"Back into the Capitol building"?!
From these worthless clowns?!
And, as always, the joke's on us...
Too subtle?
So, we rise from the rubble...
Monday, January 25, 2021
"Look Around You..."
"You are put in school to be trained to become exactly what they want you to be: not them, anything but them. They live on a golden island and have the key to the only bridge. Your parents are not millionaires, so it doesn't matter how intelligent you are, you aren't invited to their party. That's the great shame. The idiots have the gold, and the poor die to give it to them. So you better start to laugh, because this world is one big joke written by the few, at the expense of the masses. Look around you, that feeling your life isn't going anywhere? That's the feeling that makes you part of the masses."
- Craig Stone
"What Is Gaslighting?"
"What Is Gaslighting?"
by Patrick
"The term originates in the systematic psychological manipulation of a victim by her husband in Patrick Hamilton’s 1938 stage play "Gas Light," and the film adaptations released in 1940 and 1944. In the story, the husband attempts to convince his wife and others that she is insane by manipulating small elements of their environment and insisting that she is mistaken, remembering things incorrectly, or delusional when she points out these changes. The play’s title alludes to how the abusive husband slowly dims the gas lights in their home, while pretending nothing has changed, in an effort to make his wife doubt her own perceptions. The wife repeatedly asks her husband to confirm her perceptions about the dimming lights, but in defiance of reality, he keeps insisting that the lights are the same and instead it is she who is going insane.
We are living in a perpetual state of gaslighting. The reality that we are being told by the media is at complete odds with what we are seeing with our own two eyes. And when we question the false reality that we are being presented, or we claim that what we see is that actual reality, we are vilified as racist or bigots or just plain crazy. You’re not racist. You’re not crazy. You’re being gaslighted.
New York State has twice as many deaths from Covid-19 than any other state, and New York has accounted for one fifth of all Covid-19 deaths, but we are told that New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has handled the pandemic better than any other governor. But if we support policies of Governors whose states had only a fraction of the infections and deaths as New York, we’re called anti-science and want people to die. So, we ask ourselves, am I crazy? No, you’re being gaslighted.
We see mobs of people looting stores, smashing windows, setting cars on fire and burning down buildings, but we are told that these demonstrations are peaceful protests. And when we call this destruction of our cities riots, we are called racists. So, we ask ourselves, am I crazy? No, you’re being gaslighted.
We see the major problem destroying many inner-cities is crime; murder, gang violence, drug dealing, drive-by shootings, armed robbery, but we are told that it is not crime, but the police that are the problem in the inner-cities. We are told we must defund the police and remove law enforcement from crime-riddled cities to make them safer. But if we advocate for more policing in cities overrun by crime, we are accused of being white supremacists and racists. So, we ask ourselves, am I crazy? No, you’re being gaslighted.
The United States of America accepts more immigrants than any other country in the world. The vast majority of the immigrants are “people of color”, and these immigrants are enjoying freedom and economic opportunity not available to them in their country of origin, but we are told that the United States is the most racist and oppressive country on the planet, and if we disagree, we are called racist and xenophobic. So, we ask ourselves, am I crazy? No, you’re being gaslighted.
Capitalist countries are the most prosperous countries in the world. The standard of living is the highest in capitalist countries. We see more poor people move up the economic ladder to the middle and even the wealthy class through their effort and ability in capitalist countries than any other economic system in the world, but we are told capitalism is an oppressive system designed to keep people down. So, we ask ourselves, am I crazy? No, you’re being gaslighted.
Communist countries killed over 100 million people in the 20th century. Communist countries strip their citizens of basic human rights, dictate every aspect of their lives, treat their citizens like slaves, and drive their economies into the ground, but we are told that Communism is the fairest, most equitable, freest and most prosperous economic system in the world. So, we ask ourselves, am I crazy? No, you’re being gaslighted.
