{"id":1714,"date":"2024-12-19T20:02:10","date_gmt":"2024-12-19T20:02:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/zeppscommentaries.online\/?p=1714"},"modified":"2024-12-19T20:02:10","modified_gmt":"2024-12-19T20:02:10","slug":"solstice-2024-expiry-dates-and-the-cassandra-effect","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zeppscommentaries.online\/?p=1714","title":{"rendered":"Solstice 2024 — Expiry dates and the Cassandra Effect"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n

Bryan Zepp Jamieson<\/i><\/p>\n

December 21st<\/sup>, 2024<\/i><\/p>\n

www.zeppscommentaries.<\/a>online<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n

www.zeppjamiesonfiction.<\/a>online<\/i><\/p>\n

Science may not have a hard-and-fast rule that stipulates when hominids became truly human, but if it was up to me, I would say it was the first a hominid raised his fists in the air and shouted, \u201cWe are all DOOMED!\u201d Now, granted, science may find that a bit unhelpful, since nobody can say when the first doom-shouter arose, but they have been an inextricable part of humanity since it became overcooked apes.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe end is nigh\u201d may be a popular pastime with us somewhat-evolved monkeys, and the real allure lies in the fact that if you shout it long enough, you\u2019ll eventually be right. All things end. Look upon my works and despair. We are but mortal. Even the Universe has an expiry date.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s nothing inherently wrong with doom-shouting, of course. Oh, you won\u2019t get invited to many parties and your kids will tell you the music in your day was also crap, but often such shouts warn of clear, present, and avoidable dangers. Things such as overpopulation, climate change, nuclear proliferation and pandemics are very real and even existential threats.<\/p>\n

One drawback to doom-shouting is that the shouter will encounter the Cassandra effect. Cassandra was an ancient Greek soothsayer who was always right, but cursed because nobody ever believed her. Part of it is because most people are at least mildly optimistic. There are the incurable Panglossians, (aka \u201cidiots\u201d) who see everything through rose-coloured lenses, and the deterministic optimists (my group) who acknowledge the dangers and threats but think we can work our way through them. We\u2019re also idiots, but a good deal less starry-eyed about it.<\/p>\n

Most doom shouters are full of crap, of course. Humanity did not end because of cats, communists, Elvis, or rap music. Religious texts are big on \u201cEnd of Days,\u201d leading to endless trouble because of nitwits who interpret it to mean it is Divine Will they bring about the End of Days, but those texts are uniformly a load of crap, too. Too many people believe if you pile bullshit high enough, it becomes worthy of worship. Another sign of humanity, I suppose.<\/p>\n

Which brings us to the here-and-now. America has willingly swallowed poison, and we\u2019re all waiting to see if it was a lethal dose, or if America will end up puking it up and feeling really bad for a long time after.<\/p>\n

For those of us currently living in the US who aren\u2019t part of the One Percent, we\u2019re in for hard times. There\u2019s a very real possibility that America as we know it won\u2019t exist by Solstice 2025. Class-based coups are always ugly, and those staged by the aristocracy tend to be even crueler and bloodier, and often throw the host nation into third-world poverty. And that, in a nutshell, is what has happened in America.<\/p>\n

My brand of optimism doesn\u2019t believe that the course of human events is on an inevitably downward path. If that were true, I believe history would have come to a close at the gates of Auschwitz.
\nNo human force is truly inexorable, no matter how powerful it seems. The USSR was one of the most brutal and pervasive regimes in history, but when the government lost even the passive consensual support of the people, it collapsed relatively bloodlessly in a matter of weeks. It wasn\u2019t a one-off. Ask Assad\u2014his mail is being forwarded to Moscow now.<\/p>\n

Our would-be masters, no matter how arrogant or brutal, absolutely depend upon our support. Without it, they will fall. Remember that. A national strike and millions in the streets peacefully protesting, can end them. It\u2019s up to us. It is always up to us. Be prepared to resist.<\/p>\n

How will the world do? We seem to be undergoing a world-wide convulsion and shifting, one that seems to happen every ninety years or so (the 1930s, the 1840s, the 1760s). Each brought about strife, loss, and bloodshed, but in the end the overall lot of humanity improved. That\u2019s important to remember\u2014the next decade might be fairly crappy, but history suggests a better life for the survivors.<\/p>\n

The existential threats I mention above will still be with us. They are, after all, reiterations of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Nothing new under our sun. And while its possible that one or more of them may raise up to decimate us, I doubt any will end us. For all that we seem hell-bent on self-obliteration, there\u2019s always some sort of built-in override that causes enough of us to dig in our heels and save us from ourselves. Overall, pollution isn\u2019t as bad as it was fifty years ago. A lower percentage of people died in warfare in the 20th<\/sup> century than in any century going back to the 14th<\/sup> century. (Admittedly, those are low bars.)<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve managed to live under the nuclear threat for eighty years now. We aren\u2019t likely to see a pandemic that will kill off a third of us like the one in the 17th<\/sup> century. Over-population was seen as an intractable and inevitable doom fifty years ago. But our birthrate is declining world wide. (Due, in part, to the aforementioned pollution. Details, details.)<\/p>\n

Even climate change may encounter built-in natural governors of the sort that prevented Earth in the past from becoming another Venus, or allowed it to come back at least three times from a state of \u201cSnowball Earth.\u201d<\/p>\n

How will we<\/i> fare? Um, well, let\u2019s just say the Earth is considerably more durable than we are. But existential threats mean existential reckonings. We may yet find ways to avoid the worst of the consequences we\u2019ve laid out for ourselves.<\/p>\n

I believe, and will always believe, that we will somehow muddle through, and even prevail.<\/p>\n

Why would we persevere, if not for the fact that most of us believe that?<\/p>\n

It\u2019s Winter Solstice 2024.<\/p>\n

The wolf didn\u2019t eat the sun. It will return.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t lose hope. Never lose hope.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bryan Zepp Jamieson December 21st, 2024 www.zeppscommentaries.online www.zeppjamiesonfiction.online Science may not have a hard-and-fast rule that stipulates when hominids became truly human, but if it was up to me, I would say it was the first a hominid raised his fists in the air and shouted, \u201cWe are all DOOMED!\u201d Now, granted, science may find … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Solstice 2024 — Expiry dates and the Cassandra Effect”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,617,2],"tags":[1815,2186,207,322,351,2184,2183,2185],"class_list":["post-1714","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-american-psyche","category-history","category-humor","tag-1815","tag-future","tag-hope","tag-solstice","tag-trump","tag-winter","tag-winter-solstice-2024","tag-world"],"yoast_head":"\nSolstice 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