There seems to be a general sentiment that chaos is on the horizon.
I think that sentiment is wrong - it's not on the horizon because we are and have been at least ankle deep in it for a while. What we're seeing on the horizon is the cresting of that wave. What waits to be seen is just how big it's going to get before it sweeps over us. It might be chest high, it might be a tsunami. Thing is, even when it gets here we're not going to know how big and bad it is. We're not going to realize that until some time after we've been swept up, because when you can't predict with 100% accuracy, that's just going to be the way of things. So the best we can do is what you say here - hope for the best, but prepare for the worst.
And that's not even factoring in the possibility of what I have dubbed The John Brown Moment, when this deranged clown show of a Presidential election year decides to party like its 1859 and somebody decides to do some serious shit like Harpers Ferry, which turns 2024 into the election of 1860 all over again, but retarded. Because betting that some lunatic doesn't pour gasoline all over this fire hasn't been paying attention.
I'm not discounting anything. I especially don't put it past some lunatic who's heard "We must save our sacred Democracy from Trump!" again and again and again for the past eight years to do something drastic. I'm sure you know what I'm implying.
A good essay, I may be the only one but I don't think China's gonna enter the conflict as they're struggling to keep control of their own lands as is, and they're facing a massive demographic problem. I don't think that Taiwan will merit the trouble, and I think they realise it. One need only look at the Myanmar incident and how it's currently shaping up to see how adverse China is to conflict and fearful of it.
But that aside agree with just about everything said in this article, chaos is already here and let's hope things calm down soon and good sense prevails soon.
I do agree that, of all the current crop of Great Powers, China is definitely the most averse to direct conflict and least likely to escalate anything into a hot war. I think their long-term strategy is to play everyone else off each other and slowly poison their enemies (i.e. who's funding and shipping most of this fentanyl into America?) or degrade them in various ways and win without ever having to fire a gun, which is... very classically Chinese, in a way. After all, it was Sun Tzu who said "The greatest victory is the one that requires no battle."
Good point about them funnelling the fentanyl into America, add to that the fact that America's leaders are trying to kill their own country and it doesn't help matters either.
Really appreciate your sharing what are our mutual concerns. It appears we are all waiting for this leviathan of premonition to appear in some hideous malformation of reality.
Reading Brave New World, 1984 and being an avid sci-fi consumer has done little to prepare me for the nightmarish reality being planned for us. Yet I still find myself devouring any written prose or podcast of those who discuss the perversions, inversions and subversions of reality. Perhaps it’s a good dose of discernment I’m yearning for to prepare me for what’s to come.
Thank you. There is a comfort in complicity, isn't there? Especially when most people in our daily lives seem totally ignorant to the bad omens in the skies. Makes you feel a bit crazy after a while.
I also think that's only natural, to be drawn to those types of lurid things. There's a magnetic quality to the mysteries lurking in the darkness. I've done a lot of research into the paranormal for the same reason, I think - my main goal was to learn what was out there and protect myself from it, and, no matter how much I study or what I read or how badly it freaks me out (more than one book has cost me a night's sleep)... well, I always come back to it. But, again there's a since of preparation to it that makes me feel more comfortable. I'd rather know the uncomfortable truth than be caught up in the consequences of believing a nice lie.
That's my dream matchup. But seriously though, I had a feeling this was how it was going to unfold (at least with the Chiefs v. Ravens game). I'm not saying it's rigged, but it wouldn't surprise me if it was.
The more I think about it, the more I'm unsure of whether it really wasn't. I want to think that it wasn't, but at the same time, the Bills vs Chiefs game - especially the touchdown with Travis Kelce where he was left completely open in a boneheaded move only an amateur coach and rookie players would make so he could flash a heart sign for Taylor Swift - seemed so absurdly overwrought and corny, so calculated to tickle a certain demographic's hearts and make headlines, that I really, really have a difficult time believing it wasn't choreographed.
I'll give more leeway to the 49ers, because, despite being my least favorite and most overrated (bar none) team in the league, they are still good. Not that the Chiefs are bad, by any means, but they didn't look Super Bowl good in their last regular season games, either, and ultimately, I genuinely think they're just making too much money and getting too much attention from the Taylor Swift/Travis Kelce stories to NOT let the Chiefs get into the Super Bowl. The NFL's numbers are declining among their core demographic so I have a feeling the push for an international audience and attracting more young female viewers is part of their strategy for the future, and, when it comes to the latter, what better way to get them invested than with the veritable God-Queen of American White Women?
