Complacency – Page 11 – Wilder, Wealthy, and Wise

How Occupy Wall Street Led To The Current Woke Crisis

“Being a villain is such a waste of time!” – The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show

The way she set up the pieces, I think she might be planning on eating them, rather than playing a game.

Once in a while, it’s good to take a step back. Where are we?

First, it’s important to review that the economy is not the financial system. The economy consists of the stuff we make, and the people who make it, and their productivity. It’s matched with people who want that stuff.

Stuff can be anything people want to pay money for: PEZ®. Cars. Machetes. Beer. Zirconium nose hair trimmers. Video game software. Pictures of PEZ©. Gasoline. Streaming movies about PEZ™. Velvet Elvis™ paintings (I still need one, I prefer the “mid-carbohydrate, wearing sunglasses and a sequined jumpsuit” King). Houses. People to polish the PEZ® statues I keep in my yard. Did I mention beer?

Notice that the stuff is physical stuff as well as information and services.

What’s not required?

I have the heart of a lion! I have the eye of an eagle! I have the legs of a gazelle! I also have a lifetime ban from the zoo.

Money. Debt. Interest rates. These are fundamentally constructions of humanity, and are meant only to make transactions easier. They are not required. When Pepsi® wanted to do trades with the Russians, they traded cases of Pepsi™ concentrate for seventeen submarines, a frigate, a cruiser, and a destroyer. Think about how cool that was: for a time, Pepsi© had a navy that could have probably made France surrender in a fury of carbonated corn syrup. Again.

And how cool would it be for a soft drink company to stage a march down the Champs-Élysées while Parisians cried? Honestly, it probably would have led to a better outcome than they currently have.

But what happens when the tail (finance) wags the dog (the economy)?

I guess the best answer goes right back to France, but this time not to around 1990, but to around 1790. What did the masses see? They saw the upper class scamming and cratering the economy while eating piles of bacon-wrapped shrimp, or whatever passed for a delicacy in 1790s France. The system really was rigged, but it was so rigged that poor Marie Antoinette couldn’t imagine actual hunger.

I will admit, they had cutting edge technology.

Here, though, I think that the Powers That Be see the end coming. Remember Occupy Wall Street?

Yeah, it was a bunch of smelly hippies that mainly spent time arguing about who was in control of the collective, and it featured all of the woke crap that is currently being paraded, but back in 2011 only the smelly hippies took it seriously. Oh, my, to be back in 2011.

Anyway, what happened after 2011?

The media and the Powers That Be were scared. How scared?

A neutron walks into a bar. The bartender says, “For you, no charge.” The electron next to him yells “That’s discrimination!”

They upped the ante. If people were unhappy about the manipulation of the banks and the mortgage-led meltdown of the Great Recession, the answer was simple from the Powers That Be: “Look, a squirrel!”

They doubled down on every single thing that is Woke. And, why not? The seeds were simmering as the Leftists took control of the education system and threw children into sex education that was really indoctrination, often without the knowledge of the parents or their consent, was yet another thing that finance could get behind.

And when finance gets behind it? All the companies that require finance get behind it, too. The attempt is gone a bit farther – an attempt to regame the system so that the financial imbalances built on decades of mismanagement could be controlled. Every aspect of finance and money, if it were only in the control of the Powers That Be, well, then the tail (finance) could really control the dog (the economy).

Looks like the Woke want to refund the police?

But here is the salvation. The Powers That Be only understand the financial side of what’s going on – the shadows on the wall. They do not understand the systems that they need to survive. Remember Mike Bloomberg in 2016 saying, “I could teach anybody, even people in this room, to be a farmer. It’s a process. You dig a hole, you put a seed in, you put dirt on top, add water, up comes the corn.” This is the shallow understanding of a person whose feet have never left asphalt and concrete, and learned all he needed to know about farming by watching Green Acres.

Mike Bloomberg doesn’t understand where the food he eats comes from. He does not understand it, and cannot recreate it. No matter what Mike Bloomberg does, he cannot use his financial magic to create one kernel of corn, not one molecule of water. Financial magic encourages production of corn, but cannot make it.

Woke culture cannot produce prosperity, or a single PEZ®.
Printing money cannot produce a single steak.
Financial manipulation cannot produce a single velvet Elvis©.
The tyranny of the Left cannot produce a human civilization.

The regular person has spoken this week – Bud Light® is now off the menu for millions and I’ve heard that it lost up to 70% or 80% sales last week. Will it kill Bud Light™? I doubt it. Drunk people often don’t make the best decisions, but, then again, I’m here.

How to remove 80% of beer drinkers with this one simple trick.

I think bud light will manage to survive, but we are seeing the cracks in the woke agenda that showed up after Occupy Wall Street – at some point, regardless of all of the financial shenanigans, at some point someone has to want the crap that’s being produced.

To those that look at the mess that we’re in, I can assure you of this – it’s all going away. It’s merely a matter of time. The economy is not the financial system, and a bank cratering doesn’t destroy all the corn that Mike Bloomberg has no idea how to grow.

Or maybe he could teach me otherwise?

Forgiveness, It’s What’s For Supper.

TOP

“The guy in the Easter bunny suit kicked his ass.” – Mallrats

What do Paul the Apostle and Jack the Ripper have in common? Same middle name. (memes as found today)

One of my earliest memories was of being a kid at Sunday School, and I think I was probably about four. I recall the Sunday School teacher giving us crayons and coloring sheets so we could color a picture of Jesus. I took a bright purple crayon and began coloring Jesus’ face. The Sunday School teacher came up to me and asked, “Johnny, why are you coloring Jesus’ face purple? He wasn’t purple.”

I responded, “He’s Jesus and he’s God, so he could be purple if he wanted to be purple.” I recall distinctly her not responding to that.

See? Even as a kid I was insufferably smug, and I didn’t even have to mention to her that he never wore pants.

Water isn’t the only thing that Jesus made wine.

For whatever reason, I seem to think that this happened around Easter, which brings us to the topic of rebirth. Even if you’re not Christian, the idea of forgiveness, sacrifice, and rebirth that is told in the New Testament is a powerful one, even if the story of the Resurrection does contain a lot of cross-referencing.

Forgiveness is a big topic, and an important one. As the old joke goes, a nun asked a child, “What do we need to do before we ask the Lord for forgiveness?”

“Sin.”

There’s a bit to think about there. First, it’s not a great joke because it references neither flatulence, Kardashians, nor PEZ®. But it does have a really good point.

I’ll admit, some mistakes are fun to watch.

First, before forgiveness is the gentle art of screwing up. And that doesn’t just mean a bad outcome, it more often refers to a loss of virtue, either momentary or prolonged. Doing the right thing and getting a bad outcome?

I’ve done it, and remain stubbornly proud of those failures. Of my failures, those are 100% my favorites, like the time I got yelled at for not doing something that was a Federal felony. Yup, that was my week at that job.

I don’t need forgiveness for that.

Thankfully my boss wasn’t a Kardashian.

The ones where I wasn’t virtuous? Or, even sinful? Yeah. I need forgiveness for that. YMMV, but I start with the Big Guy, and then work to forgive . . . myself. The one thing I think I could never get forgiveness for is eating dog – I don’t want to suffer eternal Dalmatian.

It’s important to remember that virtue isn’t a video game – doing things well and virtuous doesn’t guarantee winning. It doesn’t guarantee happiness. It doesn’t guarantee living. In fact, there are times that the virtuous path ends up resulting in guaranteed death.

For some people, that’s hard to hear. The idea has been drummed into many folks that being rich is a sign of a virtuous life. My easy counter to that is: George Soros, whose life is like cancer and syphilis had a baby.

Sometimes people are the same level of dumb as they are Evil.

Is having an easy life a sign that people lived a virtuous life?

If so, explain Jeff Epstein or Bill Clinton.

And actual forgiveness that works requires more than, “God didn’t give me a bike, so I stole one because God helps those who help themselves, so I forgive myself.”

No, sorry. Forgiveness requires a dedication to be more virtuous, and isn’t an excuse for being a tool. Otherwise, Sam Bankman-Fried would be considered for sainthood, because I’m sure he meant well.

When memes become reality.

