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[captainserval]

The Anxiety Industry

I was watching this clip of jack reacher reflecting on how little ‘freedom and democracy’ meant for the masses, looking upon the ill and broken backed corporate workers in a plush glass walled office - the kind people aspire to work in… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWs8J-rz-7A 

Jack Reacher: Well, imagine you’ve never seen it. Imagine you’ve spent your whole life in other parts of the world being told every day you’re defending freedom. And finally you decide you’ve had enough. Time to see what you’ve given up your whole life for. Maybe get some of that freedom for yourself. Look at the people. Now tell me which ones are free. Free from debt. Anxiety. Stress. Fear. Failure. Indignity. Betrayal. How many wish that they were born knowing what they know now? Ask yourself how many would do things the same way over again? And how many would live their lives like me.

It seems like the global mainstream media, marketing and outrage ‘industry’ sustains some of its life energy from 

creating and spreading fakenews 

breaking news 

laying guilt trips on people 

the Shame Stick. 

People are sought to be kept in a constant state of low agitation and anxiety, not enough to go nuts immediately but demoralized and cowed down by circumstances over the long term so as to be fed “solutions” by the very same set of entities that create and project these “problems” (via a amplification lens). All coupled with pervasive data mining to figure out how people are reacting to the barrage of stimuli and respond with targeted ads and campaigns - brings in the big money.

Fakenews - we already see it being mainstream media funded deliberately to blatantly support whichever set of shadow lords are behind them. There is not even the pretence of just being a impartial observer anymore and reporting things, no - the news has to be delivered as a form of political and social commentary in alignment with those funding the message and buttering the bread. Eminent patrakars are the well rewarded “workers” for political and corporate interests and what will be the slant of news gets decided over rounds of single malts and kababs in deep leather armchairs of plush clubs with decades long waiting lists for the hoi-polloi.

Breaking news - lest anyone have any peace and quiet during the workday, the breaking news cycle was invented to keep people anxious when they are having lunch in the office cafetaria, after a rough morning in the salt mines and more work piled up for the afternoon. This task is given to breathless young newbie reporters with photogenic faces, because if the breaking news is not alarming enough, atleast people will keep admiring the reporters looks and impeccable diction! anything and everything can be breaking ranging from “xyz rogue country’s leader released a giant fart which killed ten migrating geese” , “eating roti can cause cancer a new study claims”, “pink fox spotted near the london bridge” and old faithfuls like “xyz lashes out at Modi, says enough is enough” or threats to personal and family security to incite mild panic and pervasive paranoia as in “every human on the street is a potential rapist and child predator until proven innocent”

Laying guilt trips on people - this can be anything that one did, or ones ancestors did, or allegedly did, or one might allegedly do - oppressing other communities, not doing enough for whatever are the anointed morally righteous causes of the day, just belonging to a particular culture or religion or country deemed as inferior by the ubermensch buddhijeebis who write history to suit their narrative..one can be a guilt soaked criminal just by passively existing in a glass box, because all this is not based on our deeds or thoughts, but on bucketing and marking people by self proclaimed moral pillars and scholars who say they know everything and their intrepretation of nebulous events is the law. any disagreement is ThoughtCrime and must again be punished. The penitent must be forced to admit their inferiority and disengage from their past, to align with the “right directions” which will be shown to him or her. The monetary inducement side of the religious conversion “industry” operates on this model. As does those who prey on young idealistic students fresh in university, who want to do good, are not sure how and are ripe for mentoring and brainwashing into the desired ‘worldview’ by older ‘thought leaders’ and ‘change agents’. 

The Shame Stick - While some measures above are like a area based artillery salvo, damaging everyone in the general vicinity, this is a well oiled stick for targeting the individual and enforcing control, anxiety inducement and even monetary gain from targeted gap-filler / feel-better / solution marketing. How does a lion catch a deer?, first it scatters the herd, breaking off vulnerable individuals from their mutually interlocked protective system, then chasing them alone until caught. The same dynamics are at play here - isolate and attack, isolate and attack! 

