I love to run scenarios in my mind. Some of these mental games grow very elaborate and span decades of mental energy. But when I was in Seoul, I came up with a pretty bonkers scenario for how China could strike Taiwan — build a land bridge to the island using nanotechnology.
This is an extremely fanciful (at the moment) idea, but it’s just the kind of thing that would stun the world. Take something we know in theory could happen, then say, “What if it happened NOW?”
I would say this idea would make for a great movie, but, lulz, Hollywood is so beholden to the China audience this would never happen.
But if I were to guess about what kind of really shocking thing was going to rock the world in the 2020s, something like China building a land bridge to Taiwan using nanotechnology would be it.
The reason why August is such a sucky month is it’s the nadir of the year for most normal people who work at the big media companies. Huge swaths of the newsroom leave town for this or that pleasant vacation retreat, leaving the fate of any reporting on a breaking news event to a bunch of wet behind the ears cub reporters.
As such, huge news events are drawn to August.
Everyone has to leave their vacation at a moment’s notice to cover this or that huge news event. So, that leaves the question — what will it be this year? Here are my guesses.
Cyber Ninjas “Prove” Trump “Won” It’s my impression that not only does Trump think he will somehow be magically re-instated in August, but Cyber Ninjas will finally come out with the results of their dumb sham audit. If they come through for Trump and “prove” he “won” Arizona, either that in itself starts some sort of secession crisis by the end of the year, or it begins a process that leads to House Speaker Trump telling Senate Democrats to convict Biden and Harris or risk a civil war. Someone Drops Dead A lot of old people are in powerful positions. If any number of 70+ powerful people dropped dead, that, in itself could be The Thing that we think of what made August 2021 suck so bad. The DPRK Does Something Stupid (Or Implodes) The DPRK has been pretty quiet since the pandemic hit. August 2021 seems like just the right moment for them to pop out and scare the shit out of us all one way or another. Or implode. You name it. Anything could happen. Iran Does Something Stupid It’s easy to imagine a situation where Iran and Israel have at it suddenly and before you know it, WW3 has started. China Does Something Stupid A lot of people talk about China going after Taiwan by about 2027. What if China struck in August 2021? Then what? Russia Does Something Stupid It’s easy to imagine Russia starting some sort of late summer general war against Ukraine.
Wildcard: a major domestic terrorist attack. Trump is doing everything in his power to destabilize the United States with his dumb nearly-transactional rhetoric. What if there was a large scale, coordinated MAGA New Right terrorist attack all across the country in some sort of proto-coup effort. How would we handle that?
Wildcard: Cuba It’s within the realm of possibility that of possibility that Cuba could implode in August, given the massive protests there right now.
The interesting thing about the modern era is, well, we’re not in an era. I guess the argument could be made that we’re in either the post-Trump Era or the pre-autocracy era or even modern Antebellum era. But, really, when it comes to culture none of those are true.
We’re not in just a cultural wasteland, we’re in a cultural vacuum.
The current era began, I would posit, with the introduction of the first iPhone. In a broader sense, I guess, we’re still in the post-9/11 Era. I thought Rona would do something to jiggle our culture, but that really hasn’t happened.
If I want to make myself feel better, I would get all excited and say we’re one unexpected hit in music, movies or TV for some sort of major shift in our culture perceptions to occur. That’s usually how such eras begin. Some young outlier produces a song, or an album or whatever that is so unexpectedly popular that it shakes everything up.
I guess, in a sense, I am looking forward to a new Nevermind or Pulp Fiction to pop out to really rattle hyper modern pop culture. In a sense, maybe, you might say that Tik-Tok is a precursor to what I’m talking looking forward to. Tik-Tok is making new era stars in a currently unnamed era.
Tragically, of course, the Something Big that changes everything might be some huge news event that is the Day The Earth Stood Still, like 9/11. We’re just about due for something like that to happen.
But I can’t predict the future. I have no idea that is going to happen.
