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.

Caesar Won't Do As He's Told

I might do another post about the wifejak meme later - we'll see how spiteful I'm feeling. Firstly I just want to make note of another trend. It's been a slow train coming, but it's now well and truly here.

I call it the, "Caesar won't do as he's told" mindset.

Obviously, we've witnessed a rightwards shift over the last decade or so. Left wing progressivism has been so bad it's made being right wing look cool. Or based as they say.

Back circa 2016 you would be labelled "racist" and "far right" for wanting lower immigration.

Now, circa 2024 you might get branded a weak "liberal" just for wanting the same thing. That's if that's all you want - and you don't want the ethnic nationalism/mass deportations/zero immigration to go with it.

Often it might even be the very same people doing this labelling. So radically have some people's politics shifted in such a short space of time. Just ten years ago they were progressives themselves. Now they are so right wing they dream of a modern Caesar coming to lift us from the progressive mire. As they sit and discuss how degenerate democracy is.

The thing is though, these people are still, at heart, progressives. So, though they cry for a strong, dictator-like government, they still have the mindset of a democratic citizen. A democratic citizen that gets to whine and express their opinion. So we have this constant spectacle, where these people urge other men (be it Trump or Farage, or even Jeremy Clarkson lol) to take up the mantle of Caesar. Yet they then still want to be able to tell this Caesar what to do, and get annoyed when he doesn't do exactly as they say.

It's like watching a domineering woman push a reluctant husband to apply for a promotion. Hyacinth Bucket telling Richard to be more assertive. Or some evil, potion-wielding sorceress advising a weak prince to usurp his brother.

There's not a Caesar in sight here. It's all very feminine and quite the opposite. If there ever was all these wife-like big mouths (including myself) would be up against a wall.

Anyway, we'll see how much this trend persists.

Mermaids and General Elections

Where are we? Who are we? Why are we here? Where are we going?

I've been trying to reorientate myself. To tip the scales back towards the earth a little. To put the genie back in the bottle somewhat. You may remember I was lovesick ..say it quietly. Having a few sleepless nights. Woman. Creeping into my thoughts like tangled vines. Every spare minute of thought instantly overgrown with her presence. Even times when I should be focused, distracted by her pull. Just when I think I've escaped, pulled back by some reminder: an image; a likeness; other people in love; the merest mention of sex; or babies; or families. Even the vaguest of resemblances - someone has the same hair colour, or wears the same coat. Curse my jealous bones.

I think I'm over the worst of it though. So I think it's time I started dedicating at least 50% of my mental space to other things. I used to lie awake at night thinking about politics, or science, or God. It was so much easier. The male domain. Then I strayed into the waters of the moon goddess. I was out of my depth.

Anyway, that aside, let's get on to UK politics 😅

The latest thing is the petition for a General Election, which has now reached two million signatures. Obviously, I think it's silly. Firstly, it's just a non-starter. Labour have a whopping majority, so no amount of crying will bring about one. Secondly, it once again surrenders the high ground. Now all the leftists and remainers, that spent years pushing similar petitions, can just point out the hypocrisy. It's an easy win, and just makes everyone involved look unserious. I can't help but note how directionless everything has become since I've been away with the mermaids. Perhaps I really do need to get back to Twitter and start annoying people again.

To be fair, I think the larger push is to put pressure on Keir Starmer. To use this petition more as leverage than as an actual call for an election. Still though, I don't like it. People (normal, everyday people) just want stable government. This constant undermining of British prime ministers is just tiresome. Whatever side of the fence they fall on.

The lack of patience is disappointing. It's a negative that we have five years of a globalist Labour government, but you have to accept the reality and look to the positive opportunity. You have plenty of time to build a really solid alternative. You can ditch the day-to-day politics and focus on grander things. You can sit back and calmly criticise the government without the need to be hysterical or headline grabbing. You have time to win people over. To present yourself as a solid alternative.

I've seen people on the right recently criticising Nigel Farage for not being more vocal and fervent. That he wasn't fully throwing his weight behind the farmers' protest. Or pushing the Overton window more on issues like deportation. However, he's got plenty of time. He doesn't need to be doing things like that. He just needs to keep his powder dry. Yes, it's bad for the farmers, but the reality is Labour are fully in charge and aren't going anywhere anytime soon. If the protests can influence the government, then great. They're not going to get rid of the government though. So this isn't it. People need to look to the long term.

It's what I always call sleeping on the battlefield. In the unceasing storm of politics there's an art to finding space to snooze. You need sleep. Not just to allow the mind and body to recover, but also to process and contextualise information. To get a good big picture. If you're constantly whipped up by the latest daily headlines you end up rudderless. It's like being in the beam of the moon goddess above. You're completely subsumed by the latest moody look. Weeks of flirty conversation count for nothing against the most recent emotionally-charged moment. Or contrariwise, a single smile or dart of eye contact suddenly has you thinking of marriage and happy-ever-after, after days of cold indifference. You (I) need to step back.

To be a steady rock against the wild and turbulent sea.

(You can tell I've been listening to this type of stuff: The Ultimate Book that Explains the Differences Between Men and Women

The right do have interesting content, for all my criticism. Though I do advise that stuff like Evola be taken with a pinch of salt.)

