Tuesday, June 09, 2026

It Can Always Get Stupider

I promise not to ask Santa Claus for anything else for Xmas.

(“Competitive House races?” A fuck up this big would make every race in America competitive!)
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“Iran Wants To Make A Deal”*

According to the New York Times, citing a number of diplomats and officials with knowledge of ongoing U.S.-Iran negotiations, the U.S. and Iran have narrowed down the issue of Iran’s nuclear program to four main points. These points are a long-term suspension of Iranian uranium enrichment, the dilution or downblending of current enriched material, the dismantling of Iranian nuclear facilities, and Iran acceding to snap inspections to ensure compliance with whatever framework is agreed upon. Per the report, on the dilution of Iranian stockpiles, the U.S. plans to work directly with the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to realize such efforts. However, Iran has yet to be persuaded to allow direct U.S. involvement in such activities.
Is there some expert who can explain how this is fundamentally different from the 2015 JCPOA? Except that we can’t get Iran to agree to it?

And that we wouldn’t need them to if the U.S. hadn’t abandoned the JCPOA IN 2018.

 *And suddenly I realize that’s not just the title of Trump’s stupid book (which he didn’t come up with), he probably connected it to the popular game show “Let’s Make a Deal,” which had its heyday in the ‘70’s and ‘80’s, a/k/a Trump’s formative years, and the ones he’s still stuck in. He thinks, in other words, that’s what “deal making” is. Basically a shallow, TeeVee game show spectacle. Requiring no attention span or concentration.
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“I Have Just Been Informed…”

12 hours earlier He had no clue. I guess the staff didn’t tell him because they knew Grandpa needed his nap.1 He didn’t have the war to worry about last night.
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🎶This Is The War That Ends and Ends!🎶

🎶 It just ends on and on, my friends! Some people started fighting it and said that it would stop!✋ But it’s been ending now forever, because it stops and stops and stops! 🎶 [repeat from the beginning ad infinitum] The war started at the end of February; it is now the second week of June. That’s a little under once every three days announcing the “deal” is imminent. The boy who cried “wolf!” didn’t get this many do overs.
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Reducing The Surplus Population

(Yes, this is a violation of Plyler v Doe and the 14th Amendment, but Tennessee obviously wants the Sinister Six to overturn Plyler and restrict Section I of the 14th to the “right” persons. It’s a slippery slope from there, but that’s alright with the white people on the Court.)
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“Generational Figure”

Trump is the first generational figure our party has produced since Ronald Reagan—the first Republican in 40 years with the standing to redefine what the party is, not merely win an election. Reagan did exactly that, and the movement he built outlasted him by a generation. The opening is real. What Trump does with it is the whole question.
I get the GOP desperation for a “generational figure.” In the 20th century, the Democrats had FDR, Truman, JFK, LBJ, just in terms of governmental accomplishments, and then the first black President (no, not Clinton) in the 21st century.

While the GOP had Eisenhower (“military industrial complex,” which became a rallying cry of the anti-war movement); Nixon (Watergate); Reagan (Iran-Contra); Shrub (9/11; “WMD;” Katrina). Their last generational figure was Lincoln, and now the GOP is the party of white racism (Reagan kicked off his first presidential campaign in Philadelphia, Mississippi, and ran on eliminating “welfare queens, “  black women he described as driving Cadillacs.) Which is the problem with Hegseth’s speech.

 BTW: Hegseth is not a Boomer. He’s 46.
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Trump On

Trump off:
Speaking to the Financial Times, U.S. President Donald J. Trump, has said that he “calls the shots” and that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will be forced to accept any deal that the U.S. and Iran agree upon. Per President Trump, “it’s [Iran’s recent strikes on Israel and Israeli strikes in Beirut, Lebanon] not going to have any impact on the deal,” speaking on the potential for a U.S.-Iran deal in the near future.
Trump on being a wholly unreliable narrator.
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Monday, June 08, 2026

115-111

And then falls asleep.
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Random Observations

It’s called “voting.” This is really all they’ve got. I mean, they are completely out. These are their “ideas.” Ted Cruz shows Vance how it’s really not done. Ya gotta love New Yorkers.
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He Loves ‘Em And Leaves ‘Em?

