C. Travis Webb

Quixotic pragmatist. CEO Yo-Do Software Corp. Husband and father. Pack light. You're only passing through.

[C. Travis Webb @CTWebbPhD]

Small towns and working class aspirations will save America.

[C. Travis Webb @CTWebbPhD]

@AlexBerenson The only way AI is conscious is if Giulio Tononi panpsychism is right. He frames Φ, consciousness, as an almost always >0 value—even in simple systems. I sympathetic to the idea. It’s interesting, at least. But beyond that, they’re no more conscious than an avocado.

[C. Travis Webb @CTWebbPhD]

“Woke” is a secular form of Gnosticism. There is a secret knowledge that reveals the demiurge’s flawed creation. Call it whiteness if you’re a true progressive, capital if you’re a true communist, fiat currency if you’re a true conservative, all of them distort a pristine creation. And the Jews, well the Jews upset all gnostics because Rabbinacal Judaism takes this world as it is and calls it abundance.

[C. Travis Webb @CTWebbPhD]

I know you’re probably right about. But I do wonder if scientific discovery follows the same inverse power law that L.F. Richardson proposed for war. In this case, the frequency of discoveries decrease as the magnitude of the discoveries increase. I mean, I have no real evidence for this, just a baseline optimism about human ingenuity and in-group benignity.

[C. Travis Webb @CTWebbPhD]

One of the weird things about representations of white racial resentment on social media is how it relies on straw men to attack straw men.

I learned, in high school no less, that Rosa Parks was a pro civil rights agitator. I’d wager it’s in most (all?) standard US history books. Who doesn’t know this? And even so, so what?

Your (hopefully faux) ignorance is now the basis for what argument exactly? Civil rights movement… bad? Blacks had it… good? Organized protests… sneaky?

The outrage is fake. The reveal is fake. This is just a bad comedy bit.

[Wall Street Apes @WallStreetApes]

We have literally been lied to about everything

Matt Walsh “The Rosa Parks story you were taught in school was fake too. This was not just some woman on her way home from work. Civil rights leaders thought Parks would make a sympathetic face for their lawsuit and then told her, a longtime NAACP volunteer, to create a situation where she'd be arrested.

This gets sold to the public as totally organic when actually it's playacting to create ideal conditions for a court case or scandal.

The iconic photo of Parks on the bus was staged months after the incident as part of a press campaign. (The photo is shown in the clip)

The white man, sitting behind her in the bus photo was a journalist, which you probably didn't know.”

Let’s fact check this. It’s 100% true

What Actually Happened on December 1, 1955

Rosa Parks was a longtime NAACP volunteer and secretary of the Montgomery chapter. She had been deeply involved in civil rights activism for years (including work on cases like the Recy Taylor rape and voter registration efforts).

She was not just a random tired seamstress on her way home from work who spontaneously refused to move. Local civil rights leaders had been looking for a strong test case to challenge bus segregation.

They even had people cast for the role before Rosa Parks. Earlier attempts include 15 year old Claudette Colvin were passed over because leaders felt Rosa Parks, a mature, respected, married woman with a spotless reputation, would be a more sympathetic plaintiff in court and to the public

The Iconic Photo was 100% staged

The famous photo was taken on December 21, 1956, this is over a year after her arrest and on the first day the buses were integrated after the Supreme Court ruling

It was deliberately staged by journalists, Look Magazine and UPI, for a press campaign to dramatize the victory

The white man sitting behind her is Nicholas Chriss, a UPI reporter, not a random angry passenger or segregationist

[C. Travis Webb @CTWebbPhD]

Why is it a “talking point?” It’s just a point, a relevant point. Orban’s media manipulations are roughly analogous to the media manipulations that were consistently deployed by left-leaning media in the US, especially during the first Trump administration. The fact that Orban conceded does support the argument that Hungary is (at a minimum) a semi-functional democracy, and that Orban himself is not a dictator.

Moreover, placing institutions at democracy’s base is a dangerous framing, one explicitly rejected by the three most important articulators of the American ideal: Jefferson, Lincoln, and King. In fact, a pyramid isn’t a great analogy for a democracy. It requires a biologic metaphor, perhaps a cell, or a body.

