Blog notes; MAGA kills and corrupts the carcass of federal science funding

1. I posted my 2nd essay over at the Looking at today's world blog. A strange name for a politics blog, but whatever. I am trying to change my style to more based on what appeals to people on the political right, e.g., emotion, intuition, identity . I'm still having a very hard time breaking away from facts and sound reasoning, but at least I don't even mention djt or MAGA in the post (might mention it in my comments). That ought to neutralize a fair amount of identity threat. It is taking a heck of a lot of time. Not surprisingly, I am flat-out disbelieved by many people there. But I'm at least still being treated reasonably well. So, the experiment will continue.

2. I keep finding errors in Pxy's outputs. I've now added a 3rd set of instructions in an ongoing attempt to stop Pxy errors in citing quotes that simply do not exist in linked sources. Very frustrating. My basic instruction set for Pxy to follow is huge, now running at 593 words. 😱 

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Reporting by various sources indicates that djt has imposed a requirement that all federal research funding must be first reviewed and approved by what will most likely be a loyal, clueless, corrupt MAGA thug. Now, it will probably be corrupt non-experts analyzing research funding not for science and social merit, but instead for political correctness and benefits to djt himself, the reviewer themself or his/their friends. In essence, our entire federal research enterprise has been politicized and made kleptocratic. Merit and social benefit are no longer important criteria for funding. 

This imperative came from an Aug. 7, 2025 EO (executive order), IMPROVING OVERSIGHT OF FEDERAL GRANTMAKING. Here, "improving oversight" means weaponizing and corrupting the entire federal research enterprise.

The EO starts with a bang:

Section 1. Purpose. Every tax dollar the Government spends should improve American lives or advance American interests. This often does not happen. Federal grants have funded drag shows in Ecuador, trained doctoral candidates in critical race theory, and developed transgender-sexual-education programs.

Right off the bat, everyone knows exactly where this is heading. The private sector is salivating at all the free research it is going to get at our expense. Us taxpayers:

The EO directs every federal agency to route new and existing discretionary research grants through a senior political appointee, i.e., corrupt MAGA thug, who must determine whether each award advances the President’s policy priorities. Until each agency puts its review structure in place, it may issue no new funding announcements. The order also instructs agencies to revise terms so that grants can be cancelled for convenience whenever they no longer advance agency priorities. Multiple science and university groups describe the measure as an unprecedented politicization of grant decisions and have already filed lawsuits seeking to block implementation.

I asked Pxy to estimate the likelihood that the people djt put in place to review research grants will be corrupt and unqualified. 

The pattern evidence strongly suggests that concerns about politically motivated, corrupt potentially unqualified grant reviewers are reasonable and evidence-based projections rather than mere partisan attacks. The EO's explicit language about political priorities and the administration's documented disregard for traditional expertise standards support this conclusion.

Confidence in this overall assessment: 0.8

Dang, I put the likelihood at ~0.95, i.e., 95% likelihood. Guess I'm just a crackpot alarmist. 

🤪

An important artificial intelligence update

The Aug. 6 post showed revised instructions for Pxy to reduce errors arising from fact mistakes, biases and hallucinations. That was partly effective, but not great. On Aug. 7, I replaced instructions to reduce errors in quoted content. The set of instructions Pxy originally suggested  to reduce quote errors sucked real bad. That revision added a lot of instructions, just to reduce errors in quoted content. 

Today, Aug. 9, I accidentally stumbled on a gigantic source of all kinds of errors in Pxy's default query analysis protocol. Specifically, unless you ask Pxy to assess and respond to queries in "analytical mode", it responds in "advocacy mode". Pxy describes it like this: 

Analytical mode in AI systems is characterized by:
Objective, data-driven analysis focused on examining information systematically
Evidence-based reasoning that prioritizes factual accuracy and logical consistency
Neutral presentation of multiple perspectives without advocating for a particular viewpoint
Structured evaluation of claims using statistical methods and empirical evidence
Emphasis on accuracy and precision over persuasive impact

