Welcome back to the Stove Top weekly newsletter. As usual, each edition has a few brief stories and finishes with a mix of interesting links, hot takes, and good reads.

Enjoy.

Fundamentals Beat Fancy

I’m seeing more and more articles about the rise of defense tech. This is a good thing. The world is as dangerous as it’s been since the peak of the Cold War, so building better weapons is probably a good idea.

But I think people are missing the forest for the trees. When you talk about a war with the main enemy, China, quality of weapons is not the problem. It’s quantity.

In other words, the fundamentals are what matters.

Take the movie The Tomorrow War. The scientists in the future found the toxin to finally defeat the alien invaders, but they had no ability to mass produce it, so the aliens won. Or take a basketball player with a ton of bounce but no footwork. That dude is going to be ass. A country with amazing weapons but no ability to build is the same thing.

Unless we plan on one-shotting China, having all these super futuristic fancy schmancy weapons doesn’t mean anything. They can build munitions, drones, ships, planes, guns, and everything else exponentially faster than us. In a long war, that will defeat our qualitative edge.

If we want a chance, we need to get building again.

Abandon Abortion

We had an off-year election on Tuesday, and once again the Republicans were positively slaughtered. The main culprit? Abortion.

It’s almost unbelievable how badly Republicans lose on abortion. Since Roe was overturned, abortion referendums have gone 7 for 7 in state ballots. It’s like if I was trying to pitch Corey Seager.

There really is no reason for Republicans to try to fight this anymore. The nation wants abortion, and there isn’t any good way for the Republicans to fight back against this. That’s because the case against abortion was always fundamentally a moral (and religious) case. If my neighbor gets an abortion, it has literally no effect on my life. The only reason it would bother me is if I think getting an abortion is evil.

This obviously stands in stark contrast to something like drugs. Republicans can easily make the case that open access to drugs would make the community less safe. If my neighbor is a crack addict, he might damage my property / crash his car into mine / attack me / etc etc.

That case just doesn’t exist with abortion, and the majority of people clearly don’t think it’s an evil act, so it’s time to get with the times and just drop it. And no, I don’t want to hear about any 15-week compromise. We just saw that lose in Virginia because when people hear “15-week compromise”, they instantly think “gateway to banning abortion”.

Dropping abortion really shouldn’t be a big deal. It’s not like the soul of the party lies in stopping women from terminating pregnancies. The soul of the party is in small government-fueled prosperity. Less conservatism, more classical liberalism.

Ultimately, the Republican Party needs to modernize if it wants to avoid an annual November ass-kicking, and joining the national consensus on abortion would be a good start.

Learn It Yourself

I’ve started to venture into making TikToks because I need more followers to promote all the things I want to do. Now, I’m not someone who is an expert cinematographer. My past video experience is pretty much limited to iMovie group projects in high school (which were the fucking worst).

But, in this past week, I’ve learned a lot about the right way to film and how to edit so that viewers don’t scroll right past you. I knew nothing about either a week ago.

A lot of people in my position would’ve either outsourced it or relied on some tool (probably AI) to do it for them. And I thought about both, especially hiring an editor. But I hesitated because I’m not sure this is the best way for a human to live.

I’m a big fan of modern technology. I notably don’t like camping because I don’t see why I should live like my ancestors did when they worked so hard for the express purpose of me not living like that. But I do often wonder if we are losing something by relying on technology so much. I don’t know shit about hunting. Or starting a fire. Or navigating off the stars. Or changing my tires. Or making clothes. Or a million other things. If you drop me into the jungle, my ass is a goner. But it shouldn’t be. Humans survived in the jungle for thousands of years, and I have the benefit of learning from everything they’ve done. Yet, I’m hopeless.

I’m worried the same thing will happen with “modern” skills. Will we forget how to write because of AI copywriters? What about design? There are already tools that poof up a site based on nothing but a sentence description. Even something as simple as sex and relationships seems to be fading away for too many people.

There is obviously value in saving time by having someone else or a machine do it for you. But having to struggle a bit to learn something is part of being human. I’m not ready to give that up just yet.

Extras

• China is aiming to dominate the humanoid robot market. What can go wrong with that?

• Uranium demand (the stuff you need for nuclear energy) is at a decade high.

• The EU is back on their surveillance bullshit.

• As is the UK. 

• America has a real shoplifting problem.

• Let’s BDS Clearview AI. 

• Facial recognition thankfully isn’t that good yet. 

• Software that supports your body should always respect your freedom.

• Microsoft’s use of AI is making a real mess of the news.

• Mike Johnson is a weirdo. 

• It’s way too easy to buy sensitive data on military personnel. 

• Speaking of the military, the Army isn’t doing a great job recruiting right now. 

• Can we please stop financially rewarding invading people’s privacy?

• Banks are shutting down people’s accounts without explanation. Crypto fixes this. 

• Cruise really should be ashamed of themselves. 

• Duke scientists created the ultimate surveillance machine. 

• Gun violence is costly all around.

• The push the Palestinians out of Gaza plan continues. 

• Sunscreen might not be as good for you as thought.

Until next time, ✌️

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