Avoiding Error

Note: If you are a law student or know a law student, there is a competition around the legal difficulties of the J6 victims. It is an essay contest. If you are interested, here is their website. The principles behind are listed on the site. Scroll down.


A week ago, Elon Musk tweeted out an offer to buy Twitter and my initial reaction was that it was a publicity stunt. I chastised a few people on Gab for thinking that this offer by Musk was serious. I was wrong. A few days later the formal filing was made public and it was clear he was making a bid for the company. This week he filed the paperwork indicating he has secured the capital to make good on the offer.

Now, why was I wrong? One reason is I have a bias against rich people so I naturally think the worst of them. I have often used Musk as an example of what is wrong with state capitalism. Most of his business is dependent on favors from the political class or direct subsidies from government. His electric car business would have died long ago without massive subsidies from government.

Another reason I got this Musk business wrong is I violated an important rule of navigation in the modern age. I formed a hot take. The first batch of news and commentary is always wrong, so the hot take based on that stuff is almost always going to be wrong in important ways. The right answer with regards to Musk’s initial tweets about buying Twitter was to wait and see.

This was not the only bit of wrongness on my mind this week. The debate about Ukraine is a good example of getting things wrong. Certain groups of people who are dissident adjacent staked out a bad position on Ukraine. They will have to climb back off that limb at some point and hope everyone forgets about it. This happens a lot on this side of the great divide for some reason.

That is the show this week. How to avoid these errors. We are all floating in a sea of electronic media, so it is easy to be manipulated by that media. It is also easy to react the wrong way to the barrage of information. Central to being a dissident is standing outside the barrage of lies and live in the truth. Therefore, avoiding error by de-conditioning our minds is a primary project of dissident politics.


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This Week’s Show

Contents

  • Opening
  • Examine your bias
  • The Binary Mind
  • Critical Reading
  • Who To Trust

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186 thoughts on “Avoiding Error

  1. So now we have a country that is dominated by a neo-con kosher nostra providing massive aid to a kosher nostra money-laundering/mafia operation, to fight against a third country which is heavily influenced by its own kosher nostra clan. Plus ça change … Blessed Paskha, Ramazan Kerim.

    • Exodus Americanus was delisted, too. Hmm. Their podcast(s) weren’t worth the paywall, but they weren’t bad.

  2. (against Mr. fix-it; deleveraging the positive self)
    (To whom it may concern)

    The tragedy of mankind is that even highly intelligent people like yourself can’t seem to understand the Basic Universal Principle: there’s no positive(good;pleasure) without negative(evil;pain).
    I’m quite convinced you can easily accept that the atom is formed by both positive and negative particles (among other), and you can also readily entertain the prospect that messing around with the bond between them is not usually a neatly sound idea.
    Nevertheless, you wake up every single day with the fierce determination to separate your negative self from your positive self.
    How do you cope with that?
    By projecting the negative onto the other, then proceeding to destroy the other and voilà: negative’s gone. Next, with the negative irreparably enmeshed within the self, you will keep on projecting, and off you go, into the never-ending quest for the negative other.

    (‘I get “all” the “main” things “right”. Why can’t everybody trip like I do? Why can’t you be like me?’)
    (Tip of the hat to Richard Patrick, Ken Jordan and Scott Kirkland)

    And then there are some, even clever than you are, who deftly use this generalized blindness (meaning, they are using you) to serve their own knavish intents.

    All in all, it’s not a big deal: we all live in The Unavoidable; some will be willing and sometimes, able to slow down The Dualistic Engine, some can only crank it up.
    There’s no universal peace of mind; only
    The Everlasting Dissatisfaction.

    (I got it “wrong”, of course; otherwise, how could you have it “right”?)

    Can you answer the following:
    What are we building civilization (culture, knowledge, technology, science) for?

    Do you have an answer? And if you do, what place does it have for “free will”?

    I can answer it for you:
    We build civilization for the greater comfort of the flesh. There you have it: body over mind – that’s “free will” for you.

    Civilization: the triumph of the Flesh.

    (This is not against or for civilization, just a simple reminder to not bother to chastise everyone else with any “good & evil” puffery, “priestly” flackery.)

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  3. Totally off topic: Expect existing chip shortage to intensify. If you need any household appliance or electronic, BUY IT NOW. In addition to supply chain, problem with chip shortage from Taiwan, and problem with neon shortage from Ukraine, we now have a shortage of machines that print the circuitry on the chips. Near monopoly from Dutch firm ASML (which also just happened to suffer a fire in January) is over a year behind in orders for its machines.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10747469/Tech-firms-rip-apart-NEW-washing-machines-harvest-computer-parts.html

    https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/asml-lithography-factory-in-berlin-suffers-fire/#:~:text=Dutch%20semiconductor%20component%20company%20ASML%20has%20suffered%20a,2%2C%20but%20details%20on%20the%20incident%20are%20scarce.

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    • 3g4me-

      Your points and links are exactly why I don’t see the MIC being able to crank out unlimited numbers of high-tech weapons systems to fight the Russians and Chinese.

      There will be electronic components that are simply physically unavailable no matter how many Fedbux they print. This is why Scholz’s comments about Germany re-arming are laughable.

      It could happen due to production or shipping foul-ups. They may happen in surprising places. Turkey is responsible for dozens of components in the F-35. A surprising number of F-15 components are sourced from South Korea and Japan.

      Yes, the printing will cause a short-term sugar high in MIC equities, but legions of wunderwaffen will not be forthcoming.

      This doesn’t even account for the epic levels of bureaucratic waste and outright fraud in the MIC procurement process.

      Then, there is the human capital issue. The regime is racing to build semiconductor fabs in AZ, OH, and TX. Trying to staff them will be very interesting.

        • It is quite possible the situation with decay to the point where key components and materials are unavailable at any price.

          • This seems the likely scenario, Geese. We have been told to expect scarcity although reasons offered often are deceptive or implausible.

      • Wild Geese: Agree. Many of us see problems forthcoming that the MIC appears unaware of or, more likely, merely discounts. A snippet from Zerohedge the other day expresses my thoughts better than I can:

        “The New Nobility elites reckon that if they can keep the crumbling cliff edge from collapsing for a few more years, they can maximize their private gains and then escape to their New Zealand bunkers when the consequences of their plunder send the global economy into the abyss.

        The elites are in effect selling seats in the Titanic’s lifeboats to the highest bidders. The ship is doomed and they see this tragedy as a terrifically profitable opportunity.”

        They appear to believe that they can keep the plates spinning long enough to extract maximum profit and then rapidly flee the scene of the crime, free and clear. Some of them undoubtedly will – many debts are never repaid in this lifetime. A lot depends on just how rapidly things fall apart, and that truly is a crapshoot. Everything I’m seeing and reading says it will be slowly, and then all at once – and within my lifetime. But strange things can happen so I do not prognosticate much. I just report what I see and try to connect the dots as best as I am able. Were I to go by what I see here in the DFW burbs, everything is fine. Mall parking lots are full, as are most grocery store shelves. Prices are up, but plenty of people here don’t seem to notice. Travel 20 miles north or south, however, and the situation starts to change a bit.

        Location will be key in the near future. And that, in itself, is another crapshoot. https://www.zerohedge.com/personal-finance/small-towns-drew-most-new-pandemic-residents
        An influx of 1000 people is enough to overwhelm not merely the housing supply of a small town, but also its school board and zoning and all sorts of issues. So “voat harder locally” is, imho, poor advice. Pick your location as wisely as possible – check not just the racial school stats but see how many houses or acres have changed hands in the past 5 years. And pray . . . and wait.

      • Wild Geese: Re human capital, Sailer features a post today about plans for more diverse airline pilots (https://equalopportunitytoday.com/united-airlines-vows-50-of-new-pilots-hired-will-be-women-or-minorities-to-reflect-passenger-diversity/#:~:text=United%20Airlines%20vows%2050%25%20of%20new%20pilots%20hired,least%2050%25%20being%20women%20or%20people%20of%20color.)

