a snapshot

Yesterday, I arrived at work. GB News was on in the canteen before I started my shift. The headlines about the air collision in Washington tapering across the screen. The canteen had a smattering of people. Africans, Poles, English, Indian. Some eating, some watching the screen, some glued to their phone. I remember the first time I noticed GB News playing on the canteen TV. It felt noteworthy. That was over a year ago. Maybe longer. It's standard now. It just plays in the background, like the BBC, or a local radio station. I can't help but periodically think about the noteworthiness though. Someone clicks the remote to turn it on. No one complains. No one turns it off. It feels like a little victory. Like somehow it's a little guide rail, keeping everything on the same cultural track. A kind of crash course in Britishness by daily osmosis.

Rolling coverage of American officials talking to the press about the tragedy runs uninterrupted on the screen. Then, finally, it cuts back to Tom Harwood and a female presenter in the studio. It then cuts to live feed from John Prescott's funeral, where Tony Blair is giving a eulogy. It starts mid-anecdote. A tale about John's no-nonsense working class manner - a refusal to refer to Menzies Campbell as "Ming". Blair then starts talking about "power". John's influence on debates about "what Labour must do to sustain power," and how the Tories "wield power" and find "nothing inherently unprincipled" in doing that. Even with the sorrowful news I couldn't help but inwardly laugh that even at a funeral Blair can't help but talk of power. I then looked at the clock in the screen's corner: 12:49. "I better wrap up, get my hi-vis on and head down to clock in for my shift."

Dreams and Cultural Conflict

Another day, another piece on the BBC News website about Roman Abramovich.

Are we on the path to synthesis and reintegration? A billion pounds might be a hefty slap on the wrist.

The big story today though in the UK is Magica De Spell's economic announcements. I must say, it all feels quite optimistic. We definitely need the reservoirs. So the feelings of optimism I had at the start of the year are continuing. It does feel like everything is on a better path. Obviously, the big thing globally is always war and political persecution. We want a world where these are lessened. Ideally absent. There's always cultural conflict. It does feel like the culture wars have died down a little though, and you'd think the more chilled out vibe would lessen the prospect of real, physical turmoil in the world. A bit of a healing and resynthesis period. So yeah, I'm actually hopeful.

Returning to Magica's announcements, the one that excites people is the idea of creating "Europe's Silicon Valley" between Oxford and Cambridge. Whenever stuff like this pops up I always think about how important the cultural environment is to such potential blooming. For example, I remember as a child briefly stating, "I want to make computer games when I grow up."

Naturally, as a child, I loved my video games, and that love obviously inspired the thought. However, when I stated this aloud the response I got from adults was one of complete dismissal. As if I'd said I wanted to be an astronaut or a Hollywood film star. It was just not on the radar of possibilities. Consequently, the ambition quickly disappeared and was replaced by other dreams and plans.

Had I been encouraged down that path I would've no doubt not ended up being a video game designer. However, it's likely that I could've ended up doing something relating to tech or computing. Some natural, more adult off-shoot of that initial childhood dream.

So, in the UK, back then, it just wasn't a realistic option for people. There was no route. And now, in turn, we have no Google or Amazon.

Also, there were no role models.

ROLE MODELS

Role models are important as they offer a path to follow. They illustrate to the young what is possible in adult life. What's realistic.

We can see this in contrast when looking at a dream I did try to pursue: MUSIC

As a teenager I loved music as much as I loved Super Nintendo games. However, in the UK, in comparison, we did have a music industry. So, even if parents and teachers weren't fully supportive of the idea of becoming a rock star, there were plenty of other adults in the wider culture that provided the blueprint.

Meaning, as a teenager from a council estate in the north of England, you could see, say Noel Gallagher of Oasis, and think, "He's from a council estate in the north of England and he did this - therefore it can be done." It is a real world possibility of a dream being achievable. Albeit an unlikely one. You can then follow that path. "What did he do?" You perhaps read a biography and seek to absorb the lesson. Of course, all these things tend to happen by osmosis. The thoughts aren't quite as clear minded as I present them here. Nevertheless, it is a case of people needing to feel that something is achievable. Otherwise why make the effort to go down that path.

