Hard times need someone to blame. 2021 is likely to be a rough ride for countries all over the world. But it will be especially hard on those who have raised psychological expectations to an unreasonable degree. The dawn has broken so where’s the sunshine? The bad December job numbers are ominous. What happens if …
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U.S. loses 140,000 jobs in first monthly loss since spring
George Friedman’s take on the number is that many businesses are permanently lightening ship. The economic damage is now long term. Those 140,000 cuts were made largely by businesses that have a profound understanding of the business they are in and of the appetite of their customers for what they sell. Most businesses have always …
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How We Went Back to the Middle Ages
We were warned in 2003 about the coming age of censorship. Today, when censorship is being advocated to counter ‘disinformation’ or the ‘Big Lie,’ it may be time to remember John Walker, the man who anticipated way back in 2003 that a digital imprimatur would be required to say anything substantial online. Walker was the …
Recipe for Gasoline
Nothing is less nonpartisan than a social media platform run by politicized CEOs. Yet social media platforms are precisely that: defined by their politics whether they be Facebook, Twitter, Parler or Gab. They are not ‘social media’ vehicles full of pictures of families having picnics or singing round campfires. They are places where activists call …
The Costs of Wading into Politics
One of the nice things about not being in politics is not being in politics. Make no enemies where you can make no friends. Like I said weeks ago, both sides are so evenly matched any clash will cause mutual damage. “The populist uprising is now objectively too powerful for progressives to crush. The left …
“We will have nothing left to open”
City hall can beat anyone except reality. “Who sent you?” (pause) “God.” (pause) “Never heard of Him.”
Twitter stock tumbles 10% after Trump is permanently banned from the platform | Business Insider
Even battleships take damage. The long term damage will be greater. There a certain powers which are tolerated on the tacit understanding that they will never be used, like authority to order a nuclear strike or the capacity to beat up one’s wife. Once this capability is used, whatever the justification, things are never the …
“Leaked Location Data Shows Another Muslim Prayer App Tracking Users”
Glad this doesn’t happen to anyone else. https://twitter.com/i/events/1348652231822893063?s=09
Gab.com sees traffic surge
Expect this to be the next online battleground. Gab is an obvious target because of its politics and apparent technical competence. It’s not clear that fleeing to Gab is any more feasible than going to Parler. The same logic that closed the latter will apply to the former. If they can close Parler, they can …
As an Example to Others
The other places of digital refuge are no safer. This has been in the making since 2003. The dark night of fascism always looms on the right and happens from the left.
How concerned investors should be about Biden’s tax proposals
Technology down 9.2% Health care down 8.4% Communication services down 8.2% Consumer discretionary down 7.5% Financials down 6.5%
Why Has It Gone Haywire?
“Nobody has been dealt a tougher hand than Gavin Newsom,” Gray Davis, the former California Democratic governor who was recalled in 2003, said in an interview. “Look, I had the energy crisis and a recession. He has a pandemic we haven’t seen for 100 years. He has the fallout from that pandemic, racial injustice, wildfires, …
Yes I Can
It’s possible to be pretty well educated on very little money. Anyone with a little self discipline could have learned a lot at MIT. “Massachusetts Institute of Technology MOOCs. Browse free online courses in a variety of subjects. Massachusetts Institute of Technology courses found below can be audited free or students can choose to receive …
Building Alternatives is the Best Protest
From the privacy point of view the establishment is building a big digital prison. Don’t complain about being kicked off social media. Be glad it happened. The whole point of leaving bondage is not to wander in the desert but to enter into a promsed land. There’s got to be more to life than providing …
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If You’re Banned Have You Made It.?
Who was it who said “I would never join a social media site that would feature me as a member “?
Your Report Card
Has China’s social rating system come to America? Once something is potential it very often becomes actual. Like the big red button marked ‘do not push’, some curious fellow always does. Those with lower scores find daily life harder. They aren’t allowed to buy high speed train tickets or take flights. Doors close to certain …
Strategies in Dealing With Complexity
The establishment’s approach to complexity is to control it with one global long term plan. The alternative is to foster lots of small, relatively short term efforts to adapt, ameliorate or harness unexpected developments. Establishment efforts will always be Too Big To Fail. By contrast the problem solving approach uses failure to learn and make …
Less Spying
One of the advantages of using the standard Internet protocol site (like this) is that you don’t have to give up your information to access the site. Many social media sites are Walled Gardens that leach out your personal details. Coming here is cheaper, in lost information, than going there. Nobody takes your info at …
Many partings
The social media purge means that conflicting sides can no longer abide in the same virtual room. This does not mean a breakdown in communication, just a breakup of the network into components. Rather than being one loud space the universe will construct rooms. One of advantages of componentization is that POVs need not be …
The Return of the Censor
Our ancient future New at the Belmont Club