October 2024 Open Post

498 Comments

1. Since this is open ended, I will remark on something that has bemused me lately, about the notions of God. The accepted one among monotheists seems to be a being of unlimited power and knowledge. I don’t understand why this is so. According to the Bible, God twice created beings in a significant way. He created angels. A great many of these did not work out the way He intended. They rebelled against him. He created humans. They very promptly fell, and also have not generally worked out very well, to the point where, in many accounts, they must receive God’s grace to be saved. So He twice creates beings, and they twice do not work out as desired. (Then He gets very angry at them, rather than, as the Rubaiyat points out, accepting the blame due to Himself for his lack of competence). I realize people are willing to accept all sorts of inconsistencies to sustain their morale, but this seems to be a problem that is too obvious to be overlooked, and yet is.

2. It’s become an annual tradition for me to write a piece of ghostly flash fiction for Halloween and send it to my family and friends, as well as post it on my website. The latest one is finished and is ready to share. Since it is flash fiction, I’ll share it right here too. It’s intended for all audiences and is free of gore and light on the horror.

   THE VOICE IN THE WELL by Justin Patrick Moore

   Daniel’s father didn’t want him and his friends to play all the way in the back yard by the concrete covered well. Naturally, it was the place where Daniel and his friends wanted to play the most. So they play there they did, near the capped off old well all the way in the backyard, past the locust trees and the catalpas, in the valley between the streets, far from the world of adults. Daniel remembered it clear as a bell, the first time he heard the voice inside the well. It was a fall day, not too cold, but crisp enough that he felt vibrant and alive. The orange leaves from the trees hadn’t all fallen yet and the grass was still bright green, burning off the last of the summers fuse.

   “You need to let me out Jimmy!” the voice said, echoing with reverberant resonance.

   Daniel didn’t know who the voice was talking to. He didn’t know anyone named Jimmy.

   It sounded old, like a recording on one of those tape cassettes his dad sometimes put onto the dusty boombox when he was working on the car out in the garage, crackling and antique.

   “Come on, I didn’t do anything,” it continued, and in desperation, “I didn’t say anything to mom, I promise!”

   It wasn’t just Daniel who didn’t know who Jimmy was. His friends Billy and Sam didn’t know who Jimmy was either. There wasn’t a Jimmy on their street or on the street behind them. They didn’t know a Jimmy from their games of kill the man or their games of freeze tag or their games of baseball in the field that brushed up against the expansive woods at the end of Orland Street.

   When the voice spoke again it had the quality of something heard in a dream, and they accepted it as a dream, as a voice heard so deep in play that not one of them questioned its reality, and on subsequent days they continued to play the new game of George Down in the Well. That was the name of the kid who did the talking, George, and he was pushed their by his older brother Jimmy after George told his mom what he heard when Jimmy was out behind the garage smoking unfiltered cigarettes he’d stolen from their grandpa. His brother was making a plan as he smoked behind the garage with his friend Gary. He was planning on sneaking into the school at night to pull a prank on the history teacher Mr. Fink. That was the real reason George had been thrown in the well, because when he told his mom about the conversation he overheard between Jimmy and Gary, their mom had sent Gary back home for the night, ending the spend the night, ending the plan to sneak out after everyone went to bed, ending the plan to go in through the window of the chemistry class they had left cracked barely open at the end of seventh bell on Friday. They’d climb up onto the dumpster, push it open and let themselves inside, take the snake out of the terrarium in the biology class and put it inside Mr. Fink’s desk. That would be payback for the week of detention Mr. Fink had given them for talking smarmy talk about Nancy, to Nancy. That would show Mr. Fink.

   But now Jimmy had another revenge on his hands. Or so the voice from the well whispered. George told them how Jimmy had waited until everyone was good and asleep, just like he’d been planning before his little brother narced on him. The old sweaty sock was in his mouth before he could scream and his brother straddled him, sat on top of him like a lump of coal, wrapped him up in a blanket so he couldn’t move his arms, and forced him out of bed and down to the back of yard, past the trees to the old well. The family only kept a heavy iron grate over it at the time. That was when Gary stepped out of the shadows. With a few grunts they pulled the grate off and pushed the little loser into the well.

   It wasn’t a far drop. Unless you considered one hundred feet to be a far drop. Jimmy didn’t know nothing, and he sure didn’t know how deep a well was. George’s screams were muffled by the sock in mouth, as he fell deep into the well those many, many autumns ago.

   That was the story the kids made up when they played all the way down in the valley between the streets, past the locust trees and catalpas, in the very back of the yard where his father didn’t want him to play.

   The following year Daniel couldn’t stand not knowing who George really was anymore, because he still heard the voice in the well whenever he went into the back yard. He broke down and asked his dad, “Who are George and Jimmy?” It was Labor Day weekend and they had gone out for one last swirl cone of ice cream at the whippy dip before it closed up shop for the season.

   “George and Jimmy who?” he asked back, though he knew.

   “There’s a voice in the well from a kid named George always talking about his brother Jimmy.”

   “I told you not to go down there,” his dad said, pulling the brim of his baseball cap down further over his brow to keep the end of summer sun out of his face. Flies and sweat bees buzzed around the garbage can that smelled of chocolate dairy and unfinished foot long chili dogs next to the picnic table.

   “Why not? It’s been capped.”

   “Old concrete isn’t always safe. In fact, I should fill that whole thing in.”

   “But who are they?”

   His father could have said it was all in his imagination, but he didn’t.

   “That well seems to hold old memories and just won’t let them go. Jimmy was a guy my dad went to high school with, until they hauled him off to jail, for what he did to his brother George. He pushed him down that well. Things didn’t go so good for Jimmy on the inside. After a few months in the slammer he found himself on the wrong side of a shiv. His parents sold the house not long after the incident, and it sat abandoned for many years. Nobody wanted it. People used to tell stories about this place all the time, when I was a kid. After I married your mom, houses weren’t cheap, in fact, just the opposite, so when I saw this one for sale as a fixer upper, I bought it up. We wanted to start a family and it was the only place we could afford. There’d always been ghost stories about the well, but I never expected you to hear them straight from George’s mouth.”

   The next weekend Daniel’s dad bought what must have been a ton of concrete and invited some friends over and they spent the day filling up the old well altogether. His dad knew a man who was a kind of priest, but not a priest, a person who knew things, secret things. He came and said a blessing on the well and planted a hawthorn tree right next to it. The voice in the well grew quiet for the most part after that, except on early fall days when the wind grows cold but the green grass is still shining, bright and alive.

3. I am more and more astonished by the ignoring of the inconvenient truth that petroleum fuels are the irreplaceable power sources for the large vehicles, equipment, and machines that undergird bulk transportation, flying, mining, industrial processes, timber production, agriculture, earth moving and others, the foundations of our the “modern, developed civilization”. The focus has been on electrifying personal transport which is not so foundational. I have a friend who is a truck driver driving mammoth vehicles up and down California. According to him battery versions of that type of truck has proved impractical. Besides the issue of finding the resources to make the batteries and new vehicles and machines and where the enormous amount of new renewably sourced electricity come from to charge up the batteries. And all this new stuff would have to be created using petroleum fuels as part of the transition! So far fracking has kept the whole show going (68% of petroleum and 78% of natural gas in the USA), but eventually sometime over the next 30 years the guano will hit the fan despite the continuing strenuous efforts exploiting marginal sources of fossil fuels. Apparently Elon Musk is now looking to hydrogen as the new power source in fuel cells. Don’t get me going on this folly of a hope

4. Two random indicators of the mood in Germany that caught my eye:

   1) A band called “Weimar” has made a (probably short) appearance as number one of the German album charts (it must be more than 20 years ago that I had any interest for the “charts”). They started without any big money, big publisher, big advertising behind them, though I heard that’s changing. What’s interesting is that on the album there’s a song called “Hexenjagd” (witch hunt). It’s narrated from the perspective of somebody who witnessed the original witch hunts (verse 1), the SED regime in Eastern Germany (verse 2) and the Corona-debacle (verse 3). In each refrain, the narrator is asked the inevitable “why didn’t you say or do anything” and he replies “because I didn’t know anything” / “I had only good intentions” / “I did nothing wrong”, etc. There are two things about this: 1) They openly criticize the C19 policies and the lunacy of the people. 2) The more important point: It would have been very easy and on spot to make a similar verse about the Nazi-era … which they didn’t do. Since they are -like so many- accused of being “right wing”, I think this probably is a deliberate provocation which both strengthens and weakens the song at the same time. Or they are weaker than they pretend to be and didn’t dare to make the comparison. This “hole” in the song makes it feel very strange, however. I guess that such a piece (which imo isn’t particularly good, anyway) makes it to top 1 with no effort is one more sign that below the surface something is boiling and not in a small way. If anybody wants to listen to the song, it can be found by searching for “weimar hexenjagd” on a well known streaming platform.

   2) A rare German perspective on the happenings on the other side of the pond: The large, conservative leaning German mainstream weekly “Die Welt” had this as a headliner on it’s website:

   “The exposure of Kamala Harris by the paria Donald Trump: She poses on the cover of the “Vogue”, the other one is frying french fries at McDonald’s: While an unleashed Donald Trump is revealing himself as a disciple of Andy Warhol, Kamala Harris is repeating the tragedy of Hillary Clinton as a farce. A didactic play of left arrogance.” (paywalled)

   https://www.welt.de/kultur/plus254113402/US-Wahlkampf-Die-Entlarvung-der-Kamala-Harris-durch-den-Paria-Donald-Trump.html

   People are increasingly behaving in strange ways. Money-issues are an important trigger of strange behaviour (which is not at all surprising given the economic destruction Germany is currently experiencing), but I guess there’s more going on.

   Cheers,
   Nachtgurke

5. Hi JMG,
   What is your view regarding the current state of people’s mental health. I heard discussing often the issues with youth’s mental health in the UK. The situation seems to similar across the Western world.
   Thank you

6. Wer here
   JMG and everybody I want to clarify something here, I might had been harsh in the latest comment but I and many people in my area had developed a knee jerk reaction to somethings said on the internet about mu faith. My los=cal church is under the name of saint francais and we do not damage our enviroment here for the aformentioned reason.
   But over the many years I had seen the most angry and insane thing being said about thoose of us living here ( perpetrated by an certain groups of childless blue haired people) that we are racist, fascist (and if you were not vaccinated enough certain people would result to attacks and name calling). A lot of young people of a ceratain political stripe had been spreading lies and falsehoods (which they had apparently heard on the social media and mainstream media) so I immediately responded with an unconcious reasponse to an percieved attack
   How many time i had been called isms when some people heard that I am an religious person and the insane and crazy claims that were said about religious people in my country (claims that young people that go to the church and don’t want to be vaccinated are Hitler and “Putin’s agent” – excuse me????).
   So well my coment wasn;t entirely an rant I just don’t want to hear about those crazy things anymore.
   Stay safe Wer

7. Good morning JMG!

   Recently I came across a prominent author whose influence has a strong presence today and was curious if you had come across his work. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, who wikipedia tells me was a Jesuit priest, scientist, paleontologist, theologian, philosopher, and teacher. Quite the resume! The general story with him is that he wrote books prior to his death which had him excommunicated from the church and after his death in the 1950s his works began to be widely published and became very influential in the Catholic church and among scientists.

   His most prominent works are “The Future of Man” and “The Phenomenon of Man”, which I have yet to read but is waiting for me at the library, though I did watch a video about the contents. It reminded me of parts of this article, https://www.ecosophia.net/against-enchantment-i-ken-wilber/ where a “Great Chain of Being” is mentioned. Pierre coined the future event called “The Omega Point” in which the entirety of the universe spirals towards a final point of unification, he described a noosphere, ‘a planetary sphere of reason which represents the highest stage of biospheric development, that of humankind’s rational activities’ (like the internet and social media), and lastly he argued that evolution occurs in a directional goal-driven way essentially making the case that now (in the 1920’s) man is able to be an active participant in the evolutionary process.

   In part thanks to your writings I can see how these grand ideas are very appealing. But, what I was quite surprised about is his lasting influence. https://teilharddechardin.org/about/our-mission/. For example, Peter Hotez cites him as an inspiration https://x.com/PeterHotez/status/1831515647588642968. His works appear relevant to the 1960’s second Vatican council reforms and in influencing the transhumanist movements. Another place his work was extremely prominent was in a 1963 CIBA foundation symposium where individuals who remained highly prominent and influential in shaping scientific research were represented.

   My sense is that Pierre Teilhard de Chardin has been a foundational influence in the fields of biophysics (molecular biology) and information technology. I struggle to think of a specific question for you but am curious of any parallels you may be aware of where ostensibly useful fields are underpinned by such…lofty concepts? My hope is that with the repeated failures and overpromising in the fields of biology and technology that they may spell the end of these myths but who knows.

8. JMG,
   In some earlier comments I speculated on some of the reasons for the apparent collapse in the effectiveness and sanity of the Kamala Campaign. I won’t rehash those again but now another good reason for the bumbling of the Harris/Walz ticket has emerged. It appears that Kamala’s campaign manager and assorted upper toadies are effectively DEI hires. There is not enough information out there yet to determine their actual competence, but what we do know is that none of the upper echelon of the Harris campaign ever worked outside of the non profit advocacy sphere. As such they are totally out of touch with working Americans , and it shows.

9. #1 Michael Maratsos

   The question you raise is a classic of Judeo-Christian theology. Even in the Old Testament, people wondered why life is so painful and incoherent. Good people have to suffer, bad people do well (not always, of course). Your question as to why an almighty God creates flawed beings at all is along similar lines.

   According to the Book of Job, the answer to the question of God’s arbitrariness is that it is not possible for man to understand his plans with his limited intellect.

   Maybe it wasn’t his plan to create perfect beings in the first place. I have also had thoughts that the monotheistic God is simply a metaphor for cosmic principles, such as karma, transience etc.. Hence his unique selling point as the only God.

10. Note 1; from the news,
    “A new international airport will soon open in Greenland’s capital Nuuk, allowing larger aircraft to land for the first time – paving the way for direct flights from the US and Europe.
    It’s the first of three airport projects that officials hope will boost the local economy, by making the Arctic territory more accessible than ever before.”

    No longboat trips from Iceland? Darn.

    Note 2, an attack of realism.

    “Meta senior research Yann LeCun (also a professor at New York University) told the Wall Street Journal that worries about AI threatening humanity are “complete B.S.”

    When a departing OpenAI researcher in May talked up the need to learn how to control ultra-intelligent AI, LeCun pounced. “It seems to me that before ‘urgently figuring out how to control AI systems much smarter than us’ we need to have the beginning of a hint of a design for a system smarter than a house cat,” he replied on X. He likes the cat metaphor. Felines, after all, have a mental model of the physical world, persistent memory, some reasoning ability and a capacity for planning, he says. None of these qualities are present in today’s “frontier” AIs, including those made by Meta itself.”

11. >about the notions of God

    I guess that’s the top-down way of looking at things. Where you start with one Big Cheese and build a hierarchy that reaches down to the material world. Then there’s the bottom-up approach that the Japanese take, where you start with natural places and natural phenomena and ascribe a deity or spirit behind it. Then maybe you ascribe a deity-of-deities and work your way up.

    I dunno which is better, but I’m suspicious of top-down approaches to anything.

12. @Michael Maratsos.
    Yes, beings with a will of their own will sometimes not agree with the will of their maker. Also, Jesus never (nor could have) squared the circle. Would you like to talk about the implications of either? I will feel disappointed if you just wanted to point out that Christians believe things that ain’t so. You do too, as well as me. I don’t know your age, but I bet at some point you have had some retirement account somewhere…

13. Michael Maratsos,

    That’s a property of the religions created in the Age of PIsces. The religions from the Age of Aries and future religions in the Age of Aquarius don’t and won’t have the omnipotent and omniscient god.

14. @Michael Maratsos

    I think this is the result of Christianity’s syncretic origins, incorporating a lot of late Hellenistic ideas, with their insistence on perfection and immutability of the spiritual realm, and Hebrew mythology. Exoteric Judaism doesn’t seem to share the notion of God’s infallibility, having officially endorsed ways to win over Him on a technicality, especially when it comes to activities prohibited during Shabbat. As for Islam, this is anecdotal evidence, but I’ve met a few Muslims who drink alcohol after dark, “when Allah is asleep”, but I don’t think this is endorsed in any shape or form by Islamic clergy, unlike loophole abuse concerning 39 Melachot.

    There were attempts to reconcile this split in Christianity’s foundation, known collectively as Gnostic Christianity, but they didn’t fare all that well.

15. @Michael Maratsos
    I think this one of those “that’s a feature, not a bug” sort of issues. Pick any Book/Chapter/Verse of the Bible and there’s a good chance you’ll find evidence suggesting that the One God is…. not all that unified. The Pentateuch makes it pretty obvious that the desert spirit God of the ancient Hebrews, Yehweh, is competing with the Gods of their rivals; the Book of Job makes it clear God is, at the least, cordial with, if not appreciative of, Satan; the New Testament repeatedly refers to God as The Lord of Hosts, i.e., a God of Gods, etc. By the time we get to Medieval Christianity, we have the Holy Trinity, which is a nice attempt to square the circle but… nonetheless divides a One into a Three.
    All that to say, I wouldn’t get too hung up on the particulars. Taken as a whole, the One God of the Bible is basically the platonic form of the eternal Borscht Belt Comedian. Not really fair, not all that funny, but… definitely thought provoking!

16. I’ve been looking into how human physiology works, and I’m starting to think there’s a conspiracy to make Americans fat. First, a lot of the standard advice given for weight loss is insanely counterproductive. One example of this is that given how our physiology works, eating carbs makes people gain weight by suppressing the ability of the body to burn fats and making fat cells absorb both fatty acids and glucose; and eating fat helps a lot by suppressing appetite, so what do they tell people to do? Eat carbs, avoid fats, and try to eat less, which wreaks havoc on the metabolism.

    There are also some pretty weird public policy decisions that make no sense, unless in this light. Some of these relate to food, such as the decision to subsidize emulsifiers, but not all. Emulsifies are meant to bind fats with water, and are basically soap. They are good at striping the lining of the gut, preventing the intestines from knowing how much food is in there; and then there are tons of otherwise weird things that fall into place with regards to the processed food industry.

    Others are not related to food: one of the most important ways to increase metabolism is aerobic exercise, such as walking or running. The odd decision to make so much of the US unwalkable is thus another example of the odd policy decisions which fall into place in this light.

    I’m not at all sure who’s behind it, but it seems like a lot of things which are otherwise quite strange make way too much sense in this light…

17. Speaking of Christianity… file under, Apocalypse Not:

    One of my blind ham radio buddies gave me a call to give me the low down on this radio piece from the BBC World Service program Outlook. My aforementioned friend also had a history as a member of the World Wide Church of God. It was one of the things that bonded us when it came up in conversation. That, and he had been a bonafide phone phreak and knew people like Captain Crunch and Joy Bubbles back in the glory days of whistling around Ma Bell’s system of wires. Anyway, for me this story was interesting because I grew up in this church, and my dad and step-mom are still members of the reformed legacy church that changed all the doctrines I grew up, when they said “we were wrong” basically. They became Grace Communion International. Others, who wanted to stick with the original beliefs, splintered into a bunch of different groups. I have a great aunt who is still a member of one of them.

    People here might like it because it is a story of what believing in the end of the world can do to a person. I was born seven years after this end of the world date… but the church still preached imminent end times all through my childhood. Anyway, it’s good radio in the eminent BBC style and those of you who like radio might like this story.

    The funny thing to me is, Grace Communion International is still sometimes listed as a cult in Christian books on the subject, because they believe in universal salvation. That, to me, is actually one of their saving graces, though I don’t attend.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/w3ct5p58

    “Jerald Walker grew up in the predominantly white, Worldwide Church of God – a doomsday cult that convinced its followers the world would end in 1972. Raised by blind, African American parents and under the cult’s strict teachings, which preached racial segregation and an imminent apocalypse, Jerald’s life was dominated by fear, isolation, and the belief that his future didn’t exist.

    When the promised doomsday never came, Jerald and his family were left grappling with shattered beliefs. As his life unravelled, Jerald fell into addiction and crime, struggling to escape the mental and emotional grip of the cult. But through education, an extraordinary teacher and a passion for writing, he found a path to redemption.”

18. “Celadon, maybe so, but human beings are religious by nature — deprive them of religion and they’ll create a new one out of whatever materials are available. As the history of Marxism shows in fine detail…” – This was a great point that you made, JMG. I should’ve sharpened mine, some. What I am specifically wondering is that if “X” (ideal Christianity) was designed to end religion (including Christianity), but that it was also foreseen that ersatz imitations of X (or heresies, in the case of Marxism), would be “inevitable”. No “Progress”, just a continual generation and destruction of bad ideas, masquerading as the real thing, that have to be iterated, for whatever reason, if nothing else, out of mimetic desire. “X” (as Jacques Ellul calls it) would then be a “fire” and a “sword”, since it would tend to generate its own copycats through the process of inevitable misunderstanding, corresponding roughly to the esoteric/exoteric distinction. This dynamic has no end goal or progress, nor no absolute way to separate sheep/goats. All one can do is say, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear”. But it is made considerably worse by NOT being aware of it (eg., not knowing about the inevitable corruption of even “Holy Mother Church”), or by pretending to know and specify and control exactly how this plays out. As a conservative, I’d say, absolutely, religion is necessary, all you can do externally is try to enhance it and deepen it and make it more “anastasia” (stable), and avoid “stasis”. Internally, one can long for the Kingdom of God. I’m just wondering if Christians longing to have a “religion” is a little like the Israelites longing to have a “King”: it’s inevitable, but a commentary on how many people inside the Church don’t understand very much.

19. Hello everybody. I have a question for you all, JMG and kommentariat.
    What do you think about alcaline diet? Is it necessary for your health or is it another fashion? Thank you for your answers…

20. JMG, I’ve read on this Magic Monday’s post that you believe you’re in your last trip around these parts. If so, it’s been an honour to get to know you!

    Anyways, changing subject, you really should check this out: https://x.com/BehizyTweets/status/1848837727392772413

21. @ Michael Maratsos

    People need to believe, whatever the inconsistencies in their faith, because believing is in human beings’ DNA. They have makeshift explanations for everything, but they prefer not to dwell on them because they know that it would weaken their faith, and they really need to believe. Even atheists believe in something which they’ll stick to for dear life.

    It always amazes me that some people I know, who have studied the Bible very thoroughly, still believe in the goodness of God, in spite of texts such as Numbers, 31:17-18, King James Version:

    17. Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him.
    18. But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves.
    https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Numbers+31%3A17-18&version=KJV

    Concerning the genocide of the Canaanites by the Hebrews, believers say that “It wasn’t true, archeology proves that it never happened.” Fine, but if this part of the Bible is a lie, how about the rest? I never got a straight answer, but I guess that true believers are perfectly OK with the idea that the Bible is the word of God, generally speaking, but parts of it are not, being additions made by fallible humans.

    My two cents on this: people will believe in something, always. I’ve noticed that Wokism, that awful ideology which is destroying the West (notice how in the US it has almost destroyed academia, the armed forces, freedom of thought, etc) is strongest among people who claim not to believe in the supernatural.

    In my own family dechristianization was rapid, as in most of the Western world. I was born in a Catholic family. Few of my relatives were true believers, but all the children was baptized and went to catechism. My first son was baptized and went to catechism. The second one was baptized but we didn’t send him to catechism. The third one wasn’t baptized and didn’t go to catechism. My wife is still a Catholic, but she doesn’t go to church. Both my parents were incinerated, a practice which is absolutely contrary to Catholic usage.

    Yet, religion doesn’t die so easily. At the age of 38, after more than two decades of atheism, I turned to Theravada Buddhism, a religion which doesn’t entail believing in an eternal soul. Basically, I am a pantheist who has found moral guidance in Buddhism. My eldest son was close to Buddhism, but he married a Moroccan Muslim woman (not practicing, wears miniskirts, but she fasts during the Ramadan) who made him put his statue of the Buddha out of view. My second son, after two terrible years fighting long Covid, has recently added a Bible to the small number of books he owns.

22. On the political front, a report on local early voting, which opened in my municipality yesterday. I went right away in the morning and there was already a substantial line of folks waiting for the doors to open at 7:30. It was a wonderful thing to see from a civic engagement standpoint.

    My ballot has been cast and I can now get on with my life.

    It also occurred to me, too, with the Democrats reforming themselves as the anti-populist party, that the conventional wisdom that high turnout benefits them may be well past its pull-date.

23. @ Michael Maratsos–

    To my mind, the obvious solution is one that Christians have often failed in, which is to not confuse myths with historical events. God, being indeed all good, does not “become angry”; being all knowing doesn’t cause things that “don’t work out as planned.” No more does Pluto, being a God, “rape Persephone,” a goddess; nor does Ceres “mourn” her daughter. Nor, for that matter, did Saturn castrate his own father!

    Instead, these are ways of framing the nature of reality in a form comprehensible to the human mind. “These things never happened, but always are.” The Christian story is that God created, in the Garden of Eden, the first man, who is also the first woman– “Male and female in his own image,” “bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh,” and so on– and that that first man “disobeyed God’s will” and “fell from Paradise” by “learning the knowledge of good and evil” and so was clothed in “garments of skin.” After a time, the New Adam and New Eve came into the world: These are Jesus, “son of God,” and Mary, “conceived without sin.” (Why did all that time have to pass? What does that mean?) Her heart was pierced by seven swords; He went willingly (after praying “Thy will be done” in the Garden of Gethsemene) to his death (at the Place of the Skull, where the skull of the First Adam was buried) on the cross (made from the wood of the Tree of Life) . Dying thusly, he descended into Hell and broke its gates; he ascended into Heaven. After a time His Mother, the New Eve, also ascended into Heaven, and was crowned “Queen of Heaven and Earth.” All of these are allegorical statements about the nature of human life and the universe as a whole, not descriptions of historical events.

    Taken as history, this is an odd story about a bungling deity who regularly sets his own creations on fire until forever and then subjects his own son to a miserable death. Such a being is hardly wothy of worship. Perhaps, as you suggest, he really should turn the mirror on himself and consider his own errors, possibly with the aid of a trained psychotherapist. The point is precisely that it is not history, but myth. Perhaps a myth that, as many believe, actually happens to have actually happened; perhaps not. It hardly matters. Myth deals in the world of Truth and eternal Being; History, with Facts and endless Becoming. As history, the Christian story tells us very little and not much of any use. As myth, the Christian story reveals eternal truths about the human condition, in which many have found an immense and even endless well of spiritual nourishment.

24. Here’s the scenario I’m envisioning for the upcoming election (and as Kimberly Steele often says on her blog, I do realize I could be wrong): Trump wins handily enough that only some form of contrived subterfuge is the only way for the globalist political class to deny him his victory, and this class resorts to this very subterfuge without so much as batting the proverbial eyelash. as the blue-state big-city PMC applauds like trained seals. The true-red states, whose geographic base is the region that formed the Confederate States of America in 1861, protest bitterly and denounce Kamala Harris’s swearing in as 100% illegitimate and an affront to constitutional government. The South, of course, doesn’t immediately run a Confederate Battle Flag up the flagpole and declare a new CSA, but the resulting alienation of the true red states will form the basis of what will become a messy and protracted divorce of the long-disparate parts of the American nation. All manner of social, political, and economic chaos will attend these events, and this will spell the eventual end of the United States as a world power. The ordinary people of all the formerly United States will have to get use to a much poorer standard of living.

    Do you see this scenario as at least one distinct possibility?

25. About voting for the Green Party: Dr. Jill Stein, she really is a physician, so not a lightweight weirdo, first ran for President on the Green Party ticket in 2012. Ten years earlier, she was Green candidate for Governor of Massachusetts. So, that adds up to 22 years of being a leading figure in the Green Party.

    If we learned anything from the Kennedy campaign this year, it was that there is what I think can fairly be called a significant portion of the electorate who do care about clean air, soil and water, environmentalism, and the shocking decline in public health in the USA. Add those issues to a robust peace policy, and I think that faction could win some elections and have some influence. Remember that the Progressive Party at the turn of the 20thC never elected a president, but it did elect Senators and Governors and had a profound influence on public policy.

    Dr. Stein and those around her have had 22 years now to make the Green Party into a force to be reckoned with and have not done so. I call that rank incompetence and I have had enough of being asked to vote for well meaning fools.

26. Michael M, that’s an ingenious way of reformulating part of the classic argument from evil: if there is only one god, he created everything, and he is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent, why is the world such a shambles? Nobody’s yet come up with a satisfactory response, though there’s plenty of handwaving on the subject. Me, I’m a polytheist, and a relatively traditional polytheist at that; I believe that there are many gods, that they didn’t create the universe out of nothing, and that they’re powerful, wise, and good, but not omni-anything — and the argument from evil is one reason why I find this view convincing.

    Justin, thanks for this.

    BeardTree, yep. I got into blogging more than 18 years ago to talk about this very issue — and people were shoveling smoke about hydrogen then, too. Oh, and electric cars. Did you know that both of those were big deals during the energy crisis of the 1970s? They didn’t work then, either. Here’s one of the electric cars that was driving around when I was in high school:
    
    It was just as inefficient and inconvenient as the current batch, though I find its visual awkwardness endearing.

    Nachtgurke, hmm! Fascinating. Many thanks for both of these.

    Foxhands, our cultures in the industrial West are frankly insane, and so people face a difficult choice — they can be well-adjusted to an insane society, which makes them crazy in one way; they can reject their own culture, which makes them crazy in a different way; or they can find some compromise between the two, which makes them crazy in both ways at the same time. It’s not any easy road to walk.

    Wer, fair enough. I wondered if something like that was behind it.

    Dabilahro, yes, I read The Phenomenon of Man forty-odd years ago, and found it unconvincing. I know Teilhard’s ideas are quite popular among people who want to believe that progress is leading humanity to some kind of surrogate godhood. You’ll find similar notions in various fields — notice how many people who are passionate about space travel, for example, are still caught up in giddy fantasies of humanity bestriding the stars, outliving the sun, et cetera ad nauseam.

    Clay, that makes an impressive amount of sense. It’ll be interesting to see if the Democrats can pull anything out of the dumpster fire they’ve ignited.

    Siliconguy, thanks for this. I’m almost tempted to visit Nuuk sometime — I’ve been interested in Greenland since long before I started my tentacle fiction.

    Taylor, of course there is. The weight loss industry is a huge profit center these days, and it would go broke if it actually helped people lose weight. I discussed that in this blog post:

    https://www.ecosophia.net/a-neglected-factor-in-the-fall-of-civilizations/

    Justin, thanks for this. Captain Crunch — good heavens. I haven’t heard anyone mention him for a very long time. No, I was never a phone phreak, but I knew people who were on the fringes of that scene.

    Celadon, interesting. That would suggest, of course, that Jesus wasn’t one-third of an omniscient god, or he’d have known what would happen…

    Chuaquin, if it works for you, by all means. There are a million diets out there and all of them are good for at least somebody, somewhere.

    Bruno, nah, I’ll see you on the inner planes someday. As for the business about Trump battling witches, why, I posted something about that over on Dreamwidth earlier today —

    https://ecosophia.dreamwidth.org/301479.html

    David BTL, thanks for this. Early voting here in Rhode Island started last Wednesday; I went in around noon, and it was very sedate, no lines, no wait. If that’s the way it goes in this very blue state, Harris may be in much deeper trouble than she realizes.

    Mister N, given that significant elite factions have broken from the consensus and are either sitting this one out or backing Trump — the latest is that the Los Angeles Times has refused to endorse Harris — I’d say this isn’t likely, though of course it’s possible.

    Mary, “well meaning fools” may not be the right term. Are you familiar with the concept of controlled opposition?

27. Hello JMG and friends,
    I hope you all are doing well.

    Recently I’ve taken up writing again with gusto, and my output in terms of word count/length (a crude metric, granted) is higher than it has been for a very long time. What you all may find interesting is that I’ve abandoned typing/electronic writing, and instead my work is handwritten. Perhaps it makes it far more hard to share my work, but there is something to be said for the tactile sensation of pen on paper. I also think losing the ability to delete blocks of text with ease will help any of you are struggling with writer’s block.

    Mister Nobody (#24), I personally doubt that we will see any sort of hijinks in the case of a Trump victory. At the end of the day I don’t think Trump presents any sort of real threat to the status quo. I expect him to govern as a rather ineffective rightwing Republican, as he did in his first term. When it comes to things like Ukraine, Israel/Palestine, China, etc. he will toe the uniparty line.

28. Beardtree @4 I have noticed that as well. Articles come up about how solar panels are not filling the gap so well, the grid is struggling, and how our AI elites want their own nuclear plants. Lots. Depleting oil reserves, insulation and conservation – nothing.

    Is anyone familiar with the book, Fall of Civilizations by Paul Cooper? It seems he has a podcast which has become quite popular. Good to hear of interest.

    I recently tried to check out the book, Good Energy, by Callie and Cassie Means – their opinion of the food and medical industries would likely match that of many here. There were 30 people in line in front of me waiting for the book, despite the library system having eight copies.

29. I just thought I would chime in that I early voted at City Hall in what for many municipalities in Wisconsin was the first day of early voting, including mine. The line was long and slow-moving, and this was because the state’s election registration computer was overwhelmed by all the people who showed up that day. Given that Wisconsin is a notoriously “50/50” purple state, I would say that this bodes very ill for the Harris/ Walz ticket winning the Badger State. My 91-year-old mother wants Harris to win because she wants to be able to live to see a woman become president of the USA, and that she almost certainly won’t is the only aspect of Harris’s likely defeat about which I feel at all bad.

30. I dreamed last night I met a man with whom I instantly had a strong connection, and his name was Mordwen. This sounded like a Welsh name, but when I looked it up on the web it didn’t show up anywhere under any context. I am still wondering about it since it felt so powerful.

31. Hello JMG,
    One thing I believe I have detected over the last few months, though the thoughts have only crystallised in the last week or so, is what might be called a collapse of morale in a significant segment of the UK population. I have put my own feelings on this to a few other people in the last week or so and they generally agree. What I am talking about is a kind of exhausted, depressed apathy, a defeatedness mainly affecting – but not restricted to – what might loosely be called Middle England, that is people who might be called comfortably well-off but of a fairly wide range of likely political opinions, age and apparent wealth. This would cover maybe around one-third of the people in the UK generally and probably a majority in the rural SW of England where I live. The symptoms seem to be varied and difficult to pin down but often include withdrawal from community activities and social life, reining in of spending and general gloomyness and foreboding for the future.
    I have a couple of ideas on what might be the cause of this. The first, which one or two others have put forward to me unprompted, is despair at the governance of the country over the last couple of years which seems to be worsening since the new Labour government took office. I well remember when Tony Blair came to power in 1997, how much genuine optimism there was that things would improve – which indeed they did for many of the people mentioned above, for several years. The mood now could not be more different and several acquintances have volunteered that they voted to get rid of the Tories and now have something worse. We now have a government which hardly seems to recognise the issues which concern most people, let alone have useful ideas on how to address them and tells us that things will get worse before they can get better. Most people assume, probably correctly, that they will simply get worse, period.
    The other, I suspect, is the Ukraine conflict. Although mention of the increasing pace of Russian gains over the last few months has been patchy in the MSM, I am sure it is seeping through to most people’s consciousness that Ukraine’s de facto defeat is now inevitable and may not be long in coming. Certainly, the Ukrainian flags on public buildings, outside people’s homes and in their windows, and on bumper stickers that were abundant a year ago, have all but disappeared. I think you mentioned a few weeks ago that the upcoming defeat in Ukraine might be a gut-punch to the West in general and this may be manifesting already.
    I would be very interested to read the thoughts of others here, especially those in the UK but also elsewhere, on whether they detect the same thing.

32. Hello JMG and readers,
    I have recently stumbled across a series of interviews on youtube, with a speaker called Daniel Schmachtenberger who expresses ideas such as critiques of the myth of progress, critiques of civilization, critiques of capitalism and industrialism and technological development and…desenchantment! And surprisingly enough the reception seems to be very positive!
    I remember how such ideas not long ago where to be found on the fringes of the fringes, in post-left, peak oil, anticiv, schizo posting corners of the Net…while now they are acceptable enough to be expressed publicly in such mainstream venues as the Joe Rogan podcast?
    The impression is that, in the wake of the AI hype (and fear) a tiny window of opportunity opened…a crack in the asphalt…an opportunity to use AI as an opening (a trojan horse actually) to talk about appropriate technology, limits, spirituality…
    What are your thoughts? Are we headed for a time of increased and self-inflicted techno-skepticizm in the more comfortable classes?

33. As the United States Presidential election draws near I genuinely worry about the state of the country post-election, moreso for the liberal reaction if they lose than for the conservatives if they lose. But I also worry about what a vengeful Trump might do if he gets back in power and how the two sides of that equation might feed off of each other, and what will be left of America in another four years.

    I’ve noticed a growing and extremely worrying trend of the “elites” of politics and entertainment pursuing reckless and (to me) clearly wrong courses of actions that blow up in their faces, and then instead of honestly looking at the situation they’ve had a large hand in creating and doing a mea culpa, either doubling down and getting mad at regular people when they’re less keen to do what the elites tell them, or trying something else without ever really honestly accounting for their mistakes. The actions remind me of signs of elite collapse that this blog has talked about for years now and it’s very surreal and worrying to see happening in real time. What is going on and why can’t the “elites”, the people with access to more data and resources and advisers than anyone else, seem to realize what’s going wrong? Do they not care or are their actions part of a larger plan, not to sound conspiratorial?

34. I was an aspiring phone phreak, but I missed my chance to really be in on it by a number of years, but the whole idea of it fascinated me as a kid. I figured out a way to make free phone calls with a paperclip on telephones that worked for a few years, and I once found a lineman’s box that had a small portable computer and modem in it. We didn’t have the internet at the time, but another friend, from the World Wide Church of God no less, who was a science whiz and whose dad was a ham, figured it had a modem inside and we used it to get on a few BBS systems. Then when I was at school a security guy from Cincinnati Bell came over to my house and asked my mom about the thing. She had seen me with it, even though I had found it legitimately… I didn’t realize every call made on it put out a trace back to the phone company, so I didn’t get to keep it : (

    That’s about as far as I got with phone phreaking… that said, that interest paved the way for my exploration of research done at Bell Labs which turned into my first book. Thinking on that, and lesson 30 of the OPW, makes me realize I had some interest in things that others didn’t really care about our share. So it’s like this through line, or phone line, from a childhood interest, to something I still resonate with today.

    I recommend the book Exploding the Phone by Bill Lapsley to anyone with an interest in the subculture. It’s the most thorough history of phone phreaking available, and a cracking good read. My friend mentioned above was listed in the back of it as one of the sources. I had known him for a few years in my radio club before we connected the dots one evening at Winter Field Day. That was like another smile from the universe, meeting him and sharing in these linkages & interests.

35. Hi JMG,

    I found this article interesting:

    https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/us/wasnt-this-guy-supposed-to-be-a-genius-x-staff-describe-first-meeting-with-elon-musk/articleshow/114394243.cms

    At first I was confused by the twitter employees reaction to what seems like exactly what I would expect Musk to say. And why would a Billionaire prepare for a meeting with a bunch of underlings from a country he just bought, like it’s his own job interview?

    Then I thought about Elon’s seemingly irrelevant (to the underlings) comments about his buying of the platform to be in service of his (to him) lofty goals of conquering the stars. On the one hand, we have Elon who is, at least outwardly, still a true believer in the religion of progress and expects it to deliver its heavenly promises in physical reality. On the other hand, we have the professional managerial class members, deep in their barbarism of reflection bag, who have superseded these expectations with their concerns of “progressive” ideals, needing to control narratives using twitter and the media etc. to maintain the illusion of progress by focusing on abstract concepts like diversity, equity etc.

    Perhaps the employees also subconsciously sense the managerial class’ potential replacement by a new entrepreneur class that you’ve mentioned and are reacting appropriately to the threat. Or maybe I’m over thinking things and it’s just an out of touch idealistic rich guy bothering snotty office denizens who think he’s a moron because he doesn’t bother indulging in their pretentious buzzword speak during his “onboarding”. Any thoughts?

    Thanks as always for hosting this space!

    Reggie

36. Hi John,
    Regarding the decline in mental health, last week I read where one writer believes the downward spiral is being driven by sensory overload. Phones are always ringing or buzzing demanding attention for all those with smartphones who insist on being connected 24-7. He also wrote that the general noise level in society, a product of everything from leaf blowers to traffic everywhere is also slowly driving us crazy. What do you think? I know when I take my annual wilderness backpacking trip, that after three days out there away from it all I experience a sense of calm and contentment that I never experience while in the modern man-made world.

37. I seem to have a lot of health-related questions lately…

    My eldest son (age 6) has, unfortunately, gotten a case of lead poisoning. His picky eating habits have led to pica, which led to him apparently eating some old paint somewhere, which when I had him blood-tested for nutritional deficiencies that might be causing the pica, turned up the lead poisoning. I’ve been in and out of the doctor’s office and the imaging center and the Labcorp for the last few weeks like a blur… good news, he no longer has any lead-containing material in his intestines and the blood lead content is trending downwards. But there’s more…

    The county health department called and told me to have him eat plenty of iron, calcium and Vitamin C to make sure that the remaining lead isn’t sedimented in his bones. Problem: Meat and dairy are exactly what he does NOT want to eat. (We can do daily oranges no problem, though.) I’ve been feeding him very small amounts of hamburger and yogurt daily, and he does eat a lot of kale and broccoli, but I am not sure where I should be putting my main energies? I’ve made a little station for him with a bunch of texture-y foods he likes so that he can go on his own and eat that instead of old paint, or whatever else the hell he’s been imbibing, and he likes that a lot. Still needs a lot of monitoring and behavioral correction, though.

    Anyway, the question. Are there any other treatments for lead exposure in the alternative health scene that might have some benefit for my son? Not health advice etc etc. I am doing everything Western medicine has told me to do already, anyways. But if there’s anything that might be helpful on the margin, I would like to know. All thoughts welcome in advance.

38. Like many of us here, no doubt, I have been watching from the bleachers the circus of horrors that is this election year. Be they in the EU or the US of A, it appears to this observer that much of the emotional anxiety surrounding the question of what team wields power (not “holds power”) regards the question of traditional notions of morality and if society will continue to try to adhere to the guidance of morality.

    It is clear to me that those who control and hold the bureaucracies are now openly, blatantly and stridently anti morality. The contempt, and hatred, even, that they demonstrate of family, sexuality (as follows the biological imperative), rules and law, fair play and even childhood innocence is as alarming as it is shocking.

    I don’t see much organized resistance in the US to the official institutions in their orgy of vandalism. Christian churches, the traditional authority on personal and societal morality, have de-legitimized themselves with the trends of scandalous child sexual abuse, the mass embracing of “Wealth Doctrine” and the general cartoon-ification (Wal-Mart-ification?) of worship and pastor-ship.
    Church leadership also seems more concerned about not placing their non-profit status at risk than they do about guiding their flocks in morality – which would necessarily mean speaking out against government and its war on morality.
    For the rest of us who live by a traditional moral code but do not subscribe to religion, we are, like all techo-engaged humans now are, atomized and alienated from one another. Apathy and insouciance are the webs that have caught many of us.

    But, without the adhesion of moral code and populations being forced into an “anything goes and nothing matters” paradigm, families, societies and nations disintegrate into formless clumps.

    My question to your brain, sir, is: considering the de-legitimization of the institutional faiths of the book, after the mass vandalism/anti-morality movement runs out of energy what bedrocks of moral philosophy might humanity pivot to when it attempts to stabilize and rebuild ?

    And
    Do you agree that the religion-like anti-morality movement needs a name? “Woke” is their name and means nothing. Do you have any ideas?

39. Christopher Richard,

    Most of the Old Testament (everything before the Deuterocanon) was written down in the Age of Aries. It shouldn’t be surprising that the Old Testament’s view of God isn’t the omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent God, since the religions in the Age of Aries didn’t have such a god. The Age of Pisces only began around 273 BC, and it was in the Age of Pisces where the idea of the omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent God was first formulated.

40. I have two questions for this open post. The first is mostly for JMG and the second is more for everyone else.

    The first is one of the many cool things about this blog is that it is in many ways a blog on the history of ideas. It is a field I am just falling in love with. So how dose one pursue a self study course in the history of ideas apart from reading ecosophia regularl?.

    The second is my Dad just bought an electric car, a chevy bolt. He is a good old hippie trying to do his part to save the world. He dose not read this blog. He keeps telling me all these facts about electric cars that seem exaggerated like he fuel bill for the car will be 80% less than a gas car. I have know for a long while that EVs won’t save us so when anyone here mentioned facts or articles about them I skipped those but now I need so facts to counter my Dad’s claims. So if anyone has some good articles and resources about the reality of EV I would appreciate that.
    Thanks Everyone
    Will O

41. You haven’t writen about Peak Oil and energy related themes in a while. Do you have any new info?
    As per myself I am discovering that:
    – Permian is the main driver of the fracking Bonanza and it is slowing down; the red queen is tired.
    – There are discussion of 75% decline pe year in some fields;
    – The situation in the World and in the Middle East particularly is not very well suited for an energy crisis in US.

42. I don’t know how many people noticed recently when, in a blog post, James Howard Kunstler said he was “throwing the Overton window wide open.” I had long felt that he had a huge blind spot about that one thing. So, congratulations to JHK for your brave statement.

43. “Celadon, maybe so, but human beings are religious by nature — deprive them of religion and they’ll create a new one out of whatever materials are available.L

    People hate randomness, hence the popularity of conspiracy theories and religions. There must be someone with a plan.

    As for diets and dinner I ran across this paper. The alarming part is toward the end. LA is linoleic acid, the majority component of soybean oil which seems to have taken over food ingredients. Linoleic acid is essential, but you can overdo anything if you work at it.

    “Thus, consistent with the increase in dietary LA in the food supply, breastmilk LA composition has increased from 7% to 12% of total fatty acids between 1970 and 2000.41,42 The 12% composition value corresponds to 8% energy, which exceeds the minimum 1–2% energy required for developing infants by 4–8-fold.2

    Overall, studies have shown an adverse effect of maternal breast milk or dietary LA on neurodevelopment. One study reported that a high maternal breast milk LA percent composition (>9.7% of fatty acids) was associated with reduced motor and cognitive scores in 2- to 3-year-old infants.43 In the same cohort, maternal breastmilk LA percent composition was associated with reduced verbal IQ at 5 to 6 years of age.

    https://www.nature.com/articles/s41538-019-0061-9

    Ouch.

    And it gets worse, there’s the autism spike.

    “Steenweg-de Graaff et al. also reported a significant positive association between maternal plasma LA composition measured at mid-pregnancy and the risk of autistic traits in children at the age of 6 years”

    There is a handy table of what oil has what fatty acids here;

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapeseed_oil

    Also in the soybean oil world,

    https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30005920/

    Interesterified soybean oil promotes weight gain, impaired glucose tolerance and increased liver cellular stress markers.

    Keep in mind that mind humans are not rats or mice.

    What the process entails is here,

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fat_interesterification

    The chemist in me says that’s a clever trick. The engineer in me wonders how they do it. The rest of me wonders if this is a good idea.

44. Alex Jones (I mean, I know, Alex Jones is a loon but anyhoo) had an article on the current state of the magical war on Trump that this audience might find entertaining:

    https://www.infowars.com/posts/reddit-witches-trying-to-cast-spells-on-trump-upset-he-has-some-kind-of-protection-around-him

45. The flood in Austria and neighbouring countries mid of september

    From 12 to 16. Sept officially was the flood in central Europe this year. Austria, Czech Republic and parts of Poland were hit by an enourmous cloud that would not go away for days and kept on raining. In and around Vienna I saw subways flooded, the shores of the danube under water so that benches and public waste bins were entirely covered by water, some usually small at most kneedeep torrents from the hills sorrounding Vienna become raging waters filling their constructed basins, the kind where even the best swimmer dies when jumping in.

    In Vienna the city, the river of the same name also filled, and water swept also from the basin of the river to the neighbouring open tunnel of the subway trains, doing some damage to the rail system and incapacitating it for more than a week.

    It was in September that temperatures in the Vienna basin lowered from 36 to 33 Degrees Celsius in a few days, then in four days, from 33 degrees Celsius to 9 degrees Celsius.

    A hard drop; then the floods came.

    Many people said the hadn’t seen that before, some claimed houses being flooded that weren’t since generations.

    Last year, it was 30 degrees throughout September, lowering by October the 31. to 24 degrees, it was even warm in the shade and after dark!

    This year is more to the norm of the past decades, 15 to 16 degrees now on the 22., though that is still warm.

    There were quite warm nights during this October too, but now its more cold, especially in the mornings.

    I see the insects still buzzing around, wasps, hornets, some bug I dont know, and also some curious moth or butterfly like animal that looks like a hummingbird, but smaller, it visits the flowers.

    Many said a cold winter would come this year, we will see to that. For now, its not peak temperature across the last years though pretty much the norm, only in the winter 2020/2021 it was really a nasty, windy, wet kind of cold, making the winter lockdown all the heavier for many.

    The event of the flood this year has, goes without mentioning, done economic damage.

    Agricultural damage, harrowing the fields around the danube, residential damage, damaging the excessively scattered settlement structures of single family houses all around the countryside and towns, infrastructural damage, some train lines are still now not opened and others rerouted, some scheduled the earliest end of the year to be back in service.

    Vienna’s services and immedeate sorroundings are online of course by now.

    Comes at quite a time this thing. A lot of insurance money, and I suppose, a lot of raised insurance pay rates in the future.

    And that damage is ongoing or still unfolding I think – fundaments of houses now cracked and damaged.

    One friend hat his house flooded one meter high in the garden and the ground floor, he lives close to the danube.

    Another, lived in an apartment close to a smaller flow going to the danube, the apartment infested with mold so they had to resettle promptly, or rather, are still in the chaotic process.

46. JMG,
    I recently observed something that I am still puzzling over. This last week my wife and I were in Hawaii, as she had a business meeting there. On a spare day she convinced me to help her take one of the county commissioners, who oversees her agency, on the Pearl Harbor tour. We went to the Arizona memorial, and the Battleship Missouri.
    One of the main features of the Missouri is the surrender deck, where Japan unconditionally surrendered to the US to end World War Two. The surprising thing was a constant stream of Japanese high school students viewing the Missouri and the surrender deck. Hundreds of school children ( boys and girls) in identical school uniforms. They were given a very somber talk by their Japanese Tour guides when the arrived on the surrender deck. I got the sense that this happened frequently and over time many thousands of school kids are given this exposure to their countries past.
    This is not a low cost undertaking , which makes me wonder why? I can’t imagine the U.S. sending all of its school kids to visit the old U.S. embassy in Saigon or Kabul.

47. 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.

    * * *

    This week I would like to bring special attention to the following prayer requests.

    May Hal Freeman’s daughter Marina recover from the walking pneumonia she has just contracted.

    May Inna’s (from Sunnyvale CA, pronounced “EEna”)’s surgery cure her from her skin cancer. May she be restored to full health.

    May Rebecca’s new job position, the start date of which keeps being rescheduled, indeed be hers, and commence as soon as possible; may it fill her and her family’s needs, and may the situation be pleasant and free of strife.

    May Divine help be granted to newlywed Merlin (TemporaryReality’s daughter), that she be guided to beneficial information and good decisions that lead to perfect health. May the lump in her breast resolve rapidly with no issues.

    May Leonardo Johann from Bremen in Germany, who was
    born prematurely two months early, come home safe and sound.

    May all living things who have suffered as a consequence of Hurricanes Helene and Milton be blessed, comforted, and healed.

    May Kevin, his sister Cynthia, and their elderly mother Dianne have a positive change in their fortunes which allows them to find affordable housing and a better life.

    May Tyler’s partner Monika and newborn baby Isabella both be blessed with good health.

    May The Dilettante Polymath’s eye heal and vision return quickly and permanantly, and may both his retinas stay attached.

    May Giulia (Julia) in the Eastern suburbs of Cleveland Ohio be healed of recurring seizures and paralysis of her left side and other neurological problems associated with a cyst on the right side of her brain and with surgery to treat it.

    May Corey Benton, whose throat tumor has grown around an artery and won’t be treated surgically, be healed of throat cancer.

    May Kyle’s friend Amanda, who though in her early thirties is undergoing various difficult treatments for brain cancer, make a full recovery; and may her body and spirit heal with grace.

    Lp9’s hometown, East Palestine, Ohio, for the safety and welfare of their people, animals and all living beings in and around East Palestine, and to improve the natural environment there to the benefit of all.

    * * *
    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.

48. JMG
    I’m tempted to ramble on about Jordan Peterson’s interview of Richard Dawkins, which was released Monday. But reading through the comments has distracted me somewhat.
    The interview reminded me of Peterson’s interview of Temple Grandin in the sense that the two think quite differently. Jordan can be extremely abstract while Temple is extremely literal.
    Through most of the interaction with Dawkins there seemed to be no agreement on what the discussion was about.
    I’m on the edge of diving into details but I don’t want to.
    In general I was rather disappointed in Dawkins’ disinterest in the philosophical connections that Jordan was trying to draw.

    I think the interview was very useful in showing how people with significantly different interests and thought processes have trouble understanding one another.

49. @Kamala Harris – both her parents were professors – and her father was a professor of economics. Says a lot about where she’s coming from. doesn’t it?

50. @ Siliconguy #10

    A look at the map shows that Nuuk, Greenland, is on a direct line from Whiteman AFB in Missouri to Moscow, and at 3,600 km almost half way to Moscow, 8,500 km away.

    From Wikipedia, Whiteman AFB is part of Air Force Global Strike Command. The 509th Bomb Wing and the Missouri Air National Guard’s 131st Bomb Wing operates the B-2A Spirit, T-38A Talon. Other units include the 442nd Fighter Wing (A-10C Thunderbolt II) and the 20th Attack Squadron (MQ-9A Reaper).

    Methinks that boosting the local economy is not the main reason for the new airport…

    Map: https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/54088784083_e73e1d3826_c_d.jpg
    Whiteman AFB: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_Air_Force_installations

51. @Wer

    Julian Röpke, the ukraine war reporter of German paper BILD, the major mass boulevard paper, was apparently also accused of being a Putin agent, in this case due to his concerned warnings of weaknesses in the Ukraine army, strategy and so on, and was himself startled and dismayed, that other players in his team suddenly turned inexplicably (to him) to friendly fire.

