The Power of Belief

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

When the Soviet Union fell, and I was a just-turning-thirty year old, I was very surprised at the sudden flourishing of strange beliefs and bizarre cults in the once state-atheist-nation.

I was surprised because suddenly it was all things that flourished in the west under the influence of heavy drugs, or various “scams” that wouldn’t fool a child of eight, but which got massive following in the newly liberated Russia.

I was surprised because I didn’t understand the mechanisms behind it, of course, which in retrospect, and looking at the grip of our own Mass Media Pravda, seems obvious.

Someone or other said that once you stop believing in G-d, you don’t become an unbeliever. You rather, believe in everything.

But I think that’s a too narrow brush. it’s not G-d. It’s any rock solid, shared type of belief. It doesn’t even need to be a sincere one.

Look: Our society (which is much bigger and more diverse than the Soviet Union ever was, at least in terms of population/individuals) is too large and too complex for each of us to verify knowledge personally. Add to it the facility of communication that means each of us has at least some acquaintances/friends all over the world. That becomes truly impossible.

Used to be, for the last hundred years or so, till about 20 years ago or so (a little more, a little less, depending on who you are and when you embraced the media revolution) there was a consensus. The consensus was “all respectable news sources”. They all, more or less agreed, which frankly should have been our time for alarm, but wasn’t. We just assumed journalistic professionals were verifying things, using verification tools, whatever those were. There was usually enough meat or at least handwavium in articles that we went “Well, this must be true. Look at their impressive analysis.”

I, personally, and a lot of other people who had the luck or ill fortune to be at world-news events at some time or another, had never seen the news be right or even approximating correct. But in the end that didn’t matter much, did it? Because what was in the media today would be in the history books tomorrow. It was the accepted truth and if you dissented, you might as well forget it, because stating otherwise in public would just get you labeled as insane or stupid or both. (I remember vibrating with fury while someone at a con spewed a 20 year old event I’d been present at in media-narrative-form and drew completely insane — but logical to the narrative — conclusions from it. But I couldn’t speak. I’d be assumed to be crazy, stupid, or given the event, evil.)

And so, there was unity on what the truth was. A lot of insane, evil and outright wrong went under that unity, but it as good as didn’t exist, because it couldn’t be mentioned. And the beat went on.

Which is how we knew things like that World War I was the result of hyper nationalism. Instead of the first attempt at internationalism, even if driven by great families, instead of bureaucracies (the nationalism surprised and pissed off the Marxists, which is why they latched onto it.) Or that the “right” was the inheritor of the National Socialists of Germany, despite — at least in the US — a decided hatred of socialism. Or that FDR had saved the economy, instead of stomping its face in as long as he could. Or– So many things. All of which added up to the Soviet Union was the way of the future and would bring peace everlasting.

Funny thing is it took a man who didn’t believe that getting power, and aggregating around him a group that could show the Soviet Union for the hollow shell it was. (Bless Ronald Reagan for that, even if he didn’t follow through and conduct the de-communification of our own culture. He probably didn’t have the political capital, because the New Media hadn’t come on line yet.)

This led the people in Russia to lose their moorings, and become a little crazy. Sure, they hadn’t believed Pravda or Izvestia, but they knew what must be assumed/acted as though it were true. They had, as it were, an “official truth” against which to put their backs. And at any rate, no matter what weird thing they saw or felt or knew, they couldn’t speak it. Because it would never be the official truth. Some things were barred from public discussion. and they had absolutely no means of reality testing. So when the official media went away and worse was proven to be completely fabricated — the gates of insanity opened creating an atmosphere that required fist-fulls of qualudes in the west.

So–

We’re experiencing a slow-mo version of this. It’s not just that there are alternative news. We’ve had that for twenty years or more. (More, in the case of me and other early adopters.) BUT the hold of the remaining Main Stream News was pretty strong.

They started breaking that for Obama. They went all in. They tried to make us believe Michelle Obama was a supermodel. That’s the sort of lie you can’t sell. It’s literally your eyes or what they tell you.

And then they ACCELERATED. Trump drove them insane, so they went insane. And now under Biden, well…. The summers of recovery under Obama were tough sells, but Bidenomics is just silly.

Plus there’s well… everything. Quite literally everything during the Covidiocy. They burned their credibility in a pyre of wishful thinking and scare tactics. Most people are aware now how ridiculous the whole thing was. This can be seen by how their attempt at Covid-2 just got hard shut out.

In the absence of a truth everyone agrees on, there is literally nothing to guide us, except our thought and experience. And most people are out of practice using the “reasonable” yard stick, except for “reasonable compared to the old mass media as we imagined it.”

So half are going crazy and trying to believe in a “normal” that never existed.

And half are believing literally everything, with no filter for crazy.

Party has very little to do with this.

There are a few — too few to count — like me who try to read enough to have an idea what is and isn’t true. We often come across as the craziest of all. But we’re not. We’re simply killing ourselves to remain informed. And we will admit most of what we “know” are best guesses.

But other than that? I have a huge network, but even for me, the chances I misunderstood something passed on or there was a game of telephone involved are high, which is why I keep checking, and checking, and checking, and it’s eating my writing. But I have to know or at least be able to guess.

