Excellent essay but I'm not sure we can speak about the the boredom of Modernity without once mentioning that this exhaustion of the imagination is a largely Western / late-capitalist phenomenon. That's not to say there are no signs of it in, say, China, where we are seeing the emergence of a generation of bored youth, for whom the country's rapid rise out of poverty into global economic supremacy (and astonishing feat in its own right) no longer resonates as it does for earlier generations, who can still remember past privations and struggles.
But where I'm going with this is throughout the period of the 1950's, 1960's and 1970's you have a global struggle to throw off hundreds of years of European colonialism in the Global South and Asia. The Russian cosmonauts and American astronauts were heroes of a sort, but the heroism of the Vietnamese, Algerians, Angolans, South Africans and others was playing out in ways that put the lie t the bright visions of the future articulated by American and European leaders sitting at the top of an exploitative and expanding neo-liberal neo-colonialism. Yes, Star Wars has Vietnam as a backstory but lacks any sense of communal / cultural cohesion. The "Rebels" are basically just cartoon characters fighting against a parody of "Evil" sent up from central casting. In other words, its politics are superficial and non-threatening, which is why people who love the entire Star Wars franchise also support their own government's genocidal policies with respect to actually oppressed people - i.e., they are all servants of the Empire.
Where I'm going with this is that boredom isn't an option for people on the receiving end of Western exploitation, even though their lives are lived within the context of the same technological modernity that you write so clearly about. If you want to see modern day heroes adapting technology in innovative ways in their struggle against violent oppression, look no further than the members of the Al-Qassam Brigades.
As a closing aside, I recommend the Chinese film "Hero" (Zhang Yimou, 2002) for a superb treatment of the tension inherent in the struggle between modernity and individual freedoms. Consider the titular hero's (Jet-Li) actions throughout the film and, particularly, his final choice. Looking forward to more from you on the broader topic. Great job!
"....the heroism of the Vietnamese, Algerians, Angolans, South Africans and others was playing out in ways that put the lie t the bright visions of the future articulated by American and European leaders sitting at the top of an exploitative and expanding neo-liberal neo-colonialism."
Interesting that you note the various races involved in this tragedy. Except that of those who are, or who 'advise', our American and European leaders. Doesn't Biden have about 30 close advisers in the White House, 28 of which are all of the same tribe? But no doubt you blame the old white man for 'his' decision to support the Genocide of Gaza.
The same playbook was being run in the Boer War, the genocide of a million 'communists' in Indonesia in the ?late 1950s, Operation Condor, the CIA importing crack into USA cities in the 70s and the heroin epidemic in the 80s... you name it - and I can name those members of the tribe who were running the scam. Hell, even Al Capone worked for Bronfman - the future chairman of the WJC.
You say 'on the receiving end of Western exploitation'. Sure, the Vietnamese lost 3m murdered - 2 m were civilians and nothing to do with even defending their country. Agent Orange must be seen as a tool for ethnic cleansing, if not genocide. But was this war instigated by the Western peoples? Kennedy tried to end it. They killed him, put in Johnson - who was another (albeit secret) member of the tribe. It was him who was so happy to work with the MIC to push for war. The MIC is still owned and controlled by the same section of society - tho now they use BlackRock as their holding company.
Just look around. Do you think the homeless in LA. The 100,000 dead each year of Fentanyl, heck the thousands of Americans killed by the vaccine are the fat and fortunate who profited off the exploitation of the world? Cos to me the West's sick societies, dying economies and destructive demographics all point to the white, christian societies having lost a hidden war.
You write of 'an exploitative and expanding neo-liberal neo-colonialism' and yes, it was evil - look at British East India company who got one sixth of China addicted to the heroin they grew. But please, when you point the finger, try to point it in the right direction. If you think about it you'll realize that everyone was working for the bankers. They bought the politicians, controlled the newspapers, and married into the UK aristocracy - effectively replacing it. And decided which wars to fight - and how much debt was going to be loaded onto the English people. In the case of the BEIC - it was largely owned by the tribe and run by the Rothschilds who stole India's treasure and left them starving. The British Empire was controlled by the Bank of England. As were the politicians and the info that the British people were allowed to see.
So please, don't blame the Brits. Nor the Deplorables. You are simply compounding our oppression and exploitation.
Actually, my view of who is "behind" neo-liberalism / neo-colonialism is a bit more nuanced than yours. The desire to exploit the masses for personal gain - and commit atrocities to do so - is not limited to members of a specific "tribe" but appears to be fairly ubiquitous across many "tribes". Indeed, the vast majority of every "tribe" don't benefit much from the actions of the small minority who do. I challenge you to identify ALL the players in the late-capitalist / neo-colonial game and I believe you will find that it's a pretty diverse bunch of criminals. Biden has nothing to do with any of the decisions made by his regime, and it is well known how many top members of his regime are Zionists or Zionist sympathizers. Others are just garden variety white supremacists and the token non-whites feeding at the trough - e.g., Lloyd Austin.
I have sympathy for your view. It took me decades of ignorance before I realized the trick that is being played upon us. So excuse my anger - I am angry I was fooled for so long. Never the less I disagree with Lloyd Austin. Just look at Pelosci, Lindsey Graham.... they spout toxic effluent, alien to their voters and their culture. How do you explain that if not by the actions of Epstein? Did you read about Netanyahu's close colleague who succeeded in blackmailing one of the leaders of the ICC court? She was the only one who voted for Israel as not being guilty! Do you seriously think the US politicians aren't owned by AIPAC? Why do you think Epstein was given an island and a plane if not to better blackmail our 'leaders'. Look at Davos and Bilderburg - can you name one member who is either not tribal or not behaving as if he's owned by them? Tony Blair is - he boasted of worshipping their god of light (Lucifer) on BBC radio!
