1

I’m amazed at the number of people who say
a) it’s too difficult for America to reshore manufacturing, and
b) tariffs are going to doom the economy

when Meiji Japan’s example of going from absolutely zero industry to world power is just sitting there for anyone to look at.

2

If resource-poor Japan with 30 million people, no coal and no machine-tool tradition could pull that off in 25 years, then a continental superpower that already has the world’s best research universities, capital markets and energy reserves doesn’t get to plead “too hard.”

How to Seem Smarter Than You Are, a 🧵

1/13

I want to admit something: I’m not that smart ("Yes, we know," say my detractors). This admission isn’t compliment fishing, etc. I’m considering locking replies to make that point, but I’m hoping for some insight or enlightenment.

2
There’s no way I’d pass a Mensa test with an IQ score of 140+.
- I understand only the dictionary definition of Heisenberg’s Matrix Mechanics.
- I can’t learn Dutch in 6 weeks and give a lecture in it on quantum physics like Oppenheimer.
- Nor can I write at PhD level on multiple subjects in a single book like Spengler.

1/24 🧵
The Great Debate between Wendell Berry and Earl Butz on American agriculture and culture.

AKA: “How America’s Food, Farms, and Small Towns Got the Way They Are Today” 2
Wendell Berry was born in Henry County, Kentucky, in 1934. Raised as a farmer, he earned a BA and MA, and then two Fellowships, and became a writer, poet, and environmental activist. His work centers on sustainable agriculture, community living, connection to the soil.

1/8 🧵
What Trump Should Do, According to Machiavelli

It’s obvious that this term will not be like the first: Trump has his cabinet picks all ready, each with a mandate. While American politics is slow and complicated, he appears to be ready to hit the ground, running. 2
Niccolo Machiavelli was a Florentine philosopher, historian, and diplomat during the Italian Renaissance. His most famous book, “The Prince” (1513), is an instruction guide for rulers. Its objective is to teach how to rule effectively, (even if not morally).

A Pharaoh and a WW1 General: Why History Matters🧵

1/10
I’ve been enjoying the book, 1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed, by Eric H. Cline (@digkabri).

Great information, especially the small treasures like the one about the Battle of Megiddo, which I'll summarize. @digkabri 2
Pharaoh Thutmose III ruled Egypt from 1479 to 1425 BC, and we know much about his rule because he had the details of his military campaigns recorded on the walls of the Temple of Amun at Karnak in Egypt.

1/11 🧵

A Space Age Firearm

In the 1960s, a nuclear weapons researcher and inventor, named Robert Mainhardt founded a company with another inventor, Arthur Biehl, founded a company called “MBAssociates,” with the aim of revolutionizing firearms by using rocket technology. 2
They invented The Gyrojet: a rocket launcher in the form of a pistol or carbine. Unlike traditional firearms, these weapons fired self-propelled rockets instead of bullets.

Rats, Society, and Loneliness, a 🧵

1
In the late 1970s, a Canadian psychologist, named Bruce Alexander, wondered if drug addiction was more about the drugs, themselves, or about certain aspects of society.

To find out, he did some experiments with rats. 2
Prior studies already showed some effects of isolation on rats.

When placed alone in cages, and offered two water bottles (one with plain water and the other with heroin or cocaine), the rats tended to keep drinking the drugged water until they overdosed and died.

America and the Right to Roam 🧵

1
These recent posts by @Empty_America & @Ancient_Daze got me thinking about the absence of Right to Roam in America. I believe it's downstream culturally from the frontier.

I can’t stress enough how big an effect it had on American culture.

@Empty_America @Ancient_Daze 2
I welcome non-Americans who wish to understand more about America to read the 1920 book, “The Frontier in American History,” by Frederick Jackson Turner.
gutenberg.org/cache/epub/229…

1
The Coming American Crisis:🧵

I want to point out before starting that I hope I’m wrong. Normal reform, through laws with the common good in mind, is structurally impossible and we’re at the point where only a catastrophe will bring reform.
2
Everyone from American Maximalists to everyday patriots will bristle at this. Again: I hope I’m wrong.

I also have yet to encounter any who give structural or concrete reasons why I might be wrong. Their arguments have boiled down essentially to just… faith, really.

Aldo Nadi: Swordsman, Sportsman, Duelist 🧵

1/28
Months ago, I finished the book “The Living Sword, A Fencer’s Autobiography,” by Aldo Nadi, who was one of the greatest sport fencers of all time.

