Eetan
1d ago
But if you’re trying to design society
The last thing I want would be to "design society". And if you have such grand ambitions, you know well you ain't going to make it all the way up to the post of Supreme Leader.
Otherwise, what, we curse a quarter of the population to ill health, every generation?
There ain't any "we", they curse themselves. You do not have to go full boomer mode to accept that cooking is today cheaper and easier than in all recorded history.
And if such situation is really so grave, it will not last long. If you can't survive without slave who will feed you, pick your garbage and wipe your ass, you ain't going to survive, and you wouldn't be missed.
Eetan
1d ago
you’re just not going to get working men to cook healthy meals for themselves.
Well, this is their choice and their problem. If they see cooking as something so degrading that they prefer failing heath and early death to such dishonor, who are "we" to dissuade them.
"I will never eat bugs!"
"Not even Israeli bugs? Why are you so anti-semitic?"
Eetan
3d ago
Mayor Mamdani's grocery stores. Good idea or disaster waiting to happen?
Good idea, but needs little tweaking. The perfect, universally popular bipartisan compromise would be:
Nation wide federal government owned grocery stores, selling only Israeli products.
You will eat hummus made of apartheid and genocide, and you will like it.
Eetan
4d ago
Suppose a time traveler came back from the year 2100 and told you that, in his time, Britain (or Germany, or France) was 99.6% white and 94% Christian, the way it was in 1951. Unfortunately, before he could explain how such a thing came to pass, he gets hit by a lorry, dying instantly.
What would you think had happened?
Timeline 1:
Second Cold War heated up, all sides built massive WMD stockpiles (nuclear, chemical, biological, AI) as they used to be at the peak or the previous round, kept them on hair trigger and then someone banged on the big red button with his shoe.
The (tiny numbers) of dwellers in the wastelands that used to be Europe are descendants of inhabitants of few rather remote villages, and they are praying really hard.
Timeline 2:
AI assisted bio and genetic technology delivers all science fictional promises and more. Human DNA is mapped and completely resolved, genetic engineering becomes as available and affordable as cell phones are now.
Everyone can now select their offsprings genes, and everyone excepting few weirdos selects white genes. Everyone always wanted to be white, and science and technology now made the dream possible. Just like viagra replaced rhinoceros horns, DNA editing will replace all existing skin lightening treatments.
In unrelated development, Christian religious revival powered by breakthrough in missionary AI sweeps the lands that used to be Europe, and everyone is now Christian (at least until Muslim, Buddhist and Hindu religious AI developers step up their efforts and close the gap).
Eetan
4d ago
I disagree with both extremes. Crypto is just a tool, one that can be used for good or evil depending on the people who interact with it. The first bank robbery probably happened 15 minutes after the first bank opened.
Not the same thing, bank robberies today tend to be rather primitive affairs, rarely successful (with rare exceptions).
And robbing bank from the inside requires decades of grind and hard work (and good connections) before you are promoted to position where you can squirrel away the dough.
Crypto crime is career open to anyone in the world with internet access, the ultimate meritocracy.
Eetan
4d ago
Is there any hope for a proper right in the west?
No, and according to your definition, nowhere else. If your only measure of "right wing" is zero tolerance of furiners, then the most "right wing" place in the world is North Korea (setting aside worst shitholes where no one wants to go, Zimbabwe has no immigration problem).
1/Being openly racist/xenophobic and accepting no foreigners
2/Being totally closed to immigration
3/Allowing tourism only
4/Allowing tourism and temporary residence/work visas
5/Allowing permanent residency without citizenship/voting rights
6/Allowing citizenship with a through background assimilation check aswell as having at least a certain number of years living in the country.
7/Allowing citizenship for third generation migrants married to a native.
And even the Best Korea now promotes tourism and is somewhere around tier 3 on your scale.
The biggest win in terms of institutions that the right has gotten in the west was
Nothing with abortion, it was rolling back of gun control in US. See this infographic how gun nuts won.
Remember, even Texas was no carry zone. US gun culture is not something inherited from pioneer and cowboy times, it was created in living memory by hard work and hard fight of millions.
Lesson: it is easier to rally people to fight to defend something they have (even pew pew fun toys) than to take something from other people for no benefits for themselves (why should I care about Shaniqua's unborn bebe when even Shaniqua herself DNGAF).
Anti-abortion movement is the most severe case of pathological altruism in the world, more true than pro immigration activism (with more immigrants, you get cheaper Doordash and Uber, with less abortions, you personally win only more poverty and crime).
Grand Theft Crypto, Episode LXXVI
New week is here, time for new culture war happening is here. Maybe it belongs to finance thread, but both cryptocurrency and cryptocrime are now inseparable part of our culture.
