The silent part out loud:
Jan 232022
Jan 212022
And yet I can define a sphere. One way to define it: “an object in three dimensional space with a single surface, every point on the surface being the same distance from a single 3D point.” Or, “a three-dimensional object that has the property of any 2-dimensional slice through it, no matter the angle, being a circle.” Or… “a ball.” Many ways to define the same thing. What’s the point of this silly exercise? Madness, that’s what. Society is being turned upside down to coddle silly weirdos who believe that a humans cannot define something that they are not.
Requisite virtue signalling: you want to be trans, you go right ahead. No skin off my nose if you want to dress up as something you’re not, or take hormones, or have surgeries. Knock yourself out. But when you start telling me that I have to *not* see such things as strange, that I have to change the way I speak and *think,* and that the stupid, ill-formed notions of *children* need to be taken as divine writ… bite me. Some six-year-old declares that he is a she? Uh-huh. I vaguely recall that when I was that age I wanted to be and/or was a squirrel. Such things are to be expected from children, who are largely loaded down with truckloads of imagination and a ziplock baggie of experience and data.
I retain the suspicion that if certain relatively recent changes to the chemistry of food and the environment in the US – the weird hormone-simulants in plastics, birth control pills and the like in the water supply, corn syrup in everything, Odin knows what all in pollutants, etc. – a lot of this trans-mania will fade away. This will leave a lot of people looking at themselves and wondering “what have I done?”
And then the question will be: if changing the composition of plastics will lead to the “deletion” of 90% of a currently favored group by making those people not want to be a part of that group anymore, but to be normal again… will changing that plastic now be considered tantamount to genocide?
Jan 182022
Not hyperbole. A serious question.
Report: SpaceX’s Boca Chica Plans Face Serious Objections from FWS, NPS
The Fish and Wildlife Service is trying to make it so that SpaceX can’t use their Boca Chica launch facility for a “Starbase.”
Not only are FAA’s hands tied on the EIS front, a full Section 4(f) Evaluation is a potential nightmare. This evaluation requires the identification of a suitable alternative that is both “Feasible and Prudent.” If this Feasible and Prudent alternative site will have a lower Section 4(f) impact, the FAA is prohibited from giving the Green Light to Starbase. At all. This is outside of NEPA as well. So if, for example, the Cape Canaveral LC 39 pad that SpaceX is developing is determined to be a feasible and prudent alternative, Starbase is dead. Dead Dead.
Jan 082022
Regardless of your general opinion of Tucker Carlson, he’s on the money with this monologue about the unfortunate results of the recent explosion in the US population (it has gone up about 65 percent just in my lifetime). The idea of the US reaching a *billion* people, most of whom would almost certainly be third worlders with little interest in truly adopting American ideals, culture, language, etc., is basically horrifying.
And he’s right about where people want to live. As COVID made it sot hat people worked from home, and could thus live wherever the want, people rushed to get away from high population density urban areas and flooded into low population density rural areas. Just a few months before the pandemic hit I did the exact opposite, moving from rural Utah to somewhere far less open and free. Shrug. Had I known then what I know now… dunno. Maybe if I’d waited a couple years I could have sold my place in Utah for a *fortune.*
As an aside: in my Zaneverse stories, space operas set about 500 years from now, the three most populace planets in human space are Mars, Atlantis and Asgard. All have a population of about 50 million. All have had that population for a few hundred years, with little prospect of the populations increasing. Because after The Fall and The Bottleneck, humans necessarily got a lot smarter. Mars, completely terraformed at this point, is seen as horribly overpopulated, while Atlantis and Asgard, roughly Earthly and also completely terraformed, are seen as optimally populated. And yet people have *large* families generally. How is this sustained? By people getting the hell out of Dodge as soon as they can. There is a constant urge to get away from massive population centers and head out for the frontier. Of course the frontier is more often than not a new Habitat, a pair of rotating cylinders miles in diameter and more miles long, floating in the asteroid belt of this or that solar system. With good AI, easy nuclear fusion power and propulsion, and five centuries worth of advancement in manufacturing technology, the resources of asteroids and comets means that *billions* of this state-sized habitats can be built, almost free of charge, in any decent solar system.
