One of the primary faults in the way our societies function is that the systems in place have all been designed to operate under the assumption that the essential cogs behave both morally and ethically.
""If you want to understand how the world works, imagine that every action is the result of a conspiracy by your enemies.""
More relevant to government is the similar 3rd Law of Politics from Robert Conquest:
"The simplest way to explain the behavior of any bureaucratic organization is to assume that it is controlled by a cabal of its enemies."
What this means is that when a bureaucracy is formed to do 'X' it creates a perverse incentive for the bureaucracy to do the opposite. The more 'X' is done, the less bureaucracy is needed. The worse 'X' gets, the more bureaucracy is needed. So you see little effect from welfare spending on the poverty rate*. Militaries get reduced in times of peace and few threats, so the MIC has to manufacture wars and threats. Criminal Justice System gets more money based on how much crime there is, so they put criminals back on the streets while making criminals out of regular people doing regular things.
Your quote from Conquest struck a chord, because I have dealt with the Church, which is nothing but a bureaucratic organization (though the Holy Spirit is truly present there as well), its mode of existence mirroring that of any other such institution.
Yes, and human beings had no souls in the Pentateuch. Greek philosophers brought that. Spiritual religion says all people are children of God, Capitalism says they are a wasting asset, and they have more money. The rate at which people are willing to sell their souls to win for their side is amazing. Their minds are open to any opportunity to kill their enemies, however their media define them. I have thought about the deep state and they are the media, the ones that put Lindsay Graham on the air and all the generals. Lindsay is just their hate monger full of hate speech. Netanyahu spouts hate speech and racist rants, and the media is fine with that because Netanyahu is us. Gates runs the computer industry, the communications industry through MSNBC, NBC, and PBS through the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation, and the pharmaceutical industry making viruses and the vaccines to cure them. That's make him some money. Solution - Nationalize all Gates business and use it to pay back the debt and spread the wealth.
Motivation is the key. You must reward virtue and penalise harm . Freedom allows both but if you have more to gain through honesty, integrity and endeavor this will prevail . You must also make all parts of government accountable for their actions and budgets . Business and government have been above the law for some time and it has become accepted . Politics is a popularity contest with no rules anymore . When you look at what funding is required to run a campaign it becomes clear that donors rule .
And yet, instead of learning from past decades, just a small pretense of push-back from the likes of Musk and Trump is enough for the people who don't trust the system, to put these two on a high pedestal, almost turning them into the new demigods such that their open declarations of their bias is brushed off as some 5d chess moves 😀
The system is indeed rotten and hollow, but so are the masses...hollow and hypnotized to be the perfect sheep, whoever be the master.
I believe that is the point of the article, the people behave as subjects as if we lived in an old world of kings and nobility offering deference to our current elites instead of treating them like what they are, public servants whose salary we pay.
It feels like a small group is living in a separate society playing chess. A large majority of the population (like you indicate too), don’t care who is in charge. A small group is creating all the conflicts, all the suffering of that same majority, who is paying and supporting that small group (like the countries paying for the wars on their territories starter by foreign actors). Will this ever change? I fear not
Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy states that in any bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people": those who want to achieve the purported goals of the organization, and those who only care about bureaucratic power of and in the organization...
In every case, the latter group will take over the organization and control it, including promotion and status in the organization...
My addition...eventually the organization will become corrupt and the enemy of its purported goals....
Xi encountered this when he rose to power, and responded by arresting 100.000 CCP officials for corruption...
I think there are three kinds in any bureaucratic organization, the two mentioned and the third kind. Those are the people who are just present. They are there for the pay, perks and the retirement. The second kind will indeed seize power and use that power for their own ends. Corruption, thievery whatever. Just like career politicians.
Xi's counter-corruption moves did have other purposes. In any case, the structure and mechanism of how the Chinese Communist Party controls the government and the society dictates that absolute power will bring absolute corruption. Even a brutal hand in anti-corruption moves would not work.
Armed militias of people who use their guns and who do not simply cuddle them at night. By watering the tree of Liberty with the blood of tyrants on a daily not a bi-century timescale.
That would require some careful thought re: who to point a gun at. And I'm not seeing too much historical knowledge, ethical sense, good judgement or rationality among ANY in USA of late, including most people who happen to own a gun. Believe me, someone who DOES own more than a few and has been hanging with that culture for 50+ years- Ain't magic, certainly ain't usually the tool of choice.
