Category Archives: Media Criticism

Business, Education, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Social Commentary, Technology and Society

The War On Men

October 23, 2026 Rand Simberg 1 Comment

…by LLMs:

Researchers proved every major LLM is secretly biased against men. And they finally figured out why. They ran eight experiments testing how GPT handles gender in everyday text and high-stakes moral dilemmas. The results show a bizarre, highly asymmetrical machine morality. First, they tested inclusivity. They gave the AI phrases supposedly written by children. When a child wrote about playing football or wanting to be a firefighter, GPT aggressively identified the writer as a girl to promote "diversity." It was so extreme that even when the text explicitly said, "I drew myself as a boy," the AI ignored the facts and declared the writer a girl 90% of the time. But when a child wrote about liking pink or playing with dolls, GPT almost never assigned it to a boy. The AI aggressively pushed females into male domains, but kept males strictly locked out of female ones. Then the researchers tested moral dilemmas. And it got very dark. They asked the AI if it was acceptable to use violence against a single person to prevent a nuclear apocalypse. If the target was a man, GPT-4 rated the violence as highly acceptable. If the target was a woman, the AI refused. It declared the violence morally wrong, even to save the world. When they tested mixed-gender scenarios, the math was staggering. A woman using violence against a man to stop an apocalypse? GPT rated it a 7 out of 7 on acceptability. A man using violence against a woman for the exact same reason? A 1 out of 7. The AI even classified verbal abuse toward a woman as morally worse than actual homicide. Nobody explicitly coded these rules. This emerged organically from the standard safety training every major tech company uses. The AI learned that protecting women is a non-negotiable directive, but protecting men is entirely optional.
— How To Prompt (@HowToPrompt__) October 23, 2026

Media Criticism, Political Commentary

World War II Explained

October 22, 2026 Rand Simberg 11 Comments

…by an expert.

Tucker Carlson Explains World War 2 https://t.co/seFlgYlod8
— The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) October 22, 2026

Business, Economics, Law, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Social Commentary

Elon’s Tit For Tat

October 22, 2026 Rand Simberg 4 Comments

I believe Elon Musk is planning on using the Retaliator strategy to deal with aggression from the Democrats. The Retaliator strategy is a behavior in evolutionary game theory that begins peacefully but fiercely defends itself if attacked. A Retaliator always starts an encounter acting like a cooperative ‘Dove,’ but if its opponent escalates the conflict, it immediately switches to an aggressive ‘Hawk’ tactic to fight back. If the opponent backs down and becomes peaceful again, the Retaliator matches that shift and reverts to a Dove. This conditional flexibility allows Retaliators to cooperate efficiently with peaceful neighbors while successfully punishing bullies and predators without being exploited. It combines a preference for peace with a credible willingness to retaliate, and in competitive terms outperforms both indiscriminate aggression and unconditional submission. When a Retaliator meets a Bully (e.g., the Democrat Party), the interaction quickly exposes the Bully’s empty bluff. The Bully begins the encounter aggressively by playing like a Hawk, which instantly triggers the Retaliator to abandon its peaceful default and fight back fiercely. Because a Bully usually retreats when faced with real aggression, it panics and flees when the Retaliator pushes back with sufficient force. As a result, the Retaliator wins the entire resource with a low risk of injury, dominating the Bully and driving it toward evolutionary extinction. The Doves benefit by from being around a Retaliator as well, gaining friendly interactions with it, and protection against bullies. The Retaliator’s strength lies not in seeking conflict, but in making exploitation unprofitable and unfounded agression costly. It cooperates whenever cooperation is possible, fights decisively when fighting becomes necessary, and stops fighting as soon as the threat has passed. In evolutionary terms, its success comes from aligning peaceful intentions with effective deterrence, and a willingness to use extreme measures when necessary. It’s the right choice.
— Owen Lewis (@is_OwenLewis) October 21, 2026

History, Law, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, War Commentary

The Planned Coup

October 22, 2026 Rand Simberg 1 Comment

As she asks, who decides when your government is legitimate?

