Bucky

[Bucky @GaryBuckwalter]

When synergy, normally beneficial, can be a bad thing.

Synergy is the concept where the combined effect of two or more elements is greater than the sum of their individual effects.

Chemistry
Mixing chemicals that react explosively
Energy or compounds produced far exceed what each could do separately​.

Geopolitics, see below.

Putin just promised retaliation ‘several times more powerful’ than anything Ukraine has done — and wouldn’t say what it isUkraine blitzes 19 Russian tankers overnight, with 136 vessels hit in ten days in huge blow to Putin
Ukraine blitzes 19 Russian tankers overnight, with 136 vessels hit in ten days in huge blow to Putin
Putin just promised retaliation ‘several times more powerful’ than anything Ukraine has done — and wouldn’t say what it is

Russia strikes merchant ships in Black Sea, killing captainRussia strikes merchant ships in Black Sea, killing captain

China plots for Putin's collapse with chilling strategy: "It's better to wait a little longer"China plots for Putin's collapse with chilling strategy: "It's better to wait a little longer"
Story by Kathrine Frich
After Strait of Hormuz, Iran turns to Bab el-Mandeb as new pressure pointTrump just read Iran an escalation schedule on live TV — power plants next week, then the bridges, unless they deal
After Strait of Hormuz, Iran turns to Bab el-Mandeb as new pressure point
Story by REUTERS

Senate Dems block defense bill in protest of Iran warSenate Dems block defense bill in protest of Iran war

[Bucky @GaryBuckwalter]

I had a weird moment of insight recently.

I have been troubled by the seemingly apparent increased danger on Bastrop area highways.

There are multiple serious accidents per week, frequently involving death.

Why so many.

Then I realized that I am hooked into the Bastrop Scanner online.

I hear about all serious accidents, immediately and in detail.

I didn't have that access before.

So, are there really more accidents or have the accidents that were already the norm simply become part of my world?

This line of thought made me contemplate the manner and degree to which social media skews our perspective of the world "around us".

I used to think that weekly publications were preferable to daily newscasts or newspapers, because they tended a bit more toward considered perspective rather than immediacy and sensationalism.

Social media and the internet give us immediate exposure to anything that happens anywhere.

How do we keep that flood of information in perspective?

[SaltyGoat @SaltyGoat17]

13th Amendment abolished slavery - 100% Rep / 23% Dem support

14th Amendment gave citizenship to slaves - 94% Rep / 0% Dem support

15th Amendment gave ALL the right to vote - 100% Rep / 0% Dem support

Don't let Democrats lie about who they are and who they've always been

[Lara Logan @laralogan]

Watch the bots swarm & attack me for posting this.

[Dolly @DollyD2022]

Says a lot doesn't it!!

[SparksN123 @SparksN123]

One and done. You’re welcome

[Molly Pitcher @AmericanMama]

Don’t let the vermin take over!!

[Love Music @khnh80044]

Possibly Messi’s best free-kick ever, with a gorgeous visualization of the Magnus effect 😮

[Austin Capps @AustinCappsMO]

Democrats hate America.

[Libertario 🟨⬛ @QuotesforGoal]

“El socialismo puede comenzar con la mejor de las intenciones, pero siempre termina con la Gestapo”

Winston Churchill

[SparksN123 @SparksN123]

Wait what????

[Barry J Collins @I_Am_BJC]

Facts.

[Rothmus 🏴 @Rothmus]

Leftists treat violence as a legitimate political tool when it serves their goals.

They’ve become the party of violence.

[Bucky @GaryBuckwalter]

https://t.co/02T948su0d

[Thomas Sowell Daily @DailySowell]

“Of all ignorance, the ignorance of the educated is the most dangerous. Not only are educated people likely to have more influence, they are the last people to suspect that they don’t know what they are talking about when they go outside their narrow fields.”

— Thomas Sowell

[Thomas Sowell Daily @DailySowell]

“Of all ignorance, the ignorance of the educated is the most dangerous. Not only are educated people likely to have more influence, they are the last people to suspect that they don’t know what they are talking about when they go outside their narrow fields.”

— Thomas Sowell

[Bucky @GaryBuckwalter]

Dopamine Nation: Post-literate?

