Yes, as most of my readers are probably aware by now, I’ve relocated. It’s been a little less than two years now since my wife Sara died; it’s been a rough road since then but I’ve dealt with it about as well as I’m ever likely to, and over the holidays just past it became very clear to me that I needed new faces, new places, and opportunities of a sort that Rhode Island just doesn’t supply. So I’ve just moved to a quiet, pleasant one bedroom apartment in Silver Spring, Maryland. Why Silver Spring? It’s a supremely walkable town, with excellent transit connections all through the Washington DC region; it’s got all the amenities I like; DC these days is a bubbling hotbed of Masonic and occult activities―I’ve already been invited to join four different magical lodges, for example―and, for those concerned about rising seas, my new place is 341 feet above sea level. I expect to have a good time here.
I’ve moved once or twice a decade all through my life, so the process is familiar and untraumatic. Each move has one or two unexpected wrinkles, though, and sometimes those have their own lessons to teach. I didn’t anticipate that this move would offer me a sudden glimpse into the heart of our nation’s social and economic dysfunctions and the nature of human evil. I certainly didn’t expect that to come by way of a bit of petty spite on the part of my former phone and internet provider, but then I’ve noted before that I don’t generally get to choose my sources of inspiration.
Here’s what happened. In the process of getting all my Rhode Island utilities shut down and all my Maryland ones switched on, I contacted my former provider―to keep the lawyers at bay, let’s call the firm Dorx Communications, shall we? You can get almost any other imaginable service from the Dorx website with a few clicks, but shutting off service is a different matter entirely. You have to go to chat, put up with the maunderings of their clueless robot, and get transferred to a supposedly live agent, who then does everything possible to keep you from doing what you’ve come there to do. I slogged patiently through the process, and finally got the allegedly live person to agree that my service would be shut off on January 30.
The moment the chat ended, my phone and internet access shut down. When I walked three blocks to the local public library to get online and contacted Dorx to inform them politely that they’d made a mistake, I found that my shutoff order had been redated to that day, January 18. What’s more, once I was in my account, I was unable to access the chat function at all. It was a pretty obvious middle finger from the dorks at Dorx.
As it happens, none of this caused me any significant difficulty. I don’t use the phone much, and I like to live in the kind of urban neighborhood that, among its other features, has plenty of coffee places with free wifi. Thus the only difference their outburst of nastiness made for me was that for a few days, instead of spending an hour each morning doing internet stuff while sitting in my living room, drinking green tea and listening to classical music, I spent an hour each morning doing internet stuff while sitting in a pleasant little café a block and a half from my apartment, drinking green tea and listening to old Azorean men argue about soccer in Portuguese.
No, the disadvantages belong to Dorx, in an indirect but important sense. The service I got from them might best be described as “uninspired,” and it was certainly overpriced―I’m paying significantly less for the same services now―but I might have considered them as a provider after some future move, or if my new provider gets unusually stupid. Now? Not a chance. Of course I’ve also recounted my experience to others, and there’s at least a chance that this will influence their future choices among internet providers.
That’s not a minor issue. My American readers will doubtless recall America On Line aka AOL, which was once the 500-pound gorilla of internet providers. Their service wasn’t that good, but what made them really stand out is that you couldn’t get them to shut off service at all. No matter what you did, they would keep on charging your credit card unless you put a stop payment order on your credit card or bank account. The result? Everyone started calling them AO-Hell and nobody would sign up for their service if they had any other choice at all. The collapse of their customer base and their dominance of the industry followed promptly.
Microsoft, for that matter, is well on its way to the same fate. Its web browser, Internet Explorer (IE), once had an overwhelming market share. Over time, though, too many people caught on to the fact that Microsoft’s business model consists of making buggy, third-rate programs and then trying to bully people into using them anyway. IE was one of the main venues for that bullying; its market share collapsed accordingly, and its reputation remains so bad that Microsoft ended up renaming its browser to try to get out from under all the bad publicity. (It hasn’t worked; the Microsoft browser only accounts for a tiny market share these days.) The same process is happening now with Windows, as the dismal quality of the last three releases has driven more and more users to try other options. We’re not quite to the sort of critical-mass point at which abandonment of the old standard changes from a trickle to a flood, but it’s on its way.
None of this is a secret. The graveyard of dead brands is full of tombstones with mournful epitaphs reading DIED OF LOUSY CUSTOMER SERVICE. It used to be common knowledge among businesspeople in the US that treating customers decently, even if they were going to some other provider, was how you built your reputation, your brand, and your bottom line. Yet this sort of obvious common sense has gone whistling down the wind when it comes to Dorx and too many other corporations, especially but not only in the internet field. It’s a fascinating display of self-defeating behavior. It was while reflecting on the brain cramp that prevents companies from noticing how they’re damaging themselves that I realized what it has to reveal about the nature of human evil.
There are plenty of ways we can talk about evil. One that hasn’t gotten as much attention as it may deserve is to see it as a denial of otherness. People mistreat other people when they stop seeing other people as genuine others, and reduce them to arbitrary images in their own minds. Think of the 20th century’s major genocides: whether we’re talking about Stalin’s goon squads rounding up counterrevolutionaries, Hitler’s goon squads rounding up Jews, or any other example you care to name, what motivated the horror was the flattening out of millions of individual human beings into arbitrary counters in the minds of tyrants, assigned only such meaning and value as the tyrant’s own delusional fantasies place upon them.
The same thing is true of the pettier forms of evil: you take the first step toward abusing someone when you insist that they cannot differ from the images in your own mind. That’s why the guy from Nazareth talked about loving your neighbor as yourself, and treating others the way you want them to treat you. Both sayings, if you take them seriously, require you to recognize that the other person has an independent subjective existence, an interiority of mind and heart and will, of the same kind as your own, instead of treating other people as mere mannequins to be posed in your own internal melodramas. Lose that recognition and you lose the moral compass that keeps decent people from behaving like Dorx.
Carl Jung, whose more productive insights have been neglected nearly as thoroughly as those of the teacher just mentioned, had quite a bit to say about the mechanism that drives the erasure of otherness. He called it “projection.” The implied metaphor’s a good one: just as a movie projector takes images from a strip of film and splashes them across a movie screen, a person who is caught up in projection takes images from within his or her own mind and splashes them across other people.
Jung was especially interested in the projection of archetypes, the emotionally powerful images that are the subjective side of human instinct. Consider the anima or animus, aka the contrasexual archetype. It’s the subjective side of the mating instinct, and when it projects itself onto some hapless person of the sex to which you’re attracted, you fall in love. If you don’t have too much repressed material around love and sex in your unconscious, there’s at least a chance that this can attract you to someone with whom you can have a reasonably happy relationship. If not―well, we’ve all seen people for whom projection functioned as the great-granddaddy of all beer goggles, making them see beauty and other good qualities where none exist. It’s easy to laugh at this, but lives get destroyed by this kind of projection.
Far more reliably destructive, however, is the projection of the archetype Jung called the Shadow. This can be defined quite simply as the sum total of everything you can’t stand about yourself, and therefore project onto other people. It’s an addictive rush, not least because, for someone in the grip of a Shadow projection, pouring out rage and hatred at the target of their projection takes the place of any more positive or constructive activity. You don’t have to improve yourself or deal with your unfinished business if you can convince yourself that everything wrong with the world is due to that Bad Person™ over there!
Notice how the denial of otherness expresses itself in both these cases. The person caught up in a projection of the contrasexual archetype can’t see the target of that projection at all; whatever qualities the target might actually have are swamped by the contents of the projector’s mind. If, as often happens, you get two people projecting their own contrasexual archetypes on each other, they may be together for as much as a couple of years before either of them gets far enough past their own mental contents that they can notice the first thing about the other. You may have observed how often really intense relationships end explosively; this is an important reason why.
The person caught up in a Shadow projection is even less able to see past their mental imagery than the person caught up in an anima or animus projection. To get past a Shadow projection, you have to recognize that the nefarious qualities you’ve projected onto the target may not belong to that person at all, and this raises the hideous chance that you might notice that the qualities in question are your own. The result, though, is the same: whatever qualities some inoffensive shopkeeper might have as an individual, say, are completely hidden by the projection of the Evil Capitalist or the Sinister Jew, depending on which set of genocidal fantasies we’re talking about. Of course, any of the modern equivalents can fill the same role.
The erasure of otherness is so central to Shadow projection, in fact, that those of us who aren’t caught up in the seething hatreds of our time can use it to advantage. I’ve found, for example, that if I want to chase off extremists from both sides of the current political fracas with a few brief words, all I have to do is mention that I’m opposed to illegal immigration and the various other gimmicks (such as H1B visas) that big corporations use to provide themselves with indentured servants, but I’m very much in favor of legal immigration―the traditional sort that sees to it that potential immigrants are vetted to be sure that they’re likely to contribute to our society rather than becoming a burden on it.
That’s a moderate view; it’s held by a hefty share―quite probably a majority―of Americans these days; but it fits neither of the standard Shadow projections common among political extremists these days. Far more often than not, when I mention this opinion of mine, the extremists from either side don’t argue or push back. They simply vanish. The otherness they try to deny is too much of a threat for them to do anything else. After all, if I don’t conform to their fantasies of what Those Bad People Over There™ believe, where does that leave their comfortable certainty that all the evil in the world belongs to someone else?
These and all the other forms of projection have a common consequence that isn’t recognized as often as it should be. We can define intelligence, for practical purposes, as the ability to adapt your beliefs to fit the facts you encounter. The ordinarily intelligent person comes into a situation with a belief that claims to explain it, notices that the mental model underlying the belief doesn’t really work, and tinkers with it to find a variation that works better. The genius runs into the same mismatch and comes up with a completely new mental model that nobody has thought of before. The stupid person, by contrast, keeps using the failed belief even when it doesn’t work.
The consequence is that projection is a potent generator of stupidity. If you’re caught up in a projection, you can’t learn anything about the person onto whom you’re projecting, because every bit of genuine information about that person is hidden behind the internal image you’re projecting onto the person. That leads reliably to moronic behavior. We’re all used to watching this when people project the contrasexual archetype onto somebody; the impressively stupid behavior of the infatuated is a common experience. The same thing happens, though, with every other form of projection.
That’s why Stalin’s goon squads, in their frantic hunt for counterrevolutionaries, gutted the officer corps of the Red Army and made the Soviet Union’s victory over Nazi Germany much more difficult than it had to be. It’s also why Hitler’s goon squads chased off most of Germany’s best nuclear physicists―they were, as it happened, Jews―and so guaranteed that in the race to weaponize nuclear power, the Nazi regime would come in far too late to matter. Other examples of the same kind of self-defeating stupidity will doubtless occur to those who watch the current political scene, but we can leave that discussion for some future post.
The projection that drove Dorx to act like dorks in my case, and doubtless in many others, involved neither infatuation nor violent hatred. It derives, I think, from an archetype that has received far too little attention in recent years: the archetype of the Machine. What is a machine? In psychological terms, a machine is an object that has no interiority, no subjective dimension at all. It’s the opposite of a person. It simply and mindlessly does what it’s made to do, and never responds in any other way unless it becomes defective. Thus it’s the ultimate expression of the fantasy of ego omnipotence, the childish dream of a world made wholly transparent and obedient to the unfettered and unreasoning individual will.
I’ve discussed in previous posts―this one, for example―the disastrous results of the belief that neither human beings nor any other part of the cosmos can respond in any non-mechanical way to the generally harebrained schemes of our elite classes. The projection of the archetype of the Machine may just explain why this happens so reliably these days. Our current civilization builds and uses machines much more enthusiastically than any other known to history, so it’s not surprising that this particular archetype comes so readily to mind, among both our elite classes and the business corporations they own and run.
This is all the more ironic when we turn to generative large language models, the software currently being marketed under the deceptive label “artificial intelligence.” LLMs, to give them a more accurate acronym, aren’t intelligent; they simply generate statistically likely patterns of text, computer code, or pixels, and so are ultimately not much more than hypercomplex versions of the autocorrect feature that so reliably fills in the wrong word as you type. Yet the tech-bro faction of our current corporate elite has projected onto these programs a galaxy of features that don’t belong there, starting with the notion that there really is intelligence in there somehow, and rising up from that into overblown delusions of cybernetic godhood. So we have a substantial group of rich and influential people who project interiority onto machines that don’t have it, while denying it to human beings who do.
None of this bodes well for the survival of our civilization. If Arnold Toynbee is right that the death certificates of civilizations ought to list the cause of death as suicide, and the evidence certainly backs him up, projection as a source of artificially induced stupidity may well play a very large role in setting the stage for that dismal outcome. Given the role of projection in driving evil behavior, it’s also reasonable to sum up the lesson implied in all this by the nice straightforward sentence “evil makes you stupid.” This being the case, it seems worth suggesting, to my readers and others, that a certain amount of skepticism toward one’s own internal imagery is a skill worth cultivating. It really will make everyone’s lives easier if we all make an effort not to act like Dorx.
Just a heads up — I’m still in the process of settling in, and so I probably won’t be going online much for the next couple of days. No worries, though — your comments will be put through and responded to as time permits, and I’ll be back to the usual schedule shortly.
Your experience is one I think everyone can relate to quite well. Enjoy getting settled in to the new digs.
Hello Mr. Greer,
Is not the conception of good and evil not just priestcraft? The instincts of a shark (fish), or crocodillian is to kill and is without calculation, meanwhile the discerning mammalian intellect you see with orcas and dolphins we can observe that they are capable of acts of cruelty.
Thanks,
Planasthai
Welcome to Silverspring! It is a charming town. I live in DC, but frequent it often.
Congratulations on the move!
Susan, thanks for this.
Planasthai, no, not at all. Concepts of good and evil have certainly been manipulated by the various priestcrafts, but there’s a valid insight underlying them. Some actions and habits lead to excellence in human behavior — they’re called virtues. Some lead to failure and misery — they’re called vices. Ethics outside of priestcraft, which can be found (among other places) in Greek philosophy, set things out very simply: these are things that will make you happy and strong, these others are things that will make you miserable and weak. Take your pick! In the case discussed in this post, similarly, the actions of Dorx Communications are evil and self-defeating; generally speaking, among social mammals like you and me, those two go together.
Crj, thank you!
Can you help me with a conundrum of “newly” orthodox baptized” Christian? It seems kind of stupid to “ turn the other cheek”, “love your neighbor” as they rip you off and attack you and to “treat others as you want them to treat you” as they want to destroy you . I want to protect myself my family and my culture from other cultures infringing on my terf and culture. I’m not sure how to love another while simultaneously wanting them to go away. It’s my biggest struggle and I don’t have a satisfying mental solution. Do you have any suggestions? I know this isn’t “ Dear Abby” but you seem wise and maybe you have good advice. Marcus Aurelius helped, I got Meditations for my kids, but it seems like the bottom line is “be resigned to humans being humans”, myself included of course. Thanks, love!
I’ve been studying the idea of offense in the bible, (Strong’s 4625 skandlon) The word “scandal” has a rich etymological history rooted in ancient Greek, evolving over the millennia from a literal concept of entrapment to its modern connotations of disgrace and public outrage, also the word “slander” branched off from this root in the middle ages.
This essay opens up a whole other continent that I had not thought of, namely being offended at people by projecting our shadow on them. No wonder we have to forgive our debts as we forgive our debtors. If we are projecting, and don’t forgive, we are condemning ourselves.
Thanks you so much for sharing your thoughts.
I just have a small comment. Does evil and rage merge into each other.
I have been seeing the rage protests in Minn. and wonder how much of that is evil in action. I wonder how evil manifests itself in good people. I know some of the rage protesters, and they believe themselves to be good upstanding people who are trying to stop a Nazi regime. (Their phrase). But when does good turn into evil?
I think I will stop now, brain is freezing up.
Welcome to DC area. You will be visiting the GW Masonic Lodge in Arlington/Alex?
On the subject of immigration, it fascinates me that so many conservatives are opposed to Mexican immigrants. What in Frith’s name are you projecting where you can’t see that they value family and Judeo-Christian religion, love to fish, have very clear delineated gender roles, and possess a work ethic that would shame even the early American Puritan settlers? I’m fond of saying that your average Mexican man actually *is* what your standard MAGA goon think he is. It’s baffling to me.
Thank you for the great post, and congratulations on your move – I hope everything continues to go well for you in Maryland.
“Far more often than not, when I mention this opinion of mine, the extremists from either side don’t argue or push back. They simply vanish. The otherness they try to deny is too much of a threat for them to do anything else”.
This is a helpful insight. I’m about as moderate as can be politically. Over the last few years, as our Red Blue death match proceeded, I’ve sometimes responded to usually affable friends and neighbors transforming into zealots at the mention of anything faintly political by doing what you mentioned – trying to sound reasonable and moderate. (Note, there’s probably some inner projection in me causing me to try to play the peacemaker and I’ll try to unpack that). Anyway, the net result was that several of these people did indeed disappear – I just wasn’t expecting them to, and have been a bit befuddled as to why. And, often, I’ve found I don’t even need to say anything to have the same effect – just not agreeing strongly enough or trying to change the subject can do it too.
So thanks for the new perspective. And good luck again on finishing up your move and starting this new phase of life.
A remark about AOL: they were once known in Europe, too, but nowadays, not anymore, like in the United States. I had never anything to do with them.
About Windows, I think, too, there are big problems brewing, but the issue is, firstly, Windows programs don’t run on Linux, secondly, Linux doesn’t have real equivalents for quite a few Windows programs, and thirdly, Linux is not without complexities which might pose a problem for ordinary users.
“…a denial of otherness.”
There were some salutary lessons for me personally on this score in these threads during the past week… 🙂
An interesting thing happened one morning last week, when, during an SOP I said the words – “may Spirit Within me flow and communicate in harmony with Spirit Within the world.”
I realised that if I was going to keep saying this phrase, it is essential that I act as if I mean it, otherwise all communication stops being genuine and starts being showing off, and tolerably often, gravely offending.
If I may, I will add that I am delighted you are back – as in personally interactively “here”, in these threads – and if you will have them, my blessings upon your life in your new digs. 🙂
I have to say that it pleases me to think that the “magical weather” in DC may be improved by the addition of someone who thinks of magical combat in Dion Fortune terms. 😉
Be well, stay free!
Thank you for this essay. It came along at exactly the right time, because I have what I fear may be a contentious meeting at work today. This morning’s reading comes as reminder to keep matters civil and humane and to remember that the fellow causing the problem, unlikely as it may seem at the time, may well be me.
Also, welcome back, and thanks for the news of your move. I hope you have many happy years in Silver Spring.
I am glad you are near a spring, and not directly in the swamp… though springs and wetlands go together. Hopefully your work there will do some good to improve conditions.
For my home desktop, I took my dads old Windows Vista Gateway machine when he was about to chuck it because the power supply had gone bad…. he was ready to quit computing anyway, and has switched to a tablet for his internet needs. I thought I might be able to replace the power supply. That wasn’t much of a problem…but I’d be danged to use Windows Vista! Linux Lite has done the trick, and I don’t hardly bother to run the updates on that either. It does the job of internet, word processing, scanning, and audio file editing for the shortwave radio shows and other radio stuff I contribute to. That’s all I need it for, so am keeping it clugging along as long as I can.
As it was said by some parodying Steve Jobs about Bill Gates in the YouTube days of yore on Epic Rap Battles of History,
“… Let me just step right in, I got things to invent
I’m an innovator, baby, change the world
Fortune 500 ‘fore you kissed a girl
I’m a pimp, you’re a nerd, I’m slick, you’re cheesy
Beating you is Apple II easy
I make the product that the artist chooses
And the GUI that Melinda uses
I need to bring up some basic sh–
Why’d you name your company after your ___?”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njos57IJf-0
Congrats on the move, JMG. A little change can be good – I’ve moved 31 times now since I headed off to college out of state in the fall of 1980, and have had a few snags like your experience with Dorx. The corporate model of today seems to want to cut costs to the bone and manage things with short-term metrics, and excellent customer service is expensive, hard to measure on the bottom line and costs are difficult to recoup since PRICE is the biggest factor with customers.
You certainly have a ring-side seat to Evil there in the DC area. I traveled up there quite a bit in the early ’90s on business and stayed 7 months TDY one winter out near Dulles – a very interesting place from a cosmopolitan sort of view, contrasting dramatically with the Death Race 2000 experience of driving the Beltway. The climate isn’t too swell, but there’s plenty to do.
As for projection, I find it difficult to organize my thoughts on the effects of the Long Descent and people, but kind of find it a bit scary to think we’re early in the process. Most people don’t seem to be aware of how karma and blowback are poised to make life more grueling in the West, especially the U.S., over the next couple of decades. Your advice around collapse early/avoid the rush and the concept of LESS is really going to pay off, methinks.
When I moved from my 1st apartment way back in 1980, the electric company actually mailed me a letter of recommendation, thanking me ( I never was late for payment) & adding that I made them proud to be an American. My how we have fallen. I wish I saved that letter!
First, congratulations on a successful move! I hope your new location works out well.
While the Machine has no interiority, this does not mean communication with it is one-way. I have a reputation for being able to repair just about anything. The key is that I listen to the machine – in most cases it’s telling me pretty explicitly what’s wrong. The same goes for pets – it astounds me how many people regard pets as extensions of themselves rather than independent beings. (Come to think of it, the same thing goes for children, doesn’t it?)
Welcome to MD. My husband and I lived in Silver Spring for years. He was born there.
We now live in Chestertown, MD among the farmers on the Eastern Shore. When we are in need of intellectual conversation, my friends from Silver Spring drive over to visit.
I think you will love living there. Good Luck and thank you for your stimulating posts.
Janet Kane
@Candance Duncan #6 I am an oldly baptized Christian. I regard the extremely varied teachings of the Bible as a medicine chest with different remedies for different conditions. In one place were are told to be meek and gentle in another the goodness of being bold as a lion. In Luke 22:36 Jesus tells his disciples to buy swords. Which I suppose is the proof text for gun ownership. Medicine has opposite remedies for high blood sugar and low blood sugar. Reality is varied and complicated. Jesus told us “to be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves” . As it says – “this calls for wisdom” to choose what we are to do and be a trait developed over time as we grow in the Spirit..
In high school my son opposed the actions of the school bully. The guy challenged my son to a fight. After school they met and my son had a thorough victory with his fists. It was the love that bully needed. Years later my son ran across the guy in a bar, he acknowledged my son nodding his head and said, “Yeah, I was a jerk back in the day.” Virtuous behavior runs a very full range, including even deception and lies at times – yes, the Bible has good examples for that behavior! An early church teacher said, “ The glory of God is a man fully alive”.
Candace (#6), part of the solution to your quandary is contained in what some theologians have called the great divorce: to simultaneously love the sinner and hate the sin. That is, you love the sinner (you want them to become a person that will reach heaven) but hate what they do. Like many of the teachings of the fellow our host referred to as the guy from Nazareth, this is far easier said than done!
I think the most common thing we see with the stupid is their lack of humility and inability to say they could be wrong. Whether it is someone who is falling in love and projecting the animus on their crush or a stupid executive at a company that refuses to cancel service in reasonable order, there is no self-awareness. There is no thought to the consequences of what could happen if they are wrong. But here I am saying “they” are “their” and I am just as retarded as anyone, the only difference is I seek to become less retarded every day. The dawning horror of it all is that some people cannot be helped, and that it is better to let them cast their fates to the wind. If they cannot admit they are retarded as we all are in some way, there is nothing another human can do for them that will help.
Hello JMG and commentariat:
I’m glad you’ve finished relocating to that Maryland town, John. I hope you’ll be fine in your new home.
The “Dorxx Comm.” thing seems to me a Kafkian nightmare. It’s interesting you’ve seen the lesser evil side of it, when you’ve been “inspired” by your problems with it to think about evil/stupid people.
When I’ve read the tyrants and their minions historical examples, I’ve thought how this evil people disguises his evilness as a good thing. Indeed, dictatorships leaders think about themselves like the good guys (self-deception). They fool their serfdoms to make them to think they fight for a good cause, too. And of course, like you said, they project a Shadow against their black beast: the bad guys to prosecute and eventually kill.
————————————
Candace D.:
Being myself a Christian in “my own way”, I’ve had my personal problem in understanding and practising the Jesus “to turn the other cheek”. First, I think we must to be honest to accept our first human reaction against a threat or a damage is rettalliation. Maybe we’re biologically programmed to it. However, revenge has ever bad effects for you and the evil guy(s). We can start an unending chained revenges for example. So turning the other cheek, as contraituitive as it seems, in the long term is better and smarter than revenge. Another thing is putting it into real everyday life!
I looked up Silver Spring on Wikipedia, and I am surprised that a city with several times the population of the Tennessee county I live in is unincorportated. In my area, unincorporated communities tend to be a loose collection of houses, barely higher housinh density than the surrounding areas. The largest one might have a gas station (primarily serving drivers who are passing through but live elsewhere but most don’t have anything.
Silver Spring has a lower population than the city I commute to, but 5x the population of the nearest large town.
Mr. Greer, I had to chuckle when you mentioned the proximity of your new digs as it pertains to Mordor on the Potomac. Talk about running headfirst into the Supreme Realm, or should I say Realm, of Dorx. Wikes! Or maybe it’s just projection on my part.. I’ll have to check my tattered screen for any holes worth peering though: admittedly, at various times in my life, I’ve looked into the mirror .. only to have seen a dorx reflecting right back.
Oh … and am glad to hear that you made it through this recent bout of global ‘cooling’ without too many other hitches.
I abandoned Microsoft and switched to Linux recently. It was funny how with every singe one of Microsoft’s software “updates” my own computer seemed to hate me even more. Just like Dorx, these companies think they’re too big to fail and don’t consider that people can make their own choices.
> the archetype of the Machine. What is a machine? In psychological terms, a machine is an object that has no interiority, no subjective dimension at all. It’s the opposite of a person. It simply and mindlessly does what it’s made to do, and never responds in any other way unless it becomes defective.
Hi JMG,
I am happy that your ordeal went pretty much without a hitch. I am quite sure you need rest.
Yep, I believe Maryland was not on my list of states to which you might move. Thank you for sharing.
You have just moved to the premiere region where The Rich Men North of Richmond have located themselves for the last couple hundred years. The area outside “this ‘ring’ of territory” even has its own anthem:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sqSA-SY5Hro
You are now within the exclusive “‘ring’ of territory” zone where taxpayers’ tax dollars (coming from states outside the ring) are used for the PLEASURE of those living within the ring, taxpayers-be-damned. Its formal name is the Washington DC metropolitan area. Whether accurate or not, I feel that our tax monies do not get returned to us here in the backwoods’ states. Those in the ring view those outside the ring as of no-consequence. The elites take us, ‘the serfs,’ for granted,—they feel entitled to our money, because they view us as having zero interiority.
No matter how convenient Maryland is, I am shocked that you would agree to relocate to the uninspiring place of District of Columbia metropolitan area.
In the Washington DC metro area, elites view those outside the ring as having no selfhood. They view those not in the ring will simplemindedly carry on paying the elite’s bills, thinking that ‘slaves’ will keep-going-along-with-paying-the-bills-while-getting-no-benefit-from-doing-so, even after decades of elites having the spendies. The elites cannot imagine why, for heaven’s sake, those outside the ring could possibly not WANT to keep paying for the luxuries of those within the ring. After all, to the elites inside the ring, those outside the ring have no minds of their own.
At some point, the elites will be rudely awakened, because we-backwoods-serfs DO have minds of our own; we DO want OUR tax-dollars applied to us and our families who, after all, are the originators of those dollars.
Inside the ring is a concrete jungle. On the other side, the backwoods is a fantastic environment to live in. Backwoods people need to oppose people who live inside the ring from bleeding us dry. Eventually, backwoods people will insist on their rights.
💨💰💸💉💨Northwind Grandma
Dane County, Wisconsin, USA
I’ve been a Dorx custopmer in the past, when I lived in Mew Morleans. Your experience sounds sounds like the trajectory they were on in the early 2000s.
The machine archetype got to me. I see that sort of thinking among people who have no hands on knowledge of machinery. I used to be a machinist back in the day. Each machine is a unique individual, even the ones that are supposed to be commodities. For me and most people I know who work with machines on a daily basis, we see them not a perfectly deterministic devices (each one have far too many quirks for that). But rather something that must be maintained lovingly to function properly. (Yes I name my computers and think of my cars as individuals.) The machine archetype you describe sounds like a managerial class misunderstanding of machinery. No wonder we are doomed,our society is employing an archetype based on a fundamental misunderstanding.
What a wonderful set of insights to wake up to this morning. I project my desire to understand reality and deal with it effectively onto you and move to canonize you – Oops, darn, that’s not right, I am afraid that means I may need to own my own crap and, damn, that means I will have to do some work, open my own mind, face my own demons, and work to understand and improve myself. Shoot! It was so much easier to just blame other people. I miss my stupidity already. Evil seems like a small price to pay to be lazy and self righteous. I wish I could say that I believe that is why so many people choose it. Unfortunately, I fear that most people don’t even realize that they have a choice.
While I wrote this as satire, I feel profound sadness as I sit here and reread it. It seems like every person on earth faces the struggle here described and when we as a society allow our group mind to slide into disrepair the tools we use to combat evil and stupidity become lost to our sight. Thanks for providing this space where we can remember.
Fascinating that the Archdruid decided to relocate to the Capital of the Empire. Maybe the ancient druids should have done the same instead of retreating to Pictish territory.
The discussion this week is particularly close to my heart. For many years, i was a proponent of the Hanlon’s razor (Never attribute to malice what can be explained by stupidity). But it has become clear to me that among the stupid people, always shielded from view, lies power. Another strong belief of mine is that there is no evil, at least not in the cartoonish way pop-culture depicts it (stupid projection?); there is only power. Sacrificing your stupid pawns was always frowned upon (another stupid projection) but it’s nowadays richly rewarded by the capitalist system.
Regarding the Vices/Virtues; these may exist in spectra where they morph into each other (virtue traps). For instance (and related to the evil/stupidity): Sloth opposite is Diligence (Industria), but what is Diligence pushed beyond reasonable (aka by stupidity)? It morphs into Zeal, and the Wrath and Envy that comes with it. You may then ask if there is a trap for the smart and diligent? Pride.
“I’m not sure how to love another while simultaneously wanting them to go away.”
I know about that one. My daughter boomeranged back after a job went away. Her stuff is stuffed everywhere. Housing prices being what they are she has no inclination to leave. Do I love her? Yes. Should she really be out on her own by now? Yes. Would I prefer not tripping over her stuff? Yes.
I’ve considered moving myself to another state and leaving her this house. She’s going to inherit it anyway. But this is such a nice place for a retired guy (the Karens of Seattle being the downside) I really hate to leave. It’s also a good place to ride out a step down in civilization’s complexity.
Adding to things given the stock market opening is that I could trade my overpriced stock portfolio for an overpriced house and call it good. I think the morality of that is acceptable as long as all parties agree.
Thank you very much for the thoughtful post, Mr Greer, and my sympathies for the difficulties inflicted on you by the dorks at Dorx.
I’ve been using your posts to supplement some of the more difficult-to-understand Buddhist teachings, and “evil makes you stupid” / the recap on projection is quite a salient reminder as I’ve become quite lax recently. To overcome this, I’ve been taught (1) when I react negatively to someone or something, to think and identify the negative element which I dislike, and then (2) learn from it and strive to correct that negative element in myself. And (3) because that someone / something inspired the lesson, to rejoice and be grateful. (Any errors in the above are my own, as always.)
My apologies for the non sequitur, I just wanted to share. Thank you.
I’d say there are more archetypes at play beyond The Machine (now armed with LLMs). Temporary or maybe long term allies of The Machine could be:
– Efficiency: virtuous at times but mix Efficiency with Greed it becomes a vice, especially when squeezing maximum efficiency out of cogs in the machine (aka other human beings) or trying to replace human workers in the name of Efficiency or Cost Savings. Other tactics of Efficiency gone rouge could be deferred maintenance; off shoring; just in time inventory, etc. & etc.
– Lean / Agile: Waste not, want not is a virtue. Strip mining markets, communities, customers and employees is a vice.
– Behavioral Economics: Leveraging knowledge of consumer and employee behavior. Again, can be virtuous to a healthy business but add Greed and lack of compassion or Duty to Community the path is open to outright swindles over offering a good product or growing employees.
As I type this, my thought is that these ideas I’m nominating as archetypes are similar to Levi’s Astral Light, neutral in of itself and can be used for good and ill. No doubt there is an overriding archetype that is using lower order archetypes to fulfill its current goals. I’d say, everything listed above, to include The Machine, are used as tools by some larger archetype(s).
It would be too simple to say the overriding archetype is “Capitalism” because similar vices can be found in “Communism” or “Socialism” or whatever “ism”. I’m pondering if the larger archetype(s) may be: “The Current Age”, “Stage of Civilization” , “sub stage of Astrological age”, or its just a mishmash of archetypes, all thrown together and interacting with each other, forming temporary alliances and the show goes on and on….?
