There is no Tao

 

Yes, human, you´re jinxed! 

It seems that there is no “objective morality”, not at our level of reality at any rate. Down here, everything is just a struggle between different individual centers of Will-to-Power. “Morality” either means that your Will to Power dominates everyone else around you, that somebody else´s Will to Power dominate you, or that you and others have to strike a pragmatic compromise since none of you can defeat the other. That´s all “morality” is: a temporary truce between individuals who are (in most cases) forced to live together regardless of whether such a truce is reached or not. And “society” is nothing else than a necessary community for (hopefully mutual) survival. Everything else is just idealistic idealization.

But aren´t humans talking about something real, when they appeal to objective rules for conduct? That is, when they appeal to objective rules of morality? No, why should that be the case? Nobody thinks the ancient Egyptians were referring to anything “objective” when they claimed that their morality came from their gods. Everyone seems to agree that they were just making shit up. The Egyptian gods were non-existent or really demons. Yet, we are supposed to believe that the Jewish god is real and offered us something objective. Why? So no, nobody is referring to something real when they claim that morality is objective, or even hyper-cosmic. It´s just a game, an (ig)noble lie of the kind called out (and supported by) Plato already 2,400 years ago in “Republic”. Do some people believe it? Of course, just as some people believed in the ancient Egyptian gods. Or perhaps in confidence scams.

And no, there is no “Tao”. Different cultures have strikingly different moral codes (some of them bizarre). Sure, there is in-group solidarity, but that goes for both the Waffen-SS and the Society of Friends. And where does the border of the in-group go anyway?

For the record, I don´t rule out the existence of an objective morality…somewhere. Maybe it really is hyper-cosmic (indeed, it must be if it´s “objective”) but presently unknown, since we lack the sixth sense to perceive it. Some esoteric schools have suggested this. But if so, we won´t get the ability to perceive moral values until perhaps millions of years into the future! Meanwhile, the people can only be restrained by sticks or bribed by carrots (and games…and perhaps a ham sandwich?), so they won´t start killing each other like mad apes. Or people can create a seemingly utopian community, isolated from other communities, in which there is a permanent balance or truce between everyone´s Will to Power. Good luck!

A buddha will always be misunderstood. He/she/it has reached such a high elevation that nobody understands what he/she/it is doing…or becoming. Communication with the multitude becomes impossible. Thus, no moral guidance can come from such a source. We can only gasp in wonder at his actions (or pick up a rock and try to stone him).

Such is the human predicament. 

All is inspired

 

It just struck me that evangelicals (and probably Reformed) have no canon. Not really. Think about it…

Are Bible translations divinely inspired? Presumably not, since they are subject to frequent change. Also, there are often several different translations in print at the same time, in the same language. As far as we know, God hasn´t revealed what translations He prefers. For instance, what translation – if any – of the Bible to Pidgin English is inerrant? (And what about the Bible in *Basic* English?)

But if so, most pastors can´t read the *actual* Bible, the one in Hebrew, Aramaic and Koine Greek. Thus, they have no access to the infallible revelation in the original languages. The Bibles they use and study are literally *not inspired*. They are the works of men. An original “solution” to this is offered by KJV Only fundamentalists, who argue that the KJV translation actually was divinely inspired. While God would inspire a king who persecuted Puritans and included the Apocrypha in the Bible named after him is less clear, but I suppose the Lord works in mysterious ways. And what about Bible translations to other languages than English?

Another “solution” is to claim that only the original manuscripts were inspired. But if so, nobody has a true inspired Bible, since (of course) the original manuscripts haven´t been preserved. All we have are copies of copies, often different from each other. There are many differences between the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Septuagint and the Masoretic Text. There are other problems too, such as the original Hebrew text lacking both punctuation and vowel marks. Are we to believe that the Bible used by the apostles was *quite literally the wrong Bible*, and that it wasn´t until the Middle Ages that God suddenly inspired a group of Jewish scribes to rightly divide the words of God (pun intended), adding vowels in the process?

“We have everything that is needed for salvation”. But you don´t really *know* that, since the original paragraphs have been lost. Besides, most evangelicals and Reformed believe that everything in Scripture is God-breathed, not just a few passages “necessary for salvation”. Here is a challenge: indicate those passages, and let´s see if these are always consistent in the preserved manuscripts (or consistently translated).

