International Man: After the Fall of the Roman Empire, Europe experienced the Dark Ages. It was a thousand years of demographic, cultural, and economic decline.
Similarly, today, Western civilization seems to be going downhill economically, politically, and culturally. In a lot of ways, the trajectory looks grim.
But at the same time, science and technological developments are compounding. It seems every week there is a fantastic breakthrough.
How do you rationalize these seemingly countervailing trends?
Doug Casey: Technology is clearly advancing in a hyperbolic curve, at least at the rate of Moore’s law. That’s wonderful.
On the other hand, understanding of ethics and moral behavior hasn’t improved at all. As a matter of fact, you could argue that it’s gone downhill. That makes for a set of very dangerous possibilities.
Now, I’m all for technology advancing as far and as fast as possible, because technology is the friend of the average guy. It’s very liberating. Technology has taken us from grubbing in the dirt for roots and berries to conquering outer space. Technology empowers individuals and advances freedom. That’s why science fiction as a literary genre is extremely libertarian.
The problem is that culture and wisdom evolve very, very slowly. Over generations. The danger is that technology and ethics are not evolving at the same rate. Even worse, people are putting more emphasis on politics—organized coercion—today than has ever been the case in the past.
In the past, people were mainly worried about their individual lives and surviving. Now they seem more concerned with things they can’t control. Mass media and the internet have brought politics into everybody’s living room. The problem is that politics is all about force and coercion. Tech can enhance the effect of politics, just as it can enhance personal freedom. It’s a double-edged sword in that regard.
In other words, it’s very dangerous to combine Stone Age ethics with Space Age technology.
International Man: Legendary futurist Ray Kurzweil has been speaking for many years about the coming singularity. He believes by the middle of the 2020s, artificial intelligence (AI) will have the ability to exhibit the same intelligence as a human.
Is it likely, in your opinion, that the Singularity and tech advancement will eclipse or outpace the rate at which the West declines?
Doug Casey: That’s the $64,000 question. The Singularity will give humanity godlike powers in many regards. It’s going to sprinkle pixie dust on the nature of reality.
What happens in the West is pivotal. That’s because it’s the only civilization in history that enshrines the individual, as opposed to the collective or the State. It emphasizes things like free thought, free speech, free markets, reason, and individual liberty. These are historically alien concepts.
All of the good things we have come out of those values. It’s why almost all the world’s great literature, music, art, and science has also originated in the West.
If you destroy the underpinning values of the West—which is exactly what the “woke,” PC, and socialist movements are in the process of doing—you’ll also destroy what it has created. The question is whether the fruits of civilization will survive the death of the tree that grew them.
We might wind up as being very intelligent, clever chimpanzees with nuclear weapons.
Will computers that monitor everybody kill things like free thought, free speech, and free markets? Will real-life terminators be used to keep the plebs under control? Possibly.
Almost anything can happen at this point. Although technology always turns out in the long run to be the friend of the average man, I’m afraid that over the short and medium term, the issue is in doubt.
International Man: What do you think will happen to this trend in tech if we have an unprecedented collapse of the entire financial system?
Doug Casey: Technology is now very capital intensive, much more than it’s ever been in the past.
It’s true that scientific geniuses like Aristotle, Newton, and Einstein didn’t need expensive technology to make the advances that they did. It’s also true that the personal computer revolution didn’t require massive capital, at least after a certain point. Steve Jobs founded a giant company in his garage. Biotechnology, which is the next tech stage, can be equally cheap. For example, a high school kid can do gene-editing with CRISPR with money from his allowance.
It’s possible to make technological advances with relatively low capital. But today most advanced technology is highly capital intensive. We’re talking about billions of dollars for single machines—things like the Hubble space telescope, quantum computers, the International Space Station, the Large Hadron Collider, and the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor. These are all multibillion-dollar projects.
Most of them are so expensive that the main source of funding for science today is government. Government tends to do things for political, often military, reasons. That corrupts the entire process.
