Ukraine update, and 'peace deals' in general

Now that a ceasefire with Russia is in the cards, I wanted to offer some thoughts on what I consider fake vs real peace deals. I also haven't blogged about the Ukraine war recently, since I don't find the subject very interesting— it's just been the same old endless losing and endless coping for them and their supporters (a ritual they somehow never get tired of). 

What I really want to talk about is the broader subject of 'peace deals'. Namely, I think this is part of the broader betrayal of Trump's anti-establishment / populist base, not anything real or substantial. 

What they're doing is temporarily de-escalating on one losing front, but not in order to change things up or wind down the level of interventionism, it's so they can re-focus the money and weapons to some other losing front or possibly even start a new war. 

In this case, what they have in mind is de-escalating on the Russian front (following another major defeat) so they can re-direct all the energy to fighting Venezuela instead. This is a fairly obvious call, given the massive build in the region.

It's also a warning sign that the actual power of the US military is collapsing, since it no longer has the industrial capacity or manpower or logistic ability to fight on multiple fronts at the same time. Instead what they have to do is isolate one front by pausing all the other wars, stage highly theatrical bombings and assassinations, and then quickly back down before the real fighting starts, before doing the exact same thing somewhere else-- but always failing to achieve their real objectives, whether regime-change, winning territory, securing trade-routes, capturing resources, or whatever.

Contrast this with the peak of American military performance during WW2, when we could fight (and win) on multiple fronts, while enjoying the support of the domestic population, and without bringing down the entire economy, and you can see how far things have fallen in terms of industrial capability, long-term strategic thought, and so on and so forth. 

And since nothing in the real world is frozen / static, this will continue to get worse and worse over time. The military will be weaker in the future, with less equipment to throw away and less support at home, and the economy will be more and more indebted and less capable of producing anything worthwhile to feed into the meat grinder. 

We are also not ditching the losers in Israel, Ukraine, Taiwan, etc in order to make deals with Russia / Iran / China / etc that would allow us access to energy, trade routes, etc, which we need in order to stabilize our economy. It's simply dialing down the heat, but without altering any of the long-term dynamics, meaning that (1) nothing will change and (2) there will be no economic benefit to re-compensate us for the massive waste of blood, money, equipment, etc. 

The wars will likely resume in 5-10 years (maybe sooner), since none of the participants have any reason to stick by these flimsy / cynical agreements, and perhaps with more intensity than before. And since, like I said above, we're only going to get weaker and weaker, the side being backed by the Pentagon will get raped harder than before by Russia, China, Iran, Venezuela, etc. 

It's just kicking the can down the road, and calling that a win, a short-term defeat for an even larger loss in the long run-- retarded, but also typical of the Trump administration and spineless American / Western elites in general.  

Also, and as usual, Trump, Musk, Vivek, and the GOP in general are relying on MAGA supporters being too stupid to tell the difference between real vs fake outcomes, and too addicted to slop consumption to push back against them, which is why their army of paid apologists is now working overtime to rationalize yet another destructive wasteful foreign war as AKSHUALLY America 1st. After so many betrayals, the MAGA base (at least judging by the Internet) is now just an army of die-hard masochists and cucks, led by paid shills at the top, marching happily into yet another massive disaster-- better to just leave them to their fate, if that's how they want to go out, then join the doomed suicidal cult. 

An old joke

For those who aren't interested in rants--

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7GP3l5znc8

(In case the link goes down, it's a joke from The Magnificent Seven.

A man fell from a ten-story building, and as he was falling, the people on each floor kept hearing him say, "So far so good.")

We went on printing billions of dollars, with no plan, and as we got further and further and further into debt, we said, "So far, so good."

It's a succinct description of not just the economy, but the mental state of the 'experts' who are responsible for it.

And, it goes without saying-- but actually must be said-- that today's sophisticated, modern, superior people are now living in (trapped in) what their predecessors would have regarded as an absurd joke. 

Brief update, quitting my job

I've written almost nothing over the past few months, and I've also done almost no creative or academic work.

The reason for this is working a full-time job, which has been very demanding on my time and energy. However the economy is beyond fucked, so working for a wage barely gets you anywhere, but you still have do the same amount of work or more (so your bosses and managers get their big fat bonuses, and to compensate for all the jobs being slashed and the yuge numbers of people dropping out of the system). The job I had involved real physical work, which I don't mind, and had the added benefit of keeping me in shape, but unfortunately it just took too much out of me.

This led to a situation where I felt too tired on the days I had off to do anything creative, plus there were chores and errands to get to and so on. And of course once I felt rested and capable and optimistic, the work cycle would start again. 

I would open up this blog, see I still had some views, and feel bad and want to write something. Sometimes I did, but mostly I just kept on promising myself, 'this time will be different' and 'I'll write something the next off-day, it's just that this one was a rare miss' or 'next week I'll get to this or that'. This went on for months. Eventually it became obvious what the problem was.

