Macgregor is the only commenter on TV I have seen that says the obvious. Here is a slightly more detailed version of his position: How to think about Ukraine. It was predictable that Western powers would pivot from covid panic & fear into Ukraine panic & fear. Western powers (including media) are prepared to risk WW3 to hide their guilt for covid as they seek to dominate Russia. Their reckless aggression and cynical manipulation of public opinion shows there is cabalistic control at the top just as there was before all other recent wars, including covid and their responses to it. Varney looks like a cheap whore pretending Zelensky is a “hero,” even taking into consideration how debased the meaning of that word has become. ABN
Tag: thought
Russia Ukraine 2: the World Order Has Changed
So far the Russian military operation in Ukraine has been a reconnaissance in force preceded by the destruction of the supplies and headquarters of the Ukrainian Armed Forces by standoff weapons. The object being to suss out where the Ukrainian forces are, to surround them, to check existing Russian intelligence against reality and, at the same time, destroy known headquarters, air and naval assets, supplies and ammunition depots. And, perhaps, there was the hope that the speed and success (Russian/LDPR forces dominated an area of Ukraine about the size of the United Kingdom in the first week) would force an early end (aka recognition of reality).
At the moment they are readying for the next phase. The long column that so obsessed the “experts” on CNN is the preparation for the next phase. And that is this: “You didn’t get the hint, so now we have to hit you”. The fact that the column has been sitting there indicates that the Russians know they have complete air superiority. Secondly it is a message to the Ukrainian armed forces that it’s over, give up. (And one should never forget that the Russians/Soviets have always been the best at strategic deception, so who knows what’s actually there versus what the images show?)
…As to Western sanctions against Russia, I think there’s a very simple answer to that: last week 1000 cubic metres of gas cost $1,000; today it’s over twice that. Next week it certainly won’t be cheaper. Ditto for aluminum, potash, titanium, wheat. Russian airlines lease their planes; now what? Russian rocket motors. What the people in the West do not understand is the ruble is the currency the Russians use inside the country but the price of oil and gas is the Russian currency outside the country. I am astounded at the stupidity: they’re cutting their own throats and destroying their own economies.
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Terrific short article, don’t miss it. ABN
Continue reading “Russia Ukraine 2: the World Order Has Changed”The fallacy of: “Invading another country is an absolute moral line which cannot be crossed”
I am seeing this fallacy appear a lot when people start thinking about Ukraine. It occurs in this podcast at about 21:40. At that point Dexter White says something like: invading another country is an absolute moral line for me. I am citing his misuse of this moral line injunction because the podcast is otherwise quite good and many are saying words to that effect and it’s a mistake. A thoroughly corrupt nation like Ukraine that is also behaving as a violent proxy for even larger corrupt forces is morally invadable. There is no bright line there. You can argue it was a bad idea for other reasons but not because there is an “absolute moral line.” There is also no absolute moral line against martial law.
If just saying that is not enough to convince you, spend some time thinking about KOBK game theory and how and why predatation/parasitism has been used as a strategy and tactic to conquer the West. Parasitism is a possible human trait and as such a possible cultural trait. For this reasons, a small parasitic subculture can transmit its parasitic traits to other subcultures, which is why we are seeing so many today—woke, BLM, Antifa, the DNC, RNC, Washington DC, corrupt universities, WEF, and so on. There are almost no exceptions to the predator/parasitic takeover of every major Western institution. We even have a senile president and a genuine idiot VP as a result of a fraudulent election. The US State Department has been conquered, taken over. It is filled with parasites who are using it to further parasitize Ukraine and Europe in a larger effort to take over Russia and more.
