This explains a lot. I had noticed that so many of the covid skeptics were also statin skeptics, cholesterol skeptics and climate skeptics. That’s what makes Alex Berenson so frustrating—he’s only skeptical about covid and pot. Everything else he just goes for hook line and sinker.
You see that a fair bit at the individual level. If someone is going to question something, it's usually easier to focus on that one thing and be 'reasonable' and conventional on everything else.
I'm not even annoyed by it. Frankly, one can go too far, too fast, and go right off the deep end and lose their marbles. Redpill ODs are a real thing. Keeping one's psychological balance is crucial.
I was a left wing science Phd that has published in international journals and works in R&D/tech, now I get called a “dumb conspiracy theorist” by people that struggled to finish high school working minimum wage jobs. I guess my worldview has moved somewhat to the right (self reliance) or at least from socialism to anarchism (in the old sense; no one is worthy of too much power).
Heh. You and me both. That's more or less my own path. It always makes me chuckle when I'm told to "educate myself" and "read a book" because I'm "ignorant" and a "conspiracy theorist".
If people could see my bookshelves and the degrees hanging on the wall! ... well I guess they still would say I'm a conspiracy theorist - I'd like to think I'm a conspiracy realist.
I genuinely hate the term conspiracy theory, because it's used incorrectly. Properly speaking, it should be used to mean a general theory of conspiracies - how they work, how they interrelate, what their impact is on politics, culture, history, etc. The colloquial usage is really more like 'conspiracy hypothesis'. Imprecise language bothers my autism.
Interesting to hear it. I think there might be more of us than we realise. Sad thing is that those without any useful skills e.g. people in offices that answer phones and input the data, and their lifestyles are really the initial target of this particular power grab, but they just can’t see it. They think it’s all for their benefit/protection, that they’ll be buying an electric car and offsetting the carbon from their flights, whilst basically offering nothing useful in return. It’s hard to overcome this level of stupidity. I actually quite like the growth of technology (not how it’s deployed) but the collection of people driving the current agenda are simply too untrustworthy and power crazed to do any kind of deals with and too incompetent. Plus I don’t agree with expending effort to automate peoples’ jobs who can’t do anything else, I’d rather be pushing the fundamentals forward.
Love it! I am in the hydra somewhere more or less in the "antivax" and organic sustainable farming space. I've been vegan at times in my life and my older daughter is vegetarian. I don't decry these things out of hand but I see fundamental square peg in round hole thinking with some of the movement: hundreds of miles of grasslands in the great plains are indeed much better suited to cattle than soybeans and most people, especially males with higher muscle mass, are in no way suited to a long term vegetarian diet. Every one of these movements seems to have adherents who want basic things like bodily integrity, scientific integrity and human right of self determination which the hive then tries to distort with a grotesque mirror image in the distorts and steers things in their desired direction...
To be clear, I don't personally care what people eat. I tend to be skeptical of meme diets - I more or less follow the 'shop the periphery' grampa diet; if it existed when my grampa was a kid, it's probably fine. It's only dietary evangelicals that get under my skin. Particularly when that evangelism is being encouraged from the top of society.
Junk food vegans i.e. those that carry that V card while they're eating crappy glyphosphate laden soy and chemical meat alternatives while claiming moral high ground can get under my skin too. Perhaps that's why I use this example. I live in Thailand close enough to India (the country with the highest percentage of vegetarians in the world due to Hindu religious beliefs regarding Bhrama) to come across a lot of cook from scratch traditional vegetarian diets to respect adherents. It's one of the areas where I see the sharpest divide and conquer: on one side a bunch of self actualized close to nature types looking for diverse sustainable solutions and on the other side Bill Gates lab grown meat and Monsanto's feed the world through seed patents steering.
Jun 8, 2022·edited Jun 8, 2022Liked by John Carter
I think the main ingredient in Beyond meats is peas, not soy. It does have a lot of oils and salt. Vegan is like any other diet, you need to choose wisely. Not all vegan foods are healthy (donuts and beer?) and not all meats (farmed meats are high in hormones and antibiotics). Good nutrition is a complicated topic, worth studying. But the real culprit in typical diets isn't carbs or fats, but the combination. Low carbs or low fats -- pick one. Mix them and you'll be shopping for doctors.
That reminds me of why I stopped eating gummy bears. I saw how they make the gelatin. It's like something out of a horror movie. if you get a chance, check out the movie Dominion on youtube. Not an easy watch but the truth is they want us in the exact same position as those animals: Captive slaves who eat what they are fed. I have nothing against naturally raised and humanely killed meat but that is clearly not something you will be able to find in most supermarkets/restaurants. In my experience, most people who try to eat this type of "clean meat" do it for a couple of meals max and then forget about it out of convenience; I know that was my experience. I don't get the fake meat thing either but it is completely expected that they would push the most unhealthful products possible.
People eat what they're accustomed to. I spent some time in a place where they had flying bugs about 3 inches long, flew into our floodlights at night, we'd collect them and sell them to the locals. They checked quality by gripping one, flicking the head off with their thumb, and sucking out the guts. A big smile and we got a dollar.
Ethically raised meat and eggs is available pretty much everywhere. It's about twice as expensive which is the main reason most people don't eat it. That and they don't know about the hormones etc.
That's mostly a function of the American corporatized/industrialized ag system. Other countries don't have this issue. "Pasture raised grass-fed beef" and "free range eggs" are just beef and eggs.
Not twice as expensive, but a little higher. And they're "just beef and eggs" but without a bunch of hormones and antibiotics, and with better loads of vitamins and nutrients. We can survive with farmed proteins, but not as well, and not as long.
Every country is moving to farmed proteins, as a necessary response to burgeoning populations who demand lower prices for necessities so they can afford their toys. Most people aren't very good at understanding their choices. After all, farmed proteins are "FDA aapproved," right? What could go wrong?
I stopped by a classic car show yesterday, and saw a gorgeous 66 Cobra replica. Watching LeMans today, and running the numbers in my head -- if I forego healthy food and stick to big macs and pizza, how long before I can save enough to build that Cobra? And would I live long enough to enjoy it?
I got into an argument with a vegan for virtue signalling type who I knew liked to drink alcohol. Doesn't that involve the direct cultivation and death of untold yeast for our own hedonistic pleasure? You can go too far one way as you can another. There are those who will see benefit from cutting out vegetables as their bodies have difficulty processing this fiber.
Hot damn! The whole article is fantastic, and that intro, this is one hell of a narrative. Is there going to be a part III, or do we just have to live through it?
Looking forward to it! Oh! Also, heroic dose huh? Never heard that term used to describe opioids, but maybe that's just because I'm so straight edge...
