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So, we rise from the rubble...
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Tuesday, March 10, 2026
"The Collapse of The Enlightenment"
"The Collapse of The Enlightenment"
by Paul Rosenberg
"We are watching the Enlightenment collapse before us in real time. I’ll be as brief as I can in my explanation of why this is so and how it came about, but it strikes me as something we should understand. Bear in mind that what remains of the Enlightenment is collapsing for structural reasons. I haven’t formed this discourse around political or academic theories, I’m basing it on facts and direct observations. Obviously I’m simplifying (one can’t write history any other way), but minus the inevitable exceptions and complications, this is what happened and what is happening.
How The Enlightenment Gained A Structure: The Enlightenment began with a collection of outsiders studying science. They had little backing and few credentials. In fact, the motto of the first group (that became The Royal Society) was Nullius in verba: “Take nobody’s word for it.” There was a lot to like in the early Enlightenment, and it led to a long string of crucial discoveries.
Halfway through its run, however, at about 1750 AD, the Enlightenment took a dark turn. Rather than working to discover what was right, it began to fixate on what was wrong. That is, the leading voices of the Enlightenment left off building and moved into tearing things down. That change ran the late Enlightenment directly into the French Revolution, but we’ll pass over those details. You can find more in our Free-Man’s Perspective issue entitled "Darkness From The Enlightenment."
Bear in mind that there hadn’t been a large intelligentsia in Europe before this time. While the Church did have an intelligentsia, it wasn’t expansive, and the Protestant Reformation had recently broken the Church’s monopoly on supplying rulers with bureaucrats, lawyers and advisors. And so a new intellectual class began to form and soon enough began seeking power. But since they saw no way to take power from monarchs, they turned to the Church and began plundering its legitimacy. If they could become the new arbiters of right and wrong, reason and truth, they’d have the same kind of power the Church had.
And so the new intelligentsia went about to seize the legitimacy of the Catholic church, bringing it back to themselves. As historian Margaret C. Jacob wrote: "They removed God and in his place inserted the blind forces of matter in motion."
These new intellectuals (especially in Protestant areas where attacking the Church was appreciated) were given positions in the universities that had sprung up several centuries earlier. The universities were, by this time, mainly under the control of secular rulers. "Science,” then, became the product of the new intellectuals, turning the Enlightenment into a power-friendly structure with a legend. More than that, it had a wonderful means of expansion: Attack and de-legitimize the Church. Enthrone science, with yourselves as its priests. Steadily, they drained legitimacy from the Church, for reasons both honest and otherwise.
The Next Step: The intellectual class spawned by the Enlightenment (which by now was mainly over) held posts at universities and courts, but they served at the whims of royals, whom they tended to resent. Still, they had an effective set of tools for tearing things down and an ideology that made them noble for doing so.
Into this moment stepped a Frenchman named August Comte, a deeply disturbed man. (He had spent time in an asylum, set fire to a hotel room, attempted suicide, physically abused his wife and so on.) Comte hoped to build an intellectual-driven world from the ashes of the French Revolution. He was also, by all accounts, a very bright man.
Beginning in about 1830, Comte developed a systematic and hierarchical classification of all sciences, including sociology, which he more or less invented. Comte taught that his sociology was the last and greatest of sciences, integrating them all. But Comte not only proclaimed his new science as the master of the old ones, he also tried to turn the philosophy of science upside down. From Francis Bacon onward, science had placed experiment above theory. (The better scientists still do.) Comte reversed this, as we can see in this passage:
"If it is true that every theory must be based upon observed facts, it is equally true that facts can not be observed without the guidance of some theories. Without such guidance, our facts would be desultory and fruitless; we could not retain them: for the most part we could not even perceive them."
This enthronement of theory above observation (or at least equal to it), unfortunately remains in great swaths of the social sciences. Furthermore there was a hidden assumption in Comte’s work, which Leo Tolstoy sussed out: "The whole edifice was built on the sand - on the arbitrary assertion that humanity is an organism." (That is, a collective entity.)
Karl Marx, which should be no surprise, knew Comte’s work very well. And the following passage from Comte makes it very clear that he opposed individual thought and judgment: "Men are not allowed to think freely about chemistry and biology: why should they be allowed to think freely about political philosophy? Man’s only right is to do his duty."
At the same time “democracy” was spreading across Europe, taking power away from monarchs and handing it to “the people,” which really meant “to those who can direct the people.” This again empowered the intellectuals. We should further note that this was precisely the time when government schooling began to be imposed upon the populace, beginning in Germany, rigidly overseen by the intellectual class. And so, by the later 19th century, the intellectual class had a solid model, a powerful base, and immense possibilities in front of them.
The Socialist Opportunity - Socialism, which took root in the early 20th century, was attractive to the intellectual class for a very simple reason: It could empower them much better. Democracy had provided them with influence, but not much structural support. Socialism could enforce the positions of the intellectuals.
As aggressive socialism rooted in Russia and other places, the intellectual class (in general) wanted it to succeed and wanted it to spread to their homelands. This is something that Orwell pointed out memorably: "The secret wish of this English Russophile intelligentsia was to destroy the old, equalitarian version of Socialism and usher in a hierarchical society where the intellectual can at last get his hands on the whip."
What intellectuals also saw in the USSR was a way to supplant the commercial powers of the world. They had all but supplanted the Catholic Church and were slowly supplanting the Protestant churches. They were also overcoming the monarchs. Commerce, however, riding on the industrial revolution, had stepped above them. It had brought immense benefits to the masses, who valued that far more than the bleatings of academics.
Socialism, then, became a path back to the top of the heap, and intellectuals grabbed the opportunity. Socialism could beat commerce back into submission. To justify their power-grab the intellectuals developed all sorts of theories about socialism’s superiority and worked overtime to get people to believe them. The beliefs of the masses became, to the intellectuals, the mirror of Narcissus. Gazing into that mirror, they saw their own glory.
Not all intellectuals followed this pattern, of course, but the better ones were pushed further and further from prominence; mostly they hung on in the objective sciences. I won’t recount the horrific results of 20th century socialism; those of us who have been paying attention know them all too well. Instead I’ll jump forward to the end of the story.
The Present Collapse: Intellectuals in the West, especially since 1970 or so, have ruled the institutions, and especially the education institutions, whose capacity and esteem they expanded greatly. They made university degrees compulsory for the children of a respectable family. This was the beginning of the end for the Enlightenment. It was a classic predatory overreach, the same as coyotes over-feeding on rabbits: soon enough there are too few rabbits and the coyotes starve.