Dictate that the national government has a very limited purpose and scope of power. In a sense, small government is the starting point, high autonomy is the goal. The California Bay Area built BART without unifying all 28 involved municipalities. We probably can build and maintain the Interstate Highway system this way.
Oh dear, little old half baked shelf life, virtual kat lady❤️🐈⬛Micro, macro…the blur is evident. For good measure, and my elder sensibility…?…I recently filed with our…State Department of Justice (howl) a complaint against MY homeowners association. Egads! First the board of directors failed to disclose the “special privileges “ given to the treasurer for months…the privilege of not paying monthly dues. But then, double gasp! The “excusing” of the late fine as mandated by the governing documents. Big smile. Howl. Given our non-profit status as a LLC….I figured I could do some damages, you know, like, my prior filing…hiring an expensive attorney and using the directors and officers insurance policy to “drive up my monthly dues”, winks. Cat and mouse. The “hiding of financials” was the worst, the lying in the board of directors meeting, second. The data speaks, the monthly statements show, the trail of tears…anyway, the largest, most “reputable “ HOA Management Company resigned, egads they too were named in the filing. Oh woah to me…the little old lady. Too much time on my hands waiting for the bones to turn to dust. Micro, macro…appears to blend…all fall down, ashes to ashes… prior board of director gone rogue in my elder years. ❤️🐈⬛
Sadly, we need rules to care for the mass of people busy surviving, until they have time to burn on de-weeding. Or, we need to pay the de-weeders and make it a priority.
Howl, loudly, love this❤️🐴🧲I am, I AM, a bit of wickedness. I found my way thru the matrix, barely, yet I persisted. Sitting in a large decorative chair, in the greenhouse at the poinsettia festival last weekend, I told Santa I had been a wicked miss! Yet, quite deserving of all good things. I do have time, yup I do. A long career as a public health professional, I mastered that wickedness. For fun, or pun, intended. Carry on I shall, until I leave my mortal coil❤️🧑🎄🎄❤️
1964 - Peak Trust and everything goes down from there. 1964 was also the first full year of Jewish power over America with the slaying of JFK and the ascent to power of LBJ, a committed zionist. Since then, the American government has descended into cheap politics, criminal behaviour at the national policy level, and the slow but steady rise to political power of the Jewish lobby, exacerbated by an increasingly corrupt MIC, media, multinational corporate and academic power structure draining the country of its morals, civil rights and culture.
Indeed, 1963, the year of the American coup. I lived through it all - I remember. Many of us remember. We remember days when a family could go on holiday without even locking the door of their home. We remember when you could park your car and leave the windows open. We remember when you would be ashamed to say the word "damn!" in public conversation. We remember when marriage was held in sanctity. We remember when homosexuality, cross-dressing, transgender and other sexual perversities were not accepted in polite company but hidden behind doors. We remember when there was such a thing as honour, ethics, and moral behaviour. We remember when the future looked bright and exciting, and opportunities seemed to abound if you worked for it.
And because we remember, it just means so much more personal pain and sense of loss to those of us who lived in those times.
For me, 2001 was when I saw the WTC on TV and immediately declared "Bush did it!" Until that moment I was always able to make excuses for America and believe that the path it was on would eventually self-correct.
I imagine others have had different "awakenings".
Many still do not know, or cannot bring themselves to know.
Love your idea about Palladium, but there wouldn’t be any of it if there was no Gold, Platina, Silver, Mercury, lead and all the others. Pure Gold shines and if it can’t you have suicide, destruction and war, Gold is the elite the highest, it’s success and if not like Nero burning the whole of Rome down. Platina is high too but not gold, it’s symbolic for the noblesse, the high born and the extreme, in it’s decline it is perversion, Hollywood. Palladium wants to be close and belong to the high above, but it’s only a belonging, a faked gold otherwise said the mass formation, the fans, the Taylor Swift cult. Silver is the neurotic, the impulsive the metal for lunatics many politicians. Mercury is the go between, the thief the banking world, Lead the most heavy and life at the end. Whole this wheel can’t be stopped, no war, no apocalyps it’s the eternal cycle.
The CCP is able to sentence its corrupt bankers to death because its centers of power haven't been captured by the same tiny group which has managed to capture the levers of power of just about every other western nation. And common sense and pragmatic solutions seem to still be present there.
