Shifting Priorities: Moving Beyond Culture Wars to Address Existential Threats

People believe the most important thing is getting over on the other guy. This belief is the road to ruin.

Introduction

Societal discourse has become increasingly polarized, driven by trumped-up "culture wars." These battles over values and beliefs have dominated public attention, distracting us from pressing existential threats and crucial social and economic issues. While professionals from various sectors of business and government engage in activities to advance their careers and accumulate wealth, the urgency of addressing climate change, energy problems, habitat loss, and other critical challenges is minimized and ignored. The hard work required to handle difficult and complex issues is neglected in favor of easy profits.

We must shift our collective attention toward these issues and strive to imagine and create a new economy that prioritizes the greater good and health.

The Distraction of Culture Wars and Litigiousness

Fueled by divisive ideologies and partisan conflicts, culture wars have captured the public imagination and driven a wedge between communities. While necessary in some contexts, this constant bickering and emphasis on identity politics have kept us from attending to broader challenges that demand our attention. The prevailing focus on cultural battles and the proliferation of litigation have absorbed valuable time, energy, and resources needed to address existential threats and promote a more equitable global community. Nations committed to developing and maintaining healthy relationships that promote and secure our complex web of life.

The odds of our existence are astronomical, requiring our sincere effort to survive and thrive.

If life on Earth isn’t good, what is? Can we appreciate this?

Neglecting Existential Threats

One cannot overstate the time-sensitive nature of our existential threats. The climate crisis, generative A.I., energy problems, peak oil, the sixth extinction, habitat loss, water scarcity, material limits, and consumerism all pose imminent dangers to life on Earth. These challenges require immediate and earnest leadership, both in the public and private sectors. However, as professionals increasingly engage in activities aimed at enhancing their careers and maximizing profits, the urgency of these issues often fades into the background.

Climate change, in particular, demands our undivided attention. Rising global temperatures, extreme weather events, and the potential for irreversible ecological damage threaten the very existence of human civilization. Mitigating global warming and transitioning to a sustainable and renewable energy system should be at the forefront of our collective efforts. This will require a radical change in what we do and think.

Unfortunately, the distractions caused by the culture wars and personal gain have hindered progress in these areas.

Building a New Economy

We must reimagine and create a new economy to address these challenges effectively. This new economic way of life must prioritize environmental sustainability, social equity, and long-term stability over short-term profit. It should encourage innovation and investment in renewable energy, sustainable agriculture, conservation efforts, and environmentally friendly technologies. Moreover, it should foster collaboration between governments, businesses, and civil society to develop comprehensive solutions that address the multiple dimensions of our existential threats.

This new economy should prioritize the well-being of individuals and communities, emphasizing equitable access to resources, education, healthcare, and opportunities for personal growth. By shifting our focus from individual success to joint health, we can lay the foundation for a society that survives and thrives in the face of existential threats.

Progress is simply developing a healthier world.

The Role of Leadership

Leaders in both business and government have a critical role in redirecting our attention and resources toward addressing existential threats, global health, and social and economic issues. Instead of prioritizing personal gain, leaders must embrace a broader vision and act as stewards of the planet and society. They must facilitate dialogue, foster collaboration, and champion policies that promote sustainability, equity, and resilience.

Conclusion

The culture wars and litigiousness that dominate contemporary discourse have distracted us from confronting dire existential threats and social and economic challenges that demand immediate attention. We can prioritize the greater good over personal gain by shifting our focus toward these issues and imagining and creating a new economy. We can address global warming, energy problems, habitat loss, and other critical concerns through concerted efforts and genuine leadership, ensuring a sustainable and prosperous future for future generations. It is time to rise above the distractions and unite to pursue a healthier society.

If you believe that health matters, get together with your neighbors and work to develop a plan of action to let leaders know what we are concerned about and demand a more creative approach that prioritizes health over profits.

Our collaborative efforts to ensure a healthier world for generations to come is a career no one can take away from us.

War's Utility Function is Waning

When were the seeds of the Ukraine war sown?

How far back do we need to go where the consensus was for a peaceful future between Ukraine and Russia? In 1991 Ukraine because an independent State. Ukraine became the center of overlapping spheres of influence as the European Union grew. Since 1949, NATO's membership has increased from 12 to 30 countries through eight enlargement rounds. Finland, with its long border with Russia, will soon be NATO's newest member. It should be apparent to any honest observer that Russia has complex security concerns concerning NATO and Ukraine's desire to be closer to Europe. So to my mind, the seeds have been sown for decades due to ever-changing security concerns from the E.U., NATO, and Russia. A war between Russia and Ukraine may have been considered inevitable years before the Donbas conflict began in 2014.

Leaders must make peace while preparing for war. For decades leaders worldwide have neglected peacemaking in favor of special interests dedicated to war-making. John Mearsheimer's analysis may be the result in Ukraine—another 38th parallel standoff.

What boggles my mind is that so many people think our leaders are wise and have our interests in mind. They don't. They are playing The Great Game and are primarily interested in their careers.

We should understand that the circumstances we find ourselves in preclude the utility of war. Civilization is currently facing many challenges. We need wise leaders who prioritize maintaining a healthy balance of nature and protecting life on earth. Leaders without these commitments should be gotten rid of. Young people must come forward and reimagine the world. People in their teens and twenties will have to become The Wisest Generation.

We must focus our time, energy, resources, imagination, creativity, and power on solving common problems and building structures and systems that ensure peace.

The Most Pathological Country In The World

"Americans believe that they are normal, that they make sense, and that the rest of the world is exotic. They do not seem to understand that they are the most exotic people in the world right now."

― Werner Herzog, Werner Herzog: Interviews

I lived in Asia for decades. I live in Portugal now. Portuguese is the Latin language, as are French, Italian, and Spanish. Men in Portugal say obrigado, and women say obrigada. 

Below is a quote from an article on AN OPEN FORUM FOR CLASSICS.

GENDER IN LATIN AND BEYOND: A PHILOLOGIST'S TAKE

Posted on 12th October 2021By AntigoneIn Greek Language, Latin Language, Top 20

Wolfgang de Melo

Now that we have seen how different languages assign gender, let's look at Latin again. Gender in Latin is largely assigned by morphological criteria, but again with a semantic core. There are five declension classes, some of them with subclasses. Nouns of the first declension, with a nominative in –a, are feminine. Those of the second declension end in –us or –um and are masculine and neuter, respectively. Nouns of the fourth declension end in –us or –u and are masculine and neuter, respectively. And nouns of the fifth declension end in –es and are feminine.

Why am I talking about Latin languages and sending you a philology article? I audited an episode of Making Sense, Sam Harris's podcast, and it made my stomach feel like when I was a child in the dentist's office waiting room. 

The Cancellation of J.K. Rowling

A Conversation with Megan Phelps-Roper

Here's the description of the podcast:

MARCH 31, 2023

Sam Harris speaks with Megan Phelps-Roper about the new podcast series she hosts and produced, "The Witch Trials of J. K. Rowling." The series is also produced by Andy Mills and Matt Boll for The Free Press. 

Born and raised in the Westboro Baptist Church, Megan Phelps-Roper left a life of religious extremism in 2012. She has spent the past decade using her experiences to work with schools on anti-bullying campaigns, with law enforcement organizations investigating deradicalization, and with tech companies on the intersection of safety, free speech, and the value of dialogue across ideological divides. Her journey has been chronicled in a trio of BBC documentaries, a TED talk, and her memoir Unfollow.

Podcast: The Witch Trials of J.K. Rowling

Twitter: @meganphelps 

The United States is full of extremists. There are all kinds of conspiracy maniacs, gun freaks, militias, bizarre Christian cults, intractable politicians and ideologues, strange economic faiths, woo-woo movie stars and shock jocks selling snake oil, liars, con artists, post-post modernist, gray-scale right-wing and left-wing zealots, ultra-violent blood sports, gangs, all kinds of addicts, strange academic fads, and all these wild and crazy people are pointing their fingers at each other hurling all manor of dehumanizing insults at one another while arming themselves for war. 

Please consider the U.S. Empire; there has never been anything like it in history. I post a lot of stuff from many sources on my Facebook page and have made a page of links I visit on my website. I share my thoughts, ideas, and feelings often. I know I'm not an influencer. I doubt anything I say or do will impact the world. A few friends might listen to me and be concerned with my thoughts and feelings. But I can't help myself; sometimes, my guts are tied up in knots when I think about how the world is going. 

I don't pray to anything in particular, but I do pray, and I pray that young people will go in a different direction than America has been going lately. I am praying that American pathologies don't infect the rest of the world.

I also want to remind people that African countries aren't Woke, India isn't Woke, Eastern Europe and Tajikistan aren't Woke, the Middle East isn't Woke, Japan isn't, China isn't, Malaysia isn't, Indonesia is not Woke, South American countries are not woke. And dare I say, most Americans are not woke!

There are 353.90 million Twitter users and roughly eight billion people worldwide. I hope and pray that people safeguard and maintain their sanity and avoid America's extremist noise. Look at the United States as a dangerous yet entertaining spectacle of madness and uninhibited, ferocious creativity. 

I am not saying that everyone in the United States is a freak; I'm only saying that it's the Mecca for The Freakshow. And yes, if civilization dies, Uncle Sam will have had a significant role in its demise. As a guy born in Denver, I wish I didn't feel compelled to say these things.

The Anglo-West is full of strange beliefs that are not healthy. Sometimes I wish it would wall itself in and leave the rest of the world alone.

Read the article on language and listen to the podcast, and you'll know why I was triggered this morning. 

Well, yeah, America is Orwellian. Make no mistake. 

Peace Is Harder Than War And Inscrutable To Most Of Us

Countries worldwide may try to inspire peace negotiations, but the United States won't participate. Uncle Sam wants war. The question remains, will the U.S. give Ukraine enough artillery and shells to "win" the war in some fashion in the coming years? Americans might get bored, and a more lucrative opportunity for the Corporate Empire might arise in Asia soon. A case of the snake eating its tail.

Developing and maintaining a peaceful world order is hard when so many countries are under the Empire’s boot. Leaders worldwide know this and are creating opportunities for new allegiances and new systems of cooperation and trade. How innovative will these new power centers become? A case of new wine in old wineskins.

As far as developing countries are concerned, if they can’t support the development of Western products and afford to consume them, they can’t grow—growth akin to cancer. One would hope that will change. People might imagine healthier forms of development.

Meanwhile, the culture wars in the United States are only getting more passionate. Culture wars stem from the seven deadly sins; they also entertain, inspire outrage, and distract people from more important things. Whether the United States will buckle under internal pressure remains to be seen. In the coming years, we might see a disunited federation of Kingdoms, City States, and DAOs instead of the United States under a Federal Government.

Peace negotiations might begin if Ukraine or Russia’s leader is taken off the board. Deposed and murdered leaders are simple facts of war. How much death and destruction will be needed before there can be a ceasefire? War is brutal, and sometimes it takes a lot before one side’s will to fight becomes exhausted.

In time, we will know much more about everything surrounding this war and how it ended. Until then, cheerleaders on all sides will pretend they are righteous advocates of good over evil and somehow understand this conflict’s complex circumstances. Of course, armchair commentators are often stubbornly, willfully ignorant blowhards enamored with their own opinions and would be best ignored.

It’s easy to understand why the pundits, think tankers, and paid propagandists support a particular narrative. Ordinary people don’t have the time to understand complex geopolitical conflicts and resource competition. It’s also clear that audiences’ opinions are easily manipulated when facing propaganda and professional media-generated information torrents.

Not long after all the lies are exposed, the Players in this conflict will eventually be rehabilitated. Once again, people, especially in the United States, won’t be able to find Ukraine on a map.

Americans, please turn off cable news. If you must watch T.V. news, watch any channel not originating or controlled by U.S. corporations. If you can make time, try to find good sources to read, get help if needed, and pick up a book or two dealing with the recent history leading up to this war.

