Higgenbotham's Dark Age Hovel

[Higgenbotham]

I think there were segments of the population who were late in realizing that the country had already irreversibly collapsed before Trump got in, pretty big segments in fact, and they were sure he could "Make America Great Again". They were excited and hopeful about that and when it didn't happen they put together a scenario in their minds whereby it could. It's part of the denial phase of the mourning process. Upon seeing this, my goal was to move my sister as quickly as possible to the acceptance phase and she is doing a good job of getting there.

The five stages as described by Dr. Elisabeth Kubler Ross are:

Denial and Isolation
Anger
Bargaining
Depression
Acceptance

If this is correct, about 18% of the US population is in the process of moving from what we might call the tenuous denial stage of collapse to the acceptance stage. Given how swiftly events are moving, many of this 18% have likely already reached the acceptance stage. This is a very, very significant group of people relative to the percentage that I believe was at the acceptance stage previously (people like me, for example). Now instead of my sister feeding me information about "Q" or something similar, she asks me questions like, "You've been here (the acceptance stage of collapse) a long time, what do you think about...?"

[aeden]

"It's isolationism surrounded by disconnected thought, demonstrates the lack of understanding the threats we face," 2016

Bio labs in the dozens as gain of function has killed millions while Human Trafficking of whole groups assures, they have no policy
but laundering money.

We will no longer surrender this country or its people to the false song of globalism it was said.
That is why they have root kits, and we are led by looters and much worse.

Votes mean nothing. The insourcing is the only viable solution to even start to survive these fools.

We left Christians subject to intense persecution and even genocide.
We have done nothing to help the Christians, nothing, and we should always be ashamed for that, for that lack of action.

At least we took the time to spare some Yazidis just before that massacre.

Yazidi means 'the servant of the creator'.
A vestige of the Yezidis’ Garden of Eden era is reputed to be GobekliTepe,
a recently discovered archaeological excavation in southern Turkey that has been dated to approximately 12,000 BCE.

Yes contacted the White House and they acted in compassion to spare one People.
In my view alone we have waxed cold as they warned us, and we have been spared judgement for now only as the Harbingers
speak true. The Blizzard has been ongoing for many days now and at work to preserve assets so civilization can endure
for now like many others this Christmas Day. Avoid these damned global warning cults and focus on base loads. We have Women and Men who can define what they are.

These words are pragmatic weapons. They discomfit liberals.
They set the stage for disruption down the line when elections don’t go the MAGA way, and even when they do.
https://harpers.org/archive/2023/01/tru ... tradition/
The words also function as a password, letting everyone know who is in the club.

You had been warned what sheep pens produce very early on. Remember we had the keys before you did.
Root kits.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ou8uLo3Ke6U

[Higgenbotham]

A question one might ponder is whether billionaire Buffett believes that the 2008 bailouts were really for the benefit of 309 million Americans.

Based on my experience, the short answer would be yes, he really does believe that.

I was heading in this direction, but then recalled that John and I had already covered part of this several years ago.

Believe me, Higgie, you're preaching to the choir. It's almost
impossible to believe what's going on. I used to think that
Washington and Wall Street were simply corrupt crooks. They're still
corrupt crooks, but now I fully realize that they don't even realize
that they're crooks. The glib euphoria that I see on tv is not
pretense. They actually believe that things will continue as they are
for years.

They're still corrupt crooks, but now I fully realize that they don't even realize
that they're crooks.

You got it! I used to have the misfortune of interfacing with some top officials of one of the richest corporations and families in America.

And I used to say, regarding them,

"They've been lying so long they don't even know they're lying."

And THAT is the truth.

Or, to put it another way, they've been lying so long, they've come to
believe their own lies.

John's statement that they've been lying so long, they've come to believe their own lies is the most complete way to say it.

As stated recently, there were 3 phases to the dealings I had with the top officials of one of the richest corporations and families in America.

"We go beyond compliance" This was the introductory phase. During this phase, introductions were made, required contractor training courses were taken in the facility, the facility was toured independently, and file material was collected. It was during this phase that the consultant previously mentioned was fired, and the necessary calculations done over by another consultant.

"When we find there's a problem we fix it and we fix it immediately" As I went from process to process within the facility, several issues were found and corrected. When an issue was found, the job was stopped until the issue was solved. This resulted in some delays.