Aptly conjoined, imo. If the word hero in any of its derivations can be applied to St. George it can be used in this context. Opioids were heroic in taking him out, being the scourge against decency and humanity that he was in life. Your writing has a keen edge for clarity and illumination.
Fantastic optimism about the human condition that resists the insanity of WEF et al. I hope your optimism is correct, and even exceeded in the months and years to come. My adult son certainly has the same outlook, reassuring me that there is no way the Great Reset or anything resembling it can stand for any length of time. I hope that's the case. Most tyrannical systems don't last, but they can certainly kill a lot of people quickly at their height of power before their inevitable collapse.
They've already done a lot of damage and will doubtless do a lot more before they're shuffled off of the stage of history. It's like the taijitu though - their actions are creating hard times, and that in turn creates hard men; their concentration of lies creates a thirst for truth; their global shadow net creates its opposite. The harder they push, the stronger the resistance becomes.
In terms of both personal and public health, the American "normal" -- what is now considered "typical" or baseline and beyond criticism -- is pathological comorbidity. Likewise, far too many people for various reasons are living paycheck to the paycheck -- trapped in debt and wage-serfdom. Obviously, yes, we do have elites seeking to globalize both conditions: absolute dependency on Big State, Big Pharma, & MSM with Big Tech.
So the dissenters become anyone, any people, who value and take some responsibility for their own health and sanity, and who want control over their own lives. In the USA, not just the Paleo or Primal movements, for example, but also the "Your Money or Your Life" [Financial Independence ~ https://yourmoneyoryourlife.com/] & FIRE movements. As well at the "Off-Gridish" and more severe "Off-Grid" movements.
This to me goes well beyond the Alt-Right or the Ambivalent Right. It certainly includes both biological sexes. Although I certainly do both acknowledge and agree with you about the war against masculinity.
The labelling as anyone who dissents as belonging to the Right strikes me as coming to close to more marketing, more propaganda. Unless, as Ernst Jünger did, one understands Fascism as manifestation of the Left. Even then, I still don't get how a person is "fighting fascism" by surrendering control of their body and mind to the corporate state. To willing accept an externally imposed neo-feudal caste system in the name of equity and progress. Yet obviously, those in Portlandia (where I resided briefly) see it differently.
So I do agree that the hive mind is meeting with greater and greater resistance. But I also think we have a larger coalition of people and movements against the Great Reset and the Grand Narrative. I take that as good news. You're a powerful voice for one vital and growing contingent. But you have more allies in this war than you realize. That's the note I would close on.
This anticipates precisely where I'm going with this - in fact, it's one of the things that I was trying to communicate here. Essentially, that it's become a lot larger than any one ideology. Hence 'Great Convergence' - as more people are pushed out, the counter-culture grows, but also changes.
The dissident right-wing aspect of it was really just a sort of nucleus. That's where a lot of the core techniques got their start, as well as the basic mindset of questioning everything. The hydra, however, is not ideological. It's much larger than any ideology.
How would you characterize the difference between left and right? Michael McConkey essentially adopts Sowell's constrained vs unconstrained worldviews and applies constrained to right and unconstrained to left, but he has a tendency to redefine things outside common usage, in a useful way mind you, but maybe not when conversing with those unfamiliar with his work. I would be curious to hear how you think of it.
Briefly, left tends to be more theory-driven and goal-oriented. Right is reality-driven and preservation-oriented. The left pathologies tends towards irrational optimism/mania/utopianism. The right pathologies tends to pessimism/depression. Both tendencies are necessary to a healthy society, but they need to be in harmonious balance. The problem now is mainly that one, the left, has a wildly disproportionate influence.
Excellent question. I don't. I'm just not willing to accept that anyone who disagrees with our current ruling oligarchy fits neatly in a 2-dimensonal political space. At times, it becomes a way of ignoring the real issues. That's why I'm unhappy with the labels of alt-right and ambivalent right. Do I have anything better? Nope. The left as your source describes it might have an unconstrained worldview, but right now they want to constrain everyone else. Maybe it comes down to those of us who believe that something like human nature exists, and those who believe that people are simply whatever you program them to be. But freak when the programming doesn't fully work. I don't suffer from a need to insist that everyone else in the world live in accordance with my preferences. But I've seen that from parties who identify on both sides of the Right-Left spectrum. Informally, I might divide it between people who can truly tolerate some diversity, and those who must organize any and all differences into a caste system which they must control. I'll give this more thought. I'm just cautious about debating things on terms chosen by people -- our MSM experts -- who want nothing more than to deny my existence.
That believing human nature exists vs people are fully programmable is exactly constrained vs. unconstrained. Thomas Sowell wrote a book on it, but here is a 7min video clip where he talks about the premise: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDD_xPGJXSI
I have had the idea the climate was stabilized the last 10 thousand years by the climax forests and the fascists who seek returns on money know this economic/social system they have installed is responsible for cut/burn/poisoning of most of these old climax forests for more efficient control of land production and people. They hide what is changing the climate pointing towards carbon burning as the only reason for the changes, a misdirection, carbon emissions which might have some small role in this process because the climax forests no longer exist on a planetary scale. Lots of carbon has been emitted over the eons, yet here we are cutting down what protects soil life which sequesters carbon back into Earth. These agricultural methods reverses the process.
The fascist system is going to fail, those dependent on it will fail along with the fascists, who have become weak in their dependency on money.
The best indeed was the mention of Permaculture (which sometimes gets highjacked by the socialists, but the ideas are not political - I've read Permaculture A Designers' Manual a few times and the ideas are about designing small systems not reliant on fascist inputs of any kind). Learning how to take care of oneself is the best advice for anyone interested in living through the coming bottleneck.
Climax forest is a new term to me - had to look that up. Thank you!
It certainly makes sense that forest cover could affect climate. It's a very complex system, with a number of inputs; my skepticism towards the CO2 model is that it seems overly simplistic, reducing everything to the concentration of a single minor constituent of the atmosphere, and ignoring the rich array of other phenomena that almost certainly play substantial roles.
Permaculture, and especially extensions such as aquaculture, is in my view the most logical way to produce food. It generates far more calories per acre than monocropping; it generates a wider array of foodstuffs; and it enriches the soil, as well as the ecology, over time. The main impediment is that it requires a farmer to become a specialist in the local specifics of the land: you can't just apply a generalized model like a template. That makes it impossible to centralize, which large agricultural conglomerates dislike intensely.
I don't know how far you will investigate so I will describe one ancient aquaculture idea that people relied on before the Portuguese starting hauling cod into Europe, which lessoned the need for this design with its method fading away overtime. Fascists probably bribed off those with the knowledge to increase the demand for cod.