    What do you expect other than an increasing volume of malicious gossip in times like these?

    Dealing with the anger this causes for natural reasons in us is a difficult thing.
    Our host seems very calm about things, but many of us readers will not be so calm, emotionally.

    I guess that is exactly the spiritual challenge our lifelines are destined to experience and learn from, in this incarnation.

    Things like Kickboxing can offer a first started of help, to lose the senseless steam about it.

    What we can really do, practically, isn’t directly putting to rights what is out there, but doing good works and benefitting others, and shaping their experience of life as well.

    regards,
    Curt

52. Just wanted to let everybody know that I continue to offer formal blessings once a week (each Wednesday) to all the people who sign up for a given week. The sign-up posts are open all week, i.e. you can visit my website whenever the mood strikes you and request a blessing for the then-upcoming Wednesday. The current post is on top:

    https://thehiddenthings.com/categories/weekly-blessings

    And just to clarify: I practice my blessing skills, and you’d do me a favour by signing up, or by mentioning it to other people who might be interested. So please don’t be shy about requesting one!

    And since OtterGirl mentioned it on this week’s Magic Monday (thanks! 🙂 ), I’ve also published a small series of posts for people who want to start with blessings, too, but aren’t sure how to go about it: “Blessing: How to Get Started in 9 Simple Steps”. The first post of the series can be found here:

    https://thehiddenthings.com/blessing-how-to-get-started-1

    I’m looking forward to this months topics. JMG, thanks a lot for hosting Open Post again! 🙂

    Milkyway

53. @Dabilahro

    Especially molecular biology, increasingly also software and IT sectors are amongst the most rabid when it comes to ideas such as you describe there.

    I know from people in molecular biology that the people there are really special, in many ways we look at here, and not in friendly or funny ways usually.

54. JMG, I have read your take on nuclear energy, which if I recall correctly, I would summarize as: Nuclear is not a sensible option as an alternative energy source both for the reason that it’s incredibly dangerous over the long term (as radioactive waste disposal issues have never been solved) and not very effective as Energy Returned On Investment, as every real world nuclear project has always involved massive government subsidies that outweigh what the plant is actually expected to produce over any reasonable period. Does that sound about right to you?

    I have been considering the fact that I adopted this position myself some years ago basically as a result of downloading your opinion on the matter, without properly understanding the numbers myself. Nuclear seems to be the preferred energy solution of many politicians that are otherwise mostly inclined in directions I am more inclined to favor, and I find it objectionable for reasons that, ultimately, are not yet grounded in logic and facts. So I wish to understand the logic and facts better (with an open mind to even, horrors, changing my point of view if the evidence really merits it).

    The anti-nuclear literature I’ve been finding online so far generally seems highly questionable to me, coming as it usually does from similar quarters as hysteric mainstream ideas about climate change. While of course you can’t do my homework for me, I was wondering if you (or anyone else here) has some pointers toward slightly more steady voices to take onboard when looking at the issues?

55. http://historyunfolding.blogspot.com/2024/10/how-new-elite-thinks.html

56. My snarky response to some of the above Bible/Christianity comments above. Emerson said “Consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds”. The God I walk with is definitely not the God of the philosophers.

57. Hobbyist, delighted to hear it. That works very well for some people. I’m embarrassed to say that my writing became publishable when I started using a word processor — the capacity to do repeated edits without having to retype every page was very liberating for me. But your mileage may vary!

    Mister N, thanks for the data point.

    Laurel, it’s not Welsh, but if it’s a name that has power for you, you might consider meditating or journaling on it, letting yourself free associate on it, and see what comes up. (The suffix -wen in Welsh names, by the way, is almost always found on women’s names.)

    Robert, fascinating. Thank you for this — potentially a very important data point.

    Monkeypilled, good heavens. That’s startling to hear. I’ll want to gather more information and watch how things shape out before venturing a guess about where it’s headed.

    Dave, I don’t think that it’s any kind of plan. Quite the contrary, this is normal elite failure, the thing that comes right before an elite replacement crisis. Just as the capitalist elite of the 1920s crashed and burned, and was replaced by a managerial elite in the 1930s and 1940s, the managerial elite of the 2010s is crashing and burning, and will be replaced by an entrepreneurial elite in the 2020s and 2030s. The entitled cluelessness of a class that has remained in power too long is a familiar thing; comparisons to French aristocrats just before the French Revolution also come to mind.

    Justin, thank you for this! I’ll see if I can find the book.

    Reggie, I’d interpret this according to your first take — it’s a confrontation between the rising entrepreneurial class and the collapsing managerial class. Expect to see many more of those as we proceed.

    Peter, that’s doubtless part of it. There are many reasons why the heroine of my occult detective series finished book #1 by snapping her smartphone in half and dropping it into the nearest bay! (These same reasons may also explain why I don’t own a cell phone and aren’t on social media…)

    Shinjuki, I don’t happen to know of any. You might consult with a licensed naturopath or acupuncturist, however.

    Zhao, I think we’re already seeing the opening rounds of the reverse movement, in the shift of many people here in the US toward those traditional faiths that haven’t capitulated to the current antimoral movement. Eastern Orthodoxy and those renegade Catholic groups that keep the Latin mass and reject the Vatican’s liberalism are among the beneficiaries at this stage; there will be others. As for a name, why, for a great many of these people it already has a good traditional name: Satanism. Look into how many of these people have at least some connection to organized demonolatry; you may be surprised.

    Will, the best way I know of to learn the history of ideas is to roll up your sleeves and get dirt beneath your fingernails. Choose some intellectual movement of the past that interests you — it doesn’t matter which one. Read a couple of modern works about it, and then go read the books that actually came from the movement. Notice the distortions in the modern books. Then read the things that influenced the founders and thinkers of the movement, and the things that came out of the movement heading in different directions. Keep going.

    For example, let’s say that Gnosticism interests you. Start by reading a couple of modern books on the subject. Then go read the original Gnostic scriptures. Go from there to Plato, who influenced Gnosticism from one side, and the Bible, which influenced it from another side — notice how different the Gospel of John, say, looks when read from a Gnostic perspective. Veer forward and backward, and you’ll end up with a sense of where the core ideas of Gnosticism came from, how they were used and misused, and where they went. Then do the same thing with other things that interest you. It’s a wild ride!

    As for your father, don’t pester him. Let him figure it out for himself, as the bills and inconveniences mount up.

    Svaya, I’ll save that for a future post, as it deserves treatment at length.

    Phutatorius, I didn’t. What was the one thing?

    Siliconguy, thanks for this.

    M Carole, lots of people seem to be noticing that post! Thank you for this.

    Curt, many thanks for the update.

    Clay, now imagine that the US had been defeated and conquered by Vietnam. Do you think the Vietnamese government would have had an interest in rubbing our noses in that defeat, and would arrange for the government they installed here to do something along those lines? Why, so do I.

    Quin, thanks for this as always.

    Piper, one of the things I find most fascinating about so many modern scientists is how intellectually shallow they are. They’re good technicians but have no capacity to deal with serious thought.

    Quin, no, not quite. My take on nuclear power is that it’s technically feasible but economically unworkable. I haven’t seen any discussion of that from the antinuclear movement, mostly (I suspect) because the same logic can be applied just as effectively to solar PV and wind farms.

    Patricia M, thanks for this.

    BeardTree, wasn’t Emerson a philosopher? 😉

58. JMG,

    Adding to the whole “rubbing noses in their defeat” thing, I will add that building military bases and having frequent military flights breaking the sound barrier over the defeated enemy’s territory is one of the most humiliating things you can do. When I lived in the Japanese countryside for three years in Tokushima, flyovers were a daily occurrence, and we would have the sound barrier broken overhead about a once a week. You would have to stop teaching and wait for the sonic boom to pass before continuing on with your classes. It was a constant reminder of defeat, even 60 years later.

59. For anyone interested in the fiction self publishing landscape, I have analysed all 188 books in the fourth Self Published Sci Fi Competition (SPSFC). I went through and evaluated the titles, covers, blurbs and sample chapters to analyse which ones worked the best and distill and patterns or trends.
    You can check out all the episodes and summary blogs at https://haldanebdoyle.substack.com

    I have one more episode coming where I analyse all the Amazon and Goodreads statistics (rating/price/age/sales rank etc) and cross correlate with my personal rankings for the creative elements of the book front matter. I will be heavily discounting my own biological science fiction novel, Our Vitreous Womb, in November as an experiment to see if I can drum up some fresh sales.

    Doing all this work was vastly more valuable than watching “how to write a blurb” and “how to price your ebook” videos on YouTube, and I figure the snapshot of the indie landscape could be useful to others.

60. Hi JMG,
    I quote you from a reply of yours above:
    “Foxhands, our cultures in the industrial West are frankly insane, and so people face a difficult choice — they can be well-adjusted to an insane society, which makes them crazy in one way; they can reject their own culture, which makes them crazy in a different way; or they can find some compromise between the two, which makes them crazy in both ways at the same time. It’s not any easy road to walk.”

    Thank you for this. I’ve been increasingly fighting the tendency to wonder if I’m actually going insane. I’ve had to back away from looking at the alt-media I keep track of because it’s all turning into a jumbled mass of chaos. Were it not for my religious and spiritual grounding… no, I don’t want to think about it.

61. Does “technically feasible but economically unworkable” differ from “not effective EROI”, where the Investment equals in large part the construction of the reactor? (Am I misusing “investment” here?)

62. @Will O.: Your father has already bought the car, the embodied energy has been paid for. What good is it arguing with him now? Does he try to convince you to buy one, too? Or do you hope to convince him to drive less?

    My parents bought an electric car, too. I haven’t commented on it at all. FWIW, I live without a car, and all my siblings do, too.

63. Oh, I am just cherry picking a quote.

64. Hey JMG

    I thought I would let you know that my announcement of the internet archive’s restoration was premature as it got hacked into again witching days of coming back online.
    The perpetrator claims to be doing it to expose the lax cyber security of the archives, but I feel that there is something else behind it all.

65. JMG wrote: “Phutatorius, I didn’t. What was the one thing?” Assuming it works, here’s a link to the blog in question: https://substack.com/@jameshowardkunstler/p-150211271

    Could he have been reading Kevin MacDonald’s “The Culture of Critique”? I seriously doubt it. I used to comment on his blog once in a while. He nearly banned me for making up a bad pun. Well, I plead guilty as charged to that, but bad puns have become quite common lately.

66. The Highland clearances were mentioned last week. Also, from time to time, there are people expressing an interest in a western style martial arts.

    In relation to both, I think there may be people (not JMG) interested in Tom Langhorne’s youtube channel, “Fandabi Dozi”, wherein, wearing the traditional Scottish kilt and plaid, he demonstrates the use of the Scottish quarter staff both as a walking aid for hiking in the Scottish highlands, and as the effective martial weapon it can become at need.

    Here is a good starting sample for anyone interested… https://613tube.com/watch/?v=jEChjqfgzHE&t

    PS – someone else, on one of these threads, recommended overwriting the word “you” with “613” in order to obtain a more ad-free video experience, and I have found that this pays off… so, again, thank you.

67. Maratsos, that’s the very common criticism and refrain on Christianity, but two things: first: IS it? And second: did you ask anyone and read about it? Generally they criticize, ask their college friends high on the couch then assume it’s stupid not having asked anyone that would know. Like Saint Augustine or Francis of Assisi. Why would people have pica? That’s dumb, they’re stupid, next question. No __there are very good and specific reasons.__ So if you have such a question, ask. And you’re asking here.

    First, any communication we have is metaphorical about subjects far too large for us to understand, so to some extent they’re going to be mythical, metaphorical, and not historical/scientific. Science and the science mind was only invented a few years ago, so how can you interpret people with a worldview alien to yours, about a subject nearly impossible to discuss in the first place? But at least put yourself in their shoes. Owen Barfield (of Tolkein and the Inklings) had a whole thesis that should be required reading essentially that all languages are metaphor, but also that we’ve gone from like 5,000 words to several million. So a word like “Spiritus” had to have all meanings, but we break it into “etheric”, “medical respiration”, “Wind” etc. You’re using THEIR language. That means to them it had all these meanings we lost. We flattened out, crushed it. Being “Literal”, which we see as being “Accurate”.

    With that aside, the describing of the thing is not the thing. “AllGodOneFaith” is going to be the “Tao that can be named is not the Tao.” Yet you asked us to describe it, so we did. Oops, we got it wrong and looked stupid. But you asked! We’re telling you the best we know, with the 5,000 word language we have, honest, so work with us here. HOW can what they’re saying be true, not false? HOW can one hand be clapping? And as said here ALSO via interpretations of Aries and Pisces, the tidal awareness.

    Second: IS the world evil? IS it screwed up? What makes you think so and so sure? Taoist masters of the unnamable Tao become enlightened and say that’s an illusion: __actually the world is ineffable perfection.__ Breathtaking. Gorgeous. Impossible to describe. So what would God need to fix? He needs to fix YOUR eyes? So you can perceive it? According to all sorts of mystics, but let’s focus on Tao, Buddhism, and India, you can just go do the work and see it perfect for yourself, no need to believe me or some Jewish sky-God. Again, just ask.

    Anyway, the intellectual answer is this: Before even the first thing exists, there is the Tao, which has no form. So it counts more [ ] Zero, One, two (Yin/Yang), Three, many, ten-thousand. You’re asking about the thing before zero, before names. Okay. But isn’t that really BORING, the other complaint about Gods and heavens? Interminably DULL? So what’s a God to do? He breaks himself into TWO, out of the wholeness, out of a complete uni-consciousness of ONE. Then more, then more, then infinitely more. This HAS to happen, for ANYTHING to happen. Without TWO, there’s no Universe to begin with, much less time, space, goddesses, earths, trees, spears, people. But for that to happen there has to be SEPARATION. If there weren’t separation, they’d be one again, and nothing would happen again. We’d all be AllOneGodFaith again. One. Poof: we’d vanish.

    Put it this way: as you move up the chain, Angels are aligned with God and sing his praises. They can’t do otherwise. BORING! But as they move DOWN and can act in a multitude of ways, they can and MUST be able to act in non-aligned non-God ways. That is to say, “Against God”. That is to say, “Evil”, wrong.

    So why does “evil” exist? Separation from God? __Because it’s a base parameter of the whole universe existing,__ at all. Things have to have separation and free will, choice. …And it’s up to you: you can always just have no Universe at all if you want, then you’ll cease to exist, and nothing will ever happen again.

    Or maybe, anihilation-lite? We just remove Free Will from all objects in the Universe, see how that works?

    Translation: that’s why it’s a base parameter of THIS universe (there may be others), like light and gravity. Without light and gravity nothing would exist, or if it did we would be exclusively and eternally unaware of it.

    So what do you think? Universe, or no universe? So does this make God smart, or stupid? Or is it just really hard to communicate this weird, cosmic problem without math, in a way we can understand?

    Like in Job he told you, if you read it: “Stfu,” God said, “who do you think you are? Do you know what holds the planets together? Buddy, that’s over your pay grade.” If he HAD the information, chances are all our heads would be a million times too small to comprehend it. Certainly mine is. But the Buddhists say, if you want to know and have a few years to spare, they’ll show you for yourself if you want.

68. Hi JMG
    First thanks for answering my question on Monday about the witches and Trump. Inept or not, I think that the occult working is symptomatic of an election that seems to be bringing out some of the darker aspects of the American character. It also seems to sync with the observations of poor mental health.

    Something big is coming, regardless of the election outcome.

69. And I plead guilty to inconsistency

70. @ Robert Morgan #31
    I am French and writing this from France, but I’ve been very interested in what’s going on in the UK since the Southport tragedy in July, and what ensued, because it seems to me that the UK is one step ahead of France on the way to collapse. Here is my take on the issue:

    Members of the British white working class have realized that the British “elite” (especially Keir Starmer) really hate them, as shown by the absurdly severe prison terms some people got for offensive social media posts, up to several years in jail even for first offenders, while violent criminals are treated very leniently. For instance, the Pakistani man who broke a policewoman’s nose at Manchester airport didn’t spend a single day in jail so far.

    British police spend time knocking on people’s doors for “no crime incidents” (inappropriate but legal social media posts), while burglaries are not even investigated. Meanwhile, minorities feel strong, and don’t fear the police anymore, as several violent incidents show. No surprise British police officers resign faster than they can be recruited:
    https://www.polfed.org/news/latest-news/2023/the-storm-of-police-officer-resignations-part-1/

    Lately, I’ve noticed on YouTube a number of videos in which British lawyers advise the people on how to act if the police summon them, or if they are put in custody. The idea is, basically, that the police is your enemy. I can understand this; I know some people, admittedly not very bright, who post compulsively and impulsively on social media, and then quickly forget what they have posted. Knowing that a stupid post at 3 a.m. can mean several years in jail should make reasonable people refrain from posting on social media, and fear the police and the judges.

    Therefore, I understand why even “comfortably well-off” British people feel “a kind of exhausted, depressed apathy”. The white working class has de facto seceded. It views the government, the police, the judges, as its enemies. Immigrants, who keep coming in large numbers, are less integrated and less docile than ever. Crime is rampant. In other words, social cohesion is dead.

    Britain imports half of its food and a large part of its energy, its natural resources are depleted and its industry is only a shadow of its former self. The financial industry will have to face the coming financial crisis.

    Still, the British government acts aggressively against Russia, as if it hoped that a war would unite the nation again, and a vanquished Russia would surrender its natural resources to the winners. As you say, Robert, “the upcoming defeat in Ukraine might be a gut-punch to the West in general.”

    I expect 2025 to be a terrible year (in the UK, France and Germany) but I’ve noticed before that catastrophes are never certain, because thousands of very bright people work day and night to prevent them. But sometimes they fail.

    Please tell me if my assessment, made by a foreigner who hasn’t set foot on British soil for years, is accurate or wildly off the mark.

71. I guess being more specific to your question, WHY did God create the world, then destroy it? WHY create man, then say he’s born wrong? Did he? Are you sure? Sounds like later misinterpretation to me.

    There has to be room for things to exist, a range of things. So if we just kept Han China forever, there’s no room for Ming China. If we kept Rome, there can be no French Enlightenment. Things Change. WERE they destroyed? Did HE destroy them? Or did a comet come by, God knew the comet would come by, and just warned the local boatmaker? SHOULD he stop the comet so nothing can change? Or should he not tell the boatmaker? Again, above my pay grade, but they’re interpreting this as he MADE the comet come. Come because he HATED the world. Did he now? Why are you sure? He said the world had become evil, he does not specifically state that as a motive: we made that up. That’s us, our interpretation.

    Same with Adam. So we have an un-fallen Adam and like the Prodigal son, nothing happens, nothing CAN happen, nothing ever will happen: Adam is an animal like a squirrel, unaware of Good and Evil, life and death. Maybe you like that; but nothing happens. Yet IF you eat of the Fruit, THEN these consequences will occur. God doesn’t say if that choice is good or bad, if he prefers it or doesn’t. He’s saying, it’ll feel really bad, cause a lot of problems, so like kids: don’t play in the street. And if you do? So what? THEN you have a different perspective, you have a task at hand. Suppose you were 30 years old and woke in a dark wood. THEN you have an epic, a Quest, to escape, right? Was it better for Dante to not have woken in the deep wood and learned nothing? Not written that for us to read? Or was it better for him to have gotten lost so something happened? God’s perspective is going to be like a father: don’t do drugs, these specific bad things happen. Thing One, Thing Two, Thing Three. Do you still want to? Prodigal Son: I did the drugs. So? Now you know, there are consequences, something happened, and you make today’s choice: do you want to come home and shape up, lay drunk in the mire, or what?

    That’s the story of the Bible, roughly: Adam left paradise he was unable to see. __Paradise is still there__, all around us like Buddha say, the Garden is right there: but we can’t see and enter it. We’re separated from God. HOW do we re-unite with God? Apparently, Christ needed to re-connect the gateway to God and keeps that veil open for us always now. Like any open door, it can be open, but whether you choose to ask, look, and walk through it is up to you: he can only open it, and God can only be waiting there on the other side. That’s all you and your choice. He’s not going to and can’t MAKE you. That wouldn’t be a father.

    See how the interpretation from God-the-Father’s point of view is more the “Father’s” and not chastising, moralistic, etc? If you have kids, how do you ask? Tell them? Whaddya gonna do, lock them in a closet so they don’t sin, they never get in the street or catch a cold? That’s literally un-Fatherly, which I guess is what people want from their God nowadays. Sure, you’d LIKE them not to play in the street and get hit, but it’s about risks, not chaining them up or killing them for disobeying. Yet you sigh and say, “Yup, they’re kids, they’re stupid, reckless, don’t hear a word.” And wait for that call from the son in the pig-trough, it’s coming any day now.

    So IS God mad at you? DOES he think you’re a moral and personal failure? Is it HIM who is punishing you, or is it a natural consequence of your dumb actions? Perspective and re-interpretation. We are told, ordered, convinced to read the Bible in the harshest, dumbest possible light. What if it isn’t? What interpretations can we make if we assume otherwise?

72. Dear John
    Is China’s declining population a good thing or a bad thing from the perspective of the Long Descent? I hear a lot of political commentators saying that China is ‘doomed to collapse’ because of their ‘birthrate implosion’ and I can’t help but be skeptical of those claims. I’ve been hearing “China’s economy is going to collapse and the CCP will implode” for around a decade now. Of course, China will decline as every other industrial nation will, but I find the claims of outright collapse and regime change very unlikely. How do you think the future of China and the future of America measure up in light of the Long Descent?

73. Dennis, and it’s quite deliberate, of course. Japan successfully attacked American territory, and our elites won’t forgive that any time soon.

    Shane, thanks for this.

    Bird, I get that. One of the reasons I keep blogging is to throw a lifeline to people who are wondering if they’re the crazy ones. Another is to hear from other outcasts, so I don’t start wondering that!

    Quin, it’s a more comprehensive term. EROEI calculations are both very difficult and very easy to fudge, and it’s possible to gimmick the calculations so that fission power looks good. Real world costs are another matter.

    J.L.Mc12, I know. I went back and got a few things, then had it go down again.

    Phutatorius, it just took me to his Substack account homepage. What was the title of the post you had in mind?

    Scotlyn, I’m delighted to hear this!

    Raymond, there was much more evil magic flying around in 2020. That said, whatever happens, I expect major changes in the aftermath.

    Enjoyer, I don’t find blanket value judgments like “good” and “bad” meaningful in this context. China’s collapsing population numbers, like everything else, have some good consequences and some bad ones. If you want a more nuanced assessment, I’d point out that collapse is extremely rare in world history; decline, not collapse, is the usual fate of civilizations, and population contraction is a normal feature of decline. I’d also point out that most of the rest of the world is in one stage or another of population contraction, so China’s situation is far less unique than media portrayals like to suggest.

74. JMG,

    You have discussed in the past about future technic civilizations that will arise once we finally come out of the post-industrial dark ages. What will power this future civilization(s) if nuclear turns out to be a wash as you suspect? And (if I may cheat with a 2nd question) do you believe such a civilization will be achieved before the end of this millennium, or are we talking about a longer interregnum between us and a stable technic?

75. Questions about the election: I have not yet voted. Early voting starts next Tuesday in my state.

    From what I have seen, the Republican nominee is non compos mentis and, in my non-expert judgement, in ill health. Why is an old man being put through this ordeal? The VP nominee is an out and out sociopath. My opinion and I am sticking with it. I have met a few in my time.

    My question is, what do Trump voters hope to gain? What do you expect a 2nd Trump, or rather Vance, term will look like? OK, he might not support Ukraine, but what about the ME? I have not heard or read that this ticket is anything other than pro-Zionist. Furthermore, Iran is not my enemy, Republican rhetoric to the contrary.

    The Trump farm policy, as expressed by Secretary Sonny Perdue was “Get big or get out”. Large corporate farms only, it would seem, and, according to what I read in the Project 2025 section of agriculture, we must all be persuaded to accept GMO foods. It puzzles me that many of the same people who are skeptical about vaccines, as am I, think GMOs are just wunnerful. We already produce enough food to feed the human population, the problem is one of distribution, not production.

    I would like to know, what am I missing? What are you seeing in this ticket that I am not?
    .

76. Will O (#40)
    There are two Bolt EVs in my household. (My wife liked mine so much she got one of her own.) They’re nice little cars; I find them neither expensive nor inconvenient. They cost about half to “fuel” as my previous car, a Honda Fit. That said, most of the things you hear from both ends of the political spectrum are, well, wrong. On the one hand, EVs won’t save the world. On the other, the batteries don’t die in a year, nor do the tires wear more quickly than any other car I’ve owned. They’re just…cars.

77. @LazyGardener, #28

    About Calley and Casey Means, they just did a 2.5 hour interview with Joe Rogan:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0lTyhvOeJs

    It’s very fast paced, they covered a great deal of information in that time. The talk centered around the regulatory capture of the US government by Big Pharma and Big Ag, the deplorable state of America’s diet – which is severely harming children – and how they brought Kennedy and Trump together over these issues. Casey was a medical doctor, and she recounts how utterly ignorant doctors are of nutrition, and how they have no interest in finding the root causes of chronic disease – where’s the profit in that? There’s another interview of them with Tucker Carlson, though I haven’t seen it yet.

    And for the reader above who spoke about the mental health of children today. Yeah, pretty much a disaster. In scientific language, their brains are fried. They are incapable of quietly focusing for any amount of time. Combine all that screen time with ultra-processed, nutrient-deficient food, and they are another lost generation. People have always talked about what will happen to the drug users when the collapse happens, how they’ll go crazy without their fixes. The same will happen to everyone addicted to their phones, videos, music, pron, video games, etc. It will be a madhouse.

    The book “How not to become a millennial” by Aaron Clarey rightfully skewers both the boomers and the Millennials for the disastrous situation we are in. It’s a vicious analysis of how the boomers exploited the kids for their own profit, while the millennials (and gen z) wrapped themselves in cloaks of Woke Martyrdom – they’re all insane. And us Gen-Xers? What a joke we were.

78. Hi John. Apologies if this has been asked already. Have you done any astrology for the upcoming election? Would you care to share the results?

79. For Zhao: Woke seems fine to me considering that too much woke is sleep deprivation, and according to John’s Hopkins “Sleep Deprivation Leads to Greater Risk For: · Depression · Irritability · Anxiety · Forgetfulness · Fuzzy Thinking.”

    And for Will O, if an EV does not fit with his lifestyle he will find out soon enough. If he can charge at home and rarely takes long trips he may find it entirely acceptable. They are not a bad idea in All cases, it’s the EV proponents who claim it’s ideal in all cases that cause the uproar.

80. Out of curiosity I checked out some of the videos featuring Daniel Schmachtenberger on you tube. What struck me almost immediately was that this guy was Bizzaro John Michael Greer. He sounds very thoughtful and has a full luxurious beard ( except his beard is white while his hair is dark) . He speaks about the problems facing civilization but then goes on to describe how all these problems can be fixed. All we need to do is fix capitalism, the media, the education system, the family structure and government, Taa Daa, easy peasy. Like a Disneyfied version of JMG where everything turns out happy in the end if we just try hard and wish upon a star.

81. John, no question this time, but I thought you might find this article interesting, since you wrote an entire book on the subject: https://modernity.news/2024/10/23/witches-complain-they-cant-cast-spells-on-trump-because-he-has-some-kind-of-protection-around-him/

82. I’m in the happy / uncomfortable position of having too much house and too little income in a good spot to study Druidry, so I’ve been wondering how to find the right housemates among my co-religionists. Assuming I’m not the only Druid in Northeast Ohio seeking deindustrial living arrangements, how do I find a like-minded person or two and develop a workable arrangement with them?
    Many thanks.
    Rhydlyd

83. JMG @ 73: The title is “Lawfare is Jihad Against Our Country.” He mentions “overton window” specifically and then gets into it.

84. Regarding elections, I thought it might be worth making a comment on what has been going on in New Zealand since the Labour government was replaced by a National Party led centre-right coalition last year.

    1. Central government is in the process of being down-sized with many thousands of jobs eliminated and instructions to focus on the front-line services and reduce staff elsewhere.
    2. The government seems to be using the prospect of a law on interpreting the Treaty of Waitangi (where Maori tribal leaders conceded sovereignty to the Crown in 1840, or didn’t, depending on who you talked to) as a distraction for the media to gnash its teeth and wail about while other changes fly under the radar.
    3. The coalition partners are pushing back on anything resembling globalism – ie rejecting power-grab from WHO
    4. Energy independence is one area of focus of the new govt, reversing some of the previous govt’s ‘green’ policies
    5. More focus on traditional law and order, though not really gone beyond rhetoric.
    6. Talk of adding laws for hate crimes has gone out the window

    Probably a few other things I’ve missed, but the collapse of MSM in this country is continuing and the former government has not learnt any lessons from its loss. In general, politics is shifting to a BAU thing and getting far less attention overall IMHO.

85. Will O, I’m in a similar situation. Don’t say anything. It just is not worth it. If anything, EVs are generally fun to drive, so find excuses to go on errands or outings with your father – if he’s anything like mine, he will let you drive. And you know, soon enough, he’ll be gone, and then one-upping him about the EV he bought will turn pretty bitter in your throat.

86. Us long time readers also had the benefit of the first version of Stars Reach which had references to a particularly influential book trilogy, which you couldn’t publish due to a particularly litigious estate that owns the rights 😉
    I always thought the first version was better, but as there’s no deriviate works allowed, that’s just the way the world is.

87. oops, forgot to put in smiley face emoji’s in my last two comments so here they are.😊😊!!! This is a usually fun placer. Thank you JMG

88. NevadaNative, the technic civilizations of the far future won’t be industrial societies and they won’t have the kind of centralized energy production we do; there will be no electrical grid, as those are only possible if you’re willing to put up with the fantastic waste of energy we allow. They’ll make use of renewable energy resources because that’s what they’ll have, but they won’t fritter them away the way we’re doing. Areas with hydropower potential will use it directly, as a source of mechanical energy, rather than converting mechanical to electrical energy and back again (with the attendant waste of energy). Areas with a lot of sunlight will use solar thermal technologies. Areas with wind will use mechanical energy from wind, and places with geothermal energy will have ample mechanical power from naturally produced steam.

    So it’ll be a locally relevant patchwork rather than the kind of one-size-fits-nobody nonsense we do these days. There will be less energy to waste, but much more efficient energy use will make up for that — do you know, for example, that it’s quite possible right now to build a house that can keep people comfortable in cold climates with only body heat as a power source? Nobody does it because fossil fuels are so cheap. So it’ll be a very different kind of civilization, but one that makes good use of its energy resources. As for timing, the average dark age lasts for around 500 years, so the next round of technic civilizations should have emerged well before the end of this millennium.

    Paul, nope and nope. Astrology can predict overall trends; it’s not well suited to give specific answers to precise questions such as “who will win the election?” The indications I got from ingress and eclipse charts are that it’s not a question of which party will win, but more of which will lose worse than the other.

    Clay, that’s worth knowing. If people are starting to do that kind of faux-JMG hopium, my ideas are getting more traction than I expected.

    Doktor R, I see that’s getting a lot of traction just now! You’re the third person to mention it today, and I posted something about the original post as well:

    https://ecosophia.dreamwidth.org/301479.html

    Rhydlyd, I have no idea. Anyone else?

    Phutatorius, thank you for this. Ouch — that may have some very harsh consequences.

    KAN, that’s all very promising!

    Peter, I’ve saved the original version, for what it’s worth. The trilogy in question will no longer be in copyright in 2048, 24 years from now, which is well within my statistically possible lifespan…

    BeardTree, duly noted! 😉

89. Greetings, all!
    I’m still doing microcosmic/spiritual alchemy oracle readings. Details and how to contact me are posted here: https://druidalchemist.com/oracle/

90. Ôl-ffitio Rhydlyd , About finding roommates: First you need to inform yourself about laws in your area. What is allowed and not allowed? What about the legalities of accepting only fellow druids? That could get you in trouble with civil rights laws.

    Then decide on definite policies about rent amount and payment days, how are utilities to be paid for, what about pets? These and other things will not “work themselves out”. How many persons are you willing to accommodate? There are horror stories about how one tenant turns into 5 or 6 of their nearest and dearest.

    What you might want to consider is some sort of room available for a reasonable fee for travelling participants in your festivals. That would give you a bit of an income stream and opportunities to meet many of your faith. IDK, but laws regarding temporary B&B type accommodations are likely to be less onerous than those governing rentals. Could you offer space to your own local groups for special events?

91. Many people like to complain that if God was really omnipotent etc he would have created a perfect world. Maybe he did and we don’t know it. We have to find our own place in it. Any attempt that anybody has made to make a utopia has been a marked failure so maybe we don’t recognize perfection when we see it.

92. Hi everyone,

    Three points I’d like to put out there.

    1. It seems to me that Buddhism as practiced by Westerners tends to be more deontological than in the East. In the East, it seems people tend to see it more as a form of virtue ethics, a system of metaphysics, a source of contact with super-human beings, and a distinctive style of art and architecture. Anyone else any thoughts on this? (I personally love Buddhist aesthetics and many other aspects, but would never go vegetarian again.)

    2. It’s a popular topic online that China is going to suffer a lot due to a decline in the working age population for a long while to come. It strikes me that, with the decline of living standards in the West, there may be high levels of migration of young members of the Chinese diaspora back to China. The Chinese diaspora is excellent at maintaining cultural and linguistic continuity, as well as family connections, so assimilation would presumably be feasible. Any thoughts?

    3. Is there any value in exploring new religious symbols? I have been meditating on the idea of dolphins as a symbol of divinity, but I don’t really have a framework for thinking about this topic.

    Thanks again to JMG for giving us this platform.

93. The Fires of Shalsha is a good read. Got it through Apple books on my IPad a while back. The Journey Star is a sequel which I just now pre-ordered on Amazon. I have peace and joy through Jesus and a felt closeness to Deity inside me and around me and aim to be friends with all. So Bible weirdness is not an issue for me. Wrath and judgment is above my pay grade and status and a prerogative of God alone in my understanding. But borrowing a saying from our hosts I recognize that people’s mileage with Jesus as the felt and known way, the truth and the life varies. A mystery I leave to Deity.

94. With all the talk of Diets, I would moderately recommend the book series “How not to” Die/Diet/Age by Dr Michael Greger.

    I am actually happy to use his Doctor title because he seems to be one of the rare ones out there actually trying to cure people without medication rather than just pushing pills. Large parts of these books are dedicated to highlighting the dangerous side effects of medications and how we should not trust big pharma and their claims.

    I only moderately recommend these because he does have the agenda of ‘plant based diets’ and with that does cherry pick a lot of study details. Also these books are WAY too big and cover far too many studies, which unintentionally highlights a problem of the modern medical field and studies in general. A lot of noise but difficult to get a signal at times. These books could probably be about a forth the size and still work.

    But when you have a Doctor who has been through the whole system of indoctrination (pun intended) but ends up borderline pushing herbalism to help you live a healthy life, even with the biases, it is worth consideration.

95. Well, I really should have thought of the weight loss industry. I think I missed it because here in Canada the weight loss industry is a lot smaller, and the idea that they would be able to have that kind of influence on Ottawa is laughable. I haven’t really thought about it, but I think it probably comes from one of the few benefits to the government run medical system we have: because the government pays for it, there is less of an opportunity for the specific kind of fraud where someone intentionally tries to ruin public health for profit. It still happens, of course, but on a far smaller scale because in a lot of cases there is no one who immediately benefits from it.

96. Mr. Greer, yes I would concur that electric vehicles are indeed inefficient and inconvenient.. AND I might add – a hazard to one’s health: just look at the possibility of succumbing to ‘death-by-barbecue’, via becoming trapped inside a Muskmelon having self-careened into a freeway soundwall .. firetruck (ha!) .. or what have you. The only vehicle with EV capabilities that I would consider would be a hybrid. NOT being stuck in a freezing blizzard miles from nowhere with only a waining battery is a good thing, no?
    You know, I just had a thought – I wouldn’t be the least surprised if a younger Elon binge-watched Paul Verhoeven flicks! .. for instance, in both ROBOCOP and Total Recall the ‘cars’ .. especially the models the villains drive .. are these really obnoxiously boxy monstrosities. Then there’s the quintessential JohnnyCab!! The celluloid Dennis Quade at least had the fortune to exit THAT burning torch on wheels, if in a rather unconventional manner. I wouldn’t be so sure regarding a self-driving Xcab.
    What I really want is a brand new SUX 2000! .. complete with the handheld OCP military-grade grenade launcher option. ‘;]

97. Hi JMG, this one is definitely a delete if I am emulating to closely Icarus here.

    Former Tech utopist Douglas Rushkoff actually has a decent use for this AI junk!

    He has been writing a fiction book, and after he has finished the first draft of a chapter, he then uses some AI program to put the same characters in the same situation and see what it pumps out. If his version reads closely to the AI version, that is when he knows he is writing rubbish. It isn’t creative it is just formulaic rubbish.

    I like this idea of using this tech as a means of seeing if you are writing statistically average and boring stuff. Flips the whole narrative those pushing this stuff want. Its saying “Hey Zuckerberg, your stuff is so terrible we use it as the benchmark for bad!”.

98. Russell, (1) yes, very much so. That’s especially true in the United States, where every religious tradition imported from elsewhere tends to be sucked toward the Puritan model. (2) That strikes me as very possible. (3) If it isn’t handed over by a deity, it’s not a religious symbol, it’s an ideological symbol. I think it’s important to remember that religion is the body of human tradition we’ve created for dealing with gods, saviors, and other supernatural beings. When those don’t participate, actual religion is absent.

    BeardTree, glad you liked it! I’ll be interested to hear what you think of Journey Star — a very strange and deliberately unsettling book. Someday I may write a third book in that sequence; if I do, it’ll be even more unsettling.

    Michael, so noted.

    Taylor, interesting. I wonder if here, as so often, Canada’s been dragged along culturally behind the United States.

    Polecat, I tend to rely on my feet and public transit…

    Michael, good heavens. Okay, that’s actually useful.

99. JMG, that’s one possibility, or he knew but accepted it as part of the story. Personally, I think he is simply a realist, and hence all the warnings about antichrists and prophets and etc, that would take away from the utterly human point of what he intended to establish, by trying to identify too visibly the good from the bad. But fair enough. The scribes and Pharisees ye shall have with you, always…as he might be tempted to say. Ellul has convinced me that he wasn’t into starting a religion, whatever else is true. An Ekklesia, yes, but not a bureaucratic, sharply visible one.

100. Re Mary Bennet “I would like to know, what am I missing? What are you seeing in this ticket that I am not?”

     For me it’s less pro Trump than anti Harris and deep state. The Democrats have been actively attacking the First Amendment ( free speech), the Second Amendment, the Fourth (warrantless searches) the Fifth, (house arrest without due process) and are planning to pack the court.

     Also the Democrats have been carrying out an economic war on the countryside since at least the Clinton administration. I live in the country so yes it hurt me directly when my mining job went poof. The Get Big or Get Out in agriculture started long before that and drove Dad off the family farm in the late sixties. Cheap Food for the cities is all either party cares about.

     And then we have war. “Joe Biden” has us drawn into two of them. Obama and his meddling caused the whole Ukraine flap in the first place. Whether he did it to protect the family graft stream or to save Europe from its increasingly evident implosion I don’t know.

     Oh, and Hillary has called for all MAGA members to be rounded up and sent to deprogramming camps. They are more commonly called re-education camps. Is she raving? Maybe.

     Then there is the porous border, the illegals, the cartels behind the flood of fentanyl who are causing most of the local crime, for which of course they blame me for daring to exercise my Second Amendment rights.

     I hope that answers the question.

     Remember, the Holodomor, the Great Purge, the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution, pol Pot; no one hates like a Socialist.

101. Dear Mr. Greer,
     One of the strangest bits of news to come out recently about the upcoming election was found in a reddit post in some Wiccan group in which a bunch of self-proclaimed left wing “witches” were lamenting that their attempts to curse the Donald have all been falling flat. They went on to conclude that he must be under some form of occult protection (indeed, his surviving the assassination attempt that came within an inch of taking out his brain seems to confirm just that). This post came to my attention through the well-known vlogger Tarl Warwick who explained that, on the one hand, yes these Wiccans are correct that Trump is under occult protection (from Warwick himself among others) but in addition their attacks also continue to fail because many of these people simply don’t have any idea what they are doing because they only dabble in these dangerous matters in the most superficial and lazy way characteristic of 21st Century Western suburbanites who want to get what they want immediately without having to invest the time or effort to seriously learn about a difficult subject. My question for you as someone extremely knowledgeable about such matters is as follows: is one possible explanation for the Democrats’ year-long implosion that these amateur witches have been playing with fire by releasing evil forces into the world which, due to their incompetence and ignorance, only came back around to their own side to throw them into a state of utter confusion and chaos. One sign of this confusion is that now, just two weeks from election day, the Democrats are already expressing regret for having overthrown Biden and replaced him with Kamala as they suddenly realize what any honest pollster could have told them a year ago: that she performs even worse among especially swing state voters than he would have. This is especially true for union members in the Rust Belt who backed Biden at numbers up to 75% in, say, Wisconsin but now back Trump at a rate of over 50% in the same state which will indeed cost them the election if it is not rigged. As the Democrats keep making the worst possible mistakes at the worst possible time (just watch Harris repeatedly fail to answer even the most basic questions at one softball interview after another with the mainstream media), one cannot help but wonder if they have only cursed themselves in their misguided attempts to curse Trump. Do you think this is the case?

102. @beardtree #56
     Actually, Emerson’s quote is: “A foolish consistency is the hobglobin of little minds…”

103. RE nuclear ERoEi

     Quin, The Oil Drum had a post on the ERoEI of nuclear:
     http://theoildrum.com.s3-website.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/node/3877

     And the results were clustered into two groups, one very low and one in the 10-20 range. There is a paper that reviews all the ERoEI studies on nuclear that shows the bimodal clustering much more clearly, but alas, I have lost the link. The two cluters were broadly authored by two groups of scientists, one pronuclear and the other antinuclear. They made assumptions in their calculations that were in line with the results that they wanted to see. In the mean time, economics are a good proxy and nuclear has to be subsidized or it loses money.

     Thorium reactors might be better, because there is only one naturally occurring isotope so it doesn’t need to be enriched. But there is still the waste problem, which our civilization doesn’t seem to have the will to solve. Last time I looked, a few years ago, there was no long term nuclear waste storage anywhere in the world.

104. Mary Bennet #75

     TRUMP BUTTS, PIERCES, GORES

     I see what is happening in the run-up to the U.S.A. election is this:

     [] There is an elite, these days they go by the moniker “liberal,” “managerial class, ” “progressive,” and Democrats. They get the perks while the working class pays for it.

     [] The elite has been in power since roughly the 1970s.

     [] This elite has destroyed the working and middle classes. What is left of the working and middle classes continues to pay for the elite’s luxuries. In 1776 American Revolutionary War days, it was called “taxation without representation.”

     [] The mainstream media is part of the elite. The media has consolidated the last ten years where there is very little disagreement not supporting the elite’s luxuries, a status quo they are doing everything they can to NOT lose.

     []Congress, for example, keeps continuing on with its favorite projects, like open borders, mass immigration, endless wars not in the USA’s neighborhood, raising taxes, increasing regulation of small business, NAFTA having sent American jobs overseas, DEI (Diversity, Equality, Inclusion), leaving tariffs low or non-existent (hence flooding commerce with shit products from China), Covid inept/authortarian response, high crime rates, giving slaps on hands to violent criminals, dicey economy, honest Americans worse off now than during Trump’s time, &tc. {https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agenda_47 (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agenda_47)}

     [] The effect is there is a Wizard-of-Oz-like curtain masking this. The curtain is hard to perceive.

     [] Trump voters are eventually able and willing to peel away enough of the curtain, the veil, “to see through” to the wizard. The wizard is the elite.

     [] I feel that “Trump advocates” see Trump mainly in the role of astrological Aries, the goat — functioning to butt, pierce, and gore. They ignore Trump’s all-encompassing many faults in favor of his butting and piercing abilities. Trump isn’t perfect — we can’t have everything. So far, Trump is one of the few that can butt, pierce, and gore strong enough to expose the wizard, that is, expose the elite.

     [] Trump fits a role. If not Trump, it will be someone like him, the exposer of the curtain, and what the curtain hides. If Trump is incapacitated, it will be someone else.

     [] The elites have had over 50 years to mend their ways. They haven’t. The elite won’t stop stealing from American taxpayers unless forced to. Americans are fed up. Enough.

     [] In 2024, it comes down to a “taxation without representation” issue, same as in 1776.

     [] It comes down to one’s willingness to investigate the curtain, first, to see that there is one. One has to see a slight glimmer that there is a curtain/veil. If the curtain is denied existence, that is the conundrum. To see or not to see. To spy or not to spy.

     I no longer watch mainstream media. MSNBC is the worst — Rachel Maddow is the worst. Nor do I watch late-night comedy shows anymore, like Stephen Colbert, Jon Stewart & his other comedians, John Oliver, Jimmy Fallon, Bill Maher, Seth Meyers, &tc. Their main schtick is bashing Trump.

     None of them can stop talking about Trump. They all have diarrhea-of-the-mouth. What’s up with that? The lot of them are unable to promote a Democratic Party agenda because there is NO Democratic agenda, so they default to ripping Trump. (I myself am guilty of many a joke.) KHarris = fluff. No-one knows what she stands for. I lived in California for thirty years, and Harris’ past district-attorney record is abysmal. (Shamefaced, I am sure😒😖I voted for her, knowing nothing of the turkey she is.) Saying in public “anything about” “any sort” “of maybe agenda” by the Democratic Party would expose the curtain.

     I watch Victor Davis Hanson, Matt Taibbi & Walter Kirn, Chris Hedges, Tucker Carlson, Bill O’Reilly, and when I watch TV news, Fox News.

     💨Northwind Grandma💨🤗
     Dane County, Wisconsin, USA

105. HI JMG and everyone,

     Regarding your comment about our cultures in the Industrial West being frankly insane, I wonder then, are the God’s having a hand in this insanity? “For whom the Gods…”
     Do they wish to destroy these cultures?
     Where do you think the two candidates fit into this?
     Is Trump then, who it seem likely, could be the next President, part of their plans?

     Regarding the election, I’ve heard via the latest Taibbi / Kirn podcast, that the MSM has been amplifying the apparent threats of violence and chaos to polling stations by the “far right”.
     A theory one could come up with is, that they are trying to create a narrative to do some kind of control action on the voting process at some swing state polling stations, so that they can then “guard and protect ” the votes and then, make sure it tallies the way they want?
     A false flag or two? Have you picked up on this?

     Regarding Jill Stein, yes I’ve heard that the Green party is hopelessly disorganised, but also, that a lot of people are voting for her, not as an endorsement, but as a protest vote against the Democrats.

     You’ve mentioned before that the timing for an Islamic “reformation”, is around about now. Do you think what is happening now, with what seems to be, at least on the surface, a more of a for the people, grass roots form of Islam, more centred around Shia, versus the more elitist Wahabist doctrine of at least some of the the Gulf Monarchies, in particular Saudi Arabia, a possible catalyst?

     Can you see the death / martyrdom of Sinwar playing into this? Can you see him becoming part of a heroic mythological tale into the future?

     Do you have any sense of the state of the stockpile of US munitions? Is it being replaced at the same rate of usage? If not what do you think will be the ramifications, in particular to those beneficiaries of said munitions. I believe the industrial capacity / scope / number of factories across the West is greatly diminished?

     For the the last 70+ years – one generation you could say, the West, led by the US, has sowed a lot of chaos and destruction with stupid, un-winnable wars, in many parts of the world.
     Do you worry about the karmic consequences of so much bloodshed and ruin?

     Daniel Schmachtenberger has been around on YouTube for a number of years, at first I saw him on with Paul Van der Clay and Jonathan Pageau. Of late he’s been on with Nate Hagens.
     He’s obviously very intelligent, but has a habit of talking in a very hard to understand way, especially in years past. He was a bit better with Hagens.
     Not like our clear speaking/writing host!
     I reckon he (Schmachtenberger ) is only beaten in incomprehension by Eric Weinstein, 😁.

     I’m glad to see the reprint of your books, I think I have all but Journey Star, which I was unaware of, and After Progress.
     I’m beginning to think you have a special crystal ball – 🔮 🧙 I remember in Retrotopia, that part about a practice session, using rifles to shoot down drones.
     Well finally I’ve heard it confirmed. In an interview with Scott Ritter, he mentioned that one of the ways the Russians are combatting the vast amount of the Ukrainian force’s drones, is to shoot them down with rifles!

     Also in I think it was Twilights last gleaming? The resistance people had to resort to more secretive forms of electronic communication due to government censorship. We are well on the way to that future, it would seem. In the (increasingly dismal) UK, the place of my birth, there have been quite a number of arrests, detentions and device seizures of anti war journalists and activists.
     Having said that, I’ve heard tell that even the supposedly independent encrypted messaging apps all still have backdoors in them, which the three letter agencies can access.
     Pigeons, perhaps?

     Regarding JHK, I used to always read his column, until to a few years ago, where I would just occasionally browse. Every week it seemed to be about how everything was going to collapse next week due to the inability to make “capital formation” or some such.
     It got very dreary and repetitive. Then a bit after Oct 7 last year, I stopped reading completely, more because of the hate and vitriol spouted by a of a lot of his commenters, who I think were always a bit mean spirited and I have to say somewhat arrogant. Not all, but there seemed to be a hardcore group among them.

     JMG runs a tight ship, 🚢 which is I think, a very good thing, even if its “hopelessly dowdy” 😆

     Regards
     Helen in Oz

106. Dear JMG,

     You have often referred to future civilizations that you believe will arise long after the current one declines and dies. But knowing how much metals, minerals, petroleum, etc. have already been mined, and then consumed or irretrievably dispersed, I have to wonder if any sort of civilization really could spring up again following this profligate and wasteful age.

     I am not necessarily talking about a high-tech civilization, either. Remember, even the Bronze Age civilizations were critically dependent on certain minerals and metals, such as copper and especially tin. And both those metals, along with most others, have been so heavily mined over the centuries, but most especially in the last 150 or so years, that remaining ore bodies contain just a very small fraction of their respective metals compared to ores of 200 or 1000 years ago. And those remaining, lower-grade ores also require much more energy to mine and refine than did ores in earlier eras.

     So, left with the badly depleted ores that we leave them, and with little or no petroleum as well, just how would future civilizations be able to develop? Or are you perhaps thinking of civilizations with material bases radically different from our own, and from those of the past?

107. JMG,

     The link and title to Kunstler’s article “throwing open the Overton Window” is here:

     Lawfare is Jihad Against Our Country
     https://jameshowardkunstler.substack.com/p/lawfare-is-jihad-against-our-country

108. Do you have any tips for avoiding unknowingly interfacing with an egrigore in meditation or while reading the astral light? I’ve been a working intuitive for 5 years or so and really want to get at the highest truths possible rather than getting stuck in the collective psyche etc. Is there a book that addresses this that you recommend?

109. Been following a certain occult author on Facebook, as we get closer to the election and it’s clear the Dems have done an excellent job of losing, they are lashing out at people and one of his followers is openly wishing they could just shoot all Nazis/Trump supporters.

     I keep worrying these fools are going to end up manifesting the Nazis they fear or at the least decide to act on their calls to violence, anyone else seeing anything similar?

110. @Clay Dennis #46 The Allies won the second world war and have an interest in imprinting their view of history on Japanese youth. They would want to draw attention to the Japanese crimes at Pearl Harbour and away from the Allied crimes of bombing civilians with napalm in hundreds of Japanese cities.

     To ask, you mention that the entrepreneurial class will replace the managerial class. Looking around me it seems clear that the managerial class is not having the success it used to have. However I do not see who is moving in to take their place. How can I learn more about what the entrepreneurial class is? What examples of the entrepreneur class come to mind?

111. There were all sorts of weird and wonderful motor cars in the early days of motoring, but they gradually coalesced into a few standard shapes that each manufacturer built a variant of. I’m wondering if there will be a reverse movement on the downslope, i.e. an explosion of motoring oddities to fit many different social niches that have limited free cash flow.

     With standard batteries and standard electric motors available, it shouldn’t be too difficult to cobble together one’s own vision of a more suitable people mover.

     This speculation was prompted by remembering a couple of oddities from my youth.

     Family friends of ours drove an Isetta. The whole front of the car opened up, with the steering wheel on a universal joint so it could fold out of the way with the door. How the couple fitted in I do not know. He was a trim ex-serviceman, but she claimed she just had to look at a potato to put on weight, something which was visibly true.
     https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isetta

     Then there was the Messerschmitt KR200, a little bug-eyed three-wheeler. As a child I was admiring one at the garage, and the driver said, “Would you like a ride?” My mother okayed it and we went for a spin around the block (ah, those innocent days). We sat one behind the other with our butts 6″ off the ground. I remember it as a nippy little thing with a bouncy ride.
     https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messerschmitt_KR200

112. JMG,

     Have you heard about Emmanuel Todd, the French demographer who foresaw the collapse of the USSR? He is now predicting the defeat of the West which he, not incorrectly, describes as The US and its vassal-states in Europe. His prediction is that the war in Ukraine will lead to a humiliating defeat of NATO and the subsequent dissolution of the same together with the EU, leaving European nations free to decide their own fates for the first time in decades. As far as I know he does not seem to predict whether this freedom will result in utopia or dystopia in Europe as a whole, only the demise of American imperial control over Europe.
     How are you foreseeing this process? It seems quite clear that Todd’s prediction of the American empire crumbling is right. The question is whether the empire it will just fizzle out and die as a consequence of its internal and economic problems, or will it die in a blaze of bullets trying to cling on to power? What are your best guesses?
     When the dust has settled, it seems as Europe’s only chance of continued stability and economic prospects is to stretch out a hand across the border to the east. Do you think they will have the common sense to swallow their pride and do so?

113. @ Michael Maratsos:
     Just as we sub-creators retain full freedom of action only up to the moment when we first set pen to paper, or brush to canvas, so a Creator God is omnipotent only so long as He doesn’t do anything; when He actually creates, He thus becomes bound by the choices He has made as to the nature of His medium. In other words, creation implies commitment, and commitment limits power.