        Well, having old White ladies and children strip searched by security Somalis didn’t deter Joe Normal, and having to wear a face diaper in between bites didn’t either. Now rapidly rising prices due to fuel might have an effect, but people still insist they must fly from x to y. Most have never heard of the number of crashes tied to female/non-White pilot error. How many crashes and deaths will it take to convince them to stop flying?

        I stopped years ago. I can’t really pretend to care about what I feel certain is going to happen – same as with the clotshots. People just have to learn the hard way. The problem is all those after the fact that think saying “I told you so” is mean, instead of pour encourager les autres.

    • 3g4me & others-

      I know it’s a discretionary purchase for most, but if anyone out there is doing computing work that is GPU intensive now is a good time to buy because prices are down quite a bit with some quite powerful cards available in the the $350-500 range.

      Anyone considering a CPU upgrade may also want to pull the trigger. The AMD Ryzen products in particular are just stupid cheap for the computing power they offer.

      Personally, I am on the fence regarding further spending on camera equipment at this time. One part of me says that eventually anything I buy now will be worth more than FRNs going forward, another part of me thinks I should be investing that money into a solar power station with a panel that charges a power bank.

      • Wild Geese: Go for the solar power station. We have a couple of small ones we bought last spring (price has risen about $100 since then); waiting for Amazon Prime Days to hopefully find a decent deal on a large one (minimum 2000 watts). Big one is better for larger appliance like a full-size fridge; use the smaller ones for lights and/or laptop or phone or fans. Best to have a variety of solar generators as opposed to relying on one for the entire house.

    • As a preface, most of us here are frugal and prepared or trying to be prepared in an uncertain time. That out of the way, probably the best investment to be made at the moment are durable goods of any nature, even if it means duplication of something not needed at the moment. Inflation is just one side of the coin. Availability is the other. We are being told a world of scarcity is upon us. The mantra just a few years ago was we live in a post-scarcity society.

      Microchips are just one of many items about to become unavailable. This will include food, too, likely next year. It is hard to determine if the fertilizer shortage, for example, is planned or an accident. Either way, it doesn’t matter.

  4. I’m listening to the VDare castle stream and am disgusted by the worms that want to pretend that people from Mexico and South America are white.

    Apparently, we can solve all our problems by redefining “white.” Why didn’t we think of that before?

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    • To clarify, I love Peter, Lydia, Kevin, John, and crew. I am just cranky about having to suffer fools gladly.

        • Playing the margins in hopes of winning conventional approval seems like hoping that all blacks secretly agree with Thomas Sowell.

          Good luck with that, you stupid fucker.

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          • You mean cats aren’t just like dogs?

            The negro beast will never embrace the culture of whitey (obeying laws, planning for the future, showering regularly).

    • From the Castle.

      I think the speaker you have in mind simply raised the hopeful Q that it may be that some Hispanics appear white, may self identify as white, and may be sliding away from the D Party.

      Great venue, great hospitality, great conversation. Throughly enjoying this event.

    • Line: You’ll see that at every last purportedly “white advocacy” channel. Doesn’t matter how pro-White they claim to be; they all know those special, exceptional non-whites whom they then project to redefine the mean. Orientals, Mestizos, half this or half that – they eternally grasp at straws to demonstrate that they’re not really rayciss, or haters, or un-Christian. If they can find just one ‘x’ to illustrate “naxalt,” then they feel they’ve morally redeemed themselves.

      I, too, love Peter and Lydia and family, but I just can’t support their way going forward. Immigration restriction is a ship that sailed decades ago, and bringing court cases against those who call you rayciss is not what I consider a winning proposition.

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      • ” … and bringing court cases against those who call you rayciss is not what I consider a winning proposition”

        These are people who are just totally out of step with the times. They are living in 1965, which is fine, but they think *everybody* is living in 1965.

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    • It’s a lot more nuanced than that. Look at a picture of Canelo Alvarez and tell me he’s not white. In certain areas of Mexico and South America, there are populations that likely have 90%+ of Castilian Spanish blood if given genealogy tests. However, I agree that it’s generally not this population that’s coming over the border because they generally make up the ruling classes of their respective countries.

      • I’ve posted this before, but I never fully grasped what “Mexico isn’t sending their best” really meant until my firm did some work with the Mexican division of a US HQ’d company a couple years ago.

        The top management in Mexico for this company all looked like they were straight from the Iberian Peninsula. As you say, those aren’t the folks streaming across the southern border.

      • Something like 25% of Mexican nationals live and work in the USA. (We send school buses over the border to Mexico during the school year to pick up the kids born here to Mexican mothers. Go Figure.)

  5. The neo-cons now run the foreign policy of both the Democrats and the Republicans. The neo-con beliefs are a jewish created and dominated ideology. Yes, there are some neo-con nuts like Pompeo and Bolton who are not jewish, but they are merely carrying water for their jewish masters.

    As a white gentile American, the neo-con policies (jewish Troskyite policies) are clearly against my partisan interests. Therefore, according to ZMan’s statements in this podcast,, my partisan interests require me to support the prevention of jews from dominating US foreign policy. In today’s world, my partisan interests cause me to be classified as an anti-semite, even though I don’t hate or dislike a person just because they are jewish. It is the actions of certain jews that cause me to want them to lose power in the US.

    I believe that the anti-semite label is used to discourage white gentiles from pursuing their partisan interests. So, if pursuing my interests causes me to be labeled as an anti-semite, so be it.

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    • I’ll say a prayer that you somehow, some way, can live with being an “antisemite”.

      It is a burden we must all bear.

    • I’ve been using counter-semite for several years.

      This occasionally gives me the opportunity to explain the difference between being against Jews per se and being against their actions,

    • You underestimate the influence of gentiles within the neocons. The Cheney family has become the royal family of neocon war mongering, with Dick being the one that firmly solidified neocons within the state apparatus and mastering the military industrial complex grift.

    • How about re-defining ourselves away from any label “others” may want to impose on us or on people who may think as we do?

      I label myself, if I have to, as “pro-truth” or “pro-clarity”.

  6. Cannot have any other policy vs covid in the present demographic conditions. too easy and too tempting for the politicians not to exploit it.

  7. Musk. Like Jobs, Gates, Zuckerberg are all front men for the Kosher Nostra. Bullshit and lies, all of it. Honor and integrity are completely alien to the dickbiters. Their game is destruction, chaos and death.

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  8. The hypothesis that HBD guys like stats therefore they loved Covid doesn’t make much sense. Guys who loved stats were also eager to point out that the early predictions of the course of Covid (like that Brit Ferguson) were wrong about everything, even before Covid.

    Likewise, the idea that the HBD guys loved Covid because it put biology at the fore also doesn’t wash. Biology was also used to show that the Covidians were totally full of it. The biology can go either way.

    A better explanation of their insanity is emergent order, like flocking starlings. The HBD guys got into weird collective behavior spontaneously, taking cues from their pals.

    • There’s a couple of larger cultural factors / human nature that play a large role in the HBD communities CoVidiocy.

      First is apocalypse mongering. Many people love fantasizing that the end is near for reason …. CoVid scratched that itch for a lot of people. And if you think about it, the HBD crowd was already seeing the end.

      Second is the appeal of hidden truths. Secret knowledge makes the knower feel superior to the ignorant. CoVid fear, at least initially, was such secret knowledge. Which is one reason why all the “smart people” jumped on the train. And again the HBD community had demonstrated a tendency in this direction.

      • Apocalypse mongering is indeed a thing, but secret knowledge really is just a specie of emergent behavior. The first starling perches on the wire of perceived wisdom, then the flock takes note and follows. No one who lived through the madness ever again will or even should trust the herd animals who stampeded.

    • One thing I’ve noticed about stat guys, like Sailer and Taken, is that they almost never question the validity of the data they analyze. For example, Sailer takes PISA scores and the UCR stats pretty much at face value, with minimal criticism of whether the raw data is accurate. Consequently, if you give them a fake data set that strongly implies a very specific conclusion, they’ll pretty much accept it

  9. “Thinking Russia is a multi-racial empire is insane!” Really? Zman, I take you less seriously now.

