Tree Frog
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Dr D. I think you recently suggested Hitler’s Germany was an instrument of US/UK (elite) policy constructed for an attack on Russia. Can you suggest a book on the subject?
@DBS
Agreed, being right is not about being smart. We’ve seen lots of smart people do stupid things. Per Taleb, due to a lack of skin-in-the-game. That’s a fact. It’s all evolution, in my view, even dead ends of that kind.
Bardi is also a fact. That a few people seem intent on extermination the vast majority of other – may be a fact. I think “yes”, but I’m not at that table so i don’t know.
As to God… There appears to be a reality but that implies nothing superior on the face of it, i.e., prime mover, that is not similarly physical. One can’t know, of course, hence faith.
Dr D –
You offer…
This means that more often than we would like to admit, systems thrown together with various parts or pieced together haphazardly are prone to be unreliable. When we try to explain events in terms of cause and effect the bigger picture has a way of getting lost.
And observe…
Yes, and that’s a strong argument against conspiracy. What I see instead is interlocking motives.
No doubt you are familiar with the following quote from The Wealth of Nations.
People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the publick, or in some contrivance to raise prices.
I think Smith has it right with his choice of term: conspiracy. Of course, it is not now simply about prices – if it ever was. It is always the few against the many.
The present is “thrown together”. But conspiracy is obvious and deep, its expressions small (local zoning, etc.) and large (invasion of Iraq, destruction of Libya, subsidies for big agriculture and big oil, etc.). Interlocking motives breed conspiracy.
True, also, is an inclination of people to “bend to the wind”. But the wind is not itself free of influence, e.g., health insurance tied to employment in the USA. You likely know the roots of that are in an employer conspiracy against national health care. Again, interlocking motives.
Edward Bernays was very proud of his work as a propagandist. He simply magnified the range and power of “contrivance”.
The realization of “new, simple and beautiful” is just another manifestation of the conspiracy of the few against the many by which…
They merely expose that their system serves literally no one but 10 guys at the very top, not even the 1% PMC apparatchiks who run it, and that will become blindingly obvious the minute repairs are made.
Certainly some (social networks) in Russia, China, India, etc. have been aware of that for a long time – given centuries of exploitation/invasion. It seems a tipping point has been reached – thrown together.
The few can cheat the many because so many are “intelligence and decency”.
Medvedev is not alone in having futuristic hypotheses of the kind given. I see him as indicative of thinking emerging in the world outside the West. While particulars differ (note Dr D’s view above), the thesis is one of disorder/reorder and collapse of the post-WWII order.
I was at a party a some weeks before the US invasion of Afghanistan. There I met someone in the boxing business. I was told the invasion was a takeover of the heroin trade from the source.
Yes. Other factors. But had heroin not been in the mix, how might things have been different?
I gave up on Marcy Wheeler many years ago – but after I had given up on WSJ, NYT and The Economist. The divergence between what was said and my observations… Those lyin’ eyes of mine…
Re Canadian Mint coin hording…. Perhaps that explains the near 40% premium of 1oz Silver Maple Leaf coins over spot evident at jmbullion.com.
Dr D…
Per PCR… The long game for Putin is multiplarity. Being a thug like the US is a losing strategy. PCR seems to miss that entirely.
Red…
Regarding the destruction of food… The fire at McCrumb in Belfast, Maine… I was an accident. I know people there.
I’ve not seen a statistical context for these events broadly. How unlikely, given history? I’d like to see that.
Such an interesting observation and so at odds with prevailing expectations. I agree because it reflects the desire to throw off the US yoke – so undesired and undeserved.
The eurodollar is/was a practical device – an accident of circumstances – rather than a necessity.
The US Dollar is already a Digital since the vast majority of US Dollars are not hands-on paper or coin.
Exactly what is a Digital Dollar beyond what already exists – sans paper and coin?
Boogaloo….
The leaky jabs did not “beat alpha” – and makers never advertised they did. (At least they were that honest.) The leaky jabs did provided pressure to evolve toward more aggressive/successful variants. The alpha variant may be a small current concern, that hydra head having been reduced but not eliminated). Many other heads – some far more aggressive – have replaced it.
The Elite response to SARS-CoV-2 has been exactly what one would expect: ego-centrist and deeply ignorant. But that’s what class inbreeding will get you.
Of course, this is just another evolutionary event. Not a surprise. Tough to live through.
Dr D. Hey. Re Bitcoin….
There are Good Guys and Bad Guys, as the stories of of the past and present say, but everyone is an Angle to themselves and the Bad Guys are other.
I’ve long thought there is is a battle between Angels and Demons in societies above the hoi polloi, as you and I might categorize them.
But Bitcoin as subversive tool of the Angels…. Hard to see, practically speaking.
Bitcoin is a computational artifact – a kind of fictional fact. Physically, where are they? How does one get to them? Etc.
Who controls the hardware in which the Bitcoins are “stored”? Who owns the wave-guides through which Bitcoins are managed?
It’s not impossible that the Angles effectively fork the Internet, logically and physically, with the intent of subverting the Demons…. But it seems unlikely.
Cheaters cheat.
In no meaningful sense do the Democrats represent “left” or the Republicans represent “right” – they are one with the “center”. So the left and the right appear to be coming together against the “center”? Maybe. Evolution in action. How is that not going to result in complex discontinuities?
To say “former CIA Director John Brennan” is “a leftist activist” reflects a very odd sense of “left”.
Replacing Biden with Harris is just about timing. It was obvious from the get-go. Mr Crime Bill and Ms. Prosecutor. Obviously the Ruling Class choice. Harris will happily put the boot in when.
I laugh when people talk about Trump being fascist. Recent fascists: Obama, Bush/Cheney, Clinton, Bush, Reagan, Carter.
Carter? He started the DP attack on labor.
It goes further back: 1944 and Truman. Then wind it back to everything before FDR.
It’s all about conquest vs cooperation. Very simple.
“Call it what you want: nationalization, socialism, communism.”
None of those. Call it what it is: maintenance of the status quo ante. It will fail.
Fed buys stocks? Keen. What are you thinking?
Oddly, Keen’s proposals are elitist. I’m kind-of shocked by that.
I’m looking for a better was to express culpability….
You often direct your ire at the Fed. Since the Fed is a tool of the ruling class would it not be better to refer to the “bubble-blowing ruling class” directly rather than its agent?
VietnamVet – Trump was such an embarrassment to the sophisticated power elite and their courtesans in both style and policy. Both (soft) coup-worthy infractions of normalcy. Well. Trump seems to have been fully socialized into Blob conformance, if only in policy.
Sanders is the only contender and – like Trump – is embarrassing for reasons of style and policy. With Mayor Pete, the power elite may have found their foil – but I think not.
Your concern re (global) civil war is, I think, well founded. This really does feel like the last chance.
This about Pete is long but informative.
