If you were to come up with a simple explanation for the difference between the modern era and the feudal era it would be about rules. The West went through a great transition from the 18th century into the 20th century in which the rules that govern society changed to be both clearer and universal. There were other things that happened during this transition that are important, like industrialization and urbanization, but the big one was the change in the rules.
The feudal age was not without rules. In fact, the feudal age had more rules than even the current age, but the rules were opaque and complex. The line between the law, custom and privilege was never all that clear. Privilege was often the thing that prevailed, even over written laws. Most important, the rules of life were not the same for everyone in feudal society. Feudalism was an interlocking set of rules and customs that governed relations horizontally and vertically.
The changes ushered in with the Enlightenment did two things. One is the separation between law, custom and privilege became formal and clear. The law was a separate body of rules that superseded custom and privilege. The latter was possible only when the law was universal. It applied to everyone. It did not happen overnight, but by the time the West moved into the 20th century, the prevailing morality said that the law must be clear and apply to everyone equally.
This change did not spring from nothing. The feudal order evolved out of necessity and circumstance, without too much thought. No one planned it. The Enlightenment brought along the concept of a planned society. We could consciously organize our societies around a new set of rules. The reason we could do this is the natural world was not some great mystery. Men began to see that the natural world operated by a fixed set of rules that could be understood.
What the philosopher John Locke bequeathed to the world was the notion that we could not only figure out the rules of nature, we could discover the rules of society that best comported with man’s nature. If we can figure out those rules and implement them, we will have a society that allows for the full blossoming of man. The debate since the 18th century has been about the nature of man. Communism, fascism, capitalism, libertarianism and so on are all based on this assumption.
Fast forward to this age and we appear to be in another one of those great transitions in how we look at the rules of society. You can see it in the language. Hardly anyone in power speaks of rights anymore. The term civil rights has morphed into a dog whistle by the race hustlers, stripped of any connection to natural rights. Of course, the systemic assaults on basic rights like assembly and speech are so common now, the repression of these rights and the people exercising them is now normal.
The reason for this is we are transitioning from a society based on rights codified in the law to a society based on privileges based on a terms of service. You get to do things promised in the terms of services, as long as you are compliant with the terms of service, which can change at any time. What we used to think of as rights are now privileges, no different from access to Twitter. You get to do things based on your level of compliance to the current set of rules.
The obvious example is Covid. The remarkable aspect of the Covid panic was just how easily the political and administrative state created new rules and imposed them on people without ever mentioning rights. In fact, it has become fashionable for politicians to mock those who mention rights. They point to community standards, trust and safety, much in the same way we see with internet platforms. Your rights do not count as long as they can claim to be protecting the community.
The other aspect of the terms of service society is that the terms of service are opaque and impossible to understand. To this day no one can explain the term “hate speech” yet it turns up in every terms of service agreement. It is turning up in an informal sense all over society. Men are sent to jail for hate crimes, even though there are few laws defining hate crimes. The concept of “hate” is now a spectral force that no one can explain, but it animates the terms of service of life.
One of things that clarity of the law requires is the clarity of the process. In the before times when the law was supposed to be clear, the process of adjudicating disputes was supposed to be clear as well. In other words, the rules defining the process were supposed to be as clear as the law. In the terms of service society, the process for adjudicating disputes is as mysterious as the rules. No one can explain how Twitter enforces its terms of service, not even Twitter.
The citizen in a rules based society is expected to live within the law, but in return he gets protected by the law. In the feudal order, protection was from the man to whom you pledged loyalty, because privilege transcended the law. In effect, the law was a one-way street that imposed rules on people but offered little protection in return. The liberal order was about making the law clear and reciprocal. Men would follow the law because it was in their interest, as the law was what protected them.
The terms of service society is much closer to the feudal order in that we have a proliferation of rules, but we are not in a rule-based society. Because the rules are always changing and their implementation is dependent on a privileged elite, people cannot depend on the rules at all. Creators on YouTube, for example, spend a lot of time policing their past in order to remain compliant. What matters is not the rules but the whims of the censors.
Another aspect of the terms of service society is that citizenship is no longer a thing that has any value. From the point of view of the people enforcing the terms of service, you are compliant or non-compliant. It is why the French president feels free to terrorize French people over the vaccine. They are non-compliant, so their services from the state have been terminated. This is the new relationship between people and those who rule over them. You are compliant or non-compliant.
It is tempting to think this cannot work, but feudalism carried on for roughly a thousand years before things changed. At least a third of a human population is happy to be treated like a prisoner. For most people, freedom is terrifying. They want to be told what to do and some are happy to have no choices at all. To date, no politician has been hanged for imposing Covid mandates. What the last two years has told our trust and safety councils is they can go much further than they dreamed.
On the other hand, feudalism worked in an age where death from disease, violence and starvation was common. Feudalism was a survival response to the breakdown of order, rather than a replacement for it. The terms of service society can only last if it can actually follow through on the promise to turn society into a giant daycare center. If not, then the terms of service collapses and we have no order at all. Trust and safety, as it were, goes away entirely.
If you like my work and wish to kick in a few bucks, you can buy me a beer. You can sign up for a SubscribeStar subscription and get some extra content. You can donate via PayPal. My crypto addresses are here for those who prefer that option. You can send gold bars to: Z Media LLC P.O. Box 432 Cockeysville, MD 21030-0432. Thank you for your support!
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.
We’re all Marxists now!
Whatever this government does, i’m against it.
Let Diogenes the cynic be our guide.
Whatever it is, I’m against it. I don’t know what they have to say / It makes no difference anyway.
I’m against it.
Damn this was good, And I’m a trained historian. Where were you when I was in grad school?????
One of your best, Z. Thank you. I learn every time—and sometimes I learn a lot.
I will begrudgingly will accept Terms of Service if I perceive that I am getting something worthwhile from the site. I no longer see anything worthwhile coming from the federal government outside of a few entitlements like social security and Medicare. When there is the threat of a federal government shutdown over funding, I fail to see a negative impact on anyone who doesn’t work for or sell to the government. As more normal men and married women see the lack of value in the federal government, it is bound to impact their willingness to go along with the terms… Read more »
The other aspect of Terms of Service is that it is set by the owners of a service to the users/renters of the service. The separation is clear. This extends on from the Citizen aspect having no value. The politicians (and those in control of them) are now asserting that own all of society, all physical space and any public functions paid for by your money. This is extremely significant as they have essentially annulled private interests in all its forms and the very concept of public ownership. Society it seems has been subject to an invisible hostile taken over… Read more »
Laws were never universal , or applied equally. Rich fucks rarely suffer consequences. When you write the laws, they don’t apply to you, just like taxes. The working class eats the shit and gets the bill to pay for it.
