Reprint on "whistleblowers" and Shannon
In 2019 I had a pretty decent idea. Use the Thiel test on alleged "whistleblowers". Most would fail miserably, including Snowden, Manning, and this week's Facebook "whistleblower".

= = = = = START REPRINT:

Strikes me that a slight variation on the Thiel question is a good test for people who claim to be "ex"Deepstate, or "whistleblowers" against Deepstate.

The original Thiel question:

Tell me something that's true that nobody agrees with you on.

My looser version:

Tell me something that's true that nobody else knows.

= = = = =

Variation to test the EXness of "ex"Deepstaters:

Tell me something that's true that I don't already know.

Real intel agencies use this exact question intensely and rigorously to test claimed defectors from enemy intel. We should use it for the same purpose, since CIA and FBI and NSA are enemy intel.

"Ex"es always tell us things that we already know, or give us unnecessary details about things that we had already guessed. This is NOT Shannon information.

Shannon information is fully surprising and unexpected, totally unguessable and undeducible from existing knowledge. Shannon is consequential, not trivial. When you act on Shannon information, things change.

We could formalize this by gathering (online or in person) a jury of UNPAID NONEXPERTS who have some experience dealing with aspects of Deepstate. People who have been involved in "radical" activities where CIA or FBI planted APs, or people who have worked in tech areas where NSA's tentacles are visible. Require the "Ex" to tell us something that is fresh and surprising to all jurors.


= = = = = END REPRINT.

Labels: Asked and worth asking again, Leth

  ¶ 2:21 PM

  Question worth thinking about
Seen on Quora, a rare good question.

How can we infer an increase/decrease in the global skepticism of science?

We know that vast numbers of people stopped trusting Public Health, especially when Public Health and all corporations declared in unison that RIOTS CURE EPIDEMICS.

But how can we get a commercial and quantifiable metric for this distrust?

When people stop trusting a car brand, sales go down. When people stop trusting the Episcopal Church, tithing goes down. When people stop trusting a TV network or newspaper, the clicks and advertisers and subscribers drop. All are measurable decreases in revenue.

There aren't any mass-consumption science magazines or science shows. All the magazines are basically aimed at insiders. Subscribers are part of the secret-keeping priesthood. They're not ordinary churchgoers or customers who can lose trust. They're helping to generate the distrust. They know it's a hoax because they're building the hoax.

So there's no measure equivalent to tithing or subscriptions, no way to quantify trust by outsiders.

Labels: Asked and worth asking again, Metrology, Parkinson

  ¶ 3:01 PM

  Random food-related nonthoughts
KSHS is getting back up to speed again. Their latest item is a medallion given to Prohibition cultists after they took the Pledge.

This Temperance Pledge pendant was recovered from an archeological site in Morris County and donated to the Kansas Historical Society in 2020. The obverse side states: "How Sweet From The Green Mossy Brim to Receive It. As Poised On The Cure. It Inclined To My Lips." These are lines from a Victorian era poem "The Bucket" by S. Woodworth. The reverse side of the token states "Temperance Leads To Health Wealth Happiness And Long Lives. Pledged To Use No Intoxicating Drink As A Beverage.

HOW SWEET FROM THE GREEN MOSSY BRIM? JESUS! GGGGGAAAARRGGHH!

In the last few years I've concluded that the 'influencers' of Populism in that era were fakers. They diagnosed the NYC crime correctly, but prescribed more power for NYC, not less. Jennings Bryan was a Trump-class faker. After he gained power, he served Madman Wilson as Sec of State, writing parts of Versailles and designing the League of Nations. Perfect diametric betrayal of nationalism and Populism.

This horrible medallion makes me wonder if Prohibition was also intended to be a fake movement.

Simple fact: Alcohol is BAD. Alcohol kills you much faster than tobacco or marijuana, and alcohol ruins your brain long before it kills you, while tobacco makes you more sane and more able to tolerate adversity. Prohibition did not decrease overall alcohol consumption meaningfully. It stopped some people who had used alcohol occasionally, who were NOT being harmed by drinking. Prohibition didn't stop heavy drinkers. It only moved the liquor business into "illegal" channels and increased the consumption of deadly methanol and other substitutes. Some of those "illegal" channels were really the favored "legal" producers who were able to keep running through Canada or through "medicinal" licenses. Deepstate won.

If you want to encourage more people to slow down and ideally stop using alcohol, you need to offer ATTRACTIVE alternatives. Green mossy glop, full of slugs and bacteria, is NOT an attractive alternative. Fizzy drinks like Coca-Cola and Dr Pepper were originally meant as attractive alternatives, and they did the job.

