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Connected Chaos

@connectedchaos

M.D. turned neuroscientist turned corporate stooge turned unemployed. Mostly here to learn and amplify things others should see. πŸ³οΈβ€πŸŒˆ he/him

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12.11.2024
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Latest posts by Connected Chaos @connectedchaos

The ICE detention center purchases appear to be money laundering:

11.03.2026 02:15 πŸ‘ 690 πŸ” 330 πŸ’¬ 16 πŸ“Œ 10

Nasdaq is changing its rules to "entice" the SpaceX IPO to its exchange, which will fast-track the stock's inclusion in index funds... this effectively dumps Elon Musk's unprofitable garbage on vulnerable passive investors, and ensures new retirement accounts have to buy in.

10.03.2026 16:06 πŸ‘ 333 πŸ” 121 πŸ’¬ 13 πŸ“Œ 12

The 2026 Edelman Trust Barometer is out, and it is one of the most fascinating document of every year (imo).

Edelman is a PR company shaping narrative for companies like Exxon & Shell (greenwashing), and uses this doc to push their clients' narratives as 'leaders'.

www.edelman.com/trust/2026/t...

10.03.2026 22:10 πŸ‘ 177 πŸ” 56 πŸ’¬ 15 πŸ“Œ 6

Terrible idea. How clueless can you be?

09.03.2026 21:48 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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Corpus Christi careens toward water catastrophe City officials expect to reach a β€œwater emergency” within months and run out of water next year. That would halt jet fuel deliveries to Texas airports, hike gas prices and trigger a local economic dis...

After a decade of missteps, Corpus Christi careens toward water catastrophe
www.texastribune.org/2026/03/08/t...

08.03.2026 23:21 πŸ‘ 2 πŸ” 4 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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It Wasn't Fascism All Along Conservatism was a distinct ideology but it is dead and it is not coming back.

Very interesting from @polphilpod.bsky.social.

"It's not as if fascism ever went away...Fascists have fought to undermine conservatism from within...Fascists took elite conservatives' measure nicely...The future will belong either to liberals or fascists."

www.liberalcurrents.com/it-wasnt-fas...

07.03.2026 22:27 πŸ‘ 364 πŸ” 90 πŸ’¬ 28 πŸ“Œ 5
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Are Rising Employee Health Insurance Costs Dampening Wage Growth? - Liberty Street Economics A look at the effect of rising health insurance costs on wage growth using the New York Fed’s February regional business surveys.

Rising health insurance costs are putting pressure on wages. Research shows wage growth could be higher if employer health insurance costs were not rising so quickly.
libertystreeteconomics.newyorkfed.org/2026/03/are-...

08.03.2026 00:21 πŸ‘ 20 πŸ” 7 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 1
Graph of award probability of R35 and R01 from NIH factbook as a function of review rank percentile. As is apparent, 2025 is a significant departure, with lower award probabilities at all scores <40 and significant departures from norm, where even being in the top 10% is no longer a nearly certain indicator of success.

Data source: https://report.nih.gov/nihdatabook/report/302

Graph of award probability of R35 and R01 from NIH factbook as a function of review rank percentile. As is apparent, 2025 is a significant departure, with lower award probabilities at all scores <40 and significant departures from norm, where even being in the top 10% is no longer a nearly certain indicator of success. Data source: https://report.nih.gov/nihdatabook/report/302

The data is in: the NIH goalposts have shifted.

What were once almost certain fundable scores have become coin flips and what used to be likely grants have become aspirational, leading to fewer awards.

Another manifestation of how HHS policies have led to fewer awards and less science.

07.03.2026 01:59 πŸ‘ 682 πŸ” 417 πŸ’¬ 19 πŸ“Œ 60
Preview
Trump’s War With Iran Is Also a Climate War Fossil fuels are structurally embedded in modern warfare.

"At a time when civilization is hurtling toward irreversible climate breakdown, to overlook the climate consequences of three of the deadliest militaries on earth going to war would be journalistic malpractice."

newrepublic.com/article/2073...

07.03.2026 15:50 πŸ‘ 184 πŸ” 81 πŸ’¬ 2 πŸ“Œ 3

Given the obvious portents for Republicans, seems that this election is going to be riddled with fake Democrats and the billionaires that fund them.

06.03.2026 00:55 πŸ‘ 419 πŸ” 163 πŸ’¬ 15 πŸ“Œ 8

Coward

04.03.2026 03:44 πŸ‘ 2 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

Exactly right: β€œWe’re long past the point at which there are neutral legal principles that can be deployed to persuasively reconcile all of the Court’s behavior … It makes the Court at least look like what so many regularly accuse it of being: a font of partisan political power, and not much more.”

03.03.2026 03:02 πŸ‘ 588 πŸ” 181 πŸ’¬ 8 πŸ“Œ 6
What I mean by that is that crime reduction is best understood as a positive externality from an intervention with a different primary objective. For instance, the child poverty tax credit has a proximate goal of helping poor children have a better life, right now. But a positive externality of the child poverty tax credit is that it removes some key barriers to a child’s future and creates new opportunities. And those have downstream positive effects on the child’s likelihood of committing a crime or being victimized.