And oh, the canon (if there even is such a thing) has changed over the centuries…

Evangelicals and Reformed have literally no Scripture.

Retorisk fråga

 

Det föreligger tydligen ett ökat terrorhot mot Tyskland sedan landet tagit väldigt tydligt ställning för Israel i den pågående konflikten mellan den judiska staten och Hamas. 

Ändå är det ingen av våra Kalle Anka-politiker som kräver att Tyskland ska tona ner sitt stöd till Israel för att inte provocera muslimer (eller är det islamister?) i onödan. De verkar inte särskilt villiga att göra det själva, heller. 

Varför? Vad är skillnaden mellan Koran-krisen och Hamas-attacken?  

Fucking pandas

 

Thomas Sheridan´s reaction to Henry Kissinger´s death. It´s very, very bizarre...and mostly about other things than the old national security advisor!  

The man who never dies

 

The Why Files take on the mysterious Count of Saint Germain, "the man who never dies". The first part contains the legend, the second and somewhat shorter part attempts a debunking. Never heard the claim that Saint Germain is really Cartophilus (the Wandering Jew), but I suppose now I have! 

30 november

 

Credit: I99pema

Down and out i Västerås

Har inte lyssnat på podden, men jag reagerar på rubriken. Att riva moskéer är jävligt kontroversiellt. Att riva kyrkor som gör reklam för en imperialistisk ideologi däremot...

Kalle Anka fortsätter att leverera! Och enervera. 

Varför låta Putin ha en kyrka i Västerås? 

Svenskrumänsk

 

Kalle Anka-landet Sverige fortsätter att leverera. 

Citat från artikeln: 

>>>Gregorian Bivolaru, som även gått under namnet Magnus Aurolsson, fick asyl i Sverige 2005 efter att ha åtalats i Rumänien för åtta fall av sex med minderåriga. Han fick därefter permanent uppehållstillstånd i Sverige ”för att ha riskerat religiös och annan förföljelse i Rumänien”. 

>>>Samma år skrev Sydsvenskan om två skolor, en i Malmö och en i Karlskrona, som uppgavs ingå i hans sexsekt där det var vanligt att ”lärare hade sex med nya medlemmar.” 

Notera också att AB kallar honom svenskrumän snarare än svensk, till skillnad från t.ex. IS-återvändare eller Foxtrot-"medlemmar"...

"Svenskrumänsk sektledare gripen i Frankrike"

Good night, sweet prince

Look who´s no longer with us! Two different takes on recently diseased Henry Kissinger. 

Henry Kissinger, American Diplomat and Nobel Winner, dead at 100

Henry Kissinger, war criminal, finally dies

Die Dumme (und Schnåle) Schweden

 

Att Sverige aldrig får OS (och inte den här gången heller) beror på att vi inte mutar IOK tillräckligt. Och uppenbarligen aldrig har gjort det. 

Förstår ni inte det? 

No more bauxite mines

 

A fascinating essay in which John Michael Greer sounds almost scholarly. Usually, he sounds more like a tinfoil hat...or is it a Druid ditto? ;-)

Jokes aside, the blog post below discusses why the high cultures of China, Egypt and Mesopotamia - China in particular - managed to recreate themselves in cyclical fashion after civilizational collapses. The short form is that China had access to abundant supplies of water and a form of agriculture that didn´t deplete the soil of nutrients. This ever-present resource base could be tapped to recreate and sustain the Chinese civilization even after political collapses and military defeats. 

The somewhat longer form is that China today no longer has this ability, and will therefore collapse in pretty much the same way as the declining modern West. Most of its population will presumably die off one way or another, and since traditional Chinese culture is long gone, the eventual successor civilization centuries into the future will probably be something entirely different...

In other words: we finally discovered how and when China will fail. May you live in interesting times!   

Surviving Catabolic Collapse: A Case Study

Rake´s real, tinder boy

 

"I know they are still out there". Scary stuff in this one! No, the material world isn´t a dream-like illusion. It´s very real *and so are your dreams*! But then, we all kind of knew that already, didn´t we?   

Fictional Monster

Astral Realm and the Arts

Welcome to the darkness

 

 

Underreported

 

A very interesting article from 2019. Also mentions certain salient events in 2015. What makes the piece interesting is that Russia´s hybrid warfare involving migrants was well known (and feared) by the cognoscenti long before the 2021 Belarus border crisis and the 2022 Russian attack on Ukraine. Yet, it went underreported in the mainstream media. 

