An Intriguing Fourth Theory Of Everything

futurism  |  It’s not every day that we come across a paper that attempts to redefine reality.

But in a provocative preprint uploaded to arXiv this summer, a physics professor at the University of Minnesota Duluth named Vitaly Vanchurin attempts to reframe reality in a particularly eye-opening way — suggesting that we’re living inside a massive neural network that governs everything around us. In other words, he wrote in the paper, it’s a “possibility that the entire universe on its most fundamental level is a neural network.”

For years, physicists have attempted to reconcile quantum mechanics and general relativity. The first posits that time is universal and absolute, while the latter argues that time is relative, linked to the fabric of space-time.

In his paper, Vanchurin argues that artificial neural networks can “exhibit approximate behaviors” of both universal theories. Since quantum mechanics “is a remarkably successful paradigm for modeling physical phenomena on a wide range of scales,” he writes, “it is widely believed that on the most fundamental level the entire universe is governed by the rules of quantum mechanics and even gravity should somehow emerge from it.”

“We are not just saying that the artificial neural networks can be useful for analyzing physical systems or for discovering physical laws, we are saying that this is how the world around us actually works,” reads the paper’s discussion. “With this respect it could be considered as a proposal for the theory of everything, and as such it should be easy to prove it wrong.”

The concept is so bold that most physicists and machine learning experts we reached out to declined to comment on the record, citing skepticism about the paper’s conclusions. But in a Q&A with Futurism, Vanchurin leaned into the controversy — and told us more about his idea.

Futurism: Your paper argues that the universe might fundamentally be a neural network. How would you explain your reasoning to someone who didn’t know very much about neural networks or physics?

Vitaly Vanchurin: There are two ways to answer your question.

The first way is to start with a precise model of neural networks and then to study the behavior of the network in the limit of a large number of neurons. What I have shown is that equations of quantum mechanics describe pretty well the behavior of the system near equilibrium and equations of classical mechanics describes pretty well how the system further away from the equilibrium. Coincidence? May be, but as far as we know quantum and classical mechanics is exactly how the physical world works.

The second way is to start from physics. We know that quantum mechanics works pretty well on small scales and general relativity works pretty well on large scales, but so far we were not able to reconcile the two theories in a unified framework. This is known as the problem of quantum gravity. Clearly, we are missing something big, but to make matters worse we do not even know how to handle observers. This is known as the measurement problem in context of quantum mechanics and the measure problem in context of cosmology.

Then one might argue that there are not two, but three phenomena that need to be unified: quantum mechanics, general relativity and observers. 99% of physicists would tell you that quantum mechanics is the main one and everything else should somehow emerge from it, but nobody knows exactly how that can be done. In this paper I consider another possibility that a microscopic neural network is the fundamental structure and everything else, i.e. quantum mechanics, general relativity and macroscopic observers, emerges from it.

Love Me Some Vika, But GOTTDAYYUM - Naomi Is The GOAT!!!

大阪直美-ほとんど無料の黒人女性

As Goes Blackness: There Is No Fixing The Past To Escape The Present

Counterpunch  |  It is September 2020. Americans are focused on an election between an Orange Fascist criminal and an old-school right-wing Democrat war criminal. Where Donald Trump projects chaos and disorder, Biden projects stability, order, and a return to normalcy. If Trump is the virus, then surely Biden is the cure.

It is September 2020. Libya prepares to enter its eighth year of civil war. Slave markets like the one in Bani Walid are as common as youth literacy centers were in Gaddafi’s Libya. Armed gangs and militias wield power even in areas nominally under government control. A warlord regroups in the East as he looks to Russia, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates for support.

It is September 2020 and the US-NATO war on Libya has faded to a distant memory as other issues like Black Lives Matter and police murder of Black youth have captured the public imagination and discourse.

But these issues are, in fact, united by the bond of white supremacy and anti-Blackness. The Libya once known as the “Jewel of Africa,” a country that provided refuge for many sub-Saharan African migrant workers while maintaining independence from the US and the former colonial powers of Europe, is no more. In its place is a failed state that now reflects the kind of vicious anti-Black racism forcefully suppressed by the Gaddafi government.

Libya as the global exemplar of the exploitation and disposability of the black body.

Squint a little and you can see President Joe Biden getting the old band back together. Hillary Clinton welcomed into the Oval Office as an influential voice, someone to give words to the demented thoughts of the living corpse serving as Commander-in-Chief. Derek Chollet and Ben Rhodes laughing together as they buy another round at their favorite DC hangout, toasting to the re-establishment of order in Washington. Barack Obama as the éminence grise behind the political resurgence of the liberal-conservative dominant structure.

But in Libya, there is no going back, no fixing the past to escape the present.

Perhaps the same might be true of the United States.

The Future Is Here Already, It's Just Not Evenly Distributed

Forbes  |  Mexican drug cartels are using weaponized consumer drones in their latest gang war, according to reports in El Universal and other local news media. 

A citizens’ militia group in Tepalcatepec, Michoacán, formed to protect farmers from the cartel, found two drones in a car used by gunmen belonging to the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), a group estimated to control a third of the drugs consumed in the U.S. The drones had plastic containers taped to them filled with C4 explosive and ball bearing shrapnel. The militias say that they have heard explosions, and believe that the drones are the latest weapons an ongoing gang war. 

“The CJNG has been involved with such devices since late 2017 in various regions of Mexico,” says analyst Dr. Robert J. Bunker, Director of Research and Analysis at C/O Futures, LLC. “This cartel is well on its way to institutionalizing the use of weaponized drones. None of the other cartels appear to presently even be experimenting with the weaponization of these devices.”

In 2017, Bunker reported on the arrest of four CJNG members with a drone carrying a ‘papa bomba’ (potato bomb) , an improvised hand grenade. In 2018 an armed drone attacked the residence of a senior official in Baja, California. The official was not at home, and the attack seems to have been intended as a warning. Three CNJG drones with explosive were recovered this year , part of an arsenal for use against the rival Rosa de Lima cartel.

Bunker says that suitable consumer drones are now easy to acquire and use, but that the challenge is weaponizing them.

