If Not Now, When? If Not There, Where?

Walking the all hat, no cattle Big Talk Walk

I know you’ve heard it or read it a hundred times over. “They may take over the big cities, they’re already lefty shitholes anyway. But don’t try that in our small town.”

So…you don’t say? Is that so?

What are you going to do if they just bum-bomb your small town with ten or twenty thousand vagrants…er, migrants…er, illegal aliens? Like they just did to Springfield, OH?

It’s just a couple of hours away from my home town of Muncie, IN, east on I-70. Springfield and Muncie used to be, if not twins, at least rhymes. Both 60-70 thousand residents, heavily industrial, good jobs for kids graduating high school and looking to get married, buy a home, and start a family.

Both were devastated when the Steel Belt turned into the Rust Belt.

Muncie was lucky enough to host both a major Hoosier university and a regional medical center, (thanks to a certain fruit-jar family that found the city congenial for its business interests a century and a half ago), and so eked its way through the worst of the collapse without the need to import 20,000 pet-eating Haitians.

20,000? Maybe it’s only ten to fifteen thousand.

GROK says:

Based on various reports and posts on X, the number of Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, has been estimated to be significant. While exact numbers differ, some sources and local officials have cited figures around 12,000 to 20,000 Haitian immigrants have arrived in Springfield in recent years. However, these numbers are approximate, and there's some variation in the estimates:

City officials and local reports have suggested numbers as high as 20,000, which has been frequently mentioned in social media posts and news discussions, indicating a substantial increase in Springfield's population, which was previously around 60,000.

A more conservative estimate from the City of Springfield's own assessments references multiple datasets to estimate an immigrant population (not exclusively Haitian but largely so) to be between 12,000 to 15,000 in Clark County, with a significant portion in Springfield itself.

Either number is enough to completely wreck a midwestern town that Data USA says had a population of 58,000 in 2022.

This sort of thing is, of course, part of a deliberate strategy by the Obama (er, parm me, Biden)/Harris administration to flood red states with illegal aliens of every flavor, in hopes of turning them blue, or at least purple. Even if they don’t vote themselves, their mere presence will affect census and apportionment, and pay off via the electoral college. Or maybe it’s just a matter of Barack Obama encouraging some brothers under the culinary skin to sample the smorgasbord of free delights in small-town Ohio animal style, as the secret menu of In-N-Out Burgers puts it.

But this is not my primary concern with the sorry tale of Springfield, OH.

It is conservative patriots who think that blustering about the Second Amendment and their guns will deter the morons of communism from marching through “their small towns” (don’t try that in…) as thoroughly and destructively as they already have in their Long March Through the Institutions (and human resource departments) of what used to be America.

Noted realist, (some say “Doomer,” but I see that as a distinction without a difference) John Carter takes a poignantly jaundiced view of the likelihood of the legions of rural keyboard warriors suddenly morphing into an effective, (or especially an effectively violent) force capable of defeating Zombie Biden’s air fleets of demon-driven F-16s, or, even more frightening, the multi-colored legions the Hidden Hands have quietly imported from various foreign diversity shithells to provide backup to the strategy of vaccinatory mass slaughter currently seeming to sputter out:

So when the deep state steals the election for its papier-mâché candidate, Trump will probably do what Trump did the last time: put on a good show, make lots of noise, and then swallow his losses and his boundless pride and go back to Mar-A-Lago ... while those of his supporters who are too hot-headed to take the hint, take the hit.

What happens next is hard to say. Again, probably just a continuation, and an acceleration, of the same decay into impoverished single-party totalitarianism that America has already been experiencing.

Maybe the first amendment will finally be destroyed via explicit implementation of hate speech and counter-disinformation laws. But maybe that won’t be necessary, and instead an end-run around the first amendment will be found: some sort treaty with the EU, for example, which forces American social media platforms to abide by European regulations.

Maybe they’ll finally come for everyone’s guns. Oh, sure, that will start the Civil War, you say. Cops going door to door confiscating people’s black rifles will find themselves full of holes. Only that isn’t how it will happen. People will simply be ordered to turn their weapons in; those who do not comply will find their bank accounts frozen. It is very difficult to shoot a frozen bank account. Will people be angry? Sure. Angry enough to start shooting? Who will they shoot? The ATM? The people responsible are inaccessibly distant.

Maybe they’ll naturalize all of the illegals who have flooded in, expanding Democrat voter rolls by tens of millions overnight. They can even have honest elections after that, because the demographic changes will mean that no Republican will ever win an election again ... certainly no anti-immigration Republican.

