Today's Water Cooler 2026-03-03

Don’t Miss These

(1) “Bernie Sanders: A.I. Is a Public Resource. You Should Own Half of It.” • 51%

(2) There’s a New Dark Money–Backed Democratic Machine” • Steve Israel: He’s b-a-a-c-k!

(3) “Graham Platner Leaker Failed to Disclose Previous Financial Conflict of Interests” • Airbnb

(4) “AI costs how much? GitHub Copilot users react to new usage-based pricing system” • Enshittification, phase 2.

Birdsong of the Day

Moar mimidae:

Pray’s Brook Marsh (MCHT), Hancock, Maine, United States. Also: Northern Yellow Warbler, Red-winged Blackbird, and Mourning Dove.

Politics

Trump Administration

Nobody thinks of drawin’ the distinction between honest graft and dishonest graft.

“Trump ‘slush fund’ echoes scorned 19th-century spoils system, academics say” [News from the States]. “The Trump administration’s push to reward its supporters also harkens back to an earlier era of American cronyism, experts say, while expanding the frontiers of political favoritism. From the early years of the United States until well into the 19th century, a spoils system dominated the federal government. Presidents handed out jobs to supporters, filling the bureaucracy with workers who had demonstrated loyalty to the administration in power. Trump’s political idol, President Andrew Jackson, replaced large numbers of federal officials after his 1829 inauguration, for instance. One appointee to a role at the Port of New York made out with more than $1 million, valued at tens of millions today…. [A]cademics who have studied the spoils system and the presidency see parallels between the past and present — with a desire to reward allies and build allegiance at the center of it all.” • So, nothing new — except to liberal Democrats. The classic practitioner, albeit fictional, is George Washington Plunkitt of Tammany Hall:

Everybody is talkin’ these days about Tammany men growin’ rich on graft, but nobody thinks of drawin’ the distinction between honest graft and dishonest graft. There’s all the difference in the world between the two. Yes, many of our men have grown rich in politics. I have myself. I’ve made a big fortune out of the game, and I’m gettin’ richer every day, but I’ve not gone in for dishonest graft—blackmailin’ gamblers, saloonkeepers, disorderly people, etc.—and neither has any of the men who have made big fortunes in politics.

There’s an honest graft, and I’m an example of how it works. I might sum up the whole thing by sayin’: I seen my opportunities and I took “em.”

Just let me explain by examples. My party’s in power in the city, and it’s goin’ to undertake a lot of public improvements. Well, I’m tipped off, say, that they’re going to lay out a new park at a certain place.

I see my opportunity and I take it. I go to that place and I buy up all the land I can in the neighborhood. The the board of this or that makes its plan public, and there is a rush to get my land, which nobody cared particular for before.

Of course, Trump is adept at dishonest graft: Crypto, front-running, etc. But the point of Plunkett’s honest graft is that the bridge gets built, to the public’s benefit. What is Trump’s equivalent of Plunkett’s bridge? Data centers? ChatGPT? Endless war? He’s got nothing. Of course, liberal Democrats can’t point this out, because they support all those things too, especially endless war, just like Trump. And eliminating those things is the road to delivering on public benefits, which Democrats consistently fail to do.

* * *

“Trump taps inexperienced loyalist to oversee nation’s intelligence agencies” [Straight Arrow News]. “Trump named Bill Pulte, 38, a federal housing official who has called for criminal investigations of several of the president’s political foes, to temporarily replace Tulsi Gabbard, who is resigning on June 30… Pulte is director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency and chairman of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-supported agencies that assist Americans with home buying. He will remain in that role while also serving as the intelligence chief, who oversees 18 U.S. intelligence-gathering agencies…. Pulte’s family founded one of the largest home-building companies in the U.S. and has worked in private equity and finance.” • It’s the private equity connection that worries me, not whether Pulte is a “partisan thug.” Also. Pulte’s father, WIlliam, is #164 on the Forbes 400 list, which somehow goes unmentioned in the reporting. Family values!

