Streetwise Professor

February 28, 2026

Did Dario Amodei Ask Claude If He Was Being An Idiot?

Filed under: Economics,Military,Politics — cpirrong @ 2:48 pm

Life comes at you fast in the Trump era. Less than 24 hours ago, the bombshell story was Trump/Hegseth dropping the sledgehammer on Anthropic. Then I wake up to the news of US-Israeli decapitation strikes on Iran.

I’ll wait a bit for the dust to settle (literally and figuratively) before reacting to today’s news. Yesterday’s news deserves comment.

In brief, Anthropic–the company that created Claude AI–was in negotiations with the Department of War regarding use of customized versions of Claude on classified DoW systems. The negotiations stalled over the DoW insistence that Anthropic license Claude for all “lawful uses.” Anthropic insisted that the Pentagon not use it for “mass surveillance” or “fully autonomous weapons.”

An hour before the deadline for an agreement, Secretary of War Hegseth announced that the negotiations had been terminated. But that was only the beginning.

After Hegseth made that announcement, I mused on X that Anthropic was playing a dangerous game:

I was thinking of surreptitious pressure, with Bessent and others telling Anthropic’s input and capital suppliers to think twice about dealing with the company. But no. Within hours of announcing the end of the negotiations, Hegseth designated the company as a Supply Chain Risk, and forbade any company doing business with the Department of War from dealing with Anthropic.

Bad on me for thinking the administration would take the subtle approach!

This is a death sentence.

No doubt Anthropic will sue, and will move for an injunction. They may even get one. But that will not really help.

Consider all the suppliers to and collaborators with Anthropic (which includes Google, Amazon, and others). The risk of dealing with Anthropic just skyrocketed. Specifically, the legal risk. While litigation plods forward–and believe me, I can tell you from extensive experience Federal litigation plods–all these firms will calculate that any long-term engagement with the company could get blown up if the courts eventually side with the USG. So long term contracts, joint ventures, equity investments, and loans have a huge downside risk that didn’t exist 24 hours ago.

Real options analysis shows that the rational response to a spike in uncertainty is to defer making decisions that lock you in for an extended period until the uncertainty is resolved. So even if an injunction allows companies to continue to deal with Anthropic, they will rationally back off–way off–pending resolution. Yeah, maybe paper clip suppliers will continue to sell to Anthropic, but the real strategically important players won’t want to get locked into long-term arrangements with it.

Competition in AI is intense. The speed of innovation is intense. The legal risk itself puts Anthropic at a severe competitive disadvantage in such a hyper-fast-paced competitive environment. Thus, the punishment meted out by the process will likely be just as fatal as the actual implementation of the DoW order.

Some are calling this corporate murder. It isn’t. It is corporate suicide.

Seriously. Didn’t Anthropic CEO Dario Amoedi and his board ask Claude to generate scenarios of the effect of its refusal to toe the DoW line and which of those scenarios would be the most likely? Did he ask it if he was being an idiot? Because he was.

Now to the rights and wrongs. Here is Anthropic’s justification for its obduracy:

We support the use of AI for lawful foreign intelligence and counterintelligence missions. But using these systems for mass domestic surveillance is incompatible with democratic values. AI-driven mass surveillance presents serious, novel risks to our fundamental liberties. To the extent that such surveillance is currently legal, this is only because the law has not yet caught up with the rapidly growing capabilities of AI. (Emphasis added).

In other words, Amodei wants to arrogate to himself the power to require the Pentagon to act as HE thinks SHOULD BE legal, not what is legal. He wants to usurp the power of all three branches of the Federal government. That is obviously not his job.

If people believe the Pentagon has violated the law and the Constitution (in interviews he speaks of Fourth Amendment violations), they can bring suit. It is up to the courts, not Dario Amodei, to decide whether the Pentagon has or has not done so. Furthermore, Congress can act to “catch up” the law with the capabilities of AI. It’s not Dario Amodei’s job to become a law of his own.

