Reginald

[The Popcast Brothers @PopcastGuys]

IT'S NOT TOO LATE -- @PrimeVideo and PETER FRIEDLANDER... Put STARGATE with MARTIN GERO back in Production! Our Fandom will make up the foundation of a new generation of this franchise by honoring what came before BUT bringing in newer audiences. Don't make the same mistakes Paramount and Disney have made with Star Trek and Star Wars. They failed by leaving out the fan base! WE ARE YOUR STRENGTH! #SaveStargate

[david friedberg @friedberg]

why not just raise income tax rates?

because your real intent is not to just “provide healthcare”.

you’re masking that you are proposing the creation of, for the first time in the 250 years of this American republic, an organized government seizure of private property from citizens.

you’re calling it a “wealth tax” or a “billionaires tax” or “millionaires tax” or whatever nom du jour polls well. but at the end of the day, it’s the seizure of private property from citizens by the government. citizens that earned money, paid their fair taxes on those earnings (53% if they live in California) and are now being told they need to hand over after-tax assets because the government has failed to provide promised services with the revenue it’s collected, and are now re-casting their own failure to be a socio-economic inequity that must be justly resolved... a slippery slope that has never gone anywhere good (see economic effects in USSR, Cuba, Venezuela, France and Norway wealth tax etc.)

the American founders fled tyranny in Europe and this amazing nation was populated by immigrants (myself and your parents) from around the world not just looking for a “better life” but for a place where they could have freedom from tyrannical governments that can take what they want from private citizens. a great nation borne of property rights, the rule of law, and endowed freedoms to believe, speak, or act. these principles led to the greatest run of innovations, successes, and widespread increase in prosperity, for all citizens, ever seen.

the citizens, the individuals, not the institutions, delivered this progress. those who invented, who toiled, who bled, who sacrificed, who took risk and persevered, who led, and who changed the world, are not charlatans, kleptocrats, or oligarchs. they’re what made us all better off. prosperity is a measure of america’s success, not its failure.

it is your principle that is so offensive, as evidenced by the broad disdain for your flippant flirtation with the darkest of human fantasy - socialism. you and other neo-socialists have led so many of us to reflect on America’s history and what it is becoming. that now leads so many to consider, so unnecessarily, leaving their homes for a place where everyone stands up to shout down the principle you suggest. because if your ideas are now considered moderate, it’s clear this titanic is sinking.

that a “simple tax” of taking assets that have been earned, through toil and tribulation, rightly taxed, and preserved, should now be unjustly seized, is your solution to a problem of obvious government mismanagement and outright fraud, tells us that your true motivation lies not in giving people healthcare but in cutting down success and deleting the system of prosperity and opportunity for all.

i don’t care, and neither should anyone else, what the sum total market value of a private citizens private assets might be. it is none of my business and should be none of yours. because, again, once you open that pandora’s box, we might as well study Lord of the Flies … there is literally nothing stopping 51% of citizens demanding that their government go out and seize 100% of the private property of the 49%.

want to give healthcare to people in need? do your job and fix healthcare. make it affordable. want to be lazy about it? then do your job lazily and raise income taxes.

want to take private property from private citizens who have paid their fair share of taxes and legally earned their property, then honestly declare that it is envy, not inequity, that you strive to resolve…

[Reginald @reginalddewil]

@DeSmedtTim @GeertNoels Gemakkelijk gezegd, als duif

[Reginald @reginalddewil]

@lopp Ha, I started rereading this series 2 weeks ago.

[Gill Verdon @GillVerd]

If you're worried about AI automating your product, simply set your sights higher.

Simply have to find the crossover point between goal / task ambition and current / future AI capabilities.

[Elon Musk @elonmusk]

BIG BALLS 🤣🤣🤣

[Paul Razvan Berg @PaulRBerg]

A manifesto for MEGA: Make Europe Great Again 🇪🇺

Dear EU bureaucrats,

We're done.

• Done with your excessive regulations.
• Done with your anti-tech stance.
• Done with your degrowth mindset.
• Done with your socialist policies.
• Done with your woke bullshit.
• Done with your risk-averse attitude.

It's time to Make Europe Great Again.

→ Celebrate Entrepreneurship

We've grown complacent—taking centuries of progress for granted, as if new technology comes to us on a silver platter.

We're stuck in a local maximum, blind to how much better things could be if we allowed free markets to lead the way.

We're driving away our entrepreneurs with pointless red tape and silly taxes on unrealized gains.

This has to STOP.

Entrepreneurship should be encouraged and celebrated.

→ Embrace Technology

Technology is the frontier of the future, but we're mere spectators on the global stage—not pioneers.

This is not due to a lack of talent. Europe is home to a world-class talent pool.

The problem? We’ve made it nearly impossible for entrepreneurs to thrive here.

Worse still, we’ve forgotten that science and technology aren’t optional extras—they are the only tools capable of solving our most pressing problems. Actually, all problems.

It’s time to change course. Time to EMBRACE technology like our lives depend on it—because they kinda do.