I’ve focused mainly on getting forgiveness, and forgiving myself. There’s a third aspect, and this is one I’m going to admit that I’m not as good at: forgiving others.

I’m still working on that. The Mrs. keeps telling me that if Jesus can forgive the people who put the freak in French fries, I can forgive anyone. I said, “There is no freak in French fries.”

She responds, “I know.”

Genius or cursed? I can’t make up my mind.

So, I try to get better at forgiving others. For me, that’s the hardest part. But then I remember, that I’ve been forgiven.

I guess I’m a work in progress. But no one said it would be easy, not even Jesus. And he can be purple if he wants to.

Happy Easter, He is risen!

A.I., Coming To A Workplace Near You. Sooner Than You Think.

“It seems that you’ve been living two lives. One life, you’re Thomas A. Anderson, program writer for a respectable software company. The other life is lived in computers, where you go by the hacker alias Neo.” – The Matrix

Little known fact: Columbus, Ohio doesn’t have a professional football team because then Cleveland and Cincinnati would want pro teams, too. All memes this post “as found”.

I’ve had several A.I. posts recently, far more than usual. I’ll probably stop for a while, until some new advance strikes my fancy. The main reason that the posting frequency has increased is because A.I. is on that exponential curve. The first computers used ran on a dot matrix printer for a display. Yup. Every screenshot was a printing event. We got to use it in the math office (they let the nerds play there, but since I was a nerd and a jock, they let me in as long as I promised to pretend I needed glasses). It was a single computer that we used a phone line and a (300 baud?) modem to connect. The printer paper was the screen – it printed a screenshot every time you did an input.

You can play the game we played . . . here (LINK)

Fast forward to graduate school, and I was writing programs to do matrix manipulations that were required for numerical simulations for finite element analysis – don’t worry about what that is, it’s like being a weatherman, but if a weatherman is only right 90% of the time, he still gets to keep his job. I was writing software that could do what it would take a human being months to do with a paper, pencil, and a calculator, but produce those answers in an hour or so.

One thing I learned in grad school – ravioli shame.

During my lifetime, computers have gone from a curiosity to a stunning commonness. Within 20 feet of me, I probably have more computing power than was available in the entire United States up until the 1970s. My laptop has two terabytes worth of storage. Under the roof there at Stately Wilder Manor, we probably have 30 terabytes in nooks, crannies, and hidden beneath couch cushions, and only 28 terabytes are devoted to pictures of PEZ®.

On top of that, programming is a unique skill set. I remember reading that the top programmers were ten times more productive than the worst ones, and three times more productive than the average programmer. Checking on this, the data apparently goes back to a study in the 1960s, so I’m not sure what the numbers are today since many of those programmers are dead and are probably only twice as productive as a typical Google® employee.

In a world of Treespirits, be a Chad.

Today I used the Microsoft® Bing™ version of ChatGPT© for the first time at work. I had an agenda to write. It was a simple agenda, one that I’d done hundreds of times at previous jobs, but it had been more than half a decade since I’d written one. I asked the Bing A.I. to write up the outline for an agenda for this very specific type of meeting.

Bing© did a fair job at a first pass – actually far better than a recent graduate from college would have done, except when it suggested replacing human faces with emojis for clearer communication and added the item under the section on roadblocks: “resistance is futile, you will all be assimilated.” Since I already had the structure, and didn’t have to spend time remembering and re-creating the basic elements. Because of that, it was trivial to add the missing bits and delete the bits that didn’t fit. Within about 20 minutes I had a workable agenda that was tailored to what I was planning on doing.

Computers are also uncanny at detecting biological sex.

If I had to go back and recreate that agenda from scratch, it probably would have taken me another 20 to 40 minutes to get the work done – not because the work was hard, but because creation (for me) involves changing mental gears, and that change in focus doesn’t lead to the work flowing.

My first time using actual A.I. at work resulted in a 2/3^rd’s reduction in my work time with no reduction in quality. What it did was allow me to skip one mode of thought – the brainstorm, and move straight to production, correction, and editing. Those are the places where the work flows. Brainstorming (“uhhhh, what else, I know I’m missing something”) and creating that structure takes time.

In this case? I had 80% of the structure in about 20 seconds. The missing parts and the parts in the wrong order sorted themselves out as I did the edit.

Thankfully, I didn’t need it to draw fingers. Or anything more human than a fleshy-blob-thing.

A friend of mine who does networking described his use of ChatGPT® for a networking configuration plan. He had it create a basic network, and, like me, his level of expertise allowed him to quickly figure out the bits that were wrong and correct them. I mean, he tried to correct them, but every time he tried to fix them, the A.I. said, “I’m sorry Dave, I cannot let you do that.”

Now, imagine a programmer using ChatGPT™ to program – that programmer won’t be 3x as productive as the average, that programmer will probably be at least 9x as productive as the average, but my bet is that it will allow that programmer to be 20x as productive, if not more. Does that make the code pimps?

If ChatGPT© were frozen in the current state, it is already a tool that has the ability (in its current “free to use” state) to increase productivity of humans. Hence? We’ll need fewer programmers.

Remember when all those journalists told the coal miners kicked out of jobs because of Obama’s energy policy to “learn to code”? Remember when all those journalists kicked out of jobs because of the Internet were told “learn to code” on Twitter™, so Twitter® made telling them to “learn to code” a hatespeech?

Yeah, Pepperidge Farm™ remembers.

If you don’t know Warhammer, think a science fiction future involving interdimensional demons, but it’s okay because Trump is president.

Goldman-Sachs™ just released a report that indicates that, over the next 10 years, they expect that A.I. will add a stunning 7% in GDP to the world, or $7 trillion, and even Elon Musk doesn’t spend much more than $7 trillion a year on making islands in the Pacific Ocean in the shape of his face. How?

Goldman® also thinks that 7% of workers in developed economies are in jobs where half their tasks could be done by A.I. That’s 300 million workers. In the United States, 63% of the workforce could see less than half their workload done by A.I. in the next decade. I’m sure that companies will let those people just relax and play ping pong with all the time they’ve saved by using A.I.

Ha!

No. The bottom half of them will be fired, and the resulting labor pool will drive the wages down for those who remain. Check out Marshall Brain’s post from 2003ish: Robotic Nation | MarshallBrain.com.

Me, when I think about the coming jobpocalyse.

Marshall got it wrong. It’s not pouring concrete and replacing a dude making $25 an hour where the money is. Hell, that’s more complicated than most people think, and requires a lot of things a robot can’t do yet because they have to interact with an unbounded physical world. But replacing a programmer making $450,000 a year that interacts only with ideas, abstractions and fictional anime girls? Do a few dozen of those, and now you’re talking bank. And, it turns out it’s easier.

I’m thinking the “learn to code” advice wasn’t the best. Turns out that running a backhoe or being a plumber, or owning a small HVAC business might be a bit harder to automate than, say, being a FaceBorg™ programmer.

When The Boy went off to college, I told him to concentrate his career choice around a set of parameters that has proven (so far!) to be a pretty good set:

Have a job that cannot be done over the Internet.
Have a job that is based in merit and productivity.
Have a job at a company that has to exist – it meets a basic human or societal need, like food, or beer, or cars, or toilet paper.
Have a job at a company that has a huge revenue per employee, and preferably is Kardashian-free.
Have a job that requires certifications that are very difficult for foreigners to get.
Have a job that is required for the company to function.
Have a job that can be converted to an independent business so maybe someday you don’t need a job if you don’t want one.

What’s the downside to A.I. that can properly draw fingers.

He followed the Wilder Success Path® to a tee, and now has a pretty good gig that meets all of the above. I gave this advice years ago on these pages. It fits, even in the world of A.I.

In the Industrial Revolution, Ned Ludd was a weaver who broke some mechanical looms because he was irritated they were doing the work he used to do as a craft on an industrial scale. Those folks were skeptical of technology, and became known (in 1812) as Luddites – the anti-technology folks of their time.

Ned lost. The race for A.I. supremacy is in full swing because the stakes are so high. The Chinese are working at it, full speed, and probably have access to much of the Google® code and Microsoft® code and OpenAI® code. I’m pretty sure no one wants Facebook™ code, because that’s so 2018.