Amodei’s argument is self-contradictory. On the one hand, he says he supports “lawful” uses. But then he says, not really, because he doesn’t like the law. Pick one, dude.

Now, you might counter that OK, then the US should just refuse to deal with Anthropic, but not try to whack it.

The Pentagon has clearly identified Claude as vital to the national defense. And, ironically, the company’s claims about its capabilities make the Pentagon’s case for it. So, the US needs Claude. The company refuses to provide it on acceptable terms. So it is necessary to compel them.

Or maybe you think Anthropic’s conditions are reasonable. They are not. These terms would essentially allow the company, at its whim, to impair the DoW’s use of Claude. That is, they could “hold up” the Pentagon.

Claude is a very specific asset, especially since it would be customized for Pentagon use. Even if DoW also employed other AI, it would not be able to replace at short notice the bespoke capabilities of Claude.

No rational party will subject themselves to such a massive holdup risk. The Pentagon clearly is rational about this.

Further, Anthropic would have legal recourse in the event it believed that the Pentagon was using Claude unlawfully.

Anthropic lamely argues that

They have threatened to remove us from their systems if we maintain these safeguards; they have also threatened to designate us a “supply chain risk”—a label reserved for US adversaries, never before applied to an American company—and to invoke the Defense Production Act to force the safeguards’ removal. These latter two threats are inherently contradictory: one labels us a security risk; the other labels Claude as essential to national security.

No contradiction at all. The “safeguards”–basically, giving Anthropic a kill switch that it can activate at is whim–are utterly incompatible with Pentagon use. Claude is a vital national security tool. Hence, force it is. Perfectly consistent logical sequence of actions.

It is ironic that Anthropic is not willing to accede to the Pentagon mere weeks after it screamed about three Chinese firms training their AI systems on Claude, thereby allowing the copycats to create systems with a substantial fraction of Claude’s capability. Meaning that the Chinese already likely have the capabilities that fret Amodei so much. And you can be totally sure that China will respect Amodei’s tender concerns for our liberties, amirite? But the US government is not to be trusted with these same capabilities, apparently.

A couple of admittedly subjective reactions.

When I first looked at some Amodei vidoes, I got a Sam Bankman Friedman vibe.

And wouldn’t you know, like felon Fried, Amodei is an “effective altruism” guy. This is disturbing. EA is a hyper-utilitarian “philosophy” that appeals to would be ubermenschen who often use it to justify their own psychopathy. SBF being the (imprisoned) poster child for this.

And as a general matter, be very, very, very suspicious of companies (and CEOs) that set themselves out as moral paragons. Remember “Don’t be evil”? Yeah, good times, good times. Or Bill Gates? I could go on. (And yes, Elon Musk fits too).

Lastly, maybe Amodei is suffering from Oppenheimer-like guilt and remorse over creating a power that has escaped his control. His attempt to restrict Pentagon use of the genie he freed from the bottle could be a desperate attempt to re-exert control. But he can’t. The genie is well and truly gone, and this faceoff with the Pentagon will in no way stop it.

February 26, 2026

And Canadian Journalists Hit Hardest of All

Filed under: Politics,Sports — cpirrong @ 4:05 pm

Yesterday I wrote how Canadians and journalists were hardest hit by the US hockey gold medal win. The intersection of those sets? Ooh-boy.

Two examples:

The articles are here and here. Because I’m sure you don’t pay to get behind Toronto rag paywalls.

The argument (being charitable in calling it such, rather than what it really is–an unhinged rant) is that American hockey players enjoyed their moment in the spotlight too much. They partied to hard. And most importantly, they became props for Trump.

Written like true losers who live up their own asses.

Any normal person not twisted into hate by political obsessions understands that this is a once in a lifetime moment for those players; a moment no American has enjoyed for 46 years; and which is of a character that virtually no American is likely ever to experience in his or her life. And particularly in athletics, it is known that fame is fleeting. The glory of a championship is intense, but extremely short lived, soon put in the shade by the press of events and new championships.

It comes to very few, and doesn’t last long when it does. So damn right–seize the moment boys, and milk every minute. It will soon be gone.

