CT e/acc

Accelerationist

[Possum Reviews @ReviewsPossum]

A park ranger once said it's difficult to design a bear-proof garbage can because there's significant overlap between the smartest bear and the dumbest human.

[Orcbrand's Kojimaic Matters @kojimaicmatters]

Believing that "people wouldn't do crimes if their basic needs were met" while also believing that "greedy rich people are stealing from everyone" never registers to the people who say this shit as inherently contradictory.

[Palmer Luckey @PalmerLuckey]

Hi Scott, this is a really bad article. The fundamental premise is false, and so are dozens of the subsequent claims.

"He did not say dysprosium. He did not say rare earth processing. He did not say substrate dependency . . . a material foundation he has never been asked about and has never discussed."

I don't know how anyone who has bothered to do any research at all could say this. I have been talking about these issues nonstop for the last nine years in every medium you can imagine, from TV to print to the Joe Rogan Experience. The fact that it did not come up in one specific 30-minute interview does not excuse this false claim.

"Fury is an autonomous fighter jet. Its actuators require dysprosium-enhanced permanent magnets to maintain performance under the thermal stress of combat . . . There is no dysprosium-free design path for high-performance magnets operating under thermal load. This is a physics constraint, not a procurement preference."

You are completely wrong. High-temperature actuators don't even use permanent magnets, and there are dozens of engineering paths around dysprosium for actuators that do. Your claims about Barracuda are similarly false. Also, American dysprosium supply chain does exist.

"Arsenal-1 is a Chinese supply chain with American assembly at the end."

This is false and offensive. Anduril has spent literally billions of dollars building supply chain and manufacturing capacity that is divorced from China. We have to, not only on account of various weapons regulations, but because China has sanctioned Anduril as a company and me as an individual.

"China is not concerned about Arsenal-1 . . . landlord needs only to maintain the processing monopoly that makes the components possible, and Arsenal-1 becomes a revenue stream rather than a threat. Every missile produced is a transaction. Every autonomous jet is a subscription. The more ambitious the American weapons program, the more valuable the landlord’s position."

This is a bizarre claim given the lengths the Chinese government has gone to making it explicitly illegal for Chinese components or materials to end up in Anduril weapons. To say nothing of how Chinese state media regularly berates me as dumb, unprofessional, a separatist terrorist, etc. If structured reliance was the game, they wouldn't do their best to make it impossible.

"The question nobody asked is: does Anduril have a supply chain continuity plan for a scenario in which China restricts rare earth exports to American defense contractors? . . . no. There is no such plan."

Once again, completely false. I have, over and over, publicly called for companies and founders to prepare for a world where they can no longer rely on Chinese supply chain, pointing to Anduril as proof that it is only expensive, not impossible. This is such a dumb thing to make up.

"The subterranean systems will require permanent magnets for their motors and actuators."

No, they do not. You are way out of your depth and keep making totally false claims about something you don't understand because if it was true, this whole premise you have constructed would be really interesting for your book.

[Devon Eriksen @Devon_Eriksen_]

Meet @simonmaechling.

Simon has a PhD in organic chemistry.

He is very proud of his PhD in organic chemistry. He can't wait to tell you about it, it's in his twitter bio.

Simon identifies as a scientist.

In fact, he identifies as all scientists, ever, since the beginning of history, and his pronouns are we/us/ours. He uses these pronouns as he informs us that, by writing and defending a thesis, he has inherited credit for every engineering and technological advance in human history.

He fed billions of people because he is Norman Borlaug. He saved millions of cancer patients because he is both Francis Crick and James Watson simultaneously. He powered nations because he is inhabited by the very soul of Enrico Fermi.

If humanity conquers the stars, he will retroactively become Werner Von Braun and Elon Musk, as well.

Please clap.

Unfortunately, there has been one small oversight.
Simon doesn't actually know what science is.

Perhaps universities in France don't require coursework in the history or philosophy of science, to attain a PhD degree. Or perhaps he was sick that day. But whatever the reason, his hat or his shoes, Simon doesn't understand that science is an algorithm.

Not a person.

Not an institution.

Not a body of knowledge, or a set of data.

An algorithm.

It is a simple, stepwise procedure. It is the act of examining the universe to see what is there.

It is not the act of examining one's baguette to see which side it is buttered on.

Which is precisely why a lot of institutions, who prominently, proudly, and fraudulently use the word "science" in their names, have lost the public trust that Simon feels entitled to.

They took money.

They sold their judgement and modified their results.

They took money from Proctor and Gamble, and they told us that beef, butter, and eggs are bad for us, and we should eat crystalized cottonseed oil instead.

