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In one of my posts on the scamdemic (12/3/2024), I referred to the Orwellian phenomenon, “we have always been at war with Eastasia.” In other words, the astonishing capacity of the Left to reverse ideological positions at breakneck speed, and then act as if it had always been that way. Down the memory hole goes the old way of thinking.
In addition to the switcheroo on Big Pharma, who were upgraded from villain to hero, a prime example of this behavior is the treatment of the working class. Once worshiped by the Left, they were downgraded from heroes to Deplorables, and from there to Garbage. Below is a post that I wrote on this subject, on the original AWOL Civilization blog, in 2007. * * * The Redneck Paradox It has become common practice, in polite circles, to mock and deride a certain sector of American society. I am speaking of the ordinary working class, particularly those living far in the hinterland, and those with a strong attachment to traditional values. It is now de rigueur to launch blustering condemnations of this vague yet threatening tribe. People who would never dare utter a word of criticism against a minority feel perfectly at ease disparaging, often viciously, the enemy they alternately refer to as rednecks, white trash, Christian fundamentalists, holy rollers, or crackers. All of these labels blur into an image of the blue-collar guy in the pickup truck. Of course, the more that “tolerance" is preached as a general ideological position, the more vehement the condemnation of the working class. The blinders of political correctness have shut down the possibility of complaining about, or in some cases even perceiving, the real dangers and the really dangerous people. A substitute was needed at which to redirect the emotional energy. Not that there aren’t other targets; the same crowd inveighs against oil companies, Republicans, law enforcement, etc. The difference is that this particular target is composed of people who used to be the darlings of the Left. We’re talking about the proletariat! Who would have thought that the Working Man was destined to become an enemy of the people? But isn’t the Working Man supposed to be oppressed? Robbed of his labor’s surplus-value by greedy capitalists? One of the reasons for this twist of fate is that the Working Man represents one of the last bastions of traditional American values: he works, goes to church, has a family, owns guns, and believes in liberty (the horror). Also, he is less “educated," and thus less exposed and susceptible to the neo-totalitarian brainwashing that has rotted away the minds of much of our population. This resistance is resented by the high priests of collectivism. I realize that economic Marxism has been replaced by cultural Marxism, and local oppressed masses by Third World oppressed masses. But still, is it not ironic that our latter-day Marxists detest the proletariat? It’s the Redneck Paradox.
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As I wander through the dystopian wasteland that passes for a society, one aspect that stands out is the infantile fascination with flashy technology and electronic gadgetry.
About ten years ago, after a long absence, I spent some time in New York City. One fine day, the weather was perfect; I took a leisurely stroll down Central Park West from 96th Street, where I was lodging. Seeing those grand pre-war apartment buildings filled my spirit with admiration and satisfaction. Eventually, I found myself in front of the Museum of Natural History, at the corner of 81st Street and Central Park West, waiting for the light to change. I glanced around, and witnessed a profoundly disturbing scene: a mass of humanity, at least two dozen individuals, all staring into their little screens. They were oblivious to each other, to the scenery around them, in short, to the rest of the world. Naturally, I had previously seen groups of people communing with their electronic babysitters, but never this quantity of people, and with a backdrop of such magnificent architecture. The future had arrived, and it didn’t look pretty. This obsession is called, in our current Orwellian linguistic haze: smart. Welcome to our new smart world. Everything is smart, down to the last fingernail. Translated into reality: smart = a device which can perform every electronic pirouette, and serves every purpose except its original intended use. Infinite bells and whistles, but core functionality has been pushed so far into the background, it is often hardly visible. I have never owned a smart phone, but on the odd occasion when I try to use one provided by a friend, I find that one of the most cumbersome tasks to execute on this wondrous telephone is to make a phone call. Or consider a smart coffee maker. You can tear your hair out just trying to make a simple pot of coffee, without having to fiddle with the settings. Come to think of it, one is always compelled to configure; it is becoming impossible to use tools in an uncomplicated and straightforward manner. In other words, we are awash in counterproductive and unnecessary complexity. Then there is the modern automobile. Wasn’t the purpose of this machine to transport people, and light cargo, from point A to point B? Now, it is a computer with wheels attached. The constant ringing and beeping and buzzing can drive a person bonkers. Not to mention the harebrained and often dangerous “safety” features, such as the car suddenly taking over your braking or steering. My car is from the model year 2017. This may have been the last