The collapse of the financial system is not going to be good for technology. The financial system was almost irrelevant to science before the mid-20th century. The Wright brothers didn’t need a sophisticated financial system to invent the airplane. But now it’s critical because of the size of the projects that need funding.
International Man: The Western world isn’t alone in their push toward technological advancement.
President Xi has emphasized China’s aggressive plans to dominate AI, 5G, quantum computing, and other innovative technologies.
What’s your take on China’s race for tech dominance?
Doug Casey: To start with, it’s long been acknowledged that the Chinese have about five IQ points on Europeans. That tilts the playing field in their direction, now that they’re no longer held back by the ideals of people like Chairman Mao.
The huge advances that they’ve made over the last 30 years are breathtaking and real. It’s gone from a primitive country of ignorant, penniless peasants to one of the most advanced societies in the world.
It’s not because the people running the Chinese government are geniuses, however. It’s because the average Chinese person works hard and saves most of what he earns. That’s built up a huge pool of capital. That’s the good news.
The bad news is that that capital all flows through the Chinese banking system—which is used as a political vehicle.
Many of the loans that Chinese banks have made are, therefore, uneconomic. As a result, either the banks are going to collapse, or the Chinese will destroy their currency as they try to bail them out.
That said, China will nonetheless dominate the 21st century—if only because the West is in such a severe decline. That’s true even though the Chinese will go through a very rough patch.
There are lots of financial distortions that have been cranked into the system in the very quick expansion that they’ve made. Capital was created by individual Chinese citizens, but much of it has been misallocated by the state.
International Man: What is at stake? And what would the US have to do to beat China in this race?
Doug Casey: The problem everywhere—in both China and the West—is the state. Government. But the problem, believe it or not, is probably bigger in the West.
If the West is to survive, it has to regain the things that made it successful. That means 90% of the government should be eliminated. There’s very little need for organized coercion in a high tech world. In fact, it greatly compounds dangers in every way.
Society would get on much better if economic regulations ceased to exist. The Federal Reserve is unnecessary; gold should be reinstituted as day-to-day money. The US should withdraw its military from its 800 or so bases around the world. By simply eliminating these things—not by doing more—the US economy and technology would boom. But because the opposite is happening, the US is declining.
I’m not optimistic about the coming confrontation with China. That’s also from a military point of view, not just an economic point of view. Why? That’s a long story. But one reason is that the Chinese military isn’t viewed as a welfare program for so-called “defense” corporations. It’s much more cost efficient than that of the US.
A lot of people believe that China has a communist system—where the state owns and controls everything. They call it Communist China. That was the case 40 years ago. But today it’s complete and utter nonsense to believe that.
In fact, China is much more of a free-market country at this point—with much less regulation on economic activities and restrictions on businesses—than the US. I realize that will come as a shock to most Americans, but it’s true.
It’s true that China has an authoritarian government, but it’s not a communist country. The fact that people call it a communist country—and that it’s been so successful—makes it seem like communism might be a good thing. Apparently a lot of Americans think today that communism—or at least its kinder and gentler relations, socialism and the welfare state—is a good idea. I say that, based on the widespread support of people like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.
China has embraced the economic concepts of the West, but they haven’t embraced the other types of freedom from the West.
It’s hard to say how it’ll all turn out. Will China be a country of science nerds and engineers, with no domestic literature, music, art, or philosophy? Will the West be full of lotus eaters, living off the accumulated capital of their ancestors until it’s all gone? Will the arrival of the Singularity make many things that seem important today be trivial tomorrow?
The good news is that technology has a life of its own. Even if financing for megaprojects dries up over the next few years in either the West or China, I suspect tech progress will still continue at the rate of Moore’s Law. Progress has been exponential for about 200,000 years, and that’s a trend more likely to accelerate than reverse. If so, the Singularity may change the world so totally and unrecognizably that we may have to rethink almost everything.