A new life awaits you in the off-world colonies, a chance to begin again in a golden land of opportunity and adventure. But this time, without the cynicism.
Dec 242021
When the pinnacle of demasculated privilege encounters the real world… hilarity results.
These two guys went to Mexico and went off the beaten track without any functional understanding of the local culture and criminal situation, and met people they were convinced were the cartel… but who may have been the local self-defense civilians defending *against* the cartel. Their panic is freakin’ *hilarious,* and fundamentally counter-productive for them had they met the *actual* cartel. I can imagine the meltdown these men would have had had they made the mistake of wandering into downtown Tremonton, Utah, on a day when some ranchers decide to go to the diner with their guns on their hips.
This avoidance of accepting the realities of the world *and* choosing to be passive victims? Yeah, that’s not a good long term survival strategy, although it may have served them well this time… if the people they met were indeed cartel members, they found the Americans to be laughably pathetic and let them go out of pity. Great Odin, man… how are you going to defend your women when the time comes? Yeesh.
Best advice: ᛗᚪᚾ ᛏᚻᛖ ᚠᚢᚳk ᚢᛈ
Or… dunno. Stay hilariously useless. I’m sure there are some in the warlords council who would have use for you…
I had thought of linking to a page I found with a bunch of unedited cartel videos. The State Department would do well to mandate that any American intending to visit Mexico or points south, or regions in the United States with uncontrolled borders, watch a few hours of those videos before being sent on their way. But I decided against directly linking because, holy carp, those vids will mess with your calm. But they will also show you the reality of a “defund the cops” world.
Dec 172021
The only real problem with this skit is that is seems to be set in a rural area. Set it on a college campus and it’d be 100% accurate.
Nov 272021
If you look back to NASA in the mid-1960’s, it certainly seems like it was an organization filled with people who thought that the future was wide open. Apollo was merely going to be the first step; after some landings would come longer-term “camps” on the moon, with stays of a few weeks in temporary habitats; then would come bases that could be visited by multiple crews. Nuclear powered space stations with artificial gravity. There would be manned flyby missions to Venus and eventually manned landings on Mars; as propulsion systems inevitably grew vastly more capable, manned missions to the moons of Jupiter and Saturn would follow in due course.
By the time Apollo 11 actually landed on the moon, though, it was becoming clear that the future was not going to be what it should have been. As noted previously, the production line of the Saturn V was shut down a year before Apollo 11, not only limiting the possible missions of the Apollo program but ending hope for missions that would expand upon Apollo. Shortly after Apollo 11, it seems that morale at NASA was already in decline as the engineers, scientists, technicians and so on could see the writing on the wall. Not only was Saturn dead, but funding was in decline and it was becoming clear that there was minimal political interest in carrying Apollo forward… the job of beating the Soviets to the Moon was done, and the important scientific work, not to mention the prospect of carrying western civilization to the stars, was not that important to the political class who were far more interested in the “Great Society” spending programs. So in September of 1969 a “Seminar on Manned Flight Awareness” was held at the Manned Spacecraft Center, Houston, to deal with the issue:
The successful lunar landing and completion of the flight of Apollo 11 achieved a national objective in this decade and is a significant milestone in man’s continuing progress in space exploration. Historically, achievements of such magnitude, requiring concentrated efforts over an appreciable time period, are followed by a letdown and general relaxation of the personnel involved. In addition, this letdown may be amplified by a serious morale problem when funding cutbacks are experienced. The result is n decline in the required attention to detailed workmanship which can cause a rise in accident rates and potential loss of life.
To counter these potential morale and complacency problems in the spaceflight program, this Government/Industry Manned Flight Awareness Seminar is being conducted. The objective of this seminar is the maintenance of high quality workmanship through effective awareness and motivational programs. We intend to do this by outlining NASA’s plans for future programs and the resources being made available to successfully conclude these programs. In addition, executives of various industrial firms deeply involved in space work will present their views of the future. In this way we can get the message from NASA Management to the individuals responsible for doing the work that is vital to assuring a high quality of workmanship in the aerospace force.
