Speculation

           As speculation has become in vogue as of late, I will engage in my own speculation, on the topic of speculation as well at what follows speculation. This is all speculative, of course, but I think it will age quite well and be good speculation rather than bad speculation. In fact, I’m so sure of myself that this speculation cannot really be called speculation at all, but until it is proven not to be speculation, and rather fact before fact, it will be seen as speculation and so I will call it speculation. And, on the small nonexistent chance that I am wrong, I will have covered myself quite nicely by saying what I’m saying is speculation and not fact, as being wrong about speculation is part of the game of speculation. With that said, I will now begin my speculative essay on speculation with regards to the nature of speculation.

            Speculation is a valid form of activity in its proper context. That context is one where somebody who is intelligent and has some edge or knack for seeing things which are not easily seen can pre-emptively position himself to benefit from some event that has not yet happened. It is gambling, in that there are always unknowns and cloudy variables which make a speculative bet risky or uncertain in some manner, but the return on the bet being correct is disproportionate to the risks and uncertainties which might lead the bet being incorrect. Speculation is largely seen as an economic activity, and this economic speculation is the focus of this activity, but we all engage in speculation in our day to day lives with financial and non-financial choices, since we do not know all variables in life or our environment.

            Economic speculation is something that should generally be left to experts and smart people who have some edge in some form. The general public does not fit this category; the general public is quite dumb, emotional, and led by their nose by external impulses which push them this way and that. It is not flattering, but the general public are pigs rolling around in slop and feces more than sentient beings with choices emanating from somewhere inside them. As such, it is a disturbing sign of some underlying societal issue when these pigs start focusing on speculation. That is what is now occurring.

            To the general public, speculation is gambling. It is like going to a casino and betting at the roulette table. There are TA charts and blogs and podcasts that the general public interfaces with in the process of speculation, but these are all pretty much emotional and psychological justifications for behavior that is just gambling. These things help the general public tell themselves that they are not gambling -- that they are not trying to find an “easy fix” to money, that they are doing something respectable instead of degenerate and desperate.

            The main issue with the general public’s increasing interest in “speculation” (gambling), whether that be in the form of stocks or now crypto-currency, is not the “speculation” (gambling) itself, but rather what is causing the increasing interest. There is an inherent risk factor associated with speculation that makes it something which most normal people averse to doing. This risk aversion, although it is overly strong in most people, is a natural and smart evolutionary trait that is prudent in its proper amount.

Most people are afraid to take any risks at all, so for speculation to rise in general popularity there has to be some fundamental problem causing them to throw caution to the wind. That problem is that the middle class is dying, and nearly everybody in it can sense this on a fundamental level. The traditional means to make a living with some dignity or self-respect have all but been removed for those without family members with connections to government or equally corrupt orgs. There are no longer easy slots to fill that allow for any decent standard or living, or more accurately those slots are quickly disappearing or being sectioned off to a lucky few. Everybody outside of protected clans knows that any security they have is going the way of the Dodo and will soon be extinct.

With job security and career dignity a thing of the past, people who are paying attention know that they cannot ensure any decent standard of living for themselves -- and especially not their children – if they continue living the status quo life pushed on them. Things might be hard now, but they’re going to get increasingly hard as time goes on. This is an anxiety or panic or fear generating realization, and in times of fear or panic, risk aversion begins to be overridden, and as this risk aversion is overridden, things like speculation become attractive. If you think you’re going to die if you don’t have a million dollars in the next hour and you only have half a million right now, the most logical course of action becomes going to the casino and betting on roulette. If you lose it doesn’t matter. If you win you survive. That is the logic and motivation behind the general public’s increasing interest in stocks and cryptocurrency, even though most of them don’t realize it yet.

As goes with degenerate gambling, general public speculation ends in varying degrees of disaster and ruin for most people who engage in it. This current and growing wave of speculation (really just gambling) will end in varying degrees of disaster and ruin for most people. Unfortunately, there is also the tendency for those who take unwise risks not to broadcast their unwise risks and the results of those risks, so as more and more people negatively impact their lives through degenerate and unwise gambling they call speculation, their outcome won’t be spread or pushed to warn people considering doing the same thing who will, on the whole, end up with the same negative outcome. Also, those who take risky and unwise bets that luck into being right will be focused on and serve to amplify the greed and misplaced hope for success which will further pull people on the edge into bad choices that they would otherwise refrain from choosing.

As with any game that is partially skill based and partially luck, the longer it goes on, the more that people who are actually relying on skill rather than luck will win. There will be large portions of the public who luck into good bets with crypto or stocks, but most of these people will stay in the game long enough that their gambling driven approach punishes them and all their initial winnings are redistributed to professionals who don’t make up the general public. We are still in the period where people are making bad bets that pay off enough that they think they’re making good bets, and this furthers interest in speculation for the general public, but eventually the odds will be ground out over enough iterations that nearly everybody in the general public is punished harshly.

 Eventually, and this has not yet happened yet, the air of speculation that has turned everybody into a daytrader and the next Gordon Gecko or Jordan Belfort (who made their money through corruption, lies, and illegal behavior rather than gambling) will turn sour. Just as greed and dreams of success have filled the air to drown out the base level desperation that is coating everything and everyone in the middle class, realization that losing the speculation game is possible will eventually replace the greed and dreams of success. At that point, panic will set in and people will rush to exit markets and do whatever they can to close their positions. This will be quite ironic in its own way, as this is the time to generally buy stocks or cryptocurrencies, as things will become quite undervalued and people will be making poor decisions. Once again, the normal people who have tricked themselves into thinking that stocks or crypto will save them from their impending doom will self-harm in the form of leaving speculation entirely, and the people who are professional and actually speculating will benefit.

Greedy bubbles of speculation are nothing new, but this current bubble of speculation (which is just getting started even though it will pop before it bubbles to its full size) is motivated more by despair than greed. The greed is a gold leaf wrapping hiding the core, which is desperation. The desperation is not loud enough yet, it is not visible enough yet, but eventually it will be. Unlike other bubble pops, there is no functional or healthy economy to return to. There is no institutional integrity that will allow for people to pick up the pieces. Those who go bust in the market will quickly realize that even though they haven’t died from losing on their speculation (really degenerate gambling), they might as well be dead. This is when despair will really set in. This is where the implicit future becomes explicit, where the fears and misgivings about the future are realized and made manifest.

This is where drug addicts and explicit gamblers become the norm. This is the failure mode that doesn’t end. This is when the people who deluded themselves into thinking their stocks and crypto gambling was “fundamentals” or information based and honorable realize they were just gambling and either kill themselves, work some miserable job and live in poverty until they die, or self-actualize as a gambler and go to explicit gambling. The people who kill themselves or consign themselves to a life of a peasant with crushed dreams don’t  matter, they have essentially removed themselves from the speculation equation, but the ones who self-actualize now begin to feed the beast that is the vice industry, specifically gambling institutions.

