> What changed now compared to 2 years ago to make Trump care?
We all now know that Trump knew about it, that's what has changed. It was fine when this was private, but now his administration is starting to get questions around why his Commerce department punted the initial investigation to DOJ where it ultimately died as the opposition party is about to retake Congress with investigations top of mind.
But keeping him potentially exposes them legally. If she ever accused him of using his authority to coerce her into said relationship (purely hypothetical), the board is now complicit in covering up legit criminal behavior. This is why conflict of interest policy exists.
fair point but is it solvable by other means? like the board "to conduct investigation", discuss with this woman if she has been coerced and if she claims she is not — avoid firing him?
> but AI will eventually just flow to the competitor that wants business and has the best price.
This assumes that competitors will be willing to accommodate, which isn't always a given. I could easily see a ban industry-wide on agents for airlines to protect their pricing strategy, and the perceived administrative burden gives them legal cover against acting as a cartel.
> I think companies want to compete to win customers, but I'm not 100% sure anymore.
Companies don't want to compete if they can buy the competition instead. If they did, you wouldn't see mass consolidation across the economy (airlines are a great example of this). Cornering the market or getting bought before you're cornered is usually more lucrative than trying to compete.
Occam's razor. We all saw the picture of Jensen signing the woman's breasts in Taiwan, his trademark leather jacket, etc. He very intentionally cultivated the rockstar CEO image. If your conspiracy is true (and I think it's much simpler than that), then Jensen was a huge flashing billboard saying to the world that he's absolutely down to be compromised.
> And I'm pretty sure Jenson resigning without a suitable, almost identical successor will kill NVIDIA
Maybe, but Nvidia bears responsibility for having such poorly de-risked corporate governance. It's actually shocking that the company propping up the entire AI industry (and thus the US economy) is led by a CEO with no COO and dozens of direct reports. Jensen thought he was invincible because he positioned himself to have total control of the company operations, which certainly didn't encourage him to think twice about making the mistakes he did. He acted out because he felt empowered to, and it's easy why.
> We all saw the picture of Jensen signing the woman's breasts in Taiwan
My argument isn't that Jensen didn't do it - I have no doubt he had multiple affairs. He already admitted to the first one!
My argument is that the President of the United States raped children and nobody even talks about it anymore. So Jensen fucking consenting 50 year-olds and suddenly having the CIA outing him (after knowing about it for a year apparently), and every major media company calling for his resignation over it, before any actual investigations finish and over something seemingly neither illegal or particularly related to his work is weird.
> Occam's razor.
In light of the above, I would say Occam's razor is someone is trying to get rid of Jensen.
Sources connected to US intel have gone on the record to say that they believed her to be a spy, going so far as to have the Secretary of State brief the President directly. They don't bother the President with things like this unless they feel the intelligence is strong.[0]
A spy is someone that deals in obtaining and sharing secret information. They would be a spy if they used their information to obtain secrets on NVIDIA hardware and shared these secrets with others. There's no evidence I've seen that this happened. Someone buying NVIDIA hardware is not a spy.
> During his 18 years in the Senate, Tester was an outspoken critic of the PATRIOT Act that passed shortly after the 9/11 attacks that expanded the Justice Department's surveillance powers. When asked whether his concerns over government surveillance remain and whether he has the same concerns with his new employer, Tester said Palantir is different and that the company doesn't build "big databases" or trade in private data.
That is literally what Palantir does.
> "I wanted to do away with the Patriot Act because it was about privacy," Tester said. "It was about making sure that I am not being watched by anybody, including Big Brother. And by the way, I've talked to many people within Palantir. They believe the same way I do. This is an organization that believes in privacy."
Congress is full of these people. Forget party affiliation, this is as broad as it is systemic. Talk a big game in office, develop your network and have a cushy job waiting for you once you leave where you make millions calling your friends who are still in office. All while saying that it's not lobbying with a straight face.
Just place all their assets into a blind trust, perhaps a "congressional employees' index fund", for the duration of their employment plus n years. There are many obvious loopholes, like all assets in your spouse's name, etc, but maybe there is a lookback period or something. There are much thornier compliance problems that are solved, so all the what-ifs can likely be addressed with precedent.