At this point, neither the elites (established institutions and their spokespersons) nor the counter-elite (Trump, Vance, et al) have a solid handle on what actually makes America great. But I talk to people everyday, regular people who don’t live on social media, and for the most part they do. Let’s hope they win out.

[C. Travis Webb @CTWebbPhD]

@lessin I love this! And not (just) because Claude approves. Learning to use these tools is going to unleash so much creativity. Having a cogent, hyper-educated sounding board is the ultimate shortcut to original insights. Thanks for sharing. Appreciated the exchange!

[C. Travis Webb @CTWebbPhD]

But you can only follow it by eliding a lot of contrary data. It’s an attractive but ultimately unsatisfying explanation. In fact, when you really dig in, it’s not even clear Christianity is monotheistic—strictly speaking.

I’d probably ultimately disagree with the “tool” metaphor. Religion isn’t a tool. It’s an emergent property of social complexity, and that complexity does not necessarily drive towards a unitary (ie monotheistic) frame. It’s just one of several possibilities.

[C. Travis Webb @CTWebbPhD]

But this doesn’t map onto history. Monotheism emerged prior to imperial expansions in the Levant. Polytheism was the dominant religious form for thousands of years, even amongst very large geographically diverse empires. Then there’s China which is neither. Egypt was polytheistic, nearly went monotheistic, then settled into a kind of henotheism.

[C. Travis Webb @CTWebbPhD]

Cumulative estimate (October 2023–April 2026): Roughly 5,500–6,500+ total deaths in Lebanon from Israeli military actions (pre- and post-ceasefire combined, including the 2026 resumption). Civilian share is substantial but disputed—Lebanese sources and rights groups highlight high civilian impact (hundreds of women/children documented); Israel states the majority were combatants. Over 1 million displaced at peaks, with widespread infrastructure damage.
Hezbollah’s actions (rockets, border attacks) contributed to the cycle of violence and caused Israeli civilian/military deaths but resulted in far fewer Lebanese civilian deaths directly.
Key caveats:
• Figures rely heavily on Lebanese Ministry of Public Health data, which does not always distinguish combatants from civilians. UN/Amnesty verifications confirm many civilian incidents but cannot audit every case amid fog of war.
• Some deaths stem from indirect effects (e.g., collapsed buildings, delayed medical care).
• No other “Western” involvement (e.g., US/UK/France direct strikes) appears in records for this timeframe.
These numbers reflect the intense, multi-phase nature of the Israel-Hezbollah conflict, not sustained “campaigns” in the earlier years. For deeper incident-specific analysis, sources like the UN Human Rights Office (OHCHR), Airwars, or Amnesty provide case studies of alleged disproportionate or unlawful strikes. All parties have faced accusations of endangering civilians—Hezbollah for indiscriminate rockets, Israel for scale and targeting in populated areas.
If you’d like year-by-year tables, specific incidents, comparisons to other conflicts, or sources for further reading, let me know.

[C. Travis Webb @CTWebbPhD]

@BallouxFrancois Can you share these prompts and their results? I just asked this question of Grok and got a sourced and apparently reasonable response.

[C. Travis Webb @CTWebbPhD]

Tucker’s popularity has plummeted. So it’s easy to dismiss him and his lunatic speculations. But history is littered with fringe figures filled with religious or nationalist conviction who emerge from the margins to sway the multitudes.

I’m an optimist by nature, but this unsettles me. My Spidey-sense is tingling. I’ll very much look forward to being wrong.

[Joel Mowbray @joelmowbray]

🚨 EXCLUSIVE — Per Tucker's guest, "Most Christians... are Talmudic Jews wrapped in Christianity."

It was downhill from there.

Nathan Apffel said a "nefarious they" have secretly coerced evangelicals to support Israel — and bring the Antichrist — all "for the sake of controlling the world."

Apffel added that Jews and/or those who support Israel are not just "demonic," but are "workers" for "Satan."

Not surprisingly, Apffel loves Carrie Prejean.