opportunity to opt out of these rolling video games, by insisting on the base model, with no options. Not anymore. Buying a new car? You can’t escape. What’s more, the endless gizmofication pushes the cost up. Instead of a simple means of transportation, with a reasonable level of comfort, priced at say, $10K, we are presented with these ludicrous smart monsters at nosebleed prices. (I realize that there are many factors contributing to the rising cost, but this is one of the main culprits.) If you want a device that performs its intended function simply and efficiently, you either have to buy it used, or pay more. I recently shopped for a blender, and was compelled to spend a fair amount of money to acquire one with actual dials (remember those?), three speeds, no screen, no settings, no Wi-Fi, no unrelated functionality; just a blender that blends, thank you very much. And I haven’t even touched on the issue of social control, where the government (or its proxies) can monitor, turn off, or modify one of your smart devices without your knowledge or approval. I am not opposed to technological innovation, it’s just that the innovation is not always beneficial. I would trade all the smart phones in the country for, say, a Japanese-quality subway system in all of our major cities. As the population gets dumber, the devices get smarter. I wonder if there’s a connection… "A person's wisdom lights up his face⸺and the boldness of his face is transformed."
— Ecclesiastes 8:1 In reading and listening to commentary on possible cuts to the Federal budget, I have noticed that the Department of Defense usually is treated as sacrosanct. It is lumped in with Social Security and Medicare as a permanent, untouchable feature of the District of Columbia.
I believe that the restoration of fiscal sanity requires massive cuts to the defense budget. This can be accomplished while actually boosting national security. There is no reason, other than protecting sinecures and pork, to desist from wielding the scalpel. Bloat and waste are off the charts. The nominal defense budget is approaching the trillion dollar mark. It goes well beyond that point when you factor in dark ops, foreign military aid, and the numerous defense-related functions that are domiciled in other parts of the government. A prime example is the Department of Energy, which has responsibility for the nuclear arsenal as well as the national “laboratories.” We all know about the obscenely expensive weapons systems that don’t work, and have heard the legendary stories of hundred-dollar hammers and such. Is there no way to fix this? Should be a top priority for the incoming Secretary of Defense. He might also be interested in the battalions of consultants who do nothing but consult, and in the research institutes that research how to make PowerPoint slides. The trough that feeds these hogs is virtually bottomless. One beneficial move would be to restore the name of the DoD to the Department of War, as it was called prior to 1947. Let’s be frank about the purpose of this organization: killing people and blowing things up. Everything else is extraneous. If some project or personnel are not directly involved in this mission, they can be cut. This is one area that I believe will be at least partially addressed by the new administration, as DEI, gender madness, and other such pursuits are dismantled, saving money while improving the military’s warfighting capability. Of all the 800-pound gorillas wandering around the room, the hardest to tackle may very well be the role and presence of the U.S. military in the international arena. Does the defense of the United States really necessitate hundreds of bases and installations in scores of countries? Even if it did, the Federal government is bankrupt; an orderly drawdown is certainly preferable to the sudden impact of foreclosure. Putting an end to harebrained interventions such as the wars in Afghanistan and Ukraine will of course save substantial sums of money. Why expand NATO onto Russia’s doorstep? Come to think of it, NATO itself can be terminated; it has far outlived its original purpose. And on the other side of the world, do we need to constantly antagonize China by “patrolling” their backyard? And then stop the meddling in the Middle East. There is no longer any need to maintain the fiction of the Petrodollar system—it’s dead as a doornail. Let Saudi Arabia and Israel handle regional security. We can sell them weapons, and give them a free hand to manage the lunatics in their midst. Instead of "peace in the Middle East," try to forge arrangements that are sustainable. Here’s a novel idea: use the military to defend the homeland. Bring our boys home, as the Left used to say before they became warmongers. If you want to beef up America’s strategic position beyond its borders, concentrate on the Western hemisphere. While we thump our chests over Taiwan, China is quietly expanding its influence in Latin America. Yes, take back the Panama Canal, as Mr. Trump has promised. It’s time to revive the Monroe Doctrine. That would be the kind of imperialism I could get behind. Forge alliances with Milei in Argentina, and other like-minded governments. Meanwhile, I hear the cha-ching of the cash register in the background, as the savings pile up to the ceiling. Alongside the much-deserved praise and optimism voiced during the first days of the Trump Administration, it is imperative to sound the alarm over the new “Stargate” project. One cannot possibly overstate the threat posed by this enormous AI initiative, which has an insidious “medical” component.
