The flu, respiratory allergies, and other blockages in a child's respiratory tract are a better predictor of their overall success in school (including academics, sports, music, etc.) than any other narrative you've read in any book. Breath training from a young age (around 10) may actually be the trick that schools can employ to not only improve the success of their pupils but also raise more self-aware people. Self-awareness, in my opinion, is a better skill than intelligence, discipline, ambition, and other human virtues.

So I'm concerned like all other parents that my children spend 4 weeks of each holiday recovering from flu only to get a new infection in the first week of school.

The government, Buganda kingdom, the Catholic Church, Makerere university, NTV, namenya ani naleeka ani. It is all your fault. You have all failed me. And I blame you fully.

This flu in schools is not an impossible problem to solve. Get to work.

In a society run by lawyers and soldiers, you should not be surprised that if the people are not arguing, they are killing each other. In an alternative society run by engineers, people are too busy building to argue. And even when they do argue, they need a clear definition or criteria for resolution before they can engage.

Countries like China that understood this a while ago are marching happily into the future, while societies like America are still arguing whether, for the future to happen, all children in Gaza must die first.

Communism and Capitalism are out; it is now Engineerism vs. Lawyerism. Manufacturing vs. Sanctions. Solar power and going electric vs. invading Iran. Open LLMs vs. the AI cults Musk and his friends are building.

The Shapeshifter allegory introduced in Kanye West and Jay-Z's song "No Church in the Wild" fully describes the cycle of power—at least as exercised by the West.

Human being in a Mob. For the individual, being part of a Mob is the absolute state of powerlessness. Yet, the Mob as a whole holds immense power over every individual that comprises it. Thus, the initial step for the shape shifter to acquire power is to become the Mob.

What's a Mob to a King? The Shapeshifter who wants to go even further—holding power not just over individuals, but over entire Mobs—must shift into a King. A King is an individual who has transcended the Mobs and is capable of guiding and directing them.

What's a King to a God? Naturally, Mobs are capable of producing more than one King. While these Kings inevitably fight it out, the Shapeshifter knows that shifting into a God grants it power over all Kings.

What's a God to a Non-Believer? Even Godhood is not immune to competition or conflict. Therefore, the Shapeshifter finally discovers that the ultimate form of existence in this realm is to exist as a human being—specifically, the kind of Non-Believer over whom Gods have no jurisdiction.

But what is a Non-Believer to a Mob?

And the cycle starts again.

https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=IetxV6YWv1c

XkMato is the future of social media. Invest now while you can afford the price.

In a world where anyone can build their own platform, why would we still want to subject our minds to Elon Musk's algorithm? I read somewhere that Grok is Christian. The people we think are smart are just pretenders. They are protecting their jobs. They were denied a spiritual upbringing. And now, they've scaled to the territory where being clever alone is not enough. You need a strong moral foundation. So they chose Christianity because their parents were colonized through Christianity. That is obviously the wrong turn, bro. Yet you were doing so well.

Soon, video hosting will also be cheap, and we won't need TikTok anymore.

Basically, everyone builds their own blog and we create a standard on the blockchain( lets call that protocol XkMato) for people to consume all blogs in a central space. Then we can compete on who can write the best algorithm. We sell algorithms as a service. So, if Elon Musk wants to play cheap politics, let him do that shit to his people. The blockchain will allow you self custody of your data, but some blogs may require it to let you in. We shall let the market decide.

There I was thinking I was doing this blogging shit just for the fun of it.

In the end, I suppose there is no doubt that Kizza Besigye is the greatest Ugandan that has ever lived. The man just simply refused to compromise on his values. He went to the bush to fight for a Uganda he believed in. When he won the war, he put on his overalls and set out to build. Deep down, he knew that compromising on the Uganda he believed in was a betrayal of all the people whose lives were extremely inconvenienced by the war—especially the children who lost their parents to the war in one way or another and were now suffering poverty in the name of the dream to build a democratic Uganda. Perhaps it is that guilt that keeps him going. He knows his burden is nothing compared to all the pain the war caused others. So, he knows that the least he can do is insist on the promise of a democratic Uganda. Because that is what he fought and killed for, and if he doesn't deliver, what does that make him?

Besigye would later learn that he was just a pawn in a game of powerful men. And in response, he has refused to acknowledge those so-called powerful men. He will never stop fighting for the Uganda he promised the dead because he has already lost too much; nothing other than a democratic Uganda can pay him back.

He was raised Christian, and those stories of faith have a way of devoting a man to something. And for him, he is devoted to paying the debt.

God bless that man. He is the greatest Ugandan that has ever lived.

