One of the three satellites that make up NASA’s INCUS (Investigation of Convective Updrafts) mission sits on a fixture at the facilities of Blue Canyon Technologies in Lafayette, Colorado. The satellite completed testing in preparation for launch in late May 2026. The mission will make the first space-based survey of the dynamics of tropical convective storms.
The three nearly identical satellites will fly in tight coordination in low Earth orbit, with the first and second satellites separated by 30 seconds, and the second and third satellite separated by 90 seconds.
Each satellites carries a radar designed to observe the vertical motion of air and water — known as convective mass flux — as storms develop and evolve. The middle satellite will also carry a microwave radiometer.
The INCUS mission is set to launch in 2027 from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia.
Funded through the Earth Venture Mission-3 acquisition under NASA’s Earth System Science Pathfinder Program and led by principal investigator Sue van den Heever at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, INCUS is one of several missions fulfilling the clouds, convection, and precipitation requirements of NASA’s Earth System Observatory, a set of interconnected missions set to study our home planet’s dynamic natural systems and how they interact. The mission is also part of FALCON (Fleet for the Atmosphere Linking Commercial Observations with NASA), a fleet of atmosphere-observing satellites that will combine hardware contributions from NASA centers, universities, and commercial partners.
Here's a paper that points to the increasingly common practice of law grads taking multiple consecutive clerkships.
George, Tracey E. and Yoon, Albert and Gulati, Mitu, Stacking the Deck (May 29, 2026). Virginia Public Law and Legal Theory Research Paper No. 2026-33, Virginia Law and Economics Research Paper No. 2026-10, Vanderbilt Law Research Paper, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=6850719 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.6850719
Abstract A federal judicial clerkship is a government-funded Golden Ticket that opens doors otherwise closed to most. This ticket grants entry to a one-year apprenticeship-an exclusive glimpse behind the judiciary's gates that functions as a mentorship-rich fourth year of law school. Historically, a second passage through those gates was exceedingly rare, typically reserved for those en route to the Supreme Court. That norm has fractured. Increasingly, graduates make repeated passes through the gates, taking two, three, or even four clerkships in succession-a practice now known as "stacking." Each additional passage comes at a cost: it reduces the number of clerkship opportunities available to others and delays the clerk's entry into the legal profession. Drawing on roughly 130 interviews with judges, we examine both the rise of stacking and the forces driving it. Our central argument is that stacking is not an irrational pathology but a rational market response to a structural information failure-and that well-intentioned reform efforts have, perversely, made the problem worse. Judges agree that certain forms of stacking are troubling. Yet few see ready solutions. The problem, as they describe it, is not a lack of awareness but a structure of incentives that makes restraint individually irrational, even if the collective outcome is seen as suboptimal. This Essay diagnoses those structural failures and evaluates the most promising paths forward.
In economics, Marx is relegated to the history of thought as his ideas were an economic dead end and a political disaster. Yet Marx-influenced literary criticism is a dominant mode of analysis in nearly every English department in the country. It’s not that the English professors are all Marxists, it’s that even the non-Marxists reach for Marxian concepts–class, ideology, alienation, material conditions, commodification–when analyzing texts. These concepts may be useful for analyzing a Victorian novel of the landed classes but they have become a default economics for all of literature. That default is odd. Class analysis predates Marx and society can be divided into more than one set of classes; material conditions do not supersede all artistic agency; and capitalism contains figures—entrepreneurs, speculators, intermediaries, innovators, discoverers—who are great subjects for art yet fit poorly into the Marxist moral geometry. Not surprisingly, Marxism handles capitalism’s protagonists badly.
Is Marxian economics the only economic lens one can apply to literature? What would a Hayekian literary criticism look like? The place to start is the great Paul Cantor’s pioneering essay on Thomas Mann’s “Disorder and Early Sorrow,” a slight-seeming story set in Weimar Germany during the hyperinflation. Cantor shows that when one reads the novella through Hayek and Mises rather than Marx, the story opens up.
Start with inflationary psychology and its ramifications. Inflation shortens time horizons. When money loses value by the hour, saving is foolish and the rational move is to spend as fast as you earn—Mises’s “flight into real goods.” Prudence, discipline, and respect for the past become maladaptive. Speed, improvisation, risk-taking, and a certain youthful irresponsibility become survival traits.
Thus, Cantor/Mann tell us that inflation changes psychology and inverts the authority of age over youth. The old are set in their ways and often living on fixed incomes that inflation has wiped out; they cannot adapt. The young have known nothing but instability and go with the inflationary flow effortlessly. So the conservative virtues that once commanded respect are in decline while youthful recklessness starts to look like competence. Thus, Mann’s world has “gone mad in the worship of youth”: the children call their father by his first name, the teenagers are “the big folk,” and Professor Cornelius literally crouches down to his children’s height as the hierarchy collapses around him.
Money is a society’s primary measure of value, so Cantor/Mann argue that when you shake a people’s faith in their money, you shake their other faiths. Thus Cantor ties the conviction-less skepticism of Cornelius—and the broader Weimar nihilism and disequilibrium that helped feed the rise of Nazism—to monetary disequilibrium.
In short, inflation converts economic disorder into moral, social, psychological, and finally ontological disorder. Prices become unstable, then values, then identities, then reality. The modern feeling of absurdity and inauthenticity that critics reflexively pin on capitalism, Cantor/Mann argue is due to government-created inflation and paper money.
A Marxist could read the same story and find the inevitable contradictions of capitalism. Cantor reads it and finds the consequences of the state debasing the currency. Both are economic readings of literature. Only one of them has the economics correct.
Cantor is the place to begin but a Hayekian literary criticism could go much further. Atavism, the impossibility of social justice, products of human action but not of human design, spontaneous order, the fatal conceit, subjectivism, the sensory order–there is a lot of Hayekian ideas that literary interpretation could draw upon.
A Hayekian criticism would ask questions like how do characters acquire and process knowledge? Which institutions transmit information successfully, and which corrupt it? How do money, law, language, and custom function as social coordination mechanisms? Why do some attempts at rational redesign end in disaster? Read War and Peace as a critique of the great-man theory of history, Brazil and The Lives of Others as the fatal conceit degenerating into ignorance, fear, and absurdity. The Wire as a Hayekian epic of spontaneous order that demonstrates the illusion of social justice. Cantor’s essay on Mann shows the method, the broader project remains underdeveloped.
Addendum: Don’t forget my earlier WSJ piece, Capitalism: Hollywood’s Miscast Villain which gives an economic, one might even say Marxist, explanation for why film directors in particular disdain capitalists.
The U.S. general fertility rate has fallen by 22% since 2007, a sustained decline not readily explained by economic conditions, contraceptive use, housing or childcare costs, or other commonly cited factors. We assess the potential role of a different shock: the diffusion of the smartphone. The U.S. rollout of the iPhone, the first modern smartphone, provides a natural experiment: from June 2007 through February 2011, the device was sold only on AT&T, allowing us to identify its effect from variation in AT&T’s mobile broadband coverage. Entropy-balanced Poisson and synthetic difference-in-differences event studies imply that access to the iPhone reduced births by 4.5–8.0% at ages 15–19 and 3.2–6.6% at ages 20–24, with statistically significant but smaller declines among older cohorts. Placebo analyses applied to Verizon and Sprint’s pre-2011 coverage footprint are null. Taken together, these cohort effects imply that the diffusion of the iPhone deepened the decline in births among women under 30 while suppressing the rise in births among older women. Overall, the diffusion of the iPhone explains 33–52% of the decline in the general fertility rate among women aged 15–44. National-survey evidence on time use and sexual behavior is consistent with the iPhone reducing in-person interactions, increasing pornography use, and reducing sexual frequency.
That is from Caitlin K. Myers& Ezekiel Hooper. An interesting and difficult to discuss question is how much we actually want teen fertility rates to decline, and to what extent we should consider such declines a good thing.
Note also that as this study is set up it does not discriminate against the ” the iPhone effect on fertility is mainly a thing of timing” hypothesis. And a Paul Novosad comment.
I loved your talk about AI and wanted to bounce an idea off you.
I think AI may be bad for corporate profit margins.
A lot of companies make money because their customers can’t be bothered to monitor them more closely, or to insource something. Customers let the company make some money in exchange for doing a decent-enough job and making the problem go away.
Bank of America has $2 trillion of deposits, not a penny of which is optimized. Most enterprise software vendors could be switched out far more often, or displaced by home-built software, but it’s too much of a pain. I could run a 12-party RFP for an Uber ride or a pair of socks, but I don’t.
In a sense, many professionals are an extension of the same idea. I could research my own real estate law, or my own insurance, whether business or personal, but I don’t because it would be too hard.
Google Search might be the biggest example. It makes money because advertisers know they need to be at the top of the results to be found. But my agent will happily search all the results across multiple search engines.
AI agents should change all this. By acting as incredibly rational and vigilant sourcing agents, CFOs, and experts for their users, they will take rents previously collected by these toll-takers and redistribute them to consumers.
And I don’t think the AI stack itself necessarily makes much profit. Commodity and open-weight models are hot on the heels of the major model companies, and competition in GPUs should intensify. Indeed, making a GPU is in some ways similar to making software, so perhaps it can commoditize substantially. Chip manufacturing may remain high-margin, but there are now plenty of entrants drawn in by the shortage who could make TSMC’s market more competitive over time.
Some companies will win. Low-cost providers may gain share as customers switch more often. Richer consumers may consume more high-end goods. Companies with genuinely advantaged business models and limited competition will be able to become more efficient. But my overriding sense is that the equilibrium outcome is lower margins for companies.
Of course, people will build new businesses, and maybe they will use AI to generate very high margins in ways I haven’t considered. That would prove me wrong.
But if this lower-margin hypothesis is true, the knock-on effects are probably positive for AI adoption, since it will make the models more popular with consumers.
And if your view is that AI drives GDP growth to be only 5–10% higher over the next decade, it’s possible that a 100–200 bp decline in corporate margins from roughly 12% would mean companies in aggregate don’t see much benefit — or in fact lose — even as consumers are better off.
Imagine for a moment you are lying back, gazing up at the red-orange celestial clouds in today’s Picture of the Week. What shapes do you see? A chicken pecking seeds on the ground, the head of a dragon, or something else entirely?
These pareidolia-inducing clouds are a pair of nebulae — collections of dust and gas in interstellar space — called Gum 10 and Gum 11. Visible mostly from the southern hemisphere, they are part of a larger complex, in which stars are born. Gum 10 is the brightest cloud that occupies most of the image, whereas Gum 11 is the fainter, detached cloud to the bottom-left. Their bright glow comes from a special interaction between hydrogen and the hot massive stars in each nebula. These stars emit ultraviolet light, which has enough energy to tear electrons away from their atoms, forming ions. These electrons eventually recombine with hydrogen ions, which causes the emission of the specific shade of red light seen in this image. The black lines in the nebula come from dust that blocks the light behind it.
This image was taken with the VLT Survey Telescope (VST), which celebrates the 15th anniversary of its first light today! The VST project was a joint venture between ESO and the Capodimonte Astronomical Observatory (OAC), part of the Italian National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF). Today the VST is solely managed by INAF and is hosted by ESO at its Paranal Observatory in Chile. The data behind this picture comes from a project called VPHAS+, which uses the VST to scan across the plane of our Milky Way galaxy, intended to better understand the lifecycle of stars.
Jabal al Fāyah rises from the Rub’ al Khali desert in an image captured by the OLI (Operational Land Imager) on Landsat 8 on October 23, 2025.
NASA Earth Observatory / Lauren Dauphin
About an hour’s drive east of Dubai’s gleaming towers and artificial islands, a quieter, more natural landscape takes shape. At the far northern edge of the Rub’ al Khali, a saffron-colored sand sea laps against the Al-Hajar Mountains. A series of pale ridges rises finlike from the desert plain, with the largest—Jabal al Fāyah—standing 412 meters (1,352 feet) above sea level.
The Landsat 8 satellite captured this image of the ridges cutting across the Emirate of Sharjah in the northern part of the United Arab Emirates on October 23, 2025. To geologists, the limestone ridges are a reminder of the region’s watery past, signs that this land lay underwater tens of millions of years ago when the sedimentary rock layers were deposited.
Jabal al Fāyah functions as a barrier, trapping windblown sand in dune fields to its west. The weathering of iron-bearing minerals in the sand grains gives the dune fields their orange hue. To the east, the branching channels of overlapping alluvial fans extending from the Al-Hajar Mountains carry gravels and eroded sediments from basalts and other dark mafic rocks.
The dark rocks to the east—part of the Samail Ophiolite—are known to geologists for being among the world’s largest, best-preserved, and most accessible exposures of ancient oceanic lithosphere, the rigid outer layer of Earth that includes both the crust and upper mantle. Oceanic lithosphere like this is normally subducted and recycled back into the mantle when tectonic plates collide. But in this area, a large section from beneath the Tethys Sea was scraped off and thrust onto the Arabian plate in a process called obduction.
Dubai lies to the west of the limestone ridges, and the Al-Hajar Mountains lie to the east, in an image acquired by the OLI (Operational Land Imager) on Landsat 8 on October 23, 2025.
NASA Earth Observatory / Lauren Dauphin
The Jabal al Fāyah ridges themselves are made up of marine limestone that was deposited on top of the ophiolite over tens of millions of years spanning the late Cretaceous through the early to mid-Paleocene. Limestone typically forms along continental margins in warm, shallow oceans, often in lagoons and coral reefs, out of the calcium carbonate found in the shells and skeletons of marine life. In many parts of the ridges, coral fragments and marine invertebrate fossils are visible embedded in the rock. A feature called Fossil Rock sits a few kilometers north of Jabal al Fāyah and adjacent to the limestone ridge Jabal Mulayḩah. It contains an abundance of snail, clam, and sea urchin remains.
For archaeologists, the ridges are at the center of a much more recent tale of human adaptation and survival that has played out in just the past few hundred thousand years. The ridges and parts of the surrounding landscape—inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2025—are dotted with dozens of archaeological sites that trace human occupation on the Arabian Peninsula back to between 210,000 and 120,000 years ago, to the Middle Paleolithic. That was a period when waves of anatomically modern humans (Homo sapiens) migrated out of Africa and shared the planet with other groups such as Neanderthals.
Many of the sites contain stone flakes, blades, scrapers, hand axes, and other stone tools. The archaeological treasure trove offers early evidence of modern humans surviving in a harsh desert environment and raises questions about the routes modern Homo sapiens may have taken on their journey out of Africa.
Geological evidence indicates that lakes periodically formed on the east side of the ridge, providing critical food and water resources that would have supported early inhabitants in this unforgiving climate. Rocky overhangs along the ridge would have provided shelter from the heat and wind. Some of the sites show evidence of intermittent occupation beginning as early as 210,000 years ago, making this one of the earliest signs of human habitation on the Arabian Peninsula.
NASA Earth Observatory images by Lauren Dauphin, using Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey. Story by Adam Voiland.
(Lord’s day). Whit Sunday. Lay long talking with my wife, sometimes angry and ended pleased and hope to bring our matters to a better posture in a little time, which God send. So up and to church, where Mr. Mills preached, but, I know not how, I slept most of the sermon. Thence home, and dined with my wife and Ashwell and after dinner discoursed very pleasantly, and so I to church again in the afternoon, and, the Scot preaching, again slept all the afternoon, and so home, and by and by to Sir W. Batten’s, to talk about business, where my Lady Batten inveighed mightily against the German Princess, and I as high in the defence of her wit and spirit, and glad that she is cleared at the sessions.
Thence to Sir W. Pen, who I found ill again of the gout, he tells me that now Mr. Castle and Mrs. Martha Batten do own themselves to be married, and have been this fortnight. Much good may it do him, for I do not envy him his wife. So home, and there my wife and I had an angry word or two upon discourse of our boy, compared with Sir W. Pen’s boy that he has now, whom I say is much prettier than ours and she the contrary. It troubles me to see that every small thing is enough now-a-days to bring a difference between us.
So to my office and there did a little business, and then home to supper and to bed. Mrs. Turner, who is often at Court, do tell me to-day that for certain the Queen hath much changed her humour, and is become very pleasant and sociable as any; and they say is with child, or believed to be so.
This was the second week of videos from the 250 to 250 Project that we’re producing to honor the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.
We designed the videos to emphasize the agency of Americans—mostly everyday Americans—to change the country. Each falls into a category that defines what it means to be an American, including community, democracy, innovation, mobility, civil rights, education, conservation, and creativity.
The timing of the release of the videos is sometimes about anniversaries—June 1 was Senator Margaret Chase Smith’s Declaration of Conscience speech, and today is the anniversary of D-Day—but they are more often tied to when scripts were done and narrators were available. I have nothing to do with when they come out, so I am amused this week to see the videos highlight ten of my own favorite events, from the Pujo Committee and Man o’War, whose story as told by Walter Farley was so mesmerizing to me as a child that I’ve kept the book all these years, to the Hubble Space Telescope, whose images I used to love to contrast with medieval world maps to emphasize for students how the stories we tell about the world shape our culture.
I hope you enjoy them.
You can follow the project at the sites listed below, or under “videos” at my own YouTube page: Heather Cox Richardson. Or just wait until I send out the week’s roundup.
D-Day: In Case of Failure, Narrated by Todd Arrington
Dr. Todd Arrington is a historian, writer, and veteran. He serves as Executive Director of the Jamestown Rediscovery Foundation and is the former Director of the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library. Arrington tells the story of the message Eisenhower drafted before D-Day, accepting sole blame should the invasion fail.
Margaret Chase Smith’s “Declaration of Conscience,” Narrated by Governor Janet Mills
Maine Governor Janet Mills is a former Attorney General, state legislator, and the first woman governor of Maine. Governor Mills recounts Republican Senator Margaret Chase Smith’s stirring rejection of McCarthyism.
Rat Pack, Narrated by Michael Green
Michael Green is a Professor of History in UNLV's Department of History and teaches courses on nineteenth-century America and on Nevada and Las Vegas. Green details how the Rat Pack encouraged racial integration and reflected the melting pot of American culture.
Ellis Island, Narrated by Ken Burns
Filmmaker Ken Burns explores the legacy of Ellis Island, the immigration entry station that processed millions of immigrants coming to America.
Social Security Act, Narrated by Jan John
Jan John is a retired sales executive, active volunteer in local Maine politics, Social Security beneficiary, and dog lover. Jan John reveals how pioneering Labor Secretary Frances Perkins fought to create Social Security benefits during the Great Depression.
Man o' War, Narrated by Governor Andy Beshear
Governor Andy Beshear of Kentucky is currently serving his second term in office with a strong focus on education, disaster response, faith, and family. Governor Beshear tells the story of Man o’ War, the prolific thoroughbred race horse who helped restore Americans’ faith in the country after World War I.
Fannie Lou Hamer, Narrated by Monica Land
Monica Land is a journalist and niece of civil rights icon Fannie Lou Hamer. She produced the award-winning film, “Fannie Lou Hamer's America” and now manages the digital educational website, fannielouhamersamerica.com. Land remembers the inspiring life of the Mississippi voting rights activist who asked “Is this America?”
Pujo Committee, Narrated by Representative Joe Morelle
United States Representative Joe Morelle of New York serves as Vice Ranking Member on the House Appropriations Committee and is a Ranking Member of the Committee on House Administration. Representative Morelle explores the impact of the Pujo Committee’s 1910s examination of consolidation in American banking.
Hubble Space Telescope, Narrated by Mike Massimino
Mike Massimino is a former NASA astronaut, Columbia University Engineering Professor, New York Times Bestselling Author, and the first person to Tweet from space during the Hubble Space Telescope missions. Massimino explains how the Hubble Space Telescope has revolutionized our understanding of outer space and serves as a testament to American ingenuity.
Harriet Beecher Stowe, Narrated by Roxana Robinson
Roxana Robinson is an award-winning novelist, biographer, scholar, and the great-great-great niece of Harriet Beecher Stowe. Robinson recounts how Harriet Beecher Stowe’s 1852 “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” changed how millions of Americans thought about human enslavement.
Earlier this week I promised I would never again use a certain name on this site. So, in keeping with this promise, I’ll just refer to someone as The Candidate We’ll Never See Again, Praise Jesus.
And The Candidate We’ll Never See Again, Praise Jesus posted the above video earlier today on The Candidate We’ll Never See Again, Praise Jesus’s Facebook page. And it is … eh, wild. Even for The Candidate We’ll Never See Again, Praise Jesus.
The Candidate We’ll Never See Again, Praise Jesus also wrote this …
estherforcongress: Thank you for saying it. I held my tongue for too long.
Endured too much antisemitism and unfounded accusations coming at me from the far left this past year while running. GLOVES ARE OFF.
FACT : Dems got locked out - and let 2 MAGA extremists into the general in CA40 - because a desperate DSA candidate, Lisa Ramirez, spent 6 months spreading rumors that I had ties to AIPAC. Look at her website — she proudly took the DSA endorsements and told them that “Esther is tied to AIPAC” How ? I don’t take any foreign or corporate interest money.
She told Dem delegates “to look for the Jews on my donor list” as proof. Jew hunting. Can you imagine if it was hunting any other race ?
My husband is Jewish, my kids are Jewish — and she exploited that simple fact to gain an extremist following that boxed the leading Dem out of the primary.
And you know what’s so dumb ? The MAGA I was fighting literally receives millions from AIPAC — and Ken Calvert sits as the chair for arms sales and the Department of War. Now they continue to sit in power.