“The limiting factor is not so much the availability of military grade explosives—commercial or homemade explosives can be substituted—but the basic technical knowledge necessary to create improvised explosive devices or IEDs,” says Bunker.

America Caught In A Police State Pincer Movement

alt-market  |  The establishment supports social justice violence and unrest, and is cracking down hard on any resistance to medical tyranny. The hypocrisy is evident.

But this brings up some questions; such as why they are so keen to allow the BLM riots to continue? As noted at the beginning of this article, I think the strategy is evident – It's a two pronged attempt, a bait and switch: If the Marxists are successful and meet little resistance from the public then they will tear down the current system, and the elitists institutions that fund them like George Soros's Open Society Foundation and the Ford Foundation will use the opportunity to build an Orwellian collectivist society from the ashes.

On the other hand, as in Germany in the 1930s, the civil unrest caused by hard left groups could also convince the general public that martial law measures are an acceptable solution and make them willing to sacrifice constitutional protections in order to rid themselves of the threat. There have been examples of this recently when federal agents initiated black bagging of protester in Portland using unmarked vans; all I saw from most conservatives was cheering. This would undoubtedly lead to a long term totalitarian structure that, once again, benefits the elites that inhabit every aspect of government including Trump's White House.

In both cases, the power elites get what they want – a police state.

In terms of the pandemic response, a police state is already being established in many nations, and with most Western people's predominantly disarmed there is little chance they will be able to resist the crackdown that will ensue as they try to protest the restrictions. But what about in America?

This is why it does not surprise me that the BLM riots are being encouraged so openly in the US. Look at it this way: If the elites cannot get us to go along with medical tyranny for fear of sparking an armed uprising from conservatives with actual training and ability, then they figure maybe they can trick us into supporting martial law in the name of defeating the political left.

The only solution is to refuse to support either option. We must repel the establishment of medical tyranny and stand against any overstep of state and federal governments against the constitution when it comes to protests. Riots and looting can be dealt with, and dealt with within the confines of the Bill of Rights. Also, once again I would point out that in almost every place where armed citizens organize and take up security measures in their communities the protests remain peaceful, or they don't happen at all.

There is no legitimate excuse for a police state. There is always another way. Anyone that tells you different has an agenda of their own.

Flu Is Killing More People Than Covid-19

off-guardian  |   A report from the UK’s Office of National Statistics (ONS) shows that since at least June 19th, more people in the UK have been dying of influenza than Covid19.

This, of course, is despite the fact that “Covid19 deaths” are incredibly vaguely defined. 

Under UK law a person only has to test positive for the Sars-Cov-2 virus at any point in the 28 days prior to their death for “Covid19” to be on their death certificate, a policy which totally ignores the fact the majority of Sars-Cov-2 infections are completely symptomless (and has already resulted in huge over-counts).

Meanwhile boring old influenza is lumbered with having to actually contribute to the death before being added to the death certificate. And nevertheless, for three straight months, the UK has recorded more flu deaths than Covid deaths.

“Ah”, some of your may be saying, “this is just evidence that the lockdown, social distancing and masks have worked.”

But that is obviously not the case. Clearly, if these measures did anything to halt viral transmission, the flu deaths would have gone down as well. They have not. They are right in line with the five-year average.

Despite social distancing and wearing masks and hand sanitizer on every corner…the spread of the flu virus has not halted one bit in its usual annual progress through society.

Ergo – the “emergency measures” have little to no impact on viral transmission.

U.K. Bans Social Gatherings Of More Than 6 People...,

bbc  |  Social gatherings of more than six people will be illegal in England from Monday - with some exemptions - amid a steep rise in coronavirus cases.

The law change will ban larger groups meeting anywhere socially indoors or outdoors, the government said.

But it will not apply to schools, workplaces or Covid-secure weddings, funerals and organised team sports.

It will be enforced through a £100 fine if people fail to comply, doubling on each offence up to a maximum of £3,200.

The new rules - which come into force on 14 September - mark a change to England's current guidance. 

At present, the guidance says two households of any size are allowed to meet indoors or outdoors, or up to six people from different households outdoors. Until now the police have had no powers to stop gatherings unless they exceeded 30.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson will give further details of the changes at a Downing Street news conference at 16:00 BST on Wednesday, alongside senior advisers Prof Chris Whitty and Sir Patrick Vallance.

• What are the new rules for meeting my friends?
• Five reasons rise in Covid cases is not all it seems

"One of the pieces of feedback we had including from the police was that we needed the rules to be super simple so that everybody knows what they are," said Health Secretary Matt Hancock.

Cuomo "Allows" Indoor Dining After Getting Slapped With A $2 Billion Class Action Lawsuit

nydailynews  |  “Opening restaurants, I understand the economic benefit and I understand the economic pressure they’ve been under,” Cuomo said of struggling Big Apple restaurants that have been shuttered, relegated to takeout or serving customers outdoors for months.

The governor, who has faced criticism for his hesitation to allow restaurants to seat diners indoors, set a Nov. 1 deadline to reassess the COVID-19 infection rate. If the number remains low, indoor dining capacity could increase to 50%.

The announcement comes after business owners filed a $2 billion class-action lawsuit, alleging the state is violating the constitutional rights of more than 150,000 New York City restaurateurs. The industry employs roughly 300,000 people in the city.

New York State Assemblywoman Nicole Malliotakis (R-Staten Island), who joined the suit against the governor earlier this week, said the state should act faster to assist eateries.

“While we’re happy the city and state have acknowledged the plight of the restaurant industry, it’s not enough," she said. "We will continue to proceed with the lawsuit until New York City is granted the 50% capacity like every other municipality in New York State.”

New Jersey began allowing eateries to welcome back customers last week with a similar 25% limit on capacity while restaurants upstate and on Long Island have been operating at 50% since June.

The governor has repeatedly railed against City Hall in recent weeks, accusing the mayor and NYPD of not doing enough to enforce measures meant to stem the spread of coronavirus.

On Wednesday, Cuomo said the city will contribute 400 personnel to an existing task force headed by the State Liquor Authority and state police to ensure compliance with the new orders, a deal apparently hammered out not just with Mayor Bill de Blasio, but with other city officials too.

