Shack Toms

Our common humanity is actually our common holiness, our common participation in the divine.

@diligentium @tetsuoai My lips don't touch for a "v" unless I am trying to speak Spanish.

good morning, 𝕏 the audio in Grok Imagine is getting scary good the audio is clean, full, and present. even the mouth shapes are landing dead-on insanely strong for a current-gen ai talking-head 🤯

@jayplemons @ScottAdamsSays It's very interesting. In my mind's eye, Adams was the delivery man. Also the location was more remote, kind of like the ruler of the universe in the Douglas Adams series. Your take is likely closer to what Scott Adams had in mind.

God's Debris teaser trailer based on the best-selling book by @ScottAdamsSays

@bitcoin_eagle @ThomasSowell Is she advocating raising the minimum payment to assure that the loan is paid off on a fixed schedule? That is, removing the flexibility? I'm surprised that it doesn't work that way, like the amortization of a home loan.

@shacktoms @ThomasSowell If you don't even pay interest balance goes up

A woman says her student loan balance keeps growing even after years of payments.

@PolitiBunny It is true that gerrymandering has increased the number of GOP districts, but using the popular vote as the standard for representation, the Democrats are still overrepresented more. Just not by quite as much as they were.

Repugnant. A governor working so hard to disenfranchise half of her state … to silence 56 counties … we will never trust that you have Virginia’s best interest at heart. Never.

For some reason that reminds me of Yogi Berra's line about a famous restaurant, "Nobody goes there anymore, it's too crowded." In general people are mutually beneficial. I suppose there theoretically is a carrying capacity, but it doesn't seem we have reached it, thanks to technology and capitalism.

Genocidal maniacs are villains actually

I am remembering the teacher Stanley Sobottka (20 Dec 1930-16 Apr 2014). His teachings are at courseinconsciousness.org . I hope you find them as helpful as I have.

@newstart_2024 Ukraine turned over the third-largest nuclear arsenal in exchange for security guarantees. If Russia succeeds against Ukraine, nations will conclude that nukes are their only real security.

“One or two modern nuclear devices and Los Angeles is simply no more.” Eric Weinstein painted a sobering picture on Triggernometry. He explained that today’s hydrogen bombs are orders of magnitude more powerful than the ones that ended WWII. The Tsar Bomba and Castle Bravo showed we were already playing with forces we couldn’t fully control. A concentrated city hit by even one or two devices becomes instantly uninhabitable. The long-term effects (radiation, fallout, societal collapse) make “surviving” the war feel almost meaningless. Weinstein’s blunt takeaway: once it starts, everything we know about modern life is gone — whether from nuclear exchange or even a engineered pandemic. How close do you think we actually are to a nuclear or engineered pandemic scenario that changes everything?

@Klutzes @KonstantinKisin No representation without taxation!?

@KonstantinKisin Let's try this: ALL TAX increases not explicitly flagged in manifestos must fall entirely the BASIC rate of income tax or VAT No deceitful disguising the profligacy of he Westminster parasites with this dishonest threshold "stealth" theft And NO VOTES for non-taxpayers

Economic revival incoming 🤡

@PhilosophyOnX Many fear being held responsible for their free choices, yet the "bad faith" rejection of freedom is itself a free choice. There's no escape. Apathy doesn't absolve; it does enable the tyrants Voltaire warned of.

So long as the people do not care to exercise their freedom, those who wish to tyrannize will do so; for tyrants are active and ardent, and will devote themselves in the name of any number of gods, religious and otherwise, to put shackles upon sleeping men. Voltaire

@Rightanglenews The Community Note is not helpful because there is no national tally for Virginia electors. And even if there were, people shouldn't be allowed to vote for electors in multiple states.

BREAKING - Outrage is erupting across Virginia after Abigail Spanberger signed HB965 into law, effectively rendering Virginians’ presidential votes null and void, with the measure handing the states electoral votes to the national popular vote winner regardless of states results.

