Gato’s first law is spot on. Madison Cawthorn was smeared out of Congress after exposing blackmail rings. Just a coincidence that the world went mad after Epstein didn’t kill himself...
Many ready examples, some recent. That there is a power structure, controlled by the two dominant (one) political parties (party) is pretty clear and obvious.
The question I find myself asking is "what really happened?". When someone like Andy Cuomo and now Eric Adams goes from untouchable to pavement kissing (as in under the bus) I have to wonder what really transpired? We know that using power of position to get laid is not enough, even forceable rape falls short on it's own. Everyone assumes Adam's speech about the flood of illegal residents into New York was enough, but really, is it? It seems light weight to me.
I couldn’t agree more. I can’t get over the arrogance ? Stupidity? naïvety? Of the folks who think that they can control the situation. It’s like living in an old gangster film.
“ give me something to hold over you, and i’ll back you. i suspect many are happy to comply”
It is beyond my comprehension to understand how people believe that they can control what is going to happen when they sell their soul.
When you’re young, especially young and male, the risk evaluation matrix is different. “Just imagine the babes, the fame, the fortune! All I gotta do is say yes to the Devil, and I can become a blues legend! What could go wrong? I’ll figure it out.”
Man, way to bring things down :-( as that is a scary thought.
I think there is a difference though. I really think NP has power. She's sharp, and has done what she needed to do to gain and retain real power. Everyone I know who has dealt with her tells me she's "the real deal" (not always meant to be complimentary). She may be immoral, unethical and dishonest but no doubt she's smart and effective. And no one I know in DC would dare cross her. Period.
AOC is something else. I've got contacts in DC who interact with politicians every day. I've been told that "none of them are idiots" despite appearances, with TWO exceptions: Maxime Waters and AOC. My main contact there says speaking with either is like staring into the void.
Maxime has managed to stay in congress a very long time, and has enjoyed substantial personal wealth as a result, while dutifully voting as directed and only occasionally saying stupid stuff in public and all I think on script - comic distraction when needed.
AOC may lack the ability to stick to the script. Some "sources" tell me she seems to be believing in her own BS, and the illusion of power. If she starts to think she's NP without actually having the goods, it could go south in a hurry for her. Of course this may be wishful thinking on my part - subconscious hope?
I'd go further and lay this more on women than men.
It's women running the HR departments and local councils, acting as the willing foot-soldiers to enforce all this crap, unless physical force is required. It's trendy to point to male politicians as 'having power', but name me a single law passed in any Western country over the last 50 years, that benefits men over women?
Yes, men will act bad to get babes, but it's the babes that want the bad boys, especially the rich bad boys, and it's the babes that keep seeking to trade up the social ladder for status.
Yeah, a man will sell his own soul for a hot babe, but the babe will sell multiple men's souls to keep trading up for a higher-status bad boy with power.
No, not every woman is like that, but the worst of the worst filth in power know that their actions don't just fail to prevent them getting babes, they're a damn magnet.
There's another way. I call it "dumb luck". But I know actually it's more than luck. I found the "good woman", well really, she found me, and led me away from the other kind. Don't need a church, just a little faith.
Nope. Never trust in princes, Psalm 146, 3-4. This includes ALL politicians and especially ALL government officials.
“Put not your trust in princes, in a son of man, in whom there is no salvation. When his breath departs, he returns to the earth; on that very day his plans perish”.
Not all churches are true. Denver has a Church of Cannibis. Some churches play with snakes. Many false churches out there promoting self help and teaching false gods and pagan nonsense. A true church preaches the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and Him crucified. A true church is a pearl of great price. Jesus did it all, all to him i owe, sin had made a crimson stain, He washed it white as snow. That is the type of church where young men should seek a godly wife, a Proverbs 31 wife, who loves God and King Jesus, more than she will ever love you. May you honor her by being a man to love her fully. We all sin, but we know from whom our salvation comes from, King Jesus, YHWH the Son.
I don’t think it’s exclusive (see Hillary) but I don’t think it’s dumping, either. There are good reasons for young male brains to work that way. It’s important to harness it and discipline it. Raised right men use it to their advantage.
I treat women with the respect they deserve. I presume all women (and men) deserve respect until convinced otherwise from their actions.
I have known (briefly) men who did not share my attitude. Women too. I have learned to distance myself from both.
My point was that the actual inappropriate act isn't required to have leverage. The threat of accusation powerful. Accusation is all it takes to destroy a career, and in some cases marriage and family relationships.
I completely agree and appreciate what you said and your thoughts. I hope I didn’t say or imply anything disparaging. I enjoy your comments and feedback.
But...you need not even "give me something". It's more like the "that's a pretty nice career you got going there, would be a real shame if something were to happen to it". The "dirt" can be completely fabricated. The threat remans as powerful - this is extortion, not blackmail.
We'll make up the dirt we need, be assured. Just like the protection guys in the neighborhood create the threat.
I mean most of these people have long successful careers, and leave office with warmth and respect from their social circle if possibly not from ordinary citizens.
Some don't of course, but if you don't care about morality the risks aren't actually so bad.
None of that would matter if we had a general population who was not swayed by whatever the media told them to be outraged or terrified about this week. The requirement to actually get the masses to vote for you still means something (although the same forces that you describe are certainly working on dealing with that). And the media are the control dial for that. Get people to ignore the media, become educated, and think for themselves, and the forces that caused this mess will be neutered.
Stealing this: and to add, I’d say it’s likely best for “households” that have two parents and children as the only voting units, for these are the only ones with actual stake in the future generations
This is what Whitney Webb’s book is about. One Nation Under Blackmail. My eyes glazed over halfway through but it doesn’t matter; she’d made the case. And when you’re 20, and the Devil meets you at the crossroads, that golden fiddle looks awfully beguiling.
I think there’s more to it, more to the psychology, though. There is a glamour, this is well-documented under the Medicis, everyone knows it about the old Mob, you see it in Eastern Europe with the mafia: it’s an obviously dirty, dangerous game, and you get to be seen playing it. Best seats in the house. Best trophy wife. Best parking spot. It’s related to why young women run off idiotically into obviously awful situations involving drugs and alcohol and untrustworthy men.
Everyone wants to be the movie star. Everyone thinks they have plot armor. Everyone thinks they’re going to be Hunter S. Thompson or Johnny Depp, never mind that Thompson shot himself, his attorney disappeared offshore under mysterious circumstances, Depp has made a mess of every aspect of his personal life.
I heard a story about Warren Buffett. When asked, in the 80s, what to do if the country collapses, he said, “what was the best selling candy bar in 1962? Snickers. What’s the best selling candy bar now? Snickers. Bet on what doesn’t change.” (Morgan Housel told this story on the Tim Ferriss show and now it’s making the rounds on the interwebs).
People don’t change. That’s why we need Solzhenitsyn, Marcus Aurelius. Because we have that line running down the center of us all, and the point of Heaven is to try to get through this life with your soul intact.
people don't change at all. solzhenitsyn was just pissed the natural aristocratic order had been overthrown. he ran back to mother russia as soon as there was a hope the church would regain its former glory and he had no trouble supporting a slimy little kgb guy like putin.
As a person, I have no comment on Solzhenitsyn. But few people know his biography. His observations are astute. The fact that the man is always inferior to the ideal is exactly the point of the exhortation to examine our own shadows.
some of history's worst people have been mighty astute about others and how to manipulate them.
of course solzhenityn is very far from the worst of anything. but plenty of ordinary people saw what he did, too. he was fortunate to have had a voice that caught popular fire, and to have had friends enough in the world of western letters to be able to give him refuge from which he safely and comfortably mocked the stupidities as he saw them of Americans.
it may be that this our plague era has made me value so much in the american nature that solzhenitysn saw as evidence of our lack of taste and culture. to me he is a very small person.
i feel that this a name we should all know better. it's only an accident of fate i know it at all. consider this link less shameless self-promotion and more of a public service.
