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PaperclipPerfector  2mo ago (text post)   26067 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 16, 2026

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Content warning: An undercooked, rambly post with minimal editing but it's a slow news day, clearly. Also, sexual abuse, so I don't bury the lede entirely.

I recently heard about (but didn't personally review) a very interesting patient. Same Indian hospital I mentioned visiting, but now in the ward itself and not the clinic.

The most senior doctor, the lady in charge of the department, was interrogating the interns and trainees who had reviewed her. While I was standing around and trying to look present.

I initially heard:

  • The girl was addicted to her phone, and used it for 12 hours a day.
  • She obsessively made extremely "cringe" Instagram reels, and that quote is verbatim, including while still in hospital, before her phone was taken away for violating the privacy of other patients. A colleague opened her public profile and showed us. They were, in fact, very low effort and cringy. I will not get into the ethics of his decision, I don't care personally, and it was for a good cause. Everyone else agreed they were cringe.
  • She had a poor relationship with her parents. Why? Apparently she had recently made a boyfriend, and they did not like him. Her father had usually been quite doting, but even he drew the line here. They physically hit her (which is still far from remarkable in India, at least where I lived. My ass has no permanent scars but my mother sure bent me over the knee till I was big enough to risk her joints breaking).
  • She was particularly mad because her older sister had just made a boyfriend, and her parents were cool with that.
  • No, I don't know anything about the character and disposition of either man.
  • She was very mad about her phone being taken away, even if the doctors had actually been generous in even letting her keep it in the first place. No phones is standard policy, even if not consistently enforced.

At this point, the senior doctor asked me for my thoughts. I jumped, I had been thinking about a cute kitten I saw, one that had not been subject to the same teratogenicity seen in the ones hanging around in the medicine ward upstairs, as observed my myself while an intern. Maybe I had been wondering if I should pirate Mewgenics. Anyway, digression over.

"Uh.. Why was she admitted in the first place?" I asked. Both a genuine question, and an attempt to avoid being caught zoning out. This sounded... normal, or at least I would not hospitalize someone for doing this. It's 2026, even I, once committed to abstinence from brainrot, occasionally browse Reels. It sounded like normal teenage girl stuff.

She had been subject to sexual abuse, quite recently. My teacher (because I was present in my capacity as a very slightly overqualified medical student, at least in practice) didn't immediately elaborate.

But I soon learned, once again from being there, albeit with clearer ears:

  • She had told the doctor taking her history that she was very frustrated that she was in college and that it was unfair to deny her the right to a relationship at such a formative time in her life. I will add that I misheard this, she was not in college. You are being subject to a stream of thought.
  • Her older sister had caught her staring at her, in the dark, in her bedroom. I don't know if it was a shared one. She had been standing there, menacingly, by all reports. But she had not made any move to hurt her, beyond the usual tantrums.
  • Till this point, I thought we were talking about someone in college. No, she was 13, and not precocious enough to make the cut. At least academically, I'll get to behavior.
  • She had been caught talking to multiple people via DMs. While my colleague was euphemistic, I get the strong impression sexting or at least strong dirty talk was involved.
  • She regularly used sock-puppet accounts to engage with her posts, which weren't that popular. I do not really want to judge the good looks of a 13 year old, but in all honesty, she was plain. That included a fake account masquerading as her sister, and also using fake accounts to make allegations about her sister.
  • She was described as hypersexual. A trainee she got on well with said that she had disclosed kissing a boy, though I don't know if she went further. She told him she fantasized about romance and sex, and watched porn regularly.
  • There had been an effort made to distinguish behavior from fantasy. She claimed she had never acted on her interests, but desperately wanted to.

Then the bombshell: she had accused her father and grandfather of sexual abuse, on the basis of viewing porn and probably material trying to raise awareness. This was probably not the reason she was admitted (though I didn't specifically ask). She said her father had, a few years back, touched her privates. He did not do anything (more) explicitly sexual. She claimed her grandpa had once embraced her, taken her head, and rested it against her chest. That is all. She had not found it objectionable at the time.

We debated this for a bit. The general consensus, which I agree with, is that her grandpa was doing normal loving grandpa things. I do not want to accuse her father of abuse.

Her mood had not been obviously bad. She had, after all, been making reels in the ward.

At this point, the senior doctor mentioned ADHD, and pointed at excessive phone use as an example of a driving need to avoid boredom. I looked around shiftily, I have ADHD myself, and my screen-time has been, by objective report, very high. But I did ask if she was contemplating EUPD/BPD. Okay, I did make an error, it was at this point that I learned she was 13, which did make me raise an eyebrow.

She said that she was open to the idea, but the patient was too young at present (this is true, I checked since I didn't want to trust my memory more than I can throw it). Good suggestion, she told me, but people can grow out of things, and upbringing and support can make all the difference at that age. I have no reason to disagree. I also mentally considered histrionic personality disorder back then, but the same issues with age arise. I do not believe she was on meds, though I could be wrong.

I did not promise that there was a point to this essay, but I did find the whole situation thought provoking. Maybe the main reason she was admitted was safe-guarding and observation, I am confident that is part of the reason at least. Nobody pinned a firm diagnosis where I could see it. It just struck me as an example of a grey area, all the more unusual for an Indian context. You might be okay with the idea of a 13 yo girl having a boyfriend, and maybe having sex with said boyfriend. Maybe my teacher was slightly out of touch, and being on the phone all day is now entirely normal. I am guilty, though I tell myself I use it productively. Maybe being deeply jealous of her sister is a normal enough reaction to circumstances. I do not have the full picture - because I have ADHD and the ward was noisy. Mostly the ADHD.

I will, both for personal and professional curiosity, and by (imagined) public demand, seek answers if I ever visit again, or maybe just text my new friends. What I found the most concerning, at least from memory, is the potential hypersexuality, which genuinely can be a sign of past sexual abuse, even if she's just about old enough for it to be debatable.

This post brought to you by a large dose of Ritalin, after I made the mistake of taking it while too tired to actually study. I hope no one predicted this halfway through the essay.

You might be okay with the idea of a 13 yo girl having a boyfriend, and maybe having sex with said boyfriend.

I make no judgement either way but this does remind me of two situations from middle school:

On the one sex ed class we had when I was 14 or so, one guy in our class made a fairly plausible claim of having had sex and that it was with an older girl when he was 12 years old at some summer camp. The reaction was mostly "nah, you're trying to fool us" with a bit of "12? You sure started young". At no point was any sort of abuse considered. Another guy had a steady girlfriend of the same age and the only reaction was "lucky you!" (she was quite pretty).

When I was in 9th grade (ie. 15 years old) I remember a girl in another class having a steady boyfriend who was in 7th grade in the same school. Our reaction was "He's quite young. I wonder what she sees in him?" I do recall them kissing publicly but we didn't exactly ask if they had sex.

Look, I fantasized about sleeping with my (female) teachers from 8th grade onwards, it was a sex-segregated institute, and I had sadly little contact with female peers. I was too chubby and acne ridden for a teacher seducing me to be a remotely realistic prospect. But if they had been blind and demented, I don't think I'd have accused them of sexual assault. I'd be hell-yeahing with the boys.

A gay art tutor once tried and (failed) molesting me, and at no point was I into it. My parents fired him, but did not press charges as I wish they had. It probably wouldn't have gone anywhere.

I still remain a MILF-enjoyer, and most of my serious relationships were with slightly older women. Sadly, MILF increasingly just means women my age, both because of a regression in the strictness of standards on porn sites, and the unkind passage of time.

Look, I fantasized about sleeping with my (female) teachers from 8th grade onwards, it was a sex-segregated institute, and I had sadly little contact with female peers. I was too chubby and acne ridden for a teacher seducing me to be a remotely realistic prospect. But if they had been blind and demented, I don't think I'd have accused them of sexual assault. I'd be hell-yeahing with the boys.

Man, that's just weird...

that you had hot enough teachers for that. We sure didn't until perhaps senior high school but by then I was far too distracted by the girl sitting in front of me who wore deliciously tight jeans. She's also the reason why I still remember the lyrics to this song (they were written in the backside of the seat she sat in in that class).

Or maybe you truly are a MILF enjoyer. Not that I judge, considering how many of my peers are nowadays MILFs.

You had me going at the start.

that you had hot enough teachers for that.

Look, for once I'm the person grading on a curve. There's an apocryphal story/meme of a man being so horny while internet deprived that he jerked off to a smoke detector, describing it as a "ceiling titty". At that age, I could relate, I am much calmer these days, and I do not miss having a raging libido with no real outlet.

But yeah, a few of the teachers could get it. Still would, except that they've probably gone from MILFs to GILFs. It has been a while, and I am not willing to start a relationship with such a problematic age gap (it would be elder abuse).

Or maybe you truly are a MILF enjoyer. Not that I judge, considering how many of my peers are nowadays MILFs.

At that age, MILF meant women from 27 to 45. And porn actresses somehow go from "barely legal" to "MILFs" on the lower side of that range, with almost nothing in between, so maybe I was prescient.

On the one sex ed class we had when I was 14 or so, one guy in our class made a fairly plausible claim of having had sex and that it was with an older girl when he was 12 years old at some summer camp.

I started wishing for that for myself shortly before my 12th birthday, so maybe he just got lucky. Although the odds of him lying are also high, I knew a few guys when I was that age who would lie like that. They were also the type of people where it was plausible. They liked to make up ghost stories and stuff too so I knew they were fabulists.

is the potential hypersexuality,

Hold up, is teenage hyper sexuality in India kissing boys and watching porn? These people's heads would explode if they were exposed to dysfunctional American ER visitors.

I apologize for the rambly, incomplete post. A few things came to mind after writing, and a more polished draft on my blog addresses some of them.

But since you ask:

The risky texting with multiple men (or boys, or women, or LLMs, I'm not sure to 100% certainty) was somewhat suggestive. Also, I think I had some reason to think that a potential partner had been the perpetrator of abuse, but don't quote me on that.

I promise that we would not have admitted on the basis of such scanty evidence, it was merely discussed, a mistake because I was listening and I love writing. The safeguarding after sexual abuse was probably the necessary and sufficient cause behind the admission.

But people are conservative enough that just the idea of a young teen girl watching porn and wanting to screw (even an age appropriate) boyfriend would have a few psychiatrists here diagnose hypersexuality. I would disagree with them, dismissing them as out of touch old fogies who did not see genitalia of the opposite sex till med school, if that was all the evidence. Right now, I mostly suspend judgement.

(My parents were annoyed when I first dated a girl. Naturally, it was someone I met at private coaching outside of high school. Naturally, their primary concern was that I was distracted from studies. Unfortunately, they were correct: That bitch deserves blame for making me so depressed that my grades suffered and I didn't get into a very good med school. They did not accuse me of hypersexuality, at least not till much later, and that too tongue-in-cheek, mostly because I had another bad breakup and was processing it by bringing too many women home since I was too cheap to pay for a hotel. Don't judge.)

All experiences are relative to their cultures, just saying that I think lots of people stroke out on the spot if they saw my local equivalents.

I have seen and heard some very concerning things in the UK, from people of what I expect come from a comparable background. I'm glad that I'm too young to be subject to too many vascular risk factors other than a poor diet, but my eyebrows did hurt from the exercise.

Netanyahu Conspiracy Theories on X and Mark Levin as MAGA

Quick rundown:

  • Netanyahu has had no public appearances since March 9th, leading to huge speculation on X that Netanyahu is dead, there are a couple different theories for which strike killed him.
  • Netanyahu's son tweeted an average of something like 20-30 tweets a day up until March 9th, and then did not send a single Tweet until today- anomalous.
  • Netanyahu was not present at the past two Security Council meetings he almost always leads, which is anomalous.
  • The first "public appearance" by Netanyahu was a pre-recorded coffee shop visit released yesterday where he mocked the rumors of his death. Not good enough for many X users who scoured the video trying to find proof of AI creation, none of the evidence of that I found compelling.
  • The second "public appearance" by Netanyahu was another pre-recorded video released by his X account of talking to some citizens in the countryside.
  • The video released today does have a very suspicious element, the wedding ring on his left finger disappears entirely within a single frame and then reappears seconds later. This is clearly visible in the original video too, not just that edit. Some attribute this to filtering, I can't attest to that and in my own videos with filtering I've never seen a total disappearance of an object like that.

