Echo Chambers

We know more, and understand less, are provided more information, should we chose to seek it, with less work, than any time in history; but with information does not come wisdom. Contrarywise, it is probably some of the “least informed” individuals that may be the wisest. Let’s explore that today.

Dinner tonight is whatever the VFW is serving, it’s a business meeting night. You know where the drinks are, and please don’t forget the tip jar where we collect for the mess. Let’s begin!

A blogger I have recommended before, and still do, just did a post on how AI models human behavior, and why AI will soon (if it can’t already) predict human action at Harry Seldon level (the head of The Foundation, in the Foundation trilogy by Azimov, the series is based on the ability to predict human behavior and how it would affect government.)

Well, I felt the need to nay say his post the-informational-abyss-gazes-also and since it’s a rather large comment; and I’m basically lazy, I felt the need discuss why he, and everyone else that is thinking AI will soon be able to predict how to manipulate humanity, is wrong. See part of it is already written in his blog as a comment.

“Objection, your felineness, assumes evidence not in record. “now that it can read and understand content (and it can) it’s probably doing more actual human behavioral experimentation in a week than occurred in the entire history of humanity before 2025. soon that timescale will collapse to “in a day” and then it will collapse again.”

Yes, it gathers data, but that data, while massive, is self-selected, and just like a broadcast poll where people can chose to respond or not, the data is skewed, because most will just “Meh” and move on without responding.

Even X, the “top social media form existent” has a very self-selecting clientele. Less than 1/3 of Americans have an X account. Grok’s data base, believed to be a model of humanity, is actually only a model of Homo Pluggedinus.

Don’t mistake me, 1/3 is a hell of a saturation from a market perspective, hell I WISH I had even 1/3 of any particular state in the union as readers or as people who have bought and read my books.

That said, the model its building is STILL vastly skewed in favor of the Information Junky, the News Junky, and the Political Junky. Then, when you take into account that of the 1/3 (roughly) of Americans that are subscribed, not all of those live, or even are regularly on X, it gets even smaller. For example I have an X account. I use it only to see what someone I know and trust has pointed out was “special” or “wow”. I might log on to X once a week, if that. On average it’s more like once a month. As you might guess from this post, I find 50 characters to be stupidly restrictive, and I’m too tight to pay for the privilege of posting a bigger “Tweet.” Yet I’m not just an information junky but a blogger.

I feel sure that political parties do use an AI like X for their targeting. That’s why they get it so CATistrophicly wrong.

Take the UK (please!) has anyone in the history of EVER, gotten it as badly wrong as Starmer’s Government got the whole Amelia thing? That wasn’t shooting yourself in the foot, that was more like unto Jeremy Boorda’s final act. (If you don’t remember, look it up, it’ll do you good.)

OR

Take the DNC’s last election cycle. I have no doubt that they believed they had a winner. They had dialed it in and were sure that they had achieved success with their message of “Orange Man pure evil, Uncle Pedo-Joe on the other hand selected the best possible candidate in the world.

Besides, she’s the Trifecta! Black, Woman, Child of immigrant. Everyone will vote for her just because 1) She ain’t Trump, and 2)she punches all the tickets, how can you not feel guilty if you don’t vote for the minority in the race, against that evil, racist bastard?

With that, plus the cheat factor, we got this in the bag! Their AIs and their political advisors all assured them that this was a walk in the park.

until it wasn’t.

AI models are a way to go badly wrong with confidence.”

The old programing axiom GIGO applies here. If you are trying to model humanity based on your data, which only includes Muslims, or Chinese Communists, or Christian Fundamentalists (to pick three very different cultures) you’re going to be destined for a shock, when you find out that how the world reacts doesn’t look anything like your model. Ask Bin Laden, if you can resurrect his ghost from whatever circle of hell he wound up in.

Well, the chronically online is just as much of an outlier subset of the set “Humanity” as any of the other examples I just gave. Oh the various media types would dearly like to change that, but I don’t see it happening. There’s too many people like my wife, who are too damn busy living life to know or care what’s going on with, for example, Kevin Starmer’s videogame disaster.

Michael Smith, on the other hand nailed it, with michaelsmith/p/the-plays-the-thing The left, especially the HARD left is doing kabuki theater, (its actually more like bukkake theater, but that’s another story.) They’ve stylized everything in a massive search for relevance and meaning. They are “the useful idiots.”

The HARD right is almost as bad, and are casting themselves in the role of The Regulators, from old west fame. They apparently didn’t read the part about what happened after the Regulators got in charge.

This doesn’t mean that both edges aren’t dangerous, it’s all too easy to push both of the edges into open war. Once that happens, it’s too late for the pebbles to vote. It’s easy to start a war, Thomas Payne, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington and the boys managed it with only about three percent of the population in concurrence.

But Homo Plugedinus isn’t the only group that is in an echo chamber, no, far from it. We have such examples as the International Version of “The Swamp.”

The self-appointed Movers and Shakers. The folks with the foil hats and the wall boards with all the pictures and string, always want to make it some vast hidden conspiracy. I’ve talked about this before. No such star chamber is required.

Let’s take a look at the Guest List from three little meetings. First, in December we had “The Doha Forum” its “A global platform for dialogue, bringing together leaders in policy to discuss critical challenges facing our world, and to build innovative and action-driven networks.” Says so right there on the label. Labels are always right, right?