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  10. My take on how the Ukraine War will end and its implications.

    Result:

    Russia will achieve her stated objectives, taking the eastern and southern portions of the country. However, this will be a Pyrrhic victory as Ukraine still won’t be properly demilitarized, and the US could slowly build the country up militarily to the point where they end up joining NATO in a few years. Russia might end up with an enemy on her border, which was the reason for the war in the first place.

    The war will represent a failure of Russian political leadership. They invaded with too few troops, to put it simply, and refused to take advantage of multiple incidents to call up more from the population (alternately, they could have abandoned efforts to spare civilians). Probably, the Kremlin didn’t want to admit it had made a mistake in their handling of the conflict. But had the Russians invaded with twice as many people, they could have saved themselves casualties and probably collapsed the Ukrainian government in the opening weeks of the conflict. They had multiple opportunities to change course and do this but will probably settle for much less.

    They could have ended up with the entire country and after pacifying it (forcing the country to speak Russian), the Russian Federation would have been set up to achieve great things by the middle part of this century–-decent birthrate with an appreciable economy. Now, they’ll end up with mostly worthless land and a bad economy as they are forced to play second fiddle to the future Chinese empire. Total failure of Russian leadership.

    Conclusions:

    Russia’s inability to immediately win the conflict represents a failure of the lessons learned after the Second Gulf War: aerial campaign, follow up invasion with a relatively small land force.

    The US invaded Iraq in 2003 with only about 160,000 troops total (130 US troops), significantly less than what the Russians have committed to Ukraine. Nations saw the U.S. drop laser-guided bombs and deploy all manner of new technologies against the Iraqis and concluded that modern militaries should prioritize gadgets and doohickeys over boots on the ground. Militaries around the world went all-volunteer and deprioritized numbers (even China). That was the wrong approach, at least partly.

    Against a desperately poor, ethnically divided country protected by an ancient military and commanded by an incompetent dictatorship, the Gulf War II Strategy (GW2S) can work; all the easier in desert environments where there is little coverage for your modern weapons. But when facing a real military equipped with modern weapons and a competent command structure and motivated troops of high intellectual capital (Europeans) in a homogeneous country, you’ll need lots of personnel; even moreso in countries with non-desert geographies.

    Gadgets and doohickeys, even complete air dominance, can only go so far in this era. Any attack against even a moderately competent opponent with modern weapons has to be followed up by a traditional land invasion with a huge number of troops and armaments.

    Winner: China

    The Solomon Islands just signed a defense pact with the Chinese. I think that’s a prelude of things to come. Increasingly, countries believe that China is the safer bet. They aren’t ruled by social media and won’t steal your money for offending blue checkmarks. China additionally has a powerful industrial base and a relevant economy to nations wishing to industrialize; America’s information economy can’t compete with that. China is also militarily powerful, which will serve as protection for societies not willing to risk an attack instigated by the Americans.

    Losers: US, EU, Russia

    The US will suffer economic decline as capital flees the US for fear of it being stolen at a whim. The global economy will also diversify to become less dependent on American technology and infrastructure. More countries will flee to China for military protection from the crazed and dangerous blue check empire. Political divisions will deepen into a full-blown crisis as the regime tries covering up its culpability in causing this economic and political mess.

    The EU will lose legitimacy once the economic fallout from sanctions hits. The ruling class there will be blamed as the EU becomes poorer and people realize their rights have been stolen away during the Russiaphobic hysteria.

    Russia will have to settle for much less territory and population than she could have otherwise gotten. She will spend years mired in sanctions that will hurt, but not destroy the country as originally predicted by Twitter. Russia’s political leadership will be damaged, but not overturned. They’ll settle for the Pyrrhic victory while some Russians grumble that it wasn’t worth it. Taking all of Ukraine, or at least all of the eastern and southern parts, bisecting the country, would have allowed Russian political leadership to claim the sacrifice was worth the effort.

    Russia could have done exactly that but declined the opportunity. Sadly, this is all too emblematic of the modern Western man. Even so-called European strongmen fight like Republicans. Whites, even the supposed bad ones like Vladimir Putin, are simply too conscientious for the upcoming age of identity and conflict. It’s touching that our bad guys are relatively good people, not willing to whole-sale murder vast populations of their rivals anymore, but I wonder if the same is true of our opponents.

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    • I need to re-read, and will do so tomorrow, but I agree with much of this (now) except Russia already had an enemy on its border and the pro-China elites seem on the ropes. Also, the US government is despised internally..

      Again, too soon to upvote or doenvoye but seems right.

    • Ok, re-read.

      The conclusion is.faulty. The United States basically is the only nation that doesn’t care about civilian casualties. Russia and the evil Putin do not want piles of dead bodies and have deliberately acted to avoid such. We are so accustomed to the US’s reckless disregard for killing that we cannot understand another country trying to avoid massive death.
      Putin may indeed be hamstrung by not seeking a high body count blitzkrieg such as the United States conducted in Iraq, but that will pay off when he begins to pacify and absorb Ukraine, contra what happened to the US in Iraq.

      I agree China will emerge the winner, but its American Fifth Column has been destroyed in the process. That loss in the long run is a big one for China. Something you did not mention that I find interesting is that this has somewhat estranged Israel and the United States. Jews gonna Jew but even I am taken aback by how quickly the Israelis have abandoned the USS Money Tree.

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    • You seem to think that Western Europe will still be economically functional “in a few years” it won’t.

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    • “The war will represent a failure of Russian political leadership. They invaded with too few troops, to put it simply, and refused to take advantage of multiple incidents to call up more from the population (alternately, they could have abandoned efforts to spare civilians). Probably, the Kremlin didn’t want to admit it had made a mistake in their handling of the conflict. But had the Russians invaded with twice as many people, they could have saved themselves casualties and probably collapsed the Ukrainian government in the opening weeks of the conflict.”

      Amazing!

      I continue to be amazed at the number of people out there who are privy to Putin’s private thoughts and to hi war objectives and to the strength of the Russian army and state and all the rest of it.

      Or who think they are.

      Where does this remarkable knowledge come from? Are you a mind reader? Do you talk to Putin and Lavrov every day, then, or only once a week?

      Or do they just call you up when they have something they thing you ought to know?

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  11. It’s funny, just the other day I was suggesting that the way to deal with the Azov holdouts would be to seal them inside the tunnels like The Cask of Amontillado. My parents said I was just being an edgelord, yet today I read that Putin had the same idea.

    Great minds think alike!

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  12. Covid was a serious health crisis. I know a lot of people who died during the pandemic. I thank the fast acting and thinking of our pharmiceuticomedical industry for ending the pandemic quickly and protecting us with vaccines. I know of zero people who suffered adverse effects from the vaccine, and I work in the health care industry. You conservatards have it wrong on this one. That’s why I’ve been looking to the left for guidance these days!

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    • I completely agree. I for one am also disgusted with the lack of accountability regarding social media companies and their inaction when it comes to misinformation on the subject. I, too, am “Rockin’ in the Free World” with Neil against Spotify and its platform that allows the alt-right to twist the narrative. I disavow this social Dachau.

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    • Wonderful trolling. I suspect however, you were really dripping with sarcasm. In any event, thanks for a bit of humor in the day.

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    • Bullshit. Even if you are telling the truth–which I doubt–you know “a lot” of people who died WITH Covid, not from it.

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    • I guess Richard Spencer is commenting on Z now. Welcome brother, we can agree to disagree but I do miss the old Dick

        • See, this is the type of narrative twisting the OP was referring to that leads to white supremacy. I cannot help but notice that “Bartleby the Scrivener” was written by a white man who plundered native lands. We need to protect freedom of speech by silencing those racist voices that silence traditionally marginalized groups. Why do you not name yourself “Beloved” or “Sula” as atonement for your slaveholding, oppressive past and present? It’s this type of systemic racism that CRT addresses. We need to organize and make sure bigots do not control the school system.

