War and the gay parade

His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia has given a sermon that reduced numerous officially unofficial mouthpieces of the Global American Empire’s officially unofficial state religion to incoherent rage.

The war in the Ukraine is a holy war – not because Putin is holy, but because the unofficially official state religion that seeks to rule the world is unholy.

The proximate cause of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was that Nato was persistently pushing to expand to Russia’s borders.

This expansion was pushed by making – not exactly war, but not peace – on Donbas, a not-peace that killed many thousands of people in Donbas, and was continuing to kill people, a pressure that while short of outright war, still killed people, and continued to kill people. It was not exactly war, but was clearly not peace. Which is what happens to your country if you fail to hold a gay parade.

A pressure that just went on, and on, and on, for eight years now and is not going to stop until major armed force stops it.

The Cathedral wants to make Donbas to hold gay parades too, as a step towards making Russia hold gay parades.

It is not NATO that they want to expand, it is our officially unofficial state religion.

This sermon calls the war for what it is: An armed defense against a hostile power seeking to expand its unchristian faith by force. Putin invaded Ukraine to defend his power in Russia – but his power in Russia is threatened because he would not hold a gay parade. In this sense he invaded Ukraine in defense of Christianity.

hat tip encelad
Patriarchal Sermon at the Cathedral of Christ the Savior by his Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia

For eight years there have been attempts to destroy what exists in the Donbass. And in the Donbass there is rejection, a fundamental rejection of the so-called values that are offered today by those who claim world power. Today there is such a test for the loyalty of this government, a kind of pass to that “happy” world, the world of excess consumption, the world of visible “freedom”. Do you know what this test is? The test is very simple and at the same time terrible – this is a gay parade. The demands on many to hold a gay parade are a test of loyalty to that very powerful world; and we know that if people or countries reject these demands, then they do not enter into that world, they become strangers to it.

But we know what this sin is, which is promoted through the so-called marches of dignity. This is a sin that is condemned by the Word of God – both the Old and the New Testament. Moreover, the Lord, condemning sin, does not condemn the sinner. He only calls him to repentance, but not to ensure that through a sinful person and his behavior, sin becomes a life standard, a variation of human behavior – respected and acceptable.

If humanity recognizes that sin is not a violation of God’s law, if humanity agrees that sin is one of the options for human behavior, then human civilization will end there. And gay parades are designed to demonstrate that sin is one of the variations of human behavior. That is why in order to enter the club of those countries, it is necessary to hold a gay pride parade. Not to make a political statement “we are with you”, not to sign any agreements, but to hold a gay parade. And we know how people resist these demands and how this resistance is suppressed by force. This means that we are talking about imposing by force a sin condemned by God’s law, and therefore, by force to impose on people the denial of God and His truth.

Therefore, what is happening today in the sphere of international relations has not only political significance. We are talking about something different and much more important than politics. We are talking about human salvation, about where humanity will end up, on which side of God the Savior, who comes into the world as the Judge and Creator, on the right or on the left. Today, out of weakness, stupidity, ignorance, and most often out of unwillingness to resist, many go there, to the left side. And all that is connected with the justification of sin, condemned by the Bible, is today a test for our faithfulness to the Lord, for our ability to confess faith in our Savior.

I wrote in 2017

Because the Cathedral is primarily driven by holiness competition, it is incapable of acting rationally. This is in some ways a strength. The way to win at chicken is to first drink a bottle of vodka, then at the last moment rip out the steering wheel and throw it out the window.

But it is also a weakness. The likely result is, sooner or later, to blunder into war, state to state, state level civil war, nonstate war, and likely all of the above.

And now, in 2022, blundering into state to state war.

780 Responses to “War and the gay parade”

  1. clovis says:

    “Biggest one: lack of faith in Faith as a solution.”

    Speaking as one theologically trained in a certain confession: faith is only as good as the object of faith. Faith itself is not really a solution to anything. Faith is inevitable; it’s just that people usually have faith in idols rather than Christ. The problem with modernity or globohomo is not “lack of faith” but wrong faith. Globohomo still believes in the possibility of heaven on earth through the exercise of human will and intellect. It does not believe in original sin and redemption through Christ.

    Consider how deeply, as someone else noted, the plebs believed what the priests told them about Covid and vaccines and masks. Most of them still believe, even in the churches. The problem is not no faith, but idolatrous faith.

  2. Basil says:

    Probably, mobilization is needed for a real victory. At present, the Russian troops are marking time, which means a bloodier and more brutal inevitability associated with greater sacrifices, or Putin is set for a symbolic conquest in the spirit of the Kherson People’s Republic. Most likely, there will be mobilization, because Putin has already said that there will be no mobilization. I also liked the way in his speech he puts Russia on a par with Brazil and India, countries with much larger and much younger populations in his speech and talks about traditional values, implying the values ​​of the Soviet era.

    I want to see at least something good in the situation, how realistic is the likelihood of meeting millions on the road from hunger due to problems with the supply of fertilizers? Or is the ordinary Hans paying again to feed Mubamba’s children?

    • jim says:

      Nah.

      The problem is that Russia was carrying out twentieth century warfare, blitzkreing and tanks, which has been stopped by twenty first century warfare, man carried autonomous self guided anti tank missiles. You point the missile in the general direction of the tank, and tell the missile to take care of it.

      Now that the Turkish drones are also capable of autonomy, flattening cities will not be possible either. Takes artillery a while to flatten a city, and it is not going to survive long enough to do so. Ukraine recently received a shipment of the latest Turkish drones, which are capable of autonomously targeting something and then flying back and landing by themselves. On each flight, one drone will take out four artillery, if it does not get shot down. It has good stealth against radar, and a low infrared signature.

      To counter, needs a similarly autonomous missile that can see it and home in. Trouble is, it is hard for troops on the ground to see it, so difficult to counter even if they were equipped with such missiles.

      • Karl says:

        Flattening cities is still possible with nukes

      • The Cominator says:

        Can’t drones be jammed…

        • jim says:

          The latest Turkish drones cannot be jammed.

          They are capable of autonomous warfare, and figure out where they are by looking at the scenery.

          Giving them the instructions they need to carry out an autonomous mission is difficult, and the UI is dreadful, which does not make it any easier.

          But if the Ukrainians manage to figure it it out, it will be impossible for the Russians to bombard cities.

          Needs smart operators and a better UI, but if directed to go on an autonomous mission, they take off by themselves, fly to the destination by themselves, recognize four targets in succession, take them out, find a friendly airstrip by themselves, and land by themselves. Difficulty is telling them how to recognize the targets. UI needs to be improved.

          • Pooch says:

            The Russians destroyed all their Turkish drones a while ago. Apparently the US is giving them US drones now in military aid. Unknown if they have hit the field yet.

            • jim says:

              Turkish drones under remote guidance are easy to destroy. You jam them, they become stupid, then you kill them. The latest drones are capable of autonomy. I am not sure whether the Ukrainians will be able to use this capability, (you have to designate the targets, then the drone takes off, performs the mission, and returns without human guidance, but designating the targets so that the drone can understand is strangely difficult) but if they can, the Russians are in big trouble.

              • The Cominator says:

                “The latest drones are capable of autonomy.”

                I find it hard to believe they are all that smart in their autonomy…

                • jim says:

                  I have indirect evidence that suggests that their autonomy is very good, but the interface between the mission planner and the AI is not so good.

          • The Cominator says:

            They operate off autonomous AI?

      • Pseudo-Chrysostom says:

        High ROF autoloading artillery systems (like archer) are capable of quickly switching between munition types. Good fire support in advanced conflicts should come with a range of ballistic and guided munitions for engaging a variety of targets, both in the air and on the ground.

        The value potential of integrating battlefield awareness with kill-chains as fast as a press of a button (detect target, ping assets, drop ordnance on them) was understood by both soviet and american planners a long time ago (eg, https://warontherocks.com/2014/11/the-cold-war-offset-strategy-assault-breaker-and-the-beginning-of-the-rsta-revolution/ ); but like a lot of things in a demotist environment, it was as if there was a mass brain-fog that prevented everyone from ever really putting all the dots together as a whole; ‘the system’ could not remember what it did yesterday, nor relate it to what it would do tomorrow; every day was a new day zero.

        Like the airplane before it, drones can be viewed as in essence another form of guidance package for munitions; or from another angle, you could see guided missiles as basically a special kind of drone, with aerodynamic vehicles as a reusable boost phase.

        Somewhat tangential, but touching back on the Gerald Bull reference last article, there is a further use-case for HARP gun space tubes that is a killer-app all by itself (literally), which is pumping out clouds of boosted god rods to high orbit, which can be used right away or at any time on demand for global precision strike of any hard target; once you go past a certain point, you essentially gain the ability to ‘store’ the force of an exoplanetary cannon shot indefinitely.

        • jim says:

          > High ROF autoloading artillery systems (like archer) are capable of quickly switching between munition types.

          Twentieth century weapons.

          • Pseudo-Chrysostom says:

            You see a UFO rolling up, and launch your own bogey to shake hands with it.

            The difference between 20th century and 21st century is whether singular units need to be their own kill-chains in isolation (detection, fire control, and ordnance), or whether the fighting force as a whole can act as singular kill-chains.

  3. Kunning Drueger says:

    We all seem to have a slightly different interpretation of who is a Leader and who are Followers; what makes one a PC v. NPC.

    https://youtu.be/s-oNaU-gzJw

    Who is an NPC in that clip? Is NPC a static description, or can one be an NPC in certain situations but have culpable agency in others? I’m not taking a position that I’ll hold fast to, but I currently feel like NPC status is variable.

    • Cloudswrest says:

      Retired commentator “Yggdrasil” has an interesting professional trans athlete related anecdote from 1979 in his review of the movie “A Clockwork Orange”. Below is the lede.
      https://web.archive.org/web/20170224123353/http://www.whitenationalism.com/cwar/orange.htm

      Many years ago, I attended the U.S. Claycourts tennis championships in Indianapolis.

      On one particularly memorable occasion, Chris Evert was to be playing an early round match on center court. My wife and I purchased seats.

      By mischance, the seeding produced one Renee Richards to play against her. Renee Richards, nee Dr. Richard Raskind, was an inner party Yale varsity tennis player, who at age 42 decided to undergo a sex change and hit the pro circuit as a female, and who, because of his origins, received an enormous amount of media attention.

      As I entered the stands on center court, I carried in my minds eye an expectation of Dr. Raskind as a Brooklyn nebbish – of the sort who would turn the match into a kind of self deprecating slapstick comedy – a Charlie Chaplin or Rodney Dangerfield – rather than a serious competition.

      It was a disappointing draw. One watches women’s tennis for entirely different reasons than men’s tennis. Instead of the explosive power and speed of men’s tennis, we are entranced by a display which combines feminine gracefulness and charm with aggressiveness, intense concentration and skill.

      After all, we pay to see the Chris Everts and Anna Kornikovas of the world – performers who give us the greatest contrast between the competitive athleticism and feminine grace, and not the steroid pumpers, bull dykes nor the dark tips of exceptionally flat third world bell curves, the extremes of which blur the male-female distinction and mock the characteristics found at their own population means and medians.

      Fortunately, the stick is a great equalizer, and sports employing it afford us frequent opportunities to observe that which is pleasing to our aesthetic sense at the center or top of our own bell curve.

      Thus, the Raskind circus was not likely to produce a particularly memorable display of those qualities we hope for when we pay to see Chris Evert play tennis.

      But once the warm ups between the two began, my mood changed dramatically.

      Raskind was very tall for a tennis player – six foot two – with the physique of a very capable, if aging, male athlete.

      As he was parading around in a short tennis dress that looked like a ballerina’s tutu, he was displaying all of the typical threat gestures and dominance signals which male athletes use to intimidate one another.

      It was offensive beyond all common offense.

      I simply was not prepared for the power of this image of a large and menacing transvestite about to take on a petite and attractive young lady in an athletic contest. And spontaneously I exclaimed in a loud voice that half the modest sized grandstand could hear; – “It’s Chrissy versus the Hulk!!”

      A number of the patrons seated in front of me chortled, as the phrase seemed to capture what most were feeling.

      But then immediately, a female inner party member seated right behind me said; “You only make fun of him because you are insecure about your own masculinity.”

      And I instantly whipped around, and said – again in a loud voice – “No, it is only you and your cousin Siggy Freud who have a problem with my masculinity. I have no problem with it at all!”

      By this time I had read John Murray Cuddihy’s classic, The Ordeal of Civility (1974), and understood the meaning of the Freudian attack, and having once understood it, was determined never to let it go unchallenged.

      Normally, I have a very slow temper, but within a few short seconds, I was in a very violent mood.

      It would be one thing if a short, non-threatening comic figure like Bobby Riggs (The aging Wimbledon champion who had earlier played Billy Jean King in an exhibition) were to appear in drag at a tennis match.

      But Dr. Raskind was not comic at all, but large and threatening (only and inch shorter than myself), and his female garb signaled his intent not only to defeat, but to insult and degrade her in the process, while insulting and degrading all of us in the audience by offending our aesthetic sense.

      Sport is the civilization of conflict. It is conflict subordinated to rules, forms and rituals that strip it of its potential for physical harm.

      Raskind had torn the civilizing mask from sport, and yet was parading around in a girl’s tutu to protect himself from the harm consequent upon the rage of those in the audience like myself – much better schooled in the arts of actual conflict than in its civilized substitutes. He was protecting himself by repelling us and confusing our normal instincts with the elemental ugliness and unnaturalness of the scene he had created.

      And the worst of it was that he had found a way to provoke us, while refusing to present himself as a capable foe.

      And the fact that an inner party female in the stands would instantly sympathize with Raskind’s behavior and join him as a co-conspirator in his attack was simply too much.

      I cannot recall ever being in such a violent mood. I was angry as a hornet – or should I say – wasp!

      By this time Raskind was glowering at me and I was glowering at him.

      My chivalrous instincts were aroused. At age 28 and at the height of my physical powers, I could supply a much more appropriate object for Dr. Raskind’s aggression than Chris Evert, and stage a much more impressive (if incredibly brief) show for the audience if that is what he wished. I was in no mood to wait for my fellow tribesman, John Lloyd (who looked uncomfortable enough), sitting in the stands on the other side of the court, to stir.

      And then, as if shooting through a direct pipeline from a smiling Professor Cuddihy sitting in his tenured chair 700 miles away at Hunter College in New York, my young wife aged 21 or so, pipes up and says; “Calm down, and stop making a scene. People are staring!”

      Which is, I expect, what we all typically hear when civility becomes an ordeal.

      But then the referee signaled for play to begin, and Dr. Raskind suddenly had to concentrate on the diminutive and feminine figure on the other side of the net.

      Dr. Raskind held serve twice, and then the remainder of the set and match turned into a humiliating rout. It lasted less than 30 minutes. Dr. Raskind was so exhausted in the second set that he could not even chase after the ball.

      At the end of the match the female inner party attacker seated behind me skulked away without making eye contact.

      Beauty had vanquished ugliness.

      At least on that particular afternoon.

      And the rest of the audience left the stands in stunned silence – relieved that the ugly farce was over.

      And while my violent mood did not change, I did calm down and began to reflect upon my wife’s reaction. It was perfectly predictable – completely expected as it conformed perfectly to the accepted social norm. Indeed, that is largely how and why we select our mates – for their dependable displays of socially accepted behaviors appropriate to a range of different situations.

      But her response had been wildly undemocratic in this case.

      It was clear to me that the vast majority in the grandstand felt exactly as I did. Indeed, not only did my wife understand my feelings, she shared them quite emphatically. So then why on earth should we repress those feelings just for the sake of one lone dissenter? Did the need for social cohesion trump all of our instinctive aesthetic norms? Were we forever doomed to give up that which is most dear to us just to buy peace from a tiny number of very aggressive aliens? And if so, what exactly do we get out of the deal that could possibly induce us to agree to it?

      But as I reflected further upon this issue – why dancing out the careful choreography of social tolerance should immediately and instinctively trump all other concerns – including our own collective survival – I began to search for the fundamental premise behind this behavior of ours which might explain it.

      The instinctive assumption embedded at the core of this behavior must be that anyone who is allowed in close proximity to us shares our manners, morals and aesthetic sensibilities, and that any expression of discomfort or anger by them must be due to our own breach of these shared norms, or to some mistake.

      In other words, our social behavior – our dancing out that carefully scripted choreography of tolerance – is premised on the notion that all human beings are the same – that we all store within our heads the same images of beauty – and share identical forms of social harmony which please us.

      Indeed, not only was my wife’s insistence on the social forms of tolerance based on this premise, but so was my rage.

      For what justified that rage, at bottom, was the notion that these attackers – Raskind on the court and his Freudian accomplice in the stands – shared our aesthetic sense, but deliberately offended that shared sensibility just to provoke us.

      But what if large and menacing transvestites – images so utterly repellent to us – are pleasing images to these people? What if they enjoy watching displays of homosexual activity between males?

      It hardly seemed possible that this group of people could regard as beautiful that which every one of my friends and relations considers utterly repulsive.

      But what if their notions of beauty are radically different from ours?

      What would be the implications?

      And even more important; what if my attackers carelessly assumed that I was just like them, and that I (and all others like me) found male homosexual conduct attractive and pleasing just as they did? Would it not, then, be perfectly reasonable for them to assume that my outward displays of disapproval were perverse and motivated by fears of sexual inadequacy or the byproduct of belief in a repressive religion, rather than a very sincere revulsion?

      What if different racial groups have radically different aesthetic tastes and view public performances and other artistic expressions in radically different ways?

      And how can we possibly know if that is true, given that we have no ability whatsoever to read another person’s mind?

      All we can do is expect that the inner workings of the minds of others are exactly the same as our own, and then use their outward behavior to confirm or deny that expectation.

      And my reflections reminded me of a very important movie I had seen several years earlier, which made that precise point.

      It was A Clockwork Orange .

      • Arakawa says:

        From inner party chick’s POV, the real reason why Dr. Raskind lost the match is obviously because Yggdrasil’s comments produced transphobic vibes that denied the trans athlete hser existence. It is a profound proof of the insidious power of transphobia.

      • Kunning Drueger says:

        Fascinating piece. Fascinating and sad.

        “On a more refined level, contrast Notting Hill, which gets the aesthetic of love and survival among the ruins of culture destruction exactly right (in a low testosterone sort of way), with the potty mouthed Bridget Jones’ Diary, which is similar but slightly off key. Notting Hill will be selling DVDs for generations, while Bridget Jones will die within a decade of its birth.”

        Even the evil can evolve.

    • jim says:

      The term “NPC” refers to robotic communication. NPCs fail to communicate in a human manner because of the policeman inside, or because they are following a script, and respond repetitiously and meaninglessly to off script responses, just as non player character in a video game responds repetitiously and meaninglessly to off script responses.

  4. Calvin says:

    India formally bought oil from Russia in a direct rupee-rouble exchange today, ignoring the threat of sanctions and bypassing the petrodollar altogether. And so another pillar of globohomo teeters.

    • And now it has come to pass that the majority of the worlds oil supply and the majority of the world’s industrial capacity has stepped outside of GAE’s financial umbrella, in passive opposition, with a likely active opposition when pressed.

      That was the Eurasian moment. Right there.

    • I can just imagine the froth-in-the-mouth righteous indignation of the (dot) Indian-American libtard diaspora and also the local Cathedral mouthpieces at this deal. 😀

      Modi has clearly put rational self-interest above doctrine and it’s quite heartening to note.

    • Mister Grumpus says:

      Can you elaborate, or point me to an elaboration, on exactly how they paid them? Was it all electronic, or did someone show up to the Russian embassy in New Delhi with a truck full of cash?

      I’m self-consciously out of my depth on this one, but I can’t stop wondering if some kind of computer-free (phone calls and color-coded paperwork only) payment system might be of help right about now.

      • I guess an Indian bank’s branch in Russia and a Russian bank’s branch in India will agree to hold each other’s currencies of a specified and agreed upon exchange rate in lieu of the goods and service as in old times:
        https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/blexplainer/bl-explainer-rupee-rouble-trade-arrangement-will-it-work/article65200627.ece

        • Dharmicreality says:

          I’m no financial expert but I guess it works something like this

          1. Indian bank opens an account in Russia and holds Roubles and a Russian bank in India holds rupee equivalent of those roubles at a agreed exchange rate.

          2. A Trader in India imports goods from Russia and he pays in rupees to Russian bank account in India and the Indian bank holding roubles in Moscow is instructed to pay rouble equivalent to the Russian supplier.

          And vice versa.

          Obviously it must be a bit more complicated than that and somebody better at international finance can correct me if I’m wrong.

          • Dharmicreality says:

            A minor Correction: I think the Indian trader would pay in rupees into the Indian bank branch in India which is holding Russian account and the corresponding account of the bank in Russia will pay in roubles equivalent to the Russian trader.

            Similarly the Russian trader would pay in roubles to the Russian bank which is holding account in India and the Russian bank account in India will pay equivalent rupees to the Indian trader.

            There will obviously be commissions charged on transactions by both banks. Or maybe the governments may foot the bills temporarily.

            • Mister Grumpus says:

              Makes sense.

              Why is this a big deal?

              How lazy are these people? So a few lackeys have to send some faxes, do some conference calls and wait on hold with their banks to buy and sell millions of dollars worth of something. So fucking what? This is weird.

              • Kunning Drueger says:

                I may be missing the spirit of your question, but roughly ~70% of international business transactions use USD as a middle step if it is being converted. That number is out of date, could be higher or lower or fluctuate, but under Bush, or Obama or both, this was how the US squeezed anybody on the Unacceptable Terrorist De Jour List. One example was the Tamil Tigers, who previously got something like 80-90% of their financial support from Tamils in the US via remittances. I’ve read about it, I don’t actually know, so apologies if I’m way off the mark. As I understand it, the USD has a few pillars that make it what it is (maybe was?):

                -You can’t print too much, because every dollar printed works pretty much everywhere

                – It is the world currency in terms of cash reserves

                – It is a prerequisite for complex and/or massive business deals at the multi-regional and global level

                These are obviously very interrelated, and if big transactions start skipping the dollar step, the necessity for USD reserves might diminish, which in turn exposes USD to the dangers of inflation that it has not had to deal with for decades.

              • jim says:

                It is a great deal harder than you think.

                The US and England have institutions to make it happen, which extremely complex institutions have been becoming increasingly dysfunctional.

                Replacing them is far from trivial

                • Dharmicreality says:

                  The rupee rouble exchange is a Cold War era technology which used non electronic means. India’s relationship with the American empire was worse in those days than it is now and India Russia deals were in local currencies only in those times. I’m sure bypassing the dollar in this case is not so tough. The complications are political not economic.

              • Dharmicreality says:

                The actual payments or transactions under this seem simple enough. The Indian and Russian governments can even back their currencies with gold rather than USD for the time being. The complications arise because these banks also need to deal with the dollar economy and bypassing the dollar in this case might bring down the wrath of the Global adharmic empire.

                More political than economic complications.

                • jim says:

                  Ann wants to pay in rupees.

                  Bob wants to be paid in rubles.

                  How do you magic rupees into rubles?

                  Suppose a bank in Russia ends up with an account in rupees on an Indian bank.

                  Now it is the red on rubles, and in the black on rupees. Accountants throw a fit of hysterics, because in the red on rubles, which is a massive violation of all sorts of things. Assume the manager tells the accountants that Putin will shoot them, so they had better shut up.

                  Now he has rupees. What does he do with them. Presumably, someone is going to want to buy goods from India?

                  In that case he can just ask the guy who wants to buy stuff from India to pay him in rubles, and he pays the guy in India in rupees from the Bank’s Indian bank account, and now he is square again, and the accountants subside. Everyone would be happy.

                  Unfortunately, no one with rubles one wants to buy much stuff from India. They do however want to buy something from someone who wants to buy something from someone, who wants to buy stuff from India.

                  Sorting that one out is not simple, and doing it in such a way that everyone knows that everyone else is not stealing the money in movement is a lot harder.

                • Dharmicreality says:

                  I get your point. The present arrangement seems temporary and to complete existing transactions and that too only for major government contractors. I guess both india and Russia would want guarantees in a standard like gold if dollar is not feasible.

                  An alternative to SWIFT might take a while but I think China and Russia would work on it with cooperation from non GAE states.

                • Kunning Drueger says:

                  A strange, probably trivial, thought occurs: the Faith Scarcity is kind of the consistent X factor in most of modernity’s big problems. (I’m speaking of course of the “dharmic” folk; the diabolists don’t share our Problem.)

                  Lack of Faith for armies.

                  Lack of faith in elites.

                  Lack of Faith for Elites.

                  Lack of faith in science and technology.

                  Lack of faith for our domestic allies.

                  Lack of faith in the honesty and honor in fellow travelers.

                  Biggest one: lack of faith in Faith as a solution.

                  Defection, the superweapon of Our Foe, is the root of The Lack. This is elementary, but the Cathedral’s magic bullet was basically enshrining defection at the personal, familial, communal, and societal levels, then rinse and repeat for a couple generations. It’s almost like we need a slate wipe just to have a chance of rebuilding anti-defection.

                • The faith deficit is a spiritual problem for which the solution is a spiritual revival. I know Jim thinks that a change in the state religion to a sane state religion will bring about restoration, but I feel there’s more to it than that.

                • jim says:

                  Need a cohesive, virtuous, elite.

                  King Alfred manufactured such an elite. So did Charles the Second. The battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton.

                  And, as I am fond of pointing out, was not won in the classrooms of Eton – this attitude to elite cohesion was still live all the way to 1930, though it started taking massive hits at the start of the eighteenth century.

                • Mister Grumpus says:

                  Thanks everyone. This helps.

                  Given that it’s 2022, a rouble-rupee-yen-baht-yuan-whatever trade system seems perfectly doable technologically, but I can just make it out that the real weakness is on the people side. So many different people, in different places, promising to transfer money when A, when B and then when C, that it’s hard to trust that no one will scam it or just fuck it up.

                  That said, I understand that the Muslim world has this going on already, kinda-sorta, with the various kingpins’ public obedience to Allah holding the trust links together.

                  So either crypto wizardry perfection, or we need some kind of Pax Somebody to keep an eye on things and always punish defectors.

                  From this point of view, the USD-centric system is just what’s convenient, and the USD is the “global reserve currency” simply by default, because it’s what net-exporting countries always end up having lying around in piles at the end of the financial year.

                • Mister Grumpus says:

                  And let me guess, this is what the Global Jew was doing for centuries beforehand? Didn’t some weirdo on YouTube tell me that George Soros grew up running around exchanging currencies in Hungary back in the day? To straighten out situations just like this? Must have been a big fucking job.

                • The Cominator says:

                  “The battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton.”

                  I don’t think Field Marshal his Grace the Duke of Wellington ever said this. The Duke of Wellington from what I read was very unambitious (described as a “wastrel”) until the girl he had oneitis for rejected him (probably meaning his family rejected him) and then he became suddenly a serious army officer. He by all accounts didn’t like school at all in his youth.

                • Wulfgar Thundercock III says:

                  He did not like school, but he did not say the war was won in the classrooms of Eton. Is was won on the playing field. Not the studious types, but rather the rugged, manly team sports types. It was the lessons they learned on the field that brought them victory.

  5. Mike Thalassitis says:

    For those that didn’t see the node-ipc stuff:
    https://github.com/RIAEvangelist/node-ipc/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%3Aclosed

    Basically the soyboy developer of node-ipc added malware to his software (or added a new dependency, which is malware?). Apparently, for those outside Russia and Belarus, you’d just get some gay message about peace and love, but for those with Russia or Belarus IP addresses, running it would cause every file on your system to be overwritten by a love heart.

    I don’t know much about node-ipc, but apparently lots of projects use it as a dependency. Vue, Unity, truffle, and many more. Full list here:
    https://github.com/zlw9991/node-ipc-dependencies-list. If you were using one of these and had automatically updated dependencies, and were using a VPN located in Russia or Belarus, your data would have been wiped irreversibly. Scary.

    Read this post:
    https://github.com/RIAEvangelist/node-ipc/issues/308

    Allegedly a globohomo NGO had their data from anti-Russian and anti-Belarus whisteblowers wiped out. The story is probably fake, but demonstrates the sheer retardation of this faggot.

    In theory, this guy could face up to 10 years in prison for this. Whether or not he will face any consequences is another story.

    I’m wondering what’s the most effective way to avoid anything like this happening going forward. I’m obviously not going to sift through every update for every package I ever install. Should development be done on a virtual machine or something like that? Jim/others, if you do any kind of webdev/javascript stuff, what setup do you use? node? frameworks like react? I’ve tried setting npm stuff up before and it’s often a pain in the ass dealing with dependencies.

    • jim says:

      There is a whole lot of this going around.

      And I don’t have any solutions.

      I try to minimize dependence on stuff that I think is likely to be corrupted, but it is not really practical to do a thorough job on that.

    • A2 says:

      You could also develop things on, say, a throwaway digital ocean droplet where damage can be limited. In this case, which does have a whiff of fake of it but could be seen as representative of the bottom feeder IT tier, the system owners appear quite hapless and unaware of basic practices. They won’t get it right.

      In the longer run, permitting these activities will poison npm, github, etc. We have previously seen semi-malicious University of Minnesota submit bad patches to Linux. among a number of similar examples. It’s a weakness of the current open source model.

      https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/04/linux-kernel-team-rejects-university-of-minnesota-researchers-apology/

      It broadens these attacks from being produced by specialist groups to any trans virtue signaler, which is quite bad. Perhaps mere banning will not be enough.

      But in essence, if the very source is poisoned and untrustworthy, yes, you WILL have to sift through every update.

      • Kunning Drueger says:

        This question is based solely on the link you provided: how was the UMN research team being malicious if they immediately identified the “trojan horse patches” immediately after their scheme worked? Genuinely curious, because I feel like, if they were malicious, they would have continued the “game” until caught, then pretended “it was a social experiment dawg.”

        • A2 says:

          then pretended “it was a social experiment dawg.”

          That was basically what they did, though the experimental subjects took a dim view.

          I’d summarize it like this: they had some trust — as university researchers, let’s pause for a chuckle, but such are usually viewed as serious people — and abused it, even if they appended “lol j/k”. Untrustworthy contributors are not worth keeping around.

      • Maverick says:

        Agreed on use of some sort of virtualization for dev and testing. For any package manager you should always be using a “lock file” like package-lock.json in npm, such that your exact top-level and dependency package versions are locked in and not selecting latest implicitly every time you ‘npm install’. Add in extensive regression testing of whatever your software is, including user interface testing (which might have caught this if a savvy dev or tester had looked at the outputs). Then on top of that add a monthly cadence, a repeating calendar item essentially, in which package upgrades are done by a developer. You can use a policy of advancing to head/latest for each package, or you could set a policy that you don’t want newer package versions than, say, 2 weeks ago, just in case something bad is being discovered during that time period. Adjust all this to your level of paranoia or worry or need for security.

        The intent with this policy is to keep up with patches in a reasonable timeframe. Obviously if you are getting word of a serious zero-day attack and you need to patch in between, you do so – but just as carefully, with regression testing both automated and manual. And preferably looking at the diffs between your package version’s commit and what was added for the new patch.

        In the end though if you’re a business owner or engineering manager in a larger organization, every line of code you ship is on you, no matter whether you wrote it. Liability is on your company, and your company is protected by your diligence. Used to be that organizations owned most or all of their code but kept re-inventing the wheel. Now we outsource to open source and presume security and well-tested-ness, or maybe you have your team contributing to certain projects but not everything you use.

        If all this worries you – maybe keeps you up at night – you have the right attitude. It should.

        If you’re very paranoid, own all your code even if costly. And even then you have to trust your devs, but an engineering manager role includes being aware of every single line being committed, whether that means approving each pull request or doing an audit of diffs in your codebase before releases, for all commits since the last release.

        Linus is no longer working on Linux… biggest worry is insertion of bad stuff there now that he’s not watching every line of code. Then add supply chain attacks like this (and SolarWinds and so many others), times every package manager and even compilers and other toolchains themselves.

      • notglowing says:

        >a throwaway digital ocean droplet where damage can be limited.
        That’s fairly involved and limited. Much easier to just use containers (ie Docker) for each application you run on your server, as I already do.
        Docker containers cannot access the rest of the disk, only their own per-app virtual file system, and the virtual file system is ephemeral. Containers are restarted if they fail and return to their previous state.
        No damage is possible.

        If they need to persist data in a folder, you typically just connect that specific folder to it, so any damage is limited.

        For a node.js application like the one described in the incident from OP, there’s no need for any persistent storage, most of the time. It would communicate with a separate container running a database, which holds the data. Databases don’t have this issue of random unvetted libraries becoming part of them, so this wouldn’t normally happen.

        Basically, with my docker setup, which is a normal docker setup, something like this would have no effect. A more malicious and sophisticated library could still do a lot of damage though.
        If node.js has access to the database, as is usually the case, the database could be wiped, or worse, the data leaked to the attacker. The former problem is solved by incremental backups.
        The latter is an open issue.

        • A2 says:

          I’m a bit burnt out on docker so I suppose I blocked it out, but good point. Just setting and running under appropriate permissions would stop node from rampaging to a great extent (for this specific case, at least). In the described incident, whether genuine or not, the underlying problem appeared to be overall incompetence and carelessness.

          Still, the problem remains of libraries with deliberately introduced malware. Perhaps the next ones will mine crypto for the children of Ukraine (of course).

    • Starman says:

      The soyboy got his Twitter hacked after he got doxxed.

      His Twitter:
      https://mobile.twitter.com/electriccowboyr

      The dox containing everything on him, including his Ashley Madison stuff and his home address.

      https://doxbin.com/upload/BrandonNozakiMiller

      • Guy says:

        I just got hit on my personal NAS with icefire, some ransomware. Gay, I had a nice movie server on there, but apparently hitting some actual targets. I probably could have done more to protect it, and it sounds silly but figured I’d share since I’ve never had anything get through to my personal computers or devices in the past of any real significance. At this point I’m not feeling like remaking anything like it, and just printing out or burning to DVD anything really important to me. As the internet gets less reliable older tech could be making a comeback, it sure has been in my house.

  6. Kunning Drueger says:

    Certain IR think tanks are asserting that, with the exit of all the petro majors from the Russian extraction and processing industry, their oil supply could diminish by ~50% This is due to scarcity of replacement parts and skilled labor. The source is 100% GAE mouthpiece, but it was one of those “this terrible thing is happening but don’t worry because it is actually a good thing” pieces, so I am inclined to believe that there is an issue. Any thoughts on this?

    Additionally, rumors floating around that RF and UKR collectively supplied most of the noble gasses needed for chip manufacturing. I know that fab is really quite complicated, in terms of both requisite parts/processes and actual fabrication. Said rumors state that China will basically control the vast majority of fabrication, and that once parts on hand run out (1-12 months from now, across all industries in GAE), there will be no solution as it takes years to get the facilities going, and that’s assuming you have ample supply of raw stocks/constituent parts.

    The wheat shortages are probably a real thing. The fertilizer shortages are probably a real thing. If the chip shortage is a real thing, what does this mean for conventional warfare going forward? If you can’t make bullets and bombs, feed your troops and workers, and cannot fabricate drones and replacement fighters, then you can’t fight a successful remote conflict. Add to this the possibility of so-called hybrid warfare (protests, worker strikes, logistic bottlenecks, sabotage/targeted incompetence), and it looks like any semi-sane actor leading the GAE will be forced into unconventional territory.

    It could also mean that advanced warfare doesn’t happen, and there’s a pretty much global reversion to analog warfare.

    • notglowing says:

      > Said rumors state that China will basically control the vast majority of fabrication, and that once parts on hand run out (1-12 months from now, across all industries in GAE),

      Fabrication of what? The most advanced chips are made in Taiwan, not China. Less advanced chips are made in many places even in Europe, US, and the rest of Asia.

      The machines Intel, Samsung and TSMC uses for fabricating chips are built by one company, ASML in the Netherlands, and I doubt they outsource that, given it’s both high tech and not super high volume (fabs themselves aren’t a mass market product are they?)

      I don’t really know the full supply chain need to make the actual chips, though. Surely something might come from China mainly. No idea.
      There’s quite a few very exotic materials that are required, for example quartz of such a purity that it is only mined in a few places, and processed by a handful of companies. They use this quartz to make, I think, crucibles for the molten silicon, that don’t leave impurities in it? I am rusty on the details.

      • Aidan says:

        rumors floating around that RF and UKR collectively supplied most of the noble gasses needed for chip manufacturing.

        Regardless of how advanced a nation’s chip fabs are, if a crucial ingredient comes from Russia, and you cannot trade with Russia, you have to buy that ingredient from people who are still trading with Russia. That means China, that means China can tell anybody “no chips for you”, that means China controls chip fabrication.

        Putin signed a whole lot of export bans last week. No idea if noble gases were among the things Russia is no longer selling to the world. Jim replied to me below that the Rainbow Empire is already destroying itself, and does not need anybody’s help. He’s right, but if I were in Xi or Putin’s shoes, why not put a little squeeze on and make it die faster?

  7. notglowing says:

    https://nitter.net/TheRealKeean/status/1504847690739331077
    Apparently Canada gave Ukraine everything they have in terms of equipment. The utter lack of any sense of national self-preservation is expected when you take power for granted, and have the US protect you, but this just goes to show how incredibly helpless the vassals of the Empire are by themselves.

    Power is just laying there for someone to take it. If the US is weak, the rest of NATO is a joke.

  8. Ugly Coon says:

    Bit of a dumb question. We likely have supply chains failing and inflation going crazy in the very near future. Are states/countries with a lower cost of living going to get hit harder, less hard, or proportionally? That is, if I relocate to somewhere that is dirt cheap to live, in a year’s time my cost of living will be similar to what it is in my current location? I can see it going either way, and probably depends on the country and what they import/export. Best to live in places that grow food nearby?

    • jim says:

      If a currency inflates, it inflates every where. This disrupts long supply chains involving substantial delays, and projects that take a long time to produce goods and involve large committed capital expenditures, such as building something or drilling for oil.

      So you don’t want to be at the far end of a long supply chain for food. But you had better stockpile tech.

    • notglowing says:

      I don’t think lower or higher cost of living is really the right criteria here.
      Complex supply lines are one thing, as Jim said, so the places that are at the very top in terms of cost might be the worst. Low prices is usually not a sign of long supply chains.

      But in poor places, it will take less convincing for the local population, if they are starving from being just a little more impoverished, to turn on some relatively wealthy foreigner and steal his apple.
      The question should be which countries will be more politically stable, and which populations are less likely to hate you for being white.

    • Aidan says:

      When I go shopping for food, the good stuff that is grown an hour from where I live is usually more expensive, and the store brand that is shipped from halfway across the country is cheaper. But this week, the stuff that is grown an hour away stayed the same price, and the lower-quality stuff that is shipped a long way is now more expensive than it.

      So, best to live near where the things you want and need are produced. Local goods are going to be the least volatile in price and availability. And if those things are produced nowhere near you or anywhere you can move, time to buy them now and hope they last.

    • Wulfgar Thundercock III says:

      Archbishop Vigano needs to have a leading role in the Inquisition to retake the Vatican.

  9. Anonymous Fake says:

    I suspect the Cathedral would have been much more respectful of Putin if he had organized a color revolution style rally at Kiev, protesting the racist violence against the Donbass and discrimination against Russian speaking Ukrainians. This would all be legitimate. Even the Canadian truckers got some press against the great covid demon, a far stronger adversary than mere geopolitical nuance.

    The journalists and priests are angry that the Russians just rushed in without letting them have their say, their rituals. A couple weeks of peaceful protest in Kiev before the invasion would have satisfied much and probably most of the Western intellectual class, giving them their due. Brute force just to send a message is stupid if it isn’t going to produce a quick and perfect victory.

    • jim says:

      Accommodating the holier than thou does not work. It just excites their bloodlust.

      Also, complaining about injustices on good progressive grounds simply never works. Observe their cheerful acceptance of numerous genocides, even though genocide is theoretically the worst crime ever.

      One of my sons was in junior school, and they were catechizing him on the holocaust, and required him to say that it will never again happen, because we are so much morally superior now. He inconveniently pointed out that a Cathedral approved genocide was happening as this class was being given. Got in big trouble.

      • Anonymous Fake says:

        [*deleted for grotesque misinformation that I am disinclined to waste time rebutting*]

        Russia’s lack of any propaganda, even when they know journalists are whores who will report any street theater they see,

        [*deleted for grotesque misinformation that I am disinclined to waste time rebutting*]

        • jim says:

          > Russia’s lack of any propaganda

          Russia is pouring out piles of propaganda. You just don’t get to read it because you are isolated in shrinking bubble of the Cathedral narrative.

          > even when they know journalists are whores who will report any street theater they see,

          No they will not. We tried it, the rest of the alt right tried it, Russia tried it.

          Journalists will only report street theater when authority sends them the script for the theater in advance, so that if anything should fail to follow the script, they can piously ignore it, for if any unscripted events should happen during street theater, a journalist who reports the off script events is might get into big trouble.

          A whore is a available to any bidder. Should a journalist take unapproved bids, he will lose his job.

          Your bubble of grotesque unreality is locked down hard against dangerous thoughts, and dangerous news.

          • Anonymous Fake says:

            Hmm. So the Canadian truckers were fake? Or the Charlottesville protests? Or Occupy Wall Street
            [*deleted because too tedious to correct all of it.*]

            • jim says:

              > Hmm. So the Canadian truckers were fake? Or the Charlottesville protests? Or Occupy Wall Street

              Charlottesville was exactly the case I had in mind when I said that it does not work for the right, because journalists will say what they are told to say, and see what they are told that they are seeing.

              Occupy wall street was totally fake and scripted from beginning to end. All participants were directly or indirectly on the government payroll – professors, students sent by their professors, ngo employees sent by their ngo, and government employees dragged their by their union and given time off by the government.

              If you were not inside your bubble, you would have heard how utterly and hilariously fake the occupy wall street protests were. Empty tent cities with tents sourced and funded by quasi government organizations and set up by quasi government employees on government and quasi government land. Street theater confrontations with police and protesters, and the police objecting to the script.

      • Ghost says:

        They’ve been using the term “useless eater” to label the out-group. Someone who can’t retaliate. When they come, make it expensive.

    • Kunning Drueger says:

      “If RF had given GAE a few weeks warning, things would have gone better.”

      Retard alert.

  10. I’ve been following this debate on Putin vs the West with some interest and like to weigh in here.

    It’s obvious that in the context of Dharma, the person who follows rational self-interest (even if he is adharmic) is obviously lesser evil than the one who is blinded by doctrine and is ready to inflict harm on himself and the world in order to uphold that doctrine. It is obvious that Putin is acting in rational self-interest, even assuming that he might be otherwise adharmic.

    The criticism of a person acting in rational self-interest is basically stating that the thief who steals out of necessity is actually more evil than Leftists who want to dispossess the wealthy and topple apple-carts simply because that is their “religion”. It is putting primacy of doctrine over reality.

    Truth is, even assuming that Putin is not the Dharmic Hero that the world needs right now, he is clearly engaged in conflict with the greater evil. And while one need not cheer for Putin actively, it is important to realize that, focussing on Putin’s adharma at the moment is almost endorsing the position of the greater adharma of the Global Adharmic Empire.

    Pursuing rational self interest is Evil according to the Globohomo. Clearly their evil is more demonic than the evil of the rational self-interested Putin.

    • jim says:

      If someone is acting in rational self interest to gain something at your expense, you can make it unprofitable, or cut a deal with him – possibly a deal that is badly in your disfavor, like the deal that everyone winds up cutting with a stationary bandit.

      If someone is acting self destructively, there is no dealing with him, you are likely to end up needing to destroy him. That is demonic evil, and may well end in nukes.

