One way to measure the health of a society is to look at how the ruling elite of that society protects the things that are important to the society. Just as the management of a company cannot micromanage every aspect of the firm, the ruling class cannot make sure every rule and custom is strictly enforced. It has to focus its energy on the big items that make the society possible. From there this attitude will flow down to the lower levels who will enforce the smaller rules.
What the ruling elite of a society does by enforcing the big rules, especially those that manage the affairs of the ruling class, is set the tone. A disciplined ruling class reinforces the idea that the rules matter, and they must be respected. This attitude becomes a habit of mind for the people. On the other hand, a ruling class that has no respect for its own rules helps foster a culture of cheating. If it is okay for the bosses to cheat, then only a sucker follows the rules.
The easy example of this is the Roman Republic. When the families at the top of the social order strictly abided by the rules that governed patricians, the plebeians followed their lead in the minor things. The republican virtue that was necessary for their society was a habit of mind. Once the people at the top stopped enforcing their rules, the rest of the culture followed. Caesar was simply the logical end point of a process of decay that began long before he crossed the Rubicon.
In this age, things like the rule of law, the orderly transition of power and the respect for rational inquiry are the big items of society. Liberal democracies are supposed to be rule-based societies that seek to progress by advances in knowledge. That is done by allowing people to investigate the natural world looking for better solutions to the problems of life. These investigations are to follow a set of rules and ethics that reflect the general morality. Progress is orderly and open.
Recent events make plain that the rule of law has broken down across all levels of American society. The rich always have advantages in the law, but now they operate under a different set of rules entirely. America is now ruled by a pirate class that is free to do what they like to the people. Similarly, the orderly transition of power through the mechanism of elections has become a farce. No one involved has any respect for the rules of democracy and no one can trust the results.
Those seem like things that could be fixed once the geezers at the top of the political system are replaced by a new class of people. There is no guarantee, and the odds are not great, but it seems to most people that there is some hope of fixing these problems through a renewal of the liberal democratic spirit. On the other hand, the respect for rational inquiry and debate appears to be hopelessly lost. We are rapidly reaching a point where dissent is explicitly forbidden in America.
That in itself could be lumped in with the other bits of the system that need reform, but the corruption has gone beyond suppression. It is becoming clear that the culture of mendacity that plagues the political class has become the norm within the realms of science and medicine. A culture of rule breaking at the top of society has fostered a culture of dishonestly within the academic community. Even in the hard sciences the willingness to cheat and lie has become quite common.
A good recent example is the Elizabeth Holmes trial. Everything about her career and the company she created was a fraud. This was plainly obvious to many, but they remained quiet as there is no reward for enforcing the rules. Breaking the rules can make you very rich, so lots of people break the rules. The fact that the state is struggling to put this woman in a cage speaks to the legal corruption. The fact that she exists speaks to the corruption in the academy.
She is not alone. The chief executive of biotech firm Athira Pharma was forced out of her position when she admitted to faking her research. When she was a graduate student, she falsified her findings in a number of studies. Those studies set her up for funding to start the company. They were also used to obtain patents. Despite the fact she is a fraud and her company a sham, she only had to resign, and the company will continue on as if nothing important happened.
The elephant in the room on this topic is Covid. The idea of science has been so corrupted that it is now warping the language. Because the vaccines do not actually work as promised, the language is being changed to fit the crime. It used to be that vaccines provided immunity from infection by a specific virus. Now immunity means a sense of happiness that comes from compliance. You may still die from Covid, or you could become immortal. Who can tell anymore?
Science and its practical application have been the gift from the gods that has allowed man to move beyond his primitive existence. In modern societies it is the thing that is supposed to provide the limits on excess and steadily improve daily life. It is fair to say that trust in scientific and technological progress is the bedrock of modernity. It is the thing that we all trust to keep society anchored to reality. It should be the thing the ruling class protects at all costs, but that is no longer true.
In a world where you cannot trust the important things, the little things become nothing but a matter of opinion or convenience. If the people at the top have no respect for the rule of law, then the people at the bottom will have no reason to follow the law other than fear of punishment. The culture will become one where evading the spirit of the rules is the natural habit of mind. This corruption of the soul of society will corrupt the soul of the people, as we are witnessing today.
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” America is now ruled by a pirate class that is free to do what they like to the people. ”
The only rub is that most of the people love the pirate class, love the direction the empire is going, and believe the things they hear in the news.
