Un-denial regulars Charles & Chris (aka paqnation) collaborated on this essay exploring the psyche of doomers.
They discuss in detail characteristics common to the doomers they know. I have not observed the same common characteristics in the overshoot aware people I follow, and I elaborate a bit on this at the end of the essay.
It will be interesting to hear from others in the comments what they observe about doomers.
Introduction
Today, we are exploring a topic, which is rarely addressed in the doomosphere. We are not going to describe material limits and extraction trends, evaluate which DEFCON level is currently on, uncover the early and now increasingly advanced signs of collapse, speculate on the origin, mechanism or inevitability of our collective demise, attempt to predict the exact date of societal breakdown, lament over denial, wonder if Good(TM) and nature will prevail, or debate in which exquisite torments the human species will go extinct. But rather, for once, we focus on the personal: we observe the observer.
This is a topic Charles had wanted to explore for quite a long time but didn’t know how to. Following recent comments at un-Denial, Chris privately inquired if he was detecting some bargaining or desperation. This led to an interesting observation: we both recognize how precarious this fleeting moment is in human experience. However, we arrived at different accepting states: Charles tenaciously follows his heart, at his small scale, with faith, whatever the outcome, whereas Chris lives with kindness, relieved to witness the demise of this destructive species. So what would be the common characteristics of doomers? How does this impact their personal life, in particular in their social interactions? And what are some of the strategies that they can deploy to balance their nature?
Disclaimer: we are not trained psychologists. So, although we drew from our personal experiences and observations, there is no claim of any general validity. We still hope this may be of some use, especially, for those, increasingly numerous, who are just starting their journey down doomers’ lane: beware since this is a bumpy route. If not, then just read this piece lightly, on the beach as you would a summer article from Vogue magazine.
Birth and Discovery
Our study starts from the second best resource for any serious contemporary heavily funded research project: Wikipedia (the first one being some AI-powered scam-selling chatbot).
The page on doomers states that they “are people who are extremely pessimistic or fatalistic about global problems”. Well, that’s clearly the description of doomers from the external point of view of a normie. While it is true doomers think most exclusively at the global scale, they would disagree about having a pessimistic perspective. For them, the rest of society suffers from optimism bias, even denial. They would readily argue, some even ferociously, their outlook is realistic, if not the only possible outcome. There is a story behind this stance.
Nobody is born a doomer. Even if there may be some psychological predisposition, anyone can become a doomer. The typical doomer didn’t even willingly decide to become one, in the same way he would start tennis. This is a condition one develops when bitten by a radioactive spider: maybe he read some piece in a newspaper about the end of oil, or was shaken by some internet news about deforestation trends. With the impacts of climate change starting to be tangible, these animals can be encountered in the wild a lot more easily than they used to be. Most of, if not all of, these articles end on a positive note: how some substitutes are being worked on, or some politicians are about to regulate, or how anybody can participate in harm reduction by behaving as a responsible consumer. The soon to become doomer finds himself unknowingly at a turning point, he stands just before the gate which will eventually shake his world upside-down: he can accept the convenient conclusions at face value and forget, or start asking questions.
If he takes the red pill, a series of discoveries and shocks about the “true” nature of his world awaits him. This is the start of a long learning phase, a period of gradual uncovering and revelations. Unrolling the wool ball, teaches him rudiments in fields as diverse as mathematics, history, ecology, system dynamic, physics, evolutionary biology, geology, political science, sociology (and maybe even linguistics), psychology… Every day, he spends multiple hours reading books, listening to experts, skimming the internet in search for obscure blogs, hidden gems of knowledge. And gradually, piece by piece, he patiently assembles a small holistic inner “model of everything”, a mini-world comparable to a computer simulation. With this model, he hopes to understand the world, in its entirety, not only in its current state, but also its origins and future dynamic. He constantly refines the model, incorporates new findings. And he always comes up with the same, disappointing, but inescapable answer: 42. Scratch… Rewind… Sorry, wrong story… The Soon to Be All Ending Catastrophe.
Growth and Action
Once he is completely convinced of the folly of conventional wisdom, the doomer starts to act. In doing so, note that he is still following a very conventional cultural pattern: identify a problem then act in order to reach a solution.
His motivations vary according to his nature: inflect the global dynamic, avert the crash, if only for his group, lessen the blow, or deal with personal guilt or anger. He acts differently according to who he is and what he values: he may become an activist, teach other, learn to live thriftily, disconnect from the machine, travel, even follow a spiritual path. He tries to spread the word, finds his tribe. He may be learning new skills: growing food, doing preserves, managing a stock of perishable goods, metal-work, carpentry, communication, horticulture, bushcraft, homesteading, cooking, knitting, hunting… In some cases, this may go as far as to change him into an accomplished survivalist, a hermit, or even a pagan druid. He is forward-looking, cautious. He likes to stay on the safe side, keep margins of errors. Simultaneously, he is innovating, willing to take risks to explore non-conventional paths. He perceives the unexpected and plans for it. The doomer walks the talk, he is ready to step out of his comfort zone, experiment with activities he doesn’t necessarily (initially) enjoy. This all proves his tenacity, and that he is willing to make genuine sacrifices for the greater good. He is resilient, independent, autonomous. He does not need to rely and may even be defiant towards authority, central power.
This is a time of radical changes: the slow intellectual maturation process of the preceding phase is brought to fruition. This is also a constructive phase in the trajectory of the doomer. He has impacts, some he is unaware of. He can shock other people who may initially reject his perspective, but won’t forget. He rings the alarm bell, plays the societal role of the canary, shows alternative ways of living, out of the norm. Overall, he is able to nudge the collective perception of reality, instill doubt in the official narrative. But until it is the right time, this will not, this cannot scale up.
He thinks global, he expects to see global changes. So he eventually takes notice of the great gap between his efforts and expectations.
Stagnation and Isolation
At this point, he can feel pretty down. The beverage from the doomer’s chalice is about to turn sour. He may have paid, a sometimes pretty heavy, price for following this trail: maybe he lost all interest in his work and was fired, or he was abandoned by friends after repetitive bouts of anger, divorced his wife who couldn’t bear his constant mulling. Seeing the normies still going on with it, his life may not feel as enjoyable: the tasteless military canned food, the cold showers, the lack of finance, the crazy entourage, the aging and aching body, the absence of children’ laughter. Sometimes it feels all he achieved was only to travel down the social ladder and preemptively self-destruct. He may regret his sacrifices. All for nothing.
It seems the doomer is particularly vulnerable and obnoxious in his social interactions. Traveling for so long outside of the societal norm, having to constantly battle one’s beliefs in opposition to the group, is corrosive. It has forged his identity in a way that few can appreciate his company. The doomer is eternally focused on future and grandiose issues, to the point he may disregard immediate concerns or current concrete people’s suffering. This can easily and rightfully be felt as selfishness. It seems he eternally postpones the time he will allow himself to live, to be happy, to be. Instead, it is constant high alert: prepare, anticipate, protect, hide…
More importantly even, he feels he is not being listened to. If only they would follow his plan. If only they would all behave reasonably like himself. However, he never really acknowledges the other party either. He has only one channel of communication: verbal mental logic, within his own little “model of everything” at that. Maybe, he doesn’t understand the other modes of communication, doesn’t know they exist. He will invariably steer discussions towards collapse, like a reliable magnet. He feels it is his duty of explaining the world to other. So he often ends up sounding like a patronizing self-righteous bastard preaching from his ivory tower, a clear know-it-all. He stubbornly offers depressing tales of defeats without any room for breathing. He will not tolerate any difference of opinion or alternative views, about something which is, after all, to a large degree unknown and unknowable. It is never enough, no “solution” can work. No amount of preparation will do, no effort matters, it is never enough. Doesn’t it seem like the opposite, and very similar, side of the growth mentality? And then he rambles about his preferred course of action: the ultimate solution in a long list of solutions which all try to solve problems brought about previous solutions. Some kind of “final solution” of a new kind. Sounds totally reasonable to him. He has lost touch with society. He is now entirely engulfed in a handmade world of his own making, his precious.
