This week’s Ecosophian offering is the monthly open post to field questions and encourage discussion among my readers. All the standard rules apply (no profanity, no sales pitches, no trolling, no rudeness, no paid propagandizing, no long screeds proclaiming the infallible truth of fill in the blank, no endless rehashes of questions I’ve already answered) but since there’s no topic, nothing is off topic — with two exceptions.
First, there’s a dedicated (more or less) open post on my Dreamwidth journal on the ongoing virus panic and related issues, so anything Covid-themed should go there instead.
Second, I’ve had various people try to launch discussions about AIs — that is to say, large language models (LLMs) and the utilities they power — on this and my other forums. The initial statements and their followup comments always end up reading as though they were written by LLMs — that is, long strings of words superficially resembling meaningful sentences but not actually communicating anything. That’s neither useful nor entertaining. Thus I’ve decided to ban further discussion of this latest wet dream of the lumpen-internetariat here.
With that said, have at it!
Today I posted two links, the first one posted by forecasting intelligence in the post before the parsifal post (the twilight of the gods)
https://open.substack.com/pub/kevinbatcho/p/the-death-throes-of-globalism?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=1dcn5
https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/the-purge-of-the-deep-state-and-the-440
About the second link, I will only add a brief comment, the writer should know (or maybe he forgot) the anacyclocis of Polybius, from what I can deduce, the USA is in the monarch phase or in the tyranny phase, basically the monarch or the tyrant has just been elected.
The example that I think is perhaps the best is to look at the last crisis of this magnitude that can be remembered, and that is with the presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt, basically they elected him 4 times and he is the closest to monarch/tyrant that the United States could have in those days.
Today? Remember that a monarch or tyrant must have some support from the population, how bad can it be? In Nazi Germany (Nazism is a German phenomenon, I doubt very much that it is exportable to other places) the man with the mustache had wide acceptance in the German people when the war began.
The only way for the current president to achieve broad control over the United States is for a good part of the country to accept him, and that will depend on the results he manages to deliver in the coming months or years.
The most worrying thing today is that in the West in general it seems that there are no more competent politicians, basically Trump is not a Franklin D. Roosevelt, an Andrew Jackson or an Abraham Lincoln; he is a character from some show… from MTV? A character from SharkTank? You only have to read Rocketboy (musk) on his social network X, I just hope that MTV style politics tone down a bit in the following months.
And I don’t want to insult anyone, but the degradation of our societies, I’m from Latin America, is very worrying (yes, the “MTV-style democracy” model was exported very well and Latin Americans are very good consumers), just by opening TikTok or any social network and it’s already worrying, they are literally the societies of the spectacle, the United States (as far as my knowledge can see) is a handful of cultures in a state of rigor mortis, it has an educational system at the level of Latin America (third world).
If the MAGA project has some success (in these times of desperation for many, sometimes I feel that they do not need to be a great success, not even a medium success), how many people will become supporters of the MAGA boys, sometimes I think that Trump sees himself as a Franklin D. Roosevelt 2.0
I think you mentioned about indigenous people story from the pacific northwest about a character who goes around and makes a lot of wrong things right. Could you name that story? Relates to Orange Julius. Thanks.
Dear John Michael, I was at a conference a couple of weekends ago where one speaker mentioned re-enchanting.
She said that a key aspect of re-enchanting your world is gratitude.
I know that you wrote some time back about re-enchantment. Would you be able to link please, to your favorite post on that? Thanks.
According to the model of catabolic collapse, federal workers are being converted from capital to waste as they are being laid off. The next step is for them to become resources. My question is a ternary one. What do you hope will be done with the resources? What do you expect, if different from what you hope, will be done with resources? What do you fear, if different from what you expect, will the resources be used for? Thank you.
Hi,
What is your opinion on the apparent Trump II plan to restructure US debt outlined in the podcast below and the related article here – https://www.beyondwasteland.net/p/the-death-throes-of-globalism?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=1dcn5&triedRedirect=true.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NyJxSBLoxOI
I have also discussed the wider macro outlook on my blog here. FI – https://forecastingintelligence.org/2025/02/16/a-new-world-disorder/
It’s amazing that this blog has been the best predictor of the future over the last fifteen years or so. We are in the middle of an elite transition featuring the overthrow of the professional managerial class by wealthy entrepreneurs, our government has become too large to maintain, and the United States is retracting from the world, just as you have been saying they would for years now based on standard civilizational cycles.
Furthermore, Europe is on track to rearming and reverting to the violent place it always has been, the environmental movement continues to be full of sound and fury signifying and accomplishing nothing, and the predicted woke backlash has seemingly arrived and it seems like we may swing too far in the other direction based on how enthusiastically people are using slurs on social media.
Simply spot on.
I’m having such a hard time making sense of anything going on anymore. Trump seems to be dismantling the American Empire and alienating US allies. I have no problem with this, but I’m baffled to see a US president helming such a project. Europe is not realizing it has been in its own century of humiliation and is willing to go down with the American ship. Meanwhile, Trump wants reparations from Ukraine in the form of stripping its mineral resources. Zelinsky seems happy to go along with this even though he’s about to get screwed with his pants on. Again, I have no complaint with the war ending. I just don’t understand why the Ukrainian president is thrilled to be handing over his resources to the guy who’s taking away his toys and is about to hand over his land to the Russians. Nothing makes sense. What is your take on all of this?
I am working on aligning my will with my destiny and at a point in my life where faith will and destiny seem to be swirling in a big chaotic soup. (Pisces sun btw).
Traditionally, I’ve been good at meditating, but having trouble getting back into it after a hiatus, and of course, now trying to discursive method, instead of the power-of-now-empty your thoughts method. I’ve been easing into the personal use of astrology, and magic, and this ability to focus the will seems to be of paramount importance, especially since I am a moderately disciplined person, but prone to Impulse control slips. Any practical tips on meditating, especially as it applies to music? I can tell you my own natal chart is well supported by Venus.
Hi JMG,
I’d like to ask about your personal process for developing a story or plot for your novels. Recently, I’ve read about Stephen King’s method, which is to try and “discover” the story during the process of writing it, after beginning with some premise. King believes that the spontaneity of true creation is not compatible with trying to outline an entire story from the get-go. Rather, he advises imagining some characters, putting them in a particular situation (the premise from which the original narrative begins), and then “discovering” the story as you go along in the process of writing it–sort of like having a conversation with the characters and let them tell you the story.
Honestly, I’ve never really tried that approach, have you? I’ve always feel the need to know the whole sweep of events in a reasonable amount of detail before beginning the process of narrating them. However, I’ve also struggled with a feeling of dissatisfaction with the outcome of my usual “plot outline first” method. My writings have often felt dull and uninspired when going this route. Maybe I’ve missed the treasures of the subconscious mind, which can come out in a more spontaneous approach? My hesitation in beginning with the King method is a fear that I will ultimately end up with something incoherent, as I am not sure if I trust the subconscious to craft a coherent story outside of my conscious direction. I mean, my subconscious comes up with “stories” when I’m dreaming at night, but I wouldn’t call them coherent, or something that one would want to read in novel form.
Thanks!
>federal workers are being converted from capital to waste as they are being laid off. The next step is for them to become resources
Pardon me while I laugh. Elon expressed a similar thought – that only if we could drop kick them out the door, they’ll magically become more productive in the private sector. No, they can’t. No, they won’t. For the most part.
And if they could when Trump offered them voluntary severance, those were the ones that can and did. While getting out while the getting is good. You should never offer your underlings that. You’ll lose all your good people that way. Everyone left isn’t saying they’re on board (like Trump thinks), they’re saying this is as good as I can get and everything else is worse.
But it will be interesting to figure out what a feckless and gormless govviecrat does when she is eventually dropkicked out the door. Do they put on catgirl costumes and post TikToks all day long? Do they stream woke games on Twitch? Who knows?
I just finished the Oliver Huckel’s rendition of Parsifal last night, which is a recasting of the opera into blank verse (but surprisingly readable blank verse — I’ve always found blank verse miserable to read so I was surprised when I actually quite enjoyed reading this).
One thing that caught my attention is that the situation of the kingdom at the start of Act III: completely at peace, and completely miserable. As Gurnemanz says to Kundry,
For days of saddest peace have come to us,
And deeds of valiant arms no more are done.
A dark despair is over Monsalvat;
No messengers are sent to distant parts
To stir the hearts of fighting warriors;
Like every creature of the leafy woods,
Each man doth serve himself in daily needs.
In other words, the problem in Parsifal is the opposite of the problem in the traditional Grail legends: instead of a wasting and fruitless land, everything’s just… kind of OK. Life has been rendered meaningless through lack of strife. This is certainly a concern I and many other modern people resonate with: the old Piscean/Axial promises of a perpetual blessedness without its opposite has come to seem hollow, like a terrible way to spend an eternity.
I’m reminded of a novel from 1995: Eve Forward’s Villains by Necessity, in which evil has been quite literally banished from the world by sealing the gates through which it entered, and an oppressive peace and blandness is threatening to literally destroy it. The story is otherwise quite different from Parsifal, but both involve a heroic Black Knight.
In Parsifal, that black knight is Parsifal himself, come carrying the Spear — which as you laid out in last week’s post is mythologically the weapon of winter to strike down the hero of summer. Parsifal uses the Spear to save Amfortas — but also to depose him and take his throne. Then with Grail and Spear both in his possession he seemingly transcends the summer/winter dichotomy.
(Though the death of Kundry is a harrowing feature of the tale since at least in Huckel’s version she is said to represent human nature. That her redemption requires her death is not a nice thought!)
So that seems to be the spiritual meaning of the third act, at least. I see why Huckel in his introduction felt the need to address the criticism that the moral of the opera is Buddhistic rather than Christian. I’m looking forward to seeing your take on how the opera ties into the Ring Cycle and gives its political themes a new resolution.
Greetings to the Grandmaster of DOOM!
At the Council of Wizards, Sir Malcom & you touched on Tolkien’s negative influence on the wider culture a la the eucatastrophe & related myths, which have rendered Faustian Man impotent:
He doesn’t have the will to survive & (as Sir Malcom noted) lies catatonic in bed, unable to chew his food…
Yet he is asked to ‘fight to the finish no matter what!’ because as the ‘good guy’, he will eventually overcome all obstacles & defeat The Giant Borg of Evil Subhumans & Untermensh, since he stands apart.
What mythologies, stories & meta-narratives do you foresee displacing this Tolkien meta-narrative?
Granted, several centuries from now, of the few hundred million people left on the planet, the few million descendants of Westerners today will be mixed race, far more brown & black-skinned than today… but at least some of them will argue continuity with the West of today. For these people specifically, what do you foresee?
Will they adopt more fatalistic/’ destiny-centric views of the world? Or will they still try to do this thing where ‘History is something man goes out there & MAKES!’
Thank You Again, & looking forward to reconvening the Council for Part-2 sometime soon!
~Ahnaf
>Trump seems to be dismantling the American Empire and alienating US allies
That empire will get dismantled with or without him. In some ways, they’re in a desperate race to throw as much ballast overboard before the balloon hits the ground. They don’t really want to publicize this, might spook the herd into doing things. But it’s a choice between hit the ground and have everything in the basket splatter all over the place (the Harris option) or start throwing things over the side and have them splatter while possibly saving the basket (the Trump option). I’m in favor of doing something over nothing. Might not matter but I’d rather see them at least try.
They don’t have time to do this the nice way, and at this point all the choices they have are bad. Glad it’s not my job.
On a different topic, does anyone know of any downsides to Transcendental Meditation, besides the official organization being cultish? I’ve seen it said that the app One Big Mind is the same technique without the baggage of the TM organization, and I’ve done a few of their introductory lessons, but I wanted to know if there are any known issues with the method itself before I get too deep or recommend it to others.
I was listening to a podcast yesterday with Tom Luongo ( Libertarian, gold guy) who predicted that Trumps administration would bring in the largest geopolitical shift since Genghis Khan. He also predicted that Trump, Putin and Xi would meet in Russia on May 9 ( Victory day in Russia) and essentially carve up the world in to spheres of influence like a modern Yalta.
I am not sure if I would go that far, but I think the huge big picture changes Trump’s team is bringing in will come close to those that happened at the end of WWII.
Accelerationist thought is making the rounds again. Here I offer instead, “A Slow and Steady Guide to Decelerationism”:
https://www.sothismedias.com/home/a-slow-and-steady-guide-to-decelerationism
Davie,
Gratitude is great, but there’s some history to why someone might be giving it so central a place in discussion of anything spiritual: it’s a key technique of The Secret, especially in the follow-up books, The Power and The Magic. (Like The Secret itself, she got the idea from the New Thought tradition, especially Wallace Wattles.)
So if someone is saying gratitude is the key to [big spiritual topic], I’d be very suspicious that that person gets their ideas about spirituality from Rhonda Byrne.
Rather, I’d say the key to re-enchant is to simply approach the world as a place of actual magic and wonder: in particular that properties we usually think of as purely mental are present in all things: desire, intention, aversion, etc. If you look back at the ancient and medieval conception of the world (C. S. Lewis’s The Discarded Image is helpful for getting a sense of that conception), instead of matter behaving the way it does because it blindly follows “laws,” what if it behaves the way it does because it wants to? That is, perhaps something analogous to hunger or desire drives the behavior of even rocks and mountains.
As Thomist philosopher Edward Feser has put it: materialism swept all immaterial aspects of reality under the rug of “the mind” — as just subjective appearances — and now is frustrated that it can’t sweep the rug under itself and make the mind go away. The re-enchantment of the world is just putting those aspects back in their proper places in our understanding of things.
A few days agp, it occurred to me that the global decline of fertility is probably caused by a shortage of souls suitable to be incarnated into human bodies.
You and other occultists say that the time between incarnations has grown shorter, and that is probably leading to rises in mental illnesses and gender dysphoria. I suspect such a state of affairs is not sustainable anymore than getting insufficient sleep over a prolonged period is. At some point, souls need to be out of incarnation for a longer period to heal themselves. Souls that had not been incarnated in humans before the population boom might be even more suspectable to this exhaustion.
In the physical pkane, this shortage would probably manifest as drops in fertility and/or rises in miscarriages (the latter might be when an individuality cannot maintain its connection to the body of the fetus).
Does this seem plausiable to you?
I’ve got a few offers/requests for the community today:
1. I’m offering a Modern Order of Essenes course (online, and for free). We’ve started a bit more than a week ago, but joining later is no problem at all.
The course is suitable both for complete newbies and for people who have done MOE work before. If you’re interested, here is the link to the first post: https://thehiddenthings.com/moe-course-intro-and-unit-1
2. A heads up for MOE practitioners: I’m going to offer a Healer attunement on Sunday, March 30th. More details soon (to be announced on my site and on Magic Monday). I just wanted to put this out there so you can prepare.
3. I’m also going to perform a formal blessing again next Wednesday, as always, and would appreciate signups as they help me to practice. Thanks! https://thehiddenthings.com/categories/weekly-blessings
4. And finally, in case anybody is interested, I’ve started posting an essay series about “self improvement” (inner work) from an Hermetic angle, using the Hermetic view of the planets, and would love to get some feedback on it. The first post is here: https://thehiddenthings.com/viewing-yourself-through-a-different-lens
JMG, thanks a lot for hosting an Open Post again.. I’m very much looking forward to this months topics! 🙂
Milkyway
Zarcayce, it bears repeating that Western industrial civilization is in headlong decline, and the US is not exempt from that; political dysfunction, and the transformation of politicians from statesmen to charismatic warlords, are both part of that. It amuses me, though, that Roosevelt’s critics in 1933 denounced him in very nearly the same terms that Trump’s critics use now; Roosevelt’s posthumous reputation, that is, differs very sharply from how he was perceived at the time. (His radio “fireside chats,” to cite only one example, got roughly the same reaction as Trump’s tweets.)
Bradley, it’s the story of the Changer or Transformer. See if you can find a copy of Mythology of Southern Puget Sound by Arthur Ballard; the story of Moon, included there in several variants, is a good example of the type.
Davie, that’s a complex issue, because I see our current state as one of enchantment — a malign enchantment, that leads people to miss the genuine magic and wonder that’s actually all around us all the time. You might consider this post of mine:
https://www.ecosophia.net/the-mask-of-disenchantment/
And also these:
https://www.ecosophia.net/science-as-enchantment/
https://www.ecosophia.net/beyond-thaumatophobia-part-one-a-door-into-springtime/
https://www.ecosophia.net/beyond-thaumatophobia-2-the-night-forest/
https://www.ecosophia.net/beyond-thaumatophobia-3-the-end-of-the-age-of-reason/
Neon, I don’t find hope or fear relevant to this situation. In terms of my expectations, there’s no single or simple answer. Some of them will become resources only to the sellers of drugs and alcohol, and then only until the money runs out. Some will become resources only to the extent that they purchase the means of suicide. Some of them will become resources to promoters of fringe political movements and cults. Some, the more ruthless ones, will transition into a slightly more direct form of organized crime. Some, the more resilient ones, will join the labor force and find something they can do to support themselves. Some, the ones who figured out what was going to happen in advance, will leave the country before they lose the gains they’ve squirreled away in the Cayman Islands, and will be resources for landlords and restauranteurs in Uruguay or wherever. The situation now unfolding is like the collapse of the Communist Party in the formerly Soviet former Union, and the same sort of sudden unraveling of a giant bureaucracy will leave similar confusion in its wake.
Forecasting, the article strikes me as overblown — like so much else these days, it tries to impose an overall plan on what is actually flailing improvisation — but your summary is considerably better, no surprises there. You’re quite correct that Europe is no longer relevant to US geopolitics: as we leave our era of empire, a nonaligned international stance like India’s, the same sort of thing we did in the 19th century, is far and away the wisest approach for the US. I didn’t watch the video, of course, but debt restructuring becomes a good deal easier when a nation no longer has a budget deficit, and ending US imperial entanglements and the massive fraud that inflates the budget these days will accomplish that. Once that’s in place, expect at least a technical default on US foreign debt, comparable to the one that cleared the books for Russia in 1998. And Europe? Stick a fork in it, it’s done. I expect the Islamic Republic of Britain to be proclaimed by 2050 or so.
Dennis, thank you. As the rubble stops bouncing, I’ll be talking about the next round of changes ahead. Stay tuned!
Michael, it’s quite simple. The US empire is ending one way or another, and fortunately the faction of our elite now in power has decided to be proactive about that and leave the empire business deliberately, as Britain did after the Second World War — this is one of the few ways to get out of empire without facing total collapse. Leaving our overseas allies/client states in the lurch is part of that. As for Zelensky, he’s clearly getting ready to bail out of Ukraine before everything falls apart around him; his payoff for signing over the mineral resources is probably a promise that he’s not going to get taken out by a US-paid assassin. It’s a rough world out there!
Cort, don’t rush it, and don’t stress out about it. Everything’s at sixes and sevens in many people’s lives just now, so it’s not just you! Do what you can and don’t beat yourself up when you can’t.
Balowulf, I’m far from a fan of King, but his process is the same as mine; all my fiction, and much of my nonfiction, is written the way he describes. I normally start with a situation and a vague idea of where it’s going, but the story evolves as I write, and quite often I’m astonished with where it ends up. As for incoherence, that’s what editing is for! Write your first draft without worrying about coherence, then set it aside for a few weeks and work on other things. That way you can go back to the first draft with a clear mind, see what needs to be added or reworked to make it coherent.
Slithy, hmm! I’ll have to have a look at that.
Ahnaf, that’s not ours to decide! Our narratives are all unraveling in what Vico called the barbarism of reflection, and that unraveling will continue until the decline bottoms out centuries from now and the age of memory gives way to a new age of faith. At that time, whatever faiths seize the hearts and imaginations of the scattered communities of the deindustrial world, and whatever stories inspire them, will become the basis of new narratives that we can’t even imagine.
Slithy, TM is simply basic mantra meditation. You can find many guides to it in many sources. It’s a fairly safe system, all thigns considered, as long as you don’t use it to run away from thinking.
Clay, that’s a fair analogy. The Second World War ushered in the age of American empire, and the current crisis is ushering in its end.
Justin, thanks for this! I wouldn’t mind Zelaznian accelerationism, except that our Deicrats are so boring and Mahasamatman is nowhere to be found.
Part of why I enjoy JMG’s writings so much is his really big picture perspective on what’s happening which very much helps me stay in agency rather than fear as all of these big changes are happening. Along those lines I recently came across Joshua Stylman’s substack and a piece entitled The Pattern Beneath. https://stylman.substack.com/p/the-pattern-beneath
From the piece:
“But it goes deeper. In what reads like a Michael Crichton plot come to life, the recent USAID revelations show a staggering reach of narrative control. Take Internews Network, a USAID-financed NGO that has pushed nearly half a billion dollars ($472.6m) through a secretive network, ‘working with’ 4,291 media outlets. In just one year, they produced 4,799 hours of broadcasts reaching up to 778 million people and ‘trained’ over 9,000 journalists. This isn’t just funding – it’s a systematic infrastructure of consciousness manipulation.”
Yikes! Consciousness manipulation. And it feels true to me. And then I consider JMG’s definition of magic: Magic is the art and science of causing changes in consciousness in accordance with will.
Further on, Stylman encourages the reader to learn to track an event’s place in the bigger pattern of consciousness manipulation. Stylman goes into even more detail in his pattern recognition frame:
https://stylman.substack.com/p/the-pattern-recognition-era-a-manifesto
Has anyone here read his work? Thoughts?
I’m afraid I don’t know much about the Zelaznian version… I need to retry Zelazny. I read the first one or two of the Chronicles of Amber and didn’t get further. I never read his book about the Buddha either. I’m not sure why it didn’t click at the time, as I love a good “multiple worlds” story.
An earlier comment mentioned CATABOLIC COLLAPSE, and this is another. A couple weeks ago I listened again to Michael Dowd’s recording of Wealth of Nature (I am Dowd’s widow). Nobody in the new USA federal administration, of course, understands the absolute limits and importance of “primary wealth/economy” (ecology), but darned if they aren’t acting in a way that I, amazingly, ended up voting for and will soon be offering a proposal in a DOGE-like way. This will be in the realm of “endangered species”, which I am exceedingly controversial in: A citizen group I founded 20 years ago, Torreya Guardians, has been using an “exception” in the 1973 Endangered Species Act that applies just to plants to, against the official policy, begin the “assisted migration” far northward of a glacial relict ancient species of conifer that had been unable to float back north up the Chattahoochee River that had likely carried its large seed south when glaciers covered my homestate of Michigan. One of our volunteers (we are a loose network, not an NGO) achieved seed production in Cleveland OH in 2018 — and that really pissed off the officials. Long story short, in 2023 the federal regulation pertaining to “experimental populations” of endangered species was changed to remove the geographical constraint of “historical range”. So we will begin promoting sites of existing citizen-led “experiments” to be regarded as official. And unlike the official institutions, we cost the taxpayers nothing!
As to how CATABOLIC COLLAPSE applies to this: Just take a look at the new section called “Challenges and Controversies” that I spent 18 months researching and adding to the wikipedia page “Endangered Species Act of 1973.” You will be knocked off your chair about how complex and crazy implementation has become: trying to “solve” one problem results in more problems, and nobody can afford adequate funding anymore as a result. And with things getting so polarized, there have been no real substantive amendments to the act since 1988, and you know what that means: There is no way to value what can be learned from the mistakes because there is no way to make any adaptations.
Bottom line: If this piques your interest, see my proposal here: https://www.torreyaguardians.org/comments.html#doge There you will see a link to a video titled “DOGE for Endangered Plants: Cut costs, get results, follow our lead.” I know you cannot tolerate including videos in your research style, but just skim the time-coded table of topics in the caption. And then look at the 2 webpages I reworked into supporting experimental population designations for 2 citizen plantings, because right near the top I give lists of the significance of each: Shoal Sanctuary FL is here: https://www.torreyaguardians.org/liming.html Caroline Dormon Preserve in Louisiana is here: https://www.torreyaguardians.org/louisiana.html I know I can’t use catabolic collapse in my appeal to the new director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in the Trump administration, but I think more resistance will come from ardent conservationists who just want to keep on keepin’ on with complexity and trying to force conservation through the courts — which has actually produced adverse results over the years in terms of breeding immense opposition to the whole concept of endangered species. Hence Trump’s announcement that he plans to regularly convene the cabinet-level “God Squad” to just get past all the pile-up of documents and decisions that developers and various federal agencies in charge of a vast range of permits have to wade through if an endangered species might experience “jeopardy”. Any thoughts you have will be welcome. Oh, and know that I am only recommending this unleashing of citizen effort for plants; I have no idea of how complexity could be reduced for listed animal species.
@Zarcayce #1,
You wrote “Nazism is a German phenomenon, I doubt very much that it is exportable to other places”. Why do you think that’s the case?
Milkyway
Hi John,
Thanks for the compliment! The only reason I feel like I have a decent grasp on what is happening is mainly because of your writings. Otherwise I would be pretty lost out there! Thank you again!
I’ve looked carefully at the internal Muslim demographics, and if this is an internal thing, e.g. a rising internal Muslim population that grows over the decades to come this century, I don’t see a Sharia UK until two generations from now (e.g. the 2070s/2080s).
Sure, by around 2050, you will see a lot of Muslim youth becoming young adults in places like Birmingham, London and so on (and of course in other western European cities) but we the majority of the population, certainly over 30, would be non-Islamic. For an Islamic Britain to emerge in 25 years time or so, we would need a seriously large mass invasion from the Global South into western Europe.
Either way, I’ve done my research and Barbados looks like the best place to for me to start planning my exit strategy in the years to come.
I found myself contemplating the legacy of Barack Obama yesterday. He campaigned on the promise to bring change and hope to the American people, and the administration that followed, well, you can debate the exact effectiveness of the specific policies passed, but overall I think most would agree it left many Americans wanting, and more than a little disappointed, especially relative to the promises made, and particularly among the working class. This, to my understanding, helped to enable the election of Donald Trump, who is now changing America to a degree we haven’t seen in over a lifetime. Some of this is stuff Obama had promised himself during his first campaign (government downsizing, etc)
So, in a way, Obama did just as he promised. He brought change (and hope!) to America, but it took the form of a backlash to his administration. Definitely not what he or anyone supporting him expected during that first campaign.
This outcome gives me a distinctly magical feeling.
Is this perhaps a magical effect of that energy many of his supporters felt during his first campaign? Or was the Changer influencing things even back then? Curious to know if I might be on to something here or if there are other factors I haven’t taken into account. What do you think?
I am working my way through a curiculum meant to cover how to do the math required for my electrical engineering schooling by hand, and as I am working through it I am starting to get very worried about the future of the mathematical arts. To put it simply, I’m getting very concerned that a huge amount of practical mathematics of the sore that can make people’s lives better is going to be lost in the next round of dark ages. There is an enormous amount which can be done using relatively simple mathematics of the sort that can be done using a pen and paper that has immense value: working out whether a bridge will stay up, determining how thick a dam needs to be to stay up, determing how large an area a dam will flood, determining if a given electrical system will overload; and I could go on.
While the mathematics involved in all of these is simple enough to do with pen and paper, a huge amount of how to solve these problems by pen and paper is not obvious unless it is taught, and I think there is a huge bottleneck ahead that will unfold from that. Simply put, the way that mathematics is taught has been completely changed by the existence of affordable calculators, in such a way that when calculators vanish, a very large number of people will not know how to do complicated mathematics because they will not know what the steps are to do things by hand. Further, it is already getting hard to find the resources needed to learn some of these: it took me quite a while to track down good resources on how people did trigonometry before calculators, and this is only one field I need to learn.
The second issue I see is that using calculators seems to stunt growth in mathematical skills. I asked about this a little bit on Magic Monday, but it also creates a massive practical problem: I had to start from the basics that most people fifty years ago took for granted: addition, subtraction, multiplication. I had a very weak sense of numbers, and the process has been challenging to put it mildly. I have made immense progress, but I am no where close to being able to do my course work without calculators, even given much longer for the calculations. There are just too many steps I would not know where to begin.
Putting these together, I think that cheap calculators have made solving complicated math problems easier, but at the cost of destroying the mathematical skills and intuition needed to function without them. Since it seems likely to me that every effort is going to be made to ensure that engineers and technicians who need to solve mathematical problems will continue to have calculators until the last one burns out, I think is a very high chance it will be generations before we have to grapple with the problems of how we can do practical mathematics without calculators, by which time I fear that the collective memory will no longer include the knowledge needed in order to revive the skills required to do mathematics by hand.
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2025/02/11/exclusive-sen-mike-lee-constitution-empowers-congress-to-tap-american-pirates-to-fight-cartels/
The era of the warring warlords has arrived…on the *US* side of the United States-Mexican border!
Congressman wants to issue “letters of marque” to “pirates” in order to fight drug cartels?!
@The Other Owen, @Neon Vincent
I know exactly what’s going to happen to those people because it happened to a member of my extended family. He was a middle manager in a telecom company that went under in the Tech Crash of 2000. He searched for another management job for, I think, two years without success. He ended up reinventing himself as a handyman at a considerably reduced income. These laid-off Federal workers, if they don’t retire early and can’t get themselves declared disabled, are going to be falling into the blue collar class where they will be competing with Trump’s base.
Mr. Greer,
A couple of questions: 1.) What to make of recent revelations of your.. uhh, ‘esteemed’ state senator Seldon Whitehouse’s purported influence/graft with regard to his wife’s ‘exploits.
2.) Any thoughts on Dan Crenshaw’s vapid death threat towards Tucker Carlson.
BTW, JMG, I had a thought about the side note I posted on my D&D comment on last week’s post. I think a proper inversion of the D&D sun-treasure myth would be a campaign of dungeon-dwelling monsters emerging to steal gold and other treasure from the surface-dwellers, then return to the depth and store it in their hoard.
As the PMs (Player Monsters, of course!) amass ever greater hoards and go up in level, they then have to move their lairs deeper into the underworld to avoid being easy prey for the surface-dwellers who want the treasure back. But this will entail fighting with other dungeon-dwellers for room, initiating the monster version of domain play.
There have been various attempts to invert the normal D&D campaign by having players play as the monsters, but most have fallen somewhat flat either by focusing entirely on defending against intruding heroes, by having the players play the “good” monsters fighting some even worse “bad” monsters, or just being played for comedy (the game Kobolds Ate My Baby! is an example of this last option). By explicitly structuring it around the summer/winter myth, perhaps the inversion could be taken a bit, err, deeper.
Yesterday the local county Historical Society Museum abruptly shut down due to a lack of money. I had not viewed it since I was a teenager and it was located in an old building on the county fairgrounds and staffed on weekends by volunteers.
In the last 8 years or so it had moved to a dedicated building on the local community college campus and renamed itself from the Washington County Historical Society to the ” 5 oaks museum” to distance itself from the ” colonial past” . It of course grew to having a half million dollar budget with several paid staffers to curate its exhibitions of Latinx artists, Native Hawaiian stories ?? and its main exhibit on the indigenous people who once lived here.
I am guessing this cut off the support from old time county groups like lodges, chambers etc. But no worries I am sure they were able to cash in to the endless flow of money coming down from USAID ( just guessing) to fund their operation.
But that worked until it didn’t and 2 days ago they announced the major grant ( not specified) that they were counting on did not come through ( my guess relating to Doges work) and they had no financial buffer. The collection will revert to the ownership of county government.
I am guessing this sort of thing is happening all over the country as the Astro Turf Equity movement is having its funding dry up.
I am talking with some county old timers I know to see if we can find a place to set up the useful historical artifacts to be exhibited by volunteers. After all ,we will need all the wisdom we can get from the pioneers who traveled the Oregon Trail to get here as we slide down the slope of catabolic collapse.
Hello JMG!
I‘ve been a silent lurker for a year or two now and, as a (East-) German particularly enjoy your Wagner series.
The Open Post comes at an opportune time and I‘d like to use it to ask for your take where you think a European that is looking for greener pastures should look for such.
The way that most people in my home country dealt with Covid and the lockdowns shocked me at the time and opened my eyes, I‘m afraid, to the fact that whatever made the World Wars possible, is still alive and well in the German unconscious.
The 20% or of the Germans that resisted the immense pressure of being marginalized and ostracized deserve respect, but unfortunately it was not enough to sway the majority, of which many gleefully snitched on their neighbors and proudly displayed their badges of Vorauseilender Gehorsam (preemptive obedience), while the majority just ducked and went along with more and more absurd demands as long as they were promised stability.
I understand now what made Europeans seek a new beginning in America in previous centuries and I am mulling similar moves.
However every time I have visited the US, it quickly becomes apparent that in my essence I am a European.
The Tamanous culture that you have described does strike me as alien. I often felt a sense fragmentation of the social fabric in the US. The sense of not interfering in other people‘s personal affairs and ways of life speaks to me, but I also see in people in the US a fear of deeper relationships – as though being too social could turn one into a dreaded socialist.
The grid cities and the car-based lifestyle only amplifies this.
At the same time, while my socialist upbringing has endowed me with strong sense of camaraderie, when I head further east, I feel a repressive sense of group-think and „the nail that sticks out gets hammered down first“.
Is this the dark side of the Sobornost culture?
It seems that towards the Russian world, anything beyond survival and cold, hard rationality is seen as foolishly sentimental asking for disappointment at best.
With your outlook on the next decades, how would you say the uprooted Europeans would best go about finding new fertile soil?
JMG wrote…
And Europe? Stick a fork in it, it’s done. I expect the Islamic Republic of Britain to be proclaimed by 2050 or so.
Wondering if you could please expand on this comment a bit (though I’m aware expanding on this comment might take a book or two or three!)
Wondering if you briefly explain what you mean by Europe being done.
And were you being serious about the Islamic Republic of Britain?
And if so, what other countries in W Europe do you see becoming Islamic?
Thank you,
Edward
@MichaelinTaiwan #7. Sometimes what is good for the empire is not necessarily good for the citizens of the empire. Rome bringing in a lot of slaves didn’t help Roman free laborers very much, and they had to subsidize the lives of the poor. At some point, the Romans realized that they couldn’t hold on to Britain since it was just too damn expensive and the natives were a lot of trouble. Since the new administration seems to be focusing on appeasing the working middle class voters, they are careful to notice trends such low military recruitment, the resentment of immigration, or the dislike of foreign meddling. While I don’t think that the new administration is thinking in terms of gradually drawing down the empire, the results are the same, and a fair number of the policies are proving to be popular. Time will tell if the shakeup allows for a “soft landing” much like the British empire endured.
John,
Do you think that the states that entheogens/psychedelics produce are purely physical/natural or is there a spiritual component to them? Can these substances be helpful if used properly, or should they be shunned altogether?
@Slithy
I’ve been practicing TM for eight years. No obvious ill effects that I have been able to detect and a great many positive impacts on a daily life that has to deal with the usual stresses. But…I found the regular attempts to upsell expensive additions rather off putting. The resources needed to become a teacher of the technique in terms of time and money seemed excessive to me and have probably slowed down the wider spread of what seems like a useful adjunct to daily life. Other routes to have now started to appear in the UK in the form of trusts and charities.
It is probably worth noting that a regular meditation practice is not for everyone and some mental problems can be made worse. I would have thought that being able to distinguish between people who might benefit vs those that might be harmed would be a key task for a teacher.
Regarding the long decent, I am curious what people here think of the current insurance situation in California. I was talking with family out there about how their insurance options have changed and rates for individuals doubling with many being forced to go to CA plan of last resort. Very quickly people will be priced out of the insurance market. There is very little way that prices can be passed on to most people with already strained budgets. With healthcare that results in many people uninsured aka ‘self-insured’ (an well they may be better off that way). But with property insurance in most cases people are legally or contractually required to have it. If the business can no longer afford their commercial location even if they have a long term lease then it cascades down and may be what causes the property bubble to pop. Either way though the higher insurance rates are just one sign of the real maintenance costs that our economy may not (will not) be able to support going forward. It seems like there should be a way to address real insurance risk and maybe a functioning political system would be able to figure it out but I ran out of hopium on that a while ago. This seems to be to be a structural economic issue so not really something individuals will be able to address directly.
I am aware that many mistakes have been made that resulted in this current mess so hopefully we don’t get too far off topic on the cause here. I am really curious what people think the path forward might look like. Thanks!
Bill in Va
@balowulf: Robert Heinlein had a similar idea that he called “writing into the dark” you just followed the lead of your characters, etc. According to Heinlein’s Rules though, you don’t revise, but send it off, and only edit to editors decree. I haven’t found that has worked with me, because my first draft is usually just a kind of rough sketch, and that each draft is iterative and the seeds of ideas accumulate until its finished. I get images and flashes and ideas , leads that I work in as I go, for fiction and non-fiction.
@JMG: I got a copy of “Lords of Light” coming to me. Having read a bit just now on Zelaznian accelerationism I can see what you mean. Many other SF heads have recommended it to me, so its about time I read it… there might be a follow up article to what I just wrote in there maybe.
@Slithy Toves #14 I did TM seriously for about 5 years decades ago. I even lived in the campus center – a converted fraternity house- with a number of room mates. So I got a look at the inside of the organization. Some points. In a book I read then, published back in the sixties and probably no longer available, Maharishi Mahesh explicitly states the various mantras are actually invocations of deities that will assist you on your path to enlightenment. The book was stashed in a file cabinet in the center office that I found one night after hours poking around. I am sure this bit of information has been thoroughly repressed and the present gneration of TM leaders aren’t aware of it. The puja you participate in during the granting of your mantra is explicitly hindu and religious in nature, the words are nor translated for you. You make an offering as part of it. So deception as TM being a purely secular technigue is present. I became a Christian during this period and this information was contradicted by my faith so I ceased TM with no loss.
One of my roomates was a young man who had a mental breakdown with permanent effects during an extended meditation retreat. I heard through the grapevine of cases of this happening to others.
Taking up any form of serious meditaion is an intervention and change in your life and interventions and change may had unforeseen effects. A good book discusing the in and outs and ups and downs of meditation, including TM is this one https://www.catherinewikholm.com/the-buddha-pill
It’s time for another renewable energy report for January.
For Wind, well, there wasn’t much. The minimum was again zero on Jan 28th. The maximum was on the 10th at 65.4% of nameplate. The average for the month was 11.25%.
For solar the longer days and a streak of clear weather helped a lot. The worst day was 2.8% of nameplate on New Year’s day. The best day was the 29th at 33.6% of nameplate, and the average was 17.3% for the month. Note those are 24 hour averages, so during the day there was power to be had. The 29th had 85% capacity factor during the day although there is an irregularity in the data, as in 150 MW of output from 138 MW of installed capacity. But they could have expanded a PV farm and the BPA neglected to update the capacity data so I’ll count it because I can’t prove it wrong.
For the dunkelflaute count the longest was just over 20 hours. Average power demand over this time was 7907 MW which works out to 158,812 MW-hrs of battery capaacity needed or 40,721 Tesla Max power batteries weighing as much as 17.1 Nimitz Class aircraft carriers. Not as bad as it could be, but January was warmer than usual. The cold snap came in February. That caused a surge to about 11,000 MW of demand.
Averaged over Samhain to Imbolc (the real winter here) the average capacity factor for windpower was 17.7%, for solar it was 32.9% during the day and 12.1% over a 24 hour period, and 932 hours of dunkelflaute which is 42% of the the three months. The average power demand over those three months was 7453 MW, Maximum was 10,543 MW, minimum as 5,244 MW.
The nuclear plant ran at 1135 MW on average with a 67 MW standard deviation.
In other energy news, the local utility is running a new powerline from Wanapum dam to Quincy specifically to power data centers. I forgot where I saw it, but the EIA (I think) forecasts that the world will be adding one Japan of new generating power for each of the next four years, mostly not for data centers, but just to electrify the third world economies.
And this, “Domestic gas production is rising at the same time U.S. power generators continue to add more natural gas-fired capacity. Colorado-based analytics firm Yes Energy said recently that more than 200 gas-fired units were in various stages of development across the U.S., with potential to add about 86 GW of electricity output by 2032. EIA has said it expects at least 7.7 GW of new gas-fired capacity to come online this year and next, after about 8.6 GW of capacity was added last year, and 5.6 GW of new generation was brought online in 2022.”
https://www.powermag.com/hundreds-of-new-gas-fired-power-units-planned-as-u-s-gas-output-soars/
To those who prayed on Jennifer’s behalf through her recent childbirth, many thanks. It all went well, and Jennifer is now resting at home with her new healthy baby girl.
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At this link is the full list of all of the requests for prayer that have recently appeared at ecosophia.net and ecosophia.dreamwidth.org, as well as in the comments of the prayer list posts. Please feel free to add any or all of the requests to your own prayers.
If I missed anybody, or if you would like to add a prayer request for yourself or anyone who has given you consent (or for whom a relevant person holds power of consent) to the list, please feel free to leave a comment below and/or in the comments at the current prayer list post.
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This week I would like to bring special attention to the following prayer requests.
May Viktoria have a safe and healthy pregnancy, and may the baby be born safe, healthy and blessed. May Marko have the strength, wisdom and balance to face the challenges set before him. (picture, update)
May Peter Evans in California, whose colon cancer has been responding well to treatment, be completely healed with ease, and make a rapid and total recovery.
May Debra Roberts, who has just been diagnosed with Stage 4 lung cancer, be blessed and healed to the extent that providence allows. Healing work is also welcome.
May Jack H’s father John, whose aortic dissection is considered inoperable and likely fatal by his current doctors, be healed, and make a physical recovery to the full extent that providence allows, and be able to enjoy more time together with his loved ones.
May Goats and Roses’ son A, who had a serious concussion weeks ago and is still suffering from the effects, regain normal healthy brain function, and rebuild his physical strength back to normal, and regain his zest for life. And may Goats and Roses be granted strength and effectiveness in finding solutions to the medical and caregiving matters that need to be addressed, and the grief and strain of the situation.
May Other Dave’s father Michael Orwig, who has been in the hospital since 1/20 with almost complete liver failure and 20% kidney function, have found the strength to survive and thrive when he recently came off of his respirator, and may he be blessed with robust healing that allows him to regenerate his failing organs to the fullest extent that the universe allows; may his wife Allyn and the rest of his family be blessed and supported in this difficult time.
May Kevin’s sister Cynthia be cured of the hallucinations and delusions that have afflicted her, and freed from emotional distress. May she be safely healed of the physical condition that has provoked her emotions; and may she be healed of the spiritual condition that brings her to be so unsettled by it. May she come to feel calm and secure in her physical body, regardless of its level of health.
May Linda from the Quest Bookshop of the Theosophical Society, who has developed a turbo cancer, be blessed and have a speedy and full recovery from cancer.
May Frank R. Hartman, who lost his house in the Altadena fire, and all who have been affected by the larger conflagration be blessed and healed.
May Corey Benton, who is currently in hospital and whose throat tumor has grown around an artery and won’t be treated surgically, be healed of throat cancer. Healing work is also welcome. [Note: Healing Hands should be fine, but if offering energy work which could potentially conflict with another, please first leave a note in comments or write to randomactsofkarmasc to double check that it’s safe]
May Open Space’s friend’s mother
Judith be blessed and healed for a complete recovery from cancer.
May Peter Van Erp’s friend Kate Bowden’s husband Russ Hobson and his family be enveloped with love as he follows his path forward with the glioblastoma (brain cancer) which has afflicted him.
May Scotlyn’s friend Fiona, who has been in hospital since early October with what is a diagnosis of ovarian cancer, be blessed and healed, and encouraged in ways that help her to maintain a positive mental and spiritual outlook.
May Jennifer and Josiah, their daughter Joanna, and their unborn daughter be protected from all harmful and malicious influences, and may any connection to malign entities or hostile thought forms or projections be broken and their influence banished.
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Guidelines for how long prayer requests stay on the list, how to word requests, how to be added to the weekly email list, how to improve the chances of your prayer being answered, and several other common questions and issues, are to be found at the Ecosophia Prayer List FAQ.
If there are any among you who might wish to join me in a bit of astrological timing, I pray each week for the health of all those with health problems on the list on the astrological hour of the Sun on Sundays, bearing in mind the Sun’s rulerships of heart, brain, and vital energies. If this appeals to you, I invite you to join me.
The S.S. United States is, as I write this, off the coast of Florida being towed to its final resting place. There are photos of the old liner under tow, and there’s something haunting about it. She’s rusted, faded, and completely hollowed out, but still floating proud and dominating the seas around her. Very much like the actual United States.
I can’t help but think that the ultimate fate of this ship is somehow an omen. The fact that she’s going to be sunk to create an artificial reef (the world’s biggest) rather than scrapped…. it seems like, not a good omen, but not the worst omen. If the fate of the nation is echoed somehow in the fate of the ship, scrapping in a foreign port sounds much worse than settling gently to the bottom in ones own national waters. I don’t know, maybe I’m reading too much into this– but this is both the flagship and namesake of the USA, and there has been a huge outpouring of attention to the old girl outside of the “people who nerd out on old ships” part of the internet I was expecting to be the only ones to care.
Does anyone else feel that there’s something symbolic, perhaps archetypal in this ship? Is it reasonable to look at her demise as an augary for the USA? (I for one will be watching her scuttling closely– if she settles on an even keel, as planned, I will take it as a good sign for the nation’s decline. If she capsizes… oof.)
Worth a read (sorry, no can do the linky thing) Maple Maidan by Postcards from Barsoom. Up until the Covid police state time and being a Unclean 2nd class wakeup call I was a fairly proud Canadian. But after reading this possible roadmap to Balkanization and some difficult reflection I’ve come to the conclusion it’s a viable solution. This country is hopelessly brainwashed. No strong Caesars. No Doge to clean out Ottawa and boot out about 4 million folk who should never been allowed in. No chance for our young to have the chances I had- and did. Heck, barely high school level but raised 4 on a single income.
So yeah, I know you guys are a dysfunctional decaying empire that might, just might become a normal functioning nation again. But if the western provinces broke away either by the above mentioned post or a stand-alone nation( doubtful- too brainwashed) there is a chance my grandchildren could have some hope for a decent life.
I wanted to again touch on the subject of the coming population decline. I’m looking at “decline” industries or businesses that people may fall into as the “standard” economy begins to sputter. Nursing and old age health care would of course prove lucrative. I myself am going to consider a side gig cutting firewood (partly to lose weight without GLP-1 medicine!). Firewood never really goes bad and a lot of folks have or will want wood heat as a backup. Also, I understand that the world trade is used goods is huge, especially goods consumed in the first world, then refurbished and resold in the third world. Less people = less need for stuff. Overproduced, surplus or used items may have great value in the future. As a musician, vintage musical instruments are thought of with reverence and the skills to repair them are in high demand. Would be interesting to see the world start to live off of the “resources” that the previous generations have produced.
On another note. A friend who I haven’t seen in 20 years (physically) except for on social media reached out to me and said they had a dream about meeting me. I had also had a dream about meeting this person recently. Coincidence? Just a natural outcome of chatting with someone online? Or something more meaningful? Any thoughts are appreciated.
@Ecosophia
I have some more info on China. Recently a Chinese hacker group broke into some city government servers and stole over 1 billion records. A large number of records included the name, date of birth, work history, credit scores, phone numbers, etc. The usual stuff. They then posted to the dark web the stolen records were for sale. To show they weren’t lying they posted 750K of the records openly and people all over China checked and found the info was legit.
But that’s just the context for what I’m about to relay next. The big surprise was assorted birth and death records usually available only to to top-tier CCP officials. This (hacked) classified info shows China has only 790 million people. The equally big surprise is that the CCP has been lying to the world and to its own people of just how many people died during the Covid lockdowns. Also the CCP is aware of accelerating deaths among the every demographic group but especially among the over 75s.
So it appears Lei’s Real Talk group of investigators with ChatGPT was right. The CCP elites (and now the rest of the country) knows China doesn’t have 1.4 billion like they tell the UN and the rest of the world. And every year their numbers are shrinking.
When word got out one Chinese university prof – I forget which university but it’s one of the top-tier universities there – said if birth rates don’t increase drastically china will have less than 300 million people by the end of the century.
I also note that Martin Armstrong’s Socrates has identified a cycle among the noise that the global population is going to drop by 50% due to limits to growth starting to hit over the next 20 years. Of course 2 billion of that will be the passing of the global Baby Boomer Era Gen simply from normal old age.
The big surprise to me is that the Socrates program has picked out a signal that the Limits to Growth will slice off – what I presume – is another 2 billion beyond that.
So in 20-25 years time due to limits being hit the planet will go from 8 billion people back to 4.
I’m also inclined to believe it because Sadhguru recently held a special session for his 7%-ers wherein he gave a lecture. The lecture was all about how the planet is going to completely change over the next 25 years and he wants his 7%-ers to be a “mother to the world” and stand up for all life on this planet regardless of whatever tribe or identity they may have. “Big changes are coming”, he said, “to the global economy over the next 25 years” and he wants his 7% to be a mother to the world. I suspect he would not be doing this if the need were not real. His speech left me wondering if he’s seen the last dregs of subtle plane support for the Biz-as-Usual-Global Economy has finally collapsed.
The other bit is I discovered yet another Indian Vedic astrologer and he said a few interesting things. One of which he repeated Abhigya Anand’s assertion that from 2029 to early 2030s the stars over Beijing are highly malefic and roar for war. This astrologer said there is a huge danger WW3 will be acknowledged to have officially begun when the Chinese kick start it. And he did stress it will be the Chinese that kick start it if WW3 happens from the mundane charts he drew up of major countries. No other countries at that time have as dreadful a mundane chart as China. I suppose if WW3 happens that could easily take out a sizeable chunk of that other missing 2 billion the Socrates program has identified as disappearing.
The whole astrological map over Beijing for that decade (2030s – early 2040s) shows China is highly likely to go-for-broke in trying to be the next dominating global hegemon. It will throw it’s weight around at everybody – especially its near-abroad but also even at the U.S. and EU.
One other thing that the Vedic astrologer said of China’s mundane star chart. China is going to be the premier STEM country in the coming decades while the U.S. and EU go into stagnation or outright decline regarding new discoveries and inventions. This is what the stars are saying.
The third big take away this vedic astrologer said was coming down the pike is the Second Religiosity. Also, religious wars breaking out around the planet are a real possibility. India in particular will see religious sectarianism rise over the next 10 years but he said the religion vs. religion vs. religion fights are coming down the pike for the whole planet.
The fourth take-away that Vedic Astrologer said is that the stars are reporting mental illness will up-spiral dramatically over the next 20 years among the global populace. Which makes sense to me. If 8 billion people start experiencing what hitting the Limits to Growth actually translates to in their daily lives that will be multiple stressors experienced daily. FYI, Sadhguru says if 3 billion people begin taking on some kind of spiritual practice then the rest of the global populace will reap the benefits without them ever taking even one thing up. He compared it once to a mango tree. One person can not eat the entire bounty of a mango tree. It takes many, many people to eat the whole bounty of just one mango tree. Take care of your own well-being and the benefits will spill over to everyone around you.
I believe it because Sadhguru seems to be in almost desperation-mode in that he’s been rolling out assorted programs and outreach – including a miracle of mind app ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5DIRRfoMYJA ) to mitigate it as much as possible. He has a goal of reaching 3 billion people to teach simple tools for mental and emotional well-being. Of course the good thing is is that he’s not the only one doing this. There are plenty of other spiritual teachers in other traditions – JMG included – trying to do the same or similar things.
The fifth take-away of that Vedic Indian astrologer’s mundane charts is that schooling is going to change of the next 20 years. In a lot of countries he said it’s going to collapse. Schooling – even primary schooling – is going to change significantly in some way. Longer term mundane charts he did show multiple unschooled (from a Biz-as-Usual perspective) generations will arise over the 21st century even in the Overdeveloped Countries.
