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The youth have very good reasons to be angry

Well, Hell has just frozen over. The New York Times, a former newspaper, just published an article that barely scratches the surface of the crimes committed against our youth during the Pandemic Project.

The piece focuses on school closures and it leaves much to be desired, as it omits some details (such as the role of teachers’ unions and the systemic disinformation and censorship practiced by “public health”), but, even so, this is the first time when the leftist half (globally, not just in the US) is exposed more thoroughly to what we, in Team Reality, have known and explained since roughly 4 years ago.

And nowhere it is more evident that the leftist half is scared than in the comment section (which I urge you to read in its entirety so you familiarize yourself with the unreason and anti-thinking that permeates the mainstream Left).

Out of touch teacher

The comment section is choke full of limousine liberals and severely out of touch overly-paid bureaucrats – because that’s exactly what public school teachers are.

In every country – from the US, to Brazil, to Germany, to Romania and all the way to Kazakhstan – there’s the discussion that teachers are underpaid. I insist that the opposite is true. Public school teachers are way overpaid compared to the value that they deliver. And, in fact, given what the teachers’ unions did to our youth during the Pandemic Project, lowering their salaries by 50% and then freezing them at that level by decree for the next 20 years would be a good start before we start the discussion about what punishment teachers deserve for the crimes they committed.

But, since that is highly unlikely to happen (except Argentina where it is happening, mashallah!) the next best thing is preferable: The obliteration of public schools. By decree where it’s possible or by death by a thousand cuts where it isn’t possible (school choice initiatives, vouchers, homeschooling, unschooling – all are valuable tools that must be supported to the explicit detriment of public schools).

One self-aware NPC

But one comment in particular drew my attention: This one where the Pandemic Project mythology of “kids are resilient” is regurgitated, followed by a hope that the youth won’t judge them too harshly. My reaction to this is genuine laughter. Because you have to be a leftist to think that a traumatizing experience of senseless and brutal authoritarianism during the formative years will not have consequences over how those kids will eventually end up seeing those older than them.

You see, it’s not just school closures. If anything, in a lot of places, the school closures were indeed a blessing in disguise. But it’s the totality of the Pandemic Project. The mental health and the cognitive future of our youth has been intentionally harmed so that 85 year olds can live for another month or two. THAT, is fundamentally uncivilized. And always ends up badly.

The adults poured sand in skate parks to prevent kids from exercising, jailed or financially ruined young people for the crime of watching the sunset, arrested their parents for the crime of playing catch with them on an open field, when it couldn’t stop them from traveling, the adults intentionally tried to make their traveling worse – such as by banning pillows (yes, really).

And that’s just before I delve into the dystopian shithole that Australia was – a collective madness that made even the Taliban look reasonable by comparison. Australia is the only country except North Korea that refused to let its citizens leave the country. It is also the only country except North Korea in which no pandemic lawsuit was successful in court. Even in communist China some measures were struck down by the courts.

And no, it’s not a metaphor with the Taliban being reasonable. The Taliban gave asylum to an unmarried pregnant New Zealander (straight up haram in their “culture”) when her own country refused to let her come home. New Zealand is the country that arrested people for doing contraband with KFC, in case you have forgotten. And, after driving their youth crazy (in a very medical, psychiatric sense), NZ locked them up for days in a treatment that was considered inhuman even in Ceaușescu’s time.

Of course, I could go on like this for another 100,000 words and I’d still barely scratch the surface. And maybe one day I should. But in the meantime, what I’m trying to point out is that the Pandemic Project had a disproportionately negative impact on the youth. Especially those unfortunate enough to be between ages 7 and 18 during the Pandemic Project.

Given the crimes committed intentionally by adults against them, I can’t blame any young person for having zero respect for “our institutions” (whatever the fuck that means these days) or, really, for adults in general. There is no reason anyone younger than 20 to have ANY respect for any institution or for 2/3 of the adults. At least two thirds of adults enthusiastically or passively supported sacrificing the 12 year olds’ future so that 85 year olds live one or two months extra. There is no rational reason to ever forgive that.

Sure, we can ignore the problem for a while but, if we couple it with the already existent disdain for the elderly, described really well here by our Danish collaborator, the recipe for disaster is already baked in and cooking. Ignore it at your own peril. I have a clear conscience regarding the Pandemic Project. I not only said the right things, but walked the talk too. I’m still doing trips to the courthouse because of that. I regret nothing.

What to do?

A lot more needs to be written about the Evils committed against our youth during the Pandemic Project. And hopefully more will be. But an equally important topic is “and then what?”

Acknowledging the crimes is an important step. One which will be fought every step of the way by the adults at fault – because that’s how human psychology works: Nobody wants to admit he was part of Evil.

Meanwhile, all sorts of nefarious interests will, for sure, try to take advantage of the situation to further radicalize the youth in their preferred direction. In fact, this is already happening. I remember in 2020 when I was told by a “conservative” that I’m heartless because I was already working on the necessary deradicalization tools in post-pandemic and, yes, with an unapologetic bent towards my preferred policy outcomes.

But at least I’m honest about it. I make no secret that I want the youth to value freedom, much lower taxes and accountability and I want the youth to virulently despise “public health” in its totality, nearly all government bureaucrats and to presume that the experts are intentionally lying to them as a matter of routine and demand extraordinary evidence for absolutely everything an expert claims.

Other interests are less transparent about this. China for instance feeds our youth transgenderist propaganda through TikTok while it feeds its youth wholesome educational videos on DIY, relationships, healthy ways to have fun and so on. Russia uses the very real resentment over the Pandemic Project to demoralize the non-russian youth. And the response from our elites is essentially retarded.

You wonder why so many youngsters fall for russian disinformation? Well, check the mirror first. You might be at fault for it. When you call(ed) opposition to mask mandates “russian propaganda” – guess what? You just legitimized russian propaganda. This is also the work of the “wise” and oh-so-enlightened adults whom the youth, once again, is absolutely correct to disrespect.

I don’t purport to have all the answers, or even most of them. But here’s what I know: If we don’t make amends, and fast, things will get far worse.

Because while the youth have very good reasons to be angry at the world, the responses they come up with aren’t equally good.

If you are part of the 1/3 of adults who did not support the committing of Evil against the youth so that 85 year olds live a bit more, you have a duty to help with making amends.

In civilization, the old sacrifice for the youth, not the other way around.

The pushers of the Pandemic Project in the west loved to quote Japan as an example to follow. Well,… in Japan there was no mask or vaccine mandate, no lockdowns and, by the way, in Japan it is indeed customary for the old to take one for the team. Old and skilled people marched to almost certain death in 2011 to clean up the area after the Fukushima disaster – explicitly citing that it would be immoral for any more young people to be put at risk.

You are not asked to risk radiation poisoning for the youth. You are asked to do your duty to the next generation. Mentor a young person (preferably a man) in your profession. If a choice is between a young guy hurt by the Pandemic Project over a Covid Karen – always fire or purposefully disadvantage the Covid Karen in favor of the young guy. It is only moral to punish the guilty in all possible ways.

Other things you should do:

  • Talk to them. Seriously! You have no idea how lonely our youth have become. Sure, some countries are far worse than others – but the problem has gotten far worse everywhere (except Sweden) in the last 4 years.
  • Listen to them. Listen to their anger. And then judge it. Non-judgmentalism ideology has also weakened our youth. Judging it gently is what allows for growth and preparation for the real world.
  • Promote or invest in normal activities, preferably outdoors. I’m actively looking for an opportunity myself. We must bring back summer camps where they were allowed to fade away or have been shutdown by adults.
  • Speak up when the opportunity presents itself. I’m due for a meeting this week with an alderman over a youth project. He saw my virulent rationales and agrees that he and his equally old boomers have been too out of touch. Maybe nothing will come out of it. But you won’t know until you try.

This is the bare minimum you owe. First to your child(ren) and then to other youth.

Or… you can do nothing. That’s also fine. But don’t complain 10 years from now, please.

