Tag: trainwreck

Probability Weasel

An evolutionist’s summary of Richard Dawkins’s famous Weasel program, which is still very popular among the innumerate for its explicative proof of the viability of evolution:

In 1986, evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins set out to dispel such misunderstandings by implementing a computer program that works—in Dawkins’ own words—like this:

“It […] begins by choosing a random sequence of 28 letters, […] it duplicates it repeatedly, but with a certain chance of random error – ‘mutation’ – in the copying. The computer examines the mutant nonsense phrases, the ‘progeny’ of the original phrase, and chooses the one which, however slightly, most resembles the target phrase, METHINKS IT IS LIKE A WEASEL.”

Here’s a more detailed explanation of his weasel program: it starts with a string of 28 random letters. Next, it creates N offspring strings by copying the original 28 random letters N times. When being copied, the chance of a letter being changed into another (random) letter is P. Now that we have a set of N new strings, we compare each string letter by letter against “METHINKS IT IS LIKE A WEASEL” (a quote from Shakespeare’s Hamlet, by the way) and pick the one with the most character matches (the highest match score). This one is deemed the “fittest” and kept as the survivor of the first generation; the other N-1 strings are discarded. We repeat the whole process by creating again N offspring from the survivor, then pick a new survivor and so on until the survivor finally matches “METHINKS IT IS LIKE A WEASEL”.

Let’s choose N to be 100 (one hundred offspring per generation) and P to be 5%, as in Dawkins original experiment. How many generations would it take until we finally reach “METHINKS IT IS LIKE A WEASEL”? Just guess a number, I’ll wait here…

Answer: about 50 generations!

In other words, the program theoretically explains how evolution can achieve fixation within 50 generations. Therefore, the transformation from proto-chimp to human is… well, the math still doesn’t work given the 410 million base pair gap, but we can’t expect a famous biologist to understand long division. The important point that the concept makes sense to the innumerate. Although, obviously, it doesn’t make sense, since as the usual critique correctly points out, the target phrase is known from the start, which is not the case in the evolutionary context.

But never mind that. I am not interested in the usual critique, since the distinction between known and unknown ends is far too abstract for the evolutionists, who have completely failed to comprehend the significance of that distinction for the last 40 years. Let’s try something else, something more simple and basic that even the most determined Neo-Darwinist should be able to grasp: the limits of reproduction.

First, note that Dawkins’s “population of 100” is really just one weasel that has 100 kits a year, where you keep those with the desired letter and kill the others. That’s not a species. A real weasel has about six kits, up to twice a year. So plug in the real animal, with a minimum population of 10,000 so it’s not going extinct, and here’s what changes for the Weasel program.

A phrase letter initially appears in one weasel out of 10,000. For that letter to count toward completing the phrase, all 10,000 weasels have to end up carrying it. And the only way that happens is the slow way: that one weasel’s descendants slightly out-breeding everyone else’s, litter after litter after litter, until the whole population has it. That process is called fixation.

If we apply Dawkins’s proposed 5% advantage to the population in the correct manner, we assume a selection advantage of five percent. Or s=.05. With the appropriate reproductive limit of 12 rather than 100, that means it will take 400 generations for the initial letter M to propagate throughout the species, and 11,000 generations for all 27 letters required to complete the phrase to do so.

However, Dawkins’s 5% probability was referring to the initial mutation, not the actual selection advantage, which is usually much more subtle, around s=0.001. And this gives us 20,000 generations for the initial letter M and 540,000 generations to complete the full phrase. So Dawkins’s little program which was meant to demonstrate the viability of evolution by natural selection actually demonstrates the precise opposite, since his estimate of 50 generations was off by four orders of magnitude, or about 11,000x.

Which, to be fair, is actually pretty close for a biologist attempting to math. It’s certainly much closer than any of the biologists insisting that evolution by natural selection can account for the 410 million base pairs that distinguish the modern human from the modern chimpanzee.