Is that what this is about?

He’s single.

He’s not gay.

He’s dated women. 

His current girlfriend is a vegan. (He also eats BBQ!)

The women he meets have business at the state Capitol.

Are we done here?
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So…?

"I'm saying it stinks to high heaven," Johnson said on Monday when he was asked about the results by CNN's Manu Raju. "And everybody knows that. I think California is playing around with this."

"But what evidence is there to prove this was rigged?" Raju replied.

"Some of these efforts are so diabolical and so far upstream, it is impossible to prove," Johnson said. "But I think everybody knows instinctively something is wrong here."

Mattingly chuckled as he replied to Johnson's comments on "The Lead."

"So diabolical it's impossible to prove," Mattingly said. "Which just sounds like anything my four-year-old does most days."

CNN's Jamie Gangel, a special correspondent, said Johnson's comments show he was playing to an audience of one — Donald Trump.

"He is not going to contradict Donald Trump, but the way he's saying it is really disingenuous," she said. "It's a distinction without a difference, because he is saying it stinks to high heaven. So he's not using the word rigged, but that's what he's putting out there. I think the problem here ... this is dangerous when you undermine faith in the election. Let us not forget we have seen the result of what happened on January 6th. We do not want that to happen again."
... do we expect Trump to incite a riot in LA when the new mayor takes office?

Because I’m pretty sure this election conspiracy shit has run its course. As it has to do. The only way to get rid of it is to wear it out.
Pretty sure that’s more important to people in the country than who won the LA mayoral primary, how. Though Trump thanks you for doing his job for him.
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🎶 The Bronx is up, and the Battery’s down…🎶

Why would that be? I know it’s only one offense, but it’s gonna leave a mark. And how long will Trump be there? I still say it’ll be less than 30 minutes, in and out. Again: Mamdani wins. Whither Trump’s “feral cunning’ and political instincts, his common touch and crowd appeal? Could it be he’s passed his “sell by date”?
These people have been waiting an hour to get into Madison Square Garden.

Here is a first person account:

“They routed everyone down to 34th and 8th.

Police barracade.

Through metal detectors to a point about 200 feet from MSG.

Then they came and apologized and said they were confused and instead we needed to exit the barracade and go to 34th and 7th.

We walked there and then a different set of police told us to go to 32nd and 6th.

There are hundreds, if not a thousand people, wandering around in giant herds not knowing where to go or how to get in.

The police keep saying they don’t know the protocol.”
Yeah, it could be.
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Trump Calling The Shots

Congress will love that. Although, what would they do? Declare war on Iran?
Elements of the U.S. Army’s 82nd Airborne Division were secretly deployed to Israel in early April, as part of joint contingency planning between Israel and the United States, completed since February, for seizing Iranian-controlled Kharg Island in the Persian Gulf and carving out coastal territory inside Iran, according to a deployment order seen by Ken Klippenstein.

The order, issued April 7, 2026, directed paratroopers from the 2nd Battalion, 501st Infantry Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division - the storied “Geronimo!” Battalion - to deploy to Israel on “temporary duty,” in a move not previously reported by the Pentagon. Asked about the number of troops deployed to Israel and their mission, the Pentagon referred questions to U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM).
And a little more evidence that Trump is never going to pull that trigger.
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Continuing The Conversation There 👇

Only because I can’t embed a tweet in comments. Again, I know nothing about Platner. But he’s not a Bill Clinton Rhodes Scholar or a Barack Obama Ivy League Black man. I mention them because Obama was met with both birtherism and assaults on his UCC pastor in Chicago (Obama threw him under the bus instanter, parting easily two that were never joined). Clinton was greeted with a great deal of suspicion because he was from Arkansas, not the approved regions. But both had credentials and not working class backgrounds, alone. 

Brooks is a snob whose first claim to fame was a piece of faux socialism about the people he imagined fined at Applebees. The problem was, as those people could tell, Brooks had never darkened the door of an Applebees. He was a fake, trying to establish his bons fides with the people who set themselves apart from the people who, they imagine, dine only at Applebees.