Two years ago a German teenager killed an old lady in Mediaș. He was sentenced to 14 years imprisonment a few months ago but there’s still strong resistance to discussing the motive. And that’s because the killer had been radicalized online (the real kind, not the bullshit sold by the corporate media) – a phenomenon that surged starting with 2020.

Don’t worry – you will see a lot more of these in the coming years. Coupled with random “unexplainable” suicides too. And, in larger countries, new serial killers as well. Because that’s the consequence of mass Evil committed against the youth.

But hey, what do I know? 🤷🏻‍♂️ I’m just a guy on a sofa that got roughly 90% of the predictions right on the Pandemic Project. I’m not an expert. Which is a good thing.

That’s it for now.

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There will be regulations on smartphones. But how?

The Florida House just passed a bill with bipartisan support that purports to ban social media use for teenagers under the age of 16. A bit over a month ago the Swedish government called for a review of school policies with a view to make school grounds mobile-free, and further changes in policy to “emphasize the real world” are in the bag as well during the coalition talks. In Spain, three regions have already banned all mobile phone usage in schools and there is increasing push to make the ban nationwide and even tighter. Just yesterday, the State School Council in Spain published its first proposal draft in public consultation.

France has banned mobile phones in schools 5 years ago and a week ago president Emmanuel Macron announced a strategic guidance to his government to come up with a policy to “take back control” of youth screen use.

Now, sure, all of the above-cited policies have various issues – from legality, enforcement or morality. But one thing is certain: The notion of regulating smartphones is no longer a fantasy – but a growing trend. So the debate is no longer whether smartphone use should be regulated, but rather how should this be done in such a way that doesn’t violate fundamental rights but at the same time addresses the issues that arose from excessive smartphone usage.

The issues

Jonathan Haidt, who is hardly a right-wing reactionary bigot, wrote in 2021 about the smartphone trap.

In a paper we just published in The Journal of Adolescence, we report that in 36 out of 37 countries, loneliness at school has increased since 2012. We grouped the 37 countries into four geographic and cultural regions, and we found the same pattern in all regions: Teenage loneliness was relatively stable between 2000 and 2012, with fewer than 18 percent reporting high levels of loneliness. But in the six years after 2012, rates increased dramatically. They roughly doubled in Europe, Latin America and the English-speaking countries, and rose by about 50 percent in the East Asian countries.

From 2012 onwards, and especially after 2015 (when smartphones became very cheap), mental health issues skyrocketed among teenagers in ways not seen in two or even three decades prior to the advent of smartphones.

The biggest issue is attention span. Nobody today denies that attention span in social media addicted societies has visibly decreased. Between 2000 and 2015, the median attention spans of Americans shrank by a whopping 25%. In 2000, the median attention span was 12 seconds. Fifteen years later, it’s shrunk significantly to 8.25 seconds. That’s less than goldfish, whose attention span runs for 9 full seconds.

Then there’s the bullying issue. I personally have very little sympathy in that department but, nevertheless, since this is a political issue, the rules of politics and propaganda apply, rather than reason. And in propaganda, perception is reality. Cyberbullying may or may not be a big issue but, if enough people believe it is, then it is an issue.

And then there are the sex-based effects. Both boys and girls are affected by social media use – it’s just that they’re affected differently and at different moments in their development. Puberty is a very hard period for nearly all teens. Social media use makes that far worse.

Instagram had particularly strong effects on girls and young women, inviting them to “compare and despair” as they scrolled through posts from friends and strangers showing faces, bodies and lives that had been edited and re-edited until many were closer to perfection than to reality.

On boys, the effects on self esteem are similar to those felt by girls for similar reasons: the building of an unrealistic image of others. What’s different is the age. Boys are negatively affected by social media after the age of 14, while girls are affected from the ages of 11-12. One main difference is that boys overcome it harder, later and slower than girls. To make things worse, not only the issue is rarely being studied (money from Samsung and Apple make sure this stays under-studied), but when it is studied, the specific impact on boys is ignored due to generalized gynocentrism in the Academia. But that’s a story for another day.

Then there’s the issue of social media being a black box. X/Twitter published its recommendation algorithm. A step in the right direction but far from good enough.

We still have no idea what (and why) is recommended by Meta products and by TikTok. Experiments show that using a Chinese IP address will yield a very different type of recommendations than using an American address. There is increased awareness that TikTok is essentially the CCP’s spyware program.

But all of this ignores the obvious issue: Smartphones themselves. It would be easier to manage all of these without or with less smartphone usage.

”Oh, but I can’t” is the language of addicts. Which is also coopted by vested interests and, of course, naive people with limited imagination.

What vested interests? The smartphone global market was over half a trillion dollars in 2021 and poised to grow to almost one trillion dollars ($947 billion) by 2030. That’s a lot of money. The mobile app market was another $230 billion in 2023. And that’s before including video games for smartphones which is another $140 billion. That’s a lot of money. The GDP of Switzerland is slightly smaller than the current market worth of the smartphone and smartphone-dependent industries. The GDP of oil-rich Norway plus Sweden combined will soon be (if they aren’t already) smaller than the vested interests in smartphones.

So the opposition will be fierce and very well funded. Not to mention the limitless armies of social media zombies who will gladly be the useful idiots of Big Tech like all good junkies. And this is why I think the regulation has to be better thought-out.

Schools are a no-brainer

Long lauded as the most progressive country in the world because of its embrace of digitalization, Sweden is also the first to openly say that it’s been a disaster. Swedish kids can’t write anymore. So the Education Ministry is slowly phasing out tablets and all other digital assets from the classroom. Who knew? Those backward peasants of the past had a point. Education works best on paper, they say. The Karolinska Institute goes even further and asserts what we’ve been telling you on the Sofa for years: Digital tools impair rather than enhance student learning.

Seven years ago the Dutch have noticed that about a third of primary school kids had severe difficulties in learning to write. Some have placed this on the fact that there are more and more kids in Dutch schools with a migrant background. But the figure is much higher than the proportion of kids with a migrant background. It’s not just immigrants. It’s quite a lot of kids who are, for all intends and purposes, illiterate.

As it turns out, knowing how to use TikTok isn’t really digital skills even though that’s exactly what the progressive boomers who introduced digital tools in schools sincerely believed. And, as usual for boomers, they were wrong.

In practicality, the easiest way to get a majority to support a restrictive policy is to phrase it like this: No devices that can connect to the Internet are permissible on school grounds. Yes to dumbphones, no to smartphones.

It’s imperfect, but it’s a step ahead. And, in fact, it’s merely a return to the status quo of 2010 – when a majority of students had a dumbphone.

Smartphone-free spaces

There is increased demand for them anyway, as more and more are starting to realize the danger and the trade-offs, but there is still not enough courage to start promoting it openly.

Just like there are places that have a dress code, there can and should be places that don’t allow smartphone usage at all. Preferably with a jammer installed too.

There is such thing as a “digital Sabbath” which, quite frankly, should be encouraged but, in my estimation, it’s a low-return practice.

Much more interesting is the sudden and spectacular rise in nearly every country of the so-called “unplugged summer camps” for children and adults. Some are organized by NGOs, but a lot of them are organized by for-profit corporations. Nothing wrong with that, mind you. But they sure need more promotion.

And this is where the State can have a say: If a road trip with schoolchildren is organized using school resources even partially, then it is only approved if it’s a smartphone-free environment. This isn’t hard to implement and would run into very little opposition. Basically, treat smartphones like alcohol. There is a drinking age that usually is lower than 18 – but school premises have to be 100% dry. Well, same logic can and should apply to smartphones too: while smartphones aren’t (yet) forbidden to minors, that doesn’t mean they can be or should be used anywhere.

Regulation at the point of sale

Most countries don’t allow the sale of alcohol or antipsychotics to minors. Or they do, but only in special cases and with various controls. Why exactly shouldn’t smartphones be treated the same?

At the end of the day, and the evidence is increasingly clear on that, smartphones are a tool of mass psychosis. Its side effects on minors through extended use are very similar to the use of various psychotropics. As such, there is an argument to be made that they should be treated similarly.

