Hey! Want to know a secret? A secret that people have used to overtake those who don’t know it and rise to the top of civilizations for as long as there have been civilizations?
I’ll tell you the secret in a second, but first let me ask you a question. Have you ever noticed how unambiguous and unequivocal the pundits and reporters on the corporate news media are? How confident and assertive their voices are? How little emphasis is ever placed on the many, many unknown factors of a given situation, or how dismissed and ignored dissenting narratives are?
Wait, hang on, that’s too vague. Let me try something more specific: Bill Maher.
Have you ever watched Bill Maher? I wouldn’t blame you if you avoid it; watching him can be a viscerally uncomfortable experience for anyone who doesn’t share his mainstream corporate liberal worldview. If you agree with him, watching him feels extremely validating and comforting, but if you don’t it can feel as psychologically uncomfortable as being reprimanded by your boss in front of the whole office. And there’s a reason for that.
Bill Maher, as near as I can tell, has no redeeming characteristics of any kind. As far as talent, looks and personality goes, there’s no good reason for him to be famous, or for anyone to know his name at all. And yet he is, and we do.
The reason Bill Maher is famous is the same as the reason he’s uncomfortable to listen to when you don’t agree with him: his voice. You’ve never heard a more assertive, condescending, “I know what’s true and you don’t” voice in your life. He has perfected the voice of authority, and he uses it with such forcefulness that it can cause a lot of cognitive dissonance in people who don’t agree with what he’s saying. But when you’re on his side it feels powerfully rewarding and validating, which is why he’s famous; listening to him triggers the reward center of the corporate liberal brain, and they want more.
Which takes us to the secret I promised to tell you. Are you ready? Here it is:
Nobody knows what the fuck is going on. We’re a bunch of hairless apes on a spinning rock in space, and we only know the stories that we’ve been told by the people who got here before us. We come out as clueless little babies, then when we get bigger we learn some fancy words and how to open a bag of chips, but underneath all the data we add on top of our fresh baby minds there’s still the same cluelessness we started out with. The process of sorting out the true and useful data from the false and unhelpful is confusing, difficult, and prone to error. So people tend to just listen to the most confident-sounding voice in the room; the one who steps forward and says “I know what’s going on, follow me.”
Confidence is everything. So much of the machine is held in place by the confident-sounding assertions of pundits and politicians; they're believed because we're all a bunch of apes on a space rock and no one knows what the fuck is going on. But you can speak with confidence too.
— Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz) September 3, 2018
This is how those confident-sounding pundits and politicians have been able to control the dominant narratives about world events and keep a huge majority of the population in alignment with the narrow Overton window of acceptable ideas. It isn’t because they have better ideas or more truthful narratives (I just made myself laugh typing that), it’s because the people who get hired and promoted by the plutocrat-owned media are the ones who can speak lies and half-truths with the confident voice of authority.
Thing is, there’s no trademark on the voice of authority. Nobody owns it; it’s just a trade secret whose importance nobody who knows it talks about publicly. Which means there’s nothing stopping you from using it, too.
Because here’s the thing: since society is made of narrative, and since nobody knows what the fuck is going on, you can pretty much arrange the narratives around you in a way that suits you just by declaring confidently, consistently and assertively what it is that’s happening. People will adjust their ideas about what’s going on to accommodate your ownership of the narrative, and before you know it you’re being uplifted by society and supported toward whatever goals you’ve got in mind. Decide you’re a leader, they’ll make you a leader. Decide you’re successful, they’ll make you successful. Decide you know what’s happening, they’ll believe you. Say what you want like it’s going to happen, and if it’s a want that society can fulfill, they will.
Society Is Made Of Narrative. Realizing This Is Awakening From The Matrix.