The most egregious example of gaslighting is the concept of “white fragility.” You spend your life trying to be a good person, trying to treat people fairly and with respect. You disavow racism and bigotry in all its forms. You judge people solely on the content of their character and not by the color of their skin. You don’t discriminate based on race or ethnicity. But you are told you are a racist, not because of something you did or said, but solely because of the color of your skin. You know instinctively that charging someone with racism because of their skin color is itself racist. You know that you are not racist, so you defend yourself and your character, but you are told that your defense of yourself is proof of your racism. So, we ask ourselves, am I crazy? No, you’re being gaslighted.
Gaslighting has become one of the most pervasive and destructive tactics in American politics. It is the exact opposite of what our political system was meant to be. It deals in lies and psychological coercion, and not the truth and intellectual discourse. If you ever ask yourself if you’re crazy, you are not. Crazy people aren’t sane enough to ask themselves if they’re crazy. So, trust yourself, believe what’s in your heart. Trust your eyes over what you are told. Never listen to the people who tell you that you are crazy, because you are not; you’re being gaslighted."
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Related:
"If 'Facebook Is Private', Why Are They Feeding Users' Private Messages Directly To The FBI?"
"If 'Facebook Is Private', Why Are They Feeding
Users' Private Messages Directly To The FBI?"
by Matt Agorist
"Despite decrying censorship when it was happening to them last year, when Donald Trump was banned from Twitter and Facebook earlier this month, the left praised the move by big tech. “Facebook is a private company and can do what they want,” the pro-censorship hypocritical crowd chanted ad nauseum through the digital ether after bad orange man was silenced. But as we have said time and again, Facebook being private is simply not true.
Now, however, Facebook has made an unscrupulous Faustian bargain with the federal government which should eliminate all doubt once and for all. They are now willfully handing over private messages of Trump supporters who talked about the events at the capitol on January 6.
Google, Apple, and Amazon all moved to wipe the pro-Trump social media network Parler from the internet earlier this month because of what users on the platform discussed. It was alleged that the handful of dolts who stormed the capitol on January 6 had solely used Parler to plan their laughable, unarmed, silly, unsuccessful, and pitiful attempt to keep Trump in the White House.
Despite the ragtag group of Trumpians posing for selfies, photo-ops, and hanging from banisters, the only thing they accomplished was having D.C. turned into a scene akin to North Korea for Biden’s inauguration. Most honest experts in the media have acknowledged that though a few members of the mob thought they were part of some historic coup to keep their leader in power, the idea that they had any real chance at an insurrection was misleading at best and sheer propaganda used to further the domestic police and surveillance state at worst.
"Oh gosh, I hope this doesn't mean the magnitude of the threat has been wildly exaggerated for political gain, media excitement and ratings, censorship orgies, and laying the foundation for a new fear-driven Domestic War on Terror to control politics and information."
- Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) January 21, 2021
Deferring all responsibility for the planning of the raid on the capitol, Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg had stated shortly after the incident that the protests were largely organized off Facebook. However, she was not telling the truth, and likely knew that large portions of the pro-Trump protests were talked about and organized on Facebook. But was Facebook wiped off the internet like Parler? No, no it was not. Here’s why.
This week, Facebook began furnishing the Federal Bureau of Investigation with data on Trump supporters who discussed the events at the capitol on their platform - up to and including their private messages. Through this action the social media giant is acting as a de facto intelligence collecting arm of the US government.
In contrast, when Syed Farook, otherwise known as the San Bernardino mass shooter, wouldn’t unlock his iPhone for the feds, Apple refused to create a backdoor for them to access it, acting as an actual private company supporting the privacy rights of its customers. But Facebook is more than willing to open up its data mining services for their friends in the federal government - because, as we have stated numerous times, Facebook is not private.
As TFTP reported in 2018, Facebook announced that it partnered with the arm of the government-funded Atlantic Council, known as the Digital Forensic Research Lab that was brought on to help the social media behemoth with “real-time insights and updates on emerging threats and disinformation campaigns from around the world.”
