A recurring theme in these aphorisms seems to be isolation, from normies that is or the "masses". I relate, of course. Power always tried to push conformity which results in the isolation of its opponents from society at large. But it is especially egregious these days because what the power that be push is evidently immoral, anti-life, decadent, ugly, disgusting and even outright evil.
I wonder to what extent this tactic is deliberate. In France during Covid there was this stupid rule according to which you couldn't go to a bar and drink sitted, you had to stand. They called it "dynamic drinking" or whatever. Most people obliged, and some seemingly adhered to this obviously moronic idea. Perhaps the elites deliberately try to create a wedge between conformists and dissidents by pushing these stupid rules. After all, conformists become more and more so as the psychological cost of dissidence increases ; it is harder to rebel if doing so forces you to admit you've been a douchebag and a moron for years. On the flip side this also isolates dissidents.
This is why real-life communities are so important. Otherwise one is doomed to isolation, self-doubt and feelings of powerlessness.
Thanks Thomas, I think that's a fair read of the aphorisms. I am hit psychically with how different I and other dissidents are from regular people whenever I go outside and interact with others, both on a superficial level with acquaintances and on a friends/family level.
The authorities didn't push dynamic drinking in the U.S., but they did have a rule where you had to wear a mask if you were standing in restaurants but could sit down and apparently you wouldn't catch COVID while eating, it would waft right over you. “[Fauci] went on to laugh about how ‘a**-backwards’ it was that people entered a restaurant wearing a mask, then sat down and conversed with people without a mask. Of course, he wasn’t saying things to that effect publicly, just laughing privately at the American rubes he was fooling,” Morgenstern wrote. https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/2636820/fauci-laughed-at-people-who-took-off-masks-at-restaurant-tables-book-claims/
There have been numerous studies that show that if you change someone's behavior, their mentality will "update" in order to justify that behavior. Get people to change their behavior by wearing masks and doing social distancing, their views will update to justify it...I suppose that's also the basis of behavioral psychology.
I agree with you that real-life communities are so important. It became much easier to separate the wheat from the chaff during COVID, when most religious organizations meekly complied with lockdowns and social distancing...the ones who stood tall are worth their weight in gold.
That said, even at the dawn of the 21th century, in human environments where the dividing line between human and simian blurs, they are going to make your life miserable, and, in short order, impossible, if you lack a solid update skill of that very kind.
This is where noncompliance - not wearing masks or getting the heart attack jab, speaking out against the insanity and finding like-minded people - became very important. But I agree; increases in technology decrease the value of labor, and the question for technological society becomes what to do with all of the "useless eaters" (a WEF-leader, homosexual atheist Yuval Hariri expression).
I enjoyed reading your writing. I’m a retired teacher of 40 years with children and young people. I am presently growing older very quickly. The older one becomes the faster time moves. I have lived a very blessed life loving my work with wonderful students, and raising my own children. I have a very strong faith in God, and have seen God intervene in many lives. We are living in a time of turning away from our amazing omnipotent creator. Many are lost and worshiping their own Gods to their own demise. Being intelligent is a gift from God. How one uses this intelligence determines the life they lead. Without God, life is shallow and there is a lack of depth and understanding what life is “really about” ... God speaks to those who read the Bible —through His word.
When one reaches out to God, their life truly comes alive and they see ( realize) what they have never seen before. It is God’s miracle gift given to His children, when they seek Him. Their life is changed forever . He is so real and millions never find this miracle/blessing of eternal love from God. It brings peace and a deep truth from within. . I wish and pray that all could find it. Never forget: “What you are is God’s gift to you; what you become is your gift to God.” Read the Bible. In these dark days ahead, one will need to have God beside him for strength , peace, conviction, and faith that all will be well no matter the circumstance . Where we are now is the course 101 of life. It is the time of trial in order to learn to prepare for Life 102 in God’s Heaven. Many won’t pass, and go on to course 102 because they did not call out to our creator
God to guide them. Many believe they are their own God to determine their own destiny. It is a lie they tell themselves. They are lost.
Someone told me once that Italians drink their Espresso quickly while standing at the bar because lingering in cafes was discouraged during Mussolini's rule. It was believed that extended stays could provide opportunities for plotting revolutions or coups. (Absolutely no idea if it is true, but there's a logic to it).
Invigorating read, thank you! It's always nice to be reminded that I'm not the only one who chose being a recluse over making painful small talk with people I'm not sure actually like me. Ha!
The mention of trusting one's instincts stuck with me too. We know more than we think we do, because we're taught to continually doubt ourselves in favour of those 'experts' you mentioned.
PS. If your readers tell you to write on topics or in a style that they would find preferable, perhaps you suggest to them that THEY go and write whatever that is? I like reading the writers I read because of how they write - if they were writing for other people then it wouldn't be their voice and I wouldn't want to read it. Same as the instincts thing: believe in yourself! Don't let the doubters make you doubt! Do that consistently and you come closer to that rare and elusive vein of genius that transcends tedious 'left' and 'right' discourse
Thanks Alistair. Sometimes I promote this Substack on more hostile venues and get pushback (which is expected); it doesn't bother me very much, sometimes there are aspects of the criticism I can take to heart and improve on. And I agree with you on listening to our instincts, so long as it is balanced with our reason, feelings and senses...
