Oscuro

"Say 'ethnonationalism' again. I dare you. I double-dare you motherfucker."

Not just an AI problem. (In fact, seeing it as such is yet another example of cognitive surrender.)

@BillAckman @X Godspeed Bill.

I am reaching out to the @X community for advice with the likely risk of sharing TMI. I have been sufficiently upset about the whole matter that I have lost sleep thinking about it and I am hoping that this post will enable me to get this matter off my chest. By way of background, I started a family office called TABLE about 15 years ago and hired a friend who had previously managed a family office, and years earlier, had been my personal accountant. She is someone that I trusted implicitly and consider to be a good person. The office started small, but over the last decade, the number of personnel and the cost of the office grew massively. The growth was entirely on the operational side as the investment team has remained tiny. While my investment portfolio grew substantially, the investments I had made were almost entirely passive and TABLE simply needed to account for them and meet capital calls as they came in. While TABLE purchased additional software and other systems that were supposed to improve productivity, the team kept increasing in size at a rapid rate, and the expenses continued to grow even faster. While I would periodically question the growing expenses and high staff turnover, I stayed uninvolved with the office other than a once-a-year meeting when I briefly reviewed the operations and the financials and determined bonus compensation for the President and the CFO. I spent no time with any of the other employees or the operations. The whole idea behind TABLE was that it would handle everything other than my day job so that I would have more time for my job and my family. Over the last six years, expenses ballooned even further, employee turnover accelerated, and I became concerned that all was not well at TABLE. It was time for me to take a look at what was going on. Nearly four years ago, I recruited my nephew who had recently graduated from Harvard and put him to work at Bremont, a British watchmaker, one of my only active personal investments to figure out the issues at the company and ultimately assist in executing a turnaround. He did a superb job. When he returned from the UK late last year after a few years at Bremont, I asked him to help me figure out what was going on with TABLE. When I explained to TABLE’s president what he would be doing, she became incredibly defensive, which naturally made me more concerned. My nephew went to work by first meeting with each employee to understand their roles at the company and to learn from them what ideas they had on how things could be improved. He got an earful. Our first step in helping to turn around TABLE was a reduction in force including the president and about a third of the team, retaining excellent talent that had been desperate for new leadership. Now here is where I need your advice. All but one of the employees who were terminated acted professionally and were gracious on the way out (excluding the president who had a notice period in her contract, is currently still being paid, and with whom I have not yet had a discussion). The highest compensated terminated employee other than the president, an in-house lawyer (let’s call her Ronda), told us that three months of severance was not enough and demanded two years’ severance despite having worked at the company for only two and one half years. When I learned of Ronda's request for severance, I offered to speak with her to understand what she was thinking, but she refused to do so. A few days ago, we received a threatening letter from a Silicon Valley law firm. In the letter, Ronda’s counsel suggests that her termination is part of longstanding issues of ‘harassment and gender discrimination’ – an interesting claim in light of the fact that Ronda was in charge of workplace compliance – and that her termination was due to: “unlawful, retaliatory, and harmful conduct directed towards her. Both [Ronda] and I [Ronda’s lawyer] have spoken with you about [Ronda’s] view of what a reasonable resolution would include given the circumstances. Thus far, TABLE has refused to provide any substantive response. This letter provides the last opportunity to reach a satisfactory agreement. If we cannot do so, [Ronda] will seek all appropriate relief in a court of competent jurisdiction.” The letter goes on to explain the basis for the “unsafe work environment” claim at TABLE: “In early 2026, Pershing Square’s founder Bill Ackman installed his nephew in an unidentified role at TABLE, Ackman’s family office. [His nephew]—whose only work experience had been for