On doomers, bloomers, brain hemispheres, and fixing stuff

Black-pilled doomer. Or white-pilled bloomer. Is trying to fix things pointless, or the point? Is progress an illusion? I've been asking myself these questions for a while, but especially after the latest Tonic Discussion:


I find myself ping-ponging back and forth between the options. Whenever that happens, I find it is usually because both are true in some way. Both/and, not either/or. As we discussed near the end of the talk, the key point seems to be balance.

On the one hand we have the progressives, the extreme version of which seem to think we can reshape human nature into an image of what it could or should be. As John Carter argued, this is left-brained blank-slate-ism, where an abstract model divorced from reality is taken as reality and then imposed on that reality, with predictably abysmal results. Left-brain thinking refuses to see anything outside the model, and in this case, there's a whole lot of reality outside the model: human nature.

Many thanks to Occupy Schagen --Sander--for his personal messages on autism research. Some of it I was familiar with; some not -- and it led a a whole new understanding. Occupy Schagen has a deservedly large following on X or Twitter And does a lot for the very diverse "ASD" community with great posts on political and social issues. Please follow him on Twitter and support him.

Is evil a disorder?

Putin is evil - Satan incarnate.

Otherwise, how could he survive cancer more than almost any man in history? Yet look pretty good? Are there good plastic surgeons in Hell?

So it is that a recurring theme in the Western media is that Vladimir Putin is sick - morally, of course - and physically and mentally.

Psychologically, Putin has been called a psychopath, sociopath, malignant narcissist, and obsessive-compulsive - maybe a few other nasty things. Pop psychologists go to great lengths to explain how his background, which they know nothing about, twisted his behavior, which they appear to know even less about.

Professional psychologists — who are just pop psychologists with certificates — do the same. The consensus is "deviant".

The Pentagon calls Putin "autistic"

One of the more interesting assertions has been that Putin is on the autism spectrum.

That comes from a 2008 study done by the Office of Net Assessment (ONA), an internal Pentagon think tank that helps create long-term military strategy.

The Russians responded appropriately "That is stupidity not worthy of comment," spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Gazeta.ru.

In the US, media and the Pentagon later disowned the study.
The US, you see, didn't want to give Putin any excuses. There can be no redemption for Vlad'.

The Americans did the same with Julian Assange when he was diagnosed with autism. No, no.... he is just too competent to be autistic.

Being "woke" means somehow accepting people with autism for doing stuff you don't quite agree with, as long as they look odd enough like Greta or the Good Doctor and complement — rather than threaten Power.

But in the political world, there can be no forgiveness for uncute people on the other side of the fence.

That aside, one can certainly understand why Putin himself would not want to be labeled "autistic" back in 2008, or even later in 2015 — much less today. In Russia, autism was/is understood as it was when I was a kid - severely disabling motor and cognitive problems.

But America is Woke — is faux tolerance. Even in the US and Canada today a diagnosis of autism of any kind is still a discriminatory stereotype.

For example, it disqualifies you for service with the US and Canadian militaries, despite the fact that many high functioning autists have served honorably and well, including Canada's highest scoring fighter pilot, Buzz Beurling, and the top US military strategist of all time. Col. John Boyd. They served because in their day there was no such thing as"high functioning" autists.

That raises questions. Is ASD is a disorder of the mind — or really a disorder of psychological and psychiatric pretensions? Are autistic people sick — or is it our society?

In 2015, I knew that I was autistic, but I have only "come out" in the last year or two-- largely because of the stigma attached to this categorization.

Now that I'm older - it doesn't matter that much. A lot better than dementia. People just say", He's old". As though that explained everything.

My cosmopolitan-minded wife forced me to visit an old colonial-era Catholic hospice/orphanage in the center of Guadalajara, Mexico recently. The aged murals depicting hell and redemption and such existential concepts were breathtaking.

What certainly wasn't breathtaking, but rather unsettling and despair-inducing, was a series of feminist modern art exhibits littered across various corners of the property -- out of place and contrarian as they could possibly be in such a setting.

One such exhibit was titled "Anatomia Intima," featuring grotesque, distorted, and viscerally unattractive depictions of the human form. Similar ones with similar names did more of the same.

It was an orgy of ugliness.

This is a lightly adapted extract from Self and Unself, The Meaning of Everything.¹

You can listen to a discussion around some of the themes of this book with James de Lys of the Hermitix podcast — recorded a few weeks ago, but released today — here.

Abstract philosophy is the exclusive use of the thinking mind to find truth. This doesn't just mean working out problems in the head, but also perceiving abstractly; seeing and hearing the world divided up into concepts, filtered through the 'screen' of the thinking mind, and assuming that this divided representation is the world. This activity is so common that you'd be forgiven for thinking that the world it presents is reality, just as you'd be forgiven for thinking that all reasoning about it is philosophy.

Abstract thinking about abstract experience is the only thing that happens in universities and just about the only thing you'll find in the philosophy section of a bookshop or library. When people use the word 'deep', they're usually thinking of the kind of difficult ideas that abstract philosophers talk about. Not that anyone really knows what abstract philosophers talk about, because what they say is extremely boring, absurdly difficult, irrelevant to ordinary life or outrageously self-absorbed, so nobody pays any attention to it.

Right and left as neural net

There's been a lot of discussion recently over the principle of NETTR - No Enemies To The Right. This is an idea that has been kicking around in right wing circles for about a decade now, originating with the observation that Western political discourse has for generations been characterized by a fundamental asymmetry: the centre-left typically does not criticize the radical left on moral grounds, framing their excesses as originating from well-meaning enthusiasm, whereas the centre-right actively distances itself from the right's own radical fringe on moral grounds, describing them as a Nazis, fascists, racists, or what have you, and insisting that 'we're not like those bad people.' The result has been the steady left-ward drift of the ship of culture, within which the acceptable bounds of political discourse are, at any given time, bounded by the centre-right and the radical left, with the centre continuously getting pulled towards the left.

