Martin Armstrong's predictive program/AI, which has an excellent record, predicts that the US starts to break up into more homogeneous pieces after the 2032 elections..but first comes the high probability of war(s) in the next few years...This is pretty consistent with Strauss and Howe's thoery, which the AI doesn't follow
There is evidence that there are other timelines, and that some people have switched between them..That is sounding pretty good right now., if you are young and unattached!..
MA went to prison because his predictions were making his followers fortunes; he is one of the world's most consulted monetary and economic analysts- but not by those in power....
Hmm, well I like the photos of Martin & Maggie Thatcher. No idea what they talked about, but that was quite a long time ago when computer models were in their infancy.
The paid account is more for his investing audience. Of which I am not. Infrequently, M posts another sad story of his days in prison in jewyork and the illegal shit done to him and his business. As well, he sometimes talks about his times with Thatcher. I read everything he has published publicly for for over ten years. A genius, imho; his history of monetary and economic cycles and how past nations and empires have risen and fallen are very enlightening.
Cultural disaggregation is indeed occurring in the West. What is happening elsewhere in the world, indeed for 80% of the world's population, is cultural and economic rebirth. What is described is what it feels like to be in the midst of a morally, ideologically, militarily, technologically and economically declining Empire. Western capitalism and colonial dominance is crumbling. It is losing because of its own predictable excesses in the context individualism, consumerism and profit driven capitalism, and because of the rise of a disciplined, coherent, vision—common prosperity for the general population, national sovereignty among nations, and cooperation and development in the realm of trade and finance. The model and engine behind this vision is the flexible socialism of China. The future is dark for the Empire of lies, war, chaos and ruthless exploitation—and the confused populations under its sway. But for the rest of humanity things are finally, after four centuries, looking up.
I so agree - the west is not the world, it's simply the world that most of us know and have to deal with on a daily basis. The rest of the world is looking at what happens in the west in disbelieve, rejection and even disgust (at least so my impression with my contacts outside the western world).
What people want and need is a model, an valid idea a positive feeling for more than a self proclamated 'elite'. China seems to become this model indeed. A happiness rate of the population by 70% is unthinkable in the western decadence and atomized society.
As a side note - according to a survey of 'Goldman Sachs', more than 45% of women above 35-40 years old, in the west, will be single and childless by around 2030 - just imagine the implications that this will have on western society. This result of feminism & woke culture is a power of destruction that is unprecedented in human history, as I see it.
We have entered a funky, curated new world, where boys can become 'girls' and then kick the shit out of authentic girls in athletic competitions. What's not to like? A nice subterfuge of the intent of Title 9. Move along...nothing to see here. (link)
"Putin had a great speech about the silly idea of "gender affirmation" and turning a boy into a girl."
The article sort of undermines the point though doesn't it?
There was a social media discussion from a year or two ago, I forget where, that had input from some trans people. One of them a HS football quarterback. He said "no way should this be allowed". But that's his opinion.
Perhaps I should not have included "great" in my comment about Putin's speech. But this shows that Russia is in the "First Turning" while the USA is in the "Fourth Turning.
I'm not exactly anxious to go back to those years when being gay was banned, but all the "Pride" stuff is just disturbing because it has become so decadent.
It’s a total disintegration of the system that got us here, but it’s as much a function of environmental pollution leading to lower fertility than it is a change of social/mating mores.
Sorry to disagree here slightly because the environmental pollution has decreased since the 70's by 70-80% and soit's rather a pollution by the system as you saying correctly.
It's a pollution by alcohol, antidepressiva drugs (mainly by women) and a poisoning of the mind by now plus/min 3 generation of women (if we count a new generation every 25 years when women get fertile and ready for motherhood).
It's a big business, pushing women to ruin their body by taking drugs they don't really need, pushing them to design their body starting with little injections until plastic surgery & the tattoo craziness.
On top is the infantilization/stupidity of young (and even some older women who raised this generation), the unrealistic promise of a princess life without being accountable for your own actions.
Look up what the so called 'standards' of fertile women in the West are - you can find it all over youtube and other social media: a man has to be 6ft+, showing a six pack and making at least 6 figures income. They do mean that serious and feeling entitled to that, no matter of their own looks and behavior.
That's what the western woke system has created and that's why the decadent West is undermining it's own existence even from this angle.
must disagree: the environmental pollution you speak of ignores the threats of nano-plastics, estrogen-mimic chemicals in the water, and a thousand other disastrous chemicals and toxins dumped into our food and water for the last twenty years. the mind-pollution is a totally different subject, a result of fifty-plus years of deliberate propaganda and control of the educational system. brain-dead, body-dead, the zombies march to their doom.
This is just a reactionary (knee-jerk) response to something you really know nothing about. Xi calls it "Socialism with Chinese Characteristics". Sure the CPC is in charge, but it is hardly totalitarian -- unless you are a true-believer in the sanctity of Capitalism and refuse to see the totalitarianism it has spawned in the USA where the Oligarchy manipulates the Congress to load ever more debt on the shoulders of American to the benefit of the Oligarchy.
Richard Wolff explains it in such simple terms a 5-year-old should get it.
Speaking of the US Oligarchy, perhaps you need to re-read this WaPo article about the Jewish-Zionist Billionaires insisting on a totalitarian response to Americans who stand against Israeli genocide.
I tell people about the way the government works in China, how failing leaders are fired when they fail instead of being promoted and they look at me like I’m crazy, then go complain that the government is working against us and politicians all lie and take advantage of us for their own gain lol.
While China may be the economic leader, Russia is the super-hero standing up to the decrepit West which inspired the nations of the Sahel to kick France and the US out (with the help of the Wagner group).
Iran is the force standing against the genocidal Israelis/Zionists which make up a significant proportion of the US Oligarchy which, in turn, has US political leadership "by the balls".
The BRICS are prying control of the world's economies out of the hands of the banksters. They could be the bulwark against the techoarchy, or they could end up succumbing to it.
The "world" has awakened to the diabolical schemes of the NED, which hasn't lead a successful "color revolution" since the Maidan Coup, and between that and the Rose Revolution, the "world" now understands the threat of the NED and so, as in Venezuela's recent election, is now organized to fight back.
In the end though, the most satisfying outcome is that China actually executes its billionaires for fraud -- while the USA issues Michael Milken pardons, leaving him a billionaire. Maybe this should be the Millennials cause. :-)
I should acknowledge China's diplomatic role in smoothing relations between traditional enemies such as Iran and Saudi Arabia. It seems this "behind the scenes" role is more suited to Chinese culture.
You are talking about an important thing that the author missed, the other side of the world.
The countries of BRICS aren't to be trusted either, China specifically has the same technological ambitions the Silicon Valley overlords has. They have various "startups" and are investing heavily on AI, (look up for Baichuan) and Russia started using the digital ruble, see the pattern?
Knowing that they are outright authoritarian and more ruthless than the West makes it a bit terrific..
The best that can happen is both sides (West and East) destroying each other in a war, seriously. It's all a bunch of power-hungry parasites, finish them all.
I'll just go with the fact that China executes its billionaires guilty of extreme fraud while the USA rewards them with more tax breaks.
I have no problem with technological advancement. It is what is done with that advancement. China has taken 800M people out of extreme poverty. The USA is squashing the American middle class, let alone what it has done to those who have even less.
The "authoritarian" label for China is total BS if you can't apply it to the Jewish-Zionists who have insisted on police brutality against those who support Palestine, or if you can't see the seals clapping in Congress when the greatest genocidal criminal since Hitler stands in front of them demanding war against innocents.
Just exactly who are the "all" you want to finish? Are you a Christian-Zionist looking for the return of Christ? The end of humanity?
FWIW: Simplicius wasn't talking about the "other side of the world". He was talking about "The West".
Russia and China (and the BRICS) are the ascending power. The US empire is dying. It is up to Americans whether or not they are willing to accept the serfdom being imposed on them.
quite some statements you're making here, they just leave me a little confused...
What's the criteria for trusting a country? Is it not people that we need to trust?
In my experience trust is build by actions, since I have come across some people in my life that are not trustworthy simply because their actions are not in line with what they are telling me or others.
So if we look at the 'West' history, we do find a consistent stream of lies, coercion, covert operations, killing of innocent people at home and abroard. Examples for that start with the genocide of the american indigenous people, the many wars - everyone of them justyfied by a lie (you can look this up).
Now to declare that the Brics countries are more authorotarian and ruthless than the West is not based on facts.
It's just another lie hammered into the western population by the media and statements of politicians that are serving the most authoritarian people that no one has ever voted for.
The media in the West are owned by private entities and so not free by any means.
In my country we do have some 'public media' with a structure that is made to not ever really oppose or speak truth to the power by design. The whole selection of their personal is authoritarian and the (by constitution mandatory) so called control clubs are manned with the people that represent the government and church.
So consuming the public or private media makes no difference at all, they all proclamate a reality that does not exist for most of the population, they create reality, they filter what you get to know and put it in a context that shapes your believes and convictions as you showed clearly in your comment above.
Non of the BRICS states has ever showed the kind of aggression that the West has shown, non of the BRICS states has ever declared that their country is 'gods own land' and that they are the indispensible nation ever.
To declare them power-hungry parasites is not correct, in my opinion, since they have shown by their actions that they are not aggressive, that they are not pursuing to change governments but that they try to bring a better life to their populations by breaking free from the rules of the West that keep them poor and robbed of their resources by the oligarchs of the West.
in reference to east and west destroying each other... precisely, so who/what could be behind such a scheme/plan?
unravelling the actual nature of the enemy who has brought us to this insane moment in history requires letting go of some well indcotrinated foundations we have all been fed, easier for some than others.
You may find the following interesting.. or maybe not:
it requires the understanding that "cellestial mechanics" can be manipulated like any other form of mechanics and right now a spanner is desperately need to throw into the works
I agree, this article is an interesting analysis but only of ‘the western world’. If we don’t have a major war things look better for the mass of people in ‘the south’.
I agree. In the PRC there are constraints as Mr Ma found out. The founder of Huawei doesn't come across as a megalomaniac; the performance of the company in spite of sanctions has been comendable. Both the PRC and Russian Federation are actively weeding out corruption to ensure that the state functions optimally and delivers to their citizens. The proof can be seen in industrial output and the creation of public infrastructure.