Coldcard Hardware Wallet Flaw Linked to $70 Million Bitcoin Theft in 41 Minutes
An attacker drained 1,196 Bitcoin addresses in 41 minutes on July 30, taking 1,082.65 BTC worth about $70.2 million at the time.
Yes, safe crypto technology had proven to be unsafe once again. Follow the links in the article for more nerd details.
Why is this important? This time, this not due any fault or slip at the user side - their only mistake was trusting the professionals of Coinkite business operating since 2013 and considered one of the best by everyone in crypto.
Bitcoin is not to blame, Bitcoin worked as intended. The random numbers generated by Coldcard were not random.
Little parable for non nerds to grok what is it all about:
You have big pot of gold, and are very afraid you will lose it. Where to hide your treasure? You want to stay anonymous, you do not want anyone ever know that you are a rich man.
Fortunately, your bank provides deposit boxes, fully anonymous where anyone with key can come and withdraw the deposit, no questions asked.
Now, you have problem where to hide the key, so you do not lose or misplace it. No worry, you buy safe, made by trustworthy long established manufacturer that is 100% secure from crackers. You put your key inside, and feel relieved.
Until one day, you find the safe empty, the key vanished. You hurry to bank in panic, and your greatest fears come true. Someone was there, and emptied your deposit box. Your treasure is gone.
What happened? The super secure safe was unsafe. There was manufacturing fault that enabled anyone to open it if he knew about it. Some criminal mastermind learned about the vulnerability (For more mastermind points, he worked in the safe manufacturing company and put the fault there himself. For maximal mastermind points, he founded and operated the company himself, in a proper long con.) sneaked to your safe and squirreled away the key.
If your rage is pointed at bank, it is misplaced. Rightful target of your rage is the thief (good luck finding him, the chap can be now in Uruguay, Uganda or Uzbekistan, the world is big) and the safe company (good luck recovering anything from them). Just say farewell to your wealth and learn to love the hobo life.
Now, what are lessons of the episode?
1/ Another proof that crypto hadn't brought world peace and harmony as some more devoted fans promised, but crypto made crime cool again. Grisly, retarded and boring ordinary everyday crime stays, but evil genius was conjured from pages of pulp novels to reality.
2/ Trust no one. If you want to make you crypto stash really secure, you need to make your own random number generator, this means using the gold standard of physics, radioactive decay. No randomer random events can be found in this universe.
Too much work? Say good bye to crypto and invest in white powder. What you put in your nose, no one can take away from you ever again.
edit: links
It might be of interest to add some more context to recent habbenings involving Morocco.
There is more at stake in this part of the world than two Spanish towns on the coast.
It all hinges on Western Sahara.
What is this Colorado sized thing with weirdly drawn borders?
It is disputed land and the dispute has two sides.
Tl;DR explanation of 56 years old unresolved problem you probably never heard about:
Side A:
This patch of desert is ancient Moroccan land, stolen by infidel colonizers and justly returned. The people living there are Moroccans, who are thanking God every day that they were reunited with their homeland. Everything is fine, everyone except gaggle of grumpy terrorists is happy, no reason for anyone to complain.
This position is hold by Morocco, US and Israel, all alone against the world.
Side B:
This patch of desert is country of Western Sahara, the people living there are ancient Western Saharan nation, dialect they are speaking is separate language. The country is illegally occupied by Morocco, and deserves their self determination.
This position is hold by UN and the whole international community.
Overall, it is issue about #1234 in importance, and the international community is fine with not doing more than ocassionally sending strongly worded protest letter.
Excepting Algeria. Algeria and Morocco are neighbors, and not happy neighbors. Western Saharan problem is still a problem because Algeria supports Western Saharan freedom fighters to such degree that Morocco was forced to build biggest and most beautiful wall in the world to defend this territory.
Morocco-Algeria relations were bad for a long time and are getting worse. OSINT nerds consider this part of the world as top hot spot where another big war, war between two professional state armies, not rag bands on pickup trucks, can erupt at any moment, make the current times yet more spicy and take the world by surprise.
So it is another national honor thing, you might be thinking. Arab Muslim brothers killing each other over useless desert, many such cases.
Not so. This is one of few wars in the world that make economic sense, where Marxist analysis is applicable, together with the infamous Mexican troubles.
We all, except advanced breatharians, need eating regularly, our food comes from plants (whether directly or with animal in between) and plants crave fertilizer. And crucially important are fertilizers containing phosphorus.
Phosphate fertilizer comes from phosphate rocks and these are not renewable resources.
