October 2026 Update

Monthly Thoughts

A visit to the Netherlands this month. I’ve never visited before but was very impressed. Clean, tidy, organised and very obviously wealthy compared to the UK. No borded-up shops were spotted. Transportation is incredible with bikes, trams and trains running everywhere, cheap and easy to use - swipe on and off.

These last couple of months I’ve been mostly using Claude Code and it amazes me every day. Unsurprisingly, the YouTube algorithm has become pretty adept at recommending AI videos. After watching one, I did the thing that I know I shouldn’t . . I ventured into the wild wild west of the comments. I shouldn’t have. The amount of hate in the comments was immediately apparent. Ironically I’m now worried about the future of the human race. Not because of any AI threat, but because of the persistent ability of humans to immediately and irrationally reject some new disruptive technology. The same thing happened with EVs. A lot of the commenters seemed genuinely to want AI to be banned. The absolute ludicrousness of this viewpoint amazes me. What would be required for this to happen? Any companies developing AI will be shut down globally? All open source models will be dutifully handed back or deleted by every person that’s downloaded them? Businesses that are running local models will just turn them off? I get it, there are bound to be some downsides, but we’ve seen this before throughout history. Humans protesting against all manner of new fangled machines and methods claiming they would bring about catastrophe. However, we still (just about) write things in books, we still abandoned the horse as a method of daily transportation, utilise the internet for our daily lives, use mobile phones and produce goods in factories. Get over it. Once you’re over it, you can then start to realise its absolutely amazing potential. The sooner the better. Chop chop. Oh, and don’t be listening to the doomers, hand wringers and catastrophisers. Especially Bill Gates. Microsoft have their own AI model, so either a) he has no influence in that company any more, b) he’s not actually concerned about how dangerous it is c) he’s hoping for regulatory capture so his (open source) competition can be hampered or if I was being gracious, d) setting himself up for an ‘I told you so’ when someone breaks something. The same also applies to all the other closed source model providers which means they must all be playing the same game. Some have suggested it could be pre-IPO valuation hype, but the fact MS are playing this game suggests not. Tbd!

In the UK budget, the stupid cash ISA restriction was removed and some very minor tweaking around with various limits (mostly in the wrong direction) was performed. Considering the Andy Burham ’too in hock to the bond market’ comments, as Monevator pointed out, it certainly looks like reality has dawned. Words are cheap when you’re not actually the one bearing the responsibility decisions I guess. In related news, the UK debt payments are now greater than the entire education budget (see link below)

Worth a Read

The early capitalist worker voluntarily increased annual working days from 250 to 300 because a new universe of desirable goods had become accessible. The AI-enabled thinker may similarly increase the amount of voluntary cognitive effort they expend because a new universe of intellectual consumption has become accessible. This has certainly been the case with me. I’m suddenly willing to work significantly harder compared to even a year ago, because a lot more is suddenly within reach.

https://contraptions.venkateshrao.com/p/cognitive-mercantilism
https://www.slowboring.com/p/why-are-young-liberals-so-depressed
https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/markets/article-16254807/Fiscal-failure-Britains-debt-bill-overtakes-education-spending-time.html

Net Worth Comments

A slight downtick this month after Google AI wobbles, Iran war uncertainties and the related inflation caused by oil prices. I should be boosting cash/bonds/gold, but the market has taken a hit at the end of this last week and I’m tempted to get involved. Although gold is also back to prices last seen a year ago, so perhaps this is the answer?