= = = = =

Speaking of medallions, here's a pointless food-related question, belonging to the same era. Nouvelle Cuisine is NOT an attractive alternative to actual food. Nouvelle Cuisine looks like the remnants of a plate of food after most of it was eaten. Apparently this is meant to be stylish, but for most people it's just yucky and pointless.



If food is going to follow fashions, why didn't food follow Streamline Moderne in the '30s? Moderne shapes were intrinsically foody. Rounded edges with lots of fibers and layers showing, like a cake or a steak. A cake-decorating device with multiple nozzles could have added speedlines of sauce.

Labels: Asked and worth asking again

  ¶ 11:50 AM

  Y no modern sun visor?
Modern materials and modern software in modern cars still haven't solved one very old problem. Sun in your eyes. Sun visors haven't changed, and still offer only partial relief. Tinted windshields relieve glare from above, but that's not where the problem is. The problem is directly in front.

Modern materials and software COULD solve the problem. GPS and time can determine when the sun is in the critical area. Two or three dashcams could locate the sun's angle wrt the driver's eyes right now. An LCD-style matrix in the windshield could dim the exact circle of the sun along this line of perspective, to the point where it's still bright but not masking the entire retina.



Come to think of it, the way I showed it graphically would be better than LCD. I placed a little semi-transparent circle against the windshield in front of Polistra's face. In reality a circle of polaroid or fresnel material could be floated magnetically against the windshield and dynamically positioned to stay in the cone. Less tech than LCD, less obstruction when sun wasn't present.

Footnote: In keeping with the next item, I could probably title this one More conic-section-missing on AI.

Labels: Asked and worth asking again

  ¶ 12:46 AM

  Gimme Shannon
Strikes me that a slight variation on the Thiel question is a good test for people who claim to be "ex"Deepstate, or "whistleblowers" against Deepstate.

The original Thiel question:

Tell me something that's true that nobody agrees with you on.

My looser version:

Tell me something that's true that nobody else knows.

= = = = =

Variation to test the EXness of "ex"Deepstaters:

Tell me something that's true that I don't already know.

Intel agencies use this question intensely and rigorously to test claimed defectors from enemy intel. We should use it for the same purpose, since CIA and FBI and NSA are enemy intel.

"Ex"es always tell us things that we already know, or give us unnecessary details about things that we had already guessed. This is NOT Shannon information.

Shannon information is fully surprising and unexpected, totally unguessable and undeducible from existing knowledge. Shannon is consequential, not trivial. When you act on Shannon information, things change.

We could formalize this by gathering (online or in person) a jury of UNPAID NONEXPERTS who have some experience dealing with aspects of Deepstate. People who have been involved in "radical" activities where CIA or FBI planted APs, or people who have worked in tech areas where NSA's tentacles are visible. Require the "Ex" to tell us something that is fresh and surprising to all jurors.

Labels: Asked and worth asking again, Leth

  ¶ 11:56 PM

  Would Iacocca have been a better Perot? A better Trump?
Reading an old issue of Collectible Auto as usual. This issue has a biography of John Herlitz, who designed for Chrysler in the '70s and '80s. I'm not interested in cars of those decades, but the article included a timely connection to a couple of recent RIPs.

Along with cars, Herlitz drew cartoons for a Chrysler internal newsletter.



This would have been around '83. Iacocca is famous for getting a federal bailout, but not famous for trying to halt offshoring. He deserves more fame for the latter!

Labels: Asked and worth asking again

  ¶ 5:22 PM

  Interesting hypothesis
An interesting thought from one of the commenters at NakedCapitalism.

Stephen Walt could probably explain it better but one reason “Russiagate” was amplified is because Saudi Arabia does not want to be the swing producer anymore. This put big targets on Iran, Russia and Venezuela as the new candidate.

A swing producer needs to have a threadbare budget to be able to fluctuate production without destabilizing the country. As such, any leader that gives any signs of putting its citizens first will be targeted. The focus on Deripaska was likely an attempt to remove Putin and install some libertarian crime boss oligarchs in Russia. Similiar to the recent attack on Maduro and the GOP wanting to install a terrorist death cult in Iran. The GOP, Dems, Europe and China all have a different preference as to who the loser oil producer is going to be in this game of musical chairs so that has created chaos in foreign policy.

Interesting because it doesn't fit the standard talking points of "both" "sides". It's based on plain observed reality, not ideology. In other words, it has the same flavor as Machiavelli or Parkinson.

This helps to explain the odd ambiguity toward Saudi since MBS took over. The Khashoggi affair didn't make sense. Why would we make so much noise about ONE killing of a Saudi citizen, when we REWARDED Saudi for killing 3000 of OUR citizens on 9/11? By this theory we're trying to blackmail Saudi back into its previous 'swing supplier' role, without doing anything drastic that would firmly force them into the Russian sphere.