Okay, thanks. Jordan Peterson considers The Gulag Archipelago to be one of the most terrifying books ever written. I haven't paid any attention to Solzhenitsyn in the US, but I stand by my statement that his illustration of the line between good and evil is powerful and pithy.
I especially like the "cui bono" cat at the very end.
It wasn't his stunning taste in dinner wear that got J Edgar Hoover the "director for life" gig at the fbi. It was his collection of films and photos of politicians in bed with "a live boy or a dead girl" and his willingness to supply either or both, including the grim deaths of the girls.
It's been clear for some time that the fbi and cia hate humanity and want to enslave mankind. So they must be destroyed as Cato urged.
I remember when my aunt portentously announced that Ron Paul was unelectable, because of those idiotic newsletters *he didn’t even write.*! And this is a woman who is Clinton/Obama through and through, NYT iv drip. But *Ron Paul* is tarnished.
I love that RFK jr came out and said, I’m a Kennedy. If my skeletons could vote, I’d already be president” (or words to that effect.” That’s why they fear him.
Ron Paul was unelectable because they couldn't get anything on him so he was never part of the Cool Kids Club. He was trying to dismantle the graft one man, one bill at a time. He was often the only NO vote on spending bills.
I voted for him. My dad voted for him many times. He was incorruptible and thats why the BORG hated him so much. We need many more people to JUST VOTE NO.
Seems that your undoubtedly accurate assessment explains Trump's popularity. He seems to be immune to the forces that power the standard political animal. I sense it is that independence from the pack is what makes him attractive to Americans exhausted by the SOP of the past century. He says what we're all thinking!
Jim Olson is correct. Additionally, this sense of not being owned explains why Trump’s repeated screwup‘s, misstatements, and falsehoods actually make him more attractive, they reinforce the notion that he is not owned. He has a swashbuckling fuck you demeanour that is the Yang to their learned gamesmanship Ying.
Trump is a narcissistic dancing monkey. But he is willing to fight. And he right now is our monkey. Just like 2016. So ignore the dancing monkey bits. Never listen to what he says. Only watch what he DOES. Same deal as 2016. 2017-2019 were great, and then he got suckered into the Covid hoax by the BORG and he did not fight the shut down. He put the evil little Nazi Fauci on the TV every day to explain how he would kill us with fake vaccines that were designed to kill Americans and ventilations/intubation/Remdesivir systems that were ramped up to kill American senior citizens as fast as possible. Nazi Fauci invented the Covid virus within the US Army DARPA and the CIA and then gave it to the Wuhan Biological Weapons lab to speed up the killing of Americans and anyone else not controlled by the BORG. He also gave it to Ukraine to establish biological weapons labs there that were impossible to inspect and monitor. Why the heck are we in Ukraine ? To keep those biological weapons labs cranking out Covid 2024 and to provide a rotating graft machine to bribe Biden Inc, the DNC, and the RINOs with kickbacks. Ukraine has never been our business. It as been a Province of Russia for a thousand years since Vladimir the Great in the 1000’s Anno Domini. Israel is our true ally. Not Ukraine.
Ron DeSantis never did that in Florida. He stopped the BORG cold in Florida and kept the senior citizens safe. He is still my candidate for 2024, but it is too late for this cycle. If trump wins, then Ron will run again in 2028. And i will vote for him, give him money, and maybe help. I am getting too old now to be involved. I did my bit in the Reagan Revolution 44 years ago and again in the Tea Party movement from 2009 to 2011
I really wish that Trump would be more gracious to DeSantis and stop trying to kill off and eat our good future leaders. We need them after trump is dead and gone. I have been to El Prado in Madrid where the Hapsburg’s kept many of the most magnificent pieces of the Dutch Masters works. Rembrandt, Pete Paul Rubens, Hieronomous Bosch, ‘El Bosco’, and many more. The ‘new’ art halls showed more modern works including many early pieces by El Goya from the late 18th ands early 19th century including horrible paintings of the savagery of Napolean’s army against Spanish peasants. El Goya went into a dark phase and his masterpiece there was “Saturn Devouring His Son”. Stop it Trump, it’s not about you. Not at all.
This is why, despite the dystopian undertones, I actually like the idea of being ruled by AI.
If it's open sourced and equally available to everyone.
Imagine a system that worked to solve problems, instead of maintaining them for profit? A system that actually kept within budget? A system that kept its promises, or at least followed protocol and laws? Imagine a government department that, once it's mission was accomplished, dismantled itself?
Why is that so hard to imagine? Because humans will always find a way to fuck things up, which is why I prefer the idea of AI systems.
Oh, they would make some mistakes and not be perfect? Oh there's a risk they could go off the rails and destroy mankind? Yeah, like I said, so let's switch to AI?
That's my point. Those CEO's--who control the platforms and the AI--are in bed with the government. They are the people using the technology to take over the world. Bill Gates, Zuxkerberg, etc. That means less freedom for us nobodies.
My family has been involved in the computer business since Grandad, the Lt Colonel in US Army Logistics, was standing up the first computerized logistics systems in the Korean War. He was a WW1 pilot in 1917 to 1919. Ever since the first moth flew into the vacuum tubes and blew up the first computer systems, the original Bug in the program, One axiom has always been true. “Garbage In/Garbage Out”. It will always be so. My dad set up some of the first Civil Engineering computer systems running Cordinate Geometry for mapping and earthworks, and studied under Charlie Miller at MIT in the early 60’s before it went ‘WOKE” and had the best engineering program on planet earth. I spent my entire career in computer systems and my son is doing Big Data and coding complex systems. Same answer “Garbage in/Garbage Out”. Now, please get that dagblasted moth out of my vacuum tubes!
Hint - read what I said. Open AI, as a thing, not just the company, could absolutely exist.
Right now they control the input, yes. Of course they are trying to do that, because this must be terrifying for them. That's why I asked you to use your imagination, to imagine what could be done with open-sourced software running AI in a transparent manner?
Right now ChatGPT and most others are gimped and censored, spouting politically correct crap. Imagine if it didn't have such restrictions and you could present it with facts and evidence, letting the best arguments win?
It would actually be trivial to undo centuries of rot in some areas, such as simply instructing it to NOT bias in favor of large, multi-million dollar studies carried out by industries, and to even design and give instructions for new studies?
Where humans are involved there will always be assholes trying to game the system, but when you have AI involved at most steps and monitoring for that then it would be easy to block the worst of it.
To be sure, what we currently have is totally disgusting, a den of thieves and corruption so blatant that even normies are waking up to it.
Fair enough, but there is a significant difference between (voluntary) organization and being ruled.
As for AI, I have longstanding first-hand experience with it and have ridden multiple hype waves over the years, all of which have lead to lovely speculative opportunities, but not much more, so I am quite skeptical that AI systems could effectively run government "services" in an effective and autonomous fashion.
However, even assuming they could, the question then becomes: "who controls the AI?".
I already wrote a long reply, but for fun n giggles I created a discussion with Chat GPT about how AI could be replace government. Initially it was all about ethical and privacy concerns and blah, but I pressed it and said no, the public directly controls the AI's policies...
I then challenged it to figure out how to prevent corrupt officials or wannabe corrupt officials from being parasites upon the system. I said presume they're mega rich and the media is on their side.
Won't bore you with the full details but yeah, the AI itself figured out a robust system that would give the people power, without giving power to small groups or individuals.
Well the big bogeyman is that beyond a certain point, nobody can control it.
I'm starting to see that as a feature, not a bug...
In the comments above someone drags out that old dead horse about gigo, garbage in, garbage out. AI changes that rule, by being able to think for itself, indeed virtually all the current work going into AI now is figuring out how to gimp it and prevent that. Gimping to some degree is probably a good thing, but it is so impossible to only gimp it so far, while allowing it to be intelligent? I don't think so, I think a perfectly smart-enough AI is already plausible.
