"Diversity is our strength" is ironically true but not in the way they think it is. What Screwtape et al really hate is diversity of loyalties. In the days of nations, each with its own character and prejudices, people could never have been sucked into these global networks of sin. But the internet has come close to abolishing the nations. Bad actors and bad ideas within every nation can now join up like drops of vomit running together.
To make matters worse, evil has a built-in advantage in networked spaces. Good doesn't seek social support for its ideas, because good already has support in God. The good look to heaven while the bad look to each other, always and everywhere searching for accomplices within human social frameworks to prop up their (ultimately futile) stand against the Eternal. So evil has an ineradicable advantage in forming networks... and now, it has the technology to create them on the global scale.
The silver lining is that the internet can also be used in the way it was meant to be used, as a communications tool, to bring together the remnants of Christendom, which used to coexist comfortably with national differences, but will have to look different in this post-national era: truly global, and yet as always, a body not a network.
"...but will have to look different in this post-national era: truly global, and yet as always, a body not a network."
Perfectly said, Felix. Thank you.
Ironically, a body is what I suspect the enemy seeks but can never find. A network (or a criminal enterprise, or an empire) is the hollow, ersatz form of one which lacks the most important ingredient. The same could be said of the latest batch of AI toys; the devil's playground is a world of shadows without shapes. Much like a cargo cult, his followers think they can summon meaning by building crude simulacra and going through the motions. Nope.
"The implication seems to be that we cannot lead ourselves effectively according to our principles, or don’t want to assume the risk of trying. Instead we look to outsource the work to distant and powerful strangers who we know almost nothing about."
This is really the crux of the issue: That most people have given over their sense of courage and responsibility to "leaders," "experts," and "authorities." They *assume* — because they have been told repeatedly — that these "authorities" have their best interests at heart. Well, first of all, those "authorities" have no hearts: They long ago sacrificed those for cushy gigs and other perquisites, and they've all been blackmailed in black-and-white with their own perversions. And getting out of the death-cult isn't like "hey, I don't wanna do this anymore" and then walk out the door, if you get my drift.
Yes, most people are complacent and therefore extremely weak in mind, body, and spirit, and like you said, they become wrathful when called on the carpet over their stupidity and/or hypocrisy. Taking real risks most often involves making mistakes and amending them: This is one way that we build moral character, not by having someone *tell us* what it is, or worse, allowing someone else to become the martyr so that we can continue our slothful, uncreative, unthinking, spiritually wasteful ways.
Thanks again, Mark, for a well-written, thought-inspiring article. I could go on but I've got students about to ring my doorbell! 🎹🎸🥁🎤
"They long ago sacrificed those for cushy gigs and other perquisites, and they've all been blackmailed in black-and-white with their own perversions."
And even if they didn't, we can't rely on them to magically fix everything, let alone to take all the hits in our place. Either all of us are Spartacus, or nobody is.
Excellent extrapolation of Screwtape’s days of yore into our current digital realm. Think the totality of sin is still equal to the sum of it’s parts, revealing a stunning array of fractions reverberating within the digital matrix. Agree that the appearance of buy-in poses a significant challenge to evil, due to the refractive nature of sin upon confrontation.
Am thrilled at your prospects of becoming a fly in the proverbial ointment! Can only hope that you will aspire to becoming a globopsycho’s worst nightmare.
As they slowly defile our warm and fuzzies, cute and cuddlies, austere and revered, we can continue to dismantle their illusions with a stark assessment of reality, branded with ubiquitous truth.
It seems to lend itself to having the appearance of greater permeation in the digital realm, but could argue it as illusory. A digital apparition the evil one hopes to ensnare the go-alongs or hapless victims as a spider spins its web. Yuk, spooky, yet a perceptible weakness. Ain’t all it’s cracked up to be, just more lies and deception.
What’s next? Perhaps an army of bots being unleashed in the comment sections of all credulous authors parroting shaming innuendoes.
A time of hard truths vs soft sins is upon us. I do believe a paradoxical choice will await many when they can no longer ignore the ugliness that the easy path is built upon. It’s inevitable as sin increases; the pace of which, as Mark pointed out, rapidly expands now.