This isn’t strategy, it’s sabotage. •••
And … well … eh … um … argh …
I want to acknowledge the uncomfortable elephant in the room: At one point I encouraged people to consider sucking it up and supporting The Candidate We’ll Never See Again, Praise Jesus. I thought maybe it was our only hope in the CA-40 congressional race. Which, obviously, was an incorrect take. And a misguided one. For The Candidate We’ll Never See Again, Praise Jesus is the political equivalent of an agitated polar bear chewing on crack berries while sniffing its own poop.
I apologize.
Truth be told, with hindsight as my guide, I’d honestly take two more years of Young Kim or Ken Calvert over The Candidate We’ll Never See Again, Praise Jesus. Because while we know who they are, The Candidate We’ll Never See Again, Praise Jesus would have been our responsibility; our choice; our representative. And she would have behaved as a weird toddler, showing up in Fox News clips and barking at Sean Hannity’s dog. She’d have been Uncle Bo, the drunk Christmas guest snarling at his nieces and dipping his turkey leg into the wine glass.
In the wee hours of Friday morning, Senate Republicans passed a measure to provide about $70 billion in additional funding to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the parent agency for Border Patrol. They did so without meeting any of the demands Democrats had made to reform ICE and Border Patrol in the wake of the violent sweeps that led to the deaths of U.S. citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti.
While Republicans tried to insist that Democrats who demanded reforms were starving immigration enforcement, in fact, the budget reconciliation measure the Republicans passed in July of last year—they one they call the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA)—provided an astonishing $191 billion to fund the Department of Homeland Security, with about $75 billion for ICE and $65 billion for CBP. According to Dominik Lett of the libertarian Cato Institute, those numbers were seven times ICE’s previous annual budget and four times the typical annual budget of CBP, and were designed to last through September 30, 2029.
Putting more billions behind ICE and CBP now will mean those agencies are funded through the rest of Trump’s term. Even if Democrats take control of Congress after the midterms, the funding will be in place, preventing Democrats from using funding to demand reforms.
How those tax dollars are being spent is a question. In February, twenty-one Democratic senators wrote to the Congressional Budget Office to note that there had been no public accounting of how that money was being spent. Adriel Orozco of the American Immigration Council reports that while the OBBBA gave ICE $45 billion for detention through September 2029, former Department of Homeland Security secretary Kristi Noem decided to use $38 billion of it to buy warehouses and convert them to detention centers.
On May 29, Julia Ainsley and Laura Strickler of NBC News reported that the new secretary of DHS, Markwayne Mullin, is considering selling a number of the warehouses. If he does so, Ainsley and Strikler report, there may well be scrutiny of the initial purchases. An Atlanta suburb has filed a lawsuit alleging that ICE paid more than five times the assessed value of a warehouse there.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office noted that funding for ICE and CBP has historically been made under annual appropriations bills, and the Republicans’ new policy of giving them a huge pot of money for years makes it hard to estimate the pace of spending.
Democrats had demanded reforms to ICE and Border Patrol actions, so to pass the measure, Senate Republicans used the budget reconciliation process. Not usually used for appropriations, budget reconciliation prevented a Democratic filibuster and enabled Republicans to pass the measure with a simple majority.
But anyone can amend a budget reconciliation measure, and Democrats used amendments to cause an 18-hour debate that forced Republicans to vote against a number of measures that are popular with the American people, showing how Republicans really stand.
Republicans blocked Democratic proposals to stop Trump from establishing the $1.776 billion slush fund with the complicity of the men he has appointed to the Department of Justice and to prevent any such fund from giving payouts to people convicted of assaulting law enforcement officers during the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.
Republicans blocked a Democratic proposal to bar the use of federal funds or private donations for Trump’s ballroom unless Congress explicitly approved.
Republicans blocked a Democratic proposal to bar William Pulte, the director of the Federal Housing and Finance Agency, from serving as the director of national intelligence by providing that no one could direct the Office of National Intelligence while heading a different agency. Trump has announced that Pulte will be the acting director of national intelligence, putting him in place through the midterm elections with the evident plan that he will weaponize intelligence against the president’s political opponents.
The Senate passage of ICE and CBP funding demonstrates a Republican worldview. In January 2024, then-candidate Trump convinced Republicans to abandon a strong bipartisan border bill to fix immigration issues because he wanted to keep the issue of immigration open as a way to win in 2024. Now it is clear that the assault on immigrants was a tool to enforce a right-wing vision of the country on the American people, much of which is happening under cover of darkness.
Yesterday Meryl Kornfield of the Washington Post noted a report from former senior executive at the Social Security Administration Jeremiah Schofield, who is now a whistleblower. Schofield says that officials from the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) hatched a plan to make immigrants self-deport by declaring 2.7 million of them dead. Some of those people on the list were U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents.
Being listed on the Death Master File cuts off people’s access to wages, banks and other financial systems, and other services. The idea appears to have been that such an erasure would force people either to leave the country or to go to a Social Security office where they could be arrested. While they ultimately did not implement the larger plan, officials did move 6,100 mostly Latino immigrants into that database.
On Thursday, Douglas MacMillan of the Washington Post reported that ICE is abandoning a policy begun under the Biden administration in 2021 that required ICE to report to Congress and investigate the deaths of detainees who died within 30 days of their release. The policy was designed to make sure ICE could not pass off deaths caused by conditions in the detention centers simply by releasing severely ill people.
At least 18 people incarcerated in detainment facilities have died in the first five months of 2026. At least 30 died last year, the highest number in 20 years. MacMillan notes that a number of those deaths happened after detainees were taken to the hospital.
Today Senator Andy Kim (D-NJ) went back to Delaney Hall, the ICE detention center in Newark, New Jersey, to talk with detainees. Despite the established congressional duty of oversight, “ICE refused to let me talk to any detainees,” he said. “They restricted my ability to do my job.”
Kim reported that as he went through the women’s unit, “the women were trying to get my attention and flagging for me, waving their hands, and they were pointing into one of the beds. And I looked over, and I saw a woman curled up in a fetal position, clearly in some pain and agony. ICE and GEO Group [the private prison company that runs Delaney Hall on a federal contract] told me that they cannot share with me what is happening. I’m very concerned about that woman…. They have only one full-time doctor in this facility that has hundreds and hundreds of detainees.”
“The American people deserve to know what is happening,” Kim said. “We deserve to be able to hear directly from the detainees. They are doing whatever they can to impede congressional oversight and oversight from the American people.”
Senator Raphael Warnock (D-GA) notes that the $70 billion in tax money Republicans just gave to ICE and Border Patrol could provide free childcare for 1.3 million children through September 2028, cover the annual cost of groceries for about 10.7 million U.S. households, provide a year of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits to 31 million Americans, expand the Affordable Care Act premium tax credits for at least a year, cancel about 31.5% of Americans’ medical debt, and end homelessness for about eight years.
But in France today, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth rejected the belief on which the United States of America was founded: that the government should act to “promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.”
Instead, he perverted a commemoration of D-Day, when American soldiers fought with their Allies to defend democracy against fascism, into a call for the racial ideology on which fascism was based. Embracing the Great Replacement theory that says the culture of white Europeans and Americans is being undermined by people of color from Africa and Asia, he flipped the Allied and Nazi positions.
“Sadly, today,” he said in reference to the beaches of Normandy the Allies stormed in 1944, “different European beaches are stormed by different dangerous ideologies. Beaches in Spain and Italy and Greece and Bulgaria. Boats and men arrive. When will European capitals do something about that invasion? Or is it too late? I pray not, and I believe not.”
More to the point on the anniversary of D-Day 2026, is the speech by of Prime Minister Winston Churchill on June 4, 1940, promising that those who cared about freedom and human self-determination would never stop fighting the Nazis:
“We shall fight on the beaches,” he said. “[W]e shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.”
Ebola Death Toll Climbs While U.S. Steps Back From Global Response
Ebola deaths are reaching 300 this week in the Congo, as global public health experts outside of the U.S. worry about containing the disease.
In Washington, the public health position seems to be just keeping any travelers – including Americans – from stepping foot on U.S. soil. It is a remarkable abdication of U.S. leadership in understanding and combatting contagious disease and follows the Trump principles of withdrawal from the World Health Organization (WHO) over differences in Covid.
Our government is saying clearly that Ebola is not our problem.
From reports, there seem to be more than 20 Ebola outbreaks of different variety, seemingly all spread through fluids rather than airborne, and already several cases have migrated from central Congo to Uganda, with medical personnel investigating cases from travelers arriving in Italy and Brazil. WHO says these outbreaks of disease persisted undetected for weeks, creating a struggle to get it under control. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has called for more international support to stop the disease’s spread and is experimenting with emergency treatments.
Of course, U.S. researchers who traditionally have been at the front of disease control efforts now find themselves cut off from the discussion altogether. Even American doctors in the Congo who had contact were routed instead to Europe for treatment. Reports that the Trump administration plans to send the exposed Americans to Kenya, are sparking pushback from doctors and career diplomats.
Medically, health experts are counting on early detection to aid recoveries – there have been a handful reported already – but the outbreak is exposing how quickly health threats in a single location can become global concerns.
Making It Worse
Amplifying the medical story of contagion is the diplomatic mess served up by the Trump administration’s early dissolution of foreign aid for health and humanitarian purposes. Whatever the arguments for stopping payments of aid to faraway places, the reality that disease does not stay put in the place where it may launch is becoming evident.
A Washington Post op-ed piece by science writer Donald McNeil outlines the history of how contagion can travel quickly. When faced with Covid, the first Trump administration also tried to bar noncitizens from arriving by plane. Current policies require screening – though possibly by untrained ICE volunteers — and possible quarantine for open-ended time periods.
With a World Cup competition looming, fans will come from wider points than even during non-sports times.
The withdrawal of U.S. aid workers in the Congo has helped to increase disinformation as well as withhold treatment, quickly zooming the spread to more than 1,000 cases. The State Department told NPR that the U.S. sped medical help to the Congo within 24 hours of the first reports of Ebola, but it seemed a statement meant to blunt criticism rather than take responsibility for leading anti-contagion programs.
Robert F. Kennedy, Secretary of Health and Human Services, has said that only a few Americans are affected and that Ebola, like hantavirus concerns a month ago, are “under control.” The White House keeps stressing that no one with Ebola is being allowed into the country. Once again, we are using law enforcement techniques for all problems, including contagious disease.
Of course, it is Kennedy who is actively undermining vaccine research programs, insisting that the goals of Making America Healthy Again focus on individuals’ healthy eating and exercise trumps any organized research for drugs to fight disease. He has variously eliminated and sought to rehire personnel at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention whose jobs have been to identify, trace, track and address public contagions.
We keep being told to sit and stay silent as Trump takes care of everything. Ebola is a threat that is real and non-partisan, calling for more than social media posts from our government.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS ABOUT EBOLA
What is the current Ebola outbreak in Congo?
The latest Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo has resulted in hundreds of deaths and raised concerns among international health officials about containing the disease before it spreads further.
How does Ebola spread?
Ebola spreads through direct contact with bodily fluids from infected individuals or contaminated materials. It is not generally considered an airborne disease.
Why are public health experts concerned about international spread?
Cases linked to travel have prompted investigations in multiple countries, highlighting how infectious diseases can quickly cross borders in a connected world.
What role has the United States traditionally played in Ebola response?
The United States has historically been a major contributor to global disease surveillance, medical research, emergency response, and international health aid programs.
Why is the outbreak sparking political debate?
Critics argue that reductions in international health assistance and changes to public health agencies may weaken global disease prevention efforts, while supporters say resources should focus primarily on domestic priorities.
“FREEDOM OF THE PRESS IS NOT JUST IMPORTANT TO DEMOCRACY, IT IS DEMOCRACY.” – Walter Cronkite. CLICK HERE to donate in support of our free and independent voice.
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifts off from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on the Starlink 10-35 mission on June 8, 2026. This was the 35th flight of the Falcon 9 booster, B1067, the SpaceX flight leader. Image: Adam Bernstein/Spaceflight Now
Update June 8, 7:36 a.m. EDT (1136 UTC): SpaceX confirmed deployment of the Starlink satellites.
SpaceX continued to push its Falcon 9 rocket fleet to the next level by flying its flight leader, tail number B1067, on a record-breaking 35th flight Monday morning. It launched SpaceX’s latest batch of Starlink satellites from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station shortly before sunrise.
The Starlink 10-35 mission added another 29 broadband internet satellites to the low Earth orbit constellation. It consists of more than 10,500 spacecraft currently.
Liftoff from Space Launch Complex 40 happened at 6:13:50 a.m. EDT (1013:50 UTC). The rocket flew on a north-easterly trajectory upon liftoff.
The 45th Weather Squadron forecast a 90 percent chance for favorable weather at the opening of the window, which was forecast to drop to 75 percent favorability as the morning went on. Meteorologists were watching for the potential impact from thick clouds in the area of the Cape.
“High pressure at the surface and aloft and abundant dry air will keep quiet conditions across the Spaceport to end the weekend,” launch weather officers wrote. “The pattern changes early in the week as the upper ridge breaks over the Florida Peninsula, with a passing upper-level disturbance bringing more upper-level moisture.
“This will lead to a thickening of the mid and upper-level cloud deck across the primary window early Monday morning, with the threat for associated Thick Cloud Layers Rule violations also seeing a modest increase with time across the window.”
Falcon 9 booster 1067, making a record-breaking 35th flight, fires three of its nine Merlin 1D engines to slow its descent as it plunges through the atmosphere to make a landing on a drone ship stationed in the Atlantic Ocean. @ABernNYCpic.twitter.com/h1sO4dsfeH
The launch of SpaceX’s flight-leading booster, B1067, continued the company’s push to demonstrate it’s rocket’s ability to fly up to 40 times each, a feat that’s unmatched in the world of commercial spaceflight.
“Although our Falcon 9 boosters have been engineered and demonstrated to support up to 40 flights, we have established a maximum accounting useful life of 25 flights as an estimate based on forecasted utilization,” SpaceX wrote in its prospectus, a document filed to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
“This estimate reflects: (i) our strategic transition to Starship, which is expected to materially reduce future Falcon 9 flight demand; and (ii) restrictions under certain government contracts that prohibit the use of boosters flown more than five times on their missions,” SpaceX added. “These useful life estimates are periodically reassessed based on engineering qualification data, post-flight inspections, recovery success rates, actual fleet performance, cost sensitivity analyses, and the long-range launch manifest.”
As of June 8, SpaceX has seven Falcon boosters that have flown more than 25 times:
B1063 – 32
B1067 – 35
B1069 – 31
B1071 – 33
B1077 – 28
B1078 – 28
B1080 – 26
In documents published prior to the company’s initial public offering, scheduled for Friday, June 12, SpaceX noted out of the 165 Falcon 9 launches in 2025, only eight used a Falcon booster making its first flight.
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifts off from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on the Starlink 10-35 mission on June 8, 2026. This was the 35th flight of the Falcon 9 booster, B1067, the SpaceX flight leader. Image: John Pisani/Spaceflight Now
We have had a hard time deciding whether to stay at 60 Minutes.
We’re still deeply upset by the firings of Tanya and Draggan,
strong leaders who everyone respected. As far as we can tell — because no explanation has ever been offered, they were expelled
because they fought for our 60 Minutes values and stood up to
protect our independence and integrity.
Newsrooms are not supposed to be run like dictatorships.
Collaboration and argument are the way we have always worked at
60. Don Hewitt actually encouraged loud passionate advocacy for
our pieces. [...]
We feared that our returning might be construed as an endorsement
of the existing power structure. That is simply, categorically not
the case.
After decades of shooting digital, I returned to analog
photography in 2023. I thought it would be challenging, given the
limited selection of film stocks, only to be surprised by how
freeing it felt. It felt so much better to have a handful of
amazing choices rather than photo-editor with thousands of
presets. We owe that to film engineers who spent years developing
versatile film stocks that work in a variety of situations.
Inspired by “Less, but better,” we partnered with the renowned
Hollywood colorist Cullen Kelly to develop a
succinct set of gorgeous, physically accurate processes
exclusive to Halide. Each look was engineered with a specific
intent. We verified every look thousands of times on real-world
reference photos.
Put another way: every look is a banger.
Halide has always been a great — maybe the great — iPhone camera app for shooting RAW, with the intention of developing your images by hand in post. It’s a great camera technically and a great app UI-wise. Mark II introduced Process Zero, which, in their own description, “uses zero AI and zero computational photography to produce beautiful, film-like natural photos”. Process Zero was the first step toward the new built-in “looks” in Halide Mark III. I’ve been shooting with Mark III for a few weeks now, and they are, indeed, all bangers. And I really like that there aren’t that many of them. I wanted more looks than just Process Zero (which remains available, of course), but I feel a bit overwhelmed when faced with a dozen (or worse, dozens) of choices for processing. I feel conflicted enough having to choose between a handful of really good third-party camera apps with which to shoot in the first place — it’s worse when I have to make too many choices within the camera app itself.
What I want is to just point and shoot and be able to instantly share images with the look I want already applied. I’m picky but I’m also really lazy, and don’t want to do any editing in post on most of the shots I keep. But I do want to be able to edit in post if I want to, including changing the look losslessly. This mixture of point-and-shoot ease and pro-level control didn’t use to be possible. Now, though, it is, with apps like Not Boring Camera, Analogue, and, now, Halide Mark III.
It’s been a turbulent couple of months for Lux (to say the least), so I’m glad to see Sandofsky and team get Mark III out the door. If you, like me, had previously been impressed by Halide but didn’t use it because it required too much work in post, you should check out Mark III.
As NASA prepares an attempt to reboost an astronomy spacecraft in a decaying orbit, it is open to doing something similar for Hubble, if its operating costs can be reduced.
AI is certainly not a passing fad. However, nobody knows how it will affect the economy. In the short run, there’s much room for debate about whether the rush to build datacenters and AI-ify everything is a bubble. And in the long run, there’s even more scope for argument about the impacts on productivity, employment and wages.
So many people, myself included, are looking for historical examples that may provide guidance on how AI will affect the economy. Granted, quizzing history for insight into the effects of a radical innovation is somewhat odd: By definition, a transformative new technology has never before been actualized. So how can the past teach us about its effects? Still, as a motto often (but without evidence) attributed to Mark Twain puts it, history may not repeat itself, but it rhymes. While AI is something entirely new, over the past two centuries there have been many introductions of radical new technologies. So an investigation of these episodes may provide valuable insights for the future.
When one uses history to make sense of the present, however, it’s important to have a wide view. A number of smart observers, including Azeem Azhar and John Burn-Murdoch, have been leaning hard on a classic example of radical technological change that took a long time to fully bear fruit: electrification in the late 19th and early 20th century. That’s a good choice, because studying that example helped economists understand and predict the delayed payoff to the rise of modern information technology (IT).
Yet there are other episodes that I believe deserve to be given equal weight: The great postwar productivity boom, which is notable because it wasn’t driven by radical new technologies, as well as the disappointingly early petering out of the IT-driven productivity boom of the 1990s and 2000s.
Today’s primer will be the first of what I expect to be a multi-part series on the economics of AI. Today I will focus on the history of productivity, while reserving extended discussion of AI’s future, fears of technological unemployment, effects on income distribution and more for subsequent posts.
Beyond the paywall I will address the following:
1. How economists measure the impact of technology
2. The mystery of the great Post-war boom
3. The Solow paradox: Why was the payoff to IT so slow to arrive?
4. The IT disappointment: Only 10 years of productivity payoff?
This paper estimates the regional economic impact of high-skill immigration restrictions by analyzing the 2017 “Buy American, Hire American” (BAHA) policy as a quasi-experimental policy shock. By significantly tightening H-1B visa adjudication, BAHA caused new employment petition denial rates to double from 7% to 17%, while STEM-specific rejections tripled to 31%. Using a difference-indifferences framework, this study finds that states highly dependent on H-1B talent experienced a statistically significant 2.8% relative decline in value-added output. This implied a productivity loss totaling roughly $218 billion across the most affected regions. While concurrent tax cuts and deregulation likely offset the impact on employment and wages, the loss of specialized STEM expertise adversely impacted total factor productivity. These findings suggest that policies based on conventional employment metrics may overlook the “hidden damage” to productivity and innovation that drives the broader economy, thereby underestimating the true economic cost of immigration restrictions.
§ We had three men come and replace three radiators with larger ones (the men were also different sizes). This (the radiators) should mean the future heat pump can heat all the rooms despite its lower water temperature.
§ It seems we’ve reached peak birds-hitting-the-windows season. I assume it’s young birds who haven’t yet learned to look out for conservatory windows. Every day a few will hit the windows. Most either bounce and fly away, or else hit the ground and sit there, looking dazed for a while before taking off. Every couple of days one doesn’t make it, dying where it lands.
§ Pippa the cat loves the warm conservatory this time of year and presumably does not understand why she wasn’t allowed in the warm window place over the winter. She likes sitting or sleeping on the windowsill but has been stepping over the corrugated cardboard scratching pad I put there, which I thought she’d like, seeing as she liked the one in the lounge during the colder months.
This week, all of a sudden, it’s become her favourite spot, its curves making it look somewhat chaise longue-like.
§ One of the piles of papers I scanned a couple of weeks ago was all the records of gym workouts I’ve kept over the past almost-thirty-years. Once they were all PDF’d it was a bit easier to look through them so I made a few graphs to see how much progress I’d made on various weight exercises I’ve been doing for a while.
Unfortunately the answer is mostly “not much”. I’ve always been cautious about increasing weights – better to avoid injury than really push things – but I’ve been more cautious than I thought. It’s always easy to think, “Oof, I can do these sets but it’s tough… I’ll increase weight next time,” but then think exactly the same next time. Especially when my gym-going was put on pause for a few years by Covid, and then has been more sporadic than ideal for the past couple of years.
