic reforms”
Don’t forget both Pope Francis and Pope Leo rebuked Vance for his unchristian claims about who the Church says we must love. When he converted no one bothered to tell him about Jesus’s teaching that you must love the stranger as you love yourself.
Although I am not longer a believer I was raised Catholic during the Vatican II era and have been appalled to watch the Church’s nasty right wing turn under John Paul and Benedict but fun watching Pope Francis slowly undo their damage. We need the voices of spiritual leaders and philosophers to counteract the dehumanizing claims of tech bros like Musk, Thiel and Bryan Johnson (the guy who claims he will live forever, gets transfusions from his son and compares the leant of his nocturnal erections with his son’s online!)
Social Media manipulation by big tech is malware to the human brain and heart. These same commercial algorithms that incentivize hyper consumption, are being used/sold to the political parties. It’s a powerful tool that tracks and profiles an individual’s psychological profile….how easy it is persuade a person? Then use geo tracking tools to locate them in the swing districts. Spend your ads in those districts. Curate the ads to individual psyc profiles. It’s the new way for the unpopular to win elections.
True, though JD only believes what Peter Theil tells him to. And all these tech billionaires want us to bow down and worship their greatness and their stupid Ai project. Never.
Thiel is an Opus Dei guy. Read Gareth Gore’s expose of that abusive but powerful far right Catholic cult. Pope Francis was disempowering them before he died.
When challenged on the lie that Haitians were eating pets, Vance the recent convert didn't seem to have any problem doubling down on Bearing False Witness against the vulnerable Haitian asylum-seeking community.
What is sad about her is that the Harry Potter series is an anti-fascist, anti-racist allegory. The values in that are entirely consistent with true Christianity — love of others, rejection of the abuse of power, etc. I think her freak out over trans people must be related to the sexual abuse she suffered.
How would you like to be his son and have your dad compare the length of your nighttime erections to his online? I hope they all hop on one of Elon’s rockets and emigrate to the hellscape of Mars where they will fry (assuming the rocket didn’t blow up at launch).
I think the only comforting thing is that these tech libertarians suffer from back pain, acid reflux and a miriad of other ailments (many much more serious) just like the rest of us. Then what does their money buy them?! Oh don't get me going with their messed-up spoiled adult children with all of their problems. I envy those who have what they need but not everything they want.
Libertarianism is not the problem. It's neofascist ideologies that have been spreading in Silicon Valley for years already. I'm surprised that Krugman is still not addressing any of them.
This is an outstanding summary, Paul. Thank you. One reason the techoligarchs don't like Europe is legislation like the GDPR and other regulations protecting consumers. But when the garden consumer like me feels like our personal data is being used in ways we don't know, it's not surprising that there is a huge loss of trust. As to crypto and AI, I'm more than skeptical of the first and extremely concerned about the second. And the pity is that all this tech has the potential to do great things - in medicine and learning, for example - as we hoped in the beginning. The disappointment and feeling of betrayal and abuse is behind a lot of suspicion and mistrust. That won't get better for big tech any time soon.
One other aspect of the general turn away from liking the tech companies is the fact that people are slowly, dimly becoming aware that these tech companies are harvesting and marketing every aspect of everyone's existence. Your phone is listening to you, relaying your conversations back to a server that then generates ad content based on what it heard you say. Your TV is watching you and doing the same thing. The computer I'm typing this on is sending every keystroke out into the world where it will be parsed, sold, and returned to me in the form of ads (or maybe federal agents in the not too distant future).
We don't want our data to be sold, and yet we're eager to pay for the devices that suck up and ship all our data. I know people who have an Alexa or similar device in every room of their house. We hate the invasion of our privacy, and yet do everything we can afford to wipe that privacy away.
Technology as a whole has been amazing beneficial to society. Think about fiber optic communication, biomedical technology, computers, GPS, lasers, radar, and the list goes on. However, to your point, one aspect of technology-social media, data mining, and targeted marketing, has been devastating to society. I actually don't see that Facebook benefits society at all. It's astounding that some technology leaders either don't recognize this, or are so greedy that they don't care that they are destroying society.
I'm 75, so probably an old curmudgeonly ex-hippie at heart. I do not use "social media" at all, and will not own an Alexa, smart appliances especially TV, or even Siri. I have little respect for those who do a lot. I gave away my TV when it became digital, and hardly ever used it because of the advertising.
I also find the universal use of "we" a bit off the mark, as *I* never built a weapon, went to war, or bought an invasive device, except an iPhone which is unavoidable...
Just curious about which aspects you think are fictional. Your phone definitely listens to you and uses that information for ads. It looks at the people who are near you and uses that information too.
I wouldn’t be surprised if your tv is doing the same.
The keystroke part is hyperbole, but it’s not like every website you visit isn’t being monitored.
Derelict is listing all the intrusions that are possible; none of them are fictional. It doesn't mean that everyone is so wired in that all these connections are at play.
A lot can be avoided by limiting your exposure to these devices and systems. If you are supercareful you can even stay under the radar completely.
No, it's almost certain that cryptocurrency was invented to commit crimes.
When I ran into some leftists who tried to defend cryptocurrency, the best answer they could come up with was allowing people to evade government sanctions and get paid for "sex work" (their politically correct term for "prostitution," just like "cannabis" is their P.C. term for "marijuana.") So I mean literally their entire argument was doing crimes, except they think crime is good.
Crypto currency is mathematically generated tulips.
The biggest crime in not the penny ante sales it enables.
The real issue is that Crypto is just a pyramid scam, with literally infinite capacity for new fake currencies to be created to hoover up money from uninformed speculators.
Also, crypto is the brainchild of radical libertarians who resent the control that government exerts over fiat currency. Sacks, Musk, Thiel and Thiel's mini-me Vance come to mind.
There has been water under the bridge between the advent of crypto and the present. I would say that when you undermine government and its functions, such as the issuance of currency, there will have to be something else to take existing government's place; and that it should be no surprise that they have nominated themselves to drive the train.
Peter Wayner invented bitcoin for the NSA - it was a skunkworks for honeypot. All public info. On my substack: Safeintelligentsoundpqe.substack.com I am federally and internationally protected whistleblower. Peter is a lovely man - Princeton 1986. I am Pton 2000 we met at a physics event, and the rest is history.
What is your point? Is there such a thing as an "internationally protected whistleblower"? What intellectually credible person in this day and age uses terms like "honeypot"? What the heck does Princeton have to do with anything? (I'm Princeton 1973 and that is equally irrelevant). Is this a joke post?
Crypto = Brolibucks. Bezos, Thiel, Trump etc. replacing the dollar and controlling your money and ability to exchange. So much hubris and the requisite failure to come.
Cryptocurrency was invented by a group of anarchists. They hoped to flood the world with their currency, which would drive down the value of all other currencies. The governments that depended on these currencies would then collapse. The anarchists apparently believed they could then live in peace and freedom, not considering how they would get along in a newly violent world with everyone out for themselves.
they also saw how the 'regulated' banking and securities industry had destroyed the economy in 2007/8 and cost a large number of people their homes and jobs. So they were hoping to create a financial system that did not rely on such bodies and such regulators. It is not a coincidence that the first bitcoin publication was in 2008.
They're not progressives, futurists, innovators, or anything else like that. They're simple obscenely rich rent seekers, and they want to "conserve" the regulatory framework which allows them to extract those monopoly rents.
They're conservatives now. Galbraith had their number:
"The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness."
"Just say the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me and Republican congressmen". - Trump to Bill Barr
Trump and the oligarchs are trying to ram the largest upward transfer of wealth in human history through Congress.
In order to do that he needs his BBB signed into law.
In order to do that he needs to manufacture consent and one spectacular way to do that is to drive the stock market higher.