White’s exact words are: “…flat out, what he’s [Putin] done, invading another country regardless of his stated reasons is completely unacceptable to me. I think Putin has lost whatever legitimacy he had…” There is context and nuance to White’s words and if he wanted to qualify them, I would probably accept it if he included acceptance that the above described fallacy is indeed a fallacy. The podcast is: Dexter White and the Fog of Truth Around Ukraine. It’s quite good and I recommend it. ABN
How to think about Ukraine
- there is going to be an outcome
- the best outcome would be a neutral Ukraine with historically Russian areas in the east leaving Ukraine, becoming either independent or joining the Russian Federation
- all parties should seek to achieve this end and to end the violence as soon as possible
- KOBK game theory rules are fully in play; Putin initiated the kinetic conflict because he saw no other good option; even if we disagree, his position is rational
- the longer we wait, the more he will demand because: a) he saw his initiation of kinetic conflict as a forced KOBK move and b) having done that, he is all but forced to continue
- USA/EU/NATO are not forced by KOBK rules or any others to retaliate with violence since they have much less to gain than Putin has to lose
- USA/EU/NATO/Zelensky may not want Putin to “win”, yet the sooner they allow this to happen the sooner the violence will stop and a workable long-term outcome can be realized. they can win morally, humanely, and reasonably in this way
- to encourage more war and violence against Putin and Russia only escalates the fighting and delays achieving a good outcome
- the situation is binary in many practical respects, but if all factors are considered it is much more a chaos of causes
- if we consider what populations are where on the ground (Ukrainian, Russian), it is fairly easy to see where the division of Ukraine should be
- if we consider the history of Ukraine and Russia, we can see that an amicable outcome is very possible
- this outcome will include both states having access to the Black Sea
ABN
Col Douglas Macgregor provides excellent insights into what is happening in Ukraine
Clear as a bell and beautifully succinct. Macgregor knows how to talk. ABN
How to think about Ukraine, Russia, China, and USA by using “game theory”; no math required
The game theory presented in this essay is very simple and basic. It explains or describes a great deal of human behavior because there is nothing simpler or more basic.
Simply stated, “game theory is the study of (mathematical models of) strategic interactions among rational agents.”
The mathematical model of this game theory uses math that is so simple it can be thought of as not using math at all. The math is: Kill-Or-Be-Killed (KOBK). It explains very accurately what is happening in the world today.
Example: Putin knows he has been pushed into a corner by the West/USA. If the West/USA through NATO succeeds in fully occupying and controlling Ukraine, Putin knows and has stated correctly that he faces “an existential threat.” If he surrenders control to an aggressive enemy in Ukraine—NATO— Putin knows he will be well on the way to losing control of all of Russia.
Example: Xi Jinping is faced with a different set of circumstance but a similar conclusion: If he does not take over Taiwan, he will lose power at home and China will lose power globally. Ergo: he almost certainly will take over Taiwan. For Xi, a big part of his KOBK reasoning is “now or never.” If he does not act now, it may forever after be too late to act at all. Delaying now may result in China losing any chance to be a major player in KOBK world politics.
Both man are faced with raw Kill-Or-Be-Killed (KOBK) conditions. Both know that to lose the battle is to lose the war. Both understand they must act forcefully. Neither (probably) has the power to “kill” the West/USA but both face the danger of being “killed” by the West/USA. Kill here means “conquered and rendered impotent.” This can entail military defeat or more commonly political and economic defeat. The word probably in parenthesis just above is a qualifier for China since we do not know how deeply they may have infiltrated the West/USA or be on the side of others who have.
Example: The West/USA has been infiltrated by foreign actors or Western actors who are hostile to the West/USA or care nothing about it. By using KOBK reasoning we can see this is true based on the strong probability that the West/USA released covid, and without question responded to it in a way that greatly has harmed the people of the West/USA.
Example: We can understand the NSA database, an early form of panopticon spying, and the current push to establish digital IDs that hold all of our information in one place and can be easily checked by governments, the police, banks, and other entities. This system will lead to total control of any population under it. The West/USA, by KOBK reasoning, not only wants to do this but must do this. If they do not, they will face KOBK enemies that have done it, as well as parts of their own populations with the capacity to rise up against them, as Canadian truckers just illustrated.
A key point to understand about KOBK game theory is moves are often forced. Putin is forced to escalate in Ukraine, while the West/USA is for the time being not. The West/USA can delay its KOBK onslaught on Russia. Ultimately, the West/USA wants Russia to be a larger version of Ukraine, or France, Italy, or Germany—a willing player-puppet in a power array that requires total dominance and permits no enemies with even a small chance of threatening them.
Speculation: KOBK reasoning can help us understand how deeply China has infiltrated the West/USA and/or how much such infiltration has been welcomed by whoever else infiltrated the West/USA. KOBK reasoning can also help us understand, the position of Japan vis-a-vis China; and what position Japan will be in if the West/USA allows China to take over Taiwan or fails to protect it. Are Japan, Korea, Vietnam and other nearby nations to China destined to be “Ukraines” within China’s sphere of influence? KOBK reasoning would say, yes without question.
A major very dangerous aspect of KOBK is it can escalate very quickly. NATO pushes Putin to his limit; Putin invades Ukraine; NATO pushes harder; Putin adds thermobaric weapons; if NATO keeps pushing and Putin uses those weapons all hell may break loose. How can Putin avoid using them? Does NATO/the West/USA want Putin to use them? If the West/USA is controlled by non-Western infiltrators KOBK rules argue that may be exactly what they want.
