I’d like TBP to consider a new weekly post, by contributors, titled Book of the Week (BOTW). I got the idea after reading Jim’s latest essay. He stated that very few people are reading books these days. Over time, a weekly book post could compile a nice list of reading material from which to choose from.
This entry begins with an hour long interview of Patrick Wood about his latest book ‘The Evil Twins of Technocracy and Transhumanism’. I have just begun reading it myself and it is chock full of historical information (with citations) that is already very enlightening regarding where America, and the world, is today.
Curtis interviews Patrick Wood to discuss how technocrats want to rule the earth with a scientific dictatorship, while transhumanists want to create “eternal life.” Wood explains that both see themselves as the intelligent designers of the world, and aim to craft a 1984-style global future. Technocrats are assaulting free markets in hopes of substituting a globalist digital currency, while transhumanists are working to replace humanity with genetically-engineered humans.
BOTW sounds like an excellent idea.
Reply of the week (ROTW) from the comment section.
Reply of the week (ROTW) from the comment section.
^^^^^
“This Comment For Your Consideration”
“Reply of the week” might inspire some of us to elevate our commenting, in hopes of accolades and…note.
I mean, that would be quite an honor to have ones comment honored in front of TBP comm.
Maybe different categories?
Like:
Admin’s favorite comments of the week.
Top ten comments of the week.
Most upvoted comments of the week.
Most downvoted comments of the week.
Funniest comments of the week.
Awesome. I came upon this recently in the book, “Letters to Gail.” Napoleon could read a book an hour, books his colleagues took days to read. Lawrence of Arabia read 50,000 books in his six years at Oxford. Thomas Wolfe read 20,000 books in the Harvard Library in his time there. Intelligent people read books, lots of them. Morons don’t.
When I was 5 years old, AKJ, suffering in this shitty little island in 1949, my mother said I had to go to bed at 7pm but I objected that it was still daylight! So she advised that I read a book (she taught me to read & write at 4 years old), saying I would go to sleep naturally when my brain slows down (which it does when you read).
I have read at night in bed before going to sleep ever since. I have read thousands of books in my 78 years this way. Gibbons Decline & Fall was a monster, War & Peace also, and Pepys Diaries (all 9 volumes plus the compendium) took a while in the 1980s. When I downsized in 1999 and moved on to my yacht it was heart-breaking to see all 2,000 books in my library going to a charity. At least now I have them all on the Net. Thank you Big Tech! They seem to be good for something!
Beautiful. I keep my night reading for spiritual books. Everything else fills in other times. That’s why you can write about so many topics and not sound like an idiot.
LOL AKJ – I often feel like an idiot when I venture on the extremes of my knowledge and then my mentor BOOM comes to the rescue, especially on medical matters which leaves me in the dust!
You may not know, but when I wrote the first draft manuscript of “The Financial Jigsaw” in 2015, I regurgitated what I had been taught at Bristol University in 1965/6 by an economics professor who claimed that “banks lend out deposits”. BOOM picked it up and spent 2 years re-educating me and I had to re-write the whole thing which BOOM approved in 2018 and he then wrote the Forward.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/358117070_THE_FINANCIAL_JIGSAW_-_PART_1_-_4th_Edition_2020
Then Jim offered to serialise it which took two more years to 2020 when we were locked down! The Angels work very hard to protect me from being a complete idiot! 🙂
Blessings
AP
I must be retarded at the speed I read. I always tested above 90th percentile on reading comprehension though.
Slow readers unite! Come to think of it, back in the third grade I really was in the slow reading group.
I read very slowly k31 and often return to earlier paragraphs when I forget what I had previously read! Must be old age!
Books, even just thinking on words and language, are sometimes such an exquisite delight for me.
Finding the exact way to say something with different goals:
How can I say this with the fewest words?
How can I say this with one or two levels of subtext?
Can I say this as a poem?
What can I say to help?
Intelligent people “can” read books that are intelligent.
Intelligent people “can” choose entertainment that is intelligent.
Intelligent peope are also often fooled
Any can be fooled, no matter IQ.
Me: “I resemble that remark”
“Each one is fooled according to his ability.”
~Gavriel
“So let the one who thinks he is standing be careful that he does not fall.”
Your comment really got me pondering AKJohn…thanks!
I consider myself a voracious reader with two to three books a week,that said,90% fiction but feel whatever you read it gives the gerbils in the brain a good workout.The rest is 5%tech manuals ect. and other 5% non fiction,just finished rfk fuccis book,a good read.
