Today, let me introduce you to a new post format.
Here’s the thing: The site’s click-and-click “tiled” design encourages long-form writing.
This was a carefully thought-out decision to keep the quality of the posts high and discourage filler content, but it created a different problem – there was no place for content shorter than longform posts and longer than longform posts. a tweet. That’s most of it.
So here’s my idea: I’ll put a bunch of shorter “posts” in something like a weekly review, a few paragraphs per topic. This is the first one.
We’ll see how often – I’ll probably do one of these every day and just post about half the notes, but let’s start with once or twice a week.
Another advantage is the variety of topics ensuring there will be something of interest to everyone.
“Method of Punishment” is a working title that is subject to change. I think this pun vividly captures the ideal attitude of sharp rationality mixed with dick jokes, but we’ll see how popular it gets.
I wouldn’t mind if it was syndicated into a braver traditional newspaper.
here we go:
cybertruck
The Tesla Cybertruck is a great example of starting from fundamental principles rather than convention. This reaction is a great example of how people react to this surprising solution based on first principles. After the initial shock of subverting expectations wears off and you get used to it, it’s the new normal and obvious, and everything else seems instantly outdated.
Most people go through three stages in design:
- “Fuck”
- “Well, actually…”
- “I want one”
I’m now at 2.5. It will probably reach 3 when the black version launches.
To gauge the Cybertruck’s prospects, I spoke with several rural Americans (the target demographic), and they all said they wanted one. I began to suspect that it would become one of the best-selling cars in history. It could also be the first vehicle to travel on another planet.
Remember, pickup trucks are three of the best-selling vehicles in the U.S., so you can’t solve the problem of automotive emissions without addressing them. For some reason, “rednecks” like this design (it’s sturdy? It reminds them of Reagan-era science fiction? Objectively good?). This will be great for them.
It is the ideal vehicle for all environments, not densely populated metropolitan areas, where even a Fiat 500 would be difficult to use.
This is another example of Elon’s defense against an apocalyptic civilization. Think of the full stack here: space-based internet, decentralized power generation, underground construction, electric vehicles – now, one can virtually live in a bulletproof tank with an optional solar canopy that can travel up to 15 miles a day without any external power source. Remember, his brother Kimbal is also working on indoor farming. Not very successful, as LEDs and electricity would need to become cheaper to make sense, but still working on it.
This is a car for the zombie apocalypse, or a car for cyberpunk after the fall of the US government and/or the second American Civil War.
Tech stacks for colonizing other planets = tech stacks for surviving most situations on that planet = tech stacks for reducing the risk of any bad situations on that planet.
Take me to Mars, Elon
The European Space Agency tweeted that Planet B does not exist.
Well, whose fault is this? It was like the chef telling us there was no lunch.
What do we pay them for? We just let them get away from endless weather satellites and high school experiments with peas and spiders in low Earth orbit, defaulting to the fact that we want cool spaceships and space colonies.
The problem is that, like all bureaucracies (especially those in Francophone countries), ESA has become an employment and welfare program and an industrial subsidy and redistribution program that only occasionally fulfills its official role. (Similar things are happening with fusion power at ITER, a cash-strapped country that may delay Business integration. The TLDR Tokamak has fundamental flaws and relies on vested interests and shedding costs to stay alive. Inertial constraints FTW. )
Of course there is a Planet B, and it’s out there waiting for us. We could make life multi-planetary within a few decades. By 2040, we may have a self-sufficient city on Mars.
Step One: Stop providing France with one-time Ariane subsidies and buy a proper rocket from SpaceX.
Bullying of American Thoughts
It is now fashionable to explain every social problem, outcome gap and individual underperformance in terms of low self-esteem, inadequate encouragement, “negative stereotypes” or an overall lack of external positive reinforcement. This is bullshit on multiple levels, but most importantly it is the exact opposite of what many Westerners, especially Americans, face. Whatever they lack, it’s certainly not self-esteem.
If anything, people are taught to hold themselves in rather unrealistically high regard.
America is a promised land filled with overpromoted idiots, middle-class brains teaching in colleges, honey you can do anything, incompetent fools who believe they are the best thing since sliced bread, epic chips on their shoulders, and discontent fostered by people who are, in fact, already in a better place than they deserve – often at the expense of others.