And Morocco, including Western Sahara, is one of world's top producers. Excepting China, the top producer. Looking at proven phosphate resources, the situation is even more lopsided.
So this whole situation is even more important than it looks, and deserves monitoring. Watch Algeria–Morocco border, put your eyes off Rafah and off Hormuz, put them all on Bou Craa. So when in some possible future timeline you will be monitoring empty plate on your dining table, you will know why it happened.
edit: links
Eetan
8d ago
Saving Private Lump, Or Why Military Doesn’t Work Anymore
On the wild fields of xitter, the newest masterpiece of the oldest genre in history "why the youff suck so much these days?" dropped.
This time not from usual moral/religious POV, but from tough military guy one.
Why Military School Doesn’t Work Anymore
What's wrunff with the yuff? Are they drunkards, druggies, young deliquents, incorrigible violent thugs?
Nope, it is worse. They are lumps.
"And that brings us to the final group composing the plurality of students at Marathon Academy: “lumps.”
Lump is not a diagnostic category, but rather my own term for something I often saw but that resisted definition, a sort of combination of democratic man, last man, and mass man, the larval stage of the bugman that never quite sprouts wings. A lump is neither especially good nor bad, but rather a defined mass of inert matter. It lacks energy, focus, and will. Lumps, like plants, passively sustain themselves from their environment, but while flowers grow towards the sun, lumps gravitate towards vapes, porn, and electronic stimulation.
...
In particular, my school, like most military schools, absorbed a large number of young men simply impervious to motivation and lacking all drive. This is an increasingly common problem across the world of education and for society as a whole, and dealing with it requires rethinking a number of assumptions about the ends of modern life.
And what is the solution of lump problem? Beating.
In another age, in the same place, the student in question would have been punished for his lackluster academics with a trip to what was then known as the “bull ring,” where he would have received motivation of a physical nature. Failing that, once he’d caused enough of a headache for the student leadership, he would be run around the campus and introduced to a holly hedge at full speed, a practice known as “bushing.” By my time, bushing had long since been proscribed by the ever-growing Blue Book of rules and regulations, along with glass bottles, PT in excess of ten push-ups, and harsh language.
Notice that author does not say that the student is violent, undisciplined or disobeying orders, the offence deserving punishment is "lackluster academics". Private Lump cannot memorize his multiplication tables. Solution is beat him until he manages. Or he is beaten to death.
See parts of the world that believe in beating, for example Eastern Europe. Under tsars, communists and democracy, brutality was and is the rule at home, in schools, army and prisons, and the result is hundreds of millions of well adjusted and highly accomplished people who make their countries the shining light of the world.
Still, according to author's long experience, the lump problem is new one, the lumps were unheard of just few decades ago.
So where they came from?
It is possible that neoliberalism did it.
The lump is the end-stage refined product of neoliberalism, the perfect managerial object. He is the sort of lifelong boy a committee of women might design for maximum lack of systemic threat.
It is also possible that lumps were always there, but not in military academies.
Lumps, as people with no "energy, focus, and will" went with their life as laborers working enought to provide basic food and shelter, or, if from rich and connected families, were given some no effort sinecure where they could doze in the office all day.
In old times, military profession was highly prestigious and military schools had choice of the best students. Now, aspiring elite human capital goes elsewhere, and military is increasingly seen as dumping ground for losers and rejects.
What is the solution? No more peacekeeping missions, anti terrorist actions and special military operations, but retvrn to great wars ending in glorious victories, accomplishments so shining that every young man with motivation and drive would want to wear uniform and be part of winning team.
Eetan
10d ago
You don't see how this is humiliating?
Professional beggars and scroungers do not feel their way of life as humiliating, they see themselves as smart and clever and see dumb mugs who believe their sob stories with the deepest contempt. Ofc, the professionals are in the game for more concrete gains than some football game points.
Eetan
11d ago
Bro, what? What on earth does this mean?
OP still remembers the top bestseller of the noughties. Now it is mercifully forgotten, but it was really big thing in halcyon times of Dubya's administration.
Eetan
11d ago
True, "what is a woman?" is much more of a metaphysical question.
More like "common sense" and "basic sanity" question. To dispute whether girls do have dicks is by several magnitudes further "out there" than to dispute official narrative of single historical event.
Eetan
11d ago
You can write the beginning of an interesting story that deals with "Aragorn's Tax Policy" and the grimdark of a fantasy setting
Yes. The peasants of Gondor are revolting due to heavy taxes, and the protagonist, hard working King's tax collector, desperately tries to explain to these dumb rednecks that Sauron is real and is really coming with giant orc horde.