Today, Trump posts, "“Too Late” Jerome Powell, of the Fed, will be in Congress today in order to explain, among other things, why he is refusing to lower the Rate. Europe has had 10 cuts, we have had ZERO. No inflation, great economy - We should be at least two to three points lower. Would save the USA 800 Billion Dollars Per Year, plus. What a difference this would make. If things later change to the negative, increase the Rate. I hope Congress really works this very dumb, hardheaded person, over. We will be paying for his incompetence for many years to come. THE BOARD SHOULD ACTIVATE."
Luxuriate in this phrase remembering what he told Barr - "If things later change to the negative, increase the Rate." Once the bill becomes law, the Fed can go back to managing the economy properly.
I have a sneaking suspicion (and it is just that, I have NO inside info) once that bill becomes law the second part of the great wealth transfer takes place, the stock market will be liquidated by those oligarchs TAX FREE.
Trump is right now calling for a Special Prosecutor to investigation "the Steal" in his TS account, and in the most unhinged terms imaginable. In the same bleat, he claims that the border is not hermetically sealed, with ZERO unauthorized crossings.
(What he doesn't get is that the USBP issues estimates of such crossings as a percentage of apprehensions, and have used the same percentage over successive administrations. Thus the figure cannot be zero unless there are no apprehensions.)
Since the first Iron Man comic book appeared in 1962, it's close to 100% doubtful that this could in any way be based on Elon Musk. Just correcting the record.
Yeah, Stan Lee would still remember Hughes' aviation exploits in the 30s and his bigger-than-life appearance at Senate hearings in the 50s.
I could see Musk spreading the baseless rumor that Tony Stark was based on him. This is the guy who paid to be able to say he created Tesla (He didn't, he just bought it out).
Musk would have us believe that he was the inspiration for Howard Hughes. Musk actually wrote the script for Citizen Kane (which was based on Musk), but Mank stole it from him.
It seems like the tech crowd has traded in their flip flops and hoodies for yachts, tax cuts, and bitcoin.
But then, the world of laboring over code has highly changed as well. It is now more often bucks over brains so there is also a sector who feel left behind and are ripe for the pull of nonsense and the allure of get rich quick gamble of bitcoin, as well as extremely outdated nonsense regarding masculinity that Trump is selling.
The truth is, that despite all of the justification, the real reason for the flip from left to right was the tax cuts and/or threat of increases and yes, as you point out regulations.
All the rest is just an excuse, an excuse that some may now believe after repeating it to others and themselves enough times.
Money can be for some like a drug, and as we all know (or should) drugs change the structure of the brain making the brain seek more of whatever one is addicted to and a lot of this involves justification.
However, it is not just drugs that can cause excess release of neurotransmitters, but a lot of things can give one that "high" feeling and cause structural changes. Think about that workout fanatic or almost any fanatic as an example, or maybe someone addicted to food. The old saying about a "dopamine rush" was real and it is also a brain changer. Often these folks are feeding a self imposed structural brain change and one knows your brain can talk you into justifying that next "fix."
Fortunately, I find money boring.
However, I love economics. Studying economics is like studying the brain itself or structure (which I also majored in).
As far as leaving the Dems, all one need do is look at the bait being used by the right-wing opinion section at the WSJ and they were spreading rumors that Harris was going to impose a tax on unrealized gains or what is known as a wealth tax.
Mark Cuban tried to dispel these myths but fear of losing what they held dear took hold.
They became like Gollum protecting their "precious" and slithered over to Trump.
The truth is that the Dems did nothing wrong except that they could not keep up with the massive onslaught of disinformation coming from the right.
If there is anything Dems can do better next time, it is to keep an ear to the ground so they can get ahead of the nonsense.
Also, never say you are going to simply give people money, even if it is for a down payment, that is red and purple state GOP red meat fodder right there. Lions and Tigers and what sounds like Socialism - Oh My!
I suspect that if more Americans understood how thoroughly our tax code favors the wealthy over workers, our government would be in danger of being overthrown.
You're on to something with the analogy of 'drugs,' I think. It might be enlightening to take that one step further, and add 'addiction' to your assessment. It's about thrills, and a goosing of an outsized sense of self. Addiction typically leads to a demand for more and more and more, and a flattening of any experiences other than the thrill. Basically a form of insanity.
Sadly, it is built into our biology and helps with learning and survival (like food), but too much of a rush over too long a time is a brain changer and yes what is also known as an addiction.
Gollum was addicted to his precious ring as an analogy. Although in the book it was a magical power, people could identify to things in real life that can be all consuming and controlling.
The thing that always struck me about Gollum is his gradual transformation from an ordinary, congenial and presumably jolly and sociable member of Hobbit society into a craven troglodyte with no eyes for anything but that 'Preciouss' ring. In the movie he looks something like Stephen Miller. Yikes.
Yeah. And if you eat too much and too many of the wrong things, you sicken and die. Addiction is fundamentally selfish and isolating, as well as toxic, in all its forms, involving as it does lying, cheating, stealing and an exclusive focus on personal satisfaction above all other concerns, up to and including survival.
When there is so much obsequious neuroticism though, I need to chew on something while I watch the comic tragedy unfold. Popcorn futures skyrocketing into 2h25; far superior prospects than shitcoin :)
The drug analogy works… but don’t forget fear. Those of us who have comparatively little find great meaning and connection (true wealth) in people and nature. We know inevitable death looms at all times. These tech bros ooze fear of poverty and death because they are empty vessels, seeking security in money and control. The harder they grasp, the further it slips, and the cycle continues. They are just men and bleed like the rest of us. It’s time we prove it.
Yes fear, and yes addiction, but I think we are all susceptible to various degrees, so one need not be an empty vessel simply too consumed with wealth, I think.
bitcoin was invented by Peter Wayner for NSA. SEC whistleblower here. Investigation underway. See all evidence in real time public: safeintelligentsoundpqe.substack.com spread the word to help democracy crush idiocracy. modulo
It was weird that Democrats saw tech execs coming to Capitol Hill in hoodies and flip flops and saw this as endearing rather than a sign that they are deeply unserious people.
Again — Dems got confused by the fact that a lot of them are gay nerds into think they were their friends, but unlike Hollywood which really was just in it for the social liberalism, Big Tech thought that they could con Democrats into eschewed their usual dislike of rich people. I greatly prefer the Very Serious Rich people who got rich in manufacturing than the deeply unserious Rich people like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg. Even Bill Gates has much more in common with the former than the latter.
As someone who grew up in CA, I did not see the hoodie and flops as “unserious” it was a status symbol that instead of being “too sexy for their shirts” they were implying they were too smart for suits and shoes and had better things to do.
They did not try to fool anyone, in my view, that was, and is, simply the culture to a large degree except now that they have wealth they want to keep it and might be consumed by that
They were not so smart that they did not succumb to the power of the ring.
I agree that it didn't signal "unserious" and was a status symbol.
But if you imagine that they support the GOP because they had to "kiss the ring", then you're underestimating how serious they have actually been, and for years already. Much of Silicon Valley actively believes that fascism is better than democracy. They WANT a dictatorship. Trump is merely their clown in chief.
Is that Silicon Valley or is it the religious right?
You may have more insight on this than I do, but any group who sees itself as a minority when it comes to getting what they want politically may be somewhat more motivated by a dictator who promises to give them what they want, things that they can not get through a regular democratic process.
Trump cobbled together almost every fringe group from Kennedy vaccine followers, to Gabbard followers, to racists, and conspiracy nuts to the religious anti-science folks and on and on.
They all think he will give them what they can’t get though a majority vote which is required in a democracy. These useful idiots will wear out their usefulness once an autocracy is secured and they will be discarded, just like Mike Pence and all the rest. Trump literally preys at the temple of money, based on a Frontline episode, The Choice 2016, where they go and prey for riches, etc.
Actually, the reason why the GOP embraced Trump again is because these last four years, THREE different neofascist groups have taken over the party:
1. MAGA 1.0 Steve Bannon neofascist populism, which was still a minority inside the GOP during Trump's first term but is much stronger today, after four more years of propaganda
2. Theocratic "Christian Nationalist" Heritage Foundation neofascism
3. Tech billionaire neofascism (which began to arise decades ago already, and then gradually took over Silicon Valley during the last 5-10 years).
