SovietMen

We end up as we are

Posted on 1 Day Ago by Nikolai Vladivostok

When we’re young, life seems much more random than it is.

When I was about twenty, I knew a girl who was ‘rich’ because her grandma left her $20k.

Another guy was ‘lucky’ because when he was working retail in London, a customer walked in who he recognized from the industry he was desperately trying to break into. He gave her his spiel and so impressed her that he received an awesome opportunity right there on the spot.

A third seemed like a loser because a girl rejected him at a party, he got overdrunk, later stayed over at the house and threw up on the corridor carpet, and as he cleaned it up he had to endure the sounds of his cooler friend making love through the adjacent door.

Those moments turn out not to matter very much. What matters is what you do afterwards. Not straight away, but every day, for years.

Repeated behaviour drowns out isolated incidents like these.

You can see it most clearly in areas where behaviour compounds over time.

The Cosiness of the Ring

Posted on 8 Days Ago by Nikolai Vladivostok

**^{Crickhollow by MatejCadil. You can just see the Old Forest over the fence.}**

I have read The Lord of the Rings three times.

The first time I was around eight so I can’t remember much about it, except that I seemed to roughly follow the story and enjoyed it well enough.

The second time I was around fifteen.

I read the book a third time just recently, which inspired this very self-indulgent review.

As a teenager, I found the start of the book extremely slow and dull. ‘Hurry up and leave the Shire!’ I thought. Not to escape the approaching threat, just to start the adventures and to explore Middle Earth. My favourite parts were the set-piece battles where Legolas and Gimli compared their kill tallies. Now this is literature, thought adolescent me.

As a middle-aged man, in contrast, my favourite part is the long, lingering introduction set in the Shire. I would be happy to read a full book set there – just Frodo, Sam and friends hanging out at the pub, talking about gardening, Frodo on solo hikes in the nearby woods having occasional chats with passing elves.

Why the switch?

Who isn’t in the Epstein files?

Posted on 15 Days Ago by Nikolai Vladivostok

^{His theme song, apparently}

There’s a long list of names now connected to Epstein.

I thought it would be interesting to compile a list of elites who had no or barely any connection to him, as least so far as proven by public documents.

See if you can spot any common threads:

Mark Zuckerberg
Jeff Bezos
Warren Buffet
Satya Nadella
Tim Cook
Rupert Murdoch
Oprah Winfrey
Steven Spielberg
Jay-Z
Barak Obama
Joe Biden
George W. Bush
Boris Johnson

What do they all have in common?

If it helps, trying grouping them by category. I’ve already hinted at this in the order.

She’s having nun of it

Posted on 25 Days Ago by Nikolai Vladivostok

Sometimes I read an article and want to talk back to it.

Former Carmelite nun accuses order of abuse at Victorian parliamentary inquiry

Mary Hughes had just turned 17 when she decided to join the Carmelite Monastery in the Melbourne suburb of Kew.

Good for her!

Ms Hughes would spend 60 years with the Carmelites, rising up the ranks to the position of Superior at the Wagga Wagga Carmelite monastery in NSW.

According to Chat, the Superior is the boss of the convent.

But now aged 78, Ms Hughes looks back on her time with the Carmelite monastery as deeply restrictive and a breach of her trust.

But she stayed there her whole life and became the boss?

She told the ABC the order she joined was more strict than others she met in Australia and around the world, which is why she thinks the Melbourne order specifically is a fringe group.

She doesn’t believe they live the “Carmelite life”. Instead, she told a Victorian parliamentary inquiry into cults and fringe groups, she believes the order preyed on her innocence and devout faith.

I hope she didn’t prey on anyone’s innocence and devout faith once she became the Superior herself.

This is like David Miscavige leaving Scientology then complaining to an inquiry that it was abusive.

Unlike some more universally acknowledged cults, Catholic orders have a process if you want out and you can then return to being a normal parishioner.

