#  @TheMindScourge The Mind Scourge The Mind Scourge posts on X about china, in the, taiwan, countries the most. They currently have [------] followers and [----] posts still getting attention that total [---------] engagements in the last [--] hours. ### Engagements: [---------] [#](/creator/twitter::273531445/interactions)  - [--] Week [---------] +33% - [--] Month [----------] +125% - [--] Months [----------] +4,284% - [--] Year [----------] +231% ### Mentions: [--] [#](/creator/twitter::273531445/posts_active)  - [--] Week [--] -39% - [--] Month [---] +39% - [--] Months [---] +123% - [--] Year [---] +2.70% ### Followers: [------] [#](/creator/twitter::273531445/followers)  - [--] Week [-----] +6.10% - [--] Month [-----] +25% - [--] Months [-----] +97% - [--] Year [-----] +140% ### CreatorRank: [------] [#](/creator/twitter::273531445/influencer_rank)  ### Social Influence **Social category influence** [countries](/list/countries) #7853 [travel destinations](/list/travel-destinations) [finance](/list/finance) #3168 [technology brands](/list/technology-brands) #6663 [stocks](/list/stocks) #1522 [social networks](/list/social-networks) [celebrities](/list/celebrities) [automotive brands](/list/automotive-brands) [us election](/list/us-election) [luxury brands](/list/luxury-brands) **Social topic influence** [china](/topic/china), [in the](/topic/in-the) #733, [taiwan](/topic/taiwan), [countries](/topic/countries), [ukraine](/topic/ukraine), [russia](/topic/russia), [ai](/topic/ai) #1196, [if you](/topic/if-you) #2111, [money](/topic/money) #895, [spacex](/topic/spacex) **Top accounts mentioned or mentioned by** [@emptyamerica](/creator/undefined) [@paulskallas](/creator/undefined) [@pastynome](/creator/undefined) [@okaythenme](/creator/undefined) [@elonmusk](/creator/undefined) [@hmbrough](/creator/undefined) [@policytensor](/creator/undefined) [@sharghzadeh](/creator/undefined) [@powerfultakes](/creator/undefined) [@peterrhague](/creator/undefined) [@lostnomad](/creator/undefined) [@reubenr80027912](/creator/undefined) [@jordanschnyc](/creator/undefined) [@molsonhart](/creator/undefined) [@teortaxestex](/creator/undefined) [@2024dion](/creator/undefined) [@rick42798550](/creator/undefined) [@alicefromqueens](/creator/undefined) [@okaythenfuture](/creator/undefined) [@spacex](/creator/undefined) **Top assets mentioned** [Tesla, Inc. (TSLA)](/topic/tesla) [GrokCoin (GROKCOIN)](/topic/grok) [StarShip (STARSHIP)](/topic/starship) [StarLink (STARL)](/topic/starlink) ### Top Social Posts Top posts by engagements in the last [--] hours "The declining age of puberty remains both underrated and under-determined (Graph on right is for Norway specifically)" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1661764090707206144) 2023-05-25T16:00Z [----] followers, [---] engagements "Argentina vs other countries A long decline" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1726414169270817139) 2023-11-20T01:36Z [----] followers, [---] engagements "Guy from Saudi Arabia studies in the US. Takes a lot of meth Returns home. Goes cold turkey. No therapy. The environment changed" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1772044399054315909) 2024-03-24T23:34Z [----] followers, 13.2K engagements "The Pan Pacific Orchard in Singapore You can see how detail and ornament is being brought back through the use of greenery This is completely missed or ignored by the anti-contemporary architecture accounts We arent going to get statuary or classical orders Instead fractal dimension is being brought in through the back door via a green revolution angle Doesnt get remarked upon much https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1778523279407612306 https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1778523279407612306" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1778523279407612306) 2024-04-11T20:39Z [----] followers, [---] engagements "Im not persuaded by this argument Graphene was discovered in [----] using Scotch tape Yes many breakthroughs in the past seemed laughably simple by current standards But the knowledge base today is also orders of magnitude higher. The attack surface available to make new discoveries is much greater (making in theory many more opportunities or shots on goal attempts possible) and we simply have more to work with or leverage to make discoveries Was Plancks leap of desperation to the quantized theory of energy any easier than (say) what Schwinger did with QED Im not convinced a hierarchy of" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1869210261502005394) 2024-12-18T02:37Z [----] followers, 14.6K engagements "Ambitions for the territorial acquisition of Cuba by the US are of very long-standing far back into the 19th century. The Cuban state is not in collapse like Venezuela but is moribund. Its demise is inevitable Cuba is [--] miles off the coast of the US. Florida is home to millions of Cuban Americans and flush with capital to invest in a post-Communist era. Unlike Haiti (which Americans ignore) theres an active and very well-connected Cuban political community. The odds of Cubas admission into the US as a territory (or state) are higher than you probably think Trump's special envoy to Latin" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1889848621639847984) 2025-02-13T01:26Z [----] followers, [---] engagements "What made me realize suburbs will survive is seeing just how popular they are overseas. Its urbanist twitters biggest miss. People love suburbs at least judged by where they choose to live Im a dense urban city guy personally but youve got to be clear-eyed about what people overall want and what will get built as a result" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1890035313801564204) 2025-02-13T13:48Z [----] followers, [--] engagements "@okaythenme I love Yogyakarta. Legendary place" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1890405221282595136) 2025-02-14T14:18Z [----] followers, [---] engagements "I tried the Perplexity deep research on a topic I know very well Verdict: dont worry guys. Everyone keeps their day job It basically summarized Wikipedia and not as well" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1890482419335123022) 2025-02-14T19:25Z [----] followers, [---] engagements "Tariff TSMC exports Get TSMC to run Intel Intel becomes TSMC The tail swallows the head The US abandons Taiwan Could happen New: TSMC is open to taking a controlling stake in Intels US factories @ianmking & I are told Trump team floated a potential Intel deal in recent meetings w TSMC officials who were receptive. Intels stance is unclear. Talks are in very early stages https://t.co/DAo28HqLet New: TSMC is open to taking a controlling stake in Intels US factories @ianmking & I are told Trump team floated a potential Intel deal in recent meetings w TSMC officials who were receptive. Intels" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1890482979375288367) 2025-02-14T19:27Z [----] followers, [---] engagements "@docontra_txt Politicians should spend much more time thinking about aesthetics Many actively recoil against this. They think its an insult or something. Accept me as I am But changing how you look affects voters much more than changing your opinions People vote what they see" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1890772429250699417) 2025-02-15T14:37Z [----] followers, [--] engagements "Old Bagan is if anything even more extraordinary. A sort of tropical Pompeii In my opinion even better than Angkor Wat and virtually never visited. You might have the place to yourself They sell you hot air balloon rides too if you want. Popular at sunrise" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1890877547853820299) 2025-02-15T21:35Z [----] followers, [---] engagements "The Wildberries saga is every bit as Byzantine and gonzo as you might expect It gets almost no attention in the west surprisingly as it provides as good a window inside late Putinism as we are likely to get for some time" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1891208017808392343) 2025-02-16T19:28Z [----] followers, [---] engagements "The fact that Hollywood remains very reluctant to depict phones on screen is a very bearish signal for our generation of consumer electronics Theres something repelling and not Lindy about all of it Popular culture is a really good high level heuristic to a societys id Another example would be guns. Hollywood loves guns and if Hollywood ever stops showing guns on screen that will be a sign that Americas relationship with guns has changed fundamentally" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1891610522031968457) 2025-02-17T22:07Z [----] followers, [----] engagements "@Empty_America I think this has been over-thought. Look at Disney or Universal Studios for example. Mostly twee and "traditional" architecture. It's all newly built and rusticated and yet they can't charge enough to keep people out" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1891919997947027908) 2025-02-18T18:37Z [----] followers, [---] engagements "@jxmnop What would superhuman in writing even look like Same with beyond human in art. This isnt a well defined space. The median person prefers a Kinkade to a Rothko just as Colleen Hoover is preferred by the typical reader to James Joyce" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1892273269962658155) 2025-02-19T18:01Z [----] followers, [----] engagements "@PAstynome @blob_watcher @RickJoe_PLA @ijkTA1619 @devarbol I believe the Navy and Air Force in Japan receive the majority of the spending today. I would have to double check to confirm. Ground forces spending is lower now than in the past but even in the Cold War I think the majority of spending went to the maritime and air branches" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1893099947563577644) 2025-02-22T00:46Z [----] followers, [--] engagements "Maybe the US isnt a Western or European nation Maybe its a Pacific and Latin American one Maybe it has more affinities with China and Russia than are generally appreciated Maybe it looks more to India or Africa than to France and Germany Theres this idea of a strategy of similitude in international affairs where states and societies adopt aspects of highly successful societies in furtherance of self-strengthening and internal growth. The west was the source of inspiration internationally par excellence for the entire modern period and in the 20th century the US primarily In the 21st a more" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1893408899958550692) 2025-02-22T21:13Z [----] followers, [----] engagements "One of the few public pictures of the gold vault in Fort Knox. This is from [----] and the woman pictured is the Director of the Mint FDR is the only US president to have seen it (Trump apparently will be the next) Something like 2% of all the gold ever mined is down there with $430 billion at current prices Rumors persistently recur that its emptied out. Its been this way for decades and it periodically breaks containment and goes mainstream. One of Alexanders great feats was to increase gold circulation from his capture of the Persian imperial gold hoard. Interesting that weve done something" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1893506103758991713) 2025-02-23T03:40Z [----] followers, [--] engagements "@Empty_America Perhaps the most striking region is just how cold Minnesota is and how that anomaly within the US extends as far south as northern Iowa Looks more like interior Alaska" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1893822195542945895) 2025-02-24T00:36Z [----] followers, [---] engagements "WWII really compressed historical timelines. Everything leading up to it was prelude and everything after was Hitler Munich or appeasement. The Germans called the end of WWII Stunde Null - Zero Hour - and we can see how accurate this was. In some sense history did begin again with the end of WWII. It injected a new element into matters of war and peace. Hitler not only became the exemplar of evil but you could only go to war if your enemy was Hitler - it was the only threat people would take seriously. But if you didnt confront the threat you risked becoming another Chamberlain. Foreign" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1894365277896233472) 2025-02-25T12:34Z [----] followers, [---] engagements "@shagbark_hick Whos the billionaire" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1894516865285677566) 2025-02-25T22:36Z [----] followers, [---] engagements "Westerners used to be more adventurous. Places like Egypt and Cairo fascinated the Western mind in the 19th and first half of the 20th century Whats replaced it is what goes on here slop This represents a type of intellectual closure of the western mind" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1917214746530730212) 2025-04-29T13:49Z [----] followers, [---] engagements "Shanghai is building the civilization of the Sun" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1937938866289172870) 2025-06-25T18:20Z [----] followers, [---] engagements "Indices like this are nonsense. Remember the one in [----] that said the US was best prepared for a pandemic This index claims that The Greater Bay Area has surpassed greater Tokyo as the worlds leading innovation cluster The claim that Japan has declined is much exaggerated (Ive posted about this before) but if your methodology yields Tokyo-Yokohama as the answer to the where is worlds primary center of innovation question then somethings gone wrong with how you framed your analysis Whats the latest idea out of this part of the world that you can name" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1962860781252546977) 2025-09-02T12:50Z [----] followers, [---] engagements "The smartphone era has been an extinction level event for hobbies. So many pastimes have disappeared or are in the process of disappearing into the glowing event horizon of the screen" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1971567839669895370) 2025-09-26T13:29Z [----] followers, 569K engagements "Notable that the single domain where American aesthetics have undeniably improved the past generation is mostly a story of immigration from more aesthetic and refined cultures Thank God for non-heritage Americans https://t.co/UFoyqo7VKw Thank God for non-heritage Americans https://t.co/UFoyqo7VKw" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1975681982991384896) 2025-10-07T21:57Z [----] followers, [---] engagements "A great mistake of theirs. Of course Japanese strategic planning was hopelessly confused prior to the war up to the preemptive attack on Pearl Harbor under the I think frankly absurd belief that the US would have gone to war to protect French and British colonies in SE Asia Another oddity is that the Lend Lease ships proceeded across the North Pacific to the USSR entirely unimpeded" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1976016741848215974) 2025-10-08T20:07Z [----] followers, [---] engagements "The true lesson of Easter Island is that it is very hard to be weird under internet conditions Easter Island is very isolated. Its [----] miles to the nearest land (Pitcairn Island). The native inhabitants lost the ability for long distance sailing. In isolation all sorts of wild and divergent practices flourished. The sacred chief was chosen from a yearly competition to retrieve the first egg of a sooty term from an offshore spit of rock. All these extraordinary statues were erected All this from a population that likely never exceeded [-----] people. What town of similar size today is doing" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1977022705560961120) 2025-10-11T14:45Z [----] followers, [----] engagements "You are underrating Dubais influence People used to ask how do we get to Denmark Now countries want to know how to get to Dubai Dubai chocolate has overtaken pumpkin spice lattes which peaked in [----] https://t.co/YareV0AfMX Dubai chocolate has overtaken pumpkin spice lattes which peaked in [----] https://t.co/YareV0AfMX" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1978089132589977764) 2025-10-14T13:22Z [----] followers, 259.1K engagements "Mecca is this live place. Its growing changing. It wont look the same [--] years from now. Growth is important. Things that dont grow are dead and Mecca is very much alive Whereas St Peters represents something opposite. The Renaissance facade the square embraced by the colonnade the fountains its an ideal public space. One of the finest ever constructed. I cant imagine it being bettered. We dont build like this now. Were unlikely to build like this again or at least anytime soon. St Peters preserves and embodies the old civilization. Thats also important The development of Mecca in recent" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1978510309041308063) 2025-10-15T17:16Z [----] followers, 15.7K engagements "Theres a Lindy aspect to the emerging influencer economy. Academia emerged out of religious establishments and royal courts in the medieval period. Prominent scholars were not employees unlike most academics today. They either had wealthy patrons or attracted cult like followings that supported them in various ways Much like influencers really. Its an entirely separate ecosystem with its own hierarchy of main characters and B team and so on. It generates its own news cycles and scandals and has a growing if undefined body of received wisdom that it collectively draws from. It clearly has its" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1978544771300790374) 2025-10-15T19:33Z [----] followers, [---] engagements "Public events today political rallies youre just looking at a constellation of phones Little glass lens and points of light feeding the hive mind" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1978820961743839445) 2025-10-16T13:50Z [----] followers, [---] engagements "This sort of thing will happen with increasing frequency especially in Africa (and maybe eventually only in Africa which has the right demographics for a combustible politics of protest and uprising What gives movements like this a distinctly modern flair is that they are internet first driven by WhatsApp and TikToks and text chains. There are no real leaders. No coherent program. Just general disgruntlement. If there is any organizing mind its the digital platforms and their associated algorithms. In this sense you might argue that we are in the early period of the first AI (defined broadly)" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1978861047688602067) 2025-10-16T16:30Z [----] followers, 18K engagements "Switzerland is funny. Its famous for being rich and for no one really knowing how that happened. Its just sort of there. Its not part of anyones narrative. Its like the Indonesia of Europe. No one knows what goes on there Personally I dont think Switzerlands high human capital and development index is particularly surprising. Its in the middle of one of the worlds earliest and most heavily industrialized regions. If you draw a line encompassing SE England the Low Countries eastern France western Germany and northern Italy you capture Switzerland as well. Its composed of French and German and" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1978969258122969440) 2025-10-16T23:40Z [----] followers, 50.2K engagements "@Azariah2024 Much appreciated seriously I enjoy writing this kind of thing it just flows I love reading them too one of my favorite sub genres of Twitter that I dont see enough of" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1978970971777200330) 2025-10-16T23:47Z [----] followers, [----] engagements "A related point Ive made about all this is that a war with China over Taiwan would be the first war in well over a century the US has involved itself in where the outcome is not effectively predetermined. Not true for any other conflict since the Civil War Even wars that we eventually lost like Vietnam or Afghanistan were ones where the US decided it wasnt worth the effort and retreated" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1979302234598052270) 2025-10-17T21:43Z [----] followers, [---] engagements "If an artist is big today he or she has a good half-century (or more) in front of him career-wise Taylor Swift is [--]. Shell still be performing in [----] assuming she wants it If you got big at the end of 20th century mass culture your career lifespan is effectively unlimited. You dont really fade away. No one is going to replace you" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1979307461329756672) 2025-10-17T22:04Z [----] followers, [----] engagements "@patrickc In the US Kansas City is likely the top contender Istanbul likely the leader outside Europe But Europe otherwise would dominate the rankings" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1979361703319212177) 2025-10-18T01:39Z [----] followers, [----] engagements "Paint graffiti is a topic I keep returning to. Great example of a negative innovation. Didnt exist before the mid-60s Theres a Lindy aspect though. Look at the buildings being tagged. Plain low-dimension surfaces The graffiti ugly as it is is ornament being returned to the environment Ive always been amused by the acceptance of downtown Los Angeles as an unfixable hellscape. Oh no no one goes to the downtown of the second most important city in the largest economy of the world. Locals would say this as though it was somehow obvious that the first place https://t.co/IUMadaqeYY Ive always been" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1979590054814036020) 2025-10-18T16:47Z [----] followers, 10.9K engagements "This is a very millennial building @PaulSkallas noted the grey. I also noticed the window screen with words This is the equivalent of putting Just Eat or whatever in your kitchen in metal letters. Word decor Very 2000s and 10s. Looks dated" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1979735856987672723) 2025-10-19T02:26Z [----] followers, [----] engagements "A great anecdote I came across once is from the evacuation of St Petersburg early in the Second World War before the city was cut off. Trains leaving the city were mobbed by civilians attempting to flee and this conflicted with evacuations of valuable items in this case a museum collection of Ivan Turgenev memorabilia. There was a car full objects belonging to his estate and a crowd was prepared to throw it all unceremoniously onto the sidings when a caretaker intervened shouting that this was the patrimony of Turgenev. It was left undisturbed I cant imagine this happening in the US." [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1979905102069584006) 2025-10-19T13:38Z [----] followers, [---] engagements "This is a very big deal The Ecumenical Patriarch by Turkish law must be a Turkish citizen and the patriarchate has been unable to produce new priests in Turkey since the early 70s. Bartholomew has been in office since [----]. The number of eligible candidates to replace him has grown very thin over the years Ankara made a handful of bishops Turkish citizens in [----] but this ad hoc solution didnt solve the problem The Turkish government may reopen the 17th century Greek Orthodox Halki Seminary in Istanbul based on talks with the U.S. and possible warming ties with Greece: https://t.co/cb05Iiscim" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1980045245006925936) 2025-10-19T22:55Z [----] followers, [----] engagements "AI art needs to produce things never before seen things not possible through other means But no one seems to be doing that. Everything just either looks like a video game or a cartoon. Compare AI art to electronic music for example. The latter is interesting because it makes sound you cant hear otherwise. Something new was created This is what people mean when they talk about slop. You can tell that the AI is just remixing a massive corpus of data. Nothing fundamentally new is being produced" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1980321924744921212) 2025-10-20T17:15Z [----] followers, [---] engagements "@CanbLaizo I agree it was better back when it was weird That video of Will Smith eating pasta for example. Itll outlasting all the more photorealistic stuff being generated today. Theres something compelling to how strange that video is" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1980333201378926740) 2025-10-20T18:00Z [----] followers, [--] engagements "Archetypes matter in politics. Kari Lake with long hair is a Senator; AOC with short hair is not the political phenomenon that she is These things work on a subliminal level that people rarely acknowledge or are even aware of. Vance carrying his kids is emblematic of this. This is a common behavior for millennial dads. You see it all the time. I do it myself But it wasnt common even a few decades ago and certainly not a century ago. Something in the human animal recoils a little funnily when you see this Maybe it doesnt matter if Vance is running as a liberal Dem. But he isnt. Hes a right" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1980441082400817437) 2025-10-21T01:08Z [----] followers, [----] engagements "You can fly to Japan to ski in Hokkaido and still come out ahead money-wise Disney is the same way many other things too. Its completely absurd. I dont think the majority have caught on yet My prediction is that the elderly are going to figure this out and live in an American colony in Mexico versus some very expensive active living facility" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1980480298732167378) 2025-10-21T03:44Z [----] followers, [---] engagements "@Empty_America Its part of the new civilization. Much more rooted in place" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1980481178940653809) 2025-10-21T03:48Z [----] followers, [---] engagements "Extraordinary photo of HMS Implacable from [----] She was captured at Trafalgar and survived through the Second World War only to be scuttled due to budget cuts Attitudes were different to historical preservation then. They were building a new world. This was part of the old. They were unsentimental about it. Had she lasted into the 1960s shed likely be a museum today" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1980634739494072631) 2025-10-21T13:58Z [----] followers, [---] engagements "To the modern mind it is difficult to understand why they went to the extra expense to beautify industrial machines. It seems