Not having been born yet, I don’t have any firsthand information on just what was going on at the time in NASA. However, one thing I *do* have firsthand information on was the end of the United Technologies Center/Chemical System Division facility south of San Jose, California, circa 2003-2004. That company was a manufacturer of solid rockets such as the booster separation motors for the Space Shuttle, booster rockets for the Tomahawk cruise missile, Minuteman ICBM stages and so on. It was a vital part of the rocket industry of the United States. And in 2003-2004, it was *obvious* to everyone there that the company was doomed. Things were going wrong left and right to the point that a lot of us were wondering if it was active sabotage; in reality it was merely management and unions working together to make things as ridiculous as possible. Coupled with the fact that the company could, at best, turn in a profit measured at a handful of millions of dollars a year while sitting on *billions* of dollars of prime Silicon Valley real estate, everyone there knew that the companies time was strictly limited. So, what did the USAF and NASA do about it?
The USAF/NASA told the rest of the United States aerospace industry to *not* hire any of us. We were embargoed from seeking employment elsewhere, at least at companies that received federal contracts. So we stayed on the job. Until, of course, the embargoes were lifted, then we fled like rats fleeing a sinking ship.
It seems that NASA in September 1969 was facing a similar predicament. Everyone there – scientists, engineers, technicians and subcontractors of all kinds – could see the writing on the wall. And when you know that the project you’re working on has a near-term end date, you look for somewhere else to be, preferably before all your co-workers get the same idea. This is sensible, but it’s also a problem. Yes, Apollo/Saturn had a distinctly limited lifespan. But the program still had a number of years left, and it would need the bulk of the staff to stay on the job to make sure that the spacecraft and launch vehicles were finished, maintained and prepared for their missions. If everyone at NASA fled for brighter opportunities elsewhere, the missions still funded would be unable to be completed. So NASA held a seminar that seemed to have the singular goal of convincing people just how bright NASA’s future really was. A space shuttle would be available by 1976 and a space station by 1979… as well as a polar orbit station and one in geosynchronous. A lunar orbiting station around 1976. Nuclear powered inter-orbital shuttles. Manned missions back to the Moon and on to Mars.
It was all wrong. Yes, the Shuttle finally arrived in the early 1980’s, greatly delayed and vastly and permanently over budget, each flight costing one to two orders of magnitude more than originally projected. yes, a space station did eventually arrive… in the 1990’s, handicapped by international politics, small, undermanned, under-capable. None of the rest of it even *tried* to happen. The seminar reads like desperation, or a rah-rah session at some multi-level marketing scheme; I had flashes to scenes in the recent Hulu series “Dopesick” where Oxycontin sales reps are getting the latest BS about how great the next dosage of the pill will be, so go out there and sell more.
*A* future does not mean *A* *GOOD* *FUTURE.*
No. It was the end, and apparently everyone involved could see it.
You can download a PDF of the 80-page seminar publication HERE.
Nov 232021
Whenever there is an “unfortunate incident,” the masters of social media scrub their sites of the unfortunate evidence that the perpetrators left behind. But sometimes they are not fast enough, and other people save and archive at least some of that stuff. As an example: the vehicular attack in Waukesha was carried out by a guy with not only an extensive criminal record, but a long record of racist, pro-violence, anti-cop, anti-Trump postings of various kind including a number of “music” videos. That all got scrubbed. But it also got archived, as seen here:
Some “interesting” stuff there. It should be noted that Darrell Brooks is likely not an anomaly… he’d most likely a foretaste of the future. Humanity is getting dumber, and dumber people have lower impulse control and a higher predilection for violence. Dumber people are more likely to believe patently stupid stuff, like the libels about Rittenhouse, and then lash out stupidly and violently as a result. Video taken not long after his massive hate crime showed that he was not whacked out of his gourd either on drugs or insanity; he appears to be rational and planning for the future. This was an intentional act, and it’s certainly reasonable to suspect that he was driven to it not only by his criminal nature but by the drumbeat of lies from the media, politicians, even clergy, all of whom should be sued straight into the poorhouse. Brooks was someone who should have been permanently removed from society *years* ago, but after a recent attempted vehicular murder the local DA let him roam the streets with the very same vehicle he used in his last attack on a mere $1000 bail.
