The Biden economy

Regrettably, things are turning out as I feared. 

High inflation, some big bank collapses (with more government to the rescue), war in Europe, millions of boomers leaving the workforce, a nearly nationwide housing crisis. Can't wait to see what's next.

Take care of yourself.

In other news, I am on Substack. It is much less political/ideological than here, which in it's own small way has been liberating and a relief, but I do still get the urge to let my right-leaning libertarian freak flag fly--and it just doesn't mesh well with my stuff over there. 

So I'll keep everything separate. Not even sure I want to advertise my Substack yet, but I will be keeping this blog around for the occasional political comment.

It's a scam

First, watch the video.

Then work on becoming unscammed. I'm leaving the corporate slave life soon. 

Fake news

By that I don't just mean what most of us have come to know--that much of what we read and hear about from the news media is inaccurate. 

I mean the news organizations themselves are fake (this is also probably obvious). They are not what they purport to be. They exert very little effort to seek out and provide real, truthful news. 

Capitalism loves destruction, and this monolithic industry is priming itself for disruption. 

And we are beginning to see that disruption in the form of Substack (disclaimer: I am hoping to move to Substack eventually, I just need time). 

I am still endeavoring to find non-partisan, credible, independent journalists who are not part of the establishment media (and are probably not grifting one side). I think Michael Tracy is one of those, at least for now.

So, to provide a data point or two in support of my obvious thesis, please read part 1 and part 2 on the NATO summit from Mr. Tracy. It's pretty sad we have a government and media perfectly fine with shit transparency about an actual and ongoing war in Europe, of which there are profound global consequences. Not to mention the lives, billions of dollars, and great risk involved for NATO members and the region. 

The mental cost of Always Skeptical

Reddit is a dumpster fire. At least the r/all or whatever the front page is now, plus some major subreddits where dissent from the correct opinion is buried deeper than Jimmy Hoffa.

For now, it's still highly useful for very specific and obscure things, such as many of the smaller passionate subreddits filled with skilled amateurs and professionals. For example, when Googling "Oregon vacation" you get 2 pages of ads, questionable travel sites, and a laundry list of other corporate sites.

Go to reddit, search for the same thing, find a thread with a lot of comments and you'll usually get a lot of good info, including the good, bad, and the ugly. Corporate site would have you believe there are no such things as bad and ugly, except perhaps in regard to their competitors.

Google sucks, Bing sucks, DuckCensorGo sucks, and we're living in the suck era of the internet. Gone are the days of the free, un-curated, uncensored wild west internet. The inventive, talented, & entrepreneurial should all start working together to prevent the rent seekers from destroying all the nice things, as they are doing to the internet. Please stop handing over your legacy to thugs!

The above partly contributed to my becoming perpetually skeptical of every single article of news I read. I still need to work on being more skeptical of "news" that fits my worldview, as I'm sure many of us do, but it very much feels like there is a mental cost involved in not letting your brain absorb new information without critically questioning the new information. Especially if you take the time to dig deeper. Who has that kind of time--especially if you have a full-time job and a family? So most of the time I read something, I end up putting it in one of the mental categories of  "possibly true, but don't bet on it" or "possibly true, but probably missing valuable details/context." Or the increasingly popular category, "clickbaity headline, probably untrue." These are all subcategories belonging to the larger, "garbage news" category.

This has led me to increasingly avoid reading major news outlets. And since I don't really have much time to verify the credibility of new sources, I am ultimately getting less and less news.

Take this apparently horrific example, found on reddit's front page: Black man awaiting kidney transplant beaten by hospital security.

It's clickbaity even without the racial descriptor. So I am intrigued, appropriately horrified, and also skeptical because clickbait and race. I did only a little digging, and several of the other outlets are saying the same thing, most relying on this St. Louis Post-Dispatch article or this one from Newsweek.

The incident happened last year, but is in the news now because of newly released video. The video shows the kidney patient being tackled and not much else. It does not reflect well upon the hospital/security staff, however. But still, the whole context we are getting is from the kidney patient's family and a short video. This is partly because the hospital is reportedly not saying anything about it right now. 

Suspiciously, there is more video, but it is not released. Said video includes an interrogation where security allegedly says and does horrible things, but not released. Shit like this makes me trust the news like I trust Joe Biden to keep inflation low.