I think projection and scapegoating are the most useful concepts in explaining our current insanity right now. the dark rage that manifests in the TDS crowd and from the Regime is almost solely projections of their own darkness and evil. at this point they are guilty of everything they accuse their enemy of. in fact, it is common in the New Testament to refer to Satan as “the Accuser” or “The Accuser of Sin”. it’s also interesting that in the Christian cosmology Christ is the ultimate and final scapegoat of humanity, breaking the cycle of scapegoating and accusation.
Thanks Hollis. I agree with you; Christ as the ultimate scapegoat was a theme emphasized by Rene Girard in his works, especially in "The Scapegoat" (https://www.amazon.com/Scapegoat-Ren%C3%A9-Girard/dp/0801839173 ) - a unique focus on the victim of mob behavior which makes Christianity different and special.
On the predictive power of a grounding mechanism, I’ve been getting utility out of ‘herd the tax cattle into 15 minute cities’. Until proven otherwise, this seems to be the regime’s MO. Whatever Musk is working on is usually the big muscle movements toward either the herding or the necessary infrastructure once they’re all penned up.
Regarding weight loss drugs, there IS a weight loss method that nearly all scientists agree will work: a raw food diet. Most scientists will tell you that it is impossible to get enough calories if you eat nothing but raw and unprocessed foods. They are likely correct.
But spending just as much time eating as a modern while not getting enough calories is a great way to drop some serious pounds.
Eat foods one at a time according to taste -- as in C.S. Lewis' Perelandra -- and achieving ecstatic meditative states becomes incredibly easy. Ethical Hedonism was Lewis' term.
Upon further reflection, the behavior of the GAE in recent years indicates the hedonic treadmill at scale, describing a regime that is spiritually depraved, mostly comprised of materialists/atheists, who thus must always have more at the imperial level. But does this make it much different from any other empire that ever was? The takeaway is that the treadmill works the same at the societal/governmental level as at the individual level.
Another one that is similar to weight loss drugs is GERD/heartburn drugs. The ads make is explicit. How to deal w/results of eating 5 chili cheese dogs? Take our pill.... Apparently eating a healthy diet is out of the question.
I had pretty bad GERD, so I adjusted my diet and quit drinking alcohol until it went away, then added back a small fraction of the problem diet items once the symptoms were gone. Problem solved by addressing the cause.
Same with weight loss. This has always baffled me. Entire industries based on obfuscation, denial, and bargaining.
It isn't complicated:
count calories
weigh yourself regularly
adjust calories downward until you are losing 1-2 pounds per week
adjust calories back up to maintenance level when at desired bodyweight
That's it. That's all you need to know about weight loss.
I understand the struggle -- modern food is poison. It's filled with all sorts of weird additives and chemicals and oils that have dramatically increased the obesity rate over the past couple decades where it was almost non-existent before (discussed here: https://neofeudalreview.substack.com/p/most-americans-have-metabolic-syndrome ). Still, at the end of the day you're right, it comes down to self-control, discipline and will power...
The chemicals and oils aren't good, but I think they are overrated as the cause of overweight/obesity. The level of processing of today's food is definitely a big factor, but that's mostly about refined carbs spiking blood sugar and stimulating hunger, plus not having to go to the trouble of preparing and cooking food.
I would classify this as a sub-factor of people just being impatient, stimulus-addicted babies about anything from techno-dopamine phone hits to drugs to putting food in their mouths every few minutes, sometimes seconds.
Nonetheless, my point is, that there is no hack, shortcut, or missing knowledge at play. You have to eat less, and there's a very simple, straightforward way to do it. I've gained weight and put off dieting, but I never lied to myself or made excuses. I just didn't feel like doing what I knew I needed to.
Yes, one does have to eat less. And some "phoods" have the perverse effect of causing us to eat more. So it's easier to eat less if one avoids such (relatively poisonous) inputs. As an example, I've now eaten to satiation every day for over 280 days while losing body fat and gaining muscle mass. This week I listened to Dr. Michael Eades "A New Hypothesis of Obesity" wherein he cites evidence that lineolic acid may be a bigger driver of obesity than even refined carbs. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIRurLnQ8oo
Coincidentally, the diet that allows me to satiation every meal without getting fat minimizes linoleic acid and excludes carbohydrates.
I've been following the fitness and nutrition world for over 30 yrs and I've seen it all. I am not a fan of any sort of macronutrient or food group exclusion diet: vegetarian, vegan, Atkins, Macrobiotics, paleo, keto, carnivore... all these diets suffer from the same conceptual flaw: epistemological hubris.
Nutrition knowledge is very limited, except for sports nutrition which measures short term specific outcomes, because there is no way to do legit studies on long term health or longevity measuring real outcomes without enslaving people and treating them like lab rats, and running the studies for 100+ years.
Since we don't know that much, excluding whole groups of foods is foolish. You can't just substitute what you are missing with a pill or powder because we know very little about what you are missing. We also know that pills and powders are poor substitutes for unprocessed food.