I'll agree that you made your case and made it well. However, in the final analysis, this is nothing more than a Chewbacca defense of how the deck chairs are being arranged on the Titanic.
In reality, the four turnings and all the rest are utterly useless hogwash, except as a handy framework for understanding the PAST. But what's happening now is FAR more profound, but I guess you got to be a dweeb who reads UN reports to see it.
We're not nearing the end of a 20-year cycle, we're at the end of a 12,000 year cycle. Since a handful of yahoos in Anatolia managed to do the triple lindy (use sickles to harvest the brand-new plant named Einkorn wheat, corner the obsidian market, and domesticate 12(!) female aurochs), we've been on a trajectory where the global population has been skyrocketing.
All of ancient Egypt, Greece, Rome, the rise of China, the Middle Ages, conquering the Americas, all the way to WW2 and our modern internet lifestyle, ALL of it has been predicated on a skyrocketing population rate. Every king, every emperor, everything you've ever read in a history book, all of it is because of the Anatolian "revolution."
Without constantly adding new people, you can't have: slavery, agriculture, fiat money, centralized governments, authoritarian rulers (despots, kings, et al), standing armies, superpower countries, fractional reserve banking, capitalism, nobles/elites vs peasants, secret cabals, or, of course, centralized internet platforms that gatekeep information.
Literally all of the above are predicated on adding new rubes/cattle to the Ponzi scheme called Civilization that we've only come to see as "permanent" because it's been happening non-stop over the past 12k years or so.
But all that is coming to an end, and not because of any Malthusian shit math or some conspiracy of the Club of Rome types or viruses or war or anything. It's coming to an end due to natural, organic reasons that Hans Rosling can explain better than I ever could.
No matter how high a tower is, it'll collapse when you kick out its foundation, and all of our 12k-long history is founded on a constantly expanding population (which constantly produces/consumes more resources).
But it'll all be over in about 50 years or so, and we're already feeling the effects. Shifting a billion or so migrants from Africa/Asia to Europe/Americas will only delay the inevitable. One day, really soon, we're going to be out of new people.
Just think for a minute about what that means - no need for more schools, more houses, more post offices, or more factories. No need to raze more forests to grow more food. And no more new people to rob, enslave, subjugate, or sacrifice.
There is gonna be a huge transformation, and I can't say how it will look when it's done.
But just look at the signs around us - fewer people want to work (aka do shit jobs) because they want recognition just for being themselves. And for many, this is already happening (including the author of this Substack).
Centralized forms of control of ALL kinds are disappearing, whether that's multilateral governments (like the EU or ECOWAS), the legacy media, or social media platforms. Likewise, more and more people are becoming more self-sufficient, whether that's growing their own food, generating their own power, or taking their kids out of (centralized) schools. More and more countries are opting out of centralized blocs, whether that's ECOWAS or SWIFT or NATO or you name it.
This has nothing to do with Marxist or capitalist theories or left vs right or any of that distracting nonsense. It's all predicated on the fact that, when people are no longer disposable, they can no longer be disposed of.
Even if you zoom in, you can see it everywhere you look - Israel is running out of Jews to prop up its regime. They're now resorting to drafting the ultra-religious, who have always been exempted, and at least a million Israelis have permanently decamped from the country (partly due to its economy cratering). And America is running out of bombs and bullets to give to Israel.
Either we transform into a world where autonomy and dignity for everyone becomes the natural (not enforced!) result of not having any more new disposable people OR the end-times wackos will kill us all with their nuclear weapons. I honestly hope it's the former, but considering the events of the past 24 hours, I fear it's the latter.
Fascinating expansive vision of the past - present - future!
The other thing I keep coming back to in reading both this and the author's vision and warning, is the inevitable unpredictable black swan events. We project into the future what we already know, what has already happened, but the future also holds that which we cannot possibly yet know which could change everything. There are many levels and layers of reality. There is the horizontal timeline and then there is vertical time which never ceases to stretch the imagination of what is possible.
What I so appreciate are Simplicius's and the many other visions brought to this Substack. Imagination. along with an embodied living experience of the sacredness of life on Earth, is perhaps the central root of creation/creativity, and is perhaps the greatest loss and disaster of "modern" western abstract, reductionist times .
Yes, the expansion of humanity's material culture, a.k.a. civilization, is based on the domestication of cereal crops, pulses, and other plants, and also on the domestication of animals, first for meat and then for labor. That's the neolithic agricultural revolution, and it began about 12,000 years ago. Along with the refinement of stone tools, followed by the discovery of metals (gold, copper, silver) and the invention of metallurgy to produce strong alloys (bronze, iron, steel), The accumulated developments led to social concentration and the early city-states such in Sumeria.
But all that material culture is not built on having a continually expanding population. It's the other way around: the existing population was exhausting the wild sources of animals and plants that supported hunter-gatherer bands. The fortuitous domestication of crops and animals (which occurred separately in time and place) is what allowed the human population to expand beyond its previous limits.
Now, once humans had trapped themselves into a dependence on crops and domesticated animals, it was hard and maybe impossible to go back. And improvements of technology have steadily allowed a larger and larger human population to exist.
But there is no getting around the material limits of a bounded planet, and the human population has grown far beyond the limits of what can be sustained. The human population must decline, and it will, whether gradually or catastrophically.
And while that will cause a lot of shifts in global economics, there will remain plenty of economic opportunities. What seems most likely to me is that the divergence between the very wealthy and very poor will continue to expand and that the mass of humanity will return to a feudal existence. At least, that is the path we are presently on.
Well, some people have calculated that the actual carrying capacity of Earth is several trillion (t) people. The limit is the ability of the planet to dissipate heat generated by those people (by their industry). To reach this high a number, we would need to undero a change comparable to the Agricultural revolution. But it is doable.
The obvious revolutionary change is accessing the energy & materials to be found outside Earth's gravity well, eventually leading to some meaningful % of us moving out there ourselves. It might take longer than the last paradigm shift did. It might well lead to those on top of the gravity well dropping rocks on the flat lander's heads over politics too. But the first asteroid prospecting missions are already in transit, some of us are "going there" if we don't crash or extinct ourselves first.
And once we've expanded to fill that niche? Emulate the trapped species from "The Mote in God's Eye"???
"The Moon is a Harsh Mistress", that did the Rock.
I remember the "Mote" story mostly for the "everyday Joe" who was very good at his job but wasn't at all interested in "Democracy" and was more than happy to leave management of the economy to the Aristocracy. He just wanted a world where he could advance and "just get along".
Haven't yet read that one. :) The change needs to be monumental to take us to the stars. :) Once there, I imagine there will be two kinds of people. On one hand, you'll have people that are at the edge of Humanity, pushing into the uninhabited space. These people will experience "growth" for millions or even billions of years into the future, as long as spacetime expansion allows them to keep jumping to the next galactic cluster. But the majority of people will be within the border region, meaning they will eventually plato at some population level. Eventually, even in space, we will reach limits of growth, even the border region of humanity expanding into the void.
Absent a major breakthrough in physics, I don't think anything but INFORMATION can be cost effectively sent across interstellar distances, let alone intergalactic. Of course, DNA is an information storage medium.
You must mean to take us BACK to the stars. We are all made of stars, of stardust, literally. The stars were our first home deep in our bones. Space is richly inhabited.
Even sub saharan Africa has started to hit the demographic transition. Afghanistan and some warfare/AIDS decimated areas still are over 40 births/1,000 population but this rate is not likely going to continue if those driving catastrophes end.
Good points, good arguments, I'm not convinced it'll go exactly that way. On one hand, Earth can probably support several trillion (with a t) people - if we live in archologies. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TqKQ94DtS54 On the other hand, space is pretty big. So, in terms of remaining growth potential, humanity didn't even start! xD But, at the same time, both arcologies and life in space require completely new technologies, of which at least life in space technology is comparable in importance to the yahoos of Anatolia. :) Arcologies may or may not be similarly important.
You started out strong, but then went "off course".
Yes certain forms of centralized control are disappearing, but in other cased they are reformulating to be a derivative of what used to be. The Banksters are being replaced by a benevolent aristocracy (China) that recognizes controlling "everything" is a losing proposition, but allowing "complete freedom" (Capitalism) to reign is going to lead to huge discrepancies in wealth that in the end will cause a breakdown in society (as in "The West").
It is a question of destroying the Oligarchy best represented by the Jewish-Zionists who promote genocide. A question of morality. Achieving a common understanding of every man's humanity while still offering everyone a better chance to advance.
Your "hippie-induced" fantasy of more people growing their own food flies in the face of the huge advancements China is making in growing more. Even in the US production is ever rising. If everyone was growing their own food as more than just a hobby the huge techo advances in Ag machinery would hardly be profitable.
What is happening in Israel is the self-destruction of a psychotic culture that even many Jews agree needs to be destroyed, just as Nazism was targeted, but which the US/CIA rescued and repurposed for its own goals. (Aaron Good). It has nothing to do with "the Fourth Turning".
Maybe we won't need "more" schools, but we will need "better" schools. No need for "more housing" but the need for "better housing" is still there.
I do agree with you about the "end-time wackos" and that brings us back to Israel and the Zionists. I think I already made my point.
I think you have missed the central point from Strauss-Howe. The idea is that it is mistaken to believe humanity is one big mass. The 4 generations are practically different species so as one dies out (Baby Boomers) the world tone and vibe shifts dramatically. The current system WILL disappear because the men who built it are dead and the men who currently manage it are dying. That shift is where opportunity is because the Zuck will never be weaker than he is now, comparatively, so the opportunity to take advantage of this shift to make your own base institution is never going to be greater.
"It is a question of destroying the Oligarchy best represented by the Jewish-Zionists who promote genocide. "
It is already being destroyed, one aged life at a time. And when the cohort is entirely gone the world will have shifted, whether through whatever war emerges or circumstance.
"What is happening in Israel is the self-destruction of a psychotic culture that even many Jews agree needs to be destroyed, just as Nazism was targeted, but which the US/CIA rescued and repurposed for its own goals. (Aaron Good). It has nothing to do with "the Fourth Turning"."
Isreal is largely supported by Baby Boomers. The 4th turning coincides with the 'Elders', who in this case are boomers, realizing they are about to die and wanting to either double down in self indulgence or lead a moral crusade they don't have to personally fight in. It's entirely in keeping with the timeline that the waning of the Baby Boomers leads to one of their favorite states starting to wobble. Don't forget that jews went from destroying Spain to getting kicked out and Spain entering a golden age. Jews have been removed in this same tiresome cycle over 100 times, it would be ridiculous to say that this time is special in that regard, rather say that the same social forces are in play now as in then.
