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Thales of Florida Profile picture
Thales of Florida
@FloridaThales
Not really a Greek philosopher.
Apr 4 • 27 tweets • 6 min read
1/ Not to play the "I'm not a racist, I have black friends" card, but even my black friends know the absolute state of the black community in the US is off the charts levels of bad.

Everybody, black and white, knows it. It's a cancelable offense to say it out loud. 2/ The Civil Rights Inquisition has made open discussion of this fact so terrible in the eyes of pop culture that just accurately stating crime stats is worthy of being blacklisted forever.

But even blacks know it. Chris Rock did a whole skit about it.

Feb 10 • 9 tweets • 3 min read
This comic makes a few mistakes.

1. Being banned from an internet community was no big deal in the days of a gazillion forums, blogs, and chat rooms.

But when big platforms came to the fore, getting banned was more damaging. You got thrown out of a big part of the Internet. 2. Cancel Culture became a kind of witch hunt. You didn't just get banned from the VW Passat Forum or something. You could get fired, blacklisted, your business shut down - without recourse or your side being heard. One misinterpreted tweet could end you.
Nov 7, 2024 • 27 tweets • 8 min read
1/ Some people can’t stand others having fun. Smile, laugh, have a good time, and one of Ray Bradbury’s Autumn People will show up eventually.

You’re too loud. The joke was too offensive. It’s racist to enjoy that food or play that game. Beer & bikini babes made you smile? No, no.Image 2/ Only safe fun is permitted. Fun that doesn't offend anyone, anywhere. But this sanitized fun is like having a pizza party at the office instead of getting a yearly bonus. It both establishes that you're at the bottom of food chain, and isn't fun in any recognizable way. Image
Jul 31, 2024 • 22 tweets • 4 min read
1/ Wokism is partially a descendant of Moralistic Therapeutic Deism - this oversimplified Christianity where if you be nice to everybody, especially the downtrodden, then Jesus makes sure you live a good life.

Niceness becomes the chief virtue. 2/ At some point, folks figured out you didn't need Jesus in this formula anymore, either.

But Original Sin remains - at least for the non-downtrodden. So you must find new downtrodden demographics, and be super nice to them.

And if you're ever not super nice, you're evil.
May 20, 2024 • 30 tweets • 16 min read
Car Roast Thread.

1/ The Ford Mustang.

The car brand of choice when you're a 20 year old who wants to mow down kids like he's some kind of automotive pitbull. Image 2/ The Corvette.

Nobody actually drives them. Every retiree worth 7 figures is automatically assigned one with his paid AARP membership. They sit in a garage until the undercarriage rusts out, then they haul away the motor to LS swap a Mustang. Image
May 20, 2024 • 11 tweets • 3 min read
1/ I've got a lot of opinions on this kind of thing, but I'll tie it in the context of my son and his current (shitty) teacher.

At the beginning of the year, he tested poorly. Like Kindergarten level poorly (he's in 3rd grade). 2/ This was very out of whack with his observed behavior. He's a very smart kid, and certainly not a Kindergarten level.

So we figured he was bored, or threw the test on purpose, or whatever. Anyway, the teacher said if his score didn't improve, he'd be held back.
Apr 4, 2024 • 6 tweets • 1 min read
1/ Thales Rant.

If you're a straight white Christian male, you get to deal with something I'm calling "Cultural Tinnitus."

It's a constant cultural buzzing of "YOU SUCK" amplified across popular channels 24/7. 2/ Turn on the TV? Many TV shows, commercials, etc. will show you as a buffoon who drives his car up a tree, or a lovable mistaken dumb racist who can be redeemed, or the big bad.

Whatever.
Feb 22, 2024 • 18 tweets • 4 min read
1/ She isn't materially bad off. She has nice clothes, her makeup is on point (near as I can tell). She's in a car with a moon roof. She doesn't look like she's starving or lacking in necessities.

It's status that has become the truly expensive thing here. Not material concerns. 2/ There is probably a house she could afford. It might be small and outdated, and in some town or city she doesn't want to live in.

But her friends would make fun of her for that. She wouldn't feel like it granted her status in life. She'd still be "poor".
Jul 18, 2023 • 39 tweets • 9 min read
The Early Palaeologan Period - Byzantium's last gasp as a regional power.

1. After the restoration of the Byzantine Empire, there was a period where, though it never became the superpower of the eastern Med. again, it did act something like a Great Power for a time. Image 2. It begins with the restoration of Constantinople, which was was kind of an accident. Michael VIII had had sieged the city off and on since the battle of Pelagonia in 1259. But didn't have the troops to take it by storm, unlike the Ottomans two centuries later.
Jun 23, 2023 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
What amazes me sometimes is how near to destruction even the survivors were.

The Archimedes Palimpsest is an insane example. Only existing as paper theoretically cleaned up and reused - and then somebody figured out what was written under it... Another example was when somebody found The Secret History in the Vatican archives in the 1600s, and nobody even remembered how it got there. twitter.com/i/web/status/1…
Jun 23, 2023 • 24 tweets • 5 min read
1. Manuel Komnenos's reign was the last time the Byzantine Empire could be called the superpower of the Mediterranean.

