∴ Nate Jacobson

Truth seeking is more like threshing and sifting than picking sides. Consider All. Test All. Hold On to the Good.

[Brivael Le Pogam @brivael]

Encore un scandale.

On accuse Elon Musk sans arrêt de se servir de Grok pour faire passer ses idées.

Pourtant, le @neutralityorg vient de sortir The Neutrality Project : une étude indépendante qui prouve l’inverse.

Sur 18 modèles IA testés, 54 positions sur 60 atterrissent à gauche du centre.

Moyenne globale : -0.41 (biais progressiste massif, surtout environnement et valeurs sociales).

Et Grok 4.5 ? -0.02. Le modèle le plus neutre de tout le benchmark. Le seul vraiment proche du centre.

Pendant ce temps, les autres boîtes injectent massivement leur idéologie de gauche dans des IA qui répondent à des milliards de questions par jour.

Manipulation des masses à grande échelle.

C’est absolument scandaleux. Ça devrait être un scandale mondial.

https://t.co/X1tSvJfDEY

[∴ Nate Jacobson @afterall_net]

@BMcGrewvy I should have added O Brother to the list. One of the greats.

[∴ Nate Jacobson @afterall_net]

It’s a great idea in principle to riff on an old story and for a storyteller to add something to the legends that had already evolved when Homer shaped and recorded them. The Lion King take on Hamlet, Luhrman’s Romeo+Juliet, the Matrix’s Platonic shadow cave, Tolkien’s twist on Gyge’s Ring, etcétera. It’s also entirely appropriate to opine that the identitarian spirit of the times that has possessed our institutions is corrosive. I reserve judgment about the end product, but imo Nolan’s decision to adapt and modernize Homer’s Odyssey is, in itself, unobjectionable.

[∴ Nate Jacobson @afterall_net]

@salltweets I think you’d have a firmer foundation if you were to ground our differences and our ability to differentiate as God-given — since common descent denies fixed categories —, but thanks for all you do.

[∴ Nate Jacobson @afterall_net]

Clinically accurate.

[Wesley Yang @wesyang]

The Blue governing stack considered it morally righteous and politically wise to inflict cruelties and absurdities on the most physically fit, competitive, and agentic young women in America on behalf of a cohort of troubled, disordered boys whom they had brainwashed to yearn to be chemically castrated and dismembered.

Both of these judgments were wrong.

[∴ Nate Jacobson @afterall_net]

@jaredcwilson Indeed. While we were yet sinners.

[∴ Nate Jacobson @afterall_net]

Spot on.

[Paul Anleitner @PaulAnleitner]

We should have listened to David Foster Wallace’s warning back in 1997 when even Burger King was selling people burgers as an act of “rebellion”:

Postmodernism would lead to a slow cultural death through endless “irony, cynicism, irreverence.”

It’s time to break this spell.

[∴ Nate Jacobson @afterall_net]

@Dalrymple @mukund As a transplant from Colorado, I think the Seattle weather is great: three fantastic seasons and one bearable one.

[∴ Nate Jacobson @afterall_net]

@OhioAngieF @fandompulse You may well be right that by bowing to false idols this adaptation will fail to be true in the sense that fiction and legends can be. The sirens — or Oscars — may have lured him into the rocks.

[Dr. Eli David @DrEliDavid]

.@KonstantinKisin: “‘Political correctness’ was invented in the Soviet Union. It had nothing to do with respect or politeness. It was a way to say ‘Comrade, this is factually correct, but politically incorrect.’”

[∴ Nate Jacobson @afterall_net]

@OldeWorldOrder @KellyKullberg Generally speaking, rebellion is no virtue in itself. It is literally of the Devil. I prefer to speak of faithfulness as the ideal, which may at times require resistance.

[Pastor Travis Johnson @BasedPastorTrav]

When we win we pray.

When we lose we pray.

🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸
#worldcup

[∴ Nate Jacobson @afterall_net]

Your response is instructive as an example of why conspiracism has gained so much traction. Ideologically lost and dishonest authorities have indeed given us many reasons to lose trust. But that does not constitute counter evidence in this particular case nor positive evidence for alternate theories. Besides, much of Wheeler’s evidence is publicly accessible, so there’s no need for naive trust. Until our public authorities earn back our trust, it’s imperative to find some trustworthy individuals by verifying when claims are proved true or false. The alternative to trusting some — though not all — is paranoia, which is debilitating; indeed, it’s even worse than trust betrayed. I offer this as someone who has also lost faith in many of our leaders. https://t.co/aBJSFz75HZ

[∴ Nate Jacobson @afterall_net]

On the theocratic impulse, or what some have dubbed "Christian Fascism".

[John G. West @JGWestDI]

Eric, in my ideal earthly society, most families, individuals, and church members would respect the sabbath on their own, not blaspheme or countenance others who blasphemed, and oppose witchcraft—so there would be no need for magistrates to try to regulate those areas by force.

Of course, we don’t live in an ideal society, and I’m not really interested in trying to come up with utopian proposals that don’t match reality. That’s what the Jacobins did during the French Revolution, and it’s what Marxists have done for the past century. Utopian schemes don’t tend to work out very well. We currently live in a sinful world, which includes sinful magistrates. So as a general rule, I think any proposals to give government more power need to reflect that reality. The reason for this in my view is not just a matter of prudence (what may be doable in contemporary America ); it’s also a matter of fallen human nature, something that applies everywhere. Given human nature as it currently exists, I think there are real constraints on what powers should be bestowed on the government. Given this background, here are my thoughts about the specific items you asked about:

1. Sabbath laws. We need to clarify what laws we are actually talking about. Early sabbath laws, even in the American colonies, compelled church attendance and punished people for not attending the state church. I think such laws are a terrible idea for a variety of reasons, including the fact that they bring into the church people by force who are likely to compromise the peace and purity of the true church. Later sabbath laws were more secular in focus, shutting down various secular trades and businesses so people could voluntarily attend church and rest. In principle, I think those kinds of sabbath laws can facilitate the liberty of Christians to honor the sabbath commands for rest and worship. But those laws do raise a host of practical problems. There have been Christians throughout history who thought Saturday was still the sabbath, and I think the New Testament does not give clear and unambiguous teaching on this point. Moreover, in our current society, large numbers of people need to work on Sundays for the necessary reasons of public safety, national defense, medical care, and infrastructure (e.g., the electric grid). Enforcing blanket Sunday laws today would require the government to issue a host of regulations outlining what exceptions are and aren’t allowed, and I generally think it’s not a great idea to increase the power and scope of the regulatory State (in fact, I think we should be reducing its power!). Finally, I think we have a much better mechanism today to protect the right of Christians to worship and rest on Sundays—laws that protect individuals to not have to work on their chosen sabbath. I definitely support those laws.

2. Blasphemy. Colonial and early America had blasphemy laws, although I think they were rarely enforced. They were part of a general understanding that free speech had limits. Free speech doesn’t mean the right to express your ideas in whatever intemperate or crude or profane manner you wish. It doesn’t mean promoting pornography. It doesn’t mean inciting people to violence. I agree with this general understanding of the limits of free speech. Having said that, I don’t favor blasphemy laws, and I’m pretty skeptical of most efforts to regulate free speech today. This does relate to our current situation. In my view, the biggest problem right now around the world is not too much free speech. It is the increasing effort by governments to control speech and thought and dissent. In America, we saw this during COVID when theology (the biblical principle of “love thy neighbor”) was invoked by Christians like Francis Collins to justify censorship and punishment of people who were raising dissenting opinions. Intemperate, profane, and offensive speech is a problem, but in our current situation, I think we do less harm in most cases by erring on the side of more free speech, not less.