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          • Slaveholding?

            Why, the only contact I had with the negro beast was when I was roaming the Great Plains of the West side of Chimpcongo. My compatriots and I would corral the lawbreaking ner do wells who were running amok and confine them in their natural habitat, a holding cell.

            I never ONCE had them pick cotton or work the fields for me.

            Shame on you, Eloi, for your slander.

            If I had a pair of leather gloves I would whack you across the face!

            (And as for bigots who control the school system, I don’t think anyone who is even remotely lucid is not involved with, or sends their kids to government schools).

  13. My rule of thumb has become . . . comfortably numb . . . kidding (but couldn’t resist). Seriously though, rule of thumb is if it comes from official government or MSM source, treat as false unitil proven true beyond all reasonable doubt. If some esoteric online source, wait until the “take” is confirmed by at least four other trusted online personas (Z man being one).

    Or just go with Alex Jones’ take if you want to be 9 months ahead of the curve.

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    • One of most poignant guitar solos of all time. Comfortably Numb. White culture, even if David Gilmore would condemn my framing.

      • Rick Beato’s breakdown of the song is fantastic: “What Makes This Song Great #104”. He agrees that the first solo is likely the greatest of all time.

  14. Somewhat related, I think Musk is on to something with lack of qualified people. As Z-Man noted, airline pilots are not floating over the Rio Grande. Starlink is apparently a game changer for people in remote or sparsely populated areas, they get very good internet speeds both up and down. Musk’s main achievement is commercial space services which actually makes money.

    Look at the FEEBS and their clown show in Michigan. The FBI used to have lots of scary competent dudes who ran blackmail and other ops for J Edgar Hoover, and did other things. There was no shortage of smart goons who wanted to be FBI Agents and the Bureau could have its pick. Now, they are “diverse” and like the “diverse” Secret Service, riddled with incompetence and stupidity to the point where they can’t even stitch up some goofballs they found. And covered for Larry Nasser (they are getting sued over that). The clampdown requires competent and scary men to wear the jackboots. Stacy Abrams ain’t cutting it. Regardless of how you feel about Putin, not even he was willing to lose men he can’t afford to lose in what amounted to the Vietnam era tunnel rats in the Mariupol Steelworks. He’s just going to seal it off and starve them out.

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    • Yep, being woke works fine—iff you can afford to hire your diversity candidate (token), and then hire a second—competent—candidate to do the work! Two for one—or is that one for two?

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    • The West is being held together by the mid-40s to mid-60s demographic with some folks from the late 60s and early 40s sets pitching in as well.

      The Great Resignation seems to be real. This is because a lot of good folks in the demo above managed their spending and investments well enough to live on income and savings, at least until Brandon manages to make the inflation rate go infinite.

      There is something going on with jabs, but it is not so widespread and in such large quantity that the narrative spinners can’t cover it up with the usual word salad.

      If Musk is the real deal, then maybe Starlink really is meant to provide fast Internet to people in the sticks.

      If Musk is simply controlled op, then the real purpose of Starlink is tracking people anywhere on Earth.

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      • A lot of people don’t like Musk. They reacted to his wanting to buy Twitter like a vampire faced with a cross. Given who it was, that “says something right there.” As a famous troll noted.

        Twitter is widely believed to be a CIA project, with funding from various CIA/Intel sources, and various intel spook chiefs have publicly stated that Facebook, Twitter, etc. must be under SJW control to “control the narrative” or otherwise Putin will hide under everyone’s bed. Twitter seriously makes no money that I can see, and has enormous expenses to run all those servers in all those data centers that does not pencil out to what they state are operating expenses in their annual reports. A lot of people just assume most of the server expenses are taken up by some FedGov agency.

        Related, if the Clintons now seem to “own” the FBI, Biden seems to “own” the Secret Service, given all the favors over the years even after he left office done for bagman “Son of Big Man” and the low quality of the Secret Service likely reflects said ownership.

      • My reply is in moderation because I mentioned the “Son of Big Guy” and that apparently makes it extra, extra naughty.

        Sort of like Elon Musk these days.

  15. Musks’s spacex owns starlink, a satellite based internet service provider. Twitter would make a great anchor client. A three in a row vertical integration play.

    • Hard to even comment on such arrogance and stupidity. CDC as ultimate “expert” argument aside. All decisions stemming from such departments that affect the people are in fact “political” decisions, and by definition outside (or should be outside) of unelected bureaucrats.

      These decisions must go through our political arm/process—Executive, Congress, Courts. This is really grade school stuff (when Civics was taught to me). The blatant confusion/misunderstanding of such order of authority shows how bad things are in our current governing structure.

      A good example of a governing structure “that got it right” was Sweden. Read up a bit on their response to Covid in 2020. It was *not* necessarily that their medical “experts” were smarter or better informed than anywhere else. It was that their laws did not allow much of the panicked recommendations that their medical “experts wanted. Buy the time it was all thrashed out, the initial wave had passed and their “do little” policy turned out to be no worse mortality-wise than their draconian neighbors’ do everything policy.

      The world should be thankful for that, it isn’t. No one likes to be shown wrong it seems and the Swed’s are pilloried to this day for their failure to panic and support the narrative.

  16. Is Elon the next Trump? A billionaire saviour coming in and, being so desperate for allies, the “conservatives” lap it all up? To me it’s rich people doing rich people things, and having rich people drama. Saudi Sheikh billionaire wants less free speech on Twitter, billionaire Elon wants more. Rich person food fight.

    Would it be good for our side to have less censorship? Maybe – but it’s more likely that under “right wing” ownership, Ben Shapiro, Alex Jones, Gavin MacInnes, etc. will be allowed back on Twitter, but Dissidents will continue to be censored. Sort of like Parler – a safe, PC, RNC approved version of conservatism to pen the sheep.

    That’s why I’m not too worried about the political power plays at the top or schemes by billionaires. As Dissidents we just need to keep working at personal and local levels, and stop worrying about things we can’t control. If Elon does turn out to allow a free speech Twitter that benefits our side, that’s awesome and we should take full advantage. But it would be foolish to hope for it, just as it’s foolish to do nothing hoping for Jesus to come back. We do what we need to do and the world will do what it does.

    FWIW Elon is demographically aware, he mentioned a lack of smart people having children, and he has 7 himself with 3 women (6 are alive today). Being raised in South Africa doesn’t hurt. He’s obviously not a social conservative either, but i think it’s fair to hear him out. Pining for a lost past doesn’t help anybody, and we should be open to new ideas and new ways for the future. Part of our problem is that the Right pines for a return to 1980 or 1950, while the Left pines for a return to 1960.

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    • “Would it be good for our side to have less censorship?”

      Probably not, at least in the current context. My main question for conservatives complaining about being kicked off Twitter is: who was having their minds changed by reading your tweets?

      Social media is not like a town hall, where every citizen is invited to weigh in on an issue, at length, with the goal of cooking to a policy that is mostly satisfactory to everyone. Social media is a middle Eastern bazaar, where attention is the currency and the loudest voices are essentially merchants. The inflated follower counts are paid plants. Whining about free speech in a bazaar is simply tone deaf. It’s a space for greasy salesman, not principled politics.

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    • Elon Musk has 7 children and three wives? Well to me he seems less interested in raising children than in making them. His better bet in keeping the genetic White stock at a high level would perhaps be to open his own sperm bank, with him as the primary contributor.

      As much of an HBD proponent as I am, one must also raise children up correctly, which to me places a high value on family and home life. Otherwise, we might as well do as they did in the movie, Barbarella—let abandoned children grow up in the forest, and then round them up when they reach a useful age. (Yes, I admit to knowing nothing about Musk’s home life and parenting. He might be a good father.)

        • Jeez, and I thought it was my paternal grandparents who seemed to be trying to start their own race!