114. Assuming that Trump does win this time, I can’t help but wonder to what extent this may happen because of the way that the Biden Administration’s supporters on the Internet went to such very, in fact amazingly great lengths to be singularly unlikable, almost as though on some level they actually wanted to make their team lose the next round.

115. @Mary, #75,
     You told me all the reasons you aren’t voting for the Republican. What are the reasons you are voting FOR whoever you are voting for? Because we can all make long lists of he said / she said and why I hate this person or that person. I want to be FOR something, not voting for the lesser evil, which seems counterproductive to me.
     My opinion, that is what you are missing

116. JMG, I have a question, triggered by a passage in “Hall of Homeless Gods”: What is the reason for devolving US states back to territories except the obvious reason of climate change? Does such a mechanism actually exist in the US constitution?

     Since writing was mentioned, I would like to add that when I write something, I do it with typewriter or on the computer; both methods have their pros and cons. The way with typewriter is more direct and in a certain way more magical, but of course more labor-intensive for corrections.

117. @Rhydlyd #82 If there are no occult bookstores that function as alternative-spirituality community centers in your area (and I realize those are becoming an endangered species) you might look into local food co-ops and independent natural food stores. There’s considerable overlap between people who are into natural foods and people who are drawn to earth religions such as druidry; something about wanting to be closer to nature. In both these retail resources, you might be better off looking for or even starting a druidry discussion group. That will give you a good hint about how much socializing you’re really ready for.

     Now that I think about it, if there is, within reasonable commuting distance, a college campus big enough to have its own pagan student group, that might also be a good resource.

     There’s also ic dot org, the website of the Foundation for Intentional Community, which has a directory that you can list your place in. It allows you to specify that it’s a religious community specifically for druids.

     All these resources will draw in a certain amount of chaff along with the wheat; you’ll have some rejecting to do. However, the more explicit and detailed you are about exactly what you want and what you have to offer, the less of that you’ll have to do.

118. Hi John Michael,

     Thought you might be interested in a data point I’ve observed lately, which is getting worse all the time.

     Of course, with these events, there’s always a little story involved! Here goes: As an alert kind of fellow with an easily startled disposition should things go awry, I’ve kind of had some odd dealings of late with very large corporate entities. You may have heard stories of price gouging activities, and trust me, a) I do my utmost not have dealings with such things (and I use that word literally) in the first place; but b) when such slippery footed actions of my own, aren’t good enough to avoid those things, I keep a sharp eye on their interactions with me.

     Anywhoo, the other day the nice telco who’ve I’ve been a customer of for decades, sent me an unsolicited email notifying me that the monthly bill for one aspect of their service would increase by $20. It annoyed me, and then I started looking into the entire arrangement. Best to not get me thinking about that sort of stuff. Today, I went into their shop, and begun the conversation with the words: ‘I can’t pay that increase’, and ended sorting out a large discount over the existing monthly bill. Over the year, the reduction equates to a saving of about a weeks pay before tax. That’s completely nuts…

     The core lesson with the story is that rather than rewarding loyalty, it’s actually perversely being punished by such large entities. I get the reasons and strategies as to why it is occurring, but did wonder whether the internal culture of those err, things, is now being reflected in the interactions with customers and the wider community. It’s not good, don’t you reckon? And it certainly means something that the dude on the street would be noticing nowadays, because in my experience it is no longer an isolated incident. You have to be onto everything.

     Truthfully, how families with two adults working full time jobs plus with family commitments, deal with these sorts of administrative burdens is a real mystery to me. It’s possible such families are so busy that they simply just pay the demands made of them. Crazy stuff. But they sure do make you work for the better deals.

     Is this going on in your country? It sort of looks to me like a race to the bottom.

     Cheers

     Chris

119. Siliconguy @43. Thanks for these. Yet another ultra-processed food problem.
     Currently reading Grain Brain (Perlmutter), which includes a look at the modern updates of wheat varieties, with new versions of glutens. Also, just finished The End of Alzheimer’s (Dreseden), which includes multiple modern detractors to brain function. Fortunately, many can be minimized with a real food (?low carb) diet, exercise and common sense. .

120. @Russell, about dolphins:
     Manly P Hall, in one of his Zodiakos articles, said “The dolphin was another sign used by the ancients to symbolize Capricorn, and Apollo the sun-god, is occasionally depicted as a child riding on a dolphin.”
     Elsewhere, I have read that dolphins are a symbol of Dionysus (who is the nocturnal sun, while Apollo is the diurnal sun).
     And in Figure 1 of the Book of Lambspring, the caption for the image is “Be warned and understand truly that two Fishes are swimming in our Sea. The Sea as the Body, the two Fishes are Soul and Spirit.” The 1607 and 1893 editions of Lambspring have images that look like fish, but the 1556 edition has ‘fish’ with blowholes, which I interpret as dolphins. (You can see all three images here: https://druidalchemist.com/lambspring-1/ )

121. Micheal @ 94

     Greger is interesting. He has over 13,000 references for his last book, yet only gives a few to support his strong recommendation for a low fat diet. The current number of journal articles is over the top – no one can read and recall them all: and this is before AI generated ones are more widespread.

     On the other hand, he is not pushing supplements, an expensive monthly subscription, or other profit centers. It is hard to know which recommendations to take seriously, without digging through his references. Some are small studies with rodents, often the best we have for an issue, but hardly something you would want to lay your health upon. On the other hand, trying cranberry juice for UTI’s is pretty well supported and lower risk than most other treatments.

122. @Will O. Agree with the others, no point in criticizing his electric car. The truth is, it may work out just fine for him. We had an electric car for three years, a Nissan Leaf, from 2013 to 2016. It was good, within it’s limitations. It was fast, comfortable, pleasant and fun to drive. We charged mostly at home, but also at dealerships and public chargers. At that time, most public chargers were free; that is somewhat less true today. If you are using it for shorter trips around town or commuting within the car’s range, it is a good choice. If you commute and your workplace has free charging, it’s free (to you) fuel.

     On the other side, range in the winter was much, much worse, sometimes half the advertised distance. It makes far less sense than an internal combustion vehicle for long trips, though it is workable. Maintenance will probably wind up being comparable. No oil changes, less brakes, but more tires and they are expensive. Of course, the electric cars are more expensive to begin with. Range anxiety is a real thing, and he will probably be very frustrated once or twice when he runs out of juice or a charger is broken (a fairly common situation).

     Let him see how it works out. And we’d like to hear back from you in six months or a year, if you don’t mind.

123. Micheal @ 94
     Addendum: I have not checked Greger’s references in all of his books, just working on the last one, and some links off of his recent video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOvV9m7feKo). He may have more references than I implied, that I have not yet chased down. There are, however, significant references and historic support for a high (healthy) fat diet, at least for diabetics, those with insulin resistance and at risk for Alzheimer’s.

124. @polecat

     I’ve had three Toyota Corollas and the most recent one that I’m driving now is a hybrid. I drive a lot because of Outreach work. I was very skeptical about purchasing the car, I think after 16,000 km of driving I’m happy with it. It’s great for City driving and stop and go traffic as the electric battery is charged and used in this type of driving. For highway driving actually I don’t like it, top speed isn’t very much above the speed limit on the 400 series highways, though I guess in traffic I am saving gas again due to the electric motor kicking in… I am usually navigating city streets.
     If I still lived in the rural areas I would probably be worse off.

125. The curse affecting Boeing strikes again:

     “The Intelsat 33e satellite, which was launched in 2016 and provides communications across Europe, Asia and Africa, experienced “an anomaly” on Saturday, Intelsat said in a news release. Attempts were made to work with Boeing and repair the satellite, but on Monday, the U.S. Space Force confirmed that the satellite had exploded. The satellite’s breakup left some customers without power or communications services. Intelsat said it is working with third-party providers to limit service interruptions, and is in communication with customers.

     Since the breakup, the U.S. Space Force is now tracking “around 20 associated pieces” of the satellite in space. The agency said that there are “no immediate threats” and routine assessments to ensure safety are ongoing. Russia’s space agency, Roscosmos, said it had recorded “more than 80 fragments” of the destroyed satellite. Analysis of the pieces’ trajectory determined that the destruction of the satellite was “instantaneous and high-energy,” Roscosmos said.”

     https://x.com/shell_jim/status/1849184334844133453

     That’s an interesting plot of how the debris spreads out. Nothing gets very far from the equator.

126. @Michael Maratsos
     Not much of a contradiction, given that based on the same accounts he gives them free will. He didn’t just made some creatures like we make some robot, but willingly made autonomous agents.

     @CR Patiño > Yes, beings with a will of their own will sometimes not agree with the will of their maker. Also, Jesus never (nor could have) squared the circle.

     The latter is not so certain. Not being able to square the circle is our own limitation, as are a priori Kantian categories, and other such limits. Not the limits of God, who is not bounded by the laws of physics nor by (more fundamental for us) laws of Logic, contradiction, and such.

     It’s true that the western conception of God, especially since Aquinas, has God’s powers still bound to the limits of Logic (and an even more modern theistic view, to the Laws of Physics as well). But that’s a modern western rationalization, not an original conception of the Christian God, or how modern orthodoxy sees God.

     We could just as well say that God created the notion of the circle, the square, and of squaring the circle (mathematically), as well as the law of excluded middle, infinitesimal math, and so on, and we can alter or bypass them as he sees fit.

127. JMG wrote in response to Raymond, who discussed witches and Trump: Raymond, there was much more evil magic flying around in 2020. That said, whatever happens, I expect major changes in the aftermath.

     Well, that certainly explains Mothman. Early in this month, I was seized by Mothman to write more about him and all that surrounds him. Mothman is.was the winged human/moth/bird who first came into notice in 1960s for appearances in Pt. Pleasant W.Va., and being tied to the Silver Bridge Collapse. Much has been written about him since then, and I have a small library of books starting with John Keel and moving on to Loren Coleman. Anyway, the consensus is that Mothman is a harbinger of doom.

     Before this month, I haven’t a clue about Mothman or a thought about him. Then boom. In all his Mothman glory, he appears and speaks to me in my dreams. I have several theories about all this.

     Since Trump Buddha has been in my home, many changes (positive) have happened to my family. Lately, I joined a mental health support group. My son decided to lose 150 pounds (he is very obese) and proceeded to go to dieticians etc and following their advice faithfully, losing weight.

     Then all those Trump Buddha dreams of Trump winning in a landslide. I do believe that Mothman is somehow connected to Trump Buddha and Trump’s Genius (Roman Guardian Spirit). Mothman is collecting all the hysteria from the Harris side and throwing it back at them.

     I do know that this hysteria from Harris and supporters is gone beyond nuclear and is actually bothering my brain. Hence Mothman showed up. I now have a Mothman doll on my altar to act as a shield against this hysteria.

     I do believe that Mothman is spelling doom for the status quo that Harris and supporters want.

     So I add my observations to the pile of U.S. election weirdness.

128. @JMG

     In a reply above, you said: “it’s quite possible right now to build a house that can keep people comfortable in cold climates with only body heat as a power source?” As someone who does live in a cold climate and despairs a little at the amount of firewood needed to heat even my fairly moderate and decently insulated house, that’s an interesting tidbit. Most of the passive-house projects I’ve seen in this country are both fantastically expensive and involve lots of electric fans and computers to achieve their gains. Then again, these houses also tend to be unnecessarily big. Are you saying this kind of passive heating could be done even with winters of, say, -15 or -20C (-5F), without electricity? Still, even if it’s only down to 0C or so that’d still be very useful, since we rarely get extremely cold winters anymore. My current house can remain semi-comfortable without any heating down to around 10-12C.

     I do have a copy of Green Wizardry, and IIRC you talk about something similar there, so I assume I’d look to the further reading section in that book for sources? Anything more recent you could recommend as a supplement? It’s far from certain I’d ever be in a position to have a small house built, but it could happen over the next decade or two depending on how things work out, so I’d be good to know about the options.

     @Robert Morgan #31

     Yeah, as a foreigner I’ve also been getting the sense things are rapidly taking a turn for the worse in the UK. Here in Norway, I wouldn’t say people are acting defeated or demoralized as such. We’re still very wealthy on the whole, and like another commenter said about his or her country, many of us are still shopping, happy motoring, renovating and holidaying like there’s no tomorrow. And yet, though. And yet. In my view there’s been a clear shift over the last few years. There’s a sense of…not full-on decline, not yet, but a sense of consolidation and hunkering down. A sense that the easy extravagance of the 2000s and 2010s is gone. Real history seems to have started again and caught up to the secluded oasis we had up here. We can no longer take it for granted that there’ll be more of everything, for everyone, all the time, no questions asked.

     In practice, this has shown itself in a lot of talk and media attention around more people having less money, with all the problems that can bring. Again, I want to reiterate that very few are actually poor in this country. It’s more a sense of not being able to keep up with the Joneses as much. The same sense of rising prices and cold winds blowing that’s already familiar to most people in less privileged Western countries. Of course we also have a whopping housing price bubble in the big cities here (or what passes for big cities in Norwegian terms, haha), and it’s ever harder for young people to afford their own place. The same old story. Very anecdotal, but I visited the r/norge subreddit for the first time in a long while recently, and even there a lot of the posts seemed to be about not being able to afford stuff and ways to save money.

     Another very telling development recently is a big popular and media kerfuffle in my neck of the country, because the county authority has decided to close down a few regional high schools. This means some students out in the rural areas will have to deal with either long bus commutes or living in weekly flats in bigger towns. They’re citing forecasts of fewer children and the need to save money to do this, and the backlash has been ferocious. While I understand why this is unwelcome news for the people affected, it’s also very clearly showing that we’re a nation not at all used to having to prioritize or make hard choices in public policy. There’s been a lot of talk about how the “elder wave” predicted for decades is fully catching up to us, and that this is only a taste of what’s waiting for us.

     This whole thing also made be pay attention because I remember something JMG said here a few years back when I talked about Norway’s relative wealth. IIRC, it was along the lines that when the state has to start cutting back on its lavish spending on services and welfare goods, we’ll know the decline has reached our shores too. Looks like we’re not exempt from history after all…

129. A quibble: “Areas with hydropower potential will use it directly, as a source of mechanical energy, rather than converting mechanical to electrical energy and back again (with the attendant waste of energy). ” It turns out that converting mechanical to electrical to mechanical power can be more efficient than direct mechanical drive. Most people have no idea of the power losses in a belt drive or gear train. On the other hand, if the iron and copper aren’t available it doesn’t matter!

130. Horzabky #70, thanks for the observations. The way violent criminals have been released early and demonstrators have been allowed to chant anti-Jewish slogans, while people putting agressive posts on social media have been given years in prison, has outraged many in the UK.
     It was interesting in the recent election to see that ReformUK came second to Labour in many working-class seats that Labour won. It may be that Labour are only one step away from losing nearly all of the working-class vote. The Budget statement next week is expected to include tax rises that will affect almost everyone.
     Overall, it’s quite likely that the UK as well of much of Europe stands on the verge of a period of steep economic decline.

131. At my university’s energy class, we recently had an assignment that highlighted the wisdom of a phrase from the old Master Conserver pamphlets — that is, to weatherize before you solarize. The assignment was to take a sample home which was getting solar panels installed for a given price, factor in any federal tax credits and the like, and then determine whether other modifications to the house could save more energy for less money. The assignment instructions were pretty vague, but a few modifications, such as weatherstripping, installing cellular shades and a heat-pump water heater, and cutting TV use by half, were able to save considerably more energy than the solar panels would have per year, and at a lower price.

     Also, nice to see that your fiction books are re-entering print. I know that Merigan Tales already exists for people who want more Star’s Reach content, but a full-on sequel to the first book is something I’d also be interested in reading. For that matter, how is that tabletop adaptation of the setting coming along? I seem to remember you having mentioned it a while ago, but haven’t heard about it recently.

132. The transition from the managerial elite to the entrepreneurial elite makes total sense. It helps me see the way it is unfolding with old Muskie a little bit more clearly now.

     @Mary Bennet: You can always cast a protest vote for Dr. Shiva if none of the other candidates are palatable to you:

     https://shiva4president.com/about-shiva/

133. My wife and I voted early at our downtown county election office here in Dubuque (Iowa) just last Saturday morning. I am glad to have that out of the way (although unfortunately voting early doesn’t mean that election day also comes and goes away sooner). I suggested it particularly because my wife is mobility challenged, and I had hoped (which was the case for us) that she would actually have a shorter line to wait through than what we’d encounter on election day (even though our precinct polling location is literally the church building next door to our house, yet it is still too far for my wife to comfortably walk to).

     I guess I don’t see any connection (as a few of you who also voted early apparently do and have commented on) how the size of a line at the early election places means good or bad for either candidate. I don’t see a connection, mainly because early voting is done for a whole variety of reasons that often have no connection to who one is voting for, and because it makes really no appreciable difference since the votes won’t be counted anyway until election day. Especially since one could interpret a lower early election as actually good, as it will be the early votes that most likely will be questioned the most for possible tampering or rigging by the side that loses, so why risk that?

134. A sign of the times; “Denny’s Plots 150 Closings As Part Of Its Growth Strategy”

     It’s clearly an oxymoron, but it does make some sense. Traffic patterns have changed so some stores are no longer profitable. The company is also starting a remodeling project and rather sensibly is concentrating its efforts on stores that might manage to repay the investment.

     Also in economics, the Social Security inflation adjustment is 2.5%, but the IRS released its tax bracket changes and they went up 2.8%. Both are supposedly adjusted for inflation. Also adjusted for inflation is the Social Security wage cap which went from 168,600 to 176,100, an increase of 4.4%.

     Fun with government statistics. A stealth tax increase at the top of the middle class, and a cut in income for the retired.

     Zerohedge has a good picture this morning under the title “Everyone I don’t like is Hitler, A child’s guide to online political discussion. Hitler in pajamas is riding a toboggan down a rainbow.

     I’m going to dig up the gladioli today. That’s the official end of my garden season.

135. Ethan L, people I know who have solar panels are not necessarily trying to cut energy use. What they are doing is lowering their power bills. Not necessarily the same thing, especially when you consider that a “power company” is nowadays a conglomeration of various entities, all siphoning their bit from your utility payments.

     Robert Morgan, what is the Reform Party agenda?

     polecat, re electric vehicles: one more reason that municipalities should never have let themselves be talked into cutting back of public transportation. And why they must reinstate same while they still can.

136. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fat_interesterification

     >The chemist in me says that’s a clever trick. The engineer in me wonders how they do it. The rest of me wonders if this is a good idea.

     That sounds a lot like what you do to make biodiesel, except you’re swapping out the fatty acids instead of the glycerine backbone.

     My guess is isn’t the interestification per se that’s making molecular monkeywrenches but rather the impurities generated by the process. There are always side products in every chemical reaction. My guess is they’re skipping the workups, because let’s face it, that’s work and work sucks. So let’s not do it and not tell anyone.

     Also see: DDT

     I wonder how soon is it before all trust is lost in the corporate food system and we’re all desperately deriving food from first principles, because it’s the only food you can trust.

137. I still read JHK on occasion just for the zingers. He has some good ones that really make me laugh.

138. >Lawfare is Jihad Against Our Country

     Like JMG said, this country was founded by a bunch of religious fanatics. And they’re doing what religious fanatics do. Especially when times get stressful and uncertain, those kind of people are the first to lose their marbles.

139. Celadon, fair enough. Maybe he assessed the options and came to the conclusion that the results were as good as he could get.

     Chad, that post really did get some attention, didn’t it? You’re the fourth person to bring it up in two days. I’ve posted my initial comments here:

     https://ecosophia.dreamwidth.org/301479.html

     In response to your question, yes, I’ve been talking about this for years. The worst of the downsides of malefic magic — that is to say, magic intended to harm, blight, or kill somebody or something else — is what I call “the raspberry jam principle”: just as you can’t spread raspberry jam on anything without getting it on your own fingers, whatever magical energies you evoke “stick” to you (technically speaking, they entrain your subtle bodies to their own vibratory rate), so that you tend to attract whatever it is that you’re sending at other people. If your magic works entirely to heal, bless, and help, why, you can expect to be healed, blessed, and helped; if your magic is sleazier stuff, the same rule applies just as effectively to harm you. Given the amount of malefic magic the soi-disant “Magic Resistance” has been flinging at the people they hate, they would have to be much more competent than they are to avoid getting clobbered by the blowback from their own spells.

     Helen, um, it would take me an entire post to answer some of those questions and a very long paragraph to answer most of the others, so I’m going to nod and smile and choose one of them. Yes, I was impressed by the way that the events of the Ukraine war have copied my speculations in Retrotopia. That I know of, the Russians haven’t yet started using specialized rifles chambering .50 caliber bullets, which is what the Retrotopian drone meets used, but we’ll see what happens. (I chose that simply because .50 caliber rounds in a long rifle have ample range and accuracy, when shot by a trained sniper, to take out drones at very good ranges.)

     Alan, in 1500 one of the largest cities in the world was Tenochtitlan, the capital of the Aztec empire, with 400,000 residents, part of an urban core with around 1.5 million inhabitants. Though gold and silver were much used in their art, Aztec technology was technically stone age — they used stone tools, and their warriors carried stone-tipped spears and arrows and the macuahuitl, a stone-edged wooden sword:
     
     The same thing was true of all the other Mesoamerican civilizations, including the Maya, with their exceedingly sophisticated astronomy and mathematics. So it simply isn’t true that complex urban civilizations require metals. It’s crucial not to make the mistake of thinking that our idiosyncratic material culture is the only kind that a civilization can have! The civilizations of the future will doubtless take what resources they have and develop them in ways we can’t even imagine.

     Michael, thanks for this.

     Evergreen, that’s why it’s important to perform a banishing ritual right before you meditate. That way you can explore conceptual structures without getting caught by their energetic structures.

     James, I’ll be talking about that next week. The short answer? What you contemplate, you imitate — and these folks have been contemplating the Nazis in an ecstasy of loathing and secret admiration for decades now. Selling armbands and jackboots to them is likely to be a growth industry in the decades ahead.

     Turtle, maybe you’ve heard of people named Donald Trump and Elon Musk… 😉

     Martin, I hope so! Cars have gotten so very boring in recent decades.

     Fredrik, I have indeed, and he’s almost certainly correct. The US is teetering on the brink of traumatic change; one way or another, it’s going to lose its hegemonic place in the global system, it’s going to have to default on its unpayable debts, and the result will be an era when, as in the 19th century, the US turns its attention inward to deal with its own considerable problems and leaves the rest of the world mostly alone. As the Russians do the smart thing and stretch out the Ukraine war as long as possible, the economic costs to Europe and North America just mount up, and the rest of the world gets to chuckle at NATO’s humiliation. By the time the Russians finally force Ukraine into unconditional surrender — which could be five years from now, you know — the West won’t have the bullets left to do anything but crumple. As for the nations of Europe, no, I don’t expect them to make nice with Russia; instead, they’ll go into a death spiral of economic and demographic crisis that will probably end with the proclamation of Islamic republics in Western Europe and the outright conquest of Eastern Europe by Russian armies sucked into the vacuum.

     Mister N, well, there’s that!

     Booklover, there’s no mechanism in the current US constitution, but in the future of The Hall of Homeless Gods there’s a new constitution, which has some such provisions. The idea is that when a state ends up with too low a population to sustain the functions of a state, it can devolve into a federal territory, and the catastrophic desertification of the American West in that future has driven that process.

     Chris, yes, it’s a constant feature of American life these days. That’s one of the things that’s driving the uprising against the managerial class and its pet institutions.

     Siliconguy, yes, I heard of that. I wonder whether we’ll keep on being lucky, or whether this or the next incident will trigger the Kessler syndrome…

     Neptunesdolphins, thank you for the heads up! I read Keel’s book The Mothman Prophecies in my teen years and adored it, so this caught my eye instantly. I wonder whether anybody else is putting Mothman dolls on altars — if so, it could evolve into a very strange bit of folk religion.

     Kim, yes. An earth-sheltered home with adequate window coverings can be quite comfortable without central heating in Arctic temperatures. (It’s worth noting that the Inuit igloo is traditionally heated with body heat and a single lamp burning seal or whale fat, and gets very cozy inside.) The bibliography in Green Wizardry will give you plenty to get started with.

     Roldy, in some applications, sure, but then you need to factor in the whole-system energy and resource cost of a few gears vs. a generator and a motor.

     Ethan, delighted to hear this. As for the Star’s Reach RPG, my Weird of Hali RPG has sold poorly enough that it simply hasn’t been viable for me to put the time into another project along the same lines.

     Eagle Fang, it really does clarify things, doesn’t it?

     Siliconguy, I plan on using that meme in next week’s post:
     

140. @Peter Wilson, #86
     Yeah, I remember what you mean. It would be ludicrous if Francis Ford Coppola teamed up with Sam Walton to sue a certain middle-aged random writer for the audacity of putting the phrase “Sam and Fredo” in one of his novels….
     FFC: Hey, Sam. Long time no see! Have a minute?
     SW: What’s up?
     FFC: I want to open a class action suite against this druid guy, for stealing our intellectual property.
     SW: I don’t know, he looks pretty poor. My lawyers’ dry-cleaning budget may consume the whole of his state…
     FFC: Come on, Sammy boy! It is for the principle of it. You cannot let him get away with it!!!!
     SW: Ok, what did he steal.
     FFC: He wrote “Sam and Fredo”.
     SW: Come on, it’s just 11 letters! You made me miss my golf practice for Eleven.Bloody.Letters?
     FFC: Please, Sammo. Your name goes first, I cannot do it without you.
     SW: Your name is Francis, you know…

141. Helen @ 105, what the Green Party does have is 50 state ballot access. That fact, I suggest, accounts for the all of a sudden Moslem interest in the party. The current ME war is the excuse, but I don’t see to many American domiciled Moslems returning to fight the Israeli oppressors. I say “American domiciled” because it is considered impolite to ask that faction about their immigration and citizenship status; we only ask those questions of the Latino population. I very much doubt that this newest entry into the Green coalition, such as that is, cares one iota about environment, rights of indigenous Americans, or clean air, soil and water.

     Northwind Grandma, thank you for the response.

     “Trump is not perfect.” Neither is Harris. Anyone nowadays who wants perfect has to create it themselves. Which means, in a nutshell, do good work, no matter who’s feelings are hurt, and don’t lie, which can sometimes have severe consequences, like when you tell the clueless gorilla someone fixed you up with would he please take you home now, please. Both sides are all in for Israel, and if they are not, the neo-cons are busily ingratiating themselves with both. Neither side is going to prosecute P G & E for causing wildfires (by not supervising the contract crews who are supposed to keep brush away from power poles); neither will enforce anti-trust laws against Monsatan/Beyer; neither will substantially increase public transportation so that poor folks don’t have to own automobiles.

     I also have little use for PMC idiots, but I have found they can be ignored. It looks to me like Trumpist grifters expect to be able to stick their ignorant noses into every aspect of people’s private lives and spending habits, or not-spending in my case. No, I am not for abortion, but as the mother and grandmother of girls, I am even more against forced marriages.

     And, also, I like a quiet, peaceful and productive life. Those who think that is boring are cordially invited to leave me alone. I have a congenital dislike of chaos agents, who, in my observation and experience, generally do far more harm than good.

142. Hi John,
     I’m a bit dismayed to see Elon Musk involved in this campaign with his hopes of being part of the Trump Administration. It seems to me his real intentions are to further enrich himself and further advance and impose his techno-fantasies on the rest of us.

143. Jean @ 115 What I believe I said was that I consider, my opinion, the two at the top of the Republican ticket not fit for the offices to which they aspire. One, by reason of visibly declining health and mental powers, and the other because of what looks to me like malignant sociopathic temperament. Not, obviously, a professional diagnosis, but as a certifiable weirdo, I have decades of experience in avoiding dangerous people and situations.
     IDK about you personally, but I will say in a general way that Republicans are no stranger to the practice of voting against, so they have no room to complain when others do the same.

     The agenda I would like to see, wind down the empire, close overseas bases, 5 or so year moratorium on immigration, very much including no more of govt. agencies resettling their pets and proteges, and requirement that those here learn basic English (including Grandma and Grandpa) and show verifiable work history at minimum wage or more–no undercutting other people’s livelihoods–enforcement of anti trust laws in every sector, prohibition of foreign ownership of American farmland, or any Am. real estate, restoration of mass transit among other things, will not happen no matter which side gets in.

144. Hi John,

     What is your latest take on the Ukrainian conflict and the growing reports of mass desertions on the Ukrainian side?

     https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/10/21/why-is-ukraines-army-facing-a-desertion-crisis

145. A while back I asked the question of whether or not math was magic. As part of your answer you said that we will know magic takes math seriously when training the mind with meditation becomes part of the curriculum. Did I understand you correctly? Would you please expand on that a bit and explain what you meant? Any particular flavor of meditation? Thank you.

146. @RandomActsOfKarma #120: “Elsewhere, I have read that dolphins are a symbol of Dionysus (who is the nocturnal sun, while Apollo is the diurnal sun).”

     I’ve been studying the Isis and Osiris myth and have come to the conclusion that one way to interpret the myth (following Empedocles) is that Osiris (=Dionysus) is descending fire (e.g. the unified spirit fragmenting into divided bodies due to Strife), while Horus (=Apollo) is ascending fire (e.g. the divided bodies re-combining into unified spirit due to Love). Hence Osiris dies, but Horus is born from his death, and becomes king. All this sounds remarkably like the “nocturnal sun” and “diurnal sun” you mentioned.

     I was wondering if you could point me to more on that? It might help me on my way!

147. Siliconguy @ 100 Thank you for that very honest response. I do believe I know what you are typing about. I was present at the creation, as a bemused watcher, not participant, when the Old Left, remnants of the Progressive movement, was taken over by the New Left. Most of this faction were and are 1st., 2nd, and 3rd gen migrants from various European countries, hoping to emulate the Russian Revolution. They were not at all immune to being manipulated by various factions, such as Zionists and Brit-twit agents of influence, among others.

     No one hates like a Socialist, unless it is a Christianist fanatic, which group absolutely cannot, and will not, leave other people alone. They are doing God’s work, don’t you know? If the Republicans lose, it will likely be because of Roe vs. Wade, and they will have brought that on themselves. The pro-life faction could have declared victory, had a big We Won party to annoy “the libs” and left it at that. But no, they could not leave well enough alone.

     The Clintons are certainly trying to carve out positions of informal influence. I will be surprised if they can succeed in that. Notice that Hillary the Hated is not being asked to campaign for Harris. One or two small venues of her sycophants maybe, but not the big rallies.

     I also take leave to point out that what one may do, so may others. If one group can vote for emotional reasons, guy I would like to have a beer with, others may as well. As for instance, time we had a woman president. If some vote “against Hillary”, a sentiment with which I can sympathize, others are going to vote “against The Donald”. Or, in my case, against the sociopathic Vance.

     Have you considered the possibility of a military coup? We have recently seen three general officers of senior status, including at least one former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, publicly stating their opinion that Trump is not fit to be president. Remember that their oath is to defend and preserve the Constitution, which is has nothing to do with personal loyalty to any President. Now, I am seeing reports that the Trump team has done none of the customary preparations for transfer of power in case their side wins. Which does make me wonder, does this group even mean to govern within constitutional and legal limits?

148. Eagle Fan Warrior 5000, Dr. Shiva does appear to be a good man. I was especially impressed to note that he is of the Dalit, I think that is the correct word, caste, so, I presume, not admitted into the usual diasporian networks of influence. However, for third parties in general, I am at the point where I want to see some party building work being done, such as I have seen recently from the DSA and Justice Democrats.

149. Hi JMG and community,
     I’m looking at the geopolitical actions of the US as a US citizen and I remain scratching my head. I’ve only gone through half of the posts above, so maybe this has been discussed.

     We’re basically in a war with Russia through Ukraine and with nearly the entire Middle East through Israel. Both have the potential to escalate to WW3 – especially through Israel they could be destroyed or heavily damaged by Iran as shown through the Oct. 1 drone attack.

     On top of this, Israel is commiting a genocide where already 42,000 Palistinians have been documented killed and the estimations could be around 180,000 once the rubble is sifted through Gaza which could take decades.

     Most states outside the West consider Israel a pariah state. The BRICS conference that is taking place right now in Russia has grown in large part because of the US’s offensive (and illogical) behavior.

     What is the US government thinking? There has to be some sort rationale here. Is the US rationale so clouded by hubis that it remains blind to its actions? Even in light of the fact that the Ukrainian army has been smeared across the borderlands despite Zelensky running around like a madman declaring his victory plan. Granted he’s gotten some reinforcements the cutaway shots to his officers in the meeting I saw couldn’t express more depression.

     Also, in light of the fact as well that Iran clearly knows and has the capability to target Israeli strongholds as they succeeded with on October 1st?

     Many think it’s a wag the dog situation where Israel is in control because of the Israeli lobby in the Untied States. So the millions these donors contribute to US campaign funds (on both sides) extracts the billions – this year $20 billion extra + heavy duty equipment to the tune of 583.1 million. But it makes no sense that our government would risk an escalation that could not only destroys its international reputation by supporting a genocide but could lead to who knows where.

     I came across an interesting video that looks at the situation differently. That the US is in charge with Israeal and is using Israel (although they have their own vested interests) the same we’ve used Ukraine – to use proxy wars to destroy our enemies with the goal of complete control over the world’s energy supply. This seems a bit sinister – but certainly not impossible.

     Any thoughts on the US rationale and its endgame? (Even if the endgame is a delusion.)

     Below is the video I mention for those interested.
     https://youtu.be/9AeAfFfTqMk?si=EqLqlicgv5cwFEEc

150. One of the things that still keeps baffling me is people’s insistence on invoking demographics to dismiss the prospect of any future war – “they won’t go to war; they don’t have enough young people” / “China has to attack Taiwan by 2027 or its military-age population will decrease”, etc.

     Umm… okay, so? Sure, your population is now maybe only 5% young people compared to the 15% it was back in 1950, but 5% of, say, 50 million population is still 2.5 million young people, plenty to prosecute a war with. (Not to mention that, in an emergency like Ukraine is facing, they don’t have to all be “young people”). If China waits until 2030 to attack Taiwan, it’s still probably going to have well over 100 million “young people”. If anything, a relatively lower proportion of young people would, in a democratic polity, make it easier to galvanize the public for a war since less of the electorate will be personally affected.

     The other similar maxim related to this trope is “their economies are too closely intertwined.” Also true of Europe right before World War I, and we all know how that turned out…

151. JMG,

     I know people say “everyone is more confrontational these days” but I don’t see it. In fact I see people going to great lengths to be a “good” and “harmless”. I can’t even remember the last time someone was “blunt” or “direct” in a conversation.

     So what is going on, are both “aggressiveness” and “passivity” occurring at the same time? Is it just my environment?

152. Hello, arch-druid and everyone in the community!

     I was thinking about the way politics of classes works recently, and I noticed an odd similarity to something straight out of a computer science textbook. Its a very interesting analogy, so I thought I might share it here. I am sorry if this comment is a bit too long.

     I read The King in Orange a two-and-a-half years ago, and I was fascinated by the four-caste layering of American society – the investors, the salaried, the wage earners, and the dependents. Whenever I came across any discussion on American politics on the internet over these last thirty months, I was reminded immediately of this hierarchy. One of the patterns I noticed is the frustration of the salaried class at the support and trust that the wage classes have been putting in the investing class, especially in multi-billionnaires like Musk. Meanwhile, they themselves are enormously sympathetic to the dependent class at the bottom.

     Here in India, there is a similar hierarchy in many dimensions of our social life. I see the same sort of transverse sympathy: the most privileged teaming up with the third-most privileged, and the second-most privileged teaming up with the fourth-most privileged.

     I have been a bit curious about this for a while now, but then I realized that there is a very precise analogy with the Greedy Pirate Problem in computer science. Its an algorithm puzzle, and it goes like this: suppose there are one hundred greedy pirates on a pirate ship. They encounter a lonely island with a treasure chest, and in the chest are one hundred gold coins. Each of the pirates want to amass as much gold for themselves as they can, but they are sensible enough to not want wanton violence. So they decide upon the following rules to distribute their gold.

     Starting with the eldest (and therefore most experienced) pirate, they will carry out a voting process. The eldest pirate will propose a distribution of gold, and will elaborate a justification of why it is in the best interest of the pirates. The other pirates will listen closely and ponder carefully. Then all the pirates, including the eldest, will vote – each pirate voting either an “aye” or a “nae”. If at least half the pirates vote “aye”, the proposed distribution scheme will be effected. Otherwise, the eldest pirate will be executed, and the process will continue with the remaining pirates. In other words, the second-oldest pirate is now the eldest, and will need to propose a distribution to vote on, and so on.

     Imagine you are the eldest pirate. Propose a scheme and a justification that will let you get the most number of gold coins. What is the maximum number of gold coins you can justify for yourself?

     The answer, surprisingly, is fifty-one! And here is the solution:

     Imagine if there are only two pirates. The oldest pirate can simply keep all the coins for himself, and since the younger pirate is displeased, he will vote “nae”. It doesn’t matter, since the oldest pirate’s vote is half the vote, and this scheme will be effected.

     So if there are three pirates, the middle pirate has every reason to vote “nae”, since killing the eldest results in a two-pirate situation, where he gets to keep all the coins. The eldest pirate will definitely not vote for his own execution. So the deciding vote is the youngest pirate’s. It would appear that the eldest should do everything in his power to keep the youngest happy. But there’s a twist – the oldest is aware that if his proposal is not carried out, he will be executed, resulting in two pirates, and consequently a grim prospect for the youngest pirate. In other words, the eldest has a tremendous leverage over the youngest pirate’s decision.

     So if you are the eldest in a three-pirate situation, you can simply give yourself ninety-nine gold coins, and give the youngest pirate one coin. If he votes “aye”, he keeps one coin. If he votes “nae”, he gets to go home empty-handed (or empty-hooked).

     This continues into four pirates. The eldest needs to keep the third-oldest happy, by giving him one coin. The other two can eat refuse, for all he cares. He will keep ninety-nine coins. He will vote “aye” for himself, and the two pirates getting zero gold will vote “nae”. The third-oldest casts the deciding vote, and here are his options: an “Aye” grants him one coin, and “Nae”sends the eldest tumbling to the sharks, leaving him as the middle pirate in a three-pirate situation. As discussed above, the middle pirate in a three-pirate situation goes away empty-handed.

     This is a pattern, and it continues on and on. Doing the arithmetic, you will see that for hundred pirates, the eldest can keep 51 coins. Leave 49 for one each among the third-oldest, the fifth-oldest, and so on. Give nothing to the rest.

     This is a very theoretical problem, of course – give a pirate nothing and there shall be upheaval – but it does shed light on what is happening in politics. The most privileged class can afford to be enemies with the next class in line, if the one after that is on their side. After all, the capitalists may be exploiting the wage-earners, but if they are gone, who knows what the salaried middle-class will do to them? This is probably the reasoning that keeps the wage-earning masses hopeful about Elon Musk, Donald Trump, and the rest of the richest one percent. Its the same here in India.

153. Hey JMG

     Have you heard of “legends of the fire spirits” by Robert lebling? I started reading it very recently. It is a book of lore about jinn, it goes into much detail about them and their history with a lot of sources. The same author also wrote a book about Arabic herbal medicine.

     Also, the Internet archive is up again.

154. CR, may I interject? You seem to be under the illusion that the people in question don’t have lawyers on retainer who spend all day doing this kind of thing. It’s a known phenomenon and one I don’t propose to get caught by.

     Peter, oh, granted. Unfortunately a majority of Americans are still caught up in those technofantasies. Mention in public that humanity’s not going to the stars and see what kind of response you get.

     Forecasting, if you take a look at the history of Germany during the autumn of 1918 you’ll get a pretty good foreshadowing of what we can expect.

     Joshua, I’m sorry to say I don’t remember the conversation or its context at this point.

     Llewna, arrogance plus incompetence is a very dangerous combination, and it’s also the normal end point of an empire in decay. Our ruling class literally can’t imagine the possibility that they might lose, and so they blunder into one crisis after another, serenely convinced that if they just keep on pursuing whatever policies their latest burst of cerebral flatulence has inspired, surely they will triumph. That there might be an endgame that’s not in their favor is unthinkable to them, and will continue to be unthinkable until the bottom falls out.

     Brendhelm, it’s whistling past the graveyard. Of course China can start a war any time its government decides that’s the best option; their population is contracting but it’s still a very large share of the total population of the planet. What I think is going on is simply that a lot of people are beginning to realize that the US no longer has the capacity to fight a war against a peer competitor, and so they’re frantically trying to convince themselves that no peer competitor will go to war with the US.

     GlassHammer, that’s interesting. I tend to avoid public spaces where confrontation is likely, so I have no personal input here. Anyone else?

     Rajarshi, hmm! That’s fascinating, and yes, it makes a great deal of sense. Besides which, I think characterizing Musk as a greedy pirate works tolerably well… 😉

     J.L. Mc12, no, I haven’t encountered it. Interesting.

155. Laurel @30, your question about a strange name in your dream reminded me that a little while ago I received the name DIVANDER in a dream. Like you, I googled and found nothing. Does this name ring a bell with anybody, or is it just a figment of my imagination?!

156. JMG, What do you think is behind the Biden administrations squawking about the North Koreans joining the Russians in the Ukraine war?
     Is it just another lame attempt to picture the Russians as running out of gas, like the trop they would be out of missiles soon. The fantasy being the Russians are so devastated that they have to call on the dastardly North Koreans to bail them out.
     Or is it just a scheme to drum up some kind of support by adding to the Putin ” boogy man” with the Lil Kim “boogy man?

157. Hello JMG and all,
     Want to thank Alice Em for her reply to my post two weeks ago in the magic posting that touched astrology.
     Thank you Alice!! Much appreciated. Your reply was helpful as I am delving deeper into the topics of astrology / herbology and an evolutionary approach. Sajah Popham does a pretty good job explaining this approach in his book (am now reading) and on his website.
     I am not familiar with the ‘7 Chinese lines’ you quoted but it seemed very familiar to me:
     from TS Elliot: “We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.”
     13 thank you’s

158. MANAGERIAL, ENTREPRENEURIAL, SCHOOLHOUSES

     A couple people of the commentariat (I have been aching to use that word) brought up the subject of managerials and entrepreneurials. My opinion:

     Managerials require servants. Managers sit while servants do. Managers get paid well, while servants get paid negligibly (doodly-squat; pittance; paltry). (Managers are Democrats.)

     Servants are everywhere, no matter what they are called.

     Entrepreneurials ARE servants. That is, entrepreneurs are servants to themselves. They do. (Entrepreneurs are Republicans.)

     They risk everything, their livelihoods, their tools, their money, their reputations, their families, their time, everything. If they have money left over, they themselves get to keep it.

     Entrepreneurials must learn the high art of bookkeeping or, traditionally, by necessity, wives learn bookkeeping. The wives do indeed learn bookkeeping, then learn even more, as in learning intricacies of “tax avoidance” thereby keeping the eye-are-ess (the ‘revenuers‘) off their backs as much as possible.

     Bookkeeping is an administrative must. Even now, there are not enough bookkeepers to keep entrepreneurs’ functioning. The bookkeepers who do exist, their client list fills up ‘fast and early,’ where they do not accept new customers. Home-based bookkeepers are in high demand — bookkeeping is a REALLY hot profession. To a cook, bacon grease is liquid gold. To a small business, a good bookkeeper is entrepreneurial gold. Anyway, off my soapbox.

     Managerials’ function is to thieve as much ‘profit’ away from entrepreneurs as they can, aiming to give away that cash to no-accounts and deadbeats (including themselves) what entrepreneurs haven’t found a way to “tax avoid.”

     Entrepreneurials are farmers, plumbers, builders, car mechanics, seamstresses, tailors, pavers, drywallers, floorers, roofers, siders, framers, innkeepers, cooks, electricians, concrete pourers, pavers, carpenters, metal workers, air conditioning and heating, woodworkers, garage door installers, handy(wo)men, bookkeeper, teachers, tutors, cartographers, loggers, merchant mariners, boaters, canalers (whole families), paper-maker, book-binder, secretary, etc. Everything else is fluff. If a person is an “installer,” chancers are (s)he is entrepreneurial. Entrepreneurials/installers/contractors are what makes the world go ’round, and without them, the world screeches to a halt. One only needs to have a toilet backed up to know how valuable a plumber-entrepreneur is.

     Screw college. Send your kid to trade school, or even send yourself to trade school.

     If one is looking how to switch worlds (for the coming days), become an apprentice of one of the above, even though aged (over 40 or 50 or 60). Learn a trade. How-to do-it-yourself DIY books are still available at cut-rate prices at places like ThriftBooks dot com.

     I think part of what we are seeing (or rather ‘feeling’ because much of the change is undercover/covert/unapparent) in the USA is that the rank-and-file folks have had quite enough with the uneven fact where managers treat them like lowly servants while keeping the money. The only way to “keep the money” is to become a reputable and affordable entrepreneur in a trade oneself. To me, there is nothing ‘elite’ about becoming a trades(wo)man — (s) just ‘is,’ as in anyone, everyone, every family.

     The Internet is *NOT* needed to conduct one’s livelihood in a trade. After the Internet fails, and/or after smartphones fail, trades(wo)men will do just fine.

     Even bloated million- and billion-dollar schools can close up (good riddance) without much loss to the student, because big schools are being replaced by small schools — one-room schoolhouses, where older students turn into default teachers’ assistants. The one-room schoolhouse movement is already happening under the guise of “home-based teaching” or “tutoring.”

     At least one-room schoolhouses (whatever ya call-ems) teach the three Rs, Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic (reading, riting, rithmatic), which cannot be said for million-billion-dollar schools). (We might as well start calling such schools by their time-honored name: one-room schoolhouses.)

     💨Northwind Grandma💨💵🛠️✏️🚽🧾👕🐖🏠🗺️
     Dane County, Wisconsin, USA

159. Hi JMG,
     If I remember correctly, about a year ago you made a comment about the media and its fixation on the Mustached One’s political party. In the spirit of what you contemplate, you imitate, you predicted that at some point the media and its beneficiaries would literally flip and in fact become what they claim to hate. They would turn on African Americans and women. It seems like this is now underway, with Obama and others lecturing African American men on their “duty” to vote for Harris. It no longer seems like your prediction is for years and years in the future. It seems like this flipping of the switch could happen within months or a very few years at most. If yes, will the loyal followers of MSM flip too, and share the new views? How might that play out? It’s a chilling thought.
     Thanks as always,
     OtterGirl

160. @Taylor Burgess
     I work at a company with a licensed nutritionist. I added ‘licensed’ because it makes them feel important. I can assure you that all of the research on carbs, gluten, insulin resistance–the whole kit and kaboodle– has been arrogantly dismissed by a great many people in the health profession.

     While much research is still ongoing and changing, you would think that they, at least, would consider insulin resistance a factor in obesity and that cholesterol is not raised by saturated fats, but they don’t.

     I think many people need a certificate to have some form of validity in life. Once they get it, they dare not stray from accepted thought.

161. I have a different intuition about the Ukraine war, I think NATO are basically looking for a quiet exit from the conflict a this point, so I expect there to be some kind of armistice within a few months, and both sides will probably drag out peace negotiations on final status for a long time, it will fade from the news, and the Middle East will be the Current Thing™ for a while.
     I suspect rather than resetting relations with Russia, EU and NATO will sort of just sulk about it, and pretend Ukraine has just dropped off the face of the Earth, much like when they retreated from Afghanistan and the Taliban took control again.
     I wouldn’t expect a big public defeat for NATO, I expect it will continue to formally exist in much like its current form for a good few years, but gradually just become less relevant.

162. @JGM, #154
     Sorry about that. Feel free to erase my previous post if you think it may lead to problems down the road.

163. I have discovered that when dealing when greedy pirates in the top percentile of income, it helps to be greedy myself.

     For instance, in india, the Tata, Ambani, and Adani families (each a powerful investor family) openly lobby with the BJP (the incumbent party), and receive ostensible and tangible benefits. Their rivals, such as the Birla family, lobby the INC (the chief opposition party), and when INC governs the Birlas get their share of preference.

     Now if you are an idealist, this looks like a hopeless situation. But these different capitalists have different propensities for carrying large-scale infrastructure projects through. While the Adanis and Ambani’s may be rascals, the Birlas are fetid rascals. The former carry their projects through, but the Birlas have always been wanting on the quality of execution.

     So in a way, by deciding which party I vote for, I get to decide which group of gold lubbers get key indutrial advantages and infrastructure development tenders from the government. If I vote for what’s best for our development, it gives me democratic control over people that are not directly participating in elections.

164. It would be quite in the nature of Pluto’s waning influence if NATO and the EU and the United States federal government just slowly faded away to nothing in the next decade or so.

165. Larkrise (if I may), it looks like Greek but I’ll have to leave it to those who know that language. For what it’s worth, I get odd names and words in my dreams now and then; I posted a little while back on a dream where a species of carnivorous rodents were called Wlmnath, and I also once had a dream in which one of the characters used a spell that ran, “Summon Memnon, Anemenon!” To the best of my knowledge that latter doesn’t mean a thing.

     Clay, I think it’s a frantic attempt to try to restore some kind of consensus in favor of flushing more wealth down the Ukrainian rathole, by insisting that all the world’s Powers of Evil are ganging up on poor Ukraine. Mind you, it wouldn’t surprise me for a moment if the North Korean army was sending contingents to the lines in order to get training in real warfare, and of course it’s quite probable that they have technicians and officers there to teach Russian troops the details of the weapons systems North Korea is eagerly selling Russia…

     Ottergirl, yep. It was quite the spectacle watching Obama make a fool of himself lecturing black Americans, and even more of a spectacle watching the sulfurous responses he got. If the vote from people of color breaks significantly in Trump’s favor, I could definitely see leading figures in the Democratic Party slamming all the way over into hardcore white supremacism. We’ll be talking about that, among other things, next week.

     Mawkernewek, no doubt NATO’s looking for an exit ramp, but it’s by no means guaranteed that Russia will give them one. At this point, with Ukrainian units deserting their posts and fleeing en masse on the Donbass fromt — that happened in Ugledar, and apparently it’s happening in Selidove right now — the Russian Stavka has to know that all they have to do is keep up the pressure and Ukraine is going to collapse under the strain; they might be foolish enough to give NATO some kind of fig leaf to pretend not to be defeated, but I doubt it. The Ukrainians have recently taken to blowing up Russian vodka distilleries with drones, so it’s become personal. 😉 More seriously, NATO and the Ukrainian government had plenty of opportunities to settle this diplomatically and went out of their way to ignore those. Now that Russia’s got the upper hand, why should they settle for anything but complete victory?

     CR, it shouldn’t be a problem since the estate in question only goes after those who make money off the franchise without giving them their cut. Still, thank you.

     Rajarshi, I wish our government-business liaisons were as clear-cut!

     Anonymous, it would certainly make for an interesting future.

166. Mary Bennet

     It occurred to me that I might as well call Donald Trump “Trump the Impaler” (referencing the historical person Vlad the Impaler, Eastern Europe, 1400s). Or Trump the Harpoonist.

     My mental vision of Trump has evolved into one who wields a spear-like projectile, like a harpoon.

     According to how Trump operates, I see him as “speaking in barbs,” (similar to “speaking in tongues”). (In Wiki, barb, as ‘a backward-facing point on a fish hook or similar implement, rendering extraction from the victim’s flesh more difficult.’) Or “speaks with barbs,” reminiscent of “dances with wolves.”

     The surname SHAKESPEARE means nickname of a warlike person. One of my lineages is GERHARD, meaning spear-brave. There are many surnames having the root of spear or pike.

     💨Northwind Grandma💨🪓🏹🗡️🐠
     Dane County, Wisconsin, USA

167. @ SDI,

     Hall included a lot of Egyptian references in his Zodiakos articles. They are available here: https://manlyphall.info/ase-by-title.htm (The dolphin stuff was in the Capricorn articles.)

     I highly recommend “The Symbolical Language of Ancient Art and Mythology”, by Richard Payne Knight (https://archive.org/details/symbol_202307/page/25/mode/2up) Discussion of Dionysus and Apollo and Nocturnal and Diurnal Sun on page 94 of the version I read. But read more than just that section. One of the things in my notes (though I didn’t write down which section): The Zodiac represented the water, a gift of the diurnal sun (which separated the salt from the sea) then distributed over the earth by exhalation (precipitation).

     Other books that may be helpful (but I read them with a focus on Herakles, so might not address what you are looking for specifically) (but Herakles is a solar deity, so maybe…):
     History of Constellation and Star Names, by Gary D Thomspon
     Babylonian Star-Lore, An Illustrated Guide to the Star-lore and Constellations of Ancient Babylonia, by Gavin White (who is of the opinion that the Egyptian Zodiac was influenced by the Babylonian Zodiac) (You can get a lot of information from his website: https://solariapublications.com/)

     Have you studied the Dendera Zodiac at all? It is Egyptian and it may help you orient the myths to the constellations. I used it to help understand how the Herakles’ Labors aligned to the Zodiac, as Herakles probably traveled from Babylonia to Phoenicia and Egypt, then to Greece. Linked here https://randomactsofkarmasc.dreamwidth.org/1998.html is my write up of Herakles and the Zodiac (the second in the list of links at the bottom of the post). The first few pages are a good overview of the Dendera Zodiac (and how they relate to Greek constellations).

     A random thing that may be helpful:
     “Scorpius, because of its positions, is one of the two ‘gateways’ to the Milky Way, the other being the opposite constellation of Orion. The Scorpion men attacked Osiris in Egyptian legend, and the Scorpions sting killed Orion is Greek myth.” (https://www.constellationsofwords.com/orion/) (The Scorpion Men also figure in my understanding of Herakles’ Labor the Cattle of Geryon, as there is similarity between Herakles and Gilgamesh… this is in my document linked earlier.)

     Hope this is helpful.

168. Can we have you on a peak oil podcast with us? We got international experts from around the world, and I think you would be a great fit. Can also make a plug for your books reprint and all that.
     Here is our latest peak oil chat:

     https://www.youtube.com/live/CDwbygJMEyw?si=6L2Wn1bsYuPZQt3J

169. Kind Sir

     If the PMC gets replaced by the entrepreneurial class what do you think the effects on average Americans will be?
     Do you expect things to improve for a while?
     And another question mainly to my fellow Australians: our great southern land seems to me wall-to-wall PMC. I cannot see the transition happening here since we simply have no entrepreneurial class worth speaking of. Please explain why you think I am wrong. No points for bringing up Gina Rinehart and the miners (what a great band name) as they are just the top of the PMC.