Fantastic, Mark. I think Screwtape isn't happy, although his ilk usually shies away from intelligence and nuance because they believe it's weakness and beneath them.
I liked your remark that thoughts can be sinful. This is actually confirmed by experts working with serial criminals (Inside the Criminal Mind): the few ones who achieve reintegration only do so because they managed to radically change their thinking, and all of it. Thinking always precedes and leads to action, one way or another, and even small actions can be catastrophic spiritually. Which isn't to say I want to guilt-trip people who have "bad" thoughts at times, we all do. As long as we catch ourselves it's all good. But thoughts do become ingrained fast, and the road to hell isn't just a highway, it's a damn flood.
The problem of course is that mind is so closely connected to soul that they almost seem inseparable at times. Does the soul choose what the mind thinks about in any moment? It's not a simple question, even though I suspect the answer is something like "yes." It gets pretty spooky when we try to self-examine at that depth, though. We can easily get lost in such meta-thinking, or start running in circles until we drive ourselves mad.
I think that's why your most recent post on sanity is so valuable. We are capable of creating techniques and strategies to keep ourselves from spiraling out into chaos and nihilism. Understanding that I'm neither the sum total of several thoughts nor the avatar of any individual thought is the starting point of the journey, the end of which might be the realization that "I" (the self, the soul) am the local seat of judgment for my thoughts, who must compare those judgments against the rulings of an even higher court in order to distinguish the good from the bad. If the court system is running optimally, such judgments should be swift as lightning. But since I'm only a man, there's always going to be some mistakes and lag.
I kind of learned the hard way that life seems to demand balance and run in "phases", like some multidimensional complex graph or whatever. We therefore need to organize our internal life accordingly to be in tune with (higher) reality. Part of it means we can't run around philosophizing and meta-judging all the time. Phases of mundaneness and just everyday stuff and thoughts are natural and shouldn't be worked against. Then there are phases of hyper-awareness to the deeper aspects of soul life. It's all more akin to a graceful dance than some linear method or utilitarian endeavor or goal-reaching.
I guess by "techniques and strategies" I didn't mean some hard-nosed, militant fixation on where thoughts come from, or whether they're good or bad. In fact, I would assume such judgments become unconscious and automatic early on point in most people's lives. Of course that could be be a big problem if you never figured out the difference, or were even taught to invert good and evil in thought and action. I guess that's when you really *should* go down the rabbit hole of investigating why you keep thinking about evil things.
But I agree that 95% of the time we shouldn't be doing anything like that, since constant self-examination is counterproductive to living a good life and doing good works. It also sounds pretty boring.
Absolutely. 'Life is not linear' or even a defined function is a great truth for all of us who have been drowning in analyticism. Life is rhythmic, it sometimes seems cyclical but I remind myself that the cycle is really a spiral, that is it is going somewhere.
Terrific article. Very, very little that I'd even quibble with.
I haven't read enough C.S. Lewis aside from his most famous work, of course. I need to track down a copy of Screwtape once I'm able. Sounds extremely relevant.
C.S. Lewis was my teacher's teacher, and one thing among others I remember from Screwtape was that the devil's effectiveness depended on people not seeing him.
I love the good-guy side, where real men and real women are brave, free, and intelligent, as we seek our own interest and help other good people. That's what concentrates against the worthless enemy through the system dynamics they have set up, as they draw weakling imbecilic slaves to their side.
As I sometimes taunt the bastards, singing to the tune of "The Old Grey Mule,"
"The Old Illuminati just ain't what they used to be....
ain't what they used to be....
ain't what they used to be."
And as for us, here's a song I've been listening to by one of our friends in Russia.
I love it when the Don overflows and the groves turn green in the spring
And the fog spreads over the river, oh how I love it
I love it when a clear, crimson dawn is reflected in the window
And the red sun shines in the domes, oh, how much I love it.
I love it when a familiar song heartily rips my soul
And all my relatives are in the circle at the table, oh how I love it.
I love it when there is a church holiday in a quiet monastery.
