In ancient Rome, money was gold, silver, and various other metals in ingot or struck form. The silver Denarius coin was one of the common currencies of the people for commercial trade. The gold Aureus coin was generally valued at 25 denarii (unequal weights), and was used for large payments and a stable store of value (savings).

By Caesar's time (b.100BC) it was well-understood that a growing empire required a growing economy, and thus, a growing money supply. Much of this money entered the empire in the form of booty through its conquests all around the Mediterranean. By mid-century, Caesar added Gaul (Western Europe) to the conquests, and consequently, more money to the Republic's treasury and economy.

The Populares and the Optimates

But there was also an artificial way to increase the money supply in the form of paper debt. The moneyed oligarchs (Optimates) of the Roman Republic often engaged in money lending to increase their wealth via interest (usury). The paper debts they created could also be traded for metal money and could act as a form of fiat currency. This debt-money creation works fine so long as economic growth provides the means to pay the interest on the debt. When the debt burden in Rome became excessive, the economy would slow, and the risk of mass default would climb. This is why debt cancellation/reduction was often a "hot" political topic among candidates for high office where the struggle would often manifest between leaders in the Populares (of the people) camp versus the Optimates camp in the Roman Senate. Caesar was solidly in the Populares camp from start to finish.

The Optimates in the Senate and the Roman oligarchs knew much about boom/bust economic cycles and how debt could be used to vastly increase their wealth at the expense of the people. A debt default would allow the capture of much property at low cost - and after the economy improved - net wealth increased dramatically and far beyond what would have been gained in interest on the debt. This is why the Optimates in the Senate very much hated any talk of legislation directed toward debt cancellation/reduction. Debt cancellation/reduction cut their legs out from under them in direct favor of the Populares. And this struggle between the Populares and the Optimates is what led to the murder of Caesar on the Senate floor [and apparently Brutus was particularly vile among the big moneylenders].

Does any of this sound familiar with respect to the situation we find our collective selves (the Populares) in today? Paper debt instruments are completely out of control and real money (gold and silver) have been relegated to the status of "barbaric relic". We are in the middle of a vast transfer of wealth from the Populares to the Optimates/oligarchs of today. Has there been any serious legislative talk of debt reduction/cancellation? No. Instead we have experienced the legislative groundwork for "bail-in" of the people's assets to service the debt. The Optimates of today want everything.

On December 31st of 2011, I wrote a short article predicting that the world was not going to end in 2012 as so many people wanted it to. I pointed out that there had been a lot of "Ends of the World" predicted throughout history and the 2012 bouhaha wasn't much different. In fact, you can almost take it to the bank that if somebody is predicting it, it isn't going to happen because once a prediction is made, people begin to act differently and that changes the outcome. Just think about Jonah prophesying destruction on the city of Nineveh and how upset he was when God supposedly changed his mind because the people got their act together and repented of their evil-doing, whatever it was.

On the other hand, there does seem to be something to this predicting business, but not many people get it right. Just think about the Fundie cult that was predicting the end of the world to happen in mid-March of 2011. The world, as a whole, didn't end, of course, but life as they knew it did end for a whole lot of people in Japan thanks to an impressive earthquake and tsunami.

So, we made it through 2012 and now, we've got another year notched on our belt in addition: we made it through 2013 and the world still hasn't ended. Or has it?

Oh 2013, what a high-tech year you were!

From the general recognition (finally) that the US government was spying on everyone, everyone's dog, and everyone's dog's lawn presents, to the almighty Mobile Revolution, to the 64-bit iPhone with 2X the awesome, to the complete abortion that is Windows 8/8.1...

Yes, it was a year to remember in the tech world.

Pay no attention to all those fireballs everyone was talking about.

As 2014 rolls in, I thought I would take a brief, syrupy-sweet and fluffy look at The State of Technology.

President Scottie: My fellow humans, the State of Technology is STROOOONG!

Adoring Public: [APPLAUSE, STANDING OVATION]

Just a few days ago we were watching the movie, Limitless:

"With the help of a mysterious pill that enables the user to access 100 percent of his brain abilities, a struggling writer becomes a financial wizard, but it also puts him in a new world with lots of dangers."

I didn't watch to the end. Somewhere in the middle, I left the room - I was afraid that the movie would not have a happy ending. That's how I am. Anyway I was thinking about these pills that can make you work as a genius, with passion, with fun, and also with success. So I went back to my desk and the PC, and then, accidentally (looking for something else) I stumbled on a book about "How to become a genius". Apparently there is a whole technology, and it works!

Dear Readers,

On behalf of nearly 100 volunteer editors located around the world, we would like to wish you all very happy holidays and a fruitful New Year. That's the standard holiday greeting, but let's not kid ourselves: obviously, from SOTT's perspective, a mass awakening of humanity and unified action to take back control of our lives from the psychopaths steering our planet to destruction is what would make the coming year fruitful and happy for all. The task can be compared to turning an ocean liner around: as big as it is (over 200,000 tons), it only takes a rudder to do it! Nothing is impossible with your support!