"What's your proposal for how to replace him?"
Create or assist alternative institutions that serve those cast out by Zuck. The thing about Zuck is he is the millenial anointed to power by the Baby Boomers who themselves are ridiculously powerful as a group compared to any group in world history. But that means as the generations turn Zuck will have to break away, in which case a shift for something nice may happen, or he will have to try to rule with the Boomer resources he's gathered. In that case it becomes more open competition but without the Boomer thumb on the scale because all the old institutions will be very degraded by then.
This is indeed a supercycle that the microcycle obscures, but does that obscure yet another? If humanity finds or creates fertile ground we could become trillions in a very short geologic timeframe.
We can trace the "Vibe shift" of society, or at least the most recent shifts, to the rise of the financialisation of the economy and the destruction of traditional economics.
It started in 1999 with the "Greenspan Put", with major events occurring afterwards in 2007, 2008, 2015/16 and most recently, 2019/21/22. It is all linked together.
We are in the middle, or hopefully the tail-end, of a global inflationary event which was "opportunistically" created by something in the vicinity of 19 Trillion dollars of global COVID stimulus, or around 1/5th of global GDP. If you have been aware of what has been happening with the global (Western) economy over the past couple of decades then it makes perfect sense why it was needed.
As a result of the events of 2021/2022 the global (Western) financial system has been gifted roughly 5 years, more or less.
After the Greenspan Put, the financial system raced off in 1999, quickly peaked in 2006, attempted to be corrected in 2007, hiccupped as a result in 2008 (because there was far too much dependence on debt), and was subsequently rescued by 2010.
The financial system was in obvious decline from 2010 up to and including 2016, at which point all manner of weird and wonderful schemes were implemented like ZIRP, NIRP, TARP, QE, and many more to keep the debt growing and the wheels turning. The economy scraped along the bottom from 2016 to around 2018. Then it was rescued in 2021 with the largest amount of financial stimulus in all history.
And sometime around 2030 after conditions eventually get back to what they were in 2018/19, they'll do it all again. Because there is no actual alternative. All the people making the decisions quite like the way things are.
The Elohim worship cult is itching to drop a big boy on Persia to appease their dark masters, Armageddon here we come. The feeling of darkness that the woman at the start of the article expressed is seemingly only palpable to a chosen few, the many are still in a deep sleep. Another accompanying feeling being expressed by some, "I don't want to be here anymore". Time to leave the simulation.
The first quote you captured well - how more and more people feel that something is wrong and will culminate in something bad. And the collective feeling probably drives the human race through various cycles in history. The Fourth Turning theory sounds plausible but is a little too simple. And your examples are concentrated around the (very short) history of the United States. Translated into European perspective, Waterloo 1815 was a starting point for High which was followed by Awakening in revolutionary 1848. Unraveling cycle after German pushed back the French in 1871. Crisis came in 1914 and lasted until 1945.
You have probably read Oswald Spengler, Decline of the West, and he describes cycles in a longer perspective stating that the West would begin a decline around the year 2000 and steady decline for the next 200 years. Our history is obviously BOTH short generational cycles and longer structural and more unmanageable in the now of the moment.
I have studied what are called "spikes" in history or "turning points" and they are events that changed the course of history (or did they really?). In our world, where a person can hope for an 80-year lifespan in a reasonably mentally mature and healthy state, it is easy to mistake historical events for influencing long-term development. Take the Mauerfall in 1989 which many thought was the end of history and an eternally beautiful future. 12 years later we had 9/11 which extinguished all hope. And February 24, 2022 has taken us back to 1983 with nervous rulers on both sides of a mental iron wall.
In a larger perspective, however, these events have revealed the USA and the UK as the biggest conspirators in the West, even vis-à-vis the so-called allies in Europe.
Did you actually manage to read through both volumes of Decline of the West? if so, my hat's off to you. I've been plowing through it, steadily and intermittently - hoping to finish by 2028 (by my current reckoning. After all I read much in between, but this is like a multi-year project).
I do find the book(s) amazing, both in the depth of the analysis and the insights (some of which are surprising to me).
That said, this work pretty much predicts the spirit if not the exact nature of our decline, and we can see how our civilization kind of peaked at around the early 1900's (when Industrial revolution really started to pay major dividends) then hobbled along through two world wars before starting its all too visible decline.
I put one of the key inflection points, the place where we, as a civilization started losing our creative energy near the early 70's, for any number of reasons. My sign post is found in a work I am reading now called "The End of Science". Early 70's is when basic Physics stopped coming up with anything really new. Though to be fair, technology kept on moving along, therefore masking the loss of critical creative energy.
Other key things happened around that time as well (over a 5-7 year period) - Bretton woods, the shift away from the Gold standard, the first successes of the computer chips (sounds good, no?), the first defeat of the US in Vietnam, etc. All leading to the first Hollywood personality actually becoming president (something to think about) and ushering in Neoliberalism and the era of mad billionaires, leading to the present day.
The real decline is however marked with the degradation of Art and music. That's where we see the loss of creativity most clearly. people can quibble in the margins, but if one looks at the whole of Western Art, certain patterns become visible.
I actually read a single book - a translation into my native language. Would like to read the original German books but hey, as you say, it's no fun to read. I completely agree with your own interpretations and I am very much attached to the decline of art where I count Film and Music. We are truly at the end of time when it comes to art - terribly empty and degenerate. I have read a lot from witnesses and letter writers in 1913 and the summer of 1914. An incredible amount is recognizable from our time. The feeling that everything is calm but still gnawing anxiety and an unspoken threat of war. The strangest thing was reading about those who looked forward to the war to clear the air. There is also much worth reading about World War I conscientious objectors to join the war in Britain and their terrible fate. Wise people that no one listened to.
I think we are headed for a heavy fall - and if you think about it. The 1999 film Independence Day showed the same scenes as 9/11. Film after film for the past 25 years has only shown the downfall of civilization. Just as if "they" want to prepare the mass.
BTW, one of the surprises I got was in the Intro to the first volume - that's where he compared the forms tied to the earth and the ones who became "mobile". That surprised me because I didn't expect this kind of insight. Might be worth going back to read this passage again.
Confession: the other night I had a dream. A weird one, like my dreams sometimes are, places where I have no role at all other than an observer. In that dream, everyone on earth, all the humans, were turning into trees. Slowly, one by one. They became immobile and tethered to earth. Sometimes if two were fighting they became parts of the same tree so they didn't fight any longer.
Sounds nice, but I woke up disturbed. Not sure why. Must figure it out because it's what I do.
Though only you know the message in your dream, some thoughts come to me, some of which you no doubt know as a scientist. One is that we exhale carbon dioxide, while trees take in that carbon dioxide and exhale oxygen. A mature tree will absorb 48 pounds of CO2 from the atmosphere in a year. Symbiotically, trees transmute and exhale for us so that we can inhale that O2 to live. So it sounds like in a certain way we come together as one living organism. Among all the transgressions against life on Earth that we are witnessing, if we continue to destroy rain forests for oil and profit at the rate we are doing, human life and all life is threatened.
I think of Julia Butterfly Hill's unswerving passion to save Luna, the 1000 year old redwood tree, sitting up in it continuously for two years to stop the loggers. Luna is still standing. Those called to be environmentalists, animal rights activists, etc. are doing inestimable service for life on Earth, sometimes risking their lives. There is a beautiful tribe no one hears about, the U'wa, living in the Amazon who consider themselves guardians of their homeland, the trees and the oil beneath them which they call the blood of the Earth, even if they die trying, and some have:
The other connection I felt with "all the humans turning into trees...parts of the same tree...[becoming] immobile and tethered to the earth" was the exponentially increasing number of refugees and migrants fleeing their homelands, becoming rootless, and the primal human need and longing for roots. To be without the trees is to be without roots - I think of the deep grief expressed by so many Palestinians as the Israelis wantonly destroyed 800,000!!! of their beloved olive trees, some 1000 years old. Trees are our elders and teachers - of deep character and integrity, generosity, selfless service, continual organic change/metamorphosis - and as refuge. It brought to my mind the ancient Ents in Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. deeply tied/rooted to the Earth for thousands of years, but waking and becoming mobile and feared, like Vishnu, when disaster threatened Middle Earth.
It certainly speaks to me! Lovely description of our connection to the All. Rootlessness is anti-human and a trick from landowners and the more modern landlords and property owners who siphon money from people without the means to build their own roots. I don't think Spengler meant that in his book and many times he is impossible to understand. I like your interpretation more. And there may be a deeper agenda in the rootlessness that is spreading in the world. You shouldn't own anything and be happy according to the WEF....
Deforestation and predatory exploitation of trees for unnecessary consumption is sick. I'm sick of seeing renovation programs where you tear out fully functional kitchen cabinets, doors and shelves and just smash them to pieces. I have cut down trees myself and always feel a sense of unease when the saw blade enters the tree trunk.
I can understand that sense of unease when cutting down trees in our times. It comes down to intention, the purpose and need, and especially respect. I remember reading how the Native Americans always thanked the trees they felled and used, the animals they killed, the elements. Humility and respect.
I feel the same about renovations and all the unnecessary waste. A product perhaps of our capitalist society focused and functioning entirely on (and systematically teaching) greed and consumption. Strange when you think of it always wanting something "new." Always wanting. There's an inherent disrespect for the gifts from nature and all we have compared to so many in the world. A lack off maturity. There's something pleasurable in the cabinets getting a bit worn with use and touch over time. They carry stories and history.
I'm intrigued about Spengler and will look for his book - Thank you.
I love your interpretations! and the thoughts that go with it. Can I please hire you as my dream interpreter (trust me - there's more where that one about trees came from....I am not sure what well these spring from - must be from even deeper in my subconscious than I realize).
As I read your comment, another tid-bit came back to me - the roots. I was watching a scene where people were sitting around a large dinner, or picnic table. Some were bickering among themselves, some were silent. But I then noticed that they started springing roots, straight into the earth where they sat. At one point I had a vision of very deep intertwined roots. That part of it was a bit comforting. The rest not so much because life as we knew it was going away, or transforming into something else, something less mobile.