Books better read old

Posted on 29 Days Ago by Nikolai Vladivostok

**^{The Last Light of Study. Matthijs van der Velde, 1668}**

These days, most nominally free countries restrict racy content to those aged eighteen and older.

There’s no gradation or caveats, just a blanket allowance of everything after a legislated age.

Our rules about sensitive books used to be more complex, and often informal.

In medieval and early modern Europe, theological disputes and skeptical philosophy were frequently limited to clerics, while the most dangerous books were often kept in special libraries only for approved readers.

From the Victorian period on, books were often gate-kept by well-meaning librarians. Women and young men were kept away from novels that might get their juices churning.

Regardless of laws or librarians, some books are best read once you’re older – age 30 is a good cut-off. Here are a few examples:

Word from the Dark Side – a Dilbert fan, a troubled young man, a lacking plan, and against life in a van

Posted on February 28 by Nikolai Vladivostok

The Dilbert Afterlife

Thanks to everyone who sent in condolences on my recent death from prostate cancer at age 68, but that was Scott Adams. I (Scott Alexander) am still alive1.

Still, the condolences are appreciated. Scott Adams was a surprisingly big part of my life. I may be the only person to have read every Dilbert book before graduating elementary school. For some reason, 10-year-old-Scott found Adams’ stories of time-wasting meetings and pointy-haired bosses hilarious. No doubt some of the attraction came from a more-than-passing resemblance between Dilbert’s nameless corporation and the California public school system. We’re all inmates in prisons with different names.

But it would be insufficiently ambitious to stop there. Adams’ comics were about the nerd experience. About being cleverer than everyone else, not just in the sense of being high IQ, but in the sense of being the only sane man in a crazy world where everyone else spends their days listening to overpaid consultants drone on about mission statements instead of doing anything useful. There’s an arc in Dilbert where the boss disappears for a few weeks and the engineers get to manage their own time. Productivity shoots up. Morale soars. They invent warp drives and time machines. Then the boss returns, and they’re back to being chronically behind schedule and over budget. This is the nerd outlook in a nutshell: if I ran the circus, there’d be some changes around here.

Yet the other half of the nerd experience is: for some reason this never works.

I am 25 and I did everything right

Thus Spake Carney

Posted on February 25 by Nikolai Vladivostok

A few things strike me:

He’s shitting himself
He’s right
American criticisms of Canada and other allies are also largely right
The fawning over this speech is mostly TDS
It is good strategy, but it would have been better strategy not to say it out loud

What’s happening in the western alliance today is nothing new, historically. We’re seeing a hegemon become unreliable and even threatening, the latter only in a theatrical way this time around.

As it’s a known pattern, there’s a known response: quietly hedge.

In the present case, that means finding alternative trade partners, building parallel alliances and diversifying supply chains. This reduces dependence on the wavering hegemon and provides room to move in an emergency.

The idea isn’t for middle powers to gang up on the hegemon, as some have misconstrued. It’s to ensure there are worse but hopefully sufficient options available if, in the present case, the US imposes a trade war or fails to assist in a kinetic war.

The things Carney says are rational and time-proven countermoves for middle powers in this sort of situation.

However, he misses a vital element of the strategy: you’re supposed to do it quietly!

Word from the Dark Side – new concepts for 2026, Chads and their replicable tricks, why we’re really losing to chicks, and population stats need a fix

Posted on February 22 by Nikolai Vladivostok

26 Useful Concepts for 2026

Shower Test:

We’re socially conditioned to chase what we think everyone else wants. But your true heart’s desire can often be found in the thoughts you gravitate to while undistracted, such as in the shower. As Walt Whitman said, “If you want to know where your heart is, look to where your mind goes when it wanders.”

Eustress:

People have more comforts and conveniences than ever, yet reports of unhappiness are at an all-time high. One reason is that discomfort isn’t an obstacle to happiness, it’s the path to it, for it’s only by enduring struggles that we develop the resilience necessary for lasting contentment.

