'If you’re anything like me, the world you live in feels increasingly alien every day.'
I actually feel the opposite. Prior to the pandemic (and the homelessness and unemployment it brought me) I was still struggling to make sense of a disenchanted world: grappling with the bizarre behaviours of people I found impossible to understand. Trying to find employment in the NGO sector and progress my career in the blobocracy, and being rejected at every turn. Wondering why all my PhD applications ended in failure, and how the lab I worked in could continue to perform such useless (even meaningless) research. Growing resentful and disillusioned. Feeling disgusted by the people I met, the meaningless platitudes they mouthed, the inane idiocy of the sloganeering that took the place of critical engagement or thought. Feeling disappointed by all contemporary media that echoed the same infantile ideas.
But the corporate power grab that came with Covid brought everything sharply into focus. Suddenly I could see who the enemy really is. It was like a shock deprogramming event, where every shibboleth could suddenly be reconsidered, and all the demoralising principles absorbed over my three decades in a post-Cold War Left Liberal Consensus End of History world were revealed for the lies they are. I had time to read and time to think -- but most importantly, I could find writers like you, who expressed precisely what I'd always felt, but had been incapable of admitting to myself.
After 6 years of trying, I was finally accepted onto a PhD programme (fully funded, publications guaranteed) -- but there was a catch. It required the vaccine. And I refused, because I wasn't listening to the powers that be, but the people who seemed to be genuinely concerned with Truth. And so I threw away that future, and chose a different one. A few years ago I was considering a vasectomy, for typically eco-leftist and self-hating reasons. Now I'm married, and we recently had our first child. None of this would have happened without Covid, when the scales were torn from my eyes. This is thanks to people like you.
For me, the world has gone from being a deeply frustrating and alienating place to one marked out in sharp contours: light and dark, good and evil, friend and enemy. The ugliness can be avoided and the beauty sought out. Community is lacking, but perhaps something will come about. At least I know I'm not alone.
Thank you for this excellent and powerful story. Your story is archetypal in the best way - a navigation of the hero's journey, from the fetid depths of the swamp to the crystalline air of the mountain ranges.
It is stories like yours that remind me that we are on the right path.
It's the grinding purposelessness of it that is the most demoralizing thing, and indeed may well be why wokeness conquered them - it's a substitute for meaning.
Totally agree. Gosh, ten years ago I was quite lost in this world, desperate to find meaning in anything, embarrassingly influenced by some woke friends. And then the meaning was really always there, in front of my nose, exactly the stuff our elders figured out long ago.
Andrew Odlyzko, a math professor, wanted an "objective measure of gullibility." That's an admirable idea, trying to get a bird's eye view of the craziness loop. He also pointed out that trust (required in a complex society) and gullibility (the source of bubbles) are two sides of the same coin. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1668130
Although the objective measure of gullibility is still to be developed, he sees a benefit of bubbles and irrationality that's hard to argue with:
>As Yogi Berra is said to have declared,
When you come to a fork in the road, take it.
It might indeed be best for society to have cohesive teams, each with a different view, but with all members of a team convinced of the group’s view as the one and only true path to the Holy Grail. That might well maximize the chances that at least one of the teams will accomplish something useful. When revolutionary technologies appear that increase uncertainty, the benefits of having many committed teams take every branch of the fork
increase.
[...]
In this view, the large bubbles that have attracted public and scholarly attention come from exceptional circumstances. A powerful new impulse, either a revolutionary new technology, or simply a very attractive “beautiful illusion,” grips society. As a result, instead of different teams taking different branches of the fork in the road, they all pile into a single one, and in the heated race for the perceived prize, they are oblivious of the signs warning they are all about to fall off a cliff.
That sounds like a harrowing but heroic journey. Glad to hear you made it out the other side! That gives me encouragement, as I'm still trying to figure out how to escape. (I'm not in academia, but I'm working for something just as soulless and fake and abominable.)
Not an exhaustive response, there isn't one, but I've found it helpful to define why I work(ed). I think too often we believe the lie that we work for fulfillment or to make a better world. That's bosh. We work to feed ourselves and our dependents and to share with others as we see opportunity. The only caveat being that the work is not immoral. Understanding this frees us to find our fulfillment where fulfillment can actually be found, in relationship with those around us; family, friends, neighbors...