I understand your wish to have a 'balanced and reasonable' view. Unfortunately it is, I think, unjustified.
A reading of ancient history shows that democracies alway devolve into oligarchies. This was certainly true of Athens and Rome, but overlook by most modern histories.
Viewing decolonisation as a win strikes me as laughable. The Europeans might have been cruel, but the greatest cruelty of all is to run a crypto-empire via NGOs staffed by scolding harpies who want to import savages to the metropolis because the over-domesticated men around them do not give them tingles — or because of misguided maternal instincts, who knows?
We just need to look for our heroes in new places. The usual places (e.g. fields of battle in failed proxy wars) are not where we'll find new heroes (e.g. Gaza, Syria or Ukraine). Maybe we'll find them in the ICUs of hospitals in these war zones. Maybe we'll find them in Newsrooms where journalists are getting fired for reporting the truth about these conflicts. Many of the real heroes won't be celebrated as such by the corporate controlled MSM because they tried to tell truth to power (or wouldn't sacrifice ethics to serve its interests). Joy Briahnna (formerly of Hill Rising) and Dr. Annelle Shelling (formerly of the U.S. State Dept.) are two that come to mind. But most of the heroes are unsung and under the radar. We should find them and celebrate them. Those whom the MSM celebrate (and take so seriously) by virtue of their positions of power -- who are thus poised to be heroes -- don't ever rise to the occasion. They are hired by central casting (the donor class) precisely because they lack the stuff of heroes.
Going by the site https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/ I have to think that much of this was, if not deliberately caused, actively encouraged; living as I am in the American Empire, I cannot compare the dreams, hopes, and competencies of the America of my childhood with the nightmares, failures, and stupidity of today. I think that greed and the desire for power over others were and are the impetus for this as well as the replacement of the human heart with those of the cyborgian ones of our tech lords and financiers.
The United States of the 1960s and 70s was both much worse and much better than that of today’s. We have neither the legal apartheid of the South or the epidemic diseases, but we do not have the dreams and humanity of those times either, and we now have a hollowed out society on a looted world.
It's odd that you would say Star Trek is for children. It offered a surprisingly egalitarian view of what society could become, with people of all races and backgrounds working together towards a common goal. Instead of earlier science fiction shows and movies where aliens were creatures or monsters, in Star Trek they're just people. Even the casting was revolutionary for the time. A man of Japanese descent who'd spent years in an interment camp as a child playing a member of the bridge crew, with WW2 so close in everyone's memories? And a Russian crewmember on the bridge at the height of the Cold War? And a woman of color also playing a bridge officer? These things were unprecedented, and opened viewers' eyes to a better future, one with less prejudice and bigotry. If that's what "being for children" means, then I hope I never grow up.
The good news is that ennui is cyclical. I often think of a line in George Orwell's 1936 novel Keep the Aspidistra Flying. The protagonist is a frustrated poet, and he is talking to the editor of a small magazine. The editor "did not need telling why Gordon 'couldn't' write, and why all poets nowadays 'can't' write, and why when they do write it is something as arid as the rattling of a pea inside a big drum."
Things got more interesting not too long after that.
I am reminded by the smattering of Northrop Frye's cyclical vision of literature I encountered almost 40 years ago that we are in a Winter phase -- associated with irony/satire, chaos, death and decay. While the premise will be uncongenial to most readers, it's likely that the only way out is via religion -- not the dead forms of which most of us have encountered in our lives, but the real thing rooted in green shoots of myth and mystery which may emerge from the detritus of what we leave behind to our heirs.
It is well written, I read it with interest. But it cannot be said that no one knew what would happen in space with Gagarin. Before him, dogs were sent into space in the USSR. Belka and Strelka are cosmonaut dogs who made a space flight on the Soviet spacecraft Sputnik—5 on August 19, 1960.
The main purpose of the flight was to study the effect of space flight factors on the body of animals and other biological objects: overload, prolonged weightlessness, the transition from overload to weightlessness and back, the study of the effect of cosmic radiation on animals and plant organisms, on the state of their vital activity and heredity, the development of systems that ensure human life, flight safety and safe return to earth The earth. Several biomedical experiments and scientific space research have also been conducted.
The flight lasted more than 25 hours. During this time, the ship made 17 complete orbits around the Earth. Belka and Strelka became the first animals to make an orbital space flight and successfully returned to Earth.
A long essay abvout modern space exploration without a single reference to SpaceX, Elon Musk or the successful launch AND landing of Starships 4th test launchlast week. The launch of the largest manmade object to date, which was then successfully landed, together with it's booster. Reusable space rockets, with enough load to be able to send usto Mars, and all of this happened last week.
A ship with a payload capacity of 150 tonnes! By the company responsible for 70% of all active sateliltes. Satelites that bring connectivity to every square inch of the world.
The larger issue here is of course that you where not aware of this, because those propagandists you refer to journalists (making them unemployed is just the start of how AI will save the world), are all busy pretending this did not happen for some reason.
To Mars? To travel beyond the Earth's magnetosphere for months to then visit a geologically dead planet without much of a magnetosphere. For what? Early cancer?
No one needs launch vehicles capable of carrying 150 tons. This is a dead project. Back in 1988, the USSR had an Energia launch vehicle, which put 100 tons into orbit. And he could potentially withdraw 200 tons. No more Energia launches were made, and first of all for a rather prosaic reason: currently there are simply no objects in outer space that would require flights (by the way, very expensive) of this huge rocket with a payload capacity of over 100 tons.
The very act of claiming that the modern world is boring is essentially a claim of a passive consumer, and at best is self-ironic or sarcastic.
