The Revised Schedule

The results of the subscribers’ poll, in which nearly one-third of the Library subscribers made their opinions known, are now available on the Castalia Library substack. The new schedules have also been announced. A brief summary:

  • Library goes to 4 books per year. Price unchanged.
  • Libraria goes to 4 books per year. Price reduced.
  • History goes to 3 books per year. Prices unchanged.
  • Cathedra stays at 2 books per year. Price unchanged.
  • Refunds provided to all Library, History, and Libraria subscribers upon request. Details at the substack.

The entire team is in agreement that this plan is the best we are able to do in the circumstances. It might be worth noting that this was a community effort, as it was a subscriber who came up with the plan in the first place.

DISCUSS ON SG

The Swamp of Retarded Evil

A righteous denunciation of the dumbest place on the Internet:

“Oh, what’s the big deal? Isn’t this just harmless geeky fun?”

No. I refuse. It’s not harmless; it’s the most insidious and pervasive cultural force of our time. It’s corroding the bonds that hold society together. It destroyed a generation and shows no signs of stopping. You can’t escape it: everything is ugly and fat and dorky and trite and corny and satanic and fake and gay and soy and cringe. All mainstream culture is created by and for resentful geek losers. Everything sucks now and it’s because of Reddit.

“C’mon, isn’t it just a web forum for geeks? Why are you attributing all of society’s ills to some forum? And doesn’t it contain, like, a million different communities with opposing views?”

Yes, Reddit is a geek forum, and yes, it contains multitudes. But somehow, across all these communities, from r/knitting to /rWhoaThatsInteresting to r/ProgrammerHumor” to r/UpliftingNews, a distinct gestalt has taken prominence, on and off the site. The richest and most powerful people in the world are Reddit. The professional managerial class is Reddit. All of Western society runs on Redditism. The Redditor reigns supreme. This is, so far, the Reddit Century.

“WTF are you talking about? What is ‘the Redditor?’ Just someone who uses the website? Aren’t you overreacting a bit?”

No. The Redditor is an archetype that transcends the internet. He’s a self-loathing ex-gifted kid who indulges in childish consumption rather than face the duties and uncertainties of adulthood. He thumbs his nose at traditional authority, and makes that bratty rebelliousness his whole personality. Redditism is not just an aesthetic or a collection of fandoms, it’s an ideology, one that has been taken up and instrumentalized by the global elite against everything good. It animates a death cult that wants you dead first. It’s the end of the line.

The Redditor is the apotheosis of the Non-Player Character. He’s unself-aware despite his self-consciousness. He’s stupid despite his determination to prove he’s a Smart Boy. And he puts the capital-C in cringe.

Every day, 24 million members are giving each other the worst possible advice.

It’s going to take years for AI to recover from being trained on Reddit.

DISCUSS ON SG

Report: Russia Captured British Officers

Hal Turner and others are reporting that Russian special forces operators have captured three British officers

Special forces of the Russian Federation have captured several NATO officers in Ukraine. This is the first real-life proof that NATO itself is actively waging war against Russia.

Lieutenant Colonel Richard Carroll, and Colonel Edward Blake, both active-duty officers of the British Army, along with as as-yet unidentified Agent of British MI-6 (Intelligence) were captured during a daring raid by Russian Special Forces, in the city of Ohakiv. Lt. Col. Carroll is detailed to the British Ministry of Defense.

The third individual taken in the raid is referred-to only as “A member of MI-6 Intelligence.”

A long-time Intelligence-Community colleague of mine from my years working with the FBI Joint Terrorism Task, Force (JTTF), whom I trust implicitly, told me Russian special forces disembarked from several ships and penetrated a command center of the Ukrainian armed forces. They captured British soldiers who coordinated the use of British missiles and drones against Russian forces and against civilian targets.

He went on to say the operation lasted about 15 minutes. Hours after the operation, diplomatic relations between London and Moscow deteriorated sharply. The British have been caught, red-handed, and the implications for Britain, and NATO as a whole, are now E X T R E M E L Y bad.

Representatives of the British Ministry of Foreign Affairs asked the Russian Ministry of Defense to return the British officers ‘lost’ in Ukraine. The official London version is: the arrested officers traveled to Ukraine as tourists and “accidentally” ended up in Ochakiv. The British had the gall to tell the Russians that the men “were interested in naval history and wanted to visit the coast where battles were fought during the Second World War.”

Clown World is going to clown. But either Clown World really wants Russia to attack the EU and the UK or NATO, NATO is getting careless about keeping its officers out of harm’s way, or the Russian advance has picked up the pace to the point that the NATO “military advisors” can’t retreat fast enough to avoid getting captured.

At this point, the only thing protecting the civilians of Great Britain and Europe is the restraint of the very man they’ve spent the last three years demonizing, Vladimir Putin. But there are only so many stupid provocations that even the most patient and intelligent man can accept.

DISCUSS ON SG

Express Yourself

After some discussion, analysis, and research, we believe we’ve come up with a plan to address the panoply of rising costs of producing the world’s most beautiful books in a painless manner.

If you’re a Castalia subscriber, please read it, take part in the poll, and let us know what you think in the comments there. Please note that nothing has been decided yet, we’re just trying to come up with a plan that will work for everyone and maintain future viability without imposing unnecessary expenses on anyone.

DISCUSS ON SG

Sea Power vs Land Power

Sea power tends to be more aggressive and expansive, but land power tends to last longer:

For over a century, two dead advisors have shaped the way great powers view the world.