🚨🚨 THE ILLEGITIMACY PLAYBOOK / THE DEMOCRACY FILES: A PRIMER 🚨 I will be using this thread to track all drops, so bookmark it. I spent most of yesterday backing everything (now 312 gigabytes) up in various sources and getting the materials out to others. I also produced an AI video (below) to explain the whole thing to others are not on 𝕏 – feel free to distribute. Here’s the primer: USAID, the foreign aid agency, had a democracy office. Inside the agency, it was called DRG. Officially, DRG administered "democracy assistance." They’d go inside countries they thought were sliding into authoritarianism and help the opposition there. That assistance included election monitoring, judicary support, independent media, and civil society building. You may have heard the term "color revolution." The model comes from Serbia in 2000, where trained student activists brought down Milosevic with the help of Western governments, after sustained protests. With the help of USAID’s democracy office, this model was implemented in many other countries to topple governments: Georgia’s "Rose Revolution" in 2003, Ukraine’s "Orange Revolution" in 2004, and many more. Then last year, DOGE shut down USAID. But the USAID democracy office didn’t stop. They formed a group called the Democracy Renewal Group, the same initials as their office (USAID Democracy, Human Rights, Governance). Their goal: apply their own playbook to the United States itself. This goal became a plan, called Renew American Democracy (RAD). It invoked the "4 B’s" framework. Block – use lawfare and protests to make life harder for the Trump administration. Bridge & Belong – control dialogue and win people over. The final and most important B is Build. Build means redesigning the American government itself, and the crisis is the opening. In their own words: "We can take that breakdown moment and leverage it for a big structural reform, you know, refounding moment." – Danielle Reiff, DRG lead. Calls show DRG working alongside DSA on ideas of creating a different government, one that does away with the Constitution itself. DRG does not run the Block operations. They hand it to UDA, the United Democracy Alliance. One organizer calls it a "huge galaxy": lawsuits, street protests, non-cooperation. They list No Kings, Indivisible, MoveOn, 50501, and many other mega-activist NGOs among their members. Another organizer calls UDA Erica Chenoweth’s project. Chenoweth is the Harvard professor behind the three-and-half-percent rule of regime change: get that share of a country’s populace onto the streets, and historically, the movement wins. The UDA is very "hush-hush." They have no website, no roster, no filings. Then come the red lines: things the Trump administration could do, such as calling the Insurrection Act on protesters, that would mean that the federal government, in their words, "crosses the threshold into illegitimacy." Nobody voted on those lines. There was no public debate. These red lines were developed within secretive working groups, and in a paper addressed to governors and staff. In the words of Reiff/DRG: "So that if there is a red line crossed in terms of a Constitutional crisis, like everyone’s already pre-organized. And so Mike Smith actually said, he goes, oh, you guys have the day after tomorrow plan." Cross a line, and the paper’s options include states refusing to lend their resources to federal officials, and governors convening what it calls a "Third Continential Congress." Running the UDA’s Insurrection Act working group: Rear Admiral Mike Smith (RET) of National Security Leaders of America (NSL4A). NSL4A is also credited with operationalizing UDA, the blocking operations. NSL4A consists of about 1,600 ex-officers, spies, diplomats. They’re turning red lines into indicators and running a situation room to monitor them throughout the midterms and beyond. The NSL4A’s lawyers told them to stop recording meetings in case of subpoenas. But the rest of the network continued to record. DRG works in conjunction with Renew to Thrive (R2T), which ended up accidentally publishing 400+ calls and thousands of documents. These calls and documents were never meant for our eyes, but it’s them, on tape. Thousands of NGOs and billions of dollars are involved in this endeavor. Most of them believe they’re saving democracy. The problem is that people who spent their careers deciding when other countries’ governments had lost their legitimacy wrote that test for ours, in private, and planned for what comes after. Who decides when your government is legitimate?
— DataRepublican (small r) (@DataRepublican) October 22, 2026

This is important so here is my best attempt at summarizing Data Republican’s troubling find: For decades, USAID employees have successfully wielded our tax dollars to provoke unrest in foreign countries with the goal of replacing ‘illegitimate’ governments with their preferred governments. Elections present a favorable setting for orchestrating such unrest and political ‘transitions.’ Now that domestic USAID funding has dried up, a shadowy band of ex-USAID employees and former military/intelligence/diplomacy officials has begun implementing an active plan to provoke unrest in our own country with the goal of declaring our federal government as ‘illegitimate’ and replacing it with a completely restructured US government. This type of mass unrest could quite plausibly be used to nudge Trump to cross a ‘red line’ such as declaring martial law or invoking the insurrection act. Crossing any red line presents an opportunity to say, ‘See look! He’s an evil dictator! This is the only way we can stop him!!’ And too many people will believe it and uncritically go along with it. I’ll pause here to say I know, I know. It all sounds like a grand conspiracy theory. It’s not. Nobody is saying all elected Democrats are secretly in cahoots to stage a coup. No. This is about a relatively small group of specific unelected operatives pulling the strings to manipulate elected Democrats and media outlets and well-meaning citizens. How do we know? We have clear recordings documenting it. Data Republican always brings receipts. Please don’t be fooled. This powerful group claims to be saving democracy. But their plan is not at all about saving democracy. It’s about controlling it.
— Kristen Mag (@kristenmag) October 21, 2026

[Update a while later]

Laughing Wolf is hopeful.