If everything being reported and claimed in the lawsuit is 100% factual, and there is no important missing context, then yes, obviously the hospital should pay and the security staff involved be replaced and their replacements better trained.

But the world I have become more aware of in recent years rarely provides 100% factual information, and rarely provides all the important context. If you can't clear these hurdles convincingly, you are in the "garbage news" category. 

The kidney patient story is but a drop in the ocean. It might even be mostly true, but I can't turn off the Always Skeptical switch in my brain. Even if I wanted to, I don't think it's a great idea. But it is taxing, and I find myself reading more and knowing less. I think I need to change some habits. Maybe something along the lines of less internet, more books. Devote some time to discovering a few new credible, nonpartisan, and respected-but-not-part-of-the-establishment journalists. 

Still alive

My last post may have been a bit too negative. But I meant it.

Anyways, just wanted to say I am still here, but very busy. Monkeypox has not visited me yet.

A perfect storm

I try to avoid doomsday thinking. I mean just look at all the dire predictions from every crackpot since well, ever. They're wrong 99.9% of the time. 

But then you see dark clouds on the horizon. You think, well, probably just another little storm and we'll be back to sunny skies tomorrow. 

But then your neighbors start falling ill. Just a bug going around, we'll be fine in a week or two. 

Then your company announces a round or two of lay-offs. I'll just work extra hard and become irreplaceable. If not, there's always funemployment.

Then your washer and dryer decide to break, and it will cost an arm and a leg to fix, or an arm and a leg plus a disturbing but tempting amount to replace them. I can afford this minor emergency as a one off. We'll be frugal for a while, no biggie.

And then everything you're being frugal with, becomes more and more expensive. I'll just stop buying beef, and buy chicken or pork. Actually, I'll just buy chicken and only for special occasions. 

And then you have another emergency. The stress from all of the above likely contributed to it, and now you have a lot more stress. By the way, we're going to war with Russia, a bunch of small kids were shot and killed in a Texas school, your investments are plummeting, your savings are dried up, and if you are still employed, you freaking hate every minute of it. Plus your family is starting to blame you for being so bad at providing for them, at least that's how you feel. Nobody's happy. You and your family's outlook is... uncertain. 

Oh and by the way, that storm will be here any minute.

I'm tired, I'm scared, I'm stressed and I don't know how much longer I can keep this up. 

Speculation on Russia

I had a random thought that in hindsight, seems rather obvious and somehow lazy. But I think I'll make a note of it here in the chance there is something to it.

I think Russia (or Russian intelligence), has something very sensitive on the American ruling political class, including some significant Democrats. And quite possibly many other Western leaders. Something big, and something worth holding on to. 

That theory would explain a lot, including the sudden and alarming rise in Western jingoism propagated by our media in lockstep with our uncharacteristically united political factions.

Even if it were true, and even if the Russians cashed in such a claim, I'd imagine it would take many years, possibly decades to confirm, especially in the face of the immense and inevitable push back from pretty much every Western media outlet.

A pattern of escalation

If you've been paying attention, it's patently obvious foreign involvement in the Ukraine-Russia (Russia-Ukraine?) war is on the rise. Rhetoric, sympathy, financial and humanitarian aid is all well and laudable. But then there were the sanctions against Russia, then small arms and intelligence for Ukraine, then drones, then howitzers, then Western government boots on Ukrainian soil (for help "training" Ukrainian forces), then tanks. And as this is a war, it would be weird if there weren't other forms of aid we didn't know about. 

Maybe the West has Russia figured out. Maybe they know something Russia doesn't. But I do know this, nothing goes according to plan, especially in war; and leaders have a tendency to be dumber than they appear. The West is gambling in a dangerous game. I obviously don't have the whole picture, but there is a line and given this sustained escalation, at some point it will be crossed. 

Freudian slip of the day

To be fair, it may not be a Freudian slip. It could just be Mika saying what she (and probably a good many of "they") consciously thinks, no pretense about it. 

MSNBC: Elon Musk is trying to control how people think. That’s our job. pic.twitter.com/8ZWyY7qbE5

— Market Rebellion (@MarketRebels) April 16, 2022

I give it a <2% chance she just misspoke.

Quote of the day

"Having a public platform that is maximally trusted and broadly inclusive is extremely important to the future of civilization."