So yes, I was talking about Silicon Valley and not the religious right here. There are differences between all three factions. Christian neofascists want a "big state", for instance, which imposes their obsolete "values" onto everyone. Tech neofascists remain in part libertarians, so they want a minimal state and many Freedom Cities inside the country where they have legal autonomy. Many of them don't care about religion (although Thiel is an Opus Dei Catholic, who then managed to convince Vance to become one too). And Christian neofascists want a big military budget while neofascist populist want to cut the military budget. Sometimes, Christian neofascists still support Medicaid and social security, whereas both the tech neofascists and populist neofascists want to privatize it all. Etc.
Then you merely have those who want power and fame, such as Gabbard and Kennedy. They may not necessarily be ideological at all, they just want the job and are willing to kiss the ring of whoever is willing to accept them.
As to Mike Pence: he was and is a neocon. That's something totally different. Neocons are part of what the Heritage Foundation calls the "Uniparty", namely all pro-democracy politicians, left or right. It's why the neocon The Bulwark and neocons Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger supported Harris last summer. For them, democracy remains THE most important value, and they're willing to suspend their neocon agenda to defeat fascism and restore democracy first. But these last four years, neocons totally lost all power inside the GOP. It's the three neofascist factions that took over the entire party and forced the rank and file to follow them...
Paul, I think a key element of the enshittification process is the unrealistic growth expectations behind the techlords' companies' valuations. Their great wealth is based on a stock valuation that, in turn, is based on the expectation continued rapidly growing revenue and profits. As they try to meme-ify their valuations with ever more outlandish and over hyped growth gimmicks -- Musk is a master of this -- they are more and more reliant on shady growth areas like crypto or dangerous ones like AI. As they veer further into the dark side of tech in search of continued growth, they need Republicans, who have no ethical values, to protect them from the people.
Mark Andressen in his own words, the New York Times interview from earlier this year. These Silicon Valley Libertarian billionaires have conspired to become the king makers. It’s a lot like 1990’s Russia. Where the oligarchs, Boris Berezovsky and others brought both Yeltsin and then Putin to power, and power consolidated, and elections are more ceremonial than real.
Remember Fiona Hill? What happened in 1990’s Russia, is happening to the US. “Russia is the ghost of America’s future.”
I've been on internet since 2005 and my personal experience is this.
Google search has gone to s***
Amazon has gone to s***
Twitter/X has gone to even worse s*** and intelligent people have to flee from platform.
I've never used facebook personally but the word i get from others is that it's also gone to s***
People don't know what internet was 2 decades ago. Like google was this exciting search engine that generated magical searches into the abyss of internet. Google was great until around late 2000s. Now it's all about business and marketing and commercial crap. It doesn't have any magic.
Amazon, in my country was great at first. But after it established its outreach. All the wonderful discounts and benefits were gone. Once people developed the habit of ordering from Amazon, the prices didn't matter much and consumers continued to order even when discounts were not that great and product service become mediocre.
What can be said about Twitter/X? A platform that started to get ruined around 2015 and became a disaster after Musk's takeover.
The people who have been around internet since 2-3 decades know the decline of tech industry. The new generation see the current internet and thinks that's all to it. Internet used to be a better and saner place.
My advice to people is to keep your children away from toxic platforms of tech bros.
"Elon Musk was reportedly a partial inspiration for Tony Stark, aka Iron Man, the Marvel character."
I'm going to call BS on this. Any such reports will have come from Musk himself, as part of his self-branding. The first Iron Man comic (to which the Iron Man film was oddly faithful, except Communists were replaced by Islamic terrorists) appeared in Tales of Suspense #39 in 1962. That's almost ten years before Musk was born. It is perhaps better to say that Musk has promoted himself as the real life Tony Stark, though I imagine he would have sued had Disney followed the storyline in the comics where Tony Stark becomes an alcoholic.
This has echoes of Germany in 1933. Fascism is a corporatist economic model because fascists love concentration of power. Its the whole point of fascism. This attracts corporations who also crave a concentration of power. And the corporate oligarchs think Dear Leader is a drooling jack ass they can control. What they always discover is Dear Leader is a vicious drooling jack ass they cannot control.
Lina Kahn is a national treasure and I await her return in the next administration.
No private person or company should have the power to eg hold the US space program hostage or use its communications networks to influence the outcome of a war!
Ted Cruz rewrote “No AI regs for states for 10 years” to get past the Senate Parliamentarian by selling signal space on broadband reserved for the military. “no regulation” clause will be in the OBBB AI MUST BE REGULATED NOW
The Parliamentarian rejected a whole bunch of "clever" clauses the GOP tried to sneak in.
I used to think they weren't poisoning our food to make us sick..."𝐛𝐮𝐭" this changed everything....
https://t.co/y0Y3WCHUO8
He did it by making "upholding the moratorium a condition for receiving billions in federal broadband expansion funds". What a prick.
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/06/22/senate-parliamentarian-greenlights-state-ai-law-freeze-in-gop-megabill-00416499
You said regulated but you meant banned.
Anyone who can't grasp the dangers of turning over vast swathes of communication to machines that have thus far achieved the intellectual curiosity of a bright sixth-grader isn't paying attention. I can spot AI-generated content within a couple of paragraphs. There's a sterile blandness, a banality to it that just doesn't resemble good writing, such as the professor churns out regularly. It's disjointed, as if a bunch of facts were sifted out of the internet and regurgitated in no particular logical scheme.
Organizing actual facts into logical arguments or explanations is a uniquely human intellectual skill that AI is just beginning to emulate. As the hype for an early Beatles tribute band went, not the real thing but an amazing simulation.
AI's abuse potential is already empirically obvious in academia and even legal briefing, with fictitious authorities cited to support what purports to be argument. In a chronic-distraction environment, that kind of cheating is dangerous. Do we want lazy intelligence officers phoning in what a bot gleaned? High courts relying on--or even citing themselves--false legal decisions? How about science?
So, now and for the foreseeable future, I vote for careful regulation over free rein for a technology that simultaneously holds great promise and great danger.
Of course not. That's entirely impossible (nor desirable).
In what way is it not desirable?
AI is already improving medical procedures, for instance, and can take over many boring tasks that can now be fully automated. And it's not as if you can stop technological progress in the first place. China is already a leader in the market too, so if you'd ban it, you'd basically allow China to have an extremely powerful tool to dominate the entire world while we just sit back and watch...
The medical profession is a caring profession. Why would we hand that over to an algorithm? It will only dehumanize what should be the human work of caring, making it more difficult for those who are providing care to do their jobs by becoming a measure for their work. Ask for an example if you want, I have one.
So basically “this is desirable because China is doing it”
Good luck without real elections.
States will not be able to regulate AI for 10 years That provision WILL be in the OBBB. Do I have this right yet? Wish I could get an copy of this provision since Cruz rewrote it so I can see the actual language of it
This isn't a copy of the provision, but close enough:
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/06/22/senate-parliamentarian-greenlights-state-ai-law-freeze-in-gop-megabill-00416499
@everybody I would call your senators your reps and your governors about this I did Without oversight, this tech will roll over us like a tsunami wave
That’s exactly what the goal of this bill is.
I would advise your time will be better spent in protests for July 4th.
I know that is my plan.
and what do you suppose will happen after July 4, even if there are more millions out than on June 14? What is the 'plan'? Do you think that Trump and his clown show and his behind-the-scenes evil geniuses at Project 2025 will go away, either quietly or under protest? Why would they?
Yes! We must continue to Rise! Resist! ✊✊✊
I'll be out there on the Fourth of July.
As a MAGA person, I agree. She was the only Biden Admin cabinet-level appointee that did the job based on the charter of the position.