The super-charging of “education” (recently with student loans) has produced a massive surplus of intellectuals. These young people are desperate to enlighten the world but have found all the jobs taken. And so, predictably, they are working doubly hard to get attention in other ways, which means pushing their beliefs, blindly, beyond any reasonable limits. This has been the driving force behind the reintroduction of racism (this time against whites) and the rise of censorship. The superfluous intellectuals intend to use their tools.
The question now is how far they can or will go. At this point it’s hard to see them standing down; they are enamored with socialism for the same reason their predecessors were a century ago. Added to that, the new generation of intellectuals has won a lot of battles. Beyond straight-up cultural subversions like drag queens in kindergartens, they have members in Congress and gained tremendous power from the George Floyd fiasco.
More than all this, however, the new intellectuals are bringing commerce to its knees. Giant corporations have bowed to their demands, have been hiring and firing based upon ephemera like skin color, and have even terminated the employment of people declared ideologically impure. It wasn’t empowered octogenarians who drove all of this, it was an army of superfluous intellectuals.
What happens next is hard to say, of course. One certainty is that the superfluous intellectuals will continue ripping things apart. The descendants of 1750 are equipped to tear down; they are not equipped to undertake the hard, slow and often thankless work of building. So, whether or not the entire system collapses into a heap of rubble, the new intellectuals will move things in that direction, and this fact will not be lost on their victims.
In the end, families will have to turn inward and young people, disillusioned with barbarities like neo-racism, overt manipulation and overt hate, will return to older values. Those values, however imperfect, were derived from direct human experience and not from self-serving theoreticians."
"The Long Dark"
"The Long Dark"
by Chris Floyd
"We are in the Long Dark now. Both hope and despair are the enemies of our survival. We must live in the awareness that we might not see the light come back, without ceasing to work - with empathy, anger and knowledge - for its return.
We must be here, in the moment, experiencing its fullness (whatever its horrors or joys), yet be elsewhere, removed from the madness pouring in from every side, the avalanche of degradation. We must be here, now, but also in a future we can’t see or even imagine.
We must see that we are lost, with no clear way forward, no sureties or verities to cling to, no roots to anchor us, no structures within or without that will always keep their coalescence in the chaotic, surging flow.
We must live in discrete moments of illumination and connection, pearls hung on an almost invisible string winding through the darkness. Striving, always striving, but not expecting; striving without hope, without despair, without any certainty at all as to the outcome, good or bad.
These are the conditions of the Long Dark, this is what we have to work with, this is where we find ourselves in the brief time we have in this vast, indifferent, astounding universe. As I once wrote long ago, quoting the old hymn: “Work, for the night is coming.”
So do we counsel fatalism, a dark, defeated surrender, a retreat into bitter, curdled quietude? Not a whit. We advocate action, positive action, unstinting action, doing the only thing that human beings can do, ever: Try this, try that, try something else again; discard those approaches that don't work, that wreak havoc, that breed death and cruelty; fight against everything that would draw us down again into our own mud; expect no quarter, no lasting comfort, no true security; offer no last word, no eternal truth, but just keep stumbling, falling, careening, backsliding, crawling toward the broken light.
And what is this "broken light"? Nothing more than a metaphor for the patches of understanding – awareness, attention, knowledge, connection – that break through our darkness and stupidity for a moment now and then. A light always fractured, under threat, shifting, found then lost again, always lost. For we are creatures steeped in imperfection, in breakage and mutation, tossed up – very briefly – from the boiling, chaotic crucible of Being, itself a ragged work in progress toward unknown ends, or rather, toward no particular end at all. Why should there be an "answer" in such a reality?
What matters is what works – what pulls us from our own darkness as far as possible, for as long as possible. Yet the truth remains that "what works" is always and forever only provisional – what works now, here, might not work there, then. What saves our soul today might make us sick tomorrow.
Thus all we can do is to keep looking, working, trying to clear a little more space for the light, to let it shine on our passions and our confusions, our anger and our hopes, informing and refining them, so that we can see each other better, for a moment – until death shutters all seeing forever."
"The Sane Who Know..."
“Human beings are, necessarily, actors who cannot become something before they have first pretended to be it; and they can be divided, not into the hypocritical and the sincere, but into the sane who know they are acting and the mad who do not.”
- W.H Auden
"A dog might feel as majestic as a lion, might bark as loud as a roar, might have a heart as mighty and brave as a Lion's heart, but at the end of the day, a dog is a dog and a lion is a lion. "
- Charlyn Khatero
"Sometimes..."
“Sometimes I lie awake at night, and ask, 'Where have I gone wrong?'
Then a voice says to me, 'This is going to take more than one night.'”
- Charles M. Schulz
- Charles M. Schulz
The Poet: gk thomas, “Wretched of the Earth”
“Wretched of the Earth”
“Poor kids,
wretched of the earth,
why should we feed you?
Why shouldn't we empty our sea of
bullets into your swollen bellies or
poison you with toxic chemicals
or depleted uranium?
Why should we care,
we who are living well?
Where is it written in stone
that you deserve better?
Or that we are not animals
subject to the law of nature:
kill or be killed?
You suspect us of being cruel,
but we are kind.
Our god tells us so.
It is yours that lies.
So you cry at night,
shivering in the cold
or sell yourselves
for a slice of bread.
What is that to those of
us who are living well?”
“Poor kids,
wretched of the earth,
why should we feed you?
Why shouldn't we empty our sea of
bullets into your swollen bellies or
poison you with toxic chemicals
or depleted uranium?
Why should we care,
we who are living well?
Where is it written in stone
that you deserve better?
Or that we are not animals
subject to the law of nature:
kill or be killed?
You suspect us of being cruel,
but we are kind.
Our god tells us so.
It is yours that lies.
So you cry at night,
shivering in the cold
or sell yourselves
for a slice of bread.
What is that to those of
us who are living well?”
- gk thomas
In remembrance of the 20,000 Palestinian children slaughtered in Gaza by the psychopathically degenerate inbred Israeli monsters. And here's the proof:
"Shocking Genetic Science Reveals Ashkenazi Jews Suffer High Rates of Mental Illness Due To Inbreeding"
"Shocking Genetic Science Reveals Ashkenazi Jews
Suffer High Rates of Mental Illness Due To Inbreeding"
by Mike Adams
"We are facing a dire situation for humanity. Today, I reveal some of the elements that have led us to that, including shocking scientific evidence that studied the inbreeding common among Ashkenazi Jews (the dominant population worldwide) and found that centuries of inbreeding has produced widespread mental illness and schizophrenia. This is relevant because Netanyahu thinks God talks to him and tells him to mass murder people in Gaza, Lebanon and Iran. He thinks he's hearing voices from God. It's actually a genetic mental illness caused by inbreeding.