My conclusion is that when the Singularity happens, there’s a good chance all the dysfunctional political structures that the world is currently burdened with are going to dry up and blow away.
Editor’s Note: It’s clear there are some ominous social, political, cultural, and economic trends playing out right now. Many of which seem to point to an unfortunate decline of the West.
But it’s not all bad news. Innovation and new technology is advancing at a rapid rate— creating enormous potential for improving human life.
But it’s still yet to be seen if the US will be succeed in winning the race for tech dominance against China. In fact, there is more at stake in the rivalry between the two countries.
It could all lead to a complete economic collapse, unlike we’ve seen before. That’s why we just released an urgent new video on how it could all go down soon. Click here to watch it now.
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Biotechnology, which is the next tech stage, can be equally cheap. For example, a high school kid can do gene-editing with CRISPR with money from his allowance.
We’re talking about billions of dollars for single machines—things like the Hubble space telescope, quantum computers, the International Space Station, the Large Hadron Collider, and the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor. These are all multibillion-dollar projects.
I would really like to ask Doug one question: Are either of these things, gene-editing or multibillion dollar investments in what might be termed “unicorn science”* things we should be happy about because I’m really not feeling good about that high school kid and his allowance NOR the waste of the public trust by the National Science Foundation, set up by Truman to covertly fund CIA projects.
*unicorn science by some pragmatic minds constrained to earth by reality
“My conclusion is that when the Singularity happens, there’s a good chance all the dysfunctional political structures that the world is currently burdened with are going to dry up and blow away.”
Praise the Lord and pass the (S)ingularity!
I don’t think you will like the next steps which Doug declined to mention. Kurzweil anticipates the singularity will produce a god-like AI and then he and the other elites will merge/download their consciousnesses into that “cloud” achieving immortality at the cost of corporeal bodies and individuality. The rest of humanity, no longer being needed goes extinct.
It sounds truly horrible even for the idiots who are successful at merging with the AI.
The high priests of tech are actually a death cult, rejecting God in favor of their own ascendance to God-hood.
I’ve been calling “it” artificial omnipotence. Lucifer isn’t. He needs help to make him appear that smart. He’ll get it. The masses will fall for it.
Me, I’m already dead so no matter.
Colossians 3:1-3 KJB… “If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.”
It’s others I’m concerned with.
Singularity is a myth. It never has happened, and never will. To understand the future it is necessary to study the past as people are creatures of habit. Mankind has created countless civilizations only to allow the improvements in lifestyle to deteriorate his ambition and work ethics and for them to allow the psychopaths among them to assume control. Unfortunately success for mankind, is what makes them weak and lazy and lays the path of their eventual decline.
Given the choice between singularity and the dark ages, the dark ages is the only reasonable conclusion.
It is the path we have taken for the past 300K years, and the one we are destined to continue to follow until our evolution changes our self destructive tendencies.
I feel humans reach singularity then they in all their faults and stupidity blow it all up and we start over. Ever time. Lot of evidence the pyramids are not a bunch of stones for a tomb but were energy and created power and anti gravity. Things we do not even understand today. ….
Enough of the bullshit. The dark ages is a myth …never happened. The birth of universal education, natural rights and all man are equal in the eyes of God brought on by the increasing secular and spiritual authority of the Catholic church lit the the world like the Roman empire never ever did or could.
The Dark ages myth was created by anti-Christian globalist fags to deny any hope of progress outside the leadership of the philosopher kings.
“The myth of the Dark Ages was invented by the writers of the first half of the eighteenth century to enforce another myth they had created, according to which at that time we were entering a new era of reason and knowledge, especially scientific knowledge, which they called by the name of the Enlightenment.”
https://populscience.blogspot.com/2016/09/myth-dark-ages.html
Even Cracked gets what self-centered ignorant fags can’t possible comprehend.
