“It was O-Ren Ishii and her powerful posse, the Crazy 88, that proved the victor.” – Kill Bill, Vol. 1
My friends always made fun of me in high school for having an imaginary girlfriend. Of course, the joke was on them: they were imaginary, too.
One of the comments on a post a few weeks back asked a pretty good question:
“How did we get so crazy, so fast?”
The answer actually involves several intertwining threads, mice, Soviets, and gasoline engines, so let’s see of we can weave a web that covers at least a chunk of what has made us so crazy, so quickly. This is a distillation of the last seven years’ worth of study and writing, so some of it might be pretty familiar. Also, it’s not necessarily complete yet, but here are the major threads that I see that have led to what Heinlein called The Crazy Years.
First: Societal Malaise Due to Abundance
I’ve written several times about John Bumpass (that’s his real middle name according to the Internet) Calhoun’s Mouse Utopia experiment, see immediately below this paragraph for links to two previous posts. The short summary is Dr. Calhoun asked a crazy question: what would happen if you gave a population of mice everything they could want: food, water, freedom from predation, space to live, bedding material, and places to make nests.
The result? The mice died out. At a certain point they stopped mating, mother mice stopped taking care of infant mice, gangs formed, and some mice (the “beautiful ones”) just spent their time grooming themselves and not really interacting.
If this sounds like Reddit® or TikTok™ or the Democratic National Convention, well, you’re right. For a certain subset of the population, abundance has ruined them.
My friend told me I didn’t understand the meaning of the word “ironic” which was ironic because it was Tuesday.
I think it started in the 1960s. I’m just guessing. I like to blame the hippies, so they’re likely the early-version. It then continued into the wildest era of abundance the world has ever seen: the 1990s. If you look at any time lapse, that’s when the United States started leading the world (it has spread now, literally) in having obesity, not hunger, be the bigger (pun intended) health problem.
I think this started to manifest itself, big time, in the music of the 1990s. We went from Warrant singing about Cherry Pie to Kurt Cobain mumbling about how living in the suburbs with all the Pop Tarts™ his fat face could eat was killing him. Turns out that shotguns are even more deadly than Pop Tarts©. Who knew? We had a generation that was lost because they had everything.
I think a candidate for the hallmark phrase of this Crazy Cause is: “Why are we even here, dude?”
Never take diet advice from a fat guy, and never take life advice from Kurt Cobain.
Second: Societal Anxiety Due to No Challenges
I recently made the comment on X® that a lot of people would e better off if they had been bullied as kids. Was I serious? Yeah, I was. One response was, “Why do you want to make things worse?”
The truth is, for me, that bullies actually helped me build my character and my resolve. And, believe it or not, sometimes the bullies were right and the things that they bullied me about (second graders can be assholes) were things I needed to fix to be a better person. Did I lift harder to get stronger because of it? Yes. Did I develop the internal resilience so that the people who (rightfully) bullied the smarmy second grader that I was eventually earned the respect of the bullies?
Yes. Males, even young males, need to develop a hierarchy and understand their place in it and why they are inferior to Chuck Norris.
No child is born perfect, and it is the challenges in life that help define and develop character. Without challenge, development is stunted.
I think that today’s twentysomethings have the problem that they look into a future that certainly looks grim to them, yet they’ve never had a chance to develop their character and are told again and again how perfect they are and how their choices are important.
Newsflash: the choices of a second grader generally deserve about as much attention as the choices my dog wants to make. Both will eat all of the cake in the house if you let them and make messes everywhere. It’s our job as parents to not care what they think when it’s important to develop character and virtue.
Chuck Norris can recite pi backwards.
As a society we face many of the same problems: what is it we stand for and what are we trying to accomplish? We don’t have Soviets to fight, we’re actively encouraging invaders into our country to replace us, and we don’t have any cool national purpose like the Apollo program.
I think a candidate for the catchphrase of this crazy cause is: “Why am I so worthless?”
Third: Societal Atomization Due To Tech
As humans, we have minds that are built around smaller social systems, mainly. The big move from rural to urban happened in the west only recently. Our legacy social structure is (mainly) to live in a town for a very long time, put down roots, make friends, make a reputation.
Most people aren’t leaders, they’re followers, and want to be led. Why else would sane people want zoning regulations?
The good news is I can have up to six Eldrich Abominations without asking for a zoning variance request.
But now, put us in a constantly churning urban landscape where we don’t know the next-door-neighbor in the apartment building? Who do we turn to?
Well, whatever latenightjokeman says or whatever TikTik™ says or whatever InstaFace© allows to be printed. People are defining themselves on how YouTube™ says Europeans feel about Donald Trump.
They are also allowed to pick whatever gender they are. How do I know tech is driving this? Back when COVID made everyone homeschooled, transgenderism dropped. Why? No one to identify to – which is why “transwomen” with no girl parts get offended when gynecologists won’t give them appointments.
Yes. That’s a thing.