Needless to say, the evidence provided has not dissuaded the rumors on X. I do not think Netanyahu is dead or severely injured, but these anomalies do warrant an explanation.

Why has Netanyahu not had any sort of public presence since March 9th that would be expected from a wartime leader? During the 12-Day War he maintained a public presence and even toured damage sites from missiles and took questions. But now the first time he appears in public in quite some time is is in a pre-recorded video to mock the rumors of his death in a coffee shop?

The easiest answer for the lack of public presence is due to security concerns. But it seems pretty trivial to me for a leader like Netanyahu to maintain a public presence with very low risk, and that risk would certainly be worthy of the benefits of moralizing the Homefront and projecting confidence.

I suspect the reason for this is because Netanyahu wants Trump to be the "face" of the war- several times a day you can see Trump on the News babbling to the media about the war attracting huge amounts of attention, while we can't spare a penny for Netanyahu's own thoughts or leadership at a time it would be expected. In particular, while Trump is clearly trying to muster NATO to join the war, it would be wise for Netanyahu to be far away from weighing in on that question or publicly supporting it because it would do more harm than good.

I do not see how traditional video touchups or filtering would cause the wedding ring to disappear like it did in the video released today, any video editing experts feel free to weigh in. Barring some "yeah I edit videos all the time and I've seen this before", the most likely explanation is that the ring disappearance was a video manipulation, but one intended to misdirect the critics on X- give them a bone to chew on with a false lead.

Mark Levin is MAGA, his critics are not

Rewind to 2016, Mark Levin was an avowed Never-Trumper while the alt-right essentially memed Trump into existence against all expectations. The tables have turned, if it was not already clear what side Trump was on in this feud between the Shapiro/Levin wing of MAGA and the online Right (tbh it was already clear), Trump has picked sides unambiguously:

Mark Levin, a truly Great American Patriot, is somewhat under siege by other people with far less Intellect, Capability, and Love for our Country... When you hear others unfairly attack Mark, remember that they are jealous and angry Human Beings, whose "sway" is much less than the Public understands, and will, now that they know where I stand, rapidly diminish. Other than for his wonderful wife and family, Mark Levin only cares and wants one thing, GREATNESS AND SUCCESS FOR AMERICA! Those that speak ill of Mark will quickly fall by the wayside, as do the people whose ideas, policies, and footings are not sound. THEY ARE NOT MAGA, I AM...

So there you have it, MAGA has been subsumed, the 2016 alt-right energy that propelled Trump into office is out, hopefully the "plan trusters" now can stop pretending otherwise. For its part Fox News is unsurprisingly 100% behind the war, today they had on another 2016 never-Trumper Ben Shapiro, who gave Trump's Iran War an A+ grade and remarked:

The president, right here, is doing the BRAVEST thing that I’ve ever seen an American president do when it comes to foreign policy

MAGA is not dead, it's the rebranded neo-conservatism. The movement has been subsumed.

They're creating the appearance that he was killed, without having to falsely claim he was, for some psyop reason. I can't see why though.

Maybe they’re conspiracy baiting? All of the people who would otherwise be making incisive arguments about why exactly this war is in Israel’s interest but not America’s are now wasting their time arguing about irrelevant bullshit like whether or not Netanyahu is dead.

I think they are definitely conspiracy baiting, I proposed that as the explanation for the "disappearing ring" but I don't feel fully explains Netanyahu's leadership strategy here... it's more of an addon misdirection to a different strategy they are pursuing by keeping Netanyahu out of the limelight for some reason.

It’s not for the Iranians, who won’t comment until it’s confirmed (in the hypothetical situation in which it’s true). I always thought the occasional Putin disappearances were in part about seeing who seemed to move suspiciously fast or ask a lot of questions during a leader’s unexplained absence, but Netanyahu doesn’t have close to that power even now after almost as many years in power. In a way, I think @SecureSignals is probably directionally correct. I don’t think it’s about US or even NATO public opinion, though, I think it’s about the Gulf and the Arab world. There are people who can politically withstand going to war in partnership with America, but not with Israel. If Israel fades into the background, the former becomes more likely.

I've talked previously on here about how exclusionary groups expand the enemy list to previous neutrals or allies and this new MAGA v America First schism is just another example.

Often we see arguments against censorship or abuse of power that go like "imagine what happens if the other side did this to us?" with the idea that the only/main issue of censorship is an external threat. Rather I think the main threat is internal, the abuse of power that makes people think "well maybe that one is ok, I didnt like the victims anyway" that normalizes, and more importantly, empowers the abuse.

We see this now with say, Brandon Carr. All the abuse of FCC powers he used to "own the libs" is now being used to threaten anti war speech. The "woke left" was well known to "eat their own" and have people who are otherwise left treading carefully to not speak out of line or else the same cancelling mechanisms could be used on them.

Purge powers are a powerful tool, and the types of people who are prone to use and abuse that tool won't just stop at your enemies, they're perfectly happy to use it on you too when you step out of line. Even the best and most loyal allies of Putin or Xi Jinping or Kim Jong Un aren't allowed much room to disagree.

Which is why I've always argued for trying to limit usage instead of getting "revenge" with purges and censorship, it just further accelerates your own future oppression when you become a traitor for disagreement.

How is the MAGA v America First schism an example of that though?

The real story is the Ziocons weren't with Trump in 2016, they didn't create the movement, but after his ascendancy they found him pliable and then they took over the movement and purged the anti-semites. The end. I don't see the lesson you are proposing here.

It's ironic. The conspiracy theory would be valid if it were applied to another person instead : Mojtaba Khamenei

Iran's new Supreme Leader is either maimed, on his death bed, or already dead.

He hasn't made a public appearance since his appointment, in person or on video. We know that he was injured in some capacity. There are plausible-ish reports that he has been flown over to Russia for emergency medical care.

Frankly, Netanyahu's death would be a nothing burger when compared to Trump or the Khamenei family's death. It would also be impossible to hide given the democratic nature of Israel. The attacks on Iran have unanimous support from Jews in Israel (~93% approval). Netanyahu would be replaced by a caretaker govt, with a Likud placeholder, Yair Lapid, or Benny Gantz as a temporary face. The attacks would continue.

Before Oct 7th, Israel had a diverse political landscape spanning everything from the far left to the far right. Oct 7th collapsed the Overton window to only tolerate the center-to-center right. That's it. Unlike the decades prior, Netanyahu's actions have bipartisan support and a new leader would merely change the pace of Israel's offensive, not much else. The war is a foregone conclusion.

Lastly, the gulf states and the US now have more at stake than Israel. Rising oil prices will decide Trump's midterm fate, and he risks looking like a loser if he pulls out early. After Iran's drone tantrum, the gulf is now brought into Israel's framing of Iran's military capabilities as an existential threat. They will want Iran's nuclear efforts and dirty weapons manufacturing capacities to stay dismantled for good.

It's not really ironic, because I and others do believe in a high likelihood that Khamenei is dead or severely injured also due to the lack of public presence typically shown by a wartime leader.

You want irony, I saw some IDF guy on Fox News earlier today float the theory Khamenei is dead, and he actually said the Iranians should release a video of him to prove he's not dead... it was literally like he was saying "we released the Coffee Shop video to prove Netanyahu isn't dead, what do you have Khamenei?" It's a strange situation.

Of course Twitter uses proceeded to AI generate a video of Khamenei in the exact same coffee shop scene replacing Netanyahu, pretty funny warfare nowadays.

If we go in with no priors, then the situations can seem somewhat similar.

However that is not the case. In real life, we know Mossad knows where and when substantial portions of Iranian leadership takes a piss. On the other hand, we also know that Iran and the IRGC's best plan is typically to try and shoot as much shit as they can in the general direction of an Israeli airbase to hopefully kill a few pilots and temporarily take a runway offline.

I think this is true, which is why I don't see how security concerns would be the reason for Netanyahu's total absence in his public-facing role. He can do meetings and pressers and meet-and-greets! The Iranian leaders actually can't. So why hasn't he done any public engagement like that, at all, for a week?

Back circa 2011-12 I speculated that if Obama wanted to win in such an incredible landslide that Dems could get back to close to their 2008 landslide would be to basically go away. The theory was that, in my opinion, "Fake Obama" aka the person who didn't really have policy positions and just had really good posters saying "Hope and Change" was much more popular than the real Obama. This is obviously true for Israel. Netanyahu is reviled by Europeans, so much that they have brought a bunch of pseudo-real criminal prosecutions against him for warcrimes of dubious veracity. If, instead, generic Israel is seen as a second tier actor in this war, they can default back to something like being 20% underwater instead of 30-40% in those areas.

Could be some unrelated medical issue. The guy is 76.

For the record, if it turns out Netanyahu has died there is no information, medical records, doctor testimony, audio, video that could convince me it was a poorly timed medical event rather than an Iranian attack haha.

The sheer Larry David-esque humor potential would greatly bolster the "dankest timeline" hypothesis.

Iran's new Supreme Leader is either maimed, on his death bed, or already dead.

So why did they pick him? It seems like such an odd thing to do. I mean, some scarring, fine, "disfigured, vengeful, homosexual Ayatollah" is a pretty funny villain for a Saturday morning cartoon. But if he's dying or dead, why not just pick someone else? Unless the USA got him right after he was picked, but then the USA would tell us the particular strike I would think? They were saying he was dead before it was confirmed he was even picked.

Supposedly his dad was adamantly against him taking over, possibly for being gay, possibly for being an idiot.

Maybe the coma is a feature not a bug - he makes a decent figurehead, while being too incapacitated to attempt to actually rule, while also being totally expendable. Same logic as electing Biden, and it fits with the "mosaic" approach.

Yeah I guess I've never had the most sophisticated military in history targeting me, but it seems shortsighted to pick a guy you will need to replace later. Coaching changes always produce instability.

So why did they pick him?

He was unable to step back when they asked for volunteers. They knew the person with the title would have a target on their back.

Is Bowen Yang still on SNL? I can't wait for the poorly-closeted Ayatollah Weekend Update sketch.

What's Andy Samberg doing these days?

Lindsey Graham forces us into a war with the gay Ayatollah, Schearer said something about how the Roehm era S.A. was riven by the kind of bitter interpersonal strife only possible among homosexuals.

Heftige Rivalität, soon on Netflix.

I think it's a pretty funny thing to do if you are tired of the US assassinating your leadership.

The only Islamic group to defeat the US was the Taliban; they may simply be taking inspiration from Mullah Omar in picking a reclusive leader with severe war injuries.

Good strategy to imitate the Taliban, now if only they could raise the perception that their enemies excuse child molesters in their midst...

Like 8 guys in front him for succession all got immediately killed. It seems likely he is laying low so that he doesn't similarly get to see some cool top secret American military technology first hand.

It’s ironic.

Actually I thought another Star Wars quote was more appropriate here:

“The attempt on my life has left me scarred and deformed. But, I assure you, my resolve has never been stronger! In order to ensure the piety and continuing stability, the Republic will be reorganized into the first Islamic Empire! For a safe and halal society” (thunderous applause)

—Mojtaba Khamenei, probably

The disappearance is unusual but I think it’s very hard to hide the death of a world leader for a long period of time, there are too many internal factions who hear word and start posturing. In addition, who can forget the approximately one million times Putin has allegedly died in secret over the last decade according to tabloid rumor. In addition, keeping news of Netanyahu’s death secret wouldn’t serve even his relatively close political allies, since if anything it would rally people to their cause and Israeli morale in this conflict doesn’t depend on Netanyahu’s life at all, they largely believe it’s about life and death for all of them. Lastly, Iran has not successfully killed many senior Israeli officials, while even Soleimani’s assassination alone made successful Israeli targeted killing claims much more believable whether or not the state confirmed someone’s death.

For the record, I think Netanyahu is laying low, trying to avoid saying something provocative because he knows this war will end when Trump decides it does, and concentrating on eliminating Hezbollah in Lebanon as much as possible, which seems like Israel’s primary focus in this war.

And I think Mojtaba is probably alive. The Telegraph suggested he was injured but is alive. He may not be particularly lucid (I doubt he is vegetative), but I suspect he is alive and has at leas a chance of recovering; there were other supreme leader candidates living and a hereditary succession was not uncontroversial.