Automating much of the functions of what bureaucracy is absolutely necessary or replacing with AI would go a long way to removing the entrenched interests by removing the employees that enable them. Shooting corrupt officials would also be ideal, but confiscating 100% of their personal assets would be almost as effective.
Agree strongly with first half of your comment. Just read some articles in Global Times about Lai Xiaomin (executed corrupt banker) and that part of their justice system sounds dreamy.
Then my mind wandered to the recent clip of Lindsay Graham, raving about all the resources ripe for looting in Ukraine.
"One of the primary faults in the way our societies functions is that the systems in place have all been designed to operate under the assumption that the essential cogs behave both morally and ethically." That is simply not true. It is not true in economics on either the Left or Right. On the Right for instance, Milton Friedman argued that in a market economy the miscreant would be eliminated by the market itself. Customers would shun shoddy goods and rip offs. Quality would prosper automatically with little government interference. This notion is unsound, but it is not based on morality, but on automatic mechanisms. Likewise the Marxist Left sees the functioning of market capitalism as essentially amoral. The system and survival in the market is driven by the quest for profit, pure and simple. There is no assumption that Capitalists are by nature immoral or unethical. The mechanisms of the market reward both ethical and unethical behavior--whatever produces the most profit. The market itself is indifferent. It produces--both behaviorally and materially--whatever makes money. This is precisely why China has an edge in creating a just society. They are Marxists(they really are believe it or not). And they see the government's role as precisely inhibiting the deleterious effects of the market. Hence the picture of the banker in the dock. Even the structure of American government--the separation of powers and the federal system itself with Federal, state and local levels. assumes a tendency for self-serving behavior not in the common good. In other words, ethics--primarily a product of cultural socialization--is typically not adequate to override the exigencies of the social and economic structure. The structure itself must be set up to materially and socially reward good behavior. Thus Marx mocked what he and Engels called "Utopian Socialists"--do gooders who thought if people would just be nice everything would be fine.
China's evolution is interesting, in that they circles back to capturing entrepreneurial spirits for the good of the state, versus stamping them out (Russia, early) or obliterating them as a capable class (Cambodia). If the governors of the state see the capitalists as their opponents in power, to be harnessed to the plow but not to lead, then that could keep things in check for a time. But, eventually someone gets in who wants to change the dynamic "just a little bit"... and then the corrosion starts.
I agree wholeheartedly. Political power follows economic power, one of Marx's salient points. Fortunately Xi is thoroughly Marxist. I see his relentless emphasis on party strength and party political education as a reminder that the power of wealth must be subordinate and kept firmly in check. But as you rightfully say, it always remains a very serious threat to the common good.
That is the day America lost any hope of reclaiming its soul. Slowly and relentlessly it was turned into the soulless gollum it is today.
The only way back is through the destruction of very things that Americans believe about America.
The myth of exceptionalism and superiority. The fiction of the “shining city on a hill”. The claims to leadership. The uniqueness of its freedom.
I think that anyone who has grown up in the American bubble is unaware of what the world looks like outside and what it looked like before. It’s like being in the matrix.
Thing is, if you talk to many Americans, who you get is not Neo but Cypher. Those who know (and many of them don’t) don’t care.
You've got it backwards. The prisoners are the innocent, and the prison guards are the filthy psychopaths, liars, fraudsters, pedophiles, and torturers. That's exactly why anyone who dares to try and escape their control (even if inadvertently) is instantly punished while the wrongdoers are rewarded, pardoned, and forgiven.
There is no atavistic love for elites - it's all one giant mindfuck that's been going on for the past 500 years, caused by the system smashing realization that a top-down hierarchy ISN'T actually required when Europeans met the peoples of North America (Central and South America meanwhile had a top-down system, so they were easily assimilated and accepted).
Read through the diaries of the original Mayflower passengers - there was a constant "problem" with Europeans running away to join non-hierarchical societies, and it persisted for well nigh-on 200 years until the last were genocided out of existance in the United States (and it took Canada until the 1960s to wipe out the last nomadic Inuits).
Every single message of "trust in the system" is a lie, and that's why it has to be continuously buttressed and reinforced. Simply stand on a street corner and say "the government has no authority over you" and you'll be swept up and put out of sight. But say "trust the government" and you'll be rewarded in a thousand lavish ways.
And, for the record, the "inherent savagery" of humanity is in itself a propaganda message from the top-down hierarchical system because it is predicated upon a belief that you need the system to take care of you in order to stave off anarchy.
