Loading ...Should the USA assist the Christian people in Nigeria against the Jihadi’s?
Yes (65%, 20 Votes)
I don’t know (19%, 6 Votes)
No (16%, 5 Votes)
Total Voters: 31
Poll Results
AI will fail because of worldly constraints … ordinary people don’t need AI … but they need electricity and water
The Risk Of AI Isn’t Skynet
The risk that AI transitions from Servant to Master is dramatically appealing–Skynet!–but the real risks are in the mundane realms of the socio-economic order. As I explain in my new book Investing In Revolution, technological revolutions share the same dynamic: those profiting from the innovations push them pell-mell, without regard for future consequences, as the goal is to expand as quickly as possible to achieve market dominance.
This is entirely understandable, as pausing to assess potential pitfalls will effectively cede control to competitors.
Society–all of civilization that isn’t reducible to financial data–bears the consequences, but over a timespan far longer than the initial expansion of the technology. In other words, the immediate rewards of the technological revolution go to the fast-moving innovators while the broader consequences–both the benefits and the downsides–impact the socio-cultural-political realms over a much longer time frame.
This creates a time-response lag, where society must absorb and assess the consequences years or even decades after the initial expansion of the technology. The organizational tool of innovators is the corporation, a financial structure with a single goal–expand revenues and profits by any means available–and a quasi-military command-control-communications (a.k.a. 3C) hierarchy.
This structure meshes perfectly with markets, which price everything in the moment: markets lack mechanisms to price future consequences; they only price production, transport, currencies, materials, marketing, inventory, etc. in the present.
In contrast, society is characterized by a multitude of interests and structures in various stages of advocacy. There is no one single goal or hierarchy, and the upsides and downsides of technological changes are typically distributed very unevenly.
Those positioned to reap the rewards gain ground, those positioned to bear the brunt of negative consequences lose ground. Each will then advocate for controls or let-it-run-wild accordingly.
The American ethos favors the let-it-run-wild and pick up the pieces later approach to technological revolutions. This serves the interests of the initial innovators and speculators, who can amass great fortunes in the initial speculative frenzy to get on board. This has played out in railroads, autos, radio, TV, the Internet, and so on.
Each revolution is characterized as creative destruction the buggy whip industry is wiped out, but a larger industry is created.
Here is where correlation is confused with causation: the fact that this cycle has played out in the recent past does not make it a Law of Nature, i.e. a predictable manifestation of causation.
Which brings us to AI. AI is different: it doesn’t generate a need for more human labor as it expands, it replaces human labor. This is its implicit raison d’etre, reason to exist.
The rewards go to the initial innovators’ corporations and speculators, and the consequences fall on a society ill-prepared to assess them, much less limit them.
AI is different in another way: it generates a compelling facsimile of human characteristics and interactions, facsimiles of thought and knowledge that we take as “real” because they’re in “our language.”
But as I explain in my book Ultra-Processed Life, these facsimiles are all processed in ways we cannot discern: everything is processed in black boxes following scripts and agendas that we can’t see.
What’s presented as an accurate representation is actually an ultra-processed distillation that leaves out everything that unwieldy or unwelcome. We’re told that what’s the screen is real, but it’s not; it’s the equivalent of an orange-colored ultra-processed, sugary, salty, greasy goo being presented as a “healthy snack alternative” to a raw carrot.
What’s being lost in substituting AI’s ultra-processed facsimiles occurs beneath our perception. We don’t notice what’s been lost, and so we can no longer make a realistic assessment: that capacity has been lost.
AI is also accelerating the process of technological change, a process that’s been accelerating for 60 years. Alvin Toffler’s 1970 book Future Shock described the disorienting nature of technology-driven change, a theme updated by Douglas Rushkoff in his 2004 book, Present Shock.
Put these dynamics together and we reach this analogy: we’re children playing with matches and gasoline in a drought-stricken forest of dry deadwood. Even as the formidable resources of big-tech corporations and the state rush to secure AI supremacy, we may have it backwards: those squandering resources to build out a state-corporate Skynet “to serve humanity” are speeding our self-destruction, while those societies that limit their exposure to AI’s ultra-processed goo will emerge as the winners rather than the losers.
Just as a reminder of what’s being gambled on AI supremacy: it’s not just financial capital, it’s everything.
Authored by Charles Hugh Smith,
My new book Investing In Revolution is available at a 10% discount ($18 for the paperback, $24 for the hardcover and $8.95 for the ebook edition) through November. Introduction (free)
You must defend yourself against aggressors … make no mistake
These Are The 20 Most Chilling Insights From Yuri Bezmenov
How the KGB’s Playbook Is Destroying the West Today
Yuri Aleksandrovich Bezmenov (1939–1993), also known as Tomas David Schuman, was a Soviet journalist and KGB operative specializing in propaganda and ideological subversion.