He also fought two duels, and nearly fought a third. 2
Aldo was born in 1899 in Livorno, Italy, into a patrician family of fencers. His father, Beppe, was both a fencing master and champion, and his older brother, Nedo, was, for some time, the greatest fencer of the era.

The Drake Passage: one of the deadliest maritime areas in the world.

1/12 🧵

A 500 mile-wide strait between Cape Horn and the South Shetland Islands, The Drake Passage was discovered in 1525 by Spanish navigator, Francisco de Hoces.

2
Several factors, unique to this area, collectively make it a place of volatile weather. One is the Coriolis effect, which is more pronounced at higher latitudes and can lead to more intense and frequent storms.

High latitudes are also subject to polar lows and katabatic (cool air sinking) winds, all of which can create very rough seas.

1/7
So, Mary Elizabeth Williams and Salon want to talk about “toxic masculinity” and “the patriarchy.” Okay, then… let’s talk about them. 2
We’ve been hearing about the “problem” of “toxic masculinity” nonstop for years from the Left. This subject was already tiresome, but it becomes downright ridiculous when one gives it a closer look.

1
On conscription - what almost every western government fails to realize is this simple fact:

If elected governments made themselves beloved by the people, by actually caring for them, there would be no shortage of volunteers.

It's indicative of a bigger problem in the west.

https://twitter.com/WallStreetSilv/status/1799143183772942386

2
With the exception of a few smaller states, there isn't a single western government that genuinely has the welfare of its citizenry in mind.

1
America's wonderful Floating Churches: a 🧵 2
Life was hard for sailors in the 1800s. Wages were low and everything about sailing was tough, from the weather, through the work, to the discipline.

On Charities, Government, and Social Cohesion 🧵

1.
One shouldn't orient their learning and thinking around memes, but I do think about this picture a lot. 2.
The biggest reason I oppose this process, which has been happening for a while, is that I believe establishing a welfare state, and/or a state in which charities & nonprofits (ironically) become big business, worsens the erosion social bonds over time.

The Great Siege of Malta 🧵

On May 18th, 1565, an Ottoman invasion fleet was sighted by watchmen of The Knights of the Order of St. John (Hospitallers), heading for the southern shore of the island of Malta. The Knights Hospitaller had been in Malta since 1530, after the Turks sieged and drove them out of their previous base in Rhodes in 1522.

🧵 How Civilizations Fall

Recently I had the pleasure of reading The Law of Civilization and Decline, by American historian, Brooks Adams. Brooks Adams had a distinguished lineage: great-grandson of Pres John Adams, grandson of Pres John Quincy Adams, and son of diplomat & author, Charles Francis Adams. Educated at Harvard, Brooks became secretary to his diplomat father and wrote several books.

1 🧵

On April 14, 1561, the people of Nuremberg saw what seemed to have been an aerial battle between flying spheres, crosses, and cylinders, and the appearance of a black, very large, arrow-shaped object. 2
According to a broadsheet written by By Hans Glaser, letter-painter of Nurnberg:

“At daybreak, between 4 and 5 a.m., a dreadful apparition occurred on the sun, and then this was seen in Nuremberg in the city, before the gates and in the country – by many men and women"

1/10
A young Kurt Russell starred with Charles Bronson in "The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters."

Russell liked Bronson and gave him a gift once. Bronson took it and walked straight to his trailer without a word. Russell was worried and the crew told him that Bronson was just "an unhappy guy." 2
A little while later, Russell was called to Bronson's trailer. Russell was worried that he'd done something wrong.

Russell knocked. Bronson opened the door, looked at him, and said, "Um, nobody's ever given me a present before, so thanks."

Then he shut the door.

1
"U Non-Immigration Visas are set aside for victims of certain crimes who have suffered mental or physical abuse and are helpful to law enforcement or government officials in the investigation or prosecution of criminal activity... includ[ing] abduction, extortion, false imprisonment, felonious assault, hostage, and kidnapping, among others. [It] allows an immigrant to remain in the country for 4 years." 2
Nobody in FedGov seems to be familiar with... or else doesn't care... about the concept of unintended consequences, specifically "perverse incentives," also known as the (perhaps apocryphal) "Cobra Effect."
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perverse_…

1
Today is January 6. I post this thread as a reminder to anyone on any side of any political aisle: 2
At the end of the Amer. Revolution, some army officers attempted a coup over unpaid wages, known as the Newburgh Conspiracy. Washington met the plotters and gave them a speech, the first words of which were: "Gentlemen, you will permit me to put on my spectacles, for I have not only grown gray but almost blind in the service of my country."

Shamed, they ended their attempts. Some men wept.