A new Art Director

The national theatre in Lisbon has a new art director. I learned this from my stepdaughter who's an actress with ambitions to one day stand on that stage herself. Having gotten off to a good start, her dream may well come true, so it was with more than a passing interest that she read the news. Making it all the more relevant, she happened to have discussed the candidates with her colleagues back when the opening was first announced.

All of her colleagues at the time were well established actors, and they all agreed that one of the candidates would be an absolute disaster. As it happens, that candidate is the one now announced as the winner.

This came as a shock to my stepdaughter, and I'm sure her colleagues are as dismayed as she is. However, I would have predicted this outcome based on what I wrote on this blog almost two years ago.

The worst candidate for any public position is by far the most likely to win because every aspect of public life has become thoroughly corrupted by a desire to control and humiliate. It's all about power, and nothing says power quite like humiliation. That's why the new art director for the national theatre is the least liked candidate. He is sure to degrade and humiliate the actors with repugnant pieces of avant-garde nonsense, dressed up as somehow edgy and progressive. This will be equally distasteful to the audience, who will be shamed into liking it, or otherwise risk being labelled homophobic and intolerant.

But this has nothing to do with tolerance or open mindedness. Portraying gay people as clowns, and pretending that infantilism is somehow intelligent, is not about breaking down barriers. None of this serves any morally upright purpose. There's no sensitivity or subtlety about clownish vulgarities. On the contrary. Such portrayals do more harm than good towards the people being portrayed.

The only real purpose of this is humiliation. Those in power get the pleasure of humiliating both the artists and the paying public, as well as the tax payers who are forced to pay for this even if they don't intend to go and see any staged performances. On top of this, the performances are likely to sow seeds of resentment and hate. It's a win win in all respects as far as power and control is concerned. However, it's a great loss to the rest of us who would rather go and see something beautiful, sensitive and thought provoking.

My stepdaughter

Dread and the Magic 3%

Here's an interesting article with some reflections on how to fight the tyranny currently being pushed upon us. I don't agree with the author's proposed strategy, though. It's too confrontational for my taste. There's no point in provoking anger. A sense of dread can be installed with much less conflict, and with just as much impact. That being said, I'm not telling anyone not to do as the author proposes if they so wish. It's just not my style to be overly confrontational. I prefer more defensive strategies. However, in one respect, I do prefer an offensive strategy, and that is how I dress when out among random people in the streets. The dandy style I adopted this spring was effective in shutting down hobby fascists, and I believe my don't do drugs campaign is working as intended as well.

My don't do drugs T-shirt has an embroidered emblem of a skull and a syringe. The message is clear. Experimental use of drugs may lead to death. To underscore this message, I use the mask of the beast whenever I feel compelled to mask up.

The embroidery is subtle. One has to look in order to see it, and I've noticed that this has worked as intended. Most people pass me by without seeing it. Only a few see it, and they react by looking extra hard to see if the message really is what it appears to be. Once this is confirmed, they quickly look away. A sense of dread has been installed. They're tossed out of balance, as it were.

This is the big difference between dread and fear. Fear provokes an immediate reaction; often a violent one. Dread, on the other hand, lingers without provoking anger. It installs a lasting unease that's hard to get rid of. Dread spreads through the unconscious. It appears in dreams. It paralyzes. Once dread is installed, the victim will go a long way to avoid the subject altogether, and that's precisely what we want at this stage of our confrontation.

Dread can also be dished out through defensive rhetoric. The defensive nature of it is all the more impactful because the message is actively drawn out of us by our opponents. Having pushed us to the point that we must make a stand, we can bring in dread by the use of the magic 3%. We can tell people that the vaccine shortens people's lives by about 3% on average. Some will not be adversely affected, but a few people will die way sooner than they would have if not vaccinated.

This is a provocative statement that will have people react in horror and anger. But because of the stated 3% we can quickly retreat. It's not like we said 10% or 50%, or something outrageous like 90%. We said 3%. That's borderline insignificant, and we can calm everybody down by saying this.

We can also say that this is our own best guestimate based on what we've read and observed. It's not like there's any science backing our claim. We're simply explaining our position to remain unvaccinated. Surely, every vaccinated person out there must have thought about this and concluded differently. Ours is merely a difference in opinion.

