159 thoughts on “One Big FTX”

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2. It appears to me humans rely on their perception,then run it through their emotions- reason and logic go straight out the window.
   All humans are predators. They are born with a predatory gene. We share the same DNA makeup as the people 5,000 years ago who we are derived from. Only our technology makes us feel superior. When one predator advances, they must push the other predator down. The struggle for resources, land, power leading to the massacre of millions right to the present day easily portrays this. Each new generation believes they are more enlightened. Take twenty diverse people, confine them without food for three days, throw a sizzling steak on the table and see if they discuss philosophy, religion, morality, benefits of a vegan diet.

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4. Sam will end up in Isreal, having a drink with Epstein, toasting to the gullability and stupidity of the Goyim. Merry Christmas, may God help us. The evil is overwhelming.

5. Jamie Gorelick deserves a special place of honor in the art of failing up in government work. This signals the hive that they can create no disaster too great but that they will be rewarded.

6. LineInTheSand,

   This is in response to your post of 12/24 at 12:53 pm. For some reason, there isn’t a reply button, so I’m replying here.

   Here’s what you said:

   “Compsci writes, ‘The problem with morality “independent” of reference to a religion or external source is how to decide whose morality is “correct” or prevails when two competing moralities meet.’

   I address this issue, as well as it can be addressed without an unquestionable lawgiver, in my post below at December 23, 2022 at 11:39 am. Response?”

   *

   And for everyone’s convenience, cut-and-pasted here is the post of yours which you reference:

   “Anton’s challenge is strong: if you don’t commit to a universalist ethics, or a religious one, then what is left but the war of all against all? Few people but Nietzsche find such a state of affairs appealing.

   The answer lies in history and anthropology. This answer is philosophically unsatisfying but it is all that we can have, outside of religion.
   What actually happened before states? Yes, there were warlords but there was also a sense of ethics that arose among peoples. For Europeans, some of these ethics were beliefs like innocent people should not be killed, theft is wrong, honesty is a virtue, and the happiness of individuals is important.

   These vague ethical feelings were not comprehensive but they were broadly shared. Philosophers were dissatisfied that these feelings had no rigorous foundation so they sought to derive them from a more certain source. All such attempts must fail because, as Hume observed, you can’t derive an ought from an is. Aristotle had the best answer to Hume.

   People of a common ancestry do have a vague ethics that naturally arise. The means to bring clarity to the vagueness is probably some kind of representative government, which allows the people to experiment with what laws best satisfies their inherited moral feelings.

   Outside of religion, that’s probably the best that we can do.

   I cannot emphasize strongly enough that a shared sense of ethics only arises among people of the same evolutionary history. For example, history makes clear that blacks do not expect fathers to care for their offspring and theft doesn’t bother them as much as it does whites. Further, asians do not put much value on the happiness of individuals or honesty.”

   *

   Bottom line, I don’t disagree with anything you said. Philosophy can never take us there, because, as you point out, you can’t derive an ‘ought’ from an ‘is’.

   And a standard based on someone’s interpretation of passages in their holy book will never attain universal acceptance; so religion is out as well.

   So as inconvenient and unsatisfying as it may be, we’re forced to conclude that *any standard we may come up with, will of necessity be human-created*;
   not divinely-inspired, and not a logically-necessary conclusion from any prior assumption.

   And finally, cut-and-pasted here is my response to you, in which I try to address the questions you raise with some speculations of my own:

   “LineInTheSand,

   So many good points!

   Philosophers are frustrated because their word-games demand a foundation on which to construct moral certainties; but unfortunately for them, Reality doesn’t supply one.

   Religious myths purport to supply a foundation, but that foundation crumbles as well when those myths are recognized as being man-made.

   Anthropology reveals that there are universal intuitions, which virtually all people-groups seem to have affirmed:
   don’t murder your fellow tribesman;
don’t lie to your fellow tribesman;
don’t seduce your fellow tribesman’s wife;
don’t steal from your fellow tribesman;
when your tribesman does you a favor, you owe him one in return.

   So these appear to be the oldest human traditions, and the most universal ones.

   We can even enlist biology in our search for a foundation from which to discover or derive our natural rights:

   One behavior that characterizes all living creatures— from the bacteria to the human being—is that in every instance, all creatures will struggle to maintain their life.

   From this one could reasonably posit that ‘the desire to keep on living’ is *the fundamental urge* of all creatures.

   • And another way of putting it would be that *all creatures behave as if they have a right to keep on living*

   So the most fundamental right— a right which all creatures appear to instinctively embrace— is a right to life.

   And from that right to keep on living, a right to defend ourselves against threats to our life, would appear to naturally follow.

   Extrapolating to the group level, one could posit that all groups have a right to create those lifestyles, mores, and traditions which they believe best support their continuing existence.

   As Z has pointed out, nothing more should be required than to say, ‘This is how we choose do it. Our right to keep on living implies a right to jointly structure our lives in the manner which we believe will best accomplish that.’

   Our traditions are legitimate— not because they accord with some external foundation— but because they derive from our fundamental right to life, and our corollary right to structure our lives in whatever way we find to be most amenable to our continuing existence.

   And yes: the different ethical systems derive from the different traditions of the differently-evolved people groups. Blacks do it differently than Whites, who do it differently than Asians.

   Seen from this perspective, diversity is inherently corrosive to tradition, and to group unity.
   
The only truly cohesive society will be that consisting of people of common evolutionary origin and common historical tradition.”

   • And to address Compsci’s observation that:

     “The problem with morality “independent” of reference to a religion or external source is how to decide whose morality is “correct” or prevails when two competing moralities meet.
     Heck, we even have this conflict now between some major religions. Imagine billions of atheists—each with his own moral “take”.”

     • I agree that attempting to derive a morality independent of divine revelation is not easy. It would be a lot simpler and more convenient if there were a divine revelation that we could all agree on, and then base our traditions, laws, and mores on that mutually-agreed-upon foundation.

     But the reality is, that there simply isn’t: for every American who believes that the Bible is ‘God’s word’, there’s another who doesn’t.

     And clearly, we’re not going to achieve any sort of moral or civic unity by trying to construct a morality on a foundation which half the nation rejects.

     That was the problem the Founders faced: some of them were devout Christians in the traditional sense, while many others were not.

     As I understand it, Jefferson’s reference in the Declaration to “nature’s God” was an attempt to bridge that chasm, by using language that was vague enough that both sides could be satisfied with it. It sounded as if Jefferson were affirming the same notion of God that most people held, when in fact he wasn’t.

     Stewart makes the case in his book that “nature’s God” was a reference pointing all the way back through Spinoza to Epicurus; and included the notion that knowledge of ‘God’— that is, of whatever Higher Power may exist behind/above/outside of Creation— is best discerned by observing the natural world which that Higher Power created; a view that was arguably closer to pantheism than to traditional Christianity. It specifically rejected the notion of a ‘personal God’, which forms the heart of Christianity.

     The precise nature of Jefferson’s beliefs remains somewhat of a mystery, but from comments he made privately to family, it’s clear that he rejected not only the supernatural, but also the existence of a personal God who answers prayers and intervenes in human affairs; that is, the ‘God of the Bible’ which traditional Christians affirm.

     But back in those days, being labeled a heretic— that is, someone who rejected traditional Christian doctrines— was extremely detrimental to one’s reputation. It was considered by most people to be a serious moral flaw; somewhat akin to voicing race-realist opinions in today’s militantly “antiracist” society. It could get you canceled.

     So men like Jefferson and Franklin and Washington— who rejected traditional Christianity— had to do so carefully.

     Stewart points out a tactic that he believes lJohn Locke— who in many places in his writing advanced arguments which undermined the Christian notion of God— occasionally used: every now and then, he would insert into his writings a statement congruent with orthodox faith; which he could always point back to, if someone ever accused him of being a heretic. Only a relatively few scholars familiar with his entire body of work have noticed that these occasional apparent professions of orthodox faith were contradictory to the main gist of his arguments.

     Thus it was natural for readers who had limited familiarity with Locke’s writings, to assume he was being sincere in these seeming professions of traditional faith; not recognizing them as the smokescreen— or insurance policy against accusations of heresy— which they actually were.

     And I suspect the same was true of Jefferson: the cost of being completely forthright about his rejection of Christianity was not one he was ready to pay. So he occasionally made statements which would appear to the naïve observer as if he were in accord with the doctrines of Bible-believing Christianity.

     So to circle back to the beginning:
     yes, it would be nice if there were a universally agreed-upon foundation on which we could construct a common morality. The fact that there isn’t, means that our only option— if we are to have a morality at all— is to try and construct one which everyone, or most everyone, can agree on.

     It’s not easy, but it’s the Reality we find ourselves in: in which the only moral standards we’re going to have, are those we formulate ourselves.