At his press conference of January 21st, the President stood beside the three principals of Stargate: Larry Ellison, CEO of Oracle; Sam Altman, of OpenAI; and Masayoshi Son, of Softbank. We are informed that this consortium will cough up $500 billion to finish construction of ten enormous (half-million square foot) AI data centers in Texas. In my post of 1/15/2025, I outlined the reasons why AI is a boondoggle that will accelerate the deterioration of our society. This is bad enough, and I am dismayed to see our President lending his prestige to this effort. In the case of Stargate, however, the danger far exceeds the adverse impact of AI alone. The press conference opens with a tedious round of mutual adoration; pie-in-the-sky declarations of this great boon to humanity; how wonderful it is that America is taking the lead; the hundreds of thousands of jobs to be created; and other nauseating blather. The fun begins at the 4:25 mark, when Larry Ellison takes the floor. This ghoulish creep tells us that Stargate will bring us untold benefits in the medical arena. (My antennae spring up when hearing that word.) Apparently, it will exponentially swell the reservoir of “electronic health records.” Did you perhaps think that we’re already drowning in electronic health records? Well, you ain’t seen nothing yet. Stargate will create databases that will log and analyze every health event of the entire population—all to “help doctors understand their patients” and to conjure up “better healthcare plans.” What, even better than Obamacare? Not to be outdone by the repulsive Ellison or the clownish Masayoshi Son, Sam Altman steps up to the podium. You could not invent a more cartoonish representation of the arrogant, uncultured, nouveau-riche tech billionaire. Dripping with fake sincerity, speaking in that faggy, uptalking, verbal fry, he boasts that Stargate will cure disease, ushering in a new era for humanity (there’s that word again). Cancer, particularly, will soon be a thing of the past. Altman steps away from the podium, and Ellison (at 10:05) asks for permission to expand on this topic. Now he lets the cat out of the bag. Cancer, so says Ellison, will finally be licked by means of a vaccine. “This is one of the most exciting things we’re working on,” he says, with palpable enthusiasm in his voice. Here’s how it works: “Little fragments of cancer tumors float around in your blood. So you can do early cancer detection. If you can do it using AI, you can do early cancer detection with a blood test and using AI to look at the blood test. Once we gene sequence that cancer tumor, you can then vaccinate the person—design a vaccine for every individual person that vaccinates them against that cancer. That mRNA vaccine, you can make that robotically, again using AI, in about 48 hours.” Gosh, why didn’t I think of that? A personalized mRNA death jab, forsooth. And a nice little robot makes it for you within 48 hours. Hmm…I wonder who might be tasked with manufacturing that potion…Could the name of the company possibly start with the letter P? And naturally they’ll have immunity from liability, because, you know, vaccines. Add a few more AI data centers, and maybe soon we’ll have instant dispensing of these poison concoctions. It could be a booth at Walgreen’s, completely automated of course, where you get your blood test, walk around the store for a few minutes, get called back to the booth, and receive your diagnosis and the corresponding mRNA-based genetic manipulation drug. “Would you like a pill or a gummy?” Winning! Is there a limit to the bloodlust of these psychopathic, globalist, post-human control freaks? The scamdemic wasn’t enough, it seems, to satisfy their craving for power and chaos. Seeing these lunatics alongside Trump, I couldn’t help remembering the scenes with Fauci & Co. in that other brazen attack on our society. Oh Lord, not again! This madness must be stopped immediately. RFK Jr., you’re wanted on the white courtesy phone. "Diversity is where nations go to die."