inefficient I think this style of interior design was an attempt at taming - at domesticating - the new powers and forces industrial civilization had unlocked. Science and industry had harnessed some dark chthonic element some basic vein within nature hitherto untapped. It frightened them. They wanted to humanize it render it legible to human ways of knowing and this was the humanizing architectural language they chose Later after these technologies had grown" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1980699678166643070) 2025-10-21T18:16Z [----] followers, [----] engagements "@NateWitkin It really just takes one pathfinder to start a mimetic cascade The problem is that our elite as a cohort is culturally philistine" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1980770553528250818) 2025-10-21T22:57Z [----] followers, [--] engagements "If universities want to save the humanities it starts by requiring students to take mandatory Latin and ancient Greek The sciences have washout courses. The humanities should too. Youre going to get a very motivated category of student if you do this" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1980787251492843788) 2025-10-22T00:04Z [----] followers, 55.2K engagements "High Point is an expensive university. It isnt particularly selection (rejection rate of about 30%) This is what universities will come to prioritize in the future teaching networking and socialization and comportment Which is the Lindy purpose of university originally. It only got taken over by the grindset types in the later 20th century" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1981024361763975201) 2025-10-22T15:46Z [----] followers, [----] engagements "Im not so convinced that the AI models all being liberal or libertarian is net positive It seems to me that if broad church liberalism is the AI default then that perspective is (relatively speaking) over-supplied and therefore devalued Whereas humans will continue to display a range of values including (of course) illiberal sentiments Claude may well rate ICE agents as much less valuable than immigrants. But well still have immigration enforcement officers under any plausible scenario. AI refusing to countenance certain ideologies keeps humans relevant The forbidden beliefs therefore become" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1981149501458170189) 2025-10-23T00:03Z [----] followers, [---] engagements "@Peter_Nimitz I dont think Quebecs special rules regarding language and so forth would survive judicial review. I cant see the Supreme Court upholding any of it on 1st amendment grounds alone" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1981156611399049291) 2025-10-23T00:31Z [----] followers, [---] engagements "What is this telling you Nature is wiser than all of it Its mostly selected for agentic doofuses who on occasion throw up geniuses You only need a few Civilizations of grindset IQ-maxers go rapidly extinct. Nature already figured this out and selected against it Idiocracy (2006) opens by throwing you straight into its hilariously dumbed-down future. https://t.co/z4sbRTzZ1O Idiocracy (2006) opens by throwing you straight into its hilariously dumbed-down future. https://t.co/z4sbRTzZ1O" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1981171555347681569) 2025-10-23T01:31Z [----] followers, [----] engagements "Good quick read on the last major reconstruction of the White House" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1981365125916364843) 2025-10-23T14:20Z [----] followers, [---] engagements "The new addition shifts the balance of the White House towards the east and makes the profile of the executive mansion much more asymmetric. All the mass is now on one side The White House was not ideally balanced before. The East and West Wings were mismatched and the east colonnade is longer than the western one But the low profiles of the side structures effectively hide this from the eye which contributes to the elegance and success of the neoclassical Palladian design Fortunately the new construction is in keeping with the overall style of the original mansion. You can imagine a" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1981368812348854696) 2025-10-23T14:35Z [----] followers, [---] engagements "Highly recommend this history. It places Islam with its late antique context better than any other monograph that Ive encountered and emphasizes especially the influence of the Roman state - particularly the mode in which emperors operated when engaged in religious and ecclesiastical affairs" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1981416095186563173) 2025-10-23T17:43Z [----] followers, 22.8K engagements "This is how things used to work in the US. No planning permissions or due diligence or anything else Someone just decided and that was that Im not sure you are all ready for the Abundance Agenda like you say are Photos from the AP show that the entirety of the White Houses East Wing has now been demolished in order to make room for President Donald J. Trump $250-300M State Ballroom which will be funded by several billionaires corporations and Trump. https://t.co/KCyizgZRNA Photos from the AP show that the entirety of the White Houses East Wing has now been demolished in order to make room for" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1981419942026129526) 2025-10-23T17:58Z [----] followers, [---] engagements "We underrate the impact the discovery of the Americas had on the European imagination and what this meant for Europes development Antiquity and the learning of the ancients was held in very high esteem at the time and the Americas were something the ancients were unaware of it. Historians talk a lot about ghost acres and silver production and so forth but the impact that a true discovery - a fact about the world hitherto unknown - a revolution in a sense that divided history nearly into a before and an after - is probably the single most significant component If we hadnt known about the" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1981523859636367576) 2025-10-24T00:51Z [----] followers, [----] engagements "And those wide-famed hulls Far-flung recalled From Gibraltar Rock and Mandalay shore The U.S. Department of Defense has announced that the USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78) and her Carrier Strike Group consisting of the Arleigh Burke-Class Guided-Missile Destroyers; USS Mahan (DDG-72) USS Winston S. Churchill (DDG-81) and USS Bainbridge (DDG-96) have been https://t.co/qaXs5l8JVb The U.S. Department of Defense has announced that the USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78) and her Carrier Strike Group consisting of the Arleigh Burke-Class Guided-Missile Destroyers; USS Mahan (DDG-72) USS Winston S. Churchill" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1981800048691138915) 2025-10-24T19:08Z [----] followers, [---] engagements "@he_negash Its actually from Saudi Arabia. Probably 1st or 2nd century. A fragmentary remain" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1981871309211726302) 2025-10-24T23:51Z [----] followers, [---] engagements "I dont think LandSpace will be a competitor for SpaceX for launch Satellites are all classified tech its unlikely any Western payload would be permitted to launch on LandSpace. Its all ITAR regime stuff. LandSpace might compete for developing country payloads but the demand there is much smaller Where the real completion will come is via Starlink and whatever space-based internet solution the Chinese inevitably scale-up" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1981873534239494588) 2025-10-25T00:00Z [----] followers, [---] engagements "St Denis is rebuilding its spire. Should be a [--] year project From the reconstruction of Dresden City Palace in Berlin the restoration of Notre Dame in Paris Trumps neoclassical project NYCs terracotta renaissance and much more this is an age of rediscovery of ornamental and classical stylings in architecture" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1982189923802206399) 2025-10-25T20:57Z [----] followers, [----] engagements "The collapse of newspapers (perhaps permanently) deranged the production of words and memes in our society; a warning bell in the night for AI It's commonplace to lament the downfall of reading amongst zoomers and (to a lesser extent) millennials. But fewer people talk about the supply side to this equation which is arguably more important and specifically the all-important channels by which words and ideas are manufactured and distributed to the population as a whole The elegant publishing machine which evolved organically for centuries was in just a few short years smashed into a million" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1982517391650406447) 2025-10-26T18:39Z [----] followers, [----] engagements "Notice how the interior design is all very low dimension surfaces. No ornament of any kind Here's what the interior looks like now https://t.co/dIh4iRNgkb Here's what the interior looks like now https://t.co/dIh4iRNgkb" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1982589368436220023) 2025-10-26T23:25Z [----] followers, [---] engagements "The single biggest component of success is just survival. Its also the least discussed maybe because its not heroic Take King Charles. Hes consistently maintained certain ideas and instincts about everything from the environment to architecture for decades. For most of this period they were extremely unfashionable (to say the least). But times have changed attitudes have shifted and now his beliefs appear prophetic. He was as they say ahead of his times. Which is true but also just a different way of saying that he stuck around long enough for his concepts to bear fruit. A lot of life is like" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1982823133099733104) 2025-10-27T14:54Z [----] followers, [----] engagements "A cafe lets you do this in a socially respectable way. A random guy just sitting no apparent purpose is potentially a vagrant or a threat. But a guy with a cup of coffee Hes taking a moment or whatever. He now has a socially intelligible function The pipe or cigarette fulfills the same purpose This is one issue that phones have. Its this little black rectangle. You could be doing anything on the screen - surreptitiously taking pictures recording audio scrolling your socials looking at porn who knows Whereas if youre reading a physical paper or a book with a cover you are again assigned a" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1982838399942664502) 2025-10-27T15:54Z [----] followers, [----] engagements "@Empty_America Observing them you can see how agriculturalists were able to displace hunter gathers over the space of a few centuries" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1982909301472813460) 2025-10-27T20:36Z [----] followers, [---] engagements "History underrates the extent to which golden ages - and who can doubt that the [--] Glorious Years were one such the best in Europe in the 20th century excepting perhaps the Belle Epoque - are nothing more than particular associations or social networks of individuals who know each other and gel in socially super-optimal way By extension periods of humiliation are the opposite Most of these projects were driven by De Gaulles general commissariat of the Plan. There was a clear unity between industrialists the state and researchers through willful investments driven by set policy visions. De" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1982963703688344056) 2025-10-28T00:12Z [----] followers, [----] engagements "A good illustration of this point The world wars are outlier events that tell us nothing about the long run average for US shipbuilding Arguably the US failed to successfully transition from an age of wood to an age of steel. This despite the fact that the US had a world class steel industry was pioneering not only in steel metallurgy (producing some of the best armor plate globally for example) and invented the first turreted warship (USS Monitor) the container ship and the LNG carrier amongst many others If anything you might argue that the US was over-indexed on innovation @AliceFromQueens" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1983165547157020995) 2025-10-28T13:34Z [----] followers, [---] engagements "Its a common thesis that Pakistans military has limited Pakistans economic development But many successful countries have had military-dominated regimes: South Korea notably Taiwan Japan What explains the difference" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1983166630005026957) 2025-10-28T13:39Z [----] followers, [---] engagements "@teortaxesTex The Western classical canon is Lindy. It has a power no other tradition has created You can see this for example in how most of the best classical musicians today now come from outside its historic core" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1983169770976620996) 2025-10-28T13:51Z [----] followers, [---] engagements "@HMBrough_ He honestly looks quite stylish and clearly several cuts above the median male American even in New York which is better dressed than the rest of the US" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1983299454292623513) 2025-10-28T22:26Z [----] followers, [---] engagements "The crowns of Silla are some of the few objects by which we know this ancient kingdom What object will define our civilization some [----] years from now" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1983622957953118621) 2025-10-29T19:52Z [----] followers, [---] engagements "The nuclear weapons treaty regime has almost entirely collapsed. Something has to be done. Perhaps testing - which Trump isnt exactly saying the US will do if you read the statement - is the way to do this A nuclear arms race today would look nothing like the Cold War. The weapons systems themselves are considerably more sophisticated; more accurate; more precise; harder to detect; much improved missile defense adds a layer of complication that was in its infancy during the last years of the Soviet Union" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1983860909886861343) 2025-10-30T11:37Z [----] followers, [---] engagements "Students are like employees. Theyre never going to say they arent working hard. Doesnt mean they are though The core problem with grading at Harvard and all the highly selective schools is that everyone there is a perfect student. The majority of them probably have never gotten a grade before A+ So when they enter Harvard theyre coming off a decade of unbroken success. Theyre like athletes who have not only never lost a game theyve blown away their opponents every time You can understand then why it might be a bit shocking to get a B. Which is not to say the universities shouldnt be grading" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1983883131011633492) 2025-10-30T13:06Z [----] followers, [----] engagements "This is the way we always ate ice cream in the Midwest growing up chapmans ice cream is pretty good but what the fuck is this packaging who designed this. this is why canadians get made fun of. https://t.co/YDfhontkqW chapmans ice cream is pretty good but what the fuck is this packaging who designed this. this is why canadians get made fun of. https://t.co/YDfhontkqW" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1984238596614934678) 2025-10-31T12:38Z [----] followers, [---] engagements "Records objectively sound better than CDs or streaming. The blind listening test guys get this wrong. You experience music with your entire body. Not just your ears. Its a physical experience. The entire analog process of producing sound from a record is a better experience The same is true of books. Its not just about the text. A better quality book real materials handmade etc reads better than the equivalent words on a pulpy mass market paperback. Youre adding additional dimensions to the experience. This is one reason why many people prefer to read on audiobooks. Youre adding in a new" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1984314748343558475) 2025-10-31T17:41Z [----] followers, [---] engagements "@lost_nomad__ Im surprised no ones claiming that AI is dooming Las Vegas. The price is the major component. Its just very expensive. You start adding it all up and realize that hey I can visit Tokyo and save $$$" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1984315095447392604) 2025-10-31T17:42Z [----] followers, [--] engagements "The extraordinary unfinished Dacian from the Torlonia Marbles. Approx [--] feet tall Commissioned in commemoration of Trajans victories in Dacia but for unknown reasons left unfinished. It has an air of melancholy about it. A sad giant" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1984767759830413569) 2025-11-01T23:41Z [----] followers, [---] engagements "The OpenAI library looks like it was generated by AI The reason for this is interior designers In the past collectors developed their own tastes and dealers emerged to meet these. It was a long term relationship. You knew the clients interests and so you called him up when a particular piece came available It isnt like this now. Maybe its because theres a huge influx of new money maybe its because the wealthy are too busy at work for leisured cultivation maybe something else. But dealers have been replaced as a cohort by interior designers who you commission to create a tasteful space for" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1985455109682151777) 2025-11-03T21:12Z [----] followers, [----] engagements "You can see how far Mons Porphyrites was from the Nile. Its closer to the Red Sea. Its deep in the wilderness. Yet the Roman state built a vast complex here all to service the project of porphyry. Imagine being stationed here. You might as well be on a Martian colony. And youre mining day after day after year a constant torrent of rock back to Rome. The wars and political conflicts of the empire like distant thunder an echo of an echo. But still the rock must flow This was a massive effort on the part of the Roman state. Theres no water here. Everything had to be brought in. There was a" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1985484403712069824) 2025-11-03T23:09Z [----] followers, 27.5K engagements "@expatanon One of the unintentionally great pictures of our times. Its generated more commentary than almost anything else After a century of Duchamps urinal and Piss Christ contemporary art has lost almost all power to shock at least in the West This picture is an exception" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1985506052239143112) 2025-11-04T00:35Z [----] followers, [--] engagements "It has been described as the most remarkable Roman industrial landscape in the world I will visit here someday You can see how far Mons Porphyrites was from the Nile. Its closer to the Red Sea. Its deep in the wilderness. Yet the Roman state built a vast complex here all to service the project of porphyry. Imagine being stationed here. You might as well be on a Martian colony. And https://t.co/ScUiH0jMRR You can see how far Mons Porphyrites was from the Nile. Its closer to the Red Sea. Its deep in the wilderness. Yet the Roman state built a vast complex here all to service the project of" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1985546974368555257) 2025-11-04T03:17Z [----] followers, [---] engagements "@sharghzadeh Eyes doubtless honed over the centuries to sweep lines of peasant infantry for vulnerabilities to the recurved composite bow" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1985826261122384323) 2025-11-04T21:47Z [----] followers, [---] engagements "The Tea Party was an early signal of this although you could argue that the right wing rejection of George W Bushs failed immigration reform attempt prefigured it But the GOP today is the party of disaffection. A massive shift from Nixons checkers speech and his respectable Republican cloth coat. Back then the party identified with the establishment and respect and maintaining a good public image was important to its core values No longer. This is at the core of groyperism and what most commentators have missed (they tend to be overly intellectualized and take groypers seriously) The key to" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1986048948918771844) 2025-11-05T12:32Z [----] followers, [---] engagements "Spinoza was not an atheist in the modern sense. He rejected an anthropomorphic god though this was not original to him and indeed has been a widespread belief amongst the more intellectual believers from some millennia What Spinoza argued against was a teleological universe that there was some ultimate destination or meaning inherent in its structure and that human ideas were mapped to the natural world by people. In other words they did not exist in and of themselves independently of humans. True happiness according to Spinoza is to be found in alignment with Nature both ones own personal" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1986106904792244722) 2025-11-05T16:22Z [----] followers, [---] engagements "Strange to think that just over [---] years ago no human being had ever set eyes on Antarctica" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1986115558052446509) 2025-11-05T16:57Z [----] followers, [---] engagements "NYC has [------] millionaires and [-----] ultra high net worth individuals worth $30 million or more (including [---] billionaires). It is by far the greatest concentration of private wealth in the world In theory they could all pull a Galts Gulch and leave. But theres a massive coordination problem here. NYC benefits from network effects and stickiness like any internet scale platform. There isnt another New York. Nowhere else captures the density of experiences and services and the social network (what used to be called society) that New York has. Unless they all decamp simultaneously anyone who" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1986229270755352950) 2025-11-06T00:28Z [----] followers, 25.7K engagements "Im really surprised twitter hasnt integrated a bet button into the posting flow You can insert polls for example This site is addicted to Polymarket etc Youve got to imagine that adding in a betting layer on here would be easy money for this app" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1986288832292200512) 2025-11-06T04:25Z [----] followers, [---] engagements "Boredom is simultaneously one of the most important yet least studied phenomena in history Its presence was ubiquitous but goes mostly unrecognized. Most of human history was characterized by a great under-stimulation. As a result people were willing to be distracted by almost anything. It undoubtedly generated and governed a great deal of human behavior" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1986422070532600162) 2025-11-06T13:15Z [----] followers, [----] engagements "New affordability theory: deflation" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1986452854597423502) 2025-11-06T15:17Z [----] followers, [---] engagements "Another would be to directly tag the latest Polymarket probability Much as the WSJ follows company mentions with the ticker price" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1986462823413940501) 2025-11-06T15:56Z [----] followers, [---] engagements "Im not persuaded by arguments that there is a surplus of elites today or that Mamdani is the voice of such a group assuming it does exist If anything Mamdani is proof that it doesnt. Where was Mamdani a year ago Who had heard of him Now hes mayor of New York City [--] years ago he couldnt have done this. There was a machine in place. You had to make your bones in politics first. Go-fer for an assemblyman. Whatever. Now you get to just go viral on social media The reality is that there are many more ways to be an elite today than ever before. You can be influencer and have more views than all of" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1986490019272409162) 2025-11-06T17:45Z [----] followers, [----] engagements "@ReubenR80027912 TSA/FAA should be funded off ticket fees and the problem disappears. Its silly that the worlds largest aviation market funds are its workforce off of theoretically discretionary budgeting" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1986558360339001623) 2025-11-06T22:16Z [----] followers, [---] engagements "Politicians in the US wont tell you this but the prices are never coming down Declining prices (deflation) is very rare in the post-WWII era. The closest such period is in [----] when CPI was -1.5%. Even then core CPI - excluding food/energy - never went negative. This was in a period of major fiscal crisis note Inflation will slow. But were never going back to a period of $5 pizzas or something. Wages will eventually come up and things will reach more of equilibrium where everything doesnt feel so expensive. But the prices wont be coming down. Politicians dont want to tell you this. But its" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1986605414289481865) 2025-11-07T01:23Z [----] followers, [---] engagements "Ive posted about this before as regards physics specifically. In any given period theres a very small number of people capable of pushing beyond the frontier in terms of theoretical physics and expanding the total number of theoretical physics doesnt give you more and better theories. You just get a lot of replication of the existing knowledge base" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1986817608285409531) 2025-11-07T15:26Z [----] followers, [---] engagements "As I posted about yesterday it is absurd that the worlds largest aviation market funds its essential workforce (air traffic controllers TSA) through discretionary spending. The solution is for these functions to self-fund like the Post Office. A few dollars extra per ticket ($10) would pay all labor costs and prevent a repeat of this fiasco BREAKING: It's looking increasingly likely the U.S. will shutdown domestic airspace due to gov't shutdown. 40% chance. https://t.co/Bw0sxcIVjK BREAKING: It's looking increasingly likely the U.S. will shutdown domestic airspace due to gov't shutdown. 