Jon Brooks

“As always, life is a voyage between Scylla and Charybdis.” CGJ

[Jon Brooks @jonmeme]

“Seven countries in five years”?

[Elon Musk @elonmusk]

Why is it only pushed in the West?

[Jon Brooks @jonmeme]

Wondering what @amlivemon might say about this post by @DavidSacks

[David Sacks @DavidSacks]

While I’m no fan of socialism or arbitrary confiscations of wealth, I can see why Bernie Sanders’ proposal (for the government to take a 50% stake in AI companies) resonates, including with many on the right.

The CEOs of the leading AI labs have told us repeatedly that they will cause massive job loss. This is not a story that I believe, nor does the data bear it out, but this is what they have told us. Similarly, they have hyped the risks of AI without putting an equal or greater emphasis on the benefits or readily available mitigations.

Conservatives have another fear. The employees of the leading labs claim to be philanthropic, but what we’ve seen is massive enrichment of NGOs advancing an agenda at odds with traditional values, fueling a revolution against our cities and communities. Soros-maxxing is not charity in our book.

Anthropic and OpenAI have established themselves as Public Benefit Corporations. What could be more in the public benefit than using half the wealth generated by these companies (which trained for free on the collective knowledge of humanity) to pay down the national debt? There is no ideological bias in that philanthropy.

Dario and Sam have begun to walk back their claims of massive job loss, but the damage to public trust is done, and now the chickens are coming home to roost. I could almost support the Sanders proposal as a stupidity tax.

There’s just one problem. Nationalization of AI will accelerate the corporate-government fusion we’re already sliding toward. Conservatives rightly fear a Central Bank Digital Currency. They ought to be even more concerned about Central Government AI — a system with even more totalistic power over information, decision-making, and human behavior.

We saw how social media was weaponized to censor conservatives (including President Trump) in the last Democrat administration. The definition of “trust & safety” expanded to mean protecting the public from supposed psychological harms, micro-aggressions, and disinformation (you know, like hearing conservative ideas or true facts about Covid).

That “safety” agenda as applied to AI will be vastly more powerful and Orwellian. AI won’t just moderate posts; it will curate reality — with the ability to rewrite history, enforce ideological conformity, influence policy at scale, mass surveil Americans, and condition the benefits of the many systems it controls on approved behavior.

America won’t win the AI race if we beat China but end up with a CCP-style social credit system in the U.S. — and that is the danger as the government becomes more deeply involved in AI development and assumes direct ownership and control.

Conservatives are right to fear where this is all headed but ought to think more carefully about how regulations they are flirting with now (that are widely celebrated among those with a long history of lust for Big Government) will be used against them the next time a Democrat administration is in power.

[Jon Brooks @jonmeme]

Yet again, @amlivemon reveals economic statistical deception masquerading as fact

[Live Monitor @amlivemon]

The sentiment surrounding Non-Farm Payroll data has shifted dramatically, with a growing number of market analysts and everyday investors viewing the monthly report with open skepticism, if not outright cynicism. What was once considered the gold standard of economic health indicators is now frequently dismissed as a lagging, highly manipulated metric. The core of the frustration lies in the disconnect between Main Street reality and Wall Street headlines. Critics point out that the initial, market-moving NFP numbers are routinely subjected to massive, quiet revisions months later, effectively rendering the first splashy data drops misleading. Furthermore, the rising dominance of part-time, low-wage positions over stable, full-time careers means a "positive" jobs report often masks a fragile and degrading employment landscape.

This skepticism exposes a more cynical economic reality: the modern statistical apparatus has perfected the art of rebranding inflation as growth, spinning a financial mirage. When the government calculates GDP and productivity, it uses deflators to account for rising prices. However, by understating true inflation, the actual, bruising cost of living felt by consumers, the data artificially inflates economic output. We are left with an illusion where higher nominal spending, driven entirely by skyrocketing prices rather than increased production or genuine prosperity, is celebrated as expansion. The NFP and concurrent economic data sets act as the bedrock of this illusion, allowing policymakers to point to a "strong" economy while the underlying purchasing power of the average citizen continues to erode.

[Jon Brooks @jonmeme]

Indeed!

[Dave Collum @DavidBCollum]

This is the most sober and sobering analysis of AI investing that I have seen. The cannibalizing the passive flows in idices has been buzzing in my head for weeks now...

https://t.co/DNHnWSUUsr

[Jon Brooks @jonmeme]

@GadSaad go after the source. Starmer is their boy!

The Spider's Web: Britain's Second Empire | The Secret World of Finance - YouTube https://t.co/hMXgy8meLo

[Jon Brooks @jonmeme]

The City of London ?