The rational eating strategy in light of this epistemological problem is to eat as wide a variety of unprocessed foods that have some known health benefit as you can, get adequate protein, and take a basic multivitamin. This way you are getting everything we know about, and what we don't know about.
As for losing weight, counting calories takes work, and you do get hungry while losing weight, but worthwhile endeavors are not easy. If you take a shortcut, you have to stick w/it forever to maintain results, or you go right back where you were with no tools except your hack/shortcut. Counting calories to lose weight, then continuing to count to find maintenance calories gives you the knowledge and habit base to maintain a health weight, eating all good foods all along, thus avoiding malnutrition.
Never eating carbs is obvious malnutrition because you can't do any type of work or athletics with a significant endurance component on such a diet. It's obvious malnutrition because there are numerous nutrients abundant in fruits, vegetables, nuts and grains, the lack of which have been extensively documented to cause malnutrition diseases.
I recommend getting a copy of a Nutrition Almanac and looking through nutrient requirements and diseases in there, as well as a college nutrition textbook. Ignore all fad diet people selling books and products. They arent' your friends.
The Inuit and Masai did not suffer malnutrition. It appears to me that the deficiencies you are focused on are the result of attempting to source nutrition from incomplete (plant and or insufficiently fat animal) sources. My ice age ancestors successfully hunted and reproduced for generations on a diet of fatty meat only. There are no essential carbohydrates. Healthy fat-adapted humans have better endurance than carb-maladapted humans. Modern carb-adapted endurance athletes rely on pouring in exogenous carbs as they go, something that our fat-adapted ancestors need not rely on. Fat adapted human hunters have enough endurance to run down horses!
You are welcome to your (apparent) preference for calorie counting, seeking nutrients amidst the plethora of poisons and anti-nutrients plants produce in their effort to prevent themselves from being eaten, while burning willpower to stop eating before satiation because your insulin is up from carbs. Meanwhile, I thank God for the miracle of the ruminant fermentation/digestive system that is well adapted to turn plants into optimal human nutrition. To each his own.
Broad evolutionary speculation is not a valid source of nutritional knowledge. We have no actual data of such ancestors, their health profiles or athletic capabilities. Your claims are based on word of mouth, subjective documents filled with implausible bragging... it's all speculation and hearsay.
What we actually know is that they survived long enough to breed and their life expectancy was decades shorter than ours. That is nowhere near current day standards of good nutrition.
What most people refer to these days as healthy has to do with well-being, lack of disease, sports performance, postponement of morbidity and longevity. We have partial knowledge of how nutrition effects these things based on evidence, trial-and-error, and the scientific method - all of which you narrow dietary ideology is ignoring.
That's the final word from me. I don't get into prolonged arguments with people who regurgitate what fad diet hucksters say and have never even been exposed to legit nutrition science. Like I said, been at this for 30+ yrs. It's not even interesting.
Nearly all phoods of today are full of poisons, yes. Avoiding these poisons requires knowing what and where they are. The poisoners have also poisoned the expert knowledge base to mislead many/most of those seeking to eat clean to still unwittingly ingest poisons, sadly. I'm currently experiencing my best results ever, by eating a 100% plant free diet, consisting largely of ruminant meat and water, with some wild salmon and butter. The hundreds of testimonials from people who've turned their health problems around by going carnivore persuaded me to give it a try.
On grounding and boredom. It's more than 40 years since I read Walden. It resonated then, and now, my reflections on it are distilled down to this. Pick some thing to spend your time doing in the world(shoot, throw, weld, carve, build, repair...). Work on improving continuously, and conscientiously. As you work on improving your skill, you will improve your soul. As you work on the skill, the skill works on you.
I think this process grounds you, and is available to nearly all. There is satisfaction in this. Boredom evaporates.
Somehow they maintain an air travel system in Africa without monthly crashes. Although it's far fewer planes/flights than in the west.
What does the man dying in the oven have to say about the nature of reality or God's justice? Nothing. Nothing at all. Because whether or not the world is the way you think it ought to be doesn't have anything to do with God or his existence. "Things I don't like are happening, therefore there is no God!" You hear that one all the time.
I'm only 5 years younger than JK Rowling. So I'll think about that one long and hard. With what's left of my brain.
Thanks Martin. Sure, I don't mean to suggest that low or even mid- level lotto prizes aren't won by normal people. That lends legitimacy to the system...I've won the occasional $10, $20, or $100 myself over the years.
"Because whether or not the world is the way you think it ought to be doesn't have anything to do with God or his existence." I agree with this; we're all very small, finite creatures and anything God does or doesn't do would be beyond our comprehension. Still, it is upon us to use our judgment and thinking and, if later proven wrong, to update our views accordingly. The important thing is to leave out the arrogance and leave substantial room for the unknown.
The only alternative is to turn off one's reasoning abilities. And my judgment believes that being tuna pressed in an oven is not a good sign of a loving, omniscient, omnipotent being in charge of this process...
