Paul's diagnosis does seem to bring much despair. If I didn't know Jesus, I probably would climb under that shiny, black leather blanket and pull it over me. That's why the solution is--Christian or not--focusing on our watersheds. They're a human-scaled region that all of us affect. You can use the boundaries of your friendly-neighborhood body of water to concentrate on human problems or (though they usually aren't separate) ecological problems. What do your neighbors (human and non-human) need? Me? I tend to focus on getting rid of the immigrants (Calm down! I'm talking plants) in my neighborhood. Perhaps you are trying to get your town to stop funding unsustainable legacy costs for stupid building projects? Maybe you're helping adults become literate? Whatever the issue, they can be found in our watershed and we can actually make a change--small as it may be. Happy Independence to my fellow traitors!
I don't despair myself. Perhaps we are more likely to despair if we imagined these big systems were ever really designed to work for 'us.' If we lose that idea then we can, as you say, focus on other things, which may be more productive. Our gardens. Our watershed. Our relationship to God. I've always been a localist too. It's the only way to stay sane.
Not to mention, as powerful as the machine is, God is infinitely greater. We are in the hands of the creator, and the machine could not even exist without His tolerance. We may suffer, but we are never alone, and our own weakness compared to the machine does not stop God from working through us.
I think that it is important to remember that the machine is not omnipresent like God is. It is largely concentrated in centres of international finance capital and is vulnerable to calamity. The electrical network which supports it is straining already at the insane energy demands put upon it. AI will increase those demands by 70 percent of more, so there will be a power crisis associated with the machine. Energy requirements will limit some of what the machine will be able to do.
I have been watching the French government transfer all of our public service onto Internet, to cut down the cost of employing flesh and blood people. I see it as a metaphysical confrontation to discover just how much we are truly.. WORTH as flesh and blood human beings. I happen to believe that there are just some things that the machines will never be able to do, or if they do them, we will destroy ourselves in the process. Maybe that is what we are already doing ? What you say about the power crisis speaks to me, because the insane way we are going about this can only lead to collapse. Maybe not collapse as in the twin towers, maybe collapse in getting business and work done, like what is already happening ?
Too much faith in the power of the machines makes us less human.
Yes,. and there will be inevitable problems and strange decisions from the AI. Suddenly, it can also all just turn off if say if a conflct between the Russians and the French turns violent. The French internet could be shut down by software which may already be in place for just such a situation. Cables are another vulnerability. In the country where I live there are only 2 internet cables connecting it to the outside world. One is just inside a shack on the beach before it heads off shore.
I really enjoyed interviewing Henry Oliver about his book Second Act, about late bloomers. He shared so much wisdom for those of us who haven't yet done the thing we think we're here for.
The answer to bigness is smallness. I don't know how that works in the UK, but for those of us celebrating Independence Day today, we can thank our Founders for a Consttution that not only places limits on government, but divides its power in numerous ingenious ways - a document incorporating Christian principles without mentioning God - providing mechanisms to dilute the effects of our sinful nature, while at the same time giving us the freedom that allows us to seek the good and the just. Yes, we have squandered much of what we have been given, but we are not without hope, and we can work to elect school board members, city councils, county officials, church leaders, even service club officers, from which future leaders in state and national offices can be chosen. A national revival of faith is in order, but not to morph into a theocracy, but rather to address our individual battles in such a way as to develop a national consensus in pursuit of righteousness.
We had an interesting and timely segue to the July 4th celebrations, the very recent event featuring Joe Biden and Donald Trump, the shiny hood ornaments of America’s two “major” political parties. A lot of change has happened since the original 4th of July, and nothing better illustrates its trajectory than Biden and Trump standing there, together, on that stage in Atlanta.
Independence Day (more commonly referred to as "the 4th of July" by USians) began to bug me more and more after the Iraq invasion of 2003. It just seemed in such bad taste to be cheering the loudest explosions at the local fireworks show while actual explosions were killing so many and traumatising even those responsible for the explosions (https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2023/03/20-years-post-invasion-many-iraq-veterans-havent-found-peace/), not to mention that the entire war was an obvious scam.
Last year a record 50,000 Americans committed suicide, a whole lot of them veterans. Those would be the documented pills/slit wrists/gun-in-mouth/hanged-with-a-guitar string canonical Suicide® deaths, and does not include any of the vast number of narcotics (legal and otherwise) overdoses and other "deaths of despair" that claimed who knows how many others.