Also it wasn't going to happen to everyone. Some were going to remain "mobile" but they were going to be lonely.
This was definitely one of my end days dreams 9of which I have one i can recall at least once a month. Different scenarios, different outcomes, sometimes welcome, sometimes not. It's a bit like I am looking in from without on the Simulation that I think we may be (not sure; 66.5% confidence only) and wondering how to wind it down so another one can be started.
For the record, I do love trees and my heart breaks for every tree that's cut down. I can't even bear to read about what they are doing to the Amazon forests. And what you said about the Palestinians' olive groves really touched me. I can hear them cry in my mind's eye and know it to be an enormous crime against humanity and nature (simulation whispering in my ear: "shucks, our jews model has gone bad; can it be refurbished? updated? or is it best to turn it over, delete the whole thing and reset with an improved model?").
I do appreciate the thought you gave to this.
One of these days, I'll contribute a piece based on that Spengler introduction that so captivated me. Almost no one knows about those passages, so perhaps I should, shouldn't I? may be that's what the dream was urging me to do - get to work, finally...
Dream on and come back! Those passages are not incomprehensible but difficult to understand from Spengler's perspective. One thing is certain - they speak to one's soul and heart. And there is much to be gleaned from the German Romantics (artists and poets) when it comes to trees and nature - think dear Oswald was influenced by them. And Germans are called "forest people" with a mysterious bond to the dark forest.
Being a retired Jungian Sandplay and Dream Analyst and trauma therapist, I just couldn't help but jump in when I read your dream, so I'm happy my reflections were welcome. The symbolic realm is my universe of choice ever since childhood and I love to roam those worlds purely for pleasure these days.
Your dream(s) seem to me like they may be coming directly from the Earth and the trees themselves as well as whatever more personal message from your subconscious, both, especially with your role as observer in the dreams. Perhaps the trees recognize you are receptive, ready to receive their message and are reaching out to tell you something that may become clearer with time. The living Earth needs our collaboration more than ever right now.
You describe the people turning into trees as immobile and tethered to the earth. Trees are in a sense tethered to the Earth (we all are by gravity) but are never immobile. Everything about the tree is growing, moving, morphing, budding, reaching, swaying, digging, stretching, changing with the seasons, from the tiniest acorn to the tallest ancient trees, and as your dream tells you, intertwining in their roots with other trees (not to mention with fungi and water and breaking up minerals and if need be concrete). They are busy hosting innumerable other species, from microorganisms and insects to birds, gibbons, bearcats, kangaroos, snakes, squirrels, leopards, honeybees etc. etc. even in dead trees, and they offer safety and shelter to humans as well. BTW my own name, liana, in Spanish means the vines that climb up the trees in the rainforests, so I feel a close connection with trees so to speak.
One last allusion, when you described the people sitting, eating, then springing roots deep into the earth, I thought immediately of the great Ash tree Yggdrasil, the World Tree, the Tree of Life that centers and balances our world from Norse Mythology (close to the German) and which connects the Heavens, Earth, Underworld and the 9 realms. It's branches high in the heavens where the celestial bodies can rest and two eagles keep watch over Earth, the trunk resting on the earth and the roots stretching down to the underworld. It has 3 central roots - one reaches down to a spring under which lives a dragon; the second stretches to Mimir's Well,the well of memory and wisdom; the third reaches to the well of Urd tended by the three fates, past, present and future. They spin the fate of men and also sprinkle the tree daily with water from the well feeding every living thing. Some becomes honey. Two swans float in this water. So that's a taste of what this myth has to offer and it might give you some clues as to what the roots of the people in your dream are reaching for.
I believe this battle for the soul of the world and for humanity will be won not by force of arms (we're no match) but by ever expanding consciousness and creative imagination in collaboration with Mother Nature who has the greatest stake and the greatest love for all her kingdoms. Versus those encased in dense ignorance/unconsciousness grown stiff and cold, immobile in the true sense, but trying with their fast cold hard projectiles of bullets and bombs to give themselves the fleeting illusion of power and aliveness.
Thank you for the opportunity to let my imagination roam and replenish myself in the face of the heating up harsh realities the world and our brothers and sisters around the world, especially right now the Palestinians, are facing each day. Strange thought, but maybe we who the dreams are speaking to could learn healthy, organic mobility, rooted to the particular plot of land we are given and love, from the trees. It will be interesting to see where your dreams - and writing - take you.
You know, there is always some truth in dreams. It could be you who wants people to stop for a second, realize where we are going and slowly transform themselves from stressed consumers to harmoniously living people who enjoy life and the earth. Then we need to get rid of debt, interest, greedy billionaires and global corporations that are more powerful than our own countries' governments and treat us like stupid worker ants. It is greed and lust for power that drives all these hidden agendas and deep-state formations completely contrary to the needs and destiny of humanity.
For me, trees are fantastic creations as they have sometimes stood in the same place for hundreds of years and seen human generations come and go. Imagine if we could share thoughts with trees. Recently, the so-called research has finally understood that trees "communicate" with each other and cooperate and can form a "family" of trees in, for example, a grove of trees on a field. No tree sticks out or outside the shape, but they form a unit.
The mentality from that little island UK has certainly transmuted to US.
England always used their invulnerability from land invasions to waging war in other countries and continents. Naval power was the only thing needed. The US has a whole continent of its own, more or less secured, which is impossible to invade. They have their own resources and assets that make them self-sufficient. Still, they have to keep all other countries down and maintain their upper hand. The key is the Eurasian continent which they want, just like the English in their time, to divide and hold down with constant wars and conflicts.
The power struggle against China is just the same game that the British played against Spain, the Netherlands, France, Germany and Russia.
Oh yeah, it all started when Gazans humiliated their captors and tortures in October only. That's more profoundly stupid than most Americans could ever care to realise.
I actually believe that there is something else afoot (in addition to the new Techno-Feudalism, as Varoufakis calls it). I think we are witnessing the actual stages of collapse of the Western Civilization, with all that this entails. Aided by AI, of course.
That nasty, grotesque scene from the Paris Olympics opening ceremony is a perfect representation of that collapse - put on full display., just in case anyone missed the message.
The absence of Russia in these games is, however, another hint - the coming of the Great De-Coupling. I maintain that this de-coupling will be deeper than people now imagine, but it will be necessary
Who said the line that "the Old is dying and the new is not born yet. It is time for monsters"?
The second part is a cheap rip of the the Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood. Now, don't get me wrong, it's a great anime, with the science vs religion dialectic as its main point, but if you're going to rip it off, at least give give the devil his due.
Words definitely worth sharing. Thank you. Your [quote of a] quote of Chesterton, and its context (I mean, your whole article), to my mind, makes some connection with the analysis given by Jonathan Pageau on the abomination at the Paris 2024 opening ceremony, here: https://youtu.be/rckBhO23cIA?si=SV0iPg3zthugYvTv. I would appreciate very much to read you on this.
I generally agree with the premise here, I've read the books. To me "centralization, be it in Government or the corporate world is not a good thing. It is where a few people make decisions for the many with less than positive results regardless of good intentions (and nefarious ones as well). Present examples are the U. S. Federal government, the EU, mainstream media, and worse of all the consolidation of local community schools which has destroyed are education system and has led us to this fourth turning. Our leadership of these centralized entities appear to have no basic foundation of knowledge relative to the decisions they make.
Yes, war is coming, and it will be the stimulus for "hard times that make for good men who will lead the world back to good times".
It is exactly as you describe it. All development was based on population growth. We have reached a time when, for the first time on a scale of almost the entire world, the population is starting to decrease. In such a case, all the development theories that have been presented so far cease to be true. From a technical point of view, there is no way to maintain the existing infrastructure - it begins to fall apart. Seeing hope in WA (from a SF novel from the 70s) is a dead end. AI needs energy. How to provide energy when everything is falling apart? Now the thought occurred to me that there were great extinctions on Earth, after which life flourished again. Aren't we currently in the phase of the great extinction of humanity as we have known it for 12,000 years? The above is such a rational analysis of what is happening. The analysis would look completely different if we used the orthodox Christian "field theory" to explain what is happening, i.e. the eternal struggle between good and evil, God and Satan for human souls. Christianity explains very elegantly what is happening in the world, but then we must take into account the action of supernatural powers.
Previously, I thought a lot about Strauss-Howe, and concluded they have it a bit backwards. This is, I believe, the correct interpretation: there are only two cycles, Individualism and Collectivism, each lasting about 40 years. In Individualism (Awakening and Unraveling), the winning life strategy is to take more from the system than you put back into it. It's best to be a net leecher. This obviously drains the system, which becomes unable to serve anyone and when enough time passes, the winning strategy flips to it's exact opposite: the winning life strategy is to feed the system, to give back more than you take. Collectivism (Crisis and High). The win comes from the fact the system is then going to protect you from all the leechers. And this goes on for a long time until eventually feeding the system becomes counterproductive and the winning strategy again flips into Individualism.
Whoa....[Joey Lawrence]
Simplicius, the thinker rates 5 stars around a spinning ballerina in a red dress.
Martin Armstrong's predictive program/AI, which has an excellent record, predicts that the US starts to break up into more homogeneous pieces after the 2032 elections..but first comes the high probability of war(s) in the next few years...This is pretty consistent with Strauss and Howe's thoery, which the AI doesn't follow
There is evidence that there are other timelines, and that some people have switched between them..That is sounding pretty good right now., if you are young and unattached!..
Excellent record according to who, exactly?
Those of us who have followed him, correctly predicting Brexit, trump's victory in 2016, etc...
MA went to prison because his predictions were making his followers fortunes; he is one of the world's most consulted monetary and economic analysts- but not by those in power....
Hmm, well I like the photos of Martin & Maggie Thatcher. No idea what they talked about, but that was quite a long time ago when computer models were in their infancy.
I've seen his date being at 2030, but I don't have a paid account with Armstrong Economics so don't get anymore than his public stuff.
The paid account is more for his investing audience. Of which I am not. Infrequently, M posts another sad story of his days in prison in jewyork and the illegal shit done to him and his business. As well, he sometimes talks about his times with Thatcher. I read everything he has published publicly for for over ten years. A genius, imho; his history of monetary and economic cycles and how past nations and empires have risen and fallen are very enlightening.
