We already live in a post-scarcity society

We already live in a post-scarcity society. By Nic Carter, from the USA.

UBI [universal basic income] is already here.

  • Basic package: disability, medicaid, food stamps etc.
  • Bonus package: literally getting paid for staying at home and hanging out with your relatives.
  • Extra bonus: if you are willing to commit fraud, pretend your kids are autistic and get paid for that. get paid for watching your neighbor’s kid. pretend you are taking care of your grandma. fake hospice clinic. fake rehab clinic. fake therapy clinic.
  • Giga bonus: during a time of crisis take advantage of PPP or CARES and open a fake business and get paid for existing

People are shocked when they learn that defense is the FIFTH largest line item in the budget. ahead of defense: social security ($1.6T), interest on debt ($1.1T) medicare ($1T), medicaid + ACA ($1T), AND THEN defense ($0.9T)

Complain about defense all you like, but healthcare fraud is a way bigger factor. hundreds of billions per year.

This is only going to get worse, because the fraud is a structural part of the system — payouts to client groups in exchange for votes (normally D).

So few actual workers:

In the US, only 47% of the population actually works (fully 14% of the population is working age and does not work). Retirees are 18% and children 22%.

The system I described above subsidizes 50m non-working people absolute minimum, but really it’s far more because people that are paid to stay home and take care of their relatives are considered “workers”.

Of that 47% of “actual workers” maybe one third does real work, the rest are shuffling papers around or doing fake email jobs. so you have, rough math, 50 million actual workers supporting 300 million dependents. … Eventually you will have 10 million using AI tools to do all the work and 340 million dependents.

Fraud and politics:

The reason no one roots out the fraud is because it’s the system that keeps our extremely fragile polity intact. …

Of course, it’s a deeply unfair system, because you are allowed to commit fraud if you are a politically protected client group of the democrats.

DOGE was killed faster than any government program ever, because it attempted to root out the fraud. If you are honest and unwilling to commit fraud, you are a huge loser in this system.

  • Your neighbor will have their mortgage subsidized by some government program.
  • They will get favorable SBA loans due to DEI.
  • They will open a fake hospice or autism clinic.
  • They will get paid for taking care of their neighbor’s kid and vice versa.

The primary skill in the labor market is learning how to extract money from state and federal government programs, not gaining skills or making yourself employable. If you are just trying to work an ordinary wagie job you are a huge sucker. you are paying 40-50% effective all in taxes to everyone else who is a net taker.

The sad part is because AI is such a substantial productivity boost, it will actually keep this system going for a while longer, and maybe in perpetuity. AI boosts the 15% of the population that is actually productive so much that the remaining 85% can coast by.

No one in charge will change this because they can’t think of anything else. The political costs of a real UBI program are too great and we don’t have the money for it anyway. So, we will keep this covert fraud-based UBI program running indefinitely. Unfortunately, if you are an honest wagie, you lose.

Elon Musk:

Pretty accurate.

Grok:

The U.S. already has a de facto, fraud-enabled “covert UBI” that subsidizes non-work through welfare programs, especially healthcare and pandemic-era relief. This system is politically entrenched as clientelism (gibs-for-votes), distorts labor markets, punishes honest workers with high effective taxes, and will be sustained indefinitely by AI-driven productivity gains from a shrinking productive core.

Imagine how low tax rates would be if all the fraud was eliminated.

Hastie leads

Hastie leads. By Noah Yim in The Australian, quoting from a recent interview of Andrew Hastie:

“A lot of Australians feel like the system is rigged against them.

“They don’t feel like aspiration matters anymore. They don’t see reward for their effort. A lot of them have lost hope completely of ever owning their own home.

“I think as a dad of three kids aged 10, 8 and 4, do my wife and I need to start planning for them to get into a home rather than my own retirement?”

Mr Hastie told his own party that this kind of thinking, that could buck Liberal Party orthodoxy, was necessary for the party’s survival.

“(The Liberal Party) got smashed in 2022,” he said. “We got smashed in 2025.

“Our primary vote is being cannibalised from both the right and the left.

