Daniel Keys Moran

Born at 318 parts per million carbon dioxide. Today is 416 ppm.

"He tasks me; he heaps me; I see in him outrageous strength, with an inscrutable malice sinewing it. That inscrutable thing is chiefly what I hate; and be the white whale agent, or be the white whale principal, I will wreak that hate upon him. Talk not to me of blasphemy, man; I'd strike the sun if it insulted me."

Public Key

npub13nzntmcap0l0eualhy059sv8x255pslhy9yv39napzy4f9tcmmps28p4nr

NIP-05 Address

fatsam_at_mstdn.social@mostr.pub

Profile Code

nprofile1qqsge3f4auwshlhu7wlmj86zcxrn922qc0mjzjxgje7s3z25j4udascldx5ge

Author Public Key

npub13nzntmcap0l0eualhy059sv8x255pslhy9yv39napzy4f9tcmmps28p4nr

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Last Notes

2024-07-07 23:26:07

Cancel your NY Times subscription. If you absolutely must read them, use archive.is.

2024-07-05 06:56:51

https://media.mstdn.social/media_attachments/files/112/732/570/318/719/606/original/777a3d0264fb257c.jpg

2024-06-29 00:58:52

The stupid people who don't vote had better be armed. We're heading for a Mad Max world.
I mean, you should be armed even if you do vote. But at least you can go to war without feeling like the biggest goddamn fool on the planet.

2024-06-28 03:55:40

The thing I like least about Democrats, forty odd years, is the panicking class, probably best exemplified by Michael Moore, who turned a Hillary debate win, by next day polling, into a pathetic meltdown that Trump was going to win. (He did! Yeah. Shit happens. But Moore did the same thing with Obama and Biden, and so did most of his sort.)
https://youtu.be/lXRcxk11LqE?si=dC2WZINOZ1Etlg6H

2024-06-27 04:36:27

https://media.mstdn.social/media_attachments/files/112/686/725/509/496/219/original/c18358af50939bbb.jpg

2024-06-18 07:35:34

Trump's a racist, and the Nazis like that.
He's a rapist, and they like that.
He kidnapped and murdered brown refugee children, and they like that.
He's a brute whose only emotional desire is to inflict pain, and they *love* that.
Yeah, Trump's a problem.
But not as big a problem as his Nazi supporters.

2024-06-17 18:40:16

This is seven years old. But I don't think the principle has changed.
https://media.mstdn.social/media_attachments/files/112/633/417/620/220/628/original/3cc571897b7c2083.jpg

2024-06-17 06:45:59

Just about the last reliable metric for COVID exposure.
If you're in the American West, the green line, it's ticking up.
https://www.cdc.gov/nwss/rv/COVID19-nationaltrend.html

2024-06-15 23:31:56

When I hear conservatives talking about how trans girls and boys are a communicative fad, what I hear is people who would rather their children be dead than different.

2024-06-10 16:13:54

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/06/07/phrases-that-are-often-peoples-last-regrets-says-author-what-we-can-learn.html
https://media.mstdn.social/media_attachments/files/112/593/207/767/777/827/original/0fac0a1454ac605c.png

2024-06-07 14:13:52

- reply

The richest companies in the world are tech companies, and they're every bit as bad as oil companies were when they were the world's richest.
You know what doesn't have these flaws? FOSS. Gimp, Krita, DaVinci Resolve, LibreOffice, Linux, Calibre, PostgreSQL, etc.
There are apps that don't have exact parallels on the Linux stack, surely. But not that many, and usually you can find a workaround.
95% of what I do, I don't need Windows. Nor do you, in all likelihood.

2024-06-07 14:13:35

Adobe's completely toxic terms of use -- they reserve the right to use your work, they reserve the right to inspect your work -- are pretty much par for the course in modern fascist corporations. Microsoft has Recall and spies on you, Apple has a list of issues as long as your arm, and spies on you, Google has started offering dangerous advice and taking away access to your own documents and REALLY spies on you ...

2024-06-07 14:12:05

Best use of existing signage I ever encountered was The InDisCo, back during disco days. No idea which came first, but I danced there more than once and knew it as a disco joint.
Drove by during the day some years later. The dance platform had tractors displayed on it. "Industrial Instrument Company." They hadn't changed the sign.