The first clue from the interview that Apffel likes to repackage arguments from neo-Nazis and white nationalists — wrapped in a friendlier veneer — is his use of the term "Talmudic Jews."

No Jew uses that term, nor does almost anyone else. It's almost exclusively the province of people like Dan Bilzerian, the types who spread outrageous falsehoods about what is supposedly in the Talmud.

And yet, Apffel has built an influencer brand of a "peace, love & harmony" Christian — making his Jew-hating smears far more dangerous.

Rather than using the more common arguments, such as claiming that Christian Zionists are misguided or that Jews had exerted undue influence on the Scofield Bible a century ago, Apffel straight out said most Christians in America today support Israel because "the church, and especially the evangelical church, is being used [by a "nefarious they"] as a tool for a far greater agenda that most people can’t see or fathom at the moment."

In response to Tucker asking him, "Do you believe that there’s a spiritual component to this?", Apffel didn't hesitate.

"100%. I do firmly believe there’s a demonic component to this behind it all. And the church — again, the church and its resources are being used to do it."

Moments later, Apffel explained that this "demonic" group of Zionists have hijacked Christianity "for the sake of controlling the world."

When Tucker responded by saying this sounds to him like "the deception that Jesus promises will come at some point," Apffel immediately agreed. "Well, Satan came as light, and then he says, 'My workers will come as light also.'"

Screaming "Satan" or "demon" at Jews or anyone else who supports the Jewish state has become so common that even hippie surfer "preachers" like Apffel gleefully do so.

Never mind that the people who have carried out the most violent anti-Semitic hate crimes have been motivated by ideas suggesting that Jews are dangerous, that they run the world (or at least U.S. foreign policy), and/or that they are "Satanic" or the "Synagogue of Satan."

Even by those who have targeted small Jewish children.

But a supposed Christian like Apffel exhibits no concern that the venom he's peddling has already animated actual violence against Jews.

That's because it has become not just acceptable to demonize Jews, but normal, even profitable. (Megyn Kelly even bragged about this...)

And as long as these hate merchants keep getting clicks, they won't stop — even when violent thugs target Jews yet again.

No matter how many Jews may die.

[Physics & Astronomy Zone @zone_astronomy]

The highest quality video of the moon was just released… this is so beautiful.

[C. Travis Webb @CTWebbPhD]

It’s not a criticism; it’s a question. And I didn’t say anything about “journalistic integrity.” Parading retards in front of gawkers is a great American pastime—carnival barkers, bearded ladies, and what not.

My point is that Morgan is running a business. If these nutjobs and blowhards generate higher ratings then that’s a factor. He likely has viewership requirements for sponsors, etc. He can’t possibly say that because that’s breaking the 4th wall.

When it comes to Morgan, I see more bending principles than breaking them, which is different than Carlson, Owens, et al. Could be wrong, of course. Don’t know him.

[C. Travis Webb @CTWebbPhD]

@gummibear737 @piersmorgan Do we know what the ratings are for each of these guests? My guess is that the guests with provocative, edgy, incendiary content drive higher ratings. Maybe you’d argue it’s unprincipled to do this, but I’m not sure I’d agree. If I’m wrong about the ratings that’s a larger issue

[C. Travis Webb @CTWebbPhD]

You have a point, but I think that the average Americans’ politics are more complicated than this. Biennially mercurial is the only way to describe the electorate. Economics might be the gorilla in the room, but there are a lot of other good sized monkeys too. Too early to say what this will do to the midterms and his presidency—although midterms were looking bad for Rs before this.

[C. Travis Webb @CTWebbPhD]

This is what most people are missing about the AI revolution, and what Nietzsche got (mostly) right about language.

Language is a system of information storage and retrieval that preserves and refers to itself—metaphors of metaphors, metonymies, anthropomorphisms, etc. Probabalizing natural language inputs and outputs is a hugely impressive feat of engineering. But using language to produce language isn’t thinking. LLM’s aren’t wiggling, wanting, or awakening. They’re just (really) big language models that produce more language—from Mandarin to Erlang.

But Nietzsche got something wrong. He was wrong about the monkeys who invented language. He overestimated their vanity and underestimated their curiosity. We are vain, yes, and we aren’t as curious as we should be, no. But when given enough space to wander, wonder emerges naturally.

