According To Hoyt

The area of Portugal I grew up in, or rather the part of the ocean accessible from it — when I was little an excruciating 2 hour trip through the city on overcrowded, irregularly spaced buses, now 15 minutes up the highway — is known for sudden and incredibly impressive waves. So impressive it’s become a surfing paradise, drawing people from all over the world.

When I was eight — I think — I drowned. Oh, no, not really. Not even to the point of stopping breathing and needing resuscitation. But … Let me explain.

I was eight and playing in the very shallow part of the ocean. I had my back to the main part of the ocean. And suddenly, out of nowhere, a wave lifted me off my feet and rolled me. My eyes were open, and it was beautiful greeny yellow inside and I inhaled some water, and I couldn’t tell which way was up and–

My dad must have been very close, saw me go under, and dove in before I was dragged out to see, and pulled me back. My first words to him coughing and spluttering and spitting were “I died.” He still quotes this as one of the funniest things I’ve ever said. And it’s probably true.

It’s true in the sense that wave changed me. it showed me that things are unpredictable, and also that the beautiful can be deadly. And in that moment of upsideownness (totally a word) the mind somehow changed and the world with it.

There have been other waves in my life, including the pneumonia that almost killed me at 33, the concussion at 40 and– other times. Including the year of the five moves, five years ago.

This wave…. The move from hell or house purgatory or escape from Colorado…. whatever you want to call it, might be bigger than all of those, or in retrospect it might prove to have been just a few minutes of being rolled around. Right now, we don’t know. There is danger still, though perhaps not as great as my paranoid mind perceives (I have money/security issues. Always had. Knowing I have them is no cure.)

We should have been done two months ago. We should. Except this has been house fix up from Murphy.

There are always things that go wrong, particularly when trying out a new process/way of fixing something/whatever. This one…

Part of it is the unvailability/unreliability of supplies, and part of it: like, stain two floors, made of the same thing with the exact same mixture, varnish with same varnish and how in heck is one greenish and one RED. Like the reddest wood I’ve ever seen? And no, it’s not the wood (it really was the same, same batch.) the stain? Possibly. It was a different batch, and yet….

More importantly, we’ve had stain that didn’t stick. Wood that was deffective and had to be torn out, varnish that inexplicably turned the floor coal-black. Contractors that were unreliable, etc. etc. etc.

Now? Almost done. Effectively “listed” though pictures will be taken next monday, and it will be officially up for sale on the Friday after that.

Younger son and husband had me come home last night. I mean last night. We drove through the night and got in at 3 am. Younger son went back to touch up a dozen small things and supervise cleaners.

I’m terrified it won’t sell fast. We spent our savings and overextended, because once things started going wrong, we had to finish it. You can’t sell a construction site. Or at least not do it and recoup.

I’m trying not to worry. Of course I do.

A lot of you are being run off jobs by the Juden-frei vaccine “mandates” of our serene Fuhrer Zhu Bai Den. My gut tells me there will be a giant economic crash. As in, massive. And I don’t know what that means for selling the albatross.

Trying not to worry.

Came home to a mostly-packed house, though my office is setup (good move on my part.)

And I’m dead.

As in, I feel like when I came home after pneumonia and 11 days in ICU. I am not sick, but I don’t feel well. Husband sent me up to bed, so I’m writing this post from bed. Taking in account how difficult this is, it’s probably right. He’s also insisting he cooks tonight.

I look pale and gaunt, and like I just had a great illness. And I worry about not being there for the final clean and “zipping up.” Though son is probably okay with it. I mean, he is the clone.

Prayers are requested for house to sell as fast as possible. Crazy person walking in with a cash bid above our wildest dreams first day it’s up would be GREAT.

I feel guilty I’m not writing or editing, but I do realize I’m “ill” or at least recovering. And tomorrow might not be much better. Against all my instincts and screaming internal sense, it’s too early to take that breath. I’d only drown faster.

The world has changed in the months I was head down in this, and I’m not sure I like the hints I’m getting, nor do I think I should look just yet.

Meanwhile and in an interesting development, About halfway through the day on Monday my brain decided I was done with the house stuff. I literally couldn’t think about it. Instead, plots and character voices too up all my brain. That’s still there. It will be worked on.

For now, though, I went for a gentle lunch break walk with husband, in the park next door, with the sun and the nice bench to rest in (seriously, I think we walked like 200 ft. I’m TIRED) and now I’m here, on the bed,with the laptop. Some friends on social media. Looking out the window t the beautiful golden trees.