But time and time and time again, this has been proven not to be true, whether it's the real-life case of some schoolboys who got deserted on an island (and DIDN'T turn into Lord of the Flies) or what you see after natural disasters like North Caroline or Hurricane Katrina earlier. In EVERY CASE, when the top-down hierarchy is removed, people work together to improve the situation, and trust is INCREASED, not diminished.
Go ahead, though, and believe your dream that it's just a few "bad apples" ruining the system and that the system itself is fine and will be restored when the "right people" are in charge.
That's a long wait for a train that ain't coming, brother.
Note how the media and Hollywood support such an idea - that without a strong central government you are faced with a Mad Max world. Seems to me the opposite is true. I have seen how people join together under extreme adversity.
THIS IS THE CABAL - DAVID ICKE EXPOSES THE SATANIC FRONT MEN FOR INQTEL AND DARPA, GOVERMENT TAKEOVER BY ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE, AND MUCH MORE…
Fronts… The Rockefellers, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Zuckerberg, Steve Jobs, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Bill Gates, George Soros, Larry Ellison, Warren Buffett, Eric Schmitt, Peter Thiel, Robert Mercer and many others are Only Fronts for the Satanic Phoenician Mega Trillionaire Rothschilds. https://satchidanand.substack.com/p/david-icke-exposes-the-satanic-front
these are at least four lists in one - antijewish byzantines, cowards, idiots that behave like nothing happened plus those who understand something happens.
Sort of…a balance of the two views. Nothing started 1964 and nothing ended. And the World 500 years ago was not so different from ours today. Humans who ”left” their, tribe-like living beating the hell out of other tribes, and organized themselves in a co-operate way managed to secure their living and future. Strong, smart leaders and innovating people were fundament to what we call civilisation. The prize for the individual was of course some mandatory work for the whole (or being slave) and subordination to the leadership. Of the course the leadership-class invented ways of controlling the minds of the people and keep the subordinate through ”belief-system” and hard to grasp ”sacrifices”. Babylonian, Greek and Roman civilisation all went down through degeneration and the spiraling into Hybris of the Leaderclass. What came after was in no way better. Speaking of European feudal system it ”functioned” for 100 of years and trained people into submission of the stronger force (State, King, Landlord etc. Not to forget Church that, thanks to Christ sacrifice, did get rid of the former Belief-systems.
Our Western civilisation is nowadays purely secular or atheistic with wast part of the citizens even believing in Satan. Our political, economical and judicial powers dont mention morale or ethics anymore. It is all about a value-system were the ”values” could almost identical to Aztek human sacrifices (organdonations, transmutilations, abortions).
I dont thin civilisations as such is a conspiration, more of a slowly built system of common rules highjacked by corrupt leaders and selfserving bureaucrats. The ever expanding State and the appetite of more and more resources to feed the already Superrich is the single most damaging for any State (or civilization).
No. But thx - seems like interesting and insightful books. They apparently rewrite our History and as such it is recommendable reading because ”he who controls the past controls the future”…
The first one catched me through some text on Wikipedia: ” They ask how we have apparently "got stuck" on a single trajectory of development, and how violence and domination became normalised within this dominant system. Without offering definitive answers, the authors end the book by suggesting lines of further investigation.”
Did recently read about French philosopher Rene Girard. He has a good theory about the escalation of violence in society. Cant explain it here but it is worthwile to follow him up.
""If you want to understand how the world works, imagine that every action is the result of a conspiracy by your enemies.""
More relevant to government is the similar 3rd Law of Politics from Robert Conquest:
"The simplest way to explain the behavior of any bureaucratic organization is to assume that it is controlled by a cabal of its enemies."
What this means is that when a bureaucracy is formed to do 'X' it creates a perverse incentive for the bureaucracy to do the opposite. The more 'X' is done, the less bureaucracy is needed. The worse 'X' gets, the more bureaucracy is needed. So you see little effect from welfare spending on the poverty rate*. Militaries get reduced in times of peace and few threats, so the MIC has to manufacture wars and threats. Criminal Justice System gets more money based on how much crime there is, so they put criminals back on the streets while making criminals out of regular people doing regular things.
etc. etc.
* https://i0.wp.com/federalsafetynet.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/spend-001.png?w=960&ssl=1
Your quote from Conquest struck a chord, because I have dealt with the Church, which is nothing but a bureaucratic organization (though the Holy Spirit is truly present there as well), its mode of existence mirroring that of any other such institution.
