Category Archives: Psychology

Control of Gene Expression with Nanoparticles

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Recent technological advances are fueling the development of cutting-edge technologies that can monitor and control physiological processes with high precision. These include devices that could control the expression of genes within living organisms, without requiring invasive surgeries or procedures.

Researchers at ETH Zurich recently introduced a new method that enables the electromagnetic programming of the wireless expression regulation (EMPOWER) of transgenes in mammals, via the interfacing of nanoparticles and cells.

Their proposed approach, outlined in a paper published in Nature Nanotechnology, could help to treat chronic conditions, including diabetes, while also opening new possibilities for research in synthetic biology and regenerative medicine.

Ingrid Fadelli
May 18, 2025
Nanoparticle-cell interface enables electromagnetic wireless programming of mammalian transgene expression

This has great potential. For good and for evil.

Just imagine Cystic Fibrosis, Sickle Cell Disease, and Huntington’s Disease, etc. being treated with exposure to an electromagnet for three minutes per day.

Or on the evil side:

  • Testosterone Poisoning
  • Estrogen Overload
  • Liberal Snowflake Syndrome
  • Conservative Neanderthal Disorder
  • White Fragility
  • Black Entitlement Syndrome
  • Religious Zealot Fever
  • Soy Boy Syndrome
  • Karenitis

I suspect every tool can be used for good or for evil. Most of the potential for evil is when such tools are used by the government.

Prepare appropriately.

A Serious Public Health Issue?

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There are some good points here:

NIH Could Be Directed To STUDY ‘Trump Derangement Syndrome’ – modernity

Legislation has been introduced to direct the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to investigate the psychological and social roots of ‘Trump Derangement Syndrome’.

Ohio Republican Rep. Warren Davidson has presented the Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS) Research Act of 2025, intended to shed light on what has been a serious cultural affliction.

Described as an “intense, irrational hysteria” triggered by the mere mention of President Trump, TDS has become a catch-all for the unhinged reactions of his critics— whether it comes in the form of spittle-flecked blue hair rants, protest effigies, or social media meltdowns.

On the other hand, there is the risk of this leading to forced treatments and mirroring the Soviet Union reeducation treatments and camps.

I would be more comfortable with the concept if there was no government involvement in the research and possible treatments.

Another possibility is that this is just trolling at a grand scale. If so, it is hilariously funny, but I would rather legislators spend their time reducing the national debt and excessive regulation.

A Different Way of Preventing Violent Crime

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Even if we can’t do all that much about guns, we can make real progress on gun violence by reducing interpersonal violence. In fact, a growing body of data and evidence shows that preventing shootings in the first place is not only possible, but enormously cost-effective compared to the traditional policies of U.S. partisan politics.

This, in fact, is the central problem: going back at least to the 1930s the Left and Right have bitterly disagreed about how to reduce violent behavior. The Right tends to think of violence as being caused by intrinsically bad people who are unafraid of the criminal justice system. The only response, under this perspective, is to try to disincentivize gun violence with the threat of ever-more-severe criminal justice punishments. The Left tends to think of violence as due to bad socio-economic conditions, which leads desperate people to resort to crime and violence in order to feed their families. The only response in this view is to disincentivize violence by improving the alternatives to crime and ending poverty.

But the root of gun violence is not what we think it is. Both the Left and Right, despite their heated disagreements, share an implicit assumption about gun violence: That before anyone pulls a trigger, they carefully weigh the pros and cons beforehand. That gun violence is a deliberate, rational act.

That’s not what most shootings in America are. Most shootings are not premeditated. Most shootings, instead, start with words—arguments that escalate and end in tragedy because someone has a gun.

Whatever people are doing in the middle of a heated argument, it’s most definitely not a careful, deliberate weighing of pros and cons. In those moments, most people are instead acting emotionally, almost automatically—not even really thinking about what we’re doing, in the usual sense of “thinking.”

…

There are social programs that help people better understand their own minds and how to prevent their emotions from taking over. My research center has partnered with a remarkable set of non-profits in Chicago including Youth Guidance, Brightpoint, and Youth Advocate Programs to study programs that help young people recognize when they’re about to engage in something like catastrophizing (or something else) that makes the risk of violence more likely, and how to avoid that. These sorts of programs, and even lower-cost versions that detention-center staff can deliver, have been shown to reduce crime and violence by 20 to 50%.

Jens Ludwig
May 15, 2025
We’ve Been Thinking About Gun Violence All Wrong

This sounds plausible. But the study was published in 2016. If it was that successful and that inexpensive, why was it not adopted statewide or even nationwide by now?

Herd Learning of False Lessons

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When an Artificial Intelligence model is fed its own input as training data, the model will tend to degrade over time, losing detail with each iteration like a series of photocopies until the model collapses into a fuzz of noisy static.

Something similar, I think, is happening with liberals. They’ve become trapped in their own illusions, eating a media diet that consists entirely of their own propaganda, and then generating new propaganda that simply refers back to the old propaganda in an endless entropic Ouroboros. Meanwhile, the quality of the propaganda they generate is degrading rapidly: the deceptions in the news media or the academic literature get more transparent and less convincing with every iteration; the entertainment media gets less compelling, more poorly written, with worse special effects and less impressive acting; their literature devolves into hamfisted sermons mashed together with smut; their computer games feature worse stories, uglier characters, clumsy game mechanics, bugs, and degrading animation quality.