The dye is cast. The Rubicon is crossed. On the other end, there will be time for fear, and work and determination.

For now there’s the bed. There’s Havelock cat sleeping next to me. (He is very determined I’m not allowed to get up. Going for the lunch walk got me a yelling at.)

In a way, I’ve died. (Just leaving my home-of-the-heart is a death, in a way.)

I just don’t know what comes next.

The alternate title for this post was “Can you hear the people Snark?” But it is early (considering I’ve been up for three hours) I’m uncafeinated, and very tired. Also possibly paint-fumed. So I couldn’t resist the idea of kitty-galt. And I need a drawing of THAT asap.)

Normalcy bias is YUGE in America. It is a testament to the founders’ vision that after a century of attempts to wrench us away from a constitutional republic, after a massive, in the open election steal, people are still counting on elections to right this mess.

They’re right and wrong.

Look, I’m holding up my lighter with tears in my eyes, and whispering hopefully “Team heads on pikes.” Because I think a brief, brutal convulsion is our best hope to come back to ourselves as ourselves.

In the end we win, they lose, but the gradual road is in the end more costly. Perhaps the butcher’s bill will be hidden. You won’t see heads on pikes and bodies on overpasses. But the squid farms on Mars, the unborn babies, the uninvented conveniences, the– more costly. Because socialism kills, either fast or slow, and the longer we play footsy with it, the more lives will be lost. In that case, probably lives that don’t exist.

And frankly, though #teamheadsonpikes might not eventuate, I still see a brief and violent convulsion in our future. Understand “violent” here does not refer to the butcher’s bill. I mean, I wouldn’t want to be the Junta and their toadies, as I think there will be a few Romanian Christmas Gift events, but MOSTLY? MOSTLY there will be a lot of retirements, if we’re lucky a few prison sentences, almost for sure a lot of people taking themselves overseas for retirement (I’m hoping the Obama posse and their cronies are dumb enough to run to China. (Looks heavenward. Lord, if I’m a very good girl for the rest of my life…) our institutions will turn over so fast you’d think they were on wheels. They might retain the name but that will be the last resemblance. People will lose all faith in government (we’re mostly there) and this bizarre idea of scientific governance will be finally put to bed with a shovel. About 100 years after it should have been, but hey.

Why do I think that? Why do I expect an uprising at all? Americans are supine and taking it and reeeeeeeee.

Will someone PLEASE get me my eyes? The cats aren’t here, but the floor is covered in dust and paint chips. That can’t be good.

Two things: Normalcy bias. As I said, most people who aren’t political animals (Party like it’s 1776, yo) are still waiting for the elections to fix everything. Hell, I’ve seen people who are political animals waiting for it. And the left is lying to itself very hard and half believes their wins are legitimate. (AH!)

And: IF there is a rebellion and the news doesn’t report it, would you know about it?

Hell, the world has been in more or less open rebellion for 5 years, and our news sits on it, like it’s their favorite thumb. And most people don’t see it, except for things like Brexit, or Trump’s election. Ask them about German farmers driving their tractors to city hall and they’ll look at you like you’re nuts.

So now?

This week, between stomach flu and paint fumes, I got a text from Bill Reader: “Is labor shortage” “let’s go Brandon” for “Going Galt””?

Eh. Sort of. It’s…. complicated. Part of it is demographic. Part of it is the cash influx of running blue state refugees. If our gambit in this house works, we could probably retire. We won’t, both because we’re broken to be the type that doesn’t, and because I know what happens to fixed incomes with runaway inflation. But I bet you a lot of people around my age (Not sixty, but I can see it) are just going “F*ckit. Retired now.* And we’re that awkward generation between the boomers and the Xs also known as “before the birth rate plummeted.” Most boomers I know unless they’re like us, are already retired.

Second, a lot of women discovered through the covidiocy that they like staying home. They like their kids. A lot of men discovered the gig economy. There will be fewer payrolls, we’ll just say that. And contrary to statist dreams, no we’re not at the singularity where robots do all the work.

They need everyone working and paying taxes. EVERYONE. Even then their system doesn’t work, but it fails SLOWER.

Third, yeah, we can see it coming. They want all our money. Why should we work for them?

This is something the left doesn’t get.

The other thing they don’t get because they can’t, is that no, they don’t have the support of the majority. Or even a substantial plurality. And that this country is not one large city. It’s vast, chaotic and ornery.