“Bill Pulte’s Surprise Appointment Could Kill a Key Spy Powers Reauthorization” [NOTUS]. “Trump’s Tuesday announcement that he was choosing Bill Pulte as acting director of national intelligence drew early pushback from most Democrats and some Republicans, who questioned Pulte’s lack of national security experience. But the timing also complicates a fight over Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which Congress has struggled for months to approve a long-term reauthorization for. Section 702 is a powerful surveillance authority that lets the government collect communications of foreigners overseas, but it has drawn privacy concerns because Americans’ communications can also be swept up and searched without a warrant. Already, some of the holdouts in Congress who were skeptical of approving a longer reauthorization were balking at how the Trump administration could use the tool.” • Let’s hope so.

“IRS data platform has problems with access controls, watchdog says” [FedScoop]. “An enterprise data platform deployed by the IRS to strengthen taxpayer services and enforcement has access issues that could expose sensitive information to unauthorized users, a new watchdog report found. According to the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, the IRS hasn’t adequately monitored privileged accounts to the cloud-based system. Launched in April 2022, the platform — which the IRS spent roughly $178.4 million on from fiscal 2023 through fiscal 2025 — securely stores taxpayer account, case and operational data. TIGTA discovered problems with how the tax agency employs the Privileged User Management Access System. IRS requires the use of PUMAS, which provides audit trails intended to ensure that top levels of security are followed for “all administrative actions that require elevated privileges.’ But despite those rules, the IRS hasn’t fully integrated the data platform with PUMAS, per the report, a failing that TIGTA said “may lead to exploitation of security safeguards leading to unauthorized access and critical system compromise.’ The watchdog’s identification of the PUMAS problem isn’t the first time the issue has been raised.” • If a breach can happen, it will already have happened.

* * *

Election 2026

“A substantial amount of the funds is going to pay high-profile political operatives working to elect the influence network’s chosen candidates in pivotal elections, often to the detriment of more progressive challengers.”

There’s a New Dark Money–Backed Democratic Machine” [Jacobin]. Reprinted from The Lever. “The machine operates as two big-name new organizations, Majority Democrats and the Bench… Under this umbrella, the influence network is dispersing millions through a sophisticated nesting doll of political action campaigns (PACs), nonprofits, consultancies, and LLCs, while sharing the same big-money donors, political consultants, and often the same policy proposals.” And: “A substantial amount of the funds is going to pay high-profile political operatives working to elect the influence network’s chosen candidates in pivotal elections, often to the detriment of more progressive challengers.” Whaddaya know. More: “Majority Democrats and the Bench, along with their various offshoots, are the brainchild of Seth London, a venture capitalist and adviser to major Democratic donors…. In the weeks after the Democrats’ disastrous performance in the 2024 elections, which bestowed the GOP with a trifecta of power under President Donald Trump, London released a blueprint, to much media fanfare, for rebuilding the party…. [London’s memo] called on the party to moderate on a host of issues and usher in a new generation of ‘commonsense Democrats.’ While light on policy prescriptions, the memo aligned its priorities with the ‘abundance agenda.’… London’s memo proposed an organizational infrastructure — ‘a party within the party’ — modeled on the Democratic Leadership Coalition. As London’s road map dictated, several new PACs would serve as the central nervous system for this project, to be headed up by high-powered political consultants, including Lis Smith, an alum of Pete Buttigieg’s 2020 presidential campaign, and Steve Israel, a former New York congressman-turned-lobbyist.” Lordie. Steve Israel?! More: “Then, in January, another organization staged a splashy launch: the Bench, advertising a supposed mission of ‘changing the Democratic Party from the inside.” And: “Mapping out the connective tissue of these operations quickly becomes a difficult endeavor. The Bench operates a super PAC, a traditional PAC, a joint fundraising committee, and a 527 nonprofit — a hodgepodge of entities that can engage in political spending with varying restrictions. All of them raise and spend money, at times in coordination with Majority Democrats, which has its own small galaxy of political committees. All of these entities tie back to London, including through a shadowy Delaware consultancy: Precinct LLC, which per state business filings obtained by the Lever, was incorporated in January 2025 with London’s signature. The entity — which has no website or hardly any other online footprint — appears to operate as a kind of central hub for the network.” • Great reporting by The Lever. Looks like The Enemy Above, through London, has made its move on the Democrat side of the house. London is a bit like the chestbuster in Alien, isn’t he? And if you’re looking for a reason why the “follow the money”-themed Democratic autopsy got shitcanned, and its author disappeared, this crowd is a good place to start.

