Andy Kessler

WSJ: "Get Smart" About Biden's Chaos

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https://www.wsj.com/articles/get-smart-about-bidens-chaos-exaggeration-conspiracies-existential-threat-11643557700

What’s with all the chaos conspiracies lately? In President Biden’s Atlanta speech earlier this month he said that on Jan. 6, 2021, “a dagger was literally held at the throat of American democracy.” Literally? Sorry about that, Chief. And of his opponents: “They want chaos to reign.” Last Memorial Day, Mr. Biden declared, “Democracy itself is in peril, here at home and around the world.” He constantly warns of “the existential threat” of climate change. Always chaos!

Why does that ring familiar? Ah yes, it reminds me of Kaos vs. Control from the TV series “Get Smart” which ran from 1965 to 1970. Mel Brooks and Buck Henry wrote the wisecracking spoof of James Bond—one episode was even named “Bronzefinger.” Maxwell Smart, Agent 86 played by Don Adams, kept a straight face delivering the best lines: “Missed it by that much.” “Sorry about that, Chief.” “I asked you not to tell me that.” My favorite? “And loving it!”

In “Get Smart,” like Mr. Biden’s dagger, exaggeration rules. Chained to a wall with Agent 99, played by Barbara Feldon, Smart tells doubting Kaos agents that the warehouse was surrounded by 100 cops with Doberman Pinschers. “Would you believe 10 security guards and a bloodhound?” Smart asks. “I don’t think so,” a Kaos agent replies. “How about a Boy Scout with rabies?”

Kaos was billed as an “international organization of evil” bent on world domination with a vice president of public relations and terror and the Contrived Accident Division. To fight Kaos, the counterespionage organization Control had the greatest technology, most unfathomable in the 1960s. Most famous were Maxwell Smart’s shoe phone and the cone of silence for secret conversations.

Entrepreneurs today could still make a living inventing all the show’s gadgets: Pocket Disintegrator Pen, Sleeping Dirt, Invisible Chalk, Sleeping Foot Powder and New Face Spray. Sadly still missing from store shelves: the Absorbo pill to soak up alcohol.

No one actually likes chaos. Well, I do, having spent most of my life in the mosh pits of Wall Street and Silicon Valley, where stasis is death.

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WSJ: 90% of Everything Is . . . Take a Guess

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https://www.wsj.com/articles/90-percent-of-everything-is-crap-venture-capital-marc-andreessen-mosaic-web-silicon-valley-tech-investment-innovation-11642970894

It used to be that 90% of the time, you accessed stuff only on your computer’s local network. Then in 1993 at the University of Illinois, Marc Andreessen developed Mosaic, the first internet browser, which allowed users to wander around the World Wide Web 90% of the time. He moved to Silicon Valley and founded Netscape. Mr. Andreessen is now a general partner at a top-decile venture-capital firm, better than 90% of its peers. Andreessen Horowitz recently raised $9 billion in new funds.

Last week I spent some time sitting on Mr. Andreessen’s back porch pondering the magic of 90% and how it created Silicon Valley and continues to rule it. “In venture capital, you think a lot about so-called adverse selection,” Mr. Andreessen says. “ ‘Why am I so lucky as to be the person you’re trying to raise money from?’ You want to get to positive selection, the best people coming to you.”

But how? Mr. Andreessen starts with the replication crisis in scientific studies, especially in psychology—over half of studies can’t be replicated. I suggest “studies show” are the two most dangerous words in the English language. Mr. Andreessen quickly adds, “The corollary is ‘experts say.’ ”

Mr. Andreessen’s friend in the scientific research world told him about a historical study of heart and lung drugs that were approved but were not effective. Mr. Andreessen learned that “one of the things you do to counter a replication crisis is a ‘preregistration of hypothesis’—instead of pretending after the fact that you have a hypothesis, that you’re cherry-picking data to prove.” The result of this preregistration? There were fewer new drugs approved because researchers could no longer fudge the data. “Of course, what this implies is that most drugs that are already on the market today probably don’t work.” His friend agreed and said forget 50%, it’s 90% of research that is bad to begin with.

Then Mr. Andreessen says, “I had heard of this, aha, Sturgeon’s law!” Theodore Sturgeon (1918-85) was a science-fiction author annoyed that people were saying all sci-fi was bad and wanted to stand up for the 10% that was good, saying, “90% of everything is crap.” Mr. Andreessen says “90% of music is crap.” The same is true of “paintings, writing, TV shows and movies.” I would add ideas, stocks, opinions, politicians—the list goes on.

That is “the nature of creative work. There are only a few people in each field that know what to do,” Mr. Andreessen says.

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WSJ: Is Climate Change in Your Problem Top 10?

