The Fellow

[Perry E. Metzger @perrymetzger]

In the ancient world, the way many people gained great wealth was by forming gangs of strong men, beating up their neighbors, and taking their stuff.

People still speak with admiration of men like Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar, but they were little better than gangsters who enriched themselves through armed robbery.

This was a negative sum game, and assured that people remained poor and unhappy for thousands of years.

Eventually, however, we figured out that respecting each other’s rights, building things, and trading meant that we could play positive sum games instead. We could increase the amount of wealth, and all would benefit. As a result, we moved from living in unheated shacks to living in what our ancestors would’ve thought of as paradise in only a few hundred years.

However, there are still people out there who think that beating someone up and taking their stuff is a really great idea.

It is the great task of our civilization to shun such people, as they are not fit to be part of society.

[Devon Eriksen @Devon_Eriksen_]

The biggest obstacle to problem solving is "giving things the wrong names".

If your city has a feral human problem, and you call it a "homeless problem", you aren't going to understand the correct solution. So you're going to end up buying a lot of homes for feral drug zombies to turn into rat infested drug dens.

Conversely, if your city has a homeless cat problem, and you call it a "feral cat problem", you're going to end up killing a lot of innocent animals, and being troubled by a lot of unnecessary rats.

If you take a noise mitigating technology, put it on a car and call it a "muffler", then pretty soon you're required by law to have one, because no one wants to listen to 2500 explosions per second right outside his house.

But if you it on a rifle, and apply for a patent calling it a "silencer", then pretty soon you're required by law to not have one, because some Hollywood filmmaker thought it was a magic device that would let you have invisible gunfights in the middle of a crowded subway.

Now let's suppose you want to develop radar camouflage.

To do this, you need eleventy billion trillion squillion dollars from congress, which they will print with their money printer, thereby reducing the value of some carpenter's life savings in Peoria, Illinois to just enough to buy a large pizza.

But since congress has the collective IQ of a goldfish, and less attention span, you can't call it what it is, which is radar camouflage, because then they will think you just need to paint some tan and green blobs on planes, and they will only give you two billion trillion squillion dollars.

They'll still print the rest, of course, but they'll spend it on tiny houses for feral drug zombies (built on contract for two million dollars each by a contractor who just happens to be a senator's cousin), and on murdering homeless cats.

You want that extra nine billion trillion squillion dollars. Partially because you need it, but also because congress just inflated your life savings to the price of one large pizza.

So you call the whole thing a "stealth fighter" which will be "invisible to radar".

And you get eleventy billion trillion squillion dollars. Yay!

But now everyone who isn't an engineer is confused. They now literally think you have an invisible airplane, like Wonder Woman scooting across the sky on her butt in an 80s cartoon.

If you had called it "camouflage", you wouldn't have that problem. Because everybody knows that camouflage doesn't make you invisible. Camouflage just makes it take longer to spot you.

Which gives you more time to do stuff before angry people start shooting at you.

No one would ever call camouflage a "failure" because a soldier wearing a tan and green jacket got shot. Because it's named correctly, so people understand it correctly.

So @Microinteracti1 is dead wrong. But it's not his fault. He just believed the lie that was intended for congress, because he's not an engineer.

It's not even the fault of the people who lied. Yes, they wanted money. But they also wanted less dead pilots.

So whose fault is it?

Congress, of course.

You have to lie to them to get anything done, because they are a bunch of 50+ year old theater kids, with no understanding of the world they live in, and no skills except winning rigged popularity contests and being sex pests to any woman or child who strays too close.

When the system becomes so entrenched and ossified that it spends more time and money dealing with social expectations than physical realities, of course the impingement of universal laws on your bubble is going to come as a bit a of rude shock.

In reality, radar works like light. It bounces off stuff, and then you detect it, and notice that it bounced off something.

Only difference is, light comes from the sun, but you have to shine the radar yourself.

There's a little piece of tech that cyclists use so you won't run them over when they ignore stoplights at night, or cut you off in traffic, entrusting their lives to you while assuming you're heartless because of your Trump 2024 bumper sticker.

This piece of tech is called retroreflective clothing. It's designed to bounce light straight back at whatever angle it came in at, based on the assumption that your eyes are in roughly the same direction as your headlights.

This way, you see them, and you only fantasize about killing them on purpose, instead of doing it for real by accident.