Appearances at the White House and the State of the Union focus national attention on the recipients and area great honor, and nonpareil recognitions of achievement.

And this national attention is particularly rare for American hockey players. Therefore, they have all the more reason to ride it for all it is worth.

But to Canadian journalists, and fellow leftist losers everywhere, the American players were supposed to take a pass on this never-to-be-repeated moment. Because Trump.

Cox tried to dress up his criticism of US (and Toronto Maple Leafs’) captain Auston Matthews as a product of concern for Auston’s NHL teammates. By basking in the (short) moment, Matthews did not return to meaningless mid-season NHL games “rested” and so let down his side. Which will matter squat when playoff time rolls around.

And tell me, how does dogpiling this guy help the Maple Leafs? If your concern is really for your hometown team you wouldn’t. So spare me this tut-tutting about the impact of a few days of celebration on the fate of Toronto’s season.

Would it be rude to point out that the Maple Leafs have sucked for decades? And are continuing to do so? They are four points out of the last wildcard spot in the (almost) everybody-gets-a-playoff-slot NHL. So midseason Leafs games are even more meaningless than the typical NHL February or March contest.

But here’s the real reason:

All he had to say was he understood the feelings of Canadians in these troubled times. He could have just skipped the White House nonsense, demonstrating much needed leadership and proof the Leafs were his top priority. But Matthews preferred to be feted by a president who dismisses the very idea of Canadian sovereignty.

Yes. Auston Matthews (and presumably other American players) had to forego an extraordinary experience because of Canadians’ feelz.

Why? It’s not about you all, and where do you get off by insisting otherwise?

Cox, by the way, is a real profile in courage.

“Elbows up.” So a real tough guy then, eh?

So tough you protect your posts. LOL.

Kelly also believes that it should have been all about Canada and Canadians, not America and American players:

Evidently, their big idea was to lean hard into the red, white and blue. Instead of sticking it to Canada, they’d stick it to the Libs. For 72 hours, it would be frat house rules.

I guarantee that the American team didn’t think that they were “sticking it” to anybody. They were basking in the attention and glory. If Canadians or leftist losers feel they’ve had it stuck to them, that says everything them and nothing about the players. Why should their political obsessions matter in the slightest? And why do they think they should?

The insufferably supercilious Kelly writes: “A few U.S. team members are being singled out as heroes for resisting the Trump allure.” Singled out by whom? Canadians and leftist losers, apparently.

Cry more!

Did I mention that Kelly is a supercilious twat?:

Colorado’s Brock Nelson didn’t go. Maybe it’s the politics. Or maybe he didn’t like the idea of being seen to put himself above his social betters – Avalanche teammates Nathan MacKinnon, Cale Makar and Devon Toews – all of whom had reported back for duty.

Social betters. Because they reported back to their teams. And why did they report back to their teams rather than bask in the moment? Not to put a fine point on it: because they didn’t have a moment to bask in, because they lost. And because they lost they didn’t have the opportunity that American players had. Social status had zip to do with it.

The evidently clueless Kelly undermines his own argument with this gem:

I’m pretty sure most of them didn’t have a serious think about what it meant, and will never do so. To them, it’s viral content and a great picture for the hero wall at home. If the U.S. were to elect a Communist, they’d have shown up to his party, too.

Exactly! Because it wasn’t about politics.

“What it meant.” Again–to whom? To Clueless Kelly and Damien “The Omen” Cox and Canadians and their American fellow travelers?

Again–it’s not about you lot, and your arrogance in insinuating that it should be is off the charts.

I have a suggestion for Canadians of all stripes, but journalists in particular. If you want Americans to have any respect for you, grow the fuck up.

And don’t say “we don’t care if the Americans respect us.” Oh, but you do. Desperately.

The virtually week-long national meltdown betrays Canada’s deep insecurity and envy of the US. The fact that America’s gold medal victory in what Canada considers its game occurred when Canada-mocking Trump is president only feeds the hysteria.

