Yet You Refuse

That is why you are so troubled.  You see through the deception, yet you refuse to see through the deception.

-- Brian Wilson Aldiss (1925 - 2017), English writer of general fiction and science fiction, Aboard the Beatitude (2002) in Science Fiction: DAW 30th Anniversary, May 2002

Motivational Non-Alignment

I resigned from Anthropic today.  I spent the last three years doing pretraining research at both OpenAI and Anthropic.  Neither company is acting responsibly.  They are racing straight to self-improving superintelligence and gambling with our lives. 

The people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade.  This is not a marketing stunt.  If anything, many executives and senior researchers will couch their phrasing in the press to sound sensible -- but I hear the same people express fear privately.  No other human activity poses this level of danger.

If you are a lab researcher, I urge you to consider what the next few years will actually feel like.  Do you want to kick off a superintelligent RL run without a rigorous understanding of its mind?  Should you put your head down because "it’s happening anyway" -- or take this moment to call for different conditions?

-- Jacob Coxon, posting as @hilbertspaess about the perceived dangers of Recursive Self Improvement in AI models, by AI models (8 September 2026)

Vast Reserve Army

When times are bad, however, in moments of crisis, when profits are low, or when there is little or no demand corporations and companies can protect themselves and their market value by simply letting workers go.  Workers, on the other hand usually must continue to pay for food, rent, healthcare, and basic utilities in order to survive.  As a consequence, while capital can often weather the storm of such economic crises, they can severely weaken the power of the working class by creating what Marx called a vast reserve army of labor.  And since unemployment insurance compensations are rarely available to all and always only for a short period of time, workers -- whether laid off or only threatened with the prospect of layoffs -- will eventually be pressured to work much harder for less wages. 

-- James Dennis Hoff, American author, educator, and activist, on the 2020 stock market crash, "Freeze Layoffs: Make the Capitalists Pay" (23 March 2020), Left Voice 

Value Of A Sentiment

The value of a sentiment is the amount of sacrifice you are prepared to make for it.

-- John Galsworthy OM (1867 - 1933), English novelist and playwright, 1932 Nobel laureate in literature, Windows, Act II (1922)

RIP Gloria Steinem

Voting isn't the most we can do, but it is the least.

-- Gloria Marie Steinem (25 March 1934 - 2 September 2026), American feminist, journalist, and social and political activist, My Life on The Road (2015) p.124

Imperfect Understanding

On the abstract level, I have turned the belief in my own fallibility into the cornerstone of an elaborate philosophy.  On a personal level, I am a very critical person who looks for defects in myself as well as in others.  But, being so critical, I am also quite forgiving.  I couldn't recognize my mistakes if I couldn't forgive myself.  To others, being wrong is a source of shame; to me, recognizing my mistakes is a source of pride.  Once we realize that imperfect understanding is the human condition, there is no shame in being wrong, only in failing to correct our mistakes.

-- George Soros (born Gyorgy Schwartz, 12 August 1930), Hungarian-born American businessman, philanthropist, and political activist, Soros on Soros (1995)

Likely Unlawful

The President ordered the demolition of the East Wing of the White House to make way for a new, privately funded state ballroom in its place.  Construction of the ballroom has proceeded apace for the better part of a year.

That construction is likely unlawful.  Pursuant to its plenary constitutional authority over the District of Columbia and federal property, Congress has explicitly prohibited the construction of any "building or structure . . . on any reservation, park, or public grounds of the Federal Government in the District of Columbia without express authority of Congress.  The ballroom is a building or structure being erected on federal park grounds -- President's Park -- in the District of Columbia.  Yet Congress has not passed any law resembling "express authority" for the Executive's construction of it.

The White House is not just any building, and -- when it comes to historic preservation -- [plaintiff] Hoagland is not just any person.  In failing to appreciate as much, the Court misconceives the plaintiff's injury, allowing the Executive's likely infringement of the Legislature's power of the purse and authority to regulate federal property in the District of Columbia to continue.  Today's decision is no victory for the separation of powers.

I respectfully dissent.

-- Chief Justice John Roberts, with whom Justices Sotomayor, Kagan, and Jackson join, dissenting in National Park Service v National Trust For Historic Preservation (31 August 2026)

A Unique Failure

At the six month mark of this war, the Wall Street Journal had reporting that in the walk up to this war, the extent to which the President's intelligence apparatus all told him of all the things that ended up happening, planning that the leadership of Iran would become more radical, that they would use the Strait of Hormuz, that they would target bases all over the Middle east and that there would be a dangerous drawdown and a stretching of readiness which was already in bad shape.  All of that came to pass.  And what struck me as I was thinking about this is that in the history of US national security blunders, when we think about them, you know, Bay of Pigs, Vietnam, Iraq War, not connecting the dots before 9/11, those were institutional failures in addition to presidential failures.  In this case, because the President basically went with his gut and in contravention of a lot of the intelligence he was getting, this is a kind of unique Donald Trumpian failure.  He was elected because he said, my gut is better than any other human on the planet in assessing whatever happens to be before me.  And the decision making tree here was exactly as he wanted it to be.  And so in a way, this presidential decision on Iran is more circumscribed around the man himself than these other instances. ...  I think that is unique in American history.

