Robert Pontius

Interests: inventing, mediæval history, Tolkien, Tesla, Blockchain, 3D printing, philosophy, science, and the Oxford Comma.

[Dr. Maalouf ‏ @realMaalouf]

A Muslim woman explains what Muslims get in heaven:

“Allah will reward men with 72 virgins. But women will be forever young and beautiful.

We’ll live in gold palaces. Allah will give us silk clothes, diamonds, and slaves to serve us for eternity.”

I’ve never seen a more materialistic and carnal religion.

[Proudofus.uk @ProudofusUK]

⚓🇬🇧🇳🇱

For 300 years, corsairs came to enslave Europeans.

Not from a colony. From Europe's own coasts.🏴‍☠️

Spain, Italy, France, even Ireland and Iceland felt their reach.

One historian's estimate puts the number enslaved above a million across the centuries.

That figure is disputed. In both directions. What is not disputed: every government paid ransom, and paid again, and the raids never stopped.

🕊️ In 1816 Britain tried one more time, through words alone. The Dey of Algiers agreed to stop. For a while, it held.

⚡ Then in May 1816, around 200 fishermen under British protection were massacred at Bona. Britain had run out of patience.

Admiral Lord Exmouth was given a fleet. And Britain did not sail alone: a Dutch squadron joined him, under Vice-Admiral van Capellen. British and Dutch, sailing as one force.

💥 August 1816. The combined fleet stood off the walls of Algiers. Exmouth sent his terms in. The Dey refused. At half past two, the guns opened fire.

For nine hours, British and Dutch guns hammered the harbour defences. The corsair fleet in harbour was destroyed at anchor. Allied casualties, British and Dutch together, passed 900 killed and wounded. It was a hard fight, not an easy one.

By morning the defences lay silent. Exmouth demanded surrender. The Dey accepted.

🔓 1,083 slaves were freed at Algiers itself. Men and women of many nations and many faiths. The Dey repaid around 80,000 pounds sterling in ransom money.

Counting earlier releases that year, around 3,000 people walked free across all of 1816. Not walking free in a single day. Freed across the whole of that year.

The treaty broke the back of a 300-year system. It did not end the raids overnight. Raiding returned in the years after, on a smaller scale. It was the French conquest of Algiers, from 1830, that finally ended it for good.

Britain and the Netherlands had broken a system three centuries old. Not for empire. For people who had no one else to answer for them.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

British and Dutch sailors stood against a system nobody else had stopped.

Knowing their story, you stand a little taller.

We are the home of British heroes. There is a place for you with us. 👇🙏

👉 https://t.co/wN9S2gRmFj 👈

Be part of us. ☝️🇬🇧
Be Proud Of Us. 🙏🇬🇧

[Bill Mitchell @mitchellvii]

🇺🇸 ROBERTS JUST RULED THAT AMERICA IS STILL RULED BY THE KING. SERIOUSLY?

Mark Levin is not holding back. He called it "one of the dumbest decisions I ever read" and said it's "worse than Roberts' Obamacare decision."

Why? Because the Chief Justice built his birthright citizenship reasoning on 1600s British common law. The old rule that if you were born on the King's land, you belonged to the King.

Levin's response is simple. We fought a revolution to escape that. We wrote a Declaration of Independence to bury it.

As he put it, British common law "has to be funneled through our constitutional system." Not the other way around.

250 years later and a sitting Chief Justice is citing monarchy law to define American citizenship. That is not a legal opinion. That is a time machine!

[Jason Cohen 🇺🇸 @JasonJournoDC]

💥NEW: Alan Dershowitz *UNLOADS* on birthright citizenship after SCOTUS ruling💥

"It's the DUMBEST idea EVER conceived of anybody! No smart person would ever put birthright citizenship in a constitution! Almost no other country in the world has it!"

"Birthright citizenship is stupid, stupid, stupid! Also, it was NEVER intended to cover people from China who come here, give birth, and then go back and have no allegiance to the United States. That's ALL clear!"

"I think this is maybe the right textual decision, but the WRONG common sense decision — and I think Congress can overrule it in effect."

[Alex Veremeyenko @alex_verem]

i'm obsessed with what's happening in AI reforestation right now

this Franco-Brazilian startup called MORFO took a patch of land in Brazil that was rock-hard and compacted from years of cattle farming. they replanted it using a single drone. months later the ground was covered in grass, bushes, and small trees. the land came back to life.

here's how the whole thing works.