They give their stamp of approval of the rulers
9
They do until they don’t.
9
Thats the hope. I don’t have a lot of conversations with normies so I wouldn’t know. Everyone is afraid to be “extreme”
Most on the left seem to accept the pirate class because the pirate class push causes dear to the left. Most on the right like the pirate class because they too worship money and “success” but think as the economy gets worse more will grow to hate the pirates
1
Most don’t, they know full well we are being screwed over, bullied and even terrorized. Except they have no venue to express their views in a manner that does not invite retribution.. For all intents most of us live in what amounts to a variant of the USSR.
For a long time I had the feeling that this decade will be the last “normal” years and when the 2030s come is gonna be a wild ride of uncertainty, maybe already is but when the older boomers finally retire of this life all hell is gonna break because liking then or not it is Boomers who this kept society working.
9
We are already suffering a talent shortage. I run into this in my daily work life. Finding people with the brains and character to perform essential tasks is getting difficult. Technology covered for a lot of it, but you cannot automate everything.
19
I know I sound like the Boomer I am, but the twenty-somethings I repeatedly hire–replacing those who quit after less than a year–just don’t wanna work. They can’t see any value in work other than the $$. And now via a YT video, I heard of a new thing called ‘workism.” As it was an essay from the Atlantic, the mind boggles.
10
I have given 30 years of my life to my job/industry and believe me I am having serious regrets about the night shifts, weekends, overtime, relocating multiple times. It has now come down to being threatened with termination over the vaccine. The assets that I have accumulated, investments and a paid off home, are now being targeted by the DC mob’s tax on unrealized gains (you don’t really think they are going to stop at billionaires do you). Maybe younger people are looking at all this and deciding not to invest their time and energy in a system that has become so obviously rigged against them.
11
This. A despair of disparity. Certainly the factories of talent and skill have fallen steeply into alt-reality and thus the youngins are ill-equipped.
But more importantly the elixir of the american dream has turned to turpentine but he label on the bottle remains. Sure, it can still get you drunk. But you also go blind. In my young years as a corporate cog I could at least see the trajectory; the pretty lies still had some bearing in reality.
The kids now have to swallow so many lies that by the time they matriculate into a cog the can no longer manifest a vision of reality from the vapors.
The thing is the entire message has changed. We still like to talk of building some long career arc of skills and hard work that pays off incrementally. So it makes sense, sorta, to take on college debt.
But then all of the cultural messaging is of insta-wealth and insta-fame. There is a massive bait-n-switch and the lede is buried in the narrative. The kids know, however, if even unconsciously.
The information age fell like an anvil on the little piggies with dreams of brick houses. Its all straw houses. Tech billionaires. Bitcoin millionaires. Robinhood ironic short-sellers. Social media influencers. Some bug-eyed b-rate ivy league psycho spreading for thirsty old grifters. Conjur idea, monetize. 50 million cameras pointed inward as they scratch lotto tix and dream of a more authentic life to livestream.
Meanwhile many boomers who have benefitted from the biggest economic expansion in human history provide no sage advice or succession plans.
They are too busy getting dragged around by Dickens’ ghosts of Christmas. The fear of not having enough is being replaced by the fear of the reaper punching their ticket. What do you mean i can’t take it all with me?
Wuhan has made several boomers I know go literally insane with the prospect that their life will actually end. So kids don’t want to work hard. Go figure.
3
It’s become a self-reinforcing feedback loop. A lot of millennial compatriots complain about corporate culture, in it’s demands for overtime, unpaid or underpaid labor, and the complete lack of work-life balance. The thing is, their complaints are legitimate to an extent. I personally hate corporate culture, which is why I’m self-employed. I’m basically the type of young person corporations would love to hire, but I make six figures working for myself, and thus wouldn’t consider a salary of less than 150k to give up my independence. The trouble is, corps won’t offer more than a third of that.
3
An addendum to my comment above: a lot of retail and service jobs that young people work simply serve to insulate upper management from their customer base. By this I mean that the people working POS in retail etc have to hear complaints about policies they have no control over but are expected to enforce. Their job is to absorb abuse but not resolve anything so upper management’s paperwork looks good. That’s just not worth it at entry level wages.