As many of you know, SOTT refuses commercial advertising and support, and achieves its objectives via its own resources and reader donations. Any and all "advertisements" you see on our site are either ads for our own products, which directly support our work, or non-commercial support for others engaged in the fight against psychopathy and its effects on our world. This is how we manage to keep this website going, and try to provide you with as objective a picture of the global reality as possible every day.

Over the years, we've held fund-raisers for specific goals, and the response has always been gratifying; obviously, many people do appreciate our work. YOUR contributions - whether as direct donations or product purchases - keep us up and running on a daily basis and we are immensely thankful to all. What you have helped us accomplish over the past eleven years is amazing. Thanks to you, our readers and your support, SOTT readership has increased from merely thousands to the millions. To give you an example, according to Google Analytics: December 8, 2012 SOTT had 92,072 page views and one year later, on December 4, 2013 SOTT had 166,209 page views. That's an 80% increase to a consistent 5 million page views per month! In addition, you have spoken via Facebook, and we currently have over 74,000 likes across our 4 SOTT sites: English, Spanish, French, and German.

Thanks to you, our readers, the information about psychopathy in power which we began publishing back in 2002, has spread so far and wide that now, the mainstream media is being forced to deal with the issue with concerted programs of damage control! Thanks to YOU, our readers and supporters, the words "Political Ponerology" have entered the lexicon of cyberspace and we are sure it won't be long before they, too, receive a directed reaction from the psychopaths in power. In short, SOTT is making waves, even in the face of long-term and ongoing efforts to slander and marginalize us.

Together, we are making a difference!

All of this highlights how important YOUR SUPPORT is, especially in the face of a tanking economy. The Fight Against Lies goes on and we very much need your help to keep the lighthouse going until we reach that point where knowledge and awareness goes exponential, at which point, that Happy New Year we all hope for might become a real possibility. This is why your help now is more important than ever. And so, before the end of the fiscal year, we would just like to remind you that if you have extra income this year, donating to SOTT, a program of Quantum Future Group, Inc., a U.S. non-profit organization, is tax-deductible in the US. Wouldn't you rather give your money to a good cause, to the fight for truth and real information, than be funding War and Corruption?

Make your (tax deductible in the US) donation today. You can send a check or money-order by mail to:

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According to official science, Homo is the genus of human-like great apes, with only one surviving species today - 'Modern Human', or Homo Sapiens. Strange as it may seem, the great majority of the 7 billion or so members of this species that presently inhabit planet Earth believe themselves to be active creators of, and participants in, what they call a 'highly advanced civilization'.

Yet there remain a few members of this species who, unlike the majority of their fellow sapiens who have cast off their bothersome critical thinking capacities in favor of a sonambulistic approach to life, can see quite clearly that this particular 'highly advanced civilization' is in fact a society where, to paraphrase hypnotist Michel Ellner, "Everything is backwards, everything is upside down; doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, psychiatrists destroy minds, scientists destroy truth, major media destroys information, religions destroy spirituality and governments destroy freedom."

The illusion of the 'great advancement in civilization' aside, if we really take a look at what's going on in the world around us these days, it becomes difficult to make any sense of inter-human relationships, to say nothing about our relationships with the other species with which we share this planet. Official science routinely stretches credulity in the obtuse and often deceitful way that it dismisses the many bizarre and 'out of place' anthropological and archeological artifacts and remains that have been discovered all over the planet in recent decades. If mainstream science refuses to take all the available evidence into account in its attempt to come up with a theory of humanity's origins, how can we expect to ever understand the true position of our species within the larger animal kingdom on Earth?

Summary: Unconventional research embraces physics, artificial intelligence and the paranormal.

Cf. 'Billion dollar race: Soviet Union vied with US in 'mind control research'', Russia Today, December 17th, 2013
The title of this article comes from a recent paper by Serge Kernbach:

'Unconventional research in USSR and Russia: short overview', Serge Kernbach (Submitted on 4 Dec 2013 (v1), last revised 5 Dec 2013 (this version, v2))

This work briefly surveys unconventional research in Russia from the end of the 19th until the beginning of the 21th centuries in areas related to generation and detection of a 'high-penetrating' emission of non-biological origin. The overview is based on open scientific and journalistic materials. The unique character of this research and its history, originating from governmental programs of the USSR, is shown. Relations to modern studies on biological effects of weak electromagnetic emission, several areas of bioinformatics and theories of physical vacuum are discussed.

