…fuck it…yesterday went from AOC calling for eric adams to resign to the guy getting indicted…& that was probably the low end of the “interesting times” spectrum…so…where to even begin?

…I dunno…some people think their crusade is holy

With their jury-rigged equipment and the confidence that comes with having raised more than $1 million in venture capital, they were executing a plan to release pollutants into the sky, all in the name of combating global warming.

“We’re stealth,” said Luke Iseman, one of the co-founders of Make Sunsets, delighting in their anonymity as he rode in the back. “This looks like just another R.V.”

…&…you know…you can kind of see how they get there…although…there’s non-horrifying stuff you can read about the state of nature…so…here’s some of that instead before I go ham on the thing I started with & we all get to find out how long it takes me to rein it in again

An asteroid will soon enter Earth’s orbit as a temporary ‘mini-moon’ [NBC]

…”that’s no moon…” …sorry…couldn’t resist…oh…& there’s ghost sharks, by the way…some of which we hadn’t even seen?

A spooky discovery deep in the Pacific: A new species of ghost shark [NBC]

…also…if humanity does off itself…my money is on the octopi coming out on top of the heap

Octopuses seen hunting together with fish in rare video — and punching fish that don’t cooperate [NBC]

…wait until those suckers figure out touchscreens…they already outscore old people on opening childproof containers…&…when it comes to tech geniuses…it can seem like any idiot gets to say they’re one of those…so…the average for human intelligence may be a lower bar than we like to tell ourselves?

Make Sunsets is one of the most unusual start-ups in a region brimming with wild ideas. Mr. Iseman, 41, and his co-founder, Andrew Song, 38, claim that by releasing sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere, they can reflect some of the sun’s energy back into space, thereby cooling the planet.

…uh huh…& the folks at the NYT figure “It’s a gutsy undertaking, yet it has at least a partial grounding in science.“…which…is…*a* way of looking at that

For 50 years, climate scientists have suggested that releasing aerosols into the stratosphere could act as a buffer and reduce the heat from the sun. Volcanic eruptions have temporarily cooled the planet this way in the past, but no one has attempted to intentionally replicate the effect at scale.

As the perils of climate change become more extreme, interest in the idea, known as stratospheric solar geoengineering, is growing. Scientists at Harvard, Cornell, Colorado State and Princeton are studying it and the University of Chicago recently launched an ambitious research program.

…so…these guys are legit…right?

But all geoengineering is not created equal. While universities are pouring millions of dollars into research, others, avowing concern about global warming and seeing a business opportunity, are barreling ahead without any scientific study. Mr. Iseman got the idea for Make Sunsets from a sci-fi novel.

…if anyone wonders why I’m in a foul mood…this is as good a place to start as any…it’s like musk citing iain m banks while outlining courses of action that make me think he fundamentally failed to grasp what those books were trying to tell him…because I’m fairly certain that the unnamed sci-fi novel would be this one [spoiler: …that’s because later they say it is…& also it’s fucking obvious it’s the prime candidate]

…but that’s not what’s on the scenic route we’re on

A 30 minute drive along winding roads led the men to a steep unpaved road, and then to a patch of dirt on an undeveloped hillside. Mr. Iseman bought the land during an online foreclosure auction a few years ago, thinking he might camp on it someday and commute to work. That never happened, but when he started sending up balloons, he realized he already owned an ideal launch site.
[…]
Mr. Iseman grew up near Wilkes-Barre, Pa., and studied business at the University of Pennsylvania. After backpacking around the world, he moved to Austin, Tex., where he started a bicycle taxi company. It was an entrepreneurial lark for Mr. Iseman, and an expression of his belief that societal change could follow individual action.

He then co-founded Edyn, a start-up that made an automated garden monitoring system. That company was nurtured by Y Combinator, the Silicon Valley incubator previously run by Open A.I. founder Sam Altman.
[…]
After bouncing around a bit more, he was drawn to the kite surfing and spearfishing in Baja California, Mexico, and decided to set up shop there. Then, in early 2022, as Mr. Iseman installed solar panels on the roof of his R.V., he listened to the audiobook of “Termination Shock,” a science fiction novel.

