Britain is a broken civilization https://t.co/pzSmYDlmR5

— Noah Smith 🐇 (@Noahpinion) July 17, 2025

I’ve been there recently. It is in obvious decline. It just feels shabby, and is much worse than even a few years ago.

It’s funny how sometimes you don’t realize things about your family and events therein till so much later in life.

When I’d just turned four my mom and I got into a serious car accident. She claimed the brakes didn’t work when she’d applied them. The car rolled over three times and came to a violent stop deep in a farmer’s field. I barely remember the wreck¹; that’s what I was told later. The old Vega sat in the yard after for years so I got to observe the destruction. The car was mangled. It’s amazing anyone survived. The cabin was crushed and it looked like it’d been stomped by a dinosaur. But I walked away without a scratch on me. My mom wasn’t quite so lucky and was in a wheelchair for a few weeks with some sort of pelvic strain but was otherwise fine.

But there’s something strange about it, I now realize. There were no other cars involved and the day was clear and sunny. There were no witnesses and the stretch of road was completely straight. My mom was also not an aggressive driver and was not prone to road rage.

What I do know about my mom, though, is that she really did not like being a mother and had attempted suicide later in life several times.

And here’s another thing: my dad rebuilt that car nearly from scratch. Also, he was a great mechanic. There’s no chance the brakes failed. Just none. His work was quality and the only way they would’ve failed is if someone had cut the brake lines.

What I think happened now, looking back after all these years, is that my mom decided she wanted to opt out of being a mother and me being alive and crashed that car on purpose. Except it didn’t work. We both lived. It probably changed her tune on dying, at least for a while, that brush with death.

Now, I do not know that my mom intended a murder-suicide. It’s just a guess. But given the evidence and knowing what I know about my mom, I’d bet on it. It’s far more likely than not.

1. Mainly I remember the paramedics checking me over right after. One was a really kind woman who made me laugh at something.

silliest field award pic.twitter.com/ind7S8jIii

— ekri (@ekrii3) November 10, 2024

Both of them are somewhat inaccurate or incorrect.

In reality, in the limit, primes make up 0% of natural numbers. Even though there are infinitely many primes, the proportion of numbers that are prime approaches zero as you count higher and higher. It’s simple math: as numbers grow, primes become less frequent relative to the total. That’s just how it works. There’s not even a question here. That’s just how the universe is.

Women often see male intrasexual competition where it just does not exist because there is so very much female intrasexual competition.

I’m so glad I do not have kids.

It makes everything easier. And the risk one would’ve been like me…no.

70+% of American women, and about as many men, are over-weight in the medical sense. https://t.co/zCBoldpoEX

— Wilfred Reilly (@wil_da_beast630) July 5, 2025

I had that exact experience in Israel in the 1990s.

Went there, and I was stunned by how incredibly beautiful nearly all of the women were. Young, old, it didn’t matter. All were gorgeous. At first I didn’t comprehend how. I just thought it was something in the water. I had no idea.

Then I realized after about a day that I’d seen maybe one slightly overweight woman and zero obese ones. Additionally, the women were far more fit and put together in general. It was such a different world. That’s when I realized that most people could be pretty attractive if they, first and most important, drop the extra weight, and also take care of themselves fitness-wise and dress well. To use the rather-distasteful but useful typical numerical rating, being skinny vs. being overweight or obese can easily cause you to go from a 3-4 to a 7-8 with no other changes.

Israeli women tended to do all of the things I mentioned above so they all seemed like goddesses compared to most American women.

While I was there I hooked up with an Israeli woman who would’ve easily been a 10/10 in the US but there she was just…a fairly normal girl. I’m more than happy with my life now but we connected before email was a thing so didn’t stay in touch. She was such a fun person and I’m glad I got to spend a little time with her.

If you became president of your country for 24 hours with absolute power – what’s the most unhinged law you’d pass?

It has to be unhinged? Ok.

I’d ban all tattoos and make it mandatory that everyone who has them be required to get tattoo removal completed within two years.

Some things burn past your skin into your bones deep enough that it bonds you to anyone you share that experience so much that no separation of time or distance unmakes that entanglement.

In the show Justified, Raylan Givens says several times to his nemesis Boyd Crowder, “We dug coal together.” It is his way of acknowledging a shared history that crosses all lines of right or wrong, good or evil, that is something deeper than even someone being set against you. It’s recognizing a tie that simply cannot be understood by someone who did not live it.

My sister and I have little in common, really. We were and are nothing alike. She was impulsive, not very intellectual, very worried about what people thought of her but with high musical talent and a lot of charm. I was extremely introverted, intellectual, thoughtful, unconcerned with anyone’s opinions of me and completely charmless.

Blood and family mean nothing to me. I don’t feel connected to my sister by that tether at all. But together we survived the worst North Florida could do to us and made better lives for ourselves.

I always wonder who we would’ve been if we hadn’t grown up in (for us) such a hellish place, that was so inimical to both our natures for different reasons. It was even harder on her than it was me, I think, because she was just less resilient.

But we survived North Florida together. That’s the bond we have. It’s our “We dug coal together.” It’s the coalfire that smolders in our marrow that no one else can see or feel.

I am usually (almost always) this “rude” co-worker. My rule is that no one at work needs to know anything about me that is not strictly necessary to do my job or theirs. And that credo has served me quite well.

I'm not afraid of much (more than three other men attacking me, big dogs, fire, baby rodents).

But, I dislike many things, and radical/sincere Islam is just obviously one of those. https://t.co/LewF4T8lmY

— Wilfred Reilly (@wil_da_beast630) June 28, 2025

Same. Living in an Islamic country made me an Islamaphobe. I was not one before that, nor did I think about Islam much one way or the other.

They need to consider, like, trying civilization sometime. And not hating women.

It finally got up to 86 in here so I had to turn the AC on.

86 is too hot even for me for long-term.

What do you miss that you didn’t realize was “the last time” when it happened?

The last time I went fishing with my grandpa. He was the one who taught me how to fish when I was but knee high. He also showed me how to read the river and how to observe and just be still — from him I learned how much of the world will reveal itself if you wait a moment or two for it to unfold for you.

He was an incredibly flawed man, but always patient with educating me on the things that matter when I was little. And he never got frustrated with my ceaseless questions.

The last time I went fishing with him was I think in 1988, when I was 12 years old. It didn’t stand out at the time because then I didn’t know it was the final time we’d do it. It was just a boat ride a few miles up the Santa Fe River then a lazy drift back down, tossing our lines out near the shore, hauling in glistening sunfish, looking at them, then tossing them back.

That river is so beautiful in the morning light with the mist rising like a haunting from the cool water.

I’d never want to go back to that age nor era of my life again. But I’m glad I have those memories.

What’s the most painful truth you’ve had to accept?

That you’ll only have maybe 2-3 true friends in your life — yes, even extroverted, attractive people with tons of “friends.” The rest only care about you when it’s convenient or benefits them. And the thing is, you almost never know the difference until you need help or you’re not doing well.

Then you’re all too often standing alone.

What are your more “unpopular” dating opinions these days?

My extremely unpopular opinion is that everyone — yes, including women — should deliberately seek out age gap relationships when they are actively dating. You learn more and have more fun. And it also gives you a much wider dating pool, which particularly for men is required as men have so very few options compared to women.

And just to be very clear, I mean those above the age of majority only.

It’s 85 in my office area. At the edge of too warm for me.

I love (climatological) summer.