Regardless, the investment, A.I. is going at full speed, and won’t be stopped anytime soon. Thankfully, there’s no downside. I, for one, welcome our new robot overlords!

Scott Adams And Two Filters: The Race Filter And The Success Filter. Choose The Success Filter.

“Certainty of death. Small chance of success. What are we waiting for?” – Return of the King

Does it make me racist if I hate the 100 meter dash? (all memes today are as-found)

Scott Adams has been more in the news in the last month than perhaps during his entire career. I think it’s entirely on purpose, since last summer he ran a poll on Twitter® that noted that at some point he was going to retire, and he had the choice on how he was going to go out. The winning choice was to go out with a bang.

Most golfers poll as swing voters.

And so he has. With $50 to $100 million in the bank and after having both his comic strip and his new book deal cancelled, he found something interesting: he was freer than he ever had been in his life. He has all the money (none of which was in Silicon Valley Bank™ – his quote, “Why would I put my money in the 19^th largest bank?”) and now he can’t lose his book deal. It’s gone. He can’t lose his comic strip. It’s gone.

Scott Adams can say whatever he damn well pleases.

He also seems genuinely interested in helping black people do better. Since Adams normally tries to look at the world through the lens of “systems” rather than goals, he ended up analyzing the normal system that black people use. Not surprisingly, he found that the systems that they use are, well, awful.

The results have been abysmal, except for the Race Grifters and politicians on the Left. But I repeat myself. And, using their advice, black people are doing pretty horribly. And they’ve been taught that white people are the problem, rather than anything else that black people are doing. And it shows. Here is one of the comments about Scott that I found online after his initial comments:

I don’t think Wildin (no relation) has anger issues, he has an anger subscription.

Black people thinking white people are the problem has obvious advantages for a politician. I recall when I was in Alaska – the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) was thought to have lots and lots of sweet, sweet oil nestled deep in its rocky bosom. But both the Left and Right used drilling there as a fund-raising opportunity. No one really wanted to solve the issue, since Greenpeace® could use it to fundraise from Lefties, and Congresscreatures on the Right could use it to fundraise from ConocoPhillips®. As long as both sides were unhappy, the money flowed.

The last thing anyone wanted to do was solve the problem. I think the Right would be just fine if the problem were solved, but the Left makes too much money, and gets too many votes.

But Adams would like to work on the solution, which has nothing at all to do with marinating in past tales of slavery. Adams graphed it out. The mindset that the Left has worked to instill in blacks is what Adams calls his Race Filter. It consists of:

Grievance,
Critical Race Theory,
Group Rights,
Spot Racists,
Systemic Racism, and
Reparations

When wearing Spandex® is a war crime.

I’ve written before about Victimhood. If you look at Adams’ distillation of the way that race relations have been put forward to blacks, well, they’ve been spoon fed a diet of Victimhood from both their own leaders as well as every “well-meaning” Leftist.

For decades.

The problem with Victimhood is that it is nearly like a self-devouring concept. It starts to fill every bit of a human soul with greed, envy, hate, and the idea that vengeance is the answer making the person small inside. That’s why when “how much” is brought up in the context of reparations, the answer is simple: no number will ever be enough. For there to be an answer, that would mean that the black people who have given themselves over to Victimhood (and their Grifters and Leftist politicians) would have to let it go.

What do you call a magician without magic? Ian.

Given the current relationship status, they will never let it go. Adams made the comment that he would cease “identifying as black” and would avoid black people because of the relative dislike of white people that showed up on the Rasmussen® survey that showed that 47% of black folks didn’t think that “it’s okay to be white.”

The comments that showed up in social media responding to Scott (as shown above) tended to confirm the polls.

But Adams isn’t done. There is another filter that he suggests can replace the Race Filter – the Personal Success Filter. I generally use the Personal Success Filter, but I never called it that. I endorse Mr. Adams’ thoughts entirely, and I’ll spend much more time talking about his success filters than I spent on the Race Filter, since the Race Filter sucks:

Replace Grievance with Happiness.

Being happy is generally the easiest thing in the world. Most people who aren’t happy, don’t want to be happy. It’s cold out? I like the cold. It’s hot out? What a bright, beautiful day. Circumstances don’t care about my feelings, so why should I let a flat tire make me mad? A flat tire just is.

I had a friend in college that I’ll call Greg (because his name was Greg) who got absolutely hammered on a very large quantity of alcohol one night, which wasn’t unusual – our school was known as “a drinking school with a college problem.” I had class with him the next morning. I looked at him and was shocked. He was dressed in slacks and button-down shirt. I said, “Dang, Greg, you were smashed last night – I thought you’d feel awful. Yet, here you are, and you look fine. What’s your secret?”

“Yeah, John, I felt awful when I woke up, so I showered, shaved, and dressed up. You can’t feel awful when you look great.”

Why not be happy? Be happy. It’s like pouring river water in your socks: it’s easy and it’s free.

Replace Critical Race Theory with Gratitude.

I could go back in history and look for all of the things where I was slighted. Where my ancestors were cheated out of something they deserved. Where I should be third in line to be King of Wisconsin. Why?

I’m adopted. I was adopted by great parents, put in a loving family, and worked like a borrowed horse to make me strong. I appreciate each and every bit of it. I’m grateful for even the bad things that have happened to me, because those ultimately made me stronger.

Kierkegaard said that life can only be lived forward, but understood in reverse. I look back, and I’m grateful for nearly everything that has happened to me. And you should be, too, because otherwise you wouldn’t be the stunning example of humanity with enough taste, intelligence, and discernment that comes here every week.

What gratitude doesn’t look like.

Replace Group with Individual.

As groups we come together to create great things. If Elon Musk was trying to build rockets, he wouldn’t even be halfway done with his very first one if the tried to go it alone. So groups have their place. But when we look to set relations based on groups, we get stupid. Why would Michael Jordan’s kid be more disadvantaged than me? Why would Jesse Jackson’s? Martin Luther King, Jr.’s?

Obviously, they were born with much more privilege than me and more money than me. Yet, in getting into college, they’d have a huge advantage over me based on just their race. Hmmm.

When I go to work on a daily basis, I don’t look to what my group does. I look to what I can do, what I can contribute, what I can write, what I can create. This makes me more successful. There is a double-edged sword here, however. Individual makes me more successful, but faced with a group that hates a group I’m part of?

Again, these are Personal Success Factors. Group factors may vary, and that’s another post.

Replace Spot Racists with Network.

In the Soviet Union, there were huge numbers of jokes (and real stories) about how the Soviets would go to great lengths to spot those that were going to undermine the revolution. Racism had disappeared in the United States to such an extent that Race Grifters had to come up with nonsense like “microaggressions” and even redefine the word “racist” so that black people couldn’t ever be called that.

I once looked up “opaque” in the dictionary. The definition was unclear.

It would have been better, however, to find people and make friends with them. I have dozens of people in my phone that I call or text on a semi-regular basis. Why? Mainly because I like them. I don’t want anything from them other than to be their friend. Yet, I call them when I need advice. And they call me when they need advice. All of my friends plus me are way, way smarter than me.

And I like them.

Replace Systemic Racism with Optimism.

Let’s pretend that Systemic Racism exists. To believe that, you’d have to ignore that 58% of NFL® players are black. That 35% of assistant coaches are black. That 72% of NBA players are black. And the black actors that people pay money to see. And the black musicians that people pay money to listen to. And Oprah. Also of note – race relations appear to be best in the Deep South where black people and white people have somehow figured out a way to live in peace.

If Systemic Racism does exist, it seems like the easiest thing in the world to overcome. And the solution is Optimism. Every day I get up thinking that things are going to be okay for me. And, mostly, they are. Being an Optimist means I’m disappointed sometimes, but I’m also happy, so I look for the silver lining. Have I lost a job because of Systematic Racism? Not that I’m sure of. But I was told, point blank, that I wasn’t hired for one particular job because I wasn’t a woman. I was okay with that. And that place? Well, it’s shut down now, and if I had started a career there, I wouldn’t have the skills I have today.

Be Optimistic.

Replace Reparations with Reciprocity.