* * *

ME: “Judge Platner’s Character by How He Fights the Oligarchs” [David Sirota, Jacobin]. Reprinted from The Lever. “What’s radical here is that Murphy and Khanna are suggesting the possibility of a new political reality, one that I think the affluent class of New York and DC media and political elites literally cannot process: A reality in which many voters are so economically pulverized and politically disillusioned that they now define ‘character’ in a politician solely as whether or not they are single-mindedly focused on destroying oligarchy and ending corruption. To be clear: I don’t know exactly how many voters think this way.” More: “[O]ne taboo truth is clear, even if nobody wants to say it aloud: If this is the new world, then — mathematically speaking — the Democratic Party cannot electorally survive in its current form as the party only of West Wing nerds who, since infancy, have been running for office, living perfect lives, and coddling power on their way up the ladder.” And: “I genuinely believe liberals’ political party will not survive unless it becomes a party that is open to regular people who’ve lived regular, imperfect lives outside the so-called professional-managerial class — and who want to fundamentally tear down oligarchy.” • And that is the one thing liberal Democrats cannot do. Sirota is calling upon Democrats to abandon their base. I don’t see it. I very much wish I could see it, since I am member of that new political reality.

ME: “Graham Platner Leaker Failed to Disclose Previous Financial Conflict of Interests” [Payday Report]. “Payday Report has learned that former Graham Platner staffer, Genevieve McDonald , a former Maine State Representative, who leaked confidential text messages from Platner’s wife, Amy Gertner, about marital struggles, had previously hidden financial conflicts of interest while fighting against Airbnb regulations in the town of Stonington, Maine, in 2024.” Ooh, screwing over the locals for out-of-state party house rentiers from Silicon Valley. Looking good! The detail: “​In 2024, the town of Stonington, Maine, was debating placing restrictions on Airbnb property rentals in the small island town, located on Deer Isle across the bay from Acadia National Park. Following the pandemic and the widespread adoption of work-from-home rules, Stonington had seen a massive influx of folks from higher-rent cities seeking cheaper housing in the scenic island village….. Many longtime residents in Stonington were upset about being priced out, and in the spring of 2024, residents and city council members began an effort to impose restrictions on Airbnb rentals in the island village. In April of 2024, residents gathered at a town council meeting to provide input on proposed regulations that would limit Airbnb listings on the island, a move intended to help drive down housing costs. At the council meeting, many residents were shocked when McDonald stood to speak against the proposed Airbnb regulations. The previous November, McDonald had been appointed the executive director of the Island Workforce Housing Initiative, which was leading an effort to build affordable housing on the island….. ​As an affordable housing advocate and former state representative in the community, McDonald’s statements against the regulations on Airbnb bewildered many. As residents began discussing the matter, some became upset when they realized that McDonald had not disclosed that she owned several Airbnb properties on Deer Isle.” Importantly: “[T]he tip about McDonald’s work to block Airbnb regulations came from a local Payday Report reader in Maine.” • Great reporting from Payday!

IA: “Josh Turek’s Big Win Places Him at the Heart of Democrats’ Hopes” [NOTUS]. “State Rep. Josh Turek dominated Iowa’s Democratic Senate primary Tuesday night, posting a double-digit victory made partially possible by an injection of $10 million of outside spending on his behalf.” • And below, The Lever names the horrid source of that “outside spending.”