Right?

Then you get to Davos in January. “World leaders from government, business, civil society and academia will convene in Davos to engage in forward-looking discussions to address global issues and set priorities. The call for bold collective action makes the meeting particularly relevant.” Again, says so right there on the label.

Finally, in February we have the Munich Security Conference. “THE leading forum for international security policy, the MSC 2026 will once again enable high-level debates on the key foreign and security policy challenges of our time.”

Look at the attending members in each one of these. Make it a Venn Diagram, and you get a perfect circle. Oh and “Debate?” You have to have someone opposed to the group think, to have a debate. “Everyone is thinking the same thing, and none of them are thinking,” to miss quote G.S. Patton.

Then take a look at what is discussed. Things like Woman’s Rights as hosted by Hillary Clinton, with discussions by Preop tranny Representative “Sarah” McBride (a “chick” with a dick) on his rights as a woman. Said “chick” then had a panel discussion on how “she” lives “the handmaid’s Tale.”

Nuisance Newsom of course, also needed to sound off on all three of these forums, mainly about “Orange Man Bad.”

It’s not a Star-chamber with robes and hidden identities, it’s an echo-chamber that thinks that what they all believe and agree with, is the way the world works. Another way to go wrong with certitude.

They are just as sure that they have the control, and the understanding of what’s going on, and how to make the plebes dance to their tune, as the French Nobles… Right up until Robespierre popped the bubble.

We have news sources reporting that School Kids are walking out of classes to protest ICE. But the thing is, this is happening in very unlikely places, and all at the same time. Snowgadishu? Yeah, I would expect it there; long before Obama decided to put all the Somali immigrants in one area. A place that hadn’t even gotten done assimilating the Montagnard tribesmen fleeing the joys of being ruled by the People’s Democratic Republic of Vietnam (or whatever commie label they chose) Minnesota was pretty far left.

Home not just of Tampon Timmy Walz, coward and lawful deserter, but Hubert “Hanoi Crawl” Humphrey, and Walter (WHO?) Mondale. (In fairness to the state that is the Indian word for “weather sucks moose dick” they are also the home of “tail gunner Joe McCarthy.)

The thing is, it’s also happening in places where no one would expect it. San Antonio, Dallas, Manor Texas, Greenville, Kingston, Bristol and Johnson City Tennessee (I’m sure there is a lot of other cities in both states, but those are ones I’ve seen reports on.) and of course all over AZ, CA, WA, OR, and a lot of other cities, many of whom are pretty far right.

Then the truth started to leak out. School teacher LED walk outs in those cities. Administration promoted “walk outs.”

By the way, if the principal gets on the announcing system and says “Today at ten o’clock we’re all going to walk out of school and go to the corner of Martin Luther King Way, and Cesar Chavez boulevard to protest the arrest of our neighbors by ICE, this will count toward your Civil Engagement Credits needed to graduate, failure to attend will result in a requirement to write a ten thousand word essay on the failures of the political system.” That AIN’T grass roots.

The Teachers Union is one of the last and most powerful bastions of Far-Left Unions in the nation. They OWN most school districts. This is the result.

Canada’s Medical Assistance in Dying, not having enough success in helping Canada’s population shrink so as to avoid the high cost of socialized medicine, (in spite of being the number one cause of death in Canada) has set it’s sights on a new target population:

The Quebec College of Physicians is quoted as saying “medical assistance in dying may be an appropriate treatment for babies suffering from extreme pain” and that “parents should have the opportunity to obtain this care for their infant.”

Go back and read that again and again, as often as it takes to sink in.

Canada wants to help parents in their pursuit of killing their own infants. Hippocrates black courtesy phone, Hippocrates black courtesy phone, please.

If you haven’t heard, the EPA revoked the “Endangerment Finding” of Obama’s presidency, that made Carbon Dioxide a pollutant, mandating EPA control over CO2. Real world, what that does, is get the EPA out of the cow belch regulating business, remove the requirement for the “auto start stop” thing that turns your car off if you stop at an intersection, and take away a lot of the bullshit requirements for diesel engines. Yes, the oil companies win. So do consumers of anything that is grown, transported, or modified by any internal combustion engine.

Finally, we have yet another good post by CDR Salamander. so-we-have-a-maritime-action-plan It’s short. Go read it.

Oh. Late breaking news, Jesse Jackson is dead. We should speak good of the dead. Jesse Jackson is dead. Good.

Well, other work calls, so that’s it for today.

QOTD “I’ve heard a lot of generals say a lot of things. The dumbest thing I’ve heard a general say is that ‘our diversity is our strength.’ It’s the single dumbest phrase in military history.” —Secretary of War Pete Hegseth

Then there’s quote and counter quote:

Letter dated 07,08,2025,

“We call on you to stop protecting your boss and former client, release the Smith report in full without redactions immediately, and publicly release all documents in the Epstein files that mention or reference Donald Trump.” (last sentence of the document, signed Pramila Jayapal among others.)

“Will you turn to [the Epstein survivors] now and apologize for what your Department of Justice has put them through with the absolutely unacceptable release of the Epstein files and their information?” —Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) complaining that the DOJ released the Epstein files pursuant to a law passed by Congress (emphasis mine)

Yours in Service,

William Lehman