Pete Buttegieg was very competent at doing the job he was supposed to do. Anthony Blinken also. Lots of others.. for that matter, Gensler at the SEC - working to protect investors (and naive would-be investors) from new forms of scam, notably cryptocurrency.
Crypto now exists primarily to make the Trump Crime Family wealthy. Well, and all other mafiosi. Crypto is a ponzi scheme that exists primarily for criminal activity. Fleecing the gullible is just gravy.
But the Crypto industry is now buying off key Dem senators--like CA's Schiff--to get their new bill passed.
Unlike Hunter's "art", anyone can buy crypto.
Yeah, now anyone can invest in organized crime.
Pete Buttegieg? Is this satire? https://www.axios.com/2023/01/12/buttigieg-faa-transportation-crises
Blinken I would give a B- given his boss. Buttegieg an F.
You obviously didn’t read the article you referenced. Buttigieg got blamed for a lot of stuff that was due to decisions that predated his tenure, sometimes by decades, and for other things outside his control.
Wow. After January 6th you're still just out and proud. Trump's cabinet doesn't have one member who is qualified. He actually has one cabinet member who had part of his brain (per his own autobiography) that was eaten by a parasite because he eats road kill, yet you feel you have any authority left to post here about Biden's cabinet. It would be amazing if it wasn't so pathetic.
LOL. He said "Jan-6" and talks about brains when he elected a geriatric cabbage as President!
Good point. Trump most certainly is a geriatric cabbage. Btw talking to yourself in 2nd person is a sign of senility. That explains a lot.
Whoever was running the show actually did do a pretty good job, even if in terms of public opinion Biden turned out to be the next Jimmy Carter...
Three other factors that have pushed high tech to Republicans have been the rise of unionization at places like Amazon; labor enforcement (e.g., Uber and Lyft and other industries of the like); and employees pushing back, sometimes too publicly for their “overlords” in support of gov programs within those companies that lead to distinctly non-liberal outcomes (e.g., support of genocide, ethnic cleansing, or state sanctioned violence). The latter certainly enforces the liberal university bias they believe exists.
She should be arrested for unlawful intimidation. Impersonating a federal official? Using powers she did not have to solve problems she had no legal power to affect. Social media cannot legally be attacked with trust-busting tools and it is illegal to try.
That may be, but Congress could certainly reintroduce the "Fairness Doctrine", the repeal of which under Reagan, facilitated the expansion of and monopolization of media by the right wing.
Agree completely.
I will check Wired Magazine for something
Well, not shot perhaps, but I do think that when this shitshow is over (and it will be over) we should prosecute those members of Trump's grisly gang who shredded the Constitution, who are guilty of human rights violations, suspension of habeas corpus, etc., with a trial along the lines of Nuremberg.
I used to think they weren't poisoning our food to make us sick..."𝐛𝐮𝐭" this changed everything....
https://t.co/y0Y3WCHUO8
SPAM bot. Totally unrelated commercial. Reported
Me too. And I reported it from its profile page as well.
I prefer they just rocket off to Mars or “outer space.” It would be so refreshing to not hear about them. Not taxing them has been the absolute stupidest thing imaginable and we have both sides of the “aisle” to thank for that idiocy and lunacy. We don’t need corrupt and feckless centrist Democrats running the show anymore. We need progressive Democratic Socialists to save our democracy. We needed Bernie Sanders ten years ago. I just know in my gut he would’ve dragged Trump in debate and easily won the presidency in 2016. We again have corrupt, feckless centrist Dems to thank for that epic failure.
The moderates will remain in denial forever. Bernie would have easily beat Trump in 2016, if the Democratic money hadn't bought the primary for Hillary. Bernie should have run as an Independent. Progressives should run as Independents today, the Republican Lite Democrats are simply worthless.
I tend to agree and not just because I’m a Vermonter who loves Bernie. The Chuck Schumer’s and the Nancy Pelosi‘s of Congress need to leave to make room for a new generation of Democrats who fight and have a clear concise message for the American people. Melanie Stansbury, AOC, Jasmine Crockett embody this new generation of Democrats.
In Pelosi's defense, she did give us Obamacare. I know, I know, it's not single payer, it's a compromise, but it's still better than nothing - which is what the GOP wants us to have.
Bernie had trouble appealing to Black voters in 2016 and 2020. Without their votes it would have been a matter of which party has the most White voters, and since the 1960s Republicans have had more. Automatically assuming Bernie would have won without looking at the underlying voter numbers is wishful thinking.
Sadly, I'm not at all convinced that's true, because I think the "moderates" would have hobbled Bernie in exactly the same way they accuse him of crippling Hillary. I was literally seeing emails from NPR-brained acquaintances talking about how if those crazy radicals Sanders and Trump were the nominees in 2016, we should totally all just go third party behind a REASONABLE choice like that nice Mr. Bloomberg!
Conveniently for you, will never know who if Bernie had run
What we do know for a fact is that Hillary and the so-called moderates lost! And then they lost again in 2024.
Sadly I don't think any of them will be called to account. I base this on the response of the Obama to the financial crisis and that of the Biden administration to Trump.
On the general topic of technology I note that once again it is dawning on people that technology is not a panacea but rather needs to be used thoughtfully. In the '70s there was a similar awakening. E.L. Schumacher "Small is Beautiful " and the works of Lewis Munford especially.
I think Obama's response to 2008 would have been much better if the GOP hadn't been so successful in paring back fiscal stimulus.
I suspect he was convinced by the financial people that it was necessary to go easy on them because they could totally crash the whole monetary system worldwide.
It's true the monetary system has to be defended because money is nothing more than confidence that it works. However, the big boys should have faced some punishment. Big problem, nothing they did was illegal. Unethical has hell, but not illegal. The big money people make the laws.
Stephen, as a society, we are in love with silver bullets. They travel at the speed of, hit their targets squarely in the nose, and our beastly problem is gone. D-E-A-D. That's what Marvel Comic Book lure tells us. Super Heroes and Super Feats are brought by high tech. Gen AI is the next silver bullet. Beware! Caveat, Dude! Beware!
Everything Paul says here is true. I am retired from high tech in financial services. I know the naivety firsthand. I also know how the industry big players rope individuals, ultimately International corporations, into their products and services, and because they are 600 lb gorillas, they own the marketplace and crush competition or acquire them until competition is no more
I fear that while all this is true, the average citizen has no clue about market dynamics and service pricing. They are simply mad as hell, and they are not going to take it anymore - along comes MAGA and its cult leaders. High-tech billionaires want regulators off their backs, add big financiers, and we get Trump and his witless minions.
How do we educate the electorate to these bold-faced truths? The Biden-Harris coalition failed miserably. Had they won the election, they would have been boxed in anyway. The Democrats have been losing the populist war for a long time.
We need new communication and voter education strategies now. Perhaps Substack and podcasts can help. It won't be WaPo for sure. QED.
Thanks for your post. 👍
Even FDR had trouble getting his agenda through after three years of the Great Depression and a supermajority in Congress. And he wasn’t the first president of his demographic, which may have contributed to Obama’s cautiousness.
Thanks, Thomas, there are lots of us that feel exactly the same way.
Shot?! You mean you want to defend the death penalty AND in one of its most violent versions? How will that help restore democracy... ?
Perhaps more attention should be paid to the expansion of Libertarian and quasi-Libertarian ideologies in the tech sector.
Rich Libertarians live in a fantasy world where everything runs great without government intervention or taxes. Then, when a foreign government seizes one of their factories, suddenly they're big fans of the US Marine Corps.
Or if they need a massive bailout from the taxpayer like in 2008. Then they blame the government for 'fiscal irresponsibility' and demand austerity to pay for it. This is the 'free market'.
Those sissy boys can't handle the real free market.
Libertarians demand others behave.
Bill Black once said of EMH/Ratex something like - "it's a model that assumes away market power and fraud, and therefore has about the predictive power you would expect"
In my experience, these libertarians and free market people are selective as to when libertarianism and the free market come into play.