While the argument is very difficult to make when it comes to adults (and I’m not even sure it’s worth trying), it is in fact very easy to make and implement when it comes to minors.

You have to prove you’re 18 to buy a gun, buy a bottle of vodka, a pack of cigarettes (even 21 in some places) or to check into a hotel. But for some reason we’re supposed to believe this can’t be done with smartphones? Gimme a break!

Yes, such a regulation is imperfect (like all regulations) and there are workarounds, granted. However, it sets a different tone of conversations in the family. It sends the message that the expectation is children don’t use smartphones at all.

Currently, too many parents aware of the negative effects are put in the situation of actively fighting to opt out of the de facto mandatory smartphone for their children. Such a regulation would move the focus once again where it’s natural: You have to purposefully choose to opt-in and physically show up with your kid to get him one.

Just like a gun purchased online isn’t directly shipped to you, the same can be done for smartphones. An adult has to show up in person to pick it up. This isn’t hard. And whoever tells you otherwise is either an addict himself or acting on behalf of the aforementioned vested interests.

Right to log off

Belgium, France and Kenya so far have already enacted legislation (France did so 8 years ago!) that explicitly states the right of employees to go fully offline outside of their work.

There’s a EU Parliament resolution on that too from 2021, though it will probably go nowhere for reasons that are worth discussing some other day. Still, the idea behind it is sound, albeit poorly articulated in some places.

The fact is that so many people feel pressured to always be online. Whether the pressure is real or not is another discussion. In many cases it is real. And few people are like yours truly to have rudeness necessary to answer with “go fuck yourself, I ain’t your personal ChatGPT” to angry e-mails or messages complaining that it’s been over 24 hours since they wrote to me and I haven’t replied. Most people want to be nice. And they strive to be nice until they drive themselves crazy. And when they snap, everyone pretends to be shocked and insists they have no idea how this could’ve happened.

Such legislation should not apply just in work relations, but more generally. Just like the anti-censorship legislation in many jurisdictions which punishes attempts to censor someone else in public, the right to log off could be framed similarly: with punishments for those who pressure others into usage of digital tools.

You may think that what I just wrote is fantasy, but it’s already happening. Sweden and Ireland are getting ready to punish stores that refuse cash. “Digital exclusion” is increasingly discussed in the circles of power as a crime in and of itself.

Now, of course, this will be a difficult argument to make because the tech grifts are going to fight this tooth and nail (like they did in France). Why? Because “digital transformation” is in itself an $800+ billion grift. A lot of that money already goes on propaganda to convince people and businesses to surrender their privacy and mental health to tech grifters who promise to make our lives more convenient.

Of course, the fact that they absolutely don’t make our lives better is immaterial. With enough propaganda you can convince tens of millions of people to act against their best interests. Take self-check-out for instance. It’s an abject failure. Who pays for that failure? YOU, my dear reader. Where do you think those stores will recoup their investment from?

The tech grifters got their money and moved on to the next “digital transformation” grift.

This is the extent to which “the right to log off” should ideally go: Codify into law the assumption that digitalization is bad and move the onus on the proponent to prove otherwise. Again, this will be hard to achieve because those hundreds of billions spent on propaganda will be used to fight tooth and nail any measure that protects regular people against the predatory practices of Big Tech.

Miscellaneous policy changes

Just like uber-digitalized Sweden was able to roll back the “progress” (and continues to do so), it stands to reason that this is possible elsewhere as well. Special interests be damned.

There are many ridiculous policies in so many countries that de facto force people to have a smartphone. Under the umbrella of “combating digital exclusion” – a lot of those policies can be abolished or amended.

I’m still upset I didn’t get to test this in court during the pandemic project when the Romanian government was stupid enough to try to impose the so-called “passenger location form” which could’ve only be filled in electronically. You see, because Ceaușescu didn’t let us travel, traveling now is an unalienable right in our Constitution. I would’ve loved to take the case to the Constitutional Court. Unfortunately, someone else was smart enough to advise the government to abolish that ASAP. And so they did before I needed to travel abroad and get the chance to violate that policy and then challenge it in court.

But oftentimes it doesn’t require complicated challenges in court. Oftentimes it requires very basic discussions. Like, for instance, when cities remove the option to pay for public transport in cash. At any hint of pushback, the vast majority of such measures are thrown away. I have a long list of cities where this happened.

What’s important when lobbying against such policies or for various normal-friendly amendments is to avoid coming off entirely against technology. Not only is that politically dangerous, but you also lose allies. A good chunk of smartphone addicts are victims as well and they’re not in favor of digital exclusion necessarily.

A change of attitude and lead by example

The most meaningful and impactful change, however, will be brought by regular people and private businesses with enough cojones.

Every year I, personally, convince two people to either ditch their smartphones entirely or to reduce their usage to less than a tenth of their previous habits. How do I do that? By simply existing.

This is me, more or less unironically

You see, given that I made (and still make, to a certain extent) my living in data centers and other tech-related activities, I’m fully aware of the limitations of technology. And especially about how brutally unsafe your data really is. Once you explain that to people, free of the self-interested shilling that nearly all techbros practice (oftentimes without even realizing it), a lot of people start thinking. It becomes even easier if you’re able to explain that in proper language rather than using wooden language rife with jargon that no reasonable human being will ever learn.

But this is hard. Most of those who oppose the over-extension of technology into our lives do so under an impulse. They sense that something’s really wrong, but have little idea on how to describe it, let alone to explain it or propose meaningful change. This aspect is mercilessly exploited by both Big Tech and tech grifters, aided by the hordes of zombie addicts who feel personally attacked when you start discussing their habits in the proper negative light.

Nearly all of those who peddle techno-optimistic baloney online and offline do so not out of a sincere belief in technology, but out of personal financial interest. And they will fight tooth and nail to defend their grift. First and foremost to prevent YOU from understanding that what they’re doing is not progress, but a grift.

Nevertheless, we must persist. We will not change the world over night, but the world does change one person at a time.

Last week a father contacted me to thank me for mocking his concerns about what would happen if he continues to “fail” to buy his 4th grade(!!!) daughter a smartphone a few years ago. She’s now 16, still doesn’t have one and, as a result, blows her peers out of the water because she possesses the valuable skill of being able to talk to people (something which her generation seriously lacks) and the valuable skill of being able to focus a bit more than 10 seconds on something.

She took an apprenticeship at a carpenter’s store last summer and this summer wants to go to an outdoor camp organized by some church where they’ll learn to cook, set up a tent and things of that nature. She is, in my book, a normal teenager who is experimenting. Unfortunately, by the standards of her generation, she is abnormal and exceptional. Her peers are getting ready for the college scam and later on join the ranks of overly entitled know-nothings. Hopefully she’ll be able to withstand the peer pressure because her path is objectively better.

Instead of conclusions

Unfortunately, we were all too dumb or too lethargic to have this discussion when it would’ve made a bigger difference: say in 2005. Before 2005, smartphones were marketed nearly exclusively to the enterprise market one which, arguably, needs it more. The discussion on whether to allow extending this to the civilian market, and especially to children, would’ve been better suited in 2005. But we didn’t. Because reasons. No point dwelling on the past now.

But this leaves us in a reactive situation. This mess will have to be cleaned up. And the way to do that is under debate.

There is no single answer. There is no single policy, or even package of policies that can be adopted and everything will be fixed. This will be a long and messy process. And, for now, with a lot of trial and error until the discussion reaches pleb level. And it will take a while because bypassing Big Tech’s wall of censorship isn’t cheap or easy. It’s doable, but don’t expect huge leaps so early on in the game.

But the first, and arguably the most important step, is this: The discussion should no longer be accepted under the terms of “should smartphones be regulated”. Reject the very notion. That debate is over. It is clear that smartphones (and the wide Big Tech grift) must necessarily be regulated. The debate is now how should that be done in such a way that has the least amount of trade-offs. It’s not an easy balance. And all sides will make mistakes for sure. But that is the legitimate debate.