2
People have come to think they owe potential employers nothing. I have had people not return phone calls after sending me a resume the same day, not show up for interviews, and not show up for the first day of work after accepting a job. It has nothing to do with wages either. These people have no/low skills and don’t think they should have to develop any either.
6
It really is the Age of Entitlement.
6
But the media told me we have millions of qualified, vibrant STEM PhDs rotting in the fields!
They also told me we have millions of doctors and engineers streaming across the borders every day!
1
Call me a slacker, but I didn’t want to be the guy who created the next plague in the lab. That was 20 years ago.
The meat grinder will start chewing your hand if you don’t pull it out. Guess it’s a matter of perspective.
5
The CoVid phenomenon may well have a sociological effect similar to that caused by World War One. A complete collapse in the public trust of institutions, elites and the philosophy that ordered the previous century.
I’d say we’re one high casualty flu season away from that happening. It’s becoming obvious to just about everyone that the elites are making shit up as they go along and that “science” is no where near as certain as the establishment insists. Not to mention the self dealing, hypocrisy and shrillness of their blatant propaganda.
9
I very much doubt that “it’s becoming obvious to just about everyone.” There is no shortage of fanatic, emotionally deeply invested sheep out there.
7
1
I agree. I have elderly conservative neighbors that use the “n” word regularly but are convinced 50 people are dying a day in the city from covid….
1
I canceled my appointment to get the J&J jab a week ago when I read that it landed a local police chief in the ICU. I was also supposed to see one of my favorite bands play live tomorrow evening, but the venue requires proof of vaccination or a negative Kung Flu test.
Damn it all.
8
They’re coming for all of us. Even the kids now.
1
So go get a flu test. Could save your life if it enables you to begin therapeutics early. If you’re negative go to your concert. Either way you screw the man.
1
The wages of entertainment is death lol. Same as it ever was, but things get really clear as they play out.
Good choice!
3
Its a free country! Uh, wait a minute….
1
I have been uninvited to a Thanksgiving get together by my aunt because I won’t take the shot. I don’t care. My family is a microcosm of the state of the white world. It will be a couple lesbians and their partners and a single catlady witch/satanist who considers baby killing the highest good. The only male is a retired doctor who wears a mask alone in his car. Nobody under 50 because there are no children. I’m sure they will talk about how crazy I am.
https://thecovidblog.com/
https://rumble.com/vnc5yk-dr.-peter-mccullough-therapeutic-nihilism-and-untested-novel-therapies-aaps.html
4
Jeez that sounds a depressing holiday dinner.
I remember reading about a guy who killed himself by drilling into his own skull 9 times with an electric drill.
I always wondered how he kept going after the first 2. Perhaps he had a similar Thanksgiving.
1
Ha! Seriously. My most innocuous comment about anything would probably trigger one and all
Whatever else you might think of him, NN Taleb (Black Swan guy) has it right about “skin in the game”. Not only do the elites not have to play by the rules, they are increasingly immune from the results of their disasters.
The historians tell us that at Cannae, perhaps 25% of the Roman Senate perished under Hannibal’s swords. The Code of Hammurabi held that architects/builders would suffer death if their structures collapsed due to negligence. Today, lower-echelon officers get blamed for four-star disasters and entire companies get blown up while the CEOs skate. The Boeing MAX 737 debacle is being blamed on some poor slob VP too dumb to get out of the way of the investigative steamroller.
This is of course the terminal point of democracy’s descent into kleptocracy: Pirates run the system, as Zman has pointed out so well. The ethics of the Pirate become the popular mores and customs soon enough. Soon enough, Chicago will make Sarajevo look like the Garden of Eden.
10
Taleb is a hedgehog who thinks he is a fox, but that does not change the fact that he got a few things very right and those are worth knowing.
8
In the past, to be a noble or an elite provided obligations as well as privileges.
I am currently reading through Tolstoy’s “War and Peace”. While the noble families described in the novel are certainly flawed, the expectation existed that they were to serve Russia, and that their sons would be risking their lives on the battlefield to fight for their country. They had skin in the game.
As recently as WWII, the expectation of the elites in our society was for them to risk their lives serving their country when called upon. And not just pushing papers. Joe Kennedy Jr. was killed in WWII, JFK was a PT boat captain who actually was involved in fighting. GHWB was flying planes, as was Ted Williams.