“We have been talking to all stakeholders up until the moment I just walked out,” Cuomo said.

Spanish Mask Protests And Violent Police Clampdown Hard To Find Online...,

VOA  |  A movement that denies the existence of COVID-19 has split Spanish society as the country is battling to control the highest number of coronavirus cases in Europe.

Stop Confinamiento España, one of the groups behind the movement, has said it will hold a protest next month in Madrid, calling it a “peaceful demonstration against the measures imposed in connection with the false health crisis caused by COVID-19.”

The strength of feeling among those who claim coronavirus is an invention by a ruling elite to control the masses was demonstrated when an estimated 2,500 people staged a protest in Madrid on Sunday. 

The movement has gained ground thanks in part to the support of high profile celebrity supporters like Miguel Bosé, a popular Spanish singer.

Bosé has used his social media platforms in recent weeks to promote what some describe as conspiracy theories about COVID-19, and he claimed a planned vaccine was a pretext to control the world’s population using 5G mobile phone technology.

Sunday’s demonstration echoed those in June staged in cities across Spain by mainly right wing groups that were protesting restrictions imposed on personal freedoms by the left wing coalition government in order to curtail a rising number of coronavirus cases. 

Spain last week announced a nationwide ban on smoking and drinking in public if social distancing cannot be guaranteed.

The COVID-19 denial movement in Spain echoes similar libertarian movements that have sprung up in the U.S., France, Britain and Germany.

The controversial cause has divided Spaniards, with recent polls showing a quarter of the population objects to the obligatory use of face masks across the country.

Why Can't Society Get People To Obey Its Rules And Laws?

advancingtime  |  In a well-functioning society, it is expected that people will simply respect private property and the rights of others. It is the fear of people coming into our space and not honoring and respecting our customs and laws that cause many people to have a problem with immigration. As proof their concerns are valid we need only note that officials from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) told Congress last month that around 87% of illegal aliens detained and then released into the United States while they await their asylum hearings fail to show up to their court dates. This then forces the agency to attempt the expensive task of locating and deporting each offender.

The idea that today many immigrants do not aspire to assimilate into our culture and protect our best values is key to understanding why many Americans wish to see borders closed. The rejection of traditional values hits communities hard and damages our way of life. All of us want to be able to go for a walk and feel safe as we go about our day. When individuals are selfish, rude, arrogant, boastful, proud, disrespectful, ungrateful, undisciplined, slothful and completely obsessed with themselves life becomes very difficult for those around them.  People that feel entitled to everything, but they don’t want to work for it often don’t see a problem with treating others like dirt. Unfortunately, this tends to generate a great deal of discontent that has real consequences for society.

Many conservatives blame these problems on institutions going to easy on crime while many progressives claim we must show more compassion, however, the fact is most people simply do not wish to deal with the problems wrongdoers bring with them. For years I have advocated police be able to issue a citation or ticket for these low-level crimes. after someone receiving several of these, it would at least serve as notice to the fact they were a "multiple offender of society's rules" so that we can focus on ways to bring more pressure upon them. It has long been my contention that you cannot legislate decency. Too many laws poorly enforced does little to curb the ills of our culture which translates into the idea that we must try harder. 

In our modern world where people move more often than in the past, the restraints that caused people to behave have been lifted and ties to communities are often weak. This topic flows back into how to get people to comply and has resulted in people embracing more surveillance and cameras in order to discourage crime. Still, a lack of enforcement that results in a catch and release scheme usually deters nothing. The idea of granting people a "social score" like the program being put in play in China and other parts of the world stinks of Orwellian totalitarianism. Taking away the freedom of people is not the answer. This means a good place to start would be redoubling our efforts to teach the values we hold dear and allow society to function. We must do better at elevating the importance of these qualities and make a greater effort to teach young people that our values are key to a healthy society.

How Come A Small Minority CULTURALLY Promotes And Profits Off Hoodrats But Not Walmartians?

advancingtime  |   We need a new demographic category: WALMARTIANS.

They are almost always overweight, usually functionally illiterate, often incapable of all but the most basic personal hygiene, not merely unemployed but also unemployable, addicted to corn syrup junk food and TV they were force-fed as children, convinced that nothing is their fault because they've never heard otherwise and physically aggressive whenever there is no prospect of immediate punishment. 

Such types were rare when I was a lad but now they are 10 to 20 percent of the population and increasing.

It's not their fault but it's time to cull the herd.

It should be noted that I started witting this article in December of 2019 but dropped it onto the back burner because of its questionable nature. At times, it seems deviant and dysfunctional behavior overlap. On occasion I have found myself, surprised, shocked, amazed, and even appalled at just how much the shape of the human body can be distorted by obesity or a lack of exercise. Widening the scope to people "deviating from the norm," at times it appears these often atypical humans are in a race to present us with the most bizarre. Some of these folks are not just offbeat or unusual but seem to be making an over the top effort to give new meaning to the term freaky.

An article by Ralph Nader that appeared on Common Dreams explored the idea that if you want to see where a country’s priorities lie you should look at the direction its culture is moving. The article which is linked above exhibits a very strong bit of a "leftist tinge," however, some of the points he makes seem valid. Nader writes, Plutocrats like to control the range of permissible public dialogue. Plutocrats also like to shape what society values. If you want to see where a country’s priorities lie, look at how it allocates its money. He contends that while teachers and nurses earn comparatively little for performing critical jobs, corporate bosses including those who pollute our planet and bankrupt defenseless families, make millions.

It may be simplistic to label this or that, good or bad but it could be argued our culture and society is geared much like the caste system. Today we are seeing inequality soar and it can be argued this tends to reduce the ability of individuals to move up the social ladder. The question is just how much of this is by design and due to the culturally elite putting their foot on the head of those below them.

Circling back to the subjects of weirdos, diversity, and individuality could it be this is all being encouraged to weaken and divide the power of the masses? For years Japan has been pointed to as a society that functions with little friction. Much of the credit is attributed to their culture and its homogeneous nature. Japan has a strong sense of group and national identity and little or no ethnic or racial diversity. Another unique aspect of Japanese society has a highly structured approach to managing and resolving these differences. 