-Elon Musk

Free speech is violence

And war is peace.

I'll just leave this here:

Elon Musk is Making My Job at Twitter Unsafe!!! pic.twitter.com/YZQqgRc2K7

— Danny Polishchuk (@Dannyjokes) April 14, 2022

I guess we're doing this

With the retards in charge, I don't see how it's avoidable. If Russia doesn't back down soon, doesn't kneel to the Western pressure in short order, it is going to get worse before it gets better, and better is likely a long ways off.

Russia was and is stupid for invading Ukraine. Whether or not you think it was justified, it was a costly miscalculation. That being said, there is plenty more room for stupid, and the United States fills that vacuum.

Michael Tracy has been one of the few journalistic presences offering some much needed skepticism in response to the Western/U.S./Biden admin/establishment messaging. He doesn't get it right all the time but the above tweet is a mostly accurate summary of the belligerent, faux bravado foolhardiness of our nearly octogenarian president (with increasingly credible and concerning problems).

I'll take a sexist with mean tweets any day over a halfwit loudmouth who taunts nuclear adversaries, to say nothing of the concomitant inflation, empty shelves, and an even worse outlook.

I don't know if I was being paranoid enough a while back. Fill your larders and prepare for hard times. If I'm wrong, great--just be sure to eat the food before it expires. If I'm right and the idiots do lead us into dystopia, we're screwed but at least you will be a little more ready for it.

Recommended shows

I have a lot more personal stress than usual lately, combined with the daily terrible global news (suddenly I care much more about how crappy the world is), makes for a depressing outlook and a general feeling of misery. 

So I'm going to talk about things I like today.

Recently I've seen some very good shows, so here are a few I recommend:

Upload: This is a light-hearted, techy, sort-of sci-fi dramedy (mostly comedy) and it's just been fun. It takes place in the near future (maybe 20-50 years), and I will say some of the predicted tech/gadgets are so dystopian, pessimistic and reflective of some of the worst innovations of today that they feel like certainties. 

Worth a watch if only for those, but the show has a ton of fun with the concept of uploading your consciousness into a digital "heaven" upon death that even when the story is lacking, everything else makes up for it. But don't worry, the story is mostly fine and so is the acting. Available on the evil Amazon Prime.  

The Expanse: Probably the best sci-fi show in the last 10 years. Possibly the best sci-fi show ever. 

Season one took me a while to get used to. I remember watching it years ago, and gave up after 3 or 4 episodes. But I re-watched them and started to like it. Once you get it, and get comfortable with it, everything clicks and the show is freaking amazing. I think maybe season 5 is the best, but 6 is pretty damn good too. But if you haven't watched it, and if you like serious sci-fi, and if you can take in 4-5 episodes of season 1, you will be immensely rewarded. Honestly, season 1 isn't even that bad, I don't know what my problem was. I think it was just getting used to the belter accents. 

Anyway, I don't want to spoil anything nor spend all day writing about it, so I will say this: the effects are as good or better than big-budget films, with realistic space physics, while using mostly realistic scale (space is huge), which is refreshing not to have your intelligence insulted for the sake of storytelling. The drama, politics, conflicts, and the people are compelling. A few questions remain unanswered at the end of the show, but most were answered and I cannot remember seeing such a great show with a worthy ending. Extremely recommended. Also available on Prime.

Reacher: I watched this recently and just felt compelled to binge watch it. It's like a book you can't put down. Almost non-stop action, not big-dumb-Michael-Bay action, but the kind that you can follow, makes sense, leads from one point to another, and provides the occasional twist. 

The show is a little surprising. Jack Reacher, the hero, turns out to be more than the one dimensional stereotypical action figure. I'll just say things aren't so black and white and it's very well done. Great acting, great action, great characters, good story, and it all works incredibly well together. Highly recommended. Also on Prime.

The Witcher: This show is almost great. But there are some questionable set designs and actors that prevent me from completely gushing over it. But I will gush a little because many things about it are well-done. 

Henry Cavill is perfect as Geralt and crushes the performance as well as Geralt slays monsters. Most of the CGI stuff is really good, I really can't complain. A lot of it feels like a lived-in fantasy world with real characters, but then other moments feel like they cheaped out and the sets are sterile, some of the dialogue is lazy (old-world style fantasy characters using colloquialisms straight out of 2022 America is sloppy), and the acting feels forced at times (typically from the secondary characters). Overall though, it's nice to have a mostly competent fantasy show. Available on Netflix.

