And These People Lecture Us on Rule of Law

This about *default, tagged , was written by for on April 30, 2021 .118 Comments

https://twitter.com/NickJFuentes/status/1387059008750727178 Society 282 in action! But actually, it’s not just a “society” (as in “social pressure”, no matter how artificial) by now. No flight lists are compiled by the federal government. All that because Fuentes turned out to a (legal) protest for Orange Man. You have Ricky Vaughn railroaded for literally posting memes on Twitter […]

US De Facto Shuts Down Travel with Russia

This about *default, tagged , was written by for on April 30, 2021 .92 Comments

US Embassy in Moscow: Reduction of Consular Services – Effective May 12, U.S. Embassy Moscow will reduce consular services offered to include only emergency U.S. citizen services and a very limited number of age-out and life or death emergency immigrant visas. These service reductions are necessary due to the Russian government’s April 23 notification of […]

Mental Populations

This about *default, tagged , was written by for on April 25, 2021 .508 Comments

Population is power, so it pays to keep track of it (along with national IQ and GDPcc), for those with an interest in geopolitics and futurism. I used to spend way too much time poring over statistics almanacs and the CIA World Factbook during my school years, so I have a pretty good fix on […]

War Postponed, For Now

This about *default, tagged , was written by for on April 22, 2021 .357 Comments

I have compared the current standoff in Donbass to a poker game. By amassing troops around Ukraine, Putin let it be known that a Ukrainian attack on Donbass would be – well, if not assuredly catastrophic, then at least extremely risky for its continued statehood. Ukraine could raise by going ahead with it anyway. It […]

Crimea & Donbass Tell Navalny to BTFO

This about *default, tagged , was written by for on April 19, 2021 .108 Comments

The Navalny campaign is calling for nationwide protests on April 21 after the failure of their campaign to even get half a million people (quick arithmetic: 0.3% of Russia’s population) to register and commit to coming out and protesting on their website. I don’t see much coming out of it. I correctly said that the previous protests […]

Navalny’s Fasting Protocol

This about *default, tagged , was written by for on April 18, 2021 .57 Comments

I sympathize with Navalny’s radical weight loss plan, I truly do. Following on from his looksmaxxing Novichok Protocol, like him or not, we have to recognize him as a man truly dedicated to self-improvement. That said, I would strongly recommend supplementation if you plan to fast for more than three days. I wrote a helpful guide here: https://akarlin.com/health/#Fasting […]

Russophobia is Good for Russia

This about *default, tagged , was written by for on April 18, 2021 .39 Comments

Maybe there should be a "time out" for any and I mean *any* visits from Russia. Up to the invasion of Crimea these people were arrogantly demanding visa-free travel with the EU. Just freeze visas except for family emergencies. It is Europe's security at stake. Enough. — toomas ilves, ex-verif (@IlvesToomas) April 17, 2021 I […]

Game of Chicken Kiev

This about *default, tagged , was written by for on April 18, 2021 .193 Comments

There’s not much to add now except that we are approaching the moment of maximum danger. (I noted that if it happens, it will probably happen sometime from late April to July). What I think essentially happened is that the Ukrainians wanted to do an Operation Storm on Donbass, which is why movements of military […]

Ethiopia in the 2010s

This about *default, tagged , was written by for on April 14, 2021 .154 Comments

Ethiopia has long done quite well by Sub-Saharan African standards. It has a good record of human accomplishment, being the only country in the region to have developed a literary corpus before European colonialism. But it was, until recently, extremely poor. But no longer so after a decade of some of the highest growth rates in the […]

Open Thread 148

This about *default, tagged , was written by for on April 13, 2021 .419 Comments

This week’s Open Thread. (1) Vitalik Buterin – Prediction Markets: Tales from the Election. Best explanation of why predictions markets were giving Trump 10% well after it was clear it was <1%. (2) Balaji – How to Start a New Country. One of my favorite Indians. He discusses his new website (amongst other things) with Tim Ferriss […]

Making It

This about *default, tagged , was written by for on April 6, 2021 .246 Comments

It strikes me that most of life’s most exquisite comforts can be had with ~$10M or so. Apartment in the center of a world class city (luxury condo if in the Second World). Holiday home. Nice vacations and gourmet restaurants. Model-tier gf. The virgin financial docs sleuthing to suggest Bad Orange Man isn’t a billionaire […]

China Torpedoes Biosingularity Bid

This about *default, tagged , , was written by for on April 5, 2021 .219 Comments

From the indispensable BioHackInfo: China’s new Criminal Code, which came into effect four weeks ago on March 1st, has a new section dedicated to ‘illegal medical practices’, which makes it a punishable crime to create gene-edited babies, human clones and animal-human chimeras. The new section is an amendment to Article 336 of China’s Criminal Law, and officially […]