- Genetic studies on Ashkenazi Jews reveal mental disorders.
- Generations of inbreeding have produced mental illness defects.
- High levels of schizophrenia among "God's chosen people."
- Netanyahu thinks God is talking to him and telling him to commit genocide.
- Quotes from Jewish Rabbis calling for mass death of non-Jews.
- The U.S. has provided nuclear weapons to mentally ill sociopathic inbreds.
- Jewish inbreeding has also removed "mirror neurons" responsible for empathy and compassion.
- High risk of nuclear war that kills billions, due to Israel's insane genocide."
Fully explained in video here:
Many references online.
Now it all makes sense...
Dan, I Allegedly, "A Judge Just Blew Up Red Light Cameras"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly, 3/10/26
"A Judge Just Blew Up Red Light Cameras"
"A Florida judge just delivered a bombshell ruling declaring red light cameras unconstitutional, and the impact could be massive. For years, cities and private companies have generated billions of dollars in automated traffic fines, often sending tickets to drivers who weren’t even behind the wheel. Now a court ruling says the system may violate the presumption of innocence, potentially opening the door for millions of drivers to challenge citations issued by automated enforcement systems. If this ruling spreads to other states, it could shake up a billion-dollar traffic enforcement industry and force cities to rethink how they generate revenue from drivers. In this breaking news update, Dan from iAllegedly breaks down the case, why the judge ruled the way he did, and how this decision could impact red light cameras, speed cameras, traffic tickets, and municipal revenue across the United States."
Comments here:
"Grocery Prices That Are Set To Skyrocket In Spring 2026!"
Adventures With Danno, 3/10/26
"Grocery Prices That Are Set To Skyrocket In Spring 2026!"
Comments here:
Bill Bonner, "Bomb Thy Neighbor"
"Bomb Thy Neighbor"
Which religion allows you to smite someone just because you think he
might want to smite you? And ‘do unto others as you would have
them do unto you’ doesn’t leave much room for bombing girls’ schools.
by Bill Bonner
“He’s one of the dumbest human beings I’ve ever seen...
you’ll end up starting World War III with a guy like that.”
- Donald Trump, commenting on Lindsey Graham
Youghal, Ireland - "Whose side is God really on? ‘Gott mit uns’ said the Germans in WWI. Maybe, but what do the seraphim and cherubim say about this one? Which side is the ‘powerful, swift sword’ backing? Today, we leave behind the murder and mayhem of the ‘first order effects’...and set aside (for today) the ‘second order’ economic and financial effects...and we wonder about the fourth- and fifth-order effects. Who are the ‘bad people’...and can we count on God in the war we just started?
The dumbest member of the Senate clearly thinks so. Lindsey Graham says this is a ‘religious war.’ Perhaps it was a process of elimination that led him to it. None of the other explanations have held up. Implanting democracy? Nope...no one would believe it.
A US attack to head off an Iranian attack intended to head off an Israeli attack? Crazier things have happened! The nuclear threat? Our own intel agencies tell us there never was a realistic risk.
Regime change? Un un again. The successor Supreme Leader is considered more ‘hard line’ than his father. The Muslim faithful, he says, must seek revenge for the killing of his father. Like Graham, he wants to turn it into a religious war.
But what religions are we talking about? The Mohammedans may or may not have a religion that allows revenge. But which religion allows you to smite someone just because you think he might want to smite you? And ‘do unto others as you would have them do unto you’ doesn’t leave much room for bombing girls’ schools.
But Graham is not the only one who thinks of this war as a religious exercise. Mike Huckabee, US ambassador to Israel, put a similar spin on it. CBN: "‘You Will Hear From Heaven’: Huckabee Tells Trump Only God’s Voice Matters in Israel-Iran Conflict."
What...did God give the go-ahead to attack Iran? What kind of God is this? Does he speak directly to Donald J. Trump? Even stranger, some people think Jesus is involved. Newsweek: "US Commander Said Trump ‘Anointed by Jesus’ to Attack Iran: Report."
Nordic Times referring to Ted Cruz: "Republican Senator: The Bible commands us to support Israel."
But if the ‘religious war’ claim were true, the Supreme Court would have to put a stop to it immediately. The US constitution clearly forbids the government from favoring one religion over another. Of course, if God tells you to do something...it’s probably best to do it, whether it contradicts your constitution or your own religion. But is God really on speaking terms with Huckabee, Trump, or Graham? We don’t know. But their case for war rests on such a flimsy reed it hardly bears the weight of a single sparrow, let alone the killing of thousands of people.
In our Sunday church service - St. Mary’s, Youghal - the Old Testament reading focused on the slender reed in question. In it, the Lord says to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation and I will bless you...and the one who curses you, I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”
Did God create the universe in six days? We don’t think so...at least not in the 24-hour days we know. But, before the universe existed - with no sun...and no earth - a ‘day’ could mean anything. Much of the Bible is similarly subject to interpretation. But this section clearly says ‘all the families of the earth will be blessed,’ not just the families now under the command of Netanyahu and Trump. Logically, the Iranians are as blessed as the Israelis...and as we are.
Jesus later amplified the point, and - in the story of the Good Samaritan and in the Sermon on the Mount - showed that his God didn’t play favorites. ‘Love thy neighbor,’ he said. But of course, anyone who claims to know which way God is leaning in the US-Iran contest is either a fool or a charlatan. Maybe both."
o
Religion...
Watch with sound on...incredible.
"The Largest Supply Disruption In History Has Made The Price Of Oil The Most Important Economic Number In The World At This Moment"
by Michael Snyder
"What a wild week it has been already. On Sunday night, I watched as the price of oil hit $116 a barrel. It was insane. Financial markets started to panic all over the world because investors know that if the price of oil stays above $100 a barrel for an extended period of time it will absolutely crush the global economy. Our entire way of life depends upon cheap energy, because virtually every type of human activity in the modern world uses energy. I am using energy as I write this article, and you are using energy as you read this article. After the crazy spike in the price of oil that we witnessed on Sunday night, authorities quickly shifted into damage control mode, and for the moment they have successfully pushed the price of oil back below 90 dollars a barrel. But how long will they be able to keep it there?
According to CNBC, we are currently experiencing the largest oil supply disruption in the history of the world…"The U.S. war against Iran has triggered the largest oil supply disruption in history, more than double the previous record set during the Middle East crisis of the 1950s, according to an analysis by consulting firm Rapidan Energy.