170. Hi John Michael,

     Yes, interesting and hardly surprising. Turns out I wasn’t the only person to notice the sudden and abrupt upwards change in pricing either, the issue made the news. The thing about being thrown under the bus, is that the next management team which comes along and says: “Hey, we’ve get where you are at and what you’re going through, and will have your back against these idiots.”, kind of gains traction, even if they have some kooky ideas. It’s not like the current lot don’t have kooky ideas… I can well comprehend how things got to where they were in the early half of the 20th century. It’s funny how the current elites don’t learn from history and realise they need to pull their heads in lest they find the same head resting upon the chopping block. That looks like a distinct lack of leadership to me.

     Look forward to hearing what you have to say about peak oil early next year, especially given conventional oil extraction peaked two decades ago. It’s been an interesting ride hasn’t it? 🙂 Any plans to take January off next year as is your occasional practice? Oh, and congrats on getting the books back into print.

     On an economic front, I mentioned to you years and years ago about debt being deducted from GDP figures (whatever they mean!) to give a more realistic picture. But my, of late the returns on that ever increasing debt are low and getting worse. Crazy stuff.

     Cheers

     Chris

171. @JMG & Silicon guy “I heard of that. I wonder whether we’ll keep on being lucky, or whether this or the next incident will trigger the Kessler syndrome…”

     Related, I do find it funny all these people cheering on SpaceX and the back-flipping circus tricks their rockets can do. But I see this as people unknowingly cheering on the possibility of Kessler syndrome. Make these things cheap enough and the amount of projectiles up there will increase rapidly. One has to wonder what their endgame is others than “space good!”. I guess that’s all it takes to get folks excited nowadays, something to take their minds of the mundane issues.

     With all these space aspirations I think Niel Degrass Tyson got it spot on. The only reason nowadays we will progress in space is if it become the new geopolitical high ground. We will go to Mars only if it is because of a political race down here.

172. Hello JMG, have you heard of Charles Bonnet syndrome? People who have it also have impaired vision, and they experience visual hallucinations. I quote from the American Academy of Ophthalmology

     “The main symptom of CBS is having visual hallucinations. Most people have them when they wake up. What people see varies, but can include:

     repeating patterns of lines, dots, or other geometric shapes
     landscapes, such as mountains or waterfalls
     people, animals, or insects
     people dressed in costume from an earlier time
     imaginary creatures, like dragons or unicorns
     The hallucinations may move or remain still, be pleasant or scary, and they can appear in black and white or color. The length of the hallucinations can last seconds, minutes, or hours.”

     I wonder why they would see something as specific as “imaginary creatures, like dragons or unicorns”. Do you think that these are just hallucinations, or do you think something else may be going on and that has to do with some kind of alternative reality?

173. ＠Peter #36,
     Among the growing list of taboo scientific findings we are not being allowed to take into consideration are the biological effects of man-made non-ionizing radiation (microwaves, magnetic fields, etc.), which are another factor in addition to the sensory ones that you correctly point out. The two are usually concurrent, but not always, as remotely stationed radar operators can attest.

174. Update: Physicians (who subscribe to CDC) notified to consider mosquito spread disease in the Oct 2024 MMWR. Tenth case of locally spread (no travel) malaria, confirmed in Arkansas (tenth case was in Sept 2023,, though I think older cases had been previously mentioned (either that or I read elsewhere)..)
     First case of locally spread Dengue fever diagnosed in Pasadena (Oct 2023).

     https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/73/wr/mm7342a2.htm?ACSTrackingID=USCDC_921-DM139153&ACSTrackingLabel=This%20Week%20in%20MMWR%3A%20Vol.%2073%2C%20October%2024%2C%024&deliveryName=USCDC_921-DM139153

175. My adventures in wargame-land have continued. It’s been interesting. Continued learning lots of interesting things, building and painting things, and even joined a group and played several games. Which was nice. That has had the odd situation that I seem to be the only woman in a pretty large group, and people sometimes assume that I’m not there to throw dice and move minis around like everyone else. No, I’m not looking for the board game group, or wanting to watch nerds be weird, I brought two forces and a bunch of homemade terrain. Want a game? It’s a pretty easy misunderstanding to sort out but it does feel a bit strange.

     Last I ran into someone who designed his own wargame, and played a game with him and another person. It was very complicated compared to any game I’d tried so far and I got very lost, but somehow did fine because I couldn’t stop rolling 5s and 6s. That was entertaining, especially since the first time I played a wargame with anyone else I couldn’t seem to roll above a three.

     I found tiny halloween ants for sale for $1.50CAN per hundred at my local dollar store. I bought two packages, thinking it would be funny to build an ant army. Now I have 200 plastic ants. Thus far, I haven’t turned up any tabletop miniature game that uses ant armies, but I have gone down a rabbit hole learning about ant behavior and the wars that real ants have with each other. Which are fascinating, terrifying and a bit horrifying. I’m starting to think there really needs to be an ‘ant wars’ wargame based on ant warfare. I think I may talk to the person who wrote their own game about where to start, but I really don’t know enough about how rules systems work to do a decent job of it. And more understanding of ant behavior wouldn’t go amiss either. Not sure I really want to put in the work, but the idea sure is entertaining.

176. I really hope that the democrats or the left in other countries don’t go white supremacist. Though I’d kind of assume they would completely alienate enough of the population that they can’t win another election if they do. Most people, whatever their skin color, aren’t white supremacists these days and I think campaigning on it would go down like a lead balloon.

177. Hey JMG

     On the subject of the metal-less far future, as a hobby woodworker I have wondered how it would be possible to do advanced woodwork with out metal blades and saws.

     I could imagine chisels with replaceable ceramic blades, but I am uncertain about how well a handplane would work with ceramic blades as I don’t know if it could handle the kind of forces they are subjected to.
     Saws are another difficult matter, I recall that the Mayans coated strong strings with abrasive grit, and I think you could do something similar with bands of bio plastic, but I doubt they would be as fast and accurate as a metal saw.

178. @Robert Morgan, #31
     I’ve noticed the apathy you mention too. I’m living in Japan. One of the worst afflicted is a friend from the UK, who undoubtedly keeps up with the news from back home, but he has favored Russia in the conflict, so that is not a factor in his case. The Japanese report pressure at work, which relates to inflationary economic factors.
     I sent out five e-mails requesting replies about 10 days ago to one Japanese, one Australian in Japan, two Americans (one in the US and one in Japan) and one Canadian (last I heard in Canada), and got no replies. There have been indications of gmail and other major e-mail providers blocking my normal address (Is anybody else having this problem?), so I used my gmail account and resent the messages. This time, two replied tentatively. The American in the US said he’d get back to me later. The Australian in Japan gave me a quick reply, saying she had received my earlier message, but was too overwhelmed with “stuff going on” to reply. She struck me as emotionally exhausted.
     My husband and I attended the main annual festival of the Kompira Shrine. For the first time (perhaps since WWII, and not counting the COVID years when the public was excluded) we were the only non-local people participating. My husband almost didn’t go. His brother has been dealing with severe back and knee pain from rheumatoid arthritis after the vaxxes, and that is putting pressure on us as well as we need to help him, but my husband managed to identify a prescribed medication exacerbating his brother’s condition, and the latter improved, so we went, but my husband was stressed out the whole time.
     Thus there are multiple reasons for people to withdraw right now, and it is healthy behavior I believe. But the stress from the international news is definitely a factor in this, I think.

179. Thanks JMG and everyone with the responses.

     JMG that course of study about the history of ideas sounds very fun. I am currently reading some things about stoicism so I will use that as my first deep dive.

     To everyone about my Dad’s car thanks. I have no desire to pester my dad about his choice. I am glad he is trying to do his part but like someone speculated he is pestering me. Trying to get me to buy one. So I asked the my question so I have something to deflect his efforts a little bit.

180. Andrii, I’ve sent you an email — let me know if you didn’t get it.

     DropBear, yes, just as things improved markedly for a few decades after the decadent capitalist class lost power to the managerial class after 1932. The incoming elite always secures its power by doing away with the more egregious burdens laid on people by the outgoing elite; then the incoming elite gradually gets decadent in its turn, and the cycle continues.

     Chris, no, I won’t take January off. I won’t be finished with Wagner yet, and there’s the enticing prospect of watching whichever new administration we get try to deal with the increasingly intractable predicament of our failing empire. Besides, writing posts gives me something to do other than brood. 🙁

     Michael, I know. The more of that junk gets flung into the heavens, the closer we get to the point at which near earth orbit is off limits for satellites and manned craft alike for a few centuries.

     Batstrel, no, I hadn’t heard of that. Sounds like astral clairvoyance to me!

     Gardener, as climate belts shift northward, so do diseases. Fun times…

     Pygmycory, delighted to hear this. As for future Nazi wannabees, I don’t expect them to get far. I discussed some years back the way that the left is preparing itself for a future as a stigmatized fringe group —

     https://www.ecosophia.net/the-flight-to-the-fringes-and-what-waits-there/

     — and this is another measure of the same process.

     J.L.Mc12, different tool materials require different processes. You might look into how Native American peoples on the northwestern coast of North America used stone adzes and similar tools to craft their own exquisite woodwork:
     

     Will, that’ll certainly be a fruitful topic!

181. Will this be a fair election? Do chickens have lips? Is the Pope Jewish? This one, like the last, will be as straight as a corkscrew, this opinion based on watching the years long antics of an equal parts criminal and insane and boneheaded ruling elite. Did I say years? Nay, decades. The Blobalists didn’t get to this point on the basis of mere years of knavery.

     So, Mister Nobody, did you say subterfuge? Can you envision vote tabulation machines developing – cough – ‘glitches’ requiring hours long shutdown while officials put their heads together to decide on Plan B or C or D, all of them pre-cooked in the case of you-know-who doing what he shouldn’t be doing, that is, winning? Can you envision bales of fraudulent mail-in ballots stockpiled for the same purpose?

     Mary Bennet, my wife once joked that women pick husbands based on which one stinks the least. At least I think she was joking. But anyway, maybe that’s how people vote, they take the party and candidate that smells least rotten. To a lot of people that would be Trump and the GOP.

182. @RandomActsOfKarma #167: What a wealth of information! Yes, I bet it will be helpful—even the Herakles material, which is almost certainly related (as are a lot of other myths, it seems). Thank you!

     I’m familiar with the Dendera Zodiac, but haven’t looked into it too deeply, yet, simply because I’ve been filling out my understanding of Egyptian myth starting with the Pyramid Texts and working my way forward, and several millennia is a lot of ground to cover 🙂

     Concerning the Milky Way and its two gates (e.g. intersections with the ecliptic), it’s not a random thing at all! The version of the myth I’m working from says that Osiris was murdered at a party held when the sun is Scorpio (e.g. transiting the Milky Way). The Platonists talk a bunch about the role of the gates in the descent and reascent of souls, and the role of the Nile in Egyptian myth, the Styx in Greek myth, etc. all seem to reflect the Milky Way in that capacity.

     Feel free to drop me a message over on Dreamwidth if you want to compare notes! Thanks again.

183. Labour going full on British nationalist might actually boost up their ratings among the native population since they might then actually do something about the non-assimilating Muslims in the UK instead of the unpopular farce being served up by the Tories and Kier Starmer. Unfortunately it would probably also mean ethnic sectarianism and violence in the UK as the Muslims in the UK would defect to a Muslim party and probably start Muslim analogues of the IRA and the UDF.

184. This one caught my Zen Basterd eye – 

     > Mary Bennet says: “Remember that the Progressive Party at the turn of the 20thC never elected a president, but it did elect Senators and Governors and had a profound influence on public policy. Dr. Stein and those around her have had 22 years now to make the Green Party into a force to be reckoned with and have not done so. I call that rank incompetence and I have had enough of being asked to vote for well meaning fools.”

     The Greens have been a source of frustration for me. As they share many of my native American centered reasonable planet and species preserving values. I share your assessment of incompetence. But instead of devoting time and sweat to the actual hard work of building a proper party, grass roots stuff, pick up some sheriffs, county commissioners, school boards, state legislatures… you know a PARTY. But NO. They pop up every four years like a pack of chihuahua and try to snatch the Big Prize, knowing damn well that they won’t and only serve to siphon votes to whichever party is Left of Ghengis Khan.

     Of course, if an actual third party ever got any real traction and potential ascendancy – we would swiftly see REAL bi-partisan cooperation. To mercilessly suppress it, and preserve their nasty duopoly on political power.

     Cheers!

185. I got the gladioli dug up, then broke the lawnmower. I fixed what I think was wrong with that but in the process a couple of 27 year old gaskets in the carburetor disintegrated. Now they are on order.

     Kim @128, Norway has the same problem as here with population increasing but schools running empty? Is it purely demographics or are parents pulling their kids out of school for various reasons? There is a lot of the latter locally. I’m a little surprised there hasn’t been a big pushback from our state government, but I doubt the PMC’s children are in public school either.

     Roldy is correct, generating electricity and using motors is more efficient than direct mechanical drives. Every gear change, belt drive, and axle or shaft bearing eats power. Then add the hazards of all those open shafts and flying belts and motors are much better. The traditional water power grain mill might be an exception, one device, slow speed with variation no problem.

     I for Mary B, I haven’t noticed anything about Vance that looks particularly sociopathic. Harris et. al. screeching for censorship and government approved facts worry me far more. As for the evangelical Christians, there are aren’t many here though Mother might qualify. She is safely 1800 miles away. I get along fine with the LDS. I just tell them I worship the Great God Gravity who always lets me down at the exact same rate every time which I find very reassuring, then they go away. The JWs are shoed off by Numbers 31 and 32, either they admit keeping sex slaves is acceptable to God OR that God changed the rules, and if He changed that rule then which others did He change? Then they scurry right back to their car and go away.

     I don’t see the military getting involved. They reportedly told Biden no way were they going to support using long range missiles against Russia. We are in two wars now, stretched thin, recruiting is in the dumpster because the PMC started insulting the people most likely to enlist and a third of the Lardbuckets can’t fly on any given day. The Navy closed too many shipyards so ships are sitting at the pier waiting on dry dock space. The brass has plenty of problems of their own.

     One note about me, there is no over the air TV here, and no cable service. I used to have a satellite dish but price went up and quality down so dumped that. So TV news and I are disjoint sets. I suppose I could stream something but I’m not inclined. Every network has impeached itself, CBS just did it again with that highly edited Harris interview. They whine about losing control of the information and wonder why. Nonstop lying will do that.

186. Mary Bennett #147,

     No worries about a coup by any group of officers of greater rank than Colonel. Vance, as a former enlisted Marine, has more ‘street cred’ with the troops than any 4 star will. 20 years of lost wars, wasted blood and treasure combined with the forced LGBTQ/DEI humiliation rituals make sure the troops properly despise any and all from the higher ranks. Kelly, Mattis, etc… are both political/deep state creatures that command little loyalty among the rank and file. They also haven’t been in uniform for almost a decade. Its important to remember that all the troops have families and that is where their loyalty lies, most would sit out a coup after calling their parents or sergeant. Generals leading a coup without troops? Treason is a capital crime and you don’t get to be a 4 star by taking an unpopular stand. These individuals want others to die for their cause, but they are certainly not willing to risk sacrificing themselves since they are simply defending their social status or perks/power. The reason they speak out so much is because their social circle approves and they get paid well for it. Much different than possibly facing the hangman in disgrace.

187. Hi JMG and fellow commenters.

     A long while ago in another open post I mentioned I was writing an essay on the ideological fallout from the First World War and how western civilization was never really able to get past it. I finished it recently and if anyone would like to give it a read by all means I’d be happy if you did.
     https://open.substack.com/pub/thezybournetimes/p/rough-notes-on-the-political-economies?r=14q4ph&utm_medium=ios

     Best,
     JZ

188. Will O. #179

     > he is pestering me. Trying to get me to buy one.

     Tell him you have every right to pester him as he you, that you would love to pester him. You either both agree to not pester the other, or it turns into a hot war. You needn’t be subtle. Both of you squelch it.

     Such an agreement kept the peace between my Biden-husband and me-Trump-wife two months ago. (We have been together forty-five years.) I told hubby calmly that we both stop disrespectfully-harassing each other regarding voting, or he can expect a major argument to degrade into assault — that the whole thing REALLY could result in a hot war between us. He reflected. He said he didn’t want things to spiral out of control, that getting heated would gain us nothing. He stopped verbally bashing (verbal assault) Trump to my face, and I agreed to stop bashing KHarris to his face. It is an uneasy no-fault truce but it works.

     I know hubby well enough to know that he doesn’t have the awareness to put on the brakes early, but I do have the awareness. I don’t know why he never foresees a hot war brewing, but he can’t. (Maybe having destructive parents helped.) I don’t use this superpower often (I play-act the meek-wife-wifeykins well), but when I do, I get his attention and he pauses to reflect. I have stopped dozens of potential arguments using this method over the years, and the stoppages have gone a long way in keeping us reasonably reasonable (no “Dial M for Murder” for us). He knows I mean business.

     At these times, I invoke attempting that we both practice Buddhism’s Right Speech🙊, mainly by keeping our mouths shut. We actually do pretty well not saying regrettable, idiotic things🤦🏼‍♂️.

     💨Northwind Grandma💨📣🤯
     Dane County, Wisconsin, USA

189. @Shinjuki,
     If your son does not like meat, there is a possibility that he might have a zinc deficiency (note I am not a physician or any other form of health care giver, so this is just an idea you can look into that might or might not help). Zinc deficiency can cause changes in taste perception. It typically shows up as needing more sugar for sweets to seem sweet. My brother-in-law and one of our closest friends eat very little meat or other proteins–they just don’t have the appetite, and my husband has been urging them to get more zinc.

190. To share:

     https://www.cremieux.xyz/p/from-caveman-to-chinaman

     I found this article very interesting, it talks about how astronomical changes circa 10K years ago led to extreme seasonality, thereby paving way for proto-farming. Farming in turn was dominated by “hydraulic states”, states which developed from organizing irrigation, the most centralized of which was China. China in turn faced constant invasions from steppe nomads, which encouraged further centralization, but at the same time introduces scaling constraints on state efficiency (e.g. tax collection, maintenance of infrastructure) especially as more time goes by. Related to the themes of this blog, the article talks about technological regress.

     ___

     Quite a few of the commenters seem quite suspicious of Elon Musk. Personally, I find no reason to think that he’s insincere about many of his stated intentions.

     He is anti-woke because the woke mind virus convinced his firstborn son to become MtF. And the son is “dead” to him, as in “deadnaming”. He bought Twitter at a personal loss because Twitter was one of the main platforms that wokeism was spreading through.

     He is by no means a saint, but I think to say he’s doing it for the money is hardly the full picture.

     https://x.com/esjesjesj/status/1847736891220660542
     This screenshot from a recent biography of him really speaks to the difference in mindset. PMC HR creatures hate him, they don’t understand him or his goals.

     I disagree with him and other techies about perpetual progress etc, but I find the feats of engineering done by SpaceX astounding and absolutely worthy of respect. I don’t understand why Kamala’s handlers decided to post a clip of Trump talking about SpaceX’s booster-catching “chopsticks” as a kind of attack on Trump for example, even if you don’t find it interesting, you can see how other people might?

     Anyway, personally I really would like to see an entrepreneurial elite in charge of the US. Just one question for JMG though, what do you see as the difference between the capitalist elite of the 1920s and the entrepreneurial elite of Musk and other pro-Trump techies (Peter Thiel, Marc Andressen, many more)? One key difference I guess is that the earlier capitalists often gained their wealth through rentier monopolies?

191. Can’t mosquitoes and fleas have their own God, to whom they give thanks for all the juicy humans around? I’m not sure who ordained that our God should be able to dictate everything to our benefit.

192. President of Russia support Kamala Harris

     https://www.oklahoman.com/story/news/2024/09/06/did-vladimir-putin-endorse-kamala-harris-fact-check-conference-comment-russia/75106285007/

193. Re: DIVANDER

     I don’t think this is purely of Greek origin, at least not of ancient Greek. It does look similar to the name of the ancient Greek comedian Menander; but that is his Latin name, the original would be Μένανδρος (Menandros). So Divander seems like a latinized form of a Greek name; the problem is that the sound ‘v’ died out in Greek already before Homer, when no Romans were writing down Greek names in their own alphabet. More plausibly, it consists of the Latin root ‘div’ for ‘godly’ (as in divine) and the Greek root ‘an(d)r’ for ‘man’.

194. @Northwind 166: are you saying that we’re all sailors aboard the Pequod now? That’s the feeling that I get: Ripe and ready for our fate.

195. Hey JMG

     You are right, looking up how people like the Haida did carpentry is a good start. I recall that much of their carpentry used bentwood techniques.

     Speaking of tribal cultures with fairly advanced “Stone age” technology, have you ever heard of the coconut fibre armour and shark tooth-based weapons of the Kiribati/Gilbert islanders? It seems like something out of a fantasy. I am privileged to have seem a specimen of both their armour and their weapons on display at the Brisbane Museum. Amazing stuff, imagine what an ecotechic civilisation could do if it wanted to make something similar.

     https://www.heritagedaily.com/2021/09/the-kiribati-armour/141535

196. Maybe I’m wrong, but the silence in the legacy media about Ukraine war (at least this thing is happening in my country) in the last weeks, could be bad news for Ukrainian Army and good news for Putin soldiers…Is it happening the same thing in your country, John and kommentariat?

197. A reply to Will, who posted “my Dad just bought an electric car, a chevy bolt.”
     The purchase has already happened. You don’t need to prove anything now. In a month or so, ask him about how the vehicle is working out for him, how much it is costing him, whether he is having trouble with charging or servicing. Maybe it will work out for him, maybe not. He’s doing an experiment, and you can learn from it!
     (Additionally, if something happens to interrupt the supply of gasoline, but electricity is unaffected, he will still be able to ‘refuel’ his vehicle. )
     Good (transportation) luck to both of you.

198. JD Vance is quite the entrepreneur as well.

     Speaking of Dengue fever, that book Lost City of the Monkey God by Douglas Preston was both exciting, fascinating, and with regards to tropical diseases moving north, scary.

199. JMG,

     I should have added its not typical politeness that I encounter, its closer to a style of filtered communication where the words chosen convey nearly nothing and because they convey nearly nothing the reciever can’t claim offense.

     It reminds me of speaking with people who came from “post authoritarian” nations where they practice filtered communication because back in the days of their grandparents saying almost anything could get you in serious trouble.

     I don’t know if the filtered speech I encounter comes from people spending too much time on online communication where each word must make you look “good”(or at least bland and inoffensive), from fear of being recorded via smart phone, or a choice to just restrict open and direct communication to only those you trust the most.

     The TLDR people used to be much more straightforward and blunt when they spoke but now…. not so much.

200. It’s taken some cheerful effort to catch up on all the posts this week, and I just want to say how pleasant it is to see posts from people I haven’t seen posting in a long time. It’s sort of like seeing the lights come on after a concert, and realizing that you’ve been surrounded by neighbors during the show.

     BTW: Front page, above the fold, headline in yesterday’s Washington Post: “Harris, in escalation, calls Trump a ‘fascist'”. Somehow, I doubt that this story is going to affect the polls. If not, will we see her calling him “literally Hitler”, if further escalation is needed? (Has any actual Fascist leader had such an absurd sense of humor as Trump? I don’t think so, though I suppose they had ways of making you laugh.)

201. Are you ready to intercept some mystery signals on your shortwave receiver? Then tune in to WMMR! Mystery Mix Radio this weekend on Saturday and Sunday.

     Like the last WMMR show, it has a mystery theme running throughout and we ask our listeners to guess what that theme was, once the show is aired. There will be a special eQSL for the first correct winner. Tune in to find out more details on how to enter. This show is brought to you via the services of Shortwave Gold, beaming to Europe on Saturday October 26th 2024 at 1200 hrs UTC on 6160 kHz and on Sunday October 27th 2024 at 1000/1200 hrs UTC on 6160 kHz and then at 2100 UTC on 3975 kHz.

     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNhT_mFSumI&ab_channel=RadioThriftShop

     And while supplies last, please be sure to visit our Archive.org page to download for your own archival radio show collection, and listen to past shows off the air: https://archive.org/search?query=creator%3A%22Imaginary+Stations%22

     Thanks for tuning in!

202. Will O-

     The IEEE published a study on electric vehicles a few years ago, which looked at the sources of electrical generation in various parts of the country. They found that EVs were less polluting than ICE vehicles in the Pacific Northwest, with ample hydroelectric power, but more polluting in the Southeast, with more coal-fired plants. If you do a lot of driving, the operating efficiency will eventually dominate the production costs, but it’s not guaranteed.
     Personally, I’m still amortizing the production energy costs of a 4-cylinder 2003 Saturn station wagon (sometimes known as the “chuckwagon”), which gets about 25 MPG, and can carry an 8′ banquet table with the doors closed. Its maintenance helps support a local mechanic (who put a new brake rotor on it a few weeks ago at no charge, because it was taking up too much space in his inventory, and my car needed one).

203. Here is the correct archive.org link for Imaginary Stations: https://archive.org/details/@imaginary_stations

     Again, they are only there while supplies last!

     For those wondering what this is all about:
     “We’re dedicated radio hobbyists who love creating unique shows for your listening enjoyment. These projects are often esoteric improvisations and musical mixes developed around a theme or an idea that becomes an “imaginary / imagined” radio station.”

204. On the oops list,

     https://www.newscientist.com/article/2453198-carbon-emissions-are-now-growing-faster-than-before-the-pandemic/

     “Instead of a “green recovery”, global greenhouse gas emissions are rising much faster now than they did in the decade preceding the global pandemic. Emissions rose 1.3 per cent to 57.1 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent in 2023. That is a far faster annual rate of growth than during the decade 2010-2019, when emissions grew on average 0.8 per cent per year. In fact, global greenhouse gas emissions are now just below the 59.1 gigatonnes peak recorded in 2019.”

     Aviation emissions are up 19%.

     And a well timed comic about an ancient form of meditation.

     https://www.gocomics.com/bc/2024/10/25

205. Hello JMG, Your comment on the West running out of bullets #139, reminded me of a news story in the UK press today about the crew of a British SSBN almost starving when their petrol had to be extended, due to lack of a replacement sub and, apparently, a resupply ship. The crew were apparently asked to lie in their bunks when off- duty to save calories!

     https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/10/25/royal-navy-nuclear-sub-crew-low-supplies-six-months/

206. On the unlikability of everybody involved in the D campaign this year: a datapoint:
     My sister, a registered Democrat (for local election purposes rather than any party loyalty) has been receiving a barrage of text messages purporting to be from the D prez campaign, addressed to Linda (not her name), many of them vaguely threatening. Are YOU gonna let HITLER win?? What if your NEIGHBORS knew you let Trump win? (that last one is a delight: she lives in the sticks, all her neighbors have pitbulls and guns… if they knew she personally let Trump win, they’d probably throw a block party with fireworks, and she’d be the guest of honor).

     I’m registered independent, and yesterday, for about the third time, I deleted more than ninety spam emails claiming to be from the Harris/Walz campaign. A bunch of them addressed to Leslie (not my name).

     I’m gonna go out on a limb here and guess that filling people’s inboxes with heaps of unsolicited email is not winning hearts and minds. I also wonder if the wrong-names thing is a sign that there’s fraud involved. I can think of a few reasons that might happen:
     -phishing scams have put on the mantle of the Dem campaign to try and get money in the “follow this link to donate” sort of way.
     -whoever is supplying the campaign with phone numbers and emails doesn’t have names, but is telling the D camp. that they do.
     -the little apparatchiks running the email lists get bonus points for including a name, and nobody checks if it’s correct. (lack of integrity in campaign workers)

     I have not received a single campaign email from the Trump side. If there are scammers in the mix here, there are some implications to that :
     -scammers perceive that D voters are more gullible and likely to fall for phishing scams. OR
     -they’re working both sides, but gmail is actively intercepting anything that looks like a Trump campaign email, but *not* intercepting Harris missives.

     If the Trump campaign is simply not sending mass emails… that contrast is brilliant. I personally would feel nicer toward the side that wasn’t abusing my free email storage limit, even if I knew nothing else about them 😉

207. @Batstrel
     I have those geometric hallucinations on waking– for the last thirty years at least. But I don’t have any visual impairment. I think that’s probably a lot more common than anybody realizes.

208. >the US no longer has the capacity to fight a war against a peer competitor

     My sense of it is, if it’s just Russia or China or Iran, you’d be surprised how badly they’d hurt us, but we would win. Wouldn’t mean that much but it would be 1-0.

     But at this point it’s going to be all three at the same time. They may have delusions they can fight one of them without the other two getting involved but that’s not going to happen. And we would lose.

209. Nah, what I would expect the so-called far-left to do is go Muslim. They’re religious fanatics and they ultimately don’t really care what it is they’re True Believing in. Well, as long as it isn’t anything Old Murica represents or symbolizes. That’s a nonstarter.

     And then they’d behave like every other Muslim fanatic does – hating on infidels and blowing random things up in the name of their dear and fluffy lord.

210. > What I think is going on is simply that a lot of people are beginning to realize that the US no longer has the capacity to fight a war against a peer competitor

     Did it ever really have it? It lost Korea, it lost Vietnam (and not for lack of trying), it hugely overplays its role in WWII, it resorted to nuclear weapons to stop Japan, it recently lost Afghanistan… And those are during booming economy, much more capable politicans, diplomats, and millitary, with all the rich western countries on its side (to the point of idiotic self-destruction for US interests, like Europe with the NATO expansion/Ukraine situation), control of the global financial system, and an army of vassal states in the middle east, latin america, and so on.

     Without those things?

211. >Native American peoples on the northwestern coast of North America used stone adzes and similar tools to craft

     Never underestimate the power of autism. It makes almost anything possible. But at a cost.

212. More on the Mothman.

     I noticed that Harris has the slogan of “A New Way Forward.” Only thing is that all the people she has shilling for her are the old guard including the entertainers. Bruce Springstein went corporate years ago and along with the rest of them. No new or edgy people among the group. Other thing is that she is using the Vice-President office as a prop complete with flags and speech on the Ellipse. That indicates that she is the incumbent. So, much for a new way forward.

     Meanwhile, Trump is a complete break from the past.

     On to the Mothman. What I gathered from Keel’s book and others, is that he is disruptive of the status quo. Mothman seems to appear to upset and unsettle people. He is some sort of Trickster, in my opinion. That is why I think he appeared at least to me as a sign of disrupting Harris and group.

213. You have written more than once that it’s possible that the central Great Plains of the U. S. could become uninhabitable desert due to climate belts moving north. I have lived about 20 miles west of Tucson, Arizona, part of the Sonoran desert region. The area is very flat (unlike the saguaro-dominated mountainous area closer to the city). Its foliage is dominated by two species, the cholla cactus and the honey mesquite. I was told that, historically, the first Spanish explorers in the region found grassland and bison and Native people living by hunting the bison.

     The Spanish did what Europeans do with grassland: they ran cattle on it until it got overgrazed. Then the grass was replaced by the cholla and mesquite and the cattle ranchers by the Tohono O’odham native people, who mixed hunting and gathering (the mesquite seeds are a particular staple) with growing tepary beans, which they cultivate during the brief rainy season. What I’m saying is, the area has supported some amount of human life as far back as records go. So when you predict that the central Great Plains could end up unable to support human life, did you just mean human life at current population densities or did you mean that the change will happen so fast and on such a wide scale that that there will be a bunch of decades or maybe a few centuries before the cholla and mesquite and all their symbiotes manage to colonize it all and make it into the kind of place that the Tohono O’odham have historically lived in?

214. @Llewna

     Around 1980 or so, in one of Noam Chomsky’s open-to-the-public political talks, I heard him describe the US-Israel relationship in terms pretty much like those in the video you linked: when the US governing class wants something done that is so contrary to the values of the voters that they can’t send US soldiers to do it (which sounded to me like a weasel-worded way to say “evil”) they call on the Israelis, and to make sure the Israelis aren’t in a position to say no, they make an effort to cultivate hostility toward Israel on the part of Israel’s neighbors and the Middle East in general. They want Israel continually beleaguered and desperate, but they don’t want it to actually fall, so long as it offers a useful way of getting around that irritating nuisance, the will of the American people. So, yeah, it’s even more sinister than you think.

215. Lardbucket follies,

     “The Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II fifth-gen supersonic stealth strike fighter just can’t seem to catch a break, with a new report released Monday by the Government Accountability Office finding the jet woefully below mission-ready status for six straight years – i.e. every year that the Congressional watchdog has conducted its reviews.
     The GAO blamed the readiness shortfall on “challenges with depot and organizational maintenance,” and over-reliance on contractors who essentially hold the Pentagon hostage with astronomical sustainment costs (which jumped from $1.1 trillion in FY2018 to $1.58 trillion in FY2023). The Navy and Air Force are set to take control of sustainment to get a grip on the situation, but not until FY2027.
     The GAO estimates that only about 55% of the F-35’s three variants are mission ready at any given time, with mission readiness requiring the ability to “fly and perform at least one mission.”
     …
     “These problems range from faulty landing gear and vibrating fuel tubes, to fragile electro-optical targeting equipment, canopy delamination issues and weather sensitivity, engine heat issues adding to wear and tear, cabin over-pressurization, night vision problems, corrosion, radar reset issues, ejection seats which can snap pilots’ necks, and inability to fly in lightning.

     To add insult to injury, all three of America’s major potential adversaries have reportedly found the means to nullify the F-35’s stealth advantage,”

     https://sputnikglobe.com/20241022/f-35s-ascent-and-nosedive-costliest-weapon-in-history-hits-fresh-turbulence-in-damning-gao-report-1120637661.html

     The last point remains to be seen especially under combat conditions, but the rest is well documented elsewhere.

216. @Alan @JMG, regarding metals in the future:

     I recall reading in the Long Descent (flipping through the book now, I can’t find the exact reference) that iron ore is unlikely to be going anywhere, as the supply is replenished relatively quickly by geological processes, and the deposits that have already been used are relatively easy to recycle. Am I remembering this correctly? If this is the case, our descendents may not have to worry about returning to stone axes for a while yet.

217. Here’s a link to an animated movie by J H Kunstler, about Johnny Appleseed. Reminded me of the post by John Michael a while back. Enjoy.
     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjVwJ7CaAXQ
     Davie

218. Siliconguy, you might be interested in this morning’s interview with former Secretary of Defense, William Cohen. Or maybe it was last night. I just watched it on You Tube. What I got from it was, a. the oath to defend the Constitution is taken seriously, not regarded as a Medieval artifact, and b. it does not mean or include personal loyalty to any President. I always have thought that that Jesus as my personal Savior meme was malarky.

     Northwind Grandma, you have your point of view, and I have mine. From where I am standing, recent events in this campaign look to me like, yet again the sober and responsible people are going to have to clean up after the goofballs have had their party.

219. JMG,
     Wondering if you might please comment a bit upon what you think the significane of the BRICS meeting/changes might be for the world and the US.
     Thank you,
     Jacques

220. John–
     A good ways back–years, I believe–I recall you mentioning an encounter with some venerable church ladies whose voor/nwyfre/ki shone so brightly that you “had to blink.” Could you elaborate on that experience? From an esoteric perspective, would that have been the result of consistent daily devotions, prayer, and the like? What specifically would have been being developed in terms of the esoteric make-up of a human being?

221. @shinjuki #37,

     I’m not a doctor etc, this is just common sense plus some experience raising kids… 🙂

     From what I understand, there are two issues: a. his eating habits, b. preventing the lead he has already ingested from harming him.

     The former is a long-term project and will require a lot of patience and creativity on your end (and maybe also some habit-changing not just for the kiddo, but also for you). If you’re looking for inspiration with that, I found the book “It’s Not About the Broccoli” by Dina Rose quite helpful. She approaches eating from the point of “establishing constructive eating habits”, and not from the angle of “I need to get some veggies into this kid each day”. That’s a different mindset, which removes a lot of the stress and focuses on the big picture. (She also used to have a website with some articles etc. If that still exists, it will give you an idea of what her approach is about.) Not sure if that’s of help to you, but you should be able to tell from an online preview.

     If I get you right, the second issue is the more pressing, as you’d want to avoid lead being sedimented in his bones _now_, especially if the blood lead content is trending downwards. It doesn’t sound as if you have any time to spare there – by the time he has changed his eating habits, this might be too late to prevent sedimentation. Would it thus be possible to give him iron, calcium and vitamin C as supplements, either orally or intravenous? If I were you, I’d talk to my doctor about this, or maybe consult a doctor, naturopath or other professional who specializes on nutrition and supplements. (Just to be clear, I wouldn’t give a kid intravenous supplements just for the sake of it, but my understanding is that we’re talking about a serious health issue here and not about a lifestyle choice…)

     Not sure if this helps, but maybe viewing the whole thing as two different issues clears things up a bit. 🙂

     All the best to you and your kiddo,

     Milkyway

222. Have all those Canadian’s been reading 2BR02B by Kurt Vonnegut?

223. Hello JMG. My maternal grandfather was a saddler, but it has only just occured to me that leatherwork could be a useful skill to learn in an age of decline, Just as synthetic materials replaced those made from leather in the Age of Oil – footwear, clothing, bags, to name just a few – leather could replace the petroleum-based equivalents as oil gets scarce and expensive. Unlike some such post-oil skills, a good craftsperson could also make at least part of a living in the intervening time supplying the remaining wealthy elite with bespoke goods.

224. Will O: My brother also bought a Chevy Bolt a few years back. He loves it. Told me he was driving 2000-2500 miles per month, charging it off-peak at 7.5 cents per KWh, costing about $35 per month. That’s less than the cost of a single tank of gas, which moves your car more than 2000 miles. Pretty impressive.
     He’s put about 80000 miles on it, and aside from tires has only spent $10 on maintenance, for a cabin air filter or something.
     That being said, he did take it on a trip from Minnesota to Tennessee last year just to see how that would go. He thought it was adventurous, but now takes long trips with a gasoline powered compact car.
     He’s got enough solar panels to negate his total electricity bill for the year, and due to MN regs he gets to sell electricity back to the utility at 15 cents/KWh. I suppose if the grid goes down he may figure out how to charge his car from his solar panels; he is an electrical engineer after all.
     But that being said, are electric vehicles going to save the world? Not a chance. But they have some advantages.

225. dropBear #169

     > If the PMC gets replaced by the entrepreneurial class what do you think the effects on average Americans will be?

     I picture the entrepreneurial class as BEING average Muricans. It feels like being one’s own boss is the way Muricans are trending.

     The word “class” is a bit scary, honestly. I am thinking more like entrepreneurial “community.” Like there is a gay community but not a gay class. Entrepreneurial “elite,” to me, feels even scarier because, my view is that the future Murican entrepreneur is a typical working-class man, woman, teen, and even kid — people who ‘do the doing’ rather than ‘be and watch the doing.‘ I would emphasize entrepreneurs as being working-class — is there a working-class elite? — dunno.

     I picture an entrepreneurial community as being comprised of plain-old, hum-drum, run-of-the-mill, rank-and-file, ordinary, roll-up-yer-sleeves Murican folk. People like this already exist, and I honor them👨🏼‍🌾. I certainly would love to know more of them.

     Family history comes to mind. Every family has lineages of such folks (roughly how they lived prior to 1850 but some families going back tearlier than that, into the 1700s). One of my lines (grandparents) ceased being 100% folk-entrepreneurs right after World War I (1920) (farmers from England who upon immigration had become canalers on Lake Champlain). Another branch stopped being folk-entrepreneurs by 1870 (3rd great-grandparents) (farmers immigrating to Brooklyn, Kings, New York). It is truly a matter of returning to our roots. Everyone on earth had ancestors who were farmers. (Canaler-plug: If one likes sailing inland waterways, invest in a water tour on Lake Champlain and/or between New York City and Montreal. {Little known fact: Men used to house their wives AND a dozen kids on a canal boat.} JMG says that, during civilization decline, canals will make a comeback.) In New York State, the Barge Canal has been maintained/refurbished over the last hundred years, a real jewel. On a nice day, visit a lock or two — locks being liminal places..

     💨Northwind Grandma💨⚓️🌾🍚🏗️
     Dane County, Wisconsin, USA

226. For Quin, my job has started and is going great, so I think I can be safely removed from the prayer list. Tusen takk for editing my request so many times, and to everyone who prayed for me and mine!

     –Rebecca

227. Smith, vote fraud is as American as apple pie; we haven’t had a clean election since George Washington ran unopposed for president. That said, both parties cheat with equal enthusiasm, and since the rank and file GOP (though not the beltway blob) rallied around Trump early and enthusiastically, I’m confident that Republican flacks will be just as busy drumming up votes from thin air as their Democratic rivals — and the election may not be close enough for that to matter. But we’ll see.

     Anonymous, the UK’s probably in for that anyway, you know.

     John, thanks for this — I’ve bookmarked it.

     Alvin, and thanks for this also. As for the difference between the capitalist elite of the 1920s and the entrepreneurial elite of today, purely a matter of relative decadence. The equivalent of today’s entrepreneurial elite was the capitalist elite of the 1860s, who took power from a decadent agrarian elite. By 2100 or so, the descendants of today’s entrepreneurial elite will be hopelessly decadent in their turn, and will be overthrown by some other rising elite class.

     Martin, or maybe we and they pray to the same god, and mosquitoes get to feed on us because they’re more devout than we are!

     Robert, he’d be a fool not to. Harris is hopelessly out of her league in high office; she’s simply not smart enough for the job. (And if anyone thinks this is a reference to her gender, skin color, etc., think again. Intelligence is more or less equally distributed among genders and ethnicities — but this means that there’s a roughly equal percentage of morons in every category. Harris just happens to belong to the moron cohort of her gender and ethnic group. Equally, there are plenty of white male morons; George W. Bush comes to mind.)

     Robert K, thanks for this!

     J.L.Mc12, thanks for this! Yes, I’d seen pictures of Kiribati armor — I have a longtime interest in hoplology (the study of weapons and armor). It’s impressive stuff. Along the same lines, here’s some Haida armor:
     
     It’s all made of wood, shell, and bone.

     Chuaquin, good. Yes, that’s exactly what’s happening — I’m following the news via the media in neutral countries. The Russians followed up on their capture of the fortress city of Ugledar with a series of further advances in the central and southern Donbass front; they’re closing in on the crucial transport hub of Pokrovsk; meanwhile there are reports of very large Russian forces being moved up to the front lines, suggesting a major offensive is on its way once the current BRICS summit is over.

     Eagle Fang, I read that book a few years ago — fascinating stuff. You’re right about the disease issue, of course.

     GlassHammer, fascinating. Hmm.

     LatheChuck, it’s one of the things I enjoy about the open posts.

     Justin, thanks for this.

     Siliconguy, yep. Since none of the people who have been throwing public tantrums about global warming have been willing to make even the smallest changes in their own lifestyles to address the problem, that was inevitable.

     Robert M, yes, I read about that! I’m reminded of the famous story about the time Winston Churchill was asked to give a toast to the traditions of the British Navy. He raised his glass and said, “To the traditions of the British Navy: rum, buggery, and the lash.” He should have added “shameful abuse of ordinary sailors.” That’s why the American navy was able to sail rings around the Royal Navy in the War of 1812; our sailors were volunteers, while the British Navy was crewed by kidnapped men (look up “press gangs” sometimes if you’re not familiar with this) who were treated like slaves. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised to see things reverting to type…

     Methylethyl, that’s fascinating. Not having a smartphone seems to have saved me from a lot of spammage.

     Other Owen, I think you’re overestimating the US at this point. We no longer have the industrial base to support a major war against a peer competitor, our military hasn’t won a war in years, and Russia in particular has a battle-tested military equipped with technologies we can’t match. (We still don’t have a working hypersonic missile system; theirs is in service in Ukraine right now.) Our situation is very like that of the Austro-Hungarian Empire before the First World War — a huge, sprawling, seemingly powerful empire so weak in reality that a single hard shock could shatter it forever.

     European Reader, oh, the US used to punch considerably over its weight, mostly as an industrial power. Don’t forget that one of the things that kept Russia fighting on the Eastern front was a steady stream of American munitions.
     
     These planes are Bell P-39 Airacobra fighters in Soviet service, one part of that support. (Oddly enough, my mother-in-law worked on these as a very young woman.) Yes, the US exaggerated its part in the Second World War, but it was a major military power for a while. Now? We don’t have the industrial plant that won two world wars, and most Americans of military age would be happy to see our government take one in the teeth, which didn’t use to be the case.

     Other Owen, er, you’re saying this on a blog run by an autist, you know. That kind of snark isn’t exactly welcome here.

     Neptunesdolphins, that slogan just made me shake my head. It’s painfully clear that nobody in the Democratic party is capable of realizing that voters can spot abject fakery. As for Mothman, hmm! The thought of Mothman as a Native American trickster spirit in modern drag, complete with UFOs, is an interesting one.

     Joan, no, I mean that it could become considerably dryer than that. Large sections of the Great Plains were full-on desert during the postglacial warm period; the famous Nebraska sandhills were dune fields, like this:
     
     Keep in mind the impact of the rain shadow of the Rockies becomes more serious as you get further from the Gulf of Mexico. It’s quite possible that large sections of the intermountain West and Great Plains could become as inhospitable as the eastern Sahara.

     Siliconguy, I’m embarrassed to say that I misjudged the F-35 in my novel Twilight’s Last Gleaming. I thought it would be an inferior fighter that would lose more fights with Chinese J-20s than it would win. It turns out that it’s much, much worse than that!

     Luke, that’s also a point — bog iron, specifically, is a renewable resource. Chemosynthetic bacteria in bogs concentrate iron in easily refinable form; some future society could quite possibly culture those bacteria and have big iron vats in lowland areas where iron-rich waters stream in and clean water streams out. Since iron makes up 5% of the total mass of the planet, we’re unlikely to run out any time soon! I simply wanted to challenge the entire concept that metals are essential for civilization.

     Davie, thanks for this.

     Jacques, it’s one step of many in a process that is ending US global hegemony. No one meeting is that important in and of itself; it’s the overall process that matters. That said, the Kazan meeting reduced US claims of “isolating” Putin to utter absurdity and showed that at this point, it’s the US and its allies that are moving to the fringes of global politics and Russia and China who have formed the new center.

     David BTL, they were women I knew in a lodge context. The one I’m especially thinking of here was also the one who taught me her system for daily prayer and Bible study. That was her spiritual discipline; every morning, first thing, she’d read a chapter of the Bible and then pray about it — and then, of course, she’d go on to do her best to live her life according to the precepts of her faith. If I’ve ever met a genuinely holy person, it was her. Of course she’d have told me to stop talking nonsense if she’d heard me say that about her; like most genuinely spiritual people, she considered her attainment to be nothing special or important. In terms of occult philosophy, I’d say that her daily practice enabled her to finish the process of turning her mental sheath into a fully formed mental body, and to fill it and her lower bodies with positive influences descending from the spiritual, causal, and divine planes, and that her practice of virtue kept her karmic ledger way over on the positive side.

     Robert M, it’ll be an essential skill. Leather is renewable and can be used for a fantastic array of purposes. If you have any interest in that craft, go for it!

228. @ Joan #215

     Thank you for commenting Joan.
     Yes, I’m aware Chomsky supports this position. Agree, quite sinister.

229. This looks like it is possibly a good read: The Paranormal Ranger by Stanley Milford Jr.

     “As a Native American with parents of both Navajo and Cherokee descent, Stanley Milford Jr. grew up in a world where the supernatural was both expected and taboo, where shapeshifters roamed, witchcraft was a thing to be feared, and children were taught not to whistle at night.

     In his youth, Milford never went looking for the paranormal, but it always seemed to find him. When he joined the fabled Navajo Rangers—a law enforcement branch of the Navajo Nation who are equal parts police officers, archeological conservationists, and historians—the paranormal became part of his job. Alongside addressing the mundane duties of overseeing the massive 27,000-square-mile reservation, Milford was assigned to utterly bizarre and shockingly frequent cases involving mysterious livestock mutilations, skinwalker and Bigfoot sightings, UFOs, and malicious hauntings.

     In The Paranormal Ranger, Milford recounts the stories of these cases from the clinical and deductive perspective of a law enforcement officer. Milford’s Native American worldview and investigative training collide to provide an eerie account of what logic dictates should not be possible.”

230. It seems my earlier attempt at commenting didn’t work out, so I‘ll try again. If I‘m dumb and it did, feel free to delete this.

     First, @Curt mentioned seeing that hummingbird-like moth in Austria which he‘d never seen before. I used to see them every few years in northern Germany as well, and wondered about them.
     I did some reading up now, because few things bring me more joy than insect-knowledge, and I found what I learned so amazing that I‘d like to share it here. Maybe as a counterweight to the heavy thoughts that plague so many these days.

     The critter in question is called the hummingbird hawk-moth, or Taubenschwänzchen in German. It’s about an inch long and kind of cute, and its native lands are the subtropics of Eurasia. I saw one just last week here in Portugal.

     So why do we sometimes see them in Austria, Germany, and even Scandinavia?
     Because they travel up to a thousand miles in a week, reaching speeds of 50 miles an hour, that’s why!

     If we scaled that up linearly, it would be the equivalent of a 500mph pigeon or a seriously hypersonic jet!

     These little guys manage that by consuming 1.5 times their bodyweight in nectar every day, emptying up to 100 flowers per minute, and never taking breaks of more than a minute between feeding sessions (which they probably use for 50mph sprints to the next flower patch).

     If they arrive up north early in the season, they’ll breed there, but hardly ever manage to overwinter.
     So now you know why you only see a Taubenschwänzchen every odd year or so: it’s just visiting.

     Apparently, these long voyages are common in its family. The death‘s head hawk-moth of Silence Of The Lambs-fame sometimes makes it to Europe from central Africa!

     The other point I tried to post was about the election and the next administration, namely that while there are certainly differences to be expected depending on who gets to be president, I have the very strong suspicion that the US is facing full-on, Soviet Union-style, systemic collapse under the watch of whoever is elected next month.

     Just the other day, I heard John Maersheimer say that while the world is multipolar now, America is still #1 and Russia a „distant third“. I don’t agree at all, and the sheer fact that even a realist like Maersheimer gets it this wrong says a lot. I‘m much more in line with JMG‘s view on this, Austro-Hungaria etc.

     Russia, Iran, and China all have the means to sink the US navy, if it came to that, but even more importantly, every indicator for national well-being is pointing down in the West, and the US faces bankruptcy, while the aforementioned three and some 45% of the rest of humanity are right now holding their own Bretton-Woods conference to pull the plug on the dollar.

     I‘ll be very surprised if any country outside of Europe will even take the USA seriously in four years‘ time, it seems things are picking up speed.

231. @Northwind Grandma (#225):

     Your post is right on target. Most of us had ancestors with considerable hands-on skills, whether they sold their own handiwork directly or were paid by some small company to exercise it. And knowing the details of one’s own family’s work history is one of the most valuable resources one can have in an age of decline.

     On my father’s side, two of my three immigrant (great-)great-grandfathers trained as carpenters (snedker = joiner, cabinet-maker) in Denmark, and then earned their living as car-builders for one of San Francisco’s several cable car companies. The third of them went to sea aboard a whaler out of Copenhagen. He jumped ship in San Francisco and began dealing in leather goods, which were much in demand in the horse-and-buggy days . On my mother’s side, her Pennsylvania-German father was a machinist, boiler-maker, and self-employed gunsmith. Anything these men learned to do, I could have learned to do at their age, too. (As a teenager, I had planned to bcome a locksmith, not a professor; and I still know more of that craft than most layfolk.)

     I want to say, too, that I have greatly enjoyed your posts, and look forward to reading each new one.

232. I enjoy your posts touching on the topic of feudalism greatly.

     I have long equated democracy with a chimera. The purported great advantage of democracy – the fact that you can exchange leaders like tires – ensures, ironically enough, that there will never be a leader held responsible for his actions. One can always retreat back behind the faceless horde of bureaucracy.

     Absolute power comes with absolute responsibility. In our beloved democractic system, there is never anyone to blame. Parliament is a house of mirrors where blames ricochets around until everyone has forgotten about it altogether. In a monarchy and aristocracy, the hiearchy of responsibility is clearly established.

     Dare I say that hereditary nobility is more resistant towards tyrants too? A dictator can exchange underlings on a whim, similar to a democracy. A king who capriciously strips nobles of their ancient rights might not live long, however.

     Do you have a book discussing feudalism at length, JMG?

     Cheers to you and your work

233. JMG, you have expressed several times your opinion that an “entrepreneurial elite” will take over power from the managerial elite. This surprised me, since falling energy return on energy means the classic energy-hungry industries like oil, cars or computers are unlikely to generate higher profits, or actually any profits at all. You have actually stated you believe that during decline all companies, on average, suffer losses.

     It started to make sense to me when you said that entrepreneurs are those who manage to make money during decline.

     Am I getting it right when I suppose that the following activities are among those that make you an entrepreneur?
     – pimping (in the widest sense)
     – snake oil selling
     – producing biomethane from sewage
     – salvaging metal from landfills
     – renting out armed groups?

     And doing any of these activities on a large enough scale would make you an entrepreneurial elite with access to political power?

     I also have the secret wish that nobody posted more than once per week on the upcoming American election, though this is probably unreasonable and also completely unrelated to my musings above.

234. @Jon G
     Oddly enough, insulin resistance tends to *follow* weight gain. People who are able to get enormously fat, tend to be exquisitely insulin sensitive. Depositing that circulating glucose into fat tissue is how your body protects your arteries from high glucose, which is kind of like glue in your blood vessels. The more you can shove into fat cells, the more weight you can gain… the longer you can go before you get high blood sugars and insulin resistance. When you reach the point where you pretty much *can’t* lay in more fat stores… *that’s* when you become insulin resistant. Different people, through both lifestyle and genetic propensity, reach this point at different levels of body fat.

     This is how you get the odd-looking paradox where, the lower your BMI is when you get diagnosed with diabetes, the worse your long-term prospects are. I.E. skinny diabetics do worse in the long run, because they have less margin for improvement. Their diabetes is likely to involve factors other than, and in addition to, carb intake… such as physiologically low insulin production, metabolic signalling malfunctions, or genetic mutations that affect their ability to deposit fat.