      • Correct in your last sentence Compsci. They all live in his house. They are children of extremely ( I mean very) attractive white women (except for the third chick…who gave him the last child… to me at least). He was disgusted with the high end private school called Mirman (spelling?) in Los Angeles so he created his own school for them and for children of employees of his company. Currently, the school has 22 kids. He frequently posts videos demonstrating , to me at least , he is the main control in how they are raised.
        One may disagree with him not staying with one lady after he married her. But neglecting his sons (all 6 are boys, I think) is certainly not one of the outcomes.

  17. You could still be right about Musk, though. I refuse to believe he’s anything but a globohomo product or that he’s some kind of champion for free speech.

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    • He’s certainly not on this side of the divide, but it’s very probable that he does actually support free speech. He comes across as a classical liberal civnat. I just wonder if he’ll be black pilled when they come to destroy him. Leftist sites are now arguing that it’s a matter of national security that social media sites be allowed to censor the right.

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    • Frankly, I think he’s a grifter. I’ll believe he’s a free speech advocate the day the Tesla pick-up truck ships or the day we have the hyperloop or the day the Model 3 starts selling for 35k Dollars or all those roofing shingle solar panels start selling.

      When Starlink goes bankrupt, we’re going to have to pay to clean up all the space junk.

      I think what he really wants is unload as much Tesla stock as he can and turn all that paper wealth into real money. Tesla is “worth” 4 times that of Toyota, 20 times that of GM and almost 20 times that of Ford and more than double all 3 combined.

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      • If Starlink goes bankrupt (yes its possible) then the satellites will slowly de-orbit themselves over time

        Musk isn’t actually involved in hyperloop, he said should have kept the idea to himself, its not really a new idea anyway

        • He’s going to insert 40,000 satellites into low Earth orbit EVERY FIVE YEARS. The current number of satellites in LEO is about 8-9,000.

          You can get global satellite coverage with two satellites in geostationary orbit, the only downside being a slightly longer latency.

          Bankruptcy is inevitable, it’s baked into a Ponzi scheme. StarLink kind of works right now, reportedly, but that’s when he’s got two customers per local satellite. He’d need hundreds of millions of subscribers for his numbers to make sense, and then bandwidth will drop dramatically. The big cities already have cheap hardwiring and the rural areas have cheap-ish geostationary, so I’m struggling to identify his customer base.

          StarLink’s only purpose is to give his rockets something to launch, as to make SpaceX look like a commercial success on the private launch market.

          Yes, they’ll deorbit naturally, but it’s a gradual process – some of the fragments will still be in orbit hundreds of years from now. Space junk is space junk and each piece adds to the Kessler cascade, where debris produce more debris, making it necessary to shield satellites better which translates into launch costs.

          Frivolously launching useless junk into orbit should be considered a crime against humanity.

          • Frivolously launching useless junk into orbit should be considered a crime against humanity.

            Insert random female astronaut joke;

            “Houston, we have a problem!”

            “Odyssey, this is Houston. Please state the nature of the problem.”

            “Never mind.”

            “I’m sorry, Houston, I didn’t quite get that. Please describe the problem so that we may help.”

            “Forget about it.”

            “Odyssey, I’m not sure I understand you. Could you please tell us what the problem is?”

            “You know what the problem is!”

          • Right now they have 250K subscribers using about 2K satellites

            I have listened to plenty of people claiming Starlink and SpaceX are doomed, I can always spot huge mistakes in their SpaceX claims, they never really understand whats going on, I don’t know enough about Starlink but I suspect its the same

            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TxkE_oYrjU

            Watch that video, and count the mistakes, try to ignore the annoying voice, for a man who clearly doesn’t understand the subject, he is far too smug

            My guess is that long term Starling isn’t just a home internet service, Musk will want to expand it into all kinds of other markets

          • Right now they have 250K subscribers using about 2K satellites

            That’s 125 subscribers per bird. He’d need an order of magnitude more customers than that, and the ones he have now are the low-hanging fruit, the fanbois.

            Musk will want to expand it into all kinds of other markets

            What markets would those be?

            And I didn’t say SpaceX was doomed, it’s got federal contracts propping it up. I said SL is making SX look like it has a bigger private market share than it does.

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          • Geo-stationary satellite internet is bad and expensive. I dont know much about Starlinks yet but if it could improve upon the sketchy costly Viasat that my company uses on remote facilities it would be a great thing.

          • You can get global satellite coverage with two satellites in geostationary orbit, the only downside being a slightly longer latency.

            Spoken like someone who’s never experienced geosynchronous satellite internet vs. Starlink.

            The first time I booted up my Starlink router and experienced the difference, I got a little sand in my eye.

          • Frivolously launching useless junk into orbit should be considered a crime against humanity.

            All the Starlink satellites are sized to burn up harmlessly on reentry.

          • The sphere that hosts the Starlink satellite orbital plane has significantly larger surface area than the surface of the Earth. Each Starlink satellite is smaller than a car. If Earth had 2,000 total cars on it, would you say it was crowded with cars?

          • The first time I booted up my Starlink router and experienced the difference, I got a little sand in my eye.

            If Viasat commissioned twenty more satellites you’d get comparable bandwidth (albeit with lag) but Viasat has to consider shareholders and such, so they’d have to charge the extra cost to customers, something Musk has avoided until now.

            As mentioned, the current customer base is 125 people per satellite. Your bandwidth will not stay the same when it’s 12,500, which is more like the number Musk needs for a viable business case.

            If Earth had 2,000 total cars on it, would you say it was crowded with cars?

            If they were moving at 12,000 mph? I’d say you need a lot more head space up to the next guy than if you’re travelling at a leisurely 120 mph (as we do here in Europe.)

            Orbital collisions happen all the time; the ISS needs to dodge larger items a couple of times each year, and is struck by microjunk all the time. If you want to quadruple the total number of satellites in orbit, I’d have hoped there was adults in charge, which Musk is not.

            And I’m not saying they don’t work. I’m saying the numbers don’t add up, making a bankrupt SL an almost guarantee. SL is financed on the same model as Solar City, with some lease-scheme where the customer only pays a fraction of the up-front cost.

            All the Starlink satellites are sized to burn up harmlessly on reentry.

            The risk is not about your car being hit by one, the risk is about orbital collisions.

          • If Viasat commissioned twenty more satellites you’d get comparable bandwidth (albeit with lag) but Viasat has to consider shareholders and such, so they’d have to charge the extra cost to customers, something Musk has avoided until now.

            That’s just it. The lag is *everything* about the problem with geosynchronous satellites. The bandwidth on Viasat is already acceptable.

          • I see. I don’t game and I’ve never been outside civilization, so I don’t know what lag feels like. Annoying, I take it?

          • “I see. I don’t game and I’ve never been outside civilization, so I don’t know what lag feels like. Annoying, I take it?”

            Not just gaming, anything that requires interaction is affected. Imagine you’re typing on an ssh (secure shell) terminal and with 700-1000ms latency it takes a second to get an echo back on every keystroke. It make much of my technical work and troubleshooting extremely painful and painstaking.

            It has subtle effects on all sorts of interactions. Many web-based apps behave oddly because they’re simply not expecting such latency.

            I used to do sales presentations over Webex/Zoom all the time and it was a constant struggle to get the demos to work well because if I moved too quickly all the latency in the interaction would start to cause the data streams to freeze and jump and become unviewable. Even voice over zoom is barely usable due to 1 to two second conversation delays, ending up in you accidentally talking over people all the time.

            Sometimes I’d have to go book a room at a hotel in the nearest town just for the sake of their wifi and broadband.

          • If they were moving at 12,000 mph? I’d say you need a lot more head space up to the next guy than if you’re travelling at a leisurely 120 mph (as we do here in Europe.)

            Two objects moving at 12,000 mph are moving 0 mph relative to each other. Head space isn’t particularly an issue. Satellites don’t suddenly brake, and they’re not random, unidentified debris that something else could just unknowingly run into. The position of each is known and they can be deliberately de-orbited.