At a prayer service, they call on St. Nicholas the Prelate.
I love it when the hot prowess inspires fear in the infidels.
And I love the good glory of the Cossacks, oh how I love it!
Unfortunately the "infidels" they refer to are not the global kakistocracy but their tribal enemies that they wish to exterminate, their own "Canaanites" , in accord with the Abrahamic pathological narrative of hate they are stuck in..
“Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. BECAUSE narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it. Matthew 7:13--14
Strange point about all of this that my study of the Sermon on the Mount has brought to my attention. On the subject of so much of humanity's following the broad and easy way, in context the broad way of NPCness, assign the cause to the narrowness of the Way to Life. More modern versions reduce this 'because' at the beginning of v.14 to a simple connecting conjunction but the Greek seems to support the causative nature of the connection. What I am trying to get at, is that the comparative wideness and ease of the path to destruction is not chosen by Screwtape or his dark master, but by the nature of the Way, the Truth, and the Life.
He is narrow and He is difficult. Mark seems to be assuming that the demons have chosen this path and don't realise how badly it will turn out for them, but I think that the terms of the war were inevitable based on the unchanging and unchangeable Way to Life. We think of NPCness as something of the modern world but it is really a perfect description of almost everyone in antiquity, of the pagan world as a whole.
Humanity has always realised that a spark of divinity is required to make an individual, hence the demigod ancestry of all of the heroes. But the Gospel allows that seed to be planted widely. What has changed about the war is the exact opposite of the way that we perceive it. We are now more than we have ever been, though we do not gain our significance from numbers or accumulate into blobs or mobs.
I said, a long time ago I don't remember how long, that the long term impact of the internet would not be based on any of the things that we usually consider important about it, but on how you and I use it to spread the Gospel. And that is the truth. I spent 15 years being the solitary 'Grace Guy' before I ever found another. And the 'Grace Guy' numbers in any place are tiny, but if the strange magic conjured up by DARPA allows us to connect the power that is unleashed will truly change the world. This is the vision that should make our enemies afraid, an army made of Kierkegaardian individuals, Athanasius Contra Mundi multiplied.
"Mark seems to be assuming that the demons have chosen this path and don't realise how badly it will turn out for them, but I think that the terms of the war were inevitable based on the unchanging and unchangeable Way to Life."
I don't think we're in disagreement, actually. For the Enemy to look on the battlefield and see advantage where there is only obvious and inevitable
ruin seems to expose the illogic and fabuismt nested in the core of evil. Again, it's fractal. The higher realms are in alignment with our more readily apprehended reality. Idiocy here echoes idiocies there. So while the narrow path is (or becomes) the most obvious appraisal of reality to some, to others it looks like an impossible errand undertaken by hubristic fools. And likewise the broad, easy path seems wise and even daring; look at all the room to maneuver, and prove ourselves clever and adaptable!
So each side views each other as foolish. But because they're diametrically opposed, only one can be correct, no matter what strata we're looking at.
For me this resonates with Langan's idea of a parasitic divergence. The divide between the big sinners and the NPCs becomes greater than it ever was in the past. And whereas previously a hierarchy of sinners (fewer in number) was necessary to sustain the one at the apex, now the middle tiers have been leveled down to the bottom. The food may not taste as good, but the quantity is now what sustains the top feeder(s). The goal is to lock that system into place, to create a stable feeding ground.
Yeah, man. It's a hell of a thing trying to visualize the math in play (for me, at least; I think it looks like some funky parabolas). But what seems clear is a utilitarian min-max curve of bee hives and anthills. But the Enemy's preferred gestalt organism would probably be even more apocalyptic in its destruction of the middle. I'm thinking along the lines of the extreme dimorphism of the anglerfish (a true sea monster if there ever was one).
Yes. The enemy's goal is something like a single Pharaoh worshipped by an infinite number of slaves, all indistinct from one another. Not sure that there is an animal parallel to that. Eugyppius wrote a very good piece recently on the union of the Top and the Bottom against the Middle that illustrates this quite nicely. I sort of wonder if substack is beginning to function as a sort of neural network? The same ideas seem to pulse through the network. Not sure how I feel about that.