Yes, and human beings had no souls in the Pentateuch. Greek philosophers brought that. Spiritual religion says all people are children of God, Capitalism says they are a wasting asset, and they have more money. The rate at which people are willing to sell their souls to win for their side is amazing. Their minds are open to any opportunity to kill their enemies, however their media define them. I have thought about the deep state and they are the media, the ones that put Lindsay Graham on the air and all the generals. Lindsay is just their hate monger full of hate speech. Netanyahu spouts hate speech and racist rants, and the media is fine with that because Netanyahu is us. Gates runs the computer industry, the communications industry through MSNBC, NBC, and PBS through the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation, and the pharmaceutical industry making viruses and the vaccines to cure them. That's make him some money. Solution - Nationalize all Gates business and use it to pay back the debt and spread the wealth.
Wouldn't it be more appropriate to follow China's example and execute fraudsters like Gates?
Uh, yes, it would as a matter of fact..........
Motivation is the key. You must reward virtue and penalise harm . Freedom allows both but if you have more to gain through honesty, integrity and endeavor this will prevail . You must also make all parts of government accountable for their actions and budgets . Business and government have been above the law for some time and it has become accepted . Politics is a popularity contest with no rules anymore . When you look at what funding is required to run a campaign it becomes clear that donors rule .
And yet, instead of learning from past decades, just a small pretense of push-back from the likes of Musk and Trump is enough for the people who don't trust the system, to put these two on a high pedestal, almost turning them into the new demigods such that their open declarations of their bias is brushed off as some 5d chess moves 😀
The system is indeed rotten and hollow, but so are the masses...hollow and hypnotized to be the perfect sheep, whoever be the master.
@Rashmi
Almost as if we are all the same species?
I believe that is the point of the article, the people behave as subjects as if we lived in an old world of kings and nobility offering deference to our current elites instead of treating them like what they are, public servants whose salary we pay.
It feels like a small group is living in a separate society playing chess. A large majority of the population (like you indicate too), don’t care who is in charge. A small group is creating all the conflicts, all the suffering of that same majority, who is paying and supporting that small group (like the countries paying for the wars on their territories starter by foreign actors). Will this ever change? I fear not
I don't trust either of them.
Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy states that in any bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people": those who want to achieve the purported goals of the organization, and those who only care about bureaucratic power of and in the organization...
In every case, the latter group will take over the organization and control it, including promotion and status in the organization...
My addition...eventually the organization will become corrupt and the enemy of its purported goals....
Xi encountered this when he rose to power, and responded by arresting 100.000 CCP officials for corruption...
I think there are three kinds in any bureaucratic organization, the two mentioned and the third kind. Those are the people who are just present. They are there for the pay, perks and the retirement. The second kind will indeed seize power and use that power for their own ends. Corruption, thievery whatever. Just like career politicians.
Xi's counter-corruption moves did have other purposes. In any case, the structure and mechanism of how the Chinese Communist Party controls the government and the society dictates that absolute power will bring absolute corruption. Even a brutal hand in anti-corruption moves would not work.
Ok, yes. But HOW do you harden your constitution against conspiracy?
Armed militias of people who use their guns and who do not simply cuddle them at night. By watering the tree of Liberty with the blood of tyrants on a daily not a bi-century timescale.
@John
That would require some careful thought re: who to point a gun at. And I'm not seeing too much historical knowledge, ethical sense, good judgement or rationality among ANY in USA of late, including most people who happen to own a gun. Believe me, someone who DOES own more than a few and has been hanging with that culture for 50+ years- Ain't magic, certainly ain't usually the tool of choice.
lol. Conservatards with their gun funko pops.
There was 1 man who showed the way in Weimar Germany.
The Iron Law Of Oligarchy always wins in the end.
Dictate that the national government has a very limited purpose and scope of power. In a sense, small government is the starting point, high autonomy is the goal. The California Bay Area built BART without unifying all 28 involved municipalities. We probably can build and maintain the Interstate Highway system this way.