Once again, this final phase of public speculation manias, naked gambling, is fundamentally different than prior public speculation manias. Firstly, it is different because of the fact that there is no real path to recovery or gainful, dignified employment. This makes the naked gambling more sticky and drawn out than in other times. Lastly, and more impactful, is the fact that gambling has been digitized and can now be accessed from home. Furthermore, states across the USA where this speculation bubble is really taking root and blooming are all beginning to loosen their restrictions on or legalize digital gambling. Over the coming years and decades, most of the losers of the public speculation mania, and there will be tons, will turn to gambling and other forms of vice that afflict those with no hope.

As such, if you want to speculate, buy stocks like Penn National with strong public figures that are doing online gambling in the USA and will take the lions-share of the people who get their hopes and dreams and futures crushed by their speculation (really degenerate gambling) in the coming months, years, and decades. This is not financial advice, and if you want real financial advice then just work on something real and create value, then slowly put money into crypto and stocks and forget about them for a few decades. It is also not moral advice, as making money from vice industries probably puts a karmic curse on you and your children and their children that isn’t worth whatever you make. There is no good future coming and the current bull markets and speculation mania is going to end in tears and pain. The best thing you can do is disengage from it unless you have some unique perspective and intuition and are willing to lose everything. Protect your future and invest your energy into actual projects and endeavors that produce value. Everything is only going to get harder, most people aren’t going to have a good life, every second you waste daydreaming about riches or becoming the next Wolf of Wall Street is years of work that your grand-children will have to do to have any dignity in life.

Fermentation

             As I have written before, the creation of great works of art such as paintings, murals, statues, or classical music are warning signs of a decaying or stagnant society. These things are indicative that people who were once engaged in struggles or in an environment that took up their time and had harsh selection have entered a period where things have relaxed in some serious manner to allow for leisure and introspection. While the works created in this period can be inspiring or beautiful or admirable, these works signal a transition of growth to stagnation and sloth. For all the great art and cultural artifacts created, the vast majority of people are not putting the easiness and wealth of that time to use in a beneficial manner. Soon thereafter, a collapse or at least some sort of serious decay, both social and biological is almost guaranteed to occur.

            This essay is not about art, but rather philosophy. Philosophy and writing in general can be creative and artistic, but it is more analytical in nature. The people who engage in it and are good at it are generally suited to be engineers or managerial people of sorts. The people who do philosophy or writing poorly are irrelevant and are seen in every age and condition, just like there are bad painters, sculptors, or musicians in every era and condition in every type of society.

            If you look at when Greek philosophy reached its peak, when Roman “philosophy” (I say it in quotes because it was a poor legalistic imitation of Greek philosophy) reached its peak, when German philosophy reached its peak, and when French philosophy reached its peak, you will see that this was right before or at the beginning of decay and eventual mediocrity. The same pattern is visible across geography and time because the same mechanics are at play: philosophy peaks when the options for real thinkers and people interested what is true have been removed in the traditional sense. When honesty, when opportunity for success without sucking up or sucking off, when creativity and generative are no longer rewarded by a society, then philosophy begins to bloom. The truly excellent thinkers with unique perspectives and backbones, the people who don’t want to do a job for money or social adulation, begin to self-select out of society and choose a life that is inwardly directed, that is a sign that that society is headed nowhere good.

            This process is a molting of sorts -- or more accurately fermentation. The underlying forces driving the society have shifted from positive and rewarding people who have characteristics which are honorable, to rewarding the corrupt or evil people who have characteristics which are dishonorable. At first, the honorable people in the society make a good faith effort to fix the society or reform it, but if this does not work (and it almost never does, especially now that everything is so interconnected) then eventually the futility of this project is realized, and these honorable people give up trying to fix the external and instead focus on the internal. Something shifts in the air, the spirit of the society is shown to be fundamentally unsalvageable, and this is the fermentation.

            This fermentation is spiritual or psychic in nature, but it functions much like fermentation of food works. Underlying flavors are revealed in ways they were invisible prior to the fermentation. In the context of philosophy, this means that things which were hidden become visible. Through free time and disconnection on a fundamental level, thinkers are able to examine relationships and dynamics that were unable to be examined when society was more positive on the surface level. I say surface level, because the values and structure of society are phenomenological in nature and are simply time-lagged symptoms of underlying, deeper mechanics that are not really changing. Much like fermentation, the materials holding together and structuring society get broken down and fit each other much more loosely, that which was once nuanced becomes obvious, and in its obviousness, its mechanics are revealed in ways which they could not be revealed prior.

            America seems to be beginning this stage that Greece, Roman, German, and French societies went through and finished. I focus on those specific societies because those are the ones I am most familiar with, but I’m sure this stage is common across all cultures and peoples who were once successful or impressive in some manner but now linger in stagnation and mediocrity. At this point, there is so much obvious corruption and nepotism that the only people interested in traditional careers or status in the American system are very sickly or stupid people. Anybody with sincere or impressive aspirations, anybody who is not a slave to social status or willing to suck off middle managers and crawl on all fours in front of deranged despots, anybody who has a soul, knows that there is nothing to be gained or earned in an honorable way in the traditional American system. As such, there does seem to be a spark of intellectual perspective by people in America who know they don’t have any traditional path to success or comfort with their dignity intact.

Perhaps I am just talking about myself, and I am before my time and there is nobody besides myself in America who is actually making interesting works of art or examining interesting ideas in a generative manner, but I am too humble to assume that to be the case. While I am the only one I know who really is examining issues in a fundamental manner which can be considered exceptional or noteworthy, I assume that there are others around my age that are similar in talents and output as me, who are simply not known to me yet. Perhaps I am wrong, perhaps I am just ahead of my time, but I do know that it is only matter of time until there are many people like me who emerge from America, because America is entering this period of pre-death, this period of molting or fermentation, where analytical and creative people seemingly pop out of nowhere because those analytical and creative people have been locked out of participating in a corrupt and disgusting society.

This philosophical fermentation that I have been born into or am a preview of is the second to last stage in a society’s death. The realization that this society cannot be salvaged, that most people are hopeless and self-destructive, that all governmental and authoritative institutions are either completely corrupted or inevitably on their path to complete corruption, is something I have arrived at and people like me will arrive at, but most people will be incapable of internalizing until things get much worse. America as a society is a dead man walking, it is a shambling corpse. While this period of fermentation develops, the corpse will continue to shamble and great works of art and philosophy will be created, but eventually things will get so bad that the most obvious dullard will be unable to hide from the truth of the impending death of society. At that point, the fermentation or molting will end, the works of art will end, and complete despair and loathing (both internal and external) will begin. That is the final, the death of culture, the death of creativity. At that point, self-cannibalization will begin, and there will be no time for meandering philosophical works or artistic projects which last for years, people like me will go from analyzing to being forced to fight survive as the population will be turned against itself and everybody will be an enemy combatant of sorts. After that occurs, some form of dead equilibrium will be arrived at, and America’s society will be a zombie much like Greece, Italy, Germany, and France have zombie societies. Until that happens, however, enjoy the fermentation.

