Brand the Enemy: “Anonymous accusations of sexual impropriety work as a powerful smear tactic for multiple reasons. People are naturally sympathetic to women, and naturally jealous of promiscuous men. Through selective presentation of details and deliberately emotional language, it is possible to present almost any relationship as abusive, exploitative, or controlling. There are no clearly agreed-upon rules anymore for what is acceptable or unacceptable in sexual interactions, so the threat of infractions hangs in the air at all times. This disturbing reality leads to strenuous efforts to distance oneself from the prospect of facing equivalent claims.”
California Dreaming: “California today is at a crossroads. Will it be able to reclaim its former glory, or will it continue to decline? Time will tell. The once great state is now ravaged by poverty and corruption. The glamour of Hollywood and the prosperity of the gold rush and railroad seem like distant memories, preserved only in film. The pension obligations of its bureaucracy are in danger of going unfunded, while unions wield their power to prevent necessary changes. The Golden State is setting itself up for a catastrophic reckoning, but perhaps that is the only way it can be revived. Like an overgrown forest, California needs a firestorm to raze it, so that seeds of the future can be sown once again.”
Giant Mushrooms Reigned the Earth: “Once upon a time, over 400 million years ago, giant mushrooms ruled the Earth. These towering fungi, known as Prototaxites, were the tallest organisms on land at the time, reaching heights of up to 24 feet (8 meters). They were also incredibly wide, with trunks that could measure up to 3 feet (1 meter) in diameter. A chemical analysis has shown that the 20-foot-tall (6-metre) organism with a tree-like trunk was a fungus that became extinct more than 350 million years ago.”
Is Consciousness a Part of the Universe? “Paul Draper, a philosopher at Purdue University…talked about [an]…idea known as ‘psychological ether theory’—essentially that brains don’t produce consciousness but rather make use of consciousness. In this view, consciousness was already there before brains existed, like an all-pervasive ether. If the idea is correct, he writes, ‘then (in all likelihood) God exists.'”
Jung vs. Freud – Undermined by Winnicott (Science vs. Mysticism; Materialism vs. Spiritualism; Practice vs. Theory): “Deleuze and Guattari frame Jung as a thinker grounded in the ‘outside,’ culture, history, i.e., a champion of esoteric yet epistemologically sound materialism, etc. With this gesture they oppose him to Freud, a thinker they understand as unwittingly mired in the epistemological error of cognitive bias, filtering all his data through a predetermined theory with a predetermined conclusion – in this case the patient’s personal history, thereby severing the ties to the greater world and thus turning away from scientific-materialism and instead towards a personal psychologism.”
On Marriage: “We moderns are lectured endlessly that stigma is bad, but why? As with stereotypes, the vast majority of which are nearly 100% true, stigma usually exists when it deserves to exist. We have just been enculturated differently by decades of propaganda, which has successfully released everyone from all bonds not continuously chosen, telling us we cannot criticize others (except for the worst sin of all, intolerance, defined as any view on any topic that challenges the Left). On the contrary, we should not only criticize others, but ensure they suffer harsh penalties for socially unacceptable behavior.”
Slouching Towards Beezlebub: “Doesn’t all of this look rather sinister? Choose one of two possible explanations: 1) the Covid-19 episode from the beginning was a fantastic fiasco of blundering incompetence by hundreds of officials from many agencies plus elected leaders, and at every stage was made worse by additional incompetent actions aimed at concealing massive chains of prior misdeeds producing more misdeeds resulting in the wholesale collapse of authority in our country. In other words, an epic clusterfuck. Or 2) The entire Covid episode is a chain of crimes committed deliberately with malicious intent to kill and injure large numbers of people while contriving to deprive the survivors of their basic liberties and their property. Because identical events are seen in all the other nations of Western Civ, it would be reasonable to infer some kind of coordination managed by a supervisory force or entity.”
When Money Doesn’t Work, People Stop Working: “Price inflation induced by money printing is a killer of dignity and hope. When people become convinced that no amount of work can afford them with a dignified life they will stop showing up for work. Their time could be better spent doing things that provide relative enjoyment even if they don’t result in a paycheck. The paycheck they would have received wouldn’t even produce a marginal increase in the enjoyment they experience without a job. Might as well go on welfare and do what they please.”