About 20% of the world’s oil supply has been disrupted for nine days now as tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz remains at a standstill. Crude prices have surged above $100 per barrel in response. The biggest disruption before the current war was during the Suez Crisis of 1956 when Britain, France and Israel invaded Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, the energy consulting firm told clients in a Sunday note. In that crisis, about 10% of the world’s oil supply at the time was disrupted.'
Needless to say, there have been other times when the global supply of oil has been disrupted for one reason or another. During those times, nations with spare capacity have been able to step up and bridge the gap. But this time around, the nations that possess most of the spare capacity are being directly affected by this war… "The big difference between the supply shock of the Iran war and past crises is the world has no spare oil capacity to address the problem, the analysts said. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates hold the overwhelming majority of swing capacity but they have been cut off from the global oil market by the Hormuz closure, the analysts said.
“The conflict has not only taken offline a historically high share of global supply – it has simultaneously disrupted the primary holders of spare capacity,” the Rapidan analysts said. “The result is a market with no meaningful cushion. There is no swing producer positioned to step in.”
It appears that a lot of pain at the pump is ahead for all of us. Already, the average price of a gallon of gasoline in the state of California has surpassed the five dollar mark… Prices are currently highest in California, where drivers were paying an average of $5.20 per gallon on Monday morning, and in Washington state, where gas hit $4.63 per gallon. We haven’t seen anything like this in a long time. If you can believe it, one gas station in Los Angeles is actually charging more than 8 dollars for a gallon of gasoline…
A lot of people actually thought that the article that I posted yesterday was exaggerating the threat. I guess not. The Iranians continue to insist that they will be able to push the price of oil up to $200 a barrel…“If they can afford the price of oil at $200 per barrel, let them keep playing this game.”
The spokesman for a wing of the IRGC, Ebrahim Zolfighari, says the US has opened a new chapter in the war by bombing Iran’s energy infrastructure. The good news is that for now western authorities have been able to push the price of oil back below $90 a barrel.
Early on Monday, G7 finance ministers suggested that there could soon be a coordinated release of emergency oil reserves…"The G7 said it was ready to take “necessary measures” to address the economic impact of the US-Israel war on Iran, after a meeting prompted by soaring oil prices, which rose above $100 (£74) a barrel for the first time since 2022. Following a remote meeting on Monday, G7 finance ministers said they would closely monitor the situation but stopped short of agreeing to release emergency oil reserves.
“We discussed the current conflict in the Middle East, its impact for regional stability, global economic conditions, and financial markets, and the importance of secure trading routes,” they said in a statement."
When that news broke, it immediately ended the panic. So that was a good thing. But the truth is that releasing those oil reserves would only be a temporary measure, and it wouldn’t provide that much relief. Later on Monday, the price of oil really started plummeting once President Trump said that “the war is very complete”… President Trump told CBS News that he believes the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran is “very far ahead of schedule.” “I think the war is very complete, pretty much,” he said. “They have no navy, no communications, they’ve got no air force. Their missiles are down to a scatter. Their drones are being blown up all over the place, including their manufacturing of drones. If you look, they have nothing left. There’s nothing left in a military sense.”
Of course the war is not even close to over, but Trump’s statement was able to push the price of oil way down. And during that same interview, Trump warned that he was considering taking over the Strait of Hormuz… "Speaking to CBS News Senior White House Correspondent Weijia Jiang on Monday, U.S. President Donald Trump said that he is considering taking further action to secure the Strait of Hormuz, the critical waterway spanning from Iran to Oman through which a fifth of global oil supplies flow annually. Trump said that while some ships are moving through the Strait despite the Iranian threat, he said that he is “thinking about taking it over.”
It would take boots on the ground to physically secure the Strait of Hormuz, and Trump knows that. So what are we to make of his contradictory statements? The Chinese have also been very alarmed by what has been going on in the Strait of Hormuz, because they get a lot of their oil from the Middle East. Just hours ago, China warned that it “will take necessary measures to safeguard its own energy security”…
“Energy security is of paramount importance to the global economy, and all parties bear responsibility for ensuring stable and uninterrupted energy supplies,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun said Monday when asked whether Beijing would join G7 discussions about a coordinated release of strategic petroleum reserves. China will take necessary measures to safeguard its own energy security,” Guo added, referring reporters to the country’s “relevant authorities” for details."
China has repeatedly called for unimpeded tanker access through the strait, citing its importance to global trade, and Chinese officials have been holding talks with Iran about resuming safe oil passage, according to media reports last week. At the same time, Beijing has avoided directly blaming Tehran and has repeatedly condemned the U.S.-Israeli offensive as a violation of international law.
The Chinese are usually very hesitant to take military action. But once they decide to pull the trigger, they don’t mess around. Personally, I believe that this crisis is far from over. And that means that the price of oil could ultimately go much higher. Former IEA executive Neil Atkinson seems to agree with that assessment. In fact, he is convinced that “the sky is the limit” as for what this war could mean for the price of oil…
“Though there are oil stocks around the world, the point is that if this closure of the Strait persists, those oil stocks if they are deployed will be depleted and we are going to be in a situation where, with the oil production actually shut in, in Iraq and possibly in Kuwait and maybe even in time in Saudi Arabia, that we are going to be in a crisis the likes of which we have never seen before,” Atkinson told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe.” Asked what this could mean for oil prices, Atkinson replied: “Sorry, we are getting into the realms of educated guesswork here. I mean, there is no precedent for this. The sky is the limit.”
It would be wonderful if this war comes to an end before the end of this month. That would be a good thing for the entire world. But if that doesn’t happen, it is going to be exceedingly difficult for western authorities to keep the price of oil down. At this moment the price of oil is the most important economic number in the world, and if it rises above the $100 mark for an extended period of time the consequences will be disastrous."
Bob Moriarty: 'Trump Unleashed Armageddon' – Iran Is Winning, US Empire Collapsing, $400 Oil Coming"
"Bob Moriarty: 'Trump Unleashed Armageddon' –
Iran Is Winning, US Empire Collapsing, $400 Oil Coming"
by Christian White, 3/10/26
'March, 9: The Digital Age"
'March, 9: The Digital Age"
"Everything’s connected. Nothing’s working. Yesterday we got to know that a new Supreme Leader was named. Today, we know who: Mojtaba Khamenei. The son of. Fifty-six years old. Never held elected office. Never given a public speech. They bombed the father. They bombed the council while it was mid-vote. So this time: Zoom. Adapt or die – sometimes literally.