But yes, cap their wealth, limit their stock investments to broad market ETF for stocks and bonds. Extend this to spouses and probably children (for a term). Perhaps provide them with housing in Washington DC.
And attempts to bypass the limits should have very harsh punishments.
Politics should be like teaching - no one does it for the money.
Such rules have to be marketable to people in public office in order to be enacted. One way might be to have a congressional alumni committee with very high salaries and strict rules on donations (this strictness could be sold as a way to prevent alumni officials from competing against the power of active officials).
Even if it cost a few hundred million a year in do nothing salaries, it'd help the integrity of multi trillion dollar budgets.
The British House of Lords sort of used to work this way until the stigma of aristocrats being involved in commercial/social activities faded.
But then the only people who run for office, are independently wealthy and don't need work after they serve. Which is also a class of people who don't represent the people.
They can be paid to make up for it. MPs have a good pension scheme too (especially if they serve several terms).
I also said restrict, not prevent them from working. If their previous jobs do not present a conflict of interests they can go back to that. There are lots of careers that are fine.
> Which is also a class of people who don't represent the people.
Neither do professional politicians, especially as they end up being closely connected to the wealthy who fund them.
> I think what is needed is restrictions on jobs people can do after leaving public office.
People who have left public office aren't the only concern, either, there are also quite a few disturbing family connections these days.
For example, both of Chuck Schumer's daughters work in "government outreach" and "politics marketing" positions for big tech companies. One works at OpenAI, the other works at Meta. Not illegal, but not a good look and the sort of thing people should be concerned about.
(I'm glad the Democrats trounced the much worse Trump Republicans, but let's not pretend they are beyond reproach).
>Congress is full of these people. Forget party affiliation, this is as broad as it is systemic.
I wish more people understood this. Forget party allegiances, vote for those who have your best interests in mind. I bet if the people stopped focusing on their differences, and instead focused on the struggles we all have in common, we would get so much done.
General annoyance: Not having a specific patriot act-like privacy violation ready to not let politicos weasel out like this is journalistic malpractice. Is it just laziness? Just look up some examples before the interview!
What is and isn't "Big databases" isn't up for debate, point to the exact example and ask them about it.
> > Tester said Palantir is different and that the company doesn't build "big databases" or trade in private data.
> That is literally what Palantir does.
I don't know where this perception of Palantir comes from. Why do people believe things like this that are utterly divorced from reality. I'd ask you to point to a single instance where Palantir has "traded in" private data.
As for building "big databases", it is technically true that Palantir helps organizations organize and operationalize their data. But it brings no data to the table and stores no data for the organizations. It originates no data. It does not have access to any of this data.
I genuinely think we need some kind of restrictions on free speech for representatives in/formerly in government, because the fact that our politicians can lie this blatantly is as disgusting as it is anti-democracy. It's no wonder 1/3 of our electorate is completely fucking detached from reality.
And the complicity of the media here is also fucking disgusting. A former senator getting a job at Violating Privacy Inc. after opposing the Violating Your Privacy law, Jesus fuck.
At first glance this came off as a bit absurd to me but the government puts restrictions on what it can do all the time. Now it is probably too far to say officials not currently in government have speech restrictions but restrictions on those in office is no more outlandish than any other regulation or rights legislation. Elected officials _are_ the government.
Agreed. I think the US Military is a good example- when you enlist you agree to limits on freedom of speech, association, and privacy. Parker v. Levy established the fact that the military is a “specialized society” with unique needs. Congress could be a similar group.
I want the DoJ to prosecute Trump for his lies to be honest.
He's free to accuse whoever of whatever (as though we could stop him anyway) but if not implied in the original comment, this should be subject to being proven to be lies. And I think similar to libel, it should be a decently high bar to clear in terms of "this person knew what they were saying was bullshit," insofar as it's able to be proven in court what someone or some entity knew at a given time.
Putting aside the precedent of prosecuting former leaders (imo more permissible now that he is term limited than before), I think there is a lot to prosecute Trump on that doesn't require handing a loaded shotgun to whoever happens to occupy the presidency.