Maybe they’ll finally push Russia too far, and the Russians will let the nukes fly. Or the Chinese. Or the Iranians. Or all of them. In that case it’s the end. But maybe America’s adversaries, more responsible than Washington’s petulant tyrants, will resist America’s nuclear brinksmanship, while ratcheting up World War III in other ways. In that case there will probably be a draft. The white boys can go die for the regime, and make room for their replacements. That might start a civil war, sure. But not if the guns have been confiscated via bank account freezes. Oh, and if you don’t show up for the draft? That’s also an account freeze, of course.

Leaving aside a strategic weapons exchange, none of those scenarios are worse than Civil War. At least not from a purely economic, material standpoint. Americans will find themselves impoverished and disinherited, second-class citizens in their own countries, reduced to helotry. But they’ll be alive, mostly. And they’ll be better off than they would be with a complete breakdown in public order.

Bleak stuff, eh? Downright depressing. And all based on an entirely rational calculus, one that boils down to the idea that since the Hidden Hands control all the financial levers, they will be able to simply use money - yours, in the form of your savings and your pensions and your government entitlements like social security and Medicare - to compel you to do whatever they wish, no matter how humiliating, self-destructive, yes, even suicidal it might be. Your only alternative would be the societal hell of collapse into civil war.

It’s nothing more than a matter of the Cold Equations of logic and need at work. And if that were all that was in play, he might even be right about all that. My own hunch is that this strategy could be successful with, oh, maybe as much as a third of the potential resistance. Beyond that, though…

Other forces intervene.

Tolstoy could tell you something about such forces. He wrote of them as destroying Napoleon’s version of The Greatest Army In History, saving Russia, and then going on to destroy Napoleon himself. Grok remarks:

Leo Tolstoy's "War and Peace" provides a profound exploration of the philosophy of history and the deterministic view that historical events are shaped by a multitude of factors beyond individual control, including that of even the most powerful figures like Napoleon. Tolstoy's perspective on Napoleon's defeat in Russia can be summarized through several key points:

1. Historical Determinism: Tolstoy argues that historical events are not directed by individual leaders but are the result of an infinite number of causes all intertwined. Napoleon's campaign in Russia, from this viewpoint, was doomed not by his personal decisions alone but by the sheer weight of historical inevitability. Tolstoy diminishes the role of the 'great man' in history, suggesting that Napoleon's actions were merely part of a larger, inevitable flow of events.

2. The Spirit of the People: Tolstoy emphasizes the spirit or the collective will of the Russian people as a force Napoleon could not understand or conquer. The resilience, the scorched-earth tactics, and the guerrilla warfare adopted by the Russians were manifestations of this spirit. This collective action was something Napoleon, with his focus on conventional warfare and personal glory, could not counteract effectively.

3. Nature and Geography: The vastness of Russia and its harsh climate play crucial roles in Tolstoy's narrative. Napoleon's Grande Armée was unprepared for the Russian winter, and the expanse of Russia meant that the deeper Napoleon advanced, the more stretched his supply lines became, which Tolstoy portrays as a natural element contributing to his inevitable defeat.

4. Critique of Military Strategy and Leadership: While Tolstoy does not deny Napoleon's military genius, he critiques the hubris of believing that one can control or predict the outcome of such complex events like war. The decisions made by Napoleon, like the choice to advance to Moscow, are depicted as errors not just of strategy but of understanding the nature of power and control in the face of chaotic, unpredictable human and natural forces.

5. Moral and Spiritual Decline: Tolstoy also explores the moral decline of Napoleon's campaign. As the French army moves deeper into Russia, it faces not only physical but moral disintegration, which Tolstoy sees as reflective of the corrupting nature of war itself. This decline is juxtaposed with the spiritual renewal or awakening of characters like Pierre Bezukhov, suggesting a natural law where hubris leads to downfall.

In "War and Peace," Tolstoy uses Napoleon's Russian campaign to illustrate his belief in the futility of individual ambition against the tide of historical and natural forces. Napoleon's defeat is portrayed not just as a military failure but as an inevitable outcome of his misunderstanding of these forces, emphasizing Tolstoy's broader philosophical argument about free will versus determinism in history.

Or maybe a couple of guys named Strauss and Howe could chime in. Here’s what they forecast for America during the period we are now enduring, though some might protest we are doing so a bit too passively.

Historical Examples of Fourth Turnings

Throughout history, Fourth Turnings have served as pivotal moments of change and renewal. They often coincide with major crises and define the trajectory of nations. One notable example is the Fourth Turning that began with the stock market crash of 1929 and culminated in World War II. This period reshaped the political, economic, and social landscape of the United States.

Similarly, the current Fourth Turning, which began in 2008, has already brought about significant shifts in global affairs. The Global Financial Crisis exposed systemic vulnerabilities and triggered a reevaluation of economic and political structures. The ongoing War on Terror has also reshaped international relationships and prompted debates about national security and civil liberties.