Once we rebalance, then we can ask if there is work which would meet our needs and which we would prefer, be better suited for, allow us to meet other goals, etc. If we ask work to do what it can never do, we will never be satisfied in our work, a very great ill indeed.
O.M. f'n G. Your PhD app required the jab? That sounds pyschotic now. Until I recall how I would be denied entry to my daughter's college graduation ceremony without the jab. Being industrious, I was able to gain entry by "knowing someone". Great story, you done good, pater.
Your post brought me to tears. For real. Congrats on your family and welcome to the light friend. Community is out there, online and in real life. We had to move to find ours. You will continue to find yours.
I worked for over 30 years in alternative health and thought I was making a difference, my business was closed and never recovered, partly because I refused to play along with masks and the Con-v and partly because so many were terrified to be physically close to another person. Nobody took any notice of what I said despite looking after generations in families, it was a losing battle and after all I wasn’t a ‘Dr”. For me too it was a relief to see it so clearly through the complete takeover of our world - I already been accused of arrogance and extremism about the emperors new clothes re the medical system but now I was learning just how deep and how far this went. Even as a teenager and younger person I remember asking why is this like this, I do not want this, people are generally good when did we say ok to this? Now I see and understand more
It's been a great year on Barsoom! Looking forward to what postcards arrive in the year to come!
Your substack is one that has given me a lot of encouragement during difficult times when I've wondered, can the world we live in really be as fucking insane as I feel like it is, or am I just losing my mind and the normies are the sane ones? It can be such a relief to hear someone speaking reasonably in this whirlwind of postmodern madness, just to know, okay, it's not just me; our culture really is batshit crazy, unnatural, and dreadfully anti-human. Thanks for being that voice of sanity!
You're not the only one who benefits from knowing that they're not the only one who sees this, believe you me. It's a lot easier to pass the Asch Conformity Test with just a couple other sane voices in the room!
1,000% correct. Which is why isolation was such a big part of their COVID response. Substack is great for countering the madness, but in-person connections with sane people is essential. I'm grateful for the little I have in that latter category, but am keenly aware of the need to expand that.
The embodied and the actual are going to be a big part of it, yes. As with the Taliban's response to American technical prowess, the best solutions to high tech threats will be surprisingly simple, I think.
Most novelists produce one shitty novel up front. Better that way than the first novel being good and the rest of them shitty (Sartre). Robertson Davies is the one I can think of whose first novel, Fifth Business, is a gem and the others are great too. Herman Hesse started out with very short novellas and stories and ended up producing some great full length novels. John Irving fired a few blanks before hitting pay dirt with The World According to Garp. It's a different marketplace today. There are less readers and it's difficult to galvanize an audience. I'm glad you're cutting your teeth as a writer here on Substack and I'm sure you've benefitted from the discipline and the effort of writing. Someone who is prolific with words as you are shouldn't be afraid to pop off a couple of flawed novels. As long as you follow them up with something great.
There's another model of course - the young genius who accidentally captures lightning in a bottle on his freshman outing, cursed to spend the rest of his career fruitlessly trying to replicate the inimitable.
Thank you for the vote of confidence. When I get back to writing fiction in a serious way, I'll in any case certainly be serializing it here first, prior to publishing the completed work.
Hail and kaor, Jeddak of Barsoom! Congrats on completing one year of mal/mis/dis/diss/bliss-and-cis-information. Or whatever the hell it is you've been trying to do here. All I know is that I've gained several uncanny powers since I started reading it. Correlation != causation, but I'll try to keep up just in case.
(Also, this gave me an excuse to reread Global Tantalus, so thanks for that.)
1) recite pi to 38 decimals without asking a robot;
2) wash socks and underwear with my mind;
3) astral-project myself into the Doobie Brothers episode of "What's Happening";
4) command the tides (King Canute-style, baby!)
Working on teleportation and X-ray vision, but keep getting distracted by Substack Notes notifications that apparently cannot be turned off. Unsubscribed!
I also increasingly do not recognize the world I'm living in and feel that I don't belong in it anymore. I went to the store yesterday, in the little town in which I live, to replace a blown light bulb in the lamp I use the most and discovered that the government has now completely banned incandescent light bulbs. They are no longer available and this is, apparently, for my own good. This is just the latest from these increasingly anonymous and all powerful bureaucrats who, entirely without my input, keep making choices for me.