— Mark Steyn All eyes are on Donald Trump as he moves into the White House for his second term as president. Expectations are high that he and his associates will be able to resuscitate a once-great nation that has fallen into disarray. We are all breathing a huge sigh of relief, as if waking from a nightmare. No matter what Trump & Co. are able (or not able) to accomplish, we dodged a bullet. Even in the waning days of the Biden regime, the scoundrels demonstrated on a daily basis the depth of their depravity. Never has America been subjected to the rule of such wretched swine.
There have been signs of life in the body politic, as the nation shakes off its chains. One example is the shunning of Woke ideology in the corporate world. Another is legislative initiatives that seek to restore integrity to our broken election process. Despite the encouraging trend, we cannot be complacent. The road to recovery has only just begun. We must applaud whenever positive steps are taken by the new administration, but push back whenever they stray from effective tactics. Foremost in our minds should be the words of that shrewd observer of the political scene, Curtis Yarvin: “Progressives do not believe in the American system of government, only in power. Conservatives do not believe in power, only in the American system of government. Therefore, progressives always win and conservatives always lose.” Never forget this profound insight, not for a minute. The Left is all about power, and they will do everything and anything to attain and hold it. Unfortunately, too many Conservatives view them as the “opposition” (albeit one that is increasingly unhinged) with whom we engage in debate and rational discourse. Does anyone really think it is possible to “reach across the aisle,” to have a rational discussion with the lunatics that spearhead the Democratic Party? They are at war with European civilization, and view it as an enemy to be annihilated. To borrow a phrase from Nietzsche, we let them become our priesthood when we should have been building madhouses for them. If one side wages war, the other must respond appropriately or face defeat. I have previously written about several requirements of this appropriate response; for example, imposing severe consequences, especially prison time, as a punishment and deterrent for Leftist criminality and treason. I now wish to elucidate an additional requirement: the avoidance of blind alleys, rabbit holes, and wild goose chases. Our side has pursued many of these, and the Left is only too happy to assist us in this labor. “Point at a deer and call it a horse,” as the Chinese say. Following are a few of these counterproductive pursuits. Some are total fiction; some are half-truths; some are merely inconsequential. All are wastes of time, energy, and money. All prevent us from concentrating on the true sources and mechanics of Leftist power. Constant awareness of these traps is critical, as the Left will surely exploit every possible weakness in order to sabotage America’s renaissance. 1. The sky is falling. This category of wild goose chase includes UFOs, drones, spy balloons, chemtrails, and weather control. Sometimes I feel as if we’re living in a cheesy 1950s sci-fi flick. Does anyone remember these things more than two weeks after the initial huffing and puffing dies down? Classic fearmongering and don’t-look-here-look-there. 2. The man behind the curtain. Some among us think they are being sophisticated by insisting that, for any outrage from the Left, there is ultimately some small clique pulling the strings behind the scenes. The people you see, so goes the story, are merely puppets. Now, of course there are big fish and little fish, officers and soldiers, opinion-makers and useful idiots. But the argument is carried to extremes. Whenever you point to a powerful person who has caused significant damage, well, “he’s just a pawn.” No matter how high up the food chain, there is always an unnamed Wizard of Oz behind the curtain. The result of this line of thinking: We are hindered from focusing our efforts. A variant of the man-behind-the-curtain rabbit hole is “all wars are bankers’ wars.” When I hear this historically illiterate assertion, I can’t help thinking of two