PS: Greetings, Mr. Hail!

Always a pleasure to hear from you. I hope you're doing well this afternoon.

𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝑎𝑐𝑞𝑢𝑖𝑠𝑖𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑜𝑓 𝑘𝑛𝑜𝑤𝑙𝑒𝑑𝑔𝑒 𝑜𝑓 𝑎𝑙𝑙 𝑘𝑖𝑛𝑑𝑠 𝑏𝑒𝑐𝑎𝑚𝑒 𝑑𝑒𝑣𝑎𝑙𝑢𝑒𝑑...
𝑅𝑒𝑝𝑙𝑎𝑐𝑒𝑑 𝑏𝑦 𝑎 𝑑𝑖𝑔𝑖𝑡𝑎𝑙 𝑠𝑖𝑚𝑢𝑙𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛...
𝑌𝑜𝑢𝑡𝑢𝑏𝑒 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑇𝑖𝑘-𝑇𝑜𝑘 𝑣𝑖𝑑𝑒𝑜𝑠, 𝑜𝑟 𝑚𝑎𝑦𝑏𝑒 𝑎 "𝑝𝑜𝑑𝑐𝑎𝑠𝑡" 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑎 𝑓𝑒𝑤 𝑙𝑖𝑛𝑒𝑠 𝑜𝑓 𝑎 𝑤𝑖𝑘𝑖𝑝𝑒𝑑𝑖𝑎 𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑟𝑦...
𝑁𝑜𝑛𝑒 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑠𝑒 𝑓𝑜𝑟𝑚𝑠 𝑐𝑎𝑛 𝑐𝑜𝑚𝑝𝑒𝑡𝑒 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑖𝑛𝑓𝑜𝑟𝑚𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛-𝑑𝑒𝑛𝑠𝑖𝑡𝑦 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑟𝑒𝑙𝑖𝑎𝑏𝑖𝑙𝑖𝑡𝑦 𝑜𝑓 𝑎 𝑡𝑟𝑎𝑑𝑖𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑎𝑙𝑙𝑦 𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑑𝑢𝑐𝑒𝑑 𝑏𝑜𝑜𝑘.

Many things in America have succumbed to a sort of toxic mimicry. (For example, Twitter is a toxic mimic of community and a federal reserve note is a toxic mimic of a dollar.) It would be almost foolish to think that the acquisition of knowledge would be spared from this trend.

How much of this devaluation of the acquisition of knowledge is an effect of 'Internetization' and how much of it is because the education system itself is yet another toxic mimic?

https://www.usnews.com/education/k12/georgia/districts/lumpkin-county-103229

Where I live, the school system is what some would call a good school district, meaning demographics. 86.5% of the students are non-Hispanic White while 1.1% of the students are black or African-American. The high school graduates 99% of the students despite the fact that only 22% of these students are proficient in math. The reading scores have recently improved to a point that they now consider 59% of the graduating high school students to be proficient in reading. (Last year it was around 40% so I wonder if this years kids really can read better or if they just lowered the standards for them.) Last year about 33% of the students were proficient in science. This year they just dropped that metric completely.

22% proficient in math. 33% proficient in science and (not sure I believe this) 59% proficient in reading.

But by the most important standard this is a good school system. The sportsball teams did very well last year. Some of them even won the championship! (It was so historic...)

The local paper will run stories, often approaching a full page, when a student gets an athletic scholarship. These stories are adorned with full color photos of the student and their gleaming parents usually with a college recruiter in front of a giant Lumpkin County Indians banner. Like the kid just signed on with the Yankees or something. Yet, in the more than 15 years I have lived here, I've never noticed any sort of celebratory article in the Nugget when some student gets a scholarship based on their academic performance. (Do they even give those out anymore?)

With so much emphasis, even at the university level, placed on sportsball and grievance studies and so little value placed on the three R's, is it any wonder that the acquisition of knowledge has become devalued? (Or that cashiers can't make change?)

About the 'Internetization' of America...

I think 2005 to 2015 is a pretty good demarcation for the occurrence of social-scale cultural 'Internetization'. Sure there was aol in the 90's and some early adopters (dare I say nerds) such as myself were downloading .mp3's from the internet (on dial up) before the turn of the millennium. But it's fair to say most normal people were not really using the internet in any sort of meaningful way until some time after that. (Actually, I'm pretty sure most Americans still don't use the internet in a meaningful way. Certainly nowhere near its potential. Not that they're not wasting a ton of time and energy in front of their screens.)