Occasionally, looking in at the macabre trudge to another Presidential election farce from the vantage point of an expat in Ireland, I feel a kind of numb sadness for loved ones left stranded there, particularly the ones I desperately wanted to come with me but who did not want to leave. A few weeks back my daughter told me, "my friends and I were talking about how we wished we were in Ireland and not here." I didn't have the heart to tell her how she and her lesbian buddies might be having the shit beaten out of them even in Dublin. Leave her those illusions there is some country somewhere she could feel safe.
My brother regularly tells me wistfully how much he would like to live abroad, like his sister. At this late stage of the game, it would be very hard for him. Even when young, it is hard to uproot this way, particularly when you go to a place where the ubiquitous English language has not imposed its sovereignty.
I do not refer to myself as an expat, even if my government would like to believe I am. No, I am a first generation immigrant here. There is a big difference, so... what are YOU ?
I also figured out a while ago that 45 years ago I left the States to emigrate, even if I couldn't admit this to myself at the time, so I have been a first generation immigrant for a long time now. In the eyes of my government, this makes me a traitor, and technically, my government is correct in treating me as an alien.
"I do not refer to myself as an expat, even if my government would like to believe I am. No, I am a first generation immigrant here. There is a big difference, so... what are YOU ?"
Fundamentally, I am a deserter. And if Dublin does indeed become the violent hellhole a lot of Irish people are claiming it has become (I have a rather high bar as to what constitutes a violent hellhole, having grow up in the '70s Bronx) I'd likely head to Spain, or perhaps even to Asia if the West continues down the toilet.
A long time ago now, I went walking alone in our local suburb park at around 10:00 p.m., the year of our bad heat wave. Entering the park, I was noisily hailed by a group of teenage Magrébin boys. And walking out of the park about 15 minutes later, I heard feet running after me.
I turned to face the young man who obviously did not have good intentions towards me, and maybe with God's guidance ? addressed him to remark calmly that he had been drinking, and that people who drink can be moved to do acts that they regret later. I also told him that I was his mother's age, which was true. At which, he cursed at me, mouthed off and blustered a bit, but went back to his other friends. If the bunch of them had been there, things could have gone much worse, but he was alone, so I got off safe.
Thinking about this incident over the years, I have come to believe that it was even to my advantage that he could have been Maghrébin, because the young French children of Enlightenment families, many of them terribly lost, would have not been stopped for a minute by the idea that I was their mother's age.
Every advantage has its disadvantage, and vice versa. I am not particularly sympathetic to the "pure" French here, right now, the ones who look down as I pass them on the street, and don't bother to say hello, but look vague, or at their cell phones. They are ripe for the drug culture, to my mind.
Agreeing with your rant/manifesto of course, and also noticing again parallels between Israel of the pre-Captivity Old Testament period and the Church of our compromised Machine society.
I expect the Lord will humble us collectively so that we may be lifted up and restored. "Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I obey your word." (Psalm 119) That principle can be true of large groups as well.
Maybe a "sequel" to your book on the Machine could be to explore at greater length the way that chastened people humble ourselves and then rebuild in the Lord's way. I know you are already discussing that theme often.
It’s providential that I read Paul’s (rather bleak, yes) post two days after finishing “A Canticle for Leibowitz,” which will make any thinking person despair of modernity and long for the sanctuary found in Christ. I’m in southern England this Independence Day, watching 800-year-old abbeys and slightly more modern polling places from the train windows. Speaking with my husband’s English relatives, they’re as frustrated by the electoral options as we Americans are. Nobody’s winning here - perhaps because we’ve all put too much faith in princes.
It seems to me the British elections are slightly more depressing than the American ones in that British pols are vying only to see who can take orders from the American Imperium. At least US Presidents have some choice of which wars on the MIC and Wall Street menu they will endorse.
At this point I think the British deep state is the head of the snake, not the US. The US provides the muscle. IMHO. I've just been along to the polling station, where I wrote 'I do not consent to Agenda 21' on my ballot paper. First time in my long-ish life that I haven't voted and I wasn't going to have them count my non-vote as 'apathy'.
I suppose if I were British I'd tell myself that too. It's better than being simply an abject servant of an evil foreign state. I always knew Ireland was a kind of quaint, boutique tourist shop of the Imperium, but my hope was (and more or less remains) that the place just isn't worth Uncle Sam's time to try and wring "resources" (natural, human, you name it) from.
I guess, like a lot of people, I just reached the point where being ignored by my government was the best I could realistically hope for.