"We hire the best engineers and consultants money can buy and we don't understand why this is happening" (in whispers) It was during this phase that the project died on the vine. An issue was found for which there was no immediate solution. The job was stopped and never formally restarted or concluded. No formal written report was made. I was working on several projects with other companies so it didn't make much difference to me. As to how the issue was resolved it would have been either one of two things. Either a technical solution was eventually found, which I doubt, or the company lobbied the Federal government for changes in the law without admitting they had this problem. I suspect it was the latter because I just noticed in the past couple days that a cabinet member of the Bush Administration is on the company's board of directors. A couple years after I was last in the facility this person had been out at the company doing a dog and pony show which was reported in local media (and probably national to the extent they could).

Once I left the facility, it is probable that the company immediately reverted back to "We go beyond compliance" but I wasn't in a position to pay much attention to what they were doing.

The strangest thing I saw in this facility was they had some kind of underground soil bed that they had developed and had been trying to use to mitigate VOC emissions. I went through the file material in detail and figured out that it had never worked. Company officials would point to this thing as one of the reasons that they went beyond compliance, as if it worked. When we were taken on the initial tour of the facility, I think they pointed this out. I've seen similar things in other corporations where one department will sell another department and company management on something they are doing, then never tell anyone when it fails to work. It appeared that was what happened here too. But to present it that way to outsiders and promote it as a working marvel without checking their claims was something I haven't seen any company do.

[Higgenbotham]

Another thing that relates to that is there is a moral code in rural areas versus a moral code in urban areas. I witnessed this conflict as I grew up. My grandparents spent their entire lives in a rural area; my parents spent until age 18 in a rural area and 34 working years in a city. They couldn't wait to get the hell out. As kids, my sister and I went back to their home every year and were immersed in rural culture for a week. I think part of the huge divide in this country has to do with the fact that more and more families have spent several generations in the city and have not been exposed to rural culture in any meaningful way at all, as my sister and I were.

Now instead of my sister feeding me information about "Q" or something similar, she asks me questions like, "You've been here (the acceptance stage of collapse) a long time, what do you think about...?"

When someone moves along from denial to acceptance of collapse, I think it is natural to start looking at the quality of connections around them. A couple months ago, my sister asked me why I thought she didn't have any true friends. Previously, she had only said that people she knew had changed and she had lost contact.

I said there are two opposite modes of living in the United States. The first is an expectation that you will spend your entire life in one area with other people who will spend their entire lives in that area. The second is an expectation that you will go to high school in one place, college in another place, then career in several places (no longer at one company) with sole focus on that. Everything else is something in between. The first mode engenders real connections while the second mode engenders transactional relationships. An example of a transactional relationship would be something like, "I have a buddy who is also 420 friendly. He finds me really good dope cheap and I fix all his computers." The best example of a transactional encounter I can think of is prostitution. Also, in a big city, encounters are briefer. That's not to say there isn't some overlap.

I told her in the second mode of living, people are taught from an early age to look to the next step in their progression and to primarily engage in transactional relationships as a means to get to that next step. A high school kid might be told to be friendly to the teachers because they will be writing college recommendations or whatever. They would not be encouraged to be friendly to teachers they genuinely like and not be friendly to teachers they genuinely do not like. And so on when the kid gets to college. I should add as an aside that girls are better at that than boys. I told her that while coping with the stress of getting from step to step, people who find themselves in the same boat will bond somewhat. But they know those bonds are likely temporary and will be broken when they get to the next step unless there is a practical reason to keep them. I also told her that people who have lived in transactional relationship mode for several generations do not even know how to live differently and can't. Many do not understand what a real connection is.

I would also add that high tech is making people more and more into transactions versus customers. Google is the best example I can think of.

[Higgenbotham]

The Christmas Light Indicator

Tonight while I was driving through my apartment complex, which I would characterize as lower middle class, it didn't take too long to realize that something seemed off this year. As the years have gone by here, I've noticed there are fewer and fewer Christmas displays on the apartment balconies, but it was always comforting to notice at least some. Being a week before Christmas and having been reminded repeatedly today that this is the Christmas season, I realized there was not a single one in sight. Besides the security lights, which are kind of dim anyway, the whole place was pitch black as far as the eye could see. Not even a lit Christmas tree could be seen through a window. So I decided to go off my usual path. I didn't cover the whole complex of 400 some apartments, but went out of my way to see if there was anything at all. I found 3. They weren't ostentatious but nonetheless there were signs of life. I've been here 17 plus years and would estimate that this same drive 17 years ago would have netted 20 or 25 displays, some beautifully done. Last year maybe 5 to 7. The numbers seem to steadily go down as the years have passed. I've also noticed this on July 4th and New Year's Eve. As the years have gone by, there are fewer and fewer indications of anybody celebrating with firecrackers or what have you. Finally, a year or two ago, I heard nothing on one of those holidays except dead silence.

