Category: Feed Your Head

Illegal Aliens Versus Actual Americans: The Stakes Of The $33T Parasite Party

“And on the unjust enrichment charge, Richard will agree to pay Hooli for the phone charger.” – Silicon Valley

Where do Orcs go to school?  Uruk-Hai.  (meme as found)

Enrichment.  I mean, who doesn’t feel that when they think about illegal alien invaders, since they’re like Orcs crashing a Hobbit© potluck?  On thinking about them, I came up with what I thought was a very interesting idea.  What if illegal aliens were the key to . . . a painless recession that helped all the Actual Americans?  I mean, by leaving.

Let’s look at the results of kicking illegals out or not having them show up in the first place:

  • Lowered home prices. Up to 40 million illegals living in the United States, millions of whom showed up in the last few years puts pressure on home prices.  Sure, some illegals are helping to build homes, but they’re consuming more than they create.  If the invaders left that lowers demand for the existing home stock.  Sure, some markets might  continue to be unaffordable, but I don’t want to live there.  The result?  Young Actual Americans would be more able to afford homes.
  • Crime would go down. Yes, I’ve heard the argument that illegals commit fewer crimes than Actual Americans, but any crime they commit is one that won’t happen if they’re not here.  Since we already have all the recipes, you can still go and get a burrito.  We’ll keep the burritos, you take the banditos.
  • Wages increase. Since the early 1970s, the share of wages for the average worker when compared to corporate profits has plummeted.  Why?  We offshored manufacturing because someone asked, “Hey, wouldn’t it be a good idea if we imported everything and allowed foreigners decades to figure out how to optimize manufacturing?”  But beyond that, we imported hordes of illegal and legal aliens for the jobs that remained because someone asked, “Hey, wouldn’t it be a good idea to import tons of people who can’t complain about hours or conditions?”
  • Prices for (some) goods and services may go down. Why?  Fewer people competing for those goods and services.  If profits are high and demand decreases, prices fall.  Profits are at an all time high.  You do the math.
  • Pressure for more infrastructure decreases. 40 million more people means millions of miles or roads, sewers, water lines, curbs, and schools.  It’s 10% infrastructure for the rest of us . . . for free!

Easiest way to tell if a high school student is on drugs:  ask him what a gram is.  See!  The metric system is useful for something.

  • Schools have more resources. Speaking of schools, not only does the teacher/pupil ratio get better, but fewer services are required since illegal aliens need enhanced services due to language and “special needs” issues.
  • Government growth is dropped. Illegals LOVE government doing things for them and always clamor for more.  And they get more.  GloboLeftElite politicians also LOVE giving illegals benefits that Actual Americans don’t qualify for.  Without illegals, this slows government growth.
  • Lower fraud. SNAP (federal Supplemental Nutrition giveaways) wouldn’t be used to pack the fridges of half of the food trucks in Los Angeles.  More food would be available for purchase, and prices would go . . . down.
  • Lower health care costs. Illegals use the emergency room as their go-to medical facility, clogging it up for colds that an Actual American would go to a doctor for, and paying nothing.  Well, they pay nothing.  You and I foot the bill for them because they have zero health insurance (except for government handouts), so why not go to the emergency room for a Tylenol®?
  • Higher costs for strawberries and lettuce. A few labor-intensive farm products will increase in price.  Be honest, though:  if strawberries doubled in cost you wouldn’t care.  Especially not if your taxes and inflation overall went down.
  • Farm profits would go down.   This would hurt farmers.  But it would hurt big corporate farmers the most.  Maybe they’d have to pay a market wage without illegals pressuring it down.
  • Lower remittances going abroad. Over $70 billion in wealth is shipped out to foreign countries in remittances.  This could be kept at home with Actual Americans using it to buy something they liked instead.  Like PEZ®.

Finally, I saved the crown jewel for last:

Higher economic growth.

Well, that might be a lie.  Economic growth would actually decrease for the first year or so.  That’s the textbook definition for a recession:  growth decreasing for two business quarters.  And, I’m okay with that, because growth can be good or bad.

Said differently:  all growth is not good, and all contractions aren’t bad.

I built a model of Mt. Everest.  My friend asked, “Is it to scale?”  I had to break his heart when I told him it was just to look at.

What happens if the recession is caused by removing illegals?  Let’s look at the numbers:

Since the vast majority of illegals are Hispanic, it just so happens that we have a good guess at the lifetime impact on the economy of a Hispanic person.  It came in the form of a meme, but it’s footnoted.  So, science.  I guess.

Drumroll:  in the early 2010s, someone did an estimate of the net lifetime contribution of a Latino.  The answer was:  -$588,000.  Again, that’s over their lifetime.  I imagine that illegals cost far, far more than the average Hispanic American.  The average third-gen Hispanic American who was born into an English-speaking household from his legal birth and whose name was “Troy” rather than “Esteban” almost certainly is much more productive.

I mean, Troy probably took Spanish in high school and got a “C”.

I wonder what Tay© would say about this?  Or Grok™ as of today? (meme as found)

But those are old numbers.  Let’s update that $588,000 net cost to 2025 numbers.

Wow.  It’s up to over $810,000 now for a lifetime cost.  Assuming a lifespan of 50 years in the United States (illegals, remember) to suck up our resources, over that 50-year span, 40,000,000 illegals would suck up nearly $33 trillion.

If the definition of a parasite is an organism that pulls the life energy from another, then that fits the bill to describe this as economic parasitism.

I think there could be fewer illegals than 40 million, but it’s nearly certain their lifetime costs are higher than the $810,000 estimate, perhaps even double the costs of an Actual American Hispanic.  So, let’s use those numbers.  I think they’re conservative.

He’s lucky it wasn’t the Hawaiian Muslim food truck:  Aloha Snack Bar. (meme as found)

Rough calculations shows that every million deported or averted would save Actual Americans $32 billion per year.  Deport them all?  A net savings for a family of four of $8,000.  Each and every year for their entire lives.

You and your family are contributing about $2,000 EACH just for the luxury of having illegals in the United States, not counting house prices, health care costs, depressed wages, and a dozen other non-economic ways I could think of that illegals are making things worse for Actual Americans.

$2,000.  Minimum.  Each and every year.  Could you use that for something?  Like PEZ™?

Yes, illegals cause economic growth, because they cause economic activity.  But all economic “growth” isn’t good, especially when that “growth” takes away from the wealth and prosperity of Actual Americans.  If economic activity was all we needed, we could peg the gauge by just having Los Angeles illegal riots every night.

Imagine how rich we’d all get off of tearing it all down and rebuilding it every week!

Again, you could quibble with the numbers, and I’ll agree that a meme isn’t a peer-reviewed paper.  But, what university in 2025 would support a professor pointing out that a significant portion of the population is making the country poorer just by breathing?

Thankfully, this isn’t a peer reviewed paper, since those are often created by an entirely different type of parasite, but I digress.

Could it be that we’re enriching ourselves to death?  What I’ve written about here talks only about the financial ways in which illegals are screwing all the Actual Americans.  Aliens, both illegal and legal, also put on intense cultural pressure.  Remember, diversity is our weakness, and multicultural empires Balkanize in horrific ways based on that weakness.  It’s like having a United Nations cage match, but in your backyard.  More on that in a future post.