The book, by Neal Stephenson, plays out what happens when a billionaire in Texas takes it upon himself to start a massive solar geoengineering program, spraying huge quantities of sulfur dioxide into the air with a giant cannon. Mr. Stephenson declined to discuss Make Sunsets.

…genuine question…if he had been…would it have changed the angle on this story, do we think?

Mr. Iseman began researching the technology and was immediately convinced it could work. “I was like, what am I missing here?” he said. “Like, why is no one doing this?”

…bro…I’m, like, a fucking genius over here…apparently I didn’t finish the book since I’m unclear why people haven’t run with this but I got tech money to burn & I think I’m a hero so…leeeeeeeerrrrrooooooooyyyyyjjjjjeeeeeeennnnnnkkkkkiiiiiinnnnsss eat your heart out

In April 2022, he ordered a few small weather balloons and some yellow powdered sulfur from Amazon. Attempting to turn the sulfur into gas by lighting it aflame in a pot, he started choking as the fumes burned his lungs, and stopped.

…turns out having your head up your ass is not an effictive gas mask…who knew?

It is an equivalency they arrived at after studying academic literature on stratospheric geoengineering, calculating the projected cooling effects of large amounts sulfur dioxide in the stratosphere and contrasting that with the amount of warming caused by carbon dioxide emissions. But there have been no experiments done to validate their claims, nor any detailed analysis of whether such small deployments can achieve a cooling effect.

“There doesn’t seem to be any transparency behind their calculations,” said Michael Gerrard, the founder of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University, who has studied solar geoengineering. “I don’t want to overplay my scientific knowledge, but what little I have makes me deeply suspicious.”

There is a growing regulated market for so-called carbon credits, which companies and individuals buy to offset their emissions. Carbon credits are typically created by planting trees, preserving nature or sucking carbon dioxide out of the air and storing it underground.

But there are no standards for “cooling credits,” an invention of the Make Sunsets team. Mr. Iseman said that the largest marketplaces that facilitate the buying and selling of carbon credits declined to work with them.

Scientists say the amounts of sulfur dioxide they are releasing have essentially no impact. “It’s too small-scale to have any effect on temperatures,” said Holly Jean Buck, a professor at the University at Buffalo who has written a book on geoengineering.

Many tons of sulfur dioxide would need to be injected into the stratosphere over a sustained period of time to have a noticeable effect on global temperatures, according to researchers.

Make Sunsets has neither staff scientists nor a scientific advisory board. Nevertheless, the company’s pitch is appealing to at least a few hundred paying customers, among them Sam Caspersen, a lawyer based in Connecticut.

…&…in fairness…it’s not like the piece is all in on sipping their kool aid or anything…but…it’s discordant as hell to me

Mr. Caspersen acknowledged that Make Sunsets is not operating a scale that would allow them to measure the impact of their work. “Make Sunsets has not deployed anywhere near enough sulfur oxides into the upper atmosphere to measure the efficacy and cooling,” he said.

At the same, he defended the approach and said it could be making a small impact. “The lack of measurable data from their current program does not mean there is not a very tiny amount of current cooling,” Mr. Caspersen said. “If you plant one tree, doesn’t that mitigate climate change, even if one cannot measure it?”

…I mean…which is it…a negligible gesture that has more to do with trying to part people from money for a thing you can’t say for sure you had to give them & they can’t know they did or didn’t get…that somehow manages to be a worse kind of bait& switch than carbon credits…or a course of action being deliberately chosen in hopes of doing so at the sort of scale that means if you turn out to have fucked up then not continuing to fuck up guarantees fucking shit up on a whole new scale?

Dr. Jinnah worries that in acting on their own, without independent verification of their work, the Make Sunsets team is setting back the whole field of solar geoengineering. “They’re making it much more difficult for people who are doing legitimate research,” she said. “They’re being quite irresponsible with the way they’re rolling out their project.”

Mr. Iseman doesn’t care. With planet-warming emissions still on the rise and deadly heat waves, floods and storms claiming lives around the world, he believes it is imperative to do everything possible to blunt global warming.