His family tree got pruned on day 1. Father, mother, wife, son, sister, brother-in-law… The people picking Iran’s next leader looked at the candidates, looked at the crater where the last one lived, and chose the man with the most personal reason on earth to never stop fighting. THAT is a statement! The IRGC pledged allegiance within hours. Putin congratulated him before the news was twelve hours old. “Reliable partner”.
Russia’s ambassador to the UK had already dropped any pretense: “We are not neutral. We are supportive to Iran”. Not “we urge restraint”. We support Iran. On the record. In London.
Iran’s parliament speaker went on state TV the same evening. “We are neither Venezuela nor Syria. Don’t confuse us with your previous projects”.
A hereditary succession in the one country whose entire identity was built on rejecting hereditary succession. The IRGC got its preferred candidate. The hardliners got their martyr’s son. And Trump got a negotiating partner whose entire family he personally ordered killed. Good luck with that phone call.
Footage surfaced yesterday of the Minab school strike. I want to be precise about what it shows, because precision matters when 168 children are dead and the President of the United States is lying about it on camera.
A cruise missile. Terminal diving mode. Tracked by a civilian as it adjusts its trajectory downward, finds the building it was given coordinates for, and hits it. Bellingcat geolocated the impact. Identified the weapon as a Tomahawk. Diving mode is not a malfunction. It is the final phase of terminal guidance, when the onboard seeker confirms it has acquired the designated target and commits to the strike. The missile did exactly what it was programmed to do. Forty minutes later, a second impact. Same site. When the parents and first responders were pulling the seven-year-olds out of the rubble. Double tap.
NBC confirmed in a classified congressional briefing that the school was on the Pentagon strike map. Trump, asked about it: “Based on what I’ve seen, that was done by Iran”. Hegseth: “We’re still investigating”. Strike package coordinates are logged in real time. Platform, munition, authorising officer, time on target. Support ticket status: unassigned. Priority: critical. No ETA.
Yesterday, Israel bombed over thirty oil depots across Tehran without telling Washington the scale of what was coming. A senior US official – quoted directly by Axios – “We don’t think it was a good idea”. Graham – Graham! – told Israel to “please be cautious about what targets you select”. The man who told cameras he was going to “make a ton of money” from this war suddenly discovered restraint when the oil he planned to profit from started burning. The US Energy Secretary went on Fox News the same day and announced the US has “no plans to strike Iran’s energy sector”. The energy sector was already on fire. Israel lit it. No review. Straight to production.
The disagreement isn’t about morality. Nobody in this coalition has lost any sleep over dead Iranians. It’s about the oil price. Israel wants to break Iran’s economy. The US wants Iran’s crude to keep flowing so Brent doesn’t hit $200. Both goals are incompatible. A Zoom call might have helped.
Meanwhile Bandar Abbas was struck again. Iranian vessels burning in port. The US Energy Secretary – the same one who just said “no plans to strike Iran’s energy sector” – told cameras that “China is about to lose its second of three gas station suppliers”. That’s not a war aim against Iran. That’s an economic strike on Beijing, laundered through Tehran’s port infrastructure.
A Patriot interceptor malfunctioned over Bahrain and crashed into a residential neighbourhood in Sitra. Multi-angle video. At least ten civilians injured by the missile that was supposed to save them. In the same country where the Shia majority was cheering Iranian strikes on day four, the American air defence is now landing on Bahraini rooftops. Then this morning three drones hit BAPCO again. Bahrain’s sole refinery, already struck on day six, now fully engulfed. Force majeure declared. 267,000 barrels a day. Ninety years of continuous operation, ended by something that costs less than a mid-range sedan.
Missiles kept arriving in Israel. Cluster submunitions scattered across Tel Aviv – Bat Yam hit, Bnei Brak residents sheltering in train stations, Rishon LeZion lost power from a direct impact. Multiple ballistic launches tracked every one to three hours. Warning times on some compressed to four minutes. Should be fifteen. The sensor holes aren’t getting smaller.
Qadr missiles are now carrying ten to twenty warheads per unit. One launch, twenty intercept problems. The cost-per-engagement maths that were already unsustainable just got multiplied by an order of magnitude. The blackout around all of this is enormous. When there’s no video, there’s no damage…
The IRGC struck an electronic warfare installation in Shandrawi, northern Iraq, using long-range drones with FPV guidance. That’s a new capability – precision at distance, hitting intelligence infrastructure rather than just bases.
Israel destroyed the ground control for Iran’s Khayyam satellite, a Russian-built platform providing one-metre resolution imagery from orbit. But a Chinese AI startup called MizarVision is already publishing labelled, geolocated satellite imagery of every asset in the theatre. War as a SaaS product. Near-real-time. Open source. All your base are belong to China. Hezbollah targeted the SES satellite ground station near Beit Shemesh. This was likely a symmetric response to the above.
After Ali Al-Salem was destroyed, the US moved its command-and-control operations into Kuwait’s Social Insurance building. A civilian structure. China shared the location. Iran, ever the innovator, offers same-day drone delivery. Jeff Bezos is taking notes.
Fifteen IDF helicopters flew into the Bekaa Valley from Syrian airspace. Second attempt at the same objective – reportedly to “recover the remains of Ron Arad, a pilot shot down in 1986”. The first insertion sent four helicopters. This time fifteen, and Hezbollah shot one down near Nabi Chit.
A Hermes 450 drone was also shot down over southern Lebanon.
Israel flattened the Russian Cultural Center in Nabatieh. No1 reads books anymore anyway.
Another Iranian ballistic missile was intercepted by NATO air defenses over the eastern Mediterranean. Debris fell in Gaziantep – second time in four days.
Turkey put six F-16s on Northern Cyprus to “bolster the Cypriot defense against Iran”
Explosions at Akrotiri on Cyprus. The US is evacuating consulate staff from Adana in southeastern Turkey. The Mediterranean front that didn’t exist ten days ago now has its own logistics chain.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry: “Iran did NOT strike Azerbaijan, Cyprus, or Turkey. We have always warned about false flag operations”. I’ve been tracking this since the Cyprus drone on day two. I repeat: cui bono?
MenchOsint tracked a seventh soldier’s body returned to Dover on a C-17 from King Feisal Air Base, Jordan. The NYPD announced the death. Not CENTCOM. Somewhere in Erbil, the IRGC claims eleven more soldiers are dead and CENTCOM hasn’t said a word.
Witkoff and Kushner cancelled their scheduled trip to Israel. Meeting with Netanyahu, no explanation. Probably the conference room was double-booked.
Leavitt told reporters that conscription is “on the table”. Her words: “The president wisely keeps his options on the table”. Conscientious objector groups say the hold music is patriotic.