We all know why.

Conclusions have been drawn...  

Russia positioning itself in Libya to unleash migrant crisis into Europe

The accidental magician

 

Thomas Sheridan discusses the phenomenon of paranormal researchers seemingly conjuring up (or rather attracting) paranormal entities, sometimes malevolent ones. He retells his own bizarre experiences in this regard. Another curious aspect of the situation is that Fortean reseachers often see *other* paranormal phenomena than the ones they are looking for. Thus, somebody searching for Nessie might see UFOs or ghosts instead. 

Some aspects of the above could be given a natural explanation. Perhaps people obsessed with what they think is supernatural are more prone to hallucinations. The whole thing "gets to them". But why would a Nessie hunter see UFOs rather than the plesiosaur being pursued? No idea, frankly.

Sheridan actually warns people not to dabble in these things, and has some unkind comments about Deepak Chopra at the end...

Interesting, after a fashion.     

Och vad stoppar dig...?

 

IQ-befriad trolling eller något slags freudiansk felsägning?  

"Det måste vara sjukt mäktigt att vara muslim"

Hybridbilar

 

För övrigt anser jag att Elon Musks hybridkrigföring mot den svenska arbetarrörelsen bör stoppas. 

Stänga friskolor

 

Muslimska (islamistiska?) friskolor får man tydligen stänga, men inte moskéer med extremistkopplingar? Eller?

Vågar man gissa att extremistorganisationen som nämns i artiklarna är IS? "Tack för att ni valde Sverige"...

Muslimsk friskola stängd efter varning från SÄPO

Muslimsk skola stängs efter extremistkopplingar

Stoppa det här, Erdogan

 

Sverige samarbetar de facto redan med NATO. Förstås. Svårt för Putin-kramaren och Hamas-knullaren i Turkiets temporära huvudstad att stoppa det här!  

JEF ska patrullera Östersjön med ett 20-tal fartyg

Båtflyktingar

 

Trodde att det här var något slags konspirationsteori på X, men uppenbarligen inte. Det kommer alltså från svenska försvaret. Jag tänker på det där med Kaliningrad och båtflyktingarna. 

Min gissning är att det inte kommer att hända, eftersom ingen frivilligt skulle sätta sig på en sådan båt, och jag antar att Ryssland skulle få dåligt rykte i "tredje världen" om de tvångsrekryterade folk till ett sådant uppdrag, men helt säker kan man ju inte vara.

Irrationella beslut har fattats tidigare. Och inte bara av Ryssland...

Försvaret varnar för ryska hybridattacker

Media matters

 

Some reflections on the current media landscape…

The last 10 years or so, the media landscape has become more homogenous. The traditional distinction between the serious and high brow morning papers on the one hand, and the sensation-hungry tabloids on the other, has largely disappeared. In Sweden, tabloids have somewhat ironically become more “serious” (relatively speaking), while morning papers have been dumbed down. You don´t have to become like The Sun to become dumbed down. You simply go from high brow to midwit, or from midwit to halfwit. In Sweden: Dagens Nyheter (at least last time I looked – like five years ago).

Another change is the gradual incorporation of social media flame wars into the standard news cycles. Unsurprising in the case of tabloids, perhaps, but at some point, serious morning papers started treated the social media bubble as great news. When your morning paper starts bemoaning “the silence of Taylor Swift” or claim that “the Blue Wave” has something to do with Swifties registering to vote, then you know something has changed, and it probably isn´t electoral politics…

I´m old enough to remember a time when at least morning papers were supposed to have gravitas (or some kind of high brow implicit irony), not the bizarre hysteria they espouse today. Nor did they constantly sperge about “the current thing”, rather they could write about 15 different crises at the same time. Today, by contrast, hysteria is near-perennial, but always about one single thing, which is then completely replaced by another one (almost inexplicably). Witness the swift transition from the COVID pandemic to Ukraine, and now from Ukraine to Gaza. The only exception to the rule is Donald Trump, that fixture of the media landscape, who has become some kind of permanent crisis in his own right. Nor are the crisis ever explained or analyzed properly, instead all we get is 100% propaganda. It´s like experiencing “Wag the Dog” in real life. Soon, we won´t even know whether there really is a war going on in Ukraine at all, or if it´s just some deep fake simulacrum…