40%" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1986818629053100280) 2025-11-07T15:30Z [----] followers, [----] engagements "America has two cities New York City Suburbs Both can be very nice. Just pick one" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1986819155375407393) 2025-11-07T15:32Z [----] followers, [---] engagements "@sharghzadeh Egypt is doing this too increasingly under current regime. MBS wants to do the same in Saudi" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1986916050483523930) 2025-11-07T21:57Z [----] followers, [----] engagements "A more curious civilization than ours at present would ask why only one guy is able to rapidly scale product after product It also shows the value and importance of exposure to foreign makers (esp China). Chinese companies do this sort of thing all the time. But in the US its mostly just Musk @robotaxi @Tesla_Optimus Optimus pilot production line is currently running in our Fremont Factory Significantly larger Gen [--] production line coming in [----] We're also testing in our factories & office spaces for real-time use case Our goal is $20k COGS per robot at scale https://t.co/WAfdcdt0Ue" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1986944610505990281) 2025-11-07T23:51Z [----] followers, [----] engagements "This is really impressive. The amount of system capacity and technology that enables you to navigate across the world entirely by phone is incredible Ive been traveling internationally for decades and the ability to do this with just a few apps is pure science fiction I'm in a completely automated hotel and I'm the only guest. This feels dystopian. https://t.co/WfCpwxAefc I'm in a completely automated hotel and I'm the only guest. This feels dystopian. https://t.co/WfCpwxAefc" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1986945693295038901) 2025-11-07T23:55Z [----] followers, [----] engagements "A New York City the size of Tokyo - [--] million people - would be epic. A new golden age for the city really New York will never be affordable for this reason https://t.co/vrnh7kkMDu New York will never be affordable for this reason https://t.co/vrnh7kkMDu" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1986978701108781089) 2025-11-08T02:06Z [----] followers, 13.9K engagements "Since skinny skyscrapers are on the main timeline recently heres a pic from [----] when a few of these were being built Ive no idea what people are arguing against here. A high height to width ratio is clearly more elegant than the alternatives. Theres a reason why classical columns typically taper for example or why mass is placed towards the bottom. It looks much better. The Steinway Towers exterior is bronze and terracotta. These are high quality tactile materials. Its part of the renaissance in traditional building materials the past few decades. Its fine not to like modernist architecture." [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1987221369487303051) 2025-11-08T18:11Z [----] followers, [----] engagements "In a world of fewer people and older populations all countries are in the city business now whether they know it or not The US became majority urban in 1920; globally this transition occurred as late as [----]. The trend continues to accelerate today around 60% of people live in an urban environment. Its trite but cities really are the future both trivially and in ways that are less generally appreciated. Cities are responsible for the majority of economic output today and the vast majority of new ideas and innovative goods and services. This correlation will only increase in the future. Cities" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1987252382364016681) 2025-11-08T20:14Z [----] followers, [----] engagements "@Innocent0119 I think they should be taller. Its New York City. Not every place should be like this but its good that a few are. I like seeing how the architecture and engineering can be pushed" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1987294751704711677) 2025-11-08T23:02Z [----] followers, [--] engagements "I dont understand what people are even complaining about with this building. One of the biggest accounts complained that you can see it from Central Park. The country is full of places where you cant see buildings and theyre complaining about one of cities that literally invented the skyscraper. If you dont want to see buildings youre in the wrong place The funny thing is this building objectively looks good. Its slender a great height to width ratio. Its elegant. The bronze and terracotta surface materials are traditional and Lindy. The more interesting point I think to be made with it is" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1987320317308440756) 2025-11-09T00:44Z [----] followers, [---] engagements "If you want a new city today youve got to build an airport. Being on the Mississippi just isnt the advantage that maybe it once was Now you need access to a world class airport and ready interstate access for intermodal operations The best answer for a new greenfield city is Cairo Illinois: it sits at the intersection of the Mississippi Tennessee and Ohio rivers and is practically uninhabited. The best answer for an existing city is probably https://t.co/fegUW6ZOdO The best answer for a new greenfield city is Cairo Illinois: it sits at the intersection of the Mississippi Tennessee and Ohio" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1987343385141600284) 2025-11-09T02:16Z [----] followers, [----] engagements "@okaythenfuture Hawaii is directly harmed by the Jones Act (so is Puerto Rico) and it should be a priority for it to be exempted California should easily 2x its population if not more. [---] million is completely doable for a country as wealthy as the US" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1987349990075674943) 2025-11-09T02:42Z [----] followers, [---] engagements "He probably can. He could direct the Attorney General to issue a new opinion that the Antideficiency Act does not prevent executive branch departments and agencies from spending funds during temporary funding gaps. His administrative reforms easily allow him to do this as by executive order he has codified that government lawyers opinions must align with his" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1987514210993975369) 2025-11-09T13:34Z [----] followers, [----] engagements "Dubai increasingly competes with Las Vegas and in my estimation exceeds it on important dimensions though it remains relatively under the radar for Americans Dubai now exceeds Vegas in total number of hotel rooms for example and by [----] will have its own casino resorts headlined by the Wynn (which manages the worlds largest [--] star hotel in Vegas) Both have an increasing number of sports offerings. Vegas is much better in terms of its shows and live entertainment options. The food scene is comparable. Dubais airport is much better than Harry Reid. Both have good possibilities for natural" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1987587582742475140) 2025-11-09T18:26Z [----] followers, [----] engagements "The aesthetics of modern rockets - from the engines (methane plume) to the flight vehicles themselves - are massively improved over the past decade Let's Go To Mars @blueorigin @escapade_mars https://t.co/z1xFt2ve1Z Let's Go To Mars @blueorigin @escapade_mars https://t.co/z1xFt2ve1Z" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1987591609764966884) 2025-11-09T18:42Z [----] followers, [---] engagements "My favorite dimension in interior design and architecture is contrast. I love juxtaposition of the old and new Something Lindy something modern Brutalist concrete and an ancient statue. Whereas modernism plus modern art doesnt speak to me in the same way. You need to mix dimensions both low and high" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1987597176294236481) 2025-11-09T19:04Z [----] followers, [---] engagements "@micsolana TSA/FAA should be funded off ticket fees and the problem disappears. Its silly that the worlds largest aviation market funds its workforce off of theoretically discretionary budgeting" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1987639757824758261) 2025-11-09T21:53Z [----] followers, [----] engagements "Men are the monster Theyre physically much more powerfully. The leading killer of women is men. Yet women are sexually attracted to the same. The object of their desire may also result in their doom. This can be further extended to the physical risk of bearing children (substantial) So it makes sense. Nature ensured it was this way to perpetuate the species" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1987642432029397160) 2025-11-09T22:04Z [----] followers, [----] engagements "A state with this massive and imperial of capitol complex should be the most populous in the country New York lost its ambition" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1987644496159408296) 2025-11-09T22:12Z [----] followers, 25.3K engagements "Old Dubai is well worth visiting. My impression is that not many foreigners go at least proportionally. You do see plenty of non Emiratis there of course Dubai is a very interesting litmus test for people at least in the West. Many Westerners are polarized against it. Thats a mistake. Dubai represents the future (at least directionally) for billions" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1987662590848205069) 2025-11-09T23:24Z [----] followers, [---] engagements "This is a good post on a topic I return to repeatedly The modern building is better on every relevant dimension - more efficient commodious comfortable to work in secure against fire rot mold safer and more stable for food - than the one on the left The single exception is aesthetics. The building on the left looks much better from the outside Much of the modern world is like this Two Detroit grocery store distribution centers built [---] years apart https://t.co/Jj2I6usxWE Two Detroit grocery store distribution centers built [---] years apart https://t.co/Jj2I6usxWE" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1987895000546357300) 2025-11-10T14:47Z [----] followers, 257.1K engagements "I post a great deal about lighting wavelength. Its the lowest hanging fruit for interior design today. Most places have too white of light But In-N-Out is an exception. You dont want long wavelength light here. The white light is crisp and cold. Aesthetically it complements the heaviness of a burger fries and a milkshake. This sort of food tends to make you sleepy. You want an energizing light in balance now imagine In-N-Out but with warm lighting. https://t.co/ZTiNy88Png now imagine In-N-Out but with warm lighting. https://t.co/ZTiNy88Png" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1987897802580468090) 2025-11-10T14:59Z [----] followers, 917.7K engagements "@powerfultakes Where is this" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1987953909328212066) 2025-11-10T18:42Z [----] followers, [---] engagements "@ReubenR80027912 They just might: The final act of our long boomer era will be their transfer of power to their children the millennials Gen X and in turn the zoomers have been or will be blocked out The ultimate act of authority is determining ones heirs The final act of our long boomer era will be their transfer of power to their children the millennials Gen X and in turn the zoomers have been or will be blocked out The ultimate act of authority is determining ones heirs" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1987960097666937002) 2025-11-10T19:06Z [----] followers, [---] engagements "@widewebworld Pizza Hut had a great vibe back then. It also has a unique flavor. Not sure how to describe it. But it doesnt taste like anything else" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1988268971557032220) 2025-11-11T15:33Z [----] followers, [---] engagements "These actions are thermometers for decision-making in Beijing If youre planning to invade (seriously planning not just building the option) why would you give your enemy years worth of advance notice so they can substitute for critical minerals that at present only you supply The point to cut off the rare earths is at the point of invasion to maximize disruption Not provide ample opportunity for the US to develop alternatives VEU VEU https://t.co/9zSMiulF7x VEU VEU https://t.co/9zSMiulF7x" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1988271057313079423) 2025-11-11T15:42Z [----] followers, [---] engagements "@KintsugiMuslim Its a really underrated topic. Theres a lot there to cover And its a design element thats quite affordable. You can easily improve your home environment with just a few new choices in color temperature" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1988315921753272729) 2025-11-11T18:40Z [----] followers, [--] engagements "The soul needs Dubai too Dubai represents ambition. That you can change your destiny Thats important. Its a different kind of aesthetic beauty Your souls need this not Dubai https://t.co/3gpzhF7c7m Your souls need this not Dubai https://t.co/3gpzhF7c7m" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1988327646334468211) 2025-11-11T19:27Z [----] followers, [----] engagements "@lost_nomad__ Thats a funny movie. I just mean on a podcast. Maybe Ive converted to current era mores more than I realize" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1988376679438536845) 2025-11-11T22:41Z [----] followers, [--] engagements "@okaythenfuture Dubai is a litmus test. If youre just closed off to it youre missing a big chunk of what the 21st century is all about" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1988441454805741799) 2025-11-12T02:59Z [----] followers, 15.3K engagements "@akhivae People have strong reactions to Dubai. Its a kind of litmus test" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1988618704930623757) 2025-11-12T14:43Z [----] followers, [--] engagements "@PaulSkallas Mickey Mouse too Im sure" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1988693180674633974) 2025-11-12T19:39Z [----] followers, [---] engagements "New York makes you more interesting than are Los Angeles vapid DC one-dimensional (politics uber alles) Miami risks making you dumb Portland retired too young Phoenix and Chicago forgotten" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1988751043094597840) 2025-11-12T23:29Z [----] followers, [---] engagements "New York makes you more interesting than are SF smarter Los Angeles vapid DC one-dimensional (politics uber alles) Miami risks making you dumb Portland retired too young Phoenix and Chicago forgotten" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1988756530645070148) 2025-11-12T23:51Z [----] followers, [---] engagements "Peak family in the US was [----]. The number of families with kids under [--] declines from that point on There is a sense in which the US never wholly recovered from the great financial crisis The ghost of Bush is with us still This should really *never* be negative The last time America had this number of families with children under [--] was in [----] when the US population was [---] million The US population today is [---] million Absolute demographic disaster. https://t.co/p2mNVBUQnd This should really *never* be negative The last time America had this number of families with children under [--] was" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1988804038201340077) 2025-11-13T03:00Z [----] followers, [---] engagements "Heatherwick is a very talented and fashionable western (British) architect who receives the majority of his commissions from non-western countries - principally Asia The attitude there is much more permissive towards radical designs This new 'lantern quarter' is set to be constructed in Bangkok. Designed by Heatherwick Studio for Narai Hospitality Group Hatai is inspired by traditional Thai lanterns and will according to the architects feature a series of "stacked glowing forms that bring softness and https://t.co/aX45x1WOnu This new 'lantern quarter' is set to be constructed in Bangkok." [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1988806040700498167) 2025-11-13T03:08Z [----] followers, [---] engagements "To me the odd question requiring explaining is why the percentage of people not owning their own homes (house/apartment/whatever) is not even higher than it is. Singles as a proportion are way up age of having your first kid is up Why would you want to own a home if you dont have a spouse or kids Be free" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1988978603254493527) 2025-11-13T14:33Z [----] followers, [---] engagements "Mamdani is phenomenal political talent. His campaign was brilliant. He inspired the highest voter turnout in 5+ decades But: Only 1/3 of eligible voters turned out His final vote was thin at 50.4%. Thats very low considering how much voter turnout increased especially amongst the youngest and most Mamdani-favoring cohorts Bill de Blasio and Adams both got 66% of the vote or higher (de Blasio earned 73% in 2013) Even Giuliani did better (slightly at 50.9% and Giuliani was running as a Republican in a city that hadnt elected Republicans in decades Like Trump what Mamdani has really mastered is" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1988985604709720290) 2025-11-13T15:01Z [----] followers, [----] engagements "Since [----] only two cities in the US have created a new vibe: San Francisco and Miami Both have new civilization vibes but in very different ways In contrast NYC (my favorite city note) has been in relative decline since [----]. The city is much improved - these two things are not contradictory - since [----] let alone [----] but is also now much less central to the US experience. In this sense Phoenix and Houston are more relevant" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1989015010178396611) 2025-11-13T16:58Z [----] followers, [----] engagements "@2024dion Underrated. It seems to have been mostly forgotten. But its a good sci fi action movie the villain is great Matt Damon is Matt Damon and the special effects hold up really well" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1989148814020849666) 2025-11-14T01:50Z [----] followers, [---] engagements "The worlds most exciting coffee scene is in China right now; why culture holds you back Beer got really good in the US during the 2000s. For most of the 20th century it was much better in Europe; American beers were thin watery and insipid. That all changed in the last quarter-century. The worlds most exciting beer scene emerged in the US. America beat Europe at its own game. The reason in part was culture. In Germany where beer is central to its culture beer is this very specific thing. Germans dont want you playing around with it much. The product has become fixed culturally Theres nothing" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1989376315577757807) 2025-11-14T16:54Z [----] followers, [----] engagements "Developers are the missing layer in the entire housing discussion - ironic because theyre the ones who actually take the risk and make the decisions on what and where and when to build All the focus is either on the demand side (consumers) or the political level (do we have the right laws regulations and so forth)" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1989523425946124646) 2025-11-15T02:38Z [----] followers, [--] engagements "Now there are two; Things will happen fast now The most immediate consequences of Blue Origin successfully landing New Glenn are for ULA. United Launch Alliance has been on borrowed time for years; it has only stuck around because the Defense Department wants a second commercial partner to assure its access to low Earth orbit. Now that Blue has twice demonstrated orbital capacity the writing is on the wall. ULA has only launched [--] times this year; [--] of those were for Amazons Starlink competitor Kuiper/Leo. Presumably this demand will switch to Blue now that New Glenn is operational;" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1989551970684674209) 2025-11-15T04:32Z [----] followers, [----] engagements "@okaythenfuture I couldnt live in NZ long term but Australia I could. Sydney and Melbourne are some of the nicest most livable cities anywhere" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1989552430413926635) 2025-11-15T04:33Z [----] followers, [----] engagements "@sdamico How does this not exist yet" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1989753730158236147) 2025-11-15T17:53Z [----] followers, [----] engagements "Theres an incredible documentary entitled Dead Birds from the early 60s which captures some of the last open field combat to occur at scale with edged and missile (but non-gunpowder) weapons anywhere on Earth You can see some of the same battlefield physics in the video quoted below Another video of a violent clash in Papua is going viral https://t.co/NIWtbfMbIo Another video of a violent clash in Papua is going viral https://t.co/NIWtbfMbIo" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1989757015389081862) 2025-11-15T18:06Z [----] followers, 73.9K engagements "@teortaxesTex [--] day is hyperbolic and I dont find it plausible that China is able to regularly track Japanese (or US) submarines" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1989778559158886461) 2025-11-15T19:32Z [----] followers, [----] engagements "@policytensor Theyll have a lot of countries to fight through first and Im not persuaded that China has any such plans in mind. Even the Taiwan contingency is questionable" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1989844472168157305) 2025-11-15T23:54Z [----] followers, [--] engagements "Bomb Power is one of the few books to really consider this angle at length. Its underrated. But as president you get of the magic rocks with eldritch powers that can literally destroy civilization. Its an awesome ability the force of the gods and weve just grown sort of normalized to it" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1989864185065283843) 2025-11-16T01:12Z [----] followers, [---] engagements "In the US the national education department is mostly made up. Its a vehicle for funds disbursement to the states. All real decision making is at the state and mostly local level where the elected school boards have most of the authority. US education is highly decentralized. No one in the US knows who the Education Secretary is" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1990071494370566213) 2025-11-16T14:56Z [----] followers, [---] engagements "From Blue Mars by the great Kim Stanley Robinson. You can hear echoes of The Population Bomb in this Fear of over-population one-shotted the entire boomer generation. They almost universally believe the world is filling up with people" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1990093564848611804) 2025-11-16T16:24Z [----] followers, [---] engagements "People sometimes ask why cant we build those Sears kit homes today Usual answers are zoning or labor costs or whatever But the simpler and correct explanation is that houses are just much more complicated today and expectations are much higher You need insulation. Gas. Plumbing everywhere (kitchen multiple baths exterior on multiple stories). Electrical is orders of magnitude more complicated. You need outlets everywhere. Not to mention WiFi. Integrated lighting. After all that you need climate control. Air conditioning. Heat. Multiple zones frequently. All computer controlled Higher end" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1990105712001941667) 2025-11-16T17:12Z [----] followers, 32.9K engagements "This is the vision that the original 19th century filibusterers had (tho they focused more on the tropics) I think its also inevitable. Trumps Greenland talk was very crude but reflects something real nonetheless. Mexicos birth rate (all of the Americas really) is cratering. Canadas population is a fraction of the size of the US. The US is the only dynamic American economy The economic logic is clear. All these countries will be assimilated in time within the US economic order. Demographic trends within the US will accelerate this (a more Hispanic US population many more American retirees" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1990110050614915444) 2025-11-16T17:29Z [----] followers, 18.2K engagements "@Empty_America Plus all the Anglo and north European types seem to do really well in Latin America I went to school with a Venezuelan who was of pure Irish background. Bright red hair fair skin blue eyes. Grew up in Caracas" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1990112232693211386) 2025-11-16T17:38Z [----] followers, [--] engagements "The best aquarium Ive been to is in Monterey Bay. Theres this room where a window opens onto a very deep tank. Theres a curtain of air bubbles in front of you a gyre of fish below and it opens up onto the abyss. An illusion of infinite depth 80% of the ocean remains unmapped or unexplored. Only 240k of est 2.2m marine species are identified. Kelp forests use a language we barely understand; hosting hundreds of interdependent species. For all the unknowns it feels deeply familiar. A majestic curious mystery. https://t.co/Suj7w2vW6Z 80% of the ocean remains unmapped or unexplored. Only 240k of" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1990131983087722788) 2025-11-16T18:56Z [----] followers, [----] engagements "Much as certain past civilizations appeared to be on the brink of an industrial revolution (early imperial Rome Song China at its height) but clearly missed several critical ingredients I suspect that pre-WWI Europe was on the brink of something as well but a combination of bad luck and the absence of a few key elements held it back. Perhaps weve created a few of these since. Maybe others remain to be discovered. But eventually well converge on whatever it was and break through" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1990138176325689426) 2025-11-16T19:21Z [----] followers, [---] engagements "Americans born here cant do anything because of zoning Immigrants come in and just do things Keeps the country from freezing up You dont want to live in the law of jante German filing every form in quadruplicate Anglo mandarin bureaucrat state You might think you do but you really dont This is wild. Immigrants move into a suburban Virginia neighborhood construct a 3-story monstrosity of an addition for [--] generations of family members to live innearly encroaching on their neighbors property line. And people wonder why Americans cant afford homes https://t.co/L134Du4MXr This is wild. Immigrants" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1990147601526607958) 