Iran’s Prosecutor General announced the confiscation of assets belonging to diaspora citizens who publicly supported the strikes. The exiles who cheered from the safety of Maryland while their former neighbours burned. Posting their Ws while the capital was flattened. They got the L.
The markets finally stopped pretending. WTI crude opened Sunday at $99, gapping up from Friday’s $89. Then it kept going all the way to $112. Up twenty per cent on the day. Brent blew through $113. Largest daily gain since records began in 1982. Then it crashed. $113 to $93 in hours.
The catalyst? G7 finance ministers were reportedly discussing a joint emergency release of 300~400 million barrels from strategic petroleum reserves. Japan preparing its first-ever SPR tap since 1978. Schumer demanding Trump release the SPR that Biden already drained. A single well-placed leak killed the move in crude oil. At the exact peak. I’ve seen this play before. This well-placed phone call to the FT nuked the rally before the margin cascade could take the entire financial system with it.
Same as in silver, nothing fundamentally changed. The Hormuz disruption has already reduced global inventories by an estimated 450 million barrels. The proposed SPR release doesn’t even cover the shortfall. The US Energy Secretary claims traffic is “resuming”. A Greek tanker turned on invis mode. Transponder off. The only ships sailing openly are Chinese-flagged and Iranian-flagged. Everyone else is at anchor, waiting for insurance that won’t come. Gulf states are cutting oil production. Production: online, export: offline. Storage: full. Kuwait already declared force majeure. The oil that can’t leave is piling up, and some of it is burning.
$5 a gallon at the pump? “A very small price to pay” according to Trump.
KOSPI crashed 8% and triggered a circuit breaker – the worst single-day decline in South Korean history. Last week it dropped 17%, bounced 15% the next day on leveraged retail buying, and now it’s cratering again. The Nikkei fell 6%, one of the bigger single-day drops on record. Taiwan down 5.1%. Australia 4%. $1.3 trillion in Asian equity value gone in a single session. German ten-year note futures at their lowest since 2011. Goldman’s top trader said that everything you knew about the market flipped this week.
South Korea imposed a fuel price cap. First time since 1997. Taiwan did the same. Price controls. In 2026.
Gold fell. Not because the crisis eased – because traders needed to sell it to meet margin calls on oil (link). COMEX silver at $86, Shanghai at $98.
Sumitomo Chemical Asia declared force majeure on deliveries – first major Asian manufacturer to break. Yesterday BlackRock and BlackStone. Goldman called it a 10-sigma week. The credit cockroaches are scattering.
Sometime before the war started, Trump’s son Eric invested in Powerus, a drone manufacturer. Trump signed an executive order to ban Chinese drone components, clearing the field for domestic suppliers. Then the war started. Now Powerus is vying for a Pentagon contract. War profiteering used to be at least opaque.
Von der Leyen on camera: “There should be no tears shed for the Iranian regime”. The emotional intelligence of a spreadsheet."
"Larry Johnson: Iran War Will Trigger Global Economic Collapse, US Military Lying About Casualties"
Rachel Blevins, 3/9/26
"Larry Johnson: Iran War Will Trigger Global Economic Collapse,
US Military Lying About Casualties"
Comments here:
"Growing Doubts by US and Israel About the War with Iran"
"Growing Doubts by US and Israel
About the War with Iran"
by Larry C. Johnson
"Despite bold claims from Donald Trump and his Secretary of War that Iran has lost the war and is on the cusp of surrendering, Iran has not got the memo and continues an unrelenting wave of a drone and missile attacks on US targets in the Persian Gulf and on targets throughout Israel. During an interview with CBS News, Donald Trump stated that the “military operation” against Iran is actually completed. He said: "I think the war, by and large, is over. They [the Iranian side] have no fleet, no communications, no aviation left."
In private, however, Trump’s advisers have urged him privately to look for an exit plan from the Iran war amid spiking oil prices and concerns that a prolonged conflict could spark political backlash, according to WSJ. Officials close to the president are urging him to start outlining an exit strategy from the conflict while portraying the military campaign as having largely achieved its goals. Discussions in Washington are increasingly focused on declaring success and shifting toward a controlled withdrawal before the economic and political costs rise further.
I think this explains why President Trump called Vladimir Putin. The Kremlin has provided a readout of a recent phone call between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin that occurred on March 9, 2026 (Monday) and lasted about one hour. It was described by Kremlin foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov as “frank,” “businesslike,” “constructive,” and “serious.” The conversation was initiated by Trump. The primary focus of the call was the US and Israeli war with Iran, with Putin sharing proposals for a “quick political and diplomatic settlement.” This included references to his prior contacts with Gulf state leaders, Iran’s president, and others.
This does not mean that President Putin is going to pull the rug out from under Iran. I believe that Putin has two goals: 1) Keep the war from spreading, and 2) Secure an agreement that will remove economic sanctions from Iran and guarantee it will not face future attacks from the US and Israel.
Trump and his national security advisors are laboring under the false belief that Iran is running out of missiles. While the US military is celebrating the destruction of missile launchers, Iran is relying on buried launchers that fire their more advanced missiles from hidden tunnels. I believe that Iran will adopt a tough unyielding stance when it comes to negotiations… Demand an end to all economic sanctions and the withdrawal of US military forces from the Persian Gulf. While the US is likely to reject those demands - at least for now - Iran is prepared to continue its attacks and is likely to introduce a new, more sophisticated missile to the fray in the coming days.
Trump is not alone with the growing doubts about the possible success of US and Israeli strikes on Iran. Israel’s confidence is fading. According to David Ignatius, writing in the Washington Post: "A few senior officials in Israel are starting to voice concern about the escalating, open-ended attack on Iran - and suggesting possible exit ramps that might halt the war before it further damages the region and the global economy..."
What concerns this official and others I’ve spoken with the past few days is that the cost of the war continues to rise - for gulf states pounded by Iranian missiles, for a global economy that’s facing steep increases in oil and natural gas prices that could trigger a worldwide economic crisis, and for Trump himself, who took the United States to war without a popular base of support for the conflict. “I’m not sure it’s in our interest to fight until the regime is toppled,” said the Israeli official. “Nobody wants a never-ending story.”
