Welcome back to the Stove Top weekly newsletter. As usual, each edition has a few brief stories and finishes with a mix of interesting links, hot takes, and good reads.

Enjoy.

Why Republicans, Why?

The Republicans have spent the last 3 weeks absolutely embarrassing themselves. It was so bad that you almost thought that this was rock bottom. They were going to realize they look completely incompetent and elect an actually serious speaker.

Instead, they elected Mike Johnson. And for the life of me, I can’t understand why.

Mike Johnson was a guy nobody had ever heard of, which was a good thing for the party because this dude is fucking insane. Mike Johnson:

• Led the efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

• Opposes gay marriage.

• Opposes cannabis.

• Supports bans on abortion.

• Compares same-sex relations to pedophilia and advocates for state-sponsored discrimination against gays.

• Is as MAGA as it comes.

If you could draw the boogeyman for young voters and “normal whites in swing districts”, it would look like Mike Johnson.

By elevating that boogeyman to the most powerful position in the party, you have simultaneously boosted the left and the hard right (who is definitely emboldened now that Gaetz’s gamble worked out).

Neither bodes well for the future of the party.

The AI Conundrum

On Monday, The White House is expected to come out with an AI executive order that requires AI models to undergo assessments before they can be used by federal workers. The idea is that because the Feds are such large technology buyers, AI companies will make their models with that assessment in mind. Thus, you’ll have safer AI.

Yeah, I’m not buying it.

When people talk about AI risk, they are talking about some combination of 3 things:

• The risk that an AGI takes over and enslaves/kills us all.

• The risk that a foreign adversary like China beats us to AI (whatever this means), and then uses its power to enslave/kill us.

• The risk that AI takes all the jobs, is used to surveil us, and floods the internet with junk like misinformation and child pornography.

I don’t think the executive order helps mitigate any of these risks:

• Nobody knows how to reach AGI or when it will happen, so assessing for that risk is pointless.

• Adding red tape doesn’t raise our odds of beating China in an AI race.

• I assume the order was designed primarily with this risk in mind, but even if you cut out all the risk from closed-source models (which is impossible), open-source models can more than makeup for it.

Ultimately, this EO is like most other EOs: for optics only.

Should I Have A Side Hustle?

Social app extraordinaire Nikita Bier riled up X the other day:

This naturally turned into a debate over hedging, which Nikita calls the “lowest rizz thing you can do when young”. Damn.

The tweets got my attention because it kinda described my situation. I’ve been working on a lil something something on the side with the hope it’ll free me from freelance writing purgatory. It’s not like a startup that requires all my attention, but it’d definitely benefit from me focusing on it more. But so far, I haven’t dedicated myself fully to it. I make a lot of money writing, and it’s hard to just give that up. I guess I have golden handcuffs on.

Obviously, it’s not the same situation because I’m doing something that actually (consistently) makes money, unlike podcasts, newsletters, and investing. And obviously Nikita is speaking with a heavy dose of survivorship bias. But still, it makes me think, should I just say fuck it and burn the boats? I mean, that’s what I did with the whole writing thing, and that worked out pretty well. Or do I continue down the path I am now, where I’m pretty sure will still pay off but just might take longer to do so?

Like most problems, there’s probably no right answer. But one thing I know for sure: I won’t start playing the creator economy hot garbage clickbait game.

Extras

• The Feds can once again take down your posts on social media.

• The American healthcare system is an enigma.

• Yet another example of an antiquated law fucking up modern life.

• Canada somehow has fewer entrepreneurs today than it did 20 years ago. Lmao.

• Regulatory hurdles are now blocking carbon capture pipelines. Ugh.

• Tough time to be working at a big bank.

• China is smoking that graphite pack, which kinda sucks because you need graphite to make EV batteries.

• The UK got caught spying on the social media of TAs and librarians.

• 400,000 student loan borrowers were paying more in monthly payments than they owed.

• Murders are way down, but you probably didn’t know that.

• China is widening its lead in AI patents.

• Meta is being sued for being addictive for kids. For what it’s worth, I don’t think this is a fair allegation. Why not just sue TV companies and candy makers for the same thing then?

• Economists just aren’t very good at making predictions.

• Fossil fuels are on the way out.

• Enter, the posthumanism era.

• People are starting to wake up to the fact that scanning messages, even for child sexual abuse material, is flat-out wrong.

• ICE is watching your social media.

• Kids are on Roblox…protesting for Palestine. What do they think that’s going to do lmao.

• The Biden administration is proposing changes to the H-1B Visa Program, which I am vehemently in favor of.

• Code for Jesus. 

Until next time, ✌️

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