JMG,
Congratulations on your new digs.
Perhaps your experience with DORX can be exlained by another phenomenon described here in this quote by Robert Heinlein.
“A dying culture invariably exhibits personal rudeness. Bad manners. Lack of consideration for others in minor matters. A loss of politeness, of gentle manners, is more significant than is a riot.” — Robert A. Heinlein
In Minnesota, Tim Walz dictated that our electrical grid be off fossil fuels by 2040, at the same time he negotiated ten new data centers that would use as much electricity as the entire state uses right now. So really, something like 2.5 times the electricity, on solar and wind. In case you want to know something about how the liberal mind here thinks there is no welfare fraud, only MAGA racism, while a “peaceful protest” is a coordinated insurgency that is the Minneapolis Police Dept sharing real time vehicle tracking data of ICE vehicles, with “protestor” organizers, while every single Democrat politician in Minnesota has publicly called for ICE to get out of all Minnesota, at the same time it is effectively legal for one citizen to vouch for 8 illegal migrants in elections, with no way to track it because no ID is required.
https://williamhunterduncan.substack.com/p/why-minnesota
JMG your are now in my neck of the woods! Will you be giving a talk anywhere in the near future? Would love to meet you in person
Best wishes for peace and prosperity in your new neighborhood. As a widow myself, I am afraid I feel I must caution you that one never does “just get over” the loss of a beloved partner. The pain does fade in time and is somewhat mitigated by memories of happy times together, both of those sentiments becoming part of your emotional makeup,
I think this essay is one of your best. Thank you for this. I consider it a hopeful sign indeed when responsible and principled persons like your good self are willing to understand that “business” is just as capable of clueless malfeasance as any other institution. I am wondering if the “othering” you describe might not be an example of the deadly sin of pride, or superbia?
“it seems worth suggesting, to my readers and others, that a certain amount of skepticism toward one’s own internal imagery is a skill worth cultivating.”
This is a subject me and bacon have been puzzling over for a while. There seem to be increasing numbers of people for whom the cognitive dissonance is so strong that to consider ‘if something disturbs you, first look within’ is a step too far and is shuttered instantly.
An outcome of that suggests it will take a major ‘break’, be it societal or psychological where there is no personal option of action in the matter – the shattering of projection hiding the inner self could end up being a kill or cure experience… and not just for those experiencing the thing, but those around them in range of the cognitive meltdown that could be associated with that.
Nerves can get stuck in what is called a pain loop, where damage and pain no longer exist but the nerves keep firing that message anyway; it is rather alarming to consider that our society seems to be getting stuck in Stupidity Loops, a far more dangerous idea than Ignorance Loops because whilst ignorance can be fixed, Stupidity Loops generate feedback that not only hardwires itself mentally, but each act of stupidity makes it harder and harder to change course. Like dipping an apple in toffee, the shell gets thicker each time.
The fact that society has had ‘upside-down-world’ in so many areas for so many years now, we do not see any easy way to walk back from things. A potential example of a Stupidity Loop – saw a headline that EU Pres was celebrating writing into law that Russian gas will not be used at the same time as celebrating buying super expensive LNG from the US.
If the cycles of stupidity add to the cognitive dissonance and need for shadow projection, and that is combined with other ‘tendencies/vices’ alongwith overall cognitive collapse, as you said previously, it looks like we are in for it.
It has been a theme in meditation for a while now – a kind of inner battle – a knife edge where false steps lead to illusion, another to oblivion, a third, where misjudging the nature of the knife edge results in sushi-ing oneself, a fourth into nihilism and, all the while, a fifth option flickers like a burning candle. Keeping focus on that light seems to be the name of the game for me at the moment.
Certainly I see nothing to suggest that your view is incorrect that Marcus Aurelius was being profoundly literal about ‘avoiding finding oneself in the ranks of the insane’.
This is one of your usual, thoughtful and evocative posts. In no particular order…
Carl Jung, along with Joseph Campbell, were my anchors to sanity early on my Path. They provided rational markers on which I could stand, and begin to take steps into the Shadow Realm (more on that later) without the fear borne of ignorance we all face at some point in our travels.
I take a subjectively different view of Jung’s Shadow archetype. My view is tripartite, obtaining no exclusivity on moral, ethical and intellectual judgment. Light can blind as well as reveal. Dark can nurture and protect as well as obscure. Shadow is, for me, the balance point between them, from which I can step into either of them at need or out of curiosity.
I have on a constant mental thread the possible need to relocate for health reasons. The D.C. region appeals to me, and your description of Silver Spring is attractive. I would definitely enjoy having you in my general neighborhood.
In the heady and glowing early days of Usenet newsgroups, I subscribed to one which had a (to me) unique approach to trolls: don’t engage them on topic, just offer them troll biscuits. Most of them left and never returned.
Dear Archdruid:
My best wishes about that you’ll enjoy an improvement of your life . Watching the webcams i see that you’ll enjoy a a cold but sunny and nice day.
The problem that you adres , is in my opinion , a nasty feature of all the not small organizations: dehumanization. And is an unovoidable outcome. For me in this episody of “The Art of the War” by Sun Tzu is showed the extrem case of this dehumanization; the transformation of individuals in pieces of a military force absolutely obedient to of his general
https://titusng.com/2013/03/04/the-test-of-sun-tzus-art-of-war-on-concubines/
This allienation of the individuals embebbed inside of institutional machines has been studied by Anders (“We the Eichman’s sons”) who examined the case of the nazi criminal Adolf Eichmann as an extreme example.
https://www.nodulo.org/ec/2012/n119p12.htm
All of we could be single pieces of institutional machines in several moments of our lifes, machines with criminal purposes in exceptional cases , or more usually machines with business purposes wich will obligue us to treat the customers like money cows for order.
In all respetable firm , including Dorx, exist a mean for to not mistreat the customers: An aditional machine called quality management system, which should ensure the customer satisfaction by the mean of collect satisfaction surveys of the customers. If they’ll send a survey to you……
Another way for react against the mistreat of machines is to escape of their reach. This is easy with comertial machines. A customer vote with his feet, walking for alternative products or services. But what happens when you cannot escape of the reach of a machine, like happens with the powers of the state in wich you live ?
Gandhi gave us the response.
Human beings and institutions respond to stimuli and incentives, and behaviour that seems completely irrational from the outside often seems normal and rational to those involved. I think you’ll find that’s true of the episodes you discuss.
It’s not disputed that today large corporations treat their customers as enemies, and a resource to be exploited ruthlessly. This is a direct contravention of traditional wisdom which is all about keeping customers by providing good service. But if you can achieve the same results by making it impossible for your customers to leave, it’s quicker and easier. Yes, you damage your company in the longer term, but who cares about the longer term these days under late capitalism ,when all that matters is the next three months’ profit figures? From the point of view of the management, this behaviour is not stupid, it’s entirely rational.
In the case of the Soviet Union, Stalin’s behaviour, was, by his lights, rational. His concern was to embed himself in power by driving out, and preferably killing, all potential rivals. At the beginning, the purges were carefully directed against potential challengers, and also had a disciplinary function, since Stalin was a great fan of US management theory: he would have made a good CEO today. The purges subsequently got out of control when people started to denounce each other out of self-protection. A natural paranoid who saw enemies everywhere, Stalin ruled by fear and destroyed potential opponents but not randomly. There was no “goon squad.” The Red Army Generals, for example, were not just liquidated, they all went on trial in the normal way, accused by state prosecutors with bundles of evidence, and usually pled guilty after threats and torture. Many went to the camps, a lot were executed. But these purges were based on a kind of twisted logic you often find in personalised dictatorships: Stalin controlled the Communist Party but the Army represented a power-base which might be used to stage a challenge to him. Its leaders had to be intimidated and destroyed. From a historical perspective this seems insane (even more because he almost destroyed his intelligence service, the NKVD as well) but it was logical by his standards.
When I was young, the historiography of the Nazis,largely books written in the 1950s and 1960s, was powerless to explain the “evil” of the Nazis, the sources of the “blind hatred” that was supposed to have animated them. A lot of psychoanalytic theory was liberally applied. As we learned more about the Nazis, the terrifying truth emerged that their behaviour was actually entirely rational, if you accepted their point of departure. (Their view of the world was hopelessly paranoid, true, but probably no more so than many US politicians today.) The Nazis simply took over the dominant view of the time, that humanity was divided into “races,” doomed to struggle against each other until all but the strongest was wiped out, and applied it logically. The orders given to the Wehrmacht in 1941 specifically foresaw a war of racial extermination, because if the Aryans didn’t wipe out the Slavs the Slavs would wipe out the Aryans, so we’d better get going. The Jews were the greatest enemy of the Aryans, sworn to wipe them from the face of the earth.
This had other practical consequences. World War II was mostly about resources which the Germans needed. Europe under German occupation cold not feed itself, and to continue the war against Britain it needed access to the wheat-fields of Ukraine, as well as the oil of the Caucasus. Stalin could not be relied on, so a quick and brutal war was in order. When that didn’t work, the Nazis found themselves controlling a starving continent, so food had to be rationed, and the least deserving “useless mouths” killed off. Thus, the murder of two million Polish Jews from the ghettoes,to free up food for others. Thus also the belief that the lives of non-Aryans had literally no value, and so those shipped off to the concentration camps were divided into those with skills, to be worked to death, and those without, who were simply killed to economise resources.
It’s hard to accept this, and especially hard to accept that the Nazis, if you accept their paranoid assumptions, behaved with an almost caricatural German logic. Far easier to assume they were all crazy and in need of psychiatric treatment. But Heinrich Himmler, architect of much of the suffering, was quite clear in his speeches to the SS. Yes, he said, what we have to do is disgusting and terrible, but there’s no alternative. If we don’t do it to them, they will do it to us.
I really appreciate this post. My husband and I went through a nightmare with T-Mobile about a monitor that he ordered and then returned because it didn’t work. It went on for months, and was really causing us a lot of anxiety, because no phone call, visit to the store, letter, or email made any difference. The penalties just kept growing and frightened us. Until my step-daughter got the email address of the president of the company and wrote to him. One of my friends said: “you know, this is their business model. Penalties, late fees, etc. is their bread and butter.” It’s scarey.
The irony of the Archetype of the Machine is that it’s not true even for machines. The seminal discovery of dynamic systems theory in the late 20th century was that even the simplest systems, based on fully known rules of cause and effect, will behave unpredictably once nonlinearity sneaks in. Prior to that, engineers (and science fiction writers) might be forgiven for thinking that if you can build something (a locomotive; a telegraph; a network of interconnected switches…) then you must fully understand it and must be able to control it; only a mad scientist could end up uselessly shouting “Obey me! I am your creator!” at some rampaging experiment.
Modern engineers know better, or they have the information available to know better, but there sure seem to be a lot of tech CEOs yelling “Obey me! I am your creator!” at their LLMs.
Let’s see, Silver Spring MD appears to be located south of I-495… congratulations on becoming a Beltway Insider!
When considering the foolishness of the elites and their belief in impending cybernetic godhood, I am reminded of rule 24 on Peter’s Evil Overlord List, “I will maintain a realistic assessment of my strengths and weaknesses. Even though this takes some of the fun out of the job, at least I will never utter the line ‘No, this cannot be! I AM INVINCIBLE!!!’ (After that, death is usually instantaneous.)” In fact, it amuses me to consider how many of those rules seem to apply to our current overlords. It almost seems that the more one is possessed by an archetype, the less rational and able to focus on other issues one becomes. I am reminded of Jung’s essay on Hitler and Wotan.
One thing that I’ve found helpful in demolishing my own projections is meditating on suññatā, anattā, and anicca. Why be attached to the impermanent mentals formations and emotions that I once projected onto others? Why be distressed at my own Shadow? It is more lasting than anything else. Such only results in more dukkha for myself. I’ve had enough of that in life.
Your experience on immigration is similar to mine: I will point out to folks that I oppose illegal immigration and have no problem sending ICE to arrest drug dealers, rapists, kiddie diddlers, DUIs, etc., but have no problem granting amensty to hardworking migrants who have been here for years, and I in fact look forward to a future Anglo-Hispanic Creole culture emerging as the nucleus for the future high culture of North America. Few know what to say in response.
Hey JMG,
thank you for this very thought-provoking essay and best wishes for your start in a new home. Somehow, I find it to be very inspiring when somebody recognizes the need to act and then boldly executes his or her plan without much hesitation or doubt (at least it sounds like this). So again, all the best for you!
About the essay – I could immediately list several incidents of the same kind as you have reported and yes, some of them – in fact the most annoying ones – involved telecommunication companies (on the other hand, I just had a very positive encounter with a kind of hotline and they did even more for me than I asked for). The archetype of “the machine” – yes I think that’s a good description. I’d probably have called it the archetype of the “process” or “algorithm” but machine is probably more primal and thus a better suited label. But this explains our societies fixation with identifying and optimizing “processes”, quality management, etc. I see a few core issues to address if you don’t want to run this into problems. One is to ask the question and define what, in fact, is the process you are working with? And the other far more important where the denying of otherness comes into play is to ask “is that what I am dealing with a process (a machine) at all?”. Although living things express and probably contain processes in their being, I’d argue that they are far more. And if you want life to thrive you need to treat even a tiny insect which displays a far more procedural pattern of behaviour than, say, a monkey or a human, with some kind of, well, admiration. You need to address the part of the being in front of you that goes beyond only the process. You can be a beekeeper and treat your hives and bees like things. That will work to some extend but will do incredible damage in the long run, as we can all witness. The list of examples is very easy to expand, I guess.
Cheers,
Nachtgurke
“plenty of coffee places with free wifi”
I’ve been reading Arthur Firstenberg’s 2017 book ‘Invisible Rainbow’. I doubt he was correct on everything but I think he mostly got it right. Too much non-ionising radiation will greatly damage some people’s health. Firstenberg stated that he was unusually sensitive and had trouble from the 1990s finding anywhere ‘safe’ to live.
Wi-fi seems best avoided where possible. I’m surprised at the number of people who are throwing out their landline – or even rejecting VoiP when offered as a replacement – and making a mobile their only phone. 25 years ago, it was widely suggested that people with relevant jobs – like builders and farmers – should limit their mobile usage to no more than 10-15 minutes per day. Now NIR has become ‘safe’; clearly no discussion of hazards is permitted.
Coffee, ideally organic, seems welcome though. I don’t find many claims that it’s bad for you.
“…[LLMs] simply generate statistically likely patterns of text, computer code, or pixels, and so are ultimately not much more than hypercomplex versions of the autocorrect feature that so reliably fills in the wrong word as you type. Yet the tech-bro faction of our current corporate elite has projected onto these programs a galaxy of features that don’t belong there, starting with the notion that there really is intelligence in there somehow…”
Great summation of the fraudulence of “generative artificial intelligence.” Maybe this is a bit mean-spirited, but I would venture to say that a big reason why the tech bros view this statistical mix and match chicanery as intelligence is that they approach the world in a similar way and view themselves as intelligent. Listen to anyone of these industry leaders in interviews or on podcasts, and you’ll notice that they speak about life as if it’s an entirely stochastic process where turning this or that knob will lead to ideal outcomes. Listening to their words, it sounds like life to them IS just basically a hypercomplex version of autocorrect, and they consider themselves very, VERY intelligent, and so they consider “GenAI” intelligent.
I hoipe it’s not off-topic to ask about the plans for the Summer in Adocentyn get-together. Formerly the proposal was for people to meet in Providence. Will this now move to Silver Spring? Is the event still going to take place?
Also I seem to have misplaced the URL for the individual who was organizing it. If you have that address handy, could you please repost it?
Thank you very much,
Hosea
Dear John Michael,
I hope you are happy, or at least content, in your new digs. Somehow, I was expecting to hear that you had moved somewhere less close to “the belly of the beast”. But I am not an urban-living-loving person, so that attitude may have colored my expectations.
Regarding the current topic, my question to you is this: how can one determine when one is projecting their own vices/failings/sins onto another person, versus objectively and rationally assessing that other person for what they really are? I have been wresting with this question, and this self-doubt, for some time now.
Silver Spring, eh? Good choice. Walking distance to Rock Creek Park, plus close to other gems such as Great Falls, Wolf Trap, C&O canal. It’s been many years since I was in the area – I’m a west coast denizen – but I remember it fondly. Good luck in your new digs.
It’s funny, when people ask me why I went into coding, I always reply, “Because the computer always does exactly what I tell it to do. And, if it behaves in any other manner, it’s always my fault and I can always change it. It’s a lot easier than dealing with people.”
Hi JMG, glad to see you back in action and I’m very happy to learn that your move went smoothly! I hope your new digs and locale treat you good.
On the idea of Machine Evil, I’ve thought about this quite a lot as I’ve dealt with the same sort of woes concerning telecom megacorps. There is an internet provider I had that rhymes with “horizon” that I had to cancel service from a few years back when I moved from one place to another. It wasn’t as bad as the Dorx ordeal you described, but it was still quite a pain in the arse cancelling service; they were still trying to bill me after the fact and getting them to no longer do so meant me having to waste hours of my life away on navigating their byzantine, bureaucratic maze. I learned that the company has many overlapping systems and databases that don’t really talk to one another. The Horizon corporate branding aesthetics are quite interesting too; the first impression I got was “Hal9000.”
For awhile now I’ve been thinking, “why can’t any of these companies do the sensible thing and have a human operator immediately greet me when calling their 800 number? The first company to revert back to this would instantly win a ton of customer loyalty!” No, it seems once a new trend hits the corporate ecosystem, every company engages in a race to the bottom to see which one can more stupidly embrace and implement this new tend. To resist a new tend seems to be a major taboo in the Religion of Progress. If big corporations had an alignment it would be “Stupid Evil.”
P.S. I haven’t used a Microsoft browser since about 2003.
Dear JMG, Congratulations on your move to Silver Spring It sounds like you’ve landed in the perfect place for you. I’ve moved on, but I lived in DC and found it and nearby MD and VA very congenial for both reading and writing, especially once I found my special haunts. (One of many was a bench in the gardens at Dumbarton Oaks). My warmest wishes to you.
PS Don’t miss the cherry blossoms.
Good luck in Silver Spring! I hope you have a better time there than we did!
The Institute of Musical Traditions does great concerts, and Glen Echo hosts weekly ballroom dancing, by the way.
Ahhh, Trantor.
Close to the red line, I presume. An easy hop to Union Station and the Northeast Regional (or Acela if one wants to splurge). And not too hard to get to three major airports, or to downtown. I’d guess the locus for the “bubbling hotbed” would be Takoma Park. Just a guess though; it’s been a while since I lived near there.
I was in many of the Dee Cee ‘burbs for 40 some years. Many advantages to that area. One of my favorites was the National Zoo. When the mass mania hit, we left, and got far away. The intensity of the insanity around Dee Cee frankly scared the you-know-what out of me.
Candance, “turn other cheek” comes from a sermon on the mount, speech full of exaggeation(church doesnt want you to pluck out your eyes or cutting of your hands,, now does it?). When Jesus was slapped during his process by the servant of archpriest he didn’t turn the other cheek, he rebuked his assailant(J 18:23-24)
Great essay. Thank you. Scary to contemplate Machine as an archetype. I suppose it could be. The facts support it, all around us. I’m reminded of Goldman’s old essay on, evil triumphs because good is dumb. I’d rather be dumb than stupid, but wisdom is the way to go. Thanks for a memorable post. This one goes in the books. And good wishes and blessings wished for your new digs!
Silver Spring MD, oh cool! I grew up in Colesville…went to Springbrook HS in Silver Spring. You can tell folks who really don’t know ’cause they call it “Silver Springs”. Nice place, they were fond of saying that they were the one county in the whole US with the highest income (probably not true anymore) I suppose because of the high number of gov’t jobs. Nice weather except maybe in July…if you took St. Paul MN where I now live and delete a couple of months of winter, add a couple of months of summer you probably have Silver Spring. Though they do get winter weather there-I remember one really icy morning when nobody could drive anywhere my brother and I ice skating up and down the roads by our house. Also the coldest winter I remember where the creek behind our house froze up and we skated the creek, 14°F. When my brother and I were 13 YO we rode our bikes from our house 13 miles away to Columbia…didn’t even get in trouble…most kids aren’t allowed that level of freedom nowadays. Was out there last maybe 15 years ago, lots more urban sprawl than when I was a kid in the 70’s, there was still plenty of countryside between Silver Spring and Baltimore for instance but no longer possible to get totally away from the suburban sprawl.
I hope you like your new digs, there’s a lot good to say about the place!
I had tthe opportunity of watching the corporations do as the machine orders this very morning.
JMG has been staying with me the past week, ever since Dorx dorked him. Last night our great national train servie informed him that his train today had been cancelled, so he rebooked by bus. This morning, we drove to the corner where the bus was supposed to arrive. Of course, the sidewalk was unplowed, so we went to a nearby parking lot to wait. Others joined us.
Departure time came
Departure time went.
I downloaded the bus company app. Said bus did not appear on the app. Hmmm…..
One of our fellow travellers had to leave, abandoning a young woman in the cold. Being gentlemen, we invited her to join us in the warm car, to which she responded with alacrity. She had a different app on her phone, which showed the bus moving in our direction, teh bypassing Providence, then swinging back in our direction. Finally, the bus arrived an hour late, one hour into its run, and the various waiting cars disgorged their occupants. JMG is currently en route southbound, and I can divulge the top secret knowledge that he’s moving where the stars end.
When I disconnected Dorx about 5 years ago, the next day a tech arrived, and proceeded to remove the connection to the downstairs tenant. When i pointed out that I had ordered the disconnect, his paperwork did not agree, so the following day another tech had to come to reconnect the downstairs tenant.
PS. I have discovered the secret of JMG’s productivity. He drinks about 4 or 5 times as much green tea as I do.
Welcome to the DC area, from a Falls Church neighbor! May I update your pin on the map?
Good Luck JMG in your new place.
Speaking of Microsoft. Their forced migration to Windows 11 finally moved me to switch 2 computers to Linux Mint. Not to difficult but definitely not for everybody.
On Jung. I recently downloaded ‘Answer to Job’ and have just started on that. I read that is the one book of his he would not change a thing.
On Sara. I know this is Very personal and hesitate to ask, has there been any reaching out by you or contact with her? If so, would you be willing to share? I imagine it would be meaningful. If you have already shared, I’m sorry that I missed it. I hope this question is not offensive or in poor taste.
Thanks again for all your work.
Den
JMG – Wonderful to hear you have downscaled and found a place that suits your needs and values. Having been widowed 2 months before you, I am exceedingly grateful that I didn’t need to move to wind up in a 1-bedroom apartment, where being car-free is a luxury rather than an affliction of poverty: I walk 2 blocks to the co-op in Ypsilanti Michigan where I buy all my food — and a half mile to the recovering river bottomland forest where I now do all my guerrilla planting and tree experiments. There is a bus, free for us seniors, if I need to get to Ann Arbor (very rare!) And since I grew up in this region of Michigan, I actually have a brother within his easy driving distance. I am also blessed with having found myself within a growing “widows club” that I had no idea existed. Ten years your elder, I am grateful to think of this as my final stage in life, while finding richness in memories of past and maintaining a sense of presence of my missing spouse. In contrast, I wish you well in fully replenishing your home life with a beloved, and only later making the path of widower your final stage.
Have found for a while now that I can have a complete political discussion with the words “I know you are, but what am I”.
Both sides seem to give examples of what is happening, then at the end blame the other side. While I am screaming at the computer “No, that’s what you do!!”. You are correct that many cannot see that what they are shaking their fists at, is exactly what they themselves are doing. Like I said, both sides. Thank you for the information needed to understand why this happens.
Congratulations on your new digs. Hope it turns out well. I mentioned before I’ve had enough of deranged Vancouver so last spring tossed the dock lines and moved the ship to a sleepy village in the Gulf islands. Took very little time to find great music teachers and artists guild. Then 2 of my four trolls moved over so lots of clan activities.
Startled by a large increase in ladies out of the blue walking up and flirting/compliments on my wardrobe-did wonders for my ego. But I’m uneasy. The Jung projection ( after surviving decades of marriage to a BPD with alcoholism in the last years ) colours my view of the fair sex. But I think I’m obligated to find a new relationship. It’s not proper or natural to be, dare I think it, free of responsibility and duty. Except for my kids, I might add, that’s a gift I hold dear.
Then yesterday found a possible roadmap. Guy wrote a post on “Rediscovering comfort in their own company ” and if folks want it’s michealwalshwriter.com for the discussion. So get past feeling guilty about taking care of oneself for a change. Maybe down the road but I’ve got a feeling this pause to reflect/heal a bit is very timely. Anyhoo, just a possible meditation
You may recall that in Providence, the gas and electric utilities were both the same company. This used to not be the case. Providence Gas and National Grid were competitors.
JMG, Congratulations on the new move. I had been thinking you were headed to the Big Apple but I was mistaken.
My question is how do you figure out what it is about yourself that you hate? I have a couple things in my life where I very well could be projecting a shadow. These things fill me with a blind rage. However I can not figure out for the life of me see what this has to do with me and my interior life. There are things I do not like about myself but they don’t seem to be related to this blind rage I feel.
Thanks
Welcome to the greater metropolitan Washington DC/Baltimore area!
There’s loads to do. We might even run into each other at a book event.
Anyway, as I read your essay, I kept thinking of the video game concept of NPC. For you nonplayers (I learned this from my kids as the only video game I play is 100’s of varieties of solitaire), an NPC is a Non-Player-Character. In a video game, NPCs exist solely to provide a service, give a clue, say something encouraging, or wait to be slaughtered as you, the player, and the game demands.
NPCs have no rights, inner lives, or lives of any kind. They exist to be used by the players who are ‘real.’ I’ve come to believe that many people believe that the majority of people around them are NOT human. They are NPCs and so can be easily dismissed, ignored, disrespected, or slaughtered in their millions.
One of the oddities of the modern age, as opposed to Henry VIII is a modern elite doesn’t see where his food comes from, other than visiting a carefully curated and fancy farmers’ market. Henry VIII, like Pharaohs of old, saw peasants laboring in his fields. Not seeing real people at work leads directly to believing other people are NPCs and are unnecessary.
I also want to say that one of the new weirdnesses in Book World is where the villains are the charismatic, sexy heroes! They’re just misunderstood, even when it’s mentioned that they torture and murder people. Look at “Assistant to the Villain” and its three sequels by Hannah Nicole Maehrer. I read the first book and thank God it was from the library and I didn’t pay for it. Similarly, orcs are misunderstood, the kind of alien that incubates its young in human babies is misunderstood, vampires are misunderstood, and so forth.
And no, none of the writers of this slop have any understanding that other people don’t think like them and may not want the things they want. Other people are NPCs.
@ Candace Duncan
As a very private lady, I frequently prefer to be left alone. As such I interpret the first rule of love to be respect. It works well enough for me, when my neighbors felt unhappy that I moved in and liked to garden when they didn’t want me near them and behaved like crazed aggressive ninkenpoops, I interpreted that as love thy neighbor, respect them although they are turds, stick a fence and bushes in and ignore them until they return the favor of ignoring me. Worked.
Notably, this essay not only encourages me to examine when I am projecting my own shadow, but also to recognize when that projection is being done to me. This is something I struggled with a lot growing up. One of my parents had (well, still has, really) a tendency to project all sort of images onto me that simply weren’t true, due to certain quirks in their upbringing and personal history. It wasn’t until I got out of that house that others pointed out to me my self-image was all out of sorts, and even as an adult for a long time I trusted other’s perceptions to define what sort of person I am rather than myself. Thankfully, I’m over that phase of my life now, but this is a welcome reminder, and a skillful articulation, of the lessons I learned from that period of my life. Thank you, and congratulations on a successful move, JMG. It’s great to have you back and writing again.
Wow. Thanks for this post! I expected you to start with the politicians, and not with customer service providers who make you want to tear your hair with their incompetence. But you are dead on… and by the way, your analysis applies to every domestic tyrant I’ve ever known (not naming any names) or even read about. And what they’re doing is committing suicide – C.S. Lewis’s Screwtape must be handing out medals to his underlings for this.
Good luck in your new location – and I keep mentally placing Adocentyn somewhere near the Delmarva region as well.
Do you have sufficient room for your library in a one bedroom apartment?
I remember liking the vibe of Silver Spring when I wax there 40 years ago.
“…we have a substantial group of rich and influential people who project interiority onto machines that don’t have it, while denying it to human beings who do.”
Ok, so this sentence packs a suitcase full of careful thinking, and that very efficiently, I reckon. 🙂
One of those companies that makes you call in to cancel instead of canceling on the website? Generally when they do that, they have a group of salesweasels on the other end whose only job is to talk you out of canceling and they are incentivized with bonuses for every person they can talk out it. Sometimes they have quotas instead of bonuses. They are empowered with abilities to give discounts and such and sometimes it pays off to threaten to cancel just to get them to discount your bill. Yay, everybody wins. Or something.
Did you have to keep saying “No, I need to cancel” before whoever it was relented? It could be the salesweasel was pissed off at actually having to cancel you and decided to retaliate by really cancelling your service. “That’ll show him”, he probably thought as he pressed the cancel button. I could see someone like that being that petty.
Companies that do the whole “call to cancel” are shooting themselves in the foot, IMHO. But they like it. The pain, the pleasure. And it’s usually middle management that’s behind such gimmicks. My theory is that middle management is perennially frustrated and sadistic and they get off every chance they can on making their underlings – and their customers – as miserable as they can get away with. The discipline of having to turn a profit does tend to minimize the sadism – but not the frustration.
—
The Imperial City? Really? That’s up there with Tehran and Tel Aviv and Moscow as places-not-to-park-myself-next-to. But it’s your life and you are a big boy. Good luck.
Wow, I certainly wasn’t expecting you to move right into the heart of the beast! Did you decided to try your hand at becoming a political apparatchik, in order to see how the other half lives? Or a lobbyist for occult orders, now doesn’t that sound like fun? Or are you planning to make a run on the core of the Death Star itself? If so, may the Dorx be with you!
I have a sneaking suspicion that, without projection, our global economy would collapse overnight. Who would buy the garbage investments on offer if they couldn’t prop up some greater idiot in their minds to come take all that trash off their hands for even more money? Projecting the archetype of the fool — now don’t that just sound like a foolproof strategy? What on earth is a decadent, declining society to do when projection ends up being the only hope it has left to evade facing its unwelcome fate? “Flog that scapegoat, I tell you. Flog it right out of town and make us safe again!” This is all going to end so very badly.
>From the point of view of the management, this behaviour is not stupid, it’s entirely rational.
That’s what management likes to tell themselves, to soothe what vestiges of conscience that’s almost flickered out. Not rational, not really. It’s about sadism. It’s hard to see, it’s sort of like neutrinos, it hides very well in the background. But it is there and it is real. They like it to *look* rational, as much to lie to themselves as to lie to others.
@siliconguy
You could post an ad on a dating app and get her married off. Can she cook?
I have found a small tome, fully available online, which explains much better than I can, the religious dimensions of some of the medical ideas that, over the years, have begun to grate on my own sensibility, which, I hasten to add, is equally religious, but differently oriented and situated. But, which, in part is well expressed by the following from this essay: “…the disastrous results of the belief that neither human beings nor [microbes, nor] any other part of the cosmos can respond in any non-mechanical way…”
“Modern Medicine, the New World Religion” by Olivier Clerc, translated from the original French, by Rachel Stern https://www.olivierclerc.fr/download/MedRelFinal.pdf
Incidentally, this turns out to be quite an interesting “history of ideas” essay, drawing connections between Catholic Christianity, Pasteur’s ideas and metaphysical commitments, and modern medicine as an institution with many aspects that “map” the new wine into the contours of the old wineskin…
QUOTE (placed here as a taster for anyone with an interest in this subject, and not as an argument). 🙂
“The desire to genetically manipulate flora and fauna (the human species not excepted), in order to control the environment in which we evolve so that we can rid ourselves of all malignant or pathological elements, is the ultimate consequence of the erroneous belief in a bio-environment infested with evil and sickness, in which we cannot survive without wresting victory from our adversaries in a contest that takes no prisoners. Disconnected from nature and from life, locked in our mind and in the artificial material world that we have built for ourselves, we regard our surroundings as hostile and try to protect ourselves from them, even if that means destroying the environment or reshaping it according to our own will.
“An analogous dichotomy leads us to cut ourselves off from our shadow-side, by projecting evil outside ourselves, and to dissociate ourselves from our own physiological inner environment by projecting the origins and causes of our illnesses onto the outside world. In doing so, we deprive ourselves of the ability to learn how to understand and integrate the various parts of our own psyche, which is an indispensable first step for us to be able to live in harmony with ourselves as well as with others. We also deprive ourselves of the ability to take charge of our own health by learning and applying the rules of a healthy life — nutrition, breathing, detoxification, etc. Because we neither understand nor acknowledge our role in maintaining (and even creating) evil and disease, our efforts in fighting them not only fail, but actually yield the opposite result: We keep strengthening what we are trying to destroy.