     • The above post, is a specific case of the so-called “No true Scotsman fallacy.” In this case, the issue is “What does it mean to be ‘Christian’?” The term resists easy definition. There are diverse and often incompatible versions. In part, this explains why there are 25,000 denominations of Christianity (so I was once told by a Monsignor of the Roman Catholic Church, ca. 2004).

       I’d argue this is an instance of the problem of claiming one universal morality vs. the case, in my opinion, that every individual effectively has his own morality.

       None of the above is to deny that a definition of Christianity cannot be arrived at, but at best it will be a definition shared by a group, even if it’s a very large one, and it’s nearly guaranteed that it will be far from universally agreed upon.

   • As a compliment to this analysis, I would offer the following.

     Where Anton gets it wrong.

     The antecedent of “natural right” is the belief that there is one correct (read accurate) justification for societal morality (good/bad, right/wrong). And most importantly, that this immutable standard applies across the board to all humans on the planet for all of time. And the derivative of this belief is that all non-conforming members of the species are therefore dysfunctional and anti-societal, which opens the door to the imposition of a solution to this dysfunction. Once you believe that “natural right” is the equivalent of gravity (it applies everywhere all the time), then your dedication to remedy is inviolable. And history teaches that this “attitude” almost always leads to genocide. Which is the ultimate moral contradiction.

     So what is the correct understanding of this issue? First, the paleo-archeological history of Earth strongly suggests that life has existed on this planet for about a billion years. Humans (Homo sapiens sapiens) have been around for about a few hundred thousand years and civilization for about 10,000 years at most. What transcends this timeline? Evolution does. What does evolution teach us about its nature? That which “works” persists. What do we mean by “works” in this context? It simply means that something enhances the ability of the species to survive and thrive in a particular environment. And because environments differ all across the planet in both time and location, what “works” is variable. As an example, the prevalence of dark pigmentation in the peoples of Africa is an adaptation to the predominance of sunlight exposure in these equatorial regions. Dark pigmentation is protective, and hence those having this trait tend to persist. Dark pigmentation is absent in the upper latitudes because sunlight exposure is much less, especially during winter. Different environments produce different adaptations.

     The nature/nurture phenomenon. Why are humans significantly different from all other species? Because we acquired complex language capability during our evolutionary history (bicameral brain crosstalk leads to mindful self-awareness). And language skill enabled programming our offspring with favorable behaviors postpartum that further enhanced their ability to survive and thrive in the local environment; I.e. nurture via ancient wisdom.

     And we acquire our most enduring habits during our formative years when the brain doubles in size (hard-wiring). Sub-cohorts of humans tend to persist best when they use nurture to instill their young with habits that “work” in their local environment. Religion exists and persists because it enhances the effectiveness of this type of nurture. Religion always embodies the techniques of consistency of message and repetition, which enables hard-wiring of brain neuro-circuitry during the rapid growth phase. This is why parenting is so important. The cultural wisdom of the community is transferred to the next generation via nurturing and this wisdom should be applicable and complimentary to your DNA-based ancestral environment.

     • Thanks TomA

       “ERROR: Your comment was too short. Please go back and try your comment again.”

       • I make my comment short n sweet, Sandy.

         As Johnathan Haidt said, religion blinds n binds.

         I contend that any moral civilization requires a religion.

         Secular humanism has no moral bottom. W/O a core of moral absolutes, anything can be rationalized. W/O some divine origin for those absolutes, they cannot be absolutes. Subluna systems including secular humanism rests on sand.

         • Except that Jonathan Haidt— who I knew personally, and drank the occasional beer with, back when he was a professor of the University of Virginia— is not religious.

           Yet he strikes me as one of the most moral human beings I’ve ever met.

           He’s a perfect example of how morality does not necessarily depend on religion.

         • WCiv911, you may be right, which puts me in quite a bind: I can’t make myself believe, even when you list the benefits of believing.

           This is why my long term strategy is two-fold: First, that whites must bind together as whites because even if we have deep divisions, the non-whites don’t care much about these divisions. Second, whites must adopt federalism, so that Christians and non-Christians can live separately and not irritate each other.

         • Fair point Bill, but I would say that Jon was exceptional, smart, rations. However, a civilization populated by Haidt’s? I don’t think so.

     • TomA,
       Great synopsis!

       I think you’re absolutely correct in tying a proper understanding of the present, to our evolutionary past. That’s where to go to find the real
       ‘human backstory’; seeing where we came from, and how we got to be the way we are.

       As interested as you are in nature, nurture, and human development, I’ll bet you’d enjoy reading about J. P. Rushton’s ‘Life History Theory’, in which he links different mating and parenting strategies to different life environments:

       https://radixjournal.substack.com/p/living-fast-dying-young

       *

       There do seem to be a few human traditions, or mores, or rules, which, like gravity, appear to be universal; which virtually every people-group we’re aware of has adhered to and enforced: Don’t murder your fellow tribesmen, don’t steal from them, don’t lie to them, don’t mess with their wives, if they do you a good turn, you’re obliged to do the same for them.

       I don’t know how that fits in with natural rights, but it does seem to reflect the *natural moral intuitions* of the vast majority of humanity.

       *

       Re: nature and nurture: as is clear in the examples you give, nature and nurture generally function as two sides of the same coin: the genetic predispositions of a particular people-group are both reflected by, and amplified by, the cultural environment they create.

       Europeans created classical music, Blacks created rap. Both are transferring the cultural zeitgeist of the parents’ generation to the children.

       And on the individual level as well, nature and nurture generally go hand-in-hand: a married couple who are calm and thoughtful and intelligent will not only pass on those genes to their children, they’ll also create a calm home life where intelligence and thoughtfulness are nurtured.
       Just as couple who are stupid and impulsive and violent will not only pass on those stupid, impulsive, violent genes to their children, the family environment they create will also be impulsive and violent and stupefying.

       *

       You rightly point out that ‘survival of the fittest’ comes down to successfully adapting to the particular environment you find yourself in; and that the challenges of adaptation were what drove human evolution, as the smartest and most capable and most persistent among us flourished, and left the most offspring:

       “What does evolution teach us about its nature? That which “works” persists. What do we mean by “works” in this context? It simply means that something enhances the ability of the species to survive and thrive in a particular environment. And because environments differ all across the planet in both time and location, what “works” is variable….. Different environments produce different adaptations.”

       And that’s how evolutionary psychologists and biologists explain the phenomenon of ‘human biodiversity’; such as the variations in average IQ observable among the various racial groups. That’s how they explain the IQ gradient which characterizes both Europe and Asia: in which people indigenous to the northern-most latitudes are (on average) the most intelligent; and why average intelligence gradually declines the further south you go.

       Especially during the last Ice Age, surviving the long winters in the northernmost latitudes was extremely challenging, and required a lot of adaptation: people had to figure out how to design and fabricate clothes to keep them warm, to devise and build shelters against the cold, to accumulate sufficient firewood and food stores to last them through the winter; all of which challenged and stimulated the growth of the intelligence and imagination and ingenuity and perseverance of those who survived. In order to prepare for the long winters, they had to learn to forego present pleasure in the interest of future security.

       Meanwhile, the people who remained in Africa did not face those challenges of adaptation to harsh environments. The Ice Age didn’t affect them. That’s why they are lowest of all on the average-IQ gradient. That’s why even today many of them find it challenging to forgo present pleasure—- (try repeating that three times fast: ‘forego present pleasure’)— and to plan for the future.

       *

       When you ask:
       “Why are humans significantly different from all other species?”

       That is indeed the big question:
       Why us?

       • Why, among all the species, were we humans the only ones whose intelligence continued to develop to the point where we attained self-awareness, and language, and the ability to transmit knowledge and culture down through the generations?

       I will respectfully suggest that the answer you give:

       “Because we acquired complex language capability during our evolutionary history (bicameral brain crosstalk leads to mindful self-awareness). And language skill enabled programming our offspring with favorable behaviors postpartum that further enhanced their ability to survive and thrive in the local environment; I.e. nurture via ancient wisdom.”

       while likely correct— still begs the question— which then becomes: Why did we alone, among all the other species, develop language?

       Why not the pigs, or the bears? Why not our close genetic cousins the chimpanzees?

       I don’t pretend to know the answer. Some have suggested that it was eating meat, which grew our brains bigger; and then our bigger brains allowed for the development of language.

       Terence McKenna suggested that it was human encounters with psilocybin mushrooms, which transformed the organization of our brains, and propelled us from the animal world, into the world of sentient self-conscious language-using humanness.

       Fascinating stuff….

       • My dog has self awareness and I ‘m pretty sure Dolphins have language.

