Quote from: RE on Jun 10, 2026, 07:28 PM

Quote from: TDoS on Jun 10, 2026, 06:08 PMNonsense. That is just your ego speaking. You are on the high side of average, but you aren't the only one with functioning neurons at a level beyond that of Joe Average. And then some. I'll include even K-Dog in here on general principles based on nothing more than my personal experience dealing with EE's.

I never claimed to be the only one with functional synapses.

True, you do something more interesting. If you think it, you being above average intelligence, you consider your statements on the topic to be as informed as someone who has done it. I can see it working in some specialties. But certainly not others. Example...."As a child I learned to shoot a gun at camp....now I will explain sniper tactics to survivalists at peakoil.com". You were quite specific in the hows and whys of using a firearm against non-paper targets. At specific long ranges. Someone with real life experience at such things might find such an assumption of imbued real world performance from some practice as a child as....an interesting perspective.

It isn't always about functioning synapses. It is about projecting a small, perhaps barely related experience, to mastery. Very intelligent people do this all the time and can get away with it. Until they run into a person who has earned their mastery the real way. By doing it.

Shooting is a perishable skill. I know that from experience. But as I mentioned earlier (perhaps erased, but it was during the Charlie Kirk posting and someone's comment on the precision necessary to make such an easy shot and I mentioned my return to long range shooting) the experience is still experience. If the mind is still there, even if the skills have faded, the experience sticks. Sometimes, so does the skill itself.

Same with claimed surgical skills. Motorcycle skills from riding around NYC and hanging out with folks pretending to be Hardly Ableson bad asses, or Ricky Racers perhaps?

You have provided many examples of your deductive reasoning, obviously.

Quote from: RENor is the precise percentage of stupid  people important.  Relative to me, it's a lot higher than 90%.😁

You act like you are alone at that level. You aren't. 90th percentile on the last normal distribution I checked only  equates to maybe an IQ of 120. You sure you don't want to change that percentile? 😂I would have guessed that you would give yourself more credit....like what my sister and I have at least. She stayed in the holler, married a good guy, and never used it in the least. Her older brother did...better.

Quote from: RERelative to you, it might be 70%. lol.

lol indeed, let me know how far off AI is.

On a standard intelligence (IQ) distribution, the 90th percentile corresponds to an IQ score of approximately 120. This means an individual with this score performs better than 90% of the general population.

Quote from: REThe salient point is my experience has been that stupid people are randomly distributed between drug users and non-users.

Could be. I can't refute your experience with using drugs or the kind of people you were using with.

Quote from: REI encounter them in equal frequency regardless of their choice.

I encounter them at low frequency if at all. I attribute this discrepancy to the difference between the kind of people we associate with.

Quote from: REHere, we are all smart, most of us are drug users of one sort or another.  AFAIK, you are the only one who abstains from both drugs and alcohol.  This tells us nothing about stupid people, since none are represented here.
RE

Indeed. I will agree that as we both, aside from this site, have hung out with different folks and different classes of people over our lives. And have developed different ideas on drug users. You, as someone familiar with such folks and are around them far more than I am, see them evenly distributed between smart and stupid. I, as a non-user....don't see users much....but I also don't see stupid folks very often. Or users. So my perspective is different. Correlations matter in statistics.

A selection bias problem perhaps. I would recommend improving the clientele you hang with, and seeing if the ratio changes to a ratio more similar to mine. I understand that you are limited in this regard however.

Another theory is that users naturally mix with other users. You mix with users, and see users as evenly distributed between smart or less smart. I was always a bummer at parties in high school or college because I didn't drink. Or smoke. Or do drugs or whatever. I rode motorcycles. Went to the range. And then discovered later in life that the folks I was learning from, then teaching, and then doing state of the art research for, were not users, and were generally all quite smart. As long as we can agree that the award of Piled higher and Deeper is some indicator of above average intelligence above the norm anyway.

"The war is roiling supply chains and will push prices higher [than] before, even if the strait were to open tomorrow."

QuoteThe whole idea that a country can claim dominion over you and force you to pay them money to reject that ownership is disgusting.

Things have been worse.  Moses Grandy, born enslaved in North Carolina, purchased his freedom, only for his enslaver to take the money and sell him anyway. He was forced to purchase his own freedom a second time.

A person should be able to leave for free, but someone like Elon should not get to take all the money he earned here with him.  But my thoughts about this do not matter.

I was unaware of this change in the law.  Back when my dad was an expat, he did not have to pay FSoA taxes.  I was also unaware of the requirement that before renouncing, you have to prove you are a citizen of some other country.  Plus, to renounce cost MONEY.  This makes it effectively impossible for poor people to renounce their citizenship.  Thus, if the FSoA goes to war and you are drafted, you are FORCED to participate, unless you are "granted" Conscientious Objector status.

The whole idea that a country can claim dominion over you and force you to pay them money to reject that ownership is disgusting.  You think Slavery & Serfdom ended, this is a "Free" country?  Think again.  You are a slave of the folks who control the FSoA goobermint, the Billionaires.  You don't even have to be living here, just accidentally born here or have an Amerikan parent who before you were born left the country.

Unfuckingbeleivable.

RE

Quote from: RE on Jun 10, 2026, 08:59 PMBut the ceasefire is still holding! 🙄

RE

Your contention that we do not have dumb people here may be correct, because what Trump is doing is so transparent that only a fool could not see it.  From which I conclude we have no shortage of fools.  The bar is low.

By all accounts Trump should be political toast by now.  But by making war Trump buys time against accountability.  The last thing Trump wants now is peace.  Trump wants lots of death.  War gives Trump the power he needs to enthrone himself.  It keeps his haters at bay.

Trump's strategy functions by treating geopolitical conflict as a theater of perception rather than a negotiation of interests. By initiating provocations to induce ceasefire violations, Trump then immediately frames the inevitable response as "aggression." Forcing a binary choice onto a public with a limited attention span.

The media cycle, in thrall with the Trump reality, hides the "who started this" reality, allowing Trumps loyal base of cretins to claim moral high ground.  Fear and profit working together makes established media compliant.  They kiss Trump ass.

The Trump art of the deal is nothing more than "gaslighting" refined to an art form. Shifting between being combatant and peacemaker, Trump creates a disorienting environment where the truth is obscured by the sheer rapidity of events Trump now forces on us.


Trump nods out, but he still keeps his crazy horses running.  Trump can't let them stop or his haters catch up.  There is no rest for the wicked.