Hell in a Hand-basket

But only if the basket is free.

Welcome to the world folks… it’s no picnic. Neither is this newsletter, which is going to be some anonymous bloviating over the stupid shit of the week. To start with, I’d like to prepare a backgrounder on what is making us all very, very dumb and uninteresting.

Life is not as good as it used to be, and while that has become increasingly clear over the past couple years, what took so long? In retrospect, it appears the 90s was a decade of unprecedented stability and peace not likely to repeat itself. The USSR was no longer a threat, and the west prospered, devoid of any significant global competitor. We could get back to focusing on what really mattered at home! Then began the rise of China, 9/11 and a series of economic crises our betters have pretended to solve, but in truth have only exacerbated.

Fast Forward to 2021 and… Banks: Bailed out, Debt: Not a problem!, CO2: Tremendously dangerous, Taliban: Let’s give them a chance!

Rather than crystallizing our morals in a time of peace, we abdicated them. Truth, once considered inalienable, is now malleable based on your audience, and not in sophisticated ways. You can pretty much make any claim you feel, to the right audience, moving us from “the truth,” to “my truth.”

Honour is a thing of the past too, sorry Afghanistan. If anybody thought the West would stick to their word through thick and thin no matter the cost, they obviously dont know how pampered we are.

Western countries are lucky in that we at least have the bones of real nations. We can thank our grandparents because it’s unlikely our current crop would be up to the challenge. These days, something has to be free for people to take notice, and much of it is. We get email and social networking for free, in addition to any number of publications, advice, and entertainment. We gave up our privacy for nothing and created the worlds largest companies. If Satan offered us hell in a hand-basket, we’d say “Sure, but only if you throw in the basket for free.”

So here we are: up to our tits in debt after beating a hasty retreat from Afghanistan, lacking in critical skills needed for maintaining our prosperous way of life at home and a media environment where every frothing partisan is watching like a hawk to ensure strict adherence to the Right Ideology©. The fact that most of these people are dumb as a brick is an afterthought. They demand compliance and will ruthlessly take to Twitter ($47B market cap) to ensure that their voice is heard, be they socialist sweetheart or red-blooded capitalist.

But hey I’m just one guy in a sea of suckers. Am I just stupid?