And if all you can do is pray, pray for peace.

What's Wrong With Jim Rutt?

So you know who Jim Rutt is? Good for you. Most people don't. 

The following was inspired by a recent episode of The Jim Rutt Show: Currents 081: Layman Pascal Interviews Jim Rutt on Twitter as Collective Intelligence

“Just knowing you don't have the answers is a recipe for humility, openness, acceptance, forgiveness, and an eagerness to learn - and those are all good things.” – Dick Van Dyke

The Jim Rutt Show launched four years ago and published 273 episodes to date. His show ranks within the top three hundred shows worldwide in the science category. According to Podtail, the show's most-played episode is EP11 Dave Snowden and Systems Thinking, and his most popular show is EP17 – Bonnitta Roy on Process Thinking and Complexity.

Jim Rutt has a Facebook page with roughly 3.1K followers. He also has a bespoke platform for his Game-B initiative that wants to improve the world by going beyond the so-called Game-A/Game Theoretic ideologies entailing highly competitive institutions always in a conflict involving multi-polar traps. I'm sorry, I'm losing you.

Who is Jim Rutt?

Santa Fe Institute bio, where he is a Trustee Emeritus and Distinguished Fellow.

Jim Rutt is the host of the Jim Rutt Show podcast. He is the Past President and co-founder of the MIT Free Speech Alliance. He is the Executive Producer of the film "An Initiation to Game~B." He is also the creator of Network Wars, the popular mobile game. He is past Chairman of the Santa Fe Institute. He was CEO of Network Solutions, which operated the .com, .net, and .org domain namespaces on the Internet until its acquisition by Verisign in 2000. Jim was the first CTO of Thomson-Reuters. He was Chairman of the computer chip design software company Analog Design Automation until its acquisition by Synposis in 2004. Previously he either founded or played a key role in several significant information services and network companies: THE SOURCE, Business Research Corp., First Call, Pinpoint Information, Wall Street on Demand, and MarketSwitch. He was Researcher in Residence at the Santa Fe Institute from 2002 to 2004, studying the application of complexity science to financial markets, and evolutionary artificial intelligence. He was Executive Producer of the awarding winning film "Zombiewood." He is a co-founder of the Staunton Makerspace, a membership maker shop and hacker space. Jim is currently an SFI Research Fellow working in the scientific study of consciousness and evolutionary artificial intelligence. Jim is also a member of the Board of Advisers of the Krasnow Institute and of Virginia Tech's Fralin Life Sciences Institute. Jim received his B.S. degree in management from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1975 and is a member of MIT's Visiting Committee for the Department of Brain & Cognitive Sciences.

Here's the description of The Jim Rutt Show from his website:

The Jim Rutt Show is a podcast series examining cutting edge thinking in science and technology with regard to the future of our economy, our political systems, and our social systems.

Each interview covers a short list of critical topics in great depth. Jim Rutt has a reputation for not letting people get by on talking points. He provokes real conversations with the leading thinkers, writers, and doers who are shaping the future of the planet.

Jim Rutt is the former CEO of Network Solutions. The New York Times once referred to him as "the Internet's bad boy" due to his reputation for creative mischief. He sold Network Solutions at the peak of the Dot Com boom and then went into scientific research. Jim has been affiliated with the Santa Fe Institute since 2002, serving as Chairman from 2009 thru 2012. A few of his other projects are summarized in his mini-bio at https://www.santafe.edu/people/profile/jim-rutt.

As you can tell, Jim Rutt has done many things. I am most attracted to people with various experiences, expertise, and open minds. I have been a fan of the show since it launched. How did his show catch my attention? Common interests, algorithms, people, and interests. I could not have missed finding The Jim Rutt Show, but that's just me. 

So What Is Wrong With Jim Rutt?

NO.1—What are they talking about?

More people need to learn who he is, his affiliates, and the guests on his show. If a billion or so people are not interested in his interests, it's a problem for the world. Mr. Rutt is barking up the right trees and forests. He knows the difference between the dancer and the dance (an inside reference you'll get if you start listening to his podcast.)

Most intellectual influencers believe intuitively that their footprint is bigger than it actually is. I'm constantly pondering what it would take to make more ordinary people curious about the subjects he covers on the show. Like many early adopters of all things Internet/Web, we hoped more data and information available across these networks would inspire people to think critically, learn more, and value facts, data, and truth. Instead, we are more confused than ever, and people's biases and heuristics remain seemingly hardwired. 

I could go on and on about this, but I won't. If you follow me, you've been introduced to many people like Jim. I hope that people from less than rarified backgrounds get curious about these people and are inspired to learn from them.

I am a hapless curator who can't help myself.

I'm begging my brave and bright educators to spend more time figuring out how to establish connections and conversations with people unaware of the things we focus on and think about. Reach out to other classes. How do we bring ordinary people on board? Many of my well-educated and worldly friends wonder what I am on about when I share The Jim Rutt Show. Few people get back to me and say, "That was interesting," most say, "I don't understand it."

We need to engage with billions of people willing to discuss our shared challenges before we can mitigate the worst potential outcomes of our profits-first culture.

We are creating ivory bubbles online where we can believe that it's just a matter of time before we are the mainstream. The truth is that our various communities are small and incestuous. I follow the same conversations with the same people on different shows, knowing that I'm part of a minor, biased audience. 

How do we displace ignorance and mainstream views motivated chiefly by money? It doesn't matter if you are rich or poor. We get what we get with cash. "It doesn't matter if you are a black or a white cat. As long as you catch mice, you're a good cat."

One thing is sure; you can't beat them at their own game. You can't be a stronger gangster without becoming a stronger gangster. 

NO.2—A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

I belong to a group that does tactical training for four hours weekly. I may be sixty-five years old, but my cardio is great, my knees are like a teenager's, my hips bend, my back is strong, I am on my weight, and I have striking, wrestling, and jujitsu skills. I am as good with a hatchet as I am with a knife. I'm a marksman. I'm also an all-around handy, high-value man, an entrepreneur, intellectual, problem solver, stoic, philosopher, and semi-genius. My leadership skills are second to none. My rhetorical flourishes make my followers blush. I have charm, charisma, and wisdom. @TheRealTonyStark 

How many Vietcong, Taliban, etc. lives did it take to see the back of the U.S. military finally? How many resources, money, and lives had to be spent before the most powerful nation in history declared victory and retreated utterly, leaving its enemies to pick up the pieces of their failed State and continue, worse off than before they were invaded for their own good?

Things don't go well when heavily armed communities decide to go against the municipal, State, or Federal government. Only developing countries can defeat Uncle Sam's military if they sacrifice everything for the cause. 

Jim commented on one of his recent episodes regarding the second amendment. He parroted the old trope that having guns and ammo keeps the government honest. You might need a militia if the government is too pushy or out of hand. If your government and culture can't defend your inshrined rights anymore, you may have to defeat them with violence—apparently, the only language they understand.

How do private militias or armed gangs historically do against the many law enforcement agencies, militarised police departments, and the Army, Airforce, Navy, and Marines with their supporting institutions, budgets, Central Bank, MMT, Global Corporations, and high-tech weapons of mass destruction? An AC-130H gunship and all the systems that support it come to mind. Let's not even address the MAD unthinkable nukes.

The American revolution lasted seven years. It is an apple to a pizza regarding the challenges revolutionaries would face today if they could duct tape a few armed cliques across the county together in some form of disciplined, cohesive force. The U.S. Capitol Raid sure fizzled out fast.

When I was a boy in Colorado, I received my gun safety certificate from the National Rifle Associate. We were members of Ducks Unlimited. I went game fishing and dove hunting with my father in Mexico in my teenage years. We hunted elk at The Bear Ranch in Paonia, Colorado, long before Bill Koch bought the place and turned it into a dude ranch for the ultra-wealthy. I am OK with gun ownership or hunting when it's all done properly. Many of my friends in Portugal hunt deer, birds, and boar. I'm not fond of factory farming game animals for the hunter's pleasure. These animals don't know how to survive in the wild and quickly die alone if hunters don't kill them. That seems too cruel.

My problem isn't with gun ownership but the gunfighter fantasy. We are not tactically trained warriors who never miss like in the movies. We are not great leaders or well-led. Our culture usually puts sociopaths in positions of power due to the structure of society, systems, and culture. We are conditioned to follow sick people who are only out for themselves. We aspire to be homo economicus and devout consumers. Guns won't fix that; a deluded, well-armed clique can't defeat a corrupt U.S. government violently.

So instead of using that old eighteenth-century trope, let's grow up, enjoy hobbies that put us in a healthy relationship with nature, and do the heavy lifting via organizing and holding our elected leaders accountable by working together to keep the pressure on. 

May I try to keep hope alive? Being pessimistic only means that I suffer now and then again when things go to shit.

As Game-B Jim knows, the whole system needs redesigning, reengineering, reimagining, reform, reinvigoration, restructuring, etc.

Oh, and there’s a meaning crisis, don’t you know. And most sensible folks can’t make sense of things anymore. This is not our great-grandfather’s simple world. Even the provincials are not as provincial as way back when.

How do we encourage people to engage in domains we are obsessed with, domains that, if understood well, could help us all improve the world beyond limits?

NO.3—Follow me! “No, really, follow me; we’ve got the answers.” “Not my answers!”

All the Proto-B, Dunbar number communities of like-minded people living in gated communities (DAOs) will never have the cohesive ability or shared desires to get the rest of the world invested in the Game-B movement. Groups of people are disinclined to accept rules made up by other groups of people just like that.

We are predisposed to scapegoating, othering, enmity, brutal competition over resources, and the like. We can’t seem to be able to live in a multi-polar world, much less a world full of millions of micro-communities somehow networked together on various encrypted blockchains or whatever.

I am sorry; I'll let you discover the Game B thing yourself. It's worth a look. If you listen to enough episodes of The Jim Rutt show, you'll get the idea of the project/movement/whatever it is. 

The old frontier spirit and egomania can be vexing. 

Please try to remember that living space is in your skull!

So what would a Game-B member do if he were the King of Twitter? Who cares? Again, Twitter isn't all that in the grand scheme of things. Every country has its various firehoses of noise, ways of manufacturing consent, propaganda arms, tech public squares, and educational institutions supported by and supportive of the status quo.

You can't engineer culture with a perfect platform. You can educate people to know how to use tools effectively. Learning about a hammer and earth-moving vehicles' limitations is relatively easy. 

Why do we pay so much attention to Elon? Do you know what kind of person you have to be to cheat your way to the wealth he has? I would love to hear Jim in a lengthy interview with Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky if only Amos were still alive. What would they think about how we react and behave towards self-serving billionaires? They could live a thousand years and never run out of things to study regarding human psychology and behavior.

Why do people behave the way they do? I'd recommend you all read or listen to, The Undoing Project: A Friendship That Changed Our Minds by Michael Lewis.

Jim Rutt is one of the most diverse thinkers I follow. He is a good communicator; he has geezerly charm and a deep understanding of many domains of inquiry. I am always grateful that Jim knows when to listen and how to ask appropriate, stimulating, and insightful questions sparingly. He never pontificates too much and keeps the show focused on his guests.

UNLIKE:

Egotists who think their opinions across all domains are correct because they have some expertise in one domain. True polymaths are rare, yet biology professors comment on epidemiology, virology, pandemics, and vaccines as if their opinion of various popular narratives is the best.

Influencers should be cautious about being captured by fanatics. Sometimes singing to the choir is the death of integrity.

"I'm a contrarian because I know 'the data,' 'the science,' blah, blah, blah (Greta eventually gets in everyone's heads.):

I have my very own Jesus, which makes me...

• A heretic 

• Satanic

• Possessed by demons

• Heterodox 

• Contrarian

• Ignorant

• Insane

… aren't I great!