Biological weapons or biological research?

After Wuhan, the distinction between research and weapons development, while important, is effectively moot. Operating on the (reliably & repeatedly proven) assumption that most state actors will break virtually any law/norm/good sense to further secure themselves, I am just going to assume Russia's claim the U.S. was developing biological weapons in Ukraine is basically true. 

As Politifact might say, this unproven claim is 100% false!*

*technically possible--anthrax, small pox, super death virus, and maxplaguespreader2000, etc. could theoretically be used as biological weapons in the wrong hands.

Or the "research" can be leaked from a lab by a moron or spy, all while governments point fingers, raise taxes, and invade other countries.

I believe Russia as far as I can throw it, but I wouldn't put it past our government. There is no effective difference between biological research (for very, very dangerous and communicable diseases) and biological weapons development except on paper, they know this, they rely on it, and they exploit it. How do I know? Because if I were a jealous superpower, I would do the same damn thing. It doesn't excuse it. If not Ukraine, then somewhere else, but probably too many somewhere elses including Ukraine.

I'm pessimistic any country will own up to their wrongs or take a hard turn towards benevolence any time soon.

I'm realistic that questionable, potentially dangerous, and probably dubious "research" is taking place all over the world.

But I'm optimistic we will (if slowly) change things for the better. 

[Postscript: I get that we need research on deadly viruses, if we want to have a chance to understand and protect ourselves against them. I don't think that means we need 1000s of labs across the world operating with alarmingly low levels of transparency and security.]

Without comment

via @DespicableMemes on Minds.com

Dystopia insurance

First, to better frame and illustrate what may or may not sound like paranoid conspiracy theories, the slightest hints of which I am strongly repelled against--which is something I realize I might need to correct for, I'll quote this from Scott Alexander at ACX:

In the Soviet Union, the government would say “We had a good harvest this year!” and everyone would notice they had said good rather than glorious, and correctly interpret the statement to mean that everyone would starve and the living would envy the dead.

Really savvy people go through life rarely ever hearing the government or establishment lie to them. Yes, sometimes false words come out of their mouths. But as Dan Quayle put it:

"Our party has been accused of fooling the public by calling tax increases 'revenue enhancement'. Not so. No one was fooled."

Imagine a government that for five years in a row, predicts good harvests. Or, each year, they deny tax increases, but do admit there will be “revenue enhancements”. Savvy people effortlessly understand what they mean, and prepare for bad harvests and high taxes. Clueless people prepare for good harvests and low taxes, lose everything when harvests are bad and taxes are high, and end up distrusting the government.

Then in the sixth year, the government says there will be a glorious harvest, and neither tax increases nor revenue enhancements. Savvy people breath a sigh of relief and prepare for a good year. Clueless people assume they’re lying a sixth time. But to savvy people, the clueless people seem paranoid. The government has said everything is okay! Why are they still panicking?

I don't think I am particularly skilled interpreting government statements when they aren't something close to the literal truth. But I do remember the government has lied repeatedly, and even when it appeared to be attempting honesty, it still managed to screw that up, repeatedly. Despite all that, I have this gut feeling that tomorrow will generally be the same as today. And 99% of the time, my gut is right. But that 1% can kill you (or 0.01%. But it isn't exactly scientific--some unlikely possibilities are much more likely than other unlikely possibilities. Like a fire burning down your house compared to an asteroid wiping out humanity). 

You can never be prepared for everything, but on the spectrum of preparedness, you can be less prepared or you can be more prepared. I want to be more prepared because I can't figure out if the harvests are going to be good or bad, the taxes low or high. Or if the liberal Western governments are going to respect our rights, our finances, our privacy, our lives for the foreseeable future. "But Mr. blogger, that's crazy talk," you say? Maybe you're right, but my gut is less certain today than yesterday, and that 1% can still kill me.

Just recently, pretty much everyone had their financial tools restricted, at what amounts to a press of a button. I'm not saying it's right or it's wrong, just that it happened:

JUST IN - VISA suspends all operations in #Russia: All cards issued in Russia will no longer work outside the country and any cards issued outside of Russia will no longer work within the Russian Federation.

