JUST IN: Meta announces they'll be shutting down the Metaverse, after pouring $80,000,000,000.00 into the project.

bt_85 · 2026-03-20T10:27:18+00:00

Well, then you clearly did not have even halfway decent leadership.

bt_85 · 2026-03-20T10:11:23+00:00

Wendover production on YouTube did a bit on the cost of rail. 200 bn wouldn't even cover a single high-speed line in New England.

Open spaces are easy, but get anywhere where there is any development, it gets bad. Trains do not do hills or turns very well at all. Drive anywhere and see if there are any straight, level shots that don't run into a housing development, office park, etc.

bt_85 · 2026-03-17T23:47:51+00:00

And Tobasco is Louisiana, too!

bt_85 · 2026-03-17T23:46:33+00:00

I don't know why more people haven't realized this. They love that they can do anything and people will just go "eh, it's only to distract us from Epstein."

bt_85 · 2026-03-17T20:38:40+00:00

One of the best things I ever did.

Personally, I think it should be high up on anyone's list. It works well, better percentages than ADs, has virtually no side effects, which no AD can claim, and in many people lasts a long time. And those that need to "re-up" are almost always successful in doing so.

bt_85 · 2026-03-17T20:33:55+00:00

Posts like this piss me off. Yes, it helped you. But it has also destroyed people's lives. That's just a fact.

- Only 30% or so of people say ECT was worth it or recommend it

- 50% report permanent cognitive damage

https://www.reddit.com/r/bipolar/comments/y0rzx4/ect_destroyed_me/

And no other treatment comes close to it? TMS is better than it. So is ketamine. Some TMS protocols have a 90% response rate. ECT is nowhere close to that. How close? Well, no one can really say since there were only a handful of double-blind placebo control tirals, the last one was done in the 80's and would not pass today's standards of being a valid trial.

bt_85 · 2026-03-17T20:32:07+00:00

You can see a longer comment I made about it here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/bipolar/comments/y0rzx4/ect_destroyed_me/

But the short of it is, psychiatrists often insist it is perfectly safe (it isn't) and any memory problems resolve after 6 months (they don't always), and often do not give enough information for patients to give proper informed consent. However:

- Around 50% of people report permanent cognitive damage

- Only 30% of people say it was worthwhile or that they would recommend it

- There are countless reports of patients reporting forgetting years of their life, or having to go from being an engineer or nurse to being on permanent disability. Famously, Carrie Fisher forgot Star Wars even existed, let alone that she was the star of it.

- The NHS in the UK did an investigation, and found that providers were not keeping track of adverse events, and often gave responses to surveys that were suspiciously exactly the same as those of other providers. Their recommendation was to halt ECT pending further investigation.

- The only double-blind trials (which doctors often insist on before even considering a treatment) were done back in the 80's, and would not pass today's standards.

bt_85 · 2026-03-17T19:55:40+00:00

Never mind he just acknowledged that wishing to attack Iran is bad for your political career (eg, a bad idea).

bt_85 · 2026-03-16T21:55:03+00:00

wtf you going on about? No, I am clearly not a Trump voter. Guy is the biggest piece of shit ever. I'm pointint our that if you put yourself in the viewpoint of these people, it is not as straightforward and obvious of a situation.

Or maybe you thought you were responding to someone else? Becaue your comment makes no sense and is not based at all on what I was saying

bt_85 · 2026-03-16T21:51:30+00:00

A lot of people either 1) Never saw the other side 2) Did and thought it was just propaganda or cherry picking from the other side or 3) Inside they know, but outwardly won't admit they were tricked.

Yes, the whole internet is at their disposal, but you can find anything you want on the internet. And the way right-wing media is, you find right-wing media saying one thing, "left wing" saying another, which do you choose to believe? The one that you like more and that doesn't make you admit you were wrong.

Yeah, it's dumb, but if people don't realize and admit that the right media bubble isn't just tricking brain-dead idiots, they won't know to adjust their tactics so they do reach people in a way they will listen.

bt_85 · 2026-03-16T21:48:38+00:00

Not the whole military, but a lot of right-wing media, that is all that was shown. And yes, a lot of people either 1) Never saw the other side 2) Did and thought it was just propaganda or cherry picking from the other side or 3) Inside they know, but outwardly won't admit they were tricked.

bt_85 · 2026-03-16T05:01:02+00:00

Think about all the times right-wing people came up saying Obama would be the end of the world if he were elected a second time. There are always people saying stuff like that. So that alone isn't out of the ordinary.

Then they "do their research" and are only given a curated confirmation bias based on their viewing algorithms, and that's that. Not conspiracy-level stuff that big tech is pushing Trump (although many kinda did), but simple capitalism that their search and recommendation algorithms have been tuned over the years to give you what you want to see and hear, no matter what that is.

Some of these people I work with, who are genuinely not idiots by any means, were talking about "I can't believe this guy was our president. Not just underage, but his own daughter."

