Taki Post: Watch Your Step

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Societal decline is best imagined as a drunk man falling down a long flight of stairs, maybe a long spiral staircase. He begins at the top, the peak of the society, then carelessly makes the wrong steps and begins to tumble down the stairs. It is not a rapid or steady fall to the bottom. Instead, he hits a landing, rights himself for a bit, but regaining his confidence he makes another wrong step and takes another tumble.

Some of the landings are long and he is able to function at that level for a while, thinking he is still at the place he started. Maybe he takes a few tentative steps back to the old position higher up the stairs, but eventually it is another misstep, and he falls back down past that landing to another landing farther down. This is societal decline. It is periods of decline punctuated by periods in which it feels like the decline has been arrested.

This is useful to keep in mind as we watch the new regime come to grips with the new reality they face….link

Extra Black

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We are more than halfway through Black History Month and I realized I had done nothing to celebrate the season. This week we remedy that with a whole show on blackness and its traveling partner whiteness. That is one of the things that gets missed in the rapidly evolving ethos of Jim Snow America. The concept of whiteness can only exist in the presence of non-whiteness, especially blackness. Without the juxtaposition with non-whiteness, whiteness is no longer discernable.

This is not entirely by accident. Blackness, as has been discussed here many times, is a negative identity. Black identity depends entirely on the relationship between blacks and whites, real and imagined. Everything about being black in America revolves around the black relationship with whites. Remove whites from the equation and blackness has no meaning. If whites pack up and leave, blacks will have to follow them, as whites are their reason to exist now.

This is what the anti-whites are up to with whiteness. They are seeking to make white identity a negative identity, dependent upon nonwhites. The infamous anti-white tract, White Fragility, is about defining whiteness in a negative light in objective terms, but also as something wholly dependent on nonwhites. The pogrom against white parents and their children in the New York City schools is another example. To be white is all about the relationship with nonwhites.

Unlike blackness, whiteness can have no positive connotations. Everything about being white is bad, according to our genocidal rulers. Most important to white people, the only escape from the dark cloud of whiteness is to remove all whiteness from society, which is simply a call for genocide. Since all whites are guilty at birth, the only logical solution to the whiteness problems is to kill whitey. Since many of the people preaching this are white, it makes anti-whiteness something like a suicide cult.

That is the missing piece to the puzzle. Nonwhites participate in these antiwhite pogroms for personal gain and racial vengeance. The thing is though, they would get nowhere in their efforts without whites at the top of society supporting it. In fact, the driving force behind anti-whiteness are white elites. They are not under a spell or being tricked by a historically crafty. Anti-whiteness is the logical endpoint for white people driven by self-loathing. It is the ultimate form of self-abnegation.

This week I have the usual variety of items in the now standard format. Spreaker has the full show. I am up on Google Play now, so the Android commies can take me along when out disrespecting the country. I am on iTunes, which means the Apple Nazis can listen to me on their Hitler phones. The anarchists can catch me on iHeart Radio. I am now on Deezer, for our European haters and Stitcher for the weirdos. YouTube also has the full podcast. Of course, there is a download link below.

For sites like this to exist, it requires people like you chipping in a few bucks a month to keep the lights on and the people fed. It turns out that you can’t live on clicks and compliments. Five bucks a month is not a lot to ask. If you don’t want to commit to a subscription, make a one time donation. Or, you can send money to: Z Media LLC P.O. Box 432 Cockeysville, MD 21030-0432. You can also use PayPal to send a few bucks, rather than have that latte at Starbucks. Thank you for your support!

Promotions: The good folks at Alaska Chaga are offering a ten percent discount to readers of this site. You just click on the this link and they take care of the rest. About a year ago they sent me some of their stuff. Up until that point, I had never heard of chaga, but I gave a try and it is very good. It is like a tea, but it has a milder flavor. It’s hot here in Lagos, so I’ve been drinking it cold. It is a great summer beverage.

Minter & Richter Designs makes high-quality, hand-made by one guy in Boston, titanium wedding rings for men and women and they are now offering readers a fifteen percent discount on purchases if you use this link.   If you are headed to Boston, they are also offering my readers 20% off their 5-star rated Airbnb.  Just email them directly to book at sa***@*********************ns.com.

This Week’s Show

Contents

Direct Download, The iTunes, Google Play, iHeart Radio, RSS Feed, Amazon

Full Show On Spreaker

Full Show On YouTube

https://youtu.be/-n3bQaPvvBM

Over Supply

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Note: I have a new post up behind the green door. I’m buy a car, which I hate more than just about anything, so I will be posting about that experience for donors. Given my loathing of car buying, it will be an adventure.

One of the first lessons in economics is that demand drives supply. The more a product or service is desired, the greater the supply of it, barring some artificial constraint on supply. The relationship between supply and demand is expressed in the price for the good or service. A rising price means demand is outpacing supply and a falling price means supply is outpacing demand. If demand falls low enough, supply will disappear as there is no profit to be made in the transaction.

Supply and demand used to be an article of faith in capitalist countries, but it seems that our rulers have abandoned that axiom. Take for example labor markets. They insist that flooding the American labor market with new people from abroad will lift wages and increase employment. All that diversity will cancel out the collapse in demand relative to supply and something will happen. With regards to the labor market, the new article of faith is that unlimited supply drives up demand somehow.

Now, a lot of people think this new universal truth about the labor markets is just a trick to fool people into voting away their inheritance. Collusion between the cheap labor lobby and the cheap voter lobby has resulted in this weird libertarian argument that the old axioms about supply and demand do not apply to labor markets. That way heritage Americans will not resist the flood of foreigners into their country. That could be true, but it is not an isolated example of this new economic law.

You may have noticed that the car makers are making a big splash by announcing they will abandon the internal combustion engine within the next decade or so. Jaguar is the latest car maker to say they will stop making normal cars within the decade. They say they will be fully electric by 2025, which is not far off. Other carmakers have been less aggressive in their target date, but the general consensus is that all of them will be electric-only within the next decade.

The question no one asks is why? The embrace of electric cars has been tepid in the United States and Europe. They are an interesting experiment. If you are the sort that likes owning a novelty product, then buying a Tesla is an option. The government literally pays you to buy one, so there is that. Even so, the demand has not been great, because there is not great need for electric cars. For most people, a car is a tool and the current internal combustion models do the job perfectly well.