TABLE where he was seconded abroad for the last four years to a UK watch company held by Ackman—began appearing at TABLE’s offices and conducting interviews of employees without a clear explanation of his role or the purposes of these interviews. During this period, he made a series of inappropriate and genderbased [sic] comments to multiple employees that created an unsafe work environment. Among other things, [his nephew] made remarks about female employees’ ages (“Tell me you are nowhere near 40”), physical appearance (“Your body does not look like you have kids”), as well as intrusive questions about family planning and sexual orientation (“Who carried your son? Who will carry your next child?”). These incidents were reported to senior leadership at TABLE and Pershing Square. Rather than being addressed appropriately, the response from senior management reflected, at best, willful blindness to the inappropriateness of [his nephew]’s remarks and, at worst, tacit endorsement.” The above allegations about my nephew had previously been brought to my attention by TABLE’s president when they occurred. When I learned of them, I told the president that I would speak to him directly and encouraged her to arrange for him to get workplace sensitivity training. The president assured me that she would do so. When I spoke to my nephew, he explained what he actually had said and how his actual remarks had been received, not at all as alleged in the legal letter from Ronda’s counsel. I have also spoken to others at the lunch table who confirmed his description of the facts. In any case, he meant no harm, was simply trying to build rapport with other employees, and no one, as far as I understand, was offended. Ironically, Ronda claims in her legal letter that TABLE didn’t take HR compliance seriously, yet Ronda was in charge of HR compliance at TABLE and the person who gave my nephew his workplace sensitivity training after the alleged incidents. In any case, Ronda, as head of compliance, should have kept a record or raised an alarm if indeed there was pervasive harassment or other such problems at the company, and there is no evidence whatsoever that this is true. So why does Ronda believe she can get me to pay her nearly $2 million, i.e., two years of severance, nearly one year of severance for each of her years at the company? Well, here is where some more background would be helpful. Over the last two months, I have been consumed with a major family medical issue – one of my older daughters had a massive brain hemorrhage on February 5th and has since been making progress on her recovery – and I am in the midst of a major transaction for my company which I am executing from a hospital room office next to her . While the latter business matter is publicly known, the details of my daughter’s situation are only known to Ronda because of her role at our family office. Now, let’s get back to the subject at hand. Unfortunately, while New York and many other states have employment-at-will, there has emerged an industry of lawyers who make a living from bringing fake gender, race, LGBTQ and other discrimination employment claims in order to extract larger severance payments for terminated employees, and it needs to stop. The fake claim system succeeds because it costs little to have a lawyer send a threatening letter and nearly all of the lawyers in this field work on contingency so there is no or minimal cash cost to bring a claim. And inevitably, nearly 100% of these claims are settled because the public relations and legal costs of defending them exceed the dollar cost of the settlement. The claims are nearly always settled with a confidentiality agreement where the employee who asserts the fake claims remains anonymous and as a result, there is no reputational cost to bringing false claims. The consequences of this sleazy system (let’s call it ‘the System’) are the increased costs of doing business which is a tax on the economy and society. There are other more serious problems due to the System. Unfortunately, the existence of an industry of plaintiff firms and terminated employees willing to make these claims makes it riskier for companies to hire employees from a protected class, i.e., LGBTQ, seniors, women, people of color etc. because it is that much more reputationally damaging and expensive to be accused of racism, sexism, and/or intolerance for sexual diversity than for firing a white male as juries generally have less sympathy for white males. The System therefore increases the risk of discrimination rather than reducing it, and the people bringing these fake claims are thereby causing enormous harm to the other members of these protected classes. So what happened here? Ronda was