Keeping an eye on the fascists. Image by ChatGPT 4o. Click here for larger version.
Safety and survival
There would be no thriving, and no survival, without surveillance. When deer in my backyard see me watching them through a window and retreat into the woods, they’re doing surveillance (and I’m surveilling them!). Today we have many types of machine surveillance to help protect us. Our smoke detectors are a form of surveillance. Automatic braking systems on vehicles use radar for surveillance. Governments, obviously, have many ways of doing surveillance. Corporations, too, do surveillance, including snooping on our privacy.
But what about us ordinary people? Forty years ago, I heard a brilliant managing editor of a Pulitzer-prize newspaper say that newspapers are intelligence agencies for the common man. That was very true then. It’s less true now, because of professional timidity and corporate capture.
Low-information types — the type of people who voted for Trump — are upside down about the need for surveillance. They are gullible to propaganda, easily manipulated, easily persuaded against their own vital interests, pumped full of appealing and easy-to-understand deceptions that serve the purposes of a predatory elite.
We high-information types have been living through terrible times. New technologies such as social media have been optimized for mass deception. The sources of trustable information not only have been weakened, they are under attack. One of the reasons we “doom scroll” is that, perceiving danger, we are desperate for information.
Beyond doom scrolling
Corporations and governments have covert ways of doing surveillance. We ordinary people have no covert sources. Open-source intelligence has been a thing for a long time. It’s more important now than ever, and we instinctively feel that. When we doom scroll, we are doing — or trying to do — open-source intelligence.
Open-source intelligence is not always free. I still subscribe to newspapers, weakened and compromised though they are. I’ve written here before about how Substack has become an important source of information. The first two things I read each morning, before I spend the next hour making my daily rounds though a series of reasonably trustable web sites, are the daily Substack posts of Heather Cox Richardson and Paul Krugman.
I have so many subscriptions these days that it has become a considerable expense. One of those subscriptions is ChatGPT Plus, from OpenAI, at $20 a month.
ChatGPT’s ‘Deep Research’
A couple of months ago, ChatGPT introduced a feature called “Deep Research.” So far it seems remarkably reliable and less prone to hallucination. It cites its sources. If asked a question that it perceives as unfocused or ambiguous, it will ask for clarification before it begins. It takes time and resources. Those at the $20-a-month level get 10 queries per month. A $200-a-month subscription gets 120 queries per month.
Paul Krugman’s Substack post this morning was an interview with Claudia Sahm, an economist who developed “the Sahm rule” for the early detection of recessions. The interview wasn’t exactly clear on what the Sahm rule says at present about whether the United States (probably) is in a recession or not. So I made a deep-research query to ChatGPT 4o.
After about five minutes, ChatGPT responded with a longish discussion, followed by this summary:
Overall, current employment data do not meet the Sahm rule’s recession criterion. The unemployment rate’s modest uptick (on the order of only a few tenths of a percent from its cyclical low) suggests that, by this real-time measure, the economy has not entered a recession. This assessment aligns with other economic evidence: job growth, while slower, remains positive, and GDP has continued to expand in recent quarters. In conclusion, the Sahm rule presently does not flash a recession warning – a sign that the U.S. economy, while perhaps past the very tightest labor market conditions, is not yet in a recessionary decline according to this indicator.
This led me to some questions about the safest instruments for parking money in the current economic conditions. Again, ChatGPT spent about five minutes doing whatever it does and told me that the Schwab money market fund (SWVXX) that I am at present invested in is highly liquid, with low risks. I asked what economic developments might suggest higher risks in the money market, and what instrument I might move to for greater safety. ChatGPT responded at some length, with this summary:
You’re wise to stay in SWVXX while liquidity remains high and credit markets are calm, but be alert to:
• Widening credit spreads
• Repo market dysfunction
• Rising systemic banking stress
• Sharp risk-off sentiment
• Redemption gates in peer funds
If any of these flash red, Treasury-only MMFs and short T-Bills offer the highest liquidity and lowest risk, with yields only modestly lower.
Would you like me to monitor these indicators for you and give you alerts if conditions shift?