They definitely can't keep it secret for a long period of time, but probably long enough for a severe escalation to put things past the point of no return. IF he is dead and they are trying to keep it secret, I suspect there's going to be a huge escalation, maybe an attack on Iranian infrastructure or worse. I do think Netanyahu's death would be a potential de-escalatory turning point because it gives the Iranians a powerful symbol to declare victory and return to the negotiating table. And the Israeli power vacuum could cause the US to hesitate, not to mention potential US allies and the Gulf States. If he is actually dead, and Israel wants to escalate, I do think they have a motive to keep it secret. Israel's desire for escalation is suggested by their attack on the Iranian Oil storage facilities, which kicked off the ongoing price volatility in oil markets.

But I agree by far more likely is laying low to avoid provocation and denunciation by potential allies. But then there's Ben-Gvir, who has also been notably absent. So something is going on there, there's a reason this is happening.

Trump is right, MAGA is Trump. He created the whole political movement. The broader alt-right was inchoate and without any opportunity before Trump gave it form.

It’s actually the failure of the alt right that Trump is in power and they can’t get more of what they want. Remember that Scott Adams meme about how Democrats successfully branded Trump as Hitler, then Hitler won? Time for reflection. Mark Levin opposed Trump, now Trump likes him. Time for some reflection.

What I mean is, these impotent Twitter squabbles actually don’t mean anything. The broad base of MAGA still supports Trump and the Republican Party loves Trump. The people braying that Trump has betrayed them, however influential they might be in the small world of right-wing New York / SF influencers — don’t matter. Objectively they don’t matter because Trump has no compunctions about disappointing them. He doesn’t think about them at all. Mark Levin apparently does matter because Trump is thinking about him.

the 2016 alt-right energy that propelled Trump into office is out

The alt-right is not why Trump won in 2016 at all. It is simply what was easiest for this insular media ecosystem to write about. Insofar as that definition of “MAGA” died it died a long time ago when Milo got canceled for being a pervert and Bannon got fired for leaking like a sieve. But again that’s not what actually matters.

hopefully the "plan trusters" now can stop pretending otherwise.

This plan truster is very happy thank you very much.

All of the energy behind Trump originally came from the “alt right”, who created the memes that boosted his popularity in the first place. They were fighting the likes of Ben Shapiro and Mark Levin. I remember the exact moment when he spoke about Mexican immigration in unadorned speech and how that immediately turned up the support 10x. MAGA is Trump if we’re talking copyright but the nationalism obviously preceded him. You had to be there. The nationalist current began at least four years before Trump’s elections.

Mark Levin opposed Trump, now Trump likes him

He’s on Fox News. That’s pretty much it. Unfortunately he is 80 years old. We had a guy on Fox News, they got rid of him, but now Tucker has his own show. This does allows Tucker to continue the true “alt right” spirit though. We will see where we end up over the next decade, if it looks more like the original MAGA vision or the Mark Levin vision.

The broad base of MAGA still supports Trump and the Republican Party loves Trump

I see no organic support for Trump online. I think midterms will tell. I think there are those like myself who will be voting straight D.

I was there before anyone, I was there from escalator day and faced a lot of doubters and social consequence. The arguments I could recount… The nationalist current was formless. It was there but it had no shape. In Britain it arrived in Brexit and then was squandered for ten years because there was no other figure or leader to champion it — look at Britain for an idea of where America could be without Trump, look to Britain for an idea of what “squandering MAGA” would actually mean.

He’s on Fox News. That’s pretty much it. Unfortunately he is 80 years old.

I don’t really believe this “Trump gets everything from Fox News” meme mostly spread by left-wing journalists painting a picture of Trump the simpleton. (By other accounts he consumes a lot of news in all forms.)

However that’s not really my point; if Trump does just get all his idea direct from Fox News, then it’s a failure of the alt-right not to fight for it. Who’s in the editing rooms, who’s in scheduling? Ten years on the feeling is that Fox is basically no better no worse than it used to be — well at least we still have shitposts and memes!

This does allows Tucker to continue the true “alt right” spirit though.

Tucker is a grifter and not a very successful role model for how a political movement should function.

I think there are those like myself who will be voting straight D.

Well if you support unlimited immigration and Minneapolis daycare fraud and never arresting criminals on the trains I don’t really trust your opinions on the original MAGA spirit.

Fox and people like Levin are dying out; viewer average age is 65. And Levin would not allow any genuine MAGA person in his newsroom. It’s just unfortunately not something MAGA can change. This is entrenched media which we always hated. MAGA never cared about Fox.

Tucker was the most popular Fox show, so it worked with Tucker, for a while, until he was fired. Now he is on x: 18 million views on his Nick Fuentes interview on x, 7 million on YouTube, while Levin is lucky to get 4,000 views on his YouTube channel and 150,000 views on his Fox videos. Tucker’s video on Iran is 4.5x the views of Levin, which is insane when you remember that all Levin does is fearmonger Iran to his audience averaging 65yo. But none of that matters because it’s Trump’s favorite show. The Alt Right has no avenue to influence the 80yo Trump like that, they just have to create propaganda and wait it out.

Tucker is a grifter

Genuinely makes no sense. What is he grifting? What does grifting even mean to you?

It’s just unfortunately not something MAGA can change.

The Alt Right has no avenue to influence the 80yo Trump like that

Ok yeah MAGA is weak and powerless Trump has betrayed us you’re right all we can do is post on Twitter. The key thing is that this explanation absolves us of having to do anything differently, because if it were the case that Trump isn’t beyond influencing and we gave up for nothing boy that would be a shame

Well there’s a lot you can do if you support MAGA. You can rally behind its new figures (Tucker, Fuentes, Fishback). You can make propaganda. You can start an organization, for the purposes of propaganda. You can create art, for propaganda. (I really think everything just comes down to propaganda). You can boycott things, and get people to boycott things. Things are decided by money and opinion: get the money, change the opinion. You can ensure that your money only goes to Americans with a pure allegiance, and you can change opinions. The strategy of “spend a decade in the Fox News room for the small chance to persuade Mark Levin” is just not realistic.

Well Trump did run on a platform of 'America First' and 'no new wars in the Middle East, in fact Kamala is the one who'll start wars'...

It's like how in the UK, people were voting for Brexit as part of a way to reduce immigration. Then Boris ramped immigration way up. And so now the Tory Party is gone, effectively wiped off the map just after winning a huge electoral victory under a populist platform. Farage is clearly trying to do the same thing, there is this elaborate misdirection about his real agenda and priorities, he wants to get Poles out and bring more Indians in, to neutralize anti-immigration sentiment, he certainly has no problem with Islam... That's what Brexit was really about in his mind, a dog and pony show for the rubes to persuade them that they were being listened to.

Being a populist is easy, you just have to follow through on your promises and give your voters what they want. You've adeptly explained the 'make promises and then betray promises' part. The next arc coming up is 'get shown the door by voters'. Populism is a reaction against politicians who make all these promises and then renege on them.

All Trump had to do is what he said - mass deportations, cutting leftist grifting to dry up the NGO blob, avoiding foreign wars. Not hard! But instead he shows his real priorities - slavish obedience to the latest batch of Israeli 'intelligence' and all the shady Shapiros, Levins and Kushners in his inner circle.

Trump has done more to follow through on his promises to voters than any president in memory. Immigration tariffs deportations taxes emissions regulations vaccine mandates Paris climate accords government layoffs birthright citizenship. He pardoned the J6ers, he moved our Israeli embassy. This is the first net-negative period of migration in fifty years. Like it or not this is what it looks like when Trump keeps his promises — mostly it looks like the base likes it. Which isn’t just to appeal to popularity but to say there is a fairly simple measure of whether Trump’s voters feel betrayed. They do not.

slavish obedience to the latest batch of Israeli 'intelligence'

If you think Trump is taking Israeli intelligence over American intelligence you have crazy priors about what is going on in the Oval Office.

If you think Trump is taking Israeli intelligence over American intelligence you have crazy priors about what is going on in the Oval Office.

He didn't listen to General Caine who warned about all the obvious flaws in the 'bomb Iran' approach that Trump is now discovering the hard way. Someone must've been telling him it would be easy, Iran was about to collapse.

The Israelis have been shovelling out that same old story about Iran being a few months away from a nuclear bomb, they've been going on about that for decades now. But Trump still buys it, he went on about how they were going to get a nuke and would've if he didn't stop them. US intelligence is much more cautious about this.

You can follow through on 99 promises but if you renege and do the opposite on a high profile promise and can't explain why (Israel was going to strike first, the nuclear weapons that weren't actually being made), it can easily outweigh whatever promises you do make. Especially if it raises oil prices and induces a recession.

We are two weeks into a war and you are declaring that Trump must be blind to “obvious flaws” because Iran hasn’t totally collapsed. Get some perspective. If Trump wanted to we could bomb Iran back to the Stone Age by destroying all their electrical infrastructure. Meanwhile, we are sitting at home.

the opposite on a high profile promise

Trump has always promised to fight Iran and so far this is not another Iraq Forever War.

80% of 2024 Trump voters apparently support the Iran bombing, so "MAGA is Trump" is pretty spot on. The Iran bombing, Epstein files (which I'm incredibly skeptical of) and Trump's undying love for Israel don't seem to put a dent on his popularity with MAGA.

Consider the personality and lifestyle of a person who sees a poll in the mail and (1) doesn’t think it’s a scam, (2) trusts institutions, (3) wants their opinion heard by an institution, (4) has the time and interest to answer polls. (WaPo uses SSRS polling which recruits by mailers). This is selecting for (1) the least skeptical Americans, who are more likely to buy-in to propagated narratives, (2) the least independent-thinking of Americans, who trust institutions, (3) the most “authority-pleasing” dispositional types, who are interested in feeling validated by participating in a civic ritual, and (4) the people at home the most with fewer obligations, thus more likely to watch the news.

I don’t know, apparently I am the only person in the world who thinks this kind of polling must be insanely inaccurate due to the infeasibility of polling and determining the personality traits of the very people who would never answer a poll. Everyone seems to trust polling. But I strongly feel that the skeptical and distrusting American will see a poll and throw it away, and that the most “online” American will not go through the trouble of doing a poll. (I am him and he is me). I will die on this hill and if polled my opinion on the hill I will throw away the mailer.

It's not just polling. So much of social science relies on surveys with usually no verification if people are being honest. Which we know they aren't because people often answer what they feel they should be doing, or would like to be doing rather than what they are. See reported vs actual Church attendance. Not to mention so much social science is based solely on WEIRDs who are fairly atypical compared to the average person.

sees a poll in the mail

This isn't how all modern polling is done, FYI. My understanding is that a lot of modern polling is compensated, and done online.

I am the only person in the world who thinks this kind of polling must be insanely inaccurate

We know most modern polling isn't insanely inaccurate because we can track the polling from the past few presidential cycles. Plenty of major polls are off enough to matter, but in knife-fight presidential campaigns a tenth of a percent matters, and because of the Electoral College, gen-pop polling isn't necessarily helpful as to who will win the election. But once you start seeing polls that say "80% X" you generally shouldn't be thinking "well the numbers are actually flipped it's just that they are mostly polling the 20%."

What you should do is look carefully at their sampling methodology and how they phrased the question(s).

80% of 2024 Trump voters apparently support the Iran bombing, so "MAGA is Trump" is pretty spot on. The Iran bombing, Epstein files (which I'm incredibly skeptical of) and Trump's undying love for Israel don't seem to put a dent on his popularity with MAGA.

FWIW I'm a Trump supporter and it would take quite a lot for him to lose my support. The reason is very simple: I can sense that the Left has a great deal of hostility and contempt towards, men, white people, and especially white men. And these wokies on the Left have a lot of sway over the Democratic party. Trump is anti-woke, or at least about as anti-woke as one could reasonably hope for.

I'd argue that the alt-right played the important but indirect role of eliciting tendencies from Trump's opposition that were self-radicalizing and self-defeating.

To me this sudden speculation about Netanyahu's death is a fairly transparent attempt by the usual suspects to distract from the far more credible reports that the younger Khamenei was either killed or seriously injured in the series of strikes that took out the elder Khamenei and that Iran is effectively without a "supreme leader" at this time.

In any case it is neither here nor there, if the IRGC were able to seriously disrupt or threaten the US or Israel's chains of command I imagine we'd be seeing something a bit more substantial than pseudonymous musings on X, and if Netanyahu or Khamenei (or Trump for that matter) really is dead I expect we'll find out one way or the other in a few weeks.