Or, alternatively, you can do nothing and guarantee a generation of zombies who will, for sure, make life far worse for nearly everyone else. In fact, such a scenario would be explicitly in my own financial interest, even though I’d hate its toll on my mental health 🤷🏻‍♂️

That’s it, for now.

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Who cares who won the Iowa caucuses?

Americans have an obsession with symbolic dates. It’s part of being a young nation. They’ll get over it, eventually. But until that happens (and it won’t happen this century), the Iowa Republican caucuses are a symbol: it’s the official date that marks the start of the election season.

It’s not even an old tradition. It dates as far back into pre-history as… 1996. Prior to 1996, there were other states and other primaries (and not always Republican) that would hold the first primary election. In fact, prior to 1972, the whole primary process wasn’t heavily publicized and it involved a lot more basic politicking than now – like having ‘favorite sons’ – which meant State politicians running only in their home state so they can slate their own delegates and act as kingmakers at the Convention.

Somehow, however, it got into the minds of political observers in the US and abroad (!) that the Iowa caucuses are not only significant (they’re not – they decide 1.6% of overall delegates), but that they’re somehow a bellwether. That somehow the candidate that wins the Iowa caucuses takes a relevant lead in the overall competition. There’s just one problem: It’s not true.

Statistically, the winner of the Iowa caucus on the Republican side became the nominee in 43% of the cases since the introduction of this system in 1972. Since the Republican Iowa caucuses became the symbol (de jure in 1992, de facto in 1996), the record is even more stark. Here’s the winner of the Iowa Republican Caucus since this contest became a symbol:

  • 1992: Caucus cancelled ❌
  • 1996: Bob Dole ✅
  • 2000: George W. Bush ✅
  • 2004: Caucus cancelled ❌
  • 2008: Ron Paul ❌
  • 2012: Mike Huckabee ❌
  • 2016: Ted Cruz ❌

In other words, it’s been nearly a quarter of a century since these have predicted the nominee and even when they did predict the nominee, it was far from clear at the time that that would be the case. George W. Bush barely beat Steve Forbes in a 5-way race getting 10 delegates out of the 25. And Bob Dole got only 3% more than arch-conservative Pat Buchanan.

As we write these lines, the Iowa Republican Caucus hasn’t even begun and that’s exactly the point: At the end of them we’ll all still be none the wiser on how the primary contest on the GOP side will turn out.

But one thing is certain: After the Super Tuesday or so, there will be at least two, if not three groups of influencers, commentators and other social media personalities that we will all be able to poke fun at.

And while we completely understand those who work in one of the campaigns – and the Sofa salutes all of its political operative friends currently campaigning – we have less understanding for people who aren’t paid by any of the campaigns and yet they approach this issue with so much vigor and so little wisdom. Similarly, while we understand those who placed a bet, we also feel that one’s personal financial interest should be kept separate from evaluating the relevant data (or, in this case, lack thereof).

Over the last 6 months, our mailbox was consistently bombarded with messages about the GOP contest and pressure to predict things, only to then “disappoint” by repeating this: It’s too early. We’ll see what happens.

In other words: No, you have no idea who will be the nominee, anymore than anyone else. Sure, you can pick “team” and stick with it and be lucky. But that doesn’t make you an expert.

The 2024 election season on the GOP side resembles the 2008 and 2012. An old establishment (like it or not, Trump is the GOP establishment now) challenged by relatively low-energy contenders. The only thing special is that there’s two Indians in the race – Nimarata Randhawa (aka Nikki Haley) and Vivek Ramaswamy, whose policies are great, but whose name not even his supporters can spell correctly in one fell swoop.

Democrats aren’t any better. Their top contender is also an establishmentarian octogenarian who is not liked anymore even by his party. And a presumed VP, Kamala Harris, who in 2020 got 1% among the Democrats in California.

The 2024 election season in the US is not, and will not be energetic and exciting like the 2008, 2012 and 2016. There’s no-one to drive energy. There’s no contemporary Obama, or Ros Perot, or even a Ron Paul for entertainment. The crazy ticket (RFK Jr.) went independent, Trump of 2024 is boring and unhinged and Biden’s primary challengers raise no reaction. So unless the Democrats decide to pull a surprise (like voting for Dean Philips en masse on March 5),… there is no hope for anything fun.

In addition to Trump and Biden, there’s also Marianne Williamson (D-MN) and Asa Hutchinson (R-AR) in the primaries who are over the age 70. RFK Jr’s 70th birthday is tomorrow, January 17. Out of the 9 candidates in total (3 Democrats, 5 Republicans and one Independent), five of them are aged 70 or older. Did we mention there’s too many old people?

In a competition dominated by old or very old people, of which the presumed top favorites (Biden and Trump) are in increasingly poor health… expecting some excitement is misplaced. Especially before Super Tuesday (which is on March 5, for those who don’t follow American politics that closely).

So the good word from the Sofa is this: Unless you’re a member of one of the campaigns, don’t waste your time with the mudslinging until after the Super Tuesday (assuming it’ll still be worth it by that time).

Oh, and don’t waste your time with the polls either. In late December 2007, all of the “credible” polls maintained a large double-digit advantage for Hillary Clinton to be the next POTUS. Poor Hillary 😂

But no, seriously: Anyone who tells you that he knows now how things will turn out is either crazy, a grifter, or works with that campaign. It’s way too early to even make an educated guess, let alone a sound prediction. And the result of the Iowa Caucuses won’t change that. The Super Tuesday might. Unless we’re headed towards a b0rked Convention. Now THAT would be exciting.

Make of that what you will.

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New year’s changes

As announced on Youtube in the first day of 2024, every year between Christmas and into January we take a hard look on how we do things here at Sofa HQ and try to improve when and where it is possible, incrementally, with a view to avoid rocking the boat too much but to also make our work better.

Last year we announced multiple technical changes. Some of them panned out, some not so much. Those that worked are now being built upon while those that didn’t will be shelved and maybe tried again several years from now, at best.

This year’s changes are more in the realm of procedure rather than technical. A procedure is an official and/or established way of doing things. For many things that we do we continue to hold no procedure. This allows for fast adaptability (or agility as the corpo lingo these days calls it). However, as anticipated in years prior, some things can no longer be done without a procedure. Or they can be done but at an increasingly unsustainable cost.

So… without further ado…

Services.freedomalternative.com

The most important change comes by opening up (partially) our secondary server. Throughout 2023 we tested it for various tasks and modified a free version of a ticketing system to suit the needs of our operation.

In 2024 we are opening it up to the public. We don’t know what form it will take after public testing. Maybe excessive abuse will force us to revise this procedure to introduce a log in. Or maybe not.

Still, regardless of how it will evolve, most announcements will no longer be on this website but there. As a virtual “sticky note”. Still public, but not boosted. Only for those interested.

All announcements, including this one next year, will be there. The threshold for “major announcement” that warrants presence here will be raised very high.

No more DMs. Open a ticket!

The year 2023 saw a 200% rise in DMs (mainly on Telegram) on our staff compared to 2022. And in 2020-22 the number of DMS increased by further 300% compared to 2019. This is unsustainable and distracts us from our mission. Not only it has become impossible to reply to everyone, but even attempting to reply to half of the messages is a drain on mental resources. Not to mention that a significant proportion of the messages are repetitive.

As such, throughout 2024 we will work to answer to as few of them as possible and instead direct you to read the FAQ and fix your problems alone. And if that still doesn’t work, then you will be encouraged to open a ticket and wait. The response time will be increased to 72 hours at first and then increased even more.

With the exception of the Donors’ Circle, our DMs should be presumed closed. All tags on Telegram will also be unceremoniously ignored. The three people working closely on this have 400 unread messages or more every day. This cannot go on and will not go on.

Anyone who doesn’t follow the procedure will see his/her request ignored. All tickets whose answer is already available in the FAQ will be instantly closed with prejudice. Same goes with tickets with incomplete information or who don’t follow procedure.

While we understand that some of you prefer e-mail, some of you prefer Telegram, some of you prefer this or that… we are few and you are many. And we’d rather use the time to do the work that we have to do, rather than run around in circles for your messages.