So hang on to your hats. If even a tidbit of what this Vedic Mundane Astrologer is reporting come true we are all living in very interesting times.
p.s. This Vedic astrologer says as of this March – I want to say 28th or so, forgot the date he gave – the planet is entering a 1200 year astronomical transition and is rising to Dwapara Yuga! The trek to Dharma that stands on 2 legs* instead of just 1 (Kali Yuga) begins! 😀
*Kali Yuga – humanity’s Dharma (the Way of the Tao) stands on one leg
Dwapara Yuga – humanity’s Dharma stands on two legs
Treta Yuga – humanity’s Dharma stands on three legs
Satya Yuga – humanity’s Dharma stands on four legs
Then the cycle repeats as it heads back down to bottom out at another Kali Yuga.
I see that the SS United States is being towed out into the Atlantic today to be scuttled. That’s some pretty dire symbolism, but is it better or worse than being broken up for scrap?
Hello, JMG and chat. I have a question and comment on your discourse on the latest with the federal workforce. First, I think many are mistaking a good deal of hyped media (on both sides) for what is actually happening — which, as someone in fed government 26 years, can tell you is somewhat real, but hugely exaggerated in the media. I know only one person who has been let go so far.
But, second, I want to ask your opinion on whether you think much of the invective online and in this chat towards said workers is productive. I can assure you the most senior people you dislike and whose name you hear in the news, will do just fine- it will be average working stiffs at some agencies – just middle class people with jobs and rent to pay ( and a third of us are veterans) who will pay the price. Getting other working and middle class folks to direct their anger at these low level federally people is exactly what our political and economic elite (of all parties) want , so we don’t direct our anger where it really belongs: at them.
Take the one individual I know who was let go: a GS-13 worker, with a wife and 2 kids, at IRS who did programs to help elderly and low income people file taxes. You may not like the IRS, but he was hardly some evil oppressor on behalf of the government. And, having known home for 20 years, I can assure you he won’t end up on drugs, or part of organized crime, or in Uruguay. Really, why say such awful things about people you don’t even know? In other words, shouldn’t we punch up, not down or sideways?
I’m in the process of replacing my stolen tarot deck (classic Rider-Waite-Smith) and went down a rabbit hole with all the decks available. I will definitely get a Universal deck to have the classic symbolism, and I already own a Wirth deck for my Levi meditations. But I’m also looking at others, including Druidcraft, and learning to actually read the cards instead of just meditate on them via John Gilbert’s book. I’ll put this question both to you, JMG, and the commentariat:
What are your favorite tarot/oracle decks for meditation or divination, or just because they look seriously cool?
Maybe this isn’t a hot topic at the moment, but – here’s some comment on how and why Pluto could be reinstated as a planet, i.e. reversing the IAU decision of 2006.
Faintly analogous to how an egregore is supposedly created by the action of human wills, we might say that planetary status can be conferred by the human imagination.
Pluto has done its bit to co-operate, insofar as the 2015 flyby showed it to be topographically a world with a definite character of its own, far more interesting than just a cratered ball, and deserving of more than “dwarf planet” status.
In case any of your subscribers are IAU members I furthermore suggest that the boundary between planet and dwarf-planet be fixed at a diameter of 1,000 miles – thus both honouring Pluto and biffing the metric system at the same time.
So as many of you know, I put a TikTok out there as a kind of sane occultism outreach. It is here at http://tiktok.com/@whitewitchoftheprairie Recently, a video popped up on my feed with an influencer telling people to run into the void when they physically died. According to this woman, who claims to be descended from Scottish royalty, the light, life review, and beckoning relatives and friends seen after death and in Near Death Experiences is a trap. Evil Archons want to mine our souls for energy. Her solution is to run away from the light, embrace the void, and circumvent the Archons by refusing to reincarnate. For those who don’t know, an Archon is an ancient cosmic space lizard god. I wasn’t content to just let it slide as she had a ton of sad, gullible people commenting that they would follow her advice when the time came.
I wrote this essay, which is also on my regular blog, and posted the audio version on TikTok as a rebuttal. https://substack.com/home/post/p-157858984
Here it is on my Dreamwidth blog:
https://kimberlysteele.dreamwidth.org/141685.html
And here it is on TikTok:
https://www.tiktok.com/@whitewitchoftheprairie/video/7475600028946402606
I would appreciate everyone’s thoughts. I may be wrong about all of it, of course. The whole essay felt like I was dictating it from a source well above me and my puny little brain.
The mainstream media has finally been forced to admit it.
“Over more than 100 US intelligence officers have been fired by Tulsi Gabbard over explicit chat messages. The chat platform was meant for classified discussions but was misused for explicit conversations.”
“More than 100 intelligence officers from 15 different agencies were immediately dismissed, with their security clearances revoked.”
The CIA/NSA are supposed to collect blackmail material on others, not supply blackmail material to others. They somehow missed that during orientation. Or it was sheer arrogance. “I’m trans, therefore protected, therefore unfireable.” Oops.
Well, it seems like there are limits to the “New Transparency”:
Trump Admin Stonewalls Epstein Doc Revelations — Why the Limited Hangout?
https://armageddonprose.substack.com/p/trump-admin-stonewalls-epstein-doc
“Trump essentially promised to release the Epstein files back on the campaign trail, saying he would have “no problem” with it and that the list would “probably” see the light of day. …
“It’s been over a month since Trump’s been in office, and so far we’ve gotten nothing on that front.
The House Oversight Committee, two weeks ago, created a farcical “task force” headed by a previously largely unknown Congress member, Paulina Luna, tasked with “reviewing the Epstein client list.”
Why this “task force” would be necessary when the president could just direct the files’ release and be done with it is beyond the comprehension of anyone assuming good faith. …
The conclusion that the administration is covering the tracks for certain off-limits special interests is increasingly hard to avoid drawing.“
A noteworthy Canadian thinker, George Grant, who foresaw Trumpism in the 1960s:
https://sanseverything.wordpress.com/2008/03/09/george-grants-vision/
Hmmm …
More Than 20 Staffers Quit Musk’s DOGE, Rebuke Trump Admin Government Cuts
https://www.newsweek.com/more-20-doge-staffers-quit-over-musk-trump-government-slashing-plan-2035979
“More than 20 civil service employees resigned Tuesday from Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), citing their refusal to use their technical expertise to “dismantle critical public services.”
Significantly:
“The resigning staffers had been part of what was originally the United States Digital Service, an office created during President Barack Obama’s administration in response to the failed launch of Healthcare.gov, the online portal for Americans enrolling in health insurance under his landmark health care law. ..
Many had previously held senior positions at major tech firms like Google and Amazon and had joined the government out of a commitment to public service.
So, is this simply a consolidation of power by Musk, or is it a sign of Coalition discord?
Inquiring minds are eager to know …
Kimberly,
I read your post yesterday. It’s really astounding to me that someone would get the idea that “the void” was better than “the light,” but maybe it shouldn’t be: it seems to be the curse of the Piscean/Axial Age religions that, in setting up something as Pure Good and its opposite as Pure Evil, they inspire a fringe to come to the completely opposite conclusion. (The usual logic seems to be: the world is imperfect => the gods are imperfect => the gods must be Evil => the demons must be Good.)
Only occasionally do you get glimpses of ways past this dichotomy (e.g. in Mahayana Buddhism you have the teaching that “Nirvana is Samsara”), and even then they’re phrased in terms of the dichotomy — it doesn’t seem to occur to anyone to just throw the dichotomy out and accept third, fourth, fifth, etc. options.
>Trump seems to be dismantling the American Empire and alienating US allies
As one can imagine, I am focused on what-the-Sam-hill-is-going-on-with-Canada-and-the-annexation-talk – there are quite a number of issues at play and an array of plausible futures.
Besides what others have noted, I wanted to put this out there: I don’t think one can fully appreciate what’s occurring without understanding that, as Team Trump takes on The Blob, that Blob is viewing/using countries like Canada as a fallback area in which to regroup and continue fighting. This has ramifications like: it helps explain why some of these countries (mine) are not instantly falling in line.
JMG, Andy, and BeardTree, re: TM
Thanks for your feedback. The deceptiveness and commercialism of the TM organization doesn’t surprise me: I’ve seen the warning that they’re a cult and to be avoided multiple times, though they don’t seem anywhere near as abusive as, say, the Church of Scientology.
Thanks especially for the book recommendation, BeardTree. I’ll check it out. I am well aware of the dangers of mindfulness meditation, including dissociation and psychotic breaks; it is, after all, a technique meant for hardcore ascetics trying to turn themselves into zombies. I just wasn’t sure if there was a similar risk for TM.
I have been considering the octave as the template for the description of planar existence. The Greater Entity who manifests as the 7 planes of existence which is our solar system, our Universe, has generally made himself known to us. Kether in the Tree of life has been described as the Malkuth of the next higher octave, and so deleting Kether and adding Daath we get:
#1 Chokmah and Binah
#2 Daath
#3 Chesed and Geburah
#4 Tiphereth
#5 Netzach and Hod
#6 Yesod
#7 Malkuth
An octave is a manifestation. Of course, if you were born in a more agrarian age, the octave would have been described as is done by the days of creation in Genesis each day being a plane. But the metaphors we use, must be couched in words that we know from experience. The idea is pandemic. A week is 7 days, and one week follows the next, so that one might think of the Cosmos as less than the dust if one could think large enough. But the idea of an infinite set of octaves from the greatest to the least is not impossible. As we view the Greater Entity as our God, so God may view the even Greater Entity manifesting as this Galaxy as His God, and even now, this Cosmos may be interacting with His Brothers and Sisters as they live in awe of their God. I have heard mention of the grail. When we view the three veils above Kether, the AIN, AIN SOPH, and AIN SOPH AUR, these are merely the 3 planes above Kether, constricted, so that a narrow channel allows manifestation into Kether. This would be like constricting Tiphareth, Netzach/Hod, and Yesod so that manifestation could occur in Malkuth. The resulting shape of the descending forces from God to Mother Earth, and the ascending forces from Mother Earth to God when constricted as such form the holy grail.
@50 Robert Gibson
I disagree.
1. People will lose interest in Pluto during the Long Descent, unless a popular pasttime in the coming decades is flipping through coffee table astronomy books .
2. Since Pluto is too faint to be seen by the naked eye or even small telescopes, our socities will probably forget about Pluto entirely in the coming dark ages. (In contrast, Uranus & Neptune are bright enough to be visible with binoculars.)
3. Many non-planets have interesting surface terrain: Europa, Io, Titan, Enceladus, & Miranda come to mind.
4. I don’t know a lot about astrology, being new to it, but Pluto is or was a malefic influence so we are probably better off if Pluto’s influence fades out.
JMG, I second @Dennis opinion. I’ve been reading your blog since 2012; what drew my attention back then was peak oil. I have no idea how I end up finding your blog; I was researching something for an energy and resources summer class, that’s all I recall. Anyways, I really didn’t expected you’d end up being right on the spot about so many things, big things, like the ones Dennis mentioned. I will stay tuned for your post on the next round of changes. Hopefully the Twilight’s scenario won’t play out!
Patrick, my take all along has been that for whatever reason, there’s been a rush of souls seeking incarnation in this era, and that’s why there’s been such a huge surge in human population. Now the rush is winding down fast, and so the number of bodies is falling accordingly. I think a lot of us are going to welcome plenty of time on the inner planes to process our experiences in this very busy, fast-changing era of Earth’s history!
Angelica, thanks for this; I’ll take a look at it. I’m beginning to wonder if this sort of manipulation has been behind the remarkably static nature of popular culture for the last thirty years, and especially — since it’s a core interest of mine — the way that science fiction and fantasy have stagnated during that period, and publishers have just kept on churning out the same dreary clichés even though sales have dropped steadily. More generally, yes, this is magic — evil magic, to be precise. It’s a spell that has to be broken.
Justin, sorry! I thought you might have read Lord of Light, which all this refers to.
Connie, thanks for this, and I’m delighted to hear about this project! I hope you and DOGE between you can clear away some of the regulatory deadwood so that adaptation to changing climates can be a little less difficult.
Forecasting, no, what I foresee is a combination of internal demographics and mass migration. 2050 may be a little soon, but not by much.
Untitled-1, funny. I suspect you’re quite correct, which makes it even funnier.
Anonymoose, it’s a crucial point. It’s quite common for knowledge to be lost in the fall of a civilization because it’s been outsourced to too small a number of people; ours may be the first time that it’s been outsourced to machines! Coming up with a constituency for doing math by hand is, I think, a crucial issue just now.
Tidlösa, yes, I saw that, and was appalled, for exactly the reason you’ve suggested. That route brings the age of warbands much, much closer!
Polecat, one of the things few people who don’t live in RI realize about this state is that it’s stunningly corrupt. Whitehouse’s activities are business as usual here. As for Crenshaw, that really did show just how weak he is.
Slithy, that game already exists — or did, back in the day. It was called Monsters! Monsters! and used the Tunnels & Trolls rule system; in it, parties of monsters ventured nervously up into the realm of the dread Humans to steal items of value and gain experience. Like everything T&T did, it had a comedic dimension, but you could also play it dead seriously. Like everything T&T did, it was also enormous fun.
Clay, it might be a matter of USAID, but it also may have been a classic managerial-class ripoff scheme: move into a vulnerable organization, use it to get as much money as possible, strip it of assets, and let it die. The same thing happened to Occupy Wall Street, as you’ll recall; it’s a standard gimmick these days. I hope you can salvage something from what’s left!
Sascha, as your English is better than that of most Americans, you can go almost anywhere on the planet; judge exactly where to go depending on your job prospects and personal needs. You might consider someplace in the global South, since the two obvious options are uncongenial to you.
Edward, given current demographics and trends in mass migration, everything east of Poland will become Muslim-majority during the second half of the current century, and once that happens you can expect a change of government and the imposition of Islamic law and customs.
Enjoyer, if you practice occultism they need to be shunned, as they don’t play well with occult practices. Otherwise? Up to you. My take is that they do give glimpses of other realities, but in a disordered and confused way.
Bill, California’s on the cutting edge of decline at this point. I expect to see formal property ownership give way, in many cases, to a kind of half-legal squatting, in which the residents have only such control over their property as they and their communities can maintain by direct action.
Siliconguy, many thanks for this!
Quin, many thanks for this as always. I’m delighted to hear that Jennifer and her child are both doing fine.
Tyler, yep. I see it as an echo of the changes now under way in the US: the existing order is sinking, to turn into a seedbed from which something very different will emerge.
Longsword, duly noted. One way or another, Canada’s facing a very rough road.
Watchflinger, repair trades are going to be very lucrative as we proceed, since it will be much more affordable to repair and recondition old technologies than to maintain the production lines to produce new items. As for your friend and the paired dreams, I’d consider that an important synchronicity, and follow up on the contact.
Panda, a 50% reduction over the decades ahead doesn’t seem improbable to me. As for China, I’d also consider the possibility of civil war — that’s a very common event in Chinese history, and there are plenty of pressures that could go that way. Other than that, the Vedic astrologer doesn’t seem out of line at all. Schooling in particular is already imploding in much of the industrial world, as its failures become increasingly obvious; finding other ways to maintain basic literacy and numeracy would be helpful.
Phutatorius, as I noted to Tyler above, it seems promising to me: the old ship may sink but it’ll become a seed bed for new life.
Anna, I’m not punching at all. I’m quite sure a lot of Party functionaries in the Soviet Union’s last years were also decent people. The fact remained that a contracting society could no longer support the system that paid their salaries. The same thing is true now: the US is effectively bankrupt, and that means a lot of federal employees are going to have to find other things to do. Your friend may not be one of the federal employees who drink themselves to death, or become criminals, or pocketed a few million and will be heading to Uruguay, but I trust you’re aware that such people do exist in the federal bureaucracy. And, by the way, blaming elite groups for issues that have causes much more widely distributed strikes me as convenient but unhelpful…
Most of the decks I like are out of print! Jean Beauchard’s Tarot Maconnique, for example, is a fave, and so is the Knapp-Hall tarot.
Robert, but that would leave out poor Ceres, who is also an interesting world with its own cryovolcanoes; Ahuna Mons would make a good setting for an Old Solar System adventure!
Kimberly, thanks for doing this. “Flee into the void!” is epic bad advice…
Siliconguy, yes, I heard about that. What a bucket of sleaze…
Michael, well, we’ll see. Given that releasing that list is probably going to decimate the entire US celebrity class and upper political class, giving Kash Patel time to get the FBI ready to handle the arrests is probably wise…
David, thanks for this.
Michael, since they were holdovers from the old administration, this isn’t surprising.
Ben, that works tolerably well. Keep meditating!
Bruno, thank you! So far it looks as though Twilight’s Last Gleaming is moving further into fictional territory — but we’ll see.
@Michael Gray (https://www.ecosophia.net/intermezzo-the-ring-and-the-grail-i/#comment-130976):
“I always have to remember is that [Chris Hedges] is a Presbyterian minister and as such he brings that preacher cadence and grim manner to his writing and talks.”
I think that is key to understanding Hedges. He is a Vermont Yankee, with all the Puritan, double-predestinarian, “elect vs reprobate” Calvinist baggage that implies.
The Yankees lost their religion in the early 19th Century to Unitarianism, but they lost none of their religious intolerance. I have known many people of Yankee stock, and all of them have the unconscious assumption that they are the “elect” of the world, and that it is their job to make the rest of the unregenerate “reprobate” world “behave” so that they, the elect Übermenschen, can live on their high level of perfection.
It seems that no amount of disconfirming evidence is ever enough to shake that unconscious conviction on their part. Throughout American history, people outside of New England have accused Yankees of “hypocrisy.” I don’t think that is quite accurate. Hypocrisy implies a degree of awareness that one is playacting. I believe that Yankees truly cannot see what I am referring to, no matter how many different ways people try to point this out to them.
All that having been said, I do find Hedges to be a valuable writer, as long as one keeps the above in mind.
I don’t see an Islamic Republic of Britain rising in the future United Kingdom. I see balkanization of the United Kingdom, with an Islamic Republic of London, Islamic Republic of Manchester, Islamic Republic of Birmingham, etc, along with non-Islamic republics in places like East Anglia, Devon, or Cumberland ruled by ethnic English or the African diaspora or European refugees from continental Europe or whatever. And Scotland and Wales and Northern Ireland are likely to secede from this mess in England and go their own ways as independent nations.
Dear Anonymoose Canadian #27,
It may be of some reassurance to you that many home schoolers do not introduce calculators at all until mid-Algebra or later. I am regularly informed by my older children that getting out a calculator for anything easier than sine, cosine, and tangent “takes too long” compared to “just doing the math”.
Dear Bill #38,
For the fire ecologies specifically, of which California is one, insurance costs will be a problem until modern environmentalism gets out of the way and clearing of brush is required and modern building requirements are dismantled. Many of the so-called green construction materials are very inflamable. 200′ of nothing taller than or more burn prone than mown lawn around every structure does remarkably for reducing fire risk: we watched our neighborhood burn a little over a decade ago and the one household that had done that clearing had a little heat warped siding to replace, only. (Fire started three-quarters of a mile north of us, winds at thirty mph from the south: we didn’t even evacuate, just loaded and watched it go.)
To the commentariat in general,
We are having problems getting our chick order this year: the hatchs have failed partially and the producer (Murray McMurray) delayed a week then canceled half the order (the meat bird half). I offer this so you may adjust your chicken buying plans accordingly. We hope to eventually develop our own landrace, but in the mean time still need dinner!
I’ve had very little exposure to discussion about malefic or coercive magic until recently and it hadn’t really hit me how common it is and how much effort and creativity people put into it. It’s somewhat concerning to me as I’m not particularly elaborate with my protective measures. For instance, I’m hearing that if someone adds cursed material to your food, the act of accepting that by ingestion breaks through all of your defenses. Or if someone hands you a cursed object and you take it, likewise. Also, that there are measures aimed at preventing people from realizing what’s being done to them.
To wit, I have a roommate that was pointing magic at me at one point. It appears that she stopped after the initial spat. I would think it takes a lot of energy to do such things and that it winds up being rather tiresome for a dabbler. But one thing that left me wondering about the mechanics was that I left a bathrobe in the bathroom once during that period, went back eventually and got it, and at some point noticed a strong stench like valerian root coming from a certain spot. It was my intuition at the time that she was trying to make me and the others in the house like her and it seems that valerian has a role in love magic. Or is there some kind of hoodoo oil that smells like that?
That being said, is simply washing & banishing around such a bathrobe adequate? I imagine it would be. I will say I’m less bothered by this person now, but in my mind that’s because I felt bad for her, that she would feel the need to resort to such measures. Cultivating that attitude seemed to help raise me above what was going on. I keep my distance, though, and can’t really bring myself to help her with anything significant after that. But what about if someone’s put something in your food and you’ve eaten it? Assuming the saboteur has some skill, but hasn’t gone beyond the bounds of folk magic, is a banishing or something like the Watchtower Ritual adequate there as a countermeasure?
Framing the issue, of course, is the fact that a paranoid approach is unsustainable and probably causes you to resonate more with the mental states being projected in the working directed at you.
John,
Thanks. I have been looking for advice on this matter because I find psychedelics interesting, but they are not toys. I’ll abstain from using them. I think the matter is further complicated because people in the west (like me) do not have a culture that knows how to use psychedelics responsibly in a ritual context. As for the confused, distorted nature of psychedelic experiences, I can attest to that. Also, the realizations I have had on psychedelics could have been achieved in a sober context if I had worked harder to uncover and fix the unbalanced parts of myself. I still think it was worth having the experience, but it’s for the best to not make a habit out of it.
Dear JMG and commenters,
Any thoughts about how Trump’s announced plans for Gaza relate to his (apparent) ideas of reducing the USA’s foreign commitments? I’d like to put aside any moral judgement of the US in Gaza, and understand why he’s proposing it: what’s in it for him and the USA? (To me, it seems likely to be a quagmire like George W Bush’s adventures in Iraq/Afghanistan, but interested to hear what others think)
I’d also be interested to hear thoughts about likely futures for the AUKUS deal — I think US weapons systems are highly integrated. Does the UK and AU buying into this umbrella represent a strategic weakness for them if the US declines to participate (which could, presumably, include throttling the real-time intelligence information that is so important to these modern systems)?
Cheers, G
Hey JMG and commentariat
I have been following the whole USAID scandal on and off, and can’t help but notice that most of the mainstream media such as the Guardian have not mentioned the corrupt funding of media companies and bureaucrats. All they mention are the foreign aid programs that are suffering such as the ones devoted to minesweeping in Southeast Asia. The only sources I’m aware of for USAID corruption are Musk’s tweets and Substack. Does anyone know of other sources, ideally ones that are capable of proving how true the USAID corruption claims are?
Also, recently my sister got me a subscription to “Ground news” which is a news aggregator that not only collects news stories but assigns a political bias and factuality rating to each news source. It has been hyped up quite a bit by various YouTubers, like Sabine hossenfelder. Has anyone else used it, and if so what are your impressions of it?
https://ground.news/
On the ship scuttling:
What is the difference between the Stone Age and now? Forget fossil fuels.
The difference between the Stone Age and now is metal. Any metal. All the metals. And the ores are gone. All the best mines are played out. They’re scraping up rocks with tiny bits of metal in there and trying to refine that.
And they take all these ships with tons and tons and tons of steel and what do they do with them? Sink them in the ocean. Gone. Out of reach forever.
It makes me want to scream and rip my hair out.
JMG #62 – You said” I’m beginning to wonder if this sort of manipulation has been behind the remarkably static nature of popular culture for the last thirty years, and especially — since it’s a core interest of mine — the way that science fiction and fantasy have stagnated during that period, and publishers have just kept on churning out the same dreary clichés even though sales have dropped steadily.”
Your hypothesis is consistent with what Mike Benz shared with Joe Rogan in their recent conversation. Mike made explicit the effort to decide what artists are prone to have their message manipulated to support the desired cultural message. I know you don’t watch videos and maybe others will find this helpful or you can just listen to the audio although Benz presents the publicly available data to support his hypothesis:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPPc8OVNngg
What a time. I appreciate you framing this as evil magic.
@JMG: “Given that releasing that list is probably going to decimate the entire US celebrity class and upper political class, giving Kash Patel time to get the FBI ready to handle the arrests is probably wise…”
I hope you are right, but then there is this:
Whistleblower Claims FBI Is Deleting Epstein Files
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/whistleblower-claims-fbi-deleting-epstein-files
“While the Trump administration has markedly improved from its first term in tackling the bureaucracy of Permanent Washington compared to its first term, the exception to every rule once again has proven to be its subservience to the State Of Israel. With Epstein’s all but irrefutable intelligence connections to Israel being a central dimension of the pedophile honeypot trap that he was running, scrutiny of the release of the files has to be viewed through the lens of that obsequiousness.
Cause for that concern has been amplified following statements made by a whistleblower alleging that members of the FBI have started destroying evidence related to Jeffrey Epstein that is slated for release. …
According to the source, FBI employees have been deleting sensitive files on Epstein that have been siloed into secure FBI servers since before newly sworn in director Kash Patel took over as head of the bureau. Due to the nature of the technical infrastructure storing the files, the whistleblower has claimed that the deletion of the evidence would render it completely unrecoverable. While Patel’s confirmation as FBI Director was celebrated as a seminal moment ushering in a sea change against the deep state, it appears that it’s been business as usual since he took over the post last week. Patel famously promised to shut down the J. Edgar Hoover building and “make it a museum to the Deep State” on day 1 of his tenure. While Patel did deploy over 1,000 FBI agents into the field from Washington, the Hoover building remains open and the most duplicitous members of the bureau are still operating at large by deleting crucial Epstein files.”
So!!!
(a) Is Patel unaware of all of this?
(b) Is he aware, but has not consolidated his power enough to put a stop to it? -or-
(c) Has he been instructed to do nothing?
We may never truly know.
Given populist and “far right” parties are on the way to power across much of Europe now, any mass migrations will be of the invasive kind for Europe to become largely Islamic by around 2050 or so.
So you are looking at state sponsored or outright military invasions of western Europe by islamist forces from the Arab and African worlds.
Neon Vincent @ 4, your last question, about what one fears might be done with unemployed federal beaurocrats is easily answered. They will, of course show up at the local level, where they can do real harm. Don’t be surprised if the new Backyard Health Commissioner, who used to be harmlessly perched in the bowels of some obscure agency, shows up to tell you that you have to uproot your expensive plants because Bird Flue or lyme disease or whatever is the ginned up pandemic du jour. I have little doubt that the dismissed are even now writing glowing references for each other and sending out their creatively enhanced resumes en masse.
Dennis @ 6, As you typed: “Furthermore, Europe is on track to rearming and reverting to the violent place it always has been…” I disagree with our host about Europe someday becoming Moslem. The civilizations of the Middle East have been attempting to conquer Europe for about the last 2500 years and have not succeeded yet and I doubt they will now. They do sometimes manage a foothold along the Mediterranean coast for a time but have always been pushed out. The wealthy and powerful Ottomans, don’t forget, were stopped at Vienna and Lepanto, and Christendom was hardly united at that time.
Regarding warbands, here is a story about a Texas farmer blown up by what’s being called an IED planted by a drug cartel.
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/texas-rancher-killed-border-ied-attack-cartel-terrorist
Sascha,
RE: Fleeing Europe
It really depends what you are looking for. You aren’t going to find a substitute Europe anywhere outside of Europe, so you are going to have to accept some culture shock regardless of where you go.
Are you looking for a career? Or traditional cultural values, or economic stability, or remoteness from the coming chaos?
Russia, New Zealand, and Argentina all have good arable land and low population densities. They will have surplus calories for the foreseeable future.
Russia, Norway, Canada, Venezuela, and the Middle East are going to have relatively abundant oil and gas production for the near term.
Iceland, Madagascar, New Zealand, Tasmania, and some smaller islands in the Atlantic and Pacific are fairly remote and not significant for strategic or geopolitical reasons. They might be subjected to changing political conditions and spheres of influence, but they’re unlikely to be involved in any shooting wars.
The BRICS, Latin America, and Africa are likely to experience plenty of turmoil, but generally improve economically relative to the west. Mexico, Brazil, South Africa, Turkey, Iran, India, China, and Russia are all on the cusp of being major powers, at least regionally, and having developed economies in cities or some portions the country.
Personally, I would either go for Russia or South America. Strong culture with Christian history (Orthodox or Catholic), historical links to European history and culture, a good mix of economic opportunities and rural farmland, and neither woke and flooded with unassimilated immigrants, nor standing astride any geopolitical fault lines that are on the verge of exploding.
@SiliconGuy #41
I’ve read your posts about renewables with interest. Although wind and solar probably won’t replace the electrical grid power provided by gas and nuclear, what is your thought on standalone systems, say something like a few huge lead acid batteries charged by a few windmills on top of the barn roof? These obviously couldn’t power heating, cooling, or hot water, but could they be workable to provide power away from the power grid to run things like lights, power tools and small computers? Seems like that kind of technology has been around before the 20th century.
@Sascha if I may, consider going to the south of Brazil. There is a huge community of descendants of German immigrants. Many people speak German and there is a good market for people willing to teach German. Google “Blumenau” and “Joinville” for example.
@ Jeff Russell #222
I just wanted to thank you for your response on the January Open Post about Runes. I can relate to the slow going practice with small kids of my own as well.
I dived into Thorsson’s A Handbook of Rune Magic a bit. Good information so far. And thank you for your thoughts on the murkstaves, I probably will apply them if I get into divination. I also appreciate your advice on forming your own associations first too.
I’m very much interested in the Rune poems. I have the Older Futhark, but I’m not opposed to learning the others.
My first thoughts beyond meditation were that the Runes could be used for visualization. I did pick up a copy of the Heathen Golden Dawn and it seems accessible. I still have much to explore, but I’m grateful to you for your suggestions and thoughts on the journey. I’ll let you know if more questions arise in future.
– RMS
@JMG:
You wrote somewhere else that Trump is the action hero/anti-hero who shove the driver out of the truck and is trying to correct course before it falls off the cliff.
But in my view, everything he’s been doing in the last few weeks points towards the same direction : fostering growth by freeing energy (getting rid of regulations, desiccating the former allies and the bureaucracy, accessing the natural resources of Ukraine and Greenland, drilling evermore, ignoring climate change, etc.).
And for a few years, he might even succeed.
But given our ecological predicament, I’m really not sure your analogy is accurate. In my view, he’s flooring the gas pedal hoping that somebody will build a bridge over the cliff when the truck reaches it.
Trump is clearly doing some things right, but all for the wrong reasons. So I’m not so sure why so many people here are so ecstatic about his first few weeks in power.
If you haven’t seen it yet this is a fun re-imaging the First Triumverate of Rome as Trump, Vance and Musk:
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1893636273568415956.html
Drew C
HI JMG
As Spengler predicted more than a century ago, the birth rates in our civilization (than now is also a global civilization) in falling like a rock, like in the late Roman Empire.
We have globally passed the 5 years old peak in 2017, the 15 years peak in 2021 and the 25 years peak in 2023 and probably never in the future of our planet will be so many children and young people again.
https://ourworldindata.org/data-insights/the-world-has-passed-peak-child
The urbanization of the world brings the collapse of the birth rates, and it is not because the women start to work outside, in the traditional world the women always worked outside the home, in the fields; for Spengler this is because “having children become problematic”, in general to be alive become “problematic”, so there is a huge loneliness epidemic in the urban/civilized world, and this is the reason, for example, there is a Ministry of Loneliness in UK from 2018:
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5851382/
And your Surgeon General published a report about “Our Epidemy of Loneliness and Isolation” in 2017:
https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/surgeon-general-social-connection-advisory.pdf
In Japan (with the Hikokomori) or South Korea this problem is even bigger than in the western (Faustian) countries, and spreading quickly around all the world; it seems that the “social” networks and the “smart” phones are making this dynamic worse.
I don´t know what do you think but may be the difference of the civilization collapse in our case is that there will be few numerous war bands full of brave young men ready to lead the charge against a decrepit richer civilization, for example the birth rate in the muslim/islamic countries are also falling quickly and approaching, or in some case are well below, the replacement level, only Sub Saharan Africa still is well above replacement level, but if the trend continue in urbanization, in around 40 years they also will be below the replacement level.
I have written one post around this issue (“Demographic Collapse and Civilization”)
https://dfc-economiahistoria.blogspot.com/2025/02/colapso-demografico-y-civilizacion.html
Cheers
David
Also in renewable energy news, another idea that didn’t work, concentrating solar power.
“What was once the world’s largest solar power plant of its type appears headed for closure just 11 years after opening, under pressure from cheaper green energy sources. ”
https://apnews.com/article/california-solar-energy-ivanpah-birds-tortoises-mojave-6d91c36a1ff608861d5620e715e1141c
It was famous for wrong reasons,
https://www.thewildlifenews.com/2014/08/24/ivanpah-thermal-solar-power-plant-produces-death-rays-torching-many-birds/
“Plant workers call them “streamers.” Birds that fly through the beams of concentrated sunlight at the massive Ivanpah solar plant near Primm, Nevada catch fire and fall from the sky, leaving a smoky trail as they burn and die.”
I’m pretty sure that a certain Ancient Greek guy would have predicted that outcome.
Good Evening JMG,
I just want to thank you for your astute guidance and predictions over the years. We don’t agree on everything (I don’t read writers that do), but thanks to the predictions made on this blog I took steps to get my family and myself into as strong a position as possible to weather this international storm as it moves through.
As a probationary federal employee (couldn’t be helped), I’m still at risk – but I’m not in the beltway like I was at this time last year, my work has direct results and is not easily replaced, so only a force-wide, indiscriminate cut will hit me. There’s at least 4 categories of exemptions that I qualify for already, if they are granted.
It still could – but if it does, I take some comfort in knowing that most of this mess is forces beyond my control, rather than my own missteps. It’s one thing to play a poor game and lose due to your own incompetence, it’s quite another to play a good game and still lose in the end. I am and have been doing my best to be antifragile for this.
I feel a lot like an minor impoverished rural chevalier during the French Revolution. I get who the real targets are, I understand the anger, and I even agree with the broad aims – but I’d like to avoid becoming collateral if possible.
That said, it is still a difficult time for me, so if anyone here is willing to send some protective or evasive energies my way, it would be greatly appreciated.
And thanks again, JMG. I sincerely appreciate this blog and this community.
I wish respectfully to disagree with the poster last week who referred to David Kaiser’s penultimate blog post about the current administration. I thought it was most useful and the best explanation of the Republican election victory I have yet seen.
Contrary to popular rumor, our current administration was not elected by some kind of mystical upwelling of righteous American patriotism. The President won by putting together a coalition of people and interests who expected to benefit from his election. That is what FDR, Reagan and Obama did as well. It is called ‘politics’ which ain’t tiddlywinks, granted, but it is not the Magical Mystery Tour, either.
Kaiser identified three powerful sectors of the economy who hoped and worked for the Republican victory. Those are the fossil fuel industry, about which, he says:
“fossil fuel industry seems committed to the idea that carbon-fueled climate change is something that the world will have to live with, and is trying very hard not merely to maintain, but to expand, the production and distribution of its products.” Me, I find that rather alarming, not having the means to build a compound on a remote island.
The other two sectors identified by Kaiser are high finance and its subset “the crypto community”, both of which appear to believe that they should be subject to no regulation whatsoever. Surely, one can see that this has little or nothing to do with intrusive local inspectors not letting citizens build onto their houses.
To this I would add the subterranean influence of the industrialized agriculture sector.
Kaiser then goes on to list three sources of “ideology and foot soldiers”. These are the religious right, Federalist Society and Right Wing foundations, and AIPAC and its donors. I wish he had elaborated on those last three.
“Anonymoose, it’s a crucial point. It’s quite common for knowledge to be lost in the fall of a civilization because it’s been outsourced to too small a number of people; ours may be the first time that it’s been outsourced to machines! Coming up with a constituency for doing math by hand is, I think, a crucial issue just now.”
I think different parts will need different vehicles. Trigonometry, for instance, emerged from sacred geometry, and it might best survive by means of returning to those roots. Unfortunately, sacred geometry is not something I know much about, but increasing the chances that some of the practical mathematics we have will be available for the future will be well worth the effort involved in learning it.
I think as I improve I might see other avenues to save other branches, but even just saving trig could dramatically improve the future.
Anonymoose Canadian #27
What is this course you are working through and how could I find it. I have been thinking for a few years I should do something like that.
Thanks
Will O
Of course, those apparatchiks that drink or drug themselves to death won’t stop when they run out of money, they will stop when they run out of credit. It could be quite a lot of credit if they have massively overvalued real estate.
If the phenomenon is widespread enough, it might cause some surprising knock-on effects – ready your popcorn.
As an aside, I found this blog recently that has some very cogent discussions about just how, uh, bubbly the AI bubble is: https://www.wheresyoured.at/
Slithy Tothes: “I think a proper inversion of the D&D sun-treasure myth would be a campaign of dungeon-dwelling monsters emerging to steal gold and other treasure from the surface-dwellers, then return to the depth and store it in their hoard.”
*Steal* gold? You mean, *recover* the gold that the humans originally stole from the underworld! Have we learned nothing from the Ring cycle?
@JMG
Glad to hear this theory tracks. I think it’s abundantly clear by now that the Changer has a sense of humor! What else can you expect from a god who first made himself known to a bunch of memelords on 4chan?
I wonder if that energy from the Obama campaign was what drew his attention initially, or if his influence extends further back than that? How deep does this go?
Hello John and Everybody,
I think this meme from the ArmstrongEconomics blog is seriously funny and deserves to be spread to lighten up the mood:
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/humor/the-conspiracy-theorist/
Have you given any thought to the similarities and differences between the current reduction in the Federal workforce and the one undertaken by the Reagan administration? I remember that Federal workers lived in terror for a while.
Anonymous, so noted; you’ve made your prediction, I’ve made mine, and now we’ll see who’s right.
Eli, this is why I encourage people to practice a daily protective ritual, such as the Sphere of Protection. Magic is extremely common, now as in all other eras, and there’s also huge amounts of nasty magic that gets labeled “advertising” and the like. That daily cleansing does a lot of good.
Enjoyer, I used psychedelics for a while during my first stint at college, and came to the conclusion that they were a waste of time and there were better ways to expand my consciousness. I still tend to think I was right.
G, there are more Jews living in the US than in any other country on earth, and they form a large and well-organized voting bloc. While that remains the case, US subsidies for Israel will remain sacrosanct; it’s other nations that’ll get the short stick. The AUKUS deal was a bad idea from the beginning, and I hope your nation extracts itself from it!
J.L.Mc12, of course not — mainstream media such as the Guardian were on the receiving end of a lot of that money. The details are still hard to find anywhere but Trumpista media; I’m still looking for a relatively neutral source. It may be a while.
Mother B, they’re hardly out of reach forever. Salvage diving goes back a very long way.
Angelica, thanks for this. I’m waiting to see how all this affects the publishing industry!
Michael, it wouldn’t surprise me if both are true.
Forecastingintelligence, it remains to be seen whether the populist movement in Europe succeeds in ousting the entrenched elites. So far, not so much.
Bird, yes, I saw that. Ugly.
Quos Ego, well, we’ll see! The thing to keep in mind is that the US faces more than one crisis right now. There’s the end-of-empire crisis, and then there’s the broader end-of-civilization crisis. Trump is trying to address the first; I doubt he has the least clue about the second.
Drew, thanks for this.
DFC, it’s a matter of relative population, not absolute number. An invader can still conquer with declining numbers if its decline is less rapid than that of the defenders.
Siliconguy, yep. Diffuse heat of the sort that comes from the sun is best used in local and small scale applications.
Sirustalcelion, you’re welcome and thank you! Positive energy en route.
Anonymoose, oh, granted. I’m hoping for ordinary arithmetic and plane geometry at this point!
Justin, exactly what’s going to happen to the wildly inflated credit situation is another of those issues that make it wise to go long on popcorn futures…
Untitled-1, I think only the Changer knows that.
Inna, thank you! I’ve added that to my store of memes for the weekly Covid post.
Joan, that’s a good point and one that I will consider.
Dear JMG and Commentariat:
I am still amazed by the evident lack of understanding by western governments/corporations/elites on the everything to do with current world situation. Energy, the environment, the Ukraine war, Gaza … the list goes on. I think the best description of them now can be taken from that of the royalist supports of King Louis XVIII of France, with the reestablishment of the monarchy after Napoleon; “they have learned nothing and forgotten everything”. Kier Starmer was talking about sending British troops to the Ukraine. To do what, exactly; does he think this is the Crimean War? Data centers that will require massive increases in electricity use; so how will these be powered (no hand waving)? Electric vehicles? A golf cart makes sense, not an SUV or semi. Please note you can’t build solar panels or wind turbines without natural gas or diesel fuel.
From this blog and the related discussions, I now understand that our elites flailing and failure is a phase in the cycle of a civilization, but still!
Relative to nuclear power as the savior, when I was young, there was talk of a fully nuclear-powered navy. The cruiser USS Long Beach and Frigate USS Bainbridge were built and commissioned, and a nuclear-powered merchantman, SS Savannah, was built and put in service. The Savannah was too expensive to operate and wasn’t in service long. The Long Beach and Bainbridge had long careers, but those experiments were never repeated. Even with the US defense budget to cover costs, nuclear power was too expensive for use outside fleet carriers and submarines.
I used to see the SS United States in Philadelphia when I would cross the Walt Whitman or driving on I-95. Even rusting quietly away, she was a beautiful, impressive ship. I suppose an artificial reef is better than a foreign breakers yard, but I’m still sad to see the day. Another thing we will never be able to design or build.
On a totally different topic (filed under Now I’ve Seen It All), Jake Tapper has just written a tell-all about how the media covered for Biden’s mental incapacity. All this after he was on CNN, vehemently denying Biden’s mental incapacity! I can only explain the Democrats (with the cheerleading of the Mainstream Media) running Biden (who in 2018 was running a weak 4th until the SC primary, when he did an impression of Lazarus and suddenly lead the Democratic pack the rest of the way) as very strange, then insisting he was fine, then pivoting to Kamala Harris (who was a flop in the 2018 Democratic primary) as insane! If they were a sports team, they would be investigated for throwing the game. You might almost think they actually wanted Trump to win.
And finally, JMG, don’t give up on Twilight’s Last Gleaming yet! Still plenty of time for mistakes, miscalculations, and wishful thinking to yield their fruits (although you did overestimate the capabilities of the F-35 – but don’t let me go into into western weapons design and procurement).
Cugel
“cheap calculators have made solving complicated math problems easier, but at the cost of destroying the mathematical skills and intuition needed to function without them.”
I was the last generation to be proficient with slide rules. You do have a point. Slide rules don’t place the decimal point, you have to do that yourself. In practice that means doing the math roughly in your head to get an order of magnitude answer to match with the numbers on the slide rule. In the navy we called this “radcon math” because you might need a quick estimate of how bad a radiological incident was taking into account amount of the spill, activity of the spill, as well as the usual time, distance, and shielding available. With practice you can get pretty good.
I also have a CRC Standard Mathematical Tables book. It is unnecessary in a world with calculators as it is mostly calculus formulas, trig tables, and logarithm tables. In case in dramatic collapse it might once again be handy.
Personally I don’t expect things to splatter that hard. A stairstep down, then another. But getting a good slide rule and a solar powered calculator is not the worst idea I’ve heard.
@ Tyler A #43
I would agree with the archetypal expression of the SS United States. Interesting to note that July 3-7, 1952 was the maiden voyage of the SS United States to Bishop Rock off Cornwall, UK. And many films, Gentlemen Prefer Blonds, Bon Voyage used it as a feature.
Hi JMG,
You wrote before that, in our impending catabolic collapse, the first crisis period would be around 20-25 years, and then things would stabilise and possibly even slightly improve.
By your estimation, has that crisis period begun already? Perhaps 24th February 2022 could be a convenient date to start it at?
Mother Balance, There are tons of steel hiding in plain sight in skyscrapers, not to mention copper and other reusable materials. Those towering buildings are expensive to heat, cool and energy is required to convey people to and from the top floors. They will not be economical to operate for much longer.
@JMG
Ha, of course. For some reason it’s the questions I don’t have a reasonable chance of getting an answer to that tend to fascinate me most. It doesn’t bother me at all. Sometimes wondering is enough. Thanks for holding this forum, as always.
@kylec,
You had asked about favorite Tarot/Oracle decks. My favorite Tarot is The Mythic Tarot, circa 1986. (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/684602.The_Mythic_Tarot) (They’ve republished it with different artwork and it isn’t nearly as nice, imo.) A few years back, I wanted to get an oracle deck. I came across Dragon Wisdom (https://musingmystical.com/dragon-wisdom-oracle-cards-by-christine-arana-fader/). I loved the artwork. I bought the deck. I shuffled it, pulled one card at random: Initiation. And the deck has continued to be spot-on with what I need, when I need it.
Do you have a store nearby that has a selection? I’ve been known to line things up in a store and pass my hand over them, to figure out which one has the most ‘tingles’. Whichever one makes my hand tingle most is the one I go with. (This works with more than Tarot and oracle decks. 😉 )
Mr. Greer, thank you for your reply.
Corruption .. oh yes, I concur … in spades! I know that cinema generally, finds you wanting. That said .. when I watched both Whitehouse and Warren directing their vapid histrionics at RFK Jr’s CONfirmation hearing for HHS Dept. head, all I could see was Regan, head spinning round-n-round .. spewing noxious guacamole … AND, not to be outdone .. the A L I EN Queen B*tch at the ready – to do a glistening, slime dripping, silver pearlies sucker-punch on the sly!
DEMOCAT$ – A PROJECTION PARTY, if there ever was one!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embargo_Act_of_1807
Have you ever heard of this act enacted by the American government in midst of the Napoleonic Wars Mr. Greer? It seems to be the closest precedent to what is happening now.
I know of one particularly noteworthy alternate reality where this act is never repealed due to Thomas Jefferson dying early. This causes the New England independence movement to actually become successful. In term, the rump *USA, now dominated by the South becomes a far more aggressive nation that conquers much of Latin America!
https://www.alternatehistory.com/decadesofdarkness/
On mathematical skills after calculators:
In my teens I was a math geek who also haunted the used bookstores of Berkeley. There was one bookstore on Bancroft Way that had an upper floor filled with older textbooks, including lots of math textbooks from the later 1800s and earlier 1900s — which I looked through as thoughtfully as a ‘teen-aged geek might. Among them were textbooks by a certain George Albert Wentworth under such titles as Elementary Arithmetic, Advanced Arithmetic; Mental Arithmetic; College Algebra; Plane and Solid Geometry; Plane and Spherical Trigonometry, Five-place Logarithmic and Trigonometric Tables; Surveying and Traverse Table, and so on. They also had Wentworth’s Teacher’s Key to all these books, giving detailed answers to all the problems in them. (All of these books were published at Boston by Ginn & Co., which was still hanging on in the ’50s.) They struck me as superb textbooks, and so I loaded up on a few the most interesting ones. I still have them 60-odd years later on one of my many bookshelves.
Nowadays one can find PDFs of most of Wentworth’s math textbooks online , and even some of his teacher’s keys. One could do a lot worse than download the books that mesh with one’s needs and interests, and use them to teach oneself the pre-calculator ways of doing one’s mathematics. (See archive.org and hathitrust.org.) I learned a lot about math from Wentworth in my high-school years. He was an excellent teacher, extremely clear and helpful.
@JMG
JMG said:
Panda, a 50% reduction over the decades ahead doesn’t seem improbable to me. As for China, I’d also consider the possibility of civil war — that’s a very common event in Chinese history, and there are plenty of pressures that could go that way. Other than that, the Vedic astrologer doesn’t seem out of line at all. Schooling in particular is already imploding in much of the industrial world, as its failures become increasingly obvious; finding other ways to maintain basic literacy and numeracy would be helpful.
Wow! An intense civil war! I had not thought of that. I was just parroting what that Vedic Astrologer said. Now I’m wondering if you are the correct one and the mundane chart he drew up just means China will be hit with terrible internal rebellions as CCP control starts to collapse. Would suck for the Chinese but I confess I’m badly hoping your interpretation turns out to be the correct one.
That would explain what another Vedic mundane astrologer I found (I found 3 on Youtube I like) said the stars are predicting long term that China will lose 60% of its territory compared to what it has today. China circa 2099 will look closer to it’s 1899 borders, I guess, than it’s 1999 borders did.
One Vedic astrologer said one of the biggest chunks to peel away from the Chinese and become it’s own de facto country again is Tibet. The bigger surprise is that surrounding areas that have traditionally never been part of Old Tibet will become part of New Tibet to take advantage of better security for the people in the smaller regional cities and towns. Regions will join New Tibet for help with military security (probably against roving warbands) during the Long Descent.
China will lose a lot of northern territory too according to the stars. Inner Mongolia will be lost – going back to the Mongols, what used to be Manchuria will also be lost. I remember him saying two entire southern provinces will break away from the center to become their own countries. And so on and so on. In total the chart he drew up (based on China’s founding in 1949) says a total of 7 new countries will declare independence from CCP-controlled China. The Vedic charts are saying China will shrink to 40% of the landmass the Han ethnicity controls today. There’s even a good possibility Taiwan will survive all of this and still be proudly standing as an independent country as one of the 7 Breakaways despite constant sabre rattling from the central government! Maybe the CCP will be so busy trying to stave off the breaking away of their mainland provinces they won’t be able to do much about Taiwan?
Now I’m hoping that your interpretation is the correct one. Especially since that first Vedic Astrologer said no other large countries have as malefic a chart as China does at that time. He drew up charts for the EU, the U.S. Britain and of course India. China is hands down going to get whacked the worst of the countries he made charts for. Though none of the other countries will be unscathed either. Dropping from 8 billion to 4 is nothing to sneeze at when it comes to taking a sledgehammer to global trade.
Here’s a list of three Vedic sidereal astrologers I follow on Youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/@MukeshVats/featured
https://www.youtube.com/@AstroEdify/featured
https://www.youtube.com/@AstrologerMohnish/featured
After last month’s brief mention of housing, here are some observations.
From the point of view of the person living there, a house has some specific functions of protection from weather, keeping out bugs, animals, etc. There is a hierarchy of “houses”, in which a park bench with a newspaper is less desirable than a tent, which is less desirable than an RV, followed by various categories of housing, with (one assumes) structures on the level of Mar A Lago at the top. A person (and their family) choose from available types based on where they want to live, and their available capital.
So far, so good. It makes a certain sense that if a person prefers a tent to a park bench, it is their decision…except that if they don’t own the land, maybe the land owner has a say in this. (If I do own the land, maybe a tent makes sense while I build a shack, and live in the shack while I build whatever ‘mansion’ my budget will accommodate?)
Land is more or less expensive these days, depending on where the land is, so this is a significant issue!
Suppose I take out a loan to buy some land. The bank is now a part-owner, and has an interest in buildings on the property being saleable to someone else, in case I default on the loan.
The local and state level governments also have some interest in safe buildings. Partially, a higher price house will require me to pay higher property tax, an unsafe house may require fire services or some sort of rescue, and there may be some local “look and feel” that must be met. In addition, zoning sometimes seems to be used to limit the water, sewer, and road services that can be required by people moving in and building houses. (this is the very high level view, I haven’t done enough research here to get into the details)
So, we have three parties involved in this situation: the potential homeowner, the potential lender, and the government entities managing the potential home site. All have an interest in what sort of building gets created, and it would seem that the individual has the least leverage in the discussion!
In the absence of strong government control, informal communities are possible…(see “slums” “favelas” etc) …but these have only as much permanence as the land owners of record are willing to tolerate.
