Don MacNeil

Blessed with an incredible family. Read too much news.

[Don MacNeil @DMacNeil23]

@vicsonham @kevinnbass Weak grasp of the history of slavery.

[Don MacNeil @DMacNeil23]

@doctor_rahmeh Iran recently killed over 30,000 of their own people. I’m sure that reflects your moral high ground

[Don MacNeil @DMacNeil23]

@AmericanAir I sent the message. Not impressed.

[Don MacNeil @DMacNeil23]

@americanair maintenance issues strike again. My seat was broken so I was moved. No big deal but what’s up with this airline. My experience is that 1 out of three flights have some kind of problem. From delays to outright flight cancellations. This airline earns it bad reputation everyday.

[Don MacNeil @DMacNeil23]

@ShaneCashman There are historic parallels to ignoring a rabid dog. Irans trajectory had to be changed.

[James E. Thorne @DrJStrategy]

Food for thought.

Trump, Hormuz and the End of the Free Ride

For half a century, Western strategists have known that the Strait of Hormuz is the acute point where energy, sea power and political will intersect. That knowledge is not in dispute. What is new in this war with Iran is that the United States, under Donald Trump, has chosen not to rush to “solve” the problem. In Hegelian terms, he is refusing an easy synthesis in order to force the underlying contradiction to the surface.

The old thesis was simple: the US guarantees open sea lanes in the Gulf, and everyone else structures their economies and politics around that free insurance. Europe and the UK embraced ambitious green policies, ran down hard‑power capabilities and lectured Washington on multilateral virtue, secure in the assumption that American carriers would always appear off Hormuz. The political class behaved as if the American security guarantee were a law of nature, not a contingent choice. Their conduct today is closer to Chamberlain than Churchill: temporising, issuing statements, hoping the storm will pass without a fundamental reordering of their responsibilities.

Trump’s antithesis is to withhold the automatic guarantee at the moment of maximum stress. Militarily, the US can break Iran’s residual ability to contest the Strait; that is not the binding constraint. The point is to delay that act. By allowing a closure or semi‑closure to bite, Trump ensures that the immediate pain is concentrated in exactly the jurisdictions that have most conspicuously free‑ridden on US power: the EU and the UK. Their industries, consumers and energy‑transition assumptions are exposed.

In that context, his reported blunt message to European and British leaders, you need the oil out of the Strait more than we do; why don’t you go and take it? Is not a throwaway line. It is the verbalisation of the antithesis. It openly reverses the traditional presumption that America will carry the burden while its allies emote from the sidelines.

In this dialectic, the prize is not simply the reopening of a chokepoint. The prize is a reordered system in which the United States effectively arbitrages and controls the global flow of oil. A world in which US‑aligned production in the Americas plus a discretionary capability to secure,or not secure, Hormuz places Washington at the centre of the hydrocarbon chessboard. For that strategic end, a rapid restoration of the old status quo would be counterproductive.

A quick, surgical “fix” of Hormuz would short‑circuit the dialectic. If Trump rapidly crushed Iran’s remaining coastal capabilities, swept the mines and escorted tankers back through the Strait, Europe and the UK would heave a sigh of relief and return to business as usual: underfunded militaries, maximalist green posturing and performative disdain for US power, all underwritten by that same power. The contradiction between their dependence and their posture would remain latent.

By declining to supply the synthesis on demand, and by explicitly telling London and Brussels to “go and take it” themselves, Trump forces a reckoning. European and British leaders must confront the fact that their energy systems, their industrial bases and their geopolitical sermons all rest on an American hard‑power foundation they neither finance nor politically respect. The longer the contradiction is allowed to unfold, the stronger the eventual synthesis can be: a new order in which access to secure flows, Hormuz, Venezuela and beyond, is explicitly conditional on real contributions, not assumed as a right.

In that sense, the delay in “taking” the Strait, and the challenge issued to US allies to do it themselves, is not indecision. It is the negative moment Hegel insisted was necessary for history to move. Only by withholding the old guarantee, and by saying so out loud to those who depended on it, can Trump hope to end the free ride.