They’re starting to panic at sick-outs and resistance to the stupid vax mandates. They should panic harder, because as rumor leaks, more people are going to go “F*ck you. Make me.*

And the other part is that they can’t help themselves. They. Can’t. Help. Themselves. Noisome, having survived the recall through fraud is outlawing…. private homes and the two cycle engine? Thanks, Governor Noisome. My home in CO went up 50k this MONTH. Not that Polis is much better, but I guess Californians still want to go somewhat blue? And we’re …. freer. I guess.

And they want CRT. And you’ll eat bugs and like it. And women are just like men, except when men are women and women are men. And logic is white supremacy. And they will come into your work, your hobbies, your homes.
And they expect you to pay for all of it. ALL OF IT.

People are starting to resist and talk back. And the idiots have no clue what to do about it, because they’ve been sold on “we are the future.”

(Holds up lighter. #Teamheadsonpikes!)

It’s a snowball gathering momentum.

Americans are snarky bastards. We just are. Let’s go Brandon is indicative of what’s going on. It’s both in-your-face snark, and the left can’t do anything about it. Because doing something would be admitting they know they cheated and everyone wants Biden to F*ck himself. Well, 90% of the population, anyway.

And that’s it, in a nut shell. It takes all the effort in the world for them to keep their version of reality spinning. For us? We are entropy. We are chaos. We are reality reasserting itself. With a closed checkbook and tools downed.

We are team labor shortage. We are team sickout. We are team MAKE ME!

And they can’t make us. Even now. Much less as momentum gathers.

Hello Galt!

This is the death of collectivism, socialism, central control. It’s going to be nasty. So was the stupid collection of ideas.

But there is hope on the horizon.

Grid your loins and grit your teeth.

In the end we win, they lose.

Because reality is a bitch, and reality always wins.

Kind of knocked down a bit, though, and trying to make up for lost time.

Ended up coming to Colorado early. Access is so so, but I came down with something. (NOT URI; not the Koof.) Could be paint fume poisoning ;)

Made it to Colorado. Connection isn’t bad right now. However I caught son’s stomach flu. :-P

No, it’s not the koof. It is however pissing me off, because I’m not getting as much done as I should be.

This was almost a post about abortion and euthanasia, but then I decided I didn’t have the time/mental space/spoons to arbitrate the free for all that would open up. So, in a month or so. You have that to look forward to.

It is however a post about human life and humanity as a concept.

It is important.

I believe in Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness, among the inalienable rights of humans. But the question, asked in a dirty little voice from a corner of my mind as I say that is “who is human?”

Look, we can’t really claim that this used to be beyond dispute. Humans have always had issues with this concept. I am, undoubtedly human, freighted with all the rights and consciousness of a thinking, sentient being. You, my friend, almost certainly so. Those buggers over there, whom I’ve never met? Children yet unborn or too young to speak? The elderly so old their mind wanders and they have no idea who they are or what they’ve done? The demented? The impaired? Are they human?

Bah. Who is to decide?

For millenia, humans being tribal creatures, creatures of the band, it was decided by positional and relational criteria. My tribe is human. Those buggers over there? Not so much. Look, they eat weird things, and dress funny, okay?

Though exceptions were always made for those known and friendly. Because humans are funny. And not funny ah ah.

Christianity brought about the “all children of G-d.” So that the stranger with completely different skin, manners, features, was your brother or sister. All human. All redeemed by the one sacrifice that redeems us all. Young, old, impaired. It didn’t matter.

It’s kind of funny in the present day Christianity is presented as the most racist religion evah. Never mind. We live in funny times. And not funny ahah.

The twentieth century and the growth of the state to replace the church (note I say replace. This was intentional. Having a vast state might be okay — all right, by me it isn’t but hey — if it didn’t try to become the religion: the only ones to decide. The moral and thought of the nation it controls. As we know that’s impossible with any derivation of Marxism.

Which is what made the twentieth century (and possibly the end of the 19th) funny and not funny ahah.

The state, being controlled by a group of people who consider themselves qualified to decide who is human — or if you prefer — who gets any rights, considers most of humanity widgets. Mere chattel to be disposed of.

Only the insane or idiots would say things like what Bill Gates openly says, about reducing humanity — whose numbers he doesn’t know. Whose lives he can’t hope to understand — to 20% of its numbers. Because they too are human, and would realize it if they took a minute. Crowned heads and peasants alike have been “reduced” suddenly and horribly, and he’d see that, if he removed the hubris from his eye.