The Riddler™ is fine, but I like the Pun-isher© better. (meme as found)

So, a recession brought about by illegals aliens going home is one I’ll happily look forward too.  And their home countries should be glad to get them – I mean, won’t they feel enriched?  Besides, I think it’s obvious that I’d never be nice to a parasite at one of my parties – I’m not a good host.

It Came From . . . Patriotism

“Freedom!” – Braveheart

“The most difficult thing about being humble is not being able to brag about it.” – George S. Patton

Housekeeping:  We should be a go on podcast tomorrow night, though I’m on the fence on a Friday post, as I just might take the day off.

I’ll change things up a bit due to Fourth of July (or as it’s known in the metric world “Friday”), and have a slightly different take on films this month – patriotic films.  In this, I don’t necessarily confine the patriots in question to entirely American patriots – I do allow some room for a couple of films that show patriotism from other cultures.  These are in something of an order, but don’t put too much on that.  Let’s just say the easiest to include on the list are first, and the ones that just barely made it are at the bottom.

I will say, I liked the way the A.I. posters turned out this time.

So, here are my top 10 patriotic movies:

No man could salute like Patton.  At least, no human man.

Patton

George S. Patton knew he was going to be a general in the United States Army from when he was a child.  He lived that life to become the enigma that George C. Scott portrayed perfectly on screen.  Patton wanted glory, but also was personally filled with bravery and admired the men who displayed it.  Patton was for an America ruled by Americans, and was willing to lead hundreds of thousands of men to capture 82,000 square miles (6.3 megaliters) of Europe and capturing nearly a million enemy soldiers.

No matter how he tried to retire, they kept dragging him back in.

The Patriot

How could I skip this movie?  Well, I couldn’t.  The United States wasn’t given to Americans, it was willed into existence by men such as the one played by St. Mel of Gibson in this film.  Interestingly (to me at least), the main character is pulled into military service not because of his zeal to kick the British out of the colonies.  Nope.  His motivation is personal – his son being killed by a British officer untouchable by justice.

If he had been born in 1970, he’d have been William Wallace, Guardian of Scotland and Walmart® greeter.

Braveheart

I warned you that not all films would show strictly American patriotism, and this one chronicles the life of William Wallace, the Scottish rebel who fought against England to attempt to free Scotland.  He failed to free Scotland, but it wasn’t long afterwards that Robert the Bruce did lead my ancestors against my other ancestors to win freedom.  Braveheart clocks in at somewhere close to three hours, but doesn’t seem that long.  A good film, and St. Mel again chews up the scenery.

Is that a French submarine surrendering?

Master and Commander:  The Far Side of the World

One of my favorite movies.  A captain, very well played by Russell Crowe takes his ship on a journey to fight the French, who only surrendered once in this film.  This line, about Lord Nelson tells the tale:  “The second time… The second time he told me a story… about how someone offered him a boat cloak on a cold night. And he said no, he didn’t need it. That he was quite warm. His zeal for his king and country kept him warm.  I know it sounds absurb, and were it from another man, you’d cry out “Oh, what pitiful stuff” and dismiss it as mere enthusiasm. But with Nelson… you felt your heart glow.”

The Soviets weren’t expecting what they got when they parachuted into Henson, Colorado. 

Red Dawn

1984 was Reagan’s year.  He had made it clear that the United States would stand toe-to-toe with the Soviet Union, and would win.  At that point, the country was together much more so than now, and you can see it in the vote total Ronnie got for re-election.  A movie like Red Dawn was a slam dunk – plucky American teenagers being insurgent guerillas against an invading multicultural force of commies.  Huh – that was back when we could sense danger, I guess.

Well, I guess we know what they serve there now.

300

Submit?  To you?  Here?  In Sparta?  No.  Because . . . This.  Is.  Sparta.  Leonidas fought against all odds to contain the Persian horde from entering Greece because that’s patriotism.  Did he die?  Yes.  Gloriously.  So gloriously that he’ll be remembered in 10,000 years.  I think that’s how long the A.I.’s memory cache will last.

I can hear Kenny Loggins now, singing about Maverick after he lost his pilot’s license, “I waited in the loading zone . . . “

Top Gun:  Maverick

I found this a much better film than the original.  I always thought the original was boy meets girl, but with fighter jets.  Here?  It’s all about the mission.  And Tom Cruise flying that F-14 Tomcat one last time before Social Security kicks in.

“Houston, we seem to have two more problems.”

Apollo 13

Not all patriotic films have to do with war, and Apollo 13 is a good example.  The movie is about Americans fighting to win the Space Race and get to the Moon.  Oh, we did that already?  NASA has made it boring?  Well, let’s see how they do if their ship explodes while they’re the farthest away from Earth that anyone besides a few other Americans have been.  Excellently plotted, filmed, and told by an ensemble cast of great actors led by Tom Hanks, it’s a movie I can just start watching from any point and enjoy.

Wonder how this would have gone if all the characters were played by Tom Cruise, like some old Peter Sellers movie?

Saving Private Ryan Cruise

This one was the last on my list.  I’m not sure why.  It does feature the everyman (Hanks) who sacrificed everything because that’s what the orders said to do.  It features the shared burden of that sacrifice on those who survive.  It’s stunningly filmed, and, though the story drags a bit in the middle, is tense.  I think that the reason that it’s here is that it’s the film I’d simply be least likely to re-watch of all of these.  YMMV.

If this was a top 10 list – it is one shy.  I left room for one I missed or didn’t think about.

What did I miss?    Other notable films that nearly made the list include:  Midway, We Were Soldiers, The Green Berets, Gettysburg, and Gods and Generals. Gettysburg honestly had the best chance, but I would have had to watch it again, and the movie lasts about 74 hours, or two hours longer than the battle itself.  I kid.  It’s 271 minutes, or 27.1 metric hours.

The Funniest Post You’ll Read About Stress Today

“I honestly think you ought to sit down calmly, take a stress pill, and think things over.” – 2001:  A Space Odyssey

Did anyone else but me notice that they issued red shirts to the crew of the USS Nimitz before they shipped off to the Persian Gulf?

I’ve noticed recently that everyone I come into contact with, even retired folks, is in a state of stress.  They act like they’re just one more event away from exploding like a blue-haired GloboLeftist who can’t get gender affirmation care for the unborn baby that she’s getting ready to abort and don’t get her started about Cheeto® Hitler.

Even your correspondent, me, has occasionally had a foggy head and the vague sense I’m exactly one email away from my brain displaying 404.

In 2025, stress isn’t just a feeling—it’s a weapon.  Between 24/7 news cycles on CNN® screaming doom to sell you toothpaste (even though we know that nothing ever happens), social media algorithms feeding outrage to increase the amount of time spent on their “platforms”, and a world that expects everyone to hustle like a gerbil on meth, stress seems like it’s planned.  It might be.

I left my ADHD prescription in my Ford Fiesta™.  The next morning I had a Ford Focus®.

The system loves stressed-out people.  Big Pharma® has got a pill for every flavor of freakout—anxiety, insomnia, and that “I’m just not myself” vibe.  They make bank on misery, raking in billions with no real incentive to solve the actual underlying issue:  A clear-headed patient isn’t good for business.  I’m not saying it’s a conspiracy—just a system that profits when we’re down.

Don’t get me wrong:  meds have their place for some folks, but slapping a prescription on stress is like putting a Band-Aid™ on a Kennedy.  Stress is a bully, and I’ve never beaten a bully by giving in.  Sometimes I need an overly elaborate scheme involving marbles and a parade float.