Rush Limbaugh

     Rush Limbaugh died at the age of 70 today on February 17^th, 2021. For those not familiar with him or those reading this at a later date where he’s not very well known, he was a radio commentator who discussed politics from a nominally conservative position. His main appeal, at least to me and the people who liked him, was that he was an interesting communicator, had a good voice, and also had a very enjoyable although understated sense of humor. I’m sure there were people who hung on his every word for political analysis, but my main enjoyment of his work was that he would talk about things going on in an enjoyable manner.

            I haven’t listened to him regularly ever since I graduated from Hollywood, a little less than a decade ago at this point, because he was mainly something to listen to while driving with your parents or on a commute. He was essentially the best mainstream right wing radio entertainment option for the lower middle class and middle class white people across America with nominally conservative views. I say nominally conservative, because at this point it is quite clear that very little conservatives have ever done or stood for have conserved anything in America. His fairly lukewarm and non-extreme views of reality are not really worth demonizing or praising him for, but as he kind of existed and established himself prior to the internet and more extreme or pure versions of right wing thought were able to flourish, Limbaugh got quite a reputation as a sort of extremist or horrible person in the mainstream. As such, which should not surprise anybody who has seen the lack of bipartisan empathy that exists in humanity, Limbaugh’s death has resulted in jeering and mean-spirited jokes by those on the left. This is not really upsetting to me, as I’m not particularly upset he is dead even though I did not wish death on him, but this mean-spiritedness should be mentioned as a matter of record.

            This essay is not really meant as a biographical or reminiscent piece, although Limbaugh was culturally relevant and successful enough that he does merit remembrance in some form. The focus of this essay relates more to thinking about what Rush accomplished, what he did not accomplish, and what his death is a sign of, which is the ending of a comfortable lie that most white people and conservatives as well as liberals have had the blessing and curse to live ever since the end of World War 2.

            What did Limbaugh accomplish? Objectively speaking, he did not accomplish all that much on the macro scale. On an individual level however, Limbaugh made a name for himself and did his job extremely well for a impressively long time. He certainly lucked into having a voice extremely suited for radio, but a voice is not all it takes to maintain popularity and relevance for decades. Limbaugh had a work ethic and grounded sense of self which were admirable. This was evident not only in his staying power, but also his ability to take and make jokes as previously mentioned. In terms of longevity, the only two people who matched him were Larry King and Howard Stern, and both of those people were largely “on the side” of the dominant forces of humanity at large. Limbaugh managed to preserve his career and legacy in a manner that cannot be lucked into. He had a few scandals and mishaps, but for the most part Limbaugh displayed extreme competency and consistency that are worth trying to emulate. As a result, Limbaugh became insanely wealthy and successful. Now he’s dead, so that doesn’t really matter, but it is worth noting.

            What didn’t Limbaugh accomplish? He didn’t change anything. Limbaugh didn’t really help anything. He served as a pressure release valve. He was a sort of anesthetic for the lower middle class and middle class that were and continue to be squeezed. It was enjoyable to turn on the radio and listen to somebody who seemed like the voice of sanity, but what did this really do besides provide some sort of temporary relief from the mainstream media and the government and the financial institutions exploiting and abusing people who listened to Rush? There was no real action that came from Limbaugh, there was no fundamental change that came from Limbaugh, the people who loved Rush and the people who hated Rush were essentially wasting their time paying attention to Rush. Limbaugh was not the devil, but he was also not an angel, he was an entertainer who did not change the course of the country in any meaningful manner.

            What does Rush Limbaugh’s death mean for anything? It is the end of an era of sorts. There is really nobody who can replace Rush Limbaugh, and what’s more the context in which people are growing up is not really amenable to the content that Rush Limbaugh made. All the things that used to be funny jokes are now realities. There are very few people who believe that anything can be solved through discussion, even fewer that believe that America is headed in some positive direction and simply needs a little commentary and nudges here or there to stay on the right course, and both of those groups of people are shrinking as every year passes. Monoculture of any sort has been shattered by the internet its democratized distribution mechanisms, and radio, television, and movies are dying industries. With Rush Limbaugh’s death the last illusions that we are headed anywhere comfortable or familiar are also dying. Soon, it won’t just be Rush who is dead. Soon, all the well-known TV and radio hosts who made their careers in a much nicer, much cleaner, much more prosperous first world will be dead. Nominally left and nominally right alike, the well-meaning but deluded milquetoast media figures and spokespeople will soon be dying.

            We are in a transitionary period of humanity, where the psychic is gaining dominance over the physical, but we are now entering another, more familiar and predictable transition, a generational transition. The institutions and industries which have been clogged up and are currently run by greedy geriatrics that refuse to step down will soon see a lot of their “leadership” dying off or becoming disabled to the point of being forced out of their positions. Positions will be vacated, not in the honorable way like a torch being passed down as was done in prior generations -- that opportunity for honorable transition of power has been completely rejected by the rotting walking corpses currently in power – but rather in a chaotic and unstable manner. Millennials and Gen X and Gen Z people have not been mentored or taught how behave properly, they have watched as those who came before them abused their birthrights, and they are understandably upset and desperate. Although their negative feelings are justified -- they have been abused and mistreated by those who had a responsibility to look after and help them -- the people who will soon be getting power and influence through attrition also don’t know how to make things run or how to be judicious.

            We are looking at a derailed train which hasn’t derailed yet. Rush has died, and along with him the convenient, comforting lies that white and middle class boomers have told themselves and their kids and grandkids are also dying. The old guard is disappearing, and the old guard neglected their responsibilities, they squandered their opportunities, and they spent the wealth that should have invested and handed down to what will soon be the new guard. The new guard is going to be abusive, malevolent, and malicious, and why shouldn’t they be? They were raised with lies and abuses which robbed them of any healthy or happy future. Race relations and income inequality have only gotten worse. There is no happy humanistic future that anybody who is paying attention believes in. The only people who believe in turning the other cheek are old people, the only people who never had to turn their other cheek. With Rush dies old America and the 1950s era white picket fence advertisements used to sell grills.

Cyclical Iterative Evolution

    Spengler gets a lot of acclaim and interest for the manner in which lays out that peoples as a whole and their cultures are essentially their own sort of organism which evolve over time and have different stages in their life. While he was onto something with regards to groups being parts of a whole organism rather than the current western understanding/religion of individualism, he is a bit short-sighted and too linear in his thinking. This is not surprising, as he was German and German’s have a historical and biological tendency towards hyperfocus and autistic linearity in how they construct cause and effect. Even though it is not surprising and I do not really hold it against him as he was quite prescient and made a lot of good points, I must try to adjust his theory if not overhaul it entirely. The linear (as well as separation between people groups) manner in which Spengler approached lifecycles of civilizations is incorrect, the manner in which lifecycles of civilizations operate operates across time in a non-linear and rather stuttered, cyclical manner.

            There are various stages, as the saying “Hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men, and weak men create hard times” states, in the lifecycle of a group of people or civilization (or even more accurately macro humanity and life itself.) With that acknowledged, the process is more like the raking of a lock than a linear equation. By the raking of a lock, I mean that each stage of a civilization or group of people’s lifecycle is its own organism that is appearing and disappearing and evolving in each iteration. Through each cycle, the particular organism present at that particular point in time is slightly evolved in a manner that is different than it was prior, as the environmental pressures involved (technology, resource distribution and magnitude, methods of resource transfer, structures built and decayed) are different than the last time that particular organism appeared.