2025-11-16T19:58Z [----] followers, [----] engagements "Plus Chinas odds are being massive overrated. An invasion of Taiwan would be the most difficult military operation in history; much harder than Overlord in [----] as it would take place (presumably) without air or sea supremacy. Besides this Im skeptical of arguments in favor of directly intervening because the US gets most of the benefits from such while remaining on the sidelines. If China does attack Taiwan it will be revealed as the aggressive revisionist power that so many of its critics proclaim that it is. Those critical of the national security maximalists in the West will be entirely" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1990162565591392281) 2025-11-16T20:58Z [----] followers, [---] engagements "@mnolangray Long term the US mostly assimilates North America and the Caribbean into itself" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1990229607631429704) 2025-11-17T01:24Z [----] followers, [---] engagements "The highly selective schools are like the NFL. A higher standard is expected. Your performance is judged not according all possible football players but conditional to those who are in the NFL. On this metric some suck. Which is on every level (except one) ridiculous as these guys are world-class athletes who would obliterate their opponents in every other situation. But thats the deal; no one makes you go to the NFL The same is true for Harvard. Yes youd be getting all As at a second tier no-name state school. But thats not where youre at. An A elsewhere is not an A at Harvard. A different" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1990259086592479418) 2025-11-17T03:21Z [----] followers, 13.8K engagements "@Empty_America You cant replicate Denmark. But you can get to Dubai I think" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1990444300237472244) 2025-11-17T15:37Z [----] followers, [---] engagements "Ban Arabic numerals Return to Indian numerals This country is built on compromise JUST IN: The majority of people want to ban Arabic Numerals from the New York School System according to new poll. JUST IN: The majority of people want to ban Arabic Numerals from the New York School System according to new poll" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1990473880608116802) 2025-11-17T17:35Z [----] followers, [---] engagements "Europe rearming isnt a question of production; everyone has this wrong: youve got to be blooded Europe is a major industrial economy. It has huge technological capacity. This is the home of Airbus (beating Boeing at its own game) and ASML. It substantially reoriented itself away from Russia gas in short order So if Europe wants to re-equip itself with a new generation of weapons it can do so. There really should be no question about this Thats the hardware side. That isnt the problem. The software side - the culture side - is. What matters isnt so much if you build weapons but how - or if -" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1990491117628903613) 2025-11-17T18:43Z [----] followers, [----] engagements "@razibkhan Its a social media effect I think Immersion in social media from an early date has completely skewed Gen Z intuitions about what makes for a competitive salary https://t.co/AiN4rva8ww Immersion in social media from an early date has completely skewed Gen Z intuitions about what makes for a competitive salary https://t.co/AiN4rva8ww" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1990515825309274223) 2025-11-17T20:22Z [----] followers, 59.9K engagements "You could move massive volumes of water (10 million acre-feet or more) for well under $1 trillion in capital costs I suspect Over a decade accounting for average GDP growth this is 0.3% of GDP This amount of money would be easy to mobilize. Just look at how much capital is being invested in AI. The challenge is entirely legal regulatory and even philosophical. Weve fallen out of love with grand projects that transform the Earths surface (at least all in one go). For example we tear down dams today rather than build them up" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1990561999516786795) 2025-11-17T23:25Z [----] followers, [---] engagements "We need a full-length Feyerabendesque treatment of the Industrial Revolution as essentially anarchic/random. Not so much that anything goes per se (you werent going to get takeoff out of the Congo under any timeline) but that the question isnt wholly reducible to a rational explanation. Theres this fundamental residual a quantum that is essentially unknowable. Run the timeline again [----] times maybe it doesnt happen at all in [----] of them in China N number of times and so forth" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1990601379056918979) 2025-11-18T02:02Z [----] followers, [---] engagements "The airship still looks futuristic even though it is older than the aircraft Also this is exactly the sort of thing that you expect to see in San Francisco Silicon Valley should look like the future Some crazy air ship / blimp doing laps over SF. What / who is it https://t.co/fcU2S913Wc Some crazy air ship / blimp doing laps over SF. What / who is it https://t.co/fcU2S913Wc" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1990908627188682902) 2025-11-18T22:23Z [----] followers, [----] engagements "Stellantis is the latest auto manufacturer to adopt the Tesla-developed NCAS charging standard and will implement it globally. Toyota previously adopted NCAS for North America CHAdeMO is a Japanese standard but is now in clear decline. Might remain as a Galapagos type effect in Japan NCAS will be the USB-C equivalent solution for the US and North America CCS is dominant in Europe and Chinas national standard is GB/T. Probably no one standard becomes globally dominant though" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1991140318691873106) 2025-11-19T13:43Z [----] followers, [---] engagements "Portman was a master of the hotel lobby which he transformed into sculptures Never fails to impress Its not for everyone and is definitely not the best use of space but I kind of miss the 1980s vintage atrium lobbies for hotels and office buildings. https://t.co/GRTruHKBQs Its not for everyone and is definitely not the best use of space but I kind of miss the 1980s vintage atrium lobbies for hotels and office buildings. https://t.co/GRTruHKBQs" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1991169063398375595) 2025-11-19T15:37Z [----] followers, [----] engagements "@2024dion Agreed weather wont be an impediment - and ultimately neither will the red/blue state divide either. Uber got in everywhere eventually and if self-driving really does work the pressure to permit it will be overwhelming" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1991305008613040401) 2025-11-20T00:38Z [----] followers, [---] engagements "The reason for this is simple the chain pizzas are all really cheap now In [----] a Pizza Hut pizza was $12. Today you can get a one topping cheese for about the same price Adjusted for inflation that $12 pizza in [----] is today $30 So youre nominally getting that pizza today for 1/3 the price. Obviously something has to give And in [----] you couldnt get almost anywhere the kind of pizza you can get today for around $30 - Neapolitan wood-fired fior di latte [--] flour and so on Every pizza delivery chain is inedible now. It wasnt always this way. You used to order a pizza and they delivered actual" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1991348425103667213) 2025-11-20T03:30Z [----] followers, 36.6K engagements "I did the calculation and it really surprised me. Chain pizza prices are basically flat for decades. A Pizza Hut pie in [----] adjusted for inflation was $30 Obviously the product isnt as good; the price has been cut by 2/3 and the cost structure for business is much more expensive today. Something has to give But if you want to spend $30-40 a pizza today you get an incredible meal. That didnt exist in [----] in most of America" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1991492847212585038) 2025-11-20T13:04Z [----] followers, [---] engagements "You can tell that Trump misses Florida. He craves the sun the reflected light from the white paint. All that grey granite probably depresses him Its the same reason for all the gold in the Oval Office. He needs that energy Trump proposes painting the 137-year old granite Eisenhower Executive Office Building bright white Im sure painted granite will age well in the coming years https://t.co/XW8KbnDx24 Trump proposes painting the 137-year old granite Eisenhower Executive Office Building bright white Im sure painted granite will age well in the coming years https://t.co/XW8KbnDx24" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1991502448285085783) 2025-11-20T13:42Z [----] followers, [---] engagements "This a great example. Built by the US Army Corps of Engineers I think. The ogival arches are a really nice detail. It really shows how concrete can be this sculptural almost archetypal material. The environment of Saudi helps considerably. Damper contexts like in the UK it ends up looking dreary and Soviet if not well-maintained Its still there I dont know if its used anymore" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1991570960655475177) 2025-11-20T18:14Z [----] followers, [--] engagements "@akarlin Ive seen this but I wasnt sure how much credence to give it. Ive read things along these lines for years. Do you believe something fundamentally has changed" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1991710096976752744) 2025-11-21T03:27Z [----] followers, [---] engagements "@Paul_Heron_ Its the lighting plus the show house aspect. Theres nothing personal in the lower house. Its set up for an open house Heres the [----] house under very different lighting conditions. You can really see how the environment is transformed Most complaints on here about interior design are really about lighting https://t.co/uVOZRpHBez Heres the [----] house under very different lighting conditions. You can really see how the environment is transformed Most complaints on here about interior design are really about lighting https://t.co/uVOZRpHBez" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1991711646105104411) 2025-11-21T03:33Z [----] followers, [--] engagements "Havent seen this really picked up upon but Foster snuck in a very good classical reference in the new JP Morgan headquarters: elevator shafts carved as columns Banks are traditionally associated with classical architecture to evoke solidity. Nice to see that tradition referenced here" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1991732408756981877) 2025-11-21T04:56Z [----] followers, [---] engagements "Another edition in my running total of conservative policy victories being invisible: Fracking was a major political issue in the 2000s and 2010s. You had presidential candidates pledging to ban it Now its an entirely accepted practice at least in the US. No one even mentions it anymore. Its just disappeared as a topic of discussion Most conservative wins are like this. Theyre just taken to be common sense - if were going to drill for oil why not use the best available techniques - rather than seen as seizing ground from the opposition (left wing victories are like this). Its a noticeable" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1991745292857729110) 2025-11-21T05:47Z [----] followers, [---] engagements "A lot of different strands of technological development are going to simultaneously mature in the 2030s: AI Robotics Reusable rockets Electric + Self driving cars Solar + battery storage It didnt necessarily have to be that way it just happened that way The result will be that the next decade will look very different from the 2010s and prior Well see the pre-Covid years as this sort of other world and the 2020s as a kind of bridge between the two" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1991746810608570646) 2025-11-21T05:53Z [----] followers, [----] engagements "Most of the commentary on the new Birmingham City stadium focuses on the external appearance; which is understandable as this is how bystanders primarily experience buildings. I think the exterior is excellent. It looks like a repurposed brickworks. Very Victorian. Landscapes like this were everywhere in the UK in the 19th century. You can see why Heatherwick (the chief architect) is in such high demand But if dont like it thats fine. But from reading the criticism you start to understand why the critics never win these arguments. Its not so much because their aesthetic vision is poor but" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1991943108934721707) 2025-11-21T18:53Z [----] followers, [---] engagements "The greatest living actor is Donald Trump. No one else comes close Its true that the movie stars arent what they once were. Theyre no longer draw crowds like they did in the past But thats to use a narrow definition of actor. In reality we live in a golden age of actors. Twitter is full of them and increasingly politics too. Every political entrepreneur is an actor. The biggest influencers are all actors. In a way social media has made actors of all of us: everyones performing a role for the feeds This is a product of economic growth and the increasing complexity of the economy. In the 20th" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1991969891423854712) 2025-11-21T20:40Z [----] followers, [--] engagements "No city in the country and only a few in the world chronicle themselves as well as New York City does. In the US Washington DC has a similar density of media but all of it is political and national. The city itself disappears at best a stage on which the drama plays out But New York City is constantly spinning stories in which the city itself is a main character. No New York story can be complete without continual reference to the city unlike say the suburbs where emotional discontents and psychodramas are foregrounded and the suburb itself a mere frame for the action If nations and cities -" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1991985484583911451) 2025-11-21T21:42Z [----] followers, [---] engagements "Mamdani and Trump are the same guy. Both are political entrepreneurs. Im not surprised Trump gets along well with him. Plus Trump had a sixth sense for winners. He knows whats going to be big next and he moves to where thats going to be. Hes almost completely non-ideological. So hes able to support a wide range of policy issues. He doesnt have a logical structure where if you support this then you also believe on that like a lot of politicians There are exceptions to this: his quasi-theological belief in sanctions for example. Note that this is also where hes caused the most problems. I dont" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1992045506676093216) 2025-11-22T01:40Z [----] followers, [---] engagements "Very interesting that RAND withdrew its report calling for the US to encourage gradual Chinese reunification with Taiwan Im not surprised it was retracted but I am a bit surprised it was published and I wonder if the reason it was withdrawn is because it was too honest. The big brains in DC and DoD strategy tanks might be arriving at a belief that while the US cannot accept a coup de main on Beijings part it could live with a slow protracted process by which China reunites with Taiwan. This would not present the world with a dramatic mediagenic fait accompli to which the government would feel" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1992052742030807061) 2025-11-22T02:09Z [----] followers, [----] engagements "@thefuzzybastard Why do we need a thorn at all What does this gain us I also dont see how HK returning to China impacted the US one way or the other" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1992083354586665335) 2025-11-22T04:10Z [----] followers, [--] engagements "The thing I noticed right away is how many more trees there are today You see time and again with historic photos at least in the West. The world has gotten much greener without really anyone much noticing. If anything people tend to believe the opposite When you wonder why housing is so expensive in San Francisco the Bay Area California America https://t.co/CzSX6Fc5wb When you wonder why housing is so expensive in San Francisco the Bay Area California America https://t.co/CzSX6Fc5wb" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1992147042622447729) 2025-11-22T08:24Z [----] followers, 743.2K engagements "The ultimate evolution of this is when you can create arbitrary mental states via direct neural stimulation. So you can imagine yourself fighting at Agincourt or whatever you want All our efforts to date are crude ways of indirectly achieving this Eventually it will be reduced to a practical engineering question We made fake smells that don't exist. Creating ghost smells with ultrasound only took us a few days to pull off with surprisingly replicable consistency yet has never been described before. There's so much green field here to keep exploring. Can we target more precisely and We made" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1992296512366190948) 2025-11-22T18:17Z [----] followers, [---] engagements "Mexican is easily a top [--] cuisine arguably a top [--]. Theres no debate here to be had Its the center of origin for corn/maize beans cacao vanilla the tomato avocado dozens of chilis etc. I dont think any other cuisine comes close to the sheer variety of ingredients it has domesticated. Nixtamalization is one of the great food transformation processes. Mole is amongst the worlds most complex sauces. Its fine if you dont like it but the range of moles exceeds that of the exceptional French mother sauce tradition and the flavors are both deep and sophisticated The acid-chile-fat balance is better" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1992410023113191544) 2025-11-23T01:49Z [----] followers, [----] engagements "@okaythenfuture Its definitely the best new world. To me its just notable how little respect it gets on here. Not sure why that is" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1992428692216398248) 2025-11-23T03:03Z [----] followers, [---] engagements "The odd thing is that the world has never felt empty and never will no matter how small the global population is This is because almost everyone lives around other people so there are always crowds and groups nearby people out and about This is why population decline is hard to really grasp intellectually. It doesnt feel true. You have to understand it statistically This chart is always disturbing because of the sheer mass of souls in the last [---] years. But the prediluvians probably felt the same way about having millions of people on the planet instead of 20k. https://t.co/pQSfogSSZn This" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1992697411550970336) 2025-11-23T20:51Z [----] followers, 39.4K engagements "Jakarta is now the worlds largest city and most people have never heard of it Indonesia remains underrated. I think it falls between the gaps on a lot of issues and therefore goes relatively ignored. It isnt dysfunctional or collapsing. It isnt a failed state so it doesnt get the attention from that Nor is it a massive outsized development success so it doesnt get attention that way either Plus at least for the West there isnt much of immigrant community so there isnt top of the mind awareness for that either Its really in the middle and gets ignored as a result" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1993304770132512997) 2025-11-25T13:04Z [----] followers, [----] engagements "If you want cheap air tickets you should be happy about this. The rich are subsidizing you Airline tickets in the US have come down 50-60% since deregulation. You can fly across the country for a few hundred dollars in basic economy. This is incredible. Sure you dont get much shoulder room or in flight service but you get there very safely in a few hours. This is one of the greatest bargains in the modern economy. If you had to drive youd spend much more and multiple days to accomplish the same task all while less comfortably. To get all this though there are trade-offs. Airlines have thin" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1993369930171813917) 2025-11-25T17:23Z [----] followers, 130.5K engagements "People sometimes ask why cant we build those Sears kit homes today Usual answers are zoning or labor costs or whatever But the simpler and correct explanation is that houses are just much more complicated today and expectations are much higher You need insulation. Gas. Plumbing everywhere (kitchen multiple baths exterior on multiple stories). Electrical is orders of magnitude more complicated. You need outlets everywhere. Not to mention WiFi. Integrated lighting. After all that you need climate control. Air conditioning. Heat. Multiple zones frequently. All computer controlled Higher end" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1993436453787848711) 2025-11-25T21:47Z [----] followers, [----] engagements "Java is very densely populated and has a long history of civilization. I can easily see it being the most interesting and compelling part of the global Miami belt Probably a few decades still. Maybe by [----] Jakarta is now the worlds largest city and most people have never heard of it Indonesia remains underrated. I think it falls between the gaps on a lot of issues and therefore goes relatively ignored. It isnt dysfunctional or collapsing. It isnt a failed state so it Jakarta is now the worlds largest city and most people have never heard of it Indonesia remains underrated. I think it falls" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1993438902439625080) 2025-11-25T21:57Z [----] followers, [---] engagements "@gopplanelover @claws816 That makes sense. The biggest gains are always in the [--] to [--] step. So premium is the first rung up the status ladder and you get most the psychological payoff at this level. Everyone else is about refinement" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1993705034618400939) 2025-11-26T15:34Z [----] followers, [--] engagements "Countries like companies need halo projects Car companies will frequently design and build a high end roadster or whatever to flex their technological capacity and as a morale booster for their workforce. Even though very few customers will ever purchase or even drive it the existence of the product trickles down to the more mundane offerings where the company makes its bread and butter. Its as if the DNA is in these products if only in a spiritual sense Countries are the same. It isnt enough to just tinker with the pension programs or optimize the tax structure essential as all this is. You" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1993781314193871089) 2025-11-26T20:38Z [----] followers, [----] engagements "$250 per night at the Shanghai Four Seasons versus $1200 in NYC Great bargain if youre getting paid in dollars The gap between costs in the US and elsewhere is massive these days Over the past few years China has been in deflation while the US has been in inflation. Yet despite this stark divergence the CNH has still depreciated more than 10% against the US dollar. This combination falling relative prices in China and a weaker currency has made Over the past few years China has been in deflation while the US has been in inflation. Yet despite this stark divergence the CNH has still" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1993789220431831115) 2025-11-26T21:09Z [----] followers, [---] engagements "Hawaii has been chasing the highest spending visitors in recent years. Its succeeding Many places are adopting this strategy. Its a response to political concerns around overtourism but also recognizes the reality that in many instances tourism is the leading industry so this is an attempt to square the circle Riyadh wants to be the next. The problem is that there are only so many wealthy people. Everyones chasing the same monied cohort and these people have infinite options My guess is that the real money will be found by the companies cities and countries that are able to solve the problem" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1994499359430594587) 2025-11-28T20:11Z [----] followers, [---] engagements "Twitter discourse on US decline arguably contributed to Putins decision to invade Ukraine. Moscow over-learned from a very vocal and unrepresentative online cohort It would be very ironic if Beijing made the same mistake on Taiwan by over-indexing on leftist anti-tech bro and startup scam discourse The US infosphere is unrivaled. The US only takes its memes half-seriously but the rest of the world does so literally Many make very bad mistakes as a result. One might even suspect this is part of a strategy" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1994909921037410677) 2025-11-29T23:22Z [----] followers, 15K engagements "@Empty_America I think you could do this in creative writing for an MFA program Virtually impossible in the sciences or engineering in the US. Humanities are if anything even worse Dyson is an exception but that was from the mid-century" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1994912609271951458) 2025-11-29T23:33Z [----] followers, [---] engagements "This is an underrated element in the class consciousness of our elite. It is by any definition doing extremely well. But by historic standards it is also quite insecure. Its concerned about being displaced by others rising up in a way that precious generations were not This lack of confidence contributes substantially to its decision-making in everything from politics to business investments and beyond. Ive posted a bit about it previously but I really think it is a kind of master key to understand how the elite thinks and acts. It senses that it does not have this security of tenure that" [X Link](https://x.com/TheMindScourge/status/1994936486282563633) 2025-11-30T01:08Z [----] followers, [---] engagements Limited data mode. Full metrics available with subscription: lunarcrush.com/pricing
@TheMindScourge The Mind Scourge
The Mind Scourge posts on X about china, in the, taiwan, countries the most. They currently have [------] followers and [----] posts still getting attention that total [---------] engagements in the last [--] hours.
