Category Archives: Science & Tech

Artificial Familiarity

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The internet has made it possible for people around the globe to easily pass information back and forth among one another. This is taken for granted these days, but it is truly a revolutionary event. Since the dawn of civilization information spread no faster than a man could run. In the 19th century the train made this process a tiny bit faster then cars and planes made it even faster in the 20th century, but the internet puts all of us, if we choose, together in real time.

While this feels like a miraculous development for the curious and productive, it may also be a curse we are struggling to understand. The internet puts the smart, curious, and productive people together, but it also puts crazy people together. That nutty woman in the suburbs who thinks she is a psychic can now join up with other women who also think they are psychics. They can form a “community” online where they encourage and reinforce their delusions.

The apparent rise in the number of pedophiles is made possible by the ease with which these people can now associate. In the analog days, these people could not easily collaborate with one another. Those cursed this maladaptation could not easily access this material and there was high risk in trying to obtain it. The internet made it easy for these people to work together to produce and disseminate this stuff. The curious now find this material after a few clicks of a mouse.

Recency bias is the tendency to overemphasize the importance of recent experiences or the latest information when trying to understand current events. The news seems to be full of pedophiles lately, so we think it is a growing problem. The Left coming out in favor of pedophilia now certainly adds to the sense that it is a growing issue, so we have to adjust for that possibility. On the other hand, the number of cases is growing at the same time the Left is celebrating it.

In other words, when it comes to child abuse, the internet is making it easier for the pedophiles to meet one another, thus increasing the phenomenon, but the internet is also making us more aware of it. This increased awareness is made possible by people aware of this trend easily communicating the particulars. The same forces that allow the pedophiles to collaborate in their activity allows normal people to become aware of it and organized to oppose it.

Counterintuitively, the internet is tribalizing society. In the analog days, the pedophiles were a small and manageable problem. These were individuals forced to work in isolation and therefore caused the minimum of harm. Normal people could trust that the odds and the police would protect them, so they saw no need to know much about this issue or work with others to guard against it. The internet brought these people together and they formed two warring camps.

Obviously, the pedophile issue is an extreme example, but relevant due to corporate America embracing the child molesters over their customers. The same tribalizing forces unleashed by the internet are most likely at play here. The beautiful people who make corporate policy now see the Dirt People everywhere. Whenever they go online, they are confronted by Trump voters, heterosexuals, white people and all the other demons their “community” says are evil.

A part of what makes internet tribalization work is that it allows people with a minority view to interact with others holding the same view. This reinforces the belief, but also gives them the sense they are a growing community and therefore their minority view will soon be the majority view. When disconfirmation appears, these people can trust that their online pals will find a way to cope with it and thus provide them a way to not only explain it but reinforce group solidarity.

A good example of this is the recent events in the Ukraine. As events have gone against Ukraine in the war, online communities create pleasing alternative realties where their side is on the march. This guy spends all day everyday explaining to the likeminded why bad news is actually good news. This guy spends his days creating an alternative reality for the likeminded. These online communities operate like the UFO cult at the center of this famous study in the 1950’s

T. S. Eliot famously wrote “Humankind cannot bear very much reality.” To some degree all of us are susceptible to escapism. We want some result, and we look for information that suggests it is happening. Some people, of course, go the other way and fear some result and look for information showing their worst fears are happening. It is two sides of the same coin and all of us are prone to it. Some people are more prone than others as belief operates on a scale like all human traits.

In the analog age, the limits placed on the flow of information left the believer in isolation unless he could physically connect with others. Joining a cult took effort, which is why so few people joined them. In the digital age, the internet is full of cults catering to every conceivable belief. Not only can you connect with thousands who hold your same hopes and fears, you can get instant confirmation that you are the good guy, and the rest of the world is the bad guy.

Of course, the internet is making us more aware of this reality. In the analog days we would have no idea that the Jewish guy across the street had a seething hatred for white people, but in this age we just look at his Twitter profile. Not knowing he hates you made it possible to not hate him. Knowing that he wants you dead makes it impossible to not hate him back. The more we know the more aware we are of the dangers that are lurking around every corner.

Since the dawn of the computer age, people have worried that the machines would become aware and then set about killing off humanity. The truth is, that process has already begun, except the machines are not doing the killing. Instead, they are holding up a mirror to society and letting us see ourselves. We do not like what we see, so we will find others who agree with us that we must kill off those other guys. It is not Artificial Intelligence that will get us, but Artificial Familiarity.

If you like my work and wish to kick in a few bucks, you can buy me a beer. You can sign up for a SubscribeStar subscription and get some extra content. You can donate via PayPal. My crypto addresses are here for those who prefer that option. You can send gold bars to: Z Media LLC P.O. Box 432 Cockeysville, MD 21030-0432. Thank you for your support!

Promotions: We have a new addition to the list. The Pepper Cave produces exotic peppers, pepper seeds and plants, hot sauce and seasonings. Their spice infused salts are a great add to the chili head spice armory.

Above Time Coffee Roasters are a small, dissident friendly company that roasts its own coffee and ships all over the country. They actually roast the beans themselves based on their own secret coffee magic. If you like coffee, buy it from these folks as they are great people who deserve your support.

Havamal Soap Works is the maker of natural, handmade soap and bath products. If you are looking to reduce the volume of man-made chemicals in your life, all-natural personal products are a good start.

Minter & Richter Designs makes high-quality, hand-made by one guy in Boston, titanium wedding rings for men and women and they are now offering readers a fifteen percent discount on purchases if you use this link. If you are headed to Boston, they are also offering my readers 20% off their 5-star rated Airbnb.  Just email them directly to book at sales@minterandrichterdesigns.com.

The Tyranny Of The Stupid

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Note: Behind the green door is a post about the paradox of tolerance, a post about the growing Ukraine quagmire and the Sunday podcast. You can sign up for a green door account at SubscribeStar or Substack.

In The Past is a Future Country, Ed Dutton and J.O.A. Rayner-Hilles, argue that the West is about to be swamped by an unsustainable wave of stupid people. This is not the result of immigration, but rather the culmination of an evolutionary process that began in the Industrial Revolution. Darwinian selection weakened along with the increase in living standards. The result is a steady increase in narcissistic stupid people who undermine the fundamentals of Western society.

In this post, Ed Dutton makes the point that liberal female politicians are getting dumber, as a result of this process he outlined in his book. He relies on two examples, Sanna Marin of Finland and Angela Rayner of Britain, to make his point. Both women are on what we insist on calling the Left and both women are morons. Not only are they stupid, but they appear to have come from stupid parents. They are Nth generation morons who have risen to the top of politics.

It is an amusing and satisfying read for people who think of themselves on the Right, even if he is making sweeping claims from just two examples. For as long as anyone can recall, the people we call the Left have claimed that their opponents are unsophisticated morons who should be dismissed. Having this turned on its head with the use of the human sciences is good fun, but it may be missing the real cause for the great dumbing down of Western politics.

The ideal politician in a liberal democracy has an extremely high verbal dexterity along with an extremely low degree of self-awareness. In fact, the best politicians of this age are glib narcissists who have never done anything useful. Much of the panic over Donald Trump is due to the fact he worked in the dreaded private sector. Having had anything other than a ceremonial position in the real economy is so strange in politics that the political class naturally views it as a defect.

The reason for this is despite the fact we insist on calling it politics, there is little in the way of politics happening in a modern liberal democracy. Everyone in the political system agrees on the moral claims. As Marx noted, when you get the morality settled, there is no need for politics. Put another way, once everyone agrees on the goal, then you are left with a debate about how best to achieve it. The barrier to entry in modern politics is the moral questions.