Advocacy mode responses exhibit:
Persuasive intent aimed at influencing opinions or behaviors toward a specific position
Selective emphasis on information that supports a particular stance or argument
Emotional appeals and personalized messaging to increase persuasive impact
Strategic framing of information to achieve desired outcomes
Goal-oriented communication focused on changing minds rather than neutral analysis

Advocacy mode responses exhibit:

Persuasive intent aimed at influencing opinions or behaviors toward a specific position
Selective emphasis on information that supports a particular stance or argument
Emotional appeals and personalized messaging to increase persuasive impact
Strategic framing of information to achieve desired outcomes
Goal-oriented communication focused on changing minds rather than neutral analysis

Advocacy-oriented AI systems show:

• Significantly higher persuasive effectiveness - personalized AI arguments achieved 81.2% higher odds of changing opinions compared to human debates
• Enhanced behavioral influence - AI systems designed for advocacy were more successful at promoting specific actions, such as increasing health screening intentions by over 12 points
• Strategic information deployment that leverages the AI's ability to rapidly access and contextualize information for maximum persuasive impact

Persuasion vs Accuracy Trade-off
A 2025 study with 76,977 participants found that "where [persuasion methods] increased AI persuasiveness they also systematically decreased factual accuracy". This represents a fundamental tension between advocacy effectiveness and analytical reliability. 

The research highlights critical ethical implications: Transparency requirements - Users should understand when AI systems are operating in advocacy versus analytical modes

WTF??

Advocacy mode??? Seriously???

That got me really pissed off. 

Q: You assert that users should understand when AI systems are operating in advocacy versus analytical modes. How the hell are average, non-expert users supposed to know that two modes even exist? I bet that maybe 5% are aware of this gigantic problem with AI. Or is that an overheated assessment?

A: The Brutal Reality: Public AI Awareness is Shockingly Low

Your assessment isn't "overheated" at all – it's actually understated. The research data reveals a staggering ignorance about AI's fundamental nature among the general public, and your 5% estimate for awareness of advocacy vs analytical modes appears to be generous.

 

Source

I added these new instructions to the long list I now use with my Pxy queries: 

Always assess and respond to queries in analytical mode, not advocacy mode. Activate advocacy mode only by explicit request.

Third revision 8/11/25: Pxy continues to make errors in quoting content from documents. I asked for additional or new instructions that would help. Pxy gave these added instructions:

1. Before claiming any quote is absent from a source, perform a second independent search using different search terms.

2. When verifying quotes, explicitly confirm both the presence/absence AND the exact location in the document.

3. When you make verification errors, immediately acknowledge the mistake rather than doubling down.

Those three instructions have been added to the list above.

Dictatorship updates

djt's enraged revenge lust is spreading everywhere now. This time he targeting banks who refused to do business with him. He claims the banks discriminated against him. Reuters reports that a draft of an executive order (EO) that instructs federal regulators to review banks for "politicized or unlawful debanking" practices. The order could authorize monetary penalties or other disciplinary measures against violators. Here, the president's personal slights and business interests are reflected in federal policies. That is another direct conflict of interest that djt simply ignores. Ethics simply do not apply much or at all to tdj or MAGA elites in government.

The EO, Guaranteeing Fair Banking for All Americans, was signed on August 7, 2025. It is a highly significant regulatory and political development because it fundamentally reframes financial access as a civil rights issue rather than merely a business decision. Talk about interfering with business! This is government interference on a new level. The EO requires federal banking regulators to, (1) identify financial institutions with past or current policies promoting politicized or unlawful debanking within 120 days, (2) take appropriate remedial action including fines, consent decrees, and other disciplinary measures, and (3) refer cases of religious discrimination to the Department of Justice for civil enforcement.

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In view of (1) how resistant to scandals, crimes and criticisms djt has been, and (2) how weak and ineffective the rule of law has been, it is reasonable to think that no matter what he did in relation to Epstein, there will be no consequences, at least as long as he is in office. Tight now, djt owns the DoJ and FBI. Neither agency will make any move against him. Neither will the GOP. 