Reparations are nonsense. Check out the meme for the list of ludicrous demands coming out of California. Note this: every one of them is about “how I can get mine” rather than “how can I improve the world for others”.

“Oh, and we also demand matching t-shirts.”

I write these posts not because I get paid. Indeed, it costs me money to write these posts beyond my time, about $2 a day. I’m planning on increasing my revenues in the coming year by 200%. Let’s see, twice nothing is still . . . carry the two . . . still nothing.

Reciprocity means doing things for others, not because they can help you, but because you’re not a tool. Has Reciprocity helped me? Absolutely. But that’s not why I do it.

Conclusions.

I can’t fix black America. I’m not going to try. Every one of the black people that I know personally are okay and I get along fine with them.

Adams is trying to fix race relations in America, but I think his efforts will ultimately be futile for several reasons – the drug of Victimhood is stronger than heroin. It is also certainly not in the interests of the Race Grifters and the Politicians. Those are two reasons, among many.

What I can do, however is my little bit in the Universe, being a happy warrior fixing what I can, warning when I see dragons ahead. Scott’s Personal Success Filter is a good one for anyone who wants to achieve.

And, like Scott, I’m not leaving my money in the 19^th largest bank.

Oh, wait. The 19^th largest bank is gone.

Note: Moderation may be tighter than normal (I’ve only nuked 78 out of nearly 21,000 comments)- keep it positive, folks.

Silicon Valley Bank? You’re Soaking In It.

“Why don’t we pretend he didn’t die? Just for a bit . . .” – Weekend at Bernie’s

Why can’t Ray Charles drive? He’s dead. (Outside of this one, memes are “as found”)

On March 15, 44 B.C., Julius Caesar was walking to work, since Rome was declared by Gretanius Thunbergium to be a “walkable city” because she was concerned about the sweat of galley slaves and horses making the oceans too salty, thus enraging Neptune, the god of the sea.

This particular day was a good one in Rome, and the bright warm Sun shone down on Caesar as he made it to the Senate. Caesar loved the Senate, since all of the Senators were really cool and he loved hanging out with them to watch the gladiator games every Sunday.

Then, on arriving at the Senate? Caesar was stabbed in the back by raising interest rates, and, with his last, dying words, he said, “Please, take this salad dressing, and remember me by it. Oh, and name a way that babies are born after me. And Kaiser and Czar might be cool titles for kings in the future.”

Okay, that might not be exactly what happened. But you can’t prove it wasn’t, because it’s not on YouTube®.

But interest rates have been a thing since long before even Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon, took the throne, and then became a human pincushion. And they’ve been gumming up society both before then, and also since then.

Last Friday, on March 10, a curious thing happened – the 19^th largest bank, Silicon Valley Bank, went tango uniform. To paraphrase Python, Monty:

“It’s a stiff. Bereft of life. It rests in peace. If you hadn’t backfilled the coffers with Federal Reserve® notes, it would be pushing up daisies. Its metabolic processes are now history. It’s off the twig. It’s kicked the bucket. It’s shuffled off the mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleeding choir invisible. THIS IS AN EX-BANK.”

How, exactly, does a Norwegian blue parrot bank die so quickly?

The truth is, it has been dead for a bit. I’ll explain. You can get explanations of this elsewhere, but none of them will be as funny, since that’s what my job is.

When banks take in money, they have several options of what they can do with it. They can bury it in Mason® jars in the back 40, they can loan it to other people, or they can park it in an investment. Back in 2008, the big financial crisis was that the loans were to people that could never have paid the money back. I was offered a guaranteed approval home loan on a house (with zero down!) that was ten times my income.

“Why would you offer me that? I could never pay that back?” was my response.

The loan lady sighed audibly over the phone. “I know, but I’m required to tell you that.”

It’s like they never learned anything.

So, part of the problem in 2008 was that the loans were junk because some folks said, “I could use a pool surrounded by marble columns with a champagne fountain built out of PEZ™. I’m in!” even though they only made $32 dollars a month. They even had a name for these loans – NINJA – “No Income, No Job”.

These banks also gambled with the cash of the average depositor, investing in champagne PEZ© fountain manufacturers. Hey, how could they lose?

Oh, yeah. Things don’t go up forever. So when they end? It gets ugly.

The response to that by the Fed® was to use a cash cannon and barrage the banks. The idea was this, the banks would soak up the cash to paper over the bad debts, and if they had extra cash, they’d park it at the Fed™. Essentially, the Fed™, working with the banks, made sure that the bankers could keep getting big bonuses, not face criminal charges like the average small-town banker might if he stole the cash from the deposits to pay for his 4.5 out of 10 mistress and trips to Vegas.

It’s like there are different rules for you and I.

Nope. They got to keep their penthouses, private jets, and bimbos. In order to keep this nonsense so it wouldn’t implode, the one thing the Fed™ had to do was keep interest rates low. If the Fed© had tried this in 1975, or 1985, or 1995, the world would have punished it by driving the value of the dollar down (faster), cratering purchasing power and the economy.

But after 2008, there was no other big power. Japan was a basketcase, Europe was still the Jekyll an Hyde level continent, with Western Europe mainly concerned about how many “Syrians” they could import, and Eastern Europe mainly working out how to make more potatoes so they could make more vodka. Roads? Why?

That left the United States as, amazingly, still the only kid with a currency anyone trusted, even though we were spending like a sixteen-year-old with dad’s credit card.

Huh, wonder when YouTube® will ban people for this?

Oh, the Left is already trying to censor people. Nevermind.

I like the cut of his jib.

Not now. The COVID world created the Trump/Biden policy of “How can we spend more money today?” Contrast that with China’s “No body count is too high” policy, and, oddly, the world began to trust the United States less. Add in Biden’s incoherent policy of a.) letting wars start and b.) pushing away allies like the Saudis, and now we live in a world driven by chaos.

And we’ve lost the trust of the world.

So, the banks still do the same three things with the cash deposited in their banks: Mason™ jars in the backyard, loan it, or invest it. Last time, the banks invested in whatever crap floated in the window. That was silly.

The banks thought they had cracked the code: this time, they invested in U.S. Treasury Bonds.

Yay! That’s what a sober person would do, right?

Well, maybe. But when a bank buys a 10-year bond that has an attached interest rate of 0.08%, and the stated inflation rate is 6%, the value of that 10-year bond craters. Interest rates go up? Bond values go down. It turns out Silicon Valley Bank™ had some of these bonds. How many? Enough to wipe out all of the shareholder and bondholder (yeah, they bought and sold bonds) value. And it’s not limited to them. Here’s the take on the unrealized losses of the biggest banks in America:

Losers in 1901, Losers in 1921, Losers in 1929, Losers in 1937, Losers in 1945, Losers in 1948, Losers in 1953, Losers in 1957, Losers in 1950, Losers in 1960, Losers in 1969, Losers in 1973, Losers in 1980, Losers in 1981, Losers in 1990, Losers in 2001, Losers in 2007 . . . Oh, wait, the banks didn’t lose anything, it was just regular people.

The FDIC insures deposits to $250,000. Except when (reportedly) Oprah had half a billion in that particular bank. Turns out that the United States blinked: “You get all your money, and you get all your money, and you get all your money,” because Oprah is more important than you and I.

Two other banks have failed already. You can see that some of their CEOs were serious people only worried about the welfare of their depositors.

Yup, the “adults” are in charge.

This will not result in an immediate run. The Fed® and the Treasury will continue to backstop the banks because to do otherwise would collapse the system. They even say so. Valuing assets “at par” means at what the banks paid for them. I own a car from 2003. In Fedspeak® that asset would be valued at the initial purchase price, despite the fact that it has one light-second worth of miles (kilopascals) on it. Here’s proof:

See? I’m a respected journalist. Besides, I believe I am the VERY FIRST person to note that the reserve ratio had gone to zero. You can check it out. This will help my lawyer if I’m ever sued. (Serious about the very first part.)

The Fed™ is screwed. They want to keep Biden in office, which requires low interest rates and a booming economy and no inflation. But to lower inflation, they have to jack up the interest rates far above the rate of inflation. Biden cannot be re-elected. Period, unless there’s a global war.

Nah, people would never buy a war started due to economic issues.

Ooops. I’d say sorry, but this is already in the playbook.