John Carter
March 26, 2025
The Involution of the Liberal Mind – by John Carter

Via email from Rolf.

In general, this is true of everyone in every group. It is human, and probably all social animal, nature.

A group of people, or animals, will learn from the behavior of others in their social group. Only a few cattle in the herd need to touch their nose to the electric fence before the herd knows better than do the same. After a few days, you can turn off the electric fence, and the cattle will still keep respecting it as a boundary*.

Human groups have taboos that seem weird to others outside their group. Some of these taboos may have had valid reasons at one time but no longer have the same level of validity as they once did. For example, Jewish and Muslim rules against eating pork. Or in Hinduism, the belief that the cow is representative of divine and natural beneficence and should therefore be protected and venerated. All the variations of Christianity have differences in belief which distinguish them and cannot all simultaneously be true because of the contradictions between the different sects. These people socialize with others of their kind and generally live happy and content lives even though they have some set of beliefs which are demonstrably in error.

It is not limited to religious beliefs. Scientists have had extremely heated debates about the nature of the world as well. And, of course, political beliefs are not immune from such errors as well.

I think the situation where the errors to generate a feedback loop and result in a “model collapse” as with the AI example is when there is insufficient contact with reality. In the threat intelligence field, we are told to never take conjecture more than one or maybe two levels. For example, if you see an IP address scanning your outward facing network, and you know that last week this same IP address was associated with a particular threat actor you can claim you have evidence supporting that threat actor is now preparing an attack against you. But you are on shaky ground to claim that if you defend against what techniques and tactics that threat actor used last week you should be safe.

I view the Democrats as having lost touch with reality. At one point in time, they claimed that homosexuals were deserving of respect, equal treatment before the law, and generally should be left alone if it only involved consenting adults. I think what has happened is that this belief has developed a feedback loop disconnected with reality. The group belief has degraded into believing straight people should be treated as a lower class, and transsexual woman are no different than biologically women and should be allowed to compete in sporting events against women.

Or abortion is about a women’s choice about what happens to her body morphing into partial birth abortions are acceptable.

Or recognizing that firearms are the most commonly used murder weapon morphing into a believe that firearms have no benefits to society and the world would be safer if they were banned.

Their systems of belief gradually lost touch with reality and they are now suffering a catastrophic break with voters.

Republicans, currently, are probably more in touch with reality. But they still have issues where they are straining reality near the breaking point. If there are people who believe high tariffs, in of themselves, are an economic benefit then I am nearly certain they are wrong. As means of negotiating away a tariff against us, sure, that probably will work. Or the war on drugs was a benefit to society. Yes, recreational drug use is harmful. But the deaths and family destruction from alcohol and tobacco use are a huge cost to society as well. And shouldn’t we have learned something from alcohol prohibition that can be applied to prohibitions against other recreation drugs?

People need to get out of their “echo chambers.” Sure, it is easy and comfortable to extrapolate from the echos. But those echos are a distortion of the real thing. And with each echo the distortion increases.

* This is not universal. There are some cattle with a personality that will knowingly take the hit of the electric fence to escape the enclosure.

The best story I have heard was of some pigs. They would form a group, get back several feet, run at the fence, and before reaching the fence, start squealing. They would hit the fence and shoot underneath receiving a quick, and relatively minor shock. The shock intensity is reduced because the total current the fence delivered at any one time is limited. With simultaneous animals distributing the current among them, each individual animal had a lower shock intensity.

This Works for Everyone Involved

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Ah yes, blue-collar workers who stash 20 compensating peashooters that have been gathering dust in their basements longer than they had been diagnosed with diabetes will definitely be at the front lines for a Civil War should the country go to shit.

So dangerous.

Keelthas Jensen @KeelJonLives
Posted on X, June 3, 2024

It’s not only another Markley’s Law Monday; it is another science denier (see also here and here)!

Delusions are often functional (Heinlein). In this case the functionality works for everyone. Jensen gets to feel superior and gun owners get a good measure of the caliber of their political opponents.

Psychological Set Points

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In climate and energy policy, certain well-intentioned ideas gain outsized popularity despite persistent evidence against them. One such appealing but deeply problematic approach is the “fabric first” philosophy — the notion that building decarbonization must begin by aggressively insulating and sealing structures, only later electrifying their heating systems. On the surface, it’s intuitive: if buildings leak less heat, they need less energy. Yet decades of research across multiple countries continue to reveal that “fabric first” consistently delivers far less than promised, saddling property owners and governments with excessive costs while barely reducing fossil fuel dependency.

…

In short, after decades of experience and analysis, the lesson is clear and overdue: if the goal is truly to decarbonize buildings rapidly, affordably, and permanently, electrification must lead the way. Insulation and sealing should support that goal—not substitute for it. Anything else is merely burning money and carbon while chasing a comforting illusion.

Michael Barnard
March 27, 2025
The “Fabric First” Trap: Decades Of Studies Show Electrification Wins Every Time – CleanTechnica

The reason why this is true is obvious in hindsight:

The culprit, as ever, was the infamous rebound effect: homeowners, now able to heat their spaces affordably, naturally sought higher comfort — warmer rooms, longer heating periods — and even added heated extensions to their properties.

