Mark Griffin

If only I knew now what I knew then…

[Aakash Gupta @aakashgupta]

There's a physicist at Stanford named Safi Bahcall who modeled this exact principle and the math is wild.

He calls it "phase transitions in human networks." When you're stationary, your probability of a lucky event is limited to your existing surface area: the people you already know, the places you already go, the ideas you've already been exposed to. Your opportunity window is fixed.

When you move, your collision rate with new nodes in a network increases nonlinearly. Double your movement (new conversations, new cities, new projects) and your probability of a serendipitous encounter doesn't double. It roughly quadruples. Because each new node connects you to their entire network, not just to them.

Richard Wiseman ran a 10-year study at the University of Hertfordshire tracking self-described "lucky" and "unlucky" people. The single biggest differentiator wasn't IQ, education, or family money. Lucky people scored significantly higher on one trait: openness to experience. They talked to strangers more, varied their routines more, and said yes to invitations at nearly twice the rate.

The "unlucky" group followed the same routes, ate at the same restaurants, and talked to the same 5 people. Their networks were closed loops. No new inputs, no new collisions.

Luck isn't random. Luck is surface area. And surface area is a function of movement.

The lobster emoji is doing more work than most people realize. Lobsters grow by shedding their shell when it gets too tight. The growth requires a period of total vulnerability. No protection, no armor, soft body exposed to the ocean.

That's the cost of movement nobody posts about. You have to be uncomfortable first. The new shell only hardens after you've already moved.

[Francis Hunt - The Market Sniper, CMT (MBA) @themarketsniper]

Are you sweating when filling up with petrol?
Feeling sick whilst paying?
You probably have the CAROWNER virus!
🧐
#DadJoke
@theryptosniper @TheResetSniper

[Rosita Díaz @RositaDaz48]

#THEGRAZIERSDAUGHTER

Alright Australia… a quick yarn from someone living out in the sticks.

To our city cousins we love ya. We really do. But we need a tiny favour right now.

Please stop panic buying the fuel and the food.

I get it. Things feel uncertain and everyone wants to look after their family. Fair enough. But out here in rural Australia, fuel isn’t just something we whinge about at the servo it’s how the whole country keeps ticking.

Fuel runs the tractors.
Fuel runs the harvesters.
Fuel runs the trucks that haul the food from our farms all the way to your Coles and Woolies shelves.

No fuel out here means:
No tractors.
No harvest.
No trucks.
And eventually… no snags, no weet-bix, no Sunday roast.

And here’s the thing about living out bush we drive everywhere.

Kids sometimes travel 100 km just to get to school.
Some people drive hundreds of kilometres for hospital appointments.
Some poor bugger is doing an 1600km round trip for chemo just to stay alive.

Meanwhile old mate Dave down the road is just trying to get diesel so he can plant the crop or harvest that’s meant to feed half the country.

So when fuel disappears from small rural towns because everyone’s panic buying… the whole chain starts to wobble.

And trust me farmers don’t panic easily. We’ve survived droughts, floods, mice plagues, and machinery that breaks five minutes before knock-off.

But empty fuel bowsers?
That one’s a bit harder to farm around.

Look, rural Australia will always do its bit. We grow the food, we load the trucks, and we send it to the cities.

We’ve got you.

But right now we just need everyone to take a breath.

Buy what you need.
Leave some for the next bloke.
Let the system do its thing.

Because when rural Australia keeps moving… Australia keeps eating.

And besides if the farmers can’t get fuel, who’s going to keep supplying the country with bacon, steak, and the sausages for Bunnings fundraisers?

Exactly.

So from the bush to the big smoke we’ve got your back.

Now help us keep the farms running out the back.

🇦🇺 If you reckon that’s fair, give this a share so a few more Aussies see it.

