Category Archives: politics

Amazeballs

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I am simply in awe of human faith in the creative power of their thoughts and beliefs – or, in other words, belief that they will override reality and substitute their own if they put fingers in their ears deep enough and yell “la la la” loudly enough.

It’s not just one thing in isolation, it’s a pattern. For instance, the Italians built a city of 6 million people between a stratovolcano with a history of explosive catastrophic eruptions and a supervolcanic field, where they literally intended to build a new spa resort at the edge of the solfatara crater in the smack-middle of what is equivalent of the Norris geyser basin in Yellowstone, and now that the supervolcano is acting up and the experts are advising immediate evacuation of at least the village in the red zone, everybody is acting as if the problem is going to go away if only they stopped noticing it.

On a political level, we are in a situation where nuclear escalation of the conflict in Ukraine didn’t happen yet only because Putin was so opposed to starting the nuclear war himself that he’s trading immediate retaliation for loss of deterrence, basically making it more likely in the long run. This, of course, is only a symptom of the global destabilisation due to a systemic collapse of the entire West, which became so ideologically unhinged it’s acting like a retard with a gun; economically, sociologically, politically and in all other relevant terms, the West is doomed.

And this is the situation where the Internet is full of people who:
– obsess over new gadgets
– obsess over vacation spots
– talk about “1st world problems” ironically while California is either on fire or having an open insurgency or not having water
– ridicule “doomsayers” who are concerned that the world as we know it is fucked
– obsess over CO2 emissions, gender and plastic straws.

The entire news feed looks like something that would have been on “Onion” or some other satire fake-news site a decade ago. But yeah, everything is fine, people have been saying the world was going to end thousand years ago and it’s still here.

That’s true, people have indeed been predicting the end of the world since antiquity. However, people in the fifth century have been saying that the Rome is falling and the anti-doomers, starting with St. Augustine, replied that people have always been predicting the fall of Rome and yet it’s been here for a thousand years and it will be here for another thousand at least.

I wonder whether the dinosaurs would think that the world is still here. Let’s ask them. Oh wait…

America

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I’ve been listening to a song and the lyrics made me think… there is a country where a poor street kid can grow up to become the President of the most powerful country in the world.

That country is the Russian Federation.

🙂

I was wrong

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I expected the Ukrainian invasion of Kursk to be mopped up within days of it having started; essentially, I thought it was a diversionary force of a few hundred men, essentially a motorised battalion at most. Nobody in their right mind would have sent anything more on a guaranteed suicide mission on the territory of Russia proper, in a situation when they are already lacking manpower.

And I was right – nobody in their right mind would. However, the Ukrainians sent more.

They sent an entire army corps, of over 100000 men, with all the best Western armour and other motorised gear they could muster. Not only that, but they kept sending re-enforcements for lost men and equipment. Almost all of those men are now dead, and I don’t think there are any wounded because they were logistically too deep and all their wounded men died. All the gear is lost, too. Absolutely nothing was achieved, other than pissing off Russia more.

And since they re-routed men and equipment from their main defence positions into this cul-de-sac, their defensive positions were either lost or are currently at risk, and they de facto lost the war, which makes it understandable why Trump is now doing the peace talk, under false pretence that both sides are stuck and he’s offering a solution. Yes, he’s offering a solution to himself – Russia essentially broke NATO’s back here, and Trump is trying to avoid a shameful defeat and turn it into some kind of a victory.

 

Assessment

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There was a relatively strong earthquake in Campi Flegrei last night, initially assessed at 4.4 MMS, later revised to 4.2. Everything above 2 there is significant, as it indicates magma movements and possible ruptures. 4.2 is really serious, and adds serious weight to the Bayesian probability of explosive eruption in the near future. Whether the eruption will be phreatic or supervolcanic, it is impossible to say. A phreatic eruption is what happened at Krakatoa, when magma and sea water came into contact within the enclosed space of the half-emptied magma chamber. It is what a pressure cooker would do if the pressure inside exceeded the cohesive forces within the containment vessel. It means a big boom that cooks the people of the local village in superheated steam. That place needed to be evacuated weeks ago. However, other than boiling a few thousands of people alive, the phreatic eruption poses no danger to the wider area. A supervolcanic eruption, VEI 8, however, would end most of Europe. So, the danger of natural events regionally remains high.

As for the political and military events, Trump is performing a circus where America, as a party in conflict that attacked Russia and wanted to destroy it as a country and surround it with enemies and do a regime change in every country that believes in two genders, is now roleplaying as a peace maker of some sorts, as if they’re a school teacher forcing some kids to make up or else. The Russians will politely tell him to piss off, to which he’ll do the typical Trump thing and threaten them with a big stick, forgetting that the Russians have already destroyed more than half of US and European military in Ukraine, and that American “mercenaries” have been killing Russians in Kursk, Russia, for months. This has all the potential of ending badly, because the Russians have already told Putin not to even think about any kind of “truce” or “ceasefire”. I see people behaving as this war is about to end, but on the contrary, I think it’s nearing the most explosive phase, where one bad miscalculation by America will result in instant massive retaliation. I am treating this as “all hell is about to break loose” until proven otherwise.