IA: “Democratic Dark Money PACs Are Taking Aim at Progressives” [Jacobin]. “The interlinked entities supporting Turek include a group run by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, despite assurances he was staying out of the race, and the Bench, part of a new billionaire-backed, corporate-aligned Democratic machine claiming to deliver younger leadership to the Democratic Party. The groups have kept quiet about their joint involvement in the race, likely because of the political optics — voters have grown weary of outside forces putting their thumb on the scale in Democratic primaries. But recent filings indicate they’ve been quietly backing Turek, who’s considered more moderate than his progressive challenger, State Senator Zach Wahls.” • Turek’s victory is, basically, the victory of a wretched hive of scum and villainy that wants to be the next DLC. Talk about meeting the moment!

NJ: “Surgeon who worked in Gaza wins New Jersey Democratic race” [MiddleEastEye]. “Adam Hamawy, a surgeon who volunteered at the European Hospital in Khan Younis in southern Gaza during 2024, has won the Democratic nomination for New Jersey’s 12th Congressional District. Hamawy drew attention during the war in Gaza after reportedly refusing to leave behind colleagues and patients when Israeli forces ordered evacuations around the hospital.” • I suppose I know have to ask which Dark Money Democrat (see below) is backing Hamawy; he’s not mentioned in the Jacobin article above.

Republican Funhouse

Bad taste:

My God pic.twitter.com/CeHfUAkCzU

— Mia Farrow (@FarrowMia40582) June 1, 2026

Realignment and Legitimacy

“The creative work of millions of people has essentially been stolen by some of the wealthiest people in the world.”

“Bernie Sanders: A.I. Is a Public Resource. You Should Own Half of It.” [New York Times]. 51%. “The question is: Who will own and control that future? Who will benefit from it, and who will be hurt by it? Will A.I. be used to make life better for working families? Will it enrich our quality of life? Will it help us eliminate poverty, extend life expectancies and solve the climate crisis? Or will the future of humanity be determined by a handful of billionaires who have promoted and developed A.I., with virtually no democratic input, who stand to become even richer and more powerful than they are today?” See There Is Only One Important Question in American Politics Today. And only one person asking it, it seems. More: “A.I. is built on our collective intelligence: our books, songs, artwork, journalism, computer code, scientific research, videos, conversations, images and ideas spanning generations…. For the most part, tech oligarchs have fed this knowledge into their A.I. models without permission, without acknowledgment, without compensation. In other words, the creative work of millions of people — writers, artists, musicians, journalists, teachers, scientists and ordinary citizens — has essentially been stolen by some of the wealthiest people in the world. It’s time for us to reclaim it. Since A.I. is built on the collective knowledge of humanity, the wealth it generates must benefit humanity.” And: “That is why I will soon be introducing the American A.I. Sovereign Wealth Fund Act. This legislation would give the public a direct ownership stake in the largest A.I. companies in our country. How? It would create a sovereign wealth fund through a one-time 50 percent tax — not on the profits of OpenAI, Anthropic, xAI and other companies, but paid with something far more valuable than that: the stock.” • Assuming that “artificial intelligence will almost certainly be the most transformational technology in the history of the world.”

Geopolitics

“Axelrod on reported Trump outburst at Netanyahu: ‘His analysis is not wrong’ ” [The Hill]. “ ‘Look, I think that the president — his analysis is not wrong. I think — you know — Bibi Netanyahu has done tremendous damage, in my view, to Israel and to Israel’s standing in the world. And, this war — I think what Trump’s really mad about, if you believe the reporting in The New York Times on this … Bibi had a lot to do with talking the president into thinking this was a good idea, and that’s what he’s really mad about.’ ‘What he’s mad about is Bibi has created a huge political problem for him, because the economy is the thing that is on the minds of Americans, and he has made it worse,’ Axelrod added.”

Business Sentiment

Today’s Fear & Greed Index: 57 Greed (previous close: 57 Greed) [CNN]. One week ago: 60 (Greed). (0 is Extreme Fear; 100 is Extreme Greed). • Still under 60…..

Business: Commodities

“The U.S. just hit record honey imports. The bees are why” [MR Online]. “U.S. bee hives died off at the highest rate ever in the year ending April 2025, with more than half lost. U.S. honey output is at its lowest level in 30 years. Imports now make up about 80% of U.S. honey use, led by India, Argentina, Brazil, and Vietnam.” • Hmm.