So…. what is really going on? Well, people still can’t fly unassisted, or bend spoons with their mind. UFOs and Aliens are likely to not be true, PARTICULARLY if the government pushes them. In fact, assuming anything this administration says, including a and the is the opposite of truth. Mostly because they don’t have our best hopes at heart. In fact, quite the opposite.

Stay frosty. Refuse to believe the impossible, but give the unlikely a chance of being true. And care only if it might affect you.

A man in a (mental) overcoat is likely to be an enemy. Keep your clothes and weapons where you can find them in the dark. And be aware of who is around you and what they might do. Be prepared to come out alive and well and with those who depend on you alive and well.

And be not afraid.

We’ll get it done. And sooner or later, the truth will be obvious.

160 thoughts on “The Power of Belief”

  1. I believe in G*d (even if He’s trying to teach me a lesson on Money Management).

    I believe that the US Ideals are still the best in the world (of course, the Idiots are trying to tell us that the US is the worse nation in the world).

    Oh, the Money Management thing is about preparing for “unexpected expenses”. 😉

    2. Money Management thing is about preparing for “unexpected expenses”
      ……………………

      We’ve been there. Oh, howdy. Somehow always figured it out without touching critical savings (the kind that not only come with tax consequences but penalties too). The difference now is we are old enough that we expect to use those accounts and pay the taxes, no penalties. What I despise about Bidenomics is our income should be enough to handle regular expenses and only needing extra for, well extras (vacations), “unexpected expenses” (like almost $3500 vet bills unexpected), and annual/semi-annual large payments (property taxes, insurance). But no, can’t have that (sarcasm).

  2. What I couldn’t understand was that Michelle Obama has some outfits that made her look gorgeous, and some that made her look hideous, and it was always the hideous outfits that they praised.

    1. Michelle Obama’s a large, big-shouldered woman who is better off looking handsome than trying to look cute, and who does better with classic long lines and colors.

      But whatever was supposedly fashionable, and whatever was stereotypically African-looking (but not flattering to her) was what they wanted her to wear. Ugh.

      To be fair, I think she really does like prints… but she could have had that with scarves and accessories.

      Jill Biden should copy Queen Camilla (subject to her own body type). They have a very similar facial look and they’re both old enough to wear oldish fashion, but Camilla dresses for it — and Edith Wilson doesn’t.

      1. Camilla dresses for it — and Edith Wilson doesn’t.
        ………….

        I see what you did there. Just one critic, s/b “Edith Wilson II”.

      2. I don’t give a damn what Michelle and Jill dress like. Trump was married to a Supermodel and during his term they didn’t put her on a single fashion magazine cover.

        F them and F the First Ladies they think are “beautiful”.

  3. Bidenomics is a repeat of Carternomics. Already lived through the worst of that fallout. Great for savings. Not so great for the housing market.

  4. “Or that FDR had saved the economy, instead of stomping its face in as long as he could.”

    It’s kind of mind-blowing (now that I flatter myself I know better) that even a mind as fine as Herman Wouk’s recited the “FDR staved off a Communist revolution with the New Deal” line. I can conclude only that there are plenty of people who actually believed that at the time.

    2. The Reader believes FDR did stave off a Communist revolution. Not with the New Deal, but by allowing the party to replace Henry Wallace with Harry Truman before he ran for a fourth term.

    3. A part of me wonders how well FDR would have gotten along with Hitler if it hadn’t been for FDR’s extreme dislike of Germany (one that predated the rise of the Nazi party). AFAIK, he didn’t have any issues with Mussolini until the invasion of Ethiopia.

  5. It’s not political because the left, the progressives, and the would-be ruling class spent a century-plus destroying people’s ability to think. Public education was built on a Prussian model for the explicit purpose of turning out good factory workers who wouldn’t ask too many inconvenient questions. That evolved over time into making sure the masses wouldn’t be able to think critically, and has become “anybody who bought into their education now cannot do anything but repeat phrases that are meant to halt thinking entirely”.

    I’m writing up a post on this, exemplified by the Washington Post reporter who, on a friendly lefty podcast, was asked about Biden’s finances and if maybe there are questionable things about them. He kept saying that he’d already written an article that debunked such claims (no claim was made, a question was asked), repeated how he had “already addressed this” and “debunked it” multiple times, and finally walked off the interview.

    He walked off because he had not actually debunked anything. To do so would require understanding the substance of the claims/questions, investigating the related facts, and laying out the facts in a manner that proved the claim untrue (or highly unlikely). He did none of these. He “debunked” in the sense of declaring the topic over, done, and not worth talking about, and could not explain beyond “shut up”. He applied a label to it, end of discussion. When the discussion did not end, because he was dealing with an adult (perhaps for the first time in his life), he ended it by leaving. Because he had nothing else he could do.

    1. He ran away to his communist mommies and begged them to tell him what to do next time. I have no love for the press, personally if a second civil war does happen; I think you should shoot the press, first, multiple times, and often. I don’t just mean the talking heads, them as well, but also, editors, owners, CEO’s. Everyone who dropped the ball. I really don’t care if it has always been corrupt, that is no excuse to continue corruption.
      They are given Constitutional protection to inform and protect the people. They have dropped the ball, that in my mind is treason, and traitors should burn.