For example, the libertarians that I have heard about want to do whatever it is that they want to do. But they often want to limit or control what other people can do.
The free-market people preach individual capitalism when they are making profits. But if they have losses, as happened so some in the 2008 recession, then it is time to "socialize" loses. If there is a profit, they keep all of it, if there is a loss the taxpayer picks it up.
The old "heads I win; tails you lose" routine.
Amen! Libertarians are all about "freedom" unless it is about black freedom, freedom for women, women for gays, etc.
Remember when Silicon Valley Bank collapsed just a few years ago? It's okay when government helps rich people:
> Bill Ackman, chief of hedge fund Pershing Square Capital Management and an advocate of self-regulation in the crypto industry who has resisted regulations at his investment fund, was among the earliest investors to sound an alarm on Thursday. He is a registered Democrat but has pushed back against what he describes as excessive government regulation and, in 2016, said he was “extremely bullish” about then-Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump. He argued that the fallout of SVB’s collapse could “destroy a long-term driver of the economy” since many venture backed companies had their money parked at SVB. He also said the government should consider a bailout or guarantee all deposits, and that regulatory intervention would be important to avert a larger banking crisis.
> The about face by the tech and investment luminaries didn’t go unnoticed. In response to the urgent tweets by Sacks for regulators to come to the rescue, one user said, incredulously: “Excuse me, sir. Suddenly the government is the answer?!?”
https://fortune.com/2023/03/13/tech-libertarianssilicon-valley-bank-collapse-federal-intervention/
Ayn Rand, anyone?
Curtis Yarvin. Yucky.
The recent New Yorker profile of Yarvin is illuminating. I was struck by how much of his behavior seems to be a performance of how Yarvin thinks a "deep thinker" behaves. He is a poseur, but also dangerous.
Blue barf emoji.
Another good discussion of this character and his influence on Trump is a post by Justin Ling: <https://www.bugeyedandshameless.com/p/the-neo-reactionary-regime>.
No lie. In fact, hard to believe how yucky!
Yarvin is our version of Russia’s Alexander Duggin ( Russian ultra nationalist / neo fascists Putin political advisor)
Supreme yuck.
Exactly. And that is why the neofascist GOP supports Putin in Ukraine. Bannon and Dugin already met in 2008. Ideologically, Dugin, Bannon, Vance, Thiel, Musk, they all AGREE. That's the real story here. Russia did manage to destroy America from within, by winning over the GOP and tech billionaires. This IS the end of the ideological Cold War, it's just that now, American leaders are anti-democracy and pro-fascism.
So on target
Ever seen a pic of him with his leather jacket, crotch high jeans and outsized belt buckle? OMG.
Was that his advertisement for causing acute vaginal dryness? ( no, I haven’t!)
Lordy
A great quote on libertarians, sort of:
“There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs."
I'm not sure of the original source.
I have that quote attributed to a John Rogers (not that that narrows it down).
Who accepted government benefits
Ayn Rand was amazing!
Not only did she give birth to herself, but she built the home she was born in!
It’s worse than simplistic libertarian ideology. For a lot of these tech leaders this is about more than just money and power, it has become the pseudo-religion trans humanism which promises immortality when the “singularity” is arrived at and human minds can meld with computers:
“Silicon Valley’s Obsession With AI Looks a Lot Like Religion”
https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/silicon-valleys-obsession-with-ai-looks-a-lot-like-religion/
Musk isn’t the only delusional tech mogul. Bryan Johnson, the head of the “Don’t Die”movement not only uses his son for transfusions of blood products, he also uses him for comparison with his own erections and posts those comparisons on Twitter.
“ Don't Die Tech Mogul Bryan Johnson Is in an Actual Penis-Measuring Contest—With His Teenage Son
“Raise children to stand tall, be firm, and be upright,” the proud papa wrote.”
https://www.vanityfair.com/style/story/dont-die-tech-mogul-bryan-johnson-penis-measuring-contest-son?srsltid=AfmBOooVszY1mdEVZRAqV5hfHOmbMn_QIBi7tOJDtGS9RP-8TaaM7FoN
This techno religious ideology they follow is proof that we need more humanities in schools. These tech bro “thought leaders” have so little literature, history and philosophy in their heads that they have to make up their own stupid theories to justify their selfishness. As an atheist I don’t follow the Catholic teachings I grew up with, but at least in Catholicism it says love thy neighbor and help the poor, something you will never see in their tech manifestos. To quote Val Kilmer’s character from the movie Real Genius, you can’t have science without philosophy.
Catholicism does not seem to have done anything but exacerbate JD Vance’s inhumanity. What seems to be happening to the uber-wealthy is that their money and status has elevated their egos and erased their empathy.
That is not really accurate. Vance got involved with extremist far right Catholicism through his handler Peter Thiel who has had an Opus Dei priest as his spiritual adviser since college. Opus Dei is a far right cult geared to recruiting the powerful (William Barr, Louie Freeh, Antonin Scalia) . Those people opposed — hated — Francis and now Pope Leo. In contrast Pope John Paul II and his successor Pope Benedict were both far right reactionaries who tried to undo the advances of Vatican II. They were part of an extremist backlash against Vatican II bringing Catholicism into the modern world and back to the teachings of Jesus.
Pope Francis started cracking down on Opus Dei and it’s a good bet Leo will finish the job.Francis also manages to appoint 80% of the cardinals, replacing the reactionaries John Paul II and Benedict appointed.
Pope Leo chose his name because the last pope with that name, Leo XIII, was the pope who authored Rarum Novarum, the basis for Catholic social justice. Leo III wrote it in reaction to the dehumanizing conditions for workers during the Industrial Revolution. He called for humane working conditions, living wages, trade unions. Leo XIVis already addressing this issue regarding the challenges to human values posed by AI.
“ 19th-century Catholic teachings, 21st-century tech: How concerns about AI guided Pope Leo's choice of name”
https://www.ncronline.org/culture/19th-century-catholic-teachings-21st-century-tech-how-concerns-about-ai-guided-pope-leos
Also the Jubilee Commission which was co-chaired by liberal economist Joseph Stiglitz, just issued their report calling for a sustainable, people-centered world economy:
“ New Vatican report calls for global economic reforms”
https://www.ncronline.org/opinion/ncr-voices/new-vatican-report-calls-global-economic-reforms
Don’t forget both Pope Francis and Pope Leo rebuked Vance for his unchristian claims about who the Church says we must love. When he converted no one bothered to tell him about Jesus’s teaching that you must love the stranger as you love yourself.
Although I am not longer a believer I was raised Catholic during the Vatican II era and have been appalled to watch the Church’s nasty right wing turn under John Paul and Benedict but fun watching Pope Francis slowly undo their damage. We need the voices of spiritual leaders and philosophers to counteract the dehumanizing claims of tech bros like Musk, Thiel and Bryan Johnson (the guy who claims he will live forever, gets transfusions from his son and compares the leant of his nocturnal erections with his son’s online!)
Social Media manipulation by big tech is malware to the human brain and heart. These same commercial algorithms that incentivize hyper consumption, are being used/sold to the political parties. It’s a powerful tool that tracks and profiles an individual’s psychological profile….how easy it is persuade a person? Then use geo tracking tools to locate them in the swing districts. Spend your ads in those districts. Curate the ads to individual psyc profiles. It’s the new way for the unpopular to win elections.
True, though JD only believes what Peter Theil tells him to. And all these tech billionaires want us to bow down and worship their greatness and their stupid Ai project. Never.
Thiel is an Opus Dei guy. Read Gareth Gore’s expose of that abusive but powerful far right Catholic cult. Pope Francis was disempowering them before he died.
Book ordered.
When challenged on the lie that Haitians were eating pets, Vance the recent convert didn't seem to have any problem doubling down on Bearing False Witness against the vulnerable Haitian asylum-seeking community.
He kicks down.
See also, J. K. Rowling.