1. drones scan the terrain with high-resolution cameras and sensors
2. AI analyzes the imagery alongside soil samples, moisture levels, slope, and surrounding vegetation
3. the system picks from a catalog of 300+ native species, deciding exactly which plants will thrive in which specific spot
4. the drone fires biodegradable seed pods packed with seeds, nutrients, and moisture at 180 capsules per minute
5. satellite and drone imagery monitors regrowth over time, with AI tracking vegetation cover and biodiversity
6. two people and one drone cover 50 hectares a day. a person planting by hand manages about one hectare.

and MORFO isn't alone. AirSeed in Australia drops 250,000 seed pods per day into bushfire-scarred koala habitat, replanting swamp mahogany that koalas depend on to survive. Flash Forest in Canada fires 50,000 pods daily into wildfire-destroyed boreal forest, planning the replanting alongside Cree Indigenous communities. re-green won Prince William's Earthshot Prize after planting 6 million seedlings across 30,000 hectares of Amazon and Atlantic Forest.

five companies across four continents built this same approach independently. nobody coordinated. the physics of the problem demanded it.

knowing which seeds belong in which soil used to require years of ecological fieldwork, manual planting crews, and budgets that made large-scale restoration nearly impossible. now two people with a drone and an AI model trained on local soil data can replant 50 hectares before lunch.

this is the AI work that'll still matter in 50 years.

[Bo Loudon @BoLoudon]

The author of the 14th Amendment:

"This will not, of course, include persons born in the United States who are foreigners, aliens..."

The SCOTUS didn't just go against President Trump, they went against the Constitution.

[Fox News @FoxNews]

BREAKING: Justice Clarence Thomas pens a scathing dissent after the Supreme Court upheld birthright citizenship.

Thomas accuses the majority of “repurposing” the 14th Amendment “to protect its own set of preferred rights that the Reconstruction Congress never contemplated and that cannot find support in its text.”

“Today, the Court does so again by recognizing a constitutional right to citizenship for the children of all foreign birth tourists and illegal aliens.”

“I am not sure that today’s opinion will stand the test of time. The Citizenship Clause ‘added greatly to the dignity and glory of American citizenship.’ Today’s opinion devalues that citizenship.”

“I respectfully dissent.”

[Joe Rogan Podcast News @joeroganhq]

Elon Musk: "Our next product is Blindsight, which will enable those who have total loss of vision, including if they've lost their eyes or the optic nerve, or maybe have never seen even blind from birth, to be able to see again."

[Krzysztof Szczawinski 🇵🇱 @Kristof_Poland]

What the West Still Doesn’t Get It:

Communism’s True Core: The Systemic Lie

Most people in the West think they understand communism. They picture bread lines, gulags, failed five-year plans, and the collapsed Soviet Union. They treat it as a discredited economic theory – an experiment that proved that abolishing private property doesn’t work. Case closed, history moved on.

This misunderstanding may be the most dangerous intellectual failure of our time.

Communism was never primarily an economic system. Economics was the surface. Beneath it lay something far more insidious: a total, systemic, institutionalized commitment to lying. Not occasional dishonesty. Not spin or propaganda in the ordinary sense. Something deeper – a civilizational war against truth itself, waged through every institution, every classroom, every newspaper, every conversation, until reality itself became negotiable and the lie became the air people breathed.

The Words We’re Missing

The Polish language, forged by decades of living under this system, produced words for this phenomenon that English simply cannot match:

Zakłamanie [zah-kwah-MAH-nyeh] – a state of total, pervasive, socially embedded falsehood, a condition in which an entire society is saturated with lies so thoroughly that truth becomes almost inaccessible.
Obłuda [ob-woo-dah] – a deep, performative hypocrisy, the gap between what is proclaimed and what is actually practiced, the mask worn so long it begins to feel like a face.

These are not words for individual liars. They describe a system – a mode of social organization built on organized mendacity, where the lie is not the exception but the foundation. English has no single word for either concept, and that linguistic gap is not a coincidence. It reflects a gap in experience. Cultures that did not live under communism lack the vocabulary because they lack the wound.

And because they lack the vocabulary, they struggle to recognize the thing when it reappears in new clothing.

The Continuity: Communism, Leftism, Wokeism

What we call wokeism today, or the broader radical left, is not a new phenomenon. It is the same operating system running on updated hardware. The specifics have changed – instead of the proletariat, we have marginalized identity groups; instead of bourgeois class enemies, we have racists and transphobes; instead of socialist realism, we have DEI statements. But the deep structure is the same.

That deep structure is this: truth is not discovered, it is assigned. Reality is not something to be understood honestly but something to be narrated strategically. Language is not a tool for communication but a weapon of power. And anyone who resists the approved narrative is not simply wrong – they are dangerous, and must be silenced, shamed, or destroyed.