By contrast, few of the items on my list that are directly intended to reduce crime have effects of the same magnitude. Yes, installing hard barriers to prevent people from entering a public transit system without paying will reduce crime, but the scale is very small. The potential scale of the effect of the earned income tax credit on crime is much greater, perhaps an order of magnitude greater

There are many policies that have positive externalities that extend well beyond their proximate goal. That list includes everything on Smith’s list: health care, behavioral interventions, housing, transit, and urbanism. And all of those policies and interventions affect crime. The problems that Smith describes, expensive health care, insufficient housing, inequality and poverty, bad transit, and poor urban planning, are the problems that are central to the lives of people who are at greatest risk of being victimized by disorder. And these are the kinds of problems that lead to disorder.

And they are all preventable.

Crime is a multi-final outcomeβ€”crime results from myriad causes. Addressing those causes has potentially big effects on crime. Limiting our choice set to interventions that affect only crime puts a very low ceiling on the potential outcome.

What I mean by that is that crime reduction is best understood as a positive externality from an intervention with a different primary objective. For instance, the child poverty tax credit has a proximate goal of helping poor children have a better life, right now. But a positive externality of the child poverty tax credit is that it removes some key barriers to a child’s future and creates new opportunities. And those have downstream positive effects on the child’s likelihood of committing a crime or being victimized. By contrast, few of the items on my list that are directly intended to reduce crime have effects of the same magnitude. Yes, installing hard barriers to prevent people from entering a public transit system without paying will reduce crime, but the scale is very small. The potential scale of the effect of the earned income tax credit on crime is much greater, perhaps an order of magnitude greater There are many policies that have positive externalities that extend well beyond their proximate goal. That list includes everything on Smith’s list: health care, behavioral interventions, housing, transit, and urbanism. And all of those policies and interventions affect crime. The problems that Smith describes, expensive health care, insufficient housing, inequality and poverty, bad transit, and poor urban planning, are the problems that are central to the lives of people who are at greatest risk of being victimized by disorder. And these are the kinds of problems that lead to disorder. And they are all preventable. Crime is a multi-final outcomeβ€”crime results from myriad causes. Addressing those causes has potentially big effects on crime. Limiting our choice set to interventions that affect only crime puts a very low ceiling on the potential outcome.

On crime policy:

I want to highlight an incredibly important point by @johnkroman.bsky.social

It is possible that "tough on crime" approaches have an impact on crime, but they will have NOWHERE NEAR THE IMPACT that more thoughtful interventions could have

johnkroman.substack.com/p/crime-diso...

03.03.2026 15:08 πŸ‘ 15 πŸ” 6 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 2
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214. The Court's (Selective) Impatience is a Vice The only theme uniting Monday night's twin grants of emergency relief is the Republican appointees' willingness to upend long-settled limits on the Court's power when, but only when, they *want* to.

As I explain via the latest β€œOne First,” the only theme that unites the Supreme Court’s (unrelated) grants of emergency relief Monday night in the California transgender student and New York redistricting cases is what might be called β€œselective judicial impatience.”

And that’s *not* a good thing:

03.03.2026 02:57 πŸ‘ 1062 πŸ” 303 πŸ’¬ 24 πŸ“Œ 16
Preview
Texas AG Paxton Declares Therapists Affirming Trans Youth To Be Illegal And Child Abuse The declaration echoes his 2022 efforts to target parents of trans youth with child abuse, and may force conversion therapy on trans youth in the state.

1. This morning, Texas AG Ken Paxton just released a chilling new declaration:

Mental health therapists, counselors, and psychologists must cease affirming trans youth - using their name and pronouns - or potentially face child abuse charges and loss of licensure.

Its a horrifying escalation.

02.03.2026 18:44 πŸ‘ 2448 πŸ” 1115 πŸ’¬ 142 πŸ“Œ 182
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Cleaning the scientific house: Rebuilding trust in science requires confronting the harms of ghostwriting American science is under attack. Recent cuts to funding and staffing of federal agencies, layoffs of scientists, and rescission of billions of dollars in grants are unprecedented in US history and th...

As the US doubles down on glyphosate, a widely cited study asserting its safety has been retracted after it was discovered the paper was ghostwritten by Monsanto employees. This incident, and ghostwriting in general, harms scientific integrity, writes Naomi Oreskes.

03.03.2026 03:46 πŸ‘ 91 πŸ” 59 πŸ’¬ 2 πŸ“Œ 3

whether war, vaccines, or critical infrastructure there is contingent of the right that seems to believe that their security from the worst things that happen is some kind of metaphysical principle rather than the result of specific historical processes that could've gone otherwise and still could

03.03.2026 03:37 πŸ‘ 2608 πŸ” 483 πŸ’¬ 29 πŸ“Œ 27

I would say one of the main right-wing projects of the past twenty years has been gaming every web 2.0 platform into thinking the right-wing is much bigger and more influential than it actually is. And the people who have been most taken in by this effort has been the right wing

27.02.2026 01:09 πŸ‘ 3555 πŸ” 737 πŸ’¬ 52 πŸ“Œ 37
Amplifiers of Epistemic Posture Essays and writing on AI

I'm a cognitive scientist with an interest in epistemic vigilance, and this essay that's been going around gave me pause.