Business: Banking and Finance

“World’s Best Islamic Financial Institutions 2026” [Global Finance]. “This year’s top winner, Kuwait Finance House (KFH), enjoyed asset growth of 17% last year, to $139 billion, helping the bank maintain its position as the second-largest Islamic institution globally. KFH has the most diverse geographical reach of any IFI, with operations throughout the Middle East, Europe, and Asia. It has advanced its digital transformation by shifting from basic digitization to value-driven technology adoption. Meanwhile, Boubyan Bank claimed Global Finance’s inaugural award as Most Innovative Islamic Bank. The bank stands apart for its innovation, technology-driven strategy, and strong commitment to offering financial solutions that enhance the customer experience. Boubyan made significant progress last year in embedding AI into services offered through its app. Emirates Islamic Bank (EIB) took home the Best Islamic Financial Institution in The Middle East. The bank notched 19% growth in net profit last year, to $910 million, driven by robust balance-sheet growth. Lending grew 26% over both retail and corporate banking. Supported by a sophisticated digital offering, EIB has seen its franchise strengthen through a wide range of Shariah-compliant pro-duct offerings.”

Business: AI

“AI, Human Cognition and Knowledge Collapse” [Daron Acemoglu, Dingwen Kong, and Asuman Ozdaglar, NBER]. From the Abstract: “Learning exhibits economies of scope: costly human effort jointly produces a private signal about their own context and a “thin” public signal that accumulates into the community’s stock of general knowledge, generating a learning externality. Agentic AI delivers context-specific recommendations that substitute for human effort. By contrast, a richer stock of general knowledge complements human effort by raising its marginal return. The model highlights a sharp dynamic tension: while agentic AI can improve contemporaneous decision quality, it can also erode learning incentives that sustain long-run collective knowledge. When human effort is sufficiently elastic and agentic recommendations exceed an accuracy threshold, the economy can tip into a knowledge-collapse steady state in which general knowledge vanishes ultimately, despite high-quality personalized advice.” • So the squllionaries will be fine? All they need is “high-quality personalized advice”, and “long-run collective knowledge” isn’t something they recognize or even believe in?

“AI costs how much? GitHub Copilot users react to new usage-based pricing system” [Ars Technica]. “In April, GitHub announced that it was moving subscribers from request-based billing to a usage-based model for its AI-powered Copilot service. As that new pricing model goes into effect today, many GitHub Copilot users are reporting some extreme sticker shock as they realize just how quickly their previous “normal” usage is burning through their newly limited monthly allotment of AI credits. Across social media and forums, many Copilot users are sharing personal statistics showing how just a few hours of AI usage can now account for a large chunk of their new monthly subscription caps. For some users, it reportedly took less than a day to use up a month’s usage quota. That’s a big change from previous months, when GitHub Copilot subscribers were allocated a certain number of ‘requests’ and ‘premium requests’ based on their payment tier. GitHub said that the old system meant that ‘a quick chat question and a multi-hour autonomous coding session [could] cost the user the same amount,’ forcing Copilot itself to ‘absorb much of the escalating inference cost behind that usage.’ Indeed, some Copilot users have been sharing estimates from GitHub’s own tool showing that their previous monthly usage would rack up bills in the thousands of dollars under the new pricing plan. • Enshittifcation, phase two, and occuring remarkably fast. Enshittification is the law, and Cory Doctorow is its prophet.