      Putin is acting rationally to prevent globohomo from doing harm to him. Ukraine is acting rationally to make this expensive for Putin, though it would have been easy and cheap to cut a deal for neutrality, like the deal Finland cut with Stalin, because Putin is a rational adversary. In choosing to go with globohomo, when globohomo had designs on Russia, Ukraine was acting irrationally and self destructively.

      The persecution of Russian speakers in the Ukraine is largely being carried out and implemented by Ukrainians whose primary language is Russian. It is self destructive and an irrational provocation of a dangerously powerful neighbor.

      • Yes, and in this conflict, it is very obvious which side increasingly wants the whole world to burn in order to uphold their “values”.

      • Pooch says:

        Putin is acting rationally to prevent globohomo from doing harm to him.

        Not only is he acting rationally, his latest speech shows that he and the political elite in Russia understand they may very well be in a total war situation. Any forceful attempt to remove or assassinate Putin by the West may result in the launch of Russia’s entire nuclear Arsenal at the West in a first strike.

        • Fireball says:

          Putin and the rest of the russian elite aren’t insane enough to start a nuclear war. At most they will keep their doctrine that they are allowed to use nuclear weapon on their territory to stop a enemy army.

          Unfortunately if someone ever tries a strategic first strike would be the west.

          • Pooch says:

            If Russia understands itself to be at total war with the West, is it insane to launch a nuclear attack first, destroy nearly all of America’s arsenals and most important population centers, disorganize or frustrate any counter attack, and rely on its well developed anti-ballistic missile defenses to ward off any of the residual U.S. capability?

            Not only does this sound completely sane, it would be completely insane not to do this in a total war.

            • Fireball says:

              Lol sure lets all wake up tomorrow and start a nuclear war in the hope the other side will not be able to immediately retaliate.

              • Pooch says:

                Not tomorrow because not yet in total war, but it seems things are trending towards total war, which Putin seems to be aware of.

                • Jehu says:

                  What I’m worried about from a total war perspective is all the embargo/boycotts on Russia by private corporations trying to signal their Cathedral loyalties. This has the potential of being a lot bigger than the formal sanctions and I could see Putin deciding to deal with the million snowflakes making up an avalanche by melting the lot of them.
                  I wonder what would happen if Putin nuked Boston, incinerating Harvard and basically told the world, if you retaliate in any way, I’m going to nuke the rest.

                  A full on first strike aiming at decapitation might be a better percentage play.

                • Kunning Drueger says:

                  First Strike has to be only strike, and it has to get around MAD. This may be not so hard to do, particularly if the Arsenal is largely smoke and mirrors. Regardless, the only side that will first strike is either days away from collapse/defeat, or absolutely certain there won’t be anyone left afterward to provide a counter-narrative. I feel like that is GAE on both counts.

                  The last few days have been incredibly depressing. I keep vacillating between deep depression over not being able to feed/protect my land and family in a domestic collapse, and becoming quite convinced that GAE is going to nuke/dirty bomb an American city or 3, the царь-бомба of all false flags. I just can’t see the power mad radicals letting Russia “get away with it.” The unfolding Hunter Biden thing is just so strange, like, why now?

                • jim says:

                  > The unfolding Hunter Biden thing is just so strange, like, why now?

                  I never expected Biden to last this long. I would conjecture that his removal, and the removal of the rest of the Brezhnevites, is coming up fast.

                • Kunning Drueger says:

                  History doesn’t repeat, it rhymes. A trope worth considering. We’ve been discussing this stuff for years, but as we actually progress through it, I keep being surprised and shocked. Yeah, we aren’t so good at precise timing, and plenty of predictions might be more incorrect than correct, but that could also be a timing/incidence thing, too. It is well known in our circle that a successful coup makes the next coup easier. 2020 was a successful coup, so obviously the next will be easier. But that is in retrospect. You know how going through a disaster or heightened awareness experience, time seems to slow down? As well, when there’s a firm date for something unavoidable, time seems to speed up? Hard to factor this effect in. If Biden was deposed in 2023, that would still be much faster than the previous coup/removal. Though to us, here, we’d feel as if your (Jim) prediction was wrong.

                  We knew war was coming. We knew things were speeding up. Knowing there’s a storm on the way is not the same as saying where the lightening will strike, or when the river will flood.

                  Based on all the stuff that we are seeing, all that has come to pass, I think we’ve crossed that threshold, that moment of weightlessness before the G forces start to ratchet up inexorably. I hope I am wrong because I’m not ready, and I want more time for the mundane pleasures God gifts us.

                  This is highly unlikely, but what is the game plan if we somehow see an ending to internet connectivity before it happens? Any plans to start a HAM radio blog, Jim? I’m kidding… unless you do…

                • jim says:

                  > You know how going through a disaster or heightened awareness experience, time seems to slow down? As well, when there’s a firm date for something unavoidable, time seems to speed up? Hard to factor this effect in. If Biden was deposed in 2023, that would still be much faster than the previous coup/removal. Though to us, here, we’d feel as if your (Jim) prediction was wrong.

                  If Biden is not removed until 2023, I will still be pretty good at predicting, but I am going lose some bets I made on the 2022 election. The Brheznevites want to keep a fake opposition party around so that they can blame them for stalling the radicals.

                • Cloudswrest says:

                  The idea has occurred to me that this whole circus is really intended to destroy America, or at least Americana, by elements within GAE. Sort of like opening the gates of Toledo. All the NPCs have been manipulated into a self defeating strategy where the sanctioners are harmed more by the sanctions than the sanctioned.

  11. Kunning Drueger says:

    I already posted 1 piece of the Beyond Mathematical Probability series. Reading through it is insanely uncomfortable, because I don’t really understand a lot of it, and what I do understand is just dumping cortisol into my brain. Here are the links, in order (9 parts so far). I’m not advocating for the substack’s author, but I’d like to know if this guy is onto something, or if he’s just fearmongering.

    1) https://worldedge.substack.com/p/beyond-mathematical-probability-hybrid?s=w

    2) https://worldedge.substack.com/p/beyond-mathematical-odds-all-out?s=w

    3) https://worldedge.substack.com/p/beyond-mathematical-odds-iii-death?s=w

    4) https://worldedge.substack.com/p/beyond-mathematical-odds-iv-cascade?s=r

    5) https://worldedge.substack.com/p/beyond-mathematical-odds-v-second?s=w

    6) https://worldedge.substack.com/p/beyond-mathematical-odds-vi-the-shadow?s=r

    7) https://worldedge.substack.com/p/beyond-mathematical-odds-vii-the?s=r

    8) https://worldedge.substack.com/p/beyond-mathematical-odds-viii-full?s=r

    9) https://worldedge.substack.com/p/beyond-mathematical-odds-ix-the-critical?s=r

    • jim says:

      I disagree with his interpretation of the evidence.

      My interpretation of the evidence is that the paper mechanisms that enable the smooth flow of physical things are coming apart, and this is causing disruptions in the flow of physical things, and, in a different problem caused by the same underlying problems that are causing collapse of the paper mechanisms, we have idiots in charge of physical things.

      The physical things he is talking about need to be seen as a manifestation of organizational things. The market economy is coming apart because it relies on dysfunctional paper and dysfunctional government regulation.

      • Kunning Drueger says:

        What about his assertions regarding “hybrid warfare?” He asserts that we are already in a hybrid war between the “Eastern Alliance” and the WEF/GAE. The EA is attempting to take all raw materials industry offline to force the world to rely on their production, while WEF/GAE is trying to demand destruct petroleum to bring about their Green Utopia. 2 different strategies for world domination.

        • Aidan says:

          That he subscribes to the “empires fall and revolutions happen because uh, it got a little colder and the crop yield was bad” biases me against the rest of his theory. That sort of Jared Diamond-esque environmental determinism, when not intentionally mendacious, always leads to Gaea worship, to begging the cold gears of the universe to not crush you, to throwing the child in the volcano to keep it from erupting. This supposedly most scientific and autistic theory of history, of “cascade effects and complex systems”, becomes in fact the most superstitious and gullible theory of history, because outside of the narrow data, like wheat prices and economic productivity, that he can study and incorporate into his model, lies a titanic amount that he cannot model, and so he ends up pushing things like crop yields as explanations for things that rely on the most powerful causative force in history; the will-to-power of men.

          He is trying to untie the Gordian Knot, but we must remember Alexander’s answer.

          The great value of Jimian analysis is that it sees complexity as a second-order effect and prefers to focus on the upstream cause. “The Afghan war was fought to teach nine year old girls to put a condom on a banana” is fundamentally more true than the ten-essay analysis that this guy would post on the causes of the Afghan war.

          There is certainly a possibility that this “hybrid warfare” is going on; if it is, it is because Xi and Putin sat down together and agreed that their mutual security and stability is threatened by letting the fag empire continue to run global finances, and they hashed out a plan to break and then rebuild international trade without the US dollar.

          • Kunning Drueger says:

            Yeah, if he didn’t explicitly bad mouth the vaxx, call out climate hoax, and reference normalcy bias, I would dismiss it out of hand.

            Well, his predictions are about the next few weeks out to the rest of ’22, so we’ll see what’s what.

          • jim says:

            > There is certainly a possibility that this “hybrid warfare” is going on; if it is, it is because Xi and Putin sat down together and agreed that their mutual security and stability is threatened by letting the fag empire continue to run global finances, and they hashed out a plan to break and then rebuild international trade without the US dollar.

            I don’t think so.

            The US is breaking international trade and the dollar all by itself without external assistance.

            On the contrary, Putin is doing all sorts of things to try and keep the system working – most of which are likely to be counterproductive, but they seem intended to be productive.

            There is definitely a massive cyberwar going on, which the Russians started, or massively escalated, with their cyberattack on Ukraine, and these attacks are getting out of hand causing no end of collateral damage. They are also revealing NSA backdoors to hackers, or maybe hackers in NSA employ have just found hostile NSA source code and repurposed it but the rest of it is primarily self destructive actions by governments – for example Germany cutting off the fuel on which it runs, thus causing an ammonium nitrate shortage.

            German greens hate Germans more than they hate Russians. Though they hate Russians more than they hate dot Indians, and dot Indians more than they hate Chinese, and Chinese more than they hate Africans.

  12. Varna says:

    On frozen assets.
    Just found out that, a US bank froze 40% of Kazakhstan’s assets in October 2017
    https://www.gazeta.ru/business/2017/12/27/11555102.shtml
    They were unfrozen in July 2019
    http://www.matritca.kz/news/63515-v-ssha-razmorozheny-215-mlrd-dollarov-nacfonda-rk.html

    Also, lest we forget, in 2020 London stole Venezuela’s gold
    https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-53262767
    because Maduro isn’t the real president or some such

    I no longer think Russia left 300 billion to be poached by the west by accident.
    I am starting to think this was on purpose. That this was bait, which was swallowed.

    With smaller countries people can shrug and be welp that’s just one of those things. When a more visible player gets shafted like that, the whole world realizes that by new globohomo rules your money isn’t your money and your gold isn’t your gold. This can’t be swept under the carpet like with smaller countries.

    Globohomo was baited into making an abrupt jump from their new internal social credit system that they’re trying to apply, into rashly starting to apply it on the world stage to other countries. “I hold your money, and if I don’t like your behavior you no longer have access to it.”

    It’s one thing to do this to your own cowed and brainwashed populace. It’s another thing to start throwing your weight around the planet like that. To show that not only do western states increasingly act as if their jurisdiction covers the whole planet and supersedes the native jurisdiction of sovereign countries, but now their corporate pals are doing the same very visibly.

    At the cost of Russia’s 300 billion, everyone with half a brain realized roughly how things stand from now on.

    • Fireball says:

      No one will use 300 billions as bait.

    • Karl says:

      That sounds plausible, but I think that 300 billion would be overpaying for this effect.

      If I had implemented such a thing, I’d have made sure to have obligations of a comparable size that are not yet due. When the time comes to fulfill these obligattions in a year or two, I could then point out that I’d love to pay my obligations and debt, but that unfortunately all my Western assets were sized and that payment of my Western obligations is now impossible.

      Do you know anything about the size of Russian obligations to Western entities that are due in a year or later?

  13. clovis says:

    Col. MacGregor is more based than I imagined.

    https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/tucker-carlson-favorite-douglas-macgregor-stone-age-indigenous-people-south-asian

    He praised the Russian military in a September 2021 radio interview, saying, “They’re not going to push women into combat. They’re not going to push women who are vulnerable, who are important to the nation, to whose principal mission is to sustain the nation, and bear children, and raise families, and reinforce the social and political and economic identities of the country.”

    • simplyconnected says:

      I posted a link to a 55min interview a few comments below this one. The interview is recent and talks about Ukraine. May be relevant to your comment.

    • Pax Imperialis says:

      Col. MacGregor holds fairly typical views among the O1-O6 Officer ranks (at least for the Army and Marine Corps, not sure about Air force or Navy culture). I’ve mentioned it prior posts, but such views are weeded out when promoting to O7 and above.

      A conservative president will need to mass retire the BMLG ranks and force through O6 candidates fast enough congress wouldn’t be able to purge the thought criminals.

  14. Encelad says:

    How fares the US hypersonic missile technology compared to Russia, China and India? How important is it?

    • Speed says:

      I don’t know how important it is, but U.S. is behind Russia and China. They have working hypersonic missiles, U.S. does not. CEO of Raytheon, in recent interview on CNBC, stated regarding hypersonic missiles, “We are behind.” (If you search YouTube for “CNBC US behind in hypersonic missiles” the vid should come up.)

    • Mister Grumpus says:

      What? This obviously Jewish DoJ lawyer just noticed the case file on the floor and had nothing else to do that day? How in the world does this make any sense at all, except in schitzo mode?

      • chris says:

        “How in the world does this make any sense at all, except in schitzo mode?”
        They are demonic evil (aka chaotic evil).

      • The Cominator says:

        https://nypost.com/2022/03/17/lawyer-for-mother-of-hunter-bidens-child-lunden-roberts-says-he-expects-presidents-son-to-be-indicted/

        More on this… they’ve had the evidence for almost two years at least but they’ve recently got the okay.

        If the derp state allows attacks on crackhead Hunter (no problem with his stripper banging since I also like that and shes a cute one too) for this… they plan to remove Biden.

        • Mister Grumpus says:

          You must be right. I can’t think of any other reason either.

          Right when his crew are out on a limb because they’re trying to avoid WWIII with Russia. Horrifying.

          • The Cominator says:

            The White House already tried to start WW3 unilaterally with Poland and the Pentagon pozzed though they are successfully blocked it.

        • Cloudswrest says:

          What seems curious to me is why would a stripper he banged have access to his financial records? Also there’s the curious case of the laptop. Lots of strange things around Hunter Biden.

          • The Cominator says:

            She was like a long term mistress he got some service job at his “law firm” (he was no doubt a political fixer hired for connections not a real working lawyer).

            • Pseudo-Chrysostom says:

              >he was no doubt a political fixer hired for connections not a real working lawyer

              Well, to the extent there is even a difference.

              • jim says:

                A good lawyer does not represent you at the trial. He arranges for the trial to somehow go away.

                • pyrrhus says:

                  Pretty much, and go away on acceptable terms–that’s the real skill…

                • jim says:

                  Making trials go away is easier, quicker, and cheaper the lower down on the chain of command that you can send it away.

        • pyrrhus says:

          And obviously no problem with Hunter screwing his 14yo (13yo maybe) niece and posting her nude picture on his laptop…

          • The Cominator says:

            Hes a YUGE degenerate with the incest and the crack (not sure how he was at all functional normally crackheads just age 100 times as fast as a normal person and then die).. the stripper banging is the most normal thing about him.

            But the most relevant thing the media suppressed was that he was Joe’s dirty money bagman.

            • Pseudo-Chrysostom says:

              >(not sure how he was at all functional normally crackheads just age 100 times as fast as a normal person and then die)

              Probably cut in on some of the fresh baby extract supply.

    • pyrrhus says:

      In DC, the fix switch is either ON or OFF, if it’s off, Hunter’s going to jail…

      • jim says:

        Hunter going to trial is likely the represent the beginning of the end for the Brezhnevite faction. If so, took considerably longer than I predicted. If that is the outcome, another prediction made on Musk time.

        • The Cominator says:

          Biden’s chief of staff Ron Klain is a radical… and he all but controls Biden.

          Could be the Brezhnev faction getting rid of him.

        • Pooch says:

          I would be utterly shocked if Hunter Biden went to trial. The story is being buried by the press. I don’t know why people here think this is a big deal. Sounds like another nothingburger.

          • Kunning Drueger says:

            It was buried. Shot and buried, then erased from pictures. Now it’s back. Given the level of narrative control exercised by the Brain over the Voice, MSM doesn’t just dig up dead, buried, and forgotten stories from the memory hole.

  15. Mister Grumpus says:

    Could someone please screen-scrape Twitter for all the handles that include Ukraine flags and publish them as a list OK thanks.

  16. Kunning Drueger says:

    Interesting data point here:
    https://twitter.com/RWApodcast/status/1504215640021819403

    Basically, the Source is saying that the vast majority of RF casualties are being generated by artillery. He states that there are almost no casualties from gunfights/gunfire. He also intimates that the logistics management is an issue, with managers using inappropriate tactics from the Syrian War (long, dense convoys; in desert situations, you want to keep everyone together and keep SecFor mobile to respond and interdict, like North Atlantic convoys during the War of Progressive Aggression).

    Jim has asserted that logistics and supply should not be done by the military, but should rather be provided by companies/contractors. I always had an issue with this, because it is hard for me to envision having to rely on businessmen to keep my men fed and armed. But, I now see that if logistics and supply are up to merchants, they are going to very quickly identify bad practices that cause them loss, and rapidly change techniques. When L&S is up to a fellow general officer, getting him to change things will have to go through useless red tape, dick measuring, and turf wars.

    • Red says:

      Jim doesn’t even want logistical contractors. Merchants show up with military goods and the officers buy them for their men.

      I’ve done studied quite a lot of WW2 logistics and my conclusion from it was that central planning is fucking retarded and doesn’t work. When Jim talked about free market logistics, it make a whole heck of a lot more sense than the insanity that went on in WW2.

      • notglowing says:

        I’m not convinced of the idea of some amazon employee on the frontlines.
        Same with everything being handled by them at all times that isn’t combat.

        I agree that central planning is inefficient, and that having non-soldier work done by soldiers in name only has long-term negative externalities with the army becoming a bunch of non-soldiers, who are conceited as they think of themselves as soldiers.

        However I feel like this is just the cost of and the issue with a modern technologically advanced military.
        If you are maintaining and repairing equipment while fighting for example, that’s not something an ordinary civilian can do, or would want to do, since there is a substantial risk involved, not most of the time, but sometimes.
        We consider army medics to be part of the army, and I think it would be unreasonable to separate them completely, and have a regular doctor there to help the wounded.

        There’s also potential issues with having random low level civilians directly involved in military operations because they’d know too much. Background checks for every low level worker is a lot to ask, with soldiers you know they will be doing the same job for years because they have do, there isn’t as much turnover.

        You used to have merchants following armies and providing them with goods. But when that was true, things were much simpler, armies were more of a single group of people, moving more slowly, secrecy was not as much of an issue since there was no instant communication, and there was just less need of deep integration between the military and the logistics and maintenance parts of warfare.

        • Pseudo-Chrysostom says:

          This is an old problem, and the old solution is deputization as auxiliaries. Not warrior caste status, but still with discriminating selection mechanisms for the merchant or labour caste folk doing the work.

        • jim says:

          Until after 1860, every army marched with a sea of camp followers to do the non military stuff. It worked.

          Advanced technology makes socialism harder, not easier. Socialism is bad at providing army food, worse at providing army rockets.

        • Skippy says:

          In the US, Amazon was able to set up a <6 hour food delivery service during covid. Conventional supermarkets in Europe set up <2 week food delivery service. The government, while claiming to believe covid to be an awesome and terrible demon, was never able to close the supermarkets, and made no substantial effort to do so.

          I would not like to rely on the government to deliver my ammunition in war.

  17. Cat says:

    Offtopic regarding personal economics, since today there was a meagre rate hike from the Fed of 25 bps, it has got me thinking of where I should store my money now in hope of not being too damaged in the coming depression/stagflation.

    The Fed has telegraphed they will be raising rates 6 more times in 2022, which I am sure most commenters here will see as far too little even given official inflation levels, let alone the unofficial runaway inflation.

    So my question is then: what should I do? I have a small amount of savings in the bank, which will be dwindling in real terms by the day, so I must do something and do it soon. I could invest in real estate, either real or an index, either in the West or abroad. I have seen from Jim that his properties rents are going up, so maybe buying now and renting out is a good idea before even more inflation hits. I could invest in Western or non-Western stocks, or I could get and personally hold real commodities like metals. And of course I could get some cryptocurrency. Or I could do some combination of these, perhaps avoiding the Western markets as much as possible. On the other hand though, a basket of Weimar stocks vastly outcompeted Weimar inflation, to the tune of 100 fold if I remember correctly, meaning perhaps the S&P is not so bad.

    I honestly have no idea whether collapsing supply lines and stagnation will outcompete inflation/hyperinflation, meaning, I am not sure if now is the time to invest or I can wait for the depression to be in full swing in a year or two and buy things on the cheap.

    Assuming I already have a little bit of cryptocurrency, and do not want to bet the house on cryptocurrency since I need some financial stability to start a family.

    Does anyone have any insights to help me?

    Second, minor question, is this a depression, or is that normalcy bias, and this is instead the shattering of all global and domestic Western supply chains and production, that will likely not recover in our lifetimes unless a Caesar emerges? Feels like it could be the latter for me.

    • The Cominator says:

      They won’t raise rates 6 times, i highly doubt they’ll do it more than once more. The debt must be monetized.

      • James says:

        If they raise rates 6 times, it’s because they’re intentionally trying to create a collapse of the middle class while Sleepy Joe is in office and they know they can make the most of it. Given the history of the Fed rate increases, I am not convinced this would be an abnormal play.

        • The Cominator says:

          The problem with raising interest rates is its going to impact the priesthoods money and Shaniquas money…

          They don’t care what it will do to the middle class which they hate but they do care about that.

    • S says:

      I’m in exactly the same boat you are Cat in terms of trying to figure out what to do. Although you have hope of having a family so congratulations for that.

      The short answer is ‘it depends on how bad you think things will get’. If genocide, go crypto (so you can keep the money while you flee). If military coup, go stocks/gold or other things that can hold value (since things will eventually become normal). If dark age… buy whatever cannot be produced in the future that will be in high demand. Its really hard to predict, made worse by the fact alot of stuff right now is already garbage that doesn’t last long.

      As for the minor question… no, that is an accurate accessment. Trade requires trust. Leftism devours trust. If leftism isn’t stopped by the execution of leftists it will continue to devour until there is nothing left. The real question is how much of the world follows us into the abyss.

    • Joe Blow says:

      Diversify what savings you have and spread it across several different sorts of investments that do well during high inflation. The currency is going to be destroyed, and the straightforward thing to do when that happens is to own real things, not paper promises of things. Governments get very confiscatory when they get desperate.

      Buying your own modest home is a good idea but rental real estate may not be a good investment – governments tend to put rent controls in place during high inflation and the owners get screwed while tenants live basically rent-free in their properties.

      If you want to put some money in crypto, fine, but do not make the mistake of ignoring gold. Put at least 10% of your savings in physical gold coins that you keep in your possession, not in a safe deposit box – those are frequently frozen and searched by governments too, when they get to the phase of confiscating foreign currencies and precious metals with the excuse of a national emergency.

      Buy commodities. Commodities are real things and have real value. Early on you are probably safe in buying a commodity ETF like DBC. Later on, even those will probably be frozen/confiscated by the government, so consider buying actual physical commodities like copper or other useful industrial metals.

      Stockpile a year’s worth of food. Animal protein and fat is very valuable during high inflation. If your trade uses raw materials or tools, consider buying more or extras of those so you can continue making money.

      You can put some money into value stocks but early in high inflationary periods stocks do not do well. The 1970s in the USA for example was a stagnant stock market at the same time prices were rising strongly. Only very late in high inflationary periods do stocks begin to rise strongly, as people suspect the inflation is ending and that stocks may be a bargain.

      Buy a stockpile of the clothing, shoes, household items, car repair items, and so on that you will need. They will become very expensive or be unavailable as the public in general begin hoarding and stockpiling. The earlier you get to it, the better.

      Obviously, avoid bonds, savings accounts, CDs, or any other debt instrument denominated in dollars. In general, any money left in bank accounts is liable to be frozen when bank holidays are declared during periods of panicky high inflation. Keep a number of thousands of dollars in paper money stored away on hand as well. It will lose value but there are times during high inflation when businesses will not accept credit cards or checks, or will give more in return for cash. When monetary velocity is high as during high inflation, people don’t want to wait for checks to clear, and credit card companies can’t afford to extend credit for 30 days. Then cash is king and it pays to have some on hand.

      • S.J., Esquire says:

        Thanks for this excellent post, which draws on the important fact that many times we can use the tool of observation to see what actually happens. Many of us are thinking through the same issues and I have a few points to add.

        Several lessons from the recent past here in Canada are in order.

        One of the major banks here in Canada has a slogan that runs, “You’re richer than you think.” This slogan is of course intended to lure victims into the treadmill of debt-spending-and-slavery, but my point with it is, that I would turn it on its head, and advise anyone that in fact, one should probably live life assuming that one is poorer than one thinks, and take it for granted that any given asset class is subject to evaporation in any given year or decade. This is probably normal life for most people in most times.

        In other words, diversification is a founding principle. There’s no one asset class that will conjure you magically to safety on the other side of this.

        Let’s talk about the freezing of bank accounts which took place last month. This sends a chill down my spine even as I type, but the reality is, we need to talk about it, because they did it. And in a manner of speaking, through ineptitude, they delivered a tremendous lesson at what was really a fairly low cost, which is, that going forward, the government can and will do this again. So if one plans to continue holding dissident-tier opinions, one is advised to figure out how to get one’s money out of the bank and how to live without a bank, if necessary.

        (Crucially, I think, what I’ve seen is that at present governments are not totally unrestrained; some legacy institutions of checks-and-balances still function, so that although our government may like to assume dictator-calibre powers, in fact they can’t, yet, but one needs to be mindful of what they may want and try to do, and perhaps succeed at doing.)

        Let’s talk about crypto. I know very little about it, but I now know this: crypto wallets and exchanges were frozen, so you may be able to get money in now, but not get it out later, meaning that, as someone said above, crypto in a hardware wallet may be useful primarily in case you need to flee the country and get the money back out in your new country.

        I would like to comment on precious metals like gold and silver. I have been trying to learn from all angles, and I’m aware of some quite bright commenters who don’t “believe in” gold and silver, don’t think it’s worthwhile or has any useful place. I have been trying hard to understand what their argument is, and the best I can come up with is that it’s another form of the ol’ normalcy bias, meaning, people who think gold and silver are a waste of time are people who don’t REALLY believe hyperinflation could occur, economies could literally crumble, and so forth. If anyone understand the argument any better, please fill me in.

        Second thing about gold and silver is this: traceability.

        Let’s take a step back here, and talk about guns. (I do not want to talk about guns, right here, but this is appropriate.) Most people may not be aware that here in Canada there is a looming gun ban with a deadline of next month. Most of the guns that are on the ban list are “non-registered”, ostensibly not on a formal list, and yet it has been normal practice for gun shops to maintain their own internal list of which guns were sold to whom, so that, if the government got interested enough, they could theoretically summon all those gun shops records and try to track down these guns.

        My point here is not to talk about guns, but to say, I spoke this week to my gold-and-silver dealer, who informed me straight up-and-down that when I purchase from them, they do NOT record my name or what I purchased from them, in any manner traceable by the government. Even if I pay with a bank draft, instead of cash, the government could theoretically see that I bought… something… but doesn’t know what it was. Coulda been jewelry. So, if you are going to buy gold and silver, please confirm with your dealer beforehand about the best ways to ensure untraceability. As others mentioned, don’t let normalcy bias hit your ass when this thing blows; governments throughout history can and have gone all-out to confiscate gold.

        On that note, although cash (until they ban it) is obviously the most anonymous medium, be mindful not to fall afoul of your country’s money laundering laws.

        • A2 says:

          The banking system has really fallen apart in the last decade or two, hasn’t it, at least for savers. Why bail them out next time? Replacement urgently needed.

        • jim says:

          > crypto wallets and exchanges were frozen, so you may be able to get money in now

          Any crypto wallet that can be frozen is not a crypto wallet, but a scam.

          As long as you have internet, you can do crypto transactions.

          And the time fast approaches when you can buy stuff with crypto currency, but not with government money.

          A major driving force in the adoption of crypto currency is that international transactions have become steadily more dangerous and difficult. They have rather suddenly become a great deal more dangerous and difficult. The time fast approaches when using the government money in your wallet to buy stuff at the store will become a problem.

          • S.J., Esquire says:

            Okay, as I said, I obviously know next to nothing about it. But all I’m saying is, they certainly tried to freeze the ability to use crypto. How successful they were (or could be), I invite others to comment upon.

            • S.J., Esquire says:

              Thinking about it again, it seems to me that what they tried to do was not “freeze wallets”, which as you say is not a thing, but rather, to tell institutions under their control (crypto exchanges, e.g.) to stop interacting with Wallet XYZ. Whether there is a way around this tactic, idk, you tell me. I’m just saying, if your level of knowledge approximates mine, then bee careful.

              Back to gold for a sec, again in the interest of arming people with as much knowledge as possible, be aware that gold and silver are “property” under the law, not currency, meaning if you sell them you are supposed to declare capital gains or losses.

              I asked my gold guy if anyone ever does this in practice. He laughed and said, “Yeah, people are supposed to avoid jaywalking too.”

              The point being though, just be cognizant of the hypothetical where the government knows you have (or had) gold, you say to them, “Nah bruh, I sold it”, and they say, “O rly, where’s your capital gains declaration then?”

              This is how smart folks need to be.

              • Travis says:

                Personally, I’ve had a bad luck run of unfortunate boating accidents where large portions of interesting material were lost forever to the depths…….

          • Cloudswrest says:

            Immortal words from Moldbug on holding Bitcoin:

            “(In your own private wallet, of course—not on some fool’s server.)”

      • A2 says:

        What is the likelihood of prepper level preparations being needed? Getting into a situation below the Weimar Germany tier, basically. What would concretely be needed to descend elow that level?

        It might be instructive to read Peter Grant’s experiences during Katrina if you think we are approaching that level.

        https://bayourenaissanceman.blogspot.com/2008/08/lessons-learned-from-hurricanes-katrina.html

    • Pooch says:

      We are in for stagflation until something changes which means commodities for the time being. Look at ticker symbol GSG,

    • Aidan says:

      I help my fiance’s mother out at her store once in a while. “No deliveries for the next three weeks”, I heard today. And in fact I would be surprised if a truck showed up three weeks from now. I have the feeling that the supply chain is about to crash real hard. Well, if you are poor like I am, take comfort in the fact that when things go to shit, the security services are going to stop caring, and you can just take things from other people. Or, if you are not so heartless, private security is going to be in great demand, and they are going to pay their guards in things they want and need.

  18. India close to sealing crude oil deal with Russia at apparently heavy discounts:
    https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/business/india-business/india-close-to-clinching-oil-deal-with-russia/articleshow/90242777.cms

    I hope this means that petrol, diesel and LP gas prices stay stable.

  19. Basil says:

    How does Soviet apparatchik Putin support Russians and Christianity?

    Kadyrov boasts that his militants are fighting against the Ukrainians “in the hottest spots”, and the detachment of deputy Delimkhanov is storming Mariupol.

    However, Igor Girkin reports that the battles for Mariupol are being fought by the forces of Russian soldiers and units of the DPR, and the Kadyrovites did not enter the battle.

    Girkin says that the officers are afraid to send the Chechens to hell, because Kadyrov will ask for the loss of his own. And who will ask for the guys from the Russian villages? Girkin writes: “70% of our soldiers near Mariupol are sick with covid”, the advanced units “live on grazing”, the commanders do not spare them.

    The Kadyrovtsy, on the contrary, are allegedly protected so that after the capture of Mariupol they “pose against the backdrop of victory.” Unlike exhausted Russian soldiers, these will look solid and cheerful.

    Can Girkin be trusted? You decide. I will only note that he was a participant in the war in 2014 and served as the “Minister of Defense of the DPR”. He certainly has his sources.

    If Girkin writes the truth, if the generals are afraid of Kadyrov, take care of his militants and do not count the losses among the Russians, this is simply a shame.

    • Kunning Drueger says:

      What is your goal with these anti-Putin posts? Do you think Globohomo is better than Russian authoritarianism? Do you think military campaigns are failures if there are mistakes and faults?

      This feels like a personal grudge/femoid emotional lashing out. I think I understand, I bear a deep and emotional resentment for Barry Obama, and it clouds my judgement when discussing him. But the fact of the matter is that, intentionally or not, you’re shilling for Globohomo. I just can’t figure out why.

      • Mike in Boston says:

        I am grateful for Putin-skeptical posts, because otherwise people on our side tend to all too easily start believing in Muh Based Putin. To counteract that sort of naievete, it’s worth reminding folks of evidence to the contrary. This is why I keep posting links to Riley Waggaman’s articles where he points out that Russia, unlike Belarus, has clot-shot mandates and they are killing Russian teenagers.

        Pointing out where Putin falls short is not shilling for Globohomo. It’s not shilling even to make the devil’s advocate case that living in the GAE is better than living under Russian authoritarianism, roughly as follows: in the US you can escape 90% of the mind rot of Globohomo by living in a rural community with no diversity and no TV. In exchange for that 10% your sons aren’t abused by a bunch of Dagestanis during dedovshchina, and you can earn a middle-class living without being squeezed for bribes at random by this petty chinovnik or that.

        Mind you, I think that if Mr. Putin can pull off autarky along with internal economic liberalization, like the USA of the early 1800s, then the future prospects for Russia will be brighter than those for the US. But it’s also possible he’ll fail, and Russia’s distinctiveness will slowly erode not just because of pressure from outside, but also because of the perennial dysfunction of the Russian government.

        I detest Globohomo as much as you do, but if we are going to reason about the processes of history and the world situation, we had better do so without becoming fanboys of anyone who hasn’t earned it.

        • notglowing says:

          I agree with this perspective. It’s good that there are people who point out where he failed, and where he is not reliable.

          I like that he opposes the US world order, and I like that he supports Christianity, but both of these positions benefit him personally, they are not necessarily civilizational goals of his, rather something he cynically leverages to his own benefit.
          That’s not in itself a problem. But I was not that surprised when I saw him embracing the vaccine mandates, because I doubt Putin has the same view on personal freedom that Jim has underlying his actions.

          I think that Jim has a tendency of projecting his way of thinking on the people he likes, ie Trump. I have the tendency to do the same, so maybe I am projecting here myself.

          Overall, the fact remains that he is the only Christian force opposing Harvard, and as such I don’t want to see him fail.
          A world where China and Islam are the only alternatives is a very scary one.

        • Kunning Drueger says:

          @MiB, I’m not advocating a megaphone/echo chamber walled garden here. i welcome a diversity of perspectives, so long as they are portrayed in good faith by honest men. Basil has been maintaining a line of inquiry/reason that, in brutal summary, is as follows: Putin is not perfect, so Putin is the enemy. Under normal circumstances, this may be a valid line of discourse. Under the current, special circumstances, it is an enemy payload. Basil is sort of a regular I believe, but he is not in much agreement with the Reactionary Program, IIRC. I may be wrong about that. He’s also a self-proclaimed Slav, again IIRC, which is why I think he has personal enmity for Putin’s personage.

          Fanboyism has its uses, but I generally dislike it. But when the guns come out, you gotta pick a side. Being wishy-washy, letting the theoretical Perfect be an indictment on the efforts of the Good is exactly the perspective the Cathedral wishes on its domestic detractors. notglowing said it well enough for me to quote: “Overall, the fact remains that he is the only Christian force opposing Harvard, and as such I don’t want to see him fail.” Basil is telling us we should oppose Putin. Seems like enemy chatter to me.

          • The Cominator says:

            Yes if he is a slav I would like to know if hes Polish or Romanian since they seem to have a real holocaust level buttheart against the Russians.

            • notglowing says:

              I’ve heard slavs say that a nuclear wasteland is preferable to being dominated by Russians, they’d do scorched earth rather then lose to them again.

              • Basil says:

                I do not think so. I have no problem living in any Healthy European State. In any case, I feel good about Russians, although I have some Polish roots. They deserve a King better than the one they got.

        • Pooch says:

          To counteract that sort of naievete, it’s worth reminding folks of evidence to the contrary. This is why I keep posting links to Riley Waggaman’s articles where he points out that Russia, unlike Belarus, has clot-shot mandates and they are killing Russian teenagers.

          Where was the Russian Orthodox Church during all this? If Christians mass organized mass noncompliance against Covid Demon Worship in the West, they were likely to get beaten in the streets by Antifa under the protection of the police.

          The Russian Orthodox in Russia under the protection of Putin’s nukes have no such excuse. That they didn’t do this demonstrates to me that the supposedly “based” Russian Orthodox Church in Russia has major flaws.

          • alf says:

            I like tfr as a proxy for a nation’s well-being. Going off an internet search, Russia’s tfr is abysmal, but slightly less abysmal than the USA. So like many commenters have already observed, Russia is not a based paradise. But in war the party who fucks up slightly less still wins.

          • Mike in Boston says:

            the supposedly “based” Russian Orthodox Church in Russia has major flaws.

            Surely it does. Living outside Russia as I do, I don’t have the whole picture. I can think of two of my fellow Russian Orthodox, both better Christians than me, that have nearly contradictory views of Patriarch Kirill. So I don’t know what to think. Maybe Varna knows better.

            It’s easier for me to just dunk on the Russian government for Putin’s giving clot-shot impresario Alexander Gintsburg a medal, or Medvedev calling for a war on cash and making purebloods second-class citizens.

            I can dismiss Medvedev as just a lib at heart, but Putin’s and Orban’s love for the clot shots and cattle tags is seriously messing up my mental taxonomy.

            • Pooch says:

              I can dismiss Medvedev as just a lib at heart, but Putin’s and Orban’s love for the clot shots and cattle tags is seriously messing up my mental taxonomy.

              Putin is no priest and probably has no strong opinion of it one way or another. The Russian Orthodox Church should be putting tremendous pressure on him for endorsing these foolish anti-Christian practices. Pressure that surely would be dealt by swift violence in the West, but surely Putin would be more likely to capitulate too.

      • Basil says:

        Minor difference, since Putin is part of a globohomo, just like the Republican Party or Jewish nationalist parties in Europe. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. The fruits of the tsar’s rule are known: he lost not only Ukraine, but also Russia.

      • Neofugue says:

        Relevant to the discussion is a Russian state propaganda piece regarding a dissident-right Russophile site: https://www.rt.com/op-ed/416804-anti-semitic-russian-insider/

        As a disclaimer, the purpose of sharing the above is not persuade others to agree or disagree with its content, rather to exhibit the current cultural zeitgeist one is expected to uphold:

        > For instance, American and European far-rightists think that because Vladimir Putin has restored Russia as a strong and sovereign state, he’s somehow aligned with their beliefs. And is on some kind of mission from God to save ‘white’ Christianity. But, he’s not. Because Russia may well be the most ethnically and religiously diverse country in Europe. And Putin’s own cabinets have included a smorgasbord of Jews, Muslims and Buddhists in addition to the Christians and Agnostics who form the largest Russian ‘belief’ categories.

        The language of this propaganda piece is Conservative, mirroring what one would expect from the Republican Party or the various right-wing parties in Europe. The Russian state is Leftist but Conservative in the sense that while the Conservative believes in yesterday’s Leftism, he does not believe in it for the purposes of status maximizing and knocking over apple carts.

        Therefore, it is not difficult to understand given Russian history and culture why the Kremlin imposes forced vaccination and adopts a variant of multiculturalism while fighting a holy war against Globohomo.

        People hate the Devil they know, which is why the various Putin-skeptical posters tend to be those from or currently living in Eastern Europe. On the other hand, it is a temptation for Westerners to become enchanted with what is foreign, what is Oriental, and ignore the blessings he currently has.

        As the Gods of the Copybook Headings say, stick to the devil you know.

        Also Lent.

        • Red says:

          I’d been wondering about that.

          Put Com, Saint John, or me in command of an invasion and we would have flatten Kiev day one, with every army barracks hit by cruise missiles to induce a rout and a quick surrender. The goal would have been a massive display of power and a warning of the horrors they’ll experience if they fight on. Historically very successful tactics and often results in good subject peoples. People respect strength. Instead Putin ordered them not to hit the army barracks at all until 6 days into the war when it was clear the Ukrainians were not giving up.

          Putin’s military strategy has been very subpar, reminding me a lot of the US Hearts and minds bullshit in Iraq. He clearly isn’t a reactionary student of warfare. Just another leftist, but a leftist trying to cling to an older and less insane version of leftism.

          • Neofugue says:

            > He clearly isn’t a reactionary student of warfare. Just another leftist, but a leftist trying to cling to an older and less insane version of leftism.

            In other words, a conservative.

            However, since the conservative is defined by his relation to yesterday’s leftism, he is more likely to adopt our ideas should leftism for various reasons fall from power. Just as leftism must advance in order to stay alive, conservatism depends on the continued advance of leftism.

        • Pooch says:

          Putin is the prime example for the West of why Caesar Augustus won’t suddenly bring about 17th Anglican Christianity again allowing the long dead British Empire is magically spring back to life.

          Three centuries until Christianity was ready for prime time for Constantine. Likely will take us about this long to rediscover this lost social technology before it is ready for the next Constantine.

          • Pooch says:

            17th century*

          • jim says:

            More is coming. Expect the unexpected.

            As Neofuge observed, Putin is merely a leftist who is lagging behind the times. The time has arrived for a counter faith.

            Which does not mean that history will kindly waltz us into power, but as the enemy faith commits suicide, the resulting void is apt to be filled.

            A three century dark age of hunkering down is in the cards, but there are considerably better cards on the way. This war is not likely to end globohomo, but the incapacity and madness that led to it will lead to other things.

            • restitutor_orbis says:

              Jim, do you think the counter-faith is likely to be a new denomination of Christianity or a reform from an existing denomination?

              • Karl says:

                What’s the difference?

                New denomination might start as a reform and be seen as a reform now, but be called a new denomination a few years later.

                How can a new denomination of Chirstianity not also imply a reform of an existing denomination?

                • restitutor_orbis says:

                  The differences between denominations usually turn on issues of doctrine that are opaque to outsiders. Nevertheless they have meaningful downstream consequences. Jim has made a strong case for the ill effect of some doctrine that I otherwise would not have thought particularly meaningful.

                  So I’m wondering if he has a sense of there is a particular branch of the Christian tree that has good theology and just needs an infusion of energy; or if all of the branches have flawed theology.

                  Like: “Orthodox theology is what we need. Just need to galvanize the men of the West to honor it.” versus “All of the denominations went wrong during the Protestant Reformation and Counter-Reformation, we need a new denomination that XXXX”.

                  I also don’t want Pooch to put me to the sword.

                • jim says:

                  The theological problem has become mighty simple.

                  Christianity was hit by entryists almost immediately, starting with Simon the magician. Saint John and Saint Peter, the authors of the respective New Testament books, instituted simple shill tests.

                  It eventually came to pass that Christians were in power, the ruling synthetic tribe. And people came up with vastly elaborate intellectual frameworks so that they could slide pass the shill tests, like Bill Clinton saying “It depends on what the meaning of ‘is’ is”

                  And so the shill tests got longer and longer, resulting in the thirty nine articles, which is a book length exam.

                  But now all those overly clever frameworks have gone away, and a quite simple shill test suffices.

                  Hence my recommended demon worshiper test, which follows the precedents and purpose set by John and Peter, expressed in a pastiche of fragments snatched from the creeds.

                  Jesus Christ is Lord, born in Bethlehem, died at Jerusalem, and is, is from before the beginning of the world. Fully God and fully man. God is three and God is one.