This is the clearest I've been able to sum it all up so far.https://t.co/JqbZMKn7ov
— Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz) August 22, 2018
It’s like being a wizard. Just by becoming confident and assertive, you can control social narratives and ride them wherever you want to go. It’s immensely powerful once you get the hang of it, so it’s in the highest interest to only use this power for the good of society. I’ve been strongly advocating a grassroots information rebellion in which the public seizes control of the dominant narrative about what’s going on instead of remaining subject to the authorized official stories being promulgated by confident-sounding pundits and politicians. We can use the confident voice of authority to override the voice of the establishment propaganda machine.
But to be clear, people are already using this power; the only problem is that only the wrong sorts of people are using it. The social engineers have been promoting strong-voiced establishment loyalists in the mass media for generations, and sociopaths also quickly learn how to master it without ever being taught due to a lack of investment in truth or compassion. If you’re clever and you’re only interested in success at any cost, it doesn’t take long to figure out that you can manipulate your way to the top using confident-sounding assertions for the purpose of social narrative control.
So I don’t feel worried about showing people this secret, and I plan on highlighting it often, because otherwise it’s the equivalent of sociopaths being the only people in the world who have weapons. The problems of our world are due to the fact that selfish, oafish, amoral people speak with unequivocal self-confidence, while compassionate, insightful people wait their turn, use mitigated speech, stay as boringly objective as possible, and treat establishment voices with the same respect which they themselves want to be treated. The fact that the sociopaths and manipulators are constantly firing all their weapons on full auto while we’re politely nudging at the problem with one finger has created a power disparity which explains why the worst among us are in charge.
Trump. Perfect example. A rich man with a rich father and nothing going for him personality-wise other than massive confidence and a rock-solid understanding of the power of assertive narrative control. The man can say something, then days later confidently assert that he never said it knowing full well his comments are on the record, and still get half the country saying “Yeah, fair enough, that sounds about right.” He was able to beat down both Bush and Clinton dynasties and take the White House by sheer force of entitlement and self-confidence.
Imagine a world where it wasn’t only powerful plutocrats doing that. Imagine if all truth-tellers began speaking with the same forceful authoritative confidence of the manipulators at the top. The social engineers would have no way of keeping their authorized narratives in control and manufacturing consent for war, ecocide and exploitative oppression, because Chris Cuomo’s voice wouldn’t have any more force behind it than anyone else’s. Whoever controls the narrative controls the world, and putting that control in the hands of the people is vastly better than leaving it in the hands of a few sociopathic elites.
So get confident and take control. Say your truth and say it like you’re right, because you know you are. Your own best guess about what’s happening in the world is infinitely better than what you’re told to believe by mass media manipulators who you know for a fact are paid to deceive you, so say what you reckon is happening in the world with unmitigated, full-throated authority. When it looks like they’re lying to get a new war or more internet censorship or whatever, voice your own best guess about what’s really happening, and don’t be shy about doing whatever it takes to get it heard by as many people as possible. You have as much a right to speak as the sociopathic manipulators do; more even, since your intentions are not self-serving but world-serving.
How To Get Your Dissident Ideas Heard In The New Media Environment
People have been asking me for some advice on how to get started doing what I do and building an audience, so here are a few tips I've picked up on this weird and wonderful journey.https://t.co/UsgCGKiF6E
— Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz) August 29, 2018
If we don’t control the narrative, only omnicidal, ecocidal sociopaths will control the narrative. I repeat: if we don’t control the narrative, only sociopaths will control the narrative. So take control, using every tool in the toolbox. Take their weapons from them, and use them.
Be big. Be bold. Step way outside the rank they have assigned you. Speak way above your station. Do not let anyone shame you into equivocation or meekness, and don’t let them bully you into the usual dull academic recitation of objective data. Fight the propagandists with the same loud, aggressive assertiveness that they are using, and bulldoze over anyone who tries to admonish you for being impolite about it.
It’s life or death at this point, and our choices are fight, flight or freeze. Near as I can tell, freezing means death and we’ve got no other world we can flee to, so we’ve got to fight. If we’re going to fight we should fight, not with one hand tied behind our backs while they manipulate our species into consenting to its own extinction via war or ecocide, but with full force like our lives depend on it. Because they do.