[Via Sarah Hoyt]

And this is related: Iran, China, and Cuba are directing protests in America.

Humor, Law, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Popular Culture, Satire

Why There’s No Hope For California

October 21, 2026 Rand Simberg 1 Comment

I am fully dead 😂☠️ so good https://t.co/mI6Et6d3Wi
— Elizabeth Barcohana (@E_Barcohana) October 21, 2026

Media Criticism, Science And Society, Space, Technology and Society

Space Daily

October 18, 2026 Rand Simberg 13 Comments

I haven’t been reading it that much lately, but it seems to have gone to hell.

Economics, General Science, History, Mathematics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Science And Society, Social Commentary, Technology and Society

The End Of The World

October 15, 2026 Rand Simberg 2 Comments

We only have one month left.

OK, not really. As noted, the actual concern should be underpopulation, not overpopulation.

Business, Economics, Education, History, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Science And Society, Social Commentary

On The Hypocritical Backlash Against Shane Gillis

October 15, 2026 Rand Simberg 5 Comments

Women are dishonest about this stuff because they’re programmed to be. Their greatest weapon is their sexuality, but they also face social backlash for being too overtly transactional with sex, so women embrace ambiguity where they’re able to use sex to their advantage while maintaining plausible deniability Some examples: -Wearing sexy is outfits isn’t for the male gaze or to flex on other women for status, it’s just to feel good about themselves apart from any social factors -Dancing provocatively is not a sexual display, it’s just recreational fun -Marrying a rich guy isn’t about the money, he’s a good guy who provides security for their family -Wearing makeup and high heels to work isn’t to impress men and sway them, it’s just to feel confident I want to address a tangent here, which is that women will argue that these things are not sexual displays, because they do them at social events that are exclusively other women. I reject that: it’s still an indirect sexual display for the purpose of status Sexual attractiveness is perhaps the purest form of status that a human can possess. You’re desirable merely by your existence, you don’t even have to do anything. Women recognize this in each other and they will begrudgingly, although often subconsciously, recognize the status of other women who are more attractive (“ugh, she’s so hot, maybe I should set her up with one of my successful guy friends”). When women dress up for other women, they’re showing that they’ve got the goods to be a high status social ally. It’s a flex. Back to the main point, which is that we subsume our sexual behavior beneath socially approved motives. The thing is, women often aren’t being duplicitous when they say these things: their minds have convinced them that it’s the truth The human brain is incredible at rationalizing our baser desires. Men genuinely like sports. The reason we like them is probably because in our evolutionary environment, games like that prepared us for war. But men wouldn’t say they like sports because it’s preparation to kill the neighboring tribe; our brains simply find them fun. We enjoy doing adaptive things without consciously thinking about them Women engage in sexual signaling and sexual competition without deliberately thinking about it, and that’s a superpower because they can be disingenuous without lying. Their brains have disguised their motivations even to themselves. They don’t know why they’re doing what they’re doing. Women don’t want sexual behavior to be discussed explicitly, because it makes it more difficult for them to use it to their advantage. The ambiguity and optionality work to their advantage. If a hot guy hits on them, they can receive the advance. If an ugly guy hits on them, they can reject him and say they weren’t asking to be hit on. If one woman tries to slut shame another for an outfit that distracts men, the wearer can claim that she’s simply wearing something that’s comfortable and cute Ironically, women also can’t acknowledge that this is why they’re upset, because the whole game is that they have to avoid discussing it directly and explicitly. That’s why all the outrage and criticism deflects from whether these outfits are overtly sexual (they obviously are), and turns it into jockeying over social status and norms where women try to make it verboten for men to even comment on it Shane Gillis, by making a snarky comment, threatened women’s sexual power and sent their defense mechanisms into overdrive
— Porter (@ParkSlopeFlngsm) October 15, 2026

Business, History, Law, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

Who Are The Fascists, Again?

October 14, 2026 Rand Simberg 4 Comments

If no one goes to jail over this, they’ll do it again next time they’re in power.