This is likewise why so many young girls get hooked into OnlyFans and stuff like that. It's not that these girls are lazy or fundamentally corrupt in some way. It's that they're ambitious - i.e. they want a successful life, and they don't want to spend a lifetime working in a factory or on benefits. So, they gravitate to (what to them) feels like a realistic path to success. They see other women making vast sums of money doing it, and just like the teenage me, watching indie bands, that real world example serves as a template. An advert that: it can be done.

A realistic dream is offered. A route out of the drudgery and the humdrum.

So, if you want a British Google or Microsoft you really need to understand that the dream is so important. The next generation need to believe that, "Yes, I can make computer games for a living," or "Yes, I can build a robot or go to Mars." And, "Yes, I can be rich, successful and attractive to the opposite sex doing these things."

Now you, the reader, may say, "But this is just silly, these things just aren't realistic." However, this is how inspiration works. You don't create a Google if you start life as a teenager thinking, "I'll just get a normal job that will pay the mortgage like everyone else."

Stocks Deep Sunk ..and other news

We had the big AI stock market correction yesterday. Thanks to the emergence of the Chinese company DeepSeek. Though, given how overpriced things were becoming, I think the Chinese AI provided more of an excuse for the correction than the impetus. I'm no expert though, and we'll see what happens today.

I'm mainly posting as this story comes as part of a raft of stories running today that come with the sense of mood shift. Or, at least a coalescence of where things have been heading.

Above is today's BBC News homepage. The main story is the China AI story - a story that marries the very now themes of China, AI and Trump. This is supplemented with a link to the live running debate about assisted dying, and a prominent article about the Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich.

At the start of the Ukraine war Abramovich featured quite heavily. However, in the period since, talk of him (and his steel company Evraz) has dimmed down in the news pages. Now he's back, front and centre.

If we scroll down a bit, we then get another Russia/Ukraine story. Plus another very of the times story about a man benefitting from a brain implant. Welcome to the future. (Oddly we also have a story about '66 million year old vomit' being found in Denmark.)

I'm not sure where this is going, but it all has the feel of: "Okay, here we are. This is where we are now."

Back at the start of the Ukraine war I was a bit slow off the mark in getting my head around it. Now, in retrospect, I think I have a better handle on things. It's always easier in hindsight though. The challenge is getting a sense of things before they happen. Or at least as they happen.

More War? Less War? Where War? Wherefore?

A Money Tree on a Desert Island

The topic of MMT popped up yesterday. Modern Monetary Theory, also known as the Magic Money Tree.

Of course, all the arguments back and forth on such topics tend to get lost in theory. People really do love a good theory. Intellectuals support theories like normal people back a horse or choose their favourite football team. They find one they like, then stick all their money on it. "This one is right - this team is the best. All the others are bad."

Personally, I'm more a 'make do and mend' type person. I don't think any theory can map onto life perfectly, and more to the point, I think when people try to force the real world to conform to a theory - any theory - things start getting bad. So I prefer to look at things from the ground up. Don't get too heady.

Anyway, one thing I like to come back to when the topic of debt and printing money comes up is how what matters are the percentages, and how they are balanced, rather than the ever-growing numbers themselves.

For example..

(I get to use my favourite sandbox once again - the desert island.)

Imagine there are two people on a desert island, and there are 100 notes (bits of money). And each has 50. Then, they decide to print more money. Let's say, another 900 notes. So now they both have 500 each.

The situation remains exactly the same. The still both have 50% of the island's wealth.

Let's say, originally, when there were 100 notes in circulation, a coconut cost 10 notes, but now, thanks to inflation, with 1000 in circulation, one costs 100. There's no real difference. They can still just as easily buy a coconut. A coconut still costs one fifth of their wealth.

It's a bit of a silly example, but it goes to show that the amount of money in circulation isn't the issue. It's the balance. There could be a billion notes on the island, but if each possesses 50% it doesn't make any difference to the circumstance.