[Gad Saad @GadSaad]

There is no greater crime than a parasitic government that repeatedly steals from you under the guise of the greater collective good. I have more stories to share but I’ll refrain from doing so for now. It is truly unimaginable what is tolerated. I’m livid.

[Live Monitor @amlivemon]

Smart

[Dave Collum @DavidBCollum]

Everytime Fink opens his mouth evil gruel comes out...

https://t.co/IqOsvLYdhI

[Gregory Travis @greg_travis]

I found an old early 1980s photo of my dad's girlfriend and my sister down by the Ohio river near Tell City, Indiana

But I wanted a precise location

I uploaded the picture to Claude and asked if it could identify the location. It said:

"The most likely candidate is the overlook at or near Shrader-Weaver Nature Preserve or the bluffs along State Road 66between Tell City and Cannelton"

I said:

"The Shrader-Weaver woods is in Connersville, IN well north of this"

It said:

"You're absolutely right, my error — Shrader-Weaver is in Fayette County, nowhere near the Ohio River. Thank you for the correction."

This shit is worthless

[Jon Brooks @jonmeme]

“ . . . may have . . . “ ?

[Dave Collum @DavidBCollum]

The day the internet went live we may have set society on a course to global totalitarianism...

https://t.co/GRtVjI4LKc

[Live Monitor @amlivemon]

Naw

[NIK @ns123abc]

🚨 Under oath to the U.S. Senate, May 2023:

Altman: "I have no equity in OpenAI."

Today on the stand in federal court:

Musk's lawyer: "Were you under oath at that hearing?"
Altman: "Yes."

Musk's lawyer: "And you didn't disclose to the Senate that you had an interest in OpenAI through a share in the Y Combinator fund, did you?"
Altman: "I didn't mention it in that testimony."

Musk's lawyer: "Are you going to notify the United States Senate that your testimony on May 16, 2023 was not truthful when you said, 'I have no equity in OpenAI?'"
Altman: "I don't agree with that characterization."

Musk's lawyer: "I'll take that as a no."

TRUTH: When Altman told the U.S. Senate he had "no equity in OpenAI," he held two indirect equity stakes via Y Combinator and Sequoia.

Neither was disclosed to the Senate that day.

[Live Monitor @amlivemon]

Youre just a jackass trying to distract from inflation

[Jon Brooks @jonmeme]

The ongoing struggle of @BillGates for relevancy . . .

[Mario Nawfal @MarioNawfal]

Bill Gates: "6% of global emissions are cows who burp and fart methane to an extreme degree.

You can either fix the cows, or make beef without the cow."

Can we just fix Bill instead?

[Jon Brooks @jonmeme]

@amlivemon says what most won’t . . . !

[Live Monitor @amlivemon]

We need gleaming cities on Mars because we cant fix LA or Miami. 😂

This is peak bullshit in the markets.

Bankrupt money printing 3rd world style country going to colonize the galaxy while 2/3rds of its population goes obsolete due to AI.

Well done boys.

[Jon Brooks @jonmeme]

They . . . .?

[Elon Musk @elonmusk]

If they’re willing to die to assassinate, imagine what they will do if they gain political power

[Jon Brooks @jonmeme]

Roy Cohn logic . . .

[Kaveh Shahrooz کاوه شهروز @kshahrooz]

Can someone explain the logic of the US blockade? It's not immediately obvious to me.

[Jon Brooks @jonmeme]

Who was Robert McNamara . . . ?

[Elon Musk @elonmusk]

Yes

[Jon Brooks @jonmeme]

Thanks for posting this!

[Ethan Brooks @alt_w_v_g]

Downloaded an app this morning

It asked me to accept the terms and conditions

197 pages

I read them

Because that's what I do

By page 12 I'd granted them an irrevocable, perpetual, royalty-free license to my data

That's the same language I see in contracts worth more than my house

For a free app

By page 41 I'd agreed to resolve all disputes through binding arbitration in the state of Delaware

I've never been to Delaware

No jury trial

No class action

No discovery process

They gave themselves more legal protection than most Fortune 500 vendor agreements I've reviewed

By page 87 they'd reserved the right to modify the agreement at any time without notice

So I agreed to terms that can change after I agreed to them

I've reviewed contracts with better reps and warranties than this

By page 134 they could terminate my account at their sole discretion with no obligation to refund anything

Unilateral termination with no cure period

My board doesn't even have that

No one reads this

They designed it that way

197 pages for an app that tracks my water intake

I've signed deals with shorter contracts

My wife asked why I've been staring at my phone for two hours

I said "a contract disguised as a checkbox"

She looked at the ceiling

Make common sense common again

Sent from my iPhone

[J.K. Rowling @jk_rowling]

If you're the mother who was reading Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone aloud to your child on the LNER train from London to Edinburgh yesterday, one of my grown up children was listening and says you did the voices brilliantly❤️🥹