Likewise, the very act of seeking novelty, be it as a consumer or as a creative, is a direct outcome of the despair due to the circumstance that quality has ceased to matter.
One aspect of it is that people fail to appreciate what is important even if it's in front of their noses, as in the case of the face mask, a typically highly uncomfortable medical tool the efficiency of which has been proven baseless repeatedly., including all the first-rate studies, across the past hundred of years.
If novelty truly mattered, would not that fact start to matter in our practical considerations within a hundred of years?
And it was used to stave off "the pandemic" that's been compellingly contested by massive studies. Viz., the Rancourt-Baudin-Mercier studies from the past couple of years. But still, we maintain that "the pandemic" was real, as otherwise it would have been impolite and anti-social.
Likewise,
.....in 1953, in the same year that DNA was discovered by Watson and Crick.....
how many of us are aware that Watson and Crick only determined the _structure_ of the DNA, and that in recent decades the DNA has been established to NOT be a blueprint for living organisms (Philip Ball, 2024)?
.... The first vaccine against Polio was licensed in 1955......
Yes, but how many are ready to appreciate the argument about its validity put forward in books such as Virus Mania, and Turtles all the Way Down: Vaccine Science and Myth?
Adventures and adventuring heroes may be around us and we might be completely oblivious to them, as we seek ersatz inoffensive novelties.
How exactly does all that bear on the main thrust of the article? If you want to peddle these very debatable theories, there are probably more receptive places.
Ah, Jams, there is a link, I believe. For Dors' 'debatable theories' may be another symptom of the problem described by Aurelien. I would argue Aurelien fails to identify the correct origin of the degrading of our society and it is same as the origin of fake medical theories.
But first let me say that Aurelien gives us an excellent assessment of the situation we are now in (our only heroes are victims and 'female heroes' (sic)). But he left out the root cause for these changes in our society. For instance Rockefeller and the Foundations created by him, the elite industrialists and the bankers had various agendas. One was to change education from educating children so that they might fulfil their potential to an educational system designed to transform society into a mass of dumb consumers. These elites' and their Foundations gave grants and wielded their influence in order to create the idea of consumerism and then the reality of the disposable society. In the late 1940s consumerism became an 'official' goal - intended to 'use up' of the excess manpower liberated by the end of the war and create a greater demand for (Rockefeller's) oil based products. Bernays and his propaganda - now called 'marketing' - was a perfect fit for driving mindless, meaningless, excessive consumption. 'Keeping up with the Joneses' became a thing. Its now so pervasive its hard to believe this was all intentionally invented and then 'sold' to us.
It is the pernicious influence of the Foundations and the bankers that worked with (inspired) Rockefeller to nudge society away from reason and invention and towards what we have now - weed and porn, illegal aliens and victimhood, toxic medicines and toxic food. Its the purposeful destruction of the very mind set Aurelien celebrates that has created our degraded society. It was this secret agenda being pushed by the USA's super rich elite and the European bankers that explains why we stopped inventing great technology. Why society stopped building on the amazing power of science. And why STEM is no longer popular whilst 'boys' with blue permed hair protesting against White privilege is so fashionable.
More specifically those who control the publishing industry started rejecting SciFi books that encouraged thinking and demanded those that told titillating stories about sexually active children and such. I recall reading several such books in my youth and, more recently, an essay that reviewed the topic in some detail. Apparently the trend was most noticeable in SciFi comics. It got to such an extent that some comics were kept 'under the counter'. It was an agenda to attack the promulgation of great ideas thru SciFi. It worked. Other components of their agenda have also been comprehensively successful. Breaking down families, pushing 'women's lib' (one of Rockefeller's pet projects), and now Trans, Woke, DIE (sic), and ESG. Since when were Deplorable beer drinkers expected to buy beer pushed by a transgender guy? Or were parents willing to take their kids to queer Disney films. And Dors is correct, degrading medical knowledge and thus medical treatments (cf masks, rebranding flu as 'covid' & toxic 'gene therapy') is a part of the same agenda.
Some call it Cultural Marxism. Bezmenov called it Ideological Subversion.
Its an agenda. Its organised. Aurelien, I think you could have made that point.
You might be right to some extends about the role and agenda of the Foundations.
But I'm also believe that technical progress, like everything else, is submitted to diminishing return on investissent. Which means that, past one point, technical progress is just not profitable (in the broader meaning of the term) or even possible as each incremental progress is always more expensive and always come with some more burdening costs.
And this is, in my opinion, where the main reason why "society stopped building on the amazing power of science" lies.
Incidentally, we probably passed this point at the end of the 60's or beginning of the 70's. Of course, without even realising it.
True, investment will determine what advances are made in society. But isn't that my point? The Foundations were able to direct much of America's investment. At least in those areas that influenced how society evolved.
Did you ever see the women's mags of the 1980s? All glossy. And every one, every month had an article on sex - getting it, doing it, being sexually active. And every one, every month, had an article on Women's Liberation - their oppression, they innate wonderful strength, their need to be independent, to have a career. None of them ever had an article about falling in love, making families, having babies...
What created this messaging? Why did all the glossy girly mags all have the same messages? Why did none of them continue the story lines of those women's mags of the 50s - which were all about meeting the right guy, recipes and house hold economics?
Have you seen those videos on YT where a news reader makes a point? And the video switches to another and then another then you see all the tv hosts were all making the same point - even using the exact same words? Its messaging. Its organised propaganda.
Our schools work the same way. The teachers are organised, inducted, pressured, persuaded.... to brainwash the kids with a specific set of messages. Messaging aimed exactly at destroying those values Aurelien bemoans the loss of. Craig Nelson has just written an excellent essay where he shows precisely how this cultural change is pushed into society. And who does it.
Again, I agree with you. All of this is not a coincidence at all. And it's indeed a culture war.