         • Yes, animals like dogs and horses are clearly aware. The question is, are they self-aware; that is, are they aware that they are aware?

         • you just think they do , but they don’t

7. Memphis under mandatory rolling blackouts as the TVA lets the NFL power the Titan’s stadium for this week’s sportsball match:

   https://twitter.com/Mighty990KWAM/status/1606692869548703744

   Remember the Third World shitholes Trump mentioned?

   All of us are now living in one. Or maybe we have been and I’m finally noticing the truth.

   • And they lost to maybe the worst team in the NFL.

8. One of things forgotten about Gorelick is that she was so trusted by the Regime that she was on the 9/11 commission.

9. I’ve been doing my own sleuthing the last week or so – and it’s interesting all the stuff I’ve uncovered. People talk about how the Clintons were a crime family of sorts – but I never realized Lyndon Johnson had his own crew. Mac Wallace, Billy Sol Estes and Cliff Carter were behind a lot of shenanigans in the 50s and 60s.

   The difference is that you had a nice country at the end of the day and you could avoid dealing with said mafia if you wanted to and pretend it didn’t exist.

   • Just some Christmas time musings.

     The advice passed on to us by our Founders, that our future depended upon our virtues, was ignored. Our leaders have lost any sense of righteousness or virtue and replaced it with a secular amoral relativism, and a selfish “nice guys finish last” mentality.

     Without a transcendent religion to guide us, there is no moral bottom, which means that we become a species no different than the simian, maybe worse, as our intellect allows us to be more creative in the evils we can concoct. Christians are not perfect but I’d sooner buy a used car from a Christian than a heathen Wokester.

     • “I’d sooner buy a used car from a Christian than a heathen Wokester.”

       Me too, and I’m a non-believer. Yet, maybe I’m not so unusual. Many of our Founders were “deists,” which I guess was a way to say “non-believer” back in those days. Jefferson, Washington, and Franklin, for example, never mentioned their commitment to Jesus, to the best of my knowledge. I’m happy to be educated on this point.

       Many of our Founders were also Freemasons, which looks to me like a means of networking for non-Christians. To be a Freemason, you had to believe is a grand designer but that was a pretty low bar to clear back in those pre-technological days. Freemasonry was the means by which whites and the chosen collaborated.

       I’m not disagreeing with you, I’m just trying to understand.

       • I believe you’re correct in your conclusion that many of the Founders were not in fact Christians.

         Matthew Stewart in his book ‘Nature’s God: The Heretical Origins of the American Republic’ points out that at the time, renouncing Christianity was seen by the general public as a heretical act, likely to get you in a lot of trouble; sort of like what publicly announcing your race-realism would do today.

         So the Founders who rejected Christianity had to fake it: by every now and then making a statement which sounded as if they were affirming the Christian faith. Then, if and when they were accused of being heretics, they could always point to that statement as refutation of the accusation.

         I thought he made a persuasive case.

         I tried to include the Amazon link to the book, but it was flagged as spam.

         • Ah, but the rejection of Christianity is not a rejection of God, nor His morality. Deist is not “atheist” from which a different take on the world stems.

       • Not necessarily. Though deism certainly characterized some, most were simply Enlightenment Protestants. Even the Jefferson Bible glorifies Christ’s teachings, just not the miracles. The most deist of the founding fathers was Thomas Paine – his tract The Age of Reason is the book of deism, such as it may be – but most others were simply protestant. Deism, for the record, is not a belief system with concrete rules of worship. Instead, it emphasized the ability to understand divinity through a universe of laws. Basically, you could work back to divinity not through revelation but through science.

     • WvCiv911,

       I used to think the same thing about buying a car from a Christian; until a friend who was a Christian told me about his experience about using the local ‘Christian Yellow Pages’. He said he had never encountered so many crooks and frauds. My guess is that these people figured out that posing as a Christian among a trusting and gullible Christian community made for a good scam.

       And I simply can’t agree with your statement that:
       “Without a transcendent religion to guide us, there is no moral bottom, which means that we become a species no different than the simian, maybe worse, as our intellect allows us to be more creative in the evils we can concoct.”

       Some of some of the finest people I know are Christians; but I’ve also met plenty of assholes and scoundrels and egomaniacs who considered themselves believers. And I’ve met plenty of atheists who were more Christlike than many Christians.

       Developing a moral standard is certainly a lot easier when the rules are written down in a holy book; but there are plenty of people who are living a good moral life, and treating their fellow men with fairness and respect, without believing in a transcendent religion.

       • The problem with morality “independent” of reference to a religion or external source is how to decide whose morality is “correct” or prevails when two competing moralities meet. Heck, we even have this conflict now between some major religions. Imagine billions of atheists—each with his own moral “take”.

         To say that I’ve met bad Christians and good atheists is a very narrow take on the problem.

         • Compsci writes, ‘The problem with morality “independent” of reference to a religion or external source is how to decide whose morality is “correct” or prevails when two competing moralities meet.’

           I address this issue, as well as it can be addressed without an unquestionable lawgiver, in my post below at December 23, 2022 at 11:39 am. Response?

         • Christianity is a confessional faith.

           And it has been long settled in the theology that doxie belief is much more important than praxis ie practice or action.

           A person the hold heretical beliefs but follows righteous practices is still a heretic that can be sanctioned up to an including being killed for their bad beliefs.

           But a person that holds orthodox beliefs and falls short in practice – in action – is merely a sinner – who must be given the opportunity for repentance and forgiven.

           People have always intuitively recoiled from that dynamic with some sort of True belief is expressed by actions kludge. But that has always been rejected by catholic, orthodox and mainline christian churches as a heresy itself.

         • LineInThe Sand. Yes, I read your reply after I posted my reply. If I could retract/delete my response above, I would. Th issue is obviously more complex than my initial poor thinking on the matter.

           Well said, and worth consideration.

       • “Christian” is just a label. It’s a word. What I mean is that, as with a great many words, people hear it and it short-circuits the mind’s critical thinking skills. A deceitful person will call himself, his business, etc. “Christian.” Super-respectable, above board, no need to inquire any deeper, no Sir! Ah, if only it were that easy.

         Although I’m no church-goer, I seem to recall many teachings by the Nazarene along the lines of: You could tell a tree by its fruits. And to beware of wolves in sheep’s clothing.

     • “I’d sooner buy a used car from a Christian than a heathen Wokester”. like mitt romney, or jim bakker?

       • Well, it’s likely to be an ICE, which makes it much more reliable than the electric cars the woke are selling.

       • Again, we are not addressing the problem. Here you simply assume Mitt and Jim are really Christians and represent all Christians.

         • No True Christian …?

           May well be true, but how does one identify a true Christian then?

           The only real answer is that you do so because the person in question is known to you and other that you trust, ie a member of your community. At which point the label is superfluous – as you know the person with or without the label.

         • wherever you have sheep, you’re going to find wolves, too.

10. “the regime is getting reckless”

    There it is.

    The USA has long been a garbage tier police state, and now has the corruption typical of the Third World, which it is despite appearances. As you point out, it can afford to be reckless because the thugs no longer even have to appear to be competent. The idiocy at the highest levels is astonishing, too. Again, the totalitarianism has long been in place but until a generation or less ago the humps and muscle were far smarter. In time, the currency will be worthless in large part due to other countries pulling away from Nation FTX. The Ukraine War is a highly dangerous, reckless, and pitiful attempt to prop things up a little longer.

    It is all fun and games until everyone is poor, hungry and cold and have nothing to lose. Today temperatures plunged below zero in the Deep South and there were rolling blackouts. Soon if not now we will call this a day ending in “y.”

11. America today with its crypto money laundering and monetary system straight out of a Babylonian Temple from 6000 years ago is not unlike a maze full of well fed rats.

    The charade will go on until no more money (rat food) enters or transfers within the system, at which point the rats will devour each other to the smallest bone. I could say witnessing their total destruction is awesome, except we’re all baby rats in a litter and we know who gets eaten first. At least we have guns, so perhaps there is a chance for “justus” some day when everyone who deserves a purge worthy of a Roman Emperor gets dragged down the streets. In those hearty days, even the plebes got to come out and carve off a piece of flesh from those who they knew was a real POS.

12. Late thought: would any of this byzantine financialization be possible without an income tax code?

    • Yes, it would be the same. Income taxes at this point are punitive control mechanisms rather than sources of revenue. In the near future all hard assets will be seized outright. We are within a decade of central banks refusing to use the dollar as a reserve currency. The charade is about to run its course.

    • It depends. The specific aspect of the income tax that enables the grift is paycheck withholding. If people took home their entire paycheck and had to pay a lump sum each year, the government would have gone bankrupt or austere years ago. A good part of the reason that the various levels of government are so in bed with businesses is not so much bribery, but rather the reality that businesses are a de facto IRS agent, and are the main entities that collect taxes. Imagine how large the IRS would have to be if had to deal directly with each citizen for each dollar of tax collected, instead of having businesses set up automatic remittances.

