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greyenlightenment

investments: META/FBL, TSLA, TQQQ, TECL, MSFT ...

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https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/12/us/jordan-neely-daniel-penny-new-york-subway-death-charge/index.html

Daniel Penny, a 24-year old Marine, turned himself to police after being charged with 2nd degree manslaughter for the killing of Jordan Neely. It looks like I was initially wrong. I said that drugs may have played a role given that the original NYTs story, which I replied to, from a week ago said that Neely had been choked for only 2-3 minutes and released and was unresponsive. The updated story is that he was choked out for much longer, as long as 15 minutes, which would have def. been lethal, and the video is pretty bad.

So retract my original argument in which I posit drugs played a role. This is why you should always wait until you have all the information before forming an opinion. I didn't think the story would blow up like it did. I just assumed it was some random altercation. The video is why it went so viral. I think Penny is not without some guilt here. Keeping someone in a choke for so long is going to end in death. It's likely Neely was not rendered unconscious near-instantly from blood loss to the brain, such as from a sleeper hold as I assumed from the original story (I assumed Penny put Neely in a hold, and then Neely went limp in 20-30 seconds and did not come back), but far worse, had been suffocated to death, like being held underwater because his windpipe was restricted. That's why he was flailing around. It would have been more humane had Penny just shot him although that would have carried a worse charge.

A second degree manslaughter conviction is not that bad. only max 15 years for killing someone, and with parole Penny may only spend 5 years, which is a pretty lenient sentence for killing a guy, and not even in self defense or accident. By comparison, Ross Ulbricht faces multiple life sentences despite not killing anyone. I cannot say Penny is not without some blame in this matter. But In Penny's defense, the police took too long to come, and despite Marine training he and his accomplices didn't know what else to do.

Given that obesity is sorta culture war related and in the news a lot, I figured this story would be relevant: Weight-Loss Stocks Soar After Obesity-Drug Study Spurs Investor Frenzy

Weight-loss tied stocks jumped following the update with rival Eli Lilly & Co. surging 15% to a record high. A positive outlook in Lilly’s earnings report also helped fuel the climb. Viking Therapeutics Inc., a drug developer working on a treatment similar to Novo’s Wegovy, jumped 12%. And WW International Inc. — better known as Weight Watchers — which bought a telemedicine firm that prescribes obesity medications earlier this year, soared 13%.

Novo’s Wegovy showed a 20% reduction in heart issues compared to those getting a placebo in a closely watched study. The results cheered Wall Street bulls who called it a best-case scenario. Analysts saw the benefit extending the market for Wegovy as well as Lilly’s Mounjaro and possibly removing an obstacle in insurance reimbursement.

I am more convinced than ever that these drugs are not only the future of wright loss, but similar to Paxil, is also going to a part of culture too and another tool or crutch to mitigate the downsides of modernity, except instead of social anxiety , it's too much food. We're sorta collectively inflicted this on ourselves, as victims of our own success. The pendulum if progress has swung so far towards abundance that we need modern technology just to try to undo it.

The remaining primaries and convention at this point serve as little more than a coronation for the inevitable Trump nomination. It was discussed last week the unlikely circumstances in which Trump is prevented from running. The questions now are:

  1. The likelihood Trump wins? Betting markets put the odds between 40-60%, which is not that useful but is what I would expect. The election will be very close and come down to the usual swing states like in 2020 and 2016. Biden's approval ratings are precariously low for an incumbent, especially given that the Electoral College works to Trump's advantage.

  2. What will a second Trump term be like? My guess is much like his first term. A lot of hollow populist gestures to his base but not much happens. I still don't understand these people who are otherwise centrist or middle-left like Matt Yglesias and Noah Smith, who predict or expect a foreign policy crisis if trump wins , but always fail to articulate what this entails. I guess they have to keep toeing the 'orange man bad' line even though he was not that bad, and the economy and other metrics did well under his presidency (until Covid, which was out of his control anyway). Key alliances were strained much, as commonly feared in 2016-2017. The leadership of allies like Germany and France begrudgingly accepted Trump, and not much else happened.