This reminds me of the effect of “childproof” medicine bottles. It turns out that when people had small children and hazardous medicines, their behavior changed versus without “childproof” medicine bottles. They were less careful with the availability of their medicines when they had “childproof” medicine bottles. The end result was essentially the same accidental poisoning of small children.

It appears the psychology is that, in essence, people have a “set point” of risk level they are willing to accept. They used the increased safety of the containers to increase their convenience and maintained the same level of child safety.

And so it is with the heating bills. The people have a “set point” on what they will spend on heating cost and seek more comfort as the cost goes down.

Reality is the Cure

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The more media depictions veer away from reality, the greater the shock when people experience reality. Firearms instructors all have stories about the “aha!” moments of students who personally experience firearms after only media depictions.

When your belief structure is based on false assumptions, reality tends to bite. This is happening in the old Media. They are operating in a bubble where their false assumptions about reality and their groupthink are starting to intersect with reality. Their audiences don’t want what they are selling. Profits are plummeting. Their preferred solution: Have the government bail them out with subsidies.

One of the most important and misunderstood features of a market based economy is the right to fail. When ventures fail, more competent hands obtain the resources and make adjustments better tuned to reality. Progressive control of the media is failing. Their preferred solution is tyranny. The next election will determine if they succeed.

Dean Weingarten
September 24, 2024
GUN WATCH: Looney Tunes Bans Cartoon Guns, Wounds Fans

Progressives lost the national elections. Mainstream media is failing.

One can make the case that progressives have lost. But I think that is premature. There is still life left in them.

Keep pushing reality. As difficult as reality is, it is Kryptonite of the political left. Reality is the diagnosis, and potential cure, of their mental diseases.

There are Drugs and Therapy for That

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I find this very telling about their mindset:

Save it, you can jerk off into it tonight while you dream about shooting people

OL @TheWizKid68
Posted on X, May 12, 2024

This was in my set of pending Markley’s Law examples. While it is a sexually related insult to gun owners it is a little too weak for a Markley’s Law Monday posting.

This mindset has the potential to have its own name. The belief that gun owners get sexually aroused by the thought of shooting, or have a desire to shoot, people is surprisingly common.

I think it demonstrates they have a poor theory of mind. There are therapies and drugs that sometimes help these people.

The Science of Gun Ownership and Penis Size

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Mostly this is confirmation of what we already knew:

Size Matters? Penis Dissatisfaction and Gun Ownership in America – Terrence D. Hill, Liwen Zeng, Amy M. Burdette, Benjamin Dowd-Arrow, John P. Bartkowski, Christopher G. Ellison, 2024

In this study, we formally examine the association between penis size dissatisfaction and gun ownership in America. The primary hypothesis, derived from the psychosexual theory of gun ownership, asserts that men who are more dissatisfied with the size of their penises will be more likely to personally own guns. To test this hypothesis, we used data collected from the 2023 Masculinity, Sexual Health, and Politics (MSHAP) survey, a national probability sample of 1,840 men, and regression analyses to model personal gun ownership as a function of penis size dissatisfaction, experiences with penis enlargement, social desirability, masculinity, body mass, mental health, and a range of sociodemographic characteristics. We find that men who are more dissatisfied with the size of their penises are less likely to personally own guns across outcomes, including any gun ownership, military-style rifle ownership, and total number of guns owned. The inverse association between penis size dissatisfaction and gun ownership is linear; however, the association is weakest among men ages 60 and older. With these findings in mind, we failed to observe any differences in personal gun ownership between men who have and have not attempted penis enlargement. To our knowledge, this is the first study to formally examine the association between penis size and personal gun ownership in America. Our findings fail to support the psychosexual theory of gun ownership. Alternative theories are posited for the apparent inverse association between penis size dissatisfaction and personal gun ownership, including higher levels of testosterone and constructionist explanations.

There is something new in here. There is an inverse relationship that is useful for us to use. It IS projection:

men who are more dissatisfied with the size of their penises are less likely to personally own guns across outcomes, including any gun ownership, military-style rifle ownership, and total number of guns owned.

See also:

A Form of Mental Illness

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Those who carry guns don’t push that belief on others; they simply want the right preserved. Those who hate guns want them outlawed for everyone. That’s the difference between freedom and tyranny. It’s a distinguishing characteristic between conservative and liberal beliefs.

Army of the Poors @ArmyOfThePoors
Posted on X, June 28, 2021

I’m not convinced it is a “distinguishing characteristic between conservative and liberal beliefs.” It certain is A Conflict of Visions. But I see it a distinguishing characteristic between individualists and collectivists. The collectivist somehow believes it is necessary for everyone to have the same beliefs and act in essentially the same way. If the people lobby for teachers to be allowed to carry guns in schools to protect the children, then the collectivists cannot take those words literally. They insist this means we are intent on forcing all teachers to carry guns in schools.

It is very bizarre to me. Some other examples:

  1. They cannot imagine a society where people have the freedom of choice to spend their money as they see fit.
  2. They cannot imagine a society where people are allowed to raise children in a manner other than what the collective insists is the one true way.
  3. They cannot imagine a society where a baker is allowed to refuse baking a cake for an occasion celebrated by the collective which is repugnant to the baker.