Eetan
13d ago
Back to this culture war topic: it is rather significant that there are no billionaire made and commissioned big budget movies. Cinema is art where you can spend unlimited sums of money, and for price of luxury yacht that will rust away in few years you can hire top Hollywood talent to create masterpiece that will last forever.
Not for profit, but just for fun, as aristocrats of old patronized great artists. Imagine billionaire who happens to be, as random example, 17th century boo and wants to see historically accurate Battle of White Mountain.
But, despite explosion of super wealth, no one is interested.
Is it because modern oligarchs are not valuing art for its own sake, and not interested to pour cash to enterprises that will never pay for themselves, or just lack of imagination?
Eetan
13d ago
Herodotus notably states that Ethiopia produces the most beautiful women in the world, and Herodotus is Right About Everything.
Yes, especially when he is retelling second/third/Xth hand tales he heard on his travels.
When H talks about things he saw personally, he is not always reliable. For example when he traveled from Egypt to Babylonia, H was passing through Land Between River and Sea, that was at the time inhabited, as everyone knows, by wise and noble Elves Hebrews worshipping Eru Iluvatar JHWH at Laurelin and Telperion trees beautiful golden Temple with two pillars Jachin and Boaz.
Meeting people who worship only one god would be at this time like seeing real dog headed people. And H is silent, H says absolutely nothing about these wonders. Damn this Greek hater, damn him to Tartarus.
Eetan
13d ago
No one is calling you to adopt thirld world ways.
The widespread colorism shows that despite all fears, it is brown skin that is doomed, not white one.
Once embryo gene editing becomes cheap enough to be embraced by Latino, African and Indian masses, everyone picks genes for white skin.
World of the future is beautiful White world from pole to pole, dream of William Luther Pierce will come true (not exactly as he expected, but he will still smile and be happy when he will watch it from Valhalla).
Eetan
14d ago
Congratulations to your big beautiful bubble shielding you from the global majority.
Prejudice due to skin color alone is normal in most of the world, especially in dark complexioned countries where no one heard about bell curves.
Search for "colorism" and be enlightened/horrified.
Eetan
15d ago
I want more conservative-morality, gritty media.
Conservative morality of Late Bronze/Early Iron Age? Why not, if you want to retvrn, retvrn all the way back!
Cultural war and cultural revolution continues, as it should.
Revolution has a beginning, but it has no end.
And the newest battle is the most ancient, Homer's - and Christopher Nolan’s - Odyssey.
Many are happy, many are unhappy, and among the latter is world's richest man, as expected.
Then, the next day, he changed his mind. Directors - and actors - are as obsolete as draft horses, Grok can do it all alone and cheaper.
If it happens, would it make a difference? Elite Mottizen human capital had been talking and daydreaming for a long time about potential of money to change the world. If only we were rich men!
The real life billionaire and centi millionaire activism is not encouraging but we can always dream how we will do it right!
edit: links
Eetan
15d ago
It’s over. C.S. Lewis has already depicted you as the wojak, and me as the Chad.
Well, C.S.Lewis can be considered one of preeminent big C Christian small c conservative voices. When CSL calls you bad guy, you need to shut up and listen if you want to consider yourself conservative in good standing.
And it was clear that Scrubb family was meant to be bad from the first page of the book, and it was clear to intended readers, people of early 1950's, why.
This world is now as nonexistent as Narnia, so fully understanding this would need some unpacking.
So why Srubbs bad? Scrubbs are unwieldy combination of all things unpopular at the time, and lots of things were unpopular.
It is not only nonconformism of Scrubb family and their standing out of the English crowd.
1/They are COMMUNISTS.
Scrubb junior "liked books if they were books of information and had pictures of grain elevators or of fat foreign children doing exercises in model schools."
What sorts of books are this? Every reader in the early 1950's would instantly imagine Soviet propaganda books depicting land of workers as paradise on earth. And communism in general and USSR in particular were not well appreciated at this time.
2/They are HEALTH NUTS, possibly NEW AGERS
They were vegetarians, non-smokers and teetotallers and wore a special kind of underclothes.
the windows were always open.
Remember, we are in 1950's when boozing was part of life and doctors on TV recommended Lucky Strikes. What the Scrubbs think, that they are better than experts? Are they unchristian followers of some oriental superstition?
3/They are penny pinching MISERS
In their house there was very little furniture and very few clothes on the beds
Remember, we are in 1950's, time of war recovery and rising prosperity all over the Western world, even in England.
People had jobs and money for the first time in decades. Buy and consume was the order of the day. If you could (and Scrubbs are depicted as respectable educated people, not utterly destitute poor) you should buy buy buy, fill your house with stuff, then throw it away to make place for more stuff.