Radar camouflage is the opposite. It's designed to absorb as much radar energy as possible, and to throw the rest off at a different angle.

This increases the time it takes to realize you're there at all, and the time it takes to figure out where you are, which means that you have more time to drop JDAMs on people before someone starts shooting at you.

Which is nice.

But there are countermeasures. First of all, you're still a solid physical object that reflects light, and that includes radar. You can't suppress it all. Secondly, if you're throwing off reflected radar in a different direction, the enemy can put radar emitters, and radar detectors, in multiple places. And have them talk to each other.

A camouflaged guy can hide from one person, but it's harder to hide from ten people standing in a big circle around your hiding spot.

So you use all your tricks, try not to get notice, and you devote special effort to throwing long range munitions at all the stuff people put there to see you with.

But you know the risk, and you take it seriously, because no one told the PILOTS they were invisible.

That's just what they sold to congress.

For eleventy billion trillion squillion dollars of your kids' college money.

[Lauren3ve @Lauren3veMemes]

They had their boot on your face for so long.

This is not the same world anymore.
President Trump is liberating you… whether you like it or not.

[White Papers Policy Institute @WhitePapersPol]

This is our "medium" remigration scenario for Sweden.

- Asylum seekers & illegals sent home

- Welfare dependent migrants are deported

- 50% cut in visa holders

- A 12-year voluntary paid remigration program (assuming 50-55% uptake)

Sweden would be 84-86% Swedish, 92% European, 8% non-Western.

Today Sweden is ~70% Swedish and ~20% non-Western.

[Stuttering Craig (Official) @StutteringCraig]

MUST WATCH.

This NAILS the difference between 90's kids who played video games and Gen Z kids.

Thanks to @ShortN40 for the tip on this.

[Jayroo @jayroo69]

This woman is spot-on. I've never heard "wokeness" defined so perfectly in my life. Check this out, only 3 minutes or so, you'll live 🤣

[Johnny B. Good @Cat5SMASHICANE]

This perfectly describes the liberal of today. I would love to hear some thoughts on this.

[Devon Eriksen @Devon_Eriksen_]

If you want to understand Trump, you have to understand that he's not a politician.

I do not say this as meaningless praise, just to say, oh, he's not a corrupt scumbag. I say it with a very specific meaning.

To understand Trump, you must purge yourself of all expectations you have learned from watching politicians, include the assumptions you are not even aware you are making.

Trump is a completely different animal.

Trump is a businessman, and while there are many sorts of businessman, he is of a very specific type. He rose to wealth and prominence by doing two things very well:

1. Brand reputation building.
2. Negotiation.

#1 forms the basis of how he deals with voters.

#2 forms the basis of how he deals with other power blocs within the US, and with other nations.

You see, the true love of Donald Trump's life is bargaining. He is a business deal sperg. And he's very, very good at it, because the actual process is his idea of fun, and winning at it is definition of pure satisfaction and joy.

He's never made uncomfortable by the play of offer and counteroffer, or by butting heads and seeing who blinks first. That is, instead, his happy place. This means that not only is he totally at peace in the moment, he's also practiced a lot.

When he called his book "The Art of the Deal", it wasn't just because he wants to think he's good at this, it's because this is the meaning of his life. The man finds meaning in haggling the way Musk finds meaning in building technologies, or the way I find meaning in explaining things to an audience.

So when Trump is dealing with others, from political office, he's negotiating as if it were his money. Because that's just how he ticks.

Now, the ground rule of global politics for the past 100+ years is that no matter who you are, you are allowed to rob American taxpayers and voters, so long as you pay American politicians for the privilege of doing so.

All of us, even democrat voters who don't want to think about it, know what 10 percent for the big guy meant, and who the particular big guy was.

For all that time, global politics amounted to treating America as a giant cash pinata, and the deals had only two guardrails on them.

1. You must pay American politicians a large enough sum, in a subtle enough manner.
2. You can't buy anything that your paid-off politicians won't be able to hide their personal connection to.

That's it.

Everything else was on the table.

Trump isn't like that. He can't be bought.

Not because he's some kind of saint, which he isn't, nor because corrupt-politician money is loose change compared to Donald Trump money, which it is.

But because Trump can't stand to deliberate lose a negotiation for a bribe, any more than Floyd Mayweather wants to throw a match to get paid off by bookies.

