Higgenbotham's Dark Age Hovel

[aedens]

In a few weeks the hand up not hand out assitance for food is ending.
It may restart I will talk to the good souls in the good fight.
The smart ones bought some tltw and bito.
The other smart ones did not.
I was reminded also the Man in the middle did nothing wrong.
He seen Satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightning.
The one went with him and was forgiven and the other went the other way.
Choices are all risk based and who do you think cannot smell the rain coming
or the suns position.

[Higgenbotham]

Though I expect this to be the type of crime that will be committed with increasing frequency (while being ignored by the media and others)...as the new dark age tightens its grip.

It's no longer accurate to say that Trump is "just another liberal," though he is far from a conservative. At this point he really has differentiated himself, which is what he needs to do to survive...as the new dark age tightens its grip.

AI Overview

The phrase "as the new dark age tightens its grip" is a contemporary, dramatic expression used in informal commentary, likely a political or societal forum, to describe a perceived decline in intellectual, cultural, or political progress. It is not a widely known quote from a specific historical figure or prominent text.

The expression alludes to the historical concept of the Dark Ages, a term coined by the Italian scholar Petrarch to describe the period in Europe after the fall of the Roman Empire, characterized by a perceived lack of cultural and scientific advancement and a scarcity of historical records.

In the search results provided, the phrase appears in a few posts on a specific online forum, "Higgenbotham's Dark Age Hovel," where users are discussing current events, a "new dark age," and figures like Trump.

The phrase is an evocative metaphor intended to suggest a period of regression or crisis, using strong imagery of a "grip tightening" to imply an intensifying, negative situation. Its usage is generally subjective, reflecting the speaker's personal view of current events rather than an objective description or an established term.

AI Overview

The phrase "as the new dark age tightens its grip" is a rhetorical expression used to evoke a sense of deepening decline in intellectual, cultural, or societal progress. It suggests a contemporary period is entering a phase characterized by ignorance, a breakdown of established institutions, or general societal decline, similar to how the historical "Dark Ages" were traditionally (though often inaccurately) perceived.

The phrase itself does not have a single famous origin or author but appears in contemporary discourse, particularly in informal settings like online forums, where individuals discuss current political or world events. It is a descriptive, often hyperbolic, way of expressing concern about negative trends such as:

Political instability or the decline of democratic norms.

Economic hardship or resource scarcity.

A perceived decrease in critical thinking or the rise of misinformation.

In essence, the user of the phrase is expressing a personal or shared anxiety about the future, suggesting a return to a more primitive or chaotic state of affairs.

Not too bad. I'll grade AI an A-.

At present, I'm the only one in the world using it, as indicated by search. It's rare for any phrase like that to be found nowhere else.

The phrase "new dark age tightens its grip" is not a widely known quote from a prominent public figure but rather a descriptive phrase used in contemporary commentary, often in online forums, to express a sense of worsening societal conditions.

The phrase suggests:

A "new dark age," implying a decline in knowledge, progress, reason, or stability, perhaps due to political polarization, the misuse of technology, or a breakdown in social order.

The "tightening grip" emphasizes that this perceived decline is intensifying and becoming more pervasive and difficult to escape.

The specific phrasing appears multiple times in a single discussion thread on an online forum (gdxforum.com), where users are discussing current events and potential future crises, linking it to political figures like Donald Trump and a general sense of societal decay. In this context, it is used to describe a pessimistic outlook on the current state of affairs.

Other contemporary discussions also touch upon related themes, such as the "digital dark age," referring to the potential loss of data and cultural heritage due to rapidly changing technology and data formats.

Better.

Though, with just a few exceptions, there is no intent to imply pessimism or anxiety in these posts. There was something I posted or read about that was so horrific that it bothered me, but that's typically not the case. It just is what it is. The phrase is mostly meant to provide imagery to better describe the cycle. As the new dark age tightens its grip, so Donald Trump will react by tightening his grip if he intends to survive. As the new dark age tightens its grip, so many ordinary people will be metaphorically gasping for air as they struggle to hang on.

[Higgenbotham]

At Our Wits' End: Why We're Becoming Less Intelligent and What It Means for the Future (Societas) Paperback – November 1, 2018
by Edward Dutton (Author), Michael A Woodley of Menie (Author)
4.6 out of 5 stars 241 ratings

We are becoming less intelligent.

As far as people becoming less intelligent, it's more complicated than defining intelligence according to a fixed measurement that may have decreasing relevance as we move away in time from its peak measurement. But I think what does matter is if we suddenly revert back to 19th century conditions at a time when the fitness of the population to handle 19th century conditions has declined far below what it was at that time, intellectually and otherwise. Then it might be useful to know that the fitness of the population to handle early 19th century conditions has fallen by about 1 standard deviation, which is a lot. It'll be a real shit show if it happens, but we already know that. That only provides another way to confirm and think about how serious the situation is.

[aedens]

I'm somewhat convinced that Bernanke understands the full situation better than anyone else, but his job is to stabilize the banks,
not to inform the people.
Therefore, I implore members of this forum to think through it a bit more and break the situation down instead of holding to dogma with broad generalizations. Mon Apr 19, 2010 9:14 pm

Given time we see it. One arrow was given and it was broken.
Then a handfull and it could not be done.
Can we fault those who never made one.

H will continue as we see the signs of weather, the wheat, and the water they ignore.
Few have traveled as far togeather.