Oligarchs Fund, Promote, Distribute, And Profit From Performative Blackness

unz  |  Here’s your BLM Pop Quiz for the day: What do “Critical Race Theory”, “The 1619 Project”, and Homeland Security’s “White Supremacist” warning tell us about what’s going on in America today?

1. They point to deeply-embedded racism that shapes the behavior of white people
2. They suggest that systemic racism cannot be overcome by merely changing attitudes and laws
3. They alert us to the fact that unresolved issues are pushing the country towards a destructive race war
4. They indicate that powerful agents — operating from within the state– are inciting racial violence to crush the emerging “populist” majority that elected Trump to office in 2016 and which now represents an existential threat to the globalist plan to transform America into a tyrannical third-world “shithole”.

Which of these four statements best explains what’s going on in America today?

If you chose Number 4, you are right. We are not experiencing a sudden and explosive outbreak of racial violence and mayhem. We are experiencing a thoroughly-planned, insurgency-type operation that involves myriad logistical components including vast, nationwide riots, looting and arson, as well as an extremely impressive ideological campaign. “Critical Race Theory”, “The 1619 Project”, and Homeland Security’s “White Supremacist” warning are as much a part of the Oligarchic war on America as are the burning of our cities and the toppling of our statues. All three, fall under the heading of “ideology”, and all three are being used to shape public attitudes on matters related to our collective identity as “Americans”.

The plan is to overwhelm the population with a deluge of disinformation about their history, their founders, and the threats they face, so they will submissively accept a New Order imposed by technocrats and their political lackeys. This psychological war is perhaps more important than Operation BLM which merely provides the muscle for implementing the transformative “Reset” that elites want to impose on the country. The real challenge is to change the hearts and minds of a population that is unwaveringly patriotic and violently resistant to any subversive element that threatens to do harm to their country. So, while we can expect this propaganda saturation campaign to continue for the foreseeable future, we don’t expect the strategy will ultimately succeed. At the end of the day, America will still be America, unbroken, unflagging and unapologetic.

Any Chance Torey And Megan's Performatory ____________ Can Be Cancelled And Expunged?

TMZ  | Tory Lanez allegedly opened fire on Megan Thee Stallion because he was wasted -- that's what he claimed in a text sent to her shortly after the bloody incident ... as she was still in a hospital bed.

TMZ has seen the text Megan got on the evening of July 12 ... roughly 15 hours after she claims Tory shot her in her feet, and in it, he's begging for forgiveness. He wrote, "I know u prolly never gone talk to me again, but I genuinely want u to know I'm sorry from the bottom of my heart."

His only explanation for the violence ... "I was just too drunk."

In the text, Tory never references "shooting" or a gun, but it is clear he did something he regrets. In his words, "None the less s**t should have never happened and I can't change what did. I just feel horrible."

And, he repeats ... "Cuz I genuinely just got too drunk."

TMZ broke the story ... Tory, Megan and another friend had been party hopping in the Hollywood Hills early on July 12. Police responded to reports of shots fired from or around an SUV.

Jessica Krug Performed "Blackness", Just Not As Well Or As Usefully As Obama Or Kamala...,

jacobinmag |  Simply put, Jessica Krug was a minstrel act, a racist caricature. But while Krug’s persona was certainly offensive, what’s far more offensive is that there is a demand for this kind of performance in liberal academic circles.

I don’t know George Washington University history professor Jessica Krug. I have no special insights into either her motives or personal struggles, nor do I have any reason to feel personally betrayed by the recent revelations that she had been passing for black for many years.

But while the court of public opinion has already found her guilty of at least one, perpetual count of “cultural appropriation,” in my view this conclusion misses the mark. To be clear, if I did not find “Jess La Bombalera” offensive, I wouldn’t have bothered writing this essay. Still, if one considers, first, that culture — the folk’s shared sensibilities informed by common experiences — exists, on some level, to be appropriated, second, the variety of black experiences precludes the existence of a singular black culture, and third, the implications for mass culture of thirty-years of mainstream hip hop, then calling Krug’s performance “appropriation of black culture” only compounds the problem Krug personifies.

If Krug is not guilty of appropriating “black culture,” she is guilty of attempting to establish her bona fides as a scholar of black people through a persona that both pandered to and reinforced commonplace stereotypes about black and brown people. Simply put, Krug was a minstrel act, a racist caricature.

But while Krug’s persona was certainly offensive, what’s far more offensive is that there is a demand for this kind of performance in some liberal academic circles.

Because I’ve lived most of my life either on the near periphery or within academia, I’ve had nearly four decades of experience with the creepy essentialist language of “racial authenticity” that lives and thrives in more than one corner of putatively liberal academia. As a result, I learned a long time ago that some white liberals expect black and brown people to “perform” in ways that comport with their well-meaning, usually underclass-informed, and fundamentally racist expectations of black people.

Pelosi Shat On You Peasants And DARED YOU To Say Anything About It!!!

turcopolier |  If it is safe for an 80 yo member of congress to get a haircut, it is safe to vote in person. 

If it is safe for an 80 yo member of congress to get a haircut, it is safe for our children to got to school.

If it is safe for an 80 yo member of congress to get a haircut, it is safe for us to go to church. 

If it is safe for an 80 yo member of congress to get a haircut, it is safe to open small businesses. Just don't mention hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) + zinc + azithromycin, that gets you purged by Gulag.

In Dallas, opening a hair salon was a week in jail for the owner.

Bitch set me up, says speaker Marion Barry Pelosi.

But the danger! Yes, the danger. Because schools and churches are where the voting precincts are. 

That's how the left will suppress the vote, by keeping them closed, and forcing junk mailing style elections. As to Nancy's dilema, let's hear from an expert, who is rumoured to say:
 

"Be carefull where you get a blow and dry" 

Getting Into Shape vs. Getting Into Condition

Racism Like Marriage? Marriage Is A Relation Among Men For Which Women Are The Means

counterpunch |  One learns what it means to be white from other white people. It comes in stories and warnings and descriptions as part of childhood. Most of those stories are about black people. For white racialized consciousness, black or brown people become characters in a system of narratives, anecdotes, and images. In later life, white people relate to black people through those stories. And they relate to other white people who see those stories the same way. They enter into friendships and find social residence in their common understanding language and attitudes of those stories. In effect, it is not black people they relate to as they become white, but the white people who tell them the stories, and to their a white community.