“It is tempting to think this cannot work, but feudalism carried on for roughly a thousand years before things changed. At least a third of a human population is happy to be treated like a prisoner. For most people, freedom is terrifying. They want to be told what to do and some are happy to have no choices at all. To date, no politician has been hanged for imposing Covid mandates. What the last two years has told our trust and safety councils is they can go much further than they dreamed.” Precisely. And that’s what you get when you… Read more »
Well there are riots all over Europe against lockdowns, vax passports, and jabs mandatory. Not well reported, but they are there. There is a big protest in Canada by truckers, and shortages abound. Even in Australia there are protests, and Prohibition went reasonably smoothly and most abided by it for the first two years. Frenchmen died in the trenches up to 1916. But after Verdun troops mutinied if ordered to attack. People put with things until very suddenly they don’t. Smart rulers get ahead of that. Others find disused prisons stormed for no apparent reason. Boris fighting for his life… Read more »
Plazma on Bitchute has good clips of European sportiness:
https://www.bitchute.com/video/6mEJOmuuV8FA/
https://www.bitchute.com/video/HnPjnamzUHfF/
Mass armies were not available, because there was no food. Until the early 1800’s, armies in the field had to forage for food and supplies. This limited their size and movement. Napoleon had an army of about 30k when he won his first major victory over Austria around 1800. A decade or so later, he invaded Russia with an army of 500K. What happened? The French learned how to preserve (can) food. They now could be resupplied.
Herbert Marcuse was an alumni of the Frankfort school . Marcuse jumped over to working for the OSS(CIA), and later to become a professor. In 1965 he wrote an essay called “Repressive Tolerance: “The conclusion reached is that the realization of the objective of tolerance would call for intolerance toward prevailing policies, attitudes, opinions, and the extension of tolerance to policies, attitudes, and opinions which are outlawed or suppressed. ” A quite exact recipe for “Terms of Service Society.” Marcuse has a deeper meaning. Had Mustache Pharaoh been censored in advance, then the things they blame him for could have… Read more »
The Neo-Ciceronian Times has a take on compliance and NPCs that fits in with today’s discussion:
https://neociceroniantimes.wordpress.com/2022/01/26/if-i-die-i-die-but-im-not-going-to-be-controlled/
That is a good post. Thank you for bringing this to my attention.
That is an impressive reading list he’s got going there. Life is too short…
“My God man, have you even read Locke!!?!”
Sargon of Akkad aka “Sargin”
Bill Gates so loves the world and humanity that he wants to kill about 6.5 billion of us to save the rest. Hail the new feudal lords. The Aztecs had nothing on our new cult of human sacrifice.
I agree with Gates. Let us begin the process with him first.
Here’s Bill and Klaus talking about global public health and population growth at Davos in 2008:
https://www.bitchute.com/video/dy4vyLHTOrgz/
Somewhat OT or maybe not, Nancy Pelosi is running for re-election. She is reported to be either 81 or 82. Why run again when Dems are supposed to lose the majority? The only thing I can think of is that she has gotten the high sign that Brandon plans to arrest most/all Republicans and rule like Alberto Fujimori in a ‘self-coup’ . So she can still be Speaker and be “important” ala Cartman on South Park “respect mah authoritah!” Silicon Valley from insider reports cannot innovate any more. They have engineers who have not written a line of code for… Read more »
Spitballing, but there has been a lot of chatter recently about the insider trading done by Pelosi and her husband. While it is doubtful the feds would go after them, staying in the House increases the unlikelihood.
She had been going to move to Naples, Florida, and apparently that has gone *poof*/
You misunderestimate SanFran Nan’s ambition.
Speaker is only two unfortunate accidents away from the throne.
Another possible angle is the fact that soon after talk of her retiring began to appear, an informal house poll among dems showed that they would like Hakeem Jefferies as the next speaker. When that made the rounds on the web, she then announced that she would run for another term. Coincidence? Possibly.
Really?
The guy who asked if Guam was going to tip over?
this is the preferred speaker?
People like you and I see that and say to ourselves, “Talk about the lights being on, but nobody’s home? There’s nobody on the friggen block!” They see a creature that – as Z is fond of saying – ticks all the right boxes (I grew up with the term “Two for one deal” e.g. black leftist who hates whitey. Or another example would be black and/or hispanic female, a black lesbian would be a three for one deal and so on, but you get the point.) he’s black, he hates whitey and he’ll help us implement our “final solution”… Read more »
No, that was Hank Johnson, the honorable Rep. from the East Atlanta suburbs. Not even the House of Representatives has so little shame that it would install him as Speaker.
My mistake. Thanks for correcting.
It all seems to blur into one long stream of fuckwits its hard to keep track.
Reminds me of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOapLkmhYG4
That was supposed to be in reply to Severian’s first post.
A Terms of Service Society will collapse very fast. It does not work in a complex system requiring a lot of higher IQ people working in a stable set of rules to maintain and improve complex systems. And we are in per the 1970’s series “Connections” the technology trap and have been since the dawn of Agriculture. We need more food, energy, transport etc every era than before. And we have competitors who are NOT Terms of Service: Russia, China, and Iran. Probably an emerging Escobar figure as well. Europe is waking up to the fact that Putin can do… Read more »
I agree with you about the instability. The first domino crashing was probably the Keystone pipeline. An endeavor like that takes years of planning and vast amounts of investment. To have it all nixed at the whim of a single man with no legal recourse, that has follow on effects that we haven’t even begun to see yet. It means private companies in the US can’t do big things anymore, because their success relies on the whims of the rulers and who wants to take that kind of risk. Once upon a time, there would have been rules for something… Read more »
I would love for Obama to be picked for Breyer’s role. It would be the most short sighted, credibility destroying thing that could be done to the Supreme Court. They are that stupid, so cross your fingers. Likely a strong black woman who uses slave ship references in each poorly written decision.
This 50 year-old monster is Breyer’s expected replacement that will get fast tracked through confirmation:
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2022/01/26/as-expected-supreme-court-justice-stephen-breyer-will-step-down-biden-will-likely-nominate-ketanji-brown-jackson/
As a bonus, she has marital ties to the useless Paul Ryan.
The United States of Zimbabwe wins again!
There is no answer, no system that will fix human societies or individuals.
Only way for there to be a better society is for there to be naturally better people; and perhaps less of them. Better people do have more of an inclination to do what
is right and true simply because it is in their nature. And of course, there must be stable good leadership that operates in good faith, even a king. Anything but “democracy.”
The vax might be our salvation after all!
