The ever tightening grip

I watched this video last night:

Basically, with Windows 10 it was “recommended” that you turn on the UEFI encryption keys and the “trusted platform” stuff. In Windows 11, it was a precondition for installation. Now they are planning to build something into the CPU itself, so that you can’t run an OS that hasn’t been approved by Microsoft, basically. What the author of the video didn’t say, and what I find glaringly obvious, is that this isn’t about Microsoft, it’s about America. They want to make sure that “their technology” can’t be used by anyone on their sanctioned entity list, because, if you pay attention, you will see that Microsoft, Apple, Google and similar extensions of NSA routinely sanction countries that refuse to bend over to America, by the principle of “if you refuse to be our slaves we’ll take our toys away”. Let’s say that Macs and iPhones outright refuse to work in any truly sovereign country. You take a thumb drive with Linux, install it, set it up and take a slight hit in comfort and productivity because the open source stuff isn’t written by people whose pay check depends on all the details being polished. However, you will still get the job done, and in some aspects the Linux way of doing things is actually better. I was actually quite productive on Linux when I had it on all my personal systems; the only exception is photography, because nothing on Linux is even in the same decade as Lightroom. But would I manage; oh yes. And if Windows/Mac didn’t really exist as an alternative, I would venture a guess that excellent Russian and Chinese commercial software would start appearing for Linux in short order. So, things would not only work, but also improve with time.

However, if the Americans succeed in putting this “trusted platform” shit in the CPU, it means that you won’t be able to run Linux or BSD on any American-designed hardware anywhere in the free world (because that’s what the “sanctioned entities list” really is). It’s not unexpected, and I actually think they are kind of late with this, but if anyone thinks Microsoft could lobby to put this stuff in Intel and AMD CPU designs without not only approval, but direct order from the NSA (and probably other deep-state structures as well), I have real estate on the Moon to sell you.

So, what does this mean in practice? Is it worrisome enough to warrant an immediate transition to non-American-designed computer architecture and non-American OS? Yes, if you’re a sovereign state. For individuals, it’s a more complicated matter. It’s worrisome enough for me to warrant building and maintaining redundant systems I can use in case this becomes a problem.

First world problems

I’ve been thinking about the phrase in the title recently, and it struck me as a misnomer.

You see, the “1st world problem” phrase was something the Americans used to ironically pull when talking about things such as having to wait in line for a fancy new iPhone or Starbucks not offering their favorite flavor of oversweetened junk anymore, meaning “we are so privileged to live in such a wonderful place, while elsewhere people don’t have food or water or sanitation”.

Enter 2022, and the problems in the West are fuel prices, gas shortages, inflation, expected food and electricity shortages, empty shelves, violent riots and so on.

Excuse me, but those no longer sound like 1st world problems to me. Those sound like the kind of problems I used to have in 1980s socialist Yugoslavia, which was by definition 3rd world (both politically and by industrial development, because it was placed right in between the socialist bloc and the capitalist West by all metrics). In Yugoslavia, the problems were self-inflicted due to a bad political and economic system. In today’s West, it appears to be the same. In both cases, it seems to be caused by ideological rigidity of the ruling uniparty (because all “electable” parties in the West are basically the same flavor of “watermelon” (green on the outside, red on the inside)), opposition of any kind is demonised to the point of total social exclusion, and the economy is controlled by political edicts.

Basically, there is no more 1st world, unless we’re talking about Russia and China. America and Europe are fast approaching Africa in standard of living, which is not unexpected considering how much of Africa they recently imported, and considering how their ideas about economy and politics don’t differ greatly from those prevalent in the banana republics.

It’s nothing, really…

New York broadcast a PSA with advice in case of a nuclear attack:

But nothing’s going on, there’s no danger, really, move along now people, no conspiracy theories, it’s not like America is in a hot war with Russia, hoping Russia will pretend it’s just yellow rain and not America pissing on them.