Nowadays almost every physicist is monitoring, one way or another, all the new papers in her/his domain of interest. The arxiv site is probably the most popular one among physicists, mathematicians and computer science researchers. It is not completely easy to submit a paper there. Not that there is a peer-review process there, but some kind of endorsement from some "well-established" scientist is needed. Otherwise your paper will not be accepted for pre-publication. Why was Kernbach's paper accepted? Because he has 16 papers already there. And also, probably, because of his affiliation:

Cybertronica Research, Research Center of Advanced Robotics
and Environmental Science, Melunerstr. 40, 70569 Stuttgart, Germany

Checking the publications of Serge Kernbach we find that his main interest is in the science and practice of robotics, mainly in "swarms of robots". An army of mini-robots can today be programmed to act in a way similar to the behavior of ants and/or bees. Look at these videos - they are amazing, and also somewhat scary:

The December 16th, 2013, edition of The New Yorker published an article with a revealing anecdote about the Obama administration's continuation of Bush era national security policies. Revealing, that is, for those who can see.

Ryan Lizza, in 'State of Deception: Why won't the President rein in the intelligence community?' asks why Obama, once a constitutional law professor who, when running for the Senate in 2003, called the Patriot Act "shoddy and dangerous," became a president who lobbied for the renewal of the Patriot Act and continued the Bush administration's surveillance state policies (minus the creepy 'Total Information Awareness' brand name). The easy answer is that no president has control over the secret government. The assassination of the last president who tried to exert control, John F. Kennedy, proves that point. As the comedian Bill Hicks once joked, whenever a new president gets elected, the real leaders call him into a room, show him the Zapruder film, then say, "Any questions?", and the new president answers, "Only what my agenda is."

But the spooks probably don't like to be so crude unless they have to be. It's much more fun for them to apply their skills in subtle manipulation. L. Fletcher Prouty, in his book The Secret Team: The CIA and its Allies in Control of the United States and the World, gives what I think is the best account of how the game is played. According to Prouty, it's done through 'the briefing'.

From President to Ambassador, Cabinet Officer to Commanding General, and from Senator to executive assistant -- all these men have their sources of information and guidance. Most of this information and guidance is the result of carefully laid schemes and ploys of pressure groups. In this influential coterie one of the most interesting and effective roles is that played by the behind the scenes, faceless, nameless, ubiquitous briefing officer.

He is the man who sees the President, the Secretary, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff almost daily, and who carries with him the most skillfully detailed information. He is trained by years of experience in the precise way to present that information to assure its effectiveness. He comes away day after day knowing more and more about the man he has been briefing and about what it is that the truly influential pressure groups at the center of power and authority are really trying to tell these key decision makers. In Washington, where such decisions shape and shake the world, the role of the regular briefing officer is critical...

The role of the briefing officer is quiet, effective, and most influential; and, in the CIA, specialized in the high art of top level indoctrination.

"Diet, injections, and injunctions will combine, from a very early age, to produce the sort of character the authorities consider desirable."

~ Bertrand Russell, The Impact of Science on Society.

Anyone who has taken even a cursory look at what passes for human food these days can't but conclude that it is literally unfit to eat. Aspartame, BPA, fluoride, MSG, preservatives, cloned or irradiated meats, factory farming, GMOs, artificial colors, artificial flavors, nanoparticles - the list of franken-foods that we are asked to happily shove down our throats is ever-expanding and ever-more horrifying. It seems every day there's a different news story about how our food supply is being perverted in ways that take us further and further away from what actually nourishes our bodies, and therefore ever further from being able to think, move and generally function as we should.

One would be forgiven, therefore, for seeing some sort of agenda behind this perversion of our food. How else can we explain the corruption of the most essential ingredient for mental, emotional and physical health, if not by positing a grand conscious conspiracy on the part of the 'elite' to control the global population? A population that isn't able to think and do, isn't able to rebel, right? Surely a population that is addicted to food additives - and even addictive natural foods that alter our perceptions, like gluten, casein and sugar, and make us dependent on these foods - is a population that is easily molded to the machinations of a ruling class.

When 20 children and 6 adults were murdered in the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre we, like most other people, were shocked and horrified at what appeared to be an act of senseless brutality. When a person experiences the tragic and untimely loss of a loved one, particularly in unusual or apparently inexplicable circumstances, the initial intense feelings of grief usually give way to a desire to understand HOW and WHY the tragedy occurred, in an effort to make sense of it and achieve some kind of 'closure'. This is a very normal and natural human reaction. We have an innate need to understand the world around us and how things 'work'. In our modern, technological world, most of what we understand about our world and how it works is provided to us by some authority or other. And most of us accept the conclusion of those authorities as being true. In some cases, those explanations are true.

In relation to the Sandy Hook massacre; while the HOW of the attack has been explained, as yet, there seem to be few authoritative answers as to WHY the massacre occurred. That is to say, WHY a lone gunman decided to walk into a school and murder 20 children and 6 adults. At this point, three weeks after the event, it seems that the world will ultimately have to accept the narrative that a lone, disturbed individual murdered those children because he was, well, disturbed. Specifically, it is claimed that Lanza had 'Asperger's Syndrome', yet according to experts, people with this condition do not run a higher risk of killing others or themselves and indeed that they 'rarely harm others'. The 'disturbed individual' answer is, therefore, a rather unsatisfactory one, but it's an answer nonetheless.