This is why we need Sabine Hossenfelder. To go behind the headlines and the hype. So Google´s new computer chip Willow *doesn´t* prove the multiverse? I mean, what the fuck, who could have suspected that...
Sunday, March 9, 2025
Cyberpunk cult
I´ve been saying this for years. And you, I imagine. Trans-humanism, cyberpunk or whatever is the current designation, is a cult. Or at the very least a pseudo-religion which comes across as a Christian heresy or LARP. That it´s nominally atheist just shows that many atheists can´t take it and try to find a substitute for the Biblical god they left behind. Aliens, robots, AI or suitably enhanced humans, you name it.
Nor is it a new thing. The video doesn´t trace its roots, but on this blog, we already covered Russian Cosmism - the probable progenitor of cyberpunk. Of course, nothing will come out of this (probably not even mass suicide), except some hype to boost the stock value of AI-related businesses...and then its off to the next apocalyptic illusion, whatever that might be.
So around 2050, we can finally say: Cyberpunx dead!
Time does fly
Fascinating, after a fashion. But personally I´m waiting for some new science genius to restore common sense to cosmology...
I mean, what could the idea that time can go backwards, and indeed does so in a parallel universe created at the Big Bang, *even mean*?
Cobra Verde
I haven´t seen Werner Herzog´s "Cobra Verde" (featuring Klaus Kinski as some crazy guy - as usual), but the ending is just as bizarre and disturbing as the climactic scene of "Aguirre: The Wrath of God"...
Manifesting influence
New Thought is back with a vengeance. On the web. In the form of mostly female influencers. Another example of the typical American phenomenon "become succesful by talking about success" (rather than actually doing something).
This scholarly YouTube channel does its best to analyze the phenomenon. See: New Thought, New Age, The Secret, Oprah...and, I suppose, good ol´Mammon!
Somewhere in there, you can even see Donald Trump...
Bland negrer och nazister
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| Hajlar Selassie? |
Några intressanta inlägg från T.H:s blogg. Den första om hur svenska nazister och högerextremister stödde Haile Selassies kejserliga styre i Etiopien under kalla kriget, vilket ju är lite märkligt av två orsaker. Ett: Haile Selassie var svart. Två: Etiopien var allierade med västmakterna under andra världskriget. Det förstnämnda går väl att förklara bort med lite spekulationer om "hamiter" och liknande. Det andra däremot...
Den andra länken handlar om SD och unghögern, et cetera.
Saturday, March 8, 2025
Kolmogorov Complexity
This is frankly above my pay grade. Except the following sentence: "And we already saw an informed prior doesn’t get a prior for God any bigger than an atom on a flea’s ass." Dude!
But sure, the second essay is somewhat easier than the first one. Carrier (yes, it´s him again) reaches the conclusion that the prior probability of God being real is three million to one against. Nothing an infinite being can´t handle! Or no?
The believing brain
Where is the, ahem. God-spot? The answer might shock you!!! Although the content-creator emphasizes that it´s complicated, there does seem to be a correlation between certain parts of the brain and religious behavior/experiences. When these parts of the brain are damaged, guess what happens...
Hypermentalization
An interesting clip about glossolalia (speaking in tongues), usually associated with charismatic Christian denominations. TL/DR: They may be crazy, but not *that* crazy.
Fat Tuesday International
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| Credit: Frugan - Flickr |
Didn´t even realize that this was an international thing. In Sweden it´s called Fat Tuesday (Fettisdagen) and is celebrated by eating "semlor" (singular "semla"). But yes, it´s apparently the last Tuesday before Lent. Which we don´t observe. Although maybe we´ll have fasting all year long if the current thing continues...
More embarassing stuff: I didn´t even realize that Fat Tuesday was movable rather than fixed (except in the sense that it must be a Tuesday). I assumed it was always something like the second Tuesday in February or whatever, so I began to wonder when the heck the "semlor" were supposed to show up at the pastry shop this year! Indeed, Fat Tuesday in March *is* late, bro.
Besides, the "semlor" were expensive and not very good either. What a schmucking week.
