The weather here is very unItalian, cold, windy, grey. When the sun breaks I go onto the balcony to read, at present Purgatorio and Black Swan. I would kind of agree with Bruce Charlton that Nassim Taleb seems “consumed with pride” but then this isn’t incongruous with high talent/genius. Taleb is a good read, even if I sometimes find him a bit of a know-it-all in his Socratic “know-nothing-at-all” pose.
I’m not as smart as Coach Red Pill of course, and certainly don’t know as much about statistics & forecasts, but it seems to me that he’s making a mistake – he’s projecting a linear (if that makes sense for exponential growth) progression, and saying that major infrastructural services will collapse at such-and-such a point; however, my understanding, as a numerical illiterate, is that things rarely progress in a predictable and stable fashion. For example, as Anonymous Conservative has observed, the R0 (infection rate) will be higher at first as no one is taking precautions, and the toilet-seat-lickers & Springbreakers cull themselves from the herd; but then the ‘rona will meet stubborn, Marine-like resistance, an increasingly stubborn resistance as finally people walk about in full Hazmat suits and bleach spray.
In every real world system, the situation is dynamic as the actors react to stimuli; even the wise cannot see all ends, as Gandalf would say, and Taleb is, I suspect, right to criticise the so-called masters of the universe who sell themselves as prescient rather than haphazardly lucky. I think of this via the offside rule in football – it was originally intended to stop an attacker lurking by the enemy goals, but the defending team can actually provoke an opposing striker into violating the rule, to the defendant’s advantage. Every rule will provoke unexpected responses from the actors within the game, and these responses will trigger additional responses from other actors, until you have a hurly burly largely unmediated by the initial parameters.
Not to mention Black Swan phenomena, which are such precisely because they cannot really be predicted; merely, perhaps, imagined.
I’m trying to reduce my visits outside as I find it more stressful than anything else. I’m not so much worried about getting Coronavirus – indeed, I suspect I had an early variant when I was ill for 3 weeks in early February (c.f. Spanish Flu waves) – as I am unhappy at the eerie desolation of an empty city, the masked & awkward citizenry, as if everyone has out of fear become a superhero. When I passed a guy leaning against a pillar outside a restaurant, a delivery bike/hamper nearby, and he didn’t move aside, I just shrugged and held my breath then wondered, Is he unconcerned about the ‘rona because he already has it? – but he doesn’t care if he gives it to everyone who passes?
Most of the people I saw when I went shopping last night were food delivery guys on motorbikes, electric bicycles, one on some kind of electric-powered Segway, lit up in the dark, a food hamper on his back.
I’ve been considering the Spanish Flu as a precursor and possible model. In the 1918 pandemic, Italians were disproportionately affected, and there was a clear north/south divide in Europe, the Mediterranean countries being significantly impacted relative to the north. As I was walking to my local supermarket today, I noted Italians on bikes, in masks, all babbling excitedly on their phones, and wondered if it could be – genetics aside – a question of gregariousness; that Finns and Germans are an introverted people who prefer a small social circle, and are undemonstrative in their affections. Could it be that hundreds of thousands of people were saved in Finland because the Finns don’t like to socialise so much? Could infection (if not fatality) rates correlate to extroversion?
It could be that periodic pandemics exercise a pro-introversion selection, culling the extroverts. It is hard to see how typically extrovert behaviour would be other than deleterious in a time of Plague; whereas the lonely scholar in his tower, leafing through his Augustine and his Kant could well be a lone survivor. Plague might, then, serve as a corrective mechanism to societies which unduly favour the extrovert. One could argue that only a fairly prosperous individual could survive as an introvert, but that only means that introverts would tend to be higher IQ (since wealth is correlated with IQ) – so the introvert would come from a higher-IQ family, his inherited wealth serving as a buffer against an extroverted world.