      • Cogent. IRS Code also is a de-facto tool of welfare and subsidy to further various policy goals. Of course the super rich individuals and corporations have the most to win, but even us peons get a few crumbs. For example, like millions, I get “free” Obamacare. The funding is technically via the tax code, called an advance premium tax credit. Of course there are plenty more examples to be found. In fact, I would be very surprised if you have not taken advantage of some of them.

        • The real system here seems to be a kind of dual-tier socialism through the “welfare-warfare” state. The stupid people make do with the bottom tier, welfare. The smarter people get to partake in the warfare state through the fact that some rather large percentage of the good paying jobs, since the end of WWII really, have been directly or indirectly concerned with “defense” (really empire) work. Most of my jobs were in the “defense” sector years ago and I reluctantly give that system credit for getting my career going.

          You can think of these two aspects of the system as two wings or two engines on a plane. When the system was in its prime each wing produced plenty of lift and each engine produced lots of thrust. At the same time the internal and external (global political) “drag” wasn’t that great. The two wings are faltering now and it’s hard to know how to fix them.

          Welfare: The productive people still felt robbed to pay for the welfare aspects of the system but there was also the feeling that the deal was pretty cheap for them. It was still possible to save towards a home and retirement even while having one’s paychecks plundered by the government. The government also subsidized a sort of defacto segregation through home loans and zoning laws where, unless you were a complete fuckup, you could afford to live far away from places like inner city Baltimore or Detroit.

          In places like CA and the growing list of similar locales though, the combination of high taxes, wokist land use and zoning laws and impossible housing costs means that an “average” income means renting forever and looking forward to “retirement” standing on a corner with a cardboard sign. Both state and federal government also now work hard to “enrich” every neighborhood with the diversity we used to be able to ignore.

          At the same time the low-IQ welfare crowd was mostly content to collect their checks and augment their income with petty crime. What you see now in things like BLM is a weaponizing of minority discontent and serious talk of open-ended “reparations”. Both could drive the cost of the welfare state into the stratosphere and force even non-political normies to actively seek ways to get a significant part of their income through barter or the black market.

          Warfare: In the glory days of the warfare state the GAE’s planners were masters of simultaneously posturing belligerently towards the USSR while actually balancing appeasement and containment. They also had a knack for finding and kicking the shit out of various small states in Latin America and later the Middle East. Sowing chaos and war in these places also had the beneficial (for the elite) effect of driving lots of low wage labor into the country. The nations they were toying with had little real power to strike back.

          Superficially, the saber rattling towards Russia today looks like a trip back to the future in the Gipper’s old DeLorean. The problem is that the Reaganauts who knew just exactly how dangerous the Soviets were have been replaced with Juggalos like Biden/Harris and their Amazing Technicolor Transgender Minstrel show. They’re using Reagan’s old playbooks but they accidentally or purposely put the “Russia” cover on the one “Honduras” binder. They don’t know what game they’re playing or who they’re fucking with and this is what makes them so dangerous.

          It’s hard not to see total disaster ahead. Perhaps the deux ex machina will be some soft internal coup within the ruling class but I feel like those people actually had that chance already and his name was Donald Trump. I mean the best way to level off the American airplane and avoid either a stall or plunge into the ground would probably have been a policy of firm crackdown on the hard Left and minority radicals joined with a major walking back of the Russia policies. That was Trump. He wasn’t good for much, but I think he could have managed that. Now the silly fuckers want to lock him up.

13. Corruption has always existed in politics and some of the corruption during the Gilded Age (late 19th, early 20th century) was legendary. But I think the current wave of corruption got underway during Clinton and has snowballed ever since. What we long suspected about the links between the tech giants and the spy agencies is now coming to light. None of it actually surprises me, although it seems as though many others are surprised. This process started with Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter. But I think the FTX debacle has brought a lot more to light.

    • Musk seems to have been genuinely surprised. It is astonishing how the uber wealthy are so detached from reality now. The propaganda works as long as the electricity stays on.

      • Jack: Agree. I’m not particularly pro or anti Musk, and only know what I read about him, but at least per the media reports he comes off as genuinely surprised by the degree of collusion and corruption. I never pictured him as naif, but he certainly seems as though he previously considered Twitter a legitimate independent business, other than some inflated numbers and bots and extra diversity hires.

        • Outside of him being the biggest welfare queen in history, I know little about Bezos, either. His cluelessness should be a lesson for us. Some powerful and seemingly intelligent people are as blissfully ignorant as conservatards.

        • Ramzpaul’s explanation for why Musk bought twitter is that he was mad that the Babylon Bee was banned from twitter. The Bee is hilarious!

      • Bullshit.

        Musk is connected.

        His takeover of twitter is one branch of the deep state fighting another branch.

        Best case is that Musk’s branch still feels some connection / loyalty to the US as opposed to the globalist crew that doesn’t.

        • I put this on Sailer’s place yesterday.

          Two people who I would not want to get on my case have had a look at the new Elon Musk and his even newer Twitter.
          James Corbett and Whitney Webb here:

          https://www.corbettreport.com/interview-1776-behind-the-twitter-files-hype-on-unlimited-hangout/

          As always, extensively sourced and footnoted up the wazoo.

14. Private colleges/universities with massive landscaping budgets are the domestic FTX without any of the sand, surf, steel drums, cricket matches, but probably similar level of Rx drug abuse. These venerable institutions teach nothing, advance no civilizational or free-market objectives, and depend intrinsically on wealth transfers from the public fisc along with their facilities’ immunity from property tax and the endowment racket. Any politician claiming now to be a Republican who does not avow the seizure and shutdown of Big Mortarboard is, to use the technical term from the 2016 primary TV debates, a joke artist

    • You are definitely on to something. The big one is the tax exemption, but that’s another story.

      Higher Ed is long overdue for a haircut. Where in the world can any “business” sell a product which in essence is a piece of paper with your name on it for 5+ years of your time and $50k+? Only to the young and naive who tolerate such while partying those 5 years away in other pursuits of greater meaning (sex, drugs, and rock and roll?).

      Heck, I’ve got a few of those pieces of paper. That was then, this is now. As Musk showed with Twitter, we can easily do with 50% less college bound young adults—even in this technological society.

      Higher Ed perhaps takes second place only to the biggest waste of money next to military defense in this nation. (And please note, I talking reduction here, not elimination. We need Engineers and bombs.)

15. So I’m expecting a Zman piece on peace.

    Baltimore gotta be full of peace in these 24 hours of nut freezing cold.

    • The spearchuckers tend to hunker down with their 40’s and hos when it gets cold. Baltimore may be more peaceful than normal.

16. Okay, folks, how long before Bankman, dressed in a dirty t-shirt, makes a televised speech before Congress?

    • People will be scrutinizing that video carefully. What is the meaning of the oddly shaped Cheeto stain over the left manboob? Is that hot sauce or blood near the waistline?

      Actually, this essay today reminded me of Johnny Carson’s old bit where he donned a preposterous “Eastern soothsayer” hat (surely a hate crime today) and pretended to know the contents of envelopes he’d pull out of a bin. Is this what we’ve been reduced to now?

      • Btw, who in their right mind would be involved in sexual hedonism with SBF and that girl of his.

        Talk about deranged. Let’s hope those sex tapes never leak.

    • That would be awesome.

17. Ah, shoot! Since we’re talking about entrenched corruption and financial collapse, Merry Christmas, everybody!

18. Pingback: DYSPEPSIA GENERATION » Blog Archive » One Big FTX

19. No. Say it ain’t so. It can’t be.
    You mean Woodsy the Drug Owl is the spawn of Hatchetwoman Gorelick?

    • Oops my bad

      Poor eyes missed the period and the word “lawyer”

      Hey we’re waking up early here
      This is me springing into action

20. TomA, it was Thoreau who said, “There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root.”

    In this amazing age we live in, EVERYONE has a knowable name and address.

    • Yes, and that’s a two-way street. And if you’re on a beach, it pretty hard to find a specific grain of sand.

21. This whole SBF thing stinks to the high heavens. His co-conspirators all plead guilty already. WHAT?! WHY?! You can’t plea guilty to shoplifting in such a short time frame. It takes longer to go to traffic court for a speeding ticket. They don’t even know yet to the extent they would possibly need any cooperation. Does anyone believe they have fully went over the books and transactions and unwound all this in the time frame since the bankruptcy?

    ALL OF THEM should be getting life in prison without parole. No deals, at least not yet. Why all of them? People are sent to prison for life for far less.

    It just shows there are laws for us and laws for them.

    • So true!