In the meantime Iran has gone from launching 500+ missiles and drones in the first 24 hours of the war to averaging around 125 launches a day for the week of March 2nd and 32 a day in the week of March 9th. I seen a lot of speculation (again from the usual suspects) how how this apparent decline is a product of Iran trying to draw the Jews and the Americans in so that they can win a decisive battle, but I think it's far more likely that they've shot their load.

As for the rest, the Alt-right has always had a vastly overinflated perception of their own importance. Believing that Trump/MAGA was "memed into existence" by edge-lords posting on 4-Chan requires one to be entirely ignorant of the preceding 8 - 10 years of GOP internal politics. It was only "unexpected" to those who were not paying attention.

The Strait of Hormuz is closed with no clear path to opening, Dubai International Airport is shut down, maintaining ~30 missiles a day is enough for mass economic disruption and disruption to daily life. The copium about Iran running out of missiles every day hasn't happened. We've gone from "We've won" to "We're winning" to "Please Help open the Strait" in 3 weeks.

Marcus Crassus fought the Persians (technically Parthians) at the Battle of Carrhae in 53 BC. His strategy was to wait for the Persians to run out of arrows before attacking with his infantry. But it turned out the Persians were being resupplied with camels, so the Romans attacked, and suffered one of their worst defeats in history. Crassus himself was killed during subsequent negotiations to end the fighting. Legend has it that the Parthians poured molten gold down his throat to mock his greed.

As for the rest, the Alt-right has always had a vastly overinflated perception of their own importance.

It certainly cannot be attributed to the Jewish Zionist wing that now owns MAGA like Mark Levin and Ben Shapiro, given that they opposed it in 2016. I think it's delusional to think Trump would have won without the "meme magic" that constantly went viral on the Internet and basically defined his image/aesthetic, but in any case it was a far greater part of the creation of that movement than the people that actively opposed it at the time but now claim they define it. Chutzpah.

Tehran announcing that the straights have been closed is a very different state from no ships transiting the straights. Looking at Marine Traffic, Lloyds List, and various other logistics industry trade sites what appears to be happening is the the Euros are spooked and staying in port, the Gulf States are running dark (IE turning of their transponders), and the Chinese are ignoring the announcement but given that most of their tonnage is bound for Iranian ports anyway that is to be expected.

And again. believing that Trump/MAGA was "memed into existence" by edge-lords posting on 4-Chan requires one to be entirely ignorant of the preceding 8 - 10 years of GOP internal politics.

As I said, what Trump did was accurately identify key fault lines that cut across large swaths of both the conservative and corporate sides of the Republican electorate as well as many former Democrats who'd been alienated by the national party's embrace of Id-Pol and then build a coalition around it. The Bernie-Bro to Trump-Stan pipeline flipped more votes than any on the Alt-Right could have ever dreamed of and that is a large part of why the Alt Right is on the outside. They are not the target constituency, they never were.

As I said, what Trump did was accurately identify key fault lines that cut across large swaths of both the conservative and corporate sides of the Republican electorate as well as many former Democrats who'd been alienated by the national party's embrace of Id-Pol and then build a coalition around it.

I swear I feel like I'm the only one with a 10-year memory. Identity Politics reached peak during Donald Trump. BLM and all of its fallout and cultural Great Awokening was during Trump's first term. In 2016 he ran on Immigration restrictionism, which resonated with dissident elements who then turned all of his leadership faults into funny internet memes that went viral incessantly during the 2016 campaign, to the point Reddit had to eventually ban his subreddit. Trump's 2016 campaign was not an anti-idpol coalition, it was fundamentally a nativist movement. The Zionist wing of the GOP picked up on that energy, which is why they called themselves "Never-Trumpers" and opposed the movement, at least until he proved his worth and now they say they define the movement and all the "nativists" who are skeptical of another war for Israel are not MAGA.

Now, the 2024 campaign was more of an anti-idpol coalition, but by this point more discerning observers knew that MAGA was being subsumed by the interests that have brought us exactly where we are today, and "anti-idpol" was a Trojan Horse to move the chess pieces to achieve this war with Iran and the purge of the actual nativists.

Again the reason the Alt Right is on the outside is that they were not the target constituency, they never were.

I think that you are engaging for the common affluent liberal fallacy of assuming that the you opponents have been somehow manipulated into voting against their own interests to salve your own ego rather than consider the possibility that they have their own reasons and interests that are different from yours.

I dunno, man. I am entirely sympathetic to the American normie populist right, in no way see them as inferior, and the reason I think Trump is being puppeteered, is that he jumped head-first into an idiotic war that he explicitly campaigned against, and which is exclusively in the interest of Israel and against the interest of the normie populist right.

out-played by people you view your inferiors, IE the normie populist right.

If you mean zionist elements in his close political orbit then sure. Normiecons didn't outplay shit, they dance to the same tune, but that's pretty much it.

As for the rest, the Alt-right has always had a vastly overinflated perception of their own importance. Believing that Trump/MAGA was "memed into existence" by edge-lords posting on 4-Chan requires one to be entirely ignorant of the preceding 8 - 10 years of GOP internal politics.

Excuse me, but to borrow your own phrasing - who do you think it is that threw the Trump brick through the window? The GOP boomer wine moms wanted someone with decorum like Cruz, Trump's online base of meme-brained young voters wanting politics to mean something was a core part of converting the GOP lifers.

Excuse me, but to borrow your own phrasing - who do you think it is that threw the Trump brick through the window?

A coalition of Tea-Partiers, Federalists, and disenfranchised "Bernie-Bro" (economically liberal but socially conservative) working class Democrats.

Also what the fuck did I just watch?

Overheard at work:

Did you hear about the shutdown?
What? The whole government?
No, just DHS. Check your flight info.
So TSA is shutdown, or at least running slow, or—oh, my flight is just delayed an hour.

Business as usual. I was also unaware of any particular crisis brewing over TSA, so I looked it up. Lo and behold: this is actually old news. Nothing has changed since DHS was pseudo-defunded a month ago.

So why am I hearing about it now? Well, a month is long enough for a missed government paycheck. Which means the TSA staff, who were apparently holding down the fort, are getting increasingly antsy. Somewhere around 300 have quit. Combined with a surprise cold front, airport security lines have been upgraded from mild to moderate inconvenience.

The usual suspects are blaming Democrats: Schiff, Booker deflect on shutdown blame amid terror concerns, thousands of DHS workers without pay. I’m still trying to figure out how this is their fault, given the Republican trifecta; Rep. Collins suggests that they are completely stonewalling any attempts at compromise. I think the last attempt was supposed to be a White House proposal from late February, but I couldn’t find the actual text of it, so I don’t know if it was at all credible. Sen. Schumer naturally insisted that it wasn’t. Perhaps we’re seeing two parties sticking to the foot-in-the-door tactic.

So, how does this type of gridlock get resolved? Do Republicans come to the table first? Do Democrats? Do airlines start privatizing security, or do they just give up on running flights?

So, how does this type of gridlock get resolved? Do Republicans come to the table first? Do Democrats? Do airlines start privatizing security, or do they just give up on running flights?

Another option: get rid of security lines. They didn't need it in the 90s.

A lot of things were different in the 90s. Apparently, we didn’t realize hijackings could be suicidal. I wouldn’t mind replacing the TSA, but I don’t think repealing it entirely is an option.

You can’t put the toothpaste back in the 2 oz. tube.

They still had some basic security in the 90s, like metal detectors. They just didn't have weird sweaty guys giving you a pat down, or confiscating your nail clippers. The real security upgrade is the locked cabin doors + better background screening and counter-terrorism in general. We could go back to a more relaxed boarding process. They've already given up some of the worst bits of security theater, like making people take off their shoes and belt. I don't know how much they even search people's carry-ons anymore, I always put a ton of junk in mine and they hardly ever stop me.

Sure, but does that count as “getting rid of security lines”?

I guess pre-check is pretty nice.

Well, in my memory (admittedly it's been a long time) there was hardly any line. You could pretty much just show up to the airport and walk right onto the plane, just pausing briefly to walk through a metal detector. It's still like that for busses and trains, so it's not impossible.

Airport security basically doesn't exist as an inconvenience any more if you are willing to pass a background check and pay some money. The background check is what actually replaces the security, the money is why they keep the shitty lines for the plebs.

TSA still sucks even with pre-check, it just sucks less.

These days, at least in the airports I use, it's a <5 minute process, and the only inconvenience is emptying my pockets into my bag and putting them back in. Walk in, Touchless ID/CLEAR, get to a line of a few people on the new machines, bags in, metal detector, done. Not that there aren't absolute disasters, like Austin last weekend, but those are usually pretty easy to avoid. Sure, it would be nice to just not have it, but when has the government ever abolished a jobs program that lets them charge you money?

At Newark it is still terrible. One line to show your boarding pass to the TSA official. That official sends you to the pre-check line, where you wait to provide ID to another TSA official. Then to the bags, where they change the rules occasionally on which things have to go in and which can be separate, and whether you can wear your shoes (yes, even with pre-check). Then of course the wonderful "random" additional bag search, which I hit about 1 in 3 times.

If you don't have pre-check you'll be waiting over an hour on the main security line, sometimes over 2 hours.

I have not had much trouble at Newark lately, but I know it's usually a shitshow in all respects. Touchless ID should at least smooth some of that out if you're signed up and flying through a terminal that has it.

Or we're simply more sensitive to even trivial risks. We could make planes open carry friendly, and it would be fine.

Jesus Christ. I feel like that would ground more planes purely from Sig owners.

If only we had a system that held firearms manufacturers accountable for manufacturing defects, but we don't. To my knowledge Sig has faced very few significant consequences.

The question that needs to be answered for this to happen is: How do you prevent any mechanism for suing gun manufacturers from being abused by the massive lobby of well-funded activists who are politically opposed to the existence of those companies?

That is a fair point, but I feel like the existing claims of uncommanded discharge are well-documented and backed up by evidence (a dishonorable mention of a case that DIDN'T goes to the debacle at Warren Air Force Base last year). Short of straight up making shit up, I don't see how anti-gun activists could abuse the mechanism if we continued to uphold those standards of proof.

We do. Consumers can coordinate to avoid bad products and bad manufacturers. If Sig hasn't faced consequences, it may be because most of their products are fine or people just don't care very much.

Or because they got government contracts to mass produce a bad product before there was any market feedback.

As a P226 enjoyer I object. Yeah sure, no P320s shooting holes in legs, dicks and plane walls. But all of Sigs other great handgun offerings should be allowed.

Is an open carrier executing both pilots without warning, or emptying his magazine into the wing/fuel tank, or the avionics console, or taking his gun to the rear lavatory and emptying it in the general direction of the rear elevator assembly (a not very redundant piece of plane that has a bad track record of allowing recovery when it fails), all considered a "trivial risk", or did you not consider those possibilities at all? (Too many cases of gun activist fantasies running on shounen anime rules, villains pausing to give a speech about their motivations and all.)

Neither these scenarios, nor the use of firearms to stop hijackings, will happen. Airplane security is pointless.

Do you not believe there is anyone who would bring down an airplane, if it were sufficiently easy? Forget about terrorists with an agenda, what about all the random spree shooters that the US gets every other month?

Probably not.

As it turns out, you can bring stuff like laptops on planes and those can make pretty decent explosions and fires. In the interest of fairness, the TSA responded to xkcd's comic at the time but their argument of "if it looks like a laptop it's all good" isn't really exactly convincing to me. And these batteries are actually pretty dangerous even accidentally (UPS Airlines Flight 6, Air China CA139, etc, from a few months ago)

Those random spree killers are low functioning copycats of weirdos. Their MO is, and is likely to remain, opening fire at an elementary school or festival, not bringing down planes- see also the lack of bombings.

taking his gun to the rear lavatory and emptying it in the general direction of the rear elevator assembly

You have a very Hollywood or maybe video game understanding of handguns destroying machinery.

