Aug 26, 2023·edited Aug 26, 2023Liked by Spaceman Spiff
What you write is absolutely true. I am also very skeptic of the traditional conspiracy theory.
Moreover, what you say has been operating forever. It is not new.
The important questions for me are: what has caused the elites (to use your own word) precisely now to pursue a path that has a serious risk of backfiring on them? Why have they stopped focusing on quietly plundering the rest of society, as they have done so successfully in the past?
Those are the questions I want answers to.
I agree that Brexit and Trump were two issues that profoundly irritated them. But are they enough to explain these strange times we are witnessing?
No, Brexit and Trump made them aware they did not control the populations of the UK and the US as much as they wished. Can't have the plebs making decisions. I think all it did was accelerate their goals for more control.
I strongly suspect there is a cult-like element to some of their current focus. Some of it is simple plunder as you say. I think what has really changed is the global focus. Elites from each Western country have more in common with each other than their fellow citizens. I also think they now view nation-states as old fashioned and imagine a kind of global village, with them as overlords and us as peasants.
I don't think my three layers is anything like the whole story. It was just a convenient mechanism to attach the different motivations to. Elites have a vision, lieutenants have ambition, and minions have belief.
Aug 27, 2023·edited Aug 27, 2023Liked by Spaceman Spiff
Re-reading my comment, I see it could be interpreted as a criticism of your post. On the contrary, I believe it is a very good summary of the forces working in our societies.
If anything, I am not comfortable with the use of the word "vision". I wouldn't say their over-simplified worldviews qualify as visions, they should be more properly called "delusions."
In any case, the Elites have the possibility to impose their agendas, however stupid they might be, and they do so at every opportunity. That is what makes them different.
I also agree with the points you made in your comment. Those are surely part of the reasons that explain the current situation.
It is clear the elites felt their control was being threatened.
They are highly isolated from reality. They don't live in the same world we do. As you say, they are part of a cult, and that has made them react highly irrationally. They are showing their cards and risking losing the very position they want to protect.
In the past, they have based their power on controlling the established local governments and mass media. Now, as you say, they are throwing them into the bin, exposing their miseries for even the most naïve to see. And people are noticing.
They hope to replace them quickly with unelected and unaccountable supranational organisations. But History shows this is very risky.
I see clearly we are living the first battles of a very uncertain war. I hope we win, or at least minimize our casualties, but only time will tell.
Our advantage is that they neglect us. They think they are superior. That is their biggest mistake. And it is what we should use to combat them.
I did not take it as criticism. I am grateful you read the article and commented.
I also agree "vision" is incorrect for us, although I suspect this is how the elites think of it. Your word - agenda - is better. It is a series of goals to fulfill an agenda. It is this agenda the decision makers respond to. So big banks will cancel troublemakers or endorse climate change initiatives without being ordered.
I do agree the most senior people are isolated. Their contempt for their own nations and cultures is dangerous. This is ultimately what sustains them and us. They are likely to be damaged if our societies collapse. They are also artificially promoting client groups (radical feminists, immigrant groups etc.) who have ambitions of their own. That too is dangerous for the elites when they lose control.
I think we are in a cultural war. I strongly suspect the self-appointed elites will lose as their ideas are very poor. They are unnatural. A simple example is the overwhelming urge to "manage" economies, which you write about in your blog. It is not possible to manage an economy better than a market, yet they assume they can. This is mainly driven by sentimentality, an emotional assessment of what a market should do, rather than accepting what a market actually does do.
That is just one example. But it points to a very old problem, namely hubris. That is what will destroy them.
‘I strongly suspect the self-appointed elites will lose as their ideas are very poor.’
Having become increasingly cynical, I think they will win, but then their house of cards will collapse, because their ideas are very poor—taking many of the rest of us down with them.
