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Misses a stage of history
This is an important insight. I think it misses some history, but it’s basically valid. Thesis: College is our only initiation rite. We lost the earlier religious rites of manhood, and college was offered to replace it. Now that college is fading, we need to return to churches. This replacement is very recent. College has…
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Familiar territory
This Bloomberg podcast is running in deeply familiar territory, discussing the economics of oil storage and movement. Mentions one surprising fact: North American oil production hit an all-time record last year. Worldwide coal production also hit an all-time high last year, but very little of it was in USA. Conclusion: The enviros aren’t really trying…
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Where are the goddamn philosophers #43954389758435893
Chicago’s mayor claims that the city MUST continue to invite foreign invaders “because Chicago is a sanctuary city”. Where are the goddamn philosophers? “Sanctuary city” is NOT an unchangeable quality of Chicago. It’s not even part of a hard-to-change constitution or charter or religious belief or cultural tradition. It is simply an arbitary decision by…
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Showing your work!
This think-piece by the Pew Poll is a wonderful example of transparency. They tell in detail how they categorize people. The article goes through the history of polling and describes how each broad category (religion, income, etc) developed. This helps readers to determine when a definition changed and why. Most definitions changed when polling revealed…
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Fucking idiot
Some fucking idiot: I feel scared. Very scared. Internet-wide surveillance and censorship, enabled by the unimaginably vast computational power of artificial intelligence (AI), is here. This is not a futuristic dystopia. It’s happening now. NSA has been using Big Data to spy on us since its founding in 1946. NSA built the web to spy…
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Not the main variable
Several articles this week are focusing on the fentanyl problem in Portland, blaming it on Oregon’s legalizing of all drugs. Decriminalizing might be part of the problem, but the same problem is equally bad or worse in states that haven’t decriminalized. I suppose the law change makes it a bit harder to jail the dealers…
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Interesting career, drab ideas
Pointed via Denyse as usual, the strange book and career of Julian Jaynes. Jaynes published only one book, which became popular among philosophers who like to discuss pointless and untestable questions. He theorized that modern awareness was a recent development. = = = = = START QUOTE: Humans were not fully conscious until about 3,000…
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Renightmaring
The new “city” monsters, who are even worse than the old “city” monsters, want us to REIMAGINE DOWNTOWN. The picture illustrating the “imagining” is in Seattle, capital of riots and destruction, and the first thing you see in this “dream” is a Farmers Market with a huge sign MASKS REQUIRED. THIS IS THE WET DREAM…
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Big picture
Jeffrey Tucker at Brownstone writes a grand historical perspective on the “virus” holocaust. Well worth reading. Hits some of the points I’ve been writing about, especially the postwar exhaustion in 1919 and 1946.
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Yaaaayy!
Purely personal. The latest version of courseware was completed in July, and I submitted it to the publisher. Supposedly they had a deadline of Dec 31 to check it over and send it out. They wanted me to verify that it can work in the Canvas LMS. Canvas is now the most popular LMS, overtaking…
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WWHWD?
Listening to these Industry on Parade films reminds me that American industry has always been fanatical about recycling. REAL recycling that reuses waste internally, not the EPA-required FAKE recycling that sends the stuff to China. = = = = = First: Industry has also been willing to do pollution control, but not when it costs…
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Necessary compromise
The anticoiners at Reddit discuss whether bitcoin is halal or haram. Some of the commenters get the important point. The basic rules of Islam solidly forbid all forms of speculation and usury. BUT modern Muslims engage in banking with interest, and engage in speculation, just like modern Jews and Christians. All three abrahamic branches agree…
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Balaji converges
Via Protos, the ultimate Magsman Balaji has SHOCKINGLY revealed his SURPRISING end goal of becoming an ordinary Wall Street hedge fund owner. = = = = = START QUOTE: Balaji Srinivasan, one-time Coinbase CTO and former partner at crypto cheerleading VC firm a16z, has decided that it’s time to start investing on behalf of others…
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Spokane in one picture
Says it all. When you devote all your money and effort to satisfying Bloomberg’s ESG and DEI requirements, there’s nothing left for trivial luxury accessories like streets and snowplows and police and jails.
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Simple answer
I stopped tracking the “climate” fight in 2018 after I decided that most advocates on the side of truth are not really defending truth, just making money. Now I try to determine the truth for myself, and try to live according to the truth, and that’s all. I didn’t even know about the Mann vs…
Polistra's Mill
Be your own beacon.
Polistra's Mill 