” The rise of Christianity, while admittedly resulting in a lot of people being set on fire, also saw a dramatic increase in charities. Almost immediately after the church gained a foothold in Europe, they started introducing a widespread system of charity that distributed food, clothing, and money to those in need. Perhaps not by coincidence, the concepts of goodwill hospices, hospitals, and shelters for the poor were also invented during the “dark” ages, paving the way for the public health care system.”
https://www.cracked.com/article_20615_5-ridiculous-myths-you-probably-believe-about-dark-ages.html
Anyone who has ever visited Chartes knows that those people knew something we have forgotten.
The dark ages, the inquisitions, and the loss of most of the worlds knowledge happened, and that is a historical fact. The Catholic church is the most evil and corrupt institution ever created by man, and its crimes make Hitler and Stalin look like Boy Scouts by comparison.
The dark ages set mankind back thousands of years as science was replaced by voodoo religion and unspeakable acts of inhumanity and cruelty.
It took nearly 1000 years for mankind to reacquire the knowledge that was lost during the dark ages.
As a Catholic, i can agree…
What an ignorant fool you are. If not for the Catholic church defending the faith with blood , steel and treasure there would be no Christianity. It’s the truth . Suck it.
The Inquisition deaths– highest estimate– 100,000 people dead.
You have to be an idiot to say it makes Stalin look like a Boy Scout.
I lived through a real economic collapse in Indonesia during 1997. Here’s how things went down on the street rather than a theoretical musing –
1) The IMF jumped in to bail out the Thai baht after both Thailand and Malaysia floated their currencies and Soros shorted them big time, initiating their collapse.
2) The Suharto government in Indonesia wanted in on all that IMF money so they partially floated the rupiah thinking it would sink a bit and they’d get bailed out too but things got out of control and within a couple of weeks the rupiah had lost a large percentage of its value.
3) People were in shock – prices rose overnight. There is a famous video of the Indonesian stock exchange where for 30 minutes there was not one single trade executed. Not one.
4) About a month later middle class Indonesians started firing their drivers, maids, guards, gardeners house boys etc. It took a couple of months for international companies to realize that all of their customers were technically bankrupt – i.e., they had US dollar loans held against rapidly devaluing local cash flows in rupiah. Within 3 months about half of all expats disappeared, firing their drivers, maids, etc too.
5) About 4 months in the riots start. Block M – the famous Jakarta electronics shopping area was looted and burned to the ground. Large numbers of ethnic Chinese begin leaving Jakarta and moving to Bogor. Lnadowners organize the local gangs of Madurans to burn up the kampungs so the land owners can prepare to develop their land once the IMF bails them out. More and more beggars on streets and they start getting very aggressive.
6) All oil & gas business deals finally unwind as the corruption and money grab by Pertamina accelerates. Property prices in Perth start to rise sharply as this is the bugout destination for the wealthy in SE Asia. Company finally runs out of money and you are sent home.
7) Social stability erodes further, Suharto is run out of office and replace by Diversity! (Sukarnoputri) who accomplished absolutely nothing. She’s pushed out and a succession of placeholder leaders oversee the decaying country until the IMF / Banking Cartel gets their man. He is sworn in, IMF money rains down for infrastructure etc, and the country, although saddled with tremendous debt, buys another 20 years of fake prosperity.
So, it start with International Banking Cartel funny business and ends with International Banking Cartel funny business. Lather, rinse, repeat…
Hyperborean? I found your comment so interesting I went and found a timeline and tried to “align” your numbered list with the timeline presented at the link below.
How did I do in “lining” up your observations with the timeline?
From Hyperborean, who was there:
1) The IMF jumped in to bail out the Thai baht after both Thailand and Malaysia floated their currencies and Soros shorted them big time, initiating their collapse.
From Hyperborean:
2) The Suharto government in Indonesia wanted in on all that IMF money so they partially floated the rupiah thinking it would sink a bit and they’d get bailed out too but things got out of control and within a couple of weeks the rupiah had lost a large percentage of its value.