I’m going to keep writing these posts until someone, somewhere takes notice and decides to look into it for me — I’m so frustrated at this point I’ll even take a malignant ding-dong like Tucker Carlson doing it for me.
So, there I was just a moment ago, using Tik-Tok when I was pushed a video about a woman who asked a Tinder match what time he was born. This stopped me cold — I’ve been thinking about that specific thing for some time now because of the novel I’m working on.
I’ve been thinking about that literal thing — the idea that if you were into astrology you would ask someone what time of day they were born.
Now, before you think that Tik-Tok is monitoring my novel writing some way and that’s how it knew that I was interested in such things — I haven’t gotten to that part of the novel yet. I’ve just been thinking about it. I’ve not written anything anywhere — or even spoken about it to anyone. The only person who knows that I’m interested in that particular part of astrology is ME.
I have no proof — none — that Tik-Tok can read our minds. But I do know the technology to do so was patented by Facebook some time ago and, apparently, Facebook is on something of a quest to figure out how to do just that.
The point is — I really need someone at Vox, or Wired or, hell, even New York Magazine to explain to me what I’m seeing on such a personal, specific basis. What other option is there? Sure, you could say Tik-Tok’s algorithms are now so advanced, so powerful, that they have me specifically figured out. But how would such an algorithm be able to seemingly root around in my mind and push me a video about a specific concept that I’ve been thinking about a lot — but haven’t done anything at all outwardly to indicate this is happening?
For about a decade now, I’ve weighed in my mind whenever I’m bored the conditions of what I’ve come to think of as the “impossible” scenario because it’s impossible to solve using the conditions of the scenario.
The scenario goes something like this — if extraterrestrials moved a huge number of humans to a new solar system, how would you organize the government of your new world? The reason why it’s impossible to solve is the earth, on a political basis, is actually several civilizations. If you factor in all competing goals and objectives of all the different types of countries in the world — and give them equal weight — it’s impossible to think up any way to have a “human government” on a planetary scale.
Just the United States would make it impossible to have a truly “human government” on the scale of an entire planet. The United States is so divided at the moment that half the electorate would probably rather end humanity, period, than risk any abridgement of their gun rights. I wish I was kidding.
I may have recently come up with a solution to this seemingly impossible scenario — either you have a global government that uses nations as little more than administrative districts or you do away with nation-states altogether and base your entire culture and system of government on the United States. I pick the United States not just because, duh, I’m American, but also the traditional concept of the United States is it’s an idea and not blood and soil.
As such, if humanity had aliens breathing down its neck to pick a uniform form of government, the United Sates is big enough population wise and based on an idea to the point that you could, in a sense, make all of humanity Americans. I’m not saying this would go over great with 95% of the world’s population, but if you were desperate, really desperate to unite all of humanity under one form of government on a global scale, you could do worse than basing your new new world’s culture and government on the United State’s.
Neither one of the solutions I’ve come up with fixes all of the problems of the scenario, but they come close enough to make me feel pretty good.
Because we live in such uncertain times, a lot of people get a lot of comfort from conspiracy theories. The idea that there is this or that conspiracy that is “really” running the world gives order to an otherwise pretty fucking up situation.
And, yet, big conspiracies don’t hold up. Now, let me be very specific about what I’m talking about — conspiracies that are a secret and are really controlling the world around us. There have been a number of actual conspiracies over the years — the one organized by Islamic extremists to cause the 9/11 attacks being one of them — but that was a specific quasi-military conspiracy that we all know about now.
I’m talking more about the type of conspiracy that 9/11 “truthers” believe in — that a still secret, massive conspiracy was really behind the 9/11 attacks. It’s conspiracies like that which are just bullshit. So, there have been plenty of subtle conspiracy-like events over the years — must of them done by the CIA, natch — but, again, they’re well known now (at least in certain circles) and aren’t on-going.
We decide what is real and what is an illusion.