A large study from all of Sweden has found that increasing people's incomes randomly (actually, increasing their wealth, but you can convert wealth to income via an interest rate very easily) does not reduce their criminality. The authors find that via a cross sectional model, people with higher incomes are less likely to commit crimes (this just compares rich people to poors and sees rich people are less criminal), while when they switch to a "shock" model where people who won what is effectively a lottery don't see reduced criminality in either themselves or their children. This is a pretty big blow for the "poor people are more criminal because they don't have money for their basic needs" theory.

New but not surprising. People involved in retail theft prevention have known this forever. There is no reliable profile for a potential shoplifter. It can be anyone.

Louis C.K. was trending on Twitter because his Madison Square Garden concert was sold out, which some on the left are interpreting to mean that cancel culture is not real, or that it does not hurt people's careers. (link: https://archive.is/ryKrI )

What does it mean to be sufficiently canceled? I think Louis C.K. qualifies as having been sufficiently cancelled. If you look at his Wikipedia page, his sexual misconduct scandal, in 2017, killed off his TV and movie career. His filmography abruptly ends in 2017. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_C.K._filmography

Sure he's still able to sell out, but this reflects individual preferences for his comedy, not the approval of the media establishment, in which he is still damaged goods. Comedians are sorta like contractors in the sense that they have to hustle, not depend on a platform or the backing of a major media establishment. I think this is is what gives comedians an advantage over actors in regard to cancellation, because stand-up comedy can be inexpensively distributed at scale, such as digitally online, without needing the backing of an entire studio or publishing house.

This is why the right loses. It finds itself in a hair splitting debate which it eventually loses. Trying to make 'more accurate' African history courses is not answer. The answer is such courses should not exist at all.

‘The Marvels’ Meltdown: Disney MCU Seeing Lowest B.O. Opening Ever At $47M+ — What Went Wrong

SATURDAY AM UPDATE: The last-minute push for The Marvels with an appearance by star Brie Larson on The Tonight Show and at a theater in NYC post-actors strike have not moved weekend grosses any higher for Marvel Studios‘ The Marvels. The film is seeing a Friday in the vicinity of where we expected it at $21.5M, and a weekend opening between $47M-$52M, the lowest ever for Disney‘s Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Oh, also, The Marvels gets one of several post-pandemic B CinemaScores from audiences after Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (B+), Thor Love & Thunder (B+), Eternals (B), and Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (B). Comscore/Screen Engine PostTrak exits are worse at 3 1/2 stars and a 73% positi

It's even worse after factoring in double-digit inflation since 2021 or so. Disney, however, is the master of 'Hollywood accounting' and squeezing every drop of water from a franchise installment, such as licensing or merchandizes for years after the movie is discontinued from theatres. Also the "Disney‘s Marvel Cinematic Universe" is comprised of 24 movies. Some of these movies are expected to be underwhelming or loss-leaders and are not given an equal marketing push. It's assumed that Iron Man sequels will do better than stuff like "Ant-Man and the Wasp".

Richard Hanania blames gender pandering/wokeness, but it's worth noting that the 2017 Wonder Woman did well ($800+ million gross total , $100+ million open) despite obviously having a female lead. Also, having a pretty (by conventional Western standards) blonde lead does not also fit into the wokeness paradigm either.

Looks like Dilbert is being pulled from newspapers following controversial remarks by its creator, Scott Adams https://www.foxnews.com/us/laid-off-newspapers-drop-office-cartoon-dilbert-over-creators-racial-remarks

Multiple newspapers have pulled the popular office comedy comic strip "Dilbert" after its creator Scott Adams made racist comments in his podcast, and then doubled down on them.

"If nearly half of all Blacks are not okay with White people – according to this poll, not to me – that’s a hate group," Adams said during his "Coffee with Scott Adams" vlog, referring to a Rasmussen poll published this week. "That’s a hate group, and I don’t want anything to do with them."

"And I would say, based on the current way things are going, the best advice I can give to White people is to get the hell away from Black people," he continued, adding, "There is no fixing this … you just have to escape," which he said was why he moved to his current neighborhood that has "a very low Black population."

