Missing Section of Mein Kampf, Or...

A post by Nassim Taleb.

Things I Truly and Deeply Don't Care About:

French AC

The WNBA

Pride Events

 

Wrong Wrong Wrong

Noah Smith thinks the DSA is the left-wing MAGA. Please. These lunatics on the left are 10-50x worse than Trump, who, despite his corruption and bluster, is ultimately pragmatic.

AI

I like comedy (who doesn't) and never, ever considered using AI to make myself laugh. 

AC

I can't find the energy to feel strongly about the A/C in Europe debate. 

A/C is nice. But don't forget to close the windows near the unit.

In LA, I don't hear the A/C "noise" that people talk about. I hear traffic.

Deterrence

What Israel practices is called deterrence.  And it works. 

Mood Affiliation

I think this guy's issue is being in a bad mood. 

Logging

TV: Widow's Bay

First four episodes were good. Clearly, they had no clue where the story went, and so the remaining ones are just spaghetti against the wall. TV was never meant to be novelistic. A negative legacy of Sopranos, Deadwood, etc is that the TV studios think they have capability they don't.

Film: T2, extended cut

Every scene they put back into the film made it substantially worse.

Unreality

Plan crashed into China's largest building, and they scrubbed all mention of it on the internet.

Odd place.

A Modern Slave Society

From a distance, China looks to me like a high-tech slave society. 

They work the coolies for pennies, sell the goods to foreigners, and keep all the money. There is no political freedom or recourse. You don't own anything. What else might you call this situation?

Riiiight

Before Kennedy the Arabs loved the US.

The Name Is The Giveaway

How crazy is DAC?

Matt Walsh

I know this guy seems like sort of a loony dick, but he's right about a lot of basic things.

Female led action films in general are almost always a dud. There’s no audience for it. Nobody wants to see some 105 pound girlboss action hero. It’s a comedically absurd premise, and there’s no getting around that. The studios are of course aware of this market reality. Yet they keep churning these out anyway because they’ll willingly lose money for the sake of pandering to women who want these movies to exist in principle but don’t actually care to watch them. That’s how female-centric our society has become.

I'm literally in the belly of the beast of this world and this is 100% true. In public, women all say they really want these movies and yet they never actually opt to watch them. They will argue the movies "aren't good" and will further excuse them as "male-directed" or "male-produced" or when directed and/or produced by females, they will cite "lack of prior opportunities or experience" so the female directors fail because of systemic issues. None of these reasons are true. Women will watch the most dumbass reality shows set on an island if there are relationship issues at stake. And they know it's dumb. Just like a man like me will watch the most dumbass action movie if some bad dudes get killed in a clever way by the good guy. It's just the way it is. Action movies are fundamentally for the male audience because the male brain works differently than the female brain. Good action movies will be crossover hits to female audiences because many females are not dumb and can enjoy a male-coded movie if executed well. Just like I can enjoy a little Selling Sunset or Love Island at times.

But it's even worse than all this. Because they made a great female led action movie called Furiosa and guess what? No women went to it. So if anyone ever ever complains about not making or supporting female action films...first ask them if they saw Furiosa. They didn't. 

Explain To Me

What is the material difference between a far-left-wing socialist and a not-far-left-winger anyway?  

Everybody Knows Who Don Viser Is...

Best scene in Rolling Thunder is with Tommy Lee Jones's family talking about Japanese-built cars, etc. and how whites can't make cars and even the parts in American TVs are Japanese-built and TLJ and Devane and just sitting there, unable to stand it. The echoes with today...uncanny. Really well-directed scene, too, with the camera angle on TLJ, his head down the entire scene.

Logging 

Film: The Shining

The funniest scene is when Jack wakes up at 11:30 am a month into his stay at the Overbrook, his wife makes him a nice breakfast in bed and suggests they all go for a walk. And he's like - nahhh - really got to get to work on my book. Kubrick and King are just ruthlessly making fun of writers here. 

The WNBA Refs

Are simply practicing DEI. I don't see what the problem is.

CA Politics Is Killing Us Slowly

2nd entirely online gig I've looked at in the last year that won't hire people in California because of the independent contractor law dumbass Katie Porter championed.

How many jobs in this state have disappeared simply because our politicians are idiots? Tons...

Logging

Film: Rolling Thunder

"The fuck are you doing?" 

"I'm going to kill a bunch of people."

Logging

Film: Disclosure Day

Found this one oddly boring, though I wanted to like it. The film didn't feel very of the moment, even though the subject matter - I guess - is timely? I don't know. I was imagining if there was a "disclosure day" during an intense World Cup match, and my guess is that most people would be like - Don't cut away from the game for this nonsense.