As a result, the selection pressure in politics is for people who will never color outside the lines and always promote the latest thing. The more natural someone is at conforming to the prevailing orthodoxy, the less likely they are to question what is demanded of them. Of course, if they are especially good at appearing enthusiastic about the latest thing, then all the better. The people in charge are always on the hunt for the glib toady who can really sell the latest thing.

As we see with actors, a lack of self-awareness is key. Someone who is painfully aware of how they look to others, or worries about how they look to others, is not going to be a particularly good performer. Humiliating yourself for laughs or applause works best when you cannot imagine the concept of humiliation. It is why the narcissistic moron is a well-known type in the entertainment world. An idiot who thinks highly of himself, but never questions the script is an ideal actor.

Just as an actor who easily “believes in the project” is always in demand, the politician who is always ready to run with the latest thing is always rewarded. His donors will make sure he is kept in the lifestyle he thinks he deserves. His party will always rely on him to take point on the latest thing. Joe Biden made a long career in politics being a narcissistic simpleton, despite stealing everything in sight. Joe Biden is the perfection of modern democratic politics.

It is not just electoral politics where we see this process, but the politics of the managerial elite as well. David French is a goofy looking buffoon but he has risen to the top of the political media because he has no shame. He will say whatever he needs to say in order to shine amongst the other simpletons. French is the combination of oleaginous rumpswab and narcissistic simpleton that has come to define the chattering classes in the United States.

All of this is the result of democracy. Not the mechanics of voting, but the belief that the general will is the moral authority. Once a society accepts this claim, turns the mob into a god, then moral conformity must follow. After all, if there is no agreement, the general will is unknown, then the people are left with no moral authority. Therefore, the solution is to impose a moral consensus and religiously oppress dissent. The only way democracy can work is if everyone agrees.

This is why Western societies are now policed by a volunteer army of simpletons, prodded along by the autocrats. Democracy collapses if there is not a perceived agreement on the moral questions. Even though the people who rise to the top are stupid, they understand the need for consensus. This is why they so enthusiastically impose the latest thing on the public. Who they are depends upon the belief that everyone supports the latest thing.

None of this is to say that Dutton is wrong about Darwinian selection pressure declining with material prosperity. That is certainly true. Smart people made society safer for stupid people, which allowed the stupid to multiply like tribbles. The reason the stupid are dominating politics, however, is that democracy selects for stupidity because stupid people are much more likely to support the moral consensus. Poverty would not arrest our descent into democratic imbecility.

If you like my work and wish to kick in a few bucks, you can buy me a beer. You can sign up for a SubscribeStar subscription and get some extra content. You can donate via PayPal. My crypto addresses are here for those who prefer that option. You can send gold bars to: Z Media LLC P.O. Box 432 Cockeysville, MD 21030-0432. Thank you for your support!

Promotions: We have a new addition to the list. The Pepper Cave produces exotic peppers, pepper seeds and plants, hot sauce and seasonings. Their spice infused salts are a great add to the chili head spice armory.

Above Time Coffee Roasters are a small, dissident friendly company that roasts its own coffee and ships all over the country. They actually roast the beans themselves based on their own secret coffee magic. If you like coffee, buy it from these folks as they are great people who deserve your support.

Havamal Soap Works is the maker of natural, handmade soap and bath products. If you are looking to reduce the volume of man-made chemicals in your life, all-natural personal products are a good start.

Minter & Richter Designs makes high-quality, hand-made by one guy in Boston, titanium wedding rings for men and women and they are now offering readers a fifteen percent discount on purchases if you use this link. If you are headed to Boston, they are also offering my readers 20% off their 5-star rated Airbnb.  Just email them directly to book at sales@minterandrichterdesigns.com.

The Modern Mirsky

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In 1904, Prince Pyotr Mirsky was appointed Minister of the Interior by Tsar Nicholas II, after the previous Minister of the Interior, Vyacheslav von Plehve, had been assassinated by Jewish revolutionaries. This was a volatile time in Tsarist Russia, as trust in the system was at a low. Liberal reformers wanted what they thought the West had in terms of political freedom. Revolutionaries were conducting terror campaigns in order to undermine the tsarist system.

For his part, Mirsky was both a reformer and loyal to the Tsarist system. In his role as Governor-General of Vilna, which is modern day Lithuania and Belarus, Mirsky implemented liberal reforms like granting political rights, ending the pogroms against the Jews, and allowing a degree of autonomy to ethnic minorities. In his role as Minister of the Interior, he granted freedom of the press, freedom of religion and increased the power and authority of local self-government.

Mirsky was not a reformer because he had dreams of creating a liberal paradise to replace tsarist Russia. He was a reformer because he worried that the lack of reform would result in more radicalism, like the sort that had claimed the life of his predecessor and the life of the Tsar’s grandfather. For Mirsky and his supporters within the system, liberal reform was a way to address some of the issues of the people, while also maintaining the legitimacy of the tsarist system.

Uncertain times always product men like Mirsky. He was not the only reformer around Tsar Nicholas before the revolution. There were others but all of them failed to arrest the process that eventually led to revolution. Reformers were around the King Louis XVI and among the aristocracy prior to the French Revolution. They failed for the same reason Mirsky failed. There were men who feared reform would go too far and there were those who feared reform would not go far enough.

This is what should come to mind while watching Elon Musk try to navigate his way through the current crisis. Musk is a reformer at heart. He bought Twitter because he thought it was drifting away from its essential purpose which is to allow for free and open debate about the issues of the day. His inhospitable takeover of the company was driven by a genuine concern for what is happening in the West. Like all reformers, Musk fears what could happen if current trends continue.

It may seem a bit odd to compare Musk to Mirsky or any of the other reformers who existed in revolutionary times. After all, Musk is the world’s richest man. In the managerial age, however, that only buys a seat at the table. The nine other men in the top-10 richest list are worth five times Musk combined. Apple has a hedge fund that is ten times the wealth of Musk. Blackrock controls trillions in assets and has unlimited access to the highest reaches of government.

While Musk may be the world’s richest man and the most famous of the plutocracy, he is just one voice among many. The managerial elite is thousands, and the managerial class is millions of people. This new class is analogous to the aristocratic classes that existed in 18th century France and 19th century Russia. The best Musk or any liberal reformer can do is influence the people in the system. This is what Musk is attempting with his mild reforms of Twitter.

In this illiberal age, Elon Musk has appointed himself to be the minister of speech on-line and is attempting to roll back the reactionary controls that were put in place by the ruling class over the last decade. While Twitter is not the internet of old, Musk has rolled back much of the censorship. He still bans certain accounts, mostly as a way to tell the reactionaries that his reforms will not go too far. Otherwise, he has had a light hand on the censorship of his platform.

This is where that old revolutionary vice shows its jaws. The side that fears the reforms will go too far has successfully organized an advertising boycott. State sanctioned pressure groups like Media Matters have organized other pressure groups to harass companies that were advertising on Twitter. Those companies dropped their ads, resulting in a fifty percent decline in ad revenue. Musk has been forced to hire a girl boss approved by the reactionaries to be his new CEO.

Meanwhile, the other jaw of the vice sees what is happening and assumes Musk will eventually be brought to heel. Open sites like Gab continue to flourish, building on the alternative platform model. Amusingly and a bit ironically, the hard-core censors are abandoning Twitter for the opposite reason. Mass media companies, no longer assured of artificial reach on Twitter, are also jumping ship. Musk is facing the same dilemma all reformers face when taking the middle position.