I don't think this is quite that big of deal personally. He has FU money and his brand/career at punditry keeps growing. I think his bigger risk would is being de-platformed from Youtube/Twitter. He don't need Dilbert anymore but he does need his Youtube and Twitter accounts.

Maybe time for a twitter-musk containment thread?

Elon Musk plans to democratize the Twitter verification badge

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1587523701452464131

https://www.theverge.com/2022/11/1/23435092/elon-musk-twitter-blue-verification-cost-ads-search

Elon Musk has announced that a new version of Twitter Blue will include some sort of verification accessible for $8 per month in the US, with the price “adjusted by country proportionate to purchasing power parity.” He announced the shake-up of the premium service by saying that “Twitter’s current lords & peasants system for who has or doesn’t have a blue checkmark is bullshit.”

Musk also says that the service will get you:

Priority in replies, mentions, and search, which Musk argues is “essential to defeat spam/scam”

In contrast to the belief that this is bad for scammers and spammers, I think it's the opposite. Scammers, especially crypto scammers, make so much money that $8 is a steal if it means having their tweets be more visible, hence more victims. The July 2020 twitter hack stole $130k of bitcoin using verified accounts, so $8 is nothing. NFT and 'rug pull' scams not uncommonly make hundreds of thousands of dollars too. Verification is expensive and time consuming, which is how you thwart spammers, by making the costs of spam high. Verified accounts sell for $1k or more on the secondary/dark markets, way more than $8. Or you have to send in a a lot of documents proving you are authentic real person, which is time consuming with a low rate of success (some companies will help you get your Twitter account verified , but for a large fee).

'The left' , which includes a lot of journalists, celebrities, and activists, oppose this for obvious reasons. The blue checkmark is a implicit signifier of having politically approved views and being an important person.

Part of the value of verification is that it's hard to obtain. But it does dilute the value of the blue checkmark though, so this means that there will likely be two tiers of verification, with a 'super verification' for important people.

Union jobs offer stability and benefits for no upside. It's not like you can go from warehouse to CEO with union , like you can with a start-up. no stock options either. It's not like you can get a raise for exceptional work, it's all collective. So it tends to benefit the median or mean instead of the outliers who really excel. So there are downsides to joining a union. But I agree that overall they seem overpaid relative to the value they create.

Trump is back on Facebook, Instagram too

Meta to restore Trump's Facebook, Instagram accounts

So this means he's back on all major platforms. I think this shows that maybe, alluding to the below about JK Rowling, that cancel culture does not work as well as on famous, rich targets: they get more chances, and also because they are such big draws and have so many fans, that it's shooting oneself in the foot to cancel them. I have observed the same on YouTube, with Rogan ,Jordan Peterson , and Fox News views being heavily promoted. I tested this by opening YouTube on an EC2 instance US IP, no browsing history. Big tech companies, like all companies, are motivated by profits in the end, more so than ideology. The big question is, will trump post? I think so eventually, come election season . At this point, I think the left has sustained a major defeat in the culture wars.

Not a good day for Mr. Tate Andrew Tate, Brother Tristan arrested amid human trafficking probe

Andrew Tate and his brother have been arrested and led away in cuffs after their luxury Romanian mansion was raided by police.

The divisive influencer, referred to by his fans as ‘Top G’, and his brother Tristan are being quizzed over human trafficking allegations, according to local reports.

The pair have reportedly been under investigation for the alleged kidnapping of two young women in their villa in the town of Voluntari.

Their home was raided by the Directorate for Investigating Organized Crime and Terrorism in Bucharest earlier today, reports Libertatea.

The brothers were issued warrants in relation to forming an organized criminal group, international human trafficking, and rape.

I am skeptical. This does not make sense from a risk vs. reward perspective. Presumably their hustler university program and other businesses provide plenty of legal revenue; why engage in such unnecessary risk? Romania's criminal justice system probably does not have the same requirement of burden of proof as in the US.

