Looking into the Effective Altruism movement feels a bit like the intellectual equivalent of witnessing a giant car accident: the only reasonable reaction is to avert your eyes, slowly shaking your head, mumbling something like "oh dear, oh dear."

That being said, it seems like this movement has gained some traction, and is somewhat supported by the likes of Peter Thiel and even Bill Gates. So let's have a look.

The idea of Effective Altruism is very simple: if you want to do good, spend your resources on the most effective cause: the one that leads to the greatest increase of well-being and the greatest decrease of suffering. Don't trust your instincts or your interests, but dispassionately look at graphs, calculate which cause (or program¹) is objectively the best bang for the buck, then execute. If it means you need to invest time and money into helping an African tribe fight deadly pandemics, so be it — even if your neighbor might desperately need some money to buy her child new shoes.

Oh dear, oh dear.

J.P. Sears has made a new addition to his bookshelf. Be like J.P. Sears. I'm no psychic, but perchance it inspired this recent video of his, which I recommend watching — and not only for the flowing ginger locks.


J.P.'s prologue reminded me of this, which I had just read in Henning Melber's book, Dag Hammarskjöld, the United Nations and the Decolonisation of Africa:1

... in mid-June 1961, his friend Bo Beskow asked him — as he usually did when they met — if he still had faith in the individual. While previously the answer had always been positive, he now responded: "No, I never thought it possible, but lately I have come to understand that there are really evil persons — evil right through — only evil." (p. 46)

In the movie 'Batman: The Dark Knight' the well regarded district attorney Harvey Dent makes a statement that has since woven itself into our popular culture to the point that we often hear it quoted as if it was said by some ancient philosopher. He noted:

"You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain."

The most predictable interpretation of this is that there is a fine line between doing good and doing evil with the best of intentions. People can start out as heroes and quickly fall to darkness in the name of serving the "greater good." I think there is more meaning behind the quote, however.

There is also the issue of historical revision and the fact that the heroes of yesterday might be considered the terrorists of tomorrow given who is in charge of writing the history books or reporting the news. Sometimes heroes become villains through their own mistakes, other times they are just rewritten that way.

All people seek to control their environment to a certain degree. They want a reliable level of management over their world, and to remove whatever doubts they might have about their survival in the future. If they can, people will take measures to remove any potential pain or struggle and establish a life of perpetual comfort. The easy road is the dream for most, and in order to get it human beings see power as a formidable tool.

I'm exploring this common condition because I want to make it clear that almost ALL PEOPLE desire power to a degree. Sometimes this even means controlling the actions of others to prevent them from disrupting the oasis of comfort we construct around us. Sometimes there are destructive people that we feel we are forced to inhibit and cage in self defense. And still other times, we try to control those around us out of irrational fear.

The tyrannical mindset is not exclusive to the Stalins, Maos and Hitlers of history, it is a deep rooted shadow that lurks in the majority of us at times. It is this condition that political tyrants try to exploit to their advantage, because no authoritarian government can ever be successful without the help of millions of little tyrants supporting them. They find a way to feed our desire for control and predictability while simultaneously enslaving us.

The point is, tyrants need us. We all have a little dash of tyranny in our souls; we are linked, but we are different.

Here is something all of us can do.

Every day, make an effort to rejoice in the success of others: particularly success with things that you want for yourself.

Think of someone and imagine him or her having a breakthrough, and find that place in yourself that makes you feel happy for that person.

Pierce through the pang of jealousy. Let your love for humanity shine through and dispel the darkness of meanness: the close-mindedness, the Gollum-face, the hardened ugliness of being petty and ungrateful.

Have you ever wondered how wokies manage the level of swagger and general arrogance one associates with prizefighters and the super rich? They're incredibly unhealthy people, physically. They don't work out, they eat poorly, and they take drugs that make them fat and have a significant impact on their emotional range and overall psychological makeup. And most of them aren't especially rich — adjunct professors and people who work in media earn very little.

Mental illness is a factor, sure. Grandiosity is a feature of Cluster B disorders and some mood disorders. But there doesn't seem to be any basis for the degree of self-confidence wokies have. It's not just that they're unafraid of social consequences of their behavior; they behave as if they're openly carrying firearms and unafraid of the consequences of pulling the trigger.

What if they are? What if wokies are secretly armed with invisible weapons whose use has real-world physiological consequences, and we just don't know it?

Our tale begins in medias res and ends in nihilo.

Johnny watches as the ashes of his arch-nemesis Jimmy's home rise up to the heavens, the flames casting little Petey's form in stark silhouette as he blows out the match. The screams of the family, now barely audible, are quenched in the roar of the consuming fire.

"But Petey, this isn't what I thought you meant!"

"But Johnny, I said the rich could burn in hell, and you agreed."