Right. It's the apotheosis of the system, for the one to rule all (and to be unseated by assassination, though that part isn't advertised).
As far as substack functioning as a hive mind, I have my doubts. Picking up on the same, ever-less-subtle clues seems to be more an artifact of the stark difference and increasingly clarity between the opposed forces. For distant parties to agree on the length of a tiger's teeth mostly signals how widespread and prevalent tiger encounters are.
That's an interesting take, Harrison. It's as if the "middle class" of demonic socioeconomics has been hollowed out, leaving just the very rich and influential demons and the very poor and individually insignificant ones. As above, so below, I guess. (Or maybe with demons, it's "as below [infernal realm], so above [earth]"?)
"...This is due to the inherent inefficiencies of freedom, individuality, creativity and openness to debate. But the end products are men and women who have been tested and tempered in the flames... Who would you take to war with you? A hundred honed Rohirrim cavalry, or a thousand gibbering goblins of Mordor?"
This really spoke to me. It reminds me of something I saw online. Some guy invented a pair of glasses that generates ChatGPT responses that scroll past your eyes in response to things other people say to you. Then, instead of responding spontaneously, you're supposed to just say whatever the language model says.
There's an implicit message of "adopt this or be left behind" with a lot of this tech, but I think the opposite is true. How much of an advantage will you have if you DON'T use that crutch?
"Diversity is our strength" is ironically true but not in the way they think it is. What Screwtape et al really hate is diversity of loyalties. In the days of nations, each with its own character and prejudices, people could never have been sucked into these global networks of sin. But the internet has come close to abolishing the nations. Bad actors and bad ideas within every nation can now join up like drops of vomit running together.
To make matters worse, evil has a built-in advantage in networked spaces. Good doesn't seek social support for its ideas, because good already has support in God. The good look to heaven while the bad look to each other, always and everywhere searching for accomplices within human social frameworks to prop up their (ultimately futile) stand against the Eternal. So evil has an ineradicable advantage in forming networks... and now, it has the technology to create them on the global scale.
The silver lining is that the internet can also be used in the way it was meant to be used, as a communications tool, to bring together the remnants of Christendom, which used to coexist comfortably with national differences, but will have to look different in this post-national era: truly global, and yet as always, a body not a network.
"...but will have to look different in this post-national era: truly global, and yet as always, a body not a network."
Perfectly said, Felix. Thank you.
Ironically, a body is what I suspect the enemy seeks but can never find. A network (or a criminal enterprise, or an empire) is the hollow, ersatz form of one which lacks the most important ingredient. The same could be said of the latest batch of AI toys; the devil's playground is a world of shadows without shapes. Much like a cargo cult, his followers think they can summon meaning by building crude simulacra and going through the motions. Nope.
"The implication seems to be that we cannot lead ourselves effectively according to our principles, or don’t want to assume the risk of trying. Instead we look to outsource the work to distant and powerful strangers who we know almost nothing about."
This is really the crux of the issue: That most people have given over their sense of courage and responsibility to "leaders," "experts," and "authorities." They *assume* — because they have been told repeatedly — that these "authorities" have their best interests at heart. Well, first of all, those "authorities" have no hearts: They long ago sacrificed those for cushy gigs and other perquisites, and they've all been blackmailed in black-and-white with their own perversions. And getting out of the death-cult isn't like "hey, I don't wanna do this anymore" and then walk out the door, if you get my drift.
Yes, most people are complacent and therefore extremely weak in mind, body, and spirit, and like you said, they become wrathful when called on the carpet over their stupidity and/or hypocrisy. Taking real risks most often involves making mistakes and amending them: This is one way that we build moral character, not by having someone *tell us* what it is, or worse, allowing someone else to become the martyr so that we can continue our slothful, uncreative, unthinking, spiritually wasteful ways.
Thanks again, Mark, for a well-written, thought-inspiring article. I could go on but I've got students about to ring my doorbell! 🎹🎸🥁🎤
EDIT: Liked and cross-posted!
