Jumbo

@truewagner I thought it said "I will kill you no matter what" and I was like why would anyone vote for that

I have a unique opportunity to choose my next land-lord.. .

@Knightfall21 @Devon_Eriksen_ @justalexoki "and the possibility of God situating you elsewhere" This is not a possibility, you can tell because he didn't.

@Devon_Eriksen_ @justalexoki This only works from a materialist frame where you only are your physical body. If you believe in a soul, and the possibility of God situating you elsewhere, then thinking about your chances of being born in this spot in the world, at this point in history, makes a lot of sense.

Put a 100 marbles in a jar, 14 blue marbles to represent the population of the West, and 86 red marbles to represent everyone else. If you draw a marble, blindly and at random, from the jar, you have a 14% chance of drawing a blue marble. This how @justalexoki sees the moment of conception. He thinks he is a random generic soul, fresh from the Well of Random Generic Souls, drawing a marble from the jar. 14% blue, 86% red. But you don't draw the marble. You are the marble. A blue marble only has a 14% chance of being selection in a random draw. But, in or out of the jar, a blue marble has a 100% chance of being blue. This is the Seagull Test, which is an inversion of the Breakfast Test. The Breakfast Test requires you to describe a hypothetical timeline where you skipped breakfast this morning, to prove you can imagine hypotheticals. The Seagull Test requires you to reject the question "What if you were a seagull?" as a nonsense question, to prove that you understand the difference between valid and nonsense hypotheticals. You can skip breakfast and still be you, but there is no version of you that can be a seagull, and no seagull that can, in any meaningful way, be you. To pass the Seagull Test, you must reject the question and refuse to answer, or, better yet, reframe the question so that it asks for the intended information in a coherent way, i.e. "What does it feel like to be a seagull?" Which is a very, very different question. I can, with good observational data and some intelligent speculation, possibly understand the thoughts and feelings of a Pakistani brick layer. But I cannot be one in any coherently possible universe, because I am, by definition, me. A blue marble.

@xwanyex I was homeschooled. I know many homeschoolers. My own extremely lax education was aberrant, most of my peers were taught better. I still graduated college. Tbh, beyond the three R's, success is up to the student's desire and inborn capabilities in either setting.

I know a fair number of homeschooling families and while I can't really know for sure, it does look to me like some of them are doing very little actual instruction. My thesis is just that it barely matters and their lives aren't going to be meaningfully worse for this. High-achieving strivers are aghast at the proposition, but I think it's true.

@2aQueer @Nino_Merica Apparently Washington State and New Jersey missed the memo.

@Nino_Merica This is what not having an income tax gets you.

LOCAL MAN DISCOVERS HE IS SECRETLY A REAL ESTATE MOGUL AFTER COUNTY INVENTS $186,000 FOR HIM MIDLAND, TX — In a stunning financial revelation this week, a local homeowner learned he has apparently made a massive profit without selling anything, receiving any money, or otherwise participating in reality. “I had no idea I was doing this well,” the man said, reviewing a notice informing him his modest home—purchased for $60,000 in 2009—is now worth $246,000, according to a highly sophisticated system known as “a guy with a clipboard and vibes.” Despite never listing the property, fielding offers, or seeing so much as a nickel of this newfound wealth, the homeowner confirmed he is now expected to pay taxes as if he recently closed a blockbuster deal. “I checked my bank account just to be sure,” he said. “Nothing. No mysterious deposit. No wire transfer. Not even a congratulations email. But apparently I’m crushing it.” County officials reassured residents that the system is working exactly as intended. “You’re not being taxed on money you have,” one official explained patiently. “You’re being taxed on money you could hypothetically have in an alternate universe where you sold your house but didn’t need a place to live afterward.” Experts clarified that this differs significantly from other forms of taxation, where individuals are typically taxed on actual income or realized gains. “For example, if your stock portfolio doubles, you don’t owe taxes until you sell,” said one analyst. “But your home is different because… well… it just is. Please stop asking questions.” Local residents have reportedly begun experimenting with applying the same logic elsewhere. “If my neighbor can assign value to my house and bill me for it,” the homeowner said, “I’m assigning value to my free time. I’ve determined the county now owes me $500,000 annually for emotional distress and inconvenience.” At press time, officials were exploring ways to increase property values even further, noting that if numbers can be written down once, they can absolutely be written down again—higher. Meanwhile, the homeowner confirmed he is considering selling the property just to finally meet the rich guy everyone keeps telling him he is.

@katierozze @uncledoomer "anyone born before me" I'm afraid it's worse than being ignored.

@uncledoomer Ignoring the generation that shares a name with the very site where you post your heresy

a boomer is anyone born before me. a zoomer is anyone born after me. i stand alone, the one true millenial chungus

@ShawnRyan762 Yeah no the world is fireselling gold to Americans to get dollars to pay for US energy supply with gulf oil sequestered.

