I wanted to get Part 1 out without fully open comments, but I'm allowing commenting by everyone for this one since the story is maturing through this point.
Yes I've seen community erode in multiple different ways here in the UK. Accelerated by lockdowns. e.g. our rugby club has gone from 4 teams and a vets side down to 2 teams. e.g. my monthly geek friend meetup running for 18 years collapsed with no recovery after lockdowns.
Not to mention family atomisation and divorce leading to smaller households.
We scoped Mexico for a perm move, and the amount of multi-generational family time they're mustering puts the UK to shame.
My partner and I decided she would be a fulltime mum, and she gets a ton of societal heat for not "putting the baby on bottle" at 6months, 12 months etc. and "when are you going to get a job again?" meanwhile we observe infants and toddlers and kids lights going out. Raising a relaxed, self-motivated, curious child isn't valued enough by society. Like you say if we neglect the babies and they end up the opposite, what do we expect?
Perhaps the top level manipulators learned how to run the online world like an archipalago of cults. That practice took place in the shadows, and raised an army to tackle and break real world communities.
At the same time, never before has the word "community" been thrown around so much. Only its definition has changed from "people having to live together" to "people sharing some trait or desire". Similar thing has happened to "identity".
I agree it has a lot to do with the death of local community, which was killed. First they came for the community, then they came for the family, and now we are all atomized individuals prey to manipulators.
I think too it has a lot to do with our distance from nature, from our origins and foundations. A simple attention to mammalian biology tells us there are two sexes/genders. We are all to a degree refugees of nature, become bastard children of civilization utterly dependent.
If rebuilding community is key, so is healing our relationship to the earth.
articles Matthew. I realized like everyone here that gender dysphoria is being massively promoted and sanctified, but I never thought to contrast it with how anorexia is treated.
I also didn’t know about pro-anorexia groups. It ties is well with the mind virus concept that is clearly manifesting in numerous ways.
As an aside, I have read over a thousand articles since mid June 2021 and one of my all time favorites is your article about the FDA formula that makes vaccine safety signals disappear. I only understood it when I plugged in numbers in a spreadsheet, but I was stunned. I only recently looked at it on Substack and couldn’t believe the sophistry of some fellow statisticians who were criticizing your simple, obvious conclusion about it.
Same here. It is a little like listening to Bach. Lesser composers would squeeze their best ideas dry. Bach presents an idea once and moves on (but hidden variations are playing in the background).
That's so much greater than what I can imagine I deserve. I have to start saving these. Maybe one day my reviews can be cobbled together to form a fullish looking resume.
Oh, if you think that's too much I might add that I prefer the early Bach to the one-cantata-per-week Leipzig one. :) Sure, the latter is impressive from an intellectual point of view, but it is the early cantatas I am always returning to.
Maybe coincidence, but your notion of broken communities was still on my mind when this popped up.. if we need more evidence of social collapse as a contributing problem.
If the average American takes four pills a day, but some of us take none...the combination of online and pharmaceutical fragmentation may be widespread destruction.
I think the pills affect family relationships and local community building, insofar as they do change people's personalities, and sometimes for the worse when the pills numb one's ability to feel interpersonal pain and take one's foot off the gas accordingly. The pills snip a feedback loop somehow.
An additional qualifying conundrum as to causal genomics via a personal experience:
I was diagnosed as Bulmarexic ( I think they've ditched this term now...but back in the 90's, this meant someone with both anorexic and bulemic episodes) back in the stone age.
Since then it has been heavily correlated to OCD. And yeah, anorexics have incredibly strong minds. But OCD?? I thought that was hogwash...until I realized that I ' count things'. And then I learn that my Mom was much worst about OCD counting, and how sad it was that I took after her purging .( I never knew...) Then my son told me a couple months ago that his Dr believes he is OCD. He sometimes gets very agitated about doing things Right Now, in This Order.
Maybe it's not autism, or maybe they have common genetic predecessors...
We can still approach these issues with empathy and avoid turning mental health disorders into something that looks attractive because it makes someone look/feel special, sets them apart from the norm. This is where activist fail. They aren’t being compassionate but opportunistic.
For the record, I’ve never seen He-man so I thought I was watching the opening credits until the whole ‘tittie’ thing.
That's a song from the South Park guys before they were the South Park guys. I probably shouldn't have included it, but it still makes me laugh, and I thought it might make some others laugh.
But their best pre-famous movie is still Cannibal: the Musical.
It's a spoof of Oklahoma that is based on an actual story about a guy named Alfred Packer who was accused of eating his traveling companions. The court testiomony in the movie is apparently verbatim from the actual court transcripts.
It was Trey Parker and Matt Stone's worst budget and maybe best idea.
We have to be careful. If, indeed, we're in a war, then we need to focus on active tactics and strategies that are happening right now.
For example: the recent spate of unfortunate accidents at food processing plants. Is that real? If real, is it statistically possible that these are all accidental? If real, then is this part of changes that Schwab has said will come on us "like a tsunami"?
What's our strategy? Are they winning by keeping large numbers captive through the MSM? Should our essential strategy be freeing those prisoners? Is the nature of the war this time around information warfare?
"There are many food and beverage processing establishments (plants) in the United States—36,486, owned by about 31,401 companies in 2017, according to the most recent comprehensive data in the Census Bureau's 2017 Economic Census."
i.e. I think they'll run out of matchsticks before food.