In sum, racism is not a relation between white people and black. It is a relation between white people for which “black people” are the means. (As Simone de Beauvoir used to say in a parallel vein, marriage is a relation between men for which women are the means.) How is a white person to talk about race if they look at it as a black-white relation?

There is no reciprocity with respect to black people. The power, gratuitous hostility, domination, inferiorization, patronizing attitudes, etc. that characterize racism only go in one direction. The stories are just there to teach white people how to do it. Violence also only goes in one direction. White people kill, harass, patronize, and renarrativize black people as part of racializing them. They know they are dealing from the bottom of the deck. It is a power given them by white supremacist institutionalities. Thus, racism provides the terms by which white people can take each for granted.

When black people appear to reciprocate, to fight back, to scorn, to ignore, to placate, those are not gestures of violence but of self-defense and possibly rebellion. When done individually, the deck is stacked against them.

If racism is a form of street-level solidarity among whites, it will often be enforced by various means, even those of violence. The solidarism among segregationists, for instance, can take the form of enlistment to action, sometimes as a racializing project, and sometimes as “behavior modification.” Against the segregationists, the liberals argue that a hard exclusionary stance against black people will only cause trouble and rebellion. The better path is to integrate with its subtle long-range stratifications. Both see themselves looking out for the stability of white society, while preserving different forms of black subordination.

Both segregationists and liberals are fulfilling duties of membership in whiteness. And neither will disown it. Perhaps they refused to hear Kaepernick’s gesture of revolt out of a premonition that it would require them to deny their whiteness. But that is not the question. If one learns one’s whiteness from other white people, from whom could one learn to unlearn it?

In closing, we might mention one great vulnerability in whiteness, the esthetic dimension. It resides in the recognition that the difference in color between people is actually beautiful. The contrast between a white arm and a dark brown one set alongside each other is imminently pleasing if seen in its reality, free of the imposition of “good vs. evil.” The early colonists in Jamestown saw this immediately when the first Africans arrived in 1619. The colony quickly tried three times to outlaw mixed marriages, each time with harsher penalties. And each time it failed miserably. (Cf. Steve Martinot, The Rule of Racialization, Temple UP, 2003, pp 54-57)

Is Critical Race Theory Anti-American?

realclearpolitics |   On a Friday evening and as November looms, the White House has opened another front in the culture war. At the direction of the president, the Office of Management and Budget is ordering all federal agencies to “cease and desist” any government training programs that include any reference to “critical race theory” or “white privilege,” RealClearPolitics has exclusively learned.

The theory has long been in vogue within academics. Trump now seeks to root it out within the administrative state. Among the ideas underpinning CRT, now formally condemned by the White House, is that the law and all accompanying legal institutions are inherently racist, and that race itself has no biological grounds. The concept of ethnicity is, instead, the product of a white society that uses systems and institutions to advance its own interests at the expense of minorities.

Why does this academic thesis matter? Because it drives government action. And because, during this summer of unrest following George Floyd’s death at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer, the president has been asked numerous times if he believes that systemic racism is a problem in America. His answer has been no, and a clearer picture of his thinking comes in the form of a memo authored by OMB Director Russ Vought.

“It has come to the President’s attention that Executive Branch agencies have spent millions of taxpayer dollars to date ‘training’ government workers to believe divisive, anti-American propaganda,” Vought writes in the memo, obtained first by RCP.

“For example, according to press reports, employees across the Executive Branch have been required to attend trainings where they are told that ‘virtually all White people contribute to racism’ or where they are required to say that they ‘benefit from racism,’” he continued.

As the country grapples with questions of race and equality in policing, Trump has ordered that any programing relating to “white privilege” end immediately. According to the White House, such ideas are “divisive, anti-American propaganda.”

The Fraternal Order Of Police: America's Killer-Ape Alternate Reality/Legality

vanityfair |  This is a brotherhood. It abides no law but its own. It scorns the personhood of all but its own brethren. It derides all creatures outside its own clan. And for that reason, the brotherhood is not only a hurdle impeding reform. It is the architecture of an alternate reality, one that seethes and bubbles just beneath the surface of our own. And it’s a reality in which none of us are human.

In May, the Chicago chapter of the Fraternal Order of Police elected John Catanzara as president. According to a 2017 report by the United States Department of Justice, the police department in Chicago “engages in a pattern or practice of using force that is in violation of the Constitution,” where “officers’ force practices unnecessarily endanger themselves,” “a pattern...[which] results from systemic deficiencies in training and accountability.”

And yet, even given the city’s abysmal standard of police conduct, in his 25 years on the force Catanzara has managed to distinguish himself from his peers by being especially awful. According to the Citizens Police Data Project (a database of police misconduct records made public after a lawsuit and Freedom of Information Act requests), Catanzara has been the subject of 50 complaints, putting him in the 96th percentile for allegations. At the time he was elected to lead the FOP, Catanzara was assigned to administrative duty; according to the Chicago Sun-Times, he is the first president to take on the role while stripped of his official police powers.

In June, when asked about the killing of George Floyd, Catanzara referred to Officer Derek Chauvin’s actions as an “improper police tactic.” “Explain to me how race had anything to do with it,” he went on. “There’s no proof or evidence that race had anything to do with it.” Catanzara has said that any lodge members showing support for protesters could face disciplinary action from the FOP, and perhaps expulsion.

Chicago’s Fraternal Order of Police is a local chapter of the larger national organization of the same name. The national FOP boasts more than 2,100 such lodges, representing more than 330,000 members, which makes it, according to its website, “the world’s largest organization of sworn law enforcement officers.”