Needs a water source, two large large shallow ponds connected to one deeper small pond. One pond is dry producing grass for cattle, the other water raising carp. The fertilizer from the carp grows grass and the fertilizer from the cattle grows algae. Drain the carp into the deeper pond for harvesting overtime, plant a pasture, fill up the old pond and raise carp, switched back and forth over and over and over.
Bill Mollison dedicated his book on Permaculture to Masanobu Fukuoka, who wrote “The One-Straw Revolution” and “The Way Back to Nature” and”The Natural Way to Farm.” A very remarkable man to check out. He was a post-Doctoral researcher at a government research station in Japan who had some kind of an awakening experience during which he received two messages: “Human knowledge amounts to nothing” and “plants will grow by themselves.” On the basis of these insights he resigned his job the next day. His co-workers were concerned for hi sanity…they gave him a going-away party at which he said he was the only one smiling! It’s a fascinating story.
I think a lot of people are going to be a lot more motivated to figure out how to emulate his actual demonstration of “do nothing farming” in the near future when there is no diesel to rely on. Granted, he was an unusual genius with unusual gifts of perception not easy to pass on.
I have been following more the Lawton style of permaculture, in the respect of growing food just for the family, I am producing a lot of food on a half an acre. Lots of people are following that style, the One Straw style is more towards the sale of grain.
Interesting essay. As for the impact of diet, in WW1 the well-fed British officer class stood a full five inches taller than the blokes taken from the mines, farms, and factories who were soon sent to charge German machine guns in Northern France.
That didn't turn out too well...for the blokes...and for Western Civilization.
Indeed. It's a fairly recent historical development that the average person grew up as tall and strong as the elite. The elite doesn't seem to like that.
One of the best reads on what I call the "Big Picture" that I have read in awhile. You are doing a fine job here in getting information out albeit a little long winded at times. Not for me, but I am afraid some might not want to read the whole piece. Don't be offended because that is not my intent. I just want to make sure everyone is getting your point!!! Once again great work!!!
CRACKING ARTICLE! Ayup 👏 Possibly the first Overview that offers me hope. I'm well fed with thoughts from Mercola, Rockwell, Wolfe, Casey & Shiff, Paul, Malone, Ron Paul etc. Sadly lacking in Aussie weight but my country is deeply,
tightly controlled. The knowledge that such DIFFERENCES are melded, conjoined in The Resistance, this is DEEPLY satisfying. That Julian ASSANGE 's Matyrdom MEANS SOMETHING. That WE, We are learning, becoming stronger, this is good. For I have a THIRST, a Thirst for JUSTICE. Personally I am not a devout man. I choose NOT to Turn The Other Cheek. Oh no. To quote my favourite Tarantino movie "...this shit is gonna get Medieval..." ✊
I've come to understand turning the other cheek as not sweating the small stuff. Jesus also said, I came not to bring piece, but a sword; and ye that have not a sword, sell your cloak and buy one (conflating a couple verses there but whatever).
We are indeed learning. Rapidly. They terrifies them.
The Hydra. So good. Adapting, seeking, waking, connecting the damned...hot damn!
As if, the Hydra moto should be....
"Now, just wait a fucking minute...."
Or some skeptical centered band of specific cuss words, lined in unison, with other nouns, pronouns, verbs and other grammar I dispise... lol...speaking just the right truth...
Jun 8, 2022·edited Jun 8, 2022Liked by John Carter
I'm glad I waited to comment on this series. The rhetoric of part one was both soaring and searing; a true masterwork in describing the spirit of the age, and particularly the mechanics of dissent.
Yes, we are a Greek devilfish; a body flooded with interoperable neurons, impervious to a single "heroic" blow. Yes, the enemy is also a tentacled cephalopod, but of an age that loosens its grip by the hour, and isn't long for the world. We are all minds, and chains of minds, contending in a temporary arena that will result -- at best -- in our individual deaths.
That is the point that leaves me to question, when I consider your (admittedly well reasoned) article here. We will (and must!) die. I would rather die in pursuit of truth -- and even *for* it, in the best case scenario -- rather than dwindling to an ember in the darkness of lies, scared of my own shadow. That's the most horrible outcome of all, but simultaneously the most likely one. Truth is more elusive than Bigfoot riding the Lochness Monster into a black hole wielding goddammed Excalibur. We're fucking blessed to perceive a droplet of it in a lifetime.
I can't convincingly argue amy of the points you've made here; I've argued many of them myself. But the beast that haunts me, and which I think haunts the hydra generally, is the racial disparity argument. It isn't without merit, in the data sense. But it is intellectually and spiritually destructive on multiple levels. The worst of these is that it gives succor to the enemy's base position: We are not individuals, who are animated by nature but divine in purpose and design. I cannot ever cede them that ground, no matter the numbers. If one person defies the odds, that person's dignity is more valuable to defend than multitudes of robotic slaves.
With race, or any other group, it's extremely important to see individuals as individuals, but to see groups as groups. Meaning, if a group statistically has certain attributes, and therefore certain typical outcomes, this is not to be wondered at; but, no individual should be treated as merely a representative average of the group. To insist that all groups have the same outcomes results in the same kind of injustice as to insist that one's place in society be dictated by one's group. In both cases, an inflexibile confusion of individual with group is the origin of the injustice.
What helped me was Stephen Pinker's argument (or maybe observation) that the differences between any random two individuals are almost always greater than the differences between groups. This proves that when interacting with individuals, it is very foolish and indeed not evidence based to consider demographics. As OP articulately demonstrates below, analysis of groups is a different story. If you ignore group differences at the sociological level of analysis, well, I would wager that your analysis won't be particularly insightful. To be sure, this is what scared me out of pursuing an academic career in social psychology, even though I feel well suited to it. No reason to be haunted, although it might seem like the truth is dangerous, doggedly pursuing it can only serve to make the world better for all if that is your intent.
Jun 9, 2022·edited Jun 9, 2022Liked by John Carter
To clarify, I'm not shrinking away from the facts in evidence. To the degree I am haunted, it has to do with the rapidly changing tactical landscape. I think humanity is currently embroiled in a great war with stakes beyond any that have come before, and I want to deny the enemy those battlegrounds that are favorable to them. For instance, when you say that you were "scared" away from a career in sociological analyses, I believe that is a proper field to retreat from, because it is wholly owned by monsters. Never mind whether or not it's inherently a monstrous pursuit; it is littered with enemy encampments and sniper's nests. We would be fighting the battle on their terms, with weapons and tactics that are inverse to our strengths.