It´s easy to blame “the establishment” or at least “the media establishment” for all this, but here is a heretical thought: what if the real culprit are *the readers* or should I say consumers? Maybe IQ levels are simply lower today than 20 years ago. I mean, a case could be made! But the ultimate irony is that the “opposition” is arguably even worse than the establishment. For who is the “alternative” in this bleak, dumbed down media landscape? Yes, you guessed it: even more dumbed down “content creators”, edgelords and shitlords producing dank memes, funny perhaps but of course leading nowhere. But sure, they are at least “relevant” in the sense that they are just as low IQ as the establishment (and its activists) they are fighting. This is a dramatic example of what the Situationists warned us about: that even the rebels become part of the Spectacle. Indeed, there can´t be any spectacle without a suitable villain. Or perhaps clown…

My prediction is that at least the social media bubble will burst in the near future, for a wide variety of reasons, the most immediate being that most people won´t have access to social media anyway, either due to rising costs or government censorship. Then other channels must be sought to get the message out, at which point all the Alt Right edgelords will mysteriously disappear back to their mother´s basements, since they won´t be able to make ends meat (yes, all the shitlords are monetized by the same media establishment they are pretending to fight). The positive thing, I suppose, is that real reality will assert itself again. The negative? Probably that people´s IQ will be even lower 10 or 20 years into the future, so the post-Internet media landscape might be even worse than the current one!

Make of these reflections what you wish.  

Footnote for historians

 

The US Socialist Workers Party on the recent pro-abortion referendum in Ohio. Not sure if their weird and eclectic position is some kind of sectarianism-at-any-cost, or whether they are getting closer to actually opposing abortions...

What if the SWP becomes a right-wing group in all but name within ten years or so?

Pro-abortion referendum blow to the working class?

Normies and cornucopians

 

Just wait until everything comes crashing down instead, cornucopians won´t believe their minds either!

Maxxing populism

 

Politik är att låtsas

 

Översättning: vi tänker egentligen inte göra någonting alls. Men vi låtsas lite. Konsekvens: Partiet Nyans får fler röster i nästa riksdagsval ändå. Och de låtsas nog inte...  

SAP släpper rapport om misslyckad integrationspolitik

Processen

 

Turbulensen kring Jimmie Åkesson fortsätter. Det han säger om Turkiet är sant. Landets nuvarande regim (som har stöd av en liten majoritet av befolkningen) har noll ambitioner att bli en del av västvärlden, så varför är de medlemmar av en västerländsk försvarsallians? I nuläget vore Israel, Armenien eller Rojava bättre NATO-kandidater!   

"Det är inte säkert att vi måste bygga moskéer"

"Innerligt trött på hänvisningar till NATO-processen"

Masken av, luften ur?

 

Lägg märke till hur uppgiven My Rohwedder låter, och hur Anders Lindberg *egentligen* håller med Svenska Dagbladet i sakfrågan om anti-semitismen. 

Har luften gått till slut gått ur sossarnas propagandister?  

Nej, Greta Thunberg är ingen tjej-Hitler

Åkessons rivna moskéer är bara början

I säng med sultanen

 

Jag skrev för några dagar sedan att woke-vänstern uppfattar Turkiets islamistiske diktator Erdogan som ett hot mot Sveriges NATO-ansökan.

Men så är det ju inte. De uppfattar *Erdogans kritiker* som ett hot mot NATO-ansökan. I valet mellan YPG och Erdogan, väljer de alltså Erdogan. De måste vara väldigt glada att äntligen ha blivit av med Kakabaveh! 

Det var...klargörande.

Och när Sverige väl blir medlemmar, kommer samma woke-vänster att ständigt kroka arm med Erdogan, som självfallet kommer att fortsätta att tjafsa om "Sveriges islamfientlighet", "PKK-terrorister", bläh bläh.

Man undrar förstås varför dessa eländiga människor över huvud taget vill att Sverige ska gå med i NATO? Kanske tror de att NATO tack vare Erdogan kan bli mer Hamas-vänligt? Politics make strange bedfellows. 

Lite som när en viss typ av vänster stödde NATO:s bombningar av Libyen. De kanske förstod att Gaddafis fall skulle gynna Muslimska Brödraskapet och massinvandring till Europa...

Med en sådan vänster har i varje fall jag brutit. 

Underkastelse

 

Varför är det problematiskt att Sverige kan uppfattas som "islamfientligt". Är inte ett genomsekulariserat samhälle per definition "islamfientligt"? 

Och varför bryr sig ingen om ifall det genomsekulariserade Sverige istället uppfattas som kristofobiskt?

Är det för att kristna inte hotar att döda oss om vi missar distinktionen mellan kristna fundamentalister och moderata anglikaner?   

Ännu ett tröttsamt inlägg

 

Vilken tur att det är muslimerna i Turkiet, förlåt islamisterna, som sätter sig på tvären när Sveriges NATO-ansökan ska baxas igenom i USA:s vasallstater.

För då kan ju fejkvänstern smöra för islamisterna och samtidigt känna sig både progressiva och försvarsvänliga samtidigt. 

Jag menar, tänk om det hade varit det katolska Polen som ställt sig på tvären istället. Eller det grekisk-ortodoxa Grekland. Eller ska vi kalla dem rysk-ortodoxa? Då hade fejkvänstern inte kunnat smöra längre. Ja, de hade inte ens *velat* göra det.

Inte ens om katolska eller ortodoxa kampgrupper hotat spränga skit i den svenska julhandeln. 

Funny how that works.  

The wrong cryptids

 

This may or may not tell us something about American TV production. Imagine seeing and taping a possible lake monster while making a TV show, but the footage is never shown (or even mentioned) since the show is about...monsters in the woods?! Specifically Bigfoot. Yes, it´s an interview with James "Bobo" Fay from "Finding Bigfoot". 

:D

Also some speculations about black mountain lions in the United States and "the Eastern cougar".      

Lost and found

 

I actually saw this tweet "when it happened". It seems old man Sheridan was right about this guy. And the brawl between Israel and Ireland continues... 

Irish PM sparks anger

En fundering

 

Jag antar att alla alltså är överens om att islamism är ett hot. Så vad har socialdemokraterna och vänstern för lösningar på hotet från islamismen? I Frankrike stänger man islamistiska moskéer...

Leftover steak: A Canadian nightmare?

 

Has Canada become more dark, cold, dangerous and "based" lately? Logicked sounds almost Hobbesian here, in a video with the crazy title "Leftover steak: The atheist´s nightmare?". I admit that I have a certain sympathy with his bleak perspective on morality and, I suppose, leftover rib eye. Maybe it´s getting cold here in Scandinavia, too... 

Down and out in Istanbul

 

Woke-vänstern: Islamismen är inget hot mot Sverige.

Också woke-vänstern: Turkiets islamistiske diktator och Hamas-kramare hotar Sveriges NATO-ansökan. 

Kan någon förklara? 

Rubicon of the world

 

2023 really is the turning point, isn´t it? 

High school pogrom

 

Some kind of petty pogrom in a New York City high school. The wages of Wokeness are coming home to roost, or whatever... 

Riot in NYC high school after Jewish teacher stands with Israel

Frugal fradga?

 

En liten intressekonflikt inom medelklassen?  

Ni kväver mig med ert hat mot Black Friday

Vid avkrokens rand

 

Har ändrat i Åsa Linderborgs rubrik till i mitt tycke bättre svenska, men hon får in flera poänger (och sparkar i skrevet) här. Japp, det handlar om IF Metalls strejk mot Tesla nu igen!  

IF Metall tar strid för oss alla

Fear and trembling

 

I´m not a big fanboy of Doreen Virtue - certainly not in her most recent incarnation as a Protestant fundamentalist - but the clip above from her YouTube channel is quite interesting. It features a Christian ufologist named Joseph Jordan (who is actually a long-time member of MUFON) who discusses alien abductions from a Biblical perspective. 

Jordan claims that Christians are never abducted and/or can stop abductions in progress by calling on the name of Jesus. The reason is that the "aliens" are actually demons and the entire UFO phenomenon is therefore a Satanic deception. 

My main problem with Jordan´s speculations is that they seem true "by definition", since he claims that only Christians who "walk the walk" (i.e. have very strong faith) can stop alien abductions. In other words: if a Christian can´t, then Jordan can save the day by simply saying that they aren´t really "walking the walk". QED? At least one prominent abduction case features a Christian: the Andreasson affair. Other possession cases, not discussed here, also come to mind. What about Christian converts among the Hmong, who are apparently attacked and killed by "pagan" demons? Aren´t they walking the walk, either?

Another topic covered in the interview is alien implants. If I understand him right, Jordan believes that the implants are mundane earthly objects, but that they can be manipulated by demons, who makes their human victims believe that the implant is really "alien". 

Sometimes Jordan comes across as a mainstream skeptic, for instance when he criticizes too wild claims about Roswell ("show me the body"). For the record, I don´t think Jordan is disingenuous or lying. Quite the contrary, he comes across as very polite and honest. He may have uncovered an interesting phenomenology surrounding the "abduction cases". Perhaps people with an extremely strong belief in the Biblical God can "stop" such experiences if and when they are generated by a hallucinatory mind. We could go even further and propose (perhaps tongue somewhat in cheek) that the fairies fear and loath Yahweh, the jealous god of the Jews. 

However, it could equally well be argued that other alien entities don´t give a damn or actually are angelic...

Make of this content what you wish. 

Satanization

 

So Putin pardoned a man who was sentenced to life in jail for having tortured and killed two young girls under ritualistic forms. He ate them, too. Pardoned, sent to the war in Ukraine...and now he´s home, a free man, after only six months at the front. 

To those pro-Russian Alt Righters who refer to the current West as the Were-West: What do you call the above? Werewolf?!

Mongols, Chechens, Central Africans and now were-men. Putin surely has an interesting way of "defending the true West" and "the White race" from Satanism and Nazism...  

The Black Death

 

A good debunking of some recent pseudo-history published in The Guardian and on BBC´s website. The Black Death was "racist", apparently. This shit never stops, does it?  

Åkessons frisyr

 

Aftonbladet trollar SD:s väljare på ledarplats efter Wilders´ valseger i Nederländerna. Men okej, det är väl trevligt att Hamas-bladet inte är oroliga över Frihetspartiets seger i de holländska valen. Ingen hysteri över att Wilders är islamofobisk, pro-rysk, anti-invandring, och så vidare. Lite trolling passar sig bättre så här i höstkylan.

Så AB är inte *så* oroliga över tillståndet i världen, alltså, trots allt?

Noterat!

Som Åkesson med intressantare frisyr

Back in moderation?

 

Some interesting comments on the recent Dutch elections from a broadly pro-Wilders guy. Yes, it´s our favorite autist Edward Dutton!

Not only did Wilders´ party double its vote and become the single largest party in the Dutch parliament, the Labor-Green alliance at the other end of the political spectrum also gained substantially, and so did an entirely new "anti-corruption party" Dutton believes is centrist. 

In other words, increasing polarization rather than simply "far right success" is the name of the game in the Netherlands. Note, however, that Wilders had to tone down his militant rhetoric to reach out to new voters, and that he needs to form a coalition government if he wants to become Prime Minister. So it´s still not clear - at least not to me - whether this is the big paradigm shift or just some kind of premonition. 

It´s also interesting to note that while Wilders is seen as Euro-skeptic and anti-Ukraine, he is also very strongly pro-Israel.  

The usual suspects

 

Who is this madman? The effective winner of the Dutch parliamentary elections, Geert Wilders, tweeted five years ago that - wait for it - Jordan is Palestine!

I assumed nobody to the left of, say, Meir Kahane claimed this today? 

Will Jordan break diplomatic ties now, or what? 

Game changer?

 

I´m not an expert on agent warfare, but could this be a game changer of some kind? Why would India, a power supposedly much weaker than the United States, send its agents to kill Sikh separatists on US territory? Especially since India (at least with the BJP in power) is also an on-off regional ally to the same United States? Note also that the US apparently couldn´t shield its ally Canada from rather furious Indian reactions during a similar case this summer. 

How weak *is* the US exactly? 

And what will come next: Israelis gunning down pro-Hamas activists, Turkey bombing Gülen meetings, Ethiopia poisoning dissidents, all on American soil? 

FBI thwarted plot to kill Sikh separatist in the United States

Q*

 

This is absolute bullshit, if you ask me. It´s also old news, since rumors like this circulated already when Altman was fired last week. Yeah, sure, Altman was kicked out because of some apocalyptic Terminator-style threat to humanity or whatever. Here is my alternative explanation: the whole thing is a marketing scam from start to finish, orchestrated by Altman himself. 