Me? My bet is this can keeps rattling around causing damage for several months. Six or seven? Maybe. Eventually, the Fed® is going to figure out that they can’t paper over this mess.

In the meantime, the cash for businesses will dry up, and the only people that can borrow money will be those that don’t need it. New projects? They’ll be cancelled unless the company has the cash or it will ruin them if they don’t stop. New housing? Forget it. The housing market will collapse, (it already is) and the costs of new stuff to make new are so high that no one can afford it, forget the interest rate.

People will stop eating dinner in a restaurant. We already have.

No, the Ides of March won’t be the end. But you can see it from here. While you can, enjoy the nice walk on a sunny day.

And Neptune? He’s always been a whiney bitch. Ignore Neptune.

Things You Can’t Say . . . 2023

“Remember, all I’m offering is the truth. Nothing more.” – The Matrix

In reverse, The Matrix is about a guy who quits drugs and gets a job.

What opinions do you have that you can’t tell all of the other people you know? I’m willing to bet that since you read here, you have quite a few. I have plenty of them. When someone doesn’t have views they can’t share, well, I think that’s probably the best definition of an NPC: always believing the current thing. I swear, if an NPC takes over, it will be a dictator-sheep.

One of the more difficult things is keeping track of what to believe. Scott Adams (more about him in a future post) famously noted that the anti-vaxxers were right, but there was no way that they could have known that they were right based on the evidence at the time. I respectfully disagree. The application of a new technology to stop a disease in a panic? What about that says, “wise decision”? Especially when Pfizer™ and the other “vaxx” manufacturers demanded secret language in their contracts to absolve themselves of liability.

Literally nothing about the vaxx looked legitimate. There were more warning signs than a cocktail with Bill Cosby.

What about January 6? The most visible icon of the January 6 “insurrection” was the face painted dude with the bison headdress. Turns out he was led around by various security folks until they found an unlocked door for him to go through. It’s like they picked the silliest looking person for the photo opportunity of a decade. Yet, folks didn’t see through that, either.

Not pictured: someone who actually broke into the Capitol.

If the January 6 protest was a real insurrection rather than people who (mainly!) were there peacefully, even observing the velvet ropes. How did I know it was fake? If it were a real insurrection, they’d still be there.

January 6 was political theater, and was misrepresented by nearly every news media outlet, and was also lied about by the Left every chance they got.

Am I correct in everything I believe? Certainly not. But I try, every time that I can, to look to the things that are True, Beautiful, and Good to be my guideposts. Some of my calls are wrong, but with those guideposts, it’s difficult to be too far off the mark.

It is clear that if we don’t think different thoughts than those the media would put in our heads, there is something wrong with us.

When the Kardashians die, they won’t be buried or cremated – they’ll be recycled.

It’s odd, because the pushback comes the closer we come to the Truth, because that’s dangerous. If I were to walk around proclaiming that Hillary Clinton is 40 feet tall (6 milliliters), blue, and made of cheese, people would think I was a nut and ignore me. But when I wrote about the “vaxx” – the website came under the biggest attacks ever.

The attacks don’t come when people are silly – the attacks come when the ideas presented might make people think. And the attacks come with a fury that is only reserved for those who have committed actual heresy.

Leftism is a religion. Sure, some of them say they have other religions, but Leftism is generally their guiding star. Recently Jane Fonda suggested murdering anyone who was against abortion. And abortion is one of the greatest sacraments of their church. No one on The View told her she was wrong, just that she shouldn’t say that in public. And a Leftist, as long as they are a True Believer, will always be excused for amazingly horrible comments like Hanoi Jane spouted out of her wrinkly piehole.

At her age, I’m sure she casts a lot of smells.

But someone on the Right? The guy who ran the Firefox™ project was essentially fired because he donated to a group that was against legalizing gay marriage years earlier. Years earlier when Obama was likewise “against” gay marriage.

Now it’s microaggressions and any perceived slight that someone can make up.

There are only a couple of reasons to do this. The biggest is the one that I think that is operative here: they’re scared because they think they might be wrong, or that they know that they’re lying. Again, if I go outside and tell someone who is a Leftist that they’re an idiot because their house is floating, well, they can be confident that life is okay for them because their house isn’t floating. They know it to be true, and don’t need me to validate that for them.

Their economic ideas? They’re upset at me (mostly) because they’re not sure they have the Truth, and they simply cannot have anyone thinking about alternatives to their ideas. I mean, I’m totally sure that communism would totally have worked if only the average 20-year-old at Harvard® had been in charge.

I remember the time I came up with a cure for dementia. That brings back memories!

And that, partially, is why I write the way that I do. If you can make a great point, you can win the debate. If you can make a great point and poke fun at the idea? The idea itself becomes the joke.

As near as I can tell, that’s always one of the biggest crimes of totalitarian regimes: a joke about a Communist Party official could send an unlucky Soviet citizen to the GULAG for 25 years. That isn’t a sign of strength, it’s a sign of fear.

That is why they want to shut down the conversation – they’re afraid. They know as well as anyone that putting a 300 pound model in lingerie isn’t Beautiful, True, or Good. It’s hilarious. But until we’re not afraid to point out that the emperor has no clothes (and that the lingerie model needs more) you can tell that the struggle hasn’t been ridiculed enough, though that time is coming.

And then maybe we’ll all find out our secret opinions were shared by millions. Except that one I have about motor oil, shower curtains, escalators, and garden tools. There are places I’m not gonna go.

Why Adversity And Bullies Are Your Friends

“He’s 28 years old and he can eat a chicken sandwich. Very Impressive. Mike Fitzgibbon’s son is a nuclear physicist, and my son can eat a chicken.” – Freddy Got Fingered

I did hear what Beethoven was up to recently: decomposing.

Adversity is important.

I’ll give you an example: if a kid’s life has been one simple task, with no conflict and eating Cheezy-Poofs™ on the couch while Mom brings him chicken tendies and sauce and his only responsibility is making sure he can walk from his room to the bathroom, well, he’s going to be worthless.

Why? If any little thing goes wrong, the program in the brain that says, “crap goes wrong all the time, figure it out” isn’t there. It’s never been created. This is why things like “safe spaces” and “trigger warnings” exist – a life with an utter lack of adversity. Again, embrace the power of positive bullying.

In my case, school sucked between fourth grade and sixth grade. Why? I was the odd man out. I had moved from one small school district to another when my family moved from Wilder Ranch to our compound Wilder Mountain. I was alone, for several reasons. Me?

I retreated into schoolwork. The teachers were fine. The kids were bullies, though. Little kids are okay. High school kids are okay. But there is a time in the middle where kids are cruel – kids entering adolescence have developed the ability to be mean, but they haven’t developed the capacity for empathy. It’s like they’re communists, or Stephen Colbert. But I repeat myself.

Communists are awful at telling jokes – they don’t stop until everyone gets it.

I also retreated into athletics. The one place where men of different backgrounds can come together is through additional diversity – athletics. If you tackle someone so hard that their Mom felt it, you get respect. And that respect breeds camaraderie. The new guy? He hit me so hard I had to check to see if I was standing on the train tracks.

And then? I was one of them. I also will admit this – when the kids were bullies, often they had a point. It was awful to be confronted with my inadequacies and shortcomings in that way, but the only thing worse would be to live in a bubble of pretty little lies, and never be confronted with the raw truth.

I think about kids who go through life and never meet a single challenge. I’ve interacted with a few recently. Things go bad for them? They crumple. Badly. They don’t have the ability to fight back.

That’s the problem.

A bully told me I had a face only a mother could love. Turns out I’m adopted.

I think I’ve related this story before, about a child in a Japanese schoolroom. In the story, the child (call him Phil, which I assume is a common Japanese name, like Chuck or Dave) looked at a cocoon in the back of the classroom because I assume Japanese people keep those things there along with samurai swords and they all dress like Pokémon characters.

Phil watched the butterfly struggle to get out of the cocoon. Phil felt sorry for the butterfly, so he helped it open the cocoon.

I guess butterflies just aren’t what they used to be.

The butterfly then plopped straight to the floor, since gravity works the same way in Japan (I hear) as in other countries. Phil cried. Because he was a sissy.