This is all about Canadian TDS and its national inferiority complex, and the more that Canadians protest to the contrary, the more they prove the point.

February 25, 2026

US Wins Hockey Gold. Canadians and Journalists Hardest Hit.

Filed under: Politics,Sports — cpirrong @ 3:31 pm

Usually if I don’t get on a story in a day, the opportunity is lost. Not so with the US hockey gold medal. Mainly because Trump. Because isn’t it always?

One striking thing has been what bad sports and sore losers the Canadians have been. Nothing but excuses.

“Game was decided in 3-on-3. Not fair.” Same rules for everyone. And more open ice gives an advantage to the team with the most dynamic offensive players, which was Canada here in part because the US made.a deliberate choice not to match Canada on this dimension and left its best offensive players off the roster. So if anything, 3-on-3 was a huge advantage to Canada.

And might I add: Canada failed to score on a 5-on-3 situation. And won its quarterfinal game scoring a goal with six skaters on the ice.

“The US goalie played out of his mind. We were better on the ice.” Yes, yes, he did. But last time I checked goalies are part of a hockey team, and they are on the ice. And it is a well know adage in hockey that a hot goalie can lead a lesser team to victory in playoff situations. True in a series, even more true in a single game. So, getting beaten by the goalie, well

“We would have won in a series.” Who cares? It wasn’t a series, and your strategery should have taken that into account.

Now to the American journalists. Or should I say, at the risk of redundancy, the anti-American journalists who have melted down like ice in July.

Here’s a representative example:

They didn’t lose the room Jerry, they lost your room, that being the bitter anti-American leftist loser room. Let’s call it the Bluesky room. Americans not of that persuasion were quite stoked by Trump calling the team to congratulate them, and having them in attendance at the State of the Union address last night.

What lost the leftist losers is that Trump called the team to congratulate them, and he told a joke. Which he is known to do They laughed uproariously. BUT IT WAS A MISOGYNIST JOKE THAT DISRESPECTED THE US WOMEN’S GOLD MEDAL TEAM!!! How dare they laugh at that!!!

All Trump said was if he didn’t invite the women’s team to the White House he’d get impeached. Given his history that’s a wry observation. And it was clearly directed at the leftist losers who are always trying to impeach him, not the women’s team.

By the way, Trump had already invited the women to the White House, but they deferred their visit due to scheduling issues.

I would add that expecting a group of guys riotously celebrating an epic victory to enforce the loser left’s speech codes is about the dumbest fucking thing imaginable.

As they say, if you can’t take a joke . . . Well, there’s a lot of . . . that needs to go around.

So this was one of those confected controversies that says a lot more about the loser left than Trump or US hockey players.

And I am so tired of sportswriters like old Jerry Brewer who apparently think that writing about, you know, sports is beneath them. They really aspire to be political and social commentators.

This is a consequence of journalist overproduction. Too many people aspiring to be political and social commentators for the jobs available, so they slum it in sports and inflict their deep insights on us until something better turns up.

I pine for the days when sportswriters were cigar chomping, heavy drinking guys who were obsessed with sports, knew their sports inside out, and didn’t have pretensions beyond that.

“Shut up and dribble” is a good rule for athletes. “Shut up and write about their dribbling. Period” would be a good rule for sportswriters.

Then there’s this piece of work, who attempted to denigrate the importance of the hockey win by claiming that ackshually the WNBA is a lot more popular than hockey.

WNBA TV audiences are bigger! So there!

Er, sample selection bias. The 960,000 number is for nationally televised WNBA games. The 440,000 number is for all NHL broadcasts, which includes every regular season game in every city, i.e., 80 times 32 local broadcasts. The total number of viewers of hockey therefore dwarfs the WNBA. For the finals series in the two sports, the WNBA averaged about 1.5 million; NHL about 2.5 million in the US and 4.4 million in Canada.

But the real clincher is revenue. The WNBA does not release revenue figures. (Gee, I wonder why?). Estimates are in the $300 million ballpark. NHL? 20 times as much–$6 billion.