 

Liberalism

Liberalism, as it exists currently in the west, is very much a misnomer – theoretically, it should be the worldview of “you do you, I’ll do me”, basically being able to pick the direction and shape of your life, without external limitations being placed upon you by religion, nation etc.

However, in practice it turned into violent, intolerant mobs attacking people who think differently (not only on the Internet, but with bricks and chains as well; google “Antifa” for details), with practices of labeling that I haven’t seen since the collapse of communism; basically, they invent a loaded label that would sound harmless enough in a free society, but would get you persecuted and imprisoned in a communist totalitarian country. This is not liberalism; there’s absolutely nothing “liberal” about this setup. This is totalitarian Marxism, with very few minor tweaks introduced to get it past people’s bullshit detector – class warfare is rebranded as environmentalism, social justice or fight for the “rights” of some group that’s marginalized for good reasons, such as crazy people who can’t adjust to reality and want to pretend they are the opposite gender (in benign cases) or aliens or cats (in less benign cases). In a normal society, a male swimmer or wrestler who starts claiming he’s a woman would be given psychiatric help. In this insane society, they are believed and everybody who has a problem with them is bullied by the neo-marxist “social justice” mobs.

This is not how I understand liberalism. In a truly liberal society, such a person would say he’s a woman, and I would say “go fuck yourself”. He’s within his right to claim nonsense, and I’m within my right to call him out on it. In a totalitarian society, there’s an ideological police that doesn’t allow you to call out people on their bullshit if it’s the kind of bullshit that’s promoted by the central committee of The Party. I’ve lived in a country that had official ideological bullshit protected by the police and the courts, thank you very much, so I know what it looks like. It’s not liberalism, it’s totalitarian Marxism dressing up as something else so it would pass by our defenses.

The Marxist worldview is basically this: there was a money tree in the early past, and some people got to it first and took most of the money for themselves, so it wasn’t equally distributed among the people. That’s called “the initial distribution of capital”. Search/replace “capital” with ”privilege” and you suddenly understand where the modern leftists are getting their inspiration. Basically, there’s the initial accumulation of capital/privilege, it causes a self-perpetuating circle of social injustice, and we need the revolution to redistribute wealth and cancel privilege or whatever, and then it’s all going to be great and rosy, we just need to kill all the “reactionaries”, meaning the people who object to such a wonderfully progressive plan.

However, if we focus on the actual liberalism, I’m having serious issues with that, as well. You see, liberalism is only superficially egalitarian, because “you do you, I’ll do me” works fine when we’re talking about fashion and taste. However, the huge differences in personal power that result from vast differences in individual wealth make that sound like “let them eat cake”; there’s a reason why nefarious super-wealthy people like Soros advocate for “open society”, because in a society without limits, someone like him, with immense wealth, can do whatever he wants, and everybody else is basically left without any influence or protection. Liberalism in an economically equal society means that the excesses of individuals cancel each other out. In an economically vastly unequal society, where the few billionaires own half the world, it means that those billionaires get to do whatever they want, because you no longer have religion to set the basic principles of the game that must not be violated (for instance, that breeding children for replacement organs for rich people is off limits), and you no longer have national borders that would protect citizens from external threats and foreign ideologies that threaten the local traditions and society. One can now say that “human rights” will protect you, and I say “bollocks”, because the human rights are an arbitrary concept that’s voted into existence by some globalist clique, in order to replace the religious concept of divine-ordained law, and some globalist clique can also vote changes into existence, that will turn the world into a giant concentration camp. If the covid lockdowns are not sufficient demonstration of the principle to you, then you are too stupid to argue with.