“Exclusive: Office workers drive OpenAI’s Codex growth” [Axios]. In academe: “Earlier this year [Andrew Hall, a Stanford Graduate School of Business professor] asked Claude Code to update a paper he’d published five years ago on universal vote by mail. ‘We figured papers like this should be updated over time, but no one ever does that,’ he says. The tool gathered new data, ran analyses, produced figures and tables and drafted a new paper, “with not very much prompting,’ Hall said. But when Hall hired a graduate student to audit the work manually, the agent’s limits became clear. ‘It didn’t do everything right,’ Hall said. ‘It did a lot right, which is kind of remarkable, but it made a number of errors.’ The tool failed to collect all the data it needed and didn’t quite code all the data correctly, he said, meaning it “very much needed an expert, Ph.D.-level student to oversee it quite closely.” And in the Office; “AI has made it easier to crank out documents, emails, decks and dashboards, and OpenAI is now betting agents can help workers make sense of them. Previous waves of workplace software encouraged workers to produce huge volumes of files and messages, but those ‘workplace artifacts’ largely remain siloed inside different software programs. The report argues that [OpenAI’s] Codex can round up the important context from all of those artifacts no matter where they are. Codex now has more than 5 million weekly active users, up more than six times since OpenAI launched the desktop app in February, the company says.” • So, does anyone believe that AI slop in the firm will have anyone to “oversee” it? Does anyone believe that AI slop doesn’t tend to drive all information that is not slop? On what basis will firms organize the factors of production with their internal knowledge bases turned to grey goo?

“ChatGPT blindly trusts browser content, turning the page into a payload” [The Register]. “ChatGPT can’t tell its own generated content from attacker-controlled Markdown pulled from external sources, according to a researcher who found the prompt injection technique and reported it to OpenAI. This means that if a user asks the chatbot to summarize a web page that contains hidden instructions, the page can become the payload. An attacker could abuse this blind trust to inject phishing URLs into ChatGPT responses, or even trick the model into showing fake security alerts written in ChatGPT’s own style, Permiso threat hunter Andi Ahmeti told The Register. In a report shared with us ahead of publication, Ahmeti also demonstrated how criminals could exploit this trust issue to pivot their attack from a victim’s browser to their mobile device by displaying an inline QR code. The victim scans the QR code with their phone and is taken to content hosted in an attacker-controlled S3 bucket, and this allows the baddie to bypass every desktop URL defense, including blocklists and password-manager domain checks, Ahmeti warned. ‘AI systems increasingly render untrusted content directly inside browsers, which expands risk significantly,’ he told us. ‘The bigger issue is that AI products are starting to resemble browser or operating system environments, which creates a much larger security surface.’” • What could go wrong?

“Robot dogs priced at $300,000 a piece are now guarding some of the country’s biggest data centers” [Fortune]. “Now, robot dogs are standing guard for tech companies, patrolling the massive data centers across the country that power AI operations, according to Business Insider. These four-legged robots, known as quadrupeds, are in high demand from AI firms, according to robotics company Boston Dynamics, which manufactures a quadruped called Spot. These systems are able to navigate complex landscapes on their own, alert authorities about security threats, and can provide around-the-clock video surveillance.” And: “Aside from requiring loads of energy and millions of gallons of water, the vast size of the data centers means the cost of security to protect their around-the-clock operations is inspiring some firms to look to alternative security resources. According to Frayne, Spot’s pricing ranges from $175,000 to $300,000, depending on their client’s needs. But despite that high price, the company estimates that the quadrupeds would compensate for their cost within two years. The robot dogs are actually capable of doing more than just perimeter patrol. Frayne told Business Insider data center customers are looking for the quadrupeds to conduct industrial inspection, site mapping, and construction monitoring. These tasks could help facility managers to more easily detect hazards, such as puddles or leaks. Boston Dynamics says Spot has “360° perception and athletic intelligence.” • I suppose there are hard points?

Business: Media

“How to Destroy a Literary Reputation in One Move” [Ted Gioia, The Honest Broker]. “How do you kill a brand as powerful as Sports Illustrated? It’s easy, you can do it in one just one move. You just need to embrace the most exciting, futuristic technology of the 21st century. That’s what Sports Illustrated did. The world’s most respected sports magazine gave up on Hemingway and Faulkner, and started publishing AI slop. The editors clearly wanted to hide this—they pretended that the articles were written by actual human beings. They even created fake bios with photos for the non-existent authors. When a journalist from Futurism asked them about this, they quickly deleted everything. And: “Just 55 days later, Sports Illustrated announced that it was laying off most of its workforce. The media reported that Sports Illustrated would stop operations completely. A few months later, a new publisher stepped in as savior. But there wasn’t much to save—at least as a journalism business. The latest move happened yesterday. The new owner laid off 12% of its workforce, including several of the remaining skilled journalists from the pre-AI era.” And: “This is what AI actually delivers in the media world right now. The exact same thing happened to the people running National Novel Writing Month. They embraced AI—and then they soon went out of business. You might think that others would learn from this example, but this month the folks at the Commonwealth Prize are in the process of self destructing over AI. The judges didn’t test for AI until after giving out the prize—an unwise move in the current environment.” And: “Is Business Insider now going to learn this same painful lesson?” • Gioia’s timeline says doom is approaching….