Then there is the fact that it is a terribly impractical thing to own at this time, as there are few charging stations and charging takes too long. More than half of US drivers cannot have a charging station at home, because they live in a rental unit. Many homeowners cannot have one because of the cost or their homes are not capable of having one installed. Then there is the power grid. Estimates range from $4 to $10 trillion to upgrade the power grid for electric cars.

This is of no concern to our rulers. They are sure that if they crank up the supply side the demand side will do something and then something else will happen and before long the roads are full of electric cars. Now, some will claim that these announcements are just like Soviet five-year plans. They are not realistic targets and the people behind them have no intention of doing what they claim. In other words, they still accept the laws of supply and demand, they just like lying.

Maybe that is true. The fake meat business, on the other hand, suggests they really believe the new economic model. Five years ago, the number of people walking around demanding a burger made from beetles that tasted just like a burger was zero. We have vegans and vegetarians, for sure, but we also have schizophrenics and manic depressives too. Mentally ill people are a part of the human condition. Normal people want to eat a balanced diet that includes meat.

Despite zero demand for meat made from grass and insects, the “Impossible Meat” racket is picking up steam. The billionaires are getting in on the racket and the Davos crowd is telling politicians it is the future. In fairness, the fake meat is not revolting, but that is not the threshold. Cat food does not taste terrible under the right conditions, but people do not want to eat that either. Fake meat is the e-book of the food business, in that it is a solution is search of a problem that was solved long ago.

These are some big recent examples, but they are part of a general trend in which the overclass abandons the laws of supply and demand. Given that market capitalism starts with supply and demand, it may be that we are now post-market societies. We are becoming something like a high-tech version of the palace economy. This was a common way to distribute goods in the Bronze Age. Given that the managerial class has a distinctive Bronze Age quality, it makes perfect sense.

On the other hand, supply driven economics has a poor history. In the 1970’s the great and the good pulled out all the stops to impose the metric system on America, but it was a complete failure. No demand meant no acceptance. The same is true of soccer and women’s sports. For half a century the great and good have been pushing these on Americans, but they remain fringe interests. Those iron laws of supply and demand, like reality itself, are resistant to wishful thinking.

The other side of this is that the people pushing these fads know this and believe they can warp reality to their will, or they are lying. Jaguar marketing is probably packed to the gills with the sort of people who live in whites-only neighborhoods, but demand the company bring in Robin DiAngelo to lecture them about their privilege. Fake meat and electric cars are just the latest boutique moral signifiers. Another turn of the wheel and some other fad will fill this role.

Of course, this raises an important question. Is it better to be ruled by maniacs who think reality is an optical illusion or is it better to be ruled by a class of sociopaths willing to lie about everything? From a moral perspective, the former is worse because they really believe in their cause. There is no reasoning with a fanatic. On the other hand, can you reason with a pathological liar? How can you know? These questions suggest that the real supply problem is at the top.

A new year brings new changes. The same is true for this site as we adjust to the reality of managerial authoritarianism. That means embracing crypto for when the inevitable happens and the traditional outlets are closed. Now more than ever it is important to support the voices that support you. Five bucks a month is not a lot to ask. If you prefer other ways of donating, look at the donate page. Thank you.

Promotions: We have a new addition to the list. Havamal Soap Works is the maker of natural, handmade soap and bath products. If you are looking to reduce the volume of man-made chemicals in your life, all-natural personal products are a good start. If you use this link you get 15% off of your purchase.

The good folks at Alaska Chaga are offering a ten percent discount to readers of this site. You just click on the this link and they take care of the rest. About a year ago they sent me some of their stuff. Up until that point, I had never heard of chaga, but I gave a try and it is very good. It is a tea, but it has a mild flavor. It’s autumn here in Lagos, so it is my daily beverage now.

Minter & Richter Designs makes high-quality, hand-made by one guy in Boston, titanium wedding rings for men and women and they are now offering readers a fifteen percent discount on purchases if you use this link.   If you are headed to Boston, they are also offering my readers 20% off their 5-star rated Airbnb.  Just email them directly to book at sa***@*********************ns.com.

The Mumbly Joe Problem

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An old expression mothers used to say to their children in the before times was, “Be careful what you wish for.” Getting what you want often comes with unforeseen and undesirable consequences. The logic behind it is that a strong desire for something is a near term thing. You want whatever it is now. The trade-off that comes with that thing you desire, on the other hand, has long term consequences. This is something that the managerial class will be experiencing this year.

The 2016 election became an identity event for the managerial class. The cool belief to hold was that Trump was a rube and his voters were all yesterday men condemned to the dust bin of history. The same people who thought the same thing of Hillary Clinton in 2008 were suddenly sure she was the future. It is the nature of luxury beliefs that they have no intrinsic value. What matters is their moral potency in the moment. In 2008 the cool kids mocked Clinton. In 2016 they loved her.

The traumatizing effect of having those luxury beliefs rejected and mocked by the voting public in the 2016 election transformed opposition to Trump from a luxury belief into a moral imperative. Opposing Trump before the election was like any other fashion statement in that it was confirmatory. The beautiful people were confirming a truth by displaying it to the public. When that was mocked by Trump and the public, opposing Trump became the identity of these people. It was who they are.

This is an important element. When the starting point of your identity is opposition to some group or other group identity, there can be no compromise with that group. The managerial class became class conscious and part of their identity was opposition to the hoi polloi. The great and the good were the moral superiors of the masses. Their job was to guide them, but when the masses rejected them, they could not turnaround and agree with them. This is what made it impossible to work with Trump.

Who they were was entirely bound up in getting rid of Trump. For four years the great and good plotted and schemed, without thinking much about what comes after they get what they wanted. They rigged their own primary just to avoid having Bernie Sanders win the nomination, because they knew he would lose. They rallied behind a time-serving dullard in the early stages of dementia. They pulled out all the stops to “fortify” the general election and install that old man in the White House.

Now, they have a dementia patient running the government. Every day it becomes clear that Mumbly Joe is struggling with serious cognitive decline. He was not the brightest bulb in the bunch when he was in his prime. Now, he sounds like an old man in a nursing home, parked in front of the window. It has already reached the point where they cannot trust him to speak with world leaders. It is not unreasonable to assume that he will not be able to perform his duties in the near future.