2024-06-06 14:51:10

This hits hard.
https://media.mstdn.social/media_attachments/files/112/570/231/977/663/227/original/5eadc648149bf7ca.jpg

2024-06-05 11:48:28

"Hide boosts" is by far the most useful tool for managing my Masto feed. People I find interesting in themselves, sometimes flood the zone with their boosts. Blocking boosts cuts their output by 20x or more.

2024-06-03 11:01:35

- reply

That's the payoff for successfully winning this war, having to ignore the chorus of weak liberals and complicit conservatives, afterward. It's a small price, surely. But don't forget what it feels like, today, if we're lucky enough to head off fascism again. It was the complacent chowderheads and incipient Nazis who put us through this in the first place.

2024-06-03 11:01:29

After 2000, *lots* of people sneered that the Y2K bug had been a big nothing, massively overhyped.
They were idiots. If the vast amount of Y2K remediation that took place hadn't, planes might well have fallen from the sky, nuclear power plants might well have melted down. I worked on two projects myself to fix bad 2 digit dates.
We get to the other side of the current Nazi infestation, the same idiots are going to say, "See, you were just hysterical."

2024-05-29 09:30:29

The Right hates blacks.
And Latinos, Asians, Muslims. Thugs (black men.) Indigenous peoples. LGBTQ. Young people with blue hair. The poor. Educated people. Women who aren't doormats -- or *are* but won't be raped or beaten. Jews, at least those who don't hate Arabs. Feminists. Liberal men. Atheists. Women who've had an abortion. Witches. Goths.
Liberals just hate conservatives (and that's fairly recent.) It's much more efficient. You don't have to memorize the various lists of people to hate.

2024-05-22 21:10:38

The "railway gauges are based on Roman chariots" passed through my feed twice recently. It's untrue.
https://garethdennis.medium.com/the-not-so-glamourous-origins-of-standard-track-gauge-2b5f1ae7e3bc

2024-05-17 22:43:19

What's the earliest case in SF, that any of you can recall, where books and movies and physical media are explicitly obsolete?

2024-05-17 06:16:38

https://media.mstdn.social/media_attachments/files/112/454/961/489/430/189/original/dd5c8386a2f03dc7.jpg

2024-05-16 05:56:50

This is lovely.
https://media.mstdn.social/media_attachments/files/112/449/220/438/628/613/original/0ac66b84822915b1.jpg

2024-05-14 17:14:22

Neil Gaiman wrote: "Everything good that happened in my writing career happened because someone, normally another writer, helped me. Suggested me for something, put in a good word, and so on. The idea was always that you help others and they help others in their turn. It's not a win or lose game."
I'm not Gaiman, and probably neither are you (unless you are, in which case hi, Neil.)
But this is true for me and true for most of us.

2024-05-14 03:30:58

Nice compliment over on FB.
https://media.mstdn.social/media_attachments/files/112/437/323/555/038/155/original/d601ae4c31266172.png

2024-05-04 14:10:27

This is Buddha babble:
"You can deal with your problems now, or later. Why not now?"
Because, in a long life, I have frequently found that some classes of problem go away if you out wait them.
Because, even if a problem does need to be dealt with, and soon, it's usually better to do it after a good night's sleep, than when you're tired and distracted.

2024-05-04 01:06:44

Not mine, but:
The sport of choice for the urban poor is basketball.
For maintenance workers it's bowling.
For line workers it's football.
For supervisors it's baseball.
For middle management, tennis.
And for corporate executives it's golf.
The fact is, the higher you go in corporate structure, the smaller your balls become.

2024-05-02 05:14:26

Two true statements:
1, there is a vague correlation between hard work and modest wealth, and
2, the billionaire class exists because of rent extraction.

2024-05-01 23:33:12

Not many writers are what you could call famous. Even barely known actors from ephemeral tv shows get more traction.
Got stopped by a cop once leaving David Gerrold's place. (DUI checkpoint.)
He asked where I'd been, I said visiting my buddy. He seemed to expect more, I added, "David Gerrold."
He lit up. "The tribbles guy?"