The transition will be slow, but firm. Speaking of which…

FAQ page

The FAQ page right now only contains the really frequently asked questions. The ones that eat 50% or more of our overall time with communications.

In time we will add new questions that tend to be repeated. The objective is to decrease the amount of time spent with communications by at least 90% outside of the Donors’ Circle. While this may sound radical, it is simply a return to the 2019 policy but adapted for the current realities. In 2019 we’d prioritize messages differently but the outcome was quite similar to the objective pursued now.

2024 is already a very busy year. We know we won’t have time for communications. So the next best thing is to equip y’all with the tools to no longer need that much communication. Of course, we mean electronic communication, not in person coffee ☕ . That remains as holy as it has always been.

New wishlist

The old wishlist was, at least in spirit, fulfilled. Also, some of its elements were already pasée. So we came up with a new one – that addresses the production needs in accordance with the current inventory. Please review it and see if you can help.

As always, any funding that doesn’t have an immediate or attached purpose goes towards the inventory, including the Wishlist.

Miscellaneous

Over time we will expand the use of and access to the ticketing system even more – in accordance to our general philosophy of controlling our own data and relying as little as possible on third-party corporations.

Generally, we will continue to strive to avoid contributing cluttering crisis. More than 70% of the people have at least three online accounts that they don’t even remember creating and at least five more that they can no longer access but can’t delete either. Managing online accounts is tedious business and is a drain on people’s mental health. As a result, we will try our best to accommodate those who don’t want more online accounts. This is one of the reason our paywalls are more permissive and have so many side-options.

Of course, this is also because we despise GDPR with a passion and because managing people’s private data is a headache in itself even without the burdensome regulation by the EU.

Speaking of paywalls, we are currently toying with an option to add paywalls to some articles. It is still unclear whether it’s worth the effort. But, should we decide to introduce it, the implementation will resemble the podcast paywall: as wide and as many options as possible and no requirement of signing up with yet another account with this website.

In previous years, we’d dedicate the first three weeks of January for tinkering with the tech and with the procedures. But, this year is busy. So this concludes the bulk of the yearly evaluation. All other minor changes will be announced on Services if need be.

And with that, we’ll get back to the regular work.

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On FAN’s continued resilience

If you had told me on February 24, 2015, when I created the Freedom Alternative channel that almost nine years later I will still be writing scripts for new videos, I would’ve said that it’s likely, though not highly likely.

But if you had told me nearly 9 years ago that I’d be managing a workflow that involves work on 3 continents, a small team, and attendance to high-end meetings that shape the geopolitics of Europe and all of that under the banner of Freedom Alternative Network, I would’ve said you’re being too optimistic.

Make no mistake: I did this before and I was expecting to do it again. It’s just that I didn’t expect to be able to do it again as legit independent. And so soon!

As I’m writing these lines, I’m slowly wrapping up an episode on Kyrgyzstan from Kyrgyzstan in which I present the post-communist history of the country in a way that not even the darling of the Kyrgyz intelligentsia would dare (even though he believes it). Because he would risk being kicked out of the university if he says it like it is.

Nine years ago, being able to do this required the endorsement of a big studio and a certain narrative script had to be followed. Even the more independent-minded studios still expected you to use some tired clichés when presenting. Oh… and time limits. Everything had to fit in a segment.

I remember 11 years ago when one of the few reporters that I can respect even when I disagree with him made a segment on North Korea. A very good one, mind you. But… too short. He then struggled to tell the rest of the story in various other shows in other places, plus a book – The country with a single fat man. Only in the book he was able to go a bit more honest (and that’s because this is Romania. In the PC-driven West of 2013 he would’ve been in hot waters for fat shaming or who knows what else).

The fact that I, a bona fide nobody, can afford to do something like that is an honour, a privilege and a responsibility as well. And for that I have to remain grateful to the donors who keep this whole thing going and evolving in a way that I couldn’t have predicted (which means the enemy couldn’t have predicted either).

Every year around Christmas and the first three weeks of January we take a look around the operation on a technical and procedural level. This means backups, corrections, add of new pages/features, cleanup of things that are no longer necessary, archiving stuff (raw footage over the years means dozens upon dozens of terabytes) and other tinkering under the hood. It is the less pleasant and the less visible but equally necessary kind of work. Without it, not only you wouldn’t be reading these lines, but we would’ve achieved even less overall.

So, ever since I came back from Asia, my allotted time for Freedom Alternative time has been divided between making new videos and tinkering in the background alongside a few other people in order to fulfill even more of the wishes expressed in last year’s article on resilience.

A full announcement will be published when the period allotted for this will be over later on this month but, if you want a sneak peak, check out the Services server. It is not yet fully ready for public consumption but that’s the place where (most of) these writings will be moved going forward. It remains to be seen how the final form and procedure will look like.

At this point, even if I trusted someone enough to be my communications manager (and I might have to find such a person this year), the communications overall are overwhelming. There’s no way I can manage all of that without either going insane or start ignoring people I shouldn’t or waste time on and with people I should be ignoring. There is no solution, of course – but one acceptable trade-off is profesionalization via procedures and layers.

And that’s what the partial opening up of the internal system is for. Since I can’t convince everyone of consequence to be in the relevant Telegram group(s), then what I can do is have everyone submit communications on the same URL. How to do that without spam and how to mitigate other risks is still under testing. But one thing is certain: In order to have a fruitful 2024 and beyond, direct communication between yours truly and most people reading this will have to be winded down.

So, through a combination of a FAQ page, ticketing system and, hopefully soon enough, delegation of most of the answers… next time I reset passwords on the paywalled content, I will have to answer fewer e-mails and even fewer Telegram messages. Same with requests: I will shamelessly ignore any request that is not in the Internal System™. There will be complaints and I will try to mitigate the most reasonable ones but, overall, this has to be done. The alternative is worse. Manually managing 6 categories of contacts is no longer feasible.

Also soon enough I will add paywalled articles as well. They will look something like this. But, again, needs more testing. Especially considering that I have no intention on collecting data (by making any of you create accounts) because that’d be another headache for me and for y’all. So a method of a relatively universal credential will have to be found. I don’t know yet how that will happen, but it will. Eventually.

So, yeah, that’s basically what’s been going on in the early days of 2024. Oh, and I’m also researching for the Latin American tour. And scheduling payments and soooo… much more. No pressure 😂

And with that said, see y’all soon. I got some pages to fix, create, link and synchronize.

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For the upcoming month

The time has come for the South-East Asia Communism Tour. In fact, when you’re reading this I’m already in a train somewhere between in Hungary trying to reach Budapest. Since I devised the plan for this, MÁV Start decided to become worse. But that won’t be enough to change the plans fundamentally.

Every time I do these trips, there’s trade-offs associated. Should I spend limited time editing and attempting to upload videos on the fly or is it better to hoard as much footage as humanly possible and then slowly deliver them upon return? There are arguments in favor of both practices and usually some balance between them is preferable.

This time around, however, the choice has been made for me: The Internet connection in both countries is far from ideal, the roaming fees are straight-up criminal and the local networks aren’t to be trusted with sensitive data, due to the proximity to the CCP. As such, we’ll go with the auto-pilot option for the channel and minimal communications.

Upcoming videos on the English language channel. All times of publishing are 1PM Romania time.

Tomorrow, the first episode from the new season of Beciul Propagandei comes up. The first three episodes (as well as episodes 15 and 16) of the new season are in English. After that, comes a new episode from the Central Asia Featured Series which, unfortunately, couldn’t get to finish in the original timeline. One of the reasons is explained exactly in that episode. Though, again, slower release is not tragedy.

Ce urmează pe canalul în română. Publicarea la ora 13:00

Similarly, on the Romanian channel I have scheduled content for publication. This Sunday the podcast slot will be replaced by a video on a political scandal that adds new information that the press forgot to mention, and then, in due order, episodes 4, 5 and 6 from Beciul Propagandei will be coming weekly every Thursday.

Ways of contact

Nearly all of the senior staff is busy in the next 70 days or so, therefore contact will be limited. Certainly no Telegram (I mean, you can try, but no answer will be default).