Compared with the infinite what is a few minutes in the tuna oven? Sure it's awful, but that doesn't mean it's not just. God knows I have done things in my life that deserve punishment, and I don't expect Him to give me a free pass just because he's "loving." Wouldn't love require some discipline, as a loving father disciplines his child? The Bible says He is the father, after all. But as my sins seem finite (like my corporeal self), so should my punishment be. As the time in the tuna oven was.
Now I'm sure that anyone could come up with a case where some kindly angelic person, or a child, who never hurt a fly, had some awful thing happen to them. But to presume that is unjust presumes we know everything about that person both before and after their life on this earthly plane.
Aside from questions of justice or injustice, there's the basic problem of free will and freedom from consequence being incompatible concepts. We can only have one or the other
"But to presume that is unjust presumes we know everything about that person both before and after their life on this earthly plane."
This is the "the only alternative is to turn off one's reasoning abilities" approach based upon unknown spiritual factors that cannot be known or determined at all in this material world. Lots of people do it, I understand it, but I'd prefer to make judgment based upon this reality while reserving room for doubt that I'm wrong.
"there's the basic problem of free will and freedom from consequence being incompatible concepts"
I think one of the main problems is between the concept free will and an omnipotent God - if God is outside of space and time and is therefore everywhere and every-when, if he sees All before it happens, how is one ultimately responsible for their actions? What kind of choice is there if the decision is known in advance before it happens? How can there be Heaven or Hell in this circumstance? The alternative is God isn't omniscient, but that creates a whole host of other problems...
I definetly noticed point 4 in the strategies of global brands in the past two years. But what is the endgame here? Are they sure of an upcoming soviet-style cental planning ecoonomy that they don't worry about consumer power anymore?
Yeah, I think it's a combination of woke spirals by employees, DEI requirements on corporations by the Larry Fink's of the world, being able to drink from the teet of unlimited Federal Reserve printed loldollars if they play ball with this stuff, motivated by an increasing view of the masses by the elites as "useless eaters" who need to be sickened and destroyed one way or another...after all, the use of money is ultimately about control and behavior modification, not profits...
Thanks Argo, this is just an experiment; if it goes well I may do future occasional aphorism posts, but it certainly won't be that common or take the place of the normal long-form essay. It veers a little too close to Twitter territory to want to make it regular...
Sorry for the mix-up! I was referring to us sadly giving up our rights (the content) rather than on the aphorisms (the format). It's a little messy but it's not bad.
The actual surrender of responsibility and culture of fear is terrifying, though. Best shown in my opinion by finance.
We can now plan out finances to a T - debts to pay, interest rates, averages, indices, benchmarks - meaning that unlike before we are painfully conscious of being ahead or falling behind, filling us with fear, uncertainty, and doubt. These are excellent sales agents, pushing us further into the hole... yoy get the idea.
Excellent morning reading. These aphorisms are nice for times, like now, when I lack the focus (and patience) to read anything dense and long form. So well-done from my pov.
lol… yea, I hear ya… I for one take him in stride, I guess he appeals to my practice of non-attachment. He’s very Buddhist that way, always at the ready with a stick warning. Anyway, looking forward to your post on him. Too bad his Notebooks haven’t been translated into English yet. I also read some years ago that he had a late-in-life love affair (or infatuation, more like) with a German woman who then went on (after Cioran died) to publish his love letters to her but got promptly sued by Cioran’s estate and the whole project was nipped in the bud. My understanding is that a few copies of the book (in German) actually leaked out into the marketplace. The article (which sadly I didn’t save) translated several of his letters into English and they were absolutely hysterical, showing a hidden side of Cioran. Like, for instance, along with the typical philosophical musings he writes to her that he dreams of burying his head between her legs. LOL channeling Henry Miller or something… I’m dying to read that book! Here’s a good article on Cioran/Nietzsche that you might find helpful https://coronzon.com/pdf/cioran/Cioran_Nietzsche.pdf
That's a great story, thanks for sharing it. Sounds like it would be a great book to read if it ever gets released and translated. I'll check out the article...
What’s barely mentioned in most of these critical articles on Cioran is that he was, above all, a great stylist. It’s hard to separate form and content in his writing without reducing it. What he says is as important as *how* he says it. As philosophers go, he was one of the best *writers*.
A recurring theme in these aphorisms seems to be isolation, from normies that is or the "masses". I relate, of course. Power always tried to push conformity which results in the isolation of its opponents from society at large. But it is especially egregious these days because what the power that be push is evidently immoral, anti-life, decadent, ugly, disgusting and even outright evil.
I wonder to what extent this tactic is deliberate. In France during Covid there was this stupid rule according to which you couldn't go to a bar and drink sitted, you had to stand. They called it "dynamic drinking" or whatever. Most people obliged, and some seemingly adhered to this obviously moronic idea. Perhaps the elites deliberately try to create a wedge between conformists and dissidents by pushing these stupid rules. After all, conformists become more and more so as the psychological cost of dissidence increases ; it is harder to rebel if doing so forces you to admit you've been a douchebag and a moron for years. On the flip side this also isolates dissidents.
This is why real-life communities are so important. Otherwise one is doomed to isolation, self-doubt and feelings of powerlessness.
