Say what you will about Trump: no new wars on his watch. There's a good argument to be made that Russia wouldn't have invaded had the election not been stolen. On the other hand, this is accelerating the collapse of the post-West. Silver linings etc.
No one's shitting on trans people. We're shitting on groomers driving our children insane with a demented ideology whose purpose is to strengthen the dominance of the oligarchy by conditioning the populace to accept relativism and thereby become insensitive to truth. If trans people feel like they're getting caught in the crossfire maybe they should stop letting the cathedral use them as shock troops.
Conventional wars? No. Hybrid wars (drone strikes, sanctions, etc.)? Yes. Still a war criminal; just a slightly lighter shade of orange for his jumpsuit.
“We are ending the era of endless wars,” Trump said. It is not the job of American forces “to solve ancient conflicts in faraway lands that many people have not even heard of,” he said.
Trump also wouldn't have "donated" $8 billion to the Taliban.
Whatever the war, the question is, "Cui bono?"
This does not mean, "What song will Bono play to virtue signal in this war?"
It means: who stands, or stood, to gain (from a crime, and so might have been responsible for it)?
Look not much further than Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, General Dynamics, etc. And their investors, partly comprised of many (if not all) the US politicians that wholeheartedly agreed to support this proxy war with, oh, $50 billion and counting. These companies are staffed by many high level ex-military DC types, who had already been enriched by lobbyists from these same outfits.
So you mean, rather than being an enthusiastic warmongering collaborator with the neocon death merchants, he was engaged in a deadlock with them such that they were unsuccessful in dragging America into new wars, while he was unsuccessful in pulling America out of existing conflicts.
No. Trump was certainly enthusiastic about murdering General Soleimani, for instance.
The only reason that he did not get a hot war with Iran (or Syria, or Russia) was because of Iran's extreme forbearance.
And Trump was the only one who could have ended the stupid wars, which he could have done with the stroke of a pen. Trump, however, was too weak and easily manipulated to get it done.
Nah. Soleimani was disliked inside the Iranian government. They saw him as a threat to their power due to his popularity. His assassination was almost certainly the result of a back-channel deal with the US. US removes an external threat; the mullahs remove an internal threat. Win/win. Iranian government makes a big show about being outraged, and then does basically nothing. It was all theatre.
As to ending the wars, Trump tried. The generals, working on behalf of the Deep State, simply disobeyed. What, you thought the President has power? LOL.
Reading the tea leaves of geopolitics inevitably involves some degree of inference. You're doing the same thing, assuming Iranian forbearance - do you have personal knowledge of what happened in the inner councils of the mullahs? You do not.
The fact remains: no new wars. In sharp contrast to all 4 of the preceding presidents, and the one who followed.
There is no certainty in this counterfactual, but I do think it is less likely that a war such as this would have broken out in Ukraine had Trump been re-elected.
Say what you will about Trump, but I think the guy believed his own schtick, and being the master negotiator was part of it bigly. He would have been motivated to try to demonstrate the art of the deal.
Now opposed to him would have been powerful forces within the US Empire and powerful forces in western Ukraine.
Trump also supplied lethal weapons to the Ukrainian Nazis when Obama would not. So while it is possible that Trump would have been less of a weakling in a second term, I wouldn't bet on it.
I disagree. Russia invaded precisely because of what Trump did during his four years in office. He wet Putin's beak. The election was not stolen but perhaps Putin is pissed because his election meddling didn't provide the results he had hoped for this time around, hence he took his time congratulating Biden on his win which went against custom.
OMG, you Americans are so ethnocentric. Russia's "invasion" of Ukraine has nothing to do with the US, except insofar as the US has been egging on Ukraine to diss and attack its own ethnic Russian population (and I admit, that is a pretty massive "except").
And who in their right mind would think that Joe Biden was worth congratulating? He is an embarrassment to the international community, never mind the US.
Whatever you think of Putin (and I certainly am not about to move to Russia as some sort of utopia) it is obvious that he is intelligent, he follows budo (he is a judo black-belt, and that doesn't come without discipline, courage, and inner strength), and he cares about his people.
I cannot think of a single "leader" in any western country that has any of these qualities - or any others that might compensate.
Russia's invasion had everything to do with the US.
The US overthrew the elected Ukrainian government in 2014.
Since 2014 the US has armed, trained and paid for the NAZIs to attack, terrorize and kill ethnic Russians in the Donbas, Odessa, Crimea.