— Disclose.tv (@disclosetv) March 5, 2022

And if you remember this from the "liberal Western democracy" that is Canada:

As of Sunday [Feb 22], the national police force said in a statement, 219 “financial products” had been frozen, 253 Bitcoin addresses related to protesters and organizers had been given to virtual currency exchange operators, and a bank had frozen 3.8 million Canadian dollars (about $3 million) held by a payment processor.

Lich, who is from Alberta, was the driving force behind a GoFundMe campaign that raised more than 10 million Canadian dollars (about $7.9 million) for the protest. About 1 million dollars (about $784,000) was turned over to her before the crowdfunding site shut down the campaign. Authorities charged Lich on Thursday with counseling to commit mischief, a serious offense under Canadian criminal law.

All of the accounts that have been frozen will remain so for up to 30 days from Feb. 14, the date of the national emergency declaration. But the government could extend or shorten that period.

I really hope there is a very clear, unmistakable line between blocking traffic and protesting the government, because if there isn't, that was a serious totalitarian display from our northern neighbors.

It's only a matter of time before you or someone you love is part of the out-group. And there's an increasing chance their financial tools/assets will be rendered inoperable.

Long time cryptocurrency critic and somewhat famous programmer David Heinemeier Hansson sees the writing on the wall:

Even just a few months ago, I would not have found it credible if you said a three-week peaceful protest in Canada could have lead to martial law, frozen bank accounts, and terrorist-financing laws being used to hunt protest donors. Unbelievable then, undeniable now.

I don't think we have any idea what kind of radicalizing seeds have been planted by Trudeau with these actions. This is one of those world events that you can imagine a documentary of the future opening with: "It all started when...".

But wherever this leads us next, it's clear to me now that I was too hasty to completely dismiss crypto on the basis of all the things wrong with it at the moment.

Hansson then links to a great twitter thread about the freedom to transact. I've embedded the first tweet of it below.

This article by Howard Anglin (former Canadian PM deputy chief of staff) links to that thread and worries about that 1% chance as well:

You can’t purchase many services with cash anymore. When my local coffee shop’s wireless service went down the other day and they couldn’t process digital payments, I offered to pay with cash. They didn’t know what to do. Like many businesses, they simply aren’t set up to handle physical money. And that’s assuming you have large cash reserves to begin with, as you can’t withdraw money from a frozen bank account. ...

The fact that weaponizing the financial system against nonviolent protestors and their distant supporters was the government’s tool of first resort should worry anyone who understands the role of civil disobedience in democracy.

So here is the first tweet of 6529's Freedom to Transact thread (there are 56 tweets in total):

1/ There are no other constitutional rights in substance without freedom to transact

Being meaning to write this for 6 months, but the Canadian response to the trucker protests is illustrating this so vividly, that today is the day.

— 6529 (@punk6529) February 17, 2022

Maybe I am being paranoid, maybe the world merely overreacted a bit, maybe I don't have the whole picture (so why not tell us, or at least give us a bigger picture? Is transparency bad now? More reason I have grown skeptical of both the media and government). 

Given recent events, I feel the need to painstakingly prepare for the 1% chance me or someone I love is going to need dystopian insurance. Something like cryptocurrency (and hardware wallets), something like Protonmail, something like encrypted devices on VPNs. Where does it end, at what point does preparing for dystopia become irrational, or worse, harmful? I don't know, but it's hopefully one of those you-know-it-when-you-see-it deals. I guess I will stop when the feeling of being unprepared is roughly balanced by the feeling of being a paranoid conspiracy theorist.

No adults

I don't think I will be warblogging. Part of me wants to quit my job and report, opine, and highlight various things in the world today, especially big things like Russia invading Ukraine. 

But as we've seen, there is a lot of propaganda/fake news coming out daily, specifically designed to manipulate you. That is nothing new, and perhaps one of the few good things about this is how fast and clearly the propaganda is being debunked and shown for what it is. That is new. It should really give one pause when thinking about how things are really going over there.

I am rooting for Ukraine, and all nations should have an unimpeded right of self-determination and generally not be invaded. But I also understand how Russia would be freaking out about having a potential NATO member on their doorstep. It's like the adults in the world are AWOL. Things should have never gotten this far.