No, the problem is quite the opposite – generations of Americans have been over-encouraged, and a person who hesitates to say something but feels compelled to say it is a serious form of bullying.
You look at one of those insane manatees with purple hair, a horseshoe through the septum, and fictional sex, and you think, this is a guy who’s never stood on his head in a bathroom stall, and that’s their one big regret.
I’m not saying that bullying is a good thing, but that many forms of healthy social feedback, some of which may be marriage-based, are classified as “bullying” and banned, with the result that people’s shitty self-concepts simply don’t catch on through healthy ridicule and some character-building time shoved into the closet.
Trump is just the tip of the iceberg in the national character of both parties.
They are raised in a narcissistic culture that does not give them the opportunity for a minute of honest reflection in their lives, in fact their most important focus is to prevent honest reflection and replace it with a constructed image – and their true self.
The psychological theories underpinning Western education and parenting are unhelpful; most of the time,nonsense. As long as psychologists and teachers are recruited from the same group of people as astrologers and yoga instructors (the oblivious), the problem of excessive self-esteem and collective narcissism will persist.
He who wants to ignite must burn himself
There have been well-intentioned calls for schools to teach creativity, critical thinking, mindfulness, scientific literacy and emotional well-being. The problem is that the average teacher doesn’t have these things, so it’s hard to teach them to others.
Maybe schools should focus on the facts first and everything else should come from a different place source personal progress. Tutors, parents, peer groups, good books, edgy online writers, all of these are things that education bureaucracies are trying to dismantle and replace, but are unable to offer alternatives.
asymmetric warfare
Do you still remember the time in Iran? Flying a drone Access to Saudi Arabia’s largest oil refinery?
The refinery is surrounded by the best defense technology petrodollars can buy, as well as American and British military bases. However, the drone slipped past without any hindrance.
This means we find that everyone is defenseless against relatively cheap drones that are well within the budget of many non-state actors. Warfare has become more asymmetrical.
Who pays the bagpiper has the final say?
A British official says the UK should demand more of a say in the World Bank because it is Top Contributorand demand reforms.
Thankfully, the gentleman who said this is named “Chakhrabarti,” so it must be taken seriously and not dismissed as white male imperialism.
The World Bank’s development model is essentially this: a petty official flies into an authoritarian cesspit. Local warlords plied him with a 14-year-old prostitute, drugs and a handful of diamonds – or shares in a state-owned enterprise. The petty official approved concessional loans to the dictator, which kept him in power while saddled the country with unsustainable long-term debt.
develop!
So, yes, you can say that the World Bank needs reform.
cut from better cloth
Christmas shopping brings me up close and personal with the fashion world. As industries go, it is by far one of the most corrupt, parasitic, and susceptible to subversion.
Thankfully, the traditional fashion industry – where something is designed by an old gay man in London and then made by child slaves in Asia and sold to women and children at ridiculous prices on someone else’s credit card – is dying.
The future: Small manufacturers closer to the point of purchase, using local materials (cellulose is great) and mass customization through online interfaces.
Related: Studies show that the average number of times a piece of clothing is worn is 5-6 times. This number is probably underestimated for dramatic effect, but in principle, disposable and thoughtless, wasteful, socially irresponsible amateur shopping is real. To be honest, there is still a huge “gender gap”.
Public service announcement: Shopping is not a personality or a hobby.
In this as in other respects, post-communist Europe is leading the way. In the spirit of “waste not, want not,” here it’s normal to wear things until they start to fall apart, at which point they become pajamas and loungewear that you can wear for another ten years.
If a retailer’s product doesn’t last ten years, buy from a retailer whose product will last ten years.
Scotland is amazing and brave
Scots will be able to choose from 21 sexual orientations in the next census.
It means Scotland now has more sex appeal than successful companies.
Then again, this is a country Men all wear skirts Since the 16th century.
Discipline me, Teddy
Teddy Roosevelt “repeatedly warned American men that they had become too office-obsessed, too complacent, too comfortable with physical comfort and moral laxity, failing in their duty to promote race and express masculine vitality.”
It’s easy to see his point.
sugar…honey honey
A British survey found that Tesco honey stuffed Add sugar. There were “concerns that it might work for other vendors.”
nothing. I thought supermarket honey was fake and you needed to buy it from beekeepers, it was common sense. Or become a beekeeper.
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