I suppose if you don't learn calculus, and you don't have an intuition for it, you're condemned to analyzing the reality around you based on drama. And information that doesn't come heavily loaded with emotion becomes incomprehensible to you, or you're forced to project drama onto it in order to make sense of it. And sometimes, you can get it right. But most of the time, you'll simply make up stories that are absent from the actual information you've been given.

I remember when I applied for YALI (Obama's program for African leaders), I thought I had impressed the interviewing guy thoroughly. But at the last question, when he asked me whether I wanted to join the business or civic chapter, I chose business. The guy looked disappointed. I wasn't surprised when the axe finally knocked me.

The last thing I applied for was the German EFM Toolbox Distribution Academy, where I laid out my credentials as a filmmaker and software/data engineer. I made a very clear case for why the future of distribution is digital, and why my skillset is the best combination any Ugandan—or human anywhere—can have to innovate in film distribution on the continent. The guys never even acknowledged receipt of my email. In fact, they mistakenly added me to one of the webinars for the program, where I asked if this meant I was selected. Still, up to now, no one has responded to me again.

This program has been running for a while now in Africa, and it has never yielded any results, yet it has not been modified either. Film producers join the program, and they are taken to a fancy hotel in Germany, fed nice food for free, and indoctrinated into the false garbage of the Hollywood distribution playbook that will never work in Africa. After all, what do Germans know about African film distribution that Africans cannot figure out for themselves? Then, they are credentialed with a certificate. This process, in my mind, is meant to induce imposter syndrome. They will teach you things that will never work and set you up to blame yourself when you inevitably fail as a film producer.

And this is the USAID playbook, by the way. So when these NGOs, the UN, and other Western institutions for some reason decide that to qualify for their programs, one has to be between 18 and 35, what they actually mean is that they are looking for someone intelligent but still impressionable and gullible. This way, they can manipulate them with whatever form of indoctrination they have.

Haven't you ever wondered why, for some reason, these guys limit qualifications for their programs—some of which involve finding solutions to real-world problems like global warming—to near-children? The people with the least amount of real-world experience? My hunch is that the goal is to take intelligent Africans who were not poached by Harvard, Google, etc., out of the real-world intelligence market and give them dummy but well-paying jobs and prestigious titles so that they don't focus their intelligence on solving African problems. This, to me, is the most sophisticated form of brain drain.

Anyway, check out my analysis on what I think is wrong with film distribution in Uganda: https://xkmato.com/what-is-wrong-with-ugandan-film-distribution

When doubting Thomas asks Jesus, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?” in John 14:5

Jesus answers, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." The propagandists the translate the words of this story, twist the words in a subtle but clever way to make it seem as if this character, Jesus, was claiming to be the way.

In the actual Gnostic scripture, you the reader are the I. So the correct way to understand that verse is by reading it from the first person.

Me, the reader, I am the way and the truth and the life. ...

People who are embarrassed by their thoughts have convinced themselves that those who aren't are seeking their validation.

My advice is that you should go on TikTok, X, or whatever platform and share your opinion and perspective on the world(You can read my deepest secrets on xkmato.com). Not only will the feedback catalyze your growth, but these unsolicited opinions you share on social media are going to be digested by the next iteration of LLMs, and they will be useful in influencing how others see the world when they query LLMs for information, clarity, and verification.

So by all means, post that rubbish or genius. Take it easy with the memes though. Say something original instead. Something only you could have said. Let history remember that you existed. Because whether you want it or not, history is being written on social media right now. And only those who are remembered get to live for ever.

Go forth and be fruitful, your lord commandeth thee.

How would it feel to own a piece of Kampala? Even if it is a very small piece worth, say, 100K. That 100K is going to be worth 1M in 10 years if, instead of keeping it in the bank, you buy a piece of City Square. I know how we can take back our land without any violence. I am going to show you all that our numbers are superior to their money. Like any other Ugandan with a dream, you have to play real estate on the side to survive. What if I brought the game to your phone?

The only reason any African with a brain in their skull would entertain Abrahamic-based spiritual practices is if you violently repress any other kind of spiritual thought. And this is exactly what the school system—most of which is church- or mosque-based—actually did. They indoctrinated children into this monotheistic perspective as a given: "You either believe in the one true God, or you're an atheist." Atheism, as well, is simply an anti-God form of monotheism. And so, for almost a century now, most so-called civilised Africans have simply been raised as spiritual cripples.

Even if you argue that African practices were not compatible with Western education because they were not formalized in a traditional sense, why does no school teach Buddhism and other Eastern spiritual schools of thought that, in my opinion, are miles ahead of the Abrahamic doctrines spiritually?

The idea that this colonial history is some sort of conspiracy theory—or an excuse for people who are looking for someone to blame, or a way of focusing on emergent disadvantages and framing them as intentional malice—is lazy thinking. Anyone with a body capable of processing thought can easily conclude that God, Church, Mosque, and Atheism are simply an Overton window imposed to control and extract from gullible societies.