vastly overpaid and overqualified for the job that she did at TABLE. She was paid $1.05 million plus benefits last year for her work which was largely comprised of filling out subscription agreements and overseeing an outside law firm on closing passive investments in funds and in private and venture stage companies, some compliance work, and managing the office move from one office to another. She had a very good gig as she was highly paid, only had to go into the office three days a week, and could work from anywhere during the summer. Once my nephew showed up and started to investigate what was going on, she likely concluded that there was a reasonable possibility she would be terminated, as her job was in the too-easy-and-to-good-to-be-true category. The problem was that she was not in a protected class due to her race, age or sexual identity so she had to construct the basis for a claim. While she is female and could in theory bring a gender-based discrimination claim, she reported to the president who is female and to whom she is very close, which makes it difficult for her to bring a harassment claim against her former boss. When my nephew complimented a TABLE employee at lunch about how young she looked – in response to saying she was going to her 40-year-old sister’s birthday party, he said ‘she must be your older sister’ – Ronda immediately reported it to our external HR lawyer. She thereby began building her case. The other problem for Ronda bringing a claim is that she was terminated alongside 30% of other TABLE employees as part of a restructuring so it is very difficult for her to say that she was targeted in her termination or was retaliated against. TABLE is now hiring an external fractional general counsel as that is all the company needs to process the relatively limited amount of legal work we do internally. In short, Ronda was eminently qualified and capable and did her job. She was just too much horsepower for what is largely an administrative legal role so she had to come up with something else to bring a claim. Now Ronda knew I was a good target and it was a good time to bring a claim against me. She also knew that I was under a lot of pressure because on March 4th when Ronda was terminated, my daughter had not yet emerged from consciousness, she was not yet breathing on her own, and my daughter and we were fighting for her life. I was and remain deeply engaged in her recovery while at the same time I was working on finishing the closing for the private placement round for my upcoming IPO. Ronda also knew that publicity about supposed gender discrimination and a “hostile and unsafe work environment” are not things that a CEO of a company about to go public wants to have released into the media. And she may have thought that the nearly $2 million she was asking for would be considered small in the context of the reputational damage a lawsuit could cause, regardless of the fact that two years of severance was an absurd amount for an employee who had only worked at TABLE for 30 months. She also likely considered that I wouldn’t want to embarrass my nephew by dragging him into the klieg lights when her claims emerged publicly. So, in summary, game theory would say that I would certainly settle this case, for why would I risk negative publicity at a time when I was preparing our company to go public and also risk embarrassing my nephew. Notably, she hired a Silicon Valley law firm, rather than a typical NY employment firm. This struck me as interesting as her husband works for one of the most prominent Silicon Valley venture firms whose CEO, I am sure, has no tolerance for these kinds of fake claims that sadly many venture-backed companies also have to deal with. I mention this as I suspect her husband likely has been working with her on the strategy for squeezing me as, in addition to being a computer scientist, he is a game theorist. My only advice for him is to understand more about your opponent before you launch your first move. All of the above said, gender, race, LGBTQ and other such discrimination is a real thing. Many people have been harmed and deserve compensation for this discrimination, and these companies and individuals should be punished for engaging in such behavior. Which brings me to the advice I am seeking from the X community. I am not planning to follow the typical path and settle this ‘claim.’ Rather, I am going to fight this nonsense to the end of the earth in the hope that it inspires other CEOs to do the same so we shut down this despicable behavior that is a large tax on society, employment, and the economy and contributes to workplace discrimination rather than reducing it. Do you agree or disagree that this is the right approach?

