Higgenbotham's Dark Age Hovel

[Higgenbotham]

‘Big Short’ investor Michael Burry follows up cryptic AI bubble warning with bearish stock activity on Nvidia and Palantir

By Sasha Rogelberg
November 4, 2025 at 11:43 AM EST

Storied investor Michael Burry has talked the AI-bubble talk, and now he’s walking the walk.

Burry, made famous in the 2015 film The Big Short for his prescience on the 2008 housing market collapse, disclosed some cynical bets against tech giants Nvidia and Palantir amid concerns of AI company valuations swelling beyond their true worth.

Scion Asset Management, Burry’s hedge fund, bought more than $1 billion in put options on the two tech companies, according to regulatory filings released on Monday for the quarter ended on Sept. 30. A put refers to an options contract that allows the buyer to profit when share prices decline.

https://fortune.com/2025/11/04/big-shor ... alex-karp/

[Higgenbotham]

Recall that a Crisis catalyst involves scenarios distinctly imaginable eight or ten years in advance. Based on recent Unraveling-era trends, the following circa-2005 scenarios might seem plausible:

...(other scenarios listed)...

An impasse over the federal budget reaches a stalemate. The president and Congress both refuse to back down, triggering a near-total government shutdown. The president declares emergency powers. Congress rescinds his authority. Dollar and bond prices plummet. The president threatens to stop Social Security checks. Congress refuses to raise the debt ceiling. Default looms. Wall Street panics.

The larger question is why did it take an additional 20 years from the typical generational timeline for this to happen. My answer would be it's because we've entered a new dark age.

[Higgenbotham]

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has issued a dire warning that the Iranian capital could soon face catastrophic water shortages and even evacuation if rain does not fall soon.

Speaking Thursday, Pezeshkian described a nation on the brink, struggling with economic turmoil, environmental collapse and social unrest. Tehran stands at the center of this mounting crisis, its 20 million population and strained infrastructure leaving it dangerously exposed to the worsening drought.

https://www.newsweek.com/evacuation-war ... e-11008088

[Higgenbotham]

The larger question is why did it take an additional 20 years from the typical generational timeline for this to happen. My answer would be it's because we've entered a new dark age.

I would expect the beginning phases of a descent into a Dark Age to be milder than if an actual cleansing and regenerative process were to occur instead. In a descent into a Dark Age, one way to look at it is we continue to borrow more from the future instead of stopping at some point and replenishing the future. That is what clearly continues to happen, as we can see.

This could be an explanation for why the typical generational crisis period (2005 to 2025 or so) was milder than the past few crisis periods. It was because the problems weren't confronted and solved until they became more severe later. There can be other explanations though. One common one I see is that, paraphrasing, humanity is doing so great that there is no need for crisis periods (i.e. we can just print money and all will be OK).