just a nerd
California, USA
Joined August 2019
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Austin.Ning retweeted
Your current signature issue is passing a tax on my ability to run my own company. Not the financial interest, the voting control itself.
You are doing your best to put me hundreds of millions of dollars in debt for the privilege of controlling the company I founded, and then double-dipping by also taxing the people who own most of the financial interest in my company.
Maybe you privately wish Proposition 40 was more nuanced, but it is not, and what you believe in the confines of your own mind means nothing agaist your actual actions.
nitter.gq/PalmerLuckey/status/20…
Austin.Ning retweeted
Ro, I like you. You know that. But you need to read the state of the state.
The number of Deca Unicorns in Cali is growing by the day as investors chase amazing startups.
A unique feature of these 10b startups is that even if they raise a billion, little, if any of that money goes to the founders, who are now worth billions of dollars over night. They are the definition of cash poor, stock rich
How are you going to tax them ? Make them borrow money against their shares, if they can? They just raised money to grow their company and a bank will come along and loan them money ? A company that has been in business maybe less than a year ? lol
Will you take their stock if they can’t ?
Do you really think each of multiple founders, who started an amazing company in Cali and is now a billionaire, can each just pull out $250m per billion of net worth from their raise ? You know they can’t.
If this passes , and it doesn’t directly impact me at all, I won’t be a cali resident, but you can bet if I’m investing in a multi billion dollar startup, I’m asking them to move from California first.
IMO, if this passes, only idiot startup founders stay in Cali.
I’ve done it before and will do it again. Dallas. Pittsburgh. Indiana. I will make NOT being in California a pre requisite for an investment
Ideology is not a strategy Ro.
The California Democratic Party and the California labor movement just stood with @BernieSanders and me in supporting 5% wealth tax on 250 California billionaires.
California voters want a Democratic Party that will stand up for the working class over the billionaire class.
Austin.Ning retweeted
Again for those in the back, Elon once offered to cut a check for $6 BILLION to the WFB to "eliminate World hunger" as they said the money could. His one condition was that the accounting was public.
They did not accept.
Elon Musk dismantled USAID programs that provided lifesaving assistance to millions of the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people. The human cost was enormous, while DOGE’s net fiscal impact was inconsequential.
Now, as Musk approaches trillionaire status, he should commit/tithe at least $100 billion to a fund dedicated to combating extreme poverty, hunger, preventable disease, and humanitarian crises worldwide.
Money alone cannot undo the damage already done. But if this moment marks an unprecedented personal financial milestone, it should also be an opportunity for an unprecedented act of restitution. Musk has the resources to save and improve countless lives. He should use them.
Austin.Ning retweeted
The amount of self-hate Americans have towards their own history is truly unreal.
They defeated slavery by fighting against their own family.
They shut Europe out of the western hemisphere so that nations wouldn't live under colonization forever.
They had the ability to stay out of world war 1 but they went and died to help Europeans.
They had the ultimate power in the nuclear bomb. They also had access to all of Europe's colonies that were in shambles. But instead they promoted freedom. They rebuilt Japan and Germany after defeating them in war. They stood down the Soviet Union, even as the world jeered them.
They sent soldiers to places like Vietnam and Afghanistan that died TRYING to create a better world (even if you disagree with those wars, the intentions were fairly good)
And they sent more missionaries to the world than maybe any other country in history. Translated more Bibles into indigenous languages than any other country in history. Ran bigger charities than any other country in history. Created more Christian resources than any other country in history.
Whether it was stopping the Dutch from reconquering Indonesia to the Berlin Airlift to giving Cuba its freedom in the Spanish-American war to saving China from the Japanese America has at least ATTEMPTED to do good with its power.
Yes yes, America has problems. People are imperfect. But goodness gracious does the world have a lot to be grateful for in America. And when we could have taken SO much from the world we have often chosen not to. Rome, Britain, Mongols, Assyrians, Soviets, Chinese, no other group has ever shown the restraint America has consistently shown with such vast power at its fingertips.