"They long ago sacrificed those for cushy gigs and other perquisites, and they've all been blackmailed in black-and-white with their own perversions."
And even if they didn't, we can't rely on them to magically fix everything, let alone to take all the hits in our place. Either all of us are Spartacus, or nobody is.
Good luck with your class, Sharine.
💖
Excellent extrapolation of Screwtape’s days of yore into our current digital realm. Think the totality of sin is still equal to the sum of it’s parts, revealing a stunning array of fractions reverberating within the digital matrix. Agree that the appearance of buy-in poses a significant challenge to evil, due to the refractive nature of sin upon confrontation.
Am thrilled at your prospects of becoming a fly in the proverbial ointment! Can only hope that you will aspire to becoming a globopsycho’s worst nightmare.
As they slowly defile our warm and fuzzies, cute and cuddlies, austere and revered, we can continue to dismantle their illusions with a stark assessment of reality, branded with ubiquitous truth.
"the totality of sin still equal to the sum of it’s parts, revealing a stunning array of fractions reverberating within the digital matrix."
That's an interesting idea; an evil pie chart sliced into ever finer slivers, but still adding up to the same destructive force.
It seems to lend itself to having the appearance of greater permeation in the digital realm, but could argue it as illusory. A digital apparition the evil one hopes to ensnare the go-alongs or hapless victims as a spider spins its web. Yuk, spooky, yet a perceptible weakness. Ain’t all it’s cracked up to be, just more lies and deception.
What’s next? Perhaps an army of bots being unleashed in the comment sections of all credulous authors parroting shaming innuendoes.
I like the idea but might be easier to picture as the same substance spread over a much larger area, resulting in much less depth.
A time of hard truths vs soft sins is upon us. I do believe a paradoxical choice will await many when they can no longer ignore the ugliness that the easy path is built upon. It’s inevitable as sin increases; the pace of which, as Mark pointed out, rapidly expands now.
...and humour if possible.
https://alphaandomegacloud.wordpress.com/2022/12/29/transgender-and-other-trans-words-definitions/
I don't care if the odds are 10,000 to 1, I am on the side of the creator and creation.
Fantastic, Mark. I think Screwtape isn't happy, although his ilk usually shies away from intelligence and nuance because they believe it's weakness and beneath them.
I liked your remark that thoughts can be sinful. This is actually confirmed by experts working with serial criminals (Inside the Criminal Mind): the few ones who achieve reintegration only do so because they managed to radically change their thinking, and all of it. Thinking always precedes and leads to action, one way or another, and even small actions can be catastrophic spiritually. Which isn't to say I want to guilt-trip people who have "bad" thoughts at times, we all do. As long as we catch ourselves it's all good. But thoughts do become ingrained fast, and the road to hell isn't just a highway, it's a damn flood.
The problem of course is that mind is so closely connected to soul that they almost seem inseparable at times. Does the soul choose what the mind thinks about in any moment? It's not a simple question, even though I suspect the answer is something like "yes." It gets pretty spooky when we try to self-examine at that depth, though. We can easily get lost in such meta-thinking, or start running in circles until we drive ourselves mad.
I think that's why your most recent post on sanity is so valuable. We are capable of creating techniques and strategies to keep ourselves from spiraling out into chaos and nihilism. Understanding that I'm neither the sum total of several thoughts nor the avatar of any individual thought is the starting point of the journey, the end of which might be the realization that "I" (the self, the soul) am the local seat of judgment for my thoughts, who must compare those judgments against the rulings of an even higher court in order to distinguish the good from the bad. If the court system is running optimally, such judgments should be swift as lightning. But since I'm only a man, there's always going to be some mistakes and lag.
I kind of learned the hard way that life seems to demand balance and run in "phases", like some multidimensional complex graph or whatever. We therefore need to organize our internal life accordingly to be in tune with (higher) reality. Part of it means we can't run around philosophizing and meta-judging all the time. Phases of mundaneness and just everyday stuff and thoughts are natural and shouldn't be worked against. Then there are phases of hyper-awareness to the deeper aspects of soul life. It's all more akin to a graceful dance than some linear method or utilitarian endeavor or goal-reaching.