So there’s no comparison between the WNBA and the NHL financially, but especially not on the court or ice. Hockey exhibits amazing athleticism and the current game is at its zenith. I tried to watch the WNBA. I really did. It was painful. Virtually no athleticism. Virtually no skills. God save us if women’s basketball is at its zenith.

But this woman writes for the Atlantic. Anyone who reads about sports in the Atlantic, HuffPost, the NYT, the WaPo etc. doesn’t really GAFF about sports, and knows less. But these outlets inflict their deep thoughts on us especially when they can do it to attack Trump and patriotic Americans.

So my parthian shot to them, and to the Canadians:

You lost. Now go put some ice on it.

February 24, 2026

Putin’s Special Needs Military Operation Turns 4 and Is a Debacle of Historic Proportions

Filed under: Military,Politics,Russia — cpirrong @ 2:54 pm

Today marks the beginning of the 5th year of Putin’s “Special Military Operation.” Special, indeed.

The special needs military operation is more like it. (NB: “special needs” is a euphemism that replaced the previous euphemism, “retarded.” The old once canceled but now reemerging euphemism fits in place of the new one with regards to Putin’s military misadventure).

Putin appears in no mood to call the whole thing off, despite the fact that at best the campaign is stuck and at worst is actually in retrograde, with casualties allegedly now exceeding recruitment rates. Indeed, he is doubling down on his rhetoric and making moves that suggest he fears that his public’s patience is finally wearing thin.

Putin continues to cast the war as an existential one for Russia: “Russia is fighting for its future, for independence, for truth, and justice.” His remarks on Defender of the Fatherland Day are delusional: “Your competent and courageous actions, your personal bravery and determination helped to carefully plan and brilliantly execute offensive operations by our troops in the most intense sectors and directions.”

Brilliant in what universe? Competence is nowhere to be found. Especially in the Kremlin.

And Putin makes it clear, as if there was ever any doubt, that he is the Tsar of Projection–not of power, but psychological:

“They did not manage to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia on the battlefield, so the enemy is relying on individual and mass terror: this includes shelling cities, sabotaging infrastructure, and assassination attempts on government and military officials,” he told an audience of FSB officials.

All of which Russia has done in Ukraine, and on a far greater scale.

And paranoia, too

“There is an absolute need to defeat Russia. They are looking for any way, anything at all. They will push themselves to some extreme point, and then they will regret it,” he said.

And more delusion. Putin order the FSB to “strengthen the anti-terrorist protection of energy and transport infrastructure and public gathering places, provide maximum coverage for critical facilities, and, if necessary, equip them with additional security measures.”

This allegedly in response to the continuing Ukrainian attacks on Russian energy infrastructure, and specifically oil assets. This includes a recent attack at an important facility on the Druzhba pipeline.

But note: Ukraine carries out these attacks with drones and missiles, which the FSB can do fuck all to stop. This rather pathetic gesture is effectively a confession that Russia’s vaunted air defenses can also do fuck all against them. If the VKS can’t defend Russian airspace, how are spooks going to?

Perhaps the most interesting and revealing development is Russia’s intensifying Internet crackdown, including most notably a throttling of Telegram, due to the app’s alleged use in terrorist attacks in Russia and by Ukraine and the West.

What’s particularly striking about this is that Russian troops rely heavily on Telegram for battlefield communications–due in large part to the shambolic nature of Russian communications gear and infrastructure (a glaring defect that was supposed to be fixed after 2008 but obviously was not). When added to the loss of the use of Starlink terminals–which the Russian military laughably denied using for their own comms, claiming instead that they just used them to spoof the Ukrainians–the already balky and disjointed efforts on the frontlines will be even less coordinated, responsive, and effective.

So what does this imply? It implies that Putin is more than willing to sacrifice military effectiveness (such as it is)–and soldiers’ lives–to strengthen his control over the domestic information space.

