@sj_zero @lain@lain.com @🌲-alist There is a book called "Blitzed." The meth was an effective secret weapon in Poland and France. Both nations expected to counterattack when the invading Nazis had to rest. But they didn't rest, they just took more meth and kept going! Apparently this worked for up to 48 hours after which the soldier would become useless.

The Americans, Japanese, and Russians also used various amphetamines, and the US military still does. There is now Provigil as an alternative. 

 @1ce4e61d How good are they as Linux machines? I played with Linux on a chromebook and it was slow, but that was a while ago. 

 @b05df304 @0134ce10 @🌲-alist Absolutely. You also had Black people in the South who owned other Black people. Slavery was normal in Africa, so if an African made it big in America, well of course he'd buy himself some slaves.

Democracy and human rights are rare, fragile, and under threat. Slavery, domination, and killing people just to display your power (Roman gladiators and Aztec sacrifices being prime examples) are the norm. Making this a race thing is a big mistake. 

 @b05df304 @🌲-alist We seem to be right back there too. Someday Congress is just going to lock up and fail to reboot and the debt ceiling deadline is going to expire. That will kick off the "interesting times." 

 @b05df304 @🌲-alist Yes the Civil War was, like most wars, a battle between two forms of exploitation. The North practiced the modern interest and debt serfdom method, while the South took the old fashioned approach.

The Northern approach made better use of technology.

As far as I can tell there have been very few wars with an actual good guy involved, and those few had the good guy on defense.

At best you have a bad guy versus a really horrible guy. 

 @🌲-alist @b05df304 Wow that's a lot. I know the South actually had a lot of slaves forced to fight for it. And there were a surprising number of Southern men - like 200K - that left to join the Union army.

The non land-owning white Southerner had to know that slavery did not serve his interests. It depressed wages and allowed the Boss to treat him with contempt. So he had to wonder "what's in it for me." 

I think that is what the "Golden Circle" invade Mexico idea was for. Were they serious? 

 @b05df304 @🌲-alist Speaking of border states, one problem the South had was all the high tech industry was either in the North or in those border states that sided with the North.

The Confederates built a big powder mill - one of their few industrial successes - and they had to confiscate a Northern made steam engine to make it go!

They also wound up pulling railcars with horses because their steam locomotives were broken and they could not fix them. They didn't have enough horses either. 

 @b05df304 Yes that's almost the definition of a supernatural phenomenon. Those things for which evidence exists, but which will not perform under controlled conditions in the lab.

UFOs are in that category too. It's clear now that every high-tech sensor built in the 20th and 21st century detected a variety of anomalies, but nobody can get to the bottom of it.

I think the "big secret" is that spook world has studied the hell out of this stuff, got nowhere, and they are afraid of it. 

 @b05df304 Like the NDE phenomenon or the kids with past life memories phenomenon. There is plenty of evidence for someone who wants to take it seriously. And plenty of room to be skeptical.

For psychic phenomena two theories I like:
1) They are enabled by belief and blocked by doubt, so a skeptic can actually jam the signal. Thus all the star psychics who zeroed out when a doubter was brought in to observe.

2) The entities producing the phenomena don't want to be understood by us. 

 @b05df304 yeah but that would be obviously outside the normal laws of nature, if a huge number of people disappeared individually. I want something, for a thriller, where it is quite possible for the skeptics to be skeptical and the believers to believe.

So there is a mysterious video uploaded to Youtube a couple days later showing people disappearing. The person who uploaded it swears that mysterious burglars took the original. 

 @b05df304 Trying to figure out a good large scale financial scam around the Rapture. The problem is that non-Christians don't believe in it and Christians are outta here and don't have to care.

I suppose you could sell Rapture insurance to Christians, so non-Christian family members would be taken care of. Even throw in an I-told-you-so video that would be sent to the recipient along with the insurance payout.

Is getting Raptured "death" and does it trigger life insurance? 

 @🌲-alist Ok but why are the people who oppose "growth" often for unlimited immigration, free medical care, free government everything? Those things are growth. If you make things free people use more of them. 

 @2c6a8385 Medium sized AI models ought to run on that. 

 @bd76e7c7 It should (a) detect when it has say 10% left (b) beep while there is light present (c) allow you to shut it up with a button press (d) resume beeping with no shut up option when down to 5%.

You need both. I have pulled one off the ceiling when it started making a fuss and would not stop. 

 @b05df304 soon as I saw that bio and the facial expression that went with it I thought, yeah, step by step logical reasoning is probably not going to crack this one... 

 @b05df304 From the OP's profile: "I'm a heathen and a gamer, and I argue politics. Left AF."

Gotta choose the right tool for the task. 😆 

 @b05df304 The only thing keeping the USA in its privileged position in the world, is the worldwide use of the dollar, and the threat of the USA military going after anyone who tries to supersede the dollar.

Lately the USA has been abusing the hell out of that position. Eventually China and Russia and the Middle East need to create a crypto backed by oil - as in present the currency at one of their oil ports and they fill up your ship - and then what will the USA do? 

 @1c3e335f We need uBlock Stealth apparently. This war is not over. (I wrote a primitive adblocker in 1999, I'm sure it's got a lot harder since.) 

 @053f521c Government software is the classic "stone soup" scenario. As long as everyone hoards everyone is hungry. If all governments would throw their scraps in the pot they would all be well fed.

NYC had some absurdly expensive thing called City Time which was a payroll and HR system. I think that was over 100M for one city. All cities need the same thing. Share the software. 

 @d591b4ac @32226d11 Yes, if Clarence Thomas really did live like a billionaire on someone else's dime, he ought to be up on articles of impeachment. 

 @b05df304 The one that interests me is the idea that a lot of people won't believe even after the Rapture.

So it has to happen in such a way as to be deniable. I'm thinking some sort of supernatural phenomenon draws the most devout Christians all to one place and then either a giant meteor or a nuclear attack hits that spot.

Investigators find surprisingly few bodies.

A few people were on video calls with people in the disaster zone, and swear the person disappeared BEFORE the flash...