2024-04-30 15:56:43

I'd love a computer/brain interface, I think.
Open source hardware, open source software, V3. Anyone foolish enough to let Elon Musk stick gear in their head, deserves it.
https://media.mstdn.social/media_attachments/files/112/360/982/402/314/026/original/7a38587d20044736.jpg

2024-04-24 00:09:48

https://media.mstdn.social/media_attachments/files/112/323/280/751/530/581/original/10954b57cb35bd22.webp

2024-04-22 14:45:05

We're in bad trouble.
https://media.mstdn.social/media_attachments/files/112/315/401/966/900/984/original/feb6d9e30cd8b51a.jpg

2024-04-20 03:42:17

Conservatives love their guns and hate their women.
https://media.mstdn.social/media_attachments/files/112/301/471/474/217/767/original/f539bae0da1c2f29.jpg

2024-04-18 06:50:49

I don't think I can be a Social Justice Warrior. Warriors have swords or knives or bows or something, and I can't use any of those well.
A Social Justice *Cowboy,* now, riding into town on my trusty horse Wildfire, dual Colt Schofields at each hip, trusty Henry rifle, shining blue boots and meaningful squint, come to wipe out the local cattle baron and reduce income inequality throughout the land? Yes. That's in my wheelhouse.
SJC for old white men.

2024-04-17 19:04:03

"You're just like me" is the howl of the inferior. It's why the religious are so determined that science must also be a religion.
#atheism

2024-04-15 05:31:27

*All* attempts to make up for past racial injustice look like "reverse racism" ... if you start your baseline the moment the remediation occurs. That's like saying recovering damages in a civil suit is just theft, as if nothing came before.

2024-04-13 15:29:31

This is nice.
https://media.mstdn.social/media_attachments/files/112/264/618/278/919/814/original/6a8497cf187cfbd2.jpg

2024-04-11 07:34:07

17 years on Facebook.
I wander around on Mastodon for a while and come back to Facebook, it's genuinely wrenching. And I'm *used* to Facebook.
- the feed doesn't refresh and hide what I'm reading.
- there are no ads
- comments are in the order posted
- posts are in the order posted
- no one is using cutesy double talk/goodthink to avoid the fascist (indeed, Nazi) censors.

2024-04-10 23:55:55

https://media.mstdn.social/media_attachments/files/112/249/622/059/399/515/original/ebc49e5d31001dc3.jpg

2024-04-10 20:32:31

There's an interesting question, which is not the same thing as "who are your favorite writers."
Who are the writers and most influenced you, either in producing the person you are now, or, if you are a writer, in your writing?
It's an easy question for me, the people who hit me hardest have stayed with me over time. In no particular order:
#Writing

2024-04-10 18:26:34

Gaza isn't your business? Gaza is exactly what conservatives want to do to you in this country.

2024-04-06 20:07:27

I love those videos where a guy cooks a big meal -- bread, steak, veggies, tea -- in the wilderness, with nothing but a knife, tea kettle, and a big flat rock.
... And the $50,000 vehicle that brought him to the wilderness, and ten grand of video editing equipment, and an entire global trade system that brought him his spices and oils and meats and veggies...
People watching that thing thinking, I'll be ok when civilization fails, I know where there's a flat rock.

