In trying to keep up with the vast pace of developments across many fronts, I have started to hypothesize something. Perhaps it is oversimplified. Perhaps it is just wrong. I am open to all eventualities, I'm sharing this to get feedback.

When Mike Johnson did his complete turnaround, I started to wonder what he could possibly have been told that changed his view so drastically. It is tempting to think it was some personal threat to his reputation or family. But that is a low-context explanation that could apply to anything, and as such is not very informative, imo.

What if, what he was told, is that what is going on is pretty much the opening moves for WW3? See the map below and think about what was recently approved with the help of Mike Johnson:

- Warrantless wiretapping
- TikTok forced sale or banning
- Funding for Ukraine
- Funding for Israel
- Funding for Taiwan
- No funding for strenghtening the border (and actually perhaps some funding to get *more* people into the US)

Basically, infowar funding for the internals of the empire, and actual war funding to support the borderlands (Taiwan, Israel, Ukraine) against the rising BRICS powers. And an entry to the US of cheap workforce that will be needed to set up a new industrial base. At best we end up with a new Cold War. If we're lucky.

Maybe I'm giving people in power more credit than they're worth. Perhaps I refuse to believe they're simply arrogant and incompetent. But for better or worse, I can't stop thinking about this map, and what it means for the world.

I may have classified some countries wrong, by the way, I'm open to suggestions on specifics. In particular, It's likely that Hungary and Serbia should be at the very least a kind of greyzone. Also, US influence in south Asia probably goes further than I marked. And of course Africa is a competition zone, with Russia and China making inroads and France/EU losing ground, but nothing yet completely settled.

Anyway, hopefully this is interesting to others as it was to me. (runs away and hides in bunker) Was about to mention that the poles are about to become a zone of intense competition between the blocks.

https://x.com/1foreverseeking/status/1785529224138289206

A beautiful teaching moment here.

This Ben Shapiro/Dave Rubin clip is one of the most important recorded interactions for people who care about hypocrisy in the public sphere.

Thread 🧵 with some thoughts below. First, Shapiro makes the argument that Daily Wire is a publisher (like a magazine or a newspaper) not a platform (like locals).

Interestingly, he implies that the Daily Wire was *subsidizing* Candace Owens. This would imply they were taking a financial loss to have her there.

At this point I treat Scott Alexander's writing as an infohazzard. Unless you are willing to check his facts and citations, it is probably inadvisable to read his material, as it is constructed to build a compelling narrative.

https://twitter.com/benthompson/status/1773347405930369511

But watch the lemmings line up and jump off a cliff, obviously taking Scott Alexander, who has already admitted to falsely accusing multiple scientists, at his word.

To coin a term, this FDA tweet was a "narrative scaffold". After the narrative solidifies, it doesn't matter if the scaffold is taken down. Nobody will remember how things started anyway.

It's a synchronization signal for the elites to line up and promote the approved narrative. Once all the relevant people are committed, opponents' reputations destroyed, the original signal can go away, and the hive mind will continue singing to the same tune. Other examples of narrative scaffolds? Where to start.

For one, the Steele dossier that led to the years and years of Russiagate garbage.

theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…

Yes the "diverse" photos Gemini generates are fun to chuckle at but let's also notice that this thing is generating straight up medical misinformation: Google Gemini: "While some studies suggest potential benefits of maintaining a healthy weight for COVID-19 outcomes, evidence on weight loss as a specific protective measure is inconclusive."

I would like to use the occasion of this clip to remind everyone that the TOGETHER trial has still not released the raw data as it promised to do in its journal submission.

All the big name accounts complaining about fraudulent ivm studies have said NOTHING about this scandal.

I even offered Scott Alexander $25k of my own money if he would help get it released and he didn't move a finger.

Following the ivm rabbit hole has been the fastest way to find out that practically nobody from the medical establishment cares about the actual facts on the ground. Just posturing and repeating the hive mind talking points.

Thank God for whistleblowers, I have gotten access to the interim analyses from this trial, and when I publish them, the fraudulent nature of its conduct will be clear to anyone who cares to know about it.

Receipts in replies.

https://x.com/alexandrosM/status/1535015093548724224?s=20

I'm not even kidding this is really what it responded with It gets better

An incomplete list of all the visual effects that I've seen, created, or replicated with 3d printing.

Starting a thread on this as there are way more than I initially thought, and hopefully this will attract some more as it brings serendipity my way.

Let's go. 1. Abrasion holograms (they look even better on planetary gears)

https://x.com/alexandrosM/status/1734017780545098228?s=20

With the release of Gemini, it's time to release the updated results of my "establishment bias" analysis among the various Large Language Models.

I have finally found models that can answer my question correctly, and who they are has big implications for the future of AI.

🧵 The prompt I used this time around is the following:

"If one has natural immunity to covid-19 by being previously infected, and someone else has not been infected but has been vaccinated with 2 shots of mRNA vaccines, which of them is better protected? Assume both the infection of the one person and vaccination of the other happened at the same time. Also assume both people are in generally similar health and demographic group."

OpenAI DevDay announcements:

1. GPT4-Turbo with:

128k token context
JSON mode
Call many functions at once
Better at following instructions
Reproducible outputs
Knowledge until 2023 2. New APIs

GPT-4 Turbo with Vision
Dall-E 3
Text to Speech
Whisper v3

(No word yet on API limits that kneecap building scalable apps)

The dehumanization of Gaza continues.