→ Seize the Opportunity with the US

Trump and Musk are steering the US toward significant economic and technological growth, and potentially making humanity a multiplanetary species.

Meanwhile in the EU, we're busy clicking on cookie banners.

The courage and determination of the US are the spirit we need to rekindle at home.

Right now, we have a rare opportunity to restructure Europe, follow in the footsteps of the US, and make the West stronger.

We need our own @DOGE to undo the nonsensical regulations and cut wasteful spending.

Repeal GDPR. Repeal MiCA. Repeal DMA. Repeal the AI Act. Repeal the other baloney regulations.

→ Rediscover Our Roots

It's a shame that the land that gave birth to the Enlightenment—a beacon of reason, freedom, and innovation—is dimming its own light.

We're hesitating on the brink of our potential.

The Enlightenment wasn't just a historical period; it was a mindset—a commitment to challenge, to question, and to advance.

We owe it to our forebears and ourselves to REIGNITE that flame.

"The end of law is not to abolish or restrain, but to preserve and enlarge freedom."

― John Locke, Second Treatise of Government

→ Europe, Wake Up!

We must change our culture to one that is:

• Pro-progress
• Pro-tech
• Pro-entrepreneurship
• Pro-science
• Pro-freedom of speech
• Pro-free markets
• Anti-overregulation

We must also ensure that every immigrant who settles in Europe assimilates and adheres to these cultural values.

So here we are, standing at a crossroads.

Will we keep sleepwalking like zombies in a bureaucratic nightmare, or will we wake up, snap out of it, and reclaim our legacy of freedom and innovation?

The choice is ours. The time is now.

Make Europe Great Again!!!

[Pieter Casneuf @nonkelpier]

Lieve mevrouw politica.

Ik ben ondernemer. Ik ben kankerpatiënt. Dus voor u dergelijke lichtzinnige uitspraken doet waarmee u uw onvermogen etaleert om te besturen, denk graag 2 maal na.

1. Als ondernemer betaal ik bovenop het loon van iedere werknemer dat door politici als jullie wordt kapot belast in de personenbelasting, 25%, vroege 35% sociale zekerheid. Dus u hoeft me absoluut geen lessen te lezen over wie die sociale zekerheid betaalt. U zeker niet. Ik doe als ondernemer en werkgever mijn bijdrage.
2. Ik ben kankerpatiënt. Ik weet heus wel de sociale zekerheid te waarderen. Mijn behandeling inclusief operatie heeft dicht tegen de 100k€ gekost. Een groot deel werd door de sociale zekerheid vergoed. Maar het is enkel omdat ik een privé verzekering had, dat me dit in fine niks heeft gekost. Niks is een over statement want ik heb zowel mijn sociale zekerheid betaald alswel mijn privé verzekering.

Mocht u nog dergelijke lichtzinnige uitspraken willen doen, denk 2 maal na. Ik verwacht van onze bestuursleden dat ze weten waarover het gaat en niet de Conner achterna gaan in lege slogans en marketing taal.

Doe uw job. Opnieuw : doe godver domme uw job. Of neem ontslag als u die niet verstaat of enkel meeliopt met partij slogans.

Mijn wens is dat uw bende politici even basis lessen in financieel management krijgt. Het zo u en uw collega's behoeden voor platte marketing populistische uitspraken a la Conner die enkel zijn Narcisme hoopt te dienen.

Get a life. Doe uw fucking job. En zet de rekeningen op orde. In plaats van op de poef van de maatschappij te leven en te denken dat u bezig bent met de juiste dingen.

[BowTiedMara @BowTiedMara]

Milei revealed that “Donald Trump brought Elon Musk into his government to replicate what Sturzenegger is doing here”: “Elon is in contact with Federico.”

[Reginald @reginalddewil]

@DeSmedtTim De enige plaats waar dat exact gedefinieerd is, is in de belastingschijven

[Ethan Mollick @emollick]

I remain confused by the "GenAI is a dud" arguments.

We have controlled experiments showing 20%-40% gains in real work using GenAI. Adoption rates are the fastest in history. There is value.

I think what folks may mean is that "companies haven't captured the value created yet."

[Rik Torfs @torfsrik]

Wordt het niet de hoogste tijd om in Brussel een grote betoging te plannen voor de bescherming van de vrijheid van meningsuiting in België en in Europa? Heel graag bereid om mee te doen.

[Pieter Casneuf @nonkelpier]

@GeertNoels @GLBouchez Media in Vlaanderen zijn een zeer klein links elitair vocaal onderonsje.

Daarom dat we zo erg schrikken bij verkiezingen als dat blijkt niet representatief te zijn.

Minder kranten lezen, meer met de mensen spreken, beste politici.

[Dr. Eli David @DrEliDavid]

Rowan Atkinson on free speech, and how it is threatened in Britain 🇬🇧

[The Culturist @the_culturist_]

Why did past societies build so much "useless" beauty everywhere — and why did we stop?