In the state where I live, they have outlawed larger water heaters, dishwashers that work, wood stoves, clothes washers that actually use water to clean clothes, laundry soap that works, and are now coming after my gas stove. And this is just a very short list of what they have taken away from me while loudly claiming to be making these decisions for my own good, but it only results in my feeling trapped and reduced. Who are these people and why won't they just leave me alone?
They are animated by a desire for control that they have lost all control over. Their unquestioned assumption is that a more controlled world is a safer world, and therefore a better world.
John, It has been a great year reading you. Keep being as off-the-wall as you like...I have learned a great deal about a lot of things from you...and am looking forward to much more. Congratulations on your first anniversary. Hope I am writing a similar note on your tenth. And many thanks for doing this.
Thank you for your kind words. The response this project has received had been incredibly gratifying, particularly given that I started it without any social media presence whatsoever.
This may still not be apparent, but mRNA-jab tyranny has woken the warrior in us, which means we were warriors all the time but had been force-fed a diet of doves and olive leaves, and raised to walk on our knees. But no more. We 15 percenters realise there is no 'somebody', as in "Somebody has to stop this democide". There is only us and we will fight back. We alone realise that psychopaths will utterly disregard appeals to their humanity and compassion. They will not desist, cannot desist. 'Non-violent peaceful protest' is a phrase programmed into us by the City of London through Gandhi, and Wall Street through ML King.Words. Although now awake, we were defeated by acts of indoctrination, felt most deeply by academics, scientists, and by school teachers, who are adults who have never left school. Action is needed, but action means searching for soldiers who still consider their job is to defennd the people. They can train us into a militia that can defend our children and redeem our nation. Following eventual triumph, we will then be the people who say, "Never again. No more belief. Our future must henceforth be guided by evidence and logic, burnished by INTUITION, which is the voice of our souls.".
Apr 11, 2023·edited Apr 11, 2023Liked by John Carter
I am on Substack since this all started three years ago. I have read few of your esseys, specially about academia. My biggest concern is what will be next? All purpose of this esseys and analysis has been how we got there and why. I think I have understood many things but still I wondering can we just forgot all this? Can we just pretend it been some kind of nightmare? It surely seems like that.
That's an excellent question. In the short term the only solution is a distributed, ad hoc, ersatz academy - maybe you might call this Substack U. Indeed it's already there in its nascent form.
The main missing component right now is 'proof of work' - some form of credential system by which those who engage in online autodidaction can demonstrate that they have in fact obtained the knowledge and skills that they possess.
I think Von Mises or Friedman or Sowell, etc., would call such a thing a "price signal" and it looks to me like you've done a pretty god job of demonstrating it can be done. Credentialing is for those who lack conviction in the work product and themselves.
At its worst, credentialing is a substitute for achievement. At its best, however, its a signifier of ability. If you hire a skilled tradesman, you can reasonably expect that he knows what he's doing.
I suspect we would agree that credentials like ANSI, or UL, or ISO, are great vs. the vellum out of the current baccalaureate mill (useless). ANSI is agnostic about what you teach, but they're quite good at ensuring that your pedagogy is solid and that what you're teaching and testing for line up. (I was shooting for clever and pithy and sacrificed completeness of thought.)
I did? Well shit, now I've gone and done it ;) In all seriousness, if helping to inspire minds like yours, or Mark's, or Daniel's, to share your incredible insights is the only thing I accomplish, that's more than enough right there.
We never know how our writing, or even just a sentence, might help someone crystallize a thought or action. Sometimes it might be just a nudge, but these things can have massive effects. Another reason why we should go with our hearts and instincts instead of "finding a niche": it's about the long game. Ripples can take time to propagate, sometimes a long time...
Cloud Atlas. Every one of our words and actions, every aspect of our lives, is like a pebble dropped in a pond.
I feel that, if we truly internalized this, realized that nothing is ever meaningless, that even the smallest act can emanate out into something of vast influence, this alone would change human consciousness forever.
Indeed. And frankly, I have empirically verified this concept many times. It cannot be done "scientifically" as we usually understand it though, but by paying attention long-term.
"Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance."
Egregore (also spelled egregor; from French égrégore, from Ancient Greek ἐγρήγορος, egrēgoros 'wakeful') is an occult concept representing a non-physical entity that arises from the collective thoughts of a distinct group of people. Historically, the concept referred to angelic beings, or watchers, and the specific rituals and practices associated with them, namely within Enochian traditions.[1]
Oh, what a treasure trove! And how refreshing to have a variety of topics of intetest. As a new joiner of this stack, I see I have a lot of catching up to do! Thank you for the highlights. I think I'm going to enjoy this 😁
One Proxy War too many. The old Geo-Economic Success Paradigm no longer delivers.
