asciilifeform: didn't even notice the ad on the barrel until took it apart (pen wouldn't fit through base hole of instrument that needed a plinth drilled to mount it, took out nib)
asciilifeform: (nice thing about 'djvu' is that it automagically decompresses to whatever your native device resolution is, with no scaling op. hence speed.)
asciilifeform might ruminate re: u.s. collapse as an autoimmune pathology, but must go to bed.
asciilifeform: or, the traditional explanation for how italy went from an interesting place to pesthold (unification. warring states - think. unified empire - stagnates)
asciilifeform: the proverbial deer on the island where last wolf dies, etc.
asciilifeform: but this connects here not from the starvation of 'sovietologists', but the dismal fate of every 'coke' who loses his 'pepsi'
asciilifeform recently ran into the fellow who once used to own the place he lives in. the man lamented how his belt tightened when ussr popped - was 'sovietologist' of a kind
asciilifeform: this kind of 'enemy' - you pay, and cherish - because without him, nothing.
asciilifeform: 'feminglish' has a term, 'frienemy', for what is essentially a symbiotic enemy. what's that? see, e.g., microshit bailing out apple corp. in the '90s.
asciilifeform: decimation: are you surprised that the official story has mccain as a bystander ?
asciilifeform: and the above hypothesis concerns one of the mechanisms for disbursing bezzlars in a 'socially acceptable' way.
asciilifeform: problem is solved using a device called a bezzlar.
asciilifeform: (and necessarily subdivide into insignificance or follow primogeniture)
asciilifeform: different point - that the modern 'nobles' finessed the problem of having a finite fiefdom to bequeath
asciilifeform: (and were happy to have this taxed out of existence to zap the 'middle')
asciilifeform: they don't bequeath their fortunes/lands/etc in the traditional way
asciilifeform: this is how the anglo 'nobility' solved the primogeniture problem.
asciilifeform: and in the process, 'merit-washed' bezzlars are distributed into the preordained pockets.
asciilifeform: where a well-born (though not always - gotta have the lumpenbait) hack is carefully groomed, lipstick is put on the sow, is heavily advertised, 'a star' is made
asciilifeform: church (evidently in some other piece, forget which) likens the vc circus to the process whereby american 'pop musicians' are industrially manufactured by, among other outfits, disney corp.☟︎
asciilifeform: though he doesn't appear as a commander
asciilifeform: a more fanciful rumour is that the character 'launchpad mcquack' in disney's 'duck tales' cartoon - who crashes every machine he sits in - was based on herr mccain.
asciilifeform: and may even have destroyed a ship (own goal)
asciilifeform: rumour has it that he crashed virtually every machine he had the misfortune to sit in
asciilifeform: consider the career of, e.g, senator j. mccain.
asciilifeform: 'merit-washing' is a real thing, even if herr church pulled it fortuitously out of own arse
asciilifeform: church's version is more like 'you go to harvard if you're the billionaire's son and need to be merit-washed before being awarded your crown grant - or if you're an idiot, took bait, had parents with good credit'☟︎
asciilifeform can't help but remember that atrocious film, where the last remaining tanker, still full, inhabited by motorcycle (!) gang, which smokes.
asciilifeform: there even exist special grounds devoted to shanty towns where people live in (normally engine-less) trailers.
asciilifeform: (for the psychiatric rumunations re: how & why - straight to herr orlov)
asciilifeform: in that folks will liquidate their dwelling, clothes, etc. - to fuel the beast.
asciilifeform: this scenario actually plays out routinely
asciilifeform: to the point that, ask american, what he will do immediately prior to starving, he'll answer - 'live in car'
asciilifeform: so pretty much everyone imagines that they merit a personal box on wheels, and carries on living the pretense
asciilifeform: can she afford to come over for a fuck >> in usa, transport is massively subsidized (see earlier discussions re: silicon valley & slave labour for why)
asciilifeform: the braindamage is baked in. a hypothetical set of intelligent minions would just despair and fellate their pistols.
asciilifeform: never read grant applications. 'you can't unread it.'
asciilifeform: not a 'sexy' answer. no grantola for decimation.