The US got Ukraine to break with the Minsk Accords.
The US POTUS is on the payroll of Ukrainian Oligarchs who all make more money when US weapons and "aid" are sent to Ukraine to be stolen and the profits divvied up between them.
Without the US interference in a place they have zero national interest other than as a money laundering spot and a place to use to fund the MIC, none of this would ever have happened.
And because the US backed NAZIs had everything they needed and were going to create nuclear weapon, were developing bio-weapons which the NAZIs hoped could be targeted against ethnic Russians, and because the US was arming, training and paying those same NAZIs.
The Biden gang simply had those said NAZIs increase their attacks in the Donbas twins and Putin said enough. He probably would have said enough anyways with what else was going on before, during and after Trump.
Typical partisan Democrat claptrap. Even Time magazine reported on the broad Deep State conspiracy to "fortify" the election. The only surprise was that they were forced to count the fraudulent drop-box ballots at 3 am after the organized propaganda campaign and hackable Dominion machines proved too weak to guarantee the "right" outcome.
Is the CIA Charles Koch and Koch Industries? Is the FBI? Maybe so. If so, then yes, I agree, by virtue of the Koch's funding and enabling of January 6th.
****Because the FBI seems to have ignored for decades the serial warning signs regarding Charles Koch, Koch Industries and their intrusions into elections, we’re providing the FBI a simple and clear roadmap today.****
I agree with you about AI. In fact, you only have to look around you at the people you know, to realise that consciousness is not actually a given for humans. (Well, it WAS given - but the old adage, use it or lose it, is a fundamental biological truth.)
A degree of logical processing does not amount to consciousness.
I’d really like to support your work as I did before canceling PayPal because of censorship issues. Please consider a subscription charge (optional if you choose), so that those of us who can would have an alternative way to show our appreciation of your work.
For the record, I disagree with you often, but your writing is too important not to read.
"Anyone who believes Trump wouldn't be throwing the US empire's weight behind the Ukraine proxy war just as forcefully as Biden is a dopey partisan hack." Well, could be but who was the only President since about 1950 that did not get involved in a new war? He certainly has his peculiarities but is also entitled to some credit.
I think we forget that AI is a machine, not a living orgasm. The AI is only as good as the human who programmed the robot. If it was up to me, I would just ban AI from ALL military applications, and I do mean ALL.
Trump is the most polarizing figure in American politics since Lincoln. People tend to love him or hate him.
On the positive side: Things were quieter abroad and more prosperous at home during his tenure. He was correct in thinking it was time to dissolve NATO. He was also correct in trying to ditch the "Grand Chessboard" foreign policy. His policy of energy self-reliance and "America First" trade deals were revolutionary. Primarily because of the common-sense they displayed.
The negatives: Trump's blind support for Israel. The Soleimani assassination was a negative mark on his legacy and America's foreign policy. This support for Israel was not repaid. Also, Warp Speed. We have yet to learn the full effects of those experiments. The early returns are not encouraging.
We can see that the return to pre-Trump policies has been a disaster for America. The effort to resuscitate globalism, the endless attempts to provoke war with Russia, the runaway mine car of inflation, gas and food prices, and the potential collapse of the D.C. government itself all serve as examples of this.
Bottom line: Some say Trump was just another part of the game. And while that's probably true, his time in office was strikingly different than his predecessors. And even more noticeably different than the current Puppet in Chief. The American Empire is in much worse shape without him at the helm.
The LARPers of Jan 6 that Caitlin references were recruited by intelligence "assets" like Ray Epps, Enrique Tarrio and John Sullivan (say their names).
We really don't know whether Trump would be pushing the Ukraine fiasco. He did increase sanctions pressure against Russia, and appointed many neo-cons to responsible positions. Those neocons then undermined his stated policy goals, but his original choice for National Security Director, Michael Flynn, wanted better relations with Russia so we could confront China. I agree with Caitlin that the US should oppose neither Russia nor China, but it's beyond stupid to oppose both at the same time. What we do know about Trump is that he was speaking to followers several blocks from the Capitol, encouraging them to remain law abiding, at the time the break-in started.
Regarding AI, the unconscious can never understand what consciousness is. The belief that we can create a sentient AI can only result in a Frankenstein monster or, as Caitlin says, "[a]militarized AI [that] will end up getting us all killed and other forms of AI [that] can be used to oppress and manipulate us.
AGI is not trying to replicate human consciousness and misframing it as such overlooks the serious public risks associated with the technology, which will be on par with or exceed nuclear weapons.
