13 Comments
May 4, 2023Liked by Peter Nimitz

It's interesting to see the term 'USian' stand in contrast to the term,'American.' I wonder if you mean the cleavage point was the Civil War or some other event. Some people talk about the 1913 establishment of central banking, a theory I have trouble understanding.

Expand full comment

Not sure that "multiparty democracies are more robust than party-states," but at the same time I like how you add the caveat that they are "more limited in their ability to mobilize the population." Every time we remember 1939-45 as a great triumph of democracy, we should remember that it would have never been possible without the most authoritarian state ever devised, the Soviet Union, and without the UK relying on its hopelessly extractive empire.

Expand full comment

Would it be fair to say that Christianity's stronger concentration in the east allowed that half of the empire to survive through internal reforms driven by the church (banning of slavery and contraception) rather than succumbing to outright collapse?

Expand full comment
May 17, 2023Liked by Peter Nimitz

Fantastic blog that I just found. Keep up the good work. The IQ Shredder is an interesting concept. I have often wondered about something similar, and that is the celibate priest class in Europe during the Christian era. And while it is true that not all priests and other religious officials that were supposed to be celibate actually were, a good chunk did. Further more, it was generally those capable of higher learning - that is, those with a decent intelligence - who would study to become priests, monks and others, thereby lowering the fertility rate among this same IQ class.

I've sometimes wondered if in this we see some sort of a hidden natural equalizer effect going on, preventing further development of intelligence, as technically speaking, we don't need it - at least not purely from a survival point of view.

Expand full comment

I confess a certain degree of skepticism about mass quarantines in the wake of the COVID pandemic. Fear is a powerful motivator, but particularly in America the quarantine measures served to harden a population of recusants who are now being proven absolutely correct. Future measures would require a much more careful, and less brutal, application, or risk creating a class of people who's life will increasingly revolve around system opposition. It's a problem with solutions, of course. But Governments would be foolish to repeat the sloppiness of the last Quarantines.

Expand full comment

I am unclear in truth on progress. I see in my life poor quality goods replacing well made manufacture. Poor quality education replacing learning how to learn. I see criminals in office beggaring their nation to make money. I see a sharp decline in ethics. Holding my Ipad is technological accomplishment but is this progress?

Expand full comment

I believe that the post-World War II global order has largely decayed in strength and has quite little potency in our modern age. However, I think when the pale shade of this order finally dies, it won't lead to a collapse so much as a hasty reconfiguration of how the world works.

You can see it in how Mexico is rising up as a prominent manufacturing power, how Western Europe is increasingly irrelevant, how India is becoming an ever-greater figure on the world stage, the East Asian population crises, the increasing backlash against "wokism" in the United States of America, the post-election protests in Nigeria, the civil war in Sudan, the conflict between Egypt and Ethiopia over the GERD dam, and more.

Expand full comment
deletedMay 4, 2023Liked by Peter Nimitz
Comment deleted
Expand full comment