The Atlantic Council is the group that NATO uses to whitewash wars and foster hatred toward Russia, which in turn allows them to continue to justify themselves. It’s funded by arms manufacturers like Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, and Boeing. It is also funded by billionaire oligarchs like the Ukraine’s Victor Pinchuk and Saudi billionaire Bahaa Hariri.
The list goes on. The highly unethical HSBC group - who has been caught numerous times laundering money for cartels and terrorists - is listed as one of their top donors. They are also funded by the pharmaceutical industry, Google, Goldman Sachs and others. However, the funding that comes from the United States, the US Army, and the Air Force directly negates the “private” aspect of the partnership.
The “think tank” Facebook partnered with to make decisions on who they censor is directly funded by multiple state actors - including the United States - which voids any and all claims that Facebook is a wholly “private actor.”
The Atlantic Council wields massive influence over mainstream media too, which is why when this partnership was announced, no one in the mainstream press pointed it out as the Orwellian idea that it is. Instead, headlines such as “US think tank’s tiny lab helps Facebook battle fake social media (Reuters)” and “Facebook partners with Atlantic Council to improve election security (The Hill)” were put out to spin the fact that a NATO propaganda arm is now censoring the information Americans see on Facebook.
But this partnership with the state-funded “think tank” is not the only reason Facebook is not private. From government funded censorship arms to the revolving door of high level bureaucrats who fill the ranks of the oligopolies, the “private company” Facebook concept comes crashing down when taking a closer look. Private-sector firms do not need to be explicitly nationalized to further the establishment’s interests; it’s enough to install their alumni in top regulatory positions. Through these methods, Facebook can put on the façade of privatization while actually acting as deputies for the state but alleviating any constitutional checks in the process. All the while, whenever the censorship acts in their benefit, half of the masses cheer it on and defend it, keeping resistance at a minimum.
What’s more, as the government hangs the threat of antitrust litigation over their heads, it can force these companies to act in their benefit even without explicit partnerships like that of the Atlantic Council. In fact, prior to the state getting involved in the talks of regulation into big tech, information flowed relatively freely with Facebook only removing racist and violent content. Now, however, as they bend to the will of their partners in the federal government, people like myself find ourselves on 30 day bans for saying “censorship leads to tyranny.”
This is why the answer to the government big tech censorship leviathan lies not in regulation but in boycott. The time is now to get off these platforms who spy on you, ban you, sell you to the highest bidder, and who are tearing society apart. Censorship free platforms exist and are far more user friendly and treat you as the actual customer instead of the sheep they are leading to slaughter. You can check them out here."
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Sunday, January 24, 2021
"Everything Is Closing Down; Energy Jobs Will Be Crushed; Big Losses Coming"
Jeremiah Babe,
"Everything Is Closing Down;
Energy Jobs Will Be Crushed; Big Losses Coming"
"A Look to the Heavens"
"It is one of the more massive galaxies known. A mere 46 million light-years distant, spiral galaxy NGC 2841 can be found in the northern constellation of Ursa Major. This sharp view of the gorgeous island universe shows off a striking yellow nucleus and galactic disk. Dust lanes, small, pink star-forming regions, and young blue star clusters are embedded in the patchy, tightly wound spiral arms. In contrast, many other spirals exhibit grand, sweeping arms with large star-forming regions.
NGC 2841 has a diameter of over 150,000 light-years, even larger than our own Milky Way. The featured composite image merges exposures from the orbiting 2.4-meter Hubble Space Telescope and the ground-based 8.2-meter Subaru Telescope. X-ray images suggest that resulting winds and stellar explosions create plumes of hot gas extending into a halo around NGC 2841."
“When Will The Madness End?”
“When Will The Madness End?”
by Jeffrey Tucker
“I was sitting in the green room in a Manhattan television studio on the day that the storm seemed to hit. It was Thursday, March 12, 2020, and I was waiting anxiously for a TV appearance, hoping that the trains wouldn’t shut down before I could leave the city. The trains never did shut but half of everything else did. On this day, everyone knew what was coming. There was disease panic in the air, fomented mostly by the media and political figures. A month earlier, the idea of lockdown was unthinkable, but now it seemed like it could happen, at any moment.