Even so, I have dedicated a ticket for periodical internal announcements and emergency comms. If my direct attention will be required and can’t be postponed, the internal IRC server is also an option.

Anything that can wait, should be forwarded via e-mail or the Contact page.

So, with that, hopefully, see y’all in a month.

Let’s explore!

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The oldest camera died

During the 207th episode of the Romanian-language podcast, right after switching to paywall-only content, I have announced the death of the “background” camera. It is the same background camera we used during the World Sofa Report series and the first episodes of Occasional Podcast. It’s also the same camera with which I did the 2016 Ukrainian tour and the 2017 Sweden tour. It also accompanied me in 2018 during the Albania and Israel-Jordan tours as secondary camera, before retiring it to studio-only.

Since then, it served as front-camera for nearly all of the Sofa videos from 2018 till 2023.

In short: This camera worked a lot. And its impending demise is, in a way, an emotional moment.

Background

I bought it from the first large donation in January 2016 (7 months after the début of the English language channel) and it replaced the webcams used in the early days.

I said in the podcast that it cost $1000. To be more precise, it was $860 but once adding the first semi-pro tripod, backup batteries and other accessories, the final cost was indeed around $1000 – a big price for today’s standard some would say, but just slightly above average for those times and also in line with my practice since 2003 when I started working with video: Buy more expensive and more durable because you’re too poor to afford cheap stuff.

In principle, this camera lived its days. Even today this model is quoted by Sony RO for 1400 lei (~$300), even though it’s a camera launched in 2015 and considered rather pasée for the current year. The reason is simple: It’s a resilient device, built not to impress, but to last.

In the time that passed since the videotaping, I took a closer look at it. The defects are multiple and systemic: mechanical (the card reader and the mechanism that moves the lenses), software-related (I already edited its software three times in order prolong its life; I’ll try it for the 4th time but I’m not optimistic), and processor-wise (even when the software and the mechanics don’t fail, the electronic command is delayed causing the whole ensemble to freeze and only hard reset unfreezes it).

With this in mind, now that I know its new(er) defects, I am confident that I can suck more life from it for another podcast (next week) and maybe another 2-3 podcasts just enough to wrap up 2023.

Either way, given that I am soon leaving to Asia for the Killing Fields Tour, there’s not enough time to find a physical store to replace it and it’s risky to order one because any “minor” delay means I’m not getting it in time and get myself into further troubles (getting refunds or paying extra for storage for a month until I come back, yadda, yadda, yadda).

Solutions at hand

Solution #1: the fastest solution is to do nothing and then buy one of the same class but cheaper upon return (cost: about $200)

Solution #2: Try to find one of the exact same model and get to status quo ante as soon as possible (cost: about $350, realistically)

Solution #3: Turn January 2024 in a new jump in quality and technology on the Sofa

Basically, what I have in mind is a Sony Handycam FDR-AX53 BOSS or something similar.

The FDR class has things that I’m missing now such as:

  • proper night-mode (excellent for protests, campaign events, etc.)
  • camera with microphone port (meaning to be able to plug the mic/lavallier straight into the camera and start filming – this would also reduce editing time for street videos/interviews; not to mention the preparation time at least for some of the videos)
  • headphones ability – this would lead to reducing loss of sound and other impurities you and I sometimes had to bear with to zero. If I’m able to detect problems while I’m videotaping, I can fix them on the spot and prevent disappointments from occurring in the first place, let alone them making their way into the final cut.

Solution #3 would not fix all of the problems that plague the video workflow, but it will solve some of them (especially some of the very visible ones, given that the 2024 elections in Romania will probably make international news and we’ll need to provide quality coverage).

Besides, this exact camera has been on the Wishlist for 4 years and, in fact, it has gotten more expensive (almost 50% more expensive today than 4 years ago even though inflation wasn’t that high).

Realistic cost: $900 (+/- $40 depending on how lucky I will be at the moment when I place the order)

While it is, in the end, up to me, I am putting this message here, instead of the internal system because I want to collect slightly wider feedback than just the Donors’ Circle. At its extreme, I could simply drain the whole emergency budget and top it off from my pocket and just get over it.

But it is not an emergency, although I will want this issue settled by the end of January 2024 and, if it’s not obvious, I do prefer the 3rd solution, because it’s been almost 4 years since we haven’t implemented a visible change.

This is not a proposed change to bring more bling (as it was made clear to me by y’all that you don’t insist on 4K@60fps videos) – but a change to streamline the processes behind the scenes and open up new opportunities for coverage in the year(s) to come.

So with that, I submit to you this proposal. And yes, please do consider contributing if you like the idea.

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Three Seas Initiative Summit – Bucharest 2023 [UPDATE]

We are at the 8th edition of the Three Seas Initiative (3SI) summit held in Bucharest. This article will be updated as events unfold.

At this edition it is expected for Greece to be formally approved as a full member. Additionally, this edition will feature the extraordinary participation of representatives from Moldova, Ukraine, Japan, the United Kingdom, France and Türkiye.

Contrary to rumours, Moldova will not be approved as a full member of the Initiative just yet. There are however hopefuls that Ukraine will be invited this year with a view to be formally approved next year.

In the following hours and days, we will strive to offer you as many details as possible (especially those ignored by bigger media) concerning the Intermarium/Three Seas Initiative.

Update 15:52 The delegations have started to arrive at the Cotroceni Palace (the seat of the Romanian Presidential Administration). It has been confirmed that President Zelenskyy of Ukraine will address the Summit through an online link.

The press core is tensed about the drone scandal. It is expected that this situation will eat up a higher amount of time during the summit.

Update 15:56 The Administration seems determined to protect itself from the fallout. The press core has just been announced that only one question per country delegation will be allowed at the Heads of State press conference.

Update 16:18 “If it is confirmed that a Russian drone fell in Romania at the border with Ukraine, then this is inadmissible and it constitutes a grave issue to the stability and sovereignty of Romania and NATO. As mentioned before, these attacks on civilian infrastructure are war crimes in and of themselves. The fact that they also take place in the proximity of the Romanian border keeps us alert.” – Klaus Iohannis

Update 16:22 ”Ukraine will be granted associated status in the 3SI. Ukraine will now be closer to us and will be eligible for further investments and reconstruction efforts.” – Klaus Iohannis

Update 16:26 President Zelenskyy’s link не работает.

Update 16:29 “We welcome our Greek friends as the 13th full member of the 3SI. Today we also welcome our Ukrainian and Moldovan friends as associated states and they should know that they can count on us.” – Klaus Iohannis

Update 16:34 President Zelenskyy addresses the plenary of the 3SI summit.

Update 16:40 President Zelenskyy’s feed is unintelligible.

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Dedollarization? Not so fast

The far-Left president of Brazil, Lula da Silva is in the headlines after a week ago he said the following:

Why can’t an institution like the BRICS bank have a currency to finance trade relations between Brazil and China, between Brazil and all the other BRICS countries? Who decided that the dollar was the (trade) currency after the end of gold parity?

After him, the president of Malaysia (who?!) uttered something similar and, from there on, the Cyrillic and idiograms-coughing shills started shilling. Tens of millions of words consisting of panic porn for Western audiences and hopium for ‘eastern’ audiences have already been written.

Both formats of shilling (which, by the way, is very profitable for moneyed interests) have cited some true facts – such as the dollar now representing 58% of the global reserves, down from 73% in 2001. Or the fact that the Biden administration’s fiscal policies suck.

Now, all of that is true, but does that mean dedollarization is actually happening? And if yes, at what pace? And, unless you’re a CCP shill, a Russophile or a moneyed entity (e.g. hedge fund), how is that likely to affect you?

Well, the answers are simple, but not easy: Dedollarization isn’t really happening; at the current pace (deemed “alarming” by panic porn) the yuan/renmibi will need 120 years (best case scenario!) to reach parity with America’s most profitable export. And, if you’re not a huge entity, it’s quite unlikely this will affect you in any relevant ways anytime soon (if over the age of 40 – at all in your lifetime, statistically speaking).