Remember when gmail was by invite only? Gmail opened to the public without invitation on February 14th, 2007. And youtube was first released in 2005. I would think these are somewhat helpful indicators when trying to measure the level of 'Internetization' of America by date.

https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2014/02/27/part-1-how-the-internet-has-woven-itself-into-american-life/

In 1995, the Pew Research Center found that 14% of U.S. adults had internet access, 42% of U.S. adults had never heard of the internet and an additional 21% were vague on the concept—they knew it had something to do with computers and that was about it.

By 2014, 87% of Americans said they used the internet with 71% saying they used it daily.

I can't find any data that is more up to date than that, though I would imagine it is out there somewhere. I've heard that smartphones are the way most American use the internet. If this is true, would it (smartphone usage) not also contribute to the bastardization of the acquisition of knowledge?

Can you imagine trying to read a book, or anything really, on a smartphone?

Could this devaluation in the acquisition of knowledge be at least partly due to the availability of so much information? Or are there other factors driving the trend? It's a little hard to say, but my gut tells me that much of it has to do with the non-intellectualism of Americans in general. (56% of American adults read at or below a 6th grade level. They are even worse at basic math.)

Well, that's about all I've got for now, Mr. Hail.

Thanks for the thought provoking comment. I hope you have a great evening.

☮️

PS

-- When did social-scale cultural 'Internetization' occur? --

Thanks, Mr. Moderator. (The existence of our fellow Peak Stupidity reader who goes by "M" tragically makes a one-letter abbreviation for "Moderator" impossible, but we make do.) I'll adapt it into a post soon, at your recommendation. If I don't get around to it by the end of this month, and if you remember, remind me.

I'd add that the "time before the Internet" cannot be said to a single DAY, obviously (as if the calendar turned over from Dec 31st of a BC to Jan 1st of 1 AD0, and nor can "the time before the Internet" be said to turn over to the "Internet era" to be a single YEAR, nor even a single block of years. As with most things, it's a process with grey-area, progressing over time.

Thought experiment. When is the most-important "Internetization" or digitization turnover period in our society and culture?

Ask different people they'll say different things based on their experiences, or based on some b.s. half-remembered feelings, or will "google it" and believe what they see (or, now, ask a "chatbot" and believe whatever it says). For me, the 1990s in its entirety was, at least for practical purposes, pre-Internet. Internet users then (workplace exlcuded) were seen to be "nerd" types highly interesting in technology. Considering the social-scale "Internet addiction" we now see, the people who spent a long time with computers back there in the 1990s no longer look so "bad." When did the "computer nerd" archetype exist the culture?

Even as of the mid-2000s, digitization was still relatively weak at social scale. Life was not yet digital, certainly not fully. It was still not only "easy" to live an analog life if one wanted, it was often still necessary.

(I've pointed out in these pages before how 'telling' it was that the Kevin character of The Office asked a love-interest "Are you on...email?" as late as a March 2009 episode; the significance, for me, is that that point was JUST still in the realm of the possible that an awkward dumb-guy would still ask such a question, ten years out of date. The same joke could not have been written or survived script re-writes some years later, but it was still 'just' plausible in 2009).

At social or cultural scale, full-on Internetization was reached by the mid-2010s. So if we have to impose a ten-year block, which ten years should it be? I'd propose 2005 to 2015. The world of 2005 obviously did have the Internet, but it was still some interesting auxiliary to real life, for the most part. This could no longer really be said by 2015.

What do you think (or anyone else reading)? In the thought-experiment of imposing a ten-year block, what should it be? 1995 to 2005 (too early?); 2000 to 2010; 2005 to 2015; 2010 to 2020 (too late?)?

PS: Mr. Hail, your comment here would be a great post. Let me ask you which option is best:

1) Include it here, with some commentary by me, with no changes.

2) Do whatever editing/changing you want, and post it again here.

3) Put in on your site, and we'll link to it and discuss this. The last post of yours if from the beginning of the year. I keep dropping by ...

I ask you because this is a great topic. Not only is it interesting what technological and cultural things are in place during each of our most formative years, as with the video watching*, but this thing about before-time and after-time with the internet and I guess smart phones (handheld Mega ENIACs) is important.

In that favorite Lionel Shriver book of mine, "The Mandibles", there was some happening, not ever described completely, called "The Stoneage", pronounced not like Stone Age, but as "stown idge" by the kids. It was apparently a day when the internet failed - a story in itself that she didn't get into unfortunately (just not room for it in the story, I guess). What about people born from 30 years ago, arguably '91, '92, '93, '94 latest, and later? These are people who could not remember a time when people didn't use the internet. (That is, unless they are Black! people, who per some Dem/dumb pol, may still not have access. Right!)