A thin, wise-looking bearded man with Freud-style glasses sat down across from me, having just left the studio. He was there to catch his breath following his interview but he looked deeply troubled. “There is fear in the air,” I said, breaking the silence. “Madness is all around us. The public is adopting a personality disorder I’ve been treating my whole career.” “What is it that you do?” I asked.
“I’m a practicing psychiatrist who specializes in anxiety disorders, paranoid delusions, and irrational fear. I’ve been treating this in individuals as a specialist. It’s hard enough to contain these problems in normal times. What’s happening now is a spread of this serious medical condition to the whole population. It can happen with anything but here we see a primal fear of disease turning into mass panic. It seems almost deliberate. It is tragic. Once this starts, it could take years to repair the psychological damage.”
I sat there a bit stunned, partially because speaking in such apocalyptic terms was new in those days, and because of the certitude of his opinion. Underlying his brief comments were a presumption that there was nothing particularly unusual about this virus. We’ve evolved with them, and learned to treat them with calm and professionalism.
What distinguished the current moment, he was suggesting, was not the virus but the unleashing of a kind of public madness.
I was an early skeptic of the we-are-all-going-to-die narrative. But even I was unsure if he was correct that the real problem was not physical but mental. In those days, even I was cautious about shaking hands and carrying around sanitizer. I learned later, of course, that plenty of medical professionals had been trying to calm people down for weeks, urging the normal functioning of society rather than panic. It took weeks however even for me to realize that he was right: the main threat society faced was a psychological condition.
I should have immediately turned to a book that captivated me in high school. It is “Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds” by Charles Mackay (1841). I liked reading it because, while it highlighted human folly, it also seemed to indicate that we as a civilization are over that period in history.
It allowed me to laugh at how ridiculous people were in the past, with sudden panics over long hair and beards, jewelry, witches, the devil, prophecies and sorcery, disease and cures, land speculation, tulips, just about anything. In a surprising number of cases he details, disease plays a role, usually as evidence of a malicious force operating in the world. Once fear reaches a certain threshold, normalcy, rationality, morality, and decency fade and are replaced by shocking stupidity and cruelty.
He writes: “In reading the history of nations, we find that, like individuals, they have their whims and their peculiarities; their seasons of excitement and recklessness, when they care not what they do. We find that whole communities suddenly fix their minds upon one object, and go mad in its pursuit; that millions of people become simultaneously impressed with one delusion, and run after it, till their attention is caught by some new folly more captivating than the first.
We see one nation suddenly seized, from its highest to its lowest members, with a fierce desire of military glory; another as suddenly becoming crazed upon a religious scruple; and neither of them recovering its senses until it has shed rivers of blood and sowed a harvest of groans and tears, to be reaped by its posterity. Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one.”
After 2005 when the Internet developed into a serious repository for human knowledge, and it became accessible via smartphones and near-universal access, I too was tempted by the idea that we would enter into a new age of enlightenment in which mass frenzies would be quickly stopped by dawning wisdom.
You can see evidence of my naivete with my April 5, 2020 article: “With Knowledge Comes Calm, Rationality, and, Possibly, Openness.” My thought then was that the evidence of the extremely discriminatory impact of the virus on plus-70 people with underlying conditions would cause a sudden realization that this virus was behaving like a normal virus.
We were not all going to die. We would use rationality and reopen. I recall writing that with a sense of confidence that the media would report the new study and the panic would end.
I was preposterously wrong, along with my four-month-old feeling that all of this stuff would stop on Monday. The psychiatrist I met in New York was correct: the drug of fear had already invaded the public mind. Once there, it takes a very long time to recover. This is made far worse by politics, which has only fed the beast of fear.
This is the most politicized disease in history, and doing so has done nothing to help manage it and much to make it all vastly worse.