I guess by "techniques and strategies" I didn't mean some hard-nosed, militant fixation on where thoughts come from, or whether they're good or bad. In fact, I would assume such judgments become unconscious and automatic early on point in most people's lives. Of course that could be be a big problem if you never figured out the difference, or were even taught to invert good and evil in thought and action. I guess that's when you really *should* go down the rabbit hole of investigating why you keep thinking about evil things.
But I agree that 95% of the time we shouldn't be doing anything like that, since constant self-examination is counterproductive to living a good life and doing good works. It also sounds pretty boring.
Absolutely. 'Life is not linear' or even a defined function is a great truth for all of us who have been drowning in analyticism. Life is rhythmic, it sometimes seems cyclical but I remind myself that the cycle is really a spiral, that is it is going somewhere.
Thought provoking and interesting read!
Thanks, Gary!
Terrific article. Very, very little that I'd even quibble with.
I haven't read enough C.S. Lewis aside from his most famous work, of course. I need to track down a copy of Screwtape once I'm able. Sounds extremely relevant.
Dear Mark and Shari--
Great stuff!
C.S. Lewis was my teacher's teacher, and one thing among others I remember from Screwtape was that the devil's effectiveness depended on people not seeing him.
I love the good-guy side, where real men and real women are brave, free, and intelligent, as we seek our own interest and help other good people. That's what concentrates against the worthless enemy through the system dynamics they have set up, as they draw weakling imbecilic slaves to their side.
As I sometimes taunt the bastards, singing to the tune of "The Old Grey Mule,"
"The Old Illuminati just ain't what they used to be....
ain't what they used to be....
ain't what they used to be."
And as for us, here's a song I've been listening to by one of our friends in Russia.
I love it when the Don overflows and the groves turn green in the spring
And the fog spreads over the river, oh how I love it
I love it when a clear, crimson dawn is reflected in the window
And the red sun shines in the domes, oh, how much I love it.
I love it when a familiar song heartily rips my soul
And all my relatives are in the circle at the table, oh how I love it.
I love it when there is a church holiday in a quiet monastery.
At a prayer service, they call on St. Nicholas the Prelate.
I love it when the hot prowess inspires fear in the infidels.
And I love the good glory of the Cossacks, oh how I love it!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5zGAdvCp6k
And I love how you mock them!
Tim
https://fightingmonarch.com
Unfortunately the "infidels" they refer to are not the global kakistocracy but their tribal enemies that they wish to exterminate, their own "Canaanites" , in accord with the Abrahamic pathological narrative of hate they are stuck in..
“Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. BECAUSE narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it. Matthew 7:13--14
Strange point about all of this that my study of the Sermon on the Mount has brought to my attention. On the subject of so much of humanity's following the broad and easy way, in context the broad way of NPCness, assign the cause to the narrowness of the Way to Life. More modern versions reduce this 'because' at the beginning of v.14 to a simple connecting conjunction but the Greek seems to support the causative nature of the connection. What I am trying to get at, is that the comparative wideness and ease of the path to destruction is not chosen by Screwtape or his dark master, but by the nature of the Way, the Truth, and the Life.
He is narrow and He is difficult. Mark seems to be assuming that the demons have chosen this path and don't realise how badly it will turn out for them, but I think that the terms of the war were inevitable based on the unchanging and unchangeable Way to Life. We think of NPCness as something of the modern world but it is really a perfect description of almost everyone in antiquity, of the pagan world as a whole.
Humanity has always realised that a spark of divinity is required to make an individual, hence the demigod ancestry of all of the heroes. But the Gospel allows that seed to be planted widely. What has changed about the war is the exact opposite of the way that we perceive it. We are now more than we have ever been, though we do not gain our significance from numbers or accumulate into blobs or mobs.
I said, a long time ago I don't remember how long, that the long term impact of the internet would not be based on any of the things that we usually consider important about it, but on how you and I use it to spread the Gospel. And that is the truth. I spent 15 years being the solitary 'Grace Guy' before I ever found another. And the 'Grace Guy' numbers in any place are tiny, but if the strange magic conjured up by DARPA allows us to connect the power that is unleashed will truly change the world. This is the vision that should make our enemies afraid, an army made of Kierkegaardian individuals, Athanasius Contra Mundi multiplied.