The petrodollar is the foundation of American power. Since the 1970s, oil has only been sold in dollars, forcing every nation on earth to hold dollars, fund our debt, and keep us dominant. Iran just systematically dismantled that. They closed Hormuz, cutting 25% of global oil supply. Spiked oil to $118 a barrel. Then forced ships to pay in Chinese yuan for passage. Now Gulf states are dumping US treasuries, bond markets are selling off, inflation is surging, Deutsche Bank is warning of a petroyuan era. Every link in the petrodollar chain is snapping at once. When it's gone, your borrowing costs explode, your savings erode, and America loses the financial weapon that has kept us dominant for 50 years. China wins without ever pulling a trigger.

@CityBureaucrat Read Hebrews 4:14-17, you're almost right. We draw near not because of our internal trustworthiness but because of his goodness. Luther was by no means tortured by his own trustworthiness.

There's a type of Germanic who always needs to speak directly to the god, because he trusts his own senses and intuitions. Look at the sagas. This type should be encouraged over the type that needs weekly software patches from a guru/priest/rabbi to assuage the anxiety that attends consciousness of the irreconcilable contradictions inherent to formalized belief and rule systems.

@bonbon_enrage @Hesamation Engineers in test will become kings of the trash heap. O oracle atop the mountain, whyfore doth the sea thrash us thus? (Ai code shit itself, can't contextualize how to fix.)

@Hesamation AI-first still requires engineers. Just not the same skillset as before

MAN DO I HAVE NEWS FOR YOU

@Devon_Eriksen_ @ThePrussian1 Also an argument to be made for LESS, since, as part of the borg, they aren't technically distinct.

@ThePrussian1 Also lesser.

Since the "Antifa supersoldier" with less followers than a primary school classroom apparently isn't tired of getting ratioed yet, I'll take this opportunity to explain a little bit about the legality of concrete mailboxes. It turns out that mailboxes are actually required to return any force applied to them. This part of English common law actually dates back to 1687, during the reign of King James the Second. It was first proposed by an English aristocrat and theologian named Sir Newton, who served as Master of the Royal Mint, a position which encompassed not only spearmint and peppermint, but also catnip, which is technically a member of the Lamiaceae family, and thus a variety of mint. While this law may have been somewhat controversial at the time, it has since gained universal acceptance and is rigidly enforced in both Britain and America, along with numerous other nations around the world. The actual text of the law applies not only to residential individual mailboxes, but any receptacle designed and used for containing or delivering missives, messages, or packages carried by private or public post, whether or not it currently contains such items. It requires the mailbox or other container to respond to any applied force with a reaction that is both equal and opposite. So, you see, it's entirely out of my hands. If a vandal of any description speeds through my residential neighborhood at 45 miles per hour... ... while leaning out the driver's side window with a bat, in a way that impairs his driving even more that the three joints he smoked that afternoon... ... and manages through sheer good fortune not to strike any of my neighbors' small children with his 3,700 lbs of 2012 Dodge Avenger ... ... and instead successfully hits my mailbox with that bat, generating 6,300 Newtons of force (a unit used for measuring force applied to mailboxes) ... Well, then, my mailbox is legally required to apply the same 6,300 Newtons back. If it didn't, I would be guilty of stealing some of the vandal's Newtons and not returning them, which this law is specifically there to prevent. Were I to violate this law, I would immediately become a person of interest to every major government in the world, whether they had jurisdiction or not, and they would spare no expense in hunting me down and asking me a lot of very pressing questions. So, sorry, I'm just being a responsible, law-abiding citizen. If you want me to stop, you'll have to change the law. May I suggest an appeal to the US Supreme Court? I'm pretty sure Justice Sotomayor would side with you.

@OTG_Disciple @SkyKnight1570 @smashbaals "Stooop just use the colloquial language, just play the language game our way, just let us call evil good and good evil, cmon..."

@SkyKnight1570 @smashbaals She is very clearly referring to the outward perception of kindness that one would ascribe to a nice person. We don't have to forensically analyze every post for perfect semantics to understand the point being conveyed.

This is the sin of empathy

@BrianHa36920543 @Devon_Eriksen_ @hasen_95dx I get your point, and you're right in spirit to make that distinction, but to be a turd about it, strictly any mailbox is a schrödingers mailbox both filled with concrete and not filled until the assailant hits it with a bat. Quantum superposition.

@Devon_Eriksen_ @hasen_95dx The whole point of the side you're arguing against is that the concrete is hidden. Why are you characterizing it as about them not being able to understand physics?

Never, in the history of history itself, has a judge looked down at the prisoner in the dock and declared "I sentence you to Concrete Mailbox". Why not? Because Concrete Mailbox is not a punishment, you factory-defective lawn gnome. It's a mailbox. Made from concrete. If you hurt yourself with it because you can't be bothered to learn the laws of physics in your own damn universe, that is a you problem. I am not obligated to suffer harm in order to protect you from a stupid action you might someday take. Of course, what you are really doing is engaging in the favorite marxist pastime of "pretending not to understand things". What you are pretending not to understand is the difference between consequences and punishment. For example, if you are a lazy marxist, and you won't work or do anything for anyone else, you'll be broke. This is not a conspiracy to deprive you of stuff. It is simply the consequence of you being selfish. You know this. But you pretend not to because you hope that if you confuse the issue enough, you can get suggestible people to give you free stuff. And in this case, you want to protect vandals at the expense of people who own mailboxes, because you are more likely to vandalize a mailbox than to own one, therefore you fail the Mailbox Test by sympathizing with the vandal.