Finally we're seeing the extent of the damage of the Kanye controversy

In the span of a month, Kanye West has destroyed his empire

The losses have cost Ye billions, he says, but he's unfazed. In an Instagram post Thursday, he said, "I lost 2 billion dollars in one day and I'm still alive." The dropoff means West may have fallen out of the billionaires' club. As of Thursday morning, Forbes estimates his net worth is $400 million; the news outlet previously estimated the value of Ye's Adidas deal to be $1.5 billion.

Meanwhile, Gap announced Tuesday that it had shut down YeezyGap.com and was taking immediate action remove those products from stores, saying, "Antisemitism, racism, and hate in any form are inexcusable and not tolerated in accordance with our values."

yup..YeezyGap.com redirects to gap.com

What I don't understand is, how is his wealth being calculated here? Wouldn't Kanye's wealth be a roughly monotonically increasing function , that being his income from his endorsement deals? Losing said deals would not mean he has to forfeit accumulated wealth, just that he stops making any new wealth? So either he was never worth $2 billion or this decline is somehow based on some extrapolation?

From the Forbes link, it looks like an extrapolation : https://www.forbes.com/profile/kanye-west/?sh=515edd0c56f1

Forbes had valued the Adidas deal at $1.5 billion. Without it, West's fortune drops to $400 million.

That seems misleading to say someone is worth something but it's not actually realized

To add, it shows how the mere accusation of racism or antisemitism is the left's superpower. It forces the accused to go on the defense and presumes some guilt. Any nuance or misunderstanding on the accused goes out the window. You can destroy someone's reputation this way even if it was a mistake. As popular as anti-woke sentiment is on twitter ,like Rogan and Musk, it does not matter if the people who hold the levers of power are still, by in large, woke , and and you have to literally be a self-made millionaire to survive said accusations without being completely destroyed career-wise or reputationally. Someone can argue "what Kanye said was really egregious" but people have been cancelled, banned for less and it does not change the automatic presumption of guilt.

I strongly dislike this article because it's simply not true

https://compactmag.com/article/woke-ism-is-winding-down

Data on media outputs and “cancel-culture” incidents also suggest that a corner may have been turned. Across a range of datasets, we see apparent declines in “grassroots” attempts to censor uncomfortable speech on campus (even as there are growing attempts to suppress political scholarship from external stakeholders). Media discussion of various forms of prejudice and discrimination also seem to have declined significantly over the last year.

Within the Democratic Party, following anemic 2020 results and recalls of progressive politicians in blue states, there have been efforts to “course correct,” to avoid further alienating normie voters. The Democratic base has moved in a similar direction, broadly rejecting progressive candidates during the 2022 primaries. These countermeasures likely helped the party stave off the anticipated “red wave,” preventing extreme Republican candidates from facing Democratic challengers who were also perceived to be far out of step with mainstream America. Running moderate Democratic candidates against GOP extremists proved to be a winning move throughout the country in 2022.

Even if one can cite evidence of people turning against woke-ism, this does not change the fact that the woke still hold considerable power for a large number of institutions, at work, and various digital intellectual properties. The woke, the DEI people, BLM, etc. do not need to see the huge number of downvotes on their content (such as youtube videos , before downvotes were removed) to know that their ideology is not that popular, but this does not dissuade them: they still persevere. It has never been about popularity but about power.

When workers at Netflix attempted to cancel Dave Chappelle in late 2021, the company didn’t respond by issuing apologies and promising more programming on LGBTQ topics, as it had in the past. Instead, executives issued a memo informing protesting employees that if they weren’t open to publishing content they disagree with, they should quit. When an insufficient number of activist employees took them up on this invitation, the company proceeded with aggressive cuts apparently targeting these employees and the programming they worked on.

Too bad not all of us have the backing of a multi-billion dollar corp like Spotify or Netflix. It's not like Netflix can easily find another Chapelle or Spotify can find another Rogan. Regular people who get banned or suspended from twitter, reddit, etc or fired have far fewer recourse. It's all in the background: no one even notices or cares but the person who is affected. The marginal cost incurred by Facebook deleting an inconvenient account is zero. It has 2 billion users. No skin off its back.