That's indeed a big break in our mindsets.


* About the videos (for Adam here too), I can remember in the mid-1980s going to a friend's house and we were going to have dinner and rent a movie. We had to rent the VHS player at the store too. Not everyone had them even then.

PS: There's lots to digest there, Mr. Kief and lots of vids to look up. Rather than their being the wrong models out there, as per (your favorite) Sabine Hossenfeld, I'd say the atmosphere, oceans present something perhaps too complicated to be modeled yet, or, I should say, to have been accurately modeled as of yet. When someone's got a very good theory that explains the Ice Ages, matching records very well without fudge factors to make it, then maybe the climatologists can start from there. Without completely understanding these most major of Climate Changes, what's the point in modeling the short-term lower-change stuff?

I'll check out at least the "Time to get real..." video first, as the shortest you've described. Thanks for all this, Mr. Kief.

PS: About precious metals, specifically silver, Adam: I didn't notice that spike to $31/oz, but I have seen the recent few-month rise, and the same with gold. The spot price meant exactly squat during the Kung Flu panic spring, when the charts said 11 bucks, but you weren't going to get the actual silver for less than twice that! (I think a little more than 2x, in fact.)

Hey, I thought tube usually contained 20, not 25 coins, but maybe that's not the case with your Aussie coins. (Are these Kaolas or Roos, or what?) I hope for your sake you get what you expect.

Oh, yeah, there was such a long period with a stable and LOW price of sliver and gold. Who knew it would go up? People did, but I didn't understand then. Now, there was that small period in the 1970s during which you'd not have gotten a good deal on silver. It got higher than the price you just paid and even higher than that peak in '11 which was higher than today's. That was due to the Hunt brothers' having cornered something like 70% of the market. In a way I think that these ordinary guys could get rich and do something like that is cooler to me than some deal by George Soros.

Finally, no doubt Americans in the '90s would not go for some "security detail" at the movies going through their stuff. What's even more embarrassing to me as an American is seeing people wear those clear backpacks to signal "Here's all my stuff, out in clear view. I don't care about my privacy or dignity. I am complying with any and all edicts, including strip searches of whatever you like!"

PS

-- On the decline of analog experiences, 2000s to 2020s --

Mr. Smith writes of movie-theater experiences and their decline, and of age-groups. The important thing about age is what life-stage one was at during certain important historical processes. Some events or processes tie people of certain age-ranges together.

Your recollection, Mr. Smith, of movies in a theater (including the cheap late-run theater you recall being $1.50), and even of "video stores" like the chain Blockbuster, is a bit of a generation-marker now. That cannot be denied.

Much more to do with movies is likewise a generation-marker. By the late 2010s, movies really started aggressively embracing Wokeness. It's subtle, but I think younger people today are less interested in movies in part because the entire medium is seen as ridiculous and propagandistic in some vague way, in a way that wasn't quite true for the 1980s and 1990s hits.

Anyone born after 200, or so, will have no meaningful first-hand memory of "video stores," or very-weak memory of something fading into irrelevance fast.

Meanwhile, to anyone born before maybe 1980, or 1985, the "video store" kind of model along with the "movie-theater model" is a natural default, and the Internet and "streaming" and so on may often have a slightly unnatural feel to them.

Those born maybe 1985-1995 are a transition -group with video-stores and "Internet" streaming existing a bit side-by-side during critical years of formation of the concepts of the real and the possible. "Digital" overtaking the "analog" was a process that went hand-in-hang with emerging into full adulthood.

None of these things ever happens in a single-year, or even necessarily a single decade. But it clearly is a big deal to have it happening when you're 5, 10, 15 years old as opposed to, say, 45, 50 years old at the time.

What I really worry about, looking out upon those of our generation, (I was born during that transition-period just proposed), is that the acquisition of knowledge of all kinds became devalued because of the process.

A trivial and dumbed-down example: A lot of Before-Time people value books for having information in them, or maybe some other specific thing like a documentary (the prodict of thousands of hours of expert man-hours). A lot of After-Time people, if interested in some subject, will instead look up a Youtube video, or even now a set of ultra-short Tik-Tok videos, on a subject, or maybe a "podcast." At most, at MOST, most people will lazily google something and read a few lines of a wikipedia entry.

None of these forms can compete with the information-density and reliability of a traditionally produced book.

Going to the movies is similar. The experience has been replaced by a digital simulation. I used to like the idea of flying for hours-long flight because you could "get movies in" during the flight. I've seen movies this way but the strange thing is they never quite stick. The same movie, consumed in the old style you reference, a theater you may to physically go to, maybe with friends, or family, or girlfriend, etc., will give a different experience.