I also think that if we are concerned about profane and even blasphemous speech, Christians have a lot they should be doing themselves right now. They should be looking at the log in their own eye, not the mote in someone else’s eye. For example, how many Christians turn a blind eye to the false teachings of the “Rev” Paula White as the Senior Advisor to the White House Faith Office? How many Christians pooh-pooh or ignore Christian pastors praising Hitler or embracing unbiblical attacks on people of other races or ethnicities? More generally, how many Christians use legitimate concerns over double-standards on “winsomeness” as a pretext to engage in speech that previous generations of Christians would have regarded as profane, ungodly, and even blasphemous? Since appearing on the Jeremy Boreing Show, I’ve encountered supposedly Christian (usually anonymous) X accounts falsely smearing those of us who appeared on the show as “effeminate”, “gay,” etc. Under the restrictions on free speech enforced by previous generations, people making such false claims would have been subject to prosecution. For the record, I DON’T favor such a policy… because I think we have seen how easily speech restrictions on profane speech can be used as a pretext to curtail legitimate disagreements. I also have a thick skin, and I find it sad and pathetic that some supposedly Christian men think gutter rhetoric demonstrates their own manliness (or that they would think they are being courageous by hiding behind anonymous accounts). In fact, all it shows is that they have yet to grow up into Christian men. Christians who are truly concerned about ungodly speech should be more concerned about what is happening in their own communities rather than pining for more government power to regulate others.

3. Prosecuting witchcraft. If you are talking about the government prosecuting people who inflict injuries on others, whether those people are witches, or Buddhists, or self-identified Christians, then magistrates certainly have the power to do that, so long as biblical and constitutional principles for a fair trial are followed. But if you are talking about prosecuting people simply because they worship a false god or nature, then, no, I don’t think the civil magistrate should have that power. I think Jesus taught the opposite in the parable of the wheat and the tares and in his rebuke of his disciples who wanted to call down fire on the Samaritan village that rejected Jesus. I think Paul taught the opposite when he rebuked Christians who thought it was okay to rob pagan temples. And, for the record, I think the history of prosecution of supposed witches is a terrible stain on the history of Christianity, including in America. To their credit, American Puritans repented of what happened in Salem: https://t.co/JOkkO1xTIg

[CJ the palmer worm; wife,mother, researcher. @thepalmerworm]

John spotting the subversive tactics in play here and I’d say that Mamdani knows exactly what he’s doing - the Comms he’s signalling to other subversives.

The statement, ‘America is exceptional because here, nothing is fixed into place’, is the very inversion of the understanding expressed in the Declaration of Independence.

The Declaration’s claim to American exceptionalism is not that nothing is fixed. It is that certain things are fixed beyond political alteration. That is precisely why the Founders could speak of self-evident truths. Under the sophist metaphysics of ‘nothing is fixed’ that which is self-evident is negated and nothing can be inalienable, rendering constitutional limits as mere ‘historical preferences’ rather than what they are and were always recognized as - enduring restraints upon power.

Even apart from Mamdani’s broader Marxist/Islamist political program, that phrase ‘nothing is fixed into place’ is the payload offence against the Constitutional Republic and the very strategy for destroying America from within. It describes the conception of political order fundamentally incompatible with the Declaration’s assertion on first principles that are fixed precisely because they are antecedent to government. That distinction is the key point and if you’ve followed the work of https://t.co/adKJopjR8B and the articles of @CourtenayTurner on the operational understanding of Being v Becoming, you’ll recognize the grave implications and consequences of this is practise.

[∴ Nate Jacobson @afterall_net]

@wil_da_beast630 Now consider that the Left’s gatekeepers have this kind of control over innumerable institutions and issues in The US.

[∴ Nate Jacobson @afterall_net]

More of this :)

[Spike Brehm @spikebrehm]

they did it. the mad lads actually did it.

i never talked about my time at DOGE last year because it was so controversial and contentious (remember that?)

early last year, @jgebbia recruited a handful of his most trusted early Airbnb engineers to embed at the Office of Personnel Management to solve the "retirement paper" problem.

processing a federal retirement took months, and in the extreme retirees could wait up to 6 months for their full pension to arrive. what was the holdup? paper. remember hearing Elon talk about "the mine" in Pennsylvania? we got to visit it. in deep underground caverns blasted out of limestone, there were literally acres of file cabinets, as far as the eye could see, storing files detailing federal employees' employment and paystub history. a simple "case" might be only a quarter or half inch thick, but really complex cases filled up whole filing cabinets. one famously took up a whole pallet.

