372 Comments

You cannot reason with a demoralized person. But you can “meme them until they cry then make memes about them crying.” As a Russian defector, I am offended by your catsplaining ;)

Expand full comment
author
Oct 5·edited Oct 5Author

the catsplaining will continue until morale improves.

Expand full comment
founding

Here's what I think you're trying to catsplain:

https://youtu.be/vijGdWn5-h8?si=CbsoN9aaLGZD585w

Expand full comment

Geez, that cheered me up.

Expand full comment
founding

Well just like the parasite-host dynamic eventually woke will make their heads explode.

The good news is those of us here will be immune to the woke and TDS virus.

Expand full comment

That cheered me up, too. Now I'm imagining when 5G interacts with nanotech in Covid shots and the zombie jabbed start eating the unvaxxed.

Expand full comment
founding

We should do a mockumentary!

Expand full comment

Now I’m reviewing ant theory. Thanks for the push. Poor ants! I’ve never seen that episode of NG.

Expand full comment

Hey, that's my favorite fungus!

Expand full comment
founding

Fungus as a mind virus that kills the host...yet perpetuates both species.

Talk about a symbiotic relationship.

Virtually the same with humans. It's actually fun to watch evolution in real time.

Eventually TDS will speciate our species, like old world monkeys being separated by land or sea.

Expand full comment

I don't think I want to be one of those ants.

Expand full comment

😕 I don't have a favorite fungus.

Expand full comment

Thanks for the link !!!👍👍👍

I just wonder why Pfizer didn't call their jabs Cordyznaty or Comirzeps ??? ... 🤔🤔🤔

Expand full comment
founding

Just perfect, Klaus!

Expand full comment

And that, my friends, is how dumpacraps are created.

Expand full comment

Daaaaamn that's some scary shit right there. I know some plants have ways of protecting itself from predators but this is on an evil sci-fi level. Trippy

Expand full comment

That’s something I didn’t need to see today.

Expand full comment

Are we witnessing spontaneous combustion, . . . . finally?

Expand full comment

We've been watching spontaneous combustion for years now.

Expand full comment

As a kid I used to read as much as I could hoping I could spontaneous combust, obviously it didn't work.

Expand full comment

I'll stick around, at least until the toxoplasmosis kicks in ... 😉🙂

But several points in your latest remind me of a famous quote from Hannah Arendt:

HA: "The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction (i.e., the reality of experience) and the distinction between true and false (i.e., the standards of thought) no longer exist."

https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/8110811-the-ideal-subject-of-totalitarian-rule-is-not-the-convinced

Somewhat moot whether there are more of those "reason-challenged" among the Democrats or the Republicans -- or among their so-called leaders and "champions".

Expand full comment

as it should, jeffe Gato.

Expand full comment

Yes. It should...

Expand full comment

"meme them until they cry then make memes about them crying." Then withhold the box of tissue ; )

Expand full comment

As a proud descendent of Poland, I am offended at your Russianness. 😁

Expand full comment

As someone of Germanic heritage, I am offended by both of you.

Expand full comment

As someone of Polish, German, and Russian heritage, I have no idea who to be offended by.

Expand full comment

I’d go with everyone.

Expand full comment

Yeah, I need to take up the cause against Polish/German/Russian supremacy.

Expand full comment

I think that you may actually explode….

Expand full comment

lol, like-me, too!

Expand full comment

Wow, we could be related!

Expand full comment

Nadolny? We don't talk to that side of the family anymore since your great, great, great, great grandfather ate my great, great, great, great grandfather's pet pig ... or maybe he drank his beer?

Expand full comment

I would say touché but I'm sure there are Frenchmen hanging around waiting to be offended by my cultural appropriation.

Expand full comment

Those cheese eating surrender monkeys don’t have the guts to chime in.

Expand full comment

I love banter. It’s a trait that runs strong throughout my extended family.

Expand full comment

Best laugh of the day!

Expand full comment

Now you've up and done it: offended all monkeys. Them being an inarticulate species, they express themselves by sudden action...you've been warned!

Expand full comment

They can and will tear your face off!

Expand full comment

😂🤭

Expand full comment

Nah, they’re still busy planting trees for the next time the Germans come to visit. ***

***derived from an old joke

Expand full comment

Nordic looking down on all three. ;)

Expand full comment

That's only cause you're taller.

Expand full comment

The only benefit that you will derive from eating all that lefse and lutefisk...

Expand full comment

LOLOL

Expand full comment
founding
Oct 5Liked by el gato malo

"If you lose your ego, you lose the thread of that narrative you call your Self. Humans, however, can't live very long without some sense of a continuing story. Such stories go beyond the limited rational system (or the systematic rationality) with which you surround yourself; they are crucial keys to sharing time-experience with others.

Now a narrative is a story, not a logic, nor ethics, nor philosophy. It is a dream you keep having, whether you realize it or not. Just as surely as you breathe, you go on ceaselessly dreaming your story. And in these stories you wear two faces. You are simultaneously subject and object. You are a whole and you are a part. You are real and you are shadow. "Storyteller" and at the same time "character". It is through such multilayering of roles in our stories that we heal the loneliness of being an isolated individual in the world.

Yet without a proper ego nobody can create a personal narrative, any more than you can drive a car without an engine, or cast a shadow without a real physical object. But once you've consigned your ego to someone else, where on earth do you go from there?

At this point you receive a new narrative from the person to whom you have entrusted your ego. You've handed over the real thing, so what comes back is a shadow. And once your ego has merged with another ego, your narrative will necessarily take on the narrative created by that ego.

Just what kind of narrative?

It needn't be anything particularly fancy, nothing complicated or refined. You don't need to have literary ambitions. In fact, the sketchier and simpler the better. Junk, a leftover rehash will do. Anyway, most people are tired of complex, multilayered scenarios-they are a potential letdown. It's precisely because people can't find any fixed point within their own multilayered schemes that they're tossing aside their own self-identity."