There are no laws prohibiting the dispersal of small amounts of sulfur dioxide in California. And if the government did try to curtail their work, Mr. Iseman said Make Sunsets would simply go do it somewhere else, possibly offshore from boats on the ocean.

By proceeding with a small-scale attempt at solar geoengineering, Mr. Iseman said he is moving the Overton window, expanding what is possible in the future. “The fact that we’re doing it makes it more likely that others will do it,” said he.

Silicon Valley Renegades Pollute the Sky to Save the Planet [NYT]

…people aren’t the villain of the story they’re telling themselves…I get it…but…we need less divas & more character actors, people…most of us are bit parts & extras…& when those start telling everyone about their motivation & trying to steal the scene it just costs everyone time & money to shoot around that shit & on a set that isn’t completely feral they wind up out the door & on the cutting room floor…but these are indie movies with tech bro money…that shit’s like vanity publishing used to be…& you know how it is…you start out mad about windmills & the next thing you know you can’t shut up about giants you’re gonna save the world from…& some poor sod has to follow you around trying to figure out if you’re going to hurt yourself

Credit card debt is a big part of life for American households – and these days, a bigger part than ever before. It totaled $1.14 trillion in August, a record, according to the New York Fed. The average borrower’s credit card balance has risen from $4,828 to $6,329 since 2021, according to data from TransUnion. Even adjusted for inflation, that’s an increase of over 10 percent. And the interest rate on that debt makes servicing it an unusually painful obligation: It has risen by roughly 7 percentage points since August 2021, from an average of 14.5 percent to 21.5 percent.

…cometh the hour…cometh the plan?

[…] At a Sept. 18 rally in New York, former president Donald Trump told the crowd, “While working Americans catch up, we’re going to put a temporary cap on credit card interest rates.” He promised that interest rates would be held down to roughly 10 percent.
[…]
In theory, this would save the average cardholder some money every month. In practice, however, it would be disastrous. The impact of a plan like Mr. Trump’s would be to worsen the plight of debt-strapped consumers. Indeed, the probable counterproductive effects are one reason similar proposals got little or no traction in Congress when populist lawmakers ranging from Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) on the left to Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) on the right floated them. And since it’s generally the states that regulate financial matters such as credit card interest rates, imposing the kind of interest-rate cap Mr. Trump says he wants would require a new federal law.

Speaking of laws, in economics there’s a nearly universal one: Supply curves slope downward, which means that, when prices are high, suppliers rush into the market, but as they fall, many suppliers withdraw or concentrate on their most profitable product lines. There are exceptions to this rule, but they are few and far between. And consumer finance is not one of them. When you restrict the price of credit, which is all the interest rate is, the supply of credit falls. And supply shrinks especially sharply for the riskiest borrowers. Strict caps on interest rates might benefit cardholders with low balances and excellent credit scores (though banks might try to restore their profit margins by charging them higher annual fees or withdrawing other perks). But borrowers with the spottiest credit histories, who pose a higher risk of default, would be the first to find their credit limits lowered – or their cards canceled altogether.

In short, this supposed help for the little guy would disproportionately harm consumers of relatively modest means. The only thing worse than expensive credit is no credit at all. And that is what they would wind up with. When struggling families can’t tap credit cards for emergency expenses such as car repairs or utility bills, they can be forced to use alternative sources of credit, such as pawnshops, that offer money on even less attractive terms than credit card companies.
[…]
But there are some things our next president could do to make the problem worse. Mr. Trump keeps proposing them. It’s not just the cap on interest rates but also his promises of haphazard tax cuts. Along with extending all the tax cuts he signed in 2017, he’s offered to stop taxing tip income, social security benefits and overtime and to restore full deductibility of state and local income taxes. Taken together, these proposals would cost trillions, which the federal government would probably end up borrowing. The Penn Wharton budget model estimates that Trump’s campaign promises would increase the deficit by more than $4 trillion over the next 10 years.

When the federal government borrows, it competes with private borrowers for a limited pool of credit; other things being equal, that drives up interest rates. If Mr. Trump actually wants to help families who are struggling with credit card debt, the best thing he could do is to put forward a realistic plan to get federal debt under control. At the very least, he can stop making superficially attractive proposals that would actually make their lives harder.

