Author: polistra
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Same/opposite
Okay, here’s a suitable year-end shit, inspired by reading Huxley’s 1927 essays. Compare events that came out exactly as I thought, versus events that came out the opposite way. Check my own biases and assumptions. = = = = = Exactly as I thought: In Feb 2020, when China started doing the lockdown lunacy, my…
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Good knockdown of a silly idea!
This article on the origin of language is sensible but sort of surprising. Apparently the idea that language started from gestures is becoming more common, and might even be the consensus assumption now. The first paragraph is eloquent: Some say language evolved by firelight, with our ancestors sharing stories deep into the night. Others suggest…
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Not woke, just literati
Kurt Mahlburg at MercatorNet is complaining about woke dictionaries. In 2020, Merriam-Webster infamously updated its entry for female to include “having a gender identity that is the opposite of male”. Now the online edition of the Cambridge Dictionary has gone one better: in addition to being “an adult female human being”, a woman is now…
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W[h]ales
According to this piece at Medium, the planning for Charles’s eventual death started as soon as he took office. If he carries the good genes, the planners should have 30 years to get ready. The plan for Elizabeth’s death was called Operation London Bridge. The new plan is called Operation Menai Bridge, after the Menai…
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Mister Restitution speaks
Yahoo Finance is interviewing Kenneth Feinberg, The Restitution Man. He knows better than anyone else how to distribute the assets from complex semi-criminal enterprises. He brings out a basic fact: Many of Sammy’s creditors are criminals who knew they were laundering criminal money. He doesn’t quite hit the exact analogy. Bitcoin is counterfeit. Bitcoin was…
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Sun!
Polistra and friends salute the SUN, who appeared today after two months of absence. We accumulated 20 inches of snow quickly, followed by constant overcast or fog or added snow. Two days ago we got a dramatic meltoff with heavy rain and 45 degrees, which nicely cleared the roof. When the roof is loaded my…
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From an extremely same/different era
After finding the origin of ringers in this 1927 volume of Vanity Fair I started reading the rest of the magazine. 1927 was the peak of a Share Value boom, so it was like 2017 as measured by aristocrats. The two booms are drastically different as measured by peasants. 1927 was overgrown from a REAL…
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Ringers
I shouldn’t even try to think about politics. My record of mistakes is unbroken. Nevertheless, here’s one random thought after dipping a toe into media for a moment. It’s clear that both parties want to prevent DeSantis from rising to the top. He’s the only major politician who SOLVES PROBLEMS. All other politicians MANUFACTURE PROBLEMS…
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New thought on experiential lessons
Shkreli’s advice to Sammy got me thinking again about my 1969 jail experience and the BIG lessons learned. I kept the lessons about basic human nature, but I lost the lesson about government. (I restored the lesson much later after throwing away the TV.) Questions: 1. How did I lose it? 2. Why was this…
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Man vs machine reprint
Reading the endless (sometimes valid) commentary about AI and lost skills, remembered that I had hit the subject from an unconventional angle in 2014. This probably belongs in the Thiel Question category. It certainly deserves a reprint. = = = = = START REPRINT: Heard a PSA from a union-based group trying to restore full…
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Advice for Sammy
Shkreli gives excellent advice to Sammy. First plead guilty and sing, though it’s already too late for the full effect of confessing. Then try to form a more masculine front for prison. Shkreli gets down and dirty in this department around 27 minutes. “He is an effeminate guy, and his demeanor is not the sort…
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Getters again
Earlier I diagnosed APs and fake movements by their focus on relatively trivial problems. A more refined version is appearing in two current movements. It’s the old getter or sacrificial lamb routine. In the movement against the “virus” holocaust, most of the activists started out opposing the entire demonic monstrosity. After RFK Jr got into…
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Year-end shit
Not in a mood for a year-end or Xmas piece. I’ll repeat 2020’s piece, which still holds true, then add one vaguely quasi-semi-hemi-demi-positivishesque note. = = = = = START REPRINT: Guess I should continue the habit of doing a year-end dump. Not worth it this time. 2020 needs to be thrown away and skipped,…
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High value crops
Thinking about the various natural drugs in terms of geography and value. Drugs intrinsically have more value than wheat or corn, just as entertainment automatically has more value than facts. First distinction: Tobacco and tea and coffee and marijuana are crops. Alcohol is a disease, resulting from spoilage in any sugary or starchy plant. Anyone…
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Stupid distraction
Several state governments have banned TikTok on government-owned computers, and there’s a movement to ban TikTok altogether. Why? Because TikTok gives info about the user to the Chinese government. STOP AND THINK, IDIOTS. How can the Chinese government USE your info? It can’t. China kills and tortures its own people, not ours. China has no…
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