Mike Brock 🇺🇸
@brockm.bsky.social
Former tech guy. Writer. Standing somewhere. A circus, perhaps. From here, this is what I see. Observations here: http://notesfromthecircus.com
My Cash App account was apparently banned because I am suspected of engaging in fraudulent or unauthorized activity. I cannot withdraw my full balance — which is all I'm allowed to do — because it exceeds the daily withdrawal limit.
What depoliticisation precludes many Russian citizens from seeing is that Putin’s propaganda is all about how he can’t stop losing. It’s an endless victim narrative about how, over and over, he can’t stop getting tricked by the West.
"Before long, the world will wake up," Aschenbrenner wrote in June 2024. On the last morning of July, part of it did. On the fire sale, the margin math, and the perception holding up the AI trade:
Situational Awareness
One day in July: the mechanism, the structure, and the first casualty
notesfromthecircus.com
AI benchmarks measure agreement with frozen human judgment. That's it. The "intelligence" claim is a Hume violation dressed as a scoreboard — is-instruments marketed as ought-detectors, priced at sovereign scale.
The Automated Understudy
AI benchmarks, what they actually measure, and what the market pays for the number
notesfromthecircus.com
I literally keep a list of former friends and colleagues who said I had TDS two years ago in the Notes App on my phone. And I have plans for this list.
Who needs cash reserves when you have a spreadsheet that says you're going to make $1.5 trillion in incremental revenue by 2028 on some spreadsheet that a finance guy shows at the weekly planning meetings?
On Sept 10, 2025, Larry Ellison was the richest man alive. Ten months later Oracle trades one notch above junk, the Warner deal is frozen, CBS is cratering, and $213B of his fortune is gone. One may be tempted to reach for the word karma.
The House of Ellison is on the Brink
Everything the world’s briefly richest man built is failing at once
notesfromthecircus.com
Long read, but an incredibly good description of how the right-wing media environment distorts reality.
Mike Brock 🇺🇸@brockm.bsky.social · last wk.The far left's influence in American life has been greatly exaggerated.
On the manufacture of Silicon Valley thought leadership.
The Man Who Productized Himself
Naval Ravikant and the manufacture of Silicon Valley “wisdom"
notesfromthecircus.com
The far left's influence in American life has been greatly exaggerated.
The Radical Left Mostly Doesn’t Exist
The reactionary machine’s real job is casting.
notesfromthecircus.com
Chinese open-source AI is not a threat to America. It is a mercy. Every quarter the mispricing runs, the eventual damage grows — and the Chinese labs are the one falsifier American capital markets cannot suppress from the inside.
The Race to Nowhere
Chinese open-source AI is not a threat to America. It is a mercy.
notesfromthecircus.com
On Musk’s attack on London: I am fully wheelchair-bound. Indeed, I am often too ill even to sit in the wheelchair. And yet I would be perfectly happy to ride it through the backstreets of East London at midnight. London remains, by the standards of the world’s great cities, a relatively safe place.
AI cannot deliver the returns it promised. So the industry made extinction part of the pitch. The bull case says the model is becoming a god. The bear case says it is becoming a demon. Nobody is allowed to say it is becoming a better tool.
The Doomsday Moat
The AI Industry Cannot Deliver the Returns It Promised. So It Made Extinction Part of the Pitch.
notesfromthecircus.com
An elite that welcomes Thiel in their polite company and argues for status quo centrism that doesn’t understand why the DSA is winning elections is an elite that can’t see the tidal wave coming for it.
The Room at Aspen
A microcosm of why the DSA is running the table in primary fights.
notesfromthecircus.com
The American right is not conservative. It is a revolutionary coalition trying to liquidate the Constitution. Conserving the republic will require taxing wealth, breaking monopolies, restoring law, and constitutional repair.
In Defense of (Liberal) Conservatism
What must change if the republic is to endure
notesfromthecircus.com
I have no eulogy for Lindsey Graham, who has departed us. But I do have some things to say. They are not kind things.
No Eulogy
What the Tributes Will Not Say
notesfromthecircus.com
Someone in a Signal chat said political violence is never justifiable. I said, wryly, well, that's not really true. The liberal tradition — from Locke through Jefferson through Douglass through Lincoln — has always contained a theory of when it is. This piece is that theory, held whole.
When is Political Violence Justified
What the Liberal Tradition Says on the Subject
notesfromthecircus.com
If this Mitch McConnell death coverup thing ends up being real after I faceplanted on similar inside rumors as Loomer a month ago, I’m going to be very angry at the universe. But I’m going to stick to analytic commentary going forward, regardless.
Nobody is doing more to move American voters to the left than the right.
Bill O’Reilly Slams Struggling Americans Who Are ‘Yowling About High Prices’
Struggling Americans should stop "yowling" about high prices and just get in the stock market already, Bill O'Reilly proclaimed on his No Spin News podcast.
mediaite.com
On Platner and the right's fake morality.
The Great Gaslighting of America
Your conservative friends and family are owed no victory lap.
notesfromthecircus.com
It does need to be said, that if Platner were the GOP candidate, the Republicans would by and large be reacting by circling the wagons, attacking the accuser, saying NYT reporting cannot be trusted, etc. As for the Dems: universally calling for him to drop out.
The whole tragic thing of the sexual assault account is that the woman says he was "blackout drunk" when it happened. So he could simultaneously have no memory of it, while she is very much telling the truth—which I think she is.
Platner must drop out. This allegation is far too credible.
I know who Joe Kernen's daddy is.
The Tennessee Holler @thetnholler.bsky.social · last mo.ICYMI: “How would you counter critics who say you’re using the presidency to enrich yourself & your family?” @cnbc.com host joe kernen trembles as he asks his hero Trump about the corruption and lets him lie to his face about not taking a salary🙄, not controlling his💰, etc