“So I think adopting a posture of humility and being open minded is important, not being reactive.” …

Many corporates have become globalist and woke (they had to, or else the bureaucrats would make life difficult for them):

“The Liberal Party is not the first line of defence for corporate Australia,” he told the ABC’s Insiders program.

“I think multinationals and big business in this country have lost their social licence”.

“They’ve made no effort to recover it.”

Andrew Hastie is a breath of fresh air in Federal politics. Principles! Ideas! Changing directions! We haven’t had that spirit in such abundance since perhaps Bob Hawke.

Perhaps the Liberal Party chose the wrong leader in Angus Taylor, who so far has shown little connection to middle and lower Australia or shown he understands the urgent need to cut way back on immigration.

Modern Leftist Thinking: All leftist causes converged on Antisemitism, and “Islamophobe” became the worst possible insult

Modern Leftist Thinking: All leftist causes converged on Antisemitism, and “Islamophobe” became the worst possible insult. By Nora Bussigny at The Free Press.

Nora went undercover to investigate feminist, LGBTQ+, and anti-racist activist circles in France.

I was curious: How would they respond to the mass murder and rape perpetrated by terrorists on October 7? What I found wasn’t just embarrassed silence, but genuine scenes of joy, expressed shamelessly to their tens of thousands of followers. “Finally, the colonized rebel against the colonizer!” “Finally, the oppressed fight back against the oppressor!”… “In the war between colonizers and the colonized, we must support (without hesitation) the side of the colonized. #FreePalestine.” …

The various lefty activist causes finally united and converged — on antisemitism!

A political and activist left that had spent years aspiring to a “convergence of struggles” was finally uniting. That convergence rested on a common enemy. A figure whose mutual hatred binds them together. That figure was the Jew — or rather, the “Zionist.”

I watched this shared hatred of the Jew bring together Islamist preachers, supporters of the Islamic Republic of Iran, feminist and LGBTQ+ militants, radical ecologists, and anti-police activists—all in the name of a fight “against Zionism, the United States, the West, and imperialism.”

Something extraordinary was happening. So, I went back in. For over a year, from January 2024 to March 2025, I participated undercover in dozens of demonstrations, discussion groups, and militant actions by anti-Israel collectives in France. I visited university campuses in my country, but also L’université Libre de Bruxelles and Columbia University in New York, to understand how legitimate empathy for Palestinian civilians is being instrumentalized by militants linked to terrorist organizations and the Islamic Republic of Iran.

What I observed is how a mutual hatred for the West, the United States, imperialism, and Israel have coalesced around a cause that has become the ultimate cause par excellence: Palestine — one for which its devout followers are prepared to do anything. …

What the lefties are thinking:

I began talking with people — more than 100 over the course of the year. I discovered a wide variety of backgrounds. Many of them, often students, did not always hold particularly radical views …

They had grown up learning about and seeing images of the hundreds of French people killed by Islamist terrorism. And yet, it became clear through my conversations with them that they now considered something to be worse than Islamist terrorism: being accused, as white people, of “Islamophobia.”

For the word Islamophobe is the accusation they use most often, and the one against which they defend themselves with the greatest panic and vehemence whenever suspicion falls on one of them. Shortly after an Islamist murdered history teacher Dominique Bernard on October 13, 2023, for example, a tribute was held in his honor at one of France’s most prestigious university’s, Sciences Po. Organized by students, the tribute — in the form of posters — honored the professor, as well as Samuel Paty, another history teacher murdered by an Islamist. “A student walked past us, lost her temper, and yelled at us, calling us Islamophobes and racists,” several students, still in shock, told me.

Their desire to avoid that accusation justified all concessions — including supporting “Palestinian resistance” at all costs. This is how terrorist acts become not things to condemn, but militant commitments to be cheered on in the name of “deconstructing one’s privileges.”