This analysis, written in August of 2023, entirely misses the import of the Russian Bear in the middle of the Ukranian living room, but it does demonstrate another approach to our current travails - that they are the product of historical cycles, cycles as unchanging and predictable as the turning of the seasons:

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:

A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;

These lines from Ecclesiastes, written 2500 or more years ago, and recycled by Pete Seeger and later by The Byrds into one of the great mega-hits of 1960s music,

serve to illustrate the long understanding and acceptance of the notion that what goes around will most likely come around again.

Finally, let us look at Black Swans, one of the more misunderstood and misinterpreted concepts to come out of contemporary probability theory. I generally find it necessary to revert to a primer on the notion, for this very reason.

Nicholas Naseem Taleb first formally propounded it in his 2007 book, The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable, and explains it thusly:

What we call here a Black Swan (and capitalize it) is an event with the following three attributes.

First, it is an outlier, as it lies outside the realm of regular expectations, because nothing in the past can convincingly point to its possibility. Second, it carries an extreme 'impact'. Third, in spite of its outlier status, human nature makes us concoct explanations for its occurrence after the fact, making it explainable and predictable.

I stop and summarize the triplet: rarity, extreme 'impact', and retrospective (though not prospective) predictability. A small number of Black Swans explains almost everything in our world, from the success of ideas and religions, to the dynamics of historical events, to elements of our own personal lives.

Taleb elaborates:

Ever since we left the Pleistocene, some ten millennia ago, the effect of these Black Swans has been increasing. It started accelerating during the industrial revolution, as the world started getting more complicated, while ordinary events, the ones we study and discuss and try to predict from reading the newspapers, have become increasingly inconsequential.

The term “complicated” is my key here: it relates to complexity, and therefore to chaos/complexity theories that eventually bring us all to the same place. Grok explains:

Nassim Nicholas Taleb's Black Swan theory and chaos/complexity theory are interconnected through their focus on unpredictability, the limitations of predictability in systems, and the profound impacts of rare events. Here's how they relate:

Black Swan Theory:

Definition: A Black Swan event is characterized by three attributes:

1. Rarity: It is an outlier, as it lies outside the realm of regular expectations.

2. Extreme Impact: It has an extreme impact when it occurs.

3. Retrospective Predictability: Despite its unpredictability, in hindsight, people tend to concoct explanations making it appear less random and more predictable than it was.

Implications: Taleb uses this theory to discuss the limitations of our forecasting abilities, the fragility of knowledge, and the human tendency to find simplistic explanations for these events after they have occurred.

Chaos Theory:

Definition: Chaos theory studies the behavior of dynamical systems that are highly sensitive to initial conditions, a phenomenon popularly known as the butterfly effect. Small differences in initial conditions yield widely diverging outcomes, rendering long-term prediction impossible in general.

Key Concepts:

• Sensitivity to Initial Conditions: Small changes can lead to dramatically different outcomes.

• Nonlinearity: Systems do not behave in a linear, predictable fashion.

• Complex Patterns: Out of seemingly random states, complex, ordered patterns can emerge.

Complexity Theory:

Definition: Complexity theory or complex systems theory deals with systems that exhibit complex, emergent behavior due to the interaction of their components. These systems can adapt, evolve, or self-organize.

Key Concepts:

• Emergence: The whole system exhibits properties that its parts do not have on their own, which arise from the interactions of these parts.

• Self-Organization: Systems can naturally organize themselves into ordered states without external control.

• Adaptation: Systems can change and learn from experience.

Connections:

• Unpredictability:

  Both Black Swan theory and chaos theory emphasize the limits of predictability. Black Swans are inherently unpredictable due to their nature, much like the final state of a chaotic system can't be predicted long-term.

• Impact of the Improbable:

  Taleb's focus on the significant impact of highly improbable events complements chaos theory's assertion that minor initial differences can lead to vast differences in outcome, suggesting that both small and large-scale events can have unforeseen consequences.

• Nonlinearity and Complexity:

  Black Swan events can be seen as emergent properties of complex systems where interactions between elements are nonlinear. The unpredictability of these events aligns with the behavior of complex systems where outcomes are not proportional to inputs.

• After-the-Fact Rationalization:

  Just as people tend to explain away Black Swans with hindsight bias, in complex and chaotic systems, there's a tendency to oversimplify the causes leading to particular outcomes, ignoring the intricate web of contributing factors.

• Systemic Resilience:

  Both theories advocate for robustness and antifragility (a term Taleb coined). Understanding that systems can be chaotic or lead to Black Swans encourages building systems that can not only withstand shocks but potentially benefit from them.

