Jonathan

Quote of the Day

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Dominic Cummings:

The EU has kneecapped itself and is failing in all important areas: productivity, debt, public order, immigration, defence, technology, political extremism. Brussels chose self-sabotage on advanced technology. Unlike Britain which at least has DeepMind here, the EU has none of the leading labs. As the Commission said, we will be leaders not in AI but ‘trust in AI’! Mission semi-accomplished comrades! Brussels can kneecap itself and other countries that choose to follow its regulations but it will not compete with US and PRC or shape the global struggle over AI. Valley companies have already made clear they will simply not release models in the EU rather than follow EU regs. Taliban today can download new models now blocked for Brussels elites. Those who think AI will be like aspects of post-war car regulation are wrong. AI is ultimately about power and Great Powers will not let Brussels set the rules. I’ve watched SW1 repeat soundbites from the EU for 25 years on ‘strategic autonomy’ and ‘now we’re going to get serious on technology’. They’ve always been hollow. I said in 2022-4 that covid predicted that not even wanting to prevail in Ukraine would force either the MoD or Brussels to stop the delusions. They babbled and watched. They left defence industry and procurement a farce. They encouraged deindustrialisation and sabotaged industrial production while babbling about net zero. Thanks to Brexit and the work we did in 2020 with the secret part of the Integrated review exposing the disaster zone of the MoD and agreeing a plan for radical change, we could have sorted ourselves out. Instead, 2021-4 the Tories worked with the worst parts of the MoD to continue the lies and delusions and followed the EU into escalating a dumb war which could have been avoided. The latest defence review is a disaster and the UK and EU will be humiliated month after month.

 

Thoughts:

1. There but for the grace of God go we.

2. UK and EU politics and culture are farther gone than ours. However, as in the 1970s with Thatcher and perhaps now with Trump, political and cultural course reversals are possible given gifted opposition leaders and a preference cascade or two.

3. The British establishment, by criminalizing dissent, insure that even more than our Democrats  they will not see the political wave coming that turns them out of power.

4. It’s never over.

Quote of the Day

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Palmer Luckey:

DeepSeek is legitimately impressive, but the level of hysteria is an indictment of so many.

The $5M number is bogus. It is pushed by a Chinese hedge fund to slow investment in American AI startups, service their own shorts against American titans like Nvidia, and hide sanction evasion. America is a fertile bed for psyops like this because our media apparatus hates our technology companies and wants to see President Trump fail.

We have so many useful idiots uncritically reporting Chinese propaganda as fact because on some level, they want it to be true. They love seeing hundreds of billions of dollars wiped off the market cap off our largest companies.

New Year’s in San Salvador

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This was an amazing thing to see. Salvadorans seem happy and optimistic. A few years ago it was like: Don’t go to this place; don’t go to that place; you can go to this tourist place, it’s safe. Everything was either off-limits or a walled garden. Someone I know was robbed at gunpoint of her cellphone while sitting in her car with the window down and having a conversation. Everyone says she was lucky.

Now it’s a different country. There is still crime but you can go almost anywhere. The murder rate, once sky-high, is low by US standards. The downtown was dilapidated and dangerous. Now it’s being renovated, bustling, a nice place to walk around.

It’s all because, almost by chance, Salvadorans elected a president who was serious about stopping the gangs that were responsible for most of the crime, and politically skilled and lucky enough (very) to pull it off.

National turnarounds can happen. El Salvador, maybe Argentina, maybe the USA. Europe looks in a bad way, reminiscent of the late 1970s before Reagan and Thatcher. Of course this time is different, it’s worse this time, etc. But this time is always different, and thus rarely different at all: trends, including bad trends, don’t go on forever. Here’s hoping.

Michael Kennedy

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From Chicago Boyz commenter Miguel Cervantes comes the sad news that Dr. Michael Kennedy has died.

Michael was a prolific contributor to Chicago Boyz from 2008 to 2024. His posts are here. He also posted a huge number of comments in response to other contributors’ posts here.

Michael’s personal blog is here. He contributed to a wide variety of other blogs (including lefty blogs that, Michael occasionally complained, banned him as a dissident). Neo has a lovely post about Michael here.

He self-published two books: A Brief History of Disease, Science and Medicine and a memoir, War Stories: 50 Years in Medicine. (I read “War Stories” and highly recommend it.) Michael’s Amazon bio hints at other fascinating books yet to be published — alas.

Michael was obviously a brilliant man, accomplished, full of energy and with many interests. He must have been an excellent physician. He was a student of history, a skilled and experienced sailor, and a father. His observations on politics, current affairs, technology and other topics were always well informed and insightful. I will miss him.

RIP. Alav hashalom.

Condolences to the Kennedy family.