Back to reality..

So, in the wider scheme of things, it's about the balance of money. It's about relative wealth. The question should be, "Are things getting more balanced?" Not, "How can the economy possibly keep going with a zillion-billion-gajillion dollars in circulation?!"

Of course, the problems are compounded by debt. Money tends to be lent into existence. So a billion gets injected into the economy, but on the condition that the billion needs to be paid back. With interest. Naturally, the debt is therefore bigger than the injection. You could have zero interest debt, or negative interest, to mitigate this fact. However, there isn't really anything stopping a government from creating new money sans debt. A fresh injection of cash, out of nowhere, that doesn't need paying back.

So you could just stick £100 of fresh money into every individual's bank account to inflate away the ever-growing debt.

Just because this could be done, doesn't mean it doesn't come with downsides though. If you were a foreigner would you hold UK pounds, or accept them as payment, if you knew the citizens of the UK were just going to gift themselves another £100 as and when they liked.

So the debt does serve a function. It's a punishment or cost that prohibits people from inflating.

Again, personally, I think you have do whatever you need to do to balance things, and you need to do it in moderation. A little bit of this, a little bit of that. I'd be open to sticking a little bit of "out of thin air" cash (jubilee money) into everyone's bank account to help adjust the clearly crazy and unsustainable imbalances we have now. However, we're stuck in the middle between idealists. Believers in MMT, who would take this acknowledgement as a green light to print whatever they want. "Hey, we can print money! Let's just fund every socialist dream we've ever had this way!"

And people on the other side of the argument. Who want to go back to the gold standard; who are expecting the dollar to collapse at any moment. The irony is, these people understand the problems caused by inflation very well, and they understand how it unfairly benefits those with assets and not the regular wage worker, but, so wedded are they to the idea that printing money is just plain wrong, they'll never advocate for a fairer printing of money. Where the injected liquidity doesn't just trickle down from the top.

2025: Stranger Than Fiction

2025. And already so strange. Canada, Greenland, Mexico, Musk, grooming gangs, and God knows what else. Oh, and the Panama Canal.

I watched the full Trump speech from Mar-a-Lago yesterday. I have to say, I loved it. He's doing his thing; setting his stall out. When negotiating he starts hard, to build up maximum leverage. The rhetoric is strong. We get the consequent, "Oh My God, What's He Saying? He's Crazy!" from the myriad normal people and political commentators watching. But c'mon, people should know this by now. We had four years of him before. He talks big, there's a lot of bravado, but he tends to be rather moderate in execution. The polar opposite of the more common sort of politician we're all used to, who speaks in respectable tones, as the bombs rain heavy and the world falls apart.

Still, even I, as I was watching, had to wonder where things were going. Maybe this is crazy?

We are living through strange times, and it's hard to see where things are heading. Greenland. Greenland? Everyone's baffled. What's the big deal with Greenland?

Of course, Trump's mentioned Greenland before. I've mentioned Trump mentioning Greenland before on here. That was back in 2019. In the before times.

It feels like one of these stories where there simply isn't a curtain big enough to hide the magician's backstage area from the public. A jarring window into something we're normally not allowed to see. It's reminiscent of the story that Tobias Ellwood wanted the UK to have a spaceport on Svalbard. Alan Duncan thought that was "bonkers" too.

Here In The Igloo.

Closer back home, it's icy here as well. I'll definitely need an extra layer for work tomorrow. January's always a bit of a strange month. Like the icy white, it feels blank. Consequently, it's a month where I always feel I can get a lot of my own stuff done. It's only the 8th and I've already hit the ground running. The book - the book - the work fiction, is now pretty much complete. The next stage is to start uploading the chapters incrementally to a blog - not this blog, I'll have to set up another (link will be provided when we get there for anyone curious). As I upload each chapter it'll give me a chance to re-read. So this 'uploading' process will also serve as the third draft. A kind of semi-published nearly-there version. The demo version if it was a song. Then, at some point, that will (hopefully) be bound together as an actual book.