Cultural disaggregation is indeed occurring in the West. What is happening elsewhere in the world, indeed for 80% of the world's population, is cultural and economic rebirth. What is described is what it feels like to be in the midst of a morally, ideologically, militarily, technologically and economically declining Empire. Western capitalism and colonial dominance is crumbling. It is losing because of its own predictable excesses in the context individualism, consumerism and profit driven capitalism, and because of the rise of a disciplined, coherent, vision—common prosperity for the general population, national sovereignty among nations, and cooperation and development in the realm of trade and finance. The model and engine behind this vision is the flexible socialism of China. The future is dark for the Empire of lies, war, chaos and ruthless exploitation—and the confused populations under its sway. But for the rest of humanity things are finally, after four centuries, looking up.
I so agree - the west is not the world, it's simply the world that most of us know and have to deal with on a daily basis. The rest of the world is looking at what happens in the west in disbelieve, rejection and even disgust (at least so my impression with my contacts outside the western world).
What people want and need is a model, an valid idea a positive feeling for more than a self proclamated 'elite'. China seems to become this model indeed. A happiness rate of the population by 70% is unthinkable in the western decadence and atomized society.
As a side note - according to a survey of 'Goldman Sachs', more than 45% of women above 35-40 years old, in the west, will be single and childless by around 2030 - just imagine the implications that this will have on western society. This result of feminism & woke culture is a power of destruction that is unprecedented in human history, as I see it.
Blaming feminism totally removes all responsibility from the male who doesn't want kids because his student debt will never be paid off.
"Woke" was developed by the Oligarchy to further bifurcate society and funnel us all into separate silos.
Putin had a great speech about the silly idea of "gender affirmation" and turning a boy into a girl.
We have entered a funky, curated new world, where boys can become 'girls' and then kick the shit out of authentic girls in athletic competitions. What's not to like? A nice subterfuge of the intent of Title 9. Move along...nothing to see here. (link)
"Putin had a great speech about the silly idea of "gender affirmation" and turning a boy into a girl."
https://apnews.com/article/angela-carini-imane-khelif-boxing-63e9dbaa30f1e29196d4162c72c2babf
The article sort of undermines the point though doesn't it?
There was a social media discussion from a year or two ago, I forget where, that had input from some trans people. One of them a HS football quarterback. He said "no way should this be allowed". But that's his opinion.
Perhaps I should not have included "great" in my comment about Putin's speech. But this shows that Russia is in the "First Turning" while the USA is in the "Fourth Turning.
I'm not exactly anxious to go back to those years when being gay was banned, but all the "Pride" stuff is just disturbing because it has become so decadent.
It’s a total disintegration of the system that got us here, but it’s as much a function of environmental pollution leading to lower fertility than it is a change of social/mating mores.
Sorry to disagree here slightly because the environmental pollution has decreased since the 70's by 70-80% and soit's rather a pollution by the system as you saying correctly.
It's a pollution by alcohol, antidepressiva drugs (mainly by women) and a poisoning of the mind by now plus/min 3 generation of women (if we count a new generation every 25 years when women get fertile and ready for motherhood).
It's a big business, pushing women to ruin their body by taking drugs they don't really need, pushing them to design their body starting with little injections until plastic surgery & the tattoo craziness.
On top is the infantilization/stupidity of young (and even some older women who raised this generation), the unrealistic promise of a princess life without being accountable for your own actions.
Look up what the so called 'standards' of fertile women in the West are - you can find it all over youtube and other social media: a man has to be 6ft+, showing a six pack and making at least 6 figures income. They do mean that serious and feeling entitled to that, no matter of their own looks and behavior.
That's what the western woke system has created and that's why the decadent West is undermining it's own existence even from this angle.
Exactly!
must disagree: the environmental pollution you speak of ignores the threats of nano-plastics, estrogen-mimic chemicals in the water, and a thousand other disastrous chemicals and toxins dumped into our food and water for the last twenty years. the mind-pollution is a totally different subject, a result of fifty-plus years of deliberate propaganda and control of the educational system. brain-dead, body-dead, the zombies march to their doom.
agree!
Very well put
Ahhh...totalitarian communism to the rescue! No, more like the 4 horsemen are about to reap a windfall.
Why are communist minions so stupid? Almost as if they have no understanding of history or the human spirit.
This is just a reactionary (knee-jerk) response to something you really know nothing about. Xi calls it "Socialism with Chinese Characteristics". Sure the CPC is in charge, but it is hardly totalitarian -- unless you are a true-believer in the sanctity of Capitalism and refuse to see the totalitarianism it has spawned in the USA where the Oligarchy manipulates the Congress to load ever more debt on the shoulders of American to the benefit of the Oligarchy.
Richard Wolff explains it in such simple terms a 5-year-old should get it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3rEgB2uGGg&
To understand what is really happening in China, Inside China Business.
https://www.youtube.com/@Inside_China_Business
Speaking of the US Oligarchy, perhaps you need to re-read this WaPo article about the Jewish-Zionist Billionaires insisting on a totalitarian response to Americans who stand against Israeli genocide.
https://archive.ph/u8RUt#selection-773.76-773.92
Something about "stones" and "glass houses" comes to mind.
If you say so.
I tell people about the way the government works in China, how failing leaders are fired when they fail instead of being promoted and they look at me like I’m crazy, then go complain that the government is working against us and politicians all lie and take advantage of us for their own gain lol.
Not just China, the BRICS.
While China may be the economic leader, Russia is the super-hero standing up to the decrepit West which inspired the nations of the Sahel to kick France and the US out (with the help of the Wagner group).
Iran is the force standing against the genocidal Israelis/Zionists which make up a significant proportion of the US Oligarchy which, in turn, has US political leadership "by the balls".
The BRICS are prying control of the world's economies out of the hands of the banksters. They could be the bulwark against the techoarchy, or they could end up succumbing to it.
The "world" has awakened to the diabolical schemes of the NED, which hasn't lead a successful "color revolution" since the Maidan Coup, and between that and the Rose Revolution, the "world" now understands the threat of the NED and so, as in Venezuela's recent election, is now organized to fight back.
In the end though, the most satisfying outcome is that China actually executes its billionaires for fraud -- while the USA issues Michael Milken pardons, leaving him a billionaire. Maybe this should be the Millennials cause. :-)
I should acknowledge China's diplomatic role in smoothing relations between traditional enemies such as Iran and Saudi Arabia. It seems this "behind the scenes" role is more suited to Chinese culture.
You are talking about an important thing that the author missed, the other side of the world.
The countries of BRICS aren't to be trusted either, China specifically has the same technological ambitions the Silicon Valley overlords has. They have various "startups" and are investing heavily on AI, (look up for Baichuan) and Russia started using the digital ruble, see the pattern?
Knowing that they are outright authoritarian and more ruthless than the West makes it a bit terrific..
The best that can happen is both sides (West and East) destroying each other in a war, seriously. It's all a bunch of power-hungry parasites, finish them all.
Perhaps. Perhaps not.
I'll just go with the fact that China executes its billionaires guilty of extreme fraud while the USA rewards them with more tax breaks.
I have no problem with technological advancement. It is what is done with that advancement. China has taken 800M people out of extreme poverty. The USA is squashing the American middle class, let alone what it has done to those who have even less.
The "authoritarian" label for China is total BS if you can't apply it to the Jewish-Zionists who have insisted on police brutality against those who support Palestine, or if you can't see the seals clapping in Congress when the greatest genocidal criminal since Hitler stands in front of them demanding war against innocents.
Just exactly who are the "all" you want to finish? Are you a Christian-Zionist looking for the return of Christ? The end of humanity?
FWIW: Simplicius wasn't talking about the "other side of the world". He was talking about "The West".
Russia and China (and the BRICS) are the ascending power. The US empire is dying. It is up to Americans whether or not they are willing to accept the serfdom being imposed on them.
quite some statements you're making here, they just leave me a little confused...
What's the criteria for trusting a country? Is it not people that we need to trust?
In my experience trust is build by actions, since I have come across some people in my life that are not trustworthy simply because their actions are not in line with what they are telling me or others.
So if we look at the 'West' history, we do find a consistent stream of lies, coercion, covert operations, killing of innocent people at home and abroard. Examples for that start with the genocide of the american indigenous people, the many wars - everyone of them justyfied by a lie (you can look this up).
Now to declare that the Brics countries are more authorotarian and ruthless than the West is not based on facts.
It's just another lie hammered into the western population by the media and statements of politicians that are serving the most authoritarian people that no one has ever voted for.
The media in the West are owned by private entities and so not free by any means.
In my country we do have some 'public media' with a structure that is made to not ever really oppose or speak truth to the power by design. The whole selection of their personal is authoritarian and the (by constitution mandatory) so called control clubs are manned with the people that represent the government and church.
So consuming the public or private media makes no difference at all, they all proclamate a reality that does not exist for most of the population, they create reality, they filter what you get to know and put it in a context that shapes your believes and convictions as you showed clearly in your comment above.
Non of the BRICS states has ever showed the kind of aggression that the West has shown, non of the BRICS states has ever declared that their country is 'gods own land' and that they are the indispensible nation ever.
To declare them power-hungry parasites is not correct, in my opinion, since they have shown by their actions that they are not aggressive, that they are not pursuing to change governments but that they try to bring a better life to their populations by breaking free from the rules of the West that keep them poor and robbed of their resources by the oligarchs of the West.
in reference to east and west destroying each other... precisely, so who/what could be behind such a scheme/plan?
unravelling the actual nature of the enemy who has brought us to this insane moment in history requires letting go of some well indcotrinated foundations we have all been fed, easier for some than others.
You may find the following interesting.. or maybe not:
https://odysee.com/@CJBbooks.com:8/Kabbalah-of-the-Holy-Grail-Jesus-Boiling-in-Excrement:3
it requires the understanding that "cellestial mechanics" can be manipulated like any other form of mechanics and right now a spanner is desperately need to throw into the works
I agree, this article is an interesting analysis but only of ‘the western world’. If we don’t have a major war things look better for the mass of people in ‘the south’.
I agree. In the PRC there are constraints as Mr Ma found out. The founder of Huawei doesn't come across as a megalomaniac; the performance of the company in spite of sanctions has been comendable. Both the PRC and Russian Federation are actively weeding out corruption to ensure that the state functions optimally and delivers to their citizens. The proof can be seen in industrial output and the creation of public infrastructure.