Oil futures spiked early on Monday - reaching a priceof $120 - and then fell back to around $100 following remarks from Trump that led traders to believe the shutdown of oil flowing from the Persian Gulf could be short-lived. I think there is a lot of denial on Wall Street and among Trump’s most rabid supporters… They believe that Iran’s missile inventory is rapidly depleting and that there are cracks among the Iranian political and military leaders. I believe they are grossly misreading the situation. Iran is not close to depleting its supply of powerful, sophisticated ballistic missiles. Most Americans fail to understand that Iran’s outrage over the 28 February surprise attack is comparable to the fury that seized the United States in the wake of the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor and the 9-11 attacks in 2001. Iran will continue to attack US and Israeli targets and will not stop until the security of Iran - both economic and military - is secured. Judge Napolitano and I discussed the latest developments in the war with Iran:
"Alert! We're Being Lied To About Iran War, It's Much Worse And Trump is Full Of It"
Full screen recommended.
Prepper News, 3/9/26
"Alert! We're Being Lied To About Iran War,
It's Much Worse And Trump is Full Of It"
Comments here:
"Scott Ritter, “This Is Worse Than You Think” – The Iran War Reality"
Global War Analysis, 3/9/26
"Scott Ritter, “This Is Worse Than You Think”
– The Iran War Reality"
Comments here:
Monday, March 9, 2026
Jeremiah Babe, "Markets Down 1000… Then Up 200?! What Is Really Going On?! Mass Market Manipulation"
Jeremiah Babe, 3/9/26
"Markets Down 1000… Then Up 200?!
What Is Really Going On?! Mass Market Manipulation"
Comments here:
Musical Interlude: Deuter, "Endless Horizon"
Full screen recommended.
Deuter, "Endless Horizon"
○
"I cannot paint
What then I was. The sounding cataract
Haunted me like a passion: the tall rock,
The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood,
Their colors and their forms, were then to me
An appetite; a feeling and a love,
That had no need of a remoter charm,
By thought supplied, not any interest
Unborrowed from the eye.
That time is past,
And all its aching joys are now no more,
And all its dizzy raptures. Not for this
Faint I, nor mourn nor murmur: other gifts
Have followed; for such loss, I would believe,
Abundant recompense.
For I have learned
To look on nature, not as in the hour
Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes
The still, sad music of humanity,
Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power
To chasten and subdue."
- William Wordsworth,
"Lines Written A Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey"
"An Astonishing Look to the Heavens"
Full screen recommended.
"Jaw-Dropping First Images from the 3.2 Trillion Pixel Camera
At The Vera C. Rubin Observatory"
"Explore the universe's first images from the Vera Rubin Observatory's 3.2 trillion-pixel camera. Witness breathtaking views of galaxies, nebulae, and even asteroids, all captured in unprecedented detail. The video delves into the camera's unique capabilities and reveals its groundbreaking data collection process."
Comments here:
"Against All Odds..."
"There's a little animal in all of us and maybe that's something to celebrate. Our animal instinct is what makes us seek comfort, warmth, a pack to run with. We may feel caged, we may feel trapped, but still as humans we can find ways to feel free. We are each other's keepers, we are the guardians of our own humanity and even though there's a beast inside all of us, what sets us apart from the animals is that we can think, feel, dream and love. And against all odds, against all instinct, we evolve."
- "Grey's Anatomy"
"Iran Just Hit a Gulf Oil Refinery - The Energy War Has Begun"
Full screen recommended.
Money Over History, 3/9/26
"Iran Just Hit a Gulf Oil Refinery -
The Energy War Has Begun"
"A major escalation has just hit the global energy system. Iran has reportedly targeted a Gulf oil refinery, triggering massive fires and forcing energy infrastructure offline. As Gulf refineries, LNG plants, and oil facilities come under pressure, global oil prices are surging and markets are reacting across Asia, Europe, and the United States. Brent crude has already surged dramatically, global stock markets have lost trillions in value, and analysts warn the world could be entering a new phase of an energy war that could push oil toward $150–$200 per barrel. This conflict is no longer just regional - it is now impacting global energy, markets, and supply chains."
Comments here:
"We're In Trouble, Gas/Diesel Prices Skyrocketing"
Adventures With Danno, 3/9/26
"We're In Trouble, Gas/Diesel Prices Skyrocketing"
Comments here:
"Alert! Oil War Ramps Up, US Attacks Iran Oil Tankers, Trump Panics!"
Full screen recommended.
Prepper News, 3/9/26
"Alert! Oil War Ramps Up, US Attacks
Iran Oil Tankers, Trump Panics!"
Comments here:
"The Cloak of The Past..."
“The cloak of the past is cut from patches of feeling, and sewn with rebus threads. Most of the time, the best we can do is wrap it around ourselves for comfort or drag it behind us as we struggle to go on. But everything has its cause and its meaning. Every life, every love, every action and feeling and thought has its reason and significance: its beginning, and the part it plays in the end. Sometimes, we do see. Sometimes, we see the past so clearly, and read the legend of its parts with such acuity, that every stitch of time reveals its purpose, and a kind of message is enfolded in it. Nothing in any life, no matter how well or poorly lived, is wiser than failure or clearer than sorrow. And in the tiny, precious wisdom that they give to us, even those dread and hated enemies, suffering and failure, have their reason and their right to be.”
- Gregory David Roberts, “Shantaram”
"The Slow Unwinding of Our Primate Troops"
"The Slow Unwinding of Our Primate Troops"
by Paul Rosenberg
"The primary organizational model of humanity is the primate troop. That may seem degrading, and in a way it is, but it’s also the truth. I spent many pages detailing this in "Post-Primate Society," and won’t go through it all here, but the few ruling over the many and status hierarchies are very definitely primate models. Humans hybridize them, of course, and justify them far more intricately, but the central model of human organization is the primate troop, writ as large as possible. Whether or not this is comfortable or flattering are separate issues; the facts are quite clear enough for those who wish to see them. The good news is that we’re growing out of the primate model, and rather more quickly of late.
“Primate ways” are rooted in primate chemistry, and it’s a chemistry that we humans have inherited. Our hormones, among other things, are primate hormones, and while we’ve come a long, long way from baboons and chimps, primate chemicals do have their effects in us. Here, just to establish primate style, is a passage from "The Primate Origins of Human Nature," by Carol P. Van Schaik: Animals in groups can often be ranked in a dominance hierarchy, based upon who can displace or attack whom and who must flee or acknowledge subordinate status. And so the dominance hierarchy rules primate living."
And as noted above, it remains the primary organizing principle of human groups, even in our technological age. Nation-states, to be blunt about it, are little more than elaborate primate troops: "Primate life involves layers of status and privilege, with big animals at the top, punishing those who fail to obey. Human life involves layers of status and privilege, with rulers at the top, punishing those who fail to obey.