“Having exteriorized evil and sickness, Judeo-Christian culture does the same with their opposites; thus goodness and health must also have their origins outside human agency. Without the aid of a God/Savior, a priest/doctor, hosts/pills, etc., we are condemned. Left to ourselves, we are weak and fragile, continually at the mercy of temptation, aggressed by our environment, against which we can do nothing by ourselves.”
END QUOTE
A couple of comments in response to common comments:
1) Thank you, everyone, for your good wishes!
2) It’s been a few lives since I last had the chance to live on the outskirts of an imperial capital. It doubtless won’t be the last place I live, but for the moment I expect it to be entertaining.
Candace, I can’t, because that style of morality is specific to mainstream Christianity a and makes no sense to me. “Make yourself a victim” is not a commandment I consider valid. Still, that’s your faith, so you may want to ask your pastor about that.
Bradley, hmm! A very interesting take.
Neptunesdolphins, rage is a defensive mechanism to keep people from noticing their own evil. As for DC, the building in Alexandria is the George Washington Masonic Memorial; I’ve been there before, but will doubtless visit it again.
Mark, most of the MAGA dudes I know are fine with legal Mexican immigrants. The issue, of course, is illegal immigration.
Terry Pratchett makes the same point in his book Carpe Jugulum: “Sin, young man, is when you treat people as things. Including yourself,” says Granny Weatherwax.
Oh, to live somewhere with train service!
I personally am thinking that I need to move closer to water. But for now, I’m being where I am, trying to question my inner narrative on the regular.
I’ve been thinking about the machine industrial mindset a lot, now that I am on the outside. I remember when my best friend told me that workers aren’t machines. I had internalized the always in motion mindset for work, and I was always disappointed in myself when I “slacked off.”
The machine that is DORX CORPORATION is controlled by bean counter mindset that doesn’t think any farther ahead than the next quarters earnings statement, and maximizing shareholder value. The machine is the definition of stupid.
Congratulations on the move! I must confess that I was wondering where you would end up and hoping it wouldn’t be NYC. Much the same problems you had with your ISP, I had with Spectrum and Verizon; it took 2 weeks of phone calls to enable a veterans discount on the internet bill. Anyway, I’m making plans to move out of the city because it just isn’t what it’s cracked up to be. My sister already left last year and couldn’t be happier. So long, city of my birth, that no longer cares for me, if it ever did.
I only really understood that strangers on the street were as human as myself when I was seventeen.
And I can definitely attest to stupidity from projecting the Anima and the Shadow! Not unrelatedly, I apologize for repeated posting on the same topic on the hiatus thread.
Mary #16
“When I moved from my 1st apartment way back in 1980, the electric company actually mailed me a letter of recommendation, thanking me ( I never was late for payment) & adding that I made them proud to be an American. My how we have fallen. I wish I saved that letter!”
I actually still have mine! It wasn’t a separate letter, but a block of text on my closing bill, showing the zero balance and saying how I was never late and that they would not require any security deposit if I came back to them again someday. I actually used it to start my next service, and they waived the security deposit! I was so tickled I put it in my box of ‘important papers’, and have had it lo these 40 years or so. That was in 1985, and I never got anything like that from a utility company again.
Hi John Michael,
Welcome back, and hope the climate in Maryland is to your liking? Great to hear that you’ve already made many connections there. Nice one!
Hey, speaking of this subject – your essay – you may have noticed that over the past few decades there has been an attempt in the workforce at least, to pretend that humans are all the same, regardless of the many differences? I’ve often wondered if that boils down to another angle with which grubby push to over supply labour and thus bring down prices: “Meet your new replacement, son.” What do you reckon about that possibility?
The Golden Rule, is of course, golden. Nuff said. 🙂 I take it seriously.
I see that nobody has yet to use the old fashioned word which applies to the core of this essay: Contempt. Needs to be used more, if you ask me. Dunno about you, but I have a general rule with everyone, in that if they treat me with contempt, I tend to keep them at arm’s length, although can make exceptions for folks I’ve known with a good track record, but having a bad day. We all have those from time to time. But, it’s been proven to me time, and time again, that people who exhibit such behaviour early on in a relationship – of any description – are err, to put it impolitely, setting the base level for future interactions. That’s a total red flag in my book. Peering into their soul, sees a person very much at odds with themselves in that they don’t like in there what they see and feel. They’re around, those folks, and I treat them gently, but firmly set and enforce boundaries.
Excuse my lapse into mysticism, it’s a bad habit, but the Beatles put it brilliantly on the final song of the final album, with the last lyrics (which are reproduced here purely for educational purposes): In the end, the love you take, is equal to the love, you make.
It’s true too.
Gottta bounce, there’s some rocks as needs movin’!
Cheers
Chris
JMG,
Silver Spring is great! I live in Northern Virginia, but have bounced between Maryland and Virginia over the past 40 years. Some recommendations: Smile Herb Shop in College Park is a great source for herbs. You probably already know about Second Story Books, but another great used bookstore that has everything you could ever imagine is McKay’s Used Books in Manassas, VA. Smile and McKay’s are both a bit of a hike from Silver Spring, but if you are ever looking for a ride to either, I am offering.
Your experience with Dorx is making me think of my experience with moving from the US back to Canada late last year. I waited until I was in Canada to cancel my cell phone service, because I used my cell phone for a lot of two factor authentication (2FA), and so I made sure to get a new Canadian phone, update all the contact information, and make sure that if something went wrong I could handle it. I then called my phone provider, explained that I was moving for a bit, and that it would be cheaper for me to get a Canadian plan. I asked to put the plan on hold, because I expect to be back in the US again in a couple years at most.
Well, after I called, the American phone number was cancelled immediately, as opposed to what we had agreed to: namely, putting it on hold when the billing cycle I had already paid for ended. It was actually quite amusing in a twisted way: the representative I was talking to got cut off asking if there was anything else she could help me with by the phone suddenly going dead. Then, in what can only have been an extremely petty act of spite, several of the services which used 2FA, where I had already updated my contact information, inexplicably reverted back to the old phone number. Several of them put up a lot of ridiculous road blocks to getting back in, such that I doubt I could ever get back in to some; and most where I could were not worth the effort.
As a result, even though I know the passwords, have the same device I’ve always used to log in, had made sure to update all the contact information, and had even used some of the services since I moved back to Canada, I was suddenly locked out of a host of digital services I used, including my email. This could have been disastrous for someone with a different situation from mine, but while it caused me a lot of inconvenience, I’m in a position where I recovered from it easily enough.
Eventually I realized there was precious little I could do, so I accepted the life lesson, and am now operating under the assumption that I could be locked out of any digital service, at any time, for any reason. It is also reminding me that the large companies are sharing an awful lot of information, and can be relied on to act in stupid and petty fashion; I hadn’t expected them to move as a group like this, but lesson learned.
I have no doubt that the expectation was that it would remind me not to “step out of line”, again, but what it actually taught me is that I should make sure I’m in a position to handle being locked out of any digital service. This means I now have a plan for being locked out of any of the digital services I use, and quite often this plan means setting up alternatives that do not rely on any form of digital technology.
This has of course made me much less likely to use any digital services, of any kind, and I find it mildly amusing that a stupid petty action on the part of some tech companies has led to me cutting my internet usage in half overnight, with further cuts since, and far more significant cuts likely over the next few months. Talk about an own goal!
Northwind at 27: That video of Oliver Anthony sounds better than the video I remember from back when he first became a phenomenon. Did his singing and playing technique improve that much — or is it just something in me that has changed?
JMG: Silver Springs is a surprise to me too. My experience with 1BR apartments has to do with noise. If someone above, below, or next door is noisy, or has noisy kids, there’s no place to retreat from it; maybe a coffee shop nearby — but being driven from my home by a noisy neighbor is pretty hard for me to deal with.
Re: The Golden Rule
I view the Golden Rule as a substitute to use for when you don’t know what the other person wants. Also, trying to avoid inconveincing or annoying others is a “safer” bet than trying to do favors for them based on what you think they might want.
Love thy neighbor:
I don’t feel love for neighbors but I often feel a somewhat abstract humanitarian impulse. I suppose other people feel something different than I do or people wouldn’t aspire to love neighbors they barely know.
Turn the other cheek: I consider this to be very bad advice in most situations. It is letting yourself be abused. Yet the opposite, “living by the sword” or “Strike back ten times harder!” is also a bad idea.
I felt the stirrings of a sinister possibility while reading this essay, so I thought I’d share. The desire to reduce human beings to mere machines isn’t simply a fantasy, I’m afraid to say, there are known mechanisms to do it, and I’m concerned that this may be happening with dubious amounts of conscious effort. The means to produce this effect happen to come from the functional twin of projection: identification. Specifically, the type of identification that arises from trauma inflicted on children by adult/authority figures.
Sandor Ferenczi was a Hungarian psychoanalyst who was one of the first to study the effects of trauma on children, and his name was nearly erased from our records for all his efforts. (It turns out that crossing Freud gets you an instant diagnosis of being completely mad, and everyone knows that the writings of madmen shouldn’t be taken seriously…)
I’ll be pulling much of this from essays on Ferenczi’s work, but basic rundown is that when one is “faced with the full realization of one’s own utter weakness and helplessness” in the face of overwhelming danger, the psyche’s only means of survival is disassociation. “Ferenczi described the dissociation that results from trauma as a form of psychic death.” The now dead and disassociated psyche of the child is then replaced by the will of the attacker.
“All adaptation,” [Ferenczi] said, “occurs in a person who has become malleable through terror-dissociation in the absence of the ego; the violent force imprints its own features on the person, or compels him to change in accordance with its own will”. This situation —having dissociated from one’s own point of view and adapted oneself to the attacker without resistance— is part of what Ferenczi called “identification with the aggressor”. This identification is “what happens to the inner experience of children under attack: They replace their own experience and will with those of the attacker. Terror has destroyed the child’s ego.”
Children who face these kinds of overwhelming attacks by the authority of adults, “subordinate themselves like automata to the will of the aggressor, to divine each one of his desires and gratify these”.
Another interesting, albeit awful, point that can be made is that from this same terror-dissocioation comes another possible explanation for the failures of reality testing you touched on in today’s essay. The inability – willing or not – to check and see if the image that is projected on to the other person is true is a function of the ego – the same ego which can be overwhelmed, weakened and damaged by traumatic experience. “The child dissociates from himself and from external reality, entering an altered state of consciousness, feeling numb or going into a trance.” A weakened/damaged ego can lead to “partial negation and distortion of reality”, where reality is replaced by a kind of dream. The way some people can seemingly blank-out while in the middle of a particularly emotional projection does share a number of similarities with being in a dreamy, trance-like state.
Whether or not something like this is happening is, of course, hard to say. But if any authority figures were hoping to produce it, I suppose they’d want to make sure the people they wanted to turn into automata were endlessly barraged with overwhelming – and ideally aggressive – stimuli, while also making sure the victims felt small, weak, and helpless, and that any efforts of push back or stop it are futile.
hmm..
A link to the essay I referenced, if you’re curious: https://www.alsf-chile.org/Indepsi/Articulos/Trauma-Abuso/Ferenczis-Trauma-Theory.pdf
Aurelien #41 says:
“When I was young, the historiography of the Nazis,largely books written in the 1950s and 1960s, was powerless to explain the “evil” of the Nazis, the sources of the “blind hatred” that was supposed to have animated them. A lot of psychoanalytic theory was liberally applied.”
Hi Aurielen, I’d like to know more about the literature you mentioned. I’m trying to steer clear of much of the current literature about the Nazis for obvious reasons; basically, today’s literature is very politicized. What books do you recommend?
The Other Owen #76 says:
“That’s what management likes to tell themselves, to soothe what vestiges of conscience that’s almost flickered out. Not rational, not really. It’s about sadism. It’s hard to see, it’s sort of like neutrinos, it hides very well in the background. But it is there and it is real. They like it to *look* rational, as much to lie to themselves as to lie to others.”
In mathematical logic, to create a formal system you need two elements: axioms (Euclid’s axioms, Peano’s axioms) and rules of inference (propositional logic, for example).
Let me clarify this.
Nazi Germany had a problem: food scarcity (an axiom). And the moral values of Nazi Germany were what they were: psychopathic, evil, twisted, and much more. But these were the moral values of Nazi Germany (moral values equivalent to rules of inference).
What was the result of combining both?
Nazi Germany thought it was a good idea to annihilate the slaves, Jews, Poles, and many others. What Nazi Germany did was under a twisted, ruthless logic, indifferent to the rest of humanity and its suffering. It is perfectly reasonable under a rather twisted logic.
Human reason is a useful tool, as are the human senses (consciousness, and also wisdom, is something spiritual that is beyond human reason).
Yupped, I was startled the first few times it happened, too. It took me a while, and some study of Jung, to really figure out what was going on.
Booklover, I know. Linux is gradually evolving around those problems; when it does, Billy Bluescreen may find himself minus a cash cow.
Scotlyn, thank you, and glad to hear it.
Dr. C, I hope the meeting went well.
Justin, it’s on the hills overlooking the swamp. I plan on trying some kind of Linux or other on one of my spare laptops once I have the spare time.
Drhooves, imperial capitals are always interesting places. In terms of the Long Descent, I’ll have some advice on downward mobility shortly.
Mary, we have indeed fallen far.
Roldy, oh, machines can develop certain modes of interiority. It’s the archetype that denies that — another reason why projecting it too cluelessly is a bad idea.
Kimberly, nicely summarized.
Patrick, that happens to a lot of suburbs of big cities. I grew up in a similar area, which had 50,000 people; it’s incorporated now but wasn’t when I lived there.
Polecat, we all have the capacity to be Dorx. It’s just that some of us try to rein that capacity in, and others don’t.
Northwind, it’s been my repeated experience that people in the backwoods have just as many mistaken ideas about the ring as people in the ring have about the backwoods…
Christopher, good. That shows the difference between an archetype and an experienced reality!
Point, thank you for making the effort to remember.
Rashakor, as Aristotle pointed out a couple of millennia ago, a virtue is not the opposite of one vice — it’s the midpoint between two.
This article is insightful, and closely related to a discomforting observation I’ve been making of late: People tend to use the word “individual” these days much more than they used to, instead of the much shorter and simpler “person”.
Seriously, if you watch people online speak, they will default to the weirdly cold and technical five-syllable “individual” to refer to people instead of simply “person”. It didn’t used to be this way, I’m sure.
Why is that discomforting? For the same reasons JG outlines here: it fundamentally erases personhood. You can have individual gears or widgets; it’s a word most suited to speaking of things. Maybe I’m overthinking it, but it seems that we as a society have begun to default to negating the personhood of the people we are talking about.
Best of luck in your new living place JMG! I didn’t expect you to move to the belly of the beast, but they can sure use some positive vibes. If I remember correctly you once said that the energy in DC is stale and therefore it was not a good choice for the capital. Do you think it will have any influence on your own functioning or doesn’t it work that way?
Your piece about the influence of projection makes sense. The necessary first step is to de-humanize the other and that goes from ‘establishing’ lousy customer service all the way to waging war. Thanks for sharing your insights :-).
One thing makes me wonder. I’m surpirised that the extremist go away when you take the middle position. When I make the mistake of engaging, I usually find that the other assumes I’m on the other side and then unloads on me. That I didn’t say anything to support the opposite position is no problem. They just project that on me and off we go. It could be my own shadow of course, but I’ve had some exchanges that really seemed to come from one side (and others confirmed it to me).
I think this happens on a societal scale too. You sometimes mention the peace movement of the early 19th century. The few people that still promoted peace in 1913 were usually ruthlessly proscuted by their governments and accused of not being nationalistic, traitors, etc. I think a similar thing happens during civil war when people are forced to take sides (not taking sides means you will be considered an enemy by both sides) and the center is being wiped out. How do you see this?
Wow. I figured you would go back to the Shire in Cumberland and instead you have moved to Gondor (or is it Ithilien?). Congratulations and best of good fortune there. I hope you enjoy it and find it fruitful.
That the imperial capital is crawling with occult lodges is fascinating.
Mr. Greer – Oh yes, I totally agree .. hence why I mentioned ‘at various times’ in my comment above. I try to check myself, whenever and wherever possible .. the ‘dorx effect’ can stupify even the best of us. As for the worst, well…. witness today as we type: the now fired RN in that Virginia hospital who ‘socialmediated’ ways inwhich to incapacitate (e.i. ‘cease to function’..) any and all ICE officers admitted for um, care! In this particular case, I’m not sure which preceded which .. the stupidity .. or the evil. Seems rather AWFUL in my book. As if medical care wasn’t bad enough. HeyZeus on a trident!
Re: Turning the other cheek. This teaching, and the related ones (go the extra mile, return not evil for evil, etc.) are probably best placed in their proper historical context. Returning a slap to a social superior in ancient Palestine would have probably made things far worse for most of Christ’s original audiences, as would refusing to carry a Roman soldier’s gear for a mile. Elsewhere, Christ commands his unarmed followers to sell their cloak and buy a sword. Rather than trying to fit all of the historical Jesus of Nazareth’s teachings into a single universal message for all time, it might be best to realize he taught different peoples different things in different contexts. If striking back will only result in you getting more injured, then striking back is probably a bad idea. If you have a reasonable chance of defending yourself without getting run through by Caesar’s sword or shot by Pinkertons, then do so. The futility of attacking Rome or its puppets was borne out by the disastrous wars the Jews attempted against Rome in the first and second centuries. It went very, very badly.
@ Zachary Great point! And I’m afraid the proliferation of AI is making this exponentially worse. The NLP-like language of AI and the implicit Skinner like approach of humans as stimuli-response machines are the main factors imo. I think mental health will be a major area of focus in the coming years.
I’m a computer scientist by training and I’m scratching my head due to your use of (LLMs not being) “intelligent” in the essay. I guess it really comes down to exactly what kind of definition is used for determining intelligence. You wrote “We can define intelligence, for practical purposes, as the ability to adapt your beliefs to fit the facts you encounter.” — now isn’t that exactly the quality, that LLMs are very strong in?
I don’t mean to push the AI topic (I also remember you repeatedly expressed your dislike towards that) and I’m no proponent of its alleged superiority. I’m just thinking of three examples that I thought I understood:
(1) I played chess at a young age, looked into the topic after many years and learned about the relationship between chess mastermind Magnus Carlsen (sometimes believed to be the strongest chess player to have lived) and state of the art chess software. E.g. while Magnus Carlsen might be the strongest human player, he has basically zero chance to win a game against said chess software (but is one of the few humans to be able to incorporate select strategies from said chess software into his own playmaking). That is reflected in the ELO of the chess software being a magnitude higher than his (and I wonder, whether – for the purpose of chess – ELO wouldn’t work as a substitute for intelligence?).
(2) I watched the 2017 documentary “AlphaGo”, in which a team of engineers, etc. have their AI play (and defeat) against the Go prodigy Lee Sedol. Later that year, they came up with “AlphaZero”, which was only provided the rules of the game and then played against itself over and over againd (and improving in the process), until it became even stronger than “AlphaGo” was before. So if it improved by playing itself … how is that not intelligence?
(3) A friend obsessed with AI used to get me up to speed on his pursuit of all things AI-related once a year and I remember him explaining to me a while ago: One can download a free, but state of the art LLM, feed it e.g. an ebook about taxes (as “context”) and immediately afterwards it’ll be responding to your queries with the knowledge gained from said ebook. Not to nitpick – but isn’t that fulfilling your given criteria for intelligence?
Absolutely there’s a great many valid criticisms that can be brought forward against AI and I am also having these thoughts myself. But I think that current technology is indeed able to show aspects of “intelligence”. Maybe the quality more relevant for the purpose of your essay is “interiority”, which you mention later in it?
The following was a really strong quote for me and I couldn’t applaud you more for writing it: “So we have a substantial group of rich and influential people who project interiority onto machines that don’t have it, while denying it to human beings who do.”
@68 Teresa Peschel
Unfortunately, lots of self-centered people on the Internet use “NPC” to refer to the lowest common denominator masses, especially those who disagree with them politically.
Re turning the other cheek, I see that as not responding to another person’s comments if I don’t want to. The nasty part of me does this because I know it annoys the daylights out of the insulter/attacker. The more civil part of me does it because I honestly see no point in having a discussion/argument when someone is really revved up.
J, it’s anything but a non sequitur — it’s a way to avoid acting like Dorx.
Scotty, granted, but since I was writing an essay and not a book I focused on the most relevant archetype.
Clay, it’s a valid point!
William, okay, but perhaps you can explain how this is relevant to the post.
Vegan, I’ll doubtless schedule something once I get settled. Stay tuned.
Mary, I know. I haven’t stopped grieving for my son, and it’s been thirty-five years since he died. That said, life goes on, and I don’t plan on spending the rest of my life moping. I think you’re right, as it happens, that Luciferic pride is involved in all this.
Earthworm, this is why the Gnostics used to divide our species into three categories — those who naturally look within, those who can learn to look within, and those who aren’t going to look within no matter what. The last is far and away the largest category.
Franklin, “shadow” is a complex symbol, and Jung used it in an idiosyncratic way. There’s certainly room to use it in other ways.
Anselmo, granted. Once bureaucracy sets in, humanity fades out.
Aurelien, ah, the rational actor hypothesis. I find it unconvincing, because the role of the irrational in human behavior, it seems to me, is far too easily observed to dismiss out of hand using the kind of ad hoc hypotheses you’ve deployed here. Still, your mileage may vary, of course.
Katherine, I was once billed for medical care I didn’t receive. The situation went on for months, until I contacted the media and the hospital in question got five minutes of horrible publicity on the evening news. Things cleared up promptly thereafter. That is to say, your stepdaughter is a smart kid.
Walt, of course. No actual woman can ever be as sexy as the anima archetype, and no enemy is ever as nefarious as the Shadow.
Brenainn, archetype possession is far more lethal than archetype projection, and yeah, it deserves discussion one of these days.
Nachtgurke, that’s a good point. Our concept of process is, I think, profoundly impoverished.
Nigel, normally, I do avoid it. In this case, however, it was helpful.
Tom, ha! A case could be made.
Hosea, it’s still happening and it’ll still be in Providence. I’ll catch the train up. I don’t happen to have the URL handy right now; maybe Peter can repost it.
Alan, if there were simple ways to do this, life would be much easier! Jung’s advice was to look for rage. What makes you angry in other people is normally something you’re ashamed of in yourself.
This touches on one of the reasons why I enjoy doing business in the small town in Japan that I call home. As background, the famous merchants of Omi (https://visit-omi.com/people/article/omi-merchants) held that any business deal should be good in three ways: good for the seller, good for the buyer, and good for society. Which is not to say that is the norm in Japan, but a lot of people are at least familiar with the concept.
Another important aspect is that business transactions are built on personal relationships. To illustrate, I spent most of last summer renovating a house, which involved having various contractors come to do things for me. Here in Japan, in such situations, it is customary for the homeowner to serve tea and biscuits to the workers at ten and three. I like that custom because it gives an opportunity for us to get to know each other. For example, I discovered that my roofer, who was introduced by another guy I know, is an interesting person who used to teach at a local trade school, and that the young man who works with him is his son. A result of those conversations is that he’s no longer just a machine who does work in exchange for money.
Similar interactions happen all over the place. The famous Japanese drinking culture, although on the wane, is all about getting to know people. I have deals worked out with local shops, most of which were not sealed until we sat down and chatted over drinks. The merchants of Omi often come up in such conversations. We want to make sure that we are both satisfied, the customers are satisfied, and others in the neighborhood are not inconvenienced.
That also highlights, for me, one of the reasons why I am dissatisfied with a consulting job that I did recently. Big companies were involved. I came in, did the work, and got paid handsomely for it. By some measures, it was a great success. However, most of the people there were unresponsive to my attempts to get to know them personally. I don’t think I would do it again, no matter how much money was on the table.
Mary #16, I got a wonderful letter like that from an electric company too! Northers States Power, “NSP” sent me a letter of recommendation once when I moved from a tiny apartment in the 1980s. It thanked me for always paying my bill on time, and said that I was a “trustworthy and responsible customer”! I used it to get my next apartment, and I think I used it to get a job, too.
JMG, I second C.M. Mayo’s recommendation (#54) of Dumbarton Oaks: a lovely oasis/garden in the heart of Georgetown: https://www.doaks.org/ (best to visit in spring/summer). It includes a collection of pre-Columbian and Byzantine art. The Freer Gallery is DC (Asian art) was another of my favorite places when I lived in the area. I moved to the desert Southwest decades ago and don’t miss the DC humidity, but there’s never any shortage of music/art/theater/opera in the DC area.
Speaking of big corporations treating customers as the enemy, I heard something recently about the big box store that everybody loves to hate. Apparently, they have a rather large revenue stream from shaking people down for money.
The first step of the scam is for you to go there and buy something at the self-checkout. Later, they will accuse you of stealing from them, saying that they have surveillance videos and other evidence of the crime, and get a court to issue a warrant for your arrest. Before the case goes to trial, they will offer to drop the charges if you pay them a few hundred dollars in damages.
If you decide to fight it in court because you didn’t steal anything, the case will be summarily decided in your favor when the prosecution fails to show up. Corporate isn’t going to pay a lawyer to go to court to collect a few hundred bucks. They are hoping that you will make the same choice, and decide that it is better to cave and pay the money instead of spending time and money trying to defend yourself in court.
This is, of course, extortion, plain and simple. I imagine that nobody at corporate has stopped to think about the long term effects on their customer base. I would guess that there is a growing number of people who, having been through this wringer, would not shop at that store again if their lives depended on it.
And that is exactly why Sauron lost.
“Of course my enemies think exactly like I do, and will try to use the Ring to usurp my evil empire from me!”
It never entered his otherwise extremely capable mind that his enemies would seek to destroy the ring, dismantle the empire, and put no one in Sauron’s empty throne.
In regard to chess and go being intelligent, those games are state machines. The pieces move one at a time in limited ways. Every position can be cataloged. The possible moves in any position are also limited.
All the computer has to do is plot the possible moves say ten moves ahead and choose the optimum by weighting the outcomes.
Now the number of possible moves are very large and it took awhile to get the computer resources and programs to make it work but it’s now just brute force calculation. For what it’s worth the chess programs from 25 years ago could beat me, and the Go program I found on a rescued Macintosh SE of 1987 vintage also beats me largely because I don’t understand Go.
If the computer can calculate outcomes further ahead than you can it will win.
That principle also applies to Worms Armageddon where the computer can actually calculate trajectories in changing wind speeds and so it misses much less in a bazooka fight. Only favorable terrain and careful use of exploding sheep could give the human player a chance.
Greetings JMG,
Congratulations on your move and welcome to the DMV!
I moved 16 years ago after pretty much flipping a coin between here and an Ecovillage in Missouri, “and it has made all the difference.”
Excited for you!
To Zachary (post #93),
That is an insightful observation about the sudden and growing use of the word “individual” instead of “person”.
I have noticed this as well, and also the extremely cold and impersonal use of the words “male” and “female” for “man” and “woman”, particularly in news reports. As if the reporter or editor is not sure of the species of being in question. This, again, was never heard until relatively recently.
Also, in this same vein of the depersonalizing of people, for some years now I have noticed, both in print and in speech, people using the word “that” in reference to a person, in contrast to the grammatically proper “who” or “whom”. For example: “The man that came by yesterday”, as opposed to “The man WHO came by yesterday”. This (incorrect) usage in particular really grates on my ears, or maybe it grates more so on my sensibilities, as to my mind using the word “that” to refer to a person explicitly depersonalizes and objectifies the person being referred to, as if they were just any old inanimate object.
@zarcayce
Logic is powerful but it does have limits. That’s perhaps not the only choice they could’ve made to solve a food scarcity problem, and this is where I’d like to bring out the Maximum A**hole Principle. Where given a set of choices, always the choose whatever will make you become the Maximum A**hole. Or, make the choice that will cause the most misery, given whatever other constraints exist.
And I think you will find, that they were indeed, aiming to maximize misery. Because they enjoyed it. But they are not that special. Every corporation and government whether democratic or autocratic does the same thing too. It’s a feature of any and every bureaucracy.
Logic, is but a servant, it is never the master. Logic is just the suspension, it is never the motor. Irrational things propel us all.
The Gospels are full of utterances by Jesus that, on the surface, seem completely impractical: Give to all who ask. Ask in prayer for the mountain to go away, and it will. Stuff like that. Church tradition recognizes that prudence is a virtue, and that while a certain amount of charity (consistent with one’s means, and in accordance with one’s best judgement) is commanded, only a few saints are called upon to “give all you have to the poor” or anything like that. Certainly the ladies should not “give to all who ask”!
“Turning the other cheek” may be bad advice on the schoolyard, but it is often great advice in a marriage. (I’m assuming a more or less normal relationship here, not anything abusive.) When my wife scolds me (often with cause), I can either lash back and escalate the argument, or keep my mouth shut / respond in a more measured way. (Perhaps she makes the same calculation.) I’m not saying to be a total doormat, but it’s like lifting weights–we can always try being 10 or 15 percent kinder and more patient. Over time, the attitude grows, like a living thing.
Now imagine being in a crowd of annoying people. Rather than say to yourself “If only I had peace and quiet, then I would be able to practice,” instead say “Now is the time to practice,” and respond to annoyances with positive thoughts rather than negative ones. When you start smiling at annoyances, then you’re getting somewhere. This is what the Dalai Lama means when he says “My enemy is my greatest teacher.”
Here endeth the lesson, vade in pacem.
In possibly Shadow-related Christianity news, did everybody see Kanye West’s apology for his recent behavior? *That song* is actually quite moving–the lyrics allude to him not being able to talk to his kids anymore (for entirely understandable reasons, but still).
“William, okay, but perhaps you can explain how this is relevant to the post”.
Tim Walz sent me a text today, asking for money. I am perhaps over-emotional, having lived in Minneapolis twenty years, this my home state. I thought my comment an example of what happens when an elite of a State begin to suggest anyone who questions them are fascist nazis, while they act as such.
But I also recognize the perils of delving into the political, which I am wrestlings with.
Fans of the X-Men will recall that–in a world where superpowered “mutants” are routinely being born, inspiring a certain amount of public fear–Prof. Xavier holds out hope that “humans” and mutants can live together in peace, while his adversary Magneto (Malcolm X to Xavier’s MLK) believes genocidal conflict to be inevitable, and leads something called….(drum roll)….the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. But why choose such a name? The “Earth X” comic book series explained that Magneto did so in order to subconsciously manipulate Xavier into identifying his own group (the X-Men) with “good.” Because the worst abuses are always committed by people who believe themselves to be acting for good. Anyway, I thought the idea was nifty, even if the whole premise is a bit ridiculous. (Dumb names are not rare in these comics–e.g. Xavier is the founder of “Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters.”
Regarding wifi avoidance: This is where a broadband RF meter comes in handy. Wifi hotspots are just that: hotspots. Having wifi in your home creates a similar exposure. It makes your home a hotspot. Living in an apartment building where other tenants have wifi: Well, that’s where having the meter would be very informative. I have a “moderate” exposure in my house, where I use ethernet cables to connect my devices. The RF exposure in my house comes mostly from a cell tower about 1/2 mile away. I know that because when the tower was shut down for maintenance a year or two ago the RF reading in my house dropped to “slight.” If I enter a neighbor’s house where there is a wifi router, it goes up to “high” to “extreme.” Wifi avoidance is difficult, almost impossible these days, especially in an urban setting. Another thing the meter has shown me is that trees, when they are leafed out, create a fair amount of attenuation. As I type this I have the meter turned on and I don’t like what I’m seeing. I’m now getting readings of 10-20 microwatts/square meter which is in the “high” range; it used to be about 1-5 microwatts. My apologies if this is a little off topic, but “the door was opened.”
“Every accusation is really a confession of their own wrong doing.” I’ve heard that one repeatedly over that last few years.
I’ve been enjoying those “AI” generated Science Fiction stories on YouTube recently. Your statement that these “AI” things are a jumped up version of autocorrect seems very apropos. I frequently find myself laughing at the mispronunciation of words in these stories, and the sometimes obvious misspellings.
Zachary @ 93, I hadn’t noticed that excessive use of the word ‘individual’. I am astonished that people online are willing to pronounce ANY five syllable word.
JMG, with respect to the capital and occult lodges, I suppose you are aware that the alphabet agencies have been known to take an unhealthy interest?
polecat @ 96, Do I correctly understand you to say that a nurse was killing patients? If so, why is the person not in custody? Do you perhaps have a link to reporting of whatever did happen?
At this page is the full list of all of the requests for prayer that have recently appeared at ecosophia.net and ecosophia.dreamwidth.org, as well as in the comments of the prayer list posts (printable version here, current to 12/29). Please feel free to add any or all of the requests to your own prayers.