-

- Haruki Murakami

Expand full comment

A little off topic but I think it applies.

These days on the craziness of the world, I created a simple strategy. I create a short list of things I want to get done.

At the end of the day instead of beating myself up for nit getting more done. I have started congratulating myself for completing that small doable list. I let myself succeed.

Expand full comment
founding

Yes. I have to do the same thing.

I always tell my employees to accomplish 3 small things per day; 3 larger initiatives per month; and three projects in a quarter.

And to not get bogged down with a list of 184 things....because the list will always be there. It's really hard for younger employees to get that. They think they have to check off everything so that it goes away the next day....which it never does in reality.

Plus if you structure your days like this many items on a list take care if themselves by virtue of just trying to accomplish the bigger to-dos vs. managing by crisis.

Expand full comment

I always told my employees "I don't pay you to sit on your ass". Didn't work out so well because they were software guys so, maybe I WAS paying them to sit on their asses.

Expand full comment

The main problem is that males no longer hunt.

Expand full comment
founding

This is so true. Not sure if you're joking or not.

But there's nothing like having to kill your meal to eat. Same with working with your hands to make shit happen.

Both sharpen the senses.

Expand full comment

excellent Ryan, great advice and guidance from the "boss"

Expand full comment
founding

Lolol. I'm the best idiot boss this side of the Mississippi

Expand full comment

😂 I doubt that

Expand full comment

Oh yes. Well thought out plan, Linda. I am the same.

back in the day I was a super multitasker - BAM I got a zillion things done.

I have changed of course, now, I DO make that list every day and then do the things

that more importantly make me "feel" I accomplished the necessaries over desires.

My oldest daughter just turned 40!! I suggested she just work on keeping the kids on their "rafts" and healthy, and do one necessary thing and one thing that you want to do.

Then you do not feel like a slave. Those days with kids in early school years were crazy.

Now I am older, I do more wants than needs haha haha

Expand full comment

My problem is that I lose the list after I write it. 🤪

Expand full comment
founding

Lol. Sometimes i spend more time consolidating list than clearing them.

Expand full comment

lists.

I "inherited" this condition from my father.

Lists, notebooks. It is not always productive.

We are cleaning up and downsizing (not strenuously) and I found a pile of papers with about 4 old lists. LOL funny. One was three years old hahahaha

Expand full comment
Oct 5·edited Oct 5

I like it.

I've tried ending the day with a What Went Right? reflection but perhaps not frequently enough.

Sound like it should be more central.

Expand full comment

If nothing else it saves time over the What Went Wrong? list! ; )

Expand full comment

The "pull" advice at the end of this post is astute. As Ben Hunt puts it, when ingesting the media, we should always ask: "Why am I reading this, and why am I reading this NOW?" Everything "pushed" at us is driven by an agenda and a narrative. We need to understand both before consuming.

Expand full comment

I turned off push notifications on all my apps years ago. I would never turn them back on.

Expand full comment
founding

Otherwise you're the "product"...in both senses of the word

Expand full comment

"One should endeavor to keep one's ego small, and entirely to oneself." ---Me

Gotta go, have a good one.

Expand full comment

"At this point you receive a new narrative from the person to whom you have entrusted your ego. You've handed over the real thing, so what comes back is a shadow. And once your ego has merged with another ego, your narrative will necessarily take on the narrative created by that ego."

This is the precise function of the corporate media. When interacting with my friends still inside the media bubble/matrix, it is clear to me that the effect of propaganda is to transfer the 'existential' fear that the regime (correctly!) feels about Trump on to them, to make them feel as if Trump is a direct and personal threat to themselves -- it becomes their identity.

Defending the narrative then becomes an act of self-defense; they feel personally threatened by those opposing viewpoints and this explains their complete inability to engage with, understand, or even view them.

Expand full comment

The moral is never entrust your ego to anyone or anything, then your ego cannot be corrupted or influenced. Always question authority and opinions.

Expand full comment

Excellent quote. Thank you.

Expand full comment

I missed the initial quotation marks and thought "Wow, that's extremely profound and insightful! Ryan is quite the philosopher." Then I get to the end.

Expand full comment
founding

Still apropos, right?

Expand full comment

Of course. Just disappointed. I was ready to get you a book deal.

Expand full comment

I was pretty pumped too and then saw the author's name and went, "Oh."

But, yes. Apropos.

Expand full comment
founding

Shiiit...you know I'm not that smart!...:)

Expand full comment

🤣

Expand full comment

See, I'm not the only one this happened to.

Expand full comment

Homerun, Ryan.

Expand full comment

Emotional group-oriented people (and peoples) create a story about reality, which they then super-impose on reality, trying to force reality to become as the story say it is.

Pragmatic task-oriented people (and peoples) look at the reality at hand here and now, and then decide together how to act according to actual reality.

Most women are more group-oriented than most men. Most men are more pragmatic than most women. Most women are more emotional than most men, and most men are more fact-oriented than most women.

Therefore, women in charge and women in a group will always revert towards creating a story about reality, while men in charge and in a group will tend towards more pragmatic approaches to immediate situations.

Thus, the optimal societal structure is a merit/proven ability/deed-based one, where duty to family and society comes before personal emotions or personal profit(eering), as evidenced by reality itself:

Compare and contrast Norway to Venezuela, or Rhodesia to Zimbabwe, or the USA pre-1960s to post-1990s.

Expand full comment

Behind every good society is good men with good women behind them.

That should earn me some feminist anger. 😁

Expand full comment

Nah, that's been true throughout history - behind The Man you'll find a woman, or a group of women even (mother, wife, daughters, sisters and such) all influencing him in different ways to get their will manifested.

Octavian had his Livia, and she was no meek little "Handmaid's tale"-wannabe. There's basically not a general, dictator, high priest, whatever throughout history without a female confidante helping him along.

The problem for the feminists is, they always only go looking for "positive" examples, instead of actual reality: can't hold up Theodora of Byzantium without also holding up Erzsébet Báthory too, so to speak.