Five miles down the road, there is a subdivision that has unique and beautiful million dollar plus homes. It would be interesting to go over there and take a look. My guess would be that there are the same number and quality of Christmas light displays as there were 17 years ago.

Christmas night, 6:30 pm, right to left overlapping.

[Higgenbotham]

I said there are two opposite modes of living in the United States. The first is an expectation that you will spend your entire life in one area with other people who will spend their entire lives in that area. The second is an expectation that you will go to high school in one place, college in another place, then career in several places (no longer at one company) with sole focus on that. Everything else is something in between. The first mode engenders real connections while the second mode engenders transactional relationships. An example of a transactional relationship would be something like, "I have a buddy who is also 420 friendly. He finds me really good dope cheap and I fix all his computers." The best example of a transactional encounter I can think of is prostitution. Also, in a big city, encounters are briefer. That's not to say there isn't some overlap.

I told her in the second mode of living, people are taught from an early age to look to the next step in their progression and to primarily engage in transactional relationships as a means to get to that next step. A high school kid might be told to be friendly to the teachers because they will be writing college recommendations or whatever. They would not be encouraged to be friendly to teachers they genuinely like and not be friendly to teachers they genuinely do not like. And so on when the kid gets to college. I should add as an aside that girls are better at that than boys. I told her that while coping with the stress of getting from step to step, people who find themselves in the same boat will bond somewhat. But they know those bonds are likely temporary and will be broken when they get to the next step unless there is a practical reason to keep them. I also told her that people who have lived in transactional relationship mode for several generations do not even know how to live differently and can't. Many do not understand what a real connection is.

I would also add that high tech is making people more and more into transactions versus customers. Google is the best example I can think of.

I now want to describe what this second mode of living typically leads to by specific example. I have known this person since we were 5 years old.

His second mode of living profile is as follows:

1. Grew up in a suburb of a city. Father was a PhD research scientist at a corporation.
2. Moved to another city in the same state to go to college.
3. Moved to another state to go to graduate school and got a PhD in chemistry.
4. Moved to yet another state to work for a drug company (Boston suburb).
5. Moved to yet another state to work for a different drug company.
6. Moved to yet another state to work for the same drug company (Chicago suburb).

From his twitter account (he is on linkedin too):

Dale is an awesome scientist and a better human being!
#scienceRocks#EndtheNeglect

This refers to a coworker who joined a committee at the Gates Foundation. This tweet is what I call a transaction.

Also from his twitter account:

Oct 7, 2020
Kamala with the uppercut…

Nov 27, 2020
#DiaperDon needs a nap.

...a few dozen similar tweets and retweets...followed by the latest just 12 hours ago...

12h
Indeed

Alteño
@zwiitt
13h
Mike Pence has a greater chance of getting a blowjob than winning the presidency

His tweets also indicate support for Colin Kaepernick, BLM, etc.

My theory is that people who have adopted this second mode of living and engage in transactional relationships, particularly those who have done so for several generations, still have an innate need for real human connection and, in my opinion, are attempting to fill that void by voicing support for liberal causes and political candidates which ultimately get paid for out of funds that the government can no longer afford to provide. By doing so, they are continuing to engage in transactional relationships, which is all they know how to do.

That void would be better filled by finding individuals who are suffering and helping them directly (real human connection).

This will all end when the welfare state collapses.

[Higgenbotham]

Warren Buffett is the King of Transactional Relationships and this story below was put out today by the cheerleaders at CNBC, quoting Buffett's sidekick Charlie Munger.

What Munger seems to be saying to people is that, even if they couldn't put Christmas lights up this year when they could have and maybe did in recent years, they should be happy about that because nobody could put up Christmas lights in years in the distant past before they were born. That's not how it works. People compare their current positions to their recent experience and their immediate future prospects, which are both negative.