Johnny holds the stool steady as little Petey adjusts the noose around Father Johnson's neck. The makeshift gallows they've constructed under Mrs. Montgomery's giant oak tree is sturdy. It will bear the weight of the neighborhood priest.

"But Petey, this isn't what I thought you meant."

"But Johnny, I said God is a tyrant and his priests corrupt, and you agreed."

Johnny holds the gun, his arms outstretched and trembling. Tied to the chairs across from him are his parents. A hand placed on his shoulder gives gentle encouragement. Little Petey is standing there beside him, patient.

"But Petey, this isn't what I thought you meant..."

"But Johnny, I said that parents are oppressors, and you agreed."

Johnny looks out over the blackened landscape. The stench of death and decay is making his eyes water. The absence of any sound of life is alarming. Just the heavy breathing of little Petey, close behind him, the pale dawn reflected in his cold grey eyes.

"What now, Petey? There's nothing left."

"What now, Johnny? Why, Johnny, now we can do whatever we want."

Those who routinely read these substack essays and our social media posts know that Jill and I have been on a journey of discovery, a root cause analysis approach, trying to make sense of the horrid public policy decision making that has resulted in the COVIDcrisis. Key milestones along the way have included recognizing the role of the trusted news initiative (see here and here), the rise and global penetration of advocacy journalism, developing a deeper understanding of the role of the World Economic Forum/Great Reset and its young leader training/indoctrination program, the process of Mass formation or Mass Psychosis (the psychological basis of totalitarianism), widespread regulatory and other forms of government capture, the role of the administrative state, exploitation of the "crisis" by central banks and massive investment funds, the weaponization of infectious disease fearporn as both a media business model and a political tool, "Nudge" technology and governmental behavior control, and so many other factors that have contributed to the emergent global "COVIDcrisis" phenomenon that has destroyed millions of lives, businesses, children's education, faith in the integrity of science and medicine, and triggered an economic crisis that threatens to bring down the pillars which support western economies and banking systems.

The tendency of many is to focus on one of these as the root cause, and to overlook the complex global interplay of all factors, a very human bias to seek a single factor or individual that should be held accountable. Favorites are often the WEF/Klaus Schwab (who somehow created himself as a caricature of evil), Bill Gates (likewise), Larry Fink/Blackrock as well as the Vanguard and State Street investment funds, the small number banking families that control most of the central banks, the United Nations, the World Health Organization/Veterinarian Dr. Tedros, the rise of the Administrative-corporate state/inverted totalitarianism, Anthony Fauci, Deborah Birx, the list goes on and on. All have played a role in fostering this global disaster which began with introduction of a new variant of an existing RNA respiratory virus into the global human population and seems to be winding down as one of the greatest global policy failures in human history.

Borrowing a term from Economics, most of these interacting factors are more macroscopic in scope. But what about the more microscopic phenomena. Are there systemwide or general organizational behaviors or processes that have contributed to the resulting clusterfrack? Have any of these types of effects contributed to the decision making? Are there widespread organizational practices that have enabled something like an emergent fractal process such as that described by Harrison Koehli in his recent essays which critically compare and contrast the work of both Mattias Desmet and Andrew Lobaczewski (see Political Ponerology: The Science of Evil, Psychopathy, and the Origins of Totalitarianism). Is there a component of this mess which is a consequence of how our governments and large businesses are organized, some seemingly benign fundamental organizational behaviors that could be clearly identified and therefore are amenable to being altered so that we could reduce the risk of future overreaction and collective global madness?

Why do globalists have a deep rooted obsession with Artificial Intelligence (AI)? What is it about the fervent quest for an autonomous digitized brain that sends them into fits of ecstasy? Is it all about what AI can do for them and their agenda, or, is there also a darker "occult" element to the concept that is so appealing?

The World Economic Forum, an organization dedicated to the globalist "Great Reset" agenda, the Fourth Industrial Revolution and the "Shared Economy," dedicates a large portion of every annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland to discussion on AI and the expansion of its influence over daily life.

The United Nations holds extensive policy sessions on AI and has been spending a considerable amount of energy to establish "ethics rules" for the development and use of Artificial Intelligence. At the core of the UN's efforts is the assertion that only the UN is qualified to dictate and control AI technologies; for the good of all mankind, of course. AI governance is slated to go into full effect by 2030 according to the UN's own white papers (All globalist institutions have set 2030 as the target date for all of their projects).

Several hundred years ago, a small force of Spaniards landed on the shore of a land heretofore wholly unknown to European man. What followed has been characterized as the mass enslavement of an entire people, the systematic extermination of a culture, and as a genocide.

It was all of those things.

But try to see it from their perspective.

These were not sophisticated men. They were second and third sons, with no inheritance to secure their futures, who had struck out on their own to chance their fortunes in the New World as soldiers and adventurers. They hailed from a military culture, which had within living memory concluded a reconquest of their ancestral peninsula that had taken seven centuries to complete. They were hard men from a hard people.