📷
OpinionJust How Postliterate Are We?
📷Mark Us Preferred on Google
📷Max Langelott/Unsplash.com📷Jeffrey A. Tucker7/9/2026|Updated: 7/12/20260:009:08CommentaryReading is an old technology, a friend told me—just a different way of doing the same thing we do now, which is to seek out information. We have the ability to boil down ideas and present them in more interesting ways with quick videos, so of course people use them, he continued.I don’t really agree, but we concurred on the ominous truth. Hardly anyone is reading real books anymore. We are not illiterate. We are postliterate. This is the thesis of a terrifying article in The Atlantic by Rose Horowitch, a staff writer.Story continues below advertisementShe documented what we intuit. Fewer than half of adults read any book in 2022; only 38 percent read fiction. Daily pleasure reading fell to 16 percent in 2023 from 28 percent in 2004. I’m sure that it is vastly worse now. I feel it daily. I let days and weeks go by before I suddenly realize: I’m not feeding my brain; I’m merely consuming. We all do this.Among young people, it is far worse. Generation Z is just not interested in reading, assuring themselves that it is old technology, whereas they are young and adopters of the new thing. As a result, I can easily detect a massive gap in understanding that appears in conversation with a Gen Z person. History? Not much knowledge. Literature? Forget it. Cultural references? There is a misfire.Much of this comes down to a loss of reading time and its replacement with absolutely brainless junk on social media. This is generation COVID-19 pandemic lockdown, the kids forced by adults into a weird isolation and digital addiction. They had formative years stolen from them, and it shows.Related Stories📷Why America’s Universities Are Falling Apart📷Are We Subjects or Citizens?I don’t need to rehearse the empirical evidence that old-fashioned reading is dying or dead because we all know that. But what does it mean for us?Horowitch quotes Benjamin Franklin on how important reading was for the American Revolution. In the ancient world, only a few could hear the orations of statesmen and philosophers, but with books and newspapers, everyone has access.“These libraries have improved the general conversation of the Americans, [and] made the common tradesmen and farmers as intelligent as most gentlemen from other countries,” he wrote in his autobiography. This is how Thomas Paine’s “Common Sense” became a bestseller and solidified national resolve to throw off British rule.I was an early innovator in getting large texts online. The year was 1995 and the web browser was invented, and with it, the power to distribute books to billions of people for free. I took every advantage and mastered the tools of the time to put up at least 1,000 books in several formats. The experience filled me with hope.Then came Project Gutenberg. Here was the path to universal literacy, I thought. Anyone can get all the classics, all the essential works that built civilization, on their devices while paying nothing for them. No more waiting for delivery, no more having to build bookshelves in one’s home, no more hauling books from one residence to another.We have now a dream come true: universal distribution of all the great ideas at zero cost for everyone. Surely, I believed, we were headed for universal literacy like we had never seen before.Story continues below advertisementPlus, new technologies were saving us all vast time. Databases were doing calculations that used to take days in minutes. Letters could be sent instantly rather than waiting for mail. People could communicate over vast distances without the mail, sending documents and videos, speeding the pace of everything.All this innovation created more of that precious resource necessary for deep reading, namely time. We had new amounts of time in abundance, as never before, while access to the great books had never been more democratic and inexpensive. Then we obtained electronic readers to make it all even easier.Everything was set up for the creation of a renaissance in literacy.Then something went dreadfully wrong. The time-saving devices ended up not creating more time but rather just shortening attention spans. We wanted all things instantly, whereas reading takes patience, concentration, and focus. Focus was the last thing created by the tech https://t.co/n2nJbdsqi7 other words, all the new technologies did the opposite of what we had expected. They retrained the human mind toward instant gratification and gradually crowded out anything and everything that involved undistracted focus. We became addicted to the dopamine release that comes with breaking news, quick access, and constant thrills.The mistake I had made was in assuming that the old ways would be preserved even as new technology made them more accessible. I had not considered the possibility that the new technologies would shred the old culture into nothingness and replace it all with gibberish and nonsense.Looking back, I should have anticipated this, given what happened with television. Early predictions were that it would be filled with college-style lectures and symphonic performances. That prediction was disproven after only a few years of programming.I spent years writing essays that begged people to take advantage of all the access they had to literature but gradually came to realize that all my sermons were rather useless. I was fighting an uphill battle because the new technologies had not only made books more accessible, but also created 1 million alternatives to books that are more engaging.Literacy was being squeezed out. Why read a book when you can just look at and share a meme? I felt this happening daily as I posted more and more. They were not being read; they were being crowded out by https://t.co/NVnDIVbC2f work to put texts online lasted 15 years, from 1995 to 2010. Here we are, 16 years later, and I’ve been mostly disappointed at the results. The habit of “looking things up” has become merely searching for first answers or letting artificial intelligence generate them for you, rather than actually examining original sources of anything.Not to put too fine a point on it, but let me just say what I sense. The young generation seems to know almost nothing about anything that matters. In saying that, if I come across like an old fogey cursing the habits of the young, so be it.The widespread ignorance has spread into a shocking loss of vocabulary—a good test of any civilization—and basic erudition. It’s so offensive that I can hardly listen to podcasts these days. The language habits of most people younger than age 40 are shockingly bad and offensive.Horowitch offered a helpful look at the case for reading real books and not dismissing them as merely old-fashioned. I’m persuaded by every point she made here.Reading is unnatural, she wrote, just like excellent health. But as exercise is to our bodies, reading is to the mind. It rewires the brain for sustained attention, logical/abstract thinking, reflection, and complex analysis. It enables linear reasoning, inner concentration, and synthesis. Illiterate versus literate differences show gains in syllogistic logic and detachment from the immediate.Brains “master what they practice,” while replacing books with short videos atrophies focus, imagination, and executive function.Reading fosters deeper engagement versus passive consumption. This is because books demand active work (imagination, inference, holding ideas across text), rewarding with insight and pleasure. Video is more passive/information-dense but overwhelms without cultivating reflection; people comprehend less on screens. Reading builds “stamina” and background knowledge.Writing and reading were an important shift in history because they detached ideas from speakers, enabled dispassionate analysis, and created enduring records in philosophy, science, history, and every discipline. They supported informed citizenship (e.g., the Founders’ vision of a reading public). Literacy’s spread promoted rational, evidence-based discourse.Horowitch argued that postliteracy favors emotional, repetitive, epithet-driven, contradictory styles over nuance. It boosts disjointed irrationality, simplistic content, and a kind of nihilism that is the default position of a disorganized brain.All of this, she wrote, gets worse with AI. It erodes the thinking process (figuring out ideas, spotting flaws, gaining insights). It floods us with mediocre text, demanding more discernment just as skills weaken. Overreliance risks losing independent thought.Story continues below advertisementWhat to do about it? Read to the kids. Take time yourself on evenings and weekends to shut down everything but the book. Resist the temptation to pull out your phone at every low point in a conversation. Don’t let technology replace your brain. Instead, train your brain. New tools are coming online to make reading even more rewarding. See Storyaliz, for example.Can real literacy be regained? I’m not sure because we’ve never really been here before. The cultural pull of postliteracy is absolutely overwhelming. There is something each of us can do in our own lives.