Thursday, February 8, 2024

"Two Horns, One State"

"Two Horns, One State"
Weapons of Dialectical Destruction (WDDs) 
and the burgeoning market for liberty...
by Joel Bowman

“The future’s uncertain and the end is always near.”
~ Jim Morrison

Note From the End of the World - "Many and varied are the rhetorical devices by which the well-intentioned public is hoodwinked by their conniving political overlords. Today, we take a look at a classic Weapon of Dialectical Destruction: The False Dilemma.

Perhaps you’ve heard the old joke... A man is driving through the Irish town of Belfast during “the troubles.” At a traffic light he is confronted by an armed bandit who asks him: “Are ye a Protestant…or are ye a Catholic?” Choosing his words carefully, the man answers: “Neither. I’m an atheist.” The bandit considers this response for a second before asking: “Aye, but are ye a Protestant atheist or a Catholic atheist?”

The realm of human affairs is notoriously messy. Rarely do we abide by such neat and tidy categorizations, especially when it comes to that most problematic of earthly undertakings: politics. It is sometimes said that those on the so-called “left” assume those on the right have no heart...and that those on the so-called “right” think those on the left have no brain. Libertarians, meanwhile, tend to agree.

The Market for Liberty: In countries around the world, card-carrying “conservative” politicians have been blasting holes in their countries’ budgets for decades. As for “inclusive” progressives, witness the disemboweled remains of any number of canceled liberal apostates, who failed to conform to the latest groupthink nomenclature of the day.

Meanwhile, when it comes to dropping bombs on people they will never meet in sh!thole countries they hope never to visit, the Uniparty is unanimous in its bloodcurdling chant: War for all and all for war!

The obvious question, therefore, is why sensible, private individuals put up with such a sorry parade of shrieking lunatics and profiteering psychopaths? Is there no other option? As our election-weary American readers are lately discovering, must every election descend into a rabid Tweedle-Dumb vs Tweedle-Dumber mud wrestle? Only to rinse... and repeat?

Known variously as the either-or fallacy, the fallacy of exhaustive hypotheses or, more colloquially, plain ol’ black and white thinking, the false dilemma is both deceptive and destructive. First, because it lures unsuspecting minds into a misguided belief that their choices are limited to those offered and, second, because it attacks the creative process by which new ideas “come to market,” by slamming the door closed on alternative possibilities.

Consider the unlettered babble from the senator for Massachusetts, Elizabeth “2% Cherokee; 98% Harpy” Warren: "If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business – you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen."

Implied here is the false notion that, without roads built by The State...there would be no roads. Without schools constructed by The State...there would be no education. Without the “unbelievable American system”...creative individuals wouldn’t be allowed to thrive. In other words...

• Choose The State... or choose illiteracy.
• Choose The State... or choose dirt tracks on which to haul your goods.
• Choose The State... or nobody will help you...nobody will cooperate with you...and you will be alone, unable even to survive, much less thrive.

Textbook false dilemmas, each and every one.

Circular “Thinking”: Nowhere is a free market alternative presented. And it’s little wonder why. At the precise point the free market ends, the tyranny of The State begins. Nowhere do the twain meet. (And no, crony capitalism, state-sponsored corporatism, mixed market economies and the rest of the Frankensteinian abominations are NOT free markets.)

As diametrically opposed forces, it is clearly in The State’s interest to see that free market activity is marginalized as far as possible, in order that The State itself might occupy ever more space in people’s minds and, by extension, in the economies we lowly proles are “allowed” to build.

So profoundly have certain false dilemmas bored their way into the soft cranium of the collective, that supposedly able-minded individuals have stricken the very possibility of free market cooperation from their mental map.

Indeed, some confused people even contend that, were we to ignore the iron-fisted directives of The State, we would promptly descend into a Mad Max-style dystopia, in which gangs of unchecked territorial monopolies roam the planet, stealing and damaging property at whim and torturing, imprisoning and killing whomever they so wished.

Strange then that those same people would “remedy” this apocalyptic nightmare by supporting The State...that is, gangs of unchecked territorial monopolies that roam the planet, stealing and damaging property at whim and torturing, imprisoning and killing whomever they so wish.

These individuals are sorely misled...fallen prey to the classic false dilemma. They are so misled, in fact, that they find themselves circling back to a position that sees them fervently supporting an entity that tirelessly labors to turn their worst fears into harsh reality. Worse still, they continue to mislead others by repeating such vapid nonsense.

Unlike The State’s obedient apologists, free market advocates don’t need to pretend to know the best solution to each and every problem – something F.A. Hayek called the pretense of knowledge. Rather, they humbly cede the discovery process to free individuals acting in their own self-interest. (And yes, that includes voluntary cooperation.) Moreover, the best among them pay close attention to unfettered market signals – price, profit, margin, competition, etc. – to exploit aberrations in the market to their own (and their customers’) advantage.

Spontaneous Order: Argentine president, Javier Milei, described just such a process at the recent WEF coven, citing the important work of Austrian School economist, Israel Kirzner, in front of the witches and vampires gathered around Darth Schwab’s bubbling cauldron. Kirzner (still going strong after 93 years) comprehended the market as a dynamic process of continuous discovery, rather than a perfected, static equilibrium arrived at by means of some enlightened central planning committee. Market conditions change, Kirzner recognized, as new and improved processes impact the individual needs, desires and preferences of its participants. “The future’s uncertain,” as the American Poet Jim Morrison once observed, “and the end is always near.”