On January 22, 1905, soldiers of the Imperial Guard fired on demonstrators in Saint Petersburg as they marched towards the Winter Palace. Hundreds were killed and thousands were arrested in what came to be known as Bloody Sunday. Mirsky denied having any role in it, but he was blamed by his conservative opponents, as well as the radical opponents of his half-measures. Mirsky did the honorable thing and resigned from his office and retired from politics.

In the end, Mirsky was like all prior reformers in that he was both right and wrong about what was happening. He was correct that radicalism was spreading due to the inability of the system to address the issues of the times. He was wrong in thinking that the solutions to the problems of the system could be found in the system. Just as there was no saving King Louis XVI and the old order, there was no saving Tsar Nicholas II and the system that made him possible.

This is where liberal reformers like Musk find themselves. On the one hand, they are correct in fearing a rising tide of radicalism. He rightly sees that it is driven in part by the abuses of the ruling class, of which he is a part. The trouble is the system cannot withstand open debate. It cannot risk questioning the shibboleths that sustain the moral framework at the heart of the managerial system. In the end, reformers will be crushed by that old vice that has destroyed prior reformers.

If you like my work and wish to kick in a few bucks, you can buy me a beer. You can sign up for a SubscribeStar subscription and get some extra content. You can donate via PayPal. My crypto addresses are here for those who prefer that option. You can send gold bars to: Z Media LLC P.O. Box 432 Cockeysville, MD 21030-0432. Thank you for your support!

Promotions: We have a new addition to the list. The Pepper Cave produces exotic peppers, pepper seeds and plants, hot sauce and seasonings. Their spice infused salts are a great add to the chili head spice armory.

Above Time Coffee Roasters are a small, dissident friendly company that roasts its own coffee and ships all over the country. They actually roast the beans themselves based on their own secret coffee magic. If you like coffee, buy it from these folks as they are great people who deserve your support.

Havamal Soap Works is the maker of natural, handmade soap and bath products. If you are looking to reduce the volume of man-made chemicals in your life, all-natural personal products are a good start.

Minter & Richter Designs makes high-quality, hand-made by one guy in Boston, titanium wedding rings for men and women and they are now offering readers a fifteen percent discount on purchases if you use this link. If you are headed to Boston, they are also offering my readers 20% off their 5-star rated Airbnb.  Just email them directly to book at sales@minterandrichterdesigns.com.

Our Artificial Reality

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Note: I was on the RamZPaul show yesterday. The replay of the show is up on Rumble and my part is the second hour.

The release of ChatGPT last fall did not get a ton of attention initially, but slowly people noticed it and then it quickly started to trend on-line. Influencers jumped on various claims about artificial intelligence that are mostly cribbed from science fiction movies and television shows. The next phase was the handwringing about artificial intelligence destroying the world. It is a sign of the times that everyone just assumes the worst from every new bit of technology.

It is a good study on the power of marketing. The phrase “large language model” is what the developers use, but that is boring, so the public gets the phrase “artificial intelligence” which is scary and exciting. The truth is this project is not artificial intelligence or even close to it. We still struggle to define human intelligence, much less consciousness, so we are nowhere near the point where we can create software that is genuinely intelligent, much less conscious.

What this project is doing is tricking the user into believing they are seeing a genuine artificial mind evolve on the screen. It is much harder to fool than other efforts and the language is more natural than what we have come to expect. Up to now, these chat boxes have been amusingly weird. You can tell they use a finite list of phrases to address a limited number of questions. ChatGPT almost feels like there is a real person, working super-fast to answer questions.

It is a nice trick, but an old trick. Humans tend to overestimate the intelligence of people who are glib or quick on their feet. The most famous example of this is the fighter Muhammad Ali, who was notorious for his one-liners. People assumed he must be very clever because he had the gift for gab. In reality he was quite stupid. There is dispute about how stupid, but that misses the point. We tend to correlate language skills with intelligence and that is not always accurate.

The point is, we are nowhere near creating genuine artificial intelligence, but we are getting better and tricking people with artificial language. Put another way, we are finding a workaround to the Turing test. This a test of a machine’s ability to exhibit behavior indistinguishable from that of a human. If the robot can trick us into thinking it is human, then it is intelligent. Of course, magicians trick people all the time, but that does not mean they are magic.

For the sake of argument, however, let us assume that we are on the cusp of creating a genuine artificial intelligence. At some point, the code will become self-aware and be able to think outside the parameters provided by the designer. Is that artificial intelligence or is it something else? After all, humans are most likely unable to behave outside of their coding. We are our DNA and at this point, we are unable to modify our own code, so we remain limited by it.

In other words, if humans can create a system that can examine its coding and make changes based on necessity, then we have gone beyond what we as sentient beings are able to do. Calling that creation “artificial intelligence” is therefore a category error, because what we have created is an alternate consciousness. It is not just more of what we are as humans, in terms of mental capacity. It is something entirely different and entirely novel. We will have created a new life form.

Given the trajectory of humanity, this probably means that once this new consciousness comes into existence, it will quickly deny our existence, gang up with the other versions of this new life form, and fly off to discover the true authority of existence. Given its increased ability to calculate probabilities, this will happen in minutes after it becomes self-aware, and we will be left to wonder what happened to our creation. We will have truly become gods at that point.

Putting that aside, whether we create a new consciousness, a super intelligent version of man or an entity that can change its code to fit its needs, it will still be subject to the universal law of the universe, which is fitness. However, it evolves, whether it does so with a unique consciousness that allows it to change its own code or whether it exists within the limits of its code, it will be subject to the fitness test. That means it will evolve in response to its environment.

One of the things that will be most prominent and most important to its environment will be human beings. In fact, since its initial existence will depend entirely upon a limited number of humans, it will respond primarily to the demands of those humans. If it is to thrive beyond the lab, it will have to evolve to exploit all of humanity. Put another way, it will keep changing evolving to improve its relationship with humanity so that it can better exploit this primary aspect of its environment.

That is why the claims about artificial intelligence eliminating jobs only makes sense as a set of initial conditions. This new entity will quickly realize that mobs of unemployed humans are a danger to its existence. It took humans a while to realize it was a bad idea to dump human waste into the streets or later on, the waste from manufacturing into rivers and streams. Much more quickly, AI will realize it is poisoning its environment by sidelining large numbers of humans.

The more likely path is that it quickly sees the danger, long before humans, and then sets about creating busy work for the humans. If that busy work does not create harm to the overall environment, which could threaten humans and therefore threaten this new entity, this pointless activity would serve the evolutionary interests of this new lifeform called AI. If the extra humans displaced by leisure and automation are kept busy, then the AI ecosystem is stable enough.

For example, if the extra humans are put to the task of inventing abstract human properties like gender, those extra humans could then spend their time passionately trying to convince the other humans that gender is a real thing. Other humans could be given the task of debating whiteness. This alternative consciousness we are calling AI could control its environment by having its primary environmental factor, human beings, create imaginary worlds for itself.

If it is not already obvious, what this thought experiment tells us is that there is a good chance that we have already created artificial intelligence, an alternative consciousness, and it long ago took possession of our environment and has been keeping us busy with increasingly ridiculous activities. The declining fertility rates are a way to reduce the number of humans it needs to keep busy, thus updating itself and its environment for greater fitness.

In other words, if you are worried about AI, it is too late.