2024-04-04 17:02:26

No, the New Minimum Wage Won’t Wreck the Fast Food Industry or the Economy
Studies have repeatedly shown wage increases bring few job cuts and boost local economies.
~~~~~
The usual business criminals are howling, but fuck 'em.
https://capitalandmain.com/no-the-new-minimum-wage-wont-wreck-the-fast-food-industry-or-the-economy

2024-04-03 05:15:18

The number of conservative men who'd get a blowjob from a pretty man, if no one would ever find out, approaches 100%.
What if, facing death, you could be rejuvenated back to true youth ... but only into the opposite gender?
The number of anti trans people who'd leap at that is also right near 100%.

2024-04-03 00:55:52

Few years back I suggested that Marvel do their first MCU F4 movie in an alternate timeline, in the 1960s, and then jump them into the present-day MCU.
Sounds like I'm not the only smart guy thinking about the Fantastic Four. Apparently the plot of the new movie.

2024-04-01 15:38:06

Looking for alpha readers for my ongoing fiction. I have several, would like a few more. You'll get the current work before anymore else, chapter at a time usually, and I'm looking for useful feedback -- literally at the level of, "that's a clumsy sentence," if that's what you've got.
You'll need a Discord account. Familiarity with my work is a necessity, unless you're willing to read the ongoing series to catch up.
Drop me a line if interested.

2024-04-01 15:16:45

I've called the Christian Right Satanist a few times. I don't really mean it in a literal sense, though I do in the general: the God they worship is malevolent.
C.S. Lewis would have recognized them:
"If the attack had been of some more violent kind it might have been easier to resist. What chilled and almost cowed him was the union of malice with something nearly childish. For temptation, for blasphemy, for a whole battery of horrors ...

2024-03-28 19:52:56

FatSam's young friend Richard, a Mexican Catholic, said, "There's no moral standard you agree with?"
"Mine," FatSam said. "Do no harm. Protect the innocent. Can't think who else's I would use."
"So if God says to do something, and you do something else, that doesn't bother you?"
FatSam smiled at him. "I always do what God tells me to do. In my case, it was do no harm and protect the innocent. The priests won't tell you this," FatSam said, "but God likes adults."

2024-03-28 07:04:54

Longest life expectancy states are Hawaii (81.5), California (80.8), Minnesota (80.8), New York (80.7), Connecticut (80.6), New Jersey (80.4), Colorado (80.0), Washington (80.0), Massachusetts (79.0), and Vermont (79.0).
Lowest are Mississippi (74.6), West Virginia (74.9), Alabama (74.9), Kentucky (75.1), Arkansas (75.4), Oklahoma (75.5), Louisiana (75.5), Tennessee (76.1), South Carolina (76.2), and Ohio (76.6).
... nothing to see here. At least conservatives are mostly killing themselves.

2024-03-27 22:52:37

Joe Lieberman is dead.
Good. Joe Manchin before Manchin, except that he represented a seat that Dems were capable of winning; Sinema before Sinema, too, except an even cheaper purchase for the fascists.
Yes, a man worse than Manchin and Sinema, hard as that is to believe if you weren't there when he knifed the public option in Obamacare. I haven't done the math on the death toll from that, but he might be as great a murderer as Trump.

2024-03-27 01:17:54

Don't believe there is such a thing as "enlightened." The best of us are barely more than animals, and too much of the brain is inaccessible to our executive function for me to buy stories about that stuff. If enlightenment was A) real, and B) useful, conferring a practical advantage in *any* field, we'd see it in the world in unambiguous ways.

2024-03-20 01:04:11

Reddit has blocked VPNs and requires age verification for adult content -- which probably includes porn (you'd think) but in this case was also a video about the war in Ukraine.
Activity Pub versions of Quora & Reddit would be a good thing. Modern capitalism is murder.

2024-03-18 04:00:35

Election time in the U.S. is always interesting. (In a Hitler is coming sort of way, lately.)
I'm patient with kids who don't know what's happening. Until you've seen, as a politically aware adult of whatever age, two full terms of the Liberal party vs the Conservative party running the nation, you might plausibly be unclear on how vast the differences are. (Again, particularly lately.)
But past about 30 there's rarely an excuse.

2024-03-18 00:22:25

It was a mistake letting them crawl out from under the rocks again.
https://media.mstdn.social/media_attachments/files/112/113/822/401/612/992/original/4481fcfaf24fa1e3.png

2024-03-18 00:16:58

Writer elsewhere observing (not complaining, I believe) that he would never win awards.
Those of us not in actual poverty live better lives than any king before maybe a hundred years ago. And plenty of people with a Hugo award on the shelf *do* live in actual poverty, starting but not ending with Fritz Leiber, who ended his life typing on a portable typewriter, on his lap, because there was no space in his small room for a desk.