So far, a combination of religion defining the basic morality of the playing field, the state defining the fair basic rules and punishments for transgressors in alignment with those religious principles, the people accepting the basic rules without question, and the free market capitalism implementing the practicalities, proved to be the only system that is both just and fair. I’m not saying “equal”, because I really don’t care about that too much; what matters is that the rules of the playing field are fair. The fact that there will be losers is actually essential, because that’s what happens in a free system. What prevents the free system from becoming a merciless predatory nightmare are the religious principles that make you help the victims of a fire or an earthquake, instead of attacking them in their moment of weakness, and either selling them on the market as slaves or recycling them for spare parts for the rich people. Obviously, liberal capitalism, without moral restrictions that have to come from a place much higher than the “free market”, inevitably turns into a Darwinian nightmare that selects for power and ruthlessness. “Human rights” as an alternative protective concept isn’t worth shit, which is obvious from the fact that “secular humanism” has been an incessant bloodbath since it first came to power in the French revolution. “Equality, liberty and brotherhood” in practice meant mass guillotine orgies. “Human rights” in practice mean some globalist forum controlling everybody’s fate “because they know best”, and, incidentally, they get to tell you what “human rights” actually mean, because they are making this shit up as they go. Basically, if you accept “human rights”, you basically replaced a Church that prays to God for guidance and believes it is ultimately responsible to God for their actions, with a Church that believes there is no God, and they are the next best thing.

Eagles hunting rats

There’s an aspect of the current Russia/Ukraine war that is seldom addressed.

I’ve seen analysts wondering why Ukraine isn’t tactically retreating and regrouping their forces, instead giving them the suicidal orders to stand and fight until they are destroyed or forced to surrender. One argument was that they are buying time for some kind of reinforcement army to arrive from the west and turn the tide of war, but that’s nonsense, because there isn’t any army in the West that will save them. That’s obvious from the fact that all the new weapons and reinforcements are immediately sent to the Donbass front line.

The actual reason is that their positions in Donbass have been heavily fortified over the years, and those fortifications are their greatest assets. The second greatest asset that they have is Putin’s reluctance to hit civilian targets, which they are abusing by hiding in populated areas which greatly limits Russian ability to use heavy weaponry to dig them out. Basically, it’s not really a war of equal parties; it’s a situation similar to a fox or an eagle trying to dig out a small animal that is hiding in a hole in the ground. Of course the small animal is not “tactically retreating”, because the moment it leaves the hole in the ground, it’s dead. The only place the Russians are having a problem with them is a reinforced concrete hole in the ground surrounded by apartment buildings full of innocent people. The only “tactical maneuver” Ukraine has at their disposal is to fire at Russian positions from a civilian building, and if the Russians fire back, they make a video with dead civilians and upload it to the Internet, and they wait for something to change geopolitically with the passage of time, for instance a new front opening in Lithuania or Moldova, NATO entering direct hot war with Russia and so on. Basically, they are a groundhog or a meerkat hiding in the underground tunnels, while an eagle is camping at the exit, ready to eat them if they try to make a run for it, and they are counting on something changing if they wait long enough, because it’s not like they can do much about it in any case. There have been attempts by both Ukraine and America to distract the Russians and try to force them to change the winning strategy – bomb civilians in Donbass, attack that tiny island outpost in the middle of nowhere, cook up trouble in Moldova and Lithuania, and so on; it’s not working, because the Russians actually know how to wage wars, apparently. They are very unlikely to change their pattern of action before they retake the entirety of Donbass, and before they completely destroy all the Ukrainian fortifications and troops there. Only then would I expect them to say that “phase 2” is complete, and it’s anybody’s guess what they would do next. It’s very obvious what they are doing now – they are taking their sweet time digging the groundhog from a hole in the ground, because they have all the time in the world, they don’t want to do risky things that would have them lose men and equipment, they don’t want to endanger the civilians more than absolutely necessary, and the enemy is doomed anyway so they might as well win at the smallest possible cost to themselves. It’s not like they have long supply lines that cost them money; for them, it’s basically home turf, and they have endless supplies of fuel, food and equipment. Basically, the longer this takes, the more troops they get to rotate through the war and have them gather experience, and NATO is seriously bleeding assets on the other side, in a situation where they can’t afford it.