                  If they cannot say that, treat them as John and Peter would have.

                  We enforce that, Christianity will clean up. Likely after we have been in power for a few centuries, we are going to need something that looks more like the thirty nine articles, but that will not be needed for a quite a while.

                • Pooch says:

                  The problem as I see it is that all denominations of modern Christianity in the West are just skin suits for progressivism (with the exception of Russian Orthodox in Russia under the protection of Russia’s nukes) ie heretical in the best case and outright paganism and worship of idols in the worst case.

                  I suppose the question is that can heretical faggot churches magically reform themselves back to real Christianity with the arrival of Caesar. I have my doubts. If not, may have to start from the ground up again.

                • jim says:

                  They can be converged back to Christianity by exactly the same pressures as converged them away from it.

              • Pooch says:

                I think we may need to do what the early Christians did and just call our Christianity the one real Orthodox Christianity and all other competing forms of Christianity will be deemed heretical, to be eliminated violently if need be.

                • jim says:

                  That bears absolutely no resemblance to what the early Christians did.

                  You are reporting absurd Cathedral myths.

                • Pooch says:

                  What did they do to Gnosticism for example? Was that not deemed heretical?

                • clovis says:

                  Yes the early Christians rejected Gnosticism, Montanism, and other heresies, but they didn’t try to extirpate them with the sword. Later heresies were persecuted by the state, in its function as secular ruler. That was always the argument even during the inquisition: the church doesn’t use the sword on its enemies, but the ruler has an obligation to use the sword.

                • Pooch says:

                  Well this is what I meant. Post-Constantine, when Christianity went from out of power to in power, it was necessary to deal with heretical forms of Christianity, putting them to the sword if need be.

                • jim says:

                  Even post Constantine, Christianity went too far in accommodating its enemies, which is how Egypt fell to the Mohammedans. Faced with some too clever rationale, they would attempt to accommodate it with a complicated latitudinarian doctrine, instead of a simpler but narrower doctrine that allowed less room for cleverness. The thirty nine articles has a lot of complicated latitudinarian accommodations to their enemies.

                  Yes, the sword came out a fair bit, but mostly it was intellectual gaming.

                  Mostly it was talking, not stabbing. And I think there was too much talking and not enough stabbing. With the result that Egypt fell to the Mohammedans.

                • Aidan says:

                  There was plenty of stabbing. The Cathars and Bogomils were extirpated by the sword, along with countless other Gnostic sects. Christianity does have the problem of anarchist and sexually degenerate cults (The Bogomils derive into the English bugger) springing up here and there. But that problem was solved- by lots of stabbing.

                • jim says:

                  There were a great number of serious problems that were not solved by lots of stabbing. Some of them, notably Egypt, should have been. And the thirty nine articles would have been noticeably simpler and shorter if people making difficulties had been dealt with firmly, rather than through latitudinarian compromise.

                • hello says:

                  [*deleted*]

                • jim says:

                  I am tired of gnostics, progressives, and Jews telling Christians the real meaning of Christianity.

    • Wulfgar Thundercock III says:

      By the time that Putin got anywhere in his career, Soviet Sovialism was a dead faith. He is no more a socialist than I am a feminist because I served in a coed military. The Soviet Union is long dead, and Putin is showing no signs of reviving it.

      “…sick with covid?” Are you shitting me? They have a cold and that is supposed to be an issue? Why would I listen to anyone who thinks that covid is an issue. He might still be right, but it does not exactly inspire faith in his powers of analysis.

      • Basil says:

        Faith in the Soviet “friendship of peoples”, which implies that the Russians pay tribute and die for the interests of the Uga-Buga, has been preserved. The Soviet flawed attitude towards the family has been preserved. The Soviet economy has largely survived and is now returning. The Soviet demonization of nationalism persisted. The Soviet principles of foreign policy have been preserved. Many Soviet historical and political myths have been preserved.

        On the battlefield, every little thing counts. If the lives of your soldiers are valuable to you, of course. But it seems that this is not the case, Russian deaths (on both sides) for the sake of the prestige of the uga-buga amusing regiments, apparently this is what Putin calls the Russian World. “I am Lak, I am Dagestan, I am Chechen, Ingush, Russian, Tatar, Jew, Mordvin, Ossetian”

        • The Cominator says:

          Russia isn’t uga bugga, their cities are overwhelmingly white.

          • Basil says:

            The Russians (both sides) near Mariupol are dying not for the interests of the Russians, but for the fact that later the national minorities would receive prestige for the battle in which they did not take part. With this approach these cities will not be white for long. This is what Putin does.

        • Speed says:

          Every discussion of Putin’s statements where he goes out of his way to be “inclusive” of various ethnic groups in Russia needs to take into account 2 facts:

          1, Russia’s territory is vast – absolutely enormous – and mostly empty
          2. Russia is facing a dire population/birthrate crisis, he needs every warm body he can get, rejecting or ejecting various subgroups would make the problem worse.

          It is difficult to fund the defense of such a vast territory, especially given Russia’s population and low trust/corrupt culture (harder to build big growing economy).

          Low birthrates is a big reason the West’s leaders want infinity immigration. (And, anti-white attitude). In democracies politicians have incentive to promise socialism (free stuff, cradle to grave care) to get elected, but if population/birthrate drops, can’t sustain it.

          I don’t see Putin promising socialism, or advocating for mass immigration, or saying anything anti-white. But he does have a serious population problem. Given Russia’s vast territory a few comments from him where he says to the ethnic minority groups “I see you and recognize that you live here and that you are part of Russia” – to me that’s not a big deal.

          But it triggers white nationalists in the West, “Oh no he’s not a pure white nationalist!” That’s an unnecessary overreaction.

          • Basil says:

            So what exactly did Putin do during the two decades of his rule to solve the problem of Russia’s demographics? Introduced new and new forms of social security for single mothers? Imports hundreds of thousands of Uzbeks and Kyrgyz every year, and also regularly amnesties these wonderful people? Banned patriarchy throughout Russia except for the northern Caucasus and Tatarstan?

            You need to go to the optometrist. Because the situation has only gotten worse over the Putin years.

            • jim says:

              This is like criticizing Trump.

              Putin builds Cathedrals. He allowed pussy riot to be beaten. He punished them for vandalizing Churches and war monuments. These are major improvements.

              • Basil says:

                Trump turned out to be more useful to the regime than Biden or Obama, as he silenced the American right for 4 years, and during these 4 years the American state and American society continued to rot and slide into Haiti, which ultimately works against them.

                Beautiful cathedrals or reduction of the tax burden are just alcohol that allows you to not notice how you lose your own legs due to frost.

                • clovis says:

                  That’s ludicrous and utopian. If you can’t recognize that America under Trump was vastly superior to the present and future America under unconstrained globohomo, you’re not a serious person. Likewise Putin vs. the globohomo Russia that would exist without him.

                • Wulfgar Thundercock III says:

                  This is a retarded take, but I will take pity on you and explain how you are retarded and how to fix it. Trump was good for the regime like Dorothy was good for the Wizard of Oz. We see the men behind the curtain, and they are weaker for it. Even though their direct power has increased, the vast power they had behind the scenes, anonymous; that is gone. Everyone who matters now knows what the Deep State is and how they work.

                  Additionally, the radical drop in quality of life and the unceasing change is preventing people from growing accustomed to it. The normies are notmies no longer. They sense change in the wind, and blood in the water.

                  In short, if no one ever strengthens me like Trump did the Deep State, I will be thankful. You may now return to your regularly scheduled retarded defeatism. Thank you.

                • The Cominator says:

                  Trump took the enemy at least partially out of the shadows and showed that the enemies economic policies rob them, they had to go all in on a phony flu scare to get rid of him…

                  Publicity isn’t good for criminals long term… even if they run the government.

                • The Cominator says:

                  Putin decriminalized domestic violence…

            • Aidan says:

              Look at a map of US military interventions versus a heat map of TFR. If Putin actually reinstated patriarchy, nukes would be falling like the spring rain. Putin seems to me like he does exactly what he can get away with, no more or less. I expect many places to move to the right once it no longer gets you a GAE invasion.

        • Kunning Drueger says:

          This is eerily reminiscent of the rhetoric used against Trump to divide right-wing supporters. Just to absolve myself of any accusations of bullying or fanboyism, Basil, given that Putin has acted due to the geostrategic circumstances involving NATO expansion as well as the cultural onslaught of GAE, what should he have done?

          • Basil says:

            At a minimum, Putin needed to work on the economy, get 100 kk of the European population and such a resource base, and at the same time have economic stagnation. It was worth abandoning the high level of socialism, abandoning the solidarity pension system, reducing taxes and providing greater autonomy to the regions, abandoning the import of migrants, stopping subsidizing the agricultural sector, stopping interfering with familiess, distributing land to Russians in the Far East and investing in infrastructure projects , return private property and the right to self-defense, ban feminism and communism instead of nationalists and Jehovah’s Witnesses, abolish the draft army, introduce a voucher school system. There were many things that could be done.

            Belarus, Ukraine and Finland should have been returned through the usual gradual economic, cultural, political integration. I don’t know if it was possible to include them directly in the Russian Federation, but it’s quite possible to have controlled satellite states without globohomo and NATO bases without war. But for this you need to be an attractive country, not modern Russia.

            • Skippy says:

              It’s likely Russia would have been attacked if it had done those things.

              If Russia wins in Ukraine, and establishes a truly independent culture behind a nuclear shield, we will see if the Orthodox church will gain in power, and reimpose the family.

              • Basil says:

                Pakistan has a good birth rate, cooperation with the Taliban and China, and the United States is in no hurry to pour nuclear weapons on this country for some reason. Why is his example not relevant for Russia? Russia has more nukes and Russia has a better air defense system.

                • Skippy says:

                  Direction of travel matters.

                  I didn’t say Russia would lose the confrontation but a smart Russia would choose its time. Russia has chosen its time.

            • Aidan says:

              Being too friendly with Russia gets you overthrown and replaced with a boy-diddling rainbow empire government. So no, Belarus, Ukraine, and Finland could not have been returned via the usual.

    • Pseudo-Chrysostom says:

      >And it came to pass, on the second-first sabbath, as he is going through the corn fields, that his disciples were plucking the ears, and were eating, rubbing with the hands, and certain of the Pharisees said to them, ‘Why do ye that which is not lawful to do on the sabbaths?’ and Jesus answering said unto them, ‘Did ye not read even this that David did, when he hungered, himself and those who are with him, how he went into the house of God, and the loaves of the presentation did take, and did eat, and gave also to those with him, which it is not lawful to eat, except only to the priests?’ and he said to them, — ‘The Son of Man is lord also of the sabbath.’

      Russia could magically implode tomorrow and it wouldn’t even really matter at this point, because the atlantic empire has fucked itself.

      Putin is a modern man, who grew up in a modern world; but providence has placed him at odds with the primogeniture of modernity. Just as it was like with Trump before, and as it will be like with many more men to come, it is opportunities that you can turn to your advantage; opportunity for him to learn what it really takes to win against a globohomo theocracy; opportunity for everyone else to learn watching the same.

      The machine is shaking itself apart under it’s own vibrations, and the fallout has only yet to hit. Moments like january 2020 keep happening with ever increasing regularity; moments where power is simply laying on the table, waiting to be picked up; and last victory will go to the first men who can pick it up.

  20. simplyconnected says:

    Since some of us are following this, posting a recent discussion on Ukraine with Col. Douglas McGregor.

    • Kunning Drueger says:

      Did anyone actually watch this? MacGregor is literally /ourguy/ in terms of rhetoric. He casually points out Globohomo, root and branch, falling just short of saying the term. He discusses the 2 camps in the Biden Regime, the war camp and the not-quite-war camp. If I had just watched that video, not having been linked here, I would assume MacGregor is a commenter on our noble blog. Maybe I’m unnecessarily enthusiastic, or hearing what I want instead of what’s actually being said. Could someone else give it a watch and check if this is the case?

      Guys, this dude is our Caesar, or the key to finding Caesar. He is old and definitely holds boomer tendencies, but both he and Victor Davis Hanson have unfiltered access to the last vestige of conservative elites Is there anything we can collectively or individually do? Both these 2, and Mearsheimer as well, have very good analysis and status in serious circles, but they are all failing to grasp the situation because they leave out the culture/religion aspect of the Cathedral. They either do not know, or do not accept, that the Cathedral does have a religion, and that it is a death cult. They need a Bishop with a team of priests.

      • simplyconnected says:

        I watched it, thought it was wonderful. This was the longest interview I’ve seen, also very recent.
        I was going to post a summary but I’ve been extremely busy.

        • simplyconnected says:

          Started to take notes to post here, but this man speaks succinctly, I would basically have to transcribe it. The video is 2hrs but the interview is 55min, I recommend just watching it.

      • simplyconnected says:

        I can’t help to notice that Col. McGregor sounds a lot like general Ripper.

  21. Starman says:

    Stoltenberg, “The whole world condemns Russia’s war.”

    Pictured, the “whole world.”:
    https://nitter.net/pic/media%2FFN6FAYzVkAMHXJq.jpg%3Fname%3Dorig

  22. Red says:

    Kunning Drueger says:

    Personal attacks! I need an emotional support dog, stat!

    In all seriousness, I agree @Joe. But, as has been pointed out to me and anyone else who suggests doing anything IRL (after the pathetic cries of FED! die down) any real move to organize and act would be, most likely, targeted and infiltrated or destroyed quickly.

    I don’t think the Feds will be all that effective for too much longer. I’d thought they’d start going after the wrong people with the ATF and FBI and end up stacked up like cord wood by the side of the road, but they’ve decided to focus on easy targets like J6 suckers. They’re weak, but not publicly outed as weak yet.

    Once they fuck up and are publicly shown to be garbage they’ll be a tidal wave of local groups resisting and organizing. But trying to do so before demonstrated weakness is asking to get smashed by the full power of the feds.

    • Anonymous Fake says:

      The “local groups” meme is the stupidest strategy the right has. Either move to the capital city or work for a foreign government/business with its own interests. Anything in between is going to fail.

      Flyover country can enjoy its “local sovereignty” after the capital gets sacked by the Huns, Visigoths, Mongols, etc.

      • jim says:

        Conservatives in the big cities face discrimination and murder, and are politically impotent because their enemies own the political apparatus, and have imported a vast army of voters living on crime, welfare, and voting democrat.

        The only way to win is to cancel the discredited pretense of democracy. This requires the government to first discredit democracy even further, then fail to pay the troops, or fail to pay them in money that is worth anything.

        Julius Caesar marched on Rome.

        Augustus Caesar arrived in Brusindium with nothing but his identity as the heir of Julius Caesar, confiscated a large amount of public funds, and arrived in Rome with three thousand troops.

        Constantine marched on Rome. He did not go into Rome and work his way through the system from the bottom up. After taking Rome, he then built a new capital a long distance from Rome.

        • Anonymous Fake says:

          The Cathedral has been failing to pay its best people, college graduates, [*deleted*]
          The right needs ideas and a system of meritocracy, not bread alone. [*deleted*]

          • jim says:

            If you want to argue that our ideas are wrong, go ahead and make the argument and we will debate it.

            But stop telling us that we already think what the Cathedral thinks we should think. Not going to allow that through

            > The Cathedral has been failing to pay its best people, college graduates,

            Your payload being that the Cathedral is meritocratic and composed of smart people, and that we agree, that everyone agrees, it is meritocratic and composed of smart people.

            The average IQ of recent college graduates has been dropping since 1875, and in recent years has been dropping like a stone.

            Some time ago, I would have to look up the date, it hit 100IQ, average. It must now be well below average.

            The critical limit for operating a modern economy is 105IQ. Anyone below that generally cannot function usefully without his supervisor nearby watching him – and his supervisor could probably be doing something more useful that creates more value than watching idiots. We are talking about Walmart greeters and Starbucks baristas. You don’t want IQ100 people driving your trucks, welding your steel, and you certainly do not want them painting your house or fixing your plumbing. Let alone administering justice.

            > The right needs ideas and a system of meritocracy, not bread alone.

            Your payload being that the right thinks bread, which is to say socialism, is the critical issue.

            We have plenty of bread. What we have a dire shortage of is obedient virgin pussy suitable for family formation.

            The right has plenty of ideas about meritocracy – which can be summarized as:

            1. Our society is not meritocratic, but kleptocratic. Needs to be meritocratic.

            2. The chief benefit of merit should be better access to obedient virgin pussy suitable for family formation. Which requires male authority over female sexual choices.

            • Anonymous Fake says:

              [*deleted for grotesque detachment from readily observable everyday reality*]

            • Skippy says:

              The Cathedral really has been failing to pay its best people, because the bill in money, promotions, and praise for the drastically and rapidly expanding cadres of affirmative action employees also needs to be paid.

              • Mister Grumpus says:

                All this blah blah about money. No one really understands what money is anyway, like dogs don’t understand what microwaves are.

                What we really know are power, status, pussy, trust, children, safety and respect.

                You can pay a Sunnyvale computer wiz $400,000 a year, but leave him no one to date but fat used single mothers, make him kneel to Shantavius whose 6 kids he’s paying for, and he knows he’s a broke helpless slave.

      • Badvlad says:

        [*deleted for deliberate or inadvertent Cathedral payload*]

        • jim says:

          You are presupposing a pile of myths, rather recent Cathedral myths, about the American Revolution.

          Don’t do that.

  23. Joe W. says:

    Red said:

    > You’re still thinking in faggot terms. …
    > Organization is currently not possible. …

    All you do is talk about how everything is hopeless, but I’m the faggot.

    That’s funny.

    If you’re truly “waiting for a Caesar,” why don’t you start fucking acting like it? Why would a Caesar emerge if he goes online and all he sees are whiny faggots crying that everything is hopeless?

    I’ve specifically advocated against any type of organizing, at least outside one’s own community, but that doesn’t mean the situation is hopeless.

    Talking like a pussy serves no purpose except demoralizing people who might not be pussies. Enough already.

    • Red says:

      Joe you’re the only person saying things are hopeless. Everyone else is hoping for the best, while prepping for if things getting very fucked up in the near future. You attempts to talk people into more Glowie J6 style bullshit isn’t effective.

    • jim says:

      > All you do is talk about how everything is hopeless, but I’m the faggot.

      What you propose invariably turns out to be organized and operated by feds. It is a classic and obvious fed operation.

      We prepare for the time. The time approaches.

      • Badvlad says:

        Out here in the fields men been ready since ruby ridge etc. Saxon at max hate Arab spring time
        organizations and Ceasares not needed yet that emerges later.

        What will happen is lone wolves and small wolf packs will demonstrate effective methods part of that effectiveness will be to ensure they are able to demonstrate them. The danger is USG owns optics so methods need to be spin proof suppression proof and so replicable a smoothie will be able to grok the essentials and riff

        • Badvlad says:

          I’ve said for years if white ops fight each other immigrants will repatriate themselves and women will realize how laughable equality was even faggots will drop the lisps WAR SWIMS RIGHT all we need is war

        • jim says:

          Nuts.

          Without a leader and chain of command, brave men can do nothing useful. An army needs a leader, needs a legitimate leader, and it needs a faith that gives that leader legitimacy, which faith also enables them to do the dreadful things necessary in war, and tells them when those dreadful things are legitimate, justified, and necessary.

          • Badvlad says:

            [*deleted for the usual Cathedral payload.*]

            • jim says:

              Not what happened in the American Revolution, not what happened in Afghanistan, not how the Taliban arose.

              If you want to argue for the Cathedral account of these events, we will debate it, but I am not going to let you just confidently take it for granted as something that everyone agrees.

              Taliban was a religious movement that sought and obtained foreign sponsorship, and then, in a situation of anarchic chaos, took action against obviously evil people engaged in stupid, wicked, and self destructive violence, thus gaining legitimacy for their leadership, their chain of command, and their organized violence, and, most importantly, plausibility for their claim to speak for God.

            • Badvlad says:

              Maybe I’m not explaining I’m trying to to give examples and run the fed gauntlet. Or worse end up in the fed database lol.
              I’m saying the “ restoration” isn’t and can’t start with two similarly sized armies facing off with great leaders. Because the path to our side having that as a starting point is impossible and besides they’re have the tanks and planes.
              On the other hand insurgency is something their tanks and planes fail at even against goatherders in open country and most importantly even when they can get away with wiping out wedding parties fairly regularly. If an insurgency arose in the west they would be powerless to use the military by insurgency I don’t mean some militia types trying to seize Portland I mean loners and small groups who are long known to each other simply hitting and running if they’re smart they could easily get away with that and though the police deep state is pretty good once they reach capacity they’re toast it’s a turkey shoot. Insurgents would have millions of targets and cathedral would not know where to look
              Now from that situation you would perhaps be able to raise a real army at some point and leaders.
              I’m skeptical of the religious idea though it’s interesting everyone from you to Anglim to Fuentes and others are shelling in n it. I could pass your test in Latin being a catholic kid but with that background I know that while some kings may have made some priests interpret it more Judaic than Christian eventually some gag wag asks what would Jesus do and Jesus was a commie Jew you and Putin can’t get around that.
              I live where there’s a lot of hardcore Christian’s type with eight kids patriarchal family etc thing is sure they see themselves as deeply conservative but they couldn’t handle 90% of reaction or alt right ideas. They’re incompatible with christs teaching.
              I’ve trie confronting them on the doublethink it’s painful to watch
              On the other hand once a war breaks out you gotta choose a side.

              • jim says:

                You are explaining it just fine.

                Trouble is that what you are explaining is just not true. It is a Cathedral myth. And I am going right back to censoring it if you are disinclined to debate it.

                Insurgency is not a spontaneous rising of the people. It is always externally foreign sponsored, and internally it is always faith centered. It starts with the existing leadership of that faith.

                The American Revolution was not won in America. It was won in London.

                You need to read Sydney George Fisher’s “True History of the American Revolution”.

                For an insurgency, you need a local faith and a foreign sponsor.

                In the Taliban’s case, the faith was the old local and indigenous faith, still live, and now armed with Pakistani weapons and organized with chain of command deriving from existing religious leadership and Pakistani money.

                Similarly, the war in the Vendee was organized through Churches and their congregations.

                Our situation is different. No foreign sponsor, and indigenous Christianity dead through demon worshiping post Christian entry.

                To launch an insurgency, start with a system of belief that has internal leadership and organization, and, your organization being credible, get foreign sponsorship. Over the past few millennia, been around this merry go round many times.

                Insurgencies do not start with violence. They start with social cohesion, organized belief, and getting some serious deep pocket sponsors lined up. Then comes the violence.

    • Aidan says:

      A group of men needs something to do, else it spin apart under the centrifugal force of its members pursuing their own aims. No point organizing before there is something to do, unless you have a deeply embedded conspiracy. A conspiracy can hold together under the power of blackmail; its “something to do” is simply to not get outed until the time is right.

      You would be surprised by how quickly and efficiently a group of unrelated rough men can become an effective fighting force when there is a pressing need for it. Or maybe Caesar comes, and like the Romano-Briton under Aurelianus, our people prove themselves too weak and dissolute on a fundamental level for the task at hand. And we all end up genocided or enslaved. If so, we deserve it. Vae Victis.

      So just chill, bro. If you want action, you can be damn sure it’ll come to you in the not too distant future.

      • Mike in Boston says:

        No point organizing before there is something to do

        It may be too soon to organize, but that does not mean we should all be sitting at home behind our keyboards all day. We need to get to know our neighbors. No need to form an organized “group” of any sort, but it is good to get a bunch of men together periodically. There is always something for a bunch of men to do, even if that something is simply helping each other with heavy jobs around the yard.

        And when civil unrest comes, do you want to be cold-calling neighbors who seem like they might be all right, maybe, but whom you don’t really know? Or do you want to be calling the guys you already know from they time they helped you re-roof your barn?

        • Aidan says:

          I thought that went without saying

          • Mike in Boston says:

            I thought that went without saying

            Maybe it does! But in these times an awful lot of things that go without saying need to be said out loud.

  24. Red says:

    So what happens after the war faction launches their white hat style chemical weapons false flag in the Ukraine? I’m thinking nothing because the non war faction is still in charge but hard to say for sure.

    • The Ducking Man says:

      I’ve been believer that the cathedral is doing God’s bidding in performing the Book of Revelation to the letter. It’s my believe that we are 1 Great Depression (black horse) away from having total war and shit really hit the fan.

      We all know the depression is coming miles away, but the big question is when. Considering it only took us 2 years to take down covid demon. I’d say 4 years top before shit hit the fan.

    • Kunning Drueger says:

      Double posting the link for ease of discussion:
      https://worldedge.substack.com/p/beyond-mathematical-odds-vi-the-shadow?s=w

      So, if the information in that link is essentially correct, we (as in the human animal across its many forms) are on the cusp of some pretty gnarly shit. The Death Worshipers are probably going to try to spin up a global conflict, but i think there’s a higher likelihood that a rash of localized conflicts are going to ignite rapidly, so quickly that it will seem instantaneous. Pinning down the window of The Start is tricky but (and again, assuming the assertions in link related are sound) it will start in the food import reliant countries and regions first, when the grain shortage spikes and the protein shortage tips over from a background issue to an evaporation of pork from grocery shelves (I literally just found out about African Swine Flu… terrifying). For the GAE, it will be the new Cause Worth tweeting For, and UKR war will just… disappear from the social discourse. Capitalists and whites will be blamed, and the charity gravy train will start chugging towards MENA, subsaharan Africa, and all the other fake countries that rely on GAE largess/manipulation. Soon after, the shortages will hit the first world. At that point, we move into Bronze Age Collapse 2: We’re Coming For You. The Urban Zones will explode in violence, and the plains apes will quickly move to the suburbs for a little old fashioned social justice. This will spawn a refugee wave of whites & frens fleeing for rural areas. They will not be welcome.

      At any point after the shortages (real shortages, not Coronatarian/bluegov string pulling and bad math) start, the many fuzes can be/will be lit, then it’s just a matter of who decides to Take A Shot first. I expect lots of assassinations and mob violence will become the new normal.

      This might all be chicken little posting, or I maybe I’m being too conservative, but it genuinely feels like we’re about to witness Full Systemic Collapse. If that happens, whoever Grasps The Nettle first AND hardest AND holds on longest will be the Caesar. Let’s hope it’s a white dude.

      • jim says:

        What that link sees and misinterprets is the collapse of the US dollar, the SWIFT system, and the commodities exchange system.

        Normality bias protects him from seeing what he is seeing.

        What he is seeing is not a physical shortage of wheat, iron, copper, oil and suchlike, but rather collapse of the system of paper counterflows for flows of real goods.

        It is not that people cannot physically get these physical things. It is that they cannot get them through normal channels, and no countersystem of channels exists – and if it did exist, would be deemed illegal and suppressed.

        We are in a situation analogous to the great minority mortgage meltdown. In 2005 November the housing finance system collapsed, but the pretense of normality was maintained through to 2007, partly due to normality bias, partly due to official lies, partly by criminal misconduct of courts and regulators, partly by official violence against those responding to reality.

        But housing flows stopping has less immediate effect than flows of oil and wheat stopping. This time it is going to bite considerably faster.

        In Germany, there is a sudden shortage of jerry cans, as people correctly anticipate older methods of storing and transporting fuel and water. To get ahead of the rush, just purchased a pile of them today.

        They will be short near me soon enough.

        • notglowing says:

          Might get a jerry can. I have a bike than can run a very high amount of kilometres per litre of fuel, so if fuel becomes more difficult to get that might help me. If you carry a can on your bike you can extend its range without refuelling at a station tremendously. Completely useless though, unless there’s few stations that are stocked, or they are stocked less often.

        • Mike in Boston says:

          It is not that people cannot physically get these physical things. It is that they cannot get them through normal channels, and no countersystem of channels exists – and if it did exist, would be deemed illegal and suppressed

          This reminds me of how in early 2020, there was little pork to be found in the supermarket, and yet farmers were shooting pigs and burying them because the few large government-approved slaughterhouses were shut down.

          I am surprised to see that USG seems to acknowledge the problem and is promising to use some of the output of its money printer to build more, smaller slaughterhouses. Don’t they know about the impact on The Climate?

        • pyrrhus says:

          Nevertheless, without adequate supplies of fertilizer and other agricultural inputs, there will be less food produced in the US, maybe a lot less if the drought continues, and that will be a major problem…

  25. Kunning Drueger says:

    https://youtu.be/khZVuIQEQ50

    Can any IT/infosec folks here gauge the veracity of the claims in this video? The presenter has some good video tutorials on virtual boxen that I went through, but his speech pattern and low verbal IQ are confusing.

    The summary of his claim is that there’s a virtual world war going on around the global network (or network of networks) and the malware being used is massively destructive.

    • jim says:

      Yes, this is happening, state level hacking is fouling everything up. Though what is causing problems for me is that network connections between countries are being shut down.

      If you have anything of value, such as lightning wallet, need to run it over a wireguard vpn.

      Everything that matters needs to be run inside a well sealed wireguard vpn, such that applications you do not trust can only talk to those machines and docker images they should be talking to. If you have a lightning gateway that crosses between state level actors, you need them to talk through a wireguard hub on a machine in a location that such neither nation is likely to cut the connections.

      Wireguard is secure for doing what it is supposed to do. Nothing else is secure. Everything else has been backdoored, and more and more people are discovering the backdoors

      More and more state level actors can penetrate every other vpn.

      He claims that state level backdoors have leaked to private actors hacking for private profit – which is equivalent to the situation that in a war, guns and rockets leak out into the hands of all sorts of people. I don’t have any direct knowledge of that happening, but it is the sort of thing that will happen in a state level cyber war.

      I am currently wireguarding everything.

      Lots of people have lost their lightning gateways because network connections between the parties to the gateway have been shut down.

      Most cryptographic software has been backdoored by the NSA, and these backdoors are leaking all over the place.

      Wireguard can guarantee that something can only talk to those things it is supposed to talk to, but it cannot guarantee that packets can reach their destination. Packets passing between hostile or untrusted regimes keep being deliberately misdirected or dumped. But at least the regime receiving the misdirected packets cannot read them and end up dumping them and you can relocate your wireguard hub to a neutral.

      • Kunning Drueger says:

        Forgive the ignorance of this question, but what are the chances of some kind of digital/network “Kessler Syndrome” being inadvertently initiated? Like, with all the various state level hacker teams using 0 days and activating buried exploits generating some sort of chain reaction with bot networks just laying waste to everything connected to the global network?

        Typing it out, it sounds like boomer tier trash scifi plot. But there are so many overlapping bot networks just utilizing XP boxen out there… I wonder how much is automated and how much is actually being implemented by human actors.

        • notglowing says:

          Chain reaction? Not really.
          It is possible for a virus to infect computers it’s not supposed to, though state actors usually add code checking what country the computer is in (and non-state actors as well to avoid pissing off Russia).

          • notglowing says:

            Of course, one infected computer can spread the virus to others, if that’s what you mean by chain reaction. But computer viruses do not mutate, because digital information can be copied perfectly.

            • Kunning Drueger says:

              So Olympic Games (refered to as Stuxnet by journalists) was apparently very well crafted and purpose built to infect the PLCs used in the centrifuges at the Iranian nuclear project. It would dramatically speed up and slow down the centrifuges while logging “everything is normal and fine” messages to the controller. I believe they infected a particular engineer who would bring his personal laptop into the air gapped facility. Olympic Games got out and spread, infecting PLCs in dams and other civil infrastructure. I’m wondering if there’s a similar risk as the various opposing teams keep slinging malware at each other. This will be the first world war in the cyberverse. A whole lot of theory and conjecture is going to cross over into observed reality.

              • notglowing says:

                Well, it is possible that a virus designed for one system will accidentally infect another. This seems a bit different from your original post where you imagined there being some autonomy in how the viruses themselves originate, somehow.

                That said, it’s also more likely one virus will be modified and used against the enemy, or even random infrastructure by third parties.

                • Kunning Drueger says:

                  Yeah, chalk it up to ignorance and poor writing. What I was trying to postulate is a scenario in which there are a multitude of instances wherein the Olympic Games progression occurs. As well, bot networks that are supposed to be systematically targeting specific infrastructure in specific places start hammering other things all over the place. I guess that isn’t possible?

                • notglowing says:

                  I do think it is possible. Because the way they target one system might is not going to be perfect.
                  But it’s not super likely because these kinds of viruses use very precise conditions usually (see Stuxnet which you mentioned).

                  The issue with accidentally hitting your own infrastructure though is that viruses rely on specific vulnerabilities. The more sophisticated ones like Stuxnet are more specific.
                  You can always patch those zero-days in your systems, and once malware is discovered it can usually be eliminated easily if you control all the systems that are to be infected.

                  I think the possibility does exist of accidentally hitting yourself, though.
                  It’s also not that weird for a virus to be programmed to mutate somewhat randomly, but that is something that’s intentionally programmed into it, and would have to change it within certain parameters (made entirely in order to avoid detection, not to change functionality), so it shouldn’t allow for the malware to alter what it does.
                  Shouldn’t of course, but might. I don’t see a purpose for a virus to freely mutate how it works though.

      • Cloudswrest says:

        Re. Wireguard VPN.

        Looking this up, I gather wireguard is open source code for setting up your own VPN among peers, not some centralized VPN service like NordVPN or ProtonVPN.

        • jim says:

          You can sign up with lots of services that provide commercial wireguard VPN, but I would conjecture they are all penetrated also. On the other hand, any commercial vpn service that does not provide wireguard, or provides it only as an option, not as its one and only vpn client, is definitely penetrated, whereas if a commercial vpn service provides wireguard as its one and only client, you do not definitely know it has been penetrated.

          What we should have, and as far as I know do not yet have, is a lightning wallet that integrates with wireguard to route around countries disconnecting from each other on the internet and countries blocking and redirecting name service, and gets its vpn service from one the major gateways with whom it is connected, and its name service for other lightning wallets and other gateways from that vpn service.

          But when I commended wireguard, I had in mind setting up your own vpn server to connect your own far flung computers, and that people who have regular commercial relationships with each other should do so over their own wireguard, rather than over https, or the numerous commercial services.

        • A2 says:

          Have a look at Tailscale in that case.

          https://tailscale.com/blog/how-tailscale-works/

          • jim says:

            Tailscale is penetrated by our enemies:

            “However, we don’t handle user authentication ourselves. Instead, we always outsource authentication to an OAuth2, OIDC (OpenID Connect), or SAML provider. Popular ones include Gmail, GSuite, and Office365.”

            OAuth2, OpenID connect, and Saml are owned root and branch by our enemies.

            But it is a cool idea. What it actually needs is a user identification system that actually works, for example one based on Opaque.

            • A2 says:

              It’s not impossible to build an identity provider on one’s own, even if it can be tedious. I expect one could also straightforwardly introduce new protocols into that framework if so desired. As a pull request or perhaps a fork.

              I think Tailscale overall provides a very nice design, whether you want to build on it or clone the functionality. Since it’s oriented to organizations, some modification or extension may be desired to handle looser groups well.

            • Anonymous says:

              Link appears to be broken there.

            • notglowing says:

              OAuth2 is just a key-based protocol for authentication flow. It can be implemented fully independently with your own authentication server, and your own keys. It’s just usually easier to outsource it to an auth provider.

              • jim says:

                On checking, I find that my dim view of Oauth2 is based on dim view of auth providers using it.

                It is an excellent protocol, and is designed so that it can be implemented in a completely secure way, that preserves whatever privacy requirements the party implementing the protocol wants to provide.

                The trouble is in the particular widely used implementations of this protocol. I was unaware of the internal structure of this protocol, and am still unaware of secure privacy preserving implementations of it. But, since they have gone to considerable effort to ensure that secure and privacy preserving implementations could exist, they very likely do exist.

                And if they do not, an existing implementation could be forked and fixed

                Tailwind is designed to link to Oauth2

                Oauth2 is designed to link to any identity model, and that identity model can have whatever security and privacy properties the party implementing it desires.

                So, wireguard under tailwind driven by Oauth2, driven by a good implementation of Oauth2 with a good identity model.

            • notglowing says:

              “Each node generates a random public/private keypair for itself, and associates the public key with its identity (see login, below).

              The node contacts the coordination server and leaves its public key and a note about where that node can currently be found, and what domain it’s in.

              The node downloads a list of public keys and addresses in its domain, which have been left on the coordination server by other nodes.

              The node configures its WireGuard instance with the appropriate set of public keys.

              Note that the private key never, ever leaves its node. This is important because the private key is the only thing that could potentially be used to impersonate that node when negotiating a WireGuard session. As a result, only that node can encrypt packets addressed from itself, or decrypt packets addressed to itself. It’s important to keep that in mind: Tailscale node connections are end-to-end encrypted (a concept called “zero trust networking”).”

              This is the part *I* take issue with. It’s Zero Trust Networking, but only to a point.
              It’s good that the keys are client generated and data is end-to-end encrypted.
              But this benefit seems very superficial when the *identity* associated with each key is determined by the central server.
              What use is end to end encryption when you are not sure *who* you are talking to?
              Granted, you could use another protocol, once the connection is established, to verify the identity of the other party in a zero trust manner, without needing the server.

              But I would prefer if the identity *was* the public key to begin with, then this association between identity and keys would not need to lie in the hands of the server.
              Memorable names can then be associated with the public key through ENS, which runs on blockchain.
              I wonder how hard it would be to add this functionality to Tailscale. Might be very tricky, since identity is entirely server-verified at the moment.

              • notglowing says:

                It seems like the Tailscale server, when connecting two clients, does just operate on public keys, and the login step where public keys are associated with identity, is separate. Which makes this easier to change.

              • A2 says:

                I think this ‘server case’ arises from the ‘organizational’ use case. It seems quite convenient there. I agree that i would be interesting to develop this further in various ways, e.g., robustness/decentralization of servers or perhaps getting rid of the server aötogether.

                I also wonder if it’s today possible/convenient to use multiple wireguard tunnels with different identities.

                Finally, might also be worth taking a closer look at how wireguard itself works and its current limitations.

                https://www.wireguard.com/known-limitations/

        • Mike in Boston says:

          wireguard is open source code for setting up your own VPN

          Yep. Here is a handy script that provides a simple menu-driven interface for installing and configuring wireguard on one’s own cloud server:
          https://github.com/Nyr/wireguard-install

    • Kunning Drueger says:

      This… source, I guess, has a lot going on, but if you scroll down about 2/3 the page, the author discusses topics relevant to the OG post. The whole thing is actually pretty shocking…

      https://worldedge.substack.com/p/beyond-mathematical-odds-vi-the-shadow?s=w

  26. notglowing says:

    This might seem like a much less important thing to discuss, but I really hate daylight savings time.
    Seems it is “permanent” in the US now. Meaningless formality of course, since it was already implemented.
    https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/69

    • Red says:

      I’m in favor of daylight savings time, but it should be happening all the time. Gain a few seconds here, lose a few seconds there, etc – all handled by computers. It’s the abruptness of the change that is the issue.

      • Cloudswrest says:

        Indeed! It should be phased in at ~2 minutes a day from 3/15 to 4/15.

        If I recall we already tried permanent daylight savings time and it was a disaster. People don’t like getting up in the dark at 8 am around the Winter solstice. The whole point of the clock adjustment is to reduce the temporal variability of sunrise and shift it to the evening. And if people acclimate to it what then? Go to daylight savings savings (sic) time?

        In antiquity the day started at sunrise so there was no need for any clock adjustment. In modern times clocks are synchronized to the solar zenith since there is far less variability throughout the year, only the E-W analemma variation. With modern networked time reference it’s a trivial matter to phase in daylight savings time over a month.

        If they are going to have a permanent time it should be STANDARD time where solar zenith is around noon.

        • Red says:

          Why not just set Sunrise as 7am every day? Easy to with computers and would feel very nature to humans.

          • Joe W. says:

            Among other reasons, because every clock and watch in the country would need to be connected to the internet.

            The communists are taking over the country and we’re wasting time on septic tanks and reinventing time. Let’s stay focused here.

            • Red says:

              We’re awaiting for a Caesar. Working on productive ideas for the future so we have something to offer when Caesar starts looking for fixes to the problems he’s facing is what we’re about.

              • Pooch says:

                I’m starting to think we may have to do what the early Christians did all over again before Constantine. From the death of Jesus to the Edict of Milan was three centuries before Christianity was ready for prime time.

                • Red says:

                  I think we’re very uncharted waters. To me this feels like the bronze age collapse of a century of decline and destruction. But then I look at Elon Musk Starship or beautiful cathedrals going up in Russia and I have hope for a better future than I was left with.

                  But then again, lots of people tried to turn the collapsing Bronze age civilizations around and all failed, besides Assyria. Assyria retreated to their heartland, harden their religion, married off their daughters by 14 and became unrelentingly badass in warfare. From a trading empire into the one of the greatest military machines on earth after the total collapse of the bronze age.

                  The future belongs to those who show up and if there’s no Caesar, best to become like the Assyrians.

                • Joe W. says:

                  > I’m starting to think we may have to do what the early Christians did all over again before Constantine. From the death of Jesus to the Edict of Milan was three centuries before Christianity was ready for prime time.

                  Everything you post here is some pathetic flavor of defeatism.

                  Everything.

                • jim says:

                  They were facing a dead state religion. We are facing a live one. When it dies, opportunity arises. If we miss that opportunity, then we do what the early Christians did. Built communities in which families and reproduction are possible, in hiding inside a society where it has become extremely difficult.

                  While opposing a live state religion, such an effort would be extremely dangerous. Against a dead state religion, considerably safer. China now has the largest Christian community in the world, with Church meetings that are often literally underground.

                  I have been saying that Xi should go with Confucianism plus Old Hong Kong’s Manchester capitalism, plus Trump’s National Capitalism, but in a few generations, Chinese Christianity will be the only viable option for China. That is what happens when Christianity is up against a dead state religion.

                • Joe W. says:

                  > and became unrelentingly badass in warfare

                  We don’t need to become “unrelentingly badass in warfare.”

                  Our enemies are a bunch of unarmed weakling degenerates who are afraid of Covid. Compared to them, anyone who’s been to a gym or a firing range in the past five years is already “unrelentingly badass in warfare.”

                  What we need to do is get off the couch for a change.

                • jim says:

                  > We don’t need to become “unrelentingly badass in warfare.”

                  Once we achieve state power or quasi state power, we will need to become unrelentingly badass in warfare.

                  An individual leftist is no match for an individual right winger, but the problem in warfare is collective violence, genocide being the ultimate expression of collective violence.

                  The reason Globohomo cries “genocide” all the time is that it has committed quite a few genocides, and would have committed another in Syria if they had not been interrupted by Trump. They were all set to genocide the Alawites – who, by the way, are the most fertile subgroup of the Syrian population, and despite theoretically being Muslim worship a triune God.

                  In the end, we are likely to need to demonstrate more capability for genocide than they have. The wars with the feather indians provide a good Christian model. Sometimes, as seldom as possible, Old Testament solutions are appropriate and necessary.

                • Pooch says:

                  While opposing a live state religion, such an effort would be extremely dangerous. Against a dead state religion, considerably safer. China now has the largest Christian community in the world, with Church meetings that are often literally underground.

                  Roman Paganism was a live state religion of considerable degeneracy just as our paganism is a live state religion of considerable degeneracy. I see no difference functionally.

                  Incredibly dangerous to be an early Christian before Constantine. Many were persecuted and martyr’d in horrific ways. We may have to suffer through this again to gain traction.

                • Kunning Drueger says:

                  Personal attacks! I need an emotional support dog, stat!

                  In all seriousness, I agree @Joe. But, as has been pointed out to me and anyone else who suggests doing anything IRL (after the pathetic cries of FED! die down) any real move to organize and act would be, most likely, targeted and infiltrated or destroyed quickly.

                  For the record, I think having some kind of meet up centered on innocuous activities like camping or D&D or some other recreational activity would be very good for morale and mannerbund formulation. I know it wouldn’t be easy, and there are real risks and challenges, but I still think it would be worth it.