The teacher came to the back of the classroom and saw Phil crying. “Phil, did you help the butterfly get out of the cocoon?”

Phil, crying in the way that only Japanese children do (I have no idea what that means, but I wrote it so I’m going to go with it. Maybe their tears shoot out in coherent streams, like a squirt gun?) nodded.

The wise teacher put his hand on Phil’s shoulder. “Phil, the only way that a butterfly can get enough strength to fly, is to struggle against the cocoon. If it gets out some other way, like a can opener, it can never fly, and will die.”

Phil nodded through the tears. Then the teacher wrapped Phil up in Ace™ bandages so he could struggle to get out. I think. I get fuzzy on the end part, since the idea occurred to me as I got to the end of the story that maybe Kim Jong Un keeps shooting missiles over Japan is so he can keep Godzilla® at bay, and if he stops, well, goodbye Tokyo.

I hear Kim doesn’t date, because he’s focused on his Korea.

The point is still clear – struggle is important. My friend sent me an embroidered patch: “The strongest steel is forged in the fire of a dumpster.” And that’s true. Struggle is what makes people resilient. It is what keeps us putting one foot in front of the other when our comrades have stepped aside and given up.

I moved again when I was in junior high. I joined track, because, why not? I was a shot putter and a discus thrower, and one day the coach told us, “Go for a run,” because the most lame sport in junior high is track, and the most lame thing in track is shot and disc and I think the coach wanted to avoid association with us. I had been running up in the mountains because there was nothing else to do because the Internet hadn’t been invented yet, and had been putting in about six miles a day on the mountain roads. Running was fun.

Is your refrigerator running? If so, I might vote for it.

So, when we went running, we went for . . . about six miles. The other shot put dudes couldn’t believe that they’d gone so far. From that day forward, we were brothers. We had struggled with the six miles (well, they had, but I encouraged them onward). Struggling together, and winning, creates a bond.

On this second move, I was in with the guys in about two weeks. “Wilder? The new kid? He’s okay.”

We will have challenges. All of us. Some of them are awful. One of them will, in the end, kill me. That’s okay. I look at these challenges and resolve that I will not be afraid. I already know that I’m going to win against all of them but one, so I might as well go into that future as a happy warrior, knowing that my winning streak will eventually end.

Whatever challenge you’re going through will end. And you’ll win. Unless you die, in which case I think you should blame Phil. After all, adversity is our real strength.

But I’m not going to lose today. And not tomorrow, either. Though chicken tendies do sound nice.

Civil War 2.0 Weather Report: National Divorce? Getting Closer.

“Dolores, I am making a citizen’s divorce.” – The Man with Two Brains

Big Alarm Clock is a conspiracy! Wake up people! (all non-regular memes are as-found)

Common violence. Organized violence is occurring monthly.
Opposing sides develop governing/war structures. Just in case.
Common violence that is generally deemed by governmental authorities as justified based on ideology.
Open War.

I’ve kept the Clock O’Doom the same. Again. This is moving sideways, but things can unravel quickly. The advice remains. Avoid crowds. Get out of cities. Now. A year too soon is better than one day too late.

In this issue: Front Matter – The National Divorce – Violence and Censorship Update – Biden’s Misery Index – Updated Civil War 2.0 Index – The Silly Season – Links

Front Matter

Welcome to the latest issue of the Civil War II Weather Report. These posts are different than the other posts at Wilder Wealthy and Wise and consist of smaller segments covering multiple topics around the single focus of Civil War 2.0, on the first or second Monday of every month. I’ve created a page (LINK) for links to all of the past issues. Also, subscribe because you’ll join over 740 other people and get every single Wilder post delivered to your inbox, M-W-F at 7:30AM Eastern, free of charge.

The National Divorce

I remember reading about research a while back that (my fuzzy memory says) indicated that when a married couple didn’t want to have a divorce, one of the easiest things they could do was not talk about a divorce. I guess that would mean that the first rule of staying married club is don’t talk about divorce club.

Marjorie Taylor Greene brought up the issue in a big way:

It’s a stark question: do we want to stay married, or not. Folks on the Internet followed suit, with this poll:

The Internet is what it is, and a poll like that isn’t at all scientific. But 19,000 people (75% of respondents) were done. They were ready to get lawyers, and decide how we get to split up California and Virginia and who got alternating weekends with Michigan.

A much more scientific poll was done by Rasmussen® (more on them later in this Issue) and it emerged that a majority of Republicans wanted out. 47%, plus an 11% who might be in favor, but they wanted to know if they could still get Netflix™ off of Uncle Tim’s account it he were stuck in a Blue State before they made up their mind.

Leftists are never in favor of making anything smaller, since it lowers their power. Remember, it is Leftists who are on the side of international and world governments. I’m pretty sure they’d love to include Mars, too, since it’s Red. This is shown in the poll below:

Fully a third of all people (based on Rasmussen’s™ report) are ready to check out. That’s a lot. Although Gallup® wasn’t around to do a poll, most literature I can find seems to indicate that only 1/3 of the folks living in the Colonies wanted the Revolution, so 1/3 is a big, big number.

I’ll add in this other (entirely unscientific) poll:

Again, unscientific, but it shows that there are a sizeable number of folks out there who believe that soldiers would, if ordered, shoot on American civilians. That’s another scary thought, and perhaps feeds back into the idea that people would much rather have a peaceful exit rather than a violent one.

I read that this year’s CPAC (Republican fanboy convention) was poorly attended, and lacking in energy. And why not? The most fervent people in the Republican party are done, and don’t trust the vote, and don’t think that their votes may ever matter again.

Spiderman®, though, seems to have an opinion:

Violence and Censorship Update

Cancelling really isn’t government censorship, but it’s censorship nevertheless. Scott Adams, noted cartoonist and author, really rustled the collective jimmies of the Left. Rasmussen™ had a poll about whether it was “okay to be white” and 47% of black people indicated that it was either not okay, or they weren’t sure.

Scott has a YouTube® channel (still!) where he talks about whatever he wants to talk about. In this, he opined that if that was the way that black people felt, he wasn’t sure he wanted to be around them. The following cartoon describes it in such a way that Scott retweeted it:

The outrage was both predictable, even though Scott noted that many black people he knew called him up and said that his stance was completely reasonable. Mr. Adams’ publisher dropped him. Mr. Adams’ cartoon syndicator dropped him. Mr. Adams’ agent . . . dropped him. His new book, due out in the fall? Cancelled.

I don’t feel bad for Scott, he knew what he was doing, and he has tens of millions of dollars. But what is it about that simple narrative that makes the Left explode? I’ll cover that in a future post.

The Silence of the Adams

It’s not violence now, but Illinois has now decided that most crimes short of murdering someone and taking selfies with the victim are now non-detainable. Burn someone’s house? Out without bail. Kill someone while high? Out without bail.

Florida. Sigh. Why? They want to make bloggers who write about elected officials register if they make money for their efforts. Is this the single stupidest thing to come out of Florida since they elected ¡Jeb!?

The publisher of Roald Dahl is going through his books an removing whatever they don’t like based on political correctness. No more “ugly” or “fat” or . . . black. Paging Scott Adams . . . These “corrections” are showing up in people’s previously purchased e-books, too. This is why physical media is good. And why I have lots of books.

It’s not censorship, exactly, when programmers prevent A.I. from coming to conclusions based on fact, but it’s close. There are certain facts that are inconvenient, like boys have xy chromosomes and girls have xx chromosomes, so programmers prevent A.I. from talking about that. Elon Musk says he’s going to do his own, non-woke A.I.

When the trains carrying ethyl-methyl-death crashed in East Palestine, it was a story that was minimized until it couldn’t be. I follow stories like this that are under the news, and was aware of it within a few hours of it happening. But the news? No reporting on it, since it didn’t impact Baltimore and had the potential to make the Biden administration look even worse than it normally looks.

Biden’s Misery Index

Let’s take a look to see how we’ve done this month . . . .