      If you had put classified information on your private server— like Hillary Clinton did— you’d be in jail.

      If you had lied to congress— like James Clapper did— you’d be in jail.

      If you had released classified information to your Columbia professor buddy— like James Comey did— you’d be in jail.

      If you had set foot in the US Capitol on January 6, you’d be in jail.

      • Yes, one of these things is not like the others.

        Who, whom, as clear as can be.

    • Z: “The one thing we know is it was a money laundering operation to move cash into the pockets of politicians and connected people in the regime. To no one’s surprise, there is a Ukraine angle here. Apparently, Ukraine was taking money handed over by Washington and putting some of it into crypto accounts on the FTX exchange, allegedly to pay their own people…”

      The other day, I was throwing around the idea that the purpose of having TWO MILLION new illegal aliens each year was to create enough welfare payments to keep BlackRock from going tits up [with 12 to 15 illegal alien Armadillos per BlackRock rental house providing maybe $12,000 to $15,000 per month in welfare payments, which are then siphoned off to (((BlackRock))) for the housing, and (((Amazon))) for the food].

      Then today, we learn that the JESUITS have been in on this racket:

      America’s Catholic Bishops Made Back All $3 Billion in Sex Abuse Settlements by Trafficking Illegal Immigrants at Taxpayer Expense

      https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/4118447/posts

      [Further links therein to stream DOT org and thegatewaypundit DOT com.]

      My thinking now is that the Jesuits & the J00z are all in on the destruction of White Christian Amurrikkkuh, via a literal White Christian Genocide, and that these monsters are using the welfare state to fund this destruction.

      What do you call this? Fifth? Sixth? Seventh Generation Warfare?

      PS: It cries out in pain as it strikes you…

      New Book Reveals Political Issue That Caused Biden To Explode In Fits Of Rage: Report

      https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/4118453/posts

      PPS: Apologies to any Z readers who are Roman Papists, but dadgummit, y’all need to find y’all-selves a better church to worship at.

      Jesuitism is satanism.

      • Jeff Bezos is not Jewish

      • Bourbon, I think your economic scenario is spot on, it’s the very structure of the C40 smart cities plan: a bifurcated Cloud economy of trading real assets, underneath it a prole economy of CBDC consumer chits. The old coal mine Company Store model.

        As to the Jesuits, look at the board of directors. All these NGO charities have a modern legal structure; for example, the major “Christian” immigrant relocation services have gutted and hollowed out with HIAS “early life” boards of directors.

        It’s another version of what today’s references, of backwashing government service payments into campaign donations, like the unions and professional associations do.

        Zman, I think you’ve uncovered the basic structure of what ails us here. The old union and Klan racketeers have evolved into a mature organizing industry based on corporate law forms.

        • Alzaebo, it took me about two days to try to grok what you’re talking about there; in particular, are you saying that there was a strong correlation between having been a Grand Wizard and having owned a Company Store?

          If so, is there any literature about the phenomenon?

          Thanks.

      • I think this is the new pattern of crime today. If I wanted to “go rogue”, and believe me the futility of honest work is ever more apparent, I would have a huge problem. I wouldn’t know where or with whom to start. Real prosperity in this century is going to come from knowing the people who can help you determine which laws it’s safe to break, and what to do with the ill gotten gains.

        Maybe eventually there will be a VR headset AR (augmented reality) app. You see a Jesuit priest. I see the guy who can send me the crypto and tell me where to wait with the van for the Hondurans. Life will turn into GTA5. Or more likely Cyberpunk 2077 given the clownification of everything and everyone.

    • So true.

      Win election, go bust.
      Cools heels in Caribbean data haven

      Signature bond, (no money, just a promise to pay)
      Released to family mansion

      Plea deal
      No clawback
      And it all goes away faster than a retraction by the CDC

    • SBF likely will get a sweet deal as well. The police state apparatus will claim is was necessary to do for “national security.” Just another day in the Banana Empire.

    • $250 million cash bond too is apparently a bit of a mystery. The family is affluent, but not THAT affluent.

22. Hey, SBF was part of the ‘Effective Altruism movement’!

    He may have been a grifter; but he was only doing it in order to be able to help others!

    It turns out, though, that his altruism virtue-signaling was merely a smokescreen: like the egalitarian anti-racists, who talk like MLK, but live like KKK; SBF was living anything but a simple, thrifty lifestyle:

    “The story commonly told about Bankman-Fried was that he drove a beat-up Toyota Corolla, slept on a beanbag, and had nine roommates. MacAskill repeated this fable to me, characterizing it as evidence of Bankman-Fried’s profound commitment to the cause. What he did not mention, and what came out only in the last few weeks, is that Bankman-Fried and his roommates were living in a forty-million-dollar penthouse in a gated community in the Bahamas—part of a total local property portfolio worth an estimated three hundred million dollars.”

    So it turns out that his goofy looks and casual dress were all part of the image he was trying to project: of the thrifty-living ‘effective altruist’, for whom making piles of money was only a means, to the noble end of fulfilling his lifelong dream: of helping others on a grand scale.

    It wasn’t a Ponzi scheme, it was a charity!
    Kind of like the Clinton Foundation.

    (Yet another example of Z-man’s ‘rule of opposites’: whatever they’re telling you, there’s a good chance that the opposite is true.)

    And clearly, all these criticism of poor noble altruist SBF is just y’all’s antisemitism coming out! Shame on you! What’s next? Denying the holocaust?

    Don’t you see that by criticizing SBF, you’re guessing those 6 million Jews all over again?

    Although you’ve got to admit, Bankman is a great name for a Jewish grifter.

    • Ooops! Forgot to add the link for that quote:

      https://www.newyorker.com/news/annals-of-inquiry/sam-bankman-fried-effective-altruism-and-the-question-of-complicity

    • And that should be ‘gassing’,
      not ‘guessing’

      • “…it was a charity!
        Kind of like the Clinton Foundation.”

        LOL
        Whenever a bell rings
        Another angel has got her wings

      • The real Bill: Both words work. Excellent comment, by the way.

        • Thanks. I appreciate your kind words.

    • It’s all “Antisemitism”

      Every! Single! Time!

      Stop noticing, bigot.

23. From that wiki of Gorelick you linked to, her other jobs: Amazon board of directors. Lawyer for BP after the 2010 oil spill. Lawyer for Jared Kushner. Member of 9/11 Commission. Lawyer for Duke U after the 2006 Lacrosse Scandal. MacArthur Foundation. Carnegie Endowment.

    • And what do you know! She is Jewish as well. Who could’ve guessed?

      • Every…single…time

      • SHUT IT DOWN!!!

        If I were a rich man, yabba-dabba-dabba-dabba-dabba-DABBA-dabba-dum…

    • Oh she’s a real looker that one. Ever think people that homely make better crooks? They may steal all the money, but they still are stuck looking at themselves in the mirror every day..

      Then again, maybe there is nothing IN the mirror when they look. Oh, hold on, someone is knocking at my door. It’s Hillary and Sam, should I invite them in. Tough weather today up in Maine, Salem’s Lot is really nicely decorated for Festivus this year.

      Wait, uh Hillary and Sam are not knocking on my door … they are … gulp… knocking on my window. On the second floor and there’s no balcony. They are holding something out … ah, fistfuls of money. And they want to come in.

      • As Austin Powers would say,

        “That’s a man, baby”.

    • During the Clinton Administration, Jamie Gorelick was responsible for erecting the “Wall of Separation”, which forbade the intelligence agencies from sharing information with law enforcement agencies.

      In retrospect, Jamie Gorelick must have been working at the behest of the Mossad, which would have already been deep into the planning stages of The Great 9-11 Grift.

      That towel-headed fellow, Ramzi Yousef, must have planted the idea into their heads [when he attempted to destroy the World Trade Center in 1993], and then it dawned on the Sanhedrin that ackshually successfully bringing down the World Trade Center could be the Mother of All Grifts.

      But, of course, the Grift wouldn’t work unless the intelligence agencies were forbidden to warn law enforcement about any pending dangers.

      Ergo, enter Jamie Gorelick, Stage Right, and the Wall of Separation, which she created in 1995.

      It all makes sense now.

      • Jeff Bezos is not Jewish

    • She’s also drafted the so-called ‘wall of separation’ policy widely credited with allowing 9/11…failed upward from that disaster into perhaps the most coveted position in DC, CEO of Fannie Mae, where she oversaw the housing meltdown.

      https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2008/09/mistress_of_disaster_jamie_gor.html

24. 100 years ago we would’ve seen people with tar and pitchforks chasing these guys and others.
    Today it’s ignored or people grab popcorn and start watching the show.
    We are a fully coward society.
    Look up the word “nice” and trace back its original meaning.
    We are cursed nice peoples. We have stopped forming our lives to meet the Biblical teachings, instead we interpret it to meet out bulgar and shallow lives.