I don't think it's straightforward to apply the concept of epistemic vigilance to interactions with LLMs, as this essay does.

🧡/

sbgeoaiphd.github.io/rotating_the...

26.02.2026 13:18 πŸ‘ 291 πŸ” 121 πŸ’¬ 8 πŸ“Œ 33

Literally just watched this in a DS9 episode

27.02.2026 01:10 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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I constantly hear people banging on about how bad almond milk is for the environment, but somehow I never hear anyone mention how dairy milk is many times worse for the environment across every possible metric

26.02.2026 05:56 πŸ‘ 13 πŸ” 4 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 1
Polling results from PPIC of the CA GOV race

Polling results from PPIC of the CA GOV race

In California, the top two vote getters regardless of party advance to the general. Hilton and Blanco are Republicans. We are in mortal danger of a Rep-Rep runoff unless some Dems drop out to consolidate the Dem vote. Villaraigosa, Becerra, Thurmond and Yee must leave the race immediately.

26.02.2026 05:55 πŸ‘ 87 πŸ” 44 πŸ’¬ 8 πŸ“Œ 7
Screenshot of a job ad with highlighted text that reads Once fully trained, at least 4 denial letters per hour and/or at least 6-7 approval letters per hour Remote specialists manage time and productivity without in-office oversight and combines technical expertise, compliance knowledge, and strong communication skills in a virtual setting.

Screenshot of a job ad with highlighted text that reads Once fully trained, at least 4 denial letters per hour and/or at least 6-7 approval letters per hour Remote specialists manage time and productivity without in-office oversight and combines technical expertise, compliance knowledge, and strong communication skills in a virtual setting.

United States Healthcare in a post.

(Job ad)

25.02.2026 18:29 πŸ‘ 19 πŸ” 11 πŸ’¬ 3 πŸ“Œ 0
An official letter from the Kansas Division of Vehicles dated February 23, 2026, with a redacted recipient address. The letter notifies the recipient that due to the enactment of Senate Bill 244, all Kansas driver's licenses and IDs must reflect the holder's sex at birth. It states that the recipient's current credential will become invalid immediately upon the law's publication on February 26, 2026, with no grace period. The recipient is directed to surrender their current ID to receive a new one matching their sex assigned at birth. The document concludes with instructions on how to appeal the notice if received in error, along with contact information for the department.

An official letter from the Kansas Division of Vehicles dated February 23, 2026, with a redacted recipient address. The letter notifies the recipient that due to the enactment of Senate Bill 244, all Kansas driver's licenses and IDs must reflect the holder's sex at birth. It states that the recipient's current credential will become invalid immediately upon the law's publication on February 26, 2026, with no grace period. The recipient is directed to surrender their current ID to receive a new one matching their sex assigned at birth. The document concludes with instructions on how to appeal the notice if received in error, along with contact information for the department.

Kansas is sending letters to trans people telling them that their licenses will be revoked as of tomorrow and that they risk arrest for driving on a suspended license.

This is pure cruelty.

www.erininthemorning.com/p/kansas-sen...

26.02.2026 01:10 πŸ‘ 8540 πŸ” 4247 πŸ’¬ 320 πŸ“Œ 745
Preview
Bird Flu Strikes California Elephant Seals for the First Time

A lethal form of bird flu, which has already killed tens of thousands of elephant seals in the Southern Hemisphere, is now spreading in a colony of elephant seals in California.

w/ @emilyanthes.bsky.social

Gift link: www.nytimes.com/2026/02/25/s...

25.02.2026 22:36 πŸ‘ 118 πŸ” 66 πŸ’¬ 4 πŸ“Œ 11
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β€œ.. America’s own citizens are leaving in record numbers, replanting themselves and their families in lands they find more affordable and safe.”

@wsj.com #ByeAmerica
www.wsj.com/us-news/amer...

26.02.2026 01:51 πŸ‘ 1114 πŸ” 392 πŸ’¬ 57 πŸ“Œ 34

They beat a blind refugee who speaks no English for failing to obey police commands he could not understand. Then instead of apologizing, they charged him with possession of a β€œweapon”—HIS WALKING STICK. Then they dumped him miles from home without notifying anyone, after which he was found dead.

25.02.2026 20:48 πŸ‘ 12649 πŸ” 6093 πŸ’¬ 56 πŸ“Œ 331
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More details about the US registered vessel fired on by Cuban Border Guard Troops

25.02.2026 19:52 πŸ‘ 264 πŸ” 96 πŸ’¬ 23 πŸ“Œ 25
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Dow 50,000...

But look around, and the real question is why isn't it 60,000?

25.02.2026 02:47 πŸ‘ 836 πŸ” 264 πŸ’¬ 21 πŸ“Œ 9