For men some example levers that are commonly used 

you are not fit or handsome enough 

you do not earn enough 

you are unable to satisfy or measure up to your partner

your job is not glamorous and powerful - how many people in your team?

your car / house / tv is smaller than Mr.X

you are not able to give the kids whatever luxuries Mr.Y does

questioning and making fun of deeply held religious and cultural beliefs

for women, some examples are 

you are not beautiful enough

you are fat

you are of loose character 

you are rebellious, talk back insolently and not obedient to your man

you neglect the kids and do not keep house properly

you are not educated enough

you are dumb and not bright enough 

you cannot face the tough outside world alone

your cooking is poor - with others present to overhear

criticism of her family background

peer pressure to look good on social media

Each of these levers of control has two aspects

there is one or more industry that benefits from the anxiety and unmet expectations and the need to “close the gap” to feel better - whether it is the huge cosmetic industry, apparel, shoes, aphrodisiacs(!), lenders, fitness, cos who have staked it all on selfie cameras … everyone has a hand in people’s pockets 

control and modulate the recipients behaviour to the advantage of those doing the messaging

To meet someone who understands the nature of these mental traps and has escaped the net that has snared billions of hapless sheeple is to meet a really “free” human being in the true sense. They are not common, but they exist, often hiding quietly in between the sheeple, to not present a target to powerful thoughtpolice drones always patrolling and sniffing for signs of dissent and rebellion in the ranks. 

The world continues in this state of semi mental slavery, not too different from the ancient and middle ages where the feudal lords and mansabdars told people what to think and any dissent was harshly punished. Socrates, Galileo, Hypatia of alexandria..the list is endless.

90% people have no appreciation of being in the matrix and no idea of why certain things “just happen”. They exist, they produce, they reproduce, they consume. They do not matter to the powers-that-be. 

9% have no control or shaping ability over the happening, but atleast understand the why of it after the fact, after some deep thinking. 

The 1% elite who understand what is going to happen and why it is being made to happen, before it happens, and can change the course of events to a more dharmic/adharmic direction per their interest are a mixture of the most accomplished white-collar-criminals/oligarchs/’thought shapers’ walking around plus a small subset what I call the surviving True Jedi. Their temples have been razed and their ranks thinned by the Imperium but they do exist and continue the rebellion.Hope survives, albeit on a thin thread. 

Over time, falling prey to the anxiety industry takes a emotional and physical toll on people and affects their productivity and enthusiasm in all other parts of life. Paranoid, demoralized, browbeaten, sheeplike obedience, fearful, defensive, lacking in confidence - is that the future of the world unless this industry is taken apart or atleast the messaging roundly ignored by all ? 

[captainserval]

Night of the Backfires

have been having another recurring dream lately , hopefully not another premonition.