I'm Scottish (my husband is Irish). It's not about states at this point, I think (deep states are a different matter as they do not serve the countries they inhabit - but neither do our supposed goverments either ...). Scotland is run by kakistocrats (I would highly recommend Tucker Carlson's interview with Neil Oliver a couple of weeks ago, which is not about Scotland as such, but his description of our government is absolutely spot on). The globalist cabal go for small countries (and big countries with small populations) first. I would say Scotland and Ireland are pretty much equal in being captured by Globo-Cap. Ireland, which sold itself to Globo-Cap decades ago, in exchange for better roads, middle-class jobs and EU subs, is fighting back; Scotland not so much.
I thought for most of my life that it was the US that ran the show, but a lot of what I've read over the last few years suggests the cart and the horse are the other way round! Who knows, really? The psychopaths are in the stratosphere. But I tend to think of the UK/US axis of evil as almost one entity these days.
Is Ireland fighting back? It's certainly grumbling, at least in some quarters, about too many unvetted migrants. I'll look up the Carlson/Neil Oliver interview. There is this impression that there has been a major deck reshuffling with an anti-globalist ascendency underway but in most cases that looks to be more hype than substance. Trump really is a wildcard because he's seen as wrecking plans for decades of profitable warring in and around Ukraine, to the degree there is a frenzy to lock in arms funding commitments Trump will not be able to get out of.
Assange called it a "trans-national security elite" intent on "washing money out of the tax-bases" of the nations of the West that was what was more or less running the show. If so it's a genuine hydra that transcends any one nation, but the core of it does appear to be the US/UK/Israel with European elites tagging along, content to grab a few crumbs as the people of the EU founder individually and collectively.
The sense I get is the globalists see time running out and are quietly preparing to go for it soon. I'm expecting an attempt on the lives of more or less everyone without a bunker over the next 12 months.
I think Trump is now captured, so I don't expect much from that quarter. I agree that the next 12 months are going to bring more seriously bad stuff, including, almost certainly, a fake bird flu pandemic in the autumn, with all that that will entail (the 'vaccines' are already being stockpiled). And the attack on our food supply is multi-faceted., including everything from manipulated weather to fraudulent PCR testing of chickens (and subsequent culling of millions) to the attack on farmers.
If I were a quarter of a century younger, I'd be temped to head for the US - it's a huge country with more places to hide for a while from overweening governments and Bill Gates' satellites. I wouldn't choose to be in either Ireland or Scotland, with their 'guilty-until-proven-innocent' so-called hate-speech laws, although such censorship is spreading all over the west.
Today's newspaper has announced yet another big American IT investment in Ireland: Google's Data Centre in South County Dublin. It will create only 50 permanent jobs, and will use whopping amounts of electricity. I don't know if that amounts to wringing resources from Ireland, but Silicon Valley is doing 'very well, thank you' out of the oul' sod, and the latter, given its dependency on Google et al is very sensitive to everything they say. Of course, with the country unable to supply housing at reasonable prices, and the price of cocaine the way it is, who would argue with the arrival of well-paying jobs, even if they are they contributing little of human value?
In the 1970s, a university friend used to say, "Don't vote. It just encourages them." Very worldly. Voting surely isn't sufficient, but it may be necessary. Although the power of every level of government is limited, the character and preoccupations of its members matter.
Paul, Author Andy Crouch, in his book The Life We’re Looking For, discusses the Biblical concept of “Mammon”, which seems to have much in common with The Machine:
“There is a name for this global system, the system that powers and is powered by the technological magic we all wield to some extent on a daily basis. It is an ancient name, and I have come to believe that it is best understood as a proper name - that is, not just a generic noun, but a name for someone.
"The name is Mammon…
“By the first centuries of the Christian church, teachers and bishops had concluded that in using the name Mammon, Jesus had in mind not just a concept but a demonic power. Money, for Jesus, was not a neutral tool but something that could master a person every bit as completely as the true God…
“What technology wants is really what Mammon wants: a world of context-free, dependence-free power measured out in fungible, storable units of value. And ultimately what Mammon wants is to turn a world made for and stewarded by persons into a world made of and reduced to things.
“Thus, the reason for Jesus’ stark statement (Matt. 6:24) about God and Mammon becomes clear. We cannot serve the true God and Mammon, ultimately, because their aims are precisely opposed to each other. God wishes to put all things into the service of persons and ultimately to bring forth the flourishing of persons. Mammon wants to put all persons into the service of things and ultimately to bring about the exploitation of all creation."
From a Christian perspective, is the Christian role in the face of The Machine much different than what the role was of a first century Christian in the Roman Empire? Tim Keller did a sermon on the kingdom of God, how the kingdom is already here, in part, and our role is to advance in the kingdom in whatever small way we can. The kingdom is wherever God's rule extends, which in concept is the life of every individual obedient follower of Christ.
Funnily enough, I was in Rome last week, on holiday. The sheer scale of the imperial monuments took my breath away. I don't think much has changed in that regard, though of course some things are a lot easier now. No crucifixions for a start.
People are too afraid to live in these days. The cross was for those who knew no such fear. It’s contemporary equivalent lies in wait for those who dare to breathe
I’d love a link to this sermon please! If you can find it. Keller is so prolific that sometimes finding one writing or sermon is like looking for a needle in a haystack.
Like you, I’ve spent time this morning meditating on the conditions of this human life in 2024. I see the Machine. I acknowledge the impossibilities. Then I remember that God is bigger than the Machine and has placed us with our human will and consciousness on the front line. Not to fight back but to fight forward using love and the Christ mind. I hope I am gaining strength as I exercise discipline to pull my thoughts into the light every time I’m tempted to be disheartened. This time we live in is the great reckoning. Humans will survive and Christ will show us how and what we must become. “Unless I have love, I am nothing more than a clanging bell”. Love you brothers. Love to the sisters too.
I spent the day in nature with someone I love and a dog I love. I'm writing this, supping a nice stout on my sunny terrasse. I know the Machine is out there, but it didn't touch me today. I try to have many days like this.
The only machine that bothered me today was my back-fence neighbor's karaoke machine spewing whining Chinese songs into the neighborhood. But as I wasn't trying to sleep, I was only glad that the weather is pleasant enough to have my windows open, and God was with me, and the neighbors were having a good time around their swimming pool, too. God has decided that I should be alive, and I'm able to pray to Him, so I couldn't be happier.
A quote from a famous Frenchman for today's occasion:
“Shall I think that the Creator has made man so as to leave him to debate endlessly in the intellectual miseries that surround us? I cannot believe this: God prepares a firmer and calmer future for European societies; I am ignorant of his designs, but I will not cease to believe in them [merely] because I cannot penetrate them, and I would rather doubt my enlightenment than his justice.”
Happy 4th to my US friends. Here in Canada we had our holiday on the 1st. In our capitol there was no Canada Day parade because of security concerns. Yet the gay pride extravaganza went ahead and this perverted form of pride was celebrated all June. Canada is dead. We let it die because we became so enamoured of our closest neighbour that we let our own culture degrade. Political hope? Nope. But I do see that the hope of a future life in Heaven is where peace is. I wish I knew if shutting it all out was the answer. I ask myself what I should be doing with my time. Unsure and alone. I hope to find some alternatives from you good folk.
Jeff Childers, Coffee & Covid: Local, local, local. What can you do with your neighbors? The street on which you live? Your neighborhood? Your school board? The child that needs a tutor? As a co-worker of mine so oft' said: I'm not interested in what you can't do; I'm interested in what you CAN do. And if nothing else; you can pray. (Paul E Miller).
Yes, Martin, I can pray. We talk a lot about the Machine. But it is simply the spirit of the world. An evil spirit. I think a great part of that evil spirit is the demon of noise. We are urged to talk, talk, talk. Staying silent is discouraged because we might encounter Someone we can communicate with, without using words. So prayer (meditation and contemplation) is a way to do something.
Paul, you might be interested in this which I found perhaps oddly uplifting this morning https://open.substack.com/pub/theupheaval/p/autonomy-and-the-automaton/
Paul's diagnosis does seem to bring much despair. If I didn't know Jesus, I probably would climb under that shiny, black leather blanket and pull it over me. That's why the solution is--Christian or not--focusing on our watersheds. They're a human-scaled region that all of us affect. You can use the boundaries of your friendly-neighborhood body of water to concentrate on human problems or (though they usually aren't separate) ecological problems. What do your neighbors (human and non-human) need? Me? I tend to focus on getting rid of the immigrants (Calm down! I'm talking plants) in my neighborhood. Perhaps you are trying to get your town to stop funding unsustainable legacy costs for stupid building projects? Maybe you're helping adults become literate? Whatever the issue, they can be found in our watershed and we can actually make a change--small as it may be. Happy Independence to my fellow traitors!
This reminds me of the Stephen Covey " circle of influence" versus "circle of concern" https://dplearningzone.the-dp.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/06/Covey.pdf
I don't despair myself. Perhaps we are more likely to despair if we imagined these big systems were ever really designed to work for 'us.' If we lose that idea then we can, as you say, focus on other things, which may be more productive. Our gardens. Our watershed. Our relationship to God. I've always been a localist too. It's the only way to stay sane.
Not to mention, as powerful as the machine is, God is infinitely greater. We are in the hands of the creator, and the machine could not even exist without His tolerance. We may suffer, but we are never alone, and our own weakness compared to the machine does not stop God from working through us.
I think that it is important to remember that the machine is not omnipresent like God is. It is largely concentrated in centres of international finance capital and is vulnerable to calamity. The electrical network which supports it is straining already at the insane energy demands put upon it. AI will increase those demands by 70 percent of more, so there will be a power crisis associated with the machine. Energy requirements will limit some of what the machine will be able to do.
This is an interesting point, Bush Hermit.
I have been watching the French government transfer all of our public service onto Internet, to cut down the cost of employing flesh and blood people. I see it as a metaphysical confrontation to discover just how much we are truly.. WORTH as flesh and blood human beings. I happen to believe that there are just some things that the machines will never be able to do, or if they do them, we will destroy ourselves in the process. Maybe that is what we are already doing ? What you say about the power crisis speaks to me, because the insane way we are going about this can only lead to collapse. Maybe not collapse as in the twin towers, maybe collapse in getting business and work done, like what is already happening ?
Too much faith in the power of the machines makes us less human.
Yes,. and there will be inevitable problems and strange decisions from the AI. Suddenly, it can also all just turn off if say if a conflct between the Russians and the French turns violent. The French internet could be shut down by software which may already be in place for just such a situation. Cables are another vulnerability. In the country where I live there are only 2 internet cables connecting it to the outside world. One is just inside a shack on the beach before it heads off shore.
Yes I too get rid of the ‘ immigrants ‘ when I feel there’s nothing else I can usefully do! In my patch that’srhododendron and montbretia…..
There are around 180 invasive species in my region--The Great Lakes. Some are flora and some are fauna.
I really enjoyed interviewing Henry Oliver about his book Second Act, about late bloomers. He shared so much wisdom for those of us who haven't yet done the thing we think we're here for.
https://www.sa.life/p/interview-henry-oliver-second-act
The answer to bigness is smallness. I don't know how that works in the UK, but for those of us celebrating Independence Day today, we can thank our Founders for a Consttution that not only places limits on government, but divides its power in numerous ingenious ways - a document incorporating Christian principles without mentioning God - providing mechanisms to dilute the effects of our sinful nature, while at the same time giving us the freedom that allows us to seek the good and the just. Yes, we have squandered much of what we have been given, but we are not without hope, and we can work to elect school board members, city councils, county officials, church leaders, even service club officers, from which future leaders in state and national offices can be chosen. A national revival of faith is in order, but not to morph into a theocracy, but rather to address our individual battles in such a way as to develop a national consensus in pursuit of righteousness.
We had an interesting and timely segue to the July 4th celebrations, the very recent event featuring Joe Biden and Donald Trump, the shiny hood ornaments of America’s two “major” political parties. A lot of change has happened since the original 4th of July, and nothing better illustrates its trajectory than Biden and Trump standing there, together, on that stage in Atlanta.
Independence Day (more commonly referred to as "the 4th of July" by USians) began to bug me more and more after the Iraq invasion of 2003. It just seemed in such bad taste to be cheering the loudest explosions at the local fireworks show while actual explosions were killing so many and traumatising even those responsible for the explosions (https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2023/03/20-years-post-invasion-many-iraq-veterans-havent-found-peace/), not to mention that the entire war was an obvious scam.
Last year a record 50,000 Americans committed suicide, a whole lot of them veterans. Those would be the documented pills/slit wrists/gun-in-mouth/hanged-with-a-guitar string canonical Suicide® deaths, and does not include any of the vast number of narcotics (legal and otherwise) overdoses and other "deaths of despair" that claimed who knows how many others.
Occasionally, looking in at the macabre trudge to another Presidential election farce from the vantage point of an expat in Ireland, I feel a kind of numb sadness for loved ones left stranded there, particularly the ones I desperately wanted to come with me but who did not want to leave. A few weeks back my daughter told me, "my friends and I were talking about how we wished we were in Ireland and not here." I didn't have the heart to tell her how she and her lesbian buddies might be having the shit beaten out of them even in Dublin. Leave her those illusions there is some country somewhere she could feel safe.
https://www.msn.com/en-ie/news/world/teen-s-rage-filled-attack-on-lesbian-couple-after-he-saw-them-cuddling-at-bus-shelter/ar-AA1dw9pY
https://gcn.ie/three-people-hospitalised-violent-attack-dublin-pride/
https://www.rte.ie/news/courts/2024/0620/1455752-soldier-assault/
My brother regularly tells me wistfully how much he would like to live abroad, like his sister. At this late stage of the game, it would be very hard for him. Even when young, it is hard to uproot this way, particularly when you go to a place where the ubiquitous English language has not imposed its sovereignty.
I do not refer to myself as an expat, even if my government would like to believe I am. No, I am a first generation immigrant here. There is a big difference, so... what are YOU ?
I also figured out a while ago that 45 years ago I left the States to emigrate, even if I couldn't admit this to myself at the time, so I have been a first generation immigrant for a long time now. In the eyes of my government, this makes me a traitor, and technically, my government is correct in treating me as an alien.
"I do not refer to myself as an expat, even if my government would like to believe I am. No, I am a first generation immigrant here. There is a big difference, so... what are YOU ?"
Fundamentally, I am a deserter. And if Dublin does indeed become the violent hellhole a lot of Irish people are claiming it has become (I have a rather high bar as to what constitutes a violent hellhole, having grow up in the '70s Bronx) I'd likely head to Spain, or perhaps even to Asia if the West continues down the toilet.
Even Galway, y'know, "real Ireland", I suspect will cease to resemble the place I long dreamt of retiring to (https://connachttribune.ie/imam-of-galway-mosque-pleasantly-surprised-at-popularity-of-name-muhammad/).
A long time ago now, I went walking alone in our local suburb park at around 10:00 p.m., the year of our bad heat wave. Entering the park, I was noisily hailed by a group of teenage Magrébin boys. And walking out of the park about 15 minutes later, I heard feet running after me.
I turned to face the young man who obviously did not have good intentions towards me, and maybe with God's guidance ? addressed him to remark calmly that he had been drinking, and that people who drink can be moved to do acts that they regret later. I also told him that I was his mother's age, which was true. At which, he cursed at me, mouthed off and blustered a bit, but went back to his other friends. If the bunch of them had been there, things could have gone much worse, but he was alone, so I got off safe.
Thinking about this incident over the years, I have come to believe that it was even to my advantage that he could have been Maghrébin, because the young French children of Enlightenment families, many of them terribly lost, would have not been stopped for a minute by the idea that I was their mother's age.
Every advantage has its disadvantage, and vice versa. I am not particularly sympathetic to the "pure" French here, right now, the ones who look down as I pass them on the street, and don't bother to say hello, but look vague, or at their cell phones. They are ripe for the drug culture, to my mind.
Agreeing with your rant/manifesto of course, and also noticing again parallels between Israel of the pre-Captivity Old Testament period and the Church of our compromised Machine society.
I expect the Lord will humble us collectively so that we may be lifted up and restored. "Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I obey your word." (Psalm 119) That principle can be true of large groups as well.
Maybe a "sequel" to your book on the Machine could be to explore at greater length the way that chastened people humble ourselves and then rebuild in the Lord's way. I know you are already discussing that theme often.
Thanks to you for your work!
The Old Testament is one long history of Israel going astray and finding the way back to God again.
It’s providential that I read Paul’s (rather bleak, yes) post two days after finishing “A Canticle for Leibowitz,” which will make any thinking person despair of modernity and long for the sanctuary found in Christ. I’m in southern England this Independence Day, watching 800-year-old abbeys and slightly more modern polling places from the train windows. Speaking with my husband’s English relatives, they’re as frustrated by the electoral options as we Americans are. Nobody’s winning here - perhaps because we’ve all put too much faith in princes.
It seems to me the British elections are slightly more depressing than the American ones in that British pols are vying only to see who can take orders from the American Imperium. At least US Presidents have some choice of which wars on the MIC and Wall Street menu they will endorse.
At this point I think the British deep state is the head of the snake, not the US. The US provides the muscle. IMHO. I've just been along to the polling station, where I wrote 'I do not consent to Agenda 21' on my ballot paper. First time in my long-ish life that I haven't voted and I wasn't going to have them count my non-vote as 'apathy'.
I suppose if I were British I'd tell myself that too. It's better than being simply an abject servant of an evil foreign state. I always knew Ireland was a kind of quaint, boutique tourist shop of the Imperium, but my hope was (and more or less remains) that the place just isn't worth Uncle Sam's time to try and wring "resources" (natural, human, you name it) from.
I guess, like a lot of people, I just reached the point where being ignored by my government was the best I could realistically hope for.
I'm Scottish (my husband is Irish). It's not about states at this point, I think (deep states are a different matter as they do not serve the countries they inhabit - but neither do our supposed goverments either ...). Scotland is run by kakistocrats (I would highly recommend Tucker Carlson's interview with Neil Oliver a couple of weeks ago, which is not about Scotland as such, but his description of our government is absolutely spot on). The globalist cabal go for small countries (and big countries with small populations) first. I would say Scotland and Ireland are pretty much equal in being captured by Globo-Cap. Ireland, which sold itself to Globo-Cap decades ago, in exchange for better roads, middle-class jobs and EU subs, is fighting back; Scotland not so much.
I thought for most of my life that it was the US that ran the show, but a lot of what I've read over the last few years suggests the cart and the horse are the other way round! Who knows, really? The psychopaths are in the stratosphere. But I tend to think of the UK/US axis of evil as almost one entity these days.
Is Ireland fighting back? It's certainly grumbling, at least in some quarters, about too many unvetted migrants. I'll look up the Carlson/Neil Oliver interview. There is this impression that there has been a major deck reshuffling with an anti-globalist ascendency underway but in most cases that looks to be more hype than substance. Trump really is a wildcard because he's seen as wrecking plans for decades of profitable warring in and around Ukraine, to the degree there is a frenzy to lock in arms funding commitments Trump will not be able to get out of.
Assange called it a "trans-national security elite" intent on "washing money out of the tax-bases" of the nations of the West that was what was more or less running the show. If so it's a genuine hydra that transcends any one nation, but the core of it does appear to be the US/UK/Israel with European elites tagging along, content to grab a few crumbs as the people of the EU founder individually and collectively.
The sense I get is the globalists see time running out and are quietly preparing to go for it soon. I'm expecting an attempt on the lives of more or less everyone without a bunker over the next 12 months.
I think Trump is now captured, so I don't expect much from that quarter. I agree that the next 12 months are going to bring more seriously bad stuff, including, almost certainly, a fake bird flu pandemic in the autumn, with all that that will entail (the 'vaccines' are already being stockpiled). And the attack on our food supply is multi-faceted., including everything from manipulated weather to fraudulent PCR testing of chickens (and subsequent culling of millions) to the attack on farmers.
If I were a quarter of a century younger, I'd be temped to head for the US - it's a huge country with more places to hide for a while from overweening governments and Bill Gates' satellites. I wouldn't choose to be in either Ireland or Scotland, with their 'guilty-until-proven-innocent' so-called hate-speech laws, although such censorship is spreading all over the west.
Here's the Tucker Carlson/Neil Oliver interview.
https://tuckercarlson.com/tucker-show-neil-oliver
If that is what you're expecting what actions are you taking? Or are you more planning to take it as it comes?
Today's newspaper has announced yet another big American IT investment in Ireland: Google's Data Centre in South County Dublin. It will create only 50 permanent jobs, and will use whopping amounts of electricity. I don't know if that amounts to wringing resources from Ireland, but Silicon Valley is doing 'very well, thank you' out of the oul' sod, and the latter, given its dependency on Google et al is very sensitive to everything they say. Of course, with the country unable to supply housing at reasonable prices, and the price of cocaine the way it is, who would argue with the arrival of well-paying jobs, even if they are they contributing little of human value?
What is the evidence or what grounds are there for thinkinng the fall will bring bird flu authoritarianism?
That's quite terrifying.
Yep, to your last sentence. Very good observation.
I read that book 45 years ago, and it still has a prominent place on my shelf. Might pull it down again for another read!
I read that book a couple of years ago for the first time and found it strangely encouraging.
I'm sorry, I've lost the thread. Which book?
A Canticle for Leibowitz :-)
In the 1970s, a university friend used to say, "Don't vote. It just encourages them." Very worldly. Voting surely isn't sufficient, but it may be necessary. Although the power of every level of government is limited, the character and preoccupations of its members matter.
Paul, Author Andy Crouch, in his book The Life We’re Looking For, discusses the Biblical concept of “Mammon”, which seems to have much in common with The Machine:
“There is a name for this global system, the system that powers and is powered by the technological magic we all wield to some extent on a daily basis. It is an ancient name, and I have come to believe that it is best understood as a proper name - that is, not just a generic noun, but a name for someone.
"The name is Mammon…
“By the first centuries of the Christian church, teachers and bishops had concluded that in using the name Mammon, Jesus had in mind not just a concept but a demonic power. Money, for Jesus, was not a neutral tool but something that could master a person every bit as completely as the true God…
“What technology wants is really what Mammon wants: a world of context-free, dependence-free power measured out in fungible, storable units of value. And ultimately what Mammon wants is to turn a world made for and stewarded by persons into a world made of and reduced to things.
“Thus, the reason for Jesus’ stark statement (Matt. 6:24) about God and Mammon becomes clear. We cannot serve the true God and Mammon, ultimately, because their aims are precisely opposed to each other. God wishes to put all things into the service of persons and ultimately to bring forth the flourishing of persons. Mammon wants to put all persons into the service of things and ultimately to bring about the exploitation of all creation."
The Machine seems to want much of the same?
I love :If voting Changed anything,they would abolish it
From a Christian perspective, is the Christian role in the face of The Machine much different than what the role was of a first century Christian in the Roman Empire? Tim Keller did a sermon on the kingdom of God, how the kingdom is already here, in part, and our role is to advance in the kingdom in whatever small way we can. The kingdom is wherever God's rule extends, which in concept is the life of every individual obedient follower of Christ.
Funnily enough, I was in Rome last week, on holiday. The sheer scale of the imperial monuments took my breath away. I don't think much has changed in that regard, though of course some things are a lot easier now. No crucifixions for a start.
“No crucifixions for a start.” Yes, a definite step up!
Just one of the many improvements!
People are too afraid to live in these days. The cross was for those who knew no such fear. It’s contemporary equivalent lies in wait for those who dare to breathe
I’d love a link to this sermon please! If you can find it. Keller is so prolific that sometimes finding one writing or sermon is like looking for a needle in a haystack.
I’ll see if I can find it; as you say, there’s quite a bit out there and it can be tough to go back find what struck me!
Audra, not certain, but I believe his sermon "The Upside Down Kingdom" might be what you're looking for: https://podcast.gospelinlife.com/e/the-upside-down-kingdom-1562113950/
Like you, I’ve spent time this morning meditating on the conditions of this human life in 2024. I see the Machine. I acknowledge the impossibilities. Then I remember that God is bigger than the Machine and has placed us with our human will and consciousness on the front line. Not to fight back but to fight forward using love and the Christ mind. I hope I am gaining strength as I exercise discipline to pull my thoughts into the light every time I’m tempted to be disheartened. This time we live in is the great reckoning. Humans will survive and Christ will show us how and what we must become. “Unless I have love, I am nothing more than a clanging bell”. Love you brothers. Love to the sisters too.
I spent the day in nature with someone I love and a dog I love. I'm writing this, supping a nice stout on my sunny terrasse. I know the Machine is out there, but it didn't touch me today. I try to have many days like this.
Sounds like an excellent day!
The only machine that bothered me today was my back-fence neighbor's karaoke machine spewing whining Chinese songs into the neighborhood. But as I wasn't trying to sleep, I was only glad that the weather is pleasant enough to have my windows open, and God was with me, and the neighbors were having a good time around their swimming pool, too. God has decided that I should be alive, and I'm able to pray to Him, so I couldn't be happier.
A quote from a famous Frenchman for today's occasion:
“Shall I think that the Creator has made man so as to leave him to debate endlessly in the intellectual miseries that surround us? I cannot believe this: God prepares a firmer and calmer future for European societies; I am ignorant of his designs, but I will not cease to believe in them [merely] because I cannot penetrate them, and I would rather doubt my enlightenment than his justice.”
― Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America
Thank you for Tocqueville, even if he's in English here. A visionary.
Happy 4th to my US friends. Here in Canada we had our holiday on the 1st. In our capitol there was no Canada Day parade because of security concerns. Yet the gay pride extravaganza went ahead and this perverted form of pride was celebrated all June. Canada is dead. We let it die because we became so enamoured of our closest neighbour that we let our own culture degrade. Political hope? Nope. But I do see that the hope of a future life in Heaven is where peace is. I wish I knew if shutting it all out was the answer. I ask myself what I should be doing with my time. Unsure and alone. I hope to find some alternatives from you good folk.
Which capital, Ottawa? I didn't hear about this.
It seems like Canada is more enamored with California in particular, than the US as a whole.
Jeff Childers, Coffee & Covid: Local, local, local. What can you do with your neighbors? The street on which you live? Your neighborhood? Your school board? The child that needs a tutor? As a co-worker of mine so oft' said: I'm not interested in what you can't do; I'm interested in what you CAN do. And if nothing else; you can pray. (Paul E Miller).
Yes, Martin, I can pray. We talk a lot about the Machine. But it is simply the spirit of the world. An evil spirit. I think a great part of that evil spirit is the demon of noise. We are urged to talk, talk, talk. Staying silent is discouraged because we might encounter Someone we can communicate with, without using words. So prayer (meditation and contemplation) is a way to do something.