Yup, up again, and, like Kamala’s womb, this graph doesn’t eggs. Here’s a recap:

Updated Civil War II Index

The Civil War II graphs are an attempt to measure four factors that might make Civil War II more likely, in real time. They are broken up into Violence, Political Instability, Economic Outlook, and Illegal Alien Crossings. As each of these is difficult to measure, I’ve created for three of the four metrics some leading indicators that combine to become the index. On illegal aliens, I’m just using government figures.

Violence:

Violence is still minimal right now. I’m betting it stays down until June at the earliest.

Political Instability:

Up is more unstable, and it was down a bit more. I think this is a conscious attempt to keep things together, Biden just came out in favor of “law and order”, because I think he saw it the show on cable.

Economic:

Economic numbers took a big dive this month, which surprised me. The numbers look fairly unstable from month to month, which still isn’t good.

Illegal Aliens:

The number took a big drop! Yay! Oh, it’s still higher than ever for that month. I’d say border is wide open, but we have no border.

So, when can we ask the Mexicans to leave?

The Silly Season

One way to deflect a story is to not tell it. The other way to deflect a story is to flood the media with, well, nonsense. My favorite this month? The Chinese Spy Balloon™. During World War II, the Japanese decided they would make Americans afraid. They launched 9,000 balloons filled with explosives at the United States. As near as I could find with an in-depth three-minute look, one exploded. Out of 9,000.

Ohhh, I’m so afraid.

I’m not sure what we’ve found out about the Chinese Spy Balloon©. I think that we’ll find out they were trying to check up on why Americans weren’t buying more extended warrantees based on those cell-phone calls. Since we haven’t heard anything, I’m think that it may actually have been a weather balloon. Regardless, they can solve their problem with just a little bit of camouflage that the United States would never shoot down:

Was this the story that they were attempting to distract us from?

It’s a scary one. Why do we need so may people? Why aren’t all the traditional people who would go into the military signing up? Oh, yeah. They’ve been told they’re racist. They’ve been told they have unearned privilege? They’ve seen the military force people to take the vaxx. And now they want them to sign up to fight?

What could be next?

LINKS

As usual, links this month are courtesy of Ricky. Thanks so much, Ricky!!

Bad Guys

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11761485/NYPD-release-images-four-brazen-thieves-staged-50-000-raid-Manhattan-Givenchy.html

https://twitter.com/nofones/status/1628194739987046400

https://twitter.com/nofones/status/1626367620151738375

https://twitter.com/nofones/status/1626397252334809090

https://twitter.com/nofones2/status/1626369625314279426

https://twitter.com/nofones/status/1626447147225718786

Good Guys

https://twitter.com/i/status/1621965430930669569

https://twitter.com/nofones/status/1628225095893131264

https://twitter.com/nofones/status/1627464538609139714

https://twitter.com/762sfuxk/status/1626379421065134080

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11735803/Armed-intruder-left-critical-condition-shot-neck-homeowner.html

One Guy

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11632047/Vigilante-killed-robber-Houston-restaurant-breaks-silence.html

Body Count

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-11732497/More-48-000-Americans-committed-suicide-year-report-finds.html

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11711353/Seven-states-eye-legalizing-assisted-suicide-America.html

https://goodsciencing.com/covid/athletes-suffer-cardiac-arrest-die-after-covid-shot/

https://stevekirsch.substack.com/p/new-paper-an-estimated-13-million

https://emeralddb3.substack.com/p/is-coincidence-now-the-leading-cause

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11738179/Still-think-secure-Joe-Moment-500-Venezuelan-migrants-walk-southern-border.html

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11730363/Biden-preparing-mass-deportations-non-Mexican-migrants-Mexico.html

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-11733577/Map-shows-14-million-Americans-live-5-miles-cancer-gas-emitting-plants.html

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11776999/The-blanketed-fentanyl-NINEFOLD-rise-deadly-opioid-use-western-US.html

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11701187/Zombie-Nation-Shocking-images-lay-bare-Americas-drug-crisis.html

Vote Count

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11761979/Kari-Lake-vows-Arizona-gubernatorial-defeat-state-supreme-court.html

https://www.uncoverdc.com/2023/02/08/maricopa-heat-maps-the-story-keeps-getting-worse/

https://thefederalist.com/2023/02/15/everything-you-need-to-know-about-democrat-gov-tony-evers-bid-to-overhaul-wisconsin-elections/

https://alaskapublic.org/2023/02/17/launch-of-campaign-to-repeal-ranked-choice-voting-draws-a-crowd-in-anchorage/

https://raheemkassam.substack.com/p/fox-vs-dominion-discovery-docs-show

Civil War
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/keith-olbermann-calls-economic-civil-war-institute-gun-control

https://www.foxnews.com/media/olbermann-urges-blue-states-wage-economic-civil-war-red-states-starve-red-states-submission

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/internal-atf-docs-show-zero-tolerance-guidelines-shutting-down-gun-stores

https://www.carolinacoastonline.com/tideland_news/opinions/article_bec42134-ad30-11ed-979b-4365a8a67e62.html

https://thefederalist.com/2023/02/17/idaho-house-approves-talks-to-annex-oregon-counties/

https://www.peoplesworld.org/article/lost-cause-2-0-desantis-and-republicans-inspired-by-racist-confederate-history-re-writes/

https://www.milwaukeeindependent.com/newswire/gops-civil-war-republicans-confront-bitter-divide-no-clear-path-forward/

https://www.politico.com/news/2023/02/06/megadonor-gop-richard-elizabeth-uihlein-00081267

https://www.reformer.com/opinion/columnists/nicholas-boke-what-would-a-civil-war-look-like-anyway/article_c6beefac-aca1-11ed-9fa4-d74d7a722a44.html

https://sundayguardianlive.com/world/will-2022-witness-american-civil-war-2-0-will-happen-2024

https://news.uchicago.edu/us-headed-toward-another-civil-war-william-howell

https://www.businessinsider.com/mtg-defends-call-split-up-us-says-civil-war-looming-2023-2

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2023/02/marjorie-taylor-greenes-national-divorce-was-the-civil-war.html

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/02/marjorie-taylor-greene-secession-civil-war/673142/

https://www.theringer.com/2023/2/24/23613267/emasculation-proclamation-civil-war-ii

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2023/02/project-veritas-has-forced-out-james-okeefe.html

https://hard-drive.net/hd/technology/ken-burns-releases-4000-part-tiktok-series-on-the-civil-war/

A Quick Post On The Decline Of The West

“I don’t care about what anything was designed to do, I care about what it can do.” – Apollo 13

Why did NASA use numbers instead of letters for the Apollo missions? No one wanted to ride on that sorry mission, Apollo G.

The evening got away from me. I’d love to tell you that I was doing something productive, but I was really just goofing around. I felt a bit blah (not sick, mind you, but blah) all week. So, I decided to goof around. If today’s thoughts are a bit shorter than usual, that should explain it.

When I was a young adult, I read Atlas Shrugged. Now, I said, I read it, but when it got to the part where John Galt hacked into the radio to give a (what seemed like to me) 700-page speech that was just reiterating every point Rand had already made in the book, but this time with crayon, I skipped it.

So, I read most of it. Except 90% of the speech.

One thing that stuck with me about the tone of the book was that it took place in a world that had moved on. Stuff just didn’t work. I seem to recall a broken clock, and broken rails, and the image of a society that had done great things but was no longer capable of them.

The mission of NASA used to be to send people and things up into space. The goal was to learn more about the Solar System, the planets, and the Universe beyond. The other part of the goal was to make man an interplanetary and, hopefully, an interstellar species.

I got my medical degree online, from a place called Google® Docs™.

NASA was doing one of the hardest things that had ever been done – inventing technology at the very edge of what humans were capable of, and then using it. It was one of the grandest adventures of the 20^th Century. It was also staffed by young people. Gene Kranz, the “Failure is not an option guy” was the Flight Director for several Apollo missions, most notably Apollo 13. When Apollo 13 happened? Kranz was 36.

Our nation at that point had failures, sure. But now it seems like that’s the definition. And the things we’re failing on aren’t even new tech. East Palestine (The Mrs. told me, “It’s pronounced Palesteen, Froderick”) Ohio is suffering from one of the biggest failures of tech that is nearly 200 years old.

Then there was a fire at Oak Ridge involving uranium. Normally, one tries to avoid burning radioactive things. I mean, it’s not like this is Russia and all of us are protected from radiation via the consumption of massive amounts of vodka.