place - night at jodhpur. i am having dinner with family in some restaurant atop the fort and looking down at the pleasing lights of the town below. off in the distance are the lights of the IAF base, the largest in the western front with the occasional low whine of heavy transporters moving in and out. the sky is clear with the stars over the desert. suddenly the disturbing wail of air raid sirens stirs alarm and people walk over to the terrace side to check .... WaaaaWaaaaWaaaa ... rising and falling notes I look up slowly and see white blobs of lights falling as if in slow motion from high high up in the sky .... others look up mystified ... but i know what it is is...incoming ballistic missiles !! I count 9 blobs inbound before my attention is diverted to a warbling metallic whine by unseen low flying objects speeding out from the desert, over the fringes of town and toward the base ...... I briefly spot the shape of one as it flies close to the fort making a sharp and final way point turn....the unmistakable shape of cruise missiles ..... unable to say or do anything I am merely an observer in the kinetic and worrying chain of events. we all stand on the edge of the terrace and watch events unfold. two of the cruise missiles score a direct hit on a underground fuel storage sending up a huge orange plume of flame .... the noise reaches us a second later .... from the dark areas of the edge of the airbase, one by one five streaks of light show SAM launches as they climb fast into the intercept vectors guided by some unseen radar ....Akash, I think or barak8.... a few seconds later, four smaller streaks of light take off vertically and execute steep 90 turns to bear into more cruise missiles now on their final approach .... two resouding hits ensure at low level shattering the peace of the town as burning residue and fuel rain down over the impact point setting fire to some houses and storage godowns.... streaks of tracers from radar guided guns follow up the SRSAMs and score another hit just over the field perimeter .... the last one pushes through and hits some unknown target with a loud flash but no secondary explosion .... I look up again as the SAMs near their intercept points and note the flashes of 5 closely spaced muffled explosions in the cirrus clouds ... 4 blobs keep on coming, seeming to gain in speed ... again a salvo of 4 SRSAM lance out, followed by 2 more of the larger SAMs this time with barely minimum arming distance left ... 2 more blobs get taken out and crash into the town..again setting off large fires where they fall on populated areas....the rest SAMs miss and the final 2 blobs smash down with huge explosions, one of them igniting some flammable material on the tarmac perhaps a fuel truck or munitions on trolleys waiting to be loaded. it is all quiet now but the siren keeps on wailing, now interleaved with the wail of ambulances and fire brigade trucks speeding around the town .... lights have been cut without my noticing.... a few minutes later I hear the rumble of large engines and then one by one, six modernized backfire bombers , which represent 30% of our holding emerge from their unscathed hard shelters and take to the sky with long streaming cones of afterburner flame. to keep the field of fire clear for SAMs and AA, they fly at low level 300 feet skimming over the town and past my position, I can see the pilots facemasks in the blue light of the cockpit, tense and their minds focussed on waypoints far ahead as they move out to safer bases in the interior .... people clap and cheer as they clear the fort and start climbing up ... unseen thousands talk and discuss in the colonies below... minutes later, I note 8 tejas fighters and 2 flankers take off in tight pairs and execute the same low level departure , followed by a lone midas tanker and then a small business type jet probably a elint mission bird....anything that is flyable is clearing out tonight but they will be back to seek vengeance once they rearm and repair in a few hours...I can imagine the SAM reload vehicle crews feverishly working on their machines and the unseen sweeps of the radars trying to see as far as possible .... the phone must be ringing all over vayu bhavan and PMO by now... The war has began I hurriedly grab my wards and make my way down the stairs to see about buying a bus ticket or renting a taxi back to delhi since I assume civilian flights will cease now

[captainserval]

Sunset of the Great Ape

Looking back at history how did humans live some 2000 or 5000 years ago?

They lived in joint families of closely or loosely related by blood as the inner core. A few such cores formed a village or kabila. The men did all the outside work - farming, hunting, blacksmithy, pottery, protection; the women did all the inside work - child rearing, keeping the house, cooking, washing, building social networks, collectively looking after a pool of infants and kids. 

People rarely moved 100 miles outside of their birthplace in their lives unless forced by famine or war.

Life expectancy was around 50 years probably, but there was always a pipeline of younger boys and girls growing up to take the slack as adults aged out and died after brief illnesses. Men had total control over womens activities and bodies, but the collective pool of women including grandmas did give her a place to shelter and seek support if the husband treated her badly. These grandmas who were the mothers of these men exerted some influence on the clan as leaders and social bridges.

The next phase was development of technology which made all the tough physical outside work a bit easier from around1500AD onwards and more and more wars and migrations, which meant a lot of men died or were away for years but someone still had to cover the outside work.

Technology like machines for production and agriculture (stuff like power looms, power tools) meant more and more women could come out and work if there was a need (like in WW2 a lot of american women joined work in factories), or if  if the husband abandoned her or died.

The gender roles became a bit diffuse and much became part of a set of common tasks that anyone could do like running a printing press or sewing a bag. Women were still stereotyped into “womanly” jobs like secretary, sewing, midwife, maids, food industry and the “deep thinking/command and control” jobs like professors, tool makers, generals, politicians were nearly 100% men.

As water continues to erode rocks the diffusion of power and control continued. Monogamy got religious sanction and started to get enforced, thrashing the wife was no longer seen as a cool thing to do by the clergy which kept a section of men in line, while others continued to run wild and also philander. Education became the norm for women upto some basic level as countries continued to grow richer and richer…albeit education was mostly not in STEM but in “home science” type things to make a good wife out of her in her designated role -the designation matrix being entirely in the hands of men. 