I suspect it is a form of mental illness. I once had a relationship where I lived with similar bafflement for decades. I would literally write things down in the clearest possible words. And yet, those words would be warped to mean something entirely different in their mind. I would have them read the words carefully, demanding they show me the words that meant what they interpreted them to mean. After a few minutes, I would convince them I had not said what they claimed I had said. Then, literally 10 or 15 seconds later, they would revert to their original misinterpretation. Even though they had admitted they had wrongly interpreted the words, it was impossible for them to hold on to the literal meaning of the words I used.

I suspect a form of this mental illness infected the Democratic Party. And once it reached a critical mass the craziness caused the implosion of their voting base and the record low approval ratings. Somewhat like the Emperor’s New Clothes, everyone, except the crazy’s themselves, can see the truth and are no longer afraid to say it out loud.

Only Compliance is Important

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It isn’t important which hill neoMarxists choose to die on. What’s important is that they die on whatever hill the Party chooses for them.

George Orwell didn’t write that all freedom is the ability to believe that 2 and 2 are 4.

He wrote that all freedom is the freedom to SAY that 2 and 2 are 4.

Out loud.

What you are seeing here isn’t credulity. That’s not the point. Many of the people who loudly say that 2 and 2 are 5 don’t actually believe that. Nor does the Party need or even want them to.

Beliefs aren’t important to the Party. Math isn’t important to the Party, either.

What’s important to the Party is compliance.

Here’s how this works:

The Japanese insult, “bakamono”, meaning fool or idiot, is written with the kanji characters for “horse” and “deer”.

This isn’t because the Japanese think of horses or deer as foolish. It’s a reference to a story.

On 27 September 207 BC, the eunuch Zhao Gao tested his power against the emperor’s. He presented a deer to the Second Emperor but called it a horse. The emperor laughed and said, “Is the chancellor perhaps mistaken, calling a deer a horse?” He questioned those around him. Some remained silent, and some aligned with Zhao Gao and called it a horse. Zhao Gao secretly arranged for all those who said it was a deer to be brought before the law. Thereafter the officials were all terrified of Zhao Gao.

The ridiculousness of calling a deer a horse, or a woman a man, or two and two five, isn’t the result of stupidity or madness.

It’s the whole point of the litmus test.

If the Party says a deer is a horse, will you agree loudly and vehemently, or will you dissent? Will you comply with the evidence of your own senses, or with the dictates of the Party?

This is how the Party knows who are its slaves, and who are its enemies, which are the only two categories the Party will allow.

“Transwomen are women” isn’t a statement about biology. It isn’t even a statement about social roles.

It’s an oath of submission. What it really means is “I will comply, please do not hurt me.”

This is the true source of the “black lives matter”/”all lives matter” arguments of 2020. It sounds like a silly disagreement if you listen to the content of the words, because “all”, by definition, includes “black”.

But the content of the words was never the point. The point was to make you utter ritual words as a token of submission. Problem was, the words weren’t ridiculous enough. They didn’t distinguish between those who had a philosophical respect for human life, and those who would obey the Party no matter what.

See, the Party isn’t interested in sincere believers. They are of limited use, convenient before the Revolution, but, afterwards, they will be lined up in front of a shallow ditch and shot.

Why?

Because what the Party wants, the whole point of having the Party at all, is absolute power, commanding absolute obedience.

The obedience of even the most zealous of ideological allies is conditional… he obeys because he agrees. So the power of the Party over him is not absolute. They might, someday, do something with which he disagrees, and then he might disobey.

The Party does not want loyal allies who love it. It wants slaves who fear it. Only fear compels absolute, unconditional obedience.

The Party does not care what is in your heart and mind. It only cares that you kneel.

If you are a structural engineer, and the Party says that pi is 3, you must loudly declare that pi is three, and that anyone who says otherwise must be publicly executed as a capitalist imperialist colonialist running dog.

If you do not, you will be tortured and executed.

But you must also secretly memorize the real value of pi, and use it in all your calculations, because you will also be tortured and executed if your buildings fall over.

You must, however, never write down the true value of pi, to help you remember it, and you must carefully burn any page of calculations using it after you are done. If you are caught with these things, you will be tortured and executed.

You must instead spend 75% of your working time constructing fake calculations, starting with the assumption that pi is 3, and subtly introduce computational errors to lead your answer to the real numbers that you computed in secret.

No one will ever read these, but you must meticulously construct them anyway, because if your neighbor ever gets jealous of you, because your wife is prettier than his, or your state-issued apartment is ten square feet larger, then the secret police will check your work, and your only hope is that no divergence from the will of the Party can be found.

Otherwise… well, you know. Here, in the United States, the Party is an embryo. It doesn’t have the power to torture and kill you. It will do its best, of course, but right now, what it has to threaten you with is character assassination.

Racist, sexist, homophobe, transphobe, fatphobe, islamophobe, anti-semite, microaggression, heteronormative, nazi.

Damage to your reputation isn’t particularly fearsome compared to the Soviet, or the Chinese, or the Cuban methods of handling dissent. It isn’t much compared to what the Sandinistas did, or Sendero Luminoso, or Pol Pot.

But the Party needs to start somewhere. It needs to create fear, and train people in compliance, so it can grow.

The Party is not Marxist-Leninist. The Party has no belief system, and it never did. Marxism-Leninism was only ever about finding ridiculous things to force you to say.

Nowdays, the same purpose is served by obvious falsehoods like “transwomen are women”, and “diversity is our strength”.