I really want Trump to get out of the fucking way. He had his shot at being the hero of the populist right, he failed comprehensively. Somehow his enemies were stronger than ever after his tenure, with an even tighter grip on the culture, the levers of power, and the minds of our youth than ever before. His entire presidency was the perfect examples of one step forward, two steps back. He simply was not the guy.

He appointed an unprecedented three SCOTUS judges in a single term and others. I would not call that a failure. Did other stuff too. Did he make the left worse? Possible, but correlation not causation. Of course, this was not contingent on Trump per say.

Is Desantis the guy? 70% chance he's not in my estimation. But I'm willing to give him a shot.

He seems even more of an 'establishment guy' than Trump.

My only hope is that he has too much pride to come slinking back to Twitter without Elon issuing a personal apology for the terrible way Twitter treated him, and begging him on his hands and knees to please grace Twitter with his genius and insight again. I guess I have to further hope Elon doesn't then go and do just that.

Why would he ask or expect an apology when both he and Elon know it was the old management who banned him.

This is trending on Twitter Jury decides Alex Jones must pay $965 million in Sandy Hook defamation trial

The conspiracy theorist Alex Jones should pay $965 million to people who suffered from his false claim that the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting was a hoax, a jury in Connecticut decided Wednesday.

The verdict is the second big judgment against the Infowars host over his relentless promotion of the lie that the 2012 massacre never happened, and that the grieving families seen in news coverage were actors hired as part of a plot to take away people’s guns.

It is unclear how much of the verdicts Jones can afford to pay. During the trial in Texas, he testified he couldn’t afford any judgment over $2 million. Free Speech Systems has filed for bankruptcy protection. But an economist testified in the Texas proceeding that Jones and his company were worth as much as $270 million.

There is no way he or his company can afford $1 billion. What is the point of these huge verdicts if there is no hope of it being paid. From what I understand, collecting on a judgment can be as hard as winning. Likely Mr. Jones has various forms of asset protection set up. Texas and Florida have the most generous homestead protection.

Because this is a civil matter , not criminal, it means Mr. Jones can avail himself of these protections.

This is funny or sad ,depending on how you look at it

US Justice Dept Mulling Criminal Charges Against Binance Founder CZ: Report https://decrypt.co/116961/us-justice-dept-mulling-criminal-charges-against-binance-founder-cz-report

Imagine you're CZ. You just exposed one of the biggest fraudsters ever. And now the DOJ wants to investage...you. Meanwhile, the actual fraudster is still free, giving interviews. Yeah, the DOJ has been looking into binance for years, but it shows the unfairness of it all I guess.

Author, journalist Andrew Ross Sorkin plans to interview SBF on Nov. 30th

https://twitter.com/andrewrsorkin/status/1595517635441090565

SBF confirms

https://twitter.com/SBF_FTX/status/1595512579417378837

Even though SBF limited his replies to only people he follows, he is still getting trashed in his comments. Others are livid as well.

Does SBF deserve a platform despite being presumably a major fugitive? Is this ethical on the part of Sorkin?

Why is SBF still free or at least not in trouble?

Regarding the second item, I am guessing the feds are still in the evidence gathering stage. The feds cannot just issue an arrest unless they have enough evidence to build a case that with a near 100% certainty will lead to a conviction or a plea. Kenneth Lay of Enron for example was indicted in June 2004, nearly 3 years after Enron's bankruptcy.

Zelensky

comments that don't praise Zelensky get downvoted it seems. War has always been popular. Even ww2, in which there was trepidation initially, had the full backing of the public (obv. Pearl Harbor). Then when it fails (like Iraq or Vietnam) we can say in hindsight it was a bad idea after it's no longer popular to support it .

It's pandemonium again on twitter .

A tweet by musk about advertising got 70k likes in 10 minutes. To put this in perspective, a tweet he made yesterday about "small talk" got 70k but in an hour.

It's amazing how much people care about advertising.