[Higgenbotham]

The S&P 500 futures are breaking down overnight, which will lead to an island top on the daily cash chart.

[tim]

https://usrtk.org/healthwire/even-tiny- ... nerations/

Even tiny doses of glyphosate can cause health problems across generations, new study in mice shows

Prenatal exposure to the world’s most common weedkiller can reshape the gut, brain, and behavior, raising questions about current safety limits

[tim]

https://www.soniaelijah.com/p/bovaer-ba ... collapsing

Bovaer Backlash: Danish Cows Collapsing Under Mandatory Methane-Reducing Additive

Since October 1, 2025, when many Danish dairy farmers began incorporating the synthetic additive Bovaer (containing 3-nitrooxypropanol) into their cows’ feed—alarming reports have come in of animals suffering from: stomach cramps, fevers, miscarriages, drastic drops in milk production, sudden collapses and in some cases, the need to be euthanised.

[tim]

https://www.vigilantfox.com/p/barack-ob ... scary-idea

Barack Obama Proposes a Scary Idea for Social Media

It’s hard not to see where this road leads.

44th President of the United States, Barack Hussein Obama, is increasingly inserting himself as a mouthpiece for the Democratic Party as it looks to pick up new seats in the upcoming 2026 midterm elections.

In a recent conversation with journalist Heather Cox Richardson, whose Substack he personally endorsed, Obama said the quiet part out loud: “We’re going to have to start experimenting with new forms of journalism” with “government regulatory constraints.”

“Part of what we’re going to have to do is to start experimenting with new forms of journalism and how we use social media in ways that reaffirm facts and separate facts from opinion. We want diversity of opinion. We don’t want diversity of facts. That, I think, is one of the big tasks of social media. By the way, it will require some government regulatory constraints…” Obama said.

He added that this should be done in a way “that’s consistent” with the First Amendment, while paradoxically arguing that platforms should crack down on speech “in the sense of inciting violence,” something already not protected under the First Amendment.

“There is a difference between letting all voices be heard versus a business model that elevates the most hateful voices or the most polarizing voices or the most dangerous, in the sense of inciting violence, voices,” he continued. “That I think is going to be a big challenge for all of us to undertake.”

Cyber expert and former Trump official Mike Benz reacted to Obama’s remarks, saying: “F*ck this guy. His whole apparatus is set up to end the First Amendment. He’s coordinating with foreign governments to end free speech in America. And he spied and lied and did every dirty trick in the book along the way.”

[tim]

https://www.vigilantfox.com/p/1-million ... say-theyll

1 Million New Yorkers Say They'll Flee City If Mamdani Wins Today's Mayoral Race

Opponents of Mamdani describe a future city as a “disaster,” “hell,” “chaos,” “destroyed,” and “s***hole.”

[tim]

https://charleshughsmith.substack.com/p ... -from-cant

The Inevitable Drift Down from "Can't Lose" Owning Stocks to "Can't Win"

Even if an AI program advises selling everything and walking away from the market for five years, how many of us would take this advice?

Only those who experienced the heady euphoria of the late 1990s dot-com bubble in tech stocks know what the shift from “can’t lose” confidence to “can’t win” surrender feels like. The chart below illustrates this emotional cycle of confidence rising and fading as bubbles inflate and deflate.

Though we like to tell ourselves we’re rational investors, animal spirits are the driving force in euphoric bubbles where our beliefs direct our decisions: we come to believe that we’re smarter than the cautious dummies, that the technological revolution underway has plenty more room to run, that policies supportive of stocks have been refined and institutionalized to the point they’re rock-solid foundations, and so on.

Though the chart doesn’t go back to the 1870s bust or the 1930s Great Depression, the cycle played out in those eras, too. The process of confidence fading is painfully long, as the rewards of “buying the dip” have been so generous and reliable that we naturally assume any decline will be brief.

When the recovery we anticipated rolls over and reaches new lows, we’re sure the authorities will “do whatever it takes” to reinflate the markets, but authorities don’t actually have god-like powers; their powers only appeared god-like because conditions favored their interventions.

Every new low hurts, but we’re still confident that the market fundamentals are intact, authorities have plenty of policy bazookas they can launch, and the recommendations of Wall Street analysts to “buy the dip” are encouraging.

(Those trading in the 2000-2002 era recall Wall Street analysts touting dot-com stocks that had fallen from $80 to $40 as “strong buys,” meanwhile the stock finally bottom at $4. Following the “buy” recommendation yielded a 90% loss.)

We attribute any run of bad luck to over-confidence rather than misjudgment of the entire market and economy: OK, we blew the last few trades, but we can get our mojo back.

In the years this process takes to exhaust itself, inflation is eating away at nominal stock prices. As the third chart illustrates, when the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) finally returned to its 1966 peak above 1,000 in 1973, that didn’t mean investors were made whole; inflation had consumed 37% of the value of their stock holdings. To be made whole, DJIA would have to reach 1,370, not 1,000.

The real losses were even bleaker the next time the DJIA again closed above 1,000 on October 12,1982. Investors who held their index portfolios from the peak in 1966 to 1982 lost two-thirds of the purchasing power of their investment. They would not be made whole until the DJIA rose well above 3,000.

The trend that pops out of this long-term chart is that each new peak of household assets invested in stocks is higher than the previous peak. What will the nominal valuation of stock indices be when the percentage of household assets invested in stocks falls from 45% to 15%? What will the purchasing power of the money invested be (i.e. adjusted for real-world inflation) at that point?