As Biden’s numbers plummet, he’s promising to ‘ease housing costs’ by paying first-time homeowners $400 a month for their mortgage. Given our president is not actually sub 100 IQ, one is left wondering why he’d propose a policy that can only increase the average cost of housing. The answer: a bloated cost of housing is actually what he’s selling. While Americans like the sound of cheaper homes, dramatically increasing the supply (the only thing that can help) and actually lowering their value would mean pain for Boomers, Gen Xers, and even a slim majority of Millennials — who all own property. The average person will never vote to “solve a problem” if that problem is their own net worth, and the average politician isn’t su*cidal. Kids, I don’t know what to tell you. Build more islands or something because the cost of housing will increase for as long as democracy exists in America.

Yesterday, OpenAI unveiled GPT-4o, an AI model that can see, hear, speak, and eventually take actions on your behalf in near-human conversational time with a voice that sounds like… well, the most annoying millennial woman you know (nobody’s perfect). The demo was as exciting as it was foreboding; low latency not only makes GPT-4o feel extremely human, but its emotional resonance has the effect of making you think it (she?) likes you, would maybe even be down, etc. On X, after all the obvious references to Her, the reaction was a mix of enthusiasm, “shit’s about to get weird,” and conspiratorial takes about state-sponsored mind control, all of which, to be honest, feel totally appropriate at this point — an audio/visual, perception-level intelligence filter that can act on your behalf at a super affordable price is almost destined to be awesome, terrifying, and everything in between.

Late Sunday, the leader of 2021’s epic meme-fueled GameStop short squeeze, Keith Gill — known by the pseudonym Roaring Kitty — made his first post in 3 years: a cartoon of a gamer learning forward in a chair. As a result of that single post (again, literally just a guy sitting) $GME spiked 110%, short sellers lost $1 billion (did they learn nothing lmao), the company hit a $10 billion market cap, trading for the stock was halted four times, and it’s now one of the 600 largest public companies in the country. Truly, the sheer power this kitty wields over the market rivals even that of Nancy Pelosi. But it’s worth noting Roaring Kitty has still made no mention of GameStop, and it’s possible he’s returning to back a completely different memestock. In unrelated news, my entire last paycheck has now magically turned into shares of Bed Bath & Beyond. Apes together strong!

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on this week’s pod, the pirate wires crew discusses why the former twitter ceo left bluesky’s board

jack dorsey on his exit from bluesky, how twitter lost its way, jack’s strategy for ending censorship forever, new background on the elon saga, and the death of social media as we know it

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