I don't think mass society is entirely dirigible and though this does not excuse catastrophic effects as mere incompetence, it explains the role of fantasy in the schemes of technocratic managerialism. It is the fantasy of all revolutionaries, that the capture of absolute power is possible by means of the occupation its instruments. Most power yes, but the experience of even Stalin shows how limited in fact is the most sincere dictatorship.
Technology is seen by the new would be masters of mankind as the means to realise this fantasy. It can only be done by machines, as the complexity of technological society cannot be mastered by men.
If realised, the power this will deliver will be one over a humanity so diminished by repatterning on machine codes that it will be unworthy of the name.
This is the attempt to "dissolve the people and elect another", the "Solution" of Brecht proposed satirically at the failure of Stasiland to reconcile its repression with the cause of the common good.
These are the fever dreams of those who would replace God with technology. This is their Fourth Industrial Revolution - which promises the liberation of the Earth from much of humanity, and mankind from humanity itself. It is unfolding not as order - but chaos.
I agree. It is a fantasy. It cannot be easily realized even with technology. The current obsession is a form of tracking. Health passports they wish to make global, sold under the auspices of international travel and safety. An opening salvo in our digitization presumably.
My goal with this piece and the blog is to attempt an everyman perspective, hence the rough layers described. My main goal was to debunk conspiracy theories but also accept some are indeed conspiring to control us. But we also see a loss of control as ideas seep down into layers below.
I do think much of their plan will fail, but will damage us in the process.
A good read I thought, however, one very minor nitpick: calling them elites will probably raise a smile from them and give them a misguided sense of their own importance. I'd have went with "so-called elites" as that (in my mind) tells them we don't share their mental illness.
That being said, I think something that we need to do is step away from the constant doom-and-gloom rhetoric that is being force-fed to us and realise something the so-called elites don't want us to think about: they're mediocre at best. Not just them, but their lieutentants and foot soldiers too (politicians, msm heads, public sector bosses etc.).
One only needs to look at Disney to see this! They sat upon a gold mine for their entire lifetime, even recently buying some of the most lucrative, money-making IP in history (Marvel, Lucasfilm) never losing a penny, and in the last couple of years they've been haemorrhaging money through what can only be described as either hubris or mediocrity.
Any competent businessman can look at the numbers and say "we're losing money on X, stop doing X", yet Disney continue along this path - Snow White anyone?
The numbers don't lie: they're on the way down yet Disney continue to steer the ship directly at the iceberg!
Then there is the likes of CNN with wiewership in the high hundreds of thousands at best, and guys like Joe Rogan have millions of views per episode, yet CNN continue to double down on the same woke, bandwagon-driven content as their viewership declines.
Honestly, I don't fear the future as much now that the curtain has been pulled back to reveal so-called elites wrecking everything they touch while being surrounded by yes-men telling them how great they are.
Actually, I want more of it... perhaps it's time for a great many institutions to be killed off.
I agree. My use of the term "elite" is to hijack the common term and explore who they are and the influence they have. But I am skeptical of the basis for being an elite class.
As for companies doubling down on woke, it does seem suicidal. But when your own worldview is some kind of pseudo-Marxist anti-capitalist thing then your dislike of markets means you overlook what a market it. They are just elaborate feedback loops, not patriarchal oppression machines. They then overlook the real world feedback because they imagine they have a more elevated goal and see further than the rest of us. Meanwhile the market does its job and share prices plummet.
They will destroy themselves I suspect. Never interrupt an enemy when he is making a mistake 🤓
Your model of society with the three layers is an excellent description of what eugyppius writes about. And it's pretty much how I mentally picture what's going on, although you've fleshed it out quite a lot with the propagation of incentives etc. Good job.
Cheers. I like Eugyppius's calm take on these things, although he tends to talk more broadly. People really are keen on the conspiracy theories, so it can be hard to dissuade them.
That was the idea here, to explore something that actually happened in the UK that we know a lot about. It seems suspicious, but the transcripts of the meetings really demonstrated clowns acting solo, caught up in the frenzy to knock Farage down a peg or two.