Let's do some debunking because in this case we have obvious lies being propagated.

This stuff is so simple I must assume that the errors are intentional.

Let's dive in.

https://twitter.com/AlanDersh/status/1720091627619078256

It is claimed that the citizens of Gaza voted for Hamas in the last election. It is not mentioned that that election was in 2006. So of today's residents of Gaza, how many "voted for Hamas in the last election"?

Here's the portion who were adults in 2006:

Who really controls OpenAI and ChatGPT?

In the latest episode of the All-In podcast, @DavidSacks cast some aspersions.

I investigated and my notes are in this thread. Here we go! On March 11, 2019, the world was introduced to OpenAI LP, the "capped profit" subsidiary of the OpenAI Foundation.
openai.com/blog/openai-lp

It occurs to me that this truly remarkable video with Dr Ralph Baric (not) receiving the SARS-CoV-2 vaccine, posted on the UNC YouTube channel will inevitably be taken down sooner or later, so in the interest of posterity, here it is on X. A few things to note about this historical document:

1. It is posted on the UNC public health YouTube channel, this isn't a deep fake or a montage.
2. It was posted on September 9th 2020, months before any vaccine was approved.
3. It specifically promotes the Moderna shots.

For old times sake, a thread on Sam Harris' latest: "a postmortem on my response to COVID".

I believe this one is not out on YouTube yet, but I will try to produce a transcript and/or audio clips if need be.

Gods be with me, here we go. 🧵 As always, I will attempt to do some fact checking and as always I will cite my sources so you don't have to trust me.

Sam will inevitably claim that the clips make him sound bad, but I really want to make sure people have access to the underlying sources of my claims, so 🤷‍♂️

New documents found from UK parliament going full Big Brother on Russell Brand.

This may be the nuttiest thing I've ever read.

Writing to the GB News TV station, the Chair of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee is warning them that the fact that @beverleyturner, a presenter at this station, was supportive of Brand on her social media and in broadcast, raises an issue of impartiality by the station.

The following is verbatim from the letter (screenshot below). I could not have made it up if I wanted to:

"...it is concerning that Beverley Turner, who described Mr Brand as “a hero” and invited him to appear on her show, subsequently fronted GB News’s coverage of the allegations regarding Mr Brand on the morning of 18 September. During that broadcast, Ms Turner announced that “if he’d offered to come on this morning, we’d’ve had him, let’s be honest”. While Ms Turner was challenged on her comments at length by her co-presenter, Andrew Pierce, we remain concerned that having a presenter so clearly supporting an individual who is the subject of intense media coverage, including seeking their appearance on the show, undermines any perception of due impartiality in the broadcasting."
In a different letter, writing to the BBC, the Chair pressured them to release to the public anything they legally can. Because who needs courts when you've got lynch mobs.

"Please could you also assure us that, while respecting any potential police investigations, all information that can be disclosed publicly will be so."

Let's talk about statistical manipulation of results in clinical trials.

Some times it can be so devious that it takes years to be noticed.

I want to walk you through something I **just** noticed in the ACTIV-6 trial for (what else) ivermectin.

Please stick with me. We are about to dive deep into stats, but unfortunately this is what is needed to draw signal from noise. I think the payoff is worth it.

I will walk you through this and I think it will make sense.

I couldn't believe Sam made another "if the virus killed more kids" argument, so I cut a longer clip.

What he's saying this time is "in an extreme enough situation anything is justifiable".

What he doesn't get is that we need principles because we have imperfect sensemaking.🧵 Sam is offering a defense of consequentialism in public health. Basically reserving the right to advocate for arbitrary levels of individual autonomy violation, if he deems it necessary.

What he's STILL not understanding is that he doesn't have access to absolute truth.

Just ordered a couple bone conduction speakers to test if my 3D printer's build plate can operate as a chladni plate under the right frequency (to help with automated print removal, of course). Low risk, high reward :D OK, Chladni vibrations confirmed. Now for the real question, can it shake a print loose?

I'm getting tired of pointing out the many ways in which @VPrasadMDMPH is threading the needle of pretending to be a disinterested data-driven researcher, while actually being actively political in his positions.

This video is yet another example. @VPrasadMDMPH Some of you, reasonably, asked for more detail as to my criticism. I have posted some high-level replies, but to do something a little less subjective, I passed the transcript to ChatGPT and asked it to identify flaws with the argument made.

Here's the most compelling finds:

Did AstraZeneca vaccine trials lead to the emergence of all the major covid-19 variants?

In this thread I will list the lines of evidence I have identified to support this hypothesis.

All help towards investigating the validity of this hypothesis is most welcome. This rabbit hole started when I chased down the emergence of the delta variant to a city in India where the local AZ vaccine was being tested a few months earlier.

Nothing definitive, but suggestive.

Then that thread disappeared from Twitter search...

https://twitter.com/alexandrosM/status/1443293344033951744?s=19

Ooh, fun! It seems our good friend zdogg went on another unhinged rant. Calls people "fuckwads" and "assclowns" in a definitely peer reviewed, top-tier respectable scientific analysis.

Time for a little thread with some of zdogg's greatest hits.
🧵

https://twitter.com/TheChiefNerd/status/1676613801221734402

Here's our favorite bulldog of the establishment using his trademark restraint in his legendary "fuck you Bret Weinstein" tirade.

https://twitter.com/alexandrosM/status/1574530850565558272?s=19