But in our day oligarchs, and the very rich who think they control them, say this casually.

They have forgotten or never understood the horrors of the 20th century that killed over a hundred million human beings, who were deemed not human because they were the wrong ancestry, the wrong religion, the wrong color, the wrong “utility” or simply because they wore glasses. Over a hundred million humans, as real as any of us reading this, were sent to their graves, sometimes in horrible ways, because those with power to decide decided they weren’t human.

Worse, millions more were reduced to lives that we wouldn’t inflict on our own domestic animals, because they weren’t deemed human. (The Nazi experiment of feeding concentration camp inmates on old rags and paper still horrifies me more than death.)

They weren’t deemed human by other humans, temporarily in power.

Only an idiot or a madman would think this is right. Only an idiot or a madman prey to a sadistic compulsion would try to do this. And forget the fate of Robespierre.

I was raised to think that “the important thing is not to be happy, but to be good for some thing.”

Both sides of that equation are flawed. Of course, the important thing is not to be happy. Happiness is a fleeting state. You can pursue it, but never hold it. Unless the happiness you crave is the sort of satisfaction when it’s late on cleaning day, and everything is done, and you snuggle up to your husband. A sort of glowing contentment. Or what Foxfier called “a sense of “this is good.””

But being good for something is the utilitarian evil rearing its head. Babies, the extreme aged, the infirm aren’t good for something. Either temporarily or permanently.

Does this mean they’re not human?

It took me till I was thirty, a stay at home mom (and very ill, but I didn’t know that) and making no money, and found myself listing for anyone I met that day everything I’d done that day for me to understand my grandmother’s habit of doing the same. It was “justifying my existence” since I was not making anything TANGIBLE. So I had to tell everyone how many times I’d changed the baby. I was ransoming my life for another day.

A sad and evil impulse. Human, of course. And not funny, ahah.

The truth is every time you give humans the power to decide who is human and who isn’t, you get this sort of thing. “Prove you’re useful.” Or “prove you’re useful to me.”

The worst part? As we saw through lockdowns, those who would order who is to live and who is to die don’t even understand what makes the world work. Or to quote a headline from the NYT (No, I didn’t read it. Do I look stupid?) “No one knows what makes the economy work.” (Oh, reeely? No. We do. It’s free humans trading freely. Those who would decide who’s to serve and who’s to eat? Not so much, no.)

You can’t decide who’s to live and who’s to die. No one can. More importantly, no one should. Certainly not a bureaucratic body, or someone who considers himself “scientific.”

That’s not how any of that works. To be human is to be flawed. The mote in your eye will not let you see clearly. Ever.

Judge not lest you should be judged.

Or if you prefer and if you don’t believe in G-d: To give humans the power to decide on the humanity of others is a corruption, which eats society and in the end makes everyone into things.

I believe in Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of happiness. For all humans.

And I believe anyone saying “We are human, but those deplorables/stupid people/people who tan/weird ones over there aren’t, and they get fewer rights” is an idiot or a madman, and courting the fate of Robespierre.

Let my people go.

I’m still home for another day. Going back this weekend, for …. reasons. Which makes it hard to get everything done by Wednesday, but we’re going to try.

Meanwhile well…. bits and pieces….

I don’t know if I’ll post next week. It depends on what the connection is like back there. It ranges from awful to impossible, though, so I’ll end up doing less, at any rate.

The accomplishments for this week seem pathetic, though I’m trying to rest, so…. it’s still probably too much.

Yesterday I was able to cook dinner in the kitchen for the first time. I’m halfway through unpacking my office. I have clothes in the dresser (and on boxes. SO MANY BOXES.) The dining room is eat-in ready, but I won’t do the walls (which are …. complicated) till I come back again, so things aren’t really unpacked yet. We also need to put baseboards throughout. I have an idea for a feeding station for the cats downstairs, but that involves getting a “rustic” looking “sofa table.” I might end up building one. Probably towards the end of the month. The idea being feeding the cats on bottom, and what can only be called my “coffee shrine” on top. If I put it in the dining room, that makes the inadequate kitchen counter livable, until we can remodel the kitchen. (I’m holding out for a gas range, sorry.) Which might be up to a year, depending on finances which depend on how much I write.