And so Narrative Collapse – – –
Only when the last American artillery shell has been fired in The Ukraine, only when the last Ukrainian soldier has been killed in The Ukraine and only when the last of Ukrainian state territory has been irretrievably lost from The Ukraine will The West finally realize that God Favours Russia . . .
'If you’re anything like me, the world you live in feels increasingly alien every day.'
I actually feel the opposite. Prior to the pandemic (and the homelessness and unemployment it brought me) I was still struggling to make sense of a disenchanted world: grappling with the bizarre behaviours of people I found impossible to understand. Trying to find employment in the NGO sector and progress my career in the blobocracy, and being rejected at every turn. Wondering why all my PhD applications ended in failure, and how the lab I worked in could continue to perform such useless (even meaningless) research. Growing resentful and disillusioned. Feeling disgusted by the people I met, the meaningless platitudes they mouthed, the inane idiocy of the sloganeering that took the place of critical engagement or thought. Feeling disappointed by all contemporary media that echoed the same infantile ideas.
But the corporate power grab that came with Covid brought everything sharply into focus. Suddenly I could see who the enemy really is. It was like a shock deprogramming event, where every shibboleth could suddenly be reconsidered, and all the demoralising principles absorbed over my three decades in a post-Cold War Left Liberal Consensus End of History world were revealed for the lies they are. I had time to read and time to think -- but most importantly, I could find writers like you, who expressed precisely what I'd always felt, but had been incapable of admitting to myself.
After 6 years of trying, I was finally accepted onto a PhD programme (fully funded, publications guaranteed) -- but there was a catch. It required the vaccine. And I refused, because I wasn't listening to the powers that be, but the people who seemed to be genuinely concerned with Truth. And so I threw away that future, and chose a different one. A few years ago I was considering a vasectomy, for typically eco-leftist and self-hating reasons. Now I'm married, and we recently had our first child. None of this would have happened without Covid, when the scales were torn from my eyes. This is thanks to people like you.
For me, the world has gone from being a deeply frustrating and alienating place to one marked out in sharp contours: light and dark, good and evil, friend and enemy. The ugliness can be avoided and the beauty sought out. Community is lacking, but perhaps something will come about. At least I know I'm not alone.
Thank you for this excellent and powerful story. Your story is archetypal in the best way - a navigation of the hero's journey, from the fetid depths of the swamp to the crystalline air of the mountain ranges.
It is stories like yours that remind me that we are on the right path.
You did right.
As an academic i can tell you that academia is completely and utterly worthless.
And malign.
It's the grinding purposelessness of it that is the most demoralizing thing, and indeed may well be why wokeness conquered them - it's a substitute for meaning.
Totally agree. Gosh, ten years ago I was quite lost in this world, desperate to find meaning in anything, embarrassingly influenced by some woke friends. And then the meaning was really always there, in front of my nose, exactly the stuff our elders figured out long ago.
Precisely so.
I only do it for the money.
For meaning, I do my work as a medical herbalist.
Now if only we could find ways of aligning meaning with profession in this society. But then it wouldn't be *this* society.
True.
I think academia used to be meaningful. But over the past 2 or 3 decades it has become very much not.
No question - the gulf between what it was supposed to be, and what I found, was enraging and depressing all at the same time.
Bureaucratic mindset breaks everything.
I'll be writing more about this soon, with an eye towards articulating solutions.
Andrew Odlyzko, a math professor, wanted an "objective measure of gullibility." That's an admirable idea, trying to get a bird's eye view of the craziness loop. He also pointed out that trust (required in a complex society) and gullibility (the source of bubbles) are two sides of the same coin. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1668130
Although the objective measure of gullibility is still to be developed, he sees a benefit of bubbles and irrationality that's hard to argue with:
>As Yogi Berra is said to have declared,
When you come to a fork in the road, take it.
It might indeed be best for society to have cohesive teams, each with a different view, but with all members of a team convinced of the group’s view as the one and only true path to the Holy Grail. That might well maximize the chances that at least one of the teams will accomplish something useful. When revolutionary technologies appear that increase uncertainty, the benefits of having many committed teams take every branch of the fork
increase.