From Hyperborean:
3) People were in shock – prices rose overnight. There is a famous video of the Indonesian stock exchange where for 30 minutes there was not one single trade executed. Not one.
4) About a month later middle class Indonesians started firing their drivers, maids, guards, gardeners house boys etc. It took a couple of months for international companies to realize that all of their customers were technically bankrupt – i.e., they had US dollar loans held against rapidly devaluing local cash flows in rupiah. Within 3 months about half of all expats disappeared, firing their drivers, maids, etc too.
5) About 4 months in the riots start. Block M – the famous Jakarta electronics shopping area was looted and burned to the ground. Large numbers of ethnic Chinese begin leaving Jakarta and moving to Bogor. Lnadowners organize the local gangs of Madurans to burn up the kampungs so the land owners can prepare to develop their land once the IMF bails them out. More and more beggars on streets and they start getting very aggressive.
6) All oil & gas business deals finally unwind as the corruption and money grab by Pertamina accelerates. Property prices in Perth start to rise sharply as this is the bugout destination for the wealthy in SE Asia. Company finally runs out of money and you are sent home.
7) Social stability erodes further, Suharto is run out of office and replace by Diversity! (Sukarnoputri) who accomplished absolutely nothing. She’s pushed out and a succession of placeholder leaders oversee the decaying country until the IMF / Banking Cartel gets their man. He is sworn in, IMF money rains down for infrastructure etc, and the country, although saddled with tremendous debt, buys another 20 years of fake prosperity.
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/crash/etc/cron.html
Was this a test run, followed by a dress rehearsal ten years later?
I found it interesting because you left me wondering how you ended up being where you are now.
Where I am now – you mean a middle aged white guy writing on a blog in the middle of the afternoon?
It’s due to the oil price crash. Used to have an international upstream E&P career but most everyone over 45 has been replaced with youth, diversity, and algos. Can’t buy back all that stock with high paid employees.
Most oil companies now are just zero sum shells of what they were 10 years ago and exist only to pay back bondholders. Look at Occidental for a good example and their trial run a few years ago with their California Resources Company spinoff.
I found it interesting that your list of numbered things that happened in the collapse aligned with the list on the PBS documentary which I chose over a couple really badly assembled timelines. PBS, while not completely without bias, is usually fairly accurate with historical dates and events.
It makes you an eye witness, corroborating the timeline with your personal experience and impression of events.
Personal stories like your own should remind us we never know when we might end up actually witnessing everything change right before our very eyes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0xcr93xx3A
Personal stories like your own should remind us we never know when we might end up actually witnessing everything change right before our very eyes.
Sounds ’bout right.
“It’s why almost all the world’s great literature, music, art, and science has also originated in the West.”
I would challenge this assertion Doug. Much great art and science was developed in Islamic countries and near east during our ‘dark ages’, which didn’t last 1000 years, only from 525CE when the volcanic eruption caused a darkening of the sun for 18 months and initiated plague, famine and the final collapse of the Roman empire. The effects lasted many years and caused many other empires to rise and fall. This book describes it all:
Also I don’t think it took 200,000 years of exponential techy growth to arrive where we are. In fact, it wasn’t until agriculture arrived some 5,000 years ago that man started developing, before that, just bushmen and hunter gatherers for 100,000s of years. Oh, and of course the retreat of the ice age helped too. Nobody can answer the question of why or how the agricultural explosion suddenly happened at all:
I think a bit more reading is needed Doug before you embark on historical narratives. And here is Tony Seba on the future of tech:
The author misses one important point.
If white (non-jewish) genocide is allowed to proceed, all bets are off.
Yes, other races and cultures have potential, but it is (non-jewish)whites that have advanced the concept (and the TRUTH) that our “rights” (and by inference, our very existence) are endowed by our creator and are inalienable. No other race or culture has ever codified these concepts or put them in writing. Elevating humanity beyond governmental control was the greatest gift that could be bestowed on all of mankind.