Today’s elites are more isolated from the plebes, and for now more removed from the consequences of their decisions, than were the Russian nobles under the tsarist regime. Think about that.
9
And that very fact was used to engender two world wars to obliterate the existing elite in Europe and make way for the new entries into the power structure.
1
I’m on my second reading of W&P and the only suspect character is Pierre. Its almost like, unwittingly, he is an ideological timebomb. I havn’t read any commentary on W&P yet, but I wonder what Tolstoy was getting about Pierre. Andrei has his liberal side, but Pierre bests him in strangeness and wrecklessness. The fact that he is a bastard has got to be symbolic
1
Yup. At the end he’s fixing to be a Decembrist.
To this point (about 570 pages in), I am suspicious of the Kuragin family especially. Seem to be rather conniving. Perhaps I am mistaken, and the story will reveal itself.
It gets old repeating, but that dictum militating virtue as the linchpin of any civil polity is wonderfully illustrated by Zs excellent précis. Regardless of our Framers [and other theoreticians] efforts, without virtue, even the most cleverly devised system of check, balances, and limited governments are eventually going to fail. The ouroborean nature of civilization seems inextricably tied to the Fall, writ over and over again.
9
“ouroborean”: relating to the serpent Ouroboros, eating his own tail.
Show up to read Mr. Z-Man’s missive, stay for the perspicasity.
7
Good post. TLDR, the world sucks.
7
In some “end of the world” short story collection I read 40 years ago, one had to do with a real man-made pandemic, not this bullshit Covid-19. The reaction in most countries was to first blame the scientists. And kill them. Then techs and medical staffs. The story ended with primitives around a fire telling about how “those who could read” died last.
Pace your post today, loss in trust in science and technology could have a nasty feedback loop leaving us in the dark. Probably forever.
6
“It is fair to say that trust in scientific and technological progress is the bedrock of modernity. It is the thing that we all trust to keep society anchored to reality.”
So you are saying our power grid being torn up and replaced with solar panels, bird Cuisenarts and unicorn flatulance is not going to keep the lights on?
Man, I wish I lived in a more temperate climate and / or weighed more. It is going to be a cold winter…
11
The West and particularly the United States is now sociopathic. Yes, some of this can be attributed to the presence of Puritans and Jews at the top echelons–certainly the narcissism and cruelty–but most of the widespread pathology can be honestly attributed to those groups.
The public as a whole embraced the dysfunctional,, violent pathology of urban Blacks because that is what they see as admirable; brainwashing played a role albeit a small one. Most is choice.
Disconnect from this sick culture as much as possible not just because it is about to collapse into violent chaos but because you you know what happens when you stare into the abyss. If the nightmare scenario of a nuclear war started for shits and giggles does not materialize, we can live through this.
14
If the charming psychopath trading in narcissistic supply is the model actor certainly the globo petro dollar factors in as well.
The west being the market maker and clearing house for financial transactions of the global pillaging provides quite a carnival in which barkers and freaks and their pets can thrive.
Who needs virtue when your fiat currency is the sword on the neck of the world?
Even for us plebs the abuse of reality is so widespread and intrusive at this point that the dignity of our own labor has been cooked off to boil the pot we call home.
The eggheads will burn the candle at both ends to do the economic maths required to explain where all the labor went and the middlemen will nod along, mumbling something about taxes. Unfortunately – or fortunately, the solution is as you say to disconnect.
Its a paradigm that will be too difficult for most. That’s the unfortunate part. The fortunate part is that a scorched earth divorce from globo fiat tyranny breaks the hypnosis of debt-fueled upward mobility; the golden handcuffs that have turned to zip-ties and a bar code in quick time.
A lot of talk of needles of late. The vaxx dagger coming at us and the one that will be pulled from our veins feeding us fiat and lies. There is a growing number of people that will not be content to roll back a few years or even decades. All of modernity is coming under rightful inspection.
2
Heh. whites have been disconnected from culture and life since the 70’s. This is why they lost their country. They stopped caring. There is a reason why Wall Street labels us consumers and not citizens. Because we gave up being citizens for creature comforts and entertainment.
For the most part we became indifferent. This indifference is also allows a tiny minority to rule over us with impunity. We have become the modern day Eloi.
3
*cannot be attributed
We have a legion of Winston Smiths redacting and changing accepted knowledge and facts from the past. As you have noted with the Covid BS. At some point the masses will believe it was always this way, hell, some change on the fly with the new “facts”.