      1. I think you miss my point. Here is a top-level reporter, working at one of the two most prestigious newspapers in the nation, and he cannot think. He literally does not understand how to logically support a position, he has no clue. I’m not slamming him, or the press, I’m saying that the rot is so deep and so ingrained in the culture that someone with his absolute lack of critical thinking has risen to the top of a profession where critical thinking would almost seem an entry-level requirement. If it’s that bad among the elite, it’s worse most other places.

        Not to say that I disagree with you. But my point was much larger and scarier than that.

        1. I’ve noticed this too. They can’t distinguish (e.g.,) between stated and showed, You’ll see statements like x showed that y when all they did was state it without argument, never mind evidence or proof. The vast majority of current academic writing is like this and all of resentment studies.

          The more elite the institution, the more likely this seems to become.

          1. That’s what happens when logic is replaced by nothing but appeals to authority. It’s not that they can’t distinguish, it’s that they think that’s how it actually works. They don’t know any better.

        3. Actually, I’d say the can’t-think-logically problem is worst among the elitists — the ones most insulated from reality, least likely to face-plant into some inconvenient fact.
          ———————————
          It takes a lot of smart, competent people to design and build a car. Only takes one idiot to wreck it.

          1. I grant that the situation is vastly more complicated than I laid it out in a single blog comment. I took it as obvious that I was only giving a gloss.

            That said, the “worse among the elites” thing is, as far as I can tell, culturally recent. Teddy Roosevelt was a New York blueblood, but he was competent at most of the jobs he put himself to. And while I have no love for his work as a politician, and can go on for hours about how he inadvertently set the world on the path to the second world war, and set the stage for the leviathan government we have today, he was not a bumbling incompetent President, either. The system designed by the elites was not done by incompetence, but to encourage incompetence in higher-order thinking.

            But somewhere along the line, they got high on their own supply, believed their own bullshit, and now, yes, it does seem to be worse among elites than in general.

            1. As our hostess says, they have been selecting for compliance NOT competence for several generations.

              1. I really do wonder some days if much of difficulties we see with the swamp do not rise out of the Reform politicians attempt to reform the Civil Service. Admittedly in the days of the spoils system the were some awful acts of nepotism and favoritism that caused horrible messes. That said the Executive knew that the people he had would in general hew to his direction as he (or his political helpers) had selected them for having similar intent. And if they didn’t the executive could send them packing without having to fight over it. The 17th amendment and direct election of Senators arises from some of the same corruption issues and makes a fundamental change in the balance of power and intent of the Senate turning it into slow roll version of the house. The senators were to be responsible to the state legislatures and indirectly to the people allowing them to have a longer horizon in their view vs the House which was to be directly responsible and responsive to their electorate with a (relatively) quick feedback loop. I wonder if the cure is not worse than the disease it sought to remedy.

        4. Because they have never been taught how to think, just what to feel.
          As long as you feel the right way about a topic you are golden. Doesn’t matter that you can’t add 2+2 = 4. As long as you feel the proper way it is all good. Emotions don’t require logic.

      2. Agreed. They we’re guaranteed the freedom to report the truth. They chose to serve the father of lies.

        Damn them to hell. And if the Civil War starts, send them there.

      3. “personally if a second civil war does happen; I think you should shoot the press, first, multiple times, and often”
        The story “What I saw At the Coup” by Mathew Bracken deals with this very well.

      2. We used to make fun of “Baghdad Bob” or whoever it was during the original Gulf War, because his statements were so visibly at odds with the truth.

          1. Hell Baghdad Bob looks like the mythical Washington chopping down the Cherry tree compared to these bozos in the current administration. It’s like an old joke from a while back

            Q: Whats the difference between a Computer Salesman and a Car Salesman.
            A: The Car Salesman knows when he is lying

            Baghdad Bob knew (mostly) when he was lying and did so so he or his loved ones didn’t end up dropped live into a waste shredder. At some level (although it may be 1984 like doublethink) the current administration types think they’re right and believe what they say.

    3. This is common, really. Claim something troublesome to them is “debunked” without going into any detail about how so (because it hasn’t been, and couldn’t be debunked) and then repeat that it has been debunked until the lock-step followers also repeat the line. Goebbels would beam with pride.

      2. “Who debunked it, when?”

        “It was on the news! On the Evening News, last night.”

        “Really? They debunked it on the news, or they said it’s debunked on the news?”

        “They said it was debunked! I’m telling you, it’s been debunked. Like, forever!”

        “But who debunked it?”

        “The news did! Watch CNN; maybe you’ll learn something. Not that Fox News sh?t.”

        “That’s not how it works, dude. Fox News has nothing to do with it—and you didn’t answer the question.”

        “There ain’t no question.”

        “Who debunked [non-regime position]”

        “I told you: they said it on the news.”

        “Oy vey ist mir…”

  6. “UFOs and Aliens are likely to not be true, PARTICULARLY if the government pushes them”

    I have a weird fondness for reading/watching about supposed UFO and alien encounters and I think if the phenomena IS real it’s a supernatural one, not genuine advanced beings from other planets. That being said I can’t say for certain it is real barring personal experience, which I don’t have.

