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Quantumfreakonomics


				

				

				

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Quantumfreakonomics


								

								

								
								
								

								
							
					
 
				


				

				
				
				

				

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					joined 2022 September 05 00:54:12 UTC
				


				
					

					
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				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 23, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I went back into the archives to figure out how we ended up with the "safety" company running The Pentagon's KillNet.


June 26, 2024 - Anthropic announcement: "Expanding access to Claude for government". This one flew under the radar at the time. Key quote:




"we have crafted a set of contractual exceptions to our general Usage Policy that are carefully calibrated to enable beneficial uses by carefully selected government agencies. These allow Claude to be used for legally authorized foreign intelligence analysis, such as combating human trafficking, identifying covert influence or sabotage campaigns, and providing warning in advance of potential military activities, opening a window for diplomacy to prevent or deter them. All other restrictions in our general Usage Policy, including those concerning disinformation campaigns, the design or use of weapons, censorship, and malicious cyber operations, remain."




November 7, 2024 - Palantir announcement: "Anthropic and Palantir Partner to Bring Claude AI Models to AWS for U.S. Government Intelligence and Defense Operations". I couldn't find an official Anthropic communication about this, but I did find former-MIRI/current-Anthropic safety researcher Evan Hubinger defending the deal on LessWrong:




"I got a question about Anthropic's partnership with Palantir using Claude for U.S. government intelligence analysis and whether I support it and think it's reasonable, so I figured I would just write a shortform here with my thoughts. First, I can say that Anthropic has been extremely forthright about this internally, and it didn't come as a surprise to me at all. Second, my personal take would be that I think it's actually good that Anthropic is doing this. If you take catastrophic risks from AI seriously, the U.S. government is an extremely important actor to engage with, and trying to just block the U.S. government out of using AI is not a viable strategy. I do think there are some lines that you'd want to think about very carefully before considering crossing, but using Claude for intelligence analysis seems definitely fine to me. Ezra Klein has a great article on "The Problem With Everything-Bagel Liberalism" and I sometimes worry about Everything-Bagel AI Safety where e.g. it's not enough to just focus on catastrophic risks, you also have to prevent any way that the government could possibly misuse your models. I think it's important to keep your eye on the ball and not become too susceptible to an Everything-Bagel failure mode."




June 6, 2025 - Anthropic announcement: Claude Gov models for U.S. national security customers. Notable quote:




"Claude Gov models deliver enhanced performance for critical government needs and specialized tasks. This includes:






    

  • Improved handling of classified materials, as the models refuse less when engaging with classified information"
    • 





July 14, 2025 - Anthropic announcement: Anthropic and the Department of Defense to advance responsible AI in defense operations. Note the difference in tone and detail from the original June 2024 announcement.


August 27, 2025 - Introducing the Anthropic National Security and Public Sector Advisory Council. Basically a bunch of military-industrial complex blob people were brought in to do... something.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 23, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
What exactly do you think life is like for Iranian women? They don't have Western levels of feminism for sure, but you can watch man on the street videos from almost* any city in Iran and see an approximately even sex ratio, women walking around without male guardians, and very loose interpretations of the hijab law.


*Qom is still very conservative. It's basically the Iranian Vatican. Even so, women there wear chadors, not burqas.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 23, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
OpenAI will simply say that they have policies preventing mass domestic surveilance and autonomous weapons, and then not actually prevent their models from being used for mass domestic surveilance and autonomous weapons.


The Pentagon knows that Altman will play ball in a way that Dario will not.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 23, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
They must have really pissed someone off behind the scenes. There is a report that Anthropic did not immediately agree that the military would be able to use autonomous AI to shoot down hypersonic missile bound for the US.




In a previously unreported exchange in early December, Under Secretary of War for Research and Engineering Emil Michael was outraged by Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei’s answer to a hypothetical question: If the US were under attack – with hypersonic missiles hurtling toward US soil – and Anthropic’s AI models could thwart the missiles, would the company refuse to help its country due to Anthropic’s prohibition on using its tech in conjunction with autonomous weapons?






According to people familiar with the administration, Amodei responded that the Pentagon should, in the midst of the attack, reach out and check with Anthropic. But sources familiar with Anthropic’s view say the AI company offered to make a missile defense carveout for otherwise prohibited weapons.