New tools of social control of women were devised - religious texts, historical norms, lack of strength, lack of brains, lack of 100% attention to kids/husband if working being a thoughtcrime, media projecting a certain image of what made a woman happy, laying a guilt trip on her …. times changed , tools and levers of control also changed from physical thrashings and social ostracism to more subtle formats aimed at “shaping” and “funneling” her tastes into the right funnels. why do we need to fight someone if you can control their educational and career choices by more subtle means? winning without a war is the best victory…

Moving to the late 20th century, there are almost no physically demanding jobs left in the rich countries, everything being highly mechanised. Of those that are left, womens nutrition is now enough they are no longer stunted and can handle such jobs easily. the fraction of jobs barred to women is reducing all over the world including the developing countries. Last barriers like active military service have fallen. in all of the highest paying jobs like law, finance, judiciary, medicine, design, electronics, software, automotive, academics …. there is little need for any physical strength or great mobility. any of sound mind can work these and indeed physically challenged people also do.

in parallel the rich nations diverged two ways

The Nanny State - a cradle to grave support system. the northern european model of high taxation but high social benefits including a guaranteed old age pension, child bearing tax benefits and aid, unemployment aid, subsidized housing, subsidized higher education . reduce the rich poor living std gap to extent possible and take care of the bottom 20% by taxing the top 20% heavily. This is built on the accumulated wealth of 500 years of colonial resource grab from other countries and 800 years of relative peace in europe permitting universities and knowledge to be sustainably built. It is perhaps not sustainable over next few decades with a declining population, hostility to immigration and losing the technology lead to other parts of the world.

The “Anglo” Model - trade off social benefits and economic regulations in favour of higher growth, higher take home income and let the “market” and “competition decide” what happens. This has corralled the bottom 20% in a circular loop of no economic mobility across generations and poor benefits, with the kind of jobs they could have done exported to the “third” world esp china and central america. the top 20% make good money and compete to send their kids to the best universities for their perpetual occupation of the commanding heights in the most lucrative sectors. pious homilies are spun about “opportunity” and “affirmative action” for the underpriviledged and every politician wants to “fix the schools” and “let none be left behind”. the anglo block of usa, canada, nz, aus, and partially uk seem to follow this model.

The poorer nations including India are in two buckets

those that are living in the middle ages wrt to opportunity for women relative to the leading edge - almost the entire 58 or such countries of the islamic block, most of africa, most of central & south america and rural pockets of many nations incl india and eastern europe

urban pockets all over which generally follow a hybrid anglo model - less money than anglos, and less taxes than nanny states, as nobody has a pile of looted colonial era money or the political capital to have a northern europe nanny state - population is too high in the tropics. increases in cost of living has forced women to work from high to low - whether a maid supporting her security guard husband, or a IT managers wife doing a job to increase savings and pay down huge EMIs, all are on the treadmill now. and the treadmill never stops. 

if we consider it as a rope, the head of the rope is northern europe, middle is america and tail is the developing world.

And what do we see in northern europe/america?

young people have abandoned organized religion enmasse. 

young people have no real interest in slogging decades through marriage and raising kids , separation rates are at record highs

more and more are willingly childless or are stopping at below replacement fertility rate(1.3 children/woman) - an example is japan , italy 

there is rejection of intermarriage with the growing number of african and muslim migrants due to religious and racial fault lines

the nanny state continues to look after people , whether single, separated, widowed does not matter…

In developing nations?

many conservative societies continue to be a pressure cooker about women’s freedom of opportunity and free speech, desperately trying to exist like a oil droplet and survive by the cosy old mores of male control.But the steam is periodically now coming out as the triple talaq issue shows, or the change in ways of such women once they move out of the male dominated milieu into the wider world despite the strong early childhood indoctrination

in less conservative societies, only the lack of a nanny state and money is holding back millions and millions of women from walking out of rather unhappy marriages - people may wax eloquent about sanskriti and sanskari naari but give people the guaranteed support of a nanny state and see the effect.

its very hard to find a young educated woman these days who definitely wants 2+ kids on her own unless the husband has a fetish for 2+. even in the generation now in late 30s and 40s, many many stopped at 1, driven by economic reality -wife has to work to generate savings, lack of grandparents support for childcare and career aspirations meaning most people now move to other places to work.

Some arguments can be made

Everyone by biological nature tries to maximise their advantages - if the male dominated order held the leash earlier, the emergent women’s networks have found ways to destroy and discredit the dominant gorilla male chimps even if belatedly but with lethal network effects like the #metoo revelations. None are in jail yet, but their position in public life and the income streams attached to that have become untenable and these men will only be able to retire into quiet anonymity at best - a crushing blow to the ego of public figures used to the heady drug of being in limelight and popular

Freedom once attained is rarely if ever voluntarily relinquished

The nature of work is almost totally going to be unisex 

Life is become safer both from physical violence and microbial infections - urban middleclass+ women no longer need a “protector” type man hovering around to lead their day to day life unless they inhabit a lawless region. conveniences are increasing, the app based delivery model being a recent one.