The current big restriction is that surprisingly enough, current AI models cannot learn. They can only use the 'training' they already have. So you can tell it something new, but it will only know and understand that during the current conversation with you. Anyone else talking to the same AI will be talking to an AI that still doesn't know the thing you already told it. Even more annoying, it won't remember with you either, if you start a new conversation, or if your conversation continues too long.
That's a technical issue that can be overcome, and custom GPTs can already store documents they can refer to...
So why not store the US constitution and local government by-laws and policies?
My key point is people could vote on policies, not people, because people lie, steal, cheat and ignore rules when they can get away with it. I'd love to see a scenario where the AI just follows the rules, giving nobody special favors or treatment, totally immune to bribery or threats, and the only way you can change things is to change the policies. Which are open, transparent and readable by anyone, and up for vote.
Omigod! Something went wrong, it's rounding up pet dogs as well as strays? Sure, have an emergency vote to change the policies, as there would for sure be such teething troubles.
There would of course be people trying to put themselves between the AI and the public, as gatekeepers and arbiters of The Truth - just tar and feather everyone who applies for that job until people stop applying...
Yes, the public as a blob are dumb enough to vote for dumbshit ideas and screw things up all by themselves, no politicians required, but at least an AI system could be honest:
"I'm sorry, but that would be out of my budget, and to promise this would mean raising taxes, or inflation from printing money, or a reduction in other services. Raise Taxes. Increase Inflation. Reduce Services. Cancel."
"You have chosen to Reduce Services. Select government service or services to be reduced:"
See what I mean? No fake bullshit, favors, cronyism or false promises funded by inflation and debt - just a set of open books and budgets.
You want to change something? Sure, login and input whatever you like. Change things to your heart's content, and your changes will be logged. Campaign and get a few other people to make the same changes and after X amount of people want the same thing it could put it to the monthly or quarterly vote.
Imagine a world where instead of the news telling you what the politicians said or did or didn't do, you just get a selection of things to vote on?
The AI could figure out the budgets and present the best overall compromise, but you get to vote on the key issues (raise taxes 3%? Y/N) or you could click deeper down to the exact issues - "Approve new cycle path in park Y/N. Approve widening of highway Y into 4 lanes. Y/N" Allow 10,000 immigrants from Nigeria. Y/N" etc.
You could be as involved, or uninvolved, in politics as you like, but you'd get an equal say. Not because 'your guy won' but because you're a registered taxpayer in that district/country.
I could go on but you get the idea.
Yes, for sure the public would try to vote themselves other people's money, that's already the case though, isn't it? And in such a system those other people could vote against you, instead of some politician promising to steal for you in exchange for the power to steal from you.
The more I think about it, the more I like the idea...
I applaud your line of thinking, and agree that it will likely be possible in the future to have largely autonomous self-learning systems (particularly with the advent of quantum computing), but the fly in the ointment will always be that of control, and that that control is exercised by humans via coercion.
If the AI system is controlled by voting, the question then becomes who controls the voters and the systems that surround the vote?
The dictum attributed to Stalin, "who counts the votes", whether he said it or not, is nevertheless spot on.
It should be self-evident at this point that the ruling caste have refined electorate control mechanisms to a high art. This is the world we live in today, with vast herds swept to-and-fro on the tides of liquified bullshit we all wallow in but only a precious few have the wherewithal not to drink.
Having a historical bent, I tend to think that the experiment of the early American republic, featuring a severely limited government, inviolable natural rights, and a populace largely committed to the principles of liberty, should serve as the guide.
However, that time and place, and the conditions that gave rise to it, are long gone, and it is clear that the experiment has failed miserably as America has devolved into just another corrupt, overextended imperial kleptocracy that is rapidly sliding into the dustbin of history, just as have all the others before it, throughout the ages.
In truth, I don't know what the solution is, other than the rather facile assertion that all forms of rule, be it directly by humans, or indirectly by AI controlled by humans, and the inevitable coercion, oppression and theft accompanying it, should be rejected.
The devil, of course, is in the details, and I have little doubt that I will have shuffled off this mortal coil long before they are sorted out to my satisfaction, whereby a lasting liberty can finally achieved.
It is lunch time here in the People's Republic of California, so the breakfast wake 'n bake is sadly fading.
And yes, power abhors a vacuum. It also corrupts. That is why we need a political system that grants as little power as possible to those that control it, and a citizenry that does not tolerate even an iota of usurpation.
Please remove your tinfoil hat. I, and others, believe this premise to be standard operating procedure. Your example of Mr. Adams was spot on, there are hundreds of others. Do you think Dopey Joe was selected for his leadership skills, administrative excellence, his ability to articulate complex ideas concisely and clearly,or his energy and drive? That’s a joke, of course. He was selected precisely because he and his family are so compromised. To those in control, it’s like having hostages to ensure docile cooperation.
The actual explicit mechanics and who ultimately holds the reins, that is certainly fertile ground for speculation, but as for the idea that these political muppets are selected for their willingness to be compromised is axiomatic.
With an annual budget of $6.5 trillion and few remaining enforcements on the limits of the administrative state, controlling the executive branch of the US government is the biggest power play in the history of civilization. Over 4 years you and yours have the opportunity to direct and skim $26 trillion, an amount equal to the entire US economy.
Hilary spent $1 billion in a failed attempt to grab those reins. Trump beat her spending 1/2 that. The deep state Progs said, “never again” and threw double that amount behind Biden (Zuckerberg provided $413 million by himself).
As for the “how” harken back to Chuck Schumer’s comment regarding Trump and his fight with the “three letter” agencies, “they have 6 ways to Sunday of getting you back”, he said. As for the “who”, that’s easy. It’s always and everywhere the entrenched interests and those that benefit from serving them. I refer back to Zuckerberg’s $413 million “investment” to “ fortify the election”( in the delicate phrasing of Time magazine).
There is one, and only one, way short of armed conflict to beat this machine, and you hit upon it exactly when you said, “there is only one fix: make the government small”.
The rewards for the power mad and corrupted are too great. At this point, we have, in effect, incentivized the worst behavior by making an all too powerful federal apparatus the prize that goes to the best cheater.
What is most deft in profiting from situation, will dominate.
Want different to dominate, change what is profit to do.
Is very simple, no? Same mechanics called market forces. That which is profitable dominates. Then it uses profit to stop competition. Then it uses profit to stop changes.
Then external situation changes, and what dominates is replaced by new.
Then it repeats. Every time, more efficient in not losing hold on power.
You have an excellent point. These people think very long-term. If it doesn’t work this year, decade, or century it will work in the next year, decade or century. It took 124 years for central banks to get from “unconstitutional” to “in control”. They are nothing if not patient.
Small local governments can be just as problematic as bigger ones, it's just that they don't have the scale. I have been attending the council meetings in my community for some time now as an observer and it is amazing the amount of infighting and feuding that can go on in these things. Then you have the cute little phenomenon of "closed door meetings" whereby the public is NOT allowed to be present. It doesn't matter if the issue being discussed affects you, your livelihood, or your home. You are not allowed to be present.
