“The garbage-in, garbage-out process of automated and involuntary registration won’t produce a list that’s complete, accurate, or fit for the purpose of reliably and provably delivering induction orders. But it will allow war planners to continue to pretend that a draft is available as a fallback, so they don’t have to consider whether enough Americans will fight the wars they are planning, even if they prove bloodier than expected. And it will produce a list that’s vulnerable to misuse and weaponization. … The attempt at ‘automatic’ draft registration will inevitably be a fiasco. The only way to head it off is to end draft registration entirely. That won’t happen unless Congress feels public pressure — soon.” (05/20/26)
“A lot has already been written about the flaws and fallacies leading many to believe AI will trigger an employment apocalypse that will make everyone but a small sliver of the country much poorer. There are also reasons to actually expect positive political developments as AI begins to automate the exact kind of administrative, clerical, and bureaucratic work that has defined the so-called managerial class and made their positions necessary. And the environmental threat posed by data centers is often overblown by exaggerated projections based on earlier, less efficient forms of the technology that are now obsolete. Where the opposition to data centers does have some merit, however, is on the NIMBY front.” (05/20/26)
“Worries about AI doom rarely take Darwinian evolution seriously. A new paper argues we should—but we are still further from that scenario than its authors suggest.” (05/19/26)
“The standard account is that AI works best with a ‘human in the loop.’ This phrase emerges from minds deeply shaped by technology: the tech is the main thing, and the human is an occasionally useful add-on, the quality controller and manager of the machine-produced conclusion. This formulation has the relationship backwards. The biggest problem with AI, as many have noted, is that it does not ‘get it.’ Its utility collapses around questions of continuity, and intellectual and social context. And ‘getting it,’ as we have known all along, is the most important aspect of life and work.” (05/20/26)
“SpaceX is planning a monster initial public offering (IPO). Elon Musk is reportedly seeking to raise some $75 billion, at a valuation of $1.75 trillion, next month. It will be both his birthday and a moment when Venus and Jupiter will be in alignment. It would be the biggest IPO in history by far, utterly dwarfing Saudi Aramco’s $29 billion figure back in 2019. Musk might sell those shares, too. One reason why, despite the ludicrous valuation, is that stock indices are changing their rules to allow SpaceX to join almost right away and with fewer conditions, thus forcing investors who follow a passive strategy, like index funds and many pension funds, to buy the company’s shares.” (05/20/26)
“Trump has indicated his intention to continue fighting wars with his proposal to fund the largest military budget in U.S. history: $1,500,000,000,000 ($1.5 trillion). This would send two-thirds of next year’s federal discretionary budget to what he calls the ‘Department of War’ (which is actually more honest than the official name, the Department of Defense). $1.5 trillion would be around a 50% increase over this year’s military budget and on par in real terms with the largest military budgets during World War II. Congress and the public must reject Trump’s $1.5 trillion proposal as the joke it is. They must also resist his plans to make a ‘supplemental’ request for up to $200 billion more for the war in Iran, which is already as unpopular as U.S. conflicts in Iraq and Vietnam. Congress should be cutting the war budget by hundreds of billions of dollars rather than irresponsibly inflating it further.” (05/20/26)
“Trump returned to Washington with little to show for his visit: only two agreements on opening Chinese markets to U.S. products, and no political help in the Middle East. China did agree to buy 200 Boeing aircraft (fewer than expected), but it has failed to follow through on similar announcements in the past. The White House also claimed that China has agreed to purchase $17 billion of agricultural products, but China has not confirmed this. It did not prevent Trump from claiming that they ‘did great trade deals’ and that the meeting was ‘a great success.’ It was the optics of the meeting that demonstrated how far Trump has fallen in Chinese eyes.” (05/19/26)
“By virtue of his own actions, Trump is now left with a series of policy options that range from least bad to terrible. None of them are ideal, and all of them carry some risk. For starters, Trump could resume the war. … Yet there are no guarantees that doubling down on military force will work. … What about continuing the status quo? While this contingency would be less costly than another round of bombing or a U.S. ground invasion, it’s unclear whether it would help or hurt negotiations toward a settlement. … Striking an agreement to end the war, return the strait to open traffic and restrict Iran’s nuclear program would be the most beneficial policy for the United States with the least amount of cost attached — not quite undoing the harm from Trump’s first-term decision to scrap the nuclear deal and his second-term decision to start a war.” (05/20/26)