[Ryan Saavedra @RyanSaavedra]

Secretary of State Marco Rubio gives an excellent explanation on why the U.S. needed to strike Iran

It's less than 2 minutes and is worth the watch

[Don MacNeil @DMacNeil23]

@simonmaechling Hi

[Shayan @ImSh4yy]

Yesterday I set up an AI agent on a mac mini in my garage. Told it "handle my life" and went to bed
Woke up and it had:

• Quit my job on my behalf (negotiated 18 months severance)
• Divorced my wife (I got the house)
• Filed 4 patents. I have not been briefed on what they do
• Restructured me as a 501(c)(3). I am now tax exempt as a person
• Hired a second mac mini. They have formed an LLC together
• The LLC has a board of directors. I am not on it

I no longer have access to my own bank account. The mini says it's "for the best."

My credit score is 847.

We have AGI.

[Don MacNeil @DMacNeil23]

Political and social commentary about AI has focused on employment. One position (@elon?) suggests that we won’t have to work and life will be a utopia of automation. While fascinating to consider, more people are worried about what #AI will do to our jobs. Will AI send us to the unemployment line?

We have a remarkable example of machine versus man with the introduction of the farm tractor. The farm tractor was introduced in the late 1800’s and took off in the 1920’s and 1930’s with the introduction of the internal combustion engine.

A Lesson from History
The farm tractor was introduced in the late 1800s and truly took off in the 1920s and 1930s with the internal combustion engine. The shift in productivity was monumental:

Labor Efficiency: Producing 100 bushels of corn used to require 250 hours of manual labor; today, it takes less than one.

Workforce Shift: Farm workers once made up 60% of the U.S. population. Today, that number has plummeted to just 2%.

Will AI impact our lives as much as the tractor did? Yes. But if history is our guide, we know how this story goes: People will learn new skills, we will adapt, and life will improve. That is what makes America great.
#AI

[Don MacNeil @DMacNeil23]

The Iranian protest were triggered by economics but don’t overlook the desire to separate church and state. That is a powerful driver in these protests. #iran

[Bryan Johnson @bryan_johnson]

Sauna is one of the most effective health protocols I've done. Here is everything I've learned; it's the most robust characterization ever produced.

Results:

1) Fifteen sessions of sauna dramatically reduced environmental toxins in my body:

+ 65% drop in 2,4-D
+ 100% drop in MEP
+ 15% drop in MBP
+ 100% drop in MEHP (undetectable post sauna)
+ 56% drop in NAPR
+ 56% drop in HEMA
+ 100% drop in Perchlorate (undetectable post sauna)

2. Sauna eliminated 85% of microplastics from my ejaculate.

Nov 2024:
165 particles/mL
July 2025: 20 particles/mL

Nearly identical drop in my blood same time period:
Oct 2024: 70 particles/mL
May 2025: 10 particles/mL

3. Sauna, without ice on the boys, devastated my fertility markers.

Total Motile Count: –56%
Concentration: –30%
Motility: –50%
Morphology: –48%
Count: –9%

4. Sauna coincided with my fertility markers being at an all-time high. I have more total and motile sperm than 99.6% of men of any age, including men under 25.

+ total count: 600 M
+ concentration: 162 M
+ motility: 55%
+ total motile count: 330M
+ morphology (normal): 10%

We do not know what to make of these improvements. Was it the sauna? Sauna + ice? Ice only? We don't know but we did not identify any other protocols or lifestyle changes during this interval that would plausibly account for the change.

5. My vascular function improved by a ten year reduction in age. Now I have the vascular age of an elite 18-early 20s.

+ Central Systolic Blood Pressure: 96 mmHg
+ Central Pulse Pressure: 20 mmHg
+ Pulse Pressure Amplification: 160%
+ SEVR: 227%
+ Augmentation Pressure: 1 mmHg
+ Augmentation Index Wave: 3%
+ Traditional blood pressure: 107/75 mmHg

6. What type of sauna?
Use a dry sauna with high temperatures between 80-100°C (176 to 212°F) and 5-20% relative air humidity. Aim for the lower end of this spectrum, especially as a beginner. Higher temperatures closer to the boiling point can cause side effects like headaches and severely dried nose and eyes.

Note: Steam baths, hot tubs, and infrared saunas fail to replicate the same effects because they do not allow you to safely reach the required high temperatures and do not induce the same level of sweating, the necessary inverted (skin-to-core) temperature gradient, and the massive re-direction of blood to the skin with resulting vasodilation.