Anyway, here’s one of the charts to give you some idea, one that at least shows some progress, unlike some others. (Weight in kg.)
§ On Friday I spent another 45 minutes sledgehammering away at the broken pond’s concrete. Good progress and I’m guessing there’s about an hour more left. It’s very satisfying, and my sledgehammering has improved, but it’s knackering.
Even so, it was an ideal day to be outside – a bit of sun, not too hot – so I set to work on the next project: making a gravel border around part of the house where the grass fails to grow properly, leaving a rough, messy, edge.
So: dig out the turf/earth, put some wood along the edge of the lawn, lay down some weed-preventing fabric, cover in gravel.
The biggest hurdle in the process was always going to be buying the materials, which would involve speaking to people at hardware stores. After I’d dug out the turf it took me an hour or two of procrastinating on other things before I worked up the courage to drive to our local builders’ merchants to buy some timber etc., armed only with the knowledge of one YouTube video.
Thankfully the guy I drew in the customer service lucky dip was very helpful (if a little surly ofc) and I’ll pick up my timber (cut to fit in our car) this week.
Later I tempted the DIY Gods by putting up a shelf on a plasterboard wall and – pending future disaster – that also went well. Hashtag blessed.
§ This week I finished reading Sarah Bakewell’s At the Existentialist Café and it was as good as I hoped. I did think there might be a lot of overlap with the also excellent Left Bank but they’re different enough. The latter is focused on Paris in the 1940s while the former, despite its title and cover illustration, isn’t solely about Sartre, Beauvoir, etc. in Parisian cafés. It’s more of an overview of the major existentialist philosophers throughout the century, from Husserl and Heidegger, on through Paris. Like Bakewell’s book about Montaigne it’s very readable, a good balance of explaining sometimes tricky things in a manageable way.
§ Often I see a movie trailer and think, “the trailer’s told me the entire story”. Usually I’m wrong and if I see the film there is, of course, a lot more to it. But sometimes I think, “the trailer’s told me the entire story,” and I see the film and think, “the trailer did tell me the entire story”. American Fiction (2023, Cord Jefferson) definitely falls into the latter camp. It’s an entertaining enough joke/point but I’d already seen the trailer.
Kate and I discussed the ongoing Graham Platner controversies on last week’s episode the podcast. As I explained, having never fallen hard for Platner as so many did I come at the matter from a different perspective. I was basically a soft skepitc. Not against him but also not wowed. Because of that I wasn’t really let down by any of the scandals because I wasn’t up in the first place. As I half jokingly put it, as long as he agrees not to be a Nazi going forward and stays off any dating apps until November, I’m basically fine with this candidacy.
More seriously, you judge candidates by their candidacies. He pulverized the sitting governor and establishment backed candidate and he’s weathered something like ten candidacy-ending scandals. Polls also suggest he’s highly competitive against Susan Collins. To me those facts make him definitionally a strong candidate, regardless of what I might think of him personally or whatever I can tell about his ideology. It’s also the case even if it surprises me that he remains a strong candidate. Until that changes, he’s the candidate. He strikes me as a pretty strong one. I’m skeptical the latest scandal is really going to hurt him in Maine whatever it may be doing with opinion-writers and influencers. Maybe he’s toast. But it’s him or Susan Collins and that, to me, makes it a simple question.
What’s more interesting to me than the latest scandal itself is the way that Platner’s candidacy has become a staging ground or perhaps a kind of Rorschach test for everything factional disagreement in the broad Democratic or center-left coalition.
I’ve seen what I guess I’d call members of the dissident, horse-shoeing former Democrat crowd – Matt Stoller, Zaid Jilani – calling the whole brouhaha an instance of “Dem HR Lady” politics. It’s basically a customized and on-brandly denigrating version of their anti-identity politics/wokism grumbling both have been pushing for the last six or seven years. Others portray Platner as a violent sociopath who has abused women his whole life or simply an epic sleazeball whose rise and persistence demonstrate the entrenched misogyny of Democratic politics. If Democrats keep backing Platner all their support for gender equality is a sham.
Meanwhile, a whole other group of online Democrats are not only upset about Platner’s tattoo and appearances with right wing podcasters but see Democratic acceptance of him as a candidate in some basic way discrediting decades of Democratic opposition to rightwing extremism, white supremacy etc. For others, Platner is an indictment of the progressive operatives who are running his operation and also helped Zohran Mamdani and other progressives get elected. Then there are all the progressive influencers who attack anyone who doesn’t regard Platner as some kind of salt of the earth progressive hero (Grim, Sirota, et al.). I’ve even seen one identifiable line of critique blaming Platner on Chuck Schumer and Kristen Gillibrand I guess because they held out so long for Janet Mills that they basically kept any other normalish candidates from getting into the race and stuck the party with Graham Platner. (Yes, this argument really exists.) Then of course there is a very large contingent basically telling all these different groups to STFU, recognize that it’s Platner or Collins and that’s all that matters. For them all of this is purity politics Democrats simply don’t have time for in an existential struggled with Donald Trump. Or it’s just Democrats getting pulled into second-guessing and hitting the fainting couch because of media narratives that don’t mean anything.
I’m probably closest to that last line of reasoning. But again, I’m not so much judging the other viewpoints as marveling at how almost everyone with a grievance in Democratic politics has managed to find a way for Platner to vindicate their views and demonstrate the badness or fecklessness of their intra-party enemies.
Just as I was writing this – literally, having the conversation while I was writing this – I got into a back and forth with someone whose instincts I really respect telling me that Platner is 100% toast, will be destroyed by Collins and that I must have brain damage not to realize this. I don’t have certainties about this. He’s the candidate, until something happens to change that. He seems to me like a strong (as evidenced by the record not my subjective opinion) one. And it’s him or Collins and that’s really all I need to know.
The other day I read about this Italian philosopher from like 1700 who coined a phrase: verum esse ipsum factum. What is true is what is made, or: we only really understand what we created.
Verum Factum: we only really know what we made.
This resonates immediately as a software developer.
When I wrote a program, or when I’ve changed it enough, I feel like I know it, like it’s under my fingers. It’s a particular feeling of knowing. It means I have confidence that I can predict the software, that I can change it, that I can pinpoint problems as an expert. I love that feeling. It’s a verum-factum feeling.
That’s what I lose when AI writes the code.
There’s a loss of intimacy with my own programs. I don’t know them inside and out, I didn’t shape their every structure and dataflow.
There are ways of working with the agent to keep this verum-factum knowledge, to feel like this program is mine. I seek these. Here are some I’ve found so far:
I establish clear domain terms, some up front and others as the need for them emerges.
I notice bounded contexts and ask the agent to break them into modules.
I get it to write down design principles and conventions for this app.
Behavior tests that the agent can’t change without permission: “I’ve set its boundaries” [1]
Traces show me what’s happening: I work them into a shape that gives me confidence.
Own the loop. It is mine to define how the agent and I know whether the software works.
When I’m the domain expert, the architect, the product owner, and the design lead–then yeah, that program can feel mine just as when I was mostly the coder.
Verum-factum still works when I work at the levels of behavior and verification. Even if I miss the satisfaction of carving each clever abstraction.
Don’t have time for a proper post this week, but I thought I’d share a recent mindmap that I think is a pretty good view of stuff I’m thinking about right now. It’s nice having a whiteboard up on a wall again.
The little red circled ?? arrow in the upper right represents one of the problems I’m thinking about. There are two ways convergence and divergence forces can form a dynamic balance in systems that exist in our world: organic and machinic. Organic balance (mechanisms such as homeostasis, autopoiesis), oddly enough, is better understood. Machinic balance, of the sort represented by the elements of a clock being properly aligned, is easier to characterize formally but I think less understood.
Both kinds of balance involve self-regulation through feedback loops, and represent varieties of liveness, but there’s something subtly different about them. It’s a bit like the difference between crystals and organic substances. There is a low-entropy, striated, reversible quality to machinic balance.
One tell that you’re looking at machinic balance rather than organic is that a mechanism can be stopped, disassembled, and reassembled. There is a reversibility to the liveness of machines.
More American women than men now attend college, and this has created a marriage squeeze for women who don't attend college, as the highest-income non-college men increasingly marry college-educated women.
Abstract: Over the past half-century, U.S. four-year colleges have shifted from enrolling mostly men to enrolling mostly women, while the economic position of non-college men has weakened markedly. We examine how these changes correspond with the evolving structure of marriage markets across cohorts and places. As college men have become increasingly scarce, college women have maintained stable marriage rates by marrying high-earning non-college men. This shift—combined with the broader economic decline of non-college men—has sharply reduced the pool of economically stable partners available to non-college women: the share of non-college men who earn above the national median and are not married to college women has fallen by more than 50%. Cross-area evidence shows that education gaps in marriage are smaller where non-college men face lower rates of joblessness and incarceration. Taken together, the evidence suggests that deteriorating outcomes for men have primarily undermined the marriage prospects of non-college women.
Pierre-Edouard Sterin, founder of Smartbox and worth about €1.4 billion, told French senators he wants to disinherit his five children and donate everything to charity. French law, under the Napoleonic Code, mandates that with five children, three-quarters of his estate must go to them, leaving only one quarter freely disposable. Sterin argued for complete freedom to decide the fate of one’s assets, saying it is ‘a real freedom to start with nothing in life’.
We are rapidly approaching the 250th anniversary of the United States, and I’ve been asked by various parties to pick the quintessential song (or songs) about life in America.
So I’m turning to my readers—the ultimate brain trust on matters musical. Help me build a definitive US of A playlist.
Please support my work—by taking out a premium subscription for just $6 per month.
When you light up the barbecue on Independence Day, what song do you want playing in the background? When you hear America singing—as Walt Whitman described it—what’s the tune? When the nation gets up to dance, who is setting the beat?
I have a few ideas. But you probably have better ones. So let it rip.
This is anonymized, I can vouch that the person is very smart and has excellent taste:
Some thoughts [referring to my recent Free Press piece on marijuana]. My feeling is that you read quickly enough that I can dump words on you and it will not be an imposition. So I have not really edited this. I am writing more now
1. Drugs are fun.
2. They open new ways of perceiving, sometimes by adversely impacting other ways of perceiving, particularly by adjusting attention response, and particularly for perceiving experiences that are sensory (what experiences aren’t sensory, ridiculous, I know, but here of course I mean art primarily.
3. Since the experiences I am inadequately categorizing above are profoundly influential on people’s meaning-making, drugs can be as well, of course.
4. Most people are not going to be as economically viable as they are now as producers of goods or services, and many, if not most, are going to be economically viable only to the extent that they generate demand, and here I think specifically demand for pleasure. Drugs are important in this social equation. People will use many more drugs of increasing variety and quality. This train has left the station, or, rather, these trains have left their stations. You will not call them back.
5. People prefer not to work. Most folks are lazy. As you know. People usually only work because they have to, and this is a perpetual source of human misery, the having to work part. Rich people like to say things like: “work gives you purpose” but that really is only for work in which you can create meaning for yourself. Most people do not have this work, cannot get this work, and will never experience meaning-making through work in a positive way.
6. The other ways people derive meaning are becoming more expensive, and prohibitively so for many, and here I mean specifically children. It always puzzles me why folks like Musk and Thiel advocate for more reproduction when it should be clear to all that (many) fewer humans will be required to generate (radically) more economic activity. Generating and raising new humans is already much more expensive than it was in previous generations, and fewer people are able to achieve the kind of economic security that predicts good parenting outcomes.
7. Tesla is a company that makes cars like Netflix is a company that mails you DVDs. You know this, it’s obvious, and has been since he put AI in his cars. Tesla makes robots, his cars are robots, and he will soon have many many other kinds of robots. SpaceX will solve the electricity and cooling issues around AI rapidly. The bottom line here is that all economic pressure points to people working less, not more. They will do more drugs.
8. This confluence of pressures (human desire for rest and relaxation, declining access to traditional means of meaning making — through work, through children — and the powerful economic pressures to replace human labor with AI and robotics) and the rapid evolution of much much better drugs (my boyfriend knows as much about pot as I do about wine, and here in the PNW pot is extremely high quality, and gets better literally all the time — there is a new nano-emulsified tech for drinkable live rosin marijuana products now available in Oregon, and let me tell you, that stuff is great) means that drug use will continue to rise, continue to improve in terms of its absolute value as a substitute for other meaning making activities, and continue to be blended in with other medical chemical use.
9. Mental health is health. Drugs do help with anxiety and pleasure, which is why people use them. Better drugs will help with these better.
10. I have an anxiety disorder (I never mind sharing this, I am also a type 2 diabetic and don’t mind sharing that) and am, at my heart, a bohemian libertine. As I get richer and richer, I use drugs to carve out space to disconnect from others. I create space for myself and my internal thinking with drugs. My internal thinking space is generally far more interesting than others’, though, and generally far more interesting than conversation with all but a few others.
11. I play an outstanding video game that replicates for me the experience of being a child playing with legos, except I never have to clean up my room. Marijuana enhances my video game experience by creating a sense of stasis while my mind wanders and i engage other bits of my mental engine on creation. Some of my best ideas, including many that have made clients millions of dollars, have occurred to me in this state, and I know no other state in which I am so open to new ideas. Many are lousy, but I successfully monetize enough of them to be getting richer than I need to be.
12. I spend more on classical music, theater, and other live performing arts than most people. I often use drugs to enhance the experience. Before a recent Bruckner 8, I bought pot two blocks from the hall in a store selling it openly but illegally — this was in one of those states with a world-class orchestra and outdated cannabis laws. Sitting in prime seats, high as a kite, I lost myself completely in Bruckner’s profound torrent of cosmic meaning. What I am saying is even my most cherished experiences can be improved by drugs. Many reasonable people feel the same, including Elon Musk.
13. I strongly recommend taking marijuana while hiking through the Olympic National Park in the rain. You will never experience olfactory sensations like that in any other setting or mindstate.
14. So, almost everyone is already using drugs almost all of the time, deriving great value from them in private, public, artificial, natural, and introspective spaces. You cannot replace that value with nothing, other competing forms of value are becoming much more expensive or require high levels of discipline (I get great value from my personal trainer who helps me get high on endorphins twice a week, now that’s a GREAT drug, so much clarity) and so I just don’t think there is any future in which you will put this genie back in the bottle.
Lay in bed till 7 o’clock, yet rose with an opinion that it was not 5, and so continued though I heard the clock strike, till noon, and would not believe that it was so late as it truly was. I was hardly ever so mistaken in my life before.
Up and to Sir G. Carteret at his house, and spoke to him about business, but he being in a bad humour I had no mind to stay with him, but walked, drinking my morning draft of whay, by the way, to York House, where the Russia Embassador do lie; and there I saw his people go up and down louseing themselves: they are all in a great hurry, being to be gone the beginning of next week. But that that pleased me best, was the remains of the noble soul of the late Duke of Buckingham appearing in his house, in every place, in the doorcases and the windows.
By and by comes Sir John Hebden, the Russia Resident, to me, and he and I in his coach to White Hall, to Secretary Morrice’s, to see the orders about the Russia hemp that is to be fetched from Archangel for our King, and that being done, to coach again, and he brought me into the City and so I home; and after dinner abroad by water, and met by appointment Mr. Deane in the Temple Church, and he and I over to Mr. Blackbury’s yard, and thence to other places, and after that to a drinking house, in all which places I did so practise and improve my measuring of timber, that I can now do it with great ease and perfection, which do please me mightily.
This fellow Deane is a conceited fellow, and one that means the King a great deal of service, more of disservice to other people that go away with the profits which he cannot make; but, however, I learn much of him, and he is, I perceive, of great use to the King in his place, and so I shall give him all the encouragement I can.
Home by water, and having wrote a letter for my wife to my Lady Sandwich to copy out to send this night’s post, I to the office, and wrote there myself several things, and so home to supper and bed. My mind being troubled to think into what a temper of neglect I have myself flung my wife into by my letting her learn to dance, that it will require time to cure her of, and I fear her going into the country will but make her worse; but only I do hope in the meantime to spend my time well in my office, with more leisure than while she is here.
Hebden, to-day in the coach, did tell me how he is vexed to see things at Court ordered as they are by nobody that attends to business, but every man himself or his pleasures. He cries up my Lord Ashley to be almost the only man that he sees to look after business; and with that ease and mastery, that he wonders at him. He cries out against the King’s dealing so much with goldsmiths, and suffering himself to have his purse kept and commanded by them.
He tells me also with what exact care and order the States of Holland’s stores are kept in their Yards, and every thing managed there by their builders with such husbandry as is not imaginable; which I will endeavour to understand further, if I can by any means learn.
As regular readers of this blog know, I’m pretty ambivalent about trade barriers as an economic policy. On one hand I think targeted tariffs and other trade barriers can be used to protect strategic industries from surges in underpriced import competition, especially by geopolitical rivals. On the other hand, broad tariffs like the ones Trump has used are generally bad — they hurt domestic manufacturing by making intermediate goods more expensive, they limit scale for domestic companies, etc.
And yet I do think that Europe should erect much higher trade barriers — both tariffs and non-tariff barriers — against Chinese high-tech manufactured export goods. The basic reason is that it’s important to protect Europe’s nascent modern defense industry. But I also think that blocking Chinese exports might nudge China to change its economic model to one that benefits regular Chinese people more.
In other words, China-Europe trade has some unusual characteristics right now that make trade barriers a much smarter idea than usual.
First, let’s talk about what’s going on with the Chinese economy. For the past few years, China’s government has unleashed an unprecedented torrent of subsidies for high-tech manufacturing industries. This — along with structural factors about how the Chinese economy works — has resulted in China making big global market share gains in industries like autos, pharmaceuticals, and shipbuilding. No one knows just how much of China’s market share gains are a result of government support, but as Paul Hannon reports, the OECD estimates that it’s more than half:
Government subsidies have driven most of the increase in the global market share of Chinese businesses over the past two decades as they have received three to eight times more support than their competitors, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development said Monday…The analysis is based on the OECD’s Manufacturing Groups and Industrial Corporations database, which includes subsidy estimates and financial information for 525 of the world’s largest manufacturing groups spread across 15 key industrial sectors…[T]he OECD database tracks the amounts that firms are actually given…
“Industrial firms based in China receive more subsidies than their competitors based everywhere else,” the OECD said…For Chinese businesses, however, the share of [market share] gains explained by subsidies was…60%.
The Rhodium Group has a deeper dive into China’s new industrial policy. Essentially, instead of selecting a few industries to specialize in, China’s leaders just want the country to dominate everything — not just manufacturing, but services as well:
China’s industrial strategy…is becoming more systemic and pervasive, extending across all layers of production, from upstream inputs and industrial equipment to downstream applications, services, and frontier technologies…China’s next-generation industrial policy represents a shift from targeted sectoral intervention to what can be described as an “industrial policy of everything.”…While [Made in China 2025] focused on a defined set of strategic emerging industries, current policy frameworks extend across mature sectors, foundational supply chain nodes, and frontier technologies alike…
Even in mature industries facing overcapacity and severe price pressures, Beijingis providing continued support and pushing firms to upgrade production technologies to gain market share and lower production costs, rather than cutting capacity…Services, relatively neglected in earlier rounds of industrial policy, are getting more attention[.]
Basically, China does not want1 to exist in a trading system, where goods are traded for other goods. China wants to make all the goods, and have other countries pay for those goods with debt.
There are two basic reasons China is doing this. The first is pure mercantilism; China is trying to export its way out of the economic slump created by its housing bust. The second, as the Rhodium Group report explains, is power. If China controls key segments of other countries’ supply chains, it can use the threat of export controls to bring those countries to heel.
What should other countries do about this? The U.S. has chosen to respond with tariffs. These are of limited effectiveness, but they do appear to be doing something; even when you take into account the intermediate goods that China exports to America via third countries like Vietnam and Mexico, China’s share of America’s imports has fallen slightly from 2021 (or from 2017):
There are almost certainly much more effective tools that the U.S. could use to accelerate the decoupling of the two economies and reduce dependence on China…but since when has U.S. policy been driven by a desire for effectiveness?
The question is now what Europe and other developed countries — who have marginally more rational decision-making processes — are going to do about China’s attempt to dominate all tradable industries. One proposal — which Germany seems to be following so far — is to do nothing, and to simply let China make all the physical objects in the world, while focusing on services instead. This is essentially the proposal of Tej Parikh, who writes that China “has a comparative advantage in industrial policy itself”, and that trying to compete with China in any manufacturing industry is therefore doomed to fail.
This annoys me, because it represents a deep misunderstanding of the entire concept of comparative advantage! The theory of comparative advantage is about traded goods; it’s about which traded goods can be produced relatively more cheaply by which countries. If I’m better at making TVs than cars, and you’re better at making cars than TVs, then I’ll make TVs and you’ll make cars and then we’ll trade. That’s how comparative advantage works. This is why you cannot have a “comparative advantage in industrial policy”. Industrial policy is a production input, not a traded good. No one buys and sells industrial policy!
“OK, Noah,” you’re about to say. “Stop being a pedant. You know what he means. He means China is better at making anything and everything, because they use industrial policy for everything.”
Yes, I know that’s what he means. And yes, this reflects a deep misunderstanding of the concept of comparative advantage.2 Even if one country is better at making everything, it doesn’t have a comparative advantage in everything. That’s impossible. Every country has a comparative advantage at something!