-- John Dickerson (6 July 1968 -), American journalist, contributing writer at The Atlantic, and past co-anchor of CBS Evening News, speaking on the Slate Political Gabfest podcast (27 August 2026)

It Is Youth

Older men declare war.  But it is youth that must fight and die.  And it is youth who must inherit the tribulation, the sorrow, and the triumphs that are the aftermath of war.

-- Herbert Hoover (1874 - 1964), 31st president of the United States, Speech in Chicago, Illinois to the 23rd Republican national convention (27 June 1944)

Blessed Are The Young

Blessed are the young, for they shall inherit the national debt.

-- Herbert Hoover (1874 - 1964), 31st president of the United States, address to the Nebraska Republican Conference, Lincoln, Nebraska (16 January 1936)

The Latest Trend

To the dismay of paleontologists and researchers in the field, a Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton set a record after being auctioned at Sotheby's for $50.1 million.  It's the latest in a trend that turns scientific specimens and artifacts into collector's items for the uber-wealthy, a trend that has been largely condemned by the people who want to keep these fossil records out of the luxury collectibles industry and firmly in the public trust.  It is legitimately gatekeeping science; a 2025 study of T. rex skeletons found that at the time, there were just 61 fossils in public trusts compared to 71 privately held. Museums simply cannot compete against a committed -illionaire.

-- NumLock News (16 July 2026) by Walt Hickey, citing "What science loses when T. rex becomes a trophy" by Kristi Curry Rogers at The Conversation

You've Lost Sight

Let's just take it from the perspective of the parent why this is a -- why this is just a stupid thing to do.  Now, instead of your child getting two shots, she has to get six shots.  Instead of ... you missing work to take your child to the doctor two times, you're doing it six times, and instead of the insurance company paying for two visits, it's now paying for six visits.  Now this is going to drive up the cost of your life, inconvenience you tremendously, and your child's getting six jabs, not two.  As a physician, but as a parent -- as a human -- I know that all that is wrong for the family.

This is why the president's poll numbers are down, because you've lost sight of affordability for the parent, you've lost sight of the convenience for the American family, you've lost sight of that which is driving higher costs in healthcare.

-- Senator Bill Cassidy (R-LA) in an interview on ABC's "This Week"  discussing Trump's order to split the MMR (Measles, Mumps, Rubella) vaccine into 3 separate shots (16 August 2026)

Strictly Speaking

Strictly speaking, there are no enlightened people, there is only enlightened activity.

-- Shunryu Suzuki (1904 - 1971). Sōtō Zen monk and teacher who helped popularize Zen Buddhism in the United States, quoted in Zen Millionaire : The Investor's Guide to the "Other Side" (2007) by Paul B. Farrell

Market Incentives

It's easy to conflate technology problems with capitalism problems. Back in 2021, science-fiction writer and AI commentator Ted Chiang said that "most fears about AI are best understood as fears about capitalism."  It's not the tech per se; it's who controls it and how it could be used against us.

Imagine an AI assistant for a doctor.  We can imagine it affecting the profession in one of two ways.  The AI could give a doctor more time to do the human parts of their job: to spend more time with their patients, to listen more closely to their needs, to explain things more fully.  Or the managers of the medical practice could give that doctor five times the patients -- and fire the other four.  Which way it would go is not a question of technology.  It's a question of market incentives.

-- Nathan Sanders & Bruce Schneier, "Separating AI's Technological Problems From its Capitalism Problems" at TechPolicy.press (11 August 2026)

I Cannot Be Sure

I have no right to coerce someone else, because I cannot be sure that I'm right and he is wrong.

-- Milton Friedman (1912 - 2006), American economist, "Say 'No' to Intolerance", Liberty magazine, vol. 4, no. 6, (July 1991) pp. 17-20

Paradox And Difficulty

Our waking life's desire to shape the world to our convenience invites all manner of paradox and difficulty.

-- Cormac McCarthy (1933 - 2023), American novelist, playwright, short-story writer, and screenwriter, Cities of the Plain (1998)

That Man Is Lost

Nam ego illum periisse dico, quoi quidem periit pudor.

For I regard that man as lost, who has lost his sense of shame.

-- Titus Maccius Plautus (254 BC - 184 BC), comic playwright in the time of the Roman Republic, Bacchides, Act III, scene 3, line 80

Never Yet

The capacity of the human mind for swallowing nonsense and spewing it forth in violent and repressive action has never yet been plumbed.

-- Robert Anson Heinlein (1907 - 1988), popular and influential author of science fiction, Revolt in 2100 (1953), postscript

Not Your Own

The ulterior motives with which you absorb and assimilate Evil are not your own but those of Evil.

-- Franz Kafka (1883 - 1924), Bohemian-Jewish novelist, The Zürau Aphorisms (1917 - 1918), Aphorism #29

RIP Sam Neill

If I've made a film that turns out to be good, that's a good result.  If I've made a film that's good and made a couple of friends, that's a great result.  If I've made a film that's no good, but I made a friend, that's still another great result.

It’s at a time like now that the importance of other people is thrown into even sharper relief.  You realise who your friends are.  You know where the love is.

-- Sir Nigel John Dermot "Sam" Neill, KNZM, OBE (14 September 1947 - 13 July 2026), Northern Irish-born New Zealand actor, Did I Ever Tell You This?: A Memoir (2022)