But they have and way too many people think it's fine to escalate and do whatever it takes to shut down Russia. Where are the adults? Seriously, where the hell are the adults? I hope it doesn't turn into that. You don't fight an injured and nuclear-armed bear into a corner and expect it to behave.

Edited to add: I understand Russia has an aggressive and oppressive history, particularly with regard to Eastern Europe. Russia is definitely not a benevolent actor in geopolitics and deserves to be humbled. But that doesn't mean we need another world war right now.

Update: We must protect the fragile Biden admin at all costs:

Seriously -- is fact-checking dead? pic.twitter.com/l4YTf86850

— David Martosko 🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦 (@dmartosko) March 1, 2022

We are in a housing bubble

But it's not as bubbly as the last one, which is to say there are significant supply and demand issues that make this bubble appear as good 'ol market forces doing what they do. 

Disclaimer: I'm a complete amateur when it comes to the housing market, but I know what I've seen and experienced the past several years, compared that to other reports and observations, and well, I'm confident I'm not horribly wrong.

Unless my financial situation dramatically improves soon, or housing prices approach affordable levels soon, I have given up on buying a house. With respect to wealth creation, I'll focus on investing, saving, and entrepreneurship. Maybe I should buy a house I can barely afford, sell it a couple years later and profit. But that's a bigger gamble than what I do with my other investments, plus hassle & ownership headaches, plus nothing ever goes according to plan. So right now, screw buying and living in a house, I'm not playing that game.

But there is a huge demand for housing:


I think it's a combination of many things: cheap money the last several years, the high and climbing prices stirs up the hornet's nest of speculators and flippers further driving prices, high wood prices and supply chain issues, an explosion of remote workers, inflation, etc.

When supply can't meet demand, prices go up (as they should, and that is not a bubble) and the market balances things out. But it's not balancing out.

The below is for an average-sized single family home (3 bed, 2 bath) in a suburban area in northern Utah (where we had water shortages last summer because there are too many people!):

It's listed for nearly $500k.

This is what you need to make to reasonably afford the average single-family house here (click image to enlarge):

 $110,000 with 10% down, and that is with little existing debt. Welcome to the real estate game; you cannot play! Something that cannot go on forever, will not.

Life of the Introvert (part 2)

Back when I wrote part 1, if we all would have bought and held a few hundred Bitcoin, we'd be millionaires right now (I wanted to but did not, to my eternal shame). 

Non sequitur aside, I bumped into this article to which I felt I could relate very much. I am not as extreme as the nocturnals, but I am comfortable with being alone, even if it were for months. All other things being equal, if I had access to the internet, I could live alone without issue indefinitely. But I have a family and prefer being around them, yet I still crave some alone time now and then.

When it comes to acquaintances or strangers--the larger the crowd the more stressed and exhausted I get. The population explosion and resultant crowds here in northern Utah is painful. Like physically and mentally stressful, exhausting, and vaguely depressing. I really need to get out.

Anyway, here are some excerpts I found among the most noteworthy: 

...while most people are fast asleep, there’s a whole world of people who are wide awake. They go to work, drive around, run errands at 24-hour stores. In this parallel universe, there are rarely crowds, nor traffic, nor lines; no awkward shuffling around other shoppers in the grocery aisle, no run-ins with neighbors or cacophony of email notifications. As the sun rises, these nocturnal people settle down to sleep.

They don’t all want to live this way. Some of them have to; they have sleep disorders, or night-shift jobs. But some of them want this very much—enough to seek out those night shifts, to train themselves to wake in the dark. They do this because of the isolation, not in spite of it. I talked to people who painted me a magical picture of their nighttime world: of exquisite, profound solitude; of relief; of escape.

I used to work swing shifts in my youth. And there was something very, very nice about getting off work and nobody is out. It's dark, quiet, little-to-no traffic, you can go grocery shopping in peace where the likelihood of idiots who think it's a good idea to stop in the middle of the aisle oblivious to the concept of other people, or elderly women paying with 1 part check, 1 part expired gift card, 1 part exact change is near zero. I miss grocery shopping at 2am in a nice clean & quiet store.

Much of the article is about how these people find relief from being nocturnal and avoiding people, how it may or may not be a disorder according to psychologists. 