Follow me; I am arrogant as fuck! I've got an ego the size of the Amazon. My platform will save the world! Social engineering always works. It worked for the Soviets! It worked for the Nazis. It worked for Pol Pot. It works for the Quakers. Kibbutz sure has something going on. How about a Mega Church? Let's make America Great Again and again and again. Everything is WOKE, and ANTIFA is a joke. Oh, and I identify as a Republican or a Social Democrat, or a, fill in the blank.

Sometimes it's best to stick to one's lane. If meta-modern geopolitics from a Marxist perspective is your thing, how many years will you spend reading reactionary literature? How well do you want to know your enemy? 

We all get a burr up our ass sometimes. Please get rid of it. If you scratch that itch too long, it won't end well. 

It took seven years to kick the British out of the colonies. What native nations fought with what countries from 1492 to the American revolution? Why did they choose their allies? Do only the righteous win fights? How many perspectives of a historical period in a given place have you read, and from what sources?

Trade-offs, side effects, unintended consequences, externalities, third and fourth-order effects, etc. Have we begun to consider these things? Have we made questioning things earnestly and adroitly a habit?

We are too arrogant to slow down, think things through, and do things right. We only engineer something well when the right set of incentives aligns with the right group of people across the right network. Then it takes years or generations of collaboration to manifest something radically new. (I didn't use the word "shift" or "paradigm.”)

The theory of the Soviet Union mind, Soviet culture, was very opaque, and it was difficult for me to connect with people there way back in 1979. Later, when I met Russians, it became easier. Perhaps we can credit that to consumerism and a desire for global brands—fashion, if you will. For some reason, Japanese culture was understandable to me from the get-go, but that's another story. As I walked through places in China over decades, I could feel the history in my body.

Most of us are stubbornly, wilfully ignorant. We see someone standing on a soap box in the town square talking about something we know nothing about and don't want to know anything about and keep walking as a cloud of disgust follows us several meters before we are finally out of earshot. 

So we have a market of ideas (obviously already established, or there would be no market for them), a market for Proto-B communities, a market for intellectual influencers, and so on. If you have some intellectual agency, you can take your pick. Find your gated community and stick with your kind, away from all those other weirdos. 

Home school. Choose your textbooks and social media folks to follow. Make a platform just for you and yours. Write up the rules and bylaws and see how it scales. It will never be perfect, and it will never be for everybody.

Even Elon doesn't have the power to control everything he wants to control, and despite his loyal fans, plenty of people think he is a feckless jerk. How many Indonesians, Filipinos, or Nigerians care about Musk?

My advice, understand the tool and what it's for and learn how to use it. If the tool isn't right for the job, leave it and pick up another tool.

Sam Harris didn't like his Twitter experience, so he left it. I hardly use it, and like Jim, I only follow people who can teach me something interesting. We can stop following people. We can delete the thing. Sam Harris has a gated community for his fans, and Jim Rutt has his Game-B platform. We have plenty of platforms and tools that serve various audiences. Market segments?

People will flock to their bubbles and stubbornly adhere while carefully ignoring uncomfortable things. We take pride in stubborn, wilful ignorance.

Very few people have the passion, talent, grit, and collaborative skills needed to help create a new culture. How does one make a market for a new culture? Civilization is full of cultures; you don't have to be an anthropologist to be sensitive to that fact. The United States has fiercely competing cultures, hence, culture wars.

Old cultures are like Nassim Taleb's old books; they last for good reasons. But they still need to be cared for and improved. What parent doesn’t want their child to be a better version of themselves? The domain of ideals is a never-ending human project that will end when the last human dies.

What is missing is quality lifetime education and a burning desire for it. How can random, disconnected communities instill these values?

Jim is an accomplished man; He's done many things. But what about the rest of us? How do we bring more people into a creative culture of inquiry and slow-growth wisdom?

We don't do that by talking over people's heads and pretending to have the answers in areas that don't lend themselves to easy answers. How many of us are familiar with systems and complexity theories?

We can't engineer our way to a better world. At best, engineering, science, and technology are among the many tools that we must use wisely. If we don't know how to use these fantastic tools properly, we will forever be helpless, hopeless, powerless, and clueless.

Deep culture is in the dancer, not the dance, but how does it emerge from the dancer? The choreographer draws on everything that created the dancer, and that's complex.

A gun is a tool. We use different guns for different purposes. We use a ten gauge or a 4/10 to hunt various animals. A Ruger American .30/06 is a good rifle for killing elk, but it's better to have an assault rifle designed to kill people if you want to kill people. If you want to go to war, you need even more. The hunter and the warrior are complex beings, as are all the institutions, ideologies, and mechanisms that support them. What's more complex than ecology and ecosystems—these interdependent biological systems?

If you want to supplant the government of the United States, you will need more than some guns and ammo.

What do we do with intellectual influencers who have become annoying pricks due to egomania? Ignore them. Find a new mentor.

I'll be learning a lot from The Jim Rutt Show and Jim Rutt's guests for a long time. He is definitely not a counterfeit idea man or a hapless curator of ideas.

Life & Death

A dead star appears to be looking at us.

The rapid "Collapse" of civilization started one hundred years ago or so if we want to ballpark beginnings. We could go back thousands of years and analyze human beings' impacts on ecosystems. Many great writers, scientists, and academics have for many decades. Only recently, some of us have begun to pay attention to issues surrounding rapid changes across many domains of inquiry regarding ecosystems, health, and sustainability.

We have been poorly conditioned to be myopic consumers, and the way out is a generational project that requires radical cultural change. All that is left for us to do is to keep trying to raise awareness, intelligence, and knowledge of the many issues surrounding our predicament, sing out a secular prayer from time to time, and hope we catch on fast.

As far as we know, all systems have their duration.

Our species had an exciting run. No machine can match the way people remember. The Universe is a wonderous mystery that may have to run sans Earth's living consciousness sooner than we may have hoped.

If we had only valued wisdom over everything else, we might have had a longer run. Humanity has around one billion years before the sun expands into a red giant and spends billions of years transforming until: "When a star dies, it ejects a mass of gas and dust – known as its envelope – into space. The envelope can be as much as half the star's mass. This reveals the star's core, which is running out of fuel by this point in the star's life, eventually turning off before finally dying," — astrophysicist Albert Zijlstra. Life and Death are human concepts and can be apt metaphors when confronting a star.

After we disappear, life and death are of no consequence anymore. When I contemplate this, I am thrilled.

It Takes An Act Of God

Those in power control history—not in the sense that they make history but in how they tell history.

Americans have a short memory and a shallow knowledge of world history if any. I have observed educational materials and systems firsthand in Japan, China, and Europe. All educational systems have their biases.

February 6, 2013

The conflict in Syria, partially inspired by the Arab spring, drought, and regional destabilization from a decade-long war in Iraq, blew up into a terribly destructive civil war by 2015. With the war raging in Ukraine, the cable news audience has moved on and forgotten Aleppo.

Aleppo 2018, after years of civil war with foreign support on all sides of the conflict.

With America's myopic and errant concept of itself and history, one can hardly expect people to understand the former President of the Philippines, Rodrigo "Digong" Roa Duterte's reasons for replying to U.S. criticism of his human rights record by sniping, "I will start with your past sins; I will produce, from your archives, the photographs that you took of the people you murdered here in the Philippines. You are investigating me and the internal affairs of my country! I'm investigating you!"

We Americans live with many fantasies embedded in our souls and minds due to our education and a firehose of constant propaganda. This leads people like Hillary Clinton to write books like, “It Takes A Village.” We view ourselves as heroic, with only a few simple humanitarian projects away from turning the world into a consumer paradise populated by enlightened individuals looking out for themselves while “giving back.”

People feel good when they give back. But why do nations help other nations? Why do corporations "give back?" Make a list of answers to those questions.

Besides economic growth and global consumerism, U.S. geopolitical strategy for global dominance has also created the preconditions that produced much of the suffering in the world. U.S. financialized global capitalism and rapacious multinational corporations run the State and its Deep State institutions. Big business in the U.S. is not interested in preventing negative externalities or the "unintended" consequences of its all-out effort for power, control, and profit.

The phrase, profits-first, sums up America's core ideological tenant.

So what does it take for Americans to focus on the suffering of people not perceived to be anything like them culturally during an attention deficit disordered day?

It takes an Act of God.

It takes an Act of God to make people in the U.S. care about people from very different cultures far away from its shores. An Act of God alone gets the prosperity gospel preachers to pass the plate for something other than purchasing a private jet. If only people who didn't think like good Christian Americans of European descent could be reeducated and brought to heal, things in the world might be much nicer and more secure.

Americans are always there to help other countries with famines or natural disasters. Libya and Yemen might catch a break if they had a giant tsunami. Until there is an Act of God, America keeps the peace by making war.

Fortunately, America can still print money for its essential line items. It may not have the funds for Medicare for school lunches, but it will always have enough to send in the bombers and the tanks. And, as we all know, the United States is an innovative country. It's now extending its OPM (other people's money) idea to OPBOTG (other people's boots on the ground.) That's probably for the best. Young folks can find too much information about how the government and its corporations treat its veterans on the internet—this and many other factors might diminish its ability to recruit troops for its next adventure in the Third World.

Of course, mobilizing for a world war is never tricky once it becomes an existential threat to the homeland.

Wars are never Acts of God, but God's creation can't live without them.

I was riding around and talking about my thoughts on this post.

China—Will Never Be Public Enemy No.1, But Sam Will Make It So—and other things to fear

China will never be as good at killing Americans as Americans—unless given a chance.

It Doesn't Take Much To Make Sam's Dreams Come True

USS Maddox at that Chinese balloon. Joe ordered it shot down. Now Sam has another excuse. Shine your boots, service your kit, take your sights off your fellow Americans, and take a bead on a brand-new enemy.

Before we go to war with China, the USA needs a civil war to resolve its gas stove feud. And that's not all; they have many things to fight over. Have people forgotten about gun rights, abortion pills, Build Back Better, government documents, laptops, Neo-Nazis, workers’ wages, Far-Right Bounty Hunters, Medicare for All, vaccines, mask mandates, the second amendment, Twitter Files, BLM, Me Too, Oil & Gas, and the war on drugs? Nare a grievance has been solved.

Oh, and let’s not forget that everything is a conspiracy in the USA.

Silk Now Claims A 'Bio Weapon' Sprayed Into The Air Killed Her Sister Diamond

Wait. Let's find out what ChatGPT has to say about the culture wars.

Some of the most controversial and divisive topics in the United States' culture wars include:

1. Gun control

2. Immigration

3. Race and racism

4. Police brutality and the criminal justice system

5. Climate change and the environment

6. Reproductive rights and abortion

7. Marriage equality and LGBTQ rights

8. Health care and insurance

9. Political polarization and misinformation

10. Freedom of speech and censorship

These issues often generate strong emotions and opinions, leading to heated debates and disagreements between different groups.

Well, Yeah, ChatGPT, but there are so many more. 

Americans both love to hang on to things and forget things. Does anyone remember the Red Scare and the McCarthy era? Better dead than red. We fought a long war in Vietnam after that period of hysteria.

Americans are mad about many things and very mad at each other. If you bring up the price of eggs, poverty, homelessness, infrastructure, government debt, economics, wall street, woke, electric cars, oil and gas, alternative energy, education, books, social media, smartphones, the NFL, stress, trauma, healthcare, Cancer Cure Conspiracy—almost anything that matters will spark a fight.

8% of Floridians have gas stoves, but DeSantis promises to fight a potential ban. He'll do practically anything to stop people from using electric ranges and ovens. The microwave oven industry is quacking in its boots now. What electrical appliances are good, and which ones are evil? DeSantis believes that defending gas stoves is a matter of principle. I swear the Governor will run out of gauntlets way before the presidential campaign heats up.