Every other race and culture has value, but is still constrained by their beliefs that their destiny can be (and is) controlled by others (governments).
No race or culture other than (non-jewish) white males has ever come up with the concept that government actions should be limited and that, since our rights are inherent in our humanity, they cannot be abrogated or denied by governments.
The American Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the united states of America, although not perfect, are the only documents worldwide that go against “the divine rights of kings” and that vest “rights” in the people themselves by virtue of their humanity. These documents impose limits on what governments are allowed to do-not limits on humanity.
Both individual responsibility and the promotion of individual potential are uniquely (non-jewish) white concepts that other races and cultures would do well to emulate.
There are many cultures that still practice the concept of “the divine rights of kings” when it comes to governance. Yes, many of these countries have “constitution” documents that list “rights”, but in every case, these “rights” are actually “permissions” that emanate from their respective governments, are not inherent and can be abrogated or denied with the stroke of a pen or a decision by government officials.
No culture, other than of the united states of America has ever come up with documents and practices that purposely limit government powers, dividing them into three co-equal “branches” of government, purposely making it difficult for any one branch to usurp power, and requiring consensus and compromise to “get things done”.
Even slavery (as abhorrent as it is) is still condoned by many societies and cultures (even jewish societies) to this day. Slavery is still (unofficially) practiced in many countries.
If (non-jewish) whites are genocided out of existence (as seems to be the case today) we will have entered a new “dark age” (no pun intended).
It is interesting to note that non-jewish whites comprise about 10% of the world’s population. It would seem that (non-jewish) whites should be the most protected and cherished of our human species.
The only divine rights of kings i see is to provide them a working guillotine. To force them to test it with their own heads…..i very much dislike kings…..
…same here. What gives kings “divine right”?–nothing
Regards
No matter how incredible a discovery or technological advance, human beings quickly lose their awe and it just becomes like wall paper, something there which you accept but don’t really think about. When was the last time you heard someone say,” wow, we put a man on the moon”, or, “I’m sure glad they got rid of polio”, or, “how about the job they did in mapping the human genome?” Looking forward, we always feel that the next invention or discovery will transform our lives. In superficial ways, yes. But none of these wonders have eliminated hate or greed, and there is no sweet balm for a mother grieving the loss of her child. No matter how long life is, it is still too short, and the guys with the money still get to date the supermodels. Perhaps the Tin Man was the luckiest of us all, before he got a heart–they still haven’t come up with one that can’t be broken.
I will have you know I’ve watched a few of these explanations about what Repurchase agreements are in the banking world, but I do not grasp this one thing:
Why do banks need a loan of cash for 24 hours? Is it just a huge Pawn Shop they are operating?
If people who lived thru Hitler, the fall of Rome, Zimbabwe could come back to life today they would do two things…..
1) They would implore us, demand that we stop these leftist democrats from destroying our wonderful capitalistic republic.
2) once they see we do not understand the end result and we are too lazy or fearful to take action….they, knowing what the real outcome is, a thousand years of dark ages, would take it upon themselves to take out every last one of these treasonous bastards and they would gladly accept the consequences as they would know they saved all of humanity of a thousand years of pain from these dumb fuckin bastards….
Govt think tanks always do war planning scenarios like the movie war games from 80’s. Surely they have AI monte carlos that output a high probability of negative future. A revolution or collapse. Maybe this is why what much is being said by leaders, in business and politics, news and Hollywood, doesn’t make much sense to the avg normie common-folk. Like you going to the future, and upon return instructing your grown kids to mortgage the house and buy tesla stock. They would institutionalize your ass, not knowing the future is where tesla is more profitable and powerful then most governments. Maybe today they have high probability of certain future outcomes and they are prepping for it while we normies watch netflix and NfL crap.