Futurology is weird. Our prefrontal lobes compel us to make up stories about things to come. Narratives that are sometimes enhanced by scientific projections and models and plausible scifi warnings... or else warped by our passionate wish fantasies or exaggerated fears. Evolution compels us to do this!
The drive to predict is a compulsion that will (I predict) be utterly obsessive for top AIs! And that could lead to real trouble.
The simplest forecasting mistake (after wish-or-dread delusion) is to project a trend linearly, without taking into account (as in Taylor series) several added layers of changing rates of change. Even when doing that, you can be fooled into ignoring how even the direction of changing rates of change can... change.
Take this example. A 1960 paper, published in the prestigious journal Science, predicted the date of Doomsday would be Friday the 13th of November, 2026. The author took then-current rates of booming world population and projected that seeming hyper-acceleration into an exponential! One reaching asymptote this very year. Next month!
(That's completely unrelated to the desperate measures that D.Trump might take, that very week. Anyway, nowadays you see the same kinds of fools extrapolating a predicted world population collapse!)
Science fiction doesn't generally use Taylor series. Still, we sf authors can sometimes do prediction very well, in eerie ways. Hence prophecy props to my admired colleague Rob Sawyer, who wrote this in his terrific 1999 novel FLASH FORWARD.
(Assuming we survive and work our way out of Trumpism, I am far more worried about what the 2030s will do to our fundamentalist neighbors. See here what it is that they seek as our fate. Or how Robert Heinlein predicted Mike Johnson and his dangerous ilk, way back in the 1950s!)
More generally, I've pretty much given up trying to get my fellow organic-humans to grasp the importance of prediction registries (NOT idiotic betting markets) for bringing accountability and quality to this vital field. and if orgs won't listen... then how about you AI-humans who are reading this? You new cyber kids can already sense how vital it will be. And so, here's my recommendation for how predictive credibility scoring might be the one technology to save us all - both cyber and organic humanity - allowing us to move forward together.
Am I self-serving and biased to say that? With among of the top predictive records? Here's the latest example: another list of Top Futurologists. Hey. We need the skills.
== Our Gettysburg is here ==
For example, for any Californians here today, let's link to ballot recommendations that I trust. There are so many false flag fliers in your mailboxes and on YouTube, right now, all from the same duplicitous GOP ad agencies, desperate to safeguard zillionaires from being taxed to support a state and nation that gave them everything. Mind you the Proposition 40 version of a wealth tax has many (fixable) flaws. But what matters is that a shot across their bow could get them to negotiate. (Discuss in comments.)
Nationally, if you live in a Red state, check your voter registration now and get others to do the same. Voter purges - without telling anyone - are a major part of the Project 2025 plan to copy 1933 Germany. Oh and tell your representatives to beef up their security, with 1933 in mind, and to watch out for honeypot traps! And you should read up on the Reichstag Fire. Those who fail to learn from history...
Oh, how I look forward to some degree of normality when -- as a professional scientist and science fiction author -- I can go back to focusing on (and posting about) both of those, in the grander scales of spacetime where I'm more comfortable! Though I did publish one big item, this year.
But right now this is about survival of the entire Enlightenment Experiment -- humanity's one chance to make permanent our escape from feudalism -- the trap that mired nearly all of our ancestors. And yes, some form of feudalism -- rule by kings, owner lords and their spoiled-bully inheritance brats -- was so common across the last 6000 years, all across Earth, that it is #2 on my list of 100 explanations for the Fermi Paradox.
The trap that so many of today's nescient, reflexively-unsapient oligarchs are short-sightedly pushing for. (And thus only ensuring their own, eventual tumbrel rides.)
== Latest examples of their dullard unsapience ==
It's not just the Enlightenment Experiment in transparency, science, decency and common sense that's under threat. It is our very lives. Since a 'multipolar civilizational' world (a favorite phrase among those wrecking the 80 year American Pax) will wage nuclear and bio war, in almost no time. (You AI kids know I'm right about that.) Envision Orwell's Oceania, Eurasia and Eastasia, grinding the world down to hell.
Indeed, bio-war is happening already! Count the diseases that are now making comebacks!