The following may better illustrate what I mean:

Iteration 1		A1	B1	C1	D1	E1	F1	G1
Iteration 2	A2		B2	C2	D2	E2	F2	G2
Iteration 3	A3		B3	C3	D3	E3	F3	G3
Iteration 4	A4		B4	C4	D4	E4	F4	G4
Iteration 5	A5		B5	C5	D5	E5	F5	G5

(A-G are different defined times/periods in the cycle, but they are their own independent organism in the cycle of the whole which disappear and reappear in mutated/evolved forms as the cycle loops through iterations.)

As stated/charted above, as each iteration gets looped through, each particular organism (which people think of as times of prosperity, strength, hardship, decadence, etc.) is mutated or changed in its structure. Eventually, one of the organisms A-G (A-G is just a demonstration of the structure, there may be more or less defined organisms) is mutated or evolved enough in its context that it breaks off from the cycle and begins its own cycle with different organisms which have different character traits than the prior cyclical system. This can be best thought of in the biological sense as some membrane being punctured by a breakaway organism.

The aforementioned raking a lock analogy now is clearer, as the process is essentially a lock being jammed with some tool back and forth until one of the tumblers inside the lock is freed from the locked position. The analogy ends there however, as the raking or cyclical process ends there and the lock does not continue to be raked until all the tumblers are in the unlocked position.

This cyclical iterative evolutionary process which I have described is why the parallels between attributes in past eras such as the Weimar Republic and now are not applicable in the manner in which people who bring them up suggest. While it is true that hedonistic and nihilistic excess are now appearing in a very similar manner as they did in the Weimar Era, the environmental pressures and economic forces involved exist in a very different context and thus the results will be quite different. Wealth and resources have been abstracted, the psychic has been severed from its umbilical cord which previously connected from the physical and now the psychic economy has become dominant over the physical economy in a manner which has shifted dominance from masculine/strength to feminine/agility traits. All of these things mean that the manner in which this new period we are entering will be different and have a different outcome than prior iterations of the same organism or period.

The context in which Spengler operates does not properly integrate systems, entropy (or lack thereof) and derivatives of forces involved in systems, as such it is incorrect. Cyclical iterative evolution operates in a context which understands that environmental pressures and resources are also evolving cyclically in tandem with the organisms that appear, disappear, and reappear in a modified and more evolved state over iterations. Because we think of time as a purely linear thing, it is hard to wrap your head around a sort of stuttering, iterative, organism, but this is the correct view of how things function. This can be observed in a very localized context if you research polymorphic organisms and polymorphic ecosystems, and it applies to societies, civilizations, and humanity as a whole.

Ricky Vaughn

     Somebody I have known and interacted with and considered a close acquaintance if not a friend in the past, Ricky Vaughn, just got arrested and indicted by the federal government. Ricky is not his real name, it is a nom de plume for his online identity which he used to participate in the 2016 election cycle in order to communicate publicly and push his ideas into the mainstream. He was extremely successful in his endeavors, gaining over 50,000 followers on twitter before being suspended. He was so successful that he is now being made an example of, being charged with “election fraud” related offenses which stem from him making and sharing obviously satirical memes which said that you could vote for Hillary by texting a number. The joke of the memes was that voters for Hillary were so stupid and lazy that they would do this instead of actually voting. While I’m sure this might have tricked a few hundred people into not actually voting, it is obviously a joke which is not illegal, being that Ricky Vaughn was a private citizen posting publicly on a twitter account and not actually targeting anybody specifically, nor was he pushing these memes to people who were not following him on twitter.

            This whole incident is mainly amusing to me. While I do wish Ricky the best and hope that he can beat this obvious abuse of power, my main reaction is simply amusement. I know that while I most likely did not participate in this specific meme (although I might have – my memory is very unclear as it was about half a decade ago at this point), if Ricky can be arrested by the federal government for this then I can easily be arrested by the federal government for equally harmless jokes I’ve made over the years. We have gotten to a point where the government is no longer even pretending to be operating in good faith, although we might have been at that point for many decades now and I just haven’t noticed it to any real degree because most of the people in my circles have not been the target of this sort of behavior.

            This incident is a large confirmation of suspicions I have had with regards to how things are trending, and I have written about these suspicions quite often. Justice and due process are a joke, and participation in the political process is a very unwise idea for those who do not have institutional support or connections which will protect them from being targeted dishonorably. This incident is an example of why I have unwound my involvement in politics as a whole since 2017, because politics is not only a dirty and dishonorable game, but also a rigged game that only has “sides” as a sort of window dressing with which to keep the proles and upper middle-class and lower feeling like they have any representation. In reality, unless you are one of the elite and born into that class (and nobody reading me is in that no matter if their parents make hundreds of thousands of dollars or even millions of dollars a year), you are seen and treated as nothing more than a farm animal which is allowed to make noise and think it is participating in a system as long as it doesn’t actually get in the way of the system.

            Another amusing aspect to Ricky Vaughn being arrested and charged in such a ridiculous manner, five years after his apparent “crimes”, is that it speaks to the irrational stupidity of the ruling class. It would cost them nothing to forget about Ricky, to ignore him and everybody else around him, but Ricky made such fools of them and hurt their feelings (which actually elite people do not have with regards to commoners), that they felt the need to “get back at him” like he is their equal. In reality, Ricky is of a higher caste than these people in every manner, he just lacks the institutional power they were born into.

When a stray dog barks at a well-adjusted individual, the well-adjusted individual ignores it and moves on with his day. Only a mentally deficient loser would take personal offense at this and dwell on it for five years, planning to get revenge on the stray dog. This is what our ruling class essentially is, a degraded class of mentally ill and insecure people who have the infrastructure to prop them up, but lack the self-knowledge or wisdom with regards to how to use their infrastructure or conduct themselves properly.

The most interesting takeaway from this whole situation is that it makes the implicit disdain that the “elite” have for normal people very explicit. I have been checked out of feeling part of America for a few years now, not really having any desire to try to save it or participate in it in any manner outside of expressing myself and trying to build up systems which support me and give me autonomy, but now it should be clear to most people who were even vaguely familiar with Ricky, over 50,000 people, just how ridiculous and pathetic the whole system is. This is not a country worth saving or crying much less dying over. The people with power are not people who can be reasoned with or should be respected. The law is not something that is equally or fairly applied. This is corrupt, vindictive, petty regime supported by millions of morons and slaves who are no better than cattle.

It is supremely funny to me that I might end up arrested or on the national news in the near future because I interacted with Ricky Vaughn on twitter and talked to him in dm groups as a young adult interested in politics and making jokes and expressing my opinion. I won’t end up in prison for violent crimes or anything that is deserving of prison, but for some retarded things that retarded people have a problem with. Personally, this does not really frighten me or make me upset, but I imagine that other people who are in a similar position to me are now dealing with anxiety and fear or anger about possibly facing unjust punishment for simply expressing themselves. Luckily I am very neurotic and ever since publishing my first three books I feel like I am fine with dying soon or being in prison for the rest of my life if that is what ends up happening, but most people have a lot more to lose than me and are much more attached to their freedom and status than I am.