The iPhone™ is a big driver. It puts connections in the hands of kids. I talked with one Millennial, and he said that at the start of his high school career, kids “cruised main” looking for other kids. By the end of high school, it was all phones. Friendships dropped, and dating dropped. Mix that with the first two causes above, and it leads to fewer kids.
Dating sites magnify this, and make every girl “4” think that she deserves a Chad ranked 9 or higher because one time a drunk Chad had sex with her. This leads to Chads being happy, but girls being sad and hollow inside.
I think a catchphrase for this Crazy Cause is “Who or what the heck am I?”
When I was a kid I thought my dad was Superman®. Later, I wonder why he put a cape on after drinking bourbon.
Result of these interacting strands of Crazy are a large number of people who:
- Stand for nothing
- Have no examples of virtue other than seeking money in their lives
- See no point in anything other than the present moment
- Are distracted
- Think they’re too good for PEZ™
- Are filled with the combination of anxiety and narcissism
- Do and feel whatever the media tells them to do
- Haven’t built social circles of any particular strength – clubs and churches are on constant decline
There’s good news.
All of this is self-limiting. We’re not mice, and plenty of good humans haven’t fallen into Calhoun’s Behavioral Sink. Many of those same people have overcome challenges sufficient to shape their character for the better. Finally, there are enough of us that don’t follow.
We lead. Or we choose our own path.
And?
We’re gonna win.
Here’s a shocker, this is ALL: fore told in the Bible! And yes we win, that is if you are a Believer in Jesus…if not what the globohomos end up doing is the least of your worries
Amen.
Yup, I’m a believer. Wish I was more worthy.
Don’t we all. But at least we know we are flawed, with much fault and sin.
We acknowledge our weaknesses and offenses against God and ask Him to help us with that stuff. But most attempt to zoom God and everybody else, pretending they are good, on the right side of history and so on. Or they don’t bother with or believe in God. Those ways lead to a ‘seared conscience’ and damnation.
Yes, and all of that is by choice.
One path that led us to this craziness, is an injustice of not being able to choose our own relatives. Those years as impressionable youth. If wise enough with growing pains, we can put away those crazy ways. I find people have forgotten what to stand for. Thereby leaving options of being slack/lazy. I used to stand in line at the school cafeteria. Stand when old Glory was presented. Standing waiting for my bride. Standing when I lifted my right hand to swear an oath. Stand when the word is read from the Bible. So as reminder to those I work with and also meet they will find what I stand for and hope an example is set forth. So their lives will have a purpose and strength. Because we win.
Exactly. We win because we stand for something.
You give rodents their own utopia, and what do they do???? The still go out and destroy the wiring and compressor in my wife’s car. Almost $1500 in damage and car engine was literally almost bouncing because of the imbalance. I’ve tried killing the little bastards but I feel like Elmer Fudd on the losing end of a Looney Tunes cartoon. Maybe if I give them their own tiny little cell phones they will be too distracted to do any further mischief. Although knowing my luck, they will just use the phones to organize a squirrel flash mob and strip the whole car.
Typical problem when I camped in deep mountains in summer. Chew most of rig’s soft innards out if not stopped.
Ended up just buying a bunch of old-style mousetraps, little peanut butter, under each tire each night (where they climb in) and keep the bodies around a bit afterwards in case rat family gets frisky again.
Oh, my, sorry! I’m not a rodent fan, generally. I try to keep our local cat population fed, but not so fed that they’d not be interested in a midnight snack.
Life imitates art once again. Agent Smith said that the first Matrix was built to ensure that the people who were plugged into it did not experience any negative emotion, there was no suffering, everything was perfect. It failed disastrously. Bullies and daily struggle actually serve a legitimate purpose. Who knew?
Apparently, we are trying Rev. 2 in which everyone is miserable, there is nothing BUT chaos and negative emotion and everything that WAS seemingly perfect is being systematically dismantled (looking forlornly at you, eons of successful patriarchy).
It is, of course, Eve behind the apple-biting dismantling. Beloved wife can gaze upon any wonderful works that my humble hands have wrought and declare, “This will never do.” There is no life in a woman’s universe without incessant, unresolved drama. I’d like to meet the guy who got the brilliant idea of giving these megalomaniacal, neurotic, infantile creatures the vote. HE’S the guy who ought to have Cobained himself.
/misogynist rant
You need to run the social services and education departments. That’d be a start.
Only if the plan was to dismantle both, and ban them in perpetuity going forward.
It was Adam.
True myths have power.
Well, The Mrs. married me knowing (or, more likely because of) that I was just the right level of misogynist.
> How Did It Get So Crazy, So Fast?
That’s how an exponential function works, but it appears humans instinctively model things as linear.
Reserve currency status was lost in the same 105-ish years with the same over-debt by Portugal, Spain, The Netherlands, France, and Britain. However, women could only vote in the last part of Britain, all those other failures happened with only men voting. Women voting is a red herring, it did not contribute to current problems.