If he can control it, a doomer with children can certainly not allow himself to dive, in their presence, that far within the depths of his dark psyche. This would be a sure way to crush them and repeat the curse down the next generation (in the small probability, there is a next generation ;). Are we seeing here a hint of what lies behind many doomer’s mask of cold-hearted objective thinking?
So he avoids social interactions, hides far away to protect oneself and others. His experience of the now, forever tainted by the future imagined catastrophe. A continuous mourning over that which has not yet happened.
Hitting diminishing returns, the doomer’s dynamic has gradually entirely morphed into a nihilistic descent, a downward spiral. The tryptic of fear, anger and sadness overwhelms him. Depression can hit. His activity, fueled by a now sterile obsession, turns compulsive. He keeps on beating the dead horse, eventually becoming a lone addict, fulfilling the prophecy before its time, a potent curse.
Elements of Doomer’s Psychology
Let us pause here for a moment. Being a doomer implies the bondage to a process of both light and darkness: it arises, grows inward, expresses outwards and decays. Why are some people more prone to become doomers than others? Is there some root cause, or is just fluke? And, more importantly maybe, is there life after death (of the arc of doom ;)? Before we attempt to answer these questions, let us recapitulate the psychological traits that seem common to most doomers.
Doomers have an unusual relation with spatial and temporal scales. They see far ahead. This makes them very patient when they need to reach any far-fetched objective. But they need some effort to be present to integrate what’s in their vicinity. They will easily switch off and ruin their immediate experience whenever they are enthralled in thoughts: they can miss many bright aspects of life, the multiple hints of love around them. Especially, since they tend to automatically filter everything which does not interest them. That which does not constitute a threat. They rarely stand still but always run “one step ahead”, thinking about the next move, making predictions. Paradoxically, they can be extremely sensitive to early warning signals, which for them, stand out amidst flows of data. At times, they experience information overload and that may be the real reason they need to isolate themselves. They will integrate in their mental models small details which may have large implications and be able to draw surprisingly accurate conclusions or sometimes turn out radically wrong.
Doomers are very cerebral: they think incessantly. Their inner monologue slithers unabated like a powerful tireless snake. They easily end up caught in obsessive mental loops. This grants them an exceptionally strong will, on the fringe of stubbornness. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be able to live in constant antagonism with most of society. Otherwise, they wouldn’t persevere in things they do not particularly enjoy just to prepare for a potential negative outcome sometimes in the far future (less far now).
Here the figure of Noah, building the gigantic ark on its own, with the help of God only instead of fossil fuels, may come to mind.
And they often excel at thinking: they are rational, logical, uncompromising, independent intellects, who do not trust nor rely blindly on figures of authority. Naturally, they respect people of high integrity, and are particularly skilled at detecting scammers, which they despise with a passion. Even if, sometimes, only the Trickster can allow irreconcilable demands of society to unfold, for better or worse. They work ceaselessly on an impossible project: their intellect wants to encompass even that which cannot, cage absolutely everything in the box of the mind. This is the ultimate quest for total knowledge, the final conquest of light over darkness. Their perfectionist control freak inner voice shouts: “Let them all be statistics, cells in excel sheets! I will make their life perfect. I have a plan.” In combination with their obsessive nature, this makes them inflexible figures easily drawn to dogmatism. Never face a doomer in a confrontational argument on his preferred topic.
Unfortunately for them, this rigidity affects them equally (You shall love your neighbor as yourself): they won’t easily allow themselves to live spontaneously, free from any clear pre-set goal. In that, they ironically have totally internalized the very core of industrial productivism. They have difficulties dealing with their emotions, sometimes even completely severed from them. This may be the key of one of their contradiction: the desire to protect an abstract entity, the whole species, while not noticing the immediate needs of the actual person just in front of them.
The next item on the list may be a consequence of their mental fixation, or just a characteristic prevailing in most dwellers of the modern world. Most doomers seem to have issues with their image of self. It might be incorrectly calibrated: either under or over-valued. Since they believe living conditions are about to become dramatically harsher than they already are, they feel natural to deploy more efforts and expect less rewards than the rest of the pack. Ironically this makes them an ideal target for ruthless practitioners of growth. You may hear them profess implacable credos of flamboyant macho bravado. Are these genuine expressions of their resilience or hints of a lack of confidence, of an underlying fear? “Hard times don’t last, hard people do” can be read in the doomer’s entry of Wikipedia. How much of a doomer’s rational rhetoric hides a self aggrandizing fantasy?
At the opposite end of the spectrum, some doomers display the arrogance of humanism dialed up to the end of the gauge. Isn’t the idea that the collective behavior ought to be controlled, the trajectory of the species planned in order to maximize survivability or minimize suffering, a delusion completely devoid of any humility?
Many doomers identify with a collective: the group of all humans or the whole living planet as a unique organism, Gaïa. Otherwise, how could the consequences of the activities of the whole species be a reason for personal shame? It can be suspected that some doomers have an even more unconventional notion of self: either setting only fuzzy boundaries, or simply considering it as an arbitrary construct of the mind. Who can say what’s what? Holobionts come to mind.
This is all surprising, isn’t it? We would have expected meeting a Cassandra-like creature instead, it’s the Carl Jung archetype of Apollo which seems to be emerging. According to Wikipedia the Apollo archetype:
“personifies the aspect of the personality that wants clear definitions, is drawn to master a skill, values order and harmony. The Apollo archetype favors thinking over feeling, distance over closeness, objective assessment over subjective intuition.”
Apollo, the bearer of light. The enlightenment. The statue of liberty. The Apollo space program. The template of a now bygone era. All his creations turned into a gigantic farce: advanced mathematics powered AI to generate pornographic images of lascivious beings endowed with cat or androgynous attributes (no, this sentence was not generated by a chatbot); extravagant expenditure of engineering, fuel and other resources only to send a few tons of metal into space at 0.00015% the distance to Mars; feats of programming, automation, slavery, life stripping exploitation to publish these words into the great silicon web of matter-less opinions, to reach you…
We can now better understand the doomers’ fascination with derelict places, decay, the morbid. His thoughts are crystallized on the edge of the observable, the end of his light. The fixation aimed at some imagined brief moment in the future: a turning point, a tipping point, the end times, the apocalypse, total annihilation, extinction. Before this point, the dumb masses rule. After, it the doomer won’t need to struggle anymore because all will be over. He is proven right, it’s a victory, a Pyrrhic victory, at last, just before the closing curtain. More importantly maybe, everybody will then experience the same discomfort he finds himself in right now.
Tentative Explanation: Unconscious Root Motivation
This section will be more hypothetical: it’s an attempt at finding some plausible root causes of the doomer’s dynamic.
On the surface, doomers seem to be disappointed idealists. Humanists who are not accepting the failed (in comparison to their own standard) experiment that either the species or this specific culture proves daily to be. They long for a world of reason, beauty or harmony. They simply can’t really get over the large gap between their expectations and reality.
But, really, maybe, idealism was born out of the necessity to compensate an even deeper issue, a trauma, in some form or another. Doomers are in a state of shock. It would explain the fear. It would explain the challenges with the self.
It would explain the addictive behavior. It would explain the propensity for seclusion. It would explain the dissociation from emotions. It would explain the tendency to preemptively put oneself in conditions harsher than needs to be. It would explain the elitism of placing oneself above and untouched, as a neutral observer. It would explain the constant assessment of danger. These are all habits and defense mechanisms adopted during past stressful circumstances. Doomers have been hard-wired, psychologically trained in tough times. What they imagine of the future, is a reflection of their past, now buried in the unconscious. In a way, they are optimized for survival in extreme situations and wither during lax times.
Let us not dwell too long on that, as this is highly circumstantial. Everyone will judge for himself the validity of this hypothesis. Let us just stress the fact that trauma comes in various degrees and does not correspond only to a one-time brutal event but may also be activated by a continuous feeling of danger during childhood.