The reference to "arrogance" in the top line of Hegseth's tweet suggests to me that something like this did in fact happen. It is no secret that Rationalist AI nerds often come across to normal people as self-righteous pricks with delusions of grandeur.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 23, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I have heard this too. For corroborating/conflicting information, you can go to /r/Israel and read stories by Israelis of how terribly they were treated by the locals on vacation.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 23, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


American Heroes Channel (formerly the Military Channel)




Formerly Discovery Wings. God I feel old.




Animal Planet




I had fun thinking of ways this one could be propagandized. "Much like the Chosen People, the Nubian ibex has resided continuously in the land of Israel for over 3000 years."


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 23, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Anthropic just gutted their safety policy.


(Note that this is entirely unrelated to the Pentagon drama which is grabbing headlines.)


Anthropic has explicitly removed unilateral comittments to not deploy advanced models without first developing effective safeguards.




This approach represents a change from our previous RSP, driven by a collective action problem. The overall
level of catastrophic risk from AI depends on the actions of multiple AI developers, not just one. Our previous
RSP committed to implementing mitigations that would reduce our models' absolute risk levels to acceptable
levels, without regard to whether other frontier AI developers would do the same. But from a societal
perspective, what matters is the risk to the ecosystem as a whole. If one AI developer paused development to
implement safety measures while others moved forward training and deploying AI systems without strong
mitigations, that could result in a world that is less safe—the developers with the weakest protections would
set the pace, and responsible developers would lose their ability to do safety research and advance the public
benefit. Although this situation has not yet arisen, it looks likely enough that we want to prepare for it.






We now separate our plans as a company—those which we expect to achieve regardless of what any other
company does—from our more ambitious industry-wide recommendations. We aspire to advance the latter
through a mixture of example-setting, addressing unsolved technical problems, advocacy through industry
groups, and policy advocacy. But we cannot commit to following them unilaterally.




It's hard not to read this any other way than, "we will deploy Clippy if we think someone else will deploy Clippy too." Great "safety-focused" AI company we have here. Holden is getting roasted in the LessWrong comments, but I agree with Yud that Anthropic deserves a significantly less polite response.


"So y'all were just fucking lying the whole time huh?"


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 23, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
So when was the first American born? Did fighting in the revolution give you automatic American status? Were all state citizens in good standing grandfathered in at the ratification?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 23, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I’m not even sure what you’re getting at if someone who,


    

  • 

    Was born in America,
    

    • 

  • 

    Is descended from an American,
    

    • 

  • 

    Speaks English with an American accent,
    

    • 

  • 

    Sports American fashion trends, and
    

    • 

  • 

    Represents Team USA on the international stage,
    

    • 



isn’t American?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 23, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Are you alluding to the theory that Arthur Liu smuggled in bootleg eggs from Russian figure skaters in the mid-2000s? Because the official story is that her biological mother is a white American.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 23, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Idk man. This was probably the least controversial Olympics of my lifetime. A week later, 4chan of all places is still gushing over the woke alt hapa IVF skater chick. /sp/ jannies simply cannot delete the threads fast enough. World peace achieved.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 23, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Tucker also asserts that the Iraq war was done on behalf of Israel.




I believe it was in "The Hundred Years War on Palestine" that Rashid Khalidi laments that the PLO hitched itself so tightly to Saddam's Iraq. I remember thinking, "wow, what colossally bad luck that the Palestinians would rely on the one country in the Middle East that just so happened to be invaded by the United Sta... OHHHHHHH"


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 23, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


The highest ranking Israeli person killed was minister of tourism 25 years ago.




Of course, what will get an Israeli prime minister killed is agreeing in principle to not ethnically clense the occupied territories.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for February 22, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
My grandparents didn't get the French beat out of them at school for me to have to learn two languages.