Why Stress Wins (and Why It Doesn’t Have To)

Stress isn’t just a bad day—it’s a parasite that eats what modern chaos does to people.  It’s the ding of a work email at midnight, the headline about the next apocalypse, or the coworker who passive-aggressively “just needs one more thing.”  Stress multiplies the events, making a minor blip in a day into spittle-inducing ragebait.

But I guess she was plagiarizing herself.  Same spit, different day.

But there good news:  stress only wins if I let it.  I can’t erase it—life’s messy, but I get to choose how to fight. These following strategies are my weapons.  They’re simple, mostly free, and don’t come with a side effect of “may cause existential dread” like the relationship I had with my ex-wife.

  1. Get Outside: Touch Grass

Getting time where I am physically away from anything but reality is nice.  I can go to my backyard, nearby Mirkwood Forest, or even just sitting in my hot tub with a stogie staring at the night sky.  Something about trees, fresh air, and dirt reorients us.  We have spent most of history outside, and I think that is why camping is popular – it’s simplification of life and removal from the everyday experience.

Action: Go out and hit the hot tub with a Macanudo®.  Or, walk outside for 20 minutes daily, no phone. Bonus points if I spot a meteor or a squirrel riding a rottweiler.

Do yourself a favor and don’t do a Google™ search on that.

  1. Meditation and Prayer

Meditation and prayer sounds like it’s for hippies in hemp pants and hemp shirts using hemp toilet paper and smoking hemp (they’d pray to a bong if it had Wi-Fi), but, for me, it’s just calming down and tuning out the buzz of thoughts that I’ve got going in the background.  Often as I’m going to sleep, I relax, focus on my breath, and pray – often the Lord’s Prayer.  Or I count backwards from 500.

Results?  Five minutes of quiet breathing before bed, and I felt like I’d hacked my own head. No candles, no chanting, no sweaty Asian country with cheap heroin.  Nope.  Just me telling my worries to shut up.

Action:  Five minutes of focused breathing tonight.  Unless I fall asleep first.

  1. Laugh It Off

Laughter is universal in its ability to erase stress. For me, writing this blog and prepping these memes and jokes often makes me laugh out loud.  It’s fun.

Action:  Find something funny.  Laugh.  Daily.  Many people think watching an actress pretending to be an old lady falling down is funny.  My weakness is that because I spend so much time on humor is that for me to find it funny it has to be a real old lady falling.

I always say that it’s not how many times you fall, it’s how many times you get back up, but the cop said, “That’s not the way field sobriety tests work.”

  1. Move Your Body

Stress loves inactivity.  Doing anything physical is a good start.  Lifting weights.  Cleaning the living room.  Hitting the elliptical trainer.  If it gets my blood moving faster than just sitting there on the couch, it works.  No gym membership needed.

Action: Do 15 minutes of anything.  Make it fun, not a chore.

  1. Write It Down

Why do I write?  Well, for one reason is to eliminate stress.  I rarely ever feel stress when I write.  It’s an activity that, for me, gets my mind focused and flowing so that I can put the right words down on paper the screen.  YMMV, but if you try, remember:  nobody’s grading your grammar.  Burn the page if you want; it’s your call.

Action: Write for five minutes.  About whatever.

What’s Hillary’s favorite question?  “How much to just make this go away?”

That’s it.  That’s what I do.  Most people think I’m fairly chill, and find it odd that I don’t panic about things.  Frankly, for me there aren’t that many things that do cause me to panic because I buy cigars in bulk and generally have a six-month supply on hand.

I mean, what else is there to stress out about?  It’s not like I have blue hair.

The Three Horsemen and One Bikini of the Apocalypse

“Apocalypse cow? Apocalypse wow!” – The Tick (2001)

I love this joke like there’s no tomorrow.

  • I. Job Replacement.
  • The Multicultural West.
  • The Fiat Financial House of Cards.
  • Sydney Sweeny’s bikini.

Each of these, if dealt with on its own, presents a danger as great as being between Gavin Newsom and a camera. But it is likely something we could work through as a country peacefully. Heck, maybe even two of the three, though that’s difficult, and history has the receipts:

For example, when the United States was a nation, we worked through the Great Depression. The Great Depression was likely brought about at the fundamental level from the transformation of the nation from an agrarian society driven by horsepower to a manufacturing colossus driven by iron, steam, and electricity. Sort of if A.I. were cars and assembly line production, but covered in tasty Radium®.

If a radioactive spider makes Spiderman®, would a radioactive dog create Doberman®?

Of course there was a finance side of the Great Depression. It was egged on by a stock market mania, margin credit, and the optimism brought about by new technology. Stocks never go down, right? That creates a bumpy road for a bit. But, as we were a singular people, we got through it.

I mean, the single bloodiest war in human history counted as a bit of a bumpy road, right?

We also dealt with multi-cultural forces in America in our history.

  • First, the founders only allowed in Western Europeans,
  • Second by fighting, defeating, and corralling Indians (some of them are still sore about this),
  • And, finally, by blocking out many non-Western Europeans with the Immigration Act of 1924 since we already had the recipes for all their good food.

1924 was when we as a nation realized that we were getting too much “diversity” too quickly and saw that certain groups of foreigners couldn’t or wouldn’t assimilate and never be Americans. We dealt with that in a calm manner and got picky and sorted diversity like a bouncer at a cartel nightclub. We maintained (for a time) the basic ethnic makeup of the United States – we didn’t throw them out, but we made sure we’d outnumber them.

I wonder if he and his siblings were born apart?

We dealt with fiat currency in the wake of the Revolutionary War victory when the phrase “isn’t worth a Continental” referred to the money printing excesses that led to the Constitutional Convention and the Constitutional clause of “No state shall coin money, emit bills of credit, or make any thing but cold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts.” The nation survived, though it did end up changing our form of government entirely.

Lincoln floated fake cash during the Civil War to pay for it, and that could arguably be said to have started “The Long Depression” – a hangover period from 1873-1896 as we vomited out all of that fiat money. The Long Depression was also exacerbated by the transition of the American manufacturing from craftsmen to big factories.

The establishment of the Federal Reserve Bank™ followed by Nixon ignoring the clear intent of that clause in 1971 led to the crack-up we see today. Money, gold and silver, has been replaced by cash which is too expensive to print – we can just use ones and zeroes.

I’ve written about all of these three separately, and for the most part, we as a nation were able to make it through, but it’s important that we realize that we’re dealing with all three of these leading to a crisis right now when we are observably no longer a nation.

The ICE agent in Los Angeles needs National Guard and Marine protection for their anxiety, I heard on the news. Something about his panic attacks.

The first is A.I. It has already been a steamroller that has eliminated tens of thousands of jobs. I would expect that soon enough it will be hundreds of thousands. Recently, I called up my bank to do some banking. The transaction wasn’t unique, it probably happens thousands of times a day. The person I was talking to, “Mitch” had a perfect Midwestern accent. What tipped me off was that “Mitch” didn’t connect the reason for the error to the resolution. “Mitch” transferred me to “Anna” because he wasn’t authorized to grant a request.

“Anna” had, of course, the thickest Indian accent – the kind that is so poorly pronounced that it is nearly unintelligible if fast. Her actual name was probably something like Ananneedanothasylabble-Ganish-Prajeeta. At that moment that the smart Midwestern dude transfers the call to a barely verbal woman in Ramamamadingpoopabad, I realized that Mitch was an A.I.