Engagements: [---------] #
- [--] Week [---------] +33%
- [--] Month [----------] +125%
- [--] Months [----------] +4,284%
- [--] Year [----------] +231%
Mentions: [--] #
- [--] Week [--] -39%
- [--] Month [---] +39%
- [--] Months [---] +123%
- [--] Year [---] +2.70%
Followers: [------] #
- [--] Week [-----] +6.10%
- [--] Month [-----] +25%
- [--] Months [-----] +97%
- [--] Year [-----] +140%
CreatorRank: [------] #
Social Influence
Social category influence countries #7853 travel destinations finance #3168 technology brands #6663 stocks #1522 social networks celebrities automotive brands us election luxury brands
Social topic influence china, in the #733, taiwan, countries, ukraine, russia, ai #1196, if you #2111, money #895, spacex
Top accounts mentioned or mentioned by @emptyamerica @paulskallas @pastynome @okaythenme @elonmusk @hmbrough @policytensor @sharghzadeh @powerfultakes @peterrhague @lostnomad @reubenr80027912 @jordanschnyc @molsonhart @teortaxestex @2024dion @rick42798550 @alicefromqueens @okaythenfuture @spacex
Top assets mentioned Tesla, Inc. (TSLA) GrokCoin (GROKCOIN) StarShip (STARSHIP) StarLink (STARL)
Top Social Posts
Top posts by engagements in the last [--] hours
"The declining age of puberty remains both underrated and under-determined (Graph on right is for Norway specifically)"
X Link 2023-05-25T16:00Z [----] followers, [---] engagements
"Argentina vs other countries A long decline"
X Link 2023-11-20T01:36Z [----] followers, [---] engagements
"Guy from Saudi Arabia studies in the US. Takes a lot of meth Returns home. Goes cold turkey. No therapy. The environment changed"
X Link 2024-03-24T23:34Z [----] followers, 13.2K engagements
"The Pan Pacific Orchard in Singapore You can see how detail and ornament is being brought back through the use of greenery This is completely missed or ignored by the anti-contemporary architecture accounts We arent going to get statuary or classical orders Instead fractal dimension is being brought in through the back door via a green revolution angle Doesnt get remarked upon much https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1778523279407612306 https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1778523279407612306"
X Link 2024-04-11T20:39Z [----] followers, [---] engagements
"Im not persuaded by this argument Graphene was discovered in [----] using Scotch tape Yes many breakthroughs in the past seemed laughably simple by current standards But the knowledge base today is also orders of magnitude higher. The attack surface available to make new discoveries is much greater (making in theory many more opportunities or shots on goal attempts possible) and we simply have more to work with or leverage to make discoveries Was Plancks leap of desperation to the quantized theory of energy any easier than (say) what Schwinger did with QED Im not convinced a hierarchy of"
X Link 2024-12-18T02:37Z [----] followers, 14.6K engagements
"Ambitions for the territorial acquisition of Cuba by the US are of very long-standing far back into the 19th century. The Cuban state is not in collapse like Venezuela but is moribund. Its demise is inevitable Cuba is [--] miles off the coast of the US. Florida is home to millions of Cuban Americans and flush with capital to invest in a post-Communist era. Unlike Haiti (which Americans ignore) theres an active and very well-connected Cuban political community. The odds of Cubas admission into the US as a territory (or state) are higher than you probably think Trump's special envoy to Latin"
X Link 2025-02-13T01:26Z [----] followers, [---] engagements
"What made me realize suburbs will survive is seeing just how popular they are overseas. Its urbanist twitters biggest miss. People love suburbs at least judged by where they choose to live Im a dense urban city guy personally but youve got to be clear-eyed about what people overall want and what will get built as a result"
X Link 2025-02-13T13:48Z [----] followers, [--] engagements
"@okaythenme I love Yogyakarta. Legendary place"
X Link 2025-02-14T14:18Z [----] followers, [---] engagements
"I tried the Perplexity deep research on a topic I know very well Verdict: dont worry guys. Everyone keeps their day job It basically summarized Wikipedia and not as well"
X Link 2025-02-14T19:25Z [----] followers, [---] engagements
"Tariff TSMC exports Get TSMC to run Intel Intel becomes TSMC The tail swallows the head The US abandons Taiwan Could happen New: TSMC is open to taking a controlling stake in Intels US factories @ianmking & I are told Trump team floated a potential Intel deal in recent meetings w TSMC officials who were receptive. Intels stance is unclear. Talks are in very early stages https://t.co/DAo28HqLet New: TSMC is open to taking a controlling stake in Intels US factories @ianmking & I are told Trump team floated a potential Intel deal in recent meetings w TSMC officials who were receptive. Intels"
X Link 2025-02-14T19:27Z [----] followers, [---] engagements
"@docontra_txt Politicians should spend much more time thinking about aesthetics Many actively recoil against this. They think its an insult or something. Accept me as I am But changing how you look affects voters much more than changing your opinions People vote what they see"
X Link 2025-02-15T14:37Z [----] followers, [--] engagements
"Old Bagan is if anything even more extraordinary. A sort of tropical Pompeii In my opinion even better than Angkor Wat and virtually never visited. You might have the place to yourself They sell you hot air balloon rides too if you want. Popular at sunrise"
X Link 2025-02-15T21:35Z [----] followers, [---] engagements
"The Wildberries saga is every bit as Byzantine and gonzo as you might expect It gets almost no attention in the west surprisingly as it provides as good a window inside late Putinism as we are likely to get for some time"
X Link 2025-02-16T19:28Z [----] followers, [---] engagements
"The fact that Hollywood remains very reluctant to depict phones on screen is a very bearish signal for our generation of consumer electronics Theres something repelling and not Lindy about all of it Popular culture is a really good high level heuristic to a societys id Another example would be guns. Hollywood loves guns and if Hollywood ever stops showing guns on screen that will be a sign that Americas relationship with guns has changed fundamentally"
X Link 2025-02-17T22:07Z [----] followers, [----] engagements
"@Empty_America I think this has been over-thought. Look at Disney or Universal Studios for example. Mostly twee and "traditional" architecture. It's all newly built and rusticated and yet they can't charge enough to keep people out"
X Link 2025-02-18T18:37Z [----] followers, [---] engagements
"@jxmnop What would superhuman in writing even look like Same with beyond human in art. This isnt a well defined space. The median person prefers a Kinkade to a Rothko just as Colleen Hoover is preferred by the typical reader to James Joyce"
X Link 2025-02-19T18:01Z [----] followers, [----] engagements
"@PAstynome @blob_watcher @RickJoe_PLA @ijkTA1619 @devarbol I believe the Navy and Air Force in Japan receive the majority of the spending today. I would have to double check to confirm. Ground forces spending is lower now than in the past but even in the Cold War I think the majority of spending went to the maritime and air branches"
X Link 2025-02-22T00:46Z [----] followers, [--] engagements
"Maybe the US isnt a Western or European nation Maybe its a Pacific and Latin American one Maybe it has more affinities with China and Russia than are generally appreciated Maybe it looks more to India or Africa than to France and Germany Theres this idea of a strategy of similitude in international affairs where states and societies adopt aspects of highly successful societies in furtherance of self-strengthening and internal growth. The west was the source of inspiration internationally par excellence for the entire modern period and in the 20th century the US primarily In the 21st a more"
X Link 2025-02-22T21:13Z [----] followers, [----] engagements
"One of the few public pictures of the gold vault in Fort Knox. This is from [----] and the woman pictured is the Director of the Mint FDR is the only US president to have seen it (Trump apparently will be the next) Something like 2% of all the gold ever mined is down there with $430 billion at current prices Rumors persistently recur that its emptied out. Its been this way for decades and it periodically breaks containment and goes mainstream. One of Alexanders great feats was to increase gold circulation from his capture of the Persian imperial gold hoard. Interesting that weve done something"
X Link 2025-02-23T03:40Z [----] followers, [--] engagements
"@Empty_America Perhaps the most striking region is just how cold Minnesota is and how that anomaly within the US extends as far south as northern Iowa Looks more like interior Alaska"
X Link 2025-02-24T00:36Z [----] followers, [---] engagements
"WWII really compressed historical timelines. Everything leading up to it was prelude and everything after was Hitler Munich or appeasement. The Germans called the end of WWII Stunde Null - Zero Hour - and we can see how accurate this was. In some sense history did begin again with the end of WWII. It injected a new element into matters of war and peace. Hitler not only became the exemplar of evil but you could only go to war if your enemy was Hitler - it was the only threat people would take seriously. But if you didnt confront the threat you risked becoming another Chamberlain. Foreign"
X Link 2025-02-25T12:34Z [----] followers, [---] engagements
"@shagbark_hick Whos the billionaire"
X Link 2025-02-25T22:36Z [----] followers, [---] engagements
"Westerners used to be more adventurous. Places like Egypt and Cairo fascinated the Western mind in the 19th and first half of the 20th century Whats replaced it is what goes on here slop This represents a type of intellectual closure of the western mind"
X Link 2025-04-29T13:49Z [----] followers, [---] engagements
"Shanghai is building the civilization of the Sun"
X Link 2025-06-25T18:20Z [----] followers, [---] engagements
"Indices like this are nonsense. Remember the one in [----] that said the US was best prepared for a pandemic This index claims that The Greater Bay Area has surpassed greater Tokyo as the worlds leading innovation cluster The claim that Japan has declined is much exaggerated (Ive posted about this before) but if your methodology yields Tokyo-Yokohama as the answer to the where is worlds primary center of innovation question then somethings gone wrong with how you framed your analysis Whats the latest idea out of this part of the world that you can name"
X Link 2025-09-02T12:50Z [----] followers, [---] engagements
"The smartphone era has been an extinction level event for hobbies. So many pastimes have disappeared or are in the process of disappearing into the glowing event horizon of the screen"
X Link 2025-09-26T13:29Z [----] followers, 569K engagements
"Notable that the single domain where American aesthetics have undeniably improved the past generation is mostly a story of immigration from more aesthetic and refined cultures Thank God for non-heritage Americans https://t.co/UFoyqo7VKw Thank God for non-heritage Americans https://t.co/UFoyqo7VKw"
X Link 2025-10-07T21:57Z [----] followers, [---] engagements
"A great mistake of theirs. Of course Japanese strategic planning was hopelessly confused prior to the war up to the preemptive attack on Pearl Harbor under the I think frankly absurd belief that the US would have gone to war to protect French and British colonies in SE Asia Another oddity is that the Lend Lease ships proceeded across the North Pacific to the USSR entirely unimpeded"
X Link 2025-10-08T20:07Z [----] followers, [---] engagements
"The true lesson of Easter Island is that it is very hard to be weird under internet conditions Easter Island is very isolated. Its [----] miles to the nearest land (Pitcairn Island). The native inhabitants lost the ability for long distance sailing. In isolation all sorts of wild and divergent practices flourished. The sacred chief was chosen from a yearly competition to retrieve the first egg of a sooty term from an offshore spit of rock. All these extraordinary statues were erected All this from a population that likely never exceeded [-----] people. What town of similar size today is doing"
X Link 2025-10-11T14:45Z [----] followers, [----] engagements
"You are underrating Dubais influence People used to ask how do we get to Denmark Now countries want to know how to get to Dubai Dubai chocolate has overtaken pumpkin spice lattes which peaked in [----] https://t.co/YareV0AfMX Dubai chocolate has overtaken pumpkin spice lattes which peaked in [----] https://t.co/YareV0AfMX"
X Link 2025-10-14T13:22Z [----] followers, 259.1K engagements
"Mecca is this live place. Its growing changing. It wont look the same [--] years from now. Growth is important. Things that dont grow are dead and Mecca is very much alive Whereas St Peters represents something opposite. The Renaissance facade the square embraced by the colonnade the fountains its an ideal public space. One of the finest ever constructed. I cant imagine it being bettered. We dont build like this now. Were unlikely to build like this again or at least anytime soon. St Peters preserves and embodies the old civilization. Thats also important The development of Mecca in recent"
X Link 2025-10-15T17:16Z [----] followers, 15.7K engagements
"Theres a Lindy aspect to the emerging influencer economy. Academia emerged out of religious establishments and royal courts in the medieval period. Prominent scholars were not employees unlike most academics today. They either had wealthy patrons or attracted cult like followings that supported them in various ways Much like influencers really. Its an entirely separate ecosystem with its own hierarchy of main characters and B team and so on. It generates its own news cycles and scandals and has a growing if undefined body of received wisdom that it collectively draws from. It clearly has its"
X Link 2025-10-15T19:33Z [----] followers, [---] engagements
"Public events today political rallies youre just looking at a constellation of phones Little glass lens and points of light feeding the hive mind"
X Link 2025-10-16T13:50Z [----] followers, [---] engagements
"This sort of thing will happen with increasing frequency especially in Africa (and maybe eventually only in Africa which has the right demographics for a combustible politics of protest and uprising What gives movements like this a distinctly modern flair is that they are internet first driven by WhatsApp and TikToks and text chains. There are no real leaders. No coherent program. Just general disgruntlement. If there is any organizing mind its the digital platforms and their associated algorithms. In this sense you might argue that we are in the early period of the first AI (defined broadly)"
X Link 2025-10-16T16:30Z [----] followers, 18K engagements
"Switzerland is funny. Its famous for being rich and for no one really knowing how that happened. Its just sort of there. Its not part of anyones narrative. Its like the Indonesia of Europe. No one knows what goes on there Personally I dont think Switzerlands high human capital and development index is particularly surprising. Its in the middle of one of the worlds earliest and most heavily industrialized regions. If you draw a line encompassing SE England the Low Countries eastern France western Germany and northern Italy you capture Switzerland as well. Its composed of French and German and"
X Link 2025-10-16T23:40Z [----] followers, 50.2K engagements
"@Azariah2024 Much appreciated seriously I enjoy writing this kind of thing it just flows I love reading them too one of my favorite sub genres of Twitter that I dont see enough of"
X Link 2025-10-16T23:47Z [----] followers, [----] engagements
"A related point Ive made about all this is that a war with China over Taiwan would be the first war in well over a century the US has involved itself in where the outcome is not effectively predetermined. Not true for any other conflict since the Civil War Even wars that we eventually lost like Vietnam or Afghanistan were ones where the US decided it wasnt worth the effort and retreated"
X Link 2025-10-17T21:43Z [----] followers, [---] engagements
"If an artist is big today he or she has a good half-century (or more) in front of him career-wise Taylor Swift is [--]. Shell still be performing in [----] assuming she wants it If you got big at the end of 20th century mass culture your career lifespan is effectively unlimited. You dont really fade away. No one is going to replace you"
X Link 2025-10-17T22:04Z [----] followers, [----] engagements
"@patrickc In the US Kansas City is likely the top contender Istanbul likely the leader outside Europe But Europe otherwise would dominate the rankings"
X Link 2025-10-18T01:39Z [----] followers, [----] engagements
"Paint graffiti is a topic I keep returning to. Great example of a negative innovation. Didnt exist before the mid-60s Theres a Lindy aspect though. Look at the buildings being tagged. Plain low-dimension surfaces The graffiti ugly as it is is ornament being returned to the environment Ive always been amused by the acceptance of downtown Los Angeles as an unfixable hellscape. Oh no no one goes to the downtown of the second most important city in the largest economy of the world. Locals would say this as though it was somehow obvious that the first place https://t.co/IUMadaqeYY Ive always been"
X Link 2025-10-18T16:47Z [----] followers, 10.9K engagements
"This is a very millennial building @PaulSkallas noted the grey. I also noticed the window screen with words This is the equivalent of putting Just Eat or whatever in your kitchen in metal letters. Word decor Very 2000s and 10s. Looks dated"
X Link 2025-10-19T02:26Z [----] followers, [----] engagements
"A great anecdote I came across once is from the evacuation of St Petersburg early in the Second World War before the city was cut off. Trains leaving the city were mobbed by civilians attempting to flee and this conflicted with evacuations of valuable items in this case a museum collection of Ivan Turgenev memorabilia. There was a car full objects belonging to his estate and a crowd was prepared to throw it all unceremoniously onto the sidings when a caretaker intervened shouting that this was the patrimony of Turgenev. It was left undisturbed I cant imagine this happening in the US."
