In Mary Shelley’s 1818 original version of Frankenstein, the brilliant but unorthodox Dr. Victor Frankenstein created his nameless humanoid by using a formula he concocted in a lab. Obsessed with creating something beautiful, his experiment produced a hideous monster with yellow skin, watery eyes and exposed blood vessels who escaped the lab.
He was a 19th century gain-of-function research lab leak. ...
More than 200 years later, the real-life Dr. Anthony Fauci embodies both the “scientist” and the monster. He’s a slithering gorgon coddled by a Medusa of creatures in government, media, Big Pharma, Big Tech, the global billionaire class, China, and armies of compliant physicians enslaved to their careers.....
Fauci publicly advocated for using gain-of-function research to “juice up” bat viruses, which meant intentionally making the viruses worse, creating new strains, and making them so transmissible they could spread globally. Real-life Frankenstein stuff.
The goal? To make something beautiful – a vaccine that could save the world from a deadly pandemic when and if “nature” ever unleashed it. Oh, and money.
The Left suffers from social psychophysiology – the proclivity of people to get tangled up in ideologies that are like crippled religions. They operate on faith, disassociated from reality. And if they run up against reality, they dismiss reality and cling to their religion.
The Morning Brief from Yahoo Finance is written today by Andy Serwer, who asks the question:
Question: How many people does it take to run a tech company?
His focus is on what it takes to keep the lights on and servers running. In the case of Twitter, it's noticeable that the answer is much less than Twitter had when Elon Musk bought it.
But the proof isn't to Andy's liking. There's a hint that he's not a fan of Musk:
I’m not a huge fan of Elon’s management style — which seems in part to be about getting in touch with his inner 13-year-old boy
To give Andy credit, he questions the value of the employment bloat in general and even the vaunted engineers that create the features found in the big Internet organizations.
Many of these layoffs have likely been in marketing and staff functions, but I would argue that in some cases redundancy lies in line operations as well. It's an open secret that a fair amount of core technology work adds little or no value to customers, companies, or the economy....
I understand engineers and product managers need to experiment. It’s just that the process — an overly empowered tech culture where engineers are encouraged to “disrupt,” “pivot,” “move fast and break things,” and “fail fast” — has been taken too far.
Maybe this modus operandi makes sense for the smartest 1% of technical workers, but not for tens of thousands who have been given the keys.
But here's the problem, Andy's looking at these companies as if they were factories producing the necessary goods. He refers to firing half the workers at a dairy, leading to customer shortages. But that is an apple-to-oranges comparison. Twitter is not a dairy.
And then it gets personal.
To me Musk and his radical job cutting smacks of twice baked-over Randism. Every generation produces business leaders like Musk, those with incredible ideas who also cloak power plays in the guise of economic revolution.
But the problem with Twitter was never about the number of employees. It was about the product they delivered.
The problem with Twitter (and Facebook and Google) is that they don't deliver milk. They provide opinions, shape the culture and affect elections. Those thousands of employees hand megaphones to their partisan allies and send mobs to silence people who disagree. They inject partisan poison into the cultural bloodstream.
If those workers at Andy's dairy deliberately soured the milk, the number who work there is not the issue. They should all be fired and replaced with those who deliver good milk.
The problem with Twitter, Facebook, and Google is not the number of people who work there. It's the people themselves who are in charge of the Public Square. They have abused their power by stifling speech. They have deliberately censored the truth as well as dissent. They created a public forum and then turned it into a partisan meeting.
The question is not about the number of people it takes to run a tech company. The more important question is, what should be done when people in a company deliberately produce a toxic product?
It's telling that before Musk, Twitter censored President Trump but provided links to child porn. Twitter produced toxic waste. A lot of work is required to restore trust in Twitter. But with Musk and fewer employees, it's making the right changes.
The deposition of Anthony Fauci took place today in the lawsuit commenced by Louisiana and Missouri, alleging that numerous Biden administration officials colluded with and directed big tech and social media giants to censor dissenting scientific and medical voices with regard to Covid.
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Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry, who attended the deposition, tweeted that Fauci had a lack of memory.
...
One of my favorite quotes from Fauci’s deposition today: “I have a very busy day job running a six billion dollar institute. I don’t have time to worry about things like the Great Barrington Declaration.”
The Great Barrington Declaration was ultimately signed by thousands of doctors and scientists. It challenged the covid shutdown policies that were recommended by Fauci and implemented by governments at the federal and state levels
Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, 7 rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving. (Col 2:6–7) https://t.co/WJqtoJY7x9
The Fake News Media spent the last few days smearing Tucker Carlson and @libsoftiktok, just to watch their BS narrative all come crashing down. https://t.co/SW2EmrLtAK
But the common denominator here is Judeo-Christianity, western civilization and America as founded as the existential threat and enemy that must be utterly annihilated. As more and more of a militant anti-American attitude becomes mainstreamed into government and the public discourse across all sectors of society, wrong-think will be punished. The concept of "you will be made to care" is well on its way to either being codified as law, or failing that adopted as a standing principle for employers and businesses. Bitterly ironic that someone like Jack Phillips has his life destroyed for the principle of refusing to serve someone because it goes against his beliefs while the very same principle will be used against you if you do not accept theirs. And yet, that is exactly what is happening.