You do realise that airplanes, being optimised for low weight, are nothing like your typical machinery? Handgun bullets can likely penetrate through the aluminium exterior walls quite easily (and while the idea of explosive decompression through a bullet-sized hole is bogus, the implications of fuel leaking into the body through one in the fuel tank are plenty concerning), but more importantly, the interior side of the wall, separated from the passenger cabin by only some plastic lining, is dense with sensitive cabling and hydraulics. I recommend checking out some airplane maintenance videos for reference, or any of the numerous series of plane crash investigation media for instances of how tiny pieces of shrapnel and localised fires due to bad insulation severed some or another critical control and made the plane uncontrollable.

Don't just take it from me, either: this problem was recognised immediately when the idea of armimg any "good guys" in planes became popular.

Things change when you're in a pressurized cabin designed to be as lightweight as possible. Which is also what gives us hope for space swords in the distant future!

There have been incidents in which parts of a plane peel off and the cabinet loses pressure. That doesn't crash planes or kill passengers. Shooting a gun through the plane isn't enough.

Huh. Don't all the passengers get the bends when that happens though? Recoverable if there are enough hyperbaric chambers, but still seems unpleasant.

More comments

Apparently, we didn’t realize hijackings could be suicidal.

You don't need the TSA precisely because, since 2001, every passenger has had it drilled into them they're the last line of defense and that if you let a hijacking go, you're going to die. This isn't the '70s or '80s where hijackers were annoying but mostly harmless- it is that kind of population that needs the TSA, not the modern one where everyone knows they're an existential threat.

If you're going to die in an intentional plane crash at any time past that point, it's because the plane hijacked itself pilot did it on purpose, and the locked door kept the passengers out until it was too late.

the locked door kept the passengers out until it was too late.

It feels like the locked door has caused unintended consequences that policymakers didn't think of. Is there any way to keep the locked door and prevent suicidal pilots, or is that just another policy we have to accept because politicians didn't think it could backfire in probably the most predictable way possible?

There are copilots who should prevent this as much as possible, but realistically what would the average passenger do? A determined pilot could dive down faster than a passenger could react.

We could go back to the days of the three-person crew with a flight engineer, and ensure that 2 people are in the cockpit at all times.

Even with a second set of hands, a pilot can still irreversibly fuck up a plane during takeoff or landing, when the margin of error is smallest (see Air India 171).

It looks like there actually is a rule mandating two pilots in the cockpit at all times, at least in US and Europe. Unfortunately, airlines are lobbying to overturn this rule, arguing that automation is safe enough.

It did backfire with that Lufthansa flight. Since then they have a two person in the cockpit rule which seems to have mostly worked. If the pilot or copilot leaves then they call a stewardess in.

Not unless we solve full self flying airplanes able to over-ride the pilots commands on a computer whim. And I don't trust the likes of Boeing not to fuck it up.

Even moreso.

It's been this way since literally September 11, 2001. Flight 93 - that crash landed in Pennsylvania - did some because the passengers had heard from loved ones calling them on their cell phones about the NYC strikes.

It's amazing how the entire lifespan of the hijacking tactics and strategy of Al-Qaeda began and ended on 9/11

First one's always free.

Since we realized the thing that has prevented another kamakazi airliner hasn't been the TSA, it's been passengers who fight to the death on the plane.

"Never let a good crisis go to waste"

TSA workers should stay fired. Replace them with overt surveillance and heavily promote CLEAR+ and TSA-Pre. TSA has been an over-funded albatross around the neck of global aviation since 9/11. About time we upgraded to something automated and effective.

The shutdown gives solid political cover to both parties. Both parties can blame the other while TSA workers find employment elsewhere. Once the shutdown eases, they can evaluate whether to rehire individuals or let technology fill in the gaps.

I wish they had the 300 IQ to be doing this. Getting rid of airport security theater in favor of the tech panopticon is the way to go. We're already doing it, we might as well have speedy lines as a result.

Ehhh, you're missing the point of the TSA. It's a jobs program for the working class, much the same way the MIC is a jobs program for the middle class. Give them a purpose, some authority, and an income and no one figures it out that THEY have the bullshit email job that exists via government largess.

They could always just completely axe the TSA.

They could always just completely axe box-cutter the TSA.

I’m still trying to figure out how this is their fault, given the Republican trifecta;

Republicans do not have a filibuster-proof trifecta, and Dems used that to block DHS funding, while demanding completely insane poison pills to functionally stop immigration enforcement and open ICE agents to more leftist terror attacks. Your flight was delayed to fight for this for the whole country.

From the link:

On Friday, Judge Dipti Pidikiti-Smith

Dipti Pidikiti?!

Are we in a simulation? That's like a Latino judge being named Speedy Gonzalez or some shi---

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?

Judge Dipti Pidikiti-Smith

Is she in this year's East/West Collegiate Bowl?

I’m still trying to figure out how this is their fault, given the Republican trifecta;

Republicans voted to keep it open but Democrats didn’t. It takes 60 votes to avoid a filibuster. You already know that because you admit it takes two parties to negotiate.

Yes but the core sticking point here is ICE, which is under DHS. DHS isn't getting funded because of ICE. Unless Trump wants to negotiate big on ICE operations, I predict the democrats are unwilling to fund DHS. I don't think Donny wants to make a deal yet.

Sounds like you’re in favor of not funding DHS then — great, thanks for proving my point!

Actually, I work in applied research that is funded by the government, I have research work that had strong interest from a division of the DHS back in Jan and have been playing whack-a-mole trying to get it funded since. I am just acutely aware of the funding issues and the reasons for. I think attempting to project my motivations onto your simple partisan 1D axis is a fools errand.

Your use of “Donny” is coded a certain way so perhaps I am over-reacting but generally I’m tired of the pattern where some blame Republicans for the shutdown(s) while explicitly advocating for pressing the defect button. I mean nothing personally, this is just an arguing forum and we can all shuffle around next debate

I am irreverent in the extreme. I don't subscribe to language being "coded" to signal tribal loyalty.

Idk if democrats are really hitting the defect button here, that would imply this is a prisoner's dilemma-esque game. They are just advocating for what their constituents want(in the ideal aggregate). What's really happening is that DonnyBoy, knowing full well that DHS funding was due for a refresh after the last CR, decided poorly that Jan/Feb was the perfect time to go vindictively goad democratic communities. Then American citizen's got shot by ICE... Dude could have chilled on Minnesota until after the budget was passed, but that's not his style. Poor strategic instincts, lead to poor policy outcomes.

I am irreverent in the extreme. I don't subscribe to language being "coded" to signal tribal loyalty.

Well no you don't get to decide whether language is interpreted because it already is. You don't have to subscribe to any particular interpretation yourself but obviously when we read comments on the internet we use limited information to interpret what perspective is being communicated. That's how language works. So when you say "Donny" as opposed to "Donald Trump" or "Trump" or any alternative you are obviously putting some kind of spin on what could be described in some other term. And the word "Donny" is a diminutive or even a pejorative compared to just "Trump". This is all priced in, this is how language works inherently. I'm just explaining this because this informs my approach in treating your first comment to me as more hostile than neutral.

And in this case you are in fact critical of Trump so my read seems more than justified. (Outside any other debate at the object-level about Trump and Minneapolis, where I think you're wrong.)

we read comments on the internet we use limited information to interpret what perspective is being communicated.

This is not the broader internet, it is a niche community, people's affective information appears in a continuous manner. There are iterative engagements, post history, etc that give greater semantic clarity than shallow linguistics reads. Justifications about deploying rough signal filters ring more hollow. Donny is diminutive in the sense that any more casual nickname is diminutive. Would you freak and call someone a lefty for calling Richard Cheney something so diminutive as Dick? Regardless, it's not something I hear left wing folks say either, so as a dog whistle its pretty weak.

And in this case you are in fact critical of Trump so my read seems more than justified.

The fun part about being an independent that voted for Trump in 24, is that I get to critique him. I earned that right. As I have literally demonstrated that I will move across the aisle, and am not a tribal partisan hack. Unlike a lefty who would never vote for him or a righty who would never vote left regardless of candidate. Hell, my vote probably mattered more than yours...

object-level about Trump and Minneapolis, where I think you're wrong.

What you think shock and awe tactics against an outgroup when they hold a veto enabling minority to fund the group you are using to do shock and awe tactics with, whose budget renewal is coming up, is the smart thing to do? You think American citizen's weren't shot in Minneapolis? There is a smart way to enforce border deportations and then there is the dumb way. It would have been much harder for democrats to resist on principle if ICE looked competent and professional (they still would try, but that's politics). Now ICE looks like thugs who "murdered two American citizens exercising their 1st and 2nd amendment rights to protest such obvious authoritarian brutality. The cost to us citizens thus must be borne by any means to curtail that abuse" (not my words, but that's the general normie lefty view/vibe/interpretation). Meaning democrats can afford much more pain for shutting down DHS.

It only takes 51 votes to remove the filibuster. It's a fig leaf that the senate uses to avoid blame, nothing more. I blamed the democrats for being useless when they could have removed it before, and I'm happy blaming the republicans for refusing to remove it now.

Yes I would like to see it ended too but it changes this calculus of who is to blame. “The Republicans”? Trump called for eliminating the filibuster. MAGA wants to end the filibuster. Blaming “the Republicans” makes it sound as though MAGA is to blame, too extreme, maybe they should abolish ICE so Democrats feel comfortable letting planes flies again?

Removing the filibuster is getting fairly popular with anyone of intellect. A lot of people are realizing we have too many checks and balances and congress does nothing.

congress does nothing.

*taps constitutional conservative sign*

This is a feature of congress, not a bug. The point of the structure of the Senate (equal state representation instead of proportional, longer terms, advise and consent duties to executive branch appointments, most special of which are SCOTUS judges, etc.) is that it is supposed to be the "collegial institution" that slows down the structurally populist, high variance legislative whipsawing of the House. The filibuster necessitating close to a super majority to override is a continuation of that.

Americans' problem isn't with Congress per se, it's mostly with the creeping Federal bureaucracy, regulatory apparatus (which has a positive feedback loop with general PMC culture), and the imperial presidency. The growth of Leviathan since WW2 is the problem. I don't want to see Congress becoming fundamentally more active. I'd like to see them pare back the powers of the executive branch (which they can do but most members are a bit too tied at the hip to any given sitting President.)

Then, I'd like to see a hard RETVRN to Federalism that places states as the primary "actors." California can experiment with its polyamory socialist redistributionism while West Virginia fucks around with legalizing machine guns.

Right now, this is extremely murky in actual application because of 1) The 14th amendment and 2) The 1964 Civil Rights Act and the several amendments passed on it in the intervening decades. We'd probably be looking at a SCOTUS decision so far reaching that this SCOTUS - which is conservative any way you slice it, the argument is only to what degree - wouldn't take such a case.

That's the deeper "Straussian" view of the gridlock.

It ain't the filibuster.

Regardless we already expanded the executive powers to rule instead of congress.

Filibuster isn’t in the constitution. The founding fathers definitely believed that there are things that need to be done at the national level.

For this specific discussion we are talking about border security which every founding father would 100% agree congress should make laws about it.

For this specific discussion

That's fair. Regarding immigration specifically, I generally agree with you and the other posters above.

I was trying to develop the full picture, however. I am generally hyper suspicious of "if we just did this one thing" style solutions. And so, here, I was pointing out that nuking the filibuster won't actually "fix" congress.

Current country partisan makeup basically means nothing can pass with the filibuster. The government does have to govern

The government does have to govern

My entire point is that I would like this to be less and less the case.

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...I hope you're not claiming to get that view from actual Straussians. The closest thing there is to a (West Coast) Straussian perspective on the current state of Congress is that the Constitution intends for the legislature to be a dynamic, powerful branch which acts to shape the law as necessary. The Senate is a participant in that process, but a participant in an actual working process. Congress today is a castrati choir because of the Leviathan you mentioned, but Congress also willingly abdicated their power to Leviathan in order to keep their chairs comfy and spend more time fundraising.

Then, I'd like to see a hard RETVRN to Federalism that places states as the primary "actors." California can experiment with its polyamory socialist redistributionism while West Virginia fucks around with legalizing machine guns.

From your lips to Lady Columbia's ears.

...I hope you're not claiming to get that view from actual Straussians.

Yeah, I wasn't. I was just being a little cheeky. I actually detest people who use terms like "Straussian" and "first principles" as attempts to signal their Big Brained-ness.

From a foreigner's perspective, all of that Imperial presidency stuff is happening because voters want things that congress isn’t providing.