Expand full comment

There's a long list throughout history. Lucrezia Borgia comes to mind...

Expand full comment

“ Therefore, women in charge and women in a group will always revert towards creating a story about reality, while men in charge and in a group will tend towards more pragmatic approaches to immediate situations.” Tru dat. This dynamic is also responsible for the enshitification of lots of formally dependable institutions.

Expand full comment

I think you mean "Formerly dependable institutions". Although they ARE formal institutions. I disagree that women create stories about reality, whereas men problem solve reality. I think daily hours of social media platforms + omnipresent internet engagement through handheld devices have programmed women towards their worst extremes of projection of what they NEED to be real, onto what IS real. Women are the majority of the internet users engaging in high traffic on those platforms. Of all ages. They have been the worst and most egregious example of how to socially regress AND condition multiple generations at once. And get them to pay for it. From the women in their 50s and 60s to the teenagers - the difference between the women who are glued to their phones/tablets and those who aren't is the same as your description above about who actually engages with reality when pushed into a group dynamic.

Expand full comment

I agree. It’s real sad to see it eroding the former richness of our cultures.

Expand full comment

The 19th amendment needs to be repealed. It can happen. 30% are sheep who just vote with the crowd. if we get the momentum, we could easily take away this amendment that should’ve never even been thought of.

Expand full comment

I love these narratives because they are completely without any consideration of the long history of humanity, which has been - almost without interruption - ruled by men with facts, and it has not been a primrose path of sweet paradise. Men with facts rule Afghanistan. Men with facts rule Iran. Men with facts rule North Korea. Men with facts ruled Nazi Germany. Men with facts gave us nazism, socialism and communism. Now more men with facts are saying women with emotion are to blame for the wide spread ills that plague mankind today.

Expand full comment

As our formerly rational, competent, and productive society descends into estrogen and SSRI soaked madness, the best you can do is "but what about the Taliban"? Really?

Can you point to a single rational, competent, and productive society in history run by women? Just one? Because to me rule by men looks like a necessary precondition. All you are saying that rule by men alone is insufficient - a proposition which few would disagree with.

Expand full comment

It would be hard to do as you've asked, as there really haven't been many instances where women have ruled. But if more female way of thinking and acting has taken over, who allowed it? Women vote in far larger numbers - why? You are correct that sane men must reclaim the narrative, but first they must stop shoving the blame on women and step back up. "She did it" isn't going to get anyone out of this mess.

Expand full comment

I think you may have answered your own question. There are no examples of a society where women have ruled, because women are terrible rulers, generally. Of course, life is a bell-curve, and you always have outliers, like Hatshepsut and Boudica, but the normal distribution of men vs. women, men make better rulers or leaders. Why is this? Nature. It's that simple, and part of the problem with modern society is that we have completely denied Nature. We think we can create our own reality where the laws of Nature do not apply because we are so smart nowadays. But you might as well try living at the bottom of the ocean. It will be about as successful.

Who allowed it? We allowed it. We thought we wanted weak men so we could be in charge. I mean that sounds so great. Kinda like the way they market terrible ideas to you when you are young, like Marxism. Weak men make bad times. And here we are.

Expand full comment

I agree. So what have I done personally, and what do I advise others to do?

Vote, as you say, but also start saying "no". A lot.

I've done this at work against the constant race baiting these women are involved in (with the occasional - and I do mean occasional - cucked beta male).

I'm no longer involved in a church that recently hired a female pastor that does this insane shit (to the unnecessary detriment of my personal relationships, thanks pastor girlboss), I'm off social media entirely (substack does not count, IMO, because it can be anonymous, thus it doesn't drive social signaling as much), and I'll say things that make people uncomfortable when they bring these things up in person.

My approach is to tune it out online, but confront it pretty aggressively in person.

Expand full comment

I see why you call yourself “no name” - you are so offensive. I can’t imagine that there are any females of sensibility and quality who would even tolerate being in your presence.

Expand full comment
Oct 7·edited Oct 7

Cry more.

Edit: I just went over your substack history. Over the past 15 years, I have watched women like you relentlessly discriminate against competent men because you cannot tolerate the fact that maybe people are not blank slates and you can't kneecap men to get equality of outcome (see James Damore as one example), while completely ignoring not just reality, but everyone else's civil liberties and material wellbeing.

I have seen women like you start ethnic riots for "justice" which lasted months, killed dozens, and did billions of dollars damage to people's family businesses. There are still some neighborhoods where cops won't go and little kids (including little girls) must endure relentless domestic abuse so you can feel like you're marchin' to Selma.

I have seen women like you embrace government censorship, calling *facts* you don't agree with "hate speech", including the idea that Covid came from a lab in Wuhan, China.

I have seen women like you force an experimental medicine on working people, killing them with Myocarditis, leaving women without husbands, men without loving wives, and children without parents... Because the TV said so, and there is no moral panic or group think you won't jump on, like the neurotic sheep you are.

You're now backing a candidate who says they want a border wall, completely ignoring the fact that people like you called this "white supremacy" 8 years ago.

And, after all that, women like you are still weaseling your way into positions of "leadership", destroying relationships and organizations, still using zero discernment and still expecting no accountability.

This might be impossible for you to comprehend, but this is eventually going to escalate to violence, and that's not going to be good for women, including the ones I care about...

But I've seen so much from women like you at this point to say there is no reason at all trying to convince you of anything. You'll ignore every warning sign... Every word of advice, no matter how sage or politely stated, and when this blows up (and it will), it will cause no introspection at all, because the whole reason the rest of us live in this world is so you can feel like a stunning and brave girlboss.

So I'm offensive? Good. Fuck you.

Expand full comment

Don't bother, Julie. I read his diatribe below against "women like you." Anyone who doesn't use their real name is a coward not worthy of engagement, period. If one is not brave enough to put words to a name, then only bile and hate will come from their mouth.