The financial collapse of the crypto exchange FTX was brutal and swift. Almost overnight, its CEO Sam Bankman-Fried saw his $16 billion fortune wiped out.
SBF, as he’s popularly known, managed to fool almost the entire world—though not quite everyone.
In hindsight, it’s not hard to see the red flags at FTX. There was no board of directors. Bankman-Fried couldn’t answer simple questions about his funding. The executive leadership was shady and there was the whole “cabal of roommates” in the Bahamas.
One thing that hasn’t gotten enough attention, however, is SBF’s philosophy of “effective altruism,” a social movement that rejects self-interest and instead focuses on “how to benefit others as much as possible.”
Many people will no doubt applaud SBF for his philosophy. Putting others before oneself is considered by many to be not just a virtue but the virtue, and it could help explain Bankman-Fried’s meteoric rise and celebrity. Legacy media swooned over SBF’s apparent selflessness. Story after story after story gushed over the crypto altruist who wanted to give his wealth away—even as he lived in a $40 million penthouse.
Bankman-Fried clearly liked to talk about his altruism, which many see as a clear and obvious virtue. Or is it?
‘Do Not Confuse Altruism With Kindness’
Ayn Rand famously didn’t see altruism as a virtue; she saw it as a sinister force.
“Do not confuse altruism with kindness, good will or respect for the rights of others,” Rand wrote. “These are not primaries, but consequences, which, in fact, altruism makes impossible.”
Now, I’m not an Objectivist. I actually celebrate giving and see charity as part of my Christian calling. But I think Rand is on to something. While I don’t believe “selfishness is a virtue” or “that greed is good,” I do believe in rational self-interest, the idea that it’s both normal and prudent for humans to advance their own interests in their economic decisions.
The idea of rational self-interest is central to capitalism and was famously articulated by Adam Smith in The Wealth of Nations.
"It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest,” Smith wrote. “We address ourselves, not to their humanity, but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages."
Smith, like myself, didn’t see charity as a sin or mere foolishness. But he clearly understood that humans are naturally self-interested creatures and that this instinct is not actually detrimental to human flourishing, but a key to it. This is the miracle of a market economy, which leverages self-interest through trade and voluntary action to improve everyone’s standard of living.
Now, contrast this sentiment with Sam Bankman-Fried, who said he was bailing out digital assets not because he saw an opportunity but because he felt it was the right thing to do.
“It’s not fair to customers,” SBF said on CNBC’s Squawk Box.
Or consider what Bankman-Fried told an Institute of International Finance audience in August.
“It's okay to do a deal that is moderately bad, in bailing out a place,” SBF said.
Purchasing failing companies to protect their customers seems like a dubious business strategy to me, and it was one of the things that caught the attention of seasoned traders, who began to raise questions about FTX. Those traders turned out to be right. FTX, which recently had a valuation of $32 billion, was massively overleveraged, and when rival crypto exchange Binance announced it was offloading hundreds of millions of dollars of FTT (FTX’s token), a run on funds ensued.
But it’s worth focusing on Bankman-Fried’s rhetoric a little more, because it occurred to me it sounds a little like a character in Atlas Shrugged.
‘Material Greed Isn’t Everything’
James Taggart, president of Taggart Transcontinental, is the most prominent villain in Ayn Rand’s magnum opus. He talks endlessly about serving mankind and sneers at those who are concerned with crass profits.
“Material greed isn’t everything. There are non-material ideals to consider,” Taggart lectures his sister Dagny, the hero of the story.
Taggart’s smug thinking is what prompts him to take on his own bad deal, a massive expansion of Taggart Transcontinental into Mexico. He confesses to “a feeling of shame” that he owns a railroad, but “the Mexican people have nothing but one or two inadequate lines.”
“The Mexicans, it seems to me, are a very diligent people, crushed by their primitive economy. How can they become industrialized if nobody lends them a hand? When considering an investment, we should, in my opinion, take a chance on human beings, rather than on purely material factors.”
Taggart gets his way and—like FTX—his San Sebastian Line is a disaster. The lesson in both cases is clear: beware business deals based on altruism.
SBF, like James Taggart, spoke often about serving humanity. His concern with climate change, global pandemics, and progressive causes earned him laurels and fawning press. Even after the collapse of FTX, newspapers are discussing his noble efforts “to prevent another pandemic.” But there is also a notable difference between Rand’s petulant railroad baron and Bankman-Fried.
While James Taggart is a mean, surly, unscrupulous man, his altruism seems somewhat genuine; either he’s too stupid to see his good intentions will bear bad fruit or he lacks the self awareness to realize his “altruistic” ideas are not as pure as he believes. (It’s important to understand that even though Taggart spurns selfishness and greed, he is clearly a selfish and greedy person.)
With Sam Bankman-Fried, this appears less true.