The second is true for me.

Loserdemic

Why I went

Posted on February 18 by Nikolai Vladivostok

Though my life has been full of surprises, one thing that doesn’t surprise me is that I ended up living overseas, in a place totally different than where I come from.

Some time around age 20, I formed a determination to move permanently overseas. I instinctively desired a complete reset from all that had been before.

All of a sudden, it occurred to me that I had no future in Australia and would leave for good. I’d often daydream about the time I’d be far, far away. This conviction came with a certainty that normally arrives only after deep reflection, but there hadn’t been any.

It would take decades for me to fully figure out why.

I knew with similar sureness that I wouldn’t be going to one of the usual Aussie expat destinations like London or LA. No, that would be too similar to everything I was fleeing. It would have to be extremely different. Zambia, maybe. Ecuador.

An exotic name and a cocoon of hardship were the main criteria.

‘Fleeing,’ you say? Fleeing what?

Word from the Dark Side – Canada can’t fight, PUA sees the light, an aging fright but everything’s gunna be alright

Posted on February 14 by Nikolai Vladivostok

^{When we were kids, my older cousin told me that this singer later killed himself. Not true; he’s still kicking. What a thing to say.}

The Canadian Political Class Is Ideologically Incapable of Rebuilding The Military

A recent Angus Reid poll found that there is broad support for conscription … but only amongst those parts of the population who wouldn’t be forced to serve. The young men who would actually be made slaves of the state are generally against the idea. Young women (along with, to be fair, women of every age but the elderly) are overwhelmingly opposed to the idea, no doubt in part because they sense that conscription in a feminist society would scoop up as many women as men, and whatever they say about equality, women are not, in general, eager to crawl around in the mud while .50 cal rounds zip over their heads…

On the same day that the ambition to get 400,000 Canadians into uniform was leaked, the First Woman To Be the Chief of Defence Staff, Gen Jennie Carignan, attended a ceremony of apology for the CAF’s history of systemic racism and racial discrimination. Gen Carignan broke down in tears at the lectern, overcome by the numinous ecstasy of the Spirit of Saint Floyd washing her soul clean of sin…

Back to the weeping general. She has an interesting backstory. Following her elevation to the apex of the military chain of command, RUMINT2 surfaced to the effect that she had demonstrated cowardice in the face of the enemy. The story goes that in 2019 she was deployed to Iraq, where she was placed in charge of a NATO training school. In January 2020 her position came under rocket fire and she panicked, had her luggage (including a collection of carpets she’d purchased) packed aboard a helicopter, and attempted to evacuate the base before the troops, thereby earning her the designation “Iraqi Evaci”. Her attempted desertion was supposedly stopped at the last minute by a senior American general, who chewed her out and ordered her back to her post. Shortly after that she was relieved of her command and returned to sender, only to be promoted a few months later to take the newly created position of head of “Chief Professional Conduct and Culture” … informally known to the troops as the DEI division…

Reinvigorating Canadians’ willingness to serve their country and rebuilding Canada’s military into a force that can win wars would both require the Canadian political class to repudiate the ideological territory of globalism, feminism, multiculturalism, mass immigration, and gender-bothering that they have made themselves synonymous with. However, they can’t reverse course without discrediting themselves, and so, they won’t.

It’s a long article with much more along those lines – highly entertaining and disturbing. I encourage you to read it in full. Seems relevant to our last post. And there’s one more Canada post to come! Something from Degrassi High must have stuck. I wonder if they get Home and Away over there. Hope not.

i’m obsessed with women and tired of pretending i’m not

In high school, all I wanted was a girlfriend.

Canada will never join the United States

Posted on February 10 by Nikolai Vladivostok

It couldn’t even if it wanted to.

The same goes for Australia and New Zealand.

While Trump trolls that Canada should become the ‘fifty-first state’, if annexed it would actually become the fifty-first through sixtieth states, based on population.