As usual, after three days at lower altitude, the writing started trying to come back. Not fully. I really had got myself in a state. I was determined to b*tch at son dragging me down here for a week (It DID delay us) until I caught glimpses of myself in the doors of gas stations. I looked like my friends who had cancer and are JUST starting to recover. It will give you a vague understanding maybe of how bad it had got when I tell you one of the very minor effects is passing: my fingertips can now be used without excruciating pain, as they’re starting to heal. This makes typing “not a torture.” Also means I don’t drop things and spill stuff all over myself quite as much.

Anyway, my hope for today is to finish setting up my office, so that I might, maybe, come back and start writing. I have Bowl of Red (so delayed) to get out. Also A Well Inlaid Death and I MUST get the Darkship books re-edited and out before I write the sequels. (Darkship Defiance, the Athena book; and Hacking the Storm, Fuse’s story.)

There is a second Rhodes book pushing hard to get written, and of course, The Long Purr Farewell.

So, I hope it’s clear both why I need working fingertips, and why the office must get set up so I can come back and slip into work.

Probably, supposing I’m back by Thurs. or Fri, I’ll spend next weekend painting the dining room and Dan’s office, but by Monday the 18th I MUST be back at work, and producing words. The way I see it, once the kitchen, dining room (We don’t have an eat-in kitchen here), bedroom and office are livable, the rest of the house can be unpacked and finished on weekends and evenings. I’m hoping to be done in time to decorate for Christmas. But the essential part is almost done, so…. the rest will happen.

Anyway, not looking forward to the next week, but determined to make it “the last trip to Colorado” — at least till closing. It should have been a month ago, except for the difficulty of getting workmen to actually show up on time, etc.

And all I can say is this mess might be G-d’s way to keep my mind off the mess our occupying Junta is making of the country.

On a lighter note, last night as we were falling asleep, the cats were throwing themselves about, and there was noisy scrabbling of claws. The words “Stop that” were uttered multiple times, and there might have been a pillow flung unfortunately nowhere near where the noise was.

Or maybe fortunately. This morning, there was a moth, dead, in the corner. Good cats. Satisfactory result.

May we all see the result of our work, thus, in the land of the living.

Amen.

What if they had a Singularity and nobody noticed?

Yes, I do know all the improbable things that have been freighted onto the idea of a Singularity. Human brain augmentation, Downloading yourself to live forever. And other Christian heresies, which always seemed improbable, impossible and/or dystopian. (Or, in more crude terms, things that make Sarah giggle when adults discuss them as if they were serious.)

But taking singularity as it was defined: a break so sudden and massive in human history that both sides of it would be mutually incomprehensible, wouldn’t it be understandable/visible only in retrospect? kind of like some bends in the road are so gradual, they’re only visible in retrospect.

Because there’s something to understand about humans and change: even the sudden ain’t really sudden.

Or, in other words: I’ve heard the entire biosphere described as a skim of dirt on the rock of the Earth.

In the same way, change in the way humans live is a thin sliver on an otherwise bed-rock stability.

Has to be. Without stability the species would have vanished long ago. Without change… Looks at Africa. Yeah, that.

But most humans hate change. Even the ones who think they’re for it. It usually means they want to design the world according to what in their brains (and only there) is a stable pattern. So that change stops.

Then there’s people like us, who change/create/move things without realizing. (Which is why the non-pink monkeys hate us. Okay, Apes. Same principle.)

Change, unless it comes in the form of violent invasion or cataclysmic events is usually slow, over centuries or millenia. S-l-o-w. And the change of communism isn’t. IT’s more a reversal to the way “things were always done.” (Glares at Africa.)

It’s very slow. VERY SLOW. Until suddenly it isn’t. Until you’re on the other side and going “How come the road behind me isn’t even visible?”

Mind you in some ways the change is all a reversal to quasi-ante. But how far away is the ante? Well, in what we’re facing, would you believe before cities?

Okay, let me wind way back.

The entire twentieth century will be viewed — I’m laying down a marker in serene confidence that when it’s called I’ll be long dead — as a psychotic fugue in the history of mankind.

Thing is it seemed logical, the culmination of a movement-towards-mass-everything stemming from mass production started in the industrial revolution. And the idea that crawled into people’s brains is that humans themselves would become a sort of collective creature and that this was “progress.” It doesn’t help that this was costume made to appeal to would be rulers who imagine themselves superior.

So they thought, if they just gave it a LITTLE push….

A hundred years later, real progress went in another direction, and people wedded to …. shall we call it retro-progress? The Future of the Past? are having memgrims, kitten fits and panic attacks which they pass on to the rest of us, of course.