When Chicago police officer Robert Rialmo killed Quintonio LeGrier and Bettie Jones—a young man having a mental health episode and his neighbor, who answered the door—Rialmo was fired. The vice president of the Chicago FOP called the Civilian Office of Police Accountability, which recommended the firing, “a political witch hunt on police officers. The investigations are unfair and politically motivated.”

When Jason Van Dyke was convicted of second-degree murder for the death of Laquan McDonald, the FOP defended him. When four of the officers accused of aiding in the cover-up were fired, a different FOP vice president used the decision as an occasion to impress upon police board members that they should not “fall to the pressure of the media or the radical police haters.”

These men were sworn officers of the law. But they did not look at Van Dyke as a convicted murderer who had broken that law. They did not look at him and see police—a social category, a profession, a uniform one puts on and can take off. They looked at him and saw their brother. They saw a different type of being, bound by an oath that transcends civilian understanding. And by virtue of Van Dyke’s being, in their eyes, he could do no wrong.

The same logic underlies the phrase “blue lives matter,” which semantically equates the color of a uniform with the nonnegotiable, unshakable fact of Blackness. It’s a phenomenon not unlike the transfiguration that took place behind the eyes of Darren Wilson. “It looks like a demon,” he told the grand jury in describing Michael Brown. Michael Brown: not man, but beast. Jason Van Dyke: not man, but kin. A brother in the pantheon. A demigod among demigods, his actions deemed necessary and virtuous because they were wrought by his hand, and his hand was necessary and virtuous.

Of course, as Catanzara’s comment about support for protesters demonstrates, it’s not that it’s impossible to be cast out from the brotherhood. The unforgivable sin within the brotherhood is to cast aspersions against the only people whom the brotherhood recognizes as human—its own kind. Shoot a boy in the back, and you can still be in the brotherhood. Side with the people who are asking questions, or raise a fist with them, or kneel before them, or talk to them, and you are out.

Maya Angelou had a thing she used to say—When people show you who they are, believe them the first time. Perhaps it’s time for America to heed Angelou’s advice. The Fraternal Order of Police has told us candidly what they are—that they are not a union, but a fraternity. A brotherhood. We ought to believe them.

Deplorables Equal Expendables In The 9% American Political Economic Calculus

NYTimes |  Here is the basic argument of mainstream political opinion, especially among Democrats, that dominated in the decades leading up to Mr. Trump and the populist revolt he came to represent: A global economy that outsources jobs to low-wage countries has somehow come upon us and is here to stay. The central political question is not to how to change it but how to adapt to it, to alleviate its devastating effect on the wages and job prospects of workers outside the charmed circle of elite professionals.

The answer: Improve the educational credentials of workers so that they, too, can “compete and win in the global economy.” Thus, the way to contend with inequality is to encourage upward mobility through higher education.

The rhetoric of rising through educational achievement has echoed across the political spectrum — from Bill Clinton to George W. Bush to Barack Obama to Hillary Clinton. But the politicians espousing it have missed the insult implicit in the meritocratic society they are offering: If you did not go to college, and if you are not flourishing in the new economy, your failure must be your own fault.

It is important to remember that most Americans — nearly two-thirds — do not have a four-year college degree. By telling workers that their inadequate education is the reason for their troubles, meritocrats moralize success and failure and unwittingly promote credentialism — an insidious prejudice against those who do not have college degrees.

The credentialist prejudice is a symptom of meritocratic hubris. By 2016, many working people chafed at the sense that well-schooled elites looked down on them with condescension. This complaint was not without warrant. Survey research bears out what many working-class voters intuit: At a time when racism and sexism are out of favor (discredited though not eliminated), credentialism is the last acceptable prejudice.

In the United States and Europe, disdain for the less educated is more pronounced, or at least more readily acknowledged, than prejudice against other disfavored groups. In a series of surveys conducted in the United States, Britain, the Netherlands and Belgium, a team of social psychologists led by Toon Kuppens found that college-educated respondents had more bias against less-educated people than they did against other disfavored groups. The researchers surveyed attitudes toward a range of people who are typically victims of discrimination. In Europe, this list included Muslims and people who are poor, obese, blind and less educated; in the United States, the list also included African-Americans and the working class. Of all these groups, the poorly educated were disliked most of all.

Beyond revealing the disparaging views that college-educated elites have of less-educated people, the study also found that elites are unembarrassed by this prejudice. They may denounce racism and sexism, but they are unapologetic about their negative attitudes toward the less educated.

By the 2000s, citizens without a college degree were not only looked down upon; in the United States and Western Europe, they were also virtually absent from elective office. In the U.S. Congress, 95 percent of House members and 100 percent of senators are college graduates. The credentialed few govern the uncredentialed many.

It has not always been this way. Although the well-educated have always been disproportionately represented in Congress, as recently as the early 1960s, about one-fourth of our elected representatives lacked a college degree. Over the past half-decade, Congress has become more diverse with regard to race, ethnicity and gender, but less diverse with regard to educational credentials and class.

One consequence of the diploma divide is that very few members of the working class ever make it to elective office. In the United States, about half of the labor force is employed in working-class jobs, defined as manual labor, service industry and clerical jobs. But fewer than 2 percent of members of Congress worked in such jobs before their election.

I Despise Fun-Free, Hypocritical Joy Ann Reid - But Did She Do Anybody Wrong This Week?

dailybeast |  “For decades, America’s Muslim community has endured blanket portrayals that focus on one thing, not their families or individual achievements or even anything about Islam,” she said Wednesday. “Nope, just one thing: terrorism. Particularly after 9/11, profiling became a near American obsession for anybody Brown—god forbid with a beard or headscarf, whether they were Muslim or not, traveling through an airport could be hell. Physical attacks on not just Muslims, but Sikhs, who are not Muslim, increased.”

After noting how prevalent anti-Muslim stereotypes have been in media and entertainment, Reid then wondered aloud why there was a double standard when it came to describing extremism among white right-wingers compared to Muslim terrorism, taking aim at how the president has radicalized his base.

“It’s the misportrayal that is the problem,” she stated. “We’re all too quick to call out those who radicalize young men who are vulnerable. There have been treatments of this all over cable news for years. But when white Christians are radicalized, we don’t react the same way. When was the last time Donald Trump or anyone in his campaign was asked if they are willing to condemn the Boogaloo Boys by name?”