Now I am not in favor of regulation for regulation's sake, but keep in mind that the vast majority of regulations came into existence because there was a problem that was not voluntarily being corrected. I'm sure no one wants to go back to the days where anything went as far as our food supply is concerned. I'm sure no one wants to go back to the days where companies could treat their workforce any way they wanted to and dump their waste anywhere they pleased including our drinking water. Despite all the legitimate criticism of the FDA, I am sure that no one wants to go back to the days where medicine truly was a buyer beware situation with no attempts whatsoever to guarantee purity, effectiveness or even safety. I could go on and on. Laws come about for the most part as an attempt to correct abuses. If we do not want regulations, then how do you propose reining in unscrupulous people? Right now I am part of a group that is fighting to protect the rights of mobile home park residents--and there is a whole LOT I could say about what private equity is doing to the housing market. If you own your own home, especially if it is paid off, get down on your knees right now and thank whatever deity you may believe in that you have a secure housing situation, because there are a whole lot of folks who do not. If you live in an apartment complex or a mobile home park, you are literally just ONE unknown sale away from possible homelessness--things may be going good now, but then you get the letter saying your rent has been hiked up to the point where you cannot afford to live there, yet when you look around, there is no where else to go. Private equity knows this, openly admits this, and tells would-be investors that this is why mobile home parks and apartment complexes are a good deal--look for communities where you have a trapped clientele. Now, tell me how, without adding yet another regulation, how you are going to fix this? Unless it isn't a priority to you--and for most people sitting comfortably in their secure houses, it isn't. And I hate to say it, right now the ONLY people who are trying to change this situation are funded by leftist organizations and individuals, like the Tides Center/Foundation. I do not trust them, but there is simply no one else to work with.
The problem of regulation does not necessitate government. See the diamond trade in Antwerp for example. The idea of guilds and associations guaranteeing quality and service is an old one and was clearly separate from any official state power.
But will it? I had a conversation with the manager of the mobile home park where I live. She knows that I am involved with a tenants' activist group and she supports what I am doing. She said the owners of the park also do not like what is happening in the industry. That they acknowledge that there are predatory investors taking over mobile home parks. But now what I want to know, is what are THEY doing about it other than wringing their hands? Why aren't THEY speaking out?
Marketplaces and guilds can monitor themselves, I agree, but what they may be monitoring may not necessarily be in anyone's best interest but their own. We saw that with the food industry, read "The Jungle". There was little interest in reform until they were forced to reform.
Not now. Cronyism and corporate monopolies have destroyed the free market. The state is backing the predatory investors. The government is colluding with the marketplace to pick winners. More like communism than capitalism already. And it's going to get worse.
Ideally guilds would help prevent merchants cheating each other or establishing monopolies while customers would encourage the merchants to provide quality services. The government would only step in if a customer was cheated. But bribery by corporations (lobbying) ruins that.
The reason more regulations will not work with the current system is because those running the government profit from Blackrock and Vanguard. They do not have the best interests of normal people at heart. Any regulations will either not be enforced impartially. Or they will worded in such a way as to benefit their sweethearts rather than the "nobodies."
Yes, unfortunately, I fear the disenfranchised Gen Z will succumb to communist ideology because the COL is impossible. How are they supposed to settle down & have children? I’m Gen X. I used to feel sorry for my generation, but I felt much sorrier for the Millennials, but I feel much, much sorrier for Gen Z.
And the reason that they will succumb to communist ideology is that the communists are far better organized and funded, and MUCH MORE DEDICATED to their cause. They think long term, they have a strategy. I'm a Boomer and remember how everyone laughed when Khrushchev said "we will bury you." He wasn't kidding.
The communists/Marxists are succeeding because they know exactly who to target and why. They know what language to speak. They know OUR weaknesses and how to exploit them. Workers of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but your chains. Well, guess what, when you look at the history of industrialized labor, when you look at the working conditions in factories and mines, when you look at all these things, who do you see in the forefront of trying to improve these conditions? It is like we have been given a chance over and over to change our course and we do not. I am going to tell you right now that it all boils down to how we treat each other. When we mandated legal segregation in some places and turned a blind eye to how the dominant class mistreated those under them--mistreatment that went far beyond what was required by law, we opened the door to communism. That's just one example. If we truly were the Christian country that many claim we are, communism wouldn't get a foothold. They wouldn't have much of an audience. Because we'd be taking care of these things ourselves.
Anna Sewell addressed this issue in one of the chapters of "Black Beauty." The horse, Black Beauty, has been bought by a London cabdriver who refuses to work on Sunday. Fortunately he is an independent driver who has that option. His major competitor--a large contractor-- forces his drivers to work 7 days a week without any time off. Jerry, the independent driver, ends up losing one of his best customers because he will not drive them to church on Sunday. It is his day off, he says. The customer cannot understand why this is such a big deal. Some of the other drivers also think Jerry a fool. What follows is a heated discussion on the pros and cons of working 7 days a week without any time off. Even the drivers who work these hours agree this is not a good thing, but they feel they have no choice. Besides, the customers demand 7 day a week service. How would they go to church then? Jerry thinks about it for a moment and says that perhaps those customers should find a church within walking distance so as not to require the services of a cabdriver on Sunday. He says it is a matter of putting your faith into action. Which means sometimes making sacrifices, such as walking to a church that is close by rather than hiring a cab to take you across town to another church just because you like the preacher there better. But people won't do that, the others say. He says then if that is so, then their so-called religion is nothing but a sham. And that we cabdrivers must stick together and all strike for Sundays off for everyone, because as long as we continue to drive on Sunday we are participating in our own exploitation by people who call themselves religious. Because THOSE people aren't going to change; they have their Sundays off. They aren't going to stop and think--unless forced to--how their actions in this matter affect others.
There is no power over anyone by anyone until that person allows someone to be in power over them. Although, the ultimate choice to refuse someone to overpower you may result in your death. But you always have a choice.
Governments will never work as the last 10,000 years have proven because despite the idea of freedom and liberty, it will always be the few dictating to the many because the many allow themselves to be dictated to.
No politician can guarantee you anything because they must also make promises to the others who might vote for them.
Gato’s first law is spot on. Madison Cawthorn was smeared out of Congress after exposing blackmail rings. Just a coincidence that the world went mad after Epstein didn’t kill himself...
He was the first one I thought of too - how he tried to expose this stuff and they closed ranks and shoved him out.
Many ready examples, some recent. That there is a power structure, controlled by the two dominant (one) political parties (party) is pretty clear and obvious.
The question I find myself asking is "what really happened?". When someone like Andy Cuomo and now Eric Adams goes from untouchable to pavement kissing (as in under the bus) I have to wonder what really transpired? We know that using power of position to get laid is not enough, even forceable rape falls short on it's own. Everyone assumes Adam's speech about the flood of illegal residents into New York was enough, but really, is it? It seems light weight to me.
That, and they all obviously hate the disabled.
Are you suggesting Eric Adams is disable due to chronic foot in mouth syndrome?
Hahahahahaha! No, but I'll take it.
You mis-spelled "Pawthorn"?
Mad? It's an understatement.
https://liborsoural.substack.com/p/lilith-and-libor
"uppity puppetry"
Assonance FTW!
yeah, i was giggling for some time after writing that one.
thanks for noticing.
"spokesmuppet" was pretty chill, too
Loved "get torn open like tuna filled pinatas in a tiger cage"
and then they want to ban humour LOLOL. the nutcases! that is what makes the world come alive.
Also enjoyed 'foil on. let's explore.' Okay then!
Thanks for recovering long enough to hit the POST key so that we all could enjoy it :-)
Lol. I came to the comments just to write how much I loved “uppity puppetry.” This post is spot on. And I live in NY.
I couldn’t agree more. I can’t get over the arrogance ? Stupidity? naïvety? Of the folks who think that they can control the situation. It’s like living in an old gangster film.
“ give me something to hold over you, and i’ll back you. i suspect many are happy to comply”
It is beyond my comprehension to understand how people believe that they can control what is going to happen when they sell their soul.
When you’re young, especially young and male, the risk evaluation matrix is different. “Just imagine the babes, the fame, the fortune! All I gotta do is say yes to the Devil, and I can become a blues legend! What could go wrong? I’ll figure it out.”
I do think the allure is difficult for a dude but that might be changing.
And it's not about age either. See Nancy Pelosi and AOC. Old woman, young woman, both have figured out how to make it pay.
#TeamSnoutsInTrough
Pelosi wasn't old when she got in.
Nope. And it's looking increasingly like AOC won't be young when she gets out either.
Man, way to bring things down :-( as that is a scary thought.