I have no problem with Steven Pinker (or Steve Sailer, for that matter), and I don't dispute the results of group behavioral analyses in the main. I think these and others were important figures in waking up cerrtain portions of the population to "ugly" truths about the current state of things. But, in keeping with the author's thesis, the triumphant hydra is triumphant because it is agile and adaptive, with a mordant sense of humor that dissolves the enemy in its acids. While these figures and ideas are/were important, are they as pertinent to the current memetic battlefield as someone like "Young Rippa" (Eric July)? I would say no. There are swaths of the hydra that are black as fuck, making bloody progress in the trenches. Forgetting for a moment the honor they are (in my opinion) owed, there is a practical value they deliver that relagates all the talk about heritable group qualities to the back bench.
Yep. Race is true, but relatively uninteresting next to what we have to deal with. It's like observing water is wet. Sure, but there are bigger things at stake.
Jun 9, 2022·edited Jun 9, 2022Liked by John Carter
I forgot to mention the obligatory, "Some of my best friends are black." As I reminded an enraged, lefty, full-blown TDS friend of mine a couple of years ago, there's one I can't even keep out of my own bed!
Bigger (and darker, and stranger) things indeed. I belong to a sarcastic, ironic generation that straddles the the Mass Tech divide. But for the first time in my life, I feel the prickle of trad longings. I believe I've seen the face of the demon up close and personal, and so I'm scurrying about for salt, mirrors, holy water and the like. I am careful to be both kind and suspicious by default, "a sheep among wolves." In that state of mind, I can't rule out any friends (or foes, for that matter).
I think the important thing to acknowledge about demographic difference is that in a free society, you can't expect outcomes to be evenly distributed by group. The only reason this is important, is because the fact that there are differences is routinely used as evidence of systemic racism, misogyny etc. Essentially I have Murray Rothbard's position as to the degree of import this topic has in discourse. It isn't a point that I'm going to go out of my way to argue, but mostly because none of the people that hold those positions have enough access to their right hemisphere to even be able to hear it. For the record, I don't like talking about anything that has the potential to be divisive if it can be avoided given my overall strategic objective of promoting Americanism. I'm pretty confident we're on the same page.
Yeah , i cosign. The best usefulness of the group disparities argument is in combating the evil story promoted by the baddies. As a strategy, it will attract many people predisposed to reason as a governing principle. Unfortunately, I don't think that group adds up to the critical mass required to defeat the monster. I say this as someone who probably isn't as left-brained as many in this fight, but nevertheless understands the stakes.
Damn this is an insightful, excellent essay. Just came across it (after reading part I), and am floored by the vision . Two questions come to mind: (1) Was John being too optimistic regarding the flowering and strengthening of "the hydra," back in 2022, when this was written? And (2), why don't people leave "current comments" (like this one) when they come across something (like this) that touches them (like me)? Is it because only 2022 comments are allowed? Or are late-to-the-party comments like this considered, um...gauche?
On the comment question, I’ve seen comments on older essays become briefly active again on more than one occasion. Anyone you reply to will be notified, assuming they check their Substack notifications.
I’m glad you enjoyed this. As to whether it was too optimistic? Well that’s always a good question. I don’t think so. For all that the dissident network is fractious, it’s always been so, and is not notably more so now than before. Reality-based ideas are penetrating further into the cultural consciousness than before. The divide between the power-focused “mainstream” and the truth-focused “alternative” community continues to grow, as the former continues to deny reality, becoming more entrenched in their delusions, and more ridiculous in the public eye, by the day.
"The divide between the power-focused 'mainstream' and the truth-focused 'alternative' community continues to grow." Exactly so, John. And in the end, we know that the truth always wins out (no matter how long it might take to do so). This was a key point in your essay that resonated powerfully with me; I'd never quite articulated it that way in my own mind before: "power-focused" versus "truth-focused." Breakthrough insight! And thanx. :o)
That understanding is inspired by Iain McGilchrist’s hemisphere hypothesis, which has influenced me greatly since I wrote this essay. The left hemisphere prizes power; the right, truth; and the political divide (this is my small contribution) largely reflects this fundamental neurological division of labour.
I'm going to have to read McGilchrist now. Since this is turning into something of a colloquy, I'd like to elaborate on what you and I agree on, John, i.e. "the Left-Right divide" where the Left (ideology or neurological hemisphere) seeks power, while the Right (again, politics or brain) seeks out "truth" or "reality." The problem is this: The Left is built upon lies, entirely at the service of the pursuit of power; in the face of that, truth or reality to the Left is irrelevant (except to the extent that it might further the Leftists' grubbing for power). It is a maxim that "a lie travels around the world while the truth is still putting its boots on," meaning that lying is extremely effective, and the foundation of the Left (after all, millions of people have fought and died for Leftist lies). Sadly, it appears that human beings tend to be "servants of lies." Which explains the astonishing success of the Left---with millions upon millions of victims---in the 20th century. It would also serve to explain why human lying at the service of the Left's lust for power works extremely well. And why throughout human story, truth has always had a hard, cold, long, lonely slog to overcome the phalanxes of lies employed by whomever the power-grubbers were in that era.
Could it be that the Internet---which birthed memes, meme-lords, and the indispensable alt-right hydra that you write about---will fundamentally change the ugly human calculus explained above? Could it be that NOW we have access to a modern tool that can empower the truth-seekers over the liars for a change? A tool that will allow us (and IS allowing us) to confront and defeat the incessant, ubiquitous lies of the Left, and thus thwart their lust for power over us all?
I think that this is happening, yes. What's also happening is that the lies are simply catching up to them. There are so many mandatory untruths now that meaningful changes to policy that address actual problems are impossible, as a result of which everything is falling apart. You can fool people, but not Gnon.
This explains a lot. I had noticed that so many of the covid skeptics were also statin skeptics, cholesterol skeptics and climate skeptics. That’s what makes Alex Berenson so frustrating—he’s only skeptical about covid and pot. Everything else he just goes for hook line and sinker.
You see that a fair bit at the individual level. If someone is going to question something, it's usually easier to focus on that one thing and be 'reasonable' and conventional on everything else.
I'm not even annoyed by it. Frankly, one can go too far, too fast, and go right off the deep end and lose their marbles. Redpill ODs are a real thing. Keeping one's psychological balance is crucial.
flat earth, "there is no virus", demographics are everything
Exactly.
I was a left wing science Phd that has published in international journals and works in R&D/tech, now I get called a “dumb conspiracy theorist” by people that struggled to finish high school working minimum wage jobs. I guess my worldview has moved somewhat to the right (self reliance) or at least from socialism to anarchism (in the old sense; no one is worthy of too much power).