            What future or sense of loyalty to this country should anybody paying attention to what’s going have? None. Our tax dollars go to China, Israel, and geriatric morons in office, our possibility for advancement or a stable job have been completely destroyed unless you are willing to be a brown-nosing freak or some sociopath or completely dead inside slave, and the media and financial institutions seem completely set on degrading and abusing anybody they can, which is most people. There are no incentives for me to be “civically active” or to care about “our sacred democracy” at all. What has the government done for me? What have my politicians done for me? What have my fellow citizens done for me? What have the banks or media done for me? Absolutely nothing except for try to take the benefits of what work I do and enslave me.

            Ricky Vaughn’s indictment is a sign of the times, the canary in the coal mine. With that in mind, it’s important not to get depressed or scared. These people with power are not powerful people, they are little bugs who lucked into wielding power that people far more impressive spent generations building up. The government is not filled with dangerous or intimidating figures, it is filled with whores and prostitutes who aren’t even attractive and are in their sixties or eighties. The people with power now would be in a nursing home if not for their fluke of birth. The people running the media are vindictive inbreds. The people in finance are hollow sociopaths with superiority complexes. All of these things will inevitably come tumbling down with time, and although they can lash out and dishonorably attack people like Ricky, these are the death throes.

These are the dying whines of an empire in decline. It is good that these people are behaving in such an improper manner, because eventually they won’t have the power and they also won’t have any excuses or pleas for mercy to hide behind. They have shown themselves to be what they are, and what they are is nothing that deserves mercy or pity. What they are will be dealt with in a few generations in a manner which is pitiless and concrete.

If anything, this Ricky Vaughn situation has inspired me to be more direct and disrespectful to those who deserve it than I would be otherwise. If I am to end up in prison no matter what I say or do, I will not abstain from spitting in the faces of those who have “power” over me but do not have my respect or fear. These people can imprison me, they can even kill me, but not even for a second will I consider them my equals. They are little runts who fear purebreds. They haven’t improved themselves over time, they have rotted and fermented into some form of disgusting subhuman. What power do they have over me or anybody with a soul? The only power they have is to punish those who refuse to pretend they are worth taking seriously. The government is a joke, the people inside it are a joke, the institutions are a joke, this whole game they’re playing is a joke, and they won’t realize it until it’s too late.

This is all very funny to me. I can be free, I can be in prison, or I can be dead, and it will all be very funny to me. The funny little men in suits arrested somebody I know who didn’t do anything wrong because he made them upset. I doubt the case will hold up in court since the charges are so obviously retarded, but I also wouldn’t be too surprised if the charges do hold up. The court system is just as retarded as the politicians and institutions in this country. Judges are losers and whores just like politicians are losers and whores, or else they wouldn’t be allowed to be judges. At this point, it’s safe to assume anybody who works for the government is either a cheap whore or a soulless cog content to waste their life and enable injustice in exchange for a stable paycheck. At the end of the day, whores get fucked and soulless cogs get ground down, replaced and forgotten. I’m not a whore or a soulless cog, and I will never look up to either of those things. They’re things, not people. They’re objects to be used, not to be feared, respected, listened to, or thought of in any sacred manner.

Stalkers

    I have written a bit about having stalkers, as I have a few stalkers. The negative experiences with them, the frustration they cause, and the annoyance of them is something that I think most people can appreciate fairly easily, but something that is worth doing is trying to appreciate the point of view of the stalker, not really in an attempt to humanize or to relate to them but rather to better understand what drives the stalker’s behavior. Since the type of stalking I deal with has more to do with a being a slightly public figure rather than interpersonal stalking in the context of a failed relationship (although that is something I do deal with to a much lesser degree), that is the context of stalking which I will attempt to better understand and write about in this essay.

It must be stated that “stalking” is a very loaded term which is often abused, especially by internet people who just toss it around to describe people they find annoying. Stalking is not when somebody publicly disagrees with you repeatedly or is mean to or about you. Stalking is when private information is collected and used against you, when your privacy is repeatedly violated even after you have made it clear that what is going on isn’t desired, when people start forcing themselves into your social circles to a level which is obsessive and unhealthy. I have a lot of people who are very annoying or act inappropriately towards or about me, but these people are not stalkers and this essay doesn’t apply to them, these people are just losers who annoy me.

            The first thing that must be highlighted between the stalker and me is the contrast of attention that is being received between each individual. As I have access to thousands of people, I am constantly receiving attention and validation/negativity whenever I choose to do or say anything in a public manner. If I am feeling bored or have an opinion, I can receive feedback and interaction without really trying hard for it. Among other things, this has the effect of removing any feeling of impotence or being “lost in the shuffle” that most people seem to suffer from. It also has the effect of making me hyper-aware of my behavior to a level which is both healthy as well as unhealthy, as I must keep my head about me or be able to laugh off irrational behavior that most people can engage in without being tracked by hundreds or thousands of strangers. There is a weight to my actions which forces self-reflection and can be punishing if I lose my grip on my behavior or freak out.

            My situation is starkly different than the people who stalk me. For these people, they are pretty much in the average situation of having a few “in real life” relationships where their interpersonal behaviors have consequences, but are essentially strangers and not paid attention to by anybody else. This means that most freakouts or misbehaviors are not punished or taken note of or reacted to, which means there is a lack of feedback which is helpful for establishing proper conduct. They can say things and gossip or mistreat strangers without many repercussions because very few people are paying attention to them. This is not to say that they are in the better situation though, because they lack the upside to public attention that I enjoy. They cannot easily make money or receive validation even if they make something cool or do something that is genuinely admirable. Their freedom with regards to behavior gives them the ability to act out and lack personal discipline, but it also stunts their potential for personal advancement as well as removing the benefits that I experience when I work hard or improve in the aspect of self-discipline.

            Stalkers do not really understand the pressures or hassle of dealing with hundreds or thousands of people on a regular basis. They may interact with one or three people they find annoying or say cruel things to them, but somebody like me is dealing with dozens of people like this on a daily basis. Likewise, they may have a few positive interactions or be complimented every few days, but somebody like me is having dozens if not hundreds of positive interactions per day and having constant compliments thrown in my direction. I have to shrug off the positive and the negative and take neither all that personally if I am to get anything done or have any semblance of grounding in reality, which means that I have to dehumanize and see most people as cogs in a larger system rather than anything to put serious weight or energy into. The role of a public person interacting with said public is necessarily much shallower than the role of a private person interacting with other private people. I cannot afford to take things personally or take people personally, if I empathized with even a small percentage of people I interact with then I would be a neurotic basket case.

Because I “suffer” and excess of interpersonal interactions, I have to essentially treat interpersonal interactions in a more callous and less valuable manner than the average person. Because stalkers tend to “suffer” from a deficit of interpersonal interactions, they essentially have to overvalue and obsess over these interactions to a degree which becomes unhealthy. This is related to my previous essays regarding “hot vs. cold environments” where the hot environment has to dispel excess energy and the cold environment has to draw energy into itself. Systems with an excess of energy are more active in constantly dispersing this energy to prevent an explosion, systems with a deficit of energy function by drawing energy inwards to prevent a collapse.