primitive tribes battling it out in the Kalahari Desert or the rain forests of the Amazon. The people who are mouthing this gibberish are usually well-intentioned folk who are overly focused on the financial and banking system. Once again, if you zoom in on a bad actor high up in the financial world, you'll be told that “he’s just a puppet; the central banks control everything.” No, they don’t. Powerful, yes; all-powerful, no. 3. The one percenters. This amorphous statistical entity is supposedly the cause of numerous ills. The allegations, however, are merely repackaged, reheated Marxist blather. In fact, whenever income percentile is cited as if it were some sort of ethnic group, the alarm bells should be ringing. It is a prime example of, to use the Marxist term of art, false consciousness. The Leftist Establishment does of course include plenty of ultra-wealthy individuals, but it also counts among its key personnel many who are not in that category. Conversely, many people with deep pockets are in our camp, or at least willing to “play ball.” 4. Q-Anon, “trust the plan,” 4d chess, etc. If, God forbid, as in Trump 1.0 things turn sour, may we have the strength to look reality in the eye, and not comfort ourselves by believing in fantasy worlds, some of which are of dubious origin. 5. Bitcoin. An enormous reservoir of anti-Establishment energy was squandered on the blind alley of crypto-currency. We all witnessed the endless parade of young “influencers,” with a twinkle in their eye, who tried to explain to us old geezers how their electronic messiah was going to usher in the Libertarian paradise. What can you expect from a generation that grew up with computer screens more familiar to them than their mother’s face? Anyone with a rudimentary command of logic could see that this paean to nothingness was going to end badly. Whether Bitcoin was a preplanned Deep State psy-op, or they simply hopped on the bandwagon, the early promise of an escape from government control has evaporated, leaving nothing but raw greed in its place. Let us hope that the pro-Bitcoin proposals coming from Mr. Trump were just so much campaign rhetoric, and soon will be shelved. Wowie-zowie tech stuff, such as muh Blockchain, is not going to defeat the Left. Stick to the basics. 6. Ultra-processed foods. Certainly, many ingredients and processes involved in food production are hazardous to our health, but going too far down this path deflects our attention from the immediate and drastic threats to our food supply. These are, first and foremost, mRNA-based genetic manipulation, as well as the destruction of livestock on the pretext of “bird flu” or some such hysteria. I trust that RFK Jr. and his lieutenants are fully aware of the situation, and will act swiftly and decisively. 7. Gain of function. One of the most difficult things for a person to admit is that he was played for a sucker. Almost all of our people realize that the secondary effects of the scamdemic were atrocious: lockdowns, destruction of small business, fiscal and monetary incontinence, masks, social distancing, etc. A smaller but still significant number acknowledge the lethal nature of the jabs. But far too few could resist the myth that some horrible new disease was spreading like wildfire through the population. The Left has gleefully exploited this propaganda victory, deflecting our potential scrutiny onto narratives of Chinese conspiracies, lab leaks, gain of function, withholding Ivermectin, and other irrelevant sideshows. Meanwhile, the perpetrators of the real psy-op, at the heart of the scamdemic, scurry off into the darkness. Consider for example the decision-makers in mass media, who dutifully disseminated, in lock-step, the fabricated “science” coming out of the Pharmaceutical-Industrial Complex. Their preemptive response to potential accusations of malfeasance: CHINA! LAB LEAKS! FAUCI LET THE COOTIES OUT! No, what Fauci did was to serve as the kind, grandfatherly face of what was possibly the greatest lie in the history of man. In my post of 12/27/24, I reviewed the work of the great Friedrich Hayek. Now I would like to use that discussion as a springboard to further examine the ongoing collapse of the Western economic and financial system.