[...]
In this view, the large bubbles that have attracted public and scholarly attention come from exceptional circumstances. A powerful new impulse, either a revolutionary new technology, or simply a very attractive “beautiful illusion,” grips society. As a result, instead of different teams taking different branches of the fork in the road, they all pile into a single one, and in the heated race for the perceived prize, they are oblivious of the signs warning they are all about to fall off a cliff.
That sounds like a harrowing but heroic journey. Glad to hear you made it out the other side! That gives me encouragement, as I'm still trying to figure out how to escape. (I'm not in academia, but I'm working for something just as soulless and fake and abominable.)
Almost all of us are. It's like we're living in a prison we've been tricked into building, maintaining, and running.
And now the big question is, how, and in which direction, to escape?
First our heads need to escape.
Governmentality.
Governmentally ill
Not an exhaustive response, there isn't one, but I've found it helpful to define why I work(ed). I think too often we believe the lie that we work for fulfillment or to make a better world. That's bosh. We work to feed ourselves and our dependents and to share with others as we see opportunity. The only caveat being that the work is not immoral. Understanding this frees us to find our fulfillment where fulfillment can actually be found, in relationship with those around us; family, friends, neighbors...
Once we rebalance, then we can ask if there is work which would meet our needs and which we would prefer, be better suited for, allow us to meet other goals, etc. If we ask work to do what it can never do, we will never be satisfied in our work, a very great ill indeed.
I wish you well.
Congratulations! Babies are always a reason to celebrate! Good for you, and God bless!
O.M. f'n G. Your PhD app required the jab? That sounds pyschotic now. Until I recall how I would be denied entry to my daughter's college graduation ceremony without the jab. Being industrious, I was able to gain entry by "knowing someone". Great story, you done good, pater.
No, you - we - are not alone. And bravo to you for finding the Courage to live!
Your post brought me to tears. For real. Congrats on your family and welcome to the light friend. Community is out there, online and in real life. We had to move to find ours. You will continue to find yours.
You were most blessed to escape. The free air is wonderful as well as frightening and dangerous at times.
I worked for over 30 years in alternative health and thought I was making a difference, my business was closed and never recovered, partly because I refused to play along with masks and the Con-v and partly because so many were terrified to be physically close to another person. Nobody took any notice of what I said despite looking after generations in families, it was a losing battle and after all I wasn’t a ‘Dr”. For me too it was a relief to see it so clearly through the complete takeover of our world - I already been accused of arrogance and extremism about the emperors new clothes re the medical system but now I was learning just how deep and how far this went. Even as a teenager and younger person I remember asking why is this like this, I do not want this, people are generally good when did we say ok to this? Now I see and understand more
It's been a great year on Barsoom! Looking forward to what postcards arrive in the year to come!
Your substack is one that has given me a lot of encouragement during difficult times when I've wondered, can the world we live in really be as fucking insane as I feel like it is, or am I just losing my mind and the normies are the sane ones? It can be such a relief to hear someone speaking reasonably in this whirlwind of postmodern madness, just to know, okay, it's not just me; our culture really is batshit crazy, unnatural, and dreadfully anti-human. Thanks for being that voice of sanity!
You're not the only one who benefits from knowing that they're not the only one who sees this, believe you me. It's a lot easier to pass the Asch Conformity Test with just a couple other sane voices in the room!
1,000% correct. Which is why isolation was such a big part of their COVID response. Substack is great for countering the madness, but in-person connections with sane people is essential. I'm grateful for the little I have in that latter category, but am keenly aware of the need to expand that.
The embodied and the actual are going to be a big part of it, yes. As with the Taliban's response to American technical prowess, the best solutions to high tech threats will be surprisingly simple, I think.
Most novelists produce one shitty novel up front. Better that way than the first novel being good and the rest of them shitty (Sartre). Robertson Davies is the one I can think of whose first novel, Fifth Business, is a gem and the others are great too. Herman Hesse started out with very short novellas and stories and ended up producing some great full length novels. John Irving fired a few blanks before hitting pay dirt with The World According to Garp. It's a different marketplace today. There are less readers and it's difficult to galvanize an audience. I'm glad you're cutting your teeth as a writer here on Substack and I'm sure you've benefitted from the discipline and the effort of writing. Someone who is prolific with words as you are shouldn't be afraid to pop off a couple of flawed novels. As long as you follow them up with something great.
