Zero Hedge

No Wonder The World Seems Deranged...

No Wonder The World Seems Deranged...

Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

Why We Fail

No wonder the world seems deranged - it is deranged by the immense strength of an Old Guard clinging onto power by any means available even as the world around them spins into incoherence.

There are many reasons why we fail, but perhaps the most critical one is continuing to do more of what has failed. This has many potential sources, from the psychological (self-sabotage, etc.) to the ideological (the market is the solution to every problem, etc.) to cognitive biases (recency bias, etc.).

One enduring source of continuing to do more of what has failed is hard-wired on a deeper level than mere cognitive biases. One way to summarize this is: we can't let go of a story that explains how the world works unless we have a replacement story in hand.

In short: we must have a story that accounts for the world around us. Not having any story is not possible. We can have multiple overlapping stories--Jungian psychology, general theory of relativity, Keynesian economics, and so on--but we need a story that explains key elements of our experience and what we observe and "know," with know in quotes to indicate that the story we embrace defines what we know and what we can know.

Given this need for a story, we can only relinquish a story that's failing to account for what we observe if we have a better story available: and by "better" I mean one that more accurately accounts for what we observe.

This substitution of a new story for an existing story that no longer makes sense (i.e. offers constructive predictions) of the world is easily confused with another human trait: the power of the Powers That Be rest on a foundational story, and replacing this story removes the source of their power. Replacing the story that empowers them discredits their claim to superiority, effectively stripping away their entitlement to authority and their overweening delusions of grandiosity that come with entering the ranks of the Powers That Be.

This desire to maintain the status quo story as part of maintaining their authority and power is the core dynamic described by Thomas Kuhn in his classic The Structure of Scientific Revolutions: the Old Guard who embraced the story that the universe revolves around the Earth resists accepting the new story that the Earth is an inconsequential minor planet that orbits the sun in a local system which is in motion in much larger structures even as all the observational data undermines their story and supports the new story.

Fast-forward to the present and we have multiple Old Guards clinging to ideological stories that no longer track what we observe. Yet like all previous Old Guards, the Powers That Be are loathe to accept a new story that strips away their claim to authority and all the perquisites of power they currently enjoy.

We live in a world torn between the artifices needed to make "the Earth is the center of the Universe" somewhat plausible even as that story crumbles into incoherence and the formation of a new story that actually tracks reality. In terms of a metaphor, consider a glossy "lifestyle" publication that simultaneously touts a new chocolate cake recipe that is simply out of this world and a new diet to slim down in a healthier way than taking meds with horrible side effects that must be taken for life.

No wonder the world seems deranged--it is deranged by the immense strength of an Old Guard clinging onto power by any means available even as the world around them spins into incoherence.

Economic incoherence:

Political incoherence:

Psychological incoherence:

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Tyler Durden Wed, 12/10/2025 - 08:05

SpaceX Reportedly Targeting 2026 IPO That Could Rival Saudi Aramco's Historic Listing

SpaceX Reportedly Targeting 2026 IPO That Could Rival Saudi Aramco's Historic Listing

SpaceX is preparing a record-breaking IPO targeting a valuation of roughly $1.5 trillion, with expectations to raise $30 billion or more and debut in the second half of 2026. If the Bloomberg report is accurate, the offering would surpass Saudi Aramco's 2019 listing and become the largest public listing in history.

The report says SpaceX management and advisers are seeking a 2H26 listing that could raise more than $40 billion in stock, making it the largest IPO of all time, well above Saudi Aramco's $29 billion listing.

Current internal valuation (based on a secondary share price of around $420) already places SpaceX above $800 billion, according to the people familiar with the discussions.

The accelerated timetable for going public is partly driven by Starlink's rapid global expansion and its new direct-to-mobile service. Successful Starship test launches are also a significant factor. We published a note last week indicating that Starlink filed a trademark for "Starlink Mobile," indicating the company may soon become AT&T and Verizon's worst nightmare.

SpaceX's revenue is about $15 billion this year and is forecasted to climb to $22 to 24 billion in 2026, according to one source, with most of it coming from Starlink. The company's mini-dish offering has been a major hit with consumers, helping push Starlink's global user base to around 8 million and skyrocketing up and to the right.

The people noted:

SpaceX expects to use some of the funds raised in the IPO to develop space-based data centers, including purchasing the chips required to run them, two of the people said, an idea Musk expressed interest in during a recent event with Baron Capital.

"SpaceX has been cash-flow positive for many years and does periodic stock buybacks twice a year to provide liquidity for employees and investors," Musk wrote on X last week.