When confronted with a problem deserving of our finest attention, therefore, voluntarists first ask, “Is there a peaceful, market-based solution here? Might, for example, freely-associating individuals work together to build schools, roads and bridges? Might free competition stand guard against coercive monopolies? Might the market process of creative destruction weed out inept and/or corrupt businesses, rather than reward them with stolen property?”

Like the election process itself, in which well-intentioned voters saddle themselves with the misguided obligation to choose the “lesser of two evils,” the false dilemma lulls individuals into thinking there is no alternative, no preferable option, no choice that does not, at least to some degree, rely on compromising their values and morals. No choice that does not involve the hired gun of The State. No choice, in other words, that does not render them party to evil.

Voluntarism as an apolitical philosophy invites us to see beyond the iniquities perpetrated by the so-called political left and the right. Instead of a system based on force and coercion and violence, instead of extracting money from people for “services” by threatening to put them in cages, instead of ideas so popular they must be made mandatory… peaceful, cooperative individuals learn in time to welcome and celebrate a system of unscripted dynamism, such as here described by Hayek:

“Spontaneous order is a system which has developed not through the central direction or patronage of one or a few individuals but through the unintended consequences of the decisions of myriad individuals each pursuing their own interests through voluntary exchange, cooperation and trial and error.”

When it comes to political false dilemmas, we need not slavishly impale ourselves on one of The State’s two horns, but only to open our eyes to alternative possibilities. And where political revolution brings us, by definition, back to our point of origin... it is apolitical evolution that finally sets us free.

Stay tuned for more Notes From the End of the World…"

Dan, I Allegedly, "EV Cars Nose Dive - The End is Near"

Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly, 2/8/24
"EV Cars Nose Dive - The End is Near"
"Tesla just announced that they’re going to lay people off. They’re going to do it Facebook style by letting managers pick the people that they don’t like. Massive layoffs coming to Tesla."
Comments here:

Bill Bonner, "What Would Clausewitz Say? II"

"What Would Clausewitz Say? II"
The Firepower Industrial Complex gets a boost
 and the Empire continues its slow decline...
by Bill Bonner

"The barbarian nation of the Huns, which was in Thrace, became so great that more than a hundred cities were captured and Constantinople almost came into danger and most men fled from it. And there were so many murders and blood-lettings that the dead could not be numbered. Ay, for they took captive the churches and monasteries and slew the monks and maidens in great numbers.
- Callinicus, in his "Life of Saint Hypatius"

Paris, France - "Life goes on. Technology races ahead. But the old homo sapiens sapiens is still the rough knuckle-dragger he was 200,000 years ago. He makes technical progress in great leaps. But as for the rest of life…don’t count on it.

One of the most remarkable features of the hit film ‘Oppenheimer’ is the astounding rate of ‘progress’ in the early 20th century. In 1905 Albert Einstein was wondering about how motion and time were connected. A train trundles through a station…with a man on the platform and another on the train. Lightning strikes both ends of the station. The man standing in the center of the platform will see both flashes at the same time. But the man on the train will see one before the other, inasmuch as he’s moving towards it. Was time distorted by motion, Einstein asked himself?

This set off a burst of work in theoretical physics. Never before had humans made such fast progress. And then, just 40 years later, Harry Truman was killing thousands of civilians – like Attila at Strasbourg and Mainz…but using an A-bomb!

A “Fascinating Trinity”: In science and technology we learn…and then we build on what we’ve learned. In the rest of life, though, we repeat the same errors and imbecilities over and over…one generation learning, the next forgetting…forever and ever, amen.

War, Clausewitz explained, in what he referred to as a “fascinating trinity” was a mixture – one part emotion, one part chance, and one part rational calculation. Barbarians usually leaned heavily on emotion – the lust for fighting…hatred of the enemy…dreams of slaughtering the men and raping the women. Generally, the more ‘rational’ armies – such as those of the Greeks, Romans, and Prussians – were able to defeat them. In the many battles between the Irish and the English, for example, the Irish tended toward the more primitive ‘emotions.’ They were strong on the attack, said English critics, but weak on planning, discipline, and strategy. When the momentum of the charge was broken, they ran helter-skelter for safety and were easily slain.

Clausewitz maintained that though reason was important, you could never entirely dismiss the emotional element…nor chance. In the ‘fog of war,’ stuff happens that can’t be predicted. Or, as heavyweight boxer, Mike Tyson, put it: ‘everybody’s got a plan, until he gets punched in the face.’ But behind all three elements – emotion, chance, and reason – is something more, politics. Clausewitz: "If war is part of policy, policy will determine its character… Policy is the guiding intelligence and war only the instrument, not vice versa. "No major proposal required for war can be worked out in ignorance of political factors."

Barbarians at the Gates: In 451, Attila came head to head with Roman forces, heavily supplemented by “barbarian” troops of Franks, Burgundians and Celts in the Battle of the Catalaunian Plains. The empire managed to turn Attila back, barely. A few years later he mounted yet another campaign against Rome…and died. That was near the end for the Roman Empire too. Only a couple decades later, the ‘barbarian’ allies turned against it and the Empire gave way completely.