X Link 2025-10-19T13:38Z [----] followers, [---] engagements
"This is a very big deal The Ecumenical Patriarch by Turkish law must be a Turkish citizen and the patriarchate has been unable to produce new priests in Turkey since the early 70s. Bartholomew has been in office since [----]. The number of eligible candidates to replace him has grown very thin over the years Ankara made a handful of bishops Turkish citizens in [----] but this ad hoc solution didnt solve the problem The Turkish government may reopen the 17th century Greek Orthodox Halki Seminary in Istanbul based on talks with the U.S. and possible warming ties with Greece: https://t.co/cb05Iiscim"
X Link 2025-10-19T22:55Z [----] followers, [----] engagements
"AI art needs to produce things never before seen things not possible through other means But no one seems to be doing that. Everything just either looks like a video game or a cartoon. Compare AI art to electronic music for example. The latter is interesting because it makes sound you cant hear otherwise. Something new was created This is what people mean when they talk about slop. You can tell that the AI is just remixing a massive corpus of data. Nothing fundamentally new is being produced"
X Link 2025-10-20T17:15Z [----] followers, [---] engagements
"@CanbLaizo I agree it was better back when it was weird That video of Will Smith eating pasta for example. Itll outlasting all the more photorealistic stuff being generated today. Theres something compelling to how strange that video is"
X Link 2025-10-20T18:00Z [----] followers, [--] engagements
"Archetypes matter in politics. Kari Lake with long hair is a Senator; AOC with short hair is not the political phenomenon that she is These things work on a subliminal level that people rarely acknowledge or are even aware of. Vance carrying his kids is emblematic of this. This is a common behavior for millennial dads. You see it all the time. I do it myself But it wasnt common even a few decades ago and certainly not a century ago. Something in the human animal recoils a little funnily when you see this Maybe it doesnt matter if Vance is running as a liberal Dem. But he isnt. Hes a right"
X Link 2025-10-21T01:08Z [----] followers, [----] engagements
"You can fly to Japan to ski in Hokkaido and still come out ahead money-wise Disney is the same way many other things too. Its completely absurd. I dont think the majority have caught on yet My prediction is that the elderly are going to figure this out and live in an American colony in Mexico versus some very expensive active living facility"
X Link 2025-10-21T03:44Z [----] followers, [---] engagements
"@Empty_America Its part of the new civilization. Much more rooted in place"
X Link 2025-10-21T03:48Z [----] followers, [---] engagements
"Extraordinary photo of HMS Implacable from [----] She was captured at Trafalgar and survived through the Second World War only to be scuttled due to budget cuts Attitudes were different to historical preservation then. They were building a new world. This was part of the old. They were unsentimental about it. Had she lasted into the 1960s shed likely be a museum today"
X Link 2025-10-21T13:58Z [----] followers, [---] engagements
"To the modern mind it is difficult to understand why they went to the extra expense to beautify industrial machines. It seems inefficient I think this style of interior design was an attempt at taming - at domesticating - the new powers and forces industrial civilization had unlocked. Science and industry had harnessed some dark chthonic element some basic vein within nature hitherto untapped. It frightened them. They wanted to humanize it render it legible to human ways of knowing and this was the humanizing architectural language they chose Later after these technologies had grown"
X Link 2025-10-21T18:16Z [----] followers, [----] engagements
"@NateWitkin It really just takes one pathfinder to start a mimetic cascade The problem is that our elite as a cohort is culturally philistine"
X Link 2025-10-21T22:57Z [----] followers, [--] engagements
"If universities want to save the humanities it starts by requiring students to take mandatory Latin and ancient Greek The sciences have washout courses. The humanities should too. Youre going to get a very motivated category of student if you do this"
X Link 2025-10-22T00:04Z [----] followers, 55.2K engagements
"High Point is an expensive university. It isnt particularly selection (rejection rate of about 30%) This is what universities will come to prioritize in the future teaching networking and socialization and comportment Which is the Lindy purpose of university originally. It only got taken over by the grindset types in the later 20th century"
X Link 2025-10-22T15:46Z [----] followers, [----] engagements
"Im not so convinced that the AI models all being liberal or libertarian is net positive It seems to me that if broad church liberalism is the AI default then that perspective is (relatively speaking) over-supplied and therefore devalued Whereas humans will continue to display a range of values including (of course) illiberal sentiments Claude may well rate ICE agents as much less valuable than immigrants. But well still have immigration enforcement officers under any plausible scenario. AI refusing to countenance certain ideologies keeps humans relevant The forbidden beliefs therefore become"
X Link 2025-10-23T00:03Z [----] followers, [---] engagements
"@Peter_Nimitz I dont think Quebecs special rules regarding language and so forth would survive judicial review. I cant see the Supreme Court upholding any of it on 1st amendment grounds alone"
X Link 2025-10-23T00:31Z [----] followers, [---] engagements
"What is this telling you Nature is wiser than all of it Its mostly selected for agentic doofuses who on occasion throw up geniuses You only need a few Civilizations of grindset IQ-maxers go rapidly extinct. Nature already figured this out and selected against it Idiocracy (2006) opens by throwing you straight into its hilariously dumbed-down future. https://t.co/z4sbRTzZ1O Idiocracy (2006) opens by throwing you straight into its hilariously dumbed-down future. https://t.co/z4sbRTzZ1O"
X Link 2025-10-23T01:31Z [----] followers, [----] engagements
"Good quick read on the last major reconstruction of the White House"
X Link 2025-10-23T14:20Z [----] followers, [---] engagements
"The new addition shifts the balance of the White House towards the east and makes the profile of the executive mansion much more asymmetric. All the mass is now on one side The White House was not ideally balanced before. The East and West Wings were mismatched and the east colonnade is longer than the western one But the low profiles of the side structures effectively hide this from the eye which contributes to the elegance and success of the neoclassical Palladian design Fortunately the new construction is in keeping with the overall style of the original mansion. You can imagine a"
X Link 2025-10-23T14:35Z [----] followers, [---] engagements
"Highly recommend this history. It places Islam with its late antique context better than any other monograph that Ive encountered and emphasizes especially the influence of the Roman state - particularly the mode in which emperors operated when engaged in religious and ecclesiastical affairs"
X Link 2025-10-23T17:43Z [----] followers, 22.8K engagements
"This is how things used to work in the US. No planning permissions or due diligence or anything else Someone just decided and that was that Im not sure you are all ready for the Abundance Agenda like you say are Photos from the AP show that the entirety of the White Houses East Wing has now been demolished in order to make room for President Donald J. Trump $250-300M State Ballroom which will be funded by several billionaires corporations and Trump. https://t.co/KCyizgZRNA Photos from the AP show that the entirety of the White Houses East Wing has now been demolished in order to make room for"
X Link 2025-10-23T17:58Z [----] followers, [---] engagements
"We underrate the impact the discovery of the Americas had on the European imagination and what this meant for Europes development Antiquity and the learning of the ancients was held in very high esteem at the time and the Americas were something the ancients were unaware of it. Historians talk a lot about ghost acres and silver production and so forth but the impact that a true discovery - a fact about the world hitherto unknown - a revolution in a sense that divided history nearly into a before and an after - is probably the single most significant component If we hadnt known about the"
X Link 2025-10-24T00:51Z [----] followers, [----] engagements
"And those wide-famed hulls Far-flung recalled From Gibraltar Rock and Mandalay shore The U.S. Department of Defense has announced that the USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78) and her Carrier Strike Group consisting of the Arleigh Burke-Class Guided-Missile Destroyers; USS Mahan (DDG-72) USS Winston S. Churchill (DDG-81) and USS Bainbridge (DDG-96) have been https://t.co/qaXs5l8JVb The U.S. Department of Defense has announced that the USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78) and her Carrier Strike Group consisting of the Arleigh Burke-Class Guided-Missile Destroyers; USS Mahan (DDG-72) USS Winston S. Churchill"
X Link 2025-10-24T19:08Z [----] followers, [---] engagements
"@he_negash Its actually from Saudi Arabia. Probably 1st or 2nd century. A fragmentary remain"
X Link 2025-10-24T23:51Z [----] followers, [---] engagements
"I dont think LandSpace will be a competitor for SpaceX for launch Satellites are all classified tech its unlikely any Western payload would be permitted to launch on LandSpace. Its all ITAR regime stuff. LandSpace might compete for developing country payloads but the demand there is much smaller Where the real completion will come is via Starlink and whatever space-based internet solution the Chinese inevitably scale-up"
X Link 2025-10-25T00:00Z [----] followers, [---] engagements
"St Denis is rebuilding its spire. Should be a [--] year project From the reconstruction of Dresden City Palace in Berlin the restoration of Notre Dame in Paris Trumps neoclassical project NYCs terracotta renaissance and much more this is an age of rediscovery of ornamental and classical stylings in architecture"
X Link 2025-10-25T20:57Z [----] followers, [----] engagements
"The collapse of newspapers (perhaps permanently) deranged the production of words and memes in our society; a warning bell in the night for AI It's commonplace to lament the downfall of reading amongst zoomers and (to a lesser extent) millennials. But fewer people talk about the supply side to this equation which is arguably more important and specifically the all-important channels by which words and ideas are manufactured and distributed to the population as a whole The elegant publishing machine which evolved organically for centuries was in just a few short years smashed into a million"
X Link 2025-10-26T18:39Z [----] followers, [----] engagements
"Notice how the interior design is all very low dimension surfaces. No ornament of any kind Here's what the interior looks like now https://t.co/dIh4iRNgkb Here's what the interior looks like now https://t.co/dIh4iRNgkb"
X Link 2025-10-26T23:25Z [----] followers, [---] engagements
"The single biggest component of success is just survival. Its also the least discussed maybe because its not heroic Take King Charles. Hes consistently maintained certain ideas and instincts about everything from the environment to architecture for decades. For most of this period they were extremely unfashionable (to say the least). But times have changed attitudes have shifted and now his beliefs appear prophetic. He was as they say ahead of his times. Which is true but also just a different way of saying that he stuck around long enough for his concepts to bear fruit. A lot of life is like"
X Link 2025-10-27T14:54Z [----] followers, [----] engagements
"A cafe lets you do this in a socially respectable way. A random guy just sitting no apparent purpose is potentially a vagrant or a threat. But a guy with a cup of coffee Hes taking a moment or whatever. He now has a socially intelligible function The pipe or cigarette fulfills the same purpose This is one issue that phones have. Its this little black rectangle. You could be doing anything on the screen - surreptitiously taking pictures recording audio scrolling your socials looking at porn who knows Whereas if youre reading a physical paper or a book with a cover you are again assigned a"
X Link 2025-10-27T15:54Z [----] followers, [----] engagements
"@Empty_America Observing them you can see how agriculturalists were able to displace hunter gathers over the space of a few centuries"
X Link 2025-10-27T20:36Z [----] followers, [---] engagements
"History underrates the extent to which golden ages - and who can doubt that the [--] Glorious Years were one such the best in Europe in the 20th century excepting perhaps the Belle Epoque - are nothing more than particular associations or social networks of individuals who know each other and gel in socially super-optimal way By extension periods of humiliation are the opposite Most of these projects were driven by De Gaulles general commissariat of the Plan. There was a clear unity between industrialists the state and researchers through willful investments driven by set policy visions. De"
X Link 2025-10-28T00:12Z [----] followers, [----] engagements
"A good illustration of this point The world wars are outlier events that tell us nothing about the long run average for US shipbuilding Arguably the US failed to successfully transition from an age of wood to an age of steel. This despite the fact that the US had a world class steel industry was pioneering not only in steel metallurgy (producing some of the best armor plate globally for example) and invented the first turreted warship (USS Monitor) the container ship and the LNG carrier amongst many others If anything you might argue that the US was over-indexed on innovation @AliceFromQueens"
X Link 2025-10-28T13:34Z [----] followers, [---] engagements
"Its a common thesis that Pakistans military has limited Pakistans economic development But many successful countries have had military-dominated regimes: South Korea notably Taiwan Japan What explains the difference"
X Link 2025-10-28T13:39Z [----] followers, [---] engagements
"@teortaxesTex The Western classical canon is Lindy. It has a power no other tradition has created You can see this for example in how most of the best classical musicians today now come from outside its historic core"
X Link 2025-10-28T13:51Z [----] followers, [---] engagements
"@HMBrough_ He honestly looks quite stylish and clearly several cuts above the median male American even in New York which is better dressed than the rest of the US"
X Link 2025-10-28T22:26Z [----] followers, [---] engagements
"The crowns of Silla are some of the few objects by which we know this ancient kingdom What object will define our civilization some [----] years from now"
X Link 2025-10-29T19:52Z [----] followers, [---] engagements
"The nuclear weapons treaty regime has almost entirely collapsed. Something has to be done. Perhaps testing - which Trump isnt exactly saying the US will do if you read the statement - is the way to do this A nuclear arms race today would look nothing like the Cold War. The weapons systems themselves are considerably more sophisticated; more accurate; more precise; harder to detect; much improved missile defense adds a layer of complication that was in its infancy during the last years of the Soviet Union"
X Link 2025-10-30T11:37Z [----] followers, [---] engagements
"Students are like employees. Theyre never going to say they arent working hard. Doesnt mean they are though The core problem with grading at Harvard and all the highly selective schools is that everyone there is a perfect student. The majority of them probably have never gotten a grade before A+ So when they enter Harvard theyre coming off a decade of unbroken success. Theyre like athletes who have not only never lost a game theyve blown away their opponents every time You can understand then why it might be a bit shocking to get a B. Which is not to say the universities shouldnt be grading"
X Link 2025-10-30T13:06Z [----] followers, [----] engagements
"This is the way we always ate ice cream in the Midwest growing up chapmans ice cream is pretty good but what the fuck is this packaging who designed this. this is why canadians get made fun of. https://t.co/YDfhontkqW chapmans ice cream is pretty good but what the fuck is this packaging who designed this. this is why canadians get made fun of. https://t.co/YDfhontkqW"
X Link 2025-10-31T12:38Z [----] followers, [---] engagements
"Records objectively sound better than CDs or streaming. The blind listening test guys get this wrong. You experience music with your entire body. Not just your ears. Its a physical experience. The entire analog process of producing sound from a record is a better experience The same is true of books. Its not just about the text. A better quality book real materials handmade etc reads better than the equivalent words on a pulpy mass market paperback. Youre adding additional dimensions to the experience. This is one reason why many people prefer to read on audiobooks. Youre adding in a new"
X Link 2025-10-31T17:41Z [----] followers, [---] engagements
"@lost_nomad__ Im surprised no ones claiming that AI is dooming Las Vegas. The price is the major component. Its just very expensive. You start adding it all up and realize that hey I can visit Tokyo and save $$$"
X Link 2025-10-31T17:42Z [----] followers, [--] engagements
"The extraordinary unfinished Dacian from the Torlonia Marbles. Approx [--] feet tall Commissioned in commemoration of Trajans victories in Dacia but for unknown reasons left unfinished. It has an air of melancholy about it. A sad giant"
X Link 2025-11-01T23:41Z [----] followers, [---] engagements
"The OpenAI library looks like it was generated by AI The reason for this is interior designers In the past collectors developed their own tastes and dealers emerged to meet these. It was a long term relationship. You knew the clients interests and so you called him up when a particular piece came available It isnt like this now. Maybe its because theres a huge influx of new money maybe its because the wealthy are too busy at work for leisured cultivation maybe something else. But dealers have been replaced as a cohort by interior designers who you commission to create a tasteful space for"
X Link 2025-11-03T21:12Z [----] followers, [----] engagements
"You can see how far Mons Porphyrites was from the Nile. Its closer to the Red Sea. Its deep in the wilderness. Yet the Roman state built a vast complex here all to service the project of porphyry. Imagine being stationed here. You might as well be on a Martian colony. And youre mining day after day after year a constant torrent of rock back to Rome. The wars and political conflicts of the empire like distant thunder an echo of an echo. But still the rock must flow This was a massive effort on the part of the Roman state. Theres no water here. Everything had to be brought in. There was a"
X Link 2025-11-03T23:09Z [----] followers, 27.5K engagements
"@expatanon One of the unintentionally great pictures of our times. Its generated more commentary than almost anything else After a century of Duchamps urinal and Piss Christ contemporary art has lost almost all power to shock at least in the West This picture is an exception"
X Link 2025-11-04T00:35Z [----] followers, [--] engagements
"It has been described as the most remarkable Roman industrial landscape in the world I will visit here someday You can see how far Mons Porphyrites was from the Nile. Its closer to the Red Sea. Its deep in the wilderness. Yet the Roman state built a vast complex here all to service the project of porphyry. Imagine being stationed here. You might as well be on a Martian colony. And https://t.co/ScUiH0jMRR You can see how far Mons Porphyrites was from the Nile. Its closer to the Red Sea. Its deep in the wilderness. Yet the Roman state built a vast complex here all to service the project of"
X Link 2025-11-04T03:17Z [----] followers, [---] engagements
"@sharghzadeh Eyes doubtless honed over the centuries to sweep lines of peasant infantry for vulnerabilities to the recurved composite bow"
X Link 2025-11-04T21:47Z [----] followers, [---] engagements
"The Tea Party was an early signal of this although you could argue that the right wing rejection of George W Bushs failed immigration reform attempt prefigured it But the GOP today is the party of disaffection. A massive shift from Nixons checkers speech and his respectable Republican cloth coat. Back then the party identified with the establishment and respect and maintaining a good public image was important to its core values No longer. This is at the core of groyperism and what most commentators have missed (they tend to be overly intellectualized and take groypers seriously) The key to"
X Link 2025-11-05T12:32Z [----] followers, [---] engagements
"Spinoza was not an atheist in the modern sense. He rejected an anthropomorphic god though this was not original to him and indeed has been a widespread belief amongst the more intellectual believers from some millennia What Spinoza argued against was a teleological universe that there was some ultimate destination or meaning inherent in its structure and that human ideas were mapped to the natural world by people. In other words they did not exist in and of themselves independently of humans. True happiness according to Spinoza is to be found in alignment with Nature both ones own personal"
X Link 2025-11-05T16:22Z [----] followers, [---] engagements
"Strange to think that just over [---] years ago no human being had ever set eyes on Antarctica"
X Link 2025-11-05T16:57Z [----] followers, [---] engagements
"NYC has [------] millionaires and [-----] ultra high net worth individuals worth $30 million or more (including [---] billionaires). It is by far the greatest concentration of private wealth in the world In theory they could all pull a Galts Gulch and leave. But theres a massive coordination problem here. NYC benefits from network effects and stickiness like any internet scale platform. There isnt another New York. Nowhere else captures the density of experiences and services and the social network (what used to be called society) that New York has. Unless they all decamp simultaneously anyone who"
X Link 2025-11-06T00:28Z [----] followers, 25.7K engagements
"Im really surprised twitter hasnt integrated a bet button into the posting flow You can insert polls for example This site is addicted to Polymarket etc Youve got to imagine that adding in a betting layer on here would be easy money for this app"
X Link 2025-11-06T04:25Z [----] followers, [---] engagements
"Boredom is simultaneously one of the most important yet least studied phenomena in history Its presence was ubiquitous but goes mostly unrecognized. Most of human history was characterized by a great under-stimulation. As a result people were willing to be distracted by almost anything. It undoubtedly generated and governed a great deal of human behavior"
X Link 2025-11-06T13:15Z [----] followers, [----] engagements
"New affordability theory: deflation"
X Link 2025-11-06T15:17Z [----] followers, [---] engagements
"Another would be to directly tag the latest Polymarket probability Much as the WSJ follows company mentions with the ticker price"
X Link 2025-11-06T15:56Z [----] followers, [---] engagements
"Im not persuaded by arguments that there is a surplus of elites today or that Mamdani is the voice of such a group assuming it does exist If anything Mamdani is proof that it doesnt. Where was Mamdani a year ago Who had heard of him Now hes mayor of New York City [--] years ago he couldnt have done this. There was a machine in place. You had to make your bones in politics first. Go-fer for an assemblyman. Whatever. Now you get to just go viral on social media The reality is that there are many more ways to be an elite today than ever before. You can be influencer and have more views than all of"
X Link 2025-11-06T17:45Z [----] followers, [----] engagements
"@ReubenR80027912 TSA/FAA should be funded off ticket fees and the problem disappears. Its silly that the worlds largest aviation market funds are its workforce off of theoretically discretionary budgeting"
X Link 2025-11-06T22:16Z [----] followers, [---] engagements
"Politicians in the US wont tell you this but the prices are never coming down Declining prices (deflation) is very rare in the post-WWII era. The closest such period is in [----] when CPI was -1.5%. Even then core CPI - excluding food/energy - never went negative. This was in a period of major fiscal crisis note Inflation will slow. But were never going back to a period of $5 pizzas or something. Wages will eventually come up and things will reach more of equilibrium where everything doesnt feel so expensive. But the prices wont be coming down. Politicians dont want to tell you this. But its"
X Link 2025-11-07T01:23Z [----] followers, [---] engagements
"Ive posted about this before as regards physics specifically. In any given period theres a very small number of people capable of pushing beyond the frontier in terms of theoretical physics and expanding the total number of theoretical physics doesnt give you more and better theories. You just get a lot of replication of the existing knowledge base"
X Link 2025-11-07T15:26Z [----] followers, [---] engagements
"As I posted about yesterday it is absurd that the worlds largest aviation market funds its essential workforce (air traffic controllers TSA) through discretionary spending. The solution is for these functions to self-fund like the Post Office. A few dollars extra per ticket ($10) would pay all labor costs and prevent a repeat of this fiasco BREAKING: It's looking increasingly likely the U.S. will shutdown domestic airspace due to gov't shutdown. 40% chance. https://t.co/Bw0sxcIVjK BREAKING: It's looking increasingly likely the U.S. will shutdown domestic airspace due to gov't shutdown. 40%"
X Link 2025-11-07T15:30Z [----] followers, [----] engagements
"America has two cities New York City Suburbs Both can be very nice. Just pick one"
X Link 2025-11-07T15:32Z [----] followers, [---] engagements
"@sharghzadeh Egypt is doing this too increasingly under current regime. MBS wants to do the same in Saudi"
X Link 2025-11-07T21:57Z [----] followers, [----] engagements
"A more curious civilization than ours at present would ask why only one guy is able to rapidly scale product after product It also shows the value and importance of exposure to foreign makers (esp China). Chinese companies do this sort of thing all the time. But in the US its mostly just Musk @robotaxi @Tesla_Optimus Optimus pilot production line is currently running in our Fremont Factory Significantly larger Gen [--] production line coming in [----] We're also testing in our factories & office spaces for real-time use case Our goal is $20k COGS per robot at scale https://t.co/WAfdcdt0Ue"
X Link 2025-11-07T23:51Z [----] followers, [----] engagements
"This is really impressive. The amount of system capacity and technology that enables you to navigate across the world entirely by phone is incredible Ive been traveling internationally for decades and the ability to do this with just a few apps is pure science fiction I'm in a completely automated hotel and I'm the only guest. This feels dystopian. https://t.co/WfCpwxAefc I'm in a completely automated hotel and I'm the only guest. This feels dystopian. https://t.co/WfCpwxAefc"
X Link 2025-11-07T23:55Z [----] followers, [----] engagements
"A New York City the size of Tokyo - [--] million people - would be epic. A new golden age for the city really New York will never be affordable for this reason https://t.co/vrnh7kkMDu New York will never be affordable for this reason https://t.co/vrnh7kkMDu"
X Link 2025-11-08T02:06Z [----] followers, 13.9K engagements
"Since skinny skyscrapers are on the main timeline recently heres a pic from [----] when a few of these were being built Ive no idea what people are arguing against here. A high height to width ratio is clearly more elegant than the alternatives. Theres a reason why classical columns typically taper for example or why mass is placed towards the bottom. It looks much better. The Steinway Towers exterior is bronze and terracotta. These are high quality tactile materials. Its part of the renaissance in traditional building materials the past few decades. Its fine not to like modernist architecture."