Sep 7, 2023·edited Sep 7, 2023Liked by Spaceman Spiff
The debanking is becoming widespread. Actually it's a demonetization. Like Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying, among many others, being demonetized by YouTube. The most visibly outstanding example is GoFundMe's cancellation of the Canadian truckers action, which as the Taibbi article describes, also exposed all the donors who then faced various consequences.
Well, yes. When I said "cultural bubble" I meant a trend within the banking industry as you described in your article. Not acting on direct orders from above, but seeing what other banking types are doing, in response to the larger trend of isolating outliers.
Ah, yes I see. I agree. I just read that article you sent and a commenter made a similar point. Once the State decides censorship is fine, it becomes acceptable. So the minions now have that as an option. It becomes socially acceptable in a sense. With all the discussion about "online harm" and the like I suspect this is what is going on.
Coutts bank employees had Farage as a hardcore racist, although his public comments are completely devoid of mention of ethnicity or race etc. So you can see the cogs turning in their heads.
For me, the worst aspect of the Covid debacle was the censorship, especially the suppression of legitimate scientific discourse (speaking as a science nerd). That's what finally caused the scales to fall from my eyes with regard to the larger society-wide psychological manipulation.
Having been on both sides, I can now recognize that I truly suffered from Trump Derangement Syndrome and cheered when he was deplatformed from Twitter. I'm aghast that I was so easily suckered into that mode of thinking. Minion no more! Or at least I hope so.
Complicated by the fact that the whole Trump phenomenon was like manna from heaven for corporate media. Whether they were for or against, their audiences swelled, as did the revenues.
What you write is absolutely true. I am also very skeptic of the traditional conspiracy theory.
Moreover, what you say has been operating forever. It is not new.
The important questions for me are: what has caused the elites (to use your own word) precisely now to pursue a path that has a serious risk of backfiring on them? Why have they stopped focusing on quietly plundering the rest of society, as they have done so successfully in the past?
Those are the questions I want answers to.
I agree that Brexit and Trump were two issues that profoundly irritated them. But are they enough to explain these strange times we are witnessing?
No, Brexit and Trump made them aware they did not control the populations of the UK and the US as much as they wished. Can't have the plebs making decisions. I think all it did was accelerate their goals for more control.
I strongly suspect there is a cult-like element to some of their current focus. Some of it is simple plunder as you say. I think what has really changed is the global focus. Elites from each Western country have more in common with each other than their fellow citizens. I also think they now view nation-states as old fashioned and imagine a kind of global village, with them as overlords and us as peasants.
I don't think my three layers is anything like the whole story. It was just a convenient mechanism to attach the different motivations to. Elites have a vision, lieutenants have ambition, and minions have belief.
Re-reading my comment, I see it could be interpreted as a criticism of your post. On the contrary, I believe it is a very good summary of the forces working in our societies.
If anything, I am not comfortable with the use of the word "vision". I wouldn't say their over-simplified worldviews qualify as visions, they should be more properly called "delusions."
In any case, the Elites have the possibility to impose their agendas, however stupid they might be, and they do so at every opportunity. That is what makes them different.
I also agree with the points you made in your comment. Those are surely part of the reasons that explain the current situation.
It is clear the elites felt their control was being threatened.
They are highly isolated from reality. They don't live in the same world we do. As you say, they are part of a cult, and that has made them react highly irrationally. They are showing their cards and risking losing the very position they want to protect.
In the past, they have based their power on controlling the established local governments and mass media. Now, as you say, they are throwing them into the bin, exposing their miseries for even the most naïve to see. And people are noticing.
They hope to replace them quickly with unelected and unaccountable supranational organisations. But History shows this is very risky.
I see clearly we are living the first battles of a very uncertain war. I hope we win, or at least minimize our casualties, but only time will tell.
Our advantage is that they neglect us. They think they are superior. That is their biggest mistake. And it is what we should use to combat them.
I did not take it as criticism. I am grateful you read the article and commented.