I would estimate that 20% of the population max are principled states’ rights maximalists. The other 80% want ‘good things for me and my brothers and sisters in the rest of America’ and they want to be able to move around without risking those things. They can’t agree on those things which is why we have all our modern drama but that’s by the by.

If you dam a river and the throughput of your dam is insufficient for the pressure of the river, that dam’s going to end up underwater.

because voters want things that congress isn’t providing.

This is true. The larger point I was driving at is that voters shouldn't have to be in the position of relying on congress to provide things. Mostly, it should be done through semi-formal social networks (i.e. I hate the idea of government funded somali daycare fraud child care facilities. I'd rather see stable extended families and high trust local communities help shoulder the burden of child rearing). But this is illegal in many cases (beyond just childcare).

A lot of socially oriented programs can be described as "In order to help you, we've made you dependent upon the government. You're no longer allowed to help yourself and if you don't vote us, you and your family will suffer the consequences."

The larger point I was driving at is that voters shouldn't have to be in the position of relying on congress to provide things. Mostly, it should be done through semi-formal social networks.

...which work very well until the semi-formal social network decides that it doesn't like your face, or whom you marry, or the vocabulary you kept using two days after it was declared problematic because you were too busy working to keep up with the ever-changing list of naughty no-no words....

You're right, my recommended alternative wasn't totally airtight and perfect. I am so sorry for having voiced my tiny brain solution.

Do you have a solution? Or are you saying that the current state of affairs of relying on state employees / state subsidies to look after your children (or, you know, just do nothing and collect the checks) is better? How about when that state mandates slamming a vaccine into yourself and your child as a hard requirement?

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Matt Walsh recently pointed out another culture war angle in the current TSA situation. He claimed that the airports that were having the most problems with TSA workers calling out were in the South.

The cancelled flights have been great for our hotel. People are getting stranded and getting desperate for rooms. Doubly so with spring break; we're selling them for $300 a pop, and we're still selling out! We haven't had this much business since Winter Storm Fern.

It is with great anger that I say they're doing it again. Indeed, they never stopped.

https://biosafetynow.substack.com/p/you-couldnt-make-body-bags-fast-enough

The Fouchier and Kawaoka papers on adapting the bird flu H5N1 virus to be efficiently spread between ferrets, and onwards to humans, provoked the dangerous GOF controversy back in 2012. Other papers doing the same thing on H5N1 from China or on different bird flu viruses in the US received much less attention – see end of essay for a list. Among them is the nightmare paper; there is nothing more frightening. It came from a well-known flu research group at the University of Maryland funded by NIH NIAID contract HHSN26620070001.

They took a H7N1 flu virus of ostriches and adapted it to respiratory transmission between ferrets, just as Drs. Fouchier and Kawaoka did with their H5N1 bird flu viruses. Readers will know this is synonymous with human-to-human transmission. Why do this?

They're making super dangerous airborne diseases in ferrets... For no good reason at all. Would this be dangerous for people? Who knows? You'd have to test it which is ethically and logically even more dangerous. So there is no value to this research. All we know is that 'this specific disease could be super dangerous' and they helpfully put its genome up on the internet.

If the disease is dangerous to humans like it is for ferrets and does leak out, then we're in for COVID with huge lethality rates, 30% rather than a measly 0.3%.

I think there is a real blindspot about people's motivations that many don't fully appreciate. There were all these conspiracy theories going around about how COVID was a US bioweapons attack against China or Iran, a plot to shackle everyone with vaccines... But so far as I can tell nobody had anything to gain besides publishing some 'good' papers. These scientists were just doing science with complete disdain for the risks. They were going out to caves to gather these coronaviruses and bring them to Wuhan. Daszak/Ecohealth were using humanized mice (mice that behave immunologically like humans) to assess pandemic potential of bat coronaviruses. They wanted to insert some furin cleavage sites too.

Then we get a virus in Wuhan. It's closest ancestor was from Laos. How did it get to Wuhan? In a truck. How did Covid get so good at infecting people? It was engineered, with those humanized mice. How did it get that weird furin cleavage site? Artificially.

And naturally the Wuhan virology database disappears due to 'hacking attempts' just before this virus is released. So nobody quite knows what viruses they were working with... Ironically this completely undoes even the silly scientific angle, they made all this effort to make a database of viruses and then conceal it forever due to 'hacking'.

And none of this is even helpful in any serious way! Who cares? The amount of super-dangerous viruses that could possibly exist is beyond measure. At least with AI there are some positive usecases.

Claude choked up even thinking and researching about this stuff that human scientists are getting paid to do. They keep doing it, there is no sign that they've stopped, even after the last lab leak killed tens of millions of people and made a huge inconvenience for everyone on the planet, they somehow persuaded everyone it was low-class to conspiracize about it. Everyone was just supposed to get over the experts bringing us Torment Nexus 1, Torment Nexus 2, 3 and 4 are still in the works (funded by taxpayers). The experts find that the experts were not to blame, there was some bat pangolin farce instead. They'll do it again unless stopped. GOF bioresearchers delenda est.

It is with great anger that I say they're doing it again. Indeed, they never stopped.

The paper you're citing is 12 years old. Although I guess you're directionally correct in that you could probably find papers published by someone in the academy that you would call GoF.

I don't follow Dr. Perez or the field, but amusingly he was on a paper last year describing a safe platform for doing the kind of work you're talking about.

They're making super dangerous airborne diseases in ferrets... For no good reason at all...But so far as I can tell nobody had anything to gain besides publishing some 'good' papers. These scientists were just doing science with complete disdain for the risks. They were going out to caves to gather these coronaviruses and bring them to Wuhan.

You might disagree with them, you may be so cynical as to believe that scientists only care about publishing some 'good' papers, but I can guarantee that most people doing this kind of work believe they're making the world a better place. They believe in a future free from infectious disease. Try some mistake theory and charity for a change.

I admit I didn't perceive that it was an old paper. They certainly are continuing to do this kind of research nevertheless. Nobody has been held accountable.

And after all these many years, what have been the fruits of this research? Has it led to anything good or useful? Just general 'advancing theoretical science will lead to future unknown applications'? Could the money have been reallocated to other fields instead which would also have unknown future applications without the risk of creating deadly diseases?

After the first few million deaths it's time to stop giving out charity. If a nuclear power plant melts down, kills 20 million people and dislocates the whole of society for a couple of years, then nobody would be in a charitable mood for the people who slipped up making it. Regardless of intentions they demonstrated appalling negligence. If you're making something that can kill tens of millions of people you must be very careful and rigorously justify the value of your work.

Mistake theory has to be rejected for high stakes because it's gameable both on a conscious and unconscious level.

I agree there is some predictive and curiosity satiating value to this kind of work but not worth the risk.

They believe in a future free from infectious disease

Yeah, well, I don't. Their whole field of study needs to be nixed and made illegal.

Their whole field of study needs to be nixed and made illegal.

That's a bit excessive; just postpone gain-of-function research until they've gotten the Big Falcon Rocket Starship working, and then put it in a distant orbit.

Antarctic research station should be sufficient, no?

I'm sure there's at least one disaster novel or movie about a frozen disease being thawed and killing everyone.

Aren't some of the known Spanish Flu gene sequences from exhumed victims in polar regions? I don't think we have any other source for that data.

Yeah, but Spanish Flu wouldn't do much nowadays, most likely (not that I'd care to test that). Its descendants have been circulating as seasonal flus ever since. You'd need something much older or from an isolated population.

Even "don't do GOF research in a dense 10M+ megacity" would reduce the risk a lot.

Finally, someone who gets it!

And with robots doing sll of the work via remote control so that there is a literal zero percent risk of escape.

I can guarantee that most people doing this kind of work believe they're making the world a better place

An important caveat, that the people doing the work are probably not the same ones popularizing the work, signing open letters, hosting podcasts, et cetera, and as such outsiders will have a rather different view of the field available.

Try some mistake theory and charity for a change.

Occasionally when you try that, the New York Times publishes an article where your enemy declares they're exactly as evil and stupid as you originally thought before trying mistake theory. At that point you're allowed to stop the charade and accept reality.

While I am far from 100% certain that Covid was a lab leak, I take the possibility seriously. I share your frustration with GOF research, there is no way in hell that the potential benefits are proportional to the risks.

Unless the lab is working in Antarctica, or at least a highly isolated environment with strict screening and quarantine for all workers (weeks to months) and far from population centers, it is a stupid game played for stupid prizes. If your primary motivation is a well stuffed CV, then I would not object if you were hit by a car. If the people doing it genuinely believe they are acting in the public interest, I am dismayed, and would still seek lawsuits for unconscionable negligence.

The best place to intentionally make hyper virulent and lethal novel pathogens is somewhere in the orbit of the Moon. If you can't do that yet, it's best not to try in the first place.

While I am far from 100% certain that Covid was a lab leak, I take the possibility seriously. I share your frustration with GOF research, there is no way in hell that the potential benefits are proportional to the risks.

Just to reiterate those proportions: 7.1 million confirmed deaths, estimated 19-36 million deaths. Make the math easy and call it 10 million deaths. If you think there is a 1% chance it was lab leak then that is 100k deaths caused by lab leak.

My mother is a PhD microbiologist. She hasn't actively worked in the field in decades. Last time she did lab work it was for Monsanto's agriculture/husbandry products. I've argued with her about GoF research. She got upset with Rand Paul when he was grilling Fauci about GoF research. I felt at the time it was more of a circle the wagons type reaction, aka she saw a Scientist getting attacked by a politician and blue tribe brain had her reflexively defending the scientist. Never-mind the facts that Fauci is more of an administrator, and Rand Paul was an MD for longer than Fauci did anything resembling lab work.

In separate conversations I removed the names and political events and she agreed on the danger of these medical experiments. She even added additional reasons to be scared. Her descriptions of labs she worked in were not what you'd hope for with people handling potentially dangerous biological samples. But even agreeing on the danger of the experiments she didn't think they should be banned. Her objection is that "Gain of Function" research is way too broad of a term and could ban far more useful research. For example, messing around with Yeast so that it can ferment an additional fruit or vegetable for alcohol consumption could be considered "gain of function" research.

I respond back 'well then just ban working with the deadly pathogens'. She hits back that E. coli can be very dangerous but is used in a bunch of research simply because its ease of use.

It goes on: Ok, how about just banning GoF related to transmissibility or virulence. Well apparently that might ban vaccine research for existing viruses.

You end up in a situation where the people best suited to recognize and stop the dangerous forms of microbiological research are the same people that want to conduct it in the first place. Which is where we were 2019.

I generally think that its ok to trust scientists and that they can self regulate with their dangerous toys, and that was my viewpoint for biological research back then. Now I'm in alignment with everyone here, fuck this research, it needs to end and we can't trust you with these dangerous toys. Scientists, you had your chance to self regulate. Sorry if we are wrong about the cause, but we can't trust you to investigate yourself, and even a 1% chance of lab leak means you killed 100k people. I still can't convince my mom though.

I agree, but I think it's necessary to consider potential and confirmed upside when doing a cost-benefit analysis. Now, from memory, I can't think of anything good coming out of GOF for virulence or lethality, but I am not a microbiologist nor have I done a comprehensive literature review. But from own adjacent professional knowledge, as well as the criticisms raised by people like Scott and Zvi, I am still strongly negative. It would have to be damn strong positive evidence in favor to outweigh even theoretical deaths or damage, and I have not seen anything nearly as robust. They'd have to demonstrate that the benefits could not be achieved through a route that isn't GOF.

I generally think that its ok to trust scientists and that they can self regulate with their dangerous toys, and that was my viewpoint for biological research back then. Now I'm in alignment with everyone here, fuck this research, it needs to end and we can't trust you with these dangerous toys.

A permanent end to such research would cost us the possibility of spotting potential pandemics before they occur naturally, and having preparations in place to stop them, thus condemning the Human Race to forever living under the Sword of Damocles of pandemics with death tolls in the 7-/8-digit range at best, and 9/10 digits at worst. (I once came across a story of a post-collapse society which believed that preventing people from dying of infectious disease was morally wrong because it 'interfered with the balance of Nature', i. e. denying her the ability to commit mass homicide whenever she felt like it; it was at that moment that I realised that I understood the meaning of the word 'cuck', and that my disagreement with the frog-posters was a matter of my considering the relevant 'race' to be one that includes Charlemagne, Sejong, Mansa Musa, Hiawatha, and all 400+ of these people.)