What is sad about her is that the Harry Potter series is an anti-fascist, anti-racist allegory. The values in that are entirely consistent with true Christianity — love of others, rejection of the abuse of power, etc. I think her freak out over trans people must be related to the sexual abuse she suffered.
Exactly, that's precisely it.
Instead, they have Curtis Yarvin as their "intellectual".
People raised Catholic say we should help the poor.
People who have recently converted *to* Catholicism seem to prefer it for its most conservative, patriarchal aspects.
They read “The Sovereign Individual” by James Dale Davidson
People like Bryan Johnson make me welcome death. Who wants to live longer if you’re stuck on the same planet with such a grotesque narcissist?
How would you like to be his son and have your dad compare the length of your nighttime erections to his online? I hope they all hop on one of Elon’s rockets and emigrate to the hellscape of Mars where they will fry (assuming the rocket didn’t blow up at launch).
I think the only comforting thing is that these tech libertarians suffer from back pain, acid reflux and a miriad of other ailments (many much more serious) just like the rest of us. Then what does their money buy them?! Oh don't get me going with their messed-up spoiled adult children with all of their problems. I envy those who have what they need but not everything they want.
Holy cow, are you serious
Libertarianism is just good old fashioned greed with a guru (Ayn Rand).
Ayn Rand (whom I can't stand) didn't like libertarians. She called them "hippies of the right."
True, but all the latterday libertarians quote her books like gospel because she justifies their greed in print.
Daddy, when I grow up I want to be a Libertarian.
Sorry, son, you can't do both.
Libertarianism is not the problem. It's neofascist ideologies that have been spreading in Silicon Valley for years already. I'm surprised that Krugman is still not addressing any of them.
Expansion? We've been here since 1998. The success of tech since the dotcom boom owes everything to libertarianism as an organizing ideology.
Our future: The Tech Reich.
This is an outstanding summary, Paul. Thank you. One reason the techoligarchs don't like Europe is legislation like the GDPR and other regulations protecting consumers. But when the garden consumer like me feels like our personal data is being used in ways we don't know, it's not surprising that there is a huge loss of trust. As to crypto and AI, I'm more than skeptical of the first and extremely concerned about the second. And the pity is that all this tech has the potential to do great things - in medicine and learning, for example - as we hoped in the beginning. The disappointment and feeling of betrayal and abuse is behind a lot of suspicion and mistrust. That won't get better for big tech any time soon.
Fruit of a poisonous tree?
LOL. Indeed. Or at least a fruit that needs peeling and stewing first.
Well-said!
One other aspect of the general turn away from liking the tech companies is the fact that people are slowly, dimly becoming aware that these tech companies are harvesting and marketing every aspect of everyone's existence. Your phone is listening to you, relaying your conversations back to a server that then generates ad content based on what it heard you say. Your TV is watching you and doing the same thing. The computer I'm typing this on is sending every keystroke out into the world where it will be parsed, sold, and returned to me in the form of ads (or maybe federal agents in the not too distant future).
We don't want our data to be sold, and yet we're eager to pay for the devices that suck up and ship all our data. I know people who have an Alexa or similar device in every room of their house. We hate the invasion of our privacy, and yet do everything we can afford to wipe that privacy away.
Technology as a whole has been amazing beneficial to society. Think about fiber optic communication, biomedical technology, computers, GPS, lasers, radar, and the list goes on. However, to your point, one aspect of technology-social media, data mining, and targeted marketing, has been devastating to society. I actually don't see that Facebook benefits society at all. It's astounding that some technology leaders either don't recognize this, or are so greedy that they don't care that they are destroying society.
Facebook is full of scams these days that Zuck doesn’t want to rein in because he earns money from them.
I'm 75, so probably an old curmudgeonly ex-hippie at heart. I do not use "social media" at all, and will not own an Alexa, smart appliances especially TV, or even Siri. I have little respect for those who do a lot. I gave away my TV when it became digital, and hardly ever used it because of the advertising.
I also find the universal use of "we" a bit off the mark, as *I* never built a weapon, went to war, or bought an invasive device, except an iPhone which is unavoidable...
Well, I'm 72 and avoiding an iPhone as well. I admit it's a challenge at times.
The ads are beyond horrible, music is still available, if you pay Amazon or apple
Your tinfoil hat is on too tight. The things you say are happening are completely fictional.
That said, your conclusion is reasonable.
Just curious about which aspects you think are fictional. Your phone definitely listens to you and uses that information for ads. It looks at the people who are near you and uses that information too.
I wouldn’t be surprised if your tv is doing the same.
The keystroke part is hyperbole, but it’s not like every website you visit isn’t being monitored.
The phone thing is fictional, unless you are talking about Siri, for example. Feel free to provide a link to evidence that supports your claim.
The TV claim is fictional.
Derelict is listing all the intrusions that are possible; none of them are fictional. It doesn't mean that everyone is so wired in that all these connections are at play.
A lot can be avoided by limiting your exposure to these devices and systems. If you are supercareful you can even stay under the radar completely.
Palantirs are watching, Alexas are listening, The sky is falling...Oh My!
Big price for that. My data has been dumped in the dark web twice, by ATT and FB. The fun is ongoing. And will be for all of us.
It's likely Cryptocurrency was invented to commit crimes. The proof is that the inventor is anonymous.
Last year, Trump was convicted of financial fraud and will likely have difficulty securing credit. He then became involved in Cryptocurrency.
No, it's almost certain that cryptocurrency was invented to commit crimes.
When I ran into some leftists who tried to defend cryptocurrency, the best answer they could come up with was allowing people to evade government sanctions and get paid for "sex work" (their politically correct term for "prostitution," just like "cannabis" is their P.C. term for "marijuana.") So I mean literally their entire argument was doing crimes, except they think crime is good.
Crypto is anarchical, whether the anarchists are Left or Right spin. In the case of Trump, it is the Right...
And who needs an anarchical "currency"? Criminals.
Yes. Comment was to address the reference to "leftist" criminals, which, in this case, I think is off base.
When a honeypot becomes an oligarchical treasure :) hahaha
Leftists defending crypto?
Crypto currency is mathematically generated tulips.
The biggest crime in not the penny ante sales it enables.
The real issue is that Crypto is just a pyramid scam, with literally infinite capacity for new fake currencies to be created to hoover up money from uninformed speculators.
Also, crypto is the brainchild of radical libertarians who resent the control that government exerts over fiat currency. Sacks, Musk, Thiel and Thiel's mini-me Vance come to mind.
They are NEOFASCISTS. That's much worse than "radical libertarians". They WANT fascism.
There has been water under the bridge between the advent of crypto and the present. I would say that when you undermine government and its functions, such as the issuance of currency, there will have to be something else to take existing government's place; and that it should be no surprise that they have nominated themselves to drive the train.
Peter Wayner invented bitcoin for the NSA - it was a skunkworks for honeypot. All public info. On my substack: Safeintelligentsoundpqe.substack.com I am federally and internationally protected whistleblower. Peter is a lovely man - Princeton 1986. I am Pton 2000 we met at a physics event, and the rest is history.
What is your point? Is there such a thing as an "internationally protected whistleblower"? What intellectually credible person in this day and age uses terms like "honeypot"? What the heck does Princeton have to do with anything? (I'm Princeton 1973 and that is equally irrelevant). Is this a joke post?
Think they might be a bot
The inventor of Bitcoin remains unknown.
Crypto = Brolibucks. Bezos, Thiel, Trump etc. replacing the dollar and controlling your money and ability to exchange. So much hubris and the requisite failure to come.
So is Cryptocurrency made for criminal use? Let's employ Logic;
Cryptocurrency is secret. Regular currencies are public knowledge.
Yes, of course Cryptocurrency is for evading the law.