Not going with the plan painted you as some throwback, Scrooge like 19th century miser.
4/They are NERDS
Eustace Clarence liked animals, especially beetles, if they were dead and pinned on a card.
And not the useful sort of nerds, who are building computers, rockets and H-bombs to keep the commies at bay, but losers obssessed with useless stuff like beetles. Who needs it?
(MKULTRA research looking for new drugs and hallucinogens at all possible sources, including exotic insects and spiders, in order to fight for freedom and stand up to commies, was still strictly classified at the time).
Eetan
15d ago
And it's not even a factual disagreement, liberals usually just shrug at the prospect of any European-descended group being dissolved.
LIBERAL IRON MODE ON:
If European groups are "dissolving" it is due to their free choice, not genocide. There are no concentration camps and mass graves in Europe. If Latvian does not want to be Latvian any more, this is his right.
And we are all for free choice, aren't we? (except choice to be bigot and hater, freedom to end freedom is no freedom at all)
If you support freedom, you would protect man from being murdered, while also protecting his option to access Canadian style health care if in the future he decided he is tired of life.
Eetan
15d ago
To all the Adam Smiths of the world. Why is having an ethnostate good for the jews but not anyone else?
Easy to answer from liberal perspective, no doublethink needed.
LIBERAL IRON ZION MODE ON:
Ethnostate for Jews is tragic necessity in order to survive, not something desirable in itself. Israeli situation is unique in the world. Immigrants in our countries are people who are fleeing mortal danger and desperate conditions, and by their hard work make economy stronger and life better. Do you want the line to go up, don't you?
Palestinians are not like that, Palestinians are hardened blood drenched terrorists, all of them are taught to hate and kill since the earliest age. Palestinians do not want peace, they want to blow up themselves and cut off heads (while your new Latino neighbor dreams about cutting your lawn).
The State Department released a report on the ties between radical leftism and Cuba
Not news. Cuba is total shithole in just about any relevant metric, excepting secret squirrel stuff.
Among professionals, Cuban secret services and intelligence operations are very highly prized and considered world class.
If/when US gets access to the archives, expect lots of surprises.
edit: typos, links
The Case Of Missing Judas Statue
Wars both cultural and kinetic rage in the real world as usual, and are getting a bit boring. No surprise that the xitterspace decided it is the best time to refight long forgotten battles.
One of the greatest xitterstorms of recent days was the case of missing Judas Statue.
Judas statue? The guy from Bible? Who is building his statues? Wokeness had gone really too far!
According to Darryl Cooper, popular podcaster and xitterer, the Bolsheviks back in 1918 at direct order of Leon Trotsky himself did it.
Makes logical sense. Bolsheviks were bad. Judas was bad. Therefore, Bolsheviks would love Judas.
Some people nevertheless doubted the story. Why should dialectic materialists and scientific atheists care about Judas? This only made the pro-statue crowd double and quartuple their efforts and turned the xitter storm into wildfire of the day.
"The stories about statue come only from White Guard propaganda and began appearing about 5 years after the statue was already erected? No pictures of this statue, nothing about it in Red newspapers and official Red propaganda announcements?" Well, the evil Reds had to build the statue in complete secrecy!
So where the tale came from? It turned out that history nerds, including local history nerds from Sviyazhsk on Volga river, population 243 where the statue was supposed to stand according to the earliest reports, already resolved this mystery.
It all begins in fiery year of 1918, at the beginning of Russian Civil War. At the time, it was, for world historic event it turned out to be, rather lackluster affair - few tens of thousands of combatants on both sides struggling for power over former Russian Empire. On the Red side, the main forces were Latvians.
On the White side, it was, of all people, Czechs and Slovaks. Yes, Russian civil war was wild story, story your editor would tell you to tone down to something approaching realism.
And one of Red Latvian commanders was Janis Judins who in August 1918 fell in battle with Czechoslovaks on the outskirts of Kazan and was buried with honors in Sviyazhsk.
While Danish diplomat Henning Kehler whose book was the original source of the statue tale was at the time in the area.
"Judins" and "Judas" are not so different words, especially when you cannot speak and read Russian and (reasonably) expect the worst from the Reds.
For Henning Kehler who confused names and the names of cities, did not know the Russian language and was a man of extraordinary imagination, the surname Yudin could well have seemed consonant with the name of the apostle-traitor.
And so was the story born, spread around the world, outlived Soviet Union itself and lasted till the internet age. Lesson: when you make up tall tales, it might be the most influential and consequential thing you will ever do in your lifetime.
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