The biggest obstacle to any major conspiracy working — and staying secret — is people are generally dumb. Any actual massive conspiracy to control the world would either fall apart or be discovered or both.
Most real conspiracies that are going on around us are actually known about and people just lulz them. This sometimes leads people who maybe are already not all that stable to freak out and lose their minds. And, also, a lot of things one might see as “conspiracies” are more simply a lot of powerful people know each other and have a vested interest in this or that thing happening — or not happening.
So, when people like Trump, who is a very lazy would-be autocrat — wants to do something stupid and tyrannical and they don’t get their way, they think there’s some sort of secret cabal Deep State that is standing in their way. What they refuse to admit is they could very well get exactly what they want –an autocracy — if they were willing to do the hard work of being an autocrat. They would have to knock some heads and risk a popular revolt. But Trump, specifically is very lazy and stupid and so he feels stymied by the “Deep State.”
Additionally, there is the occasional small-scale conspiracy that does happen but even then, they always are exposed.
One of the arguments for there NOT being a Kennedy assassination conspiracy is it’s generations later and we still have no proof that one existed. If one had happened, someone, somewhere would have been sloppy, or had a deathbed confession — with proof — and we would all know what “really” happened.
This type of argument could also be used for even bigger supposed conspiracies. It’s difficult to imagine that governments around the world would be able to keep First Contact with aliens a secret. Of course, occasionally, some random scientist or military person who is really old starts to blab about this very thing…but without any proof. It’s just really, really, hard to keep a huge secret in any government forever.
So, yes, there probably are a few conspiracies floating around the world, but I seriously doubt there all that powerful in the lives of the average person in any concrete manner. There are plenty of Powers That Be that have constructed a “reality” that they have a vested interest in maintaining, but that’s just human existence.
Yesterday, I was listening to “Born in The USA” by Bruce Springsteen on Spotify and for a moment, I weighed the significance of the song in American politics over the years.
Well, guess what — just now I was using Tik-Tok and, lo and behold I was pushed a video that posed that very same question: “Is Born In The USA a patriotic song?”
Spooky.
Now, the case can be made that this one is pretty easy — Tik-Tok simply monitored my listening to Springsteen in general and pushed that particular video for that reason. What makes this spooky is that the video itself was about the specific thing I thought about, literally.
But, as always, I’m reluctant to believe that Tik-Tok can literally read my mind. In this specific instance there is a non-kooky explanation — Tik-Tok knew in general that I was listening to Bruce on Spotify and it just so happened that the video about him was about the very subject I listened to. The nature of Born In The USA is pretty mainsteam.
It’s still pretty spooky and intrusive, no matter how Tik-Tok figured it out.
The core reason why UFOs collectively cause us all a huge problem is it’s easy for us to get all worked up…and then nothing happens. That’s why it’s so difficult for UFOs to be taken seriously. Over the last 70 or so years, we’ve all been left waiting for something to happen…and it never does.
I would say at the moment, all we can confirm is that there have been credible reports of things flying around in the air that we can’t explain. That’s it. We don’t know what they are and we don’t know where they came from. Because of the magical thinking associated with conspiracy theories, it’s natural for people to make the leap into, “Well, obviously, the government has made First Contact and is hiding it from us.”
When, that is a leap with absolutely no evidence to back it up. It’s a shit tone of wishful thinking. Though, to be fair, every once in a while, so old guy high up in a government here or there around the world will give something akin to a deathbed confession where he goes on at great length about what appears to be some rather fantastical post-secret-First Contact things.
But even under the most charitable of circumstances, without any proof that any of this is real, there are simply way, way too many hurdles to overcome. For such things to be real, not only would aliens have to be real, have been interested in humans enough to come to earth, but the government would have had the wherewithal to keep the whole thing secret and THEN somehow manage to have astronauts in tunnels under Mars.
As such, again, it’s safe to assume that there are, on occasion, things whizzing around the world’s skies that we can’t explain. That’s it. That’s the extent of what is safe to believe.