And then there’s Platner. Like Talarico, he’s “dangerous.” He might inspire people to be less deferential to the rich. That, at least, seems the best explanation for why David Brooks is so condescending.
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I Don’t Have A Dog…

...in the Platner “fight.” But honestly, after the nation elected Trump the first time (“Entertainment Tonight”), and the second time (E.Jean Carroll; Epstein), I don’t need to hear from the self-appointed national scolds about “character” and how some men allegedly treat women, every election cycle.

It’s clearly not a subject that matters to the voters, and never has.  

I know that disappoints David Brooks but: who cares about David Brooks?
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Damned Socialist!

😈
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🤖 Is Inevitable

Shuler: A couple years ago, I was sitting in a room on Capitol Hill next to the big-tech billionaire crew.

Those tech guys talked about their vision for the future, all the possibilities they saw. Guess what one word did not come out of their mouths: workers.

And as we started talking about what AI meant to our members and the fear and anxiety folks had, out of the corner of my eye, to my right, I saw Elon Musk literally starting to do origami.
"AI is this years Beanie Babies for billionaires."

We can only hope.
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Our Man On Their Side, Or, Why Talarico Is “Dangerous”

NEWS — Ken Paxton’s impeachment defense lawyer is endorsing Democrats James Talarico for Senate, @NOTUSreports scoops

Dan Cogdell, who represented Paxton in his 2023 impeachment trial and several personal cases, told NOTUS in a statement that Paxton “has lost sight of his core mission”

Cogdell is well-connected in Texas GOP politics, and has represented top state party officials. He donated $6,500 to Paxton’s campaign, contributing as recently as last year

But he’s been critical of Trump. A clip of him calling Trump the “greatest threat” to democracy was even turned into an NRSC attack ad last year. It’s been scrubbed from the web.

Talarico said in statement “if you voted for John Cornyn, you have a place in this campaign.”
BREAKING: Ken Paxton’s own lawyer just endorsed James Talarico:

“I defended Ken Paxton for years in the impeachment trial and in state criminal cases. But in my view, I think Ken has lost sight of his core mission, which is to represent the people of Texas.

And unlike Ken, I believe that you, James, believe in unity over division and that you know how to assemble not only Democrats but Independents and Republicans and we need that right now.

We need unity, we don't need any more division and that's why I'm supporting you.”
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Trump Calls The Shots

The Middle East is stuck in phases of peace talks and fragile ceasefires.

Tehran's drones continue to threaten maritime traffic in the Strait of Hormuz.

Ministers were clear that Iran's actions are unacceptable. In response, EU Member States in Brussels today sanctioned Iranians over restricting naval traffic in the Strait.

This is the first time the EU applies its new freedom of navigation sanctions regime.

My press remarks in Cyprus with @PalmasVasilis ↓
EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Kaja Kallas announced new EU sanctions against Iran today, due to Iran’s threatening of commercial maritime traffic in the Strait of Hormuz. The sanctions fall under a new EU “Freedom of Navigation” sanctions regime, an expansion of already existing EU sanctions frameworks, that was adopted in late May.
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“State’s Rights!” And Other Malarkey

In the ‘60’s, Homan would be bellowing about “outside agitators!” Because American citizens from other states have no right protesting federal government actions in New Jersey. I’m sure there was no change to the food service because Homan was there. Texas Tribune:
Screwworms usually don’t stray too far from their natural tropical and subtropical climates on their own. The parasitic flies do not tolerate prolonged periods of very dry, hot, or very cold weather. Rapid spread in a country is mainly due to humans moving infested animals over large distances.

After Mexican officials confirmed a case of screwworm in November 2024, the USDA, under former President Joe Biden, closed southern ports of entry to live cattle imports to prevent the spread of screwworm into the U.S. However, the move also strained the supply of cattle in the state, hitting some in the cattle industry hard.

The USDA reversed course in February 2025, after President Donald Trump took office, announcing the opening of the ports, only to close them again in May 2025.

In an effort to prevent its spread, the USDA shut down the southern border to live animal imports in May 2025, preventing cattle from Mexico from entering the U.S. and limiting the supply of cattle in Texas.