Here is where we see that the great and the good are not the master villains many on this side need to believe. Sure, South Asian money bought the VP slot for one of their own, but no one seriously thought about what happens when Biden loses his marbles and has to be removed from office. The political class tried twice to remove Trump and could not pull it off, despite his own party ready to support the effort. How likely are they to engineer a coup against the guy they installed?

This is not to say they could not remove him if he is just a drooling lump, but that is not how cognitive decline works. People in his condition have good days and bad days and within the day they have good periods and bad periods. What happens over time is the bad stretches get longer and more frequent. Mumbly Joe could be borderline for many months before it is clear he is no longer fit. This is fine if nothing important happens for the next four years, but that’s rather unlikely.

Then there is the fact that a White House is like court. All of those appointees have their own agendas and they often represent narrow interests. Having a weak man in the Oval Office is always ideal from the perspective of these people. Then there is Biden’s wife, who is quickly becoming the Edith Wilson of this administration. It is not hard to see how the players inside the administration can exploit this reality to secure their own positions in exchange for remaining silent about Biden’s health.

Let’s assume for a second that Harris, Pelosi and Schumer come up with a scheme whereby they can remove Biden and install Harris. They would either have to rope in a majority of the cabinet or pass legislation to establish a committee that would determine the fitness of Biden. This would throw the government into crisis. Public approval of Congress is already approaching single digits and half the public is convinced the last election was rigged. A crisis could easily get out of hand.

If by some miracle Biden does them a favor and drops dead before they have to remove him, they are still not out of the woods as Harris has zero support. Most of her own party thinks she is an obnoxious dimwit. The public would rally initially, but after a few speeches she would remind everyone why they would rather have cancer than have her on their televisions. She would quickly become a highly unpleasant version of Gerald Ford, a place holder until things could be sorted.

The point is the managerial class got their wish. The bad orange man is gone, but it is going to come with a hefty price tag. It will not be long before many behind the rigging of the election will have buyer’s remorse. That will only add more fuel to the fire. Given that the geniuses behind this caper could not see just a few months down the road, it is unlikely they will navigate this minefield they created for themselves. That’s why they want those troops in the city. They know they will need them.

A new year brings new changes. The same is true for this site as we adjust to the reality of managerial authoritarianism. That means embracing crypto for when the inevitable happens and the traditional outlets are closed. Now more than ever it is important to support the voices that support you. Five bucks a month is not a lot to ask. If you prefer other ways of donating, look at the donate page. Thank you.

Promotions: We have a new addition to the list. Havamal Soap Works is the maker of natural, handmade soap and bath products. If you are looking to reduce the volume of man-made chemicals in your life, all-natural personal products are a good start. If you use this link you get 15% off of your purchase.

The good folks at Alaska Chaga are offering a ten percent discount to readers of this site. You just click on the this link and they take care of the rest. About a year ago they sent me some of their stuff. Up until that point, I had never heard of chaga, but I gave a try and it is very good. It is a tea, but it has a mild flavor. It’s autumn here in Lagos, so it is my daily beverage now.

Minter & Richter Designs makes high-quality, hand-made by one guy in Boston, titanium wedding rings for men and women and they are now offering readers a fifteen percent discount on purchases if you use this link.   If you are headed to Boston, they are also offering my readers 20% off their 5-star rated Airbnb.  Just email them directly to book at sa***@*********************ns.com.

Revolt In The Synopticon

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Revolt in a normal human society is made easier by the fact that everyone knows who is in charge and the institutions they control. In a despotism, the name of the despot and his supporters is known. The institutions they control and their relative power is also well known. The same is true of a republic when it degrades into oligarchy. Picking sides comes naturally. In the synopticon, this is not so clear, because everyone is an agent of the system, a potential threat to anyone resisting the system.

That is the first thing a political dissident living within the modern liberal democracy must accept about their condition. Since everyone operates within a lattice work of interconnected data collection nodes, the sides are not clear. The people at the top, ostensibly running the system, rarely act directly. They often appear to be carried along by the system itself. Groups that form up to reform some aspect of the system are easily coopted by the system to defend the system from change.

This is the hardest thing to grasp about any human relations. Half the population will also seek to assign blame to an individual or group of individuals. They simply lack the capacity to understand how events, ideas, and the system in which they operate can come together within a society. They insist the problem is someone holding office or a group of people running an institution or party. While not entirely wrong, it is an antiquated view of the world that make resistance self-defeating.

The simplest way of thinking of this is the modern prison. The guards rely on cameras, listening devices and other detection systems. They also rely on snitches in the prison population to tip them off to trouble. Ideally, the prison system wants every prisoner distrusting every other prisoner. If they are unable and unwilling to cooperate, then they are just a collection of rebellious individuals. No matter how clever one may be, the rest are there to undermine the effort due to misplaced self-interest.

In a society in which everyone watches everyone, knowingly or otherwise, and inanimate objects like ATM’s and mobile phones can be turned into snitches for the system, the people are isolated individuals suspended in the system. The unaware are happily holding up their mobile devices, snitching for the system at every event, while the aware are doing the same, thinking they are fighting the man. This is why the most powerful people think they are the resistance, fighting populism.

This is the first rule of revolution within the synopticon. The war is not against people, but against the system itself. The people involved may be bad actors, but even the people who appear to be good actors, can be bad actors, because they fail to grasp that they are part of the system. This is something the cleverer inmates figure out about the prison system. In order to have any sense of freedom, they continually throw sand in the gears of the system and encourages others to do the same.

As a practical matter, this first means disconnecting as much as possible from the information grid. This is not easy, as it so much of it is convenient. That mobile device feels necessary, because it is convenient. Using Apple Pay or a credit card for all purchases is easy. It is also easy for the authorities to track you down if you show up at the wrong political event or hang around the wrong people. The people at the Capitol on January 6 are learning this lesson the hard way.

This is the first step for any political actor. Politics and the normal aspects of life must be separate spheres, physically and mentally. This means political events are mobile device free. Communication is through the densest channel possible. Reading texts is simple for the system. Reading e-mail is hard. Reading lips through CCTV cameras is impossible, despite what the movies claim. Never write when you can speak, never speak when you can nod. That is the way of dissent in the synopticon.