Cryptocurrency was invented by a group of anarchists. They hoped to flood the world with their currency, which would drive down the value of all other currencies. The governments that depended on these currencies would then collapse. The anarchists apparently believed they could then live in peace and freedom, not considering how they would get along in a newly violent world with everyone out for themselves.
they also saw how the 'regulated' banking and securities industry had destroyed the economy in 2007/8 and cost a large number of people their homes and jobs. So they were hoping to create a financial system that did not rely on such bodies and such regulators. It is not a coincidence that the first bitcoin publication was in 2008.
They're not progressives, futurists, innovators, or anything else like that. They're simple obscenely rich rent seekers, and they want to "conserve" the regulatory framework which allows them to extract those monopoly rents.
They're conservatives now. Galbraith had their number:
"The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness."
Are you ok if I restack your comment?
Yep.
Love that Galbraith quote. A zinger…
Aka greed.
"Just say the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me and Republican congressmen". - Trump to Bill Barr
Trump and the oligarchs are trying to ram the largest upward transfer of wealth in human history through Congress.
In order to do that he needs his BBB signed into law.
In order to do that he needs to manufacture consent and one spectacular way to do that is to drive the stock market higher.
Today, Trump posts, "“Too Late” Jerome Powell, of the Fed, will be in Congress today in order to explain, among other things, why he is refusing to lower the Rate. Europe has had 10 cuts, we have had ZERO. No inflation, great economy - We should be at least two to three points lower. Would save the USA 800 Billion Dollars Per Year, plus. What a difference this would make. If things later change to the negative, increase the Rate. I hope Congress really works this very dumb, hardheaded person, over. We will be paying for his incompetence for many years to come. THE BOARD SHOULD ACTIVATE."
Luxuriate in this phrase remembering what he told Barr - "If things later change to the negative, increase the Rate." Once the bill becomes law, the Fed can go back to managing the economy properly.
I have a sneaking suspicion (and it is just that, I have NO inside info) once that bill becomes law the second part of the great wealth transfer takes place, the stock market will be liquidated by those oligarchs TAX FREE.
Trump is right now calling for a Special Prosecutor to investigation "the Steal" in his TS account, and in the most unhinged terms imaginable. In the same bleat, he claims that the border is not hermetically sealed, with ZERO unauthorized crossings.
(What he doesn't get is that the USBP issues estimates of such crossings as a percentage of apprehensions, and have used the same percentage over successive administrations. Thus the figure cannot be zero unless there are no apprehensions.)
Trump about MAGA
"You have to be trusted by the people that you lie to
So that when they turn their backs on you
You'll get the chance to put the knife in"
A great version w animation
https://youtu.be/d-Qm6P-rW20?si=Mk1sqbPlqxG7or79
I wonder what Zuckerberg is looking at in the photo accompanying this excellent article?
Ha ha. To observe his fundamental childishness is to say it all.
Perhaps they could duplicate the Presidents act, and you'd have your acronym.
Hey, they're out there to be ogled.... .
Since the first Iron Man comic book appeared in 1962, it's close to 100% doubtful that this could in any way be based on Elon Musk. Just correcting the record.
Actually, I'd say it's the other way round. Musk sees Robert Downey Jr's character and says "That's me!"
My thoughts exactly
I always thought that Iron Man was based on a lot of people, including Howard Hughes. But Elon Musk? Not one of them.
Yeah, Stan Lee would still remember Hughes' aviation exploits in the 30s and his bigger-than-life appearance at Senate hearings in the 50s.
I could see Musk spreading the baseless rumor that Tony Stark was based on him. This is the guy who paid to be able to say he created Tesla (He didn't, he just bought it out).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Man Yes, Lee based it on Howard Hughes. I was a big Marvel comics fan when in college.
Musk would have us believe that he was the inspiration for Howard Hughes. Musk actually wrote the script for Citizen Kane (which was based on Musk), but Mank stole it from him.
Tony Stark is a socially aware, sophisticated, sexy character. How in the hell do you connect that to Elon Musk?
I'd love to see the plutocrats fly one of browning's jetpacks : hahahaha https://youtu.be/Q6U69HbAF9Y?feature=shared
It seems like the tech crowd has traded in their flip flops and hoodies for yachts, tax cuts, and bitcoin.
But then, the world of laboring over code has highly changed as well. It is now more often bucks over brains so there is also a sector who feel left behind and are ripe for the pull of nonsense and the allure of get rich quick gamble of bitcoin, as well as extremely outdated nonsense regarding masculinity that Trump is selling.
The truth is, that despite all of the justification, the real reason for the flip from left to right was the tax cuts and/or threat of increases and yes, as you point out regulations.
All the rest is just an excuse, an excuse that some may now believe after repeating it to others and themselves enough times.
Money can be for some like a drug, and as we all know (or should) drugs change the structure of the brain making the brain seek more of whatever one is addicted to and a lot of this involves justification.
However, it is not just drugs that can cause excess release of neurotransmitters, but a lot of things can give one that "high" feeling and cause structural changes. Think about that workout fanatic or almost any fanatic as an example, or maybe someone addicted to food. The old saying about a "dopamine rush" was real and it is also a brain changer. Often these folks are feeding a self imposed structural brain change and one knows your brain can talk you into justifying that next "fix."
Fortunately, I find money boring.
However, I love economics. Studying economics is like studying the brain itself or structure (which I also majored in).
As far as leaving the Dems, all one need do is look at the bait being used by the right-wing opinion section at the WSJ and they were spreading rumors that Harris was going to impose a tax on unrealized gains or what is known as a wealth tax.
Mark Cuban tried to dispel these myths but fear of losing what they held dear took hold.
They became like Gollum protecting their "precious" and slithered over to Trump.
The truth is that the Dems did nothing wrong except that they could not keep up with the massive onslaught of disinformation coming from the right.
If there is anything Dems can do better next time, it is to keep an ear to the ground so they can get ahead of the nonsense.
Also, never say you are going to simply give people money, even if it is for a down payment, that is red and purple state GOP red meat fodder right there. Lions and Tigers and what sounds like Socialism - Oh My!
I suspect that if more Americans understood how thoroughly our tax code favors the wealthy over workers, our government would be in danger of being overthrown.
I agree. Lower taxes is the GOP's appeal with the Tech Bros. Silicon Valley technology may be new. But greed is older than money.
Well put.
You're on to something with the analogy of 'drugs,' I think. It might be enlightening to take that one step further, and add 'addiction' to your assessment. It's about thrills, and a goosing of an outsized sense of self. Addiction typically leads to a demand for more and more and more, and a flattening of any experiences other than the thrill. Basically a form of insanity.
far too many Americans have a fatal case of Fox poisoning.
Sadly, it is built into our biology and helps with learning and survival (like food), but too much of a rush over too long a time is a brain changer and yes what is also known as an addiction.
Gollum was addicted to his precious ring as an analogy. Although in the book it was a magical power, people could identify to things in real life that can be all consuming and controlling.
The thing that always struck me about Gollum is his gradual transformation from an ordinary, congenial and presumably jolly and sociable member of Hobbit society into a craven troglodyte with no eyes for anything but that 'Preciouss' ring. In the movie he looks something like Stephen Miller. Yikes.
food is a drug too remember !
Yeah. And if you eat too much and too many of the wrong things, you sicken and die. Addiction is fundamentally selfish and isolating, as well as toxic, in all its forms, involving as it does lying, cheating, stealing and an exclusive focus on personal satisfaction above all other concerns, up to and including survival.
When there is so much obsequious neuroticism though, I need to chew on something while I watch the comic tragedy unfold. Popcorn futures skyrocketing into 2h25; far superior prospects than shitcoin :)
Mouth stimulation is one of the deepest mammalian instincts.
Crazy plutocrats shaking their global piggy bank - while the world lives hand to mouth. I never approved that. Pass
Lean jerky?
The drug analogy works… but don’t forget fear. Those of us who have comparatively little find great meaning and connection (true wealth) in people and nature. We know inevitable death looms at all times. These tech bros ooze fear of poverty and death because they are empty vessels, seeking security in money and control. The harder they grasp, the further it slips, and the cycle continues. They are just men and bleed like the rest of us. It’s time we prove it.