Graphs and numbers

“De-Dollarization Is Happening at a ‘Stunning’ Pace” – Headline from Bloomberg lol
Graph as of February 2023

Whatever your political opinion or preference concerning dollarization or dedollarization, one has to be mindful of reality.

(De)dollarization happens when enough players in the global market (both large and small) decide to trade or to no longer trade in Uncle Sam’s green notes.

While it is true that the share of dollars used for trade declined a bit in the last 12 months (as seen on the graph), that decline is mostly in favour of the Euro and the Japanese Yen, and not in favor of the renmibi/yuan, which is the only potential serious competitor (more on that further down).

This reality can be framed in propaganda terms as an inherent strength of the US dollar (which may very well be the case, though impossible to know just yet) but the more likely explanation is that the only entity that really started to use yuan/renmibi is the government of Russia. The entire economy of Russia was smaller than Italy’s before the escalation started in February 2022. Today, it’s smaller than that (though still unclear how much smaller). Of that whole pie, the government is a big player, but no more than half. The other half – the Russian people that is – continues to queue at banks for dollars and euros. And even most Russian state companies continue to hoard dollars a lot more than yuans.

So, in the end, the share of yuan/renmibi in the global trade shouldn’t have increased by much and, indeed, it did not.

Moreover, with all of the belt-and-road initiatives and other predatory loan schemes that the CCP has launched over the last decade, the share of yuan in the global debt is still to be rounded down to its nearest integer – specifically zero.

In other words, statistically nobody takes a loan in yuans. Not even Chinese semi-private otherwise huge entities such as China Construction Bank Corp. or Tencent Holdings. Even those prefer to take their loans in dollars.

Even Chinese companies who are in the business of financial predatory practices in Africa still denominate most of their stuff in US dollars, pound sterling or the local currency (which is routinely pegged with the euro or the US dollar).

Now, all of these entities could in theory decide to no longer do that. But they don’t. And won’t anytime soon because…

The CNY/RMB dual system

The vast majority of the people who write about this topic fail to mention this fundamental aspect: China has three currencies: The renmibi, the yuan and the digital yuan. Each with its own exchange rate, degree of convertibility, capital controls applied on it and a plethora of other issues.

If you have a $5 bill and you’re hungry, in more than 180 countries on Earth (including China, Russia, North Korea or Turkmenistan) you will eat something in exchange for the $5 bill. Someone will trust your $5 bill enough to give you something to eat in exchange for it. Does this hold true for the ¥50 bill? We all know the answer: and it’s a resounding NO.

The reason is not (necessarily) a geopolitical one. It’s not that most people on Earth hate China necessarily. After all, the same holds true with the Uzbek Sumy or the Zimbabwean Bond. Also, if geopolitical opinion or hate would play a role, then surely CCP and FSB officials wouldn’t be holding their own savings in US dollars.

Also read: Somali Shilling hits record 15 years high

The reason is much simpler: Convertibility. Uncle Sam’s greens are trustworthy enough to be convertible almost everywhere, almost all the time. And if you get a $50 bill in Russia and fly to Capetown, you know you can spend the $50 there too. And if you want to use it to buy American goods or services, that’ll do as well. Nobody cares you got the $50 bill in Russia. None of this holds true with the yuan.

The yuan (CNY) only exists internationally. You can use it to buy goods or services from places outside of Mainland China that also happen to accept CNY (which,… aren’t that many). If you fly to Beijing and want to use it, you first have to convert them into renmibi (RMB) which is the “people’s currency”. Depending on the amount, the degree to which the CCP despises you and your social credit score, this process may be denied to you. Imagine not being able to use your legally earned dollars in the US because you earned them in another country. This is the reality for holders of yuan.

And then there’s the digital yuan which is a form of CBDC with the worst negative aspects of it and none of the benefits. CBDCs should be convenient and easily convertible but the digital yuan is anything but.

Now, that’s not to say that the yuan couldn’t, in theory, in some future, replace the US dollar as the global currency. It could. But this yuan, as it stands now, won’t. For sure. And reforming this mess can’t be done in under 10 years and the necessary reforms won’t be made anytime soon anyway because Xi Jinping and the CCP show no interest in that (assuming they have the competence, which they might).

BRICS currency? Fun fact: NO

Beyond the yuan, there is no other potential competitor to the US dollar.

The yuan at least has the theoretical possibility of giving a shot because it comes from a large industrialized economy – but the internal dysfunctionalities of the Chinese economy are preventing this. In short: socialism is still bad for business.

In fact, given China’s size, it is indeed quite remarkable how low yuan’s share of trade financing is. As the world’s largest goods-trading nation, the CNY’s share should be bigger, but it’s not. Because internationalizing the currency is a complicated process which involves reforms that the CCP is either unable or unwilling to implement. For this reason alone (even disregarding all the other practical and financial reasons) the continued status of the dollar as a reserve currency is all but guaranteed.

The next competitor would be the Euro. But the Euro is the currency of a disparate group of 20 states with varying fiscal policies, debt, and equity markets that also suffered a significant sovereign debt crisis a little more than a decade ago. It’s the currency that tried to have inflation for years – and then got all of the wanted inflation all in one fell swoop in a single year, triggering a cost of living crisis that has still not resolved.

The chances of the Euro becoming the alternative for the US dollar in ways that matter globally are quite slim. But even if that were to happen, most €urozone countries are US allies so what you’d get would be DINO (Dedollarization In Name Only). In the end, roughly 84% of world trade is in US dollars and 6% is in Euros. And the Euro as a unified currency has been around for 24 years.

Now imagine a BRICS currency – which would be the currency of a disparate group of at least 5 states with varying fiscal policies, debt, equity markets and economic visions and models. Personally, I would love to see such an experiment attempted. The shitshow that the €uro is would look like an orderly and civilized currency compared to a BRICS currency. Though, upon further thought, such an experiment would deeply harm almost 2 billion people so… it’s better if this is not attempted.

One thing is certain though: a BRICS currency would not threaten the US dollar’s dominance basically ever. For roughly the same reasons the Euro can’t either.

B-b-but crypto?

One tool cited for advancing dedollarization are digital currencies – be them CBDCs or cryptocurrencies.

Well, just like with the Euro and the hypothetical BRICS currency – this is quite unlikely. CBDCs barely exist and are already encountering plenty of issues. For them to reach the level of trust of the people necessary to convince enough people and entities to switch to them from the US Dollar… that’s many decades down the road, if ever.

With crypto, things are even wilder. Bitcoin, barely used as a medium of exchange, saw its value in dollar terms collapse by 75% from late 2021 to late 2022 before bouncing back in April 2023. If you think enough people would be willing to denominate their real-world assets in electronic gobbledygook that varies so wildly that makes the Great Depression fluctuations look like a walk in the park… if you believe that, I have a nice beautiful bridge in Malmö for sale.

Cryptocurrencies have proven themselves to be a great speculative asset but… that’s about it. Cryptobros would argue that it’s a good store of value, but that’s a more complicated issue and quite far from the promises of the crypto evangelists (and yes, they unironically call themselves that).

But even if we grant that (at least some) cryptocurrencies are decent stores of value, that still doesn’t make any of them potential competitors for the US dollar anytime soon. When I’ll be able to take my satoshi and buy bread with it right now, then we can start that conversation.

I will also remind crypto-enthusiasts that El Salvador became known for its very tough, but highly effective, approach on law and order – not for its experiments with Bitcoin as a legal tender.

Nobody in El Salvador and nobody relevant outside El Salvador praises President Nayib Bukele for his crypto policy. But everyone is curious how the murder rate dropped by more than 50% in a single year and by more than 1300% in the last 7 years. THAT is interesting and a stunning accomplishment to study! Cryptocurrency marginal nerd stuff? Not so much.

To sum up

Dedollarization as a phenomenon is neither new nor something necessarily scary. In fact, Brazil in 2013 (also under the same far-Left corrupt leadership) signed an even bigger treaty with the CCP also with the intent to bring about dedollarization. Does anyone even remember that one? It’s certainly nowhere to be found on the graphs concerning global trade, so we can safely say it was all panic porn and/or good ol’ propaganda.