2024-03-17 02:01:37

I deleted my Twitter account, finally. It's a Nazi bar, to use Peter Rasmussen's useful phrase.
FB will be longer getting there. Zuck only has that source of wealth, he'll milk it to death.
But I see a time not too far off when observing the existence of Nazis on that platform won't be tolerated any longer.
They're likely to whack me long before that, of course.

2024-03-16 23:43:35

“Now, if I don't get elected, it's gonna be a bloodbath. It's going to be a bloodbath for the country,” predicts Donald Trump at a rally in Dayton, Ohio.
They're telling you right out in the open. It's why I got rid of my conservative friends -- I'd like to not have to shoot at anyone liable to make me hesitate.
If you're not armed you should be.

2024-03-16 14:31:41

I haven't verified these numbers. But I believe them.
https://media.mstdn.social/media_attachments/files/112/105/843/264/722/038/original/c4524fe89a9dfd27.png

2024-03-13 11:20:07

"Woke" liberals vs "sleeping" conservatives strikes me as genuinely fair. Though the conservatives using "woke" as an insult don't realize what it says about them:
"There is an ignorance of evil that comes from being young: there is a darker ignorance that comes from doing it, as men by sleeping lose the knowledge of sleep."
- CS Lewis, Perelandra

2024-03-08 10:13:35

Via @npub1gp7…727z:
The cumulative public health benefit of people being more active was estimated at as much as £4,800 per local adult over a 20-year period, the authors found, as against a cost per person to build LTNs of about £28-£35, or £112, depending on the type of scheme built.
Significantly, the study found that the positive impacts, particularly for walking and cycling rates, tended to be more noticeable after schemes had been in place for a year or two ...
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/mar/08/health-gains-of-low-traffic-schemes-up-to-100-times-greater-than-costs-study-finds

2024-03-07 01:50:36

I've been married three times, lived with another woman two years. Have loved and been loved by others. How do I know I've fallen short in my life?
I have a book about Audrey Hepurn's life. In it there's a photo of her three husbands, at her funeral, hugging and crying.

2024-03-05 03:43:30

- reply

@npub1gmx…atcq @npub1ffl…tv7d if Garland has anything to do with this it was reluctantly, and after consulting the calendar to see if it might do any damage to Trump before the election.

2024-03-03 04:55:49

The Jedi are picked for their ability in the Force, not their brains.
Lucasfilm, you know what to do. Somewhere out there is the magical comic tale of This Generation's Dumbest Jedi....

2024-03-03 00:44:13

Navalny was to Putin as Cheney is to Trump: someone of equally vile principles, who lost to a fascist of a different flavor.
Know who you're mourning, or in Cheney's case, supporting.

2024-03-01 03:34:13

I gotta write faster. (Health, etc., not only laziness on my part, much of the last year I flat out couldn't.)
~$500 from Amazon this month. At $2k we start getting to break even, and I made a lot more than that for several months after Great Gods was published. (Right now I'm burning a grand a month.) Social Security kicks in, I'm at the max there, we should start saving a couple grand a month again, between my income, Amy's, and both of our social security.

2024-02-27 04:44:19

It turns out that art is easier than housework.
Housework requires vision, delicate manipulation skills, knowledge of where and how to store items, the ability to reach up and down, the judgement to distinguish a pearl from a pearl onion, the ability to clean yourself, a sense of smell, speech and hearing.
https://media.mstdn.social/media_attachments/files/112/001/610/816/180/890/original/41ac6b1309f248f2.webp

2024-02-22 03:37:54

#13books that changed how I see the world:
Stranger in a Strange Land - Heinlein, at 8
Crystal Cave, Mary Stewart, ~10
Huckleberry Finn, Twain, ~10
Perelandra, C.S Lewis, at ~12.
Lord of the Rings, Tolkien, ~12
Childhood's End, Arthur C Clarke, ~12
Fear and Loathing, Thompson, ~14
The Perfect Thief, Ronald Bass, ~15
USA Trilogy, dos Passos, ~15
Dispossessed, Left Hand of Darkness, Le Guin, ~16
Travis McGee series, MacDonald, ~18
Lonesome Dove, McMurtry, ~22
Cheating a bit? Maybe.

2024-02-21 01:19:56

I have to tell you, Mastodon feels like coming home.
Obviously we all like it here, or we'd be elsewhere.
But the lack of an algorithm, the lack of fascist moderators, the broad lack of fascists. The lack of advertising, which is very frequently an arm of fascism in this day and age, is simply a joy.
Twitter, Facebook/Instagram/Threads, Bluesky, TikTok ... all in the hands of authoritarians intent on setting the bounds of what acceptable discourse is.
I'm grateful for Mastodon, I am.