But I'm afraid you didn't get my point : whatever you do, after a while, it doesn't matter how much you invest a particular domain, it doesn't pay off anymore.
That's what happened with technical progress. We got all the low hanging fruits our fossil fuel civilization was able to get and then it started to be more and more difficult to get more.
And, yes, maybe it's why whoever decide where investments must be done decided to invest elsewhere...
the site is messing up my replies. So I've been repeating myself (see below). Plus yes, I did miss your point.
.... after a while, it doesn't matter how much you invest a particular domain, it doesn't pay off anymore.
That is an argument for diminishing returns? Well, yes, Newton's theory of gravity was a massive advance. Einstein's theory was equally important but exploiting it costs us a lot more in time and trouble to do so. And so on. But then also society gets more sophisticated and capable of doing more complex scientific research?
Newton got the easy fruit with his apple theory. But the really complex, advanced science of building AIs or engineering the virus so they could made a gene therapy out of it have both paid off. They are huge scientific advances. The problem is not that the returns on research have diminished. The problem is that these projects were funded because they are intended to, respectively, replace us or kill us?
Whilst advances that might improve society are not funded - neither the pure research nor its implementation as technology?
Its not that it can't be done. Its that it isn't been done.
Ah, right. But I still think its the successful war on STEM and technology (as initiated by the Foundations 100 years ago) is what determined our lack of technological progress.
Its not that we got the easy advances - they were hard to do in their time. Its that we were stopped by our culture. The Chinese have super fast trains and have built amazing roads and rail infrastructure across the Asian land mass. Russia has missile technology that will give them supremacy in any war.
Meanwhile our roads and bridges are crumbling - and thats old technology so its not a technological issue. Its a lack of social will. Moreover we do do some technology - FaceBook, Google, and bio-weapons (like covid which was built by the Chinese using the tech Fauci et al gave them). And all our digital devices have excellent tracking and spy ware - because that is where our society was encouraged to invest.
No, there are plenty of opportunities for techological advancement. But for us they are only permitted if they facilitate medical harm and the surveillance state. We lack the interest in science that Aurelien describes. That was a socially engineered cultural change. But what our society is empowered to do (by investment funds) is what now drives our (lack of) technological advancement.
Its the way our society has been directed, by those that set the agenda, that leaves us with toxic food, the surveillance infrastructure for a tyranny and a broken society.
To return to your main point. There is a huge lack of STEM education and an awful lack of investment in pure science. The university's sociology depts get the funding and the students. If we invested in pure science then we'd have the basis for new inventions (fusion electricity for example) and we'd still be advancing. We do invest in the latest chip technology. Amazing stuff. But its the Chinese who graduate as many STEM students each year as the US has people working in that area! Hence they almost have a fusion reactor and have just landed a module on the moon.
Elon Musk demonstrates what can be done. There are advances being made in technology. Its only the culture war that hamstrings us from having more of them and exploiting them.
Eloquently written. And the early 1960s is a water shed moment for marking the beginning of the USA's transition away from democracy and towards technocracy and away from decentralization towards centralization (it decades but much of the important areas were fairly front loaded), less firms, strict patent laws that constrain the usage and dissemination of technology, concentrations in banking and finance that (like every other time in history and which were we warned about for 200 years before we did it) inevitably concentrated capital into F.I.R.E. products and assets, where there is investments there is concentration of decision making and homogenization amongst most of those who make the decisions, less firms, less shops, less R&D, less technical people, less opportunity, less, less, less...
Joshua Slocum sailed alone around the world 1895 to 1898. He did it using his own modest resources in the Spray, a boat he rebuilt himself, having apprenticed as a shipwright before going to sea and rising to captain. In “Sailing Alone Around the World” he describes a generally happy voyage and delight with the performance of the Spray. Sir Francis’ sponsored yacht was purpose designed and built by a team of experts. His achievement was to single hand the Clipper route around the Great Capes in very good time with just one stop.
Regarding your request for books and writers, I would suggest Accelerando by Charles Stross as a book with an expansive view of the next century. Much of it pushes scientific and technological boundaries but it is an interesting read. The other would be Kim Stanley Robinson who wrote The Ministry for the Future which takes on climate change disasters and proposes a difficult yet, I believe, hopeful future dealing with the consequences. His Mars Trilogy also deals with some aspects of an adventurous future.
Stanislaw Lem and Tarkowsky come to mind (was the atmosphere of the Warsaw Pact related in any way to Solaris' and the Stalker's implacable power?). Also, in more recent times, Vandermeer's Trilogy is echoing a similar implacability, minus any possible comprehension on the part of humans (which also ties well with the current meaningless slaughter of human sense). SF is a good mirror of the hopes and fears and lack of thereof of our epochs.
For me the wonders of space have been best provided by machines. Voyagers I and II are now outside our planetary neighborhood but still sending data. The robots on Mars gave pictures and analysis without needing any nourishment or shelter. The space borne telescopes provide stunning images of events of billions of years in the past.
I hope that such machines are still within our capacity to field in the future.
Our limiter is overshoot. If the entire world of humans is to share the Northern hemispheres' extravagance, well we better find another four planets to devour.
We will all try to share in the extravagance, but as you say, we are running out of resources, There will be a major collapse within 50-100 years, and after that hopes of recovery to our current levels are small - all the easily available resources will be gone.
Excellent essay but I'm not sure we can speak about the the boredom of Modernity without once mentioning that this exhaustion of the imagination is a largely Western / late-capitalist phenomenon. That's not to say there are no signs of it in, say, China, where we are seeing the emergence of a generation of bored youth, for whom the country's rapid rise out of poverty into global economic supremacy (and astonishing feat in its own right) no longer resonates as it does for earlier generations, who can still remember past privations and struggles.