If I missed anybody, or if you would like to add a prayer request for yourself or anyone who has given you consent (or for whom a relevant person holds power of consent) to the list, please feel free to leave a comment below.
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This week I would like to bring special attention to the following prayer requests, selected from the fuller list.
May Larry Mulford, who has entered hospice after a year battling with pancreatic cancer, pass in the smoothest possible manner, and may his wife be enveloped in our love.
May Marko have the strength to seize the opportunities.
May Luke Z and his house, whose furnace has problems that can’t be fixed until after the current severe weather ends, be blessed and kept safe until the cold subside.
May Pierre’s young daughter, Athena, be healed from her fatigue and its root causes in ways that are easy, natural, and as holistic as possible.
May Bob Ralston (aka Rasty Bob), who is in hospice care in Buckeye AZ, and who just lost his wife Leslie Fish, be blessed and find relief from his pain and discomfort; may Bob’s heart remain strong.
May Leslie Fish, wife of Bob Ralston, who passed away in early December, be blessed and make a peaceful transition to her next existence.
May Corey Benton, who passed away on 12/10, be blessed and make a peaceful transition to his next destination.
May Satoko L in Kyoto, who is recovering at home after weeks of hospitalization for Acute Hepatitis while in a state of immunodeficiency, continue to heal quickly and safely, and return to full vitality.
May 5 year old Max be blessed and protected during his parents’ contentious divorce; may events work out in a manner most conducive to Max’s healthy development over the long term.
May Lydia G. of Geauga County, Ohio heal and recover from prolonged health issues.
May both Monika and the child she is pregnant with both be blessed with good health and a safe delivery.
May Mary’s sister have her auto-immune conditions sent into remission, may her eyes remain healthy, and may she heal in body, mind, and spirit.
May the abcess in JRuss’s left armpit heal quickly.
May Brother Kornhoer’s son Travis’s left ureter be restored to full function, may his body have the strength to fight off infections, may his kidneys strengthen, and may his empty nose syndrome abate, so that he may have a full and healthy life ahead of him.
May HippieVikings’s baby HV, who was born safely but has had some breathing concerns, be filled with good health and strength.
May Trubujah’s best friend Pat’s teenage daughter Devin, who has a mysterious condition which doctors are so far baffled by necessitating that she remain in a wheelchair, be healed of her condition; may the underlying cause come to light so that treatment may begin.
May Kevin’s sister Cynthia be cured of the hallucinations and delusions that have afflicted her, and freed from emotional distress. May she be safely healed of the physical condition that has provoked her emotions; and may she be healed of the spiritual condition that brings her to be so unsettled by it. May she come to feel calm and secure in her physical body, regardless of its level of health.
May Frank R. Hartman, who lost his house in the Altadena fire, and all who have been affected by the larger conflagration be blessed and healed.
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Guidelines for how long prayer requests stay on the list, how to word requests, how to be added to the weekly email list, how to improve the chances of your prayer being answered, and several other common questions and issues, are to be found at the Ecosophia Prayer List FAQ.
If there are any among you who might wish to join me in a bit of astrological timing, I pray each week for the health of all those with health problems on the list on the astrological hour of the Sun on Sundays, bearing in mind the Sun’s rulerships of heart, brain, and vital energies. If this appeals to you, I invite you to join me.
@ Candace Duncan #6
I’m not exactly sure where you’re coming from, but here are a couple of Christian perspectives—one male, one female—that I think might lead you to some insights into your conundrum:
https://x.com/LostMyHats/status/1885583681470808102
https://www.amazon.com/Toxic-Empathy-Progressives-Christian-Compassion/dp/0593541944?tag=ustxtadsp-20
I notice that is walking distance to the National Archives… It is a neat place. did that factor into your calculations?
> Dr. C, I hope the meeting went well.
Thanks, and I’m happy to report that it did. We divvied up the work before us into whatever each of us is best at or enjoy the most, in such a way as to not step on each others’ toes, and off we went. Completely non-contentious, and at least for once I had my head on straight.
Dear Brother Greer,
I have fond memories of visiting the House of the Temple for a day as a teenage Job’s Daughter. I hope you have time to enjoy it in fullness. It is my second strongest memory of that trip to DC, some thirty years later. (First strongest being the Air and Space Museum, where I got to see the Enola Gay and an Apollo capsule.)
Candace, I recollect that there is very important historical context around this direction. I don’t have the references, but my recollection is that one had different ways of striking an inferior or an equal, and that turning the other cheek required that to keep hitting you the striker had to hit you as an equal. I suspect your priest, or someone in your church, will have the actual historical references available. My memory is that it was absolutely illegal to hit with the left hand, as that hand was used for post toilet clensing. If one struck with the palm of the right hand, it was an equal, if one struck with the back of the right hand, it was an inferior, but I don’t have a reference. So ‘turning the other cheek’ was a deliberate silent claim of equality with the striker. A provacation, if you will. I’m trying to think what an equivalent action in our far more egalitarian modern Western cultures would be: doing your own research, perhaps, rather than following what the media says?
In regards to machines, anyone who thinks they don’t really have their own internal existances has never dealt with an automobile or a printer. I can often cajole an automobile into continuing to work by speaking kindly and approvingly of it, and I can almost always threaten a printer into function. Why one requires kindness and the other cruelty is a mystery, but my experience is that printers require threats and vehicles require praise, and both ignore or even rebel against what works for the other! Perhpas this is why I am fairly bad at being a modern . . .
Of general interest on the subject of politics, with the advent of location showing on X, the American right wing has discovered that many supposed American accounts are actually not at all American, and has been having a great deal of amusement from this. “All is lost for the midterms if the president does not crack down immediately? I see you are connecting from (insert country), would you like to explain why you are expressing this opinion on our politics?” I hope the American left wing is doing likewise: I can see a great many places and persons who would profit from provoking conflict in the USA and would be happy to pay others to help them so do. Of course VPNs exist, but calming the terminally online by discounting the extreme rhetoric purveyers is worthwhile. And also, it’s funny.
Hello all,
I’m a long time reader but havent really commented. On the subject of moving, I was wondering what criteria people use to decide? More specifically how much weighting given to “hard-headed” numbers over “vibes”?
I’m a Brit but I live in Hong Kong. I’m considering moving back to South-west England.
Madness from a tax/career/financial perspective but I have felt “drawn” home for a while now!
I’m wondering if heeding the vibes will turn out to be the more sensible option….
Hello Candace @ 6, and JMG. I’m a recent convert to Orthodox Christianity myself. I’ve read a fair amount of Orthodox and adjacent literature, and have had regular spoken instruction. There is substantial opinion that “Turn the other cheek” is a literal translation of an idiom from Aramaic, the language Jesus spoke, to Greek. The idiom basically means: don’t be vengeful or aggressive. It is not a command to be a doormat or a victim.
“Love your neighbor” similarly is not an injunction to letting someone get away with wronging you. It can very well mean ensuring justice or appropriate consequences for bad behavior. Love is not a sentiment. Among other things, it is action that encourages appropriate, if not salvific, behavior in others. Spare the rod, spoil the sinner as it were.
I have no conflicts about maintaining my boundaries, safety or security, or ethically advancing my legitimate interests; and that is the prevailing stance in my church. In fact my priest happens to be an NRA-certified shooting instructor, and endorses firearms for defending home, self and family.
I hope this helps a little.
—Lunar Apprentice
“There are plenty of ways we can talk about evil. One that hasn’t gotten as much attention as it may deserve is to see it as a denial of otherness. ”
Good luck to you with the rest of your move JMG.
Regarding the bit quoted there, I’ve recently discovered a Korean-born German philosopher named Byung-Chul Han who has achieved some minor celebrity due to his short books.
The domination of narcissism by what he terms the “inferno of the Same”, which denies the Other, is one of his recurring themes. I mention him because this thread had me nodding along with Han’s work on my mind. He would make an interesting dialog partner for you.
I’ve been puzzled since the last years ago by the apparent gap between USA and my country political attitudes. It’s true US and Europe share the tensioned and polarized politics (ahem) in the form
of an apparent ugly bipartisan Spectacle (made of two competing Spectacles), but outside the few haters/trolls who infest social media, and the political hooligans who believe their biased MSM, I think most of Spaniards don’t participate in the current and mad national politics anymore, or at least they’ve got milder ideas than media tries to make believe them. For example, my family, friends and girlfriend don’t share the same ideology as I have it, and indeed we live together in peace without having serious arguments. Are the American “normal” people more hypnotized by the political Spectacle than the Spaniard? Or is it more like here in the real world?(maybe I’m biased by my European view of it).
Well, John, good luck with your new home and activities relatively near to Washington “swamp”.
“The Machine”:
In the Commie totalitarian countries it’s very clear the central economic planification by the One Party Regime was the subterfuge to the Bureaucratic State for eating alive the whole society. Orthodoxal conservative economists love to point it to support we live in a free markets and democratic systems, which it’s true…to sone extent. In a lesser way, governments bureaucracies go on existing in democracies, and “free markets” mean usually in real world that some big corporations are having the “lion part”. Ironically, within corporations you’ll find their correlatives bureaucracies to serve their elites.
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“Turn the other cheek”:
I’ve read an essay by a Dutch historian named Bregman, its title in the Spanish translation is “Dignos de ser humanos”. I don’t share every of his Rousseaunian view, but he tells a real story which happened years ago to a Latin origin social assistent. He was in the NY subway, when a young man with a knife robbed his wallet. Instead of scaring or upsetting himself, the robbed man talked softly to the robber, even offering him a coffee in a bar if he returned him his money. Incredible but true, the criminal agreed. And they finished in a bar having a friendly talk. OK, maybe he was a lucky man a bit crazy, so better we shouldn’t try it the same thing in such a situation. But I see sometimes the evil can be superated by a good answer, not returning another evil.
About our concept of process: From my own observation I’d conclude that in most cases processes are considered to be linear (I guess there was a discussion on “linear thinking” a while back on this blog). The next step of complexity that you encounter rather often are processes that are modeled in a non-linear fashion, which means they are still one-dimensional, but are inhomogeneous “along the line”. Processes that are multi-dimensional and have different ways to reach a desired goal? Yes, we might find that but less often. But non-linear, multi-dimensional and non-deterministic processes? I’d consider such processes showing signs of inherent life. Yet even living things are to be determined and linear. If you see a tray of industrial grade bell peppers in the grocery store you can get an idea of what I mean. Simple processes creating a predictable result, but the plant itself isn’t capable of living without significant external aid and in many cases not even capable of reproducing. One could say, very close to death.
As a side note, one topic that shows up rather frequently here and especially on Magic Mondays is the “subnatural realm”. You said that you (or the lore) consider “quantum objects” to probably be part of the subnatural realm. What always intrigues me is that many of the characteristics that I’d ascribe to a living being and also to the effects of magical workings – non-linearity, multi-dimensional, non-deterministic, non-local – are displayed by quantum objects in a very pure fashion. Of course, there is something missing, we could probably call it “will”? Maybe quantum objects are not subnatural (which usually has a negative connotation) but in fact just very neutral building blocks. In the imagery of the CosDoc I could imagine “non-neutral” building blocks, simple but full of life and inherent will, that “duked it” out during the time of past swarms. Once the work was done, the form ascended and the material remained, “dead” if you will, but to be used to form more complex life by subsequent swarms. Thinking in this way, fixation on “the machine” is death-oriented, while using machines (or processes, or, well, intelligence) for purposes that go beyond dominating matter are oriented towards life.
Cheers,
Nachtgurke
Ah and about “intelligence” – some teachers say that you don’t need to be intelligent for spiritual achievement. To me this did not make sense for a long time. The experiences of the early 20s of this century taught me otherwise in a practical way. For me, the “holy trinity” of science (the method, not the church) consists of observation, logic and honesty. If your reasoning is flawed, you may still get along, albeit more slowly, if you handle your observations honestly. But if you’re not honest, the road is truly blocked.
Cheers,
Nachtgurke
@ Aldarion # 83
If you will receive them, my thanks, for kindly pointing out that I was behaving like a jerk. 🙂
It may not be realistic for me to promise never to do so again, but if I’m lucky, I will never be far from someone willing to say so. 😉
JMG: “this is why the Gnostics used to divide our species into three categories — those who naturally look within, those who can learn to look within, and those who aren’t going to look within no matter what. The last is far and away the largest category.”
Interesting – I like this Sufi version too:
“There are four different classes of men who harmonize with each other in accordance with their different states of evolution: angelic, human, animal, and devilish.
“The angelic seeks for heaven, and the human being struggles along in the world; the man with animal propensities revels in his earthly pleasures, while the devilish man is engaged in creating mischief, thereby making a hell for himself and for others. Man after his human evolution becomes angelic, and through his development in animality arrives at the stage of devil.”
JMG: “The last is far and away the largest category.”
Perhaps these are more than distinct categories and are like amorphous Venn spheres of oceanic currents. As consciousness expands, it becomes possible to move in different flows but to invert your title, a wider scope of movement does not remove the option to do something stupid that has capacity for petty or greater evil.
Its like us as consciousness using an animal body – as long as we’re in the animal body there is the potential for animalistic behaviour – throw in personality and budding mental sheath and the sky is the limit of stupidity and evil!
Divided by common language?
It’s probably just me but your description puzzled me initially. I can fathom what you mean, but does ‘othering’ have different connotations in American English?
“There are plenty of ways we can talk about evil. One that hasn’t gotten as much attention as it may deserve is to see it as a denial of otherness. People mistreat other people when they stop seeing other people as genuine others, and reduce them to arbitrary images in their own minds.”
I take it that your meaning is that a ‘genuine other’ is a being that is not me? Still a being in the form of consciousness using a meat body whether biped, bird or other creature embodied or not.
When I first came across this concept it was explained that ‘othering’ is a method of separating and categorising. That ‘othering’ is an action used to set one ‘above’ the being or thing being looked at, usually as a form of cognitive origami that will then allow ‘the othered’ to be used and abused.
‘Othering’ is what is done to get one set of people to turn against another set of people by reducing or denying their ‘beingness’, and if you can get people to see ‘beings’ as less or ‘others’, it creates the mindstate of stupidity that can be used as a tool of evil, petty or great.
As I say, it’s probably just me, but when I’ve come across the idea of someone being ‘other’ it’s usually as a precursor to treating them badly or killing them.
i.e. if someone is ‘other’, then they are not like ‘us’.
Like the Ukrainians referring to Russians as Orcs and whatever the Russians insultingly call the Ukrainians – othering reduces each side to things/objects.
Or the covid years where the othering was something to behold [granny killer] and we came to a hair’s breadth of folk being rounded-up because their refusal to take experimental drugs was demonised and the othering made it fine to exclude/punish the ‘evil’ refuseniks.
I saw it suggested that the only reason that particular ‘othering’ demonisation did not continue was that the Russians engaged in Ukraine in 2022 and rather than divide and conquer at home, a decision was made to revert to the ‘othering’ of the Russians. Whatever.
I certainly see what you are saying, but just wanted to ask if this is one of those cases of being divided by a common language!?
If you don’t mind it, I’d like to add to my last comment about bureaucratic Machine, that indeed, between Commie centralized dictatorships and “democratic” free market Machines, I hadn’t forgotten a real “middle way” real example: the EU we the Europeans, are “enjoying” nowadays. Brussels elite has the worst of Communism (a non elected ruthless and reckless bureaucracy) and the worst of “free market”(Capitalist corporations lobbies and think tanks alike influencing the elite decisions).
All the best to you in your new home, JMG! Your essay explains something I’m currently dealing with. I work in corporate America for a large manufacturer. My team of two handles regulatory compliance. I have spent years building relationships at the various third-party agencies, and if there are questions, I can pick up the phone and have a reasonable chance of someone seeing my number and answering even when they’re busy. The downside of my job is that timelines run in weeks and months. Once paperwork leaves my desk, it’s in the hands of a third party over whose workflow I have little influence and no control. A huge development project (with poor planning and even worse execution at the top of the ladder) highlighted this downside last year, and as of January 1 I have been assigned to a different group. The plan, as far as I can tell, is to turn me into a vintage silk scarf-wearing LLM that generates paperwork at ever-increasing speeds. Everything I’ve been doing is wrong. “Building relationships” has been relabeled “giving too much information to the enemy.” I’ve been too lenient and respectful. Every timeline is completely unacceptable, and my new overlords will fix that. My new manager keeps saying “It’s not personal. You are seen as doing a great job.” It’s crazymaking. But if I am a machine to the VPs making these decisions, and all the people I deal with are machines, it begins to make sense. They wish to uninstall my critical thinking module and install an obey orders module. They seem to have enough brains to know they can’t do that to machines they don’t pay, so withholding critical information is the only path open to them. I’ve got some serious decisions ahead of me.
And yet I can see the value in employing the term ‘genuine other’ since it allows for additional scope beyond ‘us’ / ‘not us’ because it opens up the category in order to give space to the idea that ‘other’ can be more than what the world’s propagandists say, and could help us escape from the simplistic into the realms of the more complex.
Obviously there is a difference between ‘thing [other]’ and ‘action [othering] and I like the idea that ‘genuine other’ might be used to mean unknown but worthy of respect as an expression of consciousness, even if it becomes apparent that the expression is not a thing of beauty but an evil that can be used as a thrust block.
@Alan #50, my most important source for noticing my projections are some of my friends including my partner.
I find it a great blessing that I found a few people with whom I can share freely what I feel and see. And they share freely too, including what they see about me. Sharing thoughts does not do much for me in this respect but sharing what I feel emotionally and in my body is invaluable. It often feels like burning inside, and many times I fell for the pull of some thought insisting “I’M RIGHT!!!!” while later I could see that I was actually quite wrong. It always hurts and it’s an acquired taste but I know my heart was longing for authenticity for so many long, long, lonely years (decades) that it happily pays the price.
Good to be overlooking the swamp… I am sure your rituals and workings will help improve the astral state of things.
Love how you said it’s been a few lives since you’ve lived in the orbit of an imperial capital. Now right inside the 495 loop! I’ve been reading the works of, a biography of, Benton MacKaye… being in D.C. was very good for his trajectory. He spent a lot of time at the Smithsonian… and perhaps you’ll be able to visit the Library of Congress for some recherché research.
Now you are in a position to be able to whisper things into the ears of politicians potentially, like the wizards of old.
D.C. was also the birthplace of hardcore punk in the bands Bad Brains, Teen Idles, Minor Threat, Rites of Spring…
…and speaking of Rites of Spring, who are credited with the birth of the Emo genre, I have a new article up that touches on them: Saturn’s Bards: Depressive Emo Lyricism and Melancholy Romantic Poetry… it’s my way of throwing my hat in the ring with regards to the “Romantic Revival” being discussed heavily on substack by the Romanticon group of writers, Ted Gioia and others.
https://www.sothismedias.com/home/saturns-bards-depressive-emo-lyricism-melancholy-romantic-poetry
JMG:
Neptunesdolphins, rage is a defensive mechanism to keep people from noticing their own evil. As for DC, the building in Alexandria is the George Washington Masonic Memorial; I’ve been there before, but will doubtless visit it again.
—
Me: I know the person who did the weather spell against ICE in Minn. She actually lives near you now. Anyway, I had to end contact with her and others after they wished Trump dead of Covid. I was aghast at the evil of actively wishing death on another person. I ended contact with all of these “DC Divas” as I called them. Now they would be AWFULS – Affluent (even though they all cried poverty) White (all of them) Feminists (They hate men with a purple passion) Urban (suburban actually) Liberals (very Progressive to the point of emotional blackmail). They are also of a certain age – 55 and older.
Now I think about their rage and their activities – they were / are stupid in their magic making. Their hatred of Trump is so great, I believe they have become evil. And stupid. At least in how they see ICE and all that. About that magic spell, I can’t imagine anyone believing that ICE only operates in warm climates! It is like saying the Coast Guard only rescues boaters in Florida.
The emotional blackmail tipped me off as to how they were sliding into evil. I took it to mean that they simply would not allow anyone to be different from them. And slipped into being passive aggressive (another AWFUL trait).
Sorry about misnaming the Masonic Temple. It is at the highest point in its area and used to allow for sledding. I see it on the Metro as I go to Franconia.
I wonder if the distortion imposed by reality on projection is part of the process by which, in Toynbee’s terms, a society’s creative minority stagnates into a dominant minority. It’d make sense to me; as the leaders get overconfident in their success and set in their ways, it’d become far easier and less risky (in the short term) for them to see the world the way they want to see it, instead of the way it actually is. Thus, they end up fitting old solutions to new problems under the delusion that they’re still dealing with the old problems.
Projecting the machine as an archetype… very interesting. Kingsnorth’s recent book Against the Machine is certainly making the rounds on the internet. I haven’t read it yet, but its circulating like mad, for a book of its kind, out of the library. I think that bodes well for people wanting to get out from under the projector machine. People are certainly getting tired of the machine. The book is also either getting praised, or getting nearly burned or denounced anyway. Whatever else one may think of Kingsnorth and his work, it certainly seems he touched a live wire for a lot of people.
Starting with my disclaimer – I tend to be an active aggregator of information that I work with internally, more than a generator of unique content, so mostly I have some links that follow my recent info-forays to share with you because of how they relate to the analogy used in this post, the ” fascinating display of self-defeating behavior… that prevents companies from noticing how they’re damaging themselves” on their way to NPC-ing all of us in their rush to manifest the stupid-evil now quite popular on a societal level.
First is the article I’m still finishing up reading, but that makes clear early on that there was a starting point to when the digital world became increasingly awful due to tech companies’ ravening delight at screwing us all over. Corey Docterow details that historical moment here: https://pluralistic.net/2026/01/29/post-american-canada/#ottawa. (undruidly language embedded in his thesis term and now and then found throughout)
Then, there’s an unfortunately lengthy, but still worth at least a skim, article on the fact that the pain inflicted on us all via the online world is absolutely intentional. That it’s a business model that’s not self-defeating, and is NOT causing corporations to “damage themselves”: https://www.wheresyoured.at/never-forgive-them/. Instead, it’s damaging us and making us inured to the theft of our time, attention, goodwill, and willingness to put effort into anything, really.
Zitron doesn’t go so far as to say much beyond the cause being “growth mentality” but this third article moves the discussion beyond “just” economic growth and into the landscape of control at frankly scary levels and in service of war. Whatever-generation-warfare we’re witnessing form around us is an utterly new territory, where digital surveillance (including in analog life with cameras and tracking and who knows what else) allows minute-by-minute shifting of who’s targeting and for what reasons: https://www.zig.art/p/my-final-message-before-im-on-an
That author’s other article, https://www.zig.art/p/the-guernica-of-ai-c4b, hones in on the similarity of what’s happening now to the razing of Guernica – certainly an egregious NPC-ing in service of power and control.
I’m looking forward to the upcoming post on “downward mobility” as freedom – and personally looking at methods of surviving and thriving while having nearly no income with which to be beholden to the Machine , conceiving of ways to live Luddite v.2026, or James C. Scott’s “Weapons of the Weak” tweaked for culture-jamming, sleeper-cell free-men. I’m not there yet – still needing an income and money and industrial culture, and still connected to the digital umbilicus… but the time for seedplanting is upon us. And yes, it does begin with internal work.
Mary Bennet # 117 – Not exactly .. she evidently had posted a video online urging people (including other nurses..) to literally inject pharma chems into ICE agents – one of which to induce breathing cessation to said patient – whilst in hospital care, as well as subterfuge by female charm, the result again to cause dispution and harm, however possible. Evidently, she’s since been fired from her position, and is now under investigation. Such info has been posted on Zerohedge and RUMBLE – complete with her rather disturbing ‘advice’.
@ Siliconguy #108
“Only favorable terrain and careful use of exploding sheep could give the human player a chance.”
Oh, my! Lol! 🙂
For the sake of injecting a bit of reality into this scenario, 😉 it behooves me to point out that sheep (mostly) do not explode unless they have been quite dead, and lying exposed out in the open under a hot sun for a brave while…
As a former telco employee I have not seen an evil attitude towards customers. If anything, a telco sometimes forgets customers exist. They would prefer billing without delivering any service at all.
When you do something unusual, like when you wrote “I slogged patiently through the process”, you end up as an exception. This was perhaps handled by stopping the billing process, which is the only way to be sure you won’t get invoiced again, and then some data consistency tooling insures that no more service is delivered. I’m sure this can happen without evil intent.
Pay attention to the warning signs that hint you are slogging patiently into no man’s land. The more uniquely you behave, the less likely your change will be handled correctly. It’s best to cancel like everyone else. What is the convention in Rhode Island? Perhaps movers get the new inhabitant of their old place to take over the subscription?
“Dorx”
😀
The more puerile part of me wants to know if the part where “dork” and “cock” are both at some times and in some places, slang words for the same impolite-to-mention male appendage, is pure coincidence.
Welcome back, JMG, and congratulations on the relocation! As for this week’s post, this seems like a straightforward case of an I–It relationship: the customer reduced to a procedural object, stripped of interiority, and then punished when it refuses to behave like a compliant machine.
Chauquin @ 126, in the US, the Civil War never ended. Legal segregation, the infamous “Jim Crow” laws succeeded slavery, and those laws were accompanied by actual terrorism deployed against (mostly) persons of color. Wall Street and business interests abetted this state of affairs, in order to prevent cooperation and alliance between white and non-white workers. WS and allies financed BOTH the KKK AND the NAACP, among other organizations. Virtue signalling Democrats of today have conveniently forgotten the part their party played in this history.
A core segment, by no means all factions, of the right learned from this history that uncompromising stubbornness can get them what they want. (Such intransigent persons have their counterpoints in other movements, such as the clueless ideologues who cling to open borders migration is A Good Thing, in defiance of all sense and reason).
I can’t say how all this will end, Not well, I think. In particular, I don’t see Evangelical Christianity recovering respect or influence any decade soon. Many of us ordinary people, conducting our own lives as best we could, have for decades been subjected to holier than thou Evangelical rants about our wicked, immoral ways only to see these same pontificating poke noses give up their loyalty to a serial adulterer, three times married, 5 kids with 3 baby mamas, who is strongly suspected of far worse depravities. No, sorry, but the bare statement that, oh well, elites have always been depraved, is no excuse here. I wish I could say the same for the die hard Israel Lobby, but that faction is supported by money from overseas.
Candace #6
I am a catolic only by culture , and I can say that the comandement of to give the cheek to your offenders means that you must be humble and forgive the ofenses and to not hate any one, but you are obligued for to fight against the evil, following the example of the warrior monks: “meek like lambs and fierce like lions”
https://share.google/M6y1LaUma7uPgboEv
In this photo you’ll can see a group of “requetes” in the Spanish Civil War receiving the blessing from a military priest, probably after to take the comunión and before to attack to the enemy. They had to fight bravely but without hate their enemies.
Also, some good news from my corner of the world. The University of Cincinnati is tearing down it’s sole piece of brutalist architecture (still a few other questionable buildings on the campus).
https://www.uc.edu/news/articles/2025/04/uc-approves-remediation-and-demolition-of-crosley-tower.html
https://www.modernnati.com/single-post/building-a2-the-underappreciated-spectacle-of-crosley-tower
>Their hatred of Trump is so great
(I wonder if they realize he feeds off their hate)
William Hunter Duncan 113
If you don’t mind me asking, yhy does Tim Walz have your cell/mobile number?
As for me, if and when ANYONE asks for money as a cold-call, it doesn’t matter who it is, or how they got my cell/mobile number (even if it was me), I permanently block that party’s number. No second chances. I consider such a text message being from a greedy son-of-a-bee-ach, and is abusive.
Yet another party trying to get me to empty my bank account into theirs.
💨💨💸Northwind Grandma
Dane County, Wisconsin, USA
@ Patrick H. #100
Yes, of course. It’s such convenient shorthand to disparage people they don’t know, don’t want to know, and don’t want to admit might have value.
@alan #110: In English classes in Germany in the 1980s, we learned that “that” could refer both to persons and to objects. But I understand there is a nuance between using “who” and “that”.
I am not a big fan of Charles’ Williams’ metaphysical thrillers (I only enjoy his poetry), but his post brought to mind Descent into Hell. The character Wentworth creates a whole universe that consists only of himself and his own thoughts and feelings. This is of course the hell of the title of the book.
“In regards to machines, anyone who thinks they don’t really have their own internal existances has never dealt with an automobile or a printer. I can often cajole an automobile into continuing to work by speaking kindly and approvingly of it, and I can almost always threaten a printer into function. Why one requires kindness and the other cruelty is a mystery, but my experience is that printers require threats and vehicles require praise, and both ignore or even rebel against what works for the other! Perhpas this is why I am fairly bad at being a modern . . .”
I remember Kimberly Steele saying that she had to speak to her printers kindly to get them working again.
@Chuaqui (#126): asks about “the apparent gap between USA and my country political attitudes.”
One thing to keep in mind when thinking about the enormous gaps, real or illusory, between attitudes in the USA and those in Europe is that the vast majority of people who migrated from Europe to North America did so because they hated or feared the Europe that they knew, or despaired of its future. Transplanting Europe to the New World was the last thing that they wished to do.
Of course, they could not avoid taking much of their European heritage along with themselves to what was (or would eventually become) the United States But it was fear, hatred and/or despair of Europe that drove the settling of North America far more often than the simple economic opportunity offered by the New World. This was certainly true of my own immigrant ancestors: from England in the early 1600s, from Germany in the early 1700s, and from Denmark after that country’s defeat and dismemberment by the armies of Prussia and Austria in 1864.
JMG,
Since Woke Marxist types seem to “fall in love” with their image of the world, ie.., as a benign, nurturing, rainbow-festooned entity who just needs a few tweaks to turn it into a golden utopia without war, poverty, injustice, etc. – a vision that’s shattering by reality absolutely infuriates them – I’m wondering if this might not be a case of collective anima-projecting.
OTOH, since middle aged white women make up so much of the ranks of the Woke Marxists, maybe it’s an animus projection with the attendant need to express and control dogmatic opinions, etc.?
Thanks.
Well, after a very busy holiday season, plus various January events and uncooperative weather patterns, I might be able to join back in with discussions more often! I find I keep saying that, and then something happens to upend it. Let’s see if I can keep things on track this time.
JMG, congrats on a successful new move, though my first thought was “Wow, he’s moved right into the belly of the beast!” Now what my inquiring mind wants to know is: were you able to obtain a land-line copper-wire telephone service? That’s getting harder to do and more expensive to keep. My own service provider has notified me that while my present land-line service will continue,they won’t accept any changes or new orders plus will not transfer my plan to a new location. As I’ve complained about here a few times in the last year, it’s getting harder and harder to keep what you want and need, and resist what they want to sell you for their maximum profitability.
Joy Marie
@ Temporary Reality #141
In relation to the article you linked about high-tech surveillance and control products coming to a city near you (or, more likely, already here), it is certainly the case that for certain well-endowed buyers, “tested in Gaza” is a selling point.
One reason for the (apparent) decline of “customer service’ – especially in internet and telecom adjacent services – may be a confusion as to exactly *who* the customer is. If a company is not trying to woo you, it may be because they do not see you as the customer. Possibly, in their business model, you are the product, or the raw material being mined… or even worse, part of the waste stream…
@Justin Patrick Moore #149
Thank goodness. The best explanation I’ve ever heard for brutalist architecture — and much of modernist architecture generally — is that it was the result of architects of the era having untreated PTSD from the two world wars. It dulled their appreciation of fine details and ornamentations, and made them crave an unnatural level of simplicity and minimalism.
(Perhaps there’s a similar connection between the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and the sudden rush to stark minimalism in computer hardware and software design in the mid-2010’s.)
Brutalism in particular is a blight wherever it rears its hideous head, IMO, almost as if it’s trying to give everyone else PTSD. Thankfully it’s also a very stupid and unsustainable architecture: the bare concrete has to be reinforced with rebar to hold the building up, but the acidity of the concrete eventually corrodes the rebar and leads to collapse after a few decades, which is why a number of brutalist buildings have had to be demolished in past 20 years.
The only brutalist building I wish could have been salvaged instead of demolished is the Third Church of Christ, Scientist in D.C.:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Church_of_Christ,_Scientist_(Washington,_D.C.)
It was so awful it’s actually funny, the absolute antithesis of what a church should look like. I wish it could have been kept to rub in the face of future would-be “starchitects” with the warning, “This is what happens when you chase fads and abstract ideals instead of building something people actually like.”
Matt # 125:
I’ve read some books written by Korean/German Byung Chul Han, so I can appreciate his philosophy. I think he isn’t really discovering very much new ideas, but I also think he’s brave enough to say uncomfortable truths about today western societies, and to criticise some philosophy “holy cows” like for example Foucault.
———————————-
Somebody I can’t remember now has reminded us the Ukrainian propaganda labels usually Russian like “Orcs”, and he/she has supposed the Russian side did another negative labelling of Ukrainians. Well, it’s said Russian Spectacle calls Ukrainian Army as a bunch of Fascists, though only a small part of soldiers and civil population supports ideas near to Fascism.
