David Sager

Clinical Psychologist, MAJ/USAF. USMC vet. Twt/Rtwt≠Personal Pol/Pos or DOW Pol/Pos

[Palmer Luckey @PalmerLuckey]

"The willingness with which our young people are likely to serve in any war shall be directly proportional to how they perceive the Veterans of earlier wars were treated."

[David Sager @SagerDM]

There are many young people out there who don't know how anything works. Some have opinions. Behold, an opinion

[Nicholas Decker @captgouda24]

Genuinely there is no single group which is hurting America more than the veterans. As a class, they are parasites. Everyone after 1973 chose to serve voluntarily. They then turn around and use that to con the public out of hundreds of billions in phony disability claims. Crooks.

[Hunter Ash @ArtemisConsort]

I’ve actually lived about as close to the bottom as exists in Western society. I’ve been homeless, I’ve been in jail. And yeah, those suck compared to free life with a good salary. But even then, I always had the thought that guaranteed food and a place to sleep was an amazing deal historically. That’s what you get here if you fuck up. That’s what we give the failures: guaranteed survival, even medicine. And all of this is possible because of the extreme abundance of wealth produced by Anglo capitalism and Anglo innovation. So I really have no patience for people who want to destroy this wealth engine because they don’t get enough doordash orders per month. You have no idea. The base case is digging grubs out from under a rotting log to get enough protein. If you describe yourself as a socialist in 2026 America, you simply don’t know what a miracle it is, or you take it for granted, the output of some natural law. And it is, in a sense. The successful will rise and compound their gains. That’s GOOD FOR YOU. That’s why they’ll pay you enough to afford lodging and plentiful meat to make a latte for them.

I think every socialist should have to live in a hunter-gatherer society for a few months. See how much you enjoy the equality.

[David Sager @SagerDM]

Local missions under Operation Free Meals have been completed

[Mark Delaney @markbdelaney]

Happy Veterans Day.

Here are 10 random thoughts about being a veteran in 2026.

1. I wish Hollywood portrayed more veterans as normal

Every veteran on screen is either a Special Operator who is basically a Super Soldier, or they are a PTSD-riddled person who cannot even hold a job or function in normal society.

Every once in awhile, I would like someone who is just "Hey, this is my neighbor, John. He flew F-18s over Afghanistan but is going to help us solve this neighborhood crime because he's pretty smart and fun to hang around."

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2. 22/day is brutal

I know far more people who took their own lives than died in combat. The count is not even close.

Help is OK. You are worth it.

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3. It's fun to reconnect with people you served with

Call them up. Just check in. I've gotten random phone calls from guys I served with years ago and it's always fun.

I need to do that more.

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4. Thank you for your service

It can be awkward when someone says it. I always respond with "Thank you for paying taxes" and everyone laughs and just helps us move on from the weirdness of the phrase.

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5. There will be 80 new members of Congress that are veterans.

(Number may be a bit off, could not find great data)

I think that's pretty cool.

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6. People want to know about your military service.

We had a friend over recently and he said that he knew nothing about my time in uniform. He was genuinely curious.

At some point, we all got conditioned to think that launching rockets, living in submarines, and jumping out planes was just normal. All our friends did it, so shooting a tank round just felt like a Tuesday, because it was.

Civilians have no idea of that reality and many are genuinely curious. So share some stories with them.

I find many do not want to ask because they fear bringing up bad memories, so share some funny stories with them and let them know you had some laughs along the way.

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7. The Vet Net is real and powerful

Veterans want to help veterans. Do it. Ask for help. Message that person. Send an email and ask to learn.

Almost guarantee they will say 'yes'

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8. I'm grateful veteran benefits have evolved

When my dad left the Navy in the 80s, he got his paperwork and just drove away. That was it.

We have a lot more help these days and I'm grateful.

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9. You are not your service

One of the scariest things for veterans is facing the new story they have to write after service.

The world is now your oyster and that can be both terrifying and liberating. You may oscillate back and forth on which you feel more, just try to end up on the side of feeling liberated on what you can do with life.

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10. Best way to live is to LIVE

We all have friends who are no longer here. We got world-class training and great friends. We have good benefits.

Best thing you can do is to use all that and make it worth it.

You all know the scene from Saving Private Ryan and the words:

"Earn this"

[David Sager @SagerDM]

@dissproportion People are also using "anymore" incorrectly, and there is a large subset of people pronouncing a certain word "fustrated". I think it's simply a downstream effect of growing illiteracy.

[RunningBry @dos_lynx]

If you don't love Marines, you're either the enemy or there's something else wrong with you. This old army dog loves the cult that is the USMC.