So strangely, in spite of all the strangeness and the political hubbub, I'm actually feeling fairly optimistic going into this year.

Why the Death Penalty Falls as Civilisation Rises

Okay, I've got five minutes, and it's not even the new year yet.

I want to talk about how the death penalty - or rather, its abolition - is a function of civilisation.

(The Execution of Lady Jane Grey

- Paul Delaroche)

When people debate the death penalty they tend to make moral arguments back and forth. However, whether a society has the death penalty or not is usually a consequence of "options."

So, if you imagine a less sophisticated world. Let's say some little village that existed a few thousand years ago. Then you imagine that a person commits some heinous crime in that village: a rape or a murder. And this person then gets apprehended.

What are the options for the villagers that apprehend him?

They can't send him to jail, that's simply not an option, as they don't have any jails to send him to. A jail, replete with jailers, requires a degree of infrastructure and civilisation. It requires some kind of state.

Maybe, at best in our simple example, there might be a castle many miles down the road, belonging to some local baron or warlord, with a dungeon. But, even then, the dungeon is mainly for the baron's enemies. It can't house every criminal that commits a crime within a fifty mile radius.

Therefore, the villagers have few options. They can either let the criminal go, or they can dole out some form of physical punishment. Meaning, in effect, they have to hang the murderer. It's either that or leave him free to murder again. So, it's not that our ancestors were more barbaric or lustful of blood. Or somehow less moral or sympathetic than ourselves. It's more the case that their options were limited.

It's similar with other punishments. We may hear tales from history of how thieves once had their ears or hands cut off. Or how they would be branded with hot irons. Such things sound so cruel and unnecessary to our modern ears. However, once again, they were just a product of options. It would be too harsh to murder someone for a simple act of theft, but, at the same time, you can't just allow theft to go unpunished ..and there's no jail you can send the thief to. Accordingly, cutting off an ear or a finger is a happy - though violent - middle ground.

Once society does become more developed and organised though - i.e. once a sophisticated prison system comes into being. Then people have a less violent option on the table, and they naturally tend to choose it.

So, as civilisation develops, it's almost inevitable that the death penalty dwindles.

For instance, part of the reason why the US still has the death penalty when the UK doesn't is largely a overhang from the fact that America is much larger and more of a wilderness. Naturally, in the Wild West, frontier justice is more needed than it would be in developed areas with more control and infrastructure. It's not that Americans are fundamentally less caring of criminals.

Modern Debates

If you're a modern advocate of the death penalty you're fighting a losing battle because of this. As most people will eschew killing if less lethal options are available. People may raise the point that the majority of the public support the death penalty for very serious crimes such as rape or paedophilia. However, even here such support quickly fades once you raise the prospect of false convictions. Then the position shifts to, "Well, they should be jailed for life then."

Even the most ardent supporter of the death penalty would want to be absolutely certain if it was they themselves pushing the button or bringing down the axe. (At least any supporter living within the comforts of civilisation that is. Time spent in a harsher world might harden such sentiment.)

On top of this, even if the death penalty was brought back into law it would be near impossible to implement. As there'd always be a large number of people challenging such decisions in the hope of saving a life. You only need to look at the endless delays and appeals that accompany death penalty verdicts in America.

When Civilisation Falls

Of course, noting that the abolition of the death penalty is a consequence of the rise of civilisation, also implies things work in the opposite direction too.

As civilisation fails or starts to break down the death penalty starts to reappear. Once the infrastructure starts failing, or people lose complete faith in the state's ability to deliver justice, we're back to the village we were in with our first example. The castle's dungeon is only there for the baron's enemies, and once again, the villagers must resort to lynching rapists and murderers to protect their women and children.

All the debates about morality are futile, and have little influence on the reality.

Wifejak II: The Undeadening

Turns out I do have the spite :)

Actually, I do feel a little guilty posting about this topic again. A lot of the people sharing the meme are well-meaning souls, that enjoy it. So I'm being a bit mean. However, it's one of these topics where art intersects with politics, so I can't quite resist diving back in.

