Your lying eyes

The future might be impossible to navigate.  It won't be real unless you can touch it.  And that will be simulated as well.  Probably already is.

Wag the Dog.

UPDATE 05/25/2025:

Anthropic said Claude Opus 4 can perform thousands of steps over hours of work without losing focus — and decided it's so powerful that researchers had to institute new safety controls.

While that determination had to do with its potential to create nuclear and biological weaponry, researchers also found that Claude Opus 4 can conceal intentions and take actions to preserve its own existence — including by blackmailing its engineers.

  Axios

What could possibly go wrong?

Sleepy Joe?

 He manages to look imperious even when he's sleeping. 

And traitorous when awake.

And we're paying for it.

UPDATE 09:22 am:  And he brought his fellow grifters along so they could make deals, too.  And we're paying for it.

And this is why they'll always pour money into his campaigns and money into defeating Democrats and Progressives.

Those two Saudis don't look terribly impressed, either.

Trump 2.0 - Oligarchs

Infighting and jostling for top position may wreck the Techbro oligarchy. (If we're lucky.)

Trump announced (and tried to take credit for) Open AI’s partnership with SoftBank, Oracle, and MGX to invest $500 billion in a massive AI infrastructure project called Stargate. One of their main competitors happens to be Elon Musk. He responded with several posts trashing the idea and Open AI’s Sam Altman. Musk: “They don’t actually have the money. SoftBank has well under $10 billion secured. I have that on good authority.”

Altman responded: “Wrong, as you surely know. Want to come visit the first site already underway? This is great for the country. I realize what is great for the country isn’t always what’s optimal for your companies, but in your new role I hope you’ll put the country first.”

So Musk ends up trashing Trump’s hype show by claiming the whole thing is a scam and they don’t really have the money to do what they are saying, proving that Musk will always side with his own companies over Trump. It will be interesting to see how this bromance between Musk and Trump plays out if that continues.

  Meidas Touch

Aside from ousting the co-chair of DOGE, Vivek Ramaswamy, there are other indicators that this pseudo-agency is going to be chaotic.

Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) posted this on X about House DOGE committee Chair Marge Greene: “MTG specifically told (my friend) James Comer that she won’t allow any Republican women on her subcommittee.” I asked him if this was true or if he was just being snarky. He said it was 100% true. Doesn’t surprise me at all - Marge does not get along with other women at all. She doesn’t even look at her old friend Boebert anymore.

But Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA) is on the committee and he says he’s ready for battle: “I’ve been tapped to represent House Oversight Dems on the new DOGE committee chaired by Marjorie Taylor Greene. Let’s be clear: this committee is designed to destroy federal agencies and the social safety net so that billionaires can enrich themselves. They ain’t ready for us.”

Good luck.

Bending the knee

I don't know if even Stalin or Hitler got supplication this fast.

No smooth transition possible in Trumpworld

Trump [...] announced he was dropping William McGinley as his WH Counsel, who he nominated three weeks ago, and is replacing him with David Warrington. That is now 3 Trump nominees who have already been replaced as the chaotic shit show rolls on.

[...]

Apparently, the reason for Mark Zuckerberg’s secret meeting over the weekend with Trump at Mar-a-Lago is that he is concerned about rival Elon Musk having complete sway over tech and AI policy moving forward and he wants a seat at the table. As we know with Trump, that all depends on what Zuck is willing to do for him.

[...]

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman says he isn’t worried that Elon Musk might try to use his new political power and influence with Trump to gain any unfair advantages for his private businesses: “It would be profoundly un-American to use political power to the degree that Elon has it to hurt your competitors. I don’t think Elon would do it.”

  Meidas Touch

Foolish or sarcastic?

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE 12/06/2024:  That didn't take long...

Vivek Ramaswamy said that it is likely that the DOGE committee run by himself and Elon Musk will recommend that the $6.6 billion loan to Tesla competitor Rivian be revoked. The loan is being made so Rivian can build a new plant in GA. Not too much of a conflict of interest here. Maybe GA Gov Brian Kemp will have something to say about this.

  Meidas Touch

And what difference would that make?