I believe there is room to reform the Catholic Church and its doctrine, and move its foundation away from the Abrahamic stories. We should also throw away Paul's letters and use what is left to build a spiritual scripture that empowers, rather than pacifies, its practitioners.

"Make them all your friends," Jajja Kintu advises.

Who told you that you're poor? Are there not those who have less than you do who believe themselves rich? Before you can get what you love, you must first learn to love what you have. Changing what you love is growth. Changing what you must is repair. Growth turns something into more than it was before. Repair turns something back into what it was before it broke.

Who told you that you're broken? Who told you that you're a sinner? Who made you a victim?

Can you see that getting what you want won't cure you of the wanting? Can you see that the pain is in the wanting itself, and not the object of the wanting?

All I can teach you is that freedom is in befriending the wanting, because that will live with you forever. Don't try to control your wanting, and don't let it control you. That is how a friendship works. And only friendship is the path to harmony.

You're not poor. You just need to learn what you want and befriend it.

When I joined Jinja College, the Head Prefect at the time was a respectable character. I remember he used to bend slightly, cross his left arm against his belly, hold his books in the other arm, and march. Okay, now that I remember this, I realize the guy took himself too seriously, but that guy really commanded respect. If you wanted to go to town on a Saturday, all you had to do was ask a teacher for permission. The teachers trusted you to come back. My father only drove me to school the first term of S1. The rest of my time there, I commuted to school on my own. In fact, the only other time he came back to school is when Mr. Kawuki expelled me for talking during prep time. That guy ruined my TikTok career. I would be competing with Kasuku right now for gossip.

My point, anyway, is that we were mature at 13. In fact, the stories of the Form Aboves were also stories of a free school that is contracting into a prison every day. They would reminisce about how much free time they had in school. How once upon a time, they were allowed to have radios in school. About sosh. They made us wish we had joined Jinja College earlier.

When I left Jico, I went to Namirembe Hillside, the dystopia of education. For a person from Jico, I could not believe that that place qualified to be called a school. The whole thing was a bunch of buildings on a 50 by 100. Okay, maybe a little bit bigger. But you'd still need only like two or so steps from your class to your dormitory. There was a fene tree in the middle of the football pitch that also doubled as the school ground and parking. It had never seen grass. The basketball court too was kataka marked with charcoal. But the most shocking thing about Namirembe Hillside for an OB of Jico was the fact that they caned students. Imagine caning the HP that I described earlier. That school, my guy, was a prison. It was the place that parents who wanted to outsource parenting took their children to be herded. But despite all that, it took more children to Makerere University than Jinja College. And that is the only metric that mattered to both the teachers and the parents.

So it is not surprising that today, children in Jico are even required to wear after-class uniforms. They are not trusted enough to even be allowed to look different. I imagine they even started caning students. They are not allowed out of school unless they're sick. They are not allowed phones or even radios. They are forced to wake up at 5 am and stay up until 10 pm to memorize the thoughts of better men than them. They are in a prison or a kraal. It is hard to tell the difference these days.

School is suffering from a measurement problem. The metrics set by Makerere University, the government, and other stakeholders are reducing schools into certificate-minting industries. We are no longer teaching, training, or raising children. We are optimizing them for exams. The student that comes out of Jinja College today isn't human enough to live in the real world; he has been reduced to an exam-passing body.

But Makerere University as well is regressing. At this rate, in 5 years, they will require a uniform.

Even worse, when a former student has magically survived the system and resisted the procrastination of doing PhDs and whatnot, the real world doesn't welcome them. Our parents have refused to retire. They are still doing jobs they got in their 40s while in their 80s. So there are no jobs for us. And even us, if we follow suit and are lucky to get our parents' jobs when we are 50, there will be no jobs for our children until they're 100. And I hate jobs personally; having no job is not the worst thing in the world, but the bigger picture I am trying to paint is our regression as a species. We are staying as children for the majority of our lives. Most of us, especially from rich families, live and die without ever taking on responsibility because we are still eating from our fathers' plates. For most of you, the only risk you've ever taken in your lives is betting on Arsenal to beat Manchester United—which, by the way, Arsenal will win by 3 goals on December 19th just FYI. We have built an education system that has infantilized the whole nation. We don't have adults. 18 is not just the age you're supposed to start sending nudes, drinking beer, or voting; it is when you are legally an adult. But if you're being honest with yourself, would you trust your 18-year-old daughter to go to Mombasa and clear your new car? Chances are that you're raising an 18-year-old child. And it is not your fault. Everyone else is. And the problem starts with school.