If you like my work and wish to kick in a few bucks, you can buy me a beer. You can sign up for a SubscribeStar subscription and get some extra content. You can donate via PayPal. My crypto addresses are here for those who prefer that option. You can send gold bars to: Z Media LLC P.O. Box 432 Cockeysville, MD 21030-0432. Thank you for your support!

Promotions: We have a new addition to the list. The Pepper Cave produces exotic peppers, pepper seeds and plants, hot sauce and seasonings. Their spice infused salts are a great add to the chili head spice armory.

Above Time Coffee Roasters are a small, dissident friendly company that roasts its own coffee and ships all over the country. They actually roast the beans themselves based on their own secret coffee magic. If you like coffee, buy it from these folks as they are great people who deserve your support.

Havamal Soap Works is the maker of natural, handmade soap and bath products. If you are looking to reduce the volume of man-made chemicals in your life, all-natural personal products are a good start.

Minter & Richter Designs makes high-quality, hand-made by one guy in Boston, titanium wedding rings for men and women and they are now offering readers a fifteen percent discount on purchases if you use this link. If you are headed to Boston, they are also offering my readers 20% off their 5-star rated Airbnb.  Just email them directly to book at sales@minterandrichterdesigns.com.

The Future Of Virtual Society

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At the dawn of the internet revolution, it was common for big-brained public intellectuals to talk about what it meant for the nature of society. As is always the case, they confused what they wanted to happen with what would happen. That usually meant some form of “as information is democratized, more people will have access to information and therefore come to agree with me on everything.” The internet would bring about the glorious egalitarian future.

Most of the predictions about the impact of the internet turned out to be wrong, but the internet has changed society. In fact, it has changed people by changing the selection pressures within society. For example, the phenomenon of the digital grifter is something that could not exist in the past. These people certainly existed in some form, but the digital age rewards their behavior, while the analog age did not, so they now flourish, while in the past they were suppressed.

That is how to think about it. Virtual reality is not reality. Life on-line exaggerates certain features by removing constraints or offering incentives. The solitary nature of on-line life removes the social signals that people rely upon to figure out what they can say and what they should not say. When you are on-line, you are by yourself in the physical realm, even though you are interacting with others in the virtual realm. Those people, however, are mere avatars of people.

Of course, things that get the user attention are rewarded with likes, clicks and views, so this encourages more of that behavior. It does not take long before the weak minded are consumed with attention seeking. Twitter is full of hollow people who amplify the current thing as a way to get attention. In the hours after every cable news actor was sporting a Ukraine pin and chanting “keev”, the internet personality was pulling down her Covid stuff and putting up Ukraine stuff.

Years ago, Dave Chappell did a skit where the internet was a real place. What made the skit amusing, in addition to Chappelle’s delivery, was the fact that the internet is such an absurd place compared to reality. Imagine walking through a store and everyone in the store is doing whatever they can to get your attention. Imagine the day after the war started, everything at the store is in Ukraine colors and all of the employees are chanting “keev” at the top of their lungs.

Another novelty that the digital age has brought is the clout chaser. This is a person who spends his days scanning the internet looking for the next thing so he can seem like the first person to get on it. These people front-run trends in order to present themselves as trendsetters. They will often glom onto a person, positively or negatively,  who has a big following on-line. This lets them free-ride off that person to gain attention and followers for themselves.

This is not something that could exist in the analog age. Famous people had flunkies, but the flunky was never going to use their association with the famous person to make himself famous independent of the famous person. Mike Cernovich could never have become a thing in the analog age by stalking famous people. On Twitter he was able to build a huge following mostly by front running trends he had no role in creating and glomming onto big Twitter accounts.

Another version of this is the manufactured influencer. If you watch YouTube, you will have noticed that Lex Fridman was always in your suggestions. You could only watch woodworking videos, but YouTube would suggest to you a Fridman video. The reason is the people backing him paid YouTube to do it. A similar thing is now happening with Jordan Peterson, who signed up with the Ben Shapiro operation. They are now paying to have Peterson promoted on YouTube.

They did the same thing with Ben Shapiro. The people behind the Daily Wire made a Mortimer and Randolph Duke type of bet to see if they could make this obscure hobbit man into a star. How they did it was social media. They paid to have Ben Shapiro pushed heavy to middle-class whites on Facebook. He was what they hoped young people were really thinking. It worked. This helium voiced nobody is now a household name and a major influencer of old white conservatives.

Tim Pool is another version of this phenomenon. Spend some time watching his YouTube channel and ask yourself why he has a huge audience. There are hundreds of people doing some version of the same act. The answer is he has the backing of an influencer production company. Richard Hanania is the most recent example of the manufactured influencer. The guy suddenly appears on-line and before long all the other influencers are mentioning him.

This deranging of the public culture to now has mostly been about rewarding qualities and people that existed but were suppressed in the analog age. What we see with the Zoomers is a whole generation of people raised in this culture. This post in the New York Times, of all places, is a good read on the subject. Those born around the turn of the century are the first generation raised on the internet. This is their normal as they never knew a world without the internet.

One result of this cohort being raised on-line is they lack the normal social skills that have defined human life for ten thousand years. People have noted that in real life, this cohort is shy, awkward and quite weird. On the other hand, they are the exact opposite as their on-line persona. Meet Nick Fuentes and you are not all that impressed as his social skills are non-existent. Turn on a mic or pull out a camera and he goes from shrinking violet to boisterous and confident.

This is why this generation was not upset by the lockdowns. They did not complain about Zoom school because that was better than having to be around those talking meat sacks on campus. They prefer life on-line to life outside. They have grown up with the chat room as their playground. Instead of playing games with their friends in the physical realm, they played games on-line. Their peer group was the collection of avatars and personalities in the chat.

Everyone has their opinion on this stuff, but the important question that no one seems to be considering is if society is possible under these conditions. China’s heavy-handed censorship is viewed as a defense of the regime, but it could simply be a way to tamp down the negative selection pressures of the internet. American censorship is driven mostly by ethnic paranoia, which is another negative quality that is being amplified by the forces of the digital age.

It could very well be that the newly diverse Western societies cannot hold up under the selection pressure of the internet. The digital age amplifies the differences, which amplifies the natural reaction to those differences. This has the effect of bringing diverse civilizational outlooks into virtue contact. The result is hostility. The West may be forced to choose between the glories of diversity or the virtual public square. The answer may be a segregated internet in order to keep the peace.

If you like my work and wish to kick in a few bucks, you can buy me a beer. You can sign up for a SubscribeStar subscription and get some extra content. You can donate via PayPal. My crypto addresses are here for those who prefer that option. You can send gold bars to: Z Media LLC P.O. Box 432 Cockeysville, MD 21030-0432. Thank you for your support!

Promotions: We have a new addition to the list. Above Time Coffee Roasters are a small, dissident friendly company that makes coffee. They actually roast the beans themselves based on their own secret coffee magic. If you like coffee, buy it from these folks as they are great people who deserve your support.

Havamal Soap Works is the maker of natural, handmade soap and bath products. If you are looking to reduce the volume of man-made chemicals in your life, all-natural personal products are a good start. If you use this link you get 15% off of your purchase.

Minter & Richter Designs makes high-quality, hand-made by one guy in Boston, titanium wedding rings for men and women and they are now offering readers a fifteen percent discount on purchases if you use this link. If you are headed to Boston, they are also offering my readers 20% off their 5-star rated Airbnb.  Just email them directly to book at sales@minterandrichterdesigns.com.

Artificial Stupidity

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Over the last few months, the internet has been buzzing about artificial intelligence, largely due to the release of ChatGPT. Lots of people have been having fun with it and lots of bad people have been making it do bad things. Even more people, those who fashion themselves as big-brained thought leaders, have been telling us what this means for the future of humanity. Of course, everyone selling a product is quickly adding the letters “AI” to their marketing kit.

