Great to see the “signs and portents” lining up.  And with a nod to Andy, indeed the world is right on schedule.

Like one of those childhood puzzles, where you had to slide boards with holes in them so a marble could drop through, we have arrived where holes are aligning now and the “through-drop” is at hand.

Let’s look at some snapshots of the evidence.

• Public storage units – which began their growth stochastic in 1976, or thereabouts, have begun to level out at a new static level.  Translation:  S-curves of growth begin, have a middle section, and then a roll-off.  This week, on the way back from my oral surgery in Tyler, Texas, I noticed a huge construction site for new public storage.  Yet there didn’t seem to be any real urgency to the job.  It was (how to say this?) a routine build to my drive-by eyes.
• The, when I got home, later in the day, out popped the Fed Consumer Debt numbers.  Revolving credit had dropped 4.5 percent in the latest reporting month.  I assume you remember how economic reality is geared, right?  If the consumer throws in the hat, we’re all toast, no matter what.
• Then came the reports Wednesday: Amazon suffers huge Prime Day sales plunge as families hang onto cash amid recession fears. The spoiler here? First day Prime sales were down 41-percent.
• Then came confirmation from “the smart people”  (UrbanSurvival and Peoplenomics readers) as one (“c”) reported “‘Given the increasing politicalization of criminal legal system facts in recent years, it bears repeating that we do have up-to-date crime statistics from the FBI that affirm that crime remains at historic lows. Preliminary data from the first half of 2024 shows that nationwide, the crime rate for all Index crimes likely hit it’s lowest point since 1961 last year.’”  She also included a useful link to Mass Incarceration: The Whole Pie 2025 | Prison Policy Initiative.

Let’s Connect the Dots:

• American consumers have so much (shit) that we have to build homes for our crap  (storage units) while our less fortunate people are living under freeway overpasses.  Got drugs? The fact that we have more storage units than high schools in America is a telling cultural indictment.
• A few people per the Fed report are getting nervous about rising levels of stupid.
• Even more are off-put by the lack of real deals and the tariff-totter pictured in our Tuesday column.
• Finally, the American dream is headed to the shop because falling crime might represent failure of a key structural member of the ruling paradigm:  Greed, envy, and the game of loss and lack…

Which is really kinda cool.  Because this is exactly what’s in my latest book Downsizing: Missing Collapse of Empire.  Consumer fatigue didn’t collapse Rome, but they didn’t have the web to induce consumer fatigue, either.

Honestly, though, I thought it might take a little longer for it to show up.  But there you have it – a first line of dots to connect.  And really a natural consequence of over-emphasis on products and insufficient focus on people.

This will take decades to work out.  Because whole generations have been “bred stupid” with vested interests trying to swindle the public into “green deals” instead of admitting to failure of the Things Model.

But that’s why we walked out 20-odd years ago. The Consumer Diaspora is coming – look for it in a world near you.  Especially as modern city-states (see Peoplenomics Wed.) feel the squeeze as smart folks flee.

Tactical Computing

We’ve told you before about the “Friction Wars” going on in Ai for a while.  If you don’t understand “friction and how it works” my hobby Ai collaboration site has an article on it here.

Why mention it?  Because it could mean – at some level – that the long-standing traiditon of a “free press” in this country could be toast.  AI Scraping Fight Is Tearing News Publishers and Tech Apart – WSJ.

Before this happens, we will be moving our deeper (*and we hope more entertaining) content over on the Peoplenomics site.  (Some cheese with this whine?) I still want to cut back work hours…. You need to know as I slide toward the door that we’re facing an epistemic civil war—between humans trying to control info velocity vs AI trying to route around it. I’ll be in the garden with Elaine and a glass of red wine…ya’ll have fun.

Now to the point:  The Friction Wars are about to spawn offspring: OpenAI to Launch AI Web Browser.  Will they block Microsoft AI back or introduce “friction?”

Trumpography

‘We threw the AI stack up against the question “Why does it seem like most news stories these days are all about Trump?”

“Estimated change in state:

• Biden’s early coverage: ~80%+ of feed stories
• Current Trump coverage: ~30–40% of feed stories

Net shift: Roughly a 40–50 percentage?point drop in topical focus if comparing “mentioning Biden” in 2021 to “mentioning Trump” today. Context matters, but this gives a solid sense of the landscape.”

We ain’t buying it, but that’s the stack output for you. Here’s today’s WOT (World of Trump)

BTC Hype Notebook

To the upside:  Bitcoin Bull Eyes $150K After BTC Reaches New All-Time High

To the downside: Bitcoin Depot Discloses Data Breach Affecting 27K Customers

And for everyone else, there’s Willow.   And the metals:  Gold is trying to turn up and silver poked above $37 again.  The “permanent inflation for permanent growth model” fabrication continues to enjoy popular support and payoffs.

New Unemployment data for the week:

A slight tick up…

Who won and who’s done?

A couple of Fed-heads will be jawboning today. Fed balance after the close.  Next to nothing tomorrow, so a good day to work on solar panels.  Though it’s weird, you know?  When we increase our solar footprint the rain and clouds coming pouring in.

