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Donald Trump Is World’s Only Hope To Stop Elon Musk
If you asked me last week what's more dangerous than Elon Musk exercising what, on some days, looks
All Musk needs to do is cut Trump in on the deal and he’ll get it done. The fact that the public still doesn’t know or care enough to understand what’s happening shows how screwed we are, but don’t worry, Trump is making sure American companies can remain competitive in bribing foreign government officials. Gee, I wonder who might find it advantageous to bribe foreign officials? I never could have imagined we could fall so far so fast.
The only card the Democrats have to play is a government shutdown at this point. I have a hard time believing Republicans will wrangle all their recalcitrant members in the house. Democrats better refuse to give them the votes unless they agree to rein in Trump or at least Musk.
When it comes to AI, Musk has some… thoughts.
Fun story: once upon a time, back when everyone still thought he was just an eccentric car mogul, Elon Musk thought of a joke. It involved “Rococo basilisk,” a play on Roko’s Basilisk. Roko’s Basilisk is a thought experiment popularized on LessWrong, a group of weirdos behind things like Effective Altruism and Sam Bankman Fried (I might be glossing over a few details). Anyway, Roko’s basilisk postulates that an AI could arise someday so powerful that it will torture all who didn’t aid its rise for eternity, even resurrecting those who already passed away just so it could torture them; therefore, the only rational course of action is to do everything in your power to bring about said AI.
Before tweeting it, Musk thought to google if someone had beaten him to the punchline. It turns out someone had, a Canadian electropop musician named Grimes. It was the beginning of a beautiful relationship which would ultimately produce two children including Elon’s heir apparent, a beautiful baby boy named “X Æ A-12.” No seriously. They call him “X” for short. Seriously.
But I’m sure Elon isn’t trying to acquire OpenAI because he’s trying to bring AGI into this world so that he might sit upon its terrible throne and not be tortured for eternity. That would be ridiculous.
Thanks for the candid, insightful assessment. Trump’s deceptive approach to his businesses comes to Washington; overvalue assets, lie about outstanding debt.
Doubt he intervenes w/ Musk unless treasury yields spike. Maybe that’s also what it’ll take for a few semi-moderate conservatives in Congress (and in SCOTUS) to wake up and exercise the power they have to at least try to restrain Trump and Musk.
I’ve also considered that the treasury market might end up saving us all—I just wish it would move on the Liz Truss timeline.
I was adjusting to the tariff chaos well enough, but after the statement about “treasury debt irregularities” my brain broke. The right tail of that implication is something I can’t get my mind around it’s so enormously dangerous. I’ve been pondering large lots of VIX spreads and decided that’s what I have to do after modeling various approaches the past few weeks. The ‘enormous right tail’ could mean any hedging is worthless since the counter-party risk is unmeasurable. Reminds me of your anecdote about ‘hedging the end of the world.’ I would appreciate some more depth as to the threat of a loss of “full faith and credit” of the US and what is currently knows or coming to light around that stressor.
Or is Trump setting up his fall guy for when the tires come off? Age and treachery ..Teslas are still auto crashing…
I suspect Putin could take care of DT’s problem for him. He knows some guys ….
Possible scene from an upcoming James Bond movie:
High-Level Chinese Official: “Mr. Musk, it would be a shame if China were to find it necessary to nationalize your beautiful Gigafactory located in Shanghai.”
Elon Musk: “What are you suggesting?”
High-Level Chinese Official: “Perhaps you could find it in your own best interest to assist us with some things from your unique position inside the Trump administration?”
Elon Musk: “I see.”