2020-06-26

Once upon a time

Man built for himself places

Now a windbreaker

Elegy II

West Virginia's woods stretch 

 out before us in full green

Full of the things of the wild; 

 mountain and glade, field and stream

Was it you who said "En-

 joy them while they still are here--"

Would man as you had styled, 

 make them to now disappear?

But I see a different 

 vision making its truth known

Once there was a day, 

 when these old woods may've flown;

But that day has passed as 

 darkling clouds without rain

Thund'ring along their way; 

 Never to be seen again. 

 

 

Memetic Quarantine

The recent pandemic has gotten me thinking; viruses are a contagion about which we acknowledge the following: people can become carriers or sufferers (patients, cases) without their consent; their consent or lack thereof does not reduce the danger from the contagion; and further it has been anciently agreed that a period of quarantine (originally, 40 days) must be used to let the sickness run its course to prevent it from spreading from a carrier.

Now, we understand that what are called memes, essentially the kernels of ideas in a simplified form, axioms in the form of slogans or pictures, can spread like viruses. We regard as 'good' the meme that gets involuntarily spread very widely; we revel in its ability to "pwn" new carriers. Of course, we all know that the left cannot meme; and for this reason people on the right blindly support "free speech". 

Yet, although the left cannot meme, it doesn't mean that their ideas cannot spread (and of course, they have spread.) It's merely that they lack the talent to create anything terribly viral, and this condition has ancient origins as well. Yet, merely because Ebola does not have the same ability to spread as Measles does not mean that Ebola isn't a threat. The difference between the left and right in terms of ideas can be viewed this way. 

Indeed, the left's ideas are designed mainly to appeal to a certain set of people and work mainly by saturation and the lack of principled defense. The set of people the left infects are non-trivial; they tend to be either priests or those like priests, men of letters, artists, academics and in general the fashionable sorts of social climbers -- in other words, people looking to be infected by new ideas. 

In terms of containing a disease's spread, new visitors to a region are often quarantined until they are certain the person will not be a carrier of that illness into that region. Specifics vary. Related, there are nations where one, even if one is a permanent resident, cannot really be a citizen, ever. Perhaps their children can be, perhaps not. To the American this is offensive, but see how America is full of foreign gods -- see how she has prostituted herself. In Taleb's language, these places want to limit the ability of a foreigner to enter and be a carrier for the results of their lack of skin in the game -- in other words, the foreigner by being a foreigner has nothing invested in that country and cannot be trusted to act responsibly. This is not accusing them of a crime any more than quarantining someone for a virus is.

But we can go further. A friend of mine told me that although Singapore is still competent, the internet has been a huge vector for the entrance of Western ideas, particularly the pernicious ones that are causing mayhem in the former United States as we speak. What would it take to institute a memetic quarantine?

First of all, the internet between regions cannot be open. It must have borders. For ideas to travel over those borders, they have to be inspected, at least to the point of reason. In other words, the free flow of information on the internet is a disease risk -- the only reason the former USA doesn't care is because it perceives itself as the beneficiary of this infection, much in the way that China perceives itself as the beneficiary of the spread of the crownbug.

China however has not yet the right idea concerning this. Simply banning the word 'democracy' doesn't stop people from talking about it in other terms; it's simply the work of an organization too lazy to really take memetic contagion seriously. Indeed, screeds against democracy are worthwhile to have, but deceptive texts attempting to convince Chinese that "voting" will solve their problems are not. The latter text might never use the word "democracy" (I guarantee it won't; it will stick to approved terms) and no one will read it to determine if it is safe. 

Yet, we can see also the Left attempting this folly too in the USA, where banning is often applied based on simple criteria that not only will cause anger among most people, but will not be effective at stopping the spread of the ideas they wish to silence. I am not willing to correct them on this, of course -- but those of us observing must learn from this, and be a smart Inquisition. This of course has applications to many things, such as pornography, where simply banning explicit images cannot suffice to actually stop pornography, and often gets misused to block mere nudity. We can see this erroneous attitude even among religious conservatives, who would gladly silence all nudity if it meant they could actually take positive action against pornography (I don't totally disagree, granted.)

All new texts must be quarantined until deemed safe.

2020-06-25

A presentment of hands

Long-dried fragrance stronger still

Sprig of lavender

The cities live and die on the old

Whose belief shapes wisdom, even untold

If fools they be, then wisdom is so

Court and library, above as below

Sold-out ideals, sold for prestige

To the highest bidder, at the greatest need

Taken in loan, the payment is soon

A devil in black; a meeting at noon.

Dethrone King

We are often told that men like Jessie Jackson and Al Sharpton are grifters, which is true, in contrast to men like Michael "Martin Luther" King Jr, which is false. In a sense, Al and Jessie are just carrying on the model minority pattern; false doctrates, dishonest concerning real beliefs, perhaps a lack of coherence or ability to express their beliefs, constant excuses made by those who pay their bills, and so on. And of course let us not forget the "Christian ministers" who are so far from being 'beyond reproach' in their behavior that even those in on the game were appalled. 

If you can find it, this essay is worth a read: 

https://web.archive.org/web/20180522081504/http://thermidormag.com/requiem-for-a-dream-the-broken-pedestal-of-martin-luther-king-jr/

I have little to add, but to say one thing. Most heroes are airbrushed a bit for mass consumption. This has always been true, and the hagiographic forms tend to spend very little time talking about the pre-conversion state of a saint. (This is in contrast to the VITA form, such as VITA ANTONI, in which a biographer, or auto-biographer, maps the struggle of the saint through his life.)

Consider the case of Don John of Austria. While considered a great man, it should be noted that he was a womanizer. He is not, however, known or considered for this aspect of his personal conduct; he is known for defeating the Muslim hordes at Lepanto. 

The case of King would be as though Don John didn't even fight at Lepanto, or fled, but for the sake of needing a hero, they lied about his courage. 

Pretty much everything we believe about King is false. It was as though we have a supposed movement and a supposed war that had no notable fighters, no heroes, and no real examples of conduct. We begin to wonder if this war had any battles; we begin to wonder if there was any movement at all. If indeed a battle had happened, surely someone fought with distinction; yet, what we have is someone who clearly is not an exemplar, made into one. Where then are the real exemplars? We know from history that if you have a war as many years long as the 'civil rights' struggle was, you must at least accrue a famous general or two, but what we have is paper-thin, a caricature and a solecism.

Even more damning is this bit of information:

"King’s association with Communism is not likely to affect his standing in the Black community any more than his moral incontinence, of course. Nevertheless, King’s immoral behavior might be waved away when considering the “social justice” his movement achieved by a false "conservative" eager to appease and satisfy the moral demands placed on him by leftist personality cults. What cannot be so easily waved away is an accusation that the Civil Rights Movement itself was aimed at undermining, dividing, and destabilizing American society and government, which King’s political leanings do suggest. This is of great significance since King is held up in contrast to Black Nationalists like Malcolm X, Stokely Carmichael, and Louis Farrakhan as a proponent of peace, unity, and justice palatable to a White suburban audience. (It is telling also that no one has stood up to defend any of the Black Nationalist figures who are also accused in these documents of seeking to achieve the aims of international Communism.)"

It is as though that Don John of Austria fought Lepanto to let the Muslims in to Europe, rather than defend her. It is amazing how badly we have been deceived, and how the previous generation bought into this to their destruction. The moral compass of Christianity indeed, has been sold out to an idol.

It is time to pull it down.

2020-06-24

And song remains song

I move my fingers to hear

And remember what was

Elegy I 

Order like Spring is returning 

  to us as a tempest in summer,

Thunder and lightning and rain, 

  nothing to lose or to gain;

Standing in ruins, foundations exposed, 

  with a soft distant tremor--

Someone is meeting their end, 

  still it is far 'round the bend;

Slumbering giants are somewhere 

  aroused from their sleep without dreaming,

Sleep of a million years, 

  fear as the sum of all fears;

Maybe our ears must deceive us but 

  we hear a sound much like screaming,

Sound of a funeral song, 

  soon as it's heard it has gone.

[Author's note: later I will post notes and corrections to Coleridge and Schiller on Elegaic Verse.]

The Old Guard Will Pass

There's some opinion among those who come from the cities that we're in an age of youthful enthusiasm concerning the 'revolution'. Opinions differ here, but it is worth remembering that we had our 'revolution' in or around 1968. This new generation does not have the force or fire to do what they attempted. When then does this madness end for good? 

I am Orthodox, so I often read the writings of fellow Orthodox Christians, among them a gentle and sincere man, abbot Tryphon. He recently responded to the destruction of statues in the following essay (hyperlinks applied only to their own text):

https://blogs.ancientfaith.com/morningoffering/2020/06/historic-memory/

You may read it if you wish, but you will notice a certain, perhaps, unusual softness towards the demands being made by the younger 'generation'. This differs from the response of Orthodox from say, Russia -- and for good reason. If you read through the whole thing, you may notice how straightforward Tryphon is about his past, which completely explains his position:

"As a former Marxist (back in the 70’s), I look on at the radical movement sweeping our nation, and fear what may be coming."

Almost every educated person TODAY of any influence or note is a former marxist or communist sympathizer. My own father, who is perhaps as conservative as possible without being openly reactionary, only stopped short of joining the SDS because he couldn't stand the personalities of the New York Jewish Boys who ran the club. (I was never a liberal.)

It is in fact not the apparent enthusiasm of the youth we should look to, to understand the current wave of hysteria, but to the broad sympathy among the old guard. We can call these people 'Boomers' if we want, some are probably a little older than that (my father is) but as a broad target, it's correct.

People don't know the history of modern Antifa (to be distinguished from 'Antifaschiste Aktion' of European origin) - it originated not with youth enthusiasm, but as a last ditch attempt of remaining faithful marxists to reinvigorate their revolution. It happened in 1999. The change they made was that they decided to capitalize on black resentment by pushing whites out of marxism; they declared that whites, because they didn't rise up and throw off their 'capitalist' masters as the prophet marx declared they ought, they could not be a true proletariat and had to be destroyed. 

It's 20 years later.

Tryphon, though doubtless a good man, is still stuck mentally in the same place as the other aging marxists, still sympathetic to the feelings of the students in 1968, just in disagreement about the means to creating a truly 'anti racist' world. 

Some of this generation also tell us that individualism is the answer, but group-mediated differences in outcomes tell us that while people do have to rise and fall on their individual merits (this is necessary for a society to access talented and able people--) it has to be possible to state the IQ gap between blacks and whites, genetic differences, ramifications of human bio-diversity, and so on, to attain any high ground of intellectual rigor. 

If indeed on average blacks are more violent and less intelligent as the tests repeatedly show, how can 'anti racism' be a tenable position for a person of intellectual honesty? How can 'sins of racist past' even be properly reckoned without this information? In the current arrangement, short of blacks massacring all whites (physically impossible in our circumstance;) there is no way for them to obtain the desired feeling of equality with whites, or, for that matter, Jewish people or Asians. 

While not dangerous in and of itself (as slavery and Jim Crow demonstrated) this resentment is very useful for enemies, whether internal or external, of the state. It is not a revolution waiting to happen, but it remains a tool for mayhem in the hands of evil men. 

It's not impossible for black people to have a good society; Botswana as an example demonstrates this. Rather than trying to purge out 'racism', we should start with examining whether the arrangement we have declared necessary isn't itself the cause of all that we see as 'racism'. 

When we look at the past, we see that it was common to segregate girls and boys - to the point that many schools were one sex only. There are several reasons for this, but one is to prevent issues from markedly different outcomes between boys and girls. (It's also to limit fooling around between teenagers.) In those circumstances, boys and girls could have mean opinions about one another, but their separate circumstances meant they could remain opinions and not become weapons.

Malcolm X's opinion was that *being segregated* by someone else is for the birds, but choosing segregation is much different. The bottom line is, however, that treating human beings as an interchangeable mass creates the side-effect people call 'racism'. A state that permits, nay, encourages local homogenization does well to combat the emergence of resentment. Of course, this state would also need to ensure that these groups are not preyed upon by unscrupulous men - America did neither of these things. 