The one thing worse than high credit card rates is Trump’s plan to cut them [WaPo]

…is it like how you aren’t supposed to wake up a sleepwalking person? …when it’s clearly a hobby horse getting ridden do we just shrug & figure since it wasn’t alive to begin with it doesn’t count as being flogged to death & assume it can’t do any harm?

The bill, which passed both the House and Senate with wide bipartisan support, extends federal finances to Dec. 20, when Congress will have a new tussle during the “lame duck” end-of-year session to pass annual funding bills for the rest of the 2025 fiscal year, or punt spending decisions once again into the next presidential administration.

The legislation also surfaced tension between Republican House leadership and former president Donald Trump, as well as within the brittle House GOP majority. Trump demanded a shutdown unless the House also passed new federal voter registration restrictions. House Republicans twice nearly blocked the government funding bill from reaching the floor over separate concerns.

The moves reflect the restless nature, even after two years in the majority, of House Republicans and the firm hold Trump has on the party in Congress, influencing even from the campaign trail what could have been a mundane funding vote and teeing up another spending fight in a matter of weeks.

…isn’t there a saying about cures & prevention…eh…apparently not

“Right now, our job is to get past the election. Whomever the next president-elect is, I think, probably will tell us what their preference is, and we will try to our best ability to get it done,” House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole (R-Okla.) said. “I’ve always been for finishing our business in the calendar year. That would be my advice. But if it’s President-Elect Trump, and I think it will be, I’ll do what he says. If he says, ‘I prefer for you guys to kick it down the road,’ okay.”

…oh…fuck off…just…fuck all the way off

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) originally floated legislation for a six-month funding extension and attached an unrelated measure with new requirements to prove citizenship before registering to vote in federal elections. Trump demanded that Republicans win that voting provision — “and every ounce of it,” he wrote on social media — or force a shutdown.

Noncitizen voting is already illegal in federal elections, and cases of voter fraud committed by noncitizens are exceedingly uncommon.
[…]
Yet another group of Republicans, though, threw up procedural obstacles that slowed the House’s progress and forced the speaker to rely on support from Democrats to advance the bill, rather than his own GOP majority.
[…]
The week’s events, though, could serve as a warning for Johnson. His predecessor in the speakership, Kevin McCarthy of California, was ousted from the post after he leaned on Democrats to pass a short-term funding bill. Johnson defeated a similar attempt to remove him earlier this year.

If Republicans lose their House majority — as many polls predict — Johnson could also lose his grip atop the conference. He said Wednesday that he would seek to remain the Republican leader even in the minority, though he predicted the GOP would retain control of the House.

“I think we navigated some very difficult terrain and unprecedented challenging times, and we got through it, and we’re going to win the election cycle because of that,” Johnson said. “I intend, having been forged through that fire and developed that leadership, I intend to offer my services for that going forward. We’ll see what happens.”
[…]
House Republicans and Senate Democrats are at odds over total spending numbers and nearly $70 billion in “side deals” — part of an agreement struck between President Joe Biden and GOP leaders in 2023. Conservatives hope to boost defense spending while jettisoning the side deals, and they are skeptical of other nonpartisan budget requests including veterans’ health care and natural disaster response. Democrats are adamant that Congress adhere to the agreement and approve additional spending on those issues and defense priorities.

Congress often rolls the 12 annual spending bills, or appropriations, into a single, massive package, called an omnibus or omni, to save time ahead of end-of-year deadlines. Congressional leaders in the past have leveraged lawmakers’ Christmas holiday break to compel them to vote for the legislation. Johnson has vowed not to allow a vote on an omnibus or on what lawmakers call “minibuses,” smaller packages made up of several spending bills.

Congress passes bill to prevent government shutdown, add funds for Secret Service [WaPo]

…so you know that’s gonna be just all kinds of fun in time for christmas…maybe by then we’ll have figured out what the fuck is wrong with some people

Scientists have delved seriously into the roots of political belief for the past 50 years, prompted by the rise of sociobiology, the study of the biological basis of behaviour, and enabled by modern tools such as brain scanners and genome sequencers. The field is making headway, but teasing out the biology of behaviour is never straightforward.