The functional definition of a “terms of service” is a contract that one party signs under duress that the other party can rewrite at will.
How did we go from “you can own a copy of this software but not redistribute it” to “your privacy and safety is so important that we redefine it twice a month without ever consulting you or giving an explanation”? Monetization, that’s how. Everything is a theft, except that today’s thieves have a curious need to make their crime somehow your fault.
“
It’s hate speech to call a junkie hobo a junkie hobo. You have to call them our un-housed neighbors. Unless they pitch a tent in a 3 mile radius of the Super Bowl. Man I wish the super bowl was in my area. Anybody who watches that Is retarded . Interesting, had to type the whole word out. No help from auto spell. Same with bitchute no matter how many times I type it out.
The law has been weaponized and will not protect you. They get to decide who they apply the rules to and who they don’t. There is no punishment for them for not following the rules about enforcing the law. Binger will never face any punishment for charging Kyle Rittenhouse. The DA who charged the J6 people and denied them bail will never be charged. The DA who fails to prosecute a brazen murder in Chicago will never face any abuse of office charges.. Not only will they not be charged, but they cannot be charged. In England, we have the… Read more »
Speaking of justice, SCJ Breyer just announced his retirement.
By berate you mean kick their door in and arrest them in their own home in front of their family.
The feudal society also had universal Christianity and the considerable power of the Church. Henry II of England was publicly beaten because of his complicity in the murder of Archbishop Thomas Becket. Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV stood barefoot in the snow for three days before Pope Gregory VII at Canossa as a penitent sinner before. Thomas More was willing to face the headsman rather than acknowledge Henry VIII’s divorce of Katherine of Aragon. The Church certainly had its own corruption, but even powerful monarchs had to respect it. One of the aspects of today’s secular society is that there… Read more »
To set the record straight on rights: 1). Rights never really did exist. Only what the people, alive today, will accept from their authorities, and this is always changing like a Kaleidoscope. 2). There is especially no such thing as a “God given right” as conservatards say. God may know every sparrow that falls to the ground, but he leaves them there to die. Christianity especially does not claim this even remotely. Paul himself, many times quoting Jesus, told us basically we have to eat sh t in this hell-scape, but don’t worry, we’ll get to heaven and they won’t.… Read more »
It’s interesting how the perfectibility of Man quickly turned into the perfect perversity of man. Modern folk seem to think lopping off their body parts and parading around in garish colors as the most perfect expression of their inner selves. As corrupt – and now weak – as the Church has been through the centuries, they never inflicted that on us. I must admit, as horrifying as the crushing of human rights under the new normal is, I almost lament the banishment of beauty, grace and what passed for human dignity more. Perhaps I’ll feel differently as I’m marched off… Read more »
“The debate since the 18th century has been about the nature of man. Communism, fascism, capitalism, libertarianism and so on are all based on this assumption.” However, this is not the case with the postmodernism that rules the West’s intellectual roost, and has done so since the 80s. The farthest the pomos will go regarding human nature is to say that all peoples are linguistically structured. What they mean by this is that the reality of every linguistic group or culture is ordered and defined by the language they use. What’s more, different cultures cannot comprehend the thought-world of one… Read more »
That’s also why these two old biddies began ritualistically chanting, “BLM, BLM,” as if it were some kind of magical incantation that would protect them from harm or enable them to take control of the black fellow’s mind:
https://mobile.twitter.com/1607Danie/status/1485627344287109130
It’s a strikingly atavistic re-appearance of the superstitious in human populations that used to pride themselves on being ‘beyond’ such things.
Pulling down your mask and getting right in the face of a person not wearing a mask to yell at the person for not wearing a mask, because it is endangering you… SMFH.
Somewhat OT, but this is essentially what EMJ says, I’m guessing because he’s a literature guy, but then he comes back to universality via the Logos.
Whatever the merits, it’s interesting to hear someone arguing Catholicism in terms that were probably meant to subvert it.
Not being Catholic, I wonder how mainstream EMJ’s ideas are, and how many PoMo thinkers were raised Catholic.
Forgive me, but who is EMJ?
E. Michael Jones. The guy who debated Jared Taylor a little while back.
Ostei: Catholic thinker/writer E Michael Jones, most well known in these parts for writing “The Jewish Revolutionary Spirit.”
Not entirely an encomium to the Finkels, I take it?
Unz publishes his articles from time to time, let’s put it that way 🙂
https://www.unz.com/author/e-michael-jones/
In 1965, Herbert Marcuse wrote an essay called Repressive Tolerance. Marcuse was a Frankfurt school alumni who jumped into the OSS(CIA) and then into academia. “The conclusion reached is that the realization of the objective of tolerance would call for intolerance toward prevailing policies, attitudes, opinions, and the extension of tolerance to policies, attitudes, and opinions which are outlawed or suppressed. ” The Hoax of Cost is used as an energy source and justification for the White repression industry. As in: If only the mustache was prevented from speaking, the whole thing could have been avoided. So therefor, Terms of… Read more »
This is terrific Ostei. It definitely needs to be taken into consideration. I think it shows the unwinding of the current regime. But I still believe that the regime wants to perfect us. “You will listen to White lab coat clergy has to say and get 17th booster to achieve perfection. Should you reject the advice of lab coat clergy you will be shunned and punished.” While the mire of relativism grows, it’s still a society with a secular priestesshood that sees a certain set of “truths” as encoded in the secular theology. “Big mouth black woman=wise.” etc. What may… Read more »
Radical relativists are rarely consistent. They speak like Jacques Lacan and behave like Increase Mather.
And they are right.
Language creates the mind space within which people operate. Without appropriate language certain ideas cannot be formulated.
Its already the case for lots of people (possibly a majority) or did you miss all the kneeling?
Another difference is the Catholic Church was deeply intertwined with feudal society, and to some extent helped create it after the fall of Rome, especially through the Benedictine monasteries. But today the Church hardly is involved at all, still mired in its post-Vatican II funk, with the current pontiff trying to get rid of its most faithful and growing membership, traditional Catholics.
Red Frank is now the boss, a bif change after Benedict, to be sure.
“Your rights do not count as long as they can claim to be protecting the community.” That’s when I knew it was over, at least regarding Covid and, really, going forward. Our rulers had found their moral loophole to the rule of law. So long as they could say that your right to whatever hurt the community, you lost that right. Don’t want to wear a mask or get vaccinated. Too bad. You could hurt others, so you lose those rights. (Btw, the facts don’t matter or, at least, can be obfuscated enough not to matter.) This protection against you… Read more »
Here in Canada, “emergency” rules supersede any rights given to us by the “constitution.” It is why the federal and provincial (especially provincial) governments keep extending their emergency orders.
