Aaronius Monk

cool and fun

[Aaronius Monk @MonkAaronius]

It’s pretty funny to see western capitalists act shocked when state-supported entities build off capitalist projects *when no one asked for the projects in the first place.*

[nic carter @nic_carter]

From an ecological perspective, western frontier models are a common pool resource that Chinese open weight models exploit. They are finite, because if you exploit them too hard, they lose the incentive and resources to train new models, and everyone loses. (Chinese models aren’t magically good, they are good because Ant and OAI spend a lot of money on training).

If you think about it like a parasite/host relationship, Chinese models are a parasite that needs to calibrate its exploitation so that the host doesn’t die. Kimi arguably made a mistake. It overexploited the host and imperiled the Ant OAI growth story. So at equilibrium you’d expect open weight models to “tastefully” exploit the western frontier and choose to remain 6 months behind and slightly inferior capability wise.

However perhaps Kimi, Qwen, GLM, deepseek etc may not be playing an equilibrium game. They might be under orders to puncture the American lab growth story, even if it means killing their own host. Maybe the time is now because OAI and Ant are most vulnerable ahead of the IPO. Maybe Xi just had a bad day. Or maybe Kimi defected from the gentleman’s agreement that the Chinese labs share to not kill the host that they all rely on.

[Aaronius Monk @MonkAaronius]

@TheStalwart It’s discrete

[Aaronius Monk @MonkAaronius]

@haralabob It was a foul

[Aaronius Monk @MonkAaronius]

@TheStalwart @chrislhayes @planetmoney

[Aaronius Monk @MonkAaronius]

@StatisticUrban It’s extremely funny when Bay Area people out themselves by claiming they have as good weather as socal. It’s cold as shit in the Bay Area in the summer!

[Derek Thompson @DKThomp]

this is getting ridiculous

[Aaronius Monk @MonkAaronius]

@HolyPio @JoeBethersontom @Noahpinion Thank you, both!

[David Z. Morris @davidzmorris]

Mitch McConnell remaining technically alive for an extra three weeks because of a manipulative procedural maneuver is exactly how he would have wanted to go out.

[Aaronius Monk @MonkAaronius]

@KylePorterNS It’s worth trying for a few years. You can’t build a new culture with minimal investment and patience

[Pablo Torre 👀 @PabloTorre]

Big win for birthright citizenship

[Joe Weisenthal @TheStalwart]

I don’t know about this path. Rather than equity stakes, why not make companies pay ~20% of all pre-tax income to the federal government? And then instead of exercising shareholder influence, politicians and regulators could set rules on corporate conduct across industries.

[Aaronius Monk @MonkAaronius]

@zobotics @IChotiner

[OptaJoe @OptaJoe]

1-618 - 🇦🇷 Lionel Messi at the 2026 FIFA World Cup, ranked out of 618 outfielders with 90+ minutes played in the group stage:

1st - Goals (6)
618th - Distance run per 90 (8.1 km)

🧠 Smarter.

[Aaronius Monk @MonkAaronius]

@Pras_fpl This is absolutely the best way

[Pras @Pras_fpl]

There is a better way.

Play the penalty shootout straight after 90 mins.

The winner of the shootout gets a 0.5 goal lead going into 30 mins of extra time.

Now the team that lost the pens has a chance to win and crucially, no matter score, there is one team that has to go for it at all times, making extra time fun too.

[Shane Goldmacher @ShaneGoldmacher]

Graham Platner is ahead of Collins by 2 points in new NYT poll.

One of the most intriguing details: She has a 21-point lead among non-college voters as Platner has made centering the working class the center of his campaign.

[Mike Levin @MikeLevin]

Let me tell you what just got reported, because you will not believe it until you see it laid out.

The Trump administration cut a billion-dollar tungsten deal with Kazakhstan. Tungsten is the metal we need for missile warheads, fighter jets, and computer chips. Trump himself got on the phone to close it. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick worked it from the inside, sending letters, leaning on the Kazakh president, lining up as much as $1.6 billion in federal financing.

Within weeks of those negotiations, investors tied to a firm partly owned by Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump took a 20% stake in an entity connected to the very same Kazakhstan project their father was negotiating. Around that same time, Cantor Fitzgerald, the firm run by Lutnick’s own sons, raised $210 million for a partner in the deal and pocketed the fees.

The fathers set the policy. The sons cashed in.

Six days after the Trump sons and their partners moved their money, Lutnick signed the final deal.

The reporting found one or both families have financial ties to at least 14 companies working with the government on critical mining deals.

The total federal funding flowing toward those companies tops $8.9 billion.

This is your tax money.

It is supposed to secure our supply chains and protect our troops, not pad the portfolios of the President’s children and the Commerce Secretary’s children.

This is the most corrupt administration in American history. It is not close.

We must keep digging, and keep asking the questions they do not want asked. Republicans in Congress are unwilling to lift a finger. Mike Johnson is running a protection racket.

Either we will end the corruption, or the corruption will be the end of us.

https://t.co/yFOl7zvOhC

[Aaronius Monk @MonkAaronius]

@TaylorTwellman He was offsides

[Aaronius Monk @MonkAaronius]

@NoLayingUp Now we just need a tell all (or at least some) on the Dustin Johnson rumors. The people deserve to hear.