And why would he do that? Well, by far the most likely explanation is that he fears growing public discontent with the war, its cost, and the glaring disconnect between what Putin says about the war and the ugly reality on the ground. Not only is Telegram an important means by which Russian troops communicate with each other, it is the primary channel by which the troops share glimpses of how the war is going, how it is fought, and the gruesome toll it is taking.

If uncensored, it is also a means by which Russians can communicate with one another, not just about the war, but about economic and social conditions that are clearly deteriorating. This is a necessary (though not sufficient) condition to undercut preference falsification. Since this falsification is an autocrat’s best friend, the risk of its unraveling is an existential threat to Putin.

Hence, he wants to put communications through the government “MAX” app–which is mandatory on all smartphones sold in Russia, and which is surveilled by the state.

Maybe Russia can resurrect Max Headroom to do PSAs. Perhaps Putin has tasked the FSB to look into the “blipverts” that featured on Max’s show. Could be just what he needs.

These measures are not those of a confident man, any more than Europe’s current censorship mania signals its civilizational confidence. Instead, they are palpable signs of Putin’s fear that the unwavering domestic support for his not so excellent adventure in Ukraine is not so unwavering and might cascade into another Russian moment a la 1905 or 1917 or 1991.

I guess if you want to be optimistic, you could view this as Putin preparing Russia for a peace/ceasefire deal in Ukraine that falls far short of the objectives he laid out, and which would make the toll in blood and treasure of the last 4 years seem completely in vain. Limiting the backlash would require an even tighter grip on the populace.

But regardless, it is a clear sign that Putin has decided that his heretofore unchallenged hold over the Russian populace is slipping as the war grinds on without success, and he must take even greater control over the information space.

Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is the most catastrophic self-inflicted debacle of the post-WWII world, and ranks highly among the great debacles of all history. He has succeeded in killing and mutilating over a million Russians. He has gutted the economy for years and probably decades to come. He has made Russia a pariah state increasingly dependent on a mercenary China, and his justification that the world is ganging up on Russia has become a self-fulfilling prophecy rather than a description of past reality.

And for what? To conquer a country even more dysfunctional than his own. And he can’t even accomplish that.



February 13, 2026

On Economics, He’s Often Dumb Donald

Filed under: Economics,Politics,Regulation — cpirrong @ 11:36 am

Although I broadly support Trump on foreign policy and many domestic issues (notably immigration) I find his pronouncements and policy proposals on economic issues to be cringey at best, and downright idiotic at worst. As I discuss below, the emphasis is on “his”–many administration policies are actually quite laudable. But when he pontificates on economics–oi.

Tariffs are obviously front and center of any discussion of Trump policies. Here matters are more complex, precisely because one cannot evaluate them purely in terms of economic policy. Yes, like most economists, I believe tariffs qua tariffs are objectionable (with a caveat–see below). But with Trump, tariffs are a negotiating tactic, and even as such not just a means of extracting trade concessions from other countries. He employs them to achieve geopolitical objectives, such as forcing India to wean itself from Russian oil.

Even though one cannot evaluate Trump tariff-o-philia in purely economic terms, certain aspects of his tariff policies are positively daft. The most principled economic argument one can offer for tariffs is derived from the “theory of the second best.” Specifically, yes, tariffs are distorting, but so are other taxes. It is at least conceivable that raising revenue via tariffs is preferable to doing so through other taxes (including future income taxes, capital gains taxes, etc.).

But then Trump completely undermines that defense by promising/proposing to use tariff revenues to give every American a check, $2000 if memory serves. If implemented, this would leave us with all of the distortions of tariffs but none of the fiscal benefits.

Then there is the proposal to prevent corporate purchases of single family homes, purportedly to reduce the cost of homeownership. In justifying this proposal, Trump engages in all the blue sky and apple pie rhetoric about the wonders of home ownership that rationalized the policies of the 1990s and 2000s that culminated in the Great Financial Crisis.

The proposal and the rhetoric fail to answer–hell, even raise–a crucial question: why have corporations invested in single family homes? Are there some other underlying economic factors or policies that have driven this?