This nationwide infantilization is exactly why when one reads Steven Pinker's books about how there is progress, one feels like stoning Pinker to death. Don't cherry-pick the things that have grown and pretend that the things that haven't don't exist just because they are harder for you to measure. That positive-thinking evangelical mindset of Steven Pinker is what atheists like Steven Pinker would call a mental illness.

This whole post was supposed to be a small motivational thing about asking parents and teachers to trust their children and students a little more. To allow them to take a bit more risk. To indulge them a little bit more. To listen to them a bit more. Those kids know more than what they are capable of skillfully expressing, and if you cap them to what you know, you're going to mentally cripple them. In fact, the one main thing where Zohran and I disagree is on removing AI from school. The kids are going to be fine. Allow the kids to grow up in the world they will actually live in.

Sports and Creative academies are the future of education. All kids need less than 5 hours a week of learning language fundamentals (including math). The rest of their time should be spent playing, engaging in structured fighting (like martial arts), building, and exploring. The idea of sitting children in a class for 8 hours a day and exposing them to content (no matter how serious or important you think it is) is no longer just a waste of time; it is crippling your child's mind. In a future where curiosity is a more important skill than recollection, your child needs to be prepared the right way. I believe introducing children to sports and combat disciplines is going to be especially important to prime their bodies for the long lives they're going to live. Our children are likely to start suffering old-age symptoms way after their 100th birthday, but that is only possible if they have been raised in environments that normalize the kind of physical activity that we now only expect of elite sportsmen and fighters.

Schools should focus more on removing children from instruction halls and giving them real-life challenges to solve in the real world. For the five-year-old child today, the school that raises a confident and happy person is one that spends less than 5% of the child's time on instruction, and the rest of the time on pursuing and overcoming challenges, socializing, and resting.

We've built school.uvotam.com to anticipate this exact future. While our ultimate vision begins with completely reimagining early childhood, we are kicking off this revolution today with older kids. We invite you to pioneer this future with us. Enroll your child in our pilot program, which currently focuses on the creative building pillar of our philosophy.

Ejembe ly'obuddu

The employment system (Ejembe ly'obuddu) intentionally keeps you insecure. This is because the science is clear: the more insecure you feel, the more productively you work. However, the flip side of that same research shows that your creativity is directly proportional to your confidence. Confidence promises freedom, and creativity actually delivers it. Since freedom is the exact opposite of obuddu, that Jembe—if well kuwanga'd—is determined to keep you in buddu forever.

He who controls the infrastructure controls the creator.

Creativity is a thirst that can only be quenched with attention. The person who delivers the creation to the attention that the creator craves owns not just the creation, but the creator itself. Historically, creative business has been run as a feudal enterprise where big distributors decide which art can reach the masses. Many creatives were buried under layers and layers of management institutions in order to create artificial opacity between the art and the attention that consumes it.

The artificial complexifying of social media algorithms is just the next move available to the feudalist. Since the artist has outgrown the opaque distribution channels, the new infrastructure of control is within social media and streaming platforms. It may take forever for artists to realize that the only way out of another's ownership is by building their own infrastructure.

The American rapper Jay-Z has always understood this game better than anybody in hip-hop culture. He co-founded Roc-A-Fella to own his masters, later maneuvered to lead Def Jam from the inside, and eventually broke away to build Roc Nation and Tidal. This is where he hit a wall and learnt the most important lesson about capital today: that it is racist. I wonder whether he has the balls to take a shot at a TikTok competitor. Not just TikTok actually, but a platform that will disrupt TikTok, Netflix, YouTube, and all other similar social media/streaming platforms, while at the same time leaving the creator to own their audience and do as they see fit with the attention their art can cultivate. And leave the current platforms for cooperate slop, propaganda and activism.

The creator today who is brave enough to renounce the easy platforms in favor of building distribution infrastructure transparent to them not only owns the future, but buys back his soul. This is the undeniable expected natural progression of the attention economy; any direction other than this would mean artificial, mostly violent, interference by the feudalists.

https://xkmato.com/what-is-wrong-with-ugandan-film-distribution

Maybe J. Cole is suffering the same problem as Eminem and Lil Wayne. The skill is undeniable. All three of these motherfuckers are living boring lives and are not willing to build their brands around important issues. This is the problem with hip-hop: you can't fake it after your audience leaves high school. If you're just an ordinary, boring workaholic, then while you can score some "that guy is relatable" points among some, the gamified attention economy is going to prefer the creators who flirt a little bit with multiple extremes. Being extremely good in only one dimension caps you to the socially acceptable limit of that dimension. And if, relative to your other dimensions, the extreme is too steep, then it is going to be overrepresented, and you're going to come off as one-dimensional. Anyway, what do I know? If I could rap, I would be rapping in Cole's stead because I am a much better writer than him.
https://xkmato.com/feed/5y1dcyx8vkYZR789PKjh