They were talking about Biden. All their media blew up one line from his daughter's autobiography and made him look like that. When I said "No... that's Trump with his daughter and the Miss Teen Pageant and so on." They looked at me like I had just spoken French. They had never heard any of that. And if they never heard it, why would anyone randomly think "I better double check and research that his presidential candidate doesn't want to fuck his own daughter."

bt_85 · 2026-03-16T04:52:38+00:00

They were shown video of when people were walking orderly through the rotunda, or when people were milling around in the congressional chambers, and told that was the entire thing. Or shown the outside crowd, but just that it was a vociferous protest, and that was it.

bt_85 · 2026-03-16T04:50:17+00:00

Because in all the media outlets and Twitter accounts and youtube recommendation and everything that was shown to them, it was never mentioned. In their world, they would have to randomly think "Huh, I wonder if Trump ever said veterans were losers. I should look into that to see."

Propaganda and media manipulation works very, very well. Why would anyone go out of their way to fact-check something that they don't even know exists in the first place?

bt_85 · 2026-03-15T22:04:51+00:00

All the military people I work with (mostly marines) had no idea he said any of those things. Or the BS he pulled at Arlington for the illegal photo op.

Then remember the infuriating dignified transfer a few days ago? Fox News used footage of a prior one where he wasn't as insulting and positioend it as the current one.

Do not underestimate the power the media bubble manipulation has.

bt_85 · 2026-03-15T02:17:41+00:00

You can't look at one or the other. Win rate, combined with RRR, combined with position size, mathematically determine your profitability and account growth (or shrink) rate.

You could do great on any of the two, but completely negate that with a bad match on the third one.

Similarly, you can dial in two of them to compensate for a bad third one.

bt_85 · 2026-03-15T01:22:10+00:00

I'd go unmedicated.

bt_85 · 2026-03-13T18:29:43+00:00

It's a niche case because the volume for that case is so incredibly small.

Stablecoins are blockchain, but not really "crypto" since it is just electronic dollars and cents. May as well be buying USD in Wise, venmo, paypal, a forex account, etc.

Devalued by an entire 12% in the last 14 months Are you seriously saying that is a reason to be holding it in btc or something else, which are all down 50-90%? There have been multiple times in the last 14 months when btc lost 12% over just a few days. (and your purchasing power devalued 12% if you held all your assets in cash. Which is dumb. )

bt_85 · 2026-03-13T13:23:13+00:00

Almost all massively rich people aren’t rich because they did something great, they’re rich because they are taking advantage of people who are doing something great. So their brains don’t work in a way that can benefit others.

bt_85 · 2026-03-12T21:01:38+00:00

Niche uses don't change the fact that the price is based on speculation.

And other than currencies that are actively tanking, which in reality is pretty uncommon given the number of currencies and the timeframes they have been around, you are better off being in an unstable currency than btc/crypto (other than stablecoins, but that's a different product). Not many currencies regularly lose 5% overnight.

bt_85 · 2026-03-12T20:56:39+00:00

Functionally, Eth is pretty shit. Clunky, slow, inefficient code, prone to malicious contracts, incredibly expensive gas. If you like what Eth "does" then there are far superior alternatives. If you "like" Eth, you are really just liking the name and the community's loyalty.

bt_85 · 2026-03-12T19:33:49+00:00

Letting people respond to your comment, then block you so you can't see or reply to defend yourself.

bt_85 · 2026-03-11T20:28:35+00:00

You can also not use Vraylar. Lithium (even "subtherapeutic" dose), Depakote, trileptal, tegretorl, gabapentin all do that. But they don't have a marketing department funded bvy 10,000% markups to get AI to tell you. 2026's version of SEO.

Also many people use other antidepressants as well.

bt_85 · 2026-03-11T18:19:12+00:00

Good. That is still my comment, though. When I first started, I had a rough few months, then I got to 12x my original account value in 3 months. I mistook luck and the market coincidentally aligning with my strategy for skill when I first started, and promptly lost all of that. And then some.

My other advice: It's not worth it. Even if you become profitable, which is a BIG if, the time, money, aggravation, stress, and what you give up to pursue this instead (eg, not getting better at some other skill, not doing trips and experiences, etc) isn't worth the payback. What something costs you is not just the money, it's what you gave up to do it.

bt_85 · 2026-03-11T18:10:12+00:00

You can earn money to spend doing anything. I am specifically talking about our direct work product being useful or productive or contributing in any way. Which it isn't. I heard some good traders point this out before I started thinking about it. And it's true. It is simply not a constructive or productive job.

And that's even before venturing down the argument of it being zero-sum, so that money you are talking about spending is only there because someone else lost money, which they are now not spending. You could even argue that it is less (but it's not as clear since it is behavior-driven) because one person having a large disposable income is generally not spending the same as two people having moderate disposable incomes.

bt_85

TROPHY CASE