They took money from Coca-Cola, Kraft-Heinz, and Unilever, and told us a calorie is a calorie is a calorie, and that the worldwide obesity epidemic is your fault because you somehow magically were born lazier and greedier than previous generations.

They took money from a cabal of grifters in the federal bureaucracy, and told us the planet has a fever, and we all need to pay more taxes so they can give it to their grifter friends.

They told us that if we didn't use our entire population as guinea pigs for an untested medical technology, we were personally killing grandma.

These people expect to share in the respect we have for Newton and Einstein, for Watt and Tesla, for Fleming, for Turning and Von Neumann.

But they are not any of these. They are Pravda. They are Squealer. They are Baghdad Bob.

They are not scientists.

They are whores.

No, wait a minute... upon reflection, I wish to apologize to the world's whores for that last sentence. A whore is infinitely better than a fake scientist, because, however degrading her profession, however much it scars her mind and soul, a whore only takes money from those who freely give it, and delivers something they value in return.

I've never had a whore try to poison or rob me.

[Devon Eriksen @Devon_Eriksen_]

We hear a lot of people go on about the difference between "book smart" and "street smart".

But psychologists who test and study intelligence know there's no such thing. Smart is smart. So is this all just a way of coping with envy of higher IQs?

No. We've all met that guy who is clearly very intelligent, but can't seem to accomplish anything outside a cloistered academic environment.

But we always seem to find him in a academic environment, don't we?

"Book smart" is an incorrect name for a person who is intelligent, but has been mentally and psychologically harmed by an educational system, to the point where he can't actually use that intelligence properly for tasks outside that environment.

Ironically, the more a child is obviously intelligent, the more the education system conspires to destroy him... because everyone with a "degree in education", almost without exception, is either actually stupid, or is himself the end product of this same sort of mental mutilation.

Here's how it works.

There are two types of intelligence tasks: answer tasks and result tasks.

A result task is graded by the reaction of the environment to your work. Either your software runs, or it doesn't. Either your rockets fly, or they don't. Customer buy millions of your product, or none.

You have unlimited tries unless you run out of money, but there's no partial credit, and you can't talk the universe into accepting your answer if it doesn't.

Result tasks typically require a lot of work, are data-intensive, and have lots of sub-problems, because the ones that didn't are already solved.

Result tasks are why we care about smart at all. Because smart people are the ones who can do this. And every human advancement or achievement ever was a result task.

Answer tasks are quite different. They are artificial problems created by a human being for another human being, whose goal is to produce the known answer.

Tasks like this have useful features. They can be tightly calibrated for appropriate difficulty. They are easy to grade. They can be used to teach particular subjects or skills.

But there are certain things they don't teach.

How to do the boring parts that don't impress anyone with how talented you are.

How to fail and try again.

How to change the question instead of answering it, because the question itself was wrong.

How to absorb from others what they had to learn the hard way, instead of reinventing the wheel.

How to deal with problems that have no solutions, only tradeoffs.

How to work with others and pass the ball.

How not to adapt instead of freezing when the universe gives the exam before the lesson.

How to substitute the adequate you can afford for the ideal you can't.

How to prioritize what is needful over what is elegant or cool.

Without this learning, and other similar lessons, the talent child turns into an adult with an unbalanced intellectual development, like a bodybuilder who skipped far too many leg days.

You'll find a lot of men like this in academia because it provides them with a sheltered, tightly controlled environment, where the problems are abstract if not utterly fake, and the persuasiveness of a solution trumps its workability.

They tend to scorn achievers, especially achievers with modest academic credentials or none, and this invites scorn in turn from people with real jobs.

But really what they are is victims. Entire campuses and networks full of what was potential greatness, crippled in it youth by bureaucracies that claim to serve it.

Homeschool your children.

Give them projects, not puzzles.

Teach them to build things.

[Naval @naval]

On Scott Adams.

A man finds, to his astonishment, that he exists. After the elation of childhood wears off, he asks, who am I, why am I here, how does this work? These are hard questions, so after a brief struggle, he selects a readymade answer and goes about the motions of life.

Scott Adams was not such a man. He was a live player, ever curious, intent on figuring out this simulation that he found himself in. From first principles, Scott unraveled, understood, and ultimately controlled his own reality. He hacked himself with affirmations, others with persuasion, the world with simultaneous sips. He explained people as moist robots, two movies happening on one screen, his world as Gods’ debris. He carved a personal mission to “be useful,” and made us all better writers, public speakers, and persuaders. He preached the footwear theory of motivation, the Adams Law of slow-moving disasters, the skill stack, systems over goals, and of course, the Dilbert Principle.