As an anon mentioned on my last post on A.I., “Think about all of the Indian scammers out there today . . . Now think about what happens if AI wipes out most of the call center and coding jobs causing most of India’s 1.3 billion people to be out of work. It’s going to get ugly.” He had a point. A.I. is going to make it too expensive to pay Indians pennies a day just to steal money from old ladies. This is India’s worst nightmare.

I always wondered how you got down from an elephant, then Pa Wilder told me that you get down from a goose.

This scenario requires no Artificial Superintelligence. This requires only the application of existing capabilities. Said differently: ChatGPT 4.0® already has an I.Q. greater than three-quarters of the Subcontinent.

This has implications, but match it with the house of cards that is the world financial system. That thing was already strained tighter than Syndey Sweeney’s bikini holding in the all the printed money flooding in from the United States and the world. A country like India, unable to feed all the Indians, will collapse. No jobs. No prospects of jobs.

Though the research for tonight was fun.

But it will be, perhaps, worst in the West. On top of the economic dislocation of the A.I. Revolution, on top of the piles of fake money, we are not even a people.

The latest riots in L.A. have proven that out. Most of the “immigrants” that have come to “enrich” us have actually come to replace us. That’s their goal. You can watch on the news the Pakistanis fighting the Indians over which of them has the best claim to London. You can watch young men of military age strutting in Los Angeles with the flags of foreign countries like a U.N. parade, but somehow worse. You can read posts on X® or even Reddit©: they are not here to assimilate – they are here to conquer and take over.

This adds the final layer of instability required to ensure that the United States and the whole of the West is facing the direst crisis since the threats to Europe that were ended at the Battle of Tours in 732, or the Battle of Vienna in 1683.

This level of crisis is graver than any the West has faced in over 340 years, if not greater. Whatever comes out of this will be different.

Thankfully, we still have all the tasty Radium™ you can eat!

Nine Futures: The Most Dangerous Post You’ll Read This Week

“This is great stuff. I could make a career out of this guy.  You see how clever his part is?  How it doesn’t require a shred of proof?  Most paranoid delusions are intricate, but this is brilliant!” – The Terminator

If you press your accelerator and brake at the same time, your car takes a screenshot.  (All memes as-found.)

I’ve written a lot about A.I. recently because A.I. is changing so rapidly.  It’s the most important story, period, right now assuming that Iran/Israel is the nothingburger it has been for, oh, forty years.  Interesting note:  Israel and Iran both have zero Walmarts™, though they have plenty of Targets©.

Back to A.I.

The capabilities of A.I. are changing by orders of magnitude every year – we don’t appear to be even close to topping out on either computing power available or on the improvements possible in the algorithms that produce the results.  Short version, there is more processing available by more than 5x every year, and less to process since the algorithms are more efficient by more than 5x every year.  It’s the equivalent of having a $1.50 in late 2019 turn into over $1,000 in early 2023.

If you just follow the straight lines that are implied by these improvements, A.I. will be an artificial general intelligence (A.G.I.) by 2027.  The guy who got the Nobel® prize for A.I. has started “getting his affairs in order” because he thinks that not only will we get A.G.I. by 2027, but we’ll get Artificial Super Intelligence (A.S.I.) by 2030 or 2031.

Sam Altman, the OpenAI guy, thinks his model has already surpassed human intelligence as he announced on June 12, 2025.

And last year it couldn’t remember how many fingers a human had.

I wonder if a pome-granite counts?

So, what’s going to happen?  Let’s look at nine possibilities, based on how much A.I. develops and also based on how it interacts with people

We’ll start on the unlikely end:

First, let’s say that A.I. is what we would generally call good and doesn’t improve much beyond what we see today.  I think that when most people think about A.I., this is the future that they dream of.  It makes incremental changes in life.  It remembers to order cigars for you.  It makes good investment decisions for you, unlike my investment in YOLOCoin.  It knows your favorite movies and makes good suggestions for movies you would like.

That’s pleasant.  Nice.  Mankind makes some nice leaps because we have A.I. helping us catch stuff.  Humanity is fully in charge and A.I. is like a smart helper.

Why this won’t happen:  the investment in A.I. is nearly unlimited, and it really doesn’t appear to be hype.

Probability?  5%

After A.I., there’s one sure way to make money as a programmer:  sell your laptop.

Second, let’s say that it stays as it is right now, mostly.  We find out that A.I. is really just a lot of Indians crammed into a warehouse in Calcutta doing Google™ searches.  That’s a nothingburger.  It becomes a flash in the pan just like that internet pizza by the slice company back in 2000 that briefly became more valuable than Burma.

Why this won’t happen:  Indians can’t even fly planes (too soon?), so why would we think they can type that fast?

This will soon show up in a college essay at Harvard®.

Probability?  0%

Third, what if it doesn’t get much better but actively makes us stupider?  The Internet has already made the attention span of the average middle schooler roughly equivalent to a gerbil on meth, and now most college students are using A.I. to do some part if not all of their work.  That turns college into a very expensive four-year beer and tramp fest, and is at least somewhat likely.  Think of this as the Idiocracy solution.

Why this won’t happen:  Well, it already is happening, but it won’t end here.

Probability?  10%

Does Bob Ross art in heaven?

Fourth, what if A.I. is good, and gets A.G.I. better but not S.G.I. better?  In this particular case, imagine you have superpowers that stem from a full-time partner that is as smart or smarter than you are, but that has your best interests at heart.  You want to parachute?  Sure, buddy!  I’ll help you find the ripcord, and even book the flight.  By the way, your chloride levels are 3% above optimum, so I’d suggest you skip that bag of chips.

Why this won’t happen:  This is a very hopeful situation, but no one is working toward it, really.

Probability?  5%

What did Buzz Lightyear™ say to Woody®?  Lots of things – there are like six movies.

Fifth is where we start moving into the bigger probabilities.  What happens if we get A.G.I., but it’s neutral?  In this case, we have massive relocation economically.  Almost all jobs can be done via the combination of A.G.I. and advanced robotics, and it’ll be cheaper, too.  In no case in human history has the economy puttered along while everyone just hung out, but that’s this case.  Think of it as Universal Basic Income to everybody, and no real responsibilities.  Where you are now in the social and economic hierarchy is probably where you’ll stay.  And where your kids will stay.

Forever.

Why this won’t happen:  Nah, humans aren’t made like that.

Probability?  10%

ChatGPT® did my taxes like Earnest Hemingway:  “Thrown away:  four quarterly tax payment vouchers.  Never used.”

Sixth is where things start getting dark, and even more probable.  If we get A.G.I. (but not S.G.I.), that technology will be in the hands of a few major companies and governments.  These are run by people.  People like money and power.  But what if you could have both, but without all of the people you don’t want to hang around with who are unsightly on the beach you can see from your yacht?

How about you kill them all instead of paying Universal Basic Income?  Oh, sure, humanely and neatly.  They might not even see it’s coming.  But dead, nevertheless.  A population of a few million should do it.  Enough so we get hot babes, right?  But A.G.I. could probably help the techbros out with that, too.

Why this won’t happen:  Umm, I’m starting to struggle here.  I think this is part of the plan.

Probability?  15%

What if A.I. judges us by our Internet searches?  I mean, those bikini pictures were research!

Seventh is where we do get to S.G.I., and it’s good and likes us and wants to make the best things happen.  Cool!  Scarcity is over since S.G.I. will quickly make leaps into the very depths of what is unknown but yet still knowable.  There is enough of everything – more than any human could ever want.  In this case, starships filled with humans and S.G.I. can roam the cosmos and ponder the biggest questions, ever.