Oh dear, little old half baked shelf life, virtual kat lady❤️🐈⬛Micro, macro…the blur is evident. For good measure, and my elder sensibility…?…I recently filed with our…State Department of Justice (howl) a complaint against MY homeowners association. Egads! First the board of directors failed to disclose the “special privileges “ given to the treasurer for months…the privilege of not paying monthly dues. But then, double gasp! The “excusing” of the late fine as mandated by the governing documents. Big smile. Howl. Given our non-profit status as a LLC….I figured I could do some damages, you know, like, my prior filing…hiring an expensive attorney and using the directors and officers insurance policy to “drive up my monthly dues”, winks. Cat and mouse. The “hiding of financials” was the worst, the lying in the board of directors meeting, second. The data speaks, the monthly statements show, the trail of tears…anyway, the largest, most “reputable “ HOA Management Company resigned, egads they too were named in the filing. Oh woah to me…the little old lady. Too much time on my hands waiting for the bones to turn to dust. Micro, macro…appears to blend…all fall down, ashes to ashes… prior board of director gone rogue in my elder years. ❤️🐈⬛
Bless you.
Sadly, we need rules to care for the mass of people busy surviving, until they have time to burn on de-weeding. Or, we need to pay the de-weeders and make it a priority.
Howl, loudly, love this❤️🐴🧲I am, I AM, a bit of wickedness. I found my way thru the matrix, barely, yet I persisted. Sitting in a large decorative chair, in the greenhouse at the poinsettia festival last weekend, I told Santa I had been a wicked miss! Yet, quite deserving of all good things. I do have time, yup I do. A long career as a public health professional, I mastered that wickedness. For fun, or pun, intended. Carry on I shall, until I leave my mortal coil❤️🧑🎄🎄❤️
1964 - Peak Trust and everything goes down from there. 1964 was also the first full year of Jewish power over America with the slaying of JFK and the ascent to power of LBJ, a committed zionist. Since then, the American government has descended into cheap politics, criminal behaviour at the national policy level, and the slow but steady rise to political power of the Jewish lobby, exacerbated by an increasingly corrupt MIC, media, multinational corporate and academic power structure draining the country of its morals, civil rights and culture.
Indeed, 1963, the year of the American coup. I lived through it all - I remember. Many of us remember. We remember days when a family could go on holiday without even locking the door of their home. We remember when you could park your car and leave the windows open. We remember when you would be ashamed to say the word "damn!" in public conversation. We remember when marriage was held in sanctity. We remember when homosexuality, cross-dressing, transgender and other sexual perversities were not accepted in polite company but hidden behind doors. We remember when there was such a thing as honour, ethics, and moral behaviour. We remember when the future looked bright and exciting, and opportunities seemed to abound if you worked for it.
And because we remember, it just means so much more personal pain and sense of loss to those of us who lived in those times.
Yup, say it ain’t so, sadly, I cannot. Those were, for some…the best of times. For others, not so. All the best, all~ways❤️🐈⬛
`1947` has entered the chat: The National Security Act authorized the CIA, which was formed from the CIG.
The seeds of the 60s were sewn then. Like the seeds of 47 from 33, like 33 from 13.
The US is nothing but hidden coups that none of the citizens learned about until 2001.
2001 ?
Why 2001? There was good scholarship decades before. What sets 2001 apart from your perspective.
For me, 2001 was when I saw the WTC on TV and immediately declared "Bush did it!" Until that moment I was always able to make excuses for America and believe that the path it was on would eventually self-correct.
I imagine others have had different "awakenings".
Many still do not know, or cannot bring themselves to know.
mossad you mean.... see dancing Israelis
I remember!
Sadly, so true.
Sir, thank for expressing my sentiments.
Love your idea about Palladium, but there wouldn’t be any of it if there was no Gold, Platina, Silver, Mercury, lead and all the others. Pure Gold shines and if it can’t you have suicide, destruction and war, Gold is the elite the highest, it’s success and if not like Nero burning the whole of Rome down. Platina is high too but not gold, it’s symbolic for the noblesse, the high born and the extreme, in it’s decline it is perversion, Hollywood. Palladium wants to be close and belong to the high above, but it’s only a belonging, a faked gold otherwise said the mass formation, the fans, the Taylor Swift cult. Silver is the neurotic, the impulsive the metal for lunatics many politicians. Mercury is the go between, the thief the banking world, Lead the most heavy and life at the end. Whole this wheel can’t be stopped, no war, no apocalyps it’s the eternal cycle.
The CCP is able to sentence its corrupt bankers to death because its centers of power haven't been captured by the same tiny group which has managed to capture the levers of power of just about every other western nation. And common sense and pragmatic solutions seem to still be present there.