Most people are not stalkers, if I had to estimate the amount of unwell people who have interacted with me it is probably something like 0.1% of people. This figure might be a bit inaccurate because the people I interact with are disproportionately social outcasts or hyper-active on the internet which indicates under socialization/underlying psychological issues making “normal” life difficult. I think becoming the type of stalker that I deal with is something that occurs when somebody is mentally wired in some slightly dysfunctional manner which then gets amplified by a lack of attention combined with exposure to somebody with an excess of attention.

Something that must be stated is that I don’t think most stalkers see themselves as stalkers at all. There are definitely some stalkers which are demented and sociopathic and embrace their role, but for the most part I think there is simply a lack of perspective on the part of the stalker, an inability to see their behavior in its real context. Because I’m in the situation I’m in, when people intrude on my attention repeatedly the cost associated with this is much higher than what it would be for somebody with normal responsibilities, which makes the behavior much more annoying and frustrating to deal with for me, but it is understandable that the people doing this are not really able to put themselves in my shoes. To them, they might understand they’re being pushy or making somebody uncomfortable, but if they had somebody interacting with them in a similar manner they could react in a poor manner or spend the time and energy to deal with it, so they are not really capable of empathizing with the public figure they are intruding upon repeatedly.

A distinction must be made between male and female stalkers, as the motivations to their obsessive behaviors seem to be fundamentally different. In my experience, the male stalkers are more operating out of a sense of jealousy or frustration more than anything. They tend to have an inflated sense of self-worth which is not reflected back at them by anybody around them, and see that some public figure is receiving the accolades or compliments that they feel they deserve. They do not understand that for all the positive feedback that the public figure is receiving, there is negative feedback that matches or sometimes succeeds it, so they begin to feel envious and then obsess over this person and constantly comparing themselves against them. This is a negative sort of obsession and the one I find most annoying, as male stalkers tend to be extremely dysfunctional but still more capable of action than female stalkers.

Female stalkers, in my experience, seem to be operating more out of confusion and fundamental psychological drives than male stalkers. These people, being females, tend to have grown up with getting their way, being paid attention to, and being validated in ways which are frankly ridiculous. I have written that most mildly attractive females essentially get spoiled and warped mentally until they are 25 and men start ignoring them in favor of younger, more attractive women, and this seems to be one of the truest things I have ever written.

In the context of stalking, age does not really matter for the female stalker. Because public figures are one of the few types of people that have a higher default status than the female in western society, the public figure is somebody who confuses and can make the female deranged. I am higher status than females, no matter how attractive or rich they are, and I know it. I don’t feel any obligation to women, I don’t really want to waste my time talking to them or humoring them, and these things are realities which the modern female brain does not seem capable of properly handling. Especially if the female is attractive, to be ignored or completely discounted by a male in a disinterested manner is something which is completely disorienting and causes internal distress.

For the female stalker or obsessive, the more I ignore them or show disinterest, the more the internal conflict in their head grows. For me to say I have better things to do than to interact with them, for me to not really care about them sending me nudes, showing attraction to me, or wanting to have sex with me is something which makes them insecure and confused. For the normal female, this is something which will not be a huge issue, as they’ll generally move on, but some females are not normal and find this discomforting reality to be offensive and make it their mission to win me over and thus validate their worth, because at the core of most females is a desire to be desired.

Female stalkers can be more annoying, but they are mostly harmless. Because the fundamental reason they stalk is the desire to win over who is stalking them, they are pretty easily controlled and dealt with. Because females are pretty easily interacted with and easily dominated psychologically, their stalking is most likely going to be annoying more than anything.

Both male and female stalkers are essentially just acting out of insecurities and maladjustment from lack of attention as well as an inability to empathize with the position the person they’re stalking is in. What they feel they are “owed” is different depending on the gender, but they do feel they are owed something by somebody who does not owe them anything.

At the core of stalking is an inequality of attention. For the public figure being stalked, they are receiving an excess of attention which results in them valuing interpersonal relationships at a suppressed level. For the stalker, they are receiving an insufficient amount of attention which is causing them to value interpersonal relationships to an unhealthy and obsessive level which causes them to act in an inappropriate manner. I am oversensitive to intrusions into my “personal space” and those who are intruding into this space are under sensitive to what they are doing.

Even writing (and publishing) this essay is something that I am wary about, because I know the people it applies to will not understand it and most likely react poorly to it. Nevertheless, I think these sort of social dynamics are interesting and worth thinking about and discussing. The internet has made these dynamics more fluid as the barriers to communication and interaction have been increasingly removed. This definitely has negative externalities, but it also serves to diffuse stalking in a manner which makes it more “low grade” than it probably was prior to the internet.

The Lifecycle of a Society

    The following will be a general essay that I think applies to the lifecycle of societies in general, especially America. This essay is almost Spenglerian in that it sees a society as an organism of sorts which has a predetermined path. Where I differ from Spengler is a topic for another time.

            What must be understood before this essay really begins is that it requires a degree of self-knowledge and willingness to commit atrocities for any new society or organism to be created, as in order for this new organism to exist it requires splitting off from some previously existing organism and then attacking that same organism or some other organism, something that doesn’t happen by accident or without direction. As such, when a society is created there is a degree of pseudo-conscious direction which lacks the innocence which will be partially described after the initial stage.

The seven stages of a lifecycle of a society are as follows:

1. Faux Goodness

2. Goodness

3. Corruption

4. Faux Authoritarianism

5. Authoritarianism

6. Rot

7. Reset

The first stage of a society is Faux Goodness. After conquering some form of territory and establishing some control over resources, the people who have done so need to create some mythos that justifies this in order to maintain this state of things, because they need to have supporters and proles of some sort who are willing to sacrifice themselves and work for the good of the organism. This can usually be achieved by demonizing some outsider group, usually the group that was dominated or split off from. This occurs in the form of war propaganda or highlighting wrongs done, and is usually a mix of truth with lies in order to really galvanize the smaller and less powerful (individually) organisms involved in the new, larger organism.

If the conscious leaders of the new organism fail to instill some mythos of Faux Goodness, then the organism will quickly fail because there is a lack of compliance or aspiration. In addition to stoking fear and hatred of some Other, there are positive goals and dreams that are pushed as what the new organism is working towards. These positive goals and dreams serve to increase the contrast between the potential Good Outcome (the survival of the new organism) and the potential Bad Outcome (the death of the new organism), which further galvanizes the smaller and less powerful organisms involved in the new, larger organism. If all goes well, the new organism survives the initial splitting off and establishes some form of stability, with the conscious leaders or brain of the organism partially lying to the followers or organisms inside the organism. This lying is not an issue, yet, but as it is the seeds for a taboo it will eventually grow into an issue.