Thanks Thomas, I think that's a fair read of the aphorisms. I am hit psychically with how different I and other dissidents are from regular people whenever I go outside and interact with others, both on a superficial level with acquaintances and on a friends/family level.
The authorities didn't push dynamic drinking in the U.S., but they did have a rule where you had to wear a mask if you were standing in restaurants but could sit down and apparently you wouldn't catch COVID while eating, it would waft right over you. “[Fauci] went on to laugh about how ‘a**-backwards’ it was that people entered a restaurant wearing a mask, then sat down and conversed with people without a mask. Of course, he wasn’t saying things to that effect publicly, just laughing privately at the American rubes he was fooling,” Morgenstern wrote. https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/2636820/fauci-laughed-at-people-who-took-off-masks-at-restaurant-tables-book-claims/
There have been numerous studies that show that if you change someone's behavior, their mentality will "update" in order to justify that behavior. Get people to change their behavior by wearing masks and doing social distancing, their views will update to justify it...I suppose that's also the basis of behavioral psychology.
I agree with you that real-life communities are so important. It became much easier to separate the wheat from the chaff during COVID, when most religious organizations meekly complied with lockdowns and social distancing...the ones who stood tall are worth their weight in gold.
"their views will update to justify it".
But not ours 😁.
That said, even at the dawn of the 21th century, in human environments where the dividing line between human and simian blurs, they are going to make your life miserable, and, in short order, impossible, if you lack a solid update skill of that very kind.
This is where noncompliance - not wearing masks or getting the heart attack jab, speaking out against the insanity and finding like-minded people - became very important. But I agree; increases in technology decrease the value of labor, and the question for technological society becomes what to do with all of the "useless eaters" (a WEF-leader, homosexual atheist Yuval Hariri expression).
I enjoyed reading your writing. I’m a retired teacher of 40 years with children and young people. I am presently growing older very quickly. The older one becomes the faster time moves. I have lived a very blessed life loving my work with wonderful students, and raising my own children. I have a very strong faith in God, and have seen God intervene in many lives. We are living in a time of turning away from our amazing omnipotent creator. Many are lost and worshiping their own Gods to their own demise. Being intelligent is a gift from God. How one uses this intelligence determines the life they lead. Without God, life is shallow and there is a lack of depth and understanding what life is “really about” ... God speaks to those who read the Bible —through His word.
When one reaches out to God, their life truly comes alive and they see ( realize) what they have never seen before. It is God’s miracle gift given to His children, when they seek Him. Their life is changed forever . He is so real and millions never find this miracle/blessing of eternal love from God. It brings peace and a deep truth from within. . I wish and pray that all could find it. Never forget: “What you are is God’s gift to you; what you become is your gift to God.” Read the Bible. In these dark days ahead, one will need to have God beside him for strength , peace, conviction, and faith that all will be well no matter the circumstance . Where we are now is the course 101 of life. It is the time of trial in order to learn to prepare for Life 102 in God’s Heaven. Many won’t pass, and go on to course 102 because they did not call out to our creator
God to guide them. Many believe they are their own God to determine their own destiny. It is a lie they tell themselves. They are lost.
I find myself saying three phrases often:
Thank You God! Thank You God! Thank You God!
Someone told me once that Italians drink their Espresso quickly while standing at the bar because lingering in cafes was discouraged during Mussolini's rule. It was believed that extended stays could provide opportunities for plotting revolutions or coups. (Absolutely no idea if it is true, but there's a logic to it).
Invigorating read, thank you! It's always nice to be reminded that I'm not the only one who chose being a recluse over making painful small talk with people I'm not sure actually like me. Ha!
The mention of trusting one's instincts stuck with me too. We know more than we think we do, because we're taught to continually doubt ourselves in favour of those 'experts' you mentioned.
PS. If your readers tell you to write on topics or in a style that they would find preferable, perhaps you suggest to them that THEY go and write whatever that is? I like reading the writers I read because of how they write - if they were writing for other people then it wouldn't be their voice and I wouldn't want to read it. Same as the instincts thing: believe in yourself! Don't let the doubters make you doubt! Do that consistently and you come closer to that rare and elusive vein of genius that transcends tedious 'left' and 'right' discourse
Thanks Alistair. Sometimes I promote this Substack on more hostile venues and get pushback (which is expected); it doesn't bother me very much, sometimes there are aspects of the criticism I can take to heart and improve on. And I agree with you on listening to our instincts, so long as it is balanced with our reason, feelings and senses...
great essay.
I think projection and scapegoating are the most useful concepts in explaining our current insanity right now. the dark rage that manifests in the TDS crowd and from the Regime is almost solely projections of their own darkness and evil. at this point they are guilty of everything they accuse their enemy of. in fact, it is common in the New Testament to refer to Satan as “the Accuser” or “The Accuser of Sin”. it’s also interesting that in the Christian cosmology Christ is the ultimate and final scapegoat of humanity, breaking the cycle of scapegoating and accusation.