So take control. Grab the narrative by the balls and own it. Because it’s better you than them.
_______________________
The best way to get around the internet censors and make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for my website, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. My articles are entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, liking me on Facebook, following my antics on Twitter, checking out my podcast, throwing some money into my hat on Patreon or Paypal, or buying my book Woke: A Field Guide for Utopia Preppers.
Bitcoin donations:1Ac7PCQXoQoLA9Sh8fhAgiU3PHA2EX5Zm2
33 responses to “How To Own Life Like A Fucking Wizard”
Thank you Caitlin for your excellent insights and superb skills communicating them. I’d like to offer additional assets we have.
Fight, flight or freeze are the only choices of the old paradigm but we are creating the narrative for the new paradigm with however many choices we desire. We can even write the 1% into the narrative. The wealthy and influential run all our social operating systems and always have done. They probably always will and, if they want that to continue, it will have to be on the back of wealth derived from sustainable practice because unsustainable is terminal.
We’re already seeing in the energy transition we’re going through the more sustainable it gets the more economically smart it gets. I suspect our only possible sustainable future is in co-operation with each other and our earth. The potential for that to be insanely lucrative is huge. We can manipulate the 1% with wealth, they understand that.
They say truth is stranger than fiction and the artificial world we inhabit is far more subtle and pervasive than ‘The Matrix’ which is a recent creation. It’s taken over several millenia to create our tissue of lies, with the finest legal, political and economic systems money can buy and a mainstream media perfectly placed to describe in exquisite detail the Emperor’s magnificent clothes.
However, it’s all made up whereas our absolute need for a healthy environment is not. In the wider universe where there is conflict between fiction and reality the outcome is obvious.
Robin Harrison
DH PPh AppEW
As we look around it is not difficult to understand the origin of the saying “Ignorance is bliss!” Oh, how sweet it must be to know little of the risk and hazards that surround us and to be totally oblivious as to the dangers lurking around every corner. Envision the joy of living in a state of mind that allows you to awake each day to a world of calm serenity. The article below is a salute and tribute to those who live their life in a place where the color of the sky is of their choosing.
http://brucewilds.blogspot.com/2018/09/ignorance-is-bliss-creating-world-of.html
The only antidote to lies is truth.
I would offer that there is another very effective weapon available: mockery.
Mocking others is the tool people like Bill Mahar use to attack others. We need to jui-jitsu (sp?) the hell out of these buffoons. Kings can survive slings and arrows but he cannot withstand not being taken seriously.
All of what you said makes sense but it doesn’t all add up, does it? Yes most are evil criminals doing evil and plotting destruction.
But do you want to know a very big secret? Nuclear weapons do not exist. The is literally no such thing.
Here’s proof, you say these people are in power and have genocide aspirations…. “I can’t think of them any other way, but sociopathic criminals. These are truly insane people. On the surface they come across as normal and rational, but they’re not, because they really don’t care about living or life, including yours and mine.”
…..but they have never ever used one of these bombs to cause instant death and destruction? A-bombs don’t exist either, they simply carpet bombed Japan.
Wmd’s are yet again just another lie used to control and influence the masses to agree with what they want. Why’d we go into iraq again?
Dave, interesting theory. Would be nice if true. And I know I am asking you to sorta prove a negative but what is the evidence you base this on? It is pretty certain that nuke power exists so why not bombs? Not saying you are wrong, I am just not convinced without further info.
Unless we have concerns about manipulating others, even for ‘good’ reasons. Or we don’t like the contempt and mistrust it often invokes in those who see through it (it’s not that much of a secret) or have run across too many sociopaths who use it.
So how does this sentence (and others like it in the second half of the post) gel with your earlier admission that everyone is basically clueless? Is everyone clueless but some are more clueless than others? Just because the other guy is obviously full of shit doesn’t mean you’re not.