Hayek helps us to see economic life for what is is: the “extended order of human cooperation,” as he calls it. This is society’s vast network of ideas, contacts, and exchange; an endless web of human interaction. This order is infinitely complex, and in a constant state of flux; as such, it lies beyond the ability of any single authority to direct it. The extended order has evolved into its current form. Hayek points to the pioneering vision of Adam Smith, who realized that a type of evolution is the driving force behind the genesis and development of economic and other institutions. (Hayek remarked that Smith and similar thinkers were Darwinian before Darwin, and may have influenced the latter.) Think of law, language, and money: none were the result of a unified, conscious plan. Rather, they evolved in a spontaneous, self-ordering process, in a series of adaptations, producing a workable framework in which people could function. The upshot is that economic structures cannot be planned. Interference with the extended order is doomed to failure, and if pushed far enough, will lead to death and destruction. The case of the Soviet Union is obvious enough. But the same principle applies to our current predicament. Consider the extent of the disease: the colossal edifice of central planning in the West, guided by Keynesian economic theory, is sufficient all by itself to guarantee disaster. It has resulted in an activist Federal Reserve, unbacked fiat currency, rampaging inflation, out-of-control debt, asset bubbles galore, and a rapacious government that now accounts for fully half of what passes for an economy. Add to this the other poisons administered to the extended order, such as DEI and the Green-Industrial Complex, to name two of the worst offenders. None of these monstrosities would exist without coercive government interference. Needless to say, they demonstrate a complete disregard, and even contempt, of economic reality. We can point to additional distortions that result from economic illiteracy. One of them is the absurd notion of a “consumer-based economy.” Consumption is a result of wealth creation, not its cause. The people parroting this inversion of reality confuse the fruit of the tree with the tree itself. And our tree is dying, and will continue to wither as long as we concentrate our efforts on simply eating the fruit. Related to the consumer-based nonsense is the notion that China is dependent on the American consumer, and therefore we can punish them by restricting access to our enormous market. This could make sense only if we were exchanging something of value for the imported consumables. If we were paying in gold, or oil, or even manufactured goods of our own, the dependency story might be plausible. However, we “pay” for the goods with depreciating dollars that are conjured up on the keyboards of the government, the Fed, and the banks. And this means expansion of debt, which, ironically, was until recently being funded by the likes of China. They stopped buying Treasuries, but we can always compensate by creating more dollars, inflation be damned. So let me get this straight. We will punish China (and other BRICS countries) by threatening to stop consuming their goods while giving them nothing of value in return. How on earth will they survive? Real-world, Hayekian economics teaches us that wealth is created by production of tangible goods (instead of financial products), savings (instead of consumption), and the use of sound money (instead of unbacked fiat currency). All of which is coordinated by means of true price discovery and other market mechanisms—not by the declarations and schemes of bureaucrats and clueless academics. What is the proper role of government? Mainly to get out of the way. Stop interfering in the extended order. Instead, grease the wheels; facilitate commerce rather than hindering it. Safeguard property rights. Enforce contracts. Prevent crime and fraud. Build and maintain infrastructure. Humanity is not a proper subject for rational central planning. The aggregate of all human action, beliefs, and behavioral patterns is unknowable. These facts, as Hayek laments, run against the grain of mainstream economic thinking. It is time for a new paradigm. The improvement-of-mankind fanatics consider man to be an input to their calculations, in the same way as one might treat a chicken, a plant, or a steel beam. In other words, in their view, man is a part of the natural world: understandable, predictable, malleable. With the correct laws in place, and the correct government subsidies, he can be forced to live in perfect harmony with nature. This is a false and dangerous assertion. Man can never be integrated into the remainder of nature. He is condemned to stand outside it, to be an observer and an actor with his own unique agenda. This means that answers to the riddles of our existence will not be found in interventionism and central planning, which pretend that society can be harmonized, as if man really were a chicken or a plant. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is all the rage. Despite the widespread enthusiasm, I believe that it is part of our current overblown hi-tech hysteria, and in the end will prove to be counterproductive.