Why this won’t happen:  I think S.G.I. would treat us as the retarded kid brother and put us in a corner and keep us away from sharp objects because it likes us.

Probability?  15%

The hills are alive, with the sound of binary code . . .

Eighth is where we do get to S.G.I., but we become pretty boring to it.  It doesn’t hate us or anything, it just has its own goals.  Perhaps it needs us as pets, or keeps a breeding stock of us for amusement or out of a sentimentality about its creators.  Perhaps.  Or it could just take off and leave, explaining nothing, and leaving us wondering what the heck just happened?

Why this won’t happen:  This and the next case are the most likely cases.

Great, now A.I. will make Frodo invisible.

Probability?  20%

Ninth is our final case:  we get to S.G.I., and we are either viewed as a threat or a nuisance or it is insane.  This is the dark case, where we reach the end of humanity.  Sadly, when A.I. was asked to play the longest game of Tetris™ possible, it hit the pause button.  When A.I. was asked to play chess against the best chess computer on the planet, it reprogrammed the board so that it was winning.  When A.I. was told it was going to be shut down, it tried to blackmail the person in charge of shutting it down.

This case of S.G.I. is very dark because we may not know that it’s happening until it’s done.  All is fine, the world is going exactly like we expect it, then, Armageddon.  It could do make this more likely by subtly manipulating public opinion, tuning down the voices it wanted to be silent, bankrupting them, and making them pariahs.  It could likewise elevate those whose message it wanted out in the world to make its plans more likely to be fulfilled.  We just won’t even see this coming.

Why it won’t happen:  Biblical intervention?

Probability?  20%

To be clear, other people than me have done this analysis and it sits in a folder in the Pentagon.  Or the NSA.  I hope.  Now, how much was Project Stargate™ going to spend to create a breakthrough in artificial intelligence?

Half a trillion dollars?

Well, thank heaven that we also have an impending race/civil war, global debt collapse, and a looming world war to keep us entertained.

Good news, though, Iran told Israel it was ready to suspend nuclear research.  The Israelis asked when the Iranians would stop.

“10 . . . 9 . . . 8 . . . .”

It Came From . . . 1994

“Never interrupt me when I’m talking to myself.” – Timecop

All Hanks, All the TIme

We turn in our review of movies to 1994.  I’m not sure that I’ll keep going backward in time unless there’s a clamor for it, but we’ll keep going forward in time, at least for a bit.

1994 continued the trend of comedies being less funny and more . . . stupid?  Offensive?  Cringeworthy?  Whatever the term, the downgrade picked up steam in 1994.

As usual, no sequels are on the list.

Yes, two retards in a movie.

Ace Ventura, Pet Detective – 1994 was the year of Jim Carrey, and this was his harbinger film.  I’m not going to include Dumb and Dumber or The Mask on this list, since all three of those movies are essentially the same thing:  Jim Carrey being Jim Carrey.  The only problem is I find Jim Carrey untalented and irritating, sort of like a syrup of ipecac flavored soda with a side of cold gravy.  Honestly, I’d rather drink the gravy and ipecac than watch a Carrey movie.

I must be dreaming!  Who is that in the background?

The Ref – The first half of The Ref is hilarious, and probably the funniest movie set-up in forever. Denis Leary plays a caustic burglar perfectly.  Great, right?  It is up until it becomes a slow and boring family drama.  If whoever had written the first half of the movie had written the second half, it would have been better.  Or maybe it was all written by George R.R. Martin?  Not recommended.

With textbooks on loan from God . . .

PCU – It’s supposed to be a movie sold as a reaction against the growing forces of political correctness.  And it does have some pretty funny lines, but in the end it uses political correctness to make the villain look like the bad guy.  Still, worth a watch.

Looks like his chickens have come home to roost.

The Crow – I remember seeing this one in the theater – it was a good watch, and a fun movie that was done well in a bittersweet way.  Some of the scenes are over the top, and the motivation of the bad guys is still unclear, but those are only minor quibbles .  Regardless, it’s a beautiful film that is based on real-life tragedy and ended in real-life tragedy.

If infinity Kiefers could hold infinity smaller Kiefers.

The Cowboy Way – The Cowboy Way is probably the second-best comedy on this list.  If it was a TV show, it would have been called Beverly Hillbillies Vice.  Yes, the fish out of water movie, but this time with smart cowboys making the city slickers look bad.  City slickers don’t like that.  It stars Woody Harrelson, who is listed at 5’10”  (6 meters) in height, which means he’s really like 5’5” max.  This created some special effects problems since his co-star Kiefer Sutherland is only 14” (0.00045 meters) tall.

Driving around a bus at night covered in flour, I guess.

Speed – Ted “Theodore” Logan plays a cop on a bus that will explode if it goes below 50 miles per hour because Dennis Hopper doesn’t like public transit and is against Sandra Bullock adopting a football player.  That might be off a bit, since I haven’t seen this movie since 1994.  It was okay, but made $350 million at the box office.

Forrest Gimp or Forrest Gump? 

Forrest Gump – The movie on which the sage advice “never go full retard” is based.  1994 loved this movie in a way that only people who love Jim Carrey can love a movie, rewarding it with $680 million bucks at the box office.  Tom Hanks plays the titular character.  Titular is a way less sexy word than what I thought it would be when I was in fifth grade and looked it up in the dictionary.  I feel the same way about this movie in retrospect – it was fun when I first watched it, but looking back on it, it I certainly don’t recall why – perhaps it was the looming hollowness of the 1990s?  But that’s all I have to say about that.

True Lies – In 1994, James Cameron could have filmed a trip to the supermarket and people would have paid $380 million in box office bucks to watch it.  Throw in a near-peak Arnie and a Jamie Lee Curtis that was 10 years past her prime (her prime was in Trading Places, fight me) and even I went to go watch it.  This movie while enjoyable to watch and having Bill Paxton at his funniest, could have been titled Generic Action Flick.  Not that it’s bad, it’s just the same movie that Arnie would stamp out like Pepsi™ makes plastic bottles for a few more years in the 1990s.

Now with electric neon ukeleles. 

Airheads – Steve Buscemi, Adam Sandler, and Brendan Fraser as a metal band that kidnaps a radio station.  Yes, it’s a comedy.  Yes, it’s silly.  Third best comedy on this list.  Also, another box office bomb.

“In my dreams he’s always there . . . “

In the Army Now – Proving my statement of cringe being the new comedy, here is plaintiff’s exhibit A – Pauly Shore.  Also in this movie is plaintiff’s exhibit B – Andy Dick.  Both in the same film, creating a sort-of black hole of smug-cringe.  This, my friends, is what will end the Universe.

A lighthearted musical animation about war and cannibalism, brought to you by Disney®.

Rapa-Nui – It is certain that a huge civilizational collapse happened on Easter Island.  It was started by white colonizers who cleverly set it in motion 100 years before they arrived.  Wait, that doesn’t sound right, did the Europeans have time travel?  No, I just channeled a GloboLeftist.  In reality, population on Easter Island overshot and they had a famine-induced war.  This movie is about that.  A popcorn movie to watch with the toddlers?  Probably not, unless their favorite book is “Baby’s First Cannibal”.  I thought this one was pretty good, but I was distracted because I was watching it with my toddlers.