@Rightanglenews @Tallie_1968 In my opinion, if triggered, this provision would replace the result of the count of Virginia voters with the opposite result, abridging the voting rights of all Virginia voters, thus, by the 14th Amendment, *causing Virginia to lose all of its congressional representation*.

I hope X leans into Grok as a matchmaker - introducing us to thoughtful accounts and posts based on what we're likely to enjoy, rather than account-level promotion or suppression. More joy, less regret for everyone.

It is expected by the Jevons Paradox. It is related to the reason that improving fuel economy leads to increased use of gasoline. Most goods have elastic demand in the long run. This means that when the price drops, consumption increases enough that the total spending increases.

"Somebody please explain this to me. How is it that after switching to LED lights and solar panels and wind farms...our electric bills keep going up?"

Remember the Parable of the Talents (Matthew 25): The master praises servants who faithfully invest and multiply what they're given. The one who buries the resources out of fear is called wicked and lazy. Fossil fuels and the energy they provide aren't 'destruction' of creation, they're gifts entrusted to us for human flourishing. Restricting them while needs go unmet looks a lot like burying the talent.

But on Judgment Day, how do you answer when God asks why you didn't use the resources He provided—while so many human problems (poverty, disease, energy access) went unsolved? As a manager, I was given goals and budgets. Failing goals was bad. Worst of all: failing goals without using the allocated resources. Best? Meeting (or exceeding) goals while wisely deploying what was given.

Senate candidate James Talarico - who led his own Green New Scam while serving in the Texas State House - uses Christianity to defend his attack against Texas oil & gas. "You can't call yourself a Christian and destroy God's creation with greenhouse gases."

I think peace is realistic when the likely benefit of conflict is outweighed by the likely cost. I think this is why republics tend to be stable--the political process creates a balance that approximates the outcome that conflict would produce, but at much lower cost. Justice yields peace. It is also why strength tends to yield peace.

Is a call for peace realistic?

Yes, I agree that the phrasing echoes Nietzsche's 'slave morality' critique. I'm no Nietzsche scholar, but from what I've read and discussed over the years, his own physical frailty seems central. He admired vitality because he lived it as a hard-won struggle. He even pushed himself hiking in the Alps despite his pain. To me, his objection to pity feels like a demanding trainer who sees burning muscles and still calls for one more rep. Not out of contempt for the trainee, but out of belief in their capacity to grow stronger. Nietzsche sharply criticized the social constructs and priestly power of Christianity in his day for inverting vital values. Yet when he declared "God is dead... and we have killed him," it wasn't an attack on Jesus or God. It was his stark diagnosis of the cultural vacuum he already saw around him. The old foundation was collapsing while society still pretended it remained intact. At the same time, Christian theology has strong traditions of liberation and service that aren't mere weakness. Christian service can be a source of real fulfillment, and strength a source of usefulness to others. The feeling of unworthiness before God is often a starting point for grace, though it is not the final goal. The distinction between Jesus' vital spirit and later institutional layers seems key. How do we navigate Nietzsche's critique alongside these life-affirming Christian themes?

@shacktoms @PhilosophyOnX This phrasing closely paraphrases Nietzsche's critiques in "On the Genealogy of Morality," where he argues Christian "slave morality" stifles life's affirmative forces, though no verbatim match exists in his verified texts.

Many people on X love Nietzsche and some are evangelical Christians who have never read him: “Only by overcoming the Christian moral framework can humanity reclaim its vitality, its will to power, and its capacity for greatness.” – Nietzsche

@tomselliott @OpenDiscourseCo What an inspiring talk!

For any Reagan fans out there, my father, who was his director of speechwriting, recently spoke about his relationship with the Gipper. He shares lots of fun stories you’ve probably never heard. Thanks to Bucknell Univ.’s @OpenDiscourseCo for hosting him. youtu.be/ShlRoqHsZkY?is…