If you ask why is France so pissed at Russia, it’s because the entire West had a plan of blocking Russia, and intending on compensating for the raw materials they were getting from Russia by turning to Africa, and the Russians understood the plan and completely destroyed it by making deals with African countries that resulted in France and other former colonial powers being unceremoniously evicted and their access to near-free resources ended. As a result, France’s access to low-cost uranium for their power plants and military has been compromised and they are strategically fucked.

Trump, on the other hand, is acting as if America is the big boy in charge, but this is all a bluff. America is bankrupt, their military is defunct and depleted, and other than the decrepit nuclear weapons that are way past their expiration date, they have nothing except the printing press for money, which is currently backed by nothing but brute force. Essentially, the entire West is a starving parasite trying to latch itself onto resources to prolong its doomed existence, and in absence of the usual victims, the vampires are now trying to suck off each other, and it’s going to be a nasty sight.

So yeah, far from it being over; we haven’t actually seen anything but overture yet.

Sheep

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That boring sheep from the last article started me on a train of thought, because a piece by Bach crossed my mind, “Sheep may safely graze“. Here are the lyrics:

Sheep can safely graze
where a good shepherd watches over them.

Where rulers are ruling well,
we may feel peace and rest
and what makes countries happy.

What a comforting thought that is: the people in charge will do their job well, so that normal people can mind their own business – have jobs and families, have a pint of beer with friends after work, know that if there’s a genuine danger the government will raise the alarm, and it won’t just release a bioweapon and then enforce vaccination with an experimental gene therapy drug intended to reduce their number and fertility, or launch a war against a country that’s deemed to be too independent and successful and it needs to have its wings clipped, and if millions die, even better for the environment; the closer we are to no life on Earth, the closer we are to the goal of zero carbon emissions. How comforting it would be to think that the international groups running the global governments aren’t attacking agriculture in order to reduce the amount of food produced, with the goal of raising the food prices so that all the poor people would starve, and middle class would be reduced to poverty, and only they, the super rich, would remain as the new feudal elite of the world, owning all the real estate and running all the governments.

This is a Christian thought, originating from the epistles of St.Paul, who stated that every form of worldly government exists because God allowed it, basically meaning that the government is installed by God, and people need to obey it because by doing so they obey God. Interestingly, this goes completely against Jesus, who stated that the world is under the power of Satan, the Prince of this world, but I can see how the people in power must have liked the idea that Christianity will robe them in the mantle of Divine authority, and so this notion became the cornerstone of medieval politics.

The Augustinian imagery of civitatis Dei would be a flock of sheep representing the faithful Christian people, with the shepherd representing the Church, and sheep dogs representing the worldly powers that maintain order, guarding against the wolves, the outside evils that threaten. The Holy Spirit permeates the entire society, from the shepherd to the sheep, making them all obedient to the Lord in their respective roles, and traveling safely through this world while Satan roars in frustration beyond the fence in the dark.

There’s also the evangelic image of sheep representing a soul faithful and obedient to God, where sheep are the good entities that need to be able to mind their business of grazing safely while the shepherd and his dog keep guard from wolves and thieves. It’s a nice image, because, again, it makes it sound as if people just need to remain faithful to God and they will be protected.

It also creates the material for the enemies of God, who ridicule the faithful people, because the sheep are not protected because anyone truly cares for them; they are protected because they are useful as a resource, for food and clothing of those who keep them. Essentially, while the sheep think they are being protected, they are merely being kept for the dominant predator who keeps them, and the wolf is just unwanted, weaker competition.

But no, that’s not how things actually work, and the evangelic image is actually misunderstood, or stretched too far, because the metaphoric God’s sheep, the ones obedient to the will of God, don’t feel like sheep grazing on a meadow. They feel like tigers and dragons, like lords of their respective domains, they are the angels and heavenly powers, through whom God’s imperium is distributed, and the fact that they are fully obedient to God in fact means that they also embody the sovereign power that is no longer merely transcendental in God, but invested through them. They can create worlds, cast judgment upon souls and see the judgment being executed, forgive sins, and ease burdens. The sheep of God is the angel with the flaming sword, whose power is such that you would shit yourself on sight.

Those more deserving a comparison with the flock of sheep are those walking the wide and well paved path through life – basically, grazing on a meadow in front of a slaughterhouse, being marked and assigned various uses by their worldly owners. Those on the narrow path leading to salvation can no longer be perceived through this imagery, because they are something else; not the sheep of the world, but not yet truly the sheep of God either; rather, they are God’s sheep in training, passing through various trials and dangers, and if they remain faithful, they get to be trusted with power and authority of God.

And no, they are not calmly grazing. Their alert sight scans the world, and their power glows in their eyes, ready to be released in glorious and terrible ways at any moment, if the will of the Lord flows through them into action. Having survived all the trials Satan invested this world with, and having kept faith throughout, makes such beings incredibly alert, wise, hardened and sharp minded, as their will is honed to cut through all illusion, evil and sin. Their armour is dented and the hilts of their blades are well worn, and their will and love shine like the Sun through and above all clouds, bringing happiness and safety of God’s indomitable power.