That’s why in the theory of comparative advantage, trade is balanced. In the real world, China’s massive trade surplus means that trade is not balanced; much of the time, China isn’t trading goods for other goods, it’s trading goods for IOUs. That kind of unbalanced trade is something that just doesn’t happen in the theory of comparative advantage.
OK, so that was a bit of a rant. The real point here is that Parikh’s preferred solution — that every country except China should focus on innovation, and leave the making of everything to the Chinese — is simply ridiculous. First of all, it doesn’t deal at all with the issue of supply chain vulnerabilities. Second of all, China has an industrial policy for innovation, too — in fact, it’s China’s most important industrial policy. The idea of “We’ll do the innovation while China makes everything” sounds straight out of 2002 — and it was obviously wrong even back then.
The cold, hard fact is that Europe needs to do something, or risk losing its sovereignty to foreign conquerors. China — the very country that Europe’s free-traders are now suggesting should supply every single manufactured good — is waging a proxy war against Europe even as we speak. China trains Russian soldiers, provides Russia with battlefield intelligence in its war against Ukraine, helps out Russian defense manufacturers, and even does some defense manufacturing for Russia — in addition to buying Russian oil and keeping the Russian economy afloat.
And this is all while Russia is actively threatening to invade the EU. If Russia eventually does invade, Europe will need to make large amounts of drones to resist the invasion. All militaries that are not centered around large masses of drones are now obsolete — when NATO conducts war games against drone-equipped Ukrainian units, the Ukrainians easily triumph.
But both Europe and Ukraine cannot currently make drones from scratch without relying on Chinese industry. Many of the components and materials that go into making a drone are controlled by China — things like radio modules, lithium-ion batteries, electric motors, navigation cameras, and even carbon frames. Europe cannot currently make these — or can’t make many of them, at least.
If Russia were to invade Europe, China could simply decide not to sell Europe the components it needs to make drones. Why wouldn’t it? China has already proven itself perfectly willing to use export controls on rare earths and other upstream technologies to throttle other countries’ defense industries. And a Europe cowed and dominated by China’s most important ally would probably be more useful to Xi Jinping than a free and independent Europe that steers its own destiny.
If Russia invaded Europe and China simultaneously halted the export of drone components, Europe would be a lost cause. Unless Europe could assemble upstream industries for drone components from scratch before Russia’s drone-equipped armies marched across the Baltics and into Poland, the war would quickly be lost for lack of weapons.
Whether they realize it yet or not, Europe’s dependence on China for the manufacture of many key defense inputs puts it at China’s mercy. This is a downside to free trade that the folks who advocate a European retreat from manufacturing simply fail to engage with or acknowledge. It provides a strong rationale for putting up trade barriers against the import of certain intermediate goods — something that harms economic efficiency, but is necessary for defense.
When invading armies are burning your country to the ground, you should worry less about deadweight loss than about being dead.
But those who wring their hands about the economic losses should take heart. Blocking the import of Chinese goods might harm economic efficiency, but it could have some positive knock-on effects in terms of political economy.
For all China’s high-tech wizardry, its big industrial policy push doesn’t seem to be doing much to help the actual people of China.
The real estate industry, which previously created plenty of labor demand and broad-based wealth for regular Chinese people, is still in the dumps and may even be getting worse. The continued property bust is weighing on aggregate demand — Fixed-asset investment is shrinking, while retail sales have flatlined.
“Industrial policy for everything” was supposed to fill the hole left by real estate, but it isn’t doing a very good job of it. Because the rise in Chinese manufacturing output is being done mostly for export, regular Chinese people aren’t able to share in the bounty the policies are creating. For example, Chinese motor vehicle consumption is below where it was a decade ago, despite surging exports:
Source: National Bureau of Statistics
In fact, this shift dates back to the pandemic. Matt C. Klein has a good series of charts on China’s anemic consumption. Here’s an example:
This is often framed as China helping producers at the expense of consumers. But often it’s not even that. China’s industrial subsidies pay a bunch of different companies to produce the same goods, competing their profits to zero even as they also undercut the overseas competition. A prime example of this is the solar industry:
China’s solar exports have enjoyed a surge since the bombing [of Iran] began. But that will be small cheer to its companies…Domestic demand for their products is falling for the first time in decades because the country’s power grids—far and away the biggest market for solar panels—have become overloaded with the things. Solar-panel supply, meanwhile, is overabundant because of years of splashy investment in factories…Most companies have been running at a loss since 2024 because of brutal price wars; bankruptcies are mounting.
But it’s not just undifferentiated commodity products like solar that are suffering this fate; China’s vaunted auto industry, which came out of nowhere to leapfrog all other countries with its mastery of EVs, is locked in an endless brutal price war:
China’s efforts to cool its automotive price war are faltering as BYD Co. and rivals expand discounts to avoid ceding ground in the world’s largest car market…The average price reduction for BYD cars accelerated to 10% in March…Discounts by competitors…also edged higher…Regulators’ missives aimed at halting deflationary momentum have fallen on deaf ears so far, and industry observers say it won’t stop the discounting trend anytime soon.
China’s industrial policy is accomplishing its central goal of national greatness. China’s technology level is advancing, its companies are winning global market share, and it’s gaining control over key strategic technological choke points. But China’s workers, its savers, its investors, and even its entrepreneurs are on a treadmill, unable to enjoy the fruits of their country’s industrial dominance.
European trade barriers could potentially nudge China out of this toxic political economy. If Xi Jinping & co. see that they can’t forcibly deindustrialize the West by subsidizing infinite exports, their cost-benefit calculations may shift. Providing growing living standards for Chinese people might once again become the central goal of policy, as it was during the time of Deng Xiaoping, Jiang Zemin, and Hu Jintao.
So Europe should push back against the Chinese import flood, not just for their own security, but also for the sake of regular Chinese people. Fortunately, there are indications that European leaders have had enough of Xi’s little game, and are preparing to take real action. Hopefully this newfound resolve doesn’t get lost in the maze of European bureaucracy and inertia like so many other worthwhile initiatives.
Parikh is confusing comparative advantage with something called “competitive advantage”. In the theory of comparative advantage, competitive advantage — who makes which good more cheaply in the absolute sense — doesn’t end up mattering for the patterns of international trade. That’s why the theory is so brilliantly counterintuitive.
Relative to those in nonremotable jobs, workers in remotable jobs spent approximately one additional hour alone per workday after the pandemic. Those in remotable jobs also differentially increased days spent entirely alone and decreased after-work socializing. The rise in isolation was sharpest for those living alone, whose likelihood of spending the whole day without social contact rose by 7 percentage points (83%).
Mental distress simultaneously increased: Scores on the Kessler (K-6) measure of generalized psychological distress rose by 0.1 standard deviations for those in remotable jobs relative to those in nonremotable jobs. The increase in distress was roughly twice as large for those living alone compared with those living with family. Alternative measures of mental distress—such as the frequency of depression, mental health care utilization, and antidepressant prescriptions—show similar trends. In contrast, workers in remotable jobs did not differentially increase visits to non–mental health care providers or non–mental health prescriptions (statins, for example), suggesting that the change was not merely driven by increased flexibility for doctor visits.
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt had good news for the American people when he gave his twenty-ninth Fireside Chat on June 5, 1944. The day before, June 4, Rome had fallen to Allied troops. “The first of the Axis capitals is now in our hands,” Roosevelt said.
The president pointed out that “it is…significant that Rome has been liberated by the armed forces of many nations. The American and British armies—who bore the chief burdens of battle—found at their sides our own North American neighbors, the gallant Canadians. The fighting New Zealanders from the far South Pacific, the courageous French and the French Moroccans, the South Africans, the Poles and the East Indians—all of them fought with us on the bloody approaches to the city of Rome. The Italians, too, forswearing a partnership in the Axis which they never desired, have sent their troops to join us in our battles against the German trespassers on their soil.”
This group of ordinary men from many different countries had worked together to defeat the forces of fascism. For all that the fascists boasted of the superiority of their form of government over democracy, in Italy “[o]ur troops have found starvation, malnutrition, disease, a deteriorating education and lowered public health—all by-products of the Fascist misrule,” FDR said.
But the president warned Americans that the fall of Rome was only the beginning. “We shall have to push through a long period of greater effort and fiercer fighting before we get into Germany itself,” he said. “[T]he victory still lies some distance ahead. That distance will be covered in due time—have no fear of that. But it will be tough and it will be costly.”
FDR knew something his audience did not. On the other side of the Atlantic, paratroopers, their faces darkened with cocoa, were already dropping into France, and the soldiers, sailors, and airmen of the Allies were on their way across the English channel.
The order of the day from their commander, General Dwight D. Eisenhower, on the evening of June 5 had read: “You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade, toward which we have striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you. The hopes and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you. In company with our brave Allies and brothers-in-arms on other Fronts, you will bring about the destruction of the German war machine, the elimination of Nazi tyranny over the oppressed people of Europe, and security for ourselves in a free world.”
“Your task will not be an easy one,” it read, but it assured the troops that the Germans had suffered great defeats and Allied bombing had reduced German strength, while “[o]ur Home Fronts have given us an overwhelming superiority in weapons and munitions of war, and placed at our disposal great reserves of trained fighting men. The tide has turned! The free men of the world are marching together to Victory!”
Eisenhower’s public confidence did not reflect his understanding that the largest amphibious invasion in military history was a gamble. The seas on the crossing were rough, and the beaches the men would assault were tangled in barbed wire, booby trapped, and defended by German soldiers in concrete bunkers. On June 5, in pencil on a sheet of paper, he had written a message to be communicated in case the invasion failed.
“Our landings in the Cherbourg-Havre area have failed to gain a satisfactory foothold and I have withdrawn the troops,” it read. “My decision to attack at this time and place was based upon the best information available. The troops, the air and the Navy did all that bravery and dedication to duty could do. If any blame or fault attaches to the attempt it is mine alone.”
But Eisenhower’s letter was never delivered.
On the morning of June 6, 1944, five naval assault divisions stormed the beaches of Normandy. Seven thousand ships and landing craft operated by more than 195,000 naval personnel from 8 countries brought almost 133,000 troops to beaches given the code names UTAH, OMAHA, GOLD, JUNO, and SWORD.
By the end of the day, more than 10,000 Allied troops were wounded or killed, but the Allies had established a foothold in France that would permit them to flood troops, vehicles, and supplies into Europe.
When FDR held a press conference later that day, his comment to the cheerful reporters highlighted the extraordinary weight of the past 24 hours. “I knew last night, when I was doing that broadcast on Rome,” he told them, “that the troops were actually in the vessels, on the way across.”
NASA directed astronauts on the ISS to shelter in a Crew Dragon spacecraft after Russian cosmonauts planned to perform repairs the agency thought created “elevated risk” to the station.
I added a CLI to micropython-wasm (issue #7), inspired by the first draft of the blog entry when I realized it would be a great way to illustrate the Try it yourself section.
I've been experimenting with different approaches to running code in a sandbox for several years now, but my latest attempt feels like it might finally have all of the characteristics I've been looking for. I've released it as an alpha package called micropython-wasm, and I'm using it for a code execution sandbox plugin for Datasette Agent called datasette-agent-micropython.
I absolutely love plugins as a mechanism for extending software. A carefully designed plugin system reduces the risk involved in trying new things to almost nothing - even the wildest ideas won't leave a lasting influence on the core application itself. My software can grow a new feature overnight and I don't even have to review a pull request!
There's one major drawback: my plugin systems all use Python and Pluggy, and plugin code executes with full privileges within my applications. A buggy or malicious plugin could break everything or leak private data.
I'd love to be able to run plugin-style code in an environment where it is unable to read unapproved files, connect to a network, or generally operate in a way that's risky or harmful to the rest of the application or the user's computer.
My interest covers more than just plugins. For Datasette in particular there are many features I'd like to support where arbitrary code execution would be useful. I've already experimented with this for Datasette Enrichments, where code can be used to transform values stored in a table. I'd love to build a mechanism where you can run code on a schedule that fetches JSON from an approved location, runs a tiny bit of code to reformat it into a list of dictionaries, then inserts those as rows in a SQLite database table.
What I want from a sandbox
My goal is to execute code safely within my own Python applications. Here's what I need:
Dependencies that cleanly install from PyPI, including binary wheels across multiple platforms if necessary. I don't want people using my software to have to take any extra steps beyond directly installing my Python package.
Executed code must be subject to both memory and CPU limits. I don't want while True: s += "longer string" to crash my application or the user's computer.
File access must be strictly controlled. Either no filesystem access at all or I get to define exactly which files can be read and which files can be written to.
Network access is controlled as well. Sandboxed code should not be able to communicate with anything without going through a layer I fully control.
Support for interaction with host functions. A sandbox isn't much use if I can't carefully expose selected platform features to the code that it's running.
It has to be robust, supported, and clearly documented. I've lost count of the number of sandbox projects I've seen in repos with warnings that they aren't actively maintained!
WebAssembly looks really promising here
Web browsers operate in the most hostile environment imaginable when it comes to malicious code. Their job is to download and execute untrusted code from the web on almost every page load.
Given this, JavaScript engines should be excellent candidates for sandboxes. Sadly those engines are also extremely complicated, and are not designed for easy embedding in other projects. Most of the V8-in-Python projects I've seen are infrequently maintained and come with warnings not to use them with completely untrusted code.
WebAssembly is a much better candidate. It was designed from the start to support all of the characteristics I care about and has been tested in browsers for nearly a decade. The wasmtime Python library brings WASM to Python, is actively maintained, and has binary wheels.
MicroPython in WebAssembly
WebAssembly engines like wasmtime run WebAssembly binaries. Some programming languages like Rust are easy to compile directly to WebAssembly. Dynamic languages like JavaScript and Python are harder - they support language primitives like eval(), which means they need a full interpreter available at runtime.
To run Python we need a full Python interpreter compiled to WebAssembly, wired up in a way that makes it easy to feed it code, hook up host functions and access the results.
Pyodide offers an outstanding package for running Python using WebAssembly in the browser, but using Pyodide in server-side Python isn't supported. The most recent advice I could find was from October 2024 stating "Pyodide is built by the Emscripten toolchain and can only run in a browser or Node.js".
The other day I decided to take a look at MicroPython as an option for this. The MicroPython site says:
MicroPython is a lean and efficient implementation of the Python 3 programming language that includes a small subset of the Python standard library and is optimised to run on microcontrollers and in constrained environments.
WebAssembly sure feels like a constrained environment to me!
read the research.md document and build this. You will probably need to write a script that compiles a custom WASM version of MicroPython as part of this project - fetch the MicroPython code to a /tmp directory for this as part of that script.
It worked. I now had a prototype Python library that could execute Python code inside a WebAssembly sandbox!
The trickiest piece to solve was persistent interpreter state. The WASM build we are using here exposes a single entry point which starts the interpreter, runs the code and then stops the interpreter at the end.
This works fine for one-off scripts, but for Datasette Agent I want variables and functions to stay resident in memory so I can reuse them across multiple code execution calls.
A neat thing about working with coding agents is that you can get from an idea to a proof of concept quickly. I prompted:
For keeping variables resident: what if we ran code inside micropython itself which called a host function get_next_python_code() and then passed that to eval() - and that host function blocked until new code was available, maybe by running in a thread with a queue? Could that or a similar idea help here?
After some iteration we got to a version of this that works! In Python code you can now do this:
Under the hood this starts a thread, sets up a request queue and then sends messages to that queue for the session.run() command, each time waiting on a reply queue for the result of that execution. Inside WASM the MicroPython interpreter blocks waiting for a __session_next__() host function to return the next line of code, which it runs eval() on before calling __session_result__({"id": request_id, "ok": True}) when each block has been successfully executed.
The other piece of complexity was supporting host functions, so my Python library could selectively expose functions that could then be called by code running in MicroPython.
I am by no means a C programmer, but I've read the C and had two different models explain it to me (here's Claude's explanation) and I've subjected it to a barrage of tests.
The great thing about working with WebAssembly is that if the C turns out to be fatally flawed the worst that can happen is the WebAssembly execution will fail with an exception. I can live with that risk.
Memory limits are directly supported by wasmtime. CPU limits are a little harder: wasmtime offers a "fuel" concept to limit how many operations a WebAssembly call can execute, and that's the correct fit for this problem, but the units are hard to reason about. I'm experimenting with a 20 million default "fuel" setting now but I'm not confident that it's the most appropriate value.
You can try it from your own Python code as described in the README. I've also added a simple CLI mode in version 0.1a2 which means you can try it using uvx without first installing it like so:
uvx micropython-wasm -c 'print("Hello world")'# To see it run out of fuel:
uvx micropython-wasm -c 's = ""; while True: s += "longer"'# Outputs: micropython-wasm: guest exited with code 1
Having complained about immature, loosely-maintained sandboxing libraries, it's deeply ironic that I've now built my own!
I deliberately slapped an alpha release version on it, and I'm not ready to recommend it to anyone who isn't willing to take a significant risk.
I've put it through enough testing that I'm OK using it myself. I've shipped my first plugin that uses it, datasette-agent-micropython. I've also locked GPT-5.5 xhigh in that Datasette Agent plugin and challenged it to break out of the sandbox and so far it has not managed to.
I'm hoping this implementation can convince some companies with professional security teams and high-stakes problems to commit to using Python in WebAssembly as a sandboxing approach and open source their own solutions.
OpenAI first teased this in February, but now it's live and "rolling out to eligible personal accounts, including Free, Go, Plus, and Pro, and self-serve ChatGPT Business accounts":
Lockdown Mode is designed to help prevent the final stage of data exfiltration from a prompt injection attack by limiting outbound network requests that could transfer sensitive data to an attacker. Lockdown Mode does not prevent prompt injections from appearing in the content ChatGPT processes. For example, a prompt injection could appear in cached web content or in an uploaded file, and could still affect the behavior or accuracy of a response.
This looks really good to me.
The Lethal Trifecta occurs when an LLM system has access to all three of access to private data, exposure to untrusted content and a way to steal data and transmit it back to the attacker.
The only way to solve the trifecta is to cut off one of the three legs, and by far the easiest leg to restrict without making your LLM systems far less useful is the exfiltration vectors to steal data.
It looks to me like lockdown mode directly attacks that leg, using mechanisms that are deterministic and, crucially, are not evaluated by AI systems that themselves can be subverted by sufficiently devious attacks.
The existence of lockdown mode does however imply that ChatGPT, in its default settings, does not provide robust protection against sufficiently determined data exfiltration attacks!
Hi everybody. I’ve been having an extremely busy week, so no two talking heads conversation this week. Just my head talking alone for a relatively short time.
Hi, I’m Paul Krugman. I’m winding down some travel, and I’ve been meeting all sorts of people face to face, so virtual interactions are down. So just to give you some kind of Saturday video, I thought I would talk a little bit about latest economic news, markets — things that I don’t normally weigh in very much because that kind of market commentary is usually something that is best done by business economists who are focusing on the day-to-day stuff talking to market participants. But I think that the latest stuff is interesting enough to warrant some discussion and maybe a way to think about where we are economically right now.
So okay, if you’re paying attention to this stuff you probably know that yesterday was a job report day. The report was unusually strong, certainly stronger than almost any of the professional forecasters expected, 172,000 jobs.
Predictably, Trump first boasted about this with a lot of talk about how you know we didn’t have this kind of prosperity under Joe Biden. It is kind of odd given how well things are supposedly going how much Trump and his people talk about Biden. If it was really that much better would you need to be constantly comparing yourself and making claims about how much better you’re doing?
For what it’s worth you know how often during his 48 months in the White House did Biden preside over job reports that were as good as yesterday’s in terms of job creation? The answer is 37 times.
Now, there are reasons why the rapid job growth of the early Biden years, which was coming out of the COVID slump, can’t be replicated. And the fact that immigration is way down means that a normal jobs report is going to be a lower number.
But still this was unexpectedly high job growth but not really something that should alter your fundamental view about how the economy works, although the near-term outlook looks stronger than you might have thought.
One thing I should say, since there are some people wondering, can we trust these numbers? And particularly pointing out that the unemployment rate did not fall, even though we had a unexpectedly big job creation number and wondering how does that add up, are these books being cooked? The answer is no. You’re not helping by saying that.
I’m not saying that the books might not be cooked at some time in the future, but we will know. It will be obvious that this is happening. And it would basically be impossible to do it without there being lots of warning bells, without there being lots of whistleblowers.
So far, the Bureau of Labor Statistics is still apolitical, professional — under-resourced, which is becoming a problem — but these are the best numbers they could do.
If you’re puzzled by how we can have strong job growth and no change in the unemployment rate, the answer is that these are two different surveys. The unemployment rate is based on a survey of households. The job creation number is based on a survey of employers. Those numbers don’t have to match up. I mean, in an ideal world, they would always tell the same story, but there’s statistical noise, there’s sampling error, there’s just conceptual differences.
So this kind of discrepancy is not that unusual. And what it really tells you is, well, is the economy, is the labor market really sort of flat, which is what the unemployment numbers suggest, or are we seeing at least a mini boom in employment, which is what the
nonfarm payroll numbers suggest? And the answer is who knows? Time will tell. Over the course of a year there’s not usually a significant discrepancy in the stories these numbers tell; month by month, well, it’s noisy and you shouldn’t overreact.