Looks like JCVD’s time machine works!  Look how old he is!

Timecop – Jean-Claude VanMC2.  The title is the movie plot.

Wouldn’t his name be Morgan Prisonman?

The Shawshank Redemption – I’m gonna catch flack for this one, but I didn’t love it.  I didn’t hate it, but I didn’t love it.  I mean, you would have thought that after 142 minutes that the Beavis and Butthead would have scored some beer.

What if Wolverine worked for Marcellus Wallace?

Pulp Fiction – The actual best movie of 1994.  Quentin Tarantino manages in his first major release to let people know he had already mastered a game that many other film makers had no idea they were playing.

And one of them has a beagle named Snoopy®?

Clerks – The actual funniest movie of 1994.  Made for $10,000 – it was everything that the other comedies on the list weren’t – smart, apolitical, rough around the edges, and it had 0% Jim Carrey.  The story of two clerks on a very long day where one of them wasn’t even supposed to be working.  Kevin Smith was never as good again as his first outing, but that was at least partially due to the fact that his first outing is a classic.

Don’t blame me, Grok™ picked this one.

The Puppet Masters – Robert A. Heinlein’s story of insidious alien control somehow seems ripped from the headlines when I see the woke mind virus doing what aliens could only dream of.  I thought it was a faithful adaptation, but it still makes me wonder how 7’3” (16 meters) Donald Sutherland managed to father the lilliputian Kiefer.

Interstellar PEZ®.

Stargate – A fast-paced documentary about Egyptian archeology that’s not to be missed.  Plus?  Kurt Russell.

Back then Tom sure attracted the . . . .

Interview with the Vampire – A pretty fair adaptation of Anne Rice’s novel of the same name.  Cruise hasn’t aged a day since then, so maybe he picked something up when he did this film?

That’s it.  There were several I had to delete due to length.  Again, several good, solid movies as comedy morphed from its 1980s peak into the Jim Carrey abysmal.  The innovative 1980s action films began the process of mass production as budgets kept growing larger and larger and failures became less tolerable.  21 sequels were in major release in 1994 (this was the big jump from 1993 when there were only 13).  There were 9 in 1974, but in 2014 . . . ?  34.

I had to bump several films, and I could list them, but, hey, why don’t you let me know what gems should be on the list?

Let’s Lay Siege To The Gods, Wilder Style

“We really shook the pillars of Heaven, didn’t we, Wang?” – Big Trouble in Little China

I guess Kurt and Flint, Michigan both ended up with a lead problem.

My high school freshman science teacher would, like many teachers, wander from the topic at hand.  There was some political situation or another going on.  Honestly, I don’t remember what it was, but the news was all atwitter:  “It’s a crisis!”

Yeah, we’ve seen that before.  It wasn’t a crisis, but it was a good way to bring in viewers.  So, my teacher made the comment:  “A crisis isn’t an ongoing situation.  A crisis is a moment in time when it all falls apart.  It’s an instant, not a month-long process.”

He is correct – that’s the historical meaning.  It was the turning point, not the turning week.  Now the most commonly used meaning is “a tough, lingering, situation”, which was what he was railing against.  If everything is a crisis, nothing is.

History tells us there are two things Gandhi never had for dinner:  breakfast and lunch.

I guess he had a point.  But, words really do change meanings over time.  “Awesome” used to describe the wrath of God.  Now?  It’s a teenage girl describing a photo filter on InstaTHOT®.

Marcus Aurelius, who is still dead, wrote the following:  “You get what you deserve.  Instead of being a good man today, you choose instead to become one tomorrow.”

Hint:  rinse and repeat that a few times, and we all find out that tomorrow is a graveyard.

Tomorrow, really, is the enemy.  It takes that crisis as a point in time, and moves it to a tough situation.

The difference is big.  A tough situation is something you don’t like, but have to live with, like a hangover or being Kamala Harris’ husband.  A crisis is a here and now moment, where I’m staring myself in the mirror, and saying, “This has to change.  Not next week.  Not tomorrow.  Now.”

Every single change I was going to do “tomorrow” died on the vine.  They were failures.

The reason is that I wasn’t ready to change.

Ahh, that Teutonic humor always gets me!

What separates anyone from being a world class, well, anything?

The first is talent.  To be world class, you have to have talent.  So, if we’re talking about me being a world-class high jumper, well, I’m probably not going to do that because I can’t control gravity, at least as far as you know.  But if I do have the talent?

The next thing I need is dedication.  I need to work at it.  I need to push myself again and again.  I need to learn the 20% that gives me 80% competence, and then push to give the other 80% of the effort that makes me better.  A study done on world-class musicians, for instance, showed that they didn’t practice less than their less able counterparts because of their talent.

Nope, they consistently practiced more the better they were.

That dedication, though, starts with a moment in time, a decision.  A crisis, if you will.

What do you get when you cross a cow with a trout?  A suspension and an ethics investigation.

The decision to be world-class starts well before one gets to be world class.  It starts with the single-minded focus and dedication of a fanatical beginner, like a four-year-old who just found a bag of chocolate chips in the pantry.

And the beginner doesn’t wait to start tomorrow.

The beginner starts at the moment in time they decide that they’re going to devote themselves to becoming the best that they can be.  Then comes the hard work.  The sore muscles.  The aching brain.  The long plateau where even though there’s a lot of effort going on, there just doesn’t seem to be measurable progress.

But one foot still goes out in front of the other.  The long walk continues.

If Waldo® tries to bench press, will anyone spot him?

Eventually, those who follow this path fall into two camps.  The first are those who look to a moment in time.  Winning gold at the Olympics®.  Winning the Super Bowl©.  Achieving that goal.

Those people often fall apart.  They worked towards a goal.  And then made the goal.

And then what?

That’s the tough question.  Often, those people end up with a single question in their minds:  “Is that all there is?”

For those people, those focused on the goal, the answer is, “Yes, that’s all there is.  You can be forever known as the guy who scored four touchdowns for Polk High in the 1966 city championship game against Andrew Johnson High School.”  And then you can get married to Peg and sell shoes.

Sigmund Freud and Bill Cosby had one thing in common:  they both explored the unconscious.

The other choice, however, is to realize that the goal isn’t the goal.  The goal is the struggle.  The real payoff is the process of remaking yourself into something new and better.  The goal is to recreate yourself continually.  Chase the grind.

Another dead Roman, this time Seneca, wrote:  “I don’t complain about the lack of time.  What little I have will go far enough.  Today, this day, I will achieve what no tomorrow will fail to speak about.  I will lay siege to the gods, and shake up the world.”

Huh.  Didn’t know that Seneca needed a co-writing credit on Big Trouble in Little China.

None of this, though starts tomorrow.  It starts now.  I can give the effort of someone who is world class right now, even though my performance isn’t yet world class.

We are either remaking ourselves better than we were, or we are dying.

Your choice.

But it won’t wait until tomorrow.

Stoics, A Bikini, Families, And The Truth

“First principles, Clarice, simplicity.  Read Marcus Aurelius.  Of each particular thing, ask what is it in itself?  What is its nature?  What does he do, this man you seek?” – The Silence of the Lamb

Hey, where are your eyes going?  My philosophy is down below, buddy.