There is another lesson from the criminal world that applies here. The reformer in the synopticon is always policing his area for nodes of the system. In the criminal sphere, this means listening devices and snitches. The smart actor is always testing the people and environment for security risks. For reformers, this means imposing rules on others about their interaction with the system. It means developing codes of conduct to enforce discipline about communications and interaction with the system.

As a practical matter, this means political resistance starts with community. Entrance into the community requires increasing levels of commitment. At the periphery are people who always being evaluated to see if they can be an asset to the political community and perhaps one day join it. As they demonstrate their worth and commitment, they are required to make greater sacrifices for the whole in order to go deeper into the heart of the community.

In other words, organizing in the synopticon must operate within the blind spots of the system, which in the digital age means the analog space. While the system can detect and predict community formation, it needs the inputs through the compound eye of the system to form the data set. The invisible rules of a community operating face to face are outside the vision of the system. The most dangerous thing to the synopticon is small groups of people meeting in person to form bonds.

Finally, the reformer in the synopticon must embrace the Gerasimov Doctrine. This is the Russian approach to modern war and politics. The days of nations facing off across a field in a well-define set-piece battle are long gone. War and politics have converged in the information age. Those color revolutions sponsored by American intelligence are good examples of modern war. The appearance of “little green men” in Crimea during the American overthrow of the Ukrainian government is another.

Domestically, this means something like systemic sabotage. The more bad data fed into the system, the less valuable the information it creates. The less valuable the information to the people relying on it, the less likely they are to trust it. In the information age, war is an information war. Jamming the system with bogus data is one front on that war. Similarly, causing unnecessary responses from the system wastes resources that could be used elsewhere.

This is why leafletting, for example, is a powerful weapon. It is cheap for the one side, but expensive for the system. Police departments running around looking for the person behind a leafletting campaign is a drain on the system. It also erodes the trust between the people reliant on the system and the system itself. The same would be true of sit-ins and candlelight vigils outside the green zone in Washington. It would turn one weapon of the color revolution against the people wielding it.

Another example of how a multifront war against the compound eye of the synopticon is the short squeeze ushered in by retail investors. The people reliant on the system assumed the other side was operating from predictable motives. When it turned out to be otherwise, they had no rational response. Suddenly, the financial class has a new front in their war on the middle-class. Do this a dozen times and the system is a giant swatting at flies.

This is the essence of the Gerasimov Doctrine. War in the information age is multidimensional and, irregular and ad-hoc. It is not about locating the enemy and engaging him in battle. The enemy is all around in the form of the system. This is particularly true for the reformer. Revolt in the synopticon is about hacking that system so it becomes unpredictable and unreliable. This means jamming it with bad data, depriving it of useful data and overloading it at its weak points.

A new year brings new changes. The same is true for this site as we adjust to the reality of managerial authoritarianism. That means embracing crypto for when the inevitable happens and the traditional outlets are closed. Now more than ever it is important to support the voices that support you. Five bucks a month is not a lot to ask. If you prefer other ways of donating, look at the donate page. Thank you.

Promotions: We have a new addition to the list. Havamal Soap Works is the maker of natural, handmade soap and bath products. If you are looking to reduce the volume of man-made chemicals in your life, all-natural personal products are a good start. If you use this link you get 15% off of your purchase.

The good folks at Alaska Chaga are offering a ten percent discount to readers of this site. You just click on the this link and they take care of the rest. About a year ago they sent me some of their stuff. Up until that point, I had never heard of chaga, but I gave a try and it is very good. It is a tea, but it has a mild flavor. It’s autumn here in Lagos, so it is my daily beverage now.

Minter & Richter Designs makes high-quality, hand-made by one guy in Boston, titanium wedding rings for men and women and they are now offering readers a fifteen percent discount on purchases if you use this link.   If you are headed to Boston, they are also offering my readers 20% off their 5-star rated Airbnb.  Just email them directly to book at sales@minterandrichterdesigns.com.

Social War In The Synopticon

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Note: The regular Monday post Taki post is up. This week is a look at the vulgar circus we call Washington and the carny trash running it. There’s also some new content up behind the green door. This week I review the 1951 classic, A Place In The Sun.

When one takes a look at what is happening in the West, particularly the English speaking nations, the first thing to notice is the lack of vocabulary. Is this a civil war we are seeing or is it just cultural unrest? How should the sides be labeled? The people in charge of the institutions call themselves the resistance and their declared enemies are people devoid of any power, beyond numbers. Those people call themselves the silent majority, despite not being silent or a majority.

Just as the labels make little sense, the comparisons to fictional and historical examples do not hold up either. Is what we are experiencing like Orwell’s 1984? Not in any meaningful way. It may be closer to Huxley’s Brave New World, but our managerial class is nothing like the World State, in terms of intelligence and purpose. There is no Mustafa Mond in our ruling class. Similarly, the comparisons to authoritarian states of the past are nothing more than superficial.

While there is nothing new in this age with regards to the human condition and human relations, we live in a new age. Technological progress brought about by the microprocessor is changing the nature of human society. While Orwell could imagine a world where everyone is watched by the state, he could not imagine a world where everyone is watched by everyone. Huxley could imagine a highly ordered society controlled by a few; he could not imagine artificial intelligence.

That is the first bit of language that needs defining. The panopticon is a concept most know, as it is a trope in many movies. This is the world where a few watches the many, like in a prison. The guards use cameras, search lights and electronic detection devices to monitor the prisoners. The idea behind it is that the prisoners never really know if they are being watched at any moment, but they know that they could be watched at any moment, no matter where they are in the system.

America is now a synopticon. This is a term coined by Norwegian sociologist Thomas Mathiesen to describe a society in which the few are watched by many. While the panopticon is a one-to-many relationship, with the one being the controlling authority, the synopticon is a many-to-many relationship. Any one person can be watched by many, but also part of the many watching another. It is a world where everyone is an input devise, feeding what they hear and see into the system.

This is an important concept. It is a system. The people holding up their mobile phones and posting the results to their social media page are not operating as conscious agents of the state or any particular interest. They are just nodes on the system. The same is true of the various devices deployed to monitor behavior. The people installing them may have a reason, but that reason exists within the system itself. That surveillance video posted to the cloud is consumed by the synopticon as data.