However, most people have not thought very deeply about their decision. The 3% figure sticks. It lingers, and every time these people feel a discomfort of some kind, they cannot help thinking that they may be the unfortunate 3%. They too will want to avoid the whole vaccine debate. With a bit of luck, people will stop watching the pro-vaccine propaganda, and the whole vaccine status thing becomes a non-issue.

The 3% number is not simply pulled out of a hat. Anyone who've paid attention must have noticed that it is a recurring number in propaganda. Together with it's twin, the 97%, 3% appears whenever near certainty is being alluded to. There's no coincidence that climate propaganda talks of 97% consensus. Nor is it a coincidence that 3% of all elderly people hit by the plague end up dead, and that the vaccines were said to be 97% effective when they were rolled out.

3% occupies a place between harmless and dangerous. 3% is the moderate number, just like 97% is the moderate number for certainty. These numbers can be tossed around with a high degree of subjectivity, because the numbers themselves are so moderate. We don't have to have any backing for any of our claims. We're merely defending whatever position we've taken personally, and it happens to be based on a strong but modest gut feel.

Keeping hobby fascists at bay

A Convenient Excuse

The plague has provided cover for a lot of nefarious maneuvering by power hungry politicians and their corporate backers. Many things that used to be self evident liberties are now only allowed by permission. Totalitarian measures have been put in place where freedom once was a matter of course. A cup of coffee at any café in Paris is now only permitted on display of a valid vaccine passport.

All it took was a virus marginally more dangerous than a common cold, mixed with a generous portion of propaganda, and everyone gave up their freedoms without a fight. All sorts of damage has been wrought by those in power, and the consequences have just started to show. There's more to come, and unlike the flu itself, this will be felt directly by everyone. There will be no need for propaganda to prop up this narrative.

China is using the plague as an excuse to shutter ports, thus disrupting supply chains. The real reason for these actions is not the flu, but deliberate sabotage of trade. China is at war with the US and the world at large, and its main weapon is economic destruction. It hands this out through propaganda and direct interference in supply lines. Propaganda related to the flu is dished out to the rest of the world where corrupt leaders distribute it to its population for personal gains.

Once the propaganda is accepted as truth, supply lines can be disrupted with the flu as an excuse, and the result of this will be shortages and higher prices. This phase of the war has just started, so the shortages and price rises are yet to come. The timing appears to be tuned towards deliveries in November and December when disruption will have the greatest impact, making Christmas hard on everybody.

The next step in the war is likely to be actual shooting. That will happen when the vaccines taken by US troops this fall kicks in with maximum damage. Demoralized and broken, the fighting spirit will be low. There will be an awareness that Paris is less free than Kabul, and that everyone is corrupt and a liar. Why bother to fight when the enemy is no worse than the people in charge?

However, things may not go as planned. There's a weakness in this that can be taken advantage of by those set on liberty. Shortages and price rises will distract from the flu and render the propaganda so much less effective. All we need to do is to keep our narrative low key and consistent.

Focus on a few facts, and stay firm. State the obvious whenever pressed: The plague is not very dangerous. The reactions are overblown and destructive. We suffer while gaining nothing.

This will fall on deaf ears now, but will nevertheless be registered in people's minds, and we'll be vindicated this fall. Our decision to stay unvaccinated will no longer seem so crazy. Our prediction of a hot war in the near future may even be listened to, as well as our reasons for staying out of any such conflict.

Liberty is found in our community more than in the nation state. It's the local culture that defines what's allowed and what's not, and this is on full display in Kabul right now. There are a few curious things to note about the Taliban takeover in Kabul. The first one being that the Taliban leader is of a very different kind than the Taliban leader of 20 years ago. Back then, the leader was a primitive cave man with no real vision of anything. Now, the leader appears to be very much a man of the world, with diplomatic skills and ties to both China and Russia.

Secondly, Afghan TV is still employing women. The crackdown on women, entertainment and music is not as fierce as we might have feared. Taliban itself appears to have moderated itself, and that can only be attributed to a shift in culture. For all its faults, 20 years of US presence in Afghanistan appears to have made an impact.

My guess is that the Taliban will see itself forced to moderate itself in cities such as Kabul. They will not do so willingly. But the alternative will be more intense opposition, which in turn leads to the sort of chaos that ruins a leader's international reputation. The Taliban leader is captured by his own ambitions. He must make sure that Afghanistan, and above all Kabul, remains relatively peaceful. To score extra points, the Taliban leader may push to make Kabul look more civilized than Paris. That would serve both the Taliban leader and his Chinese and Russian allies well in any upcoming war.