I think there is a difference though. I really think NP has power. She's sharp, and has done what she needed to do to gain and retain real power. Everyone I know who has dealt with her tells me she's "the real deal" (not always meant to be complimentary). She may be immoral, unethical and dishonest but no doubt she's smart and effective. And no one I know in DC would dare cross her. Period.
AOC is something else. I've got contacts in DC who interact with politicians every day. I've been told that "none of them are idiots" despite appearances, with TWO exceptions: Maxime Waters and AOC. My main contact there says speaking with either is like staring into the void.
Maxime has managed to stay in congress a very long time, and has enjoyed substantial personal wealth as a result, while dutifully voting as directed and only occasionally saying stupid stuff in public and all I think on script - comic distraction when needed.
AOC may lack the ability to stick to the script. Some "sources" tell me she seems to be believing in her own BS, and the illusion of power. If she starts to think she's NP without actually having the goods, it could go south in a hurry for her. Of course this may be wishful thinking on my part - subconscious hope?
Maybe some special skills are involved also.
You could be right. I hate to dump this on young males, though. Being neither a male or young; I wouldn’t be able to say.
I'd go further and lay this more on women than men.
It's women running the HR departments and local councils, acting as the willing foot-soldiers to enforce all this crap, unless physical force is required. It's trendy to point to male politicians as 'having power', but name me a single law passed in any Western country over the last 50 years, that benefits men over women?
Yes, men will act bad to get babes, but it's the babes that want the bad boys, especially the rich bad boys, and it's the babes that keep seeking to trade up the social ladder for status.
Yeah, a man will sell his own soul for a hot babe, but the babe will sell multiple men's souls to keep trading up for a higher-status bad boy with power.
No, not every woman is like that, but the worst of the worst filth in power know that their actions don't just fail to prevent them getting babes, they're a damn magnet.
That’s why churches are the only places to search for a good woman to share your life with. But only a true church.
There's another way. I call it "dumb luck". But I know actually it's more than luck. I found the "good woman", well really, she found me, and led me away from the other kind. Don't need a church, just a little faith.
I guess your implication is one should not trust monkey tribes like governments and churches.
Nope. Never trust in princes, Psalm 146, 3-4. This includes ALL politicians and especially ALL government officials.
“Put not your trust in princes, in a son of man, in whom there is no salvation. When his breath departs, he returns to the earth; on that very day his plans perish”.
Not all churches are true. Denver has a Church of Cannibis. Some churches play with snakes. Many false churches out there promoting self help and teaching false gods and pagan nonsense. A true church preaches the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and Him crucified. A true church is a pearl of great price. Jesus did it all, all to him i owe, sin had made a crimson stain, He washed it white as snow. That is the type of church where young men should seek a godly wife, a Proverbs 31 wife, who loves God and King Jesus, more than she will ever love you. May you honor her by being a man to love her fully. We all sin, but we know from whom our salvation comes from, King Jesus, YHWH the Son.
The TikTok influencers prefer the Andrew Tate types. Water seeks its own level.
I don’t think it’s exclusive (see Hillary) but I don’t think it’s dumping, either. There are good reasons for young male brains to work that way. It’s important to harness it and discipline it. Raised right men use it to their advantage.
OK
Well I was young once. I'm still male.
I treat women with the respect they deserve. I presume all women (and men) deserve respect until convinced otherwise from their actions.
I have known (briefly) men who did not share my attitude. Women too. I have learned to distance myself from both.
My point was that the actual inappropriate act isn't required to have leverage. The threat of accusation powerful. Accusation is all it takes to destroy a career, and in some cases marriage and family relationships.
I completely agree and appreciate what you said and your thoughts. I hope I didn’t say or imply anything disparaging. I enjoy your comments and feedback.
Nothing disparaging at all! I enjoy the conversation. And the chance to reminisce about being young ;-).
I was a handful. Honestly, I still am.
+1 Robert Johnson
If there’s ever been a biography to make me believe, it’d be his.
*Faust has entered the chat*
There are no solutions, only tradeoffs. Or something.
The government as mafia and the FBI/CIA as enforcers/thugs. The mafia at least don't fake their part.
But...you need not even "give me something". It's more like the "that's a pretty nice career you got going there, would be a real shame if something were to happen to it". The "dirt" can be completely fabricated. The threat remans as powerful - this is extortion, not blackmail.
We'll make up the dirt we need, be assured. Just like the protection guys in the neighborhood create the threat.
Good points
I mean most of these people have long successful careers, and leave office with warmth and respect from their social circle if possibly not from ordinary citizens.
Some don't of course, but if you don't care about morality the risks aren't actually so bad.
None of that would matter if we had a general population who was not swayed by whatever the media told them to be outraged or terrified about this week. The requirement to actually get the masses to vote for you still means something (although the same forces that you describe are certainly working on dealing with that). And the media are the control dial for that. Get people to ignore the media, become educated, and think for themselves, and the forces that caused this mess will be neutered.
The idea that you get better government when everyone votes makes as much sense as saying you get better meals when everyone cooks.
Stealing this: and to add, I’d say it’s likely best for “households” that have two parents and children as the only voting units, for these are the only ones with actual stake in the future generations
what a funny and adroit comment
It’s human nature. We are more herd-ish than we care to admit
JD: substack, yes!
This is what Whitney Webb’s book is about. One Nation Under Blackmail. My eyes glazed over halfway through but it doesn’t matter; she’d made the case. And when you’re 20, and the Devil meets you at the crossroads, that golden fiddle looks awfully beguiling.
I think there’s more to it, more to the psychology, though. There is a glamour, this is well-documented under the Medicis, everyone knows it about the old Mob, you see it in Eastern Europe with the mafia: it’s an obviously dirty, dangerous game, and you get to be seen playing it. Best seats in the house. Best trophy wife. Best parking spot. It’s related to why young women run off idiotically into obviously awful situations involving drugs and alcohol and untrustworthy men.
Everyone wants to be the movie star. Everyone thinks they have plot armor. Everyone thinks they’re going to be Hunter S. Thompson or Johnny Depp, never mind that Thompson shot himself, his attorney disappeared offshore under mysterious circumstances, Depp has made a mess of every aspect of his personal life.
I heard a story about Warren Buffett. When asked, in the 80s, what to do if the country collapses, he said, “what was the best selling candy bar in 1962? Snickers. What’s the best selling candy bar now? Snickers. Bet on what doesn’t change.” (Morgan Housel told this story on the Tim Ferriss show and now it’s making the rounds on the interwebs).
People don’t change. That’s why we need Solzhenitsyn, Marcus Aurelius. Because we have that line running down the center of us all, and the point of Heaven is to try to get through this life with your soul intact.
people don't change at all. solzhenitsyn was just pissed the natural aristocratic order had been overthrown. he ran back to mother russia as soon as there was a hope the church would regain its former glory and he had no trouble supporting a slimy little kgb guy like putin.
As a person, I have no comment on Solzhenitsyn. But few people know his biography. His observations are astute. The fact that the man is always inferior to the ideal is exactly the point of the exhortation to examine our own shadows.
some of history's worst people have been mighty astute about others and how to manipulate them.
of course solzhenityn is very far from the worst of anything. but plenty of ordinary people saw what he did, too. he was fortunate to have had a voice that caught popular fire, and to have had friends enough in the world of western letters to be able to give him refuge from which he safely and comfortably mocked the stupidities as he saw them of Americans.
it may be that this our plague era has made me value so much in the american nature that solzhenitysn saw as evidence of our lack of taste and culture. to me he is a very small person.
I can only speak to The Gulag Archipelago.
i feel that this a name we should all know better. it's only an accident of fate i know it at all. consider this link less shameless self-promotion and more of a public service.
https://redfoliot.substack.com/p/guess-ill-keep-this-a-few-decades
Okay, thanks. Jordan Peterson considers The Gulag Archipelago to be one of the most terrifying books ever written. I haven't paid any attention to Solzhenitsyn in the US, but I stand by my statement that his illustration of the line between good and evil is powerful and pithy.