And this is how Trump became involved in politics in the first place. He was a standard New York City rich moderate democrat. Believed in the Postwar Dream, bought into the raceblind thing, was all in favor of exporting democracy, and taxed capitalism paying for a moderate amount of welfare state. But as he realized the political machines were selling out America, he got personally offended.

Not because he was principled and deeply cared about middle America. Perhaps a little because selling out America was hurting his real estate interests.

But mostly because bad business deals give Donald Trump the ick.

Trump seems like a loose cannon to a lot of people, because they don't what he'll do next. And they don't know that because they don't understand what motivates him.

Trump wants America to make better deals and stop being taken advantage of. And to make those better deals, he has to demonstrate to the people who are used to buying American politicians that the rules in play have changed.

So what's the deal with Venezuela and Maduro?

Simple. If you ride the NYC subway enough, it's pretty likely that eventually a bum will come up to you, whip out his dick, and piss on your shoes.

Why? Because he wants to feel powerful. Because his day isn't going well, and so he wants to ruin yours. Because he's crazy. Because who the fuck cares?

But most of all, because he can. Because NYC is run by out of touch commie liberals, and he knows that if he is arrested, he'll be fed and let out in the morning, but if you punch him in the teeth, your life will be ruined.

So when things change, people need to be put on notice. The bums aren't going to read a sign that says "this subway now functions under Tennessee rules", and if they do read it, they aren't going to believe it. They've heard it all before as a bluff.

You have to actually punch someone in mouth and knock some teeth out. And then have the Tennessee cops show up and say, so what, you shouldn't have pissed on his shoes, dumbass.

It is beyond the shadow of a doubt that Maduro was offered plenty of gentle offramps which would have preserved his dignity, lifestyle, etc, if not his pride.

But he didn't take them, because everything is a bluff... until it isn't.

Maduro is a head on a spike. A signal that the ground truth of how to deal with America has changed.

A signal that both violence, and personal consequences, are no longer off the table.

Because the whole reason for the existence of governments is to wield organized violence instead of the disorganized kind.

Other nations will now be coming to the negotiating table with this example in mind.

America is tired of being your ATM.

[WULF @DerWulf]

Keep noticing, these women have been going hard while men are being pushed to the limit. They are holding the line for us.

[MEMIS @MemIngenjoeren]

Reaktioner som "VARFÖR GÖRA POLITIK AV DETTA, EMPATILÖSA JÄVLAR!!111" bottnar i missförstånd.

Låt mig förklara detta så pedagogiskt jag bara kan.

Alla, exakt alla, berörs av att en ung, oskyldig tjej blivit mördad på ett så jävla grymt och orättvist sätt.

MEN, och det här är avgörande: Det finns en dimension till här. Det här var inte en plötslig, oväntad händelse. Gärningsmannen hade försökt mörda tidigare, och det man hittade på hans enheter visade tydligt att han skulle göra det igen. Mordet på My hade alltså aldrig hänt om våra makthavare inte inbillat sig att den flathet som utsätter våra systrar och döttrar för livsfara, helt i onödan, är av godo. Det gör oss förbannade. Vi är så jävla trötta på den här skiten.

Vill ni ha en verklig förändring? Då räcker det inte med att skicka kondoleanser, glömma bort det en vecka senare, fortsätta som vanligt och sedan skicka samma kondoleans nästa gång.

Kommentarer som "jävla män" hjälper ingen. Jag som man bär inte kollektiv skuld för vad som hänt. Hade en sån som jag fått bestämma, så hade detta kräk fått repet när han kidnappade en stackars 10-årig flicka, som sannolikt inte hade varit vid liv idag om hon inte av ren tur lyckades fly.

[The Alt Hyp @thealthype]

@Alonso_GD "race science" isn't a thing, that's a boogeyman term. There's genetic variance in homo sap, and it clusters, and these clusters are relevant to cognitive potential.

[Anticommie @QueenAnticommie]

This is so FUNNY 😂

[Danish Hussain @astrodanish]

This has been my major issue transitioning from aerospace to biomedical engineering.

In aerospace, EVERYTHING is up for debate. you wana put the wings backwards on a plane? fuck it, Sukhoi su-47. Oh you want intermeshing rotors? Kaman K-max it is.