When will that final penny drop for average conservative and still with many dissidents that the system is fully broken and is daily being retooled to crush us.
Watch the hopium being injected in many regarding the Virginia governor’s race.
Believing polls, expecting fair vote counting is nuts at this stage. Have they learned nothing?
15
The dismantling of the internet wayback machine is already happening with sites blocking it, and Google’s search algorithms are practically North Korean for controversial topics.
5
I burst out laughing last night watching Tucker Carlson because he seemed genuinely sure the two clowns in Virginia were at a dead heat.
First, I never believe polls. Second if I ever had I would no longer knowing the Gestapo cooks the books.
Finally, has Tucker not learned the lesson of the election coup of 2020? Any election the demofascists can’t afford to lose they won’t.
Oh, and the leftists always count the votes.
9
No.
He was projecting a message to you.
What he believes is irrelevant to this, and you cannot possibly know. What is saying to you is as written in his script and talking points. This is what is projected.
I am confused people cannot apply a theory of mind to the people on TV. You are not having a conversation as to their views. You are being managed in a wider programme.
5
Tucker has to be careful when it comes to vote fraud because he will end up like Lou Dobbs being fired and erased from Fox. It is now the third rail.
All it took for Dobbs to be fired was Dominion threatening to sue FNC.
5
RWC1963 – seems like there have been lots of “third rails” over the past few decades. And for some reason, they keep getting updated as society and the culture degrade…
1
“It’s not longer about who gets to vote…It’s about who gets to count the vote”. –
President of the United States, Joseph Robinette Biden.
(he actually said this)
Correct. They have learned nothing.
2
“For when these men have been brought up in a corrupt city, where their training is little likely to improve them, nothing that can happen will induce them to withdraw their pretensions; nay, to have their own way and satisfy their perverse humor, they will be content to look on while their country is ruined.”
-Machiavelli
9
A recent poll showed that Millennials are far more likely to think it was morally acceptable to cheat and to try to get even with people than Gen X. While a lot of this has to do with the collapse of religion, a large portion is younger generations growing up in a society where the rules mattered far less.
At this rate Gen Z will be a bunch of moral psychopaths. It’s just a matter of if there’s enough competence being taught in our institutions where they can keep the lights on while backstabbing their way through our new low-trust society.
7
BFD since the previous generations didn’t do squat except support a series of insane foreign wars, off-shored our industries and made us China’s bitch.
Do you realize how pathetic we are as a nation today when we are totally dependent on China from toys, medicine, clothes and semiconductors that are needed for everything from making cars to our latest military hardware. 30 years ago this wasn’t the case.
At least this current crop is learning not to trust the government, businessmen, politicians and hopefully grow a backbone that the earlier generations gave up for a 401k.and sportsball.
8
Slave labor can make u very rich also. Just ask Bezos.
4
Not to mention no sales taxes for the first decade or so, courtesy of the government, to put all you competition out of business.
My favorite “science” is that of the airport dwelling consultant – Neo-liberal economics. This is best personified by Daron Acemoglu. Because, according to this caste, every attribute of humanity is due to human environmental factors, they seek to explain facts like differences in national GDP through “institutions.”
To them, the “developing world” is suffering due to environmental causes like lack of “institutions,” “natural resource curses,” or “dengue fever.” Never mind the fact that institutions didn’t spring from the earth, the US does well with ample resources and winter is a far greater killer/economic retardant than tropical disease.
But, as many on our side point out, realistic explanation is ignored because modern morality only allows us to see life through the prism of environmentalism. We live in a theocracy where the religion of the economic bug man is state sponsored. And, to many, it derives its reverence and authority because it enables consumption of goods beyond any other point in history.
But we are reaching a paradigm shift as the economic bug man’s explanation of the world will come into question as the economy falters. Eventually, the bottom will fall out – whether it’s this year of in 10 years. But it’s coming.
Once that happens, people will seek new explanations of reality. Be ready.
3
Once again, these are hard truths of our modern era in which prolonged affluence has made us soft and that softness has allowed deviant predators to rise to the top of our political & economic power structures. Robber barons have become an epidemic and the normal checks & balances of law enforcement have been corrupted absolutely. They own the police & judiciary.
And if we don’t take it back, we will have earned our fate. But how?