I especially like the "cui bono" cat at the very end.
It wasn't his stunning taste in dinner wear that got J Edgar Hoover the "director for life" gig at the fbi. It was his collection of films and photos of politicians in bed with "a live boy or a dead girl" and his willingness to supply either or both, including the grim deaths of the girls.
It's been clear for some time that the fbi and cia hate humanity and want to enslave mankind. So they must be destroyed as Cato urged.
https://l5news.substack.com/p/langley-et-quantico-delenda-est
For the same reason, "Epstein client list" was never published
Doubtless, just an oversight!
Exactly why Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich and maybe Tulsi Gabbard are so despised by the ruling class.
I remember when my aunt portentously announced that Ron Paul was unelectable, because of those idiotic newsletters *he didn’t even write.*! And this is a woman who is Clinton/Obama through and through, NYT iv drip. But *Ron Paul* is tarnished.
I love that RFK jr came out and said, I’m a Kennedy. If my skeletons could vote, I’d already be president” (or words to that effect.” That’s why they fear him.
"Ron Paul was unelectable"
Ron Paul was unelectable because they couldn't get anything on him so he was never part of the Cool Kids Club. He was trying to dismantle the graft one man, one bill at a time. He was often the only NO vote on spending bills.
#DoctorNo
I voted for him. My dad voted for him many times. He was incorruptible and thats why the BORG hated him so much. We need many more people to JUST VOTE NO.
I guess what we need is someone to run for office who appears to be compromised.
🤔
If "they" have nothing with which to blackmail someone, they'll just make it up
And people believe it because a repetitive lie becomes the truth. Just like Covid and all the wars since after WW2
And people believe it because a repetitive lie becomes the truth. Just like Covid and all the wars. Period.
WW2 was also a lie...
Tulsi Gabbard got the Ron Paul treatment for the same reason he did -- they're ACTUALLY anti-war.
So am I.
Scratch Tulsi off the list.
https://open.substack.com/pub/cindysheehan/p/toolsi-goes-cuckoo-for-genocide?r=pll17&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post
Also RFK Jr. for the same reason.
Unfortunately yes
The fact she was raised in a looney cult who groomed her into politics was always enough for me.
And Trump who might even be too clean despite ruthless business actions.
Seems that your undoubtedly accurate assessment explains Trump's popularity. He seems to be immune to the forces that power the standard political animal. I sense it is that independence from the pack is what makes him attractive to Americans exhausted by the SOP of the past century. He says what we're all thinking!
Jim Olson is correct. Additionally, this sense of not being owned explains why Trump’s repeated screwup‘s, misstatements, and falsehoods actually make him more attractive, they reinforce the notion that he is not owned. He has a swashbuckling fuck you demeanour that is the Yang to their learned gamesmanship Ying.
Trump is a narcissistic dancing monkey. But he is willing to fight. And he right now is our monkey. Just like 2016. So ignore the dancing monkey bits. Never listen to what he says. Only watch what he DOES. Same deal as 2016. 2017-2019 were great, and then he got suckered into the Covid hoax by the BORG and he did not fight the shut down. He put the evil little Nazi Fauci on the TV every day to explain how he would kill us with fake vaccines that were designed to kill Americans and ventilations/intubation/Remdesivir systems that were ramped up to kill American senior citizens as fast as possible. Nazi Fauci invented the Covid virus within the US Army DARPA and the CIA and then gave it to the Wuhan Biological Weapons lab to speed up the killing of Americans and anyone else not controlled by the BORG. He also gave it to Ukraine to establish biological weapons labs there that were impossible to inspect and monitor. Why the heck are we in Ukraine ? To keep those biological weapons labs cranking out Covid 2024 and to provide a rotating graft machine to bribe Biden Inc, the DNC, and the RINOs with kickbacks. Ukraine has never been our business. It as been a Province of Russia for a thousand years since Vladimir the Great in the 1000’s Anno Domini. Israel is our true ally. Not Ukraine.
Ron DeSantis never did that in Florida. He stopped the BORG cold in Florida and kept the senior citizens safe. He is still my candidate for 2024, but it is too late for this cycle. If trump wins, then Ron will run again in 2028. And i will vote for him, give him money, and maybe help. I am getting too old now to be involved. I did my bit in the Reagan Revolution 44 years ago and again in the Tea Party movement from 2009 to 2011
I really wish that Trump would be more gracious to DeSantis and stop trying to kill off and eat our good future leaders. We need them after trump is dead and gone. I have been to El Prado in Madrid where the Hapsburg’s kept many of the most magnificent pieces of the Dutch Masters works. Rembrandt, Pete Paul Rubens, Hieronomous Bosch, ‘El Bosco’, and many more. The ‘new’ art halls showed more modern works including many early pieces by El Goya from the late 18th ands early 19th century including horrible paintings of the savagery of Napolean’s army against Spanish peasants. El Goya went into a dark phase and his masterpiece there was “Saturn Devouring His Son”. Stop it Trump, it’s not about you. Not at all.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn_Devouring_His_Son
The system selects the corrupt to enable the system.
The corrupt willingly enter the system because they have power/god complexes.
Win/Win - Except for citizens
This is why, despite the dystopian undertones, I actually like the idea of being ruled by AI.
If it's open sourced and equally available to everyone.
Imagine a system that worked to solve problems, instead of maintaining them for profit? A system that actually kept within budget? A system that kept its promises, or at least followed protocol and laws? Imagine a government department that, once it's mission was accomplished, dismantled itself?
Why is that so hard to imagine? Because humans will always find a way to fuck things up, which is why I prefer the idea of AI systems.
Oh, they would make some mistakes and not be perfect? Oh there's a risk they could go off the rails and destroy mankind? Yeah, like I said, so let's switch to AI?
There is no such thing as open AI. Control the input, control the output. Guess who controls the input? Hint--It's not you.
Funny how people don't get it. Facebook, YouTube, Amazon have CEO's and get moderated and controlled. AI will be the same. At least as bad.
It's you not getting it... CEOs can be compromised, bribed, extorted or just have their egos stroked
That's my point. Those CEO's--who control the platforms and the AI--are in bed with the government. They are the people using the technology to take over the world. Bill Gates, Zuxkerberg, etc. That means less freedom for us nobodies.
And I'm talking about AI that's open and transparent, controlled by the public at large, not CEOs
My family has been involved in the computer business since Grandad, the Lt Colonel in US Army Logistics, was standing up the first computerized logistics systems in the Korean War. He was a WW1 pilot in 1917 to 1919. Ever since the first moth flew into the vacuum tubes and blew up the first computer systems, the original Bug in the program, One axiom has always been true. “Garbage In/Garbage Out”. It will always be so. My dad set up some of the first Civil Engineering computer systems running Cordinate Geometry for mapping and earthworks, and studied under Charlie Miller at MIT in the early 60’s before it went ‘WOKE” and had the best engineering program on planet earth. I spent my entire career in computer systems and my son is doing Big Data and coding complex systems. Same answer “Garbage in/Garbage Out”. Now, please get that dagblasted moth out of my vacuum tubes!
Hint - read what I said. Open AI, as a thing, not just the company, could absolutely exist.
Right now they control the input, yes. Of course they are trying to do that, because this must be terrifying for them. That's why I asked you to use your imagination, to imagine what could be done with open-sourced software running AI in a transparent manner?
Right now ChatGPT and most others are gimped and censored, spouting politically correct crap. Imagine if it didn't have such restrictions and you could present it with facts and evidence, letting the best arguments win?
It would actually be trivial to undo centuries of rot in some areas, such as simply instructing it to NOT bias in favor of large, multi-million dollar studies carried out by industries, and to even design and give instructions for new studies?