He says you're "weaseling" your way into leadership, whatever that means. Does he mean by getting elected? He accused you of "destroying relationships." Did some woman hurt his feelings? And all this with "no accountability." He says that with no irony at all as Mr. No Name.

I truly believe in Men's Rights as a movement. (I'm guessing this is where he's coming from?) I recommend watching the documentary "The Red Pill," as I believe its truth will resonate for you or anyone watching. But this guy? He's shrill and far worse than those he rails against. Hard pass.

Expand full comment

The Mosuo are the only matriarchal (or close to it) society I know of. It can be done, but its rarity makes it an exception that proves the rule.

Expand full comment

90% of people in the world, including women, hate female bosses

Expand full comment

I am not one of them. I had good female bosses. Some bad too, but more of the good ones. Some really crappy male bosses -- probably because male bosses were then much more common.

I wonder why people think this is a "sex difference" issue. I think it's far more an "asshole" issue. More men are personality disordered (with the exception of borderline). But plenty of assholes everywhere. Even one of them will ruin a workplace.

Expand full comment

Perhaps if you read what I wrote instead?

Expand full comment

I did. Pragmatically.

Expand full comment

What's wrong with it then?

Expand full comment

I wrote a whole Substack on this theme (and I am a woman, btw): https://pairodocs.substack.com/p/where-have-all-the-real-men-gone-c3b

Expand full comment
Oct 7·edited Oct 7

Thank you. Fishing for a woman on here to talk about this. Guys have fallen into a binary critique in general, and if we're going to learn about who engages or projects a false reality (and why) - so we can NOT become those people, we need more nuance. Otherwise we won't have an accurate strategy.

Expand full comment

If you are not a woman, a black or a homo, or a Hispanic, or a good, or an Indian, or a Muslim, or an Indian,...why do you defend any of these groups if I offended them? Did you know if someone offended straight, white, Christian men, non of these groups will defend you. I say eff them all if they don't stand for equality.

Expand full comment

A homo?!? Are you living in the 1940s? Jeez

Expand full comment

No, he’s living in 2024. Where during pride month sex is pushed on everyone including kindergarten in school. Don’t dare try to say no because I’ve seen the disgusting books. They are reading to them. How come these perverts at the library don’t want to go to old peoples homes or nursing homes? Why just children?!!

You are a woman and you don’t ask these questions ?!?

I’ve also seen a naked gay parade in Canada, where they let children line up on either side to watch naked men with chaps, parading up and down the street

In my old blue state, I saw a game during a pride event, that had little children throwing different colored dildos to win a prize at a game. All you have to do is look it up. They have pictures of it.

Look it up groomer !!!!!

Expand full comment

You need a few more history books in your library, Rikard. I don't have much time, but as examples of that 'pragmatic, task oriented' person [man] you speak of, I'll offer Caligula (may as well throw in the rest of the Roman leaders), all of the popes, Napoleon, Churchill (likely responsible for WWII) [https://www.fpp.co.uk/books/Churchill/1/index.html)], John D. Rockefeller & progeny, Pol Pot, George Bush (pick your fave), Daddy Gates and Bill, Bibi N — men in charge. Those who "look at the reality at hand here and now, and then decide together how to act according to actual reality," by your measure.

Women haven't been ALLOWED to be leaders. Ah, you're probably just unaware of the impact of religion on women's roles in culture and society over the last 5 millennia. That's okay. You and your cheeky brethren here can catch up. A few femmes did slip through though. Catherine the Great and Cleopatra would have had you by the short&curlies, you can betcha. Indira Gandhi — now there's a woman who 'always reverted towards creating a story about reality.' Women led the fight against slavery in America, Rikard. Before they were ALLOWED to vote.

Looks to me like you and the smirking frat boys below are the ones creating stories about reality. Entering my 7th decade on this grand earth, I'm all too familiar with it...

btw, you may be interested to hear Craig Murray talk a couple of days ago about the singular judge (gasp, a female!) credited with Julian Assange's recent freedom. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzH3lW7xs3Y

Expand full comment

See my reply to Agent-1-4-9 above.

My advice to you, speaking as a former professional:

Drop the aggressive style, drop the vitriol, drop the aggressive-tone-as-defense stance (what you English-speakers call "passive-aggressive" for some reason) and drop all Ad hominem and similar fallacies, and you'll find people actually care about what you say.

As it stands now, your reply simply serves to prove my initial point about emotionality and creating stories instead of studying reality.

Expand full comment

Keep fighting and we will repeal the 19th amendment and not have most of the problems we have now.

If they think we can’t do it, they should remember abortion. And don’t forget, 30% of people don’t have convictions at all, and just jump on the bandwagon. If people keep talking about repealing the 19th like I see all over Substack it will get repealed.

Expand full comment

Please see my reply to Annette's reply to you, above.

And do understand the nature of my bluntness. It is not personal. I mean it as a challenge in a positive sense because I see value in what you contributed - or I would not have bothered to reply at all.

Expand full comment

Eh, I find your simplistic criticism of religion to be as similarly unconvincing as Rikard's binary thinking about pragmatic men vs. projecting women. Both of you have potential, but you could both use some help. NOTE: 1) Religion has done more to empower women than biology has. Why do you think so many female "Saints" were martyred and witches burned? 2) No one ALLOWS a man to take charge. He fights to ascend the pyramid. That's how men form hierarchies in the history of great human civilizations (Hunter gather tribes notwithstanding). 3) Rikard, up the ante to something no one is talking about. You men are disappointing me online. Like How the great social engineering coup of our time (Handheld, ubiquitous internet and "Social media" which is neither social nor media), has being primarily engaged by women of all ages. The great reprogramming of our society has a HUGE gender gap if you look at user identity and frequency of engagement. Hence the apparent female susceptibility to "Unreality" (As in "Unmade") and the almost pathological tendency to project need on to truth.

To be honest guys, I never check threads. I find them a flat excuse for a conversation. The lack of tone or facial expressions in "talking" to you, make everyone including me hypersensitive to offense - paranoid and defensive all at once. I'll probably delete this tomorrow because that isn't fair to you all.