For information on how a large nation or civilization such as the West/USA can be infiltrated and fully taken over in just two or three generations, see: Military thought experiment Part 1. KOBK reasoning alone almost guarantees the West/USA has been infiltrated and fully taken over already. ABN
Russians very reasonably see NATO as an existential threat and this is why
What Pozner is saying is NATO has been making very strong KOBK (Kill-or-be-Killed) moves against Russia. KOBK is a ground-floor “game theory” of world power struggles. KOBK is the bottom line for political and military strategists. Globalism only makes KOBK more intense. Globalism emphatically does not mean “global kumbaya.” The West is being neither rational nor fair and certainly not innocent when it pretends it has not provoked forced Russia to answer their NATO and Central Asian encroachments with a KOBK move of its own—invading Ukraine. Putin would have been happy with believable assurances that NATO will not occupy Ukraine. But now, who knows? My hope and best guess is he wants regime change in Ukraine and solid assurances NATO will never try this again. This is not a time to fight fire with fire or to moralize without a full deck of cards as most of the West is doing. Russia owns the morality on this one. The smart move would be to concede and let them have what they deserve. ABN
Consensus through Appeal to Embargo
…There exists a principle of philosophy that I observe, which falls along the lines of Sir Isaac Newton’s third law of motion, also known as the law of action-reaction. That is, unless one is very careful, an appeal to truth will almost always be accompanied by, at the very least, an implicit appeal to embargo. Nihilism is the embargo, which comes commensurate with the ‘truth’ of not being able to measure outside the bounds of physical reality. Collectivism suffers the embargo which results from the ‘truth’ of a successful deployment of capital. Freedom suffers the embargo which arrives under the awesome specter of an impending cataclysm‘s ‘truth’.
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When an advocate appeals to authority of truth, by means of enforcing an embargo of competing ideas – they are typically protecting a lie, or at least hyperbole. Even if that advocate is accidentally correct about their truth in the end, such mechanism still constitutes a lie because of the way in which the truth was enforced – by means of explicit or implicit false dichotomy, and enforcement of a false null hypothesis with no competing alternative idea. Accuracy in such a case, is a mere triviality.
Above is an excerpt from a worthy essay on bad science and erroneous exclusion of competing ideas. The essay is called Sciebam – Religion with P-Values. Throughout the essay the word religion is repeatedly used to represent a close-minded way of thinking. But that itself is a close-minded way of thinking about religion. ABN
Covid All Cause Deaths broken down by The Ethical Skeptic
Under intellectual integrity, it is important to comprehend the true, as opposed to nominal, cause of pandemic deaths.
#1 = EUA Shadow = 437,595
#2 = Covid and Long Covid = 367,527
#3 = SAAAD = 169,323
#4 = An unknown factor arriving in Feb-Apr 2021 (but still growing) = 65,560
Whoops, correction… #3 should read
‘SAAAAD = 169,323’ [corrected above. ABN]
Originally tweeted by Ethical Skeptic ☀ (@EthicalSkeptic) on February 14, 2022.
Depopulation for Dummies
Ever since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, conspiracy theories have been the talk of the internet. One of the most interesting phenomena regarding the pandemic has been witnessing conspiracy theories evolve into “science,” and vice versa.
Mass confusion became so rampant that the establishment’s Department of Propaganda (i.e., Big Tech) was forced to step in and become the arbitrators of truth, establishing a non-negotiable narrative that silenced all dissenters. This resulted in an Orwellian-style censorship campaign used to combat COVID “misinformation,” which consequently divided the public into two camps: conformists and non-conformists.
Those who weren’t devout disciples of authoritarianism came to realize that this oppressive suppression of speech wasn’t actually about “misinformation,” rather it was about control of the narrative. Anyone could post all the “misinformation” they desired as long at it acted as a representative of the state’s narrative. However, even renowned experts and their empirical data have been collectively censored for simply challenging the science.