This is zakłamanie in its modern form. This is obłuda wearing a human rights badge.

The same movement that insists men can become women will insist, with equal fervor, that questioning this is an act of violence. The same institutions that claim to champion free inquiry systematically suppress dissent. The same people who invoke tolerance as their highest value are among the most intolerant forces in public life. The contradiction is not accidental – it is structural. It is the system working as designed.

Why the West Still Doesn’t Get It

People who grew up in freedom tend to assume, at some level, that bad actors know they are lying. That somewhere behind the ideological performance, there is a cynical operator who privately acknowledges reality. This assumption is wrong, and it is why Westerners consistently underestimate what they are dealing with.

The totalitarian lie, at its mature stage, is not cynical. It is believed. Or rather, it creates a condition in which the distinction between belief and performance collapses entirely. People learn to say things they do not believe so fluently, and for so long, that they lose access to what they actually think.

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[Open Source Intel @Osint613]

Ted Cruz: "We are seeing a cancer on the right. It is rising antisemitism ... here's the scary thing: I've seen more antisemitism on the right over the last 18 months than any time in my life. And it's spreading like a cancer. Tucker Carlson is the most dangerous demagogue in America."

[John LeFevre @JohnLeFevre]

You’re ~2x more likely to die from heat in Europe than from guns in America.

They lecture us on “gun violence” while their elderly cook to death without AC.

Europe: ~175k annual heat deaths
US: ~44k gun deaths, mostly suicide and targeted urban violence

[Aɴᴛ @AntSpeaks]

So will Trump finally understand that there's no deal to be had? That you simply do not negotiate with terrorists? That you cannot reason with a regime hellbent on death and destruction, for whom violence and chaos are not just tools, but the very things they thrive on?

I'll be at a loss for words if Trump's response to this is somehow to blame Israel, because that really wouldn't be a good look. It also wouldn't make much logical sense, given that Israel was not part of the Iran "deal."

What should happen now is the complete and utter annihilation of the regime.

[It’sjustme @ItsjustmeandJC]

There we have it. JD chuckling it up on the view and Megyn Kelly, Rubio boldly calling out the hatred and evil fomenting on the woke right.
Lines appear to have been drawn. Rubio is the man.

[Farzad 🇺🇸 🇮🇷 @farzyness]

My theory is that the American empire is JUST getting started.

US has a stranglehold on Space with SpaceX, which is the next frontier for defense/war. It has a comically large lead. No one will be close for at least 20 years.

It is the leading power in AI by far - both in models and chips. China is catching up fast, but the US has an inherent mechanism that will increase the likelihood that it will win in the end - a free market + capitalism + free speech.

A free market + capitalism allows for brutal competition between companies. Free speech allows for AI models to be maximally truth seeking, which means that AIs CAN and WILL BECOME smarter than humans to the point where they can tell the truth about its leaders.

This is literally impossible in China. Try having a Chinese model that says Xi Jinping is corrupt. Good luck with that.

Then, you have a country that has more guns than people and surrounded by two massive oceans and two friendly neighbors, which means any sort of kinetic take over of the country is literally impossible.

Not to mention the US has BY FAR the best and strongest military.

The only way adversaries can hope to defeat the US is by tearing it from within by pitting us against each other. This is why it's virtually guaranteed that all the division/hatred/polarization you see within the country is fomented by China/Russia Psy Ops + propaganda efforts.

I'm not saying these aren't naturally happening in spots - America is far from perfect - but it would be naive to think our adversaries aren't pouring millions of gallons of fuel on a fire.

As long as the American public a) has the ability to exercise its free speech b) has a protected 2nd amendment c) capitalism and free markets continue to function and d) the populace is aware of how awesome America really is, it is literally impossible to stop the US's trajectory to global domination in the coming decades, especially as China's demographics continue to collapse.

It's the bottom of the 9th, the game is tied, and the US has the bases loaded. It's a 3-2 pitch.

All we need is a home run, and we win the rest of the century.

[Robert Pontius @RobertPontius]

@MLFootball Sports animals like this are the most despicable of their kind.

[Robert Pontius @RobertPontius]

If Trump abandons Israel, I and many others will abandon him.

Israel will have to finish the job themselves, otherwise there is no real peace. https://t.co/X9flzfna6w

[Hillel Fuld @HilzFuld]

Mark my words. Bookmark this.

Trump is now committing to the IRGC that Israel will not attack in Lebanon.

Israel committed to no such thing and will absolutely retaliate to any attack from Lebanese territory including a drone fired at Israel a minute and a half ago.