235. @JMG: I’ve received a fair few election-related “fill in our survey!” text messages, and I do not have a smartphone– just a 2006-style flip. It’s nothing compared to the email spam, but it is happening.

236. Methylethyl (#207), among others, re Charles Bonnet syndrome.

     It’s not that hypnagogic and hypnopompic imagery are indications of the syndrome, it’s that the syndrome effects are like those of hypnagogic and hypnopompic (and similar) imagery. The lines, grids, dots, and full-blown imagery can be seen under a variety of circumstances, because they are a constant part of visual processing that is usually not available to conscious inspection. (See Coleridge’s “primary imagination” — the image-assembling faculty that provides the basis for visual experience.)

     The visual perception processes rely on a variety of forms and formative processes to construe visual stimuli and turn them into visual perception. In other words, visual experience is a construction placed on visual stimuli, which may be external or internal (forms arising in the eigenlicht). For example, sometimes, on waking in the middle of the night, especially in a strange place, people see faces or figures in the room. These are usually static, and with attention resolve into actual features of the room — a chair, some drawer pulls, a line on the wallpaper, and so on. (A kind of reverse-Arcimboldo effect.) In other words, the visual perception processes have construed the various stimuli as a unified image which turns out to be erroneous, or resolvable into something more constant.

     There are many other ways in which these forms can intrude on awareness, all of which usually involve some sort of jamming of the usual processes that filter them out. The forms themselves are, as they say, “physiological”, rather than pathological. Charles Bonnet syndrome is a situation in which pathologies of the visual apparatus disrupt the usual course of visual processing, leading to “filling in the gaps” with other material.

     The same thing can happen with hearing, which is why certain kinds of deafness can give rise to more or less paranoid mis-hearing of conversations. And of course there is the custom of listening for voices in sea-shells.

     Some other sensory modalities are not as fine-grained as vision or hearing, but touch and kinesthesia are sensory fields that can also be occasions for similar phenomena. (For example, a day spent on ice skates, especially when the experience is novel, can lead to skating sensations when one is falling asleep, or just resting.)

     So, in brief, such experiences are generally normal, not part of a pathological syndrome.

237. A few years ago, I was visited by an idea for a plan that the Democratic Party could use to deal with the Biden situation. It was simply this: to say, “Whoops, we made a mistake. Actually, investigation shows that the 2020 election was actually won by former president Donald Trump. He has been president all along. Sorry!” The current administration would then resign in favor of the Trump slate of 2020.

     This would have several benefits. First, it since Trump has been president all along, everything since 2020 would be his fault. Second, since he was now in his second term, he was not qualified to run in 2024, and the Republican Party would have to come up with a new slate, or not have a presidential candidate in the election. Third, by making this move fairly late in the game, the actual possible Trump administration activities would be minimal. Fourth, since there had been no Biden administration, the Harris candidacy would be free of any burden of the past, and could present itself as a New Hope. Fifth, it could be managed like the withdrawal from Afghanistan — with no prior notice, just by walking away and leaving the place vacant.

     The ideal time to make such a move would be just before the beginning of November. As an October Surprise, it would probably be an all-time best.

     Unfortunately, when I first had this idea, for some reason it did not gain much traction. But this might be the optimum time to implement it.

238. Wer here
     Well isn’t just a lot to take in this particular week. Media in Poland is blowing up a fuse over “a gang of fascists in Kazan” and proclaiming that “BRICS will soon collapse” just like “Putin has cancer and will die in three weeks ” repeated endlessly for the last three years here for the record. And they wonder why less and less are watching their nonsense. And don’t get me on the “You Tube” geopolitics experts who just repeating propaganda so bad that the mainstream refutes them. But closer to home a very bad sign had appeared in my local area in Ujscie we have a glass factory that has operated virtually without stop foe almost 220 years (even during WW2 it operating almost continiously) and massive problems started there in the last few mounths. For many years the local buisness plan was to churn out an endless supply of glass bottles and wine bottles and sell them to the German market because “Niemcy wszystko wezną” and germany was buying an endless ammount especially in Oktoberfest( the best month of the year local say) but recently for the first time in decades the German are stoping to buy bottles because a lot of them is no longer able to afford wine and expensive beer that was the bread and butter of the local industry (even during the Soviet Times rich Germans in the West were drinking from cheap bottles made in our local area – they were of good quality and much cheaper than bottles made in Germany a polish worker worked much cheaply than an german worker) That is really a bad sign and it tells that something bad is on the horizon what is happening here right now did not even happen when wars and Soviet presence was around… In a little tangent in 2020 an kilowatt hour in Poland was 0,32 zloty then suddenly it began to increase before the pandemic and Ukraine and now it is about 1 zloty for a kilowatt hour since 2000 to 2020 it remained more or less on the same level then suddenly a jolt and all the pains for everybody (rich people to the workers)
     And it all happened BEFORE the mess in the east or COVID (people who scream it is the pandemic or Putin go silent every time you point that out…)

239. While all the industrialized western countries face a grim future, it seems to me that the country with nothing but upside is North Korea. It has lots of coal and iron ore to trade and new rail links to Russia and China. They have a tough disciplined population that is used to hardship. Their youth have not been damaged by exposure to social media and cell phones. They also have no connection to the world wide financial system ( very key).
     They are in an excellent security position. While their military was once derided as backward and WWII era, the Russian have demonstrated that is actually the military structure of the future. Watching the IDF get decimated as they try to encroach on the hills of southern Lebanon must give food for thought to the R.O.C. Generals and their American overloads when they contemplate attacking the much more formidable tunnel riddled hills of North Korea.
     Then North Koreans even have a burgeoning export market for their production of missiles, artillery pieces, shells and tunneling skills. I would guess famines are a thing of the past as growing BRICS financial system will allow them to trade with half the world regardless of western sanctions. So they will be able to tap in to the bountiful agricultural production of Russia.

240. Concerning Teilhard de Chardin, there was another catholic R. C. Zaehner, who was very critical of his ideas.
     I don’t remember in which book, as he wrote many:
     https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Charles_Zaehner

     JMG, have you read him? Yes, like many catholic converts, he was quite stern in his opinions, but maybe it’s just his skeptical attitude towards many fads of his time makes him so fresh to read nowadays.

241. “Unfortunately it would probably also mean ethnic sectarianism and violence in the UK as the Muslims in the UK would defect to a Muslim party and probably start Muslim analogues of the IRA and the UDF.”

     I seem to recall some previous religious squabbles in English history. I hope that rhyme does not repeat though it wouldn’t surprise me if it did.

     As for a submarine getting extended on patrol and running out of groceries, and even worse, coffee, been there, done that. The boat can make oxygen and drinking water, but food, not so much. Torpedoing a whale is theoretically possible. Fortunately it didn’t come to that.

242. JMG,

     I have read close to, if not every, comment on your blogosphere and I haven’t seen any feedback come in on the Way of the Four Elements and The Earth Mysteries Workbook. I just want to say that working through these books is incredibly meaningful and fun. I have many Places/Stories in and near my area of residence, and the work is increasing my sense of enchantment and of that which is beautifully ordered (cosmos) significantly. I could write quite a bit about my experiences so far, but I’ll leave it there because of the the fourth magical virtue. I will say, I live in the general area of the capital of Meriga. Thank you for writing these!

     Luke Z

243. Hi John Michael,

     Writing is a solitary activity at heart. Just a reminder that there are plenty of people out there thinking of you, especially at this time. Tragedy is our constant companion in this here life, but some years are worse than others.

     It’s funny to me how peak oil got dropped like a hot potato. That response always seemed weird to me, so I’ll be very interested to hear what you have to say about the matter. Hey, it’s kind of like: “if we pretend really hard enough, peak oil might go away!” And I concur with your analysis of PV technology (sorry to bring the subject up, err, sorry for saying sorry, when I’m not really sorry! 🙂 ). The technology is good, but it’s not good enough for the usage people want to put it to. I thought up a new saying about it recently, and you might like this: It’s a hippy technology, intended for hippy purposes, and a hippy lifestyle. The saying’s got a nice ring to it, don’t you reckon?

     Incidentally, I came across an article about the island state of Tasmania which has invested heavily in hydro, wind and solar, then discovered that installed renewable capacity doesn’t equate to continual production. A mystery for them. Insert foot stomping. Their dirty little secret is that this state here which is north of Bass Strait, provides them with one sixth of their electricity. Sometimes it’s night, the winds are still, and you’re in a drought. You would think that such observations are common sense. Here’s the link: Tasmania’s renewable energy boast looking shaky with fossil fuels, electricity imports in the mix because of dry conditions

     And um, well, as to the next administration, it will be interesting indeed. Still, the easiest way to put an end to the continuing mischief is probably to simply cut the funding to those groups. Look, savings have to be made, so why not there at the source of the mischief? That’s what I’d do, get them to refocus on their core mission, and I kind of believe that what you’re seeing at the moment is a sad attempt to keep the funds flowing at any costs. We sometimes forget but those folks have kiddie school fees + car leases + expensive mortgages too, they just want the rest of your country to pay for those things. We’ll see, I can’t really get any clear idea where this is all headed, other than down. We’ll probably find out though.

     Cheers

     Chris

244. Hey JMG

     I have heard of the wooden armour of the Haida, and that is another thing Ecotechnic civilisations could improve upon, maybe by treating the wood to make it harder or more flexible than is natural.

     Another interesting idea i have for metal-less tech is “Compliant mechanisms” made from Bio-plastic, which could be used in place of many of the metal gears, springs and levers used in things like locks, triggers, clocks, automatons, etc.

     https://compliantmechanisms.byu.edu/about-compliant-mechanisms

245. This is bizarre. I have to share this story.

     Sunday, 10/13, between 11 and noon, I was out doing my normal 4-mile walk around town. This was the weekend of that massive solar flare that brought Northern Lights to the Deep South in the U.S. I was about 3 miles into the walk, crossing the train tracks and heading into downtown. Then suddenly I couldn’t see. Everything was just light and blur, like I was cross-eyed, and couldn’t pull them back straight. Very disconcerting. I thought I might pass out honestly. Thought seriously about sitting down on the sidewalk right where I was, just to avoid hurting myself. But I pressed on, slowly and carefully, basically staggering, and the farther I walked away from the tracks and toward the river, the clearer my head got.

     Here’s where it gets weird though. Ever since then I have no taste for pot or alcohol. These two things have been nearly constant companions to me for 30 years now. I will occasionally go some months without weed – regular magical practice drove it out of my life for a while, for example, but I don’t remember going more than 5 days without alcohol in that whole 30 year stretch. Now I just don’t want it, and haven’t since that moment by the tracks. I’ve actually tried to have my normal pint of Guinness twice since then, and pushed it away after 4 sips. Exactly 4 sips both times.

     It gets weirder. I was getting a much-needed massage Thursday last week, and related this story to my therapist, who is an old friend. She then told me about being at our local Fall arts and craft show at the same time, on the same day, and how she had volunteered to help with one of two women who fainted simultaneously. She was an EMT forever, before she went to massage therapy school. It was a really nice, mild October day, both women had just gotten to the show, both were standing near large metal structures, and neither had any idea why they had fainted. They just…got knocked out. I almost went down myself. How bizarre.

     I’d love to know if either of them had any life-changing experiences following their bizarre morning, but people come from all over for this craft show, and I have no idea who they were. My sense of this is that the large iron structures we were all near amplified the EM fields from the solar flare and knocked us silly. But the metaphysical outcome, in my case at least, is a little harder to explain. I’ve heard stories of addictions suddenly being lost/dropped like a hot potato after damage to the thyroid, and my neck has actually been hurting quite a bit since this happened, but otherwise I’m kinda stumped.

     Anybody? Any similar experiences that weekend? I do consider this a blessing in my life, FWIW, and will ride this train as far as it will take me. Just truly, truly bizarre what happened.

246. Martin Back (#111) – one wing of the transportation business where there is exploding variety is in electric bicycles and scooter and skateboards. I was just hiking up a rocky trail and down the hill was rolling this fellow on an electric thingy, like a skateboard but just one fat wheel in the middle, so he was balancing on that somehow, over the rocky gravel… remarkable!

247. All-
     So the witches have noticed some sort of magical protection around Donald Trump? I think that would be the Secret Secret Service. Perhaps I have said too much already. 😉

248. Jim Kukula-

     That one-wheeled motorized “skateboard” is probably called a “onewheel” (naturally). Living next to a college campus, we see all sorts of personal transportation options. It looks simple, but I suspect that it has a bunch of microcomputer-based sensors and controls that make it feasible (without extensive practice, like a traditional unicycle requires).

249. Eike with an „i“ , the moth you described reminds me of what in North America we call a Sphinx Moth. It also resembles a hummingbird. I am pretty sure that its larval stage is the green giant caterpillars which live on your tomato plants. I used to pick them off and toss onto a piece of bare ground. As soon as I was well away, magpies used to grab them to feed to their chicks.

     Crassus A, for feudalism the place to start is with Marc Bloch, Feudal Society. OOP, of course, and pricey on the 2nd hand market. If you live near a library which still does interlibrary loan, you might be able to find it that way.

250. I was at a local bookstore today being rung up for a purchase, while noticing a string of hats to my left… I, in my subtle snarkiness .. exclaimed, in a quiet voice “why no MAGA hats?!!”. As I was concluding my transaction, I heard a whispering from an older, grey-haired woman in the que behind me: “I hope not ….” I kinda shrugged, and uttered “well..” as I made my exit. I also, a few days ago, had someone knock on my door, and … when I finally opened it.. a youngish dude asked me if I was registered to vote, and if so, whom for. I replied that they might want their doorknob flyer back .. as I had no need for such. They pleatively asked if I was going to vote. I replied “we’ll seeee.” I felt no need to justify my total distaste for ANY blu-dem chicanery! Here’s hoping that I’m not now pegged for some post-election blu-monkey hijinks..
     “sigh”..

251. Also… whilst pulling into my local post this office parking lot this afternoon, I passed one of those cut, angular Muskmelons .. me thinks twas a cyber truck .. with a rear hatch cover. Gods! what a monstrosity!! Who in their right mind would want such an ugly buckboard??

252. Siliconguy re “Lardbucket follies – The Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II fifth-gen supersonic stealth strike fighter just can’t seem to catch a break, with a new report released Monday by the Government Accountability Office finding the jet woefully below mission-ready status for six straight years…”
     Maybe because Lockheed-Martin has been telling its employees that traits such as a can-do attitude, hard work, and striving towards success are bad things, since they’re supposedly devastating to women and minorities? https://christopherrufo.com/p/the-woke-industrial-complex

253. @Robert Morgan #223 re: Leathercraft

     For what it’s worth, I’d second JMG’s suggestion to give it a shot if you’re interested. With a few evenings of watching youtube videos and ~100 dollars of tools and materials, you can start making functional, attractive stuff. I haven’t pursued it as diligently as I’d like, but after one or two “practice” things, like making a leather-carved coaster for use on my altar for drink offerings, I made a wallet that I carry every day. The most satisfying thing is that I got to make exactly the wallet I wanted – besides cash, ID, and credit/debit cards, it holds a small stack of 3×5 cards and is held closed by a fountain pen through a couple of loops, so I can make notes on whatever I want wherever I am. It’s highly idiosyncratic, but that’s exactly why it’s so satisfying.

     Anyhow, if you feel drawn to it, give it a shot and see how you feel about it.

     Cheers,
     Jeff

254. Does anyone have a clue as to why the Boeing/Intelsat IS-33e satellite broke up on orbit? I’m curious as to whether it was an internal failure (as Apollo-13 was), or had an external cause (e.g., space-junk impact, natural impact, etc.). It was in geostationary orbit, which I kind of assume is a sedate environment, relative to the low-orbit free-for-all of equatorial, inclined, and polar orbits crossing each other all the time.

     The fact that it was as high as geostationary orbit means that the fragments will also be at geosynchronous altitude at least some of the time, putting other geostationary satellites at risk. After all, an orbit is an elliptical track in space, determined by an initial position and velocity vector (neglecting some small perturbations), and all of the orbits of the fragments will eventually pass though that point again (though certainly not all at the same time, like running the explosion backwards). They don’t just tumble back to Earth like an exploding aircraft would.

     Who’d have thought that the Kessler Syndrome would begin in geostationary orbit?

255. This was a very interesting account of the Amish lifestyle, by a person whose parents actually lived it.

     https://substack.com/home/post/p-148388795

     The context there is recent discussions on Substack about declining fertility, and how groups like the Amish are bucking this trend. The short version is that the Amish culture is very, very different to that of those surrounding them. It should also interest this audience because the Amish culture is after all a deindustrial culture (relatively speaking), and so they show us some possible aspects of our future in the centuries to come.

256. Justin, it sounds interesting. I’ll see if the local library system has it.

     Eike, the first attempt didn’t get through — not sure why. As for the US collapse, it’s a very real possibility. I don’t think it’s a certainty, any more than the collapse of the Soviet Union was guaranteed — it could have pulled through in much weaker form, given different personalities in charge.

     Crassus, no, I haven’t written about feudalism at book length. You might find these posts interesting:
     https://thearchdruidreport-archive.200605.xyz/2007/11/fascism-feudalism-and-future.html
     https://thearchdruidreport-archive.200605.xyz/2014/11/dark-age-america-end-of-market-economy.html

     Aldarion, we’re not yet to the point that economic activity on average results in a loss rather than a profit. We are at the point, however, where falling net energy makes it impossible to support the vast superstructure of political, corporate, and nonprofit bureaucrats, managers, and flacks that are currently supported by what’s left of our productive economic activity. That’s the reason the entrepreneurs are rising to power. When Elon Musk laid off 80% of Twitter’s staff and improved service, he showed the wave of the future: the elimination of unproductive managerial jobs as a response to declining net energy. Of course eventually net energy will drop low enough that entrepreneurs won’t be able to make money, but we’re not there yet.

     Methylethyl, I have yet to receive any email spam, either. It fascinates me that I seem to be immune to that at the moment.

     LeGrand, a case could be made! Alas, since Biden was in fact inaugurated, I think he’s stuck with it until after the election.

     Wer, thanks for the update. I get the impression that Europe is in much deeper trouble than most people realize.

     Clay, Kim and his father and grandfather really do seem to have played a bad hand extremely well. My guess is that part of the payoff for helping Russia with arms supplies is that North Korea’s going to become a steady arms supplier for Russia, and for all Russia’s allies, with the profits piling up in Pyongyang (and full bellies all over North Korea as well).

     A., no, I don’t think so. I’ll look into him when time permits.

     Luke, delighted to hear it! I had enormous fun field testing the material in The Earth Mysteries Handbook, for what it’s worth.

     Chris, thank you for this. I’m doing pretty well these days, all things considered — a little lonely, but it’s been eight months now and I’ve worked through most of the shock and grief. As for peak oil, it got coopted into the climate change movement, which was basically a sales pitch for corporate kleptocracy under the guise of “renewable” energy projects. As you well know, the peak of worldwide conventional petroleum production passed in 2005, and we’ve been slipping down the back side of the curve ever since, trying to fill in the gaps with fracked fluids, natural gas condensates, tar sand extractives, ethanol, you name it, if it can be poured into a gas tank we’ll pretend that it’s petroleum. It’s not working too well — but then I discussed all that years in advance on The Archdruid Report.

     J.L.Mc12, two good points. Wood could very easily be infused with resins, or what have you, to get that result.

     Grover, how very odd. Thanks for the data point.

     Lathechuck, of course it has to be protection. It can’t possibly be because most of them couldn’t magic their way out of a wet paper bag if someone put a machete in one of their hands and a blowtorch in the other…

     Polecat, oh, I know. I’d call them butt-ugly but that’s an insult to the human posterior.

     Lathechuck, that’s the one thing I haven’t seen anybody mention at all. It’s fascinating to me, since you’d think the first question to ask is “what happened?” I’m also interested to see whether this turns into a Kessler syndrome. If it does, that’s a major issue, due to the decay time that high up; a Kessler chain reaction in low earth orbit will clear within a few centuries, since everything orbiting at that level will plunge into the atmosphere within that time frame, but at geosynchronous orbits we’re talking something probably longer than the expected lifespan of our species.

     Warburton, thanks for this.

257. Since the topic of entrepreneurship among older generations has come up, I can tell a story about my paternal grandparents. They were born in 1883 and 1900. Joseph, my grandfather, farmed homestead property in western South Dakota for the seven years it took to own the property; my two brothers now co-own it.

     After he married my grandmother in 1917, my grandfather owned and ran two different wholesale bakeries in Trenton, Missouri (a small town in north central MO) where my father was born. One of our family stories is that my grandmother drove the delivery truck with the bakery’s products with my father and his two brothers in the front seat. There were no seat belts in the 1920s; when she had to stop suddenly, she flung her arm to the side to keep her children from being thrown into the windshield.

     On my husband’s and my road trip last summer, we stopped in Trenton so I could do a couple of hours of genealogy research at the library. I found the following quarter-page ad that my grandfather and two other Trenton bakers signed in the Trenton newspaper. It was published on July 16, 1928.

     Patronize Trenton Bakeries
     WHEREAS, we, the Bakers of Trenton, constitute an important part of the business life of the community, it behooves the people of Trenton to support our industry HERE AT HOME in preference to the bakers in Chillicothe, or elsewhere.
     It is the local institutions such as we represent a part of, that help to make our town the thriving little city that it is; we pay taxes, support the schools, the churches, the charities, and all local enterprises. We employ an average of about eighteen persons, to whom we pay thousands of dollars yearly, practically every cent of which is SPENT RIGHT HERE IN TRENTON. If the money you pay for your bread is sent to Chillicothe or elsewhere, it can accomplish none of these things for our home town.
     Our own bake shops are as up-to-date and as well equipped as any in this section of Missouri; state inspectors always congratulate us on the sanitary conditions existing therein, and above all, our Bread is as fine, wholesome and tasty as Bread can be made. Our shops are always open for the inspection of the public, and we, as progressive business men, stand always ready to serve you.
     Boost your home town – INSIST ON TRENTON MADE BREAD!

     Earlier on that same trip, when we visited the Amana Colonies, we learned that the widespread availability of personal automobiles that brought curious people to the Colonies contributed to the end of the communal society there. In Trenton, around the same time, the same process affected my grandparents: people could and did drive to nearby Chillicothe to buy cheaper bread. People continue to do the same thing today, just by different means.

     About 1931 my father’s family left Trenton for Ann Arbor, Michigan. The Dust Bowl may have been a factor, as Trenton was far enough west to be affected by it. While in Ann Arbor, my grandparents started and ran a short-order eatery, Snappy Joe’s, that expanded into a regional chain in southern lower Michigan. My grandparents retired and closed the business sometime in the 1950s; my father must not have been interested in taking over, and his two brothers were killed in WWII. But proceeds from the business and thrifty habits allowed my grandparents a comfortable retirement.

     Although my father became a salesman and then climbed the corporate ladder, he held a mechanical engineering degree and enjoyed tinkering. If anyone remembers the Durabeam flashlights of the 1980s and 1990s, my father held patents on them. It might be from him that I get my garden-research proclivities.

258. “(For example, a day spent on ice skates, especially when the experience is novel, can lead to skating sensations when one is falling asleep, or just resting.)”

     After a long drive it feels like you are still moving while in bed. And a day on the water in a small boat will have you felling the waves even on land.

     Along the lines of Lagrand up above, I was wondering why either party wants to be in charge just now. A very rational long term strategy (by which I mean four years ahead) would be to throw this election then have your donor class implode the system while blaming the other party. The next election will be a blowout and the other party will be on the sidelines for a generation if it survives. That’s what happened when Hoover failed to control the Depression. But I suspect Kunstler is right in that the Democrats at least are trying to stay out of jail and also keep the graft flowing. The latter applies to the Republicans as well. Both sides are equally power mad.

     What happened to peak oil? They made specific predictions that failed due to fracking. That was the second time, their first predictions of doom failed when the North Sea and North Slope came on line. Only economists can get away with making specific predictions that fail and still be listened to. It’s their most impressive skill.

     Venezuela and Guyana are squabbling over who gets to develop new large offshore oil field. No one is willing to give up flying which is about the most painless lifestyle cutback you could make. And high-tech will burn every gram of carbon of any form they need to keep the data centers and AI servers running around the clock to make sure you get exposed to the most personally tailored advertising campaign possible. 😵‍💫

259. There are literally millions of people praying for Donald Trump, asking for protection being part of the prayers. True they are deplorables, bitter clingers, embryo fascists and low class (facetious descriptions alert) but praying ardently nonetheless.

260. One theory about the purpose of the Western media campaign about alleged North Koreans fighting for Russia in Ukraine is that it is to create an excuse and cover for bringing in South Korean pilots because South Korea is the only country with spare pilots for the jets being given to Ukraine. Also, as a general rule in this case, whatever the West accuses Russia, much of the time, the West is already doing or about to.

261. JMG and fellow readers,

     I’ve came across your recent post about the futility of hateful magic on Dreamwidth and I have to admit it gave me pause. Now, thanks to discovering your work some time ago, I do have some idea about magic as per Dion Fortune’s definition, but your post and the challenge you proposed, well, they gave me an epiphany for a variety of reasons.

     For starters, thanks to my own upbringing under an emotionally distant, spiritually masculine mother and an overzealous, emotionally immature father (I’m thinking mostly on Jungian terms here; i.e, anima and animus), I was raised into a bitter, angry, hateful adult, to say nothing of other, decidedly unpleasant mental states thanks to a particularly difficult projection of anima (again, Jungian terms help me make sense of this, so apologies if that seems repetitive or perhaps inaccurate!). It’s not as if I was like that all the time, of course (I am a Cancer, for starters!) but those were the emotions I struggled with the most, especially because, for most of my life, I found them to be justified. Keyword here is “justified”, not “right” or “wrong”. I used to think I was crazy for feeling those emotions for much of the similar reasons you outlined in “The King in Orange”, but ultimately, as an adult, I found them justified. It fueled me and brought me to where I am. But reading your post and reflecting back on it, I realized that at some point this anger turned into resentment. It ceased to be used positively and instead made me even more bitter and anti-social. I thought things were unfair, that I deserved better, and the people who hurt me should either pay for it or try to fix things, or become better. But those are unrealistic expectations. The anger led to hatred, which led to such expectations, and once these went unfulfilled, they turned into resentment, which turned into anger… You get the idea. Your description of the kind of hateful magic employed by the American left reminded me exactly of this vicious cycle I found myself in. I was already becoming familiar with Dion Fortune’s definition of magic, but your post, your descriptions, and your proposed challenge were like an epiphany.

     This should be a familiar experience even for people who don’t have such realization, but at some point, all the anger and hatred and resentment become tiring. It sure made me tired, at least. The idea of directing your emotional grievances at the culprits, whether real or perceived, can keep you standing for a while, helping you survive, but at some point, it comes back to you. It’s like a deal with the devil. You get all that sweet hateful energy to keep the adrenaline pumping, but then, much like the devil, it’ll come back to you and demand more. It’s a vortex, like someone close to me put it, and believe me, getting out of it, and even realizing you’re in it in the first place, is a struggle. But being told that it’s entire possible to direct positive emotional energy at the world, at something constructive instead of destructive, focused on your own betterment instead of the punishment of others, felt like a relief. It’s strange to type this, but it felt like your post came at exactly the right time, as if some force from beyond determined I was ready for the “eureka” moment it provided. A synchronicity, maybe? 😛

     Of course, I had been improving for some years now, thanks to some personal work, meditations, reflections, but it’s like when a scientist or alchemist finds himself at a particularly challenging point, only for the right ideas to fall into place, and suddenly everything becomes clear. The journey makes sense. A plot twist. Directing such energies towards the world, reflecting on the kind of world I want, constructively, feels so obvious now. And since you suggested thinking about our ideal countries, the post carried an additional bit of weight as I come from a particularly difficult place in the world. It’s not as bad as many other places, but it’s the kind of country with a tragic history and a cynical people left to the whims of destiny, with genuine, honest, nationalist endeavors being interrupted or sabotaged by an oligarchy and financial elite, supported by neo-liberal jurists and lawmakers, that care more about getting as many dollars as possible than actually contributing to the betterment of our country. And things aren’t exactly looking up for the future, either. That only served as more fuel for my already hateful emotions, and that got just as tiring. I’d rather spend my energies constructively, imagining a positive future that is still rooted in reality, but without spending so much time on who to remove or destroy. I mean, as you pointed out multiple times, it didn’t do the Nazis any good!

     In the end, I just wanted to say I appreciate your efforts with this blog and your multitude of works. I look forward to learning more. 🙂

262. Re: Kessler syndrome

     „It was made by Boeing“ is of course an insufficient explanation for why the satellite exploded, but reading up on the failings of that company has given me the creeps. How badly things can rot!

     Lockheed-Martin going woke fits very well with that. It seems that in Boeing‘s case it has been an unhealthy influx of new-fangled, academic management ideas and short-sighted profit seeking that led to the demise of the company, but I can see DEI doing the same thing.

     Because whatever it is that you put in front of your company’s actual purpose will take from that purpose and harm your company.

     Case in point: the Western video game industry is shaking g from the results of putting woke content and hiring culture over making enjoyable games. This year alone, there have been multiple AAA-titles (nine-figure budgets and years of development time) that have flopped entirely.
     Sony‘s PlayStation department had bought a new studio for over a billion that proceeded to burn through $400m over eight years, only for the game in question (Concord, look the story up for a laugh) to be scrapped and the few buyers refunded just twelve days after release.
     Canadian game maker Ubisoft, a long-established giant in the industry, has produced such a string of incomplete, badly made „inclusive games for the modern audience“ that it may be on its way to bankruptcy.

     Parallel to what happens in Hollywood, the critics are on board with the industry giants, praising or at least defending that schlock, while the audience turns away.

     Which is strangely similar to what Wer had to say about the Polish media calling the BRICS conference a bunch of fascists.

     There is a broad pattern to all this: delusional, abstract concepts, often with a malign or parasitic streak to them, destroying formerly established pillars of our built reality, while the sycophants of leadership do their best to paint a rosy picture of it.

     The thickness of media disinformation makes the true extent of the problem hard to grasp, but to me, it looks like a recipe for disaster, hence my assumption of a full systemic collapse in the near future.

263. Hello Mr. Greer,

     You have said many times that you expect traditional, sacramental Christianity to make a comeback via a Toynbee style second religiosity. This gives me two questions.

     First, how does Evangelical Christianity play into this? Is it about to get shoved to the side as the older faiths gain ground, or will its individualism jive better with the collapse of centralized authority?

     Second, do you have any guesses on what the next major religion to challenge traditional Christianity will be?

264. @Lathechuck, JMG: Kessler syndrome is a low-earth-orbit phenomenon. The shear unimaginable scale of
     space at higher orbits means the phenomenon cannot happen there in any practically conceivable manner – the numbers don’t add up. I mean, I guess if we mined the asteroid belt and put everything gathered into the higher Earth orbits for many millennia, maybe. But that obviously isn’t going to happen.

265. The Democrats are ghastly — I get it.

     But I simply can’t understand why people are choosing the fire over the frying-pan.

     Trump hasn’t hidden the fact that he is fascist-adjacent or possibly just fascist. He has promised to be a dictator on ‘Day One’. He thinks “Hitler did some good things too”. General John Kelly, among others, has used the word fascist of Trump, not loosely, but with precision, to describe Trump’s attitude to power. I am sure you have seen the NYT interview, where he reads aloud a definition of fascism: “It’s a far-right authoritarian, ultranationalist political ideology and movement characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy,” he said, adding that Trump fitted that description. “In my experience, those are the kinds of things that he thinks would work better in terms of running America.”

     If it walks like a duck, looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, it’s a duck. I don’t have Trump Derangement Syndrome. I do think that when someone tells you who they are, you should believe them.

     Your democracy, *if you can keep it*, does rather rely on people who **believe in keeping it. Maybe Americans have had enough of the experiment. Maybe. But if you vote Trump into power, don’t expect to ever be voting him out again, and don’t say you didn’t know.

266. @Eike with an „i“

     Yes indeed! It was the hummingbird hawk moth I must have seen, the first insect I ever saw that does not have complex eyes like most have, but eerily eyes looking like a bird’s or mammals eyes, that what makes it so remarkable at first sight.

     Thank you very much for the information about what that was!

     For everyone wanting to be entertained about a few facts about the may:
     https://www.factinate.com/things/41-facts-mayan-civilization
     Well probably they’re facts, I see no source but I guess it’s general enough

     Many people are astonished when I tell them native americans did in fact not have horses before the Europeans came. I guess many people underestimate the time between first contact and the final taking of the whole continent by the settlers from Europe.

     Was it David Wengrow and David Graeber whom I read from that native Americans used armour made of leather and other materials, and that the way we see them nowadays is after contact with Europeans which also brought guns and therefore, thick armour wasn’t effective anymore.

     The picture of the Haida warrior gear really looks out of this world, fascinating!

     I somewhere also read the Aztecs (?) produced an armour made of spider’s threads, so robust not even bullets could pierce it.

     Wer’s comments about polish glass industry are also a valuable information about the current state of the EU economy.

     I know Austria’s car assembly industry is heavily dependend on Germany’s, that’s why everyone keeps saying if Germany goes down, they take us with them.

     Austria is also a major hub for Europe’s gas pipelines with the gas terminal in Baumgarten where many pipelines come together. It may retain some relevance as a trade hub, we’ll see.

     Peter Denk predicted enourmous price spikes this year for end of October, beginning of November, in his case due to “messages from the spirit world” he claims to receive.

     Israels attack on Iran directly today may be a moniker – our mainstream news already writing about russians advanced weapons systems in the hands of the Yemen’s Huthis.

     I like to look at the predictions of people like Peter Denk, just to see what comes out of it.

     The end of Western Hegemony towards Christmas and the crumbling of the EU 25/26 (more or less) are his predictions as well.

267. Another thing coming to my mind:

     Our industrial civilization is obsessed with bridging large distances, as our host is saying.
     All the more fascinating it is how birds and apparently also insects like the hawk moth bridge thousands of kilometers, in their lifetime they see a good portion of the whole planet!

     I’ve also been fascinated by David Graeber’s and David Wengrow’s claim that the natives of North America used to travel from coast to coast sometimes before European contact.

     Our host mentions the possibility of flying machines millenia ago – an interesting theory that I have heard elsewhere already. Is a small airplane motor handcrafted possible?

     Travelling far is of course not a modern phenomenon as such.

268. I have grown within a Christian faith but I have stopped practicing in my teenage years for various reasons. I have given some thought lately to the doctrine of original sin, in which everyone is supposed to accept feeling guilty for sins they did not commit. Then having trouble dealing with the guilt, everyone is supposed to feel relieved (and redempted) once one guy, Jesus, accepts the sins and guilt of the entire humanity and is sacrificed in the process. What occurred to me this week is that this is scapegoating of epic (universal) proportion! This might have been an intentional recasting of millenarian traditions of scapegoating that predate Christianity, but I still feel somewhat uneasy about it. The two main reasons are that: 1) that narrative can be used for manipulating people once they feel guilty; and 2) it teaches unscrupulous people to constantly be looking for scapegoats to achieve redemption without having to reflect on their own behaviour and its consequences.

     Does anyone know if there is something else in the Christian doctrine, maybe akin to karma, to balance this out?

269. Hey JMG
     that reminds me of that time some scientists managed to create semi-transparent wood by chemically removing its lignin and replacing it with a transparent resin.

     https://www.cbc.ca/radio/quirks/scientists-develop-transparent-wood-that-is-stronger-and-lighter-than-glass-1.5902739

     Another thing I wondered about is whether technology that requires mirrors could still be feasible without metal access. Without mirrors most forms of concentrated solar thermal, heliographs and instruments like large telescopes are not possible to make as far as I am aware. With regard to solar thermal, I read somewhere that it was discovered that reflectors that were made of bright white paper, or snow, were discovered to have a moderate ability to reflect and concentrate solar heat, but this still leaves many other mirror-based technology out of reach.

270. Anyone agree with me that the twice-yearly disruption of one’s day by fiddling with the clocks is unnecessary? If the standard working day were arranged to be symmetrical around noon – i.e. 8 to 4 instead of 9 to 5, so we had four working hours in the morning and four in the afternoon – it would “save daylight” automatically.

271. @Rebecca, That’s fantastic! I’ll put you on my thank you list in my prayer this week.
     @Quin, regarding your question about nuclear energy. It is hard to find energy assessments that are comprehensive beyond a certain degree. I credit our host with a wonderful ability to bring together disparate datasets that give him a clearer overall view.
     I talked to a retired nuclear engineer a couple of years ago who has become an anti-nuclear activist in our area and suggested to him that the EROEI of nuclear energy might be negative (i.e., less than one) and he denied that, but he would have been looking at a narrowly defined system, not considering the other costs, part of which constitute the reasons for his anti-nuke stance.
     One thing to keep in mind in all of this is that countries are heavily motivated to acquire the ability to produce nuclear weapons on quick notice, as we see right now with Iran. It became clear to me a while back that any country without nukes, such as Iraq, Libya and Syria and now Ukraine, ran the risk of hostile invasions. This is much of the hidden motivation for nuclear energy in Japan, too. The questionably wonderful energy performance is the fig leaf they’re using for deniability, so no way do they want you looking behind it.
     In Japan, the Citizens’ Nuclear Information Center https://cnic.jp/english/ has a lot of information on all the problems with nuclear energy. I haven’t seen them produce EROEI data. I’ll ask them if anyone has done it.

272. Another topic, if you don’t mind it…
     Some times, I can enjoy a bit of Schadenfreude feeling, when I read certain news in the mainstream media. Well, this time I’ve found a very woke politician of my country in trouble, because of being accused of several cases of sexual harassment and abuses. There are no “hard” court evidences yet, but some women have accused him in social and legacy media

     https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/sexual-abuse-allegations-rock-spains-ruling-coalition-2024-10-25/

     It’s ironic that one of the most woke politician of my country would be culprit of sexual violence against women, it says a lot about (lack of) ethics and hypocrisy in a “feminist” public man.
     Pau attention, please, to his pathetic subterfuge for his unapropiate behaviour…OK, patriarchy is the big subterfuge always. Oh.
     He has also told to the legacy media that he has mental health trouble and he had gone to the therapist. Ahem ahem…
     What do you think about this pharisaic behavior? Do you have seen in your countries more cases of woke men being in fact sexual predators?

273. Well, Wer, I’ve read your post and I’ve been struck by this information that you’ve given to the rest of kommentariat:
     “Media in Poland is blowing up a fuse over “a gang of fascists in Kazan” and proclaiming that “BRICS will soon collapse” just like “Putin has cancer and will die in three weeks ” repeated endlessly for the last three years here for the record.”
     I usually complain about the lack of moral integrity and love of truth that my country MSM media shows without shame every day. However, I see Polish media are even more reckless, irresponsible and compulsive liar! I’m sorry for you, Polish people.

274. Hi John Michael,

     Thank you for the honest reply, and can only but hope that time continues your healing journey. Some holes can never be filled, and remain the way they are. There is joy to be had in life too, the unexpected companionable chats, chance encounters, and for the writer, there is continuing dialogue and intellectual stimulation. But yeah, I do most of my writing alone as well, that seems to be the way of things, yet you share those works, and who knows what winds will blow which minds! 🙂 Get thee back into peak oil! Although I can see from afar that you are very much enjoying the Wagnerian sequence – that’s the good thing about the freedom to choose your topics.

     The shame about the climate change movement, is that it isn’t very seriously pursuing workable solutions. Progress is a contradiction at the core of the beast.

     Oh! There was a state election down here today. Queensland. Looks like they’ll have a change of government to the conservatives. It’s been remarked upon elsewhere that oppositions don’t win elections, governments lose them.

     Cheers

     Chris

275. Hi JMG, I mentioned some time ago animal studies about the lymphatic vessels responsible for clearing cerebrospinal fluid. More recently, this has been demonstrated in humans, using dye+MRI scans in human volunteers who are already having brain surgery for other reasons:

     https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/brain-waste-clearance-system-shown-people-first-time

276. JMG replied: “Lathechuck, that’s the one thing I haven’t seen anybody mention at all. It’s fascinating to me, since you’d think the first question to ask is “what happened?”

     It’s only a guess, but I’d guess it happened during a “burn” being done to keep the thing in its proper position. Maybe a leaky valve on a thruster. I wonder what the area of the geostationary altitude sphere is compared to that of low earth orbit. I guess I’d have to look up the altitudes and then it would be simple math to figure it out. Hmmm; formula for the area of the surface of a sphere given the radius …. Then perhaps you’d have to reduce that area to match the usable part of that sphere, mostly above the equator, I think. But the fragments from the explosion wouldn’t be confined to the usable part of the sphere – they would fly off in all directions. It would still have to be a much greater area than low earth orbit, implying that Kessler syndrome collisions would be much less likely. I’ll bet that any of the engineers or scientists who post here could explain it a lot better than I just did. I’m better at discussing “Moby-Dick.”

277. @Luke Z, JMG: I’m really looking forward to working with both The Way of the Four Elements (on the shelf), and The Earth Mysteries Workbook. I am moving a bit more slowly through the OPW, but am rounding the corner. I am meditating in each part twice because I am also doing scryings of all 33 of the SGO glyphs, about one between every OPW lesson or every other, depending on what is going on in my life otherwise. I am rounding the corner on that too, and its been quite the ride.

     One of the things I hope to do with the two next books is use them for a long term project I’ve had in bits and pieces of really exploring the spiritual and magical dimensions of the landscape I am in, and hopefully sharing that with others in the form if a gazetteer of the area. Not sure what the scope is, but the watershed of the Miami Valley is what Id like to do, but its pretty big. I’ve written some articles on the occult history of Cincinnati and will want to expand on that as well. The way I see it, this course will give me some of tge tools I need to do a better job. I want to share with the others the excitement I have about my hometown and the enchantment of it. I hope to start on those books by spring.

278. Bad Cat nailing the rise of ‘Gheghis Trump’ here I think. – and I particularly include even the last few days in this:

     https://boriquagato.substack.com/p/genghis-trump
     ‘The Invocation of Nemesis’
     “overmuch pride leads to hubris, hubris calls down nemesis, and nemesis lays pride low.”

     I will be watching proceedings with more than interest from this side of the pond.
     Jay Pine

279. @LeGrand Cinq-Mars: re: visual substrates: that seems as plausible as anything I’ve seen on it.

280. @JMG:
     Perhaps your magical wards also protect you from malevolent spam 😉

281. It appears that Israel launched its long awaited attack on Iran using air launched cruise and ballistic missiles. According to Larry Johnson, along with videos of the Tehran night sky following the attack , it was a total failure. The Iranians aided by the Russian satellite and radar complex and Russian antiaircraft systems shot down every single missile.
     If this turns out to be true it could be a major step down the ladder for the American Empire. Hopefully it will also put a damper on the rush to World War III.

282. @Siliconguy #185

     Yes, what you’re describing seems to be similar to the situation here: rising population but fewer children, plus the sheer expense of running these specialized high schools in rural areas.

     As for parents taking their kids out of schools, I don’t see that being much of a factor here. First because Norwegians still overwhelmingly trust the public school system, in spite of some negative media attention around it lately. Homeschooling is legal but seen as something only those oh-so-declasse conservative Christians or crazy hippies do. Private schools are also fairly rare and strictly regulated here. They have to demonstrate an alternative pedagogy (ie. Waldorf or Montessorri in practice), so you can’t just start an alternative to the public ones with the same curriculum. Second, the current situation is mainly about high schools, with many students in various trades programs leading to apprenticeships. That’s not really something parents can provide an alternative for.

     So while I haven’t looked into it really in-depth, I’m inclined to believe it really is mainly about demographics. While high schools are administered at the county/regional level, municipalities are responsible for elementary and middle schools, and many of these are also being shut down. There seems to be an extra culprit here in that a lot of municipalities have borrowed a lot of money (some say for vanity building projects), and with the economic downturn and higher interest rates, they’re now finding themselves squeezed for funds.

283. Resource! A book I found on my lobby’s hall table: “The Electoral College: Critical to our Republic.” “A project by Turning Point USA.” A reasoned defense of the Electoral College as a defense against government by demagogues, with the historical background, election by election, and how the College and the overriding of it by some states has played out in practice. One interesting fact: A massive chink of Hillary Clinton’s popular vote came from New York and from greater Los Angeles: without the E.C., those two cities could have determined the entire election. As a former New Mexican, which is to say, “typical small state,” that’s upsetting. That said small state has gone with the “popular vote says all” doesn’t seem to be in their best interests. (And a local ballot measure to have Alachua County elections at-large instead of by district was the target of one of those big card-stock ads showing distressed black people and claiming this would ride roughshod over their interests. The fine print said the ads was put out by “the social justice committee,” presumably of the NAACP, which endorsed this ad. I honestly can’t see how this would happen, unless they were counting on Gainesville to dominate the at-large vote.)

     As soon as I finish reading it closely instead of the quick scan, it’s going on my shelves next to my copy of the Constitution and Declaration of Independence.

     On another tangent: I remember when the League of Women Voters was nonpartisan, and moderated the nation’s political debates. Some faction or group in power, I forget who, decided to stop doing that and began the system we have now. Meanwhile, the LWV has been preaching the Democratic Party’s line, the GOP candidates refuse to answer their questions, and I finally dropped membership. Likewise, the ACLU used to make a point of defending even the neo-Nazis’ right to free speech; these days the rights they seem to be concerned with are all those of the identity-based movements, and I haven’t caught them yet defending the rights of even the MAGA movement to their free speech. I’ve dropped them, too. For what it’s worth

284. Mr. Greer, did you happen to watch any of the Rogan/Orange de Julius interview. I watched clips of said event courtesy of ZHedge. Imagine if you will: A disturbance in the Force … as a zillion screaming karens & chads, hangers-on-by-their-nails m$m knews nincompoops, neoCON$ .. plus that intolerably spiteful coven from the VIEW – all were apoplectically silenced in their hateful projection! … well, at least for one nano second.

285. And Then, to top it off, there was that Beyonce-NOT Beyonce concert/Harris rally Friday night. Me thinks that the incumbent VP did not win the favor amongst the crowd of pissed-off denizens… tick, tick, Tock!

286. SLClaire, thanks for this. That’s an inspiring story.

     Jessica, hmm! That’s certainly plausible.

     Thomas, thank you for this. One of the reasons that I tend to make such a point of talking about the downsides of malefic magic, and brooding over negativity generally, is that I also had a pretty miserable childhood and came out of it with a boatload of resentments. I cherished my resentments in childhood because they were essential to my survival — only by being resentful could I remind myself that the garbage being dumped on me was not right and not fair, that injuries done to me mattered in some sense. As I reached adulthood, though, I realized that all that anger and resentment was poisoning me, and — with a great deal of help from my late wife — I tackled the process of letting go of the burden. I’m delighted to hear that you had a similar awakening; each person who overcomes the weight of past misery in that way adds to the prospects for a better world.

     Eike, I suspect that’s why the DEI craze is on its way out. When push comes to shove, corporations are in business to make money, and imposing woke values on the process reliably has the opposite effect. I wonder just how profound the blowback will be.

     Stephen, that’s a good question. I could see evangelical Christianity doing very well among those who aren’t into the “bells and smells” way of worship, but only if it refocuses away from endless ranting about politics and toward the development of personal spirituality. The little storefront churches here in East Providence that seem to be doing best are those that focus on helping parishioners get their lives in order and pursue a life of prayer, Bible study, and moral virtue. As for the next major religion, that’s impossible to say, for the same reason that nobody in Rome in 100 AD could have picked Christianity out of the ferment of new religions of the time and said, “This is the one that will supplant the worship of Jupiter.” The next great religion of North America has probably already been born, but right now it’s a small circle of disciples around an oddball mystic in Tennessee, or an enthusiastic little religion in South Korea that’s about to send its first missionaries to Los Angeles and Seattle, or something like that.

     Daniel, interesting. Can you point me to a source for that, so I can cite the figures?

     Larkrise, sit down sometime with people who support Trump and ask them what they think about the claims you’ve made. You may be surprised to find that things are nothing like as black vs. white as you’ve painted them — and that this label “fascist” can be turned both ways. You might also find reading this blog post informative, as it deals with your question very directly.

     Curt, thanks for this. Is a handcrafted motor for a small airplane possible? Why, yes, and it’s been done. Here’s the first documented example:
     
     Yes, that’s the Wright brothers’ original powered airplane. They were bicycle mechanics, remember, and they built all the components of their early planes themselves, using hand tools.

     Viking, I wasn’t raised in the Christian faith but the doctrine of original sin is one of the reasons I never considered converting to it, for much the same reasons you’ve sketched out. It’s worth noting, though, that original sin is only a theological concept in the Western Christian churches (Catholic and Protestant). As far as I know the Eastern churches (Orthodox, Coptic, etc.) don’t accept it.

     J.L.Mc12, it takes only very small amounts of metal to turn a glass surface into a mirror, and that much will probably be available for a long time. Lenses are also an option, since they concentrate light and heat powerfully and can be made from glass. Imagine a solar water heater in which a row of square lenses concentrates heat on a glass tube through which water flows!

     Robert, I think abolishing the “daylight savings” charade would be a wonderful thing!

     Chuaquin, it’s odd how often that happens.

     Chris, oh, I’ll be fine. This isn’t my first serious grief and I’m tolerably familiar with the stages; after a year or so I’ll doubtless start dating again; while the absence and the sorrow never go away, that’s never the whole of life, and there’ll be plenty of good days ahead. As for peak oil, I think it’s time. As I mentioned over on Dreamwidth, I just scored a fine old 1970s-era solar oven at my favorite local thrift store for next to nothing, and I’m taking that as an omen that it’s time to start circling back toward green wizardry again.

     John N., many thanks for this! That’s fascinating, and highly relevant to some of my research.

     Phutatorius, so noted.

     Jay, thanks for this. The Bad Cat’s always worth a glance.

     Methylethyl, if that’s true, I can see a whole new way of marketing magic — and it’s also true that it’s been quite a while since I’ve had anyone call me about the warranty for the car I don’t have… 😉

     Clay, interesting. I’ve seen very little about it in the news so far.

     Patricia M, thanks for the heads up.

     Polecat, nope. I don’t do visual media, remember? I hear it was pretty entertaining, though.

287. World Bank population projections

     https://images.mauldineconomics.com/uploads/newsletters/Chart_3_20241026-TFTFa.png

288. @Curt (#267):

     One could certainly cross North America on foot in the past: there are a few non-Indigenous individuals who did so in the 1800s (IIRC), and if even they could do it, more than a few Indigenous people surely did so too, also in earlier centuries.

     The distribution of Indigenous languages and language families strongly suggests that such transcontinental journeys happened a lot, and the more wide-spread groups of closely related (and mutually intelligible) languages would have made such journeys even easier. Here’s one map of the language families:
     https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigenous_languages_of_the_Americas#/media/File:Langs_N.Amer.svg

     And even without individuals traversing the entire continent, these families of closely related languages provided transcontinental “pipelines” for coast-to-coast communications. (The close “coincidence” of the two most nearly successful uprisings against European colonizers happening within a few years of one another is likely no coincidence at all, but a result of transcontinental communication: King Philip’s War in New England (1675-1678) and the Pueblo Revolt in the Southwest (1680).

     @Phutatorius (#276):

     My father’s last job as an engineer was at Stanford University working on orbit-stabilization systems for satellites. From what he told me about his work, your explanation makes a good deal of sense.

     Orbits naturally decay, so a stable satellite needs some means of correcting its course automatically. His project achieved this by including in each satellite a component stabilized by three gyroscopes at right angles to one another, which always sensed orbital decay as it does occur, and after a certain threshold triggered the appropriate thruster to fire, and thus correct the satellite’s orbit. This only works as long as the thrusters have fuel, so every satellite needs a reservoir of combustible fuel and a system of tubes and gaskets to supply it to the thrusters. This may sometimes decay, as plumbing naturally does; or a small meteorite strike may disrupt it, so that there can easily be leaks of thruster fuel, and thus the potential for an explosion that destroys the satellite.

289. I did not find evidence on the web for the Aztec spider silk armor on the web, which I mentioned previously.

     @JMG

     indeed – so they also hand produced the entire otto motor?

     One other thing I wonder about as a non-technician is the precision of metal workings needed to hand produce an otto-motor from scratch. The Wright brothers certainly had a lathe and other tools available, probably also welding(?) back then.

     I saw a video reconstructing the probably crafting of the Antikythera mechanism. That was bronze, so much softer of course. They used some rope, probably with sand or so, to carve fine details of the bronze cog-wheels.

     I guess skilled smiths of the baroque age already knew to craft very fine and precise metal pieces.

290. @J.L.Mc12 (#269):

     IIRC, the Aztecs made mirrors out of polished obsidian.

291. * Ichcahuipilli was the Aztec cotton armor – effective against bullets also

292. On the satellite, apparently it’s been a problem child since launch,

     https://spaceflightnow.com/2017/01/30/intelsat-satellite-in-service-after-overcoming-engine-trouble/

     The owners lost control of it several days before it came apart and had turned over control to someone to try to recover it when it exploded.

     “Intelsat 33e is based on a Boeing 702MP satellite platform equipped with two-component chemical engines. According to the scientist, they could have used an efficient but toxic fuel vapor of unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide. “The explosion in this case would have been quite powerful,” he pointed out.”

     https://tass.com/science/1859913

     Keeping in mind that spacecraft want as much energy in as little weight as possible so if there is a malfunction in the system the results will be energetic.

     As for the local school district, the population went up 4% since 2020, but they are closing an elementary school.

293. I don’t think Trump is going to become a dictator when he becomes president. The problem is that the US presidency and the US federal government in general has lot a lot of its power and legitimacy within the past few years and is currently losing more and more with each passing day due to its actions and lack thereof, and it is likely that huge portions of the country are simply going to ignore or resist what Trump does when he gets into office, similarly to how huge portions of the country ignored or resisted what the Biden administration tried to do in the past 4 years, or ignored or resisted Trump’s first administration.

     The people to actually pay attention to are the state governors like Newsom, Abbott, and DeSantis, and the entrepreneurial elites who back them, since the power vacuum on the federal level is going to lead to the states taking over. These governors are more likely to become mini-dictators of their own states than Trump becoming dictator of the United States. The United States will probably return to the situation it was in before the civil war, where it was more of a confederation of states than a single country, with a huge emphasis on the 10th amendment.