                • Joe W. says:

                  > The reason Globohomo cries “genocide” all the time is that it has committed quite a few genocides, and would have committed another in Syria if they had not been interrupted by Trump.

                  I really couldn’t care less about Syria. The only Globohomo genocide I’m worried about is the one they want for American white non-shitlibs.

                  Luckily for us, Globohomo is a paper tiger and easily defeated. Unluckily for us, far too many on our side still haven’t realized it.

                • jim says:

                  Cannot be easily defeated, except by collective violence, which needs a leader and an army, an army whose faith gives that leader legitimacy.

                  A major objective of the shilling program is to prevent such a faith. They are very much aware of the threat and the problem. Their MO is always to sow internal division preparatory to external extermination.

                  You should care about the Alawites, for we face the same enemies using the same tactics with the same goals.

                • Joe W. says:

                  > any real move to organize and act would be, most likely, targeted and infiltrated or destroyed quickly.

                  I’m not interested in any form of meeting, communication, or organization for exactly the above reasons. It’s not clear that organization is the way forward anyway, at least outside of one’s own community.

                  But that doesn’t mean people should see the situation as hopeless, and shouldn’t be prepared. There’s way too much defeatism here. Our enemies are a joke, and if we’re prepared, we’ll crush them in a matter of days once the bell finally rings.

                • jim says:

                  > I’m not interested in any form of meeting, communication, or organization.

                  Without which, any attempt to resist Globohomo is utterly impotent and will be crushed like a bug.

                  To win at collective organized violence, need a leader and an army, and the army needs a faith that gives that leader legitimacy, and justifies that which is all too frequently necessary in the course of collective organized violence.

                • Joe W. says:

                  > Cannot be easily defeated, except by collective violence,

                  Collective, yes. But centrally organized? Not necessarily.

                  The liberation we seek won’t require an army marching from coast to coast. In most places, including even places like New York and California, we already have our enemies surrounded.

                • jim says:

                  > Collective, yes. But centrally organized? Not necessarily.

                  Yes it will require large scale centrally organized violence. Over the past several millennia, we have been around this merry go round many times.

                  Without a leader and chain of command, you get exterminated.

                • Red says:

                  >I’m not interested in any form of meeting, communication, or organization for exactly the above reasons. It’s not clear that organization is the way forward anyway, at least outside of one’s own community.

                  You’re still thinking in faggot terms. Armies don’t win without organization and cooperation. Cooperation is hard especially with a live state religion and security forces ever more paranoid about the weakness of the state they’re running.

                  Organization is currently not possible. Later it will be, but not just yet. Either accept it, or go join a glowie group and get yourself setup by the Feds in some stupid plot.

                • Aidan says:

                  Go pop a federal agent in the head and see how paper the tiger really is then.

                  If I could wave my magic wand and summon an army of bad motherfuckers, of course it could defeat the gay empire. Organizing an army of bad motherfuckers is the problem.

                  You say “no organizing” and “use violence against the enemy”. Well, in that case, have fun with your mass shooting, just make sure to livestream it and drop the link here so we can have a good laugh.

              • Joe W. says:

                > We’re awaiting for a Caesar.

                Who’s the communists’ Caesar? AOC? Kamala?

                > Working on productive ideas for the future so we have something to offer when Caesar starts looking for fixes to the problems he’s facing is what we’re about.

                Nobody — and I mean nobody — is interested in replacing their sewer connection with a septic tank, or having the time change EVERY SINGLE DAY.

                • Red says:

                  Joe are you faggot? I’ve noticed you contribute nothing and shit leaks out of your ass like Marco Rubo after a night in a Miami bathhouse.

                • jim says:

                  There are a whole lot of people who are interested in the state sticking to matters that are the proper concern of the state.

                  Time keeping and sewage really should not be a state matter. Individual and small group solutions work.

                • Joe W. says:

                  > Joe are you faggot? I’ve noticed you contribute nothing and shit leaks out of your ass like Marco Rubo after a night in a Miami bathhouse.

                  You can throw as many low-IQ middle-school insults at me as you want, but there isn’t a single person in America lying awake tonight hoping a Caesar will come and free them from the monstrosity of … Daylight Savings. Or municipal sewer hookups.

                • Kunning Drueger says:

                  OK Joe, maybe you have a point. Why don’t you start a comment thread that is focused on something or some things you deem worthy of discussion?

                  I know sewage, timekeeping, physical security, and many other nuts & bolts topics aren’t fun or sexy, but the Restoration Project isn’t just about the fun or sexy things, it is about a holistic restructuring of social life. Ordering our minds, ordering our relationships, ordering our family groups, or communities, our regions, and our cultures. Lots of discussions have to occur, even if the vast majority end up at “ok, we agree to not do anything different,” or some other boring outcome.

                • Joe W. says:

                  > physical security, and many other nuts & bolts topics aren’t fun or sexy, … Ordering our minds,

                  No, those are excellent topics. Those are things that will both help us and help/inspire others. My point was only that nobody’s going to war to get rid of sewer hookups.

                • Kunning Drueger says:

                  That’s where you’re wrong, bucko. Even now, as you stare at the screen, my Righteous Plungers are duck walking through the very sewers you love to begin The Last Flush… which is basically the Day of The Rake, but for anyone foolish enough to be connected to a municipal waste system.

                  Float on, my brothers. We are only one big push away from the Great Relief!

                  ita semper civitatem

                • The Cominator says:

                  Security is certainly a worthy topic… not sure about the other stuff.

        • jim says:

          The universal solution for planet dwellers is to desynchronize watches, that everyone has his local solar time according to his location, and whenever time is communicated electronically, it is communicated as atomic time, and displayed in his local time.

    • pyrrhus says:

      But not in AZ or Hawaii…One reason I like living in Arizona…

  27. Mister Grumpus says:

    About the blatantly telegraphed false-flag chemical/bio attack thing that we’re all expecting.

    This reminds me of a stunt they tried to pull against Youngkin in Virginia. They sent these young people to stand somewhere with tiki torches and say “We’re with Youngkin all the way” for the local TV news, but in that small group of 6-10 people they included a woman and a mulatto. They didn’t have to do that, but they did.

    That was not a bond villain’s evil genius master plan. That was some middle-level idiots taking some initiative, “working towards the fuhrer”, and trying to win a pat on the head from their teacher. It was a real life embodiment of Jim’s shill test, where even a fully anonymous commenter can’t answer an easy question in an obvious but un-PC way because the message might get to his boss or HR lady.

    I also remember some gas canisters in Syria that had allegedly been dropped from airplanes going 400 miles and hour, but you could tell hadn’t been.

    The dumber majority of course fall for these stunts anyway, thanks to media spin, but I can’t imagine that includes the smarter fraction of people that you still need to pull off risky complicated capers in real life.

    My question is, given the seriousness of this Ukraine thing now, who here is expecting it to be done well by the A Team? Do they even have an A Team anymore? And if they do have an A Team then will that A Team really carry it out, or just sandbag it because they know what horrors could ensue afterward?

    And who is expecting a half-ass botch job by fuckwits?

    Is “false flag” still part of your mental playbook of geopolitical dirty tricks? Or rather, do you see these things as “mid-level suck-up’s taking the initiative and trying to get noticed”?

    • Kunning Drueger says:

      AZOG Battalion is real, but they aren’t alone, and I don’t think they are at the pinnacle of the IQ pyramid. With all the various Ukronazi groups being given weapons and intel, they are more than empowered to do dumb things to innocent people. At this point, a Ukrainian with a Hitler-stache and a swastika tattoo could eat a live jewish child raw, on film, then say the 14 Words, and the West would say: why did Putin do this?

    • The Cominator says:

      Youngkin had really really impressed me until this Russia crisis when he joined the spiral (where to my knowledge DeSantis has not).

    • Mister Grumpus says:

      More succinctly this time:

      Let’s suppose that the expected chemical or biological false flag event goes down in or around Ukraine.

      Would you see that as an evil genius master plan straight out of the Alex Jones show, planned out by IQ-180’s at the top of the pyramid and executed by the A Team?

      Or rather, would you see it as less impressive mid-level people taking the initiative and trying something in order to “get views and likes” from their own higher-up’s?

      Neither of the above?

      • clovis says:

        Yes, it seems like the false flagging that gets done repeatedly is done in a hamfisted way, viz. Jussie Smollet. Even those who according to the formal constitution are supposed to hold the reigns of power are noticeably incompetent, viz. Harris in Eastern Europe and Biden in everything. But does that preclude the possibility that a real evil genius could stage a false flag in the Ukraine?

        • James says:

          No evil genius is going to stage a false flag in Ukraine because the evil geniuses see that there is no profit and a lot of risk from war with Russia. It would take a demonic genius and I’m not sure those actually exist.

      • The Cominator says:

        https://ibb.co/ftBkKzP

        This may be my tinfoil hat towards the Vatican and the Jesuits… but this is where I’ve long suspected the hidden hand behind the attack Russia agitation is coming from.

        The Vatican is consecrating Russia to the “Immaculate heart of Mary” (ie they want to start the war to destroy the Orthodox church and sacrifice much of the population to Ishtar/Isis) expect the False Flag probably shortly after that date.

        • Pooch says:

          Schizo mode engaged.

        • clovis says:

          Hold on, I thought “consecrating Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary” had something to do with the apparition of Mary at Fatima. Supposedly she told the kids that Russia was supposed to be consecrated to her sacred heart.

          I don’t understand the details of this. I didn’t know that Catholics thought the Pope could consecrate a whole nation to Mary’s heart or whatever. If he can do that, you’d think he would do it for every nation.

          But papist obscurantism aside, I don’t see how this equals wanting to destroy the orthodox church.

    • Mayflower Sperg says:

      Do false flags ever really happen?

      Idea #1: Drop poison gas on a Ukrainian orphanage, killing dozens of children, and say Putin did it.

      Idea #2: Scatter a few empty gas canisters, children’s shoes, and toys around a vacant “orphanage” and say Putin did it. For extra theatrics, have pretty women sobbing as they dig rows of little graves and bury bundles of rags in them.

      The first idea involves much more work, much more risk, and pretty much the same propaganda value, so why would anyone attempt it?

      • Red says:

        Things are more believable with real bodies. Kids often play act dead for this sort of stuff, but kids are awful actors.

      • Pseudo-Chrysostom says:

        When the eternal revolutionary has total narrative control, why not use it to make belief in more convenient realities? If you need a target to irredeemably heinous, in order to get fence-sitters on board with liquidating them, but they are not obliging you by committing irredeemably heinous acts, then you do them yourself. Blow up a reactor, gas an elementary school, shoot up a concert, and make it so they are responsible. And why not? You have total narrative control; you have great incentive to do so, and little to no penalty for doing so. It’s what you can do. It’s what you will do.

      • Mayflower Sperg says:

        If you have total narrative control, you need only say that these atrocities happened and the rubes will believe you. Actual dead bodies are not needed because no one will travel into a war zone to examine them. Emotions, not evidence, will guide the public’s reaction.

        • Kunning Drueger says:

          They do not exercise total narrative control, just overwhelming narrative control. This is why RT was liquidated and not subsumed.

  28. Calvin says:

    Rumor has it that Saudi Arabia is considered accepting Chinese currency instead of dollars for their oil sales from now on. We know they told Biden to fuck off when he tried to beg them for more oil. If what they say is true, the economic ramifications will be difficult to overstate. The globohomo empire continues to crumble at the edges: https://www.wsj.com/articles/saudi-arabia-considers-accepting-yuan-instead-of-dollars-for-chinese-oil-sales-11647351541

    • pyrrhus says:

      Maybe wrecking the existing petro-dollar and SWIFT based financial system wasn’t such a hot move, eh?….

      • James says:

        Would probably have been fine if he hadn’t also decimated domestic oil production.

  29. restitutor_orbis says:

    Let’s turn to our trusted source in news, the New York Times, to see how the war in Russia is going…

    https://www.yahoo.com/news/finding-way-war-ukraine-proves-114008948.html

    **
    “But so far, all [efforts to end the war] have hit the stone wall of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s refusal to engage in any serious negotiation.”

    Imagine the NY Time in 1944: “But so far, all efforts to end the war have hit the stone wall of Roosevelt and Stalin’s refusal to accept anything but unconditional surrender”.

    Well, yes. The side with the upper hand decides.

    **
    “At the Pentagon, there are models … in which Putin settles for what some believe was his original objective: seizing a broad swath of the south and east, connecting Russia by land to Crimea, which he annexed in 2014.”

    If that was his objective, he’s not “settling” for it. He’s…gaining…it.

    “Putin is losing so badly that he might have to settle for his original objective”

    **
    “Just as the past two weeks revealed that Russia’s vaunted military faltered in its invasion plan, the next two or three may reveal whether Ukraine can survive as a state, and negotiate an end to the war.”

    Ah yes, the old faltering-to-victory plan.

    “Russia has faltered in its invasion plan so badly that we can’t be sure that Ukraine can survive as a state, even though Putin’s original objective was to seize the south and the east.”

    Truly a failure unparalleled in military history.

    **
    “In private, officials express concern that Putin might seek to take Moldova, another former Soviet republic that has never joined NATO and is considered particularly vulnerable.”

    Indeed. “Russia is doing so badly at conquering Ukraine it may conquer more countries!”

    **
    The article then goes on to discuss how Russia is about to use chemical weapons. That gives further credence to the theory that a false flag is imminent.

    • notglowing says:

      Well this thinking is not surprising. It makes perfect sense to them because they can just discount any dissonance with Putin being “crazy”, same with anyone else who opposes them.

      Putin is losing but doesn’t want to negotiate? It’s because he’s just insane.
      Putin is losing but wants to invade Moldova? That madman could do anything if he’s backed into a corner.
      Putin obviously wouldn’t need to annex all of Ukraine, so why would that be the objective? Well…

    • pyrrhus says:

      Foreign fighters have taken it on the chin big time…cruise missile destroyed one camp, and the vaunted Canadian sniper was, according to Telegram, killed by Russian Special forces…Time to get out of Dodge, as many have belatedly realized…

  30. The Cominator says:

    https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/03/ukraine-done-deal-flattened-lost-steve-harrigan-fox-news-upon-return-ukraine/

    Fox News reporter via the gateway pundit (take from that what you will considering the source, I’ll give you my view) says that in conventional terms its over for the Ukraine and that it has indeed recently been flattened where there is resistance.

    Being a purple pilled normiecon he predicts guerilla war, this would depend on no negotiated surrender. From the enemy demons of the state department pov they need compromised drug addict Zelensky (Jewish so diminished feelings towards the local people, also worried about Azov fuckers or foreign glowniggers killing him) to make no treaty and for Azov fags to keep committing guerilla warfare and terrorism from Western and NATO territory. Putin wants a treaty where he doesn’t have to take most of Ukraine.

    Putin ideally needs to take Zelensky alive to end this…

    • Dr. Faust says:

      MSM appears to be rolling back the glorious triumphalism of the Ukraine. However, the isolated, medicated, vaccinated, caffeinated, social media influencers want some blood but are kept in check via decrepit Boomers clinging to life and litany. The blood lust will turn inward if something else doesn’t pop off soon. And that something needs to be great in scale otherwise this war will fizzle. Enter mossad stage left? The people are so gullible they’ll believe anything so the next great outrage event could be anything, anywhere and blamed on anyone.

      I figure April 1 is a good line of demarcation. If Russia and Ukraine war is still the talk of the town then the pro war Cathedral will likely escalate to mass thermonuclear destruction. If the war fades then the Boomers managed to deescalate Trannygeddon somehow.

      • The Cominator says:

        ”MSM appears to be rolling back the glorious triumphalism of the Ukraine.” Hard to have it survive the glorious BTFOing of the reddit trannies.

        • Red says:

          Even the special forces faggots who “volunteered” have no idea how to operate without total air superiority are apparently getting there shit pushed in.

  31. Kunning Drueger says:

    This may be a function of my poorly tuned midwit radar for smarts, but the comment section of link related was refreshingly interesting:

    https://www.eugyppius.com/p/ukraine-and-the-global-american-empire?s=r

    Jim, maybe it’s time to launch a substack, but instead of just double posting the blog, or writing unique posts, you just post haiku, koan, or painfully brief crimethink where each letter or word is a hyperlink to a JimBlog post.

    “Hitler was not wrong
    but he may have been confused
    socialists are gay”

    “Stop arguing; start spanking.”

    “Black males are dangerous.”

    Obviously, this is a terrible idea.

    • ExileStyle says:

      I’m sure he could set a new world record for speed of banning, deplatforming and all-around cancellation. Maybe even lose his bank accounts in the process, possibly even get his own plaque in the ADL Hall of Hate Fame or something like that.

      In all seriousness, I wonder whether the professional deplatformers are that good at reading. There is some wildly beyond the pale stuff in the old Moldbug posts (some stuff about slavery, segregation e.g. sticks in my mind) but Yarvin seems to be turning himself into a pundit without too many problems. Maybe it’s just so far out for them it is incomprehensible, or sounds like satire.

      Jim’s style has always been much more direct, though. There are some soundbites in there hard to misunderstand, and even illegal in some European countries. So probably best to steer clear…

    • someDude says:

      Echoing back your last thought. This is among the last smart person free speech zone left on the net. Let’s just leave good enough alone…..for moment.

      Obviously, we will need to expand at some point, but not using the enemy’s platforms. Not risking the loss of anonymity.

      A day might come when Jim will have to reveal himself, but that day is not today. For the moment, he must be as anonymous as possible. Let’s not fool around with substacks, media appearances and like for the time being.

      Our day will come. Let’s conserve our energies and our identities until that day.

    • Karl says:

      Anyone can launch a substack and link to Jim’s blog.

      Go for it, if you don’t mind that any information you give to substack will be published.

      Spandrell’s idea of drafting normies into the right camp comes to mind, but please keep in mind that (depending on jurisdiction) it might be a crime if you open the subbstack account in the name of a real person for which you can provide all the data (financial and otherwise) that substack requires.

  32. The Cominator says:

    BAP’s article against pro Uke/globohomo faggots either pretending to be on the right or who are butthurt Poles etc still mad about the NKVD killing 60 gorillion of them.

    https://theamericansun.com/2022/03/14/bap-covers-ukraine-the-european-right-freedom/

    • Basil says:

      Putin is right about criticizing Ukraine as a fake state created by the Bolsheviks. The problem is that his regime is just as false and was created by the Bolsheviks, who are the executioners of not only the Polish, but also the Russian people. The game of Putin’s Jewish propagandists on the patriotic feelings of Russians is no different from the game of party Romanians and Slovaks, or the heroic Zelensky, who sends Ukrainian boys to die. NATO support for Europeans is the same as Putin’s support for Russians, as evidenced by the real successes of Vladimir Vladimirovich in Russia, which BAP mentions. I will answer the cynical lies about the Orthodoxy and the protection of Russians with facts. For every 1000 Russians, the population is growing at a rate of -9.4 per year. More than half of marriages in the Russian Federation break up, taking into account the North Caucasus and Tatarstan. In most countries of decaying Europe, the situation is better. Every year, the Russian Federation hosts hundreds of thousands of guests from Central Asia, and regimes friendly to Putin (for example, in Turkmenistan) subject Russians to outright genocide. As a result of a special operation, Russians die, get poorer, and also rush to escape from Russia, Russians are the only people in the world and Russia against whom hatred is allowed, which indicates a catastrophically low status. Powerful, national, Christian leader.

      “Russian Federation” is not Russia. When (If) Russia will return, it will be obvious to everyone, but this did not happen and so far Russia’s return is not visible on the horizon.

      • Mike in Boston says:

        Your point that the Russian Federation is not Russia, a view Solzhenitsyn also shared in recommending that Russia let the non-Russian ethnicities go (but re-incorporate ethnic Russian areas outside the RF), is well taken. Mr. Putin’s recent words also seem to support his having a view of the RF as a multinational state:

        I am a Russian. As they say, all my relatives are Ivans and Marias. But when I see heroes like this young man, Nurmagomed Gadzhimagomedov, a resident of Dagestan and an ethnic Lak, and our other soldiers, I can hardly stop myself from saying: I am a Lak, a Dagestani, a Chechen, an Ingush, a Russian, a Tatar, a Jew, a Mordovian, an Ossetian… It is impossible to name all of the more than 300 nationalities and ethnic groups that live in Russia. I think you can understand me. I am proud to be part of this world, part of our powerful and strong multinational people of Russia.

        But you know, by their fruits shall ye know them. Mr. Putin’s gambit in Ukraine elicited sanctions that have largely cut Russia off from Globohomo’s cultural sphere. Andrey Tkachov was right to be happy about a loss of Facebook, Pornhub, and Eurovision. If the Russian Federation, even a multicultural one, could take advantage of cultural isolation to build an alternative cultural sphere free of Globohomo, I’m sure you would agree that could only be a good thing for Russia.

        As nice as that would be, I’m still pessimistic. I think the sway of Instagram over young Russians is still too much. It would have been better for Russia, before the invasion, to have pumped some of the money spent on the invasion into serious work on capturing more mindshare with alternatives to Globohomo. Why didn’t they learn from their mistakes with “Nashi”, tweak it, and iterate? Why, for heaven’s sake, did they jump on the clot-shot bandwagon (and into bed with Western big pharma?

        At the very least, why didn’t Putin realize that Russia needs its own seed banks in order to have food security? The Soviet-era seed banks, as far as I know, ceased to exist in the 90s, and Russia started needing seeds from the West for its agriculture. And now lo and behold, they had to exempt Western seed companies from sanctions:

        Starting March 14, Rosselkhoznadzor resumes the import of seed material into the Russian Federation from sorting and packaging places in 11 foreign countries, which were previously subject to restrictions
        […]
        – seed material of corn and sunflower Monsanto SAS and Euralis Semences (France);
        – corn seed material Strube D&S GMBH (Germany); – corn seed material Crookham Company Netherlands BV (Netherlands);

        If Mr. Putin can pull off the creation of a non-dollar trading bloc and a non-Globohomo cultural sphere, more power to him even if he is a multiculturalist at heart. But I fear that he and his government are not up to the task and Globohomo will return to Russia with a vengeance.

        • The Cominator says:

          Russia was one nation and also many nations before the Bolsheviks, hence the title “Tsar of all the RUSSIAS” not all Russia.

          Land Empires tend to be diverse, but they cannot afford an ideology of diversity…

          • Pooch says:

            Successful empires either are able to successfully assimilate their subjects (Rome) or allow for many co-nations within the broader empire (British Empire).

            Having some sort of racially pure monoethnostate is just gay 20th century Nazi leftism.

            • The Cominator says:

              There are indeed advantages to monoethnostates and ideally an empire should be sort of a bunch of seperate loosely governed ethnostates (with diversity only in some cities and trading areas, and even in them the neighborhoods should mostly be seperate) but much like republics its very hard for them to scale and still function that way.

              • Pooch says:

                i don’t know of any successful empires in human history that weren’t ruling over multiple ethnicities in someway or another.

                You just aren’t going to scale very much to anything great without incorporating other peoples into it somehow successfully. We are even seeing that now with Putin’s successful use of the Chechans in the war.

              • Pooch says:

                There are indeed advantages to monoethnostates and ideally an empire should be sort of a bunch of seperate loosely governed ethnostates

                For less civilized people you want your elite ruling over the local population. Colonialism worked before it was deemed unholy.

              • jim says:

                > Ideally an empire should be sort of a bunch of seperate loosely governed ethnostates (with diversity only in some cities and trading areas, and even in them the neighborhoods should mostly be seperate) but much like republics its very hard for them to scale and still function that way.

                It is the only way to scale.

                Each ethnic group is responsible for its own order, and has its own state religion, but the ruling ethnicity is responsible for inter ethnic order, and openly and officially favors its own, while simultaneously holding them to a higher moral standard, and applying the standard of proof that if something bad happens, their guy was probably in the right, not because anything he does to outgroups is right, but because everyone knows our people do not do that sort of thing, and least not to those whose King has a good relationship to the emperor.

                Outsiders that are not governed by anyone that empire has an imperial relationship with, can, however be killed like dogs. To be physically safe, you need a chain of governance connecting you to the empire, and some of those chains governance are more unequal, and afford less protection, than others. Some of them afford protection that allows you to wander, some of them do not, depending on the deal their King has with the emperor, and to what extent those he allows to wander cause problems. Internal and external borders that certain ethnicities and groups are not allowed to cross rarely have border guards or fences. What they have is a barely marked or unmarked line, often poorly defined or not at all clear, over which a person of the wrong ethnicity or wrong group may be killed like a dog.

                • Mike in Boston says:

                  Each ethnic group is responsible for its own order, and has its own state religion, but the ruling ethnicity is responsible for inter ethnic order, and openly and officially favors its own

                  Jim, to me this sounds like the Ottoman millet system. Is that what you have in mind, or are there differences?

                • jim says:

                  > this sounds like the Ottoman millet system. Is that what you have in mind, or are there differences?

                  I had segregation in mind, and extensive parts of the seventeenth and eighteenth century British empire, but yes, Ottoman millet system was sound.

                  I was also thinking of the way the Tsar of all the Russias handled the state religions of each Russia.

                • The Cominator says:

                  To clarify very hard for monostates to scale, empires yes scale best the seperate nation/millet way.

            • Pseudo-Chrysostom says:

              The Latin’s ‘successful integration’ was a fait accompli to their genetic extinction.

        • Mike in Boston says:

          And as if all of the above weren’t bad enough, the Russian state’s Direct Investment Fund just applied for approval of the AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine in Russia..

          As Riley Waggaman’s indispensible blog puts it:

          Why would Russia even need to deploy a Big Pharma clot-shot? I thought the Not-War in Ukraine had defeated the virus scam forever, particularly in Russia?

  33. Kunning Drueger says:

    https://twitter.com/chainalysis/status/1501966648768708615

    I suppose it was inevitable, given that crypto hype is pretty much mainstream at this point.

    • notglowing says:

      This is a terrible precedent, but it is not as bad as it may seem.
      It’s essentially just a bunch of addresses that are known to belong to sanctioned individuals (and remember, it’s just a tool, not new legislation).

      Fungibility of Bitcoins remains, for now, especially off-chain. Not much has changed from before in practical terms.

      It’s very easy to use Lightning Network for even fairly large transactions (2-10BTC) if you are running an actual LN node, and you have some channels with entities like Finex or many small individual LN channels to smaller nodes. So far there is no technological means to sanction this. No way for anyone to know where the payments come from, even harder to *prove* it.
      Plus LN-BTC unlike BTC coming directly from a mixer, are not suspect. That is the most brilliant thing about it.

      Additionally, LN can be combined with XMR atomic swaps. If you have BTC on-chain, you can swap them for XMR, then swap those XMR directly for LN-BTC afterwards, and spend the LN-BTC without leaving a trace on the BTC blockchain at all, and without looking suspicious.

      This avoids the “black box effect”: many ways of getting anonymity on a public blockchain work like black boxes.
      This is true when exchanging BTC for XMR, and then back to BTC, and for things like Tornado Cash on Ethereum, which uses zkSNARKs.

      Money goes in, money comes out of the black box, and there’s no way to connect those putting money in and those taking it out.
      Except there obviously is. Patterns emerge. Money going in and coming out is completely public, and permanently recorded on the blockchain.
      So if you deposit 1 ETH 5 times into Tornado Cash, then take out 1 ETH 5 times to the same address, you are unmasked automatically, beyond almost reasonable doubt. Timing is also a big factor, and can be analyzed by computers.

      The more you do this, the more easily can you be profiled. The issue is every time you are leaving more information permanently on the blockchain. Eventually you will leave enough to remove any doubts from those who are analyzing you. It’s a fundamentally flawed system, that requires a lot of thought in order to be used more than once.

      With the BTC->XMR->LN pipeline, the problem does not exist, because the LN-BTC coming to you in the last step are not publicly visible on the blockchain, and neither does the seller know who you are. The XMR transaction is obviously private.
      That said, the seller would be able to see the amount of BTC roughly matches the amount you exchanged for XMR in the first step, which was on the blockchain. So splitting this into multiple sales makes sense.

      Afterwards, splitting the LN amount or using it slowly is trivial, because LN transactions are cheap and instant. You can even deposit it to an exchange like Bitfinex, and they won’t see anything suspicious.

      • jim says:

        Lightning is now by far the best way to do international transactions, now that the international banking system has been fragmented by war, but I was not at all happy with the state of the lightning network last time I looked, and would not leave too much money in it for too long.

        The lightning network is now by far the best way to buy stuff and sell stuff using crypto currency, and the best way to do international transactions, whether you want to use crypto currency or not.

        So as the crypto crackdown unfolds, move money into Monaro, maybe into Grin, and then move it back into lightning to do business and make payments.

  34. notglowing says:

    It seems you are allowed to say things about the virus unthinkable just two months ago: https://i.ibb.co/ByJn1JS/71a4dcaee4e6da8cb78b1d659dd1df52569a7305c0a00449bde2c6cf14a91b23-1.jpg
    Getting very close to just being able to say it was all nonsense. In fact that’s more or less what the headline implies.

    I know nobody cares about COVID anymore at this point, and I am mostly making this post to vent constructively, but we are still very much under the public health dictatorship regime here even if it is falling apart, too slowly.

    I no longer receive any news of significance regarding this on my android phone’s newsfeed. I used to get them every day, sometimes even as notifications. Probably because I made the mistake of reading them every time.
    France, Austria, and the UK have mostly eliminated restrictions. Germany seems set to do it, and has made some changes this month. Czech Republic did it a while ago. Italy? No chance.

    Now I search for articles about this every few days, manually. And there really are news about it almost every day, though they’re generally just the latest quotes from our health minister (Speranza), and his secretary (Costa). Sometimes it’s a few other “experts”.

    It is always about when and how restrictions will be eased, and they seem to edge towards easing them ever so slightly sooner every time, but the most optimistic timeline now is still “end of may”. Even after admitting that covid is no longer a big deal, even with infections rising, which is “not concerning” to them anymore, they don’t want restrictions to end any sooner than June. Which is a long time from now, and a major pain in the ass for me.

    It’s not clear what they even want, given our vaccination rate is above 96% now. They’re not trying for a fourth dose, and those talking about annual vaccines say they think they won’t be mandatory. They don’t really have a justification for taking longer, which is why other countries changed course. They just say it’s too soon otherwise. It’s absolutely maddening, the ease with which these people have made lives miserable, and continue to do so.

    One of the “Experts” who has generally been among the most hawkish on covid, and supported the greatest caution previously, is even saying indoor masks are no longer necessary, and a fourth dose is pointless since everyone is catching it. Still he insists we are only safe due to the vaccines. He justifies his change of heart that way. But indoor mask mandates persist, indefinitely for now.

    There will be a minor easing on April 1, along with a big milestone: the Technical-Scientific Committee will finally be disbanded and with that goes all the infrastructure of the medical terror machine.

    Meanwhile, Salvini wants the pass system to end with the TSC on April 1, but all he does is make speeches. He has no real power in the government at the moment. So whatever he says doesn’t matter.

    As for myself, I’ve gone through half of Europe recently, for various reasons, and still test negative. Ironic.

    • notglowing says:

      I forgot to add: despite having the most severe restrictions in the west, we have had the highest number of deaths in Europe according to their own, official numbers.

      Isn’t it ironic?

      • The Ducking Man says:

        Agreed, covid demon take down is coming too slow. Airport is still requiring covid pass, and some people still wear masks religiously.

        I guess the big problem is general population are unable to notice cognitive dissonance. Take my family for example, 1 month ago they said they don’t believe omicron as dangerous but last week they rolled up their sleeve to be triple vaxxed. I won’t be surprised if they line up again to be quad vaxxed.

        • notglowing says:

          Of course they’d get a third dose. If they did it once, they’ll do it again.
          The covid measures did end quickly and suddenly in many countries, but seem to persist in others. That really shows where the priesthood is more powerful.

          Japan has still not reopened, or given any date for a full reopening, but I attribute that to Japan’s general insular tendencies, to them being closed might seem like a good thing in general, even if it hurts them economically.
          It’s significant that they closed the country itself the longest and in the most absolute way, but domestic covid measures were not among the most extreme. Plus their own “experts” admitted months ago that omicron is much like the seasonal flu, or even less dangerous in comparison.

          It’s kind of funny, because Japan is the only country I currently want to visit for tourism, and Italy is the country I live in. And they happen to be among the slowest to change their minds. That’s just my luck.

    • BANE says:

      The Covid Demon isn’t dead, merely slumbering. It won’t be defeated until the regime is forced to publicly acknowledge that all the covid measures were pointless, or better yet counterproductive. As long as that doesn’t happen, they have the freedom to pivot back into medical tyranny at the drop of a hat, or more likely sometime during fall as the first wave of seasonal illnesses hits – this time worse than usual due to so many people having vaccine related immune system damage. They used the war in Ukraine to stealthily advance the Covid agenda:

      national vaxx pass in the US https://www.forbes.com/sites/suzannerowankelleher/2022/02/24/national-vaccine-quietly-rolled-out/?sh=11ed7ef66be6

      WHO proposes a compact on pandemic prevention that legally binds all members fof the UN, to be signed this month and implemented in 2024 https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/policies/coronavirus/pandemic-treaty/

      Deutsche Telekom chosen by UN WHO to create digital identity passes to “confer privileged health status to their owner” https://telecoms.com/513608/dt-chosen-to-help-create-global-heath-passport/

      Its true that nobody cares about Covid anymore (at the moment), but we should never forget. We are not in the clear yet.

      • The Cominator says:

        Tend to agree with you, if Fauci is perp walked and either sentenced or Epsteined I’ll believe its dead… for now it merely sleeps.

        • Pooch says:

          Yes, my model is now the state religion has mutated into full paganism with a collection of gods (or demons) that can only be added to. The Cathedral can freely switch worshipping of the various demons/gods/cults as it pleases as is useful for it.

          • The Cominator says:

            Well sort of yes the Cathedral works off of “campaigns”… the campaigns are what every good Cathedral demon worshipper NPC should hate at the moment.

            It could be evil heterosexual men, evil white men, bad orange man, evil white men emitting carbon dioxide, covid, Vladdolf Putler… it depends on what the instructions from on high are.

            • Pooch says:

              Who they hate is always the same (white Christians), it’s how that hate should be directed is what changes (unvaccinated, Trump supporters, Russians, etc).

            • BANE says:

              Exactly so, I call it “the eternal current thing”.

      • Pseudo-Chrysostom says:

        A great deal of the polygon’s objective accomplishment throughout it’s history is simply pushed through ‘under the rug’ while attention-sucking distractions in the news cycle are ongoing.

  35. Jim's Still Wrong says:

    Here we are, day 20. The Russians still don’t have Kiev, show no signs of being able to take it. Still don’t have Kharkov, show no signs of being able to take it. Still don’t have Dnipro, haven’t even really tried for it yet. Still don’t have Nikolaev, *might* be able to take it. Haven’t done more than gesture vaguely in Odessa’s direction. Still losing aircraft every single day, don’t have unquestioned air superiority. The counterarguments here are all Zeno’s Paradox level stupidity – they’re always moving forward but they never actually get there.

    When the Americans started the tanks rolling for Kuwait, they had the whole thing wrapped up 72 hours later. When they went into Iraq in 2003, “major combat operations” lasted 26 days – with an invasion force of 177k into a country of 40 million.

    Russia is not going to have this wrapped up in the next 6 days.

    Ukraine might (improbably, but conceivably) have it wrapped up in the next 6 days, if the Russian conscripts suddenly decide they’ve had enough of it, something which becomes increasingly likely on a months to years timescale as this drags on and logistics problems worsen. The first columns headed for Kiev had 3 days’ supplies and parade uniforms for the victory procession. An Iraq- or Chechen-style ten years’ insurgency spread across 40 million people was not what Vlad had in mind and not what Russia is prepared to handle.

    Vladimir Putin did the single worst thing he could possibly have done with the most distastrous, pro-Cathedral results he could possibly have achieved. Russia’s economy is in shock and there is no telling under what form and with what strength or weakness it will continue. Russia’s military has proven a paper tiger, unable to accomplish the most basic of objectives. Russia’s neighbors are simultaneously terrified and emboldened – terrified of Russian actions, emboldened at Russian (in)capabilities. NATO has been strengthened and reinvigorated in a manner nobody expected or anticipated, and absolutely contrary to Russia’s stated objectives. Germany is rearming – oh, THAT was definitely a Russian war aim! The EU in general is talking about utterly reversing course on the dependence on Russian fuels – talk’s cheap, but you rarely have action without talk preceding it. The Ukrainians are supremely pissed off – on a personal, eye-gouging level, completely non-ideologically – and have been psychologically conditioned towards this moment for the past 7 years, since Donbass and Crimea – all of which Vladimir did all his own bad self. And all this with Biden picking his nose when asked questions about any of it.

    Putin misjudged his opponent(s), his moment, and his method. He has single-handedly taken the strongest and most powerful anti-Cathedral position – rhetorical, economic, and military – and blown it sky-high. If he was personally in the pay of George Soros he couldn’t have done a more effective job.

    Watch China. I voted Trump in 2016 specifically because Hillary was talking about bringing Ukraine into NATO and I didn’t see the need to trigger any of this. Having had it triggered, I was absolutely convinced China would take advantage of the moment to move on Taiwan, splitting the West’s focus – and April/October are the two times of the year when the Taiwan Strait is calm enough to make an invasion practicable. If they move they’re not going to wait until the middle of the calm period, they’re going to want the good weather increasing over the course of the critical days, and lasting for as long as possible – so late March is the key moment. Watch China; see if the dog doesn’t bark. If they don’t hit Taiwan hard and fast, very soon, it will be a loud and clear statement that they recognize – as Jim and his fellow cargo cultists here do not – that Putin has totally fucked the monkey.

    • justlin' berber says:

      Putin fucked up big time, and will have to resort to tactical nukes.

      • jim says:

        The move had to be done.

        Eight years of not-war, but not peace, on Donbas demonstrated that any country without a gay parade will suffer dire consequences. If the Cathedral could inflict dire consequences without itself suffering dire consequences, it was going to win in the long run. When people see a strong horse and a weak horse, by nature they will like the strong horse.

        The not-war in Donbas showed the Cathedral to be the strong horse, and everyone held a gay parade. That the Cathedral is now discovering that not-war, but not peace, is apt to turn into outright war, you will see a sudden diminishment of gay parades throughout the periphery of Global American Empire.

        • ExileStyle says:

          > The move had to be done.

          This is an important frame propaganda coup. Invading now was the least bad of all Russia’s other options to the extent Russia aims to remain a sovereign nation. Western media, in a maneuver they have by now mastered, have so completely inverted the narrative that even sympathizers with the Russian cause are left speaking Russia-as-Unprovoked-Aggressor language.

          Maybe the Cathedral ends up winning this one, but it will not be because of an unforced error on the part of “Putin” but because of an intensely well-played long game by GAE/NATO.

          The chess metaphor is the long, grinding endgame you play out over fifty moves to a draw your opponent will never voluntarily offer you because he knows you need perfect technique over those fifty moves while all he has to do is not blunder. Meanwhile your clock is getting low.

          I suspect the Russian military establishment has more of this mentality than whatever melodrama the Washington Post set is fantasizing about.

          • jim says:

            The weapons of mass destruction that Putin has found in Ukraine indicate that the GAE, the Global American Empire, has been preparing for total victory for at least twelve years.

            Putin had to interrupt them sooner or later. Should have interrupted them sooner.

            He probably interpreted the spectacularly incompetent and disorderly Afghan retreat, which left the Taliban with an immense pile of American weapons, some of which they have been selling off to lots of other countries, as indicating a good time to move.

            If NATO attempts to intervene directly, which it likely will, we shall see if it was a good time to move.

      • ExileStyle says:

        You used many words and much rhetorical flair to express three things which have been general knowledge since the first week of this adventure:

        1. Russia has not taken many cities,
        2. Ukraine has been winning the information war both in Ukraine and abroad, and
        3. China’s approach to Taiwan is related to what happens in Ukraine.

        These are all legitimate and uncontroversial observations. i and others here have pointed out however that we seem to be lacking the information to make a judgment about the full situation due to the censorship chokehold which was developed around the 2020 election and the coronavirus fantasyplan. Do you have a privileged source of information that has led you to such a confident interpretation?

        • jim says:

          In the initial attack, Russia gravely overextended itself, expecting a quick victory. It took many small towns. When the attack stalled some of them were retaken by the Ukranian forces, and then retaken again, far more destructively the second time around, by Russian forces. Ukraine seems to have lost interest in small towns, but is making taking the big ones expensive.

          We are now seeing an attritive battle to encircle Kiev. Which will likely be followed by an attritive battle to take Kiev. The Russians will probably sit around Kiev for a while waiting for the food to run out. This will take a lot longer than forty days. Big cities can usually hold out for a year or so even against greatly superior forces, but they cannot hold out indefinitely once cut off.

          Russian doctrine was to use armored vehicles to spearhead attacks, World War II style. Due to the effectiveness of modern anti tank weapons, they are now using them as mobile artillery.

          The twenty first century answer to artillery is drone warfare – which neither side has been using effectively. If the war drags on for long enough, we will see the adoption of twenty first century tactics. How twenty first century tactics play out against modern armies is as yet unknown. Right now they are replaying World War I, with cannon fodder digging in around Kiev.

        • A2 says:

          So far, the war reporting has been unsatisfying and the propaganda massive but embarrassingly lowbrow. I can’t say I trust much coming out of the media at this point. I would still conclude that Ukrainian morale seems higher than one might have expected, and that the Russians are still keeping the kid gloves on, as demonstrated by, e.g., plentiful internet, and that no-fly zones seem quite unlikely. (Yet fools have a way of getting their will.)

          As to the larger situation, I wonder if Visa and Mastercard will need a bailout soon? Along with other parts of the financial system. Globohomo companies are currently walking away from big joint ventures and writing off tens of billions just like that. What sort of debt write offs will have to be made in New York and London? I’m assuming discreet promises have been made, so load up the money printer once more.

          In the larger scheme of things, this is all interesting as a case study of undoing globalization by crudely cutting out part of the map. It does seem unlikely to come back, doesn’t it? Perhaps this is for the best, even if launched from incompetence.

          PS. A contributing cause of all this has to be the failed color revolution in Kazakhstan. Too much cloak and dagger right around the house.

    • jim says:

      Twenty days, you have legitimate grounds to make the argument.

      Recent Russian progress has been slow. They find they need to grind the enemy down. They may well need to flatten cities, and have so far been reluctant to do so, but they are fully capable of flattening cities should they find taking them difficult.

      Well? They are grinding them down. Ukrainian air force has been completely destroyed. Ukrainian ground to air defenses are capable of making bombing difficult, but the Russians are within artillery range to take out ground to air defenses, and do so, with the result that they have air superiority over the battlefield.

      A couple of hours after I said twenty days, I immediately qualified it by saying forty days would still be an impressive victory. Well, it looks like it will be a good deal longer than that, as it has turned into attritive warfare.

      The attack to encircle Kiev has begun. A former New York reporter went looking for the battle front, and no one quite knew where the front was. He found it.

      Both sides are going at it with world war two tactics, and modern anti tank weapons are proving effective, with the result that the battle against the encirclement is regressing to World War I tactics, with the Russians shelling troops that have dug themselves in defending the path in and out of Kiev.

      World War I tactics result in a battle of attrition, which takes a while. The Ukrainian troops are suffering attrition. Ukraine is sending in kids with ten days of training and telling them to dig themselves in. They crouch in their holes, and get blown up.

      > Russia’s economy is in shock

      The west as sanctioned itself, not Russia. There are too many countries outside the sanctions curtain.

      Countries around the world are signing up with Russia’s hasty replacement for the SWIFT system. American and European goods have disappeared from Russian shops, but who buys American goods these days?

      The chaos of which you speak is primarily the shut down of SWIFT, the freezing of credit cards, and suchlike, which damages the west far more than it damages Russia.