Expand full comment

That Dr. Natalla one sounded like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDHisWRsE98

That aside, someone went off on me about the first Trump assassin. They exploded with, "Next time, hire an adult with better shooting skills!"

I guess the "voice from the TV" where they get their news failed to tell them that the shooter was twenty years old, practiced shooting at a range where ATF practiced and was known as an excellent shot, and also had multiple cell phones and connected to overseas encrypted accounts.

What triggered this was a comment by me that it was amazing how the story disappeared from the media, unlike other assassinations of my lifetime: JFK, Wallace, MLK, Bobby, etc.

Expand full comment

Dr. Natalia's post goes to the heart of how indoctrinated and twisted a significant segment of humanity have become. Kamekazi pilots out of "love" for humanity.

Expand full comment
founding

Yes. Exactly.

And they'll strap their helmets on without noticing the irony.

It's virtually passed parody at this point.

Expand full comment

Lemmings free-falling between the precipice and the sea...whilst embracing their love for lemming-ness all the way to impact?

Expand full comment
founding

SPLAT...:]

Expand full comment

that is horrible. leftists have hearts of ash, gravel, soot.... just damaged hearts. I feel bad for them.... sometimes

Expand full comment

True. All the fear mongering drives you nuts. I unsubscribed from several Substackers, because they are just as bad as the other side - media. I expected to see a comment from Yuri already and I did not get disappointed!

Expand full comment
founding

Good for you.

It's always good to keep in mind that the shepherd often eats the sheep in the end.

Expand full comment

At the least he sells them out.

Expand full comment
founding

Precisely. Haha. I literally almost inserted ellipses after "in the end" and added "or sell them down the river"

But I thought it would muddy the waters...lol

Expand full comment

The point is, isn't it, that the shepherd provides excellent care in the protection of the value of his commodity and not because he loves the sheep for themselves. This is of course a very widely applicable trait of all shepherds. Otherwise you'd prepare them for good survival skills and let 'em go.

Expand full comment

I can't find it, but I remember reading about a sociological hypothesis about how what kind of livestock a people kept influenced how that people developed culturally.

Just compare what happens if you let sheep, goats and pigs roam free respectively.

Sheep get eating. Goats devastates the environment by eating everything.

And pigs go feral inside a year if not tended to.

Expand full comment

Pigs have such human traits.

Expand full comment
founding

Interesting.

I didn't know that about pigs.

But it makes sense; they're smart enough to know they just want to be themselves.

Expand full comment

"the shepherd provides excellent care in the protection of the value of his commodity"

Ding Ding Ding!

Expand full comment
founding

Yes. It's a bit like the bittersweetness of parenting.

When you boil it down a parents job is to "train" their children to become independent by "helping" them increase the length of time before they become homesick.

If not, they just become "sick".

I'm not looking forward to it...but it'll be my job once I send my twins off to college.

Expand full comment

Don't worry. Your twins will train you to be a competent long-distance parent. It's hard, and they'll need to be lovingly firm with you, but you'll get through.

Signed, Successful Graduate of the Program

Expand full comment

Ryan, on my 18th birthday I went on an all-night drunk with a couple of my friends. That morning, at 0700 at the friend's house where I spent what was left of the night, my old man showed up and said "okay today you sign-up for the draft, but first get dressed - we are heading into town to visit all the military recruiters." And that's what we did, USAF, USMC, USN....skipped the Coast Guard, inexplicably. Chose Navy as they offered the best school and the best chow. "College?" ...Uncle Sam'll pay for that. 1959, and he had more kids than house.

Expand full comment

Seems the major business plan of most of the social media era is building a base of followers so they can sell their "influence" to the highest bidder (which is always one of the government agencies because they have no limits to spending). So it makes sense that we see so many sell outs.

Expand full comment

But this has always been true no matter what the medium of communication is. The dogma of anything always has its authorized version, not to even speak of its special language that has magical import.

This is why words get changed out all the time for the new allowed words which usually say in many more syllables what the previous concise word conveyed excellently.

A rocket ship is just a wooden wagon with several tweaks specific to its purpose.

Expand full comment

what may be different now is the sheer amount of competition among different talking heads and "public" figures. I saw a list of the influencers and celebrities that the government was paying and it was thousands of names long. In the old days, it might have been three tv stations, the NY Times/WAPO and a few celebrities.

Expand full comment

Well, child preachers ye shall always have with you. And being paid to yak at people is a lot easier than having a real job. That's why telemarketing became such a growth industrly long before we had them teeny hand-held computer thingies.

It's not new to need a hearty dose of common sense to make it through life. It's not new to need to shut the book or put down the magazine when it gives ridiculous advice.

Expand full comment

Or turns them over to someone who will.

Expand full comment

Ditto! Many in the so called medical freedom community were making me anxious and angry and had to unsubscribe. Curate your social media and you’ll feel a lot happier!

Expand full comment

This post showed up after I spent the better part of a couple hours last night trying to discern the real story on whether FEMA is helping everyone in Asheville recover or they’re deliberately confiscating any and all materials to let the the citizens rot (the competing viewpoints on social media). I wasn’t able to find anything I thought reliable, and how is that possible???

Expand full comment

It is sort of amazing that the post hurricane rescue effort in the Carolinas, Georgia, Florida, and (?) should be the biggest news story in the country, especially if FEMA is doing such a poor job. I feel as if I can no longer trust the news media about anything. It used to be you couldn’t trust them about anything political, but now it seems like you just can’t trust them, period.

You shouldn’t trust anything on the internet, but I believe the account of the helicopter pilot who says he was interfered with while trying to save people, and I believe Musk when he says the Feds were preventing him from trying to help out.

It seems like we as a nation have drifted / pushed? / steered? into a situation where we can’t distinguish between truth and fantasy, or for that matter, right or wrong. - where it is impossible to make correct decisions, or have effective agency.

