Greg Linden

@glinden.bsky.social

1.6K followers 290 following 1.2K posts

an internet relic, linkedin.com/in/glinden

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Business 56%

Economics 33%

Posts Replies Media Videos

Reposted by Michael E. Mann, Brendan Nyhan, Tim Bale , and 9 more Michael E. Mann, Brendan Nyhan, Tim Bale, Rosemary A. Joyce, Leigh Sparks, Joseph Schafer, Michael Kevane, Michael Jones‐Correa, Marcus Credé, Greg Linden, Nathan P. Kalmoe, David Darmofal

Philip Bump @pbump.com · 7h

Every part of this is bonkers. The intro is bonkers. The transition to his health is bonkers. The mention that other presidents didn't need cognitive exams is bonkers. The claim that this screening test is somehow hard is bonkers. The idea that criticism of him is treason is bonkers. All of it.

There has never been a President that has worked as hard as me! My hours are the longest, and my results are among the best. I’ve stopped Eight Wars, saving many millions of lives in the process, created the Greatest Economy in the History of our Country, brought Business back into the United States at levels never seen before, rebuilt our Military, created the Largest Tax Cuts and Regulation Cuts, EVER, closed our open and very dangerous Southern Border, when previous Administrations were unable to do so, and created an “aura” around the United States of America that has led every Country in the World to respect us more than ever before. In addition to all of that, I go out of my way to do long, thorough, and very boring Medical Examinations at the Great Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, seen and supervised by top doctors, all of whom have given me PERFECT Marks — Some have even said they have never seen such Strong Results. I do these Tests because I owe it to our Country. In addition to the Medical, I have done something that no other President has done, on three separate occasions, the last one being recently, by taking what is known as a Cognitive Examination, something which few people would be able to do very well, including those working at The New York Times, and I ACED all three of them in front of large numbers of doctors and experts, most of whom I do not know. I have been told that few people have been able to “ace” this Examination and, in fact,

most do very poorly, which is why many other Presidents have decided not to take it at all. Despite all of this, the time and work involved, The New York Times, and some others, like to pretend that I am “slowing up,” am maybe not as sharp as I once was, or am in poor physical health, knowing that it is not true, and knowing that I work very hard, probably harder than I have ever worked before. I will know when I am “slowing up,” but it’s not now! After all of the work I have done with Medical Exams, Cognitive Exams, and everything else, I actually believe it’s seditious, perhaps even treasonous, for The New York Times, and others, to consistently do FAKE reports in order to libel and demean “THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.” They are true Enemies of the People, and we should do something about it. They have inaccurately reported on all of my Election Results and, in fact, were forced to apologize on much of what they wrote. The best thing that could happen to this Country would be if The New York Times would cease publication because they are a horrible, biased, and untruthful “source” of information. Thank you for your attention to this matter. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!

Reposted by Joseph Schafer, Brian Keegan, Greg Linden

Mike Stabile @mikestabile.bsky.social · 12h

"Elon’s entire incoherent free speech framework collapses into a single coherent principle: speech I like is protected, speech I don’t like should be punished.

This is what happens when someone who never understood the actual principles of free speech tries to cosplay as a free speech absolutist."

Three Tweets That Capture The Entire Elon Musk Free Speech Con

We’ve spent years calling out what a hypocrite Elon Musk is on free speech. But sometimes the universe Elon hands you a gift: three tweets in the span of a little over a week that demonstrate…

www.techdirt.com

Reposted by Greg Linden

Andy Craig @andycraig.bsky.social · 12h

Rep. Thanedar has filed two articles of impeachment against Hegseth, one for "murder and conspiracy to murder" and the other for "reckless and unlawful mishandling of classified information." 🧵

(Full disclosure: I was happy to consult a bit on drafting this.)

Resolved, That Peter B. Hegseth, Secretary of De2 fense, is impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors,
3 and that the following articles of impeachment be exhib4 ited to the Senate:
5 Articles of impeachment exhibited by the House of
6 Representatives of the United States of America in the
7 name of itself and of the people of the United States of
8 America, against Peter B. Hegseth, Secretary of Defense,

Reposted by Greg Linden

Brian Merchant @bcmerchant.bsky.social · 13h

It's truly wild to me that this just keeps happening. Coca-Cola runs an AI ad and people overwhelmingly react with disgust. They do it again, and people are disgusted again. Now McDonald's makes an AI ad that's so bad that so many people are furious about it they pull it down.

People hate AI slop!