We’ve learned throughout this ordeal that despite our technology, our knowledge, our history of building prosperity and peace, we are no smarter than our ancestors and, by some measures, not as smart as our parents and grandparents. The experience with COVID has caused a mass reversion to the superstitions and panics that sporadically defined the human experience of ages past.
Eventually, people have and do come to their senses, but it is as Mackay said: people “go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one.”
"How the Fed Fails"
"How the Fed Fails"
by Charles Hugh Smith
"The Fed will fail as a result of two dynamics: diminishing returns and the U.S. dollar's role as a global reserve currency. The Fed's reign as the godhead of financier-banker supremacy has been fun and games for the past 12 years of stock market euphoria, but that's about to change.
All those expecting the Fed to sink the USD to near-zero to "save the stock market" don't seem to realize that they're also expecting the U.S. to surrender its global hegemony, which rests entirely on the U.S. dollar. The USD is the world's dominant reserve currency - please examine the chart below. The USD dwarfs the next largest reserve currency, the euro. The Chinese yuan - due to its peg to the USD, essentially a proxy for the USD - is a tiny sliver of global reserves.
The owner of a reserve currency can create "money" out of thin air and trade it for autos, oil, semiconductors - real-world goods that were not created out of thin air. All these real-world goods required tremendous investment and significant costs to be produced and transported. No wonder trading something for nothing--a remarkably good deal - is termed an exorbitant privilege.
It is not an exaggeration to say that the ability to create "money" out of thin air and trade it for real-world goods is the foundation of America's global power. If the Fed prints USD to near-infinity and the USD loses value relative other reserve currencies, the U.S. loses its exorbitant privilege of trading "money" created out of thin air for real-world goods.
So everyone expecting the Fed to "print" the USD to zero is claiming the Fed is consciously choosing to lay waste to the foundation of American power - just to boost Big Tech Robber Barons and zombie global stock markets.
Recall that the Fed is not the Empire, it is the handmaiden of the Empire. The Fed's dual mandate - for PR purposes, stable employment and prices - is actually balancing the conflicting demands of a global and domestic currency - Triffin's Paradox writ large.
The inherent problem with a reserve currency is that it must meet global economic needs and domestic needs, and these are intrinsically in conflict. America's billionaires and pension funds want the US stock market to loft higher on the back of a declining USD, but that diminishes the global purchasing power of the USD - a trend spiraling down to economic ruin.
The Fed's balancing act has run out of runway. It's either destroy American hegemony by crushing the USD or secure hegemony and let the stock market function as a "market" rather than as a device to further enrich the top .01%. (Recall that "nearly half of the new income generated since the global financial crisis of 2008 has gone to the wealthiest one percent of U.S. citizens. The richest three Americans collectively have more wealth than the poorest 160 million Americans." "The Dangerously Diminishing Returns on Monetary and Fiscal Stimulus")
As for diminishing returns: consider what the Fed "bought" by handing $1 trillion to financiers, banks and billionaires in 2008-09 and what it "bought" with $3 trillion last March. The Fed's balance sheet shot up from $925 billion on 9/9/08 to $2.08 trillion on 9/9/09 - an injection of $1.16 trillion to "save" the global financial system (and the U.S. stock and debt markets) from complete meltdown.
The Fed continued goosing markets higher, adding another $1 trillion by 2013 (balance sheet $2.96 trillion). So the Fed "bought" a five-year rally in global risk assets--a rally that sent wealth and income inequality into orbit - for a mere $2 trillion.
Last year the Fed had to print over $3 trillion in three months to "save the markets" from a reckoning with reality. Take a quick look at the chart below. Notice how the Fed's "saves" are tracking a near-parabolic curve. So will the next "save" require $5 trillion, or will it be $7 trillion? And what are the consequences for such insanity on the U.S. dollar's global hegemony?
So the Fed has a binary choice: preserve America's global hegemony or further enrich the billionaires. You can't have both. Hegemony requires a currency that's increasing its value relative to other currencies, not plummeting to near-zero.
