The Fake Nancy Pelosi Video Hijacked Our Attention. Just as Intended. Social media is working as designed. That’s the problem.

Years ago, I was a bit scornful of a story that had a very advanced AI that could essentially assume control over humans with only a few electronic transmissions. I thought it sounded too fanciful even for space opera sf.

Folks, I was wrong. It’s happening now. Sure, not every human, but most of them. Not all of the time, but a lot of the time. As per usual, reality is stranger and more varied than any story. Humans have no defenses at all against the onslaught of bogus information disgorged in such monstrous quantities, with no check on quality and no standards of evidence both on the broadcast or reception side.

It didn’t take an advanced AI to assume control of humanity — merely a Harvard sociopath and some other lesser nutty buddies to do it.

I’ve long wondered why the left doesn’t have a better or more sensible response to the problems inherent in globalization. Alas, all they seem to do is sputter and shout absurd invectives.

The European Parliament elections have demonstrated very clearly that many people are very unhappy with globalization. This could be the perfect opportunity for the Left to come up with a response to globalization that takes into account this discontent. For now, all that the Left has been able to offer is “shut up, you racist.”

I marvel at the diabolical cleverness of equating all opposition to the depredations of predatory capitalism and globalization with racism. If I were a capitalist overlord, I’d’ve been squealing with delight at my sagacity when I came up with that idea. That the left embraced it all so uncritically and with barely a protest surprises me more than it should, I guess.

The purpose of philosophy isn’t to definitively answer questions for all time. It is to ask which questions we should be asking, which of these are answerable (even in principle), and what does it mean to know that the answer is a valid one.

Also, there is no science without philosophy. There is a reason that early scientists were called “natural philosophers” and that even today scientists in every field receive a PhD or “Philosophiae Doctor” — literally, a doctor of philosophy.

Without philosophy, science is just inchoate and incomprehensible information.

Raj Chetty’s plan to change how Harvard teaches economics.

This would be a huge improvement, especially if other schools follow this lead. I’ve read that Mankiw textbook cover to cover (know the enemy) and it’s a huge trashpile of wishful thinking, outright lies, unproven assertions and asinine asseverations. Nearly anything would be a step up — in fact, all that book is good for is using as a tool be able to step up a little higher to reach something.

Don’t forget, I endure these things so you don’t have to.

Instructions like this make me lose faith in humanity… pic.twitter.com/wfLhnVbL9Q

— Jake Williams (@MalwareJake) May 7, 2019

In my experience (and I have a whole lot of it), about 5-10% of regular users are incapable of using their laptop charger correctly the first time, and many of those are incapable of it consistently after multiple attempts and training.

I can’t explain this, but nevertheless it is true.

Docking stations are also highly confusing to users. They don’t understand that they have to plug them in. Got a call one time about a laptop on a docking station not working. First question I asked was, “Is the docking station plugged in?”

The user said, “Oh, we have to plug it in?”

I wonder where they think the power is going to come from?

Fun fact: You can still run 32-bit VMs on a system even if Intel VT-x and AMD-v are not enabled in the BIOS. Had an odd situation where running a VM helped me get around a bunch (like 5) of endpoint security products.

— Beau Bullock (@dafthack) May 8, 2019

Yes! I discovered this a few years ago when someone told me it was impossible to virtualize VMWare on top of Hyper-V. It is indeed possible, but because of the limitations mentioned above (no passthrough) only 32-bit VMs will run.

Don’t ask me why I was attempting to run VMWare virtualized atop Hyper-V. Uh, it was for…stuff.

what male athletes in most fields looked like before widespread steroids/testosterone use. https://t.co/Qz3ng20DpE

— Ian Welsh (@iwelsh) May 17, 2019

Yes, testosterone had something to do with it, for some athletes, but that’s not nearly the whole story.

Weight training also mattered. Up until even the late 1980s, the conventional wisdom was that athletes should not weight train as it reduced their performance in their chosen sport. Thus, almost no athlete touched a weight.

As that changed, and as training techniques improved, many athletes started lifting weights in the off season and this made them much bigger and more competitive (stronger, faster, better endurance). When a few started doing it and winning because of it, most everyone else had to as well to continue to compete.

Thus, even athletes who never touch steroids are much bigger and stronger than those from the 1960s-1980s.

My partner and I were discussing today how hard it has become to have a working browser anymore. We have to scour various sites to find older add-ons (back when they worked properly) that actually allow you to customize the browser to a point where it works correctly.

One day, we both know it’ll become impossible as the browser makers don’t want you to do these things; they want to be able to herd you like lowing slaughterhouse-bound cattle to exactly the destination they want you to go.

Right now, I still have a working browser. But for how long? I’d guess another ~2 years before it’s impossible to use the internet on my own terms and I have no choice but to acquiesce.

Why do people care about the moral transgressions of long-dead artists? I can’t understand this modern, mostly-liberal obsession with moral purity and rectitude. Are people so concerned that everyone be exactly like them? Do they think anyone from 100 or 200 years ago will be morally acceptable, will hold every view that they do? The only reason they still like any artist is because they just don’t know enough about them.

These people (as is most of the left) are moral children, with an absurd view of the past and moral progression. I want nothing to do with any of them.

I mostly agree with what the Trump admin is doing on tariffs now, though I don’t think it’ll help much.

But don’t just buy into the propaganda that tariffs are always bad. Examine who is serving you that propaganda and why. From that, some enlightenment can be had. To be perfectly frank, most of you don’t understand enough about international relations, international commerce, history, or tariffs and their uses and abuses to have any opinion on it at all.

I have no problem with left and right, but clockwise and counterclockwise…who knows? Unless I have a literal clock in front of me, I can never remember and doesn’t look like that is ever going to change.

I think a lot of people have a truly fundamentally different relationship to food than I do. Reading how people “eat the pain away” or “stress eat” and I have no idea what that’s about. Food does nothing for me in that way, and I am no more likely to eat when I’m sad or stressed than when I’m not.

Food just doesn’t have any significant emotional value for me. It must be a terrible time for those where food is an emotional crux and support of their lives.