Friday, March 7, 2025
Multipolärt inbördeskrig
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| Multipolär världsordning. Allegori. |
Tobias Hübinette försöker hålla redan på turbulensen inom euro-hård-högern. Observera att han fortfarande kallar slovakiska Smer för högerparti, när det egentligen är ett vänsterpopulistiskt dito. Dock intressant i övrigt!
Förvirring och inbördeskrig inom den europeiska radikalhögern
Dubbelgångare
Det finns en märklig konspirationsteori som går ut på att Trump har en dubbelgångare. Joe Biden hade tydligen fem stycken! Den falske Trump är kortare än den riktige och verkar yngre. Han har dessutom en annan politisk linje. Mer som en officiell republikan.
Jag antar att detta alltså är dubbelgångaren...
Bekräftelse
Vad-var-det-jag-sa? Krönika i Expressen om hur Kina försöker lobba EU-länder när Trump sviker. Detta trots att Kina egentligen är allierade med Ryssland!
Trump sviker - Kina på charmoffensiv i Europa
Elon Musk forever
Some speculations about my man Elon on X. Well, at least they have free speech! Note the irony that Musk´s own AI "Grok" claims that Trump is a Russian asset?!
Elon Musk loses business partners?
Musk´s AI says Trump is Russian asset!
Cry more
Breitbart News complains about Germany wanting to have nuclear weapons. Cry more...and reap the whirlwind!
Young, hot and...liberal?!
Not sure how this "owns the libs", since the liberal girls are just as "hot" as the conservative one. Usually, conservative channels show ugly "social justice warriors" with pink-dyed hair and a terrible attitude, but evidently couldn´t find any here...
Världsrymden anfaller
Är 2025 det värsta året någonsin? Jag kunde ha svurit på att det var 2020!
Mardrömsbeskedet: kannibalmasken har överlevt vintern i Skåne
The madness of MAGA and the end of the American Century
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| Adventurist dream? A geopolitical allegory. |
Let´s be brutally honest. That fat Hungarian dictator Orbán does have a point when he recently criticized the EU for isolating themselves from both the United States, Russia and China. How likely is it that the EU could make it alone? *Highly* unlikely, at least at the present time.
This is a curious paradox that struck me already when Trump started alienating the US allies in Europe and North America (Canada). Remember that Trump´s goal is to challenge China for the role of global hegemon. But the most logical option for an alienated and "anti-American" Europe and Canada is to normalize its ties with China. At least the economic ties. Indeed, France has occasionally implied a willingness to do this. At the very least, Europe and Canada could strike a "neutral" pose á la India.
The Trump-Vance-Bannon idea to confront China while appeasing Russia is a high stake gamble in any case, since Russia (as I never tire of pointing out) is a Chinese ally and may even be a kind of Chinese proxy. But what if the end result of the gamble isn´t just a failure to break up the Eurasian alliance, but comes at the cost of losing Europe (even including Britain) and Canada as allies in the upcoming anti-Chinese confrontation? Yes, the EU and Britain may not like the idea of a modus vivendi with China, since Beijing is de facto backing Moscow in the Ukrainian war, but the Chinese leadership is probably sufficiently pragmatic to reshuffle some of its cards to make this possible. Especially if the war ends in a Russian victory anyway.
I used to think that the Neo-Cons around George W Bush had a crazy and adventurist foreign policy, while Trump (mark one) was more pragmatic (yes, really). However, Trump´s current foreign policy is even more adventurist. Apparently, the PRC media often jokes about Trump being a Chinese agent in the White House, tasked with creating as much havoc as possible to weaken the United States!
Oh, and then there´s the strange line in the Middle East, where the Don both tries to extend the Abraham accords and threatens the Gazans with expulsion. Many American allies in the region have already expressed an interest in joining BRICS...
Of course, there is stlll a remote possibility that Trump is simply bluffing. He has apparently paused the tariffs against Mexico and Canada again. During his first presidency, he and Kim Jong-un threatened to nuke each other´s countries for about a month before negotiating. Maybe this is just a long con to force the other NATO members to pay their fair share and commit to ground troops in Ukraine (so the US can use them in the Pacific theatre instead or at the Mexican border). Maybe. However, I have to say that Trump´s adventurist LARP as an Manchurian candidate has become a bit too convincing lately!
Axiom
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| - Shit, it´s Bigfoot! Nobody will believe us!! - Don´t worry, human, I´m a purely naturalist entity... |
Richard Carrier on the attack again. I suppose I should have held this over until "Materialist Monday" (LOL), but here goes.
Main thesis: naturalism (materialism) is not a dogma or prior axiom, but the empirical *result* of centuries of science. So *today*, we can say with a high degree of confidence that ontological naturalism is true. Nor is it unfalsifiable. The baseline of any scientific proposition is whether or not it´s based on publicly available data (regardless of their alleged ontological status). And no such data has ever been proven to be supernatural. And yes, the naturalism of science really is ontological, not just "methodological". As I long argued myself. "But Huston, science is scientism".
Here are the pertinent paragraphs:
>>>Dawes then rightly argues that this means scientists and historians are really, for all their hemming and hawing, actually de facto metaphysical naturalists. They aren’t really just “methodological” naturalists; saying they are is more of a soft way to avoid having to anger their believing peers; or for believers working at secular universities to avoid getting fired for being a kook or denounced as atheists by their believing peers.
(...)
>>>Hence, “It follows that if” their arguments “were generally accepted as sound arguments, the existence of spiritual beings would become part of our science.” Ergo, the only reason such entities haven’t become part of our science is that there aren’t sound arguments for them.
>>>I would suggest this is a harsher thing to admit to, uncomfortable for any ardent believer, and awkward even for the secularist—for admitting it would offend too many friends and peers, and plunge them into endless arguments with what are really, honestly, cranks; an exercise most professionals would rightly prefer to avoid as a waste of their time.
>>>So to avoid this blowup, they invent nonsense about “Oh, don’t worry, I’m just a methodological naturalist.” Just to quiet the kooks down.
Personally, I might be just a tad bit kookish myself, so make of this material what you wish.
Naturalism is not an axiom of the sciences, but a conclusion of them
Tunneling Set
The nasty witch of the East explains the basics of Kenneth Grant and the Typhonian Order. Long suspected that Thomas Sheridan is at least partially inspired by Grant. Think Crowley, Lovecraft, Chaos Magick and demons, demons, demons.
However, our favorite Irish raconteur seems to have left out the Tantric sex magic and the space aliens. So there´s that. Personally, I endavour to stay away from the infernal regions as much as possible, so there´s that too!
The body found
And identified? I didn´t realize that the so-called Montauk Monster, this monstrous staple of every monster-themed paranormal show on American trash TV for the past decade and a half, was debunked already back in 2008. And by Darren Naish, to boot! It was a - wait for it - raccoon?!
Thursday, March 6, 2025
The mind is a process
An old Richard Carrier extravaganza from 2018. Some excerpts, not necessarily germane to the main argument:
>>>For example, we now know we are not conscious of spans of time smaller than about a twentieth of a second. Which is why movies work: we don’t see the individual cells flicker by, one after the other, because they fly past at 24 frames per second, so we only perceive a continuous moving picture. That means if you “zoom in” to a thirtieth of a second, during that whole span of time, consciousness doesn’t exist. It only exists as an event extended over time—a time span longer than 33 milliseconds. A thing that doesn’t even exist except over a span of time? That’s a process. No process, no thought. No thought, no mind.
>>>For example, for some people, we know red doesn’t look red. It looks green. And they don’t know the difference. They are qualia inverted: people with genes for both versions of color blindness (a statistical inevitability) will have their red cones wired to their green circuits, and vice versa (see Martine Nida-Rümelin, “Pseudonormal Vision: An Actual Case of Qualia Inversion?” in Philosophical Studies 82.2 (May 1996): 145-57). But because they will only ever have heard us call green things red, they don’t know they are actually experiencing a different color than we are when we both say we are seeing “red.”
Electable
It seems Gavin Newsom wants to become the Democratic nominee in 2028. He wants to win, too! Interesting, I suppose...
A tale of two nations
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| AI´s bizarre response to the prompt "Apocalypse Now"! |
This is how Trump talks about (and to) Hamas and the Palestinians:
>>>"Shalom Hamas" means Hello and Goodbye - You can choose. Release all of the Hostages now, not later, and immediately return all of the dead bodies of the people you murdered, or it is OVER for you. Only sick and twisted people keep bodies, and you are sick and twisted!
>>>I am sending Israel everything it needs to finish the job, not a single Hamas member will be safe if you don’t do as I say. I have just met with your former Hostages whose lives you have destroyed. This is your last warning! For the leadership, now is the time to leave Gaza, while you still have a chance.
>>>Also, to the People of Gaza: A beautiful Future awaits, but not if you hold Hostages. If you do, you are DEAD! Make a SMART decision. RELEASE THE HOSTAGES NOW, OR THERE WILL BE HELL TO PAY LATER!" –President Donald J. Trump
And this is how he treats Ukrainians:
Trump to revoke refugee status of 240,000 Ukrainians
The White House apparently claims that Reuter´s article is "fake news", but why should we believe anything the Trump administration is saying at this point?
The grail is a woman
Kind of. John Michael Greer builds up the suspense to his forthcoming analysis of Wagner´s last opera "Parsifal". The idea that the Holy Grail is really the fallen Sophia and has something to do with the Cathars is interesting.
Here is something that struck me: some people in Wagner´s time apparently believed that Parisfal is an Iranian name. And the Cathars were inspired by Manichaeism. Which comes from Persia.
Other interesting stuff in this essay, too!
Trump must apologize, show gratitude to Sesotho tribe, dress in traditional garb!
Right on schedule. OK, let me guess. If the Dems ever retake the White House, they are going to invite the ambassador of Lesotho to the "gallery" during the State of the Union speech to troll Trump?
Lesotho insulted when Trump says nobody has ever heard of the country
Workers Power betrays Trotskyism
I support Ukraine, but I have to admit that I find pro-Ukrainian revolutionary socialists hilarious. Or hilariously pathetic. The article below is written by the British Trotskyist Workers Power (WP) group on behalf of their international network "League for the Fifth International". The problem for WP is that Ukraine is both allied and heavily supplied by the United States and the EU, which are "imperialist". And Trotskyists oppose imperialism. Logically, they should *oppose* Ukraine as an US imperialist proxy. How can this circle be squared? The answer is of course that it can´t and that´s that.
The article begins by essentially repeating every Democratic Party talking point against Trump. But WP regards the Dems as "bourgeois" and "imperialist". Then, the article admits that Ukraine can´t fight the Russian invasion without massive US aid, and that the EU can´t make up for the US assistance if Trump decides to discontinue it. Logically, the WP should therefore either demand that the US support continues (i.e. tactically bloc with the Democratic Party or even mainline Republicans) or demand that the EU coordinates and redoubles its efforts to aid Ukraine. But at the end of the article, WP instead calls on the working class to *oppose* increased defense spending in the EU nations, an European army and even the existence of NATO itself. They then say that Ukraine has the right to get military aid where it can find it. But if NATO is dissolved and EU becomes more pacifist, Ukraine clearly won´t be able to find the aid there!
Note also that while WP opposes a partition of Ukraine, they nevertheless believe that eastern Ukraine has the right to join Russia if they so wish. In other words: a partition of Ukraine.
Geezus, when will these bozos come to their senses?! Of course, this crystallized confusion isn´t new for Workers Power. They always supported every side in every conflict with some kind of strange British reasonableness. And here we go again, it seems...
For the love of Mahadev
Surprisingly latitudinarian and non-sectarian advice in these videos, from our old friend Sthaneshwar Timalsina. I assumed he was more into secret nocturnal worship of Kali and such, but here he talks about loving devotion to Shiva.