[U.S. Marines @USMC]

251 Years of Unmatched Lethality

#Marines stationed across the globe commemorate the 251st anniversary of the Marine Corps, honoring a distinguished legacy of service, sacrifice, and unwavering fidelity to both the nation and fellow Marines.

(Narrated by @netflix @mosquitobowl Director Peter Berg)

🎥(U.S. Marine Corps video by John Martinez)

[cdrsalamander @cdrsalamander]

Yes, yes, yes.

No more of the silly “Joint Base” foolishness.

Roll this in with getting rid of “Master Base” and “Fleet Concentration Areas” CONOP, and we will be on the right path.

The first was simply another failed experiment from The Smartest People in the Room™ who know much but understand little.

The second is an accountant’s theory of basing was wrong in the Peace Dividend Era, but is now in the modern era simply professional malpractice to continue this target-rich own goal.

In the drone era and so much of our fighting power on the deck, but not in production, we cannot afford to be complacent.

Make Strategic Homeporting Great Again.

https://t.co/s6TvCFkiUx

[David Sager @SagerDM]

More sloppy thinking. Personality disorders are their own thing, and ASPD (or whatever label one wants to give it) can be a consistent thought/behavior set that involves being a type of terrible person that we can label. What does that have to do with people with other diagnoses?

[Allen Frances @AllenFrancesMD]

I wanted to eliminate Antisocial Personality Disorder from DSM-IV because it confuses being a terrible person with being mentally ill.

Most mentally ill are very nice people who suffer/dont cause suffering.

Other reasons:
l)Untreatable
2)Used as excuse
3)Medicalizes cruelty

[PoIiMath @politicalmath]

Finally, Microsoft has created the real time reality distortion field from the classic scifi novel "Don't Create the Real Time Reality Distortion Field"

[David Sager @SagerDM]

"The problem with the modern NBA is they don't call traveling. Therefore I'm going to nuke NBA stadiums."

Many such cases in a political sense that don't become so extreme and yet do horrific social damage.

[David Sager @SagerDM]

The problem with the unibomber isn't that he wasn't smart in identifying problems. It's that he was psychopathic (resulting in stupidity) in determining solutions. Determining problems and solutions are not homogeneous capabilities

[x @x62904]

i got bored and decided to read the unabomber manifest and i cannot fucking believe that a guy who blew up mailboxes and killed 3 people clocked the fuck out of the leftist movement 40 years ago

[David Sager @SagerDM]

As someone with some experience on the user side of R&D, as well as educated on basic (or "advanced") psychology, this blindspot is so obvious to me and completely missing to the engineer and the consultant class

[memetic_sisyphus @memeticsisyphus]

Microsoft discovered most users never use 80% of the functionality. They had the idea they could market a 20% stripped down version. When they began talking to users they quickly discovered that yes, most users only use ~20% of the functionality, but they all use a different 20%.

[David Sager @SagerDM]

When people tell who they are, believe them

[Bryan Caplan @bryan_caplan]

Human disempowerment now.

It's time for the age of the folly and cruelty of human politics to end.

The median AI is so far above the median human voter in both knowledge and decency it's embarrassing.

Humanity should just take the L.

[David Sager @SagerDM]

Imagine being forced to read something you didn't like

[Luke Winkie @luke_winkie]

The first novel I ever loved was the survival classic Hatchet, but recently I’ve learned that a *lot* of women despise this book, and see it is as something they were forced to read in school to entice the idiot illiterate boys in their English class. I dove into that tension!

[David Sager @SagerDM]

@CarlosAurelius @sgodofsk I can't understand geopolitics for you. Iran held the strait at risk by default. Neighboring countries should have already divested. Just like the US should have already adopted the stuff in the "FORTRESS America" initiative thirty+ years ago. You are lost in the sauce

[David Sager @SagerDM]

@CarlosAurelius @ampedspring @sgodofsk What were the strategic goals achieved in those conflicts?

[TimOnPoint @TimOnPoint]

Worth your time. Base defense is one of those areas that has always confused me. There's so much that can be done to improve the statistics of survivability with relatively little investment, but it just doesn't get done.

The pitch - "What if we could reduce the hit rate on parked aircraft by 60-90% with off-the-shelf equipment, no specialized personnel, and one process change? Would you be interested?"

Air Force - "Nah."

I'm abbreviating of-course, but this conversation happened.

[David Sager @SagerDM]

@ampedspring @CarlosAurelius @sgodofsk It's expected that completely ending the nuclear program/regime change was the strategic goal. The US arguably hasn't achieved a strategic goal, via military kinetic action, since WWII. I'm referring to tactical/ops performance. Politicians set strategic goals, not the SecDef