294. On a different but somewhat related note, it seems to me that the whole fuss about corporate and institutional endorsement of Diversity and Inclusivity serves as an attempt to focus the sense of injustice and unfairness that many feel about larger systemic issues onto a restricted set of newly “privileged” individuals, so as to make sure otherwise the status quo is essentially maintained. It further fosters in-fighting between different disenfranchised groups for recognition, while using some as scapegoats for the others.

295. @JMG
     Thanks for the pointer to the Orthodox Church.

     According to the Orthodox Church of America: “In the Orthodox Christian understanding, while humanity does bear the consequences of the original, or first, sin, humanity does not bear the personal guilt associated with this sin. Adam and Eve are guilty of their willful action; we bear the consequences, chief of which is death.”
     Source: https://www.oca.org/questions/teaching/st.-augustine-original-sin

     That is appears to be a much saner and balanced view to me.

296. @JMMC12
     Re3 making mirror without refined metal:
     Mirrors can be and have been made from polished “specular hematite”.
     One of the Native American civilizations did this. The used polished specular hematite to make mirrors to focus the suns rays to start a “holy” flame. I forget if it was the Incas or the Mayans who did this.

297. Beardtree @ 259, “deplorables, bitter clingers, embryo fascists and low class..” I can’t speak for others, but such is not my opinion. I know these people because I have been dealing with them all my adult life. IMO, they are the grifters, the guys and gals who play the angles, the big talking glad handers, the fixers and finaglers a “pro-business” lot who couldn’t make a useful product or graciously provide a needed service to save their lives. I think these folks are angry and resentful because they know but cannot accept that the grift is over. Easy street just closed up, and the gravy train left the station. Same phenomenon as PMC officialdom not being able to accept that society can no longer afford to finance their pretensions. Where the latter group are sneering and condescending, the former resort to angry insults and name calling.

     You want to know what Trump thinks about DEI? He said in an interview that he would like to give permanent residency, green card, to every foreign student who graduates from an American college or university. Why bother to finance American schools that would let us grow our own Drs., scientists and engineers when you can simply recruit from the offspring of overseas rich people.? Have you ever heard of the saying that the easy way to do something is usually the wrong way? Mr. You’re Fired doesn’t want actually to confront the entrenched education beaurocracies.

     Lame, lazy a** hiring has been the norm in much of American business since long before DEI was ever heard of. The guy with the tailored suit and the fake resume, the gal with the great looks and out-going personality the Mayor’s kid, the boss’s useless nephew–these were who anyone doing real work had to put up with and placate. Which is why, post Covid no one wanted to go back to work.

298. @Llewna maybe the West’s tip tapping around Israel could be explained by the existence of the “Samson Option”.

     @Quin @JMG I have recently been pondering over nuclear energy and peak oil and to be fair I am not so sure about the “peak economically extractable energy” argument. Lots of thing that make no economic sense are happening just because people are not rational actors and are committed to them…
     My employer keeps taking jobs that not only don’t pay for themselves but make him go negative…just so that he can keep us employed…
     I don’t find it hard to believe that oil of whatever quality will keep being extracted for no other reason that jets and tanks need it…
     It reminds me of the ruins of the Linea Cadorna, a series of fortifications dispersed all throughout the italian Alps…a single hill fortification took 2 years and 20 thousand workers to be carved out in the mountain side? How economically viable was that? Probably not much…

     @Clay Dennis the wind is changing…maybe the time has come again, for aging men with long white beards to talk limits and wisdom and spirituality while young men around the world are preparing for war (chances are the beards will go unheard, the drums of war have started beating a lot time ago, but it is still needed for them to speak)

299. I look forward to seeing a new series of green wizard-ish posts on here. That sounds fun, informative, and useful.

300. Larkrise, I don’ t have Trump Derangement Syndrome either. What I do have is well-honed sociopath avoidance antennae. It is part of situational awareness. Enter a room, do a quick scan to ID anyone who could be dangerous. I am simply not willing to take the chance on having Vance in the Oval Office.

     As for Harris, I admit to a soft spot for earnest strivers, the people who do what they are supposed to do and simply do the best they can. Maybe they are not Einstein, but they are not law-breakers and boundary pushers either. Civilization is built on the efforts of such people, people who do not lie, cheat, steal, or openly insult others.

301. The Trump/Rogan interview was pretty entertaining indeed! I listened to the whole thing at work today and had to laugh out loud at a few things the Don said. My favorite new Trump quote is „I wanna be a whale psychotherapist“ – I leave it without context for best effect.
     Jokes aside, Trump came across as a one-of-a-kind, pretty eccentric, self-loving, but ultimately likable and genuine guy. His favorite idea in the world is tariffs, and he wants to fix as many problems with them as possible. Let’s hope the events in BRICS-land don’t overtake him, but I think there’s still enough buying power in the US to entice foreign companies to set up factories there in order to avoid sky-high import taxes.
     I stick with my collapse prediction for now, but between his interview and one with Vance I also listened to (smart and decent guy as far as I can tell, didn’t perceive any psychopath vibes) there is a sense of urgency and can-do enthusiasm connected to their campaign that might make a difference.

     Given the other option, I‘d say you guys over there should definitely give Trump a second chance.

     With Musk as an additional megalomaniacal crook on board, you can probably expect lots of carnival shenanigans, tall tales and outright fraud from this administration, but however compromised people like Trump and Elon are (the latter more so than the former, I feel), they can sense the vibe of the country and inspire people, and I think that’s a good thing.

     What I find most remarkable about the two parties‘ campaigns is that team red is all about personalities (Trump, Vance, Elon, RFK jr), people who are not afraid to speak their mind and have a visible profile, while team red is nothing but obstruse machinery, bland slogans and a puppet candidate without any character, like some alien entity‘s attempt at manufacturing a campaign without any understanding of human beings.
     Maybe this is what populism vs The Machine looks like.

     Let’s hope the people make a wise choice on Election Day, and that the result will be accepted without too much chaos.

302. Hello JMG and commentariat, about the US military, I read a while ago a very interesting article by Eric Prince, founder of Blackwater. Perhaps you already read it, but otherwise it may be an interesting, if unsettling, read. Mr Prince gives many historical examples of policy failures, corruption and the misuse of the militaries of the US. His examples go back to the 1990’s. Sometimes it is almost comedy if only the consequences were not so grave. (“When the German army arrived in Kabul in the spring of 2002, among their concerns was finding appropriate housing for all the gay couples deployed in the Bundeswehr. “).

     In the final part he summerizes the situation as follows:
     “The current policy model of US security assistance is broken and counterproductive. The US military is the most expensive organization in 3,000 years of human history and has degenerated into an instrument for selling or grifting overpriced military hardware to countries that struggle to use it, let alone maintain it. The US military mows the lawn with Lamborghinis, when Kubota tractors is what our allies need. ”

     I think you already know most of it, but it was an interesting and candid read from an insider. I don’t think his proposed solution of more privatisation will be the magical bullet (and he might have an interest in that solution) but he surely makes the case that the US military has been maltreated to a high degree https://im1776.com/too-big-to-win/

303. I meant team blue, of course it’s not team red vs team red.

304. @dropbear #169
     I think they do exist here, just they are a small percentage of a relatively small population that is spread across a large geographic area. And to boot they are almost entirely in rural and regional areas making it harder still. The cities are probably close to 100% PMC, and the rest is probably pretty close. To get to play in the housing Ponzi scheme/scam here you need to be PMC or an aspirant so rules in most people either by choice or (what they feel is) necessity. Great band name- though if someone used it she would stamping her foot at the halls of power like with her portrait.

     Mr Kemble

305. I highly recommend the essay on the effects of WWI contributed by John Zybourne above. Looking at the developments of the rest of the 20th and even 21st century through the lens of 1914 is surprisingly fertile.

     When mentioning the socialists who predicted the outbreak of the Great War, I would have name-dropped Rosa Luxemburg, who absolutely nailed it and who made a principled stand against the war!

     And one could extend the reverberations of WWI to the cultural field. The disappearance of a large part of a very gifted generation on the battlefields, and how the survivors dealt with their survival, JRR Tolkien among them.

306. JMG, recently 44 climate scientists wrote an open letter warning that the AMOC could collapse within a few decades (https://en.vedur.is/media/ads_in_header/AMOC-letter_Final.pdf). I wonder if there is not a mechanism that would stop the collapse. As the AMOC slows down due to melting ice in Greenland making the see less salt, it would also lead to Greenland becoming colder and that would stop the melting of the ice. Or do I overlook something here? I would love to hear your take.

307. @Justin Patrick Moore

     We are working on the same area of land, fwiw. There’s a whole bunch of sites and stories here to work with. There’s even more if you include a 2 hour radius or so. I checked out Hocking Hills, somewhat unplanned, but had a pretty profound experience on one of the trails. I grew up literally 30 seconds from a site/story and still spend half my time there. I just received a book on the local Native Americans (Mound builders). I hope you have as much fun with all of this as I am having.

308. I’ve been really confused about why we do Daylight Savings Time my whole life. How’s it go, “cut a foot off the top of your blanket and sew it on the bottom and think you have a longer blanket”?

     Many years ago the voters of California voted to stop changing the clocks. But nothing has happened. Turns out if you read the fine print, we just voted to ALLOW the legislators to change it. Apparently, they’re not interested.

     I think one of the sticking points is whether to stay on Standard Time, or DST all year. Why not split the difference, move it half an hour, and leave it? Compromise?

     And don’t give me that line about school children shivering in the dark at the bus stop in the morning. It seems it would be much less disruptive to society to have the school change the hours of attendance twice a year than making everyone do it.

     And if it’s about daylight, why do we change to winter hours halfway between the autumnal equinox and the winter solstice, but we don’t change back until near the spring equinox? Shouldn’t we switch back around Groundhog Day?

     Let’s just say, I’m not a fan of changing the clocks twice a year.

309. @Viking 268:

     As our host has already mentioned, original sin in the sense you described is a doctrine in Western Christianity, not in all Christianity. Even in the West there were and are other voices: Augustine emphasized original sin in his fight against Pelagius, who denied it. Ever since, ‘Pelagianism’ has been one of the favourite heresies among Western Christians, because of the very problems with you described.

     The traditional basis for the doctrine of original sin is the story of the Fall from the Book of Genesis, together with the fifth chapter of Paul’s Letter to the Romans. Both texts can be intepreted very differently, though. What you described is the Augustinian reading: Adam brought a special kind of moral pollution into the world, and during every sexual conception this is transmitted from the parents to the child. Jesus then somehow helps people to wash away said pollution, one person at a time. Note that a better name for this idea is ‘hereditary sin’.

     The Pelagian reading, which is also the standard one in Eastern Christianity, is this. Adam’s original sin brought death and imperfection into the world. It does not mean a moral taint on people born after him, only that they are born into a world that is worse than it could have been, a world where the right way is difficult and the wrong way is easy. Jesus’s sacrifice was a kind of ransom payment to Death, or to the Devil, that in some sense made this defect in the world less dramatic. (I am not sure how this is to be understood exactly.) In particular, Jesus’s real importance is not as a scapegoat but as a benefactor. Note that this concept could still be called ‘original sin’, but there is no ‘hereditary sin’.

     My personal opinion is that the second story not only makes much more sense, it is also a much more philologically sound interpretation of what the Gospels actually say. They use terms referring to the manumission of slaves, not to redirected punishment.

     Two further remarks: First, some of stranger views of certain Christians only make sense within the Augustinian framework; among these are the Immaculate Conception of Mary (for Pelagians the whole point is moot) and Predestination (Pelagians tend to emphasize free will).

     Second, the Pelagian notion of original sin comes close to the occult notion of the Lemurian deviation, as explained by our host here: https://www.ecosophia.net/notes-on-the-lemurian-deviation/

310. @Clay #281

     If it’s true that Iran shot all the missiles down, that is hilarious! I heard about it on National Propaganda Radio this morning and the line was, I think from Big Joe himself, that (paraphrasing here): “We hope this won’t escalate the war, because no civilian targets were hit.”

     How’s that for spin?

311. Regarding the political commentary, I have been continuing with my translation of Kerning/Krebs’ Ebb and Flow, set around the 1848 revolutions in Europe, and thought this little excerpt might be worth meditating upon for some (the context is two purported revolutionaries of somewhat opposing views who have been whisked away to France by a friend of their families before the mass arrests began – that family friend is the speaker):

     “My two friends are genuine patriots and thus of a mind that it would be a pity if they were not to become the closest friends because of differences of ways for the fulfillment of their love for the fatherland. Different paths are in life very often struck out on for one and the same goal, without that the freeman is led astray thereby, meanwhile the short-sighted, pedantic man is as a result induced to hate and persecution. The difference of paths divides the power of humanity and hinders it mostly from performing something great. Thus it is also with you; the spirit of party wrecks your undertakings, even if they were expedient, already in advance. If you then consider fully the spite which stands betweens the parties, and seeks to draw advantage from each, then it is no surprise if all the eccentric cosmopolitan plans fail and expose their advocates to scorn. But as soon as we observe rationally and see in the history of all times and nations not only in political, but even in religious respect, always the same phenomena, then we shall finally conclude that nature does not want any violent revolutions, rather it wants to grow, flourish and bear fruits according to specific laws. You will allow me after this preamble to examine your views before you and to console you that none of your ideas have been realised.”

312. Dear JMG, yes I understand that the issue is, “do you want these people in power to keep harassing and haranguing you or do you want to take a chance that someone (however imperfect) might be able to do something about it?” I understand the diagnosis. I just wonder about the wisdom of those who feel that Trump is indeed the cure.

     There is something very rotten in the state of Denmark. The Democrats are ghastly, something needs to give. But Trump isn’t the answer. He won’t “do something about it”, but will smash everything up, cause immense suffering, and while doubtlessly destroying the bureaucratic/corporate nightmare that America has become, install the equally grim alternative, the oligarchy.

     Nemesis arrived in Germany in the 30s. I do wonder how many people who voted for Hitler in disgust at the rot and decay and moral turpitude of the Weimar Republic would feel, ten years later, that it had been the right move, that the orgy of destruction had been worth it.

     What about a third way? The patient taking-back of power into the hands of the people, through democratic processes which are still, just about, available? Trump will dismantle these, I have no doubt. America will throw out the baby with the bathwater and it will be a long road back.

     I understand that people “want to burn the existing system down to the ground”. But what happens when the fire gets out of control and engulfs the innocent, as it will?
     This is Sorceror’s Apprentice territory. The fire will burn until it has no more fuel. The very people who started the fire will also be fuel for it. The same happened with Brexit. The poor and fed up are now more poor and fed up. The rich are laughing.

     Those who don’t know history are condemned to repeat it. It seems that those who do know history, ditto.

     Well then, bring it on. The cure is worse than the disease but hey ho. Needs must when the devil drives.

313. Thanks for your explanation, JMG! I must admit to complete ignorance as to if and how the former Twitter has ever made profit, so I have no idea if now, after the mass firing, it makes more or if it makes any at all. In general, I think the big tech companies make money on quasi-monopolies, a bit like the East and West India companies used to do. The word entrepreneurial sounds strange when a tech CEO’s success is mainly an exercise in writing laws in their own favor.

     I do recall that years ago, when Elon Musk still preferred the Democratic party, you said his greatest talent was in milking the government for subsidies, and I wonder if your opinion about him has changed. Similar things could be said about great parts of the real-estate sector.

     That is why I imagine the future ruling “entrepreneurs” more like those on my list above: salvage industrialists, pimps, cons and condottieri. I am ready to be proven wrong if somebody starts making a profit out of selling food, refrigerators, lamps or whatever, after firing most of the managers.

314. Eike with an „i“ says:
     “Let’s hope the people make a wise choice on Election Day, and that the result will be accepted without too much chaos.”

     This seems an apposite time to trot out my favorite Woody Allen quote:
     “More than any other time in history, mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other, to total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly.”
     Har har har!
     Trump v. Harris. What sort of choice is that to put before a citizen? And that’s your choice, kids – it’s a 2-party system. A foul, corrupt 2-party system. This is the ‘best’ they could come up with. This just might be the first presidential election that I sit out. My first presidential vote was for Jimmy Carter in ’76…

315. The Washington Post announced it won’t be endorsing any candidate this US presidential election:

     https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/10/25/washington-post-endorsement/

316. Well, it turns out that Beyonce was, after spewing some heels-up accolades was . . out(a-here!!)… to be substituted with .. get this – Willy Nelson!! Oh the shame! Me thinks ol’ Willy Fd-up.. Bigly like.. just sayin. Tis like the Big Boy Band .. taking on the feeble Spinal Tap – dialed to 11 no less! … with all the resultant implosion of the former ..

317. erm .. sorry, I meant the, ahem, later!

318. Siliconguy, thanks for this.

     Curt, yep. Most early gasoline engines were made by hand, since they were a specialty product until Henry Ford’s time. As for baroque metalwork, consider this:
     
     A smith who could do that excruciatingly precise detailing could easily make an engine, given an understanding of the underlying physics.

     Viking, that seems like a fair assessment to me. As for Orthodoxy, if it works for you, I’m sure you’ll find a hearty welcome there.

     Monkeypilled, oh, granted, but there’s quite a difference between extracting a little oil to run planes and tanks, and running enough to keep an industrial civilization going. It’s quite possible that two centuries from now, the nations then in existence will put the trickle of oil that’s left to use fueling small fleets of planes and naval vessels for reasons of national prestige, while most of their citizens work at subsistence agriculture or the kind of factories where every step is done by workers with hand tools.

     Pygmycory, glad to hear it.

     Eike, the “whale psychologist” business was picked up enthusiastically by all of Kekistan:
     

     Boccaccio, I did indeed see that. It’s a great profile of what happens to militaries in the twilight of corrupt civilizations. As for the AMOC, no, because that’s not going to cool the Arctic any — the effects of the AMOC on climate are east of the North Atlantic. If it shuts down, Britain’s going to have the climate of Labrador for a while, until shifting climate belts warm it further.

     KAN, thank you for this.

     Larkrise, if you vote for the Democrats nothing is going to change. That’s why so many people are taking a chance on Trump, and why the kind of arguments you’re rehashing aren’t convincing very many of them. It’s all very well for you to say “something has to give,” but you can bet your bottom dollar that anyone who actually attempts to change things will be slapped by the corporate media with all the labels you’re regurgitating here. At some point, shrieking “Nazi!” loses its effect — not least when so many of the ones doing the shrieking are also trying to suppress free speech, and otherwise behaving like, you know, Nazis…

     Aldarion, oh, I’m pretty sure it makes money by packaging and selling people’s data, or doing something else equally slimy. My guess is that for a while, it will in fact be possible to make more money selling refrigerators after firing most of the managers, and that this will happen shortly, but we’ll see!

319. @Larkrise #312 You fear Trump will dismantle present democratic processes? To me this is an over the top statement. I saw the democratic establishment make sure those processes didn’t work in the primary processes leading up to ensure Hilary Clinton and Biden would have a smooth ride to being candidates. Is Trump planning to stop local elections, state elections, national congressional elections, become president for life? I believe he wants to remove and replace some of the top levels of the federal bureaucracy so his policies won’t be resisted, if that takes place it would be because of the normal. constitutional process of choosing a new head of the executive branch. not a breach of democracy. If four years later if a democrat president is voted in he or she or they or xe could do the same – democracy in action. We have a former democratic presidential candidate – John Kerry stating the first amendment is blocking effective governance and Hilary Clinton publicly advocated criminalizing “misinformation” https://www.johnlocke.org/does-clinton-really-want-to-jail-americans-for-misinformation/ Can you share specifics on Trump’s current plans to dismantle democratic processes? Making sure voters are citizens and actually exist and actually voted?

320. Another one, and get a load of the prediction;

     “On a Wednesday earnings call, NextEra Energy CEO John Ketchum told investors that the company may restart the shuttered 600-megawatt Duane Arnold Energy Center (DAEC), Iowa’s only nuclear power plant. It’s located on the west bank of the Cedar River, about eight miles northwest of Cedar Rapids.

     “As a top operator of all forms of power generation, we often get asked about nuclear and gas,” Ketchum told investors.

     He explained, “Let me start with nuclear. Nuclear will play a role, but there are some practical limitations. Remember, on a national level, we expect we are going to need to add 900 gigawatts of new generation to the grid by 2040,” adding, “There are only a few nuclear plants that can be recommissioned in an economic way. We are currently evaluating the recommissioning of our Duane Arnold nuclear plant in Iowa as one example.”

     For comparison, the BPA, that is all the dams on the Columbia plus the nuclear plant “The federal system has a total capacity — capacity is the maximum generating potential — of 17,462 megawatts, and an-energy output —energy is the normal power production — of 9,871 average megawatts.”

     So 90 more BPAs? Really? 820 Vogtle 3 size (1.1 GW each) reactors? And in 15 years?

     Obviously their home brew is much stronger than mine.

321. JMG,
     I have been getting the feeling ( reinforced by some of the strident political comments on this thread) that if Trump wins, especially by the huge margins that I now think are likely it will lead to a widespread mental health breakdown among the Harris devotees.
     The same people that were unleashed on the shop windows, police stations and courthouses back in 2016 after Trumps first victory have now been marinated in 8 years of woke mind virus. They have been fully seeped in the victimhood of DEI. I think that this may have just made them so fragile that when Trump wins they will just lose their minds.

322. @DropBear, during my travels within Australia I’ve noticed a sharp ideological divide between rural and urban areas. The PMC has had little impact in rural areas to date, as it seems to have little to offer people that have a strong connection to the land. Where liberal ideology is creeping into rural areas, it’s doing so through government institutions, such as public schools.

     In urban areas, liberal ideology seems to be largely confined to the middle classes; again, it has little to offer the working class, and even less to culturally cohesive immigrant communities, who (based on my discussions with community reps), see it for what it is, a symptom of western civilisation decline.

     As to Australia not having an entrepreneurial base to replace the PMC, I recall JMG stating that the Long Descent doesn’t play out equally everywhere at the same time, as it’s heavily influenced by local conditions and historical context. So while the end of industrial civilisation will generally look similar in Australia to elsewhere, the details may be quite different.

323. “doubtlessly destroying the bureaucratic/corporate nightmare that America has become, install the equally grim alternative, the oligarchy.”

     The oligarchy is already here and Harris is part of it. Don’t confuse oligarchy with plutocracy. All plutocracies are oligarchys, but the reverse is not true.

     As for daylight savings time, California, Oregon, a nd Washington has all passed laws to switch to permanent DST as soon as Congress agrees. They have not done so. Congress has the last word because of the interstate commerce clause in the Constitution.

     Personally I would prefer permanent Standard time. The sunrise is late enough as it is and medical research suggests light early in the day is best for health.

324. @JMG It is somewhat by definition; since Kessler’s original paper was about LEO where there are a great many inclined and asynchronous orbiting objects in a relatively confined space. However I did further research just now and found some interesting results that do somewhat contradict my earlier statement; at least in specific cases.

     There is a useful paper that is easy reading here: https://aquarid.physics.uwo.ca/kessler/Kessler%20Syndrome-AAS%20Paper.pdf noting that many LEO orbital ranges are already unstable (ie potentially progressing into Kessler syndrome). The paper speculates that very particular higher orbits (geosync and semi-sync) are possibly unstable as well. This is confirmed for geosync by this research (article only, I could not find the actual paper): https://physicsworld.com/a/space-debris-threat-to-geosynchronous-satellites-has-been-drastically-underestimated/.

     But note that this isn’t like the movies where everything explodes at once, it is a progressive degradation over unpredictable timeframes that varies for different orbits and does reach an equilibrium. The (first) paper also makes an interesting observation that the scale of the debris field does not prevent intact objects existing in a particular orbit, it simply constrains the quantity (and relative size) of them.

     Throughout all this I couldn’t find any research on how much debris would be required to make all possible orbits dangerous; and I still think (confirmed by some napkin math) that is in the range of practically impossible for mankind given our energy limitations. Another point that isn’t like the movies is that transit is not greatly affected; the chance of a collision during ascent is small.

     The common trope of space being ‘inaccessible’ is, like most tropes, not really true; at least if you take large human-habitable space stations at trendy locations out of the equation. Very low orbits (Starlink-esque) clear themselves relatively quickly due to atmospheric drag and could be freely used by future civilisations. Also, there will almost certainly be a choice of higher orbits where lightly or moderately armoured radio communication satellites can exist in useful quantities. Maybe not in perfect orbits such as an exact geosync, but there is a very large world of possibilities outside of that.

325. Siliconguy, I’ve been seeing drivel like this all too often. It really hasn’t occurred to these people that there, are, hello, limits to every energy resource we have, and just because we think we want umpty-dozen godzillawatts of power doesn’t mean what they’re going to be available!

     Clay, I think that’s a real possibility. On the other hand, a great many other people will be celebrating like anything — and that may also put pressure on the brittle psyches of the wokistas.

     Daniel, thank you much for the references. I’m well aware that a Kessler syndrome is a slow process. Did you by any chance read my novel Retrotopia, where the early stages of a Kessler catastrophe in the midrange orbits is a background plot device? In that fictive future, what the main character describes as “a slow motion disaster” got started in LEO in 2029, and the explosion of a Brazilian satellite in a midlevel orbit starts blowing things up in that range in 2065, largely by hitting something in a graveyard orbit overcrowded with dead satellites.

326. Hey JMG

     I forgot about lens-based solar thermal. I usually think of mirror-based systems, or systems that work by heating rocks or water to store heat and transfer it. I imagined that without mirrors metal-less civilisations would be limited to the latter.

     One last idea I had concerning metal-less tech. Without large amounts of metal, the generators and batteries for producing voltaic electricity would be impossible. So, Future metal-less civilisations would need to turn to static electricity, which can be made from generators of glass and bioplastic.
     One problem is how to transmit static electricity without wires, which could be solved by ribbons of paper coated in a metal or carbon infused ink, or thin pipes full of salty water. Another is what they could do with static electricity that would be worth the effort of making it. The only thing that comes to mind is winnowing and filtering fine particles and making sparks for fun. Static motors could spin fans and light machinery.
     One thing it would be interested in knowing is if Radios could operate with static electricity. As far as I am aware the answer is no, but maybe a novel solution could be invented in the future.

327. @JMG
     You got a respecful mention on John Carter’s substack today:
     https://barsoom.substack.com/p/character-generation-on-the-carousel

     On the improbability of space travel:
     “This is a view he shares with the eminent archdruid John Michael Greer, a man whom both of us greatly respect”

328. DZANNI WOW!
     I never understood the one becoming 2 or nothing happens and a lot of what you laid out was just what I was ruminating on. That’s all I can articulate. I feel wow and that’s enough. Thanks

     Erika

329. @Mary Bennet re: honest strivers

     I‘m not trying to pick a fight here, rather trying to understand a point of view that’s very different from mine.
     I don’t see anything honest about Harris: she was installed into the candidacy with utter disregard for due process after having effectively lied to the public for years about Biden‘s dementia, and while she can’t formulate even the outline of a program, she’s all too ready to steal populist ideas from the Trump campaign.
     Her track record as a state prosecutor is pretty grim, which she never had to take a stance on, because she’s never faced even a neutral interviewer, much less a hostile one.
     She doesn’t stick to any principles, and has been changing positions on multiple issues, depending on favorability.

     Where do you get a sense of honesty from her?

     To me, she looks like a useful idiot, and I can only understand the existence of such a person in such a position because forces unknown want her there. As a smiley face for the public, as a fall guy, as a means to facilitate things they themselves don’t want to be accountable for.

     Given that her party openly attacks the liberties enshrined in your constitution, I find that a bit creepy.

     While I agree than non-offensive honest strivers hold the world together, she just doesn’t look like one to me.

     Can you share that assessment to any degree, or what do you see differently here?

     And I‘d like to hear about your concerns regarding Vance. As mentioned above, I heard him on a 1 hour-podcast and didn’t pick up any creepy vibes. What is it that puts you off about him? I‘m the first to admit that I‘m not good at reading people.

     I‘m also the first to admit that Trump is a crook and half of his ideas won’t work, but I guess I‘d rather have a transparent crook out in the open than an unknown gaggle of crooks behind a curtain.
     And I think it’s the Democrats (or more precisely: the political establishment, which is now more concentrated in the Dems) that have been undermining democracy. (Swapping Biden for Harris via an internal coup rather than a vote, advocating for censorship, close collusion with the mass media and big tech, etc.)
     All allegations that Trump intends to do undemocratic things come from his detractors, and much of that is just projection in my eyes.

     Lastly, I‘d like to hear about your information sources. Do you read or watch the news, or mostly alternative media?

     I‘m trying to understand how we can see the same thing in such different ways.

     Thanks for your time!

330. @Wetdog
     That JRE interview with Calley and Casey: Was truly remarkable. 2.5 hours and JR hardly got a word in edgewise. Those two came prepared, they talked fast, and boy did they have a lot to say! I hope that one gets amazing circulation.

331. @JMG

     Yes really impressive at that, the precision in metal work by hand.

     I passed through an old farm/smithy in Upper Austria with a friend of my fathers, retired, who grew up there as a child
     in the 1950/1960s. A rake for tilling lay on the ground there from that time, and he commented: “the thorns of the rake,
     fixed there without welding, only smithing”

     He knows a good deal about the traditional kind of agriculture that breathed its last breath in Austria in the 1950s.

     Easily imaginable a simpler form of otto motor from scrap metal is possible.

     @Thomas R. P.

     ” I realized that at some point this anger turned into resentment. […]”

     A very relatable post of yours! I am now reading
     The Tao of Fully Feeling: Harvesting Forgiveness out of Blame
     by Pete Walker (Author)

     In the foreword he recounts how philosophical and spiritual schools in the West urged him to simply suppress negative
     feelings and promised a life without them.

     He found that conscious acceptance of our negative emotions is the right path, yielding to them constructively.

     Have I seen spiritual people bulging with all but anger and resentment, pretending it is not so since people of their
     provenience are not supposed to have these feelings.

     Have I been preached to even this summer, by people who understood the stoics only partly, explaining to me there
     is no distinction between good and evil and everything is good, I just need to adjust my angle.

     (“Many of you are saying, there be no evil; here in my realm, this is true, but down where you are, this is not so.
     That’s why I have these guardians around me, so that the demons may not rise to my realm” – Stefan v Stepski-Doliwa, speaking for Sai Baba)

     You are right, negative motivations, that is a whole different matter, like revenge and pride, are not fruitful, not the right place
     to put our negative emotions in, and conversely, giving blessings and cultivatig our empathic and cooperative side is very rewarding, I can tell.

     I have sometimes found that practices like the lesser banishing ritual dissolve negative feelings and everyday sorrows for me, possibly, because here we move away from the material sphere already, being less concerned with its implications, being more excited about performing on the higher planes.

     I wish you the best.

     @Robert Mathiesen

     Thanks for this piece of history too!

     >Must have been all the more amazing to travel in these days, on foot, really feeling and understanding the dimension ofh this world we inhabit.

     There was that indian man who travelled from India to Sweden on his bike in the seventies, to meet a woman he met in India, and he married her. Must have been a fascinating trip too!

     Another general contribution of mine here:

     https://www.mensjournal.com/health-fitness/the-blind-man-who-taught-himself-to-see-20120504

     echolocation of blind people, orienting themselves like bats!

     I think along with our hosts discussion of the awareness and reflection of limits in our mundane life, it is stories of disabled
     people overcoming their barriers and do great things that are most positively inspiring.

     The brother of famous Ludwig Wittgenstein (was it?) who lost his *right* arm in the first world war, yet suceeded as a pianist and teacher of classical music thereafter, the man with no arms who could play the trumpet and acted as a helper in a WWI field hospital….

     In our own lives, I count myself in as well, this may be properly a way to appreciate our own limitations, and value our successes despite our limitations, that we have achieved.

332. @ Beardtree. Here is a good and recent example of how it can happen. I am of course not saying it will, but I think it most likely. And I certainly wouldn’t open the door to such a probability with my vote. NB I am not letting the Dems off the hook, just saying that if Trump is the answer, I think people need to consider if they are truly asking the right question.

     https://open.substack.com/pub/claireberlinski/p/farewell-washington-post?r=n5o7w&utm_medium=ios

     JMG, my opinion is that the wisest course of action is to vote Democrat and then *make change*. Address the issues which make people want to set fire to everything, so that they no longer want to burn it all down.

333. Siliconguy,

     the EU is also contemplating switching to permanent DST. When I first read that I thought it can’t be true. Who on earth would decree that noon is now at one o clock?
     Interesting that it’s the West coast and the EU, they both share lots of ideological points that are somewhat detached from reality.

334. JMG, do you see the revival of the old pagan religions in the form of Heathenism, Hellenism, Kemeticism, etc etc. also as a form of Second Religiosity, or do you think one of them could be the seed of the new religion after Christianity? Or is the phenomenon a third thing that I can’t see?

335. JMG:

     In re: “The [woman] I’m especially thinking of here was also the one who taught me her system for daily prayer and Bible study. That was her spiritual discipline; every morning, first thing, she’d read a chapter of the Bible and then pray about it — and then, of course, she’d go on to do her best to live her life according to the precepts of her faith.”

     I have been moved to do something very similar in the past year and a half. My daily prayer rule consists of daily Psalm readings.

     In the Orthodox service books, the Psalms are divided into twenty sections. Each section is called a kathisma (pl. kathismata).

     I read one Kathisma per day, interspersed with prayers for the living and the dead. This obviously helps me in my spiritual path. In addition, I am convinced that the prayers of the faithful help the world at large. We Orthodox are convinced that Liturgies and also the prayers of the faithful (holy monks in particular) literally help ensure that world continues to exist at all.

     St. John Chrysostom once said, that when monasteries are full of holy, ascetic monks and nuns, the prisons and mental hospitals are empty. I can well believe that.

     Whether my own inadequate and sinful prayers assist that, only God knows, and I leave that in His hands.

336. Hi JMG and Ecosophians.

     One doesn’t want to make or distribute more microplastics than can be helped. But in my current holidays-are-a-coming enthusiasm for acrylic paints and coatings I have begun to wonder whether they, being polymers, constitute microplastics at some stages of their existence.

     Particularly in cleaning brushes and palettes, do any of you have an informed opinion as to the least harmful way to dispose of the watery remains? Throwing it on the grass or down the drain are my main options.

337. Hi John Michael,

     Not sure about your experience, but for me, having had experience with grief, in some ways it’s similar to having experience with poverty, in that I know the travelling companion well, and comprehend it’s moods and states. Dunno, everyone’s different man. But respect.

     Did you spot the very recent news about Mr Musk alleging that he’d originally worked illegally on a student visa? What is wrong with these people? Your elites have power, but use it so dumbly, and by such moves only reinforce the counter narrative. How could they not see that? I read the dreamwidth short essay on Witches versus Patriarchy, but far out, why don’t they try Witches for Matriarchy instead? Hmm. Who are the teachers out there these days? This is basic stuff, and they’re getting it wrong. Far out man! Crazy days…

     I rather enjoyed that little outburst! 🙂 Hehe! It was a lovely day here today. Did some mowing, which was fun. Better run!

     Cheers

     Chris

338. Dear All,

     I have recently paid attention to some cases of antipodalism.

     For example, Rapanui, a.k.a. Easter Island at 27°7′S 109°22′W is almost antipodal to Harappa, at 30°37′44″N 72°51′50″E. The shapes of Rongo-Rongo glyphs are remarkably similar to those used in the Indus Valley script. Antipodal influences?

     Consider also Singapore (1°17′N 103°50′E) and Panama City (8°59′N 79°31′W). Both are guarding strategic seaways, although the latter’s “seaway” has been plagued by drought recently.

     On the sky, we have Antares (with right ascension 16h 29m 24s and declination −26° 25′ 55″) and its antipodal Aldebaran at 04h 35m 55.2s, +16° 30′ 33″, which guards the Golden Gate of the Ecliptic (*). Both can be occulted by the moon, and Antares also rarely by Venus.

     Staying even closer to the ecliptic, we have Delta Cancri, 140 light years from the Sun at direction 08h 44m 41.099s, +18° 09′ 15.509″, and Theta Capricorni, 162 light years from the Sun at almost opposite direction 21h 05m 56.82783s, −17° 13′ 58.3021″.

     (*) See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Gate_of_the_Ecliptic

339. JMG, If I recall right, it was in his “Mysticism, sacred and profane” (from 1957), where Zaehner tells how Rimbaud’s verse “O saisons, ô châteaux” (from “Une Saison en enfer”) triggered a mystical experience on him, like some kind of an obsessive mantra? He takes quite anti-perennialist stance (especially anti-monist) in the book.

340. Robert Morgan #31 et al
     “The symptoms seem to be varied and difficult to pin down but often include withdrawal from community activities and social life, reining in of spending and general gloomyness and foreboding for the future.”

     Been thinking about similar but from a different perspective and have wondered if it is actually something other than what is going on economically, socially and politically.
     That in fact it is a deep ‘gut’ feeling, that changes are coming down the pike (so to speak) and at a subconscious level the recognition that we are living in an increasingly dysfunctional state cannot be kept buried and is manifesting itself as anxiety bubbling up like swamp gas.

     People don’t seem to be doing well – poor communication, poor awareness (both drivers and pedestrians), people struggling with higher executive function (mind) – e.g. people struggling to make change in shops, all sitting at junctions waiting for someone to move off, poor lane control, people who used to reply to emails not doing so… a general brain fog or miasma where people seem pre-occupied or distracted.

     Then of course a great many people on the streets who look very pale/ill or with harried looks, many more walking sticks and people struggling with walking than a few years back.

     All very disconcerting.

     On a non-material level I think people recognise that something is going on but do not comprehend the depth of it.
     All the war, economics, politics and social craziness etc etc are in fact just symptoms playing out materially – like musical notes and chords of an orchestra warming up, but the main performance is yet to begin.

     I have no idea what is going on, but can feel it in my meditations and exercises – it has been getting increasingly ‘loud’ over the last month or so; the last 3 weeks particularly.

     Being in the UK and considering the last 500yrs history of this little island, I’ve got a nagging feeling that we are not talking chickens, but dinosaurs coming home to roost.

341. To all;

     One point regarding crossing the North American continent before the European settlement that is often forgotten is the canoe. With a canoe, a party could travel from the present location of New York City to the Rocky Mountains. There are carry’s (portages) involved; these were well-established when the Europeans arrived (for example, the Oneida Carry between the Mohawk River and Oneida Creek to the Great Lakes was well known). Cache the canoe, cross the passes, hit the headwaters of a westward flowing river, and build another (a birch bark canoe or a dugout). Paddle to the Pacific.

     With regards to Trump destroying Democracy, both sides seem to have their sights set on it. Trump didn’t do it in his term (if he was really trying to overturn the election with the January 6 farce, he is even less competent than I think). I believe he would need more discipline and support in the military and intelligence high command than he probably has got. Some of the Republican wanna-be Trumps, on the other hand; may well want to. The Democrats – well Kamala Harris’s 2020 campaign in the Democratic primaries went nowhere, and who is the Democratic candidate now (one example of many: misinformation, “fortifying” elections, reeducation of non-supporters for starters)? My worry is that new laws and departments will be used in ways that nobody thought of – some Weimar Republic laws were repurposed by the Nazis (the real ones) for their use in the 1930s.

     That said, in every election I have voted in, I have said “These are the two best candidates in the USA??” This year takes the cake!

     And finally, some good news! Another Ariel Moravec novel (and republications of other writings) will be published soon, and JMG is thinking about a follow-up to The Hall of Homeless Gods ! Yes, Please!

     Cugel

342. Substack star El Gato Malo has come up with some real zingers lately. The latest pretty well captures, I think, The Trump Phenomenon. In part of it, he says:

     “trump is not the savior.

     “he’s not our idol, our favorite person, or the guy we want to borrow power tools from.

     “the donald is the agent of nemesis called down by the hubris of soychild leviathan playing at totalitarianism and trying to call it joy.

     “welcome to the age of genghis trump.”

     And ends with a legendary quotation, with the iconic ‘Trump reborn’ image following the shooting but photoshopped so that he’s got a McDonald’s bag in his hand – “I am the punishment of God. If you had not committed great sins, God would not have sent a punishment like me upon you” – Genghis Khan.

     https://boriquagato.substack.com/p/genghis-trump

     Methinks the ‘bad cat’ may be onto something…

343. Larkrise, you said “if you vote Trump into power, don’t expect to ever be voting him out again, and don’t say you didn’t know”. Eh, are you aware he already was President for 4 years and then left office? He believed he had lost the election due to vote rigging (which I believe too) and yet he still left office peacefully. The January 6th ‘riot’ that the establishment media makes so much fuss about, was essentially instigated by Feds who were planted amongst the crowd, who were not rowdy never mind rioters, and as the video shows, were essentially given a guided tour of the Capitol buildings.

     Can I give you some unasked for advice? Stop watching CNN, MSNBC, reading NYT or Wapo etc. They lie and they lie and they lie. May I suggest Jimmy Dore on YT instead? You do, in fact, have TDS. BTW, I know Trump is not the Messiah, he is flawed and stupid in many ways but is still less authoritarian and dangerous than warmongering imbecile Harris would be. I still don’t know who will win as I suspect there will be massive voter fraud again. If it was a fair election, Trump would easily win. We’ll see.

344. @BeardTree,

     re: “I saw the democratic establishment make sure those processes didn’t work in the primary processes leading up to ensure Hilary Clinton and Biden would have a smooth ride to being candidates. ”

     I’m not disagreeing with your assessment, but just a little disappointed you didn’t include the soft coup that led to Harris being selected as the DNC nominee even though she received no primary votes.

345. @Luke Z:
     Very cool!

     Chillicothe and Miamisburg are worth going to if you havent already. We love Hocking Hills and also the Highland Nature Sanctuary.

     I dont know what mound books you have, but the Hopewell Ceremonial Landscapes of Ohio is worth getting a hold of, as is Indian Mounds of the Middle Ohio Valley by Susan Woodward and Jerry McDonald. Also interesting is Ohio Indian Trails by Frank Wilcox.

346. The Hopewell book is by Mark L. Lynott

347. Hi John,

     https://x.com/JoeyMannarinoUS/status/1850076976238797304

     On the back of this I’ve been reflecting on what type of person “aborts” or kills unborn babies for a living.

     To me these doctors have the aura of death about them.

     What do you think the karmic consequences of aborting and indeed being the mother who aborts is? Can’t imagine it’s good.

348. Hi John,

     I continue to research and reflect on where is best to migrate to as Europe descends into economic and demographic collapse over the rest of this decade.

     My basecase remains that in regard to western Europe the threat of Islamic Republics emerging will rise in the 2040s/2050s.

     Central, eastern and the Balkans is at grave risk of wars, really from now onwards.

     I have looked into the Caribbean islands but for a number of reasons I’ve ruled this out.

     America remains an option but if we end up closer to Europe the most viable options are Madiera and the Azores islands.

     Whilst there is a but of a question mark about Madeira in an era of Muslim invasions of Europe I would imagine that the Azores in the mid Atlantic would be save.

     Any thoughts on the pros and cons of emigrating there in the mid century to live my last decades?

349. J.L.Mc12, the question in my mind is whether there are other materials that can be used to generate and transmit current electricity in the absence of metals. Nobody’s had to research that because low-resistance metals have been very common up to this point; the possibility exists, as far as I know, that other materials with plenty of free electrons exist or could be created.

     Methylethyl, hmm! Thanks for this.

     Curt, it may take a while to recover that level of skill in metalworking, but necessity is a good teacher.

     Larkrise, yes, and Democrats have been saying exactly that since Bill Clinton’s first term. “Vote for us and then we’ll fix things, we promise!” Then they forget all about fixing things until the next election. That’s why so many people are voting for Trump: they’re tired of the charade, and they’re willing to take the chance that Trump will actually do something about the problems that Democrats and old-school Republicans have been ignoring blithely for the last three decades. All you’re saying here is “No, no, you can’t vote for someone who might actually change things — trust the people who’ve been refusing to change things all along, and they’ll fix it!” That’s not going over very well, you know.

     Athaia, the current interest in the old polytheist faiths is nearing a crucial test. Will it turn out to be one of the transient phenomena of our culture’s age of reason? Will it morph into another form of the Second Religiosity, a fixed framework that people use to prop up a broken mode of consciousness once the age of reason ends? Or will it morph further into a new religious sensibility and help provide the spiritual impetus of the future? The gods and goddesses doubtless know, but we don’t — or, certainly, I don’t.

     Michael, that strikes me as a very good idea. If you were Catholic I’d encourage you to pray the rosary; I don’t know what other focused devotions of that kind the Orthodox tradition has, but something like that might be worth adding. As for the power of prayer, as I understand it, you’re always participating in the shaping of the world through your thoughts, words, and actions. If some of those thoughts, words, and actions every day are directed toward the Divine, that’s going to improve the contribution you ‘re making to the co-creation of the world, and your own inadequacies (whatever those might be) don’t hinder that; in fact, if a person whose mind is usually full of loathsome and vile thoughts puts some time every day into prayer, that’s going to be a bigger change (and thus benefit the world more) than if a person who is naturally holy does the same thing.

     Kallianera, I don’t happen to know. Anyone else?

     Chris, thank you; that’s a useful comparison, because of course I’ve also been very poor. As for Witches for Matriarchy, ah, there you’ve touched on the secret of the modern activist scene. They don’t actually want anything to change, since many of them — including most of the leadership — are quite comfortable and privileged within the current system, thank you very much. So they make a big fuss about being against this and that and the other, but they’re exquisitely careful not to be for anything, since that might actually inspire change. Watch them rally around the current corporate status quo any time it’s actually threatened if you have any doubts about their real loyalties.

     Cugel, so noted. In case I haven’t mentioned this yet in your hearing, the Ariel Moravec novel about to be issued is #3 in the series, #4 is already in the publisher’s hands, and #5 is about half done. As for The Floating Bridge of Heaven — the projected sequel to The Hall of Homeless Gods — I’ve sketched out some scenes and drawn up a list of the research I need to do to make it work.

     Ron, it’s a fine rant, and Trump as barbarian warlord is pretty good.

     Forecasting, as with most things, it depends on details of motive and circumstance. Just as killing an adult human being is one thing if you do it for a sleazy reason and another if you’re defending your family against an axe murderer, killing an unborn human being varies in its implications depending on why it’s done and what the circumstances are. In occult tradition, the stage of pregnancy also matters — the soul doesn’t enter the body until quickening (14-26 weeks), so before then it’s much less of an issue. As for your relocation prospects, er, my advice hasn’t changed any.

350. JMG, I checked your answer with a few resources and you seem to be right. I checked it because the letter from the 44 “prominent scientists” includes a map with the effects of the collapse of the AMOC. This map shows very clearly a significant drop of temperature in Greenland. The state of science these days is nothing to be proud of….

     A follow up question: do you have any idea how much eastward the effects will go? I guess the Baltics would be affected too so I wonder if St. Petersburg and Moscow could get even colder.

351. Really digging Hall of Homeless Gods btw. Just got it Friday. I like there is another piano player named Sam… and all the tradecraft, not to mention setting, characters, new religion. Great read.

     Fritz reminds me of someone too.

     Speaking of alcohol fueled tea makers/water boiletr, our old Hungarian friend described to me on Friday an acohol powered glass coffee maker. It infused the beans with hot water that rose up to the bean chamber, and theyd remove the flame, boil it back up to reinfuse it, remove the flame, and do it once again. Something like that might be nice to have, although heating water for tea is simpler.

352. Here in eastern Massachusetts, around the winter solstice the sun sets at about 4:10 PM eastern standard time. Some other parts of New England are even farther east. I’d prefer permanent daylight time. But the resulting late local sunrise time (about 8:00 AM) around the solstice would present problems for many.

     Instead of permanent daylight time, another option would be to stay in standard time year-round, but put New England into the Atlantic time zone an hour ahead of eastern time. Same overall effect, but for hard to explain reasons I’d appreciate the separation from the mid Atlantic states it would represent. “Welcome to Connecticut; set your clock ahead one hour.”

353. Portage Wisconsin sits on the portage point that will take you from the Great Lakes (via the Fox River to the Mississippi (via the Wisconsin River) and from there to western Montana on the Missouri River.

     If you follow the Minnesota River upstream you get to “The Traverse Gap, a low continental divide and part of the Laurentian Divide, separates the south end of Lake Traverse from Big Stone Lake. Big Stone Lake is the headwaters of the south-flowing Minnesota River, part of the Mississippi River System.”

     “Lake Traverse is an 11,200-acre (4,500 ha) lake along the border between the U.S. states of Minnesota and South Dakota, and is the southernmost body of water in the Hudson Bay watershed of North America. Lake Traverse is drained at its north end by the northward-flowing Bois de Sioux River, a tributary of the Red River of the North.”

     Canoes were the way to travel between the Appalachian and Rocky mountains.

354. Justin Patrick Moore,

     Thank you for the book and site recommendations. I’m going to mark these down. I’ll start with the one I’ve got and move on from there. I have a habit of overextending myself when it comes to books!

355. @Viking, #268
     For what’s worth, I am a Roman Catholic and I have never felt guilty (or encouraged to feel guilty) about original sin. From the doctrines received from low-clergy (the parish’s priest rather than the bishop/theologian), the meaning of this is that every human being is born with an inclination towards evil, even when not yet capable of factual evil. I immediately identified this teaching with the occult Lemurian Deviation theory (despite falling in the Agustinian side of the Pelagian debate myself).
     Furthermore, the RCC encourages the baptism of children (unlike other Western denominations) precisely because it allows infants to break away from the sins of their parents. It does not make the baptized infant “inherently good”, but will allow it to start its own history as a sinner from a blank slate. If you analyze the baptism rituals with an occult eye, you will realize that the part of the ceremony that is performed by the parents and godparents could read more or less like “by the power of the blood running through my veins, I who sired/birthed you release you from my sins and from my Ancestor’s sins, and offer you to the Christ for keep in the righteous path”. Only then does the priest perform the part that gives birth to the existing infant into the Life in the Church.
     A different doctrine I received from my Matrilineal (and therefore, Levantine) side of the family tree is that “children are incapable of sin until age 7”. It is clear that very young children can be cruel, egotistical or even deceptive way earlier that that, but that it will take much longer for them to develop the intellectual chops to support the hypothesis that this lack of capability is due to lack of the use of reason. However if this original sin runs “in the blood”, aka in the etheric plane, it would make sense that the age when the child’s etheric body if fully formed and cut off from the mother’s is the time when he gains capability of making his own mistakes (even when operating from within the emotional/psicological framework of their family and society).
     What do you think, does it make any sense?

356. JMG,

     I saw this and thought that you might find it interesting. There are a few post in the science news rags like this:

     https://www.iflscience.com/atmospheric-rivers-have-shifted-towards-earths-poles-bringing-big-changes-to-weather-76529

     And here is the paper:

     https://www.nature.com/articles/s41612-022-00260-8

     The interesting bit is that atmospheric rivers from the tropics are drifting further north, ~5 to 10 degrees latitude over the last few decades, and changing weather patterns. And that’s interesting by itself, but it made me think of previous eras with alligators at the poles and a transition from 3 Hadley cells per hemisphere to 1 per hemisphere.

     It would also go a long way toward explaining why warming at the poles, and the resulting shutdown of the global conveyor currents, causes either an ice age or an equible hot house climate. If the conditions are cold enough, then the extra precipitation freezes and the extra snow and ice reflect light, but if they are not quite cold enough, then the atmospheric rivers pump warmth to the poles and the vegetation absorbs more light.

     Also, I’m curious what your thoughts are on this election, say, 20 to 50 years down the road. How much of an impact will the status quo vs Spengler’s Ceasar have on the shape of decline a few decades out?

357. Something odd happened on EweTube:

     I just saw two videos in the feed about how it would be impossible for The(se) United States to be invaded.

     The mind reels. Something is up.

358. @Robert K. 309:

     Thank you for this, this is really illuminating. Having been raised in Western Christianity, I never suspected there were such fundamental viewpoint differences between different branches of Christianity. Those differences really highlight to me the fact that a detailed study of the “metaphysics” of religion leads to the perspective that even the saints are just doing their best trying to make sense of the world by trying to come up with (mostly) coherent doctrines.

     @JMG No plans to (re)join any church, Western or Eastern. I am happy to derive my own ethics from first principles. That being said, I won’t ignore the centuries of debates and experimentations of established traditions to guide me!

359. Re: The G-d in the Bible:

     From my reading and listening, I get the impression that Yahweh was actually a God in training. It started with one family, became a nation that was given a rough stretch of land and an independent streak that didn’t end until The Babylonian Exile, then may have tried to become universal by becoming human and going through a whole life (including a death – which, by necessity had to be gruesome).

     I’m not sure about the New Testament part. I may have an opinion about that when I go through that while taking notes.

360. RE: static electricity as a power source. When I was teaching physics I built several Kelvin Water Droppers for lab work. I am convinced there is potential (no pun) here. But a water dropper is basically a gravity driven device, a charge is placed on a drop of water and under the influence of gravity it transfers the charge to a receptor. the drop doesn’t weigh much.
     For a while I built droppers that used a stream of drops driven by thermal energy, using high pressure to drive the drops through the electrical gradient. I used the same system of nozzles that a boiler uses to inject fresh water into the boiler. It looked promising but what happened mainly was to thoroughly soak the work area. Personal health issues directed my attention to survival. Maybe someday…

361. @Forecasting Intelligence, #347
     May I offer an opinion on the karmic consequences issue you posted? I have long been tired of the partisan abortion rhetoric (on either side of the fence) and yours is an interesting new angle.
     I’d say that the karma of a medical professional who specializes in the abortion industry is that of an executioner. They both perform the grim and sometimes needed duty of lawfully terminating a human life that for practical reasons may not be allowed to continue.
     I don’t know about executioners, but if I had to guess they would be officials that routinely perform other duties (probably as jail guards/wardens, or something along those lines) who for a limited amount of time took on the *Mantle* of executioners; it is not an accident that in old (and more humane) times their faces had to be kept occult from the onlookers. But whenever there’s a government that allows this to be a full time job, it speaks more of the incompetence of said government to solve the problems that lead these particular lives to be found “unacceptable” than on the victims themselves. And any citizen of good will should abstain from taking on that mantle while the corrupt government remains in power.
     Furthermore, if these modern executioners are selected from a group of *initiated* adepts who had previously taken the mantle of *healers* for themselves, that cannot be good. I am aware that most physicians do not take the Hippocrates’ Oath anymore, but most people think they do and to let them continue to believe so is in itself a betrayal from the Medical Profession in itself. Also, I don’t think that would earn them any friendship with Aesclepius, Hygeia or Panacea… much rather the opposite, I’d expect.