But where I'm going with this is throughout the period of the 1950's, 1960's and 1970's you have a global struggle to throw off hundreds of years of European colonialism in the Global South and Asia. The Russian cosmonauts and American astronauts were heroes of a sort, but the heroism of the Vietnamese, Algerians, Angolans, South Africans and others was playing out in ways that put the lie t the bright visions of the future articulated by American and European leaders sitting at the top of an exploitative and expanding neo-liberal neo-colonialism. Yes, Star Wars has Vietnam as a backstory but lacks any sense of communal / cultural cohesion. The "Rebels" are basically just cartoon characters fighting against a parody of "Evil" sent up from central casting. In other words, its politics are superficial and non-threatening, which is why people who love the entire Star Wars franchise also support their own government's genocidal policies with respect to actually oppressed people - i.e., they are all servants of the Empire.
Where I'm going with this is that boredom isn't an option for people on the receiving end of Western exploitation, even though their lives are lived within the context of the same technological modernity that you write so clearly about. If you want to see modern day heroes adapting technology in innovative ways in their struggle against violent oppression, look no further than the members of the Al-Qassam Brigades.
As a closing aside, I recommend the Chinese film "Hero" (Zhang Yimou, 2002) for a superb treatment of the tension inherent in the struggle between modernity and individual freedoms. Consider the titular hero's (Jet-Li) actions throughout the film and, particularly, his final choice. Looking forward to more from you on the broader topic. Great job!
"....the heroism of the Vietnamese, Algerians, Angolans, South Africans and others was playing out in ways that put the lie t the bright visions of the future articulated by American and European leaders sitting at the top of an exploitative and expanding neo-liberal neo-colonialism."
Interesting that you note the various races involved in this tragedy. Except that of those who are, or who 'advise', our American and European leaders. Doesn't Biden have about 30 close advisers in the White House, 28 of which are all of the same tribe? But no doubt you blame the old white man for 'his' decision to support the Genocide of Gaza.
The same playbook was being run in the Boer War, the genocide of a million 'communists' in Indonesia in the ?late 1950s, Operation Condor, the CIA importing crack into USA cities in the 70s and the heroin epidemic in the 80s... you name it - and I can name those members of the tribe who were running the scam. Hell, even Al Capone worked for Bronfman - the future chairman of the WJC.
You say 'on the receiving end of Western exploitation'. Sure, the Vietnamese lost 3m murdered - 2 m were civilians and nothing to do with even defending their country. Agent Orange must be seen as a tool for ethnic cleansing, if not genocide. But was this war instigated by the Western peoples? Kennedy tried to end it. They killed him, put in Johnson - who was another (albeit secret) member of the tribe. It was him who was so happy to work with the MIC to push for war. The MIC is still owned and controlled by the same section of society - tho now they use BlackRock as their holding company.
Just look around. Do you think the homeless in LA. The 100,000 dead each year of Fentanyl, heck the thousands of Americans killed by the vaccine are the fat and fortunate who profited off the exploitation of the world? Cos to me the West's sick societies, dying economies and destructive demographics all point to the white, christian societies having lost a hidden war.
You write of 'an exploitative and expanding neo-liberal neo-colonialism' and yes, it was evil - look at British East India company who got one sixth of China addicted to the heroin they grew. But please, when you point the finger, try to point it in the right direction. If you think about it you'll realize that everyone was working for the bankers. They bought the politicians, controlled the newspapers, and married into the UK aristocracy - effectively replacing it. And decided which wars to fight - and how much debt was going to be loaded onto the English people. In the case of the BEIC - it was largely owned by the tribe and run by the Rothschilds who stole India's treasure and left them starving. The British Empire was controlled by the Bank of England. As were the politicians and the info that the British people were allowed to see.
So please, don't blame the Brits. Nor the Deplorables. You are simply compounding our oppression and exploitation.
Actually, my view of who is "behind" neo-liberalism / neo-colonialism is a bit more nuanced than yours. The desire to exploit the masses for personal gain - and commit atrocities to do so - is not limited to members of a specific "tribe" but appears to be fairly ubiquitous across many "tribes". Indeed, the vast majority of every "tribe" don't benefit much from the actions of the small minority who do. I challenge you to identify ALL the players in the late-capitalist / neo-colonial game and I believe you will find that it's a pretty diverse bunch of criminals. Biden has nothing to do with any of the decisions made by his regime, and it is well known how many top members of his regime are Zionists or Zionist sympathizers. Others are just garden variety white supremacists and the token non-whites feeding at the trough - e.g., Lloyd Austin.
I have sympathy for your view. It took me decades of ignorance before I realized the trick that is being played upon us. So excuse my anger - I am angry I was fooled for so long. Never the less I disagree with Lloyd Austin. Just look at Pelosci, Lindsey Graham.... they spout toxic effluent, alien to their voters and their culture. How do you explain that if not by the actions of Epstein? Did you read about Netanyahu's close colleague who succeeded in blackmailing one of the leaders of the ICC court? She was the only one who voted for Israel as not being guilty! Do you seriously think the US politicians aren't owned by AIPAC? Why do you think Epstein was given an island and a plane if not to better blackmail our 'leaders'. Look at Davos and Bilderburg - can you name one member who is either not tribal or not behaving as if he's owned by them? Tony Blair is - he boasted of worshipping their god of light (Lucifer) on BBC radio!
I understand your wish to have a 'balanced and reasonable' view. Unfortunately it is, I think, unjustified.
A reading of ancient history shows that democracies alway devolve into oligarchies. This was certainly true of Athens and Rome, but overlook by most modern histories.