If the Fed chooses to further enrich the billionaires and top .01%, then the skyrocketing wealth-income inequality will unravel the domestic social and political orders. There is no way that will be a "win" for the Fed, as the resulting backlash against the Fed's strip-mining the nation to enrich the top .01% will have consequences for the Fed as well as the nation.
So the Fed will fail. If it spews endless trillions to further enrich the billionaires it will destroy the exorbitant privilege of the reserve currency and the global hegemony that privilege enables. If it preserves global dollar hegemony by not spewing endless trillions, global stock and debt markets will experience the equivalent of a financial tsunami, earthquake and hurricane hitting all at the same time. It's either/or - there is no win-win. Choose wisely, Fed."
"Economic Market Snapshot 1/24/21"
"Economic Market Snapshot 1/24/21"
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"Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most wickedest of men will
do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone."
- John Maynard Keynes
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"Down the rabbit hole of psychopathic greed and insanity...
Only the consequences are real - to you!
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"The more I see of the monied classes,
the better I understand the guillotine."
- George Bernard Shaw
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MarketWatch Market Summary, Live Updates
CNN Market Data:
CNN Fear And Greed Index:
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A comprehensive, essential daily read.
Daily Updates, Jan 23rd to 25th
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Financial Stress Index
"The OFR Financial Stress Index (OFR FSI) is a daily market-based snapshot of stress in global financial markets. It is constructed from 33 financial market variables, such as yield spreads, valuation measures, and interest rates. The OFR FSI is positive when stress levels are above average, and negative when stress levels are below average. The OFR FSI incorporates five categories of indicators: credit, equity valuation, funding, safe assets and volatility. The FSI shows stress contributions by three regions: United States, other advanced economies, and emerging markets."
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Daily Job Cuts
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And now, the End Game...
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Oh yeah...
Read Online “The Garden of The Prophet”, by Kahlil Gibran
“The Garden of the Prophet”
by Kahlil Gibran
“Oftentimes we call Life bitter names, but only when we ourselves are bitter and dark. And we deem her empty and unprofitable, but only when the soul goes wandering in desolate places, and the heart is drunken with over-mindfulness of self.
Life is deep and high and distant; and though only your vast vision can reach even her feet, yet she is near; and though only the breath of your breath reaches her heart, the shadow of your shadow crosses her face, and the echo of your faintest cry becomes a spring and an autumn in her breast.
And Life is veiled and hidden, even as your greater self is hidden and veiled. Yet when Life speaks, all the winds become words; and when she speaks again, the smiles upon your lips and the tears in your eyes turn also into words. When she sings, the deaf hear and are held; and when she comes walking, the sightless behold her and are amazed and follow her in wonder and astonishment.”
Read “The Garden of The Prophet” online here:
"Making Your Best Guess"
"Making Your Best Guess"
by Arthur Silber
“We are not gods, and we are not omniscient. We cannot foretell the future with certainty. Most often, cultural and political changes are terribly complex. It can be notoriously difficult to predict exactly where a trend will take us, and we can be mistaken. We do the best we can: if we wish to address certain issues seriously, we study history, and we read everything that might shed light on our concerns. We consult what the best thinkers of our time and of earlier times have said and written. We challenge everyone's assumptions, including most especially our own. That last is often very difficult. If we care enough, we do our best to disprove our own case. In that way, we find out how strong our case is, and where its weaknesses may lie.
Barring extraordinary circumstances, we cannot be certain that a particular development represents a critical turning point at the time it occurs. If we dare to say, "This is the moment the battle was lost," only future events will prove whether we were correct. We do the best we can, based on our understanding of how similar events have unfolded in the past, and in light of our understanding of the underlying principles in play. We can be wrong.”
"Covid-19 Pandemic Updates 1/25/21"
"Covid-19 Pandemic Updates 1/25/21"
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The coronavirus pandemic has sickened more than 98,749,200
people, according to official counts, including 25,047,893 Americans.
Globally at least 2,119,900 have died.