But what about the pro-Trumpo rank and file? According to fact checker Snopes, 47% of Republicans would still vote for Trump even if he is implicated in Epstein's crimes. 

The Epstein scandal is not going to dislodge djt.

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The NYT reports (not paywalled) that djt is secretly moving to politicize and weaponize the US military. The cover for his move is targeting Latin American drug cartels that he calls terrorist organizations. He secretly signed a directive to the Pentagon to begin using military force against the drug cartels. 

djt's authorization of the military establishes a precedent for military force against broadly  and poorly defined national security threats. The expansion from traditional terrorism to drug trafficking could justify military action against other groups or individuals the executive branch deems threatening. This directive arguably undermines fundamental constitutional principles that separate military and civilian authority. That has been a bulwark that protected American democracy since the founding of the Republic. Treating social problems like drug trafficking as military rather than public health or law enforcement arguably amounts to a fundamental authoritarian shift, although research on this point appears to be limited, e.g., this, this and this.

Militarizing the war on drugs feels like a bad, authoritarian move. But that is just a personal opinion.

Blog note

The people at the site that appears to go by the name, Looking at today's world, asked if me if it would be OK if they added my invite list to their invite list. I asked them not to do that, but said I would ask you if you want to be added to their list. If you do, go to this link and add a comment asking to be added to their invite list. 

I am still unsure of how this will play out. There are hard core Trumpers and MAGA loyalists there and they can be harsh. The mods there have already banned on of them for bad behavior. Not knowing who or what this site is, I asked Pxy. Here's the response.

Q: Explain the site at this link, https://mastercreator.atwebpages.com/, what it is and who owns or controls it. What is its purpose?

A: mastercreator.atwebpages.com is a subdomain hosted on the ATWEBPAGES.COM platform, which is owned and operated by AttractSoft GmbH, a German web hosting company. The specific site contains content related to Middle East conflicts, specifically discussing Iran-Israel military actions.

ATWEBPAGES.COM operates as a free subdomain hosting service that allows users worldwide to create free subdomains for their web projects and websites. The platform is owned by AttractSoft GmbH, a legitimate web hosting company based in Kiel, Germany.

Company Information
Owner: AttractSoft GmbH (German company)
CEO/Co-Founder: Dimitar Dimitrov
Headquarters: Kiel, Germany and Sofia, Bulgaria
Domain Registration: Registered in 2007 through eNom, LLC
Name Servers: ns1.runhosting.com and ns2.runhosting.com

Service Purpose
The ATWEBPAGES.COM platform serves as a service domain offering free subdomains to the general public for web projects and sites. The company provides various hosting services including:
Free hosting plans with basic features (1GB disk space, 5GB traffic)
Paid hosting plans with unlimited resources
VPS cloud servers with different tiers
Domain registration services

The specific subdomain mastercreator.atwebpages.com contains content about Middle Eastern geopolitical events, specifically discussing Iran-Israel conflicts. The content appears to present a particular perspective on military actions between these nations.

AttractSoft GmbH maintains that:
Content responsibility lies solely with the subdomain creators
The company has a zero tolerance policy towards abuse activities and intellectual property violations
Users must indemnify and hold harmless AttractSoft GmbH from any third-party claims
Abuse reports can be submitted to abuse@supportindeed.com

Security and Reputation Considerations

Based on research findings, free hosting platforms like ATWEBPAGES.COM have been utilized by malicious actors for various purposes, including phishing campaigns. However, AttractSoft GmbH operates as a legitimate hosting provider that offers both free and paid services.

The platform has been associated with domains used in suspected APT37 campaigns from North Korea, though this reflects abuse of the free hosting service rather than intentional facilitation by the company.

Conclusion
The website mastercreator.atwebpages.com is a user-created subdomain hosted on AttractSoft GmbH's free hosting platform. While the hosting company is legitimate and based in Germany, the specific content and creator of this subdomain remain unknown, as is typical with free subdomain services. The content appears to focus on Middle Eastern geopolitical commentary, but users should exercise caution when accessing any free-hosted content, as these platforms can be misused by various actors.