Thanks Hollis. I agree with you; Christ as the ultimate scapegoat was a theme emphasized by Rene Girard in his works, especially in "The Scapegoat" (https://www.amazon.com/Scapegoat-Ren%C3%A9-Girard/dp/0801839173 ) - a unique focus on the victim of mob behavior which makes Christianity different and special.
whoa, yer the third person to recommend that book to me in the last couple of weeks. I gotta check it out.
Bro, you must continue to shitlib and globohomo yer @ss off.. it’s why we’re here. Luv yer style AND substance.
On the predictive power of a grounding mechanism, I’ve been getting utility out of ‘herd the tax cattle into 15 minute cities’. Until proven otherwise, this seems to be the regime’s MO. Whatever Musk is working on is usually the big muscle movements toward either the herding or the necessary infrastructure once they’re all penned up.
Regarding weight loss drugs, there IS a weight loss method that nearly all scientists agree will work: a raw food diet. Most scientists will tell you that it is impossible to get enough calories if you eat nothing but raw and unprocessed foods. They are likely correct.
But spending just as much time eating as a modern while not getting enough calories is a great way to drop some serious pounds.
Eat foods one at a time according to taste -- as in C.S. Lewis' Perelandra -- and achieving ecstatic meditative states becomes incredibly easy. Ethical Hedonism was Lewis' term.
Upon further reflection, the behavior of the GAE in recent years indicates the hedonic treadmill at scale, describing a regime that is spiritually depraved, mostly comprised of materialists/atheists, who thus must always have more at the imperial level. But does this make it much different from any other empire that ever was? The takeaway is that the treadmill works the same at the societal/governmental level as at the individual level.
Another one that is similar to weight loss drugs is GERD/heartburn drugs. The ads make is explicit. How to deal w/results of eating 5 chili cheese dogs? Take our pill.... Apparently eating a healthy diet is out of the question.
I had pretty bad GERD, so I adjusted my diet and quit drinking alcohol until it went away, then added back a small fraction of the problem diet items once the symptoms were gone. Problem solved by addressing the cause.
Same with weight loss. This has always baffled me. Entire industries based on obfuscation, denial, and bargaining.
It isn't complicated:
count calories
weigh yourself regularly
adjust calories downward until you are losing 1-2 pounds per week
adjust calories back up to maintenance level when at desired bodyweight
That's it. That's all you need to know about weight loss.
I understand the struggle -- modern food is poison. It's filled with all sorts of weird additives and chemicals and oils that have dramatically increased the obesity rate over the past couple decades where it was almost non-existent before (discussed here: https://neofeudalreview.substack.com/p/most-americans-have-metabolic-syndrome ). Still, at the end of the day you're right, it comes down to self-control, discipline and will power...
The chemicals and oils aren't good, but I think they are overrated as the cause of overweight/obesity. The level of processing of today's food is definitely a big factor, but that's mostly about refined carbs spiking blood sugar and stimulating hunger, plus not having to go to the trouble of preparing and cooking food.
I would classify this as a sub-factor of people just being impatient, stimulus-addicted babies about anything from techno-dopamine phone hits to drugs to putting food in their mouths every few minutes, sometimes seconds.
Nonetheless, my point is, that there is no hack, shortcut, or missing knowledge at play. You have to eat less, and there's a very simple, straightforward way to do it. I've gained weight and put off dieting, but I never lied to myself or made excuses. I just didn't feel like doing what I knew I needed to.
Yes, one does have to eat less. And some "phoods" have the perverse effect of causing us to eat more. So it's easier to eat less if one avoids such (relatively poisonous) inputs. As an example, I've now eaten to satiation every day for over 280 days while losing body fat and gaining muscle mass. This week I listened to Dr. Michael Eades "A New Hypothesis of Obesity" wherein he cites evidence that lineolic acid may be a bigger driver of obesity than even refined carbs. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIRurLnQ8oo
Coincidentally, the diet that allows me to satiation every meal without getting fat minimizes linoleic acid and excludes carbohydrates.
I've been following the fitness and nutrition world for over 30 yrs and I've seen it all. I am not a fan of any sort of macronutrient or food group exclusion diet: vegetarian, vegan, Atkins, Macrobiotics, paleo, keto, carnivore... all these diets suffer from the same conceptual flaw: epistemological hubris.
Nutrition knowledge is very limited, except for sports nutrition which measures short term specific outcomes, because there is no way to do legit studies on long term health or longevity measuring real outcomes without enslaving people and treating them like lab rats, and running the studies for 100+ years.
Since we don't know that much, excluding whole groups of foods is foolish. You can't just substitute what you are missing with a pill or powder because we know very little about what you are missing. We also know that pills and powders are poor substitutes for unprocessed food.
The rational eating strategy in light of this epistemological problem is to eat as wide a variety of unprocessed foods that have some known health benefit as you can, get adequate protein, and take a basic multivitamin. This way you are getting everything we know about, and what we don't know about.
As for losing weight, counting calories takes work, and you do get hungry while losing weight, but worthwhile endeavors are not easy. If you take a shortcut, you have to stick w/it forever to maintain results, or you go right back where you were with no tools except your hack/shortcut. Counting calories to lose weight, then continuing to count to find maintenance calories gives you the knowledge and habit base to maintain a health weight, eating all good foods all along, thus avoiding malnutrition.