“Emergency” even lets them use drugs on us that aren’t FDA approved. Emergency Use Authorization.
And what are the emergency rules based upon? The safety of the community.
The community now has precedence over the individual. Sound familiar?
And the Canadian courts are of no use. The judges are pulled from the same class of people as the politicians themselves. They do not see themselves as common citizens but as part of the ruling class. Also, the Canadian Charter of Rights has a giant “get out of jail free!” card for the state in its very first clause. All rights enumerated in the Charter are subject to “reasonable limits as can be demonstrably justified” – well what’s more perfect justification than a pandemic? Fairly early on, provinces effectively slammed their borders shut to each other. If you wanted… Read more »
I’m curious as to how this is enforced. Here in the US, there are no checkpoints or gatehouses at most interstate borders. There’s a sign that says you’re entering whatever new state it is. Are there no backroads in Canada that drift across province lines? I’m genuinely curious because I try to think these things through in case things get worse here. Few states, after all, really innovate policies. They generally copy from each other. If there’s something the Canadian state has figured out to keep people locked in their home provinces I’d like to know.
They have cops manning main roads, and bridges between provinces. For the back roads, they put concrete barriers when they are short on manpower.
In my State, the legislature is trying to pass law that the Governor’s state of emergency decree must be reviewed/renewed by the legislate every period of time—like 30 days. This make perfect sense. The concept of state of emergency is for speedy action when the democratic process can not step in to control matters in a timely fashion. This is reasonable, but was assumed to expire—not continue for an arbitrary time—like three years. Even the Roman Senate would appoint “dictators” for a limited period of time, or for the completion of a specific assignment. Dictator for life (Augustus) after Caesar… Read more »
Heh. Here in Nova Scotia, Canada, the state of emergency is only valid for 14 days at a time before it must be renewed. The trick is that the SoE is issued by the Lieutenant Governor upon advice from the Premier and cabinet. The legislature has no say – and even if it did, we’ve a majority government now which wouldn’t cross the Premier in the first place. So every 14 days like clockwork we got a news release that the province has renewed the SoE. So we’ve been under SoE continuously since March 22, 2020. Almost two years. Canadian… Read more »
And yet, the covid Death Star is starting to explode, in no small part because of people with the will and integrity to fight it. That’s the silver lining— laws that aren’t applied universally aren’t nearly as strong. In a way, the individual who is shrewd and willing to take his lumps is more powerful today than he has been in a long time.
Long live the control group!
5 years from now they might be the only living group as more info on the immunological damage and infertility comes to light.
Ukrainians unhappy with their US-installed puppet government drop by their legislature:
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/watch-ukrainians-attempt-storm-parliament-building
“Your rights do not count as long as they can claim to be protecting the community”. From a legal perspective, the courts can always rule that arbitrary infringements of a citizen’s rights are consistent with the “general welfare” clause of Article I, section 8 of the U. S. Constitution. This grants Congress the power to “lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts, and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common defense and general Welfare of the United States.” And we know how much evil people like to do things “legally”. Not lawfully, of course, but, “Hey, what we… Read more »
“Public health,” has proven to be a far more effective legal cudgel than, “climate change.
We may see them pivot back to, “national security,” depending on how Ukraine plays out.
No, they’ll stick with public health. They’ll just define everything under that banner.
Climate change will be described in public health terms. Racism/hate speech harms the mental health of blacks. Etc.
Yep, like every spending bill is now about “infrastructure.”
“No, they’ll stick with public health. They’ll just define everything under that banner.”
Agreed. Because these people cannot conceive of *anything* worse than physical death.
You can see they floated this already with that women who had a medical diagnosis of suffering from climate change health issues.
This will be here informally sometime this year I would expect and formalized early next by the usual “independent” medical bodies.
I would also bet that all the vex side effects will be tied into climate change. i.e heart issues from climate, more cancers from co2 blah blah blah.. You can see it happening.
Hate is *not* the opposite of “love”. ‘Indifference” is the opposite of love. Think about it.
Ugh. I used to explain to people how that reading of the general welfare clause was completely wrong and I could back it up with clear explanations from Madison’s writings in the Federalist papers, etc., but, you know, nobody really cares anymore. The time for explaining things is past.
Maybe there never was a time for explanation V. You are supposed to shut up and listen respectfully while the left turned established science like histology a and pathology into voodoo… And perhaps we should focus on that and take heart? It used to be that we DID shut up and give the harpies and Karen’s the benefit of the doubt on the off-chance that they were right. But now, each passing day it’s increasingly obvious that it was all hysteria and grift. It won’t be much longer. In some circles, names are being taken, faces memorized. When the voting… Read more »
“But Madison had slaves!” (You know I’m kidding, friend. But that is widely acknowledged as a valid rebuttal to any and all appeals to the Founding Documents these days.)
[…] ZMan is delightfully dyspeptic today. […]
This is all so true
I don’t think the managerial class gets any bigger psychosexual thrill than being able to tell that someone “access denied” in big bold letters
Or “this page is forbidden!”
The language these websites use to tell someone they simply made a wrong turn has always had a threatening ominous tone about it.
Moral of the story: kill all the former hall monitors
Revenge of the Nerds was a tragedy, the jocks were the good guys.
Good comment! I’ve often thought of that movie as anti-white propaganda, albeit entertaining, as Z-man’s post yesterday explains. Remember the last scene where the jocks are intimidated by a line of Negroes? Now I see it for what it was!.
When nerds ran tech it wasn’t our enemy. The moment they were pushed out by “business”—the jocks of this binary—gulag construction began.
Conservatives have never been right about anything.
Same goes for Animal House.
De Maistre stated that when laws become long, it’s because of an unwritten custom or tradition being forgotten by a people in a society. In other words, the more laws, the larger the cultural degradation. Read the constitution, and it’s apparent there’s a multitude of details and definition that they took for granted would be universally understood. As our culture rotten, so did our ability to communicate clearly. The rule of law is breaking down because the laws have become so strange and self-contradictory, and the laws have become strange and contradictory because there is no common custom or tradition… Read more »
We let capitalists feed on social capital for so long, Western civilization is collapsing.
“… the laws have become strange and contradictory because there is no common custom or tradition to call down upon.”
How true, but let’s not forget “regulations”—which have the force of law—in the managerial state. Regulations, even written down, allow a human interpretation that is so vague and arbitrary as to never hold up in the courts. Of course, the bureaucracy has its own lengthy appeals process which rarely can be bypassed before you can have your day in court.
In other words, the Constitution reified the culture. Once the culture was destroyed, the Constitution no longer made any real sense. And experts rushed in where commoners could no longer comprehend.