>At first glance this came off as a bit absurd to me but the government puts restrictions on what it can do all the time. Now it is probably too far to say officials not currently in government have speech restrictions but restrictions on those in office is no more outlandish than any other regulation or rights legislation. Elected officials _are_ the government.
That's not a great idea. In fact, that's why it's explicitly disallowed[0] by the US Constitution.
If you think that should be changed, you just need to convince 2/3 of each house of Congress and 3/4 of the legislatures of the several states to officially agree with you[1]. Good luck with that.
I got a 5 on the AP US History exam; think it was just a 4 on AP US Gov though. Reread the federalist papers this year given the year. Don't even think they mention it. Reading the history of the clause it seems like it's such a given inherited from English law that it's not super commonly talked about nor the meaning frequently debated.
My takeaway is I'm a bit embarrassed. I don't know if I'd expect others to be though.
That being said it still doesn't seem unreasonable nor impossible given the clause for Congress to limit itself. In fact that does happen with things like censures. Sure there's no literal punishment but there are standards of speech which have been used in the past(many times for questionable reasons).
>My takeaway is I'm a bit embarrassed. I don't know if I'd expect others to be though.
Apologies. My intent wasn't to embarrass you. Rather to take your K-12 teachers to task.
I do get that, especially since 1979 (when CSPAN started, not to mention the demagoguery of Joe McCarthy[0] back in the 1950s, but that was something of an aberration until the 1980s or so), that much of what's said on the House/Senate floors is pure hyperbole and intended as outrage bait for the party faithful.
But the Debate Clause (as you're now aware) was specifically added to ensure that members of Congress could, barring criminal acts, say exactly what was on their minds without fear of retribution.
Which is, on the whole, a good thing IMNSHO.
Then again, it is quite nauseating and disappointing to hear our elected representatives consistently dissemble and obfuscate just for personal and political advantage. And more's the pity.
All that said, the alternative (having the executive and/or judicial branches, not to mention majorities in either or both houses of Congress assail, investigate and prosecute members of either house for their speech) is even more galling and antithetical to our de jure system of government, even if things have, de facto, gotten somewhat out of hand.
Nothing to apologize about. Part of learning is realizing what you don’t know and sometimes making a fool of yourself when you think you know more than you do. I care about this stuff so I’m glad to know more than I did yesterday.
Let people lie. However, if they're arguing politics then they have to provide equal time to the opposition. Bring back the fair-time rules and make them apply beyond radio.
>Bring back the fair-time rules and make them apply beyond radio.
While that seems like it might be a good idea, there are those of us who remember watching late-night TV and seeing those "equal time" segments at 0400, just before the channel signed off until 0600. I'd expect that except for drunk/high people and insomniacs, no one saw those segments.
Which significantly limited the usefulness of such rules.
All that said, the world has changed since then. There are plenty of places for anyone that wants to share their opinions to do so. And that's good for all of us.
What's more important isn't (as you correctly point out) restricting speech, but rather restricting the amount of money that's allowed to be used for political "speech."
What's more, we should have publicly funded sites where anyone can express their political opinions that are not curated, but can be scraped and curated by others in very specific ways only.
There are a raft of other ways to maintain freedom of expression while limiting the power of money to corrupt the political process. Limiting such activities/expenditures, whether that be directly, via ad/marketing campaigns, payments/salaries to insiders to advocate for monied interests with our elected officials or engagement maximizing algorithms designed to increase corporate profits and other mechanisms should be a top priority.
> What's more important isn't (as you correctly point out) restricting speech, but rather restricting the amount of money that's allowed to be used for political "speech."
Well I don’t want to argue too much since you’re right.
But if you say own the Washington Post is it “money in politics”? I’m assuming when Trump when on Dave Ramsey’s podcast neither of them were compensated so is it “money in politics”? I’m all for undoing citizens united but i don’t want loopholes to pop up.