Okay trying to make sense of what is going on — why is the labor market as strong as it appears to be? One important point about the economy right now is that there are three big forces that are hitting us. It would be really great from the point of view of professional economists if just one thing would happen at a time. But unfortunately, that’s not how it works. So there are three things happening. First, we are still feeling the effects of Trump’s erratic tariff policy, which has had a depressing effect on employment — not so much the tariffs themselves as the uncertainty. It’s very hard for businesses to make plans, very risky for them to sink money into new ventures when they have no idea what the tariff regime will be a few months down the road. But that uncertainty probably did a one-time hit to employment which is mostly probably behind us because yeah we have crazy erratic trade policy, but that’s now just a piece of the landscape which affects the level of employment, maybe, but not the rate of growth. The second thing is AI. So we have this enormous boom in spending on data centers, a large surge in investment, big rise in stock prices because of hopes about what AI might return. There are not that many people who benefit from high stock prices, but these are people with a lot of money and a lot of spending power. And if they go out and spend more, that boosts the economy. So that’s a sort of force that operates in opposition to the effects of the tariffs.
And possibly the AI-driven spending is coming on now while the tariff effect is sort of closing out.
About oil: For what it’s worth, prediction markets are by and large evil things, but they do give you a quick way of summarizing conventional wisdom. And just about a week ago,
Kalshi said that the probability that the Strait of Hormuz would be open by August 1st was 60%. It’s now 26%. So people have justifiably gotten very skeptical of White House pronouncements that this is just about over. They should have been more skeptical before.
But anyway, it just does not look like it’s going to open. And there’s a still huge remaining uncertainty about what does this imply? Through all of this there’s been a dichotomy between people in financial markets — including people in the futures market for oil who are presumably more professional, less vibes driven than a lot of investors — and what people who actually study the physical market for oil have to say.
And right now futures prices are way up from where they were before the war, but they’re still under $100. Yet the oil industry people are basically hair on fire, saying, we’ve been meeting the loss of supply from the closure of the strait by drawing down inventories and the inventories are very close to critical critically low levels — there’s a certain amount you need to just sort of function — and there were a lot of warnings that really bad things would happen if the strait wasn’t reopened by June 1st. Well guess what here we are, it’s June 6th, D-Day, and the strait is not open. So is there a really severe oil crunch just a few weeks down the pike, or is it kind of manageable?
So are we going to be hovering around current oil prices? I still find the physical oil argument quite persuasive, but I do wonder, again, it’s not like there are a lot of meme stock investors speculating in oil futures. That’s not a market that you would expect to be
highly emotional. We know that there are insider traders who seem to know what Donald Trump is going to do a few minutes before he does it, who are in the market, but they’re probably not enough to be seriously, on a sustained basis, distorting the price. So I don’t know what’s happening on the oil scene except that it is a source of worry.
Other objective economic facts: that jobs report also showed wage growth slowing, which it has been doing for a while, at the same time as inflation has been accelerating. Inflation was first pushed up by the tariffs, and now has been pushed up further by oil prices and prices of other goods, fertilizer, helium, that were transiting the Strait of Hormuz. That hit to prices is not all the way through the system. There’s a lot of effects, particularly from diesel prices and also fertilizer, that will show up over time in higher prices of goods that involve using these hydrocarbon-based resources to operate. So inflation is likely to stay elevated for a while. With wage growth slowing down, we are almost surely looking at least another couple of months of falling real wages, which is not a good thing.
I’m a little skeptical of all the K-shaped economy stories — up at the top and down at the bottom. A lot of that is sort of going beyond what the data really say. But it is definitely true that people who earn their income are being hit by inflation and not being compensated with higher wages, while people who own lots of stocks have been doing much, much better. So that’s a real bifurcation.
Of course, people who own lots of stocks are not feeling as good as they did a week ago. We’ve had a significant fall in the stock market and then a real tumble yesterday, more than 4% on the NASDAQ, somewhat less on the other indices, but still significant decline in stocks. The President of the United States went on a rage tweeting or whatever rage truth socialing spree sand said good jobs report should send stocks should go up not down. He somehow or other managed to find ways to contrast himself with Biden and make a lot of accusations against industry people who under-forecast this jobs number as suffering from Trump derangement syndrome.
Actually, a quick point there about conspiracy theorizing. I know people who have to do these NFP, non-farm payroll projections, and they are, whatever their personal views, their job depends on being as correct as possible in the forecast. Every month, they’re evaluated. They have a story. They have a number. Their prediction will be wrong. But there’s always a question, were you better or worse than other forecasters? They do not have any space to indulge their political views.
They will get it wrong. This happens all the time. The economy is a complicated thing. And even with the best will in the world even with the best information in the world, you are going to get it wrong. The idea that there’s a special negativity of economic forecasters towards Trump is ridiculous if you were awake during the last five years. Many of us still remember when Bloomberg put the odds of recession, this was in 2022, put the odds of recession over the next year at 100%. There was no recession.
I don’t think I ever suggested that the professional forecasting of the economy was politicized. And I don’t think it was politicized either for or against Biden, and it isn’t politicized for or against Trump. There was a fundamental misconception, I think, behind those recession forecasts. But that is not a case of politicization.
Anyway, there’s certainly no call for Trump to see himself as a victim. So what is happening? Trump professed to be baffled that a good jobs number should make stocks go down. But of course, it’s actually quite straightforward. What’s happening here is that with the combination of elevated inflation, now largely driven by the effects of Iran, and a job market that is holding up — that is not, in fact, falling off a cliff, if anything, appears to be accelerating — there is no case for cutting interest rates. A few months ago it seemed
plausible that there would be some reduction in interest rates, that the Fed would have a rate cut or two this year. Now the chance of a rate cut, according to the market implied probability uh is around one percent. So there’s essentially no chance that rates will be cut and last I saw the market implied probability that rates will actually be increased is about 70 percent. Not big rate hikes but the Fed is probably going to find itself wanting to lean
against potential inflation, against the possibility that inflation might get entrenched in the economy which is always their great concern. That’s not going to lead to drastic action but by any historical criteria there are is no case for cutting rates and there’s starting to be a reasonable case for increasing rates. Lots of stuff can happen but probably not soon so your expectation about what’s going to happen to the fed funds rate which is a very short term rate, actually literally overnight, has risen substantially that in turn leads to higher rates on longer term stuff which is what matters for economic activity. And that rise in interest rates hurts stocks. There’s always a couple of different ways to say this, but should you put your money in stocks or in bonds, well, if interest rates are higher, people are less inclined to put in stocks or what is really an equivalent thing, since the price of a stock depends upon expectations of profits in the future, if interest rates are higher those future profits are discounted more which means that the price of stocks should fall.
And consistent with that story, the biggest falls in yesterday’s action were in stocks whose value depends much more on profits, hoped for profits sometime well into the future. So the NASDAQ fell 4%. The S&P, which is kind of a mixture of growth stocks and stocks that are driven more by current earnings fell less than that. The Dow, which is even more established companies who already have their profit flows fell less. So this was very clearly interest rates are going to go up because the economy is holding up while inflation is a little worrying and the Fed is not going to cut rates and may well raise rates so of course stocks are down. Nothing odd about that, nothing perverse. All that we learn is that the President of the United States doesn’t understand any of this and he just thinks that he should get interest rate cuts as a gold star for his incredible efforts.
The interesting plot here is what does this do to Kevin Warsh, the new chairman of the Fed? Warsh was installed by Trump as somebody who Trump believes will do his will, that he will cut interest rates because Trump says we should cut interest rates and that he will find ways to justify it. And Warsh has been gesturing in that direction, calling upon the Fed to use different measures of inflation that look more benign than the standard measures. That’s an interesting debate, but it’s just so obviously motivated reasoning. It clearly says pick the inflation measures that show the lowest inflation so that we can make a better case for interest rate cuts, which is what Donald Trump wants. It’s clear that this is not a serious intellectual argument.
But I think he has basically no chance of getting those rate cuts. Again, the Fed is not a dictatorship, it’s not even like a corporation where the CEO gets to make big
decisions on his own. The Fed’s interest rate policy is set by a committee — the federal open market committee — which is a mixture of long-serving members of the federal reserve board and presidents of regional feds. Basically it’s not answerable to Donald trump it’s answerable in the long run to elected politicians, but that’s quite a long-run thing. And outside of Trump’s creatures, there is zero support for interest rate cuts on the Fed board now, as there should be none. The logic of an economy where employment still seems to be plugging along and inflation is high is not one in which there’s any rational argument for cutting interest rates.
So what does Warsh do? Does he act like a professional central banker, in which case he will incur enormous rage from the White House, or does he advocate for stuff that he knows, he’s not stupid, and that everybody else, that all of his colleagues know is really, really bad policy, and then just keep losing votes at the FOMC, thereby becoming the least respected, least influential Fed chairman in history. and I don’t know which way that goes but pass the popcorn.
I hope that I’ve been clear in the past in warning people against expecting instant gratification in people who are opposed to Trump in expecting instant gratification I’ve been I’ve made that mistake myself as well but if you want the fact that Trump is doing terrible things, which he is, to cause a severe recession now or a month from now or six months from now, well, unfortunately economics is not a morality play. The wages of bad behavior take much much longer and are much more diffuse. There’s all kinds of things happening out there so the idea that you could expect catastrophe just because you have catastrophically bad leadership is true in warfare as we’re seeing in Iran, it’s true maybe at the level of corporate competition. But something like the US economy is a lot less sensitive especially in the short run to the quality of leadership at the top of the United States because the US government influences the economy but doesn’t run it so this is not going to be the kind of spectacular flame out that many people would like for political reasons to see. So on we go.
For what it’s worth, I don’t see anything that’s happening now that will turn around the public’s extremely negative view of the economy. Most people don’t care what the job number is, as they shouldn’t. It’s not something that affects their lives directly. The perceived state of things is that although we don’t have high unemployment,
jobs are hard to find and prices are rising and they’re rising faster than wages. That’s not an ideological point, that’s just a fact. So people are going to stay negative and I guess have some sense that we have crazy erratic leadership. And loud proclamations that this is the
hottest economy ever and it’s great and it’s wonderful are almost truly counterproductive politically. This is a time when Trump could really take some lessons from Bill Clinton and say that he feels our pain, which would be a lie. He doesn’t, but he can’t even pretend that he does.
And so this is going to continue to be a very negative economic situation. The one thing that I think Trump thought he had was the stock market, which is again not that relevant to many people but statistically appears to have some impact on consumer sentiment so naturally he’s enraged that stocks went down after yesterday’s pretty good jobs report.
So I do think that we’re looking at a situation where it’s hard to explain why people are quite as negative on the economy as they are, except that it they have a kind of cumulative feeling that the system is rigged and that the people in charge are not on their side, which at this point is very much true.
So this is very unlikely to turn around, certainly very unlikely since everything is political, very unlikely to turn around before the midterm elections.
I think that was a happy note. Anyway, take care and I’ll be back to my regular format of interviews and everything else in a few days. Bye.
A partial view of a SpaceX Starshield satellite in low Earth orbit. Image: SpaceX
Update June 7, 12:50 a.m. EDT (0450 UTC): SpaceX landed the booster on the drone ship.
SpaceX launched a combination of 21 Starlink and two Starshield satellites on Saturday night from Vandenberg Space Force Base.
Starshield is an alternate version of the Starlink satellite architecture the government. SpaceX hasn’t announced which U.S. government agency ordered these two satellites or if they are for a foreign government.
Liftoff of the Falcon 9 rocket on the Starlink 17-43 mission from Space Launch Complex 4 East happened at 9:24:45 p.m. PDT on Saturday, June 6 (12:24:45 a.m. EDT / 0424:45 UTC on Sunday, June 7).
SpaceX flew the mission using the Falcon 9 first stage booster with the tail number B1097. This was its tenth flight after launching NROL-172, the Twilight rideshare, and seven batches of Starlink satellites.
A little more than eight minutes after liftoff, B1097 landed on the drone ship, ‘Of Course I Still Love You.’ This was the 201st landing on this vessel and the 620th booster landing to date.
While never publicly declared by the National Reconnaissance Office, the 13 launches supporting its “multi-phenomenology proliferated architecture” satellite constellation are believed to consist of Starshield satellites. In April 2024, Reuters reported that Northrop Grumman “is providing sensors for some of the SpaceX satellites.”
In 2025, SpaceX launched two missions, Starlink 13-1 and Starlink 13-4, which reportedly included two Starshield satellites each as well, similar to the upcoming Starlink 17-43 mission. Those satellites, logged by the U.S. Space Force as USA 485, 486, 549, and 550, have also not been publicly connected to a specific part of the U.S. government.
In a hearing today about the president’s bulldozing of the East
Wing of the White House and plans to build a vast ballroom, a
judge asked if the president could also bulldoze the Statue of
Liberty and be subject to no legal challenge. The DOJ lawyer,
Yaakov Roth, said that yes, President Trump could decide tomorrow
to bulldoze the Statue of Liberty and no one could
stop him.
It was a good question from DC Court of Appeals Judge Patricia
Millett since it brings the arguments and their implications
clearly into the open. Reframe the question and the absurdity of
this proposition becomes even more clear. If you hire someone to
administer your estate, can they burn down the buildings on your
estate or chop it up into parcels and sell it off? Presumably not.
You hired them to run it, not to destroy it or sell it. It’s not
theirs. They were hired for a specific task. That person is your
employee. The president is hired to administer the country and
enforce its laws for four years. He doesn’t own the country or its
properties.
We record first-person cleaning footage to help train the next generation of household robots. That data is valuable enough for us to offer cleaning services free of charge for a limited time.
“Glasgow, Saturday Night” by John Atkinson Grimshaw, via Wikipedia.
Welcome to the reading list, a weekly roundup of news and links related to buildings, infrastructure and industrial technology. This week we look at chatbots replacing realtors, Chinese synthetic diamonds, Australian batteries, Meta’s data center tents, and more. Roughly 2/3rds of the reading list is paywalled, so for full access become a paid subscriber.
Iran war
Iran breaks off negotiations with the US and vows to “completely block” the Strait of Hormuz. [CNBC]
Analysis of satellite data by the BBC suggests the damage Iran has inflicted on US military facilities is more extensive than has been previously reported. [BBC]
Housing
A NYT reporter successfully uses an AI chatbot instead of a realtor to sell their house. “A flurry of bookings to view our house over the coming weekend arrived in my inbox within hours. I struggled to manage the appointments until, again, I just let the chatbot do everything for me. I told agents that they had to email or text — no phone calls. Whatever they wrote, I copied and pasted into the chatbot; whatever it replied, I copied and pasted right back to the agents. I was worried that pushy ones would prey on my inexperience, so I had the chatbot come up with a list of potential conflicts and write confident responses I could have ready.” [NYT]
Opposition to property taxes is having a political moment, which as we’ve mentioned previously is a prettybad idea. Now Florida really seems like it might be on the verge of effectively eliminating homeowner property taxes. “Gov. Ron DeSantis’ property tax plan for the November ballot would raise the homestead exemption to $250,000 and require the Legislature to enact a plan to eliminate property taxes entirely for the vast majority of Floridians who own the homes they live in, he announced Wednesday DeSantis said he was calling the Legislature back to Tallahassee on Monday to add an amendment to the ballot that would eventually eliminate property taxes for 92% of those Floridians by raising the homestead exemption to $500,000.” [Governing]
The urban benefits of allowing tall buildings. “Land-use regulations, including height limits, affect housing affordability and urban productivity. This column analyses over 11,000 urban agglomerations and 300,000 tall buildings to explore the effect of height restrictions on welfare. Vertical growth enhances land efficiency, reduces commuting, and boosts worker welfare. While higher density can increase housing demand and rents, the associated gains more than offset the costs.” [VoxEU]
It’s apparently easier to get planning permission to build a skyscraper in London (a city which has notoriously made it almost impossible to build new housing) if you include a publicly accessible roof deck, and thus quite a few London skyscrapers have them. [Diamond Geezer]
A census map of where air conditioning is uncommon in the US. [X]
Manufacturing
As AI gets more capable, the risk that someone uses it to design an engineered virus or pathogen rises. To help mitigate this risk, IFP co-led an open letter calling for mandatory record-keeping of who has purchased synthetic nucleic acids and the equipment for making them. “As life sciences researchers, builders of AI and biotechnology, and experts with a wide range of views on how to approach AI policy, we call on legislators to make screening of orders for synthetic nucleic acids — and the equipment needed to make them — mandatory.” [ScreenDNA.org]
One surprising beneficiary of the AI boom: Chinese manufacturers of synthetic diamonds, which are used as part of cooling systems for semiconductors. “Traditionally associated with jewelry, these synthetic gems are now being adopted as chip‑cooling materials, enabling denser and more powerful AI semiconductors. Momentum has accelerated after several Chinese producers reported that clients validated their diamonds as effective heat spreaders and began commercial shipments.” [Bloomberg]
California passes a bill requiring 3D printers to include controls to block the production of “ghost guns.” [The Register]
Elon Musk’s “Terafab” semiconductor fab gets a big tax break from a Texas county. [KBTX]
"To really understand the nuts and bolts of economics, look to the black market. Alvin E. Roth is Craig and Susan McCaw Professor of Economics at Stanford University and the George Gund Professor of Economics and Business Administration Emeritus at Harvard University. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2012. He joins host Krys Boyd to discuss his work on organ donation which led him to study what he called “repugnant transactions” like sex and drugs and why he feels banning them completely doesn’t always have the effect we think it does. His book is “Moral Economics: From Prostitution to Organ Sales, What Controversial Transactions Reveal About How Markets Work.”
Transcript (also at the above link)
Here's a very contemporary Texas question:
"Krys Boyd [00:25:48] I’m really curious, Alvin, about whether making things illegal has much of an effect on things. I live in Texas, where recreational marijuana is against the law. I can tell you just anecdotally that it appears to not stop very many people. You pose this interesting question about why the laws work pretty well to keep people from committing murder for hire, but not so well at all from buying and selling illegal drugs. "
"Kidneys, surrogacy, prostitution, gambling, price gouging, assisted dying: some transactions make people recoil, even when all parties consent. Cato’s Ryan Bourne talks with Nobel Prize-winning economist Alvin Roth about his new book, Moral Economics, what makes markets “repugnant,” what economists can add to moral debates, and why banning exchange rarely makes scarcity, exploitation, or hard trade-offs disappear."
My name is Josh Neuman, and I’m writing from Buenos Aires, Argentina where Peter Thiel’s move is all over the news here. He lives in [redacted], only a xx minute drive from my own apartment in Recoleta.
I want to pitch a piece…arguing that Thiel is right to be in Argentina, but wrong about why. The libertarian revolution he thinks he’s found simply doesn’t exist in the way it’s being advertised in the international press. Milei has accomplished some real things since December 2023, such as lower inflation and a fiscal surplus, in part underwritten by Washington. But the effect of many of his policies has been exaggerated by both supporters and opponents alike, with widespread pessimism across all parts of society.
Much of the Argentine status quo he sought to abolish remains intact, such as retenciones on agricultural exports, union control over the labor market, while many of his reforms have had little impact beyond Buenos Aires, particularly in the northern provinces still dominated by entrenched Peronista governors. Distrust of the peso remains high, while much of the economy is still black market, with the informal sector still being around 40-50% of employment. The lines outside the Spanish and Italian consulates of Argentines reclaiming European citizenship are as long as ever, while major business figures like Marcos Galperin still live in neighboring Uruguay. Peronism as I’m sure you know has mutated several times throughout its history to each contemporary crisis, and will prove far more durable in the long run as a social identity as much as a political machine.
Argentina’s retenciones are export taxes levied on agricultural commodities like soybeans, wheat, and corn at the point of sale, before producers receive any income, which goes towards the government, and is how Argentine governments (especially Peronista ones) have historically paid for the country’s welfare state. The system also functions as a price mechanism because by taxing exports, the government keeps more supply in the domestic market, suppressing local food prices. The retenciones are deeply unpopular among the crop producers and landowners, and Milei campaigned on eliminating them. He has largely kept them, because he needs the revenue to maintain the fiscal surplus that is the centerpiece of his program.
But I think there’s a deeper cultural dynamic that I’m not sure Thiel understands. Argentine youth aspire much more towards la dolce vita than towards Weber’s protestant work ethic. They essentially want their country to be like Spain or Italy, with a chill work-life balance, high leisure and consumption, underwritten by a generous welfare state, even if that model is becoming fiscally and demographically unsustainable in Europe. I think it’s a completely reasonable and in many ways admirable goal, but companies like Paypal, Palantir, and Facebook did not come out of Spain or Italy.
Among my Argentine peers, I hardly meet anyone who aspires to move to the United States. When I tell friends that the American economy has been growing at twice the rate of Europe in recent years, I am met with genuine disbelief. I think Thiel may have been captivated by a small teleological elite in Milei’s inner circle who do not necessarily represent the country they govern. The average Argentine who voted for Milei did not vote for Austrian economics or for a libertarian revolution. They voted out of exhaustion with Peronism, as many of Milei’s supporters were former Peronists themselves, much as many Trump supporters in the American Rust Belt were former Obama voters.
Argentina’s genuine case for Thiel rests on things that have nothing to do with Milei: a younger demographic than Europe, world-class human capital, abundant lithium and rare earths, and geographic isolation from great power conflict. He may be right for entirely the wrong reasons, on a longer timeline than he expects, through considerably more turbulence than the current narrative suggests. Argentina’s laid-back mentality is precisely what makes it exciting to foreigners. But as a project for civilizational renewal? Unless you’re talking about surviving a nuclear war, absolutely not.
I’m an Argentine-American master’s student in international relations at Universidad Torcuato Di Tella…
This week I want to try something a little different. Rather than taking apart a particular fantasy military system, I thought I might try to lay out a more general sense of how military systems tend to map on to societies, both because such general historical frameworks are handy for thinking about the past, but also because they make useful rules of thumb for imagining fantastical societies. So essentially here we are asking: how do societies end up with the sort of armies they have?