Touching on her own remarks, Reid was largely unapologetic, insisting that her comments were taken in bad faith and misconstrued.

“I asked that question on Monday, and there was a lot of conversation, particularly online after the segment aired, some of which was frankly not in good faith,” the ReidOut host declared. “But some of the conversation reflected the genuine feelings of people who have been subjected to the kind of stereotyping that I just described.”

“And who take matters like this to heart because of it,” she continued. “And we should all be sensitive to that, and I certainly should have been sensitive to that.”

She then turned to Newsweek editor-at-large Naveed Jamali, who was her guest during the Monday discussion, and said it was “not exactly the most artful way of asking that question, obviously, based on the reaction.”

“The way that I framed it obviously didn’t work,” she added.

Besides Jamali, Reid also brought on Dalia Mogahed, the director of research for The Institute for Social Policy and Understanding, to discuss whether Reid made a “fair analogy."

Mogahed, for her part, said that Reid has “always given Muslim voices a fair shake” before noting that while the MSNBC host “intended” to ask a fair question, the way “it landed” was “unintentionally saying that Muslims were inherently violent.”

Why Was It More Fun For Kansas City Jewess Jessica Krug To Pretend Afro-Latina Than Be Herself?

timesofisrael  |  According to her bio on the George Washington University website, among Krug’s areas of expertise are Africa, Latin America and African American History. She has written two books, including “Fugitive Modernities.” 

“My ancestors, unknown, unnamed, who bled life into a future they had no reason to believe could or should exist. My brother, the fastest, the smartest, the most charming of us all. Those whose names I cannot say for their own safety, whether in my barrio, in Angola, or in Brazil,” she wrote in the introduction.

Krug also reportedly used the name Jess La Bombalera in activist circles.

A student who took a class with Krug in 2019 said she was “shocked” the professor lied.

“It was the last thing on my mind to think she was lying. I would think I had the details confused,” Anmol Goraya told CNN.

George Washington University said it was aware of Krug’s post but wouldn’t further comment.

Krug’s admission was similar to that of Rachel Dolezal, who in 2015 stepped down as the head of a local NAACP chapter after her parents said she had been posing as Black for years but was actually white.

Who's Having Fun Tonight?

epsilontheory  |  I was 14 years old when I read Lucifer’s Hammer, the post-apocalyptic novel by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle about a comet hitting the Earth. It’s pretty standard end-of-the-world fare, with mile-high tsunamis and volcanos emerging from earthquakes and billions dead and an intrepid community of surviving scientists/libertarians defeating the cannibal, faux-religious, statist army-remaindered horde that attacks without warning or honor.

But most of all, I remember the voice of Ego whispering this in my ear:

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“You know, this whole post-apocalyptic thing doesn’t sound half bad!”

Sure, I’d have to survive that initial strike. And sure, it’s all quite sad that people I love (i.e., my parents) would have to die. But tbh, they had a good run, and I’m sure it would be a painless death. And this post-apocalyptic society … why, it’s a meritocracy, where my hidden genius and quiet courage and (very) untapped virility would finally be appreciated!

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Those whispers of Ego, those post-apocalyptic fantasies of a 14-year-old boy, have never left me.

I’m 56 years old, and I still fantasize about how I could take out a motorcycle gang assaulting the farm. I’ve figured out where to set up the enfilade line of fire, where to plant the IED and how big it would need to be to take out a half-track armored vehicle. I’ve spent many a pleasant hour figuring out how to construct a laser-guided RPG for when, you know, the cannibal, faux-religious, statist army-remaindered horde sends their helicopter out in support of the (now dead) motorcycle advance troops and half-track APC.

If I were a betting man – and I am – I would place a large wager that every first-world post-pubescent reader of this note similarly burdened with a y-chromosome harbors similar fantasies. Not just Harry Potter/Disney/comic book oh-I’m-a-special-orphan-destined-to-lead-a-grand-struggle fantasies, but “real” post-apocalyptic how-do-I-kill-the-motorcycle-gang fantasies.

---

NARRATOR:

The world after the comet hits is not a meritocracy, but a brutal dictatorship without end, where boys like you are used as fodder and feed. And girls like your daughters are used as worse.

Death is pain incarnate, always and without exception. And yet there are worse pains that await you after the comet hits.

This is not a fucking game.

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It has taken me a lifetime to hear the Narrator more loudly than the Ego.

Unfortunately, we believers have a problem. That problem is that no one gives a damn about burning down the systems of control and nudge when their actual house and their actual car are actually burning.

But that’s the comet that’s speeding our way, a comet of endemic urban violence.

And for so many people – especially young men with the voice of Ego now shouting in their heads as the whispers are turned up to 11 by the amps of party and media – they think that sounds just dandy.

This has all happened before.

Back in the day, when I was a young pup of a poli sci professor at NYU, actual Marxists roamed the Earth. In my experience, Marxists are infallibly delightful conversationalists, and at an academic dinner I got to talking with two of these ancient dinosaurs (one of whom remains an avowed Marxist to this day and the other who had forsworn his faith) about the 1968 riots in Paris. They had both been there, manning the barricades! The Mother of All Protests! A national uprising against the police powers of a far rightwing President hellbent on reshaping the French republic!

I asked them to describe their experience. What was it like to be a part of May 1968, a student-led protest that mobilized the working class and shut down the entire country of France? That forced de Gaulle to (briefly) flee the country?

The old Marxist looked at his friend, the now disavowed Marxist.

---

“Well, I remember I got laid a lot.”

“Yes,” said his friend with a wink, “it was quite a lot of fun.”

And there you have it, ladies and gentlemen, the dirty little secret of every riot and protest and looting that ever existed in the history of mankind … IT’S FUN.

And not to be outdone, here’s the dirty little secret of every counterprotest and posse and vigilante group and “militia” that ever existed in the history of mankind … IT’S FUN.

