Yep.

One of the big lessons of the last decade is that media can have billionaires as their primary market. The Free Press got huge because of infusions of cash from the rich. Media that flatters the opinions of billionaires and projects their propaganda into the world can be enormously valuable even if it isn't making traditional cash. It is a return to a patronage model.

Garry Tan has even said this expressly. That the rich should simply own their own parallel media so they can project their will against the will of the people.

Of course there is an incentive to build housing. Developers build homes and then sell them to people who live in those homes.

Did you miss the part where GP was proposing price controls?

In response to what is deemed to be unreasonable and/or undesirable landlord behavior ... such controls would not stop landlords from continuing to earn from their properties.

"Unreasonable behavior" is just "setting market prices."

Correct it wouldn't stop landlords from continuing to earn from their properties but it would destroy the incentive to produce additional housing, so nobody wins.

Not everybody who buys a home is a landlord.

I believe it is a separate set of things.

Thiel has an enormous amount of money. This makes him and his ideas have power, regardless of whether his ideas are crap. It further convinces people that his ideas aren't garbage even when these ideas are in different domains than his business.

New Apostolic Reformationists believe that there are increasing number of "new apostles" who are receiving messages from God, which they see as evidence of the end times.

It is also common among these folks to believe that the end times don't just happen and that instead it is our responsibility to create the circumstances that enable the end times. This can either mean creating a state of instability and violence or creating a worldwide christian theocracy that lasts for 1000 years. Both involve massive upheavals of global systems.

The deal was not just "trust Iran." It involved detailed inspections.

The fact that a16z hired Daniel Penny is to me the most disgusting example of this.

> If your theory is correct and the global elite really isn't significantly smarter than the average population then the next question is, how are they maintaining their spots against smarter competitors?

This question is only difficult to answer if we believe that our system operates on merit. A system that operates on power, connections, and backroom favors happily maintains the status of mediocre people.

US institutions are discrediting themselves.

No, there are targeting attacks online aimed at discrediting US institutions. People are afraid of defending the US and Israel online due to downvoting brigades.

> People are afraid of defending the US and Israel online

Do you sincerely believe this? This claim seems as wild as those vastly popular podcasters who constantly claim they're being "silenced".

I am not aware of any mechanism to ensure that everybody has a roof over their heads and 3 square meals a day besides direct payments to the poor.

Welfare and SNAP may be imperfect, but they seem to be working.

Welfare is a direct payment to the poor and SNAP is very close to that. Work requirements and other administrative hurdles are the primary thing that keeps these programs from truly ensuring that everybody has basic dignity.

Nobody can predict the future. But there are people whose job it is to deeply study the ways that various technologies have changed labor markets. Plenty of historians of science out there who can draw connections to and distinctions from the past.