Hard to follow the argument, if there was one. It seemed to tail off into some kind of AI hallucination in the middle. Strange article!

The direction of travel is concerning, though.

The sudden rise in fuel prices due to the Iran war seems to be at blame. If you have thin margins and didn't hedge, then a shock like that can wipe you out. Probably won't be the last.

It might've been the straw that broke the camel's back, but they've been unprofitable since the pandemic.[1] Mainline airlines introducing "basic economy" fares that weren't as no-frills as Spirit seems to have been a contributor.

[1] https://theaircurrent.com/airlines/spirit-airlines-trump-adm...

‘Didn’t hedge’ because they set the price below the resilience floor and couldn’t; or because they paid out the good times to shareholders instead of resilience; or..?

What are you, a communist? /s

Something has to lie on that line of latitude. Has anyone checked what is on the southern speed of light latitude?

I wasn't thinking specifically of the speed of light, what other "significant" numbers are there and what "significant" physical artifacts correspond to them? I would expect the definition of "significant" is going to play a big part in it. In the back of my mind, some things I'm observing in how people explain what AI does make me feel like they're relying on normal distributions to carry a lot of water. If something is an "outlier / coincidence": is it? What distribution(s) does it belong to? Just a nagging feeling at this point.

So the EU is deciding?

Scott Alexander often seems surprisingly unaware of his priors, especially when speaking about things beyond the American shores.

A rogue mission control software for spacecraft

Do you work for them?

I feel like he is chucking a molotov cocktail at all of us. Maybe it will bounce off. Maybe we won't be so lucky.