This is going to take a few posts to get through because there are actually quite a few key components to cover: the why and how of recruitment (both ‘why do these people feel obligated to serve’ and ‘how do you get them into the army’), how a society pay for that (or doesn’t), who leads it and how, and how once formed any army coheres in the field. Finally, we’ll wrap up with some historical ‘archetypes’ to show how these different facets link together with the underlying civilian society and also how that shapes what they look like on the battlefield (including weapons and tactics).
This series is also going to be a bit unusual because in some ways its purpose is to link up and summarize a bunch of other posts. We’ve had a lot of posts and series over the years which examined this or that historical or fictional military and discussed the ways in which their militaries reflected civilian society and I wanted to pull a lot of that together in one place. As a result in this series – more than most – the links are going to be ‘load bearing.’ Likewise a lot of the heavy bibliography here is going to live in the links, although I think for someone looking to get a handle on how pre-modern societies and pre-modern militaries come together, the two key readings I would suggest are P. Crone, Pre-Industrial Societies: Anatomy of the Pre-Modern World(1989) and then J. Landers, The Field and the Forge: Population, Production and Power in the Pre-Industrial West (2003). Also well worth reading as an overview is Azar Gat, War in Human Civilization(2006).
Now we’re going to restrict ourselves a bit here in that we are going to stick to pre-modern or more correctly pre-industrial armies. The rules change a lot for industrial and post-industrial armies, though by the same token we really don’t have nearly the same range of examples for industrial armies either: we really have a single dominant model for industrial armies that emerged in Europe from 1914 to 1945 and then a bunch of reactions to that model (along with what we might term an industrial ‘transitional’ period from ~1800 to 1914). It is thus hard to build a complete typology, because the industrial sample size is so small.
By contrast, the sample for pre-industrial agrarian armies is really big, so it becomes a bit easier to spot recurring patterns of organization and structure as different societies stumble on to the same solutions for generating force. So that’s what we’re going to do this week: look at some of the patterns, keeping in mind that these are general rules with many complications and exceptions. In the process, we’re going to pull together a lot of the individual discussions of specific systems – historical and fantastical – as examples.
Fans of fictional worlds will have often run into the most egregious examples of the failure to think in these terms. Professional or seemingly professional armies employed by societies that lack the administrative structure to manage them, armies that are too large or too small for their parent societies, ‘guards’ that seem to spring out of holes in the ground rather than organically fit into society anywhere and so on.
But first, as always, recruiting and maintaining large pre-modern armies is expensive! Much like many of those pre-modern armies, this project is supported by devolving the costs of my ruinous book-buying habit on to recruits readers. You can help by spreading the word to new readers and by supporting this project over at Patreon. If you want updates whenever a new post appears or want to hear my more bite-sized musings on history, security affairs and current events, you can follow me on Bluesky (@bretdevereaux.bsky.social). I am also active on Threads (bretdevereaux) and maintain a de minimis presence on Twitter (@bretdevereaux).
Armies and Societies
I have written this maxim a few different ways, but it is worth writing again: no army can help but recreate its civilian social structures on the battlefield.
When analyzing a historical army or creating a fictional one, everything must begin with that idea, that military systems grow out of and reflect their ‘civilian’ societies or – for societies that lack civilians as such – reflect the civilian side of the lives of their members. That means that armies tend to recreate civilian hierarchies, with similar – often identical – lines of status between the two.
So to understand what kind of military our society might come up with, we first need to ask some key questions about the civilian society.
First: is this society agrarian? Which is to say, are they farmers? In most cases, the answer will be yes because with only a handful of exceptions, if they’re not farmers you’re not going to have cities or states and most settings have those. That said, if your society consists of nomads – either hunter-gatherers or pastoral nomads – they aren’t going to have a state (which is a creature of the agrarian world) and so you want to think about non-state forms of military organization, which is going to channel them towards some specific solutions to our problems below.
Next: is this a state? Is military force in this society collected into a single political entity or is it fragmented among many different centers of power? One odd choice I see in a lot of fantasy settings is to have huge, sprawling cities with non-state systems of organization (power informally divided among a bunch of different groups that all wield force), but that’s not a pattern we see often historically. Instead, the more urban a society is, the more likely it is that military power is concentrated into a single political entity – the state. At the same time, non-state polities may lack a single political entity with a monopoly on the use of force, but that doesn’t mean they lack a military system, it just means that power is fragmented in that system.
Third: what kind of aristocracy does this society have? Every society has a socio-economic elite, but there are different kinds. Does aristocratic wealth mostly flow upwards from large landholdings or flow downwards from employment in a royal bureaucracy (the former is much more common)? Likewise, to what degree does this society have a bureaucracy as such and how much power does it wield? It can be easy to assume modern bureaucratic administrative structures, but these are rare in pre-modern societies: power is often wielded by local grandees than by employed representatives of the state and if the power is wielded by those grandees, the military system is likely to run through them to some extent as well as well.
Your aristocrats are going to assume that – since they lead society in peace – they lead society in war, but how they do so depends on their self-conception. Here, I distinguish sometimes between military aristocrats – aristocracies who understand their primary purpose is warfare generally (often leadership), as distinct from religious or bureaucracy aristocracies that might be of a non-military character – and warrior aristocrats, who understand their primary purpose in society as personally fighting in a specific way (usually but not always mounted).
Note that while warrior aristocrats’ legitimacy in claiming aristocratic status comes from their personal practice of violence, the source of their power is almost invariably wealth from large landholdings: they’re not aristocrats because they’re good at fighting. Instead, they’re aristocrats because they’re rich and then to justify the wealth and power they wield, they practice a certain form of direct, personal kind of warfare. A guy who is really good at fighting but is poor and without title is not a knight; a guy who has wealth and title but is terrible at fighting is a bad knight, but a knight nonetheless. Warrior-elites are thus elites-who-are-warriors, not necessarily warriors-who-are-elite-at-war, though since their social class places a lot of emphasis at being good at fighting, they’re often very good at fighting (in a specific way, again, usually but not always mounted).
Fourth: how do the regular farmers(who are 90+% of the population) connect to the aristocracy? Are they mostly free-holders who own their own land, but are economically dependent on the Big Man? Or does the local Big Man – that is, the aristocrat who is nearest them – own their land itself? Or does the king (or state, in some other form; it might be a temple!) own their land, in which case the aristocrat they engage with is an administrator rather than a land-owner?
For the aristocracy to exist (and for the state to exist, if it does), it has to be siphoning agricultural production from these smaller farmers, so consider how that happens as well. Aristocrats collect rents on the lands they own or control. The state may collect taxes, but in many pre-modern states, royal revenues are dominated by the lands the king owns rather than taxes. Naturally, if taxes are being collected, that implies some kind of bureaucracy collecting them, which non-state societies may not have and which may be underdeveloped in weak-state societies.
What we’re trying to get with all of these questions is thinking about how the peasantry and the aristocracy relate to each other and how that relationship is understood and justified. Those questions are important because civil society comes first – armies are built out of existing subsistence systems and social structures, not usually the other way around – and because the structure of a society limits the possible military systems it can house.
Recruitment Principles
Once we have a sense of our civilian society, the next thing we need to think about is how do we get recruits?
Landers (op. cit.) breaks down recruitment systems based on the principle they function on, distinguishing between general compulsion (conscription by force, levies), the entitlement principle (service as the flip-side of the coin for some set of rights or status), the vocational principle (standing armies or military aristocracies that served because that was their role in society) or devolution (devolve the problem downward onto vassals, communities or households). That’s a useful framework, but I want to shift it around somewhat for our purposes, because I want to separate clearly why the recruits fight from how you get them (and because I think ‘general compulsion’ is actually not the most useful category here).
So we can start with what I am going to call the recruitment principle (as distinct from the recruitment method), which is the why of your recruitment: why do these fellows feel like they must or ought to serve. A lot of historical fiction or fantasy settings fail to address this particular question or else answer it with a very crude ‘because they have to’ (that is, compulsion) but that’s not usually how this works. After all, this society is about to give these fellows weapons, so without some broader social structure that encourages or constrains them to remind at the standard, there is very little preventing them from deserting or revolting. Compulsion can get me into the ranks, but it struggles to keep them there.
The first place most modern folks’ mind goes, of course, is to pattern this task off of their own jobs and so to assume that these fellows are under arms because they are paid to be, which I am going to term the employment principle (separate from the vocational principle). We may sum it up with, “recruits show up purely as an economic transaction: service for money” – it’s a job. These may be foreign troops (in which case they’re mercenaries) or domestic troops, but the key thing here is that the bond which holds them to the army is monetary: they get paid.
The problem is this is not actually the most common recruitment principle. Indeed, while many armies may employ mercenaries as auxiliary troops or maintain some small standing employment-based component (like non-noble professional retainers, for instance), it is fairly rare for pre-modern armies to function purely ‘as a job.’ The exceptions are professional armies, but professional armies are the exception, not the rule: the later Han dynasty, the Roman Empire (but not the Republic) and early modern Europe feature professional armies, but otherwise these are uncommon. Crucially – and we’ll come back to this as we move along – professional armies require a strong state with a capable bureaucracyand extensive revenues, because the state is taking on the whole administrative and financial burden of maintaining the army. Early modern European states famously struggled horribly under those burdens, while the Roman Army of the imperial period consumed well over half of the state’s budget.
Note that warriors and soldiers recruited by other principles might also get paid (although often not as much), the difference is that there is some other social connection that is underlying their recruitment.
Instead, it is more common that the core of military forces in pre-modern societies arise out of three basic sets of principles (two of which I am borrowing from Landers): the entitlement principle, the vocational principle and what I am going to call the clientage principle. All three share an element in that what ties an individual to recruitment is who they are which in pre-modern societies that are generally extremely low social-mobility societies, is almost invariably a product of what family they were born into.
In entitlement principle recruiting, liability for military service is an expectation that corresponds to a set of social rights and privileges, most often citizenship. Note that we’re not talking about citizenship as a reward for service, but rather service as a requirement of citizens. Naturally, for an entitlement system like this to really function, there needs to be some socially valuable position, with connected rights and privileges, available for common folk (we’ll talk about aristocrats in a second). That tends to make entitlement principle service a creature of smaller citizenship-based communities: A Greek polisrecruiting hoplites, the Roman Republic recruiting its legions, or medieval town and commune governments establishing a service requirements amongst the townfolk (the burghers), whose citizenship in the town marks them apart from the regular peasantry.
Via the British Museum (1837,0609.74), an Attic kylix (c. 500BC) showing a hoplite donning his armor (in this case for a race, the hoplitodromia, a race in hoplite armor). Note that these young men have their own equipment they are using here, because purchasing it was an expected part of being a well-to-do citizen.
The great advantage of entitlement principle systems is that, because social status and military service are tightly interconnected, getting soldiers to muster and keeping them in the ranks is relatively easier. Think about a Roman citizen soldier in the Middle Republic: if he deserts, where does he even desert to – his hometown where everyone knows he’s supposed to be with the army and where he and his family’s entire social identity is tied up with his liability for military service? The system creates really strong social pressures that make this easier.
The limitation of such systems is that they require that entitlement in the first place and that entitlement almost always comes with the expectation of a political voice through some kind of voting or communal consensus decision-making. That may not sound like a tradeoff to you, but it certainly is to the elites of this society: to recruit on this basis they have to cede power to the commons to some degree in order to create the political entitlement worth fighting for. In practice, it should be noted, the systems don’t generally seem to form that way: they are not grants from the aristocracy to the commons (‘fight for me and I’ll let you vote!’) but rather concessions wrested from the aristocracy by the commons through collective action (‘let us vote or we won’t fight!’), which then acquire the heavy reinforcement of becoming the traditional rights and privileges of the citizenry.
Via Wikipedia, Banquet of Members of Amsterdam’s Crossbow Civic Guard (1533) by Cornelis Anthonisz, showing an Amsterdam crossbow guild. These guilds were, in effect, a voluntary civic militia which supported the town government and provided a defensive military presence. They too are an entitlement system: the Schuttersgilde (‘schooter’s guild’), composed of well-off burghers, were the same sorts of men who ran the town government and indeed guild membership was often a necessary stepping stone to political office. You could thus get these men to defend the town government because they were the town government, in a corporate sense. For more on these voluntary shooter’s guilds, see L. Crombie, Archery and Crossbow Guilds in Medieval Flanders, 1300-1500 (2016). As an aside, this is one case where the fantasy-style ‘large city with fragmented internal power structures’ that one sees frequently in high fantasy RPGs (thinking places like Baldur’s Gate or Defiance Bay), though notably in the low countries, these guilds were subject to a higher political authority, be it a town government or a noble.
The next option is what we can call (following Landers) the vocational principle, which also connects service to who you are, but rather than connecting it to your place in a political order, it connects service to a place in the broader social order: the vocational principle is one in which a certain class of people fight because they are the warrior class, typically because you were born into the warrior class.
The vocational principle can come in two forms. First, in many non-agrarian, (hunter-gatherer or pastoral nomads (like Steppe nomads)), or relatively less complex ‘horticultural‘ societies, it is often the case that the entire free adult male population is part of the ‘warrior class.’ These are, after all, generally very small clan- or tribal-based societies with a lot less social stratification so ‘everybody’ (that is, all free adult males) fights. For men, participating in communal warfare is a core component to belonging to the tribe, camp, clan or village.
Via Wikipedia, warriors of the Dani people from the central highlands of western Papua New Guinea. At least until large-scale warfare among the Dani was largely discontinued in the late 1960s, this was the sort of early agricultural society in which functionally all adult males were warriors. Towards the end, we’re going to come back to the kind of ‘first system warfare’ these societies tend to engage in, because it is a mistake to assume that the somewhat ritualistic set-piece battles are the whole of it.
The mistake one sees in a lot of speculative fiction (and also certain reactionary political movements) is assuming that this sort of ‘everyone is a warrior’ social structure can be transplanted to more complex societies with greater degrees of specialization. The reductio ad absurdum of this are some portrayals of Star Trek’s Klingons: an entire post-industrial multi-planet empire that can design starships (and so must be hyper-specialized) but where also somehow everyone is a warrior trained in close-combat weapons. Real societies do not train their starship designers (or their blacksmiths) to also be master swordsmen because that isn’t worth anyone‘s time.1 But they pretty clearly can’t: the moment a society begins specializing its labor (required to achieve high population densities), ‘fighting’ becomes to one degree or another a specialized role too.
The thing is, as we’ve discussed, while non-specialized ‘all warrior’ societies can sometimes overwhelm highly specialized agrarian societies by and large since the advent of farming the most resource-rich parts of the world have been dominated by complex, stratified and specialized agrarian societies, because of their higher population densities – pre-modern agrarian societies can get into the 30-70 people per square mile range, compared to something like 0.5 person per square mile for hunter-gatherers outside of very resource rich zones and something like around 2-5 per square mile for nomadic pastoralists. It usually doesn’t matter if everyone in your tribe is trained to be a warrior if those farmers over there can triple your numbers by mobilizing just 10% of their peasants. There are exceptions, of course, but they’re rare.
Insteadin more specialized societies we see the second form of the vocational principle: a warrior class in which a distinct specialized class in society are warriors (or military leaders), usually by birth (because, again, these are low social mobility societies). In essence, this is a case where in the more complex society, just as ‘farmer’ and ‘blacksmith’ and so on have become both specialized jobs and also basically hereditary classes (because who is picking ‘subsistence farmer’ if ‘pampered noble’ is an option?), ‘warrior’ becomes just one more specialist social class, defined largely by heredity.
Via WIkipedia, a detail of the Bayeux Tapestry depicting William of Normandy’s army departing for England prior to the Battle of Hastings (1066). Note that we have our vocational warrior aristocrats on horseback with their retainers following carrying their weapons and supplies. These two groups are not recruited the same way, nor do they fight for the same reasons – a single army may use (and indeed, for pre-modern armies, usually does!) multiple recruitment principles for different troops.
That can take a number of forms, the most common of which is the military aristocracy. The aristocracy – or some part of it (there may be a parallel civic or religious aristocracy) – has as its justification for its existence that it is the part of society that fights or at least that specializes in warfare. These fellows are aristocrats, to be clear, because they’re rich, not because the fight well – but to be a member of the aristocratic class in good standing with the disproportionate access to prestige and resources that implies also requires being a military specialist and so they develop those skills and are available for privileged military positions (like cavalry or command). We’ll get into, in a later part of this series, the differences between warrior aristocracies and what I’m going to call officer aristocracies (does the noble primarily fight or lead?).
That said, this category also includes some other ways of structuring a military vocation for a society. One we’ve discussed only a little bit are military slaves (like the Mamluks)- a low status class of vocational warriors, though these fellows have a habit of not remaining low-status or slaves for very long, because – of course – they have weapons.
Alternately, conquering empires might seek to create a vocational military class by putting soldiers on plots of land (complete with laborers) in the expectation that they and their children will remain liable for an elite kind of military service. These we call military settlers and they are usually a feature of a regime moving in – societies usually do not impose military settlers on themselves. The ‘Macedonians’ in Hellenistic kingdoms make for a good example of this, as do Arab garrison cities in the Rashidun Caliphate. For ‘everyone is a warrior’ societies that do end up overrunning larger, more complex agrarian societies, this is often what happens: the tribal ethnic group becomes a military aristocracy settled as overlords over the resource rich land of the conquered.
Finally, we have clientageprinciple recruitment, where the recruiting principle is that the men being pulled into the ranks are – in their civilian society – dependents of the fellows recruiting them. In this case military service is part of the obligations of the dependent towards their superior. That may seem strange in some cases – as a condition of giving the local Big Man a chunk of your food, you also sometimes have to fight for him? – but its important to remember that these societies do not see the exchange that way. Instead, they’d frame it that, as a condition of having the Big Man’s protection and being able to farm his land, you give him a chunk of the produce and are also expected to fight for him. It’s important to remember that these principles for recruitment are not laws about the physical universe, but fundamentally questions of psychology and culture: if the entire culture agrees that the land belongs to the lord or the king or the temple and you are paying (in a way) for the privilege of farming it, then that is the reality for all concerned.
Dependents here can come in a few varieties. The highest status such dependents might be retainers, men maintained in an aristocrats household as full time ‘muscle.’ While these fellows might be paid mercenaries, in a lot of societies they’re not getting paid in cash but rather in status and a living: they get to live as part of the Big Man’s household, they get their food and other necessities and they’re a more important person than the peasantry. Crucially, retainers of this sort are not ‘free agents’ to the highest bidder, but often tightly bound by formal ties (clientage, hospitality, familial bonds, homage and so on) to a specific aristocrat.
Below that, a Big Man might expect that as part of the unequal reciprocal exchange of clientage, his clients – the poor farmers around him – might owe him support which would include following his lead in warfare. At the same time, as we’ll see, we can flip this sort of thinking around and say that for the community, the Big Man forms a natural leader around which the community, if it is under threat, can rally (and the flipside of that, the Big Man is probably a vocational warrior, as above). Finally, the dependents here might be some form of non-free persons – not usually slaves, but rather tenants or serfs. Often the package of obligations these folks owed their overlord included corvée labor of some sort, so military service as such an obligation makes some sense.
We can see these sorts of systems at work with the Carolingian general and select levies or the Anglo-Saxon fyrd. In both the Carolingian and Anglo-Saxon system, there was a ‘general levy’ of all free men called up as a local defense militia, but households were also brigaded together and required collectively to furnish a man for the select levy to provide a standing or expeditionary force. It is striking how these systems required the active participation of local magnates in order to act as focal points for organization and leadership. As a result, these systems tend to be fundamentally local: while the king has the authority to call up a whole bunch of regional select-levies or fyrds to make up a field army, in practice these are local units, not a ‘national’ conscription system. Notably, Charlemagne’s effort to impose a royal bureaucracy on the Carolingian levy using royal officials (the missi, ‘those having been sent [by the king]’) emerges as a kind of last-gasp effort to keep this system running as it comes apart and never quite works as a centralized system.
That said, this sort of system could be centralized and extended to form a ‘national’ conscription system, with the example that springs to mind being the early Han dynasty (202BC-220AD) military system in China, which emerged out of the mass conscription systems of the Warring States period, where very large armies were raised for specific campaigns against peer competitor states. Notably, as the Han dynasty’s primary security challenges lay with holding frontiers (the Qin dynasty having already removed all of the peer competitors before being replaced by the Han), the Han system steadily transformed into a professional standing army composed of a mix of paid professionals and military settlers. That said – and we’ll come right back to this next week – mass conscription requires record-keeping, bureaucracy and state centralization that relatively few pre-modern polities have. Still it certainly is possible to have a society with at least the notion that the common peasant is simply obligated to perform some amount of military service.
Putting Society and Principle Together
So to recap, we can list our recruitment principles with a very rough sense of how common they are and where:
The Employment Principle (because they get paid): frequently used to supplement armies that have a core recruited another way but only rarely the main recruitment principle. Where it is used as such (professional armies), it requires a strong state with a lot of revenue and state capacity. Examples: Imperial Rome, the later Han Dynasty, some early modern European armies.
The Entitlement Principle (because it is the converse of some set of rights these fellows have): common for city-states or other sorts of republics, but requires having a legal/political status like citizenship which is valuable enough to fight for. Troops recruited on this principle can be expected to basically recruit and arm themselves in many cases, but they’re ‘paid’ in political rights as much as cash. Examples: The Roman Republic, Greek polis-armies, medieval town militias.