Ultimately, the worst part is no matter who wins, but especially if the Chiefs do, the entire thing is going to be tainted with accusations of being rigged, which kind of spoils the whole thing. Sure, it probably won't be, but at the same time, if you see Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce out there shucking and jiving with the Lombardi Trophy, there's gonna be a whole lot of people thinking to themselves, "But..."
Yeah, the whole thing just left a bad taste in my mouth. I feared for the worst when I learned that the ref they put to officiate the game is known to favor road teams. I don't want to blame the refs (the Ravens did plenty dumb things as it was, tbh), but there were some weird penalty calls which individually are small but when put together makes you wonder.
It's a shame because the Chiefs are actually one of my favorite teams because my parents used to live in Kansas and they still have a Chiefs jacket they bought back in the 80s/90s, so I already had a soft spot for the Chiefs before they became this juggernaut that the NFL and corporate America pushed like crazy (I don't remember seeing Brady and Belichick every five commercials, if anything I see Peyton Manning being spammed by the commercials back in the day).
I totally understand. I had a soft spot for the Chiefs myself because I grew up watching Andy Reid as Philly's coach, so I wanted him to do well there, and I was happy when they won the Super Bowl (even when they won over Philadelphia... somewhat). Pat Mahomes seems like a decent guy, too, all things considered, and up until this year I didn't have a problem with Kelce, either, but they are so over-exposed that I am sick of seeing them everywhere. Same thing with Taylor Swift, too. She doesn't seem like a bad person and, frankly, I just want to be ambivalent about her, but it's really difficult when she's constantly shoved in your face at every turn.
The "some shit is about to go down" atmosphere hasn't been this thick in a while yeah. Bad omens everywhere. If we get through this year without anything crazy happening, if nothing else because some nutcase said "fuckit, I'm going in" just for catharsis, I'll be shocked. What it could be I've no idea, we're in a Los Vegas SHTF buffet here. Take your pick.
There seems to be a general sentiment that chaos is on the horizon.
I think that sentiment is wrong - it's not on the horizon because we are and have been at least ankle deep in it for a while. What we're seeing on the horizon is the cresting of that wave. What waits to be seen is just how big it's going to get before it sweeps over us. It might be chest high, it might be a tsunami. Thing is, even when it gets here we're not going to know how big and bad it is. We're not going to realize that until some time after we've been swept up, because when you can't predict with 100% accuracy, that's just going to be the way of things. So the best we can do is what you say here - hope for the best, but prepare for the worst.
And that's not even factoring in the possibility of what I have dubbed The John Brown Moment, when this deranged clown show of a Presidential election year decides to party like its 1859 and somebody decides to do some serious shit like Harpers Ferry, which turns 2024 into the election of 1860 all over again, but retarded. Because betting that some lunatic doesn't pour gasoline all over this fire hasn't been paying attention.
I'm not discounting anything. I especially don't put it past some lunatic who's heard "We must save our sacred Democracy from Trump!" again and again and again for the past eight years to do something drastic. I'm sure you know what I'm implying.
I've had that fear everyday since 2020.
John Brown moment is a very good name for it, I think I'll start using that
A good essay, I may be the only one but I don't think China's gonna enter the conflict as they're struggling to keep control of their own lands as is, and they're facing a massive demographic problem. I don't think that Taiwan will merit the trouble, and I think they realise it. One need only look at the Myanmar incident and how it's currently shaping up to see how adverse China is to conflict and fearful of it.
But that aside agree with just about everything said in this article, chaos is already here and let's hope things calm down soon and good sense prevails soon.
I do agree that, of all the current crop of Great Powers, China is definitely the most averse to direct conflict and least likely to escalate anything into a hot war. I think their long-term strategy is to play everyone else off each other and slowly poison their enemies (i.e. who's funding and shipping most of this fentanyl into America?) or degrade them in various ways and win without ever having to fire a gun, which is... very classically Chinese, in a way. After all, it was Sun Tzu who said "The greatest victory is the one that requires no battle."
Good point about them funnelling the fentanyl into America, add to that the fact that America's leaders are trying to kill their own country and it doesn't help matters either.
Really appreciate your sharing what are our mutual concerns. It appears we are all waiting for this leviathan of premonition to appear in some hideous malformation of reality.