Take a second to consider how many eyes are on you at any moment. If you own a modern automobile, it is tracking and reporting your driving habits. Your phone, of course, is tracking your whereabouts and the people you meet. CCTV cameras silently record your activity. Your web browser tracks your reading habits. The smart TV monitors your viewing habits. If you have one of the security devices or a smart home device, it is keeping tabs on you inside your home.

If you wanted to get a visual image of what your life is like in the synopticon, imagine a world where everyone is naked, lives in glass houses and can see that everyone is looking at everyone else. Now, imagine yourself observing that world and noticing that everyone is sure they are not, in fact, naked, living in a glass house and being watched all the time. In the panopticon, everyone knows they are being watched and by whom, but in the synopticon, people sense it, but do not see it.

Unlike the panopticon, where humans are looking for unacceptable behavior, in the synopticon the system does this on its own. For example, the system can examine the data coming in to model communities within society. Community detection algorithms can discover relationships within the complex nature of human societies. Further, it can begin to model those communities and predict behavior of the community, as well as the members of that community, from the data stream.

If you are at the top of the synopticon, this is useful technology as it allows you to reverse engineer social behavior that you wish to suppress. The vast database of human activity that is the synopticon can be used to analyze and understand the attachment members of a subculture have to one another. What commitment level exists among and between members. The value system that holds the group together and how it shapes their activity. This is called Social Bond Theory.

Another key concept to this new world is the social war. In agrarian and industrial societies, civil unrest leads to civil war or possibly revolution. A civil war is when factions within the elite draft the population into their dispute. A revolution is when a new elite rises up outside the old elite and attempts to overthrow them. A social war is one in which all participant groups can be at war with one another, but also in league with one another, for reasons they do not necessarily understand.

An example of this in the modern age is the Antifa phenomenon. They claim to be the heirs of Marxist anti-fascists, but they are not Marxists. They have no coherent ideology, beyond a juvenile form of anarchism. Their opposition is equally ephemeral, as there are no actual fascists in this age. Similarly, their sponsors are in a constant state of agitation, despite control of the institutions. The more they seem to control, the less control they feel they have and the greater their agitation.

What we are experiencing is a social war. Everyone in the system sense they are losing control of the social code that shapes behavior. They seek to regain control of that social code through the conventional means, but winning and losing those fights has no impact on their control of the culture. The imposition of bizarre new moral codes by the elite, for example, are a reaction to their sense of powerlessness. The growing bourgeois radicalism is also a reaction to the perceived loss of control.

That is the key here. A civil war is about control of the state. A revolution is about the same thing, with the added aspect of ideological conflict. A social war is about control of the social code, the invisible set of rules that govern human behavior. As the synopticon takes greater control of that code, the people inside find themselves at war with an invisible enemy, the system itself. This manifests as something like prison gang fights, where frustrations are directed at the visible, rather than the system.

The evolution of the synopticon appears to be a process, perhaps a runaway process, that has escaped the control of the creator. As the friction within society increases, as people are increasingly constrained by the social control systems, the synopticon evolves greater control. Modern society is looking like a boiling pot. The more it boils, the tighter the lid is drawn down. Inside, the increasingly aggressive and antagonistic conflict is causing the pot to boil more violently.

This is where we are now. It is not a Hobbesian war of all against all, but rather an increasing friction between members of society. This friction arises from their increasingly confined social space. It turns out that the old axiom about familiarity breeding contempt is true. Instead of a society becoming more cooperative as it becomes more integrated, it is becoming increasingly hostile. Meanwhile, the synopticon jams us all closer together, in all our hostile ugliness.

A new year brings new changes. The same is true for this site as we adjust to the reality of managerial authoritarianism. That means embracing crypto for when the inevitable happens and the traditional outlets are closed. Now more than ever it is important to support the voices that support you. Five bucks a month is not a lot to ask. If you prefer other ways of donating, look at the donate page. Thank you.

Promotions: We have a new addition to the list. Havamal Soap Works is the maker of natural, handmade soap and bath products. If you are looking to reduce the volume of man-made chemicals in your life, all-natural personal products are a good start. If you use this link you get 15% off of your purchase.

The good folks at Alaska Chaga are offering a ten percent discount to readers of this site. You just click on the this link and they take care of the rest. About a year ago they sent me some of their stuff. Up until that point, I had never heard of chaga, but I gave a try and it is very good. It is a tea, but it has a mild flavor. It’s autumn here in Lagos, so it is my daily beverage now.

Minter & Richter Designs makes high-quality, hand-made by one guy in Boston, titanium wedding rings for men and women and they are now offering readers a fifteen percent discount on purchases if you use this link.   If you are headed to Boston, they are also offering my readers 20% off their 5-star rated Airbnb.  Just email them directly to book at sa***@*********************ns.com.

Deep Thoughts

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This is always a funny time of year. There is the long run up to the holidays that starts in November and concludes in January. In election years you have that as an added bit of excitement. Then it all comes to an end in January, the dead of winter for most of the country, and people go on a bit of break. This year the denouement came a bit late due to the fake election and fake inauguration. The entirely peaceful excitement around the fake inauguration was an added bonus to the season.

Now, we are in the dead of winter. You can see it on the streets in the parts of the country that have winter. Here in Lagos, the streets look like peak lockdown all of a sudden, in that there are few cars out during the day. It has been snowing here a bit and the schools remain closed, but it is extra quiet now. Who knows what the people are doing when not out on the roads, but the people in charge assure us everything is under control and we are all in this together. Trust science.

This dead spot in the calendar has always shown up on-line, as well. The slowest traffic month every year is February, January is pretty slow too. March is always the busiest as people seem to come back to life as we head into spring. Humans are still hardwired to the natural rhythms of our environment. Spring is the busiest time on the site, then things slack off a bit for summer, as people get out and live. It ticks up for the autumnal excitement, especially if there is an election.

This being that dull spot in the calendar, this week the show is about some more contemplative topics. One of the things that is striking is just how open the new ruling regime is about their hatred of white people. Those over the age of fifty, maybe over forty, remember when such talk was used as satire. It was ridiculous to think that white people would be treated like second class citizens. Here we are though, and most people are still struggling to process it.