The proprietor here suggests that the Panic of the early 2020s had in killing the social practice of "going to the movies," but in fact both the Panic itself and the decline of "going to the movies" had a common cause.

But people are still watching movies, and movie-like entertainment. In the mid 2010s, the strange phrase "binge watching" entered the language. You'll have people watching ten hours of related "content" straight through over one or two or three days, watching alone on a device or Internet-attached screen at home, with little or no direct social aspect. It seems this is a common way these things are now consumed.

We are, still today, in a world we don't understand. The disaster of the mass-delusion of 2020 made me think a lot about all this further. I have long felt a sense that an "analog movement" would inevitably coalesce and become majorly socially important. So far we haven't seen it. But the day is young.

I recently was off "X.com" entirely for a period of about a month and a half. It's funny to observe the changes of simply re-engaging with it even for just a few minutes. X.com and many other digital-world products affect the brain in a negative way, in a way that a social-movement against them is long overdue. This is one lesson of the mass-delusion event of 2020, but so far that lesson doesn't seem to have been fully digested.

PS PS PS the system battles my post mod - not absolutely uncommon - - - I try again
+

PS

Mod. - I remembered but did not mention - -  that we have been into higher up/ cloud-physics/chemistry before, of course. Here is at least the complete table about the ranking of climate-panicking - - - in the world minus Russia and China... - if that rings a bell in the one or the other reading here:

That China and Russia are excluded here is a clear signal: We the responsible societies worldwide care for our well-being on the planet - whereas the dark forces elsewhere...- - -excel in inhumane ignorance of our Planetary Care Program aka Climate-Emergency Programs . . . Which is EVIL!!


 https://x.com/catfreund/status/1790146896821944604



I

The MIT-paper about light as the most important factor in high altitude thermo-regulation of clouds - and the Newton-Goethe fight over light and how that hangs together with Richard Lindzen's hard-nosed arguments against the climate-panic from the standpoint of a - real physicist (my words) - as opposed to the physicists that //Got Lost in Equations// - : - and here

Sabine Hossenfelder and Richard Lindzen are in the same boat.

Rowing in the same direction: It is the discipline of physics**** that has gone astray - after particle physics...

The climate -panic is reflecting this aberration of this scientific discipline, which had been looked upon as the crown-discipline of science but got into a severe crisis. . . . and - as a wounded discipline so to speak, produces now lots and lots of scientific misinformation// simply misleading thoughts - in perfect harmony with the West's climate panic. 


- And what would that light-path be? How is light understood at the moment: as being a chemical - or a physical force?
If - if this MIT-paper about light as an important factor in the energy balance of clouds would be right (this is a long way to go, as it seems from looking at the paper - but not an impossible way...)
 

II

Newton .a.n.d. Goethe battling over light /// Richard Lindzen .a.n.d.  - - - Sabine Hossenfelder .a.t.t.a.c.k.i.n.g. particle/theoretical physics as the root cause of the scientific basis of the climate-panic by arguing that what seems to be physics these days as hard science - is no hard science any more but rather an anemic and unproductive field dominated by self-created pseudo-problems.

Physics itself has lost "touch with reality" (Jackson Brwone - Cocaine in : Running On Empty (one of my top tne favorite records)) and: That

results

in all the wrong modeling that we see here day in day out.

The illusionary character that is the core component of the climate-panic reflects the regressive state of mind, the most advanced scientists in this field are now in.


III

Energy, Light, high-altitude-physics of clouds thermo-regulation


OK: Light working without energy: Is a strange thought . . .  but science is about strange things - to go on this way with Werner Heisenberg - - - and that's why scientific progress happens one funeral after the other: The more powerful scientists are, Heisneberg said, the less likely it is that they would not resist new thoughts. -

IV

How scientific progress works - and how scientific revolutions come into being - - - and how long all that takes - - - 

 It took Newton's physics about hundred years to be accepted Europe-wide (Europe was, where it was at then...). - Not least, because Newton's theories as .h.e. wrote them down (!!) had huge basic flaws (In his PRINCIPIA he had his mathematical logic completely backwards*****)....that alone . . . 
And apropos: His light theory was attacked by none other than my beloved Goethe and - - - Goethe was ridiculed for that ON END for centuries (!!!) 

BUT - as it turned out as a result of a cooperation of - - - - - - - some dozens of experimental physicists all over the world, who looked into Goethe's EXPERIMENTS, which he conducted to prove Newton wrong they saw: 

ALL of these are experiments are perfectly well reproducible and: .D.o. show what the Weimarian genius did claim they would. 