X Link 2025-11-08T18:11Z [----] followers, [----] engagements
"In a world of fewer people and older populations all countries are in the city business now whether they know it or not The US became majority urban in 1920; globally this transition occurred as late as [----]. The trend continues to accelerate today around 60% of people live in an urban environment. Its trite but cities really are the future both trivially and in ways that are less generally appreciated. Cities are responsible for the majority of economic output today and the vast majority of new ideas and innovative goods and services. This correlation will only increase in the future. Cities"
X Link 2025-11-08T20:14Z [----] followers, [----] engagements
"@Innocent0119 I think they should be taller. Its New York City. Not every place should be like this but its good that a few are. I like seeing how the architecture and engineering can be pushed"
X Link 2025-11-08T23:02Z [----] followers, [--] engagements
"I dont understand what people are even complaining about with this building. One of the biggest accounts complained that you can see it from Central Park. The country is full of places where you cant see buildings and theyre complaining about one of cities that literally invented the skyscraper. If you dont want to see buildings youre in the wrong place The funny thing is this building objectively looks good. Its slender a great height to width ratio. Its elegant. The bronze and terracotta surface materials are traditional and Lindy. The more interesting point I think to be made with it is"
X Link 2025-11-09T00:44Z [----] followers, [---] engagements
"If you want a new city today youve got to build an airport. Being on the Mississippi just isnt the advantage that maybe it once was Now you need access to a world class airport and ready interstate access for intermodal operations The best answer for a new greenfield city is Cairo Illinois: it sits at the intersection of the Mississippi Tennessee and Ohio rivers and is practically uninhabited. The best answer for an existing city is probably https://t.co/fegUW6ZOdO The best answer for a new greenfield city is Cairo Illinois: it sits at the intersection of the Mississippi Tennessee and Ohio"
X Link 2025-11-09T02:16Z [----] followers, [----] engagements
"@okaythenfuture Hawaii is directly harmed by the Jones Act (so is Puerto Rico) and it should be a priority for it to be exempted California should easily 2x its population if not more. [---] million is completely doable for a country as wealthy as the US"
X Link 2025-11-09T02:42Z [----] followers, [---] engagements
"He probably can. He could direct the Attorney General to issue a new opinion that the Antideficiency Act does not prevent executive branch departments and agencies from spending funds during temporary funding gaps. His administrative reforms easily allow him to do this as by executive order he has codified that government lawyers opinions must align with his"
X Link 2025-11-09T13:34Z [----] followers, [----] engagements
"Dubai increasingly competes with Las Vegas and in my estimation exceeds it on important dimensions though it remains relatively under the radar for Americans Dubai now exceeds Vegas in total number of hotel rooms for example and by [----] will have its own casino resorts headlined by the Wynn (which manages the worlds largest [--] star hotel in Vegas) Both have an increasing number of sports offerings. Vegas is much better in terms of its shows and live entertainment options. The food scene is comparable. Dubais airport is much better than Harry Reid. Both have good possibilities for natural"
X Link 2025-11-09T18:26Z [----] followers, [----] engagements
"The aesthetics of modern rockets - from the engines (methane plume) to the flight vehicles themselves - are massively improved over the past decade Let's Go To Mars @blueorigin @escapade_mars https://t.co/z1xFt2ve1Z Let's Go To Mars @blueorigin @escapade_mars https://t.co/z1xFt2ve1Z"
X Link 2025-11-09T18:42Z [----] followers, [---] engagements
"My favorite dimension in interior design and architecture is contrast. I love juxtaposition of the old and new Something Lindy something modern Brutalist concrete and an ancient statue. Whereas modernism plus modern art doesnt speak to me in the same way. You need to mix dimensions both low and high"
X Link 2025-11-09T19:04Z [----] followers, [---] engagements
"@micsolana TSA/FAA should be funded off ticket fees and the problem disappears. Its silly that the worlds largest aviation market funds its workforce off of theoretically discretionary budgeting"
X Link 2025-11-09T21:53Z [----] followers, [----] engagements
"Men are the monster Theyre physically much more powerfully. The leading killer of women is men. Yet women are sexually attracted to the same. The object of their desire may also result in their doom. This can be further extended to the physical risk of bearing children (substantial) So it makes sense. Nature ensured it was this way to perpetuate the species"
X Link 2025-11-09T22:04Z [----] followers, [----] engagements
"A state with this massive and imperial of capitol complex should be the most populous in the country New York lost its ambition"
X Link 2025-11-09T22:12Z [----] followers, 25.3K engagements
"Old Dubai is well worth visiting. My impression is that not many foreigners go at least proportionally. You do see plenty of non Emiratis there of course Dubai is a very interesting litmus test for people at least in the West. Many Westerners are polarized against it. Thats a mistake. Dubai represents the future (at least directionally) for billions"
X Link 2025-11-09T23:24Z [----] followers, [---] engagements
"This is a good post on a topic I return to repeatedly The modern building is better on every relevant dimension - more efficient commodious comfortable to work in secure against fire rot mold safer and more stable for food - than the one on the left The single exception is aesthetics. The building on the left looks much better from the outside Much of the modern world is like this Two Detroit grocery store distribution centers built [---] years apart https://t.co/Jj2I6usxWE Two Detroit grocery store distribution centers built [---] years apart https://t.co/Jj2I6usxWE"
X Link 2025-11-10T14:47Z [----] followers, 257.1K engagements
"I post a great deal about lighting wavelength. Its the lowest hanging fruit for interior design today. Most places have too white of light But In-N-Out is an exception. You dont want long wavelength light here. The white light is crisp and cold. Aesthetically it complements the heaviness of a burger fries and a milkshake. This sort of food tends to make you sleepy. You want an energizing light in balance now imagine In-N-Out but with warm lighting. https://t.co/ZTiNy88Png now imagine In-N-Out but with warm lighting. https://t.co/ZTiNy88Png"
X Link 2025-11-10T14:59Z [----] followers, 917.7K engagements
"@powerfultakes Where is this"
X Link 2025-11-10T18:42Z [----] followers, [---] engagements
"@ReubenR80027912 They just might: The final act of our long boomer era will be their transfer of power to their children the millennials Gen X and in turn the zoomers have been or will be blocked out The ultimate act of authority is determining ones heirs The final act of our long boomer era will be their transfer of power to their children the millennials Gen X and in turn the zoomers have been or will be blocked out The ultimate act of authority is determining ones heirs"
X Link 2025-11-10T19:06Z [----] followers, [---] engagements
"@widewebworld Pizza Hut had a great vibe back then. It also has a unique flavor. Not sure how to describe it. But it doesnt taste like anything else"
X Link 2025-11-11T15:33Z [----] followers, [---] engagements
"These actions are thermometers for decision-making in Beijing If youre planning to invade (seriously planning not just building the option) why would you give your enemy years worth of advance notice so they can substitute for critical minerals that at present only you supply The point to cut off the rare earths is at the point of invasion to maximize disruption Not provide ample opportunity for the US to develop alternatives VEU VEU https://t.co/9zSMiulF7x VEU VEU https://t.co/9zSMiulF7x"
X Link 2025-11-11T15:42Z [----] followers, [---] engagements
"@KintsugiMuslim Its a really underrated topic. Theres a lot there to cover And its a design element thats quite affordable. You can easily improve your home environment with just a few new choices in color temperature"
X Link 2025-11-11T18:40Z [----] followers, [--] engagements
"The soul needs Dubai too Dubai represents ambition. That you can change your destiny Thats important. Its a different kind of aesthetic beauty Your souls need this not Dubai https://t.co/3gpzhF7c7m Your souls need this not Dubai https://t.co/3gpzhF7c7m"
X Link 2025-11-11T19:27Z [----] followers, [----] engagements
"@lost_nomad__ Thats a funny movie. I just mean on a podcast. Maybe Ive converted to current era mores more than I realize"
X Link 2025-11-11T22:41Z [----] followers, [--] engagements
"@okaythenfuture Dubai is a litmus test. If youre just closed off to it youre missing a big chunk of what the 21st century is all about"
X Link 2025-11-12T02:59Z [----] followers, 15.3K engagements
"@akhivae People have strong reactions to Dubai. Its a kind of litmus test"
X Link 2025-11-12T14:43Z [----] followers, [--] engagements
"@PaulSkallas Mickey Mouse too Im sure"
X Link 2025-11-12T19:39Z [----] followers, [---] engagements
"New York makes you more interesting than are Los Angeles vapid DC one-dimensional (politics uber alles) Miami risks making you dumb Portland retired too young Phoenix and Chicago forgotten"
X Link 2025-11-12T23:29Z [----] followers, [---] engagements
"New York makes you more interesting than are SF smarter Los Angeles vapid DC one-dimensional (politics uber alles) Miami risks making you dumb Portland retired too young Phoenix and Chicago forgotten"
X Link 2025-11-12T23:51Z [----] followers, [---] engagements
"Peak family in the US was [----]. The number of families with kids under [--] declines from that point on There is a sense in which the US never wholly recovered from the great financial crisis The ghost of Bush is with us still This should really never be negative The last time America had this number of families with children under [--] was in [----] when the US population was [---] million The US population today is [---] million Absolute demographic disaster. https://t.co/p2mNVBUQnd This should really never be negative The last time America had this number of families with children under [--] was"
X Link 2025-11-13T03:00Z [----] followers, [---] engagements
"Heatherwick is a very talented and fashionable western (British) architect who receives the majority of his commissions from non-western countries - principally Asia The attitude there is much more permissive towards radical designs This new 'lantern quarter' is set to be constructed in Bangkok. Designed by Heatherwick Studio for Narai Hospitality Group Hatai is inspired by traditional Thai lanterns and will according to the architects feature a series of "stacked glowing forms that bring softness and https://t.co/aX45x1WOnu This new 'lantern quarter' is set to be constructed in Bangkok."
X Link 2025-11-13T03:08Z [----] followers, [---] engagements
"To me the odd question requiring explaining is why the percentage of people not owning their own homes (house/apartment/whatever) is not even higher than it is. Singles as a proportion are way up age of having your first kid is up Why would you want to own a home if you dont have a spouse or kids Be free"
X Link 2025-11-13T14:33Z [----] followers, [---] engagements
"Mamdani is phenomenal political talent. His campaign was brilliant. He inspired the highest voter turnout in 5+ decades But: Only 1/3 of eligible voters turned out His final vote was thin at 50.4%. Thats very low considering how much voter turnout increased especially amongst the youngest and most Mamdani-favoring cohorts Bill de Blasio and Adams both got 66% of the vote or higher (de Blasio earned 73% in 2013) Even Giuliani did better (slightly at 50.9% and Giuliani was running as a Republican in a city that hadnt elected Republicans in decades Like Trump what Mamdani has really mastered is"
X Link 2025-11-13T15:01Z [----] followers, [----] engagements
"Since [----] only two cities in the US have created a new vibe: San Francisco and Miami Both have new civilization vibes but in very different ways In contrast NYC (my favorite city note) has been in relative decline since [----]. The city is much improved - these two things are not contradictory - since [----] let alone [----] but is also now much less central to the US experience. In this sense Phoenix and Houston are more relevant"
X Link 2025-11-13T16:58Z [----] followers, [----] engagements
"@2024dion Underrated. It seems to have been mostly forgotten. But its a good sci fi action movie the villain is great Matt Damon is Matt Damon and the special effects hold up really well"
X Link 2025-11-14T01:50Z [----] followers, [---] engagements
"The worlds most exciting coffee scene is in China right now; why culture holds you back Beer got really good in the US during the 2000s. For most of the 20th century it was much better in Europe; American beers were thin watery and insipid. That all changed in the last quarter-century. The worlds most exciting beer scene emerged in the US. America beat Europe at its own game. The reason in part was culture. In Germany where beer is central to its culture beer is this very specific thing. Germans dont want you playing around with it much. The product has become fixed culturally Theres nothing"
X Link 2025-11-14T16:54Z [----] followers, [----] engagements
"Developers are the missing layer in the entire housing discussion - ironic because theyre the ones who actually take the risk and make the decisions on what and where and when to build All the focus is either on the demand side (consumers) or the political level (do we have the right laws regulations and so forth)"
X Link 2025-11-15T02:38Z [----] followers, [--] engagements
"Now there are two; Things will happen fast now The most immediate consequences of Blue Origin successfully landing New Glenn are for ULA. United Launch Alliance has been on borrowed time for years; it has only stuck around because the Defense Department wants a second commercial partner to assure its access to low Earth orbit. Now that Blue has twice demonstrated orbital capacity the writing is on the wall. ULA has only launched [--] times this year; [--] of those were for Amazons Starlink competitor Kuiper/Leo. Presumably this demand will switch to Blue now that New Glenn is operational;"
X Link 2025-11-15T04:32Z [----] followers, [----] engagements
"@okaythenfuture I couldnt live in NZ long term but Australia I could. Sydney and Melbourne are some of the nicest most livable cities anywhere"
X Link 2025-11-15T04:33Z [----] followers, [----] engagements
"@sdamico How does this not exist yet"
X Link 2025-11-15T17:53Z [----] followers, [----] engagements
"Theres an incredible documentary entitled Dead Birds from the early 60s which captures some of the last open field combat to occur at scale with edged and missile (but non-gunpowder) weapons anywhere on Earth You can see some of the same battlefield physics in the video quoted below Another video of a violent clash in Papua is going viral https://t.co/NIWtbfMbIo Another video of a violent clash in Papua is going viral https://t.co/NIWtbfMbIo"
X Link 2025-11-15T18:06Z [----] followers, 73.9K engagements
"@teortaxesTex [--] day is hyperbolic and I dont find it plausible that China is able to regularly track Japanese (or US) submarines"
X Link 2025-11-15T19:32Z [----] followers, [----] engagements
"@policytensor Theyll have a lot of countries to fight through first and Im not persuaded that China has any such plans in mind. Even the Taiwan contingency is questionable"
X Link 2025-11-15T23:54Z [----] followers, [--] engagements
"Bomb Power is one of the few books to really consider this angle at length. Its underrated. But as president you get of the magic rocks with eldritch powers that can literally destroy civilization. Its an awesome ability the force of the gods and weve just grown sort of normalized to it"
X Link 2025-11-16T01:12Z [----] followers, [---] engagements
"In the US the national education department is mostly made up. Its a vehicle for funds disbursement to the states. All real decision making is at the state and mostly local level where the elected school boards have most of the authority. US education is highly decentralized. No one in the US knows who the Education Secretary is"
X Link 2025-11-16T14:56Z [----] followers, [---] engagements
"From Blue Mars by the great Kim Stanley Robinson. You can hear echoes of The Population Bomb in this Fear of over-population one-shotted the entire boomer generation. They almost universally believe the world is filling up with people"
X Link 2025-11-16T16:24Z [----] followers, [---] engagements
"People sometimes ask why cant we build those Sears kit homes today Usual answers are zoning or labor costs or whatever But the simpler and correct explanation is that houses are just much more complicated today and expectations are much higher You need insulation. Gas. Plumbing everywhere (kitchen multiple baths exterior on multiple stories). Electrical is orders of magnitude more complicated. You need outlets everywhere. Not to mention WiFi. Integrated lighting. After all that you need climate control. Air conditioning. Heat. Multiple zones frequently. All computer controlled Higher end"
X Link 2025-11-16T17:12Z [----] followers, 32.9K engagements
"This is the vision that the original 19th century filibusterers had (tho they focused more on the tropics) I think its also inevitable. Trumps Greenland talk was very crude but reflects something real nonetheless. Mexicos birth rate (all of the Americas really) is cratering. Canadas population is a fraction of the size of the US. The US is the only dynamic American economy The economic logic is clear. All these countries will be assimilated in time within the US economic order. Demographic trends within the US will accelerate this (a more Hispanic US population many more American retirees"
X Link 2025-11-16T17:29Z [----] followers, 18.2K engagements
"@Empty_America Plus all the Anglo and north European types seem to do really well in Latin America I went to school with a Venezuelan who was of pure Irish background. Bright red hair fair skin blue eyes. Grew up in Caracas"
X Link 2025-11-16T17:38Z [----] followers, [--] engagements
"The best aquarium Ive been to is in Monterey Bay. Theres this room where a window opens onto a very deep tank. Theres a curtain of air bubbles in front of you a gyre of fish below and it opens up onto the abyss. An illusion of infinite depth 80% of the ocean remains unmapped or unexplored. Only 240k of est 2.2m marine species are identified. Kelp forests use a language we barely understand; hosting hundreds of interdependent species. For all the unknowns it feels deeply familiar. A majestic curious mystery. https://t.co/Suj7w2vW6Z 80% of the ocean remains unmapped or unexplored. Only 240k of"
X Link 2025-11-16T18:56Z [----] followers, [----] engagements
"Much as certain past civilizations appeared to be on the brink of an industrial revolution (early imperial Rome Song China at its height) but clearly missed several critical ingredients I suspect that pre-WWI Europe was on the brink of something as well but a combination of bad luck and the absence of a few key elements held it back. Perhaps weve created a few of these since. Maybe others remain to be discovered. But eventually well converge on whatever it was and break through"
X Link 2025-11-16T19:21Z [----] followers, [---] engagements
"Americans born here cant do anything because of zoning Immigrants come in and just do things Keeps the country from freezing up You dont want to live in the law of jante German filing every form in quadruplicate Anglo mandarin bureaucrat state You might think you do but you really dont This is wild. Immigrants move into a suburban Virginia neighborhood construct a 3-story monstrosity of an addition for [--] generations of family members to live innearly encroaching on their neighbors property line. And people wonder why Americans cant afford homes https://t.co/L134Du4MXr This is wild. Immigrants"
X Link 2025-11-16T19:58Z [----] followers, [----] engagements
"Plus Chinas odds are being massive overrated. An invasion of Taiwan would be the most difficult military operation in history; much harder than Overlord in [----] as it would take place (presumably) without air or sea supremacy. Besides this Im skeptical of arguments in favor of directly intervening because the US gets most of the benefits from such while remaining on the sidelines. If China does attack Taiwan it will be revealed as the aggressive revisionist power that so many of its critics proclaim that it is. Those critical of the national security maximalists in the West will be entirely"
X Link 2025-11-16T20:58Z [----] followers, [---] engagements
"@mnolangray Long term the US mostly assimilates North America and the Caribbean into itself"
X Link 2025-11-17T01:24Z [----] followers, [---] engagements
"The highly selective schools are like the NFL. A higher standard is expected. Your performance is judged not according all possible football players but conditional to those who are in the NFL. On this metric some suck. Which is on every level (except one) ridiculous as these guys are world-class athletes who would obliterate their opponents in every other situation. But thats the deal; no one makes you go to the NFL The same is true for Harvard. Yes youd be getting all As at a second tier no-name state school. But thats not where youre at. An A elsewhere is not an A at Harvard. A different"