"They want your gas stove, and we're not going to let that happen," the Governor said on Wednesday.  

The gas industry is under fire. Oh no! But wait, what about that Chinese spy balloon?

And some people say that there are toxic metals in baby food. But don't mention another incendiary topic, Regulators, or you might get fragged. Just when you thought you'd lost trust in every possible institution in the United States, you are confronted with the toxic baby food wars. Get litigious on it. A "Toxic Baby Food Class Action" lawsuit was thrown out—this will get stinkier than a one-year-old's diaper. 

Will Americans ever have enough to fight over? Where are the toxic baby food contrarians? Heterodox podcasters had better get busy on this scoop.

Everything is toxic, and the dose makes the poison.

There are more obese kids than ever before, and dealing with the Obesidemic will be the biggest food fight ever. Eating disorders exist everywhere, and nutritional guidelines have become a minefield peppered with sugar. How can anyone pretend to address obesity in children and the potential policy issues surrounding it? The stomach growling will hit a fever pitch! Getting the government out of children's health vs. We must do something to protect children's health is a significant source of contention between Republicans and Democrats. Heck, State Governments can’t even afford to feed school children.

But hang on, wait a minute. China says Taiwan is part of China. China might go after the microchip foundries in Taiwan! 

And, anyway, it's too expensive to eat healthy food. And the only thing killing people is adverse reactions to big Pharma. 

If Americans wanted cheap fruits and vegetables, China would ship synthetic edibles to the United States to fill the big box stores. But then you'd expect the Chinese to poison the broccoli with TikTok. And if someone wanted to regulate that, there would be a horrific fight and a never-ending filibuster in Congress. The Social Justice Warriors would protest, and conservatives would get super mad. And indeed, if there is a food crisis, it would have but one cause. Sam’s finger would find one particular thing to point at and pronounce, “Let the bombing begin.”

I won't mention the "warming" thing. I don't want to get death threats.

Remember Huawei and space lasers? You know who's messing with the thing that shall not be named to keep me safe.

The food swamp is an unhealthy big business, so there are KFCs and lots of Coca-Cola in Beijing. Uncle Sam can also fight dirty. There are lots of fat kids in China these days. People in China are getting type 2 diabetes. (Could it be a CIA plot?)

Medical science says there is a link between junk food and brain dysfunction. The State Department needs to provide more subsidies to the fast food industry and incentivize the invasion of Shanghai by Taco Bells. 

And I am sure you can count on DeSantis to make certain pesky nutrition science doesn't interfere with your choice of snacks. Have we all forgotten how brilliantly provocative President Trump was with his room full of MacDonald's fare? That was a Whole Foods beat down the likes of which a more enlightened leader would never have conceived. 

And let's not forget how China tried to poison Americans for decades with their cheap Chinese restaurants and MSG-laced dishes. 

Food processing adds value. More sugar, more better, but leave the salt and pepper shakers on the table.

And if you find some scientific studies that say ultra-processed food may contribute to cancer risk, you'd better prepare for a vicious fight with Big Fast Food lobbyists. #PoliticizeNutrition 

One thing is for sure, Americans don't like being spied on by Chinese weather balloons. If Chinese spymasters had any respect for the American government, wouldn't they want to be more stealthy about their attempts to get info from a North Dakota field? Show some respect!

Let's not forget that Uncle Sam is behind almost every conspiracy one can imagine. Big Pharma has a cure for everything, but they keep them secret to make Americans buy medicines to treat their controversial lifestyle choices. 

But the Pentagon is clever. They've convinced China to use Western Medicine, thereby weakening its people's immune systems and bleeding the country financially. Complimentary And Alternative Medicine and Chinese Medicine are losing out to local Chinese Big Pharma. 

Silk knows that a bioweapon killed her sister Diamond. Where do you think this bioweapon originated? Bill Gates, perhaps, or was it The Chinese?

Star athletes get sick, and one side knows why, while the other side gets paid by Big Pharma to pretend otherwise. 

And if all this isn't enough for heightened rancor, good Americans will have to convince bad Americans what's causing the high price of eggs. 

"Chicken Egg Yolk Antibodies (IgYs) block the binding of multiple SARS-CoV-2 spike protein variants to human ACE2."

"I am sure this has nothing to do with why we have mass egg shortages or why entire chicken factories are burning down. Nope, not one bit," — influencer Brittney Kara

This fight will be uglier than a tared and feathered egg yoke.

But China makes fake eggs. Maybe China is behind the egg shortage and will find a way to safely drop eggs from its spy balloons that will brainwash people into locking themselves indoors, away from a free vitamin D supply where they can brood about how so many Americans are evil and stupid. 

No, that can't be the case. Putler and his boyfriend Xi are using Twitter bots and Facebook posts to make Americans hate each other and elect very bad hombres—on both sides, on both sides. Putler and Xi are trying to spark a civil war in America!

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle who serve at the pleasure of global financialized capitalism are too smart to fall for that gambit. They are flipping the script on China and Russia by laying the groundwork for a good old-fashioned, trumped-up reason for going to war with China. I can think of a good reason, and I don't need ChatGPT: China and its globe cap CEOs have been flooding the USA with cheap consumer goods for decades. 

Finally, Americans will unite around the only thing Americans ever unite around: killing and dying in a war 7,655.18 mi (12,319.82 km) away from its shores. Well, Australians, Japanese, and Filipinos will do most of the fighting and dying, and they live much closer to China. Hooray! 

And who wins? Who always wins? I hope you are a shareholder.

But maybe I'm being silly. Let's see what ChatGPT has to say.

"It is not accurate to say that the United States wants to go to war with China. The relationship between the two countries is complex and multifaceted, with areas of cooperation and competition.

While there are some concerns and tensions in the relationship, such as trade imbalances and human rights issues, both countries have engaged in diplomatic efforts to address these challenges. War is not a desirable outcome for either country, as it would have devastating consequences for both nations and the world as a whole.

It is important for the United States and China to continue to engage in dialogue and work towards resolving their differences peacefully."

"They" Must Convince The Ghosts (For Some Mysterious and Virtuous Reasons)

Heterodox Truther said, "Luv some Convid1984 complaint mask wearing virtue signaling B.S. Mawwwwr meat.”

***SINCERE IRONY ALERT, OR WHATEVER!

OMG Masks! The only virtuous people I know are the ones who did not take the poison and instead relied on natural immunity, vitamin D, and dwizzabin.

The wise, "heterodox" contrarian web M.D.s that work hard day in and day out to spread the truth to ghosts are properly super duper virtuous. Thank trad God for those noble heroes.

The Normies think “The Truth” is a conspiracy. Enough said, right? You can't save anyone with your "heterodox" sources. 

The preordained survivors are already playing golf at Bill Gates' new farmland country club. We are not invited because we hang out with the help. Robots. 

I promise, if I get stomach cancer, as I die, I will peck out a message to you here saying: "I should have listened to you." Then I will die. I permit you to send the message to your trash sources so they can tell their readers, "We sounded the alarm, and no one listened." 

And since the plebs and proles, the useless eaters are all dead. (I predicted we'd all have ceased to exist last June, remember?) I mean, we have all died of complications due to vaccines. You can not kill a ghost. Look it up on your Dark Web search machines that you subscribe to with Ethereum contracts that don't track you. The Davos Crowd can't kill spirits. Spirits are dead! Articles about how ghosts are dead are all over the dark web. Do your research, for heaven's sake.

Buy a monster gas-fuelled truck, reserve a space on Peter Thiel's island, eat beef grown in the Amazon, relentlessly troll Greta, try desperately to make rich conservative friends, follow everything Musk, stay obsessed with 911, JFK, Covid, Vaxx, snowballs in congress, and the like... 

At least you know why your life is suboptimal. The rest of us are ignorant and dead. I'm sure no one is alive in the U.K., even though the Davos Crowd is still trying to convince Ghosts in Portugal that people still live there.

Look at all of these data websites to convince Ghosts that they need shots, electric stoves, or something. It's pathetic. Why doesn't the Davos Crowd stay busy playing tennis at the Gates Farmland Country Club (GFCC) instead of carrying on with this charade? Is it because they believe spirits and demons might interfere with their triumph? They must be less confident than dead people give them credit for.

I mean, why bother? It's done and dusted. People are all dead already, so why think about or do anything? It's dumb to pretend to carry on when the Davos Crowd has already killed everyone.

Why do they pretend that people worldwide are working on these fake existential risk issues when everyone is already dead? 

Why do you keep sending me goofy URLs with content about sick people who are obviously fictitious? They are dead people, zombies, spirits, and ghosts. Right? Why the hell should we give a hoot about dead people? It's so absurd. Those remaining are still dying because of the conspiracies to kill off the useless eaters. If they somehow avoided the poisons, they are dying because of 911 or JFK or Gwyneth Paltrow, or the post-modernist, neo-Marxist, LGBTQ, Democrats, and Clinton sympathizers. No one is long for this world. 

I told you there would only be 15,668 people left on earth by May 27, 2023, and we are well on track. Did you see that rectangular iceberg? That's where the 2,668 billionaires have their bug-out mansions. Aliens made it. I have already made peace with the fact that all of my friends from now on will be robots, and most of them don't look like people. There are very few humanoid robots in Portugal. Most look like machines—ugly, random, useful machines.

I will not click on any idiotic, stinky URL you send me. I'd rather entertain myself by typing nonsense without using ChatGPT than waste a second with those mindless sources. My robot friends gave me perfect information to brainwash myself. I am fine. Thank you very much.

Just as you never read what I send, I am done reading the conspiratorial nonsense you send. 

I obey the robots. There, you can feel sorry for me.

---

The Following Quote helps me live, mostly alone, here in Portugal, surrounded by ugly, useful robots:

“What is the use of planning to be able to eat next week unless I can really enjoy the meals when they come?

If I am so busy planning how to eat next week that I cannot fully enjoy what I am eating now, I will be in the same predicament when next week's meals become now."

If my happiness at this moment consists largely of reviewing happy memories and expectations, I am dimly aware of this present.

I shall still be dimly aware of the present when the good things that I have been expecting come to pass.

For I shall have formed a habit of looking behind and ahead, making it difficult for me to attend to the here and now.

If, then, my awareness of the past and future makes me less aware of the present, I must begin to wonder whether I am actually living in the real world.” — Alan Watts

Informed by Journalists or Performers?

Are we addicted to these faces? T.V. News talents are all fake, and this realization is deeper than you think.

This is nothing new; we all love the sensational stuff. It’s all the rest of the news that we have to beware of.

Actors work in the realm of imaginary circumstances.

Journalists do the hard work of researching, engaging sources of information and data, and other lines of inquiry to report what they've learned to the public. Few news anchors, reporters, and journalists have that in their job description these days.

Just as famous academics have research and writing teams that help them churn out popular books, contemporary news people mostly perform non-fiction commercials. They are vain collaborators and propagandists.

For talented, attractive professional readers who get lucky, performing the role of a journalist can be a very lucrative career.

Traditionally journalists raise awareness and, therefore, the level of dialogue, conversation, and understanding of crucial issues challenging society.

News anchors read a teleprompter with information that a team of people crafts for the corporations behind "the news."

A true journalist follows the facts and data to where it leads them. They educate their audience through engaging stories that provide highly contextualized reasoning.

Everyone at FOX NEWS, CNN, and MSNBC refer to their broadcasts as "Shows."

T.V. and Cable "News Shows" are big income generators. And yet, budgets for news teams are continually cut. This lack of professional resources leads to a constant need for canned content from Think Tanks, Corporate and Governmental organizations. These organizations disguise public relations and propaganda as infotainment or so-called " fake news" in popular parlance.

This content is a systemic prerogative.

Open up the New York Times or the Washington Post, and one is often fooled by marketing packaged in an attention-grabbing headline and a compelling story.