      SWIFT has long been suffering numerous self inflicted wounds which were likely to prove mortal in the long run. The latest self inflicted wound looks like it will be mortal in the short run.

      • Anonymous says:

        If Putin and Russia have to flatten cities in order to have a chance of winning the war and installing a favorable/puppet government or annexing part or most of Ukraine, than all their rhetoric seems to have been BS or purely in the real world propaganda. Which maybe they always knew was BS/propaganda and said it anyway, but it seems like they genuinely thought that Ukrainians were much closer to believing that they are the same people and essentially the same nation as or a sub nation of Russia.

        • The Cominator says:

          Don’t think Putin anticipated that the Ukranian government and the Azov faggots would really go full götterdämmerung.

          • Pooch says:

            Yeah I don’t think anyone predicted the military would just assassinate anyone trying to make peace with the Russians and kill civilians who tried to flee.

            I think Putin thought he would could make peace with the sane part of the Ukrainian military and separate them from the Azov faggots but instead its Azov who are actually de-facto running everything via terrorism.

            • The Cominator says:

              Wignats always serve globohomo…

              I hope no Azov prisoners are taken.

              • Wulfgar Thundercock III says:

                All socialists are demon worshipper, all socialists are possessed by demons, and all socialists need to be exterminated, root and branch. The white nationalists can be threshed from the socialists, and the latter destroyed.

                Personally, I would like to see prisoners taken, and burned at the stake. Demons get no mercy, and neither do their hosts. It would be a revelatory experience to see someone return to the old ways of dealing with this sort of thing. I think it would also be illuminating for those possessed by demons to see where the end of the road is.

                • The Cominator says:

                  Based!

                • Allah says:

                  Russians are also socialists, now what?

                • jim says:

                  Russia is more capitalist than America, now that Biden is in charge, and China more capitalist than either, though it has become considerably less capitalist than it was under Deng.

                  America is heading into Venezuelan socialism, while China is encouraging full on capitalism in its client states.

                • Pooch says:

                  All socialists are demon worshipper, all socialists are possessed by demons, and all socialists need to be exterminated, root and branch. The white nationalists can be threshed from the socialists, and the latter destroyed.

                  I don’t think Azov is socialist or even has an opinion on anything economics related. They seem to just be driven by fanatical anti-Russian hatred and that’s really it.

                  Personally, I would like to see prisoners taken, and burned at the stake.

                  Funny you say that is there are videos of them literally crucifying people and then burning them on the cross. Horrifying and demonic.

                • Wulfgar Thundercock III says:

                  Faggot Mohammedan says what?

                • Wulfgar Thundercock III says:

                  That means that they recognize the power of the symbol. Nail their hands to the stake, and then burn them alive. Mercy to them just means more victims. Allow them a few moments with a priest, then set them on fire. Once you do a few of them this way, then you can take prisoners. Then make a condition of taking prisoners being any Azov types among them be turned over or killed prior to prisoners being taken. If you find Avozs among the prisoners, the whole batch gets wiped out. After a little while, the Azovs will start getting fragged and the Ukranians can surrender. You might need some hard motherfuckers to pull this off, but I am sure Russia can find them.

                  In a thousand years, I want Inquisitorial Storm Troopers to be the thing that the leftists of that day fear. I want the black robes and the red cross to be the symbol they recognize as being dedicated to oppressing people like them. I want to be hated ten times as much as they hate the Spanish Inquisition today. I want to be the thing they fear when they hear noises at night.

        • The Cominator says:

          The problem with being rational smart thinking people is its very hard to predict the actions of insane, stupid and hysterical kind of people.

          • jim says:

            It is not only hard to model other people over a twenty or forty point IQ gap, it is even harder to model people over a sanity gap.

            A lot of what we are seeing is well modeled by demonic possession. Which seldom turns out well for those possessed by demons, whether those demons are literal or figurative.

            • Pooch says:

              Yes, the rational sane thing for the Ukrainians to do was quickly come to equitable terms with Russia when it was clear NATO was not going to intervene on their behalf, as the strength of their bargaining position was going to diminish by the day in the face of overwhelming Russian military capability.

              Instead, they are seemingly choosing to offer no concessions except the unconditional withdrawal of Russian forces and will fight to the last man, woman, and child to achieve it which is completely irrational and insane.

              • Anonymous Fake says:

                It sounds a lot like the American Civil War, where the North’s demands got rationally stronger over time as they were winning the war, and this was only matched with ever stronger irrational Southern resistance until the end. You cannot reason with some people.

                We’re going to see Russia go 100% reconstruction on Ukraine, making an absolute example of them, and this will be much more interesting than any coup or revolution.

              • clovis says:

                “Instead, they are seemingly choosing to offer no concessions except the unconditional withdrawal of Russian forces and will fight to the last man, woman, and child to achieve it which is completely irrational and insane.”

                I can’t believe they are really this brave or insane. I think they are clearly trying to hang on long enough to try to force NATO into the war, whether by staging a chemical attack, faking war crimes, or whatever it may be.

                • jim says:

                  Over the last few days, Russian advance has stopped. It has been postponed by the need to reduce cities. Which is going to involve leveling them, which they have thus far been profoundly reluctant to do.

                  There is one place where Russian movement continues. They continue with the encirclement of Kiev. Which looks like it is devolving into World War I trench warfare. This is likely to wind up killing every Ukrainian of military age that the Ukrainians can conscript.

                  The Russians are attempting to encircle Kiev in a war of movement. Last time I checked, war of movement was running into problems. Encirclement is likely to proceed by blowing up one line of trenches full of terrified young boys after another. They do not want to do that, but it is increasingly likely that they will have to do that.

                • Kunning Drueger says:

                  GAE has a distinct lack of creativity and is bereft of good leaders, so they will probably just fall back on what they think they know and what they think works. The tools in their kit are sanctions, color revolutions, false flags, air power/ saturation bombing, and holy crusades.

                  Sanctions will probably rebound on them.

                  Color revolutions need time and isolation. I think they will move forward with them, heavily focusing on RF periphery states, but they tried it in Kazakhstan, and it failed. This could also be why Putin is not deploying the cream of the crop; he is certain they will be needed elsewhere, or uncertain enough to keep them in reserve.

                  False flags need to be deployed at specific times, tailored to culture and context. Otherwise, they fizzle. If they deploy these, given that they are rushing, it will probably be a bunch at once, a scattershot methodology.

                  Deploying conventional air assets would be a complex operation, and there is substantial evidence that this has been priority 01 for both RUS and CHI in terms of their military technological development. I’m not saying they won’t try it, but imagine the fallout of flaming B-52 parts raining down across social media feeds. Or sinking ships, for that matter. If the Ford was sunk, GAE might collapse overnight lol.

                  I think they lack the cohesion and time to drum up a crusade. Lord knows they’ve been trying. And even if they managed to get one started, mass defection and desertion would be a distinct possibility.

                  In my mind (assuming my crackpot theorizing has any validity whatsoever), the question becomes: at what point does the nuclear option get put on the table? And, at what point do the Praetorian start stepping in to get the nuclear football away from Harris or Pelosi or Buttgag?

                • Pseudo-Chrysostom says:

                  There is a deep ecology behind sending the least of troops first.

                  In large scale warfare it is a tendency for the best of men to be disproportionately affected, leaving only gormless rejects behind, which is critical damage to a thede’s patrimony. Sending what you’re not afraid of losing first is one patch over this, and those that demonstrate the favor of God by distinguishing themselves can be promoted to upper classes to boot.

                • Mayflower Sperg says:

                  Encirclement is likely to proceed by blowing up one line of trenches full of terrified young boys after another.

                  Sounds like the war that wiped out most of Paraguay’s male population and forced them to legalize polygyny for a while. What happens to feminism when every employable man has a harem, and even cripples and imbeciles are getting laid?

        • jim says:

          There seems to be an obvious correlation between areas that have long been Russian speaking, and areas under Russian control. So probably not bullshit.

          Rather, Globohomo terror.

          Intimidation and violence against thought crimes has been severe in the USA. It has been far more severe in Ukraine.

          Does seem that rather a lot of Ukrainian speaking old type Christians have been fleeing Ukraine for Russia over the past few years.

          We will see what people really think when globohomo is no longer in a position to engage in terror.

          It is absolutely obvious to me that I cannot know what other people are really thinking in America. You think you can tell what people really think in the Ukraine?

          • Anonymous Fake says:

            Some ideas are so atrocious that they are automatic loyalty tests. Anyone who promotes sodomy in view of children is 100% in favor of it. There isn’t any room for cucking or just following orders, like Havel’s greengrocer or the Nuremberg defense here. What you see is what you get with public sexual deviance, and there can be no just mercy for it.

          • Basil says:

            Formerly pro-Russian Ukrainians are furious. No, this does not mean that Ukrainians have suddenly become fans of trances. It’s just that when your kids are may die from a random projectile, the worries about insane pendos maiming their own kids for the sake of social approval fade into the background. Your trances are your problem.

            According to your own forecasts, globohomo will fall in the coming years. The likelihood that NATO will be able to import its infection (in addition to what is already in Eastern Europe, including Russia) is extremely low. Babylon has fallen, Rome has fallen, Washington will also fall.

            • jim says:

              > Formerly pro-Russian Ukrainians are furious. No, this does not mean that Ukrainians have suddenly become fans of trannies.

              Let us see if they are still furious when they are no longer likely to be shot for being insufficiently furious.

              War fever in Ukraine has long been fanned with alarmingly harsh measures that far exceed the harsh measures employed by Globohome to enforce its narrative of the day in America. It is now being fanned with alarmingly harsher measures.

              > Babylon has fallen, Rome has fallen, Washington will also fall.

              Rome and Babylon did not fall by themselves. They fell because their decline and incapacity both impaired their capacity to make war, and forced other peoples to go to war with them.

        • Skippy says:

          Wars are fought by regulars and the Ukrainian government has been utterly brutal enforcing compliance by shootings. Zelensky appeared on TV blind drunk begging Putin to come to talks last week (interestingly not re-shown in the West). The Ukrainian military has been purged of truly unreliable elements and the officer corps stacked with Ukrainian nationalities.

          The populations of cities under occupation do not shoot whether their occupiers fight.

          The Putin “Ukraine is full of Nazis” stuff while remarkably tone deaf if aimed at Westerners isn’t basically wrong. They took a country that at worst saw Russia the way Canadians saw England and stacked it with the most radical separatists they could find, and gradually made radical separatism a necessary outlook for advancement.

          Whether he really has a path back to where Ukraine used to be is another question but it was in that place for most of his lifetime and the shift has been sudden and artificial.

    • alf says:

      “Look Putin’s losing!” says the Westerner as prices in his country skyrocket, and gas and fuel run short.

      Which is not to say you’re completely off-base. The outcome is far from certain. But isn’t it fun to openly express your opinion and have an honest debate, as opposed to a barrage of propaganda? Where else but blog.reaction.la….

      • Guy says:

        I find it hard to believe the Russians anticipated parades in the street and the Ukrainian women running towards them with kisses and flowers. People predicted a quick and decisive victory mostly, it seemed, based on how quickly Russia was able to advance at first, and noted it was extraordinary. The”fuck Putin” crowd seems disingenuous, at least those coming from the relatively right leaning corners of the web. They inflate any difficulty Russia faces, are extremely emotional and angry at anyone trying to debate them, and eat up obvious propaganda from sources they know to be hostile to them.

        Seems to be a lot of wishful thinking going on, I imagine if Putin wins decisively, but does not literally conquer the country and color it in as “Russia” on their maps, they’ll declare victory. Even if Zelensky surrenders the Donbass, and Russia leaves of their own accord, you’ll be called a retard Putin stooge for saying Ukraine lost. If they DO admit Putin wins, it’ll somehow be our fault, in a “stab in the back” sort of way.

        Aesop at Raconteur Report has been the worst of anyone with all this.

        • Varna says:

          > I imagine if Putin wins decisively, but does not literally conquer the country and color it in as “Russia” on their maps, they’ll declare victory.

          Absolutely a given, yes. They’ve invented a “Putin plan” and judge events according to this invented “Putin plan”.

          • jim says:

            The actual Putin plan appears to be incorporation of a substantial part of the Russian speaking areas into Russia or a Russian client state, while Western Ukraine adopts a neutral position and does not submit to Globohomo. Probably a land corridor between Russia and Crimea gets incorporated into Russia, and and the rest gets partitioned between a client state and a neutral state. At least that is probably his intention. What will actually happen? – well it is war, and the outcome of war is seldom what either side intended or expected.

            A decisive victory over limited objectives would be partition into a client state and a neutral state. But war is apt to escalate beyond limited objectives.

            This is a holy war, as yet fought for limited objectives, but holy wars tend to wind up with eschatological objectives.

            Likely outcome is that either Western Europe, and possibly America, falls, or Putin winds up dead and Moscow holds a gay parade.

      • Yul Bornhold says:

        If the west collapses from sanctioning itself, the war will take on a remarkably Old Testament tone.

        “But Vladimir said, Lo, I am the servant of the LORD. Yet how can thy servant prevail against such an host of mighty nations, girded with strange and terrible weapons?

        And the angel saith unto the prince of the Rus, Behold! The LORD himself shall go before thee to make thine enemies a rout and a confusion. Yea, they shall flee as at the scattering of Babel. Therefore restrain not the tanks and the missiles of thine hand but go forth speedily.”

        Basically all those times the Hebrews trounced a far superior enemy through faith. Remember, reactionaries suspect Russia’s military is stronger than it appears, but normies think the Russian army is a rust heap. They’re only concerned about the nukes.

        • Wulfgar Thundercock III says:

          Interestingly, someone pointed out a very good reason for apparent Russian military incompetence: they were holding back their best troops to blood the newbies and hold their best in case NATO was crazy enough to get involved. I would like to see Russia and Putin taking a more aggressively Christian stance, but at this point I will take what I can get. Moderately Christian is still vigorous opposition to globohomo.

    • Skippy says:

      With regret, I agree.

      During the buildup with Western media screeching that Russia would invade and Russia doing not much, I thought it was an attempt to provoke Russia into attacking, perhaps backed by a quieter threat to back Ukraine launching a huge attack on the DPR/LPR. I thought this was a trap.

      Got carried away by the “Z” propaganda for a bit, but indeed Russia seems to be performing quite poorly, and is now in a perilous situation.

      Russia can still win, and indeed must win, and I hope the power bearers in Russia realize that it is is better for them now to lose 1/3 of their population – as in the GPW – than to lose this war. But probably they are already worse off than they would have been not fighting it, whatever happens.

      Pray that there is strength and courage in the leadership to drive through hardship and in the people to endure hardship, with their hearts fixed on the goal.

      • Kunning Drueger says:

        How is going from 10+ bio-weapons facilities, unsecured fissile material, and a complete and cohesive military opposition to no bio-labs, minimal fissile material out of control, and a shattered husk of a military organization Russia being “worse off?”

        • Skippy says:

          Ukraine was gradually drifting out of the Russian influence, a process that adds up to major changes over now almost a decade. But it’s better to not fight and lose peacefully than to fight and lose violently. It looks increasingly likely that Putin was advised that the war would be easier than it is, and that advice was wrong.

          Russia can still win, by fighting a longer war with heavier casualties and more mobilization, but Putin very clearly (and therefore intentionally) prepared for a war that would require no mobilization.

          My belief is that Russia will eventually conquer Ukraine east of the Dnieper, but is likely to face NATO troops inside Ukraine if it tried to conquer Polish Ruthenia. A situation that has the potential to escalate into a nuclear war.

          • Kunning Drueger says:

            “it’s better to lose without fighting than to fight and lose.”

            I hear the reddit battalion is in need of a commanding officer. You seem perfect for the job, you dickless coward.

    • Yul Bornhold says:

      My dear shill:

      Yes. The Russian army is not advancing as quickly as we might expect a competent and well-trained army to advance.

      But that could mean a lot of things other than “It’s over for Russia.”

      First and most obviously, Putin is not a cartoon. He wants reunification and reconciliation with (x%) of the Ukraine. It seems he was not willing to order a ruthless blitzkrieg (whether or not the Russian army was capable of such an action.) It does seem (although I can’t be sure of this either) that he expected the Ukrainian government to fold quickly, mostly through shock and awe.

      Second, Russia may be deliberately holding back its strength. Conscripts are an odd spearhead for a surprise attack, along with their stockpiles of ancient military hardware. Maybe they feared NATO counterattack. Maybe they view the whole war as a training exercise and want to blood their troops, while examining the performance of their equipment and tactics, which may have to be utilized against more fearsome opponents in the future.

      We lack the necessary information to make good judgments. Nobody even knows Putin’s end goal. Likely, he has several suited to contingency.

      To me, the most surprising aspect of the conflict has been the vehemence of the Cathedral propaganda response. It has thrown its full voice into “Putler!”, letting the usual chants of “muh racism” and “muh coof” fall silent. I’m not sure this is a conscious strategy so much as it is an inability to amplify more than one signal. Remember, the corona signal collapsed when we had to riot over John Brown… errr… George Floyd’s… body. They switched back to corona when the vax rolled out but it was silent for a while.

      The delusional Ukrainian nationalism also surprised me. I wouldn’t have thought bugmen capable of such an intense emotion. Either the Ukrainians haven’t been buggerymen’d yet, or they’re not actually as enthusiastic about getting butchered by Russia as their propaganda suggests.

      • Yul Bornhold says:

        The American political class likes to talk tough but they stink of cowardice. I can’t really make an argument for this. I can only explain my gut feeling. The way these men blather on simply reeks of blustering bravado. We have instincts for sniffing out loyalty. Our senators and congressmen have betrayed us repeatedly. I’m sure such men existed in the ice age, inciting the tribe to battle and fleeing as soon as Grog’s tribe loosed their atlatls.

        Reddit bugmen think they can fight: https://www.eugyppius.com/p/the-globalist-enemy?s=r

        They go to Ukraine. They whimper at being equipped with junk Ukrainian equipment and use this excuse their cowardice. Then they flee at the first Russian missile.

        The bugman will stick around if he’s winning. Good for executing a genocide but not much else.

      • Oak says:

        It is difficult to comprehend how any Ukrainian nationalist could willingly fight for a regime that hates them. But for any good men that have been led astray, I pray that Gnon shows them mercy in defeat.

      • Kunning Drueger says:

        The response of ostensibly right wing to this whole situation is maddening. The whole thing is a mass strawman delusion, and the strawman was erected by morons playing computer simulation games (Russia plans to win in 3 days; 1 minute longer and they have lost completely). I have yet to see a Russian Plan, and we may never get one, but without that, or even a semblance of one, how the hell could we judge success or failure past an actual conclusion/outcome? Russian military history is absolutely checkered in terms of success v. failure, but it is also replete with instances where the writing was on the wall and the Russians were written off.

        I think it comes down to failures of imagination. Is it reasonable to presume Ukraine is the endgame for Putin? As in, if he wins, the show is over and he can retire? For the bois of soy, of course they can’t see any further than the next superhero movie/vidya game release. Buit after 4 years of guerilla culture war and 2 years of biomedical persecution, I expected at least a little hesitancy about jumping on a War drums bandwagon from a regime and memeplex that has repeatedly and explicitly stated that they wish to erase the Right.

        At first, I thought shilltard had a good point about China and Taiwan. But then I wondered about his assertion regarding weather timeframes. Still trying to pin down his claim (unlike that faggot, I come bearing links: https://cimsec.org/navigating-black-ditch-risks-taiwan-strait/ ). But it is a large claim with no evidence, regardless of its veracity. But this is still a failure of imagination, as if the Chinese only have this single period of time to act, and if they don’t, Biden is no longer in cognitive decline, the Cathedral is no longer trapped in an escalating cold civil war, technological decay is halted and reversed, and the decades of demilitarization and alpha-ex in Europe will be erased because Germany has decided to buy a few F-35s.

        I fully admit that I am choosing to be optimistic about Putin, Xe, and the collapsing GAE. I see no point in blackpilling and whining like some dilating transfaggot. Russia is pushing on a door. Whether it opens wide, or just a crack, that door was considered to be an unbreakable wall for the past 30 years.

      • Starman says:

        @Yul Bornhold

        “The delusional Ukrainian nationalism also surprised me. I wouldn’t have thought bugmen capable of such an intense emotion. Either the Ukrainians haven’t been buggerymen’d yet, or they’re not actually as enthusiastic about getting butchered by Russia as their propaganda suggests.”

        The ethnic Ukrainians in the western half and the Azov battalion are willing to die for Ukraine (not globohomo), but the reddit foreign legion that did show up to fight for globohomo in Ukraine, hilariously revealed that they were unwilling to die for globohomo in Ukraine.

        • The Cominator says:

          Ukraine is a fake nation and they are all fighting for globohomo… and they are using 1945 flying drumhead court martial style terrorism to prevent surrender I totally hate Azov faggots.

          • Pooch says:

            Apparently the Ukrainian ultranationalists regard Stepan Bandera as their national hero and the founder of their movement.

      • Varna says:

        >It seems he was not willing to order a ruthless blitzkrieg (whether or not the Russian army was capable of such an action.)

        In 2008 the pacification of Georgia lasted 5 days, of which 3 days of fighting and 2 days of negotiations. The US had better jamming capabilities back then, jamming the f*ck out of the Russian army and scrambling navigation, so a courier on a motorbike had to physically overtake a tank column about to take the capital Tbilisi and give them orders calling the thing off. Georgia is of course a small country, while the Ukraine is the biggest continental European country by far, but Georgia, in spite of the difficult terrain, proved that Russians can blitz.

        The Chechen wars before that proved that Russians can ruthlessly flatten towns and cities if they feel the situation calls for this.

        Thus, unless over the past 20 years the Russian army has forgotten how to be ruthless, and over the last 14 years has forgotten how to blitz, it has been empirically proven that it can do both. Therefore, if it is not happening in the Ukraine, this means orders to do this are not being given, IMO.

  36. Skippy says:

    News reporting in the UK press appears to be hand-holding toward Article 5 invocation on any pretext, nuclear war.

    This seems absent in US press.

    • Varna says:

      The eternal Anglo

    • The Cominator says:

      Link… the Pentagon already had to probably threaten a coup to stop the Polacks from starting WW3.

      • The Ducking Man says:

        What are you talking about?. The WW3 already starting.

        • The Cominator says:

          Article V ain’t been triggered yet.

          • The Ducking Man says:

            That’s just formality. I don’t remember WW1 and WW2 started by a piece of paper.

            The second people throwing shits at each other’s fan in retaliation it’s WW as far historians concern.

            • The Cominator says:

              WW2 wasn’t really but WW1 was started by alliance treaties.

              • The Ducking Man says:

                I am still under impression that WW1 was started by Franz Ferdinand assassination.

                Though after some more reading you are correct, there were a lot of treaties signed preceding the assassination.

                • jim says:

                  Chain of treaties is the politically correct account.

                  Here is what happened: Serbia assassinates the archduke of Austria through proxies transparently connected to the deep state faction in its government.

                  Austria does not like that.

                  Austria presents a list of demands, which amount to a purge of the deep state faction in Serbia’s government and elimination of its instruments of control. Deep state does not like that.

                  The Tsar, to whom the Serbian deep state is allied, backs Serbia. Germany backs Austria. Shit hits fan, treaties be damned. The subsequent revolution in Russia is instigated by a deep state faction connected to the Serbian deep state faction, double crossing the Tsar, but they quickly lose control of the revolution to people on their left, who lose control to people further to their left.

                  The Tsar should have told Serbia to purge the deep state faction, and purged his own.

                • The Cominator says:

                  Both those things are true, Nicholas II was also one of the most retarded monarchs in history up there with Phillip II and Theodosius the so called great.

                • Skippy says:

                  The West got excited for the Serbian War of Unification, an impeccably progressive cause for the late 19th century in the style of other impeccable progressive causes.

                  When it turned into a world-shaking catastrophe, they decided it must have been about rivalry over colonies in Africa.

                • Pooch says:

                  Both those things are true, Nicholas II was also one of the most retarded monarchs in history up there with Phillip II and Theodosius the so called great.

                  What is your rationale for hating Theodosius again? That somehow he was responsible for the killing of the Foederati?

                • The Cominator says:

                  Theodosius purity spiraled christianity and allowed mass immigration of barbarian tribes wholesale whole doing nothing to role back aspects of the command economy that had builtip since Diocletian. The rapid collapse of the empire after his reign wasn’t a coincidence. The massacre of the federati families was not under him but he setup the insane situation…

      • Skippy says:

        First story I read disappeared under the tidal wave of irrelevant chatter on this issue.

        https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60746437

        Now a new one.

        BBC implies over and over that Russia fighting sorta near the Polish border is effectively or likely to become actually an attack on Poland.

        Intent seems to be to blur the lines between what Russia is doing, and what it specifically is not doing.

        Hard to see why do this if one doesnt want to have the nuclear war card in play later.

  37. Red says:

    An update on those redditors who joined the Ukis foreign legion:

    https://twitter.com/MogTheUrbanite/status/1503208470983725065

    • Fireball says:

      From what i have been told from the people on the ground the situation is not good even if there are plenty of ukranians still willing to fight.

    • Kunning Drueger says:

      You know, I was already aware of just how fucking gay modern militaries are. But reading that thread was whitepilling to say the least. But there’s a lesson here for /ourside/ as well. It is very easy to talk tall about strategy and winning, but it is damned hard to take orders, slog through the slug fest, and lay it on the line knowing you’re just one shell away from oblivion.

      Commenters there keep pointing out how the Afghanis took everything that the GAE could throw at them and kept coming back for more. I know we say it a lot, to the point that it is a trope: real men don’t die for gay parades. But this war should be a reality check for those of us that are… less than faithful, of which I am the worst offender.

      No good reason to sit on the fence any more, boys. Just pretend to have faith, go through the motions, and, it would appear, your first barrage will make it all come together in your heart. Think of it like drills, the kind you do with your weapon. Just go through the steps over and over, make it muscle memory.

      Dear Lord Jesus Christ Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

      • Wulfgar Thundercock III says:

        The difference is that we are the tecno barbarians raiding the cities, not the besieged defenders getting shit on by air and artillery. We ride in, shoot, and then bug off before the air can get there or the artillery targeted. We do not defend fixed positions, because we would have no fixed positions. Once we get foreign support or capture weapons, then we can stand and fight a little more, but until then it is all raids and assassinations.

        The shit thing about defense is that you have to sit there and take it. That sucks, and it sucks worse if your leaders have gone full retard and want to charge into the teeth of Russian armor and artillery fire while being bombed from the air. That is not a glorious defense, that is just suicide in another country. I would have left, too. Getting herded to my death because my CO is out of his mind inspires me to frag him or desert.

        • Contaminated NEET says:

          Everyone wants to be the techno barbarians, but who does that phrase really describe?

          The Somalis robbing Minnesota blind with nothing but paperwork are techno barbarians. The Mexican cartels are techno barbarians. Antifa might qualify as techno barbarian. You are not a techno barbarian. I am not a techno barbarian. Maybe someday, but not now. What was the last thing you pillaged?

          • Wulfgar Thundercock III says:

            I pillaged ur mom lmao gottem!

          • jim says:

            The optimistic techno barbarian model is that twenty first century high tech warfare favors war of movement by elite warriors with expensive equipment, with the result that we end up with a ruling elite of high tech elite warriors.

            We do not yet know what twenty first century high tech elite warfare will look like. We may well find out soon.

    • notglowing says:

      https://i.ibb.co/QNPWSNT/warrior.png
      Will the warrior awaken in some of them?

  38. Calvin says:

    Apparently one of the nyt journoscum actually had the balls to go to Ukraine and got murked: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/american-journalist-former-new-york-times-contributor-killed-in-ukraine/ar-AAV0ydc?OCID=ansmsnnews11

    • Adam says:

      Journalists are at the top of the teacher’s pet hierarchy. The ultimate useful idiot.

    • pyrrhus says:

      If true, probably by the Ukro-nazis….,,.

    • Aidan says:

      Apparently he was not on assignment for the NYT and was trying to fool people with his old NYT press badge. Also, shot at a Ukrainian checkpoint.

      • jim says:

        It appears that the long expected Russian attack to surround Kiev and cut it off from the Ukrainian interior has started. He went looking for the front line, and found it.

        • Calvin says:

          Looks like they nailed a Fox one too, though he’s still alive as of now: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1503433441072889861.html

          • jim says:

            “outside of Kiev”

            We don’t know what happened, but I would guess it is the same thing as happened to the former New York Times reporter. Went looking for the front line, found it.

            Which would indicate that the front line has not yet settled into trench warfare. The Russians are so far successfully maintaining a war of movement in the face of Ukrainian efforts to drag them into trench warfare.

            On the other hand, I am also hearing reports that trench warfare is taking place, so Ukrainian efforts to drag them into trench warfare are having some impact.

            • The Cominator says:

              There may be bunker strong points but trenches cannot really be held against an enemy with total air superority.

              • Kunning Drueger says:

                What makes you say that? Trench networks could be held indefinitely against conventional weapons. If it is just a trench, no, but think of what the Germans constructed in late stage WWI.

                Even so, Russia needs a political victory, just like the Entente got in WWI. Imagine the cost if the German Empire had not capitulated.

                • The Cominator says:

                  Imagine a trench you can fly parrallel to at will with bombers.

    • Pseudo-Chrysostom says:

      Homeboy was almost certainly glowing in the dark lol.

      https://i.4pcdn.org/pol/1647176552673.png

      • Wulfgar Thundercock III says:

        What says glowing about him? Not that I doubt it, just that it could be explained as Ukranian troops shoot propagandist thinking he is enemy. Man, if we could meme “journalists are spies” and get them all shot, that would be fun.

        • Pseudo-Chrysostom says:

          The line between NYT and CIA is paper thin. It’s a full service escalator that runs both ways. Many if not most people who one day look to join spookdom the next day decide instead to have a ‘career change’ into journalism; and likewise people in journalism are frequently picked up as assets, more or less explicitly.

          What business would a guy like that have in Ukraine? He’s not there ‘official’, otherwise his credentials wouldn’t be fake, and as a journofaggot, he wouldn’t be there looking to reenact cowadoody IRL either, and if he was, he wouldn’t be doing it alone. The fact that pictures of his papers were taken and ended up on the internet was certainly not something intended to happen.

          • Kunning Drueger says:

            I’ve mentioned it before, but Thank Crumpton’s The Art of Intelligence is an interesting read. As all glowies do, he’s very vague about details, but he mentions that the Agency cultivates numerous relationships in media, entertainment, finance, and industry.

            I think you’re read is good, and this guy was an asset. IIRC Khashoggi was also an Agency asset. It would be funny if they were trying to get a similar situation and the incompetent Ukronazis screwed it up.

  39. youknowwho says:

    —–BEGIN PGP MESSAGE—–

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    —–END PGP MESSAGE—–

    • jim says:

      gpg says
      gpg: no valid OpenPGP data found.

      Try using bitmessage to BM-NB5cJuoFTkcmNEKDcBwn1RDxYDX3gGbq

  40. Mister Grumpus says:

    Someone give me a next-level talking-to about this please:

    If Ukraine has some-thousand of these Javelin missiles now, and can blow up every Russian tank and fuel truck they have, that sounds like an extremely bad news situation.

    Are there other ways to look at this?

    • Pax Imperialis says:

      At some point the Russians get tired of losing tanks and just sit back and let the artillery and high altitude bombing level the cities.

      The main reason for the cease fire was to allow civilians to leave the cities. Going forward, anyone left must be a hostile.

      • Anonymous Fake says:

        Yeah, the Javelin looks like a cheap way of exploiting a charitable enemy who doesn’t take the gloves off, not a real total war weapon but a politically correct niche. Russia isn’t being treated fairly no matter what, but when their patience becomes a liability it demands a purge of moderates.

        I don’t know how Ukraine has adopted the worst ideas of nationalism and globohomo. They might be cursed.

        • Upravda says:

          That’s the problem with a lot of modern nationalist movements in West. Catalonian nationalists? Suckers who’d like to replace Spanish king and few central state officials residing in Barcelona with… presidentess of EU commision and thousands EU bureaucrats residing in Bruxelles? And even more immigration from third world, and more covid demon worshiping? Same goes to Scots and (northern) Irish. Let’s not even talk about, say, Quebecois…

    • jim says:

      Russian advance has proceeded much more slowly than I, or they, were expecting. The effectiveness of soldier carried anti tank missiles is likely a factor. Neither I nor they thought they would be very effective.

      But they are still advancing. They expected to cut the interior roads fairly quickly, and failed to do so, but the interior roads are becoming increasing fraught.

      Some towns are falling without a fight. Some towns, looks like they are going to have to be reduced to rubble, which is a long slow and expensive process. But small towns are falling every day. The Ukrainian focus is on making Russia reduce the big towns to rubble, and they do not seem to be worrying much about small towns.

      The Russians intended a grand encircling movement. Which failed. Possibly because of unexpected armor losses. They seem to be successfully pulling off some smaller encircling movements, three of which are unfolding right now.

      • The Cominator says:

        Don’t think they thought the Ukes would be dumb enough to resist this in a hopeless Gotteramadung Germany 1945 way…

        The invasion had less planning than most because Putin didn’t want to leak (the most important thing was knocking the air force defenses missle sites and Fauci’s biolabs) so relatively few people were told and there was little staff work done.

      • Upravda says:

        In on of the comments a few weks ago, I doubted that Russia have will to power to conquer Ukraine. Later I said that they were obviously pressed aginst the wall, meaning, Ukraine goes in NATO soon (or some other formal arrangement).

        So Putin had to react quickly. (And I did NOT expect that he would react at all with military.)

        However, given those circumstances, I don’t think that Russkies advance slowly. In the beginning they had, what, 100 – 150 hundred thousand soldiers engaged against a country of 600 hundred thousand km^2 and 250 thousand soldiers, and those force was able to conquer 10 – 15 percent of ukrainian territory in a few days. Seemingly, with second rate hardware.

        That’s not slow.

        The question is – what now? Obviously, you can not conquer a country of 40 million people with 150 thousand grunts, so it seems they spent time to enlarge the force to probably 300 – 400 hundred thousand now.

        Now what?

        They have to proceed… somewhere. In first few days I thought they intendet to establish their own Zelensky in part of Ukraine. I’m not so sure any more. Their plans are quite opaque at this moment

        And I’m quite baffled by Ukes. I mean, they had THIRTY years and LARGE amount of inherited Soviet military hardware to establish quite a formidbale force.

        Instead, they beg for Polish MiGs. It beggars the imagination.

        Even after 2013 they… believed… what? That NATO wil reconqer Crimea and southern Donbass for them? What? Or are they simply apathetic because not caring all that much who their rulers are?

        • Skippy says:

          They didn’t really start planning for this until 2014 and country was totally broke even compared to the non-mineral/oil part of Russian economy.

          Plus since 2014 engaged in a proxy war with Russia in the East.

          What’s less clear is why the West couped without a plan to quickly lock down the country. Instead led it drift into this war. Moldbug hypothesizes that the West wanted to trash Ukraine as well as Russia in an endless war, implies West simply hates east slavs.

          • Aidan says:

            What gets forgotten is that the Ukraine has the largest, and likely most effective, army in Europe behind Russia.

      • pyrrhus says:

        Reportedly the Russians were using 2d line troops, and perhaps fewer than they should have, but Putin also imposed restrictive ROEs to minimize civilian casualties…That is probably changing, and if no deal pretty soon, it will get brutal pretty soon..

      • Red says:

        The Russians intended a grand encircling movement. Which failed. Possibly because of unexpected armor losses. They seem to be successfully pulling off some smaller encircling movements, three of which are unfolding right now.

        More likely the logistical units have been taken out by javelins and hit and run attacks. An out of gas tank is effectively out of the fight. No reason to go head to head with Russian armor if you can take out the fuel trucks.

        I still contended that Russia fucked up by not flattening things from the get go. I’m seeing videos of small hatchback cars bringing in 8 or 9 javelins to resupply the Ukis behind Russian lines. Such cars should have been high priority targets just to prevent such tactics from the get go. Once the population knows that Russia will blow you away if you’re not hunkered down, the ability to resupply Ukis forces taking out the supply convoys goes away.

        Far more Ukrainians will end up dead due to Putin’s reluctance to make big displays of power from the get go.

        • The Cominator says:

          You flatten the 1st urban area that resists… then the others don’t. Mongol principle of war… and also from Machiavelli.

          • Pooch says:

            Flattening Ukraine is a problem for Putin. Most Russians have relatives in Ukraine. Even though Ukrainians are brainwashed to hate Russians, Russians do not feel at all the same about normie Ukrainians. His internal support will not last if Russians are watching their kin get their limbs blown off nightly on their television screens.

            • The Cominator says:

              You only have to flatten the 1st one…

              • Kunning Drueger says:

                It’s more complicated than that. I admit, my initial position was incorrect; go hard at first, won’t have to go as long (Grasp The Nettle). But due to the initial approach, as well as the strength or weakness of domestic Russian politics, Putin may be in the kind of situation where you have to be careful not to give orders that won’t be followed. This is obviously conjecture. In the long run, being soft on the enemy is always a bad choice. But the modern world seems so soft, every country, culture, and leader.

              • Neofugue says:

                The Russians would need to flatten Kiev like Grozny. Even if Putin did so at the outset of the war, the Russians could have been forced to flatten all of Ukraine just as the Allies did to Germany given the Western propaganda network.

                The purpose of flattening the first resisting urban area is to give the impression that any subsequent city which resists will fall similarly. Ukrainians will not understand this until Kiev is obliterated; Mariupol as a minor city will not suffice.

                Better strategy would be to surround the major cities and cut off electricity, food and other supplies. When the Ukrainian government continues to reject the idea of refugee corridors the Kremlin can blame the subsequent starvation on the Ukrainians. Putin may end up flattening Kiev in the end, but the justification of the civilian population being forcibly starved by the Ukrainian government will be more palatable for his power base.

                The problem with democracies and governments which base their legitimacy on the idea of the “people” is that everything must be catered to the sensitivities of the average moron. If Putin were an autocrat he could have flattened part of Kiev and saved countless civilian and military lives, but doing so would have upset the average retard.

                • Neofugue says:

                  Although as long as casualties are not too severe it does not matter (within reason) how long it takes to conquer Ukraine, only that it happens in a manner which best serves the interests of Moscow. Thus, it should be stated that Putin and the Russian brass are waging war as efficiently and methodically as possible given the circumstances.

    • Pooch says:

      Infinite cannon fodder, Javelins, and Stingers aren’t going to win you a conventional war against a modem army. Exactly what you want for an insurgency against a modern army.

      • Kunning Drueger says:

        I disagree here, but very slightly. Putting those platforms in the hands of the fodder, yeah that doesn’t work. But training a force of (lifting from Aidan here) neo-Dragoons, trained specifically to shred armor and equipped with MANPADS/anti-armor rocketry as well as quadbikes, dirtbikes, and simple ISR drones, I bet you could annihilate pretty much any armor formation. Heavy losses, and it would have to be tailored specifically to terrain, but the right force with the right leadership would be a dreadful opposition to deal with.

    • Mister Grumpus says:

      Dilbert Guy points out (and yes he points out all kinds of contradictory things) that the Russians need only hang on in Ukraine until they can filter the internet and take over the news channels. Once they own the news, they can make the Javelin-shooters into bad guys.

      I suspect that Vietnam was like this. They took civilian losses most likely in the millions, but Uncle Ho was smart enough to make sure they were never on the news. So effectively, they never really lost anyone. Anyone who raised his hand and disagreed knew what would happen to him, like us with vaxx side effects today.

      Amazing how well it works. What color pill do you even call that?

      • The Cominator says:

        The North Vietnamese knew the media and the cathedral was sympathetic to communists, as they were nominally communists (though its debatable how much the North Vietnamese were ever true believers, they softened on communism ala Deng about the minute they no longer needed Soviet military aid) the media was going

        Tet was their biggest military disaster of the war in conventional terms, not only did they launch a WWII style offensive they lost badly the executions in Hue reconciled the Buddhists to the government in Saigon (alienated strongly by Diem’s Catholic activism). The media spun it as a big victory for the communists though.

        The Cathedral will never be sympathetic to Russia, it doesn’t allow NGOs or public displays of homosexuality.

        • James says:

          A fun fact is that Poland no longer allows NGOs. All funding to NGOs must be sent to the government which in turn hands it out to NGOs of its choosing. There was much wailing and gnashing of teeth when this rolled out. It’s a real pity Poles hate Russians so much, their interests are much more aligned with Russian than with globohomo. Perhaps that is why globohomo has such a hardon for war in eastern europe right now. Convince your white christian male enemies to slaughter each other.

    • Aidan says:

      War is rarely so black and white. Looks like the UKR is ambushing Russian forces from the woods with man-portable anti-tank weapons.

      “They change their positions after every volley”. Seems like the future of war as we previously discussed is coming true, that concentrated armored forces are vulnerable to mobile forces using anti-armor weapons. This is so far the most important battle of the war, because if Russia makes it to Slavyansk, most of Ukraine’s army will be encircled. Seems like Russia needs mobile all-terrain dragoons, as previously discussed, to hunt and destroy the dispersed forces. Though we will see if Russia can defeat this style of warfare through sheer numbers or air power. The bases from which these mobile forces issue and return still look vulnerable to air power and ground assault. For all-terrain dragoons, you also need occluded and secretive logistics, a dispersed network of supply depots and command posts hidden deep in the woods, that can unpredictably move, and can resupply the mobile forces.

      • Aidan says:

        Either my formatting or source link was bad, or my image got caught in moderation, so here is the link to what I am discussing. https://twitter.com/RWApodcast/status/1503065127251329033

      • Pooch says:

        that concentrated armored forces are vulnerable to mobile forces using anti-armor weapons.

        Panzerschreck teams are 20th century tech. Nothing new. If they are being more successful than anticipated it because the use of drones, which is 21st century tech.

        • Red says:

          Javelins are a lot easier to use than Panzerschrecks were. Even dumb-asses can use them. Panzerschrecks on the other hand resulted in mostly misses and the gunners usually dying.

          https://youtu.be/6COKC5ZU6gM

          • Pooch says:

            Panzershreks inflicted losses on Soviet armor late in the war. They are useful but not going to win a conventional war if that’s all you have, as the enemy will start using infantry to cover their armor.

            As much of an improvement as Javelins are, I don’t know if they result in gunners living all that long.

            • Aidan says:

              I did not say or even imply it would allow Ukraine to turn the tide. I am noting that Ukraine finally did something tactically effective, which lined up with some of our predictions about contemporary war. Without air power, seems impossible that Ukraine would be able to take back anything Russia has taken. Ukraine’s tactics are already looking like an insurgency.

              And while Javelins might be effective, they are almost definitely in short supply. Not that many of them were ever made, and they are absurdly expensive. The entirety of NATO in Europe owns about 1000 of them.

              • Mister Grumpus says:

                @Aidan:
                “Without air power, seems impossible that Ukraine would be able to take back anything Russia has taken.”

                Wouldn’t you say that the Iraqis took back lots of what the US Army had taken, and also without air power? What about that?

                • Pseudo-Chrysostom says:

                  US Army could beat Iraq, but could not beat Harvard.

  41. Alfred says:

    Jim, do you have any general recommendations for reading on the subject of religion, Aryan or Christian etc, becoming corrupted by demon worship and corresponding human sacrifice from pre-Indo European or other sources?

    I am very fascinated by this whenever it is a topic in your posts or the comments, but it is something I don’t have much depth in. Thank you.

    • jim says:

      The Ancient City — Fustel de Coulanges is a good source on ancient Aryans.

      Almost all our sources on the original Aryan gods attribute divine origin to them, except that some of the icelanders say they were human ancestors who lived roughly where we know the Aryans originated. The latter is consistent with Coulanges account.

  42. Red says:

    Democrats don’t seem particularly worried about the election as evidenced by their shitting on the general public for not having electric cars. That sort of stuff would make killer campaign ads, if campaigns still matter.