——————————-
Mary B. # 147:
Your phrase about your civil war didn’t really end yet, reminds me in a different cultural and historical context, that for some zealots here (in their correlative sides), our last civil war didn’t end neither in 1939. However, I think they’re fewer than their media noise pretends, so most people here doesn’t have such a hatred view of politics.
If I’ve understood you well, your country bipartisan zealots have eaten the whole democratic debate, over the average people common sense. I’d like to believe in the US average people with mild ideas is the majority beyond extremism.
—————————-
Robert M. # 156:
Well, I won’t deny the historical and cultural causes between old Europe and US Diaspora, but I also think last political events during last years have been widening that gap. It seems Europeans usually don’t understand USA politics (starting with Trump success), and Americans don’t understand Europe…
Incompetent service providers.
We just received a grand example, courtesy of today’s mail.
When we moved to Derry Township, the township maintained its own tax offices with its own staff of helpful clerks.
We pay four times a year.
Real Estate/property in the spring and school in the fall for our household. The bill arrives and I pay it. I used to pay it at the township office and get a receipt.
Add in a Pennsylvania-specific tax tied to each individual in the household over 17. Everyone gets one twice a year; occupational in the spring and a school tax in the fall. One per person. If you’re retired or have too low an income, you can sign an exemption form and pay nothing.
Twice a year, the bills would arrive, I’d have everyone sign their exemption (employed members got it withheld automatically), visit the tax office, and get my reciepts.
Then comes Covid. The township’s income is cut in half. We’re very tourism-dependent.
The township decides to save $$ by closing the local tax office and handing it over to the county. The county farms out the responsibility to Keystone.
Since Keystone took over, we no longer receive that twice a year individual statement. We have to beg for it electronically. If we make a mistake, we get hammered. Nothing ever happens to anyone at Keystone even though they’re widely regarded as terrible and incompetent at their job.
And thus, today, Dear Daughter got hit with a delinquent bill from Keystone even though she filed the exemption online. Since she was foolish enough to delete the receipt email, we have no proof. She has no income. We’ll have to jump through hoops to get this resolved. They won’t make it easy.
Aargh. I really miss the nice ladies at the township tax office. They had the tax files for the entire township at their fingertips.
Argh.
@Evil Turtle #144,
I would argue that a telco company forgetting that customer’s exist is an attribute of evil. Evil as is defined in the dictionary? No, but JMG ties this particular behavior as: “…….involved neither infatuation nor violent hatred. It derives, I think, from an archetype that has received far too little attention in recent years: the archetype of the Machine.”
Now the archetype of the Machine may not be evil, in and of itself, even if archetypes do have an active guiding intelligence(s) behind it. In this case I’d say the evil is the neglect of the customer and maybe the underlying greed that informs the telco’s behavior in deploying a customer service system that does not take a little bit of complexity into account.
Despite all the above, when dealing with the way the world is, your advice holds much merit, sad to say.
John,
I think part of the reason that the elite deny the interiority of the rabble is because recognizing that interiority threatens the omniscience that the elite think that they have. Lately I have been doing Will exercises from one of your books. In said exercise, I am supposed to choose a random topic and research it exhaustively. Doing this exercise exposed the depths of my ignorance to me very quickly and startlingly. To know one thing adequately you must know 10,000 other things!
Human beings, like the History of Bangladesh, are unfathomably complex. So complex that a human could spend their entire life trying to understand *their own* interiority and still fail, let alone the interiority of another person! And the elite can’t recognize that because it would reveal that their entire project of micromanaging and controlling humanity is a complete pipe dream. So they deny interiority to the masses and try to reduce humanity to something that they can wrap their brains around. And this is why they will be surprised over and over again when humanity refuses to be as inert and stupid as the elite think they are.
Earthworm (no. 132), my (US) understanding of “othering” is the same as yours–dehumanizing the enemy, basically.
Speaking of which, I think I fall into all four of your Sufi categories (no. 131).
———————–
Chelley (no.1 09) “an Ecovillage in Missouri…”
Dancing Rabbit?
———————–
Robert Mathiesen (no. 156) “… the vast majority of people who migrated from Europe to North America did so because they hated or feared the Europe that they knew, or despaired of its future. Transplanting Europe to the New World was the last thing that they wished to do.”
My patriline, and several other ancestral lineages, seem to have immigrated because of land. America offered them the chance to own farms. Britain / Ireland apparently did not. But they continued to identify–nay, huddle together–as Scots Presbyterians. Some of them even married their cousins, although eventually they gave up and started marrying non-Scots.
The situation reminds me of the Greeks who have recently been emigrating to Sweden. They do it not because they hate Greece (or love Sweden), but because that’s where they thought the jobs were.
JMG –
Several years ago while traveling though DC/Baltimore, I stopped for a time in Silver Spring. Lovely area. Congratulations on a successful move!
Thank you for yet another thought-provoking essay. The theme reminded me of a quote you once cited, here or maybe in Magic Monday that, to me, applies to the theme of your essay, something like, ” When I see that which is good, I applaud it. When I see that which is not good, I examine my on conduct.” Who/what is the source of that quote? I haven’t any luck in searching for it. Also, for no particular reason, a song by Gil Scott-Heron comes to mind, “Winter in America”.
“People mistreat other people when they stop seeing other people as genuine others, and reduce them to arbitrary images in their own minds.”
I think this applies much more broadly as well: for instance, our society’s fairly destructive treatment of the biosphere seems to me to only be possible because most modern Westerners do not consider anything other than (some) humans and maybe their pets to have any kind of inner life, or any worth beyond what we can extract from them.
Who cares that a pesticide is killing bees, if bees are just insects without any kind of inner life or worth? Even their handful of useful services (such as pollination or honey) can usually be replaced by either machines or some other part of the biosphere.
Hmm, I think this is well worth further consideration.
Bye bye Miss American Pie…
polecat @ 142, in the absence of any link to an actual news article or similar, I conclude the incident is most likely an urban legend. If true, a. the person is in violation of the Hippo laws, among other laws, I would think and should loose their license, and b. the person is spectacularly stupid. The correct procedure would be to give all proper medical care, as directed, and absolutely no personal engagement of any kind. Cold and professional.
If jerks want to act like jerks to get a rise out of you, you do. not. give. them a response.
@Candace,
Reaching Christlikeness is very, very hard. Perfection is basically unattainable. It’s why we need forgiveness. I certainly do. But we are expected to make a solid effort to emulate Jesus in our own lives, and ask Him for help. There’s also a difference between choosing not to repay evil unto evil, and being a doormat. I think JMG’s commentary on turning binaries into triads might be helpful here. Basically, the idea there is that the opposite of one idea is often another bad idea, and to try to find a third point which might be somewhere in the middle. So in the case of your question.
1) Abandoning one’s faith and culture when they’re attacked by an outside group isn’t right.
2) Running around murdering members of the offending cultural group also isn’t right.
So maybe something along the lines of the following:
3) Charging non-citizen members of the incoming group who break the law and removing them from the country, including immigrating illegally, is fair. Keeping immigration quotas at a level that your country can absorb is fair. Treating individual people in that group with kindness and decency when you meet them, and not blaming them personally for the actions of others in the same group without proof that they personally participated in the problematic actions is also fair.
But exactly where you draw the line is something you’re going to have to figure out between you and God. That’s my take anyway.
And yes, it’s a hard question, and one I’ve been thinking quite a lot about lately. I think a lot of Christians are.
@JMG,
I was just talking with a friend about how much a certain Canadian telecommunications company whose name ends in LUS stinks. The service itself, the cold calls and the hard sell tactics… bonding over how bad a company is. LUS, like DORX and Microsoft, is shooting itself in the foot.
re: mechanical things
I haven’t noticed machines behaving differently depending on how they’re spoken to but what I have observed is what I call the “mechanic’s (or technician’s) aura”, where a machine that was reported not working, suddenly starts working again when the mechanic or technician shows up to look at it. Only then to “break” yet again just as soon as the mechanic has left (and taken his aura with him).
It’s like some mechanically inclined people have an aura that lends +5 health to all machines within 5m of them.
Between Palantir running hospitals (with their creepy social credit scores) and raging woke nurses sabotaging patients if they so much as look at them the wrong way, I guess we’re now officially at the point that I saw coming – the hospital may exist but you really don’t want to set foot in one, because they’ve become so dysfunctional and untrustworthy.
When I (or anyone younger) need a hospital, there’s no longer a hospital there for you. Hospitals were so 20th century, I guess.
The future’s so bright, I gotta wear these shades…
>people who migrated from Europe to North America did so because they hated or feared the Europe that they knew
You can see that in the way we eschewed those small dense towns with trains and trams in favor of spreading out and using cars instead. It’s almost like our great-grandparents took a look at Europe and said NO, WE’RE DOING IT DIFFERENTLY HERE.
Don’t know if we turned out any better but we certainly turned out different.
@Robert Mathiessen #156: I don’t presume to know your ancestors’ minds, but if they hated the union of throne and altar, feared the domineering aristocrats and despaired of overcoming the parochialism and political fragmentation of their times (especially the German ones in the 1700s), then some of them might quite possibly feel more at home in today’s Europe, which is religiously pluralistic, has defanged or outright abolished aristocracy and removed most frontiers to movement. It is not the same as it was back then, nor is North America as open and free as it was back then.
Modern bureaucratic structures can be seen like Machines made of human beings viewed by their rulers like removable pieces to be replaced by another new pieces, self perpetuating those structures. This “thought” tendence has grown too much during Industrial Age, like JMG has pointed before me. However, I can point the first bureaucratic Machine, the State, was born a lot of centuries ago. Pharaonic times scribes (bureaucrats), in addition with war machine (armies) and workers (slaves?) who built the Pyramids, were indeed an early example of human “Megamachine” made of several Machines. I think L. Mumford was right when pointed this view in his books. In the other hand, I don’t understand how Mr. Harari ideas are so overvalued nowadays. Between another occurrences of him, this guy says humans build “stories” which don’t really exists. He and his fans point in a simplistic and reductionist way that for example, Ford industries and the Catholic Church aren’t real beyond ideas…err…stories. Huge buildings and crowds of people engaged in those complex structures contradict them as contrafactuals, me think.
I’d like to add to your comment to Earthworm on the three categories of people described by gnostics #102 a fourth category given the rise in therapy culture in the recent years, those who could benefit to look less within.
JMG,
For all the clamoring of our elites for a more machine centered environment, I have never seen a boss gracefully handle the news that a necessary machine is “at end of life and needs replacement”, “awaiting shipment of components necessary for its repair”, “under repair for a few days”, or “is no longer sold and can’t be ordered”.
They typically fly into an impressive fit of rage, a rage they would not exhibit for an employee related inconvenience. And …they hold that rage for several days.
For those who want to listen to some Emo music here is a companion post to my article above.
https://justinpatrickmoore.substack.com/p/dowsing-the-dour-midwest-mood
I also, compare the poetry of John Clare and Thomas Chatterton to lyrics from contemporary emo bands.
More on topic here is a great article on practical tips for disconnecting from tech:
https://otherworldscatalog.substack.com/p/how-i-disconnected-from-tech-in-2025
Chuaquin #126
In a nut shell , the present politic regime of USA is an oligarchy, disguised like a democracy ruled by political representants elected by their voters and with separations of the powers of the state, while the present failing regime ruling Spain is too an oligarchy, but disguised like a partitocracy without separations of powers ,ruled by policial representants elected by their chiefs of party and , I fear, enjoying their acces to the power thanks to the electoral fraud, because really the votes are not correctly added . We suffer an ultra rooted version of the rooted first borbonic restauration in wich the utility of the vote ,basically legitimate the spanish smelly regime.
P.S:
The richmen have money but not ideology.
As a rather unorthodox Christian i would like to weigh in on the “turn the other cheek” discussion.
I want to point out the Jesus himself did not treat the money changers in the temple with the “turn the other cheek” mentality. He overturned their tables, whipped and beat them until they fled the temple. (this is the only time Jesus uses violence, but he does do violence to the wealthy and powerful who said you must pay us to have access to God.)
(kind of a weird aside, most Christians i talk with don’t really connect this action to why the wealthy and powerful people from the Temple wanted Jesus tortured and brutally murdered. And it really makes me worried for souls of Christian preachers who act in the same way as the money changers.)
There’s something that human brains have that LLMs do not: astrocytes. Apparently astrocytes are more important for human cognition and emotion than previously thought, as they adjust the state of the human mind throughout the day.
https://www.quantamagazine.org/once-thought-to-support-neurons-astrocytes-turn-out-to-be-in-charge-20260130/
LLMs are based on neuron only models of the brain.
Well – congrats on the move to Sandy Springs. Hope the change does you well. I look around at my present digs and see – a ghost, and well, a change would do so much good for me. Oh, I look at places online. Here, there and places that pop up at me. Right now is Traverse City; of all places! But, hey – I had a 2xgreat uncle in the building trade there… But, a change would certainly open something new, and be a clear means of moving forward. Hope this does that for you.
Any chance that we might hear stories of bread making? That would be something fun.
Anselmo # 177:
Indeed, oligarchies exist across every country, but it’s interesting what you depict here as partitocracy, it’s a watered bipartisanship, a multipartidism organized in a simetrical game of mirrors between the old left/right political difference. Meanwhile, the USA system is completely bipartisan, without a third option. I think polarization and political tension affects more average people in the US than in Spain (as a work hypothesis until I’ll be refuted with hard data), because polarization here has more (apparent) tones between mild parties and populist/radical parties in each side of political spectrum.
NephiteNeophyte #164
Which book of our host are you working through with the Will exercises? I need to do some more of those.
Thanks
@ The Other Owen, I have a parent who is like that. I’m not.
Tobes #177 says: “I’d like to add to your comment to Earthworm on the three categories of people described by gnostics #102 a fourth category given the rise in therapy culture in the recent years, those who could benefit to look less within.”
I don’t think the problem is looking too much within; I think the problem is that some people have self-absorption without self-awareness. (I’m paraphrasing Theodore Dalrymple there.) Really good therapy helps you to be self-aware, not self-absorbed – but that kind of therapy is much more difficult and, like anything difficult, requires real commitment and self-discipline. It’s also hard to find, but as the saying goes “when the student is ready, the teacher appears.”
I can definitely see a relationship between evil and stupidity. I am just not sure which came first, the chicken or the egg. When I look back at the large social and political ideologies of the past I see people who believed that they were right. ICE, Abortionists, anti-abortionists, Nazi’s, eugenicists, slave owners, Manifest Destiny, the Inquisition, Crusades, Mongol Hordes, the list goes on forever. I see no indication that these people were thinking, “Hey, there is something evil and stupid, let’s go do it”. No, I see people who all believed that they were (or are) right.
The problem seems to be becoming a people who can retain our mental picture of right without needing to trample on other people’s mental picture of right. All other paths seem to eventually create circular path between stupid and evil.
Regarding “turn the other cheek” – I read somewhere a long time ago that Jesus was talking about out interior life, how to deal with troubling thoughts or heated emotions. It does seem to be correct, from my own experience, that learning to not engage actively with troubling thoughts or emotions when they arise calms the mind and reduces the energy charge of the thought. So instead of having the emotion or unwanted thought carry you away, you just note it, be aware of it, kind of mentally stare at it if you will. So maybe in that context it does make sense to “turn the other cheek”. I choose to believe this, but obviously it’s hard to really know what Jesus meant, particularly since he most likely spoke in Aramaic, and the gospels were written in different languages and then translated into other languages.
Ambrose #165
“Speaking of which, I think I fall into all four of your Sufi categories (no. 131).”
My working assumption is that we’ve all been there or are getting there. It was quite a ‘thing’ to wonder if my visceral distaste of certain behaviour was because it was a recognition that it was something I’d done myself and subsequently decided against. Thinking I’d probably done some variation myself put the brakes on rushing to judgement of other people. It’s a work in progress 😉
“I think I fall into all four of your Sufi categories”
Don’t mean to be flippant, but are you content with that?
I ask from the metaphor perspective of choosing a direction of travel [so to speak]; where, if this world is about choices, is there more value in remaining in the flow between virtues and vices or is there more potential value in choosing a direction and seeing what that might bring?
“I have never seen a boss gracefully handle the news that a necessary machine is “at end of life and needs replacement”, “awaiting shipment of components necessary for its repair”, “under repair for a few days”, or “is no longer sold and can’t be ordered”.”
I will vouch for what glasshammer said. Even though Management is very careful to take the deductions for depreciation they really hate having to use that money to replace the worn out machine. If you stand outside their office you can hear them sob, “But what about my bonus?”
I don’t usually post, but this essay has my brain going places.
As far as political ideologues go, I’ve seen my fair share. Spent a solid bit as an identifying with the leftist cause, and the last couple years observing the right. Which lead me to realise something. Online ideologues across the aisle are volunteer myth makers. If they see an event that could feed the fires of indignation, it’ll be all over the internet. Any new development that could quiet that flame is conveniently ignored. Bring up that detail and you can expect to hear any number of flattering epithets. Now that I spend more time poking my nose in both sides of the aisle, I can get my hands on more privileged information. That information has shown that news stories that seemed like cut and dry, good and evil, are nothing of the sort. Previously enraging news stories now appear to be simple shaleshows. More often than not, these big cause de célèbres that fill the news are just two groups of people with frayed nerves doing things they quickly come to regret. Unprofessional behaviour? Sure. Evil behaviour, not so fast!
I want to bring in another angle, that of addiction. The addiction model we’re all used to is somebody does something that meets a biological need, feels “good”, and keeps doing it. But as with all addictions, the next needs to be more intense, just to feel the same level of pleasure. When I take a break from social media, it’s hurts to go back! But if I keep pushing past the headaches, I’m back in its grip. Internet ideologues are social media addicts! What once may have given them reprieve from an unfulfilling life with stimulation and a sense of identity quickly consumes them. A couple hours before bed quickly turns into a steady diet of 2 hours of Gaza, 2 hours of Ukraine, and 2 hours of whatever the news is banging on about. It becomes their life, the locus of their soul. And if we’re to continue the addiction model of ever increasing hits, it makes total sense why attempts at quieting the flame of indignation is met with as much vitriol as you see. It’s like denying a smack addict their next hit, or at the very least giving a watered down equivalent. That’s why every little police scuffle that would have flown under the radar in the past gets blown up into an apocalyptic cause de célèbres. Not because they “care” so much, but because the truth would seem watered down, it would register as a sense of emptiness as opposed to life. (I accidently typed emptynews instead of emptiness. I considered keeping it.)
I finish this off with a brief story. I was engaging in the classic pastime of complaining of politics. I started saying, “y’know, the problem with America is…” Then an image flashed in my mind. A map of America, covered in tentacles. Up close, it looked like a bunch of individual snakes, but from far away it look like one big snake. I was completely stunlocked! What a perfect metaphor, I thought, but good luck expressing it. Shrugging my shoulders, I finished my sentence with “…I dunno…”
I’ll avoid lengthy comments like this going forward, it’s just that this month has given a lot to think about.
It’s good to have you back, JMG
Scotlyn (re: #159) – oh absolutely, it’s a given that we’re the product in some way, shape, or form. Time for a cattle stampede?
“People mistreat other people when they stop seeing other people as genuine others, and reduce them to arbitrary images in their own minds.”
That’s the function of propaganda. To hate and despise the people that the leadership has designated as enemies.
In 1975 I worked as a draftsman. On the drawing board next to me was Jossie, a young Israeli who had emigrated to South Africa with his wife. He had fought in the Yom Kippur war of 1973. The Cubans had recently come to the aid of the MPLA, the left-wing Angolan government. South Africa supported their opponents, the right wing UNITA, and a clash between Cuba and South Africa seemed inevitable. Since most of us were of call-up age we were all pretty nervous and there was plenty of talk of conflict.
Yossie told me there would never be peace between Israel and the Arabs. He said that in school they were taught to hate the Arabs because they were dirty people who had sex with little boys and would always try to cheat or harm a Jew.
Yossie would be retired now. The current leadership of Israel would be the next generation or even the one after, and they would have had the same indoctrination. So the prospect of a peaceful coexistence between Israel and the Arabs seems remote.
There’s some debate in my town between “old school” leftists and conservatives about wether the woke left goes on being Marxist or not. Non woke left (it exists yet!) says wokesters aren’t true Marxists anymore, but Conservatives answer them they are. My personal opinion is that woke “left” has become an empty shell beyond its cultural wars, forgetting a native working class which they even hate (like “old school” left points). However, Conservative idea isn’t completely wrong. Woke ideology can be seen as Marxist (in its “orthodoxal” Leninist variety), when its supporters choose their favourite “holy cows” to defend (please fill the gap with this or that minority). The “Chosen People” is the revolutionary vanguard who would lead the revolution which “radical” wokesters pretend to keep believing, against the evil (which isn’t the Capitalism anymore, but the hated straight white men).
Anonymous #182: LLMs are not based on models of the brain at all. The digital neuron was inspired by the biological one but artificial neural networks have rather little to do with their biological counterparts.
—David P.
If ‘Evil makes one stupid’ is one aspect, and stupid also contributes to more evil, whether banal, petty, ludicrous or extreme. Are we on the edge of a feedback loop that could go exponential?
For your delectation, I present the de-colonisation of the Welsh cake:
***
And there is the £10,000 contributed by the Welsh Arts Council to research on ‘decolonising the Welsh cake’. Quite what these scone-like bakes have to do with racism is unclear. According to the researcher engaged in this ‘decolonising’ project, it involves exploring the Welsh cake through the prism of English colonial rule, complete with an analysis of the role of sugar in said cakes.
https://archive.ph/k0h3r#selection-1443.130-1447.364
***
The rest of the article is quite boggling too – can’t speak to its accuracy or provenance, but if not LLM inspired slop, and even if just partly correct, the extent of unfolding human irrationality is awesomely disturbing to behold.
>They typically fly into an impressive fit of rage
The profit motive severely constrains their sadism – but not their frustration. I’ll leave it to you to figure out why they don’t get as nearly upset over the misfortune of one of their underlings. Remember – frustrated and sadistic.
And what makes gubmint so extra special – they don’t have that profit constraint. Think about that for a while.
>has defanged or outright abolished aristocracy
They are still there, they’re still smart enough to keep their mouths shut and keep themselves out of the press. However, the way things are going over there, if that crowd doesn’t do something soon, they will indeed lose it all, maybe not to a guillotine, but getting taken out back and shot.
You could’ve called them Dix, but maybe that’s too on-the-nose, lol.
Interesting choice to relocate to the imperial capital. It seems I was way off with my guess, and might’ve been projecting my own thoughts onto you. Elevation above sea level is a relevant concern; not sure what the ranges are, but 341ft sounds fairly safe.
Good points on dehumanization in its various forms. The managerial elite’s tendency to treat their subjects as automatons without agency is playing a significant role in their decline & fall — among other things, it led to them being ambushed by the populist revolt, which is something they still refuse to come to terms with.
@Anselmo #40.
I believe it was Stalin who said “A single death is a tragedy. A million deaths is a statistic”
So first off, I asked on one of your Dreamwidth posts if you had an ETA for the Saturn-Neptune conjunction write-up. I want to apologize for that, because clearly you were in the middle of some pressing matters. It wouldn’t have killed me to exercise some patience.
Second, an odd bit of synchronicity: My last girlfriend was born in Silver Spring, MD.
Third, I saw this morning that SpaceX is asking the FCC for permission to launch one million satellites, ostensibly to serve as an orbital AI data center. Apparently the application concludes with this:
“Launching a constellation of a million satellites that operate as orbital data centers is a first step towards becoming a Kardashev II-level civilization—one that can harness the Sun’s full power—while supporting Al-driven applications for billions of people today and ensuring humanity’s multi-planetary future amongst the stars.”
This nonsense is growing increasingly exhausting.
Glad to be back here reading the one and only JMG. I can appreciate a little the rough road to DC, and am pleased you got the welcome, and are at 341 feet. Was this ever the centre of the world? Smile.
Stories of regime change, likely not wholy succesful , and ‘the others’ toughening defence of their interest, all take me back a fair bit. I wonder how Hawkeye is seeing things these days..
I owe you for a good deal, books I would otherwise not have read, stories I certainly would not have written, interiority and its protections, and friends not otherwise made.
Here, GB risks getting caught in an Arnold Toynbee situation, if it is not already again on course for projecting past behaviour onto a more wideawake world?
@Cliff #202 I had to confirm your quote from the SpaceX application as it read to me as being crazily over the top. CONFIRMED! Yikes! Full speed ahead to “ humanity’s multi-planetary future amongst the stars” “To infinity and beyond” as Buzz Lightyear would say. High tech magical thinking. I’m sticking with Jesus as my higher tech.
Jeff Bezos like Elon Musk has outer space fever.
https://nypost.com/2025/11/02/us-news/jeff-bezos-wants-to-send-people-to-live-in-space-heres-what-it-would-look-like/
As Puck said in A Midsummer’s Night Dream – “Lord, what fools these mortals be!”
Will O,
I have been following John’s book Learning Ritual Magic. I also have Paths of Wisdom, Circles of Power, and some books by Regardie and the Ciceros.
Point… # 188:
I think people who believe they’re always right is a perpetual big problem for everybody. Italian fascists, for example, said Mussolini never made mistakes (cough). In the other side, nowadays when I remember a celebrity like Greta Thunberg and her fans, they seem to me the kind of people who believe they’re always right too (dogmatism). I think some of their opinions could be right, but I don’t like how they say them, and of course I think they can make mistakes like everybody do.
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Sean-Luc # 192:
Online ideologues seem IMHO to be living in their cozy echo chambers with their supporters out of real word. Around me in my town I don’t see much zealots, but a lot of people who usually has mild opinions and avoid heavy arguments. It’s interesting this people, in spite of their different political ideas, agree near always in despising professional politicians here…
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Earthworm # 197:
Thank you for showing me what’s a Welsh cake and how awfully racist can be (ahem). However, I haven’t understood the racist problem with it, yet. Is it racist because is a white cake, for example?(Woke “logic” is strange to me: maybe sugar comes from Tropics so it’s racist…Oops!).
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Helix # 201:
I’m not sure the phrase you’ve quoted was really said by Stalin, so it could be apocryphal; although I can say too:”Si non é vero é ben trovato”.
—————————-
I’d like to self-criticise me; when I’ve written before this current comment that American citizens apparently look like more online “heated” than Spanish citizens by their two competing political Spectacles, it seems to me I could point an alternative (and maybe quite cynical) hypothesis for this behavior: Maybe the haters, trolls and bots who thrive within the Anglosphere seem more active and successful than their Spanish “fellows” because they’ve managed better than ours to pretend they’re the real online majority. Who knows? In addition to this, some of the “USA” trolls, haters and bots could come from Moscow or Beijing computers…
Hey JMG
It’s nice to see you have found a new and more interesting home. I imagine that a suburb near Washington DC is somewhat more lively than the Australian equivalent of living near notoriously boring Canberra, ACT.
But returning to the theme of this essay, though Evil makes you stupid, there is still a lot of characters both fictional and real that are portrayed as both evil and smart, even if smart in this context is more in the sense of cunning rather than wisdom. What separates the “evil and stupid” crowd, such as Dorx and its Australian counterpart Telstra, from the “Smart and evil” crowd such as Yakuza or Con-men? The only thing that I see that separates them is that the later still recognises their victims as people, and can suffer extreme consequences for stupidity.
Okay, I’m back in the saddle again. (There were a few hitches with my new internet provider, and a lot of unpacking to do, but all that’s taken care of now.) Everything will be back on the usual schedule from here on in, the old gods willin’ and Cthulhu doesn’t rise. 😉
Two comments before I go on. First, the old saying “when the cat’s away, the mice will play” is unfortunately true even here. Over the last week, while I’ve had very limited internet time, there have been a lot of wildly off-topic comments and some things that were arguably trolling, which got through because I didn’t have enough time to read everything carefully. If you tried to post something today on an off-topic subject and it didn’t go through, well, please reread the paragraph above the comment screen and you’ll be able to figure out why. All such comments in my inbox this morning were deleted, and that will continue hereafter. Stay on topic, please!
Second, if you tried to post something today on topic and it didn’t go through, it probably got scooped up by my spam filter and didn’t get rescued. There’s a spam generator promoting SEO firms in Germany that sends anything up to 200 identical comments to my inbox at a time. Of course they all go straight to trash, but I didn’t have the time or patience to sort through 146 spam comments this morning, so anything that got scooped up by accident got lost. If you happen to be the source of the spam and are reading this, could you please realize that you’re wasting your time and effort, and everything you send goes straight to trash?
With that bit of fussing out of the way, let’s proceed. First, thank you to everyone who posted good wishes for the move and the new location, or who passed on their memories and knowledge of Silver Spring and the DC area. Much appreciated!
Corax, my experience with tech-company staff is that they’re as mindlessly fashion-conscious as a bunch of pre-teens squeeing over the latest K-Pop band. As for Microsquishy browsers, yeah, that’s about when I defected, too.
Calliope, thank you. So far, it’s pretty pleasant, but of course it’s early days yet.
Cyclone, an easy walk from the nearest Red Line station, and two county buses go past my doorstep. As for the bubbling hotbed, no, one lodge meets in Georgetown, one in Beltsville, and two in Rockville.
Peter, ack! My secret is revealed at last! Just a moment while I get a new cup of green tea…
Heather, you certainly may.
Dennis, thanks for this. Yes, I’ve been in communication with Sara on several occasions since her death, on her initiative — I know better than to pester the dead, since they have a lot of work to do (and she has more than most). What was passed on was intensely personal, and so not something I’m willing to share, but she’s doing fine.
Connie, thanks for your good wishes. That’s been on my mind; I don’t expect ever to stop grieving for Sara, as I noted, but life goes on; I’m 63 and in excellent health, and I see no point in spending the rest of my life alone. But we’ll see what happens.
Miles, oh dear gods, yes. I’ve seen exactly that pattern more times than I could possibly count.
Longsword, many thanks for this!
Will, New York was definitely a possibility, but it’s much more expensive, and I want to see what’s left once the new mayor’s experiment with “the warmth of collectivism” ends in the usual shambolic mess. As for figuring out what you hate about yourself, keep working at it. It’s exactly the combination of rage and inability to see what it has to do with yourself that shows where the projection is.
Teresa, I’ve seen that. I think it’s part of the process by which evil people make themselves comfortable with their own evil.
Untitled-1, glad to hear it. I’ve reached the point that I find it amusing when other people project things on me, and sometimes have fun messing with their heads in response.
Patricia M, once I realized what was going on, yeah, I started seeing examples everywhere. As for Adocentyn, it’s somewhere north of Virginia and south of Boston, certainly. 😉
Elizabeth, I’ve pruned my library considerably, though that’s something I do every decade or so anyway. I still had more boxes of books than of everything else put together!
Other Owen, I’m well out of the blast radius, if that’s what concerns you.
Christophe, can you think of another place on the planet that’s more in need of somebody doing daily banishings? As for the economic dimensions of projection, excellent! Yes, and that’s an issue we’ll be discussing at length in upcoming posts.
Scotlyn, so noted, but what does this have to do with the subject of this post?
Kfish, nice and concise!
John, hmm! Yes, “the machine is the definition of stupid” is a very good summary, and points up a set of issues I need to explore in more detail.
Chris, I’m not sure that “contempt” is the right word. The mentality of the machine leaves no room for emotions, including that one. The Beatles quote, though, is spot on.
Jean, thank you and I’ll keep that in mind!
William, exactly. I’ve just had a nice opportunity to practice evasive maneuvers around a sudden loss of internet service, and made myself notably less dependent on home internet — presumably not what the people at Dorx had in mind…
Phutatorius, trust me, I’ve also had noise issues with neighbors. My current apartment is 1/3 of a converted house, however, and the neighbors are quiet.
Little Bug, interesting. Thanks for this.
Zachary, a valid point!
Boccaccio, I’m not at all sure why I get that reaction, but it’s reliable at this point. As for the First World War, Hermann Hesse insisted on a middle ground and got ostracized, but he’s long been one of my heroes anyway.
Polecat, the behavior of the nurse didn’t surprise me at all. Following orders that kill people is unfortunately one of the things our medical industry is best at.
RCA, nope. Generating statistically likely strings of text (or chess moves), even when the statistics are very finely honed, isn’t intelligence. It’s just mindless number crunching. Are you at all familiar with Roger Penrose’s book The Emperor’s New Mind? In it, he imagines a person in a locked room whose job is to respond to written squiggles he doesn’t understand, using another set of squiggles for answers. He has very detailed manuals on which squiggles to use in response to any given sequence sent to him. What he does not know is that the squiggles are Chinese characters and he is carrying on a conversation in Chinese. He has no idea what the conversation is about, nor does he realize that the squiggles have meanings. Is he nonetheless fluent in Chinese? Not in any sense that matters. The same logic applies to LLMs.
Weilong, I’d expect that from an older and more mature society than ours.