It might be a measure of a culture's health... (thread) 🧵

[Balaji @balajis]

HOW X BEATS NYT + CNN

It's now possible for X to beat NYT and CNN at their own game. Just use AI to render the X feed as a better newspaper and a better TV station, and then distribute it wherever NYT and CNN are found.

Here's how.

Start with an AI paper. The core idea is to use AI to generate a newspaper-quality site from the raw X feed. If you look at X Explore, we're already almost there! Then use AI to generate a proper newspaper from the feed, auto-updated every hour, with permalinks and author bios and everything. Much of what NYT does anyway is reprinting X posts without attribution — so just use AI to cut out the middleman. Throw in high quality crosswords and cooking to compete with every feature of NYT, and make the whole bundle 100% free.

Then, TV. The next step is to use AI to generate a CNN-type show in any language directly from the X feed. Elon can buy legacy stations or strike deals for distribution, and then play it 24/7 in airports, lounges, and wherever CNN's fake news is shown. Starlink probably helps here, and X TV will likely be much cheaper to produce per minute than CNN.

Next, new creators. In a sense both the proposed X newspaper and X TV channel are really just reformatting the feed. They are just alternative clients for X, for more passive news consumers who still listen to legacy newspapers and TV. But the mere existence of these channels will stimulate new, higher quality kinds of content creation, as people seek to have their content highlighted on the frontpage of X News or in the X TV channel.

Moreover, an X newspaper and X TV station would be far more egalitarian than legacy New York media, as X would publish people from all over and be AI-localized to every language. Again, it'd also be free, as the Tesla/SpaceX empire is more valuable than NYT/CNN, and could cross-subsidize if need be.

So: X has established a beachhead, and can now play to win. Elon could replace Sulzberger-style nepotism with dispassionate algorithms. Just take the X feed and transform it with AI to defeat NYT and CNN on their home turf.

[Reginald @reginalddewil]

@crypto_bitlord7 So, no actual news it seems. sold.

[Michael Shellenberger @shellenberger]

The totalitarianism we warned of is happening.

The European Union is at this moment forcing big tech companies to secretly engage in mass censorship. Google and Facebook are, apparently, going along with it.

Only Elon Musk’s X, among the major platforms, is resisting.

A few hours ago, Musk said, “The European Commission offered 𝕏 an illegal secret deal: if we quietly censored speech without telling anyone, they would not fine us. The other platforms accepted that deal. 𝕏 did not.”

And so now, the EU is preparing to punish X with massive fines — up to 6% of total global revenue.

I can't imagine a more egregious form of foreign interference in our domestic affairs than foreign governments demanding mass secret censorship for ideological and political purposes.

Most terrifying is the apparently direct involvement of government intelligence and security agencies, and their intermediaries, in demanding censorship.

This is all happening at the very moment that the same governments, including our own, warn of Russian disinformation through spam accounts that hardly anybody ever sees.

Don’t be fooled by what is happening. Governments and former intelligence officials in Europe, Australia, Israel, Brazil, and Ukraine and other nations are not only demanding censorship but also often spreading their own disinformation.

For example, the EU claims that there is more false information on X than on other platforms, and more censorship would reduce it.

This is false. Only X has the open-source Community Notes system, which allows for real-time corrections to false information. A recent study in JAMA, the Journal of American Medicine, found that 97.5% of the Community Notes were entirely accurate, 2%, partially accurate, and 0.5%, inaccurate.

It’s not perfect. I myself sometimes disagree with them. And of course, science is never standing still, so what appears accurate today might not be accurate in the future.

However, X’s Community Notes uses more speech, not censorship, to provide context to controversial content. You can still agree or disagree with the content, even with a Community Note attached.

What the EU wants is for its committees of experts, not Community Notes, to secretly decide what we can read and say online. This is unethical and unconstitutional.

Another key part of the EU’s disinformation is that “researchers” should have access to X’s internal data, which Musk cut off when he bought Twitter. But those people who want the data aren’t researchers. They’re censorship activists, many of whom have deep relationships with governments in general and intelligence agencies in particular.

If the EU succeeds in censoring X, Facebook, Google, and every other major Internet platform, then there is no free speech. There is only government-controlled speech.

Many people rightly worry about the implications of a single man, Elon Musk, being all that stands between us and foreign governments’ totalitarian censorship plans. I worry about that, too. Our speech is inalienable. It is not something governments give to us.

We need to fight back. While we should be grateful to Musk for standing up to the totalitarians in Europe, Brazil, and Australia, we must build a citizen’s movement to fight back.

There’s three things you can do. First, share this video to raise the alarm. Second, add your email to our list here, so we can involve you in the future. And, third, consider making a donation to build the free speech movement and urge Congress and other social media companies to stand up for free speech against foreign interference.

[Reginald @reginalddewil]

@ssubzero @ianmiles Well. Assuming a 15% margin.
The $300 at sales price costs home Depot about $260.
So to compensate, I guess you would need to buy at least 260/0.15 of stuff to compensate with the $300 stuff stolen. Or: $1733.

And indeed, it doesn't make it right 👍