Devon Eriksen @Devon_Eriksen_
Posted on X, April 9, 2025

I suspect there is a lot of truth to this. However, I have a question… If there are only two categories of people, then which category do The Party members belong? Or saying it differently, how is it decided who are members of The Party?

I have a nagging feeling there are other flaws in this, but it may be due to some oversimplification for illustration purposes other than fatal errors.

Assuming this is fundamentally true, then we have an interesting takeaway. Resistance to The Party only requires noncompliance. Pointing out the most absurd of The Party assertions widens a crack in the power of The Party. Think of the story of The Emperor’s New Clothes. All it took was the correct observation of a little child to break the false assertion.

This is, of course, an exaggeration of reality, But the direction of the force vector to break The Party is dead on.

Democrat Version of QAnon?

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Via email from John Schussler who contributed his comments:

I have a feeling you are probably not thrilled with this, but some of your readers definitely are. I’d be very interested to see a post from you (and the comments to it) discussing the below. Seems to be making the rounds but I have yet to find the original post. Thus far there’s Reddit, plus X, plus others if you Google the first sentence

Then gave me the link Insurrection act — April 20th. Pls read! : r/Political_Revolution and the text below. I am also interested the comments of my readers.

I really wish there was a way to get this into the hands of every American before April 20th.

FROM THE MEDIUM:

Part 1: On April 20th, 2025, the United States may Cross the Point of No Return.

It sounds wild. Maybe even crazy. But every step is already in motion. I’d be happy to be wrong. But if this is correct… you’ll be ready.

On April 20, 2025, the United States may initiate its final steps into authoritarian rule.

That’s the day Donald Trump’s advisory committee is expected to release its findings on whether he should invoke the Insurrection Act — a move that would allow him to deploy the military domestically and allow Trump to impose martial law. (San Francisco Chronicle). Given Hegseth and Noem are the main “advisors”, the conclusion is foregone.

And as his two months in office has already shown, he won’t stop at just a legal opinion.

Expect an executive order even that same day or the next, officially declaring the Insurrection Act, restricting freedoms in the name of restoring control of the border and perhaps in blue-state cities, and setting the larger plan in motion.

Of course, this won’t be framed as an attack on democracy. It will be packaged as a necessary response to crisis — as authoritarian takeovers always are.

But once it happens, there’s no going back.

THIS WILL BE THE POINT OF NO RETURN.

The roadmap for overthrowing a democratic government isn’t new or theoretical — it’s a well-worn playbook, tested and repeated across history by those who crave power more than liberty. After rejecting it initially, being incredulous, I have realized there is too much evidence suggesting this may be what’s happening now to remain silent.

Telling other people what may be happening, so they can recognize it and maybe together we can stop it, is my entire purpose here.

This is Part 1 of what has turned into a series: Their Coup Playbook: How They Quietly Kill the Constitution in the Coming Weeks and Months

THIS IS HOW DEMOCRACY ENDS: HERE’S THEIR PLAYBOOK

It won’t all happen in one night.

Instead, the process will unfold in stages, each step making resistance harder.

Free elections, a free press, and the right to protest will disappear one piece at a time, until there’s nothing left to save.

My entire goal here is to make people aware, so you can recognize it, if it really is what’s happening, and maybe together we can help stop it. It’s all I, personally, can do.

Here’s how it will happen, step by step, after Trump invokes the Insurrection Act with an Executive Order:

1. “Resist!” Demonstrations Grow — Just As Planned

Left-leaning and even more centrist people will be alarmed. Peaceful protests will be organized nationwide, as they already have been being organized now, with growing numbers of people joining protests each week.

The calls to “Resist!” will grow louder, and large-scale demonstrations will begin forming in major cities.

This is exactly what Trump wants. He didn’t invoke the Insurrection Act sooner because he needed his opposition to gather first — so he could use them as a tool for his next step.

He also waited 90 days, instead of invoking it on Day 1 as Project 2025 recommended, so he would have his people in place, and remove those who would oppose them in the government, military, courts, and civil positions.

His cabal is waiting for a strong reaction — they want massive unrest. They need a justification to kick off the next steps in their plan.

2. The False Flag Crisis: Turning Protest into “Terror”

The protests will turn violent quickly. Maybe in a day, maybe during the next big protest the following weekend.

They will turn violent not because of the protesters, but because they will have been infiltrated by agents provocateurs, from militia groups like The Proud Boys, whose goal is to escalate as quickly as possible and give Trump and his cabal an excuse to trigger the next stage.

Expect “terrorist” bombings, targeted assassinations, or high-profile acts of violence, either staged or exploited, to justify the crackdown.

There may even be an extremely high profile assassination of a leading right-wing leader that changes everything in a moment… and the “woke radicals” will be blamed, and the country will rally around more extreme measures to bring back order and control.

The media will be flooded with images of chaos, pushing the public into a state of fear. Calls for “order” will follow.

3. Trump Declares Expanded Martial Law — And Calls for Militia to assist the police and Military

Trump has already invoked the Insurrection Act — so now he now declares even more extensive and repressive martial law, and orders troops into major US cities where most oppose him, branding protesters and opponents as “seditionists,” “traitors,” and the “woke mob”.

He will call on “good Americans” to grab their guns, like the patriots of 1776, and join the militias forming to “restore order” and “take back control” from the leftist threat. Using militias also gets him around resistance from military leaders who might oppose his orders.