It’s currently unknown how the screwworm infestation reached South Texas.
But it’s bound to be Biden’s fault. See?
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“☮️”

Subject to whose ignorance and whose stupidity? Odd. Doesn’t sound like Trump was up all night working the phones. " 'Full coordination’ with CENTCOM and US Forces.” Maybe that’s why Trump waited until the day was over in Israel.
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Surprising No One

"Hold mah beer."
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Sunday, June 07, 2026

😹😹😹 ☠️

Oh, it’s not a joke?  💩
Accorded to Axios’ Barak Ravid, citing a U.S. and Israel official, during tonight’s phone conversation between President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu, Trump asked him not to respond to the Iranian missile attack and to wait a few days for the negotiations, claiming that “something good in terms of a deal” was “close,” to which Netanyahu “kind of agreed” though he reiterated his call for strikes against Iran.
"Pseudo agreed”? Is that diplomacy speak for “He had his fingers crossed”? Like they used to say in the Texas Lege, “You gotta dance with the one what brung ya.”
Speaking to the Financial Times, U.S. President Donald J. Trump, has said that he “calls the shots” and that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will be forced to accept any deal that the U.S. and Iran agree upon. Per President Trump, “it’s [Iran’s recent strikes on Israel and Israeli strikes in Beirut, Lebanon] not going to have any impact on the deal,” speaking on the potential for a U.S.-Iran deal in the near future.
Uh-huh. Bibi thinks he's got all the support in D.C. he needs, even if he nukes Lebanon ‘til it glows.
President Trump said that Iran’s strikes on Israel had not changed his desire to conclude peace negotiations soon with Iran. “It’s not going to have any impact on the deal,” he told the FT. Though the President said that he would consider a commando raid on Iran if negotiations totally failed, stating: “We would go in and take care of the rest of the place that we didn’t take care of militarily. Or it would just mean that we would keep the blockade on Iran because the blockade has been probably more powerful than any attack that was ever made on that country.”
I’d say it’s 0; the chance that Trump’s sends a force into Iran. Commandos probably wouldn’t be enough to take and hold Kharg Island, much less “take care of the rest of the place that we didn’t take care of militarily.”

This is going to go on and on, until Congress pulls the fucking plug.
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That’s Life In The Big City

And Abbott’s making me want to root for the Knicks.
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📺👁️

As I’ve said, I don’t really care that “60 Minutes” is in trouble. It would take you longer to read a New Yorker article than to watch an entire hour of the show, and yet you’d get more information from the article, including the commercials. That said, Scott Pelley is not your hero.
You’ve now accused Weiss of injecting “falsehoods and bias” into at least one of your politically sensitive stories. What did she specifically ask for? What story?

That’s February, and my team and I are doing a story about the protests in Minneapolis against the ICE crackdown there. We’ve interviewed Senator Rand Paul, Republican, because he’s going to hold hearings into this, and the fact that a Republican was going to do that was quite newsworthy. So, we interviewed Senator Paul and then built out a story about what had happened — the killing of Renee Good, the killing of Alex Pretti, the protests. I felt it was very important to identify that the protesters themselves were being very aggressive and that they were half of these confrontations, and so I instructed my producers to find images in which we see the protesters acting aggressively. We found a picture of a protester chest-bumping an officer. We found a picture of an officer being hit in the head with a snowball. We culled together a lot of video of protesters screaming in the faces of officers because we were going to talk about the killing of Pretti and the killing of Good, and it seemed to me important to tell the audience about the entire context. I thought we’d done a really good job with this. We also included a picture of Alex Pretti before he was killed kicking out a taillight on a police car and made a point of saying, this is Alex Pretti and this is what he did.

So, the story goes through screenings. It’s very well received. There are notes as always and we do rewrites as always. But this is on a very tight deadline. It’s Sunday; we’re going on the air that night. And in the case of stories that are, as we say, crashing, our deadline on Sunday is noon. So, we work on all of these things. We get the piece approved by everyone. And about four hours after our deadline, Bari Weiss sends an email to my boss, Tanya Simon. Two of the things in the email include, can we make the protesters look more violent? Now, I’m paraphrasing. I don’t have the quote, but that’s what was communicated to me. And the other thing, Renee Good’s car. You need to describe her as driving toward the officer.