Reading Brave New World, 1984 and being an avid sci-fi consumer has done little to prepare me for the nightmarish reality being planned for us. Yet I still find myself devouring any written prose or podcast of those who discuss the perversions, inversions and subversions of reality. Perhaps it’s a good dose of discernment I’m yearning for to prepare me for what’s to come.
Thank you. There is a comfort in complicity, isn't there? Especially when most people in our daily lives seem totally ignorant to the bad omens in the skies. Makes you feel a bit crazy after a while.
I also think that's only natural, to be drawn to those types of lurid things. There's a magnetic quality to the mysteries lurking in the darkness. I've done a lot of research into the paranormal for the same reason, I think - my main goal was to learn what was out there and protect myself from it, and, no matter how much I study or what I read or how badly it freaks me out (more than one book has cost me a night's sleep)... well, I always come back to it. But, again there's a since of preparation to it that makes me feel more comfortable. I'd rather know the uncomfortable truth than be caught up in the consequences of believing a nice lie.
Great article, and not just because I'm a salty Ravens fan.
It should have been the Ravens and the Lions...
That's my dream matchup. But seriously though, I had a feeling this was how it was going to unfold (at least with the Chiefs v. Ravens game). I'm not saying it's rigged, but it wouldn't surprise me if it was.
The more I think about it, the more I'm unsure of whether it really wasn't. I want to think that it wasn't, but at the same time, the Bills vs Chiefs game - especially the touchdown with Travis Kelce where he was left completely open in a boneheaded move only an amateur coach and rookie players would make so he could flash a heart sign for Taylor Swift - seemed so absurdly overwrought and corny, so calculated to tickle a certain demographic's hearts and make headlines, that I really, really have a difficult time believing it wasn't choreographed.
I'll give more leeway to the 49ers, because, despite being my least favorite and most overrated (bar none) team in the league, they are still good. Not that the Chiefs are bad, by any means, but they didn't look Super Bowl good in their last regular season games, either, and ultimately, I genuinely think they're just making too much money and getting too much attention from the Taylor Swift/Travis Kelce stories to NOT let the Chiefs get into the Super Bowl. The NFL's numbers are declining among their core demographic so I have a feeling the push for an international audience and attracting more young female viewers is part of their strategy for the future, and, when it comes to the latter, what better way to get them invested than with the veritable God-Queen of American White Women?
Ultimately, the worst part is no matter who wins, but especially if the Chiefs do, the entire thing is going to be tainted with accusations of being rigged, which kind of spoils the whole thing. Sure, it probably won't be, but at the same time, if you see Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce out there shucking and jiving with the Lombardi Trophy, there's gonna be a whole lot of people thinking to themselves, "But..."
Yeah, the whole thing just left a bad taste in my mouth. I feared for the worst when I learned that the ref they put to officiate the game is known to favor road teams. I don't want to blame the refs (the Ravens did plenty dumb things as it was, tbh), but there were some weird penalty calls which individually are small but when put together makes you wonder.
It's a shame because the Chiefs are actually one of my favorite teams because my parents used to live in Kansas and they still have a Chiefs jacket they bought back in the 80s/90s, so I already had a soft spot for the Chiefs before they became this juggernaut that the NFL and corporate America pushed like crazy (I don't remember seeing Brady and Belichick every five commercials, if anything I see Peyton Manning being spammed by the commercials back in the day).
I totally understand. I had a soft spot for the Chiefs myself because I grew up watching Andy Reid as Philly's coach, so I wanted him to do well there, and I was happy when they won the Super Bowl (even when they won over Philadelphia... somewhat). Pat Mahomes seems like a decent guy, too, all things considered, and up until this year I didn't have a problem with Kelce, either, but they are so over-exposed that I am sick of seeing them everywhere. Same thing with Taylor Swift, too. She doesn't seem like a bad person and, frankly, I just want to be ambivalent about her, but it's really difficult when she's constantly shoved in your face at every turn.
The "some shit is about to go down" atmosphere hasn't been this thick in a while yeah. Bad omens everywhere. If we get through this year without anything crazy happening, if nothing else because some nutcase said "fuckit, I'm going in" just for catharsis, I'll be shocked. What it could be I've no idea, we're in a Los Vegas SHTF buffet here. Take your pick.
I'm taking alien disclosure. Putting everything I have on red. The odds are low but the payoff will be massive.
Me too. Just seems like there's a lot of head fakes going on - the aliens seem to be more competent then your everyday talk-spitting Davos Gadfly.