The Shape of Things to Come

A couple of days ago I went to a candidate forum for the local mayoralty election. One male candidate, one woman. The man was quite upbeat about Saint John’s future. He pointed out that container traffic last year was 240,000 units. This year, they are expecting 1 million. Many of the new container ships cannot make it up the St. Lawrence Seaway. So Saint John is becoming the port of choice—the closest port by rail to the markets in the interior. Three years ago, there were two cranes in the harbour for unloading containers. Now there are six. He also noted that the Canadian government is pushing for more trade with Europe and the world, less overland with the US—and this is bound to increase shipping.

At the same time, there are plans to put in a huge new data centre on the west side of town, promising 1,200 jobs in the new economy.

As the meeting ended, a woman stood up and demanded the microphone. She was adamant in arguing—against the rules of the meeting-- that the data centre must not be allowed. It was going to use too much electricity. It would make our electricity rates go up. She was not mollified by the response that the data centre has promised to install its own power plant. 

Another woman I know is also alarmed about this data centre, and is convinced it will not generate the jobs it claims

Today on the bus, I told another woman of my acquaintance what I had heard about the growth of the harbour. She immediately insisted it was not true, that any new port business would go to Halifax. “It always does. It’s about the money.” Yet Saint John already handles three times the tonnage of Halifax.

I seem to see a pattern: women are negative about the future, even when the facts are suggesting optimism.

Indeed, every women I encounter these days is convinced we are in the End Times. The world is collapsing around us, the antichrist is in command, the tribulations have begun, and our only hope is the rapture and the Second Coming. Or some pagan New Age equivalent of this.

Yet I listen to a podcast featuring Elon Musk. Musk has a pretty good track record of predicting the future. They talk about human lifespan doubling within the next ten years, and this getting us to “escape velocity.” That is, within these extra years, means will likely be found to extend the lifespan further, then further, so that most of us alive today are liable to become almost immortal. There are apparently multiple teams working on reversing aging. And human trials on a lifespan-extending drug start this year.

A former classmate of mine at Queen’s is in this game. He too has been telling me this is coming.

Musk predicts that within three years robot surgeons will be as good as the best human surgeons; within four years they will be available in abundance; within five years they will be much better than any human surgeons. Meanwhile, AI will be developing new drugs and cures at an exponential rate: doing in hours what took decades.

What about a flood of immortal retirees? What about the pension system?

There will be no reason to save for retirement, Musk says, within the next ten years. By that time, there will be universal abundance, radical deflation, and everyone’s needs can be taken care of. “Universal High Income.” We will have the Marxist utopia: everyone will just work on what they find interesting. All work will be a hobby.

And forget about spending huge amounts of money on education. “In 4 or 5 years you can learn anything about anything you want for free.”

So why this extreme disconnect between what is actually happening and what most women think is happening?

I think it is indicative of the female psyche. We are in a time of dramatic change, of change more rapid than the world has ever seen.

For many men, this is exhilarating. Men are adventurers. 

But women are wired to crave security. They will fear and resist any change.

This being so, it is perhaps unwise to put women in positions of leadership. Doing so may slow the general progress.

The Withered Fig Tree

 

Time to bear fruit! See the article on SubStack

Man Hate Online

Remember, it's propaganda. It was always propaganda.

My current X stream is full of women complaining about how men are not holding up their end in relationships. Their end apparently means to provide.

And what is the woman’s side of the bargain? It seems for many it is providing sex. Letting the man have sex with them is their end of the bargain. And not even that—they have no obligation to have sex with their husband even within marriage. It still depends on whether they feel like it.

This is a lousy bargain for men. As far as we can tell, women enjoy sex about as much as men do. So why should he pay, and not she, for a mutual pleasure?

Some women will say that women deserve support because they give the man children. But it seems to the untrained eye that children are usually enjoyed more by the mother than the father. She gets more time with them. He has to be off working. You could as easily argue that children are a gift the husband gives to the wife.

You may say children are a chore. I say bollocks. No work is so meaningful or rewarding. And women are born with a strong maternal instinct that makes them desire children and their company. Men’s paternal instinct is less strong.