But the thing is, humans were never going to be ants. Or collective beings. Thinking that could/would happen was a fugue state.

And the reaction is epic. Massive/epic.

Despite their attempts to put the genie of “distributed” (Communication/manufacturing/etc) back in the bottle, it keeps escaping them. Turns out that no, you really can’t control the beast unleashed, no matter how you try to.

So, they’ve gone extreme. The covidiocy was an extreme attempt “Just stay home and stop moving, d*mn you.”

As is the Climateocy “Just stop traveling/moving/doing things.”

Doesn’t work.

In fact, because I have a really dark sense of humor, I’ve been giggling over how everything they do just makes their vision recede/get lost.

It always was going to. It has nothing to do with reality. In fact, if they made the world communist, they’d just STARVE everyone. Communism was only possible because the US fed it. (insert rant.)

But what they’re doing in their flailing couldn’t be more designed to rush things if their councils were run by a cabal of their enemies. (They’re not. We couldn’t run a creek through a pebble bed, much less in secret.)

I started finding articles about how “everyone wants to go back to the office, and anyway only 2% of people can work from home.”

It’s bullshit. You know it’s bullshit. I know it’s bullshit. The number is probably closer to 20% and while some people do want to go back to the office, I doubt it’s most people, let alone “everyone.” Besides the articles have the same desperate wiff of “if I say it loud enough and click my heels” I’ve come to expect from other dying ways of life, like traditional publishing.

And anyway, they’re ignoring the cascade of the 20% in supporting services, etc.

On top of that, I’ve been standing on random walls and waving my arms, and screaming, but no one will listen.

There is this meme going around “there aren’t enough workers because the socialists won. They gave people money to stay home and now people want that.”

Will someone PLEASE find my eyes. They rolled under furniture, and now I can’t find it.

There MIGHT be some people like that, though I’d guess it falls more under “I had to give up my apartment and move in with mom and dad, and now I’m reorienting my life, rather than go back to what I was doing before.” But sure. In 300 plus million, I’d bet there’s some people like that.

However, the cases I know of “not going back to work?” Almost all women. Almost all working retail/service/pink collar. Almost all of them discovered they liked staying home with the kids/being mom. Also there’s an explosion in homeschooling and a lot of people don’t want their kids wearing muzzles all day. You do the math.

I know at least two of our favorite waitresses, one quit to stay home, and one works only weekends so she can homeschool.

Most of them, actually “did the math.” Most of those jobs, the women are working because they’ve been conditioned to work, but if you factor in day care, eating out, clothes, car maintenance, they’re actually paying to work.

Sure, this isn’t all women quitting to stay home with kids. But you know what? If it’s 1/4th of them, it accounts for the labor shortage. And a bunch of cascading effects, including sudden demise of the tax base.

The idiots who thought it was a good idea to do this? Not a clue.

For one, they’re not good at thinking people might do what they weren’t told to do. That’s their tragic problem. And the reason they do so many stupid things.

For another, humans aren’t good at seeing change. They just aren’t. I look at indie writers courting/rushing into trad pub and shake my head. It always ends the same way. And that’s before the covidiocy made trad pub near broke.

I saw the writing on the wall 10 years ago, but these really bright people are still thinking they can have a bright and big career. (Shakes head.)

Never mind.

It seems the bigger the change, the harder to see.

And Lord, the sh*t coming down the pike from the covidiocy. The two I mention above are MINOR and even those are Earth shattering. Or at least civilization sundering in a sense that things will change so much, we can’t see it, even in the middle of this.

Take more women staying at home. Even 1/4 of the mothers, and the results, cultural, economic, hell, health are mind boggling in 20 years.

Or take the reversal of the growth of cities, brought about by people being able to work from everywhere and anywhere. (Some people, of course. And services, probably in a new form, will follow.)

Those alone, will twist the world into a shape the 20th century won’t recognize.

And I bet you there’s a million other effects I can’t even see.

Hold on to the sides of the boat — Or your surf board — stay flexible. Remember everything can change, very suddenly, once enough momentum is acquired. Also remember stupid is gonna stupid, and probably poke themselves in the eye again and again.

Get ready to survive a change that might be nothing short of oh, the agricultural revolution.

And don’t let the retro-futurists convince you they’ve won.

They’ve already lost. Now we need to make sure we don’t.

Hey, buddy, would you mind exhaling, so I can inhale? And scooch over, so I can sit.