‘Reason’ might have suggested a different strategy for both of them. Attila might have retired and enjoyed his wealth. And Rome might have recalled its legions, strengthened its borders, and protected the homeland with its own troops. Instead, once stretched out, the elastic would not snap back. Attila stayed on the warpath. And Rome tried to hold its empire together. Its forces dispersed, it was over-run everywhere.

And once again, reason points the way for America: bring the troops home, balance the budget, tighten up the borders, and throw out the corrupt elites. And yet, no candidate – save the outsider, RFK, Jr. – suggests it.

Why does history seem to run in such an endless loop? There’s ‘The Decline and Fall of the Empire.’ Then, the sequel: ‘Decline and Fall of the Empire II.’ And III…and so on. Athens, Rome, Attila, Bonaparte, Hitler….Spain, Holland, France, Britain…and now the USA…the last champion of European hegemony.

Public policies are determined by the elite. And as elite groups become older, richer and more powerful, their aim is to hold onto what they’ve got – at all costs. They rule the world; they don’t want to let it go. This is the ‘policy’ feature Clausewitz was talking about. It is also what lies behind America’s wars. They are not driven by the need for self-defense…the Houthis pose no threat to America. Nor do we make war overseas in order to gain a commercial or strategic advantage. Instead, we do so to maintain and extend our policymakers’ own power, privileges and wealth. Everything else is subordinate.

You can’t ‘print’ your way to wealth. And you can’t bomb your way to security (with exceptions). Every reasonable person knows these things. But the US elite has discovered that it can bomb its way to wealth…at least for a while.

Firepower On Fire: An example: retired Admiral James G. Stavridis, now calls for “5-7 days of continuous strikes against proxy targets in Syria and Yemen” along with other attacks on Iranian ships and oil installations. He is a partner in the Carlyle [investment] Group; he’s a Trustee of the Rockefeller Foundation and has gotten himself 20 directorship positions with defense-related corporations since he retired from the Pentagon. He’s made war pay – for himself.

It’s paid for a lot of others too. InsideDefense.com: "U.S. foreign military sales increased by 56% in fiscal year 2023 for a record-breaking total of $81 billion, a significant boost above the $52 billion reported in FY-22 and coming at a time when NATO is bolstering its defenses against Russia, according to new data from the State Department. ‘This is the highest annual total of sales and assistance provided to our allies and partners,’ the State Department said in a new fact sheet released today."

And here’s the long term tally. Altogether, the cost of the “warfare state,” as figured by former White House Budget Director David Stockman, was $95 billion in 1970. Now, it is $1.2 trillion. Every penny of that money goes from someone to someone else. It pays for weapons and veterans’ benefits. It is skimmed by corrupt politicians. And it all goes down the Military/Industrial Complex drain that Eisenhower warned us about.

And somewhere…on some windswept wilderness in Eurasia, the ghost of Attila must be proud. “I was not a barbarian,” he assures himself. “I was just human.”

Gregory Mannarino, "Alert! Full-On Liquidity Crisis Worsening"

Gregory Mannarino, AM 2/8/24
"Alert! Full-On Liquidity Crisis Worsening
These Two Things Will Happen As A Result"
Comments here:

Canadian Prepper, "Alert! OMG, Russian Nuclear Weapons Plant Explodes!"

Full screen recommended.
Canadian Prepper, 2/7/24
"Alert! OMG, Russian Nuclear Weapons Plant Explodes!
Putin Cancels Trip; China Nuke Spy Caught In USA"
Comments here:

Wednesday, February 7, 2024

"For Love Of Butkus"

“Back in the early days of his career, Sylvester Stallone was so broke he ended up homeless and unable to buy food. At his lowest point, he realized he had no option but to sell his beloved dog and best friend, Butkus, whom he simply couldn't afford to feed. After selling Butkus to a stranger for $25, he walked away crying.

Just two weeks later, Stallone saw a boxing match between Muhammed Ali and Chuck Wepner. It inspired him so much, he wrote the script for "Rocky". As he started approaching movie studios, he had one request: he would star in the movie. With offers for as much as $350,000, Stallone still refused until they agreed for him to play the lead. But the compromise came at a cost, with Stallone instead receiving just $35,000 for his script.

The first thing the actor did when he received the money was return to the liquor store where he had last seen Butkus. After standing there for three days, he saw the man who had purchased his dog approaching and begged to buy his dog back. It would cost him $15,000, but it was worth every cent to Stallone. Butkus would appear in the film with his owner.

"Rocky" went on to be the highest-grossing film of 1976 and won three Oscars. It also propelled Stallone to fame."

Adventures With Danno, "Egg Prices Are Going Up Again!"

Full screen recommended.
Adventures With Danno, PM 2/7/24
"Egg Prices Are Going Up Again!"
"The cost of eggs is rising again. We discuss this 
matter along with other items going up in price in 2024."
Comments here:
o
Full screen recommended.
Travelling with Russell, 2/7/24
"Russian Typical (German Owned) Supermarket: Globus"
"What does a Russian typical supermarket look like inside. Join me as I take a walk inside Globus supermarket in Moscow, Russia. Globus, is a German retail chain of hypermarkets. They operates 19 hypermarkets in Russia with 9,900 total employees."
Comments here:

Gerald Celente, "Amerika: You Must Obey What Your Politicians Say"

Gerald Celente, 2/7/24
"Amerika: You Must Obey What Your Politicians Say"
"The Trends Journal is a weekly magazine analyzing global current events forming future trends. Our mission is to present facts and truth over fear and propaganda to help subscribers prepare for what’s next in these increasingly turbulent times."
Comments here:

Jeremiah Babe, "They're Lying To You; Mental Illness Explodes On Social Media;

Jeremiah Babe, 2/7/24
"They're Lying To You; Mental Illness Explodes 
On Social Media; China Prepares For War"
Comments here:

Musical Interlude: Deuter, "Music of the Night: East of The Full Moon"

Deuter, 
"Music of the Night: East of The Full Moon"

"A Look to the Heavens"

“These three bright nebulae are often featured in telescopic tours of the constellation Sagittarius and the crowded starfields of the central Milky Way. In fact, 18th century cosmic tourist Charles Messier cataloged two of them; M8, the large nebula left of center, and colorful M20 on the right. The third, NGC 6559, is above M8, separated from the larger nebula by a dark dust lane. All three are stellar nurseries about five thousand light-years or so distant.
The expansive M8, over a hundred light-years across, is also known as the Lagoon Nebula. M20's popular moniker is the Trifid. Glowing hydrogen gas creates the dominant red color of the emission nebulae, with contrasting blue hues, most striking in the Trifid, due to dust reflected starlight. The colorful skyscape recorded with telescope and digital camera also includes one of Messier's open star clusters, M21, just above the Trifid.”
"When I heard the learn’d astronomer,
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged
in columns before me,
When I was shown the charts and diagrams,
to add, divide, and measure them,
When I sitting heard the astronomer where
he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,
How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,
Till rising and gliding out I wander’d off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars."
- Walt Whitman

"Plotting The Collapse"

"Plotting The Collapse"
by The Zman

"On 24 February 2022, Russian president Vladimir Putin went on television to announce the Special Military Operation in Ukraine. Russia is a legalistic society, so Putin did not declare war or even say it was an invasion, as those terms carry meaning within Russian law that would trigger other parts of the law. We are now fast approaching the two-year anniversary of what everyone involved thought was going to be a quick and largely bloodless path to a negotiated settlement.

For the last eighteen months Russian leaders have talked about the conflict lasting years, as it is now a proxy war between Russia and its partners and the United States and the vassal states of the West. Some have suggested this war is like the Thirty Years War in that it will radically change the moral and political order in Europe, eventually seeing the United States exit Europe entirely. Others see this as another sign that the West is in crisis and headed for dark times.

Putting aside the big picture aspects of the war, things may be running ahead of schedule, at least from the Russian perspective. The first big item to start the year is the stalemate in Washington over Ukraine funding. To the shock and horror of the neocons and their fellow travelers, the public is not interested in the issue, which means there is no risk to opposing more money for Ukraine. The result is money for Ukraine is probably a dead issue for 2024.

That will have enormous implications for Ukraine. The billions flowing from Washington to Kiev do three important things. First, Zelensky uses the money to buy loyalty, as he is Washington’s bagman. This allows him to buy off the various factions in Ukraine and make sure pro-Washington people are in the government. It is why he has faced little opposition to cancelling the elections. Those inclined to speak out against this have either been bribed or jailed by those being bribed.

That brings up the second thing the money does for Ukraine. Those dollars are not just dumped on Ukraine. Instead, the dollars are converted into Ukrainian hryvnia, which are then deposited into the Ukraine banking system. Of course, Ukraine also gets euros from selling energy products and agricultural products to the EU on special deals and those are converted to hryvnia. This is what allows Kiev to pay government employees and mask the money printing to pay the soldiers.

The final piece of the puzzle is the corruption around converting dollars and euros into weapons that can be used in the war. Even regime media has been forced to admit that a lot of the weapons have ended up on the black market. No one knows how much has been stolen or who is doing the stealing, but Ukraine is a pirate’s cove now, with privateers, official and unofficial, stealing everything they can. Even Kiev is getting worried about the degree of theft.

If the flow of dollars stops or even significantly declines, all three legs of the Ukrainian side of the racket will snap. We may be seeing the first signs of this in the drama between President Zelensky and General Zaluzhny. It has been known for months that Zelensky wants to fire Zaluzhny, but so far, he has not been able to do it. Zaluzhny simply refuses to cooperate by resigning or taking another position. Instead he posts pics of himself with the leader of the ultra-nationalist faction.

When the president of a country wants to fire his top military officer, the officer usually resigns in order to save some face. In some cases, the civilian leader will fire the man in order to make a point. Truman fired MacArthur in order to send a message and underscore the subordination of the military to the civilian government. When the civilian leader cannot fire the top military commander and that commander is openly challenging the civilian leadership, there is a crisis.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but the head of the Wagner organization repeatedly challenged the authority of the Russian government. He even went so far as to stage a ceremonial march on Moscow. The Russians foolishly thought they could tolerate the behavior of Prigozhin until that point. They realized their error and it was not long before Prigozhin’s plane was falling out of the air in pieces.

You also have to add in the fact that Ukraine is a lawless, corrupt kleptocracy now flooded with weapons and soldiers. Last year, one of Zaluzhny’s lieutenants was blown up by a grenade hidden in a gift intended for Zaluzhny. Someone tried to poison the head of the secret police, Kyrylo Budanov, but missed and poisoned his wife and some of his staff instead. Of course, the Russians mysteriously got the coordinates of Budanov’s location and tried to take him out with a missile.