Interesting.
“What the last two years has told our trust and safety councils is they can go much further than they dreamed.” It’s intriguing to speculate on this statement. This statement is a bit broad, for these shenanigans were by no means general. There are entire states where “two weeks to flatten the curve” was the entire extent of the whole silly business. The intriguing part is speculating on why that is so. Did the governors of the free states not try to jerk their populations around because those governors were not lunatics? Or did they not try to abuse their… Read more »
Please ignore downvote — fat finger input …. What I had intended to initiate with that (erroneous) move was that in the rustic, middle of America state I lived in before and during the Covid madness, most people took reasonable precautions at first, perhaps as trust was not completely discarded at that early point. As the months passed, and the reality of this regime-created bug became more apparent, most had just returned to their former practices. I think they understood/understand there are some real risks for some, but (1) they didn’t fall into those categories, or (2), they were willing… Read more »
“I think they understood/understand there are some real risks for some, but (1) they didn’t fall into those categories, or (2), they were willing to take the risk.” Agreed. This is why I said to a woman–prolly 25 or so (old enough to know better, anyway)–in the post office one day, “If you’re afraid to leave your home, then don’t leave your home.” She literally *ran* for the exit, and I took her place in line. The governor of my Deep South state did the “flatten the curve” thing for two weeks, after which everything returned to normal. There are… Read more »
Nonsense. The major flaw in your piece is that to run a successful feudal state you had to be strong and smart. Your people had to as well; else you wouldn’t hold your place among your peers. Our current overlords are weak, pathetic and stupid. Joe Biden needs diapers. The managerial class is increasingly comprised of psychotically unhappy women, unqualified vibrants, Every day people tell Twitter and Facebook to take their terms and conditions and go screw – and turn them off for good, or go in search of other platforms. (I strongly recommend Gab). The current ruling elite are… Read more »
You have a point. Z says that this system could stagger on a long time since the feudal system lasted a thousand years.
No way. A feudal leader’s job was to protect his people from invaders and to keep his own henchmen in check so that the peasants could mostly just live their lives.
Our leaders can’t do either.
That new concrete wall erected around the White House says a lot about weakness, fear, ineptness, etc…..
When the ruling class finally goes to war with the American people, don’t be surprised if it isn’t the military that purges them.
I definitely won’t be surprised if it *isn’t* the military that purges them[the ruling class]. I suspect the military is ceasing to be a friend of the people.
This is what I wonder, given that the drooling class is trying to purge the forces of those they think are most a threat. If they purge enough, what shape might a military coup look like, if any occurs? Will it be spurred by a nation-wide economic disaster? And if so, to whom will the military be beholden?
look at the police in australia
the military will do what they are told, for the most part
the aussies have not risen up against the police and people here will not mount an insurrection
Never going to happen. A large part of counter-intelligence is now focused on military groups internally. They learnt that lesson pretty well. As an example, I am not sure how many people remember that 1 day news story about 200 KSK (German special forces) soldiers planning on some internal retribution in 2018 (plot monitored by plants in the group): https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6374085/Secret-plot-200-elite-neo-Nazi-soldiers-German-SAS-slaughter-politicians.html Or the fact that a further KSK unit in 2020 was disbanded and 20 members arrested and there are currently more than 600 soldiers in Germany under active investigation by the BND. This is happening all over the west including… Read more »
“Our leaders can’t do either.”
Let us say, rather, that “our leaders *don’t* do either. They have the power to defend our borders instead of yammering about the Ukraine’s borders, but they flatly refuse to use it.
I found this quite remarkable. I don’t know why.
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/mass-release-single-adult-migrants-caught-video
Did you overlook the 1 million or so mostly young males imported into Germany a few years ago.
This is the same thing and I would expect the scale is enormous, just distributed enough to hide it.
I suspect the role of the “afterlife” went a long way to preserving the various feudal systems. Spending 40-50 years as a dirt farmer, knowing your kids have the same lot in life, and their kids too, is moderated by a fancy man singing songs in a language you don’t understand who tells you your reward is in heaven.
I suspect that the breakdown of the belief in a next life where the good and bad will be sorted accordingly may nudge this thing closer to a conclusion more quickly.
The afterlife has been a staple of just about every civilization at every stage of development. The great experiment of the West is what will happen when this belief disappears, along with the belief that life is worth living at all. Even the utopians who look forward to creating a paradise on earth are losing their faith, seeing value only in extinction itself.
Well, some think that the lunatic Left are outright evil, and that ruin and chaos are their real end goal.
http://charltonteaching.blogspot.com/2022/01/theyre-demons-they-want-destruction-of.html?m=1
Given that so many lunatic positions contradict each other, or even reality itself, the argument that endless chaos is the point is not out of the question.
I think there’s truth to this. The chief aim of the Left is to subvert white civilization completely. This is why diversity and perversion are lionized, and white people, Christianity and tradition are under assault. Thing is, Leftists are vague at best regarding what they will build on the rubble of the West. In point of fact, I don’t think they really care about building anything; they simply want to destroy like Huns in a cathedral or Hutus in a symphony hall.
“Even the utopians who look forward to creating a paradise on earth are losing their faith, seeing value only in extinction itself.”
Hey, I’d stand in line to see that!
Their utopia is oblivion.
They are a straight up death cult and their own immolation is part of it, as is your slaughter.
There is only one way to deal with these sort of movements and they have led to many bloody wars through the ages.
Your understanding of early Christianity needs expanding. Strange looking men “singing” about a beautiful “afterlife” would have gotten the faith nowhere!. Many cultures had a concept of gods and an afterlife. What set the early Christian faith apart was the precept of caring for the worse off in society—an early promotion of a social safety net. In the time when gladiator combat in the colosseum was an acceptable pastime, Christianity was appealing to the masses for its earthly role as well as its spiritual role—perhaps more so.
Compsci shoots, Compsci scores! The god of Mercy spoke through them, they worked side by side with the greatest Healer of all time. As an aside to both Compsci and Wild Geese, the Lord of Hell, too, has a role: Disruption of settled breeding patterns. Nature, forces and pressure above mind, employs brute force solutions as well as remarkably intricate balances. It’s all a matter of scale. A calm, pleasant day in the biosphere, to us, is actually a hot, boiling stew of viral code strings. Nature enforces diversity, ruthlessly, lest blight or plague kill the monoculture. The Disruptors cause… Read more »
PSS- yes, dammit, They lied. Of course They did, they serve the One below.
They had been marrying into our kind for centuries.
They then violently exised their majority that wished to be a branch of us, and rewrote their history.