In an exchange with Vox reporter Kelsey Piper, SBF’s altruistic philosophy came up. Piper noted he was “really good at talking about ethics” publicly. His response is telling.
“I had to be…it’s what reputations are made of, to some extent,” SBF answered. “I feel bad for those who get [expletive] by it…by this dumb game we woke westerners play where we say the right shiboleths [sic] and everyone likes us.”
From this response, it’s clear Bankman-Fried knew he was a poser. His advocacy was just part of the new game of stakeholder capitalism. (Interestingly, SBF actually refers to ESG as a perversion.)
Sam Bankman-Fried, unlike James Taggart, is not an idiot. He knew what he was doing. I don’t know if this makes SBF more of a villain than Taggart or not.
But it certainly makes Bankman-Fried’s downfall all the more tragic.
Jonathan Miltimore is the Managing Editor of FEE.org. His writing/reporting has been the subject of articles in TIME magazine, The Wall Street Journal, CNN, Forbes, Fox News, and the Star Tribune.
Bylines: Newsweek, The Washington Times, MSN.com, The Washington Examiner, The Daily Caller, The Federalist, the Epoch Times.
This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the original article.
Republicans have focused on persuading voters. Democrats have focused on collecting ballots. It's why stroke victims who can't speak (Fetterman) and candidates who won't debate (Katie Hobbs) win elections. The winner is the one with more ballots, not the one bringing voters to the polls.
Why Republicans are not preparing for elections with this in mind shows - in no uncertain terms - that they have a serious problem. They are throwing money at consultants that don't care whether their candidates win or lose. The GOP’s Political Consultant Problem
As the political discussion centers on the 2022 wins and losses from the midterm election, one thing that stands out in similarity to the 2020 general election is the difference between ballots and votes. It appears in some states this is the ‘new normal.’
Where votes were the focus, the Biden administration suffered losses. Where ballots were the focus, the Biden administration won.
Perhaps the two states most reflective of ‘ballots’ being more important than ‘votes’ are Michigan and Pennsylvania. Despite negative polling and public opinion toward two specific candidates in those states, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer and Pennsylvania Senate candidate John Fetterman achieved victories.
Whitmer and Fetterman were not campaigning for votes, that is old school. Instead, the machinery behind both candidates focused on the modern path. The Democrat machines in both states focused on ballot collection and ignored the irrelevant votes as cast.
Since the advent of ballot centric focus through mail-in and collection drop-off processes, votes have become increasingly less valuable amid the organizers who wish to control election outcomes. As a direct and specific result, ballot collection has become the key to Democrat party success.
The effort to attain votes for candidates is less important than the strategy of collecting ballots.
It should be emphasized; these are two distinctly different election systems.
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When ‘ballot organization’ becomes more important than ‘vote winning,’ you modify your electoral campaign approaches accordingly. It might sound simplistic, but inside the distinct difference between ballots and votes you will find why refusing debates is a successful strategy.
If you are trying to win votes you could never fathom campaign success by refusing to debate an opponent. However, if your focus is centered around ballot collection, the debate is essentially irrelevant.
Kurt Schlichter is writing a series of essays to make the case for and the case against both DeSantis and Trump. Here's the case for DeSantis ....(read the whole thing)
It’s going to be King Kong vs. Godzilla and, while a few pipsqueak Rodan's might be flapping around (Hi Mike Pence), this bout is the battle royale. The 2024 primary will be Donald Trump v. Ron DeSantis. Everyone else is barely relevant ....
Ron DeSantis is Trump’s number one competitor precisely because of his greatest strength – competence. Not just competence in running his dinosaur-ridden state but in turning it bright red and annihilating the competition. “Competence” is going to be the watchword in 2024, along with “normality.” People want to go back to “normal,” which some think of as American life before the drama that began when Donald Trump came down the escalator (note that these people do not necessarily see Trump as the cause of the abnormality; his rise is seen by many as a reaction to the abnormality). But many of us older folks see “normal” as the America we grew up in, before 9/11 and the 2000 election (an election that was A-OK to deny because of reasons and shut up you transphobe). We want a prosperous America and an America that is not constantly in turmoil and at war, facing alleged (and not-so-alleged) existential threats from outside and within. We want an America where weird perversions are not declared awesome and where those of us who oppose groomers waving their tu-tu-clad man-butts in the faces of kindergarteners are not declared dangerous terrorist bigots. We would prefer a country where mean tweets don’t happen because they are not necessary since the ruling caste is functioning and not in need of radical push-back.
Competence goes with normality. It is the ability to perform one’s job with a high level of skill, and Ron DeSantis has done that as governor. His state is secure and prosperous. His handling of Hurricane Ian was stellar. The storm response was planned and executed flawlessly, so flawlessly that once the wind died down you never heard about it again. And what you did not hear, if you did not live there, was how the power came back fast and how bridges got rebuilt in days. You would have heard all about it if those things didn’t happen. Now, especially if they live in a hellhole like California, people look at the construction jobs that clog the freeways for months or years and they know that it does not have to be this way.