In such conditions, it is not hard to see how the end of dollars from Washington could set off a political crisis. If that is not enough, the war is going poorly for Ukraine as the Russians slowly ramp up the pressure on all fronts. According to Ukraine, they need thirty thousand new recruits a month to keep up their numbers, which means they are losing a thousand men a day in this war. Many of those men are trained, experienced soldiers who cannot be replaced with raw recruits.

As of this writing, the Russians have broken through one of the biggest strongholds in Ukraine, a place called Avdiivka, or often spelled Avdeevka. Since 2014 the Ukrainians have been building this place up with tunnels, bunkers, mine fields and heavy weapons, to be an anchor point of the front line. Reports from Ukraine say the Russians have entered the city and have trapped Ukrainian forces. That would mean a starving out operation will be followed by a surrender.

There are similar stories around smaller fortifications along the front and all of it is due to the shortage of men and material. According to Ukraine, they have mobilized close to a million men so far and they have plans to mobilize half a million more. Those kinds of losses are added pressure on a political system that has major cracks. If the money runs out, it is not long before some factorions think about what sort of deal they can cut with the Russians to end the war.

Collapse is like the famous Hemingway line about bankruptcy. It happens a little at a time and then all of a sudden. Armies collapse slowly over time then they begin to surrender in great waves. Governments collapse over a period of time, punctuated by crises until the principles either flee or end up dead in a final crisis. The current crisis in Ukraine could be just one chapter, but not the final chapter. Maybe the Republicans will produce the money and save the day.

Regardless, all of this points to a catastrophe down the road and probably right around the November presidential elections, which will make for great drama. Eventually the reality of Ukraine will come home to Washington, no matter how hard they try to pretend it does not exist. Like all bankruptcies, the failure of imperial foreign policy proceeds a little here and a little there, all leading to a point when the whole project collapses, maybe taking the empire with it."

"Don't Wonder..."

"Don't wonder why people go crazy. Wonder why they don't.
In the face of what we can lose in a day, in an instant,
wonder what the hell it is that makes us hold it together."
- "Grey's Anatomy"

The Poet: Mary Oliver, "Coming Home"

"Coming Home"

"When we are driving in the dark,
on the long road to Provincetown,
when we are weary,
when the buildings and the scrub pines lose their familiar look,
I imagine us rising from the speeding car.
I imagine us seeing everything from another place-
the top of one of the pale dunes, or the deep and nameless
fields of the sea.
And what we see is a world that cannot cherish us,
but which we cherish.
And what we see is our life moving like that
along the dark edges of everything,
headlights sweeping the blackness,
believing in a thousand fragile and unprovable things.
Looking out for sorrow,
slowing down for happiness,
making all the right turns
right down to the thumping barriers to the sea,
the swirling waves,
the narrow streets, the houses,
the past, the future,
the doorway that belongs
to you and me."

- Mary Oliver

"A Perpetual Illusion..."

"Human life is thus only a perpetual illusion; men deceive and flatter each other. No one speaks of us in our presence as he does of us in our absence. Human society is founded on mutual deceit; few friendships would endure if each knew what his friend said of him in his absence, although he then spoke in sincerity and without passion. Man is then only disguise, falsehood, and hypocrisy, both in himself and in regard to others. He does not wish any one to tell him the truth; he avoids telling it to others, and all these dispositions, so removed from justice and reason, have a natural root in his heart."
- Blaise Pascal

The Daily "Near You?"

Orland Park, Illinois, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"Believe Them..."

"When people tell you who they are, Maya Angelou famously advised, believe them. Just as important, however, when people try to tell you who you are, don’t believe them. You are the only custodian of your own integrity, and the assumptions made by those that misunderstand who you are and what you stand for reveal a great deal about them and absolutely nothing about you."
- Maria Popova

“9 Short Quotes That Changed My Life and Why”

“9 Short Quotes That Changed My Life and Why”
by Ryan Holiday

“Like a lot of people, I try to collect words to live by. Most of these words come from reading, but also from conversations, from teachers, and from everyday life. As Seneca, the philosopher and playwright, so eloquently put it: “We should hunt out the helpful pieces of teaching and the spirited and noble-minded sayings which are capable of immediate practical application – not far-fetched or archaic expressions or extravagant metaphors and figures of speech – and learn them so well that words become works.”