There are still many good men and women among us (tens of millions in fact), and we are all behind enemy lines, and we still have access to pretty much everything because we are the grunts that make things work. The engine does not run without us. And now that the rule of law is dead and buried, all is fair game. It is both moral and an existential imperative to rid the body of disease. The cancer cells must go. Focus and precision. From the shadows, only from the shadows. It’s the only way to be sure.
3
As an added note.
It’s amazing how many wrenches you can throw in the system and how much you can get away with just by being polite and nice to their face while doing it. People have been programmed to equate niceness with morality. As annoying as it is to dip your words in honey, it’s an incredibly effective way to silence your enemies.
4
Revenge of the Nice Guys(TM).
Like Dalton’s famous lecture to the team of bouncers in “Road House”: “I want you to be nice. until it is time to not be nice.”
It works really well. But in the end (spoiler!), he still has to rip that guys throat out. Right in front of the hot chick no less.
2
I was recently listening to a podcast about 2 guys who were murdering people in the 19th century to sell the bodies to medical men at the university. Their names were “Burke and Hare,” and their crimes are called the “Burke and Hare Murders” They were murdering poor people in London, from prostitutes to down on their luck workers. When what they were doing came to light, one of them was tried and quickly hung. But the wealthy doctor from the college who was buying the corpses (to autopsy/vivisection for public display) and hiding where they came from and how he knew for sure one of them was murdered and took steps to hid the identity, no charges were filed against him.
There has always been two sets of rules. What is different today is that the rules have been weaponized. Kyle Rittenhouse is a great example of how the law no longer protects you. There is no longer a rule of law, there is only rule of men. The cloud people don’t like his kind and so they have to punish him regardless of the facts of the case.
10
||| “Science and its practical application have been the gift from the gods that has allowed man to move beyond his primitive existence” |||
Yet, in that ‘primitive existence’ Man had a much better idea of ‘Man’ and ‘Being’, which he lost once he began to overestimate his ‘rationality’.
4
1
Another excellent post today. Phenomenal day in and day out. I have to say I really don’t like the way the covid discussions are headed. No amount of proof of the questionable efficacy or the direct dangers of the vaccine, let alone the obviously low fatality rate of the virus itself will change the covidian mind. The continued clamoring for everyone to get vaxxed, now including young kids is very disconcerting. The further talk, becoming more mainline, of isolating and impoverishing including forcibly, non-covidians is extremely troubling. We have to be very close to some sort of inflection point.
9
It is, as Z and Severian have pointed out, a religion. We now have the Crusaders marching forth to convert or punish the non-believers.
2
What ever happened to stop touching our faces? That was a big thing, now, touch away!
1
This is why it is imperative for us to get out of their system.
Then, start developing our own system, or assist those who seem worthwhile that are doing the same thing.
1
“Science and its practical application have been the gift from the gods that has allowed man to move beyond his primitive existence. In modern societies it is the thing that is supposed to provide the limits on excess and steadily improve daily life. It is fair to say that trust in scientific and technological progress is the bedrock of modernity. It is the thing that we all trust to keep society anchored to reality. It should be the thing the ruling class protects at all costs, but that is no longer true.”
I’d add that as important as science and its practical application is to moving past our primitive existence, a solid moral framework that delineates right from wrong is vital as well. There’s a good book that provides ten simple rules for living, and points out to us in This Brave New World that human beings and their failings are nothing new under the sun. Scientific advancement and business transactions, tying into your post from yesterday, without a moral underpinning of asking “Is this right?” leads you down the road to the perversion of the Golden Rule to be “Do unto others before they shall do it unto you”.
To be fair, too much moral underpinning can lead to the Zealous Crusader (“We MUST bring Christianity to these poor, downtrodden brethren!”), but it does serve as a good brake to the darker side of our human natures, when it works.
3
A good point. Many scientific writers of the past 300-400 years saw science as an attempt to understand Him. I’d agree that we want to avoid zealotry – but after we’ve wiped anti-white wokeists from the face of the planet.
It’s also interesting to note that science with a Christian bedrock has a much better track record than science with an ideological (think Wokeist) bedrock. I believe this to be related to the link between many early scientists and their Christian beliefs. That said, some of our greatest minds and innovators were either quiet about their believes or outright atheists/agnostics.
But woke science? Jogger, please!