So I've decided to step down and work part-time instead of full-time. That way I can invest most of my time and energy into the things that really matter to me. It won't be a very impressive lifestyle, but if I'm not going to be making much money anyways (guaranteed, in this economy) it's better to scrape by while feeling fulfilled and engaged, rather than slave away at something I'm not even that enthusiastic about, and still not make that much money at the end of the day.

As far as I'm concerned, if the people in charge of our society want workers and grunts to supervise, they should start offering higher wages and better working conditions. But they won't, so the society will keep disintegrating and they might just wind up being the bosses and managers and supervisors of nothing, due to their greed. But that's their problem...

I'm going to do my best to avoid falling in the classic pit-fall of becoming an aimless NEET who just does drugs and alcohol and plays video games day-in, day-out. Fortunately I still have bills to pay, so I have some external pressure on me to work and produce something rather than waste away.

My main interests have always been artistic and of course intellectual, so that's where I'm going to focus my energies. I may take a course here or there, or do some kind of apprenticeship (it remains to be seen). I'm never going to college though, the whole thing is too rotten and too insulting. Since I've made decent money this year I've also been able to collect collect a lot gear, books, tools, equipment for different things, which I now finally have time to use. I may start a YT channel, for example.

For now, it's all up in the air, and anyways I have a real week of work left-- so this is still somewhat premature-- but the point is that things should finally get more interesting around here. Yes, I'm aware I've said that before, but fortunately I don't charge anyone for reading here (and never will), so this won't come off as a parasitic plea for MORE MONEY like the people on Patreon or Substack do. Even if it doesn't work out, and I sink into a stupor or eventually have to return to toiling in the collapsing economy or whatever you (whoever is still reading here) won't have been been scammed.

Redditards

It might be obvious to everyone, but as far as I can tell nobody has said it *overtly*.  It's interesting to me because it's another one of those cases where the branding is the exact opposite of what's actually going on. 

 

I think the current political backlash against the left is due to the fact that the fedora atheists and woke / Reddit types of the 2000s and 2010s were not-- contrary to all of their propaganda-- really about rationalistic discourse and free-thinking, liberating the masses from their religious oppressors, ushering in a new age of enlightenment, and so on and so forth. Rather they were a group of crusaders who were out to introduce an even higher level of conformity and group-worship to the culture, one where even implying that you have a slightly different opinion on the hot topic du jour gets you witch-hunted, mocked, banned, and so on, all by a viciously intolerant mob. 

They were really wannabe commissars and witch-hunters, just the left-wing version instead of the right-wing version.

And in their actual behavior they were the opposite of an open-minded person, let alone a free thinker or iconoclast or great scientist or whoever else-- insecure retards who can only develop an opinion as part of some kind of echo-chamber.

 

The end result of putting these morons in charge of The Science was the COVID fiasco, where everyone saw that the authorities were not only clueless and incompetent, unaware of basic facts, and incapable of coming up with real scientific solutions, but on top of that had a seething disdain and contempt for the people they were supposed to be in charge of.

RETVRN to 70s / 80s movies

Zoomers (and Millennials) whose parents never showed them 70s / 80s Hollywood, and who instead grew up on a diet of video games and CGI and now AI slop were aesthetically deprived of some of the coolest experiences out there, and should RETVRN before it's too late and their personality hardens into shape. It might be over for Millennials, who I can see raving about their favorite video games and simulators in their 50s and 60s, but Zoomers should make an effort to experience the classics before it's too late.

I'm very lucky my mom showed me a lot of them growing up, an experience I took for granted but turns out is really quite rare these days.

As a result of being exposed to actual art and entertainment, I've always found video games incredibly boring and awful. Yes, in theory, if done right they could be well-made works of art with good music and nice images-- but they almost never are. Instead it's just horrendous acting, boring plots, no music / soundtrack, and a 17+ hour commitment needed in order to finish them. Not to mention the sky high prices for new video games, unlike older movies which you can pick up at thrift stores for almost nothing.  The gayest medium imaginable, and unfortunately the average young person (under 40) is so deprived that that is all they've ever experienced-- don't let this be your fate!!

If you're not aware, essentially everything is done better than in modern movies. They're shot on film, with real backgrounds (not green screen), they're not infested with lame sPeCiAl eFfEcTs or CGI or other pointless crap, and the acting is mature and competent (as opposed to the wacky over-the-top stuff we have today). If you've only seen movies from the 2000s or the 2010s onwards, then-- and I'm not exaggerating when I say this-- you have no idea how a real movie looks, and what an experience it can be. Nothing like today's slop.

 

My advice is to start by watching Stars Wars, Jaws, and the first results under '70s / 80s classic movies' and then branch out from there into whatever genre you prefer.