Oh, and another thing. If this guy ever sets his foot in Sweden, our socialist union Terminator will demand that he signs a union contract. There!  

Sam Altman, end of the world, Q-star

Time to spare

 

If you can spare three hours of your precious time (and beauty sleep), I have a real treat for you. Or 2 hours, 55 minutes and 7 seconds, to be exact.

Erika (alias Gutsick Gibbon) polemicizes against the creationist ministry Answers in Genesis (AiG), led by Ken Ham. Apparently, AiG recently disawoved other young earth creationists that aren´t intransigent enough, dubbing them "Young Earth Evolutionists" or YEEs. 

One of Erika´s main points (and I think it´s a fair one) is that AiG *themselves* are guilty of many of the heresies they accuse the YEEs of. Indeed, young earth creationism as a whole is! For instance, the idea that God created Earth and/or the universe with apparent age was once standard orthodoxy in YEC circles, at least if you read the fine print. Other "heresies" seem to be more typical of the AiG themselves, such as the inclusion of "four-legged whales" on the Ark, making me wonder why that has suddenly become verboten in Ken Ham´s circles? 

Another good point is that AiG logically also must believe in evolution, indeed, in a kind of hyper-evolution, since the archetypal animals on board the Ark (or swimming in the Deluge waters) would have had to evolve very quickly into today´s species, in just a few thousand years. That´s fast even for micro-evolution, but it does follow from the overall YEC perspective, and indeed has been defended by YECs before. And AiG themselves *must* have this perspective too, yet they attack other creationists for making too large concessions to evolutionary thinking! 

A bit niche, but since I was a creationist-watcher about 20 years ago, I link to this latest development for nostalgic reasons...

Black as folk

 

BBC says that Black women were overrepresented among 14th century plague victims in England. But how did the BBC reach that conclusion? How could they possibly know what human remains from the period question come from Black Africans (presumably a small community in 14th century England anyhow)? 

Well, it turns out that the study they cite...measured skulls. 

So "race" is a social construct...except when it isn´t! Or except when BBC does the social constructing for you.

Det är hela budet

 

A homo named naledi

 

I actually commented Homo naledi before, mostly on a whim, so I was somewhat amused by hearing about this. Apparently, a controversy broke earlier this summer about claims that this early hominin buried its dead and produced rock art. The whole thing seems to have turned nasty due to conflicts over peer review, media exposure, and so on. In other words, just another Tuesday in academic politics (and media exposure)! 

The link below goes to a summary of the paper triggering the brawl, the link above goes to a YouTube content-creator named Erika (alias Gutsick Gibbon) who tries to explain the controversy the best she can. 

Personally, I don´t really care either way, but claims that an "ape-man" like Homo naledi (probably just an australopithecine in my lazy lay opinion) was advanced enough to have symbolic culture *are* hard to believe given our present state of knowledge. Stay tuned for more Tuesdays!  

No scientific evidence that Homo naledi buried their dead or produced rock art

Faking it

 

Can´t anyone stop this crazy nominalist? LOL. 

Bronze Age or Gilded Age?

 

Bronze Age Pervert (yes, the X troll) wants to support someone like Milei, but simply can´t. However, he reserves most of his criticism for "conservative socialism" or "Bannonism", the pseudo-Strasserite mixture of conservative politics and left-populist economics. 

BAP believes that no leftist (not even a populist one) can truly be a nationalist, since they will always import more immigrants as clients to their de-nationalized statist projects. 

But what is BAP´s alternative? Quite unlike his "primitivist" persona on X, he seems to favor modern capitalist middle class prosperity of a libertarian bent, but how can *that* be reconciled with nationalism? 

Usually, only the dominant global power can afford "free trade" and low taxation...    

The populist moment never happened

I also append this link to Vox Day´s blog Vox Popoli, which comments Milei and BAP, among other things. 

Ideology is Rhetoric

Adventure

 

Here´s a thought. Or more than one. What if the Israel-Palestine conflict simply has no solution? What if the climate crisis doesn´t have a solution either? Have you ever reflected over this? 

Or the geopolitical conflict between Russia and the rest of the world. Or the Crimean conflict, which seems to have started in 2014 BCE. I believe there were turf wars in Palestine back then, too...

Has humanity ever decisively managed to solve any of its problems?

Perhaps we just have to realize that we live on a dangerous planet. Let the adventure begin!