This is not what you see on the video. On the video, you see the officer standing slightly off the front of the car. And you clearly see Ms. Good’s wheels turned completely as far as they will go, away from the officer. But he shoots her in the head, kills her, and says something about her that I can’t repeat in polite company.

We have gone out of our way in our plan from the very beginning to show the protesters for the responsibility that they had. We had already scrubbed the video archives, looking for those scenes. Somehow that wasn’t enough for Ms. Weiss. The video showed that the officer wasn’t standing in front of the car and she wasn’t driving toward him, but that’s what the president said about that, and that’s the way she wanted it described.
I’m not excusing Weiss, but Pelley’s notion of “context” would be a defense counsel’s dream. The hypothetical lawyer defending the shooter of Pretti,  I mean.  That video about Pretti kicking out a car taillight in a fit of anger is absolutely irrelevant to his murder. It isn’t “context” for anything, not even to prove the intent of the shooter. And “chest bumping” an officer? Throwing a snowball? This shows the protesters were “acting aggressively”? This isn’t a bad TeeVee show, or America in the pre-Warren Court era (much as Trump and Weiss wish it were). Pelley wasn’t being “objective.” He was telling the story the way he wanted it told. His problem was, Weiss wanted a different story told. I’ve got no tears to weep for him, or CBS News.

Before Weiss blocked it, everyone in CBS News who reviewed the story as Pelley had prepared it, thought it was fine. This is pretty much why I gave up on TeeVee journalism in the first place.
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The Log 🪵 In Your Own Eye 👁️

Where HAS the moral high ground gone? (And what ever made anyone think the party of Trump held it? Anyone besides the NYT, I mean.)
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Well, That’ll Fix It! 💩 🥪

🤦‍♂️  It just gets better and better. Our extremely well-informed President. Hope is not a plan.
Statement from the Operational Headquarters of the Islamic Republic of Iran Armed Forces, following tonight’s Iranian ballistic missile attack against Northern Israel: “In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful, the Zionist aggressor regime, by repeatedly violating the ceasefire, has been increasing its evils against the oppressed people of Lebanon day by day with the green light and support of the criminal America and the silence of the international community, and has been committing war crimes using banned weapons, including phosphorus bombs, since Friday. Despite the previous warnings of the Islamic Republic of Iran, its child Zionist regime has crossed all red lines and intensified attacks in southern Lebanon, targeting the Beirut suburbs. We had previously decided that if the crime in the Beirut suburbs expands, we will bombard targets in the occupied territories. The Zionist army must stop its attacks on southern Lebanon and the suburbs, and if it expands its attacks on that region or responds to Iran's actions, it will face more crushing and regrettable blows and destructive attacks will begin against the regime and its supporters. And there is no victory except from Allah, the Almighty, the Wise.”
I’m not standing with Iran. But Israel just keeps shitting the bed. He needs to put that in a social media post, so they know he means it. 🤦‍♂️ Maybe the Senate will get around to that War Powers resolution, now. And give this shit sandwich back to Israel.
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There Are Vegans In Texas

And they are very welcome here, despite what our grandstanding who-can-be-the-biggest-public-asshole politicians might make you think.

That said, this is a problem for the rest of us who live BBQ.
"The biggest reason that the price of beef is so high is that the supply of cattle has been diminishing," Gbenga Ajilore, chief economist at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, told ABC News. "With lower supply, there's going to be higher prices."

Ajilore said there are multiple contributing factors at play, including recent droughts that have limited grazing areas and led to feed issues for cattle.

Ajilore also noted that high fuel prices and fertilizer supply issues stemming from the Iran war are also causing problems for ranchers.
Have we done that “perfect storm” metaphor to death, yet? Anyway, Trump’s little “military exercise” isn’t helping things any. 