Au contraire.
Without women’s votes, the last Democrat elected president would have been Woodrow Wilson, in 1916.
You could look it up.
Even better example is Switzerland who’s men finally caved in the 70s.
Completely responsible for? Certainly not. Contribute to? Certainly.
Kicking God out of the classroom and society at large hasn’t helped.
Kicking Christ out of the classroom*
FIFY
(*Also our stories)
Can’t kick Him out. He’s there regardless. It’s we who move away from him.
It didn’t really happen so fast, the wheels have been in motion for most of the last century. It is the sudden throwing back of the curtain that makes it seem so fast.
Nice on being picked up by Zerohedge!
Arthur, that’s my Monday post.
Thank you! I’m trying to get /our/ message out as much as I can.
Ok that’s a keeper there, flopflop into muh creel.
Empire-level abundance + entitlement ‘n privilege + endless empowerment = 70 million impossible princesses from merely the past two decades. Impossible princesses = modern females, especially single ones. And that is the manufacturing of the modern Left and D.C. Regime. Itchin’ ‘n a bitchin’ to go global, right now.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/3765e7cb94d243e9f0cbc17f74c52b02ca8d34d763fa8d677e0ee6e3f01fa609.jpg
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgF5L1zBuBvFhD6z-kES9bvMGqGFhDcR3Ggy1mQZsDsIbH26b6fmIsBzaaxbezK88K7DxW9DdYXjnPLkQJ-JNyCVsO-pqkG6QRdFddHnlbQu-wURuCurRRF7cnmCt23IKljan9g/s1600/megan-phelps-roper-porn.jpg
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/553832415e8c28177898ac425336d0937d85b5a9c46bb44a29cb97ac9fd60e94.jpg
hope all that didn’t break your website
Regarding your last meme on the Secret Service…
https://www.newsweek.com/secret-service-investigating-report-agent-left-trump-event-breastfeed-1939973
10/10 on all of those. A good meme puts the idea in minds in a way that wins.
Well I’ll defer to your expertise on that.
This week I cam across a reference to something I had never heard of: The Tytler Cycle.
https://realinvestmentadvice.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Tytler-Cycle.png
I did some further research, and the best overview I found was a series of articles published almost a decade ago – which talk about pretty much the same stuff we are talking about here today.
https://commonsensegovernment.com/the-tytler-cycle/
So… another way to ask the question of “how did things get so crazy so fast” is “how have things managed to stay so crazy this long?”
I dunno. But I gotta believe it can’t go on much longer like this.
Is it just me, or is this remarkably similar to the theory put forth by Strauss & Howe in their ‘Fourth Turning’ books? To me, the ‘Tytler Cycle’ graphics reads nearly identically (albeit in greater detail).
Au contraire! I’ve written about the Tytler Cycle before here. It is, in my opinion, much better than the Buttler Cycle.
The toy box is full, the children are restless, and the adults don’t have a clue on how to instill self reliance. The boredom changes to misbehavior, and the misbehavior turns into tantrums demanding more. Offering ice cream doesn’t work anymore, and violent anger is soon to come. It’s a disaster at the level of a home, and a catastrophe at the level of a society.
Children are seeking meaning, too.
30+ years ago, the Cali public schools had “self-esteem” instructors. Knew the US would be dead meat soon, once that spread across the country.
Funny part is that “self” esteem has to come from self. It’s in the name.
“Everyone has a plan, until they get punched in the mouth.” Mike Tyson
We have raised two entire generations of bubble-wrapped sugar-coated special snowflakes whose helicopter parents told them their soiled diapers were art, and hung them on the refrigerator, and who never got punched in the mouth until Life did it, the day they finally launched from home and had to get a J-O-B.
Then, having left Lake Wobegone, they found out they weren’t above average, they were far below average.
And that Life is hard, Life is unfair, and Nothing Is Free.
Welcome to planet Earth, cupcake.
The good news is that you either figure things out, fast; or you don’t make the Darwinian cut.
Either way, a boon for the species.
Kids could have survived the above if the parents had given them time, attention, love and siblings.
All the helicopter-ing and participation trophies were to paper over the abandonment.
Which is why we eventually win.
It is my opinion that the machines that really fragmented the social fabric were as follows
1. AC getting cheap enough to have at home, leading to staying inside rather than in the porch.
2. Post WWII prosperity bringing the washing machine into every household, no more laundromats only, and reducing the number of clothesline conversations.
3. The advent of television, enabled my you to stay inside and ignore everyone and everything around you.
These had to be put in place to get us to the advent of home computer, video gaming, and worst of all for social skills the personal monitor known as a cell phone. If they provide the apps for free you are the commodity being sold. The book of face, twitter, and the hook up apps encourage overreach on your abilities.
Good causes.
I think I stol . . . ah I mean borrowed those meme hits from spawny’s space. Treasure trove.
Nice. Thanks for sharing.