          • Not just gaming, anything that requires interaction is affected.

            Fair enough – I was joking with the last comment but if lag is an issue, it’s an issue, no argument.

            Head space isn’t particularly an issue

            Okay, picture this: you start two cars off in opposite directions. Moving at 12,000 mph they’d pass each other once an hour as they circumnavigate the planet, signifying a potential collision risk. If they move at 120 mph, they’ll pass each other every 100 days.

            That aside, the fact is that collisions happen regularly already and it stands to reason the risk will quadruple if the number of satellites does.

            they’re not random, unidentified debris that something else could just unknowingly run into.

            No, but there’s plenty of uncharted debris up there and if a bit hits a satellite, it’ll turn it into more random debris.

          • Orbital debris sounds to me like a problem begging for better technical solutions, not an excuse to keep orbital space sparse.

          • not an excuse to keep orbital space sparse.

            Sure, space is there to be used. But 30,000 birds every five years? A few dozen or hundreds, okay, but orbit is a global common and the debris is an externalized cost that Musk foists on all of us.

            You could clean debris with a powerful, ground-based laser: you light up the offending article on the forward face from it’s trajectory. The evaporation of surface matter or the simple pressure of the laser will slow it down and eventually drop it into the gravity well.

        • I think it depends on when they go bankrupt. They are planning on putting up an enormous amount of satellites (30 thousand of them). Right now, including the 1400 Starlink has already sent up, there are only 6,542. I’ve heard they are selling the modems at a huge loss.

          As far as Hyperloop goes, I know he said he wanted someone else to do it, but he still talks about it, or so I have heard.

          • I’ve left you a reply with the modbot. I trust Z-Man will get around to it eventually, he usually does.

      • Or when you can travel from LA to SF in 35 minutes for $10 a ticket.

        Musk is throwing all these cons at the wall in hope that one explodes into another Tesla or SpaceX. I’m surprised he has any fans over 12 though, most of his schemes are comic book ridiculous.

        Buying Twitter is another con, because cons is Musk’s business. He’s already made a couple of billion dollars, so good on him. He’s not in it to sell you free speech because then all his money would disappear.

        Seeding near-Earth orbit with space junk is another matter entirely. I’m amazed no government has protested at this monstrous pollution of the orbital common, which pretty much makes Musk a certified globohomo agent. Maybe the idea is to make it extremely expensive to have satellites in low orbit.

        Tesla is “worth” 4 times that of Toyota, 20 times that of GM and almost 20 times that of Ford and more than double all 3 combined.

        …and sells 1/100 the number of vehicles. The stampede will be fun.

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  18. One of your best ever! I have fallen into these traps many times. BTW have been promoting your show to anyone I think may be receptive.

  19. “The first batch of news and commentary is always wrong, so the hot take based on that stuff is almost always going to be wrong in important ways”

    The outright lies coming from U.S media is alarming.

    Today Russia found a secret operation by Ukrainians taking place in a residential building and arrested the Ukrainians.

    Video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3OGmwyc1LeE

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  20. I usually get a lot of stuff right as it pertains to politics and the culture but small consolation for getting women wrong

    Dear wifey, I kid, I kid

    I love and you have been great. Best thing that ever happened to me.

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  21. “They will have to climb back off that limb at some point and hope everyone forgets about it.”

    Forgive and forget is no longer an option for me. Everyone makes mistakes—but some more than others. It a world of lies, one only has their reputation to support their opinion/conclusions. In a world of verbal jousting as in Twitter, or even blog comment sections such as this, you need to be “right” with some frequency or be shunned.

    Unfortunately, we (myself included) often simply “double down” rather than “climb back off the limb”. Most people are not like Z-man can freely admit he is wrong, initiate a course correction, then *use* his “mistake” as a teaching moment for his followers. Bravo.

    • Imagine Jen Psaki at the kids’ school for parents day and someone asks her what she does and she says “I get paid a lot to tell lies into a microphone “

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    • Unfortunately hot takes bring in the shekels. Whether the takes are bad or not seems to have no effect on this. Exhibit A: FTN 2.0.

      But I sincerely hope Herr Doktor Johnson listens to this and sticks to what he is great at: philosophy, culture, publishing and sounding like a generally thoughtful man when talking in general terms about this thing.

      For my part I am training myself to avoid some of our smartest people when it comes to pontification on topics outside their mastery…

      Like Z’s repeated, unhinged assaults on Steely Dan, a band for all seasons.

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      • Hypothesis: No sane person has ever actually made it through an entire Steely Dan album.

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        • Sorry, I am with Vegetius here. I count myself as sane, and I have many times made my way through entire Steely Dan albums. I prefer their earlier albums on the whole; Can’t Buy A Thrill, Countdown to Ecstasy, Pretzel Logic, Katy Lied. The boys were deeply schooled in jazz and other popular idioms, and some respectful homage shines through from time to time, mixed however with their own stylistically sophisticated, but sometimes quirky sensibility.
          An example is from Countdown to Ecstasy, the song Your Gold Teeth. A recollection of a visit to an clandestine casino in Chicago where the protagonist is hit upon by a woman. The phrase “throw out your gold teeth” is a reference to when a gambler is making one last roll, staking all on his only remaining asset, his gold teeth, a metaphor applied to the woman at the casino. Virtuosic music to accompany the poetic conceit, too. Check out the song Parker’s Band, a homage to Charlie Parker, a leading light in bebop jazz, replete with references to some of Bird’s major works and his collaborations with Dizzy Gillespie (from Pretzel Logic).
          If you ever find yourself down in the hole, take time to listen to another song from that album, Any Major Dude Will Tell You.

          If you don’t like it, well, as the Romans said, De gustibus non est disputandum, so there is that.

          Fare forward, voyager…

  22. Musk grew up in South Africa, which induced a realism America’s billionaires lack.

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    • IDK, there are a lot of true believers even in South Africa, especially if you come from a family with money and can avoid the riff-raff.

      Though I don’t follow him really, the one issue I heard about him and “free speech” is his desire to allow certain women, motivated entirely by their hatred of men, to speak sensibly on the tranny issue. “TERFs” or trans exclusionary radical feminists only speak somewhat sensibly on this issue because they hate the fact that men in dresses are showing up their sisters in wammen’s sports or showing up in “women’s spaces” and invading on them.

  23. One thought on Gell-Mann amnesia effect occurred to me as I was listening to the podcast this morning. I’m not an ID specialist or immunologist, but I have been practicing medicine for 45 years, and two years of covidiocy has pretty much made my head explode. That said, because of all the lying from the enemedia and TPTB, I now reflexively distrust anything they tell me about anything I don’t have personal knowledge of. Problem is, that’s little different from reflexively believing everything they say.
    With regard to Russia and the Ukraine, there are NO good guys in that tiff, and I’m down with what Henry Kissinger said during the Iran-Iraq war – it’s a pity both sides can’t lose.

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    • “Problem is, that’s little different from reflexively believing everything they say.”

      I don’t agree–and for one reason: They are habitual liars, and we have plenty of experience upon which to base that conclusion.

      Besides, what people say is just that and nothing more: what people say.

      All investigators know that.

      You are on very solid ground.

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    • “Problem is, that’s little different from reflexively believing everyth”

      That is wrong. Until you quantify that disbelieving their preferred narrative is as uniformly wrong as believing it, get back to us. My first career was in the belly of the propaganda beast and it is far worse than you can imagine. Even outside the bias and propaganda, attempts at factual reporting are usually so rife with error that it renders the attempts at accuracy useless. In recent years, copy desks, the supposed brake on error, have beeneliminated. Even 30 years ago, reporters, an ironic job descriptionif there ever were one, were uniformly lazy and their sources tended to be other reporters regurgitating what other reporters told them.