362. Since it’s open post…. Does anyone find the writings of Andre VandenBroeck impenetrable? I’ve read “Al-Kemi” twice (except for Appendix A) and am embarking on a third pass. I made it through “Breaking Through” once and got bogged down on the second pass. But I have yet to get more than three pages into “Philosophical Geometry.” Has anyone had more success?

363. The commentariat:
     Can anybody recommend any good *geological* references for the southeastern US?

364. I couldn’t help but think of JMG when I saw the latest post by Rat Says

365. JMG, the latest piece I have translated has a section which is so akin to your writings I have to share it here (note that propaganda seems to be a mid-19th century term for progressivism and stability one for conservatism – so I may do a find and replace on those before publication):
     “Propaganda and stability are the two opposites of which neither is suited to human society. They are the poles of humanity at which no love and no happiness either germinates or blooms. In the moderate zones fruitfulness, warmth of life, and cheerfulness reign. Thus away from the poles! Let us transfer ourselves to an unforced emotional life where we do not always have to be afraid of either running into the progressives or the men of stability. But, you will ask, if neither progress, nor stability can be suitable as laws, where then is the road on which you can wander safely? — The answer is that eternal growth is a chimera … An unalterable stability is contrary to the laws of nature and its powers. Humanity does not grow, but it changes according to the circumstances of the time, though not in its essence, rather in its use of the means for satisfying its destiny.”

366. @earthworm and others, I also have a feeling that something is afoot. This month and the previous one are a slog. I have many negative thoughts, sometimes wake up with a really foul mood and all of that for no good reason. Getting anything done seems to cost twice as much effort as before and again without any obvious cause. I’m not well trained in perceiving the subtler dimensions of our world, but it feels like something is going on that puts a blanket of drowsiness and/or negativity on us. I live in the Netherlands by the way.

367. Hello Mr Greer

     I was wondering if I could get a hint on how to deal with a situation that I find quite novel. Last week I finished reading a very interesting if somewhat academic book on midlife transition from a Jungian perspective (it was ‘In Midlife’ by Murray Stein if anyone is intrigued by the topic). The main theme is liminality that people tend to get drawn into during midlife transition. There I first learned about the god Hermes, who is the master of the liminality domain. Well, I’ve found the book rather stimulating, even personally relevant in an abstract way, and left it at that. Then this morning someone who had been in my thoughts a lot that I had lost all contact with got back in touch.

     Later in the day, I went for a daytrip to a picturesque town popular with tourists, and visited a wonderful gallery showcasing several centuries of local art. I was browsing the gallery marvelling at the idiosyncratic collection, and at one point stumbled into a room dedicated to statues. There in the middle of the room, as a centrepiece, stood a giant statue of god Mercury. Quite struck by the seeming coincidence of such an encounter, I left the gallery to continue strolling around the town. And sure enough, a few streets away from the gallery I came upon a baroque building with a statue of Mercury on its dome.

     While I had always been receptive to the idea of archetypes, I considered them to be internal psychological structures, with mythological correspondences having a purely metaphorical value. But now I feel that I have had a very literal encounter with the god Hermes, and that ignoring or rationalising this experience would be myopic, so I want to treat it with due respect. How can I do it? How can I engage productively with all the opportunities and all the risk that Hermes brings? Any advice would be much appreciated!

368. @Forecasting, why are you considering isolated islands? When the European nations collapse they will not be able to defend their outposts and facilities you might need as an elder person will be even harder to get than on the mainland.

     Personally, if I were to move I would consider Norway as it has ample resources like oil, gas and hydro power. Cities like Bergen and Stavanger are also far away from Sweden with its no-go areas of immigrants. In the past an Isreali asked in this forum about a place to flee to in Europe and I suggested among others Copenhagen. I wouldn’t do that any more. Recently the Danish government sounded the alarm over the rise of gangs of minors invading from Sweden. Danmark chose a wise immigration policy but its neighbor didn’t and now the problems spill over.

     I think intuition and guidance are also invaluable. No human can predict the future. If for example the AMOC collapses Norway will be a terrible choice. So hopefully a god or goddess will help you make a choice.

369. Eike with an „i“ #301

     You wrote “red” twice. I think the second time, you meant “blue.” Correct?

     Red 🔴 = Trump.

     Blue 🔵 = Harris.

     💨Northwind Grandma💨🔴🔵
     Dane County, Wisconsin, USA

370. Larkwise. I read the link and if I understand it right the author is expressing dismay that a portion of the oligarchy is pulling back from the Democrats. Zuckerberg for instance is staying neutral and admitted in the past he caved to influences that favored Democrats and tweaked Facebook. In 2020 he was all in with the Democrats and spent 100’s of millions of dollars to bring out the vote in heavily Democratic portions of swing states to tip the balance, putting a rich man’s thumb on the scales of democracy. Also in 2024 Democratic leadership blocked Robert Kennedy’s totally legal efforts to run for the Democratic presidential candidacy. I really can’t see how Trump is any more dangerous to democracy than past stuff already done by progressive types. But if your dismal predictions of Mussolini Trump come to past I will gladly return in the future to read your “I told you so”.

371. Luke Z #307

     > Hocking Hills, Ohio, USA

     I never had heard of Hocking Hills until you wrote about it here. It sounds like an absolutely captivating area — a undisputed destination place. It would takes weeks to explore. Talk about fascinating‼️(I will use the word ‘absolutely’ twice here.) I absolutely L-U-V escarpments (“cliffs”). The whole terrain sounds like what Celts called a “liminal” place. In-between places. Places between worlds. A somewhere-land and nowhere-land at the same time.

     Thanks for the mention.

     💨Northwind Grandma💨⛰️🏞️
     Dane County, Wisconsin, USA

372. While not knowing if the conversation is still going, I think our host and perhaps a few of the readers will find the following reading interesting:

     https://www.slatestarcodexabridged.com/Meditations-On-Moloch

     I have heard JMG mention how true religions are born in the fringes. I think this qualifies as one. And it feels quite lively and genuinely felt…even more so than more established counter cultural religions…and its followers are quite probably performing effective rituals (and a few probably quietly hold positions of power – power not of the flesh but over flesh). I think it is certainly worth keeping an eye on.
     Other faiths to keep an eye on are the new age currents in Russia, the Ivanovists and Ringing Cedars among them…I have heard they gained some steam, so much so that it is said they successfully lobbied the Duma for approval of laws such as the “free hectar per child” one.

373. Larkwise #312

     All my life, I have tried to figure out what “needs must” means🤯. What other words could one exchange for “needs must”? Is it a noun, verb, or what? Needs must do what? I can’t grasp the meaning. There is a black hole here in my brain — to fill.

     Thanks.

     💨Northwind Grandma💨📚
     Dane County, Wisconsin, USA

374. Bridge 343 — Thank you for the advice, but I don’t watch or imbibe any of those things, I glean my info from a broad cross section of commentators, professional and otherwise, and always take in things that I don’t naturally agree with. My take is my own; I believe the Dems and the Republicans are at this moment simply the two faces of Capitalism, ie the Corporations v the Oligarchs. Neither works for the people. I happen to believe that while the Dems are ghastly, the Republicans will be a good deal worse— I think under a second Trump term things are going to slide south very quickly (for the whole world), and if you think there’s repression now, you ain’t seen anything yet. IMHO. I hope I am wrong.

     JMG Yes indeed, the Dems haven’t changed anything, and they never will. But the possibilities for people to organise themselves are still here, and that’s what must happen. I don’t think a Republican landscape, as it stands, will be as benign; I think it will be benighted.

     If people are willing to take a chance that nothing the Republicans do or are could be worse than the present Dems, then that’s what they will do. Since America isn’t an obscure little country, the whole world will be hoping that their punt is successful.

     Time will tell.

375. @Robert Morgan re: #31, @Patricia Ormsby re: #178, @earthworm re: #340 —

     I have noticed this too among my circle this month. Friends and family have been unusually slow to contact or respond, work colleagues slow to communicate, drivers less attentive, etc. My niece spent the bulk of the afternoon today beset with an emotion her three-year-old vocabulary wasn’t able to identify (except that it wasn’t frustration or sadness), and I have kind of felt what I thought is the same thing.

     “Malaise” is not the right term for it. “Dread” is closer, but “dread” is too strong an emotion. More of a sense of… existential disappointment tinged with a degree of nihilism and a dash of anxiety?

     Are emotional states on the lower astral, or on the etheric? I’m feeling pretty strongly that the whatever-it-is is hitting the etheric right now, and if it has, then I don’t think it will be very long until the whatever-it-is manifests materially (if it hasn’t started to already).

376. Boccaccio, thanks for this. Yes, I do my homework. 😉 As for Russia, it gets very little help from the Gulf Stream, which is why Moscow and Belfast don’t have the same climate! One way to think of the consequences of an AMOC collapse is to imagine the Russian climate sliding west to the Atlantic.

     Justin, glad you like it. Fritz is a mashup of some people I know, blended with some of my own more eccentric habits. Alcohol lamps used to be used all the time to heat water for tea — I first encountered them in English novels from the beginning of the 20th century.

     Team10tim, thanks for this! Yes, that’s another data point supporting my hypothesis. As for the election, if in fact we get Trumpius Caesar, it might mean quite a bit 20 years down the road, due to the sharply increased economic efficiency that would result from the clearing away of bureaucratic deadwood, and could still have lingering effects 50 years on. It’s after a century that it doesn’t matter diddly-squat.

     Donald, hmm! That is rather odd. The only reason that the US can’t be invaded is that we have a large nuclear arsenal and nobody wants to risk the inevitable backlash; if something happened to take nukes out of the picture, it would be very easy for Russia and/or China to invade the US.

     I’m going to geek out here just a bit on this subject. The point of invading a large country isn’t to conquer it — that’s rarely an option. The point is to force the war onto the enemy’s territory and cost them so much that they’ll be willing to accept a peace treaty to the invader’s advantage. The easiest way to do that would be to invade Alaska. It would be very simple to carry out landings on the Seward Peninsula and the southern shore of Norton Sound, and then drive east along the Yukon Valley to cut the oil pipeline and seize Fairbanks; when the US tried to counter with its navy and air force, the navy could be reduced to scrap metal with hypersonic missiles, and our F-35s are no match for either China’s J-20s or Russia’s Su-57s. So the US would be humiliated, and could be forced to accept a peace treaty that included, say, withdrawing our protection from Taiwan or bringing our troops home from Europe, in exchange for the invasion force leaving Alaska. That’s how war is played — in Clausewitz’s phrase, politics by other means.

     Phutatorius, I wouldn’t call him impenetrable, but he isn’t an easy read by any means.

     KAN, I like the rat — and I love the quote! Thank you.

     Soko, welcome to the real world. It’s much more interesting than the bland little subset of it that materialists inhabit! You might find my book A World Full of Gods useful as a way to orient yourself and get a sense of the possibilities.

     Monkeypilled, thanks for this; I’ve bookmarked it.

     Larkrise, it’s not just the Democrats who won’t do anything. By and large, the people who talk the way you do won’t do anything either. Maybe you can think of a reason why the people who’ve been getting the short end of the stick for the last thirty years should vote for the candidate you prefer, but shouting “But he’s a fascist!” won’t cut it, for reasons that should be obvious:
     
     According to the Democrats, that is…

377. Clay Dennis – Re: Israeli strikes in Iran. See
     @planet 3m imagery taken this morning of Khojir and Parchin missile production facilities show precise strikes on warehouses and mixing buildings associated with the production of solid-fueled ballistic missiles. pic.twitter.com/Qpodu4pN5m.

     “It’s on Twitter/X; it has to be true!” Of course, not. But photos are harder to fake than words.

378. “leaving the tavern and staring up at the unpolluted night sky, I saw the Milky Way cloaked in her finest celestial robes, splayed out in the heavens in full color and three-dimensional depth. The Latin root of the word disaster is dis-astro—meaning “without the stars”—and the island boasts some of the darkest skies east of the Mississippi. To Beaver Islanders, the Milky Way is a nightly serenade to remind them that they live in a world where disaster is unknown in at least one respect, for they are never without the stars.”

     https://substack.com/home/post/p-150730724

     Now, someone into astrology could find all sorts of meaning in that… the city has no stars!

379. @JMG (#376):

     You surely know that Alaska (like much of the Pacific Northwest) was first colonized by Russians, and remained part of Russia until 1867. The Russian Orthodox Church was the first substantial Christian presence throughout all that territory, and it still remains a major church for Indigenous Christian Alaskans, especially in the Aleutian islands and in Sitka on the mainland. Russian priests even devised and popularized a written form of the Aleut language (using the Cyrillic alphabet), and encouraged intermarriage between Russians and (baptized) Aleuts. So Russian roots run very deep there, deeper than elsewhere in the Pacific Northwest, especially among the Indigenous population.

     What you might not know is that very many Russians have always thought that the sale of Alaska to the United States in 1867 was a corrupt deal, and should not be regarded by any nation as valid. Rather, they think that Russia ought to take Alaska back, whether by purchase or by legal action or even by outright force. (This is not just the view of Russians living in modern Russia; a significant part of the anti-Soviet Russian émigrés I knew in the San Francisco Bay area back in the 1950s and 1960s felt the same way.)

     So I think it highly unlikely that Russia would ever consider withdrawing from Alaska as part of any future peace deal under your hypothetical scenario. Russians might indeed make other concessions to secure peace, but never that particular one. Moreover, I do not see the US as ever willing to accept that Russian position, either. The result will probably be either perpetual low-level conflict between the two nations over Alaska, much much worse than what we have now. (The other alternative would be a go-for-broke nuclear attack by the US. Ugh!)

380. JMG #325

     I got all ready for my celebration of Trump’s having won by Central Time 6pm on Tuesday, 5 November 2024. I took deliver of:

     4th of July Accessories Fourth of July Light Up Red White Blue Stars Glow Necklaces, Patriotic Bulb Red White Blues Stars, meant for Independence Day Memorial Day Parades Party Favors —

     a very appropriate set of trinkets for a Trump win.

     12 pieces. The evening of election day, I very well may not want to remain in the presence of my stick-in-the-mud pro-Komodo-Dragon Harris husband. I am a tee-totaler but it looks like, in my town, the informal Trump headquarters is a bar (where alcohol is served; me and Shirley Temple🍹‼️) in the center of town. I don’t know for sure, but I may go there for election evening, wearing all the bells and whistles of the above flashing items, to whoop-it-up celebrating Trump.

     I usually don‘t go in for that sort of thing (I keep a low-profile), but this season, I feel like whooping it up big-time, at least, this is how I have felt the last few days. I am “feeling the vibes,” definitely FEELING UP about a Trump-win. I intend to wear one of the sets of baubles — all four pieces, get this (red, white, and/or blue): star-flashing tiara, star-flashing necklace, one of three flashing rings for fingers, and one of three glow bracelets. I will probably give away the other two sets of bangles. I will definitely look silly with all four things flashing and glowing but honestly, I would feel sillier if I DON’T wear such over-the-top gewgaws.

     Okay, a 72-year old flumpy broad with the gaudiest flashing tiara👵🏼👑one could possibly wear — THAT ought to get a laugh or two. I am the mood to PARTAY. Eight days til Election Day🇺🇸‼️(I can’t wait to swagger into my polling place.)

     💨Northwind Grandma💨🤩🔴🤩🔵🤩⚪️🤩
     Dane County, Wisconsin, USA

381. #333 Some of the western European countries are in the wrong time-zone already by being on UTC+1 rather than UTC, including France and Spain which they ought to be according to longitude, and having DST year round, i.e. UTC+2 would make this even worse. Galicia in NW Spain would have particular problems, since it goes as far as 9°W, and would be at a time-zone suitable for 30°E somewhere around Istanbul. Mainland Portugal in fact uses UTC, the same as Britain and Ireland.

     #348 The principle of Collapse Now and Avoid the Rush would apply I expect, since any option to relocate before TSHTF, would probably close at or before the point of, TSHTF.

382. Hey JMG

     I did some googling, and it turns out that scientists have discovered that there are non-metallic conductors, certain polymers to be precise, and there is a field of engineering devoted to making practical electronics out of them. Apparently, they have already made prototype solar cells from organic polymers, but they are inefficient and degrade quickly when exposed to heat.
     https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organic_electronics

     Also, by accident I discovered an article on Hackaday that talks about an engineering team that is already working on a prototype mechanical rover for exploring Venus. I would love to see such a project come to fruition in my lifetime.
     https://hackaday.com/2024/10/26/clockwork-rover-for-venus/

383. methylethyl-
     It’s been a very long time since I’ve opened one, but the covers of the Roadside Geology series from Mountain Press look like they might be what you’re looking for. Most books cover an individual state, but California gets two (unsurprisingly) and Delaware/Maryland/Washington-DC share a single volume (also not a surprise).

384. Eike with an „i“ #329

     > I‘m trying to understand how we can see the same thing in such different ways.

     Harris: She (and her kind) represents the wizard in the Wizard of Oz. She pretends there is no wizard, no curtain, no sinister actions of said wizard.

     Trump: He (and his kind) represents the opening of the curtain, the seeing of the wizard, and the viewing of the secret machinations of the wizard. Trump supporters see what Trump is (an arsehole) but look behind the curtain.

     It all depends on focus. The first (Harris) focuses on the near, and the second (Trump) focuses first on the near, then on the far. The near is superficial, the far is a deep telling. (See ‘deep reading’/‘close reading’/‘slow reading.’)

     In this election, some people are unable to deeply read — they experience deep reading as too threatening to their raison d’etre (reason for being). They choose to remain blind — they want to see the airy mirage rather than see the solid figures beyond that. To spy or not to spy.

     💨Northwind Grandma💨📸
     Dane County, Wisconsin, USA

385. Methyl ethyl #363:

     A good starting point would be to look up state Geological Surveys or the US Geological Survey on the web. They vary, but there will be some information from all of them. Since I’m not sure what you are specifically looking for, these may be a good start.

     Another idea is if there is a natural history museum, or a college or university with a geology department (somewhat of a dying breed).

     Cugel (a Geologist by profession)

     Ps if you want I can probably track down something on a specific topic.

386. I sort of hate to get drawn into this topic, but I have to say that every time I hear Trump compared to Hitler, it feels like one more step toward the rehabilitation of the German leader’s reputation. The German people had reasons for voting him in. As I’ve heard with Putin, the powerful military/industrial factions thought that they could control him after elevating him to quell the chaos. It hasn’t worked out very well for any of them, as far as I can see.

     You can’t hold the steam in a teapot by plugging the spout, if you don’t also take it off the fire. Sooner or later, comes an explosion.

387. Totally new topic that I’d like to hear people discuss: to what extent are the accumulated assets of the Baby Boomers being drawn down to maintain livable lifestyles of their children and grandchildren? I’m in my mid-60s, and all of our friends complain about how they have to subsidize the homes, cars, and/or phones of their adult children. I got outmaneuvered today, and ended up buying a pair of tires for one of my sons! (For the CAR of one of my sons, of course.) As these assets are drawn down, not only do the retirement finances of the elders become more precarious, but these young adults are insulated from some harsh realities. (Maybe this has something to do with general malaise?)

388. As I went across the Community Center parking lot on my way to cast my early vote, I picked up a few pieces of trash and dropped them into a nearby can. And then I thought “Which of my actions today will have the greater impact on the quality of life in my community? Voting, or cleaning up part of the parking lot?” I suspect that it’s the latter. Maryland is not a “swing state”. It’s almost certain to fall on the Democratic Party side, whether I vote that way or not.

     On the other hand, I greeted three of my neighbors during the voting process, so that’s good for social cohesion (regardless of the votes we cast, we were supporting the process). I chatted pleasantly with the socially and ethnically-diverse poll workers. We’re all in this together.

389. Eike with an „i“ @ 329 thank you for your comment. I have been thinking how to answer.

     As for Harris, we have had mediocre Presidents before. We have had one undisputably great man, Abraham Lincoln, and another near great man, Washington, in the presidency. We have had men of brilliant intellect who were perhaps not suited to the job, Madison, and morally flawed men who were nevertheless brilliant strategic thinkers such as Jefferson. Jefferson saw and understood that for the infant nation to survive, it would have to become a continental power. Napoleon needed money, and Jefferson didn’t hesitate. When the American envoys went to Paris, it was cash on the barrelhead. Here is the cash, Prince Talleyrand, let’s have the deed.

     A president does not have to be Julius Ceasar, Einstein or Ghandi. He or possibly she now, does have to be a statesman or woman, focused on what is best for the United States–same as you expect from the leadership in your country–a good administrator, although that can be farmed out if necessary, willing to work with Congress and the states, and, one hopes, up for the ceremonial aspects of the job. Obama was really good at that last, as was Reagan, while Clinton and GWB were national embarrassments.

     Both parties lie with abandon about their programs and policies. After all, the blockheads in the other party can always be blamed. When top of the ticket is uninspiring, what I look at are character and who all are the supporters. BTW, “undecided voters” are merely waiting it out to get on the winning side. Various factions have their own voting habits. For example, white women tend to vote for whomever they think is most respectable, and, in the absence of one of their own, Hispanic voters tend to vote for the rich person. This is part of the reason why Trump is attracting unusual numbers of Hispanic voters, while he continues to lose among white women who have had enough of his antics.

     As for character, if you can stomach Trump the serial liar, multiple times bankrupt, married three times and cheated on each wife, I can’t. BTW, I do not EVER AGAIN want to hear Evangelicals lecturing the rest of us about morality.
     Then I come to who are the supporters, and I see more of the kinds of people whom I do respect, industrious, law abiding citizens on the Democratic side.

     If Republicans win, as looks increasingly likely, am I going to head for the hills and join The Resistance? No. Am I going to go in for cosmetics and big hair to please MAGA men? Absolutely not.

     Why do I think Vance is a sociopath? Personal experience. I have known some.

390. JMG,

     Could you give more info on the occult tradition around pregnancy or a source to learn? That’s the first I’ve heard of the quickening and the 14-26 weeks thing. I’ve heard random snippets that contradict each other around topics like different types of souls entering depending on the state of the two people during sex, when a soul enters the fetus, what conditions can develop in utero based on spiritual / emotional factors (eczema from parents arguing too much, for example). But, I really have no idea on where these ideas are coming from.

391. Regarding Donald Trump’s mental state at his advanced age, people can maintain mental acuity quite late in their years. One important friend of mine was able to memorize a lengthy Shinto prayer (the Ohharae Kotoba) at the age of 94. She maintained an active social life even while her legs were failing her, finally succumbing to a stroke plus isolation during COVID at age 96. Thus I don’t think it is fair to judge Donald Trump based on cherry-picked sound bites taken out of context and used for political positioning.
     I did not watch the Joe Rogan interview, but I heard a short analysis by Dr. Todd Grande (video, I don’t have anything in text), who attempts to be “fact-based,” and whom I’ve found to be neutral regarding politics. He said Trump demonstrated a clear grasp of both short-term and long-term memory, that he would stray from the topic at hand, but he always managed to return to it. He demonstrated knowledge on a wide range of subjects, and in fields that he had little knowledge in, he listened to Rogan politely.
     His major weak point, Grande says, was a need to constantly brag about being “the greatest.” It is irritating to nearly everyone and counterproductive toward selling himself as the better candidate. From what I have seen, though, his public speaking has improved since 2016, when he was basically the monkeywrench vote, or maybe it is just that I am listening to interviews with people who give him a fair shake. He has come across to me as much more intelligent than he did before.
     Now, whether he will be able to make wise changes from the viewpoint of future stability is another matter. We can be certain that with Kamala Harris, the neocons will continue to run foreign affairs and to clamp down harder on free speech domestically.
     Note that in Japan, if I turn on the TV (others do this for me during mealtime), I am subjected to the same propaganda as in the US which makes every effort to portray Trump as insane. Not only are the same talking points and snippets of Trump out of context conveyed, but the choice of dubbing voice for example gives a bad impression. This is typical of a psy-op, and it saddens me more than anything else to see how terrified my poor mother is about the possibility of Trump winning. What I note about his four years previously as president seems to be of no consolation, as of course, “It will be different this time.”

392. First the tiresome disclaimer; I never studied political science. I don’t deal in rigorous academic definitions befitting a university seminar. Rather, my knowledge comes from personal observation, conversation and the like.

     Ok, so this stuff about Trump being a fascist cracks me up. The European country where my parents came from was fascist (my parents and grandparents and other relatives lived under fascism), and that said, also had a large number of communist supporters.

     Having visited that place, having been raised in that culture, having met and talked to people both over there and on this side of the pond, I have a feel for what both communists and fascists were and are like and what they believe. I’ve done recreational reading on both but what I mostly know about communism and fascism comes from ground level.

     Trump is no fascist. I don’t know what the good General Kelly is smoking. I mean, good grief, this is too absurd for comment, and it’s hard to believe that this malarkey comes from someone at that level.

     We’ve been treated to Trump’s clowning for decades now, in public, in business, on TV, in politics, as president. We’ve been told he’s in league with Putin, which was laughable on its face, we’re told he’s a felon having been convicted of stuff he would never had been charged with let alone convicted of had his name not been Trump, now we’re hearing from high authority that he’s Hitler.

     This is what comes of the preposterization of public discourse. So then, what next? I can hardly wait. Oh, I know, he’s in cahoots with Satan and his minions, he’s the anti-Christ, MAGA; MBS, Mabus …

     And that Kama, Kama, Kama, chameleon (tm Culture Club), is no communist. She just ain’t. She is a DEI hire and she’s a fool for letting herself get saddled with that and especially with this presidential nonsense as she is just not cut out for it. But she has not got the intestinal steel to be a communist.

     The might of the Deep State is arrayed against Trump. They’re harassing him, prosecuting him, trying to jail him, bankrupt him, kill him, and still he walks and talks. So, intestinal steel, yes, in abundance. If that were the only qualification needed for president, then he has it. But it isn’t remotely the only thing you need for that office.

     The clock is ticking, time is against us.

393. @Soko, the Divine chooses you. Follow JMG’s advice, and from my own experience, you’ll want some sort of representation of Hermes in your house to bring him in and let him enlighten you.
     I have had a relationship with the Japanese god Susano-o (storm god, little brother of Amaterasu), along with a few others for several years after being contacted by him in a dream and then carrying out his request. I’ve had a small, informal representation of him on my kamidana (altar)–would you believe a photo of Severus Snape?–for several years. Just a couple of months ago, someone in the neighborhood brought over a paper talisman of Susano-o, who is a long-standing presence at our local shrine whom I’d not heard about, and suggested I put that on my kamidana. I took that as a formal request from this god, and now name him in my prayers.

394. @Boccaccio, I too have the feeling of not being able to get a blasted thing done. Some sort of cement in the soul. Maybe it’s the gods’ way of getting us to lay low, like a fawn in a forest.
     There was also a sixth person I contacted after she requested to meet with me, European in Japan, electrosensitive, and did not get a reply. She said she saw my e-mail and just put it all aside. Hopefully, I’ll meet her tomorrow.

395. Warburton, a fine bit of etymology! I wonder how many people remember that “consider” means “with stars” — sidus is another Latin word for “star” — and that “consideration” used to refer specifically to the process of pondering what the stars have in store.

     Robert M, I do in fact know that. I assume that the Russian government in my hypothetical situation would recognize that the US would never agree to relinquish Alaska, and would drive a hard bargain with the intent of taking Alaska back at a later date.

     Northwind, please do all of us the favor of having someone take a picture of you in your finery, post it somewhere, and link to it. I want to see that.

     J.L.Mc12, that’s good to know. Give it a few thousand years of dwindling metal supplies and I bet some good conductive polymers are worked out.

     Lathechuck, there’s that. As for your question, hmm — I have no idea.

     Dennis, I don’t know of a single good source for that. I’ve picked up scraps from various places in occult writings. I’ll look into it, though, and see what I can find!

     Smith, thanks for this note of clarity!

396. Hey JMG

     I can’t wait to see what they’ll be able to do with Organic electronics in the far future, if only I could find a time-machine in a 2nd hand/Discount store!

     But anyway, enough of the future and back to the Present. I was curious if you read anything by blogger/substacker named “Chad C mulligan” on “The Hipcrime Vocab”? (I am aware that it is a “Stand on Zanzibar” reference). He writes quite a lot about the same things you do and is familiar with you also. He has in particular written some interesting stuff on the fallacies of economics, and the popular misunderstanding of Fascism.
     https://hipcrime.substack.com/

397. @Northwind Grandma
     This is an interesting view on how things might play out in America. I wish i could be this optimistic for my country.

     @Mr Kemble
     I have to violently agree with you on all points here.
     What I wonder is how that will play out with transition from creative to dominant minority as predicted by Toynbee. Sometimes i think these cycles simply do not apply here in Australia. I wonder if our extraction based economy follows a very different path from the productive economy of a developed nation.

     @Mark C H
     There is indeed a divide between rural and urban, but with Australia being one of the most urbanised nations, the rural population is politically and socially nearly irrelevant. I was in the Rural Fire Service for many years and eventually resigned because it was infested with PMC methodology and values.
     Urbanisation also creeps into geographically rural locations by way of gentrification. Rich baby boomers going back to their hippy roots as they start losing their marbles and after making lots of money by working for the man they go “back to the land” and educate the folks there how things are done properly. Locals are priced out of places they have lived in for generations.
     I think unless you go west to Burke or Alice Springs you wont find anything much different from the Sydney or Brisbane when it comes to worldview. And the places out west are certainly not hotbeds of entrepreneurship.
     I understand that the end of civilisation plays out differently in different places. There are many ways to get yourself killed, but the end result is roughly the same.
     What i would like to know though is if and how Toynbee applies here.
     I have never believed the “it is different here” line, but these days I am not so sure anymore.
     Mind you, I am not trying to say that it will be all beer and skittles here. Quite the opposite. It seems to me that we have the desire and unfortunately also the ability to accelerate to much higher velocities than most other countries while we are heading for the same cliff.
     I’d really love to be wrong here.

398. Regarding the entrepreneurial age and comparisons to the earlier capitalist era: https://x.com/realErikDPrince/status/1850384517963337962
     Erik Prince, founder of Blackwater, quite consciously called out the comparison, saying it would be a revival of the Gilded Age. Trump himself mentioned McKinley’s tariffs in his podcast with Joe Rogan. I listened to most of the podcast and found him very thoughtful and coherent, he is a little “lower energy” compared to 2016, but he has clear points in mind when he “webs and weaves” in his speech. Kamala, in every public interaction, reminds me of all the corporate NPC drones I’ve ever encountered that don’t dare to deviate from their scripts. I really can’t see how people can truly say they vote for her on her own merits, rather than because they don’t want Trump.

     On the topic of tariffs, actually in these discussions I always think of the essay “On the Question of Free Trade” by Engels on the pros and cons of protectionism. Overall, he comes out in favour of free trade, but he sees a clear role for protectionism in some cases; only when you start to see “trusts” and monopolies that act against the interests of the home market, does he say that protectionism has run its course. It’s a better analysis of tariffs than most “capitalists” can write IMO.

     On another note, I am a Buddhist, and I have found online Buddhist communities quite disappointing in basically their full-blown TDS. These are Western Buddhist communities of course, and I guess many, if not, most participants are PMC. I still find Tibetan Buddhism the path most congenial to me, but all this makes me reluctant to engage with them. Of course, I am not even in the US, so it doesn’t matter as much.

399. Hi All,

     A few notes, be it a little late to the party:
     1.) Daoist tradition says that the immortal soul (hun) does not enter the body until 7 days after birth, although the mortal soul (po) enters the body at conception.
     2.) My understanding is that there are roughly ~50 years of petroleum at current consumption rates. This tells me that in 20-30 years the military and uber rich will take what is left, meaning that we don’t have much time to get our personal ducks in a row. At best I see some of us being able to purchase whatever somewhat improved solar panels/wind turbines and batteries are available so that we might be able to eek out a couple/few decades more of electricity. All the innovations in the world won’t reduce the consumption rate since they will be cancelled out by the almost 10B people (predicted to peak around 2050) who will all want to be somewhat more comfortable in the mean time.

     My goal over the next 20 years is to help my children become Green Wizards so that they have a chance of dealing with it as they come of age.
     3.) I don’t see how it matters who becomes president since the lobbies and bureaucrats control everything anyways. Even if Trump wins he will not be able to “drain the swamp.” But when we run out of oil, we will revert to much more localized systems of living and governance. Sustainable practices will be the only thing that remains in due time.

400. Regarding AI, as a native German speaker, I’ve had an interesting experience that might be worth mentioning here. I would consider myself theoretically well-versed and have been submitting my contributions to various Anglo-Saxon dominated forums in English, which I have corrected by AI. However, most or increasingly more forums now have an AI-operated filter in place that checks posts for AI fingerprints and filters them out unread if they show signs of AI involvement. As a result, non-native speakers sorted out – due to an assessment made by AI.

401. @CR Partino #355
     That does make sense as well and seems healthier than the version I had been taught. Thank you for this.

402. Hey Mary Bennet @389,

     Thanks for taking your time to answer!
     Although I don’t see how that clarifies much. You say that a president should have the interests of his or her country at heart, yet all the points about Harris that I raised point to the opposite:

     – large-scale incarceration of black men
     – wide open border
     – suppressing the truth about the president being senile
     – getting her nomination (and thereby possibly the highest office in the land) by non-constitutional means
     – add her part in the Ukraine policy which is about to expose the US and NATO as paper tigers, and the fact that no adversarial political leader has even a grain of respect for her.

     How do you draw the conclusion that this person cares about her country?

     Judging from their records and the stances they take publicly, I‘d say Trump cares about America and the people behind Kamala care about their own class.

     I have the impression that you just don’t like Trump on a personal basis. I can understand that, but it’s not what you’re saying.

403. Boccaccio 366, Brendhelm 375, Patricia A Ormsby 394

     Boccaccio
     [I’m not well trained in perceiving the subtler dimensions of our world]

     Me neither, but this is not subtle at all – negative thoughts/emotions that do not seem to have any specific cause or relation to what I might be doing have caused me to draw upon years of training and practice – this is most unusual.
     “sometimes wake up with a really foul mood and all of that for no good reason.”
     Yes had that too and has required some work to shift states.

     Brendhelm
     [“Malaise” is not the right term for it. “Dread” is closer, but “dread” is too strong an emotion. More of a sense of… existential disappointment tinged with a degree of nihilism and a dash of anxiety?]

     A sense of sadness/grief too – mixed with fear, anxiety and as you say, an almost existential dread – like a mash-up of emotions that is so thick it almost oozes.

     Patricia A Ormsby
     [I too have the feeling of not being able to get a blasted thing done. Some sort of cement in the soul. Maybe it’s the gods’ way of getting us to lay low, like a fawn in a forest.]

     I’ve been having to force myself out of the door to work some days and things have been ‘failing’ – 2 of 3 hard drives failing on a machine, bbq suddenly refuses to flow gas, lightbulbs popping etc – and more effort than usual to get things done, but once out (working outside doing scutwork) it has a major effect of clearing, but your idea of ‘getting us to lay low, like a fawn in a forest’ rings more bells than I care for because sometimes it seems so intense that I have metaphorically curled up into a fetal ball and drawn on deepest resources to maintain position.
     That has proved beneficial because it has forced me / led me to some unexpected ideas in practice.
     Not at all pleasant but somehow [seemingly] beneficial.

     One of the most puzzling things is the intensity – one of the mental image processes I have had has been breath to calm the physical, then engage with etheric to calm/purify passions, then to the astral to set emotional/virtue states and then gathering all that up and lift it up yet again (mental?) – sort of like rising above a maelstrom; but just don’t have a grasp of it to be able to describe in a way that makes sense… All I do know is that whatever is going on, it has been demanding my attention in a ‘sink or swim’ way! Perhaps a bit woo-woo for this venue, but there we are…

404. Well, I’m not an American part of the kommentariat here, but i’d like to write something about Trump. I don’t like very much him, but I think that calling him a fascist is ridiculous, because for example he’s quite Zionist..:This is a “reductio ad Hitlerum” phallacy.
     “Democrats” have wasted every negative adjectives against the “Orange Monster”, maybe they could call him “the Anntichrist”. Another Caesarist famous men werw called with such a suggestive adjective in the past: Napoleon or Mussolini…Oh, it’s a pity that “Democrats” are so woke these days, because “Antichrist” is obviously a Christian reference…
     Well, finally I think Trump has become a social myth himself, a savior for his followers and a devil to his enemies.

405. @Lathechuck #387
     Yes, I am 60-something with four grown children and I actively help them all financially when I can. For example, have bought cars for all 4 of them, give them substantial cash (at least for me) on birthdays and holidays, and bail them out when they need bailing. My rationale is this: when I went to college in the 1970s, college was very easy to get into (making an easy to achieve test score guaranteed admission to a good state school), the cost was easily paid by my very middle, middle class parents, plus a few small scholarships that I won. I was able to finish in three years instead of 4 because of the CLEP tests that were part of the post-Vietnam era. Then I basically fell into a job that paid in full for an advanced degree and that turned into a well paid career. It was phenomenally easy, when I compare it to what my kids have gone through: constant pressure to jump through this or that hoop to get into a state school, the requirement to get a useless and extremely expensive advanced degree to move ahead in their careers, the astronomical price of housing, and lately, food. My rationale is that I was born at a fortunate time. My life was easy, easy, easy, compared to what my kids are facing. I don’t think I am shielding them from harsh realities. They have seen them in abundance. If I can use some of the money I have gotten because I happened to be born at a specific time when there was still opportunity, I will. And that saving for retirement? That is BS. Why would I stack up money that the government will gladly take while watching my kids suffer? I plan to work until the day I die and if I could, I would give my kids every penny. Just one mom’s opinion. I would love to discuss this further with like minded and not like minded people. It is a topic that interests me because I have heard opinions from both sides…

406. @JMG, on bog iron:
     Thanks for reminding me about that! Fascinating.

     @Neptunesdolphin, on the Mothman:
     Weird sync. I rewatched the Mothman Prophecies last month, for the first time in maybe 15-20 years. From then on, I’ve had a few mild synchronicities surrounding it, including following up on a friend’s recommendation to watch the Planet Weird documentary series Hellier, which turns out to be directly connected with TMP in a number of strange ways. If there turn out to be any more sightings in the near future, it would be very curious indeed.

407. Eike with an i:

     Re: I‘m trying to understand how we can see the same thing in such different ways.

     One thing I have learned in working with people is that, for most, perception is reality. As far as how people can see the same things so differently than I do, I have found a description posted by a YouTuber (WhatIfAltHist) to be helpful in understanding. I have made a screenshot and linked below.

     https://drive.google.com/file/d/1BdVzAHeM-K6aYBSfVmBN-tMjW9aLf5EI/view?usp=drive_link
     screenshot from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NW_AiXLdsxo, 9:07 mark

     I don’t expect the description for the left is perfect for everybody on the left side of the spectrum, as the description on the right doesn’t perfectly describe me. But I think the general trend is probably accurate.

     I think, too, part of it is how people process. As I’ve read the comments on this Open Post, it has reinforced my opinion that people on the left tend to process emotionally and people on the right tend to process rationally. The right wants examples and data, the left responds with feelings. (For example, “why do you think Vance is a sociopath?” “Because I feel he is.” Some people think that is a valid reason, some people think that is poppycock. )

408. What’s the fuss with the availability of metals in post-collapse world?
     There would be a lots of scrap metal (steel, aluminium, copper) everywhere in the ruins of the current cities and megacities, since, after all, we don’t currently shoot all mined metal up to the outer space, or sink it to the bottom of the ocean. Think how many millions of miles of electric wires there are laid in any mid-sized city, also all the copper in the coils of the electric motors, e.g. in your power tools, for example.

     It seems that most people seem to forget that in the post-collapse world, also the human population will be just a fraction of what it is now, so there will be actually a lots of scavengable material per person, at least in the beginning. Also, the cement in concrete becomes slowly limestone again, and that can be used to improve agricultural soils, for example.

409. And sorry, I forgot all the copper piping for hot water. A friend who does bathroom renovations makes some extra money by selling the old pipes for the scrap.

410. Peter (#36),

     My wife and I are really having a hard time of all this lately, the rising noise level of life in the modern world. I got rid of my smartphone 4 or 5 years ago, and we keep our wifi unplugged most of the time (except when the kids are doing their online schooling), but we still have 5G boxes staring into our front windows from the power lines, and my tin foil hat just doesn’t seem to be getting the job done these days! Waking up to leaf blowers on Sunday morning doesn’t help either…

     I do indeed feel like I’m going crazy, and I’m trying to figure out how long I can keep this up. I’ve already been off the deep end once in the last 15 years, and thought I was returning to equilibrium, but I’m not sure anymore. I walk and bike a lot so I don’t want to move way back out of town, but I feel like a frog slowly coming to a boil in the EM soup pot…and my recent experience (see comment #245) has only made the whole thing worse.

     Someone please help!!
     🙂

411. It is a popular but readily debunked myth that electricity is conducted only by refined metals. Ordinary tap water is a well-known example of a non-metallic conductor. In fact, most materials with superconducting properties are either ceramics or pnictides: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superconductivity#By_material

     The challenge for finding good electrical conductors in a time when metals become scarce is not one of technology, but of economics – just as it is with nuclear power – sure, without a doubt it can be done; but who can afford to?

     But I sure hope I’m wrong here and someone does solve the problem. Winter nights here in Canada do make one rather fond of light bulbs and heaters.

412. Walt at 352: “Instead of permanent daylight time, another option would be to stay in standard time year-round, but put New England into the Atlantic time zone an hour ahead of eastern time. Same overall effect, but for hard to explain reasons I’d appreciate the separation from the mid Atlantic states it would represent. “Welcome to Connecticut; set your clock ahead one hour.”

     Or you could join Newfoundland and be one half hour ahead of eastern time. That would seem to me to be a very New Englandish thing to do. It’s sort of contrarian, like reversing the right of way rules on roundabouts (or “rotaries” as they called them, on Cape Cod. ) It’s also a middle ground solution, halfway between the two odious extremes. “Welcome to connecticut; set your clock ahead one half hour.”

413. Mr. Greer, do you partake in doing jigsaw puzzle?

414. Oh good grief;

     “Former Vatican Roman Catholic Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò endorsed Donald Trump for president this week, urging that Kamala Harris represents “an anti-Catholic, anti-Christian, and anti-human vision of society.” Viganò, who was the Vatican’s ambassador to the US from 2011 to 2016, writes in a letter to Catholics “The choice is between a conservative President, who is paying with his very life for his fight against the deep state, and an infernal monster who obeys Satan.”

     A Satan Vs Hitler cage match does have its attractions but wouldn’t they both be on the same side? Then again that never stopped professional wrestling either.

415. Interesting bits from an article on demographics,

     https://www.theepochtimes.com/business/americans-are-more-dependent-than-ever-on-government-handouts-new-report-states-5748148

     “According to demographic data from USAfacts, the percentage of Americans 65 years and older increased from 13.1 percent of the population in 2010 to 17.3 percent in 2022. During the same period, the percentage of Americans under the age of 20 fell from 26.9 percent to 24.4 percent.”

     “Of all government assistance payments in 2022, 56 percent went to the elderly, mostly for Medicare, the EIG report stated. Health care costs were a major factor, both because more Americans qualified for Medicare and Medicaid, and because the cost of medical treatment rose significantly.

     According to data compiled by Peterson-KFF, a health care policy analytics organization, total health spending in the United States was $74.1 billion in 1970. By 2022 total health spending was $4.5 trillion, indicating an exponential increase in medical costs per capita.”

     “In 1970, only about 1 percent of all U.S. counties reported that government transfers made up more than 25 percent of total income in their county; by 2022, more than half of U.S. counties reported dependence at that level.”

     The article has a county by county map.

     It concludes by saying Europe is arguably worse off. ““Europe’s welfare states are dominated by costly publicly funded ‘social insurance’ programs, which attempt to fully support middle-class lifestyles through periods of unemployment, ill health, disability, or retirement,” the report states. “By contrast, American public entitlement programs are more focused on providing a safety net against poverty, and they more strictly limit eligibility for cash and health care benefits to those who are unable to work.”

416. @Phutatorius #65
     Almost banned for making a bad pun? That’s too much, bad puns are great and I question the judgement of someone who acts that way.

     I once spent a weekend, along with several others, of making up the worst cheese puns we could come up with and, whilst I could and possibly should have been doing something more useful, it was incredibly cheering. As for the would-be banner, don’t Cheddar tear over the matter.

417. @kallianeira #336
     Acrylic resin concentration in watery remains is too low to matter, so either way should be fine.
     I’d rather be more worried about heavy metals-based pigments
     https://www.handprint.com/HP/WCL/pigmt6.html#toxicity

418. This turned up on Naked Capitalism today. I think it is well worth reading.

     https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2024/10/big-and-small-businesses-are-nothing-like-each-other.html

     The author is British, and writing in a British context. I think he overlooked the importance of the advertising industry in promoting the notion that spending beyond one’s means is necessary for respectability.

419. @Larkrise and others re. the American election

     As a European I don’t really have a horse in this race, but you can add me to the voices being skeptical of all this scaremongering around Trump. I agree he’s a man of low character and probably won’t do much good, but how people can think he’ll turn into a dictator even now, after he had four years in power, is hard for me to grasp. It all seems like pure propaganda and smearing from the other side to me, especially since they’ve been doing so much of that over the last decade towards anyone who disagrees with them. I think it’s deeply unserious and unhistorical to claim either side are “fascists”, but if anything the Democrats have been acting in a much more authoritarian way over the last few years than Trump ever did in his term. Another reason I’m not inclined to trust them or their lapdogs going on about “threats to democracy”.

     IMO both choices here are pretty bad, and Kennedy seems like a much better candidate than either to me. If nothing else due to his position on a certain pharmaceutical product that’s off-topic for this post. Still, if I had to vote for one of the main two I’d go for Trump. Probably wouldn’t get much done, but maybe some protectionist ideas would seep in, and hopefully stopping the saber rattling towards Russia, while I suspect the Dems will try to keep that going. And on a personal level, I just couldn’t ever bring myself to support the Covid cultists or the woke scolds. I fully agree with Mary Bennet above that Evangelicals lecturing people is obnoxious, but at this point the wokesters seem to have more cultural clout, and they’re basically the other side of the same coin. And as bad as they are, at least the Evangelicals aren’t trying to poison all the nerd culture things I grew up with with shrill political correctness.

     @Boccaccio #368

     As a Norwegian, and one who’s more or less decided to stay here and take my chances, I think you’re basically right. If you can deal with the bad climate and lack of sunlight it’s probably one of the better places in Europe. AMOC is a big wild card, though, like you said. Re. immigration, yes, sort of, but we do still have a fairly large Muslim population, and recently Swedish gangs have been making inroads here. We’re a long ways off Swedish or French conditions, but things are clearly going in the wrong direction, especially in Oslo. That said, I suspect many of our Muslims are more moderate than many of the other European ones, which could be important in a hypothetical future with Islamic republics. And of course we’re right next to Russia, which leads to a lot of pearl-clutching about those evil Russkies in the present, but might ironically turn out to be an asset in the future you envision.

     It should also be noted that our oil extraction peaked all the way back in 2001 IIRC. We do have gas and a generous endowment of hydro power, though. And maybe more importantly, even after 40 years of neoliberalism and globalism, I want to say our social fabric and cohesion are still in much better shape than many parts of the West. Certainly compared to the Anglo world, at least as I can judge it as an outside observer.

420. @ Lathechuck #387 Perhaps I’m misreading your post, but I got the impression that you don’t know how much more difficult life has become financially. Nearly all 20-something youngsters I know cannot find an affordable home while most boomers seem clueless about the situation. They just seem to miss the societal developments and the MSM is gaslighting them with misleading calculations of inflation and rising costs.

     An example: I recently talked with my father about this. He quoted an article in the newspaper that calculated that median housing prices as percentage of median income actually have gone down in the past decades. I gave him a counter example to show that this is nonsense. My parents bought around 1970 their house. My father was back then a starting high school teacher and my mother a stay-at-home mom. They still live there and while there haven’t been big changes like gentrification, the house today would require the income of at least 3 starting high school teacher to get a mortgage. This is true for all of the country.

     I think society as a whole has become poorer despite cosmetic progress (smartphones, optimizing cars etc). The basics are becoming unaffordable for an increasing part of the population and the fight about who will lose what is increasing in intensity. JMG has often argued that the rise of the populists is due to increasing tension between the working class and PMC. Trump is the champion of the working class and Harris is the champion of the PMC. When the US loses its status as premier world power this conflict will only increase in intensity.

     Boomers seem to be so accustomed to ever increasing wealth that they have trouble seeing the changing times. Many still help out their kids which is great. I think the ones that refuse to do so will find out that when their wealth is gone due to inflation etc, their kids will return the favor and not help them out too. I’m reminded about a couple I know that has 4 children and, despite having limited financial resources, decided to “enjoy their retirement”. They go on at least 3 cruises a year in addition to being on vacation almost half of the year. If a financial crisis will take their funds, I don’t think their children will line up to help them out.

     PS The boomers in charge also seem oblivious. They express surprise that no western military can meet its target for new recruits. Basically all teenagers and twenty-somethings I have heard about this stated that they would simply flee the country and live in South America rather than serve in an east-Ukrainian trench. I can’t blame them. Society has refused to offer them the same deal their parents got, they cannot start a family and social cohesion has been destroyed by mass-immigration. What is there left for them to fight for?

421. @Gardener, JMG: malaria was normal at least as far north as the Great Lakes, historically. That change may not require any climate shift at all, just the presence of more infected people (brought active infection from somewhere else), and/or less effective pesticide coverage. I’d be very surprised if the massive recent influx of people from poor countries in the tropics did *not* result in an uptick in malaria transmission (in addition to the upticks in other diseases we’re already seeing, such as TB).

422. What I found annoying just now is against my better judgement, watched a Youtube video with someone trying to convince people to vote for Kamala Harris, but he doesn’t offer any reason to vote for her.
     Instead he tries guilt-tripping people into voting for her, and berating people who aren’t on the Democrat train. I can’t imagine that is going to convince anyone that isn’t already committed to voting Democrat.

423. RandomActsOfKarma 407

     The main way I distinguish the Left from the Right, these days, is:

     Left = “The Entitled“🫵: attracts people (including themselves) who feel entitled to have others make a living on their behalf. They don’t work. Work is disrespected if not despised. The more free stuff, the better. They want others to pay their bills. They sit, watch others work, then wait for a check/cheque in the mail. They don’t acknowledge, much less give thanks, for those paying the bills, nor is there motivation to reduce their dependency. They require that others bend to their needs. Demoncrat.

     Right = “The Workers”⚙️: attracts people (including themselves) who feel it is important to work for a living. Work is honored. The less free stuff, the better. They want to pay their own bills. They are too busy to sit and watch others. They ignore others and get the job done. Republican.

     This is the way it used to be, as late as 1965. Question: From 1965 to now, what the f—k happened? Answer: The expansion of the welfare state (per President LBJ Lyndon Baines Johnson). Decade by decade, a money sink.

     💨Northwind Grandma💨🫵⚙️
     Dane County, Wisconsin, USA

424. Eike with an „i“ , I think you and I are talking past each other at this point.
     We have certainly had men of low morals, Jefferson comes immediately to mind, as does Jackson, in the presidency. On the question of character, I find Harris less objectionable than Trump. The jobs she has held are real jobs, City and State Atty. Gen. and Senator. These are not jobs where you can spend afternoons golfing. For women voters this is an important detail. Most of us don’t get to phone it in, either. No hint of scandal; the liaison with legendary politico Brown occurred between two single adults. My objection to Trump goes far beyond the man personally. I believe I have stated that I do not want to see sociopath–my opinion, and I am sticking with it–Vance in the presidency.

     The Trump supporters, I have known folks like this all my life, are NOT working class. Few if any working class persons had the means to travel to DC in Jan 2020 and pay for meals and hotel rooms. Trump summoned them, but he didn’t, so far as I know, pay their bills. Like I said above, these are mostly the grifters, the folks who play the angles, and when their party is over, someone else, some low paid worker, has to clean up the mess they leave.

     It would not at all surprise me if, a year or so into a 2nd Trump presidency, blue states begin seceding. If he follows through on plans to sell off public lands to developers–and who, exactly will have to give up their water rights?–I would almost count on it. There was beginning to be talk of secession on the West Coast during the GWB admins.

425. Hi Boccaccio,
     You do make some good points.

     I have always lived on an island so I suppose it appeals to me.

     Plus I love swimming and being near a beach.

     Whilst I still struggle to get my head around the concept of the collapse of western Europe if its driven primarily by internal demographic factors (rather than external invasions) places like Madeira will be fine (also note Portugal has a v small Muslim population and virtually zero in the Atlantic islands).

     If the collapse is driven more by external armies invading western Europe from the Muslim world then that’s a different story.

     I would still imagine conquering and crushing resistance in mainland Europe would be a generational struggle.

     Would jihadi armies bother about small islands in the Atlantic? Maybe it’s hard to say.

     Looking at a map it strikes me as unlikely they would invade the Azores (which might become a de facto American protectorate anyway (it has a US airforce base currently).

426. Hello JMG,

     I’d like to ask you and the commentariat what they think about the whole “child trafficking amongst the elite for the purposes of pedophilia and satanic rituals, the drinking of blood, harvesting of adrenochrome, etc”. This, and variations on this theme, are major points of discussion in places like X, and to be honest I find it utterly preposterous. But when I say so to people I know in various chat groups who seem like otherwise thinking people, they’re aghast that I don’t want to “save the children” and seem to think I’m a moron for not believing (for example) that there are vast underground tunnel networks in the US where tens of thousands of migrant children are transported to be sold on the black market for nefarious purposes. I’m not saying that there are zero wealthy, powerful people who don’t engage in types of sexual degeneracy, but the thing about the blood drinking, satanic rituals, massive secret networks, etc, seems really unbelievable to me.

     Am I wrong?

     What do you think is behind all this?