The Sinclair Corporation has bought most of your local T.V. Channels and sends out "scripts" that corporations pay for. It is these scripts that journalists/anchors, and reporters read.

Many years ago, quite a few journalists/anchors resigned because the scripts contained falsehoods, inaccuracies, or (to put it bluntly) "extreme lies."

There is no incentive for The Sinclair Corporation to hire journalists when they can hire talking heads. In time these talking heads will all be deep fake A.I.s programmed to say only the information big business wants us to know.

People interested in what's happening in our world will have to invest time and energy in learning to ascertain good sources, seek them out, and engage information with critical thinking.

…and because we should already know about this, we’d better be prepared to do the hard work necessary to make sense of the world.

Rosy The Robotics Engineer

***WARNING: Sincere Irony

Rosy—engineering the future

America must build trade schools focused on computer chip foundries and robotics engineering and manufacturing. The Ford or GM factory floor is different from your granddaddies workplace. America needs a lot of complex equipment to maintain global dominance. We are not making Liberty Ships anymore.

Providing an up-to-date account of Modern Monetary Theory with contributions from the world’s leading experts, each chapter offers new insights on the topic, building upon MMT’s established body of work. This innovative book analyses key economic issues from a wide set of regions including the UK, Europe and the Global South, addressing previous concerns that MMT is too US-focused.

Suppose the United States wants to create a multipolar world and fuel wars in Europe and Asia. In that case, it will need some clever Modern Monetary Theory and sophisticated, well-educated, and trained, high-level professionals to meet The Fourth Industrial Revolution's demands.

The USA will have to mobilize its economy to be even more of a war economy. US citizens would be wise to invest in companies that feed the military-industrial complex's material flows and product demand.

The US will need commodities and materials from far and wide to build its sophisticated weapons. Professional private contractors will be required at black sites worldwide to secure supplies of precious commodities. A build-back better neocolonial foreign policy strategy is needed. We need brilliant leaders familiar with game and complex systems theories to build computer models to help predict and manage risk and probable outcomes.

Educational institutions from kindergarten on must encourage individuals to work towards careers in companies that support a winning strategy that guarantees that the United States remains the only reliable superpower.

The United States must deprioritize climate, environmental, and other economic concerns. The United States can't afford to work on any existential risk that requires compromise with its traditional enemies.

The world is at an inflection point. We must make an all-out effort to save the empire.

#SupportTheMIC

***IMPORTANT NOTE: To understand the full impact of this article, you must visit the hyperlinks in the text.

***WARNING: Sincere Irony

Predicting The Course of War

YouTube creators are on top of it. I guess.

Why Belarus Might Invade Ukraine Too

War for Ukraine — First Conclusions from 2022 and New Challenges 2023

First and foremost, let’s underestimate Belarus and its capacity to contribute to the war in Ukraine. Remember last year when everyone said that body bags in Russia would make it impossible for Putler to defend his regime? The Babushkas wouldn’t stand for it!

Some people think they can see the future and that the fog of war can’t impede their excellent armchair analysis.

How many years will this war drag on? What other forces will join the fighting? Watch a few days of CNN, and then get back to us with your predictions.

Will Poland, Lithuania, and Latvia fight? Remember, those countries are up to NATO Standards. And you know how quickly America, with its coalition partners, defeats third-world nations. Vietnam was a breeze, Afghanistan a twenty-year investment with its global partners that made the world much more prosperous and safe. Look at how well things are going in Libya and Syria. Whatever actions Sam takes makes the world a better place.

If not for some evil guys in relatively poor and helpless countries, our international rules-based system would be close to heaven on earth. Finally, the money could trickle down; there would be more billionaires in the world, providing more philanthropic organizations to help the unfortunate.

(Privatize it, don’t criticize it.)

Well, at least we can rest assured that U.S.-backed regime change wars always end well. And the U.S. is the exception when it comes to the rules-based order. No one can prosecute Uncle Sam when he breaks the law; Uncle Sam has a Constitution.

(Who’s excited to see Assange hang?)

1. INTERFERENCE IN OTHER COUNTRIES’ INTERNAL AFFAIRS, VIOLATING OTHER COUNTRIES’ SOVEREIGNTY
2. VIOLATIONS OF INTERNATIONAL RULES, THREATENING PEACE AND SECURITY
3. UNILATERAL BULLYING & SANCTIONS IN PURSUIT OF SUPREME DOMINATION
4. PUTTING ITSELF FIRST AND RENEGING ON COMMITMENTS AND OBLIGATIONS
5. INFAMOUS DOUBLE STANDARDS AND GROSS VIOLATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS

Who has the power to do all that? Belarus? Iran? Afghanistan? Nicaragua? Venezuela? Cuba? Chile, Any particular country in Africa? Oh, yeah, I forgot, China.

Remember the 11th commandment, the one on the other stone slab Moses dropped while walking down the mountain: Might makes right!

Of course, European countries have been angelic after World War Two. George Bush’s coalition consisted solely of good guys who had the world’s best interest at heart. Yeah, right. Obama never bent the rules. Hehe.

Will Lukashenko survive as long as Castro? Who will be scarier than Alexander Lukashenko after The West destroys Belarus and Russia? Who’s in line? Will Western Corporations finally get to code Russia’s laws and manage its resources?

Plebs and proles, tighten your belts, pray and be thankful you are not on the front lines in the meat grinder. At least not yet.

It's Crucial We Move On From War While Maintaining A Warriors Spirit

It’s time we grow up and put the pursuit of wisdom first.

Will we see NATO forces in Ukraine tip the balance in 2023? Is Rosy the Riveter going to help design and build robots for military equipment manufacturing in the United States so that Sam can increase output? (Buy MIC shares.) Will the United States mine its National Parks to get the materials needed for more HIMARS? Will global trade flows be kind to Uncle Sam's efforts? If NATO sends bodies into the fray, will the war spread? Will a defeated Russia make the world a safer place? How did the Middle East fare after Sadam Husein? Does the world need another Uncle Sam-produced failed State?

Armchair cheerleaders know all the answers; our leaders don't.

The time to prevent war is many years before they start.

Limit your war fantasies to computer games and Netflix.

We can do better than this.

New alliances will only intensify as the West invests more precious resources into its proxy war. It's not enough anymore to think the opposition is stupid. The Global Financialized Economy has seen former colonies catch up to the West. "The weak men of Asia" are no longer weak, as if they ever were. Russia is still a formidable culture.

Who profits from this kind of old-fashioned conflict? It's time for the world's leaders to grow up.

And how about young people, schooled on social media platforms, who wonder what kind of meaningful work they will commit their lives to in pursuing the good life? Are they enthusiastic about filling the ranks of the revolving door country club of pundits and Robber Barrons? Will they have the right stuff to continue The Great Game that may end by destroying civilization and possibly life on Earth?

Meanwhile, there are systemically and structurally induced threats to every nation that require attention, investment, materials, and expertise. It may be time we focus on these problems before it's too late. Let's aspire to put aside our game theoretic, zero-sum, multipolar traps in favor of a sustainable future for our children and preserving life.

If you can't imagine a better way to be part of the solutions, stay in front of your cable news shows and enjoy yourself. There are plenty of hard people working that will step up for you. Let's hope their efforts are enough.

This Is Why They Haven't Come Calling

I posted this on Facebook:

Aliens that can phone us are too smart to do so.

That’s y0ur alien. you can tell because it isn’t wearing a ZOOT SUIT.

This is the article it accompanied:

Why hasn't ET phoned Earth? Maybe aliens are waiting for the exact right moment.

By Stephanie Pappas

 published 3 days ago

A new search for alien signals focuses on planetary transits, when exoplanets pass right in front of their suns.

---

A good friend in Japan sent me a link to this in the comments. NICE!

They're Made out of Meat

Terry Bisson, 1991

Someone did a radio play of this... 

"They're made out of meat."

  "Meat?"

"Meat. They're made out of meat."

  "Meat?"

"There's no doubt about it. We picked several from different parts of the planet, took them aboard our recon vessels, probed them all the way through. They're completely meat."

  "That's impossible. What about the radio signals? The messages to the stars."

"They use the radio waves to talk, but the signals don't come from them. The signals come from machines."

  "So who made the machines? That's who we want to contact."

"They made the machines. That's what I'm trying to tell you. Meat made the machines."

  "That's ridiculous. How can meat make a machine? You're asking me to believe in sentient meat."

"I'm not asking you, I'm telling you. These creatures are the only sentient race in the sector and they're made out of meat."

  "Maybe they're like the Orfolei. You know, a carbon-based intelligence that goes through a meat stage."

"Nope. They're born meat and they die meat. We studied them for several of their life spans, which didn't take too long. Do you have any idea the life span of meat?"

  "Spare me. Okay, maybe they're only part meat. You know, like the Weddilei. A meat head with an electron plasma brain inside."

"Nope. We thought of that, since they do have meat heads like the Weddilei. But I told you, we probed them. They're meat all the way through."

  "No brain?"

"Oh, there is a brain all right. It's just that the brain is made out of meat!"

  "So... what does the thinking?"

"You're not understanding, are you? The brain does the thinking. The meat."

  "Thinking meat! You're asking me to believe in thinking meat!"

"Yes, thinking meat! Conscious meat! Loving meat. Dreaming meat. The meat is the whole deal! Are you getting the picture?"

  "Omigod. You're serious then. They're made out of meat."

"Finally, Yes. They are indeed made out meat. And they've been trying to get in touch with us for almost a hundred of their years."

  "So what does the meat have in mind."

"First it wants to talk to us. Then I imagine it wants to explore the universe, contact other sentients, swap ideas and information. The usual."

  "We're supposed to talk to meat?"

"That's the idea. That's the message they're sending out by radio. 'Hello. Anyone out there? Anyone home?' That sort of thing."

  "They actually do talk, then. They use words, ideas, concepts?"

"Oh, yes. Except they do it with meat."

  "I thought you just told me they used radio."

"They do, but what do you think is on the radio? Meat sounds. You know how when you slap or flap meat it makes a noise? They talk by flapping their meat at each other. They can even sing by squirting air through their meat."

  "Omigod. Singing meat. This is altogether too much. So what do you advise?"

"Officially or unofficially?"

  "Both."

"Officially, we are required to contact, welcome, and log in any and all sentient races or multibeings in the quadrant, without prejudice, fear, or favor. Unofficially, I advise that we erase the records and forget the whole thing."

  "I was hoping you would say that."

"It seems harsh, but there is a limit. Do we really want to make contact with meat?"

  "I agree one hundred percent. What's there to say?" `Hello, meat. How's it going?' But will this work? How many planets are we dealing with here?"

"Just one. They can travel to other planets in special meat containers, but they can't live on them. And being meat, they only travel through C space. Which limits them to the speed of light and makes the possibility of their ever making contact pretty slim. Infinitesimal, in fact."

  "So we just pretend there's no one home in the universe."

"That's it."

  "Cruel. But you said it yourself, who wants to meet meat? And the ones who have been aboard our vessels, the ones you have probed? You're sure they won't remember?"

"They'll be considered crackpots if they do. We went into their heads and smoothed out their meat so that we're just a dream to them."

  "A dream to meat! How strangely appropriate, that we should be meat's dream."

"And we can marked this sector unoccupied."

  "Good. Agreed, officially and unofficially. Case closed. Any others? Anyone interesting on that side of the galaxy?"

"Yes, a rather shy but sweet hydrogen core cluster intelligence in a class nine star in G445 zone. Was in contact two galactic rotation ago, wants to be friendly again."

  "They always come around."

"And why not? Imagine how unbearably, how unutterably cold the universe would be if one were all alone."

Stochastic Parrots Have A Soul

AI is everywhere, enhancing and enriching our experiences and creating tremendous value. The genie is out of the bottle. Will we slow down and find wise ways to use AI to benefit life on earth, or will we make it the slave of our profits first ethic?