We hear a lot about Asheville, and maybe hundreds of deaths, but everything else is sort of vague. This “misinformation / disinformation” crap needs to stop.

Expand full comment

This noticeably increased with Covid. We didn't get real news. Just proclamations no one could verify. Ukrainian/Russia, the largest war in Europe since WWII, seems to have almost no war correspondenst, no cameramen, and no real coverage. Most of what I've seen is from amature video. Now we have this happening in the aftermath of Helene. It seems that they will not let any news out that has not been passed through the "narative filter". Massive Ukrainian deaths and annihilated infrastructure in Appalachia can't be easily spun, so they don't make it through the filter. I believe the Elites are so desperate about keeping power that they will censor anything that might tip the scales against them no matter how small.

Expand full comment

"Just proclamations no one could verify."

Often release in pairs of opposing narratives. It's difficult to verify one story when both sides are just flooding the zone with propaganda.

Expand full comment

Yes, and the truth is lost in a sea of propaganda. When you identify as your idea, it becomes your primary truth, even beyond objective reality. If it supports your idea it must be true, if it doesn't it's a lie, or must be promoting a lie. If it's an indisputable fact that disproves your idea, it's ignored.

Expand full comment

Us and Them

Expand full comment

This is an interesting point.

There was a time when there were really only 3 managed public information conduits (largely owned by elites/ruling class) ; print , tv and radio.

I’m not sure we ever got information which had not passed through a “narrative filter”.

The internet effectively sits above those these legacy media in that links to print , sound and image can be spread rapidly and that rapidity can give the information a false importance. Often internet based media are now created to look and sound like legacy media. Of course some media is made to look like “the horses mouth” and appears to have low production values - eg Joe Rogan Show - lacks glossy video back drop and sofas and classic studio lighting etc. Does this imbue what he says with veracity? No , but mental gymnastics will have people thinking that “he’s not on proper TV because the “elites” can have anyone telling the “truth” publicly.

In the good old bad old days most people would agree that the “news” we got was the objective truth because to think otherwise labelled you a conspiracy theorist or worse a “communist” etc. “it must be true otherwise why would they print it?”

The any objective truth if it ever was in legacy media is now confronted by a wall of ever-morphing “truths” ,some of which are objective and some merely appear to be objective because someone said them in a particularly way or in a particular setting. For instance Jordan Peterson looks and sounds like he ought to for a university professor - he sounds convincing he must be right, right? In reality Peterson promulgates Randian right-libertarian ideas like they were his own sagely invention and uncritically - ideas which resonate with a mass of people who are cut adrift from a reality and floating on a sea of un-objective, relative “truths” compounded by the immiseration caused by the apparent imminent collapse of Capitalism and the deindustrialisation which has gone hand in had with globalisation.

There are left wing internet pundits like Rogan and Peterson too - who equally like to mine the treasure of “cult of personality”.

and some flip-flop eg Russel Brand who went from “in your face truth-sayer” to Neocon Christian in a couple of years.

Daniel Pinchbeck has written at length on this BTW if I can find the link I’ll post it.

Paul Virilio said that the “internet would have profound effects on society , the economy and democracy” I think this now becoming unavoidablly true - where go form here is another question.

Expand full comment

First, I would be careful in lumping together information, opinion, truth, and narative. I was not thinking about thevcult of personality, just access to reliable information. Yes, there has always been a narrative filter regarding information, but it's a bad sign when information is purposefully hidden. For example, the American actions in Laos where hidden from the American public in a similar way that direct involvement by American personnel in Ukraine is hidden. It's a sign that the prevailing narrative is losing cohesion. This sea of ever-morphing truths will persist and grow until a new guiding narrative asserts itself. As to what happens next, I think the 16th and 17th centuries are a usefull guide. The introduction of a new communication technology, the printing press, overturned a societal narrative that had dominated for at least 500 years. What followed was 150 years of turmoil. Germany, the epicenter of this change, lost 2/3 of its population. New religious "truths" popped up like mushrooms after a rain, and religious wars followed. It's my opinion that the influence of science and scientific method on society eventuality moderated the most radical religious impulses.

Expand full comment

I agree with you entirely - I got somewhat carried away with the cult of personality - apologies for that! What is this German population collapse you refer to? - I’ve not read of that before.

Expand full comment

Germany was where the printing press first began to catch on (Gutenberg), and where the Protestant Reformation began (Luther). During the 30 Years War, the population of what we now call Germany fell from 18m to 6m due to war, famine, and plague. It was the battle ground between Catholic forces of the remnants of the Holy Roman Empire and the Protestant coalition led by Sweden. This finally ended with the Peace of Westfalia, which many historians consider the end of that period of turmoil. Religious wars continued however in places like the British Isles.

Expand full comment

It's not misinformation or disinformation; it's no information; why? Because the truth will show how incompetent the government is and will always be.

Expand full comment

There is no “always be” with government. Hegemonies fail , empires crumble and out of the ruins we can build new societies.

Expand full comment

I'm inclined to be outraged, but I think that a lot of the reported obstruction is just officials covering their asses. They have to tell you not to rescue people by helicopter or donate through unofficial channels in case anything goes wrong. I'm waiting to see if any volunteers actually get arrested for it or not.

Expand full comment

there was so much news about Katrina because the local city and state governments screwed the pooch so badly ahead of time through incompetence and skimming, they had to blame someone, and Bush was right there, and had the benefit of being their eternal enemy.

This time the failure is the feds.

My next door neighbor was a Rescue EMT who had volunteered AND HAD GOTTEN WARNING NOTICES about landfall. And she was pissed afterwards because they got diverted from body recovery to doing aid work, and the Army did the body recoveries.

Here, there is apparently just a lot of people milling around being important on per diem.

Expand full comment

My SIL lives in Valdosta… damage everywhere… FEMA no where to be found… 🤷🏽‍♀️

Expand full comment

And that is the whole

Expand full comment

The ranting lady...what was her point?