There's another model of course - the young genius who accidentally captures lightning in a bottle on his freshman outing, cursed to spend the rest of his career fruitlessly trying to replicate the inimitable.
Thank you for the vote of confidence. When I get back to writing fiction in a serious way, I'll in any case certainly be serializing it here first, prior to publishing the completed work.
Hail and kaor, Jeddak of Barsoom! Congrats on completing one year of mal/mis/dis/diss/bliss-and-cis-information. Or whatever the hell it is you've been trying to do here. All I know is that I've gained several uncanny powers since I started reading it. Correlation != causation, but I'll try to keep up just in case.
(Also, this gave me an excuse to reread Global Tantalus, so thanks for that.)
You left out kissinformation and pissinformation ;)
Ah, so I see the vials of mutagen arrived. Most excellent.
I can now:
1) recite pi to 38 decimals without asking a robot;
2) wash socks and underwear with my mind;
3) astral-project myself into the Doobie Brothers episode of "What's Happening";
4) command the tides (King Canute-style, baby!)
Working on teleportation and X-ray vision, but keep getting distracted by Substack Notes notifications that apparently cannot be turned off. Unsubscribed!
Well written.
I also increasingly do not recognize the world I'm living in and feel that I don't belong in it anymore. I went to the store yesterday, in the little town in which I live, to replace a blown light bulb in the lamp I use the most and discovered that the government has now completely banned incandescent light bulbs. They are no longer available and this is, apparently, for my own good. This is just the latest from these increasingly anonymous and all powerful bureaucrats who, entirely without my input, keep making choices for me.
In the state where I live, they have outlawed larger water heaters, dishwashers that work, wood stoves, clothes washers that actually use water to clean clothes, laundry soap that works, and are now coming after my gas stove. And this is just a very short list of what they have taken away from me while loudly claiming to be making these decisions for my own good, but it only results in my feeling trapped and reduced. Who are these people and why won't they just leave me alone?
They are animated by a desire for control that they have lost all control over. Their unquestioned assumption is that a more controlled world is a safer world, and therefore a better world.
The bastards can't govern, but they mean to rule.
John, It has been a great year reading you. Keep being as off-the-wall as you like...I have learned a great deal about a lot of things from you...and am looking forward to much more. Congratulations on your first anniversary. Hope I am writing a similar note on your tenth. And many thanks for doing this.
Thank you for your kind words. The response this project has received had been incredibly gratifying, particularly given that I started it without any social media presence whatsoever.
You write and think like no one else.
Thank you. That's high praise indeed.
This may still not be apparent, but mRNA-jab tyranny has woken the warrior in us, which means we were warriors all the time but had been force-fed a diet of doves and olive leaves, and raised to walk on our knees. But no more. We 15 percenters realise there is no 'somebody', as in "Somebody has to stop this democide". There is only us and we will fight back. We alone realise that psychopaths will utterly disregard appeals to their humanity and compassion. They will not desist, cannot desist. 'Non-violent peaceful protest' is a phrase programmed into us by the City of London through Gandhi, and Wall Street through ML King.Words. Although now awake, we were defeated by acts of indoctrination, felt most deeply by academics, scientists, and by school teachers, who are adults who have never left school. Action is needed, but action means searching for soldiers who still consider their job is to defennd the people. They can train us into a militia that can defend our children and redeem our nation. Following eventual triumph, we will then be the people who say, "Never again. No more belief. Our future must henceforth be guided by evidence and logic, burnished by INTUITION, which is the voice of our souls.".
Well said.
Thanks, It sorta echos your thoughts, I hope.
It does.
I am on Substack since this all started three years ago. I have read few of your esseys, specially about academia. My biggest concern is what will be next? All purpose of this esseys and analysis has been how we got there and why. I think I have understood many things but still I wondering can we just forgot all this? Can we just pretend it been some kind of nightmare? It surely seems like that.
That's an excellent question. In the short term the only solution is a distributed, ad hoc, ersatz academy - maybe you might call this Substack U. Indeed it's already there in its nascent form.
The main missing component right now is 'proof of work' - some form of credential system by which those who engage in online autodidaction can demonstrate that they have in fact obtained the knowledge and skills that they possess.
I think Von Mises or Friedman or Sowell, etc., would call such a thing a "price signal" and it looks to me like you've done a pretty god job of demonstrating it can be done. Credentialing is for those who lack conviction in the work product and themselves.