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Translating the Palacesprache

Lady C explains the real reason why Harold and Meghan Markle are so upset about the recent issuance from Buckingham Palace:

So, The King has spoken through the Lord Chamberlain. And what he has to say makes chilling hearing for Harry and Meghan. At least to those of us who understand palacespeak.

Not only does he affirm that Harry and Meghan no longer possess royal status, but he confirms that fact, for the first time, by pointing out that their HRH styles are in abeyance. Those last words ‘in abeyance’ are a legal term with legal significance – something which was fudged when the original Sandringham Agreement was announced. At that time, it was merely stated that they would not be using their Royal Highness styles; now, by stating that they are in abeyance, he is asserting that they no longer hâve the right to use them at ail.

Doubling down on their loss of royal status, the Lord Chamberlain emphasises this fact by stating, “(i)n short, their position is akin to private citizens with commercial and charitable interests.”

In other words, no one needs to bow or curtsy to Harry and Meghan. This is ratified with sutblety and elegance in the recommendation that those who hâve questions about the courtesies to which they think Harry and Meghan might be entitled, should refer to Buckingham Palace, whose guidance, off the record, will be as it was with regards to the Duchess of Windsor. No HRH, no bowing or curtsying. Make it plain that you know she’s (they’re) not royal by treating them the way you would any other non-royal – with good manners, respect, but none of the affirmations that are a part of royal conduct.

Interesting. One had always assumed that King Charles would be weaker than his mother, but at least in this one regard, he has proven to possess a firmer hand. Of course, it’s hardly uncommon for a grandmother to be excessively indulgent.

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The Abuse of “Reasonable Doubt”

The defense lawyer in the Lindsay Clancy trial has successfully convinced most of the jury that “reasonable doubt” applies to whether she was temporarily insane or not, and not whether she committed the murders or not:

Tensions reached a boiling point in the Lindsay Clancy trial on Friday as jurors continued to deliberate, with one holdout refusing to agree with 11 others.

Clancy’s lawyer Kevin Reddington yesterday begged the judge to switch out the holdout juror who, the jury foreperson claims, is refusing to follow the law when it comes to reasonable doubt. The jury, who is made up of nine women and three men, have been deliberating for 36 hours.

It now appears that the juror is certain Clancy is guilty, and is voting that way. Reddington claimed on Thursday that they were doing so despite having ‘reasonable doubt’.

‘That juror told you that he would be able to apply the law to the facts as you asked him, and based on this note from this juror, it clearly and unequivocally indicates that they are basically 11 to one, and this person will not apply reasonable doubt to the evidence to return a not guilty verdict,’ Reddington said in court.

Earlier, the defense lawyer also accused the judge of ‘glossing over the issue’ and being ‘soft’ on the reasonable doubt instruction.

The actual standard laid down by the Supreme Court is as follows:

The Court held in In re Winship that the Due Process Clauses of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments protect the accused against conviction “except upon proof beyond a reasonable doubt of every fact necessary to constitute the crime with which he is charged.”

And what are those facts necessary to constitute the crime of first-degree murder in Massachusetts?

To secure a murder conviction, prosecutors must demonstrate three primary elements:

  • Unlawful Killing: The victim’s death must directly result from the defendant’s actions, without legal justification such as self-defense.
  • Malice Aforethought: This concept encompasses intent to kill, intent to cause significant harm, or an act demonstrating extreme disregard for human life.
  • Causation: A clear causal link must exist between the defendant’s conduct and the death of the victim.

First-degree also requires “deliberate planning, exceptional cruelty, or a killing committed during another serious felony”.

Since there is no objective way to establish the facts of someone’s sanity or insanity at any given time, let alone a specific moment in the past, “reasonable doubt” cannot apply to someone’s mental state or no one could ever be convicted of murder. Indeed, the more heinous and savage the crime, the more easily “reasonable doubt” of their sanity must be applied.

Now, I understand the difference between the actual black-letter law and so-called “case law” and judicial precedent, but that doesn’t change the fact that “reasonable doubt” can never be applied to an individual’s mental state, because Die Gedanken sind frei.

