November 20th • 3h 18m
Shownotes
Every new episode of No Agenda is accompanied by a comprehensive list of shownotes curated by Adam while preparing for the show. Clips played by the hosts during the show can also be found here.
Big Tech AI and the Socials
Is Moore's law dead or broken?
Moore's Law, first proposed by Intel co-founder Gordon Moore in 1965, is the observation that the number of transistors on a microchip roughly doubles every two years while costs decrease, leading to exponential improvements in computing power and efficiency.
It has not entirely ended, but the original strict pace has been broken or slowed significantly due to physical, economic, and manufacturing limits approaching atomic scales. As of 2025, the semiconductor industry has shifted focus from pure transistor scaling to multidimensional innovations like architectural changes, advanced packaging (e.g., 3D stacking and chiplets), materials advancements (e.g., gate-all-around transistors), software optimizations, and AI-driven efficiencies to sustain performance gains.
Opinions vary among key players:
- Intel maintains that Moore's Law is alive, with room for significant performance leaps through hardware advancements, arguing that progress can't regress and emphasizing continued manufacturing breakthroughs.
- Nvidia's CEO Jensen Huang has repeatedly stated it's dead or slowing down, pointing to reused process nodes in GPUs and a pivot to AI software and accelerated computing to outpace traditional scaling.
- AMD highlights ongoing improvements even on older architectures via software, aligning with the view that gains will persist through combined hardware and optimization efforts.
Experts predict it may become fully obsolete by the 2030s due to quantum limits like the uncertainty principle, but for now, the "law" endures in an evolved form as a guiding principle for innovation rather than a rigid rule. Emerging technologies, such as photonic computing or new materials, are being explored to potentially extend or replace it.
HUMAIN
### Overview of HUMAIN
HUMAIN is a newly established AI company based in Saudi Arabia, positioned as the Kingdom's flagship AI enterprise. It aims to drive global AI innovation by building massive AI data centers, compute clusters, and "AI factories" to eliminate limitations in AI development and deployment. The company emphasizes open, scalable, and resilient AI infrastructure to support advancements in hardware, software, and applications. Key focuses include positioning Saudi Arabia as a global AI hub through investments in multi-gigawatt-scale projects.
### Key Partnerships and Projects
HUMAIN has rapidly formed strategic alliances with major tech players, particularly in AI hardware and infrastructure. Here's a breakdown of the most relevant ones, especially those tied to NVIDIA and Saudi Arabia:
- **NVIDIA Partnership**: In May 2025, HUMAIN and NVIDIA announced a strategic collaboration to construct "AI factories of the future" in Saudi Arabia, with an initial projected capacity of up to 500 megawatts (MW). This aims to accelerate AI adoption in the region by leveraging NVIDIA's AI infrastructure technologies. As of November 2025, this has expanded significantly: HUMAIN plans to deploy up to 600,000 NVIDIA GPUs across Saudi Arabia and the US over the next three years, marking one of the largest AI infrastructure rollouts globally. Additionally, the US government is set to approve the sale of certain NVIDIA chips to HUMAIN, which is seen as a win for semiconductor firms amid export restrictions.
- **xAI Involvement**: Elon Musk's xAI is collaborating with HUMAIN on a 500-MW data center project in Saudi Arabia, which will use NVIDIA chips. This ties into broader efforts to create AI superclusters, and HUMAIN is part of a joint venture with AMD, Cisco, and others for AI infrastructure.
- **AMD Collaboration**: In May 2025, HUMAIN and AMD formed a $10 billion strategic partnership to build the world's most open and resilient AI systems. This includes deploying AMD's AI technologies in HUMAIN's global projects, complementing the NVIDIA efforts.
- **Other Key Partners**:
- **Global AI**: A recent (November 2025) partnership to develop large-scale AI data centers and compute capacity in the US and internationally, incorporating the latest NVIDIA AI infrastructure.
- **AWS**: HUMAIN has an AI chip deal with AWS to further drive innovation in cloud-based AI.
- Broader initiatives include a 2-gigawatt AI supercluster in Saudi Arabia involving multiple partners.
These partnerships are part of Saudi Arabia's push to become a leader in AI, with HUMAIN investing heavily in domestic and international compute power.