In my commonplace book, I keep these little sayings under the heading “Life.” That is, things that help me live better, more meaningfully, and with happiness and honesty. Below are 9 sayings, what they mean, and how they changed my life. Perhaps they will strike you and be of service. Hopefully the words might become works for you too.
o
“If you see fraud and do not say fraud, you are a fraud.” 
- Nassim Taleb
This little epigram from Nassim Taleb has been a driving force in my life. It fuels my writing, but mostly it has fueled difficult personal decisions. A few years ago, I was in the middle of a difficult personal situation in which my financial incentives were not necessarily aligned with the right thing. Speaking out would cost me money. I actually emailed Nassim. I asked: “What does ‘saying’ entail? To the person? To the public? At what cost? And how do you know where/when ego might be the influencing factor in determining where you decide to go on that public/private spectrum?” His response was simple: If it harms the collective, you speak up until it no longer does. There’s another line in Shakespeare’s ‘Julius Caesar.‘ Caesar, having returned from the conquest of Gaul, is reminded to tread lightly when speaking to the senators. He replies, “Have I accomplished so much in battle, but now I’m afraid to tell some old men the truth?” That is what I think about with Nassim’s quote. What’s the point of working hard and being successful if it means biting your tongue (or declining to act) when you see something unfair or untoward? What do you care what everyone else thinks?
o
“It can have meaning if it changes you for the better.” 
- Viktor Frankl
Viktor Frankl, who was imprisoned and survived three separate Nazi concentration camps, lost his wife, his parents, job, his home and the manuscript that his entire life’s work had gone into. Yet, he emerged from this horrific nightmare convinced that life was not meaningless and that suffering was not without purpose. His work in psychology – now known as logotherapy – is reminiscent of the Stoics: We don’t control what happens to us, only how we respond. Nothing deprives us of this ability to respond, even if only in the slightest way, even if that response is only acceptance. In bad moments, I think of this line. It reminds me that I can change for the better because of it and find meaning in everything – even if my “suffering” pales in comparison to what others have gone through.
o
“Thou knowest this man’s fall; 
but thou knowest not his wrassling.”
 - James Baldwin
As James Baldwin reflected on the death of his father, a man who he loved and hated, he realized that he only saw the man’s outsides. Yes, he had his problems but hidden behind those external manifestations was his own unique internal struggle which no other person is ever able to fully comprehend. The same is true for everyone – your parents, your boss, the person behind you in line. We can see their flaws but not their struggles. If we can focus on this, we’ll have so much more patience and so much less anger and resentment. It reminds me of another line that means a lot to me from Pascal: “To understand is to forgive.” You don’t have to fully understand or know, but it does help to try.
o
“This is not your responsibility, but it is your problem.” 
- Cheryl Strayed
Though I came to Cheryl Strayed late, the impact has been significant. In the letter this quote came from, she was speaking to someone who had something unfair done to them. But you see, life is unfair. Just because you should not have to deal with something doesn’t change whether you in fact need to. It reminds me of something my parents told me when I was learning to drive: It doesn’t matter that you had the right of way if you end up dying in an accident. Deal with the situation at hand, even if you don’t want to, even if someone else should have to, because you’re the one that’s being affected by it. End of story. Her quote is the best articulation I’ve found of that fact.
o
“Dogs bark at what they cannot understand.”
- Heraclitus
People are going to criticize you. They are going to resist or resent what you try to do. You’re going to face obstacles and a lot of those obstacles will be other human beings. Heraclitus is explaining why. People don’t like change. They don’t like to be confused. It’s also a fact that doing new things means forcing change and confusion on other people. So, if you’re looking for an explanation for all the barking you’re hearing, there it is. Let it go, keep working, do your job. My other favorite line from Heraclitus is: “Character is fate.” Who you are and what you stand for will determine who you are and what you do. Surely character makes ignoring the barking a bit easier.
o
“Life is short – the fruit of this life is a 
good character and acts for the common good.” 
- Marcus Aurelius
Marcus wrote this line at some point during the Antonine Plague – a global pandemic spanning the entirety of his reign. He could have fled Rome. Most people of means did. No one would have faulted him if he did too. Instead, Marcus stayed and braved the deadliest plague of Rome’s 900-year history. And we know that he didn’t even consider choosing his safety and fleeing over his responsibility and staying. He wrote repeatedly about the Stoic concept of sympatheia - the idea that all things are mutually woven together, that we were made for each other, that we are all one. 

It’s one of the lesser-known Stoic concepts because it’s easier to only think and care about the people immediately around you. It’s tempting to get consumed by your own problems. It’s natural to assume you have more in common and the same interests as the people who look like you or live like you do. But that is an insidious lie – one responsible for monstrous inhumanity and needless pain. When other people suffer, we suffer. When the world suffers, we suffer. What’s bad for the hive is bad for the bee, Marcus said. When we take actions, we have to always think: What would happen if everyone did this? What are the costs of my decisions for other people? What risks am I externalizing? Is this really what a person with good character and a concern for others would do? You have to care about others. It’s sometimes the hardest thing to do, but it’s the only thing that counts. As Heraclitus (one of Marcus’ favorites) said, character is fate. It’s the fruit of this life.
o
“Happiness does not come from the seeking, 
it is never ours by right.” 
- Eleanor Roosevelt
Eleanor Roosevelt was a remarkable woman. Her father killed himself. Her mother was verbally abusive. Her husband repeatedly betrayed her – even up to the moment he died. Yet she slowly but steadily became one of the most influential and important people in the world. I think you could argue that happiness and meaning came from this journey too. Her line here is reminiscent of something explained by both Aristotle and Viktor Frankl – happiness is not pursued, it ensues. It is the result of principles and the fulfillment of our potential. It is also transitory – we get glimpses of it. We don’t have it forever and we must continually re-engage with it. Whatever quote you need to understand this truth, use it. Because it will get you through bad times and to very good ones.
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“You could leave life right now.
 Let that determine what you do and say and think.” 
- Marcus Aurelius
If there is better advice than this, it has yet to be written. For many civilizations, the first time that their citizens realize just how vulnerable they are is when they find out they’ve been conquered, or are at the mercy of some cruel tyrant, or some uncontainable disease. It’s when somebody famous – like Tom Hanks or Marcus Aurelius – falls ill that they get serious. The result of this delayed awakening is a critical realization: We are mortal and fragile, and fate can inflict horrible things on our tiny, powerless bodies. There is no amount of fleeing or quarantining we can do to insulate ourselves from the reality of human existence: memento mori – thou art mortal. No one, no country, no planet is as safe or as special as we like to think we are. We are all at the mercy of enormous events outside our control. You can go at any moment, Marcus was constantly reminding himself with each of the events swirling around him. He made sure this fact shaped every choice and action and thought.
o
“Some lack the fickleness to live as
 they wish and just live as they have begun.” 
- Seneca
After beginning with Seneca, let’s end with him. Inertia is a powerful force. The status quo – even if self-created – is comforting. So people find themselves on certain paths in life and cannot conceive of changing them, even if such a change would result in more personal happiness. We think that fickleness is a negative trait, but if it pushes you to be better and find and explore new, better things, it certainly isn’t. I’ve always been a proponent of dropping out, of quitting paths that have gotten stale. Seneca’s quote has helped me with that and I actually have it framed next to my desk so that I might look at it each day. It’s a constant reminder: Why am I still doing this? Is it for the right reasons? Or is it just because it’s been that way for a while?