I participated in conversations in which activists — who proclaimed themselves deeply committed to believing all sexual violence victims — expressed doubt about the veracity of rapes committed by Hamas against Israeli women on October 7. Worse still, some female activists claimed that “Hamas responded in accordance with its culture.” Even those who believed the victims fiercely denied the antisemitic nature of the rapes: “This is not an antisemitic rape; it is patriarchal, because it is inherent to men to rape women,” explained one activist during a feminist demonstration. …

The slogan of the event I attended was: “Algeria has won, Palestine will win.” The community hall was packed to the brim: There were about a hundred people in attendance — families proud to represent the “diversity of the suburbs,” but also white students with keffiyehs tied around their necks. The students were diligently taking notes, and one of them proudly explained that he was studying “colonial history” in college. They told me their family history was finally making sense: They were not merely children of Algerian immigrants; they were becoming “children of Gaza.” …

Fanaticism:

Then, one activist’s monologue galvanized the room: “This is the very essence of resistance: You will kill 10 of our men for every one of yours we kill, but you will be the ones to tire first! You shoot down a leader and he falls as a martyr, and we will have 10 more candidates. Ten fighter martyrs will fall; a thousand more will rise. You can kill the head, but you will not sever the resistance from its soil. The Palestinians will resist to the end! And as long as the land of Palestine is occupied, the Palestinians will rise. With or without arms. With or without legs. With or without children. With or without parents. The land of Palestine belongs to those who fight for it — the Palestinians!”

The activists’ position was clear: Empathy for Palestinian civilians is not enough. One must provide unwavering support for the Palestinian cause, which means supporting the way Palestinians have chosen to express it — and thus supporting Sinwar and Hamas. As privileged white people, the argument went, we had no right to judge how an oppressed people chooses to defend itself; we can only support them in their “legitimate” struggle for justice.

This fanaticism animated the movement. And as I swiftly learned, everything was subordinated to it — including long-standing progressive principles.

During my year undercover, I participated in a series of feminist demonstrations. Over and over again, I watched as demonstrators banned and attacked feminist activists who wanted to speak out for Israeli women victimized by Hamas. On March 8, 2024, Jewish women were pelted with broken glass and had to be evacuated for their safety from the International Women’s Day march in Paris. A year later, on March 8, 2025, Samidoun and other groups, with the approval of feminist organizations, set up a human blockade in Paris to prevent Jewish feminists and Iranian women there to support them from joining the procession. …

Originally, I tried to reason with the activists, attempting to explain to them that these women were not “far right.” “Yes, but it’s the same thing—they’re Zionists,” I was told. To avoid being discovered, I had to shout these slogans alongside my comrades: “Zionists, fascists, you are the terrorists!” “No Zionists in our marches!”  …

All of this sounds — and is — baffling. But the justification is simple: Because feminism is part of the progressive omnicause, it must also be decolonial, so it must back the Palestinian resistance in its fight against Israeli colonization. Anyone who opposes Palestine is thus an enemy of the feminist cause. And so, every insult hurled at feminist activists is justified — so long as those feminists are “Zionists.” …

Palestine has become the rallying cry of the progressive left — in my country, and across the world. And the fanaticism of the movement has justified violence, rape apologia, and terrorist adulation — because, of course, “resistance is justified when people are occupied.”

Australia’s Fuel Supply In The Long Term

Australia’s Fuel Supply In The Long Term. By David Archibald.

To recap, back in the 1950s it was realised that our fossil fuel endowment would be exhausted one day and nuclear power would have to be commercialised to maintain civilisation at the level to which we have become accustomed. Shell Oil geologist King Hubbert worried about civilisation’s ‘margin of safety’ in getting the right nuclear technology sorted before fossil fuels ran out. There has no real progress in nuclear technology since Congress killed the breeder reactor project in 1983.

 

 

Peak oil was expected to happen in 2005. LNG receiving terminals were being built on the US Gulf Coast to import the natural gas that would be needed. Instead, the US shale oil boom started, the LNG receiving terminals were converted into export terminals and the civilisational party went on for another 20 years. The shale bounty was squandered. The oil price is rising again with the peak in US oil production, overprinted by localised shortages due to reliance on supply from the Middle East.