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Jordan Peterson with Julie Ponesse on Canada truckers, media, politics, women, covid policy, identity
Ponesse conducted this interview very well. Peterson had many interesting things to say. Well-worth viewing. ABN
Interview with The Ethical Skeptic on covid from September 2020
This was the first radio interview with The Ethical Skeptic. Great interview and very good background on his thinking and professional experience. ABN
A very simple message that somehow is missed by far too many
The joy of inquiry, observation, discussion, analysis is often dulled by groups. This is why some of the oldest continuous cultures in the world tend to be greedy, selfish, deceitful, mundane; they have been groups for too long. Conservative individualistic societies, like traditional USA, are weak when faced with ancient groups which behave like cults. They face even graver dangers when these ancient cults graft themselves onto powerful technologies which amplify and strengthen their mundanity while smothering individual joy and creativity. This problem exists at all levels, from the interpersonal to the sociological. Our universities are rife with it. Our medical system just froze into a pilar of salt because of it. ABN
Dramatis personae, dramatis spirituum, and Buddhist karma
Dramatis personae are actors in a drama, characters in a play, novel, or movie. Jung used the word persona to indicate our subjective and objective sense of our roles in life, how we behave in various situations. He defined personality (persona-ality) rather flamboyantly:
Personality is the supreme realization of the innate idiosyncrasy of a living being. It is an act of courage flung in the face of life, the absolute affirmation of all that constitutes the individual, the most successful adaptation to the universal conditions of existence, coupled with the greatest possible freedom of self-determination. [C.G. Jung, “The Development of Personality,” 1932]
For my purpose today, Jung’s description of personality, though delightful, is a bit mundane. I want to introduce the idea that in addition to our mundane dramatis personae of this world, we also possess dramatis spirituum or spiritual personae.
This mundane world, in Buddhist terms is the relative world of transitory phenomena and suffering. In contrast, ultimate reality is the realm of enlightened Buddhas where all suffering is ended.
In Buddhism, the word karma can mean many things in English. It can mean action, habit, tendency, a type of attachment, entanglement, the movement of the mind-stream. In a basic sense, it may be helpful think of karma as often meaning habit. Good habits lead to good outcomes and bad habits lead to bad outcomes, though there are many mysterious exceptions to this simple rule as there are to all simple rules.
Karma can be seen as a burden and yet even the worst karma can end in the space of “a single thought.” If in a single thought you are able to see the fullness of your karmic habit, it can end in that very instant. See in a single thought how your anger makes everything worse and you may never have to control it again because it will never arise again. See in a single thought how alcohol is ruining everything and you may refrain from using it ever again.
Our dramatis spirituum are the ultimate actors that we most deeply are, the actors who remember our mind-streams, who are the forces that draw us toward enlightenment, who end bad karmic habits in the space of a single thought.
When we feel connected to someone, often that is a connection between our dramatis spirituum. It may be just beginning or it may have begun many lifetimes ago. A good simple illustration of this might be the way you remember some people from childhood with a pang of unrequited beauty, unrequited spiritual love. You may have known them only briefly but still think of them and have a strong sense that they may be thinking of you in a similar way. What you are sensing is a karmic connection of dramatis spirituum. This is the deep level many of us sense is where life really lives.
The dramatis spirituum connection you have with your parents or primary caregiver is more complex and filled with far more mundane connections. You may struggle with this connection for many lifetimes before it is resolved on the plane of conscious dramatis spirituum.
I tend to see a current of drama ever present in all things. This is their actions, habit, tendencies, karma, entanglements, desires, realizations, personae, spirituum, mind-stream, enlightenment.
“Human Augmentation – The Dawn of a New Paradigm”
The report: “Human Augmentation – The Dawn of a New Paradigm. A strategic implications project” was published jointly by the UK Ministry of Defense, and German Federal Ministry of Defense in 2021. Reading this document is frankly chilling as the the idea of using human augmentation for warfare is considered a fait accompli by the authors. That planning for human augmentation must start now.
We can assume that although this report is coming from the UK Ministry of Defense, and German Federal Ministry of Defense, parallel efforts are being made by most large governments around the world.
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Human augmentation is philosophically required of governments/societies under KOBK rules, which are irremediable and absolute. To not do human augmentation is to cede power to your enemies, real or possible. The NSA has a vast database of all communications for precisely this reason—KOBK demands it. Biowarfare is happening right now with covid; this is obvious. It may be slowed or stopped with Omicron, which appears to be a biowarfare-stopping biowarfare weapon; or it might be something else, a new salvo in an ongoing KOBK war for world domination. We don’t know. In fact, we can’t know even if “we” are the perps because we can’t know what our enemies might do next nor can we even be sure of who our enemies are.
There is no way to morally “plan” for human augmentation in the sense that we can limit it because you can’t limit it. If we don’t do it they will. For this same reason, bioweapons research was and is necessary. I do not think it was a good idea to share our bioweapons research with China. That was stupid. Whoever did that did not understand KOBK. One thing we have learned from the Wuhan covid release or attack is an attack like that maybe can be overcome by quickly making a harmless virus like Omicron that also confers immunity. The other thing I hope we learned is do not share these weapons with China or allow them to steal them. How stupid can you be? Do not share these weapons with any potential enemy. ABN
American Buddhist Net 