In medicine, people flex their credentials (“doctor here 👋”) and rely on prior art:
“usually are not”
“standard practice”
“typically not”

EVERYTHING should be grounded in first principles and rigorous testing. Medicine is not like that, because of people like Dr. Kelly Morrison who look at a miraculous full body scanning technology that can see through you at unprecedented resolution- LITERALLY SCI-FI TECHNOLOGY- and can’t imagine using it for preventative means- simply because people haven’t done that before.

You could give a magic X-ray gun to some third world, medieval shaman or witch-doctor and the first thing they would say is “yo we should scan everyone and make sure nothing looks weird inside”.

How is this not the obvious response? I can’t see a future in which everyone isn’t getting MRI’d and having their images analyzed by AI.

The future of medicine IS PREVENTATIVE. i don’t give a fuck what any doctor or pharma company says about it. Their incentive structures have been broken for the last hundred years.

An ounce of prevention > a pound of cure. Please, for the love of God, think a LITTLE outside the box for once!

[IT Unprofessional @it_unprofession]

Our CFO asked me to "audit" our software subscriptions last week.

He sent me a spreadsheet with 200 rows. Slack, Zoom, Jira, Notion, Trello, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday.

He wanted me to survey the team to see which tools were essential.

I told him: "Surveys are for people who care about feelings. I care about OpEx."

I deleted the spreadsheet.

Instead, I logged into the corporate Amex portal and reported the card as lost.

Every single auto-renewal in the company failed instantly.

I call this "The Scream Test."

It’s simple Darwinian procurement.

If a tool goes down and nobody runs to my desk screaming within 4 hours? We didn't need it.

The Marketing team was at my door in 10 minutes begging for Adobe. We renewed it. The Sales team was crying about the CRM in 20 minutes. We renewed it.

But here’s the interesting part.

The HR department’s "Employee Wellness & Engagement Portal" ($12,000/year) has been down for six days.

Not a single person has noticed.

I didn't just save money. I quantified the exact value of our corporate culture.

It is zero.

Stop auditing. Start unplugging. If it’s important, they’ll scream. If they don't scream, it’s just noise.

[The Rabbit Hole @TheRabbitHole]

The likelihood of legacy media discussing a murderer’s race depends on the murderer’s race.

This is why BLM martyrs like George Floyd get endless coverage while cases like Iryna Zarutska are forgotten.

The bias is clear:

[hoe_math = PsychoMath @ItIsHoeMath]

White people treat third world minorities like they treat dogs: adopt, nurture, feed, forgive, be patient.

Third worlders treat white minorities like they treat dogs: beat, rape, kill, burn, eat.

[Cernovich @Cernovich]

I sometimes forget that NATO blew up a critical energy pipeline to spite Russia.

[Libs of TikTok @libsoftiktok]

HOLY SMOKES. Swedish Media @svt also appears to have EDITED Trump’s speech on January 6th to make it look like he called for an insurrection, just like the BBC did

[hoe_math = PsychoMath @ItIsHoeMath]

When I was a kid, maybe 8, 9 or 10, my parents went to a Christmas party with one of those games where you trade gifts. I think it was Yankee Swap.

My father ended up getting socks. Before leaving the party, my mother gave the socks away.

My father was upset. I guess the socks were the only good thing about that party.

Instead of being understanding or remorseful, my mother told my father that they were just socks, and that it did not matter. "Stop complaining."

Still being a child, I felt the same way. Why would you be upset about socks?

In the Autumn of my life, I now understand the principle. How could you give away what's mine without asking me? And if you do, and it bothers me, how can you not care?

About half of modern white women are chronic sock distributors, figuratively speaking. And not just socks, but important things, too. The TV, the fridge, the car, the house, even our jobs. They've given away so much that a lot of white men have nothing left now.

And it's useless to complain! They just call you names. After all, why would it bother you that we gave away your country? Just make infinity more wealth again, from nothing, so I can give that away too!

There are women who understand why this is bad behavior, and why they should not do it. About half of them, if we're being ambitious.

The other half are the reason why letting women vote is a 100-year-old failed experiment that destroyed 15,000 years of ascension through history.

Think of all those wars. All the coal miners and lumberjacks. All the explorers, crossing the Atlantic Ocean and the Oregon trail. All the inventors, scientists, architects, artists. Think about how hard your job is. Think about all those jobs, adding up over time.

They did all that so we could have what we had 30 years ago. And now it's almost all gone. And it "doesn't matter." It's actually your fault! You must just be a lazy loser!

Hold on to your socks!