Automating much of the functions of what bureaucracy is absolutely necessary or replacing with AI would go a long way to removing the entrenched interests by removing the employees that enable them. Shooting corrupt officials would also be ideal, but confiscating 100% of their personal assets would be almost as effective.
and we can never mention who that tiny group is mostly composed of.
Agree strongly with first half of your comment. Just read some articles in Global Times about Lai Xiaomin (executed corrupt banker) and that part of their justice system sounds dreamy.
Then my mind wandered to the recent clip of Lindsay Graham, raving about all the resources ripe for looting in Ukraine.
Wa wa waaaaaaah
You are sure, of course, that in a system such as that the executors are the good, and the bad are who gets executed.
Lol.
I'd reconsider AI as a function for good let alone a clean up mechanism. He who provides the program, benefits from the outcome..
"One of the primary faults in the way our societies functions is that the systems in place have all been designed to operate under the assumption that the essential cogs behave both morally and ethically." That is simply not true. It is not true in economics on either the Left or Right. On the Right for instance, Milton Friedman argued that in a market economy the miscreant would be eliminated by the market itself. Customers would shun shoddy goods and rip offs. Quality would prosper automatically with little government interference. This notion is unsound, but it is not based on morality, but on automatic mechanisms. Likewise the Marxist Left sees the functioning of market capitalism as essentially amoral. The system and survival in the market is driven by the quest for profit, pure and simple. There is no assumption that Capitalists are by nature immoral or unethical. The mechanisms of the market reward both ethical and unethical behavior--whatever produces the most profit. The market itself is indifferent. It produces--both behaviorally and materially--whatever makes money. This is precisely why China has an edge in creating a just society. They are Marxists(they really are believe it or not). And they see the government's role as precisely inhibiting the deleterious effects of the market. Hence the picture of the banker in the dock. Even the structure of American government--the separation of powers and the federal system itself with Federal, state and local levels. assumes a tendency for self-serving behavior not in the common good. In other words, ethics--primarily a product of cultural socialization--is typically not adequate to override the exigencies of the social and economic structure. The structure itself must be set up to materially and socially reward good behavior. Thus Marx mocked what he and Engels called "Utopian Socialists"--do gooders who thought if people would just be nice everything would be fine.
China's evolution is interesting, in that they circles back to capturing entrepreneurial spirits for the good of the state, versus stamping them out (Russia, early) or obliterating them as a capable class (Cambodia). If the governors of the state see the capitalists as their opponents in power, to be harnessed to the plow but not to lead, then that could keep things in check for a time. But, eventually someone gets in who wants to change the dynamic "just a little bit"... and then the corrosion starts.
I agree wholeheartedly. Political power follows economic power, one of Marx's salient points. Fortunately Xi is thoroughly Marxist. I see his relentless emphasis on party strength and party political education as a reminder that the power of wealth must be subordinate and kept firmly in check. But as you rightfully say, it always remains a very serious threat to the common good.
My pet idea, not fully fleshed-out, would be to a) implement debt jubilee as in Sumer, and b) eliminate the corporation as a system of organization.
Or simply limit all registered companies sizes per employment headcount, revenue, and market cap?
Great response!
November 25th, 1963.
That is the day America lost any hope of reclaiming its soul. Slowly and relentlessly it was turned into the soulless gollum it is today.
The only way back is through the destruction of very things that Americans believe about America.
The myth of exceptionalism and superiority. The fiction of the “shining city on a hill”. The claims to leadership. The uniqueness of its freedom.
I think that anyone who has grown up in the American bubble is unaware of what the world looks like outside and what it looked like before. It’s like being in the matrix.
Thing is, if you talk to many Americans, who you get is not Neo but Cypher. Those who know (and many of them don’t) don’t care.
No, no, and no again. No!
You've got it backwards. The prisoners are the innocent, and the prison guards are the filthy psychopaths, liars, fraudsters, pedophiles, and torturers. That's exactly why anyone who dares to try and escape their control (even if inadvertently) is instantly punished while the wrongdoers are rewarded, pardoned, and forgiven.
There is no atavistic love for elites - it's all one giant mindfuck that's been going on for the past 500 years, caused by the system smashing realization that a top-down hierarchy ISN'T actually required when Europeans met the peoples of North America (Central and South America meanwhile had a top-down system, so they were easily assimilated and accepted).