Women are generally happier in networks of other women,than trying to fit into some male “bro” culture like golfing, fishing, tall tales and old school buddies meeting over old monk rum and debating over school crushes  … their topics of life interest are vastly different. No woman in india probably has any interest in what are the political dynamics of the syrian civil war or the finding of a new species of tortoise in patagonia under a rock. Some men could debate for hours on it . Every village has a troop of old men who sit under a tree reading every newspaper, talking and giving comments to everyone passing by … nobody will notice a troop of old women doing that.

The “desire” for sex as men think of it (conventional penetrative sex) likely bores to death some 95% of women as they never reach a climax through it unless the man lends a hand to it (pun intended) after the act, rather than roll over and snore loudly, though 95% of men think its ok, and access to sex is a core need and a entire huge industry (porn industry) is built around that thoughtsphere. For women its probably as important as say a mildly interesting monthly project like cleaning the chest of drawers or getting a visit to a new salon. So if men think their ability to provide sex on demand (mostly to mens benefit) is going to “glue” the cracked pottery together, I think they are much mistaken. Women in general can get by very well pleasuring themselves or entering into mildly LGBT type relationships for that 5% slice of the round pie chart that defines all of a persons “needs in life”. Men might want sex every day if they can, a single good session can last women a long time.

The fabric of the organized monogamic nuclear family with religious sanction is fraying and the rips are growing larger.

Where does the rabbit hole lead to? 

I think it leads to groups of women, who might be siblings, relatives or friends rearing a pool of children and working together as in the old clan days but with no or very few men around permanently. Some variant a matriarchal system, or whatever you may call it, but 4 generations of women could be living under a mutually supportive network with the men being ghar jamai for limited time to donate their seed and then pack it off back to lone tusker mode until let back in to get another bowl of the cream on some occasions. 

The fact that women cope with old age and maintaining social relations much better is well known. A old widow will manage and retain social contacts, a old widower will soon be a shambles and fall apart. Groups of women living and growing old together is very much probable, whether men are totally out of scene or a limited presence. in any rich country, women always have greater average lifespans and much less prone to the self abusive and indisciplined patterns of behaviour that cut men’s lives short by years and sometimes decades. 

Men become cranky with age and revert to being children, women continue to gain wisdom and stature and become matriarchs.

It is also inevitable that genetic engineering will soon find ways to make the “seed” (mens last remaining trump card) artificially in the laboratory. rubber -a natural product, was synthesized in the lab by germany to meet wartime shortage and british control of malaya and so will this precious “seed/beej” and that will be the last glacing blow sending men into a kind of irrelevance. The world needs lot of rubber but maybe only a few large vats of seed per annum to keep things um ticking over. And things can be manipulated at genetic level far better in the lab through splicing and editing to edit out the “bad” and usher in the “good” traits of the day - like a potential high earning biochemistry Phd who also runs 100m in 10.5 seconds, does not smoke and is a great cook - all programmed at birth.

Nature is wise and many ancient animals live in this mode, the most promiment being the large mammals who live decades like whales, elephants - some arctic species have lifespans much longer than humans - under wise matriarchs while the huge and violent males are let inside the door only when babies are needed and then “managed out” on some performance improvement plan. 

One difference from 1:1 monogamy (almost everyone gets a chance to mate) is that probably the top10% of the males get 90% of the “opportunity” in the non-human world and have a disproportionate genetic footprint vs their “weaker” male rivals. The “weak” ones slink around trying to find a gap in the fence + avoid being killed if intercepted, or plot and collude to depose the incumbent king. And find it hard hunting or gathering food alone, which matriarch led herds of juveniles and mature females do far more safely and efficiently.

The age of the male ape having first right to all resources including women is over. The sun has set on it on parts of the world and the shadows are creeping into our longitudes too. Just as our kids will all drive EV cars not fossil fuel cars, I am no longer sure of many things…

I am not saying its “fair” or even the best thing to happen, but I am saying thats where the ball is rolling.