At the moment this hypothesis doesn't strike me as definitely true, but it's worth holding and comparing with future evidence.

Labels: Asked and worth asking again

  ¶ 2:31 PM

  Still puzzled plus new puzzle
Since I'm in Still Puzzled mode this week.....

Still puzzled by the lack of attention to AMLO among populists. I read several of the major populist commentators regularly, and they still haven't mentioned him. The leftist antiwar types haven't mentioned him either. Even in a specific discussion of Latin American nations opposing USA regime change, they include Bolivia and Cuba but not Mexico.

New puzzle: The globalists also haven't noticed him. They aren't preparing to bomb Mexico down to bedrock.

By now there's no doubt about AMLO's consistent purpose. He is the equivalent of FDR in every way, serving the interests of poor people and industrial workers and farmers, turning Mexico's economy inward, and pointedly NOT intervening in Venezuela.

Maybe I should just shut up and be glad President Clinton hasn't noticed him.

Labels: Asked and worth asking again

  ¶ 12:18 AM

  Not entirely right
Earlier today I reprinted a broad statement about the satanic purpose of the media. Blood merchants, death vendors, murder wholesalers, from the start.

Rethinking: Wrong. There was a partial exception to the universal rule, and I've discussed the exception before.

From 1920 to 1945, most media were NON-INTERVENTIONIST. They continued to encourage and glorify regular crime, especially during Prohibition. Al Capone was a hero. But the media were NOT pushing us toward foreign wars. Entertainment and news were tuned to the same neutral frequency.

In WW2 the media were carrying government propaganda to help us fight the war, but we were still NON-AGGRESSIVE. The Japs had attacked us and the Krauts had declared war on us at the same moment. We were RESPONDING to their attack.

Total blood-hunger, along with total Deepstate tyranny, returned in 1946.

I'm still puzzled by the 25 years of neutrality. How did this happen? Deepstate was fully developed before Wilson, and Wilson turned Deepstate into a total tyranny. How did Wilson's perfect omnicide machine break down? HOW CAN WE BREAK IT AGAIN?

Labels: Asked and worth asking again, Constants and Variables, Entertainment

  ¶ 2:16 PM

  Same old question
I've been asking this same fucking question since 2008. Time to ask it again, just to keep the ball in the air.

For 800 years banks have made a good profit by paying interest on savings and charging more interest for loans.

It's simple retailing. Buy stuff, process it or organize it or make it more convenient, sell it for more.

In 2008 banks STOPPED doing business. Banks ceased to exist. The places called "banks" still run checking accounts and debit cards, which are profitable. But they no longer pay interest on savings and they no longer make loans. They simply act as a front for the securitizing industry, and receive a fee for being the front.

The niche is still there. The suppliers are still EAGER to supply the raw material and receive rent. Small businesses are hungry for loans. The opportunity for a middleman is open and unfilled.

WHY IN THE HOLY FUCK DOESN'T SOMEBODY OPEN A FUCKING BANK?

Labels: Asked and worth asking again

  ¶ 2:40 AM

  Just a consumer choice
Italy has firmed up a DEFINITELY anti-EU and Neutral government. Well, firmed up as much as Italy ever does. The EU monsters are having trouble with their usual bashing and mockery because the new gov't is half Left and half Right in proper terms. They can't quite manage to call it ultra ultra ultra ultra far far far right right HITLER KKK NAZI TRUMP HITLER as usual.

Simple thought: Why is opposing EU treated as political, let alone HITLER NAZI TRUMP?

It's just a simple rational consumer preference.

If I feel that eggs are good and nutritious for my body, I'll keep eating eggs.

If eggs raise my cholesterol and make me feel icky, I'll stop eating eggs.

If I feel that EU is good and prosperous for my country, I'll keep using EU.

If EU raises my poverty and makes me feel icky, I'll stop using EU.

Labels: Asked and worth asking again

  ¶ 11:15 AM

  Aptronym alert 2

Another science feature from Gernsback, Feb 1930.



Stimulating a human heart with mechanical ultrasonic vibration at 300 kc to 2.5 mc. Unfortunately the writeup doesn't say what the heart actually did, but the diagram claims to show a beat in response to the vibration. 300k is WAY above any frequencies in the nervous system, so this can't be an expected response.

I don't think anyone followed up on this. It might be useful to see if hearts are affected by magnetostriction induced by RF fields. Lots of iron in blood!

Best part: The experimenter who applied mechanical vibration to a heart was Dr Newton Harvey. Can't beat it.

Labels: Aptronym Alert, Asked and worth asking again

  ¶ 11:51 AM