As I understand it, there’s a whole on-boarding system that exists for disenchanted young men to “red pill” themselves. When this happens, they start to rant about how women and minorities control everything. But this usually doesn’t happen overnight. They start by watching videos on YouTube about how much Star Wars producer Kathleen Kennedy sucks. Then they start to get into Joe Rogan.
Before you know it, they turn into incels who are MAGA friendly.
There is so much wrong with this. The key issue for me is we, as a society, are not doing enough to educate young men about the New Normal we live in. Nothing’s right or wrong but thinking makes it so, as the Bard would say. So, in a sense, it doesn’t have to be this way.
I’m of the general opinion that a number of things have led to “Red Pill” culture. One is, the lack of a draft to force young men to do Man Stuff with other men from all over the country. Having some sort of unisex National Service would do a whole lot to helping the United States avoid the existential choice of autocracy or civil war. But, sadly, it’s too late now.
Another problem is young blue collar men find it difficult to find high pay jobs that would allow them to fit into the traditional norm of breadwinner. In other words, they find it difficult to get laid, get married and have kids the way their parents did.
Throw in a rather abrupt shift in women’s self perception associated with the #MeToo movement and you have a recipe for a lot of young (white) men to “Red Pill” themselves and radicalize.
There are no simple answers to any of this. I understand things like media narratives and so forth and even I get really irritated with some modern changes, like how Victoria Secret is just about done for.
But, at the same time, I’m educated and refuse to go down the Red Pill rabbit hole so I come out the other side a deranged lunatic. I do think, however, that everything is going to sort itself out between now and, say, January 2025.
We may not like what we have to go through to solve Red Pill culture. It’s going to suck.
Editor’s Note: This has been edited some since its original publishing.
Each time COVID bounces from one person to the next, there’s a chance it might mutate into something along the lines of the virus found in The Stand. It’s an admittedly microscopic chance, but it does exist. Throw into the equation people from all over the world in Tokyo at the moment and it’s easy to imagine a Stephen King-size clusterfuck.
While it definitely looks like we’re out of the woods — least in most of the First World — when it comes to COVID19, it’s still out there bouncing around with opportunity after opportunity to mutate. It makes you wonder what the reaction would be if COVID19 mutated into something far, far nastier than it is now. Given that August is the shittiest month, I’m working on the assumption that if it happens, it will pop out around August, 2021.
A lot would depend on how this speculative “Omega Variant” popped up. If it was localized to one place at first, then nations are on edge enough right now that it would probably be fairly easily controlled. But my fear is if an Omega Variant appeared, it would appear all over the world at the same time and all we could do is simply attempt to do some triage to an End Of The World type situation.
If variant of COVID19 appeared that was far more deadly than anything out there now, at first, the whole thing — at least in the English-speaking Western World — would, again, be seen through the prism of politics. The Right would scoff, saying “Here we go again.” They would do everything in their power to obstruct the American government from doing anything to mitigate a looming disaster, just like they did the first time.
It would not be until the Right saw some potential political gain that they would switch gears and start to demand something be done. Then, of course, it would be too late. Instead of 600,000 dead, we may be looking at something closer to 10-30 million. If things started to get that bad, it’s very possible MAGA would start to angle for a way to seize power via a coup — or something. They’re already halfway there now, if the country was felled by a severe second wave of COVID19, they might attempt to step into the breach.
So, it’s at least possible that at some point in the next few months (years?) we’re going to have to go through all of this again because an Omega Variant breezes past all our vaccines and starts killing people not in the thousands, but the millions.
But I’m wrong all the time. I’m sure the monster won’t come back for one more round. We’re going to cruise into a new Roaring Twenties, at least until we have a civil war or turn into a MAGA autocracy. This is all very speculative. It’s just if the COVID pandemic has taught us anything, it’s that when you’re dealing with a virus, all the narrative management in the world isn’t going to save us.
You must be logged in to post a comment.