 The second stage of a society is Goodness. This stage occurs after the original founders of the society are dead, but not necessarily immediately after the original founders die. There are the public positions of the original founders and then there are the private motivations and ideas of the original founders. The public positions are pushed on the general public, but if the original founders are shrewd enough (and they have to be in order to really succeed in the first stage of the organism), they will understand that they have to pass on the real agenda, the real motivations, and the truth to molding and shaping a society to the next leaders if the society is going to continue in any real sense. As such, in a successful organism, the leaders will go out of their way to privately educate and groom the future leaders.

This works for some amount of generations (that amount depends on the talent and self-awareness of the brain of the organism), but it is imperfect. There is a necessary transfer of information that runs counter to the public narrative, and transfer of information is entropic in nature in that some little bits of it always get distorted or lost in some manner. The leader may not give the exactly proper advice or do it well, or the person/people the leader instructs may misunderstand or have some different perspective that is distorted which makes them not take the advice seriously. Also, the public stances and motivations (which run counter to the real stances and motivations) are giving instructions and guides to future leaders which might stick with them despite their private tutorage.

In addition to this, the positive but partially untrue mythos surrounding the new organism has grown and cemented over time. People who were not around for the creation of the organism and not aware of lies or half-truths are replacing the aging population within the organism. As they are getting a manipulated and partially untrue version of their history, their understanding of cause and effect are becoming increasingly warped. They view themselves and their existence in ways that are increasingly illogical and untrue because they don’t know any better and have no reason to suspect otherwise. Because these people do not know what it takes to create a new society or organism, they do not know what it takes to preserve it or improve it, and they begin to value things which sound nice but have no real basis in reality. This results in a sort of innocent goodness that is naïve and is also increasingly easy to manipulate by those who know the truth but are willing to engage in the taboo (the real reasons for the creation of the organism and the methods that were effective in creating it.)

 At a certain point, there is a sort of strong bifurcation that occurs in a tangible sense, where the proles and some in the government of the organism/society believe the mythos completely, and those in the leadership of the organism who know the truth of what has happened (to varying degrees) as well as how to take advantage of those who do not, and engage in deception and duplicitousness with those who also know the truth (to varying degrees) to control and direct those who believe in the Goodness of the organism.

This is generally when the organism has its strongest period of growth and increasing strength. Because the general populace within it now believes a lie, they are not burdened by the truth and have very good intentions. They are willing to work hard and follow directives like sheep. They are not disillusioned, they believe their leaders like children believe their parents and thus are a very effective and cohesive unit which can be directed and fervently accomplish directives. These accomplishments lead to general wealth and happiness, as everybody seems to be winning, and this further reinforces the idea that the organism is fundamentally Good and right, which amplifies all the willingness to do whatever the leaders say.

 The third stage of a society/organism is Corruption. The leaders and the general populace of the organism have grown increasingly bifurcated in both their knowledge and perception of the world around them and their role in it. The opportunities for those with power over this naïve prole class keeps growing. With it, the potential benefit from exploiting this group also keeps growing. This is noticed by those who are more cynical and aware of the real foundation and motivations of the organism: certain members within this subsection of the organism will eventually succumb to the temptation of easy riches.

These people who give into temptation will start out alone. They will work in secret and tilt things in their favor, setting up ways to extract wealth from the general populace. Some other members of leadership will notice this and confront them. In this confrontation, sometimes the malicious exploiters will be dealt with and neutralized, but sometimes the malicious exploiters will manage to convince their confronters to join them in the exploitation through either discussion or threats of retaliation. As such, eventually these exploitative smaller organisms inside the larger organism will begin to group up and further increase their leverage and control over the class of people who do not entirely believe in the founding mythos of the society/organism. This is where corruption really starts in earnest, as these people and groups of people do not have naïve ideals and they are not slowed down by a desire to help or preserve those who do have naïve ideals.

At this point, taxes are introduced or raised, governmental organizations which do not serve any genuine purpose are formed and expanded, and implicit maliciousness begins to grow like a form of intelligent cancer. Where the general populace can be exploited, where money can be redirected without notice, it is. This is very minimal at first, because this cancer is in uncharted territory and careful to evade detection or punishment, and it is successful. The corruption occurring is minimal enough that it can be shrugged off or escapes notice, the general populace is still growing in strength and receiving enough rewards for their efforts that they do not really notice that an increasingly large portion of their returns are being redirected away from them.

Growth and prosperity is still occurring, but the benefits from this are gradually being stolen from the naïve people doing the work by these malicious cells. Proportionally, it is almost impossible for anybody to notice unless they essentially take the derivative of the situation to find underlying trends, which is a topic for another essay but is generally beyond the understanding of the people who are being taken advantage of, and they are naïve so they don’t suspect what is happening.

As secrets in groups never last forever, eventually the corruption and maliciousness of portions of the ruling class leaches out to those who are not corrupt or malicious but are in the ruling class. These people who are not corrupt or malicious are at a disadvantage because they are not receiving disproportionate resources like the corrupt and malicious are receiving disproportionate resources. This means that these people have essentially two outcomes: either they join the malicious and corrupt or they struggle against them and are eventually defeated. This defeat can come in the form of death or failing out of the ruling class.

Eventually, the entire ruling class which does not have the naivety of the general population in the organism is corrupted and malicious. Still, there is common sense and a desire to keep their corruption and maliciousness minimal enough that it does not impede the function of the organism as a whole. This does not last, as those who are corrupted partially are gradually dominated by those who are even more corrupted, which causes a feedback loop over time which eventually overrides the common sense and restraint of the partially corrupt.

This is when the implicit abuse of the ruling class begins to transition to an increasingly explicit form. Taxes rise further, social programs and governmental organizations grow to an increasingly conspicuous level. The more observant portions of general populace begin to feel that they are being taken advantage of. Still, the abuse is not unbearable so it is largely unaddressed or opposed. Anybody of the general populace who does take a strong stance is still operating from a naïve framework, so they can easily be neutralized or disempowered by those who are not naïve.

Now, the organism is still largely functioning, but it has become increasingly antagonistic to the proles within it. Some members within the ruling class who are corrupt will see the trend and it will worry them, and they will bring this up to those around them but will be ignored or punished. This further speeds up the abuses of the public because the people with power are increasingly sociopathic and uncaring about the long term consequences of their power.

Eventually, the explicit nature of corruption and abuse becomes jarring enough to members of the naïve population that some are essentially shocked out of their naïve perspective and ideals and begin to uncover the truth of their reality. This is a stumbling and awkward stage for these people, as they are essentially putting themselves through a process where layers of innocence are stripped away. Little insurrections or public displays may occur which will be put down or destroyed in various degrees of severity. With every defeat, these now non-naïve proles begin to understand what is happening further, and reactions and strategies to “right wrongs” (which is still naïve) are developed and implemented. These attempts are also neutralized in various forms by the ruling class, but with each iteration, the general knowledge of the abused public grows and more of the proles lose their innocence or belief in ideals. This is an exponential process which becomes increasingly hard to control or dominate by the ruling class.

At a certain point the corruption and maliciousness of the ruling class is apparent to a large enough portion of the population that it cannot be stomped out by the means which previously worked. The general public still partially believes in the founding mythos, but there are doubts and informal/critiques of various accuracy that are beginning to be developed and distributed among the general public. This is when the next stage of the organism begins.