Heh. You and me both. That's more or less my own path. It always makes me chuckle when I'm told to "educate myself" and "read a book" because I'm "ignorant" and a "conspiracy theorist".
If people could see my bookshelves and the degrees hanging on the wall! ... well I guess they still would say I'm a conspiracy theorist - I'd like to think I'm a conspiracy realist.
I genuinely hate the term conspiracy theory, because it's used incorrectly. Properly speaking, it should be used to mean a general theory of conspiracies - how they work, how they interrelate, what their impact is on politics, culture, history, etc. The colloquial usage is really more like 'conspiracy hypothesis'. Imprecise language bothers my autism.
Not autism, NFC driven accuracy motivation.
Interesting to hear it. I think there might be more of us than we realise. Sad thing is that those without any useful skills e.g. people in offices that answer phones and input the data, and their lifestyles are really the initial target of this particular power grab, but they just can’t see it. They think it’s all for their benefit/protection, that they’ll be buying an electric car and offsetting the carbon from their flights, whilst basically offering nothing useful in return. It’s hard to overcome this level of stupidity. I actually quite like the growth of technology (not how it’s deployed) but the collection of people driving the current agenda are simply too untrustworthy and power crazed to do any kind of deals with and too incompetent. Plus I don’t agree with expending effort to automate peoples’ jobs who can’t do anything else, I’d rather be pushing the fundamentals forward.
You are in good company ;-)
Love it! I am in the hydra somewhere more or less in the "antivax" and organic sustainable farming space. I've been vegan at times in my life and my older daughter is vegetarian. I don't decry these things out of hand but I see fundamental square peg in round hole thinking with some of the movement: hundreds of miles of grasslands in the great plains are indeed much better suited to cattle than soybeans and most people, especially males with higher muscle mass, are in no way suited to a long term vegetarian diet. Every one of these movements seems to have adherents who want basic things like bodily integrity, scientific integrity and human right of self determination which the hive then tries to distort with a grotesque mirror image in the distorts and steers things in their desired direction...
Well said.
To be clear, I don't personally care what people eat. I tend to be skeptical of meme diets - I more or less follow the 'shop the periphery' grampa diet; if it existed when my grampa was a kid, it's probably fine. It's only dietary evangelicals that get under my skin. Particularly when that evangelism is being encouraged from the top of society.
Junk food vegans i.e. those that carry that V card while they're eating crappy glyphosphate laden soy and chemical meat alternatives while claiming moral high ground can get under my skin too. Perhaps that's why I use this example. I live in Thailand close enough to India (the country with the highest percentage of vegetarians in the world due to Hindu religious beliefs regarding Bhrama) to come across a lot of cook from scratch traditional vegetarian diets to respect adherents. It's one of the areas where I see the sharpest divide and conquer: on one side a bunch of self actualized close to nature types looking for diverse sustainable solutions and on the other side Bill Gates lab grown meat and Monsanto's feed the world through seed patents steering.
My favorite vegan friend was the one who loved gummy bears.
Yes. Gummy bears. The look on her face when she found out....
The beyond burger thing gets me though. Not only is it toxic soy paste; but if you don't want to eat meat, why pretend?
I think the main ingredient in Beyond meats is peas, not soy. It does have a lot of oils and salt. Vegan is like any other diet, you need to choose wisely. Not all vegan foods are healthy (donuts and beer?) and not all meats (farmed meats are high in hormones and antibiotics). Good nutrition is a complicated topic, worth studying. But the real culprit in typical diets isn't carbs or fats, but the combination. Low carbs or low fats -- pick one. Mix them and you'll be shopping for doctors.
That's more or less my take. There's poison everywhere if you aren't careful. Balance is key.
That reminds me of why I stopped eating gummy bears. I saw how they make the gelatin. It's like something out of a horror movie. if you get a chance, check out the movie Dominion on youtube. Not an easy watch but the truth is they want us in the exact same position as those animals: Captive slaves who eat what they are fed. I have nothing against naturally raised and humanely killed meat but that is clearly not something you will be able to find in most supermarkets/restaurants. In my experience, most people who try to eat this type of "clean meat" do it for a couple of meals max and then forget about it out of convenience; I know that was my experience. I don't get the fake meat thing either but it is completely expected that they would push the most unhealthful products possible.
People eat what they're accustomed to. I spent some time in a place where they had flying bugs about 3 inches long, flew into our floodlights at night, we'd collect them and sell them to the locals. They checked quality by gripping one, flicking the head off with their thumb, and sucking out the guts. A big smile and we got a dollar.
Gross.
Ethically raised meat and eggs is available pretty much everywhere. It's about twice as expensive which is the main reason most people don't eat it. That and they don't know about the hormones etc.
That's mostly a function of the American corporatized/industrialized ag system. Other countries don't have this issue. "Pasture raised grass-fed beef" and "free range eggs" are just beef and eggs.
Not twice as expensive, but a little higher. And they're "just beef and eggs" but without a bunch of hormones and antibiotics, and with better loads of vitamins and nutrients. We can survive with farmed proteins, but not as well, and not as long.
Every country is moving to farmed proteins, as a necessary response to burgeoning populations who demand lower prices for necessities so they can afford their toys. Most people aren't very good at understanding their choices. After all, farmed proteins are "FDA aapproved," right? What could go wrong?
I stopped by a classic car show yesterday, and saw a gorgeous 66 Cobra replica. Watching LeMans today, and running the numbers in my head -- if I forego healthy food and stick to big macs and pizza, how long before I can save enough to build that Cobra? And would I live long enough to enjoy it?
I got into an argument with a vegan for virtue signalling type who I knew liked to drink alcohol. Doesn't that involve the direct cultivation and death of untold yeast for our own hedonistic pleasure? You can go too far one way as you can another. There are those who will see benefit from cutting out vegetables as their bodies have difficulty processing this fiber.
Hot damn! The whole article is fantastic, and that intro, this is one hell of a narrative. Is there going to be a part III, or do we just have to live through it?
Thanks, man! Part III will be coming shortly. It's mostly written; this piece was too long to just drop all at once, though.
Looking forward to it! Oh! Also, heroic dose huh? Never heard that term used to describe opioids, but maybe that's just because I'm so straight edge...
Admittedly, heroism and opioids are not frequently associated with one another.
Aptly conjoined, imo. If the word hero in any of its derivations can be applied to St. George it can be used in this context. Opioids were heroic in taking him out, being the scourge against decency and humanity that he was in life. Your writing has a keen edge for clarity and illumination.
LOL. Well played.
Loving this series John!