Please Become Familiar With David Swanson's Work

I’m sharing this from Let’s Try Democracy by David Swanson because I think he sees things clearly, and I want people to get familiar with his perspective.

Why? Because if we intellectually consume too much garbage, we will destroy any possibility of developing a healthy democratic culture. We must have a better bull shit detecter system, and people like David can help us understand how to create one.

Please read this post carefully and thoughtfully to see if it helps you identify the lies we constantly consume.

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Ukraine and the Anti-Communications System

By David Swanson

Remarks on Massachusetts Peace Action Webinar

Much of the global so-called communications system suffers from similar faults; I’m going to focus on the United States. One can examine those faults through numerous topics; I’m going to focus on war and peace. But the worst fault, I think, is a general one that applies to all topics. It is that of endlessly suggesting to people that they are powerless. A few weeks back, the New York Times ran an article claiming that nonviolent protests all over the world had ceased to work. The article cited a study by Erica Chenoweth, but if you linked to the study it cost a fortune to access it. Later that day Chenoweth tweeted a thorough debunking of the article. But how many people see a tweet from someone they’ve never heard of, compared with how many people see a supposedly big and important discovery made and trumpeted by the New York Times? Almost nobody. And who ever sees a New York Times article suggesting, what is actually true, that war fails on its own terms far more than nonviolent action does — and on any reasonable terms, far more than that? Absolutely nobody ever.

My point is not about a particular article. It’s about millions of articles that all build into them the understanding that resistance is futile, protest is silly, rebellion is dumb, the powerful pay no attention to the public, and violence is the most powerful tool of last resort. This grandest of all lies is piled on top of the characterization of popular majority positions as fringe opinions, so that people who favor peaceful, just, and socialistic policies falsely imagine that few agree with them. Many opinions, including popular ones, are worse than marginalized. They are virtually banned. There’s a show of debate within an acceptable range. On the right you have, for example, the view that playing the World Cup in Qatar is perfectly fine, and on the left the view that such a foreign backward place using slave labor and abusing women and gay people should be shunned. But nowhere, left, right, or in the so-called Center, can the U.S. military bases in Qatar — the U.S. arming and training and funding of the dictatorship in Qatar — be mentioned at all.

For years there’s been, for example, a media debate on Iran ranging from the need to bomb Iran because it has weapons — weapons that could destroy the world if bombed and that it would be likely to use only if bombed, all the way over to the need to impose deadly sanctions on Iran because otherwise it will soon have those weapons. The record of decades of lying about and punishing and threatening Iran, and of Iran not actually developing any nuclear weapons, is inadmissible. The fact that the United States itself maintains nuclear weapons in violation of the Nonproliferation Treaty is inadmissible. The fact that Iran has a horrible government is treated as shutting down any questioning of U.S. policies — policies likely to only make that government worse.

A primary justification of war in U.S. media is what it calls “democracy” — meaning, if anything at all, some slightly representative government with some slight respect for some select range of human rights. This might seem an odd position for media outlets that generally discourage the public sticking its nose into anything. But there is an exception, namely elections. In fact, people have largely been redefined as voters for one day every couple of years, and consumers in between — engaged self-governing people never. However, most candidates to oversee a budget, the majority of which goes into militarism, are never asked for a position on that budget or on militarism. Candidates for Congress with extensive policy platform websites typically make no mention that 96% of humanity exists at all — unless you consider it implied by their expression of devotion to veterans. You have a choice between the candidate with no foreign policy whatsoever, and the candidate with no foreign policy whatsoever. And if you judge them by their silent behavior or by that of their respective parties, or by which corporations are funding them, there’s just not much difference, and you’ll have to research all that information rather than have it thrust upon you by the media. So, when it comes to foreign policy, or budgetary policy — when it comes to the question of whether or not to dump into wars amounts of money that could transform the lives of billions of people for the better if spent differently — making elections the sole focus of public participation pretty well eliminates any public participation.

But there’s no announcement in the media that the public will have not even any pretense of a say over foreign policy. It’s just done that way as if there were no other, and it’s not thought about. Nobody knows that the U.S. once came close to mandating public votes before wars. Few know that wars were supposed to be authorized by Congress or that wars are now illegal whether or not authorized by Congress. Numerous wars happen with hardly anyone aware of their existence at all.

In the old joke the Russian sitting by an American on an airplane says he’s on his way to the United States to study its propaganda techniques, and the American asks “What propaganda techniques?” And the Russian replies, “Exactly!”

In an updated version of this joke, the American might reply either “Oh, you mean Fox,” or “Oh, you mean MSNBC,” depending on which church he belongs to. Either it’s obvious propaganda, for example, that Trump won an election and perfectly normal to have claimed for years that Trump was owned by Putin. Or it’s obvious propaganda that Trump works for Russia, but simple straightforward news reporting that Trump had an election stolen from him. The possibility that two competing propaganda systems both include the primary ingredient of horse manure doesn’t occur to people so long habituated to thinking of propaganda as something only others could be infected by.

But imagine what a media outlet that supported democracy would be like. Positions would be debated based on public opinion and activism, which would be encouraged. (Currently U.S. media gives halfway decent coverage to protests if they are in China or any designated enemy, but it could do much better even on those and should be doing it in the U.S. Media ought to treat activism and whistleblowing as partners.)

Solutions would not be speculated about while ignoring their success in numerous other countries. Polling would be in depth and include questions that followed the provision of relevant information.

There would be no special interest taken in the opinions of the wealthy or the powerful or those who have been wrong the most frequently. Whereas the New York Times recently ran a column by one of its staff who bragged about not believing in climate change until someone flew him to a melting glacier, basically suggesting that we ought to fly every jackass on Earth to a melting glacier and then try to find some path to undo the damage of all that jet fuel, a democratic media outlet would denounce the open scorning of basic research and condemn the refusal to admit error.

There would be no maintenance of anonymity for official liars. If a military official tells you that a missile that lands in Poland was fired from Russia, you first of all do not report that until there’s any evidence for it, but if you do report it and it later becomes clear that the official was lying, you then report the liar’s name.

There would be special interest taken in serious, competent studies of facts. There would be no reporting that an elected official was tough on crime through policies known for several decades not to reduce crime. There would be no reporting on anything called a national defense strategy without identifying the speaker as in the pay of weapons profiteers or without noting that the strategy is similar to others that have long endangered people rather than defending them.

People would be distinguished from governments, both within the United States and outside of it. Nobody would use the first-person plural to refer to something the U.S. military secretly did as if every person in the United States had done it collectively.

Meaningless dangerous phrases would not be used or quoted without explanation. A war that utilizes and increases terrorism would not be labeled a “war on terror.” A war whose participants mostly want out of it and which is, in any case, a policy rather than a person or a group of persons, would not be described as being encouraged by “supporting the troops.” The most obviously provoked war in many years would not be named “the unprovoked war.”

(My apologies if you’re new to the genre of webinars going over the countless ways in which the war was provoked, but there are thousands of such webinars already, and top U.S. officials, diplomats like George Kennan, spies like the current CIA director, and countless others warned of the provocations of expanding NATO, arming Eastern Europe, overthrowing the Ukrainian government, arming Ukraine [which even President Obama refused to do because it would be a provocation] etc., etc.. I fervently encourage you to catch up on a handful of the gazillion videos and reports freely available and generated over the past 9 months. Some places to start are

https://worldbeyondwar.org/ukraine

https://progressivehub.net/no-war-in-ukraine

https://peaceinukraine.org

)

Celebrations of war culture prior to sports events would not be mentioned without reporting whether tax dollars paid for them. Movies and video games would not be reviewed without mentioning whether the U.S. military had editorial oversight.

A democratic media would cease advocating for what those in power demand and begin advocating for wise and popular policies instead. There is nothing neutral or objective or godlike about focusing attention on Ukraine but not Yemen or Syria or Somalia, or about reporting on Russian horrors but not Ukrainian ones, or about denouncing democratic shortcomings in Russia but not in Ukraine. The opinion that Ukraine must be armed and negotiations must not be considered is, like it or not, an opinion. It is not some sort of absence of opinion. A democratic media would give the most, rather than the least, attention to those popular opinions getting the least traction in government. A democratic media would advise people, not just on fashion and diet and weather, but on how to organize nonviolent action campaigns and how to lobby for legislation. You’d have schedules of rallies and teach-ins and of upcoming hearings and votes, not just reports after the fact on what Congress has done as if you couldn’t possibly have wanted to know about it beforehand.

A democratic media in the United States would not leave out any of Russia’s outrages, but would include all the basic omitted facts that we’ve all told each other on thousands of redundant webinars for months. People would know about the expansion of NATO, the abrogation of treaties, the deployments of weapons, the 2014 coup, the warnings, the dire warnings, the years of fighting, and the repeated efforts to avoid peace.

(Again, you can start with those websites. I’ll put them in the chat.)

People would know the basic facts of the war business in general, that most weapons come from the U.S., that most wars have U.S. weapons on both sides, that most dictatorships are propped up by the U.S. military, that most military bases outside their nation’s borders are U.S. military bases, that most military spending is by the U.S. and its allies, that most U.S. aid to Ukraine goes to weapons companies — the five biggest of which in the world are in the Washington D.C. suburbs.

People would know basic facts about the failures of wars on their own terms and about the costs never considered: what could be done with the money instead, the environmental damage, the damage to the rule of law and to global cooperation, the boost given to bigotry, and the horrific results for populations.

Just as a German can recount statistics on the sins of Nazi Germany, a U.S. resident could tell you within a few orders of magnitude the number of people killed and injured and made homeless in U.S. wars

People would know basic information about nuclear weapons. In fact, nobody would believe the cold war ever ended or restarted, since the weapons never went away. People would know what nuclear weapons would do, what nuclear winter is, how many near misses there have been from incidents and accidents, and the names of individuals who have preserved all life on Earth even when they’ve been Russian.

I wrote a book in 2010 called War Is A Lie, and updated it in 2016. The idea was to help people spot lies, like those told about Afghanistan and Iraq, more quickly. There is, I argued, never any need to wait for facts to emerge. There is no need to discover that people don’t like their nations occupied. You can know that ahead of time. There is no need to become aware that Bin Laden could have been put on trial, since no difficulty in that regard could ever justify a war. There is no need to realize that Iraq has none of the weapons that the U.S. openly possesses, since the U.S. possession of those weapons justifies no attack on the U.S., and Iraq’s possession of the same weapons would justify no attack on Iraq. In other words, the lies are always transparent. Peace has to be very carefully and laboriously avoided, and even after it’s been avoided, the best policy is to work to get it back and institute the rule of law rather than the rule of tooth and claw.

In my 2016 epilogue I noted that activism had stopped the carpet bombing of Syria in 2013. The enemy had not been made frightening enough. The war had been too much like Iraq, and too much like Libya — both generally viewed as disasters in Washington and around the world. But a year later, I pointed out, scary videos of ISIS allowed the U.S. to escalate its warmaking. Since then the Iraq Syndrome has worn off. People have forgotten. Russia — in the figure of Putin — has been demonized intensely for years, with both truths and laughable falsehoods, and everything in between. And then Russia has been extensively reported on for doing the most horrible things that can be done, doing them as the U.S. accurately predicted, and doing them to people who look like newsworthy victims to U.S. media outlets.

Finally, war victims are given some coverage, but without anyone pointing out that all wars have those victims on all sides.

The propaganda success in and since February has been staggering. People who couldn’t tell you Ukraine was a country a week before wanted to talk about nothing else, and to complete strangers, and their opinions have in many cases not changed in 9 months. Arming Ukraine until an unconditional Russian surrender became and has remained unquestionable, completely regardless of what the chances were of that ever happening, of what the chances were of causing a nuclear apocalypse, of what the suffering would be from the war, of what the suffering would be from the diversion of resources into the war, or of what damage would be done to global efforts to address non-optional crises.