We didn't even get into the GIGANTIC technological advances, consumer advances, convenient lifestyle changes America has pioneered. From electricity to space to the light bulb to the smart phone to many cures in medicine and agriculture to the airplane the world has been enormously blessed by America.
Austin.Ning retweeted
That's $6B. California taxpayers would be stupid not to sign with you a binding contract for that. Let's make it $10B to give you some buffer+margin and you're on the hook for any budget overruns exceeding $10B.
Complete no-brainer. @CAgovernor should call you right now to sign the deal.
Austin.Ning retweeted
I’m noticing a lot of foreigners who seem to not understand why we’d risk hundreds of lives, spend millions of dollars, and sacrifice several aircraft to rescue one guy. And the reason they don’t understand is also the reason people can’t be made American by a piece of paper.
Austin.Ning retweeted
If I didn’t spend 5 years obsessed with Palantir, reading everything I could get my hands on, meeting people who work there, understanding the reason they exist and what motivates them, I probably would’ve heard something like this from AOC and carried on with my day thinking what she’s saying is true. But I have put in the time, and it makes listening to stuff like this totally surreal.
Either AOC is knowingly making shit up to misrepresent what Palantir is, or she’s just unqualified to speak seriously about these things. I don’t even feel like unpacking this stuff does anything anymore. The information is out there to be consumed and understood. Anyone who takes the time can learn that Palantir’s very existence is to be a force to protects the American people against the sort of corruption AOC suggests they wish to contribute to.
Using Palantir over some other data integration software (that definitely would’ve been built) makes it nearly impossible to break the law without getting caught. Can it be abused? Sure. Anything can. But study the architecture, and understand that it’s nearly impossible to use Palantir illegally without getting caught. You’d rather the government use something like Palantir over something else that wasn’t structured from first principles to protect civil liberties.
“Yeah right, that’s just what they want to convince you of so you’ll let them get in there and start breaking the law.” Study the founders. Read their books (I think all of them except for Stephen Cohen have written one). Read everything I’m going to share below too.
Austin.Ning retweeted
Xiaomi went from zero cars to 550,000+ deliveries in 20 months.
Every single one uses Gigacasting.
Most Western automakers have spent years debating whether to adopt this technology. Some haven't placed their first machine order.
Meanwhile, a consumer electronics company entered the car market, vertically integrated, and scaled past half a million vehicles.
Xiaomi had no automotive manufacturing experience.
They teamed up with Haitian to acquire several 9,100-ton machines.
They self-developed and patented their own aluminum die casting alloy.
They designed their own downstream die casting island processes.
20 months from start of mass production:
→ 550,000+ vehicles delivered
→ SU7 averaging 21,091 units/month
→ Second model already in production breaking more records
→ 100% of current and future vehicles use rear Gigacastings
But Xiaomi's approach is just one of four completely different strategies.
Tesla, Xpeng, and Seres each made fundamentally different choices - on machine suppliers, vertical integration, design philosophy, and which powertrains get Gigacastings.
One of them proved this technology works for ICE vehicles too.
I put together a side-by-side comparison of Tesla vs three major Chinese OEMs.
✅ Machine suppliers, sizes, and installed capacity for each OEM
✅ Vertical integration vs supplier partnership decisions
✅ Design tradeoffs: crash cans, wheel arches, weight optimization
✅ Monthly production volumes for each OEM's top vehicle model
Want the Tesla vs China Gigacasting Comparison?
1. Connect with me
2. Comment "GIGA"
I'll send the report.
P.S. - ♻️ Repost for priority access
Austin.Ning retweeted
As a retired Green Beret, I've seen the worst groups use kids as shields in their fights. Now it's happening in America with anti-ICE protests. History's warnings are clear and terrifying. Read why we must stop this exploitation. (5 min read)
De Oppresso Liber
#ProtectOurKids #StopExploitation #DeOppressoLiber
@DataRepublican
@uneedsoap
@astrarce
@JMichaelWaller
@JoeTalkShow
@VinceCoglianese
@AsraNomani
Austin.Ning retweeted
INTERVIEWER: "Who do you think is more FOR women's rights: The Trump administration or the Iranian regime?"