Thus, the dissident right reasoned, the right should adopt the same principle: tactical critiques are fine, but never criticize those to your right on moral grounds. In other words, it's legitimate to say 'don't do that, it's stupid', but it is illegitimate to say 'don't believe that, it's too right-wing and that means you're a bad person'.

The poem "The White Man's Burden" by Rudyard Kipling has always been a subject of intense scrutiny, debate, and criticism. Crafted at the threshold of the twentieth century, it extols the Western man's responsibility to civilize and govern the "new-caught sullen peoples" of the colonized territories. Yet, to understand it within the contours of the present world, one must venture into the heart of Eurasianist thought.

In the twenty-first century, with the West's perpetual quest to promulgate its values, Kipling's call resonates anew — not with the clangor of colonial chains but with the more nuanced and seductive chords of liberalism. From the vantage of Eurasianism, the West's desire to impart its liberal-democratic model to the rest of the world is not merely a benign endeavor. Rather, it is the newest iteration of a deep-rooted and persistent form of racism and imperialism.

At the surface, "The White Man's Burden" was a moral justification for imperialism — a call for the Western powers to take up the duty of civilizing the "savage" nations. Today, instead of direct colonial control, Western liberalism wields influence via soft power. Media, culture, "international law," economic pressure, and even military operations are all used to further the creed of liberalism. But beneath these methods lies the same assumption that was present during the heydays of colonialism: the belief that the West possesses a "better" civilization, morality, and worldview, and it is its duty to bring the "benighted" non-Westerners into this fold.

Bringing order to the cognitive biases of the natural worldview

Ponerology is about how human nature goes wrong. As rough categories, Lobaczewski divides humanity into two broad groups: normal (around 90% of the population) and ponerogenic/psychopathological (10%, give or take).¹ Of course, the boundaries between the two are fuzzy, the one shading imperceptibly over into the other, until the difference becomes so obvious that we see why we have the categories in the first place.² This is the realm of the dangerous personality disorders — highly heritable constellations of cognitive-affective-behavioral dysfunction.

But this post will not be on that 10%. Rather it will be on the problems with the 90%: the features of normal humanity that when out of control edge over into psychopathology, and which contribute to ponerogenesis. Lobaczewski lists a few of these problem areas: the "egotism of the natural worldview," conversive/dissociative thinking, and moralizing about psychobiology.³

We are making terrible sacrifices in a futile attempt to safeguard every characteristic under the sun...

Christianity is under attack, from China to Pakistan, but I want to consider a case closer to home to emphasise that religious liberty is vulnerable even where we complacently assume it is part of the culture. Let's visit Finland.

Päivi Räsänen is a doctor, longstanding MP and former interior minister. In 2019, police opened an investigation into her for "incitement against a minority". The accusation is based upon a tweet in which she asked why the Lutheran Church sponsored a Pride event; a debate in which she said God intends us to be straight; and a booklet she authored nearly 20 years ago that argued homosexuality is a developmental disorder.

The Finnish police concluded that no crime had been committed, but the prosecutor-general decided to charge her anyway. In 2022, Räsänen went to court: three judges, no jury, no witnesses and not even a victim to say they took offence. The judges decided in Räsänen's favour; the prosecutor, who won't take no for an answer, simply brought the case back via appeal. The second trial wrapped up last week, and if Räsänen is found guilty, she could technically face jail, though the prosecutor has opted for a fine.

According to Paul Coleman, the executive director of ADF International, a religious advocacy group that threw its weight behind Räsänen, the prosecutor opened by insisting that this case is not about theology: you can quote the Bible as much as you like, the issue is how you interpret it, and Räsänen had done so in such a way that caused harm.

Growing up in LaSalle, Colorado, I learned lessons that seem to be universally taught to those raised in America's small towns.

My tough single mom made sure I knew the commonsense concepts of decency, courtesy and respect. Mind your manners, be a gentleman, be slow to anger, seek the truth, and stand up to bullies.

In the fight against cancel culture, conservatives have finally found their voice against the bullies. For too long, we sat back as the radical left found any excuse to cancel anyone who remotely supported or adopted conservative ideals. In the wake of Bud Light and Jason Aldean, it seems we have turned the corner.

Now, conservatives are boycotting beer and tanking stock prices, they're driving country music ratings up on the billboard charts, they're propelling the careers of local musicians who highlight their values, and now Elon Musk is attempting to give those who have been penalized by the Democrats' war on conservative values an opportunity to fight back.

Yet at the heart of this change we've seen in society this summer, I have recognized why the shift feels so familiar to me. It's not only because conservatives are driving the change; it's the folks in the small towns.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Jeffrey Long. It has been edited for length and clarity.

Thirty-seven years ago I was an oncologist resident, learning about how best to treat cancer using radiation. These were the pre-internet days, so I did my research in the library. One day, I was flipping through a large volume of the Journal of the American Medical Association when I came across an article describing near-death experiences.

It stopped me in my tracks. All my medical training told me you were either alive or dead. There was no in-between. But suddenly, I was reading from a cardiologist describing patients who had died and then came back to life, reporting very distinct, almost unbelievable experiences.

From that moment, I was fascinated with near-death experiences or NDEs. I define a near-death experience as someone who is either comatose or clinically dead, without a heartbeat, having a lucid experience where they see, hear, feel emotions, and interact with other beings. Learning more about these experiences has fundamentally changed my view of the universe.