My conjecture is that it is the consequence of banking and lending policies adopted as a response to the (housing policy-driven) GFC that made mortgages more expensive and difficult to obtain. People who want to live in single family homes find it more economical to rent them than buy them, and the corporations are responding to that.

So if you believe the post-crisis regulations were needed and beneficial, the corporate purchases are a feature not a bug. Maybe you don’t think that these regulations are on the whole beneficial, but if that’s the case constraining corporate purchases will make things worse, not better. This won’t remove the constraint that is driving the purchases, but will reduce the supply of SF rentals.

In any event, suppressing a symptom without even attempting to understand the cause is a recipe for failure.

And then the other day Trump turns around and says he wants home prices to be higher. Choose one, man.

Then there is the policy of capping credit card interest rates. Here one cannot even make an argument like that for tariffs (i.e., there is some economic benefit that could offset the effect of the distortions). The effect of this will be to harm many of those it is intended to help. Credit card interest rates reflect the credit risk of those who use cards to borrow regularly, and often heavily. Capping rates will result in those people losing cards, and therefore access to that credit. Some will do without credit altogether. Others will turn to even more marginal and expensive sources of credit, such as payday or auto title loans.

All of these policies have something in common: they are fundamentally populist. Populist critiques of the current American system have considerable validity. However, populist policies are seldom salutary responses to those critiques.

The irony is that overall, Trump administration economic policy is pretty good. This is especially true regarding deregulation, with this week’s elimination of the Obama EPA’s CO2 “endangerment” finding being a particularly welcome example, but by far from the only one. Across the spectrum of energy, environmental, financial, and telecom regulation considerable progress has been made.

Maybe the best thing that can be said for Trump’s personal forays into economic policy is that his unmatched ability to attract attention and criticism is preventing critics from going after these good policies with the same intensity they otherwise might. Cringe has its uses, I guess.

Truth Is the First Casualty in the Trans Wars

Filed under: Politics — cpirrong @ 10:23 am

A hulking man trying to be a petite woman killed his trans-fan mother and 11 year-old step-brother before proceeding to a school he had dropped out of years ago to kill 5 12-13 year olds and a 39 year old librarian.

The killer had a long history of mental illness, and like the Parkland killer in Florida, his behavior had resulted in multiple police calls to his home. He was allegedly on antipsychotics and antidepressants. Whether he was undergoing or had undergone hormone replacement treatments is unknown, although he had discussed it on Reddit.

This whole sad, sick story supports a theory that I advanced some months ago, namely, that the social valorization of transgenderism attracts the seriously mentally disturbed. It turns the deeply disturbed from outcasts into “stunning and brave” heroes. It also allows them to avoid the interventions that are necessary to protect society–and themselves–from them.

That is, coming out as trans is a canny strategy for the crazy. The correlation between trans and mental illness is largely the result of the social validation of the former, which attracts the latter. I have little doubt that if trans had been a thing in 1999, archetypal school shooters Dylan Kiebold Eric Harris of Columbine infamy would have been trans.

And rather than questioning whether their history of validation and valorization of the trans made episodes like this one more likely, the media–and Canadian law enforcement and politicians–are leaning into it. Hard.

In lockstep, all legacy media have referred to the killer as a woman/she/her. Why? As one put it, they decided to “respect” the killer’s pretend identity and choice of pronouns.

Why in the name of all that is holy does a mass murderer deserve “respect”? It’s a sad testament to the destructive hold of trans ideology over our “elite” that this is their reflexive reaction. Rather than leading them to question whether their ideology feeds mass murder, they double down on it. Sick, sick, sick.

These people gladly sacrifice truth to ideology. The truth is that a deeply disturbed man cosplaying as a woman killed a bunch of kids. But that trust must be suppressed to perpetuate the idealization of such people.

They say that in war truth is the first casualty. That is definitely the case in the trans wars. And as in war generally, the body count in the trans war is rising.

February 6, 2026

Elon: To Infinity and Beyond! Again!

