Could an AI Have Suggested that the Earth Is Not at the Centre of the Universe?
Deviant thinking is on the decline as AI mirrors consensus instead of challenging it, making us more homogeneous and complacent toward power.
Read more...Category Archives: Coffee Break
Coffee Break: Trump Insider Deals Hitting the Rocks?
Trump insider deals in crypto, AI, and drones appear to be taking a hit, mirroring his rapidly declining public support. What will this mean for AI czar David Sacks, Anduril’s Palmer Luckey, the Lutnicks and especially Don Junior and Eric?
Read more...Coffee Break: Armed Madhouse – How DARPA Lost Its Mojo
DARPA once defined the frontier of U.S. technological power, developing the foundations of stealth, networking, and precision-guided warfare. Today its most capable prototypes routinely die in the “valley of death,” casualties of political caution, industrial consolidation, and perverse incentives that punish programs for succeeding. This article examines how DARPA went from the nation’s most creative engine of capability to an agency whose breakthroughs are celebrated but rarely fielded—and what this reveals about America’s broader institutional decline.
Read more...Coffee Break: Personnel and Pardons as Policy in the Trump National Security Regime
The personnel decisions of the Trump national security regime provide a key to better understanding the administration. The stupid doesn’t just happen, it’s made to happen.
Read more...Coffee Break: Science and Belief, Working AI, ADHD Update, and Research Support
Part the First: When Science Becomes a Matter of Belief Things Go Sideways. The current Secretary of Health and Human Services is getting his way. This is not a surprise. The President hired him to “go wild on health” and he is doing just that. Some have complained that as Secretary of HHS that RFKJr […]
Read more...Systemic Entropy and Power: Explaining the Breakdown of World Order
A theory of social systems, entropy, and power that explains the shifting world order and how the banking-state system may be adapting.
Read more...Coffee Break: Nvidia’s Narrative Breaking Down?
Nvidia’s narrative is being battered by mega-bears, defended by the most credulous bulls, and undermined by trade wars and a major new competitor.
Read more...Coffee Break: Armed Madhouse – RAND Alarms the China Hawks
In late 2025, a major RAND Corporation study on U.S.–China strategy was quietly withdrawn from public view less than two weeks after publication. The unusual disappearance suggests an internal struggle over whether the United States should escalate rivalry with China or first rebuild its own industrial and technological base. The RAND report’s realism posed a challenge to the prevailing hawkish narrative.
Read more...Coffee Break: Flailing OpenAI Follows Meta’s Malignant Model
OpenAI may be following Meta’s malignant model by putting profits before user safety while hyping ambitious expansion plans.
Read more...Coffee Break: CDC – Vaccines – Autism, Oh, My!; Wellness; Prioritized Science; Very Ancient Art; and MAGA
Part the First: CDC Finally “Decides” that Vaccines Cause Autism. In news that will surprise absolute nobody, while pleasing some and causing despair in others, CDC says the mountains of data that show vaccines do NOT cause autism is not evidence-based: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Wednesday publicly reversed its stance that […]
Read more...From the Narrative Collapse, a New World Will Emerge: Will It Be Different?
In the information age, it is difficult to make sense of events. Endless amounts of information do not necessarily coalesce into a coherent narrative with explanatory meaning. The breakdown of the international order is precipitating the emergence of different narratives that engender competing truths. The German writer Goethe said: “When eras are on the decline, […]
Read more...Coffee Break: Hasbara Ain’t Cheap, Musk, Ellison, Saudis, All Tapped
The practitioners of Hasbara are desperately ratcheting up their control of American corporate and social media and with Oracle’s Larry Ellison suddenly tapped out, are reportedly seeking funding from the Arab Gulf states to help.
Read more...Coffee Break: Armed Madhouse – Trump’s Falklands Temptation
In 1982, the Falklands War rescued Margaret Thatcher from political collapse and turned her into a wartime icon. But the deeper lesson of that conflict is more dangerous: diversionary war is appealing to failing leaders, whether democratic or authoritarian. Donald Trump’s long-standing fascination with invading Venezuela, documented in his first term and now echoed by renewed U.S. deployments, a favored opposition proxy, and drug-war legal framing, fits the same dual pattern that produced the Falklands: a desperate leader seeking escape through external confrontation, and the hope of political resurrection through a short, decisive victory. The Falklands Effect turned crisis into triumph for Thatcher, but a Venezuelan conflict today could result in disaster for Trump. The danger is serious, but the power of Trump’s temptation is quietly growing.
Read more...Coffee Break: TACO MIGA Breaks With MAGA Over the Epstein Files
A look at Trump’s attempts to kick 2 MAGA stalwarts out of Congress and the what the New York Times is leaving out of its Epstein coverage.
Read more...Coffee Break: Unstable Climate-Unstable Economy, Gambling and the Decline of Sport, the Last of the Great Men of Molecular Biology, and SNAP
Part the First: Financial Stability and Climate Instability. Or, could a climate-related shock trigger a recession? This is a question that could be asked only by an economist, or two, as in Advancing research on financial stability and climate-related financial risk, an editorial last week in Science: Climate change–related natural disasters such as floods, fires, […]
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