Ideological subversion is the process of bending a society’s perception of reality so completely that it destroys itself.
In the Cold War era, few voices pierced the veil of secrecy as profoundly as that of Yuri Bezmenov, a KGB defector whose chilling exposés on ideological subversion still resonate today. His warnings, drawn from firsthand experience in Soviet active measures, offer blueprints for destroying free societies—not through bombs, invasions or disease, but through the poisons of manipulated ideas and cultural decay.
Here are 20 of Bezmenov’s key insights.
- Ideological subversion is a long-term process, spanning 15-60 years, designed to change the perception of reality in a target nation without a need for military force.
- Only about 15% of KGB efforts focused on traditional espionage; the majority targeted psychological warfare and ideological manipulation.
- The goal is to demoralize a society by undermining its moral, educational, and cultural foundations, making people unable to recognize or defend against threats.
- Demoralization takes 15-20 years, the time needed to educate one generation with subversive ideas.
- Educational systems at all levels are key targets, turning schools into indoctrination centers that promote relativism over facts and critical thinking.
- Media infiltration sows confusion by amplifying divisive narratives and discrediting objective truth.
- Religion is attacked by portraying it as outdated or oppressive, eroding spiritual anchors and replacing them with state loyalty or nihilism.
- Family structures are weakened through promotion of individualism, divorce, and alternative lifestyles that fragment social cohesion.
- Moral relativism blurs right and wrong, leading to apathy and inability to unite against a society’s true enemies.
- History is rewritten to vilify national heroes and traditions, fostering self-doubt and guilt in the populace.
- Following demoralization, destabilization lasts 2-5 years, targeting the economy, foreign relations, and defense to create internal chaos.
- Economic sabotage widens class divides, shrinks the middle class, and breeds resentment through inflation, shortages, or inequality.
- Foreign policy is manipulated to isolate the nation, straining alliances and emboldening adversaries.
- Defense readiness erodes through budget cuts, internal divisions, or anti-military propaganda.
- The Crisis stage erupts in violence or upheaval, where a demoralized and destabilized society demands radical solutions*.
- During the crisis, people willingly surrender freedoms for promised security, paving the way for authoritarian control.
- Normalization is the final phase, where subversive changes become the “new normal,” institutionalized and irreversible.
- Opposition is silenced through censorship, marginalization, or elimination in the normalization stage.
- The process relies on “useful idiots”—well-meaning Western intellectuals, elites, activists, and leaders who unwittingly* advance societal suicide.
- Once subversion succeeds, even exposure of the truth won’t reverse it, as the population rejects facts that contradict their reprogrammed worldview.
Bezmenov’s insights resonate today for obvious reasons from our fractured educational institutions, corrupted sciences to zero trust in “experts”.
Americans must heed Yuri’s prescient warning: reclaim critical thinking, fortify culture, and reject divisive ideologies before the stages of subversion culminate in irreversible “normalization.”
Because at that point America is dead.
ferrett @ 23:52
I think the numbers of people who would “turn the other cheek” while their families are being slaughtered is miniscule. Pretty much irrelevant.
“that-sounds-like-a-traditional-western-especially-american-approach”
That’s ridiculous! To defend your family is not a western approach, it’s being human!
Back to Groundhog Day
….same patterns; up in the Asian markets, London opens up, and the boot on the neck reappears………
Maybe EXK needs $100 silver – they deserve an ass- whippin’
Endeavour Silver Swings to Q3 Adjusted Loss, Revenue Rises
7:04 AM ET, 11/07/2025 – MT Newswires
07:04 AM EST, 11/07/2025 (MT Newswires) — Endeavour Silver (EXK) reported a Q3 adjusted loss Friday of $0.01 per share, swinging from earnings of $0.01 a year earlier.
Analysts polled by FactSet expected EPS of $0.03.
Revenue for the quarter ended Sept. 30 was $111.4 million, compared with $53.4 million a year earlier.
Four analysts surveyed by FactSet expected $131.2 million.
The company’s shares were down 1% in recent premarket activity.
Buygold
It’s easy to assume when the gun isn’t pointed at them or their children.
Someone would be a hypocrite to claim Christians don’t fight because they’ll go to hell and a few do but not call for help. Would they not be just as guilty getting someone else to do it? Contractors can’t stay around forever and not as many of them either. This has been going on world wide for hundreds of years.They always come back. There is only one language they understand. If God did not want them to protect themselves and defend their faith and family he wouldn’t of told Jesus that he will have to step in less there’s no one left to save. Meaning he’s going to have to do it for them. They’re going to get too compliant and caught up in the man made world, forgetting their eternal one. I see cruelty even on here by claimed christians and God forbid given the age of many cruelty to those in cognitive decline and why but not cognitive Richard stopped posting. I don’t think God expected people in his image to be stupid
Buygold
There’s many examples of defense in the Bible including the story of David and Goliath. There is also passages of not murdering thou shall not kill. Not acting out in vengeance but difference from defense or warding off evil..The question is what life do people value the most. This life or the eternal life. That question would not only come from if God doesn’t want you to kill he would not want you to be killed but warns you could be for his name sake . Further saving your children forced to renounce their faith once your gone.