The power of these quotes is that they say a lot with a little. They help guide us through the complexity of life with their unswerving directness. They make us better, keep us centered, give us something to rest on – a kind of backstop to prevent backsliding. That’s what these 9 quotes have done for me in my life. Borrow them or dig into history or religion or philosophy to find some to add to your own commonplace book. And then turn those words… into works.”

"Global Economy 2/7/24"

Gregory Mannarino, PM 2/7/24
"A Worldwide Commercial Real Estate Meltdown 
Is Going To Occur, Just Not Now"
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Full screen recommended.
Epic Economist. 2/7/24
"China's Stock Market Tumbles: 
The Hong Kong Crisis Deepens - $6 Trillion Market Wipe Out"
"This video dives into the heart of the Hong Kong crisis as China's stocks hit record lows, wiping out $6 trillion. It uncovers the complex factors, from a selloff in stocks to real estate woes, triggering a market chaos. Discover the human stories behind the numbers, with families, businesses, and a city grappling with economic challenges. Explore the government's responses, investor sentiments, and the social media outcry, offering a comprehensive view of the unfolding turmoil."
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"How It Really Is"

Jethro Tull, "Locomotive Breath"
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"When people pile up debts they will find difficult and perhaps even impossible to repay, they are saying several things at once. They are obviously saying that they want more than they can immediately afford. They are saying, less obviously, that their present wants are so important that, to satisfy them, it is worth some future difficulty. But in making that bargain they are implying that when the future difficulty arrives, they’ll figure it out. They don’t always do that.”
– Michael Lewis, “Boomerang”

Robert Gore, "Controlled Instability"

"Controlled Instability"
Would-be rulers embrace a moronic oxymoron.
by Robert Gore

"The Houthis stymie 12 percent of the world’s shipping. Israel has bitten off more than it can chew and is desperately trying to maneuver the U.S. into a broader Middle Eastern engagement and years of pointless war. In Europe, farmers and truckers are protesting and blocking roads over climate change measures and other grievances. In the U.S., a governor ignores a Supreme Court decision and receives support from 25 fellow governors.

At the recently concluded confab at Davos, the world’s would-be rulers conferred on how they would rule the world. How quaint. They’re going to rule a world that’s spinning out of their, or anybody else’s, control. A Russian politician, Konstantin Dolgov, coined a phrase for the oxymoronic pipe dream that prevails in Washington, Davos, Brussels, and Tel Aviv: “The Americans need controlled instability to realize their own plans.” Dolgov noted: “But this instability has long been out of Washington’s control.”

Controlled instability is a futile hope from a bygone age. The instability that manifests daily is anything but controlled. Texas Governor Greg Abbott and his fellow governors’ defiance marks an emerging phase: instability and conflict among actors within the political system. It may be posturing, but it still amounts to a middle finger from the governors to the federal government and its once revered Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court has been rubber-stamping expansion of the federal government’s power since the Constitution was ratified. The most egregious recent examples were National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (2012) and King v. Burwell (2015), the decisions that upheld Obamacare. Nobody protested against the program that hastened the destruction of American health care. Nine years after Burwell, anti-government rage is kindling fires in the U.S. and all over the world. Control is losing; instability is winning, and the game is still in the early innings.

The control freaks cling to their empire and wars. Empire is untenable, but the U.S. military is being deployed into another Middle Eastern quagmire. The Middle East is particularly unsuited for U.S. imperial ventures. The sum total of Western knowledge of the region is a nanoparticle compared to the Everest of its ignorance.

The Middle East is tribal; the concept of a nation with a national government is a foreign import. Tribal rivalries date back to Old Testament times and have always undermined the best laid plans of emperors, kings, sultans, sheiks, satraps, and other poobahs. The Islamic religion has been the one quasi-unifying force, but it is split and both the Sunni and Shia denominations are splintered into various sects.

The secret Sykes-Picot treaty of 1916 between Britain and France, with assent from the Russian Empire and the Kingdom of Italy, drew lines on the map of the Ottoman Empire (allied with the losers in World War I), specified European spheres of influence, and created so-called nations to be dominated by the European victors.