@D_LittleproudMP
@AnnLeahyLNP
@Barnaby_Joyce @DavidCrisafulli

[RFTTE @rftte]

Katherine Floods, NT - Gutsy Cop & Master of the Cyclic! A passing-by R44 pilot dropped a police officer to help a stranded driver and passenger, then went back to retrieve their dog...
IF IT'S FLOODED, FORGET IT.
📷 NT Emergency Service - Katherine Volunteer Unit #ntfloods

[rick @Rickaus75]

Just in case you don’t know:

If you want to see a global crisis, let Australia run out of fuel…

Did you know that Australia is the 22nd largest exporter on earth.

15th largest country by measure of GDP.

As far as minerals go, we are the 3rd largest exporter of minerals on earth but per capita, we are by far the largest.

We are the 3rd largest overall energy exporter on the planet, largest of the OECD countries.

We are the Largest exporter of iron ore #1
$87,700,000,000
87.7 billion dollars or 55.9% of the global total.

Largest lithium producer #1
61,000 tons
46.9% of global supply.

Largest exporter of zinc #1
$2,2100,000,000
2.21 billion dollars

Largest exporter for barley #1
$2,370,000,000
2.37 billion dollars

Largest exporter for Bauxite #1
110 million tonnes

Largest exporters of Liquid Natural Gas #1 in volume
#3 in revenue.
$27,400,000,000
27.4 billion dollars

Largest wheat exporter #1
$10,200,000,000

Largest exporter of sheep #1
49% of global supply
$1,500,000,000

Largest exporter of opals #1
90% of global supply.

Largest exporter of manganese #1
$1,390,000,000

2nd Largest beef exporter after Brazil. 12 billion dollars.
$12,200,000,000

2nd Largest gold exporter #2
310 tons annually
34.2 billion dollars

3rd Largest grain exporter #3
14% of global supply.

Large exporter of copper #3
$64,200,000,000 - 7.1%

2nd largest exporter of uranium. #2
4.1 billion tonnes
We have 30% of the known global uranium reserves.

5th Largest exporter of silver #5

Number 8 exporter of aluminium #8
$4.1 billion dollars
4.5% of global supply

26th Largest exporter of oil #26
$7,540,000,000
$7.54 billion dollars

Australia is the 4th Largest coal producer of coal on earth.

We are the Largest coal exporter on earth. 50% of worlds sea born coal comes from Australia.

150 million coming from the mighty Hunter which is the largest single coal export port on earth.

It is completely irresponsible to allow a country that feeds and powers the world to get into a situation where we may need to pull up trucks because we have a fuel shortage…

And you still have to work and get only 50% of your earnings?
You kidding me!
Where’s the money?

[Sama Hoole @SamaHoole]

1348: The Black Death hits Europe. One-third of the population dies.

After the plague, something unexpected happens: The surviving peasants get healthier. Stronger. Taller.

Why? Labor shortage. Peasants can demand higher wages. More money means they can afford meat for the first time in generations.

Historical records show post-plague peasants negotiating meat as part of their wages. Fresh meat 3-4 times weekly instead of just bread and pottage.

Within one generation, skeletal analysis shows:
- Average height increases 2-3 inches
- Bone density improves dramatically
- Dental health improves
- Nutritional deficiency markers decrease

The nobility panic. Not because peasants are dying. Because the survivors are becoming physically stronger through better nutrition.

1349: English Parliament passes the Statute of Labourers. It's presented as fixing wage inflation. The real purpose is limiting peasants' ability to demand meat as part of payment.

The law fails. Peasants now know what meat does for their health and strength. They won't go back to bread-only diets willingly.

1381: The Peasants' Revolt. Well-fed peasants storm London. They're physically capable of actual rebellion now. The nobility crush the revolt but the message is clear: A well-fed peasantry is a dangerous peasantry.

The nobility's solution isn't to feed people better. It's to find new ways to restrict meat access while making restriction seem voluntary.

This is where "sumptuary laws" and "religious dietary restrictions" become useful. Can't ban meat outright. But you can make it illegal for lower classes to eat "above their station" or make certain meats "religiously impure."

