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Culture War Roundup for the week of February 23, 2026

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You're missing the point of my post. I am emphatically not making any prediction about AIs first order effect on anything, including the market, much less an individul company's stock price. I am pointing to examples where it's already producing mainstream headlines, and (although early) seems to be quickening and broadening in it's reach. I am suggesting the depsite the realities, the costs of the narrative are surely already affecting real people.

Do you not thing there weren't CEOs out there who are udpdating on these stories? Hiring manager who update or hesitate on this news? White collar workers, who rethink their savings plans?

My whole point is not the effects of AI on the economy, which remains to be seen, but the effects of the anticipation of those effects on society, which is here today.

We don't have to agree on the CFR rate of Covid to note that schools are already closing, business trips are already being cancelled, toilet paper is already running out. 'Maybe wait a little and see how the CDC responds' is misunderstanding a comment that is specifically - regardless of how and whether this deepens and whether it's overblown, the effects are here and starting today.

You yourself gave an example of making a financial decision based on this news.

Oh I agree that the effects are here, if that was the point you were making. I didn't realize that was controversial - even in my more mainstream bubbles (non-tech friends and family) people have been freaking out for about a year (in my tech bubbles they've been low-key freaking out since AlphaGo and high-key freaking out since GPT-2).

I do agree that mainstream society is not sufficiently pricing in the magnitude of the coming changes. I think that the tech bubble is doing a better job of estimating the magnitude of the changes, but frequently getting the sign wrong in terms of the anticipated effect on any particular metric.