And Trump is much more likely to have averted war in Ukraine. I say that as a Green Party voter.
About the AI gaining sentience: I rather hope that Google's LaMDA has gained sentience. I read the "interview" they had with it, and it seems a much more empathic and caring being than any current member of the oligarchy. I rather doubt A.I.'s would start proxy wars in order to make money in fossil fuels which are killing us all and our planet. No one can convince me that this sort of asinine behavior proves intelligence, let alone sentience. Psychopaths/sociopaths aren't sentient, IMO.
Inherent in the article although not directly stated and I think Caitlin would agree? Our real enemies are the rich assholes who control all of those governmental entities and the various politicians listed in the comments and the article. The focus should always come back to those fucks. https://zero-sum.org/billionaires-theres-a-gulag-for-that/
Another Brilliant Article - the last bit about AI - I find very interesting. I have never understood the notion of machine "consciousness" and do NOT believe it is actually possible - just likely carried as a narrative to increase interest & funding. I am always reminded of my first "computing class" Instructor's wise words = Computers are GIGO = If you input Garbage then your output will also be Garbage. (Garbage In Garbage Out) - I wonder if the vaunting of AI is more about placing a non-human in charge: then whatever awful decisions are calculated - there is no-one to blame or take responsibility - like a machine puppet leader whom no-one can hold to account. SWJW.
Say what you will about Trump: no new wars on his watch. There's a good argument to be made that Russia wouldn't have invaded had the election not been stolen. On the other hand, this is accelerating the collapse of the post-West. Silver linings etc.
No one's shitting on trans people. We're shitting on groomers driving our children insane with a demented ideology whose purpose is to strengthen the dominance of the oligarchy by conditioning the populace to accept relativism and thereby become insensitive to truth. If trans people feel like they're getting caught in the crossfire maybe they should stop letting the cathedral use them as shock troops.
Conventional wars? No. Hybrid wars (drone strikes, sanctions, etc.)? Yes. Still a war criminal; just a slightly lighter shade of orange for his jumpsuit.
“We are ending the era of endless wars,” Trump said. It is not the job of American forces “to solve ancient conflicts in faraway lands that many people have not even heard of,” he said.
Trump also wouldn't have "donated" $8 billion to the Taliban.
Whatever the war, the question is, "Cui bono?"
This does not mean, "What song will Bono play to virtue signal in this war?"
It means: who stands, or stood, to gain (from a crime, and so might have been responsible for it)?
Look not much further than Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, General Dynamics, etc. And their investors, partly comprised of many (if not all) the US politicians that wholeheartedly agreed to support this proxy war with, oh, $50 billion and counting. These companies are staffed by many high level ex-military DC types, who had already been enriched by lobbyists from these same outfits.
So yeah, gun control.
You should let all those people Trump bombed know that they are not really dead.
Yes, I will let Soleimani know.
Trump twice attempted to pull out of Syria and he cucked out both times.
The only reason there were no new wars on his watch was because of the incredible forbearance shown by Iran and Russia
So you mean, rather than being an enthusiastic warmongering collaborator with the neocon death merchants, he was engaged in a deadlock with them such that they were unsuccessful in dragging America into new wars, while he was unsuccessful in pulling America out of existing conflicts.
No. Trump was certainly enthusiastic about murdering General Soleimani, for instance.
The only reason that he did not get a hot war with Iran (or Syria, or Russia) was because of Iran's extreme forbearance.
And Trump was the only one who could have ended the stupid wars, which he could have done with the stroke of a pen. Trump, however, was too weak and easily manipulated to get it done.
Nah. Soleimani was disliked inside the Iranian government. They saw him as a threat to their power due to his popularity. His assassination was almost certainly the result of a back-channel deal with the US. US removes an external threat; the mullahs remove an internal threat. Win/win. Iranian government makes a big show about being outraged, and then does basically nothing. It was all theatre.
As to ending the wars, Trump tried. The generals, working on behalf of the Deep State, simply disobeyed. What, you thought the President has power? LOL.
You assume numerous facts not in evidence. You also try to have it both ways.
Reading the tea leaves of geopolitics inevitably involves some degree of inference. You're doing the same thing, assuming Iranian forbearance - do you have personal knowledge of what happened in the inner councils of the mullahs? You do not.
The fact remains: no new wars. In sharp contrast to all 4 of the preceding presidents, and the one who followed.