Pending Freedom From The Pecking Order In America...,

epsilontheory|  Blake:  Put. That coffee. Down. Coffee’s for closers only. You think I’m f**king with you? I am not f**king with you. I’m here from downtown. I’m here from Mitch and Murray. And I’m here on a mission of mercy. Your name’s Levine? You call yourself a salesman, you son of a bitch?

Moss:  I don’t gotta sit here and listen to this s**t.  

Blake:  You certainly don’t, pal, ’cause the good news is — you’re fired. The bad news is — you’ve got, all of you’ve got just one week to regain your jobs starting with tonight. Starting with tonight’s sit. Oh? Have I got your attention now? Good. ‘Cause we’re adding a little something to this month’s sales contest. As you all know, first prize is a Cadillac Eldorado. Anyone wanna see second prize? Second prize is a set of steak knives. Third prize is you’re fired. Get the picture? You laughing now? You got leads. Mitch and Murray paid good money for their names. You can’t close the leads you’re given, you can’t close s**t. You ARE s**t! Hit the bricks, pal, and beat it ’cause you are going OUT!  
Glengarry Glen Ross (1992)

The truth is that unless you are really rich, you work for Mitch & Murray. Yes, that includes you, Vox writer changing the world one smarter-than-thou opinion at a time. Yes, that includes you, tech start-up developer kicking back in your flair-bedecked WeWork cubicle.

We don’t feel the crushing power of the Mitch & Murray pecking order as palpably as the salesmen berated by Alec Baldwin feel it, because the language of David Mamet has been replaced by the language of Dick Thaler and Cass Sunstein. The modern Mitch & Murrays don’t browbeat us. They nudge us. They convince us that a set of steak knives is a darn good outcome, that it’s a promise kept rather than a threat delivered. Coffee’s not just for closers. No, no … coffee is for EVERYONE. In fact, let’s put some caffeine into everything you drink. Something nice and caffeinated to wash down that big slice of office birthday cake.

Most importantly, today’s Mitch & Murray writ large — the system of Mitch & Murrays — provides credit to the non-rich, essentially limitless credit for anything that’s intangible or depreciates quickly, anything that lets the non-rich FEEL rich. How about a nice dinner out? New smartphone? You deserve it! How about a couple of years of graduate school? More than a couple of years, shooting for a tenure track position? [Heh, heh] I mean … why certainly, even better!

Go on, try the eggs. They’re delicious.

The pecking order is real. It is beautifully masked in modern human society, but no less brutal and no less cruel than in the chicken coop.

How do you escape the pecking order? How do you quit Mitch & Murray? Well, you can make a lot of money. That’s the tried and true method. Enough money to build a walled garden around you and yours, expanding it as you can to take in others. F-you money. Somewhere between merely rich and really rich should do the trick, depending on how many generations you want to protect within those walls. Unfortunately, that’s a big gulf these days, that distance between merely rich and really rich, and it’s getting wider every day.

But there’s another way.

No matter how much money we have or don’t have, we can reject the idea that we can be Someone Who Matters to the World and instead embrace the idea that we must be Someone Who Matters to the Pack. Now maybe your pack IS the world. Probably not, but maybe. If it is, then be bold and matter to the world. But more likely it’s your family. More likely it’s your friends. More likely it’s your partners and employees. More likely it’s your church. More likely it’s your school. More likely it’s your country. It’s damn sure not your political party. It’s damn sure not an oligarch.

Why should we reject this notion of being Someone Who Matters to the World? Because that’s the shiny lure that the Nudging State and the Nudging Oligarchy dangle in front of bright young things. And bright not-so-young people, too. The shiny lure of mattering is how they set the hook — which is debt — and that’s how they reel you in. Because once you’ve got that hook in your mouth … once you’re up to your eyeballs in debt … it’s soooo hard to ever get free. I know of which I speak. So do a lot of people reading this note, I bet.

The simple truth is that we can’t escape the pecking order. We can’t escape economic inequality and the hard-wired impulses to brutality and cruelty used to support inequality. Not for long, anyway. Walled gardens never last.

Black Lives Matter Only As Long As They Mask Truly Murderous Peak Capitalism

epsilontheory  | American Airlines to Cut 19,000 Jobs by Oct. 1 When Federal Stimulus Ends (WSJ)

“American Airlines Group Inc. said it would shed 19,000 workers by Oct. 1 as the carrier prepares to downsize to cope with the coronavirus pandemic’s blow to travel demand, which isn’t expected to rebound for years.
The reductions include 17,500 furloughs of pilots, flight attendants, mechanics and others, as well as 1,500 cuts from management and administrative ranks.
Airlines received $25 billion in federal aid to pay workers through the end of September to avoid mass layoffs.
Unions and airline officials have advocated for another round of funds to keep employees on the job through March 2021.“

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Doug Parker, American Airlines CEO and Chairman of the Board, wrote a letter to his employees today that pretty much defines high-functioning sociopathy. 

I’m going to reprint excerpts from that letter – which is couched in the saccharine vocabulary of modern team-speak, but is in truth a shakedown letter to employees and a ransom note to the US government – and then I’m going to tell you a few things about Doug.

Dear fellow team members,

We respect and greatly appreciate the sacrifice these team members have made, and continue to make, for American and their fellow team members.

Even with those sacrifices, approximately 19,000 of our team members will be involuntarily furloughed or separated from the company on Oct. 1.

The one possibility of avoiding these involuntary reductions on Oct. 1 is a clean extension of the PSP.

If you haven’t already done so, you can let your elected officials know just how important a PSP extension is to you, your families and our economic recovery.
The American Airlines team is no stranger to adversity, and in adversity, we always come through.

We will come out on the other side of this crisis. Until then, take heart that we will get through this together.

The professionalism and care this team has shown over the past six months has been nothing short of extraordinary. We are all American Airlines, and we will survive, and one day, thrive again. Thank you for all you are doing now, and tomorrow, to carry us through.

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Know who’s not sweating the October 1 firing line? Know who’s surviving and thriving just fine, thank you very much?

Doug Parker, that’s who.

Here are some fun facts about Doug Parker and his “leadership” of American Airlines since he became Chairman and CEO of the company in 2013, after its merger with US Airways. All of this (and more) can be found in a long note I wrote on the airline bailout back in March.