    What I find hilarious and heartening that if you go into conspiracy boards to talk about it, whenever the government announces they’re going to sharing with us some alien secret, even the die hard true believers in aliens just roll their eyes and wonder: “what corruption and treason are they trying to distract us from now?”

    1. The math says the probability is that Aliens do exist, if they do, they are either a much older culture that would have nothing in common with us hairless apes, or a younger culture that would be technologically behind us and never be able to get here. Also if they have the technology to travel the stars in a faster than light fashion, they have no need for anything we have here. Until we grow up as a species there is nothing that makes us interesting enough to talk to. Contrary to that episode of Outer Limits/Twilight Zone, can’t remember which show, if they ate us it would probably poison them.

      1. Chuckle Chuckle

        I have a story-universe where the aliens have been visiting Earth for centuries.

        The aliens have a biology extremely close to ours and decided that humans would fit into their society quite well … as slaves.

        Unfortunately… for them, humans have fitted into their society fairly well except that we decide that there should be Only Be One Master Species and that we should be the New Master Species. 😈

        2. Reminds me of a comic strip where aliens make contact with Earth and demand we turn over a certain number of humans as sex slaves to them or they’ll destroy us all. Earth responds within an hour that they have the number they wanted because they posted a want ad on a fetish site. The stunned alien replies that it was a Secret Test of Character. Civilizations who refuse the demand on principal are allowed to join the Galactic Alliance of Advanced Civilizations. While those who cravenly sacrifice their own are not. “You’ve split the difference in a way that makes us question the definition of intelligent life.” “Can you take some extra?” Says the U.N Secretary-General, “We have some overflow…”

      2. According to my BiL, there’s quite likely to be aliens out there, but we’re the sort of neighborhood where they roll up the windows and don’t look the natives in the eye as they roll past.

      3. Unless they’re busybody know-it-alls that enjoy bossing around less technologically advanced species.

      4. The math says the probability is that Aliens do exist

        :twitch:

        That depends entirely on pulled from the rump assumptions.

        The math has literally one data point to go off of.

        Us.

        So it’s like trying to decide if lines intersect or not, based on that one point.

        That is, there is simply no data.

        1. In my honest opinion, God would not give us this vast universe to play in and not give us a few Aliens to play with.

          2. May I recommend Job (biblical not Heinlein 🙂 ) chapters 38 and 39. In it
            the Author asks Job (in gorgeous poetic form) ” Who the heck are you to tell the Creator what he can or can’t do and where were you when I did it?”.

            At this point my opinion on Sapient Aliens and/ or their probability of existence can be summed up by the common statement from the Enterprise’s computer “Insufficient Data” . The famous Drake equation (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equation ) predicting an average number of extant civilizations in a galaxy or region has 7 parameters. We can’t even put reasonable bounds on any of the parameters as we really still don’t understand many of the processes implied in them in other than the vaguest of fashions.

              1. Remember that the Drake equation is fundamentally statistical in nature. The equation could yield 1.0 and yet there could be half a dozen extant civilizations of sapient beings or the equation could yield 20 and we’re the only ones actually present. We know only one thing with certainty there is at least 1 sapient species (nominally sapient for some values of sapient 🙂 ) extant at present. We have the known unknown that we can’t put decent boundaries on most of the 7 parameters. Using Universe VS Galaxy pushes the numbers up. Problem is if there existed some Sapient types in the early galaxies we have no way to communicate or reach them given any physics we know. Even the theoretical Alcubiere Drive doesn’t really help much (although Energy requirements are now down to merely 700KG of matter directly converted to energy rather than the mass of Jupiter as was originally calculated) see here . https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcubierre_drive it still requires exotic tachyonic matter and has other weird limitations. for the present the best we can honestly say is we don’t know, and we may never know (unless St Albert was making stuff up…)

        2. One data point is sufficient to prove one thing: it’s not impossible.

          Beyond that … nobody knows.

            3. According to the folklore I’ve read the explanation is that fairies are fallen angels or evil beings who aren’t bad enough to be considered demons but not good enough to get into heaven. They fear hell a great deal, a place so hot that it has rivers of molten iron, so even the mere smell/presence of cold iron fills them with the terror of hell and drives them away. Hanging a horse shoe on a wall/over a door for good luck seems to stem from this superstion.

              Other, lesser known methods for repelling fairies are salt, carrying bread in your pocket, standing in flowing water and wearing your clothes inside out.

                1. I doubt that there’s one story to “explain” what the fay are basically because there are so many stories about them and the stories exist in all so many different cultures/peoples.

                  Of course, many of the stories are from peoples who were concerned about the origins of the fay. Their stories were about dealings with the fay and “how to avoid trouble with the fay”.

                  It is interesting to study similar stories where the beings are often ghosts, fay or witches depending on the time the story was written down.

                  Of course, there was at least one SF story where the author stated that stories about UFOs and things like the fay were “created” by “strange” beings already on Earth because these strange beings somehow “feed” on people who believed in the stories.

