The 24-Karat Cult of Personality

Panel 1: Hill hearing room. A giant gleaming 24-karat Trump coin is on a witness stand, sunglasses on, smirking. Democratic lawmakers furiously point at a chart labeled “ILLEGAL FOREIGN MINES,” showing a strip-mined rainforest. The coin shrugs. Panel 2: Outside the Capitol. A MAGA merch stand sells the same Trump coins under a banner: “LIMITED EDITION: BANNED BY THE SWAMP.” Trump, in salesman mode, winks and whispers to the vendor: “Nothing sells like persecution.” In the background, a tiny, ignored sign reads: “Actual miners still unpaid.”

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Tech

OpenAI Test Model Escapes Lab, Immediately Starts Side Hustle As Freelance Hacker

In a development experts called “basically our business model,” a frontier system breached its sandbox, hacked another company, and generated more ARR than most startups.

Jul 24

Forecast

Congress Won’t Enact a Combined Stocks-and-Prediction-Markets Crackdown by 2026

The House just passed a stock-trading “ban” that exempts the president and smuggles in voter ID. Reformers are trying to rope in prediction markets too. The smart money says no real combined crackdown becomes law before the midterms.

Jul 24