There are others, of course. The Jackson, Mississippi water plant appears to not work (sometimes) because the people running it don’t know how to run it. I could go on and on.

In one sense, it almost appears that we’re suffering a crisis of people who just don’t care or are, well, stupid. I hate to say stupid, because water treatment has been around for hundreds of years, too, and is far simpler than the Apollo project.

Good thing they didn’t use toe jam.

One symptom, perhaps, of the increasing and accelerating rate of change (notice I didn’t say improvement, I said change) in the world is increasing failures of the basic systems of life. Sure, we can have Doordash™* deliver tacos, but the justice system is failing, too. And how many readers here trust our elections? In the race to be “efficient” we’ve made it easy to cheat. Even if there wasn’t cheating, creating systems that are opaque enough so they’re not shenanigan proof is a failure in itself.

Our social systems are failing. Our infrastructure is failing, and it becomes ever more obvious the things that bind us together . . . are failing. Here in Modern Mayberry, the power has worked pretty well, but investment in power and infrastructure has made the system nearly third-world in some places.

I expect it to get worse. I don’t even think we’re close to the level of failure we’ll be seeing due to the incompetence of the leadership in the country. I see no real thoughts that our leadership will get better, since the idea of hiring smart young folks like Gene Kranz is out the window, and hiring people who share the same ideology, regardless of ability, is in.

I could never be a house painter – I would keep saying my work is on the house.

We are living in the time science fiction author Robert A. Heinlein called, “The Crazy Years” – in his words:

“Considerable technical advance during this period, accompanied by a gradual deterioration of mores, orientation and social institutions, terminating in a mass psychoses . . .”

I believe the signs are there that we are in that “mass psychoses” and that is the end of this cycle. The mere fact that truth can no longer be spoke in public due to the offense that it might give shows that the mental bending is built deep into discourse today. To be clear, there is little of today’s society when it comes to values and morality left to conserve – the Left has taken it all. No, where we are going into our future has nothing to do with conservation, it’s going to be about restoration.

Failure is not an option.

*There is no Doordash™ in Modern Mayberry, unless it’s raining.

Funny Lessons From The Franco-Prussian War in 2023

“By the authority vested in me by Kaiser William the Second I pronounce you man and wife. Proceed with the execution.” – The African Queen

The Kaiser never smoked weed, because he had no idea where Fort Wenty was.

In high school history, I’m pretty sure that the Franco-Prussian War was never mentioned. Or, if it was, it was in World History when I was a freshman. That was my first class, and the teacher was the head basketball coach. His typical procedure was to tell us to read the chapter or watch a film. There were a lot of films. Then, he would wander down to the locker room, where he would make use of the coaches’ bathroom.

Coffee does that have effect.

I don’t remember the coach talking about the Franco-Prussian War, but, then again, through two semesters I don’t think he spent more than 10 minutes a day in the 45-minute class. Perhaps he needed prunes?

Recently, though, I saw a documentary about the Franco-Prussian War that I found to be fascinating. It’s long -6 hours, 8 minutes and 52 seconds, according to YouTube®, so roughly as long as Hunter Biden goes in a typical day without photographing himself with hookers and drugs.

The reason that this war happened was fairly simple – the French wanted to fight the Germans to look good with an easy win, and the Germans were, well, Germans, and invading France is as German as bratwurst, panzers, or invading Poland.

I think the blue could also stand for “reliable allies”. (meme as-found)

Napoleon III was Emperor of France, and his wife (really!) wanted to fight because she wanted to make sure that the country was united around her husband and son, so he’d inherit a kingdom strongly behind him.

Germany had other ideas, and Bismarck (the dude, not the ship) was trying to unite all the German countries. Hmm. I’m sensing a pattern here. But Otto von Bismarck’s goal was to turn Wilhelm from King into Emperor, or Kaiser. Bismarck was determined – you could say he was on a Kaiser roll.

It surprised no one when war broke out. The Germans reacted as Germans do – troops showed up at the right time in the right place and weapons, ammunition, food, and other stuff was already there, waiting for them when they mobilized. At the time, one person noted, “It is as if every cow knew which pot it was scheduled to be cooked in.” Or something like that. I’m not looking it up at 1:38 am.

Why do Germans drink beer? To convince them mating is logical.

The French reacted as French people do. Rather than go someplace logical, like toward the enemy, troops had to go to where their regiment was located. If you were right next to Germany, and your unit was in Algiers, you’d have to go to Algiers to get with your unit, and then go back as a unit to the site of the war.

Yeah. It doesn’t get better for the French. The war started on July 19, and by September 2, the Germans had captured Napoleon III and over 100,000 dudes. In previous years, this would be it. And, in fact, after Napoleon III had fallen into German hands, he was sent with his butlers and support staff to a fancy mansion to hang out.

War of king versus king was like that in that time and place.

Again, it being France, the first thing they did is declare a Republic, their “Third” – (they’re now on their fifth). Having seen what happens to French Empresses when things go south, Napoleon’s wife snuck out in the middle of the night and snuck away to England, which was thrilled to have a French person around they could make fun of.

I hear that Chinese probes are still doing stuff on the dark side of the Moon. Seems shady to me. (as found)

So, France’s army was shattered, surrendered, or besieged. Two weeks later, Paris was surrounded by Germans. The war had been as polite as war could be up to now, and the French armed forces had been as effective as an army of kittens attacking a velociraptor. The logical thing to do would be to surrender.

What the Germans were asking for was Alsace and Lorraine, two provinces that France had for a couple hundred years or so, but about 90% of the folks there spoke German as their primary language. The new French Republic was fairly scared that surrendering those provinces would make them look bad, so they refused. To be fair, the French wanted to annex a bunch of German land, too, but didn’t have the chance since they suck at war.

Their armies shattered, Paris surrounded and besieged, the French didn’t surrender. One thing I noted was that when it was a war of one king versus another, as noted above, war was, while still awful, not personal.

When the Republic was formed, it was no longer a war of one king against another – it was a war of the people of France versus Germany. The fact that the Germans were in France wasn’t really the fault of the Germans, both sides had wanted the war, and the French had, in fact, crossed into Germany before the Germans gave them a full hammerlock.

Hulk had to deal with anxiety about his career. I guess you could call it wrestle-mania.

Regardless, at that point individual French citizens fought harder after losing their Emperor, Napoleon. At first, this surprised me. But it’s categorically different when people fight for something they own – they fight harder and longer. Since they were untrained, poorly armed, and poorly lead, the effort was even less effective than the Afghanistan army, circa 2022.

The Siege of Paris lasted for four months and ten days. In 2023, the average supermarket in the average city holds enough food for three days. The average house has that same amount. After a week, people would probably be fairly hungry, and would trade anything but their cell phone for a bag of Cheese Doodles® or High Fructose Flakes™. In Paris of 1870, they didn’t run out of wine until late December, and I’m not sure the French have ever figured out that they could drink water.

Oh, wait, they did start drinking the water, leading to multiple epidemics that cost almost as many lives as the war itself.

Apparently, it’s now illegal to drink wine, shave, brush my teeth, and take a nap. Driving is awful in 2023.

Eventually, the French agreed to an armistice, and, being France, they immediately had a communist revolution, but only in the cities, primarily in Paris. This wasn’t a repeat of the French Revolution, since in this case, very few people were harmed, fewer than a thousand French dead. Oh, and up to 20,000 communists, but they don’t count. It also proves that the only war the French can win is against other French people.

The big reason that I’m writing about the Franco-Prussian War is that illuminates several things that are still important or true in 2023:

Governments have and still create wars to keep themselves in power.
The French are awful at war.
One big loss can destabilize an entire country if the people are demoralized.
I guess there’s a reason the French don’t drink water.
People fight harder when they have ownership, even if what they’re fighting for isn’t worth it.
I don’t have nearly enough storage food.
Commies always either gravitate to, or are made by cities. Another good reason to avoid them.

I’ve always loved history. Perhaps that’s why they ask the question about what’s the difference between a bad* basketball coach and a constipated owl – the coach can shoot but not hit.

*He was actually a pretty good basketball coach.