The lesson here is that we don't have to worry about external enemies, because such enemies will have to moderate themselves in the face of local culture. There's no point in going to a foreign land to fight for liberty. A far better strategy is to stay at home and make sure that the local community is well equipped to take care of its own. It doesn't matter who wins or loses a war in a distant land. All that matters is that we keep our community as strong and free as possible.

The real enemy in any war is not the foreign entity but our own nation state, which always seizes on the opportunity to restrict freedoms at home. Hence, a war of no direct danger to our community should be avoided. Not even a spectacular terrorist attack should convince us otherwise. It's not like the bombing of some building somewhere is of any great danger to a local community. However, we know that the inevitable over-reaction by the power hungry is a danger, and hence the real threat to our community.

Military victory or defeat only shines in the moment. There's no lasting legacy from such events. The culture remains as long as communities remain. The culture can even remain beyond the existence of the original carriers of the culture in question. This can be observed in countries like Hungary and Finland, where the local gene pool is German and Swedish respectively. However, the language and culture of these places remain different.

What happened in both Hungary and Finland was an initial clean sweep to power of an invading force from the east, followed by a gradual influx from the west. Hungary and Finland have seen no total victories on its soil since the initial onslaught some two thousand years ago, and remained thus culturally intact through the subsequent influx. The gene pool from the original invaders became in this way diluted to the point of being virtually nonexistent. But at no point were the original invaders slaughtered or driven to extinction. They married into the influx. The invaders still exist. They are merely diluted to the point of not being visible. However, the language and culture of these places remains strangely eastern. There's a fierceness to the Hungarians and the Finns that isn't mirrored in the Germans and the Swedes who act differently in the face of aggression.

As individuals, we'll all be diluted through our descendants. We will exist as long as there are descendants. There will also be legacy. Even those with no children will live on in the local culture. Hence, we should focus on this rather than battles and wars that only shine bright in the moment. Far better to do as the Hungarians and Finns have done up through the ages. Defend staunchly the local community and culture, and everything else falls into place on its own.

Liberty

Truth and Consistency

What separates a lie from the truth is that a lie breaks with reality while truth doesn't, and one of the defining characteristics of reality is consistency. That's why we pay attention to consistency in stories we are told. If there's an inconsistency, we know that there's something not quite right about the story.

Unfortunately, the idea that consistency is part of reality has been challenged over the last century. When a paradox was discovered in quantum physics at the start of the 20th century, the ensuing debate led to the astonishing conclusion that reality is in fact paradoxical. Instead of the common sense conclusion that the paradox was a sign of error, the wise men decided to declare themselves right nevertheless. Instead of admitting that something was wrong with their theory, they declared the world paradoxical to the point of being unknowable.

This decision has had a profound impact on theoretical physics, as well as politics and economy. Once the idea was accepted that reality is paradoxical, and hence unknowable, the world of academia started to allow for inconsistencies. This opened for wild ideas like the possibility of shaping reality through narrative, which in turn was welcomed by politicians and financial charlatans. A century later, we live in a world where nothing is certain, not even our gender or race. It's all whatever we choose it to be.

However, there never were any good reasons to declare the world paradoxical. There were scientists at the time who pointed out alternatives, and I've written two books on this myself. Every aspect of quantum physics can be explained in non-paradoxical ways. My conclusion is that the world is most definitely not a paradox. Reality is consistent. A paradox, when found, is proof of an error.

Our common sense intuition is right, and it will be increasingly important to us as we progress into what's becoming an increasingly mad world. We must pay close attention to the consistency of stories, and treat anything inconsistent with great prejudice, because an inconsistency indicates a lie, and hence a conflict with reality. If we go along with it, we might find ourselves in trouble.

Conversely, we have to be consistent ourselves. We too have an agenda, and the way to build credibility around it is to keep it consistent. We cannot on the one hand claim that the Delta variant is harmless, and then go ahead an lament the fact that Obama's birthday bash seems to have spread the virus. At most, we can point out the hypocrisy of the event. But to lament what we would otherwise tone down serves nothing for our credibility.

Party politics is rife with this sort of inconsistencies. The blue team will point out all sorts of things in the red team while allowing blue team members a free pass, and visa versa. The best way to avoid this trap, is to stay away from party politics. The anarchist position is in this respect useful. It makes it easier to see the errors in thinking in both teams. We avoid making the mistake of touting inconsistencies. We also avoid the error of doing something simply because all our team members are doing it.