One mixes in truth to hide the lie. Our Truth became Their mask; con men, betrayers, by any means, by any promise necessary- that there is only One: Theirs, and you must worship Them, and It, or be punished. The first and greatest Lie, by the people of the lie.
Did it start with The Bomb?
One thing the last three generations had looming over their head was the literal end of the world.
Generations before that expected to be as their fathers and grandfathers were. That’s why foreigners don’t have generational divides like Boomer, Gen X, Gen Z, etc. The young’ens grew up expecting to take up their parents’ role.
Perhaps not all that bad, that our children—and their parents—expect something better/different for themselves than what their parents had. India has a “caste” system, in which everyone “knows their place”.
I’m glad my father did not know his, otherwise I’d not be here.
Fair point, but the Church also recognized that most people aren’t capable of great things so they shouldn’t be penalized and humiliated for this and should be told they will receive a heavenly reward for simply being good and decent and average
I think that’s better than what we have today where average people are treated like cattle and a crop for consumerism if they aren’t being treated like garbage or criminals for simply existing.
Treating people as sacred, their lives as sacred, is a huge advancement for humanity. We are quickly heading toward something much darker.
Falcone, yes indeed—something darker.
Points to both- both views explain why ee get better, and they remain sh*tholes.
Well, were getting better, until that impulse was taken over and run off the rails.
Read together with yesterday’s WOKE DAWN, this is simultaneously a massive Black Pill and a fantastic analysis of modernity. The mental pushbacks I had against WOKE DAWN pretty well have been eliminated via this installment. Of course this will last until it is no longer tenable and that may be a long time, which seems more likely after reading this. What a dreary, terrifying and electrifying time to be alive. “What the last two years has told our trust and safety councils is they can go much further than they dreamed.” Absolutely, and as long as they desire, as you… Read more »
With Putin and Lavrov well on their way to calling O’Biden’s bluff I think we’ll see tensions pull back in Ukraine.
No one in the world is impressed with the F-35 crash that injured 7 on the USS Carl Vinson, which is currently deployed to the South China Sea.
People are rapidly realizing the DC regime is a paper tiger, not to be taken seriously.
Agreed. China and Russia have known for some time the United States is a paper tiger and just want to wait it out. Our problem, here in the belly of the paper tiger, is it will lash out as us as its position economically and militarily recedes throughout the world. Eventually, though, the “United” States will be more or less a loose confederation of polities. As Z pointed out yesterday and today, this could muddle on in its current state a long time barring a catastrophe, which easily could happen.
More amusingly, Ukrainian troops are so well-equipped they train by going, “pew-pew-pew!”
https://t.me/intelslava/17246
The Ukes might want to ask the Poles how reliable the Anglos are as allies, although they likely know.
Response to Jack Dobson-the Poles were not particularly honorable when they annexed some of Czechoslovakia after Munich.
France was the country which had the army large enough to invade Germany, but chose not to.
“People are rapidly realizing the DC regime is a paper tiger, not to be taken seriously.”
Even the Cloud People themselves know it, if only incohately. Hence the wall around the White House. And the inauguration behind barbed wire and 25,000 armed men of the man who, we are told, got more votes than any candidate in history.
Fear not! Some say we’ll regress to the Age of Sail, losing all science before Darwin.
Ahh! Life as a turnip farmer!
What with the hunter-killer drones, radiation mutants, plague monkeys, and howling Nordstrom savages, it’ll make better penny dreadfuls than the Wild West!
Connecting dots. The rule of law is giving way to vague & arbitrary privileges supervised by anonymous oligarchs that enforce their power via shadowy and secondhand acts of coercion. For the persistently non-compliant, the Stasi will step in and persecute you in the finest tradition of the Soviet NKVD. If you bend the knee or sit on your hands, you get more of the above. If you poke your head up and complain, you get your head chopped off. If you join a militia and attempt to recreate the revolution of 1776, you get arrested because the nominal “leader” was… Read more »
“The rule of law is giving way … .” The rule of law does not exist and never has. Laws are abstractions. They do not enforce themselves. The only physical manifestation of “the law” is ink on paper. They do not enforce themselves. It is true that that ink and paper might be the finest quality and that those inky pages may be bound in fine calf skin and reposed on mahogany shelves inside marble buildings, but laws do not enforce themselves. They are abstractions, just as “rights” are. Laws do not enforce themselves. Men rule other men. There is… Read more »
What happened to General Michael Flynn is the clearest and most concrete evidence that the Stasi in DC is nothing more than a political thugocracy owned lock, stock, & barrel by the power players that rule from the shadows. You cannot run a successful criminal enterprise without owning the police. And the Gestapo tactics used in the arrests of Manafort and Stone (dawn raids with full SWAT and terrorizing elderly & infirm wives for the sport of it) is despicable beyond words. I sometimes think that the Stasi moniker is too lenient with respect to the betrayal by persons in… Read more »
Which is why the people must have direct control over the police—not the local pol’s at city/town, county, or State level. Every police chief, must be in an elected office where the people vote on his retention. In my town, the police chief is a lacky to the local political establishment (mayor and council) and they hire who will do as they bid.
“The current infestation is mostly craven crooks and poseurs hiding behind an wall of arrogance and SWAT assassins.”
What a delicious sentence!
And you are right that what happened to Gen Flynn is a perfect example, but I’d just add that another perfect example (and the one I was thinking of) is what did *not* happen to Herself after she broke every law against espionage ever even dreamt of.
Anyway, point is that laws do not enforce themselves and there is, therefore, no such ting as the “rule of law.”
Ah, an unapologetic and cynical Nominalist.
Did you write your comment while smoking Gauloises and contemplating suicide?
I tried smoking a Gauloise about 40 years ago or so. Couldn’t manage it. I really think that the Cancer Society should
*recommend* Gaulosies. It would put a stop to smoking poste haste.
Welcome back! I guess I hit a nerve. Likely because the truth hurts. And I absolutely love the implied Epstein threat, or is it an Arkanciding threat a la Vince Foster? I hereby declare that I will never set foot in Fort Marcy Park. Ya know, if you don’t want nasty things written about you, maybe you should just consider not doing them in the first place. Surely you knew that Stone’s wife was deaf when you broke down the door at morning twilight and scared her half to death barging into her bedroom at 6:01 am. And let’s not… Read more »
Nicely said. Its also hard to run managerial 2.0 or terms of service when your own people aren’t loyal to you.
The recent Chicago teachers strike was a great example. when your underlings get to set the rules, you aren’t really in charge.