Expand full comment

IKR? I had to stop watching. That is but one example of the many reasons we finally...just...had...to...leave...Boston.

Expand full comment
founding

NOTHING.

In the beginning was the "deed". The division between thinking and doing does not exist for neurotics; the deed itself becomes a substitute for thought.

Expand full comment

That’s a better explanation than mine.

Expand full comment

Virtue Signalling is what you do when you don't have any real virtues:

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10152040796661573&set=a.271447476572

Expand full comment
founding

That is so spot on, it's profound...and simple but no simpler

Expand full comment

I’d be curious to know how she’ll amend her psyche when Trump wins and she doesn’t become a slave or have to wear a red bonnet. Her therapist will be dancing in the shower of money she rains down on him/her/it/was.

Expand full comment

"I’d be curious to know how she’ll amend her psyche when Trump wins and she doesn’t become a slave or have to wear a red bonnet."

Something like this:

"Mistakes were made on both sides. We should let bygones be bygones. And this should definitely not be a good reason for you to not take me seriously next time."

Expand full comment

"my calling out of the danger made the danger go away"

This is the same logic the neighbor's terrier has towards paperboys, squirrels, bicyclists, and sheets of newspapers blowing down the street in his view.

Arf arf arf arf arf arf arf arf arf!

Expand full comment

Lol

Expand full comment

Usually, the point for such women is to ruin your fun and force you to have fun in the way approved of by her, in a didactic manner of course, for your improvement.

For a man behaving like that, the point is usually an attempt to assert dominance over other men the only way a weak man without humility can: hiding behind social conventions and decorum to heap abuse on others.

And Ryan is Correct, as per usual: "In the beginning was the "deed"'. After that, they're on auto-pilot the same way someone experiencing a psychotic break is.

Expand full comment

Fun is sexist 😄

Expand full comment

Axiomatically, if so then sexism is fun. 😁

Expand full comment

Faster to ask, "what doesn't anger you, my dear?"

Expand full comment

I don’t think these folks have a point. Somehow their buttons get pushed and they are on autopilot.

Expand full comment

When their buttons get pushed they have affirmation and meaning in their lives. Pathetic!

Expand full comment

I find "Just doing my part!" to be one of the most evil and horrifying things an ostensibly free person could ever utter.

Expand full comment

"I'm black!"

That was it. That was the whole point.

Expand full comment

Look more than half of these fuckers are on meds. This is why the majority of people are insane! When I see past medical history after past medical history for the last 36 years of “anxiety/depression” followed by a medication list riddled with antidepressants and anti anxiety drugs it is crystal clear to me why we see the behavior we do! Overmedicated free floating anxiety = crazy town USA! This isn’t organic, it’s psychologically and pharmacologically driven.

Expand full comment

In my opinion, the meds are the symptom of an underlying problem. People are anxious and depressed and go to the doctor and the doctor puts them on these medications that causes even more anxiety, depression, and then crazy. The underlying problem: we've allowed poison into the food supply; we've allowed them to genetically engineer food without any long-term studies of the consequences. Many plants now make all their own glyphosate and pesticide, and people consume this, and some are more sensitive to it than others. Also, we allow fake food to be sold as actual food. Seed oils are toxic. They are not anything we should be eating. They are fucking you up, so gradually you don't understand the cause.

Those who are sensitive to this crap are the ones who wind up with destroyed metabolisms and gut issues, and they wind up at the doctor who puts them on pharmaceuticals. None of this is probably helped by the over-use of vaccines from day 1, all of which are incredibly suspect at this point. Bottom line - follow the money.

Expand full comment

Food is just another kind of drug for dealing with anxiety.

Expand full comment

Very interesting, but I think the key word in your post is "allowed". How were we supposed to not "allow" these things? Buy much more expensive and questionably authentic "organic" foods? Not eat at all?

BTW, which "seed oils" are you talking about? People have been eating sesame and flax oils for thousands of years and probably others as well. Maybe it has always been dangerous, but maybe everything has.

Who (if anyone) are we supposed to trust? "Do your own research" on a literal level is almost impossible for the vast majority of people. Reading is not research; it involves trust, and if trust has been completely lost, there is very little to recommend.

Expand full comment

You can't get oil out of most of the seeds on the market now without a modern chemical process. And even then, humans haven't been eating seed oils that are easily extracted like olive oil or sesame oil for that long (in the evolutionary sense) and not in any great quantity because until the modern age you were limited in methods to extract oil (like pressing) and limited to the natural seasonality of crops. So no, no one has been eating seed oils in any great quantity for very long. They are toxic.

We have allowed it by not holding anyone accountable. Is this a representative Republic or is it not? Are we really living in a dictatorship where authoritarian government decides what it does, and we have no say? I mean, maybe that is really where we are.

It sounds like you are clueless as to what is going on here. They have genetically modified crops with DNA from animals, programming them to make their own pesticides like glyphosate in the cells, and are producing all manner of frankenfoods that do not exist in nature. Without any kind of long-term study to ensure that this stuff isn't dangerous. Well now we have long-term data on the general population that this crap is killing people. The incidence of colon cancer and gut problems in young people has skyrocketed in the last twenty years. Gee, I wonder why that is? It can't possibly be any of this fake crap introduced recently into the food supply. Nah! That would impact someone's profits if we came to that conclusion.

But that's okay, keep buying the GMO laden crap they're feeding you if you want. You have freewill.

Expand full comment

I appreciate your reply but I think you could have been more polite. Not everyone is as informed as you seem to be.

In any case, the answer is not government action, as you seem to imply. If it is possible to prove your assertions, the response should be to publicize the findings and guide people towards alternatives.

Expand full comment

I think you misunderstand- the problem IS the government. They’re in bed with all this and profiting off it.

Also, text isn’t really a conveyer of politeness. I’m not going to blow smoke up your derrière and call it sunshine, so if my directness comes off at impoliteness, I apologize. I’m not trying to be a bitch. I just can’t help myself from time to time.