FEMINISTS: "I'm against Trump. So, Iranian regime!"
Please tag this interviewer if you know her. She made my day.
Austin.Ning retweeted
I don't talk about this a ton, but now feels right... I used to be a journalist covering human trafficking on the US Mexico border.
I’ve crossed the border illegally covering migrants and cartels countless times. I saw young women in the morgue after they were raped and brutalized in Juarez.
I saw a man get stabbed by a coyote in the gut, a terrible way to die. I know the sound a human makes when it happens. I knew a kid Neftali Fuentes who crossed 100+ times helping others not die in the desert across Arizona.
I’ve seen cartel wars play out on the streets of Juarez, bodies dangling from over passes. I’ve been held at gun and knife point before. Those who say open borders are humane have no idea what they’re talking about. You live in an air-conditioned suburb that might as well be an ivory tower. Do not tell me what we do now is virtuous; it is cowardice.
I hope we do what is right, which is secure the border, stop criminals from profiting off of misery, and help support local governments to be better, like El Salvador. I know borders and the separation of humans feels sad and impossible. But if you don’t understand this, yet you’ve never been to the border, never spoken to border patrol, never seen the many crosses of raped women in the desert, maybe get down off your high horse and try to understand the US can only have sanctuary cities... if we can keep the place a sanctuary.
Austin.Ning retweeted
As a former Special Forces Warrant Officer with multiple rotations running counterinsurgency ops—both hunting insurgents and trying to separate them from sympathetic populations—I’ve seen organized resistance up close. From Anbar to Helmand, the pattern is familiar: spotters, cutouts, dead drops (or modern equivalents), disciplined comms, role specialization, and a willingness to absorb casualties while bleeding the stronger force slowly.
What’s unfolding in Minneapolis right now isn’t “protest.” It’s low-level insurgency infrastructure, built by people who’ve clearly studied the playbook.
Signal groups at 1,000-member cap per zone. Dedicated roles: mobile chasers, plate checkers logging vehicle data into shared databases, 24/7 dispatch nodes vectoring assets, SALUTE-style reporting (Size, Activity, Location, Unit, Time, Equipment) on suspected federal vehicles. Daily chat rotations and timed deletions to frustrate forensic recovery. Vetting processes for new joiners. Mutual aid from sympathetic locals (teachers providing cover, possible PD tip-offs on license plate lookups). Home-base coordination points. Rapid escalation from observation to physical obstruction—or worse.
This isn’t spontaneous outrage. This is C2 (command and control) with redundancy, OPSEC hygiene, and task organization that would make a SF team sergeant nod in recognition. Replace “ICE agents” with “occupying coalition forces” and the structure maps almost 1:1 to early-stage urban cells we hunted in the mid-2000s.
The most sobering part? It’s domestic. Funded, trained (somewhere), and directed by people who live in the same country they’re trying to paralyze law enforcement in. When your own citizens build and operate this level of parallel intelligence and rapid-response network against federal officers—complete with doxxing, vehicle pursuits, and harassment that’s already turned lethal—you’re no longer dealing with civil disobedience. You’re facing a distributed resistance that’s learned the lessons of successful insurgencies: stay below the kinetic threshold most of the time, force over-reaction when possible, maintain popular support through narrative, and never present a single center of gravity.
I spent years training partner forces to dismantle exactly this kind of apparatus. Now pieces of it are standing up in American cities, enabled by elements of local government and civil society. That should keep every thinking American awake at night.
Not because I want escalation. But because history shows these things don’t de-escalate on their own once the infrastructure exists and the cadre believe they’re winning the information war.
We either recognize what we’re actually looking at—or we pretend it’s still just “activism” until the structures harden and spread.
Your call, America. But from where I sit, this isn’t January 2026 politics anymore.
It’s phase one of something we’ve spent decades trying to keep off our own soil.
Austin.Ning retweeted
I wrote a book on the BP oil disaster, & there’s a critical parallel with ICE protests in Minnesota that almost everyone is missing.
When the Deepwater Horizon explosion dominated Twitter for months, the narrative was simple: BP cut corners on safety.