     Thanks,

     FSH

427. I know you don’t do video, JMG but there’s one making the rounds on the internet now of Janet Yellen being asked how concerned she is over the future status of the US Dollar as the world’s reserve currency. The moment the woman asking the question says the word dollar, the Department of Treasury symbol pops off the podium and hits the floor. The timing is so perfect it’s like someone was waiting with a remote control for the right moment.

     Is it just me or have synchronicities like this become more common lately? Ever since the destruction of the Nemesis statue and the Athena statue in Israel immediately preceded the events of October 7th last year, the Mythic/poetic vibe seems a bit heightened to me. Then again, maybe I’m just paying more attention than I used to – or looking through a different lens.

     Thanks,
     Reggie

428. @JMG, re: “the current interest in the old polytheist faiths is nearing a crucial test. […] Or will it morph further into a new religious sensibility and help provide the spiritual impetus of the future?”

     Could you expand a bit on how such a “morphing into a new religious sensibility” could look like for the old polytheist faiths? I might just be a bit slow today, but I can’t imagine what this might mean.

     Thanks! 🙂

429. Alvin @ 398: I practiced with a big Zen center for 14 years, but dropped out around the time of COVID and BLM. Like you say, very it was TDS all the way. One senior member (and I assume there was other support in the community) wanted to fly a BLM flag in front of the center. Even though that didn’t happen (as far as I know), for that and other reasons I departed.

     Rolypoly @ 416: My attempts at humor bellyflop quite often. Take, for example, my post at 412. I completely forgot about the existence of Labrador and the Atlantic time zone. The sign would have to say, “Welcome to Connecticut; set your clock ahead one and one half hour.”

430. Re the people commenting on gloomy moods: it could be the astral vibe that is affecting you, in whole or in part. But allow me to offer another possible explanation, from my own experience.

     On October 15, I woke up in a very gloomy mood. For whatever reason, I don’t seem to be especially sensitive to astral vibes, but without any other explanation I could think of for the severity of my feelings, I was leaning to that same hypothesis.

     Then I happened to look at the outer planets transiting my natal chart on that day. Turns out I had two different outer planets making difficult transits to two different positions in my natal chart, and one of those two had just begun about that time. Furthermore, the details of my mood agreed with the nature of those transits. Because outer planets are slow moving, those transits will affect me until around mid December. But knowing that’s what is going on, I knew what to do to respond to the challenges of those transits.

     If one’s mood suddenly changes, keep in mind the possibility that it could be personal, in part or in whole. Or not. Moods are complex, affected by personal and collective factors.

431. Siliconguy 415

     > Health care costs were a major factor, both because more Americans qualified for Medicare

     This issue happens to be one of my bugaboos.

     I think my 80-something current-alcoholic, former chain-smoker-who-only-stopped-when-MDs-told-her-she-had-only-a-few-months-to-live-unless-she-stopped, mother-in-law (call her “Komoda”) is using up ALL the money in Medicare by herself. She has removed from Medicare many times over the amount of money she put in as a clerk. She ruined her health by decades of chain-smoking.

     Komoda wants a surgery on her back, MDs do it. She wants a surgery on her foot, MDs do it. She wants a surgery on her groin, MDs do it. She wants a surgery on her neck, MDs do it. She wants a surgery on her heart, MDs do it. She wants a surgery on her liver, MDs do it. MDs acquiesce to at least four major surgeries per year. Any surgery she wants, MDs at Jokes-Humpkins agree to.

     Komoda bullies the MDs and, every-time, they fall for it. From what I see, her MDs have no ability to cap costs. Each surgery is $75,000 or more. Organ surgeries start at $100,000 and go up.

     Komoda is a surgery-happy, and feels nothing spending other people’s money. Because she is old, MDs give her free-rein to act out her hypochondria. She splurges on entitlements she feels she deserves. From what she says, she doesn’t care a flying f—k if she bankrupts the USA — HER needs come first. She is a Medicare-abuser but MDs keep her upright because, in reality, her case keeps MDs, hospitals, clinics, ambulances, pharmacies in business.

     There oughta be a law against this sort of prolificacy on a patient-MD level.

     That isn’t all. Komoda denies death, yet no-one in her circle suggests that she get therapy to face death. She insists, “Death isn’t for me.” WTF? Man, when death comes, is she ever going to be surprised. She obsessively over-spends but only as long as she pays $0 for it, and the only thing to stop her is death☹️.

     My values are way different than hers. I am stoic. My one general-practitioner MD can hardly get me in to see her the required months to renew my medications. I go see an MD when I absolutely have to, such as an upper respiratory virus/bacteria preventing breathing. I am on Medicare but use it very little. I faced my own death fifty years ago, and renew it hourly.

     Philosophically, I got in between her and her MDs about her free-spending behavior. She turned on me like a rabid animal, behaving like a Komodo-Dragon. Lizard-brain🦎dominates her functioning. That is why I call her “Komoda” (having a velociraptor chasing a person around the house is truly terrifying).

     Komoda and I had fights about the whole thing, but I saw that she is set in her ways and there is no changing her mind. Family had no influence whatsoever. She is depraved — yes, “elderly” individuals can become reprobate. The phenomenon is little studied.

     💨Northwind Grandma💨🏥🚒🩺🩻
     Dane County, Wisconsin, USA

432. The history of notions about when a fetus becomes “ensouled” is interesting. For a long time, the Aristotelian idea that ensoulment was connected with quickening was pretty common in Europe, and persists throughout much of what might be called the Aristotlesphere. It was common enough in western Europe until the emergence of post-Aristotelian biology and medicine, when Catholic religious opinion began to link ensoulment to the beginning of biological life, ie, conception. (Although this itself was a result of the Aristotelian turn that eliminated the tripartite model, and took the soul as the “form” of the organism, thus making an organism ensouled when it became an organism.)

     If I recall correctly, Maimonides supported the idea of ensoulment at quickening, thus making abortion prior to quickening somewhat more acceptable, and something like that idea persists in Islamic cultures; though some traditions hold all abortion as the killing of human life.)

     According to the Hippocratic Oath, “doctors” should not engage in abortion — but that’s a complex issue; after all, infanticide by exposure was practiced in the same milieu.

     In the Buddhist worlds, human life is often held to begin at conception, and as far as I remember at least in Tibet and China one is regarded as a year old at birth; in Tibet, this generally displaces one’s year-animal to the one prevalent in the year before one’s birth. (The “Tibetan Book of the Dead” traditions seem to regard the ensoulment process as beginning even slightly before conception, with the sexual intercourse that leads to conception.) In modern Japan and Taiwan, although abortion is a common enough form of birth control, it tends to carry a burden of guilt, which can manifest as extended devotions to Jizo/Ksitagharba/Dizangwang. In places like Thailand, more developed fetuses are sometimes obtained and used as servitor spirits, and there’s a certain level of anxiety about that. Occasionally one hears of people being caught trying to smuggle gilded servitor fetuses across national borders.

     Although in principle Buddhism does not countenance abortion, in fact there seems to be a great amount of pastoral flexibility, partly out of compassion for people caught in various sorts of binds, partly out of ” you know it’s wrong but it’s your karma: do what think you have to do”, and of course partly (to descend to the realm of the cynical) out of the possibility of offering post-abortion indulgence services.

     (It’s worth pointing out that, although in the modern west abortion is associated with “a woman’s right to choose”, the people in other places and times who decide on and enforce abortions, or infanticide, may be doing so with no regard to what the individual woman may want. The needs of the family or lineage, or the state, are often the deciding factor. )

     In an interesting “return of the repressed” moment, I note that the Satanic Temple seems to have a kind of sacramental abortion ritual as an affirmation of the mother’s liberty, and also seems to have plans to open an abortion clinic under their brand, as a kind of religious liberty move.

     Leaving PR campaigns aside, there’s no reason why a person (or organization) performing abortions could not perform them as deliberate sacrifices, and even incorporate the incineration of “biological waste materials” into part of a larger symbolic process. This of course brings us back to the Moloch theme that came up earlier. I mention this not to provoke Gothic paranoia, but to point out that creating servitor fetuses and other such activities already presume the living, and ensouled, status of the fetus being aborted. In general, of course, this counts against the (quasi-)libertarian claim that only one person, the mother, is involved. and that she is free to do as she wishes with her own body. (This is what got so many people annoyed about Nat Hentoff.)

     Of course, one could claim that the life ensouling the fetus had chosen to do so knowing that it would be aborted, as part of its own process of expiation or karmic culmination. Or one could (as in Moonchild) do ritual work to attract a soul into incarnation, offering it the opportunity to be aborted and made into a servitor. (See The Occult Reliquary from Three Hands Press for some relevant imagery.) The karmic entanglements of such activities goes far beyond those of mere abortion. At this point one is well and truly back in the more dire side of the world of the Picatrix, or similar sorcerous traditions.

     To coin a phrase, it’s complicated.

433. @Cugel
     Thanks! I have actually tracked down soil-survey maps for some areas, but what I’d love to have is a book that covers the whole topography and history, as far as it is known: bedrock, fossils, prehistoric sea levels, that sort of thing. I can find lots of little bits of data, but it is hard to assemble them into a comprehensive picture, both for my own curiosity, and for a possible education unit for homeschool purposes.
     I don’t know if any such book exists, but it seemed worth putting the question out there!

     @Lathechuck
     I’ll check that out, thanks!

434. Kim A #419 thanks for the additions, they all make sense.

     Forecasting, In my reply I forgot to mention another factor, cultural compatability. I’m a Nordic type myself so I think I wouldn’t mind living in Norway. Actually several acquaintences already do. But if I were an Italian from Sicily I think it would be hard to adapt to the climate and much more introverted culture. In that case I might choose to go to the Italian speaking part of Switzerland. And if I were a Jew I would avoid western Europe altogether and would try Czech Republic or Hungary. A lot of factors to take into account…

435. It must be whine about demographics week,

     “Women in England and Wales had an average of 1.44 children between 2022 and 2023, the lowest rate on record.
     Only 591,072 babies were born in 2023, fewer than in any year since 1977 and a fall of more than 14,000 on the previous year, figures from the Office for National Statistics showed.”

     https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cnvj3j27nmro

436. Hey John,
     Considering that most people in western society start out infected with the progress mythology, I am curious about how you figured out that it was nonsense. When did you start to suspect it was bull excrement, and what literature or experiences triggered your realization? And once you deconstructed progress mythology, did you then deconstruct apocalpyse mythology? Or were both deconstructed at the same time?

437. @Boccacio #326 – You, too? Yesterday I felt like my brain had been replaced by cotton candy, and sometime between then and now, I was having feelings of being doomed. Not dark clouds; rather, light gray but bad-tasting. Wondered if it were me, or even, a silent heart attack. For what it’s worth, my daughter’s Sunday brunch, which usually includes scrambled eggs, was boxed pastries due to time constraints, and I’m not eating much sugar these days. JMG – was something going on in the astral?

438. JMG,

     It looks like your upcoming post will be perfectly timed, considering the ramp up in rhetoric following the Madison Square Garden rally. I’m really looking forward to it!

439. JMG,
     There is more and more info coming out about Israel’s attack on Iran. It is finally coming out in print form and not just video. What happened seems to be a game changer and not just for Israel.
     Israel launched a 3 wave attack on Iran. The first wave was to have been f35 stealth fighters with air launched missiles to take out Iran’s air defenses. This was the whole purpose of the “stealth fighter”, to be able to get close enough to an enemies air defenses to take it out with missiles. After air defenses were suppressed the next two waves of f16 and f15’s could come in a bomb targets in Iran at will.
     But when the F35’s got within about 100 miles of the Iranian border they were painted by Russian anti-stealth radar and locked on by missiles. This radar was a surprise to them and caused great panic. The first wave launched its missiles, which were almost all shot down, or downed by electronic warfare, and the 2nd and third waves were called off , turned around and went home.
     The F35 is now useless for its primary purpose ( in addition to being a lard bucket and hanger queen. )Apparently the Russians are encouraging the Iranians to take the victory and not retaliate, but we will see. I would guess Russian air defense systems will be in great demand around the world after this.
     As expected the Israeli’s and the subservient western media are painting this as a great victory with many missile factories destroyed, even though they have a hard time with any proof.

440. @Phutatorius #412, I did think about the half-hour option, though I didn’t know about Newfoundland time! That would fix the problem caused by the eastern time zone extending about a half hour (that is, 7.5 degrees of latitude) too far east. However, I decided not to suggest it because it would be suspiciously perfect, daylight wise, for exactly where I am, and it seems presumptuous to suggest it on that basis! (Though on the gripping hand, I’m pretty well centered east-west relative to the whole of New England.)

     Note that Newfoundland time would still be an additional hour ahead of that suggested (half-hour-ahead-of-eastern-time) New England time. A glance at a map shows why. It’s hard to even imagine people living so far east of here. The sunrises must be blinding!

441. what do you think of phantom limb syndrome and do you think there are any spiritual implications of it? do you think it’s purely a physical phenomena?

     feel free to also talk about the physical/ spiritual split in the case of “mental illnesses”, I understand that spiritual forces acting upon the brain can use “physical” mechanisms of action, I am more concerned with regards to the ultimate cause of things

     apologies if the physical/spiritual differentiation is ambiguous

442. @JMG a few times the topic of Ozympic has come up and your questioning of potential side effects. Turns out there is slowly growing evidence of many big issues coming along. Not surprising as we throw this on the pile of over hyper miracle drugs with deadly side effects. The pile is turning into a mountain at this point.

     Risks include, hypoglycemia, gastrointestinal side effects, pancreatitis and pancreas cancer, thyroid cancer, gallbladder stones, effects on the cardiovascular system, acute kidney injury, diabetic retinopathy risks and allergies/injection-site reactions.

     Still hasn’t been widely tested but these are all the areas of concern.

     https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8294388/

443. @Smith #392 RE : Politics, fascists and communists.

     One thing that can be easy to forget with politics nowadays is that the other side is always portrayed as the worst possible outcome. It is probably by design, if people are always strategically voting against the other guys our of fear rather than for what they really want, this sucks the air out of the room for a third alternative.

     One could argue that Trump has finally swayed the republican party to be a bit more towards want some people want but it is still just a shift rather than a full transformation. When people are labeling Trump is Hitler and Kamala as Communist, its hilarious!

     As always I am in the camp of, if you fear who is in power, they have too much power. That is the real issue.

     As an aside, it was great to hear on the latest episode of ‘The Great Simplification’ two economists talking about how this election would impact economics in a largely non-biased sense. Everywhere else people are shouting at each other about their side, here are folks actually discussing policies. A pleasant change of pace.

444. As a child in the 1960s, I was a big fan of the Rupert Bear annuals, whose stories were written and wonderfully illustrated by Alfred Bestall. How about you, JMG? Are you / were you also a fan? And if so, do you think that Bestall in his stories evinces any knowledge oft the occult?

445. In a previous “open post session”, I mentioned a strange incident. You explained, JMG, that I had been pixie-led. Have you yourself ever encountered a fairy or similar being, and if so, are you willing to describe the encounter? (Or one such encounter, since you may have had a few).

446. If I may pop in to muse on something late in this comment cycle, a thought occurs to me.

     One modern bit of linguistic evolution that I’m fond of is the expansion of the term “gaslighting” from the narrow meaning of “driving someone insane by manipulating their reality then invalidating their perceptions” (the scenario of the original movie Gaslight) to the wider sense in which it’s used now, roughly “confidently asserting something so blatantly at variance from reality that no reasonable person could actually believe it, and doing so from a position of authority.”

     Obviously this is nothing new — Solzhenitsyn wrote about this in the USSR, and I’ve seen the word “hyperreality” used for it in that context — but it’s nice having a way to talk about the sort of unusually-egregious dishonesty we see from the ruling class these days. Of course politicians and suits have always lied, but it was nice when they at least tried to make the lies sound plausible, not just make it a loyalty test to see who will play along.

     Beyond that, there’s a similarity, I think, between gaslighting and statements which are “directionally accurate” — a term coined eight years about Scott Adams to describe Trump’s extreme hyperbole. In both cases, it becomes a mark of loyalty to repeat an absurd untruth. But there seems to be two differences. First, the directionally accurate statement has a core of truth or highlights an actual fact that is inconvenient to the other side. Second, there’s generally a lack of implied threat: it’s acceptable to talk about the core truth without repeating the lie verbatim.

     This feels like it’s a dynamic that plays out whenever a country finds itself in crisis and about to replace its elites: the old elites, having very little to actually offer society in exchange for continued tribute, turn increasingly to gaslighting to manipulate the masses. And the new elites counter this with “directionally accurate” rhetoric of their own, creating their own psychological momentum.

447. I don’t know if this goes better here, or on the Cooties blog, but on the risk of this getting political, and spiraling off topic over there, and Open Post over here (and late in the cycle), I would like to share a thought I just had.

     The PTB had miraculous success with the Cooties sham. They confirmed that, if you get people really, really afraid enough, you can get them to do almost anything! Therefore, If they want to win an election, let’s just make every one very afraid. I mean, that’s the whole D campaign: Don’t even look at KH, look how scary that guy is!!!

448. I wonder if the Democrats have working for them a team of Pythonesque flying circus scriptwriters, who put out absurdist, stream-of-consciousness sketches whose humor in normal circumstances would be most intelligible to someone stoned on acid.

     Just look at what they’ve produced, a long list of really creative and hilarious material that on the one hand is impossible to take seriously, but on the other hand IS taken seriously, and not by just a few people but millions, a feat that astounds, that I can’t imagine has any precedent in history. Or has it?

     I mean, just look at it, Trump is Hitler, he’s a Nazi, he’s a fascist, he’s a racist, he’s in league with Putin, he’s a threat to the constitution and to democracy which itself will die in the darkness of a Trumpian regime. OUR democracy they call it, as if they (an especially virtuous and deserving clique) collectively own it. And if you have to ask who’s in that clique, well, you’re not.

     That letter signed by dozens of intel pros testifying that Hunter’s laptop has all the hallmarks of Russian disinfo was a truly inspired gambit. I read that Tony Blinken thought of it. I am impressed. Let’s all raise our glass to Tony.

     You listen to the rivers of philosophical musings about race and gender and civilization and you wonder if all this is on the up and up. Do people really believe this stuff? Do they really think it’s a good idea to have boys in girl’s change rooms? Do they really think it’s a good idea for men to fight women in the boxing ring?

     How long does this go on? Wil they ever snap out of it?

449. J.L.Mc12, it’s been a while, but I’ve read him from time to time. Thanks for the reminder.

     Alvin, in a certain sense, yes, that’s what it’ll be — the US wasn’t a global hegemon in the last Gilded Age, and so sensibly used tariffs to protect its domestic economy and build an autarkic system capable of independent action in the world. As for Buddhism, yep — it’s really embarrassing. You’d think people who meditate daily would be less vulnerable to propaganda.

     Clark, it’s not that simple, because “petroleum” isn’t a single thing — it’s an increasingly diverse range of liquid fuels of varying quality, from an increasingly wide range of more and more dispersed sources. The military and the very rich will doubtless do their best to get hold of as much as possible, but their own power and influence are far from secure. Expect a much more complex donnybrook on the way down the slope! You’re right, though, that learning how to get by on much less energy, and concentrating on lower quality energy sources that can’t be centrally controlled, is essential. I plan on talking about that in upcoming posts.

     Martin, hmm! Fascinating. Thanks for this.

     A. Karhukainen, oh, in the aftermath of our civilization there’ll be plenty of metals. I read OP as talking about the far future, when that won’t be the case any more.

     Polecat, no, that never interested me. It’s too visual.

     Siliconguy, I like the cage match. As for the demographic issues, yep — welcome to the downslope of the population boom.

     Methylethyl, duly noted and thank you for this.

     Alley, it sounds to me like the classic blood libel redirected to a different target. I hope to the gods that I’m wrong, because the usual point of the blood libel is to justify pogroms.

     Reggie, I heard about that, and took it as an omen. I’m even happier now that so much of my royalty income comes from a non-US source!

     Milkyway, are you familiar with my book After Progress? That’s the one where I discussed religious sensibilities. Here’s a quote: “A religious sensibility isn’t a religion. It’s the substructure of perceptions, emotions and intuitions on which religions are built, and to which religions owe both the deep similarities that link them to other faiths of the same general age and historical origin, and the equally deep divides that separate them from faiths of different ages and origins.” (You can read the rest of the discussion online here.) The question in my mind is simply whether the current polytheist revival can rise to the challenge of embodying this new sense of what religion means, or whether some other religious movement will do that.

     Enjoyer, I was 15 or so when I read Isaac Asimov’s essay The Nightmare Life Without Fuel — a typical product of the last energy crisis — and suddenly recognized the same patterns I’d been reading about in books about the decline and fall of other civilizations. That was what did it. That also caused the apocalypse myth to collapse, because I realized it was the necessary partner of the progress myth — you can’t have one without the other. Apocalypse, after all, is what you get if you don’t let the corporate system have all the progress it wants.

     Slink, it’s written and polished, and I have the memes to illustrate it. I hope you enjoy it.

     Clay, I want to see that confirmed if possible. If it turns out to be true, the fall of Israel just got a lot closer — and so did the end of American empire.

     Pygmalion, in occult writings phantom linb syndrome is said to be caused by the intact etheric body — you can lose a material limb but the limb of life force is still there. As for the other, er, that’s kind of vague; what exactly did you have in mind?

     Michael, doesn’t surprise me for a moment. These days, I’d be astonished if the pharmaceutical industry came out with something that didn’t have side effects worse than what it claims to treat.

     Batstrel, I don’t recall those at all. No, I’ve never encountered a fay myself, though I’ve had some encounters with ghosts.

     Slithy, interesting. Yes, that makes sense.

     Slink, and yet it doesn’t seem to be working too well just now…

     Smith, if Vico is right about the barbarism of reflection, they won’t snap out of it. They’ve lost track of the fact that reality isn’t whatever they say it is.

450. JMG, have you ever discussed the meaning of the phrase, ‘barbarism of reflection’, and do you know what is the original Italian or Latin?

451. Boccaccio,
     „social cohesion has been destroyed by mass-immigration“
     When my boomer mom and I walked through my hometown a couple years ago, which is now a sad, cultureless, and increasingly dangerous place, she pointed out all the places that had been bars, cafés, or clubs in her youth. Out of half a dozen, only one is left. I asked „what do you think, what did that“? She said „TV“, and went on to explain that while people used to gather and gossip in order to quench their thirst for new information, they now get that from the news and thus don’t mingle anymore.
     I think she’s right, and that this loss of social integrity was a prerequisite for the further disruption brought about by immigration.
     The fact that our little town is becoming a dangerous place is largely due to immigrants, but I doubt they‘d act as they do if German mainstream society hadn’t put itself to sleep first.

     Kim A., re: Trump/Harris
     You said it more clearly than I could, agree 100%.

     Pygmycory, re: Ant wargame
     It’s a bit late, but I wanted to tell you I love the idea! Maybe you can sit down with the dude who knows everything about rules to get the fundamentals down, make up something simple but workable, and then just start playing to iron out the kinks? I whish you the best for that endeavor, would really enjoy to know that one day, a woman wandered into a wargaming group and out-nerded the nerds by having them help her develop AntWars!
     Btw, I think pygmy corys are adorable 😊

452. Clay and JMG,
     RE: the F-35 getting hit with radar lock

     https://karlof1.substack.com/p/zionists-aborted-attack-on-iran
     https://geopolitiq.substack.com/p/israel-humiliated-as-iran-foils-israeli

     These two substacks discuss it, with disparaging term for Israel, and without anything that could be called direct proof. But, the indirect proof, discussed in Karlof’s substack and shown and linked in geopolitiq’s substack, is the photos of Netanyahu’s sour face from the command bunker. If things had gone according to plan he would be wearing a different expression.

     Again, not proof, but interesting enough to merit posting.

453. For those in the US, this being the last open post until your election and after the very long road, I just hope it all goes as smooth as possible and that it is handled as fairly as is realistically possible. That is with as minimal funny play as is possible. There will always be some but it can be minimized.

     Regardless on which way it all falls, I hope people remember to talk to those that voted the other way to them. Talk to those that didn’t vote. To at least understand their position, see them as people rather than just opposition. You don’t have to agree but at least understand. Work together rather than against each other. Maybe that will be the path towards genuine change rather than just trying to meld into a tribe that kind hits some of the points you want.

     One can only hope that those that win try to do good for the people. It is never that simple or clear cut. Maybe the best is they muddle towards a less awful position.

     I have never been able to correctly predict these things reliably as the multitude of different angles in how these things fall is vast, but my gut feeling is that we are going to have a repeat of 2016 with it being very close and ultimately with a republican victory. Funnily enough, despite what many are carrying on about nowadays, particularly in the mainstream, that would probably be the most peaceful outcome.

     Just remember that all the differences in ideas add to the multitude of flavors of your country that really does make it something great. Regardless of who is in power, it is the people, the ecosystem, the whole of who and where you are from that make it all happen. Something that is lost in all the noise is that on our down slope of decline is that it is the heads winds that lead to the necessity of invention. I don’t mean in terms of rocket ships, but in terms of appropriate tech physically and the means of appropriate mental forms, in all manners that can be. As messed up as some part of the world can be, there is still a simmering underbelly of aspiration and potential to do some incredibly great things. To make a country that has meaning for all people in a way that would actively want to be a part of.

     It is a rough path and it will not end up in a utopia or a world of virtuous angels as you cannot remove the monkey form the man. But but it is to inspire a path of wisdom towards a world people want to defend and be a part of. That lets the world in all its forms be included and worshiped. It is worth the pain.

     Regardless of what happens weather you see it as good or bad for, try to keep that broader view on what could be. In a world of divisive politics, it can be easy to forget these things.

454. Slithy and JMG,

     There is a book Hypernormalisation by Alexei Yurchak, about the end of the Soviet Union that is relevant. The term predates the “this is fine” meme with the dog sitting contentedly at a table while the rest of the room is on fire, but it means more or less the same thing. The crazy, irrelevant, empty, jumping the shark language that gets deployed to describe normal events and the bland, ho hum, the economy is actually pretty good language to describe massive homeless camps and gangs taking over apartment buildings fits as well and is more or less what gaslighting means these days.

     In the Soviet Union no one had the both the mastery of language and the clout to say new things after Stalin died. So, they ended up cutting and pasting things from former luminaries like Stalin, Lenin, Marx, etc. Lots of pompous, over the top, grammatically superlative stuff that doesn’t actually mean anything got chopped up and pasted in every press release, every magazine, every review of the latest book or film. They called it the wooden language.

     In the west it is different. Everyone is an expert and they can make up new superlative nonsense on the fly with impunity. But the effect is the same, an ideological description of reality so divorced from anything that might be called reality that some little dogs sit quietly in the flaming room while others consider it blatant gaslighting.

455. Mary Bennet,
     Yes, there’s no point in discussing this further. I just hope that in case of a Trump victory, Democrat voters find a way to deal with it. I really hope that. We may not agree on this, but that doesn’t mean I wish four years of dread on you. It’s gonna be alright!

456. @JMG, Alley:

     Ah, yes! The “blood libel”!

     Like most people, I was raised to believe that this was sheer superstitious poppycock, and I used to roll my eyes at this kind of talk.

     Now, I am not so sure. Why?

     It is because so many things it would never have even occurred to me to contemplate, let alone imagined to be possible, have now come to pass.

     Who would have imagined, ten years ago (or even five years ago!), that people would be punished for saying that men cannot become women and vice versa?

     Who, in their wildest speculations, would have foreseen that parents would have their minor children forcibly kidnapped from them for refusing to consent to having their genitals mutilated?

     Who would have expected that degenerate psychopaths would be allowed into kindergartens to sexually groom toddlers via “Drag Queen Story Hours”, and that parents who went to school board meetings to object to these things, would have FBI storm-troopers blasting down their doors in the middle of the night?

     Then came the Epstein business.

     And now, we have l’affaire Diddy which looks to eclipse them all.
     https://kimberlysteele.substack.com/p/rip-diddy-part-one

     After all of this, I can no longer automatically dismiss “child trafficking amongst the elite” as automatically and inherently “preposterous.” If anyone has actual evidence of such (as opposed to argumentum ad ignorantiam), I will listen carefully. I will not jump to conclusions, but neither will I dismiss substantive evidence out of hand, as I would have in years past.

457. Grover (#410)
     I also struggle with the noise levels in modern life.
     I use hearing protection in the form of ear muffs, such as the ones people wear in industrial settings. These days one can get very comfortable ones. They help to dull / eliminate the noise and give me the feeling that I have some control over my environment.
     Sometimes I put smaller ear phones inside them so that I can listen to music / podcasts / books while wearing them.
     You should also check out mynoise.net. It has various forms of noise generators that you can use to block out sounds that you don’t want to hear. I used it last year when the neighbour was renovating and it helped a lot to soothe my nerves. It may sound counter intuitive to fight noise with noise, but I find the brown noise in particular soothing compared to pounding hammers and drills.

458. Methyl ethyl #433

     Your best bet would probably be a historical geology textbook, although they normally cover a large area (North America, for example). I don’t know of any one reference would contain all of what you want. For bedrock, state Geologic Maps are the best one stop source. Many states also have surficial geologic maps for unconsolidated units (especially in the northern states, due to the Pleistocene glaciation).

     And though they aren’t specifically what you are looking for, you might find John McPhee’s In Suspect Terrane and Basin and Range interesting.

     Cugel

459. Clay Dennis – Your story about the Israeli raid into Iran has fine details that could only have come from military sources. Israeli? No, because it would be embarrassing to them. Russian? Of course, but why would we believe anything they say about their alleged success? (Maybe the details could have been observed by some third-party military with advanced reconnaissance capabilities, but if so, why would THEY share Israel’s embarrassment?) So, I’ll restate my earlier comment: We can all see commercial satellite images of Iranian facilities damaged in the strike. Why do you believe that it wasn’t successful?

460. Boccaccio – I’m sorry if I gave the impression that Baby Boomer parents are not responding to harsh circumstances in an appropriate way. As I see it, we’re all just caught in the trap together. My concern is that these intra-family financial transfers are distorting economic statistics, hiding the gravity of our predicament.

461. @Northwind Grandma,

     I have met people who fit the description of the left you post, but they don’t see themselves that way. And many of them are not on welfare. (At least, that isn’t their only income, because they work for the same organization I do.) I struggle to understand their worldview and how to have a productive conversation with them (and I recognize that communication takes two, so part of the issue lays with me).

     I have started reading Psychic Self Defense and Fortune makes the comment that the way to communicate with your subconscious is with imagery… that the subconscious doesn’t understand words. And the subconscious doesn’t understand ‘negative’ (ie, if the image has a caption of ‘do not do this’, the subconscious doesn’t perceive the ‘not’). So I’ll be pondering that some more…

462. JMG wrote: “No, I’ve never encountered a fay myself, though I’ve had some encounters with ghosts.”

     Are you willing to entertain us with an account of one of those?

     Also you missed my question about Rupert Bear and Alfred Bestall.

463. @JMG & Reggie
     https://x.com/unusual_whales/status/1850904352136819132
     Here’s a link to that Yellen clip. An omen if ever I saw one!
     Currency crisis, here we come.

464. http://historyunfolding.blogspot.com/2024/10/portrait-of-our-intellectual-elite-in.html

     “’nuff said.”

465. JMG,

     Well, your response to Alley indicates how an American Civil War would go down, with the right-wing rural side executing elites summarily on charges of pedophilia and child trafficking. Yikes. I’m a bit embarrassed for not putting two and two together, because that type of nonsense is all over social media. Just another reason not to have a Civil War.

466. Mary, yes, I’ve written about it at quite some length. These two posts should get you oriented:

     https://thearchdruidreport-archive.200605.xyz/2013/11/toward-green-future-part-two-age-of.html
     https://thearchdruidreport-archive.200605.xyz/2013/11/toward-green-future-part-three.html

     I don’t happen to know the original phrase — I read Vico in translation.

     Team10tim, so noted. It’ll be interesting to see what comes out when the fog of war finally clears.

     Michael, thanks for this.

     Team10tim, I’ll have to reread that book — thanks for the reminder.

     Michael, it’s one thing to suggest that some privileged people have had sex with underage sex workers — not least because this is very convenient if you want to blackmail someone into compliance. It’s the rest of it that strays deep into blood libel territory. I’ll want to see any such claims proved in a court of law before I give them any more credence than I give the identical claims that have been flung down through the years at Jews, occultists, and so on.

     Batstrel, no, I answered the question — that was the first sentence of my answer. No, I don’t remember them at all. As for ghost stories, I think I’ll pass on those for now.

     Methylethyl, hoo boy. Yeah, time to brace for impact…
     

     Patricia M, thanks for this.

     Dennis, I ain’t arguing.

467. It’s weird.. as you said, the peak oil movement collapsed.. like in pop culture it did.

     What I’ve observed is big capital moving into smart energy mitigation strategies, look into the biggest investors of (for instance) quantumscape, any of the EV companies, lithium mining companies, etc… and you’ll see big names from oil trying to move into the post oil era. They see the writing on the wall themselves.

     The thing we’re not supposed to write about, well.. I’ve been studying it for well over a decade, and I consider it to be the most important technological advance since the wheel more or less. What it is today is not what it will be.

     Glad to see you’re republishing.. Star’s Reach is one of my favorite stories. I started my schooling out in Melumi studying Piano and Music Composition and sipping latte’s at the Runciple Spoon so it’s got a special place for me 😀

     Be well and thank you for your service!!

468. hmm why do you think some people get phantom limb syndrome and others don’t? why do some people get it from birth? do you think if someone induced phantom limb syndrome using physical methods targeted at the brain that would affect the life force or is brain just the mechanism of action? what do you think of transexuals who get phantom limb syndrome for body parts they never physically had and get phantom limb syndrome at half the normal rates when they lose gendered body parts.

     with regards to my previous question I meant something more to the sense of what percentage of mental ilness do you think is caused because of physical factors (actual disregulated hormones or neurotransmitters) or something wrong with the physical body as apposed to more spiritual concerns, do you think positive changes to the physical body impacts the spiritual essence? how much?

     sorry for the multitude of questions once I get start thinking on this topic I find it hard to stop, very interested in this matter might switch to a neuroscience major although it as a discipline is quite dour and dull, not studying the heart of the matter.

469. @Bastrel, @JMG

     The Rupert the Bear strips were a daily story published for children IIRC in the UK’s Daily Express newspaper that were gathered up into a Christmas Annual, er annually. I’d be surprised if it had much circulation outside of Britain, so perhaps JMG never encountered them at all. The stories depict a peculiarly wealthy rural landscape occupied by an occasional exotic human but primarily by Rupert – a bear natch – and his friends who were respectively a badger, a Peking dog, and I seem to recall a rabbit as well. These were all children, and at home there was Mr and Mrs Bear, Mr and Mrs Badger and so on. The fathers went out to work and the mothers stayed at home and as far as I can tell, mostly cooked.
     There were magical creatures there as well, I do recall a story where a pine wood was gradually taking over the landscape aided and abetted by some spiky goblin creatures that were made mostly out of dry pine needles. There was also a thing that looked like a malevolent radish but was a friend and more mischievous than evil.
     The drawings were pretty well made an each panel had the story in prose and also in short verse form so there must have been a lot of work involved.
     Odd that it should be mentioned here as well. Its the third time I’ve seen a reference this week.

470. Wow- I just read ‘The Nightmare Life Without Fuel’. Funny that even though Asimov was a sci-fi writer, he was able to recognize the reality of decline so clearly.

     I realized that progress was a myth around age 19 or 20. In my late teens I was a Marxist and was involved with a lot of Marxist groups, but as I studied history it became really clear that the Marxist theory of history was not correct. After I deconstructed the Marxist theory of history, I found that other kinds of historicism ran into the same problems.

     Then I read ‘The Collapse of Complex Societies’ by Joseph Tainter and ‘Collapse’ by Jared Diamond. I found that our society was showing the same signs of decline that they pointed out, complexification and environmental degradation. At this point I hadn’t considered Peak Oil yet, I hadn’t even heard of the concept. Then I found a copy of The Long Descent and the rest is history.

     Off-topic for this particular conversation, but I am curious what you think about the resurrection of Jesus. I am very skeptical of a literal, bodily resurrection. But I think it’s very possible that the disciples experienced postmortem visitations by Jesus in a spiritual sense. I align with a lot of Gnostic ideas about Jesus. If you ever wrote a book about your perspective on Jesus ‘A Mage’s view of Christ’ I would definitely read it!

471. Very late to the game, but that Yellen clip goes hand in hand with this old gem:

     https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vuTG4FHStPg

     The American flag falling down over some sports event podium the very second the Russian hymn starts. Cracks me up every time 😄

472. I wonder, based on the recent gaffes that Que Mala has made, whether she has some subconscious desire to get people to hate her? Either that or her campaign is cursed?

     I mean, I can’t think of a better way to piss people off than to lure them in with the promise of Beyonce and then make them listen to Willie Nelson instead. It’s almost like she’s trolling the world.

     Or maybe it’s not her at all, but some underling that hates her and is backstabbing her every chance they get? It only looks like incompetence? I understand she’s the quintessential middle manager when it comes to riding her underlings and inspiring loyalty out of them.

473. JMG, It appears that Vico did write in Latin, which I find surprising in an 18thC philosopher, so barbarum considerantiae maybe? His earlier book, On the Most Ancient Wisdom of the Italians looks interesting. I wonder if that might be a good place to begin with his works. Is there a reason you prefer, if you do, Spengler’s thought to that of Vico?

     methylethyl, have you tried YouTube? Quite a few geology profs are putting their class lectures on YouTube lately, with often excellent diagrams and photos. What I have done is a YouTube search of geology of the location which interests me.

474. Cugel 458 wrote: “And though they aren’t specifically what you are looking for, you might find John McPhee’s In Suspect Terrane and Basin and Range interesting.”

     Yeah, I was thinking of John McPhee too. He’s reliably fun to read as well as informative. Although it’s not geology, I especially like “The Curve of Binding Energy.”

475. @JMG, re: “Satanic Panics”, witch hunts, etc.

     I, too, have been historically skeptical of such claims, for reasons similar to yours.

     I remember the McMartin “Lil’ Rascals” hysteria of the 1980’s. More recently, the #MeToo business has been a bonanza for every Cluster-B personality disordered woman to destroy the lives of innocent men on fabricated charges of “sexual harassment.”

     I made a rule for myself, a long time ago, to never be alone, in the same room, with any woman or minor child to whom I am not related by blood or marriage. That rule has saved my bacon on more than one occasion.

     The tide of social hysteria in the U. S. has been relentlessly rising for my entire adult life. That is the reason I moved overseas 25 years ago. Had I not done so, I expect I would have been dead by now.

     The only reason I am now willing to consider the possibility that “elite sex trafficking” may be real, is the sheer amount of supernatural evil perpetrated (and publicly paraded) by the ruling classes of the West in the past 5 years or so.

     Even so, (as I said previously) I want to see actual evidence that one could put in front of a judge and a jury.

476. @JMG: On what grounds there would be no metal ores available in the far future? The plate tectonics is still renewing the Earth, and according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porphyry_copper_deposit
     the deposits like in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Teniente seem relatively young: just a few million years ago, and not located in the middle of some old craton. But I’m not a geologist, so…

     @Ecosophy Enjoyer: Regarding Jesus, it’s soon 2000 years from his crucifixion. I wonder why there is no more ado about that, from any of the usual groups affiliated with him?

477. Andy wrote of Rupert the Bear: “I’d be surprised if it had much circulation outside of Britain, so perhaps JMG never encountered them at all.”

     You never know what enjoys wide circulation and why. The Americans do love certain British things, which is why Winnie the Pooh got Disneyfied. Rupert is most definitely high quality enough, both in the art and the stories, to be worthy of an international following. In fact, the Canadians made a cartoon series of Rupert in the 1990s, but it didn’t work for me, not least because Rupert had a Canadian accent!

     So this is the third mention you’ve heard of Rupert recently. Aren’t synchronicities fun?

478. Methylethyl wrote: “I have those geometric hallucinations on waking– for the last thirty years at least. But I don’t have any visual impairment. I think that’s probably a lot more common than anybody realizes.”

     I’m not sure what ot make of that. What kind of geometrics? What shapes and colours? How long do they last?

     Until a few years ago I used to get the migraine aura (never the headaches), maybe just twice a year for about 20 minutes. The shapes were coloured fractals on the left side of my vision, but they were still there when I closed my eyes.

479. In the “Oh no, not again ” collection

     “Sales of debt backed by everything from auto loans to airplane leases to Subway franchise fees have hit their highest level since the financial crisis, as banks try to meet new capital rules and insurance companies clamor for higher-yielding debt.

     Asset-backed securities sales have topped $313 billion this year, surpassing 2021’s $312.6 billion, data compiled by Bloomberg shows. According to Bank of America Corp., which uses a different methodology for counting asset-backed issuance, this year’s sales are the highest in the decade-and-a-half following the Great Financial Crisis.
     …
     Investors, including insurance companies, are eager to buy asset-backed debt now and their demand has helped drive issuance. As Baby Boomers retire, they’ve been buying record volumes of annuities from insurers to fund their retirement. In turn, insurers putting the products together are looking to fund them with bonds offering relatively high yields, low credit risk, and longer durations. 

     Investors have flocked to exotic asset-backeds in particular — bonds supported by music royalties, revenue from data centers and cell towers, among other cash flows, instead of more conventional collateral like credit card debt. Sales of exotic ABS have jumped to about $88 billion, up from $54 billion around this time last year, data compiled by Bloomberg shows. ”

     Tie my retirement to wild speculation? What could possibly go wrong.

480. @ Curt#267 From genetic testing and the observations of Lewis and Clark it appears that the native americans did have horses before Europeans arrived. See the documentary True Appaloosa. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3745770/

481. Quickly jumping in before the post expires – thank you to all who replied about the lead exposure issue! I have bought the book 🙂 Also, my son will eat pumpkin seeds, which have some zinc in them, so I will push that.

     I agree that I need to get some iron and calcium into him ASAP… I have found an iron-containing vitamin, but not a calcium one :/ I guess most kids at least eat their pizza! Making this post in part to encourage myself to get going on the search…

482. Hi John Michael,

     🙂 They’re rather naughty, and also comfortable, to want to act so.

     Thought you might be interested in this study, which is s subject you’ve spoken about previously, but is being observed down here: Declining tropical cyclones and east coast lows lead to major shift in Australia’s rainfall

     Cheers

     Chris

483. JMG #57
     Thanks for the perspective. I’ve spent much of my carrer working on expensive toys for scientists. But they never seemed to answer any useful questions.

484. I’m beginning to wonder what the Mainstream Media will talk about if/when they no longer have Donald Trump to focus on. They could be walking a fine line to keep their leftish customers involved, without them realizing that the media (among others) actually need him to win to continue Outrage As Usual.

     Maybe they’ll notice that a bank in Oklahoma was seized by the FDIC last weekend, and the Deposit Insurance Fund had to kick in over $40 million to marry it off to a neighboring bank. (In this case, there is a strong suspicion of fraudulent record keeping, but maybe that’s a consequence of a slowly failing business, not so much a cause.) This is the second bank to fail in 2024, but I suspect that there’s a lot more rot to be revealed.

485. People with Amazon accounts have only themselves to blame when the man they’ve given so much money to decides to use it in a way that upsets them. Think about that, the next time you buy something Made in China. A purchase carries more weight in this world than a vote. Each purchase sends a signal to the world economy that, yes, you want it to do more of exactly whatever it was that allowed your purchase.

486. @Batstrel re: geometrics
     It’s different from migraine aura– I’ve had the classic scintillating scotoma spiral thingy on a handful of occasions. It’s unmistakable.

     No, the geometrics are just a brief, brilliant, remarkably detailed flash that happens… not on waking, but upon turning on the lamp after waking. Like it’s a response to the sudden light. They’re all sorts of luminous colors, the patterns are hugely variable, but there are some repeating themes: most of them are either grid patterns (they repeat in a right-angles, up-and-down and left-right axes way), or radial patterns (radiates out from a central point). They are very, very occasionally something representative, such as a ring of skulls picked out in blue around a black void, or if I’ve been harvesting wild plants I can get leaf patterns (very specific, plant-identifying leaf outlines– that almost the only one I can trace an outside source for), but those are the exception. The most common patterns are variations on fish-scale or interlocking circles (think chainmail), but there are a plethora of less-common guests. The quality of the light and color is much the same “stuff” as the glowing blobs you get when you look away from a bright light or rub your eyes too hard (phosphenes), but very precise and sharply detailed instead of bloblike. Nothing you’d ever mistake for something physically real. It’s not unusual to run across similar patterns in tile, wallpaper, and fabric prints, so I assume lots of other people see them too, whatever they are, and that they are an objective phenomenon (either hardwired into our neurology, or something that objectively exists in the astral that many people see, not a thing my brain makes up to amuse itself). A quick image search comes up with a few that are fairly representative of the genre:

     https://static.vecteezy.com/system/resources/previews/000/099/657/original/fish-scale-pattern-vector.jpg
     https://thumbs.dreamstime.com/b/blue-interlocking-circles-9103106.jpg
     https://i.pinimg.com/originals/fd/19/c9/fd19c93a815dce3fc305e11f0dde128f.jpg

487. Re: @A. Karhukainen
     Well, I’m sure that if Christians notice that we’re only a few years from the 2000th anniversary of Christ’s death and resurrection, some of them will take it as time to set another end-times date for the billionth time.

488. Methylethyl and Batstrel —

     Check out Heinrich Klüver on “form constants”. However, there are two different but related phenomena here.

     One is the more elementary level of form constants themselves, which seem to be basic structures of the visual processing system that become visible under various conditions. The other is the “replay” phenomenon — self-luminous, hyper-real, more or less naturalistic imagery, of the sort that manifests in the dark, as when trying to fall asleep, after a day performing with well-lit visual activity– like berry-picking, or hitch-hiking on mountain roads in the sun. It is as though an internal search-pattern that is usually overlaid on the visual field becomes perceptible when there is no external visual input. Under certain conditions, it can be hard for people to tell the difference between an imagined form and a visual stimulus (as in the “Perky effect,” named after Mary Perky, who characterized it with a series of experiments).

     There are a number of similar phenomena, and they can shade into each other (eg when falling asleep one can catch constants elaborating into more or less naturalistic imagery, which in term can slide into dream imagery).

     Various people have tried to reduce all of these phenomena to a single pathology, but that usually requires ignoring the full range of possibilities. For example, Hildegard of Bingen’s visions are sometimes ascribed to form constants which are in turn ascribed to migraine — but one doesn’t need to be a migraineur to see form constant imagery. It would be just as plausible to suppose that she was sampling magic mushrooms. Or experiencing some sort of intracranial electrical stimulation.

     Visual field phenomena of this sort (and similar auditory field phenomena) should probably be regarded as “final common pathways” for any number of events, just as there can be any number of causes for a flushed face, or cold hands.

489. Luddite (#457),

     Thanks for the advice! Not a bad idea. I work in a pretty loud environment as well, so that might be more helpful than you think. I’ll check out your link.

     Sure would like some genuine peace and quiet though…

490. #425 Forecasting, I’ve never been to the Azores but it looks like an amazing place. If you’re happy there that counts for something, even if it might be vulnerable in a few decades. Till then you might have a great time and trouble can happen anywhere anyway. I’m living in the Netherlands and don’t want to leave my family, friends and surroundings. Maybe in a few decades I will lament being there, but at least in the meantime I was in a place I love with people I love.

491. SLClaire #430
     “If one’s mood suddenly changes, keep in mind the possibility that it could be personal, in part or in whole. Or not. Moods are complex, affected by personal and collective factors.”

     Yes indeed that goes without saying.
     What I was alluding to was that things seem particularly turbulent – like climate instability but on other levels, where it seems like there are swings as a new equilibrium is sought. Weather is stormy and 17” of rain dumped in 24 hours, but on a different level.

     The interesting thing to me is that on the other side of the ‘oozing turbulence’ there is also an intensely quiet/calm optimism, that, like fluctuations in emotional weather, does not seem to have a particular root cause – like feeling potential even though a storm is going on.

     Yes the stars might incline and have also considered that the emotional feelings may be something carried over whether from ancestors or other times, but finding oneself in a squall, concluded that right here and now, it is more important to deal with what is going on rather than necessarily understanding it. To understand it is my monkey mind looking for answers.

     Holding to an inner compass seems to work; beyond that I am curious to see what happens next.

492. #451 Eike, you’re right it isn’t just immigration that destroyed social cohesion, that is just an example. There are many factors that work in that direction. Social media, the rise of one parent families, decline of education, globalism etc etc. We went from “It takes a village to raise a child” to “One overworked parent raising a child will do”. We all seem to be ever more living in our own little bubble with little interaction with the bubbles next to us. Such a fragmented society is a weak society and we seem in for a rude awakening to that fact.

493. #460 Lathechuck, thanks for the clarification. Your last statement is very true. There is much going on that hides the real situation from tinkering with the numbers (when inflation get to high the method of calculation is changed etc) to things that are not captured in numbers like increasing pollution of the environment.

494. For Quin and others asking about nuclear energy–

     Wikipedia’s page on nuclear power in the United States is surprisingly extensive. A quick perusal of the history and latest political developments will confirm what JMG has said for a long time about nuclear. Here’s the page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_the_United_States

495. @Michael Martin #475: Actually, that’s a very sensible rule, as is having women-only spaces etc; and probably the same goes for young boys. Because there are predators out there, whether as a lifestyle, or opportunistically. As you pointed out, the rule protects men, too. I think when the dust of the Sexual Revolution settles, some of these commom-sense protections will come back .Not that I expect a return to Victorian mores, either. Just “There’s a time and a place for everything,” This from one growing up in the ’50s, when your own mother couldn’t talk frankly about “the facts of life” to a growing daughter because she couldn’t get the words out, and saw from a distance the really stupid excesses of the Sexual Revolution. And the reactions to that…. like a pendulum swinging. Thanks for your viewpoint here.

     Note: whoever had the idea of having men as guards and officials in women’s prisons, and vice versa, unleashed a lot of very predictable abuses and other evils: I’d start by abolishing that in all places where you have an institutionalized population, because that setup attracts predators and bullies the way large sums of money attracts thieves.

496. Would anyone be kind enough to explain (in as few words as possible) the story surrounding the trump/buddha statues???

     Many thanks

     VA Mtn Man

497. @Robert Morgan @Horzabky I live in France, but haven’t been here full-time for that long, and lived in Glasgow (Indian / Pakistani area), Brixton (pre-gentrification, the only white people were gay men), Camden, Farringdon, amongst other places in the UK.

     My (crude) take is that Thatcher in the UK shafted the immigrant communities *and* the working class, and her proteges have moved on to the lower middle class (Reagan did the same in the US), she really believed in the “free” “market”, and therefore disbanded all economic protections (unlike the US), gave the family silver to the rich, and frittered the oil money on fighting the miners and buying nuclear weapons… that barely function, and can’t be used in any effective way (incidentally the warheads travel south over the Kingston Bridge, which is structurally unsound, and goes through the centre of Glasgow, for maintenance in Aldermaston, or the other nuclear site, I forget its name. If old codgers in Scottish CND can find out when this is happening, I’m guessing the Kremlin can too)! Which is why the French Government (EDF) owns a huge chunk of the UK energy sector, the advertising sector, amongst others.

     However the French only shafted their immigrant population, and dragged their feet on neoliberalism, avoiding some of its disasters, helped by a collective culture, and a stroppy working class, which is why it’s not in such a bad state (contrary to long held fantasy of rightwing anglophiles). Of course there are problems (the disaster of neoliberalism continues to spread and destroy), and of course we’re all headed down the long descent, but France has an excellent infrastructure, which will last for some considerable time, making decline more manageable (a bit like the Victorian / Edwardian legacy in the UK, although it is now beginning to creak at the seams), and is (I think) the only country self-sufficient in food in Europe, thanks in part to the common agricultural policy. Unlike in the UK, where apart from prestigious projects (Kings Cross) designed to funnel money to “oligarch companies”, infrastructure is a disaster. And unlike in the US (with extreme neoliberal policies), and Germany, thanks to an understandable (historical hyperinflation) cultural resistance to spend money, led by Merkel. (Of course, all bets are off, should war expand, and it’s certainly something that Europe is very good at).

     The “left”, in all these places, abandoned their commitment to economic egality, leading to the problems today (there isn’t a “cost of living” crisis, there’s an inequality crisis), thanks to the Thatcher – Reagan reign of terror, and the complete change in what was acceptable in mainstream political discourse, which made “left” parties unelectable (which is not an excuse for abandoning those less well off!). The US, has for some considerable time, been a one party state, the party of business, with two brands, one that says we’ll shaft you, and the other that says we won’t shaft you… and then does. Britain has now managed to catch up, having started with New Labour (although there was hope for a while, and London did change from a dystopian Blade Runner like city into quite a pleasant and efficient place to live. Ken Livingstone’s bus policy was a stroke of genius).

     France is quite interesting, it has had four, almost equally sized, deeply embedded political groups for some time, which is why “normal politics” is having such problems. They are: 1 pro globalisation, pro immigration; 2 anti globalisation, anti immigration; 3 pro globalisation, anti immigration; and 4 anti globalisation, pro immigration. You can see why this makes it difficult for traditional binary politics to function!

     This is exhaustively discussed in Thomas Piketty’s “Capital and Ideology”, with extraordinarily comprehensive stats, well worth a read, the book is an investigation into “inequality regimes” (ie all ways of organising society), covering most of the world, and much of history, why they work / manage to continue, what factors that lead to their creation, and a bit on what factors could lead to change for something better. The remarkable equal social democratic societies of the Western World 1945 – 1980, yes I’m aware of how they were financed, are clearly preferable to French Haiti where 80% of the inhabitants were slaves! Worth noting that Thatcher’s nonsense of “liberating entrepreneurship” crashed and burned – growth has *never* been as high as it was in the seventies in the UK, after she unleashed her revolution (and yes, of course there are other factors).

     https://www.amazon.com/Capital-Ideology-Thomas-Piketty/dp/0674980824

498. @Michael Gray
     I’ll second that, his book “How Not to Die” (it’s a joke) is very palatable, and he has a website with specific sound bite clips: https://nutritionfacts.org/

     For some people he’s probably a bit grating (alpha-male, confident), but get past that and he’s good.

     Factoids: the third cause of death in the US is medical professionals’ mistakes, supplements generally don’t work, you need to get all your nutritional needs from plants.

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