I have read decades ago All Quite On The Western Front and this week streamed a movie based on the book a few years old,tis in German with subtitles,highly recommend a watch time permitting.
Anyhow,keep reading and remember,
Give a hoot
Read a book
I saw that version of AQOTWF on Netflix. It is amazing. Highly recommend!
Bravo James best advice ever. 🙂
But, but – we already know where we are today. They are following a plan that was hatched just after WW2 in only 67 pages – you don’t need a book:
https://cdn.getmidnight.com/6908ab1f9a9ecdaba4ee2509cb3451aa/files/2023/01/Silent-Weapons-for-Quiet-Wars-An-Introduction-Programming-Manual-Operations-Rese.pdf
Damn,another deep rabbit hole!
The more I read lately the more I wonder if I will ever live above ground again mentally,time to plot yet again with the Cheshire Cat!
Many rabbit holes are mirages, designed to deliver one over to fear.
I love the Silent Weapons story,
along with it’s questionable pedigree.
It sounds like any number of small stories I have written.
I believed it when I first came across it.
Now, it seems more like fear instilling chaff than a real “program”
Just think how much worry and stress over a few dozen “discovered pages of gov conspiracy, left in a printer” thousands and thousands have unduly stressed themselves out over?
I Think, writing a scary story which results in real fear/stress in the public, accomplishes the same thing as actually doing something scary, sans the risk of getting caught in the act.
AND a paper operation costs waaaaaaay less than physically staging one.
Good thought Eud, thank you. It is claimed to be authentic but I have no reference as to the source. The fact that what is happening now seems to gel with this doc. I guess we will never really know the truth. So I try to stay in the NOW and observe and comment as if I am on another planet.
From this stand point I observe that grass appears to be the master of men. They tend it, feed it, harvest it, so who is to say that grass is not really in control? This book is worth a read:
“A post-apocalyptic vision of the world pushed to the brink by famine, John Christopher’s science fiction masterpiece The Death of Grass includes an introduction by Robert MacFarlane in Penguin Modern Classics.”
I love Sci-Fi – it is often proven correct 50 years later!
‘You’re a hybrid,’ Ann told him. ‘You’re enough of a farmer to know that a wife should be a chattel, but
being one of the new-fangled university-trained kind, you have the grace to feel guilty about it.’
New Statesman
‘Worse, if anything. The rabbits only advanced under the blind instinct of hunger. Men are intelligent, and
because they’re intelligent you have to take sterner measures to stop them. I suppose they’ve got plenty
of ammunition for their guns, but it’s certain they won’t have enough.’
‘Three square meals? Not even one, I shouldn’t think. But what difference does that make? Those people are starving. When you’re in that condition, it’s the next mouthful that you’re willing to commit murder for.’
I think I see where this is heading…
________
If it were a deliberate food plant poisoning, instead of a”virus”, the story would be perfect for me, but it’s close enough!
Free pdf:
https://notamanuscrita.files.wordpress.com/2015/07/chistopher-death-of-grass.pdf
Thank you the short story AP.
Thank you so much Eud, this is a great find and I have filed for future reference – many lessons here. I first heard this book as a play on the wireless, BBC ‘Home Service’ (now radio 4), in 1954; I never read the book. You have peeked my interest – oh dear, yet another book to read! I have 10 backed up already!
NB. In 1940s Britain, during the summer, I was required to go to bed at 7pm and I protested to my mother that “it was still light and I am not sleepy!” She had taught me to read and write at age 4, so suggested I read until I fell asleep and it worked!
I have read at night ever since for about an hour or so; that was 73 years ago. A quick calculation indicates some 26k hours of reading, average 2 books a month, around 1,750 books, including Gibbons: Decline & Fall; Pepys Diaries 9 volumes, and War & Peace – they took a little while!
It’s such a shame that reading books is in interminable decline, the root of all learning for me.
A different fiction novel
Starts in the 60’s small town childhood
Slow start good finish
https://davidmcelwee.com/myafterlife/
So what would be the structure of BOTW? Submit what you are currently reading? Discuss something that several of us agree to read? Submit past books you think are good reading?