If every American only knows English, then the rest of the world will have to learn our language.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for February 20, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The context is generic culture war slop you’ve heard a million times.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for February 20, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Someone said it looked like she was doing TikTok dances on the ice, and now I can't unsee it. I suppose it's well in keeping with the American character.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for February 20, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The women's figure skating finals yesterday were a ton of fun. We definitely felt the absense of doped-up Russians this year. I'm glad that they raised the minimum age to 17. It no longer feels like you're in the Epstein Files to watch it.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 16, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


ROBERTS, C. J., announced the judgment of the Court and delivered the
opinion of the Court with respect to Parts I, II–A–1, and II–B, in which
SOTOMAYOR, KAGAN, GORSUCH, BARRETT, and JACKSON, JJ., joined, and
an opinion with respect to Parts II–A–2 and III, in which GORSUCH and
BARRETT, JJ., joined. GORSUCH, J., and BARRETT, J., filed concurring
opinions. KAGAN, J., filed an opinion concurring in part and concurring
in the judgment, in which SOTOMAYOR and JACKSON, JJ., joined.
JACKSON, J., filed an opinion concurring in part and concurring in the
judgment. THOMAS, J., filed a dissenting opinion. KAVANAUGH, J., filed
a dissenting opinion, in which THOMAS and ALITO, JJ., joined.




If you ever see an opinion announcement like that, you are about to read some grade-A incomprehensible giberish. I didn't even bother reading the opinion after that. Good luck to the lawyers of the future tasked with figuring out which parts are holdings and which parts are dicta.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Wellness Wednesday for February 18, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I was raised in a lukewarm Catholic household and we always had seafood on Fridays during lent. It wasn’t until I was older that I realized that these were supposed to be fast days. No idea how “fasting” became “fish frys and crawfish boils”.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 16, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Once you've accepted that political and social realities require adopting a progressive taxation system and social safety net, the existence of some form of absurdity like this is assured. The question then becomes how to administer the absurdity, and I think EBT does a pretty good job of it. The purpose isn't to prevent people from wasting their benefits on mushroom superfoods, it's to prevent people from buying things that are actively harmful (drugs).


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for February 15, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
It seems a bit off, but what could she possibly be talking about that happens at night in the olympic village that isn’t related to competition?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for February 15, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Fun scissor clip has been going around of an 18-year-old figure skater vaguely describing her experience in the Olympic Village. Question: Is she or is she not referring to sex?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 16, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
For context, this is what real history research looks like.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 9, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
If you google legal cases on your personal computer on your personal time, then the prosecutor will put it on a powerpoint to show the jury as evidence of your guilt. If you pay $500 an hour for a lawyer to do it though, then you're fine.


PS: Watch the whole video. It's probably the greatest opening statement I've ever seen.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 9, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Are you really trying to lawyer lawyers out of their lawyer jobs? I am reminded of my favorite ACX comment:




Wow- I once worked for a US company that was shut down by the police for exploiting the sweepstakes loophole.






The company founders included a couple of lawyers with decades of experience in the gambling industry. They had these long company-wide legal compliance meetings twice a week, where every aspect of the company, from IT to customer support, was optimized to be as consistent with the letter of sweepstakes law as possible. The company had been fighting legal battles over their business model for years, and had actually won a string of cases in several states. At one point, they switched over from regular sweepstakes to charity sweepstakes under the theory that the courts were slightly more friendly to the latter. They were all extremely confident that they could beat any legal challenge.






Then, one day, I arrived at work to find the police loading office equipment into vans. When I asked what was happening, they led me to the company lobby, where all of the employees who hadn't immediately turned their cars around upon seeing the cops were waiting to be individually interrogated in a confiscated accountant's office. The police left after a couple of days- taking with them my personal laptop, which I never got back- and what followed was a week of showing up for half-days of "work" to a gutted office building where executives gave impassioned speeches about how proud they were of the company we'd built, and about how we'd followed the letter of the law perfectly and would definitely get our accounts unfrozen and be back in business soon. Then, a couple of those executives were arrested and the company was dissolved.






Apparently, what had happened was a local newspaper had written a hitpiece about the company which called out the DA by name for allowing such a degenerate law-skirting gambling operation to take root under their nose- a story which got picked up by a bunch of other papers. So, the DA got a judge to interpret the regulations in an entirely new way that our lawyers hadn't anticipated, and pressured the police to make an example of the company. Turns the legal system isn't like a computer that you can hack with the right exploit- if someone with power feels that you're skirting their authority, they will find a legal avenue to regain that authority, loophole be damned.




Until AGI takes over the world, all power comes from people. Lawyers have a lot of power. It's not that they're smarter than everyone else (though they are), it's that they have a license to lie and conspire.