My positions are: I don't think there is anything the left can do about the Musk threat, which is why I am optimistic. The left had 7 years to go after Trump and largely failed to stop him . https://greyenlightenment.com/2022/11/03/the-regimes-response-to-the-musk-threat-why-im-optimistic/

Second, I think people are over-estimating the implication as far as the government's response is concerned, but underestimating the social impact. I think this is a bigger deal than even the Russian invasion of Ukraine in terms of overall impact on society. As a force of sentiment , musk has raised conservative's odds by 10% or more.

Disney's 2023 releases have been duds

https://www.forbes.com/sites/carolinereid/2023/08/04/the-four-flops-of-2023-that-cost-disney-1-billion/?sh=4e9e00b13bed

Losses on some, profits on others. I don't see how a $100 million loss on a movie can cause a decline of market value in the tens of billion. mediocre movies cannot explain why the stock has fallen so much. Disney has always produced a lot of mediocre but expensive movies throughout its recent history [1], yet the stock has done so well , until 2022. The value is in the IP and other services, not so much box office. A movie that loses money at box office will still generate $ decades down the line through IP.

[1] https://screenrant.com/disney-biggest-box-office-bombs-disasters/#a-wrinkle-in-time-2018

This dropped a few hours ago:

Jan. 6 Committee Refers Former President Trump for Criminal Prosecution https://archive.vn/TDlGb#selection-289.14-297.189

The committee accused the former president of inciting insurrection and other federal crimes as it referred him to the Justice Department, which does not have to act on its recommendations.

Jan 6 committee refers Donald Trump for criminal prosecution on four counts – as it happened

The four counts of the Trump referrals are for “influencing or impeding an official proceeding of the US government”, “conspiring to defraud the US”, “unlawfully, knowingly or willingly making false statements to the federal government”, and “assisting or engaging in insurrection against the United States”.

On twitter I have seen the likes of Cernovich and others claim Elon is among the smartest people on earth, if not the smartest. He's smart, no doubt, but to be among the smartest would put him in the company of Fields Medalists, math Olympiad and Putnam winners, math and physics doctorates, etc. Possible but very improbable, imho. He's smart but not that smart. He benefited from luck and good business savvy and intuition about markets, all necessary ingredients for business success. The Twitter Blue verification system did not stop spam, as I and others correctly predicted (when scammers can make $1000s in a day , how is $8 a deterrent). Maybe he was not smart enough to see that, or he did not care.

As some are already aware, Huff Po is attempting to cancel the controversial writer/pundit Richard Hanania over some far-right posts he wrote a decade ago under an alias, which has been tied to his real identity. This coincides with his release of his book by Harper Collins, with the intent to have the publisher cancel it. v

The Huffington Post article: https://archive.is/YbIpz

(it would have been a 'boss move' had Elon suspended Huff Po account over this, declaring 'cancel culture is over'. )

There is already a prediction market about it, with 80 percent 'yes' it will be published

https://manifold.markets/AnonPlz/will-harper-collins-publish-richard

I agree overall though that nothing bad will happen to him, as I discuss here on my own blog post. First, cancellation does not work that well on academics/pundits as it does on other professions/careers (such as tenure). Even top CEOs are easier to cancel than pundits. Second, the left's credibility has been eroded in recent years due to hoxes , fake news, and 'mission creep' (when everyone is a racist or other bad person, the term loses its meaning/potency).

Democracy will never be replaced. It's trendy to proclaim Fukuyama is wrong or the world is regressing, so you ask "what will replace it , or why is it wrong" and cannot answer, or they bring up something hypothetical or small. No, Russia vs. Ukraine doe not threaten Fukuyama's thesis. The End of History was published in 1992 yet there have been many conflicts since then, like in Africa and the Balkans. He never promised a world free from conflict. Large, liberal democracies are still fully intact. I cannot think of any post-Cold War example of a large democracy sliding into authoritarianism. Maybe Turkey, but it still has elections, and it's not really a 'Western democracy'.

Sooner or later, some country will develop a system leveraging the above much more effectively than us and we’ll be outcompeted.

What country could that be, save for China (and even then, it's pretty weak and defensive). The rest of the Western world follows the US lead and subservient to it. Russia is nowhere close to being competitive at anything but natural resources.