Of course, the people on the other side of this transaction remain a mystery to the sorts of people attracted to right-wing politics. Right-wing people try to understand the partisan mind in the same way they understand the normal mind. They start with the assumption that the partisan is motivated by self-interest. The trouble is the partisan interprets self-interest to mean their cause. Everything they are is defined by their membership in the cause. It transcends everything, even their life.

It is a good time to think about all this stuff. The Pretender is staggering around drawing smiley faces on executive orders written by his staff. The media is waging war on imaginary insurrectionist. The health Nazis continue to play make believe over the coronavirus stuff. Otherwise, not a lot going on, so the show this week is about some of those topics. Since these topics require a little more thought and analysis than a new story, just three topics this week.

This week I have the usual variety of items in the now standard format. Spreaker has the full show. I am up on Google Play now, so the Android commies can take me along when out disrespecting the country. I am on iTunes, which means the Apple Nazis can listen to me on their Hitler phones. The anarchists can catch me on iHeart Radio. I am now on Deezer, for our European haters and Stitcher for the weirdos. YouTube also has the full podcast. Of course, there is a download link below.

For sites like this to exist, it requires people like you chipping in a few bucks a month to keep the lights on and the people fed. It turns out that you can’t live on clicks and compliments. Five bucks a month is not a lot to ask. If you don’t want to commit to a subscription, make a one time donation. Or, you can send money to: Z Media LLC P.O. Box 432 Cockeysville, MD 21030-0432. You can also use PayPal to send a few bucks, rather than have that latte at Starbucks. Thank you for your support!

Promotions: The good folks at Alaska Chaga are offering a ten percent discount to readers of this site. You just click on the this link and they take care of the rest. About a year ago they sent me some of their stuff. Up until that point, I had never heard of chaga, but I gave a try and it is very good. It is like a tea, but it has a milder flavor. It’s hot here in Lagos, so I’ve been drinking it cold. It is a great summer beverage.

Minter & Richter Designs makes high-quality, hand-made by one guy in Boston, titanium wedding rings for men and women and they are now offering readers a fifteen percent discount on purchases if you use this link.   If you are headed to Boston, they are also offering my readers 20% off their 5-star rated Airbnb.  Just email them directly to book at sa***@*********************ns.com.

This Week’s Show

Contents

Direct Download, The iTunes, Google Play, iHeart Radio, RSS Feed, Amazon

Full Show On Spreaker

Full Show On YouTube

https://youtu.be/9jF6UjQzx8w

Let’s Go Backwards

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Most people on this side of the great divide have concluded that the time for fixing what is broken in America has passed. The historical processes that have been unleashed by past error will just have to run their course. What comes after will be whatever the winners of the great struggle create. What if that is not true and there is a window to stop this process? What things could we do to break this cycle of madness that seems to have gripped the American empire?

One thing that should be done right away for no other reason than to slow things down is shutting off the mobile phone system. Humans evolved to interact with one another in person, not through the virtual reality of the mobile device. Everywhere you go you see people walking around like zombies, glued to their phone. It is like the drug soma from the novel Brave New World. The difference is this drug puts people into a trance in which their senses are bombarded with data that irritate them.

One reason we have become an outrage culture is outrage is the only way to get attention from others. In a world where people are linked to a constant stream of images and bursts of text, getting noticed means being outlandish of outrageous within those data streams. On the other hand, being glued to the data stream leaves little room for real human interaction and even less room for real emotion. Large swaths of the population only feel human when they are outraged by the stream.

This would not be as difficult to do as you might think. The rulers could impose a dollar per minute tax on the service. Sure, the wireless firms would fight it, but the government has tanks and men with guns. Shoot enough wireless executives and the rest either run away or fall in line. The firm slap of authority is best conveyed against the wall of the prison, after a quick trial. It was not that long ago when mobile charges were prohibitive and very few people could afford a mobile phone.

Similarly, the big social media platforms have become a problem. They are nothing more than cauldrons of human misery now. Again, it was not so long ago when these platforms did not exist. If we got rid of Facebook and Twitter, the world does not change in any important ways. People would simply migrate back to small private groups on-line or go outside again. Turning off the big social platforms would have an immediate positive impact on the psyche of the public.

Shutting these down would be easier than limiting the mobile device. Enforcement of Section 230 along with new privacy laws that prohibit them from harvesting your activity on-line would shut them down in weeks. Once they are subject to the same laws as everyone else and they cannot steal from their users, their business model would collapse in a hurry. Small platforms would still exist, but as labors of love or as small businesses run by one or two people with a narrow interest.

Another rollback would have to be the cameras. If you are out in public and have a heart attack or you are attacked by a criminal, people pull out their phones and begin taking pics of your suffering. They rather hope you die so they can get a video that will go viral. Combined with the cameras put up by the government and business, all of us now live in a synopticon. This is a world where all of us are individually monitored by all of us, a mass of camera wielding ghouls.

The solution here is your image is yours and you own it. Anyone possessing your image or distributing your image without your express permission is no different than someone trafficking in stolen goods. If someone wants to post your bad day on-line, they need your permission. The platform hosting it needs your permission. Otherwise, they are liable for possessing your property without your permission. This would also apply to security cameras. They can be used only in a courtroom.

This is not a novel concept. Many states still have laws on the books, for example, against filming a public road. Movie companies used to need permission to use video of people walking down a street. Your image used to be your property. A big part of what ails us is we have allowed the ownership of your information to fall into the public domain. Everywhere you go someone is taking pictures of you and you have no control over what they do with those images.

What is being proposed here, in effect, is rolling back the last 25 years of technological and economic change that no one contemplated, debated, or voted on. This all just evolved quickly before anyone could contemplate the impact. A generation long real-world experiment has proven it was a bad idea. We have created a world of outraged shut-ins and snitches. The only thing everyone agrees upon is that everyone hates the world they experience, either in reality or through their device.

Would people riot in the streets if their phones suddenly became useful only in emergencies as a way to call for help? Would there be protest marches over the loss of Facebook and YouTube? Would Zoomers begin forming militias when they can no longer video every moment of their life with their phone? Obviously not, as these things did not happen over Covid. In fact, people would adapt and maybe regrow the backbone and spirit needed to protest such things.