Stop complaining, says billionaire investor Charlie Munger: 'Everybody's five times better off than they used to be'

Story by Tom Huddleston Jr. • 1h ago


Billionaire Charlie Munger thinks we should all be a lot happier.

Munger, the longtime investment partner and friend of fellow billionaire Warren Buffett, says he doesn't understand why people today aren't more content with what they have, especially compared to harder times throughout history.

"People are less happy about the state of affairs than they were when things were way tougher," Munger said earlier this year at the annual meeting of the Daily Journal, the newspaper company where he's a director.

The 98-year-old noted that he came of age in the 1930s, when Americans everywhere were struggling: "It's weird for somebody my age, because I was in the middle of the Great Depression when the hardship was unbelievable."

During that annual meeting, Munger complained that envy is a driving factor for too many people today. Prior to the early 1800s, there were thousands of years where "life was pretty brutal, short, limited and what have you. [There was] no printing press, no air conditioning, no modern medicine," he said.

If nothing else, Munger's sense of widespread envy in today's world might be right on the money: Recent studies show that roughly 75% of people are envious of someone else in any given year.

Social media sites like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter are especially effective at sparking feelings of envy or jealousy, often connecting us with people who only offer highly-curated peeks into the positive developments in their lives.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets ... 2ea3bee744

[Higgenbotham]

I think there were segments of the population who were late in realizing that the country had already irreversibly collapsed before Trump got in, pretty big segments in fact, and they were sure he could "Make America Great Again". They were excited and hopeful about that and when it didn't happen they put together a scenario in their minds whereby it could. It's part of the denial phase of the mourning process.

The five stages as described by Dr. Elisabeth Kubler Ross are:

Denial and Isolation
Anger
Bargaining
Depression
Acceptance

This obviously is not how the people who are in control of the debate in this country would interpret the situation. They clearly believe that what Trump supporters are mourning is not the loss of their country, but the loss of the election. They would tell you that once the Trump supporters move from denial that Joe Biden won the election to acceptance that he is and will be the rightful President for at least one term, then we can all "move on" past this "speed bump". They would also tell you that once the Trump supporters "follow the science" and get on board with the vax, we can all "move on" past that "speed bump" also (in fact, they have said that). And so on. They have made this all about Donald Trump. But it never was about Donald Trump. Trump himself said so. Trump said he was just the person who had been put in the position of representing the movement. Whether Trump is involved or not, at least 18% of the country is still looking for their rightful leader.

The writing in this old post is a bit dense (I sometimes find that when rereading my old posts) but I think it fits well with what is being discussed in that, on both sides, perception has not caught up to reality but, in my opinion, the Trump side or whatever it really should be called is closer to perceiving the big picture reality, as strange as that may seem to many.

During a period of decline, before the arrival of a dark age proper, the processes of disintegration, disorganisation and discohesion, which have already occurred in reality, begin filtering through into perceptions. As perceptions catch up with the reality, people comment on their problems at length and many of them may deplore the direction in which they see things moving.

The situation the US finds itself in is that the US potentially collapsed in 2008 but it was not a done deal. Generally, it was believed that the US had not potentially collapsed and it was believed that weak and inappropriate counter measures could be taken to get over the perceived little speed bump on the road to greater progress. In 2008, had the perception been more in line with reality, it would have been understood that a potential collapse had occurred and the correct counter measures would have been taken; for example, the rule of law would have been applied and criminals would have gone to prison. Since the correct counter measures were not taken, the collapse has gone from being a potential collapse to being a real, irreversible collapse. The real, irreversible collapse will become a dark age when perceptions line up with reality, which is inevitable because the collapse has become irreversible.

I would say that the people in control of the debate in this country are in "deep denial" whereas Trump supporters are (were in some cases) in "tenuous denial".

[Higgenbotham]

Link to the pdf download for The Phoenix Principle and the Coming Dark Age by Marc Widdowson

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwzPQ2 ... QEgivJKRRA

I first read this book around 2004. My thought was that we weren't there yet but kept it in mind as things unraveled. I think this and Tainter are the best books on collapse.

[Higgenbotham]

Warren Buffett is the King of Transactional Relationships and this story below was put out today by the cheerleaders at CNBC, quoting Buffett's sidekick Charlie Munger.