In any case, affordable housing is a complicated problem, with “solutions” being specific to a location and its available resources.
In the It’s Harder Than It Looks department.
Larry Ellison’s $500 Million Vertical Farming Startup Is Struggling to Grow
https://gizmodo.com/larry-ellisons-500-million-vertical-farming-startup-is-struggling-2000567562
Farming is not a database program.
There is a bit of irony there. AI programming assistants are replacing low level programmers and their middle managers. But the fieldhand’s jobs are secure. I’m pretty sure it was supposed to be the other way around.
It’s not the first time either.
Jens Ulltveit-Moe made a fortune in servicing Norwegian off-shore oil rigs. Then he got a guilty conscience and quit that business and bought into the PV business and the Brazilian sugarcane to ethanol business. He lost a bundle on both. He tried to organize both businesses like his shipping company, and of course they are not.
Hey JMG and commentariat
I assumed that if the Guardian was silent about this issue, it was more out of class solidarity as I doubt they would want to talk too much about an issue so detrimental to the PMC. It never occurred to me that maybe they were being funded with USAID also.
Also, do you have any opinion on the “Ground news” news aggregator I mentioned? It seems fairly decent so far, but I am still uncertain about it.
At first look ( and even now to his opponents) Trumps actions in the first month of his presidency seem to be random acts of political vengeance and score settling. But when you stand back and look at the whole pattern I think they all amount to a genius takedown of the deep state both here and abroad.
Cutting off the funds flow from USAID and the NED ( national endowment for democracy) deprived his entrenched opponents of their slush funds. Stripping the security clearances from the signers of the Hunter Biden Laptop screed defanged the worst of his enemies. Todays. move to strip the security clearance from the law firm that helped Jack Smith prosecute Trump is also hidden genius as this firm is one of the notorious legal tentacles of the Deep State ( and the Clintons).
Soon Kash will start the prosecutions of the worst grifters, criminals and election riggers which will certainly put what remains of the deep state back on its heels.
Even Trump and Elons email to employees was brilliant as the democrats and many employees fell in to the trap and made a big stink about doing a 5 minute email response. This of course just solidifies Doges support with the population and helps Elon find the fake jobs.
Watchflinger; small scale solar will work fine to keep the lights on and even the refrigerator running. A couple of batteries and solar panels can power many things. My not too efficient refrigerator uses 3.6 kw-hr a day. So one 400 W panel for nine hours will do it on clear winter day. Add a second panel to cover at least some clouds and a few lights and you are good. To deal with the winter overcast though will take 10 panels, but keeping food cold in the winter is not a problem here.
Wind is more problematic, or situational. Here it’s just too unreliable. Where you live may be different.
Chris from Ferndale lives with a solar power system. During last months 4th week (I think it was) he posted data from his installation. Remember he’s in Australia.
A Killawatt gadget is very useful in seeing how much power certain devices use.
https://www.harborfreight.com/kill-a-watt-electric-monitor-93519.html
For sirustalcelion; I have sympathy for your position. My first civilian career was killed by politics as Clinton, Gore, and Babbit didn’t like mining or logging and did everything they could to wipe out both industries. Just remember that if they let you go then you get unemployment. If you leave voluntarily you don’t.
Anonymoose Canadian,
I quite agree with you about calculators. I’ve always done basic arithmetic by hand up until about 7-8 digits are involved (counting digits on both numbers), and I’ve always felt this was good for me to keep up the practice. After that point I’ll turn to a calculator.
Like you do, I think many young people today struggle with math in part because of reliance of calculators. I think this is especially apparent in their almost total inability to work with fractions, which most calculators can’t handle (though some can).
I have a slide rule though I don’t get much call to use it — I usually need more exact answers that slide rules can provide. One of these days I mean to learn the abacus well, though.
With regard to the Changer, I believe that this God likes a level playing field for human individuals and prefers to level the existing playing field once it gets too lopsided. Like the Aztecs or the Confederacy.
What concerns me is that, in the two predictions associated with the Trump presidency (the Simpsons episode in 2000 and more recently the Christian psychic who predicted Trump would get shot at and the bullet would be so close blood would be coming out of his right ear) also predict the country going broke / the country facing the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, and I think taking wealthy down a peg via a depression (and wiping out debt in the ensuing crisis) seems right up the Changer’s alley.
Hello JMG,
I hope you’re doing well. I have a question – I have New Science by Vico and Decline of the West by Spengler on my bookshelf. Which one would you recommend I read first?
@Slithy Toves #58, your words “ I am well aware of the dangers of mindfulness meditation, including dissociation and psychotic breaks; it is, after all, a technique meant for hardcore ascetics trying to turn themselves into zombies. “
Below is from a review of the book, The Buddha Pill taken from https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22630210-500-panic-depression-and-stress-the-case-against-meditation/ A case can be made that forms of eastern meditation has been oversold.
“ TWITCHING, trembling, panic, disorientation, hallucinations, terror, depression, mania and psychotic breakdown – these are some of the reported effects of meditation. Surprised? We were too.
Techniques such as transcendental meditation and mindfulness are promoted as ways of quieting the mind, alleviating pain and anxiety, and even transforming you into a happier and more compassionate person: natural cure-alls without adverse effects. But happiness and de-stressing were not what meditation techniques, with their Buddhist and Hindu roots, were originally developed for. The purpose of meditation was much more radical: to challenge and rupture the idea of who you are, shaking one’s sense of self to the core so you realise there is “nothing there” (Buddhism) or no real differentiation between you and the rest of the universe (Hinduism). So perhaps it is not so surprising that these practices have downsides.”
Thanks, John. Point well taken on psychedelics, I don’t want to depend on outside substances to expand consciousness. My curiosity got the better of me.
I hope this question isn’t too explicit for this blog, but on an unrelated note, what do you think about pornography? I haven’t seen you answer this question before, but you have remarked on the use of masturbation in magic before. I believe you said that it isn’t good for you and that it loses its punch anyway. Anyway, I think that pornography is tremendously harmful even in a mundane context, it is what you would call a ‘prosthetic,’ that is, an artificial replacement for something real. It’s an inferior replacement for genuine intimacy and human relationships. Then in an occult/spiritual context there’s the issue of dependency, the weakening of the will, the imbalance of energy, etc. I also think there’s quite an overlap here with the dark magic of advertising. Curious about your thoughts, and apologies if you’ve already answered this.
Cugel, elite dysfunction is one of the most reliable things in the cosmos. When people get power, all too often their first use of it is to wall themselves off from inconvenient facts, and fatal cluelessness follows promptly. As for Twilight’s Last Gleaming, well, we’ll see!
Russell, that seems very plausible to me.
Untitled-1, fair enough.
Polecat, I avoided the sorry spectacle; my digestion can only handle so much.
David, yes, I’ve heard of it. Hmm.
Panda, and before this even came up, I put a Chinese civil war dividing the country into North China and South China into my novel The Hall of Homeless Gods…
Sylvia, er, okay.
Siliconguy, no surprises there. Hubris will only work in fields where you don’t have to deal with material reality.
J.L.Mc12, no, I’m not familiar with the aggregator.
Clay, Trump’s actions don’t look random to me at all. Au contraire, he seems to have identified the funding mechanisms that produce the illusion of mass support for his opponents. Lacking the funds to hire rent-a-mobs and saturation propaganda, they’re flailing, Now word has just come out that the Epstein files will be released tomorrow. Popcorn time…
Dennis, a whopping depression is pretty much in the cards anyway, though it may be balanced by a proliferation of working class jobs. As for debt default, that’s the point of cutting the budget until there’s no need for further borrowing; once you do that, you can default with impunity. I expect that within a year or two.
Luke, I recommend Spengler first. Vico writes in the style of the late Renaissance and can be hard for modern people to process.
I have seen two different billboards in two different parts of town in the past month, both claiming that not allowing use of the herbicide glyphosate would make farming more difficult and costs higher for families. Since this herbicide was sold by the company formerly known as Monsanto, headquartered here, before it was acquired by Bayer who currently sells it and has its US headquarters here, I think that industrialized agriculture may not be quite as happy with the current administration as Mary Bennett (#68) suggests.
Dear John Michael,
I’ve read your recent article about Jung and it made me ponder something that I believe would be worthy of consideration. You mentioned (paraphrasing) how Freudian psychology was very successful in helping people overcome the restrictiveness and repression (particularly of the sexual kind) of the 19th century, and that Jungian psychology (or occultism) helped man find a soul (as in the title of the book) and overcome the rampant, brutal rationalism that came before it and led to so much neurosis. In other words, both types of psychology addressed the malaise of their respective times.
What I’m wondering is if repression and “soullessness”/rationalism were the afflictions of their respective times, what could then be the malaise of *our* time?
I’ve been pondering about this for the better part of the last three weeks and I this malaise is best represented by resentment. This is purely anecdotal, but I’ve been observing people from all walks of life, of all parts of society, of all political and social aspirations, become increasingly more resentful. People are angry, mad. They are tired. They feel betrayed. They want to tear everything down in desperation, hoping that this will fix everything, but they have little in the way of creative impetus. Families are being torn apart over issues that wouldn’t even be given a cursory glance decades ago. Other people are even going so far as to deny the bodies they were born into (i.e., transgenderism, transhumanism, eugenics) and cursing the very thing that roots them to the world. There is a consistent, pervasive need to find something or someone to blame for our problems, as if the world itself all owed us something, and this something, whatever it may be, was tragically denied, if not taken away (think of the Tomorrowland that is doubtlessly not coming). Too many contradictions in democracy, liberalism, social relations, expectations. It’s making people angry, but they cannot bring themselves to find the roots of change inwardly. Anger is projected outwards, the alterity of the other is denied or treated with animosity, and there is only a desire to destroy. Again, no impetus to create. No self-reflection or meditation. It’s as if people want something or someone to make up for everything they lost, what was “owed” to them.
In other words, it’s resentment. At least, that’s what I think is the malaise of our times. It makes me wonder how it is that we’re going to overcome it, and perhaps the Age of Aquarius will give us a little nudge in the right direction, knock on wood.
What do you (and the commentariat by extension) think of this? Does it make sense?
Addendum: I am not excluding myself from the malaise of resentment; Lord knows I am extremely resentful person and I am still trying to overcome it.
Hi JMG,
I was thinking about the Barbarism of Reflection in the last week. I am glad to see that it has come up in these week’s discussion.
The Barbarism of reflection is manifesting itself in many ways around us. One such thing is the housing crisis that has spread all around the US and most of the world. There are multiple reasons for it.
One reason is because the various kinds of housing regulations that were made with good intentions are increasingly becoming a burden and are choking the lives of people. The other reason is capital class bought up a lot of housing stock to extract rents. Our current political systems are unable to unravel this knot because to do that, they will need to roll back so many basic aspects of our system like the right to own private property, the sanctity of contracts and the legal right of the lender to collect interest on debt, and so on.
The same stuff is happening in various dimensions: The borrowers of debts of various kinds are sinking under the weight of the obligations to repay, while the lenders insist on collecting under the threat of upending our financial system. Countries have tied themselves into international military alliances and pacts by making eternal pledges to support defend other countries against military attack, and then are finding themselves dragged into a war they can’t sustain. People are finding it increasingly harder to carry on with the business of daily lives because bureaucratic intermediaries of various kinds have inserted themselves into the system and demand to be fed, like the Troll who lives under the bridge. The abstract foundations of our civilization have become shackles that focus only on sustaining themselves even at the cost of destroying the world they are supposed to support.
While Trump is trying to cut through all this and simplify things with what he calls “common sense”, that may not be enough. Trump is after all a product of the same system. He owes much of his early success to the same system. He has cleverly figured out which rules he can break safely to come out on top and remain there. But like you said to Quos Ego, Trump might have a clue about some stuff but he may not know all of it. All he is doing might slow down, not completely stave off the crisis of the Barbarism of reflection we are facing.
BeardTreee :
#114 February 26, 2025 at 10:00 pm
“The purpose of meditation was much more radical”
Elegantly summarized. As someone who put in a LOT of time doing (mostly) various grades of Tibetan Buddhist meditation, I can state from my own experience that what you described as the purpose of meditation in Buddhism seems to have been the effect it had on me. Now, I sorta-kinda wish I had some of my old neuroses back! They gave me an illusion of selfhood that I rather miss. But not entirely. It seems that, without intending to, I’ve acquired a kind of equanimity. It comports well with having gotten to be somewhat old.
It should be noted that in even the most radical forms of Tibetan Buddhism, one was generally encouraged to practice ethical conduct and training the mind by memorization and more academic analysis before diving too far into the deeps of meditation. It’s all too easy to become addicted to meditative highs and imagine one has become some kind of exalted being (rudra) along with having acquired a level of charisma that draws the clueless into your orbit. Some responsible teachers do allow neophytes to practice meditation, albeit under close supervision (the Sakya are known for this) and with a lot of rough (to the ego) treatment. It’s chiefly when it got exported to the West that meditation so-called became more important than why it was being done, putting the cart before the horse, as it were. Less than perfectly ethical Tibetan teachers were in the habit of coming to the west and conducting what I call “drive by” teachings and initiations, leaving students to their own devices. I don’t know if that is still the case. Possibly on the theory that whatever mess happened to students as a result in this lifetime, the student would then have the karma to meet with a real teaching situation sometime in a future lifetime. I was not, am not, impressed by that reasoning for all sorts of reasons.
So, for those and other reasons (such as the ones in this thread that you described), I do not encourage people to engage in mindfulness meditation devoid of context.
Oh my, it’s been a year. Many cultures set that first year apart because of its repeated shock of first anniversaries: first time without your beloved at holidays, birthdays, et stinking cetera. It stinks. I’m sorry.
After Sara died, I thanked the both of you for all I’d learned from your writing because if not for her, you never could have made a living at it. Now I must also thank your father. He could have been a complete disaster as a dad and destroyed you. Instead he rose above his lousy childhood as best he could.
We are siblings in sorrow. My own dear departed father had the sort of childhood and young manhood that gave him the perfect excuse to be a mass murderer. (Seriously, it was bad. The judge and jury would have cut him some slack, given him life without instead of Death Row.) Instead he was a good neighbor, husband, and father. Like your father, he was one of many unsung heroes. His methods of coping weren’t always the best, but “You’re a better man than I am, Gunga Din!” His childhood and young manhood would have destroyed me.
Addition to the list — Dear John Michael, Sara, and John David: Thank you for writing about climate change. It’s not Hollywood-cataclysm change, but it’s real, even if it’s creeping rather than dramatic. Well, sometimes it’s dramatic: Blizzard in New Orleans! Floods in the Sahara! And dang, Hollywood had its own real cataclysm: a holocaust, in the original sense of the word.
Also thank you for the idea that everyone is working magic, all the time. It’s just most of us don’t know it.
@Anonymoose Canadian #27 – your discussion of math and calculators opens the door to a vast topic. Math is probably the cornerstone, but science and technology are foundational too. We humans are essentially technological and scientific. We have stories about how things work – food, medicine, shelter, clothing, everything that is part of our way of life. As our way of life changes, our stories change to fit.
The concentration of power and knowledge in our modern industrial society boggles the mind. The stuff we use routinely is mostly produced by exceeding complex systems. What makes the whole system so brittle is that math, science, technology… the foundations… are also maintained through exceedingly complex systems.
The handheld calculator is a perfect symbol for this. I was in high school when the HP-35 came out. I don’t think our high school had any kind of desk top calculator that could compute trigonometric functions. A square root was the limit of functional fanciness. When I say a spec sheet for the HP-35, I told my friends it was a big joke, that it was impossible. Ha! One of the many instances of me being perfectly wrong!
But as this whole complex system of centralized expertise etc. gets pinched by resource constraints etc., the fancy science labs, the microchip fabrication facilities, the biomedical DNA recombination labs, etc. – these are going to get hit hard.
Our modern world has been built by a feedback loop, where industry feeds science with tools and materials, and science feeds industry with know-how. This kind of feedback loop can run either way. Collapsing industry causes collapsing science causes collapsing industry.
We need to decentralize and simplify all kinds of key math, science, and technology.
@JMG, @DFC
Re. Muslim migration to Europe, there’s also the factor that the Middle East is becoming less and less liveable as a result of climate change. The population isn’t going to stay there, gradually becoming poorer as crops fail and desertification spreads, when they could go to a different country where there’s still some prosperity to be had, especially when that different country is their former colonizer, who asset-stripped them back in the day, so that they have reason to feel that they’re just regaining what was stolen from them.
Hi all,
Two questions. First when the US defaults on its debt is another east asian currency crisis in the cards? Given that Japan and China are the two biggest US debt-holders I imagine the yen and yuan will take quite a beating as a result, along with the USD of course. Does that seem plausible or am I missing something?
Second, I was thinking about the arrogance of the expert class and the whole cult of scientific credentialism given modern science’s origins in renaissance occultism.
To be clear I am only an absolute novice in esotericism and I can say from my limited experience the step by step approach to the subject is the way to go. But I can also see how in the case of scientific education and careerism it can lead to gatekeeping and unwarranted self importance. I guess I just get a black hat “left hand path” vibe from modern science; that it’s about power and not truth, and I was wondering where that sensibility came from.
Cheers,
JZ
J.L.Mc12
RE: Ground News
I like the idea of it. I’ve only browsed the free version, I haven’t paid the subscription fees to try out the full version, so take this with a grain of salt.
As far as I can tell, it covers the top stories, more or less the same way that you would see them ranked in Google News, and adds some left/right context. Showing which stories are more heavily covered by left or right leaning news rags. I can’t evaluate the fact checking, ownership, or sources functions without paying.
It does include news sources that Google News wouldn’t include, or would down rank/shadow ban to prevent them from showing up unless you specifically search for them. But, it doesn’t think much of those sites, posting a “Read with caution” warning over a “history of poor reporting practices.”
I used a test case to illustrate the point. Jeffrey Sachs gave a speech to the EU Parliament a few days ago:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUbBU0OqCgE
“Jeffrey Sachs’ Explosive Address at the EU Parliament Sends Shockwaves Across Europe!”
Wherein he explains that the current European narrative on the Ukraine-Russia war is childishly, hopelessly, (EXPLETIVE DELETED), totally delusional. He patiently explains the history of NATO expansion. Noting that senior statesmen and diplomats in the USA and Europe commented all through the 90s and 00s that bringing Ukraine into NATO would seriously threaten Russia, that the USA promised Russia that NATO would not “expand one inch to the east” in exchange for German reunification, that Germany and France were opposed to bringing Ukraine into NATO in 2008 when Bush pushed the idea, etc. It’s really an incredible good speach.
Here is the transcript: https://singjupost.com/transcript-jeffrey-sachs-on-the-geopolitics-of-peace-in-the-european-parliament/
Here is a nice excerpt:
“Russia had no territorial interests or designs in Ukraine at all. I know. I was there during these years. What Russia was negotiating was a 25-year lease to 2042 for Sevastopol naval base. That’s it.
Not for Crimea. Not for the Donbas. Nothing like that. This idea that Putin is reconstructing the Russian empire, this is childish propaganda. Excuse me.
If anyone knows the day-to-day and year-to-year history, this is childish stuff. Childish stuff seems to work better than adult stuff. So no designs at all. The United States decided this man must be overthrown. It’s called a regime change operation.
There have been about a hundred of them by the United States, many in your countries and many all over the world. That’s what the CIA does for a living. Please know it. It’s a very unusual kind of foreign policy.
But in America, if you don’t like the other side, you don’t negotiate with them, you try to overthrow them, preferably, covertly. If it doesn’t work covertly, you do it overtly. You always say it’s not our fault. They’re the aggressor. They’re the other side.
They’re Hitler. That comes up every two or three years. Whether it’s Saddam Hussein, whether it’s Assad, whether it’s Putin, that’s very convenient. That’s the only foreign policy explanation the American people are ever given anywhere. Well, we’re facing Munich 1938.
Well, we’re facing Munich 1938. Can’t talk to the other side. They’re evil, implacable foes. That’s the only model of foreign policy we ever hear from our mass media. And the mass media repeats it entirely because it’s completely suborned by the US government.”
The whole speech is like that, detailed, factual, from a man who was actively working with these governments, diplomats, heads of state at the time. Ground News had two threads on his speech, both of them contained this warning:
“Read with caution – this story is only being covered by one news source that has a ‘low factuality’ rating, which means the outlet has a history of poor reporting practices.”
https://ground.news/article/jeffrey-sachs-explosive-address-at-the-eu-parliament-sends-shockwaves-across-europe
https://ground.news/article/prof-jeffrey-sachs-schools-europeans-in-a-stunning-speech-europe-reloaded
Each thread has two links to two articles from alternative news sites. No MSM covered the speech. And, even though Ground News did aggregate these alt sites, they come with a warning label and I’d be willing to bet that they were never anywhere near the top of the page. The warning label is likely there precisely because they cover stories that the MSM won’t touch, and through a nice bit of circular reasoning that makes them suspect.
J.L.Mc12
RE: USAID
Mike Benz is the current authority on USAID. He’s been researching it for years.
https://x.com/mikebenzcyber?lang=en
https://foundationforfreedomonline.com/
We know from a couple sources, Wikileaks cables and comments from top officials, that NED and USAID are slush funds for the CIA and the State Department and that they “do publically what the CIA used to do covertly.” But we don’t have all the receipts because they funnel the money through NGOs and the NGOs are subject to FOIAs. Sometimes the money goes through several layers, like with the Wuhan funding. USAID->UC Santa Barbara->EcoHealth Alliance->Wuhan
Getting those receipts is going to require either criminal investigations or successful legal action. Hopefully both will be arriving soon. But, with the tap shut off, I fear that most of them will shut down and trash the records before that happens.
@ Michael & JMG “The US empire is ending one way or another, and fortunately the faction of our elite now in power has decided to be proactive about that and leave the empire business deliberately, as Britain did after the Second World War — this is one of the few ways to get out of empire without facing total collapse.”
It is a very smart move long term, the bend not break model. But it is one of those things were you have to appear as a dominant and opposing force until you sure up your long term conditions. “When strong appear weak, When weak appear strong.” Sun tzu
A great example in the military was the Anzac retreat of GallIpoli. A lot of effort was made to simulate on going battle so the Turkish wouldn’t suspect anything, all the while troops where sneaking out the back quietly. It is said that there were no casualties in the evacuation but I suspect this was part propaganda. But it is a great lesson that you have to keep the illusion up until the very end.
https://anzacportal.dva.gov.au/wars-and-missions/ww1/where-australians-served/gallipoli/evacuations-from-anzac
Joanne’s Fabric stores, 800 across the country, will be closing by about April. The story of how this came about is being covered by a number of You Tubers; poster Neon Vincent, above @ #4, has a useful link on his website. To me, the important point here is that Joanne should never have been allowed to have a monopoly in the first place. The Reagan administration simply stopped enforcing anti-trust laws as did subsequent admins. There is a quantitative and qualitive difference between enterprises like building airplanes, which require large amounts of capital, and simply buying and selling fabric and sewing supplies. I can remember when the small town where I went to high school, no more than 10,000 pop. as I recall had three stores on main street where fabric could be bought in the basements.
The liquidation is being carried out with maximum chaos and disorder; sewing websites are full of dismayed customers wondering why there cannot be at least a thank you for your patronage email. Meanwhile the pro-business-no-matter-who-gets-hurt informal lobbyists are out in force, explaining this simply can’t be done in an orderly fashion, which, as far as I am concerned, is an out and out lie. There is a definite whiff of disdainful and contemptuous why doesn’t Susy Housewife just buy her clothes at Wally World attitude from the ranks of the 6 and 7 figure salary crowd. Who will really be hurt by this closing are the sewists who make livings at their craft.
Hi, Archdruid and community. I have been thinking about memory, reality, and consciousness.
Once upon a time, in an old, old hill town, there was a castle. This castle had an immense gate overlooking the bustling town market. At the gate was posted a guard, ever watchful of the people in the market. But no single guard can work through every hour of the day, so three guards took turns to keep a watch on the market.
Now these guards had one unusual duty. If they saw a ruckus in the three or more times in one day, they had to alert the general. However, the three instances of disruption could take place under the watch of the three guards. The three guards did not talk to one another. How would they coordinate their watch?
So they made used simple strategy. At the start of each day, the first guard would place a large stone in front of the gate, to the left of the guard’s post. If any guard saw a ruckus in the market, he would immediately check the position of the stone. If it was to his left, they would move the stone to the right of his post. If it was to the right, this meant that another guard must have previously noticed a ruckus and marked it. In that case, he would move it to the center, right between his legs.. And if the stone was already at the center when a ruckus occurred, he would rush to tell the general.
This story basically explains how memory works. Common memory is centered in the physical plane. The physical plane has inertia, and from inertia it inherits the property of innate memory. Technologies that imbibe memory into machines exploit the inertia of the physical plane. A punch card reader and a CD drive, for instance, punch holes to make permanent alterations in the state of the card or the disc. A computer stores its inputs in the RAM, by shifting electrical charges around special transistors known as MOSFETs. Whether it is the material punched out of a surface to leave a hole or the electrons pumped around and accumulated to build charge in a transistor, its always the alteration of material that produces the memory.
Modern theories of the brain state that the brain learns new information by displacing charged molecules (radicals, as they are called in chemistry) around the myelin sheath of the nerve cells. This physical displacement is a real, physical event that occurs, and the inertia of the physical world (the card, the disc, the transistor circuit, the neuron’s sheath, etc.) makes the changes persist.
According to the theories of the brain, when we observe or think something, there are real, physical processes in the brain which move matter. This alteration of matter changes the subsequent working of the brain in just such a way that subsequent thought would acknowledge the prior thought (the one that produced the change). For instance, as you read this, matter in your brain shifts into such configurations as would remember this text, and your subsequent thoughts on this topics would be influenced by this reading.
Everything you know is because of your memories. Every thought and experience that we can acknowledge, every idea that we remember, all of it is the work of memory. We cannot acknowledge, think about, or even think in terms of something that is not in our memory. To do so would be as strange as paleocene cavemen discussing the fission statistics of enriched uranium, since none of those ideas can be extrapolated by innovation, imagination, or analysis from their field of experience (at least presumably; I have never interacted with paleocene cavemen).
Now think for a moment about shadows. If I place my palm under a lamp, it casts a shadow on any surface under it. The shadow is just a region of that surface on which the light from the lamp has been obstructed. The shadow isn’t real or physical, in the way that the lamp, the surface itself, my hand, and the light from the lamp are. We have known that shadows aren’t physically real for at least as long back as Plato, since he explicitly uses shadows as an analogy for the unreality of things in our experience.
In a likewise manner, modern neuroscientists have hypothesized that consciousness is an “epi-phenomenon” of the brain — it is not something that really exists, but like the shadow, is simply the result of the interaction of real, physical things. They cite examples of this, pointing out that changes in the brain result in changes of conscious experience. In other words, if the brain and its interaction with the senses constitute the lamp, hand, and surface, then the subjective conscious experience (including qualia) would be the shadow.
But it would be strange if the shadow of a hand could move a stone from the left of a post to the right.
So how then do we know we have subjective conscious experience? How then do we acknowledge our qualia? How are we even able to discuss it?
A small data point from New Zealand on the rollback of wokeness:
The ‘Financial Markets (Conduct of Institutions) Amendment (Duty to Provide) Amendment Bill’ intends to prevent banks from refusing their services to businesses because of the current “Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) Framework”.
“This Bill ensures fairness and prevents ESG standards from perpetuating woke ideology in the banking sector being driven by unelected, globalist, climate radicals” – Rt Hon Winston Peters
Bradley #2
TRUMP’S CAESAREAN DISSECTION
or something of the sort. I coined it.
Trump is a Dudley DoRight.
💨Northwind Grandma💨🔪
Dane County, Wisconsin, USA
Slithy Toves #14
In 1973, I began, what is referred to, the Transcendental Meditation Program (TM). TM was the only thing I could find at that early date. Buddhism had not spread widely in the USA back then. Buddhism is now much more available to Americans.
Practicing TM twice a day did me a world of good. It calmed me down enough so I could think. I never really knew how “to think” before that, that is, watch my mind or perceive an inner life.
A year or so later, I spent six months meditating in Europe, and became a TM teacher. Turns out I could not handle the public speaking aspect. I never got training. I always froze.
I left the TM organization around 1977 when Maharishi Mahesh Yogi started in on crap such as levitating and so-called flying. Even if that was possible, it held no attraction for me. I felt levitating and flying was ludicrous.
I kept practicing TM for many years, and to this day, even though I meditate only once a day (no matter what kind), it is a blessing.
If I had to do it over again, and the time is now rather than then, I would find a local Buddhist group, like Kadampa Tibetan, that is,— people with whom to meditate, and find sangha (community). In quality, Buddhism is MUCH better that TM — Buddhism has been around for thousands of years as opposed to TM’s sixty-five years.
My second choice would be find a local Hindu temple.
TM was affordable in the 1970s, but is not now; they have gotten greedy; I have no idea why, other than they are money-grubbing arseholes.
💨Northwind Grandma💨🧘🏼
Dane County, Wisconsin, USA
70-something
Has anyone got any predictions on how the reign of King Elon I will go?
Am fascinated seeing all the articles, demonstrations at dealerships, & web comments hate hate HATING on Tesla automobiles. Pretty astonishing stuff. Two years ago said automobiles were held up as being the saviors of human civilization; now fairly suddenly, electric cars are still kinda OK but Teslas (because Musk) are the evilist evilly evil.
An online magazine called Electrek has been a pretty good source for years on information regarding electric vehicles (including bicycles.) But now their main editor (Fred Lambert) is showing symptoms of Musk-hate rabies (gnash gnash foam foam) and is writing various articles disparaging Musk and Tesla, which have caused an avalanche of commenters to pop up who share his same symptoms. It’s really quite something. Here’s a sample article for the curious: https://electrek.co/2025/02/24/tesla-protests-gain-momentu-while-the-hate-is-spreading-tesla-owners/ . Check out the comments: Nazi Nazi Nazi!
Sheryl Crow had her Tesla towed away because, shrug, Musk Nazi. Swastikas have been spray-painted on Tesla dealerships and even on Teslas in the wild. Yikes!
I find myself wondering (predicting?) if the next Item of Hate will be iPhones/iPads/Macs, since Tim Cook of Apple so prominently shook the hand of the President recently:
https://www.alamy.com/president-donald-trump-shakes-hands-with-apple-ceo-tim-cook-following-his-tour-of-the-assembly-line-at-the-apple-manufacturing-plant-wednesday-nov-20-2019-at-flextronics-international-ltd-austin-product-introduction-center-image413753506.html
Tim said some complementary things about the President’s policies and announced $500 billion to be invested in the USA due to the Trump developments/tariffs. Heave your iPhone into the lake or zap it in the microwave because Tim Cook is a buddy of DJT!
One commenter on an Apple-oriented website said: “Great. Tim Cook in bed with a convicted felon and ignorant maniac. Nuf said.” 😳
Smash your iPhone and boycott Apple; you heard it here first!
@JMG, @Slithy, @Beardtree
Since there’s been quite a lot written about the downside to mantra meditation its probably worth mentioning that I personally have seen a number of benefits as well. Despite its flaws, it seems to me that the training I received from the TM organization was sound. Some time back I recall JMG talking on a podcast and mentioning that some of the regular mediators he had known had “wandered off to play in the traffic” – that’s how I recall what you said in any case – please correct me if I got the metaphor wrong. One of the things that my training was very clear on is that if unsupervised, two sessions of 20 minutes a day was the absolute limit. I suspect that greatly reduces the chance of an ‘overdose’.
My day job requires me to spend an enormous amount of time dealing with complicated abstractions using an unforgiving technical framework that regularly burns out healthy young minds. Mantra meditation glares at me every morning and evening and tells me that I’ve had too much to think and I need to settle down. I have found it in this regard, highly protective of my mental well being.
About 20 years after my sleeping pattern changed to one of dozing off for four hours and then waking up at two in the morning and staying awake went away. Not completely – it still happens 3 or 4 times a year but that’s a big improvement on 3 or 4 times a week. That kicked in after 3 weeks of practice.
About a year in, a nagging shoulder problem that my Dr. could only propose surgery or steroid injections simply dissolved while I was meditating. I can’t describe it any more adequately than that and the sensation repeated itself over a couple more sessions. I haven’t had that problem since.
I’ve never explicitly mentioned it in this forum but like many of us I’m on the spectrum and come from a family where every male is neurodivergent. I should think it’s always been obvious from what I’ve written and I appreciate JMG’s patience with me when I’ve been trying. In real life it’s something of a pesky superpower, there are areas where I’m an overachiever and others where I’m very far from that (music, foreign languages, and social interactions have always been tricky for me). Mantra meditation has made no difference at all to my ability to deal with Latin and Hebrew, nor has it improved Wagner for me but it has helped enormously with the interaction side of things. This change alone has made a significant difference to my later career and my ability to orient myself in a world of subtle signals. I still miss most of them as far as I can tell but somehow it’s simply stopped bothering anyone.
I laugh a lot more.
The version of the TM organization I encountered made no attempt to hide the Hindu origins of the Puja or of the mantras they hand out. It didn’t bother me, I’m very far from Christian and I’ve attended lots of ceremonies for gods that I have no connection with. I’ve cautiously experimented with alternative mantras with no obvious problems. So in short Slithy, if you can get some training that’s not too expensive and you feel there are practical results that might help you in – I’d give it a try. After all, if it doesn’t suit you, you can always stop.
Kyle,
I’ve started using Borderless Tarot recently and I’m quite pleased with the quality of the cards. It’s basically classic Raider Waite Tarot with only slightly modified styling.
I reckon that if you aim to work through John Gilbert’s book it’s a good idea to have a few tarot decks with similar yet distinct imagery with different card meanings assigned in each deck. At least that’s my plan – I’ll be also following replies to your request and collecting those few decks for myself. :}
Re: Calculators and Math
Math is super important and I’m guilty of embarrassing Gen-Z cashiers when they can’t count back change to me. I grew up in the 80s and 90s and electronic calculators, while available, were still thought of as “cheating,”. However, I got really good at doing calculations in my head for 3 reasons.
1. My dad was a carpenter building houses, and on job sites when I was a lad of 9 to 16, he would have me remember measurements and also add those up, without a calculator or even writing it down. For example, “WatchFlinger, remember 29 1/2″. Now add 9 3/8″.” This was probably his way of double checking his calculations.
2. We also ran a truck farm, and I spent many days selling vegetables, but we never carried pen, paper or a calculator with us. So, I had to be able to add a customer’s bill up in my head. Something like “3 pounds of potatoes at $0.60/lb plus one cabbage at $1.50 and 3 pounds of beans at $1.00/lb.” Then they would give you a $20 and you had to make change. And I was often dealing with more than one customer at a time. It was a calculating “trial by fire.”
3. My high school had the best algebra, geometry and calculus textbooks. These were the old “Saxon math series.” Used copies of these books go for around $100 online and are especially popular with homeschoolers. That should tell you something about the books. Anyway, these books were designed to teach one small topic each day, which you would do 3 or 4 homework problems each night, then you would have around 20 or 30 total problems homework each night, but the other problems in the homework set would be problems from previous lessons.
My basic point is that if you want to be able to do calculations well without a calculator, repetition and practical application are probably key.
Hey JMG and commentariat
Another thing I thought I would talk about and share with everyone here are some resources for learning about Campaign furniture.
Campaign furniture is something that I think may be relevant for the current decline as it was designed to be easy to transport via being taken apart or folded into a more compact form, which will be as convenient for people who will be often moving house or migrating to safer countries as it was for the British soldiers it was originally designed to serve.
I first learned about this style of furniture from a book by Christopher Schwarz, who noticed that there was little information about how to build campaign furniture for hobbyists and so made a book that teaches this neglected subject. I have personally built the folding bookshelf described in the book, and I’m currently build a foldable bed frame based on its folding mechanism.
https://lostartpress.com/collections/books/products/campaign-furniture?variant=593568325
Another source is this auction site that specialises in campaign furniture owned by Christopher Clarke, which has a lot of helpful pictures and YouTube videos describing each piece.
https://campaignfurniture.com/
Hi John Michael,
With the spending cuts presumably slowing the completely nuts growth in the money supply, do you believe that hyper inflation will be a possible issue for the future?
I tend to believe that there still remains a serious risk of inflation, and particularly stagflation, but I’d wondered if some of the pro-active changes we’re seeing lately may head off that risk, or at least reduce it somewhat.
Cheers
Chris
Hi All! I’m looking for some advice from those present who study divination. My latest project is a precognition training game, basically N-back for fortune tellers. One begins by specifying the length each ‘flashcard’ is shown for and a target number of matches. The flashcards are currently just Mandarin vocabulary since I’m also trying to learn the language, but I plan to expand on it with other versions. If the user thinks the next flashcard to be shown will match the current one they click the ‘match’ button, until they get the target number of matches. I’m thinking it might be interesting for people studying this field to see how the length of the ‘decision window’ impacts their accuracy.
I have two questions: First, would it be a fun feature to have an ‘n forward’ aspect? Currently one can only try to match the next card to appear and it isn’t trivial to change that, but I could rework it if folks would like to up the challenge by predicting the card after next, etc.
Second question – I originally tried to calculate the odds of getting a particular score by chance and showing it on the ‘game over’ screen, but if I’m understanding the statistics right, that equation rewards false positives, and adjusting for them gives ‘odds’ above one, both of which offend my sensibilities. So I’m currently just showing correct/possible matches and false positives/nonmatches. Does anyone think the ‘probability score’ would even be a useful feature?
Hi John Michael,
Agreed, AUKUS is admittedly weird, but you guys have a lot of intelligence gathering bases on Australian soil, and I’m pretty sure we just sent you a cheque (check in US parlance) for $800m bucks. That’s language your current government will understand, maybe.
Rumour has it that there was a sub underneath the land of stuffs warships off the east coast.
Cheers
Chris
re: calculators
Ironically, the math needed to make a calculator is pretty intense. A guy made a Xitter thread about the subtleties of representing numbers you aren’t quite sure about. Quickly goes down rabbit holes of number theory etc.
https://xcancel.com/ChadNauseam/status/1890889465322786878
@Milkyway #24
About that, sasha’s comment and the answers to that comment will help me explain, they have to do with the cultural clashes between two or more different cultures.
The answer to your question has to do with the following question:
What does it mean to be German? (in general, what does it mean to be a member of a culture?)
Here I think sasha can help us a little, because I can tell you that, I have no idea what it means to be German, only a German can tell you that, and even then it is something that must be experienced in person.
For example, in my case I am from Central America, for many people here the American concept of freedom is literally very strange, having a car as the American symbol of freedom is a very strange idea. Where I live having a car is a symbol of power, and the more expensive it is, the more power.
Another strange idea is the idea that there are no social castes in the United States (by the way, the awakening is being hard), in Latin America we accept that we are very classist countries, in fact many intellectuals end up with severe exhaustion and some sell out and others walk away.
What do I mean by these examples? There are cultural ideas, of societies that are not our own, that we are not able to understand; the idea of the “German people” that Nazi Germany used, we can describe the behavior of the people who lived in Nazi Germany, but we cannot know what mental images it evoked, nor can we experience the feelings that this idea evoked.
At the exoteric level we can describe behaviour, at the esoteric level (at the internal, mental-sentimental level) the experience of ideas cannot be described or exported to other places or people, it is something very particular to the cultural psyche, in this case Nazi Germany.
This is something that Western civilization takes very badly, that each culture is different and what we call “cultural customs” are the exoteric form of internal processes (esoteric or if you like mental-emotional-corporal processes) that cannot be described with words, and that these esoteric processes are what form cultural identity. The attempt to bring liberal democracy to Afghanistan and its subsequent failure is proof that the West does not understand the esotericism of cultural identity.
I don’t know if I explained myself well (I’m sorry if you didn’t understand me but I did the best I could), or if I have to resort to the 3D explanation (body-mind-emotions)
“Schooling in particular is already imploding in much of the industrial world.”
One data point on this: A friend of mine works at an elementary school in a precarious town in western Germany. Last school year, the school had a total of 1200 lessons that were completely canceled. The teachers no longer go to work because they are ill and nobody wants to work there. There are children from half a dozen or more nations in the classes, many of whom can’t speak German. In addition, due to inclusion, which was introduced a few years ago, children with emotional or learning problems are simply being taught at regular schools, whereas they used to go to special schools. It is possible that 5-15 children per class have special needs. A whole team of special needs teachers, school psychologists and social workers would be needed to deal with this, but the rule is that an additional teacher only comes into the classroom for a few hours a week. It is astonishing that such important decisions in our lives are made purely on the basis of ideals, without anyone taking a calculator in hand to work out whether there are enough staff available to implement them.
Hi, JMG, I hope you’re doing well.
On the Islamic Republic of Britain, you wrote “what I foresee is a combination of internal demographics and mass migration. 2050 may be a little soon, but not by much.”
So, I assume you expect Völkerwanderung to get going on a large scale very soon. Do you think the oncoming retreat of imperial power from this region will trigger it?
Wondering what Zelaznian accelerationism is and where I can read more about it… I’m a big fan of Zelazny, but I’ve never heard him linked to accelerationism. Sounds right up my alley!
@DFC #83
Do you have an English translation of your blog post, or will a Google Translate be sufficient to understand your post?
@DFC, JMG, and all interested parties
Glad to see another looking at and analyzing the demographic crisis. I can’t really say much about populations replacing another, but I do feel that we may hit the population decline before we hit a hard limit to growth. I lived in Japan for a few years in the mid 2000s and already saw the effects of depopulation up close. From where I’m sitting, I think that the population decline will start in 10 years and not by 2080 like the UN claims or 2050 like some other people who study demographics. And I feel it will accelerate once it kicks in. I wonder if there might be some kind of biological mechanism at play here? Perhaps women control their fertility more in crowded environments because they sense that their offspring would be “stunted” by competition for resources? Anyway, I’m keeping a glass half full outlook. I am hopeful that we can maintain a material standard of living close to what the West has now, but with many fewer consumers and a decoupling from consumerism and just enjoying what we have. Abject poverty will make you unhappy, just like easy wealth will!
JMG:
Clay, Trump’s actions don’t look random to me at all. Au contraire, he seems to have identified the funding mechanisms that produce the illusion of mass support for his opponents. Lacking the funds to hire rent-a-mobs and saturation propaganda, they’re flailing, Now word has just come out that the Epstein files will be released tomorrow. Popcorn time…
Me: About those rent a mobs, according to various Congress people who held the town halls in the Mid-West, the people doing the screaming (as reported on TV news) were bussed in from elsewhere. Most of the town halls were in deep red rural areas or places where the Congress person knew his district inside and out. The one in Georgia with screaming people was where the CDC is the main employer.
As for rent-a-mobs, the only mobs have been local government workers being prodded by their unions to protest in front of their agencies. The unions, according to the courts, have no standing in their cases that they are bringing forward.
A side note, the National News shows are featuring the poor federal worker as someone to be pitied. What I know is that there is a lot of incest between the Federal Government and the News. The Sunday talk shows were in full panic and hysteria over DOGE.
Report from Federal Ground Zero,
Housing prices dropped 25 percent. The local governments are holding town halls to help the laid off workers. The Governor of Virginia Youngkin (R) is promoting state jobs, which have been hard to fill. Nobody is offering assistance at the state or local level. Maryland and DC are facing their own budget shortfalls and problems. VA has a surplus but the richest counties – Fairfax, Loudon, and Prince William are facing budget problems and are raising property taxes.
As for the workers themselves. It depends on who they are. Many in the middle and higher have been in service long enough and have the age (55, 30 years) to retire. In fact, that is the traditional practice, to retire and join a think tank or contracting firm and use their government contracts. (Even though they do sign a form stating they won’t do that for two years.) So, when the funds dry up in government contracts, where the big money is, the howl of pain will be beyond screaming level.
What they are doing is called double dipping – getting Social Security and a government pension. The military retires earlier and often go into federal service since their military service is credited. Then they go into contracting. That is called triple dipping. So, when they say that veterans are being laid off, remember most of those veterans already have pensions.
People who will suffer are at middle management, with skills in academia. I have found few workers have actual skills other than grant proposals and consulting. They haven’t skills for private industry. The ones at the Fed (who is not covered by DOGE, since they do generate their own funds) came from Ivy league schools and mostly worked on economic models. The largest division at the Fed was not Bank Supervision and Regulation, but Research and Development. The two smallest divisions were International Finance and Monetary Affairs. So, you can see what skills are promoted – forecasting and modeling. Funny that, since the Fed with all that talent has never produced a Noble Prize winner.
If China’s population is in fact only 790 million, that’s effectively a more than 7% reduction in the notional WORLD population.
And that assumes the figures for everyone else are accurate, which I’m skeptical of. Third-world countries probably aren’t conducting robust censuses, meaning these data are likely coming from overly optimistic U.N. projections; plus, if they’re receiving aid that’s at least partly per capita, they may have incentive to elevate the “capita”. Meanwhile, Western countries have several reasons why death reporting may be understated::
1. Social Security or similar benefits due a deceased but notionally alive spouse/parent now flow to you if you have a joint bank account, power of attorney, or can otherwise access the deceased’s accounts.
2. If representation is tied to population, as with the U.S. House of Representatives, states (provinces, regions, etc.) have incentive to goose population figures. Underreporting deaths is easier to do than overreporting births.
3. The dead don’t report themselves as dead, so even if everyone involved is being completely honest, there’s a lag that you don’t see as often in births. A person who lives alone with no nearby family and whose recurring monthly payments are all automated may not be discovered as dead for months or even years, until either the sheriff comes by to evict or the neighbors complain enough about the stench.
4. Illegal/undocumented immigration is hard to give exact figures for, because that’s more or less what “undocumented” implies, but both sides of the argument have an incentive to overestimate. Advocates might want to overestimate so as to skim off any excess aid granted per capita; detractors might want to overestimate so as to stoke greater fears and insinuate it’s a bigger issue than it is. Moreover, deaths among illegal immigrants also often go unreported
About the time the world “officially” hit 8 billion population (a mark that if these leaked Chinese figures are accurate, it hasn’t yet and may well never), I had – and, I think, posted in the open thread on the other blog at the time, a sense that it hadn’t and that in fact global population had already peaked. It’s a subtle thing, barely noticeable especially in heavy traffic, but it feels like the world is growing ever gradually emptier of people..
@angelica
“Every lie we tell incurs a debt to the truth” – Valery Legasov
Who was he? The lead scientist who advised on containing and cleaning up Chernobyl. For some reason, he didn’t like lies. Warned against it.
So many lies have been told. They thought they could defer repayment forever.
What’s going to happen to the Vatican if Europe falls to Islam in the next few decades?
Hi JMG,
I feel like I’m coming late to the party on cold water bathing, but better late than never! I have a few questions for you and Team Ecosophia.
First, my experience: I’ve been experimenting with a couple of different methods. I started with a regular hot shower that finished off with a cold shower for the last 30 seconds or so. This has become my preferred method. At first I could barely stand it. Now I look forward to it and can stand there in the cold stream without getting tense or dancing around. I feel a rush of revitalizing energy afterwards.
I’ve also tried full plunges in a bathtub of cold water. The full immersion gives me good energetic results also, but it takes a lot of time to fill the tub and uses a huge amount of water. Since it’s the same result for more effort, I’ve mostly abandoned this method. I’m going to try a few more times to confirm.
I’ve also tried cool, tepid water and this is where my questions come in. When I try ending a hot shower with tepid water rather than cold, or just the entire shower with tepid water, I feel miserable. My whole body feels chilled, and it leaves me with a drained feeling. It might be good will training but I’m not getting any energetic replenishment as I do with cold water.
I’m interested in your thoughts on this because there seems to be a bit of disensus about optimal water temperature for etheric recharging. In the Secret of the Five Rites—a terrific book by the way—the prescription is for cool and tepid water, not cold. I’m six weeks into the practice, so it’s possible things could be different later on. So far, cold seems to be better for me.
One more thought on Federal government work.
I had a bus buddy who was a CPA. He was a civilian employee at the Pentagon (itself). He was in charge of waste and fraud. What he discovered was a lot of petty thieveries, such as generals expecting their civilian secretaries to buy baked goods daily and pay for it themselves. He would pocket the petty cash funds. A secretary who cheated on time slips by not reporting her days off. She was in charge of time slips and payroll. He found out about when she put in for use-or-lose leave to take off. He checked her records and the office mates and discovered her grift of taking Mondays and Fridays off each week.
He was on the Base Closing Committee. He became disgusted as the Congress – Senators and Representatives used military bases as a jobs program. So many bases that could be closed and merged as well as factories remain open as requested by Congress.
He eventually resigned. He said that in his job, he never used his accounting skills. He never worked with numbers, even though he was checking fraud. He bitterly complained about government accounting.
I know a great deal about that from international finance. I did gold and foreign exchange reserves accounting. There is a lot of funny math involved. When the balance of payments numbers are published by the Commerce Department, the biggest item is – statistical discrepancy. That is right – and people have investigated that, and no one has any idea of what it is.
Government accounting is a very strange beast. My buddy and I bonded over our frustrations with it. He complained that the government wouldn’t pay for his CPA re-accreditation or for new classes in FASB accounting. (FASB sets accounting standards for everyone.) Any way, he has a lucrative career as an independent CPA.
So the problem that DOGE will be facing is that government accounting is funny math, used in odd ways. Getting into the weeds is going to be hard going.
@Happy Panda, thanks for the interesting info. It may interest you that psychic Graig Hamilton Parker has made similar prediction for quite a few years now. He thinks that the current leadership is evil, but that there will be a kind of popular revolution that will embrace the philosophy of Sun Yat Sen. China will break up in several countries and Tibet will be an independent nation. He thinks Tibet will be very spirital and a beacon for the world. He doesn’t expect a lot of bloodshed in the process and thinks the various Chinese states will trade amenably with each other. Less positive is that he thinks that Chine will make a move against Taiwan. He predicted it for December 2024, so that one didn’t come to pass, yet. Last week Taiwan seized a Chinese ship and arrested the crew for cutting cables between Taiwanese islands. China cutting seabed cables could be the prelude to something bigger so I don’t think Taiwan is out of the woods. Time will tell
The founders of Ben & Jerry’s are trying to buy their ice cream brand back from Unilever, who they sold out to in the year 2000.
Given Ben & Jerry’s strong association with left-wing politics, I believe this would be a great, meaningful first step toward reclaiming liberalism and leftist politics back from corporate America.
JMG, I noticed you said “Britain is done”. I tend to agree with that. What’s interesting, and I base this off what little I know, which does include a trip to Scotland and Ireland, is that Ireland seems to have more fight left in it, for accepting a fate in the Ummah. My gut tells me that the pattern will repeat, roughly, of the Celtic fringes being contested territory, as things go forward. Scotland, of course, is much more “civilized” than Ireland, but the rugged geography will make it contested, to some degree. If Connor MacGregor (for instance) ends up as Prime Minister, I could see a very belligerent Ireland, which would change the calculus a bit for Britain’s overall trajectory. I’ve come to moderate my stance on Islam to some degree, based on esoteric study, but the esoteric tradition is largely Sufi (and Persian), and in general, things that become more Islamic become a lot less of whatever they currently are. That, and then Europe will face a second decline all over again, as Magian/Arabic civilization is lagging by about 500 years. Then they will come under pressure from the Russian Bear. Civilizations and states need to learn to hibernate!
JMG, what makes you think Europe will be Islamic? I can imagine Europe will Africanize due to the numbers of Africans being multiple of Europeans. But currently there are more Christians than Moslems in Africa and sub-Sahara, where the population growth is taking place, is mostly Christian. If the invasions will only come from north Africa, the Africans might lack the numbers.