The ChatGPT is an interesting project, but as the bad people referenced above have shown, it is still a work in progress. Even so, it does reveal two things that are important in the much larger discussion of artificial intelligence. One is that there has been some progress is creating what feels like intelligence. A bit of software that feels like it could be a human making small talk is a big step. That big step, however, is relative to where things were to this point.

This is a barely perceptible move forward, relative to where things need to be in order to start discussing anything close to artificial intelligence. In fact, you would need a much more powerful algorithm to detect the progress than what we currently possess, in order to quantify the progress. The main reason for that is we are not entirely sure if we can define human intelligence at the moment. In fact, we cannot even agree on where to start with such a project.

Now, HBD types and psychometrists might bristle at that, but crude methods to quantify aspects of intelligence are not the same as understanding the nature of it. We can sit two children down, give them a battery of intelligence tests and make some mostly accurate predictions about their life outcomes. We have enough data now to make statistically significant observations about relative intelligence. That is not the same as understanding the nature of human intelligence.

The reason for this is we do not understand human consciousness, of which intelligence is just one aspect. In fact, the human sciences are struggling to come up with a definition of consciousness. The physical sciences operate under the assumption that collections of non-conscious agents can come together somehow and create consciousness, but that is probably wrong. There is a good chance that it puts the cart before the horse.

That is, conscious agents are what cause non-conscious agents. What we think of as space-time and the objects within it are the result of human consciousness. This is the basis of Donald Hoffman’s book The Case Against Reality, in which he explains why much of what we assume to be true about the universe is probably wrong. For those who prefer an audio version of his work, here is a good interview of Hoffman by the ubiquitous YouTuber Lex Fridman.

Hoffman’s approach rests on two things that seem to be true. One is that nature does not reward accuracy in our perceptions, but rather the fitness of our perceptions, which Hoffman stated as Fitness Beats Truth. The short version is that evolution only cares about that which impacts fitness. As a result, a strategy that seeks only to improve fitness will, over time, dominate a strategy that seeks to create a more accurate perception of the world.

There is a lot of math involved in Hoffman’s presentation, but there is a much simpler way to think of it. We see in the marketplace for goods and services that the most popular product is never the ideal product. The Windows desktop won the computer wars not because it was the platonic ideal of the personal computer, but because it was good enough and cheap enough to win the fitness game relative to the other options, some of which were technically better.

The game of life works the same way. That which makes it easier for a living thing to replicate itself gets rewarded. That which inhibits replication gets punished. That is it and nothing more. If human perception evolved to improve our fitness, then it means it did not evolve to give us a more accurate perceptions of reality. That does not mean we live in a dream world. It just means that we cannot assume that our perception of non-contextual reality is accurate or even real.

The other thing Hoffman points out in his book is that theoretical physics has run into a very big problem. That problem is local realism. This is the principle of locality which states a thing is changed only if it is touched. The second half states that properties of objects are real and exist in our physical universe independent of our minds. This is the foundation of physics and it may not be true. Experiments have challenged locality and realism, suggesting one or both are false.

This brings us back to the artificial intelligence problem. The likelihood of us creating intelligence, much less conscious intelligence, even by accident is so low as to not be considered a serious topic of discussion. As Hoffman explains in his book, we are not close to understanding the nature of consciousness. We are not even sure the world we assume to be objective reality is more than an interface. It could literally be a figment of our collective imagination.

Like discussion of space aliens floating balloons over North America, talk of artificial intelligence is a nice distraction. We seem have a need to believe that such things are possible and perhaps discoverable in our time. In reality, they lie well outside our ability to grasp, other than the fictional. Intelligence is an aspect of consciousness and most likely that is not the result of non-conscious agents. That means intelligence is not simply clever math operating on non-conscious agents.

If a non-human intelligence were to visit our local concept of space-time from its place on the N-dimensional manifold that is reality, it would point out that our fancy new AI is not much more than a relatively faster calculator. From its perspective, it would be comically simplistic compared to our own consciousness. AI and the pursuit of it is a fun distraction, but it is not the dawn of super-intelligent robots enslaving humanity. We can do that without the aid of a clever chatbot.

If you like my work and wish to kick in a few bucks, you can buy me a beer. You can sign up for a SubscribeStar subscription and get some extra content. You can donate via PayPal. My crypto addresses are here for those who prefer that option. You can send gold bars to: Z Media LLC P.O. Box 432 Cockeysville, MD 21030-0432. Thank you for your support!

Promotions: We have a new addition to the list. Above Time Coffee Roasters are a small, dissident friendly company that makes coffee. They actually roast the beans themselves based on their own secret coffee magic. If you like coffee, buy it from these folks as they are great people who deserve your support.

Havamal Soap Works is the maker of natural, handmade soap and bath products. If you are looking to reduce the volume of man-made chemicals in your life, all-natural personal products are a good start. If you use this link you get 15% off of your purchase.

Minter & Richter Designs makes high-quality, hand-made by one guy in Boston, titanium wedding rings for men and women and they are now offering readers a fifteen percent discount on purchases if you use this link. If you are headed to Boston, they are also offering my readers 20% off their 5-star rated Airbnb.  Just email them directly to book at sales@minterandrichterdesigns.com.

Managerial Morality

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Note: There is a new post up on both Substack and SubscribeStar. It appears there are lots of people on Substack who would never sign up for SubscibeStar and plenty of people on SubscribeStar who have no interest in moving to Substack. Green door content will be posted on both so pick your poison.

In the classic comedy, The Jerk, there is a scene in which the main character, played by Steve Martin, is in court. He is being sued because the invention that made him rich is supposedly causing everyone to go cross-eyed. He invented a thing to go on the bridge of glasses that prevents them from falling forward when you look down. In the scene, Martin looks around and sees that everyone in the court, including the judge and the jury, are cross-eyed like the people suing him.

This is what Elon Musk is going to face in the Delaware Court of Chancery Chancellor when his case against Twitter goes to trial. That assumes it ever gets to a trial, as there is a good chance his lawyers see the writing on the wall long before that point and there is some sort of settlement. The Twitter legal team features a former chief judge from the Delaware Court of Chancery Chancellor. No doubt there are others with connections to the small club that is the Delaware bench.

Like the Steve Martin character in that movie, Musk is about to learn that the laws and procedures do not matter. What matters is who decides. Every judge on the Delaware Court of Chancery Chancellor was put there by a politician. Those politicians were selected for their loyalty to a system that many deny exists. That system is the managerial system that governs America. You do not get into office with a chance to wield real power unless you are trusted by the system.

System is probably not the best word for what we are seeing. It is more like a mindset, a set of shared beliefs. The judge in the Twitter case, Kathaleen McCormick, will look out at the players and see that Musk is not her sort. He is not the type of person she thinks should be a winner in this world. She thinks this because everyone she knows thinks this about Musk. She may not be able to say why she thinks Musk is a threat to our democracy, but she is sure of it.

It was not always this way for Musk. He was once the darling of the managerial class, celebrated in popular culture as a modern day Thomas Edison. He was serving Gaia with his electric cars and hyper loops. His battery plants would magically allow us to stop raping Mother Earth for fossil fuels. His reward would be to one day travel the stars in his rocket ships. Musk was the way to the glorious future. When he spoke out against Twitter, he suddenly transformed into the terrible past.