This is the most important question. If done improperly, the result could be as chaotic as herding a clowder of cats or disastrous as Transheuser-Busch advertising. Have the moderator of the article provide a topic, suggest a book on the topic, and then provide a description of the book as it relates to the topic. For example, the topic could be “Empires in Collision”, the book could be “Song of Wrath” by J. E. Lendon, a synopsis of the book relating it to the topic could be given, and the comments after the article would be from people either commenting on the book or providing alternate books that they think better explain or describe the topic. The result could be many comments and possibly much argumentation. All of that depends on the chosen topic.
I was thinking along the lines of a book of the month. That gives busy people time to read and plenty of time to think about what they would like to say about it.
Maybe make a suggestion around 15th for the following month. Of course admins might have something to say about this whole thing.
Good idea and a good point. I just threw this out there to see what might stick!
Sounds like the beginning of a virtual book club MC – I would join this if a leader/aggregator would emerge. I don’t have the time regretfully, busy bailing out of UK by the end of the year!
In preparation for the coming GFC 2, MC – I suggest:
How to live and enjoy a less-is-more economy with 18th century characteristics. One Appendix explains in detail how they managed their local economy in those days without local banks or even cash (which was an embarrassment). Go figure.
Mark recommended this one a while back. It’s not the best literature but a lot of interesting tidbits left out of Civil War history. Not sure if a Brit would enjoy it, though.
https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/5007875-jack-hinson-s-one-man-war
Thanks MC – the Brits tend to ignore your civil war – too bad memories of own own I guess!
I flew across country to raft on the Colorado river and visit the grand canyon 2 weekends ago.
I got “A Tale of Two Cities” for the flight and finished it on the away flight… Just 250 pages or so and once you get acclimated to the speech of the time period it was quick reading.
My wife said I looked pretentious. I told her 90% of my co-travelers probably never heard of Dickens or knew about classic literature. ( The flight was out of BWI in Baltimore so might be 95% without literacy and 50% who could read beyond eighth grade level)
Anyhow, to spare her the embarrassment of my snobbery for reading something more than romance or crime novel level, I downloaded it for free on my phone and I could blend in with the other phone zombies during the flight with my head down and eyes glued to the little screen.
I would not have cared who saw me reading a “highbrow” book. Reading on a phone for any length of time makes my eyes hurt pretty quickly.
You can’t beat real books MC, IMHO – I tried Kindle but couldn’t get on with it.
That’s true. Kindle is good for big, heavy books, though. I have purchased a book on Kindle even though I have the hardcopy because the book was too cumbersome to drag around.
LOL – that’s the downside and very true MC.
Lovely book – Dickens is a star and an historian of repute. All credit to you for wading though the antiquated writing. It is really poetry in motion!
I read his first book, Technocracy, way back when. Also a few of Neil Postman’s books. Little did I know how true and weird the technocracy would be.
That being said I find Wood’s website not interesting. It should be a ‘go to’ site these days. Because it’s HERE.
Maybe he’s just not a blogger but while he says how the technocracy is being presented and where it’s going he doesn’t dig too deep into the extreme social and psychological engineering going on, etc.
It’s a good introduction but some thing like Jacques Ellul’s technocracy, as hard as it is to read, gives thinking fodder. Many authors from the 30’s-40’s saw this coming. It’s amazing their foresight. For instance C.S. Lewis and of course Huxley, etc. There are many.
Does he dig deeper in this book?
Aye “Abolition Of Man “and” Brave New World ” , shut up and take your SOMA lol.
And Orwell of course – both books – 1984 & Animal Farm – stunning foresight.
Archive.org offers a huge assortment of free books in PDF format, to read online or download to your device. Use the “advanced search” feature to search by title, author, etc. For example:
“Between Two Ages: America’s Role in the Technetronic Era” (1970) by Zbigniew Brzezinski https://archive.org/details/B-001-003-798
Brzezinski was a lifetime member of the liberal-fascist CFR and founder of the Trilateral Commission, and his legacy lives on. SecState Blinken is a CFR/Trilateral member. Nicholas Burns, ambassador to China, is a CFR/Trilateral member. Brzezinski’s son Mark, ambassador to Poland, is a CFR/Trilateral member. Most of the other players on the “Biden team” are CFR and/or Trilateral members.
Billionaire Larry Fink (BlackRock) is a CFR director and a Trilateral member. Billionaire David Rubenstein (Carlyle) is the CFR chairman and a Trilateral member. Both are also trustees at the Davos WEF, another node in the network.
Thanks John, I didn’t know that – excellent pointers.