"Mark seems to be assuming that the demons have chosen this path and don't realise how badly it will turn out for them, but I think that the terms of the war were inevitable based on the unchanging and unchangeable Way to Life."
I don't think we're in disagreement, actually. For the Enemy to look on the battlefield and see advantage where there is only obvious and inevitable
ruin seems to expose the illogic and fabuismt nested in the core of evil. Again, it's fractal. The higher realms are in alignment with our more readily apprehended reality. Idiocy here echoes idiocies there. So while the narrow path is (or becomes) the most obvious appraisal of reality to some, to others it looks like an impossible errand undertaken by hubristic fools. And likewise the broad, easy path seems wise and even daring; look at all the room to maneuver, and prove ourselves clever and adaptable!
So each side views each other as foolish. But because they're diametrically opposed, only one can be correct, no matter what strata we're looking at.
For me this resonates with Langan's idea of a parasitic divergence. The divide between the big sinners and the NPCs becomes greater than it ever was in the past. And whereas previously a hierarchy of sinners (fewer in number) was necessary to sustain the one at the apex, now the middle tiers have been leveled down to the bottom. The food may not taste as good, but the quantity is now what sustains the top feeder(s). The goal is to lock that system into place, to create a stable feeding ground.
Yeah, man. It's a hell of a thing trying to visualize the math in play (for me, at least; I think it looks like some funky parabolas). But what seems clear is a utilitarian min-max curve of bee hives and anthills. But the Enemy's preferred gestalt organism would probably be even more apocalyptic in its destruction of the middle. I'm thinking along the lines of the extreme dimorphism of the anglerfish (a true sea monster if there ever was one).
Yes. The enemy's goal is something like a single Pharaoh worshipped by an infinite number of slaves, all indistinct from one another. Not sure that there is an animal parallel to that. Eugyppius wrote a very good piece recently on the union of the Top and the Bottom against the Middle that illustrates this quite nicely. I sort of wonder if substack is beginning to function as a sort of neural network? The same ideas seem to pulse through the network. Not sure how I feel about that.
Right. It's the apotheosis of the system, for the one to rule all (and to be unseated by assassination, though that part isn't advertised).
As far as substack functioning as a hive mind, I have my doubts. Picking up on the same, ever-less-subtle clues seems to be more an artifact of the stark difference and increasingly clarity between the opposed forces. For distant parties to agree on the length of a tiger's teeth mostly signals how widespread and prevalent tiger encounters are.
An insect could be the Queen bee in a swarm or hive.
That's an interesting take, Harrison. It's as if the "middle class" of demonic socioeconomics has been hollowed out, leaving just the very rich and influential demons and the very poor and individually insignificant ones. As above, so below, I guess. (Or maybe with demons, it's "as below [infernal realm], so above [earth]"?)
Nice. Demoneconomics 101.
"...This is due to the inherent inefficiencies of freedom, individuality, creativity and openness to debate. But the end products are men and women who have been tested and tempered in the flames... Who would you take to war with you? A hundred honed Rohirrim cavalry, or a thousand gibbering goblins of Mordor?"
This really spoke to me. It reminds me of something I saw online. Some guy invented a pair of glasses that generates ChatGPT responses that scroll past your eyes in response to things other people say to you. Then, instead of responding spontaneously, you're supposed to just say whatever the language model says.
There's an implicit message of "adopt this or be left behind" with a lot of this tech, but I think the opposite is true. How much of an advantage will you have if you DON'T use that crutch?
There’s so much wisdom in this post I think I may have sprained my pineal gland while reading it. Pure brilliance. I am in awe.
" it wasn’t that howling, hashtagging Judean mob who murdered Jesus, but a bunch of armed imperial troops doncha know."
You seem confused.
This might help:
jesusneverexisted.com
Hot tip: you need better salesmanship than "You seem confused" to sell someone a random link.