V

The Goethe -Lindzen - Hossenfelder connection pt. 2


I mention this because one of the profoundest voices against climate-panic is that of well-respected physicist Richard Lindzen - and Lindzen left the mainstream physicist's camp decades ago on the basis that he found that they had left the real-world basis of physics and had begun a journey in unfruitful meta-theory - emphasis on THEORY. 

Lindzen states: Physics is not about a genaral theory of the world and the universe (this 'd be just too fucking big (to quote keith Richards here, hehe - if from a slighly different - deep-state-context - - - - ) that Richards' stuff aside:
 
I think Lindzen is onto something big in that the whole field of physics might have gone astray in the last decades - - - - so that the climate-panic, supported by them, would be a reflection of the fact that this whole field has erred

- - - - NOW just another little thought, heheh: The lady we have been discussing here a few times, physicist Sabine Hossenfelder, is moving away from climate panic too lately and there is one more little thought about her work - : - She, - as Lindzen, has made the point in a book of hers, that  - - - - particle-physics has gone astray and is on a completely unfruitful/ self-deceptive course - - - - -
 
see here in wiki:

Her 2018 book, Lost in Math, was also published in German with the title Das hässliche Universum (The Ugly Universe). Hossenfelder posits that the universe (and its particle model) is messy, and that it cannot be described by a mathematically beautiful Grand Unified Theory.

Here she is about climate - - - note: She avoids being canceled and being thrown out / accused by the climate-tribe by a rhetoric trick: She says that she wants to improve the physics of the climate-change crowd - - - this also means that she is not entirely explicit about how much of the current consensus is wrong - -

- anyway this vid is just 7 minutes long and contains a lot of aspects of the climate debate that are worth to be thought through not least, as Hossenfelder says explicitly: Because they don't work! Google:

Time to Get Real about Climate Change (youtube.com)


And then we have in this regard not just her, but also Richard Lindzen - saying the exact same things about physics - and about the role physics plays in the climate-panicking movement!!

 Mind you: Lindzen's as Hossenfelder's point is: Stick to the basics in physics: and these are: 

Measuring and observations in the physical reality!
 
- Of all people in the world, it was Jordan B. Peterson, who talked that aspect through perfectly clear (!!!) with the old Richard Lindzen in two videos, which I recommend and which are each ca 1 hr.:30 min. long.      

Now I tell all this not least because this MIT paper about light comes to look at light in much the same way as Goethe did. Goehte's light theory ended with the point - which was big in his eyes, that light would better be understood as emanating from a quasi - NON ENERGETIC dark - field/ground/state. See

Olaf L. Müller Mehr Licht! Goethe in a fight with Newton over Light (2105) - - and:
ULTRAVIOLETT (2021) both books not translated into English, unfortunately. 

****that is now standard knowledge in physics/mathematics as made explicit in the Encyclopedia of Philosophy and the Theory of the Sciences, Vol. 1-6 now (1-4 in the first print-run)  /// edited and thought out in - - -Konstanz: Published from 1983 on; now in the second print run - but: Not translated into English - a pity, really. - Peter Thiel should jump in with two millions ca. to make this happen...

PS: Oh..

I get it now (that you explained it to me).

Yeah, I'm used to it too. Works fine. (Not broke, don't fix.)

Have a great evening, Mr. Moderator! ☮️

PS: I'll write you back about the PMs (silver) tomorrow, getting tired...

What I meant is that due to the special char stripping functions designed to keep evil people from screwing with the dBase, it's a shame in the comments you all can't put in real hyperlinks that one can click on. It's a little more trouble, but I'm used to it.

PS: Greetings, Achmed!

𝐼 𝑑𝑜𝑛'𝑡 𝑟𝑒𝑐𝑎𝑙𝑙 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑖𝑡 𝑤𝑎𝑠 𝑜𝑓𝑓𝑖𝑐𝑖𝑎𝑙𝑙𝑦 𝑂𝐾 𝑡𝑜 𝑡𝑎𝑘𝑒 𝑜𝑛𝑒'𝑠 𝑜𝑤𝑛 𝑟𝑒𝑓𝑟𝑒𝑠ℎ𝑚𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑠 𝑖𝑛𝑡𝑜 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑚𝑜𝑣𝑖𝑒𝑠.

I don't know how 𝑜𝑓𝑓𝑖𝑐𝑖𝑎𝑙 the OK-ness was (this story is set in the mid 90's) but no one cared about such things. (Maybe they still don't. I don't know. I haven't been to the movies in forever so I have no idea what goes on there.) Everyone brought snacks to the movies. (Except popcorn. There is something about fresh hot buttery popcorn. And it wasn't that expensive.)