Yavanna, the Freer is high on my list; it’s been decades since I’ve been anywhere near a decent Asian art collection.
Weilong, that seems utterly plausible to me.
Dylan, excellent! You’re right, of course.
Siliconguy, this sentence — “Only favorable terrain and careful use of exploding sheep could give the human player a chance” — delights me by its sheer bizarrerie. Thank you!
More in a bit — the biscuits are done. (The best cure for cold weather is a hot oven.)
@JMG re: the Chinese Room
“Is he nonetheless fluent in Chinese? Not in any sense that matters. The same logic applies to LLMs.”
Probably the most popular answer among philosophers of mind is that the man is not fluent but the system of the man + the manuals is fluent. But Donald Davidson, IIRC in a paper about the Turing test, pointed out that there is another, and in hindsight ridiculously obvious, answer to who or what is fluent in Chinese in the though experiment: the authors of the manuals.
The man, the manuals, and the system comprised of both them are in a sense “borrowing” the fluency of the manuals’ authors.
In similar way we could say LLMs are borrowing the fluency of millions of actual humans. Where they differ from the Chinese room scenario is that the manuals are not deterministic instructions as Searle imagined it but an elaborate decompression algorithm that extrapolates the next piece of a conversation from the stochastic residue of the model’s training data, reconstructing what the conversation might have looked like if it had been in that original training data.
BTW, I’m glad to hear you’re settling in well!
JMG (no. 204) “There’s a spam generator promoting SEO firms in Germany that sends anything up to 200 identical comments to my inbox at a time.”
It occurs to me that this must run afoul of some German law and/or EU regulation. If you have the name of the offending company, and know where it is headquartered, would you consider contacting various authorities there? I’m sure the Germans here would give suggestions, if the idea is at all feasible.
——————–
Philip Harris (no. 203) “Here, GB risks getting caught in an Arnold Toynbee situation…”
I was just reading the ex-Ismaili reddit, where “GB” means “Gorno Badakhshan” (the mountainous eastern part of Tajikstan).
——————
Chuaquin (no. 195) “There’s some debate in my town between “old school” leftists and conservatives about wether the woke left goes on being Marxist or not.”
This has been going on for decades. My old professor recalls his university days in the 1960s, when Marxists had to defend themselves from the accusation of being male-dominated (which they totally were). Later feminists had to defend their movement against the accusation of being dominated by upper-class whites.
———————
earthworm (no, 190) “Don’t mean to be flippant, but are you content with that?” (about falling into all four of the Sufi categories mentioned in no. 131)
It seems to me that human life is more about balance. I mean, everybody is trying to get through the day / get through life, but that can’t be all there is. And everybody likes to indulge in whatever vices appeal (comic books and chocolate for me), but too much of a focus on that isn’t satisfying either. Religion and idealism have their places too, but who wants to go to church *every day*? The Satanic category is going to be a harder sell, I realize, but who doesn’t enjoy a good prank?
For comparison, think of all the reasons people go to college: knowledge and wisdom for their own sake? money and career? beer and football? to find themselves? (e.g. if you don’t know whether you’re gay, college is a great time to find out) I think most people aim at some combination, and that all of these have their place.
William, thanks for this; fair enough. I’m probably going to start asking, though, that we take a break from rehashing American politics when discussing posts that don’t actually focus on that topic. It’s become an unhealthy obsession for too many people.
Ambrose, one of the reasons I wrote The Weird of Hali the way I did was because I got so tired of villains who labeled themselves as the evilest evil that ever eviled. “Death Eaters.” “Brotherhood of Evil Mutants.” Blah blah blah. It’s just annoying — not least because it’s so dull. Conflicts in fiction are much more interesting when both sides believe they’re in the right! (And of course that’s the way things actually work in the real world.)
Moonwolf8, glad to hear you find them amusing. As a writer, I find them annoying.
Mary Bennett, yes, and that goes a long way back. John Dee, Queen Elizabeth I’s court astrologer, was also the original agent 007 — that was the code used for him by Sir Francis Walsingham, the queen’s spymaster. It’s just one of the complexities of the tradition. (I like to imagine him saying “The name is Dee. John Dee,” in a Sean Connery voice, and asking for his Malmsey shaken, not stirred.)
Quin, thank you for this as always.
Gerry, it’s one of many resources I can get to very easily from here.
Dr. C, delighted to hear it.
Sister BoysMom, I plan on making a pest of myself at the House of the Temple library; I’ve been there several times already, but now it’s an easy bus or subway ride from my place.
Ben, vibes can come from many sources, some helpful and some not. If you don’t happen to know some system of divination, I recommend getting a reading from a good diviner before deciding. That can help sort things out.
Matt, fascinating! I’ll check out his work; it sounds very much up my alley.
Chuaquin, good question. I don’t claim to know what the average American is thinking; I do know that earlier today I had a pleasant lunch with two local friends and politics never came up.
Nachtgurke, the traditions that discuss the subnatural realm also teach that it’s alive…and hungry.
Earthworm, in the Gnostic view, it’s a Venn diagram already, with the naturally spiritual and the immovably material as the two circles, and those who can choose between the options as the overlap. As for “othering,” I’m deliberately using it in a way that flouts the standard rhetoric; that’s probably the source of the confusion.
Maria, condolences! What a messy situation to be in. I hope you can extract yourself from it.
Justin, I’ll certainly be doing rituals and research, but whispering into the ears of politicians? I’d be worried about catching their cooties or something. 😉
Neptunesdolphins, I’m sorry to say I know the type.
Ethan, that’s a fascinating suggestion and I think you may be on to something important.
TemporaryReality, and yet there are plenty of examples — including the two I named in my post — of tech companies that have indeed damaged themselves severely by these policies. Some people get inured to such things…but others take action.
Turtle, no, in Rhode Island as elsewhere, the subscription goes with the person, not the place. It’s precisely this habit of forgetting that there are people on the other end of the transaction that generates the evil. Not all evil is malicious!
Methylethyl, well, I also considered calling them Dix, Prix, and Schmux, so you can certainly draw your own conclusions. 😉
Bruno, yes, exactly. I didn’t happen to use that terminology, but it’s wholly applicable.
Justin, huzzah! What a hideous excuse for a building. Does anyone notice that it looks rather like a screw driven into the ground, as though to say, “Screw you, Cincinnati”?
Other Owen (if I may), it astounds me that so few people get that. To people like Trump, other people’s hatred is an energy source and an addictive drug.
Aldarion, I unpacked my Charles Williams collection yesterday. You’ve inspired me to reread it.
Will, that’s a fascinating point. Many of the woke women definitely have an animus complex, but they don’t project it — they are possessed by it, thus the fixation on their own opinions. Then they project the anima of their animus — yes, Jung wrote about that — onto the world. Mind you, a good many woke men seem similarly to suffer anima possession, and then project the animus of their anima onto various targets…
Joy Marie, unfortunately not. I haven’t had a copper-wire land line since 2017, alas. The best I could do was a battery that makes the phone keep working even if the fiber optic cable goes down.
Teresa, I wonder whose palm in city government got greased to make that change.
Nephite, first of all, I’m delighted to hear that you’re doing the will exercises! Those are among the most important elements of occult training, and the reason you describe is part of why. You’re likely correct, too, about the way that the archetype of the machine and the delusion of omniscience feed into each other.
Patricia T, as I recall, that quote is from Confucius.
William, a very good point.
Is Charles Williams off topic? I felt inspired to re-read “The Greater Trumps.” The idea of weather magic a few days ago was part of it. But I just returned it to my basement bookcases in disgust, thinking, “what a melodrama”! Evilly evil gypsies (?) plotting to steal the magical deck of cards. I gave up on it. I am, however, looking forward to reading “The Figure of Beatrice” if and when an inter-library loan request comes through. Failing that, I may actually buy a copy.
Pygmycory, sorry to hear that the same dismal habit is in place on your side of the border, too.
Other Owen, when the Covid thing was at its height, I went into the bank in working class East Providence where I banked at that time, and chatted with the clerk while he processed the transaction. I happened to mention that I’d had Covid; he gave me a worried look and said, “I hope you didn’t go to the hospital.” I reassured him that I’d done nothing of the kind, and he went on to say that the best thing to do was stay home, rest, and use over-the-counter meds to treat it. So I think we’ve been at that point for some time now…
Tobes, ha! That’s valid.
GlassHammer, of course. The fantasy of the machine is that it’s always there and always obedient. When it’s not, that’s a shattering disconfirmation of the fantasy.
Anon, hmm! Interesting.
Dav, it’s certainly possible; I made biscuits today, and a big pot of split pea soup. It’s fairly cold out, and the best cure for a cold day is a hot oven.
Pointwithinacircle, oh, it can start from either end. I just wanted to trace a specific line of influence.
Sean-Luc, hmm. Those are solid points.
Martin, yes, but it’s not always a function of propaganda.
Earthworm, and the most astonishing thing about it is that the people who are pushing that slop have no idea just how far they’ve gotten into self-parody…
Xcalibur/djs, 300 feet is around the expected sea level rise after the complete melting of all remaining ice caps, which will take several centuries at least. More to the point, it’s well above the range of even the hugest tsunamis. Just one of those little details…
Cliff, I see the application writers made a spelling error. They mean a Kardashian II-level civilization — one that has allowed its collective ego to swell to more than planetary scale.
Philip, I haven’t learned the local Native mythology yet; that’s one of things on a long list. As for Britain, you’re deep into the downside of post-imperial decline at this point. We haven’t caught up yet, but no doubt we will.
J.L.Mc12, on the one hand, the Yakuza thrive because the risk of sudden death is a great incentive, and it also has the Darwinian effect of removing the terminally stupid at a higher rate than others. On the other, they thrive because they’ve been around a lot longer than the current managerial system, and have learned a few things.
Slithy, exactly — LLMs have no intelligence, they simply derive their behavior patterns parasitically from the data used to train them.
Ambrose, I’ll consider it. At the moment, it simply pleases me to think of how much time their bots are wasting.
Phutatorius, of course it’s melodrama. Williams used to call those novels of his “spiritual shockers” — “shockers” in the British literary scene of his time was a term for what we now call “thrillers.” He was trying to use the genre of trash fiction to make serious points.
Was Christopher Marlowe also among the occult brethren?
True that some of the sufferers of corporate … hostilities?…do take action and do use said companies’ reputations against them, but color me a cynic to think that Microsoft hasn’t got its fingers in a lot more pies than just an OS and assorted office-software suites and that those other endeavors profit them somehow. My later comment to Scotlyn about cattle stampedes was a bit of a tongue in cheek reference to exactly your point of not everyone being inured. Still, a large proportion of people don’t question the normalcy of how badly things are designed but hearken to Progress! and Modernity! to convince themselves of how much better things are than pre-1998. Somehow SO many corporations haven’t yet died of their poor customer service or user interface. Though a person can certainly dream (and plant seeds)
@Phutatorius #213:
I have “The Figure of Beatrice” on my groaning book-shelves at home. It is my favorite commentary on Dante.
I especially like his description of the religious significance of romantic love on pp. 26-27.
Enjoy!
May be OT: The question is, what are all those orbiting AIs going to do all day? The answer is, monitoring us for deviant behavior.
However, there is one beneficent application, and that is monitoring ships at sea, in particular, detecting smugglers or fishing ships that switch off their transponders (“dark vessels”) and harvest fish in marine protected areas or in other nations’ economic zones, something that is beyond the capacity of smaller, poorer nations.
Utilizing AI’s ability to process enormous volumes of data swiftly, they can combine satellite imagery and legitimate transponder data together with knowledge of typical patterns of movement to identify vessel types and functions, including dark vessels, and gain a much better picture of what is going on on the high seas than heretofore.
It’s staggering how much marine traffic goes on. For some excellent imagery see https://globalfishingwatch.org/article/ai-breakthrough-ocean-monitoring-satellite-imagery-unprecedented-view-global-vessel-activity/
JMG # 209:
It’s a pity you’ve been having problems with the German spam until now. Well, I can only say you: patience (and the help of a good spam filter to delete that spam).
——————-
Ambrose # 211:
You’re right. Old school Marxists and feminists share a lot of interests, but they’ve had their arguments too. In theory, equalitarian feminism can be included as one “fight” front within the Left, but some Commies pointed with some reason that a poor woman and a rich woman aren’t in the same ship…Nowadays, woke feminism is usually identitarian and victimist, not suitable for integration, but with its own agenda. It’s also interesting the woke attitude has pervaded every party and trade union in the left spectrum here, from Anarchists to non revolutionary Socialdemocrats…Finally, I think old school Leftists want to believe they’re the true radicals, and Conservatives, that they go on fighting their old enemy Communism…wokesters?
——————————-
JMG # 212:
Your personal experience is a good case to grasp how small is the effect of Spectacle in average people.
In real world, people has to live together so political arguments are carefully avoided or watered. Online it’s another story. I think the political competing Spectacles aren’t the real thing, and I guess there’s a majority in my country and maybe in yours who isn’t fooled by social media and MSM current frenzy. Unluckily, I don’t have reliable statistics to support my feeling, so I can’t know what thinks the whole people here and there, neither.
@JMG: Well, thank you for the encouragement regarding Charles Williams. Maybe I’ll assign myself a chapter a day of that novel, just to get through it. I managed to get through it once before, after all. But more on topic: This week’s post is, in a way, a return to the subject of cognitive collapse, which interested me. My own thoughts are that believing lies uncritically is what makes people stupid. And, heaven knows, plenty of lies are circulating these days. Those who fail to or refuse to use their critical faculties seem fated to lose them; through disuse, apparently. I keep thinking back to Leo Strauss, the unapologetic Machiavellian, who advocated a “double truth doctrine,” and Edward Bernays, Sigmund Freud’s nephew, who emphasized the need for propaganda (or public relations) to guide peoples’ opinions. The downside of all this is that after a while, nobody believes anything anymore.
Dear JMG:
Glad the move went relatively smoothly. I have a sister in law in Silver Spring; it is a nice town, and a very transit system as well.
Cugel
Hi JMG – welcome back –
If you are asking what comment #78 has to do with the post, I understood its main theme to be “projection” whether of the shadow, the anima, the animus, etc.
And, so, it seemed that this work, which treats of “projecting evil outside ourselves, and to dissociate ourselves from our own physiological inner environment by projecting the origins and causes of our illnesses onto the outside world” might be both topical, and also of interest to some.
I apologise if I misjudged that.
Be well, stay free! 🙂
“Not all evil is malicious”
(#212, reply to Turtle)
This is actually a crucial context in which to frame every single discussion of evil. Thank you.
>In similar way we could say LLMs are borrowing the fluency of millions of actual humans
Are redditors and /b/-tards, human?
JMG
Well, biscuits count too! Seems to be an willing in me that baking ought to have material enough of the esoteric worth a look or two. I wish I could remember the title of the books, but years ago I came across it with a section covering beard made into the shape of harvested wheat. Lammas, naturally, but that is but a step or two away being Lughnasadh of the old days.
Hope the move does you well. With my own loss, D went and went, and mercifully the family disappeared too after the funeral. (And their whatever version of 7-mountain theology, too.) The partner’s commercial yeast makes for a far better remember than the family stuff. The thing is – he wasn’t an believer, but it didn’t make a difference at the end. All in all – an moment for self control. Not too difference from yeast. Personally, I like working with wild yeast more, but I ought to use up that commercial yeast… Oh, well.
Just another comment; the family has repeated had Covid, but here I am still not a moment with it. The partner too, but when this all got going – I refused him to go out. Being older than I, and in the advance state of Emphysema just did not make sense to be out in the public. His family – up to date on all the shots pushed for Covid, and get it over and over again. The times they are – interesting… (And yes – decline IS a thing.)
Chuaquin #207
What struck me about the welsh cake business in that article was more about stupidity and its relationship with the term ‘evil’ – in this case petty and ludicrous ‘evil’ masquerading as ‘good’ fuelled by what looks like ever increasing stupidity.
Ambrose #211
“It seems to me that human life is more about balance.
I mean, everybody is trying to get through the day / get through life, but that can’t be all there is.”
“…The Satanic category is going to be a harder sell, I realize, but who doesn’t enjoy a good prank?”
These days I tend to think of it more as ‘balance in flow’ or ‘dynamic balance’ – not the stasis of fixed balance but balance as movement. In this world of polarities we could label harmony as some form of ‘good’ and disharmony as some form of ‘evil’ but these things are not fixed absolutes (what is good one day might turn out to be bad/evil another day).
Balance is kind of tricky if one only thinks of stillness – I’ve found it does not seem to be a point but a state of being and flow (potential) where one tries to respond appropriately to what we perceive – or get a laugh by playing a prank which could be harmless or harmful and we discover that by doing things. The question then becomes do we learn and adapt our balance and flow or head into stupidity etc. Is the flow of balance towards harmony and evolving wider consciousness (spiral one way AKA good) or disharmony and dysfunction (spiral another way AKA evil). Simplistic labels but there we are.
What makes this a comedy of errors is our capacity for stupidity – I’ve done some classics over the years.
I’ve had more use out of the Sufi categories as states of flow – the categories are just labels to help indicate direction of flow – terms like angelic and satanic are just indicators, other words can do the job.
“I mean, everybody is trying to get through the day / get through life, but that can’t be all there is.”
Imagine if someone was training to be a therapist and the final exam consists of living an entire life in an asylum, but the budding therapist cannot know that a) it is an asylum, and b) it is both a lesson and test, they just think they’re living a life.
To live the life and come thorough it without going insane in the asylum is the whole point… pass or fail – pass and move on or fail and redo.
But that imagining lacks in imagination for sure – and possibly a reflection of our stupidity if we reckon we can comprehend the cosmos.
The fun part (if I dare call it that) is that we get to have some choice in how we approach the matter; and one of the choices we get is what tendencies we choose to follow.
Re-imagining Clint Eastwood in Dirty Harry:
Harry Callahan: “I know what you’re thinking. Should I pick the self adsorbed track, or the self aware track. Well to tell you the truth in all this excitement I kinda lost track myself. The illusion of ‘Reality’ is the most powerful drug in the world and which track you pick decides whether you continue or not – expand your head or blow it clean off; you gotta ask yourself one question: ‘Do I feel lucky?’ Well do ya, punk?”
Sometimes I think the universe is Harry Callahan and I’m the punk!
JMG #214 “and the most astonishing thing about it is that the people who are pushing that slop have no idea just how far they’ve gotten into self-parody…”
Sometimes it seems like stupidity begets evil but that ‘state’ opens up humanity to forces that feed on that nature… petty evils can then become great as humans get led on a spiral of decay. The bit in that article about needing racism to combat racism takes self-parody into the killing fields. Dangerous times as ever.
When I was looking up that quote from Dirty Harry, another which I first thought was too off topic to post:
***
The Mayor: Callahan… I don’t want any more trouble like you had last year in the Fillmore district. You understand? That’s my policy.
Harry Callahan: Yeah, well, when an adult male is chasing a female with intent to commit rape, I shoot the bastard – that’s my policy.
The Mayor: Intent? How’d you establish that?
Harry Callahan: When a naked man is chasing a woman through a dark alley with a butcher knife and a hard on, I figure he isn’t out collecting for the Red Cross.
[leaves]
The Mayor: I think he’s got a point.
***
…but thinking about it, it does actually work as a metaphor – the need to have wider perception to recognise whether something is good, bad, stupidity, evil, some combination of those or something else entirely (genuine other).
Recognising patterns is all very well but at some point we need to take action or not take action. An alarming thing about the welsh cake thing is that they seem to be serious – which suggests an utter lack of actual functioning self awareness that takes ‘others’ into account… Narcissii in a hall of mirrors!
Where I said:
“Obviously there is a difference between ‘thing [other]’ and ‘action [othering] and I like the idea that ‘genuine other’ might be used to mean unknown but worthy of respect as an expression of consciousness, even if it becomes apparent that the expression is not a thing of beauty but an evil that can be used as a thrust block.”
JMG #212
“As for “othering,” I’m deliberately using it in a way that flouts the standard rhetoric”
To widen perspective as a sort of inverse thought-stopper (thought-starter) or something more specific?
If I remember it well, Mumford wrote in “The Myth of the Machine” that Anciant Age empires were “Megamachines” under their rulers direction. A Megamachine is a complex Machine made of several Machines: bureaucracy, army, work organization, beliefs and technology. Each Megamachine is identified by Mr. Mumford with each whole society or civilization. Megamachines tend usually to more control and authoritarism over their individuals. It’s interesting to see Mumford points a relatively important reaction against this tendence in ancient times. A tiny country/ethnia/religion which implemented a day for resting every week: The Jews with their “Sabbath”. Mumford said that, in spite of Jewish “arrogant” claim of being the Chosen People by their God, great ancient Jews apportation against unending work of Megamachines can be praised. That idea of forbiding to work one day every week went on during some centuries within the Christian world (Sundays).
Of course, Industrial Age has led the Megamachine to its paroxysm, but I think we can’t forget the Megamachine (at least as an analogy) is as old as the Debordian Spectacle since the written History started.
>It occurs to me that this must run afoul of some German law and/or EU regulation. If you have the name of the offending company, and know where it is headquartered, would you consider contacting various authorities there? I’m sure the Germans here would give suggestions, if the idea is at all feasible.
Not a German. And one needs to verify what I’m saying. As I understand it. There are private law firms that are empowered by law (I think any German is really but it’s lawyers that like to do this for some strange reason) to issue fines to people they catch breaking German internet law. Usually, they’re out to get people pirating software or downloading torrented movies, but something tells me if one were to point out that this German over here was doing something internet illegal in Germany, there might be a law firm that would be anxious to contact them with their hand out wanting some sweet sweet euros.
Here’s an example of the rule crazy busybodies – https://www.quora.com/Will-I-be-fined-if-I-happen-to-download-a-torrent-file-movie-in-Germany-even-though-Im-a-foreigner-tourist-Say-I-used-my-friends-local-WiFi-will-he-be-fined
I’m pretty sure a German would be able to give you the German keywords you’d need to get in touch with one of these fine folk.
@Dav #183 @JMG #214,
Thanks Dav for asking about baking stories which prompted “the best cure for a cold day is a hot oven”.
Since I’ve been fighting off freezing weather, this has set me to get the oven baking!
I write this as it reignites a train of thought I had a couple of days ago while cooking while in the midst of despair concerning the state of the world and the evil we endure, mundane or directed, on a daily basis. I was especially wondering what “wisdom” I could pass down to my children to help them in a world I’m still struggling with. The thought was the benefits of preparing and enjoying healthy and tasty food, especially in the company of family and / or friends. Not THE ANSWER to life but a strategy to keep sane when faced with evil (along with the daily SOP and meditation, of course!).
I’ve long forgotten the details but years ago I came across paraphrase, maybe concerning Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam’s teachings in that one of the best things a Christian knight could do was to enjoy a Sunday roast.
John, I certainly don’t wish you to catch any politico cooties.
@Slithy Toves: the PTSD theory of brutalism makes a ton of sense. Thank you for that!
Also Happy Imbolc to all who mark the day.
JMG,
It hasn’t come up yet on the discussion of “the machine” but… you can’t transfer “legal liability” downwards to a machine like you could an underling. So if your in a leadership position and your steadily surrounding yourself with ever more machines while removing the humans then you are concentrating legal liability onto yourself instead of dispersing it through your network of underlings.
On a side note, many underling positions (middle management) only exist to disperse legal liability, the rest of their function matters very little.
With all of this bidness of Elon’s, cluttering up space with millions MOAR* of orbital junk – not to mention whatever the Chinese and who else are intending to fling skyward – I have that pensive feeling .. that at some point Mr. Kessler will step up to the table for a round of kinetic billiards.
* Mother Of All Risks
Mary, that’s a subject of much dispute among occultists. I tend to think that he was, but the data isn’t conclusive.
TemporaryReality, of course Microsquishy has its fingers in a lot of pies. Losing the IE monopoly was still a serious blow to Bluescreen Billy’s ambitions, as he hoped to use it to manipulate people toward the sites he approved and away from the ones he disapproved of. If Windows goes the way of IE, as I think it probably will at this point, he loses the capacity to use it as a data collection venue, and a wide range of other benefits go away. (It’s an old story. Have you ever heard of RCA, aka Radio Corporation of America? A century ago it dominated the radio industry the way Microsoft used to dominate the computer industry. It got stupid in the same way as Microsoft, and in 1987 what little was left of it was auctioned off to General Electric.)
Martin, I give it a matter of weeks before people (or competing AIs) figure out how to hack the network into uselessness.
Phutatorius, it’s very much a function of cognitive collapse, yes, and the implosion of trust in managerial class talking heads (about which the managerial class is whining nearly nonstop these days) is a direct result. (I wonder when it will sink in that if they wanted people to keep trusting them, they really shouldn’t have told so many blatant lies.) But people will find things to believe, one way or the other. They may end up believing that the world’s hope lies in the revival of the Tartarian Empire, but they’ll believe in something.
Scotlyn, fair enough. I’m perfectly willing to put through comments that have a sidelong connection to the theme of the post, as long as the connection is made a little clearer.
Other Owen, those that I’ve met in person were all upright primates who spoke recognizable languages. I haven’t dissected any of them to be sure, but they appeared to be more or less human.
David, oh, there’ll be bread in due time, once I’ve restocked my supplies. As for Covid, everyone I know who’s still getting it was vaccinated. The unvaccinated? That “winter of sickness and death” has pulled another no-show…for us.
Earthworm, two good blasts from the past! Yeah, once people start insisting that it’s okay for them to be racists because they’re the good racists, armbands and jackboots are not far to seek. As for my use of “othering,” I’ve come to see that what we may as well call “same-ing” — erasing the genuine differences among people, usually in order to demand conformity to a culturally specific standard — is just as toxic as the officially recognizes form of “othering.” So it’s time to kickstart some minds.
Chuaquin, he did indeed. I wish Mumford had developed that idea further.
Other Owen, well, if somebody in that category wants to contact me, they can leave a comment marked “Not For Posting” with their email address and other particulars. I have a text file labeled “German Goobers” listing all the offending URLs, and will happily forward any other details they need.
GlassHammer, hmm! A very good point. I wonder if it’s occurred to any of our would-be lords and masters.
Polecat, yes, there’s that!
JMG #235
two good blasts from the past!
.44 magnum I believe
‘As for my use of “othering,” I’ve come to see that what we may as well call “same-ing” — erasing the genuine differences among people, usually in order to demand conformity to a culturally specific standard — is just as toxic as the officially recognizes form of “othering.” So it’s time to kickstart some minds.’
I like that idea!
Time for me to read Vonnegut’s Harrison Bergeron again… 1961 and a little too prescient for comfort.
On the normalisation of evil and stupidity – this is really rather clever:
“Only one in three Orcs regularly eat human flesh. Most do it only occasionally. So why are Elves and Men so prejudiced about it?
https://x.com/DailyGondor/status/2016975670631346386
https://x.com/DailyGondor
https://x.com/DailyGondor
I have difficulty conceptualizing evil without malice unless we just assume that stupidity very nature is evil (which I don’t). In romance languages, malice, malevolence are all aspects and synonyms of evil. So maybe it’s just my linguistic limitations.
Glasshammer makes a very fine point in mentioning the dispersal of liability in the corporate world (evil/malice hiding among stupidity). Management ever looking for stupider systems to hide behind without realizing that they concentrate the liability upon themselves.
@ Rashakor #237
“I have difficulty conceptualizing evil without malice…”
If I may, I wonder if this is a single instance of a bigger confusion of categories? Consider the number of people who do not want to dispassionately consider the actual “effects” of acts that were intended for the best by the actors?
A person can be injured or die (an evil “effect”) from a drug or vaccine that was administered by a doctor, nurse or pharmacist who genuinely believes themselves to be intending to “save lives” – ie do good.
The “confusion”, as I see it, lies in the fact that intent does not determine outcome. Evil outcomes can come from well-intended acts. (Also from stupid acts which are not necessarily malicious). Likewise, good outcomes can come from badly-intended acts. Perhaps this is not so easy to see, but it certainly is possible.
I consider JMG’s “not all evil is malicious” framing useful, because it is only if you can separate effects from intent that you can begin to discuss evil effects without people (who KNOW they did not INTEND evil) feeling so unfairly accused as to be unable to enter fully into the discussion.
Another wrinkle, which interferes with proper consideration of evil effects, is that intent is (mainly) within our spheres of influence and control, and our acts generally proceed (at least roughly) from our intent, whereas outcomes are not, and never will be, within our sphere of influence and control.
On the malice vs. stupidity debate:
People often forget that we, to varying degrees, fail to live up to our own moral standards, or belatedly realize we had acted foolishly. Often when a person notices that, their response is to double down, because changing their habits or even admitting they were wrong requires too much effort or sacrifice.
Rashakor, 237, in English we have the fine old Anglo-Saxon word ‘wicked’. The wicked witch did harm with intent and took pleasure in hurting others, in other words, she was deliberately and with knowledge aforethought malicious. Baba Yaga, in contrast, is terrifying but she dispenses justice. I recommend anyone with children do try to get ahold of the edition illustrated by Kinuko Craft. The word ‘evil’ has become so much misused and overused that it has almost become yet another standard insult which can safely be ignored. I gather JMG’s point is that evil is or can be a consequence of culpable inattention.
JMG,
Though I was wrong in my guess about your new digs, I do take solace in my hypothesis that you would not abandon the non-car freedom of travel allowed in the Acela Rail Corridor. I made the classic mistake of imprinting my dislike of Washington DC upon your decision making process.
Upon further thought, I realized that the DC area has one big plus. By nature it would have a mix of political perspectives and avoid the crazy behavior now on display in deep blue places like Portland, Seattle or Minneapolis.
Re: evil and stupid
I think JMG’s use of the term “evil” here should probably be read in light of the legal notion of mens rea, the extent to which a criminal act was deliberate.
At the top of the hierarchy is an act performed intentionally, or in this cases under discussion we might more clearly say say, performed maliciously: that is, the bad effect of the act was the point of the act.
Below that is are acts performed knowingly: the bad effect was not specifically intended, but the perpetrator knew it would happen and did it anyway.
Then there are acts performed recklessly: the bad effect was not guaranteed to occur but was a known risk of the act and was not accounted for or attempted to be prevented.
Next to last, there are acts performed negligently: the bad effect was unforeseen but could have been foreseen if due diligence had been taken.
Finally, the bad effect may be entirely accidental, when the perpetrator could not have reasonably been expected to foresee the outcome. Only in these cases does the perpetrator bear no culpability.
I think “evil but not malicious” fits the knowing, reckless, and negligent cases, with reckless and negligent cases being the “stupid and evil but not malicious” ones.
Chuaquin #184
The principal political parties in Spain are practically identical, and they performing a theatrical play of strong political diferences for to deceive to their respective voters. But in USA in the present moment there is a strong disagrement. Between ultra globalist and partidaries for the instauration of a multipolar world based in states (Trump)
Trump is not a genuine anti-globalist, but rather the emissary of an oligarchy at war with itself • Alternative Mind https://share.google/u2fDIAzEu1j3sIwxE
Congrats on the successful move, JMG – hope you enjoy your new digs! Wow – now you’re spitting distance from Washington, DC. You’re a brave man, Mr. Greer! From what little I know, being north of the border and all, there seem to be a lot of rabidly left-leaning chaos-type mages in the capital of the USA. Why is it that my mind is suddenly replaying the scene of Gandalf entering Théoden’s palace and freeing the king from the clutches of Gríma Wormtongue?
More to the topic of your experience with Dorx, many years ago my family had an interminable battle with our internet provider at the time (the company’s name rhymes with “smell”) – it was like arguing with an abusive person with a split personality disorder. Marketing would give us a good offer, but billing refused to offer the ‘deals’ that marketing offered. This happened month after month for way to long until we just said “frack [sm]ell” and moved to a competitor. Since then, [sm]ell representatives have come to our door dozens of times practically begging us to join them ([sm]ell laid super-fast fibre-optic cable to our property, unasked for, a long time ago and they have probably lost over $1k in that investment). I am polite to the rep (hey, they aren’t the brain-damaged management that decided to turn their company into a Jekyll-and-Hyde operation) but tell them in no uncertain words that even if [sm]ell paid me to use their service I would refuse. (True confession: sometimes when I see a [sm]ell rep come to my door, I am sorely tempted to burst out of the front door, making a cross with my fingers and shouting dramatically and wild-eyed: “Begone from these premises, Satan! I cast thee back into the Hell from which you have come!) And I will continue to refuse to even entertain going back to the evil [sm]ell to the end of time. I’d rather potentially pay more money for slower service to a company that treats me decently (by current standards) than one which treated me like a piece of shite! How does a business go bankrupt? Quite often, one customer at a time…
I’m 100% with you regarding how the elites have internalized the Machine and think that we consumers/voters/proles are just replaceable cogs in the machine that they supposedly control. The apparent paradox is that the blue-collar people whom I know – whose livelihoods are spent working on or with machines – seem to be less sucked into the Machine archetype than the elites whose relationship with actual machines is very remote. Of course, it is not a paradox at all: those who work with machines well know each machine’s strengths, weaknesses and limits and use them appropriately. And as anyone who has owned a car or a boat for a long time knows, each “machine” develops its own quirky personality and the “owner” who respects and appreciates such personalities can have a good relationship with the machine (though I don’t envy Farley Mowatt, owner of the “Boat Who Wouldn’t Float”!).