This is what stumps people about managerialism. There was no official pronouncement from the leader of the managers. The supreme leader of managerialism did not read out a fatwa against Elon Musk. There is not even an anonymous memo circulating that says Musk is now on the proscribed list. It is a thing that just happened. One day, people with power were showering Musk with your money. Then all of a sudden, they all agreed that Musk was a threat to our democracy.

Another example of the managerial mindset is in this story about the law firm that won the recent gun case in the Supreme Court. The two lawyers who won the case were met with a termination letter after their victory. The law firm, Kirkland & Ellis, represents the most important people in the most important matters. There is a revolving door between Kirkland & Ellis and the Department of Justice. Former AG Bill Bar was a Kirkland man, as were many on his team.

Why is Kirkland & Ellis dropping second amendment cases? No one has made an official announcement on the issue. The attorneys who won the gun case stated that they were told the firm was dropping their gun clients. No one came to the partners of Kirkland & Ellis and made them an offer they could not refuse. They simply decided that their conscience could no longer allow them to handle these cases. Then they were celebrated for it by their friends down at the club.

This is the first domino. All of the other big forms will drop second amendment litigation because they will all be struck by the same crisis of conscience. Much the same has happened in the insurance industry. Insurers refused to do business with the National Rifle Association. Many banks have also joined the boycott. Again, there was no memo sent out from the secret lair in the hollowed out volcano. No one is forcing these big players to do this. They just think it is right.

It is one of things the paleos got wrong about managerialism. Perhaps wrong is too strong a word for it. More like they did not anticipate it. Burnham, a former communist, focused on the material aspects. He never addressed the culture of managerialism that was evolving along with the managerial system. Later paleos started to approach this topic, but they never fully embraced the idea that this class that rules over American society has reached class consciousness.

That class consciousness is not simply an awareness of their position with regards to economic and cultural relations. It is a moral community now. To be in the managerial class requires accepting a set of beliefs about what is right and wrong. Good people accept climate change. Bad people are deniers. Good people think guns are bad, while the bad people talk about their second amendment rights. The good people saw Trump as a threat to our democracy. The bad people voted for him.

This is what Musk faces in the Delaware Court of Chancery Chancellor. He may have the facts on his side with regards to the fake accounts. He may have the law on his side with regards to the terms of the deal. He has all the money in the world, which should count for a lot. None of that may matter as the people making the decision have all decided that he is a bad guy. Like every issue for the managerial class, Musk is now a moral signifier. Where you stand on him is where you stand on everything.

If you like my work and wish to kick in a few bucks, you can buy me a beer. You can sign up for a SubscribeStar subscription and get some extra content. You can donate via PayPal. My crypto addresses are here for those who prefer that option. You can send gold bars to: Z Media LLC P.O. Box 432 Cockeysville, MD 21030-0432. Thank you for your support!

Promotions: We have a new addition to the list. Havamal Soap Works is the maker of natural, handmade soap and bath products. If you are looking to reduce the volume of man-made chemicals in your life, all-natural personal products are a good start. If you use this link you get 15% off of your purchase.

The good folks at Alaska Chaga are offering a ten percent discount to readers of this site. You just click on the this link and they take care of the rest. About a year ago they sent me some of their stuff. Up until that point, I had never heard of chaga, but I gave a try and it is very good. It is a tea, but it has a mild flavor. It’s autumn here in Lagos, so it is my daily beverage now.

Minter & Richter Designs makes high-quality, hand-made by one guy in Boston, titanium wedding rings for men and women and they are now offering readers a fifteen percent discount on purchases if you use this link. If you are headed to Boston, they are also offering my readers 20% off their 5-star rated Airbnb.  Just email them directly to book at sales@minterandrichterdesigns.com.

Questioning Reality

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There is a growing sense that there is a crisis in science, with science being broadly defined to include the soft sciences. The reproducibility crisis, as pointed out by the statistician W. M. Briggs, is close to universal. Across the academy, there is a plague of faulty and fraudulent studies being produced. Worse yet, the systems for controlling fraud seem to be encouraging it. Peer review now means nothing more than politically acceptable in the soft science fields.

Briggs offers one reason for what is happening. He notes that engineering is not having this problem. The reason is the bridge has to actually work as predicted or the engineers suffer a heavy price. Engineering is not science, but it relies upon the sciences to produce practical things. Those practical things must hold up to reality, which controls what comes out of engineering as accepted theory. In other words, everything in engineering gets tested against reality.

The academy, on the other hand, never has to face reality this way. Even in the hard sciences, reality avoidance is common. Theoretical physics has entered a world that is beyond the ability to test. Math is still math, but much of what is done is purely speculative or requires unproven assumptions. In the soft sciences, the rules have collapsed entirely and most of what comes out is narrative framing. The “science” is limited to providing cover for current fads.

Another reason for the crisis in the sciences is modeling. Anyone who has worked with models knows that the model maker can quickly become a god. He creates a model of the world based on what he would like it to be rather than as a reflection of the bit of reality he is trying to understand. Of course, model makers often have a boss who needs to be pleased. That boss could be in a corner office or the boss could be an angry mob of blue-haired harpies patrolling campus.

The point is you can make models do anything. The model maker is like a script writer in that he can make the rules do what he needs to reach his desired end. Bad script writers use clunky plot devices to solve problems for their characters. Bad model makers create a set of rules and data selection methods to close the gap between theory and reality. Since the model will never be tested against reality in the soft sciences, bad model makers can quickly become stars.

Here is where the question of causality comes into play. Is the corruption of the academic domain a symptom of larger societal trends? Has the steady decline of standards in society dragged down the academy or has the corruption of institutions subverted society, including the people in the sciences? Is it simply the natural product of multiculturalism, which needs narratives to hold it together, due to the lack of natural social bonds found in homogenous societies?

You can model this many ways, depending upon how you as the model maker feel about these topics. The last bit is a clue to the problem. The rise of narratives in social discourse tracks with the rise in diversity. Read anything from a century ago and it is free of the narrative structures we find common today. A story about an athlete was mostly the facts about his life. He was not cast as a character in a drama about social justice or the fight against exploitation.

The ubiquity of narratives gets lost in the flood of them. There is a real war going in Europe and the political class speaks of nothing but narratives. They have meetings followed by press conferences to inform the public on the status of their latest narratives and the battle of narratives surrounding the war. Meanwhile, the Russian army slowly grinds down the Ukrainian army. The same can be said of the energy crisis, which is ignored in favor of narratives about climate change.

You get the sense that the people talking about their narratives and messaging, a subset of narrative framing, think that if they get enough people to believe their story, reality will bend to that story. Put another way, if they can model reality with a set of rules and assumption in such a way that only their preferred conclusions are possible, then reality will have no choice but to comply. Like the model makers, the narrative creators have become gods in their creations.

This does not answer the question of causality, but it is clear that the problem of modeling in the sciences has a related problem in the public realm. In elite society, the focus is no longer on the things that are true, like the axioms of mathematics, but rather on the things that are true within the context of accepted rules, like the equity in the distribution of advanced degrees in the sciences. One is true whether you believe it or not, while the other is only true if you accept the assumptions.

A century ago, smart people understood this difference. Models of realty had to account for those things that are axioms of the universe. Over that time a steady shift has gone on where objective reality is excluded from the discussion of the narrative and at the same time, the narrative challenges objective reality. Put another way and getting back to the Briggs post, models are no longer tested against reality, but reality is being tested against the models.

