Penisocratic Method #1 – WISDOM

Today, let me introduce you to a new message format.

Here’s the thing: A clickable website design promotes long-form writing.

This was a deliberate decision to maintain high quality posts and discourage filler content, but it created another problem – there was no room for content shorter than a long essay and longer than tweet. Which is for the most part.

So here’s an idea: I put a bunch of shorter “posts,” a couple of paragraphs per topic, into something like a weekly review. This is the first.

We’ll see about frequency – I could probably do one of these every day just posting about half the notes I do, but let’s start with once or twice a week.

An added benefit is that the variety of topics ensures that there is always something for everyone.

The “Penisocratic Method” is a working title that is subject to change. I think the pun vividly captures the perfect stance of sharp rationality mixed with shitty jokes, but we’ll see how popular it becomes.

I also wouldn’t mind it being syndicated to a more daring traditional paper.

Here we are:

Cyber ​​truck

The Tesla Cybertruck is a good example of starting with first principles rather than conditions. The reaction is a good example of how people from first principles react to such strange decisions. Once the initial shock of having expectations subverted wears off and you get used to it, it’s the new normal and obvious, and everything else immediately looks outdated.

Most people go through three stages when it comes to design:

1. “here”
2. “Hmm, actually…”
3. “I want one”

Now I have 2.5. It will probably reach 3 when the black version is introduced.

To gauge the Cybertruck’s prospects, I spoke to several rural Americans — the target demographic — and they all said they wanted one. I’m beginning to suspect that this will be one of the best selling cars in history. It will also likely be the first car to drive on another planet.

Keep in mind that pickup trucks are the top three selling vehicles in the United States, so you can’t solve vehicle emissions without solving them. For some reason, the “cattle” likes the design (crude? Reminiscent of Reagan-era fiction? Objectively good?). It will be fine with them.

It’s the perfect vehicle for anywhere that isn’t the densely populated centers of metropolitan cities, where even a Fiat 500 is a pain in the eye.

This is another example of Elon’s apocalypse-protected civilization. Think of the full complement here: Internet from space, decentralized energy production, underground construction, electric cars – and now, bulletproof tanks that you can practically live in and that, with an optional solar cover, can fly 15 miles a day without any external power source. Keep in mind that his brother Kimball is also working closed farming. Not very successful, as LEDs and electricity would have to become much cheaper for this to make sense, but working on it.

This is a zombie apocalypse machine, or for the cyberpunk aftermath of the collapse of the US government and/or the second American Civil War.

Tech stack for colonizing other planets = tech stack for surviving most scenarios on this one = tech stack for mitigating any bad scenarios on this one.

Take me to Mars, Elon

The European Space Agency tweeted that Planet B does not exist.

Well, whose damn fault is it? It is like the cook informing us that there is no dinner.

What are we paying them for? We let them get away with endless weather satellites and school experiments with peas and spiders in low Earth orbit just on the tacit understanding that we want cool spaceships and space colonies.

The problem is that, like all bureaucracies – especially French-speaking ones – the ESA has become a jobs and welfare program and an industrial subsidy and redistribution scheme that fulfills its official role only incidentally. (The same is happening with fusion power at ITER, which is probably a funding shortfall delays commercial fusion. TLDR Takamaks are fundamentally flawed and fueled by vested interests and sunk costs. Inertial Confinement FTW.)

Sure, there’s Planet B, and it’s up for grabs. We can make life multiplanetary within a few decades. We can probably have a self-sustaining city on Mars by 2040.

The first step: stop subsidizing the French with Ariane disposables and buy the corresponding rockets from SpaceX.

The mockery of the American mind

It is fashionable to attribute every social problem, achievement gap, and individual weakness to low self-esteem, insufficient encouragement, “negative stereotypes,” or, in general, a lack of external positive reinforcement. This is nonsense on many levels, but most importantly, it is the exact opposite of the problem facing many Westerners in general and Americans in particular. Whatever they lack, it is certainly not a sense of self-respect.

In any case, people have been taught to think of themselves quite unrealistically.

America is the promised land of overhyped idiots, full galactic college brains, “You can do it all honey,” clueless jerks who believe they’re the best thing since sliced bread, epic chips on their shoulders, and resentment fostered by people who are actually already in far better places than they ever deserve— usually at the expense of others.