  24. As someone with absolutely zero interest in or presence on social media, I’ve made no prognostications about Musk. Even if there was an ostensibly ‘fair and balanced’ type of Twitter, I wouldn’t use it. I comment here, perhaps more often than I ought, but my online presence is otherwise pretty slim. No google account, no you tube account, no patreon account, no kickstarter account, etc. I go out of my way to avoid all of that.
    tl;dr: Not my circus, not my monkeys

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    • Musk is a difficult call for me. I’m always suspicious of folks who are touted as geniuses and soothsayers. His car company and product is the best, albeit Orwellian in nature (to me), but just about everything else he promoted is patently ridiculous—for example is underground tunneling to reduce traffic congestion in LA. Yet people “believe” because, well *Musk*.

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      • I wonder if some on the Right are making of Musk a god, just as those on the Left did of Steve Jobs.

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      • It doesn’t take a genius to see that Musk is using the boring company as a way to test tunneling machines that will ultimately be used on Mars in the Valles Marinaris caves . Glass domes ARE NOT where the first humans will reside, but rather caves which would be much cheaper. He launched one of his cars into space and made a “joke” about it. He wants to get his Tesla cars on Mars and have them run on batteries charged by solar cells. Perfecting and producing a large scale solar cell factory on the taxpayer’s dime and Perfecting a boring mechanism to the taxpayer’s dime leaves him with ability to use his NOT infinite resources to figure out who to get there and back. Space X has a policy to only hire US citizens and there is no diversity hires to speak of.

        “A person with a new idea is a crank until the idea succeeds.”
        ― Mark Twain

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    • I’m with you. I don’t get the appeal of having to deal with a million disagreements for everything you believe, which is all social media is.

      If you say you lie ice cream, that even causes a firestorm.

      It is ridiculous and a foolish way to spend one’s precious time. And what is the payoff? The attention? From strangers in God knows what kind of apartment or room they are typing from.

      I don’t get it. I even joined gab for example and quickly realized it isn’t worth the headache. And the way people talk online is unfiltered and lacking in discretion and judgement. So you get all these crazies who would think twice about saying in public what they freely belt out online, so there is a cowardice element that runs through all of it.

      Like I tell people who try to contact me via social media, if you want to tell me something you know where to find me, and if it ain’t worth the trouble of finding me in person, then it probably isn’t something I would give a care about,

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    • Musk has started with a false premise. The entire purpose of Twitter IS censorship and propaganda. Its board and owners even admit it.

      Think Trump claiming he wanted to reform Washington. From the perspective of D.C., all is well. Same with Twitter.

      With you 100 percent on social media.

  25. I did very well during the Covid debacle. Mind you, that was a slam dunk. If you have a scientific mind, can do math and stats, and passed grade 11 biology…you’d have sorted that scam out within the first two weeks.

    The ‘Kraine is a bit tougher. So far I’ve shat the bed twice, badly. The first was the sinking of the Moskva. The back channels on Telegram were saying it was still afloat, that it was under its own power; or that it was being towed back to port…and I got suckered. Then there was the disappearance of Gonzalo Lira…I thought the Ukes capped him…but there’s chatter now that he’s still alive and in “protective custody”.

    I like Blab and Telegram but I’m hearing also of something called Urbit. Any of you guys using it…?

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    • I haven’t got anything wrong since the Iraq war. Not bragging. It’s a curse to be honest

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      • what did you feel would happen with 2020 election? The steal was a real black-pill eye opener for me… a checking out point of realizing that we will not vote our way out of this.

    • The Duran guys seem to have the most recent contact with Lira posted this morning.

      In the meantime there was tons of misinfo swirling. Speculation he got capped by Azov, a Patreon video that seemed to be Lira stating he had a terminal heart condition that could have been a deep fake, and a few other oddities.

      Anyway, it appears the universe may have mercifully granted Lira a mulligan on being undone by the narcotic of minor celebrity.

      If the heart diagnosis is true and he gets out of Ukraine, I hope he makes a beeline to rejoin his wife and young children. He is more than capable of breaking down staged propaganda videos from a safe location near his loved ones.

      • Moral of this story is that having family and parents and associates who care about you and will go to the ends of the earth to protect you is one way to ensure the thugs don’t mess with you because there will be hell to pay. And the trouble often isn’t worth it.

        Which is why I sleep easy knowing if the government goons ever mess with me they will have to deal with my family, and I pity anyone who has to deal with them.

        Glad to hear Gonzalo is ok. But whew,, that was a close one

    • “If you have a scientific mind, can do math and stats, and passed grade 11 biology…you’d have sorted that scam out within the first two weeks.”

      Well done, but “science” was *never* necessary to see the fraud from the git-go.

      The obituary page in the local paper told the truth.

      “There’s a global pandemic killing millions.”

      Where?

      “Somewhere else.”
      (A woman at a local farmers market actually said that to me.)

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        • Yes

          You have nothing to worry about.(with regards to the Coof)

          Although, the elimination of the common flu was one upside. It was a miracle!

          Your Government on the other hand, well…..

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          • I was attempting to imply that should have been TIP’s response to the lady that believed the pandemic was something happening elsewhere.

      • Nonsense. Pandemics need time to propagate. People need time to respond to them. In the beginning all we heard was death, death, death – all “somewhere else”. Had it been a real pandemic it would need time to spread, and time for the hype and panic to subside. My spider senses were going off on day one too… but, as our blog host says…you have allow a grace period for the facts to be sorted out…or in that case… for the hoax to fall apart.

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  26. Funny how the far-Left has a newfound appreciation for free speech now that Musk may be at the helm of one of their favorite open sewers.

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    • Well Twitter is a non-issue. Blab is the answer to Titter, the rude jokes alone are worth the trip. I usually lurk and seldom comment but I got in a bit of a pishing match with Vox Day’s wife. She is just the kind of turd brained chicken head you’d expect such a woman to be and I put the silly bint on mute after a minor exchange of pleasantries. No moderators, no fact checkers or time outs…which is the adult way of dealing with disagreeable people. I wonder why she started coming up in my feed? Blab does that from time to time, putting rotters and stinkers into your line up.

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    • That’s just it, they don’t have a newfound appreciation for free speech. Their entire gig on that has been that it would be a terrible thing for Musk to allow more free speech on Twitter.

      The masks are fully off (much as they are on airplanes).

    • Just as they’re all about “our democracy” despite having brazenly stolen the last presidential election.

  27. Elon was right about Twitter — 4 years ago. Now it’s just a hive of status chasers, normies, and crazy leftists. I appreciate that he wants to bring back the “town square” but if he gets what he wants, the cat ladies and dog moms will move to Reddit. Twitter will become another Parler.

  28. Musk will keep “trying” to buy Twitter as long as it is a lucrative deal for him. And he’ll have an exit strategy – pump & dump the stock, sue the Board for $billions – if it fails.

    • There are lots of ways to fight back against the Borg, and creativity is our birthright, so I support any means that ultimately succeeds. For example, Prince William of the English Royal Family got taken for a huge payday and his reputation destroyed by middle aged woman who turned a single photograph into a weapon of mass destruction. That had to be the world record payout for nukie and it hit where it hurts.

      There is also the recent news that black gangs in LA have begun targeting rich neighborhoods and focusing on fleecing the wealthy Progs that willingly support BLM with your tax dollars but draw the line at coughing up their personal bank account when virtue signalling. Now if we can just get some of those spare unaccounted for javelins to LA, those gangs would be cooking with gas.

      All is fair in love and war.

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  29. If Musk remains the enemy of our enemy there is some benefit in that.
    Let’s make a distinction, Musk is very smart but is no genius. IQ is important but is one component. Z is right, he is smart and brash enough to game the system. His electric cars and mars enterprise are fun to watch but advance nothing. The man wants to put a chip in your brain, need I say more?

    As far as Twitter, screw all that.

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    • Gates, Bezos, and Zuckerberg represent the bad cop half of the technocratic elite; Musk is technocracy’s good cop. Musk comes off like a free spirit who just wants to make cool advancements (colonize Mars!). Nevertheless, he also claims that man will have to merge with machine to prevent AI from surpassing us. It has a strong whiff of sci-fi dystopia.