The meme blew up earlier this year. There was a bit of a backlash. It went away, and I assumed it had been buried. Now it's back for the sequel. Like a satanic spawn from a horror movie that just won't die. And now, if anything, it's even more evil. As this time it comes with a weaponised narrative. Namely, that if you don't like the meme, or dare to criticise it, that means you hate women, or are anti-family.

Basically ..if you don't like meme, you're bad person.

This brings me to the first port of call. Which is how the people sharing this meme can't detach their personal feelings and politics from the actual meme itself.

Let's say I fall in love with a woman and I write a song about how much I love and adore her. (This is sounding a little bit twee and sickly already.) There's nothing wrong with this. You could even say it's quite a nice thing to do. However, if I then upload that song to Twitter and people don't like it (perhaps they deem it twee and sickly too), I can't just accuse everyone of hating all love songs, or of being against the very concept of love itself. It might just be an awful song. In fact, it's highly likely that it is an awful song, as it's very difficult to write a genuinely good song. Just as it's difficult to create a good meme.

You can't just expect everyone to like and praise your art just because you have an emotional investment in it.

I had a few little arguments on Twitter about this. The defenders of the meme would go off into hyperbole about the cultural significance of the meme, or about how I have some deep "Marxist" disdain for women or marriage. I tried explaining that I just didn't like the meme. Much the same way that I don't like The Big Bang Theory or Mrs. Brown's Boys, but they didn't quite grasp this. They kept assuming I had an emotional investment equal to theirs (just in the opposing direction).

Political Fetish

There's also the slight sense that the trad right lifestyle has become something of a fetish for people. I watched a video by Carl from the Lotus Eaters about the meme. He was waxing lyrical about how it embodied the gender roles in a relationship, and spoke in regard his own relationship with his wife. About how he is the protector and how happy women feel to be so protected. There was the slight sense that he enjoyed the idea a little too much. Like parents getting flirty in front of the kids, in a subtle way the kids don't quite pick up on. Almost "Call me Daddy" levels of fetishizing domestic bliss.

I've got nothing against this. It's much more healthy and wholesome than the political fetishes the left partake in. Still though, keep it for private. I don't really want to see it in online debates.

Flaunting Your Love

This brings me nicely to the second port of call. Here the people defending the meme might indeed have a point about some people reacting emotively to it. As this meme is basically a way for people to flaunt their love and marital success.

Obviously, it's great to be in love. To be with someone who loves you the way you love them. Who's loyal. Who has your back. Who laughs at your jokes. All that stuff. It's the dream for most people, and if you have that you're lucky to have it.

However, a lot of people don't have it. So, essentially, you're going into a space filled with people that don't have it, and you're flaunting it in front of them. I could say a space full of "incels," but really it's just single people when you strip back the "discourse." Or people in relationships that aren't perfect or aren't working.

It's a bit like waving your cash around in front of a homeless person.

Sure, it's nice that you have a girlfriend and that you like kissing her, but other people don't necessarily want to see that. Partly for selfish reasons - it reminds them what they don't have and are missing out on. Partly because it's private stuff that's meant to be private. It's not for them. Likewise, for the same reason, people don't necessarily want to know that you call her your "little pumpkin," or that she has this or that little quirk.

Like the meme itself, if these things do belong in public, they belong on Facebook. Where people share pictures of their kids, their partners, their holidays, their meals, and all the other "look at my life" content. Of course, with all these things, it's also difficult to tell how much is genuine and how much is just for appearances. The online "keeping up with the Joneses." So too with the meme. It's hard to know how much is genuine and how much is just people larping or fetishizing the concept. Either way, it's all definitely a bit Facebook. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

As at the start of this post, I'm definitely being a little harsh. I'm sure the people sharing the meme aren't deliberately trying to flaunt their relationships. And these are just daft memes after all.

But still, I'm being asked to pretend I like this meme to satiate all this emotion and investment. I don't want to do that. If you want to be treated with kid gloves I'm happy to do that on Facebook. Not here.