When that happens, when Israel defies Trump and attacks in Beirut, Trump will ultimately turn on Israel and let’s be honest, the only thing standing in the way of America and Israel totally breaking up is Trump.

The anti Israel sentiment in the US is totally mainstream and widespread. Without the diplomatic channels, America turns on Israel.

If things play out as they look like they will, this might very well become the beginning of the end of the US/Israel relationship.

I hope I’m wrong but this recent Trump tweet is a very very bad sign.

It’s not a question of if. It’s a question of when the US and Israel break up.

In the short term, that’s scary for Israel being that every iron dome missile costs north of $100k. It’s also very damaging to the US because Israeli tech and intelligence are very important to the US.

Long term though, it’s a positive thing. This relationship is an unhealthy one and it’s the equivalent of an abusive relationship.

Sometimes the spouse is all nice (Trump) and sometimes they beat the hell out of their partner (Obama/Biden).

Right now the husband (Trump) is being all nice to the wife (Israel), but there is only one way to handle an abusive relationship and that is to get the hell out.

Ultimately Israel needs total independence including military independence and economic independence so this break up long term is a very good thing.

I have no doubt it’ll happen and I think it’ll happen soon.

Thoughts?

[Camus @newstart_2024]

Jimmy Carr nailed something a lot of us feel but can’t explain.

We’re living better than 99.9% of humans who ever walked the earth, hot showers, modern medicine, endless entertainment, kids that actually survive infancy, yet so many of us feel miserable.

He calls it “life dysmorphia.” We get used to how good we have it (the hedonic treadmill), then compare ourselves to everyone else and tank our own happiness.

As he puts it: happiness = quality of life minus envy.

Marcus Aurelius put it perfectly: “Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself in your way of thinking.”

When was the last time you caught yourself feeling unhappy despite objectively having it pretty damn good?

[Breitbart News @BreitbartNews]

Podcaster Larry Reid calls for a "mass exodus" of black Americans to Africa in response to the Karmelo Anthony verdict.

"I want you to begin to think about this America and the white people problem that we have... As a collective, let's drain this place of its benefits and make our mass exodus and go home and build."

"Civil rights did not make white people that are infected with whiteness stop being racist. They still raised racist children that run this country to this day."

"You come from a land that flows with milk and honey. They pulled you out of that land ancestrally and brought you to a place to where your royalty was not recognized. Used your black power, your black mysticism, your African spirituality, and your physiological superiority to build this country and give everybody reparations except you."

[Nav Toor @heynavtoor]

You have noticed it. ChatGPT feels dumber than it used to. Your prompts that worked six months ago produce worse results now. The writing sounds flatter. The ideas sound safer. The internet itself feels like it is shrinking. Every article reads the same. Every email sounds the same. Every answer sounds like it was written by the same voice.

You thought it was you. It is not you.

Researchers at Oxford and Cambridge published a paper in Nature proving what is happening. They call it Model Collapse.

Here is the mechanism in one sentence. AI trained on AI-generated data gets dumber every generation until it forgets what real human data looked like.

The internet is filling with AI-generated content. Blog posts. Articles. Reviews. Comments. Social media. AI companies scrape the internet to train the next generation of models. Which means the next generation of AI is being trained on the output of the current generation.

Each cycle loses information. Not randomly. It loses the rarest, most unusual, most creative parts first. The researchers call these the "tails of the distribution." The weird ideas. The unexpected perspectives. The things that made the internet feel human. Those disappear first.

What remains is the average. The safe. The expected. The bland.

Then the next generation trains on that. And loses more. And the next generation trains on that. And loses more. The researchers proved this is not a slow decline. Major degradation happens within just a few iterations. Even when some of the original human data is preserved.

They tested it on large language models. On image generators. On statistical models. The pattern was the same every time. The output converges toward a narrow, flattened version of reality that looks nothing like the original data.

The lead researcher put it plainly. "Large language models are like fire. A useful tool. But one that pollutes the environment."

The pollution is invisible. You cannot see which sentence on the internet was written by a human and which was written by AI. Neither can the AI that is about to train on it. And once the tails are gone, they do not come back. The damage is irreversible.

This is not a prediction anymore. It is a diagnosis.

The internet you grew up on was built by humans writing things no algorithm would have written. Strange, personal, imperfect, alive. That internet is being diluted. One generation of AI at a time. And the models trained on what remains are learning a smaller and smaller version of the world.

Model Collapse is not a technical problem. It is a cultural one. The thing that made the internet worth reading is the thing that disappears first.

[Elon Musk @elonmusk]

Yes