Yes fear, and yes addiction, but I think we are all susceptible to various degrees, so one need not be an empty vessel simply too consumed with wealth, I think.
bitcoin was invented by Peter Wayner for NSA. SEC whistleblower here. Investigation underway. See all evidence in real time public: safeintelligentsoundpqe.substack.com spread the word to help democracy crush idiocracy. modulo
Quite a few Democratic senators were wrong to support the GENIUS Act.
I would like Krugman to get more into the weeds about that whole thing. Maybe he and Nathan can discuss?
That seems weedy enough to spark the interest of Nathan Tankus maybe?
It seems the ins and outs of that leg might be over my head.
It was weird that Democrats saw tech execs coming to Capitol Hill in hoodies and flip flops and saw this as endearing rather than a sign that they are deeply unserious people.
Again — Dems got confused by the fact that a lot of them are gay nerds into think they were their friends, but unlike Hollywood which really was just in it for the social liberalism, Big Tech thought that they could con Democrats into eschewed their usual dislike of rich people. I greatly prefer the Very Serious Rich people who got rich in manufacturing than the deeply unserious Rich people like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg. Even Bill Gates has much more in common with the former than the latter.
As someone who grew up in CA, I did not see the hoodie and flops as “unserious” it was a status symbol that instead of being “too sexy for their shirts” they were implying they were too smart for suits and shoes and had better things to do.
They did not try to fool anyone, in my view, that was, and is, simply the culture to a large degree except now that they have wealth they want to keep it and might be consumed by that
They were not so smart that they did not succumb to the power of the ring.
I agree that it didn't signal "unserious" and was a status symbol.
But if you imagine that they support the GOP because they had to "kiss the ring", then you're underestimating how serious they have actually been, and for years already. Much of Silicon Valley actively believes that fascism is better than democracy. They WANT a dictatorship. Trump is merely their clown in chief.
Is that Silicon Valley or is it the religious right?
You may have more insight on this than I do, but any group who sees itself as a minority when it comes to getting what they want politically may be somewhat more motivated by a dictator who promises to give them what they want, things that they can not get through a regular democratic process.
Trump cobbled together almost every fringe group from Kennedy vaccine followers, to Gabbard followers, to racists, and conspiracy nuts to the religious anti-science folks and on and on.
They all think he will give them what they can’t get though a majority vote which is required in a democracy. These useful idiots will wear out their usefulness once an autocracy is secured and they will be discarded, just like Mike Pence and all the rest. Trump literally preys at the temple of money, based on a Frontline episode, The Choice 2016, where they go and prey for riches, etc.
Actually, the reason why the GOP embraced Trump again is because these last four years, THREE different neofascist groups have taken over the party:
1. MAGA 1.0 Steve Bannon neofascist populism, which was still a minority inside the GOP during Trump's first term but is much stronger today, after four more years of propaganda
2. Theocratic "Christian Nationalist" Heritage Foundation neofascism
3. Tech billionaire neofascism (which began to arise decades ago already, and then gradually took over Silicon Valley during the last 5-10 years).
So yes, I was talking about Silicon Valley and not the religious right here. There are differences between all three factions. Christian neofascists want a "big state", for instance, which imposes their obsolete "values" onto everyone. Tech neofascists remain in part libertarians, so they want a minimal state and many Freedom Cities inside the country where they have legal autonomy. Many of them don't care about religion (although Thiel is an Opus Dei Catholic, who then managed to convince Vance to become one too). And Christian neofascists want a big military budget while neofascist populist want to cut the military budget. Sometimes, Christian neofascists still support Medicaid and social security, whereas both the tech neofascists and populist neofascists want to privatize it all. Etc.
Then you merely have those who want power and fame, such as Gabbard and Kennedy. They may not necessarily be ideological at all, they just want the job and are willing to kiss the ring of whoever is willing to accept them.
As to Mike Pence: he was and is a neocon. That's something totally different. Neocons are part of what the Heritage Foundation calls the "Uniparty", namely all pro-democracy politicians, left or right. It's why the neocon The Bulwark and neocons Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger supported Harris last summer. For them, democracy remains THE most important value, and they're willing to suspend their neocon agenda to defeat fascism and restore democracy first. But these last four years, neocons totally lost all power inside the GOP. It's the three neofascist factions that took over the entire party and forced the rank and file to follow them...
I have seen what you so clearly describe. It's like a game of musical chairs played with bean bags.
Nope. It was a calculated uniform to help keep the engineers in line until the companies were big enough to be self sustaining.
Silicon Valley startups die fast if a handful of key developers leave.
With a few exceptions, these were faux engineers masquerading.
Paul, I think a key element of the enshittification process is the unrealistic growth expectations behind the techlords' companies' valuations. Their great wealth is based on a stock valuation that, in turn, is based on the expectation continued rapidly growing revenue and profits. As they try to meme-ify their valuations with ever more outlandish and over hyped growth gimmicks -- Musk is a master of this -- they are more and more reliant on shady growth areas like crypto or dangerous ones like AI. As they veer further into the dark side of tech in search of continued growth, they need Republicans, who have no ethical values, to protect them from the people.
Mark Andressen in his own words, the New York Times interview from earlier this year. These Silicon Valley Libertarian billionaires have conspired to become the king makers. It’s a lot like 1990’s Russia. Where the oligarchs, Boris Berezovsky and others brought both Yeltsin and then Putin to power, and power consolidated, and elections are more ceremonial than real.
Remember Fiona Hill? What happened in 1990’s Russia, is happening to the US. “Russia is the ghost of America’s future.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/17/opinion/marc-andreessen-trump-silicon-valley.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
Two words. White men.
three words: White septuagenarian men.
There's a part of the law that deals with the fertile octogenarian:-)
What about them?
I've been on internet since 2005 and my personal experience is this.
Google search has gone to s***
Amazon has gone to s***
Twitter/X has gone to even worse s*** and intelligent people have to flee from platform.
I've never used facebook personally but the word i get from others is that it's also gone to s***
People don't know what internet was 2 decades ago. Like google was this exciting search engine that generated magical searches into the abyss of internet. Google was great until around late 2000s. Now it's all about business and marketing and commercial crap. It doesn't have any magic.
Amazon, in my country was great at first. But after it established its outreach. All the wonderful discounts and benefits were gone. Once people developed the habit of ordering from Amazon, the prices didn't matter much and consumers continued to order even when discounts were not that great and product service become mediocre.
What can be said about Twitter/X? A platform that started to get ruined around 2015 and became a disaster after Musk's takeover.
The people who have been around internet since 2-3 decades know the decline of tech industry. The new generation see the current internet and thinks that's all to it. Internet used to be a better and saner place.
My advice to people is to keep your children away from toxic platforms of tech bros.
I've been on the Internet since before it was capitalized.
If Google or Amazon don't work for you it may mean you are not as good at the Internet as you think.
"Elon Musk was reportedly a partial inspiration for Tony Stark, aka Iron Man, the Marvel character."
I'm going to call BS on this. Any such reports will have come from Musk himself, as part of his self-branding. The first Iron Man comic (to which the Iron Man film was oddly faithful, except Communists were replaced by Islamic terrorists) appeared in Tales of Suspense #39 in 1962. That's almost ten years before Musk was born. It is perhaps better to say that Musk has promoted himself as the real life Tony Stark, though I imagine he would have sued had Disney followed the storyline in the comics where Tony Stark becomes an alcoholic.
I have a hunch that Krugman meant that Robert Downey, Jr. based some of his performance on Musk's mannerisms and persona.
This has echoes of Germany in 1933. Fascism is a corporatist economic model because fascists love concentration of power. Its the whole point of fascism. This attracts corporations who also crave a concentration of power. And the corporate oligarchs think Dear Leader is a drooling jack ass they can control. What they always discover is Dear Leader is a vicious drooling jack ass they cannot control.
See also Russia in the 2000s.