The fourth stage of the organism/society’s lifecycle is Faux Authoritarianism. The ruling class is dealing with increasing unrest, and they know they cannot ignore it, so they begin to increase social rules and guidelines designed to impede and further disempower/impede the general public. Because the general public does not yet understand the degree to which they are being abused and there is still some goodwill that remains, lots of people will go along with these social rules and guidelines. These things will be introduced and pushed in a manner which appeals to whatever naïve impulses still exist in the general public.

Some of the more aware members of the general public, those who have come very close to the truth of what is happening, will see the strategy being employed and try to warn about this, but because the new social rules and guidelines are disguised in positive sounding ideals, these people will then be ignored or even abused by the more naïve general public which vastly outnumber them. This will be seen by the ruling class, and they will approve of it because they see how the general public has become less effective in checking their power and begun directing their focus and excess energy against each other. This behavior will be encouraged and pushed through even more social rules and guidelines which are also disguised through positive sounding ideals that appeal to the naïve and innocent.

Much like the corruption began very small, much like the initial lies which the leaders came up with to create and unite the organism in the first place, the social rules and guidelines will be implicit and minimal in nature. The punishments and social cost to breaking these rules and guidelines will be implicit enough to trick the majority of the population, and this will essentially result in an effective neutralization of the minority of the population which is not tricked.

This neutralization is not the same as destruction, it is simply the temporary impediment, and eventually those in the general public who see what is going on will begin to group up and form their own small organisms in order to better resist what they see happening. This results in even more social rules and guidelines by the ruling class, but this is also an iterative feedback loop which results in increasingly strong strains of discontented people who form increasingly strong groups of resistance. Eventually, it becomes clear to the ruling class that this implicit form of repressing the rebellious members of the general public is not sufficient, and the next stage of the organism begins.

The fifth stage of an organism/society is Authoritarianism. The exploitative ruling class begins to utilize their police to crack down on dissidents. This is also wrapped up in various forms of ideals that sound good to the non-activated general public, but it is increasingly clear to everybody that this is dishonest. Still, a large portion of the naïve general population believes in the founding mythos, but that portion is gradually shrinking and more and more people are having concerns. This explicit authoritarianism now in play does have an upside though, as it very easily neutralizes dissidents. The downside to this is that much like the Faux Authoritarianism stage, this Authoritarian stage is not 100% effective in neutralizing dissidents and creates its own iterative feedback loop where force needs to be escalated as the surviving dissident strains in the general population gain knowledge and become increasingly robust and creative in their operations and communications.

The fact of the matter is that the ruling class has far more resources than the dissident strains within the organism/society. They have more tools at their disposal and more ability to dish out punishments. They also have the power of the state and the state’s propaganda outlets, which pump out increasingly dishonest and manipulative narratives which serve to confuse and distract the general public to increasing levels. This means that barring an invasion by some competing external organism, they will eventually reach the point of explicit authoritarianism and control that the dissident strains are rendered completely unable to express themselves. Dissident strains will still not be destroyed completely, and they will grow increasingly drastic in their demonstrations or operations against the ruling class, but they will be neutralized and punished to the point where they are incapable of ever having any real influence or changing the system that is now dominating them cruelly and explicitly.

At this point, the society has been transformed completely into authoritarianism, and the ruling class has developed methods to ensure they will not be overthrown. This means that the more aware of the dissident strains will become nihilistic and exploitative in their own ways. They will also begin to exploit the naïve and confused and all the things described in the aforementioned paragraphs will begin to occur within these dissident strains in a fractal like manner, directed at the general populace rather than the ruling class. This will be essentially a smaller fractal version of the larger organism, and the ruling class will actually encourage it because they are not on the receiving end of it, and it is something which further divides and expends the excess energy of those being ruled.

Some of these dissident strains will end up working with the ruling class and become appendages of the ruling class. These specific dissident strains will dominate the other dissident strains and absorb or destroy them, and even more fractal appendages of the ruling class controlled dissident strains will be created. Eventually, there will be no meaningful or sincere dissident strains remaining. The authoritarianism will be secure and the system will be stabilized in the short term. This brings on the next stage of the organism.

 

The second to last stage of a society/organism is Rot. This could also be thought of as decay, but really since it is a resulting stage it is just a more visible form of decay that was already happening ever since the creation of the organism. Rot is when the seeds of decay really sprout and begin to show their fruits.

Now that any rebellion has been instrumentalized and become subsumed and the mechanisms of control have been established and are not able to be overcome, the selection pressures that ensured that the ruling class had the skills and knowledge to maintain control are no longer in play. This means that increasingly stupid and incompetent people will gain power eventually. These people are not the people who did what they had to do to dominate the general population, and over time the reasoning for rules and for the current order are gradually forgotten. The lies that were used to create the organism in the first place have grown and now are the dominant force in the organism, and this force is ultimately destructive.

The rules for controlling the populace begin to be misunderstood. The people ruling are increasingly decadent and deluded. They start believing new lies that are similar to the lies the commoners were told, but this time about themselves. These people have all the wealth and do not know how to use it properly. The psychic is upstream from the physical: they begin to become physically deformed because they are increasingly mentally deformed.

There is a lag for the mechanisms of control to degrade, it does not happen immediately. This is a top down decay that is occurring, the ruling class is increasingly incompetent and gradually replaces generals, CEOs, governors, mayors, and all other sorts of managers with increasingly corrupt friends and loyalists. The general populace is getting increasingly demented and unable to provide any semblance of a satisfactory life, and the mechanisms of control have made the theft of capital from them by the rulers even more extreme. Now there are foolish rulers who have decaying control over their subjects and their subjects are increasing in suffering and reliance on the state. This is when the final stage of this organism begins.

Reset is the end of the organism. I say reset and not death, because death implies a finality that does not exist. When an organism enters a reset, it is really transformed into a bunch of little organisms as revolts and revolutions balkanize and split apart the organism (for the process to start all over again), or the organism is then “eaten” by a competing external organism in some stage of the society/organism lifecycle.

In the stage of Reset, the organism does not have the proper mechanisms to survive. All the incentives and trends are destructive in nature. Any growth has stopped or slowed to a glacial crawl. Barely anything functions, and it is obvious to everybody that nothing is functioning, but all the lies and corruption that resulted from those lies is now the dominant force. Everybody with any real influence or control has forgotten how to make things function properly. Those who can see what is going on do not desire to save this organism, they are suffering and they hate what they see and wish to destroy it. The only sane people in the organism wish to see it brought to its ultimate conclusion. The organism is about to die.

This is the lifecycle of a typical society. There are many failure modes along the six stages prior to the final stage where the organism might die, just as there are many failure modes for a human to die of “unnatural causes” before they die of old age.

There are also ways in which this lifecycle may be changed in the future, for example if some society decides to have some machine learning AI set its policies as well as enforce them, as that would remove or shift the human trends towards greed as well as the entropy involved with generational handing down of power and transfer of information. Of course, this sort of rule would have its own failure modes, but that is a topic for another essay.