And it's not like anyone was going to search your bags and if they tried people wouldn't have put up with it. (This was in the before times. People, especially the younger generations, have been conditioned for this sort of obedience in the last 20ish years. Or so it seems. Could the PanicFest have happened in 1998? I have my doubts.)

The 90's really were a better time. (Perhaps I'm just nostalgic for $4 an ounce silver or something? By the way, did you notice the silver 𝑠𝑝𝑜𝑡 break through $31? I locked in on a tube of Aussie silver the other day at $817 or $32.68/oz. Perhaps the spot price is finally catching up with the real world price?) Probably not as good as the 70's, but well, I was a baby then and my memories of that time are quite limited.

And when I say ~$12 or $15 keep in mind that this was for the busiest times (like 7 or 8pm on Friday or Saturday night) at the newest, shiniest, fanciest movie theater in town with the largest screen and the best sound system around. Matinee tickets were probably half that price at the "fancy" theater. I'm sure the most expensive tickets at the older, less popular, less fancy theaters were not that expensive.

(Hang on, got a link...)
https://www.the-numbers.com/market/

So, yeah. Your $3-4 dollar guesstimate looks about right.

Still, $1.50 was a pretty fair price for a two or three month old movie in the mid 90's. And if you went early enough, you could catch a second movie if you wanted to. Once you were in you were in. (Also probably not officially ok, but I don't know anyone who ever got caught or in trouble for such a thing. As kids, we did this on occasion.)(Statute of limitations for the win!)

𝐴𝑐𝑡𝑢𝑎𝑙𝑙𝑦, 𝑖𝑡'𝑠 𝑛𝑜𝑡 𝑎 𝑙𝑖𝑛𝑘. 𝑌𝑜𝑢 𝑐𝑎𝑛'𝑡 𝑑𝑜 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡. 𝑊ℎ𝑎𝑑𝑑𝑦𝑎' 𝑑𝑜, 𝑐𝑜𝑚𝑝𝑙𝑎𝑖𝑛 𝑡𝑜 𝑃𝑒𝑎𝑘 𝑆𝑡𝑢𝑝𝑖𝑑𝑖𝑡𝑦 𝑚𝑎𝑛𝑎𝑔𝑒𝑚𝑒𝑛𝑡?

??? Whaaa? - I'm so confused anymore...

☮️

PS: Actually, it's not a link. You can't do that. Whaddya' do, complain to Peak Stupidity management? They don't care, and there's no way to contact them if they did. ;-}

PS: Hello, Mr. Smith. Thanks for the summary of your experience with going to the movies over the decades. Even as a kid - yes you may be the youngest (very) regular commenter - I don't recall that it was officially OK to take one's own refreshments into the movies. Most people did though. My family didn't have a lot of extra money, so we'd stop by some store for candy on the way.

$12 or $15 a ticket was definitely at a later time than any of my times going to the movies, except for, say, 4 times in the last 15 years. However the dollar fifty movies were around way back, and they saved you from paying around $3 or $4. That was a big difference to us - I never cared if I saw the movie when it "came out" vs. a few months later.

I'll check out the one you've linked us to.

PS: Afternoon, y'all...

𝐼'𝑣𝑒 𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑙𝑙𝑦 𝑛𝑜𝑡𝑖𝑐𝑒𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑑𝑒𝑐𝑙𝑖𝑛𝑒 𝑜𝑓 "𝑔𝑜𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑡𝑜 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑚𝑜𝑣𝑖𝑒𝑠" 𝑜𝑣𝑒𝑟 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑙𝑎𝑠𝑡 𝑑𝑒𝑐𝑎𝑑𝑒...

I have a friend who has a teenage daughter. Not too long ago he mentioned that her took her and a friend to a movie. (A proper movie at the Dawsonville Cinema.) For the three of them (I don't know if the girls are considered adults or children for ticketing purposes), with snacks (they are pretty strict about not letting people in with snacks), he dropped nearly $100! (I can't even...)

Mrs. Smith and I have never been to a movie theater together. Not that we are missing out nor have the desire to do such a thing. We are not deprived of movies, TV or anything of that nature. (All movies and music have been free since the days of audiogalaxy. Or, well, perhaps just shortly after.) I can't even remember the last time I went to a movie theater. Must be more than 25 years ago.