I'll agree that you made your case and made it well. However, in the final analysis, this is nothing more than a Chewbacca defense of how the deck chairs are being arranged on the Titanic.
In reality, the four turnings and all the rest are utterly useless hogwash, except as a handy framework for understanding the PAST. But what's happening now is FAR more profound, but I guess you got to be a dweeb who reads UN reports to see it.
We're not nearing the end of a 20-year cycle, we're at the end of a 12,000 year cycle. Since a handful of yahoos in Anatolia managed to do the triple lindy (use sickles to harvest the brand-new plant named Einkorn wheat, corner the obsidian market, and domesticate 12(!) female aurochs), we've been on a trajectory where the global population has been skyrocketing.
All of ancient Egypt, Greece, Rome, the rise of China, the Middle Ages, conquering the Americas, all the way to WW2 and our modern internet lifestyle, ALL of it has been predicated on a skyrocketing population rate. Every king, every emperor, everything you've ever read in a history book, all of it is because of the Anatolian "revolution."
Without constantly adding new people, you can't have: slavery, agriculture, fiat money, centralized governments, authoritarian rulers (despots, kings, et al), standing armies, superpower countries, fractional reserve banking, capitalism, nobles/elites vs peasants, secret cabals, or, of course, centralized internet platforms that gatekeep information.
Literally all of the above are predicated on adding new rubes/cattle to the Ponzi scheme called Civilization that we've only come to see as "permanent" because it's been happening non-stop over the past 12k years or so.
But all that is coming to an end, and not because of any Malthusian shit math or some conspiracy of the Club of Rome types or viruses or war or anything. It's coming to an end due to natural, organic reasons that Hans Rosling can explain better than I ever could.
No matter how high a tower is, it'll collapse when you kick out its foundation, and all of our 12k-long history is founded on a constantly expanding population (which constantly produces/consumes more resources).
But it'll all be over in about 50 years or so, and we're already feeling the effects. Shifting a billion or so migrants from Africa/Asia to Europe/Americas will only delay the inevitable. One day, really soon, we're going to be out of new people.
Just think for a minute about what that means - no need for more schools, more houses, more post offices, or more factories. No need to raze more forests to grow more food. And no more new people to rob, enslave, subjugate, or sacrifice.
There is gonna be a huge transformation, and I can't say how it will look when it's done.
But just look at the signs around us - fewer people want to work (aka do shit jobs) because they want recognition just for being themselves. And for many, this is already happening (including the author of this Substack).
Centralized forms of control of ALL kinds are disappearing, whether that's multilateral governments (like the EU or ECOWAS), the legacy media, or social media platforms. Likewise, more and more people are becoming more self-sufficient, whether that's growing their own food, generating their own power, or taking their kids out of (centralized) schools. More and more countries are opting out of centralized blocs, whether that's ECOWAS or SWIFT or NATO or you name it.
This has nothing to do with Marxist or capitalist theories or left vs right or any of that distracting nonsense. It's all predicated on the fact that, when people are no longer disposable, they can no longer be disposed of.
Even if you zoom in, you can see it everywhere you look - Israel is running out of Jews to prop up its regime. They're now resorting to drafting the ultra-religious, who have always been exempted, and at least a million Israelis have permanently decamped from the country (partly due to its economy cratering). And America is running out of bombs and bullets to give to Israel.
Either we transform into a world where autonomy and dignity for everyone becomes the natural (not enforced!) result of not having any more new disposable people OR the end-times wackos will kill us all with their nuclear weapons. I honestly hope it's the former, but considering the events of the past 24 hours, I fear it's the latter.
Fascinating expansive vision of the past - present - future!
The other thing I keep coming back to in reading both this and the author's vision and warning, is the inevitable unpredictable black swan events. We project into the future what we already know, what has already happened, but the future also holds that which we cannot possibly yet know which could change everything. There are many levels and layers of reality. There is the horizontal timeline and then there is vertical time which never ceases to stretch the imagination of what is possible.
What I so appreciate are Simplicius's and the many other visions brought to this Substack. Imagination. along with an embodied living experience of the sacredness of life on Earth, is perhaps the central root of creation/creativity, and is perhaps the greatest loss and disaster of "modern" western abstract, reductionist times .
Yes, the expansion of humanity's material culture, a.k.a. civilization, is based on the domestication of cereal crops, pulses, and other plants, and also on the domestication of animals, first for meat and then for labor. That's the neolithic agricultural revolution, and it began about 12,000 years ago. Along with the refinement of stone tools, followed by the discovery of metals (gold, copper, silver) and the invention of metallurgy to produce strong alloys (bronze, iron, steel), The accumulated developments led to social concentration and the early city-states such in Sumeria.
But all that material culture is not built on having a continually expanding population. It's the other way around: the existing population was exhausting the wild sources of animals and plants that supported hunter-gatherer bands. The fortuitous domestication of crops and animals (which occurred separately in time and place) is what allowed the human population to expand beyond its previous limits.
Now, once humans had trapped themselves into a dependence on crops and domesticated animals, it was hard and maybe impossible to go back. And improvements of technology have steadily allowed a larger and larger human population to exist.
But there is no getting around the material limits of a bounded planet, and the human population has grown far beyond the limits of what can be sustained. The human population must decline, and it will, whether gradually or catastrophically.
And while that will cause a lot of shifts in global economics, there will remain plenty of economic opportunities. What seems most likely to me is that the divergence between the very wealthy and very poor will continue to expand and that the mass of humanity will return to a feudal existence. At least, that is the path we are presently on.
Well, some people have calculated that the actual carrying capacity of Earth is several trillion (t) people. The limit is the ability of the planet to dissipate heat generated by those people (by their industry). To reach this high a number, we would need to undero a change comparable to the Agricultural revolution. But it is doable.
@groddlo
The obvious revolutionary change is accessing the energy & materials to be found outside Earth's gravity well, eventually leading to some meaningful % of us moving out there ourselves. It might take longer than the last paradigm shift did. It might well lead to those on top of the gravity well dropping rocks on the flat lander's heads over politics too. But the first asteroid prospecting missions are already in transit, some of us are "going there" if we don't crash or extinct ourselves first.
And once we've expanded to fill that niche? Emulate the trapped species from "The Mote in God's Eye"???
"The Moon is a Harsh Mistress", that did the Rock.
I remember the "Mote" story mostly for the "everyday Joe" who was very good at his job but wasn't at all interested in "Democracy" and was more than happy to leave management of the economy to the Aristocracy. He just wanted a world where he could advance and "just get along".
IOW: Xi
Haven't yet read that one. :) The change needs to be monumental to take us to the stars. :) Once there, I imagine there will be two kinds of people. On one hand, you'll have people that are at the edge of Humanity, pushing into the uninhabited space. These people will experience "growth" for millions or even billions of years into the future, as long as spacetime expansion allows them to keep jumping to the next galactic cluster. But the majority of people will be within the border region, meaning they will eventually plato at some population level. Eventually, even in space, we will reach limits of growth, even the border region of humanity expanding into the void.
@groddlo
Absent a major breakthrough in physics, I don't think anything but INFORMATION can be cost effectively sent across interstellar distances, let alone intergalactic. Of course, DNA is an information storage medium.
You must mean to take us BACK to the stars. We are all made of stars, of stardust, literally. The stars were our first home deep in our bones. Space is richly inhabited.
Name the one remaining part of the world with high birth rates. There is only one area left.
Even sub saharan Africa has started to hit the demographic transition. Afghanistan and some warfare/AIDS decimated areas still are over 40 births/1,000 population but this rate is not likely going to continue if those driving catastrophes end.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/annual-number-of-births-by-world-region
The Amishlands. Or the mormonlands too?
Good points, good arguments, I'm not convinced it'll go exactly that way. On one hand, Earth can probably support several trillion (with a t) people - if we live in archologies. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TqKQ94DtS54 On the other hand, space is pretty big. So, in terms of remaining growth potential, humanity didn't even start! xD But, at the same time, both arcologies and life in space require completely new technologies, of which at least life in space technology is comparable in importance to the yahoos of Anatolia. :) Arcologies may or may not be similarly important.
Without major changes, what you said will hold.
Really good thought-provoking response. I enjoyed reading. Thanks.
You started out strong, but then went "off course".
Yes certain forms of centralized control are disappearing, but in other cased they are reformulating to be a derivative of what used to be. The Banksters are being replaced by a benevolent aristocracy (China) that recognizes controlling "everything" is a losing proposition, but allowing "complete freedom" (Capitalism) to reign is going to lead to huge discrepancies in wealth that in the end will cause a breakdown in society (as in "The West").
It is a question of destroying the Oligarchy best represented by the Jewish-Zionists who promote genocide. A question of morality. Achieving a common understanding of every man's humanity while still offering everyone a better chance to advance.
Your "hippie-induced" fantasy of more people growing their own food flies in the face of the huge advancements China is making in growing more. Even in the US production is ever rising. If everyone was growing their own food as more than just a hobby the huge techo advances in Ag machinery would hardly be profitable.
What is happening in Israel is the self-destruction of a psychotic culture that even many Jews agree needs to be destroyed, just as Nazism was targeted, but which the US/CIA rescued and repurposed for its own goals. (Aaron Good). It has nothing to do with "the Fourth Turning".
Maybe we won't need "more" schools, but we will need "better" schools. No need for "more housing" but the need for "better housing" is still there.
I do agree with you about the "end-time wackos" and that brings us back to Israel and the Zionists. I think I already made my point.
I think you have missed the central point from Strauss-Howe. The idea is that it is mistaken to believe humanity is one big mass. The 4 generations are practically different species so as one dies out (Baby Boomers) the world tone and vibe shifts dramatically. The current system WILL disappear because the men who built it are dead and the men who currently manage it are dying. That shift is where opportunity is because the Zuck will never be weaker than he is now, comparatively, so the opportunity to take advantage of this shift to make your own base institution is never going to be greater.
You're repeating Simplicius thesis.
What gave you the impression I was disagreeing with Simplicius?
The Oligarcy and the Zionist-Jews need to be removed and Zuckerberg appears to me to be a Zionist-Jew.
What's your proposal for how to replace him?
Two main areas:
"It is a question of destroying the Oligarchy best represented by the Jewish-Zionists who promote genocide. "
It is already being destroyed, one aged life at a time. And when the cohort is entirely gone the world will have shifted, whether through whatever war emerges or circumstance.