X Link 2025-11-17T03:21Z [----] followers, 13.8K engagements
"@Empty_America You cant replicate Denmark. But you can get to Dubai I think"
X Link 2025-11-17T15:37Z [----] followers, [---] engagements
"Ban Arabic numerals Return to Indian numerals This country is built on compromise JUST IN: The majority of people want to ban Arabic Numerals from the New York School System according to new poll. JUST IN: The majority of people want to ban Arabic Numerals from the New York School System according to new poll"
X Link 2025-11-17T17:35Z [----] followers, [---] engagements
"Europe rearming isnt a question of production; everyone has this wrong: youve got to be blooded Europe is a major industrial economy. It has huge technological capacity. This is the home of Airbus (beating Boeing at its own game) and ASML. It substantially reoriented itself away from Russia gas in short order So if Europe wants to re-equip itself with a new generation of weapons it can do so. There really should be no question about this Thats the hardware side. That isnt the problem. The software side - the culture side - is. What matters isnt so much if you build weapons but how - or if -"
X Link 2025-11-17T18:43Z [----] followers, [----] engagements
"@razibkhan Its a social media effect I think Immersion in social media from an early date has completely skewed Gen Z intuitions about what makes for a competitive salary https://t.co/AiN4rva8ww Immersion in social media from an early date has completely skewed Gen Z intuitions about what makes for a competitive salary https://t.co/AiN4rva8ww"
X Link 2025-11-17T20:22Z [----] followers, 59.9K engagements
"You could move massive volumes of water (10 million acre-feet or more) for well under $1 trillion in capital costs I suspect Over a decade accounting for average GDP growth this is 0.3% of GDP This amount of money would be easy to mobilize. Just look at how much capital is being invested in AI. The challenge is entirely legal regulatory and even philosophical. Weve fallen out of love with grand projects that transform the Earths surface (at least all in one go). For example we tear down dams today rather than build them up"
X Link 2025-11-17T23:25Z [----] followers, [---] engagements
"We need a full-length Feyerabendesque treatment of the Industrial Revolution as essentially anarchic/random. Not so much that anything goes per se (you werent going to get takeoff out of the Congo under any timeline) but that the question isnt wholly reducible to a rational explanation. Theres this fundamental residual a quantum that is essentially unknowable. Run the timeline again [----] times maybe it doesnt happen at all in [----] of them in China N number of times and so forth"
X Link 2025-11-18T02:02Z [----] followers, [---] engagements
"The airship still looks futuristic even though it is older than the aircraft Also this is exactly the sort of thing that you expect to see in San Francisco Silicon Valley should look like the future Some crazy air ship / blimp doing laps over SF. What / who is it https://t.co/fcU2S913Wc Some crazy air ship / blimp doing laps over SF. What / who is it https://t.co/fcU2S913Wc"
X Link 2025-11-18T22:23Z [----] followers, [----] engagements
"Stellantis is the latest auto manufacturer to adopt the Tesla-developed NCAS charging standard and will implement it globally. Toyota previously adopted NCAS for North America CHAdeMO is a Japanese standard but is now in clear decline. Might remain as a Galapagos type effect in Japan NCAS will be the USB-C equivalent solution for the US and North America CCS is dominant in Europe and Chinas national standard is GB/T. Probably no one standard becomes globally dominant though"
X Link 2025-11-19T13:43Z [----] followers, [---] engagements
"Portman was a master of the hotel lobby which he transformed into sculptures Never fails to impress Its not for everyone and is definitely not the best use of space but I kind of miss the 1980s vintage atrium lobbies for hotels and office buildings. https://t.co/GRTruHKBQs Its not for everyone and is definitely not the best use of space but I kind of miss the 1980s vintage atrium lobbies for hotels and office buildings. https://t.co/GRTruHKBQs"
X Link 2025-11-19T15:37Z [----] followers, [----] engagements
"@2024dion Agreed weather wont be an impediment - and ultimately neither will the red/blue state divide either. Uber got in everywhere eventually and if self-driving really does work the pressure to permit it will be overwhelming"
X Link 2025-11-20T00:38Z [----] followers, [---] engagements
"The reason for this is simple the chain pizzas are all really cheap now In [----] a Pizza Hut pizza was $12. Today you can get a one topping cheese for about the same price Adjusted for inflation that $12 pizza in [----] is today $30 So youre nominally getting that pizza today for 1/3 the price. Obviously something has to give And in [----] you couldnt get almost anywhere the kind of pizza you can get today for around $30 - Neapolitan wood-fired fior di latte [--] flour and so on Every pizza delivery chain is inedible now. It wasnt always this way. You used to order a pizza and they delivered actual"
X Link 2025-11-20T03:30Z [----] followers, 36.6K engagements
"I did the calculation and it really surprised me. Chain pizza prices are basically flat for decades. A Pizza Hut pie in [----] adjusted for inflation was $30 Obviously the product isnt as good; the price has been cut by 2/3 and the cost structure for business is much more expensive today. Something has to give But if you want to spend $30-40 a pizza today you get an incredible meal. That didnt exist in [----] in most of America"
X Link 2025-11-20T13:04Z [----] followers, [---] engagements
"You can tell that Trump misses Florida. He craves the sun the reflected light from the white paint. All that grey granite probably depresses him Its the same reason for all the gold in the Oval Office. He needs that energy Trump proposes painting the 137-year old granite Eisenhower Executive Office Building bright white Im sure painted granite will age well in the coming years https://t.co/XW8KbnDx24 Trump proposes painting the 137-year old granite Eisenhower Executive Office Building bright white Im sure painted granite will age well in the coming years https://t.co/XW8KbnDx24"
X Link 2025-11-20T13:42Z [----] followers, [---] engagements
"This a great example. Built by the US Army Corps of Engineers I think. The ogival arches are a really nice detail. It really shows how concrete can be this sculptural almost archetypal material. The environment of Saudi helps considerably. Damper contexts like in the UK it ends up looking dreary and Soviet if not well-maintained Its still there I dont know if its used anymore"
X Link 2025-11-20T18:14Z [----] followers, [--] engagements
"@akarlin Ive seen this but I wasnt sure how much credence to give it. Ive read things along these lines for years. Do you believe something fundamentally has changed"
X Link 2025-11-21T03:27Z [----] followers, [---] engagements
"@Paul_Heron_ Its the lighting plus the show house aspect. Theres nothing personal in the lower house. Its set up for an open house Heres the [----] house under very different lighting conditions. You can really see how the environment is transformed Most complaints on here about interior design are really about lighting https://t.co/uVOZRpHBez Heres the [----] house under very different lighting conditions. You can really see how the environment is transformed Most complaints on here about interior design are really about lighting https://t.co/uVOZRpHBez"
X Link 2025-11-21T03:33Z [----] followers, [--] engagements
"Havent seen this really picked up upon but Foster snuck in a very good classical reference in the new JP Morgan headquarters: elevator shafts carved as columns Banks are traditionally associated with classical architecture to evoke solidity. Nice to see that tradition referenced here"
X Link 2025-11-21T04:56Z [----] followers, [---] engagements
"Another edition in my running total of conservative policy victories being invisible: Fracking was a major political issue in the 2000s and 2010s. You had presidential candidates pledging to ban it Now its an entirely accepted practice at least in the US. No one even mentions it anymore. Its just disappeared as a topic of discussion Most conservative wins are like this. Theyre just taken to be common sense - if were going to drill for oil why not use the best available techniques - rather than seen as seizing ground from the opposition (left wing victories are like this). Its a noticeable"
X Link 2025-11-21T05:47Z [----] followers, [---] engagements
"A lot of different strands of technological development are going to simultaneously mature in the 2030s: AI Robotics Reusable rockets Electric + Self driving cars Solar + battery storage It didnt necessarily have to be that way it just happened that way The result will be that the next decade will look very different from the 2010s and prior Well see the pre-Covid years as this sort of other world and the 2020s as a kind of bridge between the two"
X Link 2025-11-21T05:53Z [----] followers, [----] engagements
"Most of the commentary on the new Birmingham City stadium focuses on the external appearance; which is understandable as this is how bystanders primarily experience buildings. I think the exterior is excellent. It looks like a repurposed brickworks. Very Victorian. Landscapes like this were everywhere in the UK in the 19th century. You can see why Heatherwick (the chief architect) is in such high demand But if dont like it thats fine. But from reading the criticism you start to understand why the critics never win these arguments. Its not so much because their aesthetic vision is poor but"
X Link 2025-11-21T18:53Z [----] followers, [---] engagements
"The greatest living actor is Donald Trump. No one else comes close Its true that the movie stars arent what they once were. Theyre no longer draw crowds like they did in the past But thats to use a narrow definition of actor. In reality we live in a golden age of actors. Twitter is full of them and increasingly politics too. Every political entrepreneur is an actor. The biggest influencers are all actors. In a way social media has made actors of all of us: everyones performing a role for the feeds This is a product of economic growth and the increasing complexity of the economy. In the 20th"
X Link 2025-11-21T20:40Z [----] followers, [--] engagements
"No city in the country and only a few in the world chronicle themselves as well as New York City does. In the US Washington DC has a similar density of media but all of it is political and national. The city itself disappears at best a stage on which the drama plays out But New York City is constantly spinning stories in which the city itself is a main character. No New York story can be complete without continual reference to the city unlike say the suburbs where emotional discontents and psychodramas are foregrounded and the suburb itself a mere frame for the action If nations and cities -"
X Link 2025-11-21T21:42Z [----] followers, [---] engagements
"Mamdani and Trump are the same guy. Both are political entrepreneurs. Im not surprised Trump gets along well with him. Plus Trump had a sixth sense for winners. He knows whats going to be big next and he moves to where thats going to be. Hes almost completely non-ideological. So hes able to support a wide range of policy issues. He doesnt have a logical structure where if you support this then you also believe on that like a lot of politicians There are exceptions to this: his quasi-theological belief in sanctions for example. Note that this is also where hes caused the most problems. I dont"
X Link 2025-11-22T01:40Z [----] followers, [---] engagements
"Very interesting that RAND withdrew its report calling for the US to encourage gradual Chinese reunification with Taiwan Im not surprised it was retracted but I am a bit surprised it was published and I wonder if the reason it was withdrawn is because it was too honest. The big brains in DC and DoD strategy tanks might be arriving at a belief that while the US cannot accept a coup de main on Beijings part it could live with a slow protracted process by which China reunites with Taiwan. This would not present the world with a dramatic mediagenic fait accompli to which the government would feel"
X Link 2025-11-22T02:09Z [----] followers, [----] engagements
"@thefuzzybastard Why do we need a thorn at all What does this gain us I also dont see how HK returning to China impacted the US one way or the other"
X Link 2025-11-22T04:10Z [----] followers, [--] engagements
"The thing I noticed right away is how many more trees there are today You see time and again with historic photos at least in the West. The world has gotten much greener without really anyone much noticing. If anything people tend to believe the opposite When you wonder why housing is so expensive in San Francisco the Bay Area California America https://t.co/CzSX6Fc5wb When you wonder why housing is so expensive in San Francisco the Bay Area California America https://t.co/CzSX6Fc5wb"
X Link 2025-11-22T08:24Z [----] followers, 743.2K engagements
"The ultimate evolution of this is when you can create arbitrary mental states via direct neural stimulation. So you can imagine yourself fighting at Agincourt or whatever you want All our efforts to date are crude ways of indirectly achieving this Eventually it will be reduced to a practical engineering question We made fake smells that don't exist. Creating ghost smells with ultrasound only took us a few days to pull off with surprisingly replicable consistency yet has never been described before. There's so much green field here to keep exploring. Can we target more precisely and We made"
X Link 2025-11-22T18:17Z [----] followers, [---] engagements
"Mexican is easily a top [--] cuisine arguably a top [--]. Theres no debate here to be had Its the center of origin for corn/maize beans cacao vanilla the tomato avocado dozens of chilis etc. I dont think any other cuisine comes close to the sheer variety of ingredients it has domesticated. Nixtamalization is one of the great food transformation processes. Mole is amongst the worlds most complex sauces. Its fine if you dont like it but the range of moles exceeds that of the exceptional French mother sauce tradition and the flavors are both deep and sophisticated The acid-chile-fat balance is better"
X Link 2025-11-23T01:49Z [----] followers, [----] engagements
"@okaythenfuture Its definitely the best new world. To me its just notable how little respect it gets on here. Not sure why that is"
X Link 2025-11-23T03:03Z [----] followers, [---] engagements
"The odd thing is that the world has never felt empty and never will no matter how small the global population is This is because almost everyone lives around other people so there are always crowds and groups nearby people out and about This is why population decline is hard to really grasp intellectually. It doesnt feel true. You have to understand it statistically This chart is always disturbing because of the sheer mass of souls in the last [---] years. But the prediluvians probably felt the same way about having millions of people on the planet instead of 20k. https://t.co/pQSfogSSZn This"
X Link 2025-11-23T20:51Z [----] followers, 39.4K engagements
"Jakarta is now the worlds largest city and most people have never heard of it Indonesia remains underrated. I think it falls between the gaps on a lot of issues and therefore goes relatively ignored. It isnt dysfunctional or collapsing. It isnt a failed state so it doesnt get the attention from that Nor is it a massive outsized development success so it doesnt get attention that way either Plus at least for the West there isnt much of immigrant community so there isnt top of the mind awareness for that either Its really in the middle and gets ignored as a result"
X Link 2025-11-25T13:04Z [----] followers, [----] engagements
"If you want cheap air tickets you should be happy about this. The rich are subsidizing you Airline tickets in the US have come down 50-60% since deregulation. You can fly across the country for a few hundred dollars in basic economy. This is incredible. Sure you dont get much shoulder room or in flight service but you get there very safely in a few hours. This is one of the greatest bargains in the modern economy. If you had to drive youd spend much more and multiple days to accomplish the same task all while less comfortably. To get all this though there are trade-offs. Airlines have thin"
X Link 2025-11-25T17:23Z [----] followers, 130.5K engagements
"People sometimes ask why cant we build those Sears kit homes today Usual answers are zoning or labor costs or whatever But the simpler and correct explanation is that houses are just much more complicated today and expectations are much higher You need insulation. Gas. Plumbing everywhere (kitchen multiple baths exterior on multiple stories). Electrical is orders of magnitude more complicated. You need outlets everywhere. Not to mention WiFi. Integrated lighting. After all that you need climate control. Air conditioning. Heat. Multiple zones frequently. All computer controlled Higher end"
X Link 2025-11-25T21:47Z [----] followers, [----] engagements
"Java is very densely populated and has a long history of civilization. I can easily see it being the most interesting and compelling part of the global Miami belt Probably a few decades still. Maybe by [----] Jakarta is now the worlds largest city and most people have never heard of it Indonesia remains underrated. I think it falls between the gaps on a lot of issues and therefore goes relatively ignored. It isnt dysfunctional or collapsing. It isnt a failed state so it Jakarta is now the worlds largest city and most people have never heard of it Indonesia remains underrated. I think it falls"
X Link 2025-11-25T21:57Z [----] followers, [---] engagements
"@gopplanelover @claws816 That makes sense. The biggest gains are always in the [--] to [--] step. So premium is the first rung up the status ladder and you get most the psychological payoff at this level. Everyone else is about refinement"
X Link 2025-11-26T15:34Z [----] followers, [--] engagements
"Countries like companies need halo projects Car companies will frequently design and build a high end roadster or whatever to flex their technological capacity and as a morale booster for their workforce. Even though very few customers will ever purchase or even drive it the existence of the product trickles down to the more mundane offerings where the company makes its bread and butter. Its as if the DNA is in these products if only in a spiritual sense Countries are the same. It isnt enough to just tinker with the pension programs or optimize the tax structure essential as all this is. You"
X Link 2025-11-26T20:38Z [----] followers, [----] engagements
"$250 per night at the Shanghai Four Seasons versus $1200 in NYC Great bargain if youre getting paid in dollars The gap between costs in the US and elsewhere is massive these days Over the past few years China has been in deflation while the US has been in inflation. Yet despite this stark divergence the CNH has still depreciated more than 10% against the US dollar. This combination falling relative prices in China and a weaker currency has made Over the past few years China has been in deflation while the US has been in inflation. Yet despite this stark divergence the CNH has still"
X Link 2025-11-26T21:09Z [----] followers, [---] engagements
"Hawaii has been chasing the highest spending visitors in recent years. Its succeeding Many places are adopting this strategy. Its a response to political concerns around overtourism but also recognizes the reality that in many instances tourism is the leading industry so this is an attempt to square the circle Riyadh wants to be the next. The problem is that there are only so many wealthy people. Everyones chasing the same monied cohort and these people have infinite options My guess is that the real money will be found by the companies cities and countries that are able to solve the problem"
X Link 2025-11-28T20:11Z [----] followers, [---] engagements
"Twitter discourse on US decline arguably contributed to Putins decision to invade Ukraine. Moscow over-learned from a very vocal and unrepresentative online cohort It would be very ironic if Beijing made the same mistake on Taiwan by over-indexing on leftist anti-tech bro and startup scam discourse The US infosphere is unrivaled. The US only takes its memes half-seriously but the rest of the world does so literally Many make very bad mistakes as a result. One might even suspect this is part of a strategy"
X Link 2025-11-29T23:22Z [----] followers, 15K engagements
"@Empty_America I think you could do this in creative writing for an MFA program Virtually impossible in the sciences or engineering in the US. Humanities are if anything even worse Dyson is an exception but that was from the mid-century"
X Link 2025-11-29T23:33Z [----] followers, [---] engagements
"This is an underrated element in the class consciousness of our elite. It is by any definition doing extremely well. But by historic standards it is also quite insecure. Its concerned about being displaced by others rising up in a way that precious generations were not This lack of confidence contributes substantially to its decision-making in everything from politics to business investments and beyond. Ive posted a bit about it previously but I really think it is a kind of master key to understand how the elite thinks and acts. It senses that it does not have this security of tenure that"
X Link 2025-11-30T01:08Z [----] followers, [---] engagements
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