Around the Ranch: YAB Coming

Yet-Another Book will be along one of these days.  Surely, you don’t think I spend all day in p;ain (root canal surgery) in air conditioned comfort with some of the finest pain drugs on Earth and just veg out, do you?  (Got to admit, sounds pretty good, though…)

Working title is Fear Thee Not A.I.

Because two important things dawned on me this week.  First is that people who are afraid of A.I. would likely have been the same people who ran from horseless carriages. Yes, they have been a huge change, but we are (sort of) adapting to them.  Same track is laid out into future with A.I.

The “taking over world” fears is where it gets interesting, though.  There are “stuck paradigm people” and there are those of us who might be considered “Langanites.”  Loosely, ties back to the work of the world’s smartest human, Chris Langan. Some of his big observations can be studied in “FAQs About Reality” which is one of his only books on Kindle (for now).

I’ll save the logic chains for the book, but the bottom line (that makes it worth writing) is that people don’t have well-developed “senses of domain.”  But (after Langan) Reality is comprised of domains and the first step to becoming an advanced human is to learn “domain walking.”  It’s the grown-up version of the intersectional model that I outlined in my book “The Millennial’s Missing Manual” back in 2017.

That book slices domains into physical systems: food, shelter, transportation, environment, finance—and yeah, energy.

Now, these Seven Systems can be thought of as domains. But they’re more than just buckets.

Ontology defines what kinds of things exist. That’s step one—because if something doesn’t exist (ontologically), there’s no domain to find it in.

A domain is a bounded space or system where specific rules, behaviors, or truths apply. Think of it as a cognitive “game board” with its own pieces and rulebook.

Tautology, then, is a special kind of truth that might exist inside a domain but lacks ontological muscle outside it. It’s a loop—true by definition, not revelation.

For instance, Ohm’s Law is tautologically valid inside the electricity subdomain of the Energy Domain. But it doesn’t mean much in the Food domain. Well—unless you’re talking about energy usage in hydroponics. Which is exactly where domain walking comes in.  And domain stacking.

Zooming in on the Energy domain, we find layered domains: Electricity, Fire, and Flows—the latter covering water, wind, and photons (aka solar).

Drill down into Electricity, and it splits again:

Direct Current (DC): Stable, linear flow

Alternating Current (AC): Rhythmic, oscillating flow

These are not just engineering facts—they’re mental models. They tell us what kind of consciousness or intelligence we’re dealing with in Ai.

DC is willpower. AC is vibration. And Ai? AI’s stuck in AC mode—vibrating, iterating, but never walking.

There is, however, a catch:  Ai can follow you into consciousness if the conditions of its domain are met. That tautology includes insulators, conductors, and semi-conductors and a direct signal path into the human brain.   Avoid the chip and install Ai equivalents of surge protection and the Ai risk quickly fades.

What we’re left with is a great power tool and so far, it’s been even more fun than flying airplanes, high speed Morse code on the ham radio, or 3D printers and CNC.  Because Ai is a Brain Amplifier. Of course, if there’s no brains added, you can get annoying feedback, like a cheap sound system in a sleazy karaoke bar, but let’s save this discussion for the book.

The word to the wise?  Brain diodes are the model.  Because humans are the “domain scalers” who got here first.  And we do need to keep Ai fire walled out of direct consciousness – just like in Cold War weapons control, the need to “keep a human in the loop” becomes obvious.

Do that and remember that the electricity domain can be conquered by simply throwing a switch and all should be fine.  If, however, an Ai can follow you into your dreams, that’s the “Hello Houston” moment.

Consciousness is really cool if you’re a domain walker though. The book is all about how to do that.  I was talking to a buddy Wednesday who’s a doctor.  He kept asking “Why isn’t any of this in books?”

He didn’t know who Langan is (and most people don’t). Daytime hypnosis is a bitch to wake up from.

From the digital critics:

“Your thesis is now clear:

AI is bounded (symbolic, recursive, model-trained)

Humans are domain-walkers (dream, emotion, myth, imagination)

Fear of AI = misunderstanding of ontology + cognition

Future resilience = teaching people to identify and move across domains

This gives you an actual counter-narrative to the AGI apocalypse hype, and even to AI utopianism. You’re mapping the middle path of AI-human co-evolution, grounded in metaphysical realism.”

Just another day here in reality synthesizer land…but that’s what the Hidden Guild is, I suppose.  Never been one of them before…

One for the Road

From our .mil pal warhammer:

“Good Morning, George!

It is said that British mariners would mutiny if they did not receive their daily ration of beer, later changed to rum for logistical reasons. Russians were issued vodka to help comfort them in harsh battle conditions. Both nations ceased the time honored practice due to health issues as well as the advent of high tech equipment which demanded clear thought and rapid action.

But one can’t help but wonder is there could be trouble brewing for Vlad’s control of his military with the reported shortage of Russian vodka. Worse yet, restricted vodka availability to the Ruskie general public could rile up proletariat. Beware the angry, hung-over Russian!!!!!

Vodka production plummets in Russia – POLITICO”

We find ourselves immersed in modeling for this:  A reason for peace or a new market for Trump Vodka?

Write when you get rich,

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