Left Aus

This is exactly what I am talking about when I complain about the left’s absurd austerity discourse for the future. You know, their utopian dream of everyone living in gray concrete boxes and slurping algae out of bottles. Left austerity for a so-called green but impoverished future will work about as well as right austerity has for the economy. In that, you know, it won’t.

Unfortunately, the left has mostly become enmeshed in some purity movement where the more deprived you are and the more you force unnecessary hardship and privation on everyone else, the more pure and green you are seen as being. This is in large part the reason (other than protecting corporations) for the impetus behind banning the very-convenient straws and plastic bags rather than doing something more efficacious.

We have to do better.

Unfuck the Planet Part 1

If I were the autocrat of the US with unlimited power, I’d immediately reduce the size of the military by 90%, withdraw nearly all forces from overseas bases, immediately end all wars and overseas adventures, and repurpose the dissolved military (assuming they accepted the jobs) into a corps for building nationwide subsidized high-speed rail and other mass transit (bike lanes, streetcars, the like). Within 10 years, I’d ban all private cars in all major cities and in most medium-size and small cities.

At the same time (and this would make the so-called progressives go utterly mad) I’d spend five years deporting all illegal immigrants with really invasive roundups, etc., that mainly punished employers (why they are here), but I’d also immediately grant citizenship to any green card holders, anyone on student visas, anyone here on a tourist visa (if they wanted it), anyone here on H-1B, etc. I’d next invite all these illegal immigrants to apply through the correct channels and then fairly consider their cases over the next few years. I expect most would be economic migrants, so I’d guess most would be rejected.

This would reduce the population a good bit — say 12 million people. It would also lower housing costs, especially for those on the low end. Not that it’d matter for long, because speaking of housing, I’d seize nearly all housing in the US and start a massive building program of public housing, similar to the Singapore model blended with the German model, and actually have somewhat fair housing in this country.

Other than what’s being actively used for farmland for crops that people can eat, I’d forcibly move everyone out of the Midwest and turn into the biggest damn wilderness and wildlife preserve on the planet — let it revert to its natural state and reintroduce native animals. Ok, I’m an autocrat, who am I kidding? I am going to make some damn sabertooth tigers to run around in there, too. Hell yeah.

I’d establish Medicare for All immediately, dissolve all private health insurance companies nearly immediately (with compensation and a transition period for the workers affected), and I’d establish a UBI of some sort while increasing SSI by 40% and any disabled insurance and aid by 50%+.

Then, I’d increase the size of the space program 10x and immediately establish a real space station, start experimenting with orbital biospheres (I expect most if not all to fail utterly but the science is what matters), and have a permanent, small presence on Mars (colonizing Mars is moronic, so it should not be done).

I’d also rush work on the safe (pebble-bed, etc.) nuclear reactors, solar, wind, and transition the US to renewable energy within 20 years.

All universities would be free, private monstrosities like Harvard would be abolished and their assets seized, and the funds used to sponsor real educations for everyone else. State universities would see their funding at least doubled.

Not lastly, but all I feel like writing now, research in both science and humanities would be increased by a factor of 10, and I expect this would pay off in less than 20 years.

So why not make me your autocrat? All I want is a really cool jet. And a sabertooth tiger.

ATW

I hear you. That and “Sarah” by Kate Miller-Heidke are the best-written songs of the past decade, easily. I almost wish Swift had never composed “All Too Well” because of how shoddy it makes other songs look by comparison.

What’s particularly notable about the song is how she was able to universalize the feelings she’s discussing while not making the references clichรฉ enough to by cloying or on the other hand too specific to be meaningful to anyone — now that is genius and is absurdly difficult to do. What’s even more amazing about the work is that not only is Swift citing specific incidents that sound like they really happened to her (Did they really? Who cares.) while also calling out archetypal memories and cultural touchstones — Jesus Christ, when I think about it I am in awe of her achievement.

Notelling

Do people not realize when you see a PR photo or movie with some actor looking really buff, those shots are generally taken under these conditions (even assuming they’re not photoshopped):

  • They are generally very dehydrated. An easy way to improve muscle definition is to not drink enough water the day or two before and to do things to intentionally dehydrate yourself.
  • They have generally just worked out. This fills the muscles with blood and makes them look much larger and more defined.
  • They probably fasted the week before. See above for the results.
  • They are in favorable lighting. This matters a lot — far, far more than most people realize who’ve never photographed models.
  • They are flexing. Flexing makes your muscles look much larger and is easy to do without it being obvious.

This is what I was reacting to, by the way. Here, Momoa is doing none of those things, so he looks fairly normal from a muscularity perspective:

I am muscular enough now that I could look pretty shredded if I did all the things above, but doing so is inimical to actually continuing to gain muscle, which is what I care about.

Wondering why men have increasing issues with body image? See that moronic Twitter thread for why.

Assortative

When I say that modern liberals believe people should only meet by inhuman algorithmic match, I know a lot of you think that’s absurd. But they really do believe that:

Sounds like a great world to me. Ok, not. Control sexuality and you control the world. I think libs understand this just fine but don’t want to believe they understand it, because that would be ceding too much power to biology — so this is their way to assert control over biology while pretending to have other, more noble interests at heart. This self-deception is necessary to preserve self-image and for proper assortative mating to be enforced, which is also something liberals pretend to not care about but do even more so than conservatives.