” As for debt default, that’s the point of cutting the budget until there’s no need for further borrowing; once you do that, you can default with impunity. I expect that within a year or two.”
– what do you expect the repercussions from this for the dollar and ordinary Americans will be? Like for instance, will anything happen to private debt, student debt, etc?
Carolyn,
The Mythic Tarot looks cool. I checked out the card differences an d you’re right, the original is better, and of course hard to find and expensive. I will keep my eyes out for a deal on a used deck. The art and style are up my alley.
Ganesh Ubuntu,
Yes, I’ll probably try a few but will learn on one until I feel pretty solid before changing it up. Then maybe see if the changes make me adapt my keywords for all decks, if I develop different words for each deck, or what.
SL Claire @ 117, I suspect that Big Ag is dismayed to see Mr. Kennedy have a place in the administration at all, thinking that it should have had a veto over appointments. Mr. Kennedy has not failed to point out that the products which are making ag investors rich are one of the culprits in the crises he sees in public health.
You know your own local area better than me, of course, but I wonder if the billboards reflect dismay at ongoing worldwide rejection of glyphosate and of GMO technology altogether, not merely at the recent election. Is it possible that Bayer/Monsanto’s candidate of choice for some local election is not polling well?
I am of the opinion, opinion only, that Big Ag has a lot more influence on public policy than is readily apparent. Maybe I read too much O Henry about United Fruit toppling South American govts.
@Robert Mathiesen “Nowadays one can find PDFs of most of Wentworth’s math textbooks online… One could do a lot worse than download the books… and use them to teach oneself the pre-calculator ways of doing one’s mathematics.”
1. interesting 2. done 3. now I have a library
Thank you for this. I have been thinking about stocking up on useful mathematics books. This will do nicely. Thank you.
@JMG
Following on Saschas comment; I come from a region, where people have lived trough the breakup of 3 States in the last century. And some occupations in the mix. Still the majority came trough alright. But people remember. Last weekend I was visiting some old-timers, and they remember the years before the breakup of Jugoslavia. “1989 we all thought the State could never break up” I asked them: “And now? Could you imagine the EU breaking apart?” Answer: “80%. It is the same situation. It is a bundle of disperate peoples who do not like each other. All we need is some difficult economic times and they will all start blaming each other.”
Re: the possibility of China going to war (cf: @Happy Panda #46):
It isn’t just Vedic astrology that is suggesting China goes to war soon; the Western stars are saying something similar. All the below are for the relevant ingress in its capital, and all the below ingresses are the “active” ones for that season.
One of the main things to remember (and for mundane astrology in general during this new Neptune-in-Aries period) is that with Neptune in Aries, Mars in Pisces “counts” as being in Aries. This is important because many of these signals are Mars in Pisces.
Aries 2026 – Mars in Pisces in the 4th house in mutual reception with Neptune in Aries also in the 4th house and conjunct the Sun, Scorpio rising
Aries 2027 – Mars in Leo in the 7th in mutual reception with the Sun (still conjunct Neptune in Aries) in the 1st!
Aries 2028 – Mars partile conjunct the Sun (intercepted in the 11th); Venus in Taurus but cadent and semisquare the Sun-Mars conjunction
Libra 2028 – Mars in Leo in the 4th, square retrograde Saturn and the Ascendant
Libra 2029 – Mars in Scorpio in the 4th and the Moon in 0 degrees of Aries (albeit cadent in the 9th)
Aries 2030 – Mars in Aries and Scorpio rising
Aries 2031 – Mars conjunct the Midheaven in Scorpio, anoretic degree of Capricorn rising
Capricorn 2033 – Mars in Pisces in the 7th, mutual reception with Neptune in Aries
Aries 2034 – Mars in the 7th with Scorpio rising, but also in mutual reception with Venus in Aries in the 6th; Moon conjunct Sun in Aries
September 2035 – Mars Rx in Pisces in the 3rd in mutual reception with Neptune in Aries in the 4th
Aries 2036 – Mars conjunct the Ascendant, in Gemini in mutual reception with Mercury who is partile conjunct the Sun in Aries (although Venus and Jupiter conjunct in Taurus, but in the 12th).
Given all this, for China NOT to go to war within the next 10 years would surprise me more than for it to.
If anyone is interested, I mostly use the Shadowscapes
Tarot Check the website
Also “the tingle test” even works with pictures online.
SLClaire, yeah, I bet Bayer’s running scared at this point.
Thomas, hmm! You may well be right. I’ve argued that an inability to deal with the normal, healthy human emotion of hate is a major source of problems in today’s Western world, and problems with obsessive resentment fit well with that. The gods know I’ve had plenty of trouble dealing with resentment in myself, though I’ve worked through most of it.
Anonymuz, well, yes. Our civilization is in decline, and what you’ve described is an important aspect of that. I do think the housing crisis is amenable to relatively straightforward fixes — for example, cutting back on illegal immigration will decrease demand and tend to drive rents down, and cutting unnecessary regulations would make it much easier for new units to be built and cheaper options made available. In the longer run, the problem will solve itself: once population contraction sets in for the long term, a few decades from now, we’ll have far more houses than people to fill them, and the law of supply and demand will take it from there.
Nemo, thank you very much for this. Yeah, it was a year last Thursday. That evening a year back, I checked on Sara at 6 pm, put on a CD (“Emma’s Waltz” by Neal Hellman), and got to work on the book I was writing. When the CD finished I checked on her again and she was gone. She liked that CD a great deal, so that was something. I played it again at 6 pm last Thursday in her memory. I”m sorry to hear about your father’s passing but glad to know that he also rose above a miserable past to become a decent person.
Joan, yes, there’s that.
John, (1) very likely, yes. (2) I’ve noticed the same thing. I think it arrived in the second half of the nineteenth century when scientists discovered that their discoveries could become sources of wealth and power. It’s not accidental that the “mad scientist” became a cliché around that same time.
Michael, exactly. That’s why Trump is blustering and threatening so much. It projects the illusion of recklessness, so that the US can wind down an empire that’s past its pull date.
Mary, I wonder whether small local fabric shops will be able to make a comeback now that Joanne’s is gone. It might be worth trying.
Rajarshi, every sound that comes out of the loudspeaker of a radio correlates precisely to a physical event within the radio. Does that prove that broadcasting stations do not exist? To my mind, that’s the fallacy behind those materialists who insist that consciousness is a product of matter.
KNZ, good to hear.
Your Kittenship, nah, don’t confuse Theoden with Wormtongue. 😉
Bryan, thus demonstrating that it was all just political posturing anyway.
Andy, it’s a valid system, as long as you’re careful not to overdo it and to balance it out with adequate mind training. Buddhist monks alternate periods of mantra meditation with study of the scriptures, which require plenty of mental effort to understand, and hard physical labor, which keeps them grounded. It’s just that a lot of American meditators don’t keep the potential risks and downsides in mind.
J.L.Mc12, hmm! Thanks for this; that’s something worth remembering.
Chris, I think there’s a real chance that we could get out from under that risk, if the brakes keep being slammed on government spending. But we’ll see.
Eucyclos, I’ll hand this onto others, as this isn’t something I have any experience with.
Chris, glad to hear your navy is doing its job.
ExecutedbyGandhi, the same thing has happened all over the Western industrial world, with disastrous results. That’s one of the reasons why the number of parents who homeschool their children has skyrocketed in the US in recent years, and why charter schools and other ways of handling education outside the grip of failed government bureaucracies are proliferating. It interests me that the identical policies seem to be spread everywhere. USAID, by any chance?
Miguel, yes and yes.
Chris, it was a joke. Roger Zelazny used the word in a rather different sense in Lord of Light.
Watchflinger, I’m sure there are biological factors involved as well, but it’s interesting to note that in historical examples, the decline doesn’t slow down as population pressure eases — it’s quite common for a civilization in decline to end up with 5% of its peak population by the time things finally bottom out. Yes, that’s roughly what I expect this time around, too.
Neptunesdolphins, thanks for the data points!
Brendhelm, well, since there are 40 million dead people who still have notionally live social security numbers in the US, I think it’s quite reasonable to assume that population numbers may be drastically overinflated generally! The thought that we may already have passed peak global population is fascinating; I haven’t yet seen firm evidence either way.
Anonymous, the same thing that’s happened to the Orthodox patriarchs in Muslim countries: a loss of political autonomy but not much else. The Quran requires a certain limited degree of tolerance for Christian and Jewish religious practice.
Samurai_47, one thing I’ve learned by observing the 19th-century flamewars over bath temperature — yes, they had robust flamewars back then, using letters columns in magazines and newspapers in place of internet forum — is that different people benefit from different water temperatures. I find cool showers very cleansing and invigorating, while straight cold shocks my body and leaves me feeling chilled and huddled. So the rule I offer is one that you’ve doubtless heard from me before: experiment, figure out what works for you, and go with that.
Dennis, here’s hoping!
Celadon, that seems quite plausible to me. If the traditional patterns follow, as the Ummah is established in Britain’s urban core, those who aren’t willing to conform will flee, overseas if they can, and to the mountainous western fringes if they can’t. Cue another round in the long cycle of British history! As for Ireland, I hope they can pull things together.
Boccaccio, I’m judging that based on the major sources for current mass migration to Britain.
Annonaceae, depends on how the default is managed. If it’s handled smartly, as a technical default and renegotiation affecting foreign sovereign owners of T-bills, it could have little effect on the other modes of debt. I hope to see student debt made subject to ordinary bankruptcy, though.
Marko, that’s an unsettling thought, given what happened after Yugoslavia broke up. Still, I’ve discussed the prospects of the next major European war here already.
JMG,
I read the following quotation from WB Yeats.
I believe in three doctrines, which have, as I think, been handed down from early times, and been the foundations of nearly all magical practices. These doctrines are –
(1) That the borders of our minds are ever shifting, and that many minds can flow into one another, as it were, and create or reveal a single mind, a single energy.
(2) That the borders of our memories are as shifting, and that our memories are a part of one great memory, the memory of Nature herself.
(3) That this great mind and great memory can be evoked by symbols.
I know there’s plenty of material for meditation here, but wondering if you might share a quick thought about what you think about or what your take is on what he wrote here.
Thanks,
Edward
I hope the United States pulls out of East Asia before China goes to war, so that it can avoid being pulled into the conflict.
Regarding your recent comments on Western education, here is a recent interview on its origins as a social control mechanism in the 18th Century
https://www.theatlantic.com/podcasts/archive/2025/02/the-real-origins-of-public-education/681709/
Another way that Europe can become Muslim. European countries can go to war against each other, and then the European countries draft their Muslim populations to fight each other, and then after the wars are over, the now militarily trained and armed young Muslim European men go and topple the European governments and enforce Islam by gunpoint.
“As for debt default, that’s the point of cutting the budget until there’s no need for further borrowing; once you do that, you can default with impunity. I expect that within a year or two.”
Why can you default with impunity once you no longer need to borrow? That’s the first time I’ve heard that.
Hi John,
Your thoughts please on Luigi Mangione assassinating Brian Thompson the CEO of United Healthcare. Thompson supposedly bragged about doubling denials for medical claims under his watch from 16 to 32%. A member of my family who is very likable and very gentle surprised me when he said “Thompson deserved to die”. I feel bad for Thompson’s family but don’t have much sympathy for Thompson.
“A person who lives alone with no nearby family and whose recurring monthly payments are all automated may not be discovered as dead for months or even years,”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yvette_Vickers
I’m at an age where I need to ponder such things. My father died at home in his sleep. My brother found him the next day, but my brother wasn’t on a schedule to check in every day, so it was luck. Social Security auto deposits, electric and water autopay. I seriously doubt the grocery store will notice that I have stopped coming in. As the number of elderly living alone increases does the health department have to set up a call every day if alive program?
>So, you can see what skills are promoted – forecasting and modeling. Funny that, since the Fed with all that talent has never produced a Noble Prize winner
Forget attaboys, I’d settle for them having accurately predicted the 2008 clownshow. Did they do that but keep it secret or are they as incompetent as I suspect?
Hi JMG, after your excellent post about Jung a few weeks ago, I have been looking more closely into his thought and how it connects to my other occult studies (also mostly from your books). I came across this interview and book that I found interesting as it relates to your research with the temple technology and the Parzival grail legends, which is something I am particularly interested in. I thought I would pass it along in case you were not aware of this author. Let the synchronicities flow!
https://speakingofjung.com/podcast/2025/1/30/episode-135-jung-parzival-and-the-grail-as-transformation
https://www.chironpublications.com/shop/jung-and-the-epic-of-transformation-volume-1-wolfram-von-eschenbachs-parzival-and-the-grail-as-transformation/
Wer here
Well JMG was it not a bizzare spectacle what is happening now. The EU is now an non entity. I remember when people in the goverment were ranting that Russia is completely isolated on the international stage and nobody wants to talk with them. Maybe it was so in their heads because Russian diplomats were crusing around the world with little problem all those years and now “who is being sidelined in the negotiations?”
About Ukraine I don’t know if it will end soon, especialy if those idiots in the EU Commission will have their sway recent idiocies include sent soldiers to Ukraine without anyone’s conscent (thousands of Polish mercenaries already went to Ukraine) another politician said that we need to halt the war so Ukraine might prepare for round 4 or something and he said it out loud in the public (the idea that Russians were listening as he was spewing his strategic plans in the open apparently did not cross his mind). The Russian will likely not agree to any ceasefire that will not fullfil their terms especialy now that The Ukrainian soldiers are being destroyed in the outskirts of Kursk region etc. And the Russian army is preparing to attack that important city in the east.
What I don’t understant is this idiotic deal Trump and Zelensky are fighting over it basically means “we are leaving you behind and alone and we lied to you and betrayed you ; oh and by the way you must pay us in resorces that already are on the Russian side”?????
I really don’t understand. President DUda’s trip to Washigton that ended in disaster ( waited for Trump to arrive for an hour and Trump send him back to Poland without anything in like 10 minutes.)
I am afraid about my country now though our recent crazy liberal goverment is talking about letting in the color people from Africa and middle east…
Mary Bennet #128
🔵Joann Fabric & Craft corporation closing:
I say, ”good riddance.” I am not sad.
Thanks for the info.
I have been in the fabric world since 1965 when I was a teenager. When I first started sewing, it was a group thing in my house between my mother, aunt, great-aunt (grandmother equivalent), and me, each working on individual projects.
I lived in a northeastern small city of about 75,000 people 200 miles of New York city. When we needed fabric, we went to the one fabric store in town, a Jewish family business. They had ties to the Manhattan garment district, and I suspect they were refugees from there. The store front was actually quite small. They dealt with sewists only, nothing about knitting or crafts. Knitters and crafts had their own specialty stores. My mother was a knitter, and I have no memory of where she got her yarn, but it must have been a knitting store.
I would say ‘sewer’ rather than ‘sewist’ but ‘sewer’ gets confused with ‘sewer,’ which carries away pee and shit.
When I returned to sewing around 1980 in a different region of the northeast, I could not find mom-and-pop fabric stores. Joann Fabrics was all that was left. The mom-and-pop stores were gone or barely hanging on, I presume during my absence in the 1970s. Joann pushed them out.
Joann stores had way more square footage compared to the earlier mom-and-pop stores, some ten times as big. Where a mom-and-pop store was a typical old-style storefront, Joann’s was an entire block.
Actually, Joann permanently closing, in my opinion, will give moms-and-pops opportunity to exist again. Sewists are never going to NOT need fabric. The selection of fabrics I would like to see solid colors, four or five basic weaves including herringbone (like denim), and of course, notions (zippers and buttons and things). Back to basics time. And the pattern section: one got to sit down in a quiet, well-lighted, warm place paging through pattern books — that was heaven to me. Time to fantasize that I was a grand lady. I have such good memories of pattern-book sitting that I amassed quite a collection of sewing patterns from the 1940s to 1990s. After 1990, patterns started to suck. My pattern collection lets me hang out in the happier part of an otherwise abject childhood.
I have a bias against machine knits. I don’t know if machine knits has a future. Not including hand-knitted garments like sweaters and socks, the process of machine knitting got invented in the 1920s, if I remember correctly. Machine knitting may have come earlier than that, most likely in England.
Knits and bias-weaves were all the rage in the 1930s. By the 1940s, knits were out (World War II). 1950s onwards saw a resurgence of machine knits. Machine knits is a lazy-bones fabric; Americans, at this time, have no choice.
I came to the conclusion that, after the crash, the vast majority of Americans will not be able to afford garments that require fitting. Fitting is expensive, and can be dispensed with fairly easily. Fitting is a complicated skill (and a high status skill) which, once upon a time, I was desperate to learn, but have largely let sit by the wayside because of what the economy is doing. What will be “IN” are garments of usual warp-and-weft (not knits) that have gathers anywhere that needs “give” — typical working-class garb and loose-fitting. Pirate shirt is an example. I happen to like leafing through a couple books I have on medieval European garb — THOSE STYLE CLOTHES have a real future.
So anyway, my point. With the Joann-megalith gone, I think mom-and-pop fabric stores will have opportunity to start up, and succeed, in each medium-sized town all over the USA, like in the old days, anew for this new generation of sewists. The market for fabrics will never disappear.
There will always be a market for handmade, honest, simple, modest, and reasonably-priced clothes, not this foreign cesspool-country garbage we see at Walchmat.
🔵May sewists flourish forever‼️🔵
💨Northwind Grandma💨👕👖
Dane County, Wisconsin, USA
70-something
@ JMG # 165, Agreed. But while this analogy with the radio establishes the possibility of conscious as a disembodied agency, I think I am on to something of a decisive argument.
I first came across this idea a long time ago, when I was a materialist and a mechanist (and, needless to say, an atheist). The realization that I cannot, by any mechanism, acknowledge my own subjective experience was a turning point in my life. Up to that point, my absolute confidence in the scientific ontology was an airtight prison that had locked my mind and spirit away from growing to learn anything outside of the drab world of disenchantment. I was, to use a word I love to see you using, an ‘inmate’ of disenchantment. This realization was the first crack in that prison. Then the air and light entered after long years of self-defeating conviction.
A recent conversation with a friend (on the topic of free will) brought this idea back to my mind, and I have been pondering it awhile in the light of all that I have learnt since I turned to a vitalist worldview. I wanted to share it here with yourself and the community.
@Happy Panda,
the world’s most largest and most costly civil war in terms of human life lost (Taiping rebellion approx 20-30 million people or similar to slightly larger than WW1 1850-1864) happened in China, as part of a very rough century or so. There were actually several smaller and less well-known rebellions happening at the same time as the Taiping rebellion.
Add in that making peaceful change impossible tends to bottle up problems until violent change becomes inevitable, and China’s current level of repression and censorship, and civil war in China’s future at some point during the next few decades doesn’t seem unreasonable to me at all. It also has the potential to kill astronomical numbers of people, given China’s current population level, whichever estimate you believe.
@Tyler: since you posted on the SS United States scuttling, I’ve been racking my misused brain for a word to mean “divination by ship sinkings.” “Something-or-other-mancy,” it would be, but so far I’ve come up with nothing remotely acceptable.
Rajarshi,
I think there’s a more basic question: why is the modern worldview epistemologically inside-out? Instead of starting from the things we are most intimately aware of and consequently most certain of — the existence of our own minds and consciousness — it starts from a model of matter and energy at scales so small that we can observe them only under laboratory conditions, if at all, and then attempts to explain mind and consciousness from within that model, in open defiance of the manifest absurdity of it all.
The way I see it, materialism is a mind-virus as aggressive and rigid as any religious dogma in the hold it takes on its adherents’ minds. It’s a matter of faith that one day it will explain everything to within some acceptable margin of uncertainly — an belief that’s been called “promissory materialism,” by analogy to the issuance of promissory notes. Materialism has been in epistemic debt for centuries now, and its interest payments are increasingly few and far between, consisting of increasingly far-fetched interpretations of the results of a handful of experiments that probably don’t even replicate.
I suspect we’re getting close to a paradigm shift away from materialism.
About AUKUS, John Michael Greer himself said the following three years ago in the comments of
https://www.ecosophia.net/the-next-european-war/
“the AUKUS agreement is an important watershed, not least because it marks the point at which the US finally gave up on Europe as a bad deal.”
“the AUKUS business with Britain and Australia is pretty clearly meant as the replacement for NATO, as the US writes off Europe as a bad deal.”
Hi JMG
You said:
“Edward, given current demographics and trends in mass migration, everything east of Poland will become Muslim-majority during the second half of the current century, and once that happens you can expect a change of government and the imposition of Islamic law and customs.”
If you expect an internal growth in the muslim population inside the European countries, this will not be the source of the change, because in the first generation the birth rate of the muslim (or any other origin) immigrants achieve similar birth rates than the native population, they are subject to the same “Spenglerian” forces once they start to live in the urban North.
For the muslim countries in the North of Africa the birth rate is falling, for example Morrocco has a birth rate of just 2,2 an this is the level of replacement due to higher children mortality, and the trend is downwards, the same trend with the rest of the Arab Countries, except the Palestinians. In general these countries have a low population compared with Europe, and if that happens I think it will be in more than a century from now.
Of course Europe is in a steep decline, and may be Europe will resort to militarization to have access to resources (you mention also the militarization of Europe), and I think this factor will make even more difficult for the islamic forces to conquer Europe by force (from Portugal to Poland).
Also I think the Islamic Civilization has passed her Springtime and Summer phase (it is in the “Fellah” phase), I think probably a new culture/civilization coming from the East will be more probable to expand in Western Europe (not necessarily by military means), at the end the new culture, to succeed, need to appeal to the new sensibilities of the people in the new era
So, in my view, this slow motion demographic collapse will bring down not only the western civ but all the civilizations at once (like in the Bronze Age collapse), and then new cultures/civilizations and power centers will arise in due time..
Cheers
David
JMG, you wrote above “The details are still hard to find anywhere but Trumpista media; I’m still looking for a relatively neutral source. It may be a while.” This sums up a lot of what I have been feeling over the last weeks while reading (especially) the comments on this blog – how are people going to find any common ground for discussion?
All sources I have seen suggest that fentanyl crossing the US-Canadian border is a very minor problem compared to the US-Mexican border (and it crosses the border both ways), so I conclude that Trump uses this argument as a cover for other intentions, whatever those may be. Several commenters here are taking his words at face value. How can we find common ground?
The sources I have read state that the social security numbers without death date are an artefact of how the database was implemented and have never received any payments. Several people here (including you) have suggested that a sizeable part of the federal budget is deviated towards fake social security numbers. I do know there is quite a bit of fraud involved in any big program, but so far, I doubt Trump can reduce fraud all that much. How can we find common ground?
Some years ago you wrote a post about “commonplaces”, i.e. common first-hand experiences that can be used to start a conversation when people don’t share the same abstract conceptions. I will gladly listen to people relating first-hand, eyewitness accounts of immigrants and fentanyl entering the USA from Canada. I do know there are some migrants from third countries who go that route, some of whom have drowned. Itès just that so far, I haven’t seen evidence that this a major problem.
In the same way, I don’t think a Muslim takeover of Europe is as probable as you and many other commenters here think, but I listen respectfully whenever somebody relates a first-hand experience of problems with (Muslim or other) immigrants, or if somebody has witnessed how many people go to a mosque vs a church in a certain place. I don’t put as much faith in anonymous stories spread over the internet, which are at least as common on the populist right as in corporatist media.
Hey JMG
Yeah, it is an option worth exploring. I am sure that Campaign furniture in some form will survive as a style throughout the decline and beyond as it is too practical to forget about if you are a moderately well-off person or soldier who has to travel often. I’m sure we will always be able to make the necessary hinges for it as well. Tomorrow I intend to post another furniture-related comment on this week’s Frugal Friday, as I think it has relevance.
Oh, speaking of posts, I just published my latest substack essay. It is another Borges commentary, focused on his short work “The Witness”.
https://jlmc12.substack.com/p/the-witness-and-its-possibilities?r=e0m1f
@Rajarshi, that was a useful story. I would add that the distribution of ions around the myelin sheath is transitory and unstable compared to a punch card, and requires constant energy input. It has been pointed out that we don’t lose (all) our memories when the brain goes without electrical activity for a few seconds (e.g. during hypothermia or a heart arrest). So most neuroscientists would suggest that long-term memories are encoded in the form of the neuron itself, e.g the localization, size and shape of synaptic boutons, as well as the distribution of stable protein scaffolds. This actually reinforces the similary with your story about the stone.
Calling consciousness an epiphenomenon seems to be begging the question. We don’t have even remotely the experimental knowledge to decide this matter, so it is simply our own prejudgement that we bring to the table.
@Sascha #33
This topic has come up a few times here over the last few years, and I’m another European who can relate to much of what you’re saying here, even if I think I’ve ultimately decided to stay. Anyway, my first answer to this question will always be “Australia”. Is it perfect? Not at all, but it’s far from mass migration and war hotspots, still has a large breadbasket in spite of water issues, a pleasant climate in the inhabitable parts and a culture that’s sort of in between the European one and American individualism, at least I understand it. They did apparently go pretty all-in on Covidian lunacy, though, but then again so did most of the West.
Just my two (Euro-)cents, but that’s where I’d go if I were fifteen years younger and could plan things to get around the immigration requirements. As JMG says, somewhere in the Global South like Panama or Costa Rica might also work well if you’re resourceful and tough enough to deal with some genuine risk and poverty.
@Kyle #49
The Druidcraft deck is very nice in my opinion. I’ll admit I haven’t used it for actual divination yet, though, since I’ve been focusing on other oracles first. I’m also partial to the Crow Tarot by M.J. Cullinane. Both for the art style and because I like corvids a lot. It’s also the closest I’ve seen to a Heathen-themed deck I like. The only problem with it is that since so many of the tarot images are based on people, it’s a bit awkward to have them represented by birds without human body shapes or facial features. Still, I quite like it.
Phutatorius,
Scuttlemancy?
@Team10tim
Thanks for the link to Jeffrey Sachs’ speech. It sounds like he has had a change of heart since his days as an “economic hit man” in the Yeltsin years.
I especially like his comparisons between Europe and the Anglosphere:
“Europe stands for lots of things that the United States does not stand for. Europe stands for climate action. By the way, rightly so because our president is completely bonkers on this. And Europe stands for decency, for social democracy, as an ethos.
“I’m not talking about a party. I’m talking about an ethos of how equality of life occurs. Europe stands for multilateralism. Europe stands for the UN Charter. The US stands for none of those things.
“You know that our secretary of state Marco Rubio cancelled his trip to South Africa because on the agenda was equality and sustainability. And he said, I’m not getting into that. That is an honest reflection of deep Anglo Saxon libertarianism. Egalitarianism is not a word of the American lexicon. Sustainable development? Not at all.” …
“I issue … two reports each year.
One, the World Happiness Report. And 18 of the top 20 countries, if I remember correctly, are European. This is the highest quality of life in the whole world. So you need your own policy to protect that quality of life. The United States ranks way down.”
I agree. I moved to New Zealand 25 years ago, and (for all its numerous problems) I like the quality of life here better than the States. That is because Anglo-American individualism is tempered here by the Polynesian ethos that “everyone is responsible for everyone else.” New Zealanders are more compassionate and value social cohesion more, by comparison to other Anglosphere countries.
The two big questions I have about New Zealand are:
(a) Can New Zealanders gain enough ‘street smarts’ to avoid being rolled over by competing Great Powers?
(b) Can the New Zealand political system overcome its unfortunate tendency to be hijacked by crackpot ideologies (whether of the “right” or the “left”)?
If so, then I actually think that New Zealand’s prospects during the long descent can potentially be much less dire than in other Anglosphere countries.
@Tyler A
I just saw that in my newsfeed, and came here to note it as looking omen-like 🙂
You’re quicker!
I think it is very possible we will only see a part of the Epstein list. I think the usefulness to Trump of keeping certain Senators and Republicans off the initial published list is to great.
Edward, Yeats was interested in those aspects of occultism that supported his poetry and his creative vision generally, and not really concerned with those that didn’t. These three principles are true enough, though he was wrong to suggest that they’re the basis of “nearly all magical practices.” I’ve recently completed an anthology of Yeats’s occult writings, which will be published late this year or early next year; it covers a lot of this.
Anonymous, so do I.
David, thanks for this. Have you read Ivan Illich’s book on the subject?
Anonymous, that’s another possibility, certainly.
Nations can do this. The one thing that keeps a debtor nation from defaulting is that it needs to be able to keep borrowing; if it balances its budget, it can thumb its nose at creditors.
Peter, I’ve been expecting this sort of thing for a few years now. The corporate elite, especially but not only in the medical industry, has behaved as though it can exploit and abuse the rest of us without penalty; at a certain point, the penalty happens anyway, and involves bullets, or piano wire and lampposts, or something of the same kind.
Siliconguy, it’s a real issue. Making sure somebody will check on you at regular intervals is a necessity if you’re elderly or in poor health, and alone.
Kwo, thanks for this. Have you read Emma Jung’s The Grail Legend? She was Jung’s wife, and this book (finished after her death by Marie-Louise von Franz) is a fine discussion of the legend and its Jungian aspects.
Wer, yeah, it’s getting pretty wild. It’ll be interesting to see what kind of deal Trump and Putin cut, and how Europe deals with being pushed to the sidelines.
Rajarshi, I may have misunderstood you, then. You’re aware, I trust, that eliminative materialists insist that the experience of being conscious is an illusion?
Anonymous, sure. It’s a good deal for the US — it’s just a bad deal for Australia.
DFC, so noted. You’ve made your prediction, and I’ve made mine; now we’ll see who’s right.
Aldarion, and that’s an important issue, of course. It’s a major factor in ages like this one, where the former social consensus has been shattered and people increasingly live in different realities. I don’t have a solution to offer, much less a source of common ground. All we can do, as far as I can tell, is recognize that the common ground doesn’t exist because nobody can know the truth, and try to tread a little more lightly in response.
J.L.Mc12, hinges can be made easily by hand by metalsmiths — if you look at images of late medieval helmets, you’ll find hinged pieces with handmade hinges — so that’s pretty safe for the long term. Thanks for the essay.
Clay, oh, doubtless there will be plenty of omissions, and not just at first. It’ll be interesting, in the sense of the apocryphal curse, to see how all this plays out.
JMG et al
In saying everything in Europe east of Poland would become Muslim, shouldn’t you have said west. East is Belarus and Russia.
John,
I remember reading something you wrote, and I don’t want to mischaracterize what you meant. In effect, you wrote about how local geography gives rise to local gods, or something of that nature. You went on to explain that the spirituality of the people living in the US is not yet fully developed in regards to this. Could you explain or point me to a source for further investigation?
The reason for this question comes from my recent foray into yogic meditations as taught by Sadhguru. Mahashivratri, “The Great Night of Shiva” was celebrated a few nights ago by many people in India, many of whom hold that on this night, the northern hemisphere of the planet is positioned in such a way that there is a natural upsurge of energy in a human being. The upsurge is most powerful from the equator to 33 degrees north latitude. Where can I find more information on how geography would shape the future of spirituality in the Northeast USA?
> I think it’s quite reasonable to assume that population numbers may be drastically overinflated generally! The thought that we may already have passed peak global population is fascinating; I haven’t yet seen firm evidence either way.
My intuition is that the vast majority of generally accepted statistical ‘facts’, which are the basis for much of the western style civilisation are inflated or simply incorrect in the same manner. I have no real evidence for this, other than working in the IT space and seeing directly that the volume of information available is directly inverse to the degree of understanding that results. There should be a named law for this effect, if there isn’t already.
If one ever takes the time to try and reconcile the various commonly referenced numbers they do not fit together unless implicit assumptions about change (mostly growth) are inserted everywhere. One tweaks the numbers until everything balances, otherwise you have contradictory aka ‘unacceptable’ results. And _everyone_ does this, the more specialised the worse it is. It is like one giant hallucination that is taken as gospel, and honestly is very very weird. I spook myself even thinking this way – the inertia of the hallucination is incredibly powerful.
@Russell Cook #98 – we’ve been knee-deep in the crisis since – pick your date – 911/2001 or the Crash of 2008.
JMG, would you believe me I sat on that one comment for 12 hours? I simply did not have anything to ask. I have a selection of 13 posts, where you discuss the future, of Europe, or in general, that one is first on the list. So all questions answered.
As to the future, well there is no telling what will happen either here, or in he US. I can still remember the war of 1991. I was a kid. And our home was in a part of Jugoslavia, where the bombers did not come. So the brutal war was one week of alarms, and then I went to school. I got lucky. We will see what happens now.
Do you have any sense of how things might fare for the US? I know you said you were a patriot and will stick by your country.
Phutatorius: Call it “Titanicomancy”!
(I know, but it beats “naufragiomancy” or whatever.)
Thanks JMG. Mileage varies when it comes to water temperature!
I haven’t worked out the connection to my etheric body, but when I started cold water bathing I stumbled across this comment by Yeats and it felt meaningful to me: “Swedenborg saw some like opposition of the worlds, for what hides the spirits from our sight and touch, as he explains, is that their light and heat are darkness and cold to us and our light and heat darkness and cold to them…”
Hi John Michael,
Err, the rumour was that it was a land of stuff’s sub… Ook. On a more positive note, I heard that we have at least one Collins class diesel electric sub operating. Sometimes I wonder about the stupidity of our leaders, it’s quite baffling to consider the policy choices being made.
Hope you’re doing OK and you’re in all our thoughts at this time.
A technical default for foreign reserve holders will actually stop a lot of mischief, particularly in our nearby waters of late, and in some ways reduce the expenditure right across the globe. Probably give enough of a shock for a complete re-evaluation of priorities and time for a re-tooling of industrial capacity to more sensible ends. Not a bad thing, and that debt solution was never sustainable.
Man, I wouldn’t be surprised at all if a lot of folks from the UK settled down under during those future troubles you suggested. That occurs in waves throughout the countries history. The last big one was from the 1950’s to the 1970’s. The folks used to be called: Ten pound Poms. Pom of course not referring to the dog breed of Pomeranian (lovely personalities), but to Prisoners of Her Majesty (or His as is now the case and in the future).
Cheers
Chris
Cheers
Chris
Speaking the SS United States and the omen for the country… has anyone else noticed that it will be sunk off the coast of a city named Destin? I looked it up, and Destin seems to mean exactly what it looks like: destiny.
The whole thing’s kind of eerie.
I have heard the name of Ivan Illich but I haven’t read his books.
The Joanne closing is getting a lot of attention in odd places, as noted above. It is almost as if there is beginning to be feeling that the finance jackals have gone too far this time.
Quilt shops tend to be single proprietorships. The successful quilt shop tends to be located in a stand-alone building in a moderately affluent mixed residential and small business area. Or possibly a small retail center, but almost never in a large mall–there may be one or two but I have never seen one. I suspect the initial financing comes from family; proprietors are generally from the ranks of the provincial upper middle classes. They are often dealers for one of the high end sewing machine lines. I bought my Bernina, NOT top of the line, I assure you, from a lovely quilt shop. Merchandise tends to be top quality and priced accordingly. There is definitely a snob factor at work among quilters.
We mostly used to buy fabric at department stores including the 5 & dime places like Woolworths, and at regional chain stores, which was what Joanne was. Then Joann started buying up the other chains, in about the mid 80s as I recall. Then is when the anti-trust regulators ought to have stepped in. After that, Joann itself was sold to some sort of investor, and it has been downhill ever since. Loss of quality product, inadequate staffing, and some spectacularly bad business decisions. Such as refusing to locate in any shopping complex which also has a Michaels. So, instead of having a destination shopping area for crafters and sewers…one drive or one bus ride to get to both stores and nice coffeeshop nearby…I can only wonder what smart aleck boy or gal wonder from business school thought that one up.
I don’t know if single proprietorship fabric stores are a viable plan anymore, what with the rise in rents and the fact that wholesalers don’t like finicky small orders, and price accordingly. Sewing is a skilled craft, like carpentry, and sewists tend to be demanding. We want adequate, pleasant staff, who have time to answer questions, good quality goods and scrupulous cleanliness. Many of us, not me, but many, don’t want to drive to the Wrong Side of Town, where the rents are cheaper. Serious sewists are lately buying most of what they need online and figuring the shipping costs are offset by not having to drive to a store which might or might not have what one needs.
I’m wondering if any readers here have first hand experience with the goings on in Detroit, or if JMG has a view on the city.
Back in 2013 when it came out, I ready Charlie LeDuff’s book Detroit: An American Autopsy, with a lot of interest. I view Detroit as an indicator for what life might be like as we continue the slide downward in demographic and economic decline. In my view, most cities are headed towards a condition like Detroit’s–it is just happening earlier there.
For a while, there was a lot of optimism about what was possible in the post-municipal bankruptcy Detroit as the city abandoned services and let outlying areas go fallow. The optimism came because the regulatory burden of permits, inspections, and so on went away, allowing some folks to become homesteaders in the rubble. There was a lot of talk about going there and buying $10 houses.
So there is a tale of two cities: the continued depressing decline of a post industrial city unable to revive itself, and a more hopeful story of a humble turnaround after hitting rock bottom. Maybe it is some of both. In any case, I would very much like to hear from anyone who has spent time there recently, or who has family there, and could report on what it is actually like.
Patrick #18:
I’ve speculated along those lines, too. My theory is that humanity has been recruiting souls from the other animals. With the present baby bust, and the coming population implosion, H. Sapiens will export souls to the other animal species. I egoistically speculate that we’ve gathered here as a kind of school, to learn how to speak and manipulate tools, so that by the next century, language and tool-use will be common among the other animals. I’m undecided about becoming a cat or a raccoon or a corvid. What would you recommend?
Hi all,
One of the big things regarding Trump’s return to power that I have seen very little commentary on is the role science fiction plays in the minds and worldviews of his tech oligarch backers.
The mentality these guys have reminds me of Marxist activists. Not in that they’re going to collectivize agriculture and put up hammer and sickle monuments everywhere, but that they have an ideal vision for the world that doesn’t fit the reality of the world as it is. But they think they can make the fantasy world of Gernsback pulps manifest.
As our host loves pointing out, we’re not going to the stars, not now, not in the future history of our species, but try saying that in a cabinet meeting where Elon Musk is sitting in.
I suspect, though I have no proof, a big reason tech oligarchs became so involved in politics recently is because they hope to use the levers of power to build their sci fi fantasies.
What gives me pause is I can very easily see a temptation on the part of these science fiction enthusiasts to use state power aggressively to get people to play along with the fantasies, in much the same way the Marxists did. It won’t work of course, ecological and physical limits still hold, but history shows us what happens when fantasists obtain political power. I may be a pessimist but it’s been something I’ve been thinking about.
Cheers,
JZ
Breathless headline;
“Japan ‘on verge of no longer functioning’ after birth rate plummets to record new low”
“Japan recorded 720,988 births in 2024, five per cent down from the previous year, the health ministry said on Thursday.
The country saw a record of 1.6 million deaths last year, causing the population to shrink by almost 900,000 people, including those who immigrated out of Japan.”
https://www.independent.co.uk/asia/japan/japan-birth-rate-lowest-population-b2705648.html
I don’t know is they are avoiding the rush to collapse, but they are at least at the leading edge.
Stephen, yes, of course — my mistake.
Jfisher, I think you may be thinking of this essay:
https://www.ecosophia.net/america-and-russia-tamanous-and-sobornost/
Marko, the future of the United States is balanced on a knife edge right now, and could tumble off it in any number of directions. I’m hoping that it holds together as a single country, gets out of the empire business, downsizes its government to a scale that it can afford, and goes on with its history. That could happen, but neither that nor any other outcome is certain yet.
Samurai_47, I gather that a lot of guys find cold water very refreshing, and I’m glad that they’ve found it.
Chris, okay, gotcha. I didn’t know that that’s the origin of the term “Pom” — I’d heard it and knew it was a label for Brits, but didn’t know why.
Slithy, eerie indeed.
David R, he’s worth reading.
Mary, if so, I’ll be delighted.
Samurai_47, I haven’t been there for well over a decade, so I’ll leave the question to those who have.
John Z, that wouldn’t surprise me at all, unfortunately.
Siliconguy, so births were well under half the number of deaths. Ouch. Yeah, they’re on the greased chute at this point.
@Rajarshi
I followed a trajectory similar to yours.
An engineer by training and mentality I lost my faith in scientific materialism due to it’s glaring logical inconsistencies.
One might say I got fed up with tiptoeing between the herd of elephants that is infesting the lounge room of the current scientific mainstream.
A few thinkers I found very helpful on my path are Iain mcgilchrist and Bernardo kastrup:
https://channelmcgilchrist.com/home/
https://www.essentiafoundation.org/
@JMG: “the future of the United States is balanced on a knife edge right now, and could tumble off it in any number of directions. I’m hoping that it holds together as a single country, gets out of the empire business, downsizes its government to a scale that it can afford, and goes on with its history.”
There is a precedent for that (other than the British example). It is the response of the Eastern Roman (“Byzantine”) Empire to the rise of Islam.
Before Islam came along, the eastern Empire had the standard late-civilization retinue of layers of taxation and bureaucracy (“lenocracy” if you will). Under the pressures of the expanding Caliphate, that became unsustainable. So, what did the Emperors do?
They re-feudalized the government. Throughout Asia Minor, military chiefs and other powerful people were given chunks of territory, over which they ruled without taxation. Their “taxes” to the Roman government consisted of military service and defense of the realm, which they had to provide for out of their own resources.
Presto! Layers of Imperial bureaucracy were shed, and the Empire endured for another 800 years, until the fall of Constantinople.
So, yes, it can be done! Will it be? We shall see….
On the hot shower / cold shower thing, I had to be told that a “Scotch douche” was these two things, alternating!
John Zybourne: “the whole cult of scientific credentialism…”
The Church of the SubGenius offers a Doktorate in the Forbidden Sciences. (It comes as part of a packet of intro material you can buy for fifty bucks.)
Suddenly, my IG feed is full of “Economic Blackout” on Friday, 28FEB25, a don’t spend ANY money with anyone other than maybe tiny local businesses and that’s only if you must.
Certainly not with Amazon, Wal-Mart, and so forth.
This is something I’d normally agree with and then ignore, except, weirdly, the point of the issue seems to be to punish Trump, Musk, the Doge crowd, and anyone who might be helping those dastards! Because they’re cutting off the flow of money to USAID! And undercutting DEI!
Weird.
Willard Francis Gibbs, in addition to designing the SS United States, designed the SS America about 10 years earlier. SS America, launched around 1940, had a long career, with a number of different owners and a corresponding number of name changes. She ended up as the “American Star,” and as she was being towed to the ship breakers in India in the 1990s, the ship had other ideas; she broke her hawser and went ashore on Feurteventura (one of the Canary Islands). Thus she became for several years, an inadvertent tourist attraction on Feurteventura. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuerteventura#/media/File:Shipwreck_of_the_SS_American_Star_on_the_shore_of_Fuerteventura.jpg
Perhaps her younger cousin, the SS United States, could also turn out to have a mind of her own and end her days as an inadvertent tourist attraction on some Florida beach near Mar-a-Lago.
And, the best name for divination by ship sinkings I’ve come up with so far is nauticomancy. I hope someone can do better.
JMG and Siliconguy #172,
I just want to chime in to say husband and I are in a similar situation: Family 500 miles away, a few local friends, but unlikely to call for a Wellness Check if they didn’t hear from me for a good long while.
Husband had a seizure in the wee hours a couple years ago, out in the living room while I was in bed. If I had not discovered him later that morning, and called 911, he’d have died that day from complications. No one would have checked on him until yeah, MUCH too late. There is a documentary from many years ago, I think it’s called “A Special Kind of Death”, that follows city employees around Los Angeles as they follow up on bad smells and long dead people. Definitely pass on the popcorn if you watch it. Yikes. You see it all.
If I were brighter, I’d ponder how to address this need to check on people and turn it into a business. My hope is someone younger, smarter, and more energetic than me does so. I’d be delighted to pay them, possibly someday soon! Younger folk in need of a business opportunity? Here’s one to consider…
OtterGirl
@Samurai_47, I also find tepid water, and even full tap cold water during the summer when it’s not very cold, to be a bit enervating or at least unsatisfying compared to colder water. So you’re not alone.
Also, I don’t advise people who are just trying out cold bathing to make incremental changes from warm to tepid to cold. This seems to often result in their getting stuck at some barely comfortable temperature waiting for their comfort zone to shift, which it never does. Your approach works better. If you want to take it any farther, you can make the change to cold sooner.
@Rajarshi, I personally find the radio analogy highly questionable. It was a viable hypothesis (indeed, just about the only one conceivable) when we had no concept of how the pink matter inside the skull could possibly do anything related to thinking, but since then we’ve been able to look at the components of the “radio” in much more detail and we find a vast amount of thinky-stuff (which we can mimic to make thinky-toys of our own) and no trace of tuner-stuff. We also notice that sometimes (metaphorically) when we fiddle with the components of the “radio” the lyrics of the songs and the scores of the baseball games change, which is not very radio-like behavior.
On the other hand, I agree that “epiphenomenon” is an excuse for the lack of a explanation, rather than an explanation. I don’t have an answer but what I see is a strong polarity of views each claiming convincingly that the other’s explanation is insufficient. I’m inclined to believe they’re both right about that.
Siliconguy #206: ““Japan ‘on verge of no longer functioning’ after birth rate plummets to record new low”: Question for people who have lived in/currently live in Japan: why don’t the Japanese want to have children? I asked a Korean acquaintance why the birth rate is so low in South Korea, and she said that people invest heavily in their children: private tutoring, music lessons, etc., so they can’t do that with more than one child. Is there something similar in Japan? (No judgment here; just curious.)
JMG, no I have not read that, I will put it on the list though. Thank you!
Hi again JMG, and thanks for the previous answer.
I would like to report two ecosophia coded tidbits from the Joe Rogan Experience.
1. One guest, Ky Dickens, made a documentary about telepathic autistic children, who she calls non-speakers. She was trying to communicate how the children in question could understand language. She said something like “the are typing into the baseline of words”. I couldn’t help but think that the conversation would be much easier if someone explained the mental plane to them.
2. Another guest, Chase Hughs, is a sort of persuasion/communication/hypnosis guy. He says that hypnosis works with (paraphrase) “enhanced focus and and gradual increase in obeyed suggestions”. This sounds a lot like the process of the Individuality/Higher Self taking more influence in our lives. Our Higher Selves our hypnotizing us! Oh my!
@Samurai-47 re Detroit: There is still a major symphony orchestra. There are still successful major league sports teams. There’s a big casino. I know people who go there to see sports events. They came back safely. There are still affluent suburbs. But If you go there, you have to be careful where you go. I had business at the Federal Bldg and was taking a pause nearby along the river. I noticed that someone was edging closer to me so I retreated to the street and then all was fine. There are areas you should not go. I feel much safer across the river, on the Canadian side.
Dear JMG, thank you very much for your response (#165). Yes, I was thinking of that article too, as well as some of what you’ve written in “The King in Orange”. You’ve continuously spoken about the return of the repressed, too, and it might be returning with a vengeance with how resentful people have been when it comes to pretty much any issue you can think of.
Again, I do wonder if maybe the Age of Aquarius will provide some respite for those who realize the nature of this malaise. I was thinking of Aquarius’ focus on individuality, in particular. I find it very likely that some people will get tired of all the resentment, sick of all the constant failures and disappointments they experience every time they place their hope on [insert pet politician/ideology/movement/future tech gizmo here], that they might just turn inwardly and simply focus on the own personal paths and individual spirituality. I sincerely hope that at least a small number of people will get the message and start working in a healthy manner with all their hate and resentment. Then again, we may also get the opposite: the return of the repressed will be such that we might see a few 19th-century Russia-like revolutions pop up here and there. And, well, I guess we all know how that went! But I still have hope that people will be wiser than that, even if this hope is misplaced considering the current state of affairs.
Michael, exactly. There are other examples of a civilization that was apparently in terminal crisis pulling things together and surviving. It’s not a common outcome, but it does happen. Will ours? That remains to be seen.
Teresa, that’s hilarious. It’s not going to do a blessed thing to Trump or Musk or any of their associates for the 8% or so of the population who support the woke agenda to postpone their purchases for one day, of course, but if it teaches them to spend less and patronize local businesses, I’m all for it.
(By the way, thank you for using the word “dastard.” It’s a fine bit of invective and deserves more use.)
OtterGirl, I’m glad you found him! Yeah, that sort of thing’s on my mind a little these days.
Luke, fascinating. This is very good to hear.
Thomas, what I hope is that we stop pretending that unfashionable emotions will go away if we just repress them enough. If we all just admit that we’re human, that we get angry and peevish sometimes and that we really truly hate things sometimes, and that’s okay, the simmering resentment will give way to something a lot healthier. Here’s hoping!
Is it a source of wry amusement, or ironic nausea, JMG, to be told, after talking of peak oil, don’t you have something optimistic to share? And then when you suggest downsizing government añd making it more transparent, to prevent general misery, be told oh, you’re picking a side, that makes you out of bounds! That would drive me up the wall! Dmitti Oirlov gave up, I think, but you and Kunstler soldiered on. Kudos. Cosmic kudos.
So, if we’re cutting government spending, can we cut all the money we waste on our space fantasies? That stuff is expensive! We’ve discussed how nuclear power doesn’t pay for itself, but at least we do get some electricity out of it. All we get from space exploration stuff is a continuation of the delusional fantasy that we are somehow going to colonize space. I think this hurts us financially and mentally. Great place to cut, if you ask me.
I suppose Elon’s not going to do it. How long you figure until we can?
@204 Paradoctor
From what I’ve read on this from JMG, my take is that animals that once were human would probably have less bland personalities than regular animals and a karmic burden to pay off, but they won’t be humanlike as their brain structure and animal group-soul wouldn’t allow for it. Their Individualities would remember being human, but not their personalities.
And those souls would have to try again later. I’m guessing being human a couple times when the population is high makes being human again less disorienting when the individualities try again, but there would still be a “learning curve” because of infancy/childhood and being reaccustomed to following instinct blindly.
I think we should try to build the mental sheath so we have better odds of reincarnating as humans after we die.
@Kyle #49,
The Ring Cycle Tarot is visually lush and also seems to have the symbolism worked out well. Apologies if this has been mentioned on previous Ring Cycle posts and is redundant; I am way behind.
https://tarotgarden.com/the-ring-cycle-tarot/
@JMG,
Reading the Druid Path, which is a nice little production, isn’t it?
What you said about elephants and Stonehenge etc made me wonder about the possibility of Discordian druids, who must surely exist. Oh, you of course. Any more stories to tell?
Otter Girl #213 re paying to have someone check on you: there are a few ways to do this, including an app: https://www.seniorresource.com/daily-check-in-services-for-seniors-living-alone/
JMG, a while back I remarked that it was an interesting thing that for about three weeks the Ottawa police chief declined to clear out the Freedom Convoy truckers from downtown Ottawa. And I wondered if whether his sympathies were with the truckers. He apparently quit his post and his successor did the dirty deed.
And you said that when the armed services of a country refuse to take up arms, that’s pretty much it for the ruling regime.
Which is pretty much what happened in Syria. The Syrian army did history’s fastest costume change when they saw those bearded fellas come up the road in those pickup trucks.
So there it is, a real-life, historical example. Kudos for that.
Apparently the beards (and by the looks of it there weren’t even that many of them) took the measure of their opposition and figured they had a decent chance and they were right. So now, the obvious question, who’s next?
You probably got my meaning but the line was supposed to read “they are tapping into the baseline of words”.