No, the problem is the other way around – generations of Americans have been over-encouraged, and no one is shy about saying it, but has to say it, being criminally bullied.

You look at one of their purple-haired, mentally ill manatees with a horseshoe across the partition and make-believe sexuality and you think he’s a man who’s never been upside down in a toilet stall, and you feel bad for them.

I’m not saying that bullying is a good thing, but I am saying that many forms of healthy social feedback, some of it perhaps flashlight-based, have been classified as “bullying” and banned, and the result is an epidemic of people whose terrible self-concepts simply haven’t been checked by healthy mockery and some character-building time stuffed in a closet.

Trump is the tip of the bipartisan national iceberg.

They grew up in a narcissistic culture that didn’t allow them a single moment of honest reflection in their lives, in fact, whose main focus was to prevent honest reflection and replace it – and their true selves – with constructed images.

It doesn’t help that the psychological theories that underpin Western education and parenting are for the most partstupidity The problem of inflated self-esteem and collective narcissism will exist as long as psychologists and teachers are recruited from the same pool as astrologers and yoga instructors – obliviacratic derpins.

He who wants to light must light himself

There are well-intentioned calls for schools to teach creativity, critical thinking, mindfulness, scientific literacy and emotional well-being. The problem is that the average teacher has none of this and is therefore unlikely to teach it to others.

Maybe schools need to focus on the facts first and everything else should come from someone else source personal improvement. Teachers, parents, peer groups, good books, sharp internet writers, all the things that the educational bureaucracy tries to dismantle and replace without being able to provide an alternative.

Asymmetric war

Remember when Iran drones were flying to Saudi Arabia’s largest oil refinery?

This refinery is surrounded by the best defense technology that petrodollars can buy, as well as American and British military bases. Nevertheless, the drones flew through unhindered.

This means that we have found that everyone is vulnerable to relatively cheap drones, which are completely within the power of many non-state actors. War just got a lot more asymmetrical.

He who pays, he sounds

According to a British official, Britain should demand more discretion from the World Bank, given that it the largest contributorand demand reforms.

Fortunately, the name of the gentleman who said this is “Chahrabarty”, so this should be taken seriously and not dismissed as white male imperialism.

The World Bank’s development model is essentially this: a petty official flies into an authoritarian shithole. A local warlord entertains him with 14-year-old prostitutes, drugs and handfuls of diamonds – or shares of a state-owned enterprise. A petty official approves a soft loan for a dictator who keeps him in power and burdens the country with unsustainable long-term liabilities.

DEVELOPMENT!

So yes, you could say that the World Bank needs reform.

Cut from the best fabric

Christmas shopping brought me up close and personal with the fashion industry. As far as industries go, this is definitely one of the most rotten, parasitic and ready to crash.

The traditional fashion industry, where an elderly fag in London designs things that are then made by child slaves in Asia and sold at outrageous markups to women and children using other people’s credit cards, is thankfully dying.

The future: small-scale production much closer to the point of purchase, use of local materials (pulp is wonderful), and mass customization via an online interface.

Related: Research shows that clothing is worn an average of 5-6 times. That figure is probably an understatement for dramatic effect, but fundamentally, disposability and frivolous, wasteful, socially irresponsible hobbyist purchases are real. Let’s be honest, there is also a big “gender gap”.

Announcement to the public: Shopping is not a personality or a hobby.

Here, as elsewhere, post-communist Europe is ahead. In the “waste not want” spirit, it’s okay to wear things here until they start to fall apart, after which they become pajamas and loungewear, and you wear them for another ten years.

If a retailer’s products won’t last ten years, buy from a retailer whose products will last.

Scotland is stunning and brave

In the next census, Scots will be able to choose from a wide selection of 21 sexualities.

This means that Scotland has more sexiness than successful companies right now.

Again, this is the country where men wore skirts from the 16th century.

Punish me, Teddy

Teddy Roosevelt “repeatedly warned American men that they were becoming too confined to the office, too self-satisfied, too comfortable with physical ease and moral laxity, and failing in their duty to promote race and display manly strength.”

His point is easy to understand.

Sugar … honey honey

An investigation in the UK found that Tesco honey stuffed with sugar. There are “concerns” that this may apply to other providers.

No shit. I thought, of course, that the honey in the supermarket is fake, and you need to buy it from beekeepers. Or become a beekeeper.

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