McDonald's Pulls Down AI-Generated Holiday Ad After Deluge of Mockery

McDonald's Netherlands is catching flak for a stupefying AI-generated video, which was roundly condemned on social media.

futurism.com

Reposted by Brendan Nyhan, Steve Peers, Rosemary A. Joyce , and 5 more Brendan Nyhan, Steve Peers, Rosemary A. Joyce, Gerald Friedman, Bessma Momani, Michael D. McDonald, Vaughan S. Roberts, Greg Linden

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 14h

Wow -- Russia reportedly plotted last year to plant bombs on US-bound flights (gift link) giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/...

Reposted by Greg Linden

Center for an Informed Public @cip.uw.edu · 15h

“Social media algorithms direct our attention and influence our moods and attitudes, but until now, only platforms had the power to change their algorithms’ design and study their effects,” said Saveski, a @ischool.uw.edu assistant professor.

Read more: www.washington.edu/news/2025/12... (3/3)

Social media research tool can reduce polarization — it could also lead to more user control over algorithms

A web-based method was shown to mitigate political polarization on X by nudging antidemocratic and extremely negative partisan posts lower in a user’s feed. The tool, which is independent of the...

www.washington.edu

Reposted by Greg Linden

Center for an Informed Public @cip.uw.edu · 15h

🧵A new tool developed by researchers, including @cip.uw.edu faculty member @msaveski.bsky.social, shows it is possible to reduce partisan rancor in an X feed — without removing political posts and without the direct cooperation of the platform. (1/3) www.washington.edu/news/2025/12...

Social media research tool can reduce polarization — it could also lead to more user control over algorithms

A web-based method was shown to mitigate political polarization on X by nudging antidemocratic and extremely negative partisan posts lower in a user’s feed. The tool, which is independent of the...

www.washington.edu

Reposted by Greg Linden

Joseph Cox @josephcox.bsky.social · 15h

“I hate it,” VanderMeer said in an email. “If I post content, I want to be the one contextualizing it, not some third party. It's especially bad because they're using the most click-bait style of headline generation, which is antithetical to how I try to be on social” www.404media.co/instagram-is...

Instagram Is Generating Inaccurate SEO Bait for Your Posts

Instagram is generating headlines for Instagram posts that appear on Google Search results. Users say they are misrepresenting them.

www.404media.co

Greg Linden @glinden.bsky.social · 17h

Remarkable to see NeurIPS, which used to be a relatively niche academic conference, covered in the national press including interviews with researchers. That's quite a change. Even during the 2000 dot com bubble, I don't remember press coverage of academic research conferences.

Techmeme @techmeme.com · 1d

Scientists at NeurIPS, which drew a record 26,000 attendees this year, say key questions about how AI models work and how to measure them remain unresolved (Jared Perlo/NBC News)

Main Link | Techmeme Permalink

Reposted by Greg Linden

Craig Silverman @craigsilverman.bsky.social · 19h

I've been investigating digital deception for ~15yrs and 2025 was the worst year.

VC-backed bot farms, endless AI slop, industrial level scams, abusive AI nudifiers, Meta paying $ for hoaxes... Deception was legitimized, monetized & shoved down the public’s throat:

indicator.media/p/2025-the-y...

2025: The year tech embraced fakeness

This year, powerful people, companies, and institutions welcomed digital deception like never before. The rest of us faced the consequences.

indicator.media

Reposted by Greg Linden

Techmeme @techmeme.com · 1d

The European Commission opens an investigation into Google to assess possible anticompetitive conduct by Google in "the use of online content for AI purposes" (Barbara Moens/Financial Times)

Main Link | Techmeme Permalink

Reposted by Greg Linden

Techmeme @techmeme.com · 1d

Reposted by Greg Linden

SMBC Comics @smbccomics.bsky.social · 1d

Later, as a matter of principle, they have a 1 to 1 sex to children ratio.

COMIC ◆ www.smbc-comics.com/comic/capita...
PATREON ◆ www.patreon.com/ZachWeinersm...
STORE ◆ smbc-store.myshopify.com

Part 1/2 of a 6-panel SMBC comic update. A man is proposing to a woman during a sunset. She reacts to the ring box by saying "A box containing the cash-equivalent value of an engagement ring!" We see that the ring box is filled with bills. The man says that it's ALMOST equivalent, as the ability to choose the ring has a quantifiable value that he subtracted from the total.