That story was comforting.
It was also wrong. Dead wrong.
The disaster wasn’t caused by too little safety.
It was caused by safetyism.
Before the explosion, HR and HSE departments overwhelmingly filled with women who never worked a dangerous job in their life became obsessed with eliminating all injuries offshore. Not major hazards. Not catastrophic risk. ALL injuries, even minor cuts & bruises.
Tens of millions of dollars.
Thousands of hours of paperwork.
Endless training modules.
Everyone,from dishwasher to captain, was empowered to shut down a drilling operation costing millions per day to prevent a sprained ankle.
Meanwhile, people with deep technical expertise, guys who actually understood blowout risk, were sidelined or fired for saying the obvious:
That HR induced exhaustion causes accidents.
That drowning crews in paperwork makes them miss real danger.
That spending money on back-injury training means less money preventing explosions.
Like the protesters in Minnesota, HR and Safety became powerful, organized, coordinated via expensive software, mobile & completely detached from reality.
One crewman reported a serious onboard fire that nearly killed someone. Nothing happened for weeks. When he kept pushing a manager told him to STFU.
He called HR to report the “verbal abuse.”
Within hours, an executive helicopter full of HR Quick Reaction Team launched from Houston.
They didn’t investigate the fire.
They investigated him, the guy who called HR.
Their conclusion?
The man reporting the fire was “repeatedly harassing the crew to report the fire.”
He was fired.
A company-wide HR memo publicly shamed him.
All in the name of “safety.”
Here’s the truth they refused to accept: offshore drilling is dangerous. You cannot extract tens of millions of barrels of oil without injuries & yes, sometimes death.
Now apply that lesson to Minnesota.
Law enforcement is dangerous.
You cannot deport tens of millions of people without injuries & yes, sometimes death.
Yes, Renee Good was shot.
Yes, Alex Pretti was shot.
Yes, ICE operations result in injuries.
And yes more people will be hurt by ICE this year.
But HR didn’t eliminate injuries offshore. They just reclassified them for statistics, exhausted the workforce, and made people afraid to report real problems setting the stage for a major explosion.
That’s exactly what’s happening now.
ICE agents are being forced to waste time protecting identities, managing feelings, navigating activist “volunteers” & hesitating rather than acting decisively when seconds matter.
Every minute an agent loses sleep worrying about this is a minute less rested.
Every hour spent on crowd-management training is an hour not spent on training to manage violent criminals.
And worse..
I’m a ship captain. I was trained to make the hardest choice: to do the most good for the most people. I was taught that one day I might have to send a fire team into a space they won’t come back from to buy passengers ten more minutes to reach lifeboats.
That’s the job.
Numbers matter.
Yes, Renee Good was shot. That’s tragic.
But it pales next to the hundreds killed by violent illegal immigrants under Biden.
It’s nothing compared to the thousands who died between the Darién Gap and Mexico.
It’s microscopic compared to the 400,000 fentanyl deaths many in ICUs like the one Alex Pretti worked in.
Yes, some children were separated from families. But FAR fewer than the number raped, killed, or abandoned between the Darien Gap & Mexico under Biden
The hard truth is this:
Safetyism caused the BP explosion.
Safetyism has killed millions.
Safetyism is killing this nation right now.
ICE protestors aren’t saving lives, they are pushing the body count higher.
🚨 TRAINING FOR RESPONDING AND DOCUMENTING ICE:
Here is a link to an “ICE out of MN” training hosted by Jill Garvey. She's an activist from Chicago.
Enjoy: rumble.com/v74uhz2-ice-watch…
Austin.Ning retweeted
Here's your reminder on the law governing police shootings:
“The 'reasonableness' of a particular use of force must be judged from the perspective of a reasonable officer on the scene, rather than with the 20/20 vision of hindsight. ... The calculus of reasonableness must embody allowance for the fact that police officers are often forced to make split-second judgments—in circumstances that are tense, uncertain, and rapidly evolving—about the amount of force that is necessary in a particular situation."
— Graham v. Connor