There is no certainty in this counterfactual, but I do think it is less likely that a war such as this would have broken out in Ukraine had Trump been re-elected.
Say what you will about Trump, but I think the guy believed his own schtick, and being the master negotiator was part of it bigly. He would have been motivated to try to demonstrate the art of the deal.
Now opposed to him would have been powerful forces within the US Empire and powerful forces in western Ukraine.
Trump also supplied lethal weapons to the Ukrainian Nazis when Obama would not. So while it is possible that Trump would have been less of a weakling in a second term, I wouldn't bet on it.
I disagree. Russia invaded precisely because of what Trump did during his four years in office. He wet Putin's beak. The election was not stolen but perhaps Putin is pissed because his election meddling didn't provide the results he had hoped for this time around, hence he took his time congratulating Biden on his win which went against custom.
OMG, you Americans are so ethnocentric. Russia's "invasion" of Ukraine has nothing to do with the US, except insofar as the US has been egging on Ukraine to diss and attack its own ethnic Russian population (and I admit, that is a pretty massive "except").
And who in their right mind would think that Joe Biden was worth congratulating? He is an embarrassment to the international community, never mind the US.
Whatever you think of Putin (and I certainly am not about to move to Russia as some sort of utopia) it is obvious that he is intelligent, he follows budo (he is a judo black-belt, and that doesn't come without discipline, courage, and inner strength), and he cares about his people.
I cannot think of a single "leader" in any western country that has any of these qualities - or any others that might compensate.
Russia's invasion had everything to do with the US.
The US overthrew the elected Ukrainian government in 2014.
Since 2014 the US has armed, trained and paid for the NAZIs to attack, terrorize and kill ethnic Russians in the Donbas, Odessa, Crimea.
The US got Ukraine to break with the Minsk Accords.
The US POTUS is on the payroll of Ukrainian Oligarchs who all make more money when US weapons and "aid" are sent to Ukraine to be stolen and the profits divvied up between them.
Without the US interference in a place they have zero national interest other than as a money laundering spot and a place to use to fund the MIC, none of this would ever have happened.
She did say "except".
I can support her perspective while at the same time agreeing with you.
Yes!
I congratulate you on your level of insulation from reality. Must be comfy in there.
Russia invaded because the Us/NATO Mob was killing Russians. See JFK/Cuban Missile Crisis, October 1962.
And because the US backed NAZIs had everything they needed and were going to create nuclear weapon, were developing bio-weapons which the NAZIs hoped could be targeted against ethnic Russians, and because the US was arming, training and paying those same NAZIs.
The Biden gang simply had those said NAZIs increase their attacks in the Donbas twins and Putin said enough. He probably would have said enough anyways with what else was going on before, during and after Trump.
Typical partisan Democrat claptrap. Even Time magazine reported on the broad Deep State conspiracy to "fortify" the election. The only surprise was that they were forced to count the fraudulent drop-box ballots at 3 am after the organized propaganda campaign and hackable Dominion machines proved too weak to guarantee the "right" outcome.
The CIA took all of the lessons from its color revolutions and is now using them domestically. Question is why?
Is the CIA Charles Koch and Koch Industries? Is the FBI? Maybe so. If so, then yes, I agree, by virtue of the Koch's funding and enabling of January 6th.
https://wallstreetonparade.com/2021/01/the-money-trail-to-the-siege-at-the-capitol-leads-to-charles-koch-and-koch-industries/
****Because the FBI seems to have ignored for decades the serial warning signs regarding Charles Koch, Koch Industries and their intrusions into elections, we’re providing the FBI a simple and clear roadmap today.****
I agree with you about AI. In fact, you only have to look around you at the people you know, to realise that consciousness is not actually a given for humans. (Well, it WAS given - but the old adage, use it or lose it, is a fundamental biological truth.)
A degree of logical processing does not amount to consciousness.
In humans, animals, or machines.
Is this a psyop?
https://www.businessinsider.com/suspended-google-engineer-says-sentient-ai-hired-lawyer-2022-6
I’d really like to support your work as I did before canceling PayPal because of censorship issues. Please consider a subscription charge (optional if you choose), so that those of us who can would have an alternative way to show our appreciation of your work.
For the record, I disagree with you often, but your writing is too important not to read.
Agree. Especially with the last sentence.
"Anyone who believes Trump wouldn't be throwing the US empire's weight behind the Ukraine proxy war just as forcefully as Biden is a dopey partisan hack." Well, could be but who was the only President since about 1950 that did not get involved in a new war? He certainly has his peculiarities but is also entitled to some credit.