What Munger seems to be saying to people is that, even if they couldn't put Christmas lights up this year when they could have and maybe did in recent years, they should be happy about that because nobody could put up Christmas lights in years in the distant past before they were born. That's not how it works. People compare their current positions to their recent experience and their immediate future prospects, which are both negative.

Stop complaining, says billionaire investor Charlie Munger: 'Everybody's five times better off than they used to be'

Story by Tom Huddleston Jr. • 1h ago


Billionaire Charlie Munger thinks we should all be a lot happier.

Munger, the longtime investment partner and friend of fellow billionaire Warren Buffett, says he doesn't understand why people today aren't more content with what they have, especially compared to harder times throughout history.

"People are less happy about the state of affairs than they were when things were way tougher," Munger said earlier this year at the annual meeting of the Daily Journal, the newspaper company where he's a director.

The 98-year-old noted that he came of age in the 1930s, when Americans everywhere were struggling: "It's weird for somebody my age, because I was in the middle of the Great Depression when the hardship was unbelievable."

During that annual meeting, Munger complained that envy is a driving factor for too many people today. Prior to the early 1800s, there were thousands of years where "life was pretty brutal, short, limited and what have you. [There was] no printing press, no air conditioning, no modern medicine," he said.

If nothing else, Munger's sense of widespread envy in today's world might be right on the money: Recent studies show that roughly 75% of people are envious of someone else in any given year.

Social media sites like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter are especially effective at sparking feelings of envy or jealousy, often connecting us with people who only offer highly-curated peeks into the positive developments in their lives.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets ... 2ea3bee744

Every so often, when I hear or read about a billionaire telling us (which they do often) that we should all feel fortunate - after all, they've made their billions off the backs of hard working people while throwing us a few crumbs but we got bigger crumbs than the peasants did in the middle ages - and that we are oh so ungrateful because envy exists in an age of probably the most massive income inequality ever, it reminds me of this quote:

If the sixty years seemed full of brilliance and adventure to a few at the top, to most they were a succession of wayward dangers; of the three galloping evils, pillage, plague, and taxes; of fierce and tragic conflicts, bizarre fates, capricious money, sorcery, betrayals, insurrections, murder, madness, and the downfall of princes; of dwindling labor for the fields, of cleared land reverting to waste; and always the recurring black shadow of pestilence carrying its message of guilt and sin and the hostility of God.

Mankind was not improved by the message. Consciousness of wickedness made behavior worse. Violence threw off restraints. It was a time of default. Rules crumbled, institutions failed in their functions. Knighthood did not protect; the Church, more worldly than spiritual, did not guide the way to God; the towns, once agents of progress and the commonweal, were absorbed in mutual hostilities and divided by class war; the population, depleted by the Black Death, did not recover. The war of England and France and the brigandage it spawned revealed the emptiness of chivalry's military pretensions and the falsity of its moral ones. The schism shook the foundations of the central institution, spreading a deep and pervasive uneasiness. People felt subject to events beyond their control, swept like flotsam at sea, hither and yon in a universe without reason or purpose. They lived through a period which suffered and struggled without visible advance. They longed for remedy, for a revival of faith, for stability and order that never came.

The times were not static. Loss of confidence in the guarantors of order opened the way to demands for change, and miseria gave force to the impulse. The oppressed were no longer enduring but rebelling, although, like the bourgeois who tried to compel reform, they were inadequate, unready, and unequipped for the task. Marcel could not impose good government, neither could the Good Parliament. The Jacques could not overthrow the nobles, the popolo minuto of Florence could not advance their status, the English peasants were betrayed by their King; every working-class insurrection was crushed.

Yet change, as always, was taking place. Wyclif and the protestant movement were the natural consequence of default by the church. Monarchy, centralized government, the national state gained in strength, whether for good or bad. Seaborne enterprise, liberated by the compass, was reaching toward the voyages of discovery that were to burst the confines of Europe and find the New World. Literature from Dante to Chaucer was expressing itself in national languages, ready for the great leap forward in print. In the year Enguerrand de Coucy died, Johan Gutenberg was born, although that in itself marked no turn of the tide. The ills and disorders of the 14th Centruy could not be without consequence. Times were to grow worse over the next fifty-odd years, until at some imperceptible moment, by some mysterious chemistry, energies were refreshed, ideas broke out of the mold of the Middle Ages into new realms, and humanity found itself redirected.

A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century
1978