Fantastic optimism about the human condition that resists the insanity of WEF et al. I hope your optimism is correct, and even exceeded in the months and years to come. My adult son certainly has the same outlook, reassuring me that there is no way the Great Reset or anything resembling it can stand for any length of time. I hope that's the case. Most tyrannical systems don't last, but they can certainly kill a lot of people quickly at their height of power before their inevitable collapse.
Looking forward to part III
They've already done a lot of damage and will doubtless do a lot more before they're shuffled off of the stage of history. It's like the taijitu though - their actions are creating hard times, and that in turn creates hard men; their concentration of lies creates a thirst for truth; their global shadow net creates its opposite. The harder they push, the stronger the resistance becomes.
Let's hope then that they continue to overplay their hand and get shoved off the stage abruptly. I've got places to go and things to do!!
Indeed. But, before we can enjoy whatever the 21st century equivalent of the 50s/60s is, first we must win World War Clown.
In terms of both personal and public health, the American "normal" -- what is now considered "typical" or baseline and beyond criticism -- is pathological comorbidity. Likewise, far too many people for various reasons are living paycheck to the paycheck -- trapped in debt and wage-serfdom. Obviously, yes, we do have elites seeking to globalize both conditions: absolute dependency on Big State, Big Pharma, & MSM with Big Tech.
So the dissenters become anyone, any people, who value and take some responsibility for their own health and sanity, and who want control over their own lives. In the USA, not just the Paleo or Primal movements, for example, but also the "Your Money or Your Life" [Financial Independence ~ https://yourmoneyoryourlife.com/] & FIRE movements. As well at the "Off-Gridish" and more severe "Off-Grid" movements.
This to me goes well beyond the Alt-Right or the Ambivalent Right. It certainly includes both biological sexes. Although I certainly do both acknowledge and agree with you about the war against masculinity.
The labelling as anyone who dissents as belonging to the Right strikes me as coming to close to more marketing, more propaganda. Unless, as Ernst Jünger did, one understands Fascism as manifestation of the Left. Even then, I still don't get how a person is "fighting fascism" by surrendering control of their body and mind to the corporate state. To willing accept an externally imposed neo-feudal caste system in the name of equity and progress. Yet obviously, those in Portlandia (where I resided briefly) see it differently.
So I do agree that the hive mind is meeting with greater and greater resistance. But I also think we have a larger coalition of people and movements against the Great Reset and the Grand Narrative. I take that as good news. You're a powerful voice for one vital and growing contingent. But you have more allies in this war than you realize. That's the note I would close on.
This anticipates precisely where I'm going with this - in fact, it's one of the things that I was trying to communicate here. Essentially, that it's become a lot larger than any one ideology. Hence 'Great Convergence' - as more people are pushed out, the counter-culture grows, but also changes.
The dissident right-wing aspect of it was really just a sort of nucleus. That's where a lot of the core techniques got their start, as well as the basic mindset of questioning everything. The hydra, however, is not ideological. It's much larger than any ideology.
How would you characterize the difference between left and right? Michael McConkey essentially adopts Sowell's constrained vs unconstrained worldviews and applies constrained to right and unconstrained to left, but he has a tendency to redefine things outside common usage, in a useful way mind you, but maybe not when conversing with those unfamiliar with his work. I would be curious to hear how you think of it.
A lot of my thoughts on the subject are summarized here:
https://barsoom.substack.com/p/left-and-right-brains-and-politics
Briefly, left tends to be more theory-driven and goal-oriented. Right is reality-driven and preservation-oriented. The left pathologies tends towards irrational optimism/mania/utopianism. The right pathologies tends to pessimism/depression. Both tendencies are necessary to a healthy society, but they need to be in harmonious balance. The problem now is mainly that one, the left, has a wildly disproportionate influence.
Kinda reminds me of Yogi Berra’s insight: “In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is.”
Interesting, I wouldn't have thought it could map to the hemispheres paradigm
Excellent question. I don't. I'm just not willing to accept that anyone who disagrees with our current ruling oligarchy fits neatly in a 2-dimensonal political space. At times, it becomes a way of ignoring the real issues. That's why I'm unhappy with the labels of alt-right and ambivalent right. Do I have anything better? Nope. The left as your source describes it might have an unconstrained worldview, but right now they want to constrain everyone else. Maybe it comes down to those of us who believe that something like human nature exists, and those who believe that people are simply whatever you program them to be. But freak when the programming doesn't fully work. I don't suffer from a need to insist that everyone else in the world live in accordance with my preferences. But I've seen that from parties who identify on both sides of the Right-Left spectrum. Informally, I might divide it between people who can truly tolerate some diversity, and those who must organize any and all differences into a caste system which they must control. I'll give this more thought. I'm just cautious about debating things on terms chosen by people -- our MSM experts -- who want nothing more than to deny my existence.
That believing human nature exists vs people are fully programmable is exactly constrained vs. unconstrained. Thomas Sowell wrote a book on it, but here is a 7min video clip where he talks about the premise: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDD_xPGJXSI
Thanks. Watching it now.
One long indeed.
I have had the idea the climate was stabilized the last 10 thousand years by the climax forests and the fascists who seek returns on money know this economic/social system they have installed is responsible for cut/burn/poisoning of most of these old climax forests for more efficient control of land production and people. They hide what is changing the climate pointing towards carbon burning as the only reason for the changes, a misdirection, carbon emissions which might have some small role in this process because the climax forests no longer exist on a planetary scale. Lots of carbon has been emitted over the eons, yet here we are cutting down what protects soil life which sequesters carbon back into Earth. These agricultural methods reverses the process.
The fascist system is going to fail, those dependent on it will fail along with the fascists, who have become weak in their dependency on money.
The best indeed was the mention of Permaculture (which sometimes gets highjacked by the socialists, but the ideas are not political - I've read Permaculture A Designers' Manual a few times and the ideas are about designing small systems not reliant on fascist inputs of any kind). Learning how to take care of oneself is the best advice for anyone interested in living through the coming bottleneck.
Climax forest is a new term to me - had to look that up. Thank you!
It certainly makes sense that forest cover could affect climate. It's a very complex system, with a number of inputs; my skepticism towards the CO2 model is that it seems overly simplistic, reducing everything to the concentration of a single minor constituent of the atmosphere, and ignoring the rich array of other phenomena that almost certainly play substantial roles.
Permaculture, and especially extensions such as aquaculture, is in my view the most logical way to produce food. It generates far more calories per acre than monocropping; it generates a wider array of foodstuffs; and it enriches the soil, as well as the ecology, over time. The main impediment is that it requires a farmer to become a specialist in the local specifics of the land: you can't just apply a generalized model like a template. That makes it impossible to centralize, which large agricultural conglomerates dislike intensely.