You can make a lingam out of mud or ice, and offer some of your regular food to Shiva. He won´t mind, the important thing is your spiritual mood. Esoterically, Shiva is your true Self or inner essence, so whatever you enjoy, Shiva enjoys.
It´s actually quite funny for somebody living in Sweden (i.e. me) to see a Hindu walk around in a wintery park and say that he associates Shiva with snow. But then I realized that Timalsina is from Nepal, not from some vast Indian plain! Besides, Shiva´s holy mountain Kailash is in the Himalayas.
Wednesday, March 5, 2025
No way back
Some hard truths from the old crazie TJ Kirk (The Amazing Atheist). Viewer discretion advised. And yo, TJ, be careful what you wish for!
Turmoil
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| America and Russia side by side. Allegory. |
The current geopolitical turmoil continues...
The United States ends intelligence sharing with Ukraine
Trump pauses military aid to Ukraine
Wrath of God, fall of Man
The entire film "Aguirre, the Wrath of God" is available on YouTube in an English-language version, but I can´t help linking to the two shorter clips above from the German version. The Aguirre character actually comes across as even crazier with Klaus Kinski´s original voice intact! The first clip shows Aguirre´s original descent into madness, while the second is the climactic ending of the film.
Är fettisdagen demonisk?
Kan någon fråga sjundedagsadventisterna? Semlan kostade 50 spänn och var inte ens särskilt god. Blev nästan illamående, faktiskt.
AI:s fantasi-semla här ovan (komplett med cappuccino) ser faktiskt mycket godare ut!
Who else is with me?
So I discovered "Aguirre, the Wrath of God" on YouTube. Werner Herzog´s 1972 quasi-historical drama, featuring Klaus Kinski, used to be something of a cult movie. I saw it on TV when very young, but only remember the opening scene and the ending. Now, I´ve seen it again. "Aguirre, der Zorn Gottes" (the original German title) comes across as a peculiar blend of B-movie and surrealist work of art. It´s *very* loosely based on the life of rogue conquistador (more rogue than usual) Lope de Aguirre and his debased exploits in search of the famed kingdom of El Dorado.
I have no idea what Herzog wanted to say with this production, but it does come across as yet another story of how civilized White men go crazy in the jungle. Except that in this case, the colonialists aren´t very civilized to begin with, enslaving people as they frantically search for gold or "converts" to their hypocritical Christian faith.
To some extent, the whole thing comes across as parody. A self-proclaimed "emperor" has a sumptuous meal in the wilderness, attended to by a Black slave, while bragging that his "kingdom" is already six times larger than Spain. Yet, he really just eats fruit from the jungle, drink river water and have no salt, his "empire" being no larger than a raft. All kinds of allegorical meanings can be imputed to this, obviously! It´s pretty obvious from the start that Aguirre´s expedition will end in failure.
More disturbing are the hints that Aguirre has an incestuous relation with his daughter, and his sudden descent into madness. (Bizarrely, the actor Klaus Kinski was half-mad in real life and was later accused of abusing one of his daugthers!) The idea of a hubristic conqueror who fancies himself being "the wrath of God" can also be interpreted in various allegorical ways. At one point, Aguirre claims to be able to control the birds. Is Aguirre modern or faustian man, who thinks he can rule over Nature, while actually being mercilessly destroyed by it? Note also that he is a traitor, leading a mutiny, while trying to reach an edenic city. Is he a fallen Adam or a Cain, trying to stage an inverted exodus to the promised land?
Or is it just a failed, borderline turkey movie? But then, that´s how much of world history also comes across...
Tuesday, March 4, 2025
The heart of darkness
Monday night I watched Francis Ford Coppola´s classic "Apocalypse Now" in the "Final Cut" version. I won´t attempt a full analysis of this "best film ever made", but one thing struck me when watching it. The film is obviously very critical of the Vietnam War. The crook Colonel Kurtz is a renegade who "went too far" and therefore has to be dispatched - something the main character Willard rather explicitly regards as hypocritical. Kurtz is simply the product of the insane war itself. One of the "good" guys - the officer who loves the smell of napalm in the morning - is just as crazy as Kurtz (although with different symptoms).
But...
In the end, "Apocalypse Now" actually becomes "problematic" (to use Woke terminology). The Montagnards or tribals who follow Kurtz worship him as a god, apparently voluntarily. The American soldiers who join these renegade forces "go native". So does Kurtz, living in a Khmer temple and presiding over pagan sacrifices. So in the end, it´s not really the American war that drives the colonel insane. It´s the jungle, the colored peoples and the pagan rituals. No White man can withstand the evil influence of the colonized environment.
Logically, this means that civilized Whites should leave the Third World because it will inevitably corrupt them. The same theme is also visible in the plantation sub-plot, where an incredulous Willard asks the French settlers why they don´t just return home to France. The old planter who believes that an understanding can be reached with the natives is depicted as senile, while the stalwart colonialist who argues with Willard is obviously "out of touch", spewing absurd conspiracy theories as he babbles on.
Note also that Kurtz hides in Cambodia and that his temple compound is littered with skulls and dead bodies. Could this be a hidden reference to the Cambodian genocide? Maybe it´s a co-incidence, since the film was in production for years before finally released in 1979. Still, the parallels are hard to miss, especially since the worst Khmer Rouge soldiers were tribals.
Maybe our White asses should avoid the heart of colored darkness, but don´t tell me that´s a "progressive" critique of colonialism...
A gangland pox on both your houses
LOL. Edward Dutton sounds "coked up" in this video. Never seen him like this for a long time. Or ever? Also, he seems to have an unseemly patrician hatred for the American plebs. I mean, did anyone *really* miss the British Empire after the bloody darn Suez Crisis? But sure, *somewhere* in there he makes interesting points...
1914 has never been a bigger shit show
So the pro-Ukrainian leftists have to demand more US/EU/NATO aid to Ukraine, while the pro-Russian leftists are on the same page as Donald Trump and J D Vance? While both factions oppose aid to Israel...
1914 has never been a bigger shit show. (Signed: The Kaiser)
Monday, March 3, 2025
Cringe
This wouldn´t have convinced me when I was an atheist-materialist, and it still isn´t convincing now. Whatever my beliefs might be at the moment...
The most cringe statement is that "we" (whose we, sucker?) have more evidence for Jesus than for George Washington and Thomas Jefferson?! I actually wondered the other day if somebody believes this and, yeah, it seems that there are.
What indeed
"What are UFOs?" is a recent NOVA documentary about the UFO phenomenon. It was shown on Swedish TV just two hours ago. While nominally objective, I think it´s obvious that it´s main purpose is to debunk the Pentagon UFO videos, including the UFOs/UAPs popularly known as "Gimbal" and "Tic Tac". I think they are quite succesful in proposing alternative explanations.
Interestingly, the docu even promotes the idea that many UFOs might be "ours". As in secret military craft tested by the US air force. This, too, I think is true. However, "What are UFOs?" then suggests that the general public misunderstands what they are seeing and that this inadvertently aids the military in directing attention away from their secret tests. Nah, that´s only a portion of it. The rest is evidently too controversial for an "official" documentary of this sort. The rest being a long term conspiracy by military intelligence to actively encourage a belief in alien visitation.
I suppose NOVA can´t spy on their own government. Let´s see how long it takes for them to air a program about the New Jersey drone panic...
Patron saint
Why does a substantial portion of the US political right support Vladimir Putin? Richard Hanania reflects on the topic in the short essay linked below. His analysis is libertarian in nature. The short form is that a certain kind of Alt Right supporters are against both democracy, free markets and economic growth (which includes an opposition to open borders). So obviously they prefer a closed conservative society such as Russia to the current United States, where the number of transsexuals rise even faster than the GNP.
In other words: the current far right in the US is more like Pat Buchanan (a paleo-conservative or fascist LARP-ing as a strict constitutionalist and minimal government guy) than like, say, Ayn Rand, Murray Rothbard or even the Tea Party. As an explanation, this isn´t terribly exciting, but I admit that I assumed for a long time that most of the far right in the US to a large extent were "conservative libertarians" rather than statist populists. And even a statist populist *in America* doesn´t have to be pro-Russian!
So there is still some kind of X factor going around. But yes, Hanania is probably on to something.
The ride never ends
Pro-Russian blogger Vox Day´s somewhat original take on the Trump-Vance-Zelensky fracas in the White House.
Cheetah House
I´ve linked to this content before, but here we go again. Investigative reporter and cult-buster Scott Carney interviews Willoughby Britton, who I assume is the founder of Cheetah House, an organization devoted to aid victims of destructive meditation practices.
Summary of the basic points:
Meditation teachers often know about adverse side effects of meditation, but prefer not to talk about them for commercial reasons. One of the few exceptions is Sam Harris, who even discussed the issue with Britton on his podcast! Adverse effects may include insomnia, an inability to carry out daily chores (such as driving), hallucinations, intense fear, and so on. Britton tells a story about two prominent meditators who went literally psychotic. 50% of all Americans have tested meditation, and of these, 10% report strong adverse effects. That´s a lot of people!
"Kundalini" is a wastebasket category which includes everything seemingly inexplicable which is also "spiritual". Groups that are really religious often promote their techniques (including those awakening kundalini) as "secular", and only reveal the religious interpretation of various phenomena after they´ve been experienced by the meditator (who may then feel betrayed).
Experiences are always interpreted. There is nothing in the experience itself which automatically establish it as "spiritual" as opposed to, say, a hallucination. This is a very important point! Also, nothing in the experience itself points to any particular ethic. Once again, ethical consequences (such as more compassion) are superimposed on the experiences "from the outside" and are hence also interpretations.
Britton says, somewhat sarcastically, that the number of boddhisattvas in the world seems to be vanishingly small given the fact that so many people are practicing meditation. Many American Buddhists send her hate mail due to her criticism of meditation. She doesn´t think Buddhists are in general more compassionate than anyone else. Britton even implies that she bought a cabin in a remote part of Vermont to which she can flee if the threats against her go overboard?! Carney recounts a gruesome story of how one of his students killed herself during a visit to India, her diary indicating that she believed herself to be a boddhisattva after intense meditation practices.
Psychedelic drugs have the same problems as meditation, but "on steroids". However, literally nobody claims there are *no* potential side effects of such drugs, while this is still common among meditators. Ketamine has become a popular drug. Carney retells a story about how the Buddha himself changed his meditation practices after some of his monks had killed themselves! The story is supposedly found in the Pali Canon.
Good luck with this one-and-a-half-hour long conversation.
Sunday, March 2, 2025
Vive la France
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| Credit: Aquinassixthway |
Den enda stormakten i EU (och Europa minus Ryssland) börjar flexa sina muskler. Frankrike har ju aldrig kommit över att Napoleon förlorade alla de där krigen, och nu dammar de av sina gamla stormaktsdrömmar igen...
Race to the bottom
Overheard on some social media platform: "Do you all remember, before the internet, that people thought the cause of stupidity was the lack of access to information? Yeah. It wasn´t that."
Manipulating Trump
Libertarian gadfly/influencer Richard Hanania on the bizarre Zelensky-Trump/Vance situation. This is of course just an opinion among many, although their might be *something* to it. The short form is that Trump has an ego as big as Olympus Mons, and that Zelensky was too stupid to manipulate him. Lindsey Graham and other main-line Republicans had a plan to "turn" Trump pro-Ukrainian through the mineral deal (this idea is also popular among anti-Ukrainian influencers and anons). For unclear reasons, Zelensky screwed up. Hanania believes that the Ukrainian president must step aside in favor of a more savvy operator...
Personally, I suspect that Zelensky was told by somebody to screw up the press conference, but that´s just another guess. It can´t have been Macron or Starmer, who both want a deal with Trump. Could it be some faction of the Democratic Party? I wouldn´t be surprised if Zelensky will be forced to resign and replaced by, say, Poroshenko. But we´ll see. I mean, we always do in the end, don´t we?