I don't think it was ever meant for free speech to mean free lying, and if you forbid politicians to lie to the public you solved most problems of democracy
"Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket"
- Eric Hoffer
I've been playing the Ocarina of Time remake and whenever I get stuck trying to get a certain item or progress on a quest, I'll fire up Claude voice chat and ask it for guidance, and it regularly gets confused and gives me wrong answers (somewhere around ~30% of the time).
Given how long these models have been out and that it's a highly constrained game world from almost 30 years ago which is documented top to bottom, I struggle to understand how Claude is still so bad at straightforward questions with straightforward answers. This was a solved problem (albeit with a less modern UX) in the legacy internet and it doesn't actually feel like getting the right answer is necessarily easier.
> I struggle to understand how Claude is still so bad
Claude is absolutely killing it for me. Man-years and man-years of backlog work, hobby projects, optimizations, research, experiments, finally implemented. Bloated apps finally optimized to fit on micro instances, slashing my infra costs. Recovery from operations incidents in a third of the time.
If I could make Claude forget everything it every knew about Ocarina of Time to make it 1% better at what it already does so well, I'd press that button in a heartbeat.
This feels like a very odd use for Claude as opposed to any LLM focused on web search, but more to the point 30 years ago you could hit up Gamefaqs and get a plain-text document to download and manually search it locally to your heart's content in milliseconds. A lot of LLMs are hitting the mountains of garbage in, tiny pile of garbage out problem more than being bad LLMs.
Google used to return these documents, or at least forums and communities who knew where these guides were. Google no longer connects communities together however.
LLMs don't either but the hope was that they at least read all of the old internet and have it somewhat memorized.
Haven’t we moved past an assumption/need that these (frontier) llm (-backed services) have memorized their training data now that tool calling has proven to be so effective? The model knows enough about the question to be able to search for sources that contain the answer and then summarize the findings back? I’m shocked Claude voice ever makes a mistake on this, does it not have agentic capabilities backing its responses?
I've been playing through Ship of Harkinion and have also been using just standard brave search with cheap brave AI that's free and been asking questions when I get stuck in my playthrough and it's nailed it every single time. Probably two dozen questions so far in my playthrough.
Claude should be an order of magnitude better than that. So, I can't say I understand how your experience has been so bad. Very surprising.
In general anecdotes aren't great for much unless you understand what the person is doing.
For example in the earlier days of the net lots of people just sucked with the search engines that existed while I found what I wanted quickly looking for in the same topic.
How you ask the question is still important, and will probably always be important.
USPS is in really rough shape, budget-wise, to the degree that they needed an emergency cash infusion earlier this year (I highly recommend reading up on it, it's a bad situation). Sadly, it's not that surprising to see that they're charging commercial rates for this service.
That’s not an accident. Congress made it a requirement that the USPS pre fund their pension plans, decades in advance. The only government institute required to do such a thing.
It is great for governments to run responsible budgets, but this was such a unique constraint, it seems designed to strangle the USPS.
Nah, they're not trying to strangle the USPS. They're trying to fatten it up for privatization.
If you fully fund the pensions before privatization, you can simultaneously claim that privatization is necessary (look! they're running out of money!) and radically reduce costs once you do privatize (all the pensions are pre-paid, so you can stop contributing to the fund and extract profits for a few decades before you have problems).
This zip code subscription is part of the same plan: Get people used to paying for data from the USPS so it has an additional income stream after privatization.
"Contrary to statements made by some employee groups and other stakeholders, PAEA did not require USPS to prefund 75 years of retiree health benefits" https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-13-112.pdf
Also the 2022 Postal Service Reform Act eliminated the prefunding and ~$57 billion of overdue payments, but USPS finances were still dogshit afterwards: USPS revenue was $80 billion and expenses were $89 billion in FY2024
I missed the announcement where they were opening the subsidized parcel delivery to all businesses, not just ones owned by people with the last name of Bezos that start with an A and end with an N.
PAEA 2007 required funding of accrued liabilities for the USPS, same as PPA 2006. However, other governments in the US are not required to fund any liabilities for post employment benefits, at all, as they are excluded from both ERISA 1974 and PPA 2006.