First, a clarification: I am not referring to the cutting-edge research aimed at mimicking and exceeding actual human intelligence, a venture which is a horror story unto itself. Rather, the subject of this post is the current manifestation of AI, along with expected near-future applications based on an expansion of the same processes. The AI that we are now experiencing is essentially a wider and deeper exploitation of data, which enables increased automation. There is no “intelligence” involved, only pushing the boundaries of existing computer technology. Considering our society’s fascination with digital technology, the situation could hardly be otherwise. Few people seem to care that the world around us is decaying by the minute; infrastructure is crumbling while new buildings and products are increasingly ugly and flimsy. But our screens are sharper than ever, and we have apps that enable us to graphically represent any fantasy. Oh, and the stock market is booming, thanks to this great whiz-bang tech stuff. So it’s all good. AI will accelerate the ongoing degeneration of intellect. Instead of an internet search that brings you to a well-composed essay, or even a mediocre article in Encyclopedia Britannica, you are fed a hodgepodge of data. By aggregating diverse sources into a virtual trash compactor, with no real intelligence to guide the process, the result is drastic reduction of quality, as well as disaggregation of mind. One could make the case that everything AI touches, turns to dreck. The term artificial intelligence doesn’t quite cover it; I would instead call this transformation natural stupidity. Most brain work can be automated, if quality is thrown out the window. If there is no need for refinement, subtlety, or beauty, what purpose does human intervention serve? A world in which AI has seeped into every nook and cranny will make Cuban communism look like a luxury brand. Here is a flow chart showing the march of progress: Highly intelligent people (fantastic goods and services, as late as 1965) >> Reasonably intelligent people (acceptable goods and services, 1970s and 80s) >> Mediocrities and midwits (mixed bag of quality, 1990-2010) >> Morons (you are here) >> AI If you want a brutal illustration, consider the medical industry. Even without AI, the “provider” stares into his computer screen, rarely interacting physically with the patient. Might as well go full AI and dispense with the intermediary, there’s not much difference at this point. In fact, automated medical treatment has already begun. When doctors are finally eliminated, the medical public relations machine will be bragging about the cost savings. A curious repercussion of AI is the anticipated use of electricity. How are the sagging U.S. and European power grids supposed to handle the load of these enormous data centers? This new energy hog will aggravate the effects of those other dubious exploits, Bitcoin mining and electric vehicles. All this while the grid is being degraded by the Climate-Industrial Complex. I have heard that the data centers require huge amounts of water to cool off the massive arrays of computers. And we haven’t even discussed the expected rise in unemployment, and the potential for reinforcement of new psy-ops by the Deep State. If you want a picture of the future, imagine being on the phone, trapped in an automated, never-ending customer service loop—forever. But don’t worry everyone, just go back to your phones, all is well. Disregard everything I said. Copy and paste the title of this post into your search engine, and AI will tell you what to think. Pondering the disaster unfolding in Los Angeles, I am reminded of the 1966 movie Fahrenheit 451, based on the novel by Ray Bradbury. The film is a masterpiece of the dystopian/futuristic genre. It portrays a society in which the job of the fire department is to light fires, specifically for the purpose of burning forbidden books.
And here we are. The job of the state and local government in California, apparently, is to ensure that fires break out, and when they do, that the people and equipment for extinguishing them have been degraded as much as possible. The accomplishments of the leadership thus far: malfunctioning reservoirs; precious water channeled into the ocean; empty hydrants; routine brush-clearing protocols ignored; criminals, drug addicts, and lunatics (“homeless”) running amok and starting fires; essential equipment sent to Ukraine; funding diverted to woke insanity; a mayor who has the intellectual prowess of a gerbil; and last but not least, fat lesbians making sure that ability is the least important qualification required for the post of “firefighter.” The dystopia has arrived. We are in it. As an author of dystopian fiction, I am concerned that my vocation will be mooted by reality. If things continue on their current trajectory, it will soon be impossible to write a novel like Fahrenheit 451 or Brave New World. It is already problematic. How can one depict horrors that await us in a future society when those horrors are happening right now? The synopsis on Amazon for Huxley’s Brave New World declares that the book is “a searching vision of an unequal, technologically-advanced future where humans are genetically bred, socially indoctrinated, and pharmaceutically anesthetized to passively uphold an authoritarian ruling order.” Well, we’re about, what, eighty percent of the way there? We often hear that such-and-such government policy, or new piece of woke terminology, is “Orwellian.” What adjective do we use when everything is Orwellian? At that point, the term is useless; the outbreaks of depravity that plague us are no longer outbreaks, but rather the norm. Walking in the rain, you can say “I’m getting wet,” but if you jump in the pool, the phrase loses its meaning. If you want a picture of the future, imagine a mentally retarded black lesbian struggling to lift a fire hose—forever. |
Dystopian literatureWelcome to the blog! While you're here, check out the six dystopian novels by Gary Wolf. His latest is The Cubist Supremacy. 
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