However, recent progress in spaceflight has opened the possibility that dangerous research could be conducted away from inhabited planets; thus potentially hazardous biological experiments do not need to be permanently ended, merely delayed until a secure bio-lab can be constructed in a heliocentric orbit away from earth.

A permanent end to such research would cost us the possibility of spotting potential pandemics before they occur naturally

I don't think that is true at all. Some of the most likely crossover diseases are from livestock. And tracking livestock diseases would not fall under the umbrella of GoF research.

Assessing a livestock disease seems as safe as having livestock in the first place, so there is no added risk.

merely delayed until a secure bio-lab can be constructed in a heliocentric orbit away from earth.

We can build a bio lab on a disused container ship parked in the middle of the Pacific Ocean right now if we want to, and for all practical purposes thats pretty similar.

GOF is dangerous, but it's not useless. The Ebola vaccine was developed on top of GOF research on Ebola (including making an airborne variant)

I have not heard of this, but a quick perusal of the literature has not turned up anything that supports your claims.

There's no airborne variant of Ebola, even an artificial one, AFAIK. There were experiments on aerosolizing it, and the VSV vaccine was tested for ability to protect from aerosol exposure in Macaques, as a proxy for protection against bioterrorism.

I do not see a reason to phrase the claim the way you do, there appears to be little to support the claim that GOF helped with the vaccine (beyond the usual need to test the vaccine on the actual pathogen), let alone that GOF was strictly necessary for the purpose of making a vaccine. We make vaccines all the time without GOF, I do not see how it is a requisite. Ebola is not that special as a disease.

I do not want to jump to claiming that you are intentionally lying or being misleading, but I do still think you are factually incorrect, and I must insist on citations.

Edit: To be clear, I am specifically talking about GOF for virulence and lethality.

Technically it wasn't airborne Ebola; rather, they transplanted suspected virulence genes from Ebola into a replication-incompetent adenovirus. This adenovirus caused Ebola symptoms, confirming that these genes were the virulence genes.

I see that there's research out there where they did use modified adenoviruses to demonstrate pathology seen in Ebola.

But that is not the technique used to make the only FDA approved vaccine, ERVEBO. That was made through recombinant VSV. I will grant that they did try and make a an adenoviral-derived vaccine, which kinda sorta worked okay in monkeys.

Also, I am not claiming that GOF has zero utility, my core contention is that whatever actual and potential utility it might have is more than canceled out by the risks.

These researchers seem to have tried to produce only a single Ebola protein, they didn't try to make super-Ebola spread through sneezing. They didn't select for virulence or transmissibility, which is what people usually complain about when criticizing GOF. At least I do.

Also, I do not think you have supported your original claim. You said that "the" vaccine was made through GOF, which it was not. I would believe that those specific choice of words strongly implies the only vaccine actually being given to people. And making a modified adenovirus is very, very far from "airborne Ebola". Nothing of that sort seems to exist. I would go so far as to say it's misleading, a very large stretch of the facts as far as I can see them.

It wasn't the technique used to make the vaccine; it was the technique used to identify the virulence genes. I said the vaccine was "developed on top of GOF research on Ebola".

There's no airborne variant of Ebola, even an artificial one, AFAIK.

The Reston variant has been hypothesised, but not confirmed, to be airborne; it is to our great fortune that it is not pathogenic in humans.

Out of curiosity, are airborne and droplet borne viruses that structurally similar to contact or food/water borne viruses? Is airborne Ebola like worrying about cars suddenly flying like planes, or are we talking a few base pairs for smaller adaptations?

I am probably not the right person to ask for an authoritative answer here, but since you did:

There is immense selection pressure for any pathogen to become one that spreads through airborne routes. I imagine the typical virus or bacteria would be very happy to not need direct contact or very close proximity.

But the fact that this almost never happens is strongly suggestive of the innate difficulty involved. Millions of people have caught and transmitted HIV for several generations, but it has yet to figure it a way to fly. Fucking is a far poorer alternative, but it's what the virus has. Flying fucks? Can't say.

I suspect that this is mostly because evolution is retarded and doesn't think ahead, and diseases become strongly optimized for whatever mode of transmission they started with. Plus factors like sunlight or heat are not kind to airborne pathogens, UV light reliably kills most of them. The sheer volume of air around dilutes them to the point that they struggle to reach critical mass by the time they reach the respiratory tract of the potential host.

Look at the amount of adaptation that fungal spores require to survive for more than few minutes while floating, it takes a lot of work.

Also, and very importantly, there is a rather artificial distinction made between airborne vs aerosol spread/direct deposition. Aerosol spread disease particles are suspended in air, they just tend to settle or disperse beyond close proximity.

I think the risk of Ebola naturally evolving to the point it spread primarily through air for more than a dozen feet and not very close proximity or contamination is negligible in our lifetime. We'd be so fucking screwed if the average disease could pull that off, so the fact we're still around is insightful in of itself.

(I wrote all of this myself, and later used ChatGPT to check in case I was making some kind of stupid mistake. ChatGPT tells me I'm basically right, though it's scolding me for leaving out some nuance. It can piss off, it's not the boss of me.)

Out of curiosity, are airborne and droplet borne viruses that structurally similar to contact or food/water borne viruses?

Roughly, yes, depending how wide your lens is and precisely what you mean by structure. Most airborne viruses are RNA based, but many bloodborne pathogens (Ebola, HIV, HCV, etc) are also RNA viruses. If you meant shape, icosahedral is most common but there's plenty of variety and overlap between bloodborne/airborne (Ebola is long and filamentous).

Is airborne Ebola like worrying about cars suddenly flying like planes, or are we talking a few base pairs for smaller adaptations?

More than 'structure' (depending what you meant by that), you should pay attention to tropism. Ebola expresses surface proteins that enable it to initially infect immune cells, then various endothelial (blood vessel) and other structural cells which are not accessible in the airways. COVID has a surface protein that binds ACE2, which is expressed on the surfaces of airways, part of the gut, etc. Other viral proteins are also key for proliferating in a given cell type, but you can get a lot of mileage out of just looking at the spike proteins and which receptors they bind.

Could you make turbo airborne Ebola by grafting COVID spike protein onto the surface of the Ebola capsid, and misting some into a volunteers face? Hey, sounds like a Nature paper to me!

...but also probably not, I doubt it would work without a pretty significant engineering effort beyond that simple change. So more akin to cars flying like planes. I'm not aware of any viruses that are known to have drastically changed routes of transmission like that.

I was thinking things like size, envelope, and things like that. IIRC norovirus is physically robust as viruses go: is that a trade off against airborne transmission? But it's been a long time since I took a biology class.

They're making super dangerous airborne diseases in ferrets... For no good reason at all. [...] So there is no value to this research. All we know is that 'this specific disease could be super dangerous' and they helpfully put its genome up on the internet.

But so far as I can tell nobody had anything to gain besides publishing some 'good' papers.

I think this misunderstands what they are trying to do. There has been, for a long time, a large community studying virus evolution and spread. And if you monitor influenza, globally and in different species, you ideally would want to know what you're actually looking for. No use having petabytes of genetic data, but no way to actually analyze it, or really, make some useful predictions.

Gain of function research tries to help with that. Identify which changes/mutations are actually worth watching. Identify what will spread fast, what will go airborne, what will kill, and what might jump to humans. They hope that next time, we'll have a bit more advance warning, or maybe a vaccine approaching the effectiveness of the polio shot. Having so damn much antigenic drift won't safe influenza if the vaccine directly targets what makes this specific strain so successful.

And all this isn't just a "saving humanity" moonshot/insurance against a black swan event. There's very practical applications - it would be nice if we didn't have to destroy 100 million chickens every 5 years because the farms got infected with bird flue, again.

At least that's the dream. Whether that's actually doable and/or worth the risk is another question. Maybe those people should really be send to Antarctica, or onto a decommissioned oil rig only serviced by a very slow ship. Maybe their current security measures are fine, I haven't updated on the COVID lab leak story an a while. But during the thick of it, I found the arguments of the counter-side more convincing.

Maybe those people should really be send to Antarctica, or onto a decommissioned oil rig only serviced by a very slow ship.

Correct. The problem is that prominent researchers care more about socialization than safety, and laugh at the idea.

No, that's not the problem. "Prominent researchers" don't ever get close to the contagious ferrets unless it's necessary for a press photo to go with the release of their most recent Nature paper... The people producing the data on the oil rig lab, or in the antarctic darkness or who are stuck on the slow quarantine supply boat are grad students and lab techs. They'll do it for the paper, the title, the story and the love of the game.

The problem is that oil rigs and research labs in Antarctica are more expensive than university basements in cities.

?? These were the people pushing for hard lockdowns during the China virus freak out.

I didn't say they were consistent!

I don't recall the exact episode so take my memory with as much salt as you like, but I was thinking of an episode of This Week in Virology where the virologists in question were discussing basically this proposal- that BSL4 and/or GOF labs should be, at best, in the middle of the desert with movement protocols- and they laughed it off because you wouldn't get anyone competent willing to work in the middle of nowhere.

Maybe we should pay them more in exchange, if their research is so useful.

Or ban it, if it isn’t.

This is the ultimate black pill.

Not that few thousands people (at most) are playing Russian roulette with gun pressed to the collective head of all mankind, but that the mankind as a whole DNGAF.

This is not like fossil fuel industry, that is absolute necessity or like AI that promises unlimited knowledge, wealth, power and control.

With gain of function, only thing it gains are some papers and articles published in prestigious journals no one will ever read.

And no one, including the most rich and powerful, sees problem with it, even when they could perish together with billions of plebes when the next oops happens.

It would not take much to end it. Imagine, for example, if someone close to Putin and trusted by him (yea, there is probably few such people, if any) explained to Vladimir Vladimirovich what is gain of function research and what it does.

It would be hard, VVP is Soviet boomer raised to worship science and experts, but he is legit most powerful individual in the world (or maybe second most powerful, no one knows what checks and balances actually exist in Chinese politburo. There are effectively none in Russia).

And VVP really does not want to die, not in nuclear war and even less while coughing his lungs off. It would not take more than few dozen scientists worldwide meeting unlucky accidents for the rest to give up and find some other work.

The DNI has brought in an Iran Dove to advise Trump’s briefings:

Dan Caldwell, a former top Pentagon aide who was fired by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth after being publicly accused of leaking classified information, was recently hired by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, said an administration official and others familiar with the move. In his new position, Mr. Caldwell will serve as an adviser to senior intelligence officials who are responsible for coordinating the work of 18 federal intelligence agencies and drafting the president’s daily intelligence briefing.

Dan Caldwell was a Hegseth aide who was fired back in 2025 during SignalGate. He claimed he was fired for advising against a war with Iran:

Caldwell, a former Marine officer who previously worked for Hegseth at Concerned Veterans of America, portrayed himself as an opponent of open-ended military conflict that has characterized U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East — and could resume with an attack on Iran that has the backing of some American and Israeli officials. “I think there clearly is a very strong coalition within the United States that wants to see another war in the Middle East,” Caldwell said. “And it crosses both parties.”

The circumstances of the leak and firing were strange. Some insiders believe in a cover-up:

Former chief DoD spokesman John Ullyott penned an op-ed in POLITICO Sunday night, in which said there "has been a full-blown meltdown at the Pentagon — and it’s becoming a real problem for the administration." He said he was a big supporter of Hegseth's candidacy for the job, but pointed out a number of wrong turns by Hegseth including the way Signalgate was handled. There are also new embarrassing revelations like another reported Signal chat regarding Yemen airstrikes that also included the Secretary's wife and brother. Also, a reported meeting with foreign defense officials in which his wife, a former FOX News reporter, was in attendance and sensitive information was discussed. He said the purge of Hegseth's "closest advisors of over a decade" — Caldwell and Selnick — was "strange and baffling." He suggested the entire leak investigation was some sort of elaborate set-up.