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https://www.wsj.com/articles/is-climate-change-in-your-top-10-urgent-issues-gop-democrats-problems-worry-global-warming-environment-don't-look-up-11641741976

At a recent dinner, I sat between two men talking past each other. “Mr. Redd” was complaining about our borders and how President Biden’s policies have led to the arrest of nearly two million illegal immigrants. “Mr. Bleu” jumped in, “First of all, they’re unauthorized migrants. Second, I can’t believe you’re worried about that. It’s not even on my top 10 list.” Not one to let a good brawl whimper out unnecessarily, I asked sheepishly, “What’s No. 1?” “Climate change,” he replied. I couldn’t resist. “Really, over failed schools? The homeless? Opioids? Structural unemployment? China?” I asked. “Yup, follow the science,” he said. Ugh. He probably thought the dim-witted eco-allegory “Don’t Look Up” on Netflix was a documentary.

Sure enough, if you check the latest Quinnipiac poll of “the most urgent issues facing the country today,” you get the same divide. For Republicans, the answer is immigration (28%), the economy (24%) and the federal debt (10%). For Democrats, it’s Covid-19 (28%), healthcare (14%) and climate change (13%).

A few years ago, my family was hiking in Point Reyes, north of San Francisco, with our Rhodesian Ridgeback off-leash. Yes, I know, a politically incorrect canine. We spotted a coyote up in the hills and quickly leashed our dog. As we approached another group with a dog, we warned them about the coyote. Instead of a “Thank you,” we got a smug “Well, they were here first.” Really? I may have wished the coyote would eat their mutt for breakfast.

To me, that exchange sums up the current state of environmental thinking. They were here first; let’s go back to the old days. I have no time for this “degrowth” movement. Progress, not retreat, solves problems. While the climate may be changing, meteorologists can’t even model snowfall in Virginia accurately this winter, let alone over decades. We should adapt to change, not slam the brakes on growth. Climate change is the latest manifestation of a tiresome throwback—shift-into-reverse thinking. It’s all back to nature, rewind the clock, fear of overpopulation, and let coyotes roam. This “limitarianism” may prove to be as deadly as other 20th-century “isms.”

Americans have plenty of other problems. Crime is on the rise, and cities are a mess. I asked a resident of Manhattan’s Upper West Side what she thought about New York’s new mayor, Eric Adams, a former captain in the New York Police Department. “We hope he’s like Michael Bloomberg, ” she said. “Isn’t he more like Rudy Giuliani, law and order?” I asked. “Ick,” she replied. “So, you like crime?” I asked sarcastically, knowing that murders in New York City were up over 50% in 2021 compared with 2019. Her answer? “Hey, we live in New York City, we expect it. Plus, we don’t have much crime in our neighborhood anyway.” Right.

When was it that we gave up? San Franciscans gladly struggle to drink through paper straws but divert their gaze from brazen smash-and-grab robberies.

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WSJ: Can Social Media Alter a War?

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https://www.wsj.com/articles/can-social-media-alter-a-war-nato-russian-bots-colonial-pipeline-national-security-ukraine-cyberwarfare-hack-invasion-11641130267

The Cornell-Harvard hockey matchup is legendary. Harvard home fans used to play square-dance music and throw hay on the ice making fun of bumpkins from upstate New York. In retaliation, Cornell fans at Lynah Rink in Ithaca would throw fish on the ice (they still do despite being searched on entry), and for many years they even tied a live chicken to Harvard’s goal. I spoke with a recent graduate who explained how students have modernized taunting. Using fake social-media accounts with pictures of attractive coeds, hecklers would inevitably “friend” Harvard’s goalie and learn details about his personal life. During the game, the crowd would taunt him about his aunt Millie, dog Muffin or recent breakup. Eventually the goalie would turn and stare at the crowd in confusion. Successful psy-ops!

The same tactics are leaking into war planning. Psychological operations are nothing new: We’ve had Tokyo Rose, pamphlets dropped from planes, and Iraq’s Information Minister Baghdad Bob’s spewing lies on CNN. Now Instagram? In February 2012, I wrote a column titled “When Will Social Media Elect a President?” Most readers said never. Well, that ship has sailed. It’s time to ask: When will social media alter wars?

In 2019 during a military exercise, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s Strategic Communications Center of Excellence deployed a “red team” to see if it could disrupt 150 soldiers. Spending only $60 on Russian bots and using only open-source data, researchers were able to learn the usernames, phone numbers, emails and identities of soldiers. They also engaged with them on Facebook and Instagram, mapped their connections with other armed-forces members, determined their location within a kilometer, and even got soldiers to send selfies with their equipment. Apparently even soldiers believe that if it isn’t on Instagram, it didn’t happen.

According to the report on the exercise, they could “pinpoint the exact locations of several battalions” and track troop movements. Here’s the scariest part: “The level of personal information we found was very detailed and enabled us to instil [sic] undesirable behaviour during the exercise.” Janis Sarts, a director of NATO StratCom, told me: “Every time we attempted to manipulate behaviors, we succeeded.”

Facebook did shut down some of the researchers’ fake accounts due to suspicious activity. But many groups and fake profiles weren’t suspended. This raises the question: Is Facebook ready or even willing to help during a hot war?

Let’s say, hypothetically, that Russia invades Ukraine and the U.S. sends in troops.

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