Selling the Silver

I've just finished a little experiment. I gave my friend a 1oz silver coin to sell on eBay. Just to see what ballpark price you could get without making too much effort. It was a 2024 silver coin from the Royal Mint, with a Morgan le Fay design. Quite nice aesthetically. (Fortunately I have a spare, so I'm not completely severed from the shiny beauty.)

The current spot price of silver is around £24 an ounce.

However, to buy the same coin retail from the Royal Mint it would cost about £40 (this is in the UK, where 20% VAT is applied - without VAT we're looking at around £34).

Anyway, my friend sold the coin for £31 (to a UK buyer) - pretty much slap bang in the middle, and what I would've expected. Obviously, if someone is in the market to buy a coin they're going to be happy to save £10 if they can do so. Providing they feel they can trust the seller.

I think the postage & packaging for the Royal Mint order costs around £4, for this delivery it was around £3. So that was a much of a muchness.

To me, £31 feels like a fair price. The buyer saves a bit of money, the seller gets a sale above the spot price. Naturally, this brings me back to how I disposed of my gold - where I received well under spot price. It stands to reason that it would be similar selling gold on eBay. That there are individual buyers out there looking to get a discount on the retail price, so are happy to pay something in between the spot and the retail. Though, of course, with more expensive purchases trust becomes more of an issue. It's one thing accepting a little bit of risk when buying a £30 silver coin, it's a bit different when it comes to buying a £2000 gold one.

Also, as a final aside, and just to give the full picture: over the six days or so the item was listed on eBay there were two offers. This one for £31 and another person offering £26. So there wasn't a huge flurry of interest. Perhaps we got lucky, perhaps we were unlucky and could've received more offers. As ever, one swallow does not a summer make. Added to this, the way you present things on sites like eBay obviously plays a part too. All in all, getting a sale above spot price was pretty quick and easy though.

Why Gold (and Silver) Standards Don't Work: Part III - Human Meddling

A few posts back I noted that, originally, "standards" were just official exchange rates. Here I want to quickly elaborate upon why the real world market gets skewed when humans try to fix these rates.

Let's create a simple example. It's the ancient world and copper is one hundred times more abundant than silver. Making the real world market value of an ounce of copper equal to 1/100th of an ounce of silver.

(I'm just using simple numbers here to make things easier. Also, of course, prices aren't just a reflection of relative scarcity. Usefulness and desirability play a part. If a new invention comes along that requires lots of copper, the market value of copper might go up in relation to silver regardless of abundance.)

Anyway, in this simple example, one ounce of silver is worth about one hundred ounces of copper. Naturally, however, this real world value fluctuates.

So, to simplify the complex world (just as I'm doing here with this simple example), a state - let's say an ancient empire - might set an official rate for the purpose of tax collection or issuing coinage.

They then decree: "One ounce of silver is equal to one hundred ounces of copper."

Now, as long as the real world values don't stray too much from this official statement, things work okay. But once the real world market moves too far things start to break down.

Let's say more copper mines are discovered and more copper floods the market. Lowering the value of copper. Perhaps shifting the real world value from an ounce of silver being equal to approximately one hundred ounces of copper to one ounce of silver equalling approximately one hundred and twenty ounces.

This would then mean that the official decree - the official exchange rate - would need changing to reflect this changing reality. However, doing this is often difficult and unappealing, as it might mean having to change the entire system of coinage.

For example, let's say when the ratio was 1/100, copper coins were minted with this value stated on the actual face of the coins. A one ounce copper coin being labelled as being worth 1/100th an ounce of silver. (Similar to how one hundred pennies are stated to equal a pound, or one hundred cents equal to a dollar).

Originally, when the real world ratio of copper to silver was approximately 1/100, this reflected reality. However, as the value of copper goes down this stops being the case. Now the real world value is 1/120, but the coins are still pegged or labelled as 1/100.

When this happens the copper coins cease to be traded as pieces of actual copper and effectively just become tokens (or IOUs) that happen to be made out of copper. Each coin promising the holder 1/100th an ounce of silver, regardless of the physical value.

So, the state - our ancient empire - is officially stating that one hundred one ounce copper coins can be exchanged for one ounce of silver. Even though, in reality - on the open market - one ounce of silver is actually worth one hundred and twenty ounces of copper. So the state is trying to force a false reality onto the world.

And, as the state has the power to issue currency and force people to pay tax in that currency, people are forced to accept it.

(For the record, this isn't necessarily out of malice, or even greed. It's largely just a consequence of humans trying to impose order on a complicated world. Take the current UK government capping bus fares at £2, for example. Then having to increase this cap to £3. Sooner or later reality catches up, and someone has to pay the real world cost.) 

It's once rates become fixed in this way (i.e. become decoupled from actual reality) that the "standard" becomes a standard as we would think of one today. Where everything is pegged to that one commodity (be it gold or silver), and all coins (or paper notes) made of anything else, just become tokens promising payment in that one commodity.

Meaning you end up with situations where the actual value of the metals in the coins bears little resemblance to the face value. Where everything gets skewed by the "standard." Including the commodity used as the standard itself.

So, money started to break down long before the modern era of fiat currencies and digital/paper dollars. It's been a slow eclipse over centuries. Perhaps millennia.