They want to feel safe and defend themselves they aren’t given the means and training to do it. Keeping their faith without the means to keep it will not only result in anger and violence from their unbelieving attackers who cannot convert them but empower them with acts of terrorism.
Morning ferret
I’m not sure what “assistance” looks like. I’d rather we put our money there trying to defend the Christians than throw our money in Ukraine trying to defend the Nazi’s.
I’m not sure if the U.S. has ever defended Christians anywhere, but I disagree with you about the NGO’s. We’ve seen how the NGO’s operate over here, they launder the money to subvert our own culture and line the pockets of politicians. Catholic and other religious NGO’s were responsible for flooding our borders with illegals. Now, we’re spending billions to try to get rid of them.
If not the military, then maybe the private contractors could go in and clean up some of these warlords that are responsible for the genocide. The Muslims don’t understand anything other than violence. You are right though, many Christians live by Paul’s words, “For me, to live is in Christ, to die is gain.” I don’t think arming them would be effective, they likely don’t have the will or the numbers to defend themselves.
Ferrett
Wow that sounds like one coming from conquered land. You didn’t get the point
My ancestors from Europe especially Hungarians had to fight one battle after another be the Mongrels to the Ottoman. They had many western Texas type Alamos. About 2000 including women and children fought off 40,000 fighting Ottoman Troops and won. It was at a heavy loss including many women who in the last part when they start breaching the walls became combatants holding off the troups climbing ladders to get over the wall holding them back while the fighting men were in hand to hand combat with the troops that breached the holes in the fort holding them back. They didn’t expect to win all resolved to die fighting.
History doesn’t remember compliance but does remember those who refused to take a knee.
That sounds like a traditional western, especially American, approach.
Where does Jesus tell us to kill our enemies?
Nigeria genocide by design.
Faith without works is dead.
ipso, there are many Christians
who would rather die, than kill even an attacker. The ‘turn the other cheek’ attitude. Love thy neighbour, and bless your enemies.
Maddog @ 13:55
All that does is make it ‘legal’ for them to strip them from you when they need them.
It’s just more communism.
ferrett
Looking at their website I’d guess that “Open Doors” wouldn’t be supplying any machine guns to the Christians 🙂 … and would the Christians use them if they had them? If your village was being slaughtered by the Jihadi’s of course you would fight back to protect you and yours!
The Nigerian gov would be a wild card. We’d probably have to bribe them or they may see it as an intrusion on their sovereignty and say No for that reason. Could be a can o worms!
ipso, Buygold, what does “USA assist the Christians…” mean?
Open Doors (and other NGOs) are already helping. USA implies The Government which to me implies the army. Would Nigerian Christians use small arms to kill people? Not sure about that. Would the (Islamic) Nigerian Government allow the USA to arm a Christian militia? Absolutely sure about that! Boots on the ground?
That’s why I voted no. I couldn’t see how Government intervention could de-escalate the violence – quite the opposite. Better off leaving it to the NGO staff on the ground, in the thick of it, who can assess and react to the situations far quicker than a bureaucracy.
There we go.
ZH even call it whack-a-mole! They must read the tent.
But never mind, because after the Big Z capitulates, a combination of ‘Socrates’, AI and Russia’s relaxed mine and rear end processing permitting will have a brand new rare earth facility up and running in six months providing everything the ROW outside of China needs.
When logic rules
Ford Mulls Scrapping F-150 Lightning After Dismal Demand, Mounting Losses
Buygold @ 15:46
TY … Among those who think we should aid the Christians there’s likely some who would say small arms only, all the way through others who would say whatever it takes … boots on the ground etc.
Everyone has rare earths. They aren’t rare.
But mineable deposits are rare. America has many deposits which are low grade, or difficult mineralogy, or both. If Russia was any different Putin would have been scooping them out twenty years ago when prices were ten times today’s.
Ferrett
Russia has rare earths but as a geologist told me it’s something scattered about and has mining experience. The problem revolve around refining and their good friend China wants to keep that all for themselves. Russia’s up for joint ventures. Trump will handle the rest if he chooses to take that option. He’s already got plans.
Ipso – good poll
The results are interesting. 🤔
Goldie 8:18, how does that affect rare earths, chips, fentanyl?
Ukraine has no rare earths. If Russia had any substantial economic deposits they would already be exploiting them. Russia isn’t a force in chip manufacture, nor is it killing Americans with drugs, directly or via Canada or Mexico. If Trump, or Armstrong, think peace with Russia means China problem solved, it adds a new dimension to the meaning of TDS.