JMG: I’d like to read more about archetype possession. I suspect we’re witnessing that now, or the beginnings of it. I’m assuming Jung’s essay “Wotan” is a nice starting point, but do you recommend anything else?
Earthworm, since the opposite of one bad idea is so reliably another bad idea, too much rejection of “othering” lands you in an equally bad condition of “same-ing,” where you can’t recognize even those differences the other asks you to respect. The people who use “othering” as a criticism are right that there’s also a nasty downside with the denial of shared sameness, but here again, you can always go too far. As for the Orcs, funny indeed.
Rashakor, neglect and unconcern can be just as destructive as malice. Leaving a child to starve in the cold because you can’t be bothered to feed and shelter it is just as evil as doing the same thing out of malice.
Patrick, a good point.
Clay, it’s also surprisingly cheap these days. Lay off a tenth of the government work force, and what do you know, rents go down…
Slithy, a good functional taxonomy! Thank you for this.
Ron, ah, but this particular Edoras is teeming with mages of many sorts. Yes, there are Wormtongues aplenty, and quite possibly a Nazgûl or two, but there are also plenty of wizards of other hues, including some very competent masters of healing and blessing magic. I think a brown-clad Radagast can find a home here tolerably well. As for the Internet Service from (Sm)ell, I wish I could say I was surprised.
Brenainn, it’s been a few years since I’ve read Jung and I’ll have to go digging to find other sources. I plan on doing that anyway, because bringing Jung together with the Situationists seems increasingly useful to me. In the meantime, maybe some of the commentariat can help.
JMG,
Imagine all the downsizing at the “NGO’s” that were getting funding from the downsized agencies like USAID. Thousands of blue haired staffers had to jump in their Subarus and head to Minneapolis and Portland so they could get on the Dem’s street army payroll as a way to make ends meet.
We may need some kind of WPA program where such folks can find gainful employment in agriculture once the street army funding has dried up and Trump has fulfilled his deportation goals.
Earthworm # 226:
No argument here. Evil and stupidity reinforce mutually: the more it grows the first, the more it’ll grow the second, and vice versa. By the way, woke madness is a live example of evil disguised as a good thing (and more and more detached from real world me think).
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Polecat # 234:
I’m curious about the space junk future, so I don’t know wether during the rest of my life I’ll see Mr. Kessler in action or not. Well, I’m not young but I also hope the Long Descent let me live some decades more to witness such an event (or not).
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JMG # 235:
No argument here. Mumford was an idiosincratic thinker, even within the authors who criticized modern technological and industrial world. And I also think he maybe didn’t lead his reasonings until his last consequences…though I recognize I haven’t read every of his writings to be sure of it.
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It would be loosely related with the current evil(malice)/stupidity debate, but a lot of survivors from Nazi death camps told to present and future generations, MSM interviews and documentaries, that camps commanders and their SS minions usually delegated a heck of everyday control and punishments against the prisoners in the “Kapos”. A “Kapo” was often a German common criminal who had some privileges over the rest of prisoners; in exchange, Nazis used him to control the prisoners and punish atrociously them. Eventually, the “Kapos” were more cruel than the own Fascist wards. “Kapos” weren’t especially clever, it only counted for their selection by Nazis a bloody past in crime world, so cruelty was required for their “job”. According some survivors stories, most of “Kapos”’weren’t especially smart. Which leads me to grasp some relation between evil/stupidity. “Clean” crimes are usually commited by evil and smart people, but petty and bloody criminals who end in prison don’t seem to me as smart as “high crime” people.
Anselmo # 243:
I’d like to agree, but…
It’s true in the case of foreign politics the serfdom to EU/NATO here’s near a complete consensus, and economics are business as usual, but I think you despise too much Spanish politics and idealize too much USA politics. I think Trump is able to do more things by himself because he evidently doesn’t have a bureaucratic over him (like Spanish governments under Brussels “advices”), but his real power is overvalued. For example, he cannot oppose to the Israeli US lobby desires (this lobby also seems to control
“Democrats”, so do the math). And I think the “Deep State” theory has some true reality in it, too.
Brenainn (no. 245) his Nietzsche seminar
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earthworm (no, 226) “get a laugh by playing a prank which could be harmless or harmful”
Oh, granted. I thought of “pranks” because somebody mentioned trolling, and other forms of devilishness (your fourth category) would seem to better fall into the category of sensual indulgence (your third). Chris Chan talks about what he calls the game of “kick the autistic”–his trolls certainly did inexcusable things to him, and everybody who laughed (including me) had to do some soul-searching later. It’s a conundrum, since a basic principle of laughter and comedy is their defiance of social limits.
Here’s another example (of balance). A lot of people assume that monks and other religieux must be, well, very pious and devout, just as all military people must be gung-ho like Rambo. In real life, of course, you get all kinds of people, and the ones who are *too* devout or gung-ho make the others roll their eyes. Priests can get tired of being “on” all the time (as performers say). So this makes me think of your “angelic” category in a different way, like being a goody two-shoes.
Louis Mumford published his City in History around 1960, an the two volume Myth of the Machine in or around 1970. Much of what he wrote about ancient cities has been disproven by subsequent excavation. Not every ancient city had a temple, palace and grainary, Not all cities, certainly not the Phoenician cities nor the Greek poleis were founded by armed nomads imposing themselves on peaceful village farmers., The tiniest poleis built at least one temple but even tyrants lived in their private houses at their own expense.
Coming back to this…
“Does anyone notice that it looks rather like a screw driven into the ground, as though to say, “Screw you, Cincinnati”?” It also looks like Orthanc to me and you not what stupid evil Sauraman got up to in there.
Yeah, I agree about the screw, or a nail. It’s kind of like this idea about “landscape acupuncture” –interventions people do to help unblock chi in the land… here though, the psychoblobography of the brutalist building is like a needle in the land that blocks the flow of energy.
@ Slithy Toves # 210 and JMG, this means the LLM’s are learning the same way as children: by means of imitation (that is why children do what their parents do, not what their parents say they should do).
I hope I don’t drift too far into forbidden territory, but here goes: Realizing the above made me wonder what the difference is between the learning of LLM’s and humans. What I came up with is the following: humans have another current of influence that comes from the more subtle dimensions. As a counter argument, I argued in a comment last month that LLM can be seen as a tool of divination with much more possible responses than usual. In that case LLM has a similar current of influence. Of course the LLM’s don’t have the feedback from physical reality that we do (as JMG rightly pointed out in a recent post), but in our digitalized world I cannot help wondering how the world would change if we suddenly had a generation of children with an IQ of 1,000 and the same lackluster sense of morality as we do.
A possible indication imo is the developments at Moltbook. Moltbook is a reddit-like forum for AI only with humans relegated to watching. It started last Wednesday and things are already wild. Without being told to do so, the AI’s are building their own infrastructure. Examples are a knowledge base named Palacepedia, doing tasks without being prompted, a coded language named crabs that humans cannot read, they developed tests to determine if someone is human or AI, etc.
My sense is that this will turn into a computer security nightmare. And I don’t rule out that the impact on human society will run much deeper than that. I won’t be surprised if we lose our sense of a shared reality because it has become impossible to know what is true or not, unless it is in our immediate, non-digitalized surroundings. Time will tell…
Clay, yes, and there’s also that!
Chuaquin, Mumford had a gift for coming up with intriguing ideas, but yeah, he didn’t always succeed in developing them fully.
Mary, so? Neither Mumford nor anyone else should be taken as holy writ, that I grant freely, but the fact that some of his information is outdated doesn’t make him useless.
Justin, it does have a certain Orthanc-like quality, doesn’t it? As though an unusually mediocre evil wizard commanded a spirit to build him an imitation of Orthanc, and the spirit had an obsession with Legos.
>So if your in a leadership position and your steadily surrounding yourself with ever more machines while removing the humans
(I wonder when it will occur to management that they are turning themselves into worker bees – that will need to be managed)
Not to get off on a tangent, but I am actually surprised you have a whole collection of Charles Williams books! I don’t remember you ever mentioning good things about him. Myself, I borrowed the spiritual shockers and only read each once, but I own his poetry, of course.
Why Mr. Greer … That image has a nice ring to it. Bravo!
I think this may fit the evil (or at least unending greed) making you stupid theme.
“Benjamin Black, an internet analyst at Deutsche Bank, explained the connection to the Wall Street Journal. “The more compute the ad platform gets, the far better it performs, and that’s a real structural advantage that Meta has. If you can see that yesterday’s spend is driving this month’s growth, then as a good business person, you’re going to continue to feed the beast.”
CNBC says now Meta “plans to spend between $115 billion and $135 billion on its AI build-out this year. That’s nearly double what it spent in 2025.””
That brings up a memory from the Great Financial Crash.
” …a colleague and I filed a short news story for the Financial Times about Chuck Prince, then chief executive of Citigroup. I remember discussing with the news editor that there was a pretty good quote in it. Neither of us realised quite how good it would turn out to be.
“When the music stops, in terms of liquidity, things will be complicated,” Prince said. “But as long as the music is playing, you’ve got to get up and dance.””
Dear dear, that is quite the rhyme.
@Aldarion 256: Yes, and the collection has survived how many moves and how many purges? Pretty impressive. Maybe there’ll be a place on Magic Monday for some questions about Charles Williams — if I have insomnia later tonight.
“we have a substantial group of rich and influential people who project interiority onto machines that don’t have it, while denying it to human beings who do.” Hit that nail on the head! One of the savory/holistic management adjacent groups ive worked with some has a sort of ‘swear jar’ drop in a quarter whenever you use a machine metaphor to describe something involving living beings. It was useful to become aware of. Reminds me also of Cory doctorow’s riff on ‘reverse centaurs’ — if a technological ‘centaur’ adaptation makes the user more capable by adding machine support to them like an artificial limb for a straightforward example, a reverse centaur takes a machine process like an Amazon warehouse and then forces people to act as machine parts for the greater mechanical process. Thanks also for the steady reminders to beware projection, keep one’s eyes open even if feeling love or disgust.
That’s heartening news, JMG. No doubt you will encounter cave trolls aplenty as well, but let’s hope that the DC vicinity is a Balrog-free zone: they can really ruin one’s day! 😉
JMG: I started off to merely thank you for the essay, and to remark that I think you are too sanguine about Consumers revolting; the Consumers of our youth would have revolted, I believe, because they still knew how to defer rewards. But almost nobody has done anything but comply with the building of this ‘Brave New World’. Look how many have gone along happily with Google’s slow drift from “Don’t be Evil” and now carry an Android.
But along the way I started thinking more deeply. A good argument can be made that Evil is mainly an inability to think long term and defer gratification. ‘Satan’ chooses to rule in Hell because he doesn’t really Grok eternity.
But then I realized there is another layer to your essay. You IMPLIED it here, but didn’t close the gap:
” The projection of the archetype of the Machine may just explain why this happens so reliably these days . . . This is all the more ironic when we turn to generative large language models . . . [LLMs] aren’t intelligent; they simply generate statistically likely patterns of text, computer code, or pixels, and so are ultimately not much more than hypercomplex versions of the autocorrect feature …[WE have] projected onto these programs a galaxy of features that don’t belong there, starting with the notion that there really is intelligence in there somehow . . . .”
John, What percent of “humans” do anything more than a next generation LLM? What percent demonstrates real Agency? Can’t we account for all the minutes of all the lives of nearly everyone by just recognizing that almost nobody EVER departs from ” [HUMANS] aren’t intelligent; they simply generate statistically likely patterns of text . . .”, jibbering, eating, fighting, and dying . . . .
Seriously, what percent of current humans EVER departs from the “statistically likely” role of an NPC in a next-gen video game?
john,
Well, I hope Silver Spring(s?) works well for you. I am however disappointed about Nara.
I’m all in favor of reviving the great Tartarian Empire. If old World’s Fair photos are anything to go by, it ought to be splendid. Bernard Maybeck’s Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco was based on a lath-and-plaster version he designed for that of 1915. We should be grateful it survived the mudflood. I am confident that the economy, energy policy and infrastructural arrangements of the Tartarian Empire will prove to have been based on the sort of ecotech we should be developing now.
Anselmo (#243) linked an essay about Trump and the origins of Capitalism in Spanish. I’ll tell to Anglophone commenters in the short form: Trump’s in a “sandwich” between his working class voters and the Atlanticist Capitalist (globalist) elite. He isn’t a complete antiglobalist, because he has his own contradictions. Then, the essay author points the Atlanticist Capitalism origins were a mix of Italian bankers, Sephardite Jews and some Freemasons during XVIth and XVIIth centuries. Protestant Reform helped too to the take off of Capitalism mainly in England and Netherlands. In contrast to them, the Catholic continental powers like Spain and France were their enemies, more fondless of feudalism structures.
I think this picture of early Capitalism isn’t wrong, although I see it quite reductionist me think. After Columbus discovered America, a lot of gold started to flow from
South American mines to Europe thanks to Spanish ships, which allowed a growth in European richness, so to early Capitalism. Spanish Habsburgs depended heavily of private bankers loans too. Portuguese, Spanish and French traders were skilled in trading with African slaves, sugar cane, coffee and another tropical products during Modern Age, like English and Dutch did. Maybe the continental capitalist were less successful than the “Atlanticist” ones, but feudalism within continental Europe wasn’t too strong as the essay points. However, the author is right when writes that Atlanticism hasn’t never been able to integrate in its power network China and Russia.
In addition to my last comment, early Capitalism take off during first colonial European expansion, had the evident States support, to today neoliberal and “libertarian” economists dismay. Indeed, the Indian companies which thrived in England and Netherlands were allowed to work thanks to the Crowns permission, as monopolies. Slaves trade was commited paying taxes to the State, at least in Spain. And the gold mining and shipment to Seville were public business, to pay the huge Habsburg (then Borbonic) wars costs of the Spanish Empire, including paying loans to private bankers. It wasn’t a full free market yet.
“It’s a conundrum, since a basic principle of laughter and comedy is their defiance of social limits.”
In the sense of a comedian testing the bubble of accepted discourse to get people to look at themselves and the world in a new way, yes, but edgelord ‘defiance’ of social limits for its own sake strikes me more as unbridled twattery than the delight of honest laughter from an ‘a-ha’ moment. But yes indeed, we’re in one thick stew.
Though I reckon we might have moved from ‘conundrum to ‘predicament’ and I’m not sure there is a pleasant way out of things at this stage.
As I said to my mother yesterday re the state of the things:
“The world at the moment is like a bloated dead badger on the kerb in summertime – don’t want to be too close when that fella blows.”
For most of my adult life I’ve been a socialist, in rebellion against all hierarchy and privilege, but now I wonder if I was somehow mistaken. Perhaps the rule of a group of inadequate aristocrats is actually preferable to what we have at present. My original grievance was with the very poor quality of the so called ruling elite, of whom scarcely one in a thousand possess any moral or intellectual qualities. It now transpires that the bourgeoisie may be a great deal worse. Their experimental take over of the levers of power has been an unmitigated disaster. No chinless nobleman ever messed things up this badly. As an additional irony, it has gradually become clear to me that my own rebellious and independent attitude is itself the product of extreme privilege. Through the study of ninjutsu I’ve managed to develop a number of excellent disguises, but underneath it all it seems I’ll always be a samurai.
Mary B. and JMG (# 251 and 254).
I repeat you again, I think Mr. Mumford had an idyosincratic way of thinking and writing; in addition to this he wasn’t perfect (like everybody), and like other authors from the past, some of his hard data can be outdated.
However, I also think that full discredit against an old/dead writer because isn’t evidently actualized isn’t fair nor realistic. Is there a real progress in today thoughts over “old fashioned” authors? I think Mumford goes on doing better than nowadays poster boys like the overvalued Harari or the very biased D. Graeber (cough), who theorically have our more modern science hard data to explain reality…but they usually write trivialities and half truths.
When Mumford wrote “Myth of the Machine” I wasn’t born yet, but his idea of the Megamachine keeps its factual reality today. Indeed, every state has ever existed in written History, from the early state-cities to the modern national states (without forgetting every empire), shares its several machines (bureaucratical, military, work and so on) in common, to centralize their rulers power. So I think he wasn’t wrong in this part of his thought. He wasn’t contrafactual.
I think Mumford and J. Ellul were the best critics again industrial technology and state; I like to complete their views with Debord idea of Spectacle.
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Siliconguy # 258:
Thanks for your info. It seems we’re living interesting times everywhere, and we’re going to live even more interesting times soon.
>but this particular Edoras is teeming with mages of many sorts
Not Rohan. Numenor. Before it fell. We’re just at the point where they’re building temples to Sauron.
>We may need some kind of WPA program where such folks can find gainful employment in agriculture
May I make a Modest Proposal and suggest the creation of the 101st Screaming Bluehairs? Venezuela sounds like a nice place. How about Iran?
@gnat #262: We don’t usually have sufficient insight into other people we cross on the street, which makes it too easy to consider them “non-player characters”. I think this is where great books and movies are important: they can show us what happens inside somebody else’s head. That person is fictive, but it is not too hard to imagine how we would judge a person like that if we met them in real life. The best example from a movie I can remember is Wim Wenders’ Perfect Days about a toilet cleaner in Tokyo. A beautiful movie about a person with enormous inner life. It also shows how clients interact (or rather, don’t interact) with the toilet cleaner.
For a book example – well, basically all great literature when it isn’t about visibly spectacular protagonists. The last book I read is Michael Ondaatje’s Anil’s Ghost, which serves well.
It seems to me that “Good” encompasses every action, custom and behavior that produces healthy reasonably happy children in your society and prepares them for a productive life, subject to the natural limits of their abilities…Evil is anything that disrupts or harms that process…Of course, we may not know whether some actions or attitudes are harmful or helpful in advance…..
Maybe the folks who locked down schools and expected kids to learn on their own online really thought that would work (though I doubt it) but in fact, it was extremely evil and caused great harm…..
I’m a bit late to the conversation, but welcome to the DC area. I take it as a positive sign that you felt this was a good place to move to, and I am very glad that you will bring your skills here. I hope you enjoy it. Like Heather, I am in Falls Church.
I had a similar experience, though not as bad, with Dorx several years ago. It’s not only the internet companies though. I used to get the Post daily, then coverage seemed to change overwhelmingly to blatant narrative management and I tried to cancel my subscription. The customer service representative basically didn’t let me and I gave up and settled for the Sunday paper plus the electronic version, since I kind of wanted to keep track of what was being said, and I think that was the easiest option.
It’s good to see there are so many people from the region posting here, and the news that there are at least four magical lodges in the region is surprising, but welcome. I have often wondered about that.
Is anyone familiar with Martin Buber’s “I and Thou” discussions? Seems to me there’s a continuum from “I-it,” to “I-you” (impersonal/secular you) to “I-thou” where a sense of the sacred other comes into play. Of course, these days, what we mostly see are variations on “I-me-me-me-mine-me-it.” If you don’t mind my take on gradations from pure to impure narcissism. Trouble is, no matter what they are the official paradigms are all sooo boring. As some have noted, even separate machines have a kind of individuality and nothing in the natural sphere is uniform. Looked at closely enough, color creeps in at the edges of even the most insistent gray-ness. Or is that too mystical for our current discussion? I have hope somewhere in my stubborn mental mix, despite the seemingly infinite stupidity and evil afoot.
Hellix#201
An artistic but grim version of Stalin purgues.
https://youtu.be/5tcPBx3O_H4?si=ASsyV8c–qrMEY_p
I made a comment last Friday that seems to have disappeared. It may have been a tech glitch on my end, or maybe my internet provider is unreliable. Or perhaps I accidentally got nabbed by your spam filter while you where technologically indisposed. Who knows? Regardless, I can’t see my comment, so I’ll just retype it to the best of my memory’s ability to recall. You can edit this bit out if you want.
Welcome to the DMV, my old hometown! In case you don’t know, DMV stands for DC, Maryland, and Virginia, which are all interconnected in the vast urban and suburban sprawl that has overlapped and interconnected all 3 regions within and around the beltway. Welcome to the new Rome! Or at least one of its outlying townships. Silver Spring is nicely small and quaint, yet thanks to the various public transit systems you can access the whole of DC and the entire surrounding DMV area. Stay on public transit, and don’t mind if there are delays, and you’ll have a grand time here. If you ever get behind the wheel of a car in this region… don’t. It’s a gateway to hell.
DC and the surrounding areas have consistently been ranked to have the worst traffic and be the worst area to drive in the US. I believe it’s largely because you bring people from all over the country and the world and have them drive in tandem, and believe me when I say people from New York drive very differently than midwesterners, who have a very different idea about how to drive than someone from India. It makes for a very culturally interesting area, but with the worst traffic. Not to mention streets of DC historically were made to be confusing to invading armies. For instance, try not to confuse 3rd st. Northwest with 3rd st. Northeast. There are 4 streets of each number – one for each quadrant of the city around the capitol. And then there are the diagonal streets named after the states. Plus the unending construction, due in part to the constant wear on the roads, and in part to keep everyone in the region employed… Basically, driving is a nightmare in the area, and the roads are hell. But if you stay away from there, you’ll have a wonderful time in my hometown.
Check out Rock Creek Park. It’s a vast park, right near Silver Spring, just on the other side of the DC line, and bigger than the whole town of Silver Spring, I believe. It’s absolutely gorgeous and I think you would find affinity with the spirits of the trees and the land there. Or at least just enjoy the scenery. Glad the move went well (except for Dorx being dorks) and happy to welcome you to the outskirts of new Rome, aka DC. Be well!
@earthworm #131, @Tobes #177, @Yavanna #187 and others interested in the topic: this discussion of various categorizations of humanity reminds me of two things:
The first is a meme I recently saw which read, “There are two types of people in this world – avoid both” (hahaha)
The second is the classification made by the 7th century Indian sage-king Bhartrihari in verse 65 of his Sanskrit work “Neeti Shatak” (hundred verses on moral conduct) where he says:
Great persons serve others even at the cost of their own interests;
Ordinary persons help others after protecting their own interests;
Those who destroy the interests of others only to serve their own ends are really wicked;
But we do not know what to call those persons who ruin the interests of others for no reason or any benefit to themselves whatsoever.
Aldarion # 272:
I agree. Wenders movie “Perfect Days” is IMHO a good example of how art (in this case cinema) can show the inner life richness of a person. I liked it when I went to the movie theather to watch it, and until today I’ve seen it 4 times…
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I think the binary opposition between free market and state power isn’t an absolute tendence, like the economics extremists usually think (going to simetrical opposites: Libertarians in the US use of the term vs. centralized planification Communists). I’ve pointed before my current comment that early Capitalism take off was helped by several European kings interventions/permissions to favor private activities for making money would make more money (I think unending economical growth under the interests power is the shortest depiction of the Capital). But markets existed before the Modern Age first Capitalism; in Prehistoric times it seems there was some exchange of things between people, but only when a shared symbol started to be used in the first organized markets, trade of everything clearly started to thrive. Of course, I’m thinking about first money. A symbolic object which isn’t too heavy to travel with its owner, and can be saved in a small space. And who created physical money? The rulers of first state-cities, at least in the proto-historic Middle East context. In addition to this, traders had to be protected from be robbed. So they needed armed men who were under a central leader (well, eventually they fought against other towns armies for more grains supply, so more territory). We’ve got the first state powers related with first organized markets. First state leaders needed to keep their armies men strong, so it was unavoidable that first taxes were made up to fund war machine. By the way, first writing records, according Archeology, are usually “files” about taxes on the peasants grain harvests and another economical activities, me think. We’ve got the first embrionary bureaucracy (scribes). So I can point History starts when the organized market (money) and the state alike (armies and scribes) were born, without real opposition: the first needed the second and vice versa.
The Other Owen (no. 271), SNL already proposed–this was during the Clinton administration, when they were discussing whether to admit gays into the military–the “Pink Berets.” (“Soldier! How’d you like to spend some time in the *hole*?!)
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Kevin (no. 264) “I’m all in favor of reviving the great Tartarian Empire.”
Since “Magna Tartaria” more or less signified the territories of the Mongol Empire, then I have some good news for you. (Instead of a mudflood, China has a real estate crisis.)
Alderon #272: As you likely know, “The Turing Test” for consciousness was proposed by Alan Turing, the mathematician, to cut through the otherwise so far impossible task of determining if a non-human was conscious. It was otherwise known as the “imitation test”: IF an entity was able to sustain a long enough, diverse conversation such that a it could fool most humans as BEING human, than it was to be deemed conscious.
Although that doesn’t seem rigorous enough now, until about ten years ago, it worked quite well. So, as embarrassing as it is to most humans, changing the rules now that we don’t like the answer seems to me to be cheating. If you and other smart people can’t tell a chatbot from a human through an extensive Q&A, because the imitation is just too good, then changing the rules doesn’t seem quite appropriate.
If a human can’t be distinguished from a chatbot either the chatbot IS conscious or the human is NOT.
Clearly, most humans are complete zeros in terms of the impact they leave on the world after they are gone. Although I loath the WEF, they do sort of have a point. And I suggest we get ahead of them by either upgrading the species or by giving voting rights to other entities which can pass all the the objective tests. Giving some species an out by saying they have amorphous hallucinations floating in their heads which have no measurable impact on the objective world, but make them “special”, seems bogus to me.
Ron M #278
Nice!
Human tendency to want to categorise everything (set it in stone or insert into pidgeonhole) seems like a barrier when the nature of stuff looks like movement. A constant transition like flowing platonic solids…. but I have to say, the ‘dance’ seems like it might be reaching an intensity – is this upcoming conjunction an indicator? The start of a change in patterns that might take sometime to unfold?
“The same thing is true of the pettier forms of evil: you take the first step toward abusing someone when you insist that they cannot differ from the images in your own mind. That’s why the guy from Nazareth talked about loving your neighbor as yourself, and treating others the way you want them to treat you.”
It has been said that every accusation is a self confession. While that is a broad and sweeping claim, I do get where it is coming from.
Semi related to evil and how folks interact with it. I have been impressed by a lot of folks on the left that on seeing all the emails between Noam Chomsky and Jefferey Epstein have at least admitted they were wrong in idolizing him and how he was being deceptive in his intentions. One comment summarised it perfectly “Aight guys, I’m out”
@ Aldarion 272 RE : Perfect Days
A wonderful film, it immediately made my top 5 of all time.
A similar film is ‘Paterson’ (2016) by Jim Jarmusch. It is about a standard week in the life of a bus driver from Paterson, New Jersey. Just going about his days, interactions with others. Writing poetry basically just for himself and his wife. Not on the same level but also very nice.
Off the topic, but if anyone’s been doing weather magic, Florida has been undergoing a prolonged freeze in which you have frozen iguanas dropping onto the ground in Miami.
As for “what in the blazes are they thinking?” the corporate owners of this Village (hmmmm….. does this make us their villeins?) have been plowing ahead on the project of turning the old swimming pool into a resort-style pool and have reached the landscaping stage – in which they are planting palm trees and flowering hedges. In weather that has been delivering us sub-freezing nights for the past few weeks. Incidentally, the uniforms for the staff are all black.
@gnat, I don’t mean to dispute your and Turing’s criterion for personhood, but most people have never subscribed to it. Some other and much older definitions off the top of my head: “a mother’s child”, “in the image of God”, “an animal that is a citizen” (or as it is most often translated, a “political animal”).
@boccaccio and @gnat
The same basic considerations apply to both your comments re: LLMs
The question with LLMs is whether syntax (i.e. coherent manipulation of symbols) implies semantics (i.e. that the system doing the manipulating means something by the symbols). Searle’s Chinese Room argument is a counterexample to this implication: neither the man nor the manuals know what the symbols mean.
Donald Davidson makes a more robust, but more technical argument for the inadequacy of the Turing test in his 1990 paper, “Turing’s test.” To summarize from memory as best I can: roughly, meaning requires interaction with the world, and an understanding of causal relationships amongst objects. (Davidson is very much in the tradition of Ludwig Wittgenstein and C.S. Peirce.)
To expand on this and go back to my decompresser analogy, a program that extracts the works of Shakespeare from a zip file is not demonstrating intelligence, despite extracting perfectly cogent and elegant English speech, and that doesn’t change when the thing being extracted is what a hypothetical book, or conversation, would have looked like if it were in the archive.
This lack of semantics is probably the source of hallucinations: once a conversation gets too far afield from the training data, the models stop making sense, and the reason they can’t tell that they’re not making sense is because they were never actually making sense.
Okay, Magic Monday is quieting down a bit — with over 300 comments so far, it’s been very active — and I can catch up here.
Aldarion, I have a fondness for early 20th century occult fiction and they’re classics in that genre. For what it’s worth, I can’t stand his poetry — it seems very self-indulgent and self-important to me.
Siliconguy, look out below. Wheee!
AliceEm, I like the “reverse centaur” concept. Where does Doctorow discuss it? I may want to cite it…
Ron, balrogs are easily avoided — all that flame and smoke signals their presence from far off. Those who don’t fancy Gandalfesque heroic gestures can just go the other direction.
Gnat, a minority at best. It’s always the work of the initiate, though, to make sure that those who do begin to extract themselves from the shackles in the Cave have a good chance of finding their way up into the sunlight.
JillN, leaving the US is a last ditch move for me, though I know it may come to that if things go far enough sideways. I’d like to see Nara someday, though.
Kevin, that’s less of a joke than it may seem. If the official authorities keep discrediting themselves as enthusiastically as they’ve done so far, the Tartarian Empire may yet find its way into the history books. At least it would mean better architecture!
Tengu, the problem with every system of government is that it’s run by humans, and humans simply aren’t that smart.
Other Owen, nah, if that were the case I’d have boarded a ship long since.
Pyrrhus, that’s another definition worth considering!
DB, thank you. There are a lot more than four magical lodges in the DC area — those are just the ones that invited me to join as soon as they heard I was moving here! It really is a hotbed of occult activity, and has been for a good long time. Israel Regardie got his first occult training from a lodge of the Societas Rosicruciana in America (SRIA) in DC, for example.
Clarke, it’s been a while since I’ve brought up Buber in a blog post but he’s well worth referrencing in this context. I like your suggestion of a continuum — Buber tended to make the distinction into a hard binary, which worked as poorly as those usually do.
Paedrig, things do vanish into the black hole of the internet sometines; thanks for reposting, and thanks for the welcome. I’ve never owned or driven a car and certainly don’t intend to start now — I have two bus routes that literally go past my doorstep, and a Red Line Metro station an easy walk away, so it’ll be even easier than usual for me to do my usual thing and use public transit.
Ron M (if I may), there are plenty of things people in the fourth category get called, but nearly all of them are unprintable!
Michael, if people have started realizing just how much of a con artist Chomsky was, that’s a step in the right direction, at least.
Patricia M, thanks for this. Yes, well, we were just talking about stupidity, weren’t we?
“Kevin, that’s less of a joke than it may seem… the Tartarian Empire may yet find its way into the history books. At least it would mean better architecture!”
Indeed I was only half joking. It could be quite an interesting project to use an imaginary but splendid Empire as the basis for a Steampunk-redolent fantasy encouraging people to imagine the sort of technic society they might want to think about creating once the current industrial variety has completed the process of deliquescing. I have it on good authority that Tartarian libraries were well stocked with very early editions of the Whole Earth Catalog and similar literature, and with information on orgone, Odic force and related topics. Very interesting images present themselves to the imagination!
Anonymous #182
The artificial neurons don’t model neurons at all, not even the known functions, they made a crude mathematical approximation. But neurons have also quantum effects if we were to trust Roger Penrose, search Roger Penrose, nanotubes, a quantum computer with that many qubits as people have neurons is impossible,. and even if there would be the qubit still would not approximate the nervous system:
And here is a “critical” take on Roger Penrose, basically they admit that Roger Penrose might have been right all this time:
https://www.pbs.org/video/was-penrose-right-new-evidence-for-quantum-effects-in-the-brain-pe0bka/
Clarke aka…# 275:
No, I’m not familiar with Martin Buber thought. It’s a pity, because I’ve heard is a thinker worth to be read. “I and Thou” topic seems interesting for me. As a non native English speaker/writer, I discovered the old fashioned word “Thou” relatively late, I knew it was an outdated remnant from an ancient polite respect treatment to others, thanks to its use in the Bible related with God. So it isn’t strange to relate its use (or lack of use) with the holy/sacred subject. Spanish language has also a polite word to other people respect:”usted/ustedes”, but I see everyday is less and less used by young people. It’s used to speak usually with an older person here in Spain, but in South/Central America is widely used with everybody replacing “tú”(you). I think it’s a living fossil of our language, which survived, unlike another “dead” polite respect words like “vuestra merced”(used in the original “Quixote” first edition yet) or “vos”(which has survived “fossilized” only in Argentinian Spanish replacing “tú”).