Family history could play an important role here. We are almost all offsprings of horrors: genocides (Native American, holocausts), slavery, wars; killers, rapists, survivors. There have been so many tragedies in relatively recent human history, that almost no-one is psychologically untouched. So maybe it’s just the normality of life.
In contrast, the western middle class is materially extravagantly sheltered, while totally dependent on an overarching, psychologically oppressive system: replete with propaganda, disheveled morality, betrayals, tricks and manipulations of the mind. This fosters wild imaginations, delusions, various degrees of psychosis. A bit like industrial farm chickens on steroids (which they are not), many haven’t had the opportunity to grow up fully in balance. Diminished humans. Living in this unnatural, bullying society, considering the prospect of shortages, observing from afar, through the distorting lens of the media, the implacable destruction of multiple life forms on the planet is, in itself, enough for trauma. And we are back to a circular argument.
Maturation Out of the Loop of Doom
Are there happy doomers, content with their mental state? Probably.
But doomerism is usually a heavy load to carry. So one might reasonably want to mature past this state, grow out of the addiction and self-destruction. If doomerism is really a consequence of a form of trauma, then it is only natural, this will take some time to resolve. Hopefully, there are many strategies, which, in time, can bear their fruits. These strategies are not a rejection of the rational conclusion of the doomer about the state of the world. That’s one thing. It’s rather a movement of further expansion. It is about the recognition of other aspects, which can coexist with the certainty of collapse:
- recognition of the destructive effect of doomerism on oneself,
- recognition of the limits of individual power, to understand and control,
- recognition of the bounded responsibility of oneself in global issues,
- recognition of the load that one carries,
- recognition of the diversity: of forms and beings, down to the way of seeing the world,
- recognition of the emotions, past and current: anxiety, pessimism, shame, despair, fear, anger, sadness,
- recognition of that which lies in one’s shadow,
- recognition of all the things that are going fine, right now, the love around.
Habits and multiple rationalizations of the mind will naturally present themselves and prevent change. They protect the stability of the psychic equilibrium achieved in reaction to past circumstances. This equilibrium has served its purpose and has now become counterproductive. To break the deadlock, there are multiple small practices, which progressively, gently rectify our stance. There is a lot of activities we may choose from, here are a few non-exhaustive examples:
- breathe, relax, meditate,
- practice compassion, to others, to yourself,
- treat yourself, care for yourself, listen to your needs,
- focus on the small things you have control over, you can handle,
- congratulate yourself, smile to yourself, pat yourself on the back,
- cultivate gratefulness: note the things that go well,
- appreciate the word “enough”,
- find a safe zone, find your tribe,
- express yourself,
- perform service to others,
- confront your fears by overcoming real world hardships, travel the world, gain confidence,
- observe events, without tainting, without trying to anticipate,
- study your thoughts: see their origins, differentiate between the group’s and yours, observe the repetitions, the patterns, the tricks of the mind,
- keep a log of your predictions: write them down as precisely as possible and then compare with actual events,
- study your emotions, dive in the darkness of the forbidden ones, do not block them, let them unfold, run their full course,
- listen to other people’s viewpoints without jumping to conclusion, pause whenever you feel the urge to react automatically, compare with your viewpoint,
- study family history,
- bring things back to the concrete, root yourself, limit the habit of thinking in generalities,
- consider therapy, follow some form of spiritual practice,
- take the leap of faith, rely on higher intervention, a higher force, abandon control, let life be.
In a way, this is nothing new, already in 2012, Paul Chefurka talked about the inner path and the outer path. This all boils down to experimenting the “outside” while listening to the “inside” until there is no more friction.
Conclusion
Being a doomer is a bit like being an alcoholic. Some are able to drink a few drinks and stop. Other will start with only half a drink and find 13 years of their life has passed by without notice. Although, it is most probably some form of escapism, like Bovarysme, doomerism is grounded in legitimate concerns.
Now, these concerns are reaching gigantic proportion. Everybody can see collapse at their doorstep. Everybody will soon have to deal with the consequences, envisioned by doomers. There are no easy answers, doomers can simply share their journey.
Chris
I was hesitant to team up with Charles for this experiment. I joke about him being my spiritual advisor, but him and I have been going in opposite directions for a while now. I guess my hesitancy was in thinking that this would be too pro human or too spiritual for my taste. I was relieved when he sent me his first draft. I was on board with everything he was saying. IMHO, his analysis about the typical doomer is spot on.
Now I also think we could flip the script and make this piece about the overshoot aware Spiritual person instead. Dive in to see what makes him/her tick. Try to see how they believe what they believe in the face of no evidence whatsoever. And yet they are very well versed to reality and our predicament. Have a feeling that story would sound very similar to the doomer. But that’s a different essay for someone else to tackle.
During this process of back-and-forth notes with Charles, a pattern was emerging. It was clear to me that he was worried about offending the doomer crowd. It was also clear to me that because of his experience of being one himself, he would be able to draw heavily on that, and rather than being offensive, it would be respectful.
On occasion I try to rattle Charles by sending him a shock jock belief of mine or a quote like this one from James at Megacancer. “The story of life: The quest for profit and growth will continue as it has since the first organic cell fissioned. The End.”
Nothing fazes him. In fact, most of the time he ends up liking what I said, or it gives him ideas to come back at me with something better. I guess what I’m trying to say is that Charles is tolerant to pretty much anything. And if you ever have a chance to interact with him outside of un-Denial, do it! He’s much more comfortable with one on one email.
Charles
Writing this piece, I didn’t want to gaslight the doomer: overshoot and collapse are real. Still, I also think, there is a psychological basis, an interplay between the macro and the micro, a link between individual psyches and collective dynamic. I believe material collapse will happen in synchronicity of a mass regulatory psychological event. I hope so: although extremely alluring, this culture is insane. It’s been hard to maintain integrity.
I have been a doomer, a part of me will always remain one. I slowly am retiring. Contemplating, as much as it is granted to me, life peacefully, joyfully, in awe.
I enjoyed very much working with Chris on this piece. More than anything else, I especially appreciate his accepting, encouraging presence, true to his first name as the carrier of Christ.
Rob here with a few thoughts.
I have followed quite a few overshoot aware people over the last 15 years including Gail Zawacki, Nicole Foss, Gail Tverberg, Alice Friedemann, Jay Hanson, Nate Hagens, Dennis Meadows, William Rees, David Korowicz, Jean-Marc Jancovici, Tim Watkins, Jack Alpert, Michael Dowd, Tim Morgan, David J.C. McKay, Tom Murphy, Tim Garrett, William Rees, Charles Hall, Paul Chefurka, Sam Mitchell, Jason Bradford, Andril Zvorygin, Steve St. Angelo, Simon Michaux, Hideaway, xraymike79, James, B, Mike Stasse, Irv Mills, and a few others.
I have not observed in these people many of the characteristics that Charles & Chris think are universal. I do lack visibility into the personal lives of most of these people so perhaps Charles & Chris have access to insights I do not have, or perhaps they follow different people. Hopefully examples of people with the common characteristics that Charles & Chris observe will be provided in the follow-up comments.
What I observe is that the majority (say 80%) of the tiny minority (say 1000 out of 8,000,000,000) people who have become deeply aware of our overshoot predicament tend to become obsessed with the topic and spend a lot of time discussing it. Very rarely an individual, like Paul Chefurka or Nicole Foss, breaks free of the obsession and retreats to live the balance of their life thinking about other things, but this is the exception rather than the norm.
Speaking for myself, I am unable to unsee a cliff we are accelerating towards, and I am fascinated why 8 billion minus maybe 1000 brains of an otherwise extraordinarily intelligent species are unable to understand the obvious, nor to take any actions to minimize the coming suffering of their beloved children and grandchildren.
I also do not think any normal person can easily become a doomer as claimed in the essay above. My personal experience has been that the majority of people are unable to understand the information necessary to become a doomer, regardless of their intelligence or education, or how simply and thoroughly the information is fed to them. In other words, no amount of data or logic is sufficient to explain the reality of overshoot to most people.
I think Dr. Ajit Varki discovered the answer to this mystery with his MORT theory, which also explains why only one super-intelligent species evolved on this planet despite the obvious fitness advantages of high intelligence, and why that species is also the only species that believes in gods.