Take a study published last week. Researchers in Greece and the Netherlands examined MRI scans from nearly 1,000 Dutch people who had answered questionnaires on their personal politics.

The work was a replication study, designed to see whether the results from a small 2011 study, bizarrely commissioned by the actor Colin Firth, stood up. Firth’s study, conducted at UCL, reported structural differences between conservative and liberal brains. Conservatives, on average, had a larger amygdala, a region linked to threat perception. Liberals, on average, had a larger anterior cingulate cortex, a region involved in decision-making.

In the latest study of Dutch people, the researchers found no sign of a larger anterior cingulate cortex in liberals. They did, however, find evidence for a very slightly larger amygdala in conservatives. The MailOnline declared evidence that conservatives were more “compassionate”, but later changed their headline noting that the study said nothing about compassion.

It is worth looking at the size of the difference the scientists found. When Dr Steven Scholte, a co-author on the study at the University of Amsterdam, did the calculations he found that the amygdala of a conservative was, on average, larger than that of the liberal by the volume of one sesame seed. That is three times smaller than the 2011 study found. In their write-up in iScience, the researchers said it was “critical to approach these findings with caution, to avoid fostering misconceptions and stereotypes”.

…misconceptions…stereotypes…heaven forfend…those are the rug-shaped weave that holds whole rooms together…that sometimes have mostly just one person in who’s mistaken their own echo for a bunch of people who agree with them…why would anyone want to avoid that sort of fun & relaxing time?

Social environment, clearly, is one of the most powerful shapers of people’s politics. Political values and beliefs can emerge in early life, particularly when children have politically engaged parents or carers. But political ideology continues to evolve with education and into adulthood as family influence declines. Higher education is consistently linked to more liberal views, especially on issues such as immigration, civil rights and gender equality.

Perhaps most intriguing is the role of genetics. Studies of twins show that political ideology is about 40% heritable. But again, what does that mean? These are population-level measures, after all. It is not that 40% of a person’s beliefs are shaped by genetics and 60% by environment. “It tells you the extent to which differences between people are due to genetic factors,” said Prof Aaron Weinschenk, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin, Green Bay. “It’s not an estimate about an individual.”

How genetics affect people’s politics is similarly nuanced. Researchers have not, and do not expect, to find a Tory gene or a Democrat gene. Rather, says Tobias Edwards at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities, genes work indirectly through personality and other factors such as how long people spend in education, their income and intelligence. “We should not expect there to be any specific genes for liberalism, or conservatism, but many genetic variants of infinitesimally small effects, acting indirectly through other traits,” he said.

Earlier this year, Edwards and his colleagues reported that genetics could be used to predict political leanings, with more intelligent siblings in families tending to more liberal politics. But the relationship with party allegiance is far more complex, Edwards said. As he points out, extraordinarily intelligent people are found on both right and left.

Another mistake would be to equate intelligence with sensible values and opinions. “Looking back across history, we can see intelligent individuals have been attracted to all sorts of different and often contradictory ideas,” Edwards said. “Intellectuals have flirted with and been seduced by dangerous ideologies and tyrannical regimes. Many smart people have believed ideas that are downright stupid.”

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2024/sep/25/a-grey-matter-nature-nurture-and-the-study-of-forming-political-leanings-brain

…of course…many smart people are also stupid…particularly when they really set their minds to it…those work better when they aren’t seized up, after all…being in the groove isn’t the same as pretending the skip-induced loop is how the tune is supposed to go

The pervasive denial of truth has, in turn, been crucial to Trump’s continued viability.

In “Popular Reactions to Donald Trump’s Indictments and Trials and Their Implications for the 2024 Election,” Gary C. Jacobson, a political scientist at the University of California, San Diego, argued that this denial – “motivated ignorance reinforced by right-wing pundits and social media entrepreneurs” – helps explain “the tenacious loyalty of Trump’s MAGA followers.”

…ya don’t say?

Jacobson describes the logic of truth denial among MAGA supporters of Trump:

Motivated ignorance differs from the more familiar concept of rational ignorance in that ignorance is motivated by the anticipated costs of possessing knowledge, not acquiring it. That is, it is not simply that the benefits of accurate political knowledge may be less than the cost of attaining it and thus not worth pursuing but that the costs of having accurate information exceed the benefits.

