JonIsStingy2

I had no idea that GPS signals are free worldwide & were funded by U.S. taxpayers at roughly $2 billion/year.

Realizing they spent $450 billion on AI and all it did was fire millions of people, make everything worse, and add zero growth to the economy.

AI is going to make a lot of people feel poorer, not richer.

Walmart is rolling out digital price tags at all of its stores. At the same time, the corporate giant just secured a patent for "dynamically and automatically updating item prices.” Plus another patent for using machine learning to predict demand and recommend prices.

Walmart is rolling out digital price tags at all of its stores. At the same time, the corporate giant just secured a patent for "dynamically and automatically updating item prices.” Plus another patent for using machine learning to predict demand and recommend prices.

Very smart take on what went wrong in the past, and exactly the kind of pledge to be different from a generic baseline Democrat that you need to win in tough races.

Paul Ehrlich lost even within the environmental movement and few noticed. His original claim was stark: humans are mouths to feed, polluters, and ultimately trespassers in the ecosystem. If population grows too large, correction must come through die-off. Human ingenuity plays little role; at best, it is trivial. Humans are not creators, but burdens. From that premise, it follows naturally that some degree of population control ( including coercion) could be justified. The response from thinkers like Julian Simon was fundamentally different. Humans are not merely consumers; they are creators. Given the right institutions, they can solve environmental problems through innovation. The real question is not population, but the institutional framework within which people operate. From there, disagreement persists. One can argue, as I do, that markets are powerful forces for conservation and restoration. Others maintain that strong government intervention is necessary (regulations, management of commons, Pigouvian taxes) to correct misalignments between private and collective interests. A carbon tax, for instance, is justified on the grounds that pricing pollution induces behavioral change and innovation (aligning private interest with collective interest). But here is the key point: both sides reject Ehrlich’s premise. Whether one favors markets or regulation, both perspectives rest on the idea that humans are capable of creating solutions. Both assume that environmental outcomes depend on incentives and institutions, not on reducing the number of “mouths.” In that sense, both implicitly accept that humans are not parasites, but the ultimate resource. This was not always the case. The environmental movements of the 1940s through the 1970s were far more receptive to Ehrlich’s view. At the time, his premise was dominant. Today, it is not merely contested: it is largely abandoned, even by those who might never cite Simon. That is Julian Simon’s real victory: not that everyone agrees with his policy conclusions (Simon was a free market enthusiast like I am), but that his core insight -- that human beings are fundamentally creators -- has quietly become the shared starting point of the debate. Julian Simon not only won the bet that made him famous. He won the war of ideas and destroyed the most anti-Human idea ever (in both direct statements and indirect consequences through its application). Ehrlich died well after his ideas died.

BREAKING: Jeff Bezos is in talks to raise $100 billion for a new fund that would buy manufacturing companies and use AI to automate them, per WSJ.

Walmart is rolling out digital price tags at all of its stores. At the same time, the corporate giant just secured a patent for "dynamically and automatically updating item prices.” Plus another patent for using machine learning to predict demand and recommend prices.

James Talarico on listening to real Texans about border policy, not the groups in DC who say they represent them.

NOW - Netanyahu: "Jesus Christ has no advantage over Genghis Khan. Because if you are strong enough, ruthless enough, powerful enough, evil will overcome good."