Big Pharma
H5N5 vs H5N1
H5N1 and H5N5 are both subtypes of the avian influenza A virus, commonly known as bird flu. They are classified based on the combinations of surface proteins: hemagglutinin (H) and neuraminidase (N). The primary difference between them is the neuraminidase protein—H5N1 has the N1 subtype, while H5N5 has the N5 subtype. This distinction affects how the viruses are antigenically characterized, potentially influencing their behavior, such as host specificity, transmissibility, or response to antiviral treatments, though both can be highly pathogenic in birds (HPAI).
H5N1 has been more widely studied and reported, causing significant outbreaks in poultry, wild birds, and occasional spillovers to mammals (including humans and cattle) since the 1990s, with ongoing global circulation. In contrast, H5N5 is less common but has emerged in outbreaks among birds since at least 2014, and it recently made headlines with the first confirmed human case in Washington state in late 2025. While genetically related as "cousins" sharing the H5 component, H5N5's different N protein may lead to variations in how it spreads or evades immunity compared to H5N1.
Both strains pose risks to poultry industries and public health, but H5N1 has a longer history of human infections, while H5N5's human impact is just beginning to be observed.
EU UK Ukarine and NATO
Canada Eurovision the real reason
In the morning
I know I am a dushbag, not looking for credit.
Carney, is crafty. This has nothing to do with the contest. He does not give shit about it.
It's all about joining the European broadcast union that encourages members to trade public broadcast material.
This would give the CBC access to tones of none US centric shows. It's almost an artful way of getting Canada to watch less US shows and have less US influence in Canada.
Muslims
Peter McIlvenna
Peter Mcilvenna is the co-founder of Hearts of Oak, a UK based freedom of speech alliance
John D. Guandolo
American former Federal Bureau of Investigation Special Agent and counterterrorism expert who has provided training seminars for law enforcement and local elected officials across the United States.
By 2022, Guandolo also organized training sessions for right-wing citizens about the perceived threat of "communist & Jihadist networks,"[2] and to "organize communities into operational forces to identify roots of corruption & dismantle the hostile networks behind it, and re-establish a Republican form of government at the local level," which were joined by former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn.[23]
RAIR Foundation
The RAIR Foundation USA is a grassroots activist and investigative organization focused on what it describes as reclaiming American values, the Constitution, borders, and Judeo-Christian principles from perceived threats, particularly those it associates with Islamic radicalism, immigration, and leftist ideologies. It publishes articles, videos, and content promoting anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant, and conspiracy-oriented narratives. The group has been labeled as a hate organization by entities like the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) and CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations), due to its promotion of Islamophobic content and alignment with far-right figures. It rebranded from its original name, "Resistance Against Islamic Radicals" (RAIR), which explicitly aimed to counter alleged "Jihadi infiltration" in U.S. communities.
### Who Is Behind It
- **Founder and Editor-in-Chief**: Amy Mekelburg (also known as Amy Mek), a social media influencer and anti-Islam activist with a large following on X (formerly Twitter) under @AmyMek. She has been described as relentless in promoting anti-Muslim rhetoric and has connections to far-right networks.
- **President**: Chris Gaubatz, an anti-Muslim figure previously involved with groups like Understanding the Threat. He has a history of undercover work targeting Muslim organizations.
- The organization operates as a small media production entity (2-10 employees) based in New York, with ties to other anti-Islam outlets like the Clarion Project, where it contributes content.
### Funding and Donors
Public information on funding is limited, as the RAIR Foundation USA appears to operate as an LLC rather than a tax-exempt non-profit, meaning it doesn't file public financial disclosures like Form 990s. It accepts donations via its website (rairfoundation.com), but these are not indicated as tax-deductible. No specific donors are publicly disclosed, though it has been contextualized within networks of anti-Muslim groups that receive funding from major conservative donors like the Adelson Family Foundation (which has donated millions to similar causes, though not explicitly linked to RAIR). Revenue likely comes from online donations, partnerships with aligned media outlets, and possibly ad revenue or sponsorships from far-right ecosystems.
### Form 990
RAIR Foundation USA does not appear to be a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization based on available records (despite some conflicting online claims), so it does not file IRS Form 990 (which is required for non-profits). Extensive searches across IRS databases, ProPublica, GuideStar, and other sources yielded no matching EIN or filings under this name or its original "Resistance Against Islamic Radicals" branding. If it's operating as a for-profit LLC (as business records suggest), financial details would not be publicly accessible in this format.