Back when I was a kid*, who was old enough to drive, my girlfriends and I would go to the movies at the Appletree Mall... For $1.50 a ticket. The movies were a few months old, second run movies if you will. But they were way cheaper than the tickets for the first run movies, which at that time and place were probably ~$12 or $15 a ticket. This was before internet movies were really a thing. When Blockbuster and other such video stores were still very popular.

You could bring in your own snacks and drinks and things back then. Even the expensive theater, which was attached to a mall, back when Americans did that sort of thing, would let you in with shopping bags or whatever. We would bring a couple bottles of wine and some nice wine glasses to enjoy with the show. Seemed exciting at the time as we were not yet 21. (Not sure what would happen if some 18 year old kids tried that at the movie theater today? I imagine it would be best if they didn't get caught.)

America really was a better place in the before times.

(Anyway...)

Not sure why I'm bring this up, but anyone remember the movie Koyaanisqatsi?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koyaanisqatsi

(Any Phillip Glass fans in the house?)

I present four different links, for the same movie, for your viewing enjoyment. (If this kind of thing is up your alley.)
I prefer the first link, but you know, different browsers, different operating systems in different countries.

https://z-kkb4jvzl1og7.bitchute.com/dxqTbeTXv78W/xIIT6OQHebBa.mp4
https://www.bitchute.com/video/xIIT6OQHebBa/

https://rumble.com/embed/v3pfku8/
https://rumble.com/v3s0yow-koyaanisqatsi-clean.html

It's not a climate movie. And certainly not like the climate movie that Achmed embedded here today. But for some reason this movie popped into my head while reading the beginning of this post.

-----

* Back in my day... Ha. Pretty sure I'm the youngest regular commenter here. Well, perhaps Mr. Hail is a little younger than I am.(?) But if he is, it's not by much.

Cheers, and Happy Saturday! ☮️

PS: Great rant, Old Soldier. I agree with it all.

Since you mentioned it, Peak Stupidity did a few calculations a couple of years back regarding the pollution from that big natural gas release due to some unknown(?) country blowing up those lines:

Nord Stream Climate Calamity™?

https://www.peakstupidity.com/index.php?post=2403

AND

Nord Stream Climate Calamity™ Conclusion

https://www.peakstupidity.com/index.php?post=2406

As far as heating up THE PLANET goes ... nah, but then this was still pollution in more of a sense than CO2 is, I'd say.

PS
The endless lies from those in government, with their public demonstrations and speeches of global warming, show us just how little they actually care about the environment and global warming. They push electric vehicles on everybody (though EVs have been proven to be devastating to the environment), wind turbines (though California has to buy energy from other states) and fly hundreds of their fuel guzzling jets to every green energy meeting they can find. Global Warmers, you just keep believing the garbage that lefties tell you and obey their Global Warming gods Algore, Obama and Joe Biden...and make sure to pay your higher than necessary taxes to keep funding the lifestyles of the arrogant Greenies. And while they are demanding that you pay more, remember they're perfectly fine with blowing up refineries and pipelines while destroying large stands of forests just to install highly toxic solar panels. And Uncle Joe wants even MORE high taxes to more lavishly fund his and Hunter's lavish lives. Hypocrisy knows no end with these idiots.

PS: Good morning, Alarmist. So, it's another 12-step program, though not in the AA sense. Coincidentally, 2 days ago I thought of a humorous post comparing the Climate Panickers to AA folks, as in a 12-step program. Actually, I was also thinking of the Kung Flu style panickers, having seen a slight increase in mask wearing in certain locations. Panickers Anonymous - there's help for YOU!!

I tried to read the post on my phone, but it's much easier now on another device. Thanks for that. Lyin'tific method is a nice phrase.

PS: Mr. Kief, I didn't see a link to the info on which countries have what percentage of, errr, Panickers. Do you have that?

Yes, see, this goes along with what I've been saying for a long time. I don't expect a model of weather (as opposed to long-term Earth energy balance climate) that tells us where exactly the clouds will form on May 18th of '34. However, since the overall albedo of the Earth is an important part of energy balance calculations, the average amount of cloud cover broken down by regions like "north Atlantic", etc, over the seasons, as compared to now and 10 years back and such, well, that must be known and shown to have been modeled correctly by observation... AFTER the predictions of the model beforehand.

Thank you for the links - I have not looked at the yet.

PS: In that case, Mr. Hail, the narrater of this video is using the standard BBC accent, as he sounds like John Derbyshire does now. It's OK for this video, but I kind of picture the Derb doing the talking.

Speaking of him, he doesn't write too much about the Climate Calamity™ hoax, as I recall. I'm pretty sure he's smart enough to not have fallen for it. OTOH, he's down with "it's definitely warming", which is pretty vague and argued against here, but not "we need to panic and DO SOMETHING."