Like many of the terrors invoked in the seventies by a prattle of progressives, overpopulation is a paper tiger. Frankly, even if you took the official figures, we’re nowhere near overpopulated. Take it from someone who’s been driving back and forth across the west on a regular basis. We could put several New York Cities in several states, and not notice except for a marked uptick in fraud. (and in Colorado, given Vote by Fraud Mail that would be lost in the noise.)

But it doesn’t take a very deep thinker, or delving too much into anything at all to realize all the population figures, PARTICULARLY the ones from the UN, are bullshit, and overinflated bullshit at that.

I might have a leg up on you guys on that, since I grew up in a nominally modern, industrialized country which tries really hard to know everything about its people, but is guesstimating when it comes to how many live there because: people lie. They lie for benes. They lie because it’s Tuesday. They lie because it’s fun. Also, even when they’re not lying, they make assumptions. Of course, for instance, I live with my parents. Because for the longest time they assumed that was my real home. Do I count twice? We’re lucky if it’s only twice. A few years ago, I found out that under my pre-citizenship name, I was still voting in North Carolina. Which is a puzzle, as I never voted under that name. But apparently I’ve been living for 30 some years in our starter apartment and am registered to vote. (It’s disconcerting. Oh, fraudulent too. But disconcerting. Like looking into a parallel world.)

In other words, simple words: humans are wiggly things, hard to count and moveable. Oh, and unreliable. AND the bias in counting is always towards more. Because governments derive more power from more people; fraud happens more easily with imaginary people. And, oh, yeah, authoritarians get power from panicking about “more people.”

But come on guys. There isn’t a single one of us that canvasing through the lines of our family doesn’t see precipitous DECLINE in the last 30? 40? years. From seven to two to one is not unusual.

Ah, but the THIRD world. Bullshit. On stilts. wearing a funny hat. The third world, being net recipients of aid benefit from claiming to have more kids, but from what I know from people who have family there they too are declining.

Oh, sure, more births than us. But don’t forget they die earlier and harder too. They need a ton more births. They don’t have that. Not anymore.

Same goes for our ghetto inhabitants. I have friends who work with that population and who are all up in arms about how they’ll “take over.” BAH. Sorry. Their lives are shorter and brutish. Sure, they reproduce more. But not as much as needed to expand. To go on, sure. But not to expand.

So, why do so many people on all sides of the spectrum believe the whole “World population is booming out of control?”

Oh, several reasons: suburbs have been expanding steadily. This is because even in the gentrified cities, we required more space than our ancestors. Or at least we demanded it. So, you know “Population must be growing because we’re building.” Except that’s not true.

Also apparently we identify people we have contact with, subconsciously, as “members of our tribe” and with electronic communications all our tribes are “growing.”

Plus, the US and other “developed” countries are being assaulted by unassimilated waves of “migrants.” The understanding is that these people are escaping the “teeming multitudes” in their countries. It’s bullshit. And the funny hat now has feathers.

Seriously. It’s just that as Marxism (the gift that keeps on taking) spread to the third world, often via their sending their best and brightest to our universities, the third world became less able to support even diminishing populations.

The truth is that a contracting world population is the only way to explain some of the recent economic and political developments.

And it’s terrifying.

Look, I know all the fantasies about how an empty Earth would mean everyone would be rich.

They’re bullshit, on stilts, wearing a funny hat with feathers, and blowing a horn with its ass.

They’re based on the Marxist idea that “resources” exist somewhere outside an humanity that can only distribute them. If you wonder why that’s bullshit, I invite you to look at the relative wealth of Brazil and the US, and the relative distribution of natural resources. And if you think the US is hiding the stash, come closer so I can hit you on the head.

The truth is that the only wealth, the only real wealth is people: they both give value to resources and make resources into things worth having.

Without people we have nothing. Not even a civilization.

And I’m going to bet you cash money we’re near a demographic cliff of unimaginable depth.

Don’t look down, it’s a long way to fall.

Go and make kids. and raise kids. And sound the alarm.

Because wealth is made of people. And we need more people.

Like many, if not most of you, I thought this “progressive” thing on the left was a new thing. Yet another name change, like a bad Chinese restaurant.

Turns out I was wrong and suffer from historical blindness. Apparently progressivism was a thing of both parties in the early to mid twentieth century. FDR was progressive, but so was Eisenhower, and so, of course, was Nixon.

Progressivism was loosely defined as “dragging the American people to the future.” The kicking and screaming was implied.