    • We had a kid, looked similar to Bagman Freed, named Cohen. I shit you not. No worries about doxing them, around here there’s thousands of Cohens.

      Summer camp way back when. He got mad, swiped out and scratched another kids face. He had long nails. Then he started to cry. We were 12, so that, plus the rest, did not go over well and he got no sympathy. Just the opposite.

      We took up a vote and asked to have him transferred to another bunkhouse. Plus he threw like a fucking girl and we had a good bunch, except him. Our request was granted, as there were three groups for each age group, and each group had its own bunkhouse.

      • I bet the bunkhouse that got saddled with him was very happy.

      • Larval: “He got mad, swiped out and scratched another kids face. He had long nails. Then he started to cry.”

        It cries out as it strikes you.

25. Paul Gottfried just wrote a piece at American Greatness re the natural rights argument made by Anton.

    https://amgreatness.com/2022/12/22/contra-michael-anton-and-americas-natural-right-underpinnings/

    • Anton’s challenge is strong: if you don’t commit to a universalist ethics, or a religious one, then what is left but the war of all against all? Few people but Nietzsche find such a state of affairs appealing.

      The answer lies in history and anthropology. This answer is philosophically unsatisfying but it is all that we can have, outside of religion.

      What actually happened before states? Yes, there were warlords but there was also a sense of ethics that arose among peoples. For Europeans, some of these ethics were beliefs like innocent people should not be killed, theft is wrong, honesty is a virtue, and the happiness of individuals is important.

      These vague ethical feelings were not comprehensive but they were broadly shared. Philosophers were dissatisfied that these feelings had no rigorous foundation so they sought to derive them from a more certain source. All such attempts must fail because, as Hume observed, you can’t derive an ought from an is. Aristotle had the best answer to Hume.

      People of a common ancestry do have a vague ethics that naturally arise. The means to bring clarity to the vagueness is probably some kind of representative government, which allows the people to experiment with what laws best satisfies their inherited moral feelings.

      Outside of religion, that’s probably the best that we can do.

      I cannot emphasize strongly enough that a shared sense of ethics only arises among people of the same evolutionary history. For example, history makes clear that blacks do not expect fathers to care for their offspring and theft doesn’t bother them as much as it does whites. Further, asians do not put much value on the happiness of individuals or honesty.

      • > Outside of religion, that’s probably the best that we can do.

        Europe was universal in religion for centuries, but the ethics of the people was vastly different, with a myriad of different virtues and vices based on their genetic makeup and cultural history. You could see this even in the art.

        You can have an overarching religious framework and still have different ways of structuring society, including how stringently a society regulates its vices. Gottfried makes a solid point that Natural Law is a more cohesive framework to work off of, even if the sands even here are a little shifty.

        Like Macintyre said, debating about human rights is like debating about unicorns or who could beat up who in the Marvel Universe.

        • Chet writes about “a myriad of different virtues and vices based on their genetic makeup and cultural history.”

          Help me out with a few examples of ancient northern whites with these differences, please.

          “Natural Law is a more cohesive framework to work off of.” The problems that I have with Natural Law are the same that I have with universalist religions: I don’t believe that they are true and they almost inevitably lead to Somalis in Idaho, for example.

      • LineInTheSand,

        So many good points!

        Philosophers are frustrated because their word-games demand a foundation on which to construct moral certainties; but unfortunately for them, Reality doesn’t supply one.

        Religious myths purport to supply a foundation, but that foundation crumbles as well when those myths are recognized as being man-made.

        Anthropology reveals that there are universal intuitions, which virtually all people-groups seem to have affirmed:
        don’t lie to your fellow tribesman;
        don’t seduce your fellow tribesman’s wife;
        don’t steal from your fellow tribesman;
        when your tribesman does you a favor, you owe him one in return.

        So these appear to be the oldest human traditions, and the most universal ones.

        We can even enlist biology in our search for a foundation from which to discover or derive our natural rights:

        One behavior that characterizes all living creatures— from the bacteria to the human being—is that in every instance, all creatures will struggle to maintain their life.

        From this one could reasonably posit that ‘the desire to keep on living’ is *the fundamental urge* of all creatures.

        • And another way of putting it would be that *all creatures behave as if they have a right to keep on living*

        So the most fundamental right— a right which all creatures appear to instinctively embrace— is a right to life.

        And from that right to life, to keep on living, a right to defend themselves against threats to their life, would appear to naturally follow.

        Extrapolating to the group level, one could posit that all groups have a right to create those lifestyles mores, and traditions which they find best support their continuing existence.

        As Z has pointed out, nothing more should be required than to say, ‘This is how we choose do it. Our right to keep on living implies a right to jointly structure our lives in the manner which we believe will best accomplish that.’

        Our traditions are legitimate— not because they accord with some external foundation— but because they derive from our fundamental right to life, and our corollary right to structure our lives in the ways we find it to be most amenable to our continuing existence.

        And yes: the different ethical systems derive from the different traditions of the differently-evolved people groups. Blacks do it differently than Whites, who do it differently than Asians.

        Seen from this perspective, diversity is inherently corrosive to tradition, and to group unity.
        The only truly cohesive society will be that consisting of people of common evolutionary origin and common historical tradition.

        • The real Bill: Aside from the bit about religion, where you and I disagree, a truly stellar comment sir. Rigorously and logically argued and extrapolated. Much more satisfying – and rational – than the trope of “Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

          • Thanks!

            It’s precisely because not all Americans agree about religion, that religious verities can’t supply the foundation we need for constructing a common morality.

            In contrast, our evolutionary backstory is something we all have in common. That’s what I look to when I want to understand what we humans are like, and how we got here.

      • As I understand anthropology political power began as small cells which eventually merged into great empires and states. This is an interesting parallel with natural evolution in fact.

        Power is the primal thing, “natural law”, religion, “rights”, all arise later as people try to explain and justify things. Some powerful men must even have felt embarrassed by it all. It can’t be just naked force. Even though I’m king I don’t want to rule by whim and caprice. There must be some higher law. So you get the philosopher-king.

        Now in practice I’m a believer in the US’s 10 amendments, especially the 2nd, which allows everyman to tap into that primal power (and fear) that holds human society together. The problem is that you need to have some hegemon who guarantees the “natural law” or “human rights”. We are people who were surfing a great wave of such lawful hegemony that seems to be subsiding. The surfboard of “rights” is slipping and sinking now. The sharks are approaching.

        At least that’s the way it seems to me. If you’re

        • Oops, that last dangling sentence was something I was editing out and forgot to delete, just some textual debris if you will. There used to be an edit button…

        • Pozymandias,

          As I expect you’re aware, for most of our human pre-history, we all lived in roving hunter-gatherer bands, made up of our extended family and their spouses. Because we had to carry everything we owned with us, there was very little disparity in wealth. It wasn’t until humans started settling down into cities, that hierarchies of wealth and power emerged.

          The first anatomically-modern human skeletons show up about 300,000 years ago; but it wasn’t until around 10,000 or 15,000 years ago that humans started settling down into cities.

          Taking modern hunter-gatherer groups and Indian tribes as our model, the consensus is that prehistoric hunter-gatherer groups were basically egalitarian: no one owned more than anyone else, the game which hunters brought back was equally shared among all members of the group, boasting was considered to be bad form, and what ‘authority structures’ there were, were informal: following leaders was entirely voluntary. There were agreed-upon rules, but they were jointly enforced by all the adults of the group.

          The evidence appears to show that it wasn’t until humans settled down into cities, that certain people began to accumulate wealth, a priesthood class arose, and hierarchies of wealth and political power came in to being.

26. Now connect the dots.

    What cannot go on forever, will not go on forever. Like all Ponzi schemes, the bubble will eventually burst, and not even the Fed can print enough fake money to keep the plates spinning and the government solvent. There will be a collapse. But then what?

    The last remain cohort of the productive has been building anger at the Crazy for at least a decade now, and the hidden internal pressure is quite extreme. Because the managerial elite is insulated from this pressure, they do not sense how extreme it is. And this is a formula for extreme disaster.

    When the riots start, LEOs will be unprepared for what they will be facing. It won’t be just spoiled malcontents throwing rocks and burning autos in the street. It will likely become violent repressed fury unleashed upon the only available symbol of government corruption and malfeasance. A lot of good men and women on the riot line are going to pay a steep price on behalf of protecting the Deep State.

    And this is exactly what they want to happen. They are orchestrating this outcome with deliberate malice and forethought.

    The only way to minimize this harm is to use the fog of chaos to extirpate the disease cells at the root of the problem. The dutiful cop on the riot line is not your enemy. The root, the root.

