Brave New World

 

Where I came in...

I was early into the computer revolution—1979. I was developing software soon after. I felt then that people did not recognize the significance of the desktop computer. It seemed to me this was a technological advance comparable to the invention of movable type—an improvement in the dissemination of knowledge that led to the Renaissance, the Reformation, the Age of Exploration, European dominance of the globe, the invention of empirical science, the general recognition of human rights, the collapse of feudalism, and democracy.

Then came the Internet and the World Wide Web. This was even bigger. Now I thought we were seeing an innovation comparable to the invention of writing. An improvement in the dissemination of knowledge that brought mankind out of the Stone Age into civilization.

But we were not done. Now we have, apparently, AI, something I did not think was possible. This seems comparable in its impact to the development of language itself. Which more or less marks the rise of the human as a being above the animals.

And these three new advances are happening within one lifetime. The first three took hundreds of thousands of years.

It is no surprise that the world seems to be in tumult. How could it not be? This is the most significant period in the history of the human race.

Here’s the good news: the average human life became hugely better with the discovery of language. Human life became incomparably better with the development of writing. Human life became incomparably better with the development of printing. We can assume that these innovations in turn will make life inconceivably better.

So it seems reasonable for Elon Musk to predict a time in the near future when we will all be wealthy, by current standards, perhaps without needing to work at all. The computer revolution and the internet revolution have already made many things that used to be expensive free or almost free; consider how many costly things your smartphone has replaced. 

If so, the spectre of pension funds running out of money is not real. We will have the ability to give everyone a pension, at any age. The government deficits we worry about may be buried in rapid GDP growth.

This means, in turn, that the recent drive by governments throughout the developed world towards mass immigration is gravely short-sighted. We will soon not need more people to do the work at lower skill levels, and will not need their taxes to fund government or pensions. The only factor limiting growth will be labour, but resources. While it may not be difficult to support a larger population, the disruption to the local culture and civil order would not be worth it.

Is the Left Collapsing in Real Time?

 The left seems to be experiencing cognitive dissonance. A poet friend, politics well to the left, responded to the release of the Epstein files with these lines:

Individuality, 
Sinful seed that 
It is, discounted 
From the congress, 
Shell game intent 
Leads us towards 
Discord & murder.

He blames the Epstein pedophile cult on “individuality.” 

Individuality was obviously not a feature of these crimes. That would be, for example, Jeffrey Dahmer. This was a group—a cabal, a conspiracy. But this presumably does not fit in with the leftist world view: that the collective is good by its nature and even gets to determine good and evil; while the individual and individualism is bad.

The Epstein Hellfire Club is actually the perfect application of the left-wing postmodern idea that reality, and morality, are "social constructs." By these lights, the Little Saint James crowd had every right to decide among themselves that, for them, there was nothing wrong or immoral about pedophilia, or cannibalism, or rape, or murder. QED

In the same discussion, he then condemns globalization as “colonialism nouveau.”

This seems to be to be pulling away from the leftist line. Isn’t the left in favour of globalization? After all, Trump is famously opposed to it. And logically, they should be: it is the ultimate in collectivization. The ultimate move away from the individual.

It seems incoherent. Perhaps he is mulling things through in his own mind. He may be turning into an individual.

Lead Us Not into Translation....

 

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A Proposed American Empire

 

Trump openly wants Greenland. He says he wants Canada. 

Canada and Greenland would make the US the world’s largest country, rich in resources it can easily defend. To be honest, it makes sense, and would probably be best for all concerned. I can’t imagine why I would resist being annexed to the US.

Who else should be allowed in? What might an American Empire look like?

They should also annex Cuba. Cuba is not culturally similar. But it would be a mercy. And Cuba is a good forward base in the Caribbean. 

They should annex Guyana—rich in resources, culturally compatible, and a footprint in South America.

Other Caribbean islands do not seem worth the trouble—they would be welfare cases. Except perhaps for the Bahamas.

America should annex Singapore—culturally compatible, and a vital choke point and military base between the Middle East and Far East.

They should annex Australia and New Zealand, for their resources and simply because they are essentially the same ethnicity. Just as China lays claim to Taiwan, it makes no sense for the Anglosphere to be split into separate countries any longer, given our vastly advanced communications and transportation.

On the same principle, the US should form a union with Britain and Ireland. Together again at last. This gives them their forward base for Europe. I think Ireland would be game to come in so long as the US was the dominant partner, and not the UK. This would at the same time solve the problem of Irish reunification and the Northern Irish border. Win-win-win.

They should also annex Malta—they wanted to join the UK decades ago, and they are a strategic point in the Mediterranean. 