Viewing decolonisation as a win strikes me as laughable. The Europeans might have been cruel, but the greatest cruelty of all is to run a crypto-empire via NGOs staffed by scolding harpies who want to import savages to the metropolis because the over-domesticated men around them do not give them tingles — or because of misguided maternal instincts, who knows?
We just need to look for our heroes in new places. The usual places (e.g. fields of battle in failed proxy wars) are not where we'll find new heroes (e.g. Gaza, Syria or Ukraine). Maybe we'll find them in the ICUs of hospitals in these war zones. Maybe we'll find them in Newsrooms where journalists are getting fired for reporting the truth about these conflicts. Many of the real heroes won't be celebrated as such by the corporate controlled MSM because they tried to tell truth to power (or wouldn't sacrifice ethics to serve its interests). Joy Briahnna (formerly of Hill Rising) and Dr. Annelle Shelling (formerly of the U.S. State Dept.) are two that come to mind. But most of the heroes are unsung and under the radar. We should find them and celebrate them. Those whom the MSM celebrate (and take so seriously) by virtue of their positions of power -- who are thus poised to be heroes -- don't ever rise to the occasion. They are hired by central casting (the donor class) precisely because they lack the stuff of heroes.
Going by the site https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/ I have to think that much of this was, if not deliberately caused, actively encouraged; living as I am in the American Empire, I cannot compare the dreams, hopes, and competencies of the America of my childhood with the nightmares, failures, and stupidity of today. I think that greed and the desire for power over others were and are the impetus for this as well as the replacement of the human heart with those of the cyborgian ones of our tech lords and financiers.
The United States of the 1960s and 70s was both much worse and much better than that of today’s. We have neither the legal apartheid of the South or the epidemic diseases, but we do not have the dreams and humanity of those times either, and we now have a hollowed out society on a looted world.
It's odd that you would say Star Trek is for children. It offered a surprisingly egalitarian view of what society could become, with people of all races and backgrounds working together towards a common goal. Instead of earlier science fiction shows and movies where aliens were creatures or monsters, in Star Trek they're just people. Even the casting was revolutionary for the time. A man of Japanese descent who'd spent years in an interment camp as a child playing a member of the bridge crew, with WW2 so close in everyone's memories? And a Russian crewmember on the bridge at the height of the Cold War? And a woman of color also playing a bridge officer? These things were unprecedented, and opened viewers' eyes to a better future, one with less prejudice and bigotry. If that's what "being for children" means, then I hope I never grow up.
The article lacks punch due to the obvious fakery of the Yanks’ alleged moon landings.
https://herecomeschina.substack.com/p/was-whitey-on-the-moon?
The good news is that ennui is cyclical. I often think of a line in George Orwell's 1936 novel Keep the Aspidistra Flying. The protagonist is a frustrated poet, and he is talking to the editor of a small magazine. The editor "did not need telling why Gordon 'couldn't' write, and why all poets nowadays 'can't' write, and why when they do write it is something as arid as the rattling of a pea inside a big drum."
Things got more interesting not too long after that.
I am reminded by the smattering of Northrop Frye's cyclical vision of literature I encountered almost 40 years ago that we are in a Winter phase -- associated with irony/satire, chaos, death and decay. While the premise will be uncongenial to most readers, it's likely that the only way out is via religion -- not the dead forms of which most of us have encountered in our lives, but the real thing rooted in green shoots of myth and mystery which may emerge from the detritus of what we leave behind to our heirs.
Heroism is in ordinary life: not in what one does but in why you do it and, therefore, in how you do it. As David Bowie said, we can all be heroes.
It is well written, I read it with interest. But it cannot be said that no one knew what would happen in space with Gagarin. Before him, dogs were sent into space in the USSR. Belka and Strelka are cosmonaut dogs who made a space flight on the Soviet spacecraft Sputnik—5 on August 19, 1960.
The main purpose of the flight was to study the effect of space flight factors on the body of animals and other biological objects: overload, prolonged weightlessness, the transition from overload to weightlessness and back, the study of the effect of cosmic radiation on animals and plant organisms, on the state of their vital activity and heredity, the development of systems that ensure human life, flight safety and safe return to earth The earth. Several biomedical experiments and scientific space research have also been conducted.
The flight lasted more than 25 hours. During this time, the ship made 17 complete orbits around the Earth. Belka and Strelka became the first animals to make an orbital space flight and successfully returned to Earth.
Old man yelling at clouds...
A long essay abvout modern space exploration without a single reference to SpaceX, Elon Musk or the successful launch AND landing of Starships 4th test launchlast week. The launch of the largest manmade object to date, which was then successfully landed, together with it's booster. Reusable space rockets, with enough load to be able to send usto Mars, and all of this happened last week.
A ship with a payload capacity of 150 tonnes! By the company responsible for 70% of all active sateliltes. Satelites that bring connectivity to every square inch of the world.
The larger issue here is of course that you where not aware of this, because those propagandists you refer to journalists (making them unemployed is just the start of how AI will save the world), are all busy pretending this did not happen for some reason.
To Mars? To travel beyond the Earth's magnetosphere for months to then visit a geologically dead planet without much of a magnetosphere. For what? Early cancer?
No one needs launch vehicles capable of carrying 150 tons. This is a dead project. Back in 1988, the USSR had an Energia launch vehicle, which put 100 tons into orbit. And he could potentially withdraw 200 tons. No more Energia launches were made, and first of all for a rather prosaic reason: currently there are simply no objects in outer space that would require flights (by the way, very expensive) of this huge rocket with a payload capacity of over 100 tons.
You lack imagination. It is not about what is already up there, but what we put up there as we go on to extract resources from space.
The very act of claiming that the modern world is boring is essentially a claim of a passive consumer, and at best is self-ironic or sarcastic.