JMG
I am interested in your saying that you hope the US stays together as one country. What time frame are you thinking of? You yourself have said, as have many others, that with energy decline and desertification of the interior west, that would be very unlikely, as it would for Canada.. It seems more likely to me that the continent would split into smaller regional nations, hopefully not at war with each other, and in some form of trading relationship.
Happy Panda, JMG, et al
I have never been in China, so can’t comment from personal observation, but a discrepancy of 50 0/0 between stated and actual population would seem to be something that would have been more widely noticed and commented on. Everywhere I know personally or have friends comment from seems to have greatly reduced birthrate and aging population, but not yet quite to the stage of actual population decline, and certainly not yet reflected in more affordable housing. The Japanese figure of deaths exceeding births by 900,000, so a loss of under 1 0/0 seems more reasonable.
I appreciate everyone’s opinions on this.
Stephen
^chortle*. Trump and Musk ARE Theoden and Wormtongue, aren’t they?
Was in a Tarot key 21 ‘The World’ online discussion group earlier tonight and wondering how many folks recognized the Arch Druid as himself. Pleasantly Awesome! Made my day/week.
Observing Islamic civilization; it’s the year 1446 Hijri. Consider western civilization in 1446 Gregorian, you know, back when the world was flat. Most enlightening.
Just fyi: the SS United States hull form was classified for decades because… well anyway, may she rest in a well deserved peace.
Be well all.
Re: the Economic Blackout of Feb 28.
Anyone else remember the “Art Strike” of 1990-93? It’ll be about as effective as that.
Question about making chicken soup:
I took notes from the method provided elsewhere by @CHICKEN SOUP FLOGGER (for which many thanks) but as I am making it for someone else and am not familiar with the stuff (yes, weird family background) I had to look up a recipe for a bit of technique. And the recipe says to cool and “degrease”.
Does this mean to skim off and discard the fat?
Thanks everyone, looking forward to your answers!
yavanna #215:
japan is still functioning, though people have been predicting some kind of collapse for ages. they do have huge government debt levels, which is apparently a disaster waiting to happen someday
one reason for the declining birthrate may be declining job quality – afaik the ratio of fulltime jobs with full benefits to part-time ones without has been falling for a while, and you don’t want to be trying to bring up a family on minimum wage if you can help it
strangely housing unaffordability seems to be less of a factor than in much of the anglosphere, we don’t have blackrock funnelling money into property and jacking rents up
i’ve heard the korean birthrate (much lower than japan’s) may be partly due to the fact that the country is so focussed on seoul, even more than japan is focussed on tokyo
“It interests me that the identical policies seem to be spread everywhere. USAID, by any chance?”
In this case, the problem lies with the UN. In 2008, a Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities was adopted, which has since been signed by almost all Western countries and obliges them to implement an inclusive school system.
A prime example of the enormous damage high-ranking bureaucrats can cause when they have no connection to real life.
JMG,
I’m curious how you decide which topics to write about, especially when it comes to your occult and magical books. Do you focus on what you find most valuable overall, what might reach the largest audience, or some other criteria?
Also, I’d love to hear your take on ranking different systems by usefulness. Which do you consider the most effective and why?
And since you seem to have some knowledge of Eastern practices, I’m also curious—why the strong focus on Western traditions? Is it personal preference, cultural accessibility, or something else?
Thanks Patrick @60 for your reply re Pluto’s status, and to you JMG for drawing my attention to Ahuna Mons, Ceres. To clarify: I know that many planetary satellites have interesting surfaces (and besides, if the larger ones such as Ganymede and Titan were orbiting on their own they’d be classed as planets without any trouble). But, JMG, your Ceres argument embodies precisely the kind of practicality which I am rebutting – for during a whole lifetime, 1930-2006, the human imagination sprayed Pluto with a fixative of planetitude, and it’s that subjective action which packs the most punch, since the category “planet” is Man-given anyway. It will take more than an IAU decision to scrape it off. As you say, Patrick, maybe the centuries of the Long Descent might do it. To counter that fate, perhaps someone could suggest to the current forceful President, that he issue an Executive Order to enjoin proper terminological respect towards what is, after all, the only major planet so far to have been discovered by an American.
@Happy Panda #46
This other Vedic astrologer you have found – is it Narasimha Rao, by any chance?
SMJ
I just received word a short time ago that Arthur Firstenberg passed away a day ago. He is the author of Microwaving the Planet, The Invisible Rainbow, and just this January, The Earth and I. If it had not been for Arthur’s warning in 1997, I’m pretty certain my health would have continued declining, as have most of my peers’, particularly in hang gliding. By becoming aware of hidden EMR hazards and taking steps to ameliorate them, one can actually make quite a big difference in one’s home environment and overall health, regardless of the continued uncontrolled proliferation of wireless infrastructure and devices.
Kathleen Burke has written a detailed obituary. I will see if I can get permission to share it.
Arthur fell ill in August, and we in the organization Global Radiation Emergency which he had organized heard very little from him after that. am glad he was able at least to publish his final book.
He was Jewish. I have never approached him about prayers, so I don’t know if he would have welcomed them or not.
Speaking of eucatastrophe, while we are still in this age, wondering if there’s anything in discussing the polarity inherent in Christianity. I believe JMG has inveighed against it in some places as dualistic (correct me if I’m wrong). If that were the case, however, you’d have two equal and opposite sides warring against each other with no resolution. But in the Christian sense, all spirits, including the fallen, are subject to the Most High, the Lord of both Heaven and Earth, and in this lies the inherent tension of the system. It’s a “sin-redemption” circuit, in which without a recognition of the insuperable distance between us and The One who dwells in Divine Darkness, there can be no resolution (redemption). There and back again.
I’d say that in the worst-case scenarios, yes: when that tension is displaced, it leads to a kind of splitting, an actual dualism, in which subjects either demonize themselves (internal splitting) or project that demonization on others. The solution frequently has been to deny the idea of sin altogether, which in theory blows up the system, but I suspect that only displaces the tension someplace else.
Axé
>why don’t the Japanese want to have children?
I don’t know why but I’d point out it started going down right after the first oil crisis in the 70s. Japan didn’t have birth control til the 90s too. Whatever answer you get when you ask people is a surface plausible reason, not the real reason.
BTW, it’s a global phenomenon. The Japanese just happened to be ahead of the curve. It started going down in Murica right after the 2008 crisis. Has been papered over with illegal immigration, and would otherwise look disturbingly like Japan.
Logically, if I had to infer, I’d say it’s a statement from people with their actions (not their words) that says something like this – “We expect our prospects 10-20 years from now to be significantly worse”. You can sort of hear that worry in the surface statements like “I need to focus on my career, I’m not ready, not ready, not ready”. There was a meme a month or two ago that was captioned “I’d like to get my life together but I’m waiting to see if the world will end first”. JMG talked about “provisional living”? Maybe we could say something about “provisional dying” as well.
Other Owen:
>So, you can see what skills are promoted – forecasting and modeling. Funny that, since the Fed with all that talent has never produced a Noble Prize winner
Forget attaboys, I’d settle for them having accurately predicted the 2008 clownshow. Did they do that but keep it secret or are they as incompetent as I suspect?
Me: Yes. The forecasting is done by group consensus. What happens is that each one has to explain why they forecasted their sector the way they did. I did the agriculture sector for a number of years. What I discovered is that group think rules, and if you are a heterodox thinker, you are often told to shut up. So, yes, they are both – incompetent and did predict the clownshow. However, what got reported to the Chairman was the standard group think of zippy-do-dah.
@JMG,
In that case, perhaps I’d be happy to see them screw up the scuttling and capsize the ship, and take it as a sign that the top end of our current society aren’t going to stay on top. I’m not much at reading tea leaves, and this is an awfully large leaf. What do you think?
@Phutatorius,
Maybe naufragiomancy, from naufragium, which is the physical remains of a shipwreck? As I mentioned to JMG, I’m going to be watching _how_ she sinks for clues, as much as I was watching the ongoing drama in Philly to see if she’d end up scuttled or not.
@Llewna,
Somehow I missed the fact that the S.S. United State’s record-setting maiden voyage encompassed the fourth of July! That’s got to strengthen the link to her home country.
@methylethyl,
I like ships, in a nerdy way, so had been I semi-following the SS United States Conservancy’s efforts to do something with the hulk these last few years, so was aware of her fate long before it hit the media. I’ve been waiting for the appropriate time to bring it up.
@All,
If you have money burning a hole in your pocket and all this talk of the SS United States has you hankering to cross the Atlantic– look at Star Clippers. They do have motors and don’t promise not to use them, but ocean crossings are done mostly, if not entirely under sail. Their largest, the Royal Clipper, is a five-masted copy of the Prussen of Flying-P fame. (Yeah, when they say “clippers”, they mean it. I’m glad someone is keeping that tradition alive. If I had the money, it’d be on my bucket list.)
Speaking of ships, sail is still slowly, slowly making inroads into the world of cargo. Sail Cargo, Incorporated has a shipyard where they are building small all-wooden traditional sailing vessels, one at a time. That’s the best news in the world of shipping right now, IMO. Sure, there are bigger outfits making bigger ships– OceanWings will stick their high-tech automatic junk rig on anything (including the ESA’s rocket-carrying freighter), and there’s kite-sail conversions helping drag Japanese tankers across the Pacific, but going down-slope, the big, steel hulls just aren’t going to last forever. Small is beautiful, and wood (can be) sustainable. I’m glad that tradition is being kept alive in the developed world. (Heck, look at the SS United States and the USS Constitution. This time next year, one of them will still be afloat. I’d honestly not be shocked if Old Ironsides saw combat again someday during the long descent.)
About the Buy Nothing Day.
from Robert Reich:
A grassroots movement is calling on all Americans to abstain from shopping with major retailers — including Amazon — tomorrow, February 28, as part of an “economic blackout.”
The purpose is to send a clear message: We have the power. We don’t have to accept corporate monopolies. We don’t have to live with corporate money corrupting our politics.
We don’t have to accept more tax cuts for billionaires. We don’t have to pay more of our hard-earned cash to Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos or Mark Zuckerberg or the other billionaire oligarchs.
We don’t have to reward corporations that have abandoned their DEI policies to align themselves with Trump’s racist, homophobic, misogynistic agenda.
We have choices.
Most Americans are struggling to keep up. Most live from paycheck to paycheck. Most can barely afford housing costs, food prices, and pharmaceuticals — kept high by monopolies, and fueled by private equity.
If politicians won’t hear the voices of average Americans who are being shafted by corporate America, we have to deliver our message to corporate America directly.
From midnight tonight to midnight Friday night, please: No Amazon, no Walmart, no Best Buy, no Target, no Disney, no Google, no Facebook. Don’t spend on fast food, major retailers, or gas.
Avoid using credit or debit cards to make nonessential purchases.
Buy essentials such as medicine, food, and emergency supplies, of course, but make those purchases at small, local businesses.
Consider this a test run. If lots of people participate, I’m sure a longer one will be organized.
(Tomorrow’s economic blackout is an initiative of The People’s Union USA, which describes itself as a “grassroots movement dedicated to economic resistance, government accountability, and corporate reform.”)
—
The People’s Union USA https://thepeoplesunionusa.com/faq
They are a newly run internet organization started (in Feb. 2025) by one guy who I believe is Communist/Socialist.
He writes: That is why I started this organization. Because I believe we deserve better. Because I believe it is possible to break free from a system built to exploit us. Because I know that if we stand together, we don’t just demand change, we create it.
This is just the beginning. And if you believe in something greater, then stand with us in solidarity as we work toward a brighter future for all.
—–
My personal opinion: It is another grifter playing on people’s feelings against Amazon, etc. He has grandiose plans and plays on people’s fear of cutbacks, Musk, Trump, and the like. I fail to see how any of this will work. He is doing standard class warfare and is asking for money.
What I see is a bunch of desperate people trying to feel that they can do something like strike back at the “man” or Amazon, etc. From whom I have spoken to believe is that they are vast in numbers, and they will shut down the system. They are hanging on to the idea that there more of the anti-Trump people than pro. That Trump’s victory was a statistical fluke. Read Neo-Pagan blogs at Patheos sometime- that is the standard line. We are many, and we are resisting, blah, blah, blah.
As for my family, we are celebrating by sending out to McDonalds for our lunch, using Door Dash.
One question of political economics where there might be common ground is: what size should a common market be?
For the last decades, the economists given voice in the media have always insisted that the less trade restrictions, the better: ALCA, EU, Transpacific and Transatlantic Partnership, most favoured status for China etc.
At the beginning of the 19th century, each statelet in Germany imposed tariffs on trade with its neighbours. A merchant with ox carts might have to pay tariffs twice a day if passing into and then out again of a tiny statelet. That was clearly a huge drag on everybody except the government, and it was good to create a common economic zone among the German states.
I can’t tell if the creation of the European Economic Community between Germany, France, Italy and Benelux was a good thing. Politically it was by inhibiting hostilities between them. For Germany (and Germans), it was probably an economic win. I can’t tell if it was for the citizens of the other countries.
The creation of ALCA at the end of the 1980s caused a huge recession in Canada, many blue-collar jobs disappeared for ever. The return to the trade barriers of the 1980s between Canada, USA and Mexico would certainly cause a temporary economic loss again. Would it be better for the majority of citizens to reimpose the trade barriers? I simply don’t know, and I would like to know a bit more, as far as possible.
As protection against Trump’s threats, Canadians have been talking about how reducing trade barriers between Canadian provinces would give an impulse to the Canadian economy. Would it be a net win for the majority of Canadian residents? I don’t know, and I would like to know a bit more, as far as the future can be predicted at all.
>My intuition is that the vast majority of generally accepted statistical ‘facts’, which are the basis for much of the western style civilisation are inflated or simply incorrect in the same manner
It’s the Bureau of Humor and Goalseeking, pass it on.
>The one thing that keeps a debtor nation from defaulting is that it needs to be able to keep borrowing; if it balances its budget, it can thumb its nose at creditors.
The global system needs debt to constantly expand. Especially if you’re the holder of the world’s reserve currency. Just pausing that expansion would be bad (as we’re beginning to see). (Maybe it should be DOGC, where the C stands for Collapse.) Nuking the debt outstanding would be even worse. I dunno. It’s an unsustainable system, set up by the parents of the Boomers who most definitely had a IBG-YBG mentality. And they are indeed, most definitely, G. I’m glad I’m not the one who has to get the blame for trying to clean up that mess.
If I had to guess though, based on the Culture of Contentment, it won’t get nuked but rather inflated away. The Russians were never burdened with a Culture of Contentment, so they were able to nuke theirs back in ’98.
This is a very well-read corner of the internet, so I’d like to ask for a peculiar book recommendation if our host allows it. I’m looking for fantasy or historical fiction that celebrates the traditional feminine. There are oodles of fantasy books where the heroine is a strong female character who can ride like a man, fight like a man, and otherwise fill the male role in her society– which is great. Empowering stuff. I grew up on it. I still enjoy such stories, and ones with male heroes, but I’m looking for something else. (It’s kind of sexist, isn’t it? In the sense that if you need to act like a man to be the hero, save the day, and star in a book, then what’s that say about the feminine side of life?)
What I’m looking for is a story where the female heroine fills the feminine role in her society. NOT simply as love interest/accessory to the male hero whose actions actually drive the plot. No! I want a main character who is a woman, acting like a woman, written by an author who values and respects femininity. Ideally in a historical or fantasy setting, though I’ll take contemporary fiction if I have to. I suspect its rare, given the road feminism has been down and the difficulty most male authors have writing women, but maybe there’s a whole genre out there I’ve missed just by dint of being a man.
The collapse of JoAnns is the least of our fabric problems. Our real problem is that we have almost no textile industry left in the US anymore. When I was a teenager we would take our wool to the Columbia Scouring mill in Portland, and then it would go to Pendleton’s Weaving Mill in SW Washington and then go to the Pendleton’s Plant in Milwaukee Oregon where it was sewn in to wool shirts. Pendleton stopped sewing the shirts in the US 25 years ago and just stopped weaving the fabric here a few years ago.
This has happened across the textile industry in the US. Even the Looms for making Denim for Levis were sold to Japan where they still make heirloom Denim.
We will of course have fabric to purchase for home sewers until the empire declines far enough that we can’t buy it from abroad. Then I would guess that we will enter a period where reusing old garments to make new ones will be the skill of the day. This will be made easier because people a generation or so from now will be smaller.
Of course after that we will slowly learn how to make textiles again, perhaps in water powered mills in New England once again.
I remember that once upon a time in 4H there was a completion where young women competed by raising a sheep, shearing it, spinning the wool, knitting or weaving fabric from that wool and then showing their creation by wearing it in the final stage of the completion. This was in the 70’s mind you. How we could use a million of those young women now instead of a million gender studies majors and Tik Tok influencers.
@rajarshi, @slithy, @dropbear, @walt: I have cited this argument by Charles Taylor before:
“Characteristic of this [mostly unconscious materialistic] picture [of the world] are a series of priority relations. Knowledge of the self and its states comes before knowledge of external reality and of others. The knowledge of reality as neutral fact comes before our attributing to it various “values” and relevances. And, of course, knowledge of the things of “this world”, of the natural order, precedes any theoretical invocation of forces and realities transcendent to it.
The epistemological picture, combining as does very often with some understanding of modern science, operates frequently as a closed world system. The priority relations tell us not only what is learned before what, but also what can be inferred on the basis of what. They are foundational relations. I know the world through my representations. I must grasp the world as fact before I can posit values. I must accede to the transcendent, if at all, by inference from the natural. This can operate as a closed world system, because it is obvious that the inference to the transcendent is at the extreme and most fragile end of a chain of inferences; it is the most epistemically questionable…
Now I introduce the epistemological picture in order to bring out some features of the way closed world systems operate in our time, the way they are on one hand contested, and on the other maintain themselves.
We are all aware of the contestation [no! most people aren’t!], because some of the most famous twentieth-century philosophers have taken part in it… (1) Our grasp of the world does not consist simply of our holding inner representations of reality. We do hold such representations… But these only make the sense that they do for us because they are thrown up in the course of an ongoing activity of coping with the world, as bodily, social and cultural beings. This coping can never be accounted for in terms of representations, but provides the background against which our representations have the sense they do. (2) As just implied, this coping activity, and the understanding which inhabits it, is not primarily that of us as individuals; rather we are each inducted into the practices of coping as social “games” or activities… Primordially, we are part of social action. (3) In this coping, the things which we deal with are not first and foremost objects, but … “pragmata”, things which are the focal points of our dealing, which therefore have relevance, meaning, significance for us, not as an add-on but from their first appearance in the world… (4) [goes on to discuss transcendence]”
(“A Secular Age, p. 558)
I find a picture that includes transcendence much more convincing. But Charles Taylor’s argument shows that even before considering transcendence, the rationalist world-view with its clear division between subject and objects does not hold water.
@Walt – Thanks for this. I’ve mostly been experimenting with water temperature, and for me at least, the shock of quite cold water works best. Do you find that longer exposures give a stronger or longer lasting effect?
@Phutatorius – Interesting to hear your perspective on Detroit. The physical security sounds precarious. In the opening scene of LeDuff’s book he has to brandish a handgun to escape after stopping for gas in a sketchy area of town. This is one of the real downsides of decline: when the system stops functioning, criminality is the default option for many people. Combine that with drugs and it gets ugly fast.
According to my dictionary of Classical Greek, “shipwreck” is nauagia (naufragium is Latin), so prediction of the future by shipwreck should be nauagiomancy.
@Tyler A #223: One of my favourite books of all times is Kristin Lavransdottir, where the protagonist gets pregnant, marries and raises seven sons in 14th century Norway. It’s a long read, though!
JMG, Bradley, and seekers of myths and legends:
Regarding Changer stories of the Pacific northwest indigenous people, while looking for a copy of the recommended Ballard’s “Mythology of southern Puget Sound,” I stumbled upon this free downloadable .pdf which offers some entertaining Changer/Moon stories.
“Mythology of Puget Sound”
Hermann Haeberlin and Franz Boas
The Journal of American Folklore , Jul. – Dec., 1924, Vol. 37, No. 145/146 (Jul. – Dec., 1924), pp. 371-438
Published by: American Folklore Society
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/535129
Tyler A, you might want to explore the world of Christian fiction; I believe Bethany is the name of the publisher. These are Christian, often with a historical setting, written to order, historical and contemporary romance novels, sans the currently obligatory sex scenes. For light reading, they are actually not too bad. Readable prose, good storytelling, a feat which your typical NYT bestselling author doesn’t seem to be able to manage, and the characters are mostly believable.
In classic fiction there is Jane Austen’s Persuasion, my favorite of her novels, and Dickens’ Dombey and Sons. Also Cranford, by Elizabeth Gaskell. The Lily of the Valley, by Balzac, is a story of two lonely youngsters growing into not romantic love, but lifetime friendship.
About hating on Teslas. My sister has been driving Priuses about two decades now. She must have bought the first within 5 or so years after they were first introduced. She loves them, drove from OR into CA to visit me, so the Prius is freeway capable. But, Priuses are built with best in the world Japanese engineering and manufacturing; IDK, but I take leave to doubt the same could be said of Tesla.
Celadon, thank you. At first I was bored with it — I kept thinking, “can’t these people come up with something less trite and sentimental to say?” Then it started amusing me, because it’s so stereotyped, and I started having fun messing with people who said it. It’s like the insistence that if I predict something bad, I must want the bad thing to happen — another trite and mindless means of evasion. That makes me chuckle these days.
Slink, when that fantasy finally loses its grip in the US, you’ll know that we’ve shaken off the Faustian pseudomorphosis entirely. It’s so essential to the fragile egos of Faustian America that we should be about to go zooming off to the infinite!
Kallianera, I’ve met a fair number of Discordian Druids. The classic Druid Revival deadpan sense of humor plays very well with the Discordian aesthetic.
Smith, good question. We’ll have to see!
Luke, I guessed that’s what you meant.
Stephen, I’ll be satisfied if it stays together for the rest of my life. After that, it’s someone else’s problem.
Your Kittenship, now guess who Gandalf is going to be.
Oldguytoo, it was good to be there. My late wife and I originally joined Builders of the Adytum (BOTA) in 1990 and studied the lessons for a few years, but we had the chance to study something else closer to our interests at that time, and set it aside. Early in her final illness, Sara went back to the lessons, which we’d saved, and completed the first twocourses before she got too ill to continue. I picked it up around the same point, finished the three courses (and colored a new set of major arcana), then re-upped with the organization to continue my studies. I always like to be studying something new — it keeps my mind from getting stuck in ruts.
Kevin, now I’ll have to go look that up, because I don’t remember it at all!
Kallianera, yes. Your average chicken produces much more fat than you want in a soup. You can strain it, melt and stir it into hot water to absorb the leftover bits of chicken, then cool and let it separate, and it makes nice cooking fat!
Executed, gotcha. Thanks for this.
Clark, (1) my whim of the moment, mostly — I write about what interests me. (2) Useful for what/ Different systems have different uses and applications. (3) I simply find them a better fit for myself and my life. I’ve dabbled in Eastern practices, but the Western way appeals to me more.
Robert G, oh, granted. I’d just like to see Ceres get more respect!
Patricia O, thank you for this. I’m sorry to hear that he’s gone.
Fra’ Lupo, I really do need to write a post one of these days about the many flavors of dualism, don’t I? Christianity isn’t metaphysically dualist, but it’s morally dualist. That’s quite a common thing these days — I’ve met any number of self-proclaimed “nondualist” thinkers who go on at vast length about how dualism is absolutely evil, nondualism is absolutely good, and there can be no middle ground between them! But all this will need to be explored in that post.
Tyler, that would be fun to watch.
Neptunesdolphins, I plan on going out to do some shopping…
Aldarion, that’s a fascinating question and would require plenty of research in order to find the answer.
Other Owen, I’m far from sure the culture of contentment still exists in the US outside of the fading bureaucratic-managerial class, so a 1998 option seems quite plausible to me.
Tyler, hmm! You might consider Jane Austen, as Mary suggests; my personal favorite among her novels, Mansfield Park, is very much along the lines you have in mind.
Clay, it strikes me that this is a situation that a competent entrepreneur could capitalize on…
Goldenhawk, thanks for this! That contains some classic tales, including a version of “Northwind and Stormwind,” which is an old fave of mine.
Patrick @ 223, “I think we should try to build the mental sheath so we have better odds of reincarnating as humans after we die.” As opposed to simply trying to live a good life? Which is not so easy as many suppose.
Smith @ 226, History’s fastest costume change occurred when the former terrorist and alleged murderer put on a Western style suit and became Syrian head of state, with, no doubt, private demands for getaway luxury home in Virginia or London and places for his kids reserved in American or British universities.
Other Owen @ 245, Allow me to suggest that if you want to be understood, you not post in code? “Culture of Contentment’? What is IBG-YBG mentality when it is at home?
JMG, have you seen this?
https://www.forbes.com/sites/scotttravers/2024/11/02/this-black-fungus-might-be-healing-chernobyl-by-drinking-radiation-a-biologist-explains/
Nature is fracking impressive.
@222 Slink
Out of the space program, I like the unmanned probe missions and the space telescopes.
I wish that Elon wanted to send probes to Uranus, Neptune, & Pluto instead of colonizing Mars.
Of course, the benefits (scientific discoveries and beautiful pictures to put in expensive hardback books) are not going to be worth the cost of these missions after the dollar loses its reserve currency status, if they ever were worth doing.
@Kyle (#49):
I’m not overly partial to tarot. Runes work better for me, probably due to my Danish ancestry, and scrying works best of all. (I can’t see things myself in the scrying glass, but I have a few friends who can, and I work with them for good results.)
But when I have needed to read tarot for other people, Robin Wood’s deck seems to work well enough in my hands, better than many others. I don’t take reversals into account, and I read all the minors as simple combinations of the meanings of their numbers/ranks and the meanings of their suits. The majors in that deck seem to work together to yield a fairly flexible mythology.
JMG, I would be fascinated to know what is your opinion of Mansfield Park, the most difficult and inaccessible of Austen’s novels? I consider it a flawed masterpiece, a study in corruption which belongs on one’s shelf next to Dangerous Liaisons and The Splendor and Misery of Courtesans. I rather think Austen lost her nerve, as a young, unknown authoress. Very few critics have been able to give a believable account of the novel; certainly not Lionel Trilling nor Edward Said. I am not able to believe the obligatory at the time tacked on happy ending. Had the novel been allowed to proceed to its’ inevitable, tragic conclusion, I think it would have been a very great work indeed.
JMG,
You mentioned Christianity and moral dualism.
Thought you might get a kick of Matthew Fox’s (dualistic) latest title (not reading it, of course, but just noticing the title).
https://www.amazon.com/Trump-MAGA-Movement-Anti-Christ-Handbook/dp/1663265267
Pierre
I’m loving this Lords of the Ring analogy!
Who could Gandalf be?! J.D. Vance? He seems to have the best grasp on American values based on his Munich speech and on his book, Hillbilly Elegy. I’ve yet to read it. But he seems too young.
Part of the Trump prophecy (isn’t it cool that we live in an age of prophecy?) is that after he gets his right ear shot, rises from the ground a changed man, and is elected president is that he faced with an unprecedent economic crisis and that he is “granted the wisdom of King Solomon.” That has to be referencing a Gandalf figure coming in!
@samurai_47 #249, I’ve never directly compared durations of cold bathing. My main motivation initially was avoiding hot and warm water, hoping that might make my skin less unpredictably sensitive as it had been all my life. This worked, so after two weeks of experimentation and acclimatization (turning to cold water at the end of a shower, just as you do, but for increasing durations) I switched over to all cold. Stepping into the cold water initially doesn’t feel any different from switching over later, in my experience. The energetic benefits became apparent over the same time period. I think it’s likely you’ll notice more benefits by going longer than 30 seconds, but I can’t promise that or confirm it directly from my own experience.
(Not steaming up the bathroom, not having to fiddle with the faucets, not caring if someone runs water or flushes a toilet, and saving on hot water are additional side benefits. I thought it might also save time by motivating me to finish faster, but within a few weeks I found I can stand there distracted thinking about other things just as much in a cold shower as in a warm one.)
A full length shower (rinse, shampoo, wash, very thorough rinse, and washing down the shower stall—about five to seven minutes) doesn’t leave me feeling chilled internally. (That’s cold tap water. Ice water becomes uncomfortable after two or three minutes.) At first it did leave my skin flushed red afterward but that effect gradually diminished over time. And I had to learn (quickly) not to cuddle with my wife right after cold bathing, until my skin surface warmed back up from refrigerated-cadaver temperature to living human.
Hi, JMG,
Are you familiar with the work of Daniel Quinn? One of his posts actually directed me to your website back when it was the Archdruid report. IMO he is one of the most important thinkers of the 20th century. Here is a link to my favourite speech of his.
https://www.ishmael.org/daniel-quinn/essays/our-religions-are-they-the-religions-of-humanity-itself/
Cheers
Neptunes Dolphins, the Democrats have managed to shoehorn themselves between the proverbial rock and hard pace. Policy proposals which might actually appeal to at least a fairly large segment of the voting public, such as, oh, a foreign policy of armed neutrality, a domestic policy of reviving the American System of national development, getting serious about conservation, environmental destruction and public health, are mostly Forbidden by their donors, when they don’t elicit squeals of outrage from various of their constituencies.
No, I will not be shopping today, because there is 3 feet of snow outside, I have no interest in contributing to Mr. Bezos’ wealth, I live on a steep and narrow icy street and do not want to compel some door dash driver to attempt to negotiate said street, supposing he or she were foolish enough to accept the job in the first place. Consumer boycotts can be a powerful tool, but they need to be strategically and narrowly focused.
Hi JMG,
I just saw a Fox News video where Hannity called MSNBC, guess what?
MSDNC
Brilliant. He called it MSDNC enunciating clearly so no-one could mistake it.
💨Northwind Grandma💨🇺🇸
Dane County, Wisconsin, USA
@ tyler a #246
That’s the kind of book I write!
Anyway, indie writing is vast, so many writers — romance, fantasy, scifi, and romantasy — write exactly that kind of book.
Sadly, because indie writing is vast, our kind of book can be hard to find in the tsunami of books.
Hello, JMG and company. Another Changer question here. I believe you mentioned that the Changer seems to have hopped over to Musk given everything DOGE has been up to of late. Does this mean the Changer is done with Trump for now? Or is the archetype able to split their attention along several big name actors on the world stage? Generally curious but also researching for my work in progress American Myth Cycle. Speaking of the Changer, are we going to get a post about the subject in the not too distant future?
A glimpse of old Lemuria?
Archaeologists Found Ancient Tools That Contradict the Timeline of Civilization. Sophisticated seafaring technology may actually have originated in the islands of Southeast Asia
Hello Mr Greer and all,
Reflecting on the geopolitical topics in this week’s discussion, I started wondering about this: why are certain countries stable over long periods of time despite huge ethnic, cultural and religious diversity, while many much more homogeneous ones constantly feud and disintegrate?
I was thinking about China, which persists as a strong, cohesive nation despite its enormous size and local diversity. Sure, at some points China encounters hard times and strife, it may be temporarily divided and partially occupied, but it eventually returns stronger. This has been happening for several millenia already, and while the current regime will eventually lose the Mandate of Heaven, I think it is safe to say that a new dynasty will replace the CPC, and China will continue to be a strong and important country in roughly today’s borders in the millenia to come.
Similar could be said about Russia. The country is vast, spread over completely different geogrephical regions and presents ethnic and religious diversity that is simply incomprehensible in the West. The regime has the reputation for being nationalistic and religiously bigoted, and it would be expected for the country to fall apart at any moment. That was certainly the thinking behind goading Russia into war with Ukraine – after severe international pressure, the country would disintegrate into small statelets easy to control and exploit. And yet, the opposite has happened, and it is NATO and EU that are on the brink of disintegration. I found that somewhat surprising.
The opposite example are Balkan states in Europe, with peoples of similar mentality and appearance, speaking the same tongue and with only minor religious differences that non-theologians could never explain (like filioque issue between the Orthodox and Roman Catholic Christians). Yet every attempt to unite various Balkan statelets over common interest invariably fails miserably and ends in bloodshed.
Any idea why some nations that to my naive thinking appeared inherently unstable turn out to be robust, or even antifragile? And why is there so much petty infighting between much more similar European nations? Why is EU such a failure? Any thoughts appreciated.
@Tyler: for fantasy novels where a strong female protagonist is not a male in drag, I recommend Ursula Le Guin’s Earthsea sequence. Not every novel in sequence has a female protagonist, but several do (for example Tombs of Atuan, and Tehanu), and all are brilliant.
@Samurai_47
I’ve been taking brief cold showers for 15 years now and find it energizing and great for mood as cold showers release adrenaline and dopamine. The key I find is to shower quickly and spend no more than 2 minutes in there if you can. I disagree with the idea of cold baths. What is desired is hormesis as low doses of stress can have a beneficial effect whereas longer doses may be harmful.
I actually started cold showering simply because I wanted to reduce my carbon footprint and energy bills. So it turned out that the boost in energy and mood was an unexpected surprise.
Cold showers
JMG,
Thanks for helping me understand your process better and your preferences. I guess another way to phrase my second question would be: After all these years of study and writing so many books, what does your actual practice look like? I can guess (but this would only be a guess) that you are performing a daily protection ritual and celebrating the Wheel of the Year and the lunar cycles while having learned about your local flora and fauna, but is there something else that you consider a major part of your practice, something that you do on a daily or weekly basis? This I would assume is what you consider most useful.
“…it’s quite common for a civilization in decline to end up with 5% of its peak population by the time things finally bottom out. Yes, that’s roughly what I expect this time around, too.”
The thing about civilizational collapses in past centuries is that they were not worldwide. When one country or empire went under, there was usually at least one other that might not have been doing well but was not collapsing, a place to which the urban middle and working classes could flee (sometimes with considerable effort) and have some hope of continuing to earn a living in their accustomed way, though probably at a reduced rate of income. It seems to me that this migration should account for a significant portion of the population drop that collapsing civilizations experience.
This time, the collapse is going to be worldwide. There will be no place for urban specialists to go. So while I’m sure that a drop of 50% in the next twenty years is already baked into the cake, I’m not so sure that we’ll go all the way to 5%.
Re; Epstein,
It seems even our old friend Jim Kunstler is starting to smell a rat:
https://www.kunstler.com/p/the-dog-probably-ate-it
Now, it is well-known that Donald Trump consorted with Jeffrey Epstein at various points in his life. Mr. Trump, in his role as New York real estate mogul, was but another celebrity butterfly in Epstein’s vast collection. He admits flying on the notorious Epstein airplane, though, he has said only to catch a ride somewhere. Mr. Trump later clashed with Epstein, as far, even, as blackballing him from the Mar-a-Lago club. …
In light of all this, it appears that Mr. Trump has no reservations these days about disclosing whatever lurks in the blob files about these skeezy matters. Of course, it is a little hard to believe that blob agents did not dispose of the evidence well in advance of January 20. Other whistleblowers say that FBI agents have been “working night and day” to destroy files on “stand-alone” FBI servers in the days preceding Kash Patel’s arrival on the premises.
As I wind up today’s post at 8:02 in the morning, something new should have landed on Pam Bondi’s desk in place of that six-hundred-pound hairball. Not a whisper of news yet. No perp-walks out of SDNY or the New York FBI office. And, of course, The New York Times, barely a mention on yesterday’s Epstein doings.
If evidence has been destroyed, and no one is held to account for that fact, then that will tell me that Trump is not serious about this.
@Clay Dennis 247: on wool and other interesting matters. My smallish hometown used to have two woolen mills. Both are now long defunct. A tall smokestack still remains, but not for much longer. In the town’s city history, published in 1952, I find this on p. 138; “In competition against many of the large mills of the country, the H_____ folks received the contract for furnishing all the passenger blankets and steamer robes for the new United State Lines steamship, the UNITED STATES. This is the largest, finest and fastest vessel ever built in this country, and has accommodations for 2000 passengers. Its maiden voyage will be made in July, 1952, from New York to Havre and Southhampton. These blankets and robes are the highest quality, pure, soft virgin wool, dyed in shades to match the color motif of this beautiful new luxury liner. So the name of E_____ _______ will be displayed to all the ship’s passengers on their various crossings through the medium of large silk labels which these blankets and robes will carry. ”
I wonder if all those blankets and robes have long since turned into moth feed.
A few stray notes, in no particular order.
Re China: Astrology and Cosmology in Early China, by David Pankenier, is well worth reading, in part for the hypothesis that the importance of “void” imagery dated back to a time when there was no North Star in the appropriate position. not least for its account of traditional Chinese astrological understanding of Chinese civilizational cycles. In mischievous epilogue, the author points out that Sept 8, 2040, is the date at which a major shift in the Mandate of Heaven could be expected. We shall see. (Some of us, anyway.)
Re JoAnn’s. There are intermediate fish as well, eg Hobby Lobby. After a fire, new growth can arise.
Traditional feminine protagonists. There is Jane Eyre, for example. For relatively recent fantasy, there is The Interior Life, by “Katherine Blake” (Dorothy Heydt), which really fits the original question. And quite a departure from the currently fashionable heroine stereotype.
The opposite of boycott is buycott. In a gesture against this folly, I bought a few things I’d been putting off getting.
Rather than “nirvana is samsara”, a more traditional formulation is “nirvana is not other than samsara; samsara is not other than nirvana.” One might say, “Is not other than” is not “is” — nor is it other than “is”. It’s complicated. Take the cannoli.
@Boccaccio (#155)
Oh dear. I do watch Craig Hamilton-Parker. I’m now deeply worried that I got his predictions about China mixed up with some of the Vedic astrologers’ predictions. I do know at least one Vedic astrologer – in addition to Abhigya Anand – says China’s mundane chart for 2029 – 2030s is dreadfully malefic for itself and the world.
The bit about China breaking apart into 7 countries though I’m not sure now if I got that Hamilton-Parker or one of the Vedic astrologers. I think one of the Vedic astrologers mentioned it but can’t be sure. So everyone should take that bit I said about China splitting up with a grain of salt unless or until I can reverify where I got it.
I do personally think China will split up over the later half of the 21st century due to a combo of hard limits being hit and population decline but then I think that will happen to the U.S., Canada and the EU too after I’m taking ye ol’ permanent dirt nap.
Ugh. Now I’m going to have to go back and rewatch all those vids to see if I messed up.
@SMJ (#237)
Actually no! So thank you for pointing him out to me!
No, the 3 I found are the following:
https://www.youtube.com/@MukeshVats/featured
https://www.youtube.com/@AstroEdify/featured
https://www.youtube.com/@AstrologerMohnish/featured
I just re-watched the intro to one video from AstroEdify and he said it is this coming March 28, 2025 when the 1200 year transition period to Dwapara Yuga begins.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHnu2Sp1Z28
This agrees with what Sadhguru has long maintained – that Kali Yuga is about to end – from an astronomical point of view. Sadhguru has said some interesting things will occur on the trek up to Dwapara Yuga.
One thing he said is that about 1000 years (or was it 500? can’t remember) from now humanity will start seeing completely new colors in the color spectrum because our solar system will be close enough to another solar system that new possibilities for humanity open up. New ‘laws of nature’ will come online and with it a new era of discoveries and inventions.
I highly doubt those discoveries and inventions – whatever they are – will look anything like the discoveries and inventions from the Kali Yuga age we are leaving. Especially if new ‘laws of nature’ come online.
I have watched some Vedic astrologers say that there are hints in the next 1200 years that evidence of ancient civilizations that scientists/anthropologists currently categorize as garbled myths and legends will come out in the open and be acknowledged to have existed. Makes me wonder if one of these new possibilities will conclusively show Atlantis actually existed?
Anyway, looks like I have a lot of re-watching to do to clear up which person said what.
I have a bit of an offbeat question: When I was young (oh God, I can’t believe I just started with that as the reference point!) kids would often play a game where they would co-create a scenario (for example, we can be on an adventure in a jungle, somehow people settle on roles, someone imagines a lion, someone else imagines how to interact with the lion, etc.)
I don’t think I see kids do this very often anymore, largely because even if they are allowed to play with each other, they are probably interacting through a video game or whatever. As for adults, other than the rare person who plays dungeons and dragons or whatever, the only thing I can think about that sort of involves this type of co-creation is kinky role-playing of whatever sort, which is relatively infrequent (no matter how good your sex life is…), and (mostly) private and intimate rather than in a group setting. Maybe storytelling of a sort around a campfire also works, but this is also pretty infrequent for most people
Some questions:
1. Does anybody know of anybody who has studied this phenomenon seriously whose work I can look up?
2. Am I missing some major instances where adults or kids actually interact in this way more frequently than I believe?
3. (The part that I have really been pondering a bit) Is there some fundamental importance to this action? And if it is declining, are we losing something that is actually really important to individual or social development? Or is it just an artefact of our times (sort of like nobody really knows or cares about how to catch a rabbit with bare hands, and it doesn’t really matter if we lost this ability)? If there is an importance, how would its absence manifest?
One thing I haven’t seen mentioned here in this current discussion of aging and declining population is the effect of the myriad chemicals in our daily environment as hormone disruptors. The economic and social factors are certainly the largest part of the issue, but decreased male and female fertility appear to be involved as well.
Stephen
Re: China, Japan and South Korea demographics
China is now fully installed in the fertility rate of 1 children/women, and from 3 years ago is losing population at an exponential rate, as Japan (1,2 children/woman) as South Korea (0,7 children/woman), and as Japan and South Korea, the last thing these societies want to see is a significant influx of immigrants, regardless of their origin.
They are installed in a dynamic towards extermination (as society).
The Chinese government have lifted all restriction to the number of children by couple, but the trend of reducing fertility only accelerate, so they are now promoting “New Marriage and Prenting Culture” to avert the demographic crisis that will hit hard China in few decades:
https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202501/11/WS6782666ea310f1265a1da490.html
Some aspects of this new policy are quite surprising and funny, so several prestigious Chinese universities, including Wuhan University, Xiamen University, and Tianjin University, have begun offering courses such as “Marriage and Love”, “The Psychology of Love”, and “The Sociology of Love” (don´t laugh please), just to “convince” the young people, fully entrenched in their professional careers, of the benefits of romantic relationships with the other sex…. What strange times we are living!
https://www.scmp.com/news/people-culture/trending-china/article/3289929/china-love-course-proposal-universities-encourage-marriage-childbirth-draws-backlash
I have estimated that, if the same trend continue with the fertility rates and low immigration policies, in 2055 (one generation) the population of South Korea will be 35 mill (from 52 mill in 2025), Japan will have 86 mill (from 122 in 2025) and China 1000 mill (from 1400 mill in 2025), but with a “pyramid” of population totally inverted with few children and huge mass of old people.
In 2085 (two generations) if the same trends remain, South Korea will have 15,5 mill (from 52mill now), Japan 53 mill (from 122 now) and China 576 mill (from 1400 now), but the shape of the population “pyramid” make this totally unsustainable, and many decades before these societies will self-destruct by pure demographic collapse.
Cheers
David
Hey JMG
Lately I have been reading through a compilation of extracts from the works of Alfred Adler which I have had for awhile but never really read, a indigo coloured paperback titled “The individual psychology of Alfred Alder”. So far it has been quite interesting, a lot of very blunt interpretations of psychological issues we talk about more sentimentally today.
I think you have talked about Alder before, and so I thought I would ask for your opinion on him and his work. Is there anything he gets spectacularly right or wrong about people?
@Ecosophia
I have been scouring some of my links and found some interesting ones I saved.
Here is Martin Armstrong saying the Socrates program is predicting a 50% reduction in the global populace although he attributes the loss in this op-ed due to war since Socrates is also predicting that too.
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/qa/answering-your-questions-3/
Here he is Op-Eding that Socrates is saying the Left will become very authoritarian worldwide. I would rather say it’s the Lenocratic class worldwide who see their grip on power slipping that is becoming authoritarian. Armstrong has a consistently bad tendency to conflate Socialism with Social Democracy.
Quote: The 1848 European Revolution was the cyclical turning point for our forecast that the age of authoritarianism would begin in 2020. That was 172 years from the Revolution (2 x 8.6). It was 13 years later that the American Civil War and the emancipation of the Serfs in Russia were brought about. Our computer has forecast that 2032 will be the overthrow of Republics on a global scale. That is precisely 13 years from the 2020 target when this rise of authoritarianism began with COVID-19.
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/international-news/europes-current-economy/the-left-will-become-very-authoritarian-before-2032/
Here is Armstrong saying the Socrates program is seeing WW3 begin in 2027 and the global financial knockon effects will be apparent by 2028
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/world-news/war/trump-fails-to-end-ukraine-war-on-day-1/
Just as a curiosity I once did a divination to see how long JMG would keep Ecosophia and Dreamwidth blogs running. My cards said sometime in 2028 – maybe early 2029 he may have to make a hard choice between staying online or shifting over to an offline option.
So whatever financial problems are coming down the pike we should all enjoy Ecosophia being online while it’s still readily available.
>Allow me to suggest that if you want to be understood, you not post in code? “Culture of Contentment’? What is IBG-YBG mentality when it is at home?
IBG-YBG -> “I’ll be gone, you’ll be gone” It’s an old Wall Street saying said when someone comes down with a case of a conscience. For example, “But won’t this reserve currency Ponzi scheme eventually blow up?” “Eh, IBG-YBG” “Oh, OK, let’s do it and get outta here”
Culture of Contentment, by JK Galbraith. A book that pointed out where the economy was headed, published back in the 90s sometime. JMG seems to think it’s a bit outdated but I would point to the response to the crash of 2020 and the absolute massive amount of money printed. They’ll tell you it was due to that WuFlu but I would claim it was due to maintaining comfort and avoiding pain. Aka, the Culture of Contentment.
Hi John Michael,
Disturbing my sleep is always a problem and annoys me. Was visited by a ghost early this morning. Don’t blame me for this next bit…
(knock, knock! Rapping knuckles drummed the timber door) Mr Greer! Mr Greer! Just doing a welfare check on you sir. Are you OK in there?
Man, the ghost urged me to put you on a Tinder profile (never used the thing, but how hard could it be?)
Aspie guy seeks aspie gal for fun times and companionship. Must appreciate the more amusing and absurd aspects of life, and be happy to discuss ideas, nature and history. An appreciation of music from the 1960’s and 1970’s would go a long way, and the words ‘The Grateful Dead’ should resonate. Apply to….
I dunno dude, as I remarked previously not my words. If I may provide some advice, and this is from me, and not the ghost, loss is a companion in all of our lives, and yet despite that, at the same time we have to reach in deep and recall to live. The ghost told me it’s time.
As an interesting side note, the last ghost who disturbed me was about a year ago. An old school friend who I hadn’t seen for years had allegedly taken his own life. The dead do not make for pleasant company, and we must remember to enjoy the moments of conviviality underneath the coloured lights whilst we can (I ripped that last bit from Jack Vance, but well, it is a wise observation).
PS: Don’t mention the Wagner Opera thing in your profile, because you could end up with a lady who has a special interest in the subject….
Cheers
Chris
Hi Stephen Pearson,
The Limits to Growth study back in 1972, covered just that subject. Oh yeah, it’s already a problem – and don’t get me started about declining soil fertility (which has been only getting worse over the past century and a half) producing food with less proteins and minerals and way too much carbs. That affects reproduction for sure – compare a video of people on a street in say 1970 versus today.
Cheers
Chris
Aldarion,
Thanks for posting the Charles Taylor quote. I find it interesting to compare his description of the materialist worldview with its dual, the idealist worldview where the knowledge of the self also takes priority but the question “How do mind/meaning/transcendence [all things which materialists tend to shove under the carpet of ‘subjective’] exist within a world exclusively of material objects?” is flipped around: “How does a shared world arise within the inner representations within the minds of various subjects?” (For that matter, how confident am I really that other subjects even exist, since others’ consciousnesses are in-principle unavailable to me?)
But, as you say, the subject-object dichotomy is itself a bit iffy. Someone else a while back quoted Jordan Peterson saying something like “We don’t see an object and infer a meaning, we see a meaning and infer an object,” which is a perspective I quite like.
It also connects with something I was discussing a few posts ago: the idea that there is a “world as it is in itself” is highly doubtable. Nearly every attempt to understand the relationship between the world and our experience of it takes a “sideways-on” view, trying to model what we would see could we step outside our own lights — that is, outside our own experience; but this is impossible.
>So, yes, they are both – incompetent and did predict the clownshow. However, what got reported to the Chairman was the standard group think of zippy-do-dah.
I wonder what they would have done if they had listened to their own people who were competent? I mean, there were people on the inside that went on record saying “Hey this is a bad thing here and it looks like it’s going to blow up?” Doesn’t matter now. If they need bad advice, if that’s all they can really tolerate, internet chat rooms are a lot cheaper than hiring an army of yesmen. You can just outsource all that um, forecasting, to the internet. I recommend Reddit, and while you’re there go for WallStreetBets.
re: Epstein
I think a good chunk of the pussyfooting going on has to do with the belated realization of the rumored relationship Epstein had with a certain agency in a certain small middle eastern country that nobody is supposed to talk about. His consort/girlfriend/partner Ghislane comes from a family that seems to be deeply involved with that small middle eastern country nobody is supposed to talk about.
They’re between a rock and a hard place here. They may have to start talking about that small middle eastern country that nobody is supposed to talk about. There’s going to be some head explodey “DOES NOT COMPUTE” with some of that crowd, if they can’t process reality accurately enough.
At this point, I think it would save everyone some time if we could get a short list of the politicians and hollyweirdoes that *didn’t* visit The Island. At this point, you have to assume they did until the prove otherwise.
@Clay Dennis,
every year at the fall fair, there is a sheep to shawl exhibition, where you can see people carding, spinning, and weaving wool, and try your hand at the various steps. I’ve done so, and brought my spindle and wool from home as well as trying out their table loom. It’s fun.
The skills are still out there, and they are not that hard to learn. A lot of the equipment can be inexpensive or expensive depending on what level of tech you go for. Most of it is fairly fun, though I’m not a big fan of carding, and I learned the hard way that I HATE picking and washing wool. You get filthy and smell disgusting, and there’s dried sheep poo and dust thereof on the entire area. It’s gross. Do picking outdoors on the lawn or something. Not indoors.
Spinning and weaving are fun for me, though.
@Happy Panda,
“Just as a curiosity I once did a divination to see how long JMG would keep Ecosophia and Dreamwidth blogs running. My cards said sometime in 2028 – maybe early 2029 he may have to make a hard choice between staying online or shifting over to an offline option.”
I am always leery of any kind of sortilege divination used for something not directly relating to the diviner/querent or justified by their office. Sortilege divination is always personal, so issues of standing arise: basically, by what right do you claim the information you’re seeking? If you’re the officially-appointed diviner for a nation or organization, well and good; but if not I expect the information received to be much more personal in nature, rather than applicable to everyone involved. (By contrast, forecasts based on astrology, numerology, or major omens are based on inherently public information, so questions of standing don’t arise.)
Thus while it’s certainly possible that our host may have to move offline in 2028 or 2029, I think it’s more likely that it reflects something occurring in your own life around that time which causes you to stop reading the blog. It might be lack of Internet access, lack of time, boredom, maybe you convert to Orthodoxy and decide you need to cut any hint of occultism out of your life, or maybe you just take offense to something JMG says or does — that last one’s driven off quite a few members over the years.
>just to “convince” the young people, fully entrenched in their professional careers, of the benefits of romantic relationships with the other sex…. What strange times we are living!
I’m almost certain that went over like a lead balloon. I can’t help but think of the old saying “The beatings will continue until morale improves”. I know, let’s beat them even harder.
JMG,
Speaking of divining the future of this blog, have you by chance ever cast a horoscope for this blog and maybe the old one? Could be interesting to compare major events (like the viral take-off of “Donald Trump and the Politics of Resentment”) with progressions of the blogs’ birth chart.