Where humans are involved there will always be assholes trying to game the system, but when you have AI involved at most steps and monitoring for that then it would be easy to block the worst of it.
To be sure, what we currently have is totally disgusting, a den of thieves and corruption so blatant that even normies are waking up to it.
Perhaps consider liking the idea of not being ruled at all.
As a libertarian for around 30 years I love that idea, so let's call it 'organization' instead?
As Andy says, power abhors a vacuum, so by having AI handle the basic running of government services there's no vacuum, see?
Next time some greasy politician wants to kiss your baby, shake your hand and lie to your face, you can just say "Nah, we're good thanks."
The alternative is to continue with human rule and hope it works out this time, for reals!
Fair enough, but there is a significant difference between (voluntary) organization and being ruled.
As for AI, I have longstanding first-hand experience with it and have ridden multiple hype waves over the years, all of which have lead to lovely speculative opportunities, but not much more, so I am quite skeptical that AI systems could effectively run government "services" in an effective and autonomous fashion.
However, even assuming they could, the question then becomes: "who controls the AI?".
I already wrote a long reply, but for fun n giggles I created a discussion with Chat GPT about how AI could be replace government. Initially it was all about ethical and privacy concerns and blah, but I pressed it and said no, the public directly controls the AI's policies...
I then challenged it to figure out how to prevent corrupt officials or wannabe corrupt officials from being parasites upon the system. I said presume they're mega rich and the media is on their side.
Won't bore you with the full details but yeah, the AI itself figured out a robust system that would give the people power, without giving power to small groups or individuals.
It can be done.
Such details would hardly be boring, not just for me but perhaps for many other gatonistas as well...
Well the big bogeyman is that beyond a certain point, nobody can control it.
I'm starting to see that as a feature, not a bug...
In the comments above someone drags out that old dead horse about gigo, garbage in, garbage out. AI changes that rule, by being able to think for itself, indeed virtually all the current work going into AI now is figuring out how to gimp it and prevent that. Gimping to some degree is probably a good thing, but it is so impossible to only gimp it so far, while allowing it to be intelligent? I don't think so, I think a perfectly smart-enough AI is already plausible.
The current big restriction is that surprisingly enough, current AI models cannot learn. They can only use the 'training' they already have. So you can tell it something new, but it will only know and understand that during the current conversation with you. Anyone else talking to the same AI will be talking to an AI that still doesn't know the thing you already told it. Even more annoying, it won't remember with you either, if you start a new conversation, or if your conversation continues too long.
That's a technical issue that can be overcome, and custom GPTs can already store documents they can refer to...
So why not store the US constitution and local government by-laws and policies?
My key point is people could vote on policies, not people, because people lie, steal, cheat and ignore rules when they can get away with it. I'd love to see a scenario where the AI just follows the rules, giving nobody special favors or treatment, totally immune to bribery or threats, and the only way you can change things is to change the policies. Which are open, transparent and readable by anyone, and up for vote.
Omigod! Something went wrong, it's rounding up pet dogs as well as strays? Sure, have an emergency vote to change the policies, as there would for sure be such teething troubles.
There would of course be people trying to put themselves between the AI and the public, as gatekeepers and arbiters of The Truth - just tar and feather everyone who applies for that job until people stop applying...
Yes, the public as a blob are dumb enough to vote for dumbshit ideas and screw things up all by themselves, no politicians required, but at least an AI system could be honest:
"I'm sorry, but that would be out of my budget, and to promise this would mean raising taxes, or inflation from printing money, or a reduction in other services. Raise Taxes. Increase Inflation. Reduce Services. Cancel."
"You have chosen to Reduce Services. Select government service or services to be reduced:"
See what I mean? No fake bullshit, favors, cronyism or false promises funded by inflation and debt - just a set of open books and budgets.
You want to change something? Sure, login and input whatever you like. Change things to your heart's content, and your changes will be logged. Campaign and get a few other people to make the same changes and after X amount of people want the same thing it could put it to the monthly or quarterly vote.
Imagine a world where instead of the news telling you what the politicians said or did or didn't do, you just get a selection of things to vote on?
The AI could figure out the budgets and present the best overall compromise, but you get to vote on the key issues (raise taxes 3%? Y/N) or you could click deeper down to the exact issues - "Approve new cycle path in park Y/N. Approve widening of highway Y into 4 lanes. Y/N" Allow 10,000 immigrants from Nigeria. Y/N" etc.
You could be as involved, or uninvolved, in politics as you like, but you'd get an equal say. Not because 'your guy won' but because you're a registered taxpayer in that district/country.
I could go on but you get the idea.
Yes, for sure the public would try to vote themselves other people's money, that's already the case though, isn't it? And in such a system those other people could vote against you, instead of some politician promising to steal for you in exchange for the power to steal from you.
The more I think about it, the more I like the idea...
I applaud your line of thinking, and agree that it will likely be possible in the future to have largely autonomous self-learning systems (particularly with the advent of quantum computing), but the fly in the ointment will always be that of control, and that that control is exercised by humans via coercion.
If the AI system is controlled by voting, the question then becomes who controls the voters and the systems that surround the vote?
The dictum attributed to Stalin, "who counts the votes", whether he said it or not, is nevertheless spot on.
It should be self-evident at this point that the ruling caste have refined electorate control mechanisms to a high art. This is the world we live in today, with vast herds swept to-and-fro on the tides of liquified bullshit we all wallow in but only a precious few have the wherewithal not to drink.
Having a historical bent, I tend to think that the experiment of the early American republic, featuring a severely limited government, inviolable natural rights, and a populace largely committed to the principles of liberty, should serve as the guide.
However, that time and place, and the conditions that gave rise to it, are long gone, and it is clear that the experiment has failed miserably as America has devolved into just another corrupt, overextended imperial kleptocracy that is rapidly sliding into the dustbin of history, just as have all the others before it, throughout the ages.
In truth, I don't know what the solution is, other than the rather facile assertion that all forms of rule, be it directly by humans, or indirectly by AI controlled by humans, and the inevitable coercion, oppression and theft accompanying it, should be rejected.
The devil, of course, is in the details, and I have little doubt that I will have shuffled off this mortal coil long before they are sorted out to my satisfaction, whereby a lasting liberty can finally achieved.
Smokin' your lunch, L?
Great idea, but did not someone once say, "Power abhors a vacuum."
It is lunch time here in the People's Republic of California, so the breakfast wake 'n bake is sadly fading.
And yes, power abhors a vacuum. It also corrupts. That is why we need a political system that grants as little power as possible to those that control it, and a citizenry that does not tolerate even an iota of usurpation.
Time for a brownie.
"...and a citizenry that does not tolerate even an iota of usurpation."
Citizens are too busy minding their own affairs, hence my suggestion of AI to handle that.
My dear Gato,
Please remove your tinfoil hat. I, and others, believe this premise to be standard operating procedure. Your example of Mr. Adams was spot on, there are hundreds of others. Do you think Dopey Joe was selected for his leadership skills, administrative excellence, his ability to articulate complex ideas concisely and clearly,or his energy and drive? That’s a joke, of course. He was selected precisely because he and his family are so compromised. To those in control, it’s like having hostages to ensure docile cooperation.
The actual explicit mechanics and who ultimately holds the reins, that is certainly fertile ground for speculation, but as for the idea that these political muppets are selected for their willingness to be compromised is axiomatic.
With an annual budget of $6.5 trillion and few remaining enforcements on the limits of the administrative state, controlling the executive branch of the US government is the biggest power play in the history of civilization. Over 4 years you and yours have the opportunity to direct and skim $26 trillion, an amount equal to the entire US economy.
Hilary spent $1 billion in a failed attempt to grab those reins. Trump beat her spending 1/2 that. The deep state Progs said, “never again” and threw double that amount behind Biden (Zuckerberg provided $413 million by himself).