Besides cartooning, philosophizing, and teaching, Scott rose to the occasion and displayed, “the one virtue that cannot be faked” - courage. Scott had the courage to speak honestly as he saw it - about Trump, about his nation, and about his time, even though it cost him friends, audience, money, and his ticket to polite society. Scott had true courage, the kind that makes you unpopular, the kind that is always and everywhere in short supply,

At the end, as any hacker of reality, Scott covered all of his bases - he left as a Buddhist, a Christian, and a player in the Simulation.

Scott, we didn’t get enough time with you, but you were a mentor and a marvel. You were useful and you were courageous. You were incompressible and indivisible. One of a kind, and generous with your drawing, writing, and speaking. Unlike your squealing critics in the chattering class, you will be read generations from now.

On this earth there are many long-lived hells but no lasting heaven. Each heaven must be created and nurtured, ex-nihilo, from mind and from mud. Scott, you created a small heaven for us all, and to a larger heaven you go.

A man finds, to his astonishment, that he no longer exists. He asks why, what it was for, and how will the new reality work? When the rest of us get there, we’ll find Scott, ever useful, ready to explain, having figured it all out.

Notes:
• First line paraphrasing Schopenhauer.
• Courage quote via Taleb.

[Elon Musk @elonmusk]

Even though I knew his death was coming, as he told us it would, I still can’t believe he has died.

Rest in peace, good and great man, rest in peace.

[Scott Adams @ScottAdamsSays]

A Final Message From Scott Adams

[JD Vance @JDVance]

Scott Adams was a true American original, and a great ally to the President of the United States and the entire administration. My prayers go to Scott and all of you who loved him.

We lost one of the good ones but we'll never forget him.

[Jack Posobiec @JackPosobiec]

Give it up for a true patriot

[maro @ProofofMaro]

When people ask me what existential crisis led to my enlightenment I show them this

[CT e/acc @artgenint]

@BowTiedTrance Please add me too.

[CT e/acc @artgenint]

@JoshuaLisec Hi Joshua, been a follower of @ScottAdamsSays since early 2000, and used to religiously follow his blog, the DNRC newsletter, graduated to Twitter, Periscope, Locals, and all other medium available.
Have all his books as well, including the excellent one you collaborated on.

[InfantryDort @infantrydort]

The Invoice of Power

For all the crying haters of U.S. power projection. You mistake American peace for a donation.

Peace is not mailed out like aid packages. It’s underwritten. By carriers you don’t build, by logistics you don’t maintain, by men and women you didn’t raise, and by a debt of blood you never agreed to pay.

You mortgaged your future and outsourced your security. Now you project morality instead of power and call it “sovereignty.”

You cry foul when America decides the bill is due. When we choose to remove a parasite like Nicolás Maduro from the bloodstream of a hemisphere we’ve kept stable for generations. You say it’s illegitimate, unfair, and that it violates norms.

Norms are written by those who can enforce them.

You ask if we think peace is benevolent. No. Peace is transactional. The price is alignment, stability, and order. If you don’t pay it, someone else will, eventually with interest.

This is the sickness of the postwar world: a civilization feminized by safety it did not earn, mistaking feelings for force and outrage for deterrence. You boo and hiss about sovereignty while cheering mass migration, institutional decay, and the slow motion rape of the West. Your moral vocabulary is loud; your martial vocabulary is empty.

So understand this clearly: If you disagree, do something about it. Because your boos mean nothing to a nation that has seen what you applaud.

This is a mask off moment. You don’t have to respect America. Fear will suffice.

We are not cruel, merely structural. Gravity does not apologize to the weak for pulling them down. Fire does not explain itself to straw.

America is strong. You are not. That’s not personal. That is simply the way of things.

Power is the rent you pay to exist unmolested in a violent world. If you refuse to pay it, don’t be shocked when the landlord shows up.

I sometimes blackpill too hard. But lately, I’m starting to see America might not be in total decline, just hitting puberty. So yea, it’s about to get weird. But we aren’t going anywhere.

For the soft among you out there, I guess you’re just gonna have to deal.

[Cernovich @Cernovich]

Scott Adams, facing death, shows us how to live.

Someone recommended “How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big” by Scott Adams. I had burned out on mainstream books, but picked it up, and was hooked. He had put into words a way of living, similar to one I had found, except his approach was systemic and analytical. Better than my own slapdash notes. Outside of religious texts, Adams was and is as close to a “guide to life,” as you’ll ever find. And even if you’re religious, you still live in this world, and would be wise to learn how to navigate it.

Scott is closing in on the end of his life, and even now he is creating new beginnings.

I’d better write this now, I won’t be able to when it’s too late.

After losing Charlie Kirk, a lot of us are wondering how we can possibly write another obituary. While there’s much to complain about the internet and social media, those mediums expanded the sizes of our communities, our influences, and indeed our families. Too often we find new ways to hate people, instead of finding new people to love.

