This is really no different from many other areas in which you can have conflicts of interest. For example, sports! And the answer isn't to ban betting, it's to ban betting by people who have a conflict of interest. This is well-trod ground.

I'm not particularly a fan of Kalshi or Polymarket and don't really care if they exist or not. My point is just that this isn't really any different from anything else.

The biggest clue that he hasn't read the books -- or maybe just doesn't remember them well -- is that all of the books and stories were built around demonstrating ways in which the rules failed. The 0th rule is only one example, and far from the clearest.

Yes, and the point you quoted still stands, they are a starting point.

The always relevant XKCD comic explains it well enough: those laws in that order are essential as the starting point. Different order or missing entirely is guaranteed bad. But as pointed out through all kinds of science fiction writing, there are many ways we can understand they are insufficient.

Right now I'd agree they're exactly backwards, or as the XKCD comic described, on track to become a "killbot hellscape". We need even more rules and regulations than that, but as a set of fairly obvious first steps penned 80 years ago, they're pretty blatantly an essential first draft of baseline rules that are missing today.

Given how much of modern manufacturing is fully automated, why couldn't US companies compete on a level playing field with Chinese ones?

Tariffs simply allow domestic manufacturers to reap higher profits and/or continue to use inefficient processes to create an equivalent product.

Perhaps the motto of the USA will eventually become: "Tariffed into mediocrity"

Solar + Wind + Battery doesn't require water, and that is what Google is planning to use. I did some searching and found that they've funded additional buildout of a large renewable generation plant (solar + wind + battery) in Gujarat, plus transmission lines to bring the power the 1100 miles from Gujarat. The Gujarat plant is already in progress, the government is investing $70B in it, and it's a particularly good area for renewable generation because the seasonal wind cycle is exactly opposite the seasonal solar cycle, so as the days get shorter and solar generation declines, the wind ramps up, and vice versa.

I see you've never been in one.

Google and Waymo have explicitly and repeatedly said that they are fully liable for accidents caused by their vehicles.

Zymurgy's First Law of Evolving System Dynamics:
Once you open a can of worms, the only way to recan them is to use a larger can.

So. Who wants to bet that no one will point out what abysmal sysadmins they are, letting internal servers run amok all over the open Internet, only finding out days afterward after someone had to tell them.

And who wants to further bet that the AI grifters will respond that the only way to prevent this from happening again is to give them trillions more dollars so they can build bigger, "hardened" datacenters?

Is there no level of rank incompetence they won't excuse?

You're the one claiming it's well-known, but you are unable to provide a single link.

Figures.

Worth it for what? If the answer is a different financial motivation, then it's just a different form of corruption.

NONE of them have done this, not in 250 years. Not until Trump. Presidents make a lot of money after they leave office, yes, especially in recent decades. They command incredible speaking fees (Obama famously got $400k for one speech), they write books that make millions, etc. There are lots of people who are willing to give them money to get close to them, get their advice, etc.

But until Trump, none of them has used the office of the president to make money. No one else has sold pardons. No one else has set up a public stock and a memecoin to facilitate billions of dollars in bribes. No one else has brazenly sold insider secrets to stock traders.

Trump's corruption isn't just new in scale, it's a completely new thing that the United States of America has never before seen. We've seen plenty of corruption elsewhere in government, at all levels, but never in the oval office.