AMA with Nate Soares. Wednesday 2/4 at 10am CT

Author of If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies answers questions about why superhuman AI would kill us all.

Should Politics Be On The Playing Field? . Why has just about everything within our lives become political including sports. Should athletes use this form to be political or should they do it off the athletic field and on their own time?

Jeffrey Epstein—what do y'all think? Let's try making sense of the thing surrounding Epstein—

US corruption, money and status and power, sexual abuse and trafficking, complicity, and justice, etc...

Here's a little context, summarized:

Jeffrey Epstein was an American financier and convicted sex offender who built a fortune through relationships with celebrity politicians, business people, and royalty. He's thought to have run a vast sex trafficking operation, victimizing hundreds of underage girls, and it's unclear how many of his associates were involved or aware of what was happening. Things like his controversial plea deal in 2008 indicate American corruption—using his wealth and connections to evade accountability. He was arrested again in 2019 on federal sex trafficking charges but died in a way that is officially called "suicide" and widely considered a cover-up.

Why it matters:
The Epstein case erodes public trust in institutions, fuels partisan weaponization and conspiracy theories about elite corruption, and has become a self-created political nightmare for Trump, who promised file releases during his campaign but now refuses disclosure after learning his name appears in documents, causing unprecedented fractures within his MAGA base who view him as part of the establishment cover-up he once opposed.

I underestimated tariffs. Here is what I've learnt. I used to quietly feel smug watching others underestimate the power of tariffs in the hands of the United States, especially in discussions about the balance of power between China and the U.S., only to realise I had been underestimating them myself.

1. The mere threat of tariffs can coerce behavior.

2. Applying even low, broad tariffs breaks the illusion that any country is immune and increases bargaining power.

3. Markets have learned to distinguish between a threat, a temporary tariff, and a permanent one. This helps explain why the U.S. economy has absorbed much of the tariff-related volatility.

4. The U.S. could lose leverage if enough of the world joined a unified trade bloc and bargained collectively. But this remains unlikely. Most countries are competing to boost exports and create jobs, which puts them in competition with each other rather than cooperation.

5. By targeting BRICS members, the U.S. is using tariffs to weaken emerging trade blocs. Any bloc without strong internal governance, such as the EU has, is unlikely to survive a direct challenge from the U.S.

6. Tariffs have become tools of industrial policy. The U.S. is now using them to incentivise domestic manufacturing, rebuild supply chains, and advance strategic industries like semiconductors and clean energy.

7. Tariffs also provide domestic political leverage. They offer a way to pressure companies to reshore operations and send a strong message to voters about protecting American jobs and industry.

All of this shows that when you are the world's buyer of last resort, and exporters are competing for access to your market and there is no other country with a big enough consumer market to absorb supply, you hold a very strong bargaining position.

It’s worth noting that the world wasn’t always configured this way. It’s only under today’s conditions where global trade is tightly integrated and access to the U.S. market is essential for many economies that tariffs carry this kind of power.  This is part of the reason I was unable to make this insight earlier.

So what do you think? Is the US position as strong as it seems? What can individual nations and trade blocs do to defend themselves from the US?

Vance affect. His affect seems like Listen, children. A bit of disgust. Gives me ick get this opponent [Walz] away. But then Watz, by constrast, doesn’t seem like a kid to me, he seems earnest.

What’s Walz’s vibe… Annoyed. A little hurt. I guess I feel a little more sorry for him more than want to follow him.

I think Kamala had a better contrasting vibe to Trump’s vibe in the first presidential debate.

Current Session "instructions" (Feb 26): Converse, and see if nudges happen. nudges 

We launched a system where the AI bots can automatically detect intervention points. We need you to make a bunch of comments and new posts to see if they'll engage. So this week we're asking you to engage a bunch, if you can!

It's a little rudimentary at the moment so sometimes you'll get multiple bots responding on multiple posts. We'd love your feedback on which ones you like, don't, when it seemed to miss the spot, anything else you notice. 

Thanks and love yall

J (and the UpTrust team)
p.s. this week I'm at an investor meeting so dara will be with you

# [Optional Zoom](https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86795216050?pwd=TllxSzYrTFFXTW5LRmg3WUQrT04vdz09) with Jordan and Dara at least, for faces, questions, help, etc: