Family Structure, Part II: Orphans Still Not Required

“It’s taken almost thirty years and my family fortune to realize the vision of that day.” – Back to the Future

It’s easy to make a website for orphans – you don’t need a home page.

Last post we talked about the main family structures that impact the ideology of the United States (Absolute Nuclear, Authoritarian, and Egalitarian Nuclear).  As noted in the post and in the comments, there were several left out.  Let’s start out with the biggest structure in the world and the structure that breeds commies:

The Exogamous Clan.

  • This is the family structure that was seen in China, Cuba, northern India, Russia, and the part of France commies come from.
  • The basic structure is that marriage occurs with women from outside the clan, and the husband brings the wife home.
  • This is a wickedly high stress scenario: more than one woman in the household is insanely susceptible to the competition and emotional games that more than one woman can bring, plus lots of adult males and jealous wives under the same roof.
  • The result, the father has to have huge amounts of power. Women are pushed down relentlessly to keep peace in the family.  This is reflected in that the sons’ wives are chosen by the parents, and even the sons are fairly replaceable.
  • The idea of independence never comes up until the father dies and the son has to form his own clan and only then does the family break apart.

The result of this is that the culture where the Exogamous Clan is the family structure prizes discipline, social duty, conformity, and not being different.  The culture lends itself to strong central governance:  strong emperors or a strong central government – looking at you, Chairman Xi.  In China, the initial failed attempts at communism were attempts to move this Exogamous Clan structure to the societal level.

And they decided they didn’t need to teach him, they said, “Hilfinger it out.”

When these cultures have an overthrow of their leadership, the bloodshed is epic until the new father figure takes over.  Children from this family structure will have a really hard time understanding the Absolute Nuclear and Authoritarian since independence is prized in the Absolute Nuclear and Authoritarian and is a cancer to the Exogamous Clan structure.

The next stop on our world tour leads us to the Islamic world, which pretty much all follows the same family structure:

The Endogamous Clan.

The Endogamous Clan is essentially and nearly exactly the Islamic world.

  • These are marriages based on arranged cousin marriages.
  • There isn’t much family stress since everyone is already family and is already inbred related so everyone pitches in.
  • Dad busy? There’s an uncle who will help you out.  The “Patriarch” rarely has to rule because the uncles will form an opinion and go with it.
  • Women aren’t outsiders, and they are the ones who end up setting up the marriages, picking and choosing which cousins should marry.
  • They consider the entire world a clan, and their goal is to carry their clan, Islam, to everyone.
  • If you’re outside the clan, however, slavery is just fine with them.

If you think about having kids with your cousin and go, “ewww, gross” you’ve been inoculated against Endogamous Clans.  For good reasons:  one study in Bradford (U.K.) determined that childhood birth defects in Bradford was double the national average – largely because of Pakistani first cousin marriage.  I guess it’s okay for them to sleep with their second cousin, if the first cousin doesn’t mind.

Islamic pubs are the worst, no drinking, no dancing.  But the women can get stoned.

The English and the Pakistani (and other East Asians from Endogamous Clans) living in England will never really understand each other.  The English will see a group that they want to assimilate, and the Pakistani are there only for conquest.  Why did Pakistani kebob shop owners chop up and cook and sell an English child (to other English people)?

The kid was not a member of the Clan, so who cares?  This is a significant cultural clash that has yet to come to a head.

The last major group is from sub-Saharan Africa.  This was classified by Todd as a Flexible System.  There’s a system, but that system is defined as “whatever”.

  • This is primarily in sub-Saharan Africa, and Todd found it also in the United States cotton belt.
  • Monogamy? Polygamy?   Whatever.
  • Women raise the children while men wage war and herd cattle.
  • A large number of the men don’t have the opportunity to have sex: polygamy leads to periodic civil wars.
  • Men join together in war bands to take women or create social status.
  • Power is important, but responsibility is not prized.

Africa has been chaotic, and it appears that much (not all!!) of the social system seen in the United States today from African descendants has been a replication of the Flexible System, which appears to be in many cases becoming the predominant urban family structure for all people, not just African descendants.

Since Ford V. Ferrari was such a hit, Chevy tried to release a film:  Total Recall.

The final two are Asymmetric and Anomic.

Asymmetric is:

  • Weird and limited to India, consisting of arranged marriages from the cousins of female relatives only.
  • It’s India, so like all things Indian it’s confused and chaotic and covered in curry powder.
  • I’d like to ignore it, but it’s like a billion people. But it’s a billion Indians, so I’ll ignore it.

India probably breaks every rule, primarily because regardless of the family structure, that structure also has to contend with the caste system.  When I was interacting with Indians, they looked to see what caste I’d have been in if I were Indian.  Due to several questions, they seemed convinced it would have been the warrior caste (they were warrior caste) so we were cool.

India will keep being India, and Indians (wherever they go) will want to hang out with other Indians more than anyone else, including getting all of their family hired.

What do you do with an elephant with three balls?  Walk him, and pitch to the rhino.

Anomic is:

  • No fixed structure, whatsoever.
  • Tribal, think rainforest tribal.
  • Consists of oppressive empires and peasants, with consisting of military dictatorships coupled with coups.
  • Comically ineffective at doing anything of note.

I have no doubt that Mssr. Todd would not write this book today in the current climate of moral relativism.  In choosing to review cultures and compare them, by definition some will come up short in some way or another – the greatest burst of human invention, ever, came primarily from two family systems, the Absolute Nuclear and the Authoritarian.  Cultures like the Exogamous Clan structure have provided innovation, but for the most part (until recently) tried to turn their back to the world since dealing with foreigners is, well, messy.

What did Malcom X name his son?  Malcom XI.

But it does explain that to the CCP and Chairman Xi, if you are Chinese-American, you’re still Chinese.  Back in (I think?) the year 2019 I read that China had naturalized 4,000 citizens from other countries.  That’s not a typo.  4,000.  Conformity comes from being Chinese, which is why I don’t really expect them to ever be interested in taking over the world.  They like Chinese people, and I’m pretty sure they think they’re a separate species.

Will China fight for resources?  Certainly.  Will China fight for Taiwan?  Yes, to the Chinese, those are just more Chinese.  Does China want to control Japan or Korea or Vietnam?  No.  They want them to do what China wants, but China has been, historically, very happy staying at home, likely (in part) for the reasons Todd discussed related to family structure.

The endgame of this is complex – as family structure in nations changes due either to technological progress, social change (divorced moms), and/or the influx of foreign family patterns, the very ideology of nations is bound to change.

Family patterns may change, but remember, to an orphan a selfie will always be a family photo.

Another Key To Understanding It All: Family Structure

“Without the ability to defend one’s own viewpoint against other more aggressive ideologies then reasonableness and moderation could quite simply disappear. That is why we’ll always need an army.” – Monty Python, The Meaning of Life

Geology is great, but geography is where it’s at.

The ideology of a group can come from many things, including the propaganda that we are all exposed to from a very young age. Another part of it comes from the family structure that we’re surrounded by. A French dude named Emmanual Todd spent a lot of time thinking about this in the 1970s, and decided that the ideology of a country, in part, could be determined by the family structure that the country. I was introduced to Mr. Todd’s ideas by the WhatIfAltHist YouTube® show. I recommend that show.

First, I was intrigued. A French guy named Todd.

Weird.

And who loses when I post an image of Heather Graham? No one.

Second, it felt right. One of the things that people often don’t rate highly enough in the world is genetics. Genetics are very powerful, and influence far more than just hair, skin and eye color or other merely physical attributes. No, from what I’ve seen, genetics very much impacts the basic way related people think. It’s as if family structure, that which literally gives birth to genetic structure, could be a selection mechanism to create and reinforce ideology as well. That would entirely be in line with my observations of both people that I know, as well as the flow of history.

Third, I was interested. What Todd had to say was based on the cultures that he saw in the world in the 1970s, which, due to unceasing hordes of unchecked illegals has now changed. What tensions might conflicting ideologies based on family structures bring to countries being invaded?

But they’re as close to me as steppe-brothers.

Let’s start with the family structure that was the one that came from England and was predominant in the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Normandy:

Absolute Nuclear.

  • It’s what I grew up thinking a normal family was – the term nuclear family was coined in 1924, and has nothing to do with atom bombs.
  • The mother and father met and chose each other for love.
  • They lived in their own house.
  • Their children were expected to become independent, be responsible for themselves, and their lives, after they grew up, was in their own hands.
  • Parents could disinherit kids, and split up the inheritance however.
  • God judges individuals.
  • Societies are mostly stable, but when internal revolts happen, they are horrific.

This is the most successful culture in history, and has been amazing for freedom. Christianity and individual salvation plus independence and individual outcomes lead to structures where people have incentives to produce, and incentives to be moral.

Why can’t you trust an atom? Because they make up everything.

Many other cultures cannot understand this culture – it appears cold and impersonal, and it values freedom over equality. For this system to work, though, high social trust is required.

Absolute Nuclear is a big chunk of my genetics. But the majority of it is:

Authoritarian.

This is just Todd’s name. If I were to name it, I’d call it the Ancient Honor culture, or something like that. It is a very big part of the culture of the United States, especially from the Southern States. Why?

  • This culture is that the Germans, Scandinavians, Czechs, Irish, Scots, Welsh had historically, and it also describes the Koreans, Japanese, and northern Spaniards (where Franco was from).
  • Only the oldest son inherits, so the clan follows the eldest.
  • What do the other sons do? Warriors or warrior monks so they have something to do.
  • The story of the society is one of a lineage that goes back through time. If you worry just a bit too much about your family story (like I might) and care about its honor (like I do) this may describe you.
  • The story of the society is one of the lineage of the family, the sense of history, stubbornness, and that everything thrown in front of you makes you stronger. Only the Irish can destroy the Irish, only the Scots can destroy the Scots. Losing makes them tougher.
  • Women have significant value, unlike in many other cultures.
  • These cultures typically have a large middle class, because if you don’t inherit, you’d best figure something out.
  • There is very little oppression in these societies, because individualism is cultivated – people like each other and will fight for their group.
  • These people are awful at creating empires – it took the British to unite the Irish since these groups are like a bag of cats. That’s why Japan and Germany and Scotland and Ireland were so hard to unify.

This is a very successful culture, historically, and is the other “big” Western culture. If I come across someone who wants to fight because I accidently took his parking space? Tell me you’re Scots-Irish without telling me you’re Scots-Irish. The tensions between the Authoritarians (South) and Absolute Nuclear (North) led to the Civil War.

I met the Godfather of the Scottish mafia. He made me an offer I couldn’t understand.

This is the rest, and possibly the majority of my genetics, and by far the majority of The Mrs.

Don’t make her mad on a point of honor.

The third culture that’s now impacting the United States is the one from (most of) France, (most of) the Italians, South America, Mexico, and Central America.

Egalitarian Nuclear:

  • In this structure, all sons inherit equally. There are several properties I’m aware of where the Spanish father split up the property (five miles by five miles) so his sons could all have access to the river that ran down the middle, so they could water their cattle. Fast forward to today, and there are several properties that are 200 feet wide by five miles long so they can still get access to the river.
  • Marriages aren’t arranged and females have huge influence.
  • Because everything gets split up into weird chunks, rich people end up buying the odd land and the sons end up with nothing to give for inheritance. This leads to massive wealthy inequality.
  • Because the families are equalitarian, they want equity in society, which leads to a series of revolutions because their property always ends up in the hands of the rich.
  • Why have most South American countries had a zillion revolutions, constitutions, communist uprisings, while the United States has had the same Constitution?
  • Since the daughters get nothing, it leads to an “alpha-male” dictator, but they’re comically bad dictators (think Chavez or Mussolini) that don’t get much done because, equality leads to zero discipline.

When this family structure is a significant minority, it ends up running the country. France. Italy. Most South American countries. Mexico. Why are they this mixed bag of equalitarian nonsense? Because of this social structure. Since often a minority population ends up deciding how the country is run, exactly how many Egalatarian Nuclear people can we let in from South America and still have a country that values freedom over equality?

My humor is a lot like food in Venezuela. Most people don’t get it.

We’ve created new family structures that Monsieur Todd never thought about back in the 1970s, since they were just in the process of becoming. What ideology will they create?

I have enough material for another post on this, so I’ll probably skip economics and do one more on Wednesday on family structure and ideology.

Winning Starts With Belief That Winning Is Possible

“Win the crowd.” – Gladiator

If your wife just sits around in bed all day, not moving a muscle, congratulations!  You’ve got yourself an atrophy wife!

I was sitting on my desk when my boss’s boss came up.

“John, we have something we’d like you to lead.  It’s got the attention of the top people in the company, including the CEO.  We need it done in 90 days.  We’ve used about 15 of them.  You have the full commitment of the company.”

Yikes!  What could I say?

“I’ll do it.”

Looking back, I think they thought it was an impossible task.  I would also have to leave my current job, with absolutely no promise of a future position after 90 days.  It was amazingly risky, but it was also presented as, well, not a choice.

If I lost, well, they could fire me, say they tried, and then buy themselves time to meet the commitment.  It would look not perfect for them, but it would give them breathing room.  I know company politics, and I knew what that meant.

I had to win.

Never challenge Death to a pillow fight unless you’re prepared for the Reaper cushions.

In order to win, I had to have a plan.  I had to put together the resources to make it happen.  I asked for some very specific, very high performing people.  I was told, “no”.  (At least one reader knows this story very, very well.)

The first step was that I had to believe that I could win.

I look around at the country that we have today, and I see a similar circumstance:  the forces that are arrayed against the TradRIght are numerous.

Seriously:  they own

  • most federal bureaucracies,
  • most government employees,
  • the military leadership,
  • academia,
  • media,
  • Hollywood, and
  • the people who count the votes.

But even with all of that, they scared.

Hillary proves it takes a village to climb a staircase.

No, strike that, they are terrified.  They are terrified we are going to win, and the GloboLeftistElite will lose because they know us.  They have seen that the TradRight can do when it is unified and has a common goal.  When working together, we can tame continents, build a miniature star to end a war, and put people on the damn Moon in a tin can with three gallons of fuel left without having our heartbeats go above 100 and then defeat International Communism 2.0 (I count the French as 1.0).

We are the TradRight.  We did all of that when we are unified.

I think that, in the end, they expect to lose.  That’s why they throw everything they have, every silly law, every silly accusation against Donald Trump because they mistakenly think that if they break him, if they make him poor, they break us.

Make no mistake, Donald Trump is not our leader.  Donald Trump is a very smart man who saw the motion of the people and jumped out in front.  Did he want to Build The Wall before that line got applause in a rally?  Maybe.

Don’t worry, I hear that protests are only illegal on January 6.

I know that Ann Coulter is still miffed that The Donald didn’t Build The Wall and was far too chummy with the Democrats, but anyone who makes them as crazy as President Trump did accomplish quite a lot:  he made the GloboLeftElite and the RINO conspirators show their true faces.

But I remember in a rally where he bragged about the Vaxx®.  The crowd let out a wave of disapproval, and he got off the Vaxx™ train that minute.  Trump may not lead us, but he does stand for us.  He finds what we want and jumps out in front.

No, breaking Donald Trump won’t break us.

But, let’s face it, the DOJ is even afraid of the Clintons.

Back to Wilder’s 90 days:

I immediately got a plan together.  I used the resources I was given.  I set expectations with my leadership on what we could accomplish in the remaining 90 days:  I defined victory, a real victory.

My definition was approved.

I fought the political games necessary to get various leaders I had to convince on board – instead of shooting at us, they covered my flank so they could take credit if we won, while still being able to blame me if we lost.

We won.  I got a 25% raise and the biggest bonus I’d ever gotten in my life up to that point.  I could even mathematically prove that my methods and intervention at crucial points in the project had saved the company about $3 million.

Ta-Da!

To be clear:  if I had thought that I was going to lose, I would have lost.  Was it hard?  Certainly.  I could have lost, and about day 53 it was Not Looking Good.  But my team and I turned the ship and won.

We won.  Because we thought we could win.

This story, though, isn’t about me.  It’s about all of us.  If we think we’re going to win, we will win.  If we refuse to be demoralized, we won’t be demoralized.  The ability to win even at the cultural level is there, primarily because we believe in the True, Beautiful, and Good.

Anyone else find it odd that the Flintstones® celebrated Christmas?

The GloboLeftElite?  They despise the True, Beautiful, and Good because it shows the empty places they have in their souls – they believe in no Truth, they believe they are ugly, and they openly despise the Good because it sets standards they cannot meet.

The physical and moral levels are a cakewalk.

That, my friends, is why our victory, though it may be difficult, is inevitable.  And it’s also why they want to fill us with despair.

Onward!

Gamer Gate 2.0 Update: Disproportionate Response Edition

“Well, that escalated quickly.” – Anchorman

I’ve been stuck in Ancient Rome all this week.  All of the roads seem to have this one weird design flaw.

All visual content today is as-found, except the bits that I might add a comment to.

This will be a post with exceptions:  normally I like to post “second day” type material, where we’ve had a chance to get through the event and reflect back on what really happened.  On Monday, I posted about the history of Gamer Gate 1.0, and what I thought just might be the start of Gamer Gate 2.0.  Here’s a link if these posts ever get separated (LINK).

I have another post, nearly completely done, that I was going to run today.   Completely different subject.

Then fresh info on Gamer Gate 2.0 hit, and I thought it was important to show just how fast this story is moving, and how critical it is.  The older stuff can wait, and I’ll have an easier week next week polishing it and it will probably even be a better post.  I do promise that, pending significant developments, this won’t be a regular feature.

The hallmark of Gamer Gate 1.0 was that gamers just wanted to play games, and after they saw the journalistic community (allegedly) SIMP out (look it up) for a talentless narcissist, they complained.  The response was coordinated and disproportionate – it’s like you say, “I don’t like this package of McDonald’s® Chicken McNuggets™ and they say . . . “You can never come to any McDonald’s© again for the rest of your life.”

It was weird.  So, Gamer Gate 2.0 started with something simple:  “We’re watching woke Marxists injecting The Narrative into our video games and we don’t like it.”  Simple enough, and in 2024 not particularly controversial.  The response?  “Biden Admin Zeroes In On Gamers In Push To Crush ‘Domestic Violent Extremism’”.

Because Gamers are easer to catch than the unending hordes of illegal aliens that were let into the country.

Gamer Gate 1.0 very, very strange way to treat the people that are your core audience.

Gamer Gate 2.0 is using the full power of the FBI, DHS, and probably NSA to crush people who just want to play video games without a bunch of woke crap.

I know many readers aren’t into gaming, computer or otherwise.  This is not at all about video games.  It is about the attempt to use hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer money to create a fully functional propaganda system to fundamentally alter the values of the nation.

This is a big deal.

In this case, the journalists that hate the majority of people in this country are still awful.

And it’s wonderful that they tell you, right out loud, that they are Satanists.

Doesn’t that make it a Satantree?

But they’re only part of the problem.  Dr. Rachel Kowert, who, on her website indicates that she is:

. . . currently working on a two-year project funded by the Department of Homeland Security (in collaboration with with the Middlebury Institute of International Studies and Logically AI) examining the landscape of extremist radicalization and recruitment within digital gaming spaces. This project aims to establish a baseline of understanding for the unique characteristics of extremist activities within video game communities, build capacity within the gaming industry to prevent and counter violent extremism in these spaces, and create collaborative networks across public and private sectors.

I left the “with with” in there.  Yeah, I know I have typos on here, but it’s a bad look Dr. Kowert (and she also talks about her “cahnnell”, which I assume means “channel”.  I guess if you have a Ph.D., you’re not allowed to use spellcheck.

Regardless, this is the point:  the DHS, rather than finding the millions of illegals crossing the border, is instead putting as much money into Rachel’s fat cheeks so she can bury them with her nuts for winter.

Here’s her Tweet on 3/11:

As Anon notes, her response was because ONE GUY made a LIST of games that Sweet Baby®, Inc. might have collaborated on.  ONE GUY.  ONE LIST.

Dr. Kowert apparently locked down her X account.  Huh.

And this is what puts the Kow in Dr. Kowert.

But one thing the GloboLeftElite doesn’t complain about is when they get the game they want.  Since they’re not horribly creative, they end up making games that . . . well, you be the judge:

Gee . . . sounds fun.

And here are the stakes.  Wonder why the full weight of the DHS comes down on ONE GUY making ONE LIST?

It’s because of this.

The Unabomber Teaches The Facts Of Life

“Did you know that the first Matrix was designed to be a perfect human world?  Where none suffered, where everyone would be happy.  It was a disaster.  No one would accept the program.  Entire crops were lost.  Some believed we lacked the programming language to describe your perfect world.  But I believe that, as a species, human beings define their reality through suffering and misery.  The perfect world was a dream that your primitive cerebrum kept trying to wake up from.  Which is why the Matrix was redesigned to this: the peak of your civilization.” – The Matrix

I figured out how to turn Alexa® off.  I walked through the room naked.  (Only two memes are not “as found”)

Although he is certainly better known for other things (which I won’t defend), Ted Kaczyinski was very smart.  He did spend a lot of time thinking and writing about the human condition when he was, um, not working on projects.  One of the things that he wrote about was what he called The Power Process.

I’d be surprised if Ted was the first to point out The Power Process, since on its face it seems so . . . logical.  I’ll let him tell the tale, though the added emphasis is mine:

The power process has four elements.  The three most clear-cut of these we call goal, effort and attainment of goal.  (Everyone needs to have goals whose attainment requires effort and needs to succeed in attaining at least some of his goals.)  The fourth element is more difficult to define and may not be necessary for everyone.

We’re skipping the fourth element (autonomy) because it doesn’t pertain to the post at hand.  You can read it in Ted’s work.  Remember my wife’s advice about reading Ted Kaczinski:  it’s okay to be seen reading Ted, but never with a highlighter.

Yeah, that’s a picture I made of Ted in front of a Blockbuster®, with A.I.

I am not sure this is universal, but it seems to appear every time I look into human nature and why people aren’t happy.  People like the struggle.  I had a friend who I will call “Joe” because his name is Joe.  Joe would often procrastinate at work, sometimes not doing much of anything for days.  Then, when the deadline approached, he’d work incredible hours to finish.

John Wilder:  “Joe, you did this on purpose.”

Joe:  “Yeah, I wanted to wait until I didn’t know if I could do it.”

The game wasn’t sufficiently interesting to Joe to keep him going until he created the challenge.  Since this was his job, the one he was getting the money necessary to eat and live from, he often flew pretty close to the flame.  But he always managed to keep his wings from being singed too badly.

What do you call a primitive man who liked to take random walks?  A meandertal.

For Joe, a very highly functioning human, effort was the key.  And to get to enough effort to keep him happy, he needed to have real jeopardy.  Without the required effort, it just wasn’t fulfilling for him.  Imagine fighting a kitten.  I mean, there’s no real effort involved, unless you give it rabies or a gun or make a genetically engineered kitten the size of a tank.

Ted goes on:

Consider the hypothetical case of a man who can have anything he wants just by wishing for it. Such a man has power, but he will develop serious psychological problems.  At first, he will have a lot of fun, but by and by he will become acutely bored and demoralized.  Eventually he may become clinically depressed.  History shows that leisured aristocracies tend to become decadent.  This is not true of fighting aristocracies that have to struggle to maintain their power.  But leisured, secure aristocracies that have no need to exert themselves usually become bored, hedonistic and demoralized, even though they have power.  This shows that power is not enough.  One must have goals toward which to exercise one’s power.

This explains why so many actors today are whining GloboLeftists who turn their adopted vanity children into transexuals:  they have everything they want, anything they could imagine, they don’t have to work for it – it’s just there.  All the time.  They (most of them) are fundamentally unhappy unless they have a goal to shoot for, and one that matters to them.  Maybe winning an Oscar™.  If you look at the youth of Robert Downey Jr. and Christian Slater, I can understand with their ludicrous early success why they went on crazy drug and violence benders:  they had it all.

If Ma Wilder had divorced and married a Mongolian, would I have a steppe brother?

There is, of course, a flip side to this:  the run of the mill GloboLeftist foot soldier.  Ted talks about them:

Nonattainment of important goals results in death if the goals are physical necessities, and in frustration if nonattainment of the goals is compatible with survival.  Consistent failure to attain goals throughout life results in defeatism, low self-esteem or depression.

I’ve said before, and I’ll say it again:  the vast majority of GloboLeftists are losers.  They are awful people who hate themselves, the world, and God.  They hate God because they look at how awful they are, and have to blame someone, anyone other than themselves.

See, Ted agrees with me.  Is that good, or not?

Thus, in order to avoid serious psychological problems, a human being needs goals whose attainment requires effort, and he must have a reasonable rate of success in attaining his goals.

Bingo.  Life is struggle, and if we win that struggle, even a bit, we feel good.  I would imagine this is hardwired into almost every living creature because otherwise they’d just give up like Mitt Romney’s spine.

In the current world, especially the First World, most of the struggles that used to occupy our lives are gone.  We spend very little time worrying about starvation or running from bears.  That leaves us in a weird position – we don’t have to fight to live, but we’re wired to like fighting to live.  So we need something more.

Amish women use protection to stop the spread of Abes.

Thus, we come up with other things, hobbies, games, sports and other ways to build a goal, work for it, and achieve it (or not).  One experiment I wrote about in the past (link below), the John Calhoun’s Mouse Utopia where mice were placed in a habitat where they had food and were free from predation and . . .

Want Dystopia?  Because this is how you get Dystopia.

His paper was called Death Squared because the mice, despite having all the food they could eat, died out.  But before they died out, their society collapsed in upon itself.  You can read Calhoun’s paper here (LINK), but it is as grim as remembering Biden is in the White House.  The mice stopped acting as families, rape became rampant, some mice became pansexuals (mate anything, any time) there were gangs, some mice ignored everything and just groomed themselves, and mother mice stopped nurturing their young.

Another A.I. drawing I made.

Sound familiar?

Yeah, I thought so.  Men need quests.  Society needs quests.  We need something worth fighting for, something worth winning for life to have meaning.  And, yes, I realize the irony of writing about Ted Kaczynski’s on a laptop and putting it on the Internet, but I think he’d understand.

Thank you for attending my Ted talk.

Civil War 2.0 Weather Report: It’s All Planned

“Did everything go as planned?” – Pulp Fiction

I had some chips at midnight on Saturday.  It was a snackrifice.

  1. Those who have an opposing ideology are considered evil.
  2. People actively avoid being near those of opposing ideology.  Might move from communities or states just because of ideology.
  3. Common violence. Organized violence is occurring monthly.
  4. Common violence that is generally deemed by governmental authorities as justified based on ideology.
  5. Opposing sides develop governing/war structures. Just in case.
  6. Open War.

Volume V, Issue 10

All memes except for the clock and graphs are “as found”.

This is a moving situation, and things are changing quickly.  The advice remains.  Avoid crowds.  Get out of cities.  Now.  A year too soon is better than one day too late.

I’m keeping the clock at two minutes to midnight, probably will roll back next month.

In this issue:  Front Matter – All Of This Is Planned – Violence and Censorship Update – Biden’s Misery Index – Updated Civil War 2.0 Index – The Border In Five Memes – Links

Front Matter

Welcome to the latest issue of the Civil War II Weather Report.  These posts are different than the other posts at Wilder Wealthy and Wise and consist of smaller segments covering multiple topics around the single focus of Civil War 2.0, on the first or second Monday of every month.  I’ve created a page (LINK) for links to all of the past issues.  Also, subscribe because you’ll join nearly 810 other people and get every single Wilder post delivered to your inbox, M-W-F at 7:30AM Eastern, free of charge.

All Of This Is Planned

When I look at the road we’re on to Civil War 2.0, it has not gone unnoticed that the enemy creating this isn’t outside the United States.  As much as the GloboLeft likes to call out Russia, others see things perhaps a little more clearly.

Nayib Bukele is the president of El Salvador.  What has he done for them?  He’s broken the back of organized crime, by this one crazy tactic:  arresting criminals and putting them in jail and getting gender ideology “contrary to nature, contrary to God” out of El Salvador’s schools.  He has a 90% approval rating from El Salvadorans, so of course the GloboLeft hates him.

What is the response of the GloboLeft?  Isn’t it obvious?  First is the rotting the minds of youth.  The map above should be clear enough – it’s a symptom of a plan coming together.

Although this is from Canada, it’s very, very clear that the agenda is simple:  they want the kids.  It has long been the GloboLeft’s desire to use propaganda to get children at their most vulnerable and split them from their parents.

Things like this idea are created to humiliate people.  None of that can make a “more green” planet since the energy used in the process more than offsets any “benefits”.  No, this is humiliation and dehumanization.

Canada, again, has show the goal.  They want to stop making any new roads outside of cities.  Live in a rural area?  No roads for you.  And, last I checked, Canada has a lot more rural availability than most nations outside of Russia.

Now they’re even giving TED® talks about how literally any sort of degeneracy is a sacrament.

And the lawfare is continual.  The New York  Soros GloboLeft Attorney General, Letitia James, is on a a tear.  Donald Trump is just the most prominent of her use of the law to destroy people.  Another target besides the new one listed above?  VDARE.  VDARE is a fairly prominent anti-immigration website that Ms. James has hit with amazingly broad subpoenas and is costing them tens of thousands of dollars – even though they aren’t in New York.  You can read more about that here (LINK).

She’s also gone against the NRA, suing them.  The important question:  why would anyone want to do business in New York?

So, Nayib Bukele is right.  It’s all being taken apart from the inside.

Violence and Censorship Update

Several readers have reported to me (via email) that they were unsubscribed or that their subscriptions are filtered out as spam.  FYI.  Might it be random?  Sure.  It might.

I’ll (mostly) let the memes speak for themselves.  Foreign stories are included as they often foreshadow attempts in the United States.

I guess this one involves both censorship and violence?

This one is especially fun:  Canada has a bill that punishes hate crimes, which can be reported anonymously, and that do not require evidence with huge fines and up to life imprisonment.

Crabs reading?  Forbidden knowledge.

People reading?  That’s racist!

Looks like the plan is working.

I thought they loved science?

If only they could be sent home to Make Eritrea Great Again.

Yeah, that’s the history of the top Google® executive in charge of A.I.

Looks like the New York Times censors . . . food.

Biden’s Misery Index

Let’s take a look to see how we’ve done this month . . . .

Yup, up again.  Why?  The GloboLeft are economic geniuses, right?

Updated Civil War II Index

The Civil War II graphs are an attempt to measure four factors that might make Civil War II more likely, in real time.  They are broken up into Violence, Political Instability, Economic Outlook, and Illegal Alien Crossings.  As each of these is difficult to measure, I’ve created for three of the four metrics some leading indicators that combine to become the index.  On illegal aliens, I’m just using government figures.

Violence:

Violence is flat.  Winter is in, and riots aren’t as fun in galoshes.

Political Instability:

Up is more unstable, and it is slightly down.

Economic:

Economic numbers did a slight dive.  I wonder if this is the new American Dream?

Illegal Aliens:

Highest January.  Ever.

Also, other people are noticing:

The Border, In Five Memes

LINKS

As usual, links this month are courtesy of Ricky.  Thanks so much, Ricky!!

Bad Guys

https://twitter.com/i/status/1762833481682264080

https://twitter.com/i/status/1762297111381455043

https://twitter.com/i/status/1762568451581681721

https://twitter.com/i/status/1762225168645059071

https://twitter.com/i/status/1610431809334149120

https://twitter.com/i/status/1763481437372567971

https://twitter.com/i/status/1761129463218139238

https://twitter.com/i/status/17636130393229273

https://twitter.com/i/status/1760862306005590149

Good Guys

https://youtube.com/shorts/tQGuha2gpQw?si=kjoLNVF2y0qd7wdE

https://twitter.com/CitizenFreePres/status/1759109053630800211

https://www.businessinsider.com/walmart-worker-fired-shoplifters-retail-theft-fight-problems-2024-2

https://www.wtoc.com/2023/07/24/woman-gets-job-back-lowes-after-being-attacked-while-trying-stop-shoplifting/

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/national/article285835356.html

One Guy

https://www.shreveporttimes.com/story/news/2024/02/28/louisiana-expands-gun-rights-for-self-defense-against-criminals-with-concealed-carry-bill/72765215007/

https://www.wowt.com/2024/02/09/nebraska-legislators-consider-bill-alter-self-defense-laws/

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/beltway-confidential/2894180/arizonas-commonsense-self-defense-bill/

https://www.oxygen.com/kill-or-be-killed/crime-news/how-to-watch-kill-or-be-killed-an-oxygen-true-crime-series

Body Count

https://twitter.com/MakisMD/status/1754830517986566210

https://thehighwire.com/editorial/why-are-young-adults-having-more-heart-attacks-the-level-of-denial-is-stunning/

https://newsone.com/playlist/black-men-boys-who-were-killed-by-police/item/5

https://cms.zerohedge.com/s3/files/inline-images/2024-02-13_11-38-28.png

https://www.prri.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/PRRI-Jan-2024-Gen-Z-Draft.pdf

https://twitter.com/noble_x_x_/status/1758149565251784710

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-68244963

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-81749d7c-d0a0-48d0-bb11-eaab6f1e6556

Vote Count

https://twitter.com/eyeslasho/status/1757461240421449806

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1759305508584882680

https://www.reviewjournal.com/news/politics-and-government/nevada/nevada-identifies-voter-history-errors-on-website-fixes-underway-3003358/

https://www.dailysignal.com/2024/02/11/data-specialist-presses-georgia-look-voters-cast-ballots-wrong-jurisdictions/

https://thefederalist.com/2024/02/08/exclusive-see-the-grave-markers-of-long-dead-residents-listed-on-michigans-voter-rolls/

https://www.justfactsdaily.com/elon-musk-is-right-and-the-ny-times-is-wrong-about-illegal-voting-by-non-citizens

https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/voting-laws-roundup-2023-review

https://heartland.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Feb-24-2020-Election-Analysis-vWeb_Final.pdf

Civil War

https://uproxx.com/movies/civil-war-alex-garland-details-february-2024-update/

https://www.chathamhouse.org/2024/02/could-united-states-be-headed-national-divorce

https://www.themirror.com/news/politics/cpac-donald-trump-voters-warn-355149

https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/texas-is-spoiling-for-a-civil-war/

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/kristi-noem-war-texas-border-standoff-1234960568/

https://www.wired.com/story/russia-disinformation-campaign-civil-war-texas-border/

https://realclearwire.com/articles/2024/01/27/the_geopolitics_of_world_war_iii_1007840.html

https://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/comes-thermidor/

Feminism: The God That Destroys

“Bullhorns are a core principle of eco-feminism.” – Futurama

Why are the books on Dwarf Rights on the top shelf?

The GloboLeftist use of power can be objectively observed to be feminine.  To put it bluntly, GloboLeftism is feminism.  One way this is especially apparent is the tactics that the GloboLeft uses – it uses the tactics of gossip, the swarm, and ostracization of those that it deems unworthy.

If you look carefully at how the GloboLeft attacks, it follows that pattern.  Gossip against an enemy, a swarm against that enemy, and finally the ostracization of that enemy.  With men, the way to solve a problem is simple – get up, get a hammer (or other appropriate tool, like a much bigger hammer) and solve the problem.  Or fail.

If necessary, and the problem is big enough, get a friend.  If that’s not enough, go build better tools and recruit more friends.  Or a brigade.  Or tanks.  Or an army.  Or take this newfangled flight and build jet engines to fight at the speed of sound and play with the fundamental forces of nature to create a miniature star to cause your problems to evaporate.

Simple.  Okay, not simple sometimes.  But it is direct.  This is how men historically kept other men (and other tribes) in line, just various sizes of hammers.

I hope that joke didn’t catch anyone by surprise – I don’t want to be convicted of involuntary man’s laughter.

Women, however, use the gossip/swarm/ostracize technique naturally to keep the group members of other women in line.  I’ve seen it.  When women are together in a group and they split away from the main group, they begin the gossip to keep other members in line or to pull them down.

When a big enough transgression occurs, they swarm against the offender.  Then they kick them out of the group.  In smaller tribal groups this behavior was probably entirely necessary to keep the peace.  Many of the historical tribal punishments were directed not at adulterous men, but adulterous women.

Why?  Men have the key, and women have to have the lock otherwise the fighting and killing start.  Also of note, is that in every point in history up until the modern society, women depended on men for their power – so women had to rule over women to keep the worst female impulses down.

What do you call a letter from a feminist?  Hate male.

Back in the day, the worst case for a woman was to be shunned and shamed and denied resources.  Being denied resources meant (in many cases) death for the woman, and her children if she had them.  This is the core feminine fear, and is the basis for society today.

This was why, of all the crazy things developed by the commies, that feminism was the worst, because it preys upon a core fear.  The result is that feminists have done everything that they can possibly figure out to remove any consequences for their action as feminism took hold.  Examples?

  • Abortion made the defining hallmark of real femininity, having kids, an option.
  • No-fault divorce was next – having an affair no longer meant that a woman was liable in court for her actions – now divorce could happen just because she was tired. But that wasn’t enough – women needed cash and prizes for leaving the marriage:
  • Community property and child support followed. That was fine for high-status females.  But what about poor females?
  • Well, for them we need welfare and Aid For Dependent Children so they can have as much irresponsible and unprotected sex as they like.
  • I’m generally not in favor of slugging women, but domestic violence laws have made men guilty until proven innocent, with many jurisdictions requiring an arrest if the police are called out for domestic violence. But even that isn’t enough:
  • Making fun of Lizzo because she’s the size of a school bus is now “fat-shaming”. And making fun of a woman who had sex with all of Wyoming is now wrong and called “slut-shaming”.

All of these are intended to insulate a woman from the consequences of her actions and choices.  No society on Earth can afford this for long, because the consequences of insulation of consequences are what we see around us.

  • Rampant criminality because removing consequences should apply to everyone, up until they commit murder.
  • Declining birthrate as women avoid having children and having families until they’re at the point that having more than one or two for them is impossible.
  • Lower than optimal family formation is happening because women are skipping the family to become the drunk wine aunt that makes PowerPoints® for a living but can’t get a “good” man to commit.
  • Lower than optimal family stability, since there are no consequences, women can monkey branch from one man to another and this be accepted.
  • Sentimentality as a basis for public policy rather than rationality – i.e., illegals are viewed as individuals in pain rather than a contagion that will turn the Untied (it was a typo that I thought I’d leave) States into the average of Venezuela, Eritrea, Cambodia, and the Congo.
  • Degeneration as all consequences for anything sexual are removed as sex becomes the new sacrament for the feminist religion – note that in any argument with a member of the GloboLeft® they’ll soon drop a sexual insult.

Name something that goes better together than “Wilder” and “procrastination”.  Go ahead.  I’ll wait.

Oddly, feminism does the opposite of what it says on the label – it either turns women into cut-rate men, making them unhappy tramps who “settled” but still thinks she deserves a Chad because she slept with fifty Chads.  Conversely, it deprives them of family, making them unhappy drunk wine aunts by having them chase a career so they could be complete women that don’t need no man.  In fact, keeping women unhappy is better for the GloboLeftElite because it keeps women dependent on feminist ideology and makes them defend it all the more.

Go figure.

What African country do neckbeards hate the most?  Chad.

The reason this all was available was because we have amazingly abundant resources and could pay for it out of the spare change that we had from printing money.

The good news is that this can’t last.

To be clear:  I really like women.  And I know that women are different than men.  I know that this might be heresy at places like Harvard™, but it’s true.  Women add to society, but when they’re in unmitigated charge of society, it just creates a big mess like the one we’re seeing now.  The future needs women, acting like women, in families, making children that are worthy of being called men and women, which can only be made by the atom of society – the family.

The future won’t be the feminism of the GloboLeft – it’s a cancer.  And the methods that it uses gossip/swarm/ostracize aren’t ways of solving the problems that we have right now as the resources of the eternal summer end – that’s when the only real solution is the solution of men – get a tool and fix it.  The only real question is what form that solution will take.

Will it take a miniature star to fix it?

What did fatman say to little boy?  “Nuke, I am your father.”

Be Bold. Life Is Too Short For Anything Else.

“That’s a bold statement.” – Pulp Fiction

A lion would never drive drunk.  But a tiger would.

One of the problems with life in Modern Mayberry is that it often moves at a fairly slow pace.  Especially in the time when an adult is focused on raising kids, the days tend to blur one into the next.

If your life is good, this isn’t really a problem.  When I was younger, my life was spent going to weddings.  Now that I’m older, more time is spent going to funerals.  It is important to not get mixed up as to which you’re at, although sometimes “My condolences,” is appropriate at a wedding and I’d almost be willing to bet $20 that at least one person will say “Congratulations!” after my funeral.

However, in the event that I’m wrong, collecting on that bet might be a problem.

Maybe I’ll add bikini girls.  Will that put the “fun” in funeral?

One thing that facilitates this blur is reading stuff on the Internet.  One blogger I read (LINK) is giving up doomscrolling (or reading the unending list of negative stories that are available in the news) for Lent.  I suppose you could leave him a comment, but you’d have to wait a few weeks to get a response.

But when it comes to doomscrolling, there are huge numbers of these stories available.  The business model is simple:  scary stuff attracts eyeballs, and eyeballs means revenue.  As I look at my own past posts, I’m thinking that, even though I talk about a lot of scary stuff, that I’m mostly relentlessly positive.  I can even recall a comment section or two where I’m called a Pollyanna because I’m so positive.

What do we want?  Hearing aids.  When do we want them?  Hearing aids.

I can live with that.  Being positive, being for things and knowing that, in the end it’s all going to work out keeps me positive.  In most cases (most, not all!) the things I write about don’t make me angry, either.

Again, stress on the “mostly”.  And I try not to get worked up about events occurring half-a-world away that I can’t control or even much influence.  Things are what they are.

And, for most of us, things are generally pretty good on a day-to-day basis, even when things aren’t perfect.  Even on a bad day, most parts of the day are good.  The thing that gets us is built into the doomscrolling:  spending time worrying about things that simply have not happened.

My friend wrote me a text that said, “What do you get when you mix a gullible person with an optimistic person?”  I replied, “I don’t know!”  He texted back, “Read it again.”

I write about the coming Civil War 2.0 not in hopes that it comes, rather to make people aware that it’s coming.  Do I sit and worry about it daily?

No!

That would take away from the time I spend thinking about the Roman Empire.

In this moment, there are things that I could let bother me.  However, I realize that letting them bother me gives them power over me when that’s the last thing I want.  “Take not counsel of your fears,” is attributed to George S. Patton, Jr.  I’m sure other people said the same thing in similar ways in the thousands of years that people have been saying things, but when Patton says it, well, it’s been said.

“Better to fight for something than live for nothing.” – GSP

If I let my fears fill me up, I live a life of fear regardless of if it’s a perfect 63°F, and I have a wonderful cigar, and a great book beside me while sitting in a comfortable chair.

I think fear comes to people as they age.  I certainly saw Pa Wilder get more and more cautious as he aged.  I could give a few examples, but it doesn’t much matter.  I did notice.  And when I saw the tendency to do it start to crop up in myself, at least I understood what was going on and I could choose to be cautious or choose to be bold.

I think, however, that as I get older it is precisely the time to be bolder.  Life moves in a blur, and days stack up faster, so they should mean something.  If I knew I had only a year?  What would I do?

Something to make that year worthwhile.  If a month?  A day?

The shorter the time left, the more that boldness matters and the less caution should.  If I only had an hour of my life left, you can damn sure bet I’d do something with it, as much as I could.

Oh, that’s Samuel L. Jackson, not the famous English dude Samuel Johnson.  I guess that’s the Netflix® version of the quote.

But life is built on compound interest.  The more I try to write, the better I get.  The more I lift, the stronger I get.  The time to start is now.

The actions should be bold.  While my days may pass fast, the more I can do with them, the more I will do.

When I pass, what will be left are the lives I’ve touched, the children that I’ve raised, the ways I’ve made the world better, and the words that I have written.  Since the restraining order dictates who I can touch, and the lessons to the children are mainly done, that leaves making the world better and writing.

Even a full human lifetime isn’t enough, because they are so very short.  But I’ll make do.  With the remaining decades (hopefully) of my life, how big a dent can I kick in the Universe?

I guess I’ll see.  And I’ll smile some, every day.  And enjoy that cigar, and book, and chair when I’m not being bold.

“L’audace, l’audace, toujours l’audace.”

What Signs Would We See If The Western World Was Going To Be Okay?

“Your work is puerile and under-dramatized.  You lack any sense of structure, character, or the Aristotelian unities.” – Addams Family Values

But the Terminator® drew the line at upgrading to Windows 10®.  He said, “I still love Vista©, baby.”

As I mentioned last Wednesday, I worry that sometimes I talk too much about the downsides of workings of the economy.  Today is about politics and culture.  This stemmed from a friend who asked, “What does it look like when things start to look better?  What does it look like if it’s all going to be fine?”

These are great questions about politics and culture as well as the economy.  Not as good as, “Hey, want another steak, Mr. Wilder?  Is the hot tub the right temperature, Mr. Wilder?  More PEZ®, Mr. Wilder?” but still very good.

The economy is important, but the cultural and political are more importanter.

What will make things “fine” and how will we know when we get there?

First:  The Great Replacement Must Stop.

It’s rather hilarious that the media, when describing the TradRight’s complaining about being replaced in their own country, say that it’s a conspiracy theory.  But when they describe the obvious demographic replacement, celebrate the “end of a white majority”.  This is taking place in the United States, Canada, and in Europe.  Canada and France seem to be the worst of the lot, and I’m hearing of a pushback of the local people to being raped and killed.  But Trudeau seems to be running on the “import rapists and murderers” platform, so we’ll see how that works out for him.

Trudeau’s wife left him (true story).  She caught him screwing all of Canada.

This requires two things, starting with people in the West having incentives to have children.  Incentives determine outcomes – if we have incentives for married couples to have children, they will.  If we want more people, we should start with our own.  The future belongs to those that show up, and if we create a society where women work to the point of infertility making PowerPoints®, well, that’s not a good consequence.

The other step that must be taken is that the throngs of illegals must be stopped and reversed.  If they’re so awesome economically, they should stay home and Make Guatemala Great Again.  Even GloboLeftists in big cities are getting it – the illegals are economic locusts and are a huge net negative because they’re here not to create, but to consume.

The GloboLeftElite, however, are making the economic case that the influx of will lead to a more prosperous America, while a recent economic study shows that just the millions we let in recently will decrease wages for over a decade.

I wonder if my friend with anxiety joined a cartel, if he’d go see a psychiatrist because of Hispanic attacks?

Over a decade.  Moms vote for TradRight, because they have skin in the game.  Single women vote for the GloboLeft because they want to avoid responsibility – all fun, no consequences.  This explains every aspect of the GloboLeft’s plan from no-fault divorce to abortion to welfare.

Second:  Unity Must Return.

We’re at each other’s throats.  The GloboLeftists® like nagging, like inching their goals forward.  When they get a goal, they have to pick a new, more ludicrous goal.  They’ve had their best successes in sex-related issues:  Drag Queen Story Hour?  I mean, if they wanted to donate their time to help the elderly in nursing homes, probably not an issue.  But, no, they have to take it in front of the kids and into girls’ locker rooms.

Maybe drag queens can give Joe the help he needs.

The TradRight is more like Pa Wilder.  Pa Wilder rarely (almost never) participated in punishing my brother John and I (yes, his name is also John, since they figured it would save on monogrammed clothing).  But when Pa Wilder did get up out of the easy chair to intervene?  It was serious.  The chair would stop rocking, and then we knew that we’d gone too far.  I think the chair has stopped rocking – the GloboLeft has gone too far.

It turns out that not only is Diversity not our strength, it’s tearing us apart.  The GloboLeft have been doing everything they can to pick apart the things that made America great and have succeeded in creating a country where Trump inhaling makes GloboLeftists complain that he has destroyed the atmosphere by breathing out carbon dioxide.

I’d love to sit in an ocean of orange carbonated water.  It’s my Fanta®-sea.

This has destroyed society in many ways.  Were Targets™ targets in the 1980s for rioting mobs?  Nope.  Did Carter see mobs of youths destroying convenience stores for free stuff, then complaining when those same stores close down?  Nope.  The rule of law must return – and that will require unity.

The GloboLeft loves diversity, because unity is inherently the place of the TradRight.

Third:  Return of Industriousness.

This isn’t (necessarily) the fault of “people who don’t want to work” which is the meme.  In reality, there are so many rules that simply didn’t exist decades ago.  Kids setting up a lemonade stand?  In many locations, it’s illegal.  It violates health regulations.  They’re not collecting sales tax.  They don’t have a business permit.  They’re operating a business in a residential area.

What lesson, exactly, is that teaching the kids?  That the only economic activity permitted is that sanctioned by the state, in a location allowed by the state, and following state rules that may or may not impact safety or quality but that must be followed, just the same.

The impact is that industry is shipped off to countries that don’t have the same number of rules, or, in many cases any sort of rules at all.  In many cases it’s minimal gain.  I read one article that manufacturing the iPhone® in the United States would cost about $10 more due to labor costs.

$10.  But Apple® decided to keep making it at places where they have to have anti-suicide nets.

What do you call a group of newborn sheep tumbling down a hill?  A lambslide.

Americans have always wanted to make stuff that’s valuable, sell it, and make the world better while they make a few bucks as profit.  As I’ve written about endlessly, the conversion of our economy to one dominated by making paper profits off of fake money doesn’t feed anyone, but sucks profits from people who are trying to actually make stuff.

The GloboLeft loves big corporations, whatever they may be, because it makes individuals helpless.  The GloboLeft hates industriousness because it creates people who are self-sufficient.

I could go on (and I imagine I’ll see plenty of additional adders in the comments) but I see it this way:  the only way to a sane economy, a sane culture, and a sane political environment is through the big discontinuity of pain that’s coming due in the next decade.

But until then?  Bring on the PEZ®, steak, and hot tubs!

What Signs Would We See If The Economy Was Going To Be Okay?

“Martha’s polishing the brass on the Titanic.” – Fight Club

When I met The Mrs. I said, “Titanic.”  She said that was a terrible icebreaker.

I worry that sometimes I talk too much about the downsides of workings of the economy and was asked, “What does it look like when things start to look better?  What does it look like if it’s all going to be fine?”  I know this might seem like rearranging the deck chairs to keep the Titanic from sinking, but, hey, let’s go with it?

These are great questions.  Not as good as, “Would you like another beer?” but still very good.

These are also questions that could be political in nature (I might write more about that for Monday) but in this case I’m going to focus on the economy as much as I can, though it’s certain that political will slip in here and there – it can’t be avoided because we’ve got Joe all over the economy.

What will make things “fine” and how will we know when we get there?

If someone steals your booze, does that mean they’ve lifted your spirits?

First:  Stop the infinite debt spending.

Several years ago I wrote about Modern Monetary Theory.  In a nutshell, Modern Monetary Theory says that if you have a bill, pay it.  If you don’t have the money, make it.  The theory goes that there aren’t a set number of points in a game of football, so why should there be a set number of dollars in the economy.  So, if you have a bill, pay for it.

This is an awesome theory only for a person that has the I.Q. of a Kamala/AOC lovechild.  The worst thing about it is that it actually worked in the short term, which is the worst when it comes to an economic policy, because it gives lots of time for Bad Things to pile up.

What made it work is because the United States can pawn the piles and piles of dollars off to the world since everyone takes them because we have nuclear weapons and aircraft carriers and everyone knows what happened to Saddam and Qaddafi when they decided they’d start taking gold instead.

I asked a friend if he wanted to hear about the Russian victory parade.  He said, “No tanks.”

Eventually either the desire or ability to soak up the dollars goes away.  When that happens, even for a short time, the inflation inherent in the system feeds back.

Can this go on forever?  No.  Should we, you know, maybe consider stopping it before we totally wreck the economy?  If we do that, there will be a hangover and a tough political bill to be paid.

Will we?  Yes.  As Ben Stein’s dad said, “If something can’t go on forever, it won’t.”  That will be a very, very bad day if it’s not one of our choosing.

Also?  Fiat economies have a worse track record than Fiat™ cars for reliability.

Second:  Stop the Wealth Pump®.

I really enjoyed Peter Turchin’s book, End Times.  In it, he convinced me (he also has data to support this) that one of the biggest failures of my lifetime is the priming of what he calls the Wealth Pump™.  The really short version of this is that policies that would support concentration of capital in the billionaire class are enacted (for example:  open borders) while policies that benefit the average worker (for example:  strictly controlled borders) are ignored.

I dropped a piece of ice in the kitchen.  I was upset, but then it melted.  I guess it’s water under the fridge.

Turchin’s models have shown that the Wealth Pump™ everywhere and always leads to tremendous social turmoil.  Even without the economic misery for the common man that the Wealth Pump© implies, the turmoil from the hordes of teeming illegals will create turmoil that will last lifetimes.  But stopping the Wealth Pump™ is imperative.

Will Bezos and Soros owned Senators suddenly ignore the billionaire class they serve?  At this point, not voluntarily.  The bacon-wrapped shrimp and cool stock tips are pretty powerful to keep them in line.

Third:  De-financialize the economy by putting out the FIRE.

Finance, Insurance, and Real Estate is called the FIRE sector of the economy.  In theory, FIRE exists to serve the actual productive sectors of the economy that make actual things that people need like potatoes, beer, steak, PEZ™, shoes, rifles, books, and toilet plungers.

That’s the way it should work.

Instead, it’s a gambling economy filled with people who try to manipulate and tweak and profit without producing anything.  The big oil squeeze of 2008?  Rumor was that was a big investment bank trying to make a bet profitable on a short against a particular company.  The investment bank didn’t produce anything useful except for profits.  By manipulation.

I think FIRE might be more dangerous than fire.

Again, ask the Nancy Pelosi why her stock portfolio is so profitable, and ask why first term Senators do so well in the stock market.  Or don’t.  But it’s FIRE that’s the primary machine in the Wealth Pump™ and these create increasingly horrific schemes.

Examples?  Everything is a subscription because it increases revenue and profits.  Now it’s moving into video games:  design a game once, sell a subscription to it so that people can’t play it again for free, but instead have to pay a monthly fee.  It’s already moving that way for software.

And look into who is buying all the housing.  It’s on FIRE.

Fourth:  Rational housing valuations.

People need a place to live, and a pod won’t cut it, but houses are now big investments.  Why?  Because they need more profits to feed the Wealth Pump®.  Housing prices returning to something a guy with a high school degree working a manufacturing job can afford is crucial, since that’s where families come from.  Is it possible in San Jose?  No.  It’s possible in Modern Mayberry, but that’s because BlackRock© hasn’t started buying here.

Fifth:  Space for humans and A.I.

I know that some are skeptical, but A.I. is already making hundreds of thousands of jobs obsolete.  Running a backhoe?  No.  Writing articles?  Yes.  Things that are easy for humans, are hard for A.I.  Things that are hard for humans (and thus draw a higher salary), are often easy for A.I.

Are expert-level programmers still required?  Absolutely.  But not as many, since an expert-level programmer acting in tandem with A.I. will have a tenfold increase in productivity.

Who loses?  The “not as good” programmers who are now not required.

This has happened before in all sorts of industries.  DJs on the radio began voice tracking decades ago.  The average DJ makes minimum wage (average, some are highly compensated, most are not) but still the radio stations paid $20,000 to eliminate them because making the product cheaper is what they know.

ChatKGB:  it asks the questions.

Automation increases profits, but it doesn’t lead to some sort of techno-utopia where we have three hour work days.  People just lose their jobs.  As profits have gone up, pay has gone down (relative to inflation) and work hours have gone up for salaried folks.

A.I. hasn’t hit in a big way, yet.  It will.  Making space for people is unlikely, but necessary.

That’s a summary of how we can tell if we’re going to pull out from the looming economic catastrophe, what it looks like if things are going to get better.  I’ve started sketching out a few political things to show that things are going to be okay, and (like I wrote above) will likely show up on Monday.

So, like the Titanic, it looks like we might have a change in destination.  But we’re making good time!