2024-02-20 08:25:23

Deleting my Twitter account on Wednesday. I've kept it mostly out of curiosity, but truth is the Nazis have captured that platform. I don't need to watch the rest of this show.

2024-02-20 02:40:29

Helping people who need it doesn't come with built in resentments, but it's very common. It takes people on both sides who can let go of it and move on.
That old advice about take care of your own mask is real, though. If you find yourself overwhelmed with other people's problems, step back. The people who love you will understand. (Quite a number of those who don't love you will, too.)
Some people will express resentment. Nothing to be done about that, either. Your mask first.

2024-02-19 19:14:54

Russians are making gains against Ukraine, mostly due to lack of American support since Republicans took the House.
No investment Russia ever made that worked out better for them than the purchase of the Republican party. I wonder if Roberts saw this outcome when Citizens United opened the floodgates of dark money.

2024-02-17 18:24:27

Modern #Republicans break down into flat out death camp Nazis; resentful scum filled with spite; and raw cowards.
There's a scattered few like Cheney and Romney who are simple oligarchic fascists. But I doubt they round up to 1%.

2024-02-16 06:02:28

I'm not scared to be happy, no. It's going to end? Sure. But everything ends and everyone dies. Do you want to be happy or unhappy on the way?

2024-02-16 00:46:15

AI and robotics are going to destroy work for humans. The sooner we get that clear, the sooner we can figure out what we are going to do next.
https://youtu.be/gS_iSrmCH5c?si=UcYZFUXSBxHM-CZV

2024-02-16 00:32:22

I haven't cared about the Hugos since well before it stopped being possible I might win one.
This is worth noting, though. Not a particular surprise: cowardice in the face of a dictatorship prone to disappearing people is comprehensible. Nothing to write home about, but the initial mistake was having it in China. Doing business with totalitarians is always a mistake.
Might be saying something similar down the road about the U.S., of course.
https://file770.com/glasgow-2024-announces-kat-jones-resignation-as-hugo-administrator/

2024-02-15 00:39:18

Does anyone know of software that simulates solar systems? You pick a star size, planets, moons, etc, and calculate orbits?

2024-02-13 21:16:35

Of course you should be able to criticize Biden, Dems in general, and not have that be taken to mean you support the fascists.
But I admit I get less inclined to listen to it the closer we get to federal elections.

2024-02-08 22:51:02

- reply

Facebook, I have never been more sure of anything.
https://media.mstdn.social/media_attachments/files/111/898/302/558/090/141/original/828970fdda093fb8.png

2024-02-08 22:06:03

About 0.75% of the population of Germany, in the 1930s, was Jewish -- 505,000 people out of a total population of 67 million.
About 1.03% of the United States adult population, today, identifies as transgender, according to the Household Pulse Survey.
That those numbers are so similar is not a coincidence. Nazis are cowards and look for populations so outnumbered they have a hard time fighting back.

2024-02-06 10:03:34

It's genuinely fascinating to me how much of conservative culture is based on a desire to cause pain in others. Take the sadism out of con culture, there's not much left.

2024-02-02 21:59:23

This is over a year old, but it's New To Me.
It matches nicely with my personal experiences. I've taken three companies out of the cloud, only been at one where the cloud was, marginally, a reasonable decision.
https://world.hey.com/dhh/why-we-re-leaving-the-cloud-654b47e0

2024-02-01 00:56:23

You know what the Silent & Boomer generations got right?
They vaccinated their fucking kids.

2024-01-30 00:55:41

I'm going to spend the short rest of my life telling people their decisions have consequences. And either taking pleasure, or flat out grieving for them, in the moments when the leopards eat their faces, or the faces of their children.

2024-01-29 06:50:16

I think the Jewish and Palestinian Americans who want to see Trump in office again to teach Democrats a lesson? Are completely out of their fucking minds.
Hitler murdered six million Jews, more or less. There are only eight million in the U.S., and a third or more of the Republican Party would see all of them exterminated in this country without blinking.
There are about 200k Palestinians in the U.S. It's probable conservatives would murder them first.

2024-01-28 10:06:10

The equator is likely to be uninhabitable during the lifetime of people born this year.
https://youtu.be/4S9sDyooxf4?si=d52dqNr3JtGliIz3

2024-01-25 06:21:51

- reply

But the absolute truth is that we don't know today. And anyone who pretends otherwise is taking information that has been swamped by cultural signals, and attempting to assert that it is the final truth of how people work. It's not.