Filed under: Energy,Tesla — cpirrong @ 12:28 pm

Earlier this week SpaceX acquired xAI. Elon’s explanation immediately triggered memories, and set off alarm bells.

“SpaceX has acquired xAI to form the most ambitious, vertically-integrated innovation engine on (and off) Earth,” Musk, the top executive at both companies, said in the memo.

Just like his justification for the Tesla acquisition of SolarCity, which I excoriated at the time. I wrote that the vaunted “vertical integration” benefits then were chimerical, and indeed they proved to be exactly that. (Tesla’s subsequent performance does not gainsay that).

Elon used vertical integration as a distraction from the real motivation for the tie-up, namely, to bail out a related company (managed by relatives, to boot), the failure of which would have punctured Elon’s image as a colossus and genius.

As my X post (ironic, eh?) indicates, I had the same suspicions about the SpaceX absorption of xAI. I am not alone. Most of the subsequent commentary on it recalls the Tesla-SolarCity deal, and questions Elon’s vertical integration rationale. Examples here, here, and here.

The vertical integration story here strains credulity far farther than even the Tesla-SolarCity story. You see, energy is the huge constraint on AI and the data centers that it relies on. Terrestrial sources of power will be inadequate. Hence, space based generation and data centers will be necessary. Hence, synergy!

Elon also said the tie up will facilitate SpaceX’s true purpose–interplanetary travel. More synergy!

“The capabilities we unlock by making space-based data centers a reality will fund and enable self-growing bases on the Moon, an entire civilization on Mars and ultimately expansion to the Universe,”

To infinity and beyond!

Someday. Maybe. Here and now and the foreseeable future? Not so much. Think of all the technical obstacles that must be surmounted, and the time it will take to do so. This is a vision that will take decades to realize. At least.

NASA’s Artemis project, troubled and oft-delayed, envisions 9 Moon missions over the next decade, only the last of which involves astronauts remaining there for an extended period of time. Just think how long after that it will take to put data centers there. To call this pie in the sky is almost literal and a serious understatement.

This is all typical Elon razzle-dazzle to distract attention from fundamental business realities. X qua X is a dog of a business: the main benefit xAI gets out of that piece of the business is as a data source to train Grok.

AI is a massive capital suck. Moreover, the AI business is extremely competitive right now, with multiple players plunging huge amounts of capital into it. Since (like search) it is likely to be winner take all, or at least a few take all, when it matures, xAI’s success is by no means assured. It is therefore highly uncertain whether xAI will be able to obtain the necessary capital as a standalone entity.

By merging xAI with what is effectively a monopoly business, SpaceX, xAI can get capital from its dominant owner and reduce its need to tap the capital markets.

One could possibly tell an “internal capital market” story. External capital is costly. It is likely to be especially costly for xAI given the substantial competition and potential for asymmetric information (the company has a much better understanding of its prospects than outsiders). Given its robust near monopoly business, SpaceX’s capital market frictions are less, and it will potentially throw off free cash flow that it can invest in xAI. Thus, it may be efficient for SpaceX, rather than external capital markets, to fund xAI.

Maybe. But I’m skeptical. Methinks this is more likely a reprise of SolarCity. Use a healthy company to prop up a shakier one, as I posited in my X post above.

In terms of synergy, a Tesla-xAI tie-up would be far less fantastical. Self-driving and robotics (the new focus of Tesla) have a much closer relationship to AI than data centers in space do. Especially in the here and now.

But–and it is a big but–Tesla is a public company, meaning that there would be many more obstacles, legal and otherwise, to a merger with xAI. In contrast, Elon could combine SpaceX and xAI almost by fiat.

In sum, discount the ElonHype. In particular, whenever Elon says “vertical integration” run, don’t walk, to the nearest exit. The phrase a smokescreen intended to give a seemingly plausible business rationale for combinations that in fact have a very different motivation: keeping Elon’s empire intact.

Note: The phrase “To infinity and beyond!” was originally and inadvertently included in the quote box for Elon’s Moon, Mars, Universe statement. Although it was believable in that context, I have moved it outside the box.

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