Since Feudalism has really been the dominant system since the dawn of civilization, it’s worth contemplating that modern liberal democracy was just a brief experiment that has failed. (Many historians estimate that 50% of the population east of the Oder were serfs right up to the start of the 30 Years War. All of Latin America was a latifundium. China and Japan were feudal too). So were just going “back to the future”. Of course, we’re going there without any of the protections of God or custom which featured in feudalism. We shall work the land or our laptops with… Read more »
And rather than vote harder we’ll need to max out on our compliance injections….
Which is to say that as power concentrates in ever fewer hands with ever fewer “checks and balances,” those who exercise power are ever freer to be arbitrary in its exercise. The Church posed some constraint of the arbitrary exercise of feudal power. The new American peasantry has no such universal standard on which to rely in relation to our masters. Still, the clash of identies, each collective against all as each seeks its advantage of the other, brings ad hoc constraints to bear. It’s the fear and greed trade off: greed to take what I can get balanced by… Read more »
Everyone knows the definition of hate speech. It’s when a white person says something a POC doesn’t like. That’s it and everyone knows that’s the definition
If hate speech/crime is assessed by formal charges and prosecution, rather than by reported incidents, then certainly hate speech/crime is only a White thing.
Social media companies have consistently struggled with A.I. that can detect hate speech for the simple fact that blacks are the most common purveyors of it. Which of course requires the A.I. grant exemptions based on race. Which doesn’t exist in clown world.
If there’s one saving grace, its that our enemies don’t believe in reality.
It’s a bit mean to observe but I laugh that they can’t still get the AI to distinguish pictures of blacks from apes. Reality is racist.
“Everyone knows the definition of hate speech. It’s when a white person says something a POC doesn’t like.”
It’s even worse than that. It doesn’t have to be a POC. It can be–and very often is–a white, self-appointed guardian of … well, of everything, really, these days.
It can be–and very often is–some white talking head on some TV network or other. Or a school teacher or preacher or, or, or you-name-it. The watchers and guardians are everywhere and they neither slumber nor sleep.
They are honorary POC’s. And enjoy the beautiful symmetry of POC’s and pox being pronounced the same
” … POC’s and pox being pronounced the same.”
LOL! Now that right there is funny.
Made me laff.
Acute observation vis-a-vis feudalism Z; that’s Eva what the Left/Dems are attempting to install now, a feudal system with themselves as the lords & us rubes as the vassals.
And have no doubt that this “terms of service” society (just like hate crimes) largely pertains to White people only. No jogger, pajeet, tranny, muzzie etc., will ever be held to account in the same way, if at all. A good example may be the young man back east somewhere who needs a heart transplant asap. But since he remains unvaxed, he is removed from the top of the list and basically condemned to death. The idea that a hospital can apparently get away with something like this with no recourse for the patient and family is breathtaking. We’re not… Read more »
And the sociopathic nurses went online and mocked him
https://tbdailynews.com/brigham-and-womens-nurses-mock-father-being-denied-heart-transplant-because-he-hasnt-taken-covid-vaccine/
Judas f**king priest.
MSNBC is talking about him at this very moment. Ghouls.
Morning Joe went on an epic rant as the lead up. The EMT ambulances are waiting 6 to 12 hours to get into the ER.
The problem is the unvaxxed, you see. Hospital workers aren’t showing up because they’re afraid of the unvaxxed. Hail Baphomet!
Check this out. The media so evil that they’re celebrating this guy’s death even though in the article they say he is fully vaxed. He had to be to compete. But he had the wrong opinion once. So that’s the story, not the fact that this fully vaxed healthy athlete died of covid
https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/olympics/antivax-covid-szilveszter-csollany-hungary-b2000002.html
That strikes me as not only cruel and unprofessional but nonsensical. If someone is so medically fragile that they’re hospitalized in need of a transplant it’s unlikely that they’re a candidate for vaccination (even one that doesn’t carry the risk profile of the clot shot.) The guy needs a heart. If he got one the first thing they’d do is put him on a cocktail of immunosuppressant drugs to prevent organ rejection. Maybe I’m missing something.
“The guy needs a heart.”
So do those so-called “nurses.”
Heart transplants, or any transplant, have been denied in the past due to patient specific conditions not being met. For example, a liver transplant being denied to an unreformed alcoholic due to the high risk of cancer and failure in the new liver (IIRC). The one case I remember sometime back was with Mickey Mantle who destroyed his liver through alcoholism and was denied transplant status. Mantle however was famous and that got him back on the list. He got his liver and died several months later from failure. His “new” liver obviously could have gone to a better candidate—but… Read more »
I can understand the liver/alcoholic, lung/smoker issue, but this is completely different. As you said, it is a fact this “vax” does not prevent infection, transmission, or anything else, for that matter. Yet the NPCs continue to chant “safe & effective, safe & effective, trust the science…” It’s beyond evil.
Yes, if I understand your comment, this poor bastard is simply being made an example of to keep consistentcy within a false narrative—rather than impugn it by relenting to the science. A human sacrifice so to speak as an example to the unruly masses.
Even worse, the heart-transplant candidate is arguing that taking the vax might kill him (due to the heart swelling). Apparently, this is not enough of a reason to keep him on the list. The pro-vaxxers are arguing “Post any transplant, kidney, heart whatever, your immune system is shut off … The flu could kill you, a cold could kill you, COVID could kill you. The organs are scarce, we are not going to distribute them to someone who has a poor chance of living when others who are vaccinated have a better chance post-surgery of surviving.” Well, if a cold… Read more »
“Well, if a cold can kill you, what’s the difference?”
Exactly. So when I read the bit about the man and his family being afraid to move him to another hospital b/c he was too weak to withstand the move, I thought, “What the H… ! If staying there is certain death, what is the risk, really, of moving to another hospital?”
Clown world indeed.
usNthem: Spot on. The noncompliant may be political dissidents or social dissidents in one area or another, but the majority of time the pressure of family and friends or their work/social circle strongly encourages them to conform. In the same way a manipulative teacher would punish the entire class for the ‘misbehavior’ of one individual student, so too our rulers insistently bleat that it’s only those darned far-right White supremacists that are responsible for all the ills of the day. Add to this that most of them are unvaxxed, and you have 1984’s perfect “Goldstein,” repository of all human evil.… Read more »
Someone way superior to me remarked, “…man can live without God, but he can never live without the devil.”
We’ve seen so many examples of his insight posted on this site.
The Chinese language uses the same character for “rights” and “political power.” So Mao can be translated as “political rights, flow from the barrel of a gun.”
Good to see you, TomC. I’d wondered where you’d got off to.
Coincidentally, the full form of the Chinese words for “right” and “power” are also homophones in Mandarin: 權利 and 權力. Makes it easy to be coy when speaking from a position of authority.