    • jim says:

      They are going to do another steal. And this time, even if they reward some compliant republicans with meaningless offices, they are going to take everything that matters at state and federal level, in that they will control the prosecution in every state, so that they can commit crimes with impunity, while anyone they do not like can be given the General Flynn and Jan 6 treatment.

      • Strannik says:

        No regular American conservative seems to understand that, that the forms of so called ‘representative democracy ‘ exist in the US, but no election will willingly fall from the grasp of the elites ever again. This is why even the farcical January 6th events terrified them so much. Only force or the threat of force will make them comply. I think President Trump understands this, even back in 2015.

        • jim says:

          If Trump understood it back in 2015, he would have summoned the militia before the 2020 election to watch the election process, rather than summoning a bunch of lawyers, whom the courts proceeded to ignore.

          Reading his stuff, he does not seem to understand it even now.

          • Strannik says:

            I wonder, except that he had to have known the eventual cost to him and his family meant either win for real or play a certain role suitable to his enemies.

            • alf says:

              I wonder, except that he had to have known the eventual cost to him and his family meant either win for real or play a certain role suitable to his enemies.

              I don’t think he knew back then, I don’t think he knows now. Normalcy bias galore.

              • Strannik says:

                It is a shame. Trump was in the best position perhaps to make a change. Now it will have to be a military or national security type man, much as in Russia.

          • clovis says:

            Sadly, he has become completely retarded. He’s now reached Hannity levels of retardation, saying we should be bombing Russia.

          • Jehu says:

            Understanding it requires that you recognize that pretty much every major institution and most of the minor ones in the US and the rest of the Western world needs to be utterly destroyed. The university system that confers degrees that are part and parcel of the identities of lots of people—including his own—yeah that has to be destroyed. The public school system? Ditto. The media and entertainment complex? Yep. Pretty much all the major churches? The same. The whole legal system/ Yep.

            That is an incredibly bitter pill to swallow and honestly, I’ve never met a Boomer in person that could eve think it.

            Even really modest stuff like this is beyond what they can accept:

            We need to stop caring about judicial qualifications and only consider how Judge X will vote and their reliability on said votes. We need to appoint absolutely loyal justices and if that means not appointing people with law degrees, so be it. We need to stop caring about tradition and just say, an impeachable offense is whatever we can get the necessary votes for, and insist that our side vote lock step in such matters. No more nuance. No finesse. Absolute brute force is the ONLY slim hope to avoid open civil war, and it probably won’t work.

            Basically most folks won’t get it until the mass shootings start. It is what it is.

    • Starman says:

      @Red

      Democrats don’t seem particularly worried about the election as evidenced by their shitting on the general public for not having electric cars. That sort of stuff would make killer campaign ads, if campaigns still matter.”

      And the Russians don’t seem particularly worried about whether Faggot Amerikwa’s nukes work.

      • Red says:

        Russia seems more concerned about NATOs conventional forces and has held back most of their A-Units in case it turns into a shooting war with NATO. They probably would prefer waiting 5 or 10 years for the rot to completely destroy the US military before engaging in war against NATO.

        On that note, the warrior women stuff is getting pushed even harder now. It’s clear that the Cathedral has consumed their own coolaid on the subject. When NATO and Russia finally do class it’s mostly going to end up being an literal Russian gang bang.

        • Kunning Drueger says:

          Russia is up against a demographic time bomb, and the US is not. They have been waiting, since 2014 precisely. I think they’ve decided to start the war now because China is also in demographic trouble. There’s not a chance that GAE will just abide this smack in the face. There’s going to be a response. I earnestly hope you’re right, because the numerical disadvantage in the European Front is significant. Of course, all the bodies in the world don’t matter if they aren’t willing to follow, fight, and die. Which means that GAE is going to need the mother of all false flags.

          If you think about it, if there is an NBC attack on an American city, everyone will just believe it is Russia. I hope I’m wrong on that, but if they’re swilling their own Kool-Aid, GAE may believe that to be the case. They’ll probably target the whitest city in the US, hoping for a twofer.

          • jim says:

            > Russia is up against a demographic time bomb, and the US is not.

            The US runs on white people. The rest are liability, not an asset.

            How does US white fertility compare? I think it is fairly similar.

            Putin has taken measures that are likely to diminish his problem. The US continues to take measures likely to considerably worsen the problem.

          • The Cominator says:

            Things in the US are so bad that Brad Pitt got dumped for not being alpha enough… not sure that would ever happen in Russia.

            • Karl says:

              Any man can get dumped for failing a shit test. Any women will at least occasionally shit test her man.

  43. Richard W. Comerford says:

    Gay is Hitler. Gay pride parades should be considered “target rich environments”.

    • Dr. Faust says:

      To quote a wise sage. “You talk like a fag and your shit’s all retarded.” Are you a fed?

    • Aidan says:

      I bet you consider em a target rich environment… of boypussy!

      lmaogottem

    • Neurotoxin says:

      This may literally be the most blatant fedpost in the history of the multiverse.

      Bad cop! No donut!

  44. Leon says:

    How fake and gay are tests for psychopathy/ sociopathy/ anti social personality disorder? Psychology in general seems to be conditioned to make men into women, to turn them into soyboys.

    • Dr. Faust says:

      The term psychopath is enemy rhetoric mostly, same with the other stuff you mentioned. It’s mostly used to condemn successful warriors and equate them to Dahmer and Gacey type butchers.

      Psychology has two active elements in it. One is marketing and the other is pharmacology. The rest is just leftist spiel ie. shittesting, ad hominin, virtue signals.

      • The Cominator says:

        I think the test for psychopathy are mostly fake and gay but the phenomena of people with no sense of morality whatsoever (combined with generalized thrill seeking behavior usually and a lack of fear) is real enough. I’ve known a few…

        • Dr. Faust says:

          I agree. There are people with no sympathy nor the ability to feel guilt nor much of anything. Those are the John Wayne Gacy type degenerates that the diagnoses should name. But the term becomes perverted from its original intent. Anyone practicing effective warfare today would be called a psychopath.

          • jim says:

            Such people are easy to detect, and the biggest tell is that most of their readily observable characteristics are nearly the reverse of the characteristics that shrinks attribute to “psychopaths”

        • Adam says:

          The phenomenon is alpha male behavior plus demons. If you can impose defect-cooperate on someone, awfully tempting to keep doing that. Do it for years and you end up like what you described. If there is no bigger alpha to keep you in check, awfully tempting.

      • Pseudo-Chrysostom says:

        A lot of it comes from plain simple projection.

        Eg, the practice of labeling anything contrary to whigish articles of faith as ‘[X]phobia’; the archetypical bluecheck has no disgust reflex, the only sentiments it is animated by are pain, fear, and glee; the shame of low social power, and the drug of high social power; many other sentiments are missing, it’s range of motive steering architecture is highly truncated, which is observed in it’s nominalistic indiscriminacy between any particular things, and it tries to model other more functional forms of humanoids in a like manner.

        (https://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2008/09/either_conservatives_are_cowar.html)

    • Adam says:

      Super fake and gay. Full of demons. They take all the alpha male traits and put them in a corner called dark triad. They also happen to be the traits that naturally create an obedient wife and children.

    • Neurotoxin says:

      The term psychopath is enemy rhetoric mostly…

      Quite apart from the good/bad thing, apparently there is some content to the idea. I was talking with a Psych grad student at a party once and he said there are objective metrics for it. This is the one that stuck in my memory:

      Most people will show heightened reactivity in the following sense. If you’re doing something boring like balancing your checkbook and someone sneaks up behind you and says “BOO!” you’ll react to a certain extent. But if you’re watching a horror movie and they do the same thing, your reaction will be larger.

      He said that psychopaths exhibit little if any of this increased reactivity.

      Whether you regard that as good or bad is, within certain limits, a matter of opinion I guess. Interestingly, he did say that a high-functioning psychopath is likely to be “hero type” (his words) in the sense of being a cop or fireman who stays cool in stressful situations. Makes sense. But if you are also an amoral asshole, well, that’s when you might become like Mr. Blonde in Reservoir Dogs – torturing people for thrills because that’s the only thing that gets your pulse rate up.

      The grad student also had interviewed some criminal psychopaths in prison and he said that just by talking with them you knew, you just knew, that they’d kill you for a nickel if they thought they could get away with it.

      • Red says:

        >Most people will show heightened reactivity in the following sense. If you’re doing something boring like balancing your checkbook and someone sneaks up behind you and says “BOO!” you’ll react to a certain extent. But if you’re watching a horror movie and they do the same thing, your reaction will be larger.

        >He said that psychopaths exhibit little if any of this increased reactivity.

        Bullshit. Do that to me and you wouldn’t get a visible reaction from me. I would be startled but I instantly suppress my instinct to react in any manner other than in calm control. You learn that sort of behavior if you spend some time living in a bad area where any sign of fright results in you being targeted by criminal shitheads who are always looking to exploit the weak.

        To deal with dangerous people you need to suppress your flight or fight response and project calm and strength.

        >The grad student also had interviewed some criminal psychopaths in prison and he said that just by talking with them you knew, you just knew, that they’d kill you for a nickel if they thought they could get away with it.

        Leftists were all for murdering every last unvaxinated man, woman, and child just a month ago. Evil people are legion these days.

        • Kunning Drueger says:

          It’s not bullshit, it is dead on the money, and comports with what Jim is saying. The definition of psychopath, *their* definition, is a person that is inoculated from the emotion of the moment while maintaining desires, aims, activities, goals that they have internalized. Red, you are a psychopath. I am a psychopath. All men are like that lol.

          I’m just playing semantics and hair-splitting, you are absolutely right, the whole thing is a feminized sham that demonizes threats to the Cathedral and en-pedestals perspectives, traits, and mentalities of those they wish to succeed in social life.

          Of the many, MANY positive fruits of a Restoration, pure science has to be my absolute favorite. Psychiatry, psychology, political science, and social science are possibly the most important fields of study for Academic Man, which is why they were the first and subsequently most wholly converged areas of study. Also, the easiest, but I think that is likely due to the fact that they were/are in their infancy stage.

          • Red says:

            >The definition of psychopath, *their* definition, is a person that is inoculated from the emotion of the moment while maintaining desires, aims, activities, goals that they have internalized. Red, you are a psychopath. I am a psychopath. All men are like that lol.

            Good point. Hell, I’m to start telling girls I’m a diagnosed psychopath. I’ve done well with aping dangerous criminals from time to time, might as well play up their Dexter fantasies.

      • jim says:

        > He said that psychopaths exhibit little if any of this increased reactivity.

        That is not an indicator for evil.

        That is an indicator for courage, virtue, and manliness.

        The term “psychopath” is intended to demonize the manly virtues.

        Read Kipling’s poem “If”

        The term “psychopathy” is a demonization of manliness, leadership, and the qualities of a good leader as described and defined by Kipling in that poem.

        I am quite sure I have negative heightened reactivity. Interrupt me while I am balancing my checkbook, you will get a far more dramatic reaction. I have had no end of incidents where my wife has jumped at me and said boo when I was not expecting her to be around, and I know well under what circumstances she is likely to get some result. Jump me during a horror movie, or during real life danger, you will get absolutely no externally discernible reaction. I have been in actual real life danger when hostile people attempted to get a reaction out of me with unexpected and entirely credible threats.

        In a situation where there is real danger, and the unexpected happens, I assess it with a stone faced expression. From their reaction to my reaction, I know my face did not change by so much as a blink.

        I am also quite sure I am not evil.

        • Neurotoxin says:

          Red: “Bullshit. Do that to me and you wouldn’t get a visible reaction from me.”
          But you would from most people.

          “Evil people are legion these days.”
          Of course.

          Jim: “> He said that psychopaths exhibit little if any of this increased reactivity.

          That is not an indicator for evil.”

          Of course it’s not. My main point was that this has no inherent good or bad aspect. The Psych guy I was talking with even used the term “hero” to refer to some psychopaths.

          • jim says:

            Psychopathy is an anticoncept. It lumps qualities that anticorrelate into one quality, demonizing virtues by grouping them with evils. Heroes tend to be virtuous, evil people tend to be cowards.

            It is an anticoncept created by effeminate evil cowards to demonize those whose virtue and courage frightens them.

            • Neurotoxin says:

              Jim: “Psychopathy is an anticoncept.”

              I could be convinced of this. (I don’t have any biases about this topic one way or another.) But I am far from convinced of it as of right now.

              Jim, instead of “psychopath” is there a different word you’d prefer?

              alf:

              female psychologist: “so… I read in your file that you’re a psychopath?”
              criminal: *stares in the distance* people call me a lot of names. Mostly… I’m just misunderstood.”
              psych: *gushes*

              That is believable. If women had made up the concept of pyschopath it probably would, in fact, be called not “psychopath” but “trulyniceguywhodidn’tmeantokillallthosepeopleandisjustmisunderstood.”
              But that’s orthogonal to what we’re discussing. I think.

              • alf says:

                If women had made up the concept of pyschopath it probably would, in fact, be called not “psychopath” but “trulyniceguywhodidn’tmeantokillallthosepeopleandisjustmisunderstood.”

                Well it works both ways. Women love vampire serial-killer pirates, and men, trying to get laid as always, dutifully perform as vampire serial-killer pirates.

                With which you might agree, but still argue: some men may pretend, but others may genuinely be psychopaths. OK, but we’ve already established that ‘psychopath’ is pretty much a criminal badge of honor, which law-abiding citizens want to avoid, which criminals compete for, and which women swoon over. How can such a term, that means so many different things for many different people, possibly mean anything at all?

                Well, it doesn’t. It just doesn’t map to reality. Criminals are opportunistic, cokeheads are idiots and short-term thinkers always disappear out of fear after they’ve burned their bridges.

                The closest you’ll come to psychopathy is either serial killers or great leaders. But psychopathy conflates these terms. This is deliberate, and is why it’s an anti-concept.

                tldr: a psychopath is but a successful autist, but both concepts are about as truthful as your astrological sign.

          • alf says:

            female psychologist: “so… I read in your file that you’re a psychopath?”
            criminal: *stares in the distance* people call me a lot of names. Mostly… I’m just misunderstood.”
            psych: *gushes*

            Insofar we accomplish our goals, we’ll be called psychopaths, and insofar we ought to take this seriously, it is a compliment. But as Jim says, it’s an anticoncept, with about as much relation to reality as astrology or many other psych concepts like autism.

            • Neurotoxin says:

              alf: “The closest you’ll come to psychopathy is either serial killers or great leaders. But psychopathy conflates these terms. This is deliberate, and is why it’s an anti-concept.”

              OK, I had just written an attempt at a Jim emulator on this topic and that pretty much is how I construed him. In which case I see the point. But since I’ve already written it, I might as well copy and paste it in here anyway:
              – – – – – – –

              Here’s my attempt at a “Jim emulator” on this subject. Let me know if this gets what you’re saying right, or if not, how not:

              The word ‘psychopath’ is enemy propaganda for the following reason: It refers to traits which are inherently morally neutral or even good – e.g. keeping cool in stressful/dangerous situations – and presents them as almost entirely bad. Thus it’s essentially an attack against those neutral/good traits.

              For example, a cop who coolly deals with being shot at by [insert your favorite bad guys here] is good, but Hannibal Lechter eating his nurse’s face while his pulse rate never rises above 50 beats per minute is bad.(*) By lumping such cases together under the heading ‘psychopath’ psychologists are basically poisoning the good cases by association.

              (*Yes, I know The Silence of the Lambs is fictional, but roll with me here.)

              If this is what you’re saying then I see your point. But a caveat, which I think is important:

              The grad student said there are essentially zero cases in which a person is a partial psychopath. Apparently pretty much everyone is either a psychopath or not a psychopath. (While this conversation took place more than a decade ago, my memory of this is pretty clear.) If he was right about that, then the word “psychopath” cuts reality at the joints; that’s not the problem. The problem is mostly the familiar one of bad people creating biased terminology.

              We might then, after The Revolution, replace “psychopath” with a better term. “Low-reactivity individual” or “self-controlled person” or “stone-cold cool muthafucka” or whatever. But the basic thing referred to, a person who could eat someone’s face while their pulse rate never ticks up, is, if I’m getting this right, actually out there in reality. It has a referent; it’s not like the word “unicorn.”

              • alf says:

                But the basic thing referred to, a person who could eat someone’s face while their pulse rate never ticks up, is, if I’m getting this right, actually out there in reality. It has a referent; it’s not like the word “unicorn.”

                Minding caveats such as me doubting that this research has ever taken place, and wondering whether all cannibals are psychopaths, sure, sounds like a fun hypothesis.

              • jim says:

                But the basic thing referred to, a person who could eat someone’s face while their pulse rate never ticks up, is, if I’m getting this right, actually out there in reality. It has a referent; it’s not like the word “unicorn.”

                I see no basis for the claim that there is a referent.

                Since the matter is pretty relevant to me, I have made checks on the alleged existence of referents. Smells like the evidence of catastrophic anthropogenic global climate change.

                I fit every indicator of psychopath, except that I am gentle, kind, and distressed by the suffering of other creatures.

                Unless they or their kin have harmed me, in which case I feel not the slightest distress.

                I gently guide spiders into jars, cap the jar and carry them outside. I take risks in order to encourage snakes to leave without harming them.

                I have previously told a story about a spider to illustrate consciousness in non human creatures. In that story you will notice I took a risk for the sake of avoiding harm to that spider.

                It was the size of my hand, I was carrying it around on a stick, and I knew it was fully capable, unlike regular spiders, of making startlingly impressive leaps.

                And that I was willing to take that risk is another indicator of “psychopathy”.

                On the other hand, I regularly get into disputes with tree ants because they think they own my trees, and absolutely delight in setting them on fire while they are trying to rescue their babies. I have told that story also in course of debates on artificial intelligence and the consciousness of non human creatures, though I neglected to mention the setting them on fire part. (While I had been distracted by tree ants lower in the tree, an army of tree ants gathered in the tree above me, and jumped me. This pissed me off.)

                I am also quite capable of doing terrible things to humans, and sleeping like a baby afterwards under analogous circumstances.

                I help out people with whom I have barely met when they are in trouble. I am the good Samaritan.

                And I also don’t see any contradiction between the story of the good Samaritan, and Old Testament divinely commanded genocides. Smells like burning tree ants. I think the genocides committed against certain Indian tribes were entirely right, and under like circumstances we should do the same to our enemies, and think that any good and right government would do it, and I would do it, and sleep like a baby afterwards under the circumstances where those settlers did it.

              • Pseudo-Chrysostom says:

                It’s not the ‘person who could eat someone’s face while their pulse rate never ticks up’ that is out there, it’s the ‘person who could sacrifice his own mother to moloch while their pulse rate never ticks up’ that is out there.

                • Neurotoxin says:

                  >alf, jim, Pseudo-Chrysostom

                  I think we’ve achieved agreement.

                  The “eats someone’s face” thing is from a movie (Silence of the Lambs). Though I think the character of Hannibal Lechter was cobbled together from real-world examples. I don’t know if said examples involved any actual face-eating. I am now weirdly curious about this, but not curious enough to look into it.

                • jim says:

                  I am the person that “psychopath” is a demonization of.

                  Actual serial killers like Gary Ridgeway do not resemble the psychological profile of a psychopath in the slightest, other in that he was a very bad man, and the demon depicted in the “psychopath” profile is also a very bad man.

                  If my interpretation and application of the parable of the good Samaritan seems reasonable to you, and living my life in a way that substantially conforms to it seems virtuous to you, you too are a “psychopath”.

                  “psychopath” is a demonization of manly Christian conduct during conflict. Being calm in danger, stone faced and imperturbable, correlates with willingness to find a less destructive way of ending a conflict, and also correlates with willingness to resolve a conflict in enormously destructive ways. Christianity demands the former, but allows the latter.

                  Which does not mean that a stone face under danger indicates Christianity, but does mean that a Christian in danger is apt to go stone faced.

                  If someone becomes strident in a conflict, this indicates he is trying to get his way with mere words and posturing. If someone goes stone faced it may indicate he is thinking of resolving the conflict amicably, or may mean he is thinking of ending the conflict with sudden violence, and very likely means both.

                • Kunning Drueger says:

                  If you dig into the literature, all the cannibals and really messed up people are socially incompetent. Some serial killers are good at blending, but it is all a facade that covers up just no personality, taste, or diversity of sensation (eat same meal, no music, no art). They occupy disgusting hovels and operate in the fringes. The idea of brilliant CEOs that hide some dark murder tendency is not to be found in the literature. I’m not saying there aren’t any high functioning actual psychotics out there, but the descriptive term is worthless, it is purely used for political attacks and outgrouping.

                  An interesting little fact thrown around in CJ departments: in the US, roughly 5-10K people are reported missing every year. Couple this with the fact that there is a blanket moratorium on reporting on active serial killers (supposedly 2 active in NY/NJ at this time), and there is probably a lot of twisted “data” that could be collected.

                  As usual, St. John just nails it: “It’s not the ‘person who could eat someone’s face while their pulse rate never ticks up’ that is out there, it’s the ‘person who could sacrifice his own mother to moloch while their pulse rate never ticks up’ that is out there.”

                  When I walk with my son in the woods, he asks me if there are monsters out there. I tell him that we are the monsters in the woods.

                • Neurotoxin says:

                  “If my interpretation and application of the parable of the good Samaritan seems reasonable to you, and living my life in a way that substantially conforms to it seems virtuous to you, you too are a “psychopath”.

                  Sweet, I’m a “psychopath.”

              • Neofugue says:

                > Silence of the Lambs…

                …is fiction utterly detached from reality.

                Serial killers such as Gary Ridgway and Jeffrey Dahmer are almost always schizophrenic and sometimes in the case of the former not all that intelligent.

                Hannibal as portrayed by Anthony Hopkins is a high-functioning autistic who pretends to be creepy and unnerving to entertain the audience. Unlike real serial killers he derives no sexual gratification from his victims and prides himself on his ability to disturb people and get reactions out of them. Silence of the Lambs is a manifestation of prog hatred for men and in particular men who are immune from groupthink.

  45. Strannik says:

    If the Nikonians had just repented, none of this would have happened. But good to see that the Westernization project is beginning to be over, and isolating from the West is very good outcome

  46. Pseudo-Chrysostom says:

    https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1500175827161554946.html

    One may know, intellectually, that everything coming out of Ukraine to the west is a storm of lies up one side and down the other.

    But to come to visceral grips with the extent of just how much of a potemkin village the ‘reporting’ actually is; that is quite an other matter.

    It is all too easy at this point for a normie conservakin to feel satisfied – ‘i know the truth, and lieberuls are lying about it again as usual; there’s nothing wrong with what is going on, we just gotta spread more awareness!’.

    But the lesson that is being illustrated here, that one may profit to learn, is just how useless the effort is in the end. The redtribesman is memed into tying his hand behind his back; and then guess what? he’s literally hitler anyways. The ‘hearts and minds doctrine’ rhetorical weapon is meant to exhort the idea that failing to prosecute a war correctly will in some way somehow result in nebulously defined ‘propaganda benefits’, that will in equally nebulous ways somehow make up for any and all strategic contingencies. And indeed, it does provide propaganda benefits – for the people telling you it.

    The average inmate of the occidental panopticon truly underestimates the extent to which the reality he thinks he sees, the history he thinks he has experienced, is in many ways in fact a mediated theater production.

    • alf says:

      I’m starting to believe we don’t have a functional actual army — our media is our army. It functions pretty well.

      • Red says:

        The media is in decline. We once had the best of all propaganda models: Setup conditions for something to happen then shape the narrative of the event in order to spread the correct messages.

        Once Trump was elected they moved full time into Soviet style make everything up propaganda. The Soviet style stuff is effective but only for 5 or 10 years before people catch on and stop believing anything the media says.

        • alf says:

          Good take. It is good to see these things in perspective.

          When I consume the media, it just hurts my basic sensibilities. Dumb propaganda by dumb people for dumb people. So when I see others taking that stuff seriously, it makes one cynical.

          And I do think a bit of cynicism is appropriate. People catch up, yes, but it can take longer than a decade. Sometimes takes a generation, perhaps even two generations. Some folk are just too old, too set in their media church.

    • Aidan says:

      His conspiracy theory is dumb.

      Only the very familiar feeling of a LOCKDOWN, is this the result of war? Or is this the government and corporations creating the illusion of a war to economically force People out of the city?

      Okay, fucking why? What’s the point of a fake war? He says “I don’t see any combat” and also “I keep getting turned around by MP whenever I try to get combat zones”. Well, no shit the security services are keeping lone unusual foreigners away from combat zones.

      Obviously, the “refugee crisis” is staged by the media. But that does not mean that the war is fake. It takes a massive war to disrupt people’s daily lives. I can imagine where I live being invaded. Assuming I wasn’t taking part, I would wake up in the morning, check to see if the fighting was likely to involve my neighborhood, and if not, I’d get in my car and drive to work. If somebody set up an AA battery in my backyard on the other hand, I’d pack my family into my car and drive to a good friend’s house far away until the fighting had passed, and then come back to check if my place had been bombed or looted.

      Again, during a war, places where people are actively shooting at each other are maybe .01% of the actual country’s landmass. A “defended city” does not mean a grunt in every window of every building, like it’s that Call of Duty game set in suburban Virginia, where every house in Fairfax is full of Russian grunts. I’m reading a man of maybe 110 IQ who is disappointed that war isn’t like it is in the videogames. He sees one lie: “the media faked the refugee crisis” and goes from that to “the media faked the entire war”.

      • Skippy says:

        Also, what’s the point of locking down Ukraine?

        Fake war only replaces COVID if escalation causes widespread personal consequences in the West.

      • notglowing says:

        I agree. And having been closer to the conflict zone than most (not quite there at all though) and seeing Ukrainian refugees crossing borders, at airports, queues of cars stretching kilometres, I can say that the worst of what I’ve seen is still fairly orderly.
        Mostly all hotels being booked, flights full, and as I said, queues and traffic.

        But Ukrainians at least do not seem to act like animals and they are not being treated like animals. The media is playing up the crisis part, and making it look like they’re all living like bums, or like all 41 million Ukrainians are leaving the country. It’s not even close, and it’s obvious that it’s not that crazy.

        • Strannik says:

          Which could also be a reflection of the willingness of much of the Ukrainian population to be reabsorbed into Russia.

        • James says:

          I’m sure that for many of them, this is an opportunity to move to a country with more opportunity and see how things shake out. I feel like that’s a pretty rational move given the circumstances.

      • Pseudo-Chrysostom says:

        He over plays his hand, but one is still left with the fact that the Kiev occupation regime is perfectly willing to inflict pains, hardships, and or death on it’s subjects to create conditions it will then use as spin for the sake of escalation.

        The deeper point i got at though, was that defense minister Shoygu’s strategy should have made all the damages KOG is inflicting and or presenting as inflicted, a reality in the first place (eg, high value strategic assets like transportation, energy, and communication architectures). That ultimately the only cause modern style self-imposed hamstringing in the prosecution of ‘politics by other means’, is that of the enemy’s itself (which is by design).

  47. Aryaman says:

    Off topic.

    As I understand it, your position is that usury refers to loans made against a person rather than loans secured by productive assets, regardless of the interest rate.

    But it seems like loans against a person and his labor eventually result in reallocating the labor of high time preference people from themselves to masters better equipped to put that labor to its best use. Serfs do not make for good software engineers, but can probably deliver pizza just fine.

    Perhaps it is unchristian nonetheless, though my understanding is that both Christianity and Islam consider slavery of one form or another as a perhaps suboptimal but entirely natural feature in the course of human affairs.

    On the other hand quite a few loans are made — secured or otherwise — where the lender stands to profit precisely when someone defaults. Included in this category would be some (but not all) credit card loans, late fees, and probably a number of secured loans too (particularly loans against assets that cannot be easily valued and sold quickly, resulting in a profitable transfer of collateral in the event of default, though this is probably not very common).

    • jim says:

      Obviously loans where the lender can profit from the loan going bad have bad incentives. The lender wants to make loans to people who should not be borrowing, and that the lender knows should not be borrowing.

      Those are the interest bearing loans we want to be unenforceable and deemed wicked.

      Interest bearing loans against the person are a good approximation to such loans.

      Yes, high time preference people should wind up in debt slavery. But if you extend credit to someone, and his debt results in him winding up in debt slavery, it should be a very bad loan on which you lose a lot of money, zero interest credit on which payment is extremely late, and probably never paid in full.

      No interest on loans against the person, no interest on loans that can result in recourse against the person.

      Interest bearing loans where the only recourse is against a specific asset, an asset that creates value, an asset that arguably and plausibly came into existence as a result of that loan, or the availability of that sort of loan, are OK, because the lender and the borrower have a shared interest in the loan being good, and the lender has an interest in lending to borrowers whose judgment of the loan is sound and fully informed, lending to wise and productive borrowers, and not lending to foolish and unproductive borrowers.

      • The Cominator says:

        Loans should be for enterprises of capital creation only, never for consumption.

        This includes existing houses, you should be able to get a loan to build a new house but not to buy an existing one. By experience mortgage loans are evil too and i would not allow them.

        • jim says:

          That is kind of rough on someone who wants to buy land to start a farm.

          And can one not rent a place to stay?

          And if one can rent a place to stay, can one not lease a place to stay, rent a place with a guarantee that one’s rent will not rise for the duration of the lease?

          And if one can lease a place to stay, can one not lease a place to stay with the option of buying it for a price agreed at the start of the lease?

          Which looks very like an interest bearing mortgage on an existing house.

          • The Cominator says:

            No its not, because land values do not get much inflated. By experience mortgages are evil.

            Productive enterprises only, but as far as farmers if they want to cultivate currently fallow land… its very arguably a productive enterprises where they are planning to use the loan to increase the production of capital.

            • Aryaman says:

              A landlord who mortgages his houses to fund them has a very productive enterprise, and I don’t see why his would-be lessees should not have access to the same.

              How do you figure land values are inflated because of secured lending to purchase houses? Inflation happens because of an insane monetary and fiscal order resulting in lots of dollars being printed and leaked.

              You can, and I do, object to the massive and unusual government participation in the industry of lending against homes. But I don’t think that changes the fundamental premise that it is pretty safe to lend against a good home at something that resembles market value plus a 20 percent margin.

              The bigger problem is massive government sponsored and tax advantaged schemes forcing people to outsource the majority of their wealth into stock and bond investments managed by people without skin in the game. Few people should own stocks, and many more should own their homes (or most of their homes) outright. Because most people are capable of judging what their home is worth and maintaining its value, whereas few are in a position to understand what the per-share value of Apple stock is worth. And we are the worse off for their absentee ownership of the same.

              • The Cominator says:

                The problem is that lending for homes (ALWAYS backstopped by the state due to its scale, Austrians are wrong about banking) distorts the market value up massively its just a credit bubble the government never lets crash. My views on this are adamant no mortgage lending I’ve seen nothing but evil come from it in the last 30 years. Anyone who wants to buy an existing home should have to pay cash.

                Stocks over time tend to beat out other investments (though not if you got in on bitcoin early) as they are productive enterprises though you are better off with small caps with good management and not blue chips…

                • jim says:

                  Cost of houses is supply and demand, and if you had ever tried to build a house, you would know what is choking off supply.

                  As for demand, large numbers of people are coming to suspect that when the time comes to pay off a mortgage, the mortgagee will be happy to get a dozen eggs instead.

                • Aryaman says:

                  Should commercial landlords be able to borrow against their assets, and if so why not?

                  Should people who buy widget factories be able to borrow against their assets? Should they be able to borrow against their asset only if they built it from the prairie ground up Building” isn’t quite binary.

                  I’m not sure you are right small stocks beat out big stocks over time, though the good investor investing in small stocks does tend to beat out the good investor investing in large stocks over time.

                  Lending against homes does not need to be backstopped by the state as it is in USA. It only needs to be backstopped by the state when the state wants to give away your money to blacks and hispanics who cannot pay, as it did under the Bush administration.

                  Most people should own more of their own home and less of Apple. It has been a disaster for me and you that people who do not know how to own a productive concern like Apple end up owning a vast majority of a productive concern like Apple.

                • The Cominator says:

                  To the extent that many companies are mismanaged now due to passive stockholders…

                  I blame the government in the late 80s and early 90s (another crime of the priesthood) for going after “Activist Investors” who would tend to remove bad management (which tended to be priestly management).

                  Apple sucks in many many ways and I’ve never been a fan, but its not exactly been bad at making money.

                • Aryaman says:

                  Yes. Specifically, diversified and passive ownership by people unfit to own. Also, corporate charters are not adhered to. A corporation should have a specific purpose, and should be required to distribute at least a certain portion of its income to shareholders absent a specific vote from slightly more than a majority of shareholders to the contrary.

                  Also yes, demise of activism has been terrible. Should always be possible for a small enough group of activists to coordinate and purchase a sufficiently influential stake in every single company they believe is mismanaged, up to the very biggest. Passive investors get in the way of this as well, since an activist wouldn’t need a very big stake at all in a company with shareholders who have a modicum of interest.

                  Whereas the non-underclass of a country should own homes.

                • The Cominator says:

                  Activist investors who made a habit of it were squelched by the government because it didn’t want merchant activists generally throwing out priestly managers…

                  Hence they had to perp walk Ivan Boesky and I think they threatened Carl Icahn (a very good guy IMHO) even though he avoided jail…

                • Guy says:

                  @Com: I’ve seen you make the claim a few times that Austrians were wrong on banking. My knowledge of the Austrian School is limited to the writings of von Mises, and he was a free trade absolutist which is obviously what you were saying is wrong here with regard to loaning money. But he also looked at our current financial / monetary system as a hypothetical worst case scenario only worth considering academically. He dedicated one small section at the end of Human Action to what would happen were every Central Bank in the world to produce a Non-Stop supply of fiduciary media and said it would result in all-out war once the world teamed up against the most successful of the central banks.

                  Are you referring to simply their free market absolutism? Or are their other tenants of the school you also are referring to? I know Friedman was actually in a position to put theory into practice, and ended up only stealing our tax money more efficiently. He admitted he made mistakes though and was trying to work from within a crap system.

                  I guess I’m just asking if there’s anything you would expound upon there, not necessarily disagreeing.

                • The Cominator says:

                  Sovereign cannot and will not disinterest himself from the currency and banking for any length of time for free market banking to work and im not sure it could.

        • pyrrhus says:

          I don’t see a problem with any no-recourse loan against collateral, particularly if the loan has been perfected…If the lender has misjudged the collateral, or hasn’t perfected the loan (one easy way is to take possession of the collateral) he loses and that’s fine…

      • Aryaman says:

        That sounds reasonable.

        Though it seems like the key to the idea is “not lending against the person” rather than “lending against productive assets”, for how do you distinguish between lending against a house for its purchase or construction versus lending against a house to purchase what would otherwise be financed with debts against the person?

        I guess I remain somewhat unbothered by usury so long as the public broadly don’t end up eating the losses. Though I am bothered by the aesthetics of lending where you hope to profit on default.

    • Pseudo-Chrysostom says:

      You could have a financial instrument with infinity compounding interest, and it not be usurious – for in the inevitable event that the lendee fails to pay back infinity money, it is not the lendee who is on the hook for paying back infinity money, but the lender who has to eat the ‘difference’. If a lendee’s venture succeeds, he profits along with the lendee, but if it fails, he takes a haircut for it also along with the lendee. Thus, it is incumbent on the lender to take care that they are only lending to those wise, honorable, and industrious enough to actually succeed in their venture and repay, lest they end up having to pay for an other parties profligacy.

      Likewise, you could have an instrument with zero (0) per cent interest, and it be usurious – where if in the case the venture of the lendee fails, he is still on the hook to repay what was lent, and the lender has sovereign power to, one way or another, extract his pound of flesh (iow, literally the plot of The Merchant of Venice). Thus, a usurious financial apparatus is indiscriminate, and looks to lend for anything and everything, in order to get more parties, regardless of quality, virtue of their venture, or even any venture at all, on the hook to pay out.

      And if too many people that can’t actually pay, are ‘on the hook’ to pay, it’s society as a whole that ends up being taken to the cleaners. Cause a whole bunch of liability got conjured out of air without any closure, so now the mechanism is fucked.

      • Aryaman says:

        I fully confess, I dislike the aesthetics of usury.

        I don’t however buy your argument. The people who get taken to the cleaners are better off, and society better off, if they are under the jurisdiction and management of those that don’t get taken to the cleaners.

        What seems more important is making sure that people who make bad loans do not get bailed out, that bankers who make a lot of bad loans end up sent to prison (under which regime few bankers are ever sent to prison, since it is not in fact difficult to make good loans on average).

        Tricking people, on the other hand, is bad, and shouldn’t be profitable. A lot of the profit from credit card debt is the result of tricking people, but not all of it.

        • Pseudo-Chrysostom says:

          Im not sure i know what you’re not buying; you say you disagree, then go on to describe agreement with everything in practice.

  48. Upravda says:

    Fucking Soviet drone has crashed in Zagreb last night around 23h. A 6-ton kludge called Tu-141 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupolev_Tu-141) that went out of service in ’89. It spent at least 45 minutes in NATO airspace, yet no one scrambled to intercept it.

    It crashed in a lawn between big student dormitory, a popular restaurant called Stara Sava which I often visit with friends (last time a few weeks ago), and a very popular pub called Roko (where I also used to hang out when I was much younger). Entire surrounding is quite populated event at night so it is a miracle that nobody died.

    There’s a running joke here: “Will Putin end up in Haag?” (tribunal) “It depends on speed of Russian tanks.”

    Well, regarding fantastic performance of NATO air defense, I really hope Mr. Putin will stay between Kiev and Lavov.

    And no, it is not small and slow Matthias Rust’s Cessna, this shit flies at 1000 km/h. It should have been considered a threat. Rumors says it has red star roundels. 🙂 Also, city quarter where it fell is called Jarun (J as y in “yellow”). Surprisingly, there’s also small village of Yarun (Latin transliteration) in Ukraine.

    Did they enter wrong coordinates from Google maps after haphazard searching? 🙂

    Entire event here:
    https://www.rt.com/news/551700-zagreb-drone-ukraine-territory/

    • clovis says:

      This was on Zero Hedge and I didn’t know what to make of it. It does indicate that nato air defense is not very tight, doesn’t it?

      • Kunning Drueger says:

        Possibly, but that is assuming it wasn’t spotted. IIRC this was first reported as a “Ukrainian Drone.”

    • Fireball says:

      Was the drone actually russian?

      • jim says:

        Ukrainian drone, wandered off course, probably due to Russian jamming.

        The drone was an old model used by Ukraine and not used by Russia. But the Russians used to use them, which means they know how to jam them.

        • Fireball says:

          Quite possible but i do wander if it just wandered off.

        • Upravda says:

          Being relatively ancient Soviet military hardware, first batch produced in ’79 (which means it is designed even earlier) those Tu-141 probably have vacuum tubes instead of transistors. Certainly not any kind of modern integrated circuits, not even 8-bit microprocessor. So I doubt it can be jammed or hacked in any modern sense of the word, especially if it has inertial navigation.

          It was probably deliberately targeted to “Jarun” or somewhere like that, it is just a question did some grunts who launched it made a stupid Google map mistake, or were they conciously ordered so. To stir things up.

          It was Ukes. Yes, the kludge could have been launched form northern Pridnjestrovlje, it is about 990 km to Jarun, so it could barely reach the target, but then it would remain much longer in Romanian airspace, not just three minutes, passing between big towns of Cluj and Satu Mare, so probably quite detectable by Romanian radars.

    • Mister Grumpus says:

      Even if it were Russian, cheap stunts like this are a great way to let everyone know that NATO Won’t Protect You.

  49. Joe W. says:

    Alex Berenson turns on Tucker Carlson, calling him a “useful idiot” for Putin:

    https://alexberenson.substack.com/p/dont-be-a-useful-idiot?s=r

    It’s always been clear that Berenson was nothing more than a standard Manhattan leftist but, like a typical Hebe, he saw a chance to make money from Covid and couldn’t pass it up. Now that Covid is over, it looks like Berenson is trying to rehab his image.

    Making it even funnier, after spending two years screaming about censorship, Berenson admits he almost turned off the comments on the above post. To his credit, he didn’t, and to his readers’ credit, they’re obliterating him for being a stooge.

  50. jdgalt1 says:

    The patriarch is spot on. Russia is not a free or uncorrupt country but it is the lesser evil.

  51. Anonymous says:

    Off topic, my sincere apologies. But given this is one of the few intellectual communities whose advice I greatly value, I thought I should ask.

    How does the commentariat here recommend managing a super alpha Father in Law?

    We keep hearing about Fatherless girls having Daddy issues.. but I haven’t seen quite as much about the opposite, Daddy’s little princess syndrome.

    My wife thinks the world of her Dad. And she drops shit tests on me like this:
    “Maybe I should just ask my Dad, he’ll know what to do”,
    or
    “My dad never asked us how much a new dress cost!”
    or
    Buying a bunch of random shit for her parents and racking up credit card debt (I make enough money that I don’t really care that much in the grand scheme of things, but still, it pisses me off a little that I’m buying so many gifts for a different household)

    I’m thinking I should just agree and amplify – “yeah sure ask your dad, maybe ask him to pay for it as well”. And the most Dark Triad solution would be to somehow weaken her relationship with her parents. Subtly, of course. For her own good, and for our family’s good.

    Not that I have anything against her Dad. He’s a really nice guy and a true sociosexual alpha. Charismatic, handsome, rich, gregarious, genuinely empathetic and likeable. It’s just that I’m tired of the constant comparisons to him. I’m no omega, but it’s hard to compete against Mr 1 in a million, especially if he’s someone your family interacts with frequently..

    By way of context – I’m Hindu. Traditional Hindu norms would have never allowed this situation to arise, but of course we are no longer in Traditional times. Traditionally a Hindu bride’s parents were expected to wash the feet of the bridegroom to signify their social inferiority with regard to the groom. And once married, a wife’s parents and her extended family were supposed to never even set foot in the town into which she married into, and never accept even a glass of water from her married house.

    Interestingly her Dad, albeit super alpha, seems a bit whipped when it comes to his own wife. He actually pays money to his in laws, I LOLed when I found out.

    • jim says:

      Her dad defines her idea of what alpha is.

      You have no alternative but to pass as alpha. There is no rest for men. We are always on stage, we must always perform.

      It is not her relationship with her dad, it is whether you are alpha.

      And I damned sure her Dad did ask how much a new dress cost.

      • clovis says:

        >Her dad defines her idea of what alpha is.

        My wife’s dad is a Scandinavian who never expresses emotion. I yell a lot. I think this helped me sometimes with my wife, but over the long term it had diminishing returns. Are you saying I need to act like her father to appear alpha in her eyes?

        • jim says:

          You need to act like her pussy’s idea of alpha. Which apt to be strongly influenced by dad, particularly an alpha dad.

          But seldom bares much resemblance to what her mouth says her idea of alpha is.

        • Adam says:

          Yelling a lot is not an indicator that you are in charge. It is an indicator that you are upset, and likely she is in charge.

          They are children. They struggle. They act out. This should not upset you, because you are in charge, and being in charge are always several steps ahead of them. At the very least, you are always in control of yourself and your emotions.

          Never loose your cool. Often times that’s all you will have. Loosing your cool because of a woman shows her that she can control and manipulate you. Not alpha.

          • Kunning Drueger says:

            How do you fight your way back to alpha after missteps or mistakes? Using the example at hand, if you are a yeller, how do you build out a new response complex, given that she has evolved to the scenario you created?

            • Aidan says:

              Fuck, I’m finding this hard to put into words. You know how when two guys are arguing, and they’re “yelling” at each other in a way that makes it really obvious that violence isn’t going to happen? It’s in the front of the mouth, there’s no diaphragm in it. And then two guys can be “yelling” at each other, but it’s short, almost like barking, coming out of the chest, and you know violence is possible?