Scott Adams comes up in conversation at every social event I host. “How is Scott Adams doing? Will he make it?” We all talk about streams we watched and lessons learned. It’s a memorial except he’s still alive. Scott would love to hear that, which is why I have said so repeatedly. I’ve lost too many people, via death or fallings-out, to leave feeling unexpressed.

He’s been a surrogate father figure and mentor to millions of people.

Scott Adams is not liked, he is loved.

People don’t “like” Scott Adams, they aren’t “a fan of his.” They love this man. And I do as well. I’m still living in denial of his fate. We all are.

We’d been making a film about the meaning of life, and while Scott Adams had been in both of our other films, we hadn’t booked him for Meaning yet. Then we found out he was going to take the ride of assisted suicide. Foolishly, we had assumed he’d always be around. Nobody ever dies, right? Your dad will be there to take your call the next time you phone home. Your friends aren’t going anywhere. That’s how we too often live. We could book Scott later.

We reached out and he graciously agreed to be interviewed. We all knew it was going to be our last interview together. Scott and I are both efficient with our time. When a moment is over, it’s time to go do something else. Obligations call. The crew pushed this one as long as we could.

After the interview wrapped up and the gear was packed and it was time to go, there was an awkward pause. I broke it.

“Scott, we love you.” He said thank you. “No, Scott, we love you, I mean it, we all do. We love you.”

None of us broke down crying, not that there would have been any shame in that, but we no doubt all soon will.

Well then, what is the lesson of Scott Adams?

On a practical level, the lesson of Scott Adams is the power of showing up. Nobody works harder and on a more regular schedule. You can set your clock to Scott’s show. Too many of us wait for the muse of inspiration or the jolt of information to force us into action. Work, everyday, maybe in obscuring and without tangible benefits for years. Eventually you’ll hit your mark and go beyond.

Scott plugged away with his streams from a small account (after a huge career via Dilbert) and soon became must-watch, and then transcended his role to becoming something much more.

On a spiritual level, we might ask, why do we love Scott? It’s not because he’s so smart (he is). There are not shortage of intelligent, clever, Machiavellian, and rich people with podcasts. When one of them dies, what is lost? All of that Ego and desire for adoration, and does anybody even care? When those people fall while living, who will be there?

Scott is loved because he’s devoted his life to service to humanity. “What is the meaning of life,” is the question we ask every interviewee, and Scott’s answer, “Be useful to humanity.”

Despite pain, sickness, and inevitable death, Scott is doing his daily streams, serving his country and all of humankind until his end.

He’s a light to the world and a mirror for all of us.

What exactly are we doing with the gift of life given to us by God. (Scott believes in the Simulation, but I believe God evens this all out in the Judgment.) Are we doing enough for others? Are we doing anything for others?

Like everyone else, I’m capable of throwing myself a pity party. Sometimes when life is going too well, and I don’t have real problems, I invent some. That’s where the Ego brings you, recursively worshipping itself, and when that fails, tormenting itself, as each path leads to its own attention.

May all of us live more like Scott Adams, and may God bless his immortal soul when he passes.

P.S. I ran this article through Grok for typos. The original version had “immoral” soul where I meant it to read “immortal.” I think Scott would have had a great laugh had that typo been left in.

[Elon Musk @elonmusk]

Correct.

My Tesla and SpaceX shares, which are almost all my “wealth”, only go up in value as a function of how much useful product those companies produce and service.

This means my “wealth” can only increase due to producing more products and services for the public. Moreover, anyone else who is a shareholder in Tesla and SpaceX, which incudes employees, participates in the upside of stock appreciation.

That is because I am a maker, not a taker like the Bernie Sanders type politicians of the world. They take and they’re on the take, because they cannot or will not make.

[Elon Musk @elonmusk]

Am changing the Tesla mission wording from:

Sustainable Abundance

To

Amazing Abundance

[Brian Armstrong @brian_armstrong]

“Message received” is today’s “who is John Galt?”

[Elon Musk @elonmusk]

Most people don’t know that Tesla has had an advanced AI chip and board engineering team for many years.

That team has already designed and deployed several million AI chips in our cars and data centers. These chips are what enable Tesla to be the leader in real-world AI.

The current version in cars is AI4, we are close to taping out AI5 and are starting work on AI6. Our goal is to bring a new AI chip design to volume production every 12 months. We expect to build chips at higher volumes ultimately than all other AI chips combined. Read that sentence again, as I’m not kidding.

These chips will profoundly change the world in positive ways, saving millions of lives due to safer driving and providing advanced medical care to all people via Optimus.

Send an email with three bullet points describing evidence of your exceptional ability to [email protected].

We are particularly interested in applying cutting edge AI to chip design.

Thanks,
Elon