January 27th, 1986. The UK's ITN 10pm news ended a grim night with the usual uplifting ha-ha story. "Today in Florida, the Space Shuttle launch was canceled because of a dusting of frost, better luck tomorrow NASA, nyuk nyuk nyuk!"
My father used to work with extremely cold Hydrogen and Ammonia in his previous job at a fertiliser factory. I'll take the look on his face to my grave. Just sat there not amused.
"That's not a joke. You don't mess around with those, you can die very quickly if the pipes rupture", words to that effect.
The next day of course, I got home from school to the news now showing the explosion.
10 years later, dad was out for drinks in the town, was in main street (3 or 4 miles downwind from the 'Fert'.) He Smelled Ammonia. Left the group for a payphone, phoned the plant. They gave him the runaround, he told them "My name's Michael O Connor. I worked in the plant for 5 years. I know the smell of bullshit and I know the smell of ammonia".
"Right Michael, we'll take a look".
Long story short, there was a leak, and that stuff is lethal.
Anyway, I'm a Doomer and make no apologies, my father's son.
Are you aware of Dr. Karen Mitchell’s work on what she calls predatory personality disorder? She is relatively active on Twitter. I would love to see an article from you on her research. I don’t think any substantive change is possible until it is generally understood just how badly humanity is infected by human parasites.
Simply regurgitating oversimplified linear data (to try and explain non-linear, complex systems) and packaging it onto sleek graphs works for the Bill Gates/Our World in Data types because they can afford to protect themselves against the problems we face as a species.
Bill Gates won't be harmed in a 2.8-degree warmer world because he won't be out in the baking sun working a farm, then going back home to care for the children. He won't be impacted by a hurricane, a heat wave, a drought, or a conflict driven by scarcity. He'll just take his private jet to another one of his many homes. If anything, he'll make more money from the chaos and suffering.
I'm so fed up of those who have experienced exponential wealth growth in recent decades tell us we should be satisfied because poverty is declining. Then, as you point out in your essay, when you actually take the time to look at the data, it is always flawed, biased, and broken (I would love to see how someone living on $2.50 would react to being told they aren't experiencing poverty).
Progress liberals are dangerous and smug about it at the same time, which makes them some of the most unbearable people alive.
More than sixty years ago our doctor in Los Angeles, California said to us, "Stay away from doctors; they'll kill you." Now, I have had some fantastic doctors, but what that orginal doctor said is 100% true.
Of yellow ribbon tails, poverty, longevity and illusion. The black pill may be more therapeutic than you thought.
Only by discriminating reality from propaganda, can we prioritize what will address it in the best possible way. Most continuing to be immersed in the deceptions, divisions and delusions of propaganda, insures most will suffer more. Pity.
Love this; well articulated. Thanks, Nate! My hope is in resistance, too. What Pinker calls "pessimism" I call inspiring. That doofus doesn't even get inspired reading Naomi Klein.
Thanks for not caving to requests for feel-good posts. I'm guessing that most of us don't come here for palliatives. The Hallmark channel has lots of that at xmas, and digital detox is always available when it's all too much. There's never a bad time for truth.
I'm sharing this post on Bluesky. Wishing you safety and real progress in the new year.
"And if we correctly identity the enemy, we can start working to correctly identify the solutions."
That's right. If we don't identify the perpetrators, we can't bring them to justice, and they will live on as perpetrators. In particular, the perpetrators of the genocide of Palestinians are Israeli Jews, but not just Israeli Jews - also the diaspora Jewish community that bribes our governments and brain washes our society. Generalizing, it's the political leaders of world Judaism that are the real perpetrators, though they are supported overwhelmingly by their followers. Even more clear, it's the worldwide Jewish Lobby that bribes governments and spreads propaganda and in the process, throws traditional Judaism under the bus.
Here's a list of some 550 Jewish politically involved organizations that make up that Lobby, funded to billions of dollars by the Jewish diaspora community and Israel:
The media will not allow such an identification. Thanks to the Lobby. But think about it, if this simple truth were widely discussed, I'd bet there would be a rapid convergence to reigning in the murderous Zionist state of Israel. That's what happened when the world dealt with previous genociders. Whether we're Germans, Italians, Russians, Chinese, or Jews, all groups of people are capable of forming the political organization necessary to commit genocide and then attempt to convince the world that it's the right, moral thing to do. These Jewish leaders have accomplished that task, on the one hand convincing the world that it's not them, but "Zionists," and on the other hand, even accusing those who condemn Zionist Jews for committing genocide of antisemitism, something presumably even worse than genocide.
Let me tell you a yellow ribbon story:
January 27th, 1986. The UK's ITN 10pm news ended a grim night with the usual uplifting ha-ha story. "Today in Florida, the Space Shuttle launch was canceled because of a dusting of frost, better luck tomorrow NASA, nyuk nyuk nyuk!"