              When most men “yell” at their wives, it’s the former. But it’s the latter that works, on very sparing occasions, when she is totally out of line. All I can say is what works for me; to be mostly unmoved by hysterics, like an oak tree in a storm. Being completely emotionless is a submissive posture though… it’s really hard to explain. Fatherliness is probably the closest way to describe it.

              • Adam says:

                It’s a practice of having emotion, and feeling it (not turning from it) while simultaneously not letting it dictate your behavior. It sends a powerful message when a man is moved emotionally yet chooses to dig deep to find the strength necessary to restrain himself. It’s an act of courage. It sends a message “I should not fuck with this guy”. But also a message that you have a heart (as a father would).

                • Aidan says:

                  That is a great way to put it. Holding your emotions under tension like that, as opposed to burying or venting them, gives you strength and empowers your actions. And that goes for positive emotions as well. It is like an engine under compression as opposed to an explosion. One should not explode at a woman, but she should be able to hear your engine revving.

                • Kunning Drueger says:

                  @Aidan & Adam

                  Excellent thoughts, but I was using the yelling thing to cover my actual situation because I’m embarrassed and isolated. My poorly worded question, restated:

                  How do you go about fostering a healthy relationship with your wife if it started off incorrectly and bad habits and practices have become the norm?

                • Adam says:

                  The way you conduct yourself sets the standard for behavior. Start getting rid of bad habits, start forming good ones. Meditate on the word discipline for a year. Find out what it means. Become your own master. Everything you do and don’t do should be a product of honest self reflection. A conscious choice.

                  As you achieved mastery over yourself, once you think, talk and act like a master you will find it fairly easy to lead others. Trying to change someone doesn’t really work. Between my (ex)wife and kids, and my subordinates at work, I never try to change them or manage the relationship in any way.

                  If you act like a master, people will start to see you as one too and naturally fall in line. People can just sort of tell your more in charge than they are.

                • jim says:

                  Jordan Peterson has a point, in that you have to be in charge of yourself in order to be in charge of others. But being in charge of yourself does not automatically result in you being in charge of your wife and kids. It is just a good starting point, and seldom the critical factor.

            • Adam says:

              Well, stop yelling for one. It only works if you do it infrequently. It should be reserved for those moments right before you would slap her, and you should only tell the word “QUIET!” or something like that. You just need to startle her to snap her out of it.

              Something to consider, as far as fighting and arguing with women. Women are not the enemy. Your wife is not the enemy. But they do work for the enemy. It doesn’t pay to destroy the woman, because that doesn’t destroy the enemy, it only destroys the woman.

              You have to have infinite patience to properly father a wife or a child, and it has to come from a place of wanting to see them succeed. Like teaching a child to walk or ride a bike. In this way you have to put their needs above your own.

              A woman’s frame is a facade. They are weak and cowardly and easy to break. It’s a terrible experience to be a woman outside the influence of a strong male figure. Knowing they are weak, break them slowly. Discipline does not necessarily mean punishment, it means keeping them on track and pointed in the right direction.

              Becoming more alpha is forever a process of finding out what behavior works and what doesn’t. Adult alphas understand people and relationships. When you are alpha and your wife and children are subordinate to you, you will naturally become the strong silent type. You won’t have to say much.

              • The Cominator says:

                Weak yes…

                Cowardly… i would not say this is universally true at all. Women can be downright fanatical and the unfortunate thing about fanatics is that while they are stupid and insane… they are not cowardly.

                • jim says:

                  Women will cheerfully make enormous sacrifices for their children and their man.

                  Alpha widowhood is a perverse manifestation of this.

                • Adam says:

                  Fair enough. Perhaps cowardly was not the right word.

                • Aidan says:

                  Women will cheerfully make enormous sacrifices for their children and their man.

                  A woman’s ability to endure all kind of shit continually impresses me. Men are strong like steel, and women are strong like rubber. When you heat em up, then you can mold em.

                • The Cominator says:

                  Of the societies that have tried women and combat, which of course they failed at the problem was never that they would run away in terror and shit themselves… lack of courage wasn’t the problem. The problems were…

                  1) Physically weaker and less energy (nearly all direct combat jobs except artillery and sniping are physically exhausting in the extreme)
                  2) Irrational normally but extremely under stress
                  3) Would fuckup team social dynamics between shit testing and all the other stuff, also a lot of men could not help but go to too much extra lengths to save the women in combat.

                  They did apparently do pretty good as snipers… given that its a pretty solitary job which requires patience precision and ruthlessness… I could see a lot of women doing okay at that.

                • Aidan says:

                  You do not send women to fight wars for the same reason that you do not make weapons and armor out of rubber. But the tires on my car are rubber, and I cannot imagine making them out of anything else.

            • Adam says:

              I will also say, as far as past mistakes, they mean nothing. Learn from it so you can do better today. Yesterday wasn’t real. Only now is real. Yesterday was just practice. Don’t hold yourself to yesterdays standard. Improve your standard because of the lessons you learned from yesterday and hold yourself to that.

    • Skippy says:

      There’s a difference between being rich and being alpha.

      “My dad never asked us how much a new dress cost!”

      She wants to know if youre a pushover like her dad, not if youre rich like her dad.

      • Varna says:

        Yes, generic shit-test along the “real men do X, therefore do X to prove you’re a real man”.

        As if it’s up to her to decide kek.

    • The Cominator says:

      I’ve said that in general fatherless girls are better if you aren’t a criminal psycho…

      Women with “strong alpha” fathers like guys who are very violent criminal and evil. He just sounds like hes rich though not a social alpha… there is a different.

      • The Cominator says:

        Difference…

      • Nicodemus Rex says:

        Fatherless girls are MUCH more likely to cheat on you. because they see themselves as low status enough that a lot of other men are alpha in their eyes.

        Sure, they give fewer and easier shit-tests. just like single moms. doesn’t mean they’re actually at all worth trying to build a family with.

        • i says:

          In tribes and cultures where there is no Fatherhood to speak of. Then one has to start somewhere.

          That’s why they are doing all they can to deprive as many girls of Fathers as possible.

          To ensure there is no options left.

    • Aryaman says:

      Traditionally a Hindu bride’s parents were expected to wash the feet of the bridegroom to signify their social inferiority with regard to the groom. And once married, a wife’s parents and her extended family were supposed to never even set foot in the town into which she married into, and never accept even a glass of water from her married house.

      And it is this among other things that leads to the demise of Hindu marriage as it was intended. Taking signifiers literally without taking the signified seriously. Does a practice of inhibiting cordial relations with your in laws sound sane to you as a matter of course? You do not need her father to wash your feet: you need him to give you her hand in marriage with all that this entails.

      “Traditional Hindu norms” as colloquially defined are precisely why situations like this arise, by replacing sacrament and doctrine with unreasonable ritual that I suspect is surprisingly modern, apt to result in revolt. And the signified is lost when the signifiers are thrown out. A further issue with “Traditional Hindu norms” is that they entail a wedding performed in a language no one, including the priest, understands. An Episcopalian wedding circa 1880 is a more honest “Traditional Hindu wedding” than almost anything that passes for the same to this day.

      There are wonderful English translations of the various sacraments performed in a Hindu marriage, to which you and her father were party, and you should make it clear that you take the words that were said seriously if not literally.

      She does not need to tend to your cows or spend much time maintaining “household utensils”, but probably should help manage wealth under your direction. (My wife manages my billing, credit cards, taxes and the busywork of investments much better than I ever did myself).

      To put her in the charge of household management cultivates the natural dichotomy of marriage. E.g. from the Laws of Manu,

      5. Women must particularly be guarded against evil inclinations, however trifling (they may appear); for, if they are not guarded, they will bring sorrow on two families.

      6. Considering that the highest duty of all castes, even weak husbands (must) strive to guard their wives.

      7. He who carefully guards his wife, preserves (the purity of) his offspring, virtuous conduct, his family, himself, and his (means of acquiring) merit.

      11. Let the (husband) employ his (wife) in the collection and expenditure of his wealth, in keeping (everything) clean, in (the fulfilment of) religious duties, in the preparation of his food, and in looking after the household utensils.

      I think the idea of a wife as a spendthrift is a misconception, the girlfriend as a spendthrift not so much.

      Interestingly her Dad, albeit super alpha, seems a bit whipped when it comes to his own wife. He actually pays money to his in laws, I LOLed when I found out.

      And he may have good reason for doing so. “Do not give money to your wife’s family” is not a law I am aware of.

      • Aryaman says:

        What is more important: making sure all parties and the audience understand the duties and requirements of Hindu marriage as they were and always have been, or the father washing the groom’s feet for all to see?

        Now, which of the two happens in a language that no one understands, in a part of the ceremony everyone forgets, and which happens in an spectacle seen and understood by everyone involved?

    • Adam says:

      “I feel bad and I blame you”. It’s not about her dad. Never listen to what a girl says. Girls are dumb. She wants to feel better.

      Become more alpha.

      • Varna says:

        While taking great care to not allow her set the goalpost for being alpha. Because that’s not alpha.

        • Adam says:

          A man will only become conditioned if he listens to what a woman says, instead of how she is saying it or what she is doing. Once the alpha problem is solved, the feelings problem is solved.

          You don’t need to do anything to make her feel better, such as meeting a condition. Become more alpha, as you should be doing anyway, and her conditions will no longer be conditions.

          Most of the time, women and children are just looking for attention. Life is hard for them, interpreting reality is difficult and stressful. A few moments of your attention here and there is often all thats necessary. And for a wife, a good fucking regularly. If your an alpha, this is not a difficult burden.

    • Nicodemus Rex says:

      Heartiste’s old article on “Amazonian Alphas” seems relevant to your situation. https://heartiste.org/2008/09/18/how-to-handle-femmes-fatales-part-3/

      Never dated a girl quite like this … but; she compares you to her father because she unconsciously knows it bothers you, not because she’s a “daddy’s princess” in particular. It comes across in your post that you are a little bit insecure about your status vs. her father (i.e you think he is more alpha than you). She senses weakness in you on that particular topic and this is like blood in the water for her.

      There are two types of shit tests, ones that you fail by reacting to and ones that you fail by *not* reacting to. For the first type, agree and amplify works great. For the second type (i.e her buying shit for her parents without your permission), there’s a sliding scale of reactions depending on how important this is to you personally:
      – teasing
      – neg hits (say something like “I didn’t realize you were this bad with money” with a straight face and completely neutral tone, very important to show NO BUTTHURTNESS or anger, just make it sound like an offhand musing)
      – freeze her out of the credit card and give her a (small) hoop to jump through to get it back … something like asking her to make a spreadsheet of your expenses and budget for the year. simple & easy enough that she can’t justify not doing it but unambiguous enough that you’ve regained hand.
      – soft next her (hard to do in the context of a marriage but hopefully you have a bachelor pad in the city or something you can go to for a few days while you’re “busy with work”)

      These all work well in the short term, but in the long term she’s gonna keep shit testing you as long as you think you’re less alpha than her dad. Fix this insecurity and she’ll stop in a heartbeat. Then she’ll move on to the next thing that gets under your skin lol. girls don’t stop shit testing you until they hit the wall and if she’s hot and came from a rich family it will never, ever be easy. but it will get easier, and once you’ve seen enough of them passing them will become second nature and you’ll BE alpha, instead of just faking it.

      • Neurotoxin says:

        Heartiste’s old article on “Amazonian Alphas”…

        Reading that took me back. Heartiste at his peak was such a funny writer. Choice sample from the link:

        “DO fuck her like a silverback gorilla. Hair pulling is just the start. Practice your wind-up; you’re going to be smacking her ass so hard your dick will feel the sting in her pussy.”

    • Since you say he’s an otherwise nice guy, I would actually recommend a heart-to-heart talk with your father-in-law. This is how Patriarchy should work, by cooperation among male family members. Your father-in-law should impress on his daughter that she’s no longer his daughter, but your wife.

      Since your wife is too close to her father, impress on your father-in-law that your marital bliss depends on his being remote and distant to his daughter.

    • Anonymous says:

      Thank you Jim and everyone else who responded. Multiple excellent suggestions. I will get around to implementation!

  52. Kunning Drueger says:

    Based Ortho preacher (I don’t know the actual titles)
    https://twitter.com/RWApodcast/status/1502264817888940036

    Celebrating the expulsion from Eurovision, the blocking of Pornhub, and the flight of haggard pop stars from Russia.

    • Yul Bornhold says:

      The Cathedral cutting off its own tentacles very much indicates actions driven by a collective lust for power (as per Moldbug’s theory) rather than a secret cabal (as per the traditional conspiracy.)

      At least in this case.

  53. Mike in Boston says:

    Globohomo is pointing and sputtering at Kirill’s sermon.

    But back in 2019, one James Kirchick, a Brookings/Atlantic Council lackey of the usual sort, basically admitted that Kirill is right:

    One suspects that if Russia were a place where Pride parades were allowed, its quarrels with the United States, and ours with it, would diminish.

    • clovis says:

      https://religiondispatches.org/if-kirills-bizarre-sermon-blaming-war-on-pride-parades-comes-as-a-surprise-its-time-to-learn-the-history/

      Like you said, sputtering, and notably not providing a good English translation of the sermon so one can judge for himself whether in fact the sermon is nonsensical, like they claim:

      “Instead, Patriarch Kirill took the occasion of Forgiveness Sunday 2022 to play Reactionary MadLibs, as Sarah Riccardi-Swartz has also written about here on RD. In a bizarre rant at the iconic Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow, Kirill asserted that the fighting in Ukraine was a result of the rejection of “fundamental values” by those who “claim world power.” These nefarious powers, the Patriarch goes on to explain, “demand that you hold gay pride parades as a test of loyalty.” Countries that fail to take this Rainbow Oath are apparently denied access to Visa, Mastercard, and Netflix.

      The war in Ukraine, according to the spiritual leader of the Russian Orthodox Church, is one of “metaphysical significance.” It’s a battle between good and evil, in which Russia is the last powerful guardian of the good, seeking to maintain God’s Holy Laws while the decadent rest are just trying to hold a gay pride parade in Kyiv.

      While Patriarch Kirill’s sermon was shocking, it wasn’t surprising to anyone familiar with the Russian Orthodox Church. This sermon is the natural outcome of rhetoric coming out of the Patriarchate of Moscow, not only over the past decade, but over the past five centuries as well. In recent times, Patriarch Kirill and Vladimir Putin have worked diligently to position the Russian Orthodox Church, and by extension Russia, as leader of the Global Christian Right.

      And thanks largely to American evangelicals, anti-LGBTQ rhetoric is a hallmark of this worldwide ideological movement. Certainly, anti-LGBTQ laws in Russia and the horrific persecution of gay men in Chechnya (a Russian client state), to which Putin and Kirill turned a blind-eye, prove this is horrifyingly more than rhetoric. But Kirill’s remarks go beyond a decade of horrific anti-LGBTQ repression and the Russian-American Evangelical Lovefest.”

      • clovis says:

        ” He congratulates the faithful on the religious holiday; then moves on to talk about how spring is a time of growth and resurrection, but quickly mentions that this season is overshadowed by the political upheaval in Donbas. From there Kirill takes a hard Right turn into a critique of freedom, suggesting that the people of Donbas rightly opposed the freedom of western civilization because it brought with it a test of faithfulness to God—i.e. pride parades (это гей-парад).

        By not giving in to this sin, Kirill argues that Donbas (and seemingly Russia as well) are thus strangers to the world (то они не входят в тот мир, они становятся для него чужими.), not welcome in the West because of their oppositional stances on pride parades, which he labels as sin. ”

        The thrust of this article along with the other one seems to be to tie any Christian in America who opposes the public religion of gayness with Russia, leaving unstated that if Evangelicals are tied to Russian orthodoxy as the moral leaders of the world and to Putin, they are enemy assets working against the west’s spiritual war.

        https://religiondispatches.org/in-his-forgiveness-day-sermon-a-slightly-more-sophisticated-globohomo-rant-kirill-lays-out-an-authoritarian-vision-in-which-his-version-of-god-might-dominate-and-rule-the-h/

        • jim says:

          A globohomo response that acknowledges what was said.

          Holy war comes, Are you on the side of the Christians, or Globohomo?

          If you are on the side of globohomo, then blacks are holier than you, women are holier than you, faggots are holier than you, and transexuals are holier than anyone, and the way to try to match the immensely superior holiness of transexuals is to buy a child from child protective services and transexualize it.

          • Wulfgar Thundercock III says:

            My answer is simple: In hoc signo vinces. Conquer in the name of the Lord. My armor is contempt. My shield is disgust. My sword is hatred. Let the globohomo burn!

            • The Cominator says:

              Exterminatus is the only solution, some may question my right to exterminate so many demon worshipping leftists… those who truly understand realize that I have no right to let them live.

              • i says:

                That has been taken out of our hands somewhat because God is certainly no longer ordering us to carry such things out.

                Courtesy of the New Covenant.

                He is taking over that job completely I think.

                Think of the Pandemics that the Spanish conquistadors brought to the Latin American Civilizations inadvertently and wasted them.

                And see the impact of Divine providence.

              • Adam says:

                I think the best argument for your position is that we must exterminate them because it is our duty to protect the innocent and faithful that fall under our care. Or something to that effect. Motives matter. If you holiness spiral protecting the innocent, you’ll just end up building bigger and bigger walls. If you holiness spiral killing leftists, you’ll end up killing ignorant kids.

                • The Cominator says:

                  No holiness spirals strict unchanging criteria…

                • Kunning Drueger says:

                  Easy to say, but it’s never been done, at least not yet.

                  My biggest contention with your method is that it requires someone perfect and perfectly steeped to accomplish it. Even if you find the perfect Man for the Job, a simple assassination almost guarantees a spiral.

                • The Cominator says:

                  Suharto did it or something very close.

                • Wulfgar Thundercock III says:

                  There is no need for a holiness spiral if one man decides when it ends. Say, for the sake of argument, that man is me. I give everyone a list of criteria for killing leftists, and anyone who fits that criteria gets thrown against the wall and shot. Then, after we have killed enough leftists, everyone gets a bonus, a big victory ceremony/celebration, and some shiny medals. The killing stops there and anyone still killing then answers to me, or my lawmen. No holiness.spiral, just war.

                • Kunning Drueger says:

                  Is Indonesia not a part of Globohomo?

          • Mike in Boston says:

            Authoress Sarah Riccardi-Swartz is funded not only by some woke American foundation, but by the Leadership 100, a bunch of rich Greek-Americans who want to (a) assert first place for Greeks in the Orthodox Church worldwide, as they did during the good old Byzantine centuries, with those upstart Russians kept firmly.in their place; and (b) hang tight with the Democratic Party establishment in the USA, both for the aforementioned reason and for reasons of social prestige.

            Back in the 1940s and 50s this agenda led them to install organs in Greek churches in the US, something otherwise unknown in any Orthodox Church worldwide. Today, much more deleteriously, this means enthusiastic assent to Globohomo.

            Father John Whiteford stops short of implying that Ms. Riccardi-Swartz makes stuff up out of whole cloth, and in other ways too is more charitable than she deserves, in his fine response to her efforts of a year ago.

            • Strannik says:

              The Phanar was taken over by the enemy a long time ago, just took some time for some Orthodox to realize this, and this awareness became the foundation for what their enemies called ” the Old Calendar Movement ” as if the only problem traditional Orthodox Christian people had was with the New Calendar.

          • Strannik says:

            Lucifer rules the West.

    • clovis says:

      > One suspects that if Russia were a place where Pride parades were allowed, its quarrels with the United States, and ours with it, would diminish.

      Also, this link to the Brookings institution is the first headline on revolver.news right now on the main feed, so whoever suggested that Beattie might be reading Jim’s blog could have a point.

  54. notglowing says:

    https://www.newsweek.com/putin-says-communism-comes-bible-compares-lenin-saint-781328

    “Firstly, faith has always accompanied us. It strengthened when things were hard for our people’s country. There have been harsh, godfighting years when clerics were destroyed and churches were ruined. But at the same time (Soviets) created a new religion. Indeed, communist ideology is very similar to Christianity.”

    “Lenin was laid down in a mausoleum,” Putin reminded his interviewer. “How does this differ to the remains of saints for the Orthodox or even for Christians in general?”

    > Read More: According to Putin, Lenin is to blame for the ruin of the Soviet Union

    Not really liking this propaganda, even if I see its usefulness in the context of Russia

    • notglowing says:

      Linked articles is from two years earlier:
      https://www.newsweek.com/russias-putin-accused-lenin-ruining-soviet-union-418519

      Russian President Vladimir Putin has slammed former Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin for ruining the Soviet Union and for metaphorically laying “an atomic bomb” underneath Russia, the country’s independent news agency Interfax reports.

      “Ruling with your ideas as a guide is correct, but that is only the case when that idea leads to the right results, not like it did with Vladimir Ilyich (Lenin),” Putin said using Lenin’s middle name. “In the end that idea led to the ruin of the Soviet Union,” he added.

  55. someDude says:

    Either His Holiness reads this blog (unlikely) or has advisors who do (likely, in light of his speech). I read this sort of thing at this blog first and will naturally assume that anyone echoing similar sentiments years later has either been to this blog or heard it from someone who used to be at this blog.

    I wonder if Bannon or any of his advisors read or have heard of this blog.

    Not sure how you could know MoldBug and the reactosphere and not know of this blog. Bannon knows of this blog, I think, but I also think he tries very hard not to know of it.

    • ExileStyle says:

      It is interesting how that Gay Pride Parade & Civilization thread happens here and then it seems to bubble up into more mainstream right-wing discourse a couple weeks later.

      That also notably happened during the Afghanistan withdrawal; the meme action on that was about as Jimian redpilled as I have ever seen, even in otherwise normie MAGA circles.

      I am almost certain than Darren Beattie of revolver.news, who’s close with Bannon and Tucker and appears regularly on their shows, reads the blog. He uses the holiness/purity spiral concept with some regularity, and did before it was repackaged as “mass formation psychosis” or whatever. He’s also steeped in the ideas and language of Jim/NRx/Dark Enlightenment. He has a pretty big audience.

      Information and ideas spread in strange and unpredictable ways, though.

      • jim says:

        Seventeen days ago you made this comment.

        It is not *that” we have gay pride parades, it is how our own elite wants to regime-change Putin because he doesn’t want Russia’s sole purpose as a nation to be the financing and propagation of gay pride parades and child genital mutilation…

        Mainstream thirteen days after you made it.

        Congrats

        • pyrrhus says:

          But clearly Gay pride parades have to precede the child genital mutilation and Drag Queen Story Hours….I have seen this trajectory in my own extended family…

        • ExileStyle says:

          Glad to play my part.

  56. clovis says:

    Is purple the liturgical color for Lent in Eastern Orthodoxy?

    • jim says:

      Could not find a good photo of the actual speech, so put up a file photo of a patriarch speaking – correct Cathedral, wrong speech. I had a clarification at the bottom of the blog post, but since it seems people do not connect the two, I just now, before making this reply, switched to the correct photo.

      Not happy with this photo.

      If someone could find me a good photo, which illustrates that His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia is speaking with authority for Russian Christianity, that would be great, but the photos I could find of the actual speech seemed to obfuscate his authority.

    • Need it for school says:

      The rules for liturgical colors in orthodoxy only specify “light” versus “dark” vestments. Lent is “dark”; usually purple is worn, with an option to wear black vestments on weekdays.

  57. Cloudswrest says:

    Hypergamy hits Clott Adams. Note, the SNL picture is obviously not the lady in question.

    https://twitter.com/R_Greenhorn/status/1501990966286340098

    • Varna says:

      Eh, they had a good run and he has a prenup.

      Next he should take a nice East Asian lady and enjoy the remainder of his life. He obviously can’t handle white women and it’s too late to try to change that.

      Unless…and I’ve been taking bets of this since circa 2019…unless he’s going to come out as a tranny. With all his “as a trained hypnotist this as a trained hypnotist that”, he’s likely been overdosing on sissy hypno vids and gradually realizing he was always a skank trapped in a nerd’s body.

  58. The Cominator says:

    https://babylonbee.com/news/biden-sells-alaska-back-to-russia-so-we-can-start-drilling-for-oil-there-again

    Babylon Bee makes a great article on why the tranny empire sucks.

    • clovis says:

      There are protestant pastors who sympathize with Russia, but you probably won’t hear it out of protestant prelates or synods, just as you won’t hear it from Rome except from some outliers like Vigano.

      • clovis says:

        For that matter, most of the orthodox patriarchs are going to be publicly ambivalent, if not critical of Russia, since the patriarch of Constantinople recognized Ukraine as an orthodox see independent of Kirill.

  59. SunWillRiseInTheEast says:

    Important to note that outside of the Russian Orthodox Church Eastern Orthodoxy is almost always just as compromised and sometimes more compromised than the Western church. Especially the past 100-200 years of “Patriarchs” of Constantinople, and the Greek Orthodox Church in general. There have been multiple Greek Orthodox Constantinople Ecumenical Patriarchs who are proudly advertised as being members of Freemason Lodges. This isn’t even the slightest bit hidden or conspiratorial as it is in Western churches, even mainstream gay history and Greek Historians admit that they were prominent freemasons, and that they were meeting with Truman and other Presidents in the early and mid 20th century.

    This is why Russia is in “Schism” with the “Patriarch”

    • Fireball says:

      Air Strikes are only fun when you are the one doing them. Modern western armies cant operate without air supremacy.

    • James says:

      This is exactly the kind of morale issue that has been discussed here before: Men are willing to die for a shot at a patriarchal family. Not willing to die for the sake of gay pride parades.

  60. Red says:

    Thread on reddit /r/news about Tesla supporting Ukrainian workers drafted for war. No shills in the thread, commenters vaguely praising Elon while carefully looking over their shoulders for the normal shill smash down + bans that would typically ensue if you praised Musk on reddit.

    This is the 3ed such thread I’ve seen like this and the first on r/news which is shill central.

    The shills have definitively been called off on the Holy Star Prophet. I pray that the FAA drops their bullshit next.

  61. Adam says:

    From the Clint Eastwood movie Pale Rider-

    “When I left, those tin pans had all but given up. Their spirit was nearly broken. A man without spirit is whipped. But a preacher, he could give them faith. Shit! One ounce of faith, they’ll be dug in deeper than tick on a hound. You boys, you go throw a rope around that man.”

    This war is about faith.

    • anoon says:

      Counterpoint: “faith” is observed to precede action, but it does not follow that faith causes action. Rather to “have faith”, the feeling of “faith” (as opposed to the mere assent to propositions with which it is confused), is to be capable of action, nothing more. It is not that listening to the preacher gives the men “faith”, but the men who have faith are the ones who will listen to a preacher.

      • clovis says:

        It is not that listening to the preacher gives the men “faith”,

        Absolutely incorrect, both theologically and sociologically.

        “Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” Romans 10:17

    • Niiiidriveevof says:

      this movie has an excellent depiction of disruptive sexual behavior in the 13-14 year old girl character. she throws herself hungrily at clint (of course), but also, with zero non-sexual excuse, rides into the enemy camp alone and harasses the top guy there until he starts raping her (before clint saves her, of course). the movie treats this behavior as “girls will be girls.”

      • The Cominator says:

        High plains drifter Clint rapes a girl, is still the good guy.

        • Aidan says:

          I love that movie.
          “I wonder what took her so long to get mad?”
          “Maybe it’s because you didn’t come back for more”
          And now the viewer understands women

          • Redbible says:

            I decided to look up about the “High plains drifter” movie, turns out that the DVD release is 1 hour 46 minutes, while the “remastered” Blu-Ray version is 1 hour 45 minutes…

            Yeah, the latest version edited out parts of that rape scene…

            Also, found a funny comment by a person say that she is “acting like a Karen” and that this movie points out a solution to the problem. (Which when one looks deeper at it, is basically true, women are shit testing looking for a man strong enough to “take them down”.)

        • Niiiidriveevof says:

          it’s very good. the way the girl aggressively provoked & enjoyed her own rape, and became furious about it only when he didn’t keep coming back for more, is still valuable truth in a desert, but a pretty easy story to tell.

          the part that stands out is the other girl, the “good girl,” the putative madonna to contrast with the whore we already saw. as it turns out, she’s exactly the same, just more graceful about it. in retrospect, she’d been subtly putting herself in front of him where the first woman was brashly putting herself in front of him. the movie juxtaposes these two women.

          in this way high plains drifter teaches the message – AWALT – like no other movie does, like it’s very hard to do with mere words.

          it can be hard to understand corporal punishment of wives verbally – but mcclintock or the quiet man show you narratively how it fits together. and it can be hard to understand how all women, even the ones like our sweet mothers and grandmothers, are like that, until you watch how it operates in this movie. how can a good, Christian woman enjoy her own rape? like that.

          the way i phrase it to more sensitive men is – all men have certain sins to which they are more tempted; all, even the saints, have circumstances where they would be tempted beyond their ability to resist. they’re saints because they avoided those circumstances. and even saintly women are tempted beyond their ability to resist in circumstances such as those shown in this movie. it’s simply a matter of taking women off the angelic pedestal and asserting that they are, at least for a start, no holier and no more immune to lust than we are.

  62. Kunning Drueger says:

    I’ve made comments before regarding how large landowners in rural areas who sell their land for housing developments are a problem, and there was pushback that I didn’t understand. Not as in, I’m surprised there was pushback (though I was), I didn’t understand the argument.

    The idea of some government bureaucrat waltzing into a situation and just deciding who gets to sell what to whom is obviously gay. Not being able to use your private property as you see fit is also of dildos. But the fact remains that there are things worth having that aren’t as profitable as things that suck, housing developments being one of the latter, and fallow fields and wilderness, the former.

    Democracy is what makes housing developments a political weapon, right? If there’s no demotism, then it doesn’t matter how many city slickers and suburbanites live somewhere. But there’s infrastructural issues as well. Housing developments fuck up the water table, produce waste that overwhelms the natural cycle, concentrates spawn, and are very, very ugly.

    What is the GNON compliant way to protect land? I’m going to take a stab at some ideas, but if they are bad (read: leftist), this is a product of ignorance or incompetence, not malevolence.

    Large landowners should be required to keep a King’s plot; a portion of land that is owned by the King but free for use by the owner until the King has direct need of it.

    Landowners that die without spawn, or are removed for treason, should have all of their holding become Crownlands.

    Spawn that forsake the land, for whatever reason, must first offer the land for purchase to the Crown before they can sell it to another subject.

    Crownlands should be given to warriors of high skill or praise, and this land is held in proxy.

    Landowners that own non-contiguous land need some kind of hoop or hoops to jump through annually to maintain it, not a one-time tax or fine. They need to express their commitment to the kingdom because the enjoy a privilege above the normal landowner. Not a punishment, but a demonstration of loyalty.

    City-states need to be bound to the rural locales that keep them fed and watered. In my narrow, myopic worldview, I see no purpose to cities that aren’t capitols or fortresses, but I think that’s a failure of imagination on my part. Nonetheless, city-states wield inordinate power due to headcount (bigger armies) and tax revenue. City-states appear to be predatory or parasitic to rural locales, but they should be symbiotic. I’m not sure how to effect this relationship, or that it’s even possible. But if it is, it is worth the effort.

    It isn’t good to punish success, but it is foolish to pretend selfishness and corruption don’t exist. What’s the middle path?

    • Red says:

      What is the GNON compliant way to protect land? I’m going to take a stab at some ideas, but if they are bad (read: leftist), this is a product of ignorance or incompetence, not malevolence.

      The housing development mysteriously burns down. The enemies of GNON are your enemies and should be treated as such.

    • Redbible says:

      Simple, if we return to a feudal style system, although the peasant owns his land, the lord of that region, ALSO owns the land. (which is ALSO owned by the noble above him and so on until you get to the king/emperor who owns ALL of the land.)

      The peasant is generally allowed to do with his land as he see fit, but if he were to do something with it that is contrary to the interests of community or the local lord, the local lord would want to step in and prohibit it from happening. That said, a lord should generally not interfere with what his peasants are doing.

      • Aidan says:

        The “feudal system” was complex across space and time to the point where saying it is almost a misnomer. The fact that there was a free market in legal rights in medieval times meant that every arrangement was slightly different.

        Back in the Dark Ages, the land was unambiguously the property of the local lord, the serfs were free to use the land as they would in order to feed themselves, but they were also legally bound to provide labor to the lord. In the Dark Ages, the manorialist was also entrepreneur, because of the need to keep capital safe behind walls and armed guard. All lords owned something you would call industry, and the serfs were required to split their time between feeding themselves and working in the lord’s factory; and I call it a factory to illustrate that Europe, following the nadir a century after the fall of Rome, became steadily more economically productive and technologically innovative.

        Especially intelligent and resourceful serfs began using their “private time” not to scratch at the dirt, but to work on cottage industries of their own, and lords eventually found that it was far more profitable to let the peasants make their own money in the most suitable way for them, and then tax them in money or kind rather than in labor. Then, the peasants generally negotiated private ownership of their more economically productive land, for example making their tenure hereditary and transferable. Which was a good thing, because if you do not own your land, you’re unlikely to make it productive, since someone can just take it.

        Some peasants could take it even farther; there were multiple cases of peasants incorporating and buying out a poor or weak lord, who was happy to have the money, and which led to “communes” or independent villages. Though, as a legally corporate entity that had acquired sovereign rights through purchase, these villages had far more in common with corporations. That Marx named his theory after the results of capitalism is not just ironic, it is a distortion which affects the way we look at history. In large towns and cities, it was the rule rather than the exception that the city was a legally independent republic, because trade made most cities richer than the lord who legally owned the land. Kings had to negotiate with cities on military conscripts and what, if any, taxes the King could impose on them, and most medieval cities had birthright citizenship which excluded even migrants from the countryside.

        Because there was a free trade in legal rights and obligations, the relationship of any two entities to each other was completely unique. There were areas which owed the King quite a lot, and some which owed the King almost nothing. We think of knights as being sworn to lords, but originally, knights were immediate vassals of kings, with nobody in between them, a way of installing armed men near overly powerful lords to keep an eye on them. By the 15th century, most knights had sold their vassalage to the closest great lord, because the cost of being a warrior, as weapons and armor became more advanced, was threatening to knock a bunch of knights off the rung of the lower nobility.

        I like feudalism, but it was a result of total economic freedom, the natural result of the ancap utopia in which even legal rights and relationships could be bought and transferred. The staggeringly complex legal status of any person or entity in medieval times was well handled by quite primitive judicial systems, and would be better handled by computers. But the advent of “universal rights” rather than particularistic ones leveled a powerful and effective social technology, and also clouds the way we think about the past. Medieval society was in fact far more complex than modern society.

        • notglowing says:

          > The staggeringly complex legal status of any person or entity in medieval times was well handled by quite primitive judicial systems,
          But there wasn’t a whole lot to handle most of the time was there? These relationships were complex but I doubt they changed often, most people could not afford to travel as much either, tourism was barely a thing.

          I’m not sure if things were really more complex then though, maybe if you look only at the equivalent relationships compared to what you described.
          Start reading the big book of federal regulations and you might change your mind.

          • Kunning Drueger says:

            More words =/= more complexity. The OG assertion is that, because each agreement/transaction/relationship was made between the involved parties with no regard to any other agreement/transaction/relationship, they were all different to a greater or lesser extent.

            Imagine a society where every instance of formal justice (crime and punishment) is decided upon by the relevant judge or constable based on their own character and beliefs. Compare this to a society that has a 20 volume corpus of legal doctrine that every judge or constable must use. Which would result in a more diverse array of instances?

          • Aidan says:

            The difference is that today we have one titanic law that is supposed to apply to everybody. That is an acid that corrodes civil society. In medieval times, every person had a near entirely unique legal relationship to other people and entities; even informal entities, like social clubs, would transact in rights and privileges; the word privilege means “private law”, which was how everything worked until universalists made it a dirty word. The modern focus on “common law” in medieval times obfuscates the mechanisms of “private law”; common law was applied as a method of settling disputes that could not be resolved in the framework of the existing legal relationship between the two parties. (for those above commoners, the method of resolution was good ‘ol war)

            On a related note, the medieval worldview of a natural harmony punctuated by evil created a massive anomaly bias among medieval writers, which many modern historians are blind to. In medieval times, if it was not unusual, it was not worth the paper and ink. Things that worked properly and went smoothly did not get recorded.

            • i says:

              “The purpose of the legalist system was to make the state as powerful as possible with at its head a king or emperor that had absolute power. The emperor decide what had to be done and could not be challenged by any person or group. The emperor used the law to tell the people what to do and think. Nobody could refuse what the law specified and nobody was allowed to question or criticize any law the emperor had issued. The emperor decided when and how to change laws. It was not the “role of law”, it was ruling with laws.

              To achieve absolute adherence severe punishments were applied. Nobody could question a verdict nobody could issue a pardon. This also required a “thought police”, the “universal mutual surveillance system.” Families were organized in groups of five ten. Each member had to report if anybody was acting or expressing opinions forbidden by law. A person that did not report suspicious behavior was punished the same the person that had broken the law.

              The country was divided in 64 provinces (“commanderies”) each with a civil servant as its head, chosen and appointed by the emperor. In principle anybody could become a member of the civil service after passing a civil service examination. The civil servants were promoted on a basis of performance and without regard family relations or wealth. This system was very effective and still functions to day”

              https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1563247798/qid=1076429348/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/103-8537935-9240666?v=glance&s=books

              “Han Fei argued that disastrous results would occur if the ruler acted on arbitrary, ad-hoc decision making, such as that based on relationships or morality which, as a product of reason, are “particular and fallible”. Li, or Confucian customs, and rule by example are also simply too ineffective.[52][135][136]

              “The ruler cannot act on a case-by-case basis, and so must establish an overarching system, acting through Fa (administrative methods or standards). Fa is not partial to the noble, does not exclude ministers, and does not discriminate against the common people.”

              https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legalism_(Chinese_philosophy)

              • Aidan says:

                China, when the Qin destroyed the feudal system, was the most advanced civilization on the planet. And then they stayed at that level, for almost two thousand years, with nothing to show for it but centuries of foreign conquest and absurdly bloody civil wars and autogenocides. China is a failure state of civilization.

                • Cloudswrest says:

                  Believe it or not, there are some who think permanent stasis is a good thing. Excerpt from Revilo Oliver’s “History and Biology”.

                  That is what “ineluctable determinism” makes ineluctable, but Mr. Seidenberg, who is as adroit in twisting words as any editor of the New York Times, shows you how nice that will be. The Revelations of Freud
                  have shown that we are now just bundles of instincts. Mankind will necessarily evolve to the higher state of what Mr. Seidenberg calls “pure reason.” As he explains, “pure reason” is now found only among the forms of life that are biologically superior to us because better adapted to
                  environment. The examples which he gives are “ants, bees, and termites,” whose “essentially unchanged survival during sixty million years testifies to the perfection of their adjustment…to the conditions of life.” We must strive to become like them — nay, the “ineluctable determinism” inherent in the “population explosion” and the need for a “more advanced society”
                  will make us, willy nilly, just like ants and termites — intellectually and spiritually, that is, for Mr. Seidenberg does not seem to entertain a hope that human beings will ever be able to crawl about on six legs.

                • jim says:

                  It is more complicated than that.

                  Things went to shit immediately after Qin.

                  And then they had some ups and downs.

                  And then they had the Song Dynasty.

                  Song was the most advanced civilization on the planet.

                  Song declined because socialism and feminism, and was promptly conquered by sternly patriarchal barbarians, who lacked much capability for commerce, science, technology, and industry, but had stern patriarchy.

                  After Song, fair to call China a failed civilization until Deng.

                  Under Xi, it may well fail again, but it has not failed yet.

                • Aidan says:

                  China’s stasis led it to being pwned by barbarians, and genetically replaced. The current population of China is not genetically capable of advancing science and engineering- them calling themselves Han is as ridiculous as a brown mop-haired Brazilian with the face of an Olmec stone head calling himself Nordic.

                  Vae Victis. Stasis might work out alright for a long time, but you will be genocided in the end by people who did not practice stasis.

                • jim says:

                  Chinese engineers are pretty good, and in most ways very smart and competent, way better than Indian engineers, but they have certain blind spots. To get anywhere, need a team leader who does not have those blind spots.

                  Indian engineers are mostly dumb trash, but there is a fair bit of diversity. There are some very competent ones. Chinese engineers tend to be rather uniform – all smart and competent in the same way, all with the same blind spots and strange lack of smarts and competence in certain ways.

                • Aidan says:

                  Yes, Jim, I am condensing two thousand years of history with oceans of blood spilled and many ups and downs, history I do not know much of in depth compared to other areas of the world. But the China that existed at the time of Caesar Augustus looked very much like the China that the EIC used as an opium market.

                • Aidan says:

                  My experience with the Chinese is that they absorb information well and learn precisely. They fall down when they need to solve problems and innovate.
                  The Eastern proverb of “the nail that sticks out gets hammered” indicates that there was genetic selection against innovation and problem solving. I’ve worked blue collar jobs, and even quite low IQ white men, who would not test anywhere like a Chinaman, tend to come up with clever solutions to problems that a smarter Chinaman would not.

                • jim says:

                  Yes.

                  But there is another problem, similar and closely related, which I have elsewhere described as inability to hear what cannot be spoken, inability to read what cannot be written.

                  They are apt to follow specifications mechanically without comprehending the spirit, purpose, and intent of the specifications.

                • The Cominator says:

                  Indians 99 out of 100 of them are mostly all the worst stereotypes of the Jews with very few of the good qualities.

                  The 100th Indian man is a brilliant genius and also tends to be a good guy rather than a scheming backstabber.

                  Chinese from what I’ve seen have competence at certain things but very little creativity in thinking…

                  The nail that sticks out is hammered down is a Japanese saying, and I have little experience with Japanese here but Japan seems to have kept the poz at bay better than all other modernized societies and seems capable of genuine creativity (even if weird)… I think the Japanese may have made a few cultural adjustments after WWII to give some protection and status to its more intelligent mavericks.

                • Aidan says:

                  Both the Japanese and Koreans are capable of advancing science and technology. Compare the Meiji Restoration to Mao’s reforms. Their languages also have real grammar, which seems related to me.

                • Pseudo-Chrysostom says:

                  https://thealternativehypothesis.org/index.php/2016/09/21/blacks-and-whites-with-the-same-iq-still-differ-a-lot/

                  More generalized principle: any given selection mechanism is a kind of vector, where subjects with divergent characteristics might also get similar returns along one particular vector, in accordance with how their particular characteristics interface with the vector. A simple example would be different forms of vehicles racing around a particular track, getting similar times with different aspects of performance, which may be more or less influential (ie, cornering, acceleration, brake speed, top speed, and so on).

                  >Now the subtests all have smaller differences than the full-scale IQ; this is because the full-scale IQ is an aggregate of the subtests. Think of it like components of a football team – the best overall team doesn’t necessarily have the best offensive line, or the best cornerbacks, or the best quarterbacks – but it has the best combination of these things.

                  >Normally the black-white full-scale IQ gap is closer to 1 standard deviation, but this just happened to be a slightly above average black sample Jensen was working with.

                  >But the takeaway is the huge difference in subtest scores. Moreover, the two tests which blacks do massively better on are the digit-span test and coding. The digit-span test is remembering a string of numbers and repeating them back. Coding involves matching numbers to shapes on a grid. On more abstract problems, such as assembling an object out of pieces, or designing a shape out different colored blocks, whites tend to do better.

                  Put in other words, when considering aggregate inventories of various cognitive tasks, in cases where a subject of a more marginal species returns a similar metric as a ‘reference’ europoid, the ‘difference’ is so oft made by tasks involving calculative aptitude, which would be ‘inflating’ the score relative to more imaginative tasks involving capacity for world-formation. I’ve observed a similar dynamic in many other cases as well, be it eurasian, east asian, and so on.

                • jim says:

                  It is obvious that whites and Jews have the highest capability for world formation, and white capability is higher than Jews in world formation tasks involving physical things.

                • Pseudo-Chrysostom says:

                  ‘Verbal iq’ is basically a psyop to lionize being all hat and no cowboy.