That would mean 53 house seats, 18 senators and 71 electoral votes.

The rusted-on American Republicans in the audience suddenly got very quiet.

Add Australia? Seven states, 34 house seats, 14 senators and 48 electoral votes.

Word from the Dark Side – don’t baby me, China can’t be free, defining he and she, and pay the weird a fee

Posted on February 7 by Nikolai Vladivostok

People prefer bigotry to infantilization

Whether it’s a bug or a feature of our psychology, a lot of men would rather prefer an honorable enemy — a person who might hate you, but nevertheless takes you seriously — than someone who might ostensibly be on your side, but actually treats you like a child.

Not to overstate my case, but I really do think this is one of the central facets of a lot of divides — both in the political sphere, and the gender sphere. Take the No Kings rally, for example. Once more, it’s ironic; the protests were filled with geriatrics, and yet the whole atmosphere looks… childish..

Additionally, it’s one of the central features of male flight in certain domains. As the Overton window of acceptable discourse narrows, men feel increasingly stifled by the childishness of the atmosphere. As a result, they can either tell everyone else to grow up, or they can leave. Most men save themselves the headache, and choose the latter.

Why China Cannot Liberalize

How the US could actually deal with its debt

Posted on February 4 by Nikolai Vladivostok

There are mirror myths about the US debt on the left and right.

The left believes that all it would take is to stop spending such huge amounts on the military. This was my view until recently.

As we saw in a recent post, even cutting back so much that the US is only a regional power would not save enough to seriously cut into the national debt, because most spending goes to Social Security, Medicare and interest payments.

The right’s corresponding myth is that that entitlements and superpower status can both be maintained if only waste and fraud are cut. Unfortunately, even the most optimistic estimates put such savings at around $150 billion per year, when the annual deficit is running at $1.5 to 2 trillion per year. It’s tricky (see Elon’s efforts), increased paperwork is unpopular, and enforcement costs eat up some of the savings. Plus the fraudsters get a vote too, so they often adapt and find new ways to steal.

Here is a brief list of other ineffective ways to deal with the US national debt, which is currently at about 120% of GDP:

Slashing Social Security and Medicare

Mathematically it works, but politically it doesn’t. Older voters hold massive sway.

You couldn’t even sneak it in, either. The budget savings would take decades to be felt, while the political effects would be felt at the next election, likely leading to a retreat.

Tariffs

Word from the Dark Side – before you start caring, we’re becoming less daring, how the rich are faring, and the sperm hunters are despairing

Posted on January 30 by Nikolai Vladivostok

Welcome to this week’s roundup of interesting things from around the traps.

What to Ask Yourself Before you Start Caring

In my teens and early 20s I cared about a lot of stuff. I’d scroll the news, find something worthy of outrage, and turn to someone nearby to say “You see this?? Mitt Romney’s really done it now!”. The bus driver would then nod politely and gesture for me to take a seat. Frankly, it was a time of much tutting and reacting with not a lot to show for it…

…cutthroat realism might sound like you’re throwing your hands up and letting the world walk all over you – but in reality it does the opposite. Most people that care about everything do nothing. They get riled up and outraged about the new hot topic, before forgetting about it and ranting about the next. There’s no strategy to their action because they’re always having their attention pulled in every which way. They can’t focus on anything long enough for them to gain any sort of traction. It’s all just Facebook statuses and tense family dinners.

The Decline of Deviance: Where has all the weirdness gone?

Should the US bother to fix its national debt?

Posted on January 28 by Nikolai Vladivostok

Superpowers, like people, get into financial strife gradually, then all at once.

Debt can creep up for decades without any apparent ill-effect because credit-worthiness remains strong.

So long as you can make the interest payments and everyone believes that you will continue to do so, an eye-popping national debt-to-GDP ratio (say, 120%) matters less that credibility.