Perhaps there is a better explanation than MORT for what we observe, but I have not yet found it.
un-Denial 
Mrs “designated stewards of the planet” Sarah Connor is fear mongering the Canadians with her newest essay. I’m always a fan of that, but man, I cannot figure her out… I enjoyed this long read, but the AI suspicions were heavy while I was reading it.
What a US Invasion of Canada Might Look Like
The only funny thing I noticed was this line:
But the rest of the essay was pretty sound (IMO). I’ll need Rob and his AI expertise to look it over, as well as our war expert AJ, to confirm the authenticity of her article.
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Smells like an AI wrote that to me. If she wrote it, she’s a very strange human.
If the US wants Canada they can take it without a shot being fired. A blockade of our ports and cross-border trade for a few months until we surrender is all that would be required.
I’d be on the road waving flowers at the liberators because I hate my government so much for what they did during covid, and no opposition party is stepping up to prosecute the covid crimes, probably because the majority of Canadians are sheep.
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GPTZero estimates this is 88% AI material
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Originality.AI says it is 90% confident the material is AI-generated
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I tested those with my content from the Why Not Nuclear post and it said 90% confident original 🙂
So yea pretty safe to assume Sarah is using AI. A bit dodgy considering he/she is trying to solicit donations…
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Hey monk, good detective work😊. Can you clarify for me. Is that saying 88% of the article was AI generated? or is it an 88% chance that she used AI somewhere in the article.
I just want to get some more info before I blast Sarah’s site with this truth bomb, LOL.
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Hey yea it is confusing sorry. GPTZero estimates what percentage of the content is AI-generated, whereas Originality.AI gives just tells you how confident it is that the content is AI / not AI generated (as a percentage).
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Trying to take the high road here and not put her on blast… because what’s the point… but Mrs stewardship is making it very hard to control myself. If you’re a betting man, let it ride that I’ll have bombed her by the end of the night😊
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You don’t have to blast her. Just politely state the facts and say you’re disappointed because you’ve seen her write excellent essays without an AI.
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I doubt the American government will prosecute the covid crimes, but it will be just as bad if not worse on almost every other issue. It isn’t worth it IMHO.
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I would still much rather live in Canada or New Zealand, than the USA. Many New Zealanders even feel scared to visit the USA. It is considered a bit lawless with too much gun and drug violence
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Just found this doomer. Looks like his channel is brand new and was created a couple weeks ago. Has a few vids. God bless him for sacking up.
He references Thomas Ligotti’s book Conspiracy of the Human Race… so you already know I like him. (have a feeling he’s a lurker here)
But ya this is exactly what I want my channel and hundreds of other doomers to do. Get on TV and talk about the crazy shit running through your collapse brain. It’s so much more powerful than a substack/medium site.
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Nice rant. Lots of truths. Contrast his speaking to this shite I just watched from people I used to call colleagues in the corporate sustainability field.
https://www.oxygen-consulting.co.nz/news-and-blog/2025/1/30/backing-better-part-1
Despite numerous attempts to get a straight answer nobody has been willing / able to tell me what exactly is sustainable finance. I figured that’s because it don’t exist.
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LOL, that’s a funny contrast of overshoot aware red pill vs blue pill… strip away the message/content from both videos…. and we are left with one guy being totally real because he doesn’t give a fu#k if he’s being judged… and then two girls who are so disgustingly phony and care more about how they look/act/perform, then the actual message… still trapped in the Matrix.
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“two girls who are so disgustingly phony and care more about how they look/act/perform, then the actual message”
That’s what I wanted to say in my comment on LinkedIn in but I was once where they are and luckily I was prepared to shift my learning / view. I am still waiting for their response which I expect will not come.
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Another crime to add to the long list of covid crimes. The complete disregard for public health by public health officials is astonishing.
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https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-says-he-will-instruct-homeland-security-pentagon-prepare-migrant-facility-2025-01-29/
You don’t think we will see “internment camps” in the US, do you?
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It’s always amazed me that the US feels it has a right to occupy land belonging to Cuba to operate a prison, and the United Nations allows them to get away with it.
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Especially, when the US has an embargo on Cuba.
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https://peakoilbarrel.com/open-thread-non-petroleum-january-27-2025/#comment-785412
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Why do we allow private commercial banks to control the money supply?
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It’s a good question.
I think the core issue is not private vs. public banks. The core issue is the rules we have established for our monetary system which say money is loaned into existence, and loans must appear as legitimate assets on a bank’s balance sheet, a consequence of which is that the economy must grow to repay those loans, and if the economy does not grow, then banks must stop loaning money to avoid going bust, but if the banks stop loaning then the economy goes bust.
If you decide to nationalize the banks and not worry about public banks being bankrupt you might kick the can a little longer, but eventually there will be a loss of confidence in money resulting in hyperinflation.
Our system requires growth to not collapse. It makes no difference if the bank is private or public. I don’t think it’s possible to have plentiful credit without growth in energy, and I don’t think it’s possible to have a complex civilization without plentiful credit.
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Just like any Ponzi/Pyramid scheme.
You made a post about it nine years ago (to this day).
https://un-denial.com/2016/01/30/why-we-want-growth-why-we-cant-have-it-and-what-this-means/
That is why our governments are desperate to keep growth going at all costs.
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If you think, or hope, I’m wrong and that it might be possible to design a new banking system that does not require growth, I point you to Steve Keen. Keen is an intelligent economist with integrity that understands thermodynamics and the importance of energy. He’s the guy that said:
I think Keen has proposed a new system that eliminates banks. I haven’t paid too much attention because it’s a little too obtuse for my liking, and because I think any system that claims abundant credit is possible without growth violates first principles.
If we think about our current system using first principles, what is really going on?
Money is a claim on the real wealth we create. As long as money grows at roughly the same rate as real wealth we have a system that does not explode due to inflation. An advanced civilization requires lots of credit to build the complex machines and train the workers we use to create wealth. What we do is create credit (aka money) in advance of creating the real wealth that will be claimed by the new money. With an economy that is growing at say 3% that’s a lot of new credit available every year for investment.
If the economy stops growing due to limits to growth, like for example oil or copper depletion, or because we created too much credit for too many years, then it’s no longer possible to have abundant credit without destroying the value of money, and the only credit available will be surplus saved, as it was for most of history prior to high fossil energy driven growth being a thing.
Eliminating the banks might still be a good idea because the profits they skim could be use for social purposes. and it might help to keep the wealth gap in check which is good for social stability.
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Sadly when we look at history governments make even more cockups than private banks. The main issues being hyperinflation and stealing citizens wealth to fund wars 😦 In NZ our central bank is part of the Government, and they seem to do a pretty good. But they have to stay in lock step with the USA Federal Reserve because we are an export nation…
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Basically all central banks are private including NZ. The easiest way to tell is whether “country treasury note” is written on the bank note or federal reserve note or something similar. If it does not say US treasury or NZ treasury note (or your country) then it is a private bank.
There was a guy called Andy Guase who wrote a book “the real world of money” that explains it very well. He was a gold guy.
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NZ Reserve Bank is 100% owned by the Government
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Alice Friedemann today on a May 2024 essay she found.
In summary, we are probably now at the peak of what is possible in the universe.
https://energyskeptic.com/2025/we-already-have-a-date-for-the-zenith-of-civilization-2025-2026/
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The situation is worse than even Alice portrays. Nobody (probably even the oil companies themselves) has the slightest idea how much energy is invested to extract a given amount of energy’s worth of oil out of the ground (call this gross EROI). Neither does anybody know how much energy goes into transporting the crude to refineries and operating the refinery to produce usable products, and then transportation of product to where it can be used (call this net EROI). Considering that shale fracturing and horizontal drilling have got to use a great deal more energy than conventional wells in, say, 1925, an EROI-corrected version of Alice’s chart would probably show both the blue conventional and the red shale lines as declining, not simply leveling off.
Yes, I’m well aware that calculating EROI is impossible, making EROI a thoroughly inadequate measuring tool, but the concept seems correct, and ought to be applicable to inform our reasoning, don’t you think?
In an imaginary world where energy investment transparency was required of all oil companies, including OPEC state-owned, couldn’t we calculate EROI and thereby make a more definitive chart of what oil supply looks like? Yeah, yeah, that’s an imaginary world, but I do like thought experiments.
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Yes, I agree.
Despite EROI being hard to calculate I’m certain it’s falling because EROI is a measure of the “profit” generated by our economic system. There is very little profit now.
Every country in the world is struggling to grow, debt everywhere is high and accelerating higher, standard of livings are falling, and inflation is rising.
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P.S., sorry about appearing as “anonymous”. You can see by this reply that I go by Carroll Lewis. It took a while for me to figure out how to post with my handle.
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Hi Carroll, no problem, I’ve added your name to your anonymous posts.
Hopefully Charles or Chris will be by soon to answer your other questions.
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Hideaway’s got a thread on EROEI going.
https://peakoilbarrel.com/opec-update-january-2025/#comment-785414
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Where did you get the $US1M number?
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That was a post by Hideaway on another site. He probably won’t see your question. He is a regular here. If an answer is important to you suggest you ask your question on the most recent post and address the question to Hideaway so he knows it’s for him.
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Thank you, Rob.
P.S., sorry about appearing as “anonymous”. You can see by this reply that I go by Carroll Lewis. It took a while for me to figure out how to post with my handle.
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And Omicron ended the pandemic, so it is very suspicious
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There are so many important open questions and our leaders are not curious about any of them. It’s enough to make one subscribe to Denis Rancourt’s and J.J. Couey’s theory that RNA can’t pandemic and/or there was no contagious disease.
The all-cause mortality data supports the “no dangerous contagious disease” theory. I’ve been trying (so far without success) to get Rancourt to confirm that the all-cause mortality data would allow for there being a NOT deadly contagious disease, which is consistent with what a lot of people think they experienced, and might increase the acceptance of his theory.
If the no deadly contagious disease theory is true, that might explain why our leaders don’t care about the virus origin, and don’t care about the effectiveness of lockdowns/masking, and don’t care about the effectives of alternate treatments, and don’t care about the effectiveness of mRNA transfections.
Because covid had nothing to do with public health.
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Instead of being honest and saying we hate Russians and want their oil and mineral resources, we make up lies to justify our actions.
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Did you guys know that dieoff.org is now a scam porn site? Can we classify that as entropy increasing?
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If you look in the Resources section of the un-Denial sidebar you will see that dieoff.org is now located at https://jayhansonsdieoff.net/.
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Recently failed governments.
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It has been such a cold miserable January where I live. We even got a dump of snow on the mountains
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It is supposed to be our hottest month by the way – middle of summer 🙂
We have been getting these strong southerlies blowing the cold weather up from Antarctica
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We’ve had an unusually dry and warm January. The farm I help is worried that the pests that are normally killed by cold winter weather will survive.
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The jet streams on both poles don’t seem to be working
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A single data point and purely anecdotal, but LaCrosse broke its record high temp fro that day by ten degrees! Old record was 48F, set in 1913, and new record is 58F. I was out splitting wood, and had to peel down to one layer.
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I remember when The Twilight Zone marathon and the Jerry Lewis telethon used to be on all day every Labor Day holiday. Me and by brother always went with twilight zone. And I’m talking all day, all night… the original binge watching)
I recently started watching it again. Forgot what a genius Rod Serling was and his wonderful biting commentary on human nature. It’s even better now that I have some real-world knowledge under my belt. Thought I had seen em all, until I came upon A Hundred Yards Over the Rim (s2ep23). Excellent and easily one of the best. Highly recommend. Free on Amazon.
Here is Rod’s cool intro (click the theme link below to get you in the mood😊)
He walks over the rim and ends up in 1961. Always liked the time travel episodes most. Gets my clone logic working. I like to think of the relevant times in this episode compared to today. 1847 to 1961 = 114 years. 1961 to 2025 = 64 years. In fifty years (2075) they can film the sequel to this episode… in theory at least😉
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Thanks for the reminder about this great series. There’s a very nice fresh 1080p BluRay x265 rip of all 5 seasons available with lots of seeds. It’s 160GB but should transcode down to about 30GB @ 720p CQ25 with very little loss of quality.
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LOL, Canadian Prepper’s having another of his periodic panic attacks because gold is signaling something’s gonna blow soon.
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Chris Martenson is more angry about covid than I am.
Nate Hagens continues to be silent on the covid crimes.
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Thats a bold statement. I’ll call it a tie between you two. LOL.
But ya, there is some evil, disgusting shit going on for sure.
Liz Warren is another person I’m very embarrassed to have liked at one point. I was so disappointed when she decided not to run for president in 2016… ughhh, gross… Wish RFK had punched that bitch in the mouth yesterday.
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Chris is angry about individuals accepting money from big pharma, but pays no attention to the system of unrestrained legalized bribery. You can’t stop the former without addressing the latter.
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/jimmy-carter-u-s-is-an-oligarchy-with-unlimited-political-bribery-63262/
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It’s true that allowing corporate political donations is a core problem in the US. It’s not as bad in Canada as donation sizes are limited.
I can’t speak for Chris but I focus a lot on healthcare because it is something totally within our means and ability to not screw up. Unlike many other problems that are actually predicaments we can do little about.
Also, many Canadians like myself used to believe the healthcare system was something sacred that made Canada special. Not any more.
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If the global natural gas and LNG system interests you, this new video is very good.
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Wanted to share these a bit upthread, but WordPress did not like me. A reboot seems to have cleared it up.
https://medium.com/@alysion42/simple-solutions-that-aint-a698ee6e0975
Have others run into Eric Lee? Has his website been mentioned here? He has a quirky style, but comes up with interesting takes on the predicament. Hideaway might find this particular post acceptable.
His post on being a white supremacist is an interesting dive into our genetic history, even with the clickbait title.
Here is another one that shows we are better understanding how Darwinian selection has gotten us to where we are now. Turns out we are rather more malleable on short timelines than I would have thought, and may be able to move beyond our current denial pattern in some way.
https://www.razibkhan.com/p/we-were-selected-tracing-what-humans
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Hi Steve, thanks for the tip on Eric Lee.
I didn’t recall seeing Lee before but did a search and see that you introduced us to him in August 2024. My memory is not what it used to be. 😦 I have followed Lee on Medium.
I’ll comment on the 2nd essay by Khan after I read it.
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Your memory? I forgot I mentioned him already as well.
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I read the Razib Khan essay.
https://www.razibkhan.com/p/we-were-selected-tracing-what-humans
It was interesting but I did not see any evidence for or against Varki’s MORT theory. My take away is that we are making rapid progress at understanding the evolutionary history of behaviorally modern humans and over the next decade we might be able to prove or disprove Varki.
Assuming of course that the wheels that fund science are still on 10 years from now.
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Thanks for the Eric reminder. I’ve read a few of his. He has an MPP essay that is kind of famous and has been shared everywhere.
And I really enjoyed the white supremacist one. Why I Am a White Supremacist – by Eric Lee
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Part 3 of Steve Bull’s series on renewable energy.
https://olduvai.ca/?p=69081
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Trump: We Will EXPEL Gaza’s ENTIRE POPULATION
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When you post links please add a summary so we know what you are trying to say. For example, in this case you might be saying:
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I think it is insane that Trump would even consider expelling Palestinians from Gaza, and this does show why money needs to be removed from American politics ASAP.
Most(if not all) of the countries in the Middle East are severely overpopulated and the Middle East is also one of the few regions of the world where above replacement fertility is common. Israel is one of the only “first world” countries that have above replacement fertility. I fear that the Israel-Palestine conflict is a predicament with out a good ending.
Some food for thought:
What will happen when the US can no longer keep propping up Israel?
If Israel feared it was in danger of being overrun by its Arab neighbors, would it use nuclear weapons?
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If there are any US citizens lurking here, please call your senator and ask that they vote to confirm RFK Jr.
I’m a Canadian so do not have anyone to call.
I believe there will never be a better candidate to restore science and trust to healthcare.
I care because US healthcare has a lot of influence on other countries like Canada.
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Do you think Ron Wyden, the # 4 democratic recipient of Pharma money gives a shit what I as and registered independent voter thinks? It would be a symbolic call, if that.
We voters don’t count.
AJ
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I did call and it just raised my blood pressure because I was so angry!!
AJ
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Thank you for trying. You did what you could do.
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I thought today’s take on AI by Nate Hagens was very good.
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Here is my comment on the video.
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I like this Chefurka article from 2013. Got it from an old comment by Rob.
Sounds like Paul knew exactly where it all went wrong for humans.
Solving Fermi’s Paradox
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If I were Trump, here’s the plan.
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Don’t give him any ideas…
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Scarrow mentioned this song today in the older comments page…. pretty cool video. Reminded me of Steve Cutts’ channel
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Some of us old farts like this version.
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This video is about how much control oil companies and weapons manufacturers have on U.S. government policy and how this keeps the U.S. constantly at war. I wonder if oil companies and weapons manufacturers have anything to do with the Russia-Ukraine war?
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I don’t agree with the author that oil companies help push wars. Since oil is such a global commodity with many producers I think that the price depends on supply/demand and scarcity/fear. Sure war can affect those things but I don’t think it is a driver of wars. However, I do think that the U.S. defense manufacturers have an interest in wars and selling overpriced junk to everyone. It’s what Eisenhower warned about in a cabal forming between the manufacturers/the Pentagon/and Congress critters. Until someone breaks that up the U.S. will continue building overpriced weapons that don’t work well (supposedly Pete Hegseth is there to break some of that up – But, I’m not sure anyone can).
AJ
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Must watch. The covid lies from healthcare “experts” are causing more and more people to question everything we have been told about vaccines.
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Every, single, thing, we were told was a lie.
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Cut them some slack. 375,340% is pretty close.
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Where can I find open-access peer-reviewed research on this subject? My curiosity is piqued.
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Unfortunately peer review is nonsense today given that journals are for profit organizations funded by pharma, and almost all the research is funded by pharma. Recall that the top medical journal The Lancet destroyed its credibility in the early days of covid. Nothing from pharma can be trusted today.
If I wanted to understand the truth on this topic I would do my own research on vaccines that were pulled from the market and why. Then I would compare against covid mRNA transfection VAERS data.
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Out of curiosity I asked DeepSeek “list all vaccines that were withdrawn from the market because of safety concerns”.
And “list all vaccines based on mRNA transfection technology approved for use”.
Notice that not a single mRNA transfection vaccine had been approved for use before it was injected into 5+ billion people with abbreviated testing under covid’s Emergency Use Authorization.
Notice that DeepSeek appears oblivious to the first principle risks of transfection.
Good to know that the only “challenge” is refrigeration requirements and hesitancy in some populations.
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I’ve been trying, and almost completely without exception failing, to get people to look at vaccine efficacy and safety data for over 20 years now. Failing so completely that my daughter is fully vaccinated. It is great to see people finally starting to realise that this has all been a giant scam dating back as far as Edward Jenner, 2 centuries of lies and (p)harm to people’s health solely to make money. I actually feel hopeful in this regard for the first time ever, with RFK hopefully about to lead HHS in the US.
Simon
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I really enjoyed this interview by Dr. Bret Weinstein of Walter Kirn who had a front row seat close to RFK Jr. at his senate confirmation hearings this week. Kirn describes it as a magic show where the TV viewers are exposed to an illusion that differed from reality in the room.
There’s a lot of substance here, not just about pharma, with much of it relevant to un-Denial. Among other things, they discuss why so many people believe an illusion that is harming them and their children.
I (and they) think we might be at a pivotal point where the illusion is broken, as it was in the Wizard of Oz. At least that’s what this atheist is praying for.
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That’s next on my watch list. Meanwhile I’m watching the full interview with Kory; he specifically recommends “Dissolving Illusions” at around 44 minutes: https://rumble.com/v6fnhqj-dr.-pierre-kory-on-rfk-jr.-ep-241-health-in-america-royce-white.html
Simon
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This is beautiful to watch; RFK pointing out to Bernie Sanders’ face his utter corruption, his complete failure as a decent human being, his wholesale treason to the human race:
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And total indifference to harms being done to children.
It’s unbelievable to watch.
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Denial is an official government policy. And Dennis seems to deny everything.
https://peakoilbarrel.com/open-thread-non-petroleum-january-27-2025/#comment-785490
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Hi Rob,
“Unfortunately most data that is collected is in the value metric. How many dollars instead of how many units.”
Another factor is the quality of those units.
One example: When I started as a carpenter 50 years ago I would go through a stack of 2x4s and find a couple that weren’t good enough. Going through a stack today, it’s more like a couple are good and a few more are usable, and the rest are only good for cutting in to blocking.
Thanks and good health, Weogo
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That’s a very good point.
I remember when 2x4s were strong heavy fir, now they’re light spruce. Cedar used to be tight grain old growth that resisted rotting without any coating. Now cedar rots like any other wood.
There are lots of similar examples. A freezer used to last 30+ years. Now they last maybe 10 or 15 years.
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Do you think these predictions will come true in the next 10-20 years? Here is my take on a some of them:
Wet bulb event killing over 50k people: Almost certain unless we have a nuclear winter. A wet bulb event will likely cause the survivors to migrate.
Mass migration from a US state due to natural disaster: Most likely it will be one (or more) of the sunbelt states. This will likely be precipitated by a collapse in the home insurance market due to flooding or wildfires.
3 countries see food prices increase by > 100%: Almost certain. Jem Bendell has a good paper on this called “Beyond fed up, six hard trends that lead to food system break down”
Bitcoin crashes by 60%: Probable, something to consider: Without a stable electric grid, bit coin is close to worthless.
Bird Flu or other pandemic: Almost certain.
Total collapse of the home insurance industry: Almost certain in some regions.
Guerilla Warfare in the US: Possible, especially if the political divide keeps getting worse.
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Hell no!! I think they’ll have already all come true by ten years from now.
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Good find! I wasn’t aware of this YouTube channel. I’ve subscribed.
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I’ve been combing through Paul Chefurka’s work looking for more examples of him talking about fire. Nothing so far but came across an interesting 2015 book review from Paul. Maybe this book was the key to him breaking free from the doomasphere. I’m thinking about ordering it. He sells it pretty well here.
Brief Peeks Beyond: Critical Essays on Metaphysics, Neuroscience, Free Will, Skepticism and Culture by Bernardo Kastrup | Goodreads
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Nice find. I’ve added it to my library and put it in the top priority queue.
I’ll bet Charles and Gaia will love this book.
Let us know what you think of it if you read it.
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LOL Rob, I’m already onto it like a terrier on the scent trail! I will try to reserve some time to go through Paul Chefurka’s writings, too, I think I’m in a better mindspace for that now. If I ever disappear from here again, pray there is a good chance I’ll have followed Chefurka’s lead of just melding with what is. But for now, this space is a tangible lifeline for me and thank you to all for being here.
One of the perennial musings I have from being amongst your company here is realising just how many movies and TV shows that I have been deprived of in my life–how in the world do you all find the time (and energy) to watch them all? I suppose for someone who hasn’t had a TV for 28 years, that’s probably the no shit sherlock reason I’m so not with that program, literally! Perhaps I have planted a tree in lieu of each show I’ve missed, that’s a worthy consolation to me. But I digress, what I wanted to say here is I have finally carved out some “me” time just to defrag and have indulged in some binge watching online–a very guilty pleasure indeed to stay up to the wee hours watching episode after episode just because I can and want! KAOS was a mildly amusing diversion and now I’m working through the five seasons of The Handmaid’s Tale, as if I need more dystopian visions but hey, it’s addicting.
The other night I finally got around to watching the 2023 film Leave the World Behind (Chris’ favourite “We fuck each other” quote source). I actually was a bit gobsmacked at how the premise of destroying the States from the inside was spelt out so clearly, firstly by disrupting the communications either by cyberattack or an EMF pulse, followed by conventional attacks of large cities, and then the ensuing fear and chaos would bring societal breakdown as citizens turn on each other. Iran and North Korea were explicitly mentioned as possible/probable instigators and whilst a Dark global Cabal behind the scenes was alluded to, the idea that no one is driving the bus was also presented. The kicker is that this film was produced by the Obamas, under their Higher Ground company. I mean, as dramatised as it was, all the ingredients for a very plausible scenario are laid out on the table, as if to say “don’t say we didn’t warn you” but in the guise of a movie so most people would just dismiss it as Hollywood, as we have been conditioned to do. There have been many other movies of recent years that have been prescient and revelatory (V for Vendetta comes forefront to mind). From my perspective, these films serve as a rip in the fabric of what seems to be, to at least expose the possibilities of what if, but does the majority see it that way? Is it only entertainment, or is there something to be learned here? Are we being guided to living out the script? You can’t tell me that I’ve gotten these ideas from watching too many movies, maybe we haven’t been really viewing them from the widest angle.
It’s a wonder that we’re still able to wake up to another day with the internet and power still humming away; every day brings us one closer to that inexorable time when it won’t be, however that will unfold. Better get in more screen time while I can, hey? I wonder what dystopian film I will lose myself in next?
Namaste, friends.
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I think I’ve matured. I used to look down on people who had a dash of spirituality. Now I kind of wish I had the same. I did feel something when I prayed for RFK Jr. so maybe someday.
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For me, the meaning of spirituality simply means acknowledging the possibility that there is something else beyond what we can know with our mechanical senses and allowing for that mystery somehow adds to the beauty and joy we can feel. In peak moments, there is an overwhelming sense of rightness and connectedness, whether it be between oneself and a tree or another person.
Rob, I think you’re a very spiritual person, you just don’t call it that yet. But if you’ve ever experienced that feeling of unfathomable wonder when you’re in the forest or standing on the seashore, then you should know you’ve got it in you. Your respect and awe for the natural world and the incredible improbability yet undeniability of life on this blue-green planet are intensely evident and clearly the source of much joy and contentment for you. That’s as spiritual as one can be in my book.
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Thanks for the kind words Gaia.
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Nice one Gaia. Love that recap of Leave the World Behind’s blueprints for destruction from within.
And if you need a movie for tonight, let me try and satisfy your dystopian cravings with The Wall (2012). Have recommended it to you before because it’s got your name written all over it.
https://un-denial.com/2024/01/21/by-hideaway-energy-and-electricity/comment-page-2/#comment-93769
Don’t even bother with my review in the link, just look at what Rob said about it… that should be enough to get you to try it. Free on Tubi, Amzon and Plex (in the US).
If you’ve already seen it, then here’s a more lighthearted one. The Dead Don’t Die (2019) on netflix.
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Hello Chris,
Your sis here thanks you muchly for your curated recommendations. I have a lot of catching up watching to do! Yes, I do remember you saying that Gaia would like The Wall but I didn’t get around to it, that will have to be rectified. Funny enough, I did part of my undergraduate degree at the bastion of cinematography, University of Southern California, and was lucky enough to enroll in their famed Film Appreciation 101 course (along with 400 other students) for a semester (ostensibly as an easy subject to balance the pre-med ones). Can you imagine getting college credit for watching movies (and writing about them), it was the highlight of the week!
Now I have more homework to do, but under your tutelage I should be back up to speed in no time. You are probably the undisputed maven of the movies here, although Rob does have the largest collection.
By the way, I believe I would your big sis if we’re going by seniority of age? But maybe not by much? I’m a 1971 model, made in Los Angeles, no less.
You know, I think movie night is going to be a very good thing for me, thank you again for your brotherly encouragement!
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Ah, you’re my big sis. Ok. I’m a 1976 clone from Chicago. You and Campbell are close to the same age. And even though you have me beat by 5 yrs, if we add in the health factor, I’ve easily got you both beat by 15-20 yrs.
And ya, thank god for Robs ridiculous library of media. When we’re all living at Gaia’s commune, it’s gonna be a crucial source of our entertainment. He plans on charging a nickel for every person who watches a movie… so to prevent him from gaining too much power within our commune, we’ll eventually have to pull a mutiny and take Rob out.😊
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Ooof, I’ve slogged my way through the first few chapters and it is hard going. If I weren’t already middlingly versed in some of these concepts, it may as well be in a foreign language, and with no dictionary or translator in sight. This wouldn’t be my first recommendation for an initial deep dive into the metaphysical, that’s sure. Far be it for me to judge what you may or may not like, Rob, but I don’t think this book is going to increase your appreciation for the philosophically bent, especially one as hard core as sage Bernardo Katsrup seems to be.
I think the gist (if I may have the license to try to interpret) is that all reality can be just consciousness itself, which is defined as the possibility of experience and we as body/brain complexes are just a manifestation of consciousness and act to add to that possibility of experience and thus consciousness. Have I made myself clear as crystal?
I can understand how one as Paul Chefurka would resonate strongly with this book as he has done so much of the groundwork already seeking his own answers to existential questions. I have randomly chosen to read a few of his articles just now and feel very encouraged to know that his writings paint a clear alignment of his physical, mental, and spiritual life, a great inspiration to me and much needed. I trust that he is emanating peace and acceptance of what is, wherever and however he is. That is my hope for all of us.
Namaste, friends.
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Thank you Gaia for the excellent book review and for saving me some time.
Our reality is definitely a model created by our brain, but that doesn’t mean there is no reality, just that our view of it is distorted. I guess if you really don’t like reality then claiming it does not exist is one clever way of denying it. The kind of spirituality I could embrace might be something along the lines of life is an emergent structure that is far too complex for us ever to understand it and therefore it’s existence should be worshipped.
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Ya, I’m gonna stay away from the book also. He’s got a 7-part full course on youtube called Analytic Idealism. I’ve watched two so far and it’s either the biggest crock of shit or my little brain is just not ready for this stuff.
Bummer because I’d love to be able to grasp it. Lot of confidence in the comment sections. Like how I call un-Denial the snob capital of the overshoot world (because we know our shit)… These pockets of philosophical people bring new meaning to the word snob… which makes me think they know something juicy, and I want in on it.😊
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Hey there Chris,
I hear you but remember it’s all just words (and very fancy ones at that, like a parsimoniousness construct of metaphysical reality) and who knows if they are just parroting them? Until you actually find a way to live in congruency with your understanding it’s really not you, and I think those who really do understand no longer have to talk about it at all. I think you will achieve enlightenment more directly through interaction with your dog, and feel so much better for it!
Here comes to mind the lyrics of Edie Brickell’s song What I Am, which pretty much sums up this little exercise. Choke me in the shallow water, before I get too deep! No snobs allowed!
All the best.
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Amen to that, brother! More power and wonder to you, may you always find a way to peace and contentment through your reverence for life and the natural world.
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The EROEI thread with Hideaway continues…
https://peakoilbarrel.com/opec-update-january-2025/#comment-785504
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https://peakoilbarrel.com/opec-update-january-2025/#comment-785515
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Hideaway’s patience is sustainably renewable. I would have blown a fuse a long time ago.
https://peakoilbarrel.com/opec-update-january-2025/#comment-785552
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Interesting experiment underway.
Does eliminating waste make an economy that’s resisting limits to growth with public debt stronger or weaker?
Also, there are risks to working from home. Let that sink in.
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Oh, that’s horrible Rob! Leave the jokes for me to tell😊. Just kidding.
But I am ashamed that it took a couple minutes for me to get that one. I’m slippin.
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It took an Aussie to figure out what’s going on.
https://x.com/TopherField/status/1885087747813060936
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Canada just announced 25% tariffs on US imports to match US 25% tariffs on Canadian exports.
I expect my purchasing power is going to plumet.
Good thing I’ve already bought the prep durables I wanted.
Food will be a problem. Changes I should make now to collapse early and beat the rush:
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I am going to go hard on vege gardening once we get our chickens’ McMansion is finished. My husband is an engineer, so naturally the coop must be over-engineered; but I’m sure it will be a thing of beauty. I reckon I can grow most of our fruit and vege, since we are just two people. We have great soil, good weather, and a lot of water in our well. Canadian Prepper and Chris Martenson have been encouraging people to get growing as the effort may be worth the time expense soon – compared to buying from the grocery.
Energy wise, it is better to deep freeze food, rather than using electric stoves for canning. Modern freezers are really good and you don’t need to blanche vegetables anymore to freeze them. Chopped tomatoes also freeze perfectly. I save old fast food packaging to use as freezer boxes.
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Good on you.
The carrots and beets that I grew are holding very well in the fridge. Secret is to store them in air tight plastic bags. I’m going to focus on them plus spinach and kale this summer in my plot. Maybe also a few winter squash.
I recently bought a small freezer and I have already filled it mostly with protein. If things get bad I may buy another freezer.
Why is blanching not required? What changed?
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Gosh I don’t know why. I’ll need to ask my mum as she found that out. My granddad still blanches everything until it’s mush LOL. It must be related to why we don’t need to de-ice freezers anymore either…
OK I asked an AI, and it says:
“Modern freezers can maintain lower and more consistent temperatures, which helps preserve the quality of frozen vegetables better than older models. This means that even without blanching, vegetables can retain their color, texture, and nutritional value for longer periods.”
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https://peakoilbarrel.com/opec-update-january-2025/#comment-785534
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Unpleasant but true. Or you could confiscate the wealth of the rich to pay down public debt, but then you need a mechanism to prevent governments from re-borrowing it to “stimulate” the economy.
https://peakoilbarrel.com/opec-update-january-2025/#comment-785543
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Excellent essay today by B on peak steel.
I did not know steel growth had stopped.
https://thehonestsorcerer.substack.com/p/peak-steel
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Its perfectly in line with what Hideaway keeps reminding us here. Energy makes mineral extraction possible and minerals make energy extraction possible. In a world of untapped energy reserves and high grade minerals they create a virtuous cycle continuosly feeding each other but in today’s world of depleted energy reserves and low grade minerals they are creating a vicious cycle continuosly cannibalizing one another. This applies to all minerals and not just steel.
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That’s an excellent way of summarizing it Kira. I’ve added the following paraphrased quote to the sidebar:
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That is, if I understand correctly, the vicious cycle results in stagnation of energy and mineral production, but our debt-based monetary system cannot tolerate stagnant production. Without real product growth, the debt becomes insolvent and the entire global monetary system of claims in future energy implodes.
Yes?
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Tim Morgan says limits to growth make tariffs inevitable.
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This whole thing smells to me of a definitive sally into a controlled economic collapse. The country that makes the first strategic maneuver has the advantage, especially if it has the reserve currency and the biggest military. The US dollar is still in ascendancy despite not having a single reason to back it up, namely because there is nothing else to replace it just yet, this is where timing is so crucial. To spring this tariff/trade war is to test the waters and see if other nations will capitulate before your own country reaches breaking point, and as long as the illusion of the dominant nation and currency stand, there is a good chance that other economies and their political alignments will be absorbed more fully into the dominant one, if they still want to exist on the world stage in any form. Certainly large portions of the all player countries population will have to be sacrificed, as their potential to continue economically in society disintegrates, but that is part and parcel of the contraction that will happen in any case.
In my opinion (and Rob knows that I’ve always held so), there is something driving the bus that has led to this. Trump is just a most vociferous frontsman for the job, and in a way, his openness is refreshing, because at least he spells out the agenda as it is. We need Canada’s resources, so it will be in effect the 51st state once it falls to its knees economically. We want Greenland for various geopolitical and resource reasons, so never forget we can just claim it by military occupation. We will own the Panama Canal to secure our trade/military routes. It’s all out in the open now, let the games begin.
I wasn’t present online to wish all here a happy new year, and I have almost forgotten to mention the start of the lunar new year, which began a week or so ago. It’s the year of the Snake, perhaps not the most auspicious of the signs even to the Asian mind and to the Judeo-Christian culture has connotations of treachery (Eve and the snake) but also renewal and rebirth. The ouroboros, the symbol of the snake in a circle eating its own tail, represents eternity and the continual renewal of life. May we continue to live in interesting times! (a Chinese saying deemed either a curse or blessing, or both!)
Namaste, friends.
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It’s nice that you’re back. I’m not going to say your wrong because I do not know what is going on.
Canada on the surface (but maybe not in reality) capitulated this afternoon (as Mexico did earlier) and Trump postponed the tariffs for both countries. It could have been an exercise to prove he has the power to have his way on ruling North America. Or maybe the markets starting to tank scared him off.
Have the elites flipped and decided to back Trump’s plan to kill globalism because we now face resource scarcity and it’s a zero sum game? Or has the defeat of all that NATO could muster by a lowly gas station Russia, with barely a helping hand from it’s much more powerful friend China, killed the unipolar world for all to see? Or have the elites simply aligned themselves for self-preservation with the will of a public that has had enough and wants radical change? Or maybe the elites are sick of the covid woke bullshit like everyone else? They are after all just monkeys like us.
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Fascinating brew of comments, but what do any of them have to do with the topic of the article? I just read all this stuff – which did give me much food for thought – but with zero enlightenment as to what people think about the psychology of “doomers”.
So FWIW, given that I have zero psych background, here’s what I think about doomerism.
I think that the diversity of doomers is similar to the diversity among any other apparent group, be they MAGA or Bernie-followers, or Buddhists. So trying to analyse the psychology of doomers as a population is pretty near impossible, even if you think you can define doomerdom well enough to identify this person as a doomer and that person as not a doomer. I doubt that doomer appears in the psychological diagnosis handbook, I forget the name of it.
There is also the question of what a collapse-aware person thinks is or is not doomed. Personally, I think industrial civilization is doomed, but as Dougald Hine says, I think the end of this world is not the end of the world, full stop.
Complex adaptive systems display nonlinear behavior. Status quo, status quo, status quo, and then – – – regime change. While we are inside a regime, rolling around its walls, we can’t peek over the wall in any direction, so we can’t even name the adjacent regimes. We certainly can’t predict when our ball-system will change regimes. It could change regimes either due to more energy driving the system or due to regime walls undulating. Since we know nothing about adjacent regimes, we can’t forecast what regime we might end up in, either. Change regimes in one phase of the cycle around our regime, and it’s a nuclear apocalypse. Change regimes in another cycle, and maybe it’s some form of universal human enlightenment. The best we can say right now is that the system is becoming more chaotic, thereby becoming ever more sensitive to initial conditions.
So given my predilection for saying that the current regime has a finite but unknown expiration date, all I can think of is to lean into behavior that feels like it provides some initial conditions that could send the system into a less harmful, more satisfying regime. So I plant pollinator gardens while my spouse plants food. Nevermind that his idea of satisfying food is hot thai chili peppers – he can switch to raising potatoes if necessary. So I ask my borough to draft a new Comprehensive Plan that leans toward fiscal conservatism, and avoids new large development projects. So I perform acts of kindness and neighborliness whenever I see a chance to do so. So I refuse to fly for pleasure and eat a largely plant based diet, but also refuse to get religious about it. I’d fly if my daughter experienced a medical emergency a thousand miles away, and today I ate lamb chops.
So am I a doomer? Am I an arrogant, self-absorbed font of social invective? Maybe, but mostly when I have to somehow come up with an answer to, “so what have you been up to lately?” – – – The answer is a combination of gardening, civic engagement, and following way too many threads on the progress of the Great Unravelling or Great Simplification or civilizational collapse, however you want to frame it.
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Hi Carrol. Good post. I’ve got nothing to add. Maybe Charles will.
I just figured out your secret identity Robin😊. I made this post about a comment of yours from Art’s blog:
https://un-denial.com/2025/02/15/rfk-jr-confirmation/comment-page-2/#comment-110722
Good to see you back here.
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🙂
Did you feel anger, reading the post?
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