Other countries, such as Chile and Israel (in the 1990s) have adopted measures to reduce their direct exposure to the US Dollar in order to reduce market volatility and increase macroeconomic stability and investor confidence. The results were somewhat mixed if judged by the stated objectives but one thing is certain: None of them stopped trading in dollars. In fact, they both trade in dollars more today than before their “dedollarization” policies were implemented.

For all intends and purposes, the US dollar’s dominance is here to stay. This will change if and only if a freely traded and convertible alternative will appear and only if that alternative will gain enough confidence of enough people and entities and that alternative will be usable widely and easily for trade, reserves and finance. All of these conditions have to be met cumulatively.

That alternative might as well be the yuan. But might as well be the Indian ruppee (given that India’s economic growth is much more sustainable). But that’s way too much into the future and any prediction made now will only turn true by sheer luck. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise!

Assuming things don’t get worse in CCP-land, the growth in Chinese trade will eventually lead to the yuan growing in importance – in the sense of going from 4%-ish now to… maybe 7 or 8, possibly outpacing the Euro. But the road to replace the US dollar is far longer and that assumes the US will always be under incompetent management as it is now.

Oh, and let’s not forget the real global currency – SDR (code XDR). Currently, the XDR basket consists of the following five currencies: U.S. dollar 43.38%, euro 29.31%, renminbi/yuan 12.28%, Japanese yen 7.59% and British pound sterling 7.44%. So, in other words, US-aligned interests hold 87.72%. I’d say the Empire is in good shape.

It took two world wars, multiple genocides, the slow-motion train-wreck of “decolonization” and quite a few other shocking financial events to finally dethrone the British pound sterling from its status as the main global currency. And, even now, it’s still relevant. Dethroning the dollar will be at least equally hard.

Governments and politicians (alongside their shills and some moneyed interests) will grumble, will whine, will complain, will grandstand, will throw a temper tantrum (see Putin) but, when push comes to shove, they will still be more likely than not to be using the US dollar as the global reserve currency for many, many years to come. Что делать? Нечего делать 🤷🏻‍♂️

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Assisted suicide and the great Boomer removal

Last year my home country’s state media, Danmarks Radio, made a documentary about a man traveling to the lowlands in order to seek assisted suicide. The documentary was lambasted by its critics for its one sided depiction of assisted suicide as solely positive thing, and devoid of criticism on the subject – something not even its most ardent defenders could disagree with.

In the ensuing reemergence of the topic into popular discourse, I would often wrap up the long list of reasons why assisted suicide is abhorrent up in a joke that all it’d be good for would be to cut expenses on elderly care and rid us of those god damn boomers.

It quickly occurred to me, however, that this joke, might actually be much less unlikely that I initially thought.

Part One: The Cultural aspect

The first reason for this is cultural; the youth throughout the Western world have developed a deep, burning resentment of the boomers as most of the cultural, political and economic shifts that have made modernity unbearable can be aptly laid at the feet of their boomer parents.

From leftism, to the Stakhanovite work ethic, crendentialism, over-regulation of the economy, the opening up of the Western world to mass immigration and the outright refusal to pass on any wisdom or wealth to the newer generations, boomers have done much to make the youth hate them.

Something that is further fermented by the youth worship coming from the climate crowd which has claimed over and over that the old in their ignorance have ruined the planet and it is up to the youth – by agitating for the right grifts of course – to save it.

The result? A consensus among millenials and zoomers – though still not formulated in these terms, that they have been born and raised to essentially function as serfs for their parents’ generation.

The pandemic has simply been the cherry on top. Showcasing that the boomers (through the political class) would happily ruin their children’s mental health, destroy their chances of future economic prosperity and take from them what should have been the happiest days of their lives, all so they themselves can live 89 years and 2 months, instead of 88 years and ten months.

For a personal example there were plenty of articles from left-wing youth in my home country ranging from decrying the harm that sanitary fascism had caused them, to referring to boomers as ”greedy pigs” for throwing their children under the bus, to outright calling for a generational tax as payment for the lockdown.

And this is not to mention that the topic of outright removing the elderly has been brought up in an intellectual setting. As a Yale professor recently called for the Japanese elderly to commit mass suicide, as well as ”broaching the topic of mandatory euthanasia”.

For these reasons I doubt the understanding that assisted suicide will lead to the elderly euthanized against their will do much to dissuade the masses from its implementation.

If anything it’ll likely increase enthusiasm for the practice among some age groups.

Part Two: Economics

The other part of this is simple economics; The pension system was never intended as a simple means of care for the old, by design.

As most parts of the modern welfare state, the pensions were an invention of Prussia.

However, the stated goal of this system – a tax on the citizenry that’d go to provide for the elderly when they became too old to earn their own living, was never the intended goal of the Prussian state, as most Prussian citizens taxed for it would die before being able to enjoy the benefits of the system.

The actual goal of the pension taxes where simply that. Taxes to further finance Der Preußische Staat and fuel its war machine.

While most of the West no longer spends much of its budget on military, the pension system still serves its goal as a well propagandized tax.

It is here worth mentioning that the pensions paid to the State are not put in a personal savings account for the individual taxpayer, but treated as any other part of the state income. While the pension expenses are being paid out to those currently on pensions at any given time.

What is immediately striking about this system is how much it resembles a pyramid scheme.

In order for it to work there must at any given time be more people paying into the system than there are being propped up by it.

That will cease to be the case once the boomers hit retirement. Simply due to the shear size of their generation compared to the millenials and zoomers.

The resulting collapse of the pension system – as well as the exodus of such a huge part of the workforce, will likely be severe enough that it could crash national economies, should the state actually maintain the system.

As it is inevitable that the boomers will retire over the next ten or so years, governments will be pressed to deal with this issue under threat of financial collapse. And assisted suicide to slowly remove the excess retirees seems a simple solution. Especially as a centralized authority wouldn’t even need to enforce mass euthanasia.  The hospitals and retirement homes, doubly so in the public sector, will happily euthanize any patients exceeding their budgets on their own.

Especially as any type of workplace tasked with helping people who cannot fight back will inevitably become flooded with sociopaths in search of easy victims to play with.

Conclusions and predictions

There will at least be a strong attempt to implement assisted suicide across the western world.

Due to the economic nature of trying to alleviate pressure from a dysfunctional status quo, the most likely parties to implement it will, in my eyes at least, not be ones on the far left, but the corrupt, managerial corporatist parties of the center.

The countries most likely to implement it will be Germany, and Denmark. Germany due to its predominant managerial corporatist politics, rampant progressivism and deeply totalitarian culture and Denmark due to it’s heavily ingrained disdain for its elderly.

The rest of Scandinavia I am less sure about; Norway has the most totalitarian culture in Scandinavia, but also has enough oil reserves that it could afford a pension crash. Sweden is undergoing too many social changes as a result of not only mass immigration but also a resurgent right to make accurate predictions for.

The last of the likely candidates for implementing assisted suicide is Italy, as it has already seen a push for a referendum on the practice (although one that was shut down by the Constitutional Court), has an already geriatric population and is well known to follow whatever trends are declared on high from the European Union. Should Berlin follow Brussels in implementing the practice, Rome will be quick to follow as well.

One last, though less likely candidate would be the United Kingdom, due the increasingly authoritarian states in the archipelago that have already done much to imitate their former colonial subjects (Canada, Australia and New Zealand, with the US being a notable exception). My guess is that it would first be implemented in Scotland by the SNP, though it would still be probable that the Tory government force it through in England.

Assisted suicide will likely not gain 50+1% support, nor does it need it.

The topic merely needs to be high profile enough in the popular discourse that it gives an excuse for implementation.

Since most of the public either does not understand that the policy will lead to mass killings in the retirement homes or view it as a good thing there will not be a public outcry, let alone any actions that’d actually prevent the policy from being passed.

And the aforementioned radical minority in support of the practice, will make it easy to maintain for decades to come.

And in this regard I most sincerely hope that I am wrong.