I tried to get the most careful mention of the possibility of negotiating peace into an op-ed in the Washington Post, and they refused. The Congressional Progressive caucus tried to publicly suggest negotiations, even in combination with unlimited free weapons, and was so viciously beaten back by the media that they swore they never meant it. Of course, Nancy Pelosi and probably Joe Biden cracked down on such heresy privately, but the media was the public voice of outrage — the same media that, when Biden and Putin met last year, pushed both presidents for increased hostility.

Shortly after the so-called Progressive Caucus’s fiasco, the U.S. media reported that the Biden regime was urging the government of Ukraine to pretend to be open to negotiations, because that would please Europeans, and because it looked bad for only Russia to be claiming to be open to negotiations. But why feed that information to the media? Was it dissent within the government? Obliviousness to the dishonesty? Miscommunication or inaccurate reporting? Maybe a little of each, but I think the most likely explanation is that the White House believes the U.S. public is so much on its side, and so habituated to pushing lies about Russia, that it can be counted on to support asking Ukraine to lie to help keep Russia from looking morally superior. Who doesn’t want to be in on the dirty secret tactics to defeat the forces of evil?

Last week, I received an email from the National Endowment for Democracy that said “Ukraine shows one way for America to use its power on behalf of freedom: Instead of sending troops to fight and die for democratic illusions in inhospitable countries, send arms to help an actual democracy repel a foreign invader. No U.S. troops, no meddling in civil wars, no nation building, no going it alone.”

So, you see, some countries you attack are inhospitable, and when U.S. troops are present someone who matters is dying, even if it’s only a few percent of the deaths. Those wars on terrible inhospitable places are actually the fault of the people there and can properly be recategorized as civil wars to help Steven Pinker omit them and pretend war is vanishing. Those big coalitions of weapons customers badgered into participating in those wars don’t exist, and the wars were actually the building of the nations being demolished. But when you just give mountains of free weapons to another country and tell them never to negotiate and then tell everyone that it’s that country that refuses to negotiate and that it would be immoral for you to question them, well that’s called not going it alone. It’s practically the next best thing to actually ratifying treaties and complying with them.

This is the story that has been sold. To unsell it, we would need a communications system that allowed basic communications. Did you know that you can put up billboards in U.S. cities to sell weapons but not, in most cases, to oppose war? It’s forbidden. Did you know that if you oppose war lies too much in the wrong way you can be silenced on social media by private companies that allow and encourage war promotion?

We need what we have always needed: better understanding and debunking of media, better creation of independent media, and 0.1% of the U.S. military budget with which to transform our communications system.

The first casualty of war, and militarism, is the truth. And the corporate mainstream media works diligently hand-in-glove with the US military-industrial complex to make this happen. Through its unquestioning repetition of government propaganda, its lies of omission, and its ratings-hungry war mongering, the media have become an essential part of the information war so endemic to US imperialism.

This webinar will describe this deadly relationship and how it has evolved to the point where virtually no dissent, no call for peace, no real understanding of declared adversaries is allowed. From Operation Mockingbird to CIA Director William Casey’s famous quote (“We’ll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false”), the control of the US public’s perceptions of its government’s role in the world has been long in the making.

Now that we are on the brink of nuclear armageddon as a result of the US/NATO pursuit of continuous war against Russia and soon, it appears, with China, it has never been more important to see through the lies fed to us from the corporate media. This webinar is a step in that direction.

David Swanson

David Swanson is Co-Founder, Executive Director, and a Board Member of World BEYOND War. He is based in Virginia in the United States. David is an author, activist, journalist, and radio host. He is campaign coordinator for RootsAction.org. Swanson’s books include War Is A Lie. He blogs at DavidSwanson.org and WarIsACrime.org. He hosts Talk World Radio.He is a Nobel Peace Prize nominee, and was awarded the 2018 Peace Prize by the U.S. Peace Memorial Foundation. Longer bio and photos and videos here. Follow him on Twitter: @davidcnswanson and FaceBook.

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Carl Sagan’s Bullshit Detection Kit

The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark Sagan shares nine tools:

The kit is brought out as a matter of course whenever new ideas are offered for consideration. If the new idea survives examination by the tools in our kit, we grant it warm, although tentative, acceptance. If you’re so inclined, if you don’t want to buy baloney even when it’s reassuring to do so, there are precautions that can be taken; there’s a tried-and-true, consumer-tested method.

1. Wherever possible there must be independent confirmation of the “facts.”

2. Encourage substantive debate on the evidence by knowledgeable proponents of all points of view.

3. Arguments from authority carry little weight — “authorities” have made mistakes in the past. They will do so again in the future. Perhaps a better way to say it is that in science there are no authorities; at most, there are experts.

4. Spin more than one hypothesis. If there’s something to be explained, think of all the different ways in which it could be explained. Then think of tests by which you might systematically disprove each of the alternatives. What survives, the hypothesis that resists disproof in this Darwinian selection among “multiple working hypotheses,” has a much better chance of being the right answer than if you had simply run with the first idea that caught your fancy.

5. Try not to get overly attached to a hypothesis just because it’s yours. It’s only a way station in the pursuit of knowledge. Ask yourself why you like the idea. Compare it fairly with the alternatives. See if you can find reasons for rejecting it. If you don’t, others will.

6. Quantify. If whatever it is you’re explaining has some measure, some numerical quantity attached to it, you’ll be much better able to discriminate among competing hypotheses. What is vague and qualitative is open to many explanations. Of course there are truths to be sought in the many qualitative issues we are obliged to confront, but finding them is more challenging.

7. If there’s a chain of argument, every link in the chain must work (including the premise) — not just most of them.

8. Occam’s Razor. This convenient rule-of-thumb urges us when faced with two hypotheses that explain the data equally well to choose the simpler.

9. Always ask whether the hypothesis can be, at least in principle, falsified. Propositions that are untestable, unfalsifiable are not worth much. Consider the grand idea that our Universe and everything in it is just an elementary particle — an electron, say — in a much bigger Cosmos. But if we can never acquire information from outside our Universe, is not the idea incapable of disproof? You must be able to check assertions out. Inveterate skeptics must be given the chance to follow your reasoning, to duplicate your experiments and see if they get the same result.

The Attack on Nature Is Putting Humanity at Risk: Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research.

This week we feel compelled to share The Forty-Fifth Newsletter from Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research.

Too few see the degradation of natural services as a problem. We hate to think that it will take mass starvation before conservation and stewardship are seen as essential to average consumers and profits first business leaders.

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In the last week of October, João Pedro Stedile, a leader of the Landless Workers’ Movement (MST) in Brazil and the global peasants’ organisation La Via Campesina, went to the Vatican to attend the International Meeting of Prayer for Peace, organised by the Community of Sant’Egídio. On 30 October, Brazil held a presidential election, which was won by Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, affectionately known as Lula. A key part of his campaign addressed the reckless endangerment and destruction of the Amazon by his opponent, the incumbent President Jair Bolsonaro. Lula’s victory, helped along by vigorous campaigning by the MST, provides hope for our chance to save the planet. This week’s newsletter contains the speech that Stedile gave at the Vatican. We hope you find it as useful as we do.

Today, humanity is at risk because of senseless social inequality, attacks on the environment, and an unsustainable consumption pattern in rich countries that is imposed on us by capitalism and its profit-seeking mentality.

Part 1: What are the dilemmas facing humanity?

1. Climate change is permanent, and its impacts manifest every day with intense heat waves, global warming, torrential rains, tropical cyclones, and droughts in different regions across the planet.

2. The number of disasters/crimes has increased five-fold in the last 50 years, killing 115 people and causing economic losses of $202 million per day.

3. Environmental crimes have increased, such as deforestation, the burning of tropical forests, and attacks on all biomes, especially in the Global South. In 2021 alone, the world lost1 million hectares of tropical forests.

4. The Amazon rainforest, which stretches across nine countries, has already lost 30% of its vegetation cover as a result of encroaching deforestation caused by the push to produce timber and make way for cattle ranching and soybean production, which are exported to Europe and China.

5. All biomes in the Global South are being destroyed to produce raw agricultural materials for the Global North.

6. Predatory mining affects the environment, water, and land as well as Indigenous and peasant communities as thousands of garimpeiros (illegal miners) mine gold and diamonds using hazardous materials such as mercury in Indigenous lands.

7. Never have so many agrotoxins (agricultural poisons) been used in agriculture in the South, affecting soil fertility, killing biodiversity, polluting groundwater and rivers, and contaminating what is produced and even the atmosphere.

8. Glyphosate is scientifically proven to cause cancer. Some 42,700 US farmers who contracted cancer won the right to compensation from the companies that produce, sell, and use the glyphosate to which they were exposed.

9. Across the planet, more and more genetically modified seeds are being planted, including, as of 2019, a total of nearly 200 million hectares concentrated in 29 countries. These seeds cause genetic contamination in non-GMO seeds, affecting human health and destroying the planet’s biodiversity because they require the use of agrotoxins.

10. The oceans are polluted by plastics and other human waste, killing many species of fish and marine life. The massive use of chemical fertilisers has also caused ocean waters to acidify, putting all marine life at risk. Evidence of this can be seen in the large garbage patch in the Pacific Ocean, which covers over a million square kilometres.

11. The carbon dioxide emitted by burning fossils fuels and by individual transportation in automobiles causes pollution in large cities, which in turn causes the death of thousands of people, with 7,100 in the northeast and Mid-Atlantic region of the United States alone dying as a result of vehicle emissions in a single year.

12. Humanity is suffering under a public health crisis that is also inextricably connected to nature. Epidemics and pandemics have increased, creating a massive global health crisis that puts millions of people at risk. This phenomenon, often propelled by the increased transmission of diseases from animals to human beings (known as zoonoses), is a result of the simultaneous destruction of biodiversity alongside the expansion of the agricultural frontier by agribusiness and energy, mining, and transportation megaprojects as well as urban and large-scale livestock farming.

13. Many areas on our planet are protected by peasant and Indigenous communities. Capital attacks and seeks to destroy them in order to take control of the natural goods they protect.

14. We are undergoing an ecological-social crisis of the Earth system and of the balance of life. This global crisis affects the environment, the economy, politics, society, ethics, religions, and the meaning of our own life.

15. The billions of the world’s poorest people are the most impacted by the lack of food, water, housing, employment, income, and education. Deteriorating living conditions have forced them to migrate and have killed thousands of people, especially children and women.

16. This generalised crisis is endangering human life. Without bold action, the planet, which is under attack, could still regenerate, but without human beings.

Eduardo Berliner (Brazil), House, 2019.

Part 2: Who is responsible for putting humanity at risk?

1. Capitalism is facing a structural crisis. It is no longer capable of organising the production and distribution of goods that people need. Its logic of profit and capital accumulation prevent us from having a more just and egalitarian society.

2. This crisis manifests itself in the economy, in increasing social inequality, in the state’s failure as a guarantor of social rights, in formal democracy’s failure to respect the will of most people, and in the propagation of false values based solely on individualism, consumerism, and selfishness. This system is economically and environmentally unsustainable, and we must put it behind us.

3. The main parties directly responsible for the environmental crisis are large transnational corporations, which do not respect borders, states, governments, or the rights of peoples. Some of these corporations, such as Bayer, BASF, Monsanto, Syngenta, and DuPont, manufacture agrotoxins, while others run the mining, automobile, and fossil fuel-run electric energy sectors, and yet others control the water market (such as Coca-Cola, Pepsi, and Nestlé) and the world food market. Associated with all of them are banks and their financial capital. In the last decade, these corporations have been joined by powerful transnational technology corporations, which control ideology and public opinion (Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Facebook/Meta, and Apple). The owners of these companies are among the richest people in the world.