But again, for this conversation to even take place, Tryphon's generation has to pass away, and with them, their ideals for an anti-racist world and their eldership. The young marxist agitators can easily be given new ideals, especially once they are done purging each other out of every place they can find each other for lack of purity.

Some think the current world doesn't have 'elders' or respect the previous generation. But I tell you the truth; it is more bound to their teaching than ever before, rebelling from it only in a disagreement over zeal versus cunning.

I give it five to ten years. Perhaps the crownbug, as a seasonal virus, will reduce life expectancies for awhile, and hasten their demise. Then again, we could get 75 years of this, as the "final" government of the USA, inaugurated by the "woke" deep state of the Obama years. 

My opinion is that this promised new government however, didn't arise at all.

2020-06-23

I, reaching gently

Feel the ground vine's creeping root

Together we work.

A man is ruined for a reason unknown

His fortunes are wasted at once

He moves with caution to protect his own

Yet his wine is poured out by a dunce;

Even now there is no reason for it

It is just something powerful going

There is nothing to gain, there is no split

Between two parties both knowing--

Not even the wisdom to cause a man fear

Though some will worship instead

The ogre, that beast which can only endear

Those whose spirits are dead;

They too must be crushed; but the effort is less

For loss of honor will fix their ill

Yes, this same hand God made goodness to bless

He ordained the ogre to kill.

The Second Symptom of Collapse

The toppling of statues, primarily works of the fourth and third United States Government in memory of their predecessors, is the second clear sign. The response to this activity, as well as the formation of an 'autonomous zone' show the extent of decay throughout the whole structure. In it, we see not people organizing to deal with a novel threat (after all, most of these statues have never been threatened--) we see them all appealing to management or waiting for management to tell them what to do. The only ones vaguely organized are those destroying order, and let us be clear: they didn't organize themselves, they were told by their management to go out and cause a ruckus.

Some are right to point out that if these peoples' management stops organizing them or tells them to stop, nearly all of them will. It is however an open question as to whether something like a presidential election will have a significant effect on the decision-making of these managers. I suspect it no longer will; we have gone beyond 'agitating for political profit' to 'the sharks have tasted blood'. In every Mutt and Jeff relationship, there exists the distinct possibility that Mutt gets out of control. In that case, Jeff will have to muster some political will to stop him. It's hard to call in the police when they quit.

The general pathetic weakness of these "protests" (and there is no such thing as a legitimate or peaceful protest, let us be clear) suggests that if there are even ten officers left in a city's police department they should be able to put them down once management stops calling for them. Yet, evidence in some places such as Atlanta points to slipped ropes, suggests that the federal government will have to intervene. Yet, the President, understanding the political nature of the situation, is unlikely to act to save these cities unless terms of surrender are offered. This seems bad and unstatesmanlike, but this is no longer a society - we are at war.

The sooner conservatives fully embrace this view, the easier it will be for them.

2020-06-22

What seems red turns black

Overnight, after the rain

I keep them all safe.

(in the style of Moldbug)

The last President of the United States?

I liked him. They'll blame him for sure

Not seeing or understanding the fates

Nothing is perfect here, and the cure

Is often worse than the disease --

The King still pardons him of course

The conservative knows how to please

The law, even if he has forgotten force

Charles the Great they say understood

Preferring fine steel to much gold 

Loyalty is power and power rule, could

It be that they taught us this, cold

In the ground that they now lie?

They understood this truth too late--

We all did. We have but once to die

Once! And not one escapes his fate.

The First Symptom of Collapse

When we look at the faces of the young people when they saw that Hillary Clinton failed to obtain the necessary electoral college votes in November of 2016, we're tempted to either over or understate the significance of their reaction. Sometimes a collapse is subtle, even slow. Other times it is fast. Perhaps the historian might say: "any collapse can seem slow when you live through it."

To my mind, the pandemic response was the first significant sign of collapse. Few places in the world responded so poorly, although China's initial responses were not impressive (they did get the crownbug under control eventually.) 

Certain facts are useful here. First, the average CFR of the strains is about 3%. For comparison, untreated Smallpox is 98%, Smallpox WITH vaccines is 3%; malaria is 0.3%, the 'type A' flu is 0.1%. At ten times the virulence of malaria, it's stupid not to take action.

Secondly, the long term effects of the virus are unknown, particularly in the lungs. Some indications are that some form of walking pneumonia persists even in cases that do not display noticeable symptoms. Again, not the flu.

If we look at non-collapsed societies, we can glimpse some reasonable responses. Mongolia immediately closed their border. As of this date, number of cases: about 200. No deaths. Georgia kept their churches open but otherwise was rather strict, made people wear masks, didn't allow interior spaces like churches contain too many people at once. Total cases: 900. Deaths: 14. The list goes on.

The virus is not going to 'go through everyone' - this idea is madness. The plan is to isolate those infected and let them recover so that there are as few vectors of infection for the general population as possible, to protect people from long-term damage and the society from a surge of cases. Societies that 'accepted' that it would have to 'burn through the population' are collapsed. (UK is probably the worst.)

The United States response was a comedy of errors. First, it relied on a source controlled by its geopolitical rival, who is hungry to save face, and ignored its ally Taiwan. It did not close borders, it did not shut down flights from infected areas to non-infected. This is the federal failure. Note that none of those blaming the President do so for the right reason.

On the State level, a number of States reacted 'too late' and 'too hard'. While this is common of the "fox" ruler, who relies on cunning to rule, to not know how to apply force, these are tragically farcical. The errors are countless, but among them are mass-release of prisoners, banning HCQ, placing crownbug patients in nursing homes, being inconsistent about shutdowns (i.e. shutting down rent payments but not property taxes,) not providing a timeline so that people who need to plan based on concrete time scales cannot, reversing themselves on certain preventative measures, and so on. Additionally, localities in most places seemed to be helpless to do anything and rather almost depended upon their superiors to even take action. Collapse.

The worst error was the endemic attitude in the CDC against mask-usage, going back several years. But that's not all, the press, supposedly a bastion of a free society, spent the first two months of the year calling anyone concerned about the crownbug 'racist', spent two more months calling anyone who now doubted their about-face 'grandma killers' and then the last month or so trying to explain how it's ok to have mass gatherings to protest racism but not to go to church. 

Medicine was no better, as we noted CDC's attitude towards mask-usage failed us; the experts couldn't agree on whether HCQ was advisable or not, they pitched their tents on a very expensive drug called remdesvir, and in general failed to innovate and it is very unlikely we will see a vaccine. They also were wrong when they claimed a coronavirus can't mutate quickly, when in fact it appears that the quick mutation of coronaviruses was what the Chinese were studying in the lab from which this bug emerged!

Conservative media decided that because the press thought it would be good to lock everyone down, that they obviously were doing so to take away people's freedom. Never considered was that most of the egregious lockdown failures occurred in 'blue' states and cities. If indeed the left was interested in removing freedom in this way, it was their own freedom. Lack of intelligent and useful response, to the point of maintaining the frame that the crownbug is either a hoax (does not exist) or is just the flu. Collapse.

Worst of all is conservatives complaining about economic damage that will ... likely hit mostly blue areas, because these were those who did the most severe and mis-directed shutting down. Of course, some conservatives do live in blue areas; perhaps this should be a bright flashing warning sign for them to move. Like leftists suddenly 'caring' about everyone's grandma (most of whom are probably 'racist') we find conservatives suddenly 'caring' about everyone's economy. Neither of these discourses is useful in terms of a functioning press in a society. 

Naturally we should not neglect to say that nearly everyone waited until they were compelled by law to do something proactive; whereas in times past Americans may have been abreast of developments and ready to help or work together to help stem the tide. People seem to have had the motto of 'if you care about anyone else, you deserve to die.' Others had the motto of, 'if you disobey the experts (that I like), you deserve to die.' Nowhere is society found.

The only sense in which Americans were 'all in this together' is that of the Titanic