Never eating carbs is obvious malnutrition because you can't do any type of work or athletics with a significant endurance component on such a diet. It's obvious malnutrition because there are numerous nutrients abundant in fruits, vegetables, nuts and grains, the lack of which have been extensively documented to cause malnutrition diseases.
I recommend getting a copy of a Nutrition Almanac and looking through nutrient requirements and diseases in there, as well as a college nutrition textbook. Ignore all fad diet people selling books and products. They arent' your friends.
The Inuit and Masai did not suffer malnutrition. It appears to me that the deficiencies you are focused on are the result of attempting to source nutrition from incomplete (plant and or insufficiently fat animal) sources. My ice age ancestors successfully hunted and reproduced for generations on a diet of fatty meat only. There are no essential carbohydrates. Healthy fat-adapted humans have better endurance than carb-maladapted humans. Modern carb-adapted endurance athletes rely on pouring in exogenous carbs as they go, something that our fat-adapted ancestors need not rely on. Fat adapted human hunters have enough endurance to run down horses!
You are welcome to your (apparent) preference for calorie counting, seeking nutrients amidst the plethora of poisons and anti-nutrients plants produce in their effort to prevent themselves from being eaten, while burning willpower to stop eating before satiation because your insulin is up from carbs. Meanwhile, I thank God for the miracle of the ruminant fermentation/digestive system that is well adapted to turn plants into optimal human nutrition. To each his own.
Broad evolutionary speculation is not a valid source of nutritional knowledge. We have no actual data of such ancestors, their health profiles or athletic capabilities. Your claims are based on word of mouth, subjective documents filled with implausible bragging... it's all speculation and hearsay.
What we actually know is that they survived long enough to breed and their life expectancy was decades shorter than ours. That is nowhere near current day standards of good nutrition.
What most people refer to these days as healthy has to do with well-being, lack of disease, sports performance, postponement of morbidity and longevity. We have partial knowledge of how nutrition effects these things based on evidence, trial-and-error, and the scientific method - all of which you narrow dietary ideology is ignoring.
That's the final word from me. I don't get into prolonged arguments with people who regurgitate what fad diet hucksters say and have never even been exposed to legit nutrition science. Like I said, been at this for 30+ yrs. It's not even interesting.
Nearly all phoods of today are full of poisons, yes. Avoiding these poisons requires knowing what and where they are. The poisoners have also poisoned the expert knowledge base to mislead many/most of those seeking to eat clean to still unwittingly ingest poisons, sadly. I'm currently experiencing my best results ever, by eating a 100% plant free diet, consisting largely of ruminant meat and water, with some wild salmon and butter. The hundreds of testimonials from people who've turned their health problems around by going carnivore persuaded me to give it a try.
ref: "Plants are trying to Kill You", Dr. Anthony Chaffee https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1cqNDDG4aA
I guess I'm not a normie, haha
On grounding and boredom. It's more than 40 years since I read Walden. It resonated then, and now, my reflections on it are distilled down to this. Pick some thing to spend your time doing in the world(shoot, throw, weld, carve, build, repair...). Work on improving continuously, and conscientiously. As you work on improving your skill, you will improve your soul. As you work on the skill, the skill works on you.
I think this process grounds you, and is available to nearly all. There is satisfaction in this. Boredom evaporates.
Nobody ever convinced me that Epstein is dead. Or Osama Bin Laden, for that matter.
Gratitude defeats the hedonic treadmill. Which usually, as you say, involves God. Or at least some kind of ego levelling. Or trimming. Or pruning.
I've won about $100 playing lottery. So they do pay out something, sometimes, to someone. Famous case of the lottery being rigged by an Iowa lottery worker. https://time.com/4911802/eddie-tipton-powerball-lottery-prison-sentence/
Somehow they maintain an air travel system in Africa without monthly crashes. Although it's far fewer planes/flights than in the west.
What does the man dying in the oven have to say about the nature of reality or God's justice? Nothing. Nothing at all. Because whether or not the world is the way you think it ought to be doesn't have anything to do with God or his existence. "Things I don't like are happening, therefore there is no God!" You hear that one all the time.
I'm only 5 years younger than JK Rowling. So I'll think about that one long and hard. With what's left of my brain.
Thanks Martin. Sure, I don't mean to suggest that low or even mid- level lotto prizes aren't won by normal people. That lends legitimacy to the system...I've won the occasional $10, $20, or $100 myself over the years.
I believe that Africa's air travel systems may be maintained by Boeing/Airbus; there's a maintenance contract that goes along with the plane purchases: https://services.boeing.com/maintenance-engineering
"Because whether or not the world is the way you think it ought to be doesn't have anything to do with God or his existence." I agree with this; we're all very small, finite creatures and anything God does or doesn't do would be beyond our comprehension. Still, it is upon us to use our judgment and thinking and, if later proven wrong, to update our views accordingly. The important thing is to leave out the arrogance and leave substantial room for the unknown.
