Saml Patrck Jffrson

辛いニュースも多いけど、世界は素晴らしいと信じたい。 ステーキとマッケンチーズとコーラ、そしてデカいアメ車！

I know a brilliant computer programmer whose parents were asked to put him on Ritalin and other psychiatric drugs. Once he dropped out of school as a high school student, he quit the medications. He was happy. He became successful. The problem was never his brain chemistry. The environment was the problem. He had been placed in an institution radically unnatural for his development, told to sit still and comply with arbitrary rules disconnected from anything he cared about. Once he escaped that cage, the symptoms disappeared. This pattern is not unique. I know many students diagnosed with depression or anxiety who became completely well once they left school. We have created a system that makes children sick, then pathologizes their natural responses to an unhealthy environment.

My house in the Pacific Palisades back in the day. My house today.

BRYCE FUCKING HARPER

Why is Santa Barbara one of the prettiest cities in California? Answer: The zoning laws (Title 30) heavily emphasize preserving a "Spanish Colonial" aesthetic, prioritizing strict architectural design guidelines, height limits, and maintaining a Mediterranean, low-density feel.

Something that is going extinct is the affordable seaside town. There used to be a large number of towns that were right in the ocean, had cheap houses, had arcades and mini golf for kids, and were a mix of cheap family entertainment and cheap nightlife. That is all rapidly disappearing with 1) population increases and 2) remote work and 3) the internet. Everyone realized all at once that these places were great opportunities to leave by the beach full time, covid gave them the opportunity. So the arcades get knocked down to build mansions. The put put gets replaced with gazebos. There’s not much you can do about this at this point. But it’s crazy to think how much beautiful property used to be available to anyone willing to live outside the rat race. And now the rat race moved in next door.

My mom had a 1976 bicentennial commemorative glass Folgers instant coffee jar that we used throughout my childhood. The fact that we’re not seeing that kind of packaging from every consumer brand this year makes me sad.

Most important post of the week: The greatest threat to individual liberty comes from collectivist ideologies that seek to subordinate the individual to the group—not from fellow libertarians who disagree on whether seasteading beats political action or whether Bitcoin eliminates the need for gold. Every minute you spend attacking other free market thinkers for their tactical differences represents a minute the Federal Reserve continues expanding the money supply at 7% annually, a minute the regulatory state adds another 3,000 pages to the Federal Register, and a minute collectivists consolidate power while we fragment our own movement. Murray Rothbard didn't waste energy feuding with other Austrian economists over minor methodological disputes when the Keynesian establishment controlled every major university economics department. The enemy operates with ruthless coordination. Progressive collectivists, corporate fascists, and socialist planners may disagree on methods, but they share the same fundamental premise: individual rights must yield to collective needs. They control the universities, the media apparatus, and the bureaucratic machinery precisely because they focus their energy outward against liberty itself rather than inward against their own allies. You gain nothing by excommunicating the libertarian who prefers Hayek over Rothbard, or the one who thinks we need political engagement alongside education, or the one who believes cryptocurrency offers a faster path to freedom than waiting for philosophical conversion. These tactical disagreements pale next to the philosophical chasm separating all libertarians from those who believe the state should control money, redistribute wealth, and regulate voluntary exchanges. Collectivists laugh while libertarians purge each other over doctrinal purity tests.

🧵 The Etymology of Productivity: In Spanish, the word for work, “trabajo” comes from the Vulgar Latin tripaliāre, which means “to torture.” The root is the tripalium: a Roman torture device made of three stakes used to immobilize and beat slaves or criminals. Working/Trabajando is confession of physical pain and submissiveness. You were being "worked over" by a system you were too weak to escape. On the other hand: In English, “work” comes from the Germanic root for "to act" or "to do." It is functional. It is a verb of agency. English-rooted cultures view productivity as a moral good, while Latin-rooted cultures often view it as a burden to be avoided.

The best part is that the America that Japanese people adore the most… is the same one that coastal elites call “flyover trash” They’re not autistically LARPing NY cynicism or SF polycule / LA wellness culture. They’re drawn to the heartland of the American South and all its trappings - the jacked-up trucks, backyard BBQs, country radio, big skies and the friendly "yes ma'am" drawl.

The fact is, we are living in historical times. The turning point can no longer be denied by anyone. Everything is changing de facto. The time before Corona we will probably never have again. And more and more truth is coming to light. So the narratives, the old narratives are collapsing. For what is to come.

Everything that's great about California is baked in, and everything that sucks about California is fixable. It's just one of those spots on Earth where a "main character" civilization is inevitable.

People are so confused about this tweet, so let me elaborate. Yes, AI will eventually create art that is as good or even better than humans. But, humans will not care for it, beside an initial curiosity, because art is not about art. It’s about the humans who created it and their stories. Art it’s an exploration of human limits. Humans are fundamentally not interested in what other species do, think or feel. How many people watch AI play chess?

Really awful what's happening with the Boston Symphony, America's greatest orchestra. More and more symphony CEOs are seeing musicians as interchangeable parts instead of the soul of the enterprise – they're just employees now, nothing noteworthy about them. Very demoralizing.

I posted about how education molds the character and forms the mind and got comments by people appalled that I suggest such a thing because people are so stuck on the phrase "critical thinking". Yes, critical thinking is important. But what comes before critical thinking is a good foundation of knowledge of things that are full of truth, goodness, and beauty: stories of great men and women, beautiful art, beautiful music, real history, etc.. Critical thinking comes after there is something in place to which actual thinking and judgment can refer.

Ultimately - the system’s entire problem is that it needs competent men to function, but it has given no stability, status or comfort to those men. Every major project of the era is about trying to figure out how to get around this fact.

Los Angeles California