He noted, "Valuation increments are a function of progress with Starship and Starlink and securing global direct-to-cell spectrum that greatly increases our addressable market."

Last week, Musk shut down the claim by corporate media that SpaceX was raising money at an $800 billion valuation, calling the report "not accurate."

Musk has previously stated:

The report on SpaceX's IPO plans sent EchoStar shares up 5% in premarket trading. This is because SpaceX recently bought $17 billion in AWS-4 and H-block spectrum licenses.

Let's remind readers that SpaceX is effectively America’s rocket program - and it leads the world by light-years.

In terms of spacecraft upmass... 

View the Bryce Tech report here. 

Tyler Durden Wed, 12/10/2025 - 07:45

Shellenberger: Civilizational Suicide Behind Europe’s Demand For Censorship Of X

Shellenberger: Civilizational Suicide Behind Europe’s Demand For Censorship Of X

Authored on Dec. by Michael Shellenberger via X,

Today Last week, the European Commission fined Elon Musk’s X €140 million for, it says, breaking laws requiring social media transparency. Specifically, said the Commission, which is the executive branch of the European Union, X broke the law by making its blue checkmarks available to anyone, failing to make its advertising repository transparent, and failing to provide researchers with special access to its data. “Today’s decision has nothing to do with content moderation,” insisted the Commission’s spokesperson.

In truth, the Commission’s fine has everything to do with “content moderation,” which is censorship. The EU wants X to give its data to government-selected “researchers” so they can identify which posts and advertisements should be censored. This is a censorship-by-proxy strategy. The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) from 2020 to 2022, and Europe today, have authorized government-funded NGOs to demand censorship of social media platforms in an attempt to deceive the public.

As such, the European Commission is spreading disinformation in order to demand censorship, and is openly engaged in a deception campaign aimed at confusing the people of Europe and the United States about what it is doing.

Many Americans may rightly wonder why they should care about what the European government is doing. President Donald Trump shut down much of the US censorship industrial complex, including by the DHS.

The reason we should care is that the goal of the European Commission, like that of the governments of Britain, Brazil, and Australia, is to censor the American people. As Public was the first to report in October, a pro-censorship activist think tank, the Stanford Cyberpolicy Center, hosted a gathering of global censorship officials to censor American social media platforms and American citizens. The Stanford Cyberpolicy Center was home to the fake “researchers” who oversaw the DHS censorship-by-proxy effort from 2020 to 2022.

Moreover, the EU is now in direct violation of the NATO Treaty, under which the US is militarily obligated to defend Europe. The NATO Treaty requires member states to have free speech and free and fair elections. France and Germany are actively and illegally preventing political candidates from running for office for ideological reasons, namely their opposition to mass migration. And the Romanian high court, with the support of the European Commission, nullified election results under the thin and unproven pretext of Russian interference, after a nationalist and populist presidential candidate won.

The X fine comes in the wake of a renewed push for governments to break encryption and read private text messages, known as “Chat Control.” The ostensible goal of this is to combat child abuse, and yet there is little evidence that such a system is needed. The heads of Signal and Telegram have strongly opposed the effort as a violation of privacy and a backdoor that others could exploit.

And last month, the European Commission launched a “Democracy Shield” program consisting of more funding for NGOs and “fact checkers” to “ensure swift reactions to large-scale and potentially transnational information operations. An independent European Network of Fact-Checkers will be set up to boost fact-checking capacity in all EU official languages…” In the past, activist NGOs have demanded that social media companies censor content based on fact-checks, including false ones.

The European Digital Services Act (DSA) rests upon a model of censorship by proxy. The proxies are NGOs, law enforcement organizations, and industry groups designated “Trusted Flaggers.” Noted Lorcán Price of the Alliance Defending Freedom in his testimony to Congress in September of year, “When a Trusted Flagger speaks, the service provider must listen and prioritize the review of the flagged content before that of its regular users. The service provider must review the flagged content to determine whether it violates the law of an EU member state or the EU itself. If so, the service provider must remove or disable access to the content.”

Notably, the European Commission announced its X fine on the same day that the Trump administration released its new security strategy, which reads, “We will oppose elite-driven, anti-democratic restrictions on core liberties in Europe, the Anglosphere, and the rest of the democratic world, especially among our allies.” The document implicitly threatens US commitment to military security for Europe. “It is far from obvious whether certain European countries will have economies and militaries strong enough to remain reliable allies.”

The European Constitution states that “Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers.” 

Why then is it now seeking to deny those rights?

Please subscribe now to support Public's defense of free speech, read the full article, and watch the full video!

Tyler Durden Wed, 12/10/2025 - 05:00

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