4. However, corporations are not the only ones to blame for the environmental crisis; they are aided by:

   1. governments that cover up and protect corporate crime;

   2. the mainstream media, which seek profit and serve corporate interests all whilst deceiving the people and hiding those who are responsible; and

   3. international organisations formed by governments and captured by large corporations under the cover of phantom foundations, which directly influence these organisations and only repeat rhetoric and hold ineffective international meetings such as the Conference of the Parties (COP), which has now met 27 times. This is even the case with the United Nations and the Food and Agricultural Organisation.

   All of these entities must respect the law.

5. I welcome the courageous position taken by Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro at the United Nations General Assembly in September 2022 and the encyclicals of Pope Francis. Both are a wake-up call to the entire world.

Tarsila do Amaral (Brazil), O Vendedor de frutas (‘The Fruit Vendor’), 1925.

Part 3: What solutions are we calling for?

There is still time to save humanity, and, with it, our common home, planet Earth. For this we need to have the courage to implement concrete and urgent measures on a global level. On behalf peasants’ movements and people’s movements in urban peripheries, we propose:

1. Prohibiting deforestation and commercial burning in all native forests and savannas across the world.

2. Prohibiting the use of agrotoxins and genetically modified seeds in agriculture, as well as antibiotics and growth promoters in livestock farming.

3. Condemning all decoy solutions to climate change and geoengineering techniques proposed by capital that speculate on nature, including the carbon market.

4. Prohibiting mining in the territories of Indigenous peoples and traditional communities as well as environmental protection and conservation areas and demanding that all mining be publicly controlled and used for the common good – not for profit.

5. Strictly controlling the use of plastics, including in the food and beverage industry, and making it mandatory to recycling them.

6. Recognising nature’s goods (such as forests, water, and biodiversity) as universal common goods at the service of all people that are immune to capitalist privatisation.

7. Recognising peasants as the main caretakers of nature. We must fight against large landowners and carry out popular agrarian reforms so that we can combat social inequality and poverty in the countryside and produce more food in harmony with nature.

8. Implementing an extensive reforestation program, paid for with public resources, that ensures the ecological recovery of all areas near springs and riverbanks, slopes, and other ecologically sensitive areas or areas that are experiencing desertification.

9. Implementing a global policy to care for water that prevents the pollution of oceans, lakes, and rivers and that eliminates the contamination of surface and subsoil drinking water sources.

10. Defending the Amazon and other tropical forests of Africa, Asia, and the Pacific Islands as ecological territories under the care of the peoples of their countries.

11. Implementing agroecology as a sociotechnical basis for food sovereignty, including the production of healthy food that is accessible to all.

12. Subsidising the financing needed to implement solar and wind energy systems, which will be under the collective management of populations worldwide.

13. Implementing a global investment plan to provide public transportation based on renewable energies that makes it possible to reorganise and improve living conditions in cities, allowing for urban decentralisation and making it possible for people to remain in the countryside.

14. Demanding that the industrialised countries of the North guarantee the financial resources to implement all of the necessary actions to rebuild the relationship between society and nature in a sustainable manner, understanding that these countries are historically responsible for global pollution and continue with unjust and unsustainable patterns of production and consumption.

15. Demanding that all governments stop wars, close foreign military bases, and halt military aggression in order to save lives and the planet, rooted in the understanding that peace is a condition for a healthy life.

Anita Malfatti (Brazil), Tropical, 1917.

For these ideas to materialise, we propose an international pact between religious leaders and institutions, environmental and people’s movements, decision-makers, and governments, so that we can carry out a programme that raises the consciousness of the entire population. We propose that an international conference be held so that we can bring together all collective actors who defend life. We must encourage people to fight for their rights in defence of life and nature. We must demand that the media assume its responsibility to defend the interests of the people and to defend equal rights, life, and nature.

We will always fight to save lives and our planet, to live in solidarity and in peace with social equality, emancipated from social injustices, exploitation, and discrimination of all kinds.

This text from João Pedro Stedile is a clarion call from the MST, which Noam Chomsky calls ‘the most important mass movement on the planet’. We hope to hear from you about these proposals, and we hope that movements around the world will take them up in their work.

Warmly,

Vijay

The New Normal "R"

The Rise of the New Normal Reich: Consent Factory Essays, Vol. III (2020-2021)—Not a book review.

Have fun with it and figure it out, or don’t. Enjoy the colorful “Truth.”

I think it's wrong to ban bad books. I think it's wrong to silence the most stupid, uninformed, and vicious conspiracy theories. Throughout history, the powerful tortured and killed heretics. We can now use powerful high-tech tools to brainwash and destroy people. But where freedom dies, and opposition is suppressed, there can be no "progress" and no "democracy," only tyranny. So "Q" and Stanley Kubrick's most significant film,  "The Truth About Apollo 11," should be welcomed and responded to enthusiastically, tongue-in-cheek, and with an earnest desire to understand what is going on. 

(Truth, as it were, being ever so illusive, cheeky, and difficult remains mostly out of reach.)  

We are slavish consumers of fashion. We crave novelty. We ascribe to New Normals because most of us are natural followers—we want to Fit In. Rare people indeed live in the new normal for years and years, and then one day take a pill or become readers in hip stuff, and suddenly they put on the magic glasses and think they're privy to some dark, deep secret. It feels good, I know. But as the Good Lord is my witness, they haven't a clue as to what to do about any of it; they haven't the imagination to build a better tyranny. 

I'm sad they banned her book, but I'd skim it and put it back on the shelf if I encountered it. 

Anyone wanting to know what's going on can read good books and figure it out themselves. Then they can become the pet (team player) they were meant to be or build a cabin in a village with lots of spuds and cabbages. They can hang up their thinking caps and start watching birds and handling worms. If they are lucky, they will share some projects with folks and have a few friends to chat with daily. 

(I feel bad that I presume to know what a good book is. There's simply no accounting for it, but I have a tad bit of confidence in my judgment. Hopefully, that will continue to grow until C19-related Altheimer's sets in and destroys what's left of my precious, little brain.) 

Entertaining, obsessional people know how to preach to their choir and give their "market" what it wants. “THE ANSWERS, damn it, I want all the answers!”

Vanity, it's all vanity.

To chat about nothing in particular and feel relaxed doesn't have to be an art. Embrace the pastime.

Asking The Consilience Project for Perspectives on Communication

I’m at Stanford Director’s College. In a talk about what went wrong with Enron, Charlie Munger (vice-chairman of Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway) told a thought-provoking joke about Max Planck.
 

After winning the Nobel prize, Max Planck went around Germany giving talks. His chauffeur heard the talk so many times that he had it by heart, and so one time, he asked Max Planck if he could give the address. Planck agreed, they changed places, and the lecture came off famously. But then came the Q&A, with the very first question being one that the chauffeur had no hope of answering. The chauffeur replied: "I'm surprised to hear such an elementary question on high energy physics here in Munich. It's so simple, I'll let my chauffeur answer it."

(Munger actually referred to this not as a joke but an “apocryphal story.” How nice if it were true!)

* Reference

I’m aware of the Feynman Technique and trying to practice it as best as possible.

1. Identify the topic.

2. Teach it to a child.

3. Identify your knowledge gaps.

4. Organize your explanation, simplify it, and refine it.

Am I lacking something fundamental when I speak with my more fanatical ideological friends from the extreme right and left sociopolitical realms? Is my condition genetic, or am I simply inept?

How can we get people interested in imagining things outside contexts more likely to excite them?

The Keyhole To The Light

After listening to Daniel Schmachtenberger and Nate Hagens talk on a recent The Great Simplification Podcast episode, I reached out to The Consilience Project to see if they had materials regarding my communication concerns.

My note to The Consilience Project’s contact form:

I have been researching perspectives on the Right for the last eighteen months. I followed Daniel Schmachtenberger's advice, teased the algorithms on various platforms, and discovered activities from growing social networks on the New Right, New Traditionalists, Alt-Right, Extreme Right, and Save Western Civilization movements. I am uncertain how large or impactful any or all of these groups are or might become, just as I am uncertain as to how large The Woke Mob actually is and how dangerous they are to our global culture. We are all slaves to fashion to some degree, and fashions always change.

My main concern is how to bring information to people involved in these movements that might help them have a better informed, and nuanced perspective on the problems we are facing that they feel are most salient. OKAY, so many of them are informed and have nuanced views concerning their topics, but can we find a bridge towards more understanding of various perspectives that are essential to any project concerning our future? I sense we are barred from any kind of synthesis by extreme ideological myopia. People from polarized positions always blame their opposites for being ideological extremists while maintaining their own grasp of reality as sacred.

I am also concerned with communicating with less educated and well-read people in the WEIRD world who may share our intuitions. (Feynman's explaining things to fifth graders without insulting someone's intelligence.)

When I was seventeen, my father said, "You think he cannot explain himself, but that's not so; he lacks the cultural audacity to do so."

What are the best ways to build bridges with these communities? Is it even possible? Why do many of my Rightist or Reactionary acquaintances find people as benign and loving as Nate Hagens or Jamie Wheel, for example, confusing and inaccessible? It seems as if they are unable to tune into our message. It's white noise, ignorant or antagonistic to them. I'm unsure if it's a language or style issue or if they are stuck in a particularly confrontational perspective. (Hobbsien in the broadest sense.) Or, perhaps, my kind of people are wrong.

(The far Left is annoyingly much the same in temper.)

I will share this network with you as an example. There are many others.

• https://polmatch.com/. It is, perhaps, the antithesis of Jim Rutt's Game B platform.

• OREL -Polmatch Project: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLDPjq0bVvLg-CsRJAwnbgg

• A conversation with Christien Perennialist Aarvoll and Greg Orel of Polmatch: https://youtu.be/RVGvi9b8xLY

Will people attracted to this type of pathos ever be interested in our content? I am most interested in learning what version of Western Civilization they adhere to (it’s a big basket) and what their culture is. What are their solutions to specific problems? As much as I rummage around in their sandbox and play in their playground, I am still unsure about the particular values that animate their definitive version of Western Culture. I have recently read several books by their ideological patriarchs. I have been well acquainted with "the literature" throughout my life.

Are these merely niche playgrounds for acting out childish catastrophizing, another form of entertainment, a game, or could these groups with their passionate beliefs be signs of a more significant, ominous cultural trend brought on by the terrible challenges our global civilization faces?

(Many New Right pundits call Progressives Fascists who advocate tyranny and want plebs and proles reduced to serfdom.)

Many of the influencers within these movements are scholarly and serious intellectuals/entertainers with profound influence in Right-leaning communities. These "leaders" could make Lane Craig and Sam Harris blush. I'm thinking of Jay Dyer's Orthodox Christian scholarship and Curtis Yarvin making Gish Gallop look like a trot on dressage ground. ;-)

(I was very disappointed with Jim Rutt's interview with Curtis Yarvin on The Jim Rutt Show. I don't feel he engaged Curtis enough.)

I should add that I don't identify with Right Wing or Left Wing movements—I am not a neo this or a "trad" that. I am a humanist who loves the miracle of the web of life. I stand with people like Daniel Schmachtenberger, Jamie Wheel, and Nate Hagens. I want our human adventure on earth to continue for many more generations. This is not to say that my friends on the Right don’t.

This is my website: https://www.globehackers.com/ 

www.cospolon.eu

With love and admiration for everyone involved with The Consilience Project, Steven

Info Testing & Feynman from Farnam Street

I’ve followed FS for a long time. I think I was listening to his podcast from day one. His site is full of useful articles that will help make you wiser.

Today I want to share two FS posts here. I don’t think Shane will mind.

I am certain you will enjoy these articles.

Richard Feynman

The Feynman Learning Technique

&

Evaluating Information: Find the Signal in the Noise