There's a famous story of the Roman politician Cicero. He was named after his uncle who had a cleft in his nose that looked like a chickpea, so Cicero was based on the roman name for chickpeas. When he entered politics, he was told he should change his name, but he essentially said that he'd make the name Cicero well known (and he did)
I'm proud to announce my new "social network", safestspace.
You can only see posts made by your own IP address, and if one of the posts offends you, you can immediately report it and it will be automatically removed!
https://fbxl.net/safestspace/
This is the cutting edge in defederation technology!
You can only see posts made by your own IP address, and if one of the posts offends you, you can immediately report it and it will be automatically removed!
https://fbxl.net/safestspace/
This is the cutting edge in defederation technology!
lol imagine having 106 pages of servers that you're so terrified of you need to block every single user on it?
Why even have a social network at that point? You can just have a webpage you post to yourself, and then you can report your own posts if you have a thought that's too transgressive.
Why even have a social network at that point? You can just have a webpage you post to yourself, and then you can report your own posts if you have a thought that's too transgressive.
A lot of people seem to want Fisher Price baby's first internet, and if they want that then they should probably stay on big Tech, where they can be coddled to their hearts content.
I'm not saying that the fediverse needs to be hacking around in telnet terminals or anything, but if I'm being totally honest the software for the fediverse is shockingly good, and a lot of people have gone out and built the exact communities that they want -- for some people that means open communities where you can say stuff that's really offensive, for other people that means very close communities where you are safe from ever seeing an opinion you disagree with.
Of course anything can be better, but I have personally found the fediverse good enough that it has become my primary method of social media. And that's only possible because a lot of people who put in a lot of work on the ground floor.
I'm not saying that the fediverse needs to be hacking around in telnet terminals or anything, but if I'm being totally honest the software for the fediverse is shockingly good, and a lot of people have gone out and built the exact communities that they want -- for some people that means open communities where you can say stuff that's really offensive, for other people that means very close communities where you are safe from ever seeing an opinion you disagree with.
Of course anything can be better, but I have personally found the fediverse good enough that it has become my primary method of social media. And that's only possible because a lot of people who put in a lot of work on the ground floor.
Too many people focus on the effect instead of the cause.
If the state gives you a billion dollars and then takes back 900 million, guess what? You've still got 100 million dollars of either tax money or more likely Government debt. You and virtually everyone you know could stop working for the rest of your life.
Meanwhile, the poor chumps who work for their middle class wage are giving half their paycheck to the same government who dutifully hand it to the still mega-rich.
The big problem is a corrupt global state taking everyone's money and handing it to its cronies. By the time the money is in their hands, it's already too late. Part of the problem is that they employ rooms full of people who find ways to talk about giving them all your money to the super-rich that you'll agree to.
If the state gives you a billion dollars and then takes back 900 million, guess what? You've still got 100 million dollars of either tax money or more likely Government debt. You and virtually everyone you know could stop working for the rest of your life.
Meanwhile, the poor chumps who work for their middle class wage are giving half their paycheck to the same government who dutifully hand it to the still mega-rich.
The big problem is a corrupt global state taking everyone's money and handing it to its cronies. By the time the money is in their hands, it's already too late. Part of the problem is that they employ rooms full of people who find ways to talk about giving them all your money to the super-rich that you'll agree to.
The impossibility of redemption is the Hallmark of the enemies of western civilization, and for a reason.
In sun tzus the art of war, it warns that you should always leave a path for escape so the enemy army can rout. If you don't, then they'll fight to the last man. This can be taken advantage of by an enemy army ideologically by making them think they have no escape but death or victory: tell your soldiers if you surrender they'll kill you and if you flee you'll kill them yourself. Put in such a corner, they'll fight suicidally.
So make it clear that there is a path to surrender and redemption, and suddenly you've taken an important tool away.
Contrast with the story of one of the most legalistic Chinese dynasties. It was said that the dynasty used the punishment of death for everything, so one day some soldiers were late for a meeting and facing death and decided to overthrow the government since they didn't have anything to lose anyway.
In sun tzus the art of war, it warns that you should always leave a path for escape so the enemy army can rout. If you don't, then they'll fight to the last man. This can be taken advantage of by an enemy army ideologically by making them think they have no escape but death or victory: tell your soldiers if you surrender they'll kill you and if you flee you'll kill them yourself. Put in such a corner, they'll fight suicidally.
So make it clear that there is a path to surrender and redemption, and suddenly you've taken an important tool away.
Contrast with the story of one of the most legalistic Chinese dynasties. It was said that the dynasty used the punishment of death for everything, so one day some soldiers were late for a meeting and facing death and decided to overthrow the government since they didn't have anything to lose anyway.
The word "demeritocracy" is one I came up with a few months back, and this seems like proof that America is turning into one.
Pay your bills, pay more on your mortgage. What an embarrassment.
Pay your bills, pay more on your mortgage. What an embarrassment.
In most cases, excessive time pre-trial could be deemed a constitutional violation. Either the courts have screwed up in many ways so this dude will be a millionaire soon on a 1983 claim, or there's a lot to this story we aren't hearing...
I've got a hypothesis about that. I think that the birth rate going down and causing a shrinking population is going to cause an increase in the value of an individual as has happened many times throughout history. When that happens, individual wages will go up like they did during those times, and people will want to go out and have kids.