I also agree "vision" is incorrect for us, although I suspect this is how the elites think of it. Your word - agenda - is better. It is a series of goals to fulfill an agenda. It is this agenda the decision makers respond to. So big banks will cancel troublemakers or endorse climate change initiatives without being ordered.
I do agree the most senior people are isolated. Their contempt for their own nations and cultures is dangerous. This is ultimately what sustains them and us. They are likely to be damaged if our societies collapse. They are also artificially promoting client groups (radical feminists, immigrant groups etc.) who have ambitions of their own. That too is dangerous for the elites when they lose control.
I think we are in a cultural war. I strongly suspect the self-appointed elites will lose as their ideas are very poor. They are unnatural. A simple example is the overwhelming urge to "manage" economies, which you write about in your blog. It is not possible to manage an economy better than a market, yet they assume they can. This is mainly driven by sentimentality, an emotional assessment of what a market should do, rather than accepting what a market actually does do.
That is just one example. But it points to a very old problem, namely hubris. That is what will destroy them.
‘I strongly suspect the self-appointed elites will lose as their ideas are very poor.’
Having become increasingly cynical, I think they will win, but then their house of cards will collapse, because their ideas are very poor—taking many of the rest of us down with them.
Hubris is the perfect word.
Perhaps I believe that too. I am not sure. I do agree much damage will be done. And it is hubris for sure. Full spectrum arrogance.
I don't think mass society is entirely dirigible and though this does not excuse catastrophic effects as mere incompetence, it explains the role of fantasy in the schemes of technocratic managerialism. It is the fantasy of all revolutionaries, that the capture of absolute power is possible by means of the occupation its instruments. Most power yes, but the experience of even Stalin shows how limited in fact is the most sincere dictatorship.
Technology is seen by the new would be masters of mankind as the means to realise this fantasy. It can only be done by machines, as the complexity of technological society cannot be mastered by men.
If realised, the power this will deliver will be one over a humanity so diminished by repatterning on machine codes that it will be unworthy of the name.
This is the attempt to "dissolve the people and elect another", the "Solution" of Brecht proposed satirically at the failure of Stasiland to reconcile its repression with the cause of the common good.
These are the fever dreams of those who would replace God with technology. This is their Fourth Industrial Revolution - which promises the liberation of the Earth from much of humanity, and mankind from humanity itself. It is unfolding not as order - but chaos.
Thanks for commenting, and for recommending.
I agree. It is a fantasy. It cannot be easily realized even with technology. The current obsession is a form of tracking. Health passports they wish to make global, sold under the auspices of international travel and safety. An opening salvo in our digitization presumably.
My goal with this piece and the blog is to attempt an everyman perspective, hence the rough layers described. My main goal was to debunk conspiracy theories but also accept some are indeed conspiring to control us. But we also see a loss of control as ideas seep down into layers below.
I do think much of their plan will fail, but will damage us in the process.
A good read I thought, however, one very minor nitpick: calling them elites will probably raise a smile from them and give them a misguided sense of their own importance. I'd have went with "so-called elites" as that (in my mind) tells them we don't share their mental illness.
That being said, I think something that we need to do is step away from the constant doom-and-gloom rhetoric that is being force-fed to us and realise something the so-called elites don't want us to think about: they're mediocre at best. Not just them, but their lieutentants and foot soldiers too (politicians, msm heads, public sector bosses etc.).
One only needs to look at Disney to see this! They sat upon a gold mine for their entire lifetime, even recently buying some of the most lucrative, money-making IP in history (Marvel, Lucasfilm) never losing a penny, and in the last couple of years they've been haemorrhaging money through what can only be described as either hubris or mediocrity.
Any competent businessman can look at the numbers and say "we're losing money on X, stop doing X", yet Disney continue along this path - Snow White anyone?
The numbers don't lie: they're on the way down yet Disney continue to steer the ship directly at the iceberg!
Then there is the likes of CNN with wiewership in the high hundreds of thousands at best, and guys like Joe Rogan have millions of views per episode, yet CNN continue to double down on the same woke, bandwagon-driven content as their viewership declines.