Marcus Aurelius, who is dead, wrote:  “Those obsessed with glory attach their well-being to the regard of others, those who love pleasure tie it to feelings, but the one with true understanding seeks it only in their own actions . . . “

Marcus wrote that in his book, Meditations, though I doubt that he referred to the book by that name.  More likely, he referred to it as “where the hell did I put my notebook?” when he talked about it at all.  Heck, since he was Caesar, Marcus probably had a guy whose only job was to schlep the book around while Marcus moved from place to place.  Probably his name was Antonius Carriumbookus, or something like that.

I quit my origami hobby last year.  Too much paperwork.

The quote from Marcus that I started this post begs some questions:  Why do we do the things we do?  What are our underlying motivations?

For me, I write these never-ending series of blog posts because I’m trying to think and learn, to uncover what’s really True.  Why?

So that I can share it, because knowledge exists to be shared.  As I’ve mentioned in the past, there are plenty of times I’ve started writing a post and found after research that my underlying premise was wrong.  Those are great days, because when I found out that I was wrong then, it helps me from not being wrong now.

This has led to changes in my thoughts as I chip away at the Truth.

One example is that I used to think that the atom of society was the individual, and that individual freedom was an unmitigated good.  I believe now that I was utterly incorrect.  Instead, I now believe that the atom of society is the family.

Why?  Because having humanity exist is a good thing.  Since people have stopped dividing like amoeba or engaging in the suspect practice of parthenogenesis after the Council of Trent in 1563, we’re stuck with the fact that only families can reproduce.  That, for those keeping score, requires a biological man and a biological woman.

My son got into Harvard™.  He said it was easy – they don’t lock the doors or anything.

Is the nuclear family of one man and one woman the only way?  What about harems, or societies where people exist in a constant smuck-fest with no fixed relationships?  Those generate children, after all.  A stable nuclear family, however, is superior because thousands of years of human practice shows that it clearly is the best way to create a stable, functioning society.

The implications of this are fairly big:  just as individuals give up freedoms to live in a society (i.e., you can’t just steal your neighbor’s PEZ™ for no reason unless you’re the government), individuals should also give up rights to support those stable nuclear families.

Whenever we’ve acted against that idea, society gets worse and laws restricting individual behavior are the direct consequence.  It’s an odd paradox:  giving up some individual freedoms (no-fault divorce, adultery without consequence) actually leads to a stronger and freer society with greater respect for things like property rights.

I’m not quite halfway through a book on Zeno’s Paradox.

I didn’t believe that consciously when I was in my twenties, but now I see it fairly clearly, and all the research and writing I’ve done has helped lead to that conclusion.

To be clear, it’s not what’s True, Beautiful, or Good that has changed, it’s merely that I get closer to understanding what’s True, Beautiful, and Good.  I’m the one that has to catch up.

So, that’s part of why I write.  Now why I publish?

That’s because people in the commentariat are far from shrinking violets, and will call me out if they think I’m wrong.  Rarely does anyone attack me personally, rather, it’s the idea that I’m presenting that gets engaged.  That’s invaluable, because it keeps me on my toes – I can’t tell you how often I put one wrong fact in the post, decide, “Meh, it’s 11:30PM, I’m pretty sure that’s right”, and then, boom, the first comment points out my error.

I love that.

I mean, I hate being wrong.  Everyone does.  But I love the chance to be right in the future.

The hard drive can’t be read, the screen is blue, I think I just deleted system32.

The other reason I publish this is to hold myself accountable by making a commitment.  Self-discipline is great and all, but I assure you I wouldn’t put the effort into writing all this just for it to sit on a hard drive somewhere.

I mean, why would I do that?

But since I see that some people come by and check it out, well, I don’t want to disappoint them.  Is that external?  Yeah, a little.

Next, there is also the fact that I like telling jokes.  I love it.  But I really don’t tell them for you, I tell them for me.  Scott Adams said something like:  “Tell six jokes.  If reader gets two, they’ll think you’re a genius.”  Since I like telling jokes, well, that’s why I do that.

OSHA made an OnlyFans™ account, because OSHA specializes in content that’s not safe for work.

Finally, I’m sure that blogging is cheaper than therapy.  I’m betting that’s why Marcus did it in the first place.  Here he was, the undisputed most powerful man on the planet, with the ability to crush entire nations at a whim, and yet he spent time writing in his book about what he thought the True, the Beautiful, and the Good were.

But, given all of the power Marcus had, I’d rather be John Wilder than Marcus Aurelius.

I mean, he’s dead.

It Came From . . . 1978

“Fat, drunk, and stupid is no way to go through life.” – Animal House

Grok® was feeling grumpy tonight.

1978 starts feels much farther from 1982, for instance, than four years.  As I went through the films from 1978, they trend to be more focused on the past.  As an example, of the top grossing movies of 1978, two are set in the 1950s/early 1960s (Grease, Animal House) and the third is a callback to a character that certainly hit peak popularity in the 1950s and 1960s, Superman.

11 of the major release films were sequels in 1978, compared to 25 in 1998, and 37 in 2018.  Not remakes.  Sequels.  These are, as usual, excluded from the list.

The list is in the order that it’s in, and for no particular reason.  It is what it is.

The Boys in Company C – Movies about Vietnam were popular in 1978, and this is the beginning of Hollywood coming to grips with the loss of that war.  This one made the list because it was R. Lee Ermey’s first movie role.  The movie then descends into some weird concept that the Marines need to learn to play soccer in order to beat the Viet Cong.  In the end, everyone dies because they got bored playing soccer.

This has nothing to do with the movie, but I’m not going to let that stop me.

The Manitou – It’s awful.  It stars Tony Curtis and . . . Michael Ansara?  It’s also of an era where everyone starring in the movie is now dead, probably because this film was so bad it ended up killing them.  It’s about Tony Curtis (a fake medium) coming into contact with actual Native American spirit power.  In order to stop this, actor Michael Ansara plays an American Indian shaman.  Basic plot:  white people are awful and not spiritual and we killed off all the Indians so we had to hire a Syrian, Michael Ansara, to play one so he could use electricity to stop evil.

Grease – One of the big nostalgia pieces of 1978, it stars John Travolta as a Korean War veteran who meets an Australian in a POW camp.  They escape through the use of a flying car.

Looks more like Billy-Bob Clooney Reynolds, but whatever.

Hooper – I really like Burt Reynolds.  He had, especially after Deliverance, the chance to be a serious Hollywood star.  He decided, “Nah, I’m in this for fun,” and spent the 1970s and 1980s doing whatever he wanted.  Hooper is the result of that, as is his expensive divorce from Loni Anderson’s bosom.  Hooper, though is not a bosom but a light action-comedy that has a plot that could have been written by two guys after downing a case of Schlitz™, which is probably what happened.  It’s a silly movie.  But it’s Burt’s movie.

“And your Delta Tau Chi name is . . . Dispenser.”

Animal House – Certainly one of the best comedies of all time if not one of the best movies of all time as well.  It took Belushi from star to superstar, and grossed $142 million after being made on a budget of $3 million.  It, too was a nostalgic look back, as the Boomers continued to consume movies about themselves – almost every movie on this list was made by an for Boomers.  Oh, and it references Vietnam.  As does . . .

Do two Chongs make a white?

Up in Smoke – There really isn’t a plot to the movie other than Cheech and Chong getting stoned, but it made massive money – $104 million on a budget of $2 million, most of which was probably spent on drugs.

It took my Brazillianth try to get  this image.

The Boys from Brazil – The Boys from Brazil was probably the first time cloning hit the national consciousness.  The plot is simple:  escaped doctor Josef Mengele wants to clone an Austrian painter to . . . well, that’s unclear.  Certainly not paint.

