After a certain age, yearend reminiscences involve a totting up of who went down and who remains standing. It is not necessarily a morbid exercise but as the bench thins, it is hard not to notice. Perhaps my mind is drawn to this topic because we have been through a decade of remarkable departures from the norms of truth-telling in the media, in academia and in the political realms. It appears the world of 2024 is far distant from what is remembered of the world of 2015. The kingdom of lies tears at the margins of science and threatens to overwhelm public discourse. From the hysteria of a moderate flu virus to threats of a world on the boil and a desire to outsource public health to a UN agency, we have been threatened with imminent extinction. Men become women without bothering to change their genetic code or physiological equipment. Women lose their swim meets and are knocked senseless by their new volleyball 'sisters.' Budgets balance themselves. Artificial intelligence stupefies us with a remarkable synthesis of information at unbelievable speeds and even as the output is complete nonsense, we shrug our shoulders and say the machine is hallucinating. Cars drive themselves and machines will become sentient and conscious at the point of the singularity. Whatever that is. 'I think, therefore I am' is to become the machine code mantra. Descartes would be impressed.A wise man from the first century Anno Domini summed up a moment such as ours with the pithy observation, “Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools.” A wise man from an even earlier period noted that such a culture as ours is destroyed when mankind “seeks to make a name for itself.” We have been here before and Charles MacKay called it “the madness of crowds." We are, you see, locked in a periodic cycle of madness.Such madness would not be a problem if it was restricted to my weird uncle. But, spreading its wings, the madness takes on a lethality that has killed hundreds of thousands of young Ukrainian men and women. It is slowly eroding the population of young people in Israel and Gaza, and it threatens to break out in such unusual places as Guyana and Niger.Just as I start to make out dim outlines of connections between the variant realms of madness, I am reminded that there are no conspiracies, just as there are no coincidences. What is going on? The truth is we can’t know. Is it true that Yuval Harari and a cabal of wealthy fools want to destroy humanity because we mere mortals have outgrown our usefulness? Is the future to be all about machines and cyborgs? Must I stop worrying and be happy as the really smart people control my future? Do they really seek to refine artificial general intelligence to find a cure for death? Are they that foolish?The Greek word for 'red-pilling' is 'apocalypse.' It is more generally translated as a revealing, a revelation or prophecy. As 2023 comes to an end and we welcome 2024 into our lives, I think we will finally see an apocalypse or red pill event that bursts the bubble of our vanities. In fact, it is precisely this time of the year in which many reflect upon and celebrate the quintessential red pill event in which a baby was born who one day conquered death and had his consciousness stored in the Cloud. You are too late Dr. Harari. Late by 2000 years. The certainty of your pronouncements identifies the futility of your mind, rather than the shadowy shapes of the future. A growing number of us around the globe are putting our hope in history and the logos rather than in the rantings of your claque of senescent, truth-fearing mouth breathers. We have been here before and no doubt future generations will cycle around this madness again with the same result. Will 2024 inaugurate the tearing down of this modern tower of Babel? I intend to celebrate the Revealed One without whom Christmas would be reduced to the darkest days of the year instead of being days imbued with hope, joy, love and peace. On the heels of that celebration, we must use our words to deconstruct the fragile tower that has held us captive. Bring on the apocalypse. It is time. And it promises to be great fun. In the meantime, a very Merry Christmas to the faithful readers of The Western Standard!Murray Lytle is a retired Professional Engineer and a former commissioner for the National Energy Board
After a certain age, yearend reminiscences involve a totting up of who went down and who remains standing. It is not necessarily a morbid exercise but as the bench thins, it is hard not to notice. Perhaps my mind is drawn to this topic because we have been through a decade of remarkable departures from the norms of truth-telling in the media, in academia and in the political realms. It appears the world of 2024 is far distant from what is remembered of the world of 2015. The kingdom of lies tears at the margins of science and threatens to overwhelm public discourse. From the hysteria of a moderate flu virus to threats of a world on the boil and a desire to outsource public health to a UN agency, we have been threatened with imminent extinction. Men become women without bothering to change their genetic code or physiological equipment. Women lose their swim meets and are knocked senseless by their new volleyball 'sisters.' Budgets balance themselves. Artificial intelligence stupefies us with a remarkable synthesis of information at unbelievable speeds and even as the output is complete nonsense, we shrug our shoulders and say the machine is hallucinating. Cars drive themselves and machines will become sentient and conscious at the point of the singularity. Whatever that is. 'I think, therefore I am' is to become the machine code mantra. Descartes would be impressed.A wise man from the first century Anno Domini summed up a moment such as ours with the pithy observation, “Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools.” A wise man from an even earlier period noted that such a culture as ours is destroyed when mankind “seeks to make a name for itself.” We have been here before and Charles MacKay called it “the madness of crowds." We are, you see, locked in a periodic cycle of madness.Such madness would not be a problem if it was restricted to my weird uncle. But, spreading its wings, the madness takes on a lethality that has killed hundreds of thousands of young Ukrainian men and women. It is slowly eroding the population of young people in Israel and Gaza, and it threatens to break out in such unusual places as Guyana and Niger.Just as I start to make out dim outlines of connections between the variant realms of madness, I am reminded that there are no conspiracies, just as there are no coincidences. What is going on? The truth is we can’t know. Is it true that Yuval Harari and a cabal of wealthy fools want to destroy humanity because we mere mortals have outgrown our usefulness? Is the future to be all about machines and cyborgs? Must I stop worrying and be happy as the really smart people control my future? Do they really seek to refine artificial general intelligence to find a cure for death? Are they that foolish?The Greek word for 'red-pilling' is 'apocalypse.' It is more generally translated as a revealing, a revelation or prophecy. As 2023 comes to an end and we welcome 2024 into our lives, I think we will finally see an apocalypse or red pill event that bursts the bubble of our vanities. In fact, it is precisely this time of the year in which many reflect upon and celebrate the quintessential red pill event in which a baby was born who one day conquered death and had his consciousness stored in the Cloud. You are too late Dr. Harari. Late by 2000 years. The certainty of your pronouncements identifies the futility of your mind, rather than the shadowy shapes of the future. A growing number of us around the globe are putting our hope in history and the logos rather than in the rantings of your claque of senescent, truth-fearing mouth breathers. We have been here before and no doubt future generations will cycle around this madness again with the same result. Will 2024 inaugurate the tearing down of this modern tower of Babel? I intend to celebrate the Revealed One without whom Christmas would be reduced to the darkest days of the year instead of being days imbued with hope, joy, love and peace. On the heels of that celebration, we must use our words to deconstruct the fragile tower that has held us captive. Bring on the apocalypse. It is time. And it promises to be great fun. In the meantime, a very Merry Christmas to the faithful readers of The Western Standard!Murray Lytle is a retired Professional Engineer and a former commissioner for the National Energy Board