Consistency in itself is not truth, but an inconsistency is proof of an error. There's no way to prove anything simply by telling a consistent story. My theory on physics is consistent, so it's not dead on arrival. It also conforms to reality as observed. Yet, this too doesn't prove it right. All we can say about it is that it isn't an obvious lie. It's a plausible alternative to what we know to be wrong due to its inherent paradox, namely currently accepted quantum physics.

This holds for any story that we want to convey. For it to be believable under scrutiny, it must be consistent. It must also reflect reality. We must refrain from the temptation to throw in a lie or two in order to make the narrative more compelling. Such tricks may work for short term gains, but they erode our credibility. It's better to be the honest guy that's vindicated with time than the clever one with passionate followers, but no staying power.

Dawn

Dawn - By Jessie Eastland - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, Link

The Problem with Lies

Sudden panic is a curious thing to see, especially in cases where the situation at hand was as easy to predict as it has been in Kabul. How was it that so many people lulled themselves into believing that things would continue as normal without direct support from the US military?

Deep down, everyone now in panic mode must have understood the consequences of what was happening. Otherwise, there would be no panic. But why was there such a delay between the announced retreat of US forces and the response in the general public? Why didn't people take more immediate action? Why this wait for reality to stare them in the eye before action is taken?

The answer to this can be found in the way lies fester in a society. The mechanism is simple and universal. It's also very dangerous, so it's worth a closer look. Taking Afghanistan as an example, we can imagine the events leading up to the current chaos.

The US decided to set up a loyal Afghan army, consisting of pro-western soldiers. A typical recruit would be someone with an interest in keeping the Status Quo. There would also be people volunteering simply for the pay. However, even the ones with the least conviction would tell everyone else that they are dedicated and ready to fight. When the major is asked to judge the morale of his troops, he gets the plain answer from his troops that they are highly motivated.

The major may know that there's a degree of deception in his troops' answer, but the official answer reflects well on him, so he reports that his troops are well motivated. He might add that some could do with a little more training and encouragement, but the overall morale of his troops are good.

The generals and intelligence officers get this feedback from every unit. They may find it all overly optimistic. But again, the feedback is so positive that even with a caveat, the overall picture looks robust. There's no way the Afghan army will be defeated for at least a year or two. The US can pull out all its troops, and the debacle, if it's ever to materialize, will happen long after the troops are gone. There will be no political blowback. The time delay between the US withdrawal and the eventual fall of Afghanistan to Taliban forces will be too long to be noticed by US voters.

This is all great news to the president of the US, who confidently proclaims that the withdrawal of US troops will be without adverse consequences. Why shouldn't he? This is a truth received from highest authority. Surely, his own intelligence services aren't lying.

The president is right. His intelligence services are telling him what they know from carefully collected data. The problem isn't that the intelligence services are lying. The problem is that their data is incorrect. The original respondents were all lying, and nobody caught this crucial point. Not even the Afghan soldiers themselves.

Each soldier in the Afghan army knows that they themselves are showing off, and pretending to be more motivated than they are. But they are comforted by the fact that everybody else seems at least as motivated as themselves. They might suspect that there's a bad apple here and there, but the overall morale is high, and this is what they tell their family and friends. There's also a lot of shiny new military equipment, and no lesser authority than the US president himself has told the world that the Afghan army is a major force, way stronger than Taliban.

But when push comes to shove, and fighting breaks out, there's disarray. Everyone was relying on everyone else to do the dangerous jobs. But no-one is leading the way. Everyone hunkers down, and they realize that everyone else is as poorly motivated as they are themselves, so they surrender.

There's disbelief in Kabul. Surely, this was a one off. There must have been unusually intense fighting. Let's wait and see what happens next.

But nothing improves, and there's all of a sudden a mad rush to get out. What could not happen is happening nevertheless. Reality was not what was presented on TV. Reality was the rumors that everyone ignored, and this realization strikes everybody more or less at the same time. All of a sudden, there's panic.

However, the Afghan army is not the only organization currently in the grip of delusion and self deception. There are clear signs of madness in Washington DC, and the financial markets are no less insane. This in turn, explains the level of delusion in the population at large. Everyone is lying to everyone else, so no-one knows for sure what's going on.

Those tuned into official channels are the most delusional, because many in these channels are themselves largely oblivious to their own delusion. News readers are vaccinated. They are also scared by what they learn from official sources. So they lean heavily towards pro-vaccine stories.