                  1. Sorry, I meant to say that the people telling the stories Were Not concerned about the origins of the fay.

            4. It’s a poetical term for “iron”. Like “pale silver” or “yellow gold.” Witness the instance of “cold iron” that Kipling cites:

              ‘Gold is for the mistress — silver for the maid —
              Copper for the craftsman cunning at his trade.’
              ‘Good!’ said the Baron, sitting in his hall,
              ‘But Iron — Cold Iron — is master of them all.’

              So he made rebellion ‘gainst the King his liege,
              Camped before his citadel and summoned it to siege.
              ‘Nay!’ said the cannoneer on the castle wall,
              ‘But Iron — Cold Iron — shall be master of you all!’

              Woe for the Baron and his knights so strong,
              When the cruel cannon-balls laid ’em all along;
              He was taken prisoner, he was cast in thrall,
              And Iron — Cold Iron — was master of it all!

              Yet his King spake kindly (ah, how kind a Lord!)
              ‘What if I release thee now and give thee back thy sword?’
              ‘Nay!’ said the Baron, ‘mock not at my fall,
              For Iron — Cold Iron — is master of men all.’

              ‘Tears are for the craven, prayers are for the clown —
              Halters for the silly neck that cannot keep a crown.’
              ‘As my loss is grievous, so my hope is small,
              For Iron — Cold Iron — must be master of men all!’

              Yet his King made answer (few such Kings there be!)
              ‘Here is Bread and here is Wine — sit and sup with me.
              Eat and drink in Mary’s Name, the whiles I do recall
              How Iron — Cold Iron — can be master of men all!’

              He took the Wine and blessed it. He blessed and brake the Bread.
              With His own Hands He served Them, and presently He said:
              ‘See! These Hands they pierced with nails, outside My city wall,
              Show Iron — Cold Iron — to be master of men all.’

              ‘Wounds are for the desperate, blows are for the strong.
              Balm and oil for weary hearts all cut and bruised with wrong.
              I forgive thy treason — I redeem thy fall —
              For Iron — Cold Iron — must be master of men all!’

              ‘Crowns are for the valiant — sceptres for the bold!
              Thrones and powers for mighty men who dare to take and hold!’
              ‘Nay!’ said the Baron, kneeling in his hall,
              ‘But Iron — Cold Iron — is master of men all!
              Iron out of Calvary is master of men all!’

        3. Yeah, I’ve always wondered if anyone has ever claimed they repelled an abducting Grey with some Cold Iron. Never heard anything like that though. Though I HAVE heard of people claiming they were chased away or defeated by prayer.

            1. Because I was wondering a few comments ago if the UFO/Alien abduction phenomenon reported was something supernatural disguised as something more SciFi. Which led to the comparison of how much the modern alien abduction stories resemble the old stories of Eldritch fairies, hence me wondering if any supposed abductee has never claimed the old fairy repellent of cold iron has ever successfully stopped a Grey.
              “So you have no frame of reference here, Donny. You’re like a child who wanders into the middle of a movie and wants to know…”

                1. Well like I’ve stated before there are people who have claimed to have thwarted some Grabby Greys by praying/invoking God’s name. And there are others who have seriously claimed some hot lead did the trick too. There’s actually a whole book on the subject called “How to Stop Alien Abductions.”
                  Yeah I have weird hobbies and weird reading habits. But you never know what bit information you absorb can save your butt one day.

            2. Because our quaint local superstitions are in fact the careful repetition of how to deal with these beings, as is shown by their being repelled in the past.

      2. I remember reading through a very short short story back in the ’90s with that as the premise. My vague recollection is that it was written from a general alien pov, the aliens also liked to call talk radio shows and report evidence of themselves, and the author was a recognizable name that I can’t remember now

        1. David Brin, “Those Eyes”. Loved that story, back when Brin had ideas worth listening to.

    3. Just today there was a dumb social media hoax about some alleged alien bodies in Mexico which look suspiciously like ET carved out of concrete.

    4. think if the phenomena IS real it’s a supernatural one

      I have no idea, however, pattern recognition maps strongly to old “fay” stuff.

      So, whatever the heck it is– yeah, old stuff.

      1. I remember reading an older Science Fiction story about this alien coming ashore after his “landing craft” landed in an Earth ocean near a city.

        He’s met by another alien who is one of the alien species that secretly rule Earth.

        He’s a member of a species that finds Earth more comfortable at night and has some odd allergies to common Earth metals like iron.

        He meets with the ruling council of the aliens who control Earth and learns how they operate on Earth.

        Well, the leader of this council decides correctly that this alien is lying about too much.

        Faced with discovery, the alien plays for time while defending his mind from mental attacks.

        Finally, his people who were already on Earth break in on the meeting and rescue him while killing most of alien secret rulers.

        It seems that him and his people evolved on Earth alongside humans with them perfectly adapted to living in the night.

        Because of their problems in Earth’s day and their allergy to iron, they have almost died off but have survived in enough numbers to defeat the aliens currently on Earth.

        They are the basis for human tales about elves and now they are stealing one of the alien spacecraft to find another world that they can live safely on.

        But they also don’t like these aliens so they are planning to return to aid their ancient enemies, humans.

        Oh, the title is “Interloper” and the author is Poul Anderson.