Likewise, the very act of seeking novelty, be it as a consumer or as a creative, is a direct outcome of the despair due to the circumstance that quality has ceased to matter.
One aspect of it is that people fail to appreciate what is important even if it's in front of their noses, as in the case of the face mask, a typically highly uncomfortable medical tool the efficiency of which has been proven baseless repeatedly., including all the first-rate studies, across the past hundred of years.
If novelty truly mattered, would not that fact start to matter in our practical considerations within a hundred of years?
And it was used to stave off "the pandemic" that's been compellingly contested by massive studies. Viz., the Rancourt-Baudin-Mercier studies from the past couple of years. But still, we maintain that "the pandemic" was real, as otherwise it would have been impolite and anti-social.
Likewise,
.....in 1953, in the same year that DNA was discovered by Watson and Crick.....
how many of us are aware that Watson and Crick only determined the _structure_ of the DNA, and that in recent decades the DNA has been established to NOT be a blueprint for living organisms (Philip Ball, 2024)?
.... The first vaccine against Polio was licensed in 1955......
Yes, but how many are ready to appreciate the argument about its validity put forward in books such as Virus Mania, and Turtles all the Way Down: Vaccine Science and Myth?
Adventures and adventuring heroes may be around us and we might be completely oblivious to them, as we seek ersatz inoffensive novelties.
How exactly does all that bear on the main thrust of the article? If you want to peddle these very debatable theories, there are probably more receptive places.
Ah, Jams, there is a link, I believe. For Dors' 'debatable theories' may be another symptom of the problem described by Aurelien. I would argue Aurelien fails to identify the correct origin of the degrading of our society and it is same as the origin of fake medical theories.
But first let me say that Aurelien gives us an excellent assessment of the situation we are now in (our only heroes are victims and 'female heroes' (sic)). But he left out the root cause for these changes in our society. For instance Rockefeller and the Foundations created by him, the elite industrialists and the bankers had various agendas. One was to change education from educating children so that they might fulfil their potential to an educational system designed to transform society into a mass of dumb consumers. These elites' and their Foundations gave grants and wielded their influence in order to create the idea of consumerism and then the reality of the disposable society. In the late 1940s consumerism became an 'official' goal - intended to 'use up' of the excess manpower liberated by the end of the war and create a greater demand for (Rockefeller's) oil based products. Bernays and his propaganda - now called 'marketing' - was a perfect fit for driving mindless, meaningless, excessive consumption. 'Keeping up with the Joneses' became a thing. Its now so pervasive its hard to believe this was all intentionally invented and then 'sold' to us.
It is the pernicious influence of the Foundations and the bankers that worked with (inspired) Rockefeller to nudge society away from reason and invention and towards what we have now - weed and porn, illegal aliens and victimhood, toxic medicines and toxic food. Its the purposeful destruction of the very mind set Aurelien celebrates that has created our degraded society. It was this secret agenda being pushed by the USA's super rich elite and the European bankers that explains why we stopped inventing great technology. Why society stopped building on the amazing power of science. And why STEM is no longer popular whilst 'boys' with blue permed hair protesting against White privilege is so fashionable.
More specifically those who control the publishing industry started rejecting SciFi books that encouraged thinking and demanded those that told titillating stories about sexually active children and such. I recall reading several such books in my youth and, more recently, an essay that reviewed the topic in some detail. Apparently the trend was most noticeable in SciFi comics. It got to such an extent that some comics were kept 'under the counter'. It was an agenda to attack the promulgation of great ideas thru SciFi. It worked. Other components of their agenda have also been comprehensively successful. Breaking down families, pushing 'women's lib' (one of Rockefeller's pet projects), and now Trans, Woke, DIE (sic), and ESG. Since when were Deplorable beer drinkers expected to buy beer pushed by a transgender guy? Or were parents willing to take their kids to queer Disney films. And Dors is correct, degrading medical knowledge and thus medical treatments (cf masks, rebranding flu as 'covid' & toxic 'gene therapy') is a part of the same agenda.
Some call it Cultural Marxism. Bezmenov called it Ideological Subversion.
Its an agenda. Its organised. Aurelien, I think you could have made that point.
Hum...
You might be right to some extends about the role and agenda of the Foundations.
But I'm also believe that technical progress, like everything else, is submitted to diminishing return on investissent. Which means that, past one point, technical progress is just not profitable (in the broader meaning of the term) or even possible as each incremental progress is always more expensive and always come with some more burdening costs.
And this is, in my opinion, where the main reason why "society stopped building on the amazing power of science" lies.
Incidentally, we probably passed this point at the end of the 60's or beginning of the 70's. Of course, without even realising it.
True, investment will determine what advances are made in society. But isn't that my point? The Foundations were able to direct much of America's investment. At least in those areas that influenced how society evolved.
Did you ever see the women's mags of the 1980s? All glossy. And every one, every month had an article on sex - getting it, doing it, being sexually active. And every one, every month, had an article on Women's Liberation - their oppression, they innate wonderful strength, their need to be independent, to have a career. None of them ever had an article about falling in love, making families, having babies...
What created this messaging? Why did all the glossy girly mags all have the same messages? Why did none of them continue the story lines of those women's mags of the 50s - which were all about meeting the right guy, recipes and house hold economics?
Have you seen those videos on YT where a news reader makes a point? And the video switches to another and then another then you see all the tv hosts were all making the same point - even using the exact same words? Its messaging. Its organised propaganda.
Our schools work the same way. The teachers are organised, inducted, pressured, persuaded.... to brainwash the kids with a specific set of messages. Messaging aimed exactly at destroying those values Aurelien bemoans the loss of. Craig Nelson has just written an excellent essay where he shows precisely how this cultural change is pushed into society. And who does it.
https://craignelsen.substack.com/p/stupidheads
Its an agenda. Its organised. Its culture war.