Expand full comment

In the 1970s there was a saying: Reality is for those who can't afford the drugs. It was supposed to be a "hip" line but it is, unfortunately, too true. The law of unintended consequences.

Expand full comment

A good person to follow on this topic is Dr. Roger McFillin and his account "Radically Genuine."

Expand full comment

Just last night, I made a decision, not to walk-away but to refrain from continuing to initiate kindness into a relationship (extended family) that has been focused on these very things. It is sad but a huge relief. Be informed, let the door stay open a crack just in case but surround yourself with good people and write memes about the rest and get on with your life!

Expand full comment

Ditto!

Expand full comment

I smirked and shook my head in, I don't know, sadness, maybe? I don't pity them, but it is a little sad to see because there is no helping them. You're talking a worldwide deprogramming so massive it will never be undertaken.

I also laughed, like you do when you're young and a friend bumps his head or falls down. The difference between laughing and crying is time, and I've been around long enough to laugh.

Expand full comment
founding

Maybe every day of our lives has been April's Fools Day, but we didn't notice it until Covid?

Expand full comment

Spot on. It was as though someone pulled off the proverbial blinders and collectively (for the most part) we looked around and thought, "WTF?" I know that I haven't been the same since.

Expand full comment

Haha, Groundhog day and April Fools day rolled into one. I like it!

Expand full comment
founding

Even better. That's perfect!

Expand full comment
Oct 5Liked by el gato malo

Yuri, I've known and loved many cats.

cats were created to remind humans that they are not the center of the universe.

and, cats don't care whether we like that reminder or not. it's what they do, their mission on earth 🤗

Expand full comment
author

i feel seen.

Expand full comment

Why yes! Laughter is and always has been the best medicine. Thank God I grew up and spent the earlier part of my adult life in the golden ages of parody, both print and performance.

The angriest people on social media--including Substack--are those without an appreciation for the ridiculous. It's not scathingly silly comedy they're drawn to but the sword of bitter rage, cleverly framed though they may express it.

The thing is, all cults are abusive marriages. You gotta prove your love to the abuser by sewing your eyelids shut.

Expand full comment

Once humor and satire became criminalized as 'hate speech', I knew we were approaching the end.

Expand full comment

If the first casualty of war is the truth, then the first casualty of a culture war must be sense of humor, followed by irony and nuance.

Expand full comment

agree-totally.

When we can no longer laugh at ourselves and (yes) others-we're finished.

Expand full comment

Nice.

Expand full comment

Suggested alternative second clause:

"... Only criminals will engage in Satire!"

Expand full comment

Well, the end of the current era, that's all.

Expand full comment

*takes down Previous Era Decorations all sneaky-like*

Expand full comment

*rescues some from the trash in case they might be useful someday*

Expand full comment

So true. My husband and I travel a lot and mix with a wide variety of people. The vast majority of our daily face to face interactions with others are positive. The powers that be profit off us being divided and in fear.

Expand full comment

We in the West have been schooled into an expectation that there is a political solution to every social problem. There isn’t... but the expectation can lead the most politically engaged kind of people down some big rabbit holes. One of them is a fixation on “Who is to blame” for our discontents. This leads people to see Wokeness as having been deliberately imposed on us normal everyday citizenry by some or other kind of 'elite' (Techno bros, Cultural Marxists, Managerial Elites etc). These ‘elites’ - so the argument runs - are ‘in control’ and must be defeated in order to bring an end to the Woke madness. But this is to seriously misread the nature our 21st c. Western malaise the most salient feature of which is that it has become out of control by anyone. Rather it is a kind of mass psychosis; one that ensnares everyone - rich and poor (especially the rich if anything), young and old (albeit in varying intensities). https://grahamcunningham.substack.com/

Expand full comment

"they wind up jumping into every new narrative because they are too riled up to do anything but respond to stimulus."

I want to point out that besides the cultural factors that support this state of being - like too much screen time and too little practice at critical thinking - there is also an almost universal physical contributer. The high levels of aluminum in vaccines are associated with increased anxiety. And they give kids the HPV vaccine - the one loaded with massive amounts of aluminum adjuvant - right at the beginning of their middle school years, 2 or 3 doses of it.

Expand full comment

Such a good point, Tonya, one that needs repeating over and over and over. These G-damned injections! This never-ending injection of junk and poison.

Expand full comment

And let’s not forget the amount of people on weed and alcohol. I smell the weed everywhere I go, ugh.

Expand full comment

I had wondered in the past (before this sort of thing became common) at a person who had so easily changed from one viewpoint on a certain moral topic to the complete opposite one, with seemingly no effort or struggle. I at first wondered how someone could change his deeply held convictions so readily. Then I realized that the first view had not been based on any conviction at all, but just sort of absorbed from the environment.

We are not raising children with well-grounded convictions based on a strong foundation of right and wrong anymore. This is what needs to happen:

Here is what we believe, and why we believe it. You are welcome to challenge it and present your reasons for doing so, but we are going to work through it together logically. You are going to develop convictions based on foundational truths, and ones that won't be so easily swayed by the zeitgeist.

Expand full comment

"Here is what we believe, and why we believe it. You are welcome to challenge it and present your reasons for doing so, but we are going to work through it together logically. You are going to develop convictions based on foundational truths, and ones that won't be so easily swayed by the zeitgeist."

So well put - wish I could express myself that well.

As for how someone switches from one extreme to its opposite without passing through anything in between, that is usually referred to as "the Horseshoe-theorem" in politics. Simply put, extremes of any kind are more alike than they are different, and the more extreme an -ism becomes, the more the core startens to behave like all other extremes while the surface may well keep superficial icons and emblems of something completely different.

F.e. liberal progressives demanding concentration camps for people saying "no thanks" to mRNA-injections. For a fascist, demanding mandatory vaccination for the well-being of the corporate state is business-as-usual; for a liberal presumably focused on the rights of an individual doing so is beyond the ideological pale.

Expand full comment