Natural rights and individualism were necessary to capitalism. Not so much for managerialism. Compliant with terms of service is exactly suited for a society under the present regime.
Only problem is, the experts aren’t experting so well.
Exactly! Capitalism needed protection for property rights etc. By contrast, Managerialism has fused State power with capital: they are now one and the same. The next software update will describe your new set of rights……..
The experts aren’t experting so well because we’ve passed peak total societal competence.
The worst part about this is the mainstream conservative reaction to it. It has always been (and continues to be), “Look at the hypocrisy of the Left.” “If someone on the right had threatened to blow up the White House like Madonna…” “The feminist group M19 literarily attacked the Capitol with bombs, and the Weathermen….” etc. Someone should tell conservatives that when you point out the hypocrisy of your opponent, all you’re doing is pointing out that they’re more powerful than you. You’re not owning anyone but yourself, and it makes you sound weak. I’m not sure what the solution… Read more »
Ditto “muh Constitution.” No, Conservatard, it is “our democracy,” and it means whatever we want it to mean.
I’ve often said that you can’t listen to a typical conservative pundit for 15 minutes before hearing one or more screeds illustrating an example of hypocrisy on the Left. I’ve always considered such a “tell” for a lessor intellect that has no ideas/alternatives to promote. It’s really very boring.
Which is precisely why “Conservative” media is in freefall and will probably go extinct in the next ten years. When the Mueller “Report” came out, I had no subscription to XM radio and as such I listened to Hannity on the ride home. For almost two months I listened to him scream about this very thing every effing day and the only reason I did is because iHeart radio had purchased just about every station on the FM dial and all the music today absolutely sucks, but I digress. My subscription was eventually restored and I got back to listening… Read more »
If “Conservative Media” is in free fall, it is because the audience is dying out, not because anyone is getting smarter.
Unfortunately there are plenty of “right wing” media figures popular with the younger audience that keep playing the “point out liberal hypocrisy” game.
There’s plenty of time to play “who’s a hypocrite” and also develop/promote your conservative opinion on most shows (IMO). Seems our regular commenter, TomA, has no problem driving home some singular conservative premises as well as commenting to the specific points of the current group discussion—and he rarely needs more than half a page.
The “spot a hypocrite” conservative pundit is just being intellectually lazy, and filling/killing time on his 3 hour radio or YouTube show.
“When the Mueller “Report” came out, I … listened to Hannity on the ride home. For almost two months I listened to him scream about this very thing … .”
OMG. You are what Amanda Wingfield would call “a regular Christian martyr.”
Joey: Brilliant comment.
Hypocrisy is the essence of power. Do as I say, not as I do.
You work, I profit. You fight the war, I call the shots. You celebrate diversity, I live in gated neighborhood. I sin, you pay for my sins.
Real leaders, be they political or corporate, should not be removed from the people they lead.
“Real leaders, be they political or corporate, should not be removed from the people they lead.”
Exactly. That’s is one of several reasons that I say that our “elites” are fake or false or inorganic elites. They are not the real thing. They’re just managers.
That’s what doomed the Middle Ages, when it comes right down to it: Delusions of competence. The fighting man who has pledged to defend you is useless if you’ve got a crossbow or an arquebus. The aristocratic administrator who runs the shire on behalf of the king is useless if he can’t read or write (early Medieval version), or if the administrative process is too complex for him to handle (late Medieval). One imagines the arquebus-armed peasantry, and the spreadsheet-armed bureaucracy, having one of those Office Space type conversations with the Knight of the Shire: “What would ya say you… Read more »
“Delusions of competence.”
What a perfect description for the current managerial class and their quota hire pets.
Do the degree samizdat is different from a black market, we are getting plenty of it, too. It is jaw-dropping how quickly we not only became the Soviet Union but adopted its underground survival methods.
Eloi, look what you started. Our social order is indeed re-organizing. In Venezuela and Cuba, each block is controlled by a streetcorner boss. I bet Layabout and Montefrio could tell us more about this rough order. Me, I remember Victor, the King of the Lumpers. I’d gone from 3-piece suits in high-rise offices to living in a battered $150 car, on the run from the Pinkertons, lumping for cash. Lumpers are the street bums who unload freight trucks. You stand in the fog at 2 a.m. and wave down truckers, who pay you cash so they can sleep at the… Read more »
PS- to illustrate Severian’s point, in LA, at a deadend by the railyards, we have El Real de los Mechanicos, Mechanic’s Street.
Any truck or trailer work you need can be done there. Their shops are vans, their shop floor is the sidewalk. I got my main transaxle replaced, between a guy who was rebuilding an entire trailer floor, and one who was having his engine overhauled.
Very interesting, Lumpers. First principles say you are right, this will be a natural formation in a vacuum. I can’t help here thinking of the “prequel” to the Godfather movies. Vito Corleone became the “big man” by specifically filling in the gaps left by failure of the State to enforce law and right obvious infractions to societal norms.
My fear is that the supply chain is so long that black market solutions are not viable. The lack of basics being available in proximity (and not being shipped from the Orient or Central America) means that any emergent black market for food or products will be prohibitively expensive to procure the essentials. When, in human history, has such a far reaching system for simple necessities reached so far? If people starve from local administrative failure regarding local administration (the goods are still proximate), how much worse when the needed goods are half a world away? Scary stuff . And,… Read more »
Good point. But examine yourself. What is essential? Yep, we won’t find a lot of the “stuff” we are used to, but do we need such? My father told me of his life in occupied Europe. Basically, their time was spent looking for food. Nothing else really mattered or was missed much. Similarly, as I sit here and look around, what I see about me are comforts and distractions—not necessities. We live in an age where children commit suicide because of a bad/hateful word on their social media account—or jealousy over another friend’s possessions or good looks. We don’t know… Read more »
Eloi-
In practical terms non-compliant folks in jab totalitarian states like Lithuania have reverted to outdoor markets to secure food and some toiletries.
They say it’s the same thing they did under Soviet occupation.
Hey – I agree. I don’t celebrate holidays because I find the commercialization disgusting. But I am speaking of things like food. I mean – where in America is food produced? Can you imagine the chaos in major cities? Before the naysayers yell at me – I live in one of the most rural parts of the country, and would probably be able to procure enough to get by (particularly abundant wild game). However, think of the factory farming that has changed the supply line. A whole state may simply produce soybeans now. America is a big country, and certainly… Read more »
Yes, Eloi. Much better expressed than my first response. My greatest assumption is that food of sufficient calories is made available. Even in WWII this seemed possible—until the Allied victory and the Winter of 45-46. They screwed the pooch.
“arquebus” That was a new one for me. And its Scrabble-legal.
Reminds me of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOapLkmhYG4