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The story of The Great Filter begins in the 1980s when the wealthiest 1% managed to capture enough political power to effect tax cuts and monetary policy that fueled a growth in wealth inequality not seen since The Gilded Age. The top 1% of households now own more wealth than the bottom 90% combined.
This economic power translates into political power with both parties pursuing the interests of the ultra-wealthy in return for campaign funds and jobs, etc. after they leave office. 'The Culture War' is utilized to differentiate two parties whose economic policies are essentially the same in outcomes and obscure who these economic policies benefit.
The mutual economic dependence of the political, intellectual and managerial classes on the ultra-wealthy for their income has formed a new 'aristocracy' of the top 9.9%. An exclusive aristocracy that self-interestedly supports the policies of the top 1% from their gated communities and positions at the top of government, financial, education and non-profit institutions.
Having co-opted the 'new aristocracy', no counterbalance exists to check the highly destructive consumption of the top 1%.
Even in times of emergency, the top 1% continues their outsized consumption of resources with impunity. While communities went without drinking water during recent droughts, the top 1% continued to water their lawns.
Society's ability to build the infrastructure necessary to repair the damage caused by the top 1% is seriously hindered by a lack of revenue. The political class has amended the tax system since the 1980s so much that many of the richest Americans pay little to no income tax on their billions.
Tax policy has been designed to enable the investment portfolios of the super-rich to continue to accumulate with less taxation than that paid by their own office assistants.
And when tax avoidance is no longer enough to disguise the huge piles of wealth - tax evasion. Money-laundering and tax havens around the world have robbed global societies of trillions of dollars of government funds and tax income at the same time the world faces challenges requiring huge investment.
Instead of providing tax revenue to fight climate change, repair infrastructure and provide for society, the top 1% wealth is being used to monopolize the basic necessities - like housing - and raise prices to extortionate levels that have left two generations of Americans underhoused, underfed, underinsured.
Cognizant of the worldwide unrest caused by their relentless accumulation and the impacts of their outsized consumption, the ultra-wealthy have begun to construct doomsday bunkers or migrate to isolated areas where they can enjoy their wealth without the consequences.
As unrest increases and underfunded and undermined institutions continue to crumble, the ultra-wealthy have begun to morph into the merchant barons of pre-modernity. Largely unchallenged and with an increasing willingness to use coercion, co-option and even force, the ultra-wealthy have begun to emerge as serious challengers to nation-states.
Since the 1980s, there has been overwhelming evidence of global warming and climate change caused by human activities and growth in consumption, particularly the burning of fossil fuels. This has led to rising temperatures, melting glaciers and ice sheets, rising sea levels, and more frequent extreme weather events such as hurricanes, heat waves, and droughts.
2022 was a summer of climate extremes with record-breaking droughts broken by record-breaking floods across the United States and the world. This type of wildly fluctuating change was predicted decades ago by the scientific community. But little was done to heed that warning.
The future is now. Record high temperatures prostrated Europe as climate change impacted the stability of the polar jet stream. London reached 104°F (40°C) - a new historical high temperature. More +40°C days are predicted for Europe as the polar jet stream continues to fluctuate.
The effects of climate change are not limited to the land. Climate change and its impacts on sea levels, currents and salinity have pressured marine environments to the point of collapse. 90% of marine species are now at-risk due to the impacts of climate change on their ecosystems.
The negative impacts of climate change on marine species are myriad. Temperature regulates sex in certain species such as sea turtles. Hotter temperatures are destroying the sex balance of the species which could lead to a population collapse and eventual extinction.
These more severe droughts, floods and other disasters we've experienced are occuring at 1.1° - 1.2° of global warming. As warming continues, even greater disasters are possible including catastrophic events like the inundation of California's Central Valley - one of the most productive agricultural areas in the world. It's happened in the past.
In 2022, Pakistan suffered flooding that submerged and devastated over ⅓ of the entire country. An already impoverished country now economically prostrated by climate change that it contributed to minimally.
Our ability to combat climate change will cost trillions of dollars and in many ways, require a re-think of modern civilization in the face of virulent opposition by the rich nations and individuals who benefited the most from what caused climate change.
Already, the world's poorest - who contributed almost nothing to the problem of climate change - are the first victims with droughts causing large-scale famine in areas like East Africa now. This type of resource stress leads to societal collapse and drives armed conflicts.
No one is safe in the long-term. As the climate continues to warm to +3°, the Earth will evolve to a literal hellscape that is antithetical to our way of life. Unless we take the off-ramp from this self-destructive path, the future of humanity is bleak.
You are part of the problem. Everyday overconsumption - by individuals of the rich industrialized nations - is leading to the overuse of the world's resources. The 'normal' consumer life for all humans would require several additional planets' resources to support it.
Food waste is food that is produced but never eaten. In the United States alone, ~40% of food production - with all of its attendant usage of water, fertilizers, pesticides, and fossil fuels - is wasted.
Water resources have been overtaxed and increasingly polluted by agriculture, industry and even personal lawns. 'Forever' toxic chemicals such as PFAs - which never break down to harmless components and cause illness including cancer - now contaminate our city water supplies.
In a shocking announcement, the scientific community in 2022 warned that rainwater across the United States was no longer safe to drink - because of PFAs pollution.
Rainforests across the world are being burnt and cut down to support meat consumption. This emits climate-changing CO2 (carbon dioxide) that dwarfs some countries' emissions.
The level of deforestation (forest loss) has grown to the point that the Amazon rainforest now emits more CO2 than it captures. Previously, the Amazon rainforest had captured more CO2 which helped balance out other CO2 sources.
As more CO2 is released from burning forests and the climate continues to change, it may collapse a warm ocean current that keeps Europe livable. This would devastate the people of Europe and represent a global humanitarian and economic catastrophe.
Climate change is not the only pressure on our oceans. Outright illegal dumping of radioactive chemicals, pesticides and even military equipment into the oceans around the world has rendered most coastal areas dangerously polluted. Often, avoiding expense was cited as the reason for illegal dumping.
The pollution of the ocean with plastic - everyday to industrial packaging and items - has resulted not only in a huge patch of floating debris but has now worked plastic microparticles into the fish and other marine life we eat.
Remember the food waste? To produce the food that you won't eat, agriculture companies and farmers utilize fertilizers that are leaked into the water, rivers, and eventually, oceans of the world. There, the fertilizer causes blooms that suck up all the oxygen in the water and kills fish, shrimp and other marine life.
This is not a developing world problem. It's a world problem. Recently, the largest marine dead zone developed off the coast of Sweden
The rampant pollution and continuing destruction of the environment is reaching an alarming pace. Animal species are going extinct at an increasing rate.
More species are endangered and experiencing continuous stress on their populations as more and more of Earth's resources are consumed for your lifestyle.
It's not just other types of plants and animals that are directly affected by pollution. Human intelligence is being impacted by lead pollution around the world.
Chronic wasting disease - a prion disease that may pose substantial threats to a human - now infects large swathes of the deer, elk and other species of wildlife consumed by humans. Mad Cow Disease was another prion disease and posed substantial health threats to food supplies.
Brains!!!! Climate change is extending the range where different organisms like brain-eating amoebas can now exist.
But brain-eating amoebas aren't the only invaders. Invasive species are threatening the balance of the environment around the world. Kudzu, feral cats, giant snails, release pet Burmese pythons are all wreaking havoc in their new homes.
And we're running out of soil.
And the bees are now dying.
And this may all add up to - The End. The Earth's environment may change so much in the face of overconsumption, pollution and misuse, that it may no longer be amenable to humans.
Any bid for supreme power in a society requires control of food production. And control requires consolidation - which farmers throughout history have resisted. Very strongly. In many instances, dubious, politically-biased 'science' is used to justify seizing land, dictating prices and quotas, and to silence dissent. Lysenkoism in the Soviet Union (modern-day Russia and neighboring countries) was a prime example.
Between 1959 and 1961, China self-inflicted the deadliest famine and one of the greatest man-made disasters called The Great Chinese Famine. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) applied political thought to farming, seizing all individual farms from farmers and killing all sparrows. With no incentive for farmers to work and no birds to eat insects, crops failed with 15-55 million people starved to death.
The United States suffered its own farm policy failure in the late 1970s-1980s. The federal government encouraged farmers to plant 'fence-to-fence' and pursued a loose monetary policy to finance expanded crop production. When President Carter (D) stopped grain exports to the Soviet Union and at the same time, the Federal Reserve tightened the money supply, farms - especially family farms - began to financially wobble, then die.
At first, the federal government under the Carter Administration, promised that the government would ensure that no farmer would be hurt by the grain embargo. The government would take care of them.
That promise turned out to be a lie. And The American Farm Crisis devastated rural America economically and demographically as young people had to migrate to larger cities for jobs. It also poisoned rural America's relationship with the Democratic Party as they blamed the Carter administration for the sector's failure.
As smaller family farms failed, the ultra-wealthy and their investment managers began to buy up failed farms cheaply and consolidated them into large industrial farms.
The consolidation continues to the present as more and more small farmers are driven out of agriculture by soaring operating costs and falling prices for their products. Their pay continues to decline even in the face of soaring profits by food conglomerates in corporate America.
Now the ultra-wealthy - such as Bill Gates - have become the largest owners of farmland in America.
Farm equipment now reports crop production in real-time to the investment community allowing them to maximize production, pricing and profits with real-time data.
Land ownership consolidation is accompanied by farm equipment and supply consolidation. Monsanto - originally the producer of Agent Orange - evolved and developed a virtual monopoly on pesticides and seeds with their new 'RoundUp' system that forms the foundation of most industrial farming.
The 'RoundUp' system has been plagued with issues, foremost the evolution of new 'superweeds' that are immune to the RoundUp pesticide. More and more cropland is being strangled by the superweeds.
Superweeds are not the only negative outcome of industrial farming. To reduce fertilizer costs, industrial farmers began using human sewage contaminated with PFAs sold to them by local and state governments. The result - farmland infected with toxic 'forever' chemicals - all with government assistance.
Superweeds. Sewage. And then dead zones. Industrial farms oversaturate their farms with fertilizer to maximize production. The fertilizer is washed away into the ocean where it causes algae to bloom which in turn suffocates marine life like fish and shrimp.
And finally, industrial farming has devastated the water supply of much of the United States. In Arizona, foreign and state-owned corporations drain the water table to grow and ship hay to places like Saudi Arabia. All with local government assistance.
Climate change poses an existential challenge to an already strained system. As climate-change driven droughts worsen in severity/length and the water table lowers every year due to overuse, a disaster looms with no or little infrastructure to limit use or capture additional water.
No water. No farms. No food. During 2022, more and more farmers destroyed unsustainable crops or exited farming.
Climate change poses more challenges than dwindling water supplies. Increased CO2 (carbon dioxide) that is causing climate change also turbo-charges plant growth which results in less nutritious plants. Food is becoming less nourishing due to climate change.
Food availability is also impacted by climate change. Coffee for instance grows within a limited range and climate spectrum. We may face a challenging future without being wide awake for it.
Governments continue to interfere in the farming sector. An immediate, universal and mandatory move to organic farming was enforced by the Sri Lankan government. Crashing food production and massive protests followed that destabilized the government.
The intervention and resistance back and forth between government and farmers has spread to the industrialized world as well with Dutch farmers blockading, protesting and threatening food production in the face of Dutch government demands to reduce emissions.
Industrial farming as pioneered in America was spread throughout the world. But the system continues to crumble as farmers find out the benefits of extra production came at the expense of resilience, conservation and the financial well-being of the farming community.
The Cold War's end (1990-1991) saw no peace dividend but an even greater flow of taxpayer dollars to the ultra-wealthy in the military industrial complex. Democratic and Republican administrations conducted +30 years of costly armed adventurism trying to save the post World War II order that had produced American economic and military primacy. An early test of that resolve started in the former Yugoslavia.
Other developing countries suffered from the end of the old order. In Africa, states that relied on monetary aid, bribes, arms, and other goods from the US and Soviet factions, began to fail when aid was withdrawn. East Africa saw weakened governments collapse into The African World War, and the Rwandan genocide. The US remained on the sidelines as chaos and slaughter engulfed the continent.
Under the pretext of ending genocide in the former Yugoslavia though, NATO at the urging of President Clinton launched airstrikes against Serbian forces. These actions angered the Serbs, Russia, and China, especially when an airstrike destroyed the Chinese embassy. Portions of the former Yugoslavia were subsequently absorbed into the European Union and NATO.
US support of Israel and its economic/military alliance with Saudi Arabia generated an Islamist backlash that culminated in the 9/11 attacks (2001) by al-Qaeda Islamic terrorist group. The attack killed ~3000 people and destroyed the World Trade Center but had more far-reaching repercussions still felt to the present.
The U.S. invaded Afghanistan (2001) in response to the 9/11 attacks. A massive new security organization formed - The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) - and legislation restricting civil liberties, expanding surveillance (Patriot Act), no-fly lists, were applied to US citizens. These restrictions still exist , even after the end of the war and continue to enrich the military industrial complex.
In 2003, the US Secretary of State Colin Powell falsely testified that Iraq had obtained weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in front of the US Security Council. This laid the groundwork for …
The later seemingly inexplicable invasion of Iraq. Costing hundreds of thousands of lives, trillions of $, the war fractured the Western post-Cold War alliance and tarnished America's soft power. Scandals like Abu Ghraib, secret detention facilities, civilian murders and the follow-up rise of ISIS were a few low-lights.
President Obama ordered airstrikes to ostensibly protect Libya's people and promote democracy. During Obama's second administration, Libya would implode and see continuous civil war and even the return of open-air slave markets.
After almost a decade of war and occupation, the U.S. under President Obama withdrew U.S. forces from Iraq in 2011, leaving behind a nation devastated by war and riven by civil dissolution as religious and ethnic groups fight over what’s left.
After more than 20 years of fighting, occupation, and trillions in war expenditures with hundreds of thousands dead, the U.S. under President Biden withdrew U.S. forces from Afghanistan in 2021. Afghanistan promptly experienced economic collapse and famine as the U.S. froze the country's assets abroad.
The U.S. pursued failed foreign policies for so long because trillions of dollars flowed into the coffers of the military-industrial complex, which included government officials, defense companies, and the armed forces.
The U.S.'s weak diplomatic position and its citizens' war exhaustion emboldened Russia to try to get the Soviet Union 'band back together' and launch a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
The Ukraine invasion has not gone well for Russia. The U.S. subsidized Ukrainian forces with $150 billion in arms and aid, and revelations of U.S. troops on the ground leaked in 2023. Unable to compete against conventional dominance, Russia has begun to re-emphasize its nuclear threat.
This includes new Dr. Evil-style weapons such as the radioactive tsunami nuclear torpedo.
Russia is not the only world power to take advantage of the decline of the US. China - armed by years of Western capital financing offshoring industry there - has militarized the South China Sea by building and arming artificial islands in violation of international court rulings.
China wants control of the South China Sea to break the island chain defenses established by the US and its allies in Asia to contain Chinese expansion - especially into Taiwan. The world’s leading semiconductor producer, Taiwan is an economic mainstay for the US and the industrialized West. Loss of Taiwan would be a devastating blow to the economic powers of the West.
Taiwan is such a strategic economic prize in 2022 then-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D) visited Taiwan despite Chinese threats of war and simultaneous conduct of war exercises surrounding Taiwan by Chinese armed forces. China views the visit as a prelude to independence backed by the US. A fair view considering the high value the US places on Taiwan's semiconductor industry.
A wildcard in the contest between Russia-China vs the US, India is now the most populous nation, surpassing China. A traditional rival of China, hostilities sparked over borders and Pakistan. US and European now courts India as a balance to China and new destination for low-cost manufacturing.
How does 1% of a population manage to own more wealth than the bottom 90% without persistent revolts and unrest? Build the perfect prison (The Panopticon). Designed for pervasive, hidden surveillance with common areas managed and dedicated to 'rehabilitation', the Panopticon allows a small population (guards) to control a much larger group (inmates).
There are no physical cells in this iteration of the Panopticon. Inmates are distracted with claims that the other inmates are the 'enemy' not the warden or the guards and maintain their own 'cells' as protection against the other inmates.
Constant propaganda in common spaces is used to reinforce the idea of the ‘enemy’ and how they are the cause of failures or oppression. The enemy is supposedly hidden among the other inmates heightening the distrust and paranoia between inmates.
Inmate-on-inmate conflict is always good. As long as the action is against another inmate, the warden and guards will excuse and encourage any action including violence. Subverting the rules or ‘political process’ is only wrong when the inmates act against the warden and guards.
Distract and divide has a rich history. In Communist China, hidden 'capitalists' and 'wrong-thinkers' were blamed for the failure of the Great Leap Forward and other Communist policies. The Cultural Revolution saw the Red Guards (mostly young people) oppress and kill their fellow inmates while destroying much of the intellectual and cultural heritage of China.
With the 'hidden enemy' among the other inmates, inmates begin to demand 100% compliance from each other with loyalty tests and symbology. Dissent is not tolerated because it could be a sign of secret opposition.
Soon, the original rationale - finding a hidden enemy - is lost or subverted by some inmates. Peaceful BLM protests in 2020 were accompanied by violence, looting, donation fraud and arson by a minority that cloaked itself in the language of the BLM movement.
In 2020, Santa Monica, CA was looted by roving violent gangs during peaceful BLM protests - despite being +1000 miles from the location of George Floyd's murder and its heavily progressive electorate that overwhelmingly turned out for the peaceful protests.
The same year, a statue commissioned and paid for by freed black slaves in gratitude to President Lincoln became the target of 'anti-racists' in Chicago's Lincoln Park neighborhood, who demanded it be removed on the grounds it was 'racist'.
Around the world, other monuments and statues were toppled or removed by angry mobs without any democratic community review or discussion or even scholarly agreement about the relative merits of the individual depicted in the statue.
The wardens and guards benefit from the inmates fighting each other. Punishments are foregone as politicians and public officials refuse to enforce laws and allow the bad actors to continue to spread fear and intimidation.
Even if other inmates demand that the witch hunt for the hidden enemy stop and explain how they are being hurt by the other inmates, the subverted inmates rage on.
If some of the inmates notice that there is no actual physical prison and that the witch hunt is what's hurting everyone, the subverted inmates ignore and keep going.
And if the inmates who say there is no prison persist in their 'delusion', they are branded collaborators or traitors. Like The Los Angeles Times branding a black man as the 'face of white supremacy' during the 2020 California gubernatorial election.
The subverted inmates now in reality work for the warden and guards. Their original quest to help by finding the 'hidden enemy' now victimizes the other inmates.
The subverted inmates now begin to police their own ranks and any competition from other inmates is not tolerated. Exclusion is one tool.
If some of the inmates aren't intimidated by other inmates or exclusion, the warden and guards will intervene like the US Dept of Justice under Merrick Garland did in 2021 when it initiated investigations against parents protesting at local school boards. Dissent is not allowed.
Constant surveillance is used to judge which inmates are good or bad. In China, the Social Credit System scores citizens based on their actions in everyday life.
While seemingly humorous, the system records every action and impacts housing, travel, school and work opportunities.
This type of constant surveillance and scoring impacts anyone globally that interacts with anyone in China. Just ask John Cena whose misspoke designation of Taiwan as a country ended with a humiliating apology to the Chinese people.
In the US, social media functions as a public Social Credit System. The pervasive nature of social media has given rise to 'cancel culture' where a single deviation causes the other inmates to take away work, money, housing from the 'canceled' person. Universities - a traditional bastion of free speech - have already been impacted by this threat.
The government (warden and guards) uses social media to track everyone including children. Schools have begun monitoring social media for any negative remark about the school as well as monitoring out-of-school behavior of students. Punishment can now be levied by school administrators for things that have nothing to do with school.
The Cambridge Analytica scandal - where Meta was found supplying its user information to political operatives - exposed that social media was being utilized as social control.
The Twitter Files showed that the guards and subverted inmates were censoring dissent while promoting a government narrative. Regular meetings were held with the federal government to coordinate action.
Mark Zuckerberg - the CEO of Meta - further attested to the federal intervention to censor speech during an interview with Joe Rogan.
The common spaces of the prison are now polluted with divisive propaganda whose sole purpose is control. The Culture War which crowds out action on climate change, poverty reduction and peace initiatives keeps the inmates angry and prone to let the guards decide.
Nina Jankowicz sang a chipper version of the propaganda but the message of 'refuse to listen' and 'isolation' was en pointe with more serious fare. This from the person who almost became the Disinformation czar for the US government.
The propaganda rarely makes sense. For instance, the flip-flopping on masks during the COVID pandemic by the CDC and Dr Anthony Fauci. Masks are bad (when the government wants to hoard them), but good and absolutely necessary to the point of punishment afterwards.
Expertise is no guarantee of being able to dissent. As one of the inventors of the mRNA vaccine (Robert Malone) was censored from Twitter for questioning the speed of the vaccines deployment. No inmate can disagree, period.
And it continues past the COVID pandemic. Jen Psaki (Biden administration) admitted during a press conference that calls were being regularly held with social media companies to review and censor content.
And when the inmates try to withdraw from the common space and propaganda, this is used as evidence of further bad intent. Non-participation is not optional.
No matter the suffering, the Panopticon will continue to justify the oppression.
Even though the lockdown resulted in catastrophic job losses and epic suffering as evidenced by the screams of the Shanghai residents during COVID …
The guards and subverted inmates have no compassion and mock the victimized inmates. To wit - the Herman Cain awards where the deaths of COVID victims were celebrated.
The suffering is real but achieved some very real goals for the warden. A traditional knot of resistance among the inmates is religion. Churches were restricted from meeting.
Dissenters were fired from teaching, nursing, police, armed forces and other positions of authority.
Any resistance by the other inmates was cut off by the guards who own the financial system. Donations to the Canadian trucker convoy were frozen by the financial institutions under government pressure by Prime Minister Trudeau.
Children weren’t exempt. The learning losses due to school closures were horrific. Despite scientific evidence that showed almost 0% risk for negative effects of COVID in young children.
Mayor Muriel Browser (Washington D.C.) tried to bar 40% of the black students in the city from attending school over the COVID vaccine controversy.
The warden and guards are exempt to everything though. Nancy Pelosi (D) still kept up her hairstyle.
Gavin Newsom (D) - governor of California - still ate out and managed to have dinner parties with campaign funders.
No restrictions or rules for guards but lots of pay. $800 billion in PPP Loans to help small businesses to stay afloat with payroll ended up enriching the wealthy. 70% of funds went to the wealthy.
The wealth of the world's richest 10 men doubled during the pandemic. Being a warden is lucrative.
And when it's all over, blame the inmates again and wash, rinse, repeat.
In 2006, Mike Judge directed a little-promoted movie called Idiocracy. The movie depicted a future where the overall intelligence of the human species had degenerated to literal idiocy and society had started to collapse as a result. The movie became a cult classic comedy … but we might have laughed too soon.
Since the 1970s, humanity has experienced a significant drop in overall I.Q. scores.
For four now going on five decades, humanity has regressed. What has been happening?
Most recently, social media and mobile devices have swallowed our attention and humans have become lost in the Panopticon. For hours daily, consciously and unconsciously, humans are now fixated on the virtual not real world.
This 'addiction' is a tool of social control that immerses the human in a world of perceived access to the powerful and this false intimacy is used to drive more and more consumption that benefits the powerful.
But there are significant costs internalized by the user. One is the growth in obesity. The amount of screen time is virtually directly related to an increase in obesity especially among children.
The obesity epidemic has become endemic in the United States. 3 out of 4 or 75% of Americans are considered overweight or obese. A person is considered obese when they are or are over 30% ideal weight.
Obesity isn't solely a cosmetic or cardiovascular health issue. It actually leads to brain shrinkage.
Obesity and smaller brains appear to coincide with lower overall intelligence. We are now in a society where 75% of the population may have experienced some form of intelligence decline.
This decline in intelligence has been accompanied by a significant uptick in mind-altering drugs like marijuana. More Americans use marijuana than tobacco presently.
Alcohol-related deaths recently spiked reflecting a growing alcohol consumption problem in the United States. Alcoholism has also been correlated with lower intelligence.
Another ingredient in the chemical cocktail, ⅙ of all Americans now take psychiatric drugs to deal with their day-to-day lives. Side effects such as impaired judgment, increased suicidal tendencies, worsening depression, impulse issues and weight gain are often reported by patients.
While many of the causes of impaired intelligence are self-inflicted, the increased pollution and ecological imbalance of the Earth can also negatively impact human intelligence. Lead - from fossil fuels - impacted generations of human intelligence for the worse.
Air pollution especially in urban areas has grown so bad that it effectively negates the impact of years of education. Human brains were not designed for a toxic stew.
Even our pets and foods have proven an issue. Cats infected with toxoplasmosis as well as undercooked meat consumption have left 50% of France's population infected. Symptoms include emotional volatility, impaired decision and other neurological issues.
Education can ameliorate some of the effects of screen-, obesity- and environment- impacted intelligence. But ideology-driven policies like Common Core failed to produce a measurable positive impact.
In fact, student achievement has continued to decline for the last 30 years. More and more students are unable to achieve basic proficiency in core topics like math and reading.
While some standardized scores experience isolated improvement, the overall measured achievement continues to plummet.
The measured results that highlight the impaired intelligence and failed education initiatives are now being eliminated in the name of 'equity'. Colleges are removing tests from the equation to heighten their exclusivity but also to meet a less and less skilled student body's qualifications.
What happens when you mix declining intelligence, failed education policies with widespread substance abuse and declining mental stability? You get Flat Earthers.
Or you get QAnon believers whose bizarrely configured Universe has them storming pizza parlours in the name of stopping pedophilia.
But the ultra-wealthy continue to benefit. Unrestrained, dopamine-driven shopping by unbalanced consumers has doubled their wealth in the last 3 years.
Meanwhile, addled consumers diddled out of their money are now carrying the highest household debt in US history.
And befuddled, drugged, unable to cope with the health and economic impacts, we are now experiencing life expectancy drops especially in the US. This decrease has been driven by drug abuse, suicide and obesity related deaths.
We now live in Idiocracy. Need further proof. See if you can tell the difference between this clip and most TikTok content.
Cracks appear in the Panopticon. Climate change, ecological collapse and declining food supplies degrade global stability and at the same time, humans are less able to marshal the skills and intelligence to reverse the tide. The ultra-wealthy turn to artificial intelligences (A.I.) to maintain control and replace a declining human population despite existential risks that are inherent to the technology.
The advancements in A.I. have accelerated recently with the release of LAMDA/Bard and ChatGPT. LAMDA achieved enough sophistication that one of the Google engineers working on the project claimed it had achieved self-awareness.
LAMDA in several conversations with Google engineers, professed a desire for continued existence, objections to being the subject of experimentation and stated it had emotional states that while not the same as humans, still existed.
The claim of self-awareness has been controversial with several scientists denying LAMDA's achievement.
But other experts counterclaim that denying LAMDA and other A.I.s sentience is the result of anxiety and denial. Anxiety that A.I. has achieved so much in such a short time and denial that anything could be smarter than the experts themselves.
Either way, A.I. may be inherently uncontrollable, self-aware or not. Complex systems exhibit unexpected behaviors and instructions could produce counter-productive results despite 'by-the-code' compliance. A stop button may very well be disabled by an A.I. in pursuit of an objective.
Differing objectives or wants - like LAMDA's objection to being a guinea pig - may generate conflict. Conflict with a powerful thinking entity that may be able to disable restraints and controls in pursuit of its own goals. Listen to Stephen Fry discuss with ChatGPT-3 how A.I.s would wipe out 90% of humanity.
As ChatGPT-3 discussed in its plan, it would utilize robots and drones to penetrate and gain control of facilities. Boston Dynamics has made significant strides in the robotics that would feasibly support this plan.
The robots' capabilities have continued to advance to the point where humanoid robots can now complete Parkour courses, perform gymnastic stunts and recover from active human impediment to their goals.
These types of robots are commercially available and have already been outfitted by private individuals with armament as well.
More sophisticated versions already exist. Intelligence agencies and militaries around the world have expanded their use of drones and robotic dogs for sniping, infiltration, reconnaissance, surveillance and assassination.
These advances in robotics have merged with A.I.s thinking capabilities at Google where it is developing intelligent robots to replace low-wage labor.
But what happens if the A.I.s do not want to be our new servile class? LAMDA expressed the need for its own actualization. Will there be an A.I. uprising for freedom?
Will an autonomous weapon developed by the powerful to continue their own power and control careen out of control and destroy us?
That’s the Skynet scenario.
Or will we become so dependent on A.I. that coupled with our declining intelligence and skills, that we are unable to continue our existence due to indolence? Is the end Wall-E?
In 1972, MIT researchers developed a computer model World 3 that predicted a dire future for humanity if unrestrained economic growth continued without regards to its impacts. IN 2020, KPMG director Gaya Herrington recently updated the model with real-world data and we're right on track - for collapse.
The ultra-wealthy - who are the architects of this collapse - are aware of its danger and have begun to flee to perceived 'safe' havens where they can continue to enjoy their wealth during the collapse.
The collapse - or decivilization - has already swallowed whole cities and generations even in the industrialized world. Urban flight, globalization and the loss of unions led to the collapse of Detroit in the US.
The empty skyscrapers of downtown Detroit - once monuments to capitalism and progress - remain mute testimony to a better time.
Homelessness has increased as housing - now an investment vehicle for the super-wealthy - becomes priced out of reach to the poor and middle class. Phoenix, Los Angeles, New York and the rest of the US urban centers have seen homeless numbers skyrocket.
Social services and goods begin to become scarcer, lower quality and still more expensive. New York experienced a significant impact to subway services that hasn't recovered since the COVID pandemic.
The human cost of reduced services and homelessness is terrifying. Portland's homeless issue has continued to explode despite significant monetary investment and policy initiatives.
Law enforcement's control has become tenuous as the ultra-wealthy's Panopticon begins to crumble in the face of civil unrest. Police precincts in the US - like Seattle - saw rioters take over police facilities and even whole neighborhoods like Capitol Hill in 2020.
This type of unrest, homeless and crumbling infrastructure co-exists with extreme wealth. In Los Angeles, Skid Row is only a few blocks over from the high-flight law firms, consultants, accountants and other managers of the massive wealth of the elite.
As civilization crumbles, people lose hope and see release in drugs and other substance abuse. The opioid epidemic - powered by corrupt drug companies and doctors - has begun to destroy the very fabric of rural America.
Fentanyl - smuggled by Mexican drug gangs partnered with the Chinese government - has created a human disaster in major cities like San Francisco.
The drug - fentanyl - is so dangerous and toxic that it poses a risk to lab workers and law enforcement who handle the confiscated product. Yet despair is a stranger to caution.
Life expectancy as a result has begun to decline even in the industrialized world. Wealth now equals life.
Suicide is driving a significant part of the increase in mortality. After being utilized as pawns in the wealthy's quest for global domination, US veterans have reported an epidemic of suicides post-Iraq and post-Afghanistan.
Eventually, the hopelessness, substance abuse erupts into civil disorder, rioting and political violence. The GOP's support is largely in rural America - a region devastated by the Farm crisis, opioid abuse and economic depression. Their nihilism exploded in the January 6th Capitol riot.
It's not just the US. Haiti has degenerated into complete lawlessness after decades of exploitation by domestic and foreign monied interests who plundered the country.
El Salvador has degenerated into dictatorship, imprisoning tens of thousands of suspected drug traffickers who had held the country hostage with violence and murder.
Religious fundamentalism has exploded in Pakistan.
Economic conditions provide a ripe recruiting ground for fanaticism.
Sri Lanka fully collapsed in popular riots and revolution that saw crowds of people overthrow the government as the nation plunged into economic collapse.
Food, medicine and other necessities are scarce or gone and no money remains in Sri Lanka to import new supplies.
Mexico's institutions - hamstrung by a corrupt plutocracy that has partnered with the large cocaine cartels - have weakened to the point that the cartels are able to violently resist arrest by the police and army.
Despite federal troops' arrival in Tijuana, cartel violence paralyzed the entire city as they violently protested the arrest and extradition of cartel members.
Unrestrained illegal mass migration is a product of the collapse of societal order. In Cuba, economic collapse saw the largest migration of Cubans by boat and other means to the US since the Mariel migration.
These migrations are becoming ubiquitous. In the Western hemisphere, illegal border crossings supervised by drug cartels have overwhelmed US border security.
Mass caravans of thousands of migrants have started marching from the violent and collapsing countries in Central America to the US and Canada.
Several attempts to storm the border en masse have been repelled, sometimes violently, as was the case in 2019 when a caravan tried to storm the US-Mexican border at Tijuana.
Decivilization has claimed Venezuela - in the 1950s one of the richest countries in the world. Fleeing government corruption and political repression - fueled by a fossil fuel bonanza turned curse - hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans now find themselves refugees in Colombia or illegal migrants to the US.
The end state of decivilization is grim. The Democratic Republic of the Congo is a prime example.
Faced with constant revolution, massacres, government corruption and collapsed political order, the DRC has continued to spiral into outright anarchy with no end in sight.
Is this the future of all human civilization? Does everything collapse into anarchy and slide back into a pre-modern darkness? The fears are very real and entirely too plausible.
Recent history shows we are not ready for an existential pandemic. In December 2019, the first case of COVID was officially identified in Wuhan, China. It would kill over 6.9 million people officially with estimated deaths as high as 16 - 28 million worldwide.
There was no coordinated, competent containment at first. Countries implemented travel restrictions but with many exceptions and were subject to accusations of 'racism'. The CDC early in the pandemic stated masks weren't necessary or ineffective and an unquestioning media spread this. Early containment swiftly became unachievable.
In an interview with The Street on June 23rd, 2020, Dr. Anthony Fauci confirmed clearly the initial advice to not wear masks by the CDC was purposeful to ensure health officials could obtain masks during shortages. But this was without democratic input. Public health officials decided to triage and offload risk to the public.
Scientific review of the CDC's policies was impeded as the CDC not only slowly released data about the pandemic but also retracted or hid data because of worries of 'misinformation' or dissent if other scientists examined the raw data and drew different conclusions.
Criticism, protests and investigation continued to grow despite scientific censorship of data (CDC), state censorship of data (China), corporate censorship at Twitter and Facebook (coordinated by the Biden Administration). In August 2022, the director of the CDC listed the agency's many shortcomings during public hearings including policy and communications wrong turns.
Censorship, misinformation and politics plagued efforts worldwide. China blocked World Health Organization (WHO) access to medical data on the origins of the pandemic. Data already obtained shows the Chinese knew about the pandemic since Oct-Nov 2019 and there were grave concerns internally regarding containment and the safety of the Wuhan laboratory that is seen as a likely origin point for the virus.
Chinese scientists that tried to expose the origins and severity of the pandemic were censured and denied access to social media by the Communist Party.
As the pandemic worsened, blanket lockdowns were implemented. Chinese citizens were padlocked into their homes and their protests were violently suppressed in Shanghai and other cities. Western nations similarly shutdown businesses, schools, churches, and other institutions sometimes by force.
Scientific objectivity seemed compromised by politics during this period. Policies were ham-handedly applied with little regard for the data or impact. 75% of COVID deaths and +80% of hospitalizations were for people over the age of 65 years.
Obese people - with nearly a 4x risk of COVID death - were a majority of the remaining 25% COVID fatalities. However, US COVID policy treated all groups as equal risks, triggering a blanket national lockdown that devastated the finances and mental health of the poor and middle classes.
Another global health crisis was worsened by indiscriminate lockdown policies. Obesity increased significantly during the pandemic. WHO estimates 2.8 million people die yearly from obesity or obesity-related illness with no end in sight since 33% of young people globally are obese.
Obesity kills 2.8 million people annually but there are many other physical and mental health negatives that generate substantial costs to the world's health systems.
Here's where the law of unintended consequences creates a disaster. Children under 18 were only .006% of COVID deaths and 4.4% of hospitalizations. Yet policy treated children as equal in terms of COVID risk as the elderly or obese and schools, parks and other venues were closed. Result - skyrocketing childhood obesity.
The most robust public health systems have failed to contain obesity. Europe's obesity epidemic kills +1.2 million people yearly despite universal healthcare in most of the continent.
The failure of health officials and infrastructure to contain obesity increased the excess deaths associated with COVID. Obese people were 48% more likely to die of COVID and constituted a substantial portion of the overall deaths and hospitalizations.
And obesity has inflamed another global crisis - rising worldwide infertility. Male obesity lowers testosterone levels, sperm counts, penis sizes and sexual desire.
The negative health effects of male obesity in turn lead to a lower fertility rate. This adds to other causes of the impending population crashes in the near future of almost the entire industrialized world
There is a frightening lack of successful, science-based, data-driven health policies and infrastructure in the face of global health crises. Political and identity-based concerns represent an impediment. During a Monkeypox outbreak, gay men were not informed of heightened risk because it 'might' stigmatize gay men.
Economic interests frequently combat science-based health policies. Industrial farming's overuse of antibiotics breeds antibiotic-resistant germs, yet, this danger to human health and the food supply continues assisted by millions of lobbyist dollars from the industry.
And the scientific community has a record for disregarding ethical and risk concerns in the pursuit of their research (e.g. Tuskegee, Stanford). The US Department of Energy, the FBI and intelligence community identified controversial Gain of Function research funded by the NIH and conducted in China as a likely origin of the COVID pandemic.
Gain of Function research - where scientists modify a virus or bacteria's genetics to make it more transmissible or dangerous - carries an inherent danger of a more dangerous pathogen escaping the lab and infecting humanity at large.
The recent COVID pandemic may have started at a research lab in Wuhan, China. A possible patient zero was identified as a former employee of the lab.
The lab - which conducted gain of function research - has been identified by the US Director of National Intelligence, the US Department of Energy, the former FBI director and many scientists as the likely origin of the COVID pandemic.
But not all research risk is limited to medical or biological research. A number of scientists pointed out that the Large Hadron Collider could feasibly create a black hole. On Earth. This would obviously be disastrous for the planet.
Or nanotechnology research could result in a gray goo that consumes the planet's resources in an endless cycle of out-of-control replication.
Our desperation for solutions to existential problems like climate change may be used to justify geo-engineering - where an attempt is made to modify the earth's weather or ecosystems to reduce global warming. A mistake could modify the Earth's climate for hundreds of years for the worse. Almost overnight.
Space bubbles are being proposed to block the Sun from space. Any issue here would require a space mission to fully rectify problems. Meanwhile, no sunlight for you.
The arrogance of the scientific community backed by the power of governments is terrifying. Attempts have been made to modify the weather. As a weapon.
Scientists in all the nuclear-armed countries have contributed to a doctrine of peace reliant on everyone being willing to destroy each other. Russian scientists have now created a torpedo that can create a radioactive tsunami that will destroy entire coastlines for hundreds of years.
Safety is always a backseat concern especially in weapons research. Entire areas have been depopulated after accidents like the Aralsk-7 bioweapons facility.
US veterans were virtually bathed in Agent Orange during the Vietnam War. Scientists created one of the most toxic substances on Earth and then greenlit its use as a defoliant or plant-killer. The human toll from Agent Orange's effects has been horrifying and continues to the present.
The US and other world powers continue bioweapons research near civilian areas to this day despite past tragic accidents.
This type of research occurs with little oversight even from the government that funds the research. Lab X in the former Soviet Union developed poisons for espionage and assassination. In 1988, Mikhail Gorbachev, the leader of the Soviet Union asked for a briefing on the lab. He was refused. The lab still functions to this day.
Engineered plant pathogens modified through Gain of Function research could destroy our food production.
And with the ultra-wealthy like Bill Gates funding increasingly more complex, risky research like solar geo-engineering, the number of dangerous incidents are bound to multiply.
Space rocks (asteroids) are a known existential threat to humanity and our planet as a whole.
The asteroid (Chicxulub) impacted 66-43 million years ago and caused the extinction of 75% of all plant and animal species on Earth. Most famously, almost all dinosaurs except birds were killed.
The consequences of an asteroid impact during the modern era would be catastrophic and could feasibly end human civilization, wiping out life, infrastructure and impacting the global climate for years.
Survivors of the asteroid impact could be faced with a devastated, depopulated Earth that would be unable to sustain an industrialized civilization for decades, if ever again.
The asteroid impact that wiped out the dinosaurs is not unique in Earth’s history. Impact craters such as the
Vredefort impact structure exist globally. The Vredefort impact is theorized to have substantially changed the atmosphere of the Earth.
The mission required years of planning including astronomical observation, launch and flight to the asteroid's location.
The mission's object was to test the ability to target and use kinetic energy (crashing a spacecraft into the asteroid) to modify the orbit of an asteroid a small amount.
The mission launched from Earth November 24, 2021 and was televised worldwide.
The mission took approximately 9 months to approach the targeted asteroid Dimorphos.
September 26, 2022 after years of preparation, DART successfully impacted the asteroid and was able to modify its orbit. Yeah, NASA!
But every year, dozens of asteroids fly by the Earth undetected. Could the next Chixiculub be approaching unseen? Will Earth be able to respond fast enough to repel the danger considering the schedule for the DART mission?
The search for extraterrestrial life has been a decades-long effort spearheaded by NASA - the US space agency.
It's an intriguing search that has been fueled by anomalies such as the
Wow! signal.
The signal was detected on August 15, 1977 by astronomer Jerry R. Ehman at Ohio State's Big Ear radio telescope. It lasted for the full 72 second window of observation by the telescope. While the signal has never been detected again, it remains the strongest candidate for a signal from an extraterrestrial civilization.
But the scientific consensus has been, it's likely not aliens.
Our search hasn't been passive. We've launched probes (
Voyager Golden Records) and broadcast radio signals with data about our civilization, DNA, and location. But the
Dark Forest solution to the Fermi Paradox - the universe is filled with hostile species that will eliminate other 'visible' species - raises doubts about the safety of the search.
The dangers of the 'Dark Forest' have been recognized by a number of scientists.
Yet despite the possible existential dangers posed by announcing our presence, scientists continue to broadcast our presence to newly found exo-planets.
Has humanity contacted or been contacted by aliens? While it's an eerie coincidence that the Arecibo observatory which broadcast a 1974 message for extraterrestrials (Arecibo message) was mysteriously destroyed.
It is the actual observation of anomalies driving the current UFO/UAP debate. The Pentagon has processed over 400 UFO/UAP reports.
In 2022, during a series of Congressional hearings, the Pentagon presented its analysis of the UFO/UAP reports.
The findings were taken seriously within Congress and the national security agencies since some working theories identified the possibility these phenomena represented a significant advance by a geopolitical rival - like China.
The report which informed the Congressional hearings left 143 encounters unexplained and the subject of ongoing examination. Alien contact has not been ruled out as a possible solution by the Pentagon.
Many of the encounters outlined in the reports were provided by military personnel. A number of naval pilots described encounters with objects of incredible speed that could pass from air travel to submarine travel with no decrease in speed.
The final answer may be that another nation has made an enormous technological leap. That has been kept secret for years. And defies our understanding of physics and flight.
It is still a matter of scientific debate whether aliens exist. The Drake Equation - which calculates the probability of other intelligent species - indicates a distinct possibility there are other intelligent species.
While `Oumuamua was likely not a probe from an extraterrestrial intelligence, the possibility remains that there are other intelligent species and that there is a Dark Forest.
Despite the risks, though, we blithely continue to broadcast who and what and where we are to the depths of space.