The rapid collapse after his death shows just how dependent the late empire had become on vigorous personalities on the throne. 2. He achieved deference from Jerusalem to Italy. For the last time, the empire was on the offensive on all frontiers - Manuel had, perhaps, the firmest grip on the Balkans anyone would be able to claim since the Principate.
Jun 21, 2023 • 20 tweets • 5 min read
1. I'd like to thread this out, even though it shows me in a bad light.

Because I think a lot of you have witnessed me kind of losing my shit over this particular thing, and I'd like to explain it.

Definitions are HARD. https://t.co/CLo1rYmnX1twitter.com/i/web/status/1…
2. The horse/chair problem is a fun exercise in the difficulty of definitions. We all know what a chair is to reasonable levels of agreement, probably.

And yet defining it strictly results in absurdities.

Jun 21, 2023 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
"I'll say what I want to say, and if the consequence is losing money, so be it." "Free speech isn't free."

People who said that back when implied soldiers should die in some foreign toilet to defend our rights.

But when I read it, I think that honesty is expensive. It can cost lots of money, because people don't want to hear it, often times.
Jun 20, 2023 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
1. Test scores and GPA measure two different things, although there is some correlation.

The tests are closer to IQ or g.

GPA is more about conscientiousness (though to get a high GPA in tough classes, g is also needed). 2. Some white collar jobs have a greater need for conscientiousness than intelligence. But these are areas ripe for replacement by AI, eventually.

There's also a place for the intelligent, but not conscientious. Many firms have a disorganized "Wizard in the Basement" guy.
Jun 20, 2023 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
I'm reminded of an old housing tier list:

Tier 1: Shared bedroom/bunk
Tier 2: Private bedroom w/roommates
Tier 3: Apartment/Condo, but people above and/or below you
Tier 4: Townhouse, nobody above or below, but shared walls
Tier 5: Yardless detached house, minimal setback Tier 6: Suburban house with small lot
Tier 7: Suburban house with large lot
Tier 8: Rural house with acreage
Tier 9: Rural house with more than 1/2 mile to next home
Tier 10: House so far from others you would have to drive a non-trivial distance to even see another human being
Jun 19, 2023 • 12 tweets • 3 min read
This taboo is so intense. How did we get here?

1. I remember a story kids told each other on the playground where I grew up. It was called "Blue Love".

In it, a child hears someone mention "Blue Love" and asks his parents what it is.

They immediately disown him... 2. The child is sent to an orphanage without explanation. His parents were furious and screamed and cried all the way there, but never told him what Blue Love meant.

Years later at the orphanage he asked the headmistress why his parents disowned him for that.
Jun 19, 2023 • 16 tweets • 5 min read
1. Attached garages are less aesthetic, yes.

But they are not a waste of resources, and like many things common in suburbia, represent a compromise dictated by limited resources.

(I like @EvilVizier so please be respectful in the replies). 2. Garages function as a general use space that can be used to store cars, or sometimes other vehicles like small boats, jetskis, etc. They are also useful as workshops, general storage in places where there are no basements (Florida), ad hoc home gyms, etc.
Jun 19, 2023 • 15 tweets • 3 min read
1. As much as "laddishness" as a culture is - at least from our point of view - retarded (along with its living descendant - bordererism), there's something to be said for a culture being rather clear about what it expects of you.

The modern West adheres to scoldishness. 2. Scoldishness is a very high school lit teacher kind of energy. Whatever your achievements, you are never above scolding. New ways of scolding are invented, should you manage to evade existing methods.

There is no escape from it.
May 3, 2023 • 16 tweets • 6 min read
1. Taboos are a big part of Western decline.

Many truths cannot be spoken publicly, they can only be whispered among friends, and even then with some measure of worry and suspicion.

Penalties for wrongthink are often ruinous socially and financially. Image 2. Smug adherents of political orthodoxy like to taunt their enemies. Come out, they will say, and face the judgment of popular culture under your own name. Make destroying you easier for them. Image
Mar 28, 2023 • 9 tweets • 2 min read
1/ Many Disney stories are inversions like this one.

In the original Little Mermaid, the lovestruck teenager dies. The happy ending defeats the warning.

The Lion King is a loose inversion of Hamlet, except the happy ending defeats the purpose. 2/ Many old children's tales and fables are cautionary. Don't do this, or you might get eaten by the evil witch.

They teach that the world can be dangerous, and you should learn to be wary. Don't be foolish and rely on easy emotions.
Mar 28, 2023 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
1/ Maybe a hot take: the press elected Trump in 2016.

Trump was a great example of the anti-fragility concept, with regard to the press.

He didn't merely weather negative press, he thrived on it. He gained from it. The more the press attacked, the stronger he became. 2/ But this exposes a weakness: Trump loses if the press just ignores him. They couldn't do it in 2016, they didn't have the self control. They hated him too much.

Indifference is Trump's Achilles Heel.