Part 2/2 of a 6-panel SMBC comic update. The sun has now set as the lovebirds continue to talk. She says that it's a beautifully valid analysis, and he replies that she beautifully exceeded all of the 37% of people he sampled from a finite pool of candidate partners. She tears up and says that he has signaled a sufficient cost for her to call off her sequential mate search until conditions significantly change. He tears up as well, saying that she has made him the happiest man in some bounded region of Earth.

Greg Linden @glinden.bsky.social · 1d

Wow, this is impressively terrible. It doesn't even sound like they saved any money on producing the ads if it took several weeks to produce, even at this very low level of quality of the final advertisement.

Culture Crave 🍿 @culturecrave.co · 1d

McDonald's has released an AI-generated Christmas ad

The studio behind it says they 'hardly slept' for several weeks while writing AI prompts and refining the shots — 'AI didn't make this film. We did'

Comments have been turned off on YouTube

Reposted by Greg Linden

ryan cooper @ryanlcooper.com · 1d

"Trump has refashioned antitrust oversight to be little more than a personal veto for the Trump family. Friends can do mergers; foes can’t." talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/team-...

Team Oligarch Suits Up to Torpedo Netflix/WBD Merger

Simply extraordinary stuff coming out this morning about the battle over what...

talkingpointsmemo.com

Reposted by Jonathan Wolff, Greg Linden

Culture Crave 🍿 @culturecrave.co · 1d

Reposted by Greg Linden, Nathan P. Kalmoe

Dan Nexon @dhnexon.bsky.social · 1d

Just so we're clear how this works 👇

A flow chart. Foreign autocrats provide bribes and business deals to Trumpland. Trumpland changes U.S. policy to benefit the same foreign autocrats. Those bribes and business deals include money to consolidate U.S. media in Pro-Trump hands. Trumpland, via Donald Trump, corruptly uses U.S. regulatory power to facilitate those deals.

Reposted by Greg Linden

Ed Zitron @edzitron.com · 1d

I am deeply worried for the future.

NVIDIA's revenue is a chain of pain - selling GPUs bought with debt that are rented to unprofitable LLM companies subsidized by VC who sell access to unprofitable AI companies subsidized by VC.

The end will be gruesome.
www.wheresyoured.at/nvidia-isnt-...

NVIDIA Is Dependent On Endless Debt and Credit - As Are Most Of The Customers Of AI Compute, Creating A Deadly Cycle That Ends In Disaster
NVIDIA is currently making hundreds of billions in revenue selling GPUs to companies that either plug them in and start losing money or, I assume, put them in a warehouse for safe keeping.

This brings me to my core anxiety: why, exactly, are companies pre-ordering GPUs? What benefit is there in doing so? Blackwell does not appear to be “more efficient” in a way that actually makes anybody a profit, and we’re potentially years from seeing these GPUs in operation in data centers at the scale they’re being shipped — so why would anybody be buying more?

I doubt these are new customers — they’re likely hyperscalers, neoclouds like CoreWeave and resellers like Dell and SuperMicro — because the only companies that can actually afford to buy them are those with massive amounts of cash or debt, to the point that even Google, Amazon, Meta and Oracle are taking on massive amounts of new debt, all without a plan to make a profit.

NVIDIA’s largest customers are increasingly unable to afford its GPUs, which appear to be increasing in price with every subsequent generation. NVIDIA’s GPUs are so expensive that the only way you can buy them is by already having billions of dollars or being able to raise billions of dollars, which means, in a very real sense, that NVIDIA is dependent not on its customers, but on its customers’ credit ratings and financial backers.

To make matters worse, the key reason that one would buy a GPU is to either run services using it or rent it to somebody else, and the two largest parties spending money on these services are OpenAI and Anthropic, both of whom lose billions of dollars, and are thus dependent on venture capital and debt (remember, OpenAI has a $4 billion line of credit, and Anthropic a $2.5 billion one too).

Yet it gets worse from there. Who, after all, are the biggest customers renting AI compute?

That’s right, AI startups, all of which are deeply unprofitable. Cursor — Anthropic’s largest customer and now its biggest competitor in the AI coding sphere — raised $2.3 billion in November after raising $900 million in June. Perplexity, one of the most “popular” AI companies, raised $200 million in September after raising $100 million in July after seeming to fail to raise $500 million in May (I’ve not seen any proof this round closed) after raising $500 million in December 2024. Cognition raised $400 million in September after raising $300 million in March. Cohere raised $100 million in September a month after it raised $500 million.