It was hubristic folly, matched by the Balfour Declaration one year later. In a letter from British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour to Lord Rothschild, a leader of the British Jewish Community, the British government declared its endorsement of a “national home for the Jewish people” in what would become, in 1922, the British Mandate for Palestine and Transjordan. At that time, Jews were only a single-digit percentage of Palestine’s population.

Outsiders, especially those bent on domination, have never fared particularly well in the Middle East. It’s tough enough for insiders bent on domination. Outsiders can generally find compliant satraps whose ostensible loyalty is secured through bribery and extortion, but the average Mohammad deeply resents his overlords and resists them in his own way. No wonder then, that Sykes-Picot and the Balfour Declaration proved to be recipes for disaster.

The U.S. threw it and the UN’s weight behind the Zionist project in 1948, when Palestine became Israel and Jews began displacing Palestinian Arabs, an ongoing process that has accelerated since the October 7 Hamas massacre. Pre-October 7 controlled instability in Gaza has given way to all-out war, ostensibly against Hamas insurgents, but the death toll among Palestinian civilians is approaching 30,000.

The U.S. has long considered Israel its forward base in the Middle East. That imperial projection is now under attack on multiple fronts. Anyone who claims to know how the Houthis, Hezbollah, Hamas, and various other insurgent groups in Iraq and Syria - collectively known as the Axis of Resistance - are structured, coordinate with each other, or interact with Iran is lying. However, they are making war on the U.S.-Israel alliance, gradually ratcheting up the pressure, and last week the U.S. lost its first three soldiers since October 7.

The alliance will lose because it can’t win. The only way an outside power can “win” in the Middle East is to stay out. Occupation is the concomitant of empire, but now the costs of invasion and occupation dwarf the costs of insurgency. It’s no sure thing that the Israelis will be able to expel the Palestinians, their ultimate aim. Even if the do, it will only lead to greater instability over a wider area. The Axis of Resistance is opening new fronts almost daily across the Middle East. The U.S. empire and Israel have neither the military and financial staying power nor the regional support necessary for a lengthy war.

At Israel’s behest, demented warmongers are urging an alliance attack on Iran, which would exponentially compound its difficulties. An attack would probably bring in Russia and perhaps China. The alliance’s only option would be to take it nuclear, which could lead to humanity’s extinction. That’s apparently what the warmongers have been looking for all these years.

The West’s rulers and string pullers regard their internal opposition as so many Hamas, Houthis, Hezbollah, and Iranians. That characterization is more apt than they realize, particularly in the well-armed U.S. Anything those “extremists” can do in the Middle East can be done by what the Biden administration reckons are tens of millions of “domestic extremists” in the U.S. And what the Middle Eastern extremists are in the process of doing is defeating the U.S. government and its allies.

While much of the Western citizenry remains supine and susceptible to state propaganda and narratives, the ranks of the aware and engaged, fed by the alternative media hydra, keep expanding. Even the Corruptocracy and its media mouthpieces are starting to realize that fundamental change is afoot. At Davos, there were begrudging admissions (and lamentations) that the media no longer controls the narrative and dim recognition that nobody trusts it. Invitees even subjected themselves to Argentinian president Javier Milei’s and Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts’ excoriations.

What the Davos set doesn’t get is that for the next few centuries, change will messily burble up from the bottom, not be neatly imposed from the top. That’s actually the way it’s been for centuries, but the top has gotten all the press. Politics, governments and war are newsworthy, innovation and progress are not. The perpetual war of the former on the latter never gets mentioned at all. Regardless, the top will go on proposing; the bottom will go on disposing.

The transition in global affairs is hailed as multipolarity, but multipolarity proponents show little recognition that it’s not just the American empire and its confederates in the crosshairs, but all governments. Those coming together in the various not-the-West arrangements are still governments, and are just as tyrannical and corrupt as Western governments, in many cases more so.

Multipolarity will proceed full steam ahead, but it won’t stop until there are 8 billion plus poles, call it multi-multipolarity. The age of the state and ostensible control is giving way to the age of the individual and instability. That doesn’t mean that order won’t eventually emerge, but it will be order based on individual sovereignty, cooperation, and voluntarily exchange, or as friend of SLL Leif Smith calls it—freeorder—“Order spontaneously emergent from the imaginations and actions of free people.”

Recognition can come from anywhere. Governments may offer concessions to the new reality, their wiser functionaries realizing that limits on their power are better than no power at all. Argentina’s Milei could turn out to be in the vanguard of a much larger trend. Governments will never abolish themselves, but any moves towards freedom and away from control will be beneficial. In the interim, instability will reign, and we ain’t seen nothing yet."

"Banking Collapse 2/7/24"

"Banking Collapse 2/7/24"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly, AM 2/7/24
"Banks Are Crumbling - Time to Panic?"
There’s another bank that has dropped it stock price by almost 40% since the first of the year. When do we get concerned about this? Plus, the price of EV cars are dropping to the floor. Is this a sign that the industry is in big trouble?"
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Gregory Mannarino, AM 2/7/24
"Multiple Banks Are About To Fail, Take Action Now"
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Adventures With Danno, "Massive Price Increases At Walmart! This Is Crazy, What Now?"

Full screen recommended.
Adventures With Danno, AM 2/7/24
"Massive Price Increases At Walmart!
This Is Crazy, What Now?"
"In today's vlog, we are at Walmart and are noticing massive price increases on groceries. This is not good as we see another wave of price increases at Walmart. It's getting rough out here as many families are struggling to put food on the table."
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