I don't know how far you will investigate so I will describe one ancient aquaculture idea that people relied on before the Portuguese starting hauling cod into Europe, which lessoned the need for this design with its method fading away overtime. Fascists probably bribed off those with the knowledge to increase the demand for cod.
Needs a water source, two large large shallow ponds connected to one deeper small pond. One pond is dry producing grass for cattle, the other water raising carp. The fertilizer from the carp grows grass and the fertilizer from the cattle grows algae. Drain the carp into the deeper pond for harvesting overtime, plant a pasture, fill up the old pond and raise carp, switched back and forth over and over and over.
I would like to know more about this.
Here is the Cod part: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/64895.Cod
Nice to read a writer with a thoughtful investigative mind. Thank you.
Chapter 13 of the manual is on aquaculture ideas. One reference is A fish and vegetable grower for all seasons book, an interesting experiment.
Bill Mollison dedicated his book on Permaculture to Masanobu Fukuoka, who wrote “The One-Straw Revolution” and “The Way Back to Nature” and”The Natural Way to Farm.” A very remarkable man to check out. He was a post-Doctoral researcher at a government research station in Japan who had some kind of an awakening experience during which he received two messages: “Human knowledge amounts to nothing” and “plants will grow by themselves.” On the basis of these insights he resigned his job the next day. His co-workers were concerned for hi sanity…they gave him a going-away party at which he said he was the only one smiling! It’s a fascinating story.
Yes, I read One Straw Revolution. But since next to no one has emulated his actions its just words in a book.
I think a lot of people are going to be a lot more motivated to figure out how to emulate his actual demonstration of “do nothing farming” in the near future when there is no diesel to rely on. Granted, he was an unusual genius with unusual gifts of perception not easy to pass on.
I have been following more the Lawton style of permaculture, in the respect of growing food just for the family, I am producing a lot of food on a half an acre. Lots of people are following that style, the One Straw style is more towards the sale of grain.
Interesting essay. As for the impact of diet, in WW1 the well-fed British officer class stood a full five inches taller than the blokes taken from the mines, farms, and factories who were soon sent to charge German machine guns in Northern France.
That didn't turn out too well...for the blokes...and for Western Civilization.
Indeed. It's a fairly recent historical development that the average person grew up as tall and strong as the elite. The elite doesn't seem to like that.
I suspect this is the real issue behind most of what is happening.
Excellent analogy once again. Will be linking tomorrow @ https://nothingnewunderthesun2016.com/
One of the best reads on what I call the "Big Picture" that I have read in awhile. You are doing a fine job here in getting information out albeit a little long winded at times. Not for me, but I am afraid some might not want to read the whole piece. Don't be offended because that is not my intent. I just want to make sure everyone is getting your point!!! Once again great work!!!
Yeah, this is a long piece. That's why I broke it up. I usually prefer to keep things to a 10 min read or less.
CRACKING ARTICLE! Ayup 👏 Possibly the first Overview that offers me hope. I'm well fed with thoughts from Mercola, Rockwell, Wolfe, Casey & Shiff, Paul, Malone, Ron Paul etc. Sadly lacking in Aussie weight but my country is deeply,
tightly controlled. The knowledge that such DIFFERENCES are melded, conjoined in The Resistance, this is DEEPLY satisfying. That Julian ASSANGE 's Matyrdom MEANS SOMETHING. That WE, We are learning, becoming stronger, this is good. For I have a THIRST, a Thirst for JUSTICE. Personally I am not a devout man. I choose NOT to Turn The Other Cheek. Oh no. To quote my favourite Tarantino movie "...this shit is gonna get Medieval..." ✊
I've come to understand turning the other cheek as not sweating the small stuff. Jesus also said, I came not to bring piece, but a sword; and ye that have not a sword, sell your cloak and buy one (conflating a couple verses there but whatever).
We are indeed learning. Rapidly. They terrifies them.
The Truth Shall Set You Free!!!
I love you, part 2.
The Hydra. So good. Adapting, seeking, waking, connecting the damned...hot damn!
As if, the Hydra moto should be....
"Now, just wait a fucking minute...."
Or some skeptical centered band of specific cuss words, lined in unison, with other nouns, pronouns, verbs and other grammar I dispise... lol...speaking just the right truth...
I'm glad I waited to comment on this series. The rhetoric of part one was both soaring and searing; a true masterwork in describing the spirit of the age, and particularly the mechanics of dissent.
Yes, we are a Greek devilfish; a body flooded with interoperable neurons, impervious to a single "heroic" blow. Yes, the enemy is also a tentacled cephalopod, but of an age that loosens its grip by the hour, and isn't long for the world. We are all minds, and chains of minds, contending in a temporary arena that will result -- at best -- in our individual deaths.
That is the point that leaves me to question, when I consider your (admittedly well reasoned) article here. We will (and must!) die. I would rather die in pursuit of truth -- and even *for* it, in the best case scenario -- rather than dwindling to an ember in the darkness of lies, scared of my own shadow. That's the most horrible outcome of all, but simultaneously the most likely one. Truth is more elusive than Bigfoot riding the Lochness Monster into a black hole wielding goddammed Excalibur. We're fucking blessed to perceive a droplet of it in a lifetime.
I can't convincingly argue amy of the points you've made here; I've argued many of them myself. But the beast that haunts me, and which I think haunts the hydra generally, is the racial disparity argument. It isn't without merit, in the data sense. But it is intellectually and spiritually destructive on multiple levels. The worst of these is that it gives succor to the enemy's base position: We are not individuals, who are animated by nature but divine in purpose and design. I cannot ever cede them that ground, no matter the numbers. If one person defies the odds, that person's dignity is more valuable to defend than multitudes of robotic slaves.
Beautiful. I'm glad you're enjoying it!
With race, or any other group, it's extremely important to see individuals as individuals, but to see groups as groups. Meaning, if a group statistically has certain attributes, and therefore certain typical outcomes, this is not to be wondered at; but, no individual should be treated as merely a representative average of the group. To insist that all groups have the same outcomes results in the same kind of injustice as to insist that one's place in society be dictated by one's group. In both cases, an inflexibile confusion of individual with group is the origin of the injustice.
What helped me was Stephen Pinker's argument (or maybe observation) that the differences between any random two individuals are almost always greater than the differences between groups. This proves that when interacting with individuals, it is very foolish and indeed not evidence based to consider demographics. As OP articulately demonstrates below, analysis of groups is a different story. If you ignore group differences at the sociological level of analysis, well, I would wager that your analysis won't be particularly insightful. To be sure, this is what scared me out of pursuing an academic career in social psychology, even though I feel well suited to it. No reason to be haunted, although it might seem like the truth is dangerous, doggedly pursuing it can only serve to make the world better for all if that is your intent.
