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Justifiable Propaganda
I'm hittin' the "bubble" theme pretty hard lately. Some of you are probably tired of it. Ask me if I
Can you truly be in a bubble if you’re aware of it? Just like, can you really be insane if you recognize your own madness?
Well, I can’t answer your first question, but based on extensive first-hand experience with my own mind, and my enthusiastic admissions to being some sort of crazy, the answer to your second question is “yes.”
Got it! So, through the process of deductive reasoning, the answer to the first question would also be “yes”.
I remember most participants in 1999-2000 thought that was happening was insane. So yes, you can be aware of it and just not care.
This sort of meta commentary is useful for distinguishing against a purely devil’s advocate style argument. It would have been useful even sooner, when it was less suggested by volume of writing that the argument was being made in earnest.
An upside of getting your info from someone with intellectual integrity is that they won’t often misrepresent their beliefs or level of certainty. A problem can arise, however, because the same people are often capable of arguing for things they don’t believe in the search for truth, so it’s easy to misunderstand them when they aren’t explicit about it.
“… the same people are often capable of arguing for things they don’t believe.”
And that, right there, is why even (and perhaps especially) a hopelessly inebriated version of me was so valuable — I’d argue indispensable — to a propaganda outfit.
Simply put: It’s impossible to know what I really believe. I could tell anybody, anything at any time, and convince them not only that it’s true, but that I believe it wholeheartedly.
There are only four people in the world capable of discerning what I really believe about anything. Those four people are all recurring characters in the Monthlies.
I will disagree with what you think of the monthlies and tell you that I think they are standalone in any magazine publication. Bio is unnecessary, most people not familiar with you would assume it’s interesting fiction. You write with an alive voice, thank you.
God, I love this place. Even when I was an active academic I couldn’t get real discussion from my colleagues.
Not just Spotify playlists, people are using AI features and chatbots to do their Fantasy Football picks
I think what makes this worse from 1999-2000 is the unclear benefit of what we are actually getting from this.
Krugman, this morning, suggests that without the AI bubble, we’d be in a recession.
https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/why-arent-we-partying-like-its-1999?publication_id=277517&post_id=175514056
If it is fair to proclaim the birth of this bubble as the NDVA report that started it all (the earnings report heard around the world), I venture that we might need a similar event to kill the now adult bubble. With many market participants in bubble watch we could get an early exit on an otherwise normal correction that then gets bought furiously, but if we get an unexpectedly bad earnings report from an AI darling or a superscaler that is likely the catalyst that triggers a true exit and subsequent cascade down, another earnings report heard around the world. How close are we to this event? I still think there is plenty of room for further exuberance, my guess is Q1-2 2026, but what do I know? I have been adding stop loss orders on most of my positions just in case ChatGPT generated music playlists are not all they are promised to be.
After the bubble bursts, those left standing will probably fall into one of three categories: cutting edge niche AI that has become essential for certain industries and can thus become profitable at some scale; good “generic” AI that can greatly assist most people and do so profitably at a low cost; and those (perhaps many) AI companies that simply failed.
Amazon, Google, and Microsoft all survived the DotCom Bubble, and it took Steve Jobs (and a deal with Microsoft) to save Apple. Technology and product acquisitions will likely play an important roll. However, the catalyst need not be internal. If the overall economy hits a sandbar (or an iceberg), the “winnowing” of AI companies could begin in earnest.
Advanced chips are closely linked to national security and defense. I don’t see this bubble popping yet- but I’m starting to look more closely at the end users for AWS, Google cloud, etc., as well as the results for defense contractors. This is one industry where the US should absolutely should want to replace human jobs with AI. Bring on the drones, UAV’s, robotics.
The other big user of advanced chips will be nuclear power (small modular), which Bill Gates is quietly working on; to roll out by 2030’s.
https://www.rand.org/pubs/commentary/2025/02/dont-be-fooled-advanced-chips-are-important-for-national.html