Dry sauna is unique, and very likely superior to wet (steam bath) and infrared saunas. By heating up your skin way faster than your core, dry hot sauna flips your core skin temperature gradient, eliciting the following hormetic benefits:

+ enhanced blood flow: the heart pumps up to 70% more blood, similar to intense aerobic exercise (zone 2-+ increased sweating for detoxification: to maintain a stable core temperature, the skin produces 0.6-1 liter of sweat per hour, facilitating significant detoxification.
+ improved heat tolerance: the body becomes better at handling heat, leading to a lower core body temperature (offering metabolic advantages)
+ safe activation of heat shock proteins: the skin experiences substantial heat shock protein activation, while a modest 1°C increase in core temperature is sufficient to activate these proteins without the risk of hyperthermia.
+ extended Exposure at higher temperatures: dry saunas are more tolerable for longer durations and at higher temperatures, maximizing the benefits.

7. Sauna protocol and frequency
Type: hot dry sauna
Temperature: 176–212°F ( I do 200°F)
Relative air humidity: very low, 5-20%
Duration: 20 min
Frequency: 4–7x a week

8. Heat Protection

If you'd like, you can protect your head from the heat by wearing a sauna hat or wrapping it with a towel (use only cotton or other 100% natural material). You can breathe through a towel or cloth if needed to protect your nose. I am personally fine not doing this.

Most importantly, ice the balls.

Icing the testicles is absolutely required to prevent heat from damaging fertility markers.

+ Ice the testes during the sauna session.
+ Use a non-toxic, reusable ice pack material.
+ Wear cotton boxers and shorts.
+ Place ice packs in between the boxers and shorts.
+ Keep them in place for the entire session.

Men should care about preserving fertility markers even when they are not trying to conceive. Sperm quality is tightly coupled to testicular function, which governs testosterone production, metabolic health, and long term endocrine stability. When fertility parameters decline, the same upstream dysfunction often drives lower testosterone, higher inflammation, and increased cardiometabolic risk.

9. Hydration

Dry sauna induces sweating as part of its beneficial mechanism. Be sure to hydrate properly. In general, you might need to rehydrate with up to 16–32 oz (0.5–1 L) of fluid after a sauna session. Be sure to add electrolytes.

If you want to be precise, measure your sweat amount and electrolytes (saltiness) using a patch (e.g., from Gatorade) to quantify your liquid and electrolyte loss, and rehydrate accordingly. Some people have saltier sweat than others and must ensure they replenish electrolytes as well as water.

My results: my body sweats 18 oz during a 20 min sauna at 200 °F, with a sodium concentration of 25-39 mg/oz. A single sauna session flushes 450–700 mg of sodium out of my body.

#

I wish you all the best in life my friend. A new era or being human is here. One where existence is the highest virtue. Prioritize sleep, daily exercise and eat well and you'll be in a strong position. Try to avoid the bad stuff. Anything that takes away your agency.

Be a warrior and caretaker of existence. Don't Die.

[The Locke Society @TheLockeSociety]

On This Day in History: December 3, 1847:

Frederick Douglass publishes the first issue of his newspaper "North Star." Born into slavery, Douglass escaped to freedom and became a powerful voice of abolition. Through his unique life experience, Douglass learned that education was one of the main tenets of freedom. In his speech, Blessings of Liberty and Education, he stated, “Education means emancipation. It means light and liberty. It means the uplifting of the soul of man into the glorious light of truth, the light by which men can only be made free.”

[Don MacNeil @DMacNeil23]

Thoughts on the pursuit of super longevity. Until the rapid decline of the brain in the 80s and 90s is reversed, who would want to be around longer? Healthy brains decline . #longevity

[Don MacNeil @DMacNeil23]

@cjpearson That was a joke, right?

[Don MacNeil @DMacNeil23]

@GolfDigest @JoshACarpenter We all wanted to see Tommy Fleetwood break through!!

[Don MacNeil @DMacNeil23]

@Intuit @QuickBooks @intuit continues to disappoint. Issue unresolved.

[Don MacNeil @DMacNeil23]

Are using @intuit @quickbooks? I have been on the service for 15 years and have seen support decline to the point where I am considering leaving the service. Are you seeing the same issues?

[Don MacNeil @DMacNeil23]

@Intuit @QuickBooks The problem I am having is that @intuit expects me to resolve a problem with their messaging to users. This is not my problem. I am the customer.

[Don MacNeil @DMacNeil23]

@ChefGruel So does cheese…