The only alternative is to turn off one's reasoning abilities. And my judgment believes that being tuna pressed in an oven is not a good sign of a loving, omniscient, omnipotent being in charge of this process...
Speaking of African air travel and Boeing https://apnews.com/article/senegal-dakar-plane-crash-boeing-ca40060696eaedfb69324d9110a55c60
Compared with the infinite what is a few minutes in the tuna oven? Sure it's awful, but that doesn't mean it's not just. God knows I have done things in my life that deserve punishment, and I don't expect Him to give me a free pass just because he's "loving." Wouldn't love require some discipline, as a loving father disciplines his child? The Bible says He is the father, after all. But as my sins seem finite (like my corporeal self), so should my punishment be. As the time in the tuna oven was.
Now I'm sure that anyone could come up with a case where some kindly angelic person, or a child, who never hurt a fly, had some awful thing happen to them. But to presume that is unjust presumes we know everything about that person both before and after their life on this earthly plane.
Aside from questions of justice or injustice, there's the basic problem of free will and freedom from consequence being incompatible concepts. We can only have one or the other
"But to presume that is unjust presumes we know everything about that person both before and after their life on this earthly plane."
This is the "the only alternative is to turn off one's reasoning abilities" approach based upon unknown spiritual factors that cannot be known or determined at all in this material world. Lots of people do it, I understand it, but I'd prefer to make judgment based upon this reality while reserving room for doubt that I'm wrong.
"there's the basic problem of free will and freedom from consequence being incompatible concepts"
I think one of the main problems is between the concept free will and an omnipotent God - if God is outside of space and time and is therefore everywhere and every-when, if he sees All before it happens, how is one ultimately responsible for their actions? What kind of choice is there if the decision is known in advance before it happens? How can there be Heaven or Hell in this circumstance? The alternative is God isn't omniscient, but that creates a whole host of other problems...
I definetly noticed point 4 in the strategies of global brands in the past two years. But what is the endgame here? Are they sure of an upcoming soviet-style cental planning ecoonomy that they don't worry about consumer power anymore?
Yeah, I think it's a combination of woke spirals by employees, DEI requirements on corporations by the Larry Fink's of the world, being able to drink from the teet of unlimited Federal Reserve printed loldollars if they play ball with this stuff, motivated by an increasing view of the masses by the elites as "useless eaters" who need to be sickened and destroyed one way or another...after all, the use of money is ultimately about control and behavior modification, not profits...
The New Normal of Neofeudalism is easy to see but difficult to accept
I know I don't like it!
Thanks Argo, this is just an experiment; if it goes well I may do future occasional aphorism posts, but it certainly won't be that common or take the place of the normal long-form essay. It veers a little too close to Twitter territory to want to make it regular...
Sorry for the mix-up! I was referring to us sadly giving up our rights (the content) rather than on the aphorisms (the format). It's a little messy but it's not bad.
The actual surrender of responsibility and culture of fear is terrifying, though. Best shown in my opinion by finance.
We can now plan out finances to a T - debts to pay, interest rates, averages, indices, benchmarks - meaning that unlike before we are painfully conscious of being ahead or falling behind, filling us with fear, uncertainty, and doubt. These are excellent sales agents, pushing us further into the hole... yoy get the idea.
Excellent morning reading. These aphorisms are nice for times, like now, when I lack the focus (and patience) to read anything dense and long form. So well-done from my pov.
> I quote, “the only people who can tolerate reading it are those who start their day off by snorting a nice fat line of adderall..."
I don't snort adderall, but I love to snort Truth, raw and uncut. That's why I read and love NLF!
You’re like the second coming of Emil Cioran. I think the format fits you like a glove, and if it fits you must… commit.😆
Thanks Max. I have a future post planned on Cioran, although he is too pessimistic even for me. I guess I found my pessimism limit, haha...
lol… yea, I hear ya… I for one take him in stride, I guess he appeals to my practice of non-attachment. He’s very Buddhist that way, always at the ready with a stick warning. Anyway, looking forward to your post on him. Too bad his Notebooks haven’t been translated into English yet. I also read some years ago that he had a late-in-life love affair (or infatuation, more like) with a German woman who then went on (after Cioran died) to publish his love letters to her but got promptly sued by Cioran’s estate and the whole project was nipped in the bud. My understanding is that a few copies of the book (in German) actually leaked out into the marketplace. The article (which sadly I didn’t save) translated several of his letters into English and they were absolutely hysterical, showing a hidden side of Cioran. Like, for instance, along with the typical philosophical musings he writes to her that he dreams of burying his head between her legs. LOL channeling Henry Miller or something… I’m dying to read that book! Here’s a good article on Cioran/Nietzsche that you might find helpful https://coronzon.com/pdf/cioran/Cioran_Nietzsche.pdf
That's a great story, thanks for sharing it. Sounds like it would be a great book to read if it ever gets released and translated. I'll check out the article...
What’s barely mentioned in most of these critical articles on Cioran is that he was, above all, a great stylist. It’s hard to separate form and content in his writing without reducing it. What he says is as important as *how* he says it. As philosophers go, he was one of the best *writers*.