Some women online say that men should give them money because of the cost of cosmetics—it costs money to make themselves so beautiful for their husband or date. So they have a right to be reimbursed. 

However, making yourself up is not for any one man—it attracts the eyes of men in general. And it shows off to other women. That is more for yourself, then, not for the man across the table. A man is likely to prefer his woman wear less makeup. It suggests she is on the market. In fact, surveys show this—men would prefer women to make up less.

The one thing women never offer as their side of the marital bargain is to do the cooking, cleaning, or housework. No--that would be unreasonable. That should be split half and half, and there is much complaining about men not doing their share.

This actually puts an extra burden on men in any relationship. The problem is, men are usually content with a relaxed, rather messy environment. Women tend to be fussier about their surroundings. So the house is inevitably kept to the woman’s liking, once a woman is present, and the man is expected to do her bidding. An unequal relationship.

The other thing these cyberfeminists never suggest is splitting the bills fifty-fifty. No, men are still supposed to provide. It’s just that women have no responsibilities, only rights.

Given this common sense of privilege among women, relationships with women are no longer a viable option for men. And they hate men on top of it. 

But Who Is Your Neghbour

 Does Jesus demand we love all men equally?

That One Time Xerxes Did Not Die

 ... and why. 

The Coming Death of Canada

"Look upon my works, ye mighty, and despair."

Like everyone else, I am bad at predicting the future. But I think Alberta will vote to separate from Canada this fall. Chaos will ensue.

The Canadian government, and the majority of Canadians, have been indulging in the deadly sin of pride. They have made concessions to Quebec to dampen down separatist sentiment; but consider Albertans beneath their notice. How should this make Albertans feel? They are not being taken seriously. Ottawa seems to consider Alberta a colony. Central Canada is taking advantage of Alberta’s resources, while at the same time hobbling Alberta’s economy for the benefit of the rest of the country. And they fairly openly flaunt their view that Alberta has no right to complain. Prime Minister Carney has been quoted as saying, if Alberta votes to separate, he will declare the Emergencies Act.

That sounds like a dare. Under these circumstances, it seems to me that Albertans will vote for independence purely for self-respect, quite aside from the practical benefits. Which are fairly obvious: the ability to keep the oil revenue locally, the ability to sell more oil to the US, the ability to escape the huge transfer payments to the rest of Canada—Alberta is demonstrably getting less than it pays for—and the ability to pass the legislation the people of Alberta want. They are politically significantly to the right of the rest of Canada.

It is shockingly prideful of the central government, and eastern Canadians, to assume they will not. It is as if the feds are just demanding submission.

Albertans have a strong bargaining chip. If Ottawa refuses to negotiate separation, with Trump is still in office, or with a MAGA successor, the Americans are likely to back the separatist movement, for the sake of access to Alberta’s oil. If the central government moves against them, America would have the green light to intervene, as when Russia moved against an independent Ukraine, or as if China moved against Taiwan.

And if Alberta goes, the temptation will be strong for Saskatchewan to go as well. And without big transfer payments, perhaps Quebec as well...and then the impoverished Maritimes might feel the need to petition the US for annexation.

This involves another example of Canada’s current arrogance: Canadians and the Canadian government act as though they can stand up to the USA, “elbows up,” as though the two countries are roughly equals in economic and in military power. This is tragicomic. Again, they are as much as daring the US to prove them wrong.

This arrogance is not new. Canada’s foreign policy in the last decade and more, under Justin Trudeau, has been recklessly arrogant; under Trudeau, and now under Carney, Canadian governments have lectured and picked fights with the US, India, China, Russia, and Saudi Arabia. They have acted as though Canada were a world power. Carney has now actually declared his readiness to take over leadership of the free world.

Nor can I blame the government alone. Canadians elected them. Ordinary Canadians too seem supremely confident that their current prosperity and personal freedoms is simply deserved, inalienable, and cannot possibly be lost.

If there is justice on the earth and in the heavens--and there is--Canada is heading for disaster.

Why Women Can't Find Any Real Men Any More

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The Face that Launched a Thousand Divorces