I dunno. I’m pretty fucking burned out and probably the last person to ask about it, but if I started finding reasons to use the methods of the controllers to compete for their prey I might wanna take a break and ask myself why so many revolutions just replace one despotism with another. Or think about what Nietzsche meant about staring into the abyss.
Revolutions fail because those that revolt don’t have a detailed idea in their brains of, for lack of a better expression, “how things should be” AFTER they successfully revolt. For example, what should the “foundation stone” be for the way people should conduct themselves AFTER a successful revolution — stand up and do what comes naturally; might makes right; last man standing; survival of the fittest; dog eat dog; every man for himself; do what I say or I’ll kill you — what?
..
The piece of paper called the Declaration of Independence has the following words written on it:
..
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.”
..
IMO, the above is close, but no cigar, because it refers to only one nation and it makes virtually no mention of how human beings should treat each other.
..
For the NEXT “Declaration of Independence From the Coprorate Oligarcy”, BEFORE the NEXT revolution (which is IMO an increasingly likely event), I would keep some of the words of the original Declaration, but make some changes:
..
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that ALL human beings, no matter on what part of the Earth, are created equal, that they have unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happineess, and that in order for humanity to survive peacefully and happily, all human beings must pledge to do unto others as they would have others do unto them.”
..
Other people have thought very seriously about how things should be after an apocalypse or revolution. For just one example, did you ever hear of the “Georgia Guidestones”?
Ish, what should the after-the-revolution world be based on? Simple: the Non Aggression Principle (NAP). Anything else will just restart the same old system.
As for equality and rights equality can only be found in Natural Law Rights. All else is political machination to control/exploit others.
Good luck getting the world to agree with real equality.
Attempt to define the word “aggression” and I think you’ll realize that, like an asshole, everyone has one. In short, no one will agree on just exactly what that word “means”.
..
OTOH, when every person on the planet hears the phrase “do unto others what you would have them do unto you” in their own language, heads nod in unison and there is aboslutely NO difference of opinion about what that means. If all people of the world, especially the Elites of all nations of the world, were to put that phrase into practice, the world would be a very different place, very quickly.
..
The problem is that the present arrangement called “capitalism” is, at its core, a PREDATORY system which has greed as its foundation and still requires, essentially, slaves, as well as perpetual population growth and war, to keep it operating. It is a pattern of human behavior that existed hundreds, if not thousands, of years before Adam Smith wrote his book, which, in a sense, codified and endorsed it for the Elite that read it.
..
Again, the present system will lead to human extinction either by Mother Earth’s failure to support even the present population, let alone a larger one, or an inevitable, most likely “accidental” nuclear war.
Ish, ah but the very definition of aggression can be found within the Golden/Silver Rule i.e. doing something to someone that you do not want someone doing to you. Using force (or calling for force to be used on your behalf) against someone even though they are harming no one else or defrauding someone is aggression. It is not anymore esoteric than that.
Real free market Capitalism itself is not a bad economic system. Unfortunately, we do not live under Capitalism. Crony Capitalism aka Corporatism (our current system) and debt slavery are very much the problem. What do you propose should replace our current system?
Fully agree with you that something has to change quickly. Humanity is at a cross roads. We will either finally be free or we will be eternally enslaved. I argue that power itself must be removed, not just the operators of power.
Here’s a narrative I’ve been thinking about: Everyone involved with nuclear weapons; their design, production, deployment and those on the sidelines who support these evil weapons, and who support their use, no matter what country they happen to live in, millions of people probably, are war criminals. Think pre crime and pre criminals, as in the movie The Minority Report. They haven’t committed their genocidal crimes yet, which include crimes against humanity, nature and the Earth, but they will do so and are blindly committed to it. These include my senators and rep, among many others. I can’t think of them any other way, but sociopathic criminals. These are truly insane people. On the surface they come across as normal and rational, but they’re not, because they really don’t care about living or life, including yours and mine. If they did, these weapons would not exist.