As for the financial markets, the most delusional are the ones taking the words of central bankers and politicians as truth. The ones tuned into official channels are again the dupes.

There will be a day of reckoning when all of these lies will be exposed, and the exit will be no more orderly than the one we're witnessing in Kabul. Panic will set in when it's too late.

To protect ourselves from this kind of delusion, we must listen to rumors, and look around for evidence contrary to the official narrative. How many people died in the pandemic? How much money has been printed since last year? How many do we know to have become seriously ill, despite being relatively young and fit? Where is the Dow/Gold ratio? Do we know anyone that got ill after taking the vaccine?

Never trust official sources over what we see and hear ourselves. Never trust anything that isn't honest and upright because truth is always compromised where ethics are lacking. Trust in Nature, aka God.

The unraveling of the Afghan army is an omen of things to come. We're about to meet God, and the only way to protect ourselves from what's coming is to be firmly on the side of reality. No amount of delusion and fakery can keep reality at bay. In fact, times of total delusion are signs of imminent collapse. Something spectacular is about to happen, and it won't be pretty. But those who have properly protected themselves will be able to watch in awe without too much fear.

Sovereign

By Heritage Auctions for image, Mary Gillick for coin - Newman Numismatic Portal, Public Domain, Link

Backed by the Mighty American Military

So it appears that Kabul has already fallen to the Taliban. The US backed Afghan army didn't last more than a few days when left to stand on its own two feet. The will to fight was simply not there, and without a will to fight, no amount of money and military equipment will save anyone from defeat.

The debacle in Afghanistan is terrible news for all things backed by US military force, not least the dollar which derives its strength from the military.

The US dollar serves as the world's premier reserve currency largely due to the might of the US military. The US dollar is a faith based fiat currency. Its value is dependent on the idea that the US can collect taxes from its citizens and demand tribute from vassal countries. However, with its military now humiliated by a ragtag army of goat herders, that faith is worn thin. The sheer speed of the collapse is further reason to worry.

Kabul looks to become at least as bad for the US as was Saigon back in 1972. The knock on effect for the dollar is likely to be correspondingly bad. From 1972 to 1980, gold went up by ten times from $63 to $630 per ounce. Are we going to see $17,500 gold by 2030? Time will tell, but history suggests that it will be so.

Federal reserve note

By National Museum of American History - Image by Godot13, Public Domain, Link

Defensive Rhetoric

So, it's come to this: Almost any skepticism towards totalitarian overreach by government is now considered potential terrorism. Any form of organized objection to such measures will get us on the potential terrorist list. However, this is not going to work very well for the totalitarians. Especially the meek will dodge this bullet, because they do not engage in large scale protests. Instead, they influence people in their own network so as to render the enemy impotent.

It should be noted that it is the enemy that is currently engaging in hyperbole, and as such, they are hurting their own credibility. All that's needed to counter this hyperbole is to tone things down. That way, we become the measured and reasonable adults in the room, exposing the frantic fear mongers as scared children.

Our strategy is defensive. We start by ignoring their childish rants. Then we ask them to tone things down a notch. Are they seriously accusing us adults of being potential terrorists?

The more we turn the plague into a non-issue, the stronger our position gets, so it's important not to start any arguments. Nobody listens to arguments, so it's better to avoid the subject as much as possible. When this becomes impossible, focus on practical matters. Make it clear to everyone that our only concerns about the plague are the restrictions put upon us by overreacting policy makers.

If the conversation nevertheless turns personal, explain to our opponents that the vaccine is neither effective nor safe. The Delta variant is more dangerous to the vaccinated than the unvaccinated. Leaky vaccines cause viruses to mutate.

Having stood our ground firmly, we've finally hit back with hard facts, to which they will recoil in disbelief. That's when we can offer to send them links. Having taken the offensive position, our opponents cannot very well decline our offer, and we can therefore send them the following:

1. NHS document proving that Delta is most dangerous to the vaccinated.
2. Research paper concluding that leaky vaccines produce variants.

It may be tempting to gloat at this point, and tell our opponents off. However, we should keep ego under wraps and instead focus on toning things down. We should once again point out that the whole thing is overblown. The plague isn't very dangerous, and the only problem is the constant meddling by scared politicians. Things would improve a lot in the world if people simply grew up and stopped being so childish.

Enjoying a cup of coffee