The militias already exist — the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, Three Percenters, and others— and they are not some distant fringe. They were at January 6. The most extreme and radicalized are all released from prison now.They are ready to roll, and to answer Trump’s call, which they were waiting for four years ago.

The militia members are your neighbors. The difference between them and you? These neighbors own and have been training with AR-15s. You and your friends? Not so much.

This will be framed as “helping the police” and “keeping order.” Law enforcement will quietly welcome them — or, in some cases, will deputize them, with Trump’s support.

4. Mass Arrests of Opposition Leaders

Journalists, Democratic officials, and activists will be arrested under charges of sedition, terrorism, or “inciting violence.”

Expect Mark Milley, Liz Cheyney, and Adam Kinzinger to be arrested quickly and with great press coverage. How long the show trials take is probably a good measure of how much control Trump has established over the courts.

Key Democratic governors and attorneys general will be removed first, ensuring no state-level resistance.

Law enforcement and military ranks will be purged, with loyalty tests ensuring only Trump-aligned officers remain.

5. Military & National Guard Take Over Major Cities

Expect deployments in Washington, D.C., New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and other blue-state strongholds.

Curfews and lockdowns will be imposed, justified as measures to “restore peace.”

Checkpoints and military policing will become the new normal. Expect them in particular along major highways going to Canada or Mexico, and in red states — to identify and detain seditionists, traitors, and people of questionable loyalty.

Trump’s building of detainment centers in Guantanamo, and expansion of the 106 other ICE detention centers, was not actually intended for illegal migrants. And just a few days ago, Blackwater founder and Billionaire Erik Prince offered to help Trump “privatize deportation camps” as has been being done with prisons per Trump’s Day 1 Executive Order. So now Trump has an extrajudicial place to store the disloyal and those who resist, in for-profit camps guarded by militias and loyal military. Until he decides what to do with them.

6. Press Censorship & Total Media Control

Independent news outlets will face shutdowns or takeovers. Those that resist will see their journalists arrested or harassed.

Mainstream media will be forced into compliance. Blackmail, corporate pressure, and legal threats will ensure they toe the line.

Social media platforms like X (Twitter) will amplify the official narrative, drowning out opposition.

Other social media and lines of communication will be turned off. The Internet will be monitored, people identified from this monitoring for arrest, using Palantir technology. Peter Thiel, who I’ve written about before, is co-founder of Palantir. We will fully enter the surveillance state.

7. Borders Close & Dissidents Are Trapped Inside

Passports will be revoked for critics and opponents. If you’re on a list, you’re not leaving. Especially if you’re of Draft age.

No-fly lists will expand to include activists and journalists.

ICE and DHS will be weaponized — not just against immigrants, but against political enemies.

8. Elections Are “Postponed” Indefinitely

The 2026 midterms will be suspended under the excuse of national security concerns.

Red-state legislatures will eliminate Democratic-leaning districts, ensuring permanent Republican control.

By 2028, Trump (or his handpicked successor) will run unopposed. Elections will be a formality, probably still held. But rigged.

PROJECT 2025 AND THE INSURRECTION ACT: THIS WAS ALWAYS THE PLAN

This isn’t speculation.

The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 lays out a detailed strategy for permanent right-wing control.

It openly advocates using the Insurrection Act to crush opposition and dismantle the administrative state.

Trump isn’t improvising — he’s following a script.

We Can’t Wait — The Time to Act Is Now

We can’t sit back and wait for Trump to fire the starting gun — because once he does, it will already be too late.

We need to prepare now.

We need to plan now.

We need to dismantle his plans before they begin.

We have one month.

That’s it.

The Only Way to Stop this Coup is by Exposing It

The only way I can think of to stop this conspiracy, which is in final planning stages, is through exposure.

If people see the playbook in advance, they will be less likely be manipulated when it happens.

They might question the narrative. “Wait. This is what they said would happen. I thought it was crazy. But maybe…”

We need to spread this narrative far and wide so that when the moment comes, no one can claim ignorance.

Maybe we will be proven wrong.

Maybe we will look silly.

Or maybe… we will have derailed the plan, by telling people what to look for, to recognize the playbook steps as (if) they happen.

Here’s what we must do before April 20:

Empower the press, law enforcement, military, and elected officials to recognize the game that’s being played. They need to understand what’s happening before they are pressured to go along with it.

Share this post, or write your own. Do your own research. Don’t take my word for it. Talk with your friends and family about this crazy conspiracy theory that can’t rally happen… can it? So if and when the steps actually happen, people recognize it for what it is.

Prepare the public so they don’t take the bait. Trump and his cabal want protests to explode into chaos.

They want violence in the streets to justify their crackdown. We must be ready to outmaneuver them — to refuse to be used as pawns in their game.

Stand up to the militias — and stop friends and family from joining them. The Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, and other armed groups will be mobilized as Trump’s shock troops. They will be framed as “restoring order” and “helping the police.” We need to be ready to counter this, to make sure our neighbors, friends, and family don’t get sucked in.

Inoculate our fellow citizens against the propaganda. Most Americans are good people — but good people can be misled. They can be scared into compliance. Our job is to make sure they see what’s happening before it’s too late.

The only way to stop this plot is to expose it, reject it, and make it unmistakably clear to every American what is happening. We must stop these malign forces from enacting their will on our country, the world, and each of us and our families.