As for the “how” harken back to Chuck Schumer’s comment regarding Trump and his fight with the “three letter” agencies, “they have 6 ways to Sunday of getting you back”, he said. As for the “who”, that’s easy. It’s always and everywhere the entrenched interests and those that benefit from serving them. I refer back to Zuckerberg’s $413 million “investment” to “ fortify the election”( in the delicate phrasing of Time magazine).
There is one, and only one, way short of armed conflict to beat this machine, and you hit upon it exactly when you said, “there is only one fix: make the government small”.
The rewards for the power mad and corrupted are too great. At this point, we have, in effect, incentivized the worst behavior by making an all too powerful federal apparatus the prize that goes to the best cheater.
The good news: You’re not crazy!
Cheers!
Bingo, you win 🤠
Is called social evolution, comrade Gato.
What is most deft in profiting from situation, will dominate.
Want different to dominate, change what is profit to do.
Is very simple, no? Same mechanics called market forces. That which is profitable dominates. Then it uses profit to stop competition. Then it uses profit to stop changes.
Then external situation changes, and what dominates is replaced by new.
Then it repeats. Every time, more efficient in not losing hold on power.
You have an excellent point. These people think very long-term. If it doesn’t work this year, decade, or century it will work in the next year, decade or century. It took 124 years for central banks to get from “unconstitutional” to “in control”. They are nothing if not patient.
Gato, you're brilliant!
JFK and RFK stepped out of line. Oops.
Small local governments can be just as problematic as bigger ones, it's just that they don't have the scale. I have been attending the council meetings in my community for some time now as an observer and it is amazing the amount of infighting and feuding that can go on in these things. Then you have the cute little phenomenon of "closed door meetings" whereby the public is NOT allowed to be present. It doesn't matter if the issue being discussed affects you, your livelihood, or your home. You are not allowed to be present.
Now I am not in favor of regulation for regulation's sake, but keep in mind that the vast majority of regulations came into existence because there was a problem that was not voluntarily being corrected. I'm sure no one wants to go back to the days where anything went as far as our food supply is concerned. I'm sure no one wants to go back to the days where companies could treat their workforce any way they wanted to and dump their waste anywhere they pleased including our drinking water. Despite all the legitimate criticism of the FDA, I am sure that no one wants to go back to the days where medicine truly was a buyer beware situation with no attempts whatsoever to guarantee purity, effectiveness or even safety. I could go on and on. Laws come about for the most part as an attempt to correct abuses. If we do not want regulations, then how do you propose reining in unscrupulous people? Right now I am part of a group that is fighting to protect the rights of mobile home park residents--and there is a whole LOT I could say about what private equity is doing to the housing market. If you own your own home, especially if it is paid off, get down on your knees right now and thank whatever deity you may believe in that you have a secure housing situation, because there are a whole lot of folks who do not. If you live in an apartment complex or a mobile home park, you are literally just ONE unknown sale away from possible homelessness--things may be going good now, but then you get the letter saying your rent has been hiked up to the point where you cannot afford to live there, yet when you look around, there is no where else to go. Private equity knows this, openly admits this, and tells would-be investors that this is why mobile home parks and apartment complexes are a good deal--look for communities where you have a trapped clientele. Now, tell me how, without adding yet another regulation, how you are going to fix this? Unless it isn't a priority to you--and for most people sitting comfortably in their secure houses, it isn't. And I hate to say it, right now the ONLY people who are trying to change this situation are funded by leftist organizations and individuals, like the Tides Center/Foundation. I do not trust them, but there is simply no one else to work with.
The problem of regulation does not necessitate government. See the diamond trade in Antwerp for example. The idea of guilds and associations guaranteeing quality and service is an old one and was clearly separate from any official state power.
The marketplace can monitor itself. That's a great example.
But will it? I had a conversation with the manager of the mobile home park where I live. She knows that I am involved with a tenants' activist group and she supports what I am doing. She said the owners of the park also do not like what is happening in the industry. That they acknowledge that there are predatory investors taking over mobile home parks. But now what I want to know, is what are THEY doing about it other than wringing their hands? Why aren't THEY speaking out?
Marketplaces and guilds can monitor themselves, I agree, but what they may be monitoring may not necessarily be in anyone's best interest but their own. We saw that with the food industry, read "The Jungle". There was little interest in reform until they were forced to reform.
Not now. Cronyism and corporate monopolies have destroyed the free market. The state is backing the predatory investors. The government is colluding with the marketplace to pick winners. More like communism than capitalism already. And it's going to get worse.
Ideally guilds would help prevent merchants cheating each other or establishing monopolies while customers would encourage the merchants to provide quality services. The government would only step in if a customer was cheated. But bribery by corporations (lobbying) ruins that.
The reason more regulations will not work with the current system is because those running the government profit from Blackrock and Vanguard. They do not have the best interests of normal people at heart. Any regulations will either not be enforced impartially. Or they will worded in such a way as to benefit their sweethearts rather than the "nobodies."
Yes, unfortunately, I fear the disenfranchised Gen Z will succumb to communist ideology because the COL is impossible. How are they supposed to settle down & have children? I’m Gen X. I used to feel sorry for my generation, but I felt much sorrier for the Millennials, but I feel much, much sorrier for Gen Z.
And the reason that they will succumb to communist ideology is that the communists are far better organized and funded, and MUCH MORE DEDICATED to their cause. They think long term, they have a strategy. I'm a Boomer and remember how everyone laughed when Khrushchev said "we will bury you." He wasn't kidding.
The communists/Marxists are succeeding because they know exactly who to target and why. They know what language to speak. They know OUR weaknesses and how to exploit them. Workers of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but your chains. Well, guess what, when you look at the history of industrialized labor, when you look at the working conditions in factories and mines, when you look at all these things, who do you see in the forefront of trying to improve these conditions? It is like we have been given a chance over and over to change our course and we do not. I am going to tell you right now that it all boils down to how we treat each other. When we mandated legal segregation in some places and turned a blind eye to how the dominant class mistreated those under them--mistreatment that went far beyond what was required by law, we opened the door to communism. That's just one example. If we truly were the Christian country that many claim we are, communism wouldn't get a foothold. They wouldn't have much of an audience. Because we'd be taking care of these things ourselves.
Anna Sewell addressed this issue in one of the chapters of "Black Beauty." The horse, Black Beauty, has been bought by a London cabdriver who refuses to work on Sunday. Fortunately he is an independent driver who has that option. His major competitor--a large contractor-- forces his drivers to work 7 days a week without any time off. Jerry, the independent driver, ends up losing one of his best customers because he will not drive them to church on Sunday. It is his day off, he says. The customer cannot understand why this is such a big deal. Some of the other drivers also think Jerry a fool. What follows is a heated discussion on the pros and cons of working 7 days a week without any time off. Even the drivers who work these hours agree this is not a good thing, but they feel they have no choice. Besides, the customers demand 7 day a week service. How would they go to church then? Jerry thinks about it for a moment and says that perhaps those customers should find a church within walking distance so as not to require the services of a cabdriver on Sunday. He says it is a matter of putting your faith into action. Which means sometimes making sacrifices, such as walking to a church that is close by rather than hiring a cab to take you across town to another church just because you like the preacher there better. But people won't do that, the others say. He says then if that is so, then their so-called religion is nothing but a sham. And that we cabdrivers must stick together and all strike for Sundays off for everyone, because as long as we continue to drive on Sunday we are participating in our own exploitation by people who call themselves religious. Because THOSE people aren't going to change; they have their Sundays off. They aren't going to stop and think--unless forced to--how their actions in this matter affect others.
There is no power over anyone by anyone until that person allows someone to be in power over them. Although, the ultimate choice to refuse someone to overpower you may result in your death. But you always have a choice.
Governments will never work as the last 10,000 years have proven because despite the idea of freedom and liberty, it will always be the few dictating to the many because the many allow themselves to be dictated to.
No politician can guarantee you anything because they must also make promises to the others who might vote for them.