The short-term solution is to build coal liquefaction plants. But we know that our coal endowment will run out, and natural gas before that. Lack of alternatives will force us to the right solution in the end; our only choice is how much pain we endure in the interim. …

Liquid hydrocarbons are irreplaceable in terms of energy density and convenience of handling. We have lot s of coal. So, coal-to-liquids is the obvious future:

There are two choices in coal liquefaction processes: Bergius and Fischer-Tropsch, both invented in Germany in the 1910s.

In the Bergius process, hydrogen is forced into coal molecules at a temperature of 450˚C and a pressure of 170 kg/cm2 (165 atmospheres or 2,420 psi).

The Fischer-Tropsch process burns coal in pure oxygen to produce a synthesis gas that is catalysed to long chain hydrocarbons in an oil bath. Bergius is the better process. In WW2, German synthetic fuel production was dominantly via the Bergius process:

 

 

Cost per liter of a Bergius plant? About A$1.21 per liter (~US$135 per barrel).

The wholesale price is affordable. What about the capital cost per consumer? The drive-away price of a Toyota Corolla Hybrid is $37,000. Its fuel consumption rate is 25 kilometres per litre. If the vehicle does the normal 20,000 km per year, that is 800 litres to get there. The capital cost of a litre of annual production is $2.63. If we multiply that by the 800 litres of fuel consumption per annum, the Corolla’s share of the cost of the Bergius plant to supply it is $2,100. This is 5.7% of the drive-away price, less than the cost of a refrigerator or some TVs, and a fraction of the $8,000 you can pay for extra trim for the Corolla. Car buyers should be given the option of buying a perpetual fuel supply for their vehicles.

It is the same story with wheat-growing. Medium-rainfall country in the WA wheatbelt is currently selling for $7,500 per hectare. Each hectare is expected to produce 2.5 tonnes of wheat per hectare, using 15 litres of diesel per tonne in no-till cropping, equating to 38 litres per hectare.

At the moment, that diesel supply is on a hand-to-mouth basis. The farmer might get his crop in, but will there be diesel for sale come harvest? To reduce risk he could buy in the diesel for harvest at the time of planting and keep it in tanks on the farm. Better yet, he could guarantee supply in perpetuity by paying $2.63 per annual litre of production from a Bergius plant for an outlay of $100 per hectare, increasing his capital outlay by 1.3%. The cost of disruption is far, far greater than the outlay for fuel supply to the farm. The same is true for mining, trucking and all the other activities of productive people. And it applies to aircraft:

 

 

China has supplied 30% of Australia’s jet fuel consumption. It was stupid to get ourselves into that situation. We could be making all the jet fuel we need ourselves. … Everyone else on the planet is now aware of just how stupid Australia has been on this subject. This is a recent headline:

 

 

… Bergius plants are the near-term solution. Longer term it will always be nuclear, specifically lead-cooled or molten-salt cooled breeder reactors (sodium is too messy).

How many missiles does Iran have left?

How many missiles does Iran have left? By George Grylls in The Australian.

At the beginning of the conflict with Israel and the US, Iran had about 2500 ballistic missiles that could be fired from the back of trucks or from underground silos, according to the Alma Research Centre, an Israeli think tank.

That has been reduced to about 1000 missiles, it estimates in a new report. …

From launching dozens of ballistic missiles a day at the start of the three-week conflict, Tehran’s firing rate has dropped significantly. Now Iran is attacking Israel with about 10 missiles a day, suggesting that nearly a month of US and Israeli airstrikes has reduced Tehran’s ability to carry out retaliatory strikes. …

Iran can build more than a hundred a month:

Alma assesses that at the end of the 12-day war last year Iran was left with about 1500 missiles, but in the eight months that followed it was able to manufacture another 1000.

Or at least they could before the US and Israeli air-forces went after their manufacturing capabilities.

Hawks and doves got Iran wrong

Hawks and doves got Iran wrong. By Walter Russel Mead in The Australian.

As the latest Gulf war intensifies and its economic consequences grow, two things seem clear. First, many Iran doves seriously underestimated the risks and costs of attempting to coexist with the regime. Second, many Iran hawks seriously underestimated the risks and costs of opposing Tehran’s drive for regional hegemony through military action. The result is a war that is more necessary than doves thought and harder to wage than hawks supposed.