The invitation should be extended to the Philippines. Everyone there speaks English to some extent, they are Christian, and they generally embrace American values. Granted, they would be an economic burden, at least at first, but if America needs more population, the Philippines are an ideal source. And they are a great forward base for dealing with troubles in East Asia.

Serious consideration might be given as well to inviting Denmark—another strategic point, at the entrance to the Baltic Sea. 

I realize, of course, that most Canadians would say I am speaking treason. I say the charge is silly.

Zero Tolerance for Criticism

 

Friend Xerxes writes of a recent visit to a clinic, and notes in passing “The clinic had the usual signs posted, that they would not tolerate abusive speech or action directed at the staff.”

As this illustrates, these signs have become ubiquitous in Canada. And they make me deeply uneasy. You do not see such signs in the Philippines, or Saudi Arabia, or Korea. 

Is it because Canadians are more inclined to be rude or abusive than these other nationalities?

Of course not. Canadians are notoriously polite.

This is a power move. The entrenched civil service, what they call in the USA the Deep State, or in the UK “the blob,” is asserting their sovereign authority. Letting us know who is really in charge. They are reminding the common people of their place.

This is what fascism is, in practice. It is the government bureaucrats asserting absolute power. People do not see it, because they are blinded by Marxist theory. They imagine the struggle for power is between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. The bureaucrats can masquerade as the supposed vanguard or defenders of the proletariat against those “greedy capitalists.” Who may be Jewish.

Canadians are far down the road to fascism, without seeming to know it. 

Whither Truth?

The priest officiating at the mass I attended this morning warned us that, according to Jesus, if we have anything against our brother, we are to leave our offering at the altar, and first go and reconcile with him.

What the gospel actually says is

“Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to them; then come and offer your gift.”

Do you see the difference? He has inverted the meaning of the passage. 

This is characteristic of Satan’s work: he inverts the truth. And he seems to be in control of much of the modern church. As Pail VI said, the smoke of Satan has penetrated the Vatican itself. The modern church embraces sin, and condemns feelings of guilt. Hitler was right, by implication; the Jews were wrong.

A friend laments that we just can’t trust anyone any more. How do we know what we are doing is right? You can’t trust your parish priest; he might be a gay pedophile. You can’t trust the church hierarchy; she knows of McCarrick. The late Pope Francis was an apostate. If you can’t even trust the pope, what’s left?

I suggested the Bible and the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

“How do we even know the Bible is reliable? The Ethiopian Bible has different books!”

Why do I think the Bible is reliable?

1. God’s existence is undeniable.

2. God is by his essential nature good.

3. A good God would not leave us without direction.

4. His “user manual” would be most obvious and in plain sight.

5. The Bible is the most universally recognized “user manual”—older and more widely endorsed than any other holy book or scripture. And by the best minds.

6. Therefore, it can be assumed to be the final authority on what is true.

By “The Bible” I mean, by the logic of the argument, the Catholic Bible, since it is the most generally accepted. But that is really neither here nor there, since the books contained in the Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox, or Ethiopian bibles do not contradict one another. They can all be completely true. Other scriptures of other religions can be, and logically are, mostly true as well.

I hold the Catechism of the Catholic Church to be reliable in turn because, following the same train of logic, Jesus sets up the apostolic succession, and says “the gates of hell will not prevail against you.” So any doctrine the church universally and firmly holds must be true, secondarily to the Bible.

America Derangement Syndromw

 

Just as many Americans on the left seem to suffer from “Trump Derangement Syndrome,” I think Canadians almost all suffer from a similar malady, America Derangement Syndrome. It is not quite scapegoating—it is not that they see the USA as the source of all bad things that happen in Canada. But at the same time, they cannot, will not, see or say anything good about the US. Like Trump, America must always be treated with scorn.

In both cases it looks to me like a class thing. It is a looking down one’s nose. Leftists see Trump as boorish. Canadians see Americans the same way. In Canada, one establishes one’s own status by being particularly offended by their raucous behaviour.

Of course, the average Canadian is economically worse off than the average American. This makes the need to make a fuss over supposed breaches of good breeding that much greater—it is all one has to establish one’s own superiority. 

Canadians pay dearly for this social affectation, but I the end it holds the country together. Canada as a whole would be better off joining the US. Individual Canadians would be better off getting US citizenship. Canada exists only as a refusal to be American; it is treason, therefore, to say anything good about America.

Looked at squarely, it is absurd. Yet, on the other hand, I love the rules and the Canadian politeness. And I do find Trump unsettlingly boorish.