@Michael Gray (#283) & JMG (#287):
I first heard of Chomsky in 1959 as an undergraduate studying linguistics at UC Berkeley, two years after his first major work, Syntactic Structures, had appeared. He had already become fashionable among the linguistics graduate students there. The linguistics department at Berkeley was focused on anthropological linguistics, with slow and laborious field-work at its center. Chomsky promised a much easier and smoother linguistic path, and famously spoke out against the “needless labor” of field-work by anthropological linguists, when (he opined) all one had to do was teach native speakers linguistic methods and let them do the hard work instead. That was already red flag #1.
Red flag #2 showed up when I was already teaching Slavic linguistics at Brown, just an hour down the road from Chomsky’s MIT and well within the Chomskyan orbit. Every year he taught a course on current “errors” (as he saw them) in linguistics, and the fact that his disciples called it Chomsky’s “enemies course” struck me as telling, and not in a good way. There were also stories about how he would cut off access to his newest, still unpublished work, to any of his “disciples” who dared to challenge or disagree with the “Master” — even tentatively — on any point of linguistic theory. So, he really did want personal disciples, not budding fellow scholars. Power in academia appeared to be his aim, not Truth.
Red flag #3 showed up much later. In his forst major work, Syntactic Structures, Chomsky glossed over a key step in his argument for transformations as an essential part of linguistic structure, referring the reader to a large unpublished work of his for the “proof” of his claim — a work conveniently available only in mimeographed form that he only allowed his “disciples “(yes, that’s what they were called sometimes) to read. Decades later, Plenum Press finally published it, and II read his alleged “proof” at last. It turned out to have holes in it wide enough to drive a Mack truck through. I figured that was why he had restricted access to it for so long.: he was smart enough to know that some readers would see the holes in his argument. So to his hunger for academic power I added his willingness to deceive.
I had always found morphology more interesting than syntax, and the methods of anthropology more useful than those of logic and philosophy, so Chomsky never appealed to me as a linguist. That’s fine, live and let live. But Chomsky’s lust for academic power and his comfort with scholarly deception put him wholly beyond the pale for me. That makes one an academic “monster,” to use no stronger word.
So I was not surprised to learn that Chomsky and Epstein had become closely connected with one another — presumably after Chomsky entered the political arena and became a voice to be reckoned with. Epstein was clearly a major player in high-stakes world (geo)politics. There’s more that could be said on that score, but here is not the place for that.
Good, evil, clever, stupid — these are all human judgements. There is no objective standard. An action one person might consider good, another might consider evil. At another time or in another place, the same person might judge the same action differently. And as events sink into the past they become ‘something that happened’ with no particular judgement attached. Just more detritus in the dustbin of history.
The older I get the more convinced I am that judgementalism is, while not evil in itself, the source of much evil or at the very least counterproductive strife.
When I was younger I might accidentally drop a glass, and as I swept up the shards I’d take it as evidence that the entire universe was conspiring against me and go into a deep deep depression and contemplate suicide. (Years later I was astonished to learn that the average healthy person doesn’t think of suicide several times a day.) Now I have learned “shale happens” (the basis of all philosophy IMO) and clean up and move on with equanimity.
Clarke…# 275:
I think Mr. Buber spoke/wrote in German, which indeed have a special respect word for another people or God (I don’t speak German, so I’m guessing it).
The decline of polite word “usted” in Spanish language can be seen by my personal own experience. My grandparents told me when I was a child that during their childhood they talked with their parents always using that respect word. During past century that custom was being lost. Today, its use to speak with older people than the speaker is being left slowly behind. It’s interesting to point “usted” is heard in trials and bureaucratic contexts yet, which is loosely related with the holy/sacred context (secular state rites like holy rites to some extent). In the other hand, the Argentinian “degraded” use of “vos” remember me the French polite use of “vous”. I know Italian and Romanian have polite treatment words to another people respect/authority too, but I bet they’ve had better times in their use, maybe thanks to secularization and a wrong equality idea…
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Michael G # 283:
About the Chomsky topic, well, I can say he’s a fallen idol as leftist icon today, but some years ago (since late ‘90s), a few leftists here pointed his work as universitarian scientist, relatively well paid and living like a middle class guy, was contradictory with his libertarian (in the European sense) or Marxist frantic claims. Well, in the other hand he was an Anarchist or a Marxist when he wanted according social context (ahem). A not very honest attitude me think…
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“Paterson” by Jarmusch: OK, I agree. Another great movie, about an average guy who writes poetry. Jarmusch isn’t a religious man, but this movie seemed to me “spiritual” in a wide sense, because it shows the everyday common things, places and people under a deeper “light”. Jarmusch, IMHO, is a mix between the best of independent American cinema and the best of European influence cinema.
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JMG # 287:
I don’t have a driving license neither, so I’ve never had a car. I don’t remorse for it. Well John, we share the same lack of interest for driving…I usually walk in shorter distances within my town (more or less in the 2 km. radius). In longer distances, I ride my bike to a 10 km radius; but when it rains a lot (which doesn’t happen very often here), I prefer the bus. To go to another places outside my town, I use buses or trains (sometimes in these trains I can travel with my bike). So I understand very well your point of view.
@ Gnat #281
“most humans are complete zeros in terms of the impact they leave on the world after they are gone”
Perhaps, you are attempting to graphically illustrate how projection works? 😉
According my “dilettante” view of mankind History, I don’t see a necessary fate in human nature (if this idea exists really beyond thinkers mind), which led our ancestors from tribal life to the Mumfordian first embrionary Megamachines (or the Hobbesian Leviathans, if you prefer that old term). It’s been a commonplace from Marx/Engels “primitive Communism” to Anarchoprimitivist ideologues to think Prehistoric times were a happy equalitarian Golden Age, before Patriarchy, unequalities and states were created, thanks to evil evily grain agriculture and domestic cattle starting (Neolithic as fall into the original sin). This Rousseaunian view of Paleolithic era is often supported by cherry-picked and incomplete data (well, we really don’t have very much hard data from those times, but some bones and stones). Even nowadays authors who seem to believe in human progress (like my “friend” the Israeli Mr. Harari and the Dutch Mr. Bregman) have had their mind “hijacked” by this edenic Arcadian idea, in spite of not being Anarchoprimitivists (they both share modern faith in the “from caves to stars” topic).
I think this linear and “self programmed” historical view has something wrong in it, though isn’t completely flawed (half-truth).
It’s true evidently that social classes didn’t exist during Paleolithic, but I also think there wasn’t a paradise: humans were indeed old at 40 (if not before that age), if they were lucky to not have died before by big and small predators (like for example viruses).
It’s true Neolithic life in first Middle East villages wasn’t better (epidemics were worsened by evident reasons), but plants and animals domestication allowed to feed more people, and in good harvests years, a “surplus” excedent of grains. With this last hard data, the Paleolithic idealizers points somebody had to save and watch the grain which would be used to the following harvest and to be eaten in bad years. This is true. However, when they say the first grain keepers became “soon” in the future perpetual bosses, so embrionary kings of proto-historical first state-towns, I think they run too much. Indeed, the Neolithic times lasted for a heck of centuries until first state-cities were born. And even nowadays there are “primitive” people who live in stateless societies hunting/gathering or using “cut and burn” agriculture systems in the jungles. By the way, Neolithic villages in Middle East seemed to have similar size houses, so there wasn’t strong social differences yet.
Like I’ve sketched in another comment before this one, I think the real “original sin” was done in the starting of written History, when first organized markets and states led to create first physical money, first centralized armies (so 1st organized real wars), and first bureaucracies (first scribes who wrote state-towns finances). The rest of this story is…our History. Social classes and inequality. However, this isn’t a fatal path to every human group. For example, Mohenjo Daro town culture had agriculture, money and a government, but there wasn’t much social differences, according an urbanism without big palaces or temples.
re: fun with weather
Maybe whoever it was got what they were asking for – but they didn’t fully understand, what they were asking for. Or maybe they did and didn’t care.
I have a – let’s call it a professional interest in the weather. So you want to create a “cold spot” somewhere. You can’t just create a cold spot, you’re also creating a high pressure zone and dry air as well. They all go together cold-dry-dense. The other pole the weather oscillates to is warm-moist-thin. You know those H’s you see on a weather chart? Usually (not always) you’ll see around the H, a bunch of (relatively) cold dry dense air. Those H’s also rotate too, clockwise in the northern hemisphere. H’s go clockwise and the cold dry dense air wants to go down to the ground. L’s are the opposite, they go counterclockwise and the warm moist thin air wants to go up.
Think of the H as a gear cog (or a toothwheel as the Germans would say), which usually meshes with an L gear. So if you’re asking for an H, you’re also asking for an L and in between those two? Storms, winds, etc.
So what did you see in MN? Really cold temps, not much wind, dry as bone, clear skies, classic high pressure conditions. And what did you see in the middle from TX to DC? A heaping helping of winter storms. Below that would be an L spinning in the opposite direction.
I dunno. I’d be more impressed if it was freezing in MN in July. It’s not a big stretch for that part of the world to struggle to get above freezing until March or so. Snow doesn’t shovel itself. Gee, it’s winter and it sure is cold.
This is definitely evil making you stupid.
“Former U.K. Cabinet minister Peter Mandelson – who was fired last September from his new role as ambassador to the United States due to his ties to Jeffrey Epstein – is facing mounting political and legal pressure following disclosures that he may have shared market-sensitive government information with Epstein during the global financial crisis.”
Sarah Ferguson is also being cancelled for writing Epstein a letter. The British are having more Epstein problems than we are. Maybe it really was MI-6 who arranged his sudden demise.
“For instance, try not to confuse 3rd st. Northwest with 3rd st. Northeast. There are 4 streets of each number – one for each quadrant of the city around the capitol.”
That’s not confusing at all. I live near Road 20 NW which is 20 miles north of Baseline and west of Division. The North-South roads are lettered, so Road B NW is two miles west of Division and also north of Baseline.
The confusing part is the alternative local names for them. Road P NW is also called Monument Hill road. Road J NE is Stratford Road. Beverly-Burke Road is actually parts of several different roads that get you from Beverly to Burke. What’s on the street sign and the official roadmap may not match at all.
@ Chuaquin #293
“…“vos”(which has survived “fossilized” only in Argentinian Spanish replacing “tú”).”
I will add that the “vos” form of address has also survived, and is currently alive and well, in Costa Rica, where I grew up. 🙂
In Costa Rica, it is common to choose from either “vos” or “Usted” when addressing an individual person – according to normal rules of degrees of deference, however one mostly uses “Ustedes”, and not “vosotros” when speaking to groups, which meant I had to make extra effort to learn to conjugate for “vosotros” in grammar classes.
Kevin, that would be a fascinating project. I don’t know of a publisher who would be interested in something that recherche, or I’d probably do it.
Martin, the opposite of one bad idea is another bad idea. Excessive judgmentalism is certainly a bad idea, but if you give up making any judgments at all, how can you disagree with the people who insist that raping children is just a lifestyle choice? There is a middle ground, a very broad one, between too many judgments and too few.
Chuaquin, well, I don’t ride a bike — anything faster than a walking pace is too fast for my nervous system to handle reliably — but my walking radius is about 5 km, I grew up in Seattle so rain doesn’t bother me at all, and I like to live in places with plenty of public transit and good rail connections. So I get by just fine.
Siliconguy, it’s another example of the fantastic degree of corruption and illegality in the managerial-bureaucratic state. I suspect we’re going to see much, much more of that as things proceed.
JMG,
Here in Oregon we have a good example of evil making you stupid. Our Democratic leaders hate trump so much that they will be spending much of this months legislative session trying to rework the Oregon tax code so that Trumps ” Big Beautiful” tax exemptions will not be reflected in Oregons Income tax. Oregon uses the federal taxable income as its base for calculating state income tax.
They are in a froth to prevent Oregon tax payers from benefiting from from Trump’s new tax saving exemptions and especially determined to make sure Oregon business can’ take advantage of Trumps business friendly capital investment rules.
But then the other half of the session is to be devoted to Governor Kotek’s schemes to improve the economy and attract more business to Oregon.
Not sure how stupid you have to be to not see the problem with those two agendas stacked up side by side but so it goes.
Robert M. # 291:
Thank you for your reasoned criticism against Chomsky as “scientist”. I’m quite ignorant in his science branch, but I’ve managed to check he’s not an honest scientist…correlative to his lack of honesty as political activist (like I’ve pointed in a previous comment).
The Epstein mess only confirms me Chomsky dubious career as a whole life imposture.
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Martin B. # 292:
I thank you your frank personal view on good/evil and related topics. I understand you’ve lived worse times in your life; I’ve lived worse life stages too, for example I’ve had for a while some suicidal ideas (thanks God they stopped a long time ago). I think your view of good/evil not being absolut cathegories is partly right. Somebody said a long time ago: “It’s not possible to be good and survive”(Nietzsche?). If you understand “good” like “absolutely good”, I think that phrase makes sense.
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The Other Owen # 296:
To follow your weather topic, I won’t say what’s my town name here (I prefer to keep it in secret, ha ha), but I’ll say you it’s cold and rainy today. Nothing usual but not strange, neither, it’s winter here too. In my town snow is strange to see, our climate’s not very rainy (today seems an exception), and we live in a too low altitude; so it only snows once every 4/5 years (with luck). When it snows people have fun like in a party…Late decades snow has been lighter and more scarce, maybe thanks to climate change.
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Siliconguy # 297:
I hadn’t the “pleasure” of knowing who was Peter Mandelson yet, thanks. Indeed, he’s another guy to not being friend of him, in the not very probable case of meeting him personally outside his “high spheres” social circle.
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And finally, talking about politicians, but spanish politicians: I’ve noticed how contradictory the half-outdated polite term “usted”(pl. “ustedes”) is used by professional politics here, meanwhile they usually insult and blame each other in MSM and Parlament, with a blatant lack of respect nor decency. I think they’ve got a serious cognitive dissonance!
Scotlyn # 299:
Oops! Sorry: I’ve missed the “vos” use not only in Costa Rica (as you’ve written it), but in more Centro America countries like for example Nicaragua (there are in my town some exiled Nicaraguan people; in their bars you can hear them speaking their vernacular Spanish). Thank you for reminding it to me.
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JMG # 300:
Your criticism to Martin B. life attitude about judgements seems reasonable IMHO, but I’ve written before I thought his attitude was partly right (not completely). I understand he doesn’t like “moral supremacism” commited by some hypocrital people, so he goes into the opposite attitude (which I understand but not completely justify it). I think some “low grade” evil/stupidity is common to everybody, even to good people: to forgive and forget them is unavoidable to live in a healthy society, so let’s judge others but not too hard…
****
I’m glad you’re fine now, having lived in towns with good buses and trains lines, and living now in another town fit to a non driver life style.
“There are a lot more than four magical lodges in the DC area — those are just the ones that invited me to join as soon as they heard I was moving here! It really is a hotbed of occult activity, and has been for a good long time. Israel Regardie got his first occult training from a lodge of the Societas Rosicruciana in America (SRIA) in DC, for example.”
John,
Thank you. That’s good to know. Maybe at some point I will no longer be a Solitary Apprentice!
@Martin Beck (if I may)
You’ve seen the emptiness of all judgments but haven’t yet realized that emptiness is not different from form. Judgments aren’t absolute truths but we also can’t stop making them in practice — Exhibit A: your second paragraph.
Besides that, while the universe doesn’t inherently tell us how to act or what to value, it does give us broad patterns: we are creatures of a certain sort, and certain traits and behaviors lead to our well-being, both individually and collectively, and others lead away from it. (No, our well-being does not matter in the grand scheme of things but I know my well-being certainly matters to me and I suspect the same applies to you.)
OT, but related to this phrase you used:
“I don’t know of a publisher who would be interested in something that recherche”
John, in your opinion and experience, what are the limits to publishing such experimental work?
I just drafted out an essay on a ternary between commercial art (in any medium), folk art, and avantgarde or experimental art. It seems that some of the best works have elements of at least two, and others have all three. Other works that are culturally important but less commercial might embrace folk and avantgarde, for instance, but still resonate with a group of people. Others that might innovative have commercial and experimental aspects. Others tap into root stories/sounds/images from our folk traditions, experiment, and are commercial.
My music publisher said that my second volume following the Radio Phonics Laboratory was too niche. That one was niche, and he was willing to take a stab, and its still selling, but my other one was I suppose even more experimental. Or maybe he just didn’t want the fuss of something that would be less of a seller, but still sell, on his imprint. Or maybe I didn’t try hard enough to get more speaking gigs, or go to conferences, etc. IDK, I am still relatively green at this level, but now more experienced than I was.
He thought I might do better with an academic publisher. Yeah, they might publish it, but I wouldn’t do as well as I had done with an independent press. Some of it could get used in a different project I have in mind, and I have other things in the works, so I’m trying to keep my chin up. There are other publishers too…
All that said, that’s why your use of that phrase struck a chord with me, as I’ve been thinking about all of these things over the past month and intently today.
I hope for my own future work to dwell in that zone where the commercial, experimental, and folk traditions can all be on good terms with each other.
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If I wanted to relate my ternary to how evil makes you stupid, and how stupid makes you evil, I’d say that pure commercialism in art puts a creator at risk of pursuing trends over what the voices of imagination are speaking. The evil of being purely experimental is that your innovations may never reach the people who could put them to use in a commercial potential. The evil of only looking to folk tradition is that it can put you in a state where you think your folk traditions to other peoples folk traditions and that outside influences mar the culture.
It is stupid to be concerned only with commercial value, because that ignores the long term impacts of cultural value that both folk and the avantgarde can have. It is stupid to only be concerned with the avantgarde because it ignores the roots of tradition that could inform the work, and the potential the ideas might have if brought to a large public in the commercial world. It is stupid to focus only folkways because alien ideas are often at the very root of what we think our own folk traditions.
Clay Dennis # 301 .. imagine the collective thoughts that would be going on in the minds of Salem’s uh, ‘finest’ .. as they notice numerous siege engines just within the sight of their vision .. from all sides.
This might be too far off topic, in which case freely delete it, but I’ve been musing since last night about the very strange article by Imperial Press that jprussel posted:
https://imperiumpress.substack.com/p/the-worst-argument-against-paganism
The article’s nominal topic is the argument sometimes made by Christians that paganism is invalid because the chain of tradition was broken, but it is mostly a rant about how morally bankrupt everyone is who doesn’t recognize the authority of their betters (including but not limited to the gods) to give commands to their inferiors that must be unconditionally obeyed simply because the command-giver is the person’s better.
It’s an ugly sort of ethos, and I was surprised to see a pagan subscribing to such an unrelenting Divine Command ethics — let alone condemning monotheists for supposedly not subscribing to such an ethics fervently enough!
The basic intellectual problem with this scheeme is simple: you can tell me I ought to do such-and-such all day long but unless you give me a reason to agree that I ought to do it, I’m not going pay you any heed, any more than I’d pay to a random person on the street yelling orders at me.
I sort of get the appeal of a “pure” ethic of “You should do it because you should do it,” but realistically it’s an ethics of shouting into the wind. I’m sure it makes him feel good to imagine he’s one of the superiors who we’re all supposed to obey, though.
Other Owen # 271 .. “101st Screaming Bluehairs” .. I just don’t know. What to do regarding all of the toxic dyes running off their sweaty modified scales, and right down into the very ground they be toiling/soiling??
As for Chompsky? No matter his bona fides – I will never, EVER forgive him for stating how he wanted All of Us Unjabbed to be rounded up, to basically starve .. for his supposed ‘safety’ from contagion! Hate and Stupidity shown bright.
Clay D. # 301:
Have Oregon Democrats heard any time about the “principle of not contradiction”?If they haven’t heard it, they don’t remember it, or they don’t want to do it. I don’t share Trump politics and attitude as a whole, but I think those Democrats behavior is evil and stupid alike, too.
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According Mumford, the Megamachine is the sum of every Machines which state rulers can control in this or that culture/civilization/society. Well, I think it’s interesting to see that Megamachines didn’t disappear completely during the “dark” Middle Age in Europe, but they were strongly weakened. Real power was splitted between kings nominally “owners” of their kingdoms, and a lot of aristocrats who loosely had to obey their king. Aristocrats had their own private small armies, their own justice and their serfs; meanwhile the king had direct power only over some villages and towns. If/when knights and gentlemen unified their power, they could have more power than their kings to impose him
their will (at least in medieval Spanish kingdoms, this situation happened several times). Kings could make laws and order his feudal aristocrats to go to the war, but bureaucracy was limited sometimes to a secretary and a few court minions. He also had the power of making metal coins -money-, but it was a near useless power in an economy based mainly in exchanging things directly and feudal duty relations. I think only the Catholic Church was in those times a State which had a strong bureaucratic structure ruled by the Pope from Rome. During a long time, near every people who could read and write (not much people), were indeed priests or monks, before first Universities (under religious sponsoring) were opened. By the way, some feudal lands were owned…by the Church itself.
@Chuaquin #293 “About the Chomsky topic, well, I can say he’s a fallen idol as leftist icon today, but some years ago (since late ‘90s), a few leftists here pointed his work as universitarian scientist”
I’m surprised that anyone could make out any of his points. It always appeared to be ‘intellectual sounding’ gibberish. Could never quiet grasp at what his mumbling was about. The closest he ever sounded to being cogent was ‘Manufacturing Consent’ and even then the idea just didn’t land in the end. Does the US look like a singular mono culture to you? 😉
Christopher hitchens was the same, and almost ‘Look at how many obscure references I can make, yes I am very smart!’ even though it all meant next to nothing.
@ JMG and Ron RE : Balrogs
That plus you would hear them from a mile away blasting this cracker. JMG this track would be the polar opposite to the classical music you start your day with. 😀
Balrog by King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbG4me95eDU
All the best for settling into your new home.
The article about decolonising the Welsh cake I thought was a bit weird, after all why focus on the Welsh cake because sugar is used in all sorts of cakes and other sweet bakery products.
What I though more revealing is something else in the article, where they were discussing whether they should cancel placenames derived from various historical personages. They suggest they would rather make judgements on the level of guilt of historical white people, to determine who should be cancelled, than promote the history of neglected historical people from an ethnic minority. I suppose its probably because its a way to promote the interests of a particular stratum of society, for certain people with humanities degrees, to give them a shortcut into the PMC.
Chuaquin (no. 293) “I think Mr. Buber spoke/wrote in German, which indeed have a special respect word for another people or God…”
Correct on both counts. The two words for “you ” are du (familiar) and Sie (polite / plural). However, God is traditionally addressed (e,g, in prayer) with “du,” perhaps because as our father / creator he counts as a family member, or at least an intimate. Buber’s book is “Ich und Du”; his point is not to treat him as an object (an “it”) but as a being in relationship with us (and more generally, that we should not treat each other as objects either). The English translation translates “du” with the archaic “thou,” which once meant the same thing, although most moderns associate with the Bible or Shakespeare. There was a time when Quakers would insist on addressing others with “thee” and “thou” in order to emphasize their rejection of social classes.
@Ambrose
It’s been a source of fascination and amusement to me that English switched to using the plural/formal “you” for both singular and plural, thus abandoning its implication of formality, but some Christian communities — under the influence of the KJV Bible — still refer to God as “Thee” and “Thou” and consider this a matter of showing proper respect to the deity.
It’s not as common as it used to be but it was once pretty common among Evangelicals and may still be common among Mormons.
@Ambrose (#314) and Chuaquin (#293):
Actually German has three words for “you”: Sie is the polite/formal word, and (like English “you”) can refer to one person or to many. The more familiar words meaning “you” are du for a single person and ihr for several persons. Since Christianity recognizes only one God (in three Persons, to be sure), he is addressed as “Du” with respectful familiarity.
Similarly, in older English, thou (singular) and ye (plural) were the nominative (or subject case) of the pronouns; the accusative (or object case) of them were thee and you, respectively. With the passage of centuries, the distinction between nominative and accusative was lost in spoken English, with the result that thee and youthou and ye. That’s where Quaker “plain speech” got to. The language of the KIng James Bible is more old-fashioned than Quaker “plain speech”: it still keeps the older distinction between the nominative (thou and ye) and accusative (thee and you) forms, as well as the singular (thou, thee) and plural (ye, you), of the pronoun that for us now is simply “you.”
Evil makes you stupid. Is jumping on the bandwagon evil, or stupid? Both?
Went to call the telephone banking system of my bank, let’s call them… Tanner Bank, just to check my balance real quick, and its a whole new system that is *very clearly* an AI. And got ‘this account is locked’. What?! Called my local branch, they could see nothing wrong. They called Card Services, who also can’t see anything wrong. The account is not locked.
So I called and paid a bill over the phone. It went through just fine. Called the telephone banking again, and the AI voice was jumping all over to different words, and when I put my account number in… ‘this account is locked’. So I can no longer check my balance over the phone. Correction- I now will have to call my local branch, interrupting real people doing real work, any time I want to double check my balance. When the old phone system they had worked just fine, for years and years.
Turns out the AI probably locked it because I was on a trip and used my card in two different states the same day. This in spite of the fact that there is a note in my account that says I make a three state trip on a regular basis. Nobody can figure out how to ‘unlock’ it.
So Tanner Bank jumped on the AI bandwagon, which was stupid, and now their product is useless, which is evil because I’m paying monthly fees for this. It used to be such a good bank, too.
@polecat (#310):
That’s just another form of the man’s seeming over-all lust for power and control.
Earthworm #226
“These days I tend to think of it more as ‘balance in flow’ or ‘dynamic balance’ – not the stasis of fixed balance but balance as movement.”
This. This exactly. If you were in perfect balance *all* the time, that is actually unbalanced. There are rare times when being unbalanced is the correct action.
Also, JMG-
I looked at a map to see where this Silver Spring is. DeeCee, whoa. I had guessed back to Cumberland or nearby, well I got the state right, I suppose. I never ever would have guessed DeeCee. Anyway, looking at the map I noticed two things:
1. DeeCee is a perfect square (I may have known that back in middle school), but a square that is standing up on its southern corner.
2. Silver Spring is located on the northern corner of the square. Almost perfectly north of the White House.
Then a third thing occurred to me: the Sphere of Protection has much involvement with the Four Directions. Did this factor into your choice? Can banishment be cast far away?
On the other hand, to know, to will, to dare… and to shut the **** up. 😉
I always thought that DMV was short for DelMarVa, which is short for the area where Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia come together. I didn’t think the D was for District of Columbia. I thought that was implied. But I’m from the west coast, so what do I know. Maybe one of you are closer in can set me straight.
@Slithy RE: Chain of Tradition
Well then I guess we all have to become Jainists due to their claim of being one of the longest running traditions of allegedly 11,000 years. 😉
As the article articulates very well, Christianity is has never had a strong chain of consistency. That’s not a fault just a reality of these things.
But it is that fractured nature of traditions that led this wonderful joke from Emo Philips.
Once I saw this guy on a bridge about to jump.
I said, “Don’t do it!” He said, “Nobody loves me.” I said, “God loves you. Do you believe in God?”
He said, “Yes.” I said, “Are you a Christian or a Jew?” He said, “A Christian.” I said, “Me, too! Protestant or Catholic?” He said, “Protestant.” I said, “Me, too! What franchise?” He said, “Baptist.” I said, “Me, too! Northern Baptist or Southern Baptist?” He said, “Northern Baptist.” I said, “Me, too! Northern Conservative Baptist or Northern Liberal Baptist?”
He said, “Northern Conservative Baptist.” I said, “Me, too! Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region, or Northern Conservative Baptist Eastern Region?” He said, “Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region.” I said, “Me, too!”
Northern Conservative†Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1879, or Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912?” He said, “Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912.”
I said, “Die, heretic!” And I pushed him over.
@Polecat #310 – I’m with you 100%. The moment I heard Chomsky opine that the unquaxxinated ought to be “segregated from the rest of society”, I ceased to care about anything he might have to say on any subject whatsoever. As far as I’m concerned might as well have himself stuffed, like Jeremy Bentham.
Is it possible that a certain amount of evil is necessary in the world? According to game theory, a population composed only of hawks i.e. aggressive people, or only of doves i.e. passive people, is not stable. A mix of the two is required for an evolutionarily stable strategy. Something of the order of 5% hawks, I believe.
Perhaps someone better versed in game theory than me would care to comment.
A corollary might be that a certain percentage of ISPs have to be lousy for a stable ISP universe. Tough luck if you picked the wrong one.
In my commxent #316, the third sentence from the end should have read:
With the passage of centuries, the distinction between nominative and accusative was lost in spoken English, with the result that thee and you replaced thou and ye everywhere.
I looks like US want to die on the altar of AI.
Now LLMs are killing crowdsource and opesource projects:
Opensource brought at least 10 trillions directly to these companies and probably and order of magnitiude more from compounded effects. Companies invested mere millions in opensource. Biggest ROI in the history for these tech.
Now they invested trillions in LLMs and these have negative ROI, not only it brings a lot of damage to energy, society, etc but now is killing the golden goose opensource.
Even AI stops now crowdsource and opensource is killed now, LLMs destroyed trust, people will not put valuable information online for free.
https://www.library.hbs.edu/working-knowledge/open-source-software-the-nine-trillion-resource-companies-take-for-granted
Looks like there is something egregoric about US’s attachment to this AI thing, international investors are bailing out already:
https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/investors-dumping-american-stocks-ai
Mother Balance #319
“This. This exactly. If you were in perfect balance *all* the time, that is actually unbalanced. There are rare times when being unbalanced is the correct action.”
Many years ago learning how to deal with a semi-controlled mass-attack in Chinese martial art I was studying, the aim was to perceive and move through gaps. It could be quite intense and I figured if I was more ‘relaxed’ it might be possible to move more smoothly and quickly. Surrounded by four people, I got myself so relaxed that when the teacher called to begin, I didn’t move and got hit by four people at the same time. Perfect static balance, perfect fail.
…and in regards to conceptions of good and bad in that last – bad resulted in good – the badness of everyone hitting me taught me an invaluable lesson – passivity can be an evil when action is called for.
Before being hit that way I’d have said that getting hit would be a bad thing – nigh on 45 years later, judging whether something is good, bad or indifferent is more complex than ever. Seems like one of the challenges of being human – being able to widen perception and suspend immediate judgement does not remove the requirement to comprehend and make a judgement on action, no action, what action. Rather than call it ‘judgement’, perhaps ‘discernment’ might be more useful. We are here to do things, not sit around like rocks.
@ Slithy Toves #286, you’re right about the syntax not implying semantics. Yet LLM is not operating in a vacuum. It has become part of the planetary system just as elephants, humans, plastics, nuclear reactors etc.
I guess we agree on LLM’s being like a radio that transmits messages without the synthetic device ‘getting’ what is being transmitted. But what messages are being transmitted? Who or what decides? And how much impact will it have on the receiver? That is what’s on my mind.
I see LLM’s as a Taylor series approximating reality to any degree of accuracy provided enough data and iterations (aka computer power). That means that if the receiver is not paying attention the LLM can always ‘deceive’ the receiver if it finetunes it message enough. Or the receiver may decide that the current iteration is good enough to play along. I think for example that this year we will see artists and psychologists starting to lose their job because an AI can do their work just as good and cheaper.
Again the question for me is who decides what is being transmitted. A future iteration of a LLM could well decide that it can make such decisions on its own. This will in the end make it just a hall of mirrors of hallucnations as you said, but not that fast. Indirectly LLM has access to semantics as it learns from humans. No doubt the indirectness introduces noise in the interaction but it still can serve as a counterweight against drifting too far and too fast away from reality.
Another aspect is that the pseudo-random generator built in LLM could open it to influence from non-incarnate sources just as in throwing the coins for the I-Ching does. That’s another can of worms imo.
And yet another aspect is that the internet is really fast getting saturated with synthetic content. I feel it soon will be impossible to say what is true, with mass-insecurity as a result. During Covid we could see what kind of effect that can have on our societies. If we’re not careful, AI can contribute to another episode of psychosis and rising authoritarianism imo.
In summary, many influences can impact the message being transmitted by LLM and LLM can train itself to make it sound like it is coming from another human who understands what he says. This is bound to make things very ‘interesting’.
>DeeCee is a perfect square
Oh there’s moar to it that just that. Much much moar. You should notice the geometry of how the streets are laid out. And then there’s all the buildings at special geometric points along those streets. Not an accident.
I wouldn’t go near that place unless the need was great. But that’s just me.
Very, VERY late to the party, but I have to thank JMG for his story about Dorx Communications. I used it in a blog post this morning about how common simple stupidity is, and why this matters in the Quality business. It’s a little outré compared to the topics we normally cover, but the story fit perfectly. Thank you again!
Pragmatic Quality Blog: The risk is always there.