Ironically, if these guys really wanted us to be living in the pod and eating the boogs, the best way to do that would be to let people continue to breed. Masses of nameless faceless starving people are unlikely to be able to actually do anything.
Ironically, if these guys really wanted us to be living in the pod and eating the boogs, the best way to do that would be to let people continue to breed. Masses of nameless faceless starving people are unlikely to be able to actually do anything.
there's an old quote, and I don't know where it came from: "It's possible to become a millionaire through hard work and honesty, but not a billionaire"
Virtually no billionaires on earth became so by providing good and services to people for fair compensation. Pretty much every one has links to overgrown states who have either directly paid them or created an uneven playing field that can only have one result.
Rail Barons got special monopolies granted by the state giving them unique powers to build through other people's land. Same with phone and power companies who got special access to people's yards to build their power lines. The Internet is one of the most government funded things in the history of the world. Banks get so much special legislation and government backing that it's absurd once you start looking into it. Elon Musk's entire fortune is entirely contingent on various US government programs.
It's actually already unfashionable to be super-rich, which is why fancy clothes and fast cars are no longer considered status symbols, and we get a proliferation of "luxury beliefs" where the rich and powerful express opinions that are as beautiful as diamonds and just as impractical. Such beliefs if acted upon by the poor would lead to destruction, but not if you're so rich it doesn't matter.
Virtually no billionaires on earth became so by providing good and services to people for fair compensation. Pretty much every one has links to overgrown states who have either directly paid them or created an uneven playing field that can only have one result.
Rail Barons got special monopolies granted by the state giving them unique powers to build through other people's land. Same with phone and power companies who got special access to people's yards to build their power lines. The Internet is one of the most government funded things in the history of the world. Banks get so much special legislation and government backing that it's absurd once you start looking into it. Elon Musk's entire fortune is entirely contingent on various US government programs.
It's actually already unfashionable to be super-rich, which is why fancy clothes and fast cars are no longer considered status symbols, and we get a proliferation of "luxury beliefs" where the rich and powerful express opinions that are as beautiful as diamonds and just as impractical. Such beliefs if acted upon by the poor would lead to destruction, but not if you're so rich it doesn't matter.
I decided to start reading again a few years ago, and since then according to bookwyrm I've read about 70 books. I also wrote and published a book of my own (the Graysonian Ethic, buy a dead tree copy today).
I had ADD as a kid. It doesn't mean you dont have attention, it means you have an inability to regulate attention. Give a kid with ADD a video game and theyll play for days. The key is figuring out ways to use your disregulation to your advantage. Maybe you cant pay attention to a lot of things, but figure out how to become fixated on important stuff and that disregulation becomes a superpower. I finished a 400 page report for work earlier this year singlehandedly.
One key is at the beginning, setting up a workflow for an ADD mindset. Instead of trying to do one big thing, turn a big job into many small jobs that are achievable within your attention span, so you end up doing 4000 things you can do instead of 1 you can't possibly do.
This is relevant for a lot of people because we live in an ADD society.
I had ADD as a kid. It doesn't mean you dont have attention, it means you have an inability to regulate attention. Give a kid with ADD a video game and theyll play for days. The key is figuring out ways to use your disregulation to your advantage. Maybe you cant pay attention to a lot of things, but figure out how to become fixated on important stuff and that disregulation becomes a superpower. I finished a 400 page report for work earlier this year singlehandedly.
One key is at the beginning, setting up a workflow for an ADD mindset. Instead of trying to do one big thing, turn a big job into many small jobs that are achievable within your attention span, so you end up doing 4000 things you can do instead of 1 you can't possibly do.
This is relevant for a lot of people because we live in an ADD society.
In the 1950s, many of the people not looking for work were women who didn't need to look for work because they were supported by a husband. Today, many of the people not looking for work are able-bodied men who found ways to get paid by the state to sit at home surfing the internet or playing video games. I know a lot of men like that.
I'm not saying women shouldn't be allowed to do what they want, not that men should be forced to do something they don't want, but the current situation is a pathogen and it started before covid. That's just the latest thing.
I'm not saying women shouldn't be allowed to do what they want, not that men should be forced to do something they don't want, but the current situation is a pathogen and it started before covid. That's just the latest thing.
"we're so open minded that if we see anything we disagree with we need to silence it and anything remotely associated with it because otherwise we might realize we're actually wrong and that's unacceptable" - defederators
Terrible! They should have done what politicians do today and just get money by being more corrupt!
If you look at the data, water tends to absorb most wavelengths except for this little spectrum in the visible part of the spectrum.
When you get an ir or uv camera it's interesting seeing that a lot of clear things turn opaque, and a lot of opaque things turn clear.
When you get an ir or uv camera it's interesting seeing that a lot of clear things turn opaque, and a lot of opaque things turn clear.
One thing that pisses me off about modern economics writers is they keep claiming unemployment is at all-time lows. This is absolutely false. In the past, you had a 5% unemployment rate with a 70% workforce participation rate. Today, you have a 5% unemployment rate with a 60% workforce participation rate. These two things are simply not the same!
Meanwhile, the labor force participation rate for men has dropped from 95% to 60%! That is pretty meaningful by itself.
Meanwhile, the labor force participation rate for men has dropped from 95% to 60%! That is pretty meaningful by itself.