Ahnaf, I have some thoughts on this, heavily influenced by Spengler. I think Tolkien is a shining example of the Faustian spirit caught in a Magian pseudomorphosis. The Lord of the Rings is at its core a Faustian story, where the individual is the moral center of the setting and greater forces like Gandalf serve mostly to ensure he’s in the right place at the right time. But the setting is very obviously Magian, resembling, as one friend put it, ‘A malfunctioning hurdy gurdy’, running in its tracks and still producing sounds, but nothing as pleasing as when it was new or as awful as the future promises. Frodo’s striving, for all that it’s deemed very important, is pointless in the greater narrative, Eru’s world will continue to degenerate.
Perhaps more damaging for the generation raised with Tolkien, the moral imperative for two of the Lord of the Rings’ three narrators is to give up temporal power, a very Magian idea indeed. When a generation of people think that public office is not a duty of the most exceptional but an addiction of the most depraved, is it any surprise the kind of leaders it produces?
As for what will come in its place – I think that’s as impossible to say as it would be to describe Lord of the Rings to someone who’s only read Beowulf. But for an idea of what that future genre might look like, I’d nominate the ‘Critical Role’ series back when they still performed live. That format trades the grand narrative leading to an inevitable conclusion in the style of an opera for the open-endedness and locally satisfying arcs of a Jazz performance, structured around a quest very much inspired by Tolkien’s work but a setting much more suited to the moral arguments it makes.
Bruno, no, I hadn’t — thank you! I’m not in the least surprised, but as a Druid I consider this to be of religious importance, so I appreciate it. The planetary intelligence of the Earth is one tough, smart, and resilient lady.
Mary, all masterpieces are flawed, but I don’t see this one as a matter of Austen losing her nerve. To my mind, Fanny is the most interesting of Austen heroines, but also the most reticent; it’s only now and then — especially in the scene where we see what she’s made of the old schoolroom, where she keeps the books and other things that she loves — to realize that she’s responded to her very difficult situation as dogsbody of Mansfield Park by developing an inner life that goes far deeper than that of the other characters. There’s a fine irony in the bit right at the end where Austen talks about how Edmund shaped her opinions, because she had at least as significant a role in shaping his character. In her own quiet way Fanny’s the anchor around which the other characters revolve, and the happy ending doesn’t strike me as forced; quite the contrary, it’s an outgrowth of the moral calculus that shapes all of Austen’s fiction. The difficulty a great many critics have in understanding the novel is simply that so few of them can grasp, much less sympathize with, that moral calculus.
Pierre, I’m glad I wasn’t sipping from my cup of tea when I read that. Fox has long been my go-to example of the nondualist dualist — I chuckle at the umpty-page list in The Coming of the Cosmic Christ, I think it was, where he sets out his nondualist creed in terms of a bunch of rigid moral dichotomies so extreme that they’d have made a third-century Gnostic blush. Even for Fox, though, this is utterly hilarious. Now that he’s seeing the Antichrist in every politician he hates, he’s become the exact mirror image of the fundamentalist Bible-thumpers he despises!
Dennis, to continue the existing metaphor, I see Vance as Eomer. I’m not sure who Zelensky plays, though!
Conscience, I read Ishmael back in the day. I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I’m not a fan. He’s simply retold the myth of Eden in the language of anthropology; that sort of exercise is always popular, but it never actually leads anywhere.
Northwind, ha! I like that. I’ve also heard the acronym interpreted as “Morons Spreading Nothing But Crap.”
StarNinja, Trump seems to have taken on a different archetype, though I’m not quite sure I can name it yet. After his narrow escape from assassination, he’s become harder, quieter, more daring, and more determined. At this point I expect him to die in office, probably late in his term, and to become a legendary figure in the American imagination. As for a post, hmm. I’ll consider it.
Brother K, thank you for this! Yes, very likely so.
Soko, that’s a question that has no easy answers. I don’t think it can be explained by geographical determinism or any other simplistic scheme; it really does look as though some lands have a different energy than others, and shape human cultures accordingly. What history tells is is that any attempt to unite Europe will fail, but why — that’s the challenge.
Clark, the core of my practice is daily discursive meditation. Everything else is secondary to that; I do it every morning, and have done so for more than forty years. Next in line is a daily protective ritual — the Sphere of Protection, these days — and a daily divination. I also have a daily exercise routine, which varies depending on a number of variables; these days it’s Tai Chi Chih, the odd American offshoot of taijiquan invented back in the 1970s by taiji teacher Justin Stone.
Joan, there are examples of past civilizations that were isolated enough that they embraced the entire world known to their culture, and in those cases the 5% figure is fairly common. The urban specialists? They died once the system that supported them collapsed, since few of them had any skills that would allow them to survive by their own labor. That is to say, I stand by my prediction.
Michael, alternatively, can you think of a better excuse for getting rid of the leadership of the FBI’s SDNY office, the most politically powerful branch of the FBI and the one that spearheaded the assault on Trump? Its entire upper staff can be crucified for this; now we’ll see if that happens.
LeGrand, hmm! Thanks for this; I’ll see if I can scare up a copy of Pankenier’s book. As for “Nirvana is not other than Samsara,” I’m tempted to try a Korzybskian analysis of that. Is it an Is of Not-other-than-identity? 😉
Savonarola, I remember doing that sort of thing all the time. I can’t answer the first two questions, but it strikes me as a hugely important practice for developing the creative imagination, and its absence would be seen in a spreading failure to imagine anything other than the present mess.
Stephen, there’s certainly that.
J.L.Mc12, it’s been a long time since I last read Adler; I should fix that. I recall finding his analysis of mental illness as a problem of families, not of individuals, to be extremely insightful; crucial, too, was his attention to the fact that everyone in the family drama gets some kind of payoff from it. But I’d have to reread him to say any more.
Panda, thanks for this. Well, we’ll see!
Chris, I certainly won’t be using Tinder, but I’d like to start dating this year. I wouldn’t mind in the least dating a lady who had a special interest in Wagner or, really, anything else; one thing about geek love that many people miss is that geeks in love tend to find it easy to make room for each other’s special subjects, and quite often end up taking an interest therein. (Sara had no interest in Wagner when we first got together, and I had no more interest in Jane Austen, who was her favorite author; those both changed.) The Grateful Dead aren’t especially high on my list, btw; prog rock, instrumental jazz, a fair amount of classical music, and the more cerebral end of New Age music — especially the fine stuff that appeared under the old Windham Hill label — are more my style.
Slithy, hmm! No, I hadn’t considered that. I’ll give it some thought.
Yavanna #225,
Thank you so much for the link! I had no idea there was such a thing. Happily I don’t need it yet, but I’ve bookmarked it because life happens. And, I’ve friends who are also not spring chickens, and live alone.
Much appreciated,
OtterGirl
Anonymoose Canadian-
Slide rules are still around, and while they’re easier to use than just a pencil and paper, they demand more attention than a digital calculator. The results are usually only good to 3 or 4 decimal places, but in electrical engineering, your component tolerances aren’t any better (most of the time). Get a slide rule!
Since you like comparing the American Empire to the Roman Empire, I was wondering what you think of this proactive empire about how revanchism about “decline” can become a self-fulfilling prophecy:
https://time.com/6101964/fabricated-fall-rome-lessons-history/
Jane Austen’s women, don’t leave out The Lady Susan. Every woman has at least one scheme in progress even sweet young Frederica. And in the middle is Mainwaring who stands around looking handsome. It dawns on me he is a McGuffin, existing merely to advance the plot.
The movie version was called Love and Friendship with Kate Beckinsale. Mr. Mainwaring had not a word to say in the whole movie.
I see on the news that they think Gene Hackman may have died on Feb 17. It’s getting very weird.
Regarding “east of Poland”, it might have been a typo by JMG but IMO it’s also pretty likely that Russia will have a Muslim majority in 50 years if current trends continue. Demographically, the Muslim republics in Russia (Dagestan, Chechnya, etc) are reproducing far more than the Russians. Putin’s policies also encourage a lot of Muslim migration to native Russian cities like Moscow. The -stan countries are also demographically healthier than the core Russian state. This is actually one point that Russian dissidents like Navalny have held against Putin — they say Putin is encouraging Muslim immigration to replace Russians, they make racist jokes like Putin looking more like a Tatar over the years after his botox injections for example.
Just my 2c, the sobornost culture of the future will have a strong Central Asian/Caucausian element, I mean even Spengler himself said that Russian culture seems more an outgrowth of the steppe invasions than something close to Europe IIRC.
David, I’ll read that when I have time, It may not be very soon.
Alvin, also a possibility. Like all rising civilizations, Russia’s drawing on many sources.
Chris of Fernglade,
My understanding of the term 10 pound pom is different form yours. I thought the word pom came from the French word for apple and referred to the rosy, apple cheeked look of the new arrivals.
This was really applied to the 1950s arrivals. They were certainly not convicts but ordinary people who thought they might be better off in Australia than at home.
Hey JMG, have you seen there’s a new video game coming out about interplanetary escapades with the name of *drum roll*
Star’s Reach
Hehehe catchy phrase, that. Hard to imagine you didn’t inspire it.
Kallianera, I make my own stock a lot, usually chicken, and when the stock is finished cooking I strain it and put it in the fridge. The next day the fat will have risen to the surface and canned be scraped off the congealed stock. And don’t throw it away, it’s very useful! In Jewish cooking it’s called schmaltz. It can be used for frying and way back in the day people used it in pie pastry and other baking. I used it once to make soap, big mistake!! It did NOT make very good soap, too spongey. It cleaned as well as any soap I made, but it just felt weird. Of course we used it up anyway because I don’t like to waste, but I mainly grated it and used it to wash clothes, that way we could just use it all up.
Clay Dennis, of course you are 100% correct, but as , I think, pygmy cory said the skills are still out there, and more people are interested in fiber crafts, I think. Also 4H kids are still raising sheep! It’s one reason I enjoy county fairs and wool markets, you can see the animals and the skills people have in the fiber crafts. But I was upset with Pendleton Woolen Mills, too, when they moved so much production overseas. I used to be able to order selvages from them, which are the thin strips that they would cut off on either side of the yardage before they cut out their shirts. I would get a big box in the mail of selvages all bundled up and separate them by color and roll them up into balls. They made fabulous woven rag rugs. But they don’t sell those anymore! And when I was a little girl my mother sewed all our clothes, school dresses, play clothes, even my dad’s boxer shorts. You could buy fabric at Woolworth’s, Ben Franklin, Kress, and most of the department stores. My dad worked at JC Penneys and got a discount, so my mom shopped for fabric there quite a bit. When I was in Intermediate school (middle school nowadays) and high school most of the girls sewed their own clothes. Going to Singer Sewing School was practically a rite of passage! I didn’t, though, I was lucky enough to have a mom that taught me. Yes, I know, I’m aging myself!
Nowadays Walmart still sells fabric, but it’s of low quality. There are quilting stores, but they mainly sell expensive quilting cotton, not apparel fabric. I’ve made many dresses out of quilting cotton, but you don’t always want to sew that. Hobby Lobby still sells apparel fabric, but not the variety you used to be able to get. But I agree with JMG, I hope a smart entrepreneur pops up, and soon!!
And please forgive me, I can’t remember who said this, but someone mentioned catching a rabbit with your bare hands as a skill that is no longer necessary or particularly missed. My dad could do that and he never taught me and I wish he had! Might be useful to know how to catch your dinner with your bare hands!!
Ceres: I remember learning in an astronomy course that if you consider the asteroid belt a “planet” (which it likely would’ve been, if not for Jupiter’s gravity breaking it apart) then there is a mathematical consonance of planetary distance known as the Titus-Bode Law. It fits most of the planets, except for Neptune, but maybe you need to modify it at greater distances: if you add 50% of the distance (64k to 96k instead of 128k) then it lines up fairly well with Neptune, and then the 128k figure is quite close to Pluto. Science has supposedly “discredited” this pattern, but I always thought it was too compelling to ignore. I think it really is onto something, and covers the entire solar system with a simple modification.
Speaking of space, while I appreciate the frontier spirit behind Mars colonization, it’s rather unrealistic, as stated in the previous discussion. If it were only the distance and the planetary desert, that might be surmountable, but 1/3 gravity and lack of a magnetosphere make it entirely inhospitable. I hope that we’ll eventually have science/mining outposts there, but that would be the extent of it.
I remember discussing stuff like this on Centauri-Dreams years back, and as stated there, we have a bias towards planetary surfaces — a more realistic means of space colonization would be via large-scale floating habitat, likely a Stanford Torus and/or O’neill Cylinder. Of course, this would also require megastructures on the Earth’s surface to provide efficient access to orbit, such as the Launch Loop, Startram, Skyhook, etc. Needless to say, given our civilization’s current trajectory, engineering on such grand scales is unlikely to happen anytime soon.
In fact, colonizing Antarctica would be a far more attainable goal. It may be a frozen desert, but it’s much more accessible, it has good fishing, breathable atmosphere, magnetosphere, normal gravity, abundant fresh water, and so on. If we can expand the current research bases into more substantial, permanent settlements and polities, that would be a fine first step towards space colonization. If that seems like a formidable challenge, well, space colonization would be that much moreso.
On the woke boycott of big business from Middle Tennessee: Today both the Walmart and the Dollar General seemed to be busier than usual. The dollar store was having a clearance sale; I don’t think the Walmart was.
@StehpanPearson #279
For a pretty accessible read on the subject of endocrine disruptors on reproductive systems, check out this book.
https://www.shannaswan.com/countdown
I read it a few years ago, and the researcher seems legitimate, even though I know this crowd is a little skeptical of trusting the experts. I’m willing to give her a listen because she has a chapter that suggests that hormone disruptors may be causing the upsurge in things like homosexuality and transgenderism.
Hi John Michael,
I was just guessing that bit about your music choices, and thanks for the correction. The concept was otherwise as presented. Hey, just for a laugh, people probably get unofficial dumbtelligence (a subject which shall not be mentioned here!) to write such match up screeds?
And agreed, that is the thing isn’t it, you grow with your partner and the energy goes in both directions. Tell you a funny story, but recently Sandra was observing how much enjoyment I was getting from reading Jack Vance’s Demon Princes series of five books. Well, anyway, I encouraged her to read the books, and she loves them and went back immediately for a second reading. That’s a win.
Sadly, we got to discussing more recent sci-fi efforts, so I’m hoping your theory in that regard works out. You’re probably right because of the utter weirdness of all the stories coming from the same play-book.
Good to hear that you’re thinking about it too. Respect.
Gave a talk on the economy today, and am feeling a bit pooped tonight. I don’t usually talk so much.
As a request for assistance. Say if I wanted to get invited onto a podcast, how does one go about that?
Cheers
Chris
>At this point I expect him to die in office, probably late in his term, and to become a legendary figure in the American imagination
Gorby managed to die of natural causes although he did experience some slap-and-tickle moments with his deep state. I guess he did become a figure of Russian imagination, although you’d probably need to ask a Russian about it. I’m sure they’d give you some semi-passionate response, although I think the main passion is reserved for Yeltsin.
In any case, when they shot his ear off, they shot off more than just the ear. He just doesn’t give a care anymore. I dunno, would you if you got your ear shot off?
@Savonarola #278, there’s live action role playing (LARP), though it’s always been a fringe pursuit. References to it as a derogation of other activities and interests (“overweight preppers LARPing as Special Forces soldiers” or “men LARPing as women”) or accusations of people misrepresenting themselves online (which somehow manages to disregard the LA part) seem to come up far more often than instances of actual LARPing.
Come to think of it, the children’s play version you describe, which was something I also did all the time, was common but never all that generally popular either. On a school playground there would be the crowd playing some form of basketball, the ones fighting over the next turn on the swings, the ones gossiping in circles—oh yeah, and the three or four of us (on a good day) over here pretending the broken roundabout is a ship.
Modern modular playgrounds often have platforms overtly decorated as ships, but do kids’ minds ever sail on them? I don’t know.
As for your third question, this is a bit of a stretch but… one of the unintended but not unwelcome side effects of developing and hosting (what’s now termed) “theater style” LARP events for (primarily) the SF fandom crowd in the 1980s was getting myself, most of my friends, and a few dozen other participants, happily and stably married. Singles who met or dated at LARP events, however socially awkward elsewhere, partnered up like elementary particles 380,000 years after the Big Bang. (Simile reflects the magnitude of our nerdiness.) Might the lack of imaginative play by younger children somehow be contributing to the ongoing catastrophe that young adult dating appears to be today? There could very well be a link between the (in)ability to imagine and the (in)ability to perceive actual value beyond surface appearances.
Ryan, too funny — not least because my novel of that title is about what happens when it turns out that interplanetary escapades aren’t an option for our species.
Xcalibur/djs, you’re quite correct that a colony in Antarctica would be much more viable than one on Mars. That’s equally true of building colonies on the top of Mount Everest, the bottom of the Marianas Trench, the most desperately lifeless corner of the Gobi Desert, or a mile up above the earth’s surface in thin air. What makes this even more striking is that Mars, barren, radiation-soaked, and hostile as it is, is the most hospitable site for a human colony anywhere off Earth — every other world is much worse. If people want new space to conquer, why not revive the undersea cities we were promised back in the 1960s?
Patrick, the stores where I shopped yesterday didn’t look any less crowded than usual, and this is blue Rhode Island.
Chris, Sara and I used to inspire each other’s reading choices the same way. As for current SF and fantasy, blecch — somebody needs to reinvent both genres in a big way. I’m not sure how to get invited onto a podcast — I’ve always just fielded requests from podcasters. Anyone else?
Other Owen, once it sank in just how close things came to sudden death, no, not really.
JMG: I’d like to start dating this year.
Ladies, no shoving, please.
“daniel says:
February 27, 2025 at 5:34 pm
> I think it’s quite reasonable to assume that population numbers may be drastically overinflated generally! The thought that we may already have passed peak global population is fascinating; I haven’t yet seen firm evidence either way.
My intuition is that the vast majority of generally accepted statistical ‘facts’, which are the basis for much of the western style civilisation are inflated or simply incorrect in the same manner. I have no real evidence for this, other than working in the IT space and seeing directly that the volume of information available is directly inverse to the degree of understanding that results. There should be a named law for this effect, if there isn’t already.
If one ever takes the time to try and reconcile the various commonly referenced numbers they do not fit together unless implicit assumptions about change (mostly growth) are inserted everywhere. One tweaks the numbers until everything balances, otherwise you have contradictory aka ‘unacceptable’ results. And _everyone_ does this, the more specialised the worse it is. It is like one giant hallucination that is taken as gospel, and honestly is very very weird. I spook myself even thinking this way – the inertia of the hallucination is incredibly powerful.”
Living in the UK, I’d have disagreed with this notion until the ‘COVID period’ came along. Our national statistics were regarded as absolutely trustworthy. People in some other countries, incl the USA, said that although the federal government’s published figures might not be that clear and transparent they thought the numbers from bodies like our Organisation for National Statistics (ONS) were utterly reliable.
We then saw that the *ONS* was lying with statistics. It was proved by retired statistics professors like Norman Fenton (Queen Mary Univ of London). Things will never be the same again.
In short, I feel that published national population figures are no longer trustworthy, if they ever were. Not even the ones issued by developed countries.
On my experience, I might assume the governments of the five Nordic countries (Iceland, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark) are all *probably* telling the truth, i.e. more likely than not. That’s my limit, and those countries have a combined population of only about 25 million. The world allegedly has a population of 8,000 million. You can see the difficult in knowing whether it’s 8,000 million, 6,000 million or something else.
Dear JMG
I saved your Carl Jung post of 29 January, which I have only now read.
How unsurprising to discover that Jung was my most favourite of my psychology studies… and why I chose not to continue with my masters in Psychology around 25 years ago… precisely because most people want a “pill-popping” quick fix; and because I believe that there is a vast difference between doing ‘The Work’ vs enabling.
I just wanted to say how I deeply respect all that you have done… and ARE doing for the human species. I know you have stated in a past post how you are clearing karma, specifically with your beloved (who you’re STILL working with).
You probably know that your karma IS already cleared.
It’s a pleasure to know you.
OM
Anonymoose Canadian (#27),
I think there might be some appreciation for learning the full basics of functions. Going to engineering school, I learned all the function keys in my calculator, but largely I just thought of them in terms of putting a number in and getting the function output to put into a formula – the meaning of the function was lost, it was just a black box transformation of a number into another number. Fortunately, I was poor enough in high school to not have a calculator, such that I had to take square roots using log tables, and eventually my curiosity led be back to explore log and other functions in some detail.
Calculators obscure the meaning of a function, just like a pump-selection program obscures the complete performance tradeoffs evident in a pump curve diagram. To preserve knowledge of these things, I recommend teaching the history of the function, when it was discovered (or invented, if you prefer), what in nature it models, how to compute it from a Taylor series expansion, how to use compiled tables of the function, and then, how to make a slide rule that shows it and then use that slide rule.
JMG and @xcalibur, because deep sea colonies are *barely* feasible. Space colonization is a civilization form of provisional living. The harder and more distant from actually happening, the better. If people focused on deep sea colonies instead, it wouldn’t be long before a few were actually put in place (and fail miserably in a few years at most). Space colonization is so hard to even start that allows believers to keep postponing the dream indefinitely.
Wer here
Well what just happened in the White house has just became a meme on the internet. Oh right there goes the US support and the “deal” with Zelensky out of the window. If there even was a deal since Zelensky can only demand other people give him something for free in return (just like with many other Ukrainians who were living off social benefits which for a time were in poland far greater than what my countrymen were reciving. JMG I mentioned how Ukrainian men were starting to disappear from out local area since September 2023? Now the few women from Ukraine that were left just got a Polish passport and threw the Ukrainian one into the dustbin…
One more thing that I noticed a lot of people are confusing what is going on in Europe with “rearnament”
In reality they are promising to spend more on the military aka money not build ammo factories or anything..
For example the US spend like 900+ billion USD on defense compared to Russia spending approx 150 billion on defense. If you didn’t know the realities on the ground you would assume from that number alone that US must be producing several times more ammo and tanks and planes that Russians could ever hope , but in reality Russians are producing more weapons and ammo and drones and missiles than all of Nato members combined (EU strugled to fing 300K of 155mm shells while Russia was producing that ammount every 50 days.)
So the claim that NATO is powerful because we spend and planning to spend so much money on the army is false because Russians have far more weapons and hardware despite spending a fraction of the money on their military production. So when someone says that EU is planning to spend 300 billion to rearm itself means rather that a lot of pimp will get much richer instead….
I’d like to thank everyone who commented on calculators and mathematics, especially to those who posted suggestions and resources. As I have been making this up as I go along, having these resources will make this task much easier going forward.
I was not expecting this to get quite the response it has, so in hindsight posting this during a week where I have quite limited internet access might not have been the best idea!
Will O,
As mentioned above, my curriculum is a self created one. I looked at the material, broke it down, and then tracking down resources on how to do things by hand. Having looked through the comments here, I think I would have done things quite differently were I starting again, and had a better sense of the resources available.
On children’s imaginative play nowadays:
The block on which we live here in Providence has 21 children on it, ranging from 16 years old down to recently born. About 6 of them regularly engage in this sort of imaginative play together, mostly in the ample backyard of the house next to ours, where a family of artists (photographers) live.. So it’s not a completely lost art. Since all 21 children interact a lot with one another, I expect other subsets of them do the same thing in other backyards on the block. It’s very good to see that still happening.
re: fabric stores,
one thing I’ve seen occasionally is sari fabric shops, carrying some truly amazing fabrics but not a lot of everyday north american normal stuff. Some of those might expand their selection, and I think they’re usually independent so they can actually change directions at a reasonable pace… you might try checking if there’s one of these in your area.
Another consequence of DOGE cutting federal funding: Asian carp may enter the Great Lakes
https://www.northernpublicradio.org/wnij-news/2025-02-24/gov-pritzkers-carp-project-pause-could-be-a-risk-for-the-great-lakes
Hi JMG
You said:
“At this point I expect him to die in office, probably late in his term, and to become a legendary figure in the American imagination”
By Natural or non-natural cause?
I know is too novelistic but do you expect another Marc Antony (Vance?, Hegseth?) make an speech “on the staircase of Capitol after the Idus of March”, to make the population rise up against the murderers? (then putting indeed an end to the Republic).
Mary Bennet – JoAnn’s is closing all of their stores, but Hobby Lobby also carries fabric, yarn, and so on. I suspect that as the demand for fabric diminished, the management of Joann’s tried to diversify into crafts and decore, rather than shrink the business to a sustainable size. Financial types don’t understand, I guess, that shrinking a business is preferable to blowing it up.
I bought a couple of yards of unbleached muslin yesterday, from which to make handkerchiefs, and a couple of yards of off-while flannel, to make lightweight scarves. I started wearing a flannel scarf under my shirt is a health measure during the pandemic, and decided that I’ll be doing it for the rest of my life.
By the way: I saw discount tags for 10-40% on most merchandise, but not on sewing machines. They must be worth taking back to corporate HQ for re-sale through another retailer.
I’ve been following some of the population discussion on JMG’s two blogs over the last few months.
A couple of thoughts:
1. The Chinese leak of having “only” 790M people is interesting, and perhaps not that surprising–many economists who analyze the energy consumption data can’t figure out how to square this consumption with the industrial output and the supposed 1bn people. I think (if my memory serves) that a guy named Amir Sufi did a lot of superb work in this area, btu I haven’t been following this for a long time.
2. I am curious about JMG’s (?) hypothesis that souls are incarnating too quickly. What causes this? Do a bunch of souls want to incarnate and thus “push” people to pregnancies? Or do a bunch of people having sex “pull” unwilling souls onto the earth plane? Or is this all non-causal to begin with?
Hi John Michael,
I’m pleased to say i just booked my accomodation for the Ecosophian convention in Glastonbury. I’m not an occultist and have no idea what to expect but this is my favourite blog and I love Glastonbury so thought what the heck. I’m coming!
Dear Mr. Greer
I enjoyed your podcast with Tim Ventura.
My question is why do old lefties (see Naked Capitalism) have such a problem with the idea of DOGE? I would think a bunch of retired bureaucrats would understand the need to cut waste and frivolous expenses so the remaining programs become viable. One thing about the cuts so far is they are including people at the top, not just the intermediates and juniors. Maybe this is a result of politics, but the cuts seem to be well balanced.
Anonymoose (et al) : Re: mathematics. I have a copy of “The VNR Concise Encyclopedia of Mathematics”. Originally published in 1977, updated at least twice. It seems to be readily available, even as a free PDF download from archive.org. Over 700 pages, hardcover or soft.
I most recently consulted it when trying to solve the 25th and final level of “Euclid: The Game”: constructing a pentagon inside a circle. (Euclid: the game is an on-line geometry kit that takes one through basic geometric constructions with compass and straightedge.)
@Savonarola #278:
“1. Does anybody know of anybody who has studied this phenomenon seriously whose work I can look up?”
I recommend the book “The Infinite Playground” by Bernard De Koven. I don’t know if it’s as serious as you’re hoping for, but he was a guy who took play and imagination seriously. You might be able to follow the thread to other writers.
“these days it’s Tai Chi Chih, the odd American offshoot of taijiquan invented back in the 1970s by taiji teacher Justin Stone”
So I haven’t quite hit the age where I need to simmer my exercise routine down, but I see it looming on the horizon, and I’m going to have to figure out some exercises that won’t break my body down further.
Is it safe to say that Tai Chi Chih plays nice with Western spiritual practices?
Sorry–I originally came to post a completely different question, and I guess the Open Posts are the best place to get feedback based on the diversity of posters:
I think most people here would agree that “health” is not just a physical phenomenon. Even very materialist doctors will say that a “will to live” is particularly important in cancer patients, for example.
For whatever reason, I am increasingly getting sucked into (there is really no better term, although I am not opposed) medical physics, biomedical engineering, etc. I can see all sorts of interesting ways to improve diagnostics and treatment. In this I am far from unique, incidentally–the problem in this area has never been finding better technologies and has always been the regulatory framework and business practices that make it more or less impossible to survive financially while implementing them.
In any case, is it even theoretically possible to apply metaphysical concepts into physical technologies to improve health? I don’t mean meditation, etc.–I am actually talking about making devices.
I hope this makes sense.
Xcalibur/djs, you’re quite correct that a colony in Antarctica would be much more viable than one on Mars. That’s equally true of building colonies on the top of Mount Everest, the bottom of the Marianas Trench, the most desperately lifeless corner of the Gobi Desert, or a mile up above the earth’s surface in thin air.
Just to add to this, rebuilding a civilization on earth immediately following a full-scale global nuclear war is far easier and more viable than building one on Mars. Most people don’t have any appreciation or understanding of just how intimately intertwined we are with our environment.
Something that occurred to me today: while there have always been philosophizing about certain aspects of the human mind, the empirical study of the mind in terms of cognition, sensory inputs, and the relationship of those to behavior began in the late 1800’s… just as the Age of Aquarius was getting started.
Walt, I trust you mean that as good-humored mockery. I don’t expect any sort of line!
Tanya, many thanks for this!
Bruno, oh, doubtless. It’s just so dreary to watch the same tawdry Buck Rogers rhetoric being bandied about decade after decade after decade.
Wer, that’s a good point. Much more than half of the money the US notionally spends on munitions actually goes for kickbacks to politicians, high-ranking military officials, and everyone else who can get a hand into the cookie jar, which is why our military doesn’t have enough spare parts to keep its planes flying while the Russians, on 1/6 the budget, are churning out tanks and drones and artillery shells at so impressive a pace. I wonder if the European elites have decided it’s time to cash in while they can, prior to fleeing to Uruguay or what have you.
Anonymous, Asian carp are big, highly edible fish, and (like zebra mussels) they’re filter feeders who clean up lakes that have been ruined by agricultural pollution. Let ’em come. I’ve discussed the absurdity of “invasion biology” and the natural spread of species into new environments here:
https://www.ecosophia.net/a-conversation-with-nature/
DFC, if it’s from unnatural causes, he’ll be transformed into a martyr the way Abraham Lincoln was, and then hang on to your hat. It’s generally forgotten these days that Lincoln was despised by the east coast elites and their pet mass media — newspaper cartoons in the North, never mind the South, portrayed him as a baboon — and was only transformed from controversial figure to national martyr by his assassination. The same thing could happen to Trump.
HB40, the creation of a population bubble, like most global phenomena, is more complex than that. If, for whatever reasons, it’s appropriate for the number of souls in incarnation to increase, discoveries will be made that decrease childhood mortality, people will find themselves wanting more children, and so on; our conscious minds are a very thin film, after all, over deep waters that reach into the collective. If, for whatever reasons, it’s appropriate for the number to decrease, the discoveries will be neglected, people will find themselves wanting fewer children, and so on.
George, I’ll look forward to seeing you there!
A1, that baffles me no end too. You’d think that the left would be just as interested as the right in seeing waste and graft cut back.
Cliff, that’s been my experience, certainly.
HB40, sure, but you’ll want to be very careful not to let anybody know about the metaphysical side of things. Useful technologies get banned all the time when that happens; you might look up what happened to biofeedback, that very fine way of learning to control your own blood pressure (among other things), once too many materialists noticed the implications and freaked out.
As for your point about post-nuclear rebuilding, spot on. We really need to stop pretending that we live in back issues of Astounding Science Fiction!
Slithy, ding! We have a winner. Yes, exactly.
Lathechuck, The Hobby Lobby fabric selection is small, but mostly of decent quality. I have been buying from them for some years now. The sewing machines at Joann are owned by someone else, in partnership with Joann, who will doubtless reclaim them. Quality of fabric at Joann has been declining for at least the last two decades, no woolens or silk, limited linens, some denim and corduroy of acceptable quality. There has been far less choice and variety than at first appears. Michaels has now added some fabric, mostly printed cottons. You have to take it to the framing counter to be cut. What I fear has disappeared forever is the personalized, attentive service from knowledgeable staff.
I imagine Hobby Lobby might expand their fabric selection, in fact they already have been doing so. I found some fairly nice linen there last summer. Quilt shops may, maybe add some apparel fabrics, but I have to say, the snob factor is very much at work in the quilting world. Quilt shop customers want things to be “nice”. Nice does not include the presence of scruffy frugalistas in their upscale hangout store.
Any sewists who can afford it have already been buying online and simply paying the shipping costs. There are now hundreds (literally) of independent sewing pattern companies who sell their designs online. If you have a computer, or smart phone and printer, you get your pattern within the hour. There are also many, many resources available, from books to online classes to you tube and other tutorials that explain how to draw your own patterns; I have been doing so for a long time now. There are also websites where you can purchase a basic master pattern for your own (or a client’s) exact dimensions.
Pace the fantasies of retail world execs, I doubt that home sewing is going to disappear anytime soon. The craft attracts people who are resilient and resourceful.
A1, as an old-fashioned leftist (pro-worker) but not a liberal or academic leftist (e.g., I despise identity politics as a distraction from class), I’ll try to answer your question on DOGE. My biggest fear is that Musk is setting up a parallel government structure to control the bureaucracy to both benefit himself and to advance Silicon Valley’s dystopian vision of the future. For example, the defunding and destruction of the Consumer Protection Financial Bureau. This is the agency that would regulate Musk’s venture into making X an everything app with financial payments (much like WeChat in China). It appears he now has access to everyone’s financial data and social security numbers from government databases as well. He wants any obstacle out of the way. Once his app is in place, I’m sure he’ll try to use his government power to push the general population to use this app, meaning that Musk will be able to see all your financial transactions, and cut you off from the payment system if you dare complain. It will be the social credit system come to reality.
Or another example….he’ll use his libertarians programmers to identify key people to push out to force NASA into dysfunction, so that the military will be utterly dependent on his company, Space X, to launch reconnaissance satellites. This would make him pretty untouchable, wouldn’t it?
Conservatives have rightly called out the lawfare, proxy wars, and crazy policies the Democrats have engaged in over the past few years, but many of them seem blithely unconcerned about this next stage of inter-elite conflict and what it means to the average person. Reading up on what the Silicon Valley moguls think of as an ideal society is like reading a mish-mash of bad, depressing science fiction.
Now, if you want to cut waste, don’t start with weather forecasting and the National Park Service. Remember, those parts of the government are a small fraction of the total budget, and a large part of the rest are direct payments to retirees and poor people. Start with the Pentagon, and start with the layers of government consultants. Start breaking up big contractors into smaller companies, and start bringing the technical expertise back into the government itself. Privatizing the expertise out of the government and into consultants has been a disaster.
To his credit, Trump has made some moves to address the consultant issue. But I wish people would keep their skepticism up regardless of who’s in power, rather than implicitly trust “their” side.
Thanks pygmycory and I’m sorry I spelled your name wrong! When I lived outside of Pittsburgh there was a shop down on the Strip that sold all kind of used textiles, absolutely gorgeous old sari, kimonos, things like that. I used to buy fabric scraps there to make quilts out of luxury fabrics, that were fairly inexpensive.
Joann’s apparently bought up lots of small fabric stores in the 90s and early aughts. I’m hoping that now that they won’t be around anymore there can be a resurgence of local fabric stores, and not just quilting stores.. it seems like more and more younger people are sewing, and I am REALLY happy to see that! Well, one can hope.
Hey JMG
Well, so far Adler has been interesting to me, especially in regards to what he says about issues that seem quite relevant these days, such as “Melencholia” and “social interest”.
I have also been reading Orwell’s classic “1984” for the first time. I’ve always put it off because I assumed it would be too bleak to enjoy, but the bookclub I go to has voted to read it so I bit the bullet. I was pleasantly surprised to find it is way more enjoyable than I expected.
There’s a lot of stuff that is neglected in the popular memory of what is in 1984, such as the Versicator machine that artificial generates song lyrics, and Newspeak words such as “Facecrime” and “Goodthinkful”. Another thing I think is relevant to the modern world is that the lowest strata of society, the “Proles”, are technically the most free as The Party/Big Brother doesn’t think they are worth bothering, it is only people further up the class system that experience the full force of the state’s oppression. This ties in well with what you said about the benefits of being “on the fringes”.
Did you ever read 1984 by any chance?
JMG,
There’s an interesting substack about biotic regulation of the climate that you might be interested in, this article in particular.
https://bioticregulation.substack.com/p/the-tug-of-war-between-forests-and
The gist of it is that forests pump water from the coast to the interior to make inland climates suitable for more forests. It maps out air moisture in forested areas as experimentally verified vs theoretically predicted. It also speculates that Australia went from forested to barren around the same time that humans showed up because they broke the linkage near the coastline and the interior dried out as a consequence.
Hi Patrick #258,
I totally agree that if we want to explore the surroundings, probes and satellites and teloscopes are the way to go. I see those as relatively cheap, even if we don’t get that much useful information. My problem is how humans don’t realize how much a part of the Earth we are, from our microbes in our gut, all the trace minerals (like selenium), to our need for sunlight (but not too much). Trying to send a human to live anyplace but Earth is just stoopid.
@Xcalibur
We can’t even live on much of the land area of this planet. Most of Australia is empty and while conditions at the red centre are far from perfect you can survive for days as opposed to seconds on Mars or minutes in Antarctica.
Mind you, I am not saying we should. If anything Australia is already overpopulated. My point is that us humans require very specific non negotiable condition to survive and even narrower conditions to thrive..
Hi John Michael,
🙂 I hear you, and would never have read the Bronte sisters work otherwise. If I may say so, their work is a bit darker than Austen’s and so resonates better, but that may reflect my world view, probably.
Lucky you, and It’s nice to be popular! 🙂 Thanks for that.
Hmm, you know I was surprised by the diplomacy nuts argument splashed all over the media yesterday. A touch of humility could have gone a long way. It reminded me of the sort of arguments I had when I was totally clueless and 12 years old. Fortunately age has rounded off the rough edges, but truly if in that situation I’d have never spoken that way to the bloke in charge of the purse strings. It didn’t look good, and reminded me of the old saying about giving someone enough rope.
You know, I mentioned to you back in 2016, that all other considerations to the side, it’s probably not a bad idea to put personal feelings to the side, and display respect for the office, lest a person risk blow-back from doing otherwise. Did anyone listen to me? No. And here we are today.
Our government down here reaffirmed their support for that war yesterday, and that seemed really weird to me. Given all the domestic troubles we’re having, and err, visiting foreign warships (just sayin’) why antagonise our major ally over an issue which has no strategic advantage for this country. It’s totally nuts.
Anyway, the reason I mentioned the podcast was because, well I took a look into the economic crystal ball and saw stuff. Are you still considering getting back around to talking about energy, skills and stuff? That’s my natural habitat! 🙂
Cheers
Chris
Mary Bennet, I so agree with you about the snob factor in quilt stores. I used to work at one and the owner would go on and on about the “high quality “ of her fabric as compared to Joann’s. Well, guess what? We don’t all have a big budget to buy our fabric , but we still want to sew. I look for fabric in thrift stores, too. I bought a vintage Depression era quilt, hand sewn even, at a thrift store and am turning it into two jackets, one for my daughter and one for HER 18 year old daughter. It’s definitely big enough for two jackets. And old tablecloths are great for sewing clothes, too, but I’m sure you already know all that. And lots of yarn stores are really snobby, too. I don’t even like to go into some of them. And it pays to make your own patterns, as you pointed out. The cost of sewing patterns is out of control!
Bruno – Re: black mold that absorbs gamma radiation. I can accept that it absorbs gamma photons similar to the way green plants absorb visible light, but it’s a leap to assert that this could be useful in bioremediation of radioactive contamination. The main danger to people (as I understand it) from radioactive contamination is not the invisible glow of gamma rays, but the risk of inhaling or swallowing radioactive dust particles (or water-soluble compounds), which then irradiate the tissue around them. We can protect ourselves from photons with metallic shielding. We know how that works. A layer of mold which happens to enjoy photons doesn’t seem likely to be a plausible substitute. A radioactive atom doesn’t become stable in response to any kind of chemical reactions.
Arthur Firstenberg’s obituary, written as far as I can tell by Kathleen Burke, has been shared far and wide in two days, and attributed to others in the process. If I find out that someone else actually authored it, I’ll post a note. It’s on various Substack sites, including this: https://worldcouncilforhealth.substack.com/p/thank-you-arthur-firstenberg?r=1bt1q1&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&triedRedirect=true
I met Arthur. He was a very unreasonable man. With the heavy hand of censorship dating back at least to 1973 (which is when I hear the term “tin-foil” was coined, though I want to confirm that), reasonable approaches were not helping anyone. Arhur wrote a short article titled “Microwaving the Planet,” which was also censored, but written well enough that it was picked up by those keeping an eye on censorship and published in 1997 in Earth Island Journal. In it, rather than vague warnings about potential cancer outcomes, which we’ve all heard, he provided a list of illnesses that were likely to result from the cellphone buildout. A friend of mine in central Tokyo had suffered five months from a flu, and told by her doctor that it must be some new pollutant, had turned to me to find out what pollutant. Meanwhile, I had been having increasingly common and severe bouts of arrhythmia.
Tin foil (okay, aluminum), as a countermeasure, worked.
Arthur was noted for suing his neighbors when they got Wi-Fi and refused to turn it off. He told me he hated being a jerk, but someone had to be a jerk about this.
“Global Radiation Emergency” is an unreasonable name for an organization. I will soldier on under that banner.
During the past half year, there has been a big push by industry in New Mexico, where Arthur was living, to introduce smart meters. This gives you an idea of what a roadblock to “progress” the man presented. I don’t know what changed in his environment that caused him to collapse in August. He was unable to use a computer after that.
Regarding Mars, I think it would be wonderful if the transhumanists could upload their minds into machines that could withstand conditions there and along with way. Then they could take off on their great adventure. (I’m betting they would be bored to high dudgeon.)
Walt, one of the most prominent types of LARPing in recent years have been the Furries.
JMG: “Mars, barren, radiation-soaked, and hostile as it is, is the most hospitable site for a human colony anywhere off Earth…”
Titan has some advantages over Mars (esp. lower radiation). Not that I see any real benefit to establishing human colonies there. I mean, what would its basic industries even be? Also, pregnancy and gestation presume earth gravity and the rhythms of the earth-moon system, so multigenerational colonies anywhere offworld are right out.
PS. If one of us was a woman, I’d date you!
“DFC, if it’s from unnatural causes, he’ll be transformed into a martyr the way Abraham Lincoln was, and then hang on to your hat. It’s generally forgotten these days that Lincoln was despised by the east coast elites and their pet mass media — newspaper cartoons in the North, never mind the South, portrayed him as a baboon — and was only transformed from controversial figure to national martyr by his assassination. The same thing could happen to Trump.”
It is also worth noting that in 1864, the year of re-election, Abe Lincoln thought he would go down in history as a dismal failure as it was under him that the Union fell apart. It looked for a while like Lincoln would lose to a respected ex-general until word came of the victory in Atlanta:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1864_United_States_presidential_election
There’s been this thing about salutes lately, JMG. But you know how it is for us men – you go out, see a pretty lady, and zing, your fifth limb does a Nazi salute. So now I wonder whether those salutes are actually phallic symbols.
I notice though that the Nazi salute was more or less horizontal, whereas the Fascist salute rose up diagonally.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/02918/hitler_2918121b.jpg
Here Hitler’s salute looks rather lame. He seems to have trouble getting it up. He had no children. Some historians doubt that he ever consummated Eva Braun or even wanted to. Maybe he just preferred the occasional wank.
https://live-production.wcms.abc-cdn.net.au/183942d7a8dbfead6e426d5e3976ecc6?impolicy=wcms_crop_resize&cropH=1610&cropW=2415&xPos=0&yPos=169&width=862&height=575
You see that Mussolini had no trouble getting it up. He had five children that we know of.
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/e2bbb-6Clhs/hqdefault.jpg
Elon Musk has 14 children!
(Full disclosure: I have NO children!).
Anyway, you once wrote that, post-World War 2, we in “the West” adopted the Nazi style of doing certain things. I was puzzled and wasn’t sure whether you meant politics or economy. Maybe now is the time for you to write a post about it, and also tell us just how fascist or Nazi (or not) these so-called modern “far right” politicians actually are.
Mary Bennet 256, good point, and why not, living like the hard cases of their outfit on a handful of rice a day washed down with a mouthful of dirty water is a real drag and a body gets tired of it, and besides, the burdens of leadership and the psychic scars of a life of danger and hardship are so much lessened and salved by means of some material comforts. Like those you mentioned. And I’ll bet there’s car loads of Rolex watches accumulated by the previous regime sitting in the vaults, some of which are reserved for the top dog and his cronies and others to be distributed among the rank and file for dirty deeds well done. Plus the BMW and Mercedes fleet. Which makes you wonder, doesn’t it, about the fortunes accumulated by the Castro clan and where it’s stashed and likewise the Iranian ayatollahs. It must be a lucrative gig being banker to the world’s ‘freedom fighters’ scooping even a small percentage of the money that goes through your laundromat.
@Brother Kornhoer,
NASA is a customer of sattellite launch, not a provider. They haven’t put a bird up for the DoD since Challenger blew up. In fact, they are SpaceX’s largest source of funding (and always have been)– both as a customer for existing launch vehicles (satellites and space probes on Falcons) and as the main source of funding for SpaceX’s new developments. (First the Falcon 9 and Dragon for ISS resupply, and now that mucking big rocket they call Starship, for their ‘then as farce’ Artemis moon plan). Cutting NASA down makes less than zero sense from Musk’s perspective. If there’s one agency he’s going to be making sure stays funded, NASA is it.
As for spy satellites, DoD is well aware of the dangers of single-sourcing, and is not going to allow that to happen. When Boeing and Lockheed Martin combined their space launch businesses into the ULA (because why have a duopoly when you can make a cartel?), the DoD forced both Boeing and LockMar to keep their Atlas V and Delta IV production lines running and separate, and started throwing pallets of cash at SpaceX to provide an independent competitor. Now that the duopoly is back in the form of SpaceX and ULA, they are throwing pallets of cash at Blue Origin.
The myth of the plucky American inventor and businessman is strong, but Space remains the realm of government, even if it’s not fair to call it “the one place uncorrupted by capitalism” anymore. ( Relevant meme : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1Sq1Nr58hM )
All that said? Check your priors. Personally, I don’t like the cut of Elon’s jib– something about the man is offputting, for sure, and I wouldn’t want him in my government either. I have no idea if your worries about an American WeChat and social credit are at all well-founded, but! I can say with certainty your fears about NASA are not, which undermines your whole argument.
@xcalibur, JMG, et al, Re: Space Colonies–
I too have always sided with O’Niell that the ideal place for industrial civilization is off the surface of a planet. I maintain we could have kicked hard enough to get that ball rolling if we’d had done it at our civilization’s peak– but it would have required a collective effort akin to cathedral building, pouring most of our society’s surplus into a transcendent goal. Out of all the planets in the galaxy, perhaps one had their technological and social development line up just right with a space-centered religious movement that got them that kickstart into an interplanetary civilization…
… but so what? It doesn’t break the cycles. If you’ve read “The Mote in God’s Eye” and its sequel, I’d say Niven and Pournelle chart for the Moties a best-case scenario for an industrial civilization. (Best-case because they don’t drive themselves to extinction, bottled up in their star system.)
Still. The idea that it could have, perhaps been us… it makes the whole Faustian project of “Space” unbearably sad to me. Crazy Eddie is a tragic figure, after all.
@Heather #303
Yes, straining and cooling worked for me. The floating fat came off easily and did not even need rendering, it was so pure. (I had used a chicken frame and not a whole bird.)
I did not think of soap – I assume there would be a certain smell, but I suppose more of the smell is in the aqueous part. When I used to buy baklava from a Lebanese restaurant, expecting it was vegetarian, I always wondered why it made me think of lamb… so I suppose there is still some flavour that comes through.
When I make my perpetual motion machine it will be greased with schmaltz!
Chris and Watchflinger
thanks.
I will read the Swan book.
Stephen
JMG,
Wondering if you’d be willing to share any ideas you have about the recent public interaction between Trump/Vance and Zelenskyy.
Thanks,
Edward
Tyler A,
Thanks for the specifics about NASA. I’ll reframe my arguments to be more accurate in this regard. I will say your points do nothing to ease my fears about Musk and Silicon Valley in general. You cite Blue Origin as a competitor to Space X….owned by another Silicon Valley oligarch, Jeff Bezos. That does not make me feel a bit safer. All of these oligarchs are major contractors to the military and the intelligence agencies. With Musk at Trump’s side, inserting his control into the government, and Peter Thiel, founder of privatized intelligence firm Palantir, promoting J.D. Vance, it looks to me like the oligarchs are taking control. Conservatives as well as leftists should be alarmed at this concentration of power and the oligarch’s vision for society.
J.L.Mc12, good heavens, yes. I read it first around fifty years ago, and found it a brilliant and edgy satire.
Team10tim, thanks for this. The extraordinary power of trees as pumps putting water into the atmosphere is too often ignored.
Chris, it was quite a spectacle, wasn’t it? Yes, once the Wagner sequence is finished, I plan on talking about where we are in the arc of decline and what to do about it.
Patricia O, I’d be satisfied if they just all went to Mars and left the rest of us alone.
Ambrose, er, a world of ammonia-laced ice at a balmy -290°F, with a nitrogen-methane atmosphere that rains gasoline, would be considerably harder to survive on than Mars. I grant that the radiation from the Sun is less intense, but cosmic radiation is still heavy, and Titan sweeps through the outer belts of Saturn’s magnetosphere and gets bathed in radiation from that. All in all, Antarctica sounds a lot more pleasant!
David, yeah, the US had a very narrow escape that year.
Batstrel, of course they’re phallic symbols. A Freudian analysis of fascism generally would be like shooting fish in a barrel.
“You’d think that the left would be just as interested as the right in seeing waste and graft cut back.”
Their silence on this topic may be a result of the longtime use, by old-fashioned Democratic Party machine politicians, of the public payroll as a form of welfare, before welfare as such existed.
A local Boston publication, many years ago, explained it more or less as follows: that the typical Boston Democratic voting bloc was made up, not of people with some policy interest in common (such as women wanting abortion to remain accessible) but of a smaller unit: the friends and family of Joe Unemployable. Everybody knows Joe. Nice guy. Not too bright. Just went to work for the Parks Service. The politician who arranged for his hiring, Jack Jobgetter, can count on the votes of the whole bloc for as long as Joe keeps the job.
This was a big part of the way Democratic Party machine politics worked. It’s no accident that it shrank as the welfare state grew and was finally killed off by the extended labor shortage that accompanied the Vietnam War draft. Nevertheless, government workers and their families remain among the most reliable Democratic voters. There’s no reason for the Party to make any kind of distinction between jobs that are necessary and jobs that are just featherbedding.
@JMG
When again does that official ecosophian convention in Glastonbury take place?
Ist there some official webpage where we can enlist?
@Brother Kornhoer,
It really is a white-knuckle ride, isn’t it? I have mixed feelings about Musk–it might have been his Starlink that put Arthur Firstenberg six feet under. Most of the EMR activists are in a panic about the power Musk has been granted. They’ve approached him about their concerns regardng Starlink, but his response was reminiscent of conventional authorities’ on vaccine concerns. He named some ungodly number cellphones (72 if I recall) he wouldn’t mind taping to his head. His environmentalist brother was no help either.
On the other hand, the worst thing from our point of view has been the censorship. X appears to be open to EMR discussions along with everything else (but I don’t participate there). A certain amount of the USAID money went to helping promote the expansion of telecommunications infrastructure, and that’s where most of the pressure to keep a lid on this has come from (though initially it was the military).