And our culture was replaced when we lost the war.
Great points and excellent reference.
Again, I agree with you. All of this is not a coincidence at all. And it's indeed a culture war.
But I'm afraid you didn't get my point : whatever you do, after a while, it doesn't matter how much you invest a particular domain, it doesn't pay off anymore.
That's what happened with technical progress. We got all the low hanging fruits our fossil fuel civilization was able to get and then it started to be more and more difficult to get more.
And, yes, maybe it's why whoever decide where investments must be done decided to invest elsewhere...
the site is messing up my replies. So I've been repeating myself (see below). Plus yes, I did miss your point.
.... after a while, it doesn't matter how much you invest a particular domain, it doesn't pay off anymore.
That is an argument for diminishing returns? Well, yes, Newton's theory of gravity was a massive advance. Einstein's theory was equally important but exploiting it costs us a lot more in time and trouble to do so. And so on. But then also society gets more sophisticated and capable of doing more complex scientific research?
Newton got the easy fruit with his apple theory. But the really complex, advanced science of building AIs or engineering the virus so they could made a gene therapy out of it have both paid off. They are huge scientific advances. The problem is not that the returns on research have diminished. The problem is that these projects were funded because they are intended to, respectively, replace us or kill us?
Whilst advances that might improve society are not funded - neither the pure research nor its implementation as technology?
Its not that it can't be done. Its that it isn't been done.
Ah, right. But I still think its the successful war on STEM and technology (as initiated by the Foundations 100 years ago) is what determined our lack of technological progress.
Its not that we got the easy advances - they were hard to do in their time. Its that we were stopped by our culture. The Chinese have super fast trains and have built amazing roads and rail infrastructure across the Asian land mass. Russia has missile technology that will give them supremacy in any war.
Meanwhile our roads and bridges are crumbling - and thats old technology so its not a technological issue. Its a lack of social will. Moreover we do do some technology - FaceBook, Google, and bio-weapons (like covid which was built by the Chinese using the tech Fauci et al gave them). And all our digital devices have excellent tracking and spy ware - because that is where our society was encouraged to invest.
No, there are plenty of opportunities for techological advancement. But for us they are only permitted if they facilitate medical harm and the surveillance state. We lack the interest in science that Aurelien describes. That was a socially engineered cultural change. But what our society is empowered to do (by investment funds) is what now drives our (lack of) technological advancement.
Its the way our society has been directed, by those that set the agenda, that leaves us with toxic food, the surveillance infrastructure for a tyranny and a broken society.
To return to your main point. There is a huge lack of STEM education and an awful lack of investment in pure science. The university's sociology depts get the funding and the students. If we invested in pure science then we'd have the basis for new inventions (fusion electricity for example) and we'd still be advancing. We do invest in the latest chip technology. Amazing stuff. But its the Chinese who graduate as many STEM students each year as the US has people working in that area! Hence they almost have a fusion reactor and have just landed a module on the moon.
Elon Musk demonstrates what can be done. There are advances being made in technology. Its only the culture war that hamstrings us from having more of them and exploiting them.
Eloquently written. And the early 1960s is a water shed moment for marking the beginning of the USA's transition away from democracy and towards technocracy and away from decentralization towards centralization (it decades but much of the important areas were fairly front loaded), less firms, strict patent laws that constrain the usage and dissemination of technology, concentrations in banking and finance that (like every other time in history and which were we warned about for 200 years before we did it) inevitably concentrated capital into F.I.R.E. products and assets, where there is investments there is concentration of decision making and homogenization amongst most of those who make the decisions, less firms, less shops, less R&D, less technical people, less opportunity, less, less, less...
Greed is boring.
Joshua Slocum sailed alone around the world 1895 to 1898. He did it using his own modest resources in the Spray, a boat he rebuilt himself, having apprenticed as a shipwright before going to sea and rising to captain. In “Sailing Alone Around the World” he describes a generally happy voyage and delight with the performance of the Spray. Sir Francis’ sponsored yacht was purpose designed and built by a team of experts. His achievement was to single hand the Clipper route around the Great Capes in very good time with just one stop.
Regarding your request for books and writers, I would suggest Accelerando by Charles Stross as a book with an expansive view of the next century. Much of it pushes scientific and technological boundaries but it is an interesting read. The other would be Kim Stanley Robinson who wrote The Ministry for the Future which takes on climate change disasters and proposes a difficult yet, I believe, hopeful future dealing with the consequences. His Mars Trilogy also deals with some aspects of an adventurous future.
Stanislaw Lem and Tarkowsky come to mind (was the atmosphere of the Warsaw Pact related in any way to Solaris' and the Stalker's implacable power?). Also, in more recent times, Vandermeer's Trilogy is echoing a similar implacability, minus any possible comprehension on the part of humans (which also ties well with the current meaningless slaughter of human sense). SF is a good mirror of the hopes and fears and lack of thereof of our epochs.
Still love asking the big questions here being born in 48.
Alone but reflected against the flaws of the frightened as the West devour itself with violence.
Thanks for all the authors of courage!
For me the wonders of space have been best provided by machines. Voyagers I and II are now outside our planetary neighborhood but still sending data. The robots on Mars gave pictures and analysis without needing any nourishment or shelter. The space borne telescopes provide stunning images of events of billions of years in the past.
I hope that such machines are still within our capacity to field in the future.
Our limiter is overshoot. If the entire world of humans is to share the Northern hemispheres' extravagance, well we better find another four planets to devour.
We will all try to share in the extravagance, but as you say, we are running out of resources, There will be a major collapse within 50-100 years, and after that hopes of recovery to our current levels are small - all the easily available resources will be gone.