Read through the diaries of the original Mayflower passengers - there was a constant "problem" with Europeans running away to join non-hierarchical societies, and it persisted for well nigh-on 200 years until the last were genocided out of existance in the United States (and it took Canada until the 1960s to wipe out the last nomadic Inuits).
Every single message of "trust in the system" is a lie, and that's why it has to be continuously buttressed and reinforced. Simply stand on a street corner and say "the government has no authority over you" and you'll be swept up and put out of sight. But say "trust the government" and you'll be rewarded in a thousand lavish ways.
And, for the record, the "inherent savagery" of humanity is in itself a propaganda message from the top-down hierarchical system because it is predicated upon a belief that you need the system to take care of you in order to stave off anarchy.
But time and time and time again, this has been proven not to be true, whether it's the real-life case of some schoolboys who got deserted on an island (and DIDN'T turn into Lord of the Flies) or what you see after natural disasters like North Caroline or Hurricane Katrina earlier. In EVERY CASE, when the top-down hierarchy is removed, people work together to improve the situation, and trust is INCREASED, not diminished.
Go ahead, though, and believe your dream that it's just a few "bad apples" ruining the system and that the system itself is fine and will be restored when the "right people" are in charge.
That's a long wait for a train that ain't coming, brother.
Note how the media and Hollywood support such an idea - that without a strong central government you are faced with a Mad Max world. Seems to me the opposite is true. I have seen how people join together under extreme adversity.
They are the ones who rely on government for their protection and wealth. Who depends on government most?
Spot on.
THIS IS THE CABAL - DAVID ICKE EXPOSES THE SATANIC FRONT MEN FOR INQTEL AND DARPA, GOVERMENT TAKEOVER BY ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE, AND MUCH MORE…
Fronts… The Rockefellers, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Zuckerberg, Steve Jobs, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Bill Gates, George Soros, Larry Ellison, Warren Buffett, Eric Schmitt, Peter Thiel, Robert Mercer and many others are Only Fronts for the Satanic Phoenician Mega Trillionaire Rothschilds. https://satchidanand.substack.com/p/david-icke-exposes-the-satanic-front
these are at least four lists in one - antijewish byzantines, cowards, idiots that behave like nothing happened plus those who understand something happens.
Sort of…a balance of the two views. Nothing started 1964 and nothing ended. And the World 500 years ago was not so different from ours today. Humans who ”left” their, tribe-like living beating the hell out of other tribes, and organized themselves in a co-operate way managed to secure their living and future. Strong, smart leaders and innovating people were fundament to what we call civilisation. The prize for the individual was of course some mandatory work for the whole (or being slave) and subordination to the leadership. Of the course the leadership-class invented ways of controlling the minds of the people and keep the subordinate through ”belief-system” and hard to grasp ”sacrifices”. Babylonian, Greek and Roman civilisation all went down through degeneration and the spiraling into Hybris of the Leaderclass. What came after was in no way better. Speaking of European feudal system it ”functioned” for 100 of years and trained people into submission of the stronger force (State, King, Landlord etc. Not to forget Church that, thanks to Christ sacrifice, did get rid of the former Belief-systems.
Our Western civilisation is nowadays purely secular or atheistic with wast part of the citizens even believing in Satan. Our political, economical and judicial powers dont mention morale or ethics anymore. It is all about a value-system were the ”values” could almost identical to Aztek human sacrifices (organdonations, transmutilations, abortions).
I dont thin civilisations as such is a conspiration, more of a slowly built system of common rules highjacked by corrupt leaders and selfserving bureaucrats. The ever expanding State and the appetite of more and more resources to feed the already Superrich is the single most damaging for any State (or civilization).
@Mikey Johnson
Have you seen these titles?
The Dawn of Everything: A new History of Humanity
By David Graeber & David Wengrow
The Dawning of the Apocalypse
By Gerald Horne
No. But thx - seems like interesting and insightful books. They apparently rewrite our History and as such it is recommendable reading because ”he who controls the past controls the future”…
The first one catched me through some text on Wikipedia: ” They ask how we have apparently "got stuck" on a single trajectory of development, and how violence and domination became normalised within this dominant system. Without offering definitive answers, the authors end the book by suggesting lines of further investigation.”
Did recently read about French philosopher Rene Girard. He has a good theory about the escalation of violence in society. Cant explain it here but it is worthwile to follow him up.