@theblessedsalt The foundational point of just war theory that you're not obliged to let the other guy win. By advertising the fortification you enable your enemy to defeat it. Schrödingers mailbox, they're all fortified and non-fortified until the assailant finds out. Only themselves to blame.

This post is an excellent litmus test for understanding of just war theory. Despite the fact that I can see how effective this would be, I must oppose it because the damage it would do to my enemy (who bashes in my mailbox) would far outweigh the good of saving my mailbox. Its disproportionality is opposed by our duty in charity (and even justice) to watch out even for the good of our enemies. (Yes, by the way, I have had my mailbox bashed in by random vandals.)

@HymenopteraP @TanneriteCortez @VivekGRamaswamy You can even tell Christians to pound sand when they're being stupid. All the more when it's a pagan foreigner in your land. Good thing too or we'd be speaking Mongolian and worshipping tengri.

@TanneriteCortez @VivekGRamaswamy Wow how Christian of you to refer to a human made in the image of God as “Pound sand,” simply for holding a political opinion that has commonly been held by Americans such as some of our presidents (Democrat and Republican).

You can travel to Italy, but you’ll never be an Italian. You can travel to France but you’ll never be a Frenchman. You can live in Germany but you’ll never be a German. You can pack your bags and live the rest of your life in China or Japan, but you’ll never be Chinese or Japanese. Yet you can come from any one of those countries to the United States of America, and you can still be an American – so long as you work hard, you play by the rules, you make your contributions, wait your turn, pledge allegiance to the flag, and obtain your citizenship.

@JerryTurin @bumbadum14 I mean they pay 10-12% of each check until they get it back at the end of the year in their return when they would most benefit from minimally higher cash flows throughout the year, and that demo does not benefit from being given a large chunk of money lol.

@bumbadum14 The guy at McDonalds pays no income tax. Only the payroll tax funding his social security and medicare (that McD contributes to too).

Because the federal income tax started as a temporary tax for rich people to pay for the civil war and now the guy making my McDonalds order has 1/4 of his paycheck robbed from him.

@chainsaw_mode @ITARviolation It's like a 3.25% return plus disability insurance.

@ITARviolation The math only works if you assume you will have the same income - i.e. nobody gets hurt or disabled or fired. Having your house paid off is way more valuable in that situation than an extra 200k over 20 years would be

spent… $260k… paying down a mortgage… at 3.75%…

@ryanmburu1 @1ssve I mean it's kind of in the name. Analysis means "turn gobbledygook useful" which includes translation from high to low technicality. Job security.

@1ssve Try being a data analyst and walking your manager through every graph in the report like a toddler

No one: Senior leadership: “What am I looking at?”

@AndrewCFollett Right wing "formed" by experiences in "formative years" - news at 11.

In high school, I tore my ACL playing soccer and was on crutches for 6 months...and got attacked by a loser while sitting out gym class. School had a stupid rule about how, in any physical fight, both parties had to be punished equally. When I pointed out that...obviously...the kid on crutches did not start the fight, the Vice Principal scoffed and asked me why I was daring the Question Authority. School bureaucracy radicalizes many conservatives because its so obviously stupid, actively harmful, and punishing to the victim.

@thef0xr @IterIntellectus Good article, I suspect you're wrong about suffrage being a one-way bridge. Once folks realize(when the economy get bad enough and socsec fund depletes) that civilization hinges on TFR they'll realize households are the fundamental unit-of-rights.

@JumboDST @IterIntellectus Exactly open.substack.com/pub/f0xr/p/the…

US fertility reached 1.57 last year, the lowest ever recorded, and the WSJ explanation is "uncertainty about finances, relationship stability, and the political climate" my great grandma had eleven children during the second world war, in a country being bombed, in a house with no running water, on rations. poor people have always had kids. the poorest people on earth right now still have kids and the financial excuse is a story we tell ourselves because it makes us feel good and the real one is unbearable the real mechanism is that we got rich enough to redefine children as an expense instead of the point. somewhere in the last fifty years the cultural goal inverted and a child stopped being what life is for and became a line item competing with the lifestyle. once you frame it that way the math never works, because the math isnt supposed to work. that's the point we are living in the richest moment in human history and we decided to use the surplus to buy ourselves out of the future. the most prosperous civilization that has ever existed is committing demographic suicide at the altar of personal optimization and comfort, and the official line is that we cant afford it the birthrate is a lagging indicator of a civilization that forgot why it was alive

@WinstonBrozton @travis4nh Not that big an assumption considering his total debt is like double the average back then.

@travis4nh Tuition $73,946 Fees** $1,024 Housing $13,744 Food $7,604 Sub-Total, Billed $96,318 That's your school now, per year... Now, I've made the big assumption that you fully financed your tuition/housing/food.

I had $36k of student debt in 1993. That's $82,500 inflation adjusted. I had about $100/mo discretionary spending for the first half of my 20s, no car, etc Older generations were much poorer.