      All of those big names I mentioned, including Musk, are likely just extremely wealthy front men for globalist technocracy. The real players prefer to operate from the shadows (for damn good reason).

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    • Anyone graduating from U.Penn’s M&T program almost certainly has a genius-level IQ. You may not like Musk, but he’s obviously smart as a whip.

      Agree that Twitter is a waste of time. Agree that he’s gamed the system, although electric cars may be useful someday when better battery technology gets developed.

  30. For those who thinks Z talks too fast, in most podcast or other audio apps you can slow down the track as well as speed it up.

    • John Derbyshire talks so slowly that I bet he’d be a good podcast for intermediate English students.

      Z, on the other hand, is for native speakers only!

        • Which is why I prefer to read his stuff. He caused a bit of a kerfuffle over an April, 2012 essay in Takimag entitled The Talk, Nonblack version. I took to referring to him as Bertie Woostershire due to his sincere, Wodehousian perplexity over what the fuss was all about.

        • In his defense, the Derb always endeavors to give satisfaction!

          That’s what Mrs. Derb said!

          • HAW! Ha-HAW-ha! Derb/Bertie and Sailer are two of my go-to guys at Unz; they’re not as…interesting as some of the online outpatients (or inpatients) who post or comment there, but they do in their way contribute diversity of opinion at that site.

        • Derb has said for years that he works from a script. He then tidies it up and posts it on his site. I have never read out loud very well, so I just work from some notes. I do the same thing when I have had to give speeches or presentations, regardless oft he subject matter. I feel more comfortable speaking off the cuff but using notes to keep me on track.

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    • I think he does alright. The guys you want setting speed limits like this are the university profs. They have a lot of info to disseminate and no time to waste. Our blog host tracks very well with them. You have to pay attention to him the same way…if you go to sleep you can miss the point. I’d like to see my little Hitler Youth buddy and some of the hate-singers back again though. I also liked the explosions that separated the subtopics.

      Another spectacular show, Z.

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  31. Wether or not Musk is going to buy Twitter is probably irrelevant.

    It has been embarrassing watching people suddenly think he is some kind of savior who is going to make everything right.

    It is the same childish glee I see in people giddy that the Republicans are going to win the midterms, as if that is going to change anything.

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    • People are like children, or how do you explain DeSantos walking the political stage like a Colossus when he barely survived his last election. We need hero’s. True hero’s are rare, perhaps even rarer than geniuses. If they are in short supply we create them. All because we need “saviors” in these troubled times.

      We had a Savior, but we discarded Him.

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      • “Barely survived” means “didn’t lose.” That’ll do, pig. That’ll do.

        I don’t have many opinions about DeSantis one way or another, but I don’t see any point in criticizing him for pulling out a squeaker.

        The only savior we had came back three days after we discarded him and was still willing to forgive us, so it’s all good.

    • It’s the floor show of watching Twitts cry about the loss of media control and demand more censorship that’s been making us dissidents giggle. They are not usually that honest.

      You’re right, of course. One wants to like Musk for what he currently does but there’s just no way that his motivations & associations can be trusted. There’s a long con being played on us.

      As with Florida’s DeSantis, they are showing us what we want to see. That’s a powerful lie.

  32. My hunch was the Musk was serious because I think he has higher ambitions and Twitter to him would be what the Washington post is to Bezos. So it will be his very own and very large bullhorn. He might not run for potus, legally right now he can’t, but he does intend to run for something big. Or do something big like throw all his weight behind trump in exchange for a cabinet post perhaps My guess at least.

  33. “Certain groups of people who are dissident adjacent staked out a bad position on Ukraine. They will have to climb back off that limb at some point and hope everyone forgets about it.”

    That’s a bit cryptic, Z. Could you provide more detail?

    My own view is that IDGAF about Ukraine. Half my life it was a Soviet Republic. I couldn’t care less whether the Russians turn it onto a glass parking lot or not (they won’t).

    The entire Ukrainian boondoggle is the creation of the Deep State, the media, and the Military Industrial Complex. It is designed to make the American proles bark like trained seals while ignoring a demented chief executive, 15% inflation, $5 gas and $30 trillion in debt while simultaneously advancing GloboHomo, enriching defense contractors and NATO grifters, and satisfying the bloodlust of the Tribe — who are, naturally, as thick as thieves in all of this.

    If that’s “going out on a limb,” so be it.

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    • IDGAF about either Russia or the Ukraine. (I use the “THE” to piss off leftists just like I say Key-ev not KEEEV). But once I realized every type of “American” I loathe was somehow all in for The Ukraine I immediately went pro Russia. I have never agreed with these commies and anti American/anti White pigs in my life and I won’t start now. Besides, if they support The Ukraine I must be missing something really bad about it because they never support anything good for us from Covid masks and lockdowns to grooming 6 year olds for fags and perverts.

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        • I was going to make this exact point. Whatever the MSM and Gov declare, I assume the opposite to be true.

          I’m another of IDGAF about the Ukraine types but I do love the Russians giving Globohomo a black eye. Watching lefties beat the war drum for Satanist Galician Nazis is entertaining all in itself.

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      • The Russian army is amazing, the MSM told me they ran out of food, ammo, and fuel way back in March, but still they fight on

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        • Latest on the news is that mass graves are being unearthed with up to 9k bodies. Seems the Russians had enough ammo to shoot them and enough time to bury them. Can smoking crematoriums be next?

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    • “It is designed to make the American proles bark like trained seals while ignoring a demented chief executive, 15% inflation, $5 gas and $30 trillion in debt while simultaneously advancing GloboHomo, enriching defense contractors and NATO grifters, and satisfying the bloodlust of the Tribe — who are, naturally, as thick as thieves in all of this.”

      True, but it’s a good deal more sinister and serious and dangerous than that.

      Good post. I don’t care about it either. By right, it we should not even be talking about it since “our” country has zero *legitimate* interest(s) there.

      You’re right: It’s a (((neocon))) and globalist thing.

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  34. I assumed Musk was looking for an excuse to sell more of his Tesla shares, he has to cash out at some point

      • That was indeed impressive—more so when one thinks of how NASA threw them away for so long as a government funded agency without much cost concerns.

        However, what is much less impressive is his touting of going to Mars and setting up sustainable colonies of humans. He builds a spaceship using basic technology from the 60’s and extrapolates to the immediate future skipping over the hard questions.

        For example, one such question I’m somewhat familiar with is a self sustaining habitat. Where I live, just a few miles away, is man’s first and (to my knowledge) only attempt to create a self sustaining human habitat—Biosphere! It was a failure.

        The environment on Mars is *more* hostile than the environment in Antarctica, yet no one (Musk?) attempts to build an experimental habitat there to learn just what must be done on Mars—or for that matter our moon.

        Until we do such basic research, any manned landing on Mars is just a “stunt”, and even that is doubtful.

        • At best he will get a research base on Mars, something maybe as big as the Antarctic base, getting people to Mars is one thing, keeping them alive for years is another, food, water, power, its not going to be easy

          You could see a large number of people on the Moon, its close enough for resupply, and plenty of people would love to go there assuming you can get the cost of the rocket down low enough. Starship would make a lot of interesting things possible

  35. “The Institute for the Study of War”, founded by and run by a group of people who never once fought a war themselves, much less won one.
    We actually should be glad these idiots are running the latest war, as that’s probably the best way for them to lose it.

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    • No question they will lose it. The danger is how much damage will they do in the process.

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  36. if trump were really a player, he would have used the initial coof panic as an opportunity to take control of the msm. justify it as necessary to ensure uniform information delivery etc. of course he would have had to have prepared the ground for this by taking full control of the GOP first; which he manifestly did not do. a real amateur…

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    • He should have sucured the loyalty of the special forces, the trigger pullers. Maybe asked for Texas rangers. Deputized them. Then, mass arrests of cia and fbi. Summary executions. Trump squandered the moment.

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