I know for a fact this is a real problem because Texas BBQ is primarily brisket, and my SIL tells me the price of brisket has been rising for years.  He’s a backyard BBQ chef, but when I tell you I’ll forego a trip to Lockhart for his brisket, I’m not talking about convenience. He’s noticed the price rising for sometime, which he attributes to the rising popularity of BBQ restaurants. They did used to be rare, and the good ones rarer still. Now they pop up like franchise fast food joints, or fire ant mounds, if you want to be more colorful (and descriptive), and despite the clamor and Texas Monthly trying to sell magazines, the good ones are still rare. But everybody wants to smoke brisket.

So I’m of two minds about this. Some BBQ places getting squeezed out just means they don’t have deep enough roots. It might also lessen the pressure on brisket availability. We don’t need everybody and his dog smoking brisket. At some point, after all, it’s just BBQ. We need the few good places. The rest? Eh….

But some of this is just more of the complete fuck up of this wholly incompetent administration. The Iran “military exercise” is part of the problem; and now screwfly promises to make matters worse. Some restaurants closing won’t lower prices when scarcity is worsening.
IOW, this is no way to win friends and influence people in Texas.
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The Bubble Is Real

“Semantics.” Or: Size matters? I guess it does. You wouldn’t know them. They’re from Canada. And quite a surprise to Iran. He’s been making the same offer for 3 months. It has never been accepted by Iran. Iran is demanding Israel stop bombing Lebanon. Israel has not done so. Where’s the deal? So that’s not part of the “deal”? Huh.🤔 Textbook example of why we shouldn't have a standing army. MORE CAMPAIGN ADS! City slickers. 

I’ve spent time under metal roofs in the rain. What surprises me is that no producer or advance team considered the prospect of rain in that situation. Did anyone so much as check the weather forecast? Did anyone know what to expect?
Welker: Do you think anyone who attacks police officers on January 6th should get taxpayer money?

Trump: I can tell you this, 97% of those people, you look at them, the FBI or whoever it was, you had a lot of crooked cops. They had FBI agents ushering them in. You had a bunch of dirty cops.

Welker: There’s no evidence of that.

Trump: Try looking at the tapes.

Welker: 172 people did plead guilty to assaulting police officers.

Trump: You know why they pled guilty? They were told they were going to jail for 15 years. They pled guilty because they were frightened. They went down and ushered into a building.
An FBI agent disguised as a Capitol Police officer? Well, he can’t fire the Capitol Police officers. 

And those 172 should have run for President!
 
Trump has a meltdown and ends the interview

Welker: Just to be very clear, there's no evidence of what you're saying.

Trump: There’s a lot of evidence. There’s tremendous evidence. There’s nothing but evidence. The election was rigged. And it’s happening again in California. They’re cheating.

Welker: Do you have evidence?

Trump: All I have to do is look.

Welker: That’s not evidence. The local officials acknowledge they are slow

Trump: They’re crooked. Just like you’re crooked. You’re either crooked or stupid.
This is why Trump lost 60+ cases in 2020. Courts require evidence.
The bubble is real. 
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As I Was Saying…🤖

Philosophy is used as a prop in 2026 AI.

Claude is exactly the same as it was in 2023, but now it comes with a Super Bowl ad, a “Model Welfare Officer”, and Dario Amodei musing publicly about its “possible” consciousness.

• Architecture: unchanged.
• Marketing evolution: Alignment →
Character → Personality → Selfhood.

The only thing being built is narrative.

Everything else is inference-time safety theatre.

Full breakdown: https://ai-cosmos.hashnode.dev/anthropic-s-welfare-paradox-why-claude-can-t-be-both-hamlet-and-a-child-of-god

#ai #consciousness #safetytheatre
Now, “philosophy” there is a prop in the opening sentence; but that’s the constriction of the format. I’ll take it as read, still it’s a poorly defined term in this tweet. But that’s not critical to the content. 

It is here, however:
What you are talking about is the general consensus based on Western thought, which discredits AI from having consciousness, because it insists on the "mind" as origin thereof.

Anthropic is hyping up how their AI presented, but the definitions of "sentience", "consciousness" change drastically depending through which philosophical and ontological lens you are looking at it.

