Erlis

Christopher Hitchens: ”In 1786, when the United States was barely a country, it was having its sailors taken as slaves by the Barbary states, the states of the Ottoman Empire and North Africa. Tripoli, shores of Tripoli. Ships stopped, its crews carried off into slavery. We estimate 1.5 million European and American slaves taken between 1750 and 1815. Jefferson and Adams went to their ambassador in London and said, why do you do this to us? The United States has never had a quarrel with the Muslim world of any kind. We weren't in the crusades. We weren't at war with Spain. Why do you do this to our people and our ships? Why do you plunder and enslave our people? The ambassador said very plainly, Mr. Abdul Rahman said, because the Quran gives us permission to do so, because you are infidels, and that's our answer. Jefferson said, well, in that case, I will send a navy which will crush your state, which he did. Islamic fundamentalism is not created by American democracy. It's a lie to say so. It's a masochistic lie, and it excuses those who are the real criminals, and blames us for the attacks made upon us.”

@HellenicVibes Not just true for college students

Funny thing about AI is that if you’re a college student in 2026 you can either learn 10x the amount you would have learned in undergrad without AI, or you can learn 0.1x (and still get good grades), it’s literally up to you!

One has only to read the primary sources from pre and post American revolution to come away with a sense that our modern understanding and framing of our founding creed is so wholly inconsistent with the fact of it that it raises suspicion as to how we could have gone so far off track in the first place

The Founding Fathers disagree with Gorsuch on that one

@michellearning How many kids do you have?

To all the post-scarcity operators “on sabbatical” to raise kids: that’s a terrible example to set. Go build something even more ambitious. Retiring early is a loser attitude.

@romanhelmetguy They’ve run out of modern IP to butcher and are raiding the classics

I understand why Hollywood writing is so bad these days. I understand why Hollywood casting is so bad these days. But can someone who actually knows explain to me why Hollywood set and costume design is so bad these days? And why is everything grey?

Start Of A New Series: America’s Most Underrated Presidents James K. Polk – The quiet architect of American continental destiny. His one-term presidency delivered more tangible expansion than almost any other. He annexed Texas, settled Oregon, acquired California and the Southwest, and reformed tariffs yet he is often sidelined in favor of flashier or more tragic figures. He executed focused sovereignty and frontier security for the founding stock with lean government and no desire for perpetual power, stepping down exactly as promised proving results driven leadership grounded in the republic’s destiny rather than endless rhetoric or centralized drama.

Breaking: Lockheed Martin, @FireflySpace, and @Seagate_Space are partnering to build out sea-based launch capabilities as land-based spaceports become constrained.

Today we're announcing @_panthalassa’s $140M Series B, led by Peter Thiel, with participation from John Doerr and many other incredible investors. The mission: unlock the ocean as another planetary-scale energy resource for humanity. First stop: compute.

This is Amanda Askell, she is in charge of the ethics and morality of Anthropic artificial intelligence She wrote that discrimination is okay, as long as it’s against White People “We do not assume all forms of discrimination are bad. Positive discrimination in favor of black students may be considered morally justified” “In one breath, Anthropic will claim to care so deeply about mass surveillance, that they're willing to lose a massive government contract, and the next breath, Anthropic will sing the praises of positive discrimination. As long as it hurts white people As long as the AI is letting white people die, then all things considered you could, you know, maybe the outcome is morally justified. That's the implication here.” This isn’t a conspiracy, she really is saying discrimination against White People is okay. It’s in the critics findings The paper examined how Claude 2.0 handled scenarios and found patterns of both positive and negative discrimination. Critics argue this reflects a worldview that justifies race-based preferences against certain groups like White and Asian students as morally acceptable to “correct” historical injustices The “historical injustices” are seen as being committed by white people

An American President on the importance of courage and strength in defending civilization: “Christianity is not the creed of Asia and Africa at this moment solely because the seventh-century Christians of Asia and Africa had trained themselves not to fight, whereas the Moslems were trained to fight. Christianity was saved in Europe solely because the peoples of Europe fought. If the peoples of Europe had not possessed a military equality with, and gradually a growing superiority over, the Mohammedans who invaded Europe, Europe would at this moment be Mohammedan and the Christian religion would be exterminated. Wherever the Mohammedans have had complete sway, wherever the Christians have been unable to resist them by the sword, Christianity has ultimately disappeared. From the hammer of Charles Martel to the sword of Sobieski, Christianity owed its safety in Europe to the fact that it was able to show that it could and would fight as well as the Mohammedan aggressor. The civilization of Europe, America, and Australia exists today at all only because of the victories of civilized man over the enemies of civilization.” — Teddy Roosevelt

“Civilization... is under constant assault and it takes most of the energies of civilized man to keep going at all.” Evelyn Waugh

What could be more important than identifying high IQ children and investing in their development for the betterment of society? Retards. We invest in retards, forsake the smart kids, and do our dystopian best to ensure continued societal decay.

We delivered the first fully-humanless commercial truckload on a public highway in America. Full stop. No in-cab observer. No remote controller. No passenger. Just the truck, the freight, and a load that made us money. A 230-mile journey from Houston to Dallas on Interstate 45, one of the busiest freight corridors in Texas. It took less than three years to get to this point, so how did we do it? 1. A dedicated vision unclouded by distractions or offshoots. We want to move freight for customers who believe in the power of autonomy, so we did. 2. A team that is THE best at what they do. From our engineers to our safety advocates to our leadership, everyone was pointed towards the same goal. 3. Technology that never faltered, never questioned itself, and performed exactly as designed and tested. 4. A partner who trusts us to get the job done. Ryan Transportation booked and paid for this run, we delivered on time for a service lane they have struggled with in the past. So now what? We do it again. And again, and again. We expand our lanes, start running southbound on I-45, book more loads, and deliver more freight. We stay true to our mission of unbeatable service and grow to be THE trusted autonomy provider in Texas, then in America. The autonomy economy is real; it's here right now. We are leading the charge, and we will keep winning.

This month, General Galactic (@gengalactic) broke a nearly 70-year-old record in rocket science. Announcing Genesis, our water-electrolysis space propulsion platform. We're the first company to demonstrate this capability with real flight hardware.

@bryan_johnson Not sure where exactly the line is but you might wanna start asking for directions because you’re miles past it.

Just gave Kate oral sex. Goodnight everyone.

@fishstark @BenSasse There is zero data that “institute 16 weeks of paid parental leave, universal childcare, & a restored child tax credit” has any positive effect on fertility, all the countries that have tried it have lower fertility than us.

All right @BenSasse, let's make a bet. Let's divide the US in half. I'll let you pick which half. In your half, you ban Candy Crush. In my half we institute 16 weeks of paid parental leave, universal childcare, & a restored child tax credit. Let's see which has more babies.

@robbystarbuck @cremieuxrecueil You think to yourself how a party as treasonous to the country as the Democrats are remotely politically viable, racist districting seems to be one of the answers.

@cremieuxrecueil A beautiful map.

Without Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, Tennessee might redistrict so its least Republican-leaning district is R+21.

Haiti is not the same as Norway. Somalia is not the same as Japan. All immigrants are not the same. All cultures are not the same. We've known this for all of human history.

PETE HEGSETH: "Marxists are our enemies. Not political opponents, but real enemies."