The Vocational Principle (because it is their social role/class):
All-Warrior Society (every free adult male is a warrior): common in largely non-specialized societies – hunter-gatherers, nomadic pastoralists, very early agriculture. Troops recruited on this basis arm, organize and largely recruit themselves, but these societies tend to be small, low population density and comparatively poor. Examples: Plains Native Americans, Steppe nomads, hunter-gatherer societies.
Warrior Class or Officer Class (specialized society with a dedicated fighting or military-leadership class): extremely common among complex agrarian societies, a military aristocracy of some sort is practically the default mode of leadership in such societies, but note that warrior-aristocrats and officer-aristocrats may have very different expectations of what that means. Often the fellows provide the leadership for otherwise employment-, entitlement- or clientage-based armies or alternately a core of specialist warriors around which such levies are grafted. Examples: Almost too numerous to provide – non-state Gallic aristocrats, medieval European knights and nobility, the Roman Senate (an ‘officer class’ example!), and so on.
Military Settlers (an imposed military aristocracy of fighters given land in exchange for future service): a fairly common solution for consolidating conquest (especially for societies which simply lack the bureaucratic infrastructure for direct governance), creating a new upper-stratum of military-aristocrats that are often ethnically distinct from the ruled. Examples: Macedonian military-settlers after Alexander’s conquests; the garrison-cities of the Rashidun Caliphate.
Military Slaves (a subordinate class of specialist warriors): a relatively uncommon and historically unstable system, but hardly an unknown one, heavily dependent on the availability of an ethnically distinct class of warriors available to be enslaved. Examples: Mamluks, Janissaries.
We might also put Prisoner Armies (recruitment as punishment for a crime) in this category. These tend to be somewhat more stable, but their military performance is not always stellar. Example: the armies of the Song Dynasty.2
The Clientage Principle (because it is an obligation they have towards social superiors)
Retainers and Clientage (little men have specific ties of loyalty to Big Men who can call them to arms): as far as I can tell, the primary way complex non-state societies raise military force. Because it relies on personal ties, it tends to stay fragmented. Examples: non-state Gaul and Spain, but also vassalage-based medieval polities.
Universal Military Service (little men owe military service to their lord, king or the state): common although rarely as universal or centralized as the name implies. Often takes the form of regional militias agglomerated into a larger army (examples: Carolingian select-levy, the Anglo-Saxon fyrd), but there are rare examples of truly mass conscription systems, particularly in China (examples: Warring States period, Qin Dynasty, early Han Dynasty).
What I hope emerges from this quick comparison is how sensitive these principles are to the structure of the underlying society: for most societies, the options whittle down to just a handful almost immediately. A fragmented state with a weak central bureaucracy will almost inevitably need to reply on military aristocrats, their retainers and clients because it hasn’t the revenues or the political structure for anything else, for instance. A society with specialized economic roles isn’t going to be able to set up as an ‘all warrior’ society and a society without specialized economic roles isn’t going to be able to use any other system. A society without a tradition of universal military service is going to have a hard time conscripting its peasantry and a society without a citizenship-like legal/political status is going to have a hard time recruiting on an entitlement basis. Likewise, if a society lacks a large warrior-aristocrat class, then it lacks a large warrior-aristocrat class and cannot recruit on that basis.
Next week, we’ll look at putting these principles into action, thinking about how armies are raised and paid for.
The popularity of online fitness programs has grown rapidly over the last few years. Today, users can choose between hundreds of workout apps, coaching platforms, and fitness programs online that promise weight loss, muscle gain, better health, or improved fitness levels.
But are fitness programs actually worth paying for?
The answer depends less on marketing promises and more on how well a program fits a person’s goals, lifestyle, and level of consistency. Some users benefit greatly from structured support and personalised plans, while others lose motivation quickly because the program feels unrealistic or difficult to follow.
Before subscribing to any fitness training programs, it is important to understand what really matters and what factors can influence long-term results.
Generic Plans vs Personalised Fitness Programs
One of the biggest differences between fitness programs is the level of personalisation.
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For some people, especially experienced gym users, generic plans may still work well. However, beginners often struggle with programs that feel either too difficult or not challenging enough.
Personalised fitness programs usually take a different approach. Most start with questions about fitness level, goals, schedule, available equipment, training experience, and physical limitations. The program then adjusts based on those answers and may continue adapting as progress changes over time.
Generic Workout Plans
Personalized Programs
Same plan for most users
Adjusted to individual goals
Limited flexibility
More adaptive over time
Often cheaper or free
Usually subscription-based
May not match fitness level
Better suited for beginners
Basic progress tracking
More detailed guidance and support
This is why many people find personalised fitness programs easier to follow consistently. A program that feels realistic and manageable is more likely to become part of a long-term routine.
Why Consistency Matters More Than the “Perfect” Plan
Many users spend too much time searching for the perfect app or training system. In reality, consistency usually matters more than finding the most advanced program.
Even well-designed fitness programs will not deliver results if they are difficult to maintain for more than a few weeks.
The most effective fitness programs online usually focus on:
Clear workout structure.
Realistic schedules.
Easy navigation.
Progress tracking.
Sustainable routines.
Workout apps that feel confusing or overly intense often lead to frustration and loss of motivation.
This is why usability matters more than many people expect. A simple program followed consistently will usually produce better results than a complicated plan that constantly gets abandoned.
Coaching Features and User Support
Not all online fitness programs provide the same level of support.
Some fitness apps include access to trainers, exercise demonstrations, habit tracking, or coaching features that help users stay accountable. Others rely almost entirely on automated notifications and pre-recorded content.
Before subscribing, it helps to evaluate what kind of support is actually included. For beginners, especially, clear instructions, structured guidance, and easy-to-follow workout plans can make fitness programs feel much more manageable and motivating.
Nutrition Support Is Often Overlooked
Many people focus only on workouts while ignoring nutrition. However, exercise alone is rarely enough to achieve long-term body composition or fitness goals.
Good fitness training programs often include at least some level of nutrition support. This may involve protein recommendations, calorie tracking, hydration reminders, or general healthy eating guidance.
The goal is not necessarily strict dieting. Instead, nutrition support helps users maintain better energy levels, recovery, and consistency over time.
Subscription Transparency Matters
One of the biggest concerns users have about workout apps involves subscriptions and billing practices.
Searches related to phrases such as “MadMuscles scam” are often connected less to workout quality and more to concerns about cancellations, auto-renewals, or unclear subscription terms. This is common across many digital subscription services, not only fitness apps.
Before paying for any fitness programs online, users should always check whether subscriptions renew automatically, how cancellation works, and whether refund policies are clearly explained.
Trustworthy fitness programs usually make this information easy to find inside the website or app settings.
Realistic Expectations Lead to Better Results
Many workout apps market fast transformations and dramatic short-term results. In reality, sustainable fitness progress usually takes time.
Visible changes depend on consistency, workout quality, recovery, nutrition, sleep, and overall lifestyle habits. Most users begin noticing meaningful progress after several weeks of regular effort rather than after only a few workouts.
This is why realistic expectations matter. Fitness programs work best when they support long-term habits instead of promising instant results.
Final Thoughts
Online fitness programs can absolutely be useful when they match a person’s needs, schedule, and goals. The best fitness programs are not always the most expensive or the most advanced. Often, the most effective option is simply the one that feels realistic, easy to follow, and sustainable long term.
Before subscribing, it is important to evaluate personalisation, usability, coaching features, nutrition support, pricing transparency, and overall user experience.
Workout apps and fitness training programs can provide structure, accountability, and motivation. But long-term success still depends on consistency, healthy routines, and realistic expectations rather than quick fixes or marketing promises.
You hit that withdrawal button at Golden casino, your heart pounds, and then… nothing. Days pass. Your “under review” status stays frozen. You’re not alone, and you’re not crazy—this is a systematic pattern. As an iGaming compliance analyst who has dissected hundreds of these cases, I’ve seen the same hidden traps and trigger-happy algorithms that keep your cash locked. Forget the generic “be patient” nonsense. This article gets straight to the real, coded reasons your Golden Crown Casino withdrawal is blocked and exactly how to force a payout.
The Verification Trap: Why Your Documents Are Never ‘Good Enough’
You email your scanned driver’s license, a current utility bill, and a screenshot of your credit card to Golden Crown Casino, expecting a quick payout. Then you wait. And wait. The rejection email reads, “Documents do not meet our KYC requirements.” It looks like arbitrary malice, right? It’s not. It’s a deliberate, multi-step casino KYC verification process designed to fail on first submission, pushing you to just give up. The trap is minor mismatches: your address on the ID says “Apt 3B,” but the utility bill says “Flat 3B.” That’s an automatic document rejection. A name misspelling by one letter? Another identity verification fail. They even check the date—your bill is two months old, but the policy demands it’s within 30 days, a classic Golden Crown Casino documents trick. Here’s the actionable checklist for perfect submission: use a PDF or high-res JPEG, match exactly what they hold in their system, keep your utility bill current, and double-check the printed name against your identity card. Anything less is a trap.
Why a ‘Selfie’ With Your ID Often Gets Blocked
Taking a selfie with your ID sounds simple, but your camera can betray you. A selfie verification fail happens because of technical thresholds: the lighting must be neutral with no shadows on your face—bright window light causes automatic casino face scan problems. No hats, no sunglasses, no weird angles. Take the photo against a white wall in natural daylight, holding the ID steady. A major ID photo rejection trigger? Using a phone screenshot of your ID instead of a fresh photo. That’s an instant fail. Snap a real picture of the physical card, not a digital copy.
Bonus Abuse Algorithms: Turning Wins Into ‘Illegitimate’ Play
You hit a nice jackpot. The slot reels lined up, the celebration music played, and your balance jumped. Then—nothing. Withdrawal denied. The reason? “Irregular play.” This isn’t a human decision. It’s a casino algorithm flag triggered retroactively by automated software that scanned your entire session. The system doesn’t care that you used a welcome bonus legitimately. It sees patterns and punishes them.
The casino’s AI is trained to sniff out bonus abuse detection like a bloodhound. It hunts for specific behaviors: max betting allowed with bonus funds, betting on low-risk outcomes such as red/black in roulette, or never cashing out after a win. One real scenario: a player landed a massive slot jackpot after playing two hours straight without leaving the game. The algorithm flagged him for “continuous play without breaks”—a supposed sign of bot activity. He lost his withdrawal because his play looked too linear, too machine-like.
These irregular play withdrawal flags are brutal. The software doesn’t understand human fun. It just sees a deviation from “normal” gambling curves. To avoid triggering withdrawal blocks, you must simulate a chaotic, human-like pattern. Vary your bet sizes. Take breaks. Cash out small wins occasionally. And above all, always check wagering requirements and the casino’s hidden clauses before you spin. The algorithm is watching.
The ‘Maximum Bet’ Rule: The Most Common Trap
Here’s the trap that catches more players than any other: the casino max bet rule. When you’re playing with bonus funds—whether from a deposit bonus, cashback, or even free spins—there’s almost always a hard cap on your bet size. That number is often just 5 EUR/USD. Break it once, and the system instantly voids the bonus. Example: You deposit €100 for a 100% bonus, giving you €200 to play. You place one single €8 bet. The machine flags it as a wagering violation. Your bonus disappears, and you can only withdraw your original €100—your winnings are gone. The rule is buried deep in hidden casino terms. Always use the in-game bet limit feature before spinning. That little slider saves your payout.
The ‘Pending Review’ Black Hole: How Long is Too Long?
Standard casino withdrawal times are predictable: e-wallets clear within 24 hours, credit cards take 3–5 days. But when a withdrawal gets stuck “under review” for five days or more, you are no longer in normal processing territory. That indefinite pending status is often a deliberate delay tactic—a psychological squeeze designed to frustrate you into contacting support or, worse, making a new deposit to keep playing. The “review” itself is usually a manual check by a risk team that conveniently does not work weekends, meaning a simple verification can stretch from Friday to Tuesday without a single action taken.
From experience: I have seen cases where a withdrawal was pending for 14 days simply because the player emailed support, who then “escalated” the case—effectively restarting the entire review timer. The moment you ask nicely, your ticket gets moved to a different queue, and the clock resets. The key is to never cancel a pending withdrawal, because every cancellation resets the clock to zero.
After day five, stop waiting. Use this escalation script: email compliance@directly (find the address on the casino’s licensing page) with a polite but firm request for a specific timeline. CC the licensing authority—often the Malta Gaming Authority or UKGC—on that same email. Do not ask for favors; demand a deadline. Casinos hate having regulators see a customer asking “how long for casino withdrawal?” because it exposes the delay. If you click “cancel” out of impatience, you lose your place in line and give the house exactly what it wants: your money back on their terms.
The Dangerous Trap: ‘Cancel and Play More’ Buttons
The UI is deliberately unbalanced: a huge, glowing green “Cancel Withdrawal and Play” button sits next to a tiny, grey “Keep Waiting” link. That green button is not a courtesy—it is behavioral manipulation. Every click restarts the review timer from scratch. Studies from inside the industry show that 40% of players who cancel a pending withdrawal end up losing their entire balance and making another deposit within the same session. You are not making a rational choice; you are playing against a team of behavioral psychologists who designed that button to exploit your impatience. Do not click that button. It is the fastest way to turn a pending payout into a deposited loss.
Payment Method ‘Limitations’: Why Your Credit Card Won’t Work
So you hit a decent win, hit that withdrawal button, and … nothing. Or worse, the casino flips your payout back to “pending” or cancels it outright. Nine times out of ten, the casino isn’t the villain here. It’s your own bank or e‑wallet provider pulling the plug. Banks in jurisdictions like the UK, Australia, and parts of the US automatically block transactions that carry a Merchant Category Code for “online gambling.” The moment your Visa or Mastercard sees that code on a withdrawal attempt—even if it’s your own money coming back—fraud detection goes haywire. Example: You try to withdraw $500 to your Visa card. The bank’s automated system flags the MCC, rejects the transfer, and the casino’s software logs it as a failed withdrawal. Next thing you know, your account is on hold and you’re filing support tickets. The fix? Ditch the card. Use cryptocurrencies or e‑wallets like Skrill or Neteller where possible; they don’t carry the same gambling‑related flags. If you absolutely must use a card, call your bank ahead of time and ask them to whitelist the casino’s merchant ID. It’s a pain, but it cuts the blockage rate dramatically.
This one trips up Bitcoin and Ethereum users constantly. The math is simple – a player deposits $100 via credit card (a reversible payment) and wins $10,000 in crypto (irreversible). The casino’s risk engine holds the crypto payout while it checks for potential chargebacks on the original deposit. That holding period can stretch hours or even days. The advice? Match your deposit method to your withdrawal method. If you deposit with a card, withdraw to the exact same card number – that alone cuts review time by roughly 70%. Pro tip: never mix reversible deposits with irreversible withdrawals if you want speed. It’s not malice, it’s mathematics.
The Account ‘Security’ Lock: When a Win Triggers an Investigation
So you hit it big. A $25,000 jackpot on a progressive slot. The screen explodes with confetti. You log in to withdraw, and instead of a payout button, you get a message: “Account Under Review.” That’s the silent system trigger. Most casinos have internal “Red Flag” policies—any withdrawal request over $5,000 gets yanked from the standard queue and shoved into a separate “Risk & Compliance” team. Their mandate? Find any reason, real or fabricated, to void the payout. A player won exactly that amount; the casino claimed he used a VPN (which he didn’t) and demanded three different forms of address proof—utility bill, bank statement, even a passport with a recent date stamp. This can drag on for weeks, even on fully verified accounts. Pro tip: when chasing big wins, record every gaming session with screen recording software. No exceptions. If your account gets locked, skip the heated live chat arguments—they go nowhere. Instead, go straight to the formal complaints procedure of the licensing body: Curacao eGaming, UKGC, MGA. That’s the only path that actually moves the needle.
The ‘VPN’ Excuse: How Casinos Invalidate Legitimate Players
Here’s the dirty trick: casinos love the “VPN detected” claim because it’s hard to disprove. But IP geolocation databases are often plain wrong—maybe your ISP routes you through a data center IP, flagging you as a restricted country. Before ever registering, check your own IP at whatismyip.com. If the casino falsely accuses you after a win, demand their “session log” or “netstat log” showing the VPN connection. Insist on technical proof. Most operators back down fast when you push for hard data. Better strategy: draft a formal letter citing your country’s consumer protection law, and CC the licensing authority right in the email. That one move usually kills the VPN accusation within 24 hours.
The Only Three Ways to Actually Get Your Money Out
Forget the forum myths. The “tricks” that promise easy access to your cash are usually just a fast track to a flagged account. There isn’t a secret button. There is no special code. There is only a system. And the system works for those who understand the three rigid gates every payout has to pass through. This is the real playbook, the one compliance officers use to either greenlight a withdrawal or lock it in pending review purgatory. Get this right, and you join the top 5% of players who pull their funds without a single pushback.
Step 1: The Night Before – Clean Up Your Mess
You do not request a withdrawal on impulse. The night before you hit that button is when the real work happens. Your account history is a minefield of rule violations you didn’t know you were making. First, pull up every document they might ask for. ID. Utility bill. Proof of deposit method. If your address on the utility bill is one letter off from your casino profile, fix it now. They will reject the payout just for that typo. Next, scan your play history for pattern violations. Did you place a maximum bet on a bonus without checking the terms? Did you skip a wagering requirement by 0.01%? These tiny errors are automatic denial triggers. Finally, set a withdrawal limit. Do not request the full balance in one shot. It flags the system. A smaller, standard request looks normal. It passes the sniff test.
Step 2: The Withdrawal Request – Play It Boring
Now you request. This step is about minimizing suspicion. Use the exact same method you used to deposit. If you put money in via a Visa debit card, do not request a withdrawal to a cryptocurrency wallet or a bank wire. That creates a “source of funds” mismatch that triggers immediate manual review. Keep the amount standard. Under $5,000 is the sweet spot. Requests above that often require an account manager’s signature, which adds 48 hours of lag at best, or a full audit at worst. Fill out the form cleanly. No notes in the comment box. No demands. Just the raw request. A professional request looks like someone who knows the rules. An amateur request looks like a problem waiting to be stopped.
Step 3: The Escalation – Make Noise the Right Way
The clock starts ticking. If the withdrawal status shows “pending” or “processing” for more than five days, you are not being ignored. You are being stalled. This is where the quiet player loses and the smart player wins. Send a direct email to their compliance department. Not live chat. Live chat agents have zero power to release funds. Your email needs three things: your withdrawal ID number, the exact date you requested it, and a clean, factual summary of your play. “I deposited $200 via Visa on X date, fulfilled the 40x wagering requirement on Slots, and requested a $4,000 withdrawal on Y date. Please process or provide a specific reason for the hold.” Do not argue. Do not threaten. Just facts. If you get no response within 72 hours, escalate formally. Go straight to the licensing body and file a complaint with your attached screenshots. That step wakes up the casino’s executive team. They hate regulatory complaints. It costs them money and time.
The Golden Rule: Screenshot everything. The moment you click “withdraw,” capture that screen. Every single chat log. Every email you send. Every response you get. Build a paper trail that a judge could read and understand in five minutes. Most players never do this. They rely on memory. Memory is useless in a dispute. Follow these three steps—perfect KYC, boring compliance, and formal escalation—and you move from being a “compliance problem” to a “processed payout.” It is that simple and that unforgiving.
Outdoor industrial equipment faces a completely different reality than machines used in controlled indoor environments. Sun exposure, rain, mud, dust, vibration, uneven terrain, and temperature swings slowly wear down components in ways product photos rarely reveal. Equipment that looks durable online can start failing surprisingly quickly once it spends months exposed to real outdoor conditions every day.
That difference matters because downtime becomes expensive fast in industries depending on constant operation. Waste management crews, outdoor maintenance teams, marine operators, construction workers, and industrial cleaning companies all rely on equipment that can survive repetitive environmental stress without becoming a constant repair project.
The strongest outdoor equipment usually is not the flashiest or most aggressively marketed. It is the equipment built around durability, maintenance access, and long-term reliability under repetitive strain.
Outdoor Conditions Expose Weak Construction Fast
One reason outdoor equipment fails so quickly is that environmental stress compounds constantly. Moisture creates corrosion. Dust settles into moving parts. Heat weakens seals and hoses. Vibration loosens fittings gradually. Small weaknesses that seem insignificant during short-term use become major operational problems after months of exposure.
This is especially true in industries involving sanitation, waste removal, and heavy-duty cleaning where machines face constant moisture, chemical exposure, and abrasive debris daily. Equipment designed as anindustrial pressure washer for waste management must handle far more than basic cleaning performance alone. Reliability under continuous outdoor operation matters just as much as raw power.
The best systems are usually designed with maintenance practicality in mind from the beginning because outdoor operators cannot afford constant breakdowns once equipment enters full-time service.
Simpler Equipment Usually Lasts Longer
One pattern experienced operators notice quickly is that overly complicated systems tend to create more long-term problems outdoors. Excessive electronics, difficult-to-access components, or unnecessary design complexity may look advanced initially while becoming frustrating once repairs or maintenance become necessary in rough conditions.
Outdoor environments reward simplicity because simpler systems generally tolerate dirt, vibration, moisture, and heavy usage more effectively. Equipment built around straightforward durability often survives longer than machines relying heavily on delicate components exposed constantly to environmental stress.
This does not mean modern technology lacks value. The issue is whether the system was designed realistically around actual field conditions rather than ideal showroom conditions.
The strongest outdoor equipment usually prioritizes reliability over visual complexity.