My father used to work with extremely cold Hydrogen and Ammonia in his previous job at a fertiliser factory. I'll take the look on his face to my grave. Just sat there not amused.
"That's not a joke. You don't mess around with those, you can die very quickly if the pipes rupture", words to that effect.
The next day of course, I got home from school to the news now showing the explosion.
10 years later, dad was out for drinks in the town, was in main street (3 or 4 miles downwind from the 'Fert'.) He Smelled Ammonia. Left the group for a payphone, phoned the plant. They gave him the runaround, he told them "My name's Michael O Connor. I worked in the plant for 5 years. I know the smell of bullshit and I know the smell of ammonia".
"Right Michael, we'll take a look".
Long story short, there was a leak, and that stuff is lethal.
Anyway, I'm a Doomer and make no apologies, my father's son.
Are you aware of Dr. Karen Mitchell’s work on what she calls predatory personality disorder? She is relatively active on Twitter. I would love to see an article from you on her research. I don’t think any substantive change is possible until it is generally understood just how badly humanity is infected by human parasites.
Simply regurgitating oversimplified linear data (to try and explain non-linear, complex systems) and packaging it onto sleek graphs works for the Bill Gates/Our World in Data types because they can afford to protect themselves against the problems we face as a species.
Bill Gates won't be harmed in a 2.8-degree warmer world because he won't be out in the baking sun working a farm, then going back home to care for the children. He won't be impacted by a hurricane, a heat wave, a drought, or a conflict driven by scarcity. He'll just take his private jet to another one of his many homes. If anything, he'll make more money from the chaos and suffering.
I'm so fed up of those who have experienced exponential wealth growth in recent decades tell us we should be satisfied because poverty is declining. Then, as you point out in your essay, when you actually take the time to look at the data, it is always flawed, biased, and broken (I would love to see how someone living on $2.50 would react to being told they aren't experiencing poverty).
Progress liberals are dangerous and smug about it at the same time, which makes them some of the most unbearable people alive.
More than sixty years ago our doctor in Los Angeles, California said to us, "Stay away from doctors; they'll kill you." Now, I have had some fantastic doctors, but what that orginal doctor said is 100% true.
Peace,
Arlene Johnson
Publisher/Author
http://www.truedemocracy.net
To access my work, which is top secret history that's internationally acclaimed, and free to the world, click on the icon that says Magazine.
Of yellow ribbon tails, poverty, longevity and illusion. The black pill may be more therapeutic than you thought.
Only by discriminating reality from propaganda, can we prioritize what will address it in the best possible way. Most continuing to be immersed in the deceptions, divisions and delusions of propaganda, insures most will suffer more. Pity.
I will endlessly implore:
Do not remain among the majority.
Love this; well articulated. Thanks, Nate! My hope is in resistance, too. What Pinker calls "pessimism" I call inspiring. That doofus doesn't even get inspired reading Naomi Klein.
Thanks for not caving to requests for feel-good posts. I'm guessing that most of us don't come here for palliatives. The Hallmark channel has lots of that at xmas, and digital detox is always available when it's all too much. There's never a bad time for truth.
I'm sharing this post on Bluesky. Wishing you safety and real progress in the new year.
"A story which can empower and therefore provide agency." I appreciate this post!
"And if we correctly identity the enemy, we can start working to correctly identify the solutions."
That's right. If we don't identify the perpetrators, we can't bring them to justice, and they will live on as perpetrators. In particular, the perpetrators of the genocide of Palestinians are Israeli Jews, but not just Israeli Jews - also the diaspora Jewish community that bribes our governments and brain washes our society. Generalizing, it's the political leaders of world Judaism that are the real perpetrators, though they are supported overwhelmingly by their followers. Even more clear, it's the worldwide Jewish Lobby that bribes governments and spreads propaganda and in the process, throws traditional Judaism under the bus.
Here's a list of some 550 Jewish politically involved organizations that make up that Lobby, funded to billions of dollars by the Jewish diaspora community and Israel:
https://iwasathought.substack.com/p/the-jewish-lobby
The media will not allow such an identification. Thanks to the Lobby. But think about it, if this simple truth were widely discussed, I'd bet there would be a rapid convergence to reigning in the murderous Zionist state of Israel. That's what happened when the world dealt with previous genociders. Whether we're Germans, Italians, Russians, Chinese, or Jews, all groups of people are capable of forming the political organization necessary to commit genocide and then attempt to convince the world that it's the right, moral thing to do. These Jewish leaders have accomplished that task, on the one hand convincing the world that it's not them, but "Zionists," and on the other hand, even accusing those who condemn Zionist Jews for committing genocide of antisemitism, something presumably even worse than genocide.