Also, and I hate to do this, but was the entire chase (ie the movie) really necessary? I don't see why the so-called "idea" of the film needed the story. In short, the idea could've been a short film about the last 10-15 minutes.

Show: Widow's Bay E1-4

All hail Patricia.

Work Meetings

Is it possible to have one without someone criticizing capitalism or racism? Asking for a friend. 

But for real. What is this about? Like seriously. Is this just a giant, giant cope? Are people just angry and want to vent and the only thing they can come up with is abstract concepts? Is this the result of years of propaganda and forcing us to root for King Kong and The Predator? We aren't allowed enemies, so the only enemy can be the system?

To The Hawks

Both in Israel and the US who want to put boots on the ground in Iran. I have a proposal: raise money. Go to Iran. Arrange weapons shipments to get into the country. Arm the opposition and go start killing Basij and Ayatollahs. You won't hear any complaints from me. Good luck. 

Juneteenth

Is it more racist to celebrate Juneteenth or not to celebrate Juneteenth?

Sologamy

Seems weird.

Iran Gamble

Trump took a gamble to get a cheap, swift regime change in Iran, and it didn't work. Not sure why nobody sees this for what it was. We obviously are not going to get bogged down in another drawn-out ME conflict as the hawks want. Was it worth the try? Hard to say. None of these foreign policy adventures are clean winners and clean losers as much as we would like to think. The liberal pundits like to say the US keeps screwing up post-WW2, but I imagine any other country in the world would change geopolitical places with us in a heartbeat if given the option. Explain that to me. 

The Good News About a Bad Deal

Is that neither the US or Iran will honor it. 

Logging

Film: Obsession

The most horrifying aspect of the film was the main character's meekness. I found him almost unwatchable. I take this as by design and part of the power of the film, but I cannot say I enjoyed watching it.

Retard Sympathy

I identify as retarded when communicating through Slack.

These Are Funny

What people do the during day to lifemax (whatever that means). 

Here is mine:

-wake up, did a little work to make some money

-make breakfast for kids, friend kid gets dropped off

-teach class

-eat lunch, make lunch for other kids who showed up at house

-watch some more world cup

-play monopoly with all these kids at my house

-write

-watch more world cup and text a lot of people about game and other shit

-eat dinner w family

-write

-read blogs and look at baseball mitts and try to do some other work but got too tired

-will read teddy roosevelt bio until fall asleep or watch something on apple tv

I'm doing this wrong. Not reading enough classical books or performing skin care routines, athletics, or drinking and fornicating or criminal activity.

Iran War

I love the people who say we lost the Iran war. Are these even wars? In what world does the loser of the war come out richer, with a more intact military, society, and economy? And the winner comes out broke, their instruments of national power literally decimated, including their leadership. Something about the way we talk about these things is utterly lost.

Hankering For Travel

For some reason, I've been craving to take "weirder" trips - Uruguay, rural Germany, and Southeastern USA on the agenda...

Warning: Strange Dad Hobby 

Discovered I enjoy looking at people posting their baseball gloves online. Help!

Democrat Policies

Seems to me that just about all the signature policies designed by Democrats are meant to encourage maximum insanity while still maintaining some vague semblance of legality. 

So, for instance, I'm reading now about how ("people experiencing") homelessness in Los Angeles should be able to vote. Hmmm. Okay. Should they be able to register by the hundreds at addresses where they don't live? Should they have others filling out the ballots for them? Should they be getting paid to vote for certain candidates? If they support conservatives, should they be denied guidance? Because all this shit is going on. And also - what the fuck are we talking about? No, the homeless population in LA should not be voting. Are you kidding me? That is a road to fucking disaster, and every sane person in the world knows it. And also! Homeless people CAN ALREADY VOTE! If they can just follow the basic procedures like everyone else. 

Logging

TV: Widow's Bay

Eh.

Film: Magnificent Seven 2016 remake

Eh. 

TV: World Cup

Big thumbs up.

Hilarious

This Palestinian activist being deported has been in college/grad school for 17 years. One has to wonder: if he were not deported, what would his future be? Seriously, do people like this manage to stay in college for their entire lives?

Funny How...

Mainstream Democrats accept the fact that throughout much of U.S. history, local elections were gamed, cheated, and manipulated, but if you suggest that today the same type of tricks are being used in the LA Mayor race, they think it's a conspiracy theory.  