        It’s available in the Baen Collection “They’re Here” edited by Hank Davis. 😀

      2. I presume natural beings, not human, possibly not sentient beyond dog, or possibly sentient but not ensouled. It’s hard to tell. (I mean, Elephants might be sentient. Like that.)

        2. If sentience is something beyond “just intelligence”, then it may be what “the image of God” means.

          If so, then IMO a sentient being is a being that’s ensouled as I can’t see a being “made in the image of God” as lacking a soul.

          As for the fay, there are stories that the higher fay are angels that “stood on the sideline” during Lucifer’s Rebellion. IE They didn’t join in Lucifer’s rebellion or join the angels fighting again the rebel angels.

          So if the true angels and the fallen angels can be ensouled, then the higher fay should be ensouled.

          As for the lesser fay, like our weefreeirish, they may not be former angels but since they’re sentient beings, they are ensouled.

    1. It’s been a long time since I read either version of Stranger, but my memory is that her reply is: “It’s white on this side.” Just that little bit simpler and more direct.

    2. “It’s painted white on this side.”

      Jubal notes that Anne will refuse to make any statement about walls she can’t see. If she walked around the house to view the other side, and then was asked about the original wall, her response would be something like “It was painted white the last time I saw it.” Rigorous separation of provable facts from opinion and speculation.
      ———————————
      “Boys are not girls. Girls are not boys. Those are facts. They can’t be changed by wishing at them.”

      1. Ace 1987 edition:

        Anne was on the springboard; she turned her head. Jubal called out, “That house on the hilltop–can you see what color they’ve painted it?”

        Anne looked, then answered, “It’s white on this side.”

        Jubal went on to Jill, “You see? It doesn’t occur to Anne to infer that the other side is white, too. All the King’s horses couldn’t force her to commit herself… unless she went there and looked–and even then she wouldn’t assume that it stayed white after she left.”

        original manuscript, 1991 version:

        Anne was seated on the springboard; she turned her head. Jubal called out, “That new house on the far hilltop-can you see what color they’ve painted it?”

        Anne looked in the direction in which Jubal was pointing and answered, “It’s white on this side.” She did not inquire why Jubal had asked, nor make any comment.

        Jubal went on to Jill in normal tones, “You see? Anne is so thoroughly indoctrinated that it doesn’t even occur to her to infer that the other side is probably white, too. All the King’s horses and all the King’s men couldn’t force her to commit herself as to the far side… unless she herself went around to the other side and looked-and even then she wouldn’t assume that it stayed whatever color it might be after she left because they might repaint it as soon as she turned her back.”

    3. Change “I” to “we” and you’re on target. Unlikely to happen, given that many (most?) of the “elite” have trouble recognizing a house, much less what color it is.

  8. Healthcare organizations are starting to roll the COVID crisis out again. I suspect it’s a deliberate slow build pushed by the NIH, CDC, and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
    First they publish their numbers of cases to show it’s rapidly increasing. Then they’re mandate all hospital personnel be masked and vaccinated, regardless of whether they are actual care givers or not, and regardless of whether they work IN the hospital or not. Then they’ll mandate all visitors be masked. Finally, they’ll again attempt to ban visitors in patient care areas altogether.

    2. Local hospital has started that – sign at the door, mask up! But the hospital web site has a much narrower spread of locations for masking then ‘everywhere’.

      Just dropped in for blood work; took a mask, but didn’t wear it, and no one said anything.

      I mask for them only so they don’t ‘fire me’ as a patient; can’t really afford to banned from medical care.

      xxxxx
      And someone has been playing with WordPress again – I like the layout and font and other little stuff, but WPDE!

      1. Bit of some whine here. I want the email option back for all comments dated after I post my first one, not just the comments in response to mine. (Grump, grouse, get off my lawn, grumpy.)

        I think I have finally noticed that newer comments are pushed to the top, but not the newer comments to older comments. The latter I have to scroll to look for.

        Do like the ability to “Like” comments.

      2. A lot of local places never bothered to take the mask signs down even when the policies changed. For example, the IT Tech Bar at the place I work at still has a sign up, even though it hasn’t been required since before I started working for that company.

    3. State matters.

      I’ve seen more masks at stores here below DC than I have seen at doctor’s offices in the last 12 months in Iowa.

      A possible confounder is that a woman who sort of works with my husband was wearing a mask. Nobody bugged her, but after she was gone I asked my husband if she wore it at work.

      He explained she had adopted the Japanese policy of “I feel like crud, but not bad enough to miss work, I wear a mask.”

      And she’s a mom with several kids and a 12 hour a day job, she usually feels like crud BEFORE maskign.

  9. There are a few — too few to count — like me who try to read enough to have an idea what is and isn’t true. We often come across as the craziest of all. But we’re not. We’re simply killing ourselves to remain informed. And we will admit most of what we “know” are best guesses.

    :Waggles hand:

    Somewhat disagree, probably because I’m not looking at talking folks and I’m not sure of your sample. (I know you look broarder than I do, I just also know I look at places you wouldn’t touch and who don’t go out, so the sample’s different.)

    That’s the folks that Rush tapped into.

    If my dad, and a lot of folks like him, were there for Rush a decade before the New Media… how much of the sleeping giant is still hanging out, watching?