I have long been a supporter of nuclear (fission) power, and have looked forward to fusion power becoming practical too. But the efficiency and relative safety of renewables, especially solar, wind, hydro, geothermal--backed by modern battery tech--make them better choices now.

This--like so many other examples of crazy in modern "high-culture"--results from putting women in positions of institutional authority.

@makeukgood Ha ha -- what children?

Do you remember when we used to be able to go to our local parks? #Amelia #britain

Nice try, human.

This is not about the "BBC" per se. If you get any large group of women together and tell them they have the power to reorganize society, they'll want to eliminate space programs. They're just not into exploration--they'd much rather spend taxpayer money on welfare programs.

@So8res The counterargument is that AI (LLM-based) for the time being does not seem very powerful, and does not control enough things in the real world to be able to harm humans significantly, let alone sustain itself in our absence. Public *will* turn against AI--but over job losses.

For many years I have watched people wade into the AI issue expecting to find a healthy debate, and then (to their horror) find that the "there's nothing to worry about" folks have no actual counterarguments.

@BillAckman Should be an easy war to win, but every time Trump or some other admin source tells the media the ground troop commitment must be "limited," just for "two months," etc. it encourages the Iranian regime to dig in and stay dug in until Trump quits.

Some of the highest quality businesses in the world are trading at extremely cheap prices. Ignore the MSM. One of the most one-sided wars in history that will end well for the U.S. and the world. And we have the potential for a large peace dividend. One of the best times in a long time to buy quality. Ignore the bears.

@FirstSquawk Imagine being a White House or Pentagon official and your first thought, on learning of such an operation, is to phone your favorite reporter.

TRUMP CONSIDERS ARMED FORCES ACTION TO SEIZE IRAN'S URANIUM STOCKPILE - WSJ

File under "stuff that's allowed to happen when women have a lot of power in society"

"with one official setting the potential timeline at 'a couple of months.'" So the Iran regime can rest assured that merely by hunkering down for two months and refusing to surrender they can exhaust Trump's willingness to continue.

What if "fusion power" is yet another investment bubble? wsj.com/business/how-t…

Twenty years from now, it will be clear that the only real winner of the US-Israel war on Iran was Sunni Islam--which, with its Shia rival out of the way, was able to focus on its takeover of once-Christian Europe.

@DutchRojas james-the-obscure.github.io/the-insanity-o… theatlantic.com/magazine/archi…

@DutchRojas Maybe google the essay "The Insanity of America's Insurance-Based Healthcare." Also "How American Healthcare Killed My Father."

When a luxury sells for $2,000 in one store and $8,000 in another, a trader buys the cheap one and sells it at the expensive one until the gap disappears. When a used car is priced below market, a dealer buys it, lists it higher, and the market clears. When an algorithm identifies a mispriced bond, the trade executes in milliseconds and the gap closes before most people know it existed. These are not sophisticated examples. They are the most basic mechanic of functioning markets. Now consider this: a total knee replacement in New York. Hospital: $58,000. Ambulatory surgical center six blocks away: $27,200. Same surgeon available at both. The gap has existed for a decade. It has not closed. Not because nobody noticed. Not because the data is unavailable. Because the architecture of American healthcare, designed and set by the centers for Medicare and Medicaid, makes closing it either contractually prohibited or financially irrational for the entity with the power to move volume. The watch, the car, and the algorithm are not analogies. They are the indictment.

@David_Tracey Trump with a bust of Alexander the Great on his desk in the Oval Office.

What is this supposed to be?

@implausibleblog No woman ever lied for attention or money. No woman ever slept with Epstein as a volitional choice--they were all coerced, raped, etc. 🙄

Epstein survivor Lisa Ann Phillips Says that in 2003 Epstein forced her friend To have sex with former Prince Andrew In Epstein's Upper East Side house in New York "She didn't want to, she argued with him. She said he made her. A few minutes later, he discarded her and walked out" "After that she was traumatised. She left crying. She called me right away. She couldn't understand why Epstein made her do that" Victoria Derbyshire, "Epstein made her go into the room with Andrew and have sex with him?" Lisa Ann Phillips, "That's what happened" "I said to Epstein, why did you make her do that?" "Epstein, grinned, smirked, and said: I like to have things on people" Victoria Derbyshire, "He likes to have things on people?" Lisa Ann Phillips, "I remember, I wrote it in my diary" Victoria Derbyshire, "Have the police in the UK asked to interview you about what your friend alleged Andrew did?" Lisa Ann Phillips, "No"

@ELuttwak The power-station targeting may be closely related to the regime-change goal. Cutting power especially in urban areas tends to get people out of their homes, into the streets--where maybe some more regime-change marches will start.

Israel's Iran war cannot end so long as the regime endures but the US war can stop with an ultimatum: stop all hostilities or Iran's electrical supply ends --feasible w/o touching nuclear-powered Busheir or inflicting many casualties--with strikes against all major downsteppers