Jan. 25, 2021 12:05 AM ET:
Coronavirus in the U.S.: Latest Map and Case Count○
"The COVID Tracking Project"
Every day, our volunteers compile the latest numbers on tests, cases,
hospitalizations, and patient outcomes from every US state and territory.
- https://covidtracking.com/
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Every day, our volunteers compile the latest numbers on tests, cases,
hospitalizations, and patient outcomes from every US state and territory.
- https://covidtracking.com/
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"It Is Only Much, Much Later..."
"Space I can recover. Time, never. "
- Napoleon Bonaparte
"Lands can be reconquered, indeed in the course of a battle, a hill or a certain plain might trade hands several times. But missed opportunities? These can never be regained. Moments in time, in culture? They can never be re-made. One can never go back in time to prepare for what they should have prepared for, no one can ever get back critical seconds that were wasted out of fear or ego. Napoleon was brilliant at trading space for time: Sure, you can make these moves, provided you are giving me the time I need to drill my troops, or move them to where I want them to be. Yet in life, most of us are terrible at this. We trade an hour of our life here or afternoon there like it can be bought back with the few dollars we were paid for it. And it is only much, much later, as they are on their deathbeds or when they are looking back on what might have been, that many people realize the awful truth of this quote. Don't do that. Embrace it now. "
- Ryan Holiday
"The Ship of Theseus: A Brilliant Ancient Thought Experiment Exploring What Makes You You"
"The Ship of Theseus: A Brilliant Ancient
Thought Experiment Exploring What Makes You You"
by Maria Popova
"Throughout our lives, we come to inhabit the seven layers of identity, often interpolating between them and constantly changing within each. And yet somehow, despite this ever-shifting seedbed of personhood, we manage to think of ourselves as concrete selves - our selves. Hardly any perplexity of human existence is more fascinating than the continuity of personal identity - the question of what makes you and your childhood self the “same” person, despite a lifetime of change, from your cells to your values. Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert captured this paradox perfectly: “Human beings are works in progress that mistakenly think they’re finished.”
Two millennia before modern psychologists came to tussle with this puzzlement, the great Greek historian and writer Plutarch examined it more lucidly than anyone before or since. In a brilliant thought experiment known as The Ship of Theseus, or Theseus’s paradox, outlined (though not for the first or last time) in his biographical masterwork "Plutarch’s Lives" (free ebook/|public library), Plutarch asks: If the ship on which Theseus sailed has been so heavily repaired and nearly every part replaced, is it still the same ship - and, if not, at what point did it stop being the same ship?
He writes: "The ship wherein Theseus and the youth of Athens returned had thirty oars, and was preserved by the Athenians down even to the time of Demetrius Phalereus, for they took away the old planks as they decayed, putting in new and stronger timber in their place, insomuch that this ship became a standing example among the philosophers, for the logical question of things that grow; one side holding that the ship remained the same, and the other contending that it was not the same."
In this wonderful animation, the visual educators at TED-Ed - who have previously explored how you know you exist by way of Descartes and the nature of reality by way of Plato -examine the famous thought experiment and how it illuminates the perennial question of who we are:
Which you is “who”? The person you are today? Five years ago? Who you’ll be in fifty years? And when is “am”? This week? Today? This hour? This second? And which aspect of you is “I”? Are you your physical body? Your thoughts and feelings? Your actions?
Complement with Hannah Arendt on being vs. appearing and where our thinking ego resides, then revisit other illuminating TED-Ed animations exploring what depression actually feels like, why some people are left-handed, how melancholy enhances creativity, and why playing music benefits your brain more than any other activity."
The Poet: W.H. Auden, "September 1, 1939"
"September 1, 1939"
"Defenseless
under the night
Our world in stupor lies;
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out
wherever the Just
Exchange their messages:
May I, composed like them
Of Eros and of dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
Show an affirming flame."
- W.H. Auden
September 1, 1939, Germany invades Poland...
"The Great Thing About The Internet..."
"The great thing about the internet is that you get to meet people you
would otherwise only meet if you were committed to the same asylum."
- Robert Brault
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