If left too long, however, things tighten. Stimulus becomes difficult in a recession, for example one caused by an AI bubble bursting, making the downturn longer and recovery weaker. Spending everywhere becomes tighter.

The big problems begin when investors become yippy about US bonds and start demanding risk premiums. If they think the risk has risen from almost zero to something meaningfully over zero (due to the possibility of either high inflation or debt-ceiling brinkmanship in Congress), they’ll demand higher yields, shorter maturities, or inflation protection.

Then you can get into a doom loop: higher rates → higher interest costs → larger deficits → more issuance → higher rates…

Word from the Dark Side – people listen to authority, violence popularity, high status now minority, and being killed off by the safety priority

Posted on January 23 by Nikolai Vladivostok

^{You might like this}

This week’s roundup of interesting things from around the traps

People Listen to Public Health Authorities

In one sense, this is heartening: we are finally turning a corner on peanut allergy! In another, it’s alarming. People can be convinced to follow correct advice, but they’ll also gladly follow advice that’s unfounded and incorrect if it seems to have authority behind it. We know this is definitely true for nutrition, where people will follow advice even when it likely does nothing but waste money.

Related: Everything you know is wrong

My gripe is that governments and experts seem to go off half-cocked in around 80% of cases. The only advice that’s held up well over the last 50 years is to do some exercise and eat your veggies.

If you’re going to engage in any public health interventions that will change how millions of people live, you’d better be sure.

Can We Arrest Fox News Hosts for Disinformation? Here’s What the Law Actually Allows

The Greenlander Question

Posted on January 21 by Nikolai Vladivostok

One must approach retail politics with caution, because if you stare too long into the stupidity, the stupidity stares back into you.

Today, I dare to analyze the Greenland kerfuffle only because interesting facts emerge that have broader relevance.

Like a fool, I first tried to interpret the Chaotic Neutral Orange Man’s motivations from a logical standpoint:

He wants to trick Europeans into contributing more to their own defence! Look, they’re sending troops to Greenland already! 4D chess!

But then he threatens to tariff them for doing that.

Word from the Dark Side – All Apologies, hostile technologies, police recruiting atrocities and demon cosmologies

Posted on January 17 by Nikolai Vladivostok

^{He would have developed into a good songwriter had he avoided the 27 Club}

Today in history, January 15: Australia’s London Bridge fell down

Girl named Sue

Posted on January 7 by Nikolai Vladivostok

Many spins around the sun ago, I was out on the town with my Oz girlfriend and a mixed group of her friends.

One of them, an average-looking Asian girl called Sue, wanted to drop in on a well-known pub in a flash area because there was a guy hanging out there who she was besotted with.

I had not theretofore known that some men were so alluring that women would go out of their way to be near them – my experience had all been the other way around – so I was keen to lay eyes on him.

Word from the Dark Side – Tender is the Night, some bureaucratic light, Huawei looks alright and the Indian hotel fight

Posted on January 3 by Nikolai Vladivostok

China to regulate CEO romance micro dramas, warns against content promoting materialism, flaunting of wealth: report

The creators should avoid wrapping absurd stories under the guise of realism and using absurd artistic techniques as an excuse to fabricate overly bizarre plots that lack genuine value, Guangdianshijie said, as such practices could distort the public’s perception of Chinese entrepreneurs and harm the profile of the entrepreneurial community.

The guidelines said creators should tell the stories of Chinese entrepreneurs from both history and contemporary times, rather than being limited to themes of romantic entanglements and family disputes, noting that in particular, creators should avoid promoting marriage concepts that clinging to the powerful, wealthy individuals and families.

The guidelines pointed out that management of CEO romance micro dramas should be strengthened. Specific measures include reducing the quantity, improving the quality, and avoiding the use of terms like “domineering CEO” as appealing titles to attract viewers.

Are ‘domineered CEOs’ like their minataurs?

By the way, are your beloved women also watching those AI-generated short dramas now?