Page 55 discusses setting money aside for retiree healthcare benefits:
>Not later than June 30, 2007, and by June 30 of each
succeeding year, the Office shall compute the net present value of the future payments required under section 8906(g)(2)(A) and attributable to the service of Postal Service employees during the most recently ended fiscal year.
"Net Present Value" is accrued, i.e. benefits owed to current and past employees.
It makes sense to require an organization to set aside money it promised to pay someone...otherwise organizations would just go around paying people today with future taxpayers' money (which is what governments literally do).
Page 53 discusses the same for defined benefit pensions. All of the present values are of accrued benefits, not projected benefits.
However, I do suspect this was a clever way to handicap the USPS specifically, since it did not apply to any other governments such as state/county/city.
> The Trump Task Force acknowledged that without the costs imposed by the Post-Retirement Health Care Mandate, USPS would today be profitable on an operating basis.
Everyone talks about funding "for 75 years" like they have to have $100k per person per year for the upcoming 75 year, like it's a stack of cash the recipient will be paid from.
It is my understand 75 years is the horizon beyond which no current worker's liability will cost anything. And the difference between 74 and 75 years funding is tiny compared to the difference between 1 and 2 years.
Everyone saying it's not fair because these "defined benefits" plans aren't required of the rest of the government seem to come down on the side that this is a good thing. It's really just an obligation for future taxes to make payments in lieu of current revenue to fund plans equal to the liabilities incurred today.
Saying something like this handicaps the USPS really means they should be able to freely obligate the taxpayer to future payments based on what they do today.
Funding liabilities as they are incurred is the proper thing to do, regardless of whether it is the USPS or some other aspect of the government. Pay as you go is insanity. Defining outcomes through legislation doesn't make it so.
Whether this is to handicap the USPS or not is entirely orthogonal to the issue of actually paying for the promises being made, rather than promising that someone in the future will pay for it.
I don’t understand why recent Congresses haven’t repealed that requirement. It seems well known to be a bad thing that hamstrings USPS. There have been multiple congresses dominated by Democrats since that original law.
Due to Baumol's Cost Disease and email, it doesn't make sense to be paying labor to drop off junk mail every single weekday. Cutting this by 2/days a week in urban areas and by 3 days/week in rural would save incredible amounts.
The U.S. Postal Service doesn’t make financial sense because it is fundamentally not a financial idea. Like other aspects of Constitutional U.S. governance, its purpose is to stitch a people together into a nation.
Your argument rests on a pretty narrow definition of "financial sense".
Like when you buy food you like instead of the cheapest calories, this can make financial sense, because you value the preferred food more than the additional cost.
At around $20 a household projected loss for 2027, you wouldn't have to try very hard to do better than dismissing discussion of the value it does or doesn't bring.
> Also, regardless of whether I would sign, I think it's in pretty poor taste and a bright amber flag (but not quite a red flag) if an employer thinks this is a funny or acceptable thing to put into a contract.
How is this in any way NOT a red flag? In what universe is this a neutral signal about the health of an organization that manages a significant amount of capital?
> It's also in very poor taste and reeks of coercion to send out a manifesto or mandate like this on a Friday and expect people to sign or agree by Monday or lose their jobs. They likely wouldn't be able to have it reviewed by a lawyer over the weekend if they chose to do so.
In sum total, "this sounds very very bad but not necessarily a red flag". Absurd.
Yeah. Agreed. This is ALL red flags, all the way down. Might as well be cutesy anime red flags drawn onto an actual physical red flag. Suicide isn't funny and shame enforced ritual suicide for "failing" is even less hilarious, if that's possible. Reeks of sociopathy...
Of course it's a red flag? People only ever work for cryptocurrency companies in the first place because they're scammers themselves and think they can get rich while leaving suckers holding the bag. The whole thing is a red flag from the beginning so I don't know why anyone would expect otherwise.
That a wildly unhinged take, they could just work in payments or finance lol but yes it’s a red flag and with that much at stake an insane individual would “enforce” the contract.
We all now know that Trump knew about it, that's what has changed. It was fine when this was private, but now his administration is starting to get questions around why his Commerce department punted the initial investigation to DOJ where it ultimately died as the opposition party is about to retake Congress with investigations top of mind.
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