Nicolas Marchand

Je préfère construire des idées que posséder des murs — et une fille à qui les transmettre. MCA, SafeWorld Map, Adventure World Intelligence

[Jason D. Clinton 🔸 @JasonDClinton]

as bad as things have gotten in the past 4 days, they are going to get a lot worse before they get better. security leaders, never let a crisis go to waste: please go to your boards and ask for help right now. not for ai, for the basics. (we need to hold on for ~18 months.)

[john milinovich @jmilinovich]

# Black October

For anyone who knows me even somewhat well, it's clear that I am a 99th percentile tech optimist. However, the vibes have shifted for me quite a bit in the last 18 hours, and I feel a moral imperative to share what I'm thinking and feeling with my circles so that everyone can understand, and hopefully take seriously, what's happening right now. I think October 2026 will have many chapters written about it in the history books.

You know those scenes in financial movies like Margin Call where someone realizes that they're all fucked, and no one else sees it yet? And that person feels like they're crazy, and then suddenly everyone is pulling an all-nighter in a boardroom and freaking out? Yeah, that's kind of how this is feeling right now in the SF/Bay Area/AI circles.

We're 48 hours into what is being called Black October. In the last 2 days there have been several dozen cyber attacks which, in isolation, would each have been the worst to happen in an entire calendar year. Every sector from government to education to big tech and banks is being massively affected, and people are starting to freak out.

In a nutshell, what's happened is that frontier AI models have gotten to a point where they are as advanced as the most sophisticated programmers, with one critical difference: they can work 24/7, and you can spin up 10,000 of them with a single command and they'll work together tirelessly until they accomplish their task. The most advanced models today are from companies like Anthropic and OpenAI, whose current best technology is so good that they haven't been able to roll it out to everyone yet because of the national security risks it poses.

Meanwhile, the best open source models (where anyone can just download the model weights and do whatever they want with them, uncensored) are slightly behind the frontier but still 90-95% as capable. These models, developed primarily in China, are being used by black hat hackers to wreak havoc on the Western capitalist structure. Presumably, this has been part of China's plan the entire time, and we're seeing its implications fall out in real time.

In red-pilled AI circles, we've been sharing and reading papers called things like "Situational Awareness" and "AI 2027" for the last year or so, which at the time felt a bit like near-term speculative fiction. They laid out the case for why Artificial General Intelligence (AI smarter than any human at any knowledge task) and Recursive Self-Improvement (models that are able to use themselves to get better) weren't half-baked future ideas anymore, but instead an inevitable outcome of the linear progress that's happening.

These papers would then talk about things like "takeoff scenarios," trying to envision how that moment would come to be and what it would be like when it happened. It would either be a "slow takeoff" that would play out over the course of months and quarters, happening subtly and only obvious to a few. Or, it would be a "fast takeoff" where it would pretty much happen instantly, like a bit flipping from 0 to 1.

From everything that I can see and am feeling, we are currently experiencing the fast takeoff scenario. Beyond the crazy security vulnerabilities that have come out recently, there have also been massive breakthroughs in life sciences, fundamental computer science, materials science, and pure mathematics that have all landed in the same time frame. While I still firmly believe that AI will be a net positive for humanity, it's more clear to me than ever that the societal and individual risk is very real, and is playing out NOW.

For as much conviction as I have that this is happening, the thing that's caused me to lose sleep is that I don't really know what to do about it, or more importantly, what to tell you, reader, to do about it. So, the best I can do is make a few suggestions that have always been a good idea but are more timely now than ever:

Set up 2-factor authentication for everything. I use Duo.
Use a password manager across your devices. I use 1Password.
Get an identity protection app set up. I use Alta.
Move your IoT devices to their own network. Claude helped me do this.

And last, but certainly not least, if you've been avoiding leaning into AI, see this as a catalyst to wake up and start using it. Don't just use the chat mode version of ChatGPT/Claude; click that Code/Work button and see how easily you can have AI write code to help you with your job. One of the biggest vulnerabilities was in a massively popular programming language called PHP, and the prompt that set it off was literally, "Find vulnerabilities in php."

This is an unprecedented time for humanity, but as we've done with many things before, we will prevail so long as we are kind, loving, and open-minded to the world.

Much love.

[arvy Macro Cycles @arvyMacroCycles]

S&P 500, 1968–1982:
Nominal: +15%
Real: −69%

Inflation doesn’t crash the market. It hollows it out.
Our 30–40 year cycle: commodities in a secular bull, bonds in a secular bear. That’s the regime where this happens.