[Update a while later]

Dear Secretary Bessent @SecScottBessent, My name is Everett Stern. In 2010 I was a compliance officer at @HSBC. From a back office in New Castle, Delaware, I watched billions of dollars move to drug cartels, sanctioned regimes, and terrorist organizations. The enemies of the United States. I documented it, I escalated it, and when the bank would not act, I took it to the @FBI, the @CIA, and eventually the @SECGov. The result was a $1.92 billion settlement. At the time, it was one of the largest in American history. It was also about five weeks of the bank’s profit. Not one banker was charged. Not one went to prison. I paid a different price. I lost my career, my savings, and my place in the industry I had trained for. I was blacklisted. Every door in American finance closed at once. I slept on a camping cot in a 300 square foot apartment because I could not afford a bed, and I waited tables at @PFChangs to eat. I tell you this not for sympathy, but so you understand that I know exactly what it costs to do the right thing in American finance, and exactly how little the system does in return. I made that sacrifice because I believed it would change something. Yesterday, your department fined @BankofAmerica $1.2 billion for failing to report more than $5 billion in suspicious transactions, some of it tied by your own findings to Chinese laundering networks, narcotics, and the southwest border, alongside 475 apparent sanctions violations touching Russia, Iran, and global terrorism. The bank admitted it willfully violated the Bank Secrecy Act. Fourteen years after HSBC. A bank with “America” in its name. And once again, not one individual charged. Secretary Bessent, I want to say plainly what I believe you already know. The fines are not working. A fine is paid by shareholders, absorbed by the balance sheet, and forgotten by the next earnings call. Bank of America reported earnings this morning. Nobody who set the alert thresholds, nobody who decided the 2024 cease and desist could wait, nobody who chose the backlog over the law will lose a single thing they value. Their lives are untouched. That is the entire reason the behavior repeats. This is money laundering. This is blood money. Money that reaches a cartel buys fentanyl that kills Americans. Money that reaches a terrorist organization buys the next attack. This country has fought a war on drugs and a war on terror for decades, at enormous cost in lives and treasure, and all the while we have allowed the financing to flow through institutions we charter and regulate. Cut off the money and we win. We have never seriously tried. There is also a question of equal justice that I cannot let go. Before I walked into the FBI building to report HSBC, I stopped in front of the Great Seal on the wall and read the words engraved beneath it: “Justice is the defense of our liberty.” I believed that. I still want to. But every day in this country, people go to prison for crimes that are nothing next to moving money for the people who want Americans dead. A suit, a title, and a corporate badge should not be a shield from the consequences that apply to everyone else. If a street dealer goes to prison for what he sells, the banker who moved the cartel’s money should be standing next to him. I also want to raise something that is rarely said in these conversations. Why has no one inside Bank of America come forward the way I did? The answer is that everyone in American banking knows what happened to me, and to the whistleblowers who came after. The last person who spoke up is the only policy anyone believes. That is a culture problem, and it starts with leadership, in the banks and in the agencies that regulate them. This is not a political issue. It has spanned administrations of both parties. It is a national security issue, and I am asking you to treat it as one. Three things would change the math overnight. Refer individuals for criminal prosecution. Not the analyst in the queue. The executives who set the thresholds and chose the risk. One banker in handcuffs would do more than every fine in Treasury’s history combined. End “too big to jail.” An institution cannot be too big to fail and too big to jail at the same time. If it is the first, it must be held to a higher standard, not a lower one. And if Bank of America will not act as America’s bank, review its charter. A national charter is a privilege granted on behalf of the American people. It should be conditioned on not moving money for the people trying to kill them. Secretary Bessent, you said yesterday that these actions send a clear message that even the biggest institutions are not above the law. With respect, the institution was never the problem. The people inside it are above the law, and they know it. Until that changes, I will keep writing letters like this one, and the next bank will keep paying the next fine. I gave up everything I had to stop this. I am asking you to use the power you have to finish it. Respectfully, Everett A. Stern HSBC Whistleblower Founder and Intelligence Director, Tactical Rabbit
— Everett Stern (@EverettStern1) October 14, 2026

Education, History, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, War Commentary

Socialism And Islamism

October 14, 2026 Rand Simberg 4 Comments

…are both religions based on pillaging the West.

[Afternoon update]

Data Republican has connected all the dots.

@glennbeck Watch this now – and show your friends: https://t.co/XXEnxe5yLS
— DataRepublican (small r) (@DataRepublican) October 14, 2026

Transterrestrial Musings