        • i says:

          Likewise the Feudal System is apt to give way to Centralized Monarchies administered by Bureaucract’s which happened in China in in Europe leading to the Bureaucracies that rule over us now.

          The Democratization of violence and the sunset of the Warrior Aristocracy that occurs in said transition.

          Mass produced crossbows in the hands of cheap peasant in China eventually taking down the very expensive Chariot riding Warrior Aristocracy organized by a centralized bureaucracy presided over by an Absolutist King and Emperor.

          • Kunning Drueger says:

            The issue you point out, the process of succession, and the necessity of a Faith seem to be the triune issue that a modern monarchy must confront. Terminologically, the problem you state could be called the Urge to Delegate. Delegation is necessary, but it appears that there’s some tipping point that creates a spiral toward bureaucratic oligarchy.

            • jim says:

              The more stuff the state insources, including violence, the more the sovereign is going to be eaten by his over mighty servants.

              To avoid bureaucratic oligarchy, have to outsource almost everything. The minimal state has army and collects tribute from the lords. It also needs a legal system, or else it will find that there is not much wealth to shake down. The legal system of Henry the Lion of Justice worked quite well, and would work a whole lot better if implemented over remote procedure calls rather than bits of slate coated in beeswax.

              • Kunning Drueger says:

                Maybe you’ve already done so, but this concept seems so elemental to the concept of Restoration, that I hope you expound upon it a later date. Not necessarily the philosophy of what you’re saying, but the methodological approach to take to realize it.

                “The more stuff the state insources, including violence, the more the sovereign is going to be eaten by his over mighty servants.

                To avoid bureaucratic oligarchy, have to outsource almost everything.”

                Stunning, brief, obvious, yet profound.

              • simplyconnected says:

                I must be pretty dim but I never got the RPC part. I must have missed a step somewhere so I don’t see the relation between the legal system and executing a piece of code on another machine.

                Not my bread and butter but don’t distributed systems these days work with messaging systems like MPI? I thought RPC was not really used because of the lack of shared memory space. I must have missed some post where this is explained.

                • jim says:

                  RPC and MPI are the same sort of thing, except RPC is loosely coupled and MPI is tightly coupled.

                  And of course tight coupling is more efficient, faster and can do things that you really cannot do with loose coupling.

                  Trouble with tight coupling is that you wind up with a committee managing the database schema, whereas with RPC, you usually do not know the other guy’s schema, do not need to know, and he will not tell you.

                  I have a deep allergy to committees and anything managed by a committee.

                  A program using MPI is typically one program written by one group running on many machines. Programs using RPC are typically many programs running on many machines, with some of the programs written by one group, running on machines that group controls, and other programs written by other groups, on machines those groups control.

                • simplyconnected says:

                  Trouble with tight coupling is that you wind up with a committee managing the database schema, whereas with RPC, you usually do not know the other guy’s schema, do not need to know, and he will not tell you.

                  I see. Thanks.

                • simplyconnected says:

                  Don’t want to sperg out too much about RPCs, but I should say of course both and MPI and RPC have issues with the lack of shared memory space.
                  While RPC is not a standard, it seems implementations require you to have the server code (often multiple functions) already compiled and stored on the server, prior to any RPC call being executed.

                  I don’t see how RPC is more loosely coupled than MPI really, since in both cases you have to compile and send your code to both machines in advance. Perhaps, and for the purposes of your analogy with the legal system, you are thinking of an idealized form of RPC where say you send some data along with some bytecode that is JIT compiled or interpreted by the server and executed on the enclosed data on the spot, in a way that is transparent to the server that executes it. I’m just trying to understand what the intended meaning was.

                • jim says:

                  > I don’t see how RPC is more loosely coupled than MPI really, since in both cases you have to compile and send your code to both machines in advance.

                  I never encountered that. I wrote client code, have no idea who wrote server code. Did not have, or need, his database schema.

                • simplyconnected says:

                  I never encountered that. I wrote client code, have no idea who wrote server code. Did not have, or need, his database schema.

                  Had to review since hadn’t looked at RPCs for a long time (p.399).
                  If I understood, server simply provides some RPC entry points, unlike MPI which is intended for you to code both sides.

          • Aidan says:

            Absolutism and centralization were not the result of the democratization of violence. Even in the era of firearms, having an aristocrat on horseback leading the charge from the front made your army of conscripts better at fighting.

            The problem was that kings elected to create and rely on a civil service rather than their nobles, who were potential threats to their power. That this coincided with the Protestant Reformation, is not a coincidence. A nobleman who could defect to a rival faith is a far greater threat to a King than the usurpations of pride and power, which a country could easily weather.

            The pandora’s box of mass conscription was not opened until later in the West; the Napoleonic Wars through WWII are analogous to the rise of the Qin in China and the Punic Wars in the classical world. Great civilizational clashes involving mass conscription are the beginning of the end of empire.

            • i says:

              “Absolutism and centralization were not the result of the democratization of violence. Even in the era of firearms, having an aristocrat on horseback leading the charge from the front made your army of conscripts better at fighting.”

              True. Not in themselves. But what is stopping those Aristocratic States from being overtaken by States modelled on the Centralized Legalist Model pioneered by Men like Shang Yang?

              “After Shang Yang’s reforms, Qin’s economy developed and the military’s combat effectiveness continued to increase. Qin developed into the most powerful state in the late Warring States period. Qin soon ended the Warring States period.”

              https://www.scirp.org/journal/paperinformation.aspx?paperid=114511

              Here is more on the Absolutist Dictatorship and Bureaucrat Rule pioneered by Chinese legalism:
              http://www.worldfuturefund.org/wffmaster/Reading/China/China%20Legalism.htm

              “Lord Shang conducted a serious overhaul to the political structure of Qin and centralized the bureaucracy of the state, much to the opposition of several politicians. The most important reform was the changes made to Qin’s military. ”

              “Control of the army was taken away from nobles, and the aristocracy was abolished. ”

              “Military discipline was strongly enforced and the troops were trained to adapt to all situations in battle.

              By 318 BCE, the military might of Qin was so great, that they held off an invasion from the combined forces of four different states: Wei, Zhao, Han and Chu.

              This alliance of the four states crumbled after the failure of their military campaign, and Qin emerged as a superior military power in the region – they became the Sparta of the East.”

              • jim says:

                And the Qin dynasty expired shortly afterwards as its over mighty servants fouled things up.

                • The Cominator says:

                  RE overmighty subjects…

                  Since I just wrote on the subject of the War of the Roses it should be pointed out that both priestly regimes and warrior regimes can develop these.

                  In warrior societies you can get people like the Earl of Warwick who could (the king DID beat him but he got lucky as his army heavily outnumbered the royal army at least supposedly) field bigger armies than the king.

                  In priestly societies you get effete bureaucrats with seperate domains of kingly power… the modern social democracies where the head of state/government has very little control over his bureaucracy.

                  A king should not want either situation to develop and should play the two groups off each other but without totally breaking either group… as in breaking one group completely all power goes to the other?

                • jim says:

                  A few mighty lords is a problem.

                  A larger number of less mighty lords is more decentralization and less of a problem.

                  This is the reverse of the situation with bureaucrats. With bureaucrats the sovereign wants his top bureaucrats to be few enough that he can know their character and activities well, and powerful enough that he does not need to know and care about the character and activities of their minions. As James the first said, if no Bishop, then no King.

                  But few and mighty bureaucrats can also cause problems, as in the fall of the Qin dynasty.

                  A sovereign has more power than mortals can exercise. Needs to outsource as much as possible, for power beyond the capacity to handle it is apt to destroy one. Hence Henry the first, the lion of justice, creating British law.

                  But the sovereign needs to outsource the exercise of that power without undermining too much his capacity to extract revenue and fund an army.

                • i says:

                  @jim

                  Agreed. The Qin collapsed not long after the 1st Emperor.

                  However Legalism remained including its rule through Bureaucracy and everything else that entailed.

                  Selected through Imperial exams and the dominance of the Bureaucracy especially since the Song Dynasty.

                  The Ming and Qing tried to rectify this somewhat. But they were always subject to Bureaucrat rule ostensibly under the control of the Emperor

                  The state of the Ming attempt at Military Aristocracy:

                  “Soldiering was one of the lowest professions in the Ming dynasty. Military officers were not only subordinate to civil officials, but generals and soldiers alike were degraded, treated with fear, suspicion, and distaste. Military service enjoyed far less prestige than its civil counterpart due to its hereditary status and because most soldiers were illiterate”

                  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_of_the_Ming_dynasty

                  “The Qing Dynasty followed Ming Dynasty policy and ruled through civil, rather than military officials. The political and social status of military shengyuan and juren was, therefore, much lower than that of their civil counterparts. ”

                  https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2057150X20957457

                  The Qing Military 8 Banners too. Fell apart as well:
                  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_of_the_Qing_dynasty

                  Communist China is a continuation of the Legalism started by the Qin in many ways.

                  It didn’t die with Qin. It kept coming back.

            • The Cominator says:

              Absolutism could wax and wane based merely on social developments not just due to military technology, Henry VIII was in practice an absolute monarch and William the Conqueror was one both in theory and in practice (as the English Kings generally were until Richard III sold much of the royal holdings to raise a crusading army and then he managed to get himself captured and more financial destruction resulted because he had to be ransomed).

              But the Kings of the War of the Roses era often suffered from vassals who could raise bigger armies than they could like the Earl of Warwick, their thrones were insecure and their power beyond their own fiefdoms and in London was often nonexistent.

              • pyrrhus says:

                You are thinking of Richard Lionheart, not Richard III, who fought Saladin and was captured and held for ransom in Austria on the way back…

                • The Cominator says:

                  Yes you are correct don’t know why i typed Richard III.

              • Aidan says:

                Absolutism was usually inspired by civil wars involving overly mighty lords who could oppose Kings. Henry VII was an usurper, and he and his son attempted to close the door behind him via absolutism. Louis XIV was seeking to prevent a civil war like that which he lived through in his youth. But a coup by bureaucrats has an order of magnitude more potential for damage to a society. They did not that then, but we know that now.

                This problem was actually resolved in the Holy Roman Empire, which ended up able to accommodate the tension between powerful kings and powerful nobles. I looked into it because in the english speaking world, the HRE is either ignored or maligned, which made me think the left did not want people looking at it, and sure enough, they had a solution.

                • Kunning Drueger says:

                  “I looked into it because in the english speaking world, the HRE is either ignored or maligned, which made me think the left did not want people looking at it, and sure enough, they had a solution.”

                  This is an interesting tool to use as a guide of where to look and what to look at for establishing policies and process.

          • Pseudo-Chrysostom says:

            ‘Popular governance’ naturally results in power falling into the hands of an occulted oligocracy… and centralized absolutism *also* results in power falling into the hands of an occulted oligocracy.

            One way or another, you’re getting feudalism. The choice is not feudalism or not!feudalism, but openly good feudalism, or furtively bad feudalism.

    • Aidan says:

      I’ve been playing around with a very simple idea for quite a while; that land ownership be unlimited in size, but limited in that one can only own land he personally and physically resides upon. Then, you limit the franchise to property owners and let everything else sort itself out.

      • Karl says:

        I don’t understand your point. Land is not one used for residence.

        • Aidan says:

          One can own any amount of land, and can do whatever he likes with it, but he must live somewhere on it. He can build houses on it and rent them out, he can lease it to a business to build a factory or drill for oil, he can cut out parcels and sell them, provided the new owner takes up residence there, and so on. He can buy his neighbor’s parcel and add it to his own.

          I will leave imagining the problems this will solve up to you.

          • Joe W. says:

            > I will leave imagining the problems this will solve up to you.

            We all get to pay rent to Jeff Bezos? No, thanks.

            Our problem isn’t that super-rich people have too little power and influence over our lives.

            • Kunning Drueger says:

              Ah, so it is the rich that are the problem. Good to see you are posting again, Communist Revolutionary… I mean, Prince Charmin Ultra-Gay, …I mean Anonymous Fake… shit, which dumb faggot shill are you again?

              • Joe W. says:

                You’re obviously not very bright, but just so we’re clear, I’ve never posted anything here except as “Joe W.”

                You’re obviously also not very good at reading comprehension, but I never said anything about “the rich.” I mentioned the “super rich,” and, yes, they’re currently the problem.

                Maybe all the ammonia from your stockpile of piss is affecting your brain. Smarten up.

                • Kunning Drueger says:

                  Lol, never claimed to be very bright. But I’m glad you brought up that thread, you know, the one where your previous bullshit got called out by your betters. Maybe you’re not an entryist shill faggot. Time will tell, as, inevitably, “they” always end up outing themselves.

                  By the by, have you ever been “tested” here?

                • Joe W. says:

                  > But I’m glad you brought up that thread, you know, the one where your previous bullshit got called out by your betters.

                  Which “previous bullshit” of mine was “called out”?

                  You seem even more confused than usual.

                • Joe W. says:

                  I hadn’t even seen most of those replies. I stopped reading that sub-thread because it was so stupid.

                  If you and the others like nepotism so much, what’s stopping you or anyone else from using it or being hired via it?

                  You think Elon Musk is a moron because he doesn’t only hire his brothers or cousins for key jobs?

                  This is a great site, but a bunch of people have a bizarre and time-wasting obsession with reinventing the wheel.

                • jim says:

                  We are not reinventing the wheel. Rather, we note that recent versions of the wheel do not seem to be working very well, and are recollecting older versions.

                  Identifying talent is hard, and identifying talent that will work for you rather than against you is harder. Letting HR take over that job is guaranteed to fail.

                • Surprise… Joe W is putting words into our mouths again.

                  Obviously nepotism is not only “hiring brothers and cousins” or even close relatives. What works is a system of hiring based on the recommendation of trusted networks (most of which have been corrupted by Globohomo HR), and which today mostly happens to be close relatives or friends.

                  Obviously HR is an arm of the State and will force you to hire Diversity. And obviously HR is evil and does not represent hiring by merit. HR will in fact, actively oppose you testing candidates purely on merit.

                  In the absence of sources of hiring which are uncorrupted, hiring based on recommendation of trustworthy friends/relatives is the best possible option.

                • Joe W. says:

                  > We are not reinventing the wheel. Rather, we note that recent versions of the wheel do not seem to be working very well, and are recollecting older versions.

                  Claiming that septic systems are better than sewer systems on a planet with almost 8,000,000,000 people is reinventing the wheel. And telling potential allies who don’t want to deal with a tank of shit in their back yard that they’re “soft” members of the “email class,” as Kunning Drueger did last week, is just plain dumb.

                  > Identifying talent is hard, and identifying talent that will work for you rather than against you is harder. Letting HR take over that job is guaranteed to fail.

                  Of course. No business owner in his right mind allows HR to make hiring decisions, let alone key hiring decisions. The choice isn’t HR vs. nepotism.

                  > Obviously nepotism is not only “hiring brothers and cousins” or even close relatives. What works is a system of hiring based on the recommendation of trusted networks

                  Networking, at most, is a distant cousin of nepotism. If you were advocating for networking, you should have said that and we’d have had no disagreement. Obviously, any smart business owner is hiring via trusted sources whenever possible.

                • jim says:

                  > > We are not reinventing the wheel. Rather, we note that recent versions of the wheel do not seem to be working very well, and are recollecting older versions.

                  > Claiming that septic systems are better than sewer systems on a planet with almost 8,000,000,000 people is reinventing the wheel

                  For the exurbs and rural areas, obviously better.

                  For the suburbs, even moderately dense suburbs, arguably better. For urban areas, sewers are necessary.

                  But imposing sewers on people far from cities is religious ritual cleanliness being imposed in place of actual cleanliness.

                • Kunning Drueger says:

                  Septic systems, and localized waste management, are a spiritual prerequisite for living in healthy communion with the land. A society that is constructed to hide from its realities, one that seeks to hide its undesirable elements, is an anti-society. This is across the spectrum. If you eat meat, but cannot slaughter, bad. If you shit daily, but cannot process your waste, bad. If you have children, but cannot raise them, bad.

                  I still think you are an enemy agent, but I also think you are making a salient point about waste in terms of population concentration. I also see that I am making demands of others based on the lifestyle God has blessed me with. The fact of the matter, from my narrow, subjective perspective, is that living discordantly with Nature runs afoul of Nature’s God. If civilization exists in a state that precludes full spectrum health (spiritual and physical), something is dreadfully wrong.

                • Joe W. says:

                  > I still think you are an enemy agent,

                  That’s really funny. I’ve read thousands of comments here, and you’re the only one—the only one—I’ve seen act like an actual fed, by trying to get someone else to meet with you (which, of course, is the most classic online fed behavior):

                  https://blog.reaction.la/science/it-is-just-the-flu-bro/#comment-2762388

                • Kunning Drueger says:

                  @Jew W
                  You make a good point. I crave community with like minds, and I’ve sought it here, with disastrous results. I’m glad you have read the comments, and as has been pointed out by my betters, my estimation is probably wrong. So I genuinely apologize for calling you an entryist. I still think you’re a soft hands, suburbanite hamster, but what do I know, right?

                  Going forward, I will endeavor to disagree respectfully.

                • Joe W. says:

                  > I still think you’re a soft hands, suburbanite hamster, but what do I know, right?

                  Urban, not suburban (but not shitlib urban). I’m really not that soft–I just deal with enough shit already without having a tank of it in my backyard.

                  As for the rest, happy to let bygones be bygones. As I said in perhaps my first comment here, we have enough problems without wasting half our time sniping at each other. That’s always been the classic right-wing mistake.

                • notglowing says:

                  I don’t have an issue with people managing their own shit, and having a septic tank. But I don’t want to manage my shit, or have a septic tank, hence I want a sewer connection.
                  I don’t clean most of my house, so I hire someone to do it, etc.

                  >For the suburbs, even moderately dense suburbs, arguably better. For urban areas, sewers are necessary.
                  It’s hard for me to understand if this makes sense to me, because my country doesn’t have anything resembling American suburbs.

                  If you live far off, you most likely would need to manage your shit. But it is less common in Europe to live farther from towns unless it’s a mountain area.

              • Kunning Drueger says:

                Joe Wanker writes: I didn’t stay and engage with my interlocutors because I esteem myself above them.

                Interesting.

                He goes on: if you like it (nepotism) so much, why don’t you use it/deploy it/ participate in it?

                Oh, but I do, my smegma snorting friend. Everyone who works in a trade or narrow & deep venture does. Every field I have touched (and it is sadly many, because I’ve been all over the job/skill space ((remember, I’m a midwit; lots of interests, few avocations))), that isn’t a diversity converged space, absolutely turns on nepotism tinged with meritocracy. Completely unrelated, watch the credits of a few movies, paying particular attention to the surnames. In my experience, the best method for hiring/team building for critical positions is a hybrid nepotism/associate methodology. Find someone you trust, and take their recommendations when they aren’t available to work. These recommendations tend to be family and close friends. It is not perfect, but nothing is. Starting to see one of your little shill trends, which is to say, demanding that good things be sacrificed in the name of Perfect.

                Joey Cock-Muncher isn’t quite done: You hate Elon! Elon seems to be cool here! You are obviously a dumbo!

                Cunning riposte! How ever will I recover! Have you looked into his siblings, or his relationship with them? More to the point, how many of them are there, and does their skillset/specialty have relevance to his ventures? Knowing literally nothing about him, I am confident that Musk uses respected peer recommendation heavily when selecting core positions. This isn’t because he is the star prophet, it is because that is how anything worth doing, with high stakes, gets done. If you weren’t some workaday, white collar faggot, you’d know that. I’d also bet you’re a single child from a single parent home, another strangely common trait of the shills that show up here. You don’t have family, so you don’t respect Family.

                Then Joetard says something about wheels, but I walk a lot, so that isn’t really my leghouse. Jim took care of that.

                Maybe you aren’t a shill faggot. Maybe you just disagree, and you are clumsy with arguing in good faith. In my time here, I’ve been wrong far more than I’ve been right, so it isn’t my place to judge in that regard. But you exude the stench of Entry.

                • Aidan says:

                  Forget white collar, Joe must be a NEET. Even in the white-collar world, everything works by nepotism. A resume is worth about as much as the contents of the septic tanks he hates so much; a word from somebody your prospective employer trusts is as good as gold.

                  Joe smells like 4chan to me rather than a shill. He spouts off criticism without a whit of constructive input or his own arguments, whereas a shill has a payload he is pushing. The distinction between networking and nepotism is an enemy distinction. The reason both exist is trust. Finding people who can be trusted is staggeringly difficult, because we evolved to deceive others.

                • jim says:

                  Not seeing Joe W pushing payload.

                  Does not look like a shill.

                  Could argue more constructively than he does, but shills argue in ways that are systematically destructive – notably in persistently presupposing a shared, unquestioned, and unquestionable consensus on points that have been vehemently and passionately rejected far too many times, and in persistently Motte and Bailying.

                  The distinction between networking and nepotism is meaningful. Making too much of it puts one into enemy territory, but he is not deliberately sneaking in enemy ideas.

                  The enthusiasm for government sewers is probably urban centrism. And, in truth, I still have not fixed my grey water drain. He has a valid point, which I could dismiss far more easily if I had fixed it.

                • Kunning Drueger says:

                  Well said, my friend, and an important distinction. I will stop attacking him… needlessly.

                  Unrelated; Spring approaches. The mountains are calling.

                • Joe W. says:

                  > Forget white collar, Joe must be a NEET.

                  haha

                  Not even close.

                  > Even in the white-collar world, everything works by nepotism.

                  Again, not even close. If you were right, headhunters wouldn’t exist.

                  > Joe smells like 4chan to me

                  Been there maybe three times, years ago, and never posted a comment. You’re really bad at this.

                • Joe W. says:

                  > Joe Wanker writes:

                  If you think I’m reading a wall of text that begins with “Joe Wanker,” you’re nuts. I’m not 13, and I don’t waste time with people who write like they’re 13.

                • Joe W. says:

                  > The enthusiasm for government sewers is probably urban centrism.

                  Probably right.

                  > And, in truth, I still have not fixed my grey water drain.

                  haha. See? I’ll sell you yet.

                • jim says:

                  I finally fixed the gray water drain

                  Did not take long – I had previously dug a hole near the blockage point, but the water still did not flow. On coming back after long absence, I found a pile of muck had come out of the drain into the hole, leading the drain partially working. Upon removing the pile of muck, fully working. I capped the hole with a big flat rock and filled in around the rock with gravel, then dirt. So the grey water now drains through a pipe, into an underground cavity lined with rocks, gravel, and bits of mesh, with a big flat rock on top of the cavity, and dirt over the big rock, into another pipe, into a much larger concrete lined cavity, a settling trap for fines to settle to the bottom, and the overflow from that cavity into another pipe, into a big hole with a similar big flat rock on top – the top of the second, and bigger, rock, being at ground level, rather than slightly below ground level. It is a very nice decorative rock, while the first rock is just a rock. The final hole has no provision for overflow, but does not seem to overflow often in actual practice, and by the time the gray water gets to it, it is fairly clean due to all the traps, dirt, and gravel it has had to flow through. Overflow goes onto the grass around the final hole, but I don’t see a big patch of green downhill of the final hole, so it must be rare if it happens at all.

                  The previous failure of the gray water drain manifested as green and muddy area adjacent to the house. The drain must have fixed itself some time ago, because the soil there was no damper than anywhere else. I just needed to fill in the hole. I placed two decorative rocks with their tops at ground level on top of the first rock, so that I can find the gap between pipes next time I need to access the pipes.

                • Aidan says:

                  Headhunting focuses on people who have already proven themselves trustworthy. It is mostly a way to bypass the whims of evil catladies in the HR department. Ask anybody in an office who is more important than a keyboard jockey how they got their job, and 90% of the time I hear “I knew someone who knew this officer in the company and they put in a good word for me”.

                • Kunning Drueger says:

                  Jim, is your gray water separate from your septic, or does all waste water in the domicile funnel to the septic tank? My system is relatively unique (single outflow, upstream bacterial wash, then effluent disperse to the groundwater ( which means that I do not leech out, I have a pipe that empties into a stream after multiple filter steps). Not at all what I would have built, I inherited the system. But I am in the process of putting in an ash filter at the outflow point. I am also going to (eventually) separate the gray water (sinks, washing machine, showers) from the septic (toilets).

                • Kunning Drueger says:

                  >reads 1000s of comments

                  >balks at 3 paragraphs

                  Lies.

                • Joe W. says:

                  > Headhunting focuses on people who have already proven themselves trustworthy.

                  Right, but they’re not family or friends of the people hiring them (or even friends of friends), or else the headhunter wouldn’t be needed.

                  Hiring someone via headhunter isn’t nepotism in any sense of the word.

                • Aidan says:

                  The number of people in a field who have publically proven themselves capable and trustworthy is vanishingly tiny.

                  There is no point getting autistic over the distinction between hiring somebody who you can trust because they are family and hiring somebody you can trust because somebody you already trust tells you they are trustworthy.

                  You probably underestimate how easy it is for generally smart and capable people to learn on the job. Somebody unqualified can learn. A scorpion will always be a scorpion.

                • Joe W. says:

                  > There is no point getting autistic over the distinction between hiring somebody who you can trust because they are family

                  Pointing out the proper definition of words isn’t “autistic.”

                  Nepotism is a system of hiring friends and family. The word for hiring people who are trusted family or friends of family or friends is “networking,” which in your bizarre attempt to “win” the exchange you dismissed as an “enemy distinction,” whatever the hell that means.

                • jim says:

                  It is hard to hire smart people, and harder to hire trustworthy people.

                  To hire trustworthy people, you are hiring from friends and family.

                  To hire smart people, ask other smart people whom they know who is smart. Which tends to be their friends and acquaintances.

                  Thus the distinction you are making is a distinction that does not lead to any readily distinguishable differences in what happens.

        • Kunning Drueger says:

          It is an interesting system. Lord Drueger has 20 acres, it is fenced, and he has just enough men and infrastructure to hold it. His benefactor and mentor St. John gifts him 100 acres, but they are in another part of the realm, non-contiguous to his original 20. He must either liquidate his 20 and move his operation, come to some sort of agreement with a local lord, someone close to the new 100, or sit idly by as the land gets seized by men of means and ability.

          This system incentivizes localized growth and discourages land grabbing by external actors. it also knits the aristocracy while, ostensibly, protecting the sanctity of the land and its people.

          • James says:

            I just have trouble envisioning how this society could make spaceships.

            • Joe W. says:

              The main selling point seems to be their desire NOT to make spaceships.

            • Kunning Drueger says:

              How would it retard space industry? Coordination does not require corporations, but even so, do corporate entities have to own every piece of the process to get things done? If the crown manages the Space Industry, would that obviate the issue?

              • Aidan says:

                I never said no corporations; they can lease the land they do things on from its owners. Wal-Mart does not own either the store building or the plot of land it rests on. Elon Musk can negotiate a long-term lease for his factories and launch sites, as oil companies pay a lot of money to drill on private land.

              • James says:

                If they lease their land out, where do they live? On a cabin on the edge of the factory complex? How much control do they lose? Can they simply refuse to renew a lease and be forced to cash out Musk’s $10 billion gigafactory investment (which would still require he set it up again somewhere else)

                If they can live somewhere else, say close to their sick and dying parents some distance away, why can’t Musk live somewhere else, say near his kids? Will I be required to sell my inherited parents’ land that I intend to move to in the next 5 years just because I need to be physically present for a lucrative job a couple of states over? Who gets to decide exceptions? Why him? Will there be a slow, bureaucratic permitting process like there is today for homebuilding?

                What about the vast expanses of recreational land? Vacation homes? Will all vacation homes simply be crown owned? C’mon, man, even the Soviet Union let people have dachas. The level of meddlesome busybodying in this idea would be alarming if it were not so unlikely to happen.

          • FrankNorman says:

            “He must either liquidate his 20 and move his operation, come to some sort of agreement with a local lord, someone close to the new 100, or sit idly by as the land gets seized by men of means and ability.”

            Or he could put one of his sons in charge of one area, and himself on the other.

            • Kunning Drueger says:

              Just so. I think Aidan’s model works. A big potential failure point is Crownlands, in the sense that their management is paramount, but time consuming, so there will be great temptation to foist the responsibility onto an underling.

              • Aidan says:

                Right now, USG owns 25% of its landmass. I see no reason that the King should not own this much, and under my system it would give the Crown a 25% voting stake in every local election on average. (I’m also considering voting stake being based on area of land owned) If land cannot find a buyer willing to reside on it, it reverts to the Crown, which can raise money by selling resource extraction leases on its land.

  63. notglowing says:

    What are your thoughts on the question of monopolies, in the context of a more or less free market?

    This is a topic that has long generated arguments against capitalism from the left, that it is possible for one entity to continue to increase its power through its already acquired wealth, buy out or otherwise destroy all of its competition, and gain a position that is impossible to challenge while respecting private property.

    To a certain extent this has happened in the past – there have been large “monopolies” or quasi-monopolies. In most cases, especially today, this is related to government regulations, though communists also blame those on the companies themselves entrenching their position. Although this does happen, I disagree with capitalism being the issue here, though it is not an easy argument to make.

    I’ve heard many arguments on the topic from both sides, but I don’t find them completely convincing.

    It hasn’t really happened yet that a company came close to dominating an entire country without being government mandated to begin with. Just individual industries, to a certain extent.
    And I would argue that you could use the same reasoning with empires, and yet even the most powerful empires eventually crumbled, particularly when they got too big, and none managed to conquer the entire world.

    Yet I don’t think this is really a sufficient counterargument, because the assumption is a free market where the government succeeds in protecting the private property of the company. Securing its position in a certain way, as the people inside it are not able to destroy it the way an empire might be destroyed.

    Another, closely related question would be: if all, or almost all, property was in the hands of one entity, would this be in any way different from communism?
    I dislike the idea of “land reform” (talking about past not present here) but assigning land that was almost in its entirety owned by few nobles to many peasant farmers as individual private property has worked to boost productivity in countries that did it. For obvious reasons, since freehold made them work for their own food, on their own land. But such land reform is taking property from its owners and distributing it to people who have no right to it.
    Yet without it, you don’t really have private property, if almost nobody owns private property.

    You might have heard of “distributism”, which is a poorly defined economic theory about how while private property is good, making sure that many people own land and have their own property is desirable, compared to a situation where a few have most of it. Of course it seems impossible to realize that without violating the principle of private property to begin with. It is fairly self-contradicting if you take it as a prescriptive system, rather than just a descriptive concept.

    • The Cominator says:

      Almost all lasting private monopolies have state backing…

      The Austrian school is 95% right about things, only on banking are they seriously wrong.

      • notglowing says:

        > Almost all lasting private monopolies have state backing…

        This is one of the old arguments. It’s true, but it doesn’t actually address the question does it?

        Aside from that, one could argue that government influence and backing is what having a near-monopoly buys you to begin with. Even a state that doesn’t meddle in business might be persuaded to do so by someone with sufficient influence. We can call it socialism, in the sense that the government *is* interfering in how you run your private property, but at the same time it would not start from leftism. This is a hypothetical rather than a real situation, because the real world leftism and corruption from private entities are intertwined and we do not have a situation where they could be seen entirely separately – but it’s not a hypothetical I can just dismiss.

        • The Cominator says:

          In a monarchy this is only generally because the monopolist tends to pay the state budget (in lieu of taxation) for the privilege and the costs of this is so great that they tend to go out of business anyway.

          Its in Republics that this a problem because bribery is often a factor, which is why financial corruption by officials needs to be punished by death… with death also for knowing about it and not reporting it. You can only make a low trust society high trust through the use of draconian punishments and terror.

          Vlad the Impaler made his part of gyppoland honest…

        • James says:

          If there is more profit in the state allowing the monopoly than in taxing a free market, it’s probably not so bad to have a monopoly. Where it becomes a problem is when the state has incentives other than profit or genuine public well-being, such as ideology creating a monopoly on production (….such as it was) in the Soviet states, despite the fact that the state could have had more raw power and profit had it loosened its hand a bit.

    • The Cominator says:

      RE land accumulation…

      Just make the tax system semi Georgist in nature and the problem will dissappear overnight.

    • jim says:

      This is a topic that has long generated arguments against capitalism from the left, that it is possible for one entity to continue to increase its power through its already acquired wealth, buy out or otherwise destroy all of its competition, and gain a position that is impossible to challenge while respecting private property.

      When and where has this ever happened?

      All observed monopolies are born from state power, not private success.

      Actually observed monopolies are the FIRE economy of the blue state megalopoli.

      Socialism has been tried a thousand times in the past several millennia, and has always failed in the way expected and predicted. Capitalism has been tried thousand times in the past several millennia, and has never failed in this fashion.

      • The Cominator says:

        Big tech are close to monopolistic on certain software services too but they are also arms of the state…

        • jim says:

          I am working on a solution to that, and NEAR is a lot further along than I am with a solution to that (albeit I have certain criticisms of their solution, but it is a good step in the correct direction.)

      • notglowing says:

        I don’t think there is a good example of a monopoly in a free market environment, but I’m not sure we even had a chance for that to happen in the first place.
        People usually go back to Standard Oil, other companies of the era which is perceived to be an example of “free capitalism”, and Bell (which is actually fairly recent in comparison).

        The problem with arguing about this is that you cannot find a company of significance that isn’t intertwined with the government to begin with, especially today. So the theory that it’s impossible for a monopoly to arise without government aid seems unfalsifiable.

        But the other issue would be that a company with sufficient power *can* and does create state power provisions for itself. I would argue that this is a form of socialism, but the counterargument would be that this is somehow capitalism gone “too far” and resulting in a contradiction of itself.

        • Pseudo-Chrysostom says:

          The problem with all the customary examples used by anti-monopolists (standard oil, bell system, carnegie steel, vanderbilt rail, et cetera), is that they all provided massive benefit to national potency in toto.

          • jim says:

            Standard Oil got its “monopoly” by radically and rapidly improving distillation, drastically lowering the price of fuel by an enormous factor.

            Its “monopolistic” practices happened when other people copied the technology it advanced, and did not check the continuing decline in the price of fuel that it had engineered. They may well have slowed the fall in price, but if they did, the bigger the reward for people who advance technology and industry, the more advances in technology and industry that we will get.

            “Monopoly” for people who advance technology is no bad thing. Their subsequent conduct (Google, Microsoft) is apt to be profoundly irritating and grossly objectionable, but this, though painful and unpleasant, is a transient problem. The problem is that the state is apt to assimilate their power, rather than check it.

            • The Cominator says:

              John D Rockefeller Sr was a great and brilliant man, his son was a progressive faggot who funded much of what became the cathedral.

              • notglowing says:

                How does that happen? Children of rich, successful men seem to often end up backing leftism, maybe because they had a lot handed to them.
                But you’d hope they would learn from their parents.

                • S says:

                  Successful merchants attempt to use their money to buy more status. Where warriors rule, they buy noble titles. Where priests rule, they endorse communism. Communism means merchants are low status so merchants that work hate it, while those that inherit their money are more willing to buy in. There are exceptions; Andrew Carnegie was basically a socialist.

                  https://archive.org/details/problemsoftodayw00carnuoft/mode/2up

                • notglowing says:

                  I guess that is an obvious reason. If status means being a communist, then they’ll buy that status.

                • The Cominator says:

                  Carnegie funded mostly good things like libraries as far as I know…

                  The Rockefeller foundation otoh was like a true force of evil from its inception.

          • dave says:

            Reading the biography of Henry Flagler, co founder of Standard Oil. yes he monopolized vertical and horizontal production of oil, bought out competitors, with honest and dishonest means. But during his reign, the price of refined oil, declined by ~90% and brought about further refinement of gasoline engines with automobiles and aviation. Not only that but with his billions he built Florida as an encore and a hobby, starting with st. Augustine, then West Palm Beach, Miami, built hotels in all places and the railroad that connected them all. that is a hell of a lot of real wealth and value created.

            • notglowing says:

              You don’t see anyone with that amount of wealth and influence nowadays. All Elon gets to do is build rockets and make cars, not spawn cities out of thin air.
              We haven’t fully escaped the “End of History” until we see truly great men succeed in truly great things.

        • jim says:

          Standard oil did not get rich and powerful by being intertwined with the government. It got rich and powerful by advancing technology and radically and rapidly reducing the price of fuel, and then got intertwined with the government.

          The fundamental problem with the Standard-Oil-as-an-evil monopoly argument is that price of fuel continually and rapidly went down over the whole period in question as a result of Standard Oil’s actions. This fact is fundamentally in conflict with the “Monopoly Capitalism” argument.

          Yes, Standard Oil the monopoly did no end of bad stuff. But Standard Oil got rich and powerful by making the nation and everyone in the nation considerably better off.

          And now Musk has a rocket monopoly. But he sure does not have it by inhibiting other peoples efforts to get into space.

          The “Monopoly Capitalism” argument presupposes that the monopoly capitalist somehow stops other people from producing stuff. No he does not. Not Musk, and not Standard Oil. Microsoft, for all its many sins, is not somehow inhibiting Linux. What is inhibiting Linux is purging Linus Torvalds and people like him.

          • notglowing says:

            > It got rich and powerful by advancing technology and radically and rapidly reducing the price of fuel, and then got intertwined with the government.

            I’m aware, though doesn’t that make it an example of a monopoly under “capitalism”?

            What could’ve happened if they did not get broken up by the US government? Could’ve been good or bad though we’ll never really know.

            It’s true that they did a lot of good, though then that doesn’t even contradict Marxist doctrine, since it is their belief that capitalists will advance technology and business to greater material conditions, and then once they are done communists can just take that and make “everyone” wealthy, while replacing business owners with bureaucrats – as communists see no difference between entrepreneurship and an office job, they believe one is equivalent to the other (someone mentioned Austrian School, Mises actually showed this mindset with quotes from Lenin in The Anti-Capitalist Mentality, which is a good book) since I guess in their mind the decision making can just be replaced with some system.

            > The “Monopoly Capitalism” argument presupposes that the monopoly capitalist somehow stops other people from producing stuff. No he does not. Not Musk, and not Standard Oil.
            Standard Oil did use their position in order to make business far more difficult for their competitors, and bought many of them out or drove them out of business. I don’t believe that they were, overall, bad, it was certainly a net positive.

            Though the argument that a successful company (successful for legitimate means) can use their position to drive everyone else out of business and prevent them from competing, still seems impossible to prove or disprove. It’s hypotheticals against hypotheticals.
            I agree with the point made by someone else here, that it presupposes to a certain extent, the ability to manage the entire economy by yourself, which is what communists believe possible, and we know not to be.
            Either way, we do know of the failures of socialism.

            • S says:

              “Though the argument that a successful company (successful for legitimate means) can use their position to drive everyone else out of business and prevent them from competing, still seems impossible to prove or disprove. It’s hypotheticals against hypotheticals.”

              It is the ‘prevent them from competing’ we object to. You can have skills, scale, organization or technology to let you monopolize a market by making it so you can produce cheaper then everyone else. The problem is keeping it long term because entropy will gradually grind you down just like everything else.

      • Redbible says:

        The only monopoly I’ve ever heard of that seems to fit the bill was a story about a town that relied on trains to bring in the food. Those selling the food through the train system realized their position, and jacked up the prices much higher.

        That all said I don’t know if the story was real or not, and what the history about rail lines and the government is.

    • Adam says:

      I’m not entirely sure monopolies are always a bad thing. Excessive competition is a race to the bottom, with a lot of wasted and duplicate efforts. So long as the company maintains cooperate-cooperate with state, the staff and the people it serves, getting larger and stronger is a good thing. So long as it is kept in check by the sovereign.

      • The Cominator says:

        A monopoly is not generally a good thing because a monopoly doesn’t have to compete on price, while a race to the bottom in costs does tend to be a good thing.

        Health care sucks because nobody competes on price (except if you go to foreign countries) and the government in fact incentivizes raising prices on many things.

    • S says:

      “This is a topic that has long generated arguments against capitalism from the left, that it is possible for one entity to continue to increase its power through its already acquired wealth, buy out or otherwise destroy all of its competition, and gain a position that is impossible to challenge while respecting private property.”

      And? What is wrong with the situation? The monopolists price is restricted by alternatives and the possibility of competitors while still providing its service to the public. If they combine it with price discrimination it is even welfare maximizing (note to monopolists- don’t do this because it is insanely unpopular).

      “It hasn’t really happened yet that a company came close to dominating an entire country without being government mandated to begin with. Just individual industries, to a certain extent.”

      Except for very small countries that are based around a few industries, it is impossible for the same reason communism doesn’t work. Management is hard and gets harder the larger a company is and the more industries it covers.

      “Another, closely related question would be: if all, or almost all, property was in the hands of one entity, would this be in any way different from communism?”

      If the entity is a person, you have monarchy. If the entity is a group you have communism until one person takes over the group.

      “I dislike the idea of “land reform” (talking about past not present here) but assigning land that was almost in its entirety owned by few nobles to many peasant farmers as individual private property has worked to boost productivity in countries that did it. For obvious reasons, since freehold made them work for their own food, on their own land. But such land reform is taking property from its owners and distributing it to people who have no right to it.
      Yet without it, you don’t really have private property, if almost nobody owns private property.”

      Just as the land was taken from the nobles, so was power. The land went to the peasants, the power went to the civil servants. Now the peasants grow more food- I wonder what the civil servants will do?

      “You might have heard of “distributism”, which is a poorly defined economic theory about how while private property is good, making sure that many people own land and have their own property is desirable, compared to a situation where a few have most of it. Of course it seems impossible to realize that without violating the principle of private property to begin with. It is fairly self-contradicting if you take it as a prescriptive system, rather than just a descriptive concept.”

      Property is used to create wealth, but creating wealth is a skill not everyone has. Distributism is seeing smart/competant/able people doing x and believing that if everyone else does x they will get the same result.

      • James says:

        Land reform was not always without compensation, and in many cases resembled eminent domain, in which the state confiscates land, with compensation, to improve its usage for the purposes of the state. Taiwan, in particular, allowed peasants to purchase the land they worked (up to around 5 acres, I think) from the government. The government would take their previous rent (as a fixed % of actual output) for a period of time (20-30 years IIRC) as a mortgage. They would then compensate the landlords with bonds equal to the current level of output. Ie, if a paddy yielded, I don’t know, 10 tons of rice per year, at 30%, they would give them a 20 year bond of 3 tons of rice. The government then invested heavily in increasing productivity through greater use of fertilizers etc. They boosted farm output by massive amounts and pocketed the different.

        The rice and sweet potato bonds were all legally securitized and tradable, and created a liquid capital market which resulted in one of the biggest industrialization success stories in history, since these still-rich former-landlords now had to move to the city and find ways to make money other than collecting rents. They more or less converted the nobles into industrialists at gunpoint via land reform.

        To claim a sovereign doesn’t have the right of eminent domain with compensation isn’t something I’m generally on board with. I do think some limits on some kinds of land ownership make sense. However, it is important to recognize that without state or quasi-state backing, land monopolies are essentially impossible, since it is through force of government that land monopolies exist at all.

        If a land monopoly is possible without state force, that implies that the private party is effectively sovereign, in which case eminent domaining them is just conquering a less powerful sovereign under a different name, which is also at times justified, especially when it’s a placid sovereign only capable of internal control to indulge the decadence of its own sovereign and not external force projection or development of a tribe.

        • The Cominator says:

          Land reform…

          You don’t need communist type land reform you need something like a Georgist tax system, in a Georgist tax system nobody no matter how rich whats to hold onto any land they are not using to its maximum utility ever.

          Abolish zoning and abolish the income tax for the LVT… housing prices would drop under such a regime as much as the price of thin decent pussy.

    • Aidan says:

      Monopolies are always backed by state power. It is not hard to undercut a monopoly in either quality or price; most monopolies or near-monopolies exist today because of their friendliness with regulators, and regulations which crush small competition.

  64. pyrrhus says:

    No Drag Queen Story Hour? No reserve currency for you!

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