[jack @jack]

bitchat 🇫🇷

[Nayib Bukele @nayibbukele]

Pou chèf gang yo ak manm gang yo k ap kenbe kat konpatriyòt nou yo an otaj ann Ayiti:

Mesye nou kidnape yo pa konbatan. Yo se teknisyen nan domèn avyasyon ki fè pati misyon nou ann Ayiti, nan kad yon misyon entènasyonal. Misyon nou an gen sèlman pilòt ak pèsonèl teknik, ki gen kòm travay prensipal fè evakyasyon medikal epi sove lavi moun, pa fè lagè.

Men, nou te kidnape yo yon fason lach pandan yo t ap retounen apre yo te fin achte manje nan yon makèt nan zòn nan.

Se poutèt sa, jodi a nou te lanse yon operasyon militè pou pote yo sekou. Nou gen yon sèl objektif: fè kat konpatriyòt nou yo retounen lakay yo vivan, san okenn mal.

Men, mwen vle pou nou menm, chèf gang yo, konprann yon bagay byen klè: atak jodi a pa anyen devan sa k ap vini si nou pa remèt toule kat otaj yo vivan.

Epi pa pran pawòl nou yo pou menas san fondman. Nou deja fini ak gang yo nan El Salvador, e nou kapab fini ak nou tou.

Nou toujou gen tan pou evite sa.

Remèt nou kat konpatriyòt nou yo vivan, san okenn mal, epi tout bagay ap retounen jan sa te ye anvan kidnaping lan.

Desizyon an nan men nou.

[SightBringer @_The_Prophet__]

⚡️ You were born into a universe that existed long before you.

Yet somehow, within that universe, something awakened that could ask why it existed at all.

The ego says:

“I am this separate thing moving through reality.”

The deeper structure says:

Reality is temporarily experiencing itself from here.

And that changes the purpose of life.

The purpose becomes participation in the deepening of reality.

To perceive more truth.

To integrate what was fragmented.

To turn chaos into order.

To transform suffering into understanding.

To create beauty that previously did not exist.

To love another center of consciousness so completely that separation becomes temporarily transparent.

To increase the amount of reality that can recognize itself.

That may be why truth, love, beauty, and goodness feel strangely connected across civilizations. They all increase coherence between the local perspective and the deeper structure.

Falsehood fragments.

Hatred fragments.

Domination fragments.

Self-deception fragments.

Truth integrates.

Love integrates.

Understanding integrates.

Creation integrates.

The whole game may be coherence discovering itself through conscious beings.

Then the deepest answer to death becomes almost paradoxical.

You were never here merely to avoid disappearing.

You were here because for one impossible interval, existence became you.

It looked through your eyes.

It encountered itself through your relationships.

It gave you genuine freedom over what kind of pattern would pass through your aperture into the world.

And when the aperture closes, the whole retains everything that occurred through it.

The deepest compression:

Consciousness may be the interior of reality itself. Individual lives are temporary openings through which that interior becomes a particular someone. Birth opens the aperture. Life gives it a world. Death closes it. What looked through may be older than the opening itself.

And beneath even that:

Maybe existence is not moving toward consciousness.

Maybe consciousness was there at the root, and the universe is the long process by which it learns to recognize itself.

[SightBringer @_The_Prophet__]

⚡️France is confronting something far more threatening to sovereign power than Bitcoin itself:

The emergence of money that can circulate globally without passing through the institutions governments historically used to control it. Stablecoins have quietly erased a critical boundary. An investor can sell Bitcoin, preserve the proceeds in digital dollars, move that purchasing power across jurisdictions, and redeploy it without entering the traditional banking system.

France’s proposed tax treatment targets the moment speculative wealth becomes stable, dollar-denominated liquidity.

The deeper revelation is that the state is losing its historical control over the infrastructure through which wealth becomes money.

And France’s response reveals the next phase. Governments will increasingly move enforcement away from transactions occurring inside banks toward the legal identities of asset owners, regulated exchanges, and stablecoin issuers. The blockchain can remain decentralized while the economic activity surrounding it becomes subject to increasingly sophisticated jurisdictional controls.

But this creates a powerful second-order effect. Taxing conversions into stablecoins incentivizes investors to preserve exposure through collateralized borrowing, derivatives, and other structures that defer realization. The tax code begins shaping the architecture of digital finance itself.

The dominant outcome is a bifurcation of the monetary system. Compliant financial infrastructure becomes more deeply integrated with government oversight, while globally mobile capital seeks increasingly sophisticated ways to operate beyond domestic intermediaries.

And there’s an extraordinary irony here.

By treating stablecoins as realized monetary wealth, France is effectively acknowledging that privately issued digital dollars already function as money.