Remember, “American Exceptionalism” permits us to possess and oversee our weapons and decide who else may possess them. We only trust our “allies”, which are those who recognize our exceptionalism!
H-Bomb, are taxpayers also war criminals for providing the money for nukes?
Most Americans, taxpayers included, have little clue about nuclear weapons, or nuclear war. Do you? I tend to doubt it. Otherwise you’d be scared shitless.
Has anyone asked you if you want nuclear weapons? Probably not. Maybe, if you’re lucky, you’ll be incinerated like I’ll be in a first strike and not have to suffer a lingering radiation poisoning death or freeze to death in nuclear winter. You should ask you federal reps if they’ll be protected in bomb shelters, just for them.
Americans will not like nuclear war. Who would? But there are those who find it completely acceptable, especially most national politicians. That’s why they continue to fund them. It’s that simple. They don’t care about you and me. We’re not part of their equation. They want war! We’ll be dead. Depressing, isn’t it?
Gibby, not sure why you think I am not aware of nukes or that I am not scared shitless (I am) about what a nuke war would do. Why else do you think I am here at this anti-war site?
I asked about taxpayers because if we are responsible for nukes by paying for them then how do we not also become war criminals because of our monetary support? Yet how can we refuse to pay for such awful things? This is a moral dilemma we should consider, IMHO.
If some enlightened billionaires would buy MS-NBC & CNN,
then turn these media corporations over to Team Caitlin,
we’d have a fighting chance against the un-enlightened billionaires.
I unsubscribed to you today, Caitlin, because you have joined the hordes of adolescents who throw the word “fucking” in when they’re too lazy to think about what the appropriate adjective might be, the one that actually communicates some meaning. Along with that new disability, you have developed an abrasive voice just like the people you (and I) dislike and distrust. It makes it hard to read you even when in general I agree with you. It’s your manner that’s offensive, not your message. I’m outa here.
There is only one valid argument against the use of profanity: time and place. Given the current situation this most certainly is the fucking time and this is most certainly the fucking place. Prissiness is a luxury we cannot afford.
Did you hear what words came out of the mouths of most of the well-kown poltiticians and their MSM talking heads shortly after the Golden Golem of Greatness (AKA Agent Orange) met with Mr. Putin in Helsinki in an attempt to mend relations with Russia?
..
After that response, I look forward to hearing words such is fucking, asshole, shit, etc. coming out of these same mouths in the near future in reference to the Deep State’s ever-increasing list of enemies, so everyone had better get used to them ahead of time.
..
Those who don’t want to hear such words should stay off city streets, away from school playgrounds, professional sports stadiums, bars, etc. and definitely keep out of prision where words often lead to action. Restrict your travel to your local church where you’ll never hear or read such terrible words. However, I strongly recommend keeping your children at home and don’t hire any ex-clergy to look after them while you’re worshiping and singing hymns.
..
Keep on doing what you’re doing, Caitlin. I aboslutely love reading what you have to write. Don’t change a fucking thing.
“You’ve never heard a more assertive, condescending, “I know what’s true and you don’t” voice in your life. ”
Obviously you’ve never heard Rachel Maddow.
Or most college professors.
Caitlin and comments … time well spent.
Brilliant Caitlin! That reminds me one rule from Terry Goodkind books “Sword of True” series, who area a parable of our today world in fantasy key. Is an Ayn Rand teory follower this gay. but in any case the young wizard who is the protagonist of the book learns quickly from his grandpa skillful wizard The first rule of Wizard
“People are stupid; given proper motivation, almost anyone will believe almost anything. Because people are stupid, they will believe a lie because they want to believe it?s true, or because they?re afraid it might be true. Peoples? heads are full of knowledge, facts and beliefs, and most of it is false, yet they think it all true. People are stupid; they can only rarely tell the difference between a lie and the truth, and yet they are confident they can, and so are all the easier to fool.”
same a you say
Iskabibble. You have it absolutely right greed is the scourge of the earth.I have hoped for a long time that the scientific community could have come up with a cure for this affliction,no such luck. My weird sense of humour has always wanted to make a movie about a scientist who had come up with a mixture that could be administered through the food system to alleviate GREED Just imagine those afflicted squirming to not have this elixir placed in there food supply. You all have a nice Peacefull day.