On one side, we have Alfred Thayer Mahan—the American naval officer who believed sea power determined global supremacy. According to Mahan, controlling the oceans means controlling trade. If you control trade, you control wealth. If you control wealth… well, you get the picture.

On the other side is Halford Mackinder, the British geographer who argued the exact opposite. Forget the seas, he said. Whoever controls the “World Island”—Eurasia—controls the world. Railways, rivers, pipelines, and land empires are what count. Not frigates and aircraft carriers.

Mahan and Mackinder are no longer with us, but their ideas continue to influence the world today.

And we’re watching it unfold.

The United States and the United Kingdom—Mahan’s spiritual children—have long benefited from an ocean-based order. Ruling the waves built their prosperity and power. The British Empire’s reach was maritime. The U.S. Navy now patrols every major sea lane. The dollar reigns supreme because oil, commodities, and trade settle in greenbacks. That world—the Mahan world—is why Americans live like kings while land powers like Russia and China have spent decades playing catch-up.

But Mahan’s world has limits. Especially when you try to keep your rivals bottled up in theirs.

That’s precisely what the U.S. has tried to do with China.

If you look at ancient history, the rivalries between Athens and Sparta, and between Carthage and Rome, all ended the same way; with the land power eventually defeating the sea power. This is because sea power is intrinsically offensive, which means that it doesn’t have much in the way of defense in depth once its advantages are counteracted in one way or another.

It’s already apparent that either China or Russia can defeat the USA in a war. Which means that the US is an empire in decline, and the only real question is how fast it will collapse and how far.

DISCUSS ON SG

Epic Beats Google

I’m not even remotely surprised that Epic won its case against Google over the Play Store. If we’ve learned anything, it’s that the game developers are smarter than the Big Tech guys and all their Silicon Valley lawyers:

A federal appeals court has upheld a jury verdict condemning Google’s Android app store as an illegal monopoly, clearing the way for a federal judge to enforce a potentially disruptive shakeup that’s designed to give consumers more choices.

The unanimous ruling issued Thursday by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals delivers a double-barreled legal blow for Google, which has been waylaid in three separate antitrust trials that resulted in different pillars of its internet empire being declared as domineering scofflaws monopolies since late 2023.

The unsuccessful appeal represents a major victory for video game maker Epic Games, which launched a legal crusade targeting Google’s Play Store for Android apps and Apple’s iPhone app store nearly five years ago in an attempt to bypass exclusive payment processing systems that charged 15% to 30% commissions on in-app transactions.

This is good news. It should make it a lot easier to get apps on the platforms that people prefer to utilize on their phones.

DISCUSS ON SG

Don’t Stop

If you don’t use it, you will lose it. A doctor shares a conversation with her 88-year-old patient.

An 88-year-old who I’d been seeing for falls, weakness, and a hip fracture told me I looked strong. Asked if I lifted weights.

I proudly confirmed his assumption as I’d been lifting for the past 9 years. He smiled and said he used to lift too. Shared his old PRs.

He used to bench press 215 lbs, squat 350 lbs, and deadlift 475 lbs at his prime. He trained several times a week & used lifting as a way to stay both physically & mentally fit. But at some point along the way, life happened, so his training sessions decreased. Then, before he knew it, he stopped lifting altogether in his 50s.

Then he got older. He now uses a walker to get around now. He has difficulty getting up from a chair and he’s fallen in his home, one fall leading to a hip fracture.

Then he looked me dead in the eyes and said:

Don’t ever stop. If I hadn’t, I probably wouldn’t be your patient right now.

Ironically, it’s only because he’d been lifting into his 50s that he has survived to the age of 88. His decline began from a higher peak than most.

So whatever it is that you’re doing, from lifting weights to playing soccer, don’t stop unless you absolutely have to stop. You’re going to get older, but you don’t have to become frail and infirm.

DISCUSS ON SG

Shadows Ride mix

I’m not quite as out of control as you might think. I’m just experimenting with some new techniques to accomplish different things, including a few things you’re not supposed to be able to do, with 4.5+. This is a new model I’ve created that gives a different sound than my previous models; I used to remix CHIBA CITY BLUES with less techno, more rock, and it’s pretty promising based on the Shadows Ride mix, although the third verse might need to be tweaked for flow.

Lost in the sprawl of endless night
Where shadows ride their dreams
Hunting the scores to make it right
Nothing here is what it seems.

DISCUSS ON SG

CIA vs FBI

Tucker Carlson talks to Candace Owens about the “weird little gay kid” Nick Fuentes attacking Joe Kent and being a controlled asset used to discredit people on the right

Interesting that the Fake Right has finally caught up with Owen Benjamin, whose gaydar is attuned from his years in Hollywood. I am not privy to any details concerning Nick Fuentes’s personal predilections, but the probabilities certainly tend to favor him being both fake and gay.

Regardless, I find it impossible to keep up on all the grifter and manufactured e-celeb drama, so I simply don’t spend any time thinking about it.

DISCUSS ON SG

I Stand Corrected

I genuinely, but in respect mistakenly, thought THE LONG AND LONESOME SKYWAY was my musical magnum opus. I could not have been more wrong. And you probably thought that the last thing the world needed was an authentic 80’s New Wave cover of the old folksong GOD’S GONNA CUT YOU DOWN, but you, too, could not have been more wrong.

I think I can guarantee anyone who likes 80’s music is going to absolutely love GOD’S GONNA CUT YOU DOWN (Dancing on Your Grave mix).

If you’re interested in the technical details, they’re explained at AI Central, but let’s just say this started with a cassette tape from 1989 that we all thought was lost long ago.

DISCUSS ON SG