Iran doves in past US administrations hoped that a mix of conciliation and deterrence would allow America to coexist with Iran. Those hopes reflected confidence that Iran’s sophisticated civil society would ultimately either overthrow the Islamic Republic or drive its evolution in a more moderate direction. …

The commitment of Tehran’s rulers to dominate the Gulf made long-term coexistence between Washington and the mullahs impossible. The Iranian regime was committed to a revolutionary religious vision and determined on economic and geopolitical grounds to seize control of the Gulf region to become a world power. Tehran was hellbent on developing military capabilities and networks that, at some point, would pose unacceptable threats to free navigation of the Gulf – and of global access to its fossil fuels and other commodities. …

So here we are. Despite military successes by air and sea, Israel and the US have so far been unable to keep the Gulf open or to protect the Gulf states from Iranian attacks. …

Internationally, allied recognition that American forces are defending a vital waterway on which their economies depend struggles with public distaste for the American President and doubts about his will and ability to win.

So far, the notion that Trump is taking his time in order to build leverage on the Europeans to go along with all his maritime plans is looking good.

Stop just blaming women for low birth rates — their partners aren’t exactly inspiring

Stop just blaming women for low birth rates — their partners aren’t exactly inspiring. By Poppy Sowerby at UnHerd.

Actual researchers had spent more than 10 seconds thinking about the sexual marketplace and discovered that the Zoomer men expected to sire the next generation were not exactly up to snuff….

Our future baby daddies were both desperately unprepared and desperately unprepossessing as potential mates. This delayed maturation of today’s men means that their adolescence now extends well into their twenties. “The average age of leaving home for a young man sits at 25, three years older than for young women.”

Of course, women often also find themselves in a state of suspended adolescence, reliant on parental funds and living in godforsaken houseshares with collections of cuddly toys — but the report found that male “readiness” for children was a critical factor for those women who were ready themselves. Its suggestions make perfect sense: “Start adulthood earlier — especially for men.” Reduce the school leaving age and the number of young people in higher education; get them, and especially the blokes — who are increasingly festering into a cohort of NEETs [Not in Education, Employment or Training] — into the workforce.

Parental dependence is emasculating, off-putting and disastrous for self-esteem; politicians who are quick to point the finger at feminism for driving women to look for baby substitutes at cat shelters should only be taken seriously when they consider the problem of male listlessness. Much effort has been expended on the project of “changing women’s minds” about having babies — but when we already know we want them, it’s time to start considering what, or who, is getting in the way.

For Zoomettes, the banquet of potential partners cheffed up by the NEET pandemic is unappetising indeed. Directionless dolts clog up dating apps, offering non-committal porn-infected sex interrupted by the periodic flushing of the loo by one of ten thousand housemates in his Flatbush flatshare. If you were us, would you have his child?

My suspicion is that many more women would be more receptive to the delights of family life if the pick of husbands weren’t limply balding their way through their thirties until their bands “really take off”. The thought often occurs to me when I run into other women picking up their contraceptives from the pharmacy. Who’d do otherwise? After all, if you’re dating a man whose lifestyle is essentially unchanged since their teens, his suggestion that you have a baby is like a 10-year-old telling you they really really really want a puppy. Who’s gonna be doing all the work?

We are all to blame for tanking birth rates — and we will all suffer the consequences. But the tradition of giving women a kicking as the perpetrators is looking shabbier by the day. …

It’s not that young women today don’t want children — ask them … and you’ll realise they do. It’s that they would be foolish to centre their lives around wanting them when the pool of potential partners is so desperately dank. Any government serious about helping those women who do want to become mothers must give up their “this-is-what-a-feminist-looks-like” act and stop being squeamish about pro-maternal policy. There is nothing anti-feminist about bringing about conditions in which women who want children end up having them; the radical solution is to stop yelling at we twentysomethings and lick the leagues of would-be fathers into shape first.

Would Daniella Kruger want Mr Neet McNojob sulking around her house amid a rising pile of nappies? Me neither.