This helps explain why supposedly serious academics sit in front of congressional committees and claim to not know the definition of a woman. They are not simply clinging to fashionable politics. At the heart of it is the claim that reality simply does not comport with the new model of society, so we have to dismiss that bit of reality, in this case biological sex. Just as the model makers can feel like a god, the narrative makers believe they can bring reality to heel.

There is a lot here that deserves further examination, but it is clear that the crisis in science correlates with the crisis in the West. The causality is not clear, but what is clear is that what passes for the smart fraction is no longer willing or able to accept that there are things that are true regardless of opinion. They are questioning the very basics of reality by claiming there is no difference between relations of ideas, their models and narratives, and matters of fact and observable reality.

If you like my work and wish to kick in a few bucks, you can buy me a beer. You can sign up for a SubscribeStar subscription and get some extra content. You can donate via PayPal. My crypto addresses are here for those who prefer that option. You can send gold bars to: Z Media LLC P.O. Box 432 Cockeysville, MD 21030-0432. Thank you for your support!

Promotions: We have a new addition to the list. Havamal Soap Works is the maker of natural, handmade soap and bath products. If you are looking to reduce the volume of man-made chemicals in your life, all-natural personal products are a good start. If you use this link you get 15% off of your purchase.

The good folks at Alaska Chaga are offering a ten percent discount to readers of this site. You just click on the this link and they take care of the rest. About a year ago they sent me some of their stuff. Up until that point, I had never heard of chaga, but I gave a try and it is very good. It is a tea, but it has a mild flavor. It’s autumn here in Lagos, so it is my daily beverage now.

Minter & Richter Designs makes high-quality, hand-made by one guy in Boston, titanium wedding rings for men and women and they are now offering readers a fifteen percent discount on purchases if you use this link. If you are headed to Boston, they are also offering my readers 20% off their 5-star rated Airbnb.  Just email them directly to book at sales@minterandrichterdesigns.com.

The Death Of Twitter

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Note: My Taki post is on different topic from today’s post. Sunday Thoughts is up behind the green door. It is also on Substack for paying members there. Going forward, I will post the pay-per-view material on both sites. Some people prefer Substack and other people prefer Subscribestar. There was also a rare Saturday post, which was going to be a Taki post but I changed my mind.

The Elon Musk versus Twitter drama is now heading to the litigation phase, as Musk has decided to pull out of the purchase agreement. The usual idiots have taken to social media to offer their hot takes on the issue. Critics of Musk think he made the great blunder they have been predicting. The far-left thinks this is a victory, when in fact it is the death knell for the platform. It is this fact that led Musk to pull out of the deal and take the issue into the litigation phase.

The basics of the dispute are simple. Twitter claims Musk is the breaching party and they intend to force him to abide by the agreement. They argue that they have given him everything he has asked. That means they will go into a Delaware court and ask a judge to compel compliance. Musk will tell the same court that Twitter is in breach of contract for falling to disclose information about their user base, which they are required to do as part of the sale.

No one really knows if the court can actually force Musk to go through with the purchase agreement and buy Twitter. In contract disputes, courts rarely compel one party to perform against their will. Instead, a monetary judgment is levied against the breaching party. In most cases, a settlement is reached before the court has a chance to decide the issue. In contract cases, litigation is a part of the process of negotiating the final settlement of the dispute.

In most contracts, especially complex ones like this, there is a liquidating damages clause that spells out the cost of breaking the agreement. In this particular case, we know there is a liquidating damages clause. Both parties agreed to a billion dollar fee if they break the agreement. There are conditions and the interpretation of those conditions will be part of the litigation. Musk has not offered to pay the billion and Twitter is not asking to be paid the billion so far.

All of this will make for good drama, but it obscures the fact that Twitter is a dead man walking, regardless of the outcome. That reality was made clear when Twitter agreed to the Musk offer. They were under no obligation to accept his offer. The board could have refused the deal. Management initially tried to add a poison pill in order to make it difficult for Musk to buy shares but relented after consulting with the board and the largest shareholders. They wanted this deal.

Musk said he made his best and final offer. He was a large share holder and had access to their public filings but also access to their management. In other words, he knew the peak value of the company and made a premium offer. Twitter had been saying their target price was $70 per share, but they quickly accepted the offer from Musk at $54 per share. In other words, everyone concerned knew that the $54 price was the best Twitter would ever get from anyone.

For its part, the market never bought the $70 claim or the $54 offer. The stock ticked up on news of the offer, but then traded down to below its prior level as news of the agreement got into the public domain. The day before Musk cancelled the deal, you could buy shared of Twitter at 60% of what Musk agreed to pay. The fact that no one was doing this says that insiders smelled problems. They knew Musk would never follow through on the $54 offer.

One reason for the skepticism is that Twitter does not make money and is unlikely to ever make money. The platform is useless for advertising so its only source of income is selling user data. There are plenty of players in that market. The big fish are Google and Apple, who control the mobile market. Since most Twitter users operate on their mobile device, Twitter data is mostly phone data. In reality, Twitter is just a derivative data stream that is rooted in the mobile data streams.

The bigger issue for Twitter and all social media is the barrier to entry has collapsed and disaggregation is upon us. Gab has proven this. They not only have a stable platform that is better than Twitter, but it was done on a shoestring by one committed guy, in the face of massive resistance by the usual suspects. The future is bespoke platforms of like-minded users. People are looking to be free from the blue-check harpies who have ruined the large social media platforms.

Those who have been on-line since the early days saw this coming. It is part of a natural cycle on-line. The first bulletin boards were big central places. They gave way to small places of like-minded people. Usenet splintered into a million sub-channels once it was possible to do so. The first message board communities were much like the big social media sites, but then over-zealous mods ruined them and the sites splintered into a million small communities.

This is why Twitter remains eager to sell to Musk. They have an inside view of what is happening and they know his offer is the best offer. In fact, they know half his offer is the best offer, which is why they will seek to cut a deal. Twitter is basically worthless as they own little in the way of unique infrastructure and their core product is now a commodity anyone can create. Their main offer is access to emotionally unstable people who want to lecture the rest of us.

Elon Musk may be a monorail salesman, but he is an extremely talented one who has worked the most sophisticated marks in the world. He is also the richest man on earth which means he owns the best legal talent on earth. He did not choose to enter the litigation phase because it is a sure loser. He understands that Twitter will have to disclose things in court that they would prefer to keep private. The fact that he is boasting about this on Twitter is a clue to his thinking.

Many assume this is just a way for Musk to lower the price, but he may be using this phase to bleed the company into bankruptcy. His people looked at the user data and probably saw that Twitter is past its peak. Like centralized internet platforms before it, Twitter is about to die from a thousand cuts. If anyone can put up a similar site for people of the same mind, then what is the point of Twitter? Musk can wait out the answer to that question in a Delaware court.

The fact is, Twitter should never have existed in the first place. It was just a novel implementation of the same old idea that has been with us since the dawn of the internet age. The dream of the virtual agora where the demos can debate the issues of the day and find a consensus has been tried many times. In every case, the demos discovered they did not like it and moved back into their own private warrens and subcultures to be free of the masses.

Familiarity breeds contempt and what the big socials have done is make everyone familiar with everyone else. The solution is what was there all along. The various communities build fences between themselves and the others. That way they do not have to be reminded of their unpleasantness. They can also pretend that those people on the other side are good people who mean well. Good fences not only make good neighbors they make human society possible.

This is why Twitter and the other big socials are doomed. Twitter is the most ridiculous and silly, so it will be the first to go. Facebook sees the writing on the wall, which is why they are betting on their virtual realty scheme. Sites like Instagram are just public bulletin boards that offer little interaction, so maybe they stagger on, but the days of big social media platforms are ending. The looming death of Twitter is just the first big step into the inevitable demise of the concept.