2
The professionalization of science has most likely been the signal that it has grown weaker and weaker. Far less effective at what it used to do. In so many cases, professional scientists just seem to pretend about attaining the truth; without actually putting in the hard work, it’s all marketing and hype. Again and again.
In the early 1900s, when Niels Bohr and company were considering how to interpret quantum phenomena, there were probably only a thousand professional physicists worldwide. This network appeared small enough that many were on personal terms with many others, with this link extending across the globe… some feat for that time. Any biography of people like Bohr, Prandtl, Einstein, Planck, von Karman, von Neumann &c shows just how dedicated and smart these fellows were. These lads would have had to have been told not to be scientists.
In short: real science is hard. Very hard. And it is also very boring in parts. Perhaps in most parts. That’s why I don’t trust most professional scientists, because doing real, proper science is so hard, and at times so demoralizing, that I do not think the current bucket loads of professional scientists could hack it.
Another interesting thing to consider when you next see some professional PhD MSc CuNT on the TV is this: How much time do these very esteemed people actually spend doing real science? When you are the head honcho of some institution I’d imagine you spend a lot of time doing that most 20th Century aspect of make-work: management. And probably some fund raising. And maybe also some PR stuff to bolster your reputation.
I am grateful to proper science. But I’m afraid professional science, as practiced in many institutions is most probably very rote and of little importance. It’s all one big sham; who can appear the most virtuous of all… why look! Company ‘X’ really wants you to know they are working hard toward that cure for cancer! Imagine what amazing geniuses they have working for them! Look at this new advance! Mark you, we know from all the efforts the Big Corps put into their marketing that it’s all hype.
The question of what truths science should explore is another matter, however. I cannot support science for science’s sake all the time; it must act in service to a higher culture. But that culture ought not to be poisonous anti-white wokeism.
8
Late Friedrich Jünger addressed this perspective in his great book, “The Failure of Technology: Perfection Without Purpose”.
There’s hardly a paragraph or even a sentence in this missive that can’t receive valid criticism or be considered 180 degrees off.
None of this stuff is new. Homo sapiens has been swindling others of his species since moving down from the trees.
A disciplined ruling class reinforces the idea that the rules matter, and they must be respected. This attitude becomes a habit of mind for the people.
The rulers, whomever they may be, encode behaviors that already exist in the population, they don’t initiate them. For instance, cock fighting and eating horse meat were both common in the early years of the US. The legislatures didn’t spontaneously decide that chowing down on Trigger was harmful to one’s health or produced hallucinations. They merely codified an attitude that had come to dominate most of the population. “The people” decided that this particular animal, in contrast to cows, pigs and chickens, couldn’t be used as food.
There’s a long US tradition of business dishonesty. Eleanor Holmes is just another fraudster making use of developing technology to fleece wealthy “investors” who just don’t feel wealthy enough. Jim Fisk pulled the same stunt with the Erie Railroad in the mid-19th century.
That is done by allowing people to investigate the natural world looking for better solutions to the problems of life. These investigations are to follow a set of rules and ethics that reflect the general morality. Progress is orderly and open.
How would people be stopped from investigating the natural world? The rules and ethics are different from one city block to another, not just from one continent to another. Progress, however it’s defined, has always followed a rocky and undisciplined course. It often isn’t even beneficial to the average meatball.
While the Covid fraud is of particular note, especially for its use of pseudo-science, an even better but unmentioned example is the politicization of climate science. The AGW swindle, begun with the furor over the “ozone hole”, will be the golden goose for the managerial elites.
1
Nice to read Z-man expressing a touch of skepticism toward the experimental gene therapies that are all the rage these days.
4
I’m not really into the Jew thing, but
” The culture will become one where evading the spirit of the rules is the natural habit of mind.”
Sounds incredibly Jewish.
4
Has anyone else noticed how Brahminical the ruling caste has become? I don’t just mean how much power South Asians have (hi, Kamala!). I mean the purity rituals. They’ve always been Puritanical, our overlords, but now they’re concerned with bodily pollution….
I know, I know, it seems weird, given how degenerate they are, but look at how insistent they are about goofy stuff like self-driving cars and making the masses eat bugs and grass. If you assume that what they really long for is a ritually pure world, where no grubby prole could ever possibly put his greasy mitts on their precious, precious stuff, all their attitudes click into place. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to learn that Nancy Pelosi threw out every piece of furniture in her office, and had the room itself cleansed with fire, because a polluted Dirt Person touched it.