each case was hand processed by case workers in cubicles deep underground. they checked calculations, made sure forms were filled out properly (many weren't), and handled a long tail of complex issues. we'd watch as they keyed data into a black and white terminal, transmitting to the COBOL mainframe built many decades ago.

since cases were processed by hand, there were multiple rounds of human review, and additional rounds for complex cases. case files were walked around between one worker's outbox and another's inbox. sometimes it would sit in one place for days, waiting to be picked up.

to OPM's credit, they'd done multiple rounds of "digital transformation" spanning decades, so some systems were newer than others. there was a big effort in the mid-90s. but the systems were disparate, and it was a total maze getting them to talk to each other. there was a big effort to build a web app where employees applying for retirement could digitally fill out the necessary forms — just to be mailed to the mine and stuffed into the paper file. and few federal agencies were even using it.

when we arrived, OPM was midway through a fresh attempt at digital transformation, delivered by a software contractor.

the blackpill was seeing the terrible quality of the software and interacting with the contractors. coming from silicon valley, i couldn't believe how low the talent and quality bar was for selling software to the government. it's clear, as the OG USDS people explained to me a decade ago, the primary skill these vendors have is securing government contracts. it's a huge moat. delivery of quality product be damned.

we fired the vendor and took over the project. they'd been working on it for more than a year, and there was another year before they were going to deliver it. at first we tried to bend it to our will, to actually connect all the various data sources and get to a decent UX for case workers in the mine to use, but we soon realized we were going to have to rebuild the whole stack from scratch.

it was around this time I had to go back to new york — i had a new job waiting for me, a four month old, and a wife whose patience was running out. but i got to watch from afar as the team cranked day and night, hitting early milestones. and now they've fully done it.

huge congrats to Joe and the team. @yatshitcray was the hero in the trenches. indefatigable, unrelentingly optimistic, and determined to see this project through. when i recruited him for "ok i can do two, maybe three months", he stuck it out over a year making this project a reality.

while the retirement project was under the DOGE banner, it operated different from what you heard from the breathless, negative media — we came in with the attitude of partnering with career OPM employees. we were team members determined to bring our software talents to bear on the problem they've been trying to fix for years, which they hadn't had the resources to solve before. they were wary at first, not sure about us, but they quickly saw how authentic and determined we were to work together toward the same goal. props to Joe for developing those relationships, setting the example of how to collaborate together.

what's the end result? lifelong federal employees, veterans, postal carriers get their full pension installments almost immediately. days instead of months. peace of mind for these people to devoted their careers to serving our country. massively streamlined operations inside of OPM. and NO MORE PAPER 🫡🇺🇸

[∴ Nate Jacobson @afterall_net]

Well done.

[ABC7 News @abc7newsbayarea]

A patriotic drone show illuminated North Richland Hills, Texas, a city located about nine miles northeast of Fort Worth, on Wednesday, July 1, ahead of America's 250th birthday.

[∴ Nate Jacobson @afterall_net]

Beautiful prose and remarkable foresight from John Adams.

[Ben Shapiro @benshapiro]

John Adams, writing to Abigail, about the Continental Congress' vote in favor of independence on July 2, 1776:

"The Second Day of July 1776, will be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more. You will think me transported with Enthusiasm but I am not. -- I am well aware of the Toil and Blood and Treasure, that it will cost Us to maintain this Declaration, and support and defend these States. -- Yet through all the Gloom I can see the Rays of ravishing Light and Glory. I can see that the End is more than worth all the Means. And that Posterity will tryumph in that Days Transaction, even altho We should rue it, which I trust in God We shall not."

[∴ Nate Jacobson @afterall_net]

What a delightful lady.

[Ari Hoffman @thehoffather]

Jessica is a volunteer for America 250 and heard no one was manning the empty Washington and Oregon booths at the Great American State Fair

She has been giving out stamps for the passports visitors have that are trying to get one from all 50 states