It would be interesting to study IQ/introversion correlations, as I find it hard to imagine an impoverished introvert surviving outside of the very recent welfare systems of the West; could an introvert survive in Karachi or Mogadishu, or would the constant screaming and bustle rather deplete his energy, suppress his immune system, and lead to an early shallow grave, eaten by feral dogs and shit-encrusted urchins? My guess is, introverts tend to be from more wealthy families, and so will also be higher IQ.
Over time, recurrent Plagues could, then, select for high-IQ introverts, culling off the worst of the extroverts and dummies.
I decided to while away the (remaining) time with 2011’s Contagion, directed by Steven Soderbergh. I knew almost nothing about it except the title and that it was something to do with a lethal disease, “well that sounds all right, if I’m going to die, choking on my own lung fluids,” I thought.
I ‘d forgotten Soderbergh’s style so was a bit wrongfooted when Matt Damon and Gwyneth Paltrow appear but then drift out of focus as she gets ill and looks like a crack whore. I even began to wonder if it really was Paltrow and Damon, as both look kind of, well, ordinary.
Anyway, there are lots of scenes of people touching things all over the world.
Some of these people then start sweating and looking ill.
Jude Law appears, sporting an odd English accent and a hat and tie:
this is, I suspect, an American’s idea of an Englishman.
Anyway, Paltrow dies like a dog.
Doctors tell Damon “she died” and he replies: “but we just had dinner” then looks at the doctors angrily, panting like a retard.
Then his kid dies. The kid is called Clark, what is it with Americans and their names.
Various vignettes of scientists in conference rooms.
Scientist exits a building, is intercepted by Jude Law, who is apparently a “blogger” whatever that is (it’s as if the writers are stuck in the late 90s).
Scientist: Get away from here, you’re not a doctor and you’re not a writer.
Jude Law: Yes I am, I’m a writer.
Scientist: Blogging is not writing. It’s graffiti with punctuation.
I suspect the writer/director were not being ironic here; that they actually think all real writers are published by mainstream firms, and if you can’t get published it’s because you’re just vermin of some kind.
The rest of the film is basically various scientists, played by famous actors, doing lab tests and trying to find a cure; the civilian aspect is mostly seen through Damon’s character as he realises that “people are only as good as the world allows them to be” (the Joker). He gets a gun. There’s a sense that the victims are actually trying to infect others, as a women tries to grab Damon and his daughter in a supermarket, screaming “help me!” – but it’s almost as if the only relief she can imagine is to share her death with others.
Meanwhile Jude Law’s character deliberately creates panic on Twitter, in order to peddle a homeopathic cure that doesn’t work. The benign governments and World Health Organisation officials and scientists work on a cure while trying to control the population; as one bureaucrat puts it, “we just need to make sure nobody knows, until everybody knows”
Of course the benign scientists and global bureaucrats find a cure at the end.
Overall, I found it an enjoyable film though the New World Order is a little rich for my palate: the heroes being Soros/Rothschild/etc-funded bureaucrats (having met some of these, I find them appallingly incompetent and ignorant, not to mention nauseatingly “progressive”), and Law’s character presumably a representative of every non-mainstream writer/creator.
I’m unsure if the film would really persuade anyone to trust the government and distrust independent researchers; but I suppose as propaganda, which it clearly is, it’s just one more little nudge in the direction desired by certain masters, certain parties.
It’s quite good as a film, however, and I enjoyed seeing Gwyneth Paltrow’s character die.
Supermarkets still fully stocked. Were I of money & knowledge I would buy a put on toilet paper – the tricky thing is to ascertain the time range, the point at which people realise they have enough loo roll for the next 10 years so they stop buying, and hence toilet paper companies experience a sudden drop in sales.
I know two people who know people with Coronavirus now. I wonder how long before I know someone personally.
My read, as Bruce Charlton and others claim there is no CV and it’s just a pretext for the globohomo to go to full New World Order boot-in-face: it is possible that all the video/photos leaked from China, and the evidence that Iran is digging mass graves, is a wide-scale deception; I find it harder to believe that Western Europe could carry this off, and it’s clear that something serious has befallen e.g. Italy. I think the Cabal released this in the hope of setting off a war between the US and China, and to crash the world economy and so sabotage Trump’s 2020 election – as if The God Emperor would be at all daunted by such a minor inconvenience. Naturally, each regional Cabal-satrap is using the CV to increase their powers.
The God Emperor is not to be foxed by mere Satanists. I fully anticipate that, in a year’s time, everyone will be perplexed that the Coronavirus merely aided Trump in his endeavours.
1. The Italians are beginning to take this seriously. I went to Despar and it was almost sold out of Vitamin C. I bought the last two packs with a sense of glee.
2. There is a curious sense of simultaneous wariness and solidarity. Everyone except me is wearing a mask – I don’t bother, as I left it too late to get a real one, and I would only submit to wearing the Bane:
The few people I see on the street naturally steer to give each other as wide a berth as possible; and yet, there is a sense of “we’re in this together” for all there is an undeniable frisson of “don’t fucking infect me!”
I went into my usual supermarket and the usual young chap on the counter – wearing a mask and gloves – gave me a nod of comradely recognition, as to say “we both may be dead soon, perchance we shall meet in Hades among the shades bereft of glory”.
And twice as I crossed roads, cars simply stopped to let me walk. This has never ever happened to me before in Italy – the Italian driving custom is to drive and fast and as wildly as possible, one hand dangling out of the window with a bottle of beer and/or cigarette, while screaming, “vai! vai! stronzo! cazzo!” at everyone.
An Audi of all cars actually stopped, on a deserted empty road in the late evening, to let me cross. I smiled and gave the driver a wave, as to say, “I shall remember you when we meet again in Valhalla.”
Living in one of the Northern Italian epicentres of Coronavirus, I’ve decided to provide occasional updates to the situation for English-speakers who, for whatever reason, are interested.
There was little reporting about Coronavirus until it really hit Italy – most people I talked to hadn’t even heard about it, but then Italians are an incurious people. It is now a daily event in the media.
I went shopping on Sunday evening (8th March) and although most bars were closed, people were strolling merrily down the narrow city streets, in groups, laughing and kissing and dancing and basically being as Italian as possible.
The next day, I was advised that the police were arresting people for being outdoors without a good reason. On that evening I could hear birdsong in the city centre.
When I went out just now (Tuesday 10th March) the streets were almost totally empty.
I went to a Despar for wine etc. and found the vitamin supplement shelf totally full, so people aren’t panic-buying Vitamin C/D/etc.
In general, the Italians are a feckless childish people who will ignore warnings until the police threaten them with 3 months’ prison.
They say that con men win the victim’s confidence partly by flattery. I have noticed this with an acquaintance who is both highly gullible and highly paranoid, the paranoia most likely a result of his frequently falling victim to con men; all of his cons involved flattery, the quite primitive con men/women telling him how wise and intelligent and simply great he is – and because he sees himself as a Great Man, he laps it all up.
You could divide today’s official propaganda into two broad sections:
i) The Daily Mail demographic. Here the appeal is to the the no-nonsense white van man mentality.
ii) The Guardian demographic. Here the appeal is to the “educated” and intelligent, the mostly white liberal elite.
I would prefer to read The Daily Mail, in all honesty. The DM has a scatter-shot crudity to it, a simplifying of human motivation and complexity which I take for granted and so find hard to really even notice; the propaganda isn’t aimed at my IQ/education level, so has (I guess) no effect. The Guardian, by contrast, is infuriatingly smug & prissy, and irritates every fibre of my sentience, from which I judge it is targeted at precisely my IQ/education level.
The second sector of propaganda often makes appeal to the self-perceived intellect of the victim. Here’s a good example from The Z Man, though he’s not (I judge) a propagandist, merely one of these “you can’t fool me! everything is in reality very mundane and boring” types:
Stupid people are more prone to believe fantastical explanations for events than smart people. The QAnon stuff, for example, is a clever mocking of the sorts of people inclined to believe such things. It’s a very clever person with too much time on his hands having fun at the expense of those who are not so clever. Dumb people tend to fall for conspiracy theories.
Since people naturally conspire, in every workplace & social group, it doesn’t seem far-fetched to suppose that politicians and the financial elites would do likewise, on a far grander & weirder level than Janice and Sandra bitching about Debra’s skirt at the coffee machine. A reading of Suetonius should prepare one for the possibility that, for example, Bill Clinton visited Jeffrey Epstein’s island on multiple occasions.
The Intelligence Con is to say, “only a dumb person would believe that. It really is incredible what dumb people will believe. You know, a dumb person will believe that goat-riding Satanists decide our interest rates. It really is incredible. Now, a smart person understands that there is no order to anything, that things just happen for no reason. A dumb person doesn’t want to understand this, because he can’t. You’re not dumb, are you?”
Most people don’t care if someone critiques their upper body musculature, but they take it as a personal affront if you suggest their IQ is below, say, 100. Hence, a great deal of propaganda is an Intelligence Con; which may be why I would rather take out a year’s subscription to The Daily Mail than The Guardian.
Tubbs is sitting in a car in America, on a stake-out. Some gangbangers knock on his window, because this is America. Sheeeit, one of these cats got a switchblade. Not to be outdone, Tubbs pulls a sawn-off shotgun. Gangbangers retreat.
Crime boss emerges from house. Were I Tubbs, I would assume the gangbangers were running surveillance for crime boss.
Cut to nightclub. Tubbs pays negro waiter to spill drink on crime boss. I actually thought the waiter was Tubbs until I saw them in the same shot. Tubbs looks more mulatto than 100% negroid, probably got that 5 – 10% IQ boost because his grandmother laid with the white devil. He has a sensitive, violent look – classic Michael Mann protagonigger, I like him already.
Crime boss goes to toilet. Tubbs follows. Fight with bodyguards.
Boss escapes. Tubbs left impotent, helpless, unable to do his job because he is stupid.
Cue Miami Vice theme music.
Cut to Don Johnson with a paedo moustache, watching a negro dance on the corner. The guy from NYPD Blue appears and chats with Don; he doesn’t make enough money, says no woman of his should have to work, he wants to take his wife or whatever out for a romantic evening – right there, you know he’s going to die. Cut to the guy with some sleazy mofo talking about how he wants to sponsor a child or something.
Sleazy mofo takes nice NYPD guy to car. Car explodes. Both die.
Don Johnson visits ex-wife. She busts his balls. He explains his partner died. She busts his balls even more because she is a woman.
Well-dressed negro walks down street, gets in car. Car doesn’t have a roof for some reason. Johnson exploits this vulnerability to jump in the car, grab the negro’s fried chicken and throw it into the back. Johnson is wearing an incongruous peach jacket.
Some kind of drug deal, Tubbs and Johnson are both masquerading as drug dealers; they meet, neither presumably knowing the other is a cop. Local police appear and ruin everything. Tubbs steals Johnson’s boat. Johnson steals a car and is in hot pursuit, to the Miami Vice theme tune.
Johnson jumps into the boat and thumps Tubbs. Tubbs reveals he is a cop.
Johnson unhappy. Amusing line as he expostulates to his superior:
Two weeks! Two weeks of legwork I put in on this bust, and three-fourths of the dealers turn out to be cops! Me, Scottie Wheeler and Dr Voodoo here putting in a surprise guest appearance direct from Fun City! […] My badge says Miami but lately it’s looking a lot like Disney World!
Tubbs wakes Johnson up on his boat. Because Johnson lives on a boat like Duncan McLeod. Johnson, as a white man, does not appreciate a negro in the morning and punches Tubbs, then feels abashed and apologises. Tubbs punches him back: “couldn’t let you handle all that bad karma on your own.”
Tubbs does into the boat to get ice for the bruise, is chased out by an alligator called Elvis. Johnson chuckles, revelling in his white supremacy for only the white man can master the gator: “don’t mind him Elvis, he’s from New York.”
Romantic interlude. Crockett woos some woman thusly:
Maybe I’m getting too old for this line of work. Scraping by on four hours of sleep a day. Living undercover for weeks at a time. Dealer this week, outlaw biker the next. It’s Tuesday? I must be working drugs. Hell on the old nervous system, I’ll tell you.
Classic 80s burnt-out cop dialogue, woman helplessly spreads her legs for the Crockett dong.
Tubbs revealed to be brother of Tubbs, on a vengeance mission against a greaser Cartel boss. Complicated. Crockett unhappy at the news, throws an American football about his own boat, probably breaking his own possessions.
Tubbs in an alleyway for some reason, a tranny appears and tries to shoot him but Crockett appears in a black Ferrari and tranny-assassin gets shot by Tubbs. Justice.
Crockett tracks down the corrupt cop who led the tranny-assassin onto Tubbs. The corrupt cop is a jovial Irishman who took a bullet for Crockett and seemed, thus, beyond reproach. However, like all Irish, he is untrustworthy and criminal. Crockett ends up trying to strangle him to death in his black Ferrari. Soulful scene as Crockett realises you can’t trust anyone, that in this Mannly world every Mann must stand alone and die alone. Just as Hamlet, after his mother married Claudius, begins to question every human relationship he ever took for granted, every truth he assumed, every value, so here – Crockett thinks, “if this guy was corrupt, who can I trust?”
Cut to Phil Collins’ ‘In The Air Tonight’ as Crockett and Tubbs drive a Ferrari down a dark road.
Crockett, heading down his own dark examination, calls his ex-wife:
“I need to know something, Caroline. The way we used to be together…I don’t mean lately, but before. It was real…wasn’t it?”
Just as Hamlet questions if Ophelia ever loved him, if his mother ever loved his father, if anything he knew was true, so here.
Big shoot out. Crockett & Tubbs deal death out with wanton abandon. Tubbs corners the greaser who killed his brother, is about to execute him when the white man appears as the voice of reason: “Tubbs. Not like this.”
Dissidents have periodically argued over the form of our coming slavery: will it be 1984-style prison planet of secret police and torture and gulags, the basement of the Lubyanka; or will it be a Brave New World of smiley happy slaves?
At present, I believe Cabal are aiming for an effective mixture of the two. The Lubyanka is always there, as are the secret police, but their civilian enforcers are not so much the shrill screaming SJWs (who will always be a minority), but rather gullible idealists who have been set against not merely their community, but against the idea of community at all. I was recently talking to an Italian school teacher, a hardcore leftist, who said he “hates” things like nationalism, patriotism, community, and he thinks of himself as a citizen of the world, not an Italian. He later added that he would like to strike his pupils when he hears them utter non-Leftist sentiments. The teacher is himself quite pleasant, albeit a little autistic and odd like most ideologues. I dare say, were one to inquire into his inner motives & dialogue, words like “love”, “fairness”, “equality”, “happiness” etc. would abound.
And further on from the Leftist core, I have known very nice, if politically naive, people who genuinely think of any kind of communal-affiliation (patriotism, nationalism) as one stop away from Auschwitz. For such people, every group except whites is allowed to be vehemently identitarian and politically active; but if a white points out that his child is now the only European at school, well the naive Leftie hears the hiss of Zyklon B, the march of jackboots.
For all the violence and insanity of the hardcore Leftie, the system is maintained by the naive and normal, those who say, “can’t we all just get along…?” while moving further and further away from the non-European migrants and refusing to take public transport. Cabal’s current form of control is this curious mix of the jackboot stamping on the European face (not forever, just until it ceases to exist) and the happy smiley rabbits raised on John Lennon’s ‘Imagine’ and Pepsi ads. Shiny happy jackboots.
Remainders 