To clarify, I'm not shrinking away from the facts in evidence. To the degree I am haunted, it has to do with the rapidly changing tactical landscape. I think humanity is currently embroiled in a great war with stakes beyond any that have come before, and I want to deny the enemy those battlegrounds that are favorable to them. For instance, when you say that you were "scared" away from a career in sociological analyses, I believe that is a proper field to retreat from, because it is wholly owned by monsters. Never mind whether or not it's inherently a monstrous pursuit; it is littered with enemy encampments and sniper's nests. We would be fighting the battle on their terms, with weapons and tactics that are inverse to our strengths.
I have no problem with Steven Pinker (or Steve Sailer, for that matter), and I don't dispute the results of group behavioral analyses in the main. I think these and others were important figures in waking up cerrtain portions of the population to "ugly" truths about the current state of things. But, in keeping with the author's thesis, the triumphant hydra is triumphant because it is agile and adaptive, with a mordant sense of humor that dissolves the enemy in its acids. While these figures and ideas are/were important, are they as pertinent to the current memetic battlefield as someone like "Young Rippa" (Eric July)? I would say no. There are swaths of the hydra that are black as fuck, making bloody progress in the trenches. Forgetting for a moment the honor they are (in my opinion) owed, there is a practical value they deliver that relagates all the talk about heritable group qualities to the back bench.
Yep. Race is true, but relatively uninteresting next to what we have to deal with. It's like observing water is wet. Sure, but there are bigger things at stake.
I forgot to mention the obligatory, "Some of my best friends are black." As I reminded an enraged, lefty, full-blown TDS friend of mine a couple of years ago, there's one I can't even keep out of my own bed!
Bigger (and darker, and stranger) things indeed. I belong to a sarcastic, ironic generation that straddles the the Mass Tech divide. But for the first time in my life, I feel the prickle of trad longings. I believe I've seen the face of the demon up close and personal, and so I'm scurrying about for salt, mirrors, holy water and the like. I am careful to be both kind and suspicious by default, "a sheep among wolves." In that state of mind, I can't rule out any friends (or foes, for that matter).
I think the important thing to acknowledge about demographic difference is that in a free society, you can't expect outcomes to be evenly distributed by group. The only reason this is important, is because the fact that there are differences is routinely used as evidence of systemic racism, misogyny etc. Essentially I have Murray Rothbard's position as to the degree of import this topic has in discourse. It isn't a point that I'm going to go out of my way to argue, but mostly because none of the people that hold those positions have enough access to their right hemisphere to even be able to hear it. For the record, I don't like talking about anything that has the potential to be divisive if it can be avoided given my overall strategic objective of promoting Americanism. I'm pretty confident we're on the same page.
Yeah , i cosign. The best usefulness of the group disparities argument is in combating the evil story promoted by the baddies. As a strategy, it will attract many people predisposed to reason as a governing principle. Unfortunately, I don't think that group adds up to the critical mass required to defeat the monster. I say this as someone who probably isn't as left-brained as many in this fight, but nevertheless understands the stakes.
Damn this is an insightful, excellent essay. Just came across it (after reading part I), and am floored by the vision . Two questions come to mind: (1) Was John being too optimistic regarding the flowering and strengthening of "the hydra," back in 2022, when this was written? And (2), why don't people leave "current comments" (like this one) when they come across something (like this) that touches them (like me)? Is it because only 2022 comments are allowed? Or are late-to-the-party comments like this considered, um...gauche?
On the comment question, I’ve seen comments on older essays become briefly active again on more than one occasion. Anyone you reply to will be notified, assuming they check their Substack notifications.
I’m glad you enjoyed this. As to whether it was too optimistic? Well that’s always a good question. I don’t think so. For all that the dissident network is fractious, it’s always been so, and is not notably more so now than before. Reality-based ideas are penetrating further into the cultural consciousness than before. The divide between the power-focused “mainstream” and the truth-focused “alternative” community continues to grow, as the former continues to deny reality, becoming more entrenched in their delusions, and more ridiculous in the public eye, by the day.
"The divide between the power-focused 'mainstream' and the truth-focused 'alternative' community continues to grow." Exactly so, John. And in the end, we know that the truth always wins out (no matter how long it might take to do so). This was a key point in your essay that resonated powerfully with me; I'd never quite articulated it that way in my own mind before: "power-focused" versus "truth-focused." Breakthrough insight! And thanx. :o)
That understanding is inspired by Iain McGilchrist’s hemisphere hypothesis, which has influenced me greatly since I wrote this essay. The left hemisphere prizes power; the right, truth; and the political divide (this is my small contribution) largely reflects this fundamental neurological division of labour.
I'm going to have to read McGilchrist now. Since this is turning into something of a colloquy, I'd like to elaborate on what you and I agree on, John, i.e. "the Left-Right divide" where the Left (ideology or neurological hemisphere) seeks power, while the Right (again, politics or brain) seeks out "truth" or "reality." The problem is this: The Left is built upon lies, entirely at the service of the pursuit of power; in the face of that, truth or reality to the Left is irrelevant (except to the extent that it might further the Leftists' grubbing for power). It is a maxim that "a lie travels around the world while the truth is still putting its boots on," meaning that lying is extremely effective, and the foundation of the Left (after all, millions of people have fought and died for Leftist lies). Sadly, it appears that human beings tend to be "servants of lies." Which explains the astonishing success of the Left---with millions upon millions of victims---in the 20th century. It would also serve to explain why human lying at the service of the Left's lust for power works extremely well. And why throughout human story, truth has always had a hard, cold, long, lonely slog to overcome the phalanxes of lies employed by whomever the power-grubbers were in that era.
Could it be that the Internet---which birthed memes, meme-lords, and the indispensable alt-right hydra that you write about---will fundamentally change the ugly human calculus explained above? Could it be that NOW we have access to a modern tool that can empower the truth-seekers over the liars for a change? A tool that will allow us (and IS allowing us) to confront and defeat the incessant, ubiquitous lies of the Left, and thus thwart their lust for power over us all?
I think that this is happening, yes. What's also happening is that the lies are simply catching up to them. There are so many mandatory untruths now that meaningful changes to policy that address actual problems are impossible, as a result of which everything is falling apart. You can fool people, but not Gnon.
Genius!
apparent typo:
Acknowledging biological differences between human groups was crucial to enabling the mass immigration
(shouldn't Acknowledging be Denying?)
Yes. Yes it should. Good catch.
Awesome essay. I look forward to reading more of your writings.
Very much enjoyed this !