Nothing to See Here

DSA-LA procedures on how to "get out the vote" aka ballot harvest. 

Tell homeless degenerate losers how to vote for free stuff; withhold information from everyone else. Seems really healthy. Glad mainstream Dems support this.

Logging

TV: Your Friends and Neighbors

Enjoying it begrudgingly. 

Book: To Rescue the American Spirit

A Teddy Roosevelt bio - pretty interesting so far - the man punched out a gun-toting asshole who insisted TR buy him drinks in a Montana bar. Can't imagine any current President doing such a thing, although if they had, I would argue it could make him more electable. 

Film: The Rip

First 3/4 excellent. Carnahan building a quite respectable filmography.

Good on Idris Elba

Let's not make Bond woke. 

Look, there's already a black James Bond. His name is Shaft. 

Nithya Ramen

Surges to second over Spencer Pratt not by winning huge numbers from her home base and area where she's actually known (Studio City, east LA, Hollywood folks), etc. but from DTLA where she handily beats both Pratt and Bass (who's the incumbent). Shady as all hell. This lady isn't from LA, has no natural constituency, no political skills whatsoever, no track record to run on, and isn't even popular in her own district. What the hell is going on here?

Robots

Most people don't like writing, so we've created AI to do it for us. I, however, don't like dancing, so I'm going to get this robot to do it for me.

Vast Stupidity

We've now got journalists and twitter people criticizing Trump for the price of Knicks playoff tickets. 

They are holding the man accountable for the law of supply and demand. 

AI

No one is gonna pay 50-90k a year, much less 30k to "learn" how to use AI from professors and institutions that don't know. Not sure why colleges are advertising themselves in this manner. I think the symbiosis is being formed because the AI companies need to cloak themselves in respectability, which the University is willing to sell them. Meanwhile, the University systems need a huge amount of money to pay their bills. I don't see this as sustainable. At all.

Oil Markets Adjust

NY Times opinion argues what I said over a month ago: Iran loses leverage every day they terrorize the straits. 

What happens? Oil prices go up. Consumers react by using less oil. Countries ration. Higher prices. With higher prices, consumers seek out new sources and invest in new sources, like pipelines, etc. Is it a gigantic pain the ass? Yes. Is it expensive? Yes. But it will happen. We should and could obviously cut all gasoline and oil taxes that were once meant to curb consumption since we are no longer in an abundance scenario. 

The IRGC hardliners hope and pray it will send the world into a recession. They certainly do not know any more about the world economy than the rest of us, so they are bankrupting themselves and impoverishing their own country, gambling on a particular short-term outcome. Maybe they will prevail temporarily. I personally doubt it. 

A Thing I Don't Get

Not five years ago, every media personality and NBA player was up the butt of social issues, wearing jerseys that said things like "Group Economics" and now those same people are basically shills for online gambling. Huh? And it's not like they're short money - I'm looking at Giannis, Bill Simmons, etc - these are folks with more money than they can spend in their lifetimes and so why are they in the pockets of online gambling? I find it very confusing. 

News Anchors

I see this CBS news anchor is mad about being fired. First of all, if you're over 65 and a multi-millionaire taking a huge salary, I'd say any work you're getting is gravy, and you've got no real right to complain. The only way to ensure you don't get laid off in life is to own your job. Which you can't if you're a newscaster. But again, that's the life you choose. Part of the reason there's so much resentment against boomers is precisely this situation: they cling to these prestige positions long past their expiration date, denying the next generation their moment.  

Logging

Film: Speed

Peak 90s cinema. Utterly preposterous and does not once wink or nod ironically at the audience. Takes itself so seriously. Chef's kiss.

Logging

Film: Tommy Boy

Mandatory screening at business schools on how to bring back American manufacturing. Also, one of the most pro-CEO films I've ever seen. Luigi Mangione should be required to watch this movie once a week for the rest of his life.

And as much as I like Tim Robinson, he owes Spade and Farley royalties for stealing their gag in the film Friendship.

Retard

This guy knows nothing. 

Quite remarkable how US politics no longer discusses domestic policy or has any interest in it. There is Israel. There is China. There is an intense debate on which country to attack next. That’s about it

It is, in fact, the exact opposite. Only the loons talk about the other things.

Logging

Film: Red Dawn (original, of course)

Things I didn't pick up on or remember while watching as a teen: 

Lea Thompson's character was anally raped by Russian troops before the film. 

China was our ally and had gotten nuked or something because 40% of their population was gone.

Other survivors around Colorado had resorted to cannibalism to survive.

Dark stuff.