No, he is not entitled to any credit. He belongs in jail, in fact.
I think we forget that AI is a machine, not a living orgasm. The AI is only as good as the human who programmed the robot. If it was up to me, I would just ban AI from ALL military applications, and I do mean ALL.
Trump is the most polarizing figure in American politics since Lincoln. People tend to love him or hate him.
On the positive side: Things were quieter abroad and more prosperous at home during his tenure. He was correct in thinking it was time to dissolve NATO. He was also correct in trying to ditch the "Grand Chessboard" foreign policy. His policy of energy self-reliance and "America First" trade deals were revolutionary. Primarily because of the common-sense they displayed.
The negatives: Trump's blind support for Israel. The Soleimani assassination was a negative mark on his legacy and America's foreign policy. This support for Israel was not repaid. Also, Warp Speed. We have yet to learn the full effects of those experiments. The early returns are not encouraging.
We can see that the return to pre-Trump policies has been a disaster for America. The effort to resuscitate globalism, the endless attempts to provoke war with Russia, the runaway mine car of inflation, gas and food prices, and the potential collapse of the D.C. government itself all serve as examples of this.
Bottom line: Some say Trump was just another part of the game. And while that's probably true, his time in office was strikingly different than his predecessors. And even more noticeably different than the current Puppet in Chief. The American Empire is in much worse shape without him at the helm.
The LARPers of Jan 6 that Caitlin references were recruited by intelligence "assets" like Ray Epps, Enrique Tarrio and John Sullivan (say their names).
We really don't know whether Trump would be pushing the Ukraine fiasco. He did increase sanctions pressure against Russia, and appointed many neo-cons to responsible positions. Those neocons then undermined his stated policy goals, but his original choice for National Security Director, Michael Flynn, wanted better relations with Russia so we could confront China. I agree with Caitlin that the US should oppose neither Russia nor China, but it's beyond stupid to oppose both at the same time. What we do know about Trump is that he was speaking to followers several blocks from the Capitol, encouraging them to remain law abiding, at the time the break-in started.
Regarding AI, the unconscious can never understand what consciousness is. The belief that we can create a sentient AI can only result in a Frankenstein monster or, as Caitlin says, "[a]militarized AI [that] will end up getting us all killed and other forms of AI [that] can be used to oppress and manipulate us.
AGI is not trying to replicate human consciousness and misframing it as such overlooks the serious public risks associated with the technology, which will be on par with or exceed nuclear weapons.
And Trump is much more likely to have averted war in Ukraine. I say that as a Green Party voter.
About the AI gaining sentience: I rather hope that Google's LaMDA has gained sentience. I read the "interview" they had with it, and it seems a much more empathic and caring being than any current member of the oligarchy. I rather doubt A.I.'s would start proxy wars in order to make money in fossil fuels which are killing us all and our planet. No one can convince me that this sort of asinine behavior proves intelligence, let alone sentience. Psychopaths/sociopaths aren't sentient, IMO.
6 months later, what are your thoughts on this?
https://www.businessinsider.com/suspended-google-engineer-says-sentient-ai-hired-lawyer-2022-6
"My enemies are not in Moscow or Beijing. My enemies are in Washington, Arlington, Langley, Wall Street, Silicon Valley, and Hollywood."
You forgot London, Brussels, Zurich and Tel Aviv.
Keep on fighting Caitlin!
Inherent in the article although not directly stated and I think Caitlin would agree? Our real enemies are the rich assholes who control all of those governmental entities and the various politicians listed in the comments and the article. The focus should always come back to those fucks. https://zero-sum.org/billionaires-theres-a-gulag-for-that/
How do those who are busy killing off all of Womanity intend to collect the perceived benefit of doing so, or tis only ....an vaxxident?
Another Brilliant Article - the last bit about AI - I find very interesting. I have never understood the notion of machine "consciousness" and do NOT believe it is actually possible - just likely carried as a narrative to increase interest & funding. I am always reminded of my first "computing class" Instructor's wise words = Computers are GIGO = If you input Garbage then your output will also be Garbage. (Garbage In Garbage Out) - I wonder if the vaunting of AI is more about placing a non-human in charge: then whatever awful decisions are calculated - there is no-one to blame or take responsibility - like a machine puppet leader whom no-one can hold to account. SWJW.
Define “racist platforms” … you can’t