As I see it, we are witnessing an enormous battle among the titans. Every major power, including China and Russia is investing lots of money into AI, despite its prodigious waste of energy and the warnings from their own researchers, because they fear what will happen if they fail to keep up. I’m not sure what you and I can do at this level. My own instinct would be ditch the cellphone and restrict time on social media, but anything could happen.
I’m formulating a brief prayer that the gods protect the little guys in the upcoming battle.
I started reading Susan Cooper because she was mentioned on one of the (I think) Magic Monday discussions.
Curious: Most readers seem dissatisfied with her final book (Silver on the Tree), as with CS Lewis’ final book in the Chronicles of Narnia series (The Last Battle) and Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game and Ender’s Shadow and Tales of Alvin Maker (Crystal City) series, Arthur C Clarke’s 3001 (awful!!!), etc.
Is writing a final book really much more difficult than writing the rest of the series? Or do authors simply write books in a series until their books get a terrible reception? Or am I just inadvertently cherry-picking the data and remembering the particularly poor series while forgetting about the good ones?
I strongly doubt George RR Martin will ever finish A Song of Ice and Fire (or even complete the next book, for that matter), but if he somehow manages to do it, it would be absolutely brutal to find out that I waited 40+ years just to hate the ending..
Regarding the Empire shrinking its borders, I recall the phrase “east of Aden”. Britain was facing up to the fact that the Royal Navy could no longer rule the waves everywhere, so they decided, to much consternation of the populace IIRC, that the navy’s remit would extend no further than the port of Aden at the base of the Red Sea.
To the west, of course, Britain had big brother America as a backstop. I wonder if they can count on America now?
I guess the American equivalent phrase will be “east of Greenland, west of Hawaii”.
Hey JMG
I rather enjoy Orwell in general, the first thing I read by him was “Burmese days” and a few of his essays. Is there a favourite aspect or part of 1984 that stands out for you?
Some comments about things mentioned in this thread:
I’m a bit astonished about how different the purposes and motivations of Trump’s actions appear to different people.
:As for dysfunctionality in German schools: my mother was a primary school teacher before her retirement and she often complained about how many children in her time as schoolteacher were behaviorally impaired. And it is a known phenomen in some classes in some German schools that many children don’r speak Ferman well or at all, with the attendant schooling problems. But not every school in Germany has the same amount of problems, depending on several factors like the clientele and the location of the school.
>I bought a vintage Depression era quilt, hand sewn even, at a thrift store and am turning it into two jackets, one for my daughter and one for HER 18 year old daughter
There’s something ironic about that – as I understand it quilts were made out of old clothes that could no longer be mended or had otherwise worn out. It was a way of putting a pile of old clothing and whatever scraps into use one last time. People back in the day did everything they could not to throw anything away. Maybe things have changed and people make quilts out of new fabric these days.
JMG – glad you’re a Ceres supporter. My favourite in the extremely rare genre of Cerean tales is actually the first published story by the great Eric Frank Russell, “The Saga of Pelican West” – which seems not to have been reprinted since it came out in Astounding Stories in 1937! It hints of mysterious and powerful denizens of that asteroid – and they’re the real thing, not colonists from some other place. Which brings me to another topic, that of the under-appreciated treasures of classic sf. Why don’t we see the great stuff in the bookshops any more? You’d think publishers would seize the opportunity to make some dosh in easy competition with contemporary crud. I know there’s copyright, but one would think it would be worth shelling out some funds to gain access to such low-hanging fruit.
@ JMG # 191
I have heard of them, the ones who tell us that our experience is an illusion we experience. Modern discussions on Consciousness are quite the circus, with all these learned-looking folk so learnedly discussing this sort of gibberish.
@ Slithy # 180
True. JMG wrote about the obvious and immediate truths, the Common Topics, in one of his earlier essays. I came across the same idea in the Indic philosophical school of Nyaya, which defines the starting points of logical reasoning as things which “a layperson and an expert would agree upon”.
Nowadays there are parents who want to purchase little books for their children named “Quantum Mechanics for Toddlers” and the like. Every time I see them, I feel “yikes!” in my heart.
I personally got into science as a kid because my grandparents were smart enough to introduce me to magnets. I could feel the force of attraction between the magnet and the iron doors of our almirahs. It’s something tangible and definite. I learnt about action-at-a-distance from experience.
@ dropBear # 208
Oho! A fellow engineer! And one who’s broken free, on top of that! It is really good to make your acquaintance. And thank you so much for the links.
@ Walt # 214
I am personally not very fond of the radio analogy, because the radio has an antenna. If we ask where in the radio does the music come from, studying the antenna provides us with definite clues about the origin of the music. At the very least, we know that the music comes from outside the radio. The analogy would work only if we could find a similar component in the brain. That is what I think I may have stumbled upon.
As for the “epiphenon”, it’s absolutely bad theorising. But it is also somewhat popular in the scientific mainstream.
@ Aldarion # 248
The rationalist worldview is a useful tool, it’s very useful for studying mechanisms in nature and manipulating them. But if you are planning to build an ontology, it is an incredibly bad starting point.
What do you think of the so-called “Mandela effect”, JMG? I’m English and well remember eating Walker’s salt and vinegar crisps from blue packets in the 1990s. (In the US “crisps” are known as chips, of course, while “chips” are what we English call French fries).
But read what Walkers says:
https://www.walkers.co.uk/faqs/brands-flavours
“Why did you switch the colours of Salt & Vinegar and Cheese & Onion flavour Walkers Crisps?
Answer:
We’re often asked this! Our Salt & Vinegar and Cheese & Onion flavour crisps packs have always been the colours they are today. Contrary to popular belief, we’ve never swapped the colours around, not even temporarily. We’ve no plans to change these designs, as they’re signature to our brand.”
Well, knock me down with a feather!
Here is author Philip K Dick in 1977.
https://youtu.be/0LDv8fm_R7g
Jump to the 3:39 point of the video. There he explains his belief that we are living in a computer-generated simulation. Could THAT be the explanation for the Mandela Effect?
=====
What do you reckon, JMG? Have you ever experienced your own Mandela effect?
JMG, you wrote about the UFO phenomenon some years ago, so here are couple of books your followers may enjoy. You won’t agree with them, but goodness, they go in deep with their theories.
“Closer Encounters” by Jason Reza Jorjani – he’s also deep into philosophy and seems to know a lot about areas of the occult .
“The Extratempestrial Model”, by Michael Masters. He goes deep into the theory that “the visitors” are human time travellers from the far future. I’d always considered that idea ridiculous, so I had never read anything about it. But I recently saw separate interviews with these two authors on YouTube and was highly impressed. Here Michael Masters reviews some of the well publicised supposed encounters and applies his theories to each of them. He fits the pieces of the jigsaw together with such ingenuity that I am hugely impressed – whether or not his theories turn out to be true. He also goes into why he thinks “the visitors” are here, why they don’t reveal themselves publicly, and whether he thinks the US authorities know about them. There is humour too (unintentional?) as he describes the working day of a visitor from the future who has been assigned to visit the same person (our time) during different periods in that person’s life – but all as part of the visitor’s working day! Meanwhile the visited person is perplexed at how his “visitor” never seems to age during all the years that he himself gets visited, from childhood onward.
These are the most enjoyable reads I’ve had in a couple of years, and I’m looking forward to reading their other books.
@team10tim #337, thanks for that link to the biotic pump substack! It is fascinating, especially the absence of cyclones over the southern Atlantic. People in the southeast of Brazil have been talking for a while now about the atmospheric river transporting part of the moisture of that biotic pump from the Amazon down their way, but it is spectacular to imagine that the Amazon not only brings them moisture, but at the same time protects them against cyclones.
@Tyler #349: You asked Brother Kornhoer to check his priors about billionaires in power. I think my priors are generated from history. Before the spread of democracy, territorial states and empires usually tried to restrict power to those whose wealth came from agriculture, not from commerce – think of the regulations for Roman senators, or the pre-modern Chinese and Japanese contempt for and discrimination against tradesmen, who were ranked below farmers. There is snobbery in this, of course, but I think there is also sound reasoning. Somebody whose wealth comes from agriculture is interested in stability. They will want to increase their estates, but (since there were also restrictions against borrowing on one’s land) they won’t be on fire to expand and grow at all costs. An immensely wealthy businessman in power is a huge force for instability and risk-taking.
You could find tradesmen, bankers and businessmen formally in power in city-states like Venice, Genoa, Pisa, Florence, Hamburg, Bremen, Lübeck, and more informally in the Islamic cities whenever central power was weak. I can’t judge if rule by wealthy businessmen was good for the majority of the cities’ inhabitants – it might have been. I do think, based on history, that it wasn’t desirable in bigger states.
Now if US citizens want to increase instability and risk-taking at all costs because they think that is better than the current state of affairs, that is their decision. I only hope it won’t spread here.
@Ambrose #345, good point about the Furries. I suppose I should also have mentioned the vampire LARP phenomenon, which at various times has spanned between a themed branch of recreational LARP gaming and a (somewhat like Furries’) LARP-like alternative lifestyle. Further adjacent to that (and also farther from my direct experience) is what one might call LARP occultism, such as some local clique of goth teens who enjoy panicking the populace by putting pentagrams on the picnic tables at the park. (At least they’re not poisoning the pigeons.) Unfortunately that can be further associated with actually harmful behavior, such as drug use or extremely unwise magical practices… and some of the bad reputation spreads back along the chain of associations all the way back to the folks playing live D&D with foam swords.
@team10tim #337, “a tree is a slow-motion lightning bolt of water” is one of my favorite ways to challenge people to consider alternative mental models of what they perceive. On a time scale of years, the amount of water that passes through a tree from ground to atmosphere dwarfs the mass of what we usually consider the tree to be (the tissues of trunk, roots, branches, and leaves). There are even similarities of shape between a tree and a lightning bolt, which is no coincidence. Both gather, channel, and distribute flows, like a river system that can also have a similar shape when looked at on the right scale. Once someone grasps that (well, they do sometimes), the significance of whole forests in redistributing ground and atmospheric water becomes easy to see.
@JMG #332, good-humored, certainly, but not mockery. You have here an admiring commentariat that includes a number of insightful articulate well-read mature women. I wouldn’t name names (I can’t anyhow, I don’t keep track of them) but I don’t need an oracle to foresee they’ll be glancing your way. And that’s just one of the circles you move in.
This week’s talk about the cliches of the Star Trek future being rehashed across the decades reminded me of a very odd conversation I had with my father (born mid-1950s) a while back. We got to talking about how common those ideas were when he was young, and how people my father’s age were brought up to expect a future in the stars…or so I thought. At that point he insisted that no one back then actually believed in those ideas, that no one who was a child in the 60s or 70s seriously expected he or she would have vacations on the moon as an adult, and so on. He was adamant that this was all meant as entertainment, and everyone knew that.
Of course, I know you’ll say otherwise, and I think you’re right. My father likes to be argumentative and contrarian in general, but I also suspect this might have to do with him being a believer in Progress who’s had to confront the failure of its promises. I still found it an intriguing and odd reaction, though.
From my own experience, I remember the Star Trek dream still (still!) being sold as current and valid to us when I was a child in the 90s. At least in a lot of the pop culture and pop science media aimed at kids, even if maybe not so much by the adults in everyday life. And as recently as the late 2010s, I’ve had quite a few conversations with people my age or younger in various nerdy internet spaces who seemed fully and serenely convinced we’d get our glorious future in the stars (still!) and considered me something of a naive weirdo to possibly think otherwise. It’s honestly baffling to me that the myth (in the true literal sense) is still so strong even with people born in the 21st century, who really should know better.
So yes, I’m also looking forward to the demise of this particular cliche, haha. Also really puts it into perspective that even the Mariana Trench might be more manageable than Mars. At first I was tempted to see that as hyperbole, but you might be right, since it still takes much less energy and time to get supplies down there, and there’s no radiation. Still, both the depth and the pressure are of course absurd, so even building and pressurizing a station down there must be a nightmare.
@George #324
Even starting a few months back, I was surprised to see how many places were booked out so far in advance. I get that the weeks around the solstice are high season there, but still. Either way, also looking forward to meeting you there! If only we still had a ferry from Scandinavia to the UK…
N ow that A1, #325, has broached the topic of Friday’s (2/28/2025) tense exchange of words between Zelinsky and Trump and DOGE and Brother Kornhoer, #334, has given a take on DOGE, I’d like to add to what’s going on with DOGE as a former fed who still has fed friends.
Anyone on the inside of the US Government at the level of the worker bee knows that waste needs to be curtailed and the ability to spend less needs to be encourage BY CHANGING HOW THE PROCESSES & PROCEDURES WORK.
The USG has all sorts of rules that force certain outcomes, none of which is being addressed (as far as I know).
DOGE could be using its momentum –which is huge right now — to change policies and procedures that would come with long term benefits to the US people no matter which administration was trying to use the system for their advantage.
But they’re focused on laying off people, which won’t bring about enough savings overall.
The goal apparently is to get the USG down to a small enough size so that it can be drowned in a bathtub. With a goal like that, no one is actually trying to save money and decrease waste.
For example, the next bit gets wonky, but I’ve reached out to a reporter with Huffington Post, recently assigned to the Pentagon, with the following exploratory message:
“Are you (the reporter) familiar with how appropriated funds work? (Appropriated funds are how Congress actually hands out the $.s)
I’ll speak to operation and maintenance funds (O&M) for example. (Money comes with rules on what it can be spent on.)
O&M can only be obligated in one FY—so there’s a rush in September to obligate what’s left. So waste there. But not fraud.
Then O&M is only good to pay bills for 5 years, then you have to get new money. (Unlike normal people’s money which never expires. A dollar lasts forever as long as you have it in your possession). Changing how long money is good for would help with paying the US’s bills.
DOGE could put forth the demand to make processes make more sense, stuff like that, but I get the feeling they don’t know how appropriated funds worth. I’d read elsewhere Musk was like a college freshman taking his first class on government and getting excited about what can do to improve it. He’s all theory at this point with no first contact with reality.”
Back to this post, I was excited when DOGE first was talked about, but then it seemed to be about killing woke programs — which every administration has programs they favor — rather than actually fix things.
Both major parties seem intent on maintaining their power and influence rather than governing. I am disheartened by what I see. I am not enjoying the decline of the West and the decline of the US in particular, though I’m not going to fight against the inevitable.
Brother Kornhoer @ 334 Don’t forget that this administration is a coalition of business interests. Cutting back on weather forecasting personnel is a giveaway to the insurance industry who would like to be able to say that catastrophic events like hurricanes and floods are Acts of God which they (the companies) can’t possibly be expected to anticipate. Once people realize that the insurance companies won’t be there for them when the next cat 5 storms ashore, those homeowners might decide they can do without insurance.
You can surely see the appeal to a real estate guy of reducing staff at national parks.
Because it’s Open Post –
It came to me just recently, after the umpteenth reread of “The Hall of Homeless Gods,” just why Sophie Ames was the only survivor the computer implant process. Her brain was wired differently from the very start. It’s the only explanation, and the clues all slide into place with that thought. Sophie was Asperger’s from the start, and in a form for common among boys.
“Geek” and “Dork” are not, contrary to the stereotype, exclusively masculine nouns. (Us gurrls tend more towards hyperverbalism.)
The clues? I think Jerry was onto it from the start, if you filter out the effects of her unusual childhood, being half-computer to start with, and raised in isolation. That given, they pile up in pure Ariel Moravec, detective, fashion. (With a side order of “it takes one to know one.”) Once out in the world, she picks up how-to things very quickly – except how to deal with people. And she doesn’t lie, cheat, play head games, or make the deals that make up life in the Habitats or on Shoreside. Jerry spots that level of integrity immediately. And he has “To Protect and Serve” written all over him, if you ask me.
BTW, did you have that in mind from the beginning? Or is it just one of those things where the character takes over?
P.S. I reread my favorites over and over again, something neither my son-on-law nor his mother ever understood. For them, once you’ve read a book, it’s a done deal.
@David #85 thanks for the link to your blog post. I’ve been on a road trip, so it has taken me a while to respond.
Your analysis is very interesting, and I especially like your image of the mushroom rather than a pyramid of population. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about economics in a system where there is no growth- all our assumptions about pensions, stock markets, real estate markets go out the window.
The school I work at was threatened with closure last year, because there are simply not enough kids in the neighborhood for it to be viable- a building that used to have 900 students is now down to around 300. Families rallied and fussed at the superintendent, so he walked back the closure plan without being specific about any future plans. There is still not enough money, because our district funds schools based on number of students.
This is a tiny example in a world where the population is shrinking- I’m very curious where we’ll go from here.
@JMG et al: the comparison with Lincoln is very apt! And remember, both of them came to power out of nowhere in the middle of an Internal Crisis (as opposed to the External ones which had a definite enemy to defeat: Britain in the 1770s and, on two fronts, Germany and Japan in the 1940s..) Though the general crisis outlines were/are the same for all four: a deluge of troubles.
As literary genres of science fiction and fantasy pop up often in these discussions, I thought I might share a rather insigthful interview by the science fiction author Ted Chiang.
He views science fiction as a genre that reflects scientific worldview, even though sometimes the science in question is not the one that describes our universe. I found this quite useful – ever since I have learned the general foundations of science, I find it hard to enjoy supposedly hard-science fiction that clearly violates the laws of nature as we understand them. Chiang’s more generous definition helps me find again the required suspension of disbelief.
He also views magic in an interesting way – as a consequence of the universe being aware of people as persons, and different from things. I have no idea whether he believes in magic personally, but he is certainly very perceptive about the difference between the materialistic and enchanted interpretation of the universe.
For those interested, the whole inteview can be accesses through the link below:
https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/life-is-more-than-an-engineering-problem/
Heather @ 341, Thank you for this. I actually don’t blame quilt shop owners for the snob factor, which is for them, a viable business model. Sure, the customer base might be upper middle class snobs, but they are also productive people. Character matters more than personality. Given the high costs of rent, taxes and insurance, and the need to hire and keep knowledgeable and courteous staff, who won’t work for peanuts because they don’t have to, these shop owners must appeal to customers who do have discretionary income to use for their hobbies.
I have found reasonably good bargains on their sale tables.
A few stray comments on current conversations:
1 – Asian Carp and the Great Lakes: well, they have been in Lake Ontario for at least a decade, now: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/3-more-asian-carp-found-in-toronto-1.3214932
I assume that swimming up Niagara Falls has so far exceeded the species’ capability () so the other Great Lakes have been spared so far. But one way or another, they’ll eventually make it. Meanwhile, Chinook and Coho salmon, which were introduced into Lake Ontario in 20th century following the extirpation of Atlantic Salmon in the late 19th century (the last specimen was fished just 10 km from my house!) have thrived there and have filled an important ecological niche – although the Humber River was stocked with Atlantic Salmon fry in 2006 in attempt to get them back into Lake Ontario.
2 – Adler: I have not read his works, but if JMG is correct in recalling that “analysis of mental illness as a problem of families, not of individuals”, I am reminded that some Vedic astrologers will not make definitive statements about an individual’s birth chart without first looking at the charts of parents/spouse/children.
3 – “why not revive the undersea cities we were promised back in the 1960s?” You mean like the rather dreary and short-lived Saturday cartoon ‘Sealab 2020’ or the 1954 film version of ’20,000 Leagues Under the Sea’ (I’m not sure if an undersea colony was mentioned in Jules Verne’s original as I have never read it)? Talk about a daft idea – I don’t even recall the basic premise behind it! At least the 20th century science fiction stories about a hollow Earth populated by a civilization of intelligent lizards were imaginative!
The new US administration; the good, the bad and the ugly. This article by Israel Shamir makes the best case for the current admin that I have yet seen. (Yes, I do glance at Unz from time to time. There are good ideas sometimes, amid the nuttiness. Gold is where you find it). https://www.unz.com/ishamir/the-sea-change/
My own bias is that I don’t like chaos. Chaos, in my view, privileges idlers over the industrious; charismatic vice over boring virtue, and releases the wolves of envy, pride and greed to prey on ordinary citizens. The following is, naturally, my opinion only. I do insist that I accept no responsibility for those who claim hurt feelingses because someone else disagreed with them.
The good. The divorce from Europe is A Good Thing, and long overdue. I doubt anyone with sense is mourning the demise of USAID, I think that is the correct title. The non spook parts could easily be transferred to State. Speaking of that department, it is high time we had a Secretary of State with Latin American roots. The first and worst blunder of the Obama presidency was failure to appoint Bill Richardson to the post he had clearly earned.
The bad. As Ian Welsh, blogger and sometime poster here pointed out, when this admin does have a good idea, they don’t know how to make it work. I am shedding no tears for arrested illegal migrants; I don’t get to pick and choose which laws I abide by, but I have yet to learn that any rich rhymes with witch is having to do without her housekeeping staff. Nor have I seen any penalties imposed on the employers of illegally in our country workers. Did the President issue an order to the CIA, et al, forbidding them resettling their pets and proteges in the USA? I guess I must have missed it.
The ugly: Netanyahoo in DC. The Israelis do know how to count, and their embedded cohorts tell them just how much $s the USA can dispose of. No sooner had the President made some of his famous off the cuff remarks about Greenland and Panama, expensive propositions both, here comes Benny hotfoot to DC to make sure he gets his cut firstest and mostest. Now that Biden is in retirement, a blanket of silence appears to have fallen on news from the ME. As near as I can tell, Israel has occupied a substantial chunk of Syria and has no intention of leaving, attacks on the West Bank are ongoing, and it is a matter of when not if the Israelis will violate the ceasefire in Gaza.
Before someone gets mad at me, I hasten to add, the present situation regarding illegal immigration came about because of successive failures of administrations of both parties to enforce the law. Furthermore, the Democrats did bring their defeat on themselves. I already know that.
@Patricia O. 343: did I read that Obituary right — that Firstenburg had 40 dental xrays in some short period of time? That would defy common sense, especially for a smart and well-educated fellow like him, to allow it. I’d guess his subsequent sensitivity to RF and health problems were due to ionizing radiation poisoning. I purchased and read his first book and have been considering purchasing his most recent. I thought he really went overboard in the first book, attributing nearly everything imaginable to RF exposure, including the flu epidemic of 1918. Thus I’m skeptical. But as I’ve said in the past, I was an Air Force radar tech, over 50 years ago, and worked in telecom after that and have had an active interest in the subject of RF hazards. I know I was exposed to significant non-ionizing RF in the Air Force. I’ve read that very few people with my exposure history have a normal ekg; mine has shown “bundle branch blockage” since my first ekg, back in the 1980s. The physician who read the ekg, remarked “this can’t be right,” and re-ran it himself — same result the second time. But I’ve had few health problems, fortunately.
On Orwell’s 1984: The recent coinage, “impactful,” and the phrases “gender affirming care” and “Department of Defense” have always seemed to me like examples of finest Orwellian newspeak.
Joan, so the Democrats have preserved the old spoils system, where the GOP hasn’t. Interesting.
Curt, it’s June 6-8; I don’t have the contact info handy, but I’m sure someone will post it shortly.
Rural, the last book in a series is always a major challenge. Not only does it have to be a complete novel in its own right, it has to wrap up the loose ends left by all the previous books, and provide a satisfying conclusion to the whole sequence. For me, though, the problem with Silver on the Tree was something else, and it’s something that showed up in a lot of young adult fantasy of that vintage: the implied message of “Okay, you’ve had your fun with magic, now the magic’s all gone away and it’s time to grow up” woven into the ending. I felt a very deep sense of betrayal; that series had been my favorite YA fantasy but after reading the final book once, I never read any of the volumes again. That huge disappointment strongly influenced the ending of my series The Weird of Hali — I went the other direction, which is why Great Cthulhu rises from the sea in the last chapter but one and the mundane unmagical world into which Cooper tried to confine her readers is swept away forever.
There are good final volumes, though you’re right that The Last Battle isn’t one of them. In the YA fantasy field, for example, do you by any chance know Lloyd Alexander’s fine Chronicles of Prydain? The High King, the last novel in that series, is a tour de force, the best novel in the series and a thoroughly satisfying conclusion to the story of Taran the Assistant Pig-Keeper.
Martin, about that, yes.
J.L.Mc12, not really. I don’t tend to recall books in terms of good bits — it’s the overall impression they leave that lingers.
Robert G, it’s a heck of a good question. There’s a vast amount of first-rate F&SF out there, still in copyright (and therefore able to be sold at a profit) but out of print; some small to midsized press could probably make a pretty fair killing by getting it back in print. I don’t know why that hasn’t happened yet.
Rajarshi, I’ve come to think that fifteen minutes of meditation practice would clear away almost all of what’s discussed in modern debates about consciousness. Those who’ve never taken the time to observe themselves being conscious of something really don’t have much to contribute to such discussions!
Batstrel, I’ve never known what to think of it. I recall rather well the Berenstain Bears and the death of Steve Biko, the guy whose death so many people misremember as Nelson Mandela’s. Thanks for the UFO references — I have another book on the subject coming out a little later this year.
Walt, well, thank you for the compliment, but I have my doubts. I’m not young, buff, rich, or handsome; rather, I’m mildly autistic, seriously geeky, and something of a cheapskate, and I have bad teeth. (That last is hereditary. I’m not doing too badly; my dad had full upper and lower dentures by the time he was 21.) Any one of those would be enough to get a left swipe from the vast majority of women — and that’s even apart from my occult studies, which even in this circle are far from universally acceptable. I think there’s a fairly good chance I’ll be able to find someone available, interested, and congenial in due time, but we’ll see.
BorealBear, interesting. As for the Marianas Trench, exactly — it would involve massive technical challenges, but they’re much less massive than those involved in surviving on Mars!
Elizabeth, thank you for this. Have you followed the reshaping of OMB as a means of establishing central control of expenditures? That may have some of the positive effects you’d hoped for.
Patricia M, hmm! I certainly modeled Sophie on the women with Aspergers syndrome I know — I thought it would make the reveal at the end more plausible. You may be right, though, that she had a suitable brain structure. As for reading books many times, I do the same thing; the books I keep are the ones I read over and over again.
Soko, interesting. Very interesting.
Ron, funny. The whole Sealab program in the 1960s got the same sort of gosh-wow rhetoric at the time as the space program. I didn’t know that Chinook and Coho salmon were introduced into the Great Lakes — that’s good to know; having grown up on the shores of Puget Sound, those are my idea of real salmon, as distinct from the shrimpy little bland things the Atlantic has to offer.
Mr. Greer,
Why a need for underwater cities, fictional, or otherwise …. when anyone with a little home-grown genetic engineering set-up, via CRISPER .. can create humans with functioning gills, thus allowing such beings to deep dive to their heart’s content.
Why go through all the effort to jump the shark, when one can BE the shark.
Och! I think my tongue just penetrated my outer cheek wall … oh look, a blow hole!
Re: the Mandela Effect – I’m one of those who remember the Berenstein Bears, but that’s about it, and in my case it could just be misremembering coupled with study of German. (Bernstein, spelled as such, is German for “amber”).
To JMG and anyone else:
I’ve noticed an increase, especially post-COVID, of what we might call anti-youth policies in private businesses – malls that don’t want anyone under 18 there without a supervising adult at least 21; Carnival Cruise’s recent decision to disallow most bookings under 21 unless made with someone 25 or older, etc.). these policies strike me as somehow related to the Long Descent either directly or indirectly – e.g. (1) perceived ability to cut back on security and/or cleaning costs if only “mature” adults are allowed in, (2) catering to a more elderly-heavy clientele, etc. The most obvious cases of these are senior living centers and 55+-only neighborhoods.
What, if any, is your take on this phenomenon?
The other owen, you are, of course correct about how quilts used to be made. Old clothes, no longer wearable, were cut up into quilts. That’s how my mother made quilts. And I am blessed enough to have a quilt made by my great grandmother. But nowadays people buy perfectly good fabric and then cut it up into little pieces to sew quilts. Not exactly frugal! But I figure making a jacket out of an old quilt is me trying to be frugal. And it is a Grandmother’s Flower Garden quilt pattern! Really pretty.
Mary Bennet, thank you for your response and I understand and appreciate what you are saying. And I have to tell you I had a good laugh about “frugalistas in quilt shops”!! I sent your quote to my sister who hates snobby stores and she had a good laugh too! Now I have to go out to get a spool of thread so I can alter one of my daughters pants. I have been told to avoid Joann’s like the plague. I called them yesterday and the woman who answered said the store is packed, people can barely move around because of all the sales, I guess. So I found a quilt store that’s open for 3 hours on a Sunday. Waiting for someone to please open a fabric store that sells notions, too!! I’m 71 and tired, otherwise it might be an interesting thing to do!
Huzzah for the mention of The High King! It is indeed a tour-de-force and beautiful conclusion to the series. I vividly remember being twelve years old and finishing it for the first time on a perfect fall afternoon. I was so moved I immediately hurried out of the house with tears in my eyes and rode my bike around the neighborhood for a couple of hours to process my emotions.
> no real differentiation between you and the rest of the universe (Hinduism).
In a very real sense this is true. Four elements make up 96% of the mass of the human body: oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, and nitrogen. We get these from air and water, which freely circulate around the earth and are for all intents and purposes immortal.
So the atoms that constitute me may at some stage have been part of a T. Rex, or a cockroach, or a tree, or a humble bacterium, or even arrived from outer space on a meteorite. I am part of the eternal ebb and flow of life and death in the universe.
Final books in a series: While I haven’t read Silver on the Tree, I concur that doing a bait-&-switch and disenchanting the world again is pretty terrible. But why would you talk down on The Last Battle? Maybe I’m biased, being a Narnia fan, but I thought it was a fine ending, and fit with the whole Christian theme. There’s also the massive irony that [spoiler]the world is destroyed and most characters die, yet it’s a happy ending[/spoiler]. Not sure what the objections are, honestly.
Dating: All that may be true, JMG, but you’re also the Archdruid, with published books and a following. I really don’t mean to flatter you, but the ladies like status of all kinds.
Colonization: It’s true, the Australian outback is another option, just with a different set of challenges: no freezing cold, but no abundance of fresh water on site either. Yet another idea is carving out underground cities and caverns in a mountain chain somewhere, a bit like the dwarves in LotR. As formidable as that sounds, even that would be easier than space colonization!
Still, as Tyler A points out, we had the potential to expand our presence into space. If our civilization was on a different trajectory, with a cathedral-building ethos, the necessary mega-engineering of efficient access to orbit and livable habitats could’ve happened, but that’s not the timeline we’re on. I think part of the reason for denial of the moon landing is that, if you accept that that grand Faustian achievement occurred, that means we haven’t been back to the Moon in 50 years; and that’s clear evidence of a culture in decline, which many of us refuse to accept.
Curt, can you email me at ecosophianconvention at gmail dot com for information on the Glastonbury June event?
JMG, did you see the email I sent?
Regarding science fiction, yeah, the last few decades of SF have been quite reliably disappointing. Kind of like a hamburger from McYouknowwho–its blandness is only overshadowed by its sameness. The SF I grew up with was the collected short stories of the Hugo Gernsback era: engaging, creative, no wasted filler and preferably an unanticipated plot twist at the very end. (best anthologies ever: “The Great SF Stories” 1939-1962 edited by Asimov) I am giving up on SF written after about 1979 and concentrating on earlier stuff. Pre-1939 there is of course H. P. Lovecraft, H. G. Wells, later there was Ray Bradbury; what else exists that makes it a must-read from that era?
Mary Bennet and JMG: upthread I posted about the two billboards Bayer has put up around town shrieking about how it’s so unscientific and harmful to farmers and consumers to remove the herbicide glyphosate from use. Mary, you were surprised because Big Ag seemed to have the same cozy relationship to political power that other large corporations have. Until Trump 2.0, I would have agreed with you; that’s why I found the billboards noteworthy and made the comment.
I’ve learned what is behind the billboards from my Missouri state senator’s newsletter. I’ve quoted the info below. Keep in mind that Missouri has a veto-proof Republican majority in both the state house and senate and a Republican governor. MAGA supporters have gained a prominent place in state Republican politics, including in the state house and senate.
“A group of nine Republican state senators announced Feb. 24 that legislation passed by the Missouri House of Representatives days earlier to legally shield biotechnology company Bayer from lawsuits over its Roundup herbicide is ‘dead on arrival’ in the upper chamber. The senators, who belong to a hard-right conservative faction, said at a news conference that attack ads run against them by the bill’s supporters strengthened their opposition against it.
“The Republican-controlled House narrowly advanced House Bill 544 on a vote of 85-72 – with just three more “yes” votes than the constitutionally required minimum. Only one Democrat voted for the bill, while 24 Republicans joined the remaining Democrats in opposition. If the nine Republican senators hold true to their word and at least nine of the 10 Senate Democrats also oppose the measure, it would have insufficient support to pass in the Senate, where a minimum 18 votes is required to pass legislation.
“Bayer is a German corporation whose U.S. headquarters is located in Creve Coeur. More than 25,000 lawsuits have been filed in Cole County Circuit Court alleging Roundup’s main chemical – glyphosate – causes cancer. The company has already paid billions of dollars in judgments and settlements in Roundup cases nationwide.”
At least one big corporation is not finding the current political climate to their liking.
I just came across a news broadcast ( on you tube) about a group of several hundred people in downtown Portland protesting Trump’s smackdown of Zelensky friday. They went on and on about American values, protecting democracy and our Ukrainian Allies.
I was a bit stunned because I realize their was a lot of that back in 2022 when the Biden propaganda machine was rolling full tilt. But I figured that after 3 years of endless tax dollars going in to the Ukrainian Grift and. money laundering machine these people would wise up.
I figured that at least with the USAID motivation operation out of business most of these people would lose interest and move on to something useful.
But there must be remnants of the old neo con , rules based order still operating with stashed cash. I think when you look up useful idiot in the dictionary a picture of these folks and their protest will be in the heading.
From the polyglot Alexander Arguelles latest newsletter (not linked on his site https://www.alexanderarguelles.com/academy/ as yet) which may be of interest to the readership here:
“I believe another trap […] is the fact that we do not know what we think we know. We write things down; we look things up; we have mountains of information at our fingertips, but we do not keep things in our hearts or in our heads. The truth is, though, that the only things you really know are the things that you have inside of you. For most of history, memorization molded our minds, but it is now obviated and indeed often denigrated.
Although I have long held up the idea of building an encyclopedic mind, with hindsight, I truly wish I had paid more attention to the importance of memorization for mental formation. The purpose of memorizing texts is not, first and foremost, to retain information as such, but rather to strengthen and enrich the mind. When you keep a library in your brain, the main goal is not to store the book there, but to thoroughly internalize it. What if we can really only understand texts that we have memorized and can recite, not parrot-like, but with narrative skill that shows our interpretation of it? If this is the case, then the true life of a scholar is not that of a modern academic, but that of a medieval bard. Would that I had far more memorized texts in my mind than the paltry few that I do.”
Re: Britain is done 🙁
https://www.louiseperry.co.uk/p/the-coming-british-civil-war-david
Hey JMG
Fair enough, I may consider writing an essay about 1984 in the future. It will probably be about some aspect of it that isn’t remembered in the popular memory of the book.
A new thing that I want to ask is if you have heard of the rather un-diplomatic meeting between Trump, Zelensky and Vance in the White House last week? I don’t know if it was entirely unscripted but I wonder if Trump is trying to send a message to the EU that he is not as interested in supporting them as Biden was?
JMG wrote: “Thanks for the UFO references — I have another book on the subject coming out a little later this year.”
See if you also have time to read “Parallels: Ancient Insights into Modern UFO Phenomena”, by the late Richard L. Thompson – it’s up there with anything by John Keel or Jacques Vallee. I also bought and read the older, longer 1994 first edition, entitled “Alien Identities”, but the older material added little (mainly a chapter about the very dubious Billy Meier) and Thompson chose to excise it, so I only ever read “Parallels” now and regard it as a classic.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07BNY59MS/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_d_asin_title_351_o00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Brendheim
Have you ever been around a bunch of teens, early 20s on spring break, etc? The havoc they can cause is quite stunning. There have been cases of their trashing hotels, bars, etc. The cruise lines would save on cleaning and policing and guard against losing their older, regular customers by that ban. Trust me; I have been a rowdy teen.
Stephen
Polecat, so long as the tech moguls put gills on themselves first, I have no objection. Maybe they can go take submarines to look at the Titanic while they’re at it…
Brendhelm, hmm! I suspect it’s partly catering to grumpy Boomers who don’t like kids around, and partly trying to avoid the legal quandaries that pop up when you have people under 18 mixing with people over 18. But I could be wrong.
James, I first read it when I was 9, I think it was, and just sat there in my room for a good long time savoring the emotional rush of what, to my mind, was the perfect ending to a triumphant series. What a fine book! I would encourage everybody reading this who has kids to put a copy of The Book of Three in front of your child — that’s the beginning of the series, and a very solid beginning it is.
Xcalibur/djs, I was never much of a Narnia fan; even as a kid, I found the heavyhanded Christian allegory pretty indigestible, and of course The Last Battle stopped laying that on with a trowel and started spreading it with a backhoe. I suppose the worst thing about it was that it made my disagreements with the Christian theology of time impossible for me to ignore. Imagine me at eight or nine, a geeky looking kid curled up in the corner of a sofa, frowning and thinking: “If Aslan could create an even better world than Narnia, one in which the good and bad characters alike got exactly what they deserved, why didn’t he just do that to start with? Why this awkward world of compromises, so unsatisfactory that eventually Aslan tore it down and put up something else in its place?” It didn’t, and doesn’t, make sense to me.
Bridge, yes, and I’ll be getting back to you shortly.
Koyaanisqatsi, I ain’t arguing. The publication of Neuromancer to me marked the end of interesting SF; I read it and wondered what the fuss was about, because it simply rehashed the same computer-geek culture I saw all around me in Seattle at that same time.
SLClaire, hmm! Thanks for the heads up.
Clay, my guess is that the only reason they care about Zelensky is that they hate Trump.
KAN, delighted to see this! He’s absolutely right, of course. The only knowledge that affects your processing of ideas is what you have in memory while you’re doing it.
Tengu, the descent of Britain into civil war seems entirely possible to me. The same is true of much of western Europe.
J.L.Mc12, good gods, yes. It’s been all over the samizdat news media here. It apparently wasn’t scripted by Trump — he was all ready to sign the agreement with Zelensky to give the US preferential access to Ukrainian mineral resources in exchange for all the money we’ve sent them, but Zelensky up and started demanding US boots on the ground, and it went downhill from there, until Trump told Zelensky to leave. The formal lunch prepared for Zelensky et al. got eaten by White House staffers, and the US has already begun to cut aid to the Zelensky regime. Of course the EU’s having whole herds of cattle, but a lot of Americans are delighted: it’s a widespread notion these days that if Europe wants Ukraine to keep fighting, they can pay for it and provide the spare troops.
Batstrel, that sounds delectable. Thanks for this; I’ll give it a look.
@RMS #80 re: the Runes
I’m glad to hear that you’re exploring and finding my recommendations useful! Influenced by Thorsson, I see all of the Rune Poems as providing useful insight on the Elder Futhark, though the Icelandic and Norwegian ones, being based on the Younger Futhark, don’t hit all the Runes, and some of the associations between Younger Futhark Runes and “equivalent” Older Futhark Runes are a bit of a judgment call/speculation.
As for visualization, certainly that’s an area the Runes can lend themselves to. I think I mentioned last time that I found the guided visualizations in Kveldulf Gundarsson’s The Teutonic Way: Magic helpful, though in the long run, I think non-guided visualizations are more useful. I believe Thorsson recommends entirely open-ended scrying of the Runes (so, visualizations) in The Nine Doors of Midgard, but it’s been a while since I’ve read it, and I’ve never completed the course. For a more traditional starting place, you might try visualizing what’s described in one or more of the Rune poems, though there’s also value in focusing on the shapes of the staves themselves.
Anyhow, happy experimenting, and let me know if there’s anything else I can help with.
Cheers,
Jeff
The glyphosate debate is a complicated one. It allows no-till agriculture which reduces the amount of fuel used and preserves the soil. But then they started spraying it at harvest time to kill the already dying grain quicker so they can harvest it before wind or rain can knock it down.
Unfortunately the glyphosate is not degraded that quickly on the grain (it needs contact with the soil) and some of it will end up in the flour and certainly the bran. I’m not at all certain the safety testing is nearly good enough for dietary intake.
Good articles on no-till farming abound if you are curious. Wikipedia has a summary, the USDA has one, etc, etc.
@394 Clay Dennis
I doubt most Americans really care all that much about Ukraine, not enough to re-evaluate the view instilled in them by war propaganda back in 2022. Some liberals believe they care deeply about Ukraine, but really they just hate Trump (as our host said).
Regarding civil war in Europe or the Yookay: If the EU/Yookay wants to give guns to a bunch of young men to go fight, which young men and why wouldn’t those guns get turned around? I suppose you could imagine a sort of penal battalion style army, with a small and carefully chosen cadre exercising lethal control over the cannon fodder (much like the current Ukrainian model, from what I hear). But the efficacy of such an army, on a per capita basis must be very, very low compared to even the high-trust conscript armies fielded by Allied powers in WW2.
@Phutatorius,
My father was an Air Force radar tech too. I’m glad you came through without health challenges. My father was one of the first four known cases of Reiter’s syndrome, an autoimmune disorder, and I asked him about the timing, and it had been five years after he became a radio technician–which was the time frame pointed out by the Soviet research on the matter. It was mostly heart issues they were seeing, but a wide variety of things. It’s way back in my archives somewhere now, but there was talk of a flu-like syndrome that heralded the onset of troubles. Capt. Zorach Glaser of the US Navy translated a thousand or so Soviet studies, but in 1973, the Navy decided, I’ve heard from several sources, to suppress the information he brought to light. The translations were almost lost, because Glaser could not find anyone interested in them. Fortunately, Prof. Magda Havas in Trent, Ontario, rented a U-Haul truck a few years ago, took charge of the manuscripts and has been photo-scanning and posting them.
Arthur, as I noted, went to extremes–he really was unreasonable, and I don’t know anyone who doesn’t disagree with him on one point or another. Regarding the 1918 flu, though, I think he has a point. But that has just been my experience. In the last ten or more years the only times I’ve been sick with flu-like illnesses have been when I had to stay at hotels. They all have W-Fi now. From what I can tell, it messes up my immune system.
The 40 X-rays Arthur sat through are amazing. He explained it had been due to a botched root canal, and I’ve experienced something similar in Japan. Dentists can be spectacularly incompetent here. It’s hard to find one you can trust. My biggest exposure to X-rays has been through them, and it was an implant about six years ago (after a botched root canal that I got bullied into accepting) that rendered me severely electrosensitive, and I’ve heard of other people becoming simply unable to concentrate after a dental implant.. In my case, it was like being drunk all the time. When I found another dentist willing to at least take the crown off, I obtained great relief.
For years, though, I had been under the impression that Arthur’s over-exposure to X-rays had been a cruel college prank. He was probably ashamed of his gullibility.
Well, the U.S. mail service continues to deteriorate. I still pay most of my bills by mailing a check. This past month I noticed while balancing my checkbook that some checks I sent out had not posted yet. Plus I had not received some bills yet in the mail. I keep track of my bills and know approximately when I should receive them and when they are due, so I started scrambling to get things payed on time either over the phone or online so I wouldn’t get hit with late fees. I found out why when the news reported the USPS was claiming delays were due to a new distribution center being opened, restructuring operations and …the weather. Of course. So much for “Neither rain, nor snow, nor sleet, nor hail shall keep the postmen from their appointed rounds.”
https://www.wndu.com/2025/02/25/is-your-mail-late-michiana-residents-share-frustrations-with-usps-delays/
At least I received the new issue of New Maps magazine, even if it came a little late. That must mean the mail is starting to move once again–for this time. I was resisting setting everything up for automatic withdrawal to pay bills, but I don’t want to go through this again. I guess though that automatic withdrawal can goof up too, like double payments withdrawn (happened to a friend of mine), info hacked into and stolen, etc. Can’t say I like these modern times very much.
Joy Marie
Mr. Greer … you mean like the episode, wher that hubristic ‘high tech’ CEO and his motley crew of 2 .. who, ensconsed in a flimsy carbonized hull .. at 13,000′ at immense pressure, FAFOed their way to implosion towards Davey Jones’s locker?? THOSE kind of tech titans? I say: Do It .. DO IT!!
Edit: carbon’fiber’ hull …
@silconguy
Something that doesn’t get talked about a lot with glyphosate is its chelation properties, namely it binds up micronutrients in the soil (and may do the same to our guts, perhaps therefore having a role in obesity).
This is how it kills plants, by basically starving them to death, and long term use makes a lot of things unavailable to plants without remedial biological action. So it is really debatable if no till with lots of round up is in any way better for the soil health than traditional tillage, especially if that tillage is done in a gentle manner on appropriate soils.
Tillage is really just a ‘pulse’ phase in the soil system that can unlock a flush of nutrients and growth, but over pulsing the system will damage it and have a reducing effect, like harvesting a forest too often.
On another note, seems that the European Idioterii have concluded that, unfazed by the American U-TURN re. Ukraine .. that they now, collectively, will DO WHAT IT TAKES! .. by land.. by sea.. & by air.. to throw their weight around, showing everyone whose boss!
Do it! …. DO IT!!! … you fools.
I hope they all relish their newly acquired ‘ashtrays’ ….
@ Enjoyer & JMG RE : Psychedelics.
Some of the better writing on the use of psychedelics came from Alan Watts in the mid 60’s. Mostly because we was willing to entertain the big claims of them but also came away with a fairly unimpressed but realistic conclusion.
He always said “you cannot bottle mysticism” but on trying LSD, felt like they had done it. But the more he used them and watching others using the stuff, realised that one would have to have a mystic bent to experience a mystical experience via the stuff. It wasn’t revealing a new path, merely showing you the path you were already on. Douglas Rushkoff said it best “When you take a tech bro into the desert and give them Ayahuasca, all you get is a tech bro on ayahuasca. Nothing has fundamentally changed.”
Alan figured that at the very best they could be used like a scientist uses a microscope. They can alter your state of mind for a little but then you go away as contemplate what has happened to figure out if it was anything or nothing – don’t become fixated on the experience and don’t’ take the sense of profound as being anything significant either.
Some people do them, realise their place in the universe and the non dualist interbeing interconnection with it all, most just watch paintings dance like in Fantasia and this is if they work out positively. I have found the most revealing thing about them is how others describe their experience, more if you know someone well, I could tell you their experience before they have it. Those that are in touch with the world have an experience of unity and of introspection via outward perception. Those that, to simplify, still wholly believe the myth of progress – they just talk about seeing light trails and nothing much more. There is more enlightenment under a door mat than what you get out of them.
Eckhart Tolle was great in describing psychedelic drugs as simply increasing your sensory input until it is screaming at you. For some that is desirable as it means it can drown out the issues folks are trying to ignore rather than face them. It is the same reason some get into extreme sports, it keeps you focused on something over the top. The modern media environment/news cycles could be considered the similar. The long term solution is probably the opposite of drugs. Rather than take something, take something away. There is a reason that why many of the wisest folks in history have a habit of sitting quietly in a rooms at times. Actually address these things head on. There are many practitioners of many different faiths and beliefs that advocate for this as it is a path that while seems simple at first – get results that really stick.
It is telling that folks like Ram Dass who did super human amounts of these drugs while not entirely melting their head, even in his later years said there was no real enlightenment or truths that can be attained from psychedelics. That facing your issues and having true accepting contemplation of them would do so much more for expanding yourself than any drug could ever do.
Bumper sticker seen on a Tesla today,” I purchased it before I knew how bad he was”. Kind of the latest in virtue signaling I guess.
@JMG and Michael Gray, re: psychedelics
I certainly explored these substances in a rather serious manner back in the 70’s. I don’t mean ‘partied’, and I don’t mean ‘dabbled around’. I explored them with all my heart and mind and soul.
And the conclusion that I came to was that, number one, they can serve a useful purpose to a certain kind of person in clearly showing that yes, there is something more than a materialistic deterministic Universe going on. But, number two, to keep hammering away with these substances is a wrong turn and a waste of time.
I think the best expression of this notion that I’ve heard came from Jerry Garcia, yes, Mr. Captain Trips himself. A member of the band was getting way too carried away with LSD, and Jerry, who had already moved on from acid, said “look, when you get the message, you hang up the phone”.
The Mandela Effect got its name from puzzled Americans wondering whether Nelson Mandela was always a black guy.
C. S. Lewis wrote somewhere (paraphrasing) that the highest function of government is to protect families so they can create happiness. He cited a number of great works of literature – the example I still remember is that of the Phaeaecians who gracefully receive and aid Odysseus.
I don’t want to shoot too high in my comparisons, but “I am still here”, the Brazilian movie that just won an Oscar, is the only movie I have ever watched that faithfully and convincingly portrayed a happy family. The movie is of course dramatic, it shows the destruction of that family by the state, but what stayed in my mind was the happiness of the first third of the movie.
I don’t know how easy it will be to see it playing somewhere, but I think many readers of this blog might appreciate watching it. By the way, don’t be fooled by the poster with the typical father-mother-daughter-son constellation – the family actually has five children!
Hi John and others,
Not new but first time interacting. I’ve been looking into your *Learning Ritual Magic* book you had mentioned in a previous, more recent podcast and it made me recall a book you had mentioned maybe 2-3 years ago on another podcast on Astrology for beginners. I had bought the book on PDF and I can’t for the life of me recall what it was called or where to even begin searching for that. If you by any chance could remember the title that would be amazing.
Loving the Learning Ritual Magic Book so far, though I am very, very early on. I had the opportunity to sink myself into the Hemi-Sync stuff since Christmas and though I am unsure what to make of it, I have had many, many strange things since starting that. Looking forward to something maybe a bit more… professional? Not sure what word I am searching totally for.
@batstrel “I notice though that the Nazi salute was more or less horizontal, whereas the Fascist salute rose up diagonally.”,” Here Hitler’s salute looks rather lame. He seems to have trouble getting it up.”
One of my favorite details from the Charlie Chaplin film ‘The Great Dictator’ was how Adenoid Hynkel in less public situations would give incredibly lip salutes. The more familiar he was with people the less effort put in.
https://www.racket.news/p/america-this-week-feb-28-2025-america
Superb video by Walter Kirn and Matt Taibbi on Taibbi’s Racket News. Far and away, a must see. I listened/watched it four times. Jam-packed with original thinking. I still haven’t caught everything.
💨Northwind Grandma💨🇺🇸🇪🇺🇩🇪🇫🇷🇬🇧
Dane County, Wisconsin, USA
BorealBear,
I am roughly your father’s age. I didn’t take Star Trek to be only entertainment but it wasn’t something I expected to see in my lifetime. I remember the moon program. That was clearly extremely difficult. As a child, I would have thought that we would have reached Mars by 1980 or so, but space seemed like it was going to remain difficult, a place only for the most heroic.
I don’t remember anyone talking about these things much. It was more the background assumptions. I think that we did expect material advances on Earth to continue. The Jetsons isn’t far off in this regard.
The US I grew up in was clearly the richest and best country on the planet and was leading the way into the future. The JFK assassination shook that and in a sense, the country never recovered. Maybe if there hadn’t been segregation to dismantle and the US hadn’t been involved in Southeast Asia, things would have gone back to the way they were. OK, no it wouldn’t but sometimes it seems like it could have.
I work a tech job for a large multinational American consultancy firm. A few weeks ago, the CEO sent a company-wide memo stating that all diversity-related hiring targets and performance evaluation metrics were being sunsetted, and that we are “pausing” our participation in diversity-related partnerships (i.e. all the DEI consultants are being fired).