Caldwell is a committed anti-war MAGA. Back in 2024 he wrote an op-ed titled Trump Must Not Betray “America First”: The Case for a Foreign Policy That Eschews Primacy and Embraces Restraint:

A foreign policy that prioritizes making Americans safe and prosperous while acknowledging the country’s constraints would improve the United States’ fiscal policies and work to rebuild its industrial base. But these measures alone will not be sufficient: the United States should militarily retrench from regions in which American interests are less pronounced, such as Europe and the Middle East, especially when the United States’ current responsibilities can be outsourced to relatively wealthy and capable allies in those regions who have more at stake. Balancing against Iran, for instance, can be achieved largely by Israel and by the Gulf Arab nations; the United States should not have to substantially backstop them or bribe them to pursue their own interests. The United States should ask allies in East Asia to shoulder similarly heightened levels of responsibility in order to manage competition with China through strategic balancing rather than a security spiral that could easily end in a full-on war.

All things considered, I wonder if this indicative of the American military intelligence position on the conflict. You’re bringing in a guy who was outspoken against an Iran war throughout 2025, who is quote-tweeting Khamenei’s funniest bangers to countersignal the Iran hysteria. I’m also really confused what happened with SignalGate. Who wanted them fired? And why?

I’m also really confused what happened with SignalGate. Who wanted them fired? And why?

What is it that you find confusing?

Caldwell was/is creature of the intel establishment. He got fired by Hegseth for reasons but Hegseth never bothered to revoke his security clearance. Caldwell has since been rehired by an arm of the intel establishment that Hegseth has no authority over because the intel establishment looks out for it's own.

This is basically any given Tuesday in DC (or any other first world government for that matter).

Isn't DNI run by Tulsi Gabbard? How is she "the intel establishment"?

I do not believe that Gabbard is signing off on every individual hiring decision across the entirety of the US intelligence community, do you?

Not every single one in the intelligence community, just the specific department she's in charge of, and perhaps not even all of those, I'm sure there are many hiring decisions that are insignificant in the grand scheme of things, but it doesn't look like he got hired as the receptionist either, so...

In related news a counterterrorism functionary has resigned from the government in protest of the Iran war.

After much reflection, I have decided to resign from my position as Director of the National Counterterrorism Center, effective today. I cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran. Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby.

After much reflection, I have decided to resign from my position as Director of the National Counterterrorism Center, effective today. I cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran. Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby. I support the values and the foreign policies that you campaigned on in 2016, 2020, 2024, which you enacted in your first term. Until June of 2025, you understood that the wars in the Middle East were a trap that robbed America of the precious lives of our patriots and depleted the wealth and prosperity of our nation.

In your first administration, you understood better than any modern President how to decisively apply military power without getting us drawn into never-ending wars. You demonstrated this by killing Qasam Solamani and by defeating ISIS. Early in this administration, high-ranking Israeli officials and influential members of the American media deployed a misinformation campaign that wholly undermined your America First platform and sowed pro-war sentiments to encourage a war with Iran. This echo chamber was used to deceive you into believing that Iran posed an imminent threat to the United States, and that should you strike now, there was a clear path to a swift victory. This was a lie and is the same tactic the Israelis used to draw us into the disastrous Iraq war that cost our nation the lives of thousands of our best men and women. We cannot make this mistake again.

As a veteran who deployed to combat 11 times and as a Gold Star husband who lost my beloved wife Shannon in a war manufactured by Israel, I cannot support sending the next generation off to fight and die in a war that serves no benefit to the American people nor justifies the cost of American lives. I pray that you will reflect upon what we are doing in Iran, and who we are doing it for. The time for bold action is now. You can reverse course and chart a new path for our nation, or you can allow us to slip further toward decline and chaos. You hold the cards.

It was an honor to serve in your administration and to serve our great nation. -- Joe Kent

(Formatting altered)

Is that an important role? I've certainly never heard of the guy before, and I'm not sure I've heard of the center either.

Were there any examples of similar defections from an administration during military events, or lack thereof, in the past?

I think it oversees literally all intelligence related to terrorism except for domestic threats: https://www.dni.gov/files/NCTC/documents/features_documents/NCTC-Primer_FINAL.pdf

NCTC serves as the primary organization in the USG for analyzing and integrating all intelligence possessed or acquired by the USG pertaining to terrorism and CT except intelligence pertaining exclusively to domestic terrorism. NCTC has a responsibility to inform its partners on all international terrorism issues, and unique authorities allow personnel to analyze intelligence collected both inside and outside the U.S.

If that’s so (?), this is the top dawg of American terror intelligence essentially saying that Israel and her agents in America got us into this war.

I really like Joe Kent. He's a WA republican, which is a dying breed. He lost two congressional races before being nominated and confirmed.

As for similar defections, I asked an AI and got back the name Andrew Miller, who also resigned over Israel.

I feel like it's worth noting that there have been 4 prominent apparent terrorism incidents in just the last few weeks with ties to the Iran war. I'm not sure whether to also read this as "I told them it'd potentially cause incidents" or "I'm unable to actually stop terrorism".

ETA: some of those might be "domestic" legally, but probably not under the eye of public scrutiny.

I really just can't figure out if this was an important post or a make work admin sinecure. Never heard of him before, never heard of the job before. Is this a nobody or near cabinet level? The name tells you nothing.

It's again time for some more random culture war (and culture war by kinetic means) news, news important and less important, but this time not concerning Middle Eastern habbenings, that are already sufficiently covered here.

1/Population files

Paul Ehrlich of Population Bomb scare is dead.

Some do mourn him, most don't.

His alarmist vision was inspired by unfortunate trip to India and his catastrophic predictions were ultimately disproven in hardest way possible.

Current day depopulation doomers should take note, and think twice before they engage in their own atrocities to prevent the coming apocalypse.

2/20th century history files

New quantitative historical study dropped.

How bad were really effects of WWI on human capital?

Rather bad.

Quantitatively, a 10% increase in WWI deaths reduces the probability that a parish produces any patent by about 0.09–0.12 percentage points. The effects appear during the war and persist for decades.

The effects are even stronger for high-impact inventions. Exposure to WWI mortality reduces the probability of producing breakthrough patents roughly three times more than the probability of producing any patent.

You might be tempted to say that WWI was mistake but, on the bright side, it brought us Yugoslavia.

Would you want to live in a world without Yugoslavia?

3/20th century memory files

Rosa Luxemburg is still dead.

And so is everything she was fighting for, and so is everything her killers were fighting for. Social Democracy and German patriotism are not in better shape than old timey Marxist proletarian internationalism.

In an final insult, plaque commemorating her was removed from her birthplace in Polish Zamosc.

Minor culture war skirmish in Poland, the outside world DNGAF.

Only village in Dagestan and few other places remain.

Sic transit gloria mundi.

4/Groyper files

Andrew Anglin announced total Hebrew victory and unconditionally surrendered to ZOG by closing Daily Stormer.

End of an era. 13 years long battle is over.

Trust the Zion plan.

5/OPSEC files

In old news from bygone year 2024, US Maj. Gen. Antonio Aguto while on top secret mission in Ukraine succumbed to drink and left bundle of classified documents on the train.

(all travel to Ukraine and back is now by train, even by most important VIP's, 19th century rtvrned for real).

Major and inexcusable professional failure. If you cannot hold your vodka, do not step into Eastern Europe. Middle East is place where you belong.

And in current breaking news, BND (German Foreign Intelligence Service) deputy chief Arndt Freytag von Loringhoven clicked on phishing message on his phone and typed in his PIN.

Well, boomer gonna boomer.

6/Eastern Europe files

It went mostly unnoticed when eyes of the world are now again on the Middle East, but Ukraine forces are now again advancing and (very slowly) rolling back Russians in the devastated "grey zone".

Starlink shutdown helped, and current Russian ban on Telegram and Discord enforced now even on frontline helps more.

(not that they have any choice - imagine Russian troops being groomed online into transgenderism)

Russian regime prefers tightening the internet access and sees cybernetic battle field as much more important than the physical one. Cyberpunk and cypherpunk prophets of old vindicated again.

Another reminder that history is on the side of Elite Human Capital, that EHC is on LGBTQ+ side, that Ukraine is Queer.

7/Ayys files

Retired U.S. Air Force Major General William Neil McCasland is missing since 27th February. It is noticeable enough for mainstream media to notice, even US does not have so many general officers to afford to misplace them willy-nilly.

In UFO/UAP circles it is Rather Big Deal.

Even McCasland's wife had to step up and deboonk the conspiracy rumors

"Neil does not have any special knowledge about the ET bodies and debris from the Roswell crash stored at Wright-Patt" she wrote on Facebook.

This will work, this always works.

Current day depopulation doomers should take note, and think twice before they engage in their own atrocities to prevent the coming apocalypse.

I suggest approaching this subject from a different angle. The idea that overpopulation/overbreeding causes poverty has been popular among bourgeois intellectuals for a long time, which is not that surprising as they have zero experience of either poverty or overbreeding themselves. This assumption is the reason Planned Parenthood exists, for example. We also know that Chinese Communist leaders bought into this idea, and also into Ehrlich's idiotic theories, with rather large-scale consequences. The reality on the other hand is that it's not a high birthrate that causes poverty, but the other way around. When you're destitute and without perspectives, having and raising children is the only activity that will accord you social status and respect, not to mention being the only possible source of whatever you will be able to call a pension down the line.

You might be tempted to say that WWI was mistake but, on the bright side, it brought us Yugoslavia.

I find it somewhat odd that it's Yugoslavia that you mentioned and not Poland, Finland, the Baltic states, the Czechs or the Slovaks. I'll not argue that dismantling the Austro-Hungarian monarchy was a good idea, but breaking Yugoslavia apart wasn't that stellar an idea either.

In an final insult, plaque commemorating her was removed from her birthplace in Polish Zamosc.

Petty addition on my part: this already happened in 2018. Now there's a small scandal around a proposal to install a new plaque.

When you're destitute and without perspectives, having and raising children is the only activity that will accord you social status and respect

Does not work this way in post-Soviet sphere. When the place was reduced from dirt poverty to total destitution, birth rates crashed instead of exploding.

I find it somewhat odd that it's Yugoslavia that you mentioned

Not odd, when the whole unfortunate episode began in Sarajevo, not Prague, Cracow or Riga.

Major General William Neil McCasland is missing since 27th February.

This was brought up on some MSM I was listening to and IIRC he's been known to have some form of health issue (likely mental) and the government released some kind of notice.

Doesn't help the more conspiracy minded types but that's the explanation (and why you aren't seeing a lot of media coverage).

Andrew Anglin announced total Hebrew victory and unconditionally surrendered to ZOG by closing Daily Stormer.

End of an era. 13 years long battle is over.

Trust the Zion plan.

Say what you will about the Zionists, but they do appear to the only non-American faction with any measurable amount of both competence and agency.

And in current breaking news, BND (German Foreign Intelligence Service) deputy chief Arndt Freytag von Loringhoven clicked on phishing message on his phone and typed in his PIN.

Well, boomer gonna boomer.

Sorry, but Germans obeying orders without question is a feature, not a bug.

Eleven million people would disagree with you, were they in any condition to do so.

Since they aren't, it sounds like the Germans did their job.

A job that shouldn't have been done; it would have been better if they had refused!

This is almost literally that meme from The Good Place!

That was never an option.

It was an option in Denmark and Bulgaria.

Re Paul Ehrlich, it is rather appropriate that I should hear of his death on St Patrick's Day; some of his rhetoric is only a search-and-replace away from the sort of things they said about the Irish a hundred years prior!

Another reminder that history is on the side of Elite Human Capital, that EHC is on LGBTQ+ side, that Ukraine is Queer.

I don't have a strong position here other than I don't care about or understand giving a shit about gender from any direction and I'm pro-trans only from the perspective of libertarianism and I don't give a shit about sports, womens or otherwise BUT!

The first time I encountered the mythical trans cat girl lockheed martin merchant of death in the wild on business, I knew what side was gonna win out eventually.

You can look and act as differently as you want if your performance busts through the top of the graph in a category that matters (delivering presents to your friends with millimeter precision anywhere in the world even without satellite coverage to know where your friend is exactly).

Of course, Ukraine isn’t queer.

Current day depopulation doomers should take note, and think twice before they engage in their own atrocities to prevent the coming apocalypse.

Ehrlich’s continuing popularity was driven by the basic instinct that poor people are gross, and that gross things breed to much. ‘The science’ was never his biggest supporter; it was predictable liberal elite prejudices all the way down.

Would you want to live in a world without Yugoslavia?

May such things never be!


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