At its worst, credentialing is a substitute for achievement. At its best, however, its a signifier of ability. If you hire a skilled tradesman, you can reasonably expect that he knows what he's doing.
I suspect we would agree that credentials like ANSI, or UL, or ISO, are great vs. the vellum out of the current baccalaureate mill (useless). ANSI is agnostic about what you teach, but they're quite good at ensuring that your pedagogy is solid and that what you're teaching and testing for line up. (I was shooting for clever and pithy and sacrificed completeness of thought.)
There's no question that the sheepskin has become worthless, something employers are catching on to.
If you look up my essay "How to Kill the Incompetocracy" I go into this question in a bit more detail.
Added to my reading list!
Credentials are toilet paper.
Tell me what you know.
Show me what you can do.
The results would probably show a correlation between the growth of credentialism and the decline of competence.
Happy birthday! Here's to another 78. You partly inspired me to take the plunge here too, so thanks. And f**c niches :)
I did? Well shit, now I've gone and done it ;) In all seriousness, if helping to inspire minds like yours, or Mark's, or Daniel's, to share your incredible insights is the only thing I accomplish, that's more than enough right there.
We never know how our writing, or even just a sentence, might help someone crystallize a thought or action. Sometimes it might be just a nudge, but these things can have massive effects. Another reason why we should go with our hearts and instincts instead of "finding a niche": it's about the long game. Ripples can take time to propagate, sometimes a long time...
Cloud Atlas. Every one of our words and actions, every aspect of our lives, is like a pebble dropped in a pond.
I feel that, if we truly internalized this, realized that nothing is ever meaningless, that even the smallest act can emanate out into something of vast influence, this alone would change human consciousness forever.
Love Cloud Atlas btw. Never understood why the movie wasn't widely celebrated.
I watched it several times. Phenomenal movie. Brought me to tears and that is not easy to do.
Indeed. And frankly, I have empirically verified this concept many times. It cannot be done "scientifically" as we usually understand it though, but by paying attention long-term.
Certainly not analytically, no - it defies analysis, and can only be understood at the level of synthesis.
"Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance."
- JFK
(from: Day of Affirmation Address, University of Capetown, Capetown, South Africa, June 6, 1966 - a much longer and no less inspirational address - https://www.jfklibrary.org/learn/about-jfk/the-kennedy-family/robert-f-kennedy/robert-f-kennedy-speeches/day-of-affirmation-address-university-of-capetown-capetown-south-africa-june-6-1966)
Love your writing. Absolutely entertaining, challenging, witty. and deep.
Thank you.
Today, (just today) I have decided to believe nothing. Everything is a lie. It's a fix.
Still love your writing. Maybe tomorrow there will be some truth.
Just leaving this here for ignoramus’ like me:
Egregore (also spelled egregor; from French égrégore, from Ancient Greek ἐγρήγορος, egrēgoros 'wakeful') is an occult concept representing a non-physical entity that arises from the collective thoughts of a distinct group of people. Historically, the concept referred to angelic beings, or watchers, and the specific rituals and practices associated with them, namely within Enochian traditions.[1]
Oh, what a treasure trove! And how refreshing to have a variety of topics of intetest. As a new joiner of this stack, I see I have a lot of catching up to do! Thank you for the highlights. I think I'm going to enjoy this 😁
Me, too. I think you've gotta have your head ready for all this. It's the morning after all the snot and screaming.
I hope you do!
MAN. YOU A POET. 💗💗
Looking forward to reading more of your content.
Something big will drop very soon.
I see Barsoom, John Carter. Am I on Mars? What the heck? 😅
'If you’re anything like me, the world you live in feels increasingly alien every day."
If you are living in The West, J,C., entirely understandable and examined in the necessary depth, say . . .
Washington's Ukraina Grandioznaya Skhema.
The Graveyard of This Empire . . . https://les7eb.substack.com/p/washingtons-ukraina-grandioznaya
_________
One Proxy War too many. The old Geo-Economic Success Paradigm no longer delivers.
And so Narrative Collapse – – –
Only when the last American artillery shell has been fired in The Ukraine, only when the last Ukrainian soldier has been killed in The Ukraine and only when the last of Ukrainian state territory has been irretrievably lost from The Ukraine will The West finally realize that God Favours Russia . . .
https://les7eb.substack.com/p/ukraine-long-proxy-war-vi-god-favours