UPDATE: The judge is also on very shaky ground. His instructions are observably false. The jury can nullify any law. It, and not the judge, are the legal authority.

He then reminded the jury that they must follow the law as he gave it to them. ‘I wanted to remind you, as I instructed you earlier, it is your duty as jurors to accept the law as I gave it to you,’ Sullivan said. ‘You must follow the law as I give it to you, whether you agree with it or not. ‘With that, you may now resume your deliberations.’

UPDATE: Judge Sullivan entered the courtroom and said the jury had sent a note stating they could not reach a verdict. The judge announced he intends to declare a mistrial.

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The Thumb on the Scale

  • Icelanders have turned out in unusually large numbers to decide whether to reopen accession talks with the European Union, with the founding NATO member split almost exactly down the middle over its future relationship with Brussels. The campaign went down to the wire. A final Maskína survey put the “yes” camp at 50.4% and “no” at 49.6%.
  • Icelanders voted against resuming EU accession negotiations in a referendum held on Aug. 29, 2026, with 52.8% voting “no” and 47.2% voting “yes.” Prime Minister Kristrún Frostadóttir’s government proposal was rejected, and turnout was 82.5%.

Amazing, how the polls always overestimate the media’s preferred result. That’s a 6.4 percent swing. And yet somehow, they never manage to correct for their previous misses.

But if Global Banking & Finance Review is to be believed, the Swiss really want to go to war with Russia.

A second recent poll shows 54% of Swiss voters oppose enshrining a stricter neutrality in the constitution, compared with 42% in favour, ahead of the September 27 referendum. 62% oppose it according to another poll, reinforcing expectations of rejection.

Imagine what a nightmare strict, constitutional neutrality would be! Isn’t it so much better to abandon the principle that allowed Switzerland to prosper for centuries and avoid participating in Europe’s many brutal wars. After all, look at how well participating in the sanctions regime is working out for Germany!

Germany is in the midst of a slow-motion economic unravelling — one that is almost entirely self-inflicted. Once the uncontested engine of European prosperity, the country now posts some of the weakest growth among advanced economies, has watched its industrial base wither, and faces a political crisis driven by a governing class too timid to confront the problems it helped create.

Anyhow, good for the Icelanders, although I doubt the government will keep its pledge and stop trying to transform itself into a puppet state of Clown World. And hopefully the media propaganda will prove both incorrect and ineffective, and the Swiss will constitutionally solidify their historic neutrality.

Self-destruction always begins with the lie that one has no other option.

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Air Power Idiocy

What do air power advocates, American tax protestors, religious conservatives, and NATO strategists all have in common? The foolish idea that with just a little external assistance, the people will rise up and overthrow their government:

Early this year, Ukrainian officials came to President Volodymyr Zelensky with a risky new plan to end the war with Russia. It would require expanding their bombing campaign to include a set of targets and a class of weapons they had long avoided. In addition to Ukraine’s ongoing strikes against Russian military bases, oil refineries, supply lines, and logistics hubs, the officials wanted to launch waves of AI-enabled drones at Moscow’s airports, hoping to stop international carriers from flying in and out of the Russian capital, according to two sources with direct knowledge of the plan, which has not been previously reported.

In short, they wanted to plan a mass terror attack on Russian airports to completely shut down all civilian flights in and out of Moscow as a way to ramp up pressure and make Russian civilians in the capital city feel the consequences of the war.

It’s remarkable that military planners even entertain these ridiculous notions that never, ever, work. The idea has been around since the 1920s when it was first conceived by an Italian general named Giulio Douhet. It will probably not escape your attention that despite having first access to this strategery, Italy has not won any wars since the publication of The Command of the Air in 1921. Nor has ever it worked anywhere from Germany to Vietnam to Gaza.

Contra the air power theory, bombing tends to cause the people to support the regime in charge and turn to it for protection. It doesn’t ever make them want to surrender to the people bombing them or accede to their wishes.