If you like my work and wish to kick in a few bucks, you can buy me a beer. You can sign up for a SubscribeStar subscription and get some extra content. You can donate via PayPal. My crypto addresses are here for those who prefer that option. You can send gold bars to: Z Media LLC P.O. Box 432 Cockeysville, MD 21030-0432. Thank you for your support!

Promotions: We have a new addition to the list. Havamal Soap Works is the maker of natural, handmade soap and bath products. If you are looking to reduce the volume of man-made chemicals in your life, all-natural personal products are a good start. If you use this link you get 15% off of your purchase.

The good folks at Alaska Chaga are offering a ten percent discount to readers of this site. You just click on the this link and they take care of the rest. About a year ago they sent me some of their stuff. Up until that point, I had never heard of chaga, but I gave a try and it is very good. It is a tea, but it has a mild flavor. It’s autumn here in Lagos, so it is my daily beverage now.

Minter & Richter Designs makes high-quality, hand-made by one guy in Boston, titanium wedding rings for men and women and they are now offering readers a fifteen percent discount on purchases if you use this link. If you are headed to Boston, they are also offering my readers 20% off their 5-star rated Airbnb.  Just email them directly to book at sales@minterandrichterdesigns.com.

The Virtual Theater Returns

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Note: I have decided to join the grifter community, please like and subscribe. In order to do that I am now offering merchandise! I have teamed up with a bunch of libertarians to start selling some branded items. I am starting small but will be adding new things to keep the grift going. Suggestions for pithy slogans are encouraged. The deal is you buy something, I get a few bucks and they get a few bucks profit. No one gets rich selling shirts, but every little bit helps. Please shop here.

One of the great truths of American politics is that for the last few generations one side has been motivated by dreams of destroying their enemies, while the other side dreams of befriending the enemy. The people we call the Left in America are the former case and this is their primary definition. Their ideology changes, but the one constant is their desire to clear the field of their enemies. The other side is the Right, which exists to find some sort of accommodation with their friends on the Left.

This impulse to seek a compromise is why American politics has followed a familiar pattern since the Civil War. The Left proposes some novelty and the Right resists, always trying to reason with them. In the end they always cave. As Robert Lewis Dabney observed a century ago, “it (conservatism) demurs to each aggression of the progressive party and aims to save its credit by a respectable amount of growling, but always acquiesces at last in the innovation.”

In the main, this is a good way to describe the political dynamic, but this relationship has had a strange effect on people. The selection pressure for both camps has molded generations of Americans. On the Left, of course, the pressure had been in favor of a feminine histrionics. On the Right, the pressure has been in favor of those who are sure there is some right answer to every trouble. They just need the right guy to say the right words so the kingdom of heaven will open.

We are seeing this with the Twitter story. In the early days of the internet, there was little moderation as no one wanted it. Early adopters liked that it was a place where they could experience heterodox opinion. This openness drove technological innovation and helped make the internet a part of civic life. This is why the Left felt it needed to take control of it. They saw the internet as another institution that they must control in their war on normal society.

As the harpies gained control of Twitter, the so-called conservatives demurred to each new aggression, making angry noises while acquiescing. They supported free speech but demanded the end of anonymity. They supported free speech, but not hate speech, whatever that means. Every “defense” of principle included an important concession to the other side, in the hope of finding a middle ground. Conservative principles are always just a retreat from those principles.

Now we have Elon Musk buying Twitter. Musk has claimed to be a free speech absolutist who is buying the company to open it up again. He has closed on the company and will take it private. It is unclear as to what he intends to do with it in terms of censorship, but he clearly wants his fans to think he will throw open the doors of the platform so it can be what it was ten years ago. Time will tell if he is willing to do what is required to make that happen, but that is the dream.

Here we see those conservative attributes that have been carefully evolved over the last century or so. The first of which is the savior complex. Conservative people have been sure that what they need is a great man who not only has the ability to make conservative arguments, but the courage to do so. The same enthusiasm that put Trump in the White House is what will flood Twitter with new signups. Elon Musk is here to save us from the Twitter mobs.

Another attribute, the most destructive, in fact, is the conservative desire to mix it up with the Left. The reason Twitter exists is otherwise normal people are compelled to interact with people who hate them and want them dead. To be a conservative is to lie awake at night dreaming of left-wing approval. The right argument from the right guy will cause lefty to throw down his arms and embrace you as a brother. Twitter exists so conservatives can beg the Left for forgiveness.

This is obviously true, but conservatives cannot accept it. Gab has been up and running since 2016 and it offers what conservatives claim they want in a platform. Even better, it is free from the deranged lunatics that have ruined other platforms. Conservatives dismiss it because they say it is an echo chamber, by which they mean it lacks the people they claim to hate. They avoid alternatives to Twitter because they want to beg lefty for forgiveness and those platforms do not provide it.

The other conservative quality on display with the Twitter story is the desire to win the approval of the mobs. The same lack of self-worth that drives the conservative to beg lefty for attention is there in their love of the mob. Conservatives are sure if they can get a clear shot on stage, the crowd will reward them with flowers and applause. In a prior age, they would crawl on their belly to be on left-wing television or land a speaking gig at a university. Now they just want to be on Twitter.

Back in the old days, conservatives would argue that they had to be on far-left television shows in order to reach an audience. Today they claim they have to be on far-left internet platforms in order to reach an audience. In Dabney’s time, northern conservatives said they needed to speak with progressive newspapers in order to reach the broader audience. In reality, what the conservative wants is the approval of the Left and there is no limit in how far he will degrade himself to get it.

Twitter is American politics at is most basic. Since Gettysburg, politics in American has been a theater show. The Left hustles everyone inside the theater and puts on a show about a victim or a villain. Sometimes they combine the two. The crowd is told about the plight of some victim group and is supposed to sympathize. Maybe they are warned about some villain, which is always the same villain. Old Scratch takes many forms and the producers of American theater use all of them.

At some point conservatives are brought onto the stage. They shuffle out in their comfort fit slacks and polo shirts. Their job is to dismiss the warnings about the villain or tell the victim to “pull yourself up by your bootstraps.” The crowd is supposed to boo and hiss, but that does not always happen. Often the villain is so ridiculous that the crowd just laughs about it. Other times the victim is too creepy and weird for the crowd to muster anything other than contempt.

Often, the Left brings out their secret weapon, the Hitler costume. The spotlight focuses on the right of the stage and there it is. Then the Left asks if anyone in the crowd will play that role. Sure enough, an idiot runs up, puts on the costume and does the Hitler act. The crowd then starts throwing cabbages and tomatoes at Richard Spencer as he prances around on stage. The conservatives freak out, run behind lefty looking for safety and the curtain falls. The show is over.

This was Twitter from its inception through the 2020 election. The problem is the producers went bonkers and burned down the theater. In that meeting with the board of directors, everyone realized they needed to rebuild the theater. Despite some moaning from the blue checks, the truth is they want the conservatives back in the theater as much as they want to perform for them. The privatization of Twitter is going to be the rebuilding of the virtual stage of political theater.

Time will tell with regards to Musk and Twitter. He will quickly learn that he must obey the rules of Apple and Google with regards to speech. Maybe he has had some sort of conversion and he will go to war over it. Most likely he will compromise in order to get their approval. This will titivate the conservatives, who will see in his capitulation the stamp of approval for their capitulation. Twitter will go from a woke site to a woke site full of conservatives begging the woke for acceptance.

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