IF humanity is to survive, TheStatusQuoHasGotToGo. Believe it, relieve them of their duties, because the last word must not be the scream of the last human baby. We are far too valuable to allow it.
The DeepState is still TheState, now wallowing in corruption world-wide. Even if we have to live in anarchy, so be it. Actually it sounds pretty damn good to me to imagine a world not organized around power, but arranged around individuals linked together and speaking with OneVoice, to rule ourselves.
I trust that voice, because the prime directive of humanity is clearly, SURVIVE. No State will ever respect the individual human because to TheState, YOU are expendable. No corporation can ever lay claim to being human, even if it does pretend to be a “person”.
No Rulers, just Humans Being. Sounds good to me. We can climb out of this cesspool (not a swamp) into the light of truth and reconciliation.
A swamp is actually a filter that cleans the water, so “draining the swamp” is the antithesis of what we should be doing. Having lived and grown up in an actual swamp, I can tell you, a swamp gives life in abundance. Turning the definition of a swamp on its head simply shows our ignorance and the ignorance of our President.
Trump is the lesser of two evils however, so you can imagine the stench of that cesspool, I know you can. What we need to do, is put the StatusQuo in the swamp alongside the Cotton Mouths and Alligators, and clean up this mess, once and for all, so we can just go on living and imagining.
Here’s another good reason to bring down TheState, we can prevent them from taking their murdering ways to space, the real frontier.
Sorry Caitlin but this is self contradicting bullshit . Is almost sounds intelligent until you think about . It speaks with the self congratularity authority that you decry. It is an oxymoron. The truth is not something that can be spoken about with authority because to be truthful you must have doubth, unless it is a very personal truth to you ,then nobody else is interested in hearing it. Even then our memory distorts our truth . There are some empirical facts and scientific observations which come close to truth but those you seem to want dismiss. I suggest you go back and think it out again.
Brilliant! Nature abhors a vacuum, and if we don’t step up in to revealing the truth, we give them the space to manufacture Big Lies and enslave us. When we omit truths, they commit falsehoods, and by they becoming invested in their falsehoods of their and everyone’s enslavement and deceptions, it becomes difficult to disentangle due to cognitive dissonance by all concerned and we all become victims of this entrapment. That is why the truth always hurt but it is only the truth that can set us free. https://bsahely.com/2018/08/26/when-we-are-enslaved-to-big-lies-the-truth-will-hurt-but-only-the-truth-can-set-us-free/
Dear Team Caitlin:
When you collate all these essays into your best-seller book – WOW!
I feel privileged to be able to read you now well into the 21st century – as I did 40 years ago when I came across The New Internationalist – presenting a similar but far earlier (for me) way of properly reading the way our world narrative is in the hands of – as you put it – sociopaths.
Priceless. thanks
I think there are too many people “speaking their own truth” to stop & listen to each other. It seems like we’re holding onto our ideals (read: Hate) so much that the space left for understanding or agreement is increasingly sparse. I’m saying this from a place of sadness, not judgement. It’s not against one political party or another, or one belief system or another. Feel free to correct my grammar & spelling errors…I’m ill & on medication. Bless you all…If you’re not offended
I think we all need to speak our truth, but with compassion and respect.
Healing wishes to you.
Here’s my narrative and its a lot more believable than Bill’s.
How do we explain the DIFFERENCE between the everyday behavior of the individuals who lived 40,000 years ago and that of the overall-genetically-identical individuals who live on Manhattan today? Which will more adequately/thoroughly explain that astronomical difference, a psychological analysis of these individuals’ evolutionary, in-born ability to think/reason or an analysis of the interaction of these two groups of individuals’ BEHAVIOR (how they make a living) within the Matrices into which they just happened to be born?