"What is happening in Israel is the self-destruction of a psychotic culture that even many Jews agree needs to be destroyed, just as Nazism was targeted, but which the US/CIA rescued and repurposed for its own goals. (Aaron Good). It has nothing to do with "the Fourth Turning"."
Isreal is largely supported by Baby Boomers. The 4th turning coincides with the 'Elders', who in this case are boomers, realizing they are about to die and wanting to either double down in self indulgence or lead a moral crusade they don't have to personally fight in. It's entirely in keeping with the timeline that the waning of the Baby Boomers leads to one of their favorite states starting to wobble. Don't forget that jews went from destroying Spain to getting kicked out and Spain entering a golden age. Jews have been removed in this same tiresome cycle over 100 times, it would be ridiculous to say that this time is special in that regard, rather say that the same social forces are in play now as in then.
"What's your proposal for how to replace him?"
Create or assist alternative institutions that serve those cast out by Zuck. The thing about Zuck is he is the millenial anointed to power by the Baby Boomers who themselves are ridiculously powerful as a group compared to any group in world history. But that means as the generations turn Zuck will have to break away, in which case a shift for something nice may happen, or he will have to try to rule with the Boomer resources he's gathered. In that case it becomes more open competition but without the Boomer thumb on the scale because all the old institutions will be very degraded by then.
This is indeed a supercycle that the microcycle obscures, but does that obscure yet another? If humanity finds or creates fertile ground we could become trillions in a very short geologic timeframe.
Great comment. I checked your substack and like it, but would be kind enough to allow non-subscribers to comment there please?
I totally agree. In terms of Lewis Mumford, the "arrow of progress" is stopping.
The error had been made 12000 years ago, and the house is falling down.
Can we stop falling and stay for a while on some lower energy level? Maybe?
We can trace the "Vibe shift" of society, or at least the most recent shifts, to the rise of the financialisation of the economy and the destruction of traditional economics.
It started in 1999 with the "Greenspan Put", with major events occurring afterwards in 2007, 2008, 2015/16 and most recently, 2019/21/22. It is all linked together.
We are in the middle, or hopefully the tail-end, of a global inflationary event which was "opportunistically" created by something in the vicinity of 19 Trillion dollars of global COVID stimulus, or around 1/5th of global GDP. If you have been aware of what has been happening with the global (Western) economy over the past couple of decades then it makes perfect sense why it was needed.
As a result of the events of 2021/2022 the global (Western) financial system has been gifted roughly 5 years, more or less.
After the Greenspan Put, the financial system raced off in 1999, quickly peaked in 2006, attempted to be corrected in 2007, hiccupped as a result in 2008 (because there was far too much dependence on debt), and was subsequently rescued by 2010.
The financial system was in obvious decline from 2010 up to and including 2016, at which point all manner of weird and wonderful schemes were implemented like ZIRP, NIRP, TARP, QE, and many more to keep the debt growing and the wheels turning. The economy scraped along the bottom from 2016 to around 2018. Then it was rescued in 2021 with the largest amount of financial stimulus in all history.
And sometime around 2030 after conditions eventually get back to what they were in 2018/19, they'll do it all again. Because there is no actual alternative. All the people making the decisions quite like the way things are.
The Elohim worship cult is itching to drop a big boy on Persia to appease their dark masters, Armageddon here we come. The feeling of darkness that the woman at the start of the article expressed is seemingly only palpable to a chosen few, the many are still in a deep sleep. Another accompanying feeling being expressed by some, "I don't want to be here anymore". Time to leave the simulation.
That’s gonna end quite badly for them
Good write SIMPLICIUS!
The first quote you captured well - how more and more people feel that something is wrong and will culminate in something bad. And the collective feeling probably drives the human race through various cycles in history. The Fourth Turning theory sounds plausible but is a little too simple. And your examples are concentrated around the (very short) history of the United States. Translated into European perspective, Waterloo 1815 was a starting point for High which was followed by Awakening in revolutionary 1848. Unraveling cycle after German pushed back the French in 1871. Crisis came in 1914 and lasted until 1945.
You have probably read Oswald Spengler, Decline of the West, and he describes cycles in a longer perspective stating that the West would begin a decline around the year 2000 and steady decline for the next 200 years. Our history is obviously BOTH short generational cycles and longer structural and more unmanageable in the now of the moment.
I have studied what are called "spikes" in history or "turning points" and they are events that changed the course of history (or did they really?). In our world, where a person can hope for an 80-year lifespan in a reasonably mentally mature and healthy state, it is easy to mistake historical events for influencing long-term development. Take the Mauerfall in 1989 which many thought was the end of history and an eternally beautiful future. 12 years later we had 9/11 which extinguished all hope. And February 24, 2022 has taken us back to 1983 with nervous rulers on both sides of a mental iron wall.
In a larger perspective, however, these events have revealed the USA and the UK as the biggest conspirators in the West, even vis-à-vis the so-called allies in Europe.
Did you actually manage to read through both volumes of Decline of the West? if so, my hat's off to you. I've been plowing through it, steadily and intermittently - hoping to finish by 2028 (by my current reckoning. After all I read much in between, but this is like a multi-year project).
I do find the book(s) amazing, both in the depth of the analysis and the insights (some of which are surprising to me).
That said, this work pretty much predicts the spirit if not the exact nature of our decline, and we can see how our civilization kind of peaked at around the early 1900's (when Industrial revolution really started to pay major dividends) then hobbled along through two world wars before starting its all too visible decline.
I put one of the key inflection points, the place where we, as a civilization started losing our creative energy near the early 70's, for any number of reasons. My sign post is found in a work I am reading now called "The End of Science". Early 70's is when basic Physics stopped coming up with anything really new. Though to be fair, technology kept on moving along, therefore masking the loss of critical creative energy.
Other key things happened around that time as well (over a 5-7 year period) - Bretton woods, the shift away from the Gold standard, the first successes of the computer chips (sounds good, no?), the first defeat of the US in Vietnam, etc. All leading to the first Hollywood personality actually becoming president (something to think about) and ushering in Neoliberalism and the era of mad billionaires, leading to the present day.
The real decline is however marked with the degradation of Art and music. That's where we see the loss of creativity most clearly. people can quibble in the margins, but if one looks at the whole of Western Art, certain patterns become visible.
I actually read a single book - a translation into my native language. Would like to read the original German books but hey, as you say, it's no fun to read. I completely agree with your own interpretations and I am very much attached to the decline of art where I count Film and Music. We are truly at the end of time when it comes to art - terribly empty and degenerate. I have read a lot from witnesses and letter writers in 1913 and the summer of 1914. An incredible amount is recognizable from our time. The feeling that everything is calm but still gnawing anxiety and an unspoken threat of war. The strangest thing was reading about those who looked forward to the war to clear the air. There is also much worth reading about World War I conscientious objectors to join the war in Britain and their terrible fate. Wise people that no one listened to.
I think we are headed for a heavy fall - and if you think about it. The 1999 film Independence Day showed the same scenes as 9/11. Film after film for the past 25 years has only shown the downfall of civilization. Just as if "they" want to prepare the mass.
BTW, one of the surprises I got was in the Intro to the first volume - that's where he compared the forms tied to the earth and the ones who became "mobile". That surprised me because I didn't expect this kind of insight. Might be worth going back to read this passage again.
Confession: the other night I had a dream. A weird one, like my dreams sometimes are, places where I have no role at all other than an observer. In that dream, everyone on earth, all the humans, were turning into trees. Slowly, one by one. They became immobile and tethered to earth. Sometimes if two were fighting they became parts of the same tree so they didn't fight any longer.
Sounds nice, but I woke up disturbed. Not sure why. Must figure it out because it's what I do.
Though only you know the message in your dream, some thoughts come to me, some of which you no doubt know as a scientist. One is that we exhale carbon dioxide, while trees take in that carbon dioxide and exhale oxygen. A mature tree will absorb 48 pounds of CO2 from the atmosphere in a year. Symbiotically, trees transmute and exhale for us so that we can inhale that O2 to live. So it sounds like in a certain way we come together as one living organism. Among all the transgressions against life on Earth that we are witnessing, if we continue to destroy rain forests for oil and profit at the rate we are doing, human life and all life is threatened.
I think of Julia Butterfly Hill's unswerving passion to save Luna, the 1000 year old redwood tree, sitting up in it continuously for two years to stop the loggers. Luna is still standing. Those called to be environmentalists, animal rights activists, etc. are doing inestimable service for life on Earth, sometimes risking their lives. There is a beautiful tribe no one hears about, the U'wa, living in the Amazon who consider themselves guardians of their homeland, the trees and the oil beneath them which they call the blood of the Earth, even if they die trying, and some have:
https://www.lifegate.com/uwa-resistance
The other connection I felt with "all the humans turning into trees...parts of the same tree...[becoming] immobile and tethered to the earth" was the exponentially increasing number of refugees and migrants fleeing their homelands, becoming rootless, and the primal human need and longing for roots. To be without the trees is to be without roots - I think of the deep grief expressed by so many Palestinians as the Israelis wantonly destroyed 800,000!!! of their beloved olive trees, some 1000 years old. Trees are our elders and teachers - of deep character and integrity, generosity, selfless service, continual organic change/metamorphosis - and as refuge. It brought to my mind the ancient Ents in Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. deeply tied/rooted to the Earth for thousands of years, but waking and becoming mobile and feared, like Vishnu, when disaster threatened Middle Earth.
I hope some of this speaks to you.
It certainly speaks to me! Lovely description of our connection to the All. Rootlessness is anti-human and a trick from landowners and the more modern landlords and property owners who siphon money from people without the means to build their own roots. I don't think Spengler meant that in his book and many times he is impossible to understand. I like your interpretation more. And there may be a deeper agenda in the rootlessness that is spreading in the world. You shouldn't own anything and be happy according to the WEF....
Deforestation and predatory exploitation of trees for unnecessary consumption is sick. I'm sick of seeing renovation programs where you tear out fully functional kitchen cabinets, doors and shelves and just smash them to pieces. I have cut down trees myself and always feel a sense of unease when the saw blade enters the tree trunk.
I can understand that sense of unease when cutting down trees in our times. It comes down to intention, the purpose and need, and especially respect. I remember reading how the Native Americans always thanked the trees they felled and used, the animals they killed, the elements. Humility and respect.