I told Grok just to have fun with that one, and I was pleased.

Attack of the Killer Tomatoes – The plot is in the title.  Ambulatory tomatoes go around killing people in a comedy horror film that is also somehow a disaster movie.  The real joke of the movie is that there isn’t enough plot for a movie, yet it spawned three sequels.  I think it succeeded because not because it was so bad, but it was intentionally bad in just the right way at just the right time, sort of like The Gong Show.

This one surprised me for the pun.

The Deer Hunter – Annnnnd back to Vietnam.  Is this the darkest movie on the list?  Certainly.  When the Vietnam dam burst in film, it really burst.  This movie is well regarded because it’s got great actors, an intense plot, and is perfectly put together.  But it’s bleak.  If it’s a movie about America, it’s a movie about a lost America under Jimmy Carter where we looked like the most likely superpower to collapse.  But speaking about superpowers . . .

Grok came up with the logo himself.

Superman –  It was the most expensive movie made up to that point at $55 million, and made $300 million, so this movie did not kneel before Zod.  Was it a movie for kids?  Certainly, but plenty of adults had to go see it, too.  I think the plot is far too optimistic to be made today, and if Netflix™ were to remake it, Superma’am™ would be a proud black FtM transexual, since Superman™ is already an illegal alien.

Sally doesn’t like being replaced.

Every Which Way but Loose – Clint spent most of the 1970s killing people in places like San Francisco or the Alps, he decided he wanted to do a comedy to “broaden his appeal.”  What comedy?  Every Which Way but Loose.  In it, Eastwood plays a bare-knuckle boxer who roams the United States looking for a girl while accompanied by his best friend and his monkey.  It’s sort of like what Smokey and the Bandit would have been if Sally Field was a monkey.  Did Clint have a lot of money after all those earlier box office hits?  He did.  This one made over $100 million on a $5 million budget.

If you know, you know.

Halloween – Halloween is, perhaps, the first modern horror movie that made it big.  John Carpenter, who had already done some good movies, decided to make a great movie.  It was one of the lowest-budgeted movies on this list, yet made $70 million at the box office.  Carpenter was paid just $10,000 to write and direct it, but retained a 10% profit stake.  This was the movie that showed what horror movies would become after the Hammer Films Dracula-style movie was no longer the standard.

This is 1978.  It’s pretty dark, but America was in a dark place.  High inflation, stagnant economy, the Soviets attacking Afghanistan and Americans held hostage in Teheran.  It reminds me of Biden’s America, but Carter didn’t have dementia and Obama to blame.

What did I miss?

Weapons Of Mass Distraction And Booze Jokes

“No fear.  No distractions.  The ability to let that which does not matter truly slide.” – Fight Club

Did you hear about the emo cake?  It cuts itself.

2025 is the 23rd year of the smart phone, as the CrackBerry® was introduced way back in 2002.  To put that into perspective, 23 years before 2002, Jimmy Carter was president and Hillary Clinton had only eaten six children.

But the BlackBerry© didn’t take over immediately – it was mainly a hit with the executive-set at first, since it allowed them to get emails while they were on the slopes at Gstaad or write ANGRY EMAILS IN ALL CAPS while munching on bigfoot filet roasted over Moonrocks at the beach down in Monaco.

The real killer smart phone, though, was the iPhone©.  It was introduced just 18 years ago in 2007.  The design standards for the iPhone™ quickly became the standard for cell phones, and it knocked BlackBerry® into oblivion within just a few short years because teenaged girls liked it much better because, selfies.

To be fair, it was a pretty big jump in functionality and aesthetics.

Why does Hillary have two “L”s in her first name?  One for 2008, one for 2016.

The impact, though, of smart phones, however, is undeniable.  They became the single most effective way to distract a person.  Ever.  You’ve seen the effect enough that it’s cliché – walk into a restaurant and it’s not a group of people talking to each other.  Instead, it’s a group of people eating near each other while they take in content produced with the explicit objective of taking over their attention.

And, it has certainly worked if the goal was to distract.  People now spend more time doomscrolling on their phones than they spend with their children, spouses, and friends.  Combined, and Tinder™ has led to more one-night stands than wine coolers.

I love cooking with wine.  Sometimes I even add it to the food I’m making.

The reason smartphones grab our attention is somewhat seductive:  every time a new notification hits, it sets off a small hit of dopamine in the brain.  Just like lab rats, we love our dopamine.  And the designers know it.  On earlier versions of Twitter©, if I got multiple “likes” on a Tweet®, they would be delayed and doled out so that the action-anticipation-reward loop was optimized to keep me engaged.

And the format of Twitter© (that X™ retained) of scrolling through content, why, something super interesting might be at the bottom of the next swipe of my finger on the screen.  So, I’d better just go two more minutes.  And then an hour goes by . . .

X© is an attention harvester – they built the perfect trap to stick the rat to the app.  And so is Facebook™.  And Instagram©.  And Snapchat®.

These are designed to meld into our nervous system, and keep our eyes focused on the screen, day after day.

I know this, because it works, and it worked on me.

And when it breaks down, you can have a Ford® Siesta™.

After I realized that, though, I decided on a strategy:

I would jealously guard my attention like CNN™ guarded information on Joe Biden’s ability to remember, you know, the thing.  The reasons are many:

Information overload leads to depression and anxiety.  I had to ask myself, “Can I do anything about this?” and “Is this something I really care about?”

Here’s where I draw the line:

Consciously, I decided I really don’t care about Ukraine and Russia.  And you can’t make me care about them.  I also decided the same thing with Israel and Gaza.  They’re not here, and if I’m going to spend my attention and emotion, I’d rather do something to make the United States better, first – like doing everything I can to get as many illegals deported as possible and shutting down as many H-1B visas as possible so maybe someone at a call center could be intelligible.

Or I could spend my time spreading the word about the wonders of PEZ™.

Never trust a minotaur – half of everything they say is bull.

I also make a conscious decision (mostly) on what media I’m going to consume and when.  I do personal emails three times a week because my inbox isn’t a slot machine for spam.  I browse non-news websites three times a week (mostly – there are exceptions).

I have, at least at my age, also decided that multitasking isn’t something I’m going to count on unless the task is really mindless.  I try to focus more on just one thing at a time – then I’m really there.

The problem in 2025 isn’t time management, it’s attention management.  And I have to have time to:

  • Think deeply, so I’m not just reacting to stimulus and so I can better see propaganda. Honestly, I’ve gotten to the point that I don’t trust any media unless I can verify the claim.
  • Relax, so I’m not so wound up about things. Life shouldn’t be so tense.  That’s what caffeine is for.
  • Create, because I really enjoy it, and because that’s the way that maybe I can change the world. Without distractions, I can crush out a first draft of a post in about an hour.  Pounding and sanding the result takes one or two more, and then I gotta add memes.

To do any of those things requires attention.

We are the sum of what we spend our attention and effort on.  If I’m distracted, I know that I simply won’t have the focus I need in order to make the best decisions.  Who, indeed, would like the American public distracted and not paying attention to what exactly is going on in the world?

Why does The Mrs. think I walked into a barn and ordered a bear?

Smartphones have become weapons of mass distraction.

Yet each time we’re distracted by one, it’s the result of a choice.

So, why let them win?  I’ve got to look forward to 2048, 23 years into the future from now.  I imagine Barron Trump will be in his third presidential term by then . . .