When expressed opinions and beliefs signal identification with a group, it is rational to stay ignorant of contradictory facts that, if acknowledged, would threaten to impose personal and social identity costs for the uncertain benefits of accurate knowledge.

Only by remaining ignorant of such facts as those can Trump supporters avoid facing the painful possibility that they might have been wrong about him and their despised enemies, right. Such a realization could unsettle their self and social identities, estranging them from family and friends who remain within the MAGA fold. As Michael Patrick Lynch, a philosopher who studies political beliefs put it, “To be blunt, Trump supporters aren’t changing their minds because that change would require changing who they are, and they want to be that person.” Staying ignorant, deliberately or unconsciously, is thus rational.

In fact, there appears to be a self-reinforcing feedback loop that rewards Trump for his incessant distortions of the truth.

…you wouldn’t think that could work that way…if you were just thinking about it, I guess…when you look around you it can be hard to deny

In a 2020 paper, “Dominant Leaders and the Political Psychology of Followership,” Petersen and Lasse Laustsen argued that “followers strategically promote dominant individuals to leadership positions in order to enhance their ability to aggress against other groups.”

In a paper from 2023, “The “Need for Chaos” and Motivations to Share Hostile Political Rumors,” Petersen, Mathias Osmundsen and Kevin Arceneaux made the case that “some individuals circulate hostile rumors because they wish to unleash chaos, to burn down the entire political order in the hope they gain status in the process.”

What drives this need for chaos?

Feelings of status loss and marginalization, even if imagined rather than real, have shaped recent political events, including the election of Donald Trump as president of the United States and the rise of populism in Europe.

Frustrations about status loss have been observed among members of traditionally privileged groups (e.g., white men), but actual experiences of historical injustices to members of marginalized groups can also trigger deep dissatisfaction with the political system (e.g., among Black individuals).

While the destructive impulses of those high in measures of the need for chaos would appear to be maladaptive, Petersen and his colleagues argued that “there may be functional benefits to displays of destructive intent for marginalized individuals.”

For example:

First, displays of destructive tendencies may serve as hard-to-fake signals of the motivation to impose costs and, hence, operate as a general deterrence device. Second, if individuals react with severe aggression to rejection, others may be pressured to invest in burnishing the person’s sense of self as a way to reduce the person’s ire. Finally, as a dominance strategy, marginalized individuals may see destruction as a form of niche construction, in which they cultivate a social ecology where they are more likely to be successful.

…you see…it works for them…so…fuck you if that doesn’t work for you…just you wait until they tell you again…& again…& again…&…oh, no…I’m afraid it doesn’t work like that, dear…you can’t ask them questions or tell them you don’t need them to go over it again…or talk about something else while they’re around…that wouldn’t be in your interests, you see…which they know much more about than you…because you didn’t do their research, you see…QED, bitch

…sorry…where was I?

…now you mention it…that…does have a familiar ring to it?

One reason for this is what Yphtach Lelkes, a political scientist at the University of Pennsylvania, called the crystallization of the electorate. In an email, Lelkes explained what he meant:

Crystallization describes a world where people’s attitudes won’t be swayed, no matter what new information they get. Campaign dynamics do very little to move attitudes. Polarization is the engine of crystallization.

…huh

Interestingly, though, “feelings of animosity toward Democratic groups do not predict favorability toward the Republican Party, Paul Ryan or Mitch McConnell,” Mason, Wronski and Kane wrote. Instead, “Trump support is uniquely predicted by animosity toward marginalized groups in the United States.”

…could we maybe go from “crystallization” to calling it “calcification”…or…would that be…polarizing?

Their conclusion amounts to a warning, even if it’s veiled in academic language:

This research reveals a wellspring of animus against marginalized groups in the United States that can be harnessed and activated for political gain. Trump’s unique ability to do so is not the only cause for normative concern.

Instead, we should take note that these attitudes exist across both parties and among nonpartisans. Though they may remain relatively latent when leaders and parties draw attention elsewhere, the right leader can activate these attitudes and fold them into voters’ political judgments.