A new year brings new changes. The same is true for this site as we adjust to the reality of managerial authoritarianism. That means embracing crypto for when the inevitable happens and the traditional outlets are closed. Now more than ever it is important to support the voices that support you. Five bucks a month is not a lot to ask. If you prefer other ways of donating, look at the donate page. Thank you.

Promotions: We have a new addition to the list. Havamal Soap Works is the maker of natural, handmade soap and bath products. If you are looking to reduce the volume of man-made chemicals in your life, all-natural personal products are a good start. If you use this link you get 15% off of your purchase.

The good folks at Alaska Chaga are offering a ten percent discount to readers of this site. You just click on the this link and they take care of the rest. About a year ago they sent me some of their stuff. Up until that point, I had never heard of chaga, but I gave a try and it is very good. It is a tea, but it has a mild flavor. It’s autumn here in Lagos, so it is my daily beverage now.

Minter & Richter Designs makes high-quality, hand-made by one guy in Boston, titanium wedding rings for men and women and they are now offering readers a fifteen percent discount on purchases if you use this link.   If you are headed to Boston, they are also offering my readers 20% off their 5-star rated Airbnb.  Just email them directly to book at sa***@*********************ns.com.

The Ride Never Ends

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The reboot of last year’s big political flop, otherwise known as Trump Impeachment, hit the big stage in DC this week. The Senate kicked off the show with a debate about the constitutionality of the whole thing. The old rule of vaudeville was that you start every show with some jokes to warm up the audience. It is good to see Washington bringing back the old traditions for their political dramas. To the shock of no one, the Senate voted in favor of the claim that this nonsense is constitutional.

The one thing missing from this reboot is the boggle-eyed lunatic who was the master of ceremonies for the first one. Adam Schiff is sitting this out. There is some debate about whether having a paranoid schizophrenic be the star of the show was the reason the first try at this was an embarrassing flop. They also had the fat guy who poos himself in public as the co-star. The whole thing turned into a poorly made version of Dumb and Dumber, which is a problem when you are putting on a drama.

The early reviews say this reboot is looking like the high school version of an old Broadway musical. The writing is good, but the people playing the roles are far too small for the costumes they are wearing. Even without Trump looming over it as a reminder that our politics have long ago descended into farce, the idea of impeaching a man who is out of office is too much to overcome. The public is mostly ignoring it, despite the month long hype about the imaginary insurrection.

Like so much the shadowy cabal that runs this place has done over the last several years, this stunt just serves to undermine the system they operate. In a world where massive election irregularities are ignored and dismissed by the politicians, it is tough to take those same politicians seriously when they bang on about their democracy or imaginary threats to it. If they were really worried about their democracy, maybe they would do something about the voting system.

What this looks like is theater for the people inside the wire so they can be reminded there is a wire, and it must be maintained. The green zone they have erected for themselves is not simply an overreaction. It is a symbol of the spiritual and cultural divide between the people running this place and the rest of us. The hive minded have now created a physical manifestation of their world view. From now on, people inside will be made to show they are loyal to inside, not outside.

Putting that aside, the thumbless people behind this farce are creating a new set of problems for themselves with this. American politics has always been a game of bad cop worse cop. One side tells 20% of white people they will push through some nation wrecking scheme, while the other side tells 40% of white people that they will not roll back the last nation wrecking scheme, but they will stop this one. This has kept white people engaged in a process that has slowly dispossessed them.

The rigged election and the response to it broke this system. Despite the Republicans pulling all the usual tricks in an effort to scare their voters in Georgia during the special election, many of those voters stayed home. The old gags did not work, because the election put the lie to those old gags. Impeachment promises to hammer home this point to tens of millions of white people. One party hates them, and the other party really hates them. They do not have a voice in this system.

We have already seen some Republican Senators shed their skin suits, revealing their scaly natural exterior. Six of them slithered over to the other side, coiling around the legs of their master, to vote in favor of this farce. You can be sure they will be voting to convict when the time comes. Conventional wisdom says the Senate will not get the votes to convict, but given the state of things, that is not a good bet. The GOP would love to be rid of Trump forever and this is how they do it.

If you assume that a third of the GOP senators hate Trump and his voters, that is roughly 15 votes right there. Then you have the deluded members who think they can inherit that vote if Trump is forced off the stage. They think their kinder gentler populism will win the day. Then there are those who are taking bribes. The level of corruption in Washington is such that we have to assume all of them are on the pad. Maybe the ChiComs tell them to support a conviction.

Either way, the whole thing will most likely further undermine the Republicans as the security fence for the Democrats. This is very bad for the political class, as it further reinforces the notion that there are now two sides. Those inside the razor wire green zone and those outside it. Given the general cluelessness of the people running both parties, this is a very dangerous environment for them. They need to people trusting in the system, even if they do not trust the people running the system.

There is one interesting side story to this. Trump put up a solid defense of himself in the first impeachment circus. He hired competent lawyers and treated the whole thing with far more respect than it deserved. This time he has hired a B-team that is more concerned with melodrama than the process. It may be that Trump would welcome a conviction and disqualification. This lets him go back to being a gassy blowhard on-line, without having to deliver any of the things he promises.

Another bit of subplot here is that the larger show that was the “great fortifying of our democracy”, which looked a lot like coup, is coming to a close. This is the last bit of the drama the new regime can use to distract from reality. That reality is they own the mess they created in their effort to overthrow the system. The crumbling economy, the Covid fiasco, the bloated financial system, all of it. They will not have Trump to kick around anymore, so they will own what comes next. Good luck with that.

A new year brings new changes. The same is true for this site as we adjust to the reality of managerial authoritarianism. That means embracing crypto for when the inevitable happens and the traditional outlets are closed. Now more than ever it is important to support the voices that support you. Five bucks a month is not a lot to ask. If you prefer other ways of donating, look at the donate page. Thank you.

Promotions: We have a new addition to the list. Havamal Soap Works is the maker of natural, handmade soap and bath products. If you are looking to reduce the volume of man-made chemicals in your life, all-natural personal products are a good start. If you use this link you get 15% off of your purchase.