This model has remained intact through monarchies, democracies, communist regimes, theocratic regimes, and indeed every variant of the few ruling over the many. Justifications for this primate model – everything from the divine right of kings to the assertions of Rousseau and Hobbes – change nothing: The fundamental operating statement of every “few” ruling over every “many” has been identical: Do what we say or we’ll hurt you."
Whether or not they’ve ever examined it, people understand that there’s not just a troop-not troop line, but borders between each level of the social hierarchy. And there are hormonal barriers between the levels. Imagine standing at a cocktail party with rich, educated, high-status types. Then imagine one of them turning upon you and loudly criticizing you for some comment you made. Then imagine the rest of them turning toward you with disgust in their faces. The gut feeling you would get from this is the hormonal enforcement of status. And it’s very effective.
There’s much more to be said about this (and it’s said in the book), but let’s move on to the important part of this: "We’ve been moving away from dominance hierarchies and into decentralized arrangements which treat humans as primary entities rather than secondary entities.
A great number of us have grasped that we shouldn’t live as auto-reaction machines, selecting from pre-scripted reactions and narrowly-defined choices. We’ve seen businesses trying to “flatten” and reengineer, the Internet blasting through information bottlenecks, Bitcoin’s radical decentralization, Abraham Maslow’s findings that human health is inverse to control, Marshall Rosenberg’s non-violent communication, free-market economics, the repeating failures of command economies, and even historians slowly turning their eyes from the potentates at the tops of hierarchies to the people who grew, built and invented everything."
These and a dozen others are recognitions that decentralized interactions are far more central to human thriving than their hierarchical alternatives. Still more important, even crucial, is this fact: Decentralized society rests upon human virtues. Hierarchical society rests upon human weaknesses. You might want to think about those two lines a bit. Hierarchical, primate-modeled society requires frightened, confused and compliant subjects; it couldn’t function otherwise. Decentralized, post-primate societies require individual will, action, passion and endurance; otherwise they couldn’t exist.
An Epoch of Adjustment: From the moment proto-humans were gifted with their prefrontal cortex, a long period of adaptation – a period of confusion – was inevitable. Mixing the operations of the new model brain with primate chemistry really couldn’t produce anything else. But we’re already a very long way down that road, and it has brought us to a surprising place. Consider this, please: Over this epoch of adjustment, good has triumphed over evil in the human species.
This is not to say evil has vanished, but among the vast majority of humans, evil is unable to win an open confrontation with goodness. You cannot simply walk down the street, find a random passer-by and get them to do a few murders with you, no matter that they might get some goodies out of it; almost no human will choose to be overtly evil. Large numbers of humans have indeed supported evil, but they had to be tricked into doing so. Before they were used for evil, they had to be convinced that their actions were servicing the good in one way or another.
This is huge… and true. Regardless of continuing and successful abuse, our goodness-producing core stands, and once our abuse is recognized as abuse, its power will drain away. And this unwinding of primate ways resounds throughout history. However little-understood it may be, another crucial development has been a movement away from collective religions and into individual religions. (You can find more here.) The oldest religions were formed to collectivize people: to make rulership more effective and more scalable.
By this model, the gods treated the populace of a city as a single entity… as a collective entity. If the god was displeased in some way, he or she took it out on the city as a unit. The inhabitants of the town, then, were trained to see themselves collectively. We see precisely this from Sumerian records, as well as others. And there are secondary effects from this: Once people see themselves as a collective, being punished or rewarded as a single unit, they police themselves, punishing anyone who strays from their model.
This model was changed by the ancient Hebrews. What they did – and the importance of this is immense – was to turn the collective religion of the Sumerians into a personal religion. This Hebrew heresy was an earthquake in human organization that reverberates to this day... and is resented to this day. (Lots of info here.)
The religions of the empires, all the way through Rome, were collective religions. Under the Hebrew model, only the individual who behaved badly would suffer for it, and that hobbled rulership. (There are a few Bible passages that imply a collective model, but they are few, old and widely ignored. The belief that resounds is that we’re responsible for our own actions.)
This revolutionary sentiment continued in the Christian gospels. The God of the Hebrews – the God of Judaism and Christianity – reached down to the humble and turned his back on the mighty. And even if modern Christians and Jews would rather not see themselves as wild radicals, they are. Not surprisingly, history shows the effects of this radicalism:
The Hebrews moved consistently toward monotheism, a merciful God and meaningful stories. The Hebrews had no king from their beginnings until about 1000 BC. And even then, their prophet Samuel warned that it was a fundamental error. The Hebrews had no priests from their origins until they were established in Canaan, then abandoned that priesthood as they left. Judaism turned the Hebrew model into a portable religion once territory was no longer available to them. Christianity adopted the Jewish model almost entirely.
More or less every time a Christian group breaks away from another, they major on scriptural passages that define and support the decentralized model. There’s a great deal more to be said about this, but all of these were steps away from primate-mindedness and into individualistic, decentralized models of life and thought… into Post-Primate models of life and thought.
We can see an analogous move in Greece, as the ancient model broke down at 1200 BC and formed into a decentralized model. The Greeks borrowed their gods from the Babylonians, but the Greeks worked them into stories which addressed men’s souls. Greek myths can help you to understand and develop yourself. In the Greek stories, men were not small, insignificant and powerless before the gods. In fact they sometimes challenged the gods and even won. Still more importantly, Greek heroes defeated the gods, not through strength or speed, but by innovative thinking. Again this created a more personal, decentralized model, in which Greek minds could open and expand. It also made it very hard for a ruler to find a place. In the ancient era kings were universal; in the Greek world they were rare.
I’ll jump forward more quickly now, but another important movement away from the primate troop began in northern Italy, as an open commercial model took hold. This model, featuring reliable currency, clear descriptions, literacy and a moral populace massively increased the ability of people to engage in commerce. And as in the other cases we’re noting, this empowered a decentralized and personal model of life. This, of course, was the beginning of the modern commercial model which has flooded the earth with a prosperity the ancients could only dream of. (See here for more.)
It’s Only A Matter Of Time: As I write this, the primate troop model is being forcibly maintained across the planet, at least at the large scales. In our family lives, however, it is recognized as “dysfunctional,” and for good reason. We also reject it for individual-level activities like Little Leagues; in those areas of life we insist upon personal cooperation.
The intermediate areas of life are where the primate model is succumbing these days, with the enforcing upper layers beginning to crack as well. And so the primate model that tries so hard to impose itself is in some distress. And like the Pharaohs and Caesars of history, it will eventually fade into obscurity. If this happens isn’t in question, only when. In its place we’ll expand upon our existing decentralized structures, improving faster and farther than we expect. This also is a question of when rather than if. Some generation is going to grasp this, and some body of people will enter into it."
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