Venture capital is feeding money to either OpenAI or Anthropic to use their models, or in some cases hyperscalers or neoclouds like CoreWeave or Lambda to rent NVIDIA GPUs. OpenAI and Anthropic then raise venture capital or debt to pay hyperscalers or neoclouds to rent NVIDIA GPUs. Hyperscalers and neoclouds then use either debt or existent cashflow (in the case of hyperscalers, though not for long!) to buy more NVIDIA GPUs.

Only one company actually makes a profit here: NVIDIA.

Aside: I should add there are also NVIDIA resellers like Dell or Supermicro, the latter of which buy NVIDIA GPUs, put them in servers, and sell them to neoclouds like Lambda or CoreWeave.
At some point, a link in this debt-backed chain breaks, because very little cashflow exists to prop it up. At some point, venture capitalists will be forced to stop funnelling money into unprofitable, unsustainable AI companies, which will make those companies unable to funnel money into the pockets of those buying GPUs, which will make it harder for those companies buying GPUs to justify (or raise debt for) buying more GPUs.

And if I’m honest, none of NVIDIA’s success really makes any sense. Who is buying so many GPUs? Where are they going?

Why are inventories increasing? Is it really just pre-buying parts for future orders? Why are accounts receivable climbing, and how much product is NVIDIA shipping before it gets paid? While these are both explainable as “this is a big company and that’s how big companies do business” (which is true!), why do receivables not seem to be coming down?

And how long, realistically, can the largest company on the stock market continue to grow revenues selling assets that only seem to lose its customers money?

I worry about NVIDIA, not because I believe there’s a massive scandal, but because so much rides on its success, and its success rides on the back of dwindling amounts of venture capital and debt, because nobody is actually making money to pay for these GPUs.

In fact, I’m not even saying it goes tits up. Hell, it might even have another good quarter or two. It really comes down to how long people are willing to be stupid and how long Jensen Huang is able to call hyperscalers at three in the morning and say “buy one billion dollars of GPUs, pig.”

No, really! I think much of the US stock market’s growth is held up by how long everybody is willing to be gaslit by Jensen Huang into believing that they need more GPUs. At this point it’s barely about AI anymore, as AI revenue — real, actual cash made from selling services run on GPUs — doesn’t even cover its own costs, let alone create the cash flow necessary to buy $70,000 GPUs thousands at a time. It’s not like any actual innovation or progress is driving this bullshit!

In any case, the markets crave a healthy NVIDIA, as so many hundreds of billions of dollars of NVIDIA stock sit in the hands of retail investors and people’s 401ks, and its endless growth has helped paper over the pallid growth of the US stock market and, by extension, the decay of the tech industry’s ability to innovate.

Once this pops — and it will pop, because there is simply not enough money to do this forever — there must be a referendum on…

Reposted by Greg Linden

Ed Zitron @edzitron.com · 1d

Big tech really has no way to make back the money it spent on GPUs. Data centers take years and billions of dollars to build, creating a giant hole of costs to fill before you even turn them on - and on a yearly cycle, every GPU loses value the second you buy it.
www.wheresyoured.at/nvidia-isnt-...

Reposted by Greg Linden

Ed Zitron @edzitron.com · 1d

Free newsletter: NVIDIA Isn't Enron, so what is it? My 15k word guide to Wall Street's messiah - how it makes money, how its future relies on endless debt, how millions of GPUs are sitting waiting to be installed, and why it no longer makes sense to buy more GPUs.
www.wheresyoured.at/nvidia-isnt-...

NVIDIA Isn't Enron - So What Is It?

If you enjoy this free newsletter, why not subscribe to Where's Your Ed At Premium? It's $7 a month or $70 a year, and helps support me putting out these giant free newsletters! At the end of Novembe...

www.wheresyoured.at

Reposted by Greg Linden

Zach Weinersmith @zachweinersmith.bsky.social · 1d

Full comic here: www.smbc-comics.com/comic/capita...
#smbc

Reposted by Greg Linden

David Rothschild @davmicrot.bsky.social · 1d

Paramount's entire sales pitch is the US government will do our bidding AND they are paying the president's son-in-law: Trump Family's corruption is magnitudes more than anything else in US history.

Karl Bode @karlbode.com · 1d

Jared Kushner's involvement was "not mentioned in Paramount's press release on Monday morning about its $108 billion bid, nor were participating sovereign wealth funds from Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi and Qatar."

fancy that

Jared Kushner is part of Paramount's hostile bid for Warner Bros. Discovery

Paramount is telling WBD shareholders that it has a smoother path to regulatory approval than does Netflix.

www.axios.com

Reposted by Greg Linden

Will Stancil @whstancil.bsky.social · 1d

Crony capitalism isn’t bad for some vague ideological reason. It’s bad because it creates profound harms to most of the economy. The leader’s toadies become extremely wealthy while everyone else suffers.