    • Tom, I while I appreciate the “back the blue” sentiment, I think you may be a bit off the mark. That dutiful cop on the riot line has been shown time and time again to be an unquestioning enforcer of the State. They will protect the state’s goons (BLM, Antifa) and let them riot freely, while busting the skulls of the rest of us.

      I suspect your sentiment may hold a little truer in small towns, where the cops are our neighbors and friends, but most of the mindless drones who are taking over the ranks of the large PDs (after the decent ones have retired early or been driven out) will be enthusiastic supporters of the regime and should be treated as such.

      • I agree: there are cops, and there are cops.

        Certainly in George Floyd America, no sensible White person is joining the police force; and many are retiring as soon as they can. Police forces across the nation are understaffed, and unable to fill those positions.

        Aside from lowering standards further and further, until they can recruit the desired numbers; what we’re probably going to see— if the Democrats succeed in giving citizenship to those “however many there are” millions of illegal aliens— as many of them are joining the police force.

        Likewise in the military: I think it’s likely that the recent purge of “right-wing extremists”— a.k.a. patriotic legacy Americans— was done in part to pave the way for a wave of brand-new “citizen immigrants”.

        • A number came out earlier this week. Of “active personnel” subject to covid vaccine mandates, ~8000 refused for any reason. That’s the maximum number who’ll disobey an order to slaughter the deplorables. It’s half of one percent.

          The regime’s purge of the services is superfluous. There are statistically zero “patriots” anywhere in the ranks.

          Of course that’s no reason not to purge away. Our rulers viscerally enjoy seeing a stereotypical soldier boy stripped of all but his bad haircut and shuffled out under the guard of his Netflix adaptation—and they want us to see it, too.

          Similarly, they *will* use an immigrant army against us. It’s not necessary, but it’s the correct “optics.”

          • I suspect that none of this really matters. If the time comes, the police will be outnumbered. Here in my city, any big happening—such as accident, weather event, protest and the like draws enough police such that the rest of the city is unsupervised or minimally supervised.

            Image a riot of BLM protest size, occurring simultaneously with another protest/riot or civil disobedience demonstration or attack. Not enough resources to cover both. If the times get as dangerous as one imagines, the police won’t be seen. Perhaps the National Guard, but even they take time to assemble…and why should they assemble if drawn locally?

            We really have not seen many chaos situations in our life times. We need to harken back to the 90’s and the LA Rodney Kink riots, or the late sixties and the Black urban riots as in Plainfield NJ. Those broke the system and only a small, small percentage of the people participated.

          • “The regime’s purge of the services is superfluous. There are statistically zero “patriots” anywhere in the ranks.”

            That’s not entirely true. There are plenty left, they’ve just learned to stay quiet and fly under the radar. I’m not sure if there’s enough to make a difference if/when it hits the fan, but they are still there.

            To be fair though, The military is reflective of their civilian counterparts. Most people are content to obey the rules, whatever they are, just to avoid trouble. The vast, vast majority of humans will do anything to avoid in-person conflict.

          • Some years ago gadfly web columnist Fred Reed remarked on the inevitability of separate, racially segregated police departments in major U.S. metros, since the only alternative was to transfer the troublesome contingent to the modern equivalent of Indian-reservation non-concentration-camps, and there’s certainly no political coalition for that latter option. I think he wrote that after that woman in Louisville who was employed conveying paper bags of cash for one of her drug-merchant boyfriends was ventilated during a no-knock SWAT raid where they actually knocked (supposedly). At the time I thought this unlikely to happen within the next decade, what with popularity of virtue signaling in all spheres and Carlson/Breitbart content-of-their-character memes still regnant. Now I could see this policy being implemented within the next 5 years, though the immigration-addicted E.U. will probably get their Diversity Patrols first.

    • In a case like you are talking about, we’ll see how long the blue line stands and holds. I’m thinking by that point, they’ll be in the every man for himself mode. They know they aren’t safe and especially their families aren’t safe. The elite won’t be safe at all in this hypothetical scenario.

      • In the type of place where I live, when that line disolves I can imagine many of the cops just fading away to rejoin their friends and families. We all have our own skill sets which can be combined to form a community that looks after each other.

        In the big cities…erm…not so much. I expect the vibrants who make up much of their police departments to essentially become thier own gang. They are the ones I’d be most worried about.

        “Back the Blue” only makes sense when The Blue is an integral part of the community. Otherwise, they are jack-booted thugs.

        • New Orleans after Katrina proves Outdoor’s model. As far as I know, the white cops disappeared, the black cops grabbed guns and started robbing people.

          The same thing goes on at the border towns with Mexico cops, they jump in on the side of Cartel or take off their uniforms and fade.

        • As I recall, Dr. William Pierce warned about a future nonwhite military and police basically persecuting the white minority in The Turner Diaries.

      • It might turn out something like this.

        https://www.americanpartisan.org/2020/09/bracken-what-i-saw-at-the-coup/

        • Steve

          Thank you for posting the link to Brakens piece.

          I’ve been beating the drum about it on here for a while.

          A good quick read.

          Let’s hope it’s prescient.

    • I should have been more clear with my messaging. The elites want a war between patriots and LEOs because that kills off the maximum number of good guys. Don’t play that game. You can have a much bigger impact on the real problem by staying out of harms way during the collapse and then being available when the time is right, not locked up like the Jan 6th protestors. They will soon begin implementing false flag OPs with the explicit purpose of luring good men into bad traps, simply to justify locking up large numbers of potentials. Get out of the city, don’t join into any riots, don’t do anything stupid that gets you locked up. Be the good citizen “nobody” that goes to work everyday and is utterly boring and unnoticed. And everything else solely within the confines of your cranium.

    • To extrapolate a bit. The King’s hired men ARE the enemy of the common folk if for no other reason than they are hired mercenaries. Otherwise their crossbow, pike and musket would not be pointed at us. Big changes will not occur until if and when the hired men decide it’s time to turn on their paymasters.

      Yes, the disease cells are the ultimate target. The real issue is how do we get the immune system on our side.

27. This level of corruption may only be possible with digital systems. In the past, I imagine physical wealth had to be procured or at least services and privileges rendered to bribe people. Once our wealth became ones and zeros on computers the flood gates opened and many natural restraints were lifted. Someday we’ll probably look back and wonder how childish we were. I wonder if cavemen ever started forrest fires and wondered “Oh shit, we better be careful with this new technology!”

28. As usual, a good essay. I’m not denying his use of the old saying “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.” Yet I offer readers a novelty: a personal comment actually informed by my own first-hand experience. In one of my volunteer “jobs” I’m a dog walker, and it is indeed possible to teach them new tricks.

    • Yep: in human beings, “neural plasticity”— unexpected the ability of our brains to continue to grow and adapt, to rewire themselves when we have new experiences— was probably the most striking finding in neuroscience in the past 10 years.

29. I had to look up “polycule.” To me it sounded like some invasive, microscopic organism, or like the “animalcules” Dutch scientist Antonie van Leeuwenhoek observed in raindrops. The actual definition isn’t much better, and since Bankman Fried and Caroline Ellison are hideous to look upon, there isn’t even salacious element to distract people this time out.

    Bankman Fried’s wartime laundering is right up there (or down there) with Madoff’s stealing money from pediatric oncology clinics. Making money off mass murder or kids is with cancer is sort of a six of one, half a dozen of the other situation.

    His name’s still the funniest part of this whole disaster. The first time I heard it, it reminded me of the guy who used to call up to Opie & Anthony’s radio show, who called himself “Heebie Kikeberger.”

    • Being a dirty old man, I’m familiar with polyamory, but even so, I mistakenly thought the term was “polycube.” This would require at least 6 people, IMHO. I used to think the concept was hot but seeing pics of Sam and his main squeeze kind of ruined it for me.

    • I suspect Hollywood has attempted to program expectation of rich grifter sexual relations along the DiCaprio/Robbie in Wolf of Wall Street lines. Hence the deflating experience of reality presented by SBF and Woodsy Owl. Charlie Sheen must be thoroughly mystified, unless he figures SBF just didn’t have access to sufficient tiger blood.

30. First off Merry Christmas to Z and all who participate here.
    Secondly, that Ellison babe is some kind of ugly – even worse than coyote ugly. She’s the poster girl for “put a bag over her head”.
    Thirdly, Zelensky is now slobberingly being compared to the greatest statesman of all time (lol), Winnie Churchill – and Lindy Graham is saying the only way the war ends is with Russia’s total defeat and Putin’s elimination.
    Fourthly, I sincerely hope if/when the nukes start flying that DC is the first to go and I get to see it before my area goes up in smoke…

    • Well, old Winston did destroy Britain with his actions, so it might not be that bad of a comparison.

