New hat, new mailbag

AI slowdown, DEIA at the NIH, and more

The most important transition news of the week is that we now have Slow Boring hats for sale via Cotton Bureau, available in a few different styles. It’s always been my ambition to have more Slow Boring merch out there and we are drilling away at it.

I was also hoping to have something to say about Trump’s pick for Secretary of Transportation, but there’s really nothing to say about Sean Duffy. He meets the (low) bar of traditional qualification for the post, in the sense that he’s some politician, as well as a guy Trump has seen on Fox News. Waiting for HUD!

Until then, some questions.

Jessica Drew: Is it might be time for the loudest activists to admit that most voters in this country prefer at least a somewhat homogenous culture to a wide open, anything-goes one that is allergic to the word “assimilation”. And they would prefer it at least to the same extent they would prefer economic stability? That really do want a melting pot, where traditional ideas are respected?

I don’t know that this is even the subject of much activist controversy. I definitely think doing some pro-assimilation position-taking is the lowest hanging fruit in immigration politics — talk about getting people to learn English, teach America’s patriotic civic culture, etc.

Freddie deBoer: If the AI slowdown/plateau is as real as it looks, couldn't it plunge the stock market into a massive meltdown? The degree to which Wall Street has levered itself on these LLM companies is insane.

There’s a lot happening in this question. I don’t totally buy the idea of an AI plateau.