The memo goes on for several paragraphs about how the company remains committed to inclusivity, and other generic corporatese language. But the closest thing to a justification for the change was a literal parenthetical (as in, the words were literally in parentheses) passing mention about how the diversity goals were largely met – without saying what the goals were and to what extent they were achieved.
I had dinner with our HR representative a few days back. Off-the-record it was mentioned that all the DEI crap was mandated by the US government in order for us to remain in business with them. It’s a small part of the business in the grand scheme of things, but I would not be surprised at all if cuts are announced to it soon. Thankfully, not being based in America nor an American citizen, I’m not even so much as allowed to work on that side.
Clay Dennis #409
Last week, whilst pulling into the local Deathway grocery, I happened to glance over to to a vehicle a few spaces down which had affixed to the back left passenger window a full-sized visage of DONALD TRUMP, kinda hunched forward .. looking straight at me! At first glance, it was rather unsettling .. but when I realized what I was seeing, my first thought was: “I Gotta Get Me One Of Those”..
For a bit of dissensus here are some 1980-1989 SF novels that I think are worth reading. For the list I haven only put on here one’s I have actually read. Also, strictly SF. No fantasy or horror: I’m also leaving off the cyberpunk novels, some of which I happen to like. (One thing about cyberpunk that I liked was how they addressed the rise of corporate oligarchy and power, in a way that other SF authors hadn’t done so much, and the way they factored in climate change in a gritty future when a lot of other SF heads were still looking to the stars…)
Lord Valentine’s Castle by Robert Silverberg (1980)
Riddley Walker by Russel Hoban (1980)
Beyond the Blue Event Horizon by Frederick Pohl (1981 -sequel to Gateway from 1977)
Divine Invasion by Philip K. Dick (1981)
VALIS by Philip K. Dick (1981)
Crystal Singer by Anne McCaffery (a kind of guilty pleasure for me) 1982
Friday by Robert Heinlein (1982)
Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand (1984)
The Wild Shore (1984) by Kim Stanley Robinson
Always Coming Home by Ursula K. Leguin (1985)
Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami (1985)
Dawn by Octavia Butler (1987)
Sphere by Michael Crichton (1987)
Vacuum Flowers by Michael Swanwick (1987)
The Gold Coast by Kim Stanley Robinson (1988)
The Player of Games by Iain M. Banks (1988)
Running Wild by J.G. Ballard (1988)
Red Dwarf: Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers by Rob Grant and Doug Naylor (1989)
I think there are some real winners on this little list. I was reminded also, in looking these up, of some titles/authors I need to read still: Dorris Lessing and K.W. Jeter.
JMG#397, Narnia: My understanding is that this world, the Shadowlands, is essentially a testing ground. Everyone, good and bad, is given their chance at living with free will, then the verdict comes in and you end up with either Aslan or Tash; Lion Jesus or Devil Bird. Still, I totally get why you’d object to that theology, and I don’t disagree on it being a fantasy gospel, in this case Revelations, lol. Still, both the birth and death of Narnia are truly fantastic, representing CS Lewis at the height of his powers. Also, the dwarves being stuck in a mental prison is something that always kind of stayed with me. However, we have our differences, and that’s fine.
Tengu #393: One point on which I’m in full agreement with JMG is that UK/Western Europe is done for. I fully expect to see sultanates and emirates carved out of Europe in the future, since any opposition would be Islamophobic. Maybe there will be Western holdouts amongst Greater Al-Andalus, maybe in France/Netherlands/Spain, but we’ll see.
I came across this article suggesting big changes to the monetary system with the end of the dollar as a reserve currency shortly forthcoming -which is perhaps not unexpected here – except that Tump may be proactively making moves. It reads to me like some signal among the noise and I’m interested what your thoughts are JMG (and others), my limited understanding has largely been gleaned here after all. Hat tip.
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/trump-putin-and-the-most-important-meeting-in-half-a-century/
@Bridge
Hi Bridge I will also be emailing you about the Glastonbury convention
Many thanks
Falling Tree Woman
I woke up this morning at 5:00am. At precisely 5:03, as I was typing the above comment, my abode suddenly thumped, shuttered, and then briefly swayed. I was somewhat frantically putting on clothes, with the intent on getting the f#&k out the door and downstairs outside .. when I realized the event had passed. Me thinks I need to purchase one those emergency roll-up cord ladders .. or maybe even a bungee sized for a second story drop, out of my bedroom windows. Subduction City. Yikes!
In the Oh Brother category;
In an interview with The Stanford Daily, Stanford journalism professor Ted Glasser insisted that journalism needed to “free itself from this notion of objectivity to develop a sense of social justice.” He rejected the notion that journalism is based on objectivity and said that he views “journalists as activists because journalism at its best — and indeed history at its best — is all about morality.” Thus, “Journalists need to be overt and candid advocates for social justice, and it’s hard to do that under the constraints of objectivity.”
Left unasked is who defines social justice? Harrison Bergeron?
And for you writers out there a new product on the market,
https://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1995/03/03
batstrel,
As someone who’s experienced multiple Mandela effects, I have a crackpot theory about it that I only give maybe ~10-15% credence to.
The Mandela Effect was first noticed only a few years after The Secret came out. In that book Byrne recommends re-imagining bad news or bills as good news or money sent to you. This ties in with the teachings of one of her influences, Neville Goddard, who experienced a revival in part due to his being quoted in The Secret.
If you go back and read Neville, one of the techniques he teaches is “revision”: using imagination to change not just the future, but the past. This teaching is usually downplayed when Neville is publicly discussed, but it’s the technique Neville himself was most proud of, but it is definitely practiced by some of his followers.
I genuinely think there is validity to Neville’s methods, though they are not all-powerful. Even he acknowledged that you never get exactly what you want — failures will happen, success are often just “close enough,” and there always knock-on effects you didn’t expect. So if Rhonda Byrne set off a Neville revival that resulted in millions of people quietly using New Thought methods to manifest changes not only to the future, but to the past… we may be experiencing the knock-on effects as Mandela effects.
Here in Canada we’re finally getting rid of Dumb-Derriere Trudeau (DDT–yeah his reign was toxic). Apparently some US politicians are blaming his fall on Trump, but DDT had a minority in Parliament and his polling numbers were down.
What worries me is that Chrystia Freeland may win the leadership nomination next Sunday. That dastardly dame is a darling of the WEF, you know the coddled clique that tells us that we’ll be eating insects, own nothing and be happy, but whispers to itself–and we’ll be eating steak, own everything (including you) and be happier. Why do I always think of Brave New World whenever the WEF is mentioned?
And then there was the shouting match between Zelensky and Trump over the weekend.
Oh my!
My opinion of the world today:
Brave New World
meets
1984
meets
Monty Python
Justin Patrick Moore,
I’ll second the recommendation of Red Dwarf: Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers. That was one of the funniest books I’ve ever read. Sadly the sequels do not hold up as well, though there are some really good moments. Plus, you might need to have seen at least a little of the show Red Dwarf to fully appreciate it.
Another 1980’s SF novel I found funny (though YMMV) was Rudy Rucker’s Software. I never read the sequels but remember enjoying the book’s (very) irreverent off-the-wall humor (warning: it’s not for kids). For those interested, the author has made the whole tetralogy available of free: https://www.rudyrucker.com/wares/cc_downloads/
Hi JMG,
So a few times a year I will spend the $3 and buy a lottery ticket. On my most recent ticket, I was two numbers (out of 10) away from winning ~$15 million. It occurred to me that I never actually thought about what I would do with the money if I ever won.
Out of curiosity, what would an Archdruid such as yourself do if you ever came across a windfall of that magnitude?
@Bridge
Thank you! I have sent you an email.
regards,
Curt
How the British Broke Their Own Economy
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/how-the-british-broke-their-own-economy/ar-AA1A8KF4
Also in the article
“As a result, gas production in the U.K. has declined 70 percent since 2000. Although the country’s renewable-energy market has grown, solar and wind power haven’t increased nearly enough to make up the gap.
The comparison with France makes clear Britain’s policy error: In 2003, very large businesses in both countries paid about the same price for electricity. But by 2024, after decades of self-imposed scarcity and the supply shock of the war in Ukraine, electricity in the U.K. was more than twice as expensive as in France.”
From a completely different article,
“As Professor Helen Thompson puts it: “The veil often placed over US power to sooth European pride is being removed, but the core European demand in the horror at this exposure is for the US to maintain overstretch and exercise power it does not have.”
Vice-President Vance was more direct: “The bitter irony of America’s present predicament is that the very people who cheer for permanent arms shipments to Ukraine also supported the de-industrialization of America. The very things you want us to send are things we don’t make enough of.”
Empires declining everywhere.
@ WatchFlinger says:
February 27, 2025 at 9:21 am
“@DFC #83
Do you have an English translation of your blog post, or will a Google Translate be sufficient to understand your post?”
Flinger, I did not detect your question until now, sorry.
I haven’t enough time to translate my post to english, but I thing Google translation could be good enough to understand the main points I made in this article, and a lot of links I use as source of info are in english.
Cheers
David
Hi JMG,
Late but if you allow me….
You said
“DFC, if it’s from unnatural causes, he’ll be transformed into a martyr the way Abraham Lincoln was, and then hang on to your hat. It’s generally forgotten these days that Lincoln was despised by the east coast elites and their pet mass media — newspaper cartoons in the North, never mind the South, portrayed him as a baboon — and was only transformed from controversial figure to national martyr by his assassination. The same thing could happen to Trump.”
My point about the “”Idus of March” was not about the remembrance of Caesar/Trump but the reaction of the Marc Anthonies of the moment, and the fate of those that murdered the Caesar. I agree probably Julius will be greeted as a mythical figure (especially after dead, as JFK or RFK), it is the fate of the other party that could be very different, I guess, but of course I could be totally wrong (after all always there will be a “lone shooter” to blame to avoid bigger problems).
Cheers
David
Thomas @ 118, about resentment: It is surely a powerful feeling, and is, as our host has said about hatred, a natural and normal emotion. Just as some things should be hated, so also is resentment a normal and (should be) expected response to egregious injustices. When Sam Showboat or Candy Cheerleader gets promoted over the heads of diligent worker bees Isaac Industrious and Plane Jane, the two latter have every right to be resentful. They hadn’t ought to throw a bomb into their place of employment, but they might want to update the resumes.
I can understand resentment. What I cannot understand and do not respect is boredom. Nor do I agree that people have a Right to be constantly diverted and entertained.
Having spent some time looking through lists of SF books for every year from 1990 through the 2010, I’m convinced now that the 80s were the last flowering of SF. Granted, there have been some good authors and books up to the present, but my list of SF books I enjoyed from the 80s is larger than what I was able to tabulate for books from 90s, oughts, 2010s, and this decade. Since I do like cyberpunk I wasn’t really including those, but barring the best works by Gibson, Sterling, and Rucker there wasn’t much left. A few things by China Mieville, some of Cory Doctorow’s work, some of Michael Swanwick’s other novels (I enjoyed the Iron Dragon’s Daughter for instance), Jeff Vandermeer. Looking at my own predilections for SF I have genuinely liked, I’d have to say, that despite my dissensus, everything I really love was written up until the 1980s with a handful of things I have really liked from just a smaller group of authors.
A look at fantasy and horror might reveal slightly different patterns. I’d of course leave out mysteries and thrillers. Still, of those, the ones I liked enough to reread would be smaller. I’m probably looking at just another smaller group again of living writers that I would recommend, as compared to what I have read and enjoyed written before 1990.
Following on some of the themes JMG has been discussing for well, decades at this point. A good run down on the growing tide of ‘new romanticism’ as a turn away from hyper rationalism.
Ted Gioia “We Really Are Entering a New Age of Romanticism – An update on the war against algorithms and technocratic manipulation”
https://www.honest-broker.com/p/we-really-are-entering-a-new-age
I apologize for the late post but hey one of my pet interests came up!
Regarding new wave/cyberpunk science fiction; I always found it interesting that they made a big deal of rejecting the golly-gee-whiz Gernsbackian style of science fiction. One of the best stories in the cyberpunk canon is Gibson’s ‘The Gernsback Continuum’ after all. But to me it always seemed that the rejection was a slight of hand.
Sure America might be on its way to failed state status the cyberpunks said, but the techno wonderland was still possible in Japanese corporate Arcologies, O’Neill colony cylinders, Arab Sheikdoms (for some reason Arab culture was also a pretty big thing in 80’s/90’s SF, I think it had to do with the counter culture’s Sufi interests), Bay Area biotech labs or what have you.
In that sense it was not a revolution at all, but rather a holding action. Progress might be dying in America, but somewhere else it still lives on. It was an argument to keep the faith.
Cheers,
JZ
Siliconguy: Re: Glyphosate. Here in the Washington DC media market, Bayer has been running radio ads praising the productivity that glyphosate herbicide allows. (I don’t understand how anyone thinks that a radio spot on the news/weather/sports station will change legi$lation, but I suppose it could give someone an excuse who’$ mind ha$ been changed through le$$ obviou$ mean$.) Anyway, I hadn’t worried about glyphosate (e.g. Roundup) for weed control, but when I heard about it being used to accelerate grain ripening, I did a little more research. The allowed residue standard has been raised, for the convenience of the grain growers, under the argument that “it’s an herbicide, and we are not herbs.” Except that we ARE, if you take into account our gut microbiomes. So, since then we’ve relied on organic grain products, which has the welcome side effect of helping me reject the baked “treats” that show up at the office and at church. “Probably not organic”, I think, as well as too much sugar. The knowledge strengthens my Will to resist unhealthy food.
xcalibur/djs : re: northern Europe under Islamic control? I’m not so sure. Reports of middle-eastern immigrants to the north report that the weather is uncomfortably cold and dark much of the year, and there are no good tea shops. For now, they have ample electric power to mitigate these issues. In the not too distant future, I believe that only we mutants with relatively transparent skin will be able to synthesize enough Vitamin D to withstand viral attack in the North. I don’t believe that it’s merely tradition or culture that has sorted “white” people toward the poles.
Sad to say, but I think there are some hard limits to how much justice we can expect for all the wrongdoing of the last 60 years.
Here is Elon Musk on the Jow Rogan Show:
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/really-gonna-get-me-assassinated-musk-warns-he-cant-push-too-hard-corruption-stuff
““I mean this is really gonna get me assassinated,” Musk replied. “It’s like, I’m not lengthening my lifespan by explaining this stuff, to say the least. I mean, I was supposed to go back to DC. How am I going to survive? This is [bleeping] going to kill me for sure,” Musk continued.
“In fact, I do think like this… it’s like, I actually have to be careful that I don’t push too hard on the corruption stuff because it’s going to get me killed.“”
Also, I have yet to see any meaningful action on the Epstein business. Oh, and has anyone noticed that l’affaire Diddy has gone really, really quiet of late?
Unfortunately, I do not expect to see any Earthly justice for the pedo’s. They are just too powerful and too desperate. They are NOT going to meekly put up their hands, surrender and submit to the hangman’s noose or the firing squad. The best (i.e., least bad) I expect are waves of atrocities followed by waves of suicides. And that is if we are lucky!
I say this, to help all of us moderate our expectations. I do not expect full justice this side of Judgement Day.
Regarding the Mandela Effect, I first learned of it in the Fall of 2023 after watching a movie called Murder on the Orient Express with my girlfriend. I was taken aback because it was about the Lindbergh baby, and referenced how the baby’s corpse was found.
Since I knew the corpse had never been found, I was taken aback at why a historical work of fiction would reference a historical event incorrectly, read up on the event, and to my shock and horror, I found that the Lindbergh baby was indeed found dead shortly after the kidnapping.
This is not how I remembered things. Same goes for my parents. Furthermore, I did more research on the Mandela Effect and eventually, I intuitively looked up the Mona Lisa and burst out laughing. The Mona Lisa I remember had a resting bitchface, not a smile, and Mona Lisa smile was a sarcastic comment you would make to grumpy looking women.
So, I don’t know what happened other than I know what I remember and I am now in a reality where the Mona Lisa has an obvious grin on her face and looks stupid, the Lindbergh baby was found dead, and, absurdly, the Little Mermaid never singsPart of Your World” during a song called Part of Your World, replacing the word “Your” with “That”.
I want to point out I noticed all three of these differences before reading about them as Mandela Effects. What happened? I don’t know. Maybe I died prematurely and my consciousness transferred to some close reality? Maybe I had to shift realities for my soul to learn lessons it couldn’t learn in the original reality? All I know is the Mona Lisa does not look like it does, and I laugh every time I see it.
It’s like the Gods played a ridiculous joke on me.
And come on. It’s called Part of Your World for crying out loud and “that” even sounds jarring.
Justin Patrick Moore,
I have read Doris Lessing’s sci-fi books and found them well worth the read. Shikasta still haunts me.
I figure you know that KW Jeter is the Kevin in Valis.
Although Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep is pre-80s, perhaps it could be given honorable mention because the movie based on it, Bladerunner, came out in the 1980s.
For anyone who has seen the movie, the book has so very much more to it. Worth reading even if only for the Penfield Mood Organ seen in the beginning.
Apropos discussions of human settlements on other planets or asteroids, Philip K. Dick consistently presents such living as intensely dreary. Lonely and isolated.
O-o-ops! Looks like I spoke too soon!
“Everything Is Going To Come Out”: AG Pam Bondi Says She Received “Truckload” Of Hidden Epstein Documents From SDNY
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/everything-going-come-out-ag-pam-bondi-says-she-received-truckload-hidden-epstein
“FBI handed over a couple hundred pages of documents, but you know Sean, I gave them a deadline of Friday at 8am to get us everything, and a source had told me where the documents were being kept – southern district of new york (shock), so we got – hopefully all of them, Friday at 8am. Thousands of documents,” said Bondi.
“I have the FBI going through them … Now that we have Kash here it’s a game changer of course, and Director Patel is going to get us a detailed report as to why the FBI withheld all of those documents.”
Keeping my fingers crossed! Let’s hope that you (JMG) are right, and that FBI SDNY is about to be crucified.
Next stop – ATF!
FBI Director Patel To Take Over ATF Too – Will He Burn It To The Ground?
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/fbi-director-patel-take-over-atf-too-will-he-burn-it-ground
Please, God! Drive a stake through the black and evil heart of the ATF! Randy Weaver’s family will thank you for it!
Re dying alone. I nearly did, last year. I live alone, but I keep in contact with my sister who lives a few kilometers away. One night I realized I was going to die from a complete blockage of the organs of elimination, to put it politely (I had seen a doctor and my local clinic, who had not realized how urgent my case was).
I sent a Whatsapp to my sister telling her I wasn’t going to make it and gave her my bank details, passwords, etc. She phoned the doctor in a panic and he said to get me to hospital immediately where they did an emergency catheterization, and kept me for a few days of observation. Some months later I got an operation and now all seems to be well, touch wood.
Had it not been for her I would have ended up like one of those smelly LA corpses OtterGirl #213 talks about.
Incidentally, in searching for the documentary on YouTube she refers to, I found this tidbit on a documentary titled “The Unclaimed: How to Die on the Streets of LA”:
Eric’s experience is tied to Los Angeles County’s annual “Ceremony of the Unclaimed Dead.” During this unique event, the remains of over 1,500 people – many of them homeless – are interred in a common grave. A small, public graveside ceremony is held to honor the dead.
Re divination by sinking: thalassomancy is apparently a real thing, from thalassa = sea in Greek, which suggests vythizomancy from vythizo = immerse, sink, or submerge in Greek, or vythizómenoploíomancy from vythizómeno ploío = sinking ship in Greek (Google translate)
@ Michael Gray, Hitler did also have a less formal salute.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/93/Bundesarchiv_Bild_183-J00282%2C_Berlin%2C_Hitler_im_Sportpalast.jpg
One 1933 satirical political opposition propaganda poster portrayed him doing such a salute and receiving backhanders from the capitalists. 😉
It’s late in the week by I’d like to chime in and share my impression of the Trump/Vance-Zelensky fallout. Zelensky lost his cool first and started to argue with Vance, so one can put the blame on him. But the whole setup was to trigger him. He had to listen to Trump and Vance saying things he doesn’t agree with and he got humiliating remarks about his outfit and so on. It was definitely meant to tripwire him.
Now why would Trump do that? There’s the timing and the content. I think the timing was meant as a distraction from the Epstein files nothingburger. It didn’t go down well with his supporters so Trump needed to insert something else in the newscycle. I’d say that worked really well 😊.
But more important is the content of the disagreement. I think Trump is right that Zelensky doesn’t want peace. He was making claims that Russia must compensate Ukraine and wants NATO troops as peace keepers. Trump doesn’t want that and told Zelensky multiple times that his position is so weak that he cannot enforce those demands. As Zelensky keeps making those demands he showed that he isn’t willing to strike a peace deal. With the spectacle, Trump and Vance made this clear to the whole world.
Unfortunately the EU leaders seem blind to the situation. They want to wage war with Russia and apparently believe they can win. Vance warned in Munich about the deindustrialization of Europe, but they don’t want to listen. It will take at least 10 years before EU has a defense industry worth mentioning and it will take *much* more than just throwing money at it. We don’t have the regulation (for example TNT plants are polluting but necessary), workforce or soldiers to just start pumping out weapons.
The EU plan now seems to be to put EU soldiers in Ukraine as peace keepers and as soon as some get killed trying to get the US involved by invoking article 5. I don’t think Trump will fall for it. It’s all so stupid! Tarot by Izabela (who predicted the events in Feb correctly) thinks they will detonate a dirty bomb and try to blame it on Russia. This will not work and several EU leaders plus Zelensky will lose power in the aftermath. I hope and pray that this horror won’t happen, but our leaders in the EU seem to be under a curse of the Gods or something and so blind that it wouldn’t even surprise me.
“Demand for natural gas continues to rise globally as the world transitions to cleaner fuels. Industry forecasts LNG demand to reach between 630 million and 718 million metric tons a year by 2040, Shell said in its 2025 annual LNG outlook.”
The numbers are higher than last year’s forecast, which put LNG demand at anywhere from 625 million tons to 685 million tons a year by 2040.”
https://nam.org/shell-huge-rise-in-global-lng-demand-by-2040-33360/?stream=series-input-stories
But also “Global LNG trade grew by only 2 million tonnes in 2024, the lowest annual increase in 10 years, to reach 407 million tonnes due to constrained new supply development.”
So 16 grams (or tons) of methane (CH4) makes 44 grams (or tons) of CO2. So 407 million tons of LNG made 1119 million tons of CO2. There is also 916 million tons of water coming down somewhere. Eventually we should see a drop in atmospheric oxygen level, but it’s in the noise so far.
@Slithy Toves: I love Rudy Rucker and his books! His humor is part of what I find so endearing about his work. He also didn’t have to be hard science, he could be fun and psionic when he needed to be, in service to story. He also published one of my first pieces of publishable fiction in his online zine Flurb alongside Sterling and some other cyberpunk greats:
https://www.rudyrucker.com/flurb/12/index12.html
He was always very friendly in the occasional emails I exchanged with him and on his blog. Full of neat mathematical ideas.
Glad to hear I wasn’t the only one who loved that Red Dwarf novel!
@Jessica: I have read one K.W. Jeter novel, Noir, which I loved. I have a copy of Farewell Horizontal, but my friend Christian, a mentor in pulp fiction, Crowleyana, and psychedelic goth music, swears by Dr. Adder. Still haven’t gotten around to it. I got a set of the Shikasta books used in hardcover some years ago. They are awaiting the proper moment.
@John Zybourne: Well said…
@BorealBear #369, I mostly agree with your father.
It’s true that in my childhood in the 60s, there was a lot of talk about an eventual future in space. Here’s the first verse of a song from early 70s Sesame Street, which means it was aimed at children 5 or 10 years younger than me:
Someday, little children, someday soon
There’s gonna be a lotta people, yeah
And they’ll be living on the moon
Yeah, people living on the moon someday
It might sound crazy, but it’s true
You know who’s gonna make it happen?
Well, it might be you, someday my little children…
(Subsequent verses predicted the end of all illness, and “a world of peace and love,” but with more wishful wording that dropped the promise of “soon.”)
Counter to that, however, was the constant adulation of how smart, fit, experienced, highly trained, and overall superior beings the astronauts of the time were. One might dream of becoming an astronaut just like of being an NFL quarterback or a rock star, but it was obvious there was no reliable career path there, and any chance would require starting in the military. No one I knew in childhood ever expected the pace of space exploration to accelerate enough for them to be space colonists themselves, and the events of later decades wouldn’t have changed that. Like the Olympics or the Miss America pageant, for almost everyone it was something to spectate rather than personally aspire to.
As for those undersea habitats, at least anyone who has serious dreams of living and working deep underwater can train to be underwater welders, submarine crew, salvage divers, or various other mostly blue-collar positions. The former is a fairly well-paying but strenuous and dangerous job. You can’t reside underwater, but you can commute there if you really want to.
We haven’t reached the point (and may never do so) of actually being able to build things in space as we sometimes do underwater; if we did, life aboard orbital habitats or a lunar base or whatever would be mostly high-risk blue-collar work too. The trend toward gritty working-class SF (even the Star Wars franchise recently streamed a mini-series taking place in large part among the prison sweatshop workers assembling what turned out to be Death Star components; no space princesses or space wizards in sight) and away from the shiny Enterprise bridge might reflect some level of awareness of this. Even on the ISS there has to have been at least one crew member all times whose expertise is fixing stuff, rewiring around bad connections and freeing stuck valves and replacing the AE-35 unit and unclogging the space toilet. Every picture of the interior of that place reminds me of the machinery rooms and wiring plenums I’ve worked in myself (with the benefits of gravity and reliable air, of course).
Re. the Mandela effect, look up the many “Dolly’s braces” videos on YouTube. They reference a scene in James Bond movie “Moonraker”. The very tall actor Richard Kiel plays the “Jaws” character, who has big metal teeth. He meets tiny Dolly, who opens her mouth to reveal braces on her teeth. Or so many people remember. But the actress who played Dolly said she never wore braces. One person commented: “The most logical explanation is that we are all making up the same false memory. The only problem is that doesn’t seem logical to me at all. The exact SAME false memory?”
Look at this video from the 34 seconds mark, through to 50 seconds. It shows “The Simpsons” spoofing the “braces scene”, and also Richard Kiel himself, appearing in a Finnish TV advert that spoofs it. Clearly the writers of these spoofs believed that Dolly wore braces in the Bond film.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zf6q0kigGdI
And this shows what some people THINK they saw. Watch from the 35 seconds point onwards.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCFLgDsqh6Q
“Anonymous says:
March 1, 2025 at 1:51 pm
Another consequence of DOGE cutting federal funding: Asian carp may enter the Great Lakes
https://www.northernpublicradio.org/wnij-news/2025-02-24/gov-pritzkers-carp-project-pause-could-be-a-risk-for-the-great-lakes”
Of greater concern would be the end of the Agriculture Dept program to keep screwworm out of North America, north of Panama, and the Caribbean. The money spent is minuscule compared to the dramatically outsized benefit of not have screwworm endemic to our country. Just this past Dec and emergency was triggered by a single infection in New Mexico.
I am VERY late to the comments, but have been really enjoying them!
An observation about Trump– IMHO, He is an instructive example of what happens to a person when they are taken over by an Archetype.
I keep reading comments, like “Donald is playing 4-dimensional Chess,” and “They know the US Hot air balloon is crashing; Harris’ plan was to let it splat on the ground, destroying the basket; Trump is throwing things out of the basket to splat on the ground, in order to save the basket.”
It all reminds me of the ‘Wizard of Oz’ in the book and movie of the same name. Deep in his heart, the Wizard knows he is only A Humbug– he’s faking it– but circumstances put him at the heart of the Emerald City, and really, what option does he have, but to play the part of the “Great and Powerful Wizard?”
He sends Dorothy and her companions off to be killed by the Wicked Witch of the West so they won’t give away his game by making him actually do something–
And the unseen Wizard Archetype in the story uses this to remove the Wicked Witch of the West.
Even after admitting to being a humbug at the end, the Wizard bedazzles Dorothy and her friends with meaningless gifts. The one resource he actually has is his hot air balloon, and he bungles even this offer to rescue Dorothy, removing only himself.
Do the Oz-ites notice this? No. They remain clueless throughout.
Donald Trump IS our Wizard of Oz. He was swept into the US Presidency twice by forces he doesn’t understand. If it were even possible to find out what is in the depths of his heart, I think we would find the miserable, driven child that his father made him, and the certain knowledge that he is a loser who does not now know, and never has known, what he is doing.
But like the Wizard at the heart of the Emerald City, Donald has been carried to Washington DC again by the tornadic forces of the Changer Archetype. He is surrounded by people projecting their hopes, dreams, and plans onto him. Asians are burning incense to statues of his likeness. The intense rush of all of this energy has taken away any impetus he may have once had, and made him the marionette of the Changer.
Does Donald himself know or care that the US can’t sustain its empire, and must disengage to save something of the United States? IMHO, no he doesn’t. Anyone who thinks he is operating on a long-term plan for the US is only picking up the projections of the Archetype.
Now, this doesn’t mean that the accidental actions of Donald to get us out of foreign entanglements won’t benefit the US– I’m only saying that the Archetype is on the move, and Donald personally has little to do with it.
Donald is not the only one this sort of thing has happened to.
Elvis, and the Beatles, were carried along on the Rock and Roll Archetype. Their music, especially the early stuff, was not that good.
JMG has experimented with awakening the Johnny Appleseed Archetype.
I’m observing the Trump Archetype, and wonder if anyone else has thoughts on it…
The oddest Mandela Effect has to be the cornucopia on the Fruit of the Loom logo, because not only do a bunch of us remember the cornucopia, but we have images of the exact cornucopia!
It’s widely believed that this is an artifact of counterfeit FotL clothing with the altered logo getting into general circulation in the 90’s, and at least one purported image of bootleg underwear (what a concept) has been posted, but this has never been definitively confirmed. Adding to the confusion, in 1973 musician Frank Wess released an album called “Flute of the Loom” whose cover featured a flute seemingly parodying the non-existent cornucopia, well before the bootlegs are thought to have entered circulation.
One of the most heartbreaking for me is the Tinkerbell opening. As a kid I watched Disney movies on VHS a lot, and I vividly remember in the opening credits, Tinkerbell flying in to draw the arc over the Disney Castle with her wand. This delightful scene now never happened.
EU to build a defense industry? But, but;
LONDON, Sept 30 [2024] (Reuters) – Britain’s biggest steelworks will end production later on Monday, when the final blast furnace at Port Talbot in Wales will close after more than 100 years of steelmaking, at a cost of almost 3,000 jobs.
The closure of the last blast furnace at Port Talbot, once the largest steel works in Europe, is the culmination of decades of decline in Britain’s steel industry, which has struggled to compete with low-cost imports.
And they want war? Are the Brits going to make long bows great again?
“The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. As of 1 January 2025, the British Army comprises 73,847 regular full-time personnel, 4,127 Gurkhas, 25,742 volunteer reserve personnel and 4,697 “other personnel”, for a total of 108,413.”
From another source “The British Army currently has two deployable divisions.” and a division is around 10,000 men.
“Jan 26, 2024 — Army and navy recruitment targets have been missed every year since 2010, according to figures compiled by Labour.”
So to expand they will need the draft, or a depression bad enough to force starving young people into the military. The latter will work, the bad economy of the mid 1970’s was a major factor in me enlisting in the Navy.
“I don’t expect any sort of line!” Well, the demographics are against you there – by our age there’s decidedly a shortage of men.
“On a more serious note, Scott Bessent the U.S. Treasury Secretary said recently that ‘within the next twelve months, we’re going to monetize the asset side of the balance sheet for the American people. We’re going to put the assets to work.’ There has been so much focus on the liability side of the balance sheet (basically the $38 trillion in national debt) that it’s refreshing to hear a senior official talk about the asset side.
“The liberal critics will wail that Bessent plans to sell Yosemite National Park to real estate developers. Nothing like that will happen but the U.S. does have ample assets it can sell, lease or otherwise monetize without invading national parks or wilderness areas. These include mineral and mining rights, intellectual property, airwaves, rights of way, flight paths, and, yes, property development rights and land sales in non-sensitive areas. No one has any idea what all of this is worth, but it’s certainly worth in the trillions of dollars and can be monetized for the benefit of the American people including paying down the national debt.”
— https://dailyreckoning.com/golds-historic-rally/
What Musk and Bessent are up to, people from Latin America and Africa know only too well. The politicians can give it a positive spin and call it cutting waste and corruption and monetizing the assets, but in international banking circles it’s known as “structural adjustment”, and for the nation concerned it means austerity and selling off the family silver.
It’s what happens when politicians borrow money to fund services to ensure the loyalty of the voters. Then they borrow more money to pay off the loans. Then they borrow still more to pay off the interest on the loans. Until one day the bankers come to call and say, sorry, you’ve reached your limit. You’ll have to economize and sell off assets.
It’s why Greek ports are owned by Chinese, and Greek airports owned by Germans, and Greek pensioners are on the verge of starvation. And tens of thousands of Americans who thought they had a secure job are suddenly unemployed, and the businesses that depended on their custom are worried.
Many other nations are in a similar pickle. Welcome, USA, to the third world.
Emanuel Goldstein
Very interesting observation/comment.
Apropos salutes, Nazi or other: it is customary, except in formal situations, for the subordinate person to give a more formal salute than the one the superior returns. In their defense their arm would be worn out by the end of the day otherwisa.
@453 Emmanuel Goldstein
This makes sense, and implies that the Archetypes influence the minds of the populace to get the effects they intend.
The people of Oz didn’t realize the Wizard was a fraud partly because the Great & Powerful Wizard archetype needs them to believe the Wizard is great and powerful…even if they must ignore minor slipups.
The MAGA Trump cult & its TDS inverse both continue to be strong because the Changer needs the managerial class to hate Trump and other sectors of the population to support him.
I attempted an Aries solar ingress chart for the US earlier today, using JMG’s mundane astrology book. If I interpreted it correctly (and I’m new to this), it predicts a hard time for the US…maybe the Changer archetype will influence a majority of Americans to have faith that the Trump-Musk administration will ultimately benefit themselves and the country, while Dems continue to shriek.
Regarding your recent response Mr. Greer, it is worth noting that Biden had similar “conversations” with Zelenssky:
https://x.com/Musa_alGharbi/status/1896066669539201059
I was also curious about what you think of this article, which looks at the US history of economic nationalism:
https://lawliberty.org/the-return-of-political-economic-nationalism/
regarding #420, I didn’t mean to begin two sentences in a row with “Still,”. My mistake, should’ve caught that during editing!
Lathechuck #438: You’re correct in that skin color/melanin is an evolutionary response to latitude — the closer to the poles, the lighter you are; the closer to the equator, the darker you are. I’ve read in certain forbidden literature (eg Madison Grant’s Passing of the Great Race) that whites thrive in cool, temperate environments, and wilt in hot, subtropical climes, while the reverse is true for darker races. While that’s a valid point, technology can mitigate those issues to an extent, and the warming climate will create a push/pull effect as the Middle East gets too scorching hot as Europe warms up. Besides, Europe represents a decadent society ripe for plunder.
That brings me to another point, which is the incredible irony of all this. Europe long defined itself in contrast to Islam, which was always the exotic other or foreign infidel. Yet now, Europe is blending itself away via Islam, insisting they’re all the same! As for Islam, it was their longstanding dream to conquer Europe, yet they never could — there was always a Charles Martel, or column of Winged Hussars to turn them back. And now, the warrior religion is finally achieving their ambition of conquest, yet it’s by peaceful invitation from a suicidal society! Truly, as JMG tells us, the Changer is at work.
PaulD #452: Of course a few positive things will get cut off, and the defenders of the parasite class will cherry-pick those instances. However, there’s no avoiding this, since USAID was largely being spent on social engineering, alongside waste & corruption. Tackling the 90% of useless spending while preserving the positive 10% would’ve been too difficult — better to pull the plug, then restore whatever is needed; medication has side-effects.
btw, the carp getting into the Great Lakes is a good thing, and the Western response to “invasive species” is wildly misguided, as I’ve learned here. See the article here titled “A Conversation With Nature” for more info (JMG also responded on this point here, but I can’t be bothered to dig it up lol).
Emmanuel #453:
You may be onto something!
Cugel
I meditated a bit on the Mandela Effect and came up with a bizarre conclusion. Awhile ago I ran into this New Age thinker who claimed something along the lines of, “When a person decides to kill another person, the person on the receiving end’s soul gets replaced with something else so the murderer can act out their will while the receiver doesn’t have to experience the trauma of dealing with that.” I scoffed at the notion at the time, but I’m starting to believe that there’s some truth to this beneath the surface based on my own situations.
I have been in a few situations in which case I thought I was certain to die but came out inexplicably unscathed. Spinning out of control out of the highway and seeing oncoming lights only not to be touched at all and all of the traffic that I had thought I had seen vanish. So, maybe, unless it’s your time to go, your consciousness shifts to a slightly different timeline every time you’re about to get killed. Maybe that’s the real secret to how humanity has avoided a nuclear war. Every time it happens, we have a mass consciousness shift, resulting in Mandela effects for some noticeable percent of the population (as opposed to the usual state of affairs which would just be the individual).
I want to stress that this is just a hypothesis, but it is based on what I’ve personally observed.
It also leads me to ask, “What do most American occultists believe about murder and suicide their relation to ghosts, karma and soul progression?”
Magic Monday’s book was “The Twilight of Pluto.” It occurred to me that the career of Pope Francis was a very Plutonian “In with a bang; out with a whimper.” With a lot of controversy in between.
“As a kid I watched Disney movies on VHS a lot, and I vividly remember in the opening credits, Tinkerbell flying in to draw the arc over the Disney Castle with her wand. This delightful scene now never happened.”
OK, now they’re just f***ing with us.
@ Dennis Michael Sawyers – This thing about the Mona Lisa having a smile is news to me. I’d always known her to have a wry look on her face, definitely not a smile, and I remember years ago a roommate who was studying art history having to write a paper on the various interpretations of why she wasn’t smiling. I also used to have a poster print of the Mona Lisa hung in my kitchen back in the 90s and she wasn’t smiling. It was like one corner of her mouth turned up slightly like she was about to smile but wasn’t sure if she wanted to. This new smile is weird, and goofy. How very strange.
FSH
re: lack of calculators for engineering work
@ Anonymoose canadian
I am late to comment so hopefully anyone interested sees this.
I have an electrical engineering degree, and I went thru school when calculators were new. And the ones we could afford didnt do much. I am a little too young to be familiar with a slide rule, but hear they are very quick. In my day, all thru high school level college prep math – no calculators were used. I had one in college that would do basic calculations, which saves time.
What we had in college and had to learn how to use, and I still own, is a CRC standard math tables book. All your calculator does for lets say a trig function, is that the memory of the calculator has those tables built in in the calculator. And the Logrithmic tables. So the book has those tables, tables for solutions for square and cube and roots, etc… and a list of alot of calculus equations/solutions, pages of them. And then, since it is a book, some pages of basic equations for trig, and the quadratic equation, so basic summary to look up to solve math problems. It is not hard to use, and that and a chalkboard or paper, you can solve equations. A slide rule would be great for you to have too. Here is what I mean. Mine is something like the 26th edition…. I think. Black cover, Im not gonna walk upstairs, it is next to teh dictionary and old encyclopedia.
“Then they borrow still more to pay off the interest on the loans. Until one day the bankers come to call and say, sorry, you’ve reached your limit. You’ll have to economize and sell off assets.”
“They must retrench; that did not admit of a doubt.” The first thing that popped into my head, Persuasion by Jane Austen . I just re-read the first two chapters and it is indeed familiar.
If the debt means the US is really third world now, who’s not? Europe is toast, China is papering over an epic financial hole. The oil kingdoms like Norway and Saudi Arabia have surpluses, but who else?
Justin, I doubt that’s ever occurred to the European elites. They’re constantly being blindsided by the discovery that no, the rest of the world doesn’t have to play along with whatever they want.
Joy Marie, if the Trump administration wants to get a lot of popularity very fast, fixing the postal system would certainly be one way to do it.
Polecat, yep. I wonder if the absurdly rich noted how many people laughed and cheered when that happened. As for the EU, I think they’re basically climbing aboard a carbon fiber submarine…
Michael, every generation since the Regency period onward had some drug or other they thought would open the doors of perception. There was a whole sequence of middle Victorian mystics, for example, who were convinced that chloroform was the wonder drug in question — Anna Kingsford, who’s forgotten these days but was hugely influential in mystical circles in her day, was a heavy duty chloroform huffer. The rhetoric is always the same, the hopes are always the same, and so is the inevitable failure.
Clay, funny.
Sgage, I’m glad to hear that about Garcia.
Josef, hmm. I wonder if it was Parkers’ Astrology by Julia and Derek Parker; that’s a good intro for the complete beginner.
Carlos, good to hear.
Justin, hmm. I read about half of those and wasn’t overly impressed, but tastes vary, of course.
Xcalibur/djs, oh, I know the theory behind it. The Last Battle was simply the book that convinced me that it makes no sense. The dwarves in their mental prison demonstrate that even in Aslan’s paradise, free will still has full reign — so why bother with the Shadowlands at all? And of course that’s pretty much the basic idea in occult philosophy; we’re all dwarves in mental prisons, or prisoners in Plato’s cave, but we have all the time and opportunities we need to blink awake, notice that the world might just be a little less constricted than we thought, and find our way a little at a time into the paradise we’ve been in all along.
Falling Tree Woman, I hope the author of that article is right — it would be a huge benefit for Americans outside of the elite classes, and for the global economy generally.
Siliconguy, I think that belongs in the Oh Big Brother category!
Annette, okay, that nearly gave my keyboard a tea bath. Thank you.
Anonymouse, I’d use it to build and endow a center for the preservation and non-academic study of American magic somewhere in the eastern part of the country. It would have a large and well-stocked private library, classrooms, a lodge room, and a museum with rotating exhibits; it would have a small but decently paid staff; and it would run a summer school every year, inviting teachers of American magical traditions to teach and initiate students.
Siliconguy, yep. Down they go — whee!
David, well, we’ll see.
Michael G, here’s hoping!
Michael M, it’s still early days yet. I’m suspending judgment for the time being.
Emmanuel, that seems accurate to me.
Siliconguy, it’s a classic example of the barbarism of reflection. It probably has never occurred to Keir Starmer that he can’t just tell Britain to give him a big army and have one sitting under the Christmas tree in short order. Physical realities? How old-fashioned!
Roldy, well, we’ll see.
Martin, of course. The US is a third world country, after all.
David, I’ll put both these into the get-to stack.
Patricia M, maybe so!
I think fabric stores in general, Jo Anns in particular and likely most stores, they pay rent. And the rents for many of those locations are very high. Especially for a store like JoAnns fabrics, the big draw with JoAnns was the low prices. Sales on patterns routinely to 50% of manufacturers printed on the envelope prices. Low price per yard fabrics. So that model has to sell alot at low prices to make rent. Volume. And, the reality is that less people each year sew. The cost of keeping up a store of any type is high, rent, salary and benefits for employees, employee retention.
Maybe the future will be more stores run out of garages in neighborhoods. But then how to get the stock ? A large chain like JoAnns churned thru so much stock, they could buy in bulk, had deals with mills. Even if you sold out of your garage as a sole proprietor, would anyone be able to afford it.
We live in interesting intermediate times. Eventually we may have no choice but to have expensive local fabric. But in the meantime, we have issues of supply and affordability.
I do sew and am just finishing a dress for my granddaughter. I bought the fabric at a nonprofit, so I only paid $3 yard, with a used pattern. And I traced the multisized pattern and did not cut it. ANd I had some thread about. So, $6 worth of fabric and a $1 pattern. Because, at the moment, Silicon Valley has enough excess materials, and women of retirement or other leisure who volunteer their time, to run a pop up fabric rescue 2 weekends a month. Keeping fabrics out of the waste stream. I realy could not see going to an independent fabric store and paying $15 for a pattern, and $15 a yard for fabric, so a total of $45 for the little sun dress for a small child.
And, for adults and children, there is still enough thrifted clothing to go thru, I rarely have a reason to sew something for myself, although I will if it is a certain item I want. I will soon make some underthings for myself for example.
Japan
My ex has been living in Tokyo for quite a few years now. He realy likes it. Yes, you can immigrate to there, but they certainly do want to keep their cultural heritage. If you want to assimilate into that cultural heritage, look into it as they especially have room in areas outside of the large cities. I commend them for shrinking without opening floodgates to change their culture
@Xcalibur and LatheChuck
The Australian experience is interesting in this regard of Melanin etc. Most of us are descended from pale west European stock and have thrived over the whole continent even before air conditioning except the super tropical north, but that probably has more to do with its unsuitability for towns and agriculture than anything else. Cairns up at the northern tip of Queensland has a glorious climate for all humans, but Cyclones, Crocodiles, insect pressure etc can make it tricky.
People change rapidly in a new land, it only takes one generation for skeletons, proportions and features to start changing. Old stock White Australians (and Southern Americans, South Africans, New Zealanders, Latin Americans etc) and no longer European, they are something different .
Many like to point to skin cancer, but the whole skin cancer in Aus thing is overblown. The reason our rates are so high is because we test far more than anywhere else (just like a certain coronavirus…), and pick up every type of lesion (most not really that dangerous) and call it skin cancer. There is also little evidence that the dangerous form of melanoma is at all caused by the sun, its increase is probably for the same reason as all cancer increases, oxidative stress/diet/toxins etc. Even if it is something to really worry about, it’s easy to throw on a hat and loose fitting covering clothing in the highest UV time of the day, which is what most subtropical cultures (Mexico, China etc) do anyway.
I think you may be onto something that going the other way is harder. Many African descended people struggle with vitamin D issues in cooler climes. I think this is because fundamentally humans are subtropical animals, and the if you look a the subtropical highland climate of Eastern Africa it can only be described as the perfect human temperature, even for white people. White skin is a cool adaptation but didn’t solve the issue of our hairlessness and need for constant warmth. It makes sense that white people would be fine moving to warmer climes, whereas darker people would struggle in colder places because they are fundamentally unsuitable for humans without a lot of workarounds.
What do you think of Michael Lind’s take on Donald Trump’s foreign policy?:
https://unherd.com/2025/03/the-roots-of-trumps-realpolitik/
David R., I cautioned you once before about low-effort comments of the “what do you think about this article?” variety. This is your second warning. Please don’t do it again.
It will be interesting to see how the Euro elite, wielding their couture, coiffure and manicure, manage this situation with Putin.
That didn’t take long. Israel is denying entry to trucks carrying aid to Gaza because “bandits”. You can’t make this stuff up. Pepe Escobar lays it all out in the linked You Tube, for those who do do video. The discussion about the Middle East begins at 9:10. Among other things mentioned, it seems that the Egyptian Army really, really wants Gen. Sissi to invade Israel. Now that Carter is no longer alive to be embarrassed by the demise of the treaty he wrote…
thttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8PjpmNmlS8
Atmospheric River, I have never understood why City Councils and County Govts. can’t force commercial RE to charge rates affordable for local businesses. How much revenue do empty storefronts bring into a town or county?
SLClaire et alia:
RE the glyphosate billboards. Several weeks ago I saw the same billboard here in Providence. I was surprised to see it since Rhode Island is hardly a major grain producing state. The location was just next to one of the main parking lots for state employees, a couple blocks from the State House, so the audience was obvious.
PM Starmer really put his foot in his mouth when he announced a formation of “a coalition of the willing” to defend plucky little Ukraine. Where have we heard that before?
Last, somehow, Mardi Gras has been lost in the Trump whirlwind. Cheers to all how look forward to beginning of Lent tomorrow!
With regard to why Japan’s population shrinking, it’s pretty obvious once you live there for awhile and observe what’s going on up close.
All of the jobs are in the cities. All of the land is in the countryside. Furthermore, when I say cities, I am really only talking about Tokyo, Osaka, Fukuoka, and maybe a few other places. That’s the main problem.
What this leads to is the following pattern: Everyone in the country moves to the cities for work. This drives up the price of land and rent (and a few other things) in the cities. Japanese companies also compensate employees not based on ability but based on how long they’ve worked for the company. Between the high rent and low wages and all the jobs being in the same place so you have to move to the place with high rent, most people cannot even afford to get married and have kids until they are past 30 years old.
Furthermore, Japanese work culture is stupid, unproductive, and involves staying at work for long hours for literally no reason other than your boss is still there. This means that one parent (the wife) must stay at home to raise children, and the other parent is unavailable to help because they are working. This makes having more than one or two kids impossible unless grandparents live nearby, which only happens if you were born in the big city in which you work.
Adding further fuel to the fire is that the aging population requires more financial support and taxes have been raised which have hurt working age populations, making it even harder to have kids. Comically, they also launched a disastrous move to encourage tourism to Japan to reinvigorate the countryside. Predictably, tourists only visit the big cities (Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto) further increasing the cost of living in the only place young, working-age people live, making the low childbirth problem worse.
It’s a disaster. Are there solutions? Yes. Are there solutions the Japanese government as-is can imagine? No. Until that changes, expect the decline to accelerate and go lower faster than even the pessimistic models predict.
That’s the situation.
JMG,
To respond to your reply, I was going to say, “So, after we’re all dead?” Unfortunately, Trump’s speech tonight just ended with the USA planting the American flag on Mars as a goal. Yeah, I guess it’s going to take a while.
A few quick thoughts before the comment window closes:
USAID — The sudden stop in funds has caused some consternation here in South Africa. We have an enormous AIDS problem which eats a lot of the health budget for medication, testing, counseling and outreach, often deep in the rural areas where you need a 4×4. PEPFAR covered 17% of the program, which now has to be taken from somewhere else. Also, my neighbor is working overtime trying to get new sources of income because his organization (not sure what it does) depended on money from USAID.
Divination — Two Iskander missiles sinking the MS Levante in Odessa carrying British weaponry tells me by vythizomenoploiomancy that Putin’s mad as hell and he’s not gonna take NATO’s shale any more.
Third world — It was John Kenneth Galbraith who observed that America was a third world nation because it exported agricultural products and imported manufactured goods.
Population collapse — I suspect that having both parents working conditions children to regard getting a job as the main aim in life, rather than raising and nurturing a family. Also, evolutionists state that once you have procreated, nature is finished with you. Not so. That’s only half the story. You have to raise children that in turn wish to raise children to complete the cycle.
>If the debt means the US is really third world now, who’s not?
Ding ding ding, we have a winner. It’s the grand vision of the Globalists(tm) – one big homogeneous third world s***hole, with themselves behind thick walls and armed guards.
It’s their dream to own the nicest palace – on Planet Compton. I’d rather live in a shack on Planet Mountain View. Because who cares if you have the nicest place on Planet Compton, you’re living on Planet Compton. I guess me and them will never see eye to eye.
>So to expand they will need the draft
I hope they’re retarded enough to slap a draft on all those young men they’ve been abusing all these years. Do it, do it, do it.
In my living systems class lately, we’ve been discussing the topic of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. While I was doing research for an assignment on the subject, it surprised me how many news articles were in the vein of “We can use this new medical treatment to kill bacteria which have become resistant to all our other treatments!” Makes me wonder if the Red Queen is pulling the CDC’s strings from behind the scenes, as scientists run faster and faster just to stay where they are.
To me, the only treatment option for resistant bacteria that seems plausible past the short term is the application of bacteriophages — and even then, in addition to being untested and potentially coming with deadly side effects, they also won’t work for long unless they’re allowed to continue evolving in step with the bacteria they prey on. In other words, the medical establishment would have to stop treating nature as a passive backdrop, and instead as an adaptive system which can respond to threats we pose to it.