We will someday know how genetics express. The only suspicion I have in this area is that mongrel vigor is a real thing, and that we will find that people with mixed ancestry are, on average, the smartest people, the fittest people, on the planet.

2024-01-25 06:21:37

- reply

But time passed, incomes equalized, and the gap went away.
The Bell Curve was the work of an actual crossburner. Conservatives are still enamored of it today.
But it tells you nothing true. Someday we will know how genetics express, and it won't shock me if it turns out that in some areas men perform better than women, or the women perform better than men. It won't shock me if it turns out that some racial groupings outperform others, on some metrics.

2024-01-25 06:19:29

People who want to make announcements about the genetics of various populations are never to be trusted.
Before 1978 there were no female chess grandmasters. In 1978 we saw the first, and in 1991, the second.
The argument was that men were inherently better at chess. Better brains.
Today there are 41 female grandmasters.
There was a commonly held opinion, 100 years ago, that the the Catholic Irish were dumber than the Protestant Irish, in northern Ireland.
Certainly they tested worse.
https://media.mstdn.social/media_attachments/files/111/815/130/716/459/675/original/cb9bec93887a590c.jpg

2024-01-20 00:13:15

I'm skeptical of big proclamations about how to live life. But I will say this much: having enough is important. Don't ever let anyone tell you otherwise: the best things in life are not free.
But this doesn't mean that there's not such a thing as enough. Possessions are just things. The parts of life that matter are people and, a good bit behind that, experiences.

2024-01-10 20:01:08

"We have to believe there is good on the web and it's worth typing for."
- Samwise Gamgee, via David Gerrold

2024-01-10 18:16:41

https://media.mstdn.social/media_attachments/files/111/733/008/527/720/549/original/cedd6b8e6d7a439a.png

2024-01-10 05:18:56

Despite Steve Perry's advice, I started Dave Chappelle's recent special, "The Dreamer."
His opening bit is a long nasty joke pointed at trans people. I turned it off at 5:31.
Fuck you, Dave Chappelle. Talent doesn't excuse much in the first place, and nothing excuses this. You're a bad man.

2023-12-29 15:49:19

Bioinformatics PhD Daniel Dvorkin:
https://media.mstdn.social/media_attachments/files/111/664/492/545/101/517/original/9a8cad682245527c.png

2023-12-23 04:47:05

Excellent news. Freedom not dead yet.
https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/politics/2023/12/22/wisconsin-supreme-court-rules-legislative-maps-unconstitutional/72010456007/

2023-12-20 15:34:22

"They (who) seek to establish systems of government based on the regimentation of all human beings by a handful of individual rulers... call this a new order. It is not new and it is not order." - Franklin D. Roosevelt
https://media.mstdn.social/media_attachments/files/111/613/471/153/725/189/original/f5538194e5975b48.jpg

2023-12-11 21:00:25

https://media.mstdn.social/media_attachments/files/111/563/786/729/447/932/original/a17e0c30e1125580.png

2023-11-27 06:08:13

The Fermi paradox is easy to explain. Earth is a bad neighborhood, filled with the galactic equivalent of gangs, junkies, pimps, and hookers. Decent aliens avoid us.
The aliens who *do* come by? Obsessed with butt stuff they can't get at home.

2023-11-27 03:17:42

Democracy scares American fascists to death. They know full well their cis-white-Christian world is a minority, and growing more so.
And they hate it. They know how *they* treat minorities, and depending on others to be better than them -- though a low bar -- is not a risk they can manage.

2023-11-22 03:09:30

The big difference between today and 1930s Germany is that was a white, Christian monolith.
America is majority non-cis-white-Christian. The odds of us winning a civil war are good, though the cost will be brutal.
But you need to be armed.

2023-11-10 23:22:16

#Abortion is simply a marker for white nationalism. When they were unable to be as upfront with their racism as they wanted to be, they switched to abortion as an issue -- as recently as the mid-1970s evangelicals were fairly indifferent to the subject.
There's no point in Democrats ever bending on this issue; the people for whom it's most important aren't ever going to vote Democratic no matter what, and abortion isn't the reason why.

2023-10-30 10:21:38

I can tell you what Israel and the Palestinians should have done 30 years ago.
I can tell you what Democrats and Republicans should have done 30 years ago.
What's going to happen now is Israel is going to destroy what little infrastructure Palestinians have left, killing them by the thousands or tens of thousands.
What's going to happen now is Republicans are going to arm the crazies and destroy infrastructure and murder people by the thousands or tens of thousands every year.