Science is Popping

“Growth and formaldehyde degradation of photoheterotrophic Methylobacterium within radiation fogs” [American Society of Microbiology]. “The atmosphere contains thousands to millions of bacterial cells per cubic meter. However, it remains unclear if microbes are at all active or growing in situ or whether they are merely being transported in an inactive state. Based on the analyses of 32 overland radiation fog events over a 2-year period, we show that fog waters, with bacterial concentrations similar to those in continental or marine bodies of water, contain microbiomes well differentiated in composition from those in the dry aerosol microbiomes that occur locally before, during, or after fog events.” • Extraordinary.

Zeitgeist Watch

“We Are Living in Pinocchio’s World” [Om Malik]. Well worth a read. “Most people remember Pinocchio as a story about lying. The nose grows. You get caught. Lesson learned. But that reading misses almost everything [author Carlo] Collodi was actually doing. The book is a close study of a society where deception has gone ambient, woven into every institution, every transaction. Courts punish victims. Authority figures perform competence without exercising it. Experts are decorative. Society holds together through spectacle and habit rather than accountability. Into this environment, a naive creature is released, constitutionally unable to resist a good story about easy reward. The nose is the least interesting lie in the book. The interesting lies are the ones that work.” And: “Everyone from Jensen Huang to Sam Altman to Elon Musk spent a decade accumulating what I have called symbolic capital, the reputation, the prestige, the weight of being seen as someone who understands the future better than the rest of us. Now each of them seems to be running some version of the Field of Miracles, with promises that keep not arriving, timelines that dissolve, products that exist primarily as announcements, and platforms run as machines for generating more reputation regardless of what they actually do. They don’t need to be right. They need to be believed. Velocity is the new authority, and no one has weaponized that more effectively.” • “Symbolic capital” following Bourdieu?

Class Warfare

“AI Billionaires Are Starting to Get Scared” [Futurism]. “As data centers are shut down by angry mobs and AI surveillance cameras are ripped from their poles, the world’s tech billionaires and CEOs are waking up to the reality that the masses are, broadly speaking, not on board with their plan to automate the world with AI. It isn’t necessarily that working people want to stay shackled to the wage-based employment system, but that folks need those jobs to have any hope of eating, seeing a doctor, and sleeping with a roof over their heads.” Hat tip, The Bearded One. So there are various schemes: “the bottom 50 percent of US earners should pay no federal income tax” (Bezos), “universal high income” (Musk), “universal basic compute”). But: “There’s also another option that none of them seem to be pushing: if AI is as disruptive as they say, there’s always the option to pull the plug. That they won’t even consider this choice suggests that their appeals to the toiling masses aren’t in good faith — which at this point should be obvious to just about everyone.”

News of the Wired

I am not feeling wired today.

Plantidote of the Day

Via TH:

TH writes: “This is Monkey-flower bush ( Diplacus aurantiacus) [the unfocused orange flowers] and California Buckwheat ( Eriogonum fasciculatum) [the focused white flowers]. They live at the James & Rosemary Nix Nature Center in Laguna Beach, CA.”

Kind readers, I am running short! Send your plantidotes as attachments to lambert [UNDERSCORE] strether [AT] protonmail [DOT] com. And if you put “Plant” or “Plantidote” in the subject line, I’ll be less likely to lose it. Gardens are fine. Gardening season approaches, at least in the Northeast! Fungi are honorary plants.