And in preemptive answer to the obvious rebuttal, Russia isn’t bombing civilian targets in Kiev to turn the Ukrainian people against Zelensky and the Kiev regime. It’s a) payback for Ukraine’s attacks on civilians and b) a warning to the Kiev regime’s NATO supporters.

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Clown World Lunacy

If China wants to maintain good relations with Estonia, then it should stop supporting Russia. This was stated by Estonian Foreign Minister Margus Tsakhkna following a trip to Beijing and negotiations with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi.

Are Clown World’s puppets as innumerate as biologists? Or do they simply speak the lines they are given, without regard for how nonsensical they are?

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Too Crazy for Bluesky

Popehat, aka attorney Ken White, has been permanently banned from Bluesky, apparently for a post in which he suggested there was a moral upside to Elon Musk’s death. The Bluesky body politic, meanwhile, is losing its mind over this. Popehat is one of their heroes.

Because Mr. White, once deemed one of Salon’s 25 conservatives worth following on Twitter, is, quite literally, mentally ill, he naturally doesn’t see why he shouldn’t be able to advocate murdering a man who opposes the violent invasion of the UK by foreigners. Also, a correction – he wasn’t permanently banned, he was only suspended for four days.

Elon Musk is the world’s richest man — a trillionaire, briefly, until a market correction. He and his ideology are also supported by the administration of the most powerful nation on Earth. He is immune to normal social, economic, political, or legal limits. He can use his hugely influential platform to encourage pogroms without social, economic, political, or legal consequences.

It’s simply factual to say, as I did, that the only thing that will stop him is dying. Because my medium was a short Bluesky post, I mentioned him being killed. I suppose it would also stop him if he overdosed on Ketamine or choked on a piece of steak or got ass cancer or crashed one of his vehicles or something. But that would make a long post. Though the post has drawn plenty of criticism, nobody has explained to me how I am wrong about the limited circumstances that will stop him from encouraging racial violence.

I wonder if he would apply that logic to other rich people, particularly those who advocate racial genocide in the Middle East?

Regardless, and presumably because Mr. White is mentally ill, he clearly doesn’t understand that he shares what he believes Mr. Musk’s position to be. By his own logic, if there is no way to stop poor, non-white, downtrodden people from invading the UK and victimizing the English people through normal social, economic, political, or legal means, then the only thing that will stop them is the very fate that he is advocating for Mr. Musk.

Of course, Mr. White’s position isn’t the same as Mr. Musk’s position. Mr. Musk wants those poor, non-white, downtrodden people who are invading the UK, and other countries around the world to be repatriated to their home countries, peacefully and legally. And he is warning people, as I have warned people for more than two decades, that every failure to repatriate the immigrants, refugees, and asylum-seekers will eventually result in large scale violence and war, regardless of whether the country invaded is the UK, Palestine, Germany, Japan, or the United States.

So, ironically, we have a mentally ill individual advocating the killing of someone who is not advocating death for anyone. And, unsurprisingly, Bluesky decided to unsuspend Mr. White after four days, because it is a safe space for mentally ill people who want to be able to publicly advocate the death of public figures on the basis of their positions on social policy in other countries.

Now, I would be remiss if I failed to give Mr. White a chance to defend himself concerning his mental illness.

I’ve made an effort for years to be open and honest about things like depression and anxiety, because I know it’s healthier, and because the social stigma around it should be crushed. This incident resulted, as is often the case, in losers mocking me for being crazy, and slightly more pretentious people obliquely referring to my mental heath. 

Mr. White wishes that we would stop observing that he is, by his own admission, mentally ill, and instead pay attention to the illogical incoherencies and death wishes produced by his mental illness. And, presumably because he is mentally ill, he does not comprehend that doing the latter leads invariably to the former.

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Convergence in the UK

It’s been a little disappointing to me how the concept of convergence I highlighted in SJWs Always Lie never found any traction, because it’s an extremely useful predictive model for institutional failure. And so people continue being surprised when converged institutions do what they always do, and refrain from taking any precautions whatsoever against convergence.