10
Good point. They have as little contact with the great unwashed masses as possible and want to have even less. The thought are having to share a meal with common people would make them physically ill.
1
And you thought the masks for the politicians were about the coof.
Its a mask against the filthy outside plebs.
It is the old Podhoretz line about Jews living like Episcopalians and voting like Puerto Ricans. Our rulers live like Victorians but talk like pornographers.
4
Victorians. Lol, no they don’t. I used to bodyguard these types of people. The ratio of sickos-to-normal is disproportional.
It seems strange how the most bugmen/bugwomen are in places like the imperial capital. Outside of the main business/government districts, DC, like most metro areas, has a lot of slums. Though they may claim to worship African Americans, there is a certain amount of realism you have to have to live in an American city.
These are people who will sit for hours in bumper to bumper traffic twice a day to avoid contact with the dirt people and vibrant dirt people on the trains and buses. It’s almost like the implausibility of the ‘pure and good’ vibrant dirt people makes it all the more attractive to them. BART in California actually announced on TV that they wouldn’t be releasing any more video of crime on the BART system because it might cause people to incorrectly assume African Americans are responsible for making BART unusable by normal people who want to get to work safely and with all their belongings..
1
As an outside observer of American politics, one could argue that following the 1886 Supreme Court case of Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Co., when corporations were granted the same legal protection as individuals, it’s been down hill for the average American citizen ever since.
Can anyone argue against the fact that the longest existing Banana Republic in recent history, cleverly disguised as a first world country, proclaiming freedom and democracy to the world, yet openly abuses and censures it’s own citizens, has been the USA?
No nation on earth can hold a candle to the levels of corporate, political and military corruption the USA has enacted upon it’s own people, and that of other nations, and for as long as the US has managed to get away with it. Even the old USSR pales by comparison when you look at the global impact the US has inflicted upon the world over the past 125-years.
The darkness and depravity of America’s political soul is not really anything new to even the most casual student of US history. It’s just more obvious today thanks to your current president, Caesar Dementias and the circus of miscreants and deviants that are disguised as your political elites.
If America society has degenerated this much in less than a year since Caesar Dementias took office, it’s absolutely frightening to contemplate what three more years under his reign of idiocy will bring.
https://today.law.harvard.edu/a-history-of-corruption-in-the-united-states/
10
“Those seem like things that could be fixed once the geezers at the top of the political system are replaced by a new class of people. There is no guarantee, and the odds are not great, but it seems to most people that there is some hope of fixing these problems through a renewal of the liberal democratic spirit. On the other hand, the respect for rational inquiry and debate appears to be hopelessly lost. We are rapidly reaching a point where dissent is explicitly forbidden in America.”
Enjoyed this point immensely, given your topic of organizing last week. ZMAN, or anyone for that matter; how can we reconcile what was discussed last week regarding operable organizing and this:
https://www.takimag.com/article/both-sides-now-in-the-key-of-auschwitz/
The man is a good writer and thinker no doubt. He has been invited to speak at AMREN Con this year as well. It seems to me he is simply arguing that WE have the end right (vote your own team) but the means is wrong (his example Republican submission in California). As difficult as last week’s examples of what shall be done were to think through, it appears that the author and fellow Taki contributor is still grasping hopelessly at the “democratic process” straws.
And then there’s the “green energy” science which will give us, deservedly, the energy crisis of a lifetime. Pay no attention to energy density. Nothing to see here. Democracy makes everyone and everything a political football. Not even Mao could integrate his personae into daily plebe life the way democracy does. And in doing so, society has been transformed into a dead, dusty, debt laden wax museum. One that will eventually burn down. And when that happens…good riddance.
Holmes was smart. Very smart. She fit the mold of modern woman precisely, down to the black turtlenecks and speaking as low as she can, while exuding confidence and sophistication to the CNBC rubes. Her problem was that she built a company around a machine. In the end, a machine either works or it doesn’t. No one could catch her. She was only caught by the machine itself, sitting there, like a brick, doing nothing. Had she chosen a product that she could pretend works, when it doesn’t, like a COVID vaccine, she would be fine today.
7
Yes. Holmes should have done like Musk: find a product that already works and pretend you invented it.