Look at Russia: a land of bottomless misery with the occasional oligarch.

Reposted by Robert B. Reich, Greg Linden

Karl Bode @karlbode.com · 1d

this pretty much guarantees months and months of performative bullshit by Trump and Ellison and right wing media about how Netflix ownership would be a woke antitrust nightmare, but letting Larry and his nepobaby son dominate U.S. media would be a delightful, populist spritzer

It’s a Bidding War: Paramount Attempts Hostile Offer for Warner Bros.

David Ellison calls Netflix's $82.7 billion deal value an "inferior proposal" and tells Warners shareholders that his coalition promises $18 billion more in cash.

www.hollywoodreporter.com

Reposted by David R. Miller, Greg Linden

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 1d

Trump demands an apology from CBS (or else!) says, "The only reason Marjorie 'Traitor' Brown (Green turns Brown under stress!) went BAD is that she was JILTED by the President of the United States (Certainly not the first time she has been jilted!)."

The only reason Marjorie “Traitor” Brown (Green turns Brown under stress!) went BAD is that she was JILTED by the President of the United States (Certainly not the first time she has been jilted!). Too much work, not enough time, and her ideas are, NOW, really BAD - She sort of reminds me of a Rotten Apple! Marjorie is not AMERICA FIRST or MAGA, because nobody could have changed her views so fast, and her new views are those of a very dumb person. That was proven last night when washed up, Trump hating, 60 Minutes “correspondent,” Lesley Stahl, who still owes me an apology from when she attacked me on the show (with serious conviction!), that Hunter Biden’s LAPTOP FROM HELL was produced by Russia, not Hunter himself (TOTALLY PROVEN WRONG!), interviewed a very poorly prepared Traitor, who in her confusion made many really stupid statements. My real problem with the show, however, wasn’t the low IQ traitor, it was that the new ownership of 60 Minutes, Paramount, would allow a show like this to air. THEY ARE NO BETTER THAN THE OLD OWNERSHIP, who just paid me millions of Dollars for FAKE REPORTING about your favorite President, ME! Since they bought it, 60 Minutes has actually gotten WORSE! Oh well, far worse things can happen. P.S. I hereby demand a complete and total APOLOGY, though far too late to be meaningful, from Lesley Stahl and 60 Minutes for her incorrect and Libelous statements about Hunter’s Laptop!!! President DJT

Reposted by Greg Linden

Aaron Sojourner @aaronsojourner.org · 1d

How it started /How it's going

Reposted by Rebecca Tushnet, Greg Linden

Rachel Griffin @rachelgriffin.bsky.social · 1d

truly influential definitions of AI 'systemic risks' may not come directly from regulators, but from insurers currently trying to figure out how to exclude losses related to AI tools (unreliable, widely used -> correlated risks, complex supply chains -> unclear liability)

www.ft.com/content/abfe...

Insurers retreat from AI cover as risk of multibillion-dollar claims mounts

AIG, Great American and WR Berkley seek permission to limit liability from AI agents and chatbots

www.ft.com

Reposted by Greg Linden

Techmeme @techmeme.com · 2d

An interview with 10 Kenyan AI annotators shows Chinese companies hire data labelers via opaque middleman networks and WhatsApp groups to avoid accountability (Rest of World)

Main Link | Techmeme Permalink

Reposted by Lisa W. Fazio, Greg Linden

Matthew Facciani @matthewfacciani.bsky.social · 2d

“TikTok and other social media platforms are hosting AI-generated deepfake videos of doctors whose words have been manipulated to help sell supplements and spread health misinformation.”
www.theguardian.com/society/2025...

AI deepfakes of real doctors spreading health misinformation on social media

Hundreds of videos on TikTok and elsewhere impersonate experts to sell supplements with unproven effects

www.theguardian.com

Reposted by Greg Linden, Geneviève Gore

Conspirador Norteño @conspirator0.bsky.social · 2d

As Bluesky grows in popularity, so does the industry of spam-for-hire services attempting to exploit it. Google searches for the query "buy bluesky followers" abound with numerous examples of strangely similar websites peddling bogus Bluesky followers, reposts, and likes.

screenshots of 12 different websites allegedly selling Bluesky followers

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