The UK Treasury quietly scrapped its numeracy test because basic math was a “hurdle” for minority candidates.

The people in charge of the nation’s money, debt, taxes, and economic policy decided that competence in numbers was problematic.

This isn’t diversity.

This is institutional self-sabotage.

It is institutional self-sabotage, which is absolutely inevitable in every converged institution. Not likely, not probable, inevitable.

Every converged institution becomes incapable of performing its primary function due to the fact that its priorities no longer include performing those functions.

I think it may be time to start thinking about putting a crowdfund together for SJWs Always Project to see if there is still a significant demand for that.

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A Tale of Two Inevitabilities

The USA bowed to the unavoidable.

The US has finally capitulated in its disastrously failed war against Iran, reportedly drafting a memorandum of understanding which is highly favorable to the Islamic Republic, and gains as concession nothing more than the promise that “Iran will not obtain nuclear weapons”—a position Iran had already long held.

Israel, on the other hand, continued with its strategy of denying reality.

Israel violated the ceasefire in Lebanon yesterday, June 16, carrying out a double-tap strike in Mayfadoun. A vehicle was struck, and the subsequent arrival of medical crews and civilians was then bombed three times. First-Responders were reportedly all killed. Iran then issued a warning to Israel: “Stop attacks in Lebanon or face severe response from Iran.”

At this point, it’s hard to imagine Israel making it to 2048, especially if the USA doesn’t make it to 2033 intact. I don’t think most of the comparisons of Netanyahu with Hitler are reasonable, except for this one: they both appear to be leaders who are sociopathically indifferent to the long-term survival of the nations whose interests they ostensibly represent.

UPDATE: Apparently it’s not just Netanyahu that is in the bunker.

  • “Israel reserves the right to act independently against Iran’s nuclear program” and won’t withdraw from occupied Lebanon, Syria, Gaza and the West Bank, Defense Minister Katz declared.
  • “Trump’s agreement does not bind us,” National Security Minister Ben-Gvir assured.
  • “We will have to continue the campaign to topple the regime ourselves and in creative ways,” Finance Minister Smotrich tweeted.

If they want war, I have no doubt that Iran will give them the war they are literally demanding.

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The Demolition of Disclosure Day

TL;DR: The Boomer’s last boom.

It has been a long time since I walked into a theater and been the youngest guy in it.

Seriously my dude, this bleeding edge Gen-Xer with the bionic eyes and knees was the youngest person in a genuinely full (if not packed) theater. Baby Boomers who hadn’t been in theaters for years showed up in droves for this one. You could tell they hadn’t been near a theater in decades. They were appalled by the ticket prices, a few talked about waiting for it to be in the Dollar Theaters, clearly unaware that those died out with Blockbuster Video. One asked for the smallest popcorn available, which was about the size of a medium soft drink, the irritated retiree said for that price he may as well get the large, which was the entire point since a large popcorn costs as much for them to make as a small.

Once they got over the sticker shock the theater geezers sat down for a movie that they truly enjoyed. They absolutely loved every bit of it. They thought that their favorite director had finally made another movie just for them.

He. Did. Not.

The only person this film was made for is Steven Spielberg… This script that was worked on for years by Steven Spielberg and his long time writing partner David Koepp, isn’t telling a story at all. It’s just setting up an unending series of money-shots. Because at the end of the day that is all the Disclosure Day is script that sets up scenes without a story to tell. It is an unending stream of empty if passionate emotionality. The cinematic equivalent of a drunk at a bar who is convinced that his alcohol soaked peroration is the most profound thing the human race has ever experienced.

I wish I was exaggerating.

I’m not.

The movie is presenting emotionally laden images with some dialog that thinks it’s far more profound than it’s remotely capable of being.

“Empathy is the highest state of existence”. It’s a major theme of this movie and probably the most Boomer sentiment to ever Boomer. A belief that is a tribute to its own semantic emptiness.

I have to admit, I would find it very, very funny if Clown World was actually counting on this as the foundation of their fake alien invasion plan.

We’ve prepped them to believe anything now!

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