The Real Trump Mystery [NYT]

…it’s a mystery?

It would be easy to write off tech’s rightward drift as nothing more than the rich acting in their economic self-interest, but Silicon Valley has always been driven by profit, and it hasn’t tilted Republican since the 1980s. Even now, it remains largely Democratic, even though even some of Kamala Harris’s strongest Valley supporters worry about how she might approach tech policy.

Mr. Trump appeals to some Silicon Valley elites because they identify with the man. To them, he is a fellow victim of the state, unjustly persecuted for his bold ideas. Practically, he is also the shield they need to escape accountability. Mr. Trump may threaten democratic norms and spread disinformation; he could even set off a recession, but he won’t challenge their ability to build the technology they like, no matter the social cost.

These leaders are betting they can sway Mr. Trump to their ideas through public support and financial backing, and they might be right. Once a critic of cryptocurrency, he has shifted to opposing regulation after crypto executives donated to his campaign, and this month he and his sons unveiled a crypto business. Mr. Trump recently proposed a “government efficiency commission” – an idea Mr. Musk floated to him only weeks earlier. While Mr. Trump’s allies in Silicon Valley may be few, their support could grant them influence over how his potential second administration – and by extension, the Republican Party – shapes tech policy for years to come.

As much as they want to influence Mr. Trump’s policies, they also want to strike back at the Biden-Harris administration, which they believe has unfairly targeted their industry.

More than any other administration in the internet era, President Biden and Ms. Harris have pushed tech companies toward serving the public interest. Key to their approach is the support of start-ups to counterbalance the dominance of tech giants, whose combined market value eclipses the G.D.P. of many countries. Brian Deese, the former director of Mr. Biden’s National Economic Council, has made clear that “big” companies are not inherently bad. But when they wield their market power, they can unfairly increase prices, narrow consumer choice, lower wages and impede the innovation that comes from fruitful competition.

Over the past three years, the Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice have taken on some of the largest tech companies – Facebook, Google, Amazon and Apple – arguing that they’ve stifled competition and harmed consumers. They’ve already made progress, including a major antitrust ruling against Google that could create momentum for other cases.

It’s not just antitrust. Mr. Biden’s Securities and Exchange Commission, led by Gary Gensler, another target of the tech elite backlash, has aggressively reined in cryptocurrencies, the mistakenly named category of products that offers little practical value to most Americans. The Biden-Harris administration also issued a landmark executive order last year that created a framework to ensure that A.I. technologies are safe and fair.

Most Americans see these actions as overdue. They blame tech companies for contributing to the mental health crisis among teenagers, political polarization, rampant misinformation and privacy violations. Many of us, reading the evidence about social media’s negative effects on our children, do not want to make the same mistake of failing to create guardrails for new technologies, however promising they may be.

…uhhh

The dark revelations of a new documentary about teens and social media [WaPo]

…check?

It’s not surprising then that tech titans feel some camaraderie with Mr. Trump, who portrays himself as a savior and a martyr. Like them, he doesn’t want to have to play by the rules or entertain challenges to his vision for a “better” America. “Nobody knows the system better than me,” he said in his first presidential run, “which is why I alone can fix it.” He launched his 2024 campaign by saying, “I am a victim,” and continues to claim that the justice system is rigged, as are elections. He will fight for self-perceived victims of all sorts, even (or especially) the ones who live in gilded mansions.

Why Do People Like Elon Musk Love Donald Trump? It’s Not Just About Money. [NYT]

…wierd how these assholes always claim to be saving us from something they can’t deal with…but I’m sure that’s purely a circumstantial coincidence & nobody should read anything into it

Nearly all voters who are familiar with Project 2025, a conservative policy road map that Vice President Kamala Harris and the Democratic Party have used to criticize former President Donald Trump, view the plan in a negative light, a new NBC News poll shows.

About 57% of registered voters report feeling negatively about Project 2025, with 51% saying they see the proposal “very” negatively and 7% more saying they view it “somewhat” negatively. Just 4% of voters reported viewing the conservative policy plan positively.