These are critically important questions because their answers will direct our inquiry and attention to just exactly WHAT is still “causing” human beings to continue to increase their population and to continue to wage perpetual war — either of which will lead to human extinction.
Because it is an absolute fact that the Matrix that we are living in today has been evolved/molded into what is is today by generation after generation of human beings who have lived and died over the millennia, it must also be an absolute fact that the human beings living today can and will continue to change the present-day version of the Matrix. The question is how.
Again, our most important goal must be to identify and, more importantly, correct, just exactly WHAT it is about human beings or the Matrix that has in the past caused, and is still causing, again, humanity to expand its population and to conduct perpetual wars that will lead to human extinction.
During their first meeting, Morpheus asks Neo the most important question about their Matrix — “Do you want to know what ‘it’ is?”
Each and every one of us must ask ourselves essentially the same question. What is “it” that keeps failing for the vast majority of people and preventing our lives from improving?
I say that “it” is NOT any president. “It” is NOT the Fed. “It” is NOT the constitution. And “it” is most definitely NOT an incorrectly adjusted interest rate, balance sheet or chart.
“It” resides between human ears.
“It” is an inevitably-fatal, deeply-inculcated, religious-like belief in the narrative (which is nothing more than an unsubstantiated claim) of the infallibility of human greed (NOT of greed’s existence or power, but, again, capitalism’s belief in greed’s INFALLIBILITY) — that all every single human being of 7.4 billion individuals has to do is struggle to satisfy his/her insatiable greed and everything will magically turn out just fine for the collective whole of humanity.
IT WON’T!
Greed, my fellow humans, is NOT good, because “it” will, by “whatever it takes”, OVERCOME any well-intended measure (from constitutions to Glass Stegalls to TARPs to QEs to NIRP to fiat money to banning cash to quantitative tightening) that that same human mind can invent in an attempt to control ‘it’. History has PROVEN time and time again with absolute certainty that this is true. We are living in the proof today.
What we all, as individuals, must struggle to recognize and accept as the ultimate truth is something that humanity has been literally brainwashed 24/7 for at least the last 250 years by a capitalist system to believe is not true — that the one and only thing that will save humanity from itself (us from each other) is the EXACT OPPOSITE of Adam Smith’s narrative (unsubstantiated allegation) that “greed is good”, and that is to “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” No more. No less. “Love” doesn’t have to enter this recipe for eternal success and prosperity.
To reiterate, the narrative that Adam Smith wrote, the one that is the very foundation of the present economic system, was dead wrong and each and every one of us has to acknowledge that Smith was dead wrong or humanity will be dead. Something built into the greed-system’s DNA will “see an opening” or “detect a weakness” in an “enemy’s” defenses and instead of automatically buying or selling a share of stock or a bond, or slapping on another sanction, or imposing another tariff, a computer will “unexpectedly” push a nuclear button and that will be the end of humanity.
And even IF humanity can avoid nuclear war for a bit longer, planet earth will NOT allow the perpetual economic/population growth that has historically been PROVEN to be required by an economic system in which the vast majority of wealth and large-scale capital equipment has been, and still is, owned by a microscopic percentage of the population for their own profit.
If human beings are not intelligent enough to realize that the Golden Rule (rather than Adam Smith’s ridiculous narrative of the INFALLIBILITY of insatiable human greed) should be the fundamental rule that must guide absolutely all human behavior, there is absolutely nothing that will save humanity from itself.
Actually, as Michael Hudson, Noam Chomsky, and others have pointed out, Adam Smith did NOT believe in or advocate the infallibility of insatiable greed. His Invisible Hand was not dog-eat-dog heartlessness, but a universal tendency for human kindness, which would, he thought, keep capitalism from turning into a monster.