The good folks at Alaska Chaga are offering a ten percent discount to readers of this site. You just click on the this link and they take care of the rest. About a year ago they sent me some of their stuff. Up until that point, I had never heard of chaga, but I gave a try and it is very good. It is a tea, but it has a mild flavor. It’s autumn here in Lagos, so it is my daily beverage now.

Minter & Richter Designs makes high-quality, hand-made by one guy in Boston, titanium wedding rings for men and women and they are now offering readers a fifteen percent discount on purchases if you use this link.   If you are headed to Boston, they are also offering my readers 20% off their 5-star rated Airbnb.  Just email them directly to book at sa***@*********************ns.com.

Who’s To Blame?

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Note: The plugin I use for commenting broke for some unknown reason yesterday, which is why the comments disappeared. I disabled it so the default comment system is now running. it’s not great, but until the plugin is fixed, it will do.

Over the holidays, the great Jared Taylor was on one of the many live streams that pop up during the that time. He was asked if as a Southerner, he found some pleasure in seeing the statue toppling mobs now turning on statues of Lincoln. The irony of nonwhites going after Lincoln as a white supremacist is hard to miss. Taylor demurred, saying something along the lines that he abhorred any attacks on whites or white history, even if the person in question made war on his ancestors.

It was an interesting answer as it touches on the central problem of the current crisis we see playing out in America. Who’s to blame for it? The basic starting point of problem solving is to identify the problem and then identify the cause. When the mortgage market fell apart a decade ago, people blamed the bankers. Some people blamed the credit agencies or the regulators. There was plenty of blame to go around, so lots of people were blamed, but no one was punished.

In the case of the ongoing pogroms against white people, there is not much talk about who is responsible for it. Part of that is due to the prohibitions against white people talking about being white. One of the great ironies of this crisis is that the media is filled with invective about white people, but you will never see a white person start a sentence with “as a white person.” Whiteness is a thing that is only allowed to be a hobgoblin in the minds and mouths of the anti-whites.

Getting back to the Taylor example, he cannot laugh at the mob turning on Lincoln, because Lincoln was white, but that would apply to the mob as well. If the people doing the toppling are white, then the Taylor rule prevents a pro-white partisan from blaming them for it. An inescapable fact of the current crisis is the people leading the anti-white pogrom are often white or white presenting. Giving white people a pass on partisan grounds creates a problem when trying to assign blame.

This is why the anti-white pogroms have met so little resistance thus far. On the one hand you have the taboo against white people taking their own side. On the other hand, you have the face of the anti-white program being white or white presenting. If all of the anti-whites were black, then the problem of assigning blame would be simpler, but the leading anti-whites are almost always a pale face. The chief racketeer in the grievance rackets is a white woman named Robin DiAngelo.

The attacks on white people are just one example. The financialization of the economy starting in the 1980’s has created a massive wealth disparity. America now has an invisible over-class that owns almost all of the wealth. What they do not own directly, they control through what amounts to regulatory capture. They control the institutions that set the rules on how you can use your property. Inevitably, those rules favor the greed heads that control the financial system.

How did this happen? Who is responsible for it? Conservative will say that you cannot blame capitalism or free markets. Just like the taboo against whites taking their own side, they enforce a taboo against questioning the current economic order. Similarly, you cannot blame rich people, as that’s class warfare. If you do not like the rich people running things, get rich and challenge them. It is a version of build a better mousetrap so the world will beat a path to your door.

The Left side of the political class has an answer. They say the reason for the massive wealth disparity is white privilege and systemic racism. They focus on the white and white presenting faces running the corporations. This is a dangerous game for obvious reasons, so it is deliberately made absurd. The result, however, is white people are left with two choices when wondering who is to blame for this. They can either blame themselves or celebrate their dispossession.

This shape shifting that prevents the people from identifying the cause of the problems that plague their society is the result of democracy. When everyone has a vote, either in an election or in the economy, then everyone is to blame for the result. Don’t like woke capital? Don’t buy from it. Don’t like woke government? Don’t vote for it. The fact that no one actually voted for it or demanded it makes no difference. The blame for every problem is the imaginary neighbor who is demanding it.

This is one reason for the increasing unhappiness. It is not just the problems people can see all around them. It is the fact that there is no acceptable cause. People are left to blame themselves and their neighbors. If everyone is to blame, then everyone is the problem and everyone is in a war with everyone. The democratization of a society means the democratizing of blame. Self-hatred and self-loathing become the creed of the majority, with only the minorities are able to find a suitable enemy.

This is an unnatural condition as people are naturally inclined to find the source of their unhappiness and make that the focus of their anger. Eric Hoffer noted that “mass movements can rise and spread without belief in a God, but never without belief in a devil.” Get enough angry people together with the raw material for a shared identity and they will find their devil. This is what makes being in the ruling class a dangerous game right now. It is why they are stacking the sandbags so high.

This is usually where the conservative pops back in and says it is wrong to pin the blame on people when the problem is systemic. The thing is though, the people at the top of any society have a duty to the system that creates them. They are the stewards of the system. The ruling elite of our liberal democracy are responsible for economic and cultural troubles underlying the current crisis. It is their failure to do their duty as a ruling elite that has led us to this point. They are to blame.

A new year brings new changes. The same is true for this site as we adjust to the reality of managerial authoritarianism. That means embracing crypto for when the inevitable happens and the traditional outlets are closed. Now more than ever it is important to support the voices that support you. Five bucks a month is not a lot to ask. If you prefer other ways of donating, look at the donate page. Thank you.

Promotions: We have a new addition to the list. Havamal Soap Works is the maker of natural, handmade soap and bath products. If you are looking to reduce the volume of man-made chemicals in your life, all-natural personal products are a good start. If you use this link you get 15% off of your purchase.

The good folks at Alaska Chaga are offering a ten percent discount to readers of this site. You just click on the this link and they take care of the rest. About a year ago they sent me some of their stuff. Up until that point, I had never heard of chaga, but I gave a try and it is very good. It is a tea, but it has a mild flavor. It’s autumn here in Lagos, so it is my daily beverage now.

Minter & Richter Designs makes high-quality, hand-made by one guy in Boston, titanium wedding rings for men and women and they are now offering readers a fifteen percent discount on purchases if you use this link.   If you are headed to Boston, they are also offering my readers 20% off their 5-star rated Airbnb.  Just email them directly to book at sa***@*********************ns.com.