Corrosion Resistance Matters More Than Appearance
One of the biggest differences between short-term and long-term equipment satisfaction is how materials age outdoors. Paint quality, coating protection, stainless components, sealed wiring, and weather-resistant fittings all matter heavily once machines spend years exposed to moisture and changing weather.
Corrosion usually starts gradually enough that buyers ignore it initially. Then fittings begin seizing, electrical issues appear, structural weakening develops, and maintenance costs rise sharply.
People working around marine environments understand this especially well because water exposure accelerates deterioration quickly. Equipment used for navigation, fishing, or outdoor marine operation must survive constant moisture, UV exposure, and vibration without losing reliability.
That durability focus explains why outdoor operators evaluating systems such aslowrance trolling motors pay close attention to long-term operational reliability and weather resistance rather than appearance alone. Outdoor equipment either handles environmental stress consistently or becomes expensive frustration surprisingly fast.
Maintenance Access Quietly Determines Long-Term Value
Another thing buyers underestimate is how important maintenance accessibility becomes over time. Equipment requiring complicated disassembly for ordinary service usually creates operational frustration once daily workloads increase.
Strong industrial systems are often designed so operators can inspect, clean, replace, or repair high-wear components quickly without losing entire workdays. Outdoor equipment experiences more frequent wear simply because conditions remain harsher constantly.
Machines that are difficult to service may still perform well initially, but maintenance downtime gradually becomes a major operational problem later. This is one reason experienced crews often care more about practical serviceability than aggressive styling or extra features.
Reliability is not only about preventing failure. It is also about recovering quickly when normal wear eventually happens.
Real Outdoor Equipment Needs Operational Stability
People working outdoors usually value predictability more than maximum performance claims. Equipment that functions consistently every day under changing conditions becomes more valuable than systems producing impressive numbers only under ideal circumstances.
Operational stability creates calmer workflows because crews stop worrying constantly about breakdowns, overheating, electrical issues, or weak structural components. Reliable systems allow workers to focus on the job itself instead of managing equipment problems throughout the day.
This emotional side of reliability matters more than many companies realize. Constant equipment uncertainty increases stress and slows work even before actual failure happens.
The strongest industrial equipment quietly earns trust through consistency rather than dramatic marketing claims.
The Best Equipment Stops Drawing Attention to Itself
Ironically, the equipment people appreciate most long term often becomes the least noticeable during daily operation. Reliable systems fade into the background because they simply keep functioning without demanding constant attention.
Weak equipment creates the opposite experience. Operators constantly monitor noises, vibrations, leaks, loose components, or electrical inconsistencies because confidence in the machine never fully develops.
Outdoor industrial environments expose shortcuts quickly. Weather, dirt, moisture, heat, and repetitive use remove the illusion created by polished marketing. Equipment that survives long term usually does so because it was engineered around practical field realities rather than showroom presentation.
The best outdoor systems are rarely the ones that look toughest online. They are the ones still working reliably years after daily exposure begins.
For homeowners trying to live more sustainably, the rules of the game have been changing fast. Federal energy policy has shifted, EPA programs have been reshaped, and regulations governing everything from solar incentives to the chemicals you put on your lawn are in active flux. Some of these changes make sustainable choices more expensive; others tighten the rules around what’s allowed in your yard and how. The result is a moment where homeowners who pay attention can still come out ahead, but those who assume the landscape looks the same as it did a few years ago are getting caught off guard. Here’s a practical look at what’s changing from your roof down to your lawn, and what it means for the decisions you’re making this season.
Solar Took a Major Hit at the End of 2025
The biggest shift for sustainability-minded homeowners arrived with the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), signed in July 2025. The law abruptly ended the federal Residential Clean Energy Credit (Section 25D), which had provided a 30% tax credit for homeowner-purchased solar systems. There’s no step-down or phase-out, installations completed on or after January 1, 2026 are no longer eligible for the federal residential credit, full stop. The companion Energy Efficient Home Improvement Credit (Section 25C), which supported things like heat pumps, insulation, and electrical panel upgrades, expired on the same date.
This changes the math on residential solar significantly, but it doesn’t make it uneconomical, it just shifts where the value comes from. State incentives, utility rebates, net metering arrangements, and direct equipment savings now do more of the heavy lifting. For homeowners weighing a system, working with a knowledgeable supplier matters more than ever. Outfits likehttps://thesolarstore.com/ offer off-grid solar kits, panels, batteries, and inverters that let people build systems suited to their actual needs and budgets, which becomes especially important when you’re sizing a project around state-level incentives rather than a universal federal credit. Anyone considering solar in this new environment should price systems carefully, check what’s available locally, and run the numbers without assuming the old federal credit is part of the equation.
What’s Happening With Lawn and Garden Chemicals
The picture on the lawn side has been shifting just as actively, though more quietly. The EPA has moved on multiple fronts that affect what homeowners can use and how. In 2024, the agency issued an emergency order banning DCPA (Dacthal), a pesticide previously used on lawns and certain crops, a reminder that products considered routine can become restricted relatively quickly when new safety data emerges.
For homeowners feeding their lawns and gardens, the practical impact is twofold. First, the regulatory pressure on synthetic inputs continues to rise, and second, the market is responding with more options that work within the new landscape. Choosing the right product for your soil and your plants, and reading the label carefully, matters more than ever. A category likeplant fertilizer covers a wide range of options, from conventional to more sustainable formulations, and the right choice depends on your specific lawn, your local rules, and what your plants actually need. Many states and counties also have their own restrictions on fertilizer timing and phosphorus content to protect waterways, so checking local guidelines before applying anything is part of being a responsible homeowner.
EPA’s New Pesticide General Permit Takes Effect in Late 2026
A bigger structural change on the chemical side is coming with the EPA’s 2026 Pesticide General Permit (PGP), which takes effect October 31, 2026 and runs through October 2031. The permit governs point-source discharges of pesticides into U.S. waters, covering categories like mosquito control, weed and algae control, animal pest control, and forest canopy applications. While the permit primarily affects operators and applicators rather than individual homeowners, the downstream effects shape what products and services are available locally and how they’re regulated.
Bilingual labeling is another change rolling out in phases starting in late 2025, requiring Spanish translations on pesticide labels in a sequence that begins with Restricted Use Pesticides and expands to all products by 2030. EPA also launched its MyPest digital system in early 2025 to modernize pesticide registration. None of these changes radically alter a typical homeowner’s choices, but together they signal a regulatory environment that’s becoming more transparent and more carefully managed, which, for a homeowner trying to make informed choices, is broadly a good thing.
State and Local Rules Are Now Doing More of the Work
With federal residential incentives shrinking on the energy side and the EPA’s role being actively reshaped, state and local rules carry more weight than they used to. Some states still offer their own solar tax credits, sales tax exemptions, property tax exemptions, and net metering programs that meaningfully change the economics. Cities and counties often have their own fertilizer ordinances, watering restrictions, and rules on what can be applied and when.
The practical takeaway is that “what’s true at the federal level” is no longer the whole story for sustainability-minded homeowners. Check what your state and your utility actually offer before you commit to a solar project, and check your local ordinances before you spread fertilizer or apply pesticides. The patchwork is messier than it used to be, but for homeowners willing to do a little homework, the savings and the legal clarity are real.
What Homeowners Can Still Do to Save Money and Reduce Impact
Even without the federal credits, plenty of high-impact home sustainability moves remain on the table. Energy efficiency upgrades, better insulation, sealing air leaks, smarter thermostats, LED lighting throughout, pay for themselves through lower utility bills regardless of any tax credit. Switching to ENERGY STAR appliances when existing ones wear out is still one of the most cost-effective long-term decisions a homeowner can make.
On the lawn and garden side, sustainable practices often save money outright. Smarter irrigation, native plantings, soil testing before fertilizing so you only apply what your lawn actually needs, and composting all reduce inputs and ongoing costs. The cheapest fertilizer is the bag you didn’t need to buy because your soil already had what your plants required. These moves don’t depend on any federal incentive surviving; they depend on attention and a little planning.
How to Stay Informed Without Getting Overwhelmed
The regulatory environment will keep moving, and homeowners who want to make good choices need a way to keep up without drowning in policy news. A few reliable sources, your state energy office, your local extension service for lawn and garden rules, and the EPA’s own program pages for federal updates, go a long way.
Before any major sustainability purchase, take an hour to check what current incentives apply, what local rules govern the project, and whether any new restrictions affect the products you’re planning to use. The rules will keep shifting. The homeowners who do best are the ones who treat staying informed as a small, ongoing habit rather than a one-time check, and who match their choices to the landscape as it actually is now rather than as it was a year or two ago.
For a long time, work in America followed a relatively predictable structure. A person found a stable job, stayed there for years, moved upward slowly, and built financial security around consistency. That idea has not disappeared completely, but it no longer feels realistic to a growing number of people. Rising living costs, burnout, layoffs, and the pressure to stay financially flexible have changed the emotional relationship people have with employment.
The result is a culture where side income no longer feels optional. It has become part of how people think about security itself. Conversations that once focused entirely on promotions or salaries now drift toward digital storefronts, investing, freelancing, content creation, online marketplaces, and second streams of income that exist outside traditional employers. Even people with stable careers quietly spend evenings researching additional ways to earn money, not necessarily because they hate their jobs, but because depending on a single paycheck feels increasingly fragile. Studies and investing platforms tracking retail trader behavior have also noted rising interest in self-directed investing and speculative markets during periods of economic uncertainty.
Side Hustles Started Feeling More Serious
There was a time when side income carried a certain stigma. It suggested financial instability or temporary struggle. Now it feels normalized across almost every profession. Teachers sell digital resources online. Nurses run small ecommerce brands. Office workers flip furniture, trade stocks, edit videos, or manage subscription-based communities after work.
Part of the shift comes from visibility. Social media exposed people to the reality that income no longer needs to come from a single source. Someone scrolling online can see creators discussing print-on-demand stores, dividend investing, freelance design, AI-generated products, or niche consulting businesses all within the same hour. The idea of earning money independently stopped feeling distant.
Financial tools also became easier to access. Investing platforms, educational trading software, and stock analysis services lowered the barrier to entry for people curious about market participation. Someone searching for https://www.vectorvest.com/ is not necessarily trying to become a Wall Street trader overnight. In many cases, the interest comes from a broader desire to understand how money works outside a paycheck. Resources explaining penny stocks, brokers, and trading systems have gained visibility alongside the rise in retail investing.
People Want More Control Over Their Time
Money matters, but flexibility has become just as important. A growing number of workers are less interested in climbing traditional corporate ladders if the tradeoff involves constant stress, rigid schedules, or limited autonomy. Side income represents possibility more than luxury.
That possibility changes how people tolerate difficult jobs. Someone with freelance clients, investment income, or a small online business experiences workplace pressure differently than someone fully dependent on one employer. The psychological effect can be significant. Even modest secondary income creates a feeling of leverage that did not exist before.
This mindset has also changed what younger workers expect from employers. Salary alone no longer guarantees loyalty. Workers now pay attention to remote flexibility, scheduling freedom, burnout prevention, and benefits that support long-term stability. Human capital management firms such asSunrise HCM operate in a work environment where companies are under growing pressure to rethink how they attract and retain employees whose expectations around work have changed dramatically.
The relationship between employers and employees feels less permanent than it once did. That uncertainty pushes more people toward income streams they can control themselves.
Burnout Changed the Definition of Success
One of the most noticeable cultural shifts is how differently people now define career success. Prestige and titles still matter to some extent, yet they no longer dominate conversations the way they once did. Plenty of workers would rather earn slightly less money in exchange for flexibility, lower stress, or more ownership over their daily routines.
Burnout played a major role in that change. After years of blurred work-life boundaries, nonstop notifications, and economic instability, people started reevaluating how much emotional energy they wanted to give employers. Side income became attractive partly because it offered a path away from total dependence on corporate structures.
There is also a strong emotional appeal in building something personal. Selling handmade products, running a small online brand, managing a niche newsletter, or learning active investing creates a feeling of ownership that traditional employment sometimes lacks. The work may still be stressful, but the psychological experience feels different when people are investing effort into something that belongs to them.
That emotional shift explains why side projects continue even after they become profitable enough to stand alone. For many people, the appeal goes beyond money itself.
The Internet Changed What Feels Possible
Previous generations had fewer opportunities to monetize skills independently. Today, nearly every interest can become a small business under the right circumstances. Video editing, gaming, fitness coaching, financial education, digital templates, coding, photography, language tutoring, and product reselling all exist within online ecosystems capable of generating income.
This constant visibility changes expectations. Someone working a standard office job may spend lunch breaks watching creators discuss monthly earnings, passive income systems, or trading strategies. Even when people remain skeptical, the exposure plants the idea that alternative income streams are attainable rather than unrealistic.
Retail investing became one of the clearest examples of this cultural shift. Interest in speculative assets, active trading, and microcap stocks surged as more individuals explored self-directed investing platforms and educational tools. Analysts continue warning about the risks tied to volatility, low liquidity, and stock manipulation in penny stock markets. Yet despite those warnings, curiosity around investing remains deeply tied to the broader desire for financial independence.
The internet accelerated that curiosity by turning financial information into everyday content rather than something reserved for professionals.
Traditional Career Paths Feel Less Predictable
Another reason side income became so culturally dominant is that stability itself feels harder to trust. Layoffs happen unexpectedly. Entire industries shift rapidly. Technology changes job requirements faster than companies can adapt. Even well-paid workers increasingly describe feeling replaceable.
That uncertainty changes long-term planning. Instead of relying entirely on pensions, promotions, or company loyalty, workers diversify income sources the same way investors diversify portfolios. The logic feels similar: depending entirely on one source creates vulnerability.
This mindset affects personal identity as well. People now introduce themselves differently. Instead of defining themselves entirely through one job title, they describe combinations of roles and interests. Someone may simultaneously identify as a project manager, content creator, reseller, investor, and freelance designer. Careers feel more fragmented but also more personalized.
The broader cultural effect is difficult to ignore. Americans are not just searching for extra income anymore. They are rethinking what work is supposed to provide in the first place.
Building a fitness app used to mean hiring a generic mobile dev shop and hoping they understood the wellness space. That approach still exists, but it tends to produce generic results. If your product depends on smart, adaptive workout recommendations, you need something more specific: a team that understands both machine learning and how people actually train.
The market has grown fast enough that specialization now exists. The global fitness app market is projected to reach $33.6 billion by 2033 . That growth is driven in large part by AI-powered personalization, not general-purpose apps, but tools that learn, adapt, and deliver results. Looking for AI fitness app development companiesto bring your idea to life is a different challenge than finding any software vendor. Here’s how to approach it.
Each AI fitness app treats its technology as the functional core of what makes it useful. Without it, a workout app is basically a static library with a timer. With it, the app becomes something closer to a coach.
The Rise of Personalized Workout Solutions
Nowadays, nobody is ready to compromise on customization options. According to McKinsey , 71% of customers expect personalized interactions from the products they use, and 76% report dissatisfaction when they do not receive them. This trend can be translated into the world of fitness: users expect workouts adjusted to their timetable, physiology, goals, and progress. If you get into fitness mobile app development and want to create fitness software that stands out in the market, you definitely need to focus on AI-based personalization.
Key Features of AI Fitness Apps
The best performing AI fitness apps generally have some common characteristics, such as:
Adaptive training plans that progress with user performance
Computer vision for real-time form correction
Natural language interfaces for coaching interactions
Wearable integration for biometric tracking
Predictive recovery tools
All of these features require different machine learning competencies to be created, so you need a fitness app development partner that’s experienced in implementing such.
Why Choose Specialized AI Fitness App Development Companies
Not every development firm is equipped for this kind of work. The gap between a company that has built fitness apps and one that truly specializes in AI fitness app development is significant, and it will show up in your product.
Benefits of Partnering with Experts
AI fitness app development companies have expertise in areas that are hard for generalists to grasp. These include choosing machine learning models that will provide accurate workout load prediction, overcoming obstacles specific to creating a data pipeline when integrating wearable devices, and ensuring HIPAA/GDPR compliance for health data rather than software data. What’s more, they’ve tried and tested all the approaches that didn’t work for them, meaning no more costly experiments for you.
Common Challenges in AI Fitness App Development
The most frequent pitfalls are:
Low-quality data
Poor model accuracy
Inability to retain users.
Creating a personalization model implies having sizable, labeled training sets, something most startups lack initially. Form recognition based on live video feed through the camera is resource-intensive. Finally, the AI fitness app can’t be successful unless there’s an excellent user experience that encourages regular usage. An experienced health and fitness app development company will have solutions for these concerns ready.
Steps to Find the Right AI Fitness App Development Company
The process is more involved than a standard vendor search. Here’s a practical sequence that actually works.
Define Your Project Requirements
Be clear about the type of AI you have in mind. Do you mean adaptive programming? Voice coaching? Injury prediction? Each would require a different set of capabilities. Vagueness leads to vagueness. Start defining your requirements before contacting fitness app development experts. Document the features that you must have, your platform targets, expected number of users, and data sources.
Research and Shortlist Potential Companies
You should consult several channels. Clutch and G2 provide credible reviews, while GitHub gives credibility signals related to coding skill and experience. Direct searching can help you find those who have documented case studies on the development of sports mobile applications. Select AI fitness app development companies that describe their solutions in detail, and not just say that they use machine learning. A list of five to eight vendors should suffice.
Evaluate Company Portfolios and Case Studies
A portfolio tells you what a company has done. A case study tells you how they think. Ask for both, and read the case studies critically. Do they describe specific technical decisions, outcomes, and trade-offs? Or is it mostly marketing language? The best fitness mobile app development firms will be able to walk you through specific AI architecture choices they’ve made and why.
Assess Technical Expertise and AI Capabilities
It is important that you look for experience in designing your own machine learning model, and not simply in implementing someone else’s solution. This is an important difference that will show itself when your AI fitness app scales. On-device inference can prove quite helpful in some cases, such as form feedback.
Check Client Reviews and Testimonials
Don’t rely only on the testimonies offered by the firm on their website. Look for clients on LinkedIn, and reach out to them directly. An hour-long conversation with an ex-client will be worth much more than several dozen testimonials. Ask the ex-client questions about how their fitness app development partner dealt with technical issues and the timelines they set.
Request Proposals and Conduct Interviews
A good proposal for an AI fitness project should include a technical approach section, not just a timeline and price. Interview the actual engineers who will work on your project, not just the sales team. The gap between what’s sold and what’s delivered is often a personnel gap; for example, the senior engineers pitch, the junior ones build.
Essential Qualities to Look for in AI Fitness App Development Companies
Beyond technical capability, there are a few qualities that tend to separate reliable AI fitness app development companies from risky ones.
Experience in AI and Machine Learning
While each of these areas requires different competencies, a fitness app development company can be good at computer vision and lack experience with NLP and recommendation systems, and vice versa. In this regard, request information related to the particular application area in which you plan to employ the technology.
Understanding of Fitness Industry Trends
It goes without saying that fitness app development experts who regularly monitor trends in the industry create more advanced fitness software solutions. The AI in the fitness and wellness industry is expected to grow to $57.8 billion by 2035, and they need to understand why and how to be a part of this movement.
Commitment to Data Security and Privacy
Biometric and other types of health-related data are particularly sensitive. Therefore, it is vital that any AI fitness app development company adheres to strict security measures when developing solutions involving such data, including data encryption, anonymization of training data, and data deletion procedures.
Post-Launch Support and Maintenance
The AI fitness app developed by your partner will deteriorate if its predictions become obsolete due to changes in user habits. For this reason, ensure that any agreement with a partner implies terms related to monitoring and model training.
Questions to Ask Before Hiring an AI Fitness App Development Company
Some of the most revealing questions to ask would be:
What datasets do you rely on in your training processes?
How do you approach the cold-start problem?
Can you share some details about model monitoring?
What about the fitness AI app cost, with respect to both AI-based and non-AI-based features?
Conclusion: Choosing the Best AI Fitness App Development Partner for Personalized Workout Solutions
When choosing between various AI fitness app development companies , it may be useful to check whether they have real experience in addressing complex technical challenges. The right fitness app development partner won’t just build what you describe; they’ll push back when the approach is wrong and flag problems before they get expensive. Talk to references, press on the technical details, and choose a team that treats your product like a real engineering challenge.
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Market Design
![Screenshot of a chat application interface with a dark blue-grey header reading "home" on the left and "root" with a hamburger menu icon on the right. Below is a navigation row with "← Back" and "Chat" on the left and an "EXPORT" button on the right. A blue user message bubble reads "show me some micropython". Below it a collapsed thinking section reads "▸Thinking: … to show the result clearly. After that, I can wrap up with a brief explanation!" followed by a "▶ Tool: execute_micropython" label. A code block follows: "# A tiny MicroPython example: blink-style logic + Fibonacci" / "def fib(n):" / " a, b = 0, 1" / " out = []" / " for _ in range(n):" / " out.append(a)" / " a, b = b, a + b" / " return out" / 'print("Hello from MicroPython!")' / 'print("First 10 Fibonacci numbers:", fib(10))' / "# MicroPython often runs on microcontrollers, e.g.:" / "# from machine import Pin" / "# led = Pin(2, Pin.OUT)" / "# led.value(1) # turn LED on" / "# led.value(0) # turn LED off". Below a horizontal divider is the output: "Hello from MicroPython!" / "First 10 Fibonacci numbers: [0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34]", followed by a "▶ Result: execute_micropython" label. At the bottom is a text input field with placeholder "Type a message..." and a blue "Send" button.](https://static.simonwillison.net/static/2026/micropython-in-datasette-agent.jpg)
