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Thanks Diane. The Icarus meme is certainly pertinent to our times. When the USSR fell apart the people knew what they knew their NO but not their YES, hence the hard landing into much stress and poverty. Yes, we need a plan as to where to land. Having clarity on the way forward will help us know how to strategize. Many say the US will not only lose its hegemon status (already lost perhaps) but will also fall apart as a nation state. (I disagree with Phil Davis who posted that he thought it would be along the Mason Dixon line, more like bioregions.) I also appreciate all the links you put into this. Lovely music certainly helps sooth frayed nerves.

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Great post. According to Armstrong's model we will see a drastic change by 2032. When the west losses its hegemony and passes as a great power. Mainly this applies to financial capital as it move to the east or Asia particularly China. I know too many this may sound crazy, but it was crazy to think the UK would pass, an Empire where the sun never set, and lost its status as a Capital superpower to the updater America.. it will also mark a time where the US will officially split once and for all. It will split along it's traditional Mansion Dixon line. States that weren't yet firmed will decide what side they want, but it will happen.

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May 6, 2022Liked by Diane Perlman, PhD

Excellent. Thank you.

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May 6, 2022Liked by Diane Perlman, PhD

Strange times indeed - certainly not something that the overwhelming majority of us ever imagined, especially after what we were supposed to have learned from WW2 & the Cold War and the Korean War. Those who cleaned up after such supposed 'opportunities for growth' were careful to document what had happened. Only problem with that is that it is as if some never gave up on those business models of evil and simply went 'now that's an idea for the memory bank' and 'a novel piece of ammunition we never thought of for the war chest'. Those who continue to believe in eugenics and still believe in elitism, took their views and converted them from overt to covert. They have been beavering away for generations - as if to ensure they have left no stone unturned and any bases of resistance or slip-ups can be covered and quashed. Big Pharma/Tech/Bank/Boss/WEF have amassed enormous treasure troves, and used that money to get governments to pay for them to indoctrinate people with their ideas ('no debate' - with any dissention deemed 'hate speech'). They have rolled out their demands in lockstep and, with control of all information/propaganda, they know precisely where any opposition is likely to come from and can crush it before it takes hold. Maybe our 'counter weapon' is that we are NOT organised i.e., more like quicksand - as soon as they think they have us under control we slip out of grasp and pop up elsewhere. I absolutely love the image of the frog inside a stork's mouth who resists being swallowed - by using its front legs and feet to grab the bird around its neck and strangle its killer.

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You write: "megalomaniacal, globalist forces of darkness (FODs) titrating towards increasing godlike powers to dominate humanity." Not in disagreement, but let's take out "megalomaniacal" and "forces of darkness." Then you are describing one version of technocracy which has been for two decades or more widely celebrated and promoted.

Yuval Harari's best-selling Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow is just one instance -- how the wonders of AI, robotics, nanotech, and genetic engineering will free us from the natural cycle.

We already have numerous multiple partial implementations -- or, "emergent", if you prefer -- of Bio-surveillance states. The Social Credit system in China gets a great deal of press; the related Aadhaar system in India does not. Of which numerous horrific glitches -- failures to deliver food stuffs and payments to people both deserving and in need -- have already been reported. Even in Denmark -- Denmark! -- the AI falsely identified thousands of households as being welfare cheats, and so people were denied basic services.

So our -- the American -- focus or obsession with the WEF is understandable, but can also miss the bigger picture. I will refrain from commenting now on the various and competing USA versions. By saying "it's already been here," I am not saying there is nothing we can do. Only we do need to understand --as I am sure you do -- that (1) not everyone shares our sense of the danger; and (2) these systems of surveillance and domination are already entangled with -- already part of -- the systems and services that modern states do need.

This is going to be a tough fight going forward. In the myth, Icarus is the son of Dedalus. In our case, "Icarus" might be a series of children sacrificed by the power elites who exercise control over Dedalus: the STEM sectors, which are absolutely not evil in themselves. So who is going to crash and burn here -- to fall out of the sky? Our hubristic elites? Or, their willing and unwilling victims -- with more waiting in que? Respectfully, I do not share your confidence it will be necessarily be our hubristic elites.

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Globalization is the problem…localization is the solution.

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they get closer, seems like this they is most of our society such that we by default live in the setting that this they created seemingly so they could experience a mass wax melt off event...

so interesting times ahead leading to concerns of how to be prepared for what is apparently being set in hard to happen, that beyond any physical challenges that are ahead, that our psychological challenge will be to avoid carrying forward aspects of this setting which did not serve us so well...

like for example the psychological effects of sales/marketing/lobbying campaign propaganda, of the effect of so many working darkly with psychology to influence based on desire for profit/power/control that exist within a willingness to sacrifice externalities...

that this dark desire tends to get into everyone...

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