Zelensky has behaved honorably. He should now resign.
Why Zelensky should step aside/ Why you can´t defend Zelensky
Realsocialism möter senkapitalism
Ger en helt ny innebörd åt Margaret Thatchers uttalande "the problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people´s money". Ja, det verkar som att järnladyn hade fel!
Vi skulle även kunna säga att realsocialismen möter senkapitalismen...
Nordkorea slog till på två minuter: Världshistoriens största kryptostöld
The clock is ticking
I´m going to link to this "for the record" and then brag about my predictive abilities if Zelensky is replaced by Petro Poroshenko before the springtide is over...
"Absolute idiocy": Zelensky blasted by Ukrainian lawmaker
Saturday, March 1, 2025
Our Musk predicament
Atheist activista Richard Carrier isn´t terribly impressed by Elon Musk. I also link to a critical Substack essay by Sam Harris (yes, *that* Sam Harris), who was apparently a friend of Musk´s until the COVID pandemic. Finally, Musk´s biographer Seth Abramson claims that the man´s IQ is in the 100 - 110 range (i.e. average Normie).
This may or may not be relevant somehow, but personally I´m more interested in whether or not Tesla and SpaceX make "legit" products, Musk´s connections to several US administrations, and the real purpose of DOGE.
Make of this material what ye wish.
The lost mythology
So I just watched "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull". The plot of the film is (of course) based on the Ancient Aliens mythos c/o Erich von Däniken and such. I can understand the powerful pull of this mythology, especially on people who simply can´t or won´t believe in Christianity (the dominant mythology of the Western world until recently).
Unfortunately, I can´t believe it...nor any other myths, for that matter. And yet, it seems humans can´t live without a mythology, anymore than we can live without a culture. Indeed, that was why the Ancient Aliens were invented in the first place - as a myth cycle for the Space Age.
I feel alone and adrift...
Friday, February 28, 2025
The dead don´t report themselves
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| - Humans? You mean my evolutionary next cousins? No, I haven´t seen them since the Holocene... |
From a comment by "Brendhelm" over at JMG´s Ecosophia blog just now.
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If China’s population is in fact only 790 million, that’s effectively a more than 7% reduction in the notional WORLD population.
And that assumes the figures for everyone else are accurate, which I’m skeptical of. Third-world countries probably aren’t conducting robust censuses, meaning these data are likely coming from overly optimistic U.N. projections; plus, if they’re receiving aid that’s at least partly per capita, they may have incentive to elevate the “capita”. Meanwhile, Western countries have several reasons why death reporting may be understated:
1. Social Security or similar benefits due a deceased but notionally alive spouse/parent now flow to you if you have a joint bank account, power of attorney, or can otherwise access the deceased’s accounts.
2. If representation is tied to population, as with the U.S. House of Representatives, states (provinces, regions, etc.) have incentive to goose population figures. Underreporting deaths is easier to do than overreporting births.
3. The dead don’t report themselves as dead, so even if everyone involved is being completely honest, there’s a lag that you don’t see as often in births. A person who lives alone with no nearby family and whose recurring monthly payments are all automated may not be discovered as dead for months or even years, until either the sheriff comes by to evict or the neighbors complain enough about the stench.
4. Illegal/undocumented immigration is hard to give exact figures for, because that’s more or less what “undocumented” implies, but both sides of the argument have an incentive to overestimate. Advocates might want to overestimate so as to skim off any excess aid granted per capita; detractors might want to overestimate so as to stoke greater fears and insinuate it’s a bigger issue than it is. Moreover, deaths among illegal immigrants also often go unreported
About the time the world “officially” hit 8 billion population (a mark that if these leaked Chinese figures are accurate, it hasn’t yet and may well never), I had – and, I think, posted in the open thread on the other blog at the time, a sense that it hadn’t and that in fact global population had already peaked. It’s a subtle thing, barely noticeable especially in heavy traffic, but it feels like the world is growing ever gradually emptier of people..
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