Inbillning

 

Är det bara jag som inbillar mig, eller har svenska medier slutat att bry sig om Turkiets och Ungerns ständigt pågående sabotage av Sveriges NATO-ansökan? I så fall, varför? Var den tidigare hysterin bara ett spel för gallerierna? Har media fått nya marschorder, och i så fall från vem? 

Sveriges nyligen framförhandlade (men ännu inte ratificerade) försvarsavtal med USA innebär rimligtvis att vi inte behöver bry oss *så* mycket om Erdogan och hans lilla knähund i Mohács, men är svenska medier smarta nog att förstå det? Nej, det tror jag inte. 

Så vad har förändrats? Är inte Jan Guillous största fanboy, men det här låter som något han borde sätta tänderna i... 

Taylor Swifts tystnad

 

Äventyret har börjat...

Röda fältets försvinnande

Häxbål

 

En bisarr rubrik i Aftonbladet. Har inte läst artikeln, men eftersom den här bloggen ofta kommenterar religion och andlighet, kunde jag inte undvika att reagera...

Gnostisk heresi, eller vad?

First things first

 

Milei´s supporters hail him as the first Libertarian head of state in history. Weird, I thought that was Andrew Jackson. Or Augusto Pinochet... 

Don´t cry for me, Argentina

 

I have no idea why a guy like Milei could become president of Argentina, but a couple of immidiate reflections do come to my mind.

For instance, why did the US Alt Right (or what´s left of it) support this man? Aren´t Alt Right trolls supposed to be "based", nationalist, anti-Israeli and pro-Russian? Well, it seems Milei supports Israel and Ukraine. He also wants Argentina to leave BRICS. And while Milei says he will abolish the Argentine central bank, his plan to introduce the US dollar as currency will (surprise) make Argentina subordinate to the whims of the *American* Federal Reserve! 

In other words: Milei is a fraud, at least if you believe in Nationalism (TM). Or perhaps it´s really the Alt Right which is a fraud? This bizarre and postmodern phenomenon, always a meme more than a movement, was apparently nothing else than libertarians against immigration (or libertarians who read "The Bell Curve"). When the libertarian and nationalist tendencies clashed, they went all in with the former and some Latino anarcho-capitalist superhero.

Class interests never lie, it seems. 

Ironically, Milei´s landslide victory also shows that democracy doesn´t work...since 56% of the Argentinian electorate essentially voted to abolish their national sovereignty. That´s democracy for you, right there. LOL. 

But whatever. Milei won´t be able to solve any problems, of course. But when the masses come for him with the noose, as they inevitably will when the dollar crashes and burns, I suppose he could save his neck by pretending to invade the Falkland Islands! 

Neverending

 

Is science dead? Quantum gadfly Sabrine Hossenfelder covers a lot of ground in this clip, discussing "the end of science" from various angles.

If I understand her correctly, science "shouldn´t" end, since there are still unsolved problems. Such as? Well, we may be missing one law of nature or two! For instance, laws governing chaos and complexity. Since we seem to understand, at least in principle, where to start looking for such laws, science as an enterprise doesn´t have to end. Indeed, major discoveries may be just around the corner.

Or they may not - but not for the reasons you think. While humans are in theory clever enough to build an advanced computer to "do the math", we may in practice be too stupid to organize scientific work efficiently enough to create the conditions for such a breakthrough. It could even be a kind of "catch 22" situation: in order to understand complexity, we need to organize science in an incredibly complex way...which we can´t do, since we don´t understand complexity in the first place! 

My personal take is that finite beings can´t - neither in theory nor in practice - understand the infinite. However, our dynamic intelligence will keep trying, and in that sense, science will never end...  

Slim Jim meltdown

 

Edward Dutton is a fairly controversial YouTube content creator. His "fearless based science" can easily be construed as xenophobic, racist, elitist or as a form of "black pilled" ultra-pessimism. Nobody, it seems, gets out alive of the Social Darwinist meat grinder!

And yet...and yet, Dutton´s most controversial video so far is about obesity?! The comments below the video are hilarious, and it´s obvious that many commentators didn´t even watch the video. And if they did, they had a meltdown anyway...

Funny, since most comments seem to come from people who are right-wing. Well, facts don´t care about your feelings, slim boy! 

Die Toten Mahnen Uns

 

36

 

Okej, det här var en intressant konspirationsteori...

"36 och slumpen"