If it was possible to imagine a rational society, we would be planning prison reform, such that people like this would *never* again be released from prison, long before their rap sheets got as ling as this guys. People like this should be weeded out of not just society but the gene pool before they spread not only misery and death but another generation of their idiot ilk. At the same time, immigration reforms to assure that the best and brightest come in, the worst and dimmest are kept out. Welfare programs that discourage the poor from having kids that they can’t, or won’t, take care of; social policies that promote multiple children for those who are successful and useful members of society. But there is virtually no chance that such reforms are even possible. My last remaining hope not only for western civilization but mankind itself is space colonization. Because morons are self-limiting in environments that are infinitely hostile to dumb decision making. On a space colony – Moon, Mars, Asteroidal, Orbital – the stupid and the violent and the criminal are threats not only to themselves but to everyone else, so they would be dealt with in a permanent fashion. Science Fiction often has such types getting tossed out airlocks; this is, of course, also a stupid decision. Better by far to dump them into the waste reclamation system so that at the end they can provide at least some modicum of benefit to the society they would otherwise have harmed.
One less savory solution might be to let the Chinese deal with it. They have announced that they are working on genetic weaponry targeting ethnic groups; the presumed purpose would be to either wipe out or enfeeble every ethnic group on the planet except for the Han. But the same technology could presumably be used to attack people based not on the genetic markers of ethnicity, but genes regulating intelligence. A man-made plague that wipes out or sterilizes people with sub-90 IQ’s would be distasteful… and also almost certain to be apocalyptic as the disease mutates in the wild and begins to target a far wider range of targets. Cows and pigs and birds and fish, after all, all have sub-90 IQs; it would be pretty friggen’ awful if Earth was stripped of all animal life except for some rather startled smart folks.
As we race towards Idiocracy, things are only going to get worse. We now have obviously sub-normal elected officials pushing to empty the prisons, flooding the streets with exactly the sort of people who should rather have been launched through a Stargate with a trebuchet.
And if you were looking for a black pill to dim your outlook, this guy has you covered (assuming you can get through his rapid-fire rather jabbery presentation):
Nov 162021
“Don’t Look Up” is a forthcoming netflix movie where astronomers discover a comet on a direct impact course with Earth… and neither the government nor the media seem to care. In an era of “Russia collusion” and “mostly peaceful protests” and “wage gaps” and all the other bits of misinformation , propaganda and outright lies that people in the media and government just shrug at, I can see indifference being the response to the end of the world.
Nov 152021
China certainly seems to be in ascendance, while the US is definitely in decline. The latter fact does not need to be true, but we, like the British Empire before us, are allowing it to happen. When the US fades, *someone* (or several someones) will certainly attempt to step in and fill the void. The void will be one of power, of course, economic and military. but it will also be one of culture… views on individual liberty, cultural norms, ethics and so on. Anyone who can fill the military/economic void will bring their culture with them, and there’s not a reason in the entire universe why their culture needs to be as enlightened as America’s has been.
So, if you’re happy to see the US back off, get ready for *this* on a global scale:
Health workers in China are killing pets while their owners are in quarantine
In one case, a dog owner named Ms Fu witnessed through her home security camera as people clothed in hazmat suits entered her home and beat her pet corgi to death with iron rods while she was away in a quarantine facility. She tested negative for the coronavirus.
Sure, the fifty million – or more – Chinese dead at the hands of the Chinese Communist Party is certainly a bigger deal than minor functionaries killing pets. But somehow modern campus leftists and ChiCom apologists seem perfectly happy to wave away the deaths of mere *humans;* after all, the only thing worse for the Earth than humans are white cishet capitalist humans, and a lot of lefties would be perfectly happy to see a lot of *that* *type* exterminated. But puppies and kittens? A little harder to gloss over murdering *them.*
And of course there’s the little problem that China is actively destroying the planet. Not only are they belching CO2 into the air at a phenomenal rate, they are dumping vast mountains of toxic garbage into the ocean… at the same time they’re stripping the oceans bare of all life. There are worse things that could happen than if Chinas fishing fleet were sent to the bottom.
Nixon opening China to the world will be seen in future centuries by the few remaining historians as one of the worst ideas in all human history. Sounded good at the time, but the unintended consequence could well be the conversion of Earth into a sparsely populated trash heap.