The Black Death accidentally proved that nutrition determines physical capacity and social hierarchy. The elite spent the next 600 years making sure that lesson was never repeated.

Modern parallel: Every health crisis improves slightly during economic booms when working-class people can afford more meat, then deteriorates during recessions when they can't.

But we're not supposed to notice that pattern. We're supposed to think genetics or lack of exercise is the problem.

Not that meat access has always determined population health and the elites have always known it.

[Mark Griffin @captaingriffo]

@TheJerzWay Black Structure

[Jordan Roy-Byrne CMT, MFTA ⛏⛏ @TheDailyGold]

Biggest Story of the Week?

Gold and Silver breaking out against Bitcoin.

This is the biggest relative breakout since inception of Bitcoin and Crypto.

Gold vs. Bitcoin closed at 21 month high.

Silver vs. Bitcoin closed at 23 month high.

[Elon Musk @elonmusk]

Seems like a backdoor way to control access to the Internet by all Australians

[Mark Griffin @captaingriffo]

80 years and still going strong! Happy Birthday Mum!

[Edward Dowd @DowdEdward]

“Watch your thoughts, they become your words; watch your words, they become your actions; watch your actions, they become your habits; watch your habits, they become your character; watch your character, it becomes your destiny.” ~Lao Tzu

[Wall Street Mav @WallStreetMav]

Did we peak in the 1970s?

They designed “grooving area” for homes back then.

🔊

[Konstantin Kisin @KonstantinKisin]

So much focus from the British commentariat on X and Elon Musk and it's true that there were irresponsible people posting unverified allegations here. As there were on all other social media.

But looking at media reporting, if it wasn't for X, we wouldn't even know that gangs of armed & masked Muslim men are rampaging through cities up and down the country. We wouldn't see them hunting down and beating up white people. We wouldn't have yet more evidence of two tier policing. All we would have is the approved narrative.

You can see this with all the screaming about misinformation. When the founder of far left doxxing organisation Hope Not Hate posts misinformation about Muslims being targeted with acid which is completely false and obviously provocative, they just pretend it didn't happen.

Like it or not, human beings invented mass communication platforms. They aren't going away. Governments and legacy media want to crack down on them to re-establish narrative control. I can understand why but it's not going to happen.

Social media still needs a lot of work and things like Community Notes are an important first step in the right direction. We desperately need tools to counteract the fact that false but provocative spreads a lot faster than true but boring. That's human brains for you. It will take a lot of smart people like Elon to work out how to solve this problem in the era of mass communication.

But we're not going back to governments and the media being in charge of what's true. Politicians and journalists are the two least trusted groups in society for a reason.

[Mark Griffin @captaingriffo]

I was lucky enough to be there! Phenomenal!

[Rational Aussie @rationalaussie]

Me watching everything collapse knowing the Fed will print more money than you can possibly fathom, to prevent the entire global financial system from entering the biggest deflationary bust the world has ever seen.

[Vincent Kennedy @VincentCrypt46]

Good Morning X

[BUSHPIG @BUSHBINT]

Everyday News

[Punt Road @punt_rd]

Today a young man on acid realized that all matter’s merely energy condensed to a slow vibration, that we’re all 1 consciousness experiencing itself subjectively, there’s no such thing as death, life’s only a dream & we’re the imagination of ourselves. Heres Tom with the Weather

[Mark Griffin @captaingriffo]

RG is the OG

[Time Capsule Tales @timecaptales]

@historyinmemes Ricky Gervais on people who are easily offended

[Mark Griffin @captaingriffo]

Stay safe out there…

[Richard Farmer @richardlfarmer]

The pressure in a 750 ml bottle of champagne or sparkling wine is about three times that of a standard car tyre, with the potential to launch a cork up to 13 m at speeds of up to 80 km/h. A cork hitting an eye can cause permanent blindness. https://t.co/7yEzicOuid