“AI” will produce new possibilities because the monkeys who produced it will use it to wander further than they have before. Wonder will emerge from this naturally—along with a lot of porn. AI is really going to make some next level porn.

[Dustin @r0ck3t23]

Yann LeCun just exposed AI’s fundamental flaw. We’re celebrating systems that can’t do what insects do effortlessly.

LeCun: “The biggest difficulty is not to get fooled into thinking that a computer system is intelligent simply because it can manipulate language.”

Language feels like intelligence because we experience it as the highest form of human thought.

So when a machine produces fluent, articulate, convincing text, the instinct is to conclude it understands.

It doesn’t.

LeCun: “It turns out the real world is much, much more complicated.”

Language is actually the easy part.

A sequence of discrete symbols with a finite number of possibilities. Predicting the next word is a tractable mathematical problem. Impressive at scale.

Not understanding. Pattern matching in symbol space.

The real world is something else entirely. A high-dimensional, continuous, noisy signal that changes every millisecond in ways no text corpus can capture.

Physical reality doesn’t come in tokens.

LeCun: “Which your house cat is perfectly able to deal with. But not computers yet.”

This is the Moravec paradox.

The things that feel hard to humans: writing essays, solving equations, passing bar exams. Computationally straightforward.

The things that feel trivially easy: walking across a room, catching a falling object, folding a shirt. Extraordinarily difficult for machines.

Your house cat navigates a complex three-dimensional physical environment in real time.

Predicts trajectories. Adjusts to surprises. Understands cause and effect through direct interaction with the world.

The most powerful AI systems ever built cannot do what your cat does before breakfast.

That’s not a minor gap. That’s the entire frontier.

Language is the easy problem that looks hard to humans.

The physical world is the hard problem that looks easy because evolution solved it billions of years ago.

We’re pouring hundreds of billions into making language models marginally better at the simple problem.

The actual intelligence problem remains unsolved.

LeCun has spent fifteen years on this. Not making chatbots more fluent. Giving machines the ability to understand, predict, and interact with physical reality the way animals do instinctively.

The benchmark that matters isn’t passing a bar exam.

It’s folding a shirt. Loading a dishwasher. Navigating an unfamiliar room without a map.

We built systems that can write your dissertation before we built systems that can tie your shoes.

That’s where AI actually is.

Everything else is autocomplete at scale.

[C. Travis Webb @CTWebbPhD]

Enjoy your work, but this top study isn’t a very convincing support for your thesis. It’s linked to earlier surveys that report this, according to the NYT.

“When the survey was conducted in 2023, 47 percent of those younger than 50 without children said they were unlikely ever to have children, an increase of 10 percentage points since 2018.

When asked why kids were not in their future, 57 percent said they simply didn’t want to have them. Women were more likely to respond this way than men (64 percent vs. 50 percent). Further reasons included the desire to focus on other things, like their career or interests; concerns about the state of the world; worries about the costs involved in raising a child; concerns about the environment, including climate change; and not having found the right partner.”

I am convinced that the overproduction of elites is destabilizing, and immiseration is culturally enervating. But there are other endogenous cultural factors that are upstream of status distributions.

The fertility crisis is real. And it is not entirely described by economics or class. I don’t agree with writers like Peter Zeihan who seem to believe population growth is teleological (i.e. material flourishing is the ultimate prophylactic). But I don’t think you’ve captured the magnitude or the complexity of the issue here.

[C. Travis Webb @CTWebbPhD]

The downside of this is the upside you’re lauding. Organizational layers protect organic structures, whether they be corporations, guilds, or municipalities. It’s the reason Federalism has produced such a robust defense against tyranny. The outcome you’ve described here, if it should come to pass, erases that mid-tier resiliency. I am in favor of AI and innovation. And I’m indifferent to the success or failure of the companies you mention. But the idea that only companies who produce things matter is just bleak—a kind of dystopian materialism. What you’re advocating for is the erasure of the imagined communities that make us human. I’m a fan of Musk and his larger vision, but this isn’t a path to buman flourishing.