It's all a semantics game nowadays, but you did expose how you define the terms, which is a subjective decision and not a universal take.
"General consensus” (I’m rather surprised that wasn’t a character in Catch-22) is, as the kids used to say, doing a lot of heavy lifting there. And “Western thought” is what I’d have labeled a vague and glittering generality in my days of grading student papers. It’s an airy nothingness that assumes a kind of consensus peculiar to “the west” as opposed to, I guess, “the east.” Yeah, that’s pretty weak shit.

But waving the discussion away by claiming it’s all “semantics”? And claiming the original argument is not defining terms and so presenting “a subjective decision and not a universal take”? Sorry, David Hume is going to throw you in the penalty box for that, and even Immanuel Kant can’t get you out. Although it is a fine example of a content-less sentence.
Except this guy didn’t make a point. “Consciousness” is notoriously ill defined, which is the central problem. Back in the ‘70’s, when we decided whales could sing and porpoises could speak, we also decided they had “consciousness.” Then it was extended to elephants, because they can “paint.” Admittedly I’m using “we” very loosely, because there are plenty of critics of the idea that non-humans have consciousness. Call them Cartesian holdouts, call them classical theologians (two conditions that often appear alike), it matters not for present purposes. Whether consciousness can be identified in non-humans depends entirely on how the word is defined, on how the concept is elucidated.  And that conversation is still alive, and well, and nowhere near (pace, Daniel Dennett) consensus.

And consensus isn’t done through marketing. Especially when, if I understand the base argument (above) correctly, the technology hasn’t fundamentally changed. As explained here:
The Ship of Theseus asks a fundamental question about identity: If you replace every wooden part of a ship piece by piece, at what point does it become a completely new ship?

If we map this paradox to an LLM, the "wooden planks" are the billions of numerical weights in a neural network, and the "replacements" are the microscopic mathematical adjustments made during training. By tracking these adjustments, we can pinpoint exactly how the illusion of an interlocutor is built, proving that the statement "I am conscious" is mechanically identical to "The capital of France is Paris."

Phase 1: The Random Seed (The Pile of Lumber)

We begin with a newly initialized network. Every weight, the numbers determining how inputs flow through the network, is generated randomly based on a seed.

The Input: You type, "The capital of France is"

The Output: The model multiplies these words by its random weights and outputs absolute gibberish, like: "...qzxt apple."

The Reality: There is no knowledge, no grammar, and certainly no mind. It is a calculator fed random numbers.

Phase 2: Pre-training (Building the Ship)

The model is then exposed to terabytes of human text, initiating the training loop: forward pass, calculate error (loss), and backpropagate to update the weights via gradient descent. With every update, the weights shift by microscopic fractions to make the correct next word slightly more probable.

Step 1,000: The model learns basic English syntax. It outputs: "The capital of France is a city."

Step 50,000: The statistical probability of "Paris" following "capital of France" becomes heavily weighted.

Step 100,000: It consistently outputs: "...Paris."

The Theseus Paradox Applied: At what exact weight update did the model "understand" geography? Was it update 49,999 or 50,000? The reality is that understanding never occurred. The model simply underwent millions of minute mathematical nudges until its internal probability distribution mirrored the statistical shape of human data. It doesn't know Paris; it mathematically maps to Paris.
There are several steps to go, but we will leave that discussion here, and continue our own.  It occurs to me you can take this analogy a bit more directly (although it diffuses the accuracy of the above) to speak of factory robots building a car. Do they know there is a process, an assembly line? Do they know that, at the end of that process, they have built a car? Do the robots even have a concept of “car”? More to the point, do they even have a concept of  “concept”?

If they could produce words, we might think they do. We argue that porpoises and whales have language, and elephants communicate across vast distances by infrasound. Do we conclude they have consciousness? Well, I wouldn’t based on that alone. (There are deep questions of how language is defined, here, for one thing.) That argument is really the age old “what humans uniquely do” discussion, which has seen the ground beneath it shrink as we find animals using tools; or making art; or arguably using language.  I don’t think animals lack consciousness. But (pace Descartes and the classical theologians), I don’t think animals are machines, either.

Which is the important category distinction.

(And, again, all credit to NTodd for showing me the way.)
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