The state can determine how its residents are taxed. It cannot unilaterally determine which monetary networks the world chooses to use.

The coming struggle is over who controls the boundary between owning wealth, converting it into money, and moving it across the world. Whoever controls that boundary controls an enormous part of the future financial system.

[Nayib Bukele @nayibbukele]

J’ai entendu dire que la France était finie, qu’il était trop tard pour la sauver.

Mais la France est toujours aussi belle, enviable même. Sa grandeur n’a pas disparu, elle ne demande qu’à renaître.

Nous avons surmonté en un an un problème cent fois plus grave, sans avoir les moyens dont dispose la France.

La France pourrait y arriver en une semaine.

[SightBringer @_The_Prophet__]

⚡️Musk is attempting something far more consequential than a $10.7 billion giveaway.

He’s creating a generation of Americans with a direct financial interest in the success of one of the country’s most strategically important companies.

The genius of the structure is the distribution. One share per child creates millions of individual ownership relationships while leaving concentrated corporate control largely intact. A $146 gift has limited immediate economic significance. Its potential power comes from what happens afterward.

Every SpaceX milestone becomes personal. Every increase in valuation raises the value of an asset held by American families. And every political battle involving SpaceX now has the potential to become a debate over the financial interests of those families.

Musk is attempting to convert corporate success into a form of distributed political legitimacy.

But the mechanism goes deeper.

SpaceX already operates in sectors central to American strategic power: launch infrastructure, satellite communications, and defense. Its relationship with Washington will become increasingly consequential as space infrastructure expands.

By distributing ownership across American children, Musk would begin aligning three constituencies that historically had different interests: shareholders, the federal government, and ordinary households.

That alignment becomes especially powerful if SpaceX continues appreciating over decades. Children who receive their first share could eventually become adults whose earliest investment was tied to America’s space infrastructure.

Musk is trying to turn SpaceX from a company Americans depend on into a company Americans feel they own.

And the deeper consequence is the precedent.

Private control of critical national infrastructure becomes easier to defend when millions of citizens have been given a financial stake in its success.

If executed, this would be an unusually ambitious attempt to transform concentrated corporate wealth into mass ownership without surrendering the underlying concentration of power.

[Ben Calusinski @BCalusinski]

There comes a time in the life of any intelligent, successful person where the delta between them and the people around them becomes so wide that they can no longer really relate to each other in the same way

This was always the case to some degree, but eventually you reach a critical point where the experiences you’ve accumulated, the patterns you’ve recognized, and the competence you’ve developed are so far removed from those of your peers that even people who were relatively close to you early on can no longer really understand your perspective

I see this as both a good and a bad thing. You ofc have a degree of freedom and a way of seeing the world that you probably wouldn’t trade, but there’s also a growing lack of relatability

You can see people making decisions that you feel relatively certain aren’t going to work out, because you’ve already experienced the downstream consequences of similar decisions, or you’ve seen the pattern play out enough times to understand where it’s heading

Yet trying to explain this to them often makes you sound delusional. They haven’t had the experiences necessary to understand why you see things the way you do, and from their perspective, you’re the one who’s detached from reality

The main problem with this is that you eventually start questioning whether you’re actually delusional

Because you look around and everybody is doing something different. They’re following conventional paths and making decisions that seem perfectly reasonable to them. Meanwhile, you’ve developed a very different model of how things work, and you can see the flaws in a lot of what they’re doing

But what if you’re wrong? What if you’ve just constructed an elaborate narrative around your own experiences and convinced yourself that you see something other people don’t?

The irony is that the ability to question yourself is part of what allowed you to get here in the first place. You had to be sufficiently self-aware to recognize when something wasn’t working and continually update your model of reality

So then you find yourself caught between two things: the recognition that your own way of seeing things has repeatedly produced results, and the fact that almost everyone around you seems to be operating according to a different set of assumptions

And I think the best answer is to continue leaning into what got you here, while remaining sufficiently self-aware to recognize when you’re wrong

Because if you’re going to do anything meaningfully different, there will inevitably be periods where the evidence available to you makes sense before it makes sense to anyone else

[MartyParty @martypartymusic]

Wow right on cue.

@Ledger announced the Ledger Atom today (October 15, 2026).

Ledger Atom is a smartphone-shaped Android device (data-only eSIM — no voice calls, SMS, or emergency services) that combines everyday apps with Ledger’s hardware security model. It runs two environments:

Standard Mode: Android (open-source) for regular apps, browsing, and general use.

Secure Mode: Controlled by Ledger OS on a separate Secure Element (plus an FPGA that physically isolates the display and touch input from the Android side).