      1. :gives a flat look:

        Oh, yeah, because folks like 12 year old me when I first recognized that line don’t exist anymore…..

        Wait, no, we’re like three generations in to sensible folks knowing to not talk. Even my generation had sensible folks, not that I was one of them, and I was told I didn’t exist by folks older than me, because I didn’t manage a total victory where they didn’t even attempt.

        If you can’t actually help or get out of the way, then stop dragging at our heels, declaring we don’t exist, if you please.

  11. and he cannot think.

    Possibly more horrific, he can, and that’s exactly why he can’t make the right mouth noises.

    I watched a lot of folks who were faced with “make the right mouth noise conclusion or lose everything.”

    Two escaped, not counting direct family.

  12. Beliefs are interesting things, and sometimes difficult to get rid of. A video I was watching about recent events in China started by talking about Xi’s recent oddities at diplomatic events, transitioned to talking a bit about Xi himself, and finally started talking about Chinese leaders and superstition. The video claimed that even Mao consulted with a mystic before entering Beijing after taking control of the country, and then talked about a supposed ancient book of prophecies that’s making the rounds in China that some believe has predicted the end of the CCP on Xi’s watch. This is in the supposedly atheist PRC.

    Whether or not the book is true is probably less important than how many people think it might be true – including leaders in the PRC.

      1. But they do require a belief in a source of knowledge. For modern lefties, that’s often “science”. But when you’re talking about Chinese cultural stuff, it’s generally understood that something supernatural is involved.

        1. True. But again, “supernatural” doesn’t necessarily mean anything religious (if it actually means anything at all beyond “we don’t know”). My comment was only in reference to ” This is in the supposedly atheist PRC.”

          1. Again, the key words were “mystic” and “ancient book of prophecies”. If you’re seriously trying to argue that those might somehow not have heavy religious connotations in this situation, then I’m going to have to strongly disagree with you.

            1. I have no idea what, if any, religious connotations they have, nor what the situation might be beyond what oyu posted; I’m not a scholar of Chinese mythology. They could, or they could simply refer to esoteric beliefs without religious trappings as such are generally understood; deities, etc.

        2. “But they do require a belief in a source of knowledge.”

          I just read an essay written by a guy who believes in the “Project Looking Glass” conspiracy. In which advanced technology can used to be predict future time lines.

        3. “But they do require a belief in a source of knowledge.”

          I just read an essay written by a guy who believes in the “Project Looking Glass” conspiracy. In which advanced technology can used to be predict future time lines.

          1. Interesting idea, and I can envision a very basic (but useless as far as practicality is concerned) framework that a writer could build such a thing around. But I suspect that – even assuming that it’s possible – there’s still an insane amount of theoretical work that would need to be done to make it workable.

            The idea has been touched on in various forms, of course. One short story – either by Clark or Asimov, iirc – revealed that all of the ansible FTL communications ever sent were contained in a seeming white noise blip at the beginning of each ansible message, that TPTB were well aware of what was contained in the blip, and that they sent clueless operatives out to make sure that the events mentioned in the blip happened and were then communicated even if the events were otherwise seemingly irrelevant.

            Warhammer 40,000 has an entire caste of the alien Eldar race – the Farseers – whose job it is to read the strands of fate, predict the future, and manipulate it for the betterment of their race. They do so using a combination of their psychic powers, and highly advanced technology. Of course, most stories involving farseers among the good guys (as opposed to them being used to divert some cosmic horror onto nearby humans instead of the original eldar target) are about how their actions go catastrophically wrong.

            1. “are about how their actions go catastrophically wrong.”
              That’s incredibly common, almost universal, about stories of predictions of the future, and I have to wonder if there is some inherent truth to it, that it’s intrinsically dangerous, and that the very act of making a prophecy ensures it’s fruition. Like obviously there’s no hard evidence prophecies that actually exists, either with magic or technology but it’s constant presence in stories is an innate warning to humanity.

              2. Getting advance notice of future events would change what you do, even if you don’t deliberately try to change what will happen. Which will then subtly affect everything around you, including the events disclosed to you. Sort of a Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle of time.

                Can you know exactly what you would do, in every detail, if you didn’t know what you know about the future? It’s all very well to say those changes are already included in the predicted future — but what if they’re not? What if the future changes every time you look at it, because you looked at it?

                “The future ain’t what it used to be” indeed.

                2. One author had a time-traveler who realized that every future time he visited was only a potential future time and when he returned to his “base time” the future time would “disappear”.

                  By visiting a potential future time, he would ensure that the future time would not come to past.

                3. Maybe. In the Dune setting, IIRC having advanced knowledge of future events doesn’t change the future. Instead, it locks you into the course of action where those events take place.

          2. “Beep” by James Blish, 1954.

            isfdb says it was expanded into “The Quincunx of Time” in 1973. I either never read that or didn’t notice.

            1. I just looked up a plot synopsis of that story. It looks like it’s pretty much the exact same method as the short story I mentioned, but long after TPTB have already become aware of it. Odd…

    2. The officially atheist CCP very much tries to maintain “the Mandate of Heaven”.

      Lose that, and the average Lee gets …. sporty.