I feel the same about renovations and all the unnecessary waste. A product perhaps of our capitalist society focused and functioning entirely on (and systematically teaching) greed and consumption. Strange when you think of it always wanting something "new." Always wanting. There's an inherent disrespect for the gifts from nature and all we have compared to so many in the world. A lack off maturity. There's something pleasurable in the cabinets getting a bit worn with use and touch over time. They carry stories and history.
I'm intrigued about Spengler and will look for his book - Thank you.
I love your interpretations! and the thoughts that go with it. Can I please hire you as my dream interpreter (trust me - there's more where that one about trees came from....I am not sure what well these spring from - must be from even deeper in my subconscious than I realize).
As I read your comment, another tid-bit came back to me - the roots. I was watching a scene where people were sitting around a large dinner, or picnic table. Some were bickering among themselves, some were silent. But I then noticed that they started springing roots, straight into the earth where they sat. At one point I had a vision of very deep intertwined roots. That part of it was a bit comforting. The rest not so much because life as we knew it was going away, or transforming into something else, something less mobile.
Also it wasn't going to happen to everyone. Some were going to remain "mobile" but they were going to be lonely.
This was definitely one of my end days dreams 9of which I have one i can recall at least once a month. Different scenarios, different outcomes, sometimes welcome, sometimes not. It's a bit like I am looking in from without on the Simulation that I think we may be (not sure; 66.5% confidence only) and wondering how to wind it down so another one can be started.
For the record, I do love trees and my heart breaks for every tree that's cut down. I can't even bear to read about what they are doing to the Amazon forests. And what you said about the Palestinians' olive groves really touched me. I can hear them cry in my mind's eye and know it to be an enormous crime against humanity and nature (simulation whispering in my ear: "shucks, our jews model has gone bad; can it be refurbished? updated? or is it best to turn it over, delete the whole thing and reset with an improved model?").
I do appreciate the thought you gave to this.
One of these days, I'll contribute a piece based on that Spengler introduction that so captivated me. Almost no one knows about those passages, so perhaps I should, shouldn't I? may be that's what the dream was urging me to do - get to work, finally...
Dream on and come back! Those passages are not incomprehensible but difficult to understand from Spengler's perspective. One thing is certain - they speak to one's soul and heart. And there is much to be gleaned from the German Romantics (artists and poets) when it comes to trees and nature - think dear Oswald was influenced by them. And Germans are called "forest people" with a mysterious bond to the dark forest.
Being a retired Jungian Sandplay and Dream Analyst and trauma therapist, I just couldn't help but jump in when I read your dream, so I'm happy my reflections were welcome. The symbolic realm is my universe of choice ever since childhood and I love to roam those worlds purely for pleasure these days.
Your dream(s) seem to me like they may be coming directly from the Earth and the trees themselves as well as whatever more personal message from your subconscious, both, especially with your role as observer in the dreams. Perhaps the trees recognize you are receptive, ready to receive their message and are reaching out to tell you something that may become clearer with time. The living Earth needs our collaboration more than ever right now.
You describe the people turning into trees as immobile and tethered to the earth. Trees are in a sense tethered to the Earth (we all are by gravity) but are never immobile. Everything about the tree is growing, moving, morphing, budding, reaching, swaying, digging, stretching, changing with the seasons, from the tiniest acorn to the tallest ancient trees, and as your dream tells you, intertwining in their roots with other trees (not to mention with fungi and water and breaking up minerals and if need be concrete). They are busy hosting innumerable other species, from microorganisms and insects to birds, gibbons, bearcats, kangaroos, snakes, squirrels, leopards, honeybees etc. etc. even in dead trees, and they offer safety and shelter to humans as well. BTW my own name, liana, in Spanish means the vines that climb up the trees in the rainforests, so I feel a close connection with trees so to speak.
One last allusion, when you described the people sitting, eating, then springing roots deep into the earth, I thought immediately of the great Ash tree Yggdrasil, the World Tree, the Tree of Life that centers and balances our world from Norse Mythology (close to the German) and which connects the Heavens, Earth, Underworld and the 9 realms. It's branches high in the heavens where the celestial bodies can rest and two eagles keep watch over Earth, the trunk resting on the earth and the roots stretching down to the underworld. It has 3 central roots - one reaches down to a spring under which lives a dragon; the second stretches to Mimir's Well,the well of memory and wisdom; the third reaches to the well of Urd tended by the three fates, past, present and future. They spin the fate of men and also sprinkle the tree daily with water from the well feeding every living thing. Some becomes honey. Two swans float in this water. So that's a taste of what this myth has to offer and it might give you some clues as to what the roots of the people in your dream are reaching for.
I believe this battle for the soul of the world and for humanity will be won not by force of arms (we're no match) but by ever expanding consciousness and creative imagination in collaboration with Mother Nature who has the greatest stake and the greatest love for all her kingdoms. Versus those encased in dense ignorance/unconsciousness grown stiff and cold, immobile in the true sense, but trying with their fast cold hard projectiles of bullets and bombs to give themselves the fleeting illusion of power and aliveness.
Thank you for the opportunity to let my imagination roam and replenish myself in the face of the heating up harsh realities the world and our brothers and sisters around the world, especially right now the Palestinians, are facing each day. Strange thought, but maybe we who the dreams are speaking to could learn healthy, organic mobility, rooted to the particular plot of land we are given and love, from the trees. It will be interesting to see where your dreams - and writing - take you.
You know, there is always some truth in dreams. It could be you who wants people to stop for a second, realize where we are going and slowly transform themselves from stressed consumers to harmoniously living people who enjoy life and the earth. Then we need to get rid of debt, interest, greedy billionaires and global corporations that are more powerful than our own countries' governments and treat us like stupid worker ants. It is greed and lust for power that drives all these hidden agendas and deep-state formations completely contrary to the needs and destiny of humanity.
For me, trees are fantastic creations as they have sometimes stood in the same place for hundreds of years and seen human generations come and go. Imagine if we could share thoughts with trees. Recently, the so-called research has finally understood that trees "communicate" with each other and cooperate and can form a "family" of trees in, for example, a grove of trees on a field. No tree sticks out or outside the shape, but they form a unit.
The UK and US are pretty bad all right, the one transmuted into the other. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0013rrw
The mentality from that little island UK has certainly transmuted to US.
England always used their invulnerability from land invasions to waging war in other countries and continents. Naval power was the only thing needed. The US has a whole continent of its own, more or less secured, which is impossible to invade. They have their own resources and assets that make them self-sufficient. Still, they have to keep all other countries down and maintain their upper hand. The key is the Eurasian continent which they want, just like the English in their time, to divide and hold down with constant wars and conflicts.
The power struggle against China is just the same game that the British played against Spain, the Netherlands, France, Germany and Russia.
Oh yeah, it all started when Gazans humiliated their captors and tortures in October only. That's more profoundly stupid than most Americans could ever care to realise.
If not for that "only", I would think of you as an idiot. But since you put an "only" in there, maybe you're just being ironic. :)
I actually believe that there is something else afoot (in addition to the new Techno-Feudalism, as Varoufakis calls it). I think we are witnessing the actual stages of collapse of the Western Civilization, with all that this entails. Aided by AI, of course.
That nasty, grotesque scene from the Paris Olympics opening ceremony is a perfect representation of that collapse - put on full display., just in case anyone missed the message.
The absence of Russia in these games is, however, another hint - the coming of the Great De-Coupling. I maintain that this de-coupling will be deeper than people now imagine, but it will be necessary
Who said the line that "the Old is dying and the new is not born yet. It is time for monsters"?
@Proterran
Antonio Gramsci quote? Need to locate where that came from, but:
"The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born: now is the time of monsters."
Spot on!
These dangerous dimwits don't believe in God but want to be gods when AI already knows God's address.
The second part is a cheap rip of the the Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood. Now, don't get me wrong, it's a great anime, with the science vs religion dialectic as its main point, but if you're going to rip it off, at least give give the devil his due.
Words definitely worth sharing. Thank you. Your [quote of a] quote of Chesterton, and its context (I mean, your whole article), to my mind, makes some connection with the analysis given by Jonathan Pageau on the abomination at the Paris 2024 opening ceremony, here: https://youtu.be/rckBhO23cIA?si=SV0iPg3zthugYvTv. I would appreciate very much to read you on this.
I generally agree with the premise here, I've read the books. To me "centralization, be it in Government or the corporate world is not a good thing. It is where a few people make decisions for the many with less than positive results regardless of good intentions (and nefarious ones as well). Present examples are the U. S. Federal government, the EU, mainstream media, and worse of all the consolidation of local community schools which has destroyed are education system and has led us to this fourth turning. Our leadership of these centralized entities appear to have no basic foundation of knowledge relative to the decisions they make.
Yes, war is coming, and it will be the stimulus for "hard times that make for good men who will lead the world back to good times".
It is exactly as you describe it. All development was based on population growth. We have reached a time when, for the first time on a scale of almost the entire world, the population is starting to decrease. In such a case, all the development theories that have been presented so far cease to be true. From a technical point of view, there is no way to maintain the existing infrastructure - it begins to fall apart. Seeing hope in WA (from a SF novel from the 70s) is a dead end. AI needs energy. How to provide energy when everything is falling apart? Now the thought occurred to me that there were great extinctions on Earth, after which life flourished again. Aren't we currently in the phase of the great extinction of humanity as we have known it for 12,000 years? The above is such a rational analysis of what is happening. The analysis would look completely different if we used the orthodox Christian "field theory" to explain what is happening, i.e. the eternal struggle between good and evil, God and Satan for human souls. Christianity explains very elegantly what is happening in the world, but then we must take into account the action of supernatural powers.
Previously, I thought a lot about Strauss-Howe, and concluded they have it a bit backwards. This is, I believe, the correct interpretation: there are only two cycles, Individualism and Collectivism, each lasting about 40 years. In Individualism (Awakening and Unraveling), the winning life strategy is to take more from the system than you put back into it. It's best to be a net leecher. This obviously drains the system, which becomes unable to serve anyone and when enough time passes, the winning strategy flips to it's exact opposite: the winning life strategy is to feed the system, to give back more than you take. Collectivism (Crisis and High). The win comes from the fact the system is then going to protect you from all the leechers. And this goes on for a long time until eventually feeding the system becomes counterproductive and the winning strategy again flips into Individualism.
I like this reading of the turnings, thank you for that contribution I will remember it