As for the future, the dear little (big, actually) statists had forgotten the first rule of the future: it’s hard to tell what the future is. Because it hasn’t happened yet.

In their little shriveled power-hungry hearts they had seen the future. And it looked like Russia. Or Germany. (No seriously. That’s what they thought, before Germany imploded.) It was glorious future, comrade. The people at the top, the best men, you understand, told the masses how to live, and everyone was happy. I understand the peasants danced on the streets in celebration every other Thursday. Well, they did if they knew what was good for them.

And I can see you guys ruminating and saying “Yeah, but Sarah! Rural electrification. Highways! These are fair and just things to pursue.”

The thing is, were they? Were they really?

All of these bullshit directives from above might have “achieved” something. And from the perspective of us now, looking back they might seem right.

What I want to ask yourself is “Is it survivor bias?” “Was there an ignored path?” And “What about the squid farms on Mars?”

I guarantee the answers are “Yes. Yes.” And “We’ll never know, because it’s impossible to know if they’d have existed in another time line.” The squid farms on Mars are short hand for opportunity costs. For things that never existed. We don’t know what they are because they never existed.

The thing is, in almost every case where we have “another way” the “other way”, the way of individual choice is better: More efficient; less wasteful; more human.

Take the internet. Yes, I know it started as a military project. And was useless as tits on a bull for the general public, until it escaped via cat memes and porn and became the engine that transformed society in the very late twentieth century, and is transforming it again with a little help from covidiocy into a place where well… cities aren’t as important (reversing the trend of millenia) and parents can actually raise their own children (reversing the trend of centuries.)

France, which does statism on pro mode had a model for the internet. When I attended an extension of a French university (long story) in the 80s, an entire unit of teaching was devoted to it: how the government had planned everything, so in the near future, a woman in one end of the country could call her aunt in the other and learn to knit a pattern via the video phones that would be provided to everyone.

Meanwhile…. Yeah. Private enterprise, software, people wanting to see cat memes — and porn — and by fits and starts, Americans got there before this multi-decade, carefully directed French project.

Is it what the French government envisioned? Well, no. For one, they wouldn’t want us to share cat memes and porn. And certainly they wouldn’t allow people to coordinate opportunities for throwing burning smart cars at the Arc du Triomphe. Ca alors, non, you peasants.

There is a reason that all progressive efforts are so deeply unconstitutional that if the constitution were holy water they’d burn on contact.

Because they are against individual choice. The “progress” is “someone in the know” and their VISION of progress. Which might or might not have anything to do with real progress. In fact, most of the time all it is is another layer of distortions, forcing commerce and the future into another channel than the one it would have taken naturally.

Better or worse? Well, usually worse, because individuals do what is good for them. Not what other people think is good for them.

And before you tell me about sanitation and roads and…. yeah and? Do you know for sure what individuals would have achieved without these massive centrally administered “progressive” projects would be worse? Because I doubt it. Every project in my life time has been way worse if done by the government. More wasteful, and generally some form of insane.

It is very important to remember this, because the current progressives have soured.

Look, every progressive project implies and necessitates a certain level of disdain for the “masses” and the “common people.” If it didn’t, they wouldn’t think themselves anointed to tell others what to do.

But at least FDR and his successors IMAGINED themselves benevolent. They imagined a better future for humanity, even while they f*cked us over. They thought humanity could become, of its own volition, collectivist and non-greedy and– and it’s a case of their not having any introspection, yes — but they wanted to gift humanity things like electricity and better/faster industrial production and such.

The current progressives have soured. We broke their little RedMarxist wagon. The USSR was not as wonderful as they knew it was, because humans refused to play along. And here in the US we hold onto the constitution, which prevents them doing all their wonderful stuff.

They not only disdain us, they hate us. All humans. Every single man jack and woman jill of us. They want us reduced, destroyed, diminished, humiliated; forced to grovel in the dirt for their favor.

That’s the progress in their minds.

It’s important to remember that progressivism has always been wrong. Always been evil. It’s the imposition of a vision of the future by people who think of themselves as anointed. I don’t see any way it wasn’t always wasteful, evil and wrong, and forcing humanity into paths better left untrod.

It’s time to give progressives the good old heave-ho. They know it too. They know they’ve failed, which is why they’ve gone rabid.

Let the future build itself. One individual at a time, from our own decisions and beliefs.

Let no one command us to the vision in their diseased heads.

Let my people go.