No, I would not be able to stomach that long a duration of lies from the AlGore. "An Inconvenient Truth" was most surely not. That guy does never admits he's been wrong so many times. I wouldn't mind that if he'd stay out of the "Scientific Consensus", shut his mouth, and enjoy his mansion on the coast of California. Man, that'd be nice! (Both living there AND Al Gore shutting up.)

PS

The Lyin’tific Method

(h/t The Ethical Skeptic)

1) Concoct the claim your club wants to be true

2) Fund universities and direct syndicates/agencies to promote it

3) Whip up a flurry of the same exact linear-confirmation-biased statistical study and a cursory intern-run meta-study to ‘improve the statistical power’ – downplay the sudden concurrence and fund sourcing of all these studies
A particularly egregious example can be seen by clicking on this study’s marketing push associating fasting and heart disease and our subsequent refutation of the study’s confidence and soundness.

4) Block journal access/Screen by anonymous ‘peer reviewers’ with conflict of interest and who don’t actually know the subject

5) Cite the push-marketed flurry of study as ‘the science’ loudly and repeatedly in media

6) Appeal to the virtue of the claim and cite a consensus that the ‘science is settled’

7) Threaten the careers or funding of any professionals who remain undecided on the issue

8) Remove/Paywall/Redact access to any public-owned or contrary analytical data

9) Have government direct social media/churnalists/syndicates/’skeptics’ to censor and harass dissent as ‘conspiracy theory’

10) Threaten safety of family members of those who still produce contrary study/analysis

11) Enact state oversight board and legislative mandates that penalize public or professional skepticism, dissent, or debate

12) When the conclusion fails to predict or explain observed reality, go silent, change the subject, or start a war.

source: https://theethicalskeptic.com/2024/03/17/the-lyintific-method/

PS

PS
Climate .fe.a.r. worldwide is 16%

  Singapour, Australia and Germany highest - in the high twenties, resp low thirties )

Very low: India, Brasil, South-Africa, Argentina - - - - - Israel.

China is not on this list - Russia too.

Oh and as I've said before: Clouds might regulate their temperature not so much via well known physics but - via light - which would bring all present theories about CO-2 and clouds in turmoil - see this link:
PS
Climate fear worldwide is 16%  Singapour, Australia and Germany highest - in the high twenties, resp low thirties )
Very low: India, Brasil, South-Africa, Argentina - - - - - Israel.China is not on this list - Russia too.
Oh and as I've said before: Clouds seem to regulate their temperature not so much via well known physics but - via light - which would bring all present theories about CO-2 and clouds in turmoil -except those of - Thomas Allmendinger and - most important: Boris Smirnov. Smirnov showed that the man-made increase via CO-2 is maybe a tenth of what it is claimed to be. He is somewhere near half  a degree celsius.

The very recent cloud-thermoregulation paper about light as key

:https://x.com/DieterKief/status/1783637667629994455


I think in this regard, this Russian scientist is of interest too: Boris Smirnov
https://casf.me/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Smirnov_2018_J._Phys._D3A_Appl._Phys._51_214004.pdf  

Swiss researcher Thomas Allmendinger came to similar conclusions as Smirnov: 
‘Greenhouse Gas Effect Does Not Exist,’ a Swiss Physicist Challenges Global Warming Climate Orthodoxy | Climate Depot

The worldwide renowned gas-expert Smirnov has data supporting his thesis that the man-made increase via CO-2 is maybe a small fraction of what it is claimed to be. He is somewhere near half  a degree celsius - at most.

The very recent cloud-thermoregulation paper about light as key:

https://x.com/DieterKief/status/1783637667629994455


I think in this regard, this Russian scientist is of interest too: Boris Smirnov
https://casf.me/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Smirnov_2018_J._Phys._D3A_Appl._Phys._51_214004.pdf  

Swiss researcher Thomas Allmendinger came to similar conclusions as Smirnov: 

‘Greenhouse Gas Effect Does Not Exist,’ a Swiss Physicist Challenges Global Warming Climate Orthodoxy | Climate Depot

As far as the movie is concerned:they left most of that out - too complicated/ not approved of enough, - - -

Richard Lindzen and Steve Koonin are important voices in this discourse IN the movie.

PS

Did you ever see the Al Gore climate movie of about 2006?

PS

"The narrator is a guy with an accent very much like that of John Derbyshire."

I think Mr D has said that where he grew up they had a certain region-specific accent which was "beaten out of him" and he ended up using a normal "BBC" accent.