WHAT IF WE DON’T STOP IT?

If it is not stopped, and Trump enacts the Insurrection Act, at that point we probably only have 48 to 72 hours to try to stop everything from happening after the Executive Order.

Once martial law is imposed, there will be a tiny window — no more than three days — before resistance becomes nearly impossible.

Stopping it before it happens is the best option.

But what if we don’t?

In my next post, I’ll outline peaceful, strategic ways to resist — while we still can. And what our reduced options are if it still happens.

If we don’t act before April 20, then by April 23, it will already be too late. The next post lays out a concrete action plan — exactly what you can do to try to stop this.”

My first response was to ask Copilot. Copilot was not very helpful. I gave the same prompt to Grok and clicked the “DeepSearch” button. My prompt and the complete response are here. The conclusion and key citations:

Conclusion

The essay’s earliest posting was on March 21, 2025, on Medium, and its claims about the report and advisors have a factual basis in the January 20, 2025, executive order and the roles of Hegseth and Noem. However, broader predictions about authoritarian actions are speculative and lack evidence as of April 8, 2025. Given the sensitivity and controversy, these claims warrant careful monitoring as the report’s release approaches, with potential implications for U.S. governance and civil liberties.

Key Citations

My ten second thought response which I replied in email to John with was, “That is an incredibly detailed delusion.”

If you really want to dig deeper go to the bottom of the original post for the Full Series. There are five long posts on this topic. I did not read them all.

My more thoughtful response with the input from Grok (and lesser extent Copilot), and reading further is that this person, at best, has a vivid imagination. There are connections to reality, but these are only used to jump off into political nightmares which Democrats have been creating and sharing for years.

After spending decades dealing with someone with mental health issues, I see a lot of similarities. They touch reality and then claim far-fetched scenarios are what those touches with reality “really” mean.

You saw similar things with QAnon.

There are enough references to reality that the extrapolation is plausible. And if you are predisposed to belief of that scenario, such as listening to mainstream media for the last several years, then “it all makes sense.” And “belief” is relatively easy.

By picking and choosing the data to incorporate into their belief system they can create a nearly conflict free belief system. Here are some data points they did not take into account.

  1. In general, dictators increase controls rather than decrease them. This enables the easy prosecution and jailing of political opponents. It seems to me the Trump administration is decreasing controls.
  2. The Second Amendment. The Trump administration is a strong supporter of the 2nd Amendment. I do not believe there has ever been a dictator that allowed their political opponents access to arms.
  3. The Trump administration is tearing down government structures typically required for indoctrination and consolidating control. For example, the destruction of Department of Education gives more control to states. Indoctrination of the youth is a common component of all dictatorships I have studied. USAID is another means of control which I would expect to be reshaped rather than destroyed by a dictator.

These data points should be sufficient for a rational person to conclude the scenario foreseen by the poster is unlikely at best and probably a delusion or a carefully crafted post with an ulterior motive. My best guess at an ulterior motive is a desire for attention. My second-best guess is an attempt to create an immediate violent response to the Trump administration.

Prepare appropriately.

I sure there are more disconnects from reality, but I just don’t have the time right now to do more research and thinking on the topic. Please contribution in the comments.

A Canadian’s View of The Second Amendment

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When I was travelling through the South over the past month, I was told by several hosts that they all carry guns. They confirmed that they do not tolerate the nonsense that Jews face elsewhere. America: Never ever give up or water down your Second Amendment. It is the means by which you maintain your freedom from all enemies, domestic and foreign.

Gad Saad @GadSaad
Posted on X, March 7, 2025

Dr. Saad is the psychologist author of the bestselling book, The Parasitic Mind: How Infectious Ideas Are Killing Common Sense. I listened to it and liked it. I follow him on X and find his sarcasm quite entertaining. He taunts the Canadian censors with his criticism of woke ideologies.

His childhood history as a Jew in Beirut likely influences his views on the right to keep and bear arms.

People Will Tell You Exactly Who They Are

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It’s a particular and peculiar benefit of free speech that most people will tell you exactly who they are when you let them.

Anon
February 6, 2025
Comment to Whiteness is a Demonic Force of Evil

Interesting. That probably explains why I have had so many people tell me stuff that I am shocked they tell anyone. I let people talk and don’t interrupt them. I also probably don’t react as much to unusual things as most other people.

I’ve had the most racist, homophobic, sexist, anti-Semitic person I have ever heard of rant for many minutes, multiple times. A far-left woman told me that she and I were one of the new humans, superior to ordinary people. One person, who spent considerable time in a psych ward, told me about the CIA reading our minds. One guy raved about extreme conservative stuff and repeatedly told me that he thought I was a conservative, just like him. Multiple women have told me about their “body count” being in the multiple hundreds.

I just listen.

No Clue About Human Nature

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It’s kinda weird that deplatforming Trump just like completely worked with no visible downside whatsoever.

Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias
Tweeted on January 21, 2021

I can’t find the original tweet, but Marc Andreessen @pmarca (and others) have preserved the quote for our enjoyment:

One has to wonder what type of mental deficiency is responsible for believing such a statement would be true. My model of human psychology predicts a white-hot rage in a narcissist. More normal people will be very unhappy and welcome an opportunity to repay the insult, with interest, even years later.