But perhaps most interestingly was this part:

Pathologizing introversion sounds absurd—until you start considering the extreme end of the spectrum. Colin DeYoung, a psychologist at the University of Minnesota, didn’t comment on the DSM debate—but he did explain that the clinical version of introversion is known as “detachment,” characterized partly by low sensitivity to reward. That means disconnection from social relationships, but also from “energetic or upbeat positive emotions like joy or excitement,” he told me. Clark said something similar. “There is a connection between social interaction and pleasure,” she said. “So people who live their life alone without others, they may not be unhappy. But they also may not experience the full spectrum of pleasure.” And they might not even realize it.

Emphasis mine. "Low sensitivity to reward." I get this, I have it, and I have mixed feelings about it. I do not get a rush, high, thrill, nor elation when something significant and "good" happens to me. Other than stuff like sex, food, drugs (legally prescribed!)--yeah, those affect me like everyone else. But if I won the lottery, a competition, got married, had a kid--I don't feel much of a change in my mood. I am happy, but it feels very similar to other normal days where I'm not unhappy. You might think I'm a monstrous unfeeling psychopath, but I just feel things more slowly. The moment doesn't hit me like a truck, it slowly seeps its way in and I adjust. The big elation for me comes later--after I am very familiar and comfortable with someone or something: then those little and big moments of good things trigger my dopamine receptors constantly. I have to be intimately tied to whatever good thing happens to get immediate elation.*

It's strange, I never thought that characteristic was related to my introversion.

Like a lot of things, introversion is a multidimensional spectrum. I like being alone, but I also like having very few close friends and family around. Knowing just how much other people bother me, I can only imagine how hard it is for those on the more extreme end. Forcing people to conform and intermingle with large groups, like we do however, is insensitive at best, and literally torture at worst.

*I should mention that bad things affect me pretty much immediately. I may have low sensitivity to reward, but I am very much sensitive to loss and failure.

What are you afraid of?

Fair elections are the foundation of U.S. democracy. Foreign influence in our elections won’t be tolerated, and the #FBI will continue to work with local government and private sector partners to disrupt and expose any attempts to erode confidence in the U.S. electoral system.

— FBI (@FBI) February 21, 2022

What are you afraid of?

.@JustinTrudeau's deputy tells Canadians the only way to get their bank accounts "unfrozen" is to stop protesting the government. pic.twitter.com/n3ieSOLG5c

— Young Americans for Liberty (@YALiberty) February 21, 2022

What are you afraid of?

Ottawa police vow to pursue and punish protesters in Canada with criminal and financial penalties even if they go home. So much for the right of peaceful protest. This is wrong.#TrudeauTyranny
pic.twitter.com/5ud9Xw0qqL

— Zeitgeist Global (@ZeitgeistGB) February 20, 2022

What are you afraid of?

National Guard to be deployed to DC ahead of trucker protest
What are you afraid of?

Blockades over, but Trudeau says emergency powers needed
What are you afraid of?

Republicans Enjoy Huge Lead Over Democrats in Midterms: Poll

Miscellaneous updates

I will no longer refer to partisans and activists of the left in North America as liberals (I stopped using that ill-fitting label years ago) and progressives ("progress" lol). They are neither. They are more of the same predictable, anti-individual freedom, authoritarian left that started when Lenin took power. As the labels "socialist" and "Marxist" change definitions depending on who you ask and don't really capture all the non-economic leftist characteristics currently in abundance, I will unfortunately resort to using the broad, but fitting term, leftist.

Last summer I remember Australia going full tyranny with the Covid mandates. Canada is now  making Australia look like the little leagues. Before the trucker protest, I could not imagine a well-established liberal Western democracy enact emergency powers, threaten, arrest, and seize bank accounts of people for having "unacceptable views." And those views are totally understandable and quite reasonable for people who actually have to live with the rules the elites created, and have been for 2 years. Now that it is illegal, I feel the urge to donate.

They are building the border wall. They, as in the Dominican Republic. I only mention this because I am interested to see the both the reaction and the results. Do physical barriers impede physical movement? The experts the TV told me to trust disagree with each other! But we'll find out soon enough! 

Inflation is hitting me pretty hard, and I just got a big raise. I was trying to save up for a car, but those prices went way up and I think I'll try to wait it out. I have been wanting to buy a house for over a decade, but since I don't want to buy a piece of trash fixer-upper in a bad neighborhood, everything in the area was prohibitively expensive. Now that I have nearly tripled my income, new houses (including many 35 year-old houses) are still prohibitively expensive. I live in Utah, not California. And now the weekly grocery bill is getting out of hand. I very rarely eat out, I save as much as I can, and I thought I was being more or less frugal. But I'm going to have to find new ways of frugality while maintaining my sanity. I have the strong but vague sense the country is going to shit, while acknowledging the fact that every aging man has said that at one point; I know I may be wrong--but I really want to and want to know how to hedge against the shit-country scenario (cryptocurrency is still experiencing growing pains, faces significant government pushback, and is not yet up to the task, sadly). 

Am I being part of the problem? Not sure, but my small real-estate investments are one of the few paying good dividends. If you can't beat them, join them? A guy has to look out for his own; I can't fix the world by myself. Less so if I am poor. What am I gonna do?

It's been shown to be the case before and it will again: with high confidence, I predict leaks in the coming years showing big tech has cooperated with government to silence, censor, deplatform, and/or freeze financial tools/assets of those with "unacceptable views." That this kind of cooperation was without the backing of law.

Been busy

Life has been busy. I've been wanting to blog about many things, but just haven't found the time. I hope to change that this year. I plan on taking and making more me time, which means more family time, and a little more blogging time, hopefully.

Until then and as always, let's hope we don't stumble into another war.

Warp drive update

As a stated objective of this blog, I must dutifully report on any notable updates in the United States' development of warp drive.

While I think there is a not insignificant chance Harold "Sonny" White is playing a long con on whoever is listening to and funding him, there's still a chance he at least believes what he's saying:

Warp drive pioneer and former NASA warp drive specialist Dr. Harold G “Sonny” White has reported the discovery of an actual, real-world “Warp Bubble.” And, according to White, this first of its kind breakthrough by his Limitless Space Institute (LSI) team sets a new starting point for those trying to manufacture a full-sized, warp-capable spacecraft.

In an interview, White added that “our detailed numerical analysis of our custom Casimir cavities helped us identify a real and manufacturable nano/microstructure that is predicted to generate a negative vacuum energy density such that it would manifest a real nanoscale warp bubble, not an analog, but the real thing.” In other words, a warp bubble structure will manifest under these specific conditions. White cautioned that this does not mean we are near building a fully functioning warp drive, as much more science needs to be done (Updated 08/12/21).

“To be clear, our finding is not a warp bubble analog, it is a real, albeit humble and tiny, warp bubble,” White told The Debrief, “hence the significance.”

Maybe we can send Covid-19 to Proxima Centauri soon.

[Note: I'm experimenting with text size. I don't know if it's my eyes or something on the blog changed, but the text seems to be too small. Now the above text is a little too big!]

Dan Crenshaw is no conservative

I said it. I stand by it. He may not be progressive/liberal/left in many things, but he is not a conservative. At least not in the American sense. 

I'm not a conservative either, I'm much, much worse. I'm a borderline anarchist. I'm a right-leaning libertarian who gives leftists nightmares, and the only thing we libertarians hate more than statists and commies are fake libertarians. 

Democrats and Republicans can both be libertarians and we love them, but what does it mean to be a fake libertarian? Well for starters, it means paying lip service to freedom while actively trying to undermine it. Like making it easier to take away firearms from citizens without due process.

Mr. Crenshaw has been trying to obfuscate and do damage control ever since he supported "red flag" laws like TAPS (which died in committee), and a version of it in the NDAA bill (page 293) which passed [Correction: the NDAA bill was passed by the House after that section was removed. My mistake. Still needs to pass the Senate, however]. More here, and here. Think of the red flag law in the NDAA as a closed beta test (active military), after which the general public will get the full release. [The red flag laws in blue states will serve as beta tests just fine, if they can avoid an honest court]

Naturally, this rubs me and many others the wrong way. Even if I didn't care about guns, I do care about the right to keep and carry them. And even if I didn't care about that, I do care about people having rights being taken away without full due process of law. Due process is precariously hanging on as it is in this country, why must we create paths around it?

We don't need to scrap due process, nor the 2nd amendment to meaningfully and effectively put an end to gun crimes. Failure to protect lives and liberty at the same time is a failure of imagination. Much like Crenshaw's gaslighting.