If you take a Petri dish, castor oil and some ball bearings and put all in an electric field, you might happen to spot an interesting behavior: self-assembling wires who appear to be almost alive

[📹 Stanford Complexity Group]

Non-standard fittings. An allegory.

http://www.danamania.com/stories/Non-Standard%20Fittings.html

Even if rich people were no more likely to believe stupid shit than you or me, it'd still be a problem. After all, I believe my share of stupid shit (and if you think that none of the shit you believe in is stupid, then I'm afraid we've just identified at least one kind of stupid shit you believe in).

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If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2026/03/09/autocrats-of-trade/#witness-the-firepower-of-this-fully-armed-and-operational-battle-station

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There was another exciting aspect to our hike today.

For years I believed that the Tiny Balancing Sheep breed was just a myth, as I've done so many walks and hikes through the British countryside and never seen one.

But reader, I was mistaken. And I have proof.

@rayckeith He is exactly Batman.

Batman is, canonically, a guy rich enough to fix Gotham city's social problems by feeding the hungry and housing the homeless, who instead invests his money in weapons to beat up those driven to crimes of desperation that his weapon budget could have relieved.