It happens that Schwab has a money-market fund invested only in treasury bonds — SNSXX. I will indeed watch for the conditions ChatGPT listed and move money into SNSXX if that seems wise. ChatGPT offered to monitor those indicators, but I’m not yet sure how monitoring works.
I could not detect any errors in ChatGPT’s response. Some of the information was easy to verify on the Schwab web site. ChatGPT’s numbers were both accurate and up to date.
Keeping an eye on the fascists
My next deep-research query to ChatGPT was this: I would like information on current and very recent activities of right-wing grass roots organizations such as militias, as well as intel from social media where this type of people congregate. Under Trump, are they emboldened? Or, do they feel safer and thus less motivated to cause trouble?
ChatGPT asked for clarification:
To help guide the research effectively, could you please clarify a few points:
1. Are you interested in U.S.-based right-wing grassroots organizations only, or would you like international examples as well?
2. Do you want the research to focus solely on militia-style groups, or also include broader grassroots movements (e.g., anti-government, Second Amendment, anti-immigration, etc.)?
3. Is there a specific timeframe you’re interested in (e.g., only post-2024 election developments, or the past year)?
4. Would you like examples from specific platforms (e.g., Telegram, Gab, Truth Social), or a general overview of social media trends and chatter?
This will help narrow the scope and tailor the findings to your goals.
I replied with: Only U.S., please, only post-2024 election, and chatter from any relevant platform.
After almost ten minutes, ChatGPT came back with a response of several thousand words, too long to include here. I asked for a bulleted executive summary:
Executive Summary: U.S. Right-Wing Militias and Grassroots Movements Post-2024 Election
• Mass Pardons Embolden Militias: President Trump’s extensive pardons of January 6 participants—including key leaders of groups such as the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys—have revitalized far-right militias, restoring their leadership structures and morale.
• High-Visibility Demonstrations: Far-right organizations, notably Proud Boys and Patriot Front, have staged highly visible, coordinated marches and rallies across multiple U.S. cities since January 2025, signaling renewed confidence and willingness to publicly assert their presence.
• Integration into Mainstream Conservative Events: Extremists are increasingly blending into broader conservative movements, such as anti-abortion rallies, positioning themselves as accepted, even celebrated, participants rather than fringe outsiders.
• Targeted Harassment and Intimidation: Militias continue aggressive actions aimed at perceived enemies—particularly LGBTQ+ communities, left-wing activists, and immigrants—under a perception of impunity due to a sympathetic administration.
• Militant and Strategic Online Chatter: Social media chatter on platforms like Telegram reveals a tone of victory coupled with strategic planning. Extremists advocate using Trump’s presidency as a window for recruitment, infiltration of institutions, and normalization of radical ideologies.
• Shift from Anti-Government to Pro-Trump Alignment: Militias have transitioned from opposing the federal government to aligning themselves with Trump’s administration, viewing themselves as enforcers or supporters of official policies rather than insurgent actors.
• Cautious Strategic Pause: Despite an emboldened stance, some extremist groups indicate they are currently in a phase of organization and preparation, viewing Trump’s second term as a secure period to rebuild and expand their influence without immediate risk of repression.
• Potential for Future Mobilization: Experts warn that Trump’s open alignment and legitimization of far-right militias create conditions where these groups may readily mobilize or escalate violence if politically encouraged or directed.
Where I am at the moment
Every day, the news is horrifying. For the past week, we have all been mesmerized by the Trumpian drama over tariffs and the turmoil in the stock markets and (much worse) bond markets. Though I haven’t posted in 12 days, I am by no means tuned out. It’s just that there has been little that I can add, and I don’t want to be one of those people who can’t add anything to our understanding of what’s happening other than snark, or merely repeating what so many of us are already thinking and saying.
Just now, it’s all about self-care while keeping an eye on the world — good eats, a slosh of Scotch, a glass of wine, watching a beautiful spring unfold, trying to figure out why I’m seeing more crows nearby and where they’re nesting, reading, re-watching the first five seasons of Game of Thrones, staying in touch with friends, and planning a visit to Scotland in September.
I’m thinking about making a project of befriending crows. There are many articles and YouTube videos on how to do it.
Disclaimer: Nothing here should be taken as investment advice. We’re all in different circumstances and can tolerate different levels of risk. As a retired person, my first priority is protecting what I have.