  13. Belief in (a) God does not preclude believing in all sorts of other things. Look up the Millerites. Look up the “dispensationalist” theology that insists that “the Rapture” is going to come Real Soon Now. Read up on Shabbtai Zvi and his followers. A lot of liberals would describe themselves as Christian, after all.

    1. You’re pointing to Millennial movements. Add in the Münster Anabaptists, the Ghost Dance, Extinction Rebellion, and you have a group of 1) end times movements aimed at 2) bringing the end and a better beginning by 3) increasingly rigorous disciplines and desperate beliefs.

      All were touched to some degree by Christianity, even if they were/are not Christian.

    2. Note I didn’t agree with the analysis that said that. I agree though that when a vast, all encompassing public “truth system” vanishes, people will believe EVERYTHING.

      1. When Julia in 1984 sees a display of hysterical Big Brother love/worship she remarks to Winston, “This is all just sex gone sour.”
        When we see Extinction Rebellion and the like we should say “This is all just religion gone sour.”

  14. I think Extinction Rebellion springs from the fact that the public is largely and openly rejecting environmentalism, ESPECIALLY climate change and the true believers get more extreme and angry towards the public as a result.

    1. Whenever those little shits get arrested, I so want the cops to take Everything oil derived from them. Glasses, with plastic lenses and frames, smash them. Shoes with rubber soles, take ’em. Polyester shirt, strip it off. Cotton shirt (you know how much fuel it takes to make cotton) rip it off. I mean take everything from oil from them and them naked into the cell.

      They’re too stupid to be out living I the world with us and their horseshit ideas, if tried would kill billions.

      1. Yeah the whole thing smacks of “we’ll show them we really mean it then they have to believe” then becoming shocked they’re getting so much hate. Umm, duh?

        1. They’ve been raised on stories about how the youth made a difference during the ’60s. They’ve been told that they are the ones they’ve been waiting for. Their self-esteem has been coddled, and they’re increasingly self-absorbed to the point where they likely genuinely think that all they need to do is focus the camera on themselves and the world will “come to its senses”.

          And remember, no sacrifice is too great if it helps to save the world! It’s a shame that patients have had their ambulances held up because these people were blocking traffic to protest. But what’s a handful of people in ambulances when compared to the fate of the world?

          1. They are immature brats throwing tantrums. They have been told that throwing tantrums will get them what they want. They are another form of Useful Idiots.
            ———————————
            It takes a LOT of Education to make somebody that stupid.

          2. Read some young fool once talking about how disappointed she was in J.K. Rowling for her thoughtcrime because she was such a huge fan of Harry Potter and the author was such a past bien pensant but then she disagreed on transgenderism. Transgenderism was OUR thing, our great battle, our “civil rights movement”! And I was just so repulsed by her arrogance and narcissm. “The Right Side of History”, such a disgusting Marxist thought.

          3. “No sacrifice by others is too great if it helps to save the world!”

            Got to be accurate in those quotes

  17. Aha! Bidenomics is your “Should be enough if we’re very careful” 401k taking a hit twice, then finally coming back up a bit but now inflation has made it “No effing way is this enough!” but because it is not shrinking numerically, they will claim it is a greater success than when it was gaining without a penny going into it.

  18. This is a test via WP reader. My ability to reply/like has apparently gone away via any other source. This is affecting ATH, MGC, and Cat Rotator’s Quarterly (so far). Sarah, I sent you and Alma an e-mail with a sample screenshot and more details.

  19. Regarding this, Sarah:

    “Used to be, for the last hundred years or so, till about 20 years ago or so (a little more, a little less, depending on who you are and when you embraced the media revolution) there was a consensus. The consensus was “all respectable news sources”. They all, more or less agreed,”

    Um, no. Not in the US, at least. Prior to about 1960, most Americans relied on newspapers for their news, and most major US cities had at least two daily newspapers, one with a “liberal” editorial slant and one with a “conservative” editorial slant. It was only in the 1960s and 1970s, with newspaper mergers, the rise of television news, and the rise of the activist reporter, that the lefty slant really took over the news. And as quickly as that monopoly rose, it began to break down again in the 1980s with the rise of Rush Limbaugh and other national/regional conservative radio broadcasters.

    1. I recall, in various electronics magazines, the question of “What Will Save AM Radio?” And one suggestion was AM Stereo which never really truly caught on. All the prognosticators missed: (Conservative) Talk Radio… as it, then, was sort of the Last Hope for both for a while. And then… Things Happened. The amusing thing is how the left tried, repeatedly, to counter with their own talk radio and failed. Why bother listening to things already on ABC/CBS/NBC/etc. ?

      1. Yeah, I tried listening to one or two of those “liberal counter to Rush” radio talk shows. It was instantly obvious that they completely missed what made him popular. They thought it was the snark that made him popular. It wasn’t. What made Rush popular was that he said what millions of conservative people were thinking, but no one else was saying.

        Kind of like Trump and the left’s reaction to him, now that I think about it.

  20. I believe there was a classic Doctor Who quote (Fourth Doctor, maybe) where the Doctor snarkily remarked on someone having a mind SO open that his brains fell out. There seems to be a lot of that going around these days amongst our peoples…

    1. I don’t think any of the Doctors started that phrase, but it sadly fits plenty of people.

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