Honestly, I don't fear the future as much now that the curtain has been pulled back to reveal so-called elites wrecking everything they touch while being surrounded by yes-men telling them how great they are.
Actually, I want more of it... perhaps it's time for a great many institutions to be killed off.
I agree. My use of the term "elite" is to hijack the common term and explore who they are and the influence they have. But I am skeptical of the basis for being an elite class.
As for companies doubling down on woke, it does seem suicidal. But when your own worldview is some kind of pseudo-Marxist anti-capitalist thing then your dislike of markets means you overlook what a market it. They are just elaborate feedback loops, not patriarchal oppression machines. They then overlook the real world feedback because they imagine they have a more elevated goal and see further than the rest of us. Meanwhile the market does its job and share prices plummet.
They will destroy themselves I suspect. Never interrupt an enemy when he is making a mistake 🤓
Your model of society with the three layers is an excellent description of what eugyppius writes about. And it's pretty much how I mentally picture what's going on, although you've fleshed it out quite a lot with the propagation of incentives etc. Good job.
Cheers. I like Eugyppius's calm take on these things, although he tends to talk more broadly. People really are keen on the conspiracy theories, so it can be hard to dissuade them.
That was the idea here, to explore something that actually happened in the UK that we know a lot about. It seems suspicious, but the transcripts of the meetings really demonstrated clowns acting solo, caught up in the frenzy to knock Farage down a peg or two.
Glad you liked it.
What a good write up of how it all functions. Makes great sense to me. Thanks!
Cheers. Thanks for reading. Powerful forces are at play, but they seem to be coming unstuck.
The debanking is another one of those cultural bubble trends. Matt Taibbi wrote about it recently https://www.racket.news/p/gofundme-go-to-hell
His most recent weekly podcast with Walter Kirn contains a fairly lengthy rant about it, in large part because this particular debanking attacked journalists. https://www.racket.news/p/transcript-america-this-week-episode-e04
Thanks I will check it out.
I think it is more than a bubble, although I hope you are correct. I think it is a logical next step for those who seek more societal control.
The debanking is becoming widespread. Actually it's a demonetization. Like Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying, among many others, being demonetized by YouTube. The most visibly outstanding example is GoFundMe's cancellation of the Canadian truckers action, which as the Taibbi article describes, also exposed all the donors who then faced various consequences.
Yes I agree. Demonetization is a worrying development. Lots of dissident content on YouTube gets hammered. Much of it is very careful and even tame.
I can't see these platforms lasting. They are just becoming too blatant.
Well, yes. When I said "cultural bubble" I meant a trend within the banking industry as you described in your article. Not acting on direct orders from above, but seeing what other banking types are doing, in response to the larger trend of isolating outliers.
Ah, yes I see. I agree. I just read that article you sent and a commenter made a similar point. Once the State decides censorship is fine, it becomes acceptable. So the minions now have that as an option. It becomes socially acceptable in a sense. With all the discussion about "online harm" and the like I suspect this is what is going on.
Coutts bank employees had Farage as a hardcore racist, although his public comments are completely devoid of mention of ethnicity or race etc. So you can see the cogs turning in their heads.
For me, the worst aspect of the Covid debacle was the censorship, especially the suppression of legitimate scientific discourse (speaking as a science nerd). That's what finally caused the scales to fall from my eyes with regard to the larger society-wide psychological manipulation.
Having been on both sides, I can now recognize that I truly suffered from Trump Derangement Syndrome and cheered when he was deplatformed from Twitter. I'm aghast that I was so easily suckered into that mode of thinking. Minion no more! Or at least I hope so.
I think I was immunized before that. I also don't watch TV so managed to avoid most of the Trump nonsense. They really were deranged.
Complicated by the fact that the whole Trump phenomenon was like manna from heaven for corporate media. Whether they were for or against, their audiences swelled, as did the revenues.