Among independents, 52% report feeling negatively about the plan, while 85% of Democrats say the same. About 33% of Republicans say they also view the plan negatively, with just 7% saying they have positive views of the plan, which Trump has criticized since Democrats ramped up efforts to tie him and Project 2025 together.

Poll: Project 2025 is broadly known and severely unpopular with voters NBC]

…fun fact…at 7%…the project 2025 thing is more popular (with people who picked that team already) than…uhhh

Only 6% of Democrats in the poll, which was conducted Sept. 13-17, said they had positive feelings about Musk, while 79% said they had negative feelings. The numbers were flipped for Republicans, with 62% having positive feelings toward him and 14% negative feelings. Independents were split, 31% to 36%.

…ok…so that’s mean…& unfair…how popular project 2025 is with people who’d vote for that guy is different from how popular a guy who’d vote for that (& is consistently a massive asshole in conspicous ways) is with people who wouldn’t…possibly because they have a brain…& can do things like talk while walking…& possibly chewing gum…so we definitely should not read anything into the part where the part where they wrote the quiet part down & it’s a problem scores half as popular inside the echo chamber as the loudest dude shouting the quiet parts scores unpopular

…but…uhhh…even with his own kind he’s twice as unpopular as the thing his orange boi is desperately trying to mariah carey into the background along with all his other toxic baggage is beloved….that’s…sucks to be you, I guess?

“It’s a damaged brand,” said Jeff Horwitt of Hart Research Associates, the Democratic pollster who conducted the survey with Republican pollster Bill McInturff of Public Opinion Strategies.

“If you didn’t see the name and you just saw the numbers, you’d say he looks like a typical national Republican politician,” Horwitt said.

…oof…it’s not good when you leave yourself open to people saying that kind of thing about you, bro

Musk was one of two nonpoliticians in the latest poll. The other, singer Taylor Swift, was viewed positively by 33% of respondents and negatively by 27%. Swift has endorsed Harris, and Republicans’ views of her have fallen from a 2-point net positive to a 35-point net negative.

…way to judge an artist by their art, there

Horwitt said that as Musk chases a variety of ambitions — including building a colony on Mars — he won’t have the same reservoir of goodwill or broad-based credibility that another business figure might.

“When you’re trying to work with public-private partnerships or the government, it makes it harder for people to work with you when you become such a polarizing figure,” he said.

…”polarizing figure”…so

Musk has endorsed Trump for another term in the White House and organized a Super PAC to try to boost pro-Trump voter turnout in key battleground states. Some political strategists say his backing of Trump has also fired up the Democratic base, including by highlighting Trump’s support for firing workers who go on strike.

Elon Musk’s popularity plummets to 6% among Democrats, poll finds [NBC]

…ok…I got it…israel is looking like it’s headed into parts of lebannon it took a couple of decades to get it to leave last time…vlad’s saying as loudly as possible that he’s re-jigged his principles to allow for nuking places that don’t have any of their own…or…like ukraine…had loads but gave them up on the understanding that if exactly what’s been going on for years went on they’d get all sorts of assistance they only kind of have…shit in sudan is going badly enough that in a saner period we’d be talking about little else

…but no…let’s just talk about the same shit the same way like we’re explaining all the jokes until they stop seeming funny instead…because that’s what the loudest dude in the house wants to do…because it’s his happy place or some shit

…fuck if it don’t seem like if you could wave a magic wand & have things work for people the way they think they should have to for people that ain’t them…pretty swiftly things would be a whole lot quieter while a lot of problem man-child types choked out on the discovery that what they thought was medicine when they were merrily doling it out was a terminal dose when applied reflexively

…so…there’s at least some cause for celebration…that’s the last one of these you have to put up with for more than a week…so that’ll be like a holiday…but @bryanlsplinter has kindly offered to step into that breach…so I have faith that the place will still be standing when I get back…just…don’t make him call @elliecoo…if you done fucked up that bad it’s probably too late for you, anyway…but if there does turn out to be a god…& they don’t turn out to be unsympathetic…which…well…have you read the first half of the bible…there’s like a whole vengeance thing…dude has a temper…but…maybe they’ll have mercy on you

…or all of us, if we’re lucky

…lord knows, we could use a bit of divine mercy & a slightly less ineffable plan…anytime now?