      • Though Winston did have a long history in fighting and politics, and writing besides. I don’t like him, but he was a statesman of another age.

        Zelensky was on TV and played a piano with his penis.

        • Right, Churchill was born into the English aristocracy near its apex. He wanted Great Britain to continue to be the most powerful nation in the world, which he saw as his duty. He royally screwed it up, but he was an intelligent man who had actual combat experience for the British Empire. What an insult to be compared to the clown prince of Ukraine, a totally insignificant nation we have no interest in defending. In our age where elite morons think Churchill singlehandly won WWII the comparison shouldn’t be that surprising though.

      • Somewhat hyperbolic

    • Oh, baby!

      https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/11/caroline-ellison-ftx-ceo-alameda-research-12.jpg

    • Merry Christmas to Z Man and all this blog’s readership. Thank you all for making this the most thought-provoking space on the internet. Not sure how he does it, but Z Man seems to ensure the nuts stay away, so thanks for that. I’ve learned and had my mind open to new avenues just as much from the readership here as to the essays themselves. Even when I don’t agree, the discussions truly help one critically think, and that is rare on the right with conservative inc sites. Would be awesome to get this group together for a “Zevolution” conference.

    • The inevitable sex tape of those grotesque Jews bumping nasty will need a trigger warning.

    • In my life, Churchill and Lincoln have undergone similar transformations in my mind. I was raised to admire them both almost as gods and now I see them as misguided at best and deliberate traitors to my people at worst.

31. There’s a Chewish stereotype that they are always stirring up trouble, always playing brinksmanship, and then relying on fortune, serendipity, and connections, to win in the end. (Or at least, not collapse entirely in the end.) There have been a number of TV shows with this character. Washington watches this kind of TV, and I’m afraid they may have internalized the soap operatics and think they live in a Netflix show. 10 or so years ago, the talk was that House of Cards was popular with the regime. (And, curiously, the Chinese regime watched it to learn about American or Western politics.) I remember thinking, uh oh. A city full of Ari Golds and Frank Underwoods can’t be good.

    • Well, they are also proud fans of goody two-shoes Potomac stories — e.g. The West Thing, and its tackier children like the various Viacom dramas about crusading lawyers or the one that had Tea Leoni as a stand-in for the Witch of Arkansas — as well as the Tom Clancy/Don Bellisario aspie-gun-nut fairy tales. Even though the torture portion was maybe a bit uncomfortable I assume the decisive civil-servant heroism depicted in “Zero Dark Thirty” was congenial to most striped-pants functionaries at various GAE outposts. Hell, they even lauded the various Armando Iannucci comedies which portray the Atlanticist overclass as vulgar, mean, conformist, and quarter-witted (contrast to other prestige programming like “Silicon Valley” or “Billions” which is more adulatory than satirical). Government selects for people who never ethically question what they’re doing with their lives but have a love of self and of attention— show biz for ugly people.

      Chris Rock once observed the proverbial urban audience at least part of the time is going to cheer disgusting, stereotypical, or flat-out poorly written characters for no reason beyond sharing said characters’ race, and being “just excited to see it up on the screen.” Does anyone think Washington has more aesthetic discernment than would a movie theater of blacks at 10pm on a Saturday night? Please excuse archaic reference to movie theaters.

      • The pathetic and repulsive political sleaze in D.C. can barely read and write, so the teevee functions as search engine for them. If you ever interface with them the utter idiocy is the first thing you notice. Of course they believe what is on the tube. Basically the only people who still believe anything printed in the Washington Post, to the degree they even can understand it, are Republican senators and congressmen.

        The open sleaze on K Street tend to be smarter but in recent years even they have dumbed down. I suspect most of them still have enough sense to laugh at something like THE WEST WING, though.

        • “The pathetic and repulsive political sleaze in D.C. can barely read and write”

          Yet their boot is on our throat.

32. Some day fifty years from now it will be common knowledge that over half of tech investments were money laundering operations to pay cronies. In one of the interviews Bankman explained his “revolutionary” the business model, arbitrage, which every crypto guy with even a modicum of competence did as a matter of habit. Even the dumbest guy in the room in the investment rounds knew when the guy was playing Fortnite this was a clown and a fall guy.

    Another 20-30% probably used the investment philosophy of “throw so much money it’s impossible to fail”. For some companies with competence, like Google and Amazon, it worked. You don’t read about the multitude of other companies that they do this for that falls flat on their face though.

    • My hunch is that this was someone legit, but it turned into a money laundering scheme, which created a whole in the balance sheet and that is when the real shenanigans got going. They needed to account for the money leaking out so they started creating their own coins, which was when it quickly turned into a Ponzi scheme.

      • So SBF was trying to become the American government in miniature? Oh shit, we can’t find XXX billion that we thought we had – better print up some more notes/coins.

33. The open corruption in DC is reaching some kind of peak. Obviously Bankman-Fried and Zelensky’s scams are related. FTX was one (of probably many) money-laundering mechanisms they’ve been using for the vast sums of U.S. taxpayer funds being routed through the Ukraine. Printing up that much cash and skimming it out of the U.S. economy is going to cause a lot of inflation – maybe ay an unsustainable level.

    These two clowns remind me of Jugurtha showing up in Rome and speaking to the Senate after bribing enough Senators to ensure he got what he wanted.

    • The amount of corruption tied to Ukraine is amazing. John Kerry’s kids were getting bribes from Ukraine. Hunter Biden, obviously was taking money for the family. This FTX scam. Of course, over $100 billion has moved from our pockets to the pockets of arms dealers, who have very close relationships with politicians.

      What we are seeing is the financialization of the neocon ethnic hatred of Russians.

      • mitt romney’s kid has a ukraine connection, too.

        • You mean Mitt Romney’s wife’s kid has a connection….
          With a “man” like that, assuming paternity is iffy at best.

        • In October 2011, Romney announced that Joseph Cofer Black, who had served in the CIA since 1974, had been selected as a special adviser to Romney election team. Cofer Black also had a no show job on the board of Burisma at the same time as Hunter Biden.
          Black trained for covert operations and eventually became the director of the National Counterterrorism Center from 1999 until 2002. After September 11, 2001, Black was appointed ambassador at large and coordinator for counterterrorism in December 2002 by President George W. Bush.
          John Brennan succeeded Black in his job as director of the National Counterterrorism Center.
          Cofer Black left the CIA in 2006 to join Blackwater, the huge contractor for services related to military and intelligence action, where he served as vice chairman until 2008.”

          The fruit doesn’t fall far from the tree. Or as Grandmother would remind, The company you keep reflects on you.

        • And Pelosi’s Spawn.

          What are the odds a kid
          Biden
          Romney
          Peloso
          Kerry

          All at the same gas company half way around the world. None of them smart enough to read the meter.

          • What a great idea for a sitcom.

      • And nothing, absolutely nothing, will be done……….

      • Zelensky’s demand for more funds is a shakedown. He kept quiet when Trump was investigating Ruling Class corruption, and probably has the receipts going back all the way to the Obama Senatorial term.

        He has played ball and followed the terms laid out by his NATO handlers, to and past the point where Russia had to retaliate. He protected his handlers when Giuliani came sniffing around.

        And now he’s demanding more. Quite certain there is a deadman’s switch holding back all the communications, routing numbers, and tracking of every dollar going through that country and into the hands of politicians and career diplomats on both sides of the Atlantic.

        SBF was just a cog in that wheel. His crew got caught playing the same game on a much smaller scale, and without the power of .gov to protect them. Release on bond is a death sentence.

        • Or it could be that SBF will cop a plea deal, like Wang and Ellison have no doubt already done. Once Wang and Ellison have testified under oath to SBF’s part in it all, he won’t be able to feign ignorance.

          They had to get rid of Epstein— too many important people were implicated in various sorts of tawdry sexual practices— but SBF’s crimes merely involved money.

          He’ll cop a plea— perhaps including a nondisclosure agreement, to prevent the public learning exactly where all that money went— and will quickly be memory-holed.

          • Heck, Ellison is getting a $20 million award as a “whistle-blower.”

            Zip it! No dirty jokes, you.

      • The most astonishing piece is that everyone knows it and no one cares. That trashy aspect is straight up Third World behavior.

      • This Uke corruption isn’t all bad. Eventually, the real roll-on-the-floor punchline will be when they find out some of the arms shipments went to the actual Russians. The KGB, er excuse me FSB, knows a thing or two about shady arms deals. We had to arm the Russians to defeat the Russians…

      • “Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket.”

    • Printing up that much cash and skimming it out of the U.S. economy is going to cause a lot of inflation – maybe ay an unsustainable level.
      Taking cash out of the US economy would be the only way to stem inflation, since the problem is too much cash. You must be an employee of the Federal Reserve.

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