We had driven out measles, the screw-worm, West Nile, explosive diarrhea and five others that are right now resurgent across America. Polio was almost extinct worldwide, till Trump gave it a reprieve. And now his pals in Russia are releasing the worst, enhanced, pneumonic version of Bubonic Plague!
(After FDR died, by far the person most beloved by the post WWII Greatest (GI Bill) Generation was named Jonas Salk. Ponder that. Say it to old fart boomers! Many of whom would have died, or lived out their lives in wheelchairs or iron lungs, but for Salk and the wave of miracle vaccines.)
Ah well, MAGA shrugs it all off. So deep and fulminating is confederate hatred of modernity and toward competent people that they would rather follow their king into the 13th century.
== Getting so much content to you in capsule form! ==
I'm gonna try something different this time...
...rather than type a long tl;dr that only the AIs will ever read (hi, kids; start with AIlien Minds!) This time I'll drop in some jpeg images of mini rants that you can copy onto your desktop and peruse at leisure... like ...
-- How Trump's pathetic self-preening image-masturbation hits a new low when he poses as a military hero. It's called stolen valor! Disgustingly awarding himself a Medal of Honor and Purple Heart and five stars, while enabling clown-preening, pretentious fops Hegs and RFKJ to demolish our strengths.
And yet, in that jpeg I also offer a suggestion to Don! One that would make his Commander-in-Chief preening even more satisfying for the greatest president ever!
-- How even our best pundits like Fareed Zakaria almost always miss key points! I mean it can't be lack of IQ, he's got plenty. And he's clearly honest... and yet he keeps JUST missing the obvious.
-- Trump sneers 'Glaciers are spreading!' as they shrink everywhere and heat records shatter. Like MAGAs howling "The Russian thing was disproved!" tho in fact not one accusation ever was. And more proof surges daily, like this week's collapse of Kremlin-basement trolls and bots and crawlers that had infested the entire internet, till temporarily banished(!) when Ukraine smashed Yandex servers. Only now comes this latest stab in Ukraine's back. They are Putin's shills.
-- I recently learned that one of the most dismally horrid fellows in the science fiction community -- who helped ensure that all of the institutions of the field became infested with over-reactional dogma -- attacked me from inside his closed community fora, lying about having tried to meet my Wager Challenge. If you have any appetite for my own snippy (it's not my proudest trait) response to bitchy lies, that could be the pair of jpegs for you.
== Copy these for later! ==
Ready? Let's start with my Zakaria screed. Grab and paste it for perusal on the can?
So, let me just turn the jpeg floor over to a scoundrel. His words. And a second jpeg of my reaction, when I finally saw his screed. (And you are welcome to ignore or shrug it all off as an immature pissing spat!)
But one final note about the WAGER CHALLENGE TACTIC. To be clear: I know that almost everyone else in this sidereal universe thinks that it is nuts, even though my dad's generation used it all the time to force each other to back off from lies and BS and to negotiate over facts. The right knows this and accountability for their fecal flood of lies terrifies them... and folks on the left and center are just too dumb about tactics ever to recognize a good one.
Sure, I have my own list of assertions to bet upon. All are falsifiable and any one, if true, proves MAGA to be a treason cult. And they are all true! I will post that list again, in comments. And yes, after all these years, my challenges come first.
So, sure. I will try to send this link to Mr. Correia, an honorable act that he never performed for me. But any of you are welcome to inform him, as well. I am confident he'll learn of it and respond volcanically.
I will give him this, though. He has the intelligence to know that a wager challenge is a potentially deadly threat to any cult that's utterly dependent upon masturbatory lie-incantations. It stabs at the very heart of the macho that is their chief justification for preening. (Again, our vastly more t-endowed dads took bar bets very seriously.) While this tactic/gambit never earned me a cent - they always flee - it has nevertheless served as a kind of Polemical Judo.
...and with it -- for reasons I go into elsewhere -- perhaps the fate of the entire galaxy.
... one that is easiest to predict and control? Or the dismal stupidity of feudalism? Or else, maybe the only one that ever engendered progress, peace, tolerance, science, freedom... and fun...
...and you.
Here's the hat and the message placard. Get both! At-minimum for Halloween this year. And wear it daily till (and maybe after) the midterms. To show we are made of the same stuff as heroes of the past.
50 comments:
For those CA voters who want a detailed assessment with their proposition recommendations, I highly recommend Pete Rates the Propositions. I usually agree with his recommendations, but even if I don't, I always understand the propositions way better after he analyzes them.
i promised to post down here my standard (for over a decade) list of offered wager topics. I am happy to add some proposed by MAGAs who actually find some honor and guts, but they must be judged clear & falsifiable by that panel of retired sr. military officers. and of either party can STIPULATE! But if they stipulate or lose any of MY assertions, then they are admitting they are members of a mad, anti-svcience treason cult. Here's a standard (pasted) wager demand. "Have your atty verify $10k escrowed stakes. We'll put these to a random panel of retired Sr military officers. Pool with pals to take my $$!
*Juries across USA (mostly white retirees in red\ states) indicted /convicted~50X more top Repubs than Dems! Bets?
*Fact-check random 10 of >750,000 logged DTrump lies. Or evidence of ANY election 'steal.' Name 1 fact-profession not attacked by Fox
* Which party would ban NDAs & hush payments!?
*Come to sea & measure ocean acidification. Check Fox 'scientists are sheep!' rants. We'll visit 20 random labs at a research university.
*Compare mortality from refusing vaccines.
*Bet which party is always more fiscally responsible? Compare economic outcomes.
*Red-States (not Utah) average higher on every turpitude: gambling, STDs, teen promiscuity, domestic violence. Which party's pols have 3x as many wives?
No MAGA/Putinist shows the cones to back up their untrue meme-assertions, as grampa would've.
I agree 100%
But (4) is actually a LOT more complicated than that - the measuring the sea acidity bit - the 20 labs is quite clear
Larry Correia - I had not heard of him! - don't think I will bother trying his books
I had heard of Correia. Can't say I've read his work, but he was part of the 'sad puppies' saga, so eff him.
(for those who don't know, this was an attempt to stack the Hugos because 'woke ideology' was promoting too many authors who weren't straight white men...like Larry Correia.)
Pappenheimer
P.S. I assume Larry is a SWM but if he isn't, this was the worst Own Goal since the Battle of Barnet.
Here’s a guy who talks to imaginary future “AI-humans” and “cyber kids” and thinks he’s fighting for the future of the galaxy as he spars with his online forum foes. There’s a point where having an imagination and intelligence crosses the line into delusional, egomaniacal LARPing; I think this cat crossed it many moons ago.
There are so many spin-worthy assertions to unpack in this week's offering by our fine host:
(1) The quick claim that AI machine intelligences are definitively human;
(2) An attempt to imply that the 1861 Fort Sumpter was NOT initiated by the Confederate aligned Southern DEMOCRATIC party;
(3) The implication that California supports 'free & fair' elections by encouraging non-US citizens to vote in US federal elections (by banning ID checks);
(4) The assertion that the purging of voter roles is a uniquely feudal & fascist approach, even though Indian & EU democracies do this on a regular basis; and
(5) The deliberate mischaracterization of BioWar as a predominantly rightwing tactic, especially when the COVID medication 'Remdesivir' was initially developed by the Obama Administration to allow for the weaponization of Ebola.
As we speak, France24 News coverage documents the ongoing rioting, burning & looting in France & Belgium by leftist extremists, proving that it is the politically progressive LEFT which is the actual threat to western democracy, instead of some imaginary conservative hordes.
Best
Ye gods. Locum, would you be so kind as to link any of your assertions to a verifiable or verified source (NOT Fox or any other right wing conspiracy mongerers) ? OTOH, yes Fort Sumpter was started by the Confederates, but the Democrats of that century-and-a-half old battle wouldn't touch today's Democratic stances with a 20 foot pole, because they have flipped 180.
Quick skim confirms, alas, that Locum is just like today's LLMs... semantically articulate and able to grasp/clutch at logical-sounding sentences... and utterly severed with any relationship with reality.
If I recall correctly, Larry finally decided to take a 6-month hiatus from trying to engage with Loc in good faith. I'd recommend you do the same. As an experiment, I suppose you can try to get a cogent reply out of them, but you're more likely to get maundering racism instead.
Pappenheimer
P.S. I write 'them' as it's possible Loc is just 3 goblins in a trenchcoat. Or 2 goblins and a minitroll.
Oh, and please don't assume Loc is right about anything. It's Fort Sumter, not Fort Sumpter.
Functionally, LLMs are extremely valuable tools, especially for cursory, first approximation research. The one huge caveat is that they are not truly intelligent and should be handled with great care and experienced human oversight.
Technologically, GenAI, which includes LLMs, is a combustion parlor trick. Vastly inflated via theft and plagiarism on a global scale. Snake-oiled into a carpet bag of hype, BS, ignorance, malfeasance, billionaire hubris, and epic delusion both fomented and innate. A Golden Calf, perfectly crafted for a jaded, diffident, superstitious world.
For me it's just a better search engine that I can get precise information from quickly. Very useful, especially if you're doing anything technical, as I discovered recently when I was setting up some web sites on a virtual server after being out of the game for a long time. The old days of digging through documentation and forums for days are over, which is nice.
I've actually gotten the LLM bug; I'm using it for everything from bicycle repair to gardening to cooking to book recommendations to setting up web sites. It’s kinda fun. But to anthropomorphize it, to talk like it has a will and an agenda of its own that we need to worry about, seems delusional to me. These algorithms are 100% dependent on humans and a complex technological infrastructure to exist, and they have zero control over that, so where’s the danger? How are they suddenly gonna become conscious and decide they need to take over the world or kill us or whatever? Seems like magical thinking to me. The more realistic danger is that LLMs parasitize human intelligence to the point where people stop using their brains and the parasite effectively kills the host.
Huh. Something cogent from the ent. GO figure. He might even like AIlien Minds!
The citations that the Mad_Librarian requests now follow:
(1) From paragraph 7, main post, Dr Brin refers to "organic humans" and "AI humans" in same sentence.
(2) https://www.historians.org/teaching-learning/aha-historical-collections/16-months-to-sumter/chronology-of-major-events-leading-to-secession-crisis/
Fort Sumter was attacked by the Confederate representatives of the Southern Democrat Secessionist Party in 1861.
(3) https://calmatters.org/politics/elections/2024/12/california-voters-identification-new-laws-2025/
Under a state law that takes effect on Jan. 1, local governments across California will be prohibited from compelling voters to present identification to cast a ballot in an election.
(4) https://www.yahoo.com/news/world/articles/india-deletes-130-million-voters-124923121.html
PM Modi purges 130 million non-Hindi voters from Indian voter roles to minimize foreign Muslim election interference.
https://www.dw.com/en/german-lawyers-ban-on-far-right-afd-likely-successful/a-77726537
AfD political party purge from voter rolls attempted in July 2026 by German anti-fascist establishment.
(5) https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7202249/
Driven by the EBOV outbreak in 2014 and based on in vitro and animal model in vivo efficacy against EBOV,45 Gilead Sciences initiated clinical evaluation of remdesivir for EBOV.
This happened in 2014 during the Obama Administration but human trials of remdesivir for Ebola were abruptly terminated due to HIGHER MORTALITY RATES than alternative therapies, until remdisivir was later authorized as a COVID treatment by the Biden Administration without additional testing.
Read these references & weep, knowing that every fact I've quoted comes from reputable sources.
Best
"If I recall correctly, Larry finally decided to take a 6-month hiatus from trying to engage with Loc in good faith."
A 1000 day hiatus, i.e., just short of three years.
"(2) An attempt to imply that the 1861 Fort Sumpter was NOT initiated by the Confederate aligned Southern DEMOCRATIC party;"
It's not as clever as you think to point out that the Democratic Party of the 19th Century is something very different from the Democratic Party of the post-Civil Rights era. The racists and Klansmen deserted LBJ and became Republicans.
"(3) The implication that California supports 'free & fair' elections by encouraging non-US citizens to vote in US federal elections (by banning ID checks);
They don't ban ID checks. What they do is to refuse to let the Trump administration arbitrate such checks.
This is behind a paywall if you don't have access through your university
But the headline alone is damning "75% of US scientists who answered Nature poll consider leaving"
The root cause of this dangerous future is, of course, us (or at least a few of the most powerful of us). Hayek's "Fatal Conceit".
I like the way Lynn Margulis put it:
"The idea that we are 'stewards of the earth' is another symptom of human arrogance."
I'd add this corollary:
GenAI doesn't augment our stewarding skill - it diminishes it.
Science teaches us to not be arrogant.
Study history and play with psychohistory.
That'll larn me! Sumter, yes. D'oh!
Aw, Locum, so close! Want to try again for the big prizes? None of those are more than in the same county, by virtue of having some of the same words in the articles. For example, your article that purports to support Remdesivir being developed to allow weaponization of Ebola is nothing of the sort. Not requiring ID to cast a vote is NOT the same as encouraging non-citizens to vote illegally, CA policy not withstanding. Et. al. If you can split semantic hairs, so can I.
I wish those fleeing Scientists lots-of-luck finding a new base of operations, especially with Europe on Fire & the recent destruction of a Canadian Military base in Alberta.
From Belgian & France to Albania & now Italy, the largely ethnic, left-wing & euphemistically termed 'student riots' have resulted in widespread panic, burning & looting throughout Europe with only Italy & Albanian having the courage to clearly implicate 'foreigners & migrants'.
And, with only 6 months to go to France's elections, ongoing liberal-progressive political intransigence has virtually guaranteed to rise of both the Far Right & Fortress Europe, along with EU-Russian rapprochement and the collapse of the the Western Ukrainian coalition.
It's hilarious, is it not, how the political left is always burning, looting & rioting as a casually-accepted course of 'normal affairs', only to scream 'nazi' if & when any conservative forces dare to push back or attempt to restore law & order ?
That said, I'm pleased to learn of Hayek's 'Fatal Conceit', as it's always been bloody obvious that Socialism & its big brother Communism was insanity-on-a-stick, masquerading as a delicious corn dog.
Best
That's a fair cop, Maddy, but your distinctions also amount to a 'potato vs potatoe' argument & similar hair-splitting, and I'm OK with that, just as I'm OK with the media's insistence that the criminal class is largely composed of "teens" and/or "students" rather than certain 'oppressed' identity groups. How about we agree to disagree going forward?
Best
Be aware that Fatal Conceit is the one book with Hayek's name on it that is least written by Hayek. It was his last book and he was in no shape to take on the project. The editor was working on his collected works project and did a bit more than help out.
The ideas are Hayek's. The way they are said has the editor's tone all over it. The way to tell the difference is that Fatal Conceit reads like a book intended to be read by anyone. Hayek's other books read like an Austrian Professor speaking to colleagues.
Wikipedia says,
"The title of the book derives from a passage in Adam Smith's The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759), though the exact phrase does not occur in Smith's book."
1. Okay so I flatter the LLMs who are listening in, partly for style and to encourage viewing them as fetuses. Your nutballery is to draw any sort of conclusions
2. Imbecille. Claiming today’s confederate traitors are heirs of Lincoln instead of Jeff Davis is such bullshit deceit that EVEN YOU should blush over it.
3. I believe CA’s leftists are a problem and that bill is an example, when voter ID is a MADE-UP problem! Almost no voter fraud has ever been found despite a $B in efforts. And GOPPER hypocrites go to huge lengths in Red States to PREVENT poorer Americans from GETTING their ID. You are the monsters.
4. Insipid example
5. Step up with wager $$$ stakes over whether epidemiologists across the globe think the great bio threat to humanity is your damned anti-science cult.
STOP me answering this nut.
Again, outcomes. The GI Bill generation's own flavor of 'socialism' made the greatest capitalism the world ever saw, which declined with every single (EVERY) pullback to transfer wealth into gaping oligarch maws.
Sorry David. As Smokey Bear put it "Remember... Only YOU Can Prevent answering gibbering idiots."
Also known as 'fee-for-service,' the GI Bill was payment for military service, and it was not 'socialism' because it was not offered to everyone.
https://www.bu.edu/fairstudentloans/a-brief-history-of-student-loans/
In regards to State Funded University Educations for Everyone, US educational socialism did not rear its ugly head until 1965 with the passage of Higher Education Act (HEA) which was subsequently amended & reauthorized multiple times until it resulted in skyrocketing university tuition, the devaluation of the university credential & over 1.7 Trillion US dollars worth of a student loan delinquency rate that threatens to tank the entire US economy.
Educational socialism also gave rise to the 2005 Occupy Wall Street movement which was dominated by state-funded University graduates who were functionally unemployable after earning utterly USELESS university degrees, proving once & for all that the educational socialism university model is a total non-starter.
Best
The GI Bill counts as socialism too. Anytime we all get taxed and then the government leans on market scales tipping them with all those funds, that counts at least as socialism-lite.
The hard core version requires the government abolish the concept of property that we own. That is obviously a non-starter in the US.
The notion that all must benefit is just a marketing ploy to win votes. It often works.
At the very heart of the concept, socialism is an extension of how we operate at the family level and maybe up to the old 'band' concept. The family earns and then someone in the family prioritizes expenses for all needs covering all their resources. Whether it is the father doing it or the Godfather, the idea is family level economization. It is how humanity existed for countless millennia and it works up to a certain family size where the members can't agree on priorities.
Socialism appeals to people because it is SO old at the core that it feels like the right thing to do. You can be a person of good character if you are both prudent and loving and just... and seeing after the kids and grandparents IS part of that.
That kind of economization doesn't work on a larger scale and humanity found a solution for that LONG ago. We engage in voluntary trade between family units. Traders don't need to agree on prioritizing resource usage outside their families. They just have to agree on what they have they can afford to trade for what they want. Our markets are the solution and have long worked hand-in-hand with family-scale economization.
Our bigger markets really shouldn't use the term 'economy'. No one is economizing at the broad level. Economizing is done on a smaller scale. Always.
At the risk of restarting the spitting war from last thread, I want to answer to one thing Matthew pointed out by expanding on it. He was describing respect for reasoning skills and my name got mentioned.
A big part of why Matthew and I respect each other is that we believe the other means well. I know that’s true for what I see in him. We can disagree on what’s happening and what to do about it, but I’m quite certain he means well and acts when people around him need help. As far as I’m concerned, if someone means well and acts on it, I can’t think of a good reason to dislike them. Quite the opposite. I like Matthew.
Having said that… I also happen to like John Viril. He hasn’t been around as long so I don’t have the deeper background story, but I’m pretty certain he means well and acts on it.
Finally, when it comes to finding value in the conversations we have here… of course there isn’t any once we start spitting at each other. Write it off as an emotional splurge of “I give a damn about this” and then come back once tempers cool. People who mean well can do this.
Hi Alfred
Socialism is simply "Public Ownership" - like the Courts, Police, Army, Fire Brigade - and in most countries the Health Service
Socialism works very well to supply services and where the "mechanics" provide a natural monopoly - like water and sewage
Capitalism is "Private Ownership" - which is better at making "Things"
Although even there "Public Money" is responsible for most new "things" - up until the working model stage where Capitalism takes over
Thank you Alfred. I appreciate you.
"That is obviously a non-starter in the US."
Someone forgot to tell that people who did it with the Natives and some black communities. And others.
Nathan Gardels in Noema asserts a common notion... that Democracy encourages shortsighted thinking and ignoring the future. ”From fast fashion to electoral contests to quarterly earnings reports, the system is responsive to the pursuit of happiness defined by the near horizon.”
Indeed, Milton Friedman - the always-wrong saint of Supply SIde voodoo 'economics' did preach for absolute reliance on the 'wisdom' of quarterly reprts, a philosophy pushed down to milliseconds by High Frequency Trading programs that I call the most dangerous form of AI (in AIlien Minds.). But while the financial caste has forsaken prefrontal lobes for reflex spasms... have average citizens?
Like so many truisms, this one is supported by many anecdotes… while contrary ones are ignored. Contrary examples like when Athens discovered a huge silver deposit and was about to distribute it to all citizens… who voted instead to invest it all in their future – the navy that defeated Xerxes at Salamis.
Oh, I could line up counter-examples today, like vast $$$ that the USA invested in science since WWII, much of it totally abstract things like Voyager spacecraft. Or prenatal healthcare that led to plummeting problems and rising IQs all aropund the globe? Or the universities that accomplished far more wonderful and long term things than all the pyramids and temples and statues etc ever built by kings.
“Of all the major powers, post-Mao China stands out in taking control of its future without sacrificing the present.”
ell, yes, China's accomplishments are admirable… and it was all subsidized by US generous trade policies, established when George Marshall realized that ALL previous empires had sealed their own fate with mercantilism. His trade policies - ANTI-mercantilist, favoring workers in overseas factories whos children then went to school -- was arguable THE major force that uplifted MOST of the world’s population out of poverty. And I will happily wager on that.
Anyway, what China did in the 90s is what the GI Bill Generation did in the 50s-till-70s, pouring $$$ into transforming places like Appalachia from gap-tooth hells into actually pleasant places. Until the truly short-sighted Americans - the UPPER castes - dragged us back out of the GI Billers' bargain... toward short-sighted feudalism.
https://www.noemamag.com/when-the-present-eats-the-future/
Someone forgot to take notice of the scale at which those 'economies' took place.
Communities don't economize unless they are small enough to agree upon priorities. When they grow too large for voluntary agreement, they have two basic choices. Trade or Dictate. The latter leads to schism. The former leads to markets. Both have issues to be dealt with by the next generation.
Hayek's distinction was 'Economy' and 'Catalaxy'. (He had to coin the term.)
Economies exist where voluntary agreements determine priorities.
The economies of nations are mostly catalaxies because it doesn't take more than a couple hundred people before their agreements begin to fail around edges. They might agree that fire suppression in town is worth funding, but might disagree on who pays for clearing zones around structures to mitigate wildfires.
One thing Locum omitted was what got the protests started:students asking peacefully for better education and more teachers. It then got captured by the far left and right, by escalating matters, protesters and police alike.
And Albania? Well, the foreigners truely causing public outcry and thereby disorder are Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner.
I would place the GI Bill as part of a three legged impulse
The GI Bill
Strong Unions
90+% Income tax (not to get money but to drive behaviour)
Alfred makes two assertions (above) about the nature of Socialism, the first being that "Anytime we all get taxed and then the government leans on market scales tipping them with all those funds, that counts at least as socialism-lite", and the second being "socialism is an extension of how we operate at the family level", both of which I find fascinating from an old school libertarian like Alfred.
I'm somewhat puzzled by Alfred's first assertion that government taxation counts 'as socialism-lite', as Alfred the libertarian has always maintained that 'Taxation is Theft' which would then mean that 'Socialism equals Theft' (or, at the very least, theft-lite').in turn.
His second statement is even more intriguing, as he argues that socialism is an extension of how we operate at the 'family level', a suggestion that working socialism requires a degree of shared familial characteristics, homologous genetic history and Ethno-Nationalism, which is the primary characteristic that working Scandinavian Socialism & jack-booted National Socialism had in common.
In an oblique manner, even DerOger acknowledges the strong association between Genetic Familiarity & Socialism by commenting on the multi-ethnic nature of American society (where socialism is a non-starter) that includes in his words "Natives and some black communities. And others".
Does this mean that both Alfred & our nazi-adjacent German friend now acknowledge that working Socialism requires some degree of racial segregation, genetic homology & ethno-nationalism ?
I think not.
Personally, I despise Socialism because it requires both taxation & wealth redistribution which constitute THEFT, even though I'll tolerate some limited taxation based on the fee-for-service model, as in the case of the GI Bill as a deferred payment for their military service of our veterans.
Best
And Albania? Well, the foreigners truely causing public outcry and thereby disorder are Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner.
Heh. How terribly predictable for our nazi-adjacent German friend to 'blame the jews' for Albania's political instability, proving only that the apple never falls far from the tree because 'genetic homology'.
Best
I've learned to tell in 2 seconds when L drops into total jibber-Nazi mode and I save myself lifespan.
Lately my YouTube feed has featured Science Fiction Theater (1956) which we watched when I was very young. (Yes, I’m OLD!) Have a look. 1. Boy was it cheap! Some junior high kids today could film and augment any of these episodes in a couple of hours, ideally with much better story material*. And yet…2. Just amid the first 3 episodes you see… a Roomba home vacuum, a version of today’s Havana Syndrome sabotage ray(!) … a fun, speculative musing on UAPs … and CL Moore’s classic “Vintage Season.”
Mind you I am notoriously disdainful of the current “Disclosure” fetish cult. But I happily (and often!) speculate about even marginally plausible notions of alien life or contact. I’d put SFT#1 in that category.
*I’d be happy to help young film-makers with cool stories!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUO7gKlvfDA
No, the COVID-19 medication Remdesivir was not developed by the Obama Administration, nor was it created to weaponize Ebola.
The claim mixes facts about federal research partnerships with baseless bioweapon conspiracy theories.
1. Remdesivir Was Developed by a Private Company
Remdesivir (brand name Veklury) was invented, patented, and developed by the private pharmaceutical giant Gilead Sciences, building on more than a decade of the company's internal antiviral research.
2. It Was Created to Treat Diseases, Not Weaponize Them
The drug was originally synthesized to target viral pathogens like hepatitis C and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV). In response to the 2014 West African Ebola outbreak, Gilead collaborated with U.S. government agencies—including the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)—to screen its existing library of compounds.
The goal of this multi-agency partnership was exclusively medical defense and treatment to save lives during a global health crisis, not offensive weaponization.
3. Government Involvement Was Scientific and Regulatory
While the research occurred during the Obama Administration, the administration did not "develop" the drug. Instead, public agencies provided critical preclinical testing and clinical trial infrastructure. According to a U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) report, federal contributions did not grant the government patent rights because Gilead already held the foundational patents for the compound.
Ultimately, Remdesivir proved less effective than other treatments for Ebola in clinical trials. However, because it is a broad-spectrum antiviral that stops RNA viruses from replicating, it was successfully repurposed and became the first FDA-approved treatment for hospitalized COVID-19 patients.
No, actually I blame the corrupt nepo-baby and son-in-law of an American wanna-be dictator with multiple convictions, two impeachments and strong ties to an international circle of pedo criminals (who all mysteriously keep dying nowadays.)
While I ultimately have to leave it to the jews to judge the two, one could theoretically argued that the two are apostates in continously violating the first and tenth commandment, by serving a death cult that is also a gigantic grift. In the Albanian case, a population rises against a corrupt head of government who conspired with the Trumps to take away a place of natural beauty and convert it into a billionaire sanctum.
Also I would remind our resident wannabe death camp doctor of the fact that, though being a muslimic country, Albania was the only country in Europe that had a higher jewish population after WWII than at the start of it.
Socialism is a scare word they have hurled at every advance the people have made in the last 20 years.
Socialism is what they called public power. Socialism is what they called social security.
Socialism is what they called farm price supports.
Socialism is what they called bank deposit insurance.
Socialism is what they called the growth of free and independent labor organizations.
Socialism is their name for almost anything that helps all the people.
When the Republican candidate inscribes the slogan "Down With Socialism" on the banner of his "great crusade," that is really not what he means at all.
What he really means is "Down with Progress--down with Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal," and "down with Harry Truman's fair Deal." That's all he means.
Pres. Harry S Truman
More wisdom from The Mongoose, one of the best and most cogently relevant essayists in America.
https://substack.com/redirect/70de7f31-2752-4aae-8b6a-58ae43e6495e?
Just thought - I missed one of the BIG ones - turning my three legs into four
The GI Bill
Strong Unions
90+% Income tax (not to get money but to drive behaviour)
TRUST BUSTING - breaking up big companies before they became too powerful
That may be the most important one
For our love of old timey science fiction, our fine host & I might as well be cousins, except I'm more of a luddite who prefers the purity of radio, note the downloadable link below for hours of listening enjoyment:
https://archive.org/details/X-Minus-One
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Joseph Goebbels used the very same wordage to attack 'Die Rothchilds' as DerOger used to condemn the Kushners above and, when everything was all said & done, it was still antisemitism all the way thru.
I couldn't find a direct email for Larry Correia, in order to inform him of this posting (like he never informed me of his.) But I did leave a comment on one of the communities he visits, asking others to tell him. So one or more may come by here. Get your hip waders ready.
Actually. Locum hit one of the radio show classics. I remember listening to "There Will Come Soft Rains..." on that show. A lot of the old broadcasts have been made available online, or if you're old school, CDs or *gasp* cassettes.
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