In essence, Taleb's Black Swan theory can be viewed through the lens of chaos and complexity theory as an application or a specific case where the unpredictability and significant impact of events in complex systems are highlighted. Both perspectives encourage a humility in our ability to predict and control, advocating for systems and strategies that are adaptable and resilient in the face of the unknown.

“A humility in our ability to predict and control…”

Not a lot of that on offer these days. Actually, it has never been much on offer, given that our societies are structured on the notion that leaders can predict, control, and otherwise order our world in such a way as to pretend that they can make good on their promises to make us healthier, wealthier, wiser, and safer than we would otherwise be without their sage talents.

It’s all they’ve got to sell, really, but even so, there is certainly no shortage of eager buyers for their shiny, but vaporous wares. There is a particular sort of human who absolutely requires assurance that their world is in the good hands of…somebody else. By which they mean, anybody else but themselves. For such minds, self-reliance is far too terrifying a way to go through life. After all, if things get screwed up, they’d have only themselves to blame. And they absolutely cannot have that state of affairs prevail.

So, to drag this beast of an essay back to the original matter, is John Carter right? Are we doomed to subservience, even abject tyranny, by our own cowardice and the inevitable progress toward our doom that results from it?

Frankly, we have no idea, and anybody who tells you they do know is peddling the same sort of intellectual vaporware more formal control-freak leaders like professional politicians, experts, and other such snake-oil purveyors have been gaslighting us with for most of human history.

And I haven’t even dragged in the Black Swan that out-blacks all the others: Artificial General Intelligence (AGI). As far as that goes, the vast and rapid advances being currently demonstrated by various Large Language Model Artificial Intelligences may well produce Black Swans equally as impactful as true AGI.

We just don’t know.

In fact, that could be the motto of the human race for all of its history: We just don’t know. And we never have. It may be that we never will.

So what is to be done in the face of uncertainty, complexity, chaos, Black Swans, and the hubris of human nature? Taleb himself has done some thinking on this matter, laid out in extensive detail in his book Antifragile: Things That Gain From Disorder.

Antifragility is a property of systems in which they increase in capability to thrive as a result of stressors, shocks, volatility, noise, mistakes, faults, attacks, or failures.

This is a different concept than resilience, which describes the ability to resist shocks without breaking - up to a point, at least. Resilience allows you to survive shocks. Antifragility says that shocks will make you stronger.

Preppers understand both concepts, even if only on a visceral level. The ancient (circa 200 AD?) parable of the Ant and the Grasshopper plays a significant role in “prepper philosophy,” primarily on the question of the morality of withholding the preparations one has stored up against adversity from those who, for whatever reason, have made no such preparations at all:

The fable concerns a grasshopper (in the original, a cicada) that has spent the summer singing and dancing while the ant (or ants in some versions) worked to store up food for winter. When winter arrives, the grasshopper finds itself dying of hunger and begs the ant for food. However, the ant rebukes its idleness and tells it to dance the winter away now.

First, pursue the Stoics. John Carter provides good service here, since his predictions exemplify one of the main techniques of classical Stoicism, (Seneca, Marcus Aurelius, others) known as Premeditatio Malorum, the premeditation of evils, and he is certainly premeditating a whole basket of evils: American passivity, ignorance, stupidity, cowardice, and all the other forces pushing us - inevitably, he seems to think - into the arms of slavery and tyranny.

He may, or may not be correct, but you would be well-served to give considerable thought to his predictions, if only to help insulate yourself from the paralysis of shock should they turn out to be true.

Bertrand Russel explained the strategy this way:

A process … can be adopted with regard to anxieties.

When some misfortune threatens, consider seriously and deliberately what is the very worst that could possibly happen. Having looked this possible misfortune in the face, give yourself sound reasons for thinking that after all it would be no such very terrible disaster.

Such reasons always exist, since at the worst nothing that happens to oneself has any cosmic importance. When you have looked for some time steadily at the worst possibility and have said to yourself with real conviction, “Well, after all, that would not matter so very much,” you will find that your worry diminishes to a quite extraordinary extent.

It may be necessary to repeat the process a few times, but in the end, if you have shirked nothing in facing the worse possible issue, you will find that your worry disappears altogether and is replaced by a kind of exhilaration.

Console yourself with this: The future cannot be predicted, not, at least, to specifics. This doesn’t mean that you can’t take measures to limit your fragility in the face of the vicissitudes tomorrow may bring, or even set yourself up to grow stronger from the shocks you might have to confront.

In the end, you cannot control the nature of the future, or even the present. You can only control yourself, and how you deal with it all.

Proceed from there.