To be fair, democrats are seldom accused of understanding the true nature of humans (or even animals). They are more likely to assert human nature can be changed to match their beliefs.

Practice Being a Non-Conformist.

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Often it’s perfectly fine to blindly follow rules and guidelines, but sometimes, every once in a while, it can permit atrocities to happen: from cruel conspiracies against that one person in your friend group who’s a little different all the way up the scale to genocidal actions. So it’s absolutely vital to be able to think about the norms we follow, and, from time to time, to break the less useful ones just to make sure we still can. We need to practice non-conformity to make sure we can do it when we need to. It’s always wise to take a minute to think, ‘Do I really agree with this, and could it harm anyone?’ before acting. 

Marie Snyder
January 2, 2025
Stand Out: How to Prevent Obeying in Advance – 3 Quarks Daily

Via email from Chris M.

Following this advice is tougher than you think. This behavior extends from seemly insignificant curiosities to the mind boggling horrific.

For example. Turn off all the lights in a room and shine a light through a pin hole in a wall. Ask the group of people in the room to report which direction the light is moving. After discussing it, they will agree the stationary light is moving and the direction of that movement.

We have examples from the other end of the scale as well. Virtually no one in a group will use their shovel to attack their murderers. This is true even if they are knowingly digging their own graves. Everyone else is digging, so the individual conforms to the norm.

Practice being a non-conformist. It may save your life and/or the lives of thousands or even millions of others.

Global War Over 2+2=4

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Quote of the Day

One day, in the near future, a global war break out will with every human on the planet participating.

On one side, their banners will proclaim the war cry, “2+2=4”.

On the other side, their rainbow banners will state, “That’s racist!”

Alice Smith (@TheAliceSmith)
Tweeted on March 29, 2022

While I think this is overstated to make the point, I do think it has more than a little truth in it. And that is very depressing. It is between the sane and insane. It is war about reality and delusions.

Do Chatbots Have Dementia?

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Via an email from Defens.

Leading AI chatbots show dementia-like cognitive decline in tests, raising questions about their future in medicine

Almost all leading large language models or “chatbots” show signs of mild cognitive impairment in tests widely used to spot early signs of dementia, finds a study in the Christmas issue of the BMJ.

The results also show that “older” versions of chatbots, like older patients, tend to perform worse on the tests. The authors say these findings “challenge the assumption that artificial intelligence will soon replace human doctors.”

Interesting!

At first, I read the article as saying that as the chatbots aged they developed dementia. When I read more closely, I see they are just saying the upgraded versions don’t show these symptoms as much. This is in comparison to the initial versions. Still, this is interesting.

The most amazing dementia test, in my opinion, is to ask the patient to draw an analog clock face. They should draw it with a particular time. In dementia patients the result will be messed up:

I decided to test a few AI Chatbots. I gave all of them the same request:

Please draw an analog clock face with the time of 3:30.

The rest of this post rather long and image intense so I put it below the following line.

Continue reading →

Competing Hypothesis’s on Gun Attitude Flip-Flop

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The very individuals who have long championed gun control as a solution to gun violence are now celebrating the tragic killing of a CEO by someone who was radicalized and used a 3D-printed firearm. These same voices once lauded an attacker who nearly assassinated Donald Trump. Such reactions reveal obvious inconsistency, suggesting that their stance on gun violence are politically motivated rather than rooted in principle.

🔫UR a Smart Ass, Carl🔫 @Ur_a_Smartass_C
Posted on X on December 10, 2024

“… politically motivated rather than rooted in principle.” is a good hypothesis. I would like to contribute another hypothesis.

These are people who decide right from wrong almost entirely based on their emotions. Children who are victims of a mass shooter causes them to feel bad and this means guns must be bad. If someone they don’t like is murdered with a gun, then they feel good. This associates guns with their good feelings, and they have no wish to condemn the gun.

I think there is a more important point to be made here. There is a nothing but a thin veneer of civilization over these people. The threshold for them to accept the murder of someone is shockingly low. This can explain riots, lynch mobs, and genocide. Blood lust is a real thing and only barely suppressed in some people.

Prepare appropriately.

People Have their Own Falsehoods

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Democrats didn’t like what voters told them on election night, and they don’t seem to like hearing what they have to say to each other in the fallout. 

If they want to avoid defeat and become a reasonable party again, they will have to learn how to listen to each other, and their voters, again. 

Max Thornberry
November 24, 2024
Democrats turn on each other in battle for soul of the party

I get it that reality is tough. But reality eventually wins.

This gets back to something I have been saying for years. There is a process by which one can determine truth from falsity. Many people not only don’t use a process, but they also can’t comprehend that such a process exists.

For some people truth is what they believe. Many people have beliefs which not only lack evidence but are in despite of evidence. They may not say this explicitly, but they use phrases that mean that. My “favorites” are variations of “people have their own truths.”

It would be more accurate to say, “people have their own falsehoods.” There is some ultimate truth “out there.” But frequently it is tough, really tough, to get at it. Some people have beliefs much closer to truth/reality, but ultimately it boils down to people believe different falsehoods.

Just because everyone is “wrong” it does not mean everyone is equally wrong. I think this truth escapes the majority of the Democrat Party leaders. They can correctly find flaws in the in their political opponents’ beliefs. This does not mean the Democrat Party belief system is correct or even better.