The Ledger
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.
why aren't all 14 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 0 checkable ones are still open, waiting for their date. predictions held up or didn't; assertions are supported or contradicted. on every card: ▮▮▮▮▮ certainty · ▮▮▮▮▮ debate potential. speakers are clickable
Michael: Pete Hegseth is already the greatest Defense Secretary in our lifetimes
“Pete Hegsus, I think, is going to be, and is already, probably the greatest Secretary of War in our lifetimes.”
Michael: The Iraq and Afghanistan wars were a net negative for US
“The second war in Iraq and the Afghanistan war, and there were long, expensive conflicts where the benefit to the United States, looking back on it, was negative. It wasn't even neutral, right? It cost a lot of people their lives, and Afghanistan is still, Afg…”
Michael: China is building hypersonic missiles at costs the US cannot match
“So they've developed certain capabilities in certain hypersonic missile categories, ah, at a price that, ah, that we haven't achieved yet, which is why one of my critical technology areas is high, scaled hypersonics at cost.”
Michael: Critical technology areas lingering for a decade signals failure
“These critical technology areas were almost 10 years old since 2018, and if something's critical for 10 years, that means you're not making much progress on it.”
DoD prioritizes adapting commercial AI over building in-house foundation models
“Applied AI is number one. And the reason I call it applied AI is because the big companies, OpenAI, Anthropic, XAI, they're all investing hundreds of billions of dollars in AI and AI infrastructure. So all I need to do is take that and adapt it for the departm…”
Michael: Department of War closed three critical mineral deals in 45 days
“The three I'm most proud of, ah, in a very recent term, is we've done three deals for critical minerals, ah, to reduce our dependency on China in like, 45 days.”
Michael: Palantir is fundamentally a nuts-and-bolts operational software company
“But I think they're really a nuts and bolts software company with forward deployed engineers, That are smart, that sit with a warfighter, and solve, like, everyday problems you would in any organization, ah, as much as they do the other stuff.”
Michael: Tech worker opposition to defense contracting has dramatically shrunk
“I think those days are over and the number or percentage of people that will say that about a Palantir or Google or any one other company has shrunk so much that hopefully it doesn't matter.”
Michael: I pushed Uber to acquire Lyft; Kalanick wanted to crush them
“I was like, we should buy Lyft. He's like, we should crush Lyft.”
Michael: My mandate is to create five new prime-scale defense tech companies
“And my job is to create five more companies that, you know, work in the department and bring new capabilities.”
Michael: Only Anduril, Palantir, and SpaceX broke into defense in 10 years
“Everyone talks about Android and Palantir and SpaceX. Those are the three companies that in the last 10 years have broken into The defense sector to challenge Lockheed Martin, Arthur Grumman, and sort of the old, older primes.”
Michael: Biomanufacturing will enable rare earth separation and synthetic blood
“You could use biological mechanisms to separate rare earth metals? So instead of mining them out of the ground and doing this, like, nasty refining process you could, we use biology to do that You could. Use biology to create synthetic blood. You could can use…”