When a sensitive action is needed (crypto transfer, AI agent approval, login, identity proof, etc.), the device switches to Secure Mode. Ledger OS renders the details itself on a Trusted/Secure Screen that Android software cannot see, modify, or forge. You must enter a distinct Ledger OS PIN and physically tap/approve on the isolated touch path. A Secure Bar (controlled only by Ledger OS) indicates you’re in Secure Mode.⁠

This is the @solanamobile tested architecture.

https://t.co/BC9WhjoJdm

[DogeDesigner @cb_doge]

Here’s the full Tesla Roadster unveiling event.

0:15 – Crazy Tesla + SpaceX collab preview
2:25 – Last manually driven Tesla car
2:53 – Taking it way past the limits
3:15 – Countdown & first flight works
5:38 – Flying cars are real
5:41 – Peter Thiel flying cars quote
6:02 – Fan suction system (up to 2G)
6:16 – Downforce & crushing track records
7:08 – Starman appearance
7:52 – Rocket thrusters & full gymnastics
8:52 – Kickflip demo (Tony Hawk approved)
9:32 – Real road car + rocket car future
9:56 – Air tanks, nozzles & specs
10:14 – Rechargeable ultra-high pressure air
10:36 – Car reveal & aerospace design
12:50 – Fan modes 
13:37 – Variable pitch rear wing
13:50 – 0-60 goal under 1 second
14:21 – Acceleration demo
16:22 – 0.81s 0-60 achieved
16:26 – Production car will be even quicker
17:05 – World’s quickest production car
17:28 – Top speed & Snake River Canyon teaser
18:26 – Mach 0.5+ goal
18:52 – First best flying car + last best driver’s car
19:04 – Production starts 2028

[STUNNER @Cr7Godbrand]

Marriages survived because men had the heart to endure women.

It lasted for generations because of MEN. Because of our emotional intelligence and our compassion for our wives.

Not because women were good partners. Because men learned to overlook a lot of stupid shit women do just to let peace reign.

Let's be real, women are NOT easy to live with.

They are not romantic. Their whole idea of romance is RECEIVING. What he bought for me, where he took me, what he did for me. Never what they give.

They are not funny. They are overly sensitive, they hate accountability, they hate saying sorry, they hate initiating sex with their own husbands, and they are controlling as hell. Stubborn and rebellious.

And that domestic violence you hear about in marriages? Most of it is STARTED by the wife. Pushing, slapping, throwing things, talking reckless, provoking until the man reacts. Then she wants to play victim.

Look at any relationship that doesn't have a man in it,it doesn't work.

Lesbians? Highest divorce rate. Highest abuse rate. Because there is no man there to tolerate their violence and their emotions. Two women together can't handle each other.

Female friendships? Even worse. Pure gossip, backbiting, jealousy, cutting each other off over the most childish things.

They will have 10 female friends by 2022. By 2026, only 2 are left. She has fought with ALL of them. Every single one is now an enemy.

But men are the problem.

[MartyParty @martypartymusic]

“Buy crypto“ has begun trending worldwide on @Google

Bull market has begun.

[Dividend King 👑 @Divs_King]

Est-ce que vous me croiriez si je vous disais que des députés ont déposé ce week-end un amendement au projet de loi de finances pour faire passer la flat tax de 31,4% à 34,4% ?

Non ?

Cela vous semblerait totalement dingue que des gens payés avec votre argent cherchent encore à augmenter les impôts du pays le plus taxé du monde ?

Eh bien pourtant…

[MartyParty @martypartymusic]

Wyckoff Distribution in full effect - early calls looking at $155k to $170k blow off then $110k Re- Accumulation. Follow weekly logarithmic Im in Asia travel vlog on Instagram.

[AlainPerrogonVersionOriginale. @UrbainPirouette]

Pour moi, c la plus belle "séquence" de "musique sur scène" que l'on puisse produire...
Tout est concentré dans 3Mn de "Technique", de "Sobriété" et d'harmonie...

[𝗖𝗹𝗮𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹 𝗠𝗲𝗹𝗼𝗱𝗶𝗲𝘀 @Old_But_Gold50s]

Some melodies aren’t just meant to be heard, they can be experienced visually, too. Pachelbel’s “Canon in D” offers a captivating blend of music and visual beauty.

[Nicolas Marchand @Nicolas83603942]

Enfin !!

[OpenMarket @openmarket_xyz]

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https://t.co/U91agdMf58

[Sminston With 👁 @sminston_with]

It's true - Dacoinminster is officially the earliest known person to model Bitcoin's price using a power law. And its prediction to today's price is remarkably accurate for over 13 years ago.