That said, supply-side chains and economics continue to get ragged around. I worked in logistics for 2 years and we poured so much effort into smooth running of everything. I can't begin to imagine the multifaceted ramifications of the lockdowns... it'll take a while to smooth out again.
"One way or another, we know that sex-related disorders and neurological/nervous disorders are related. I would suggest that so too is "community disorder" as we see those seeking alternative communities quickly crossing boundaries between their various disorders, perhaps depending on their chosen identity and coping mechanism."
I think you've definitely hit the nail on the head. I look forward to part 3.
May 3, 2022·edited May 3, 2022Liked by Mathew Crawford
"I wager that a minimum of 100% of [the girls] know what 'matriculate' means when they take the SAT."
It means to be enrolled into a community of learners. Roughly.
But do the girls know the etymology...?
From the Latin matricula < matrix < mater = mother. Man, I love words. Maybe we need to come up with a definition for patriculate.
Anyhow, I wager that most of the girls who are gender dysphoric are resisting matriculation into a community of learners learning how to best live the life of an adult woman equipped with a womb with which she can carry a brand-new human to birth and to living life outside of the womb.
I think that the communities bifurcate strongly enough to feel like enemy rivals rather than offerings that can mingle. We have headed further and further along that vector for decades now, and there is no need for it. Worse: it seems in many ways intentional.
May 4, 2022·edited May 4, 2022Liked by Mathew Crawford
I know anecdotes aren't scientific but, my BFF's wife of six years recently realized she was a man, and she was never actually attracted to men. She said what helped her realize this was a video on tiktok.
She then spent a few weeks in a remote cabin to meditate. Eventually she realized she actually is a woman and she is attracted to men.
As José Silva said, "If you don't learn to control your mind, someone else will." Meditation is essential. Too bad they don't teach that in school.
Interestingly enough and anecdotal for sure, but I know more men of my age (I'm Gen X) who transgendered to become women (I'm in the physical sciences so could be a biased sample), whereas in my children's generation (currently teens, boy 18 , girl 13) most of the transgenderism that I am aware of are girls wanting to be boys. To put some numbers on it, amongst the acquaintances of my teens, that I know of, there were 2 boys who transgendered to girls but at least 8 girls transgendered or want to, to boys, and 2-3 girls that don't want to identify as either gender (so want to be referred to they/them). At least one has flipped back to being a girl again in her later teens. Also, one of my nieces is now a nephew and did a complete transgender (masectomy) along with hormone treatment in their mid to late 20's and is now over 30.
I wasn't sure myself if there is something in the water/air, or whether it is attention-seeking behavior (as it is cool to be transgender in our woke community and gender issues are talked about a lot amongst teens), or something else. I get admonished all the time for forgetting who is what - not on purpose of course - I just forget. One of the girls who now identifies as a boy appears to have depression and mental issues and recently went to a live-in mental health clinic at least twice for a few days. I also wondered about whether this was related to puberty and girls not wanting to have their periods or bodies changing during puberty. I can understand that, particularly if you were pushed to take the jab and now have massively heavy and long ones. Most of the kids in our community have been jabbed, and most 12+ 3x already!
I've tried to figure out a way to dovetail with public opinion but cannot. So. If matters came down to survival and "gender dysphoria" or the sexual flavour of the week the fence sitters will choose survival every time. I think we as a modern society have too much luxury to sit around and obsess about our externally suggested weaknesses and fanciful fits of social victimization while ignoring the more important things in life. Like those besides ourselves.
It is because civilization or what ever has "moved up" that they cannot move on. Society permits this. They pin themselves to some garish carousel of self loathing and obsessive examination to the point of mental illness. All the while trying to impose on everyone else their mental affliction.
Those who have more to worry about than their vaporous sexuality wouldn't let it cross but would instead work out their survival. Something far more important to cohesive and intelligent society. Raised in the sixties we were taught us to despise this kind of lewd and self indulgent weakness and now after 50 years of modern indoctrination I can finally see why. It was not until I had read this article this very day that I realized I had been fighting a natural and perfectly academic reaction to such stupefying madness. Society depends on it. To entertain and even promote such mental illness is a passport to social adversity and suffering. It's delusional. It's not mean, it is compassionate in protecting a natural lifestyle and purpose that builds and strengthens a society, not divide and weaken it. This occult sexual illusion has severely weakened western society and to our lasting shame. To ignore it is unforgivable and to accept it ultimately destructive.
I wanted to get Part 1 out without fully open comments, but I'm allowing commenting by everyone for this one since the story is maturing through this point.
Yes I've seen community erode in multiple different ways here in the UK. Accelerated by lockdowns. e.g. our rugby club has gone from 4 teams and a vets side down to 2 teams. e.g. my monthly geek friend meetup running for 18 years collapsed with no recovery after lockdowns.
Not to mention family atomisation and divorce leading to smaller households.
We scoped Mexico for a perm move, and the amount of multi-generational family time they're mustering puts the UK to shame.
My partner and I decided she would be a fulltime mum, and she gets a ton of societal heat for not "putting the baby on bottle" at 6months, 12 months etc. and "when are you going to get a job again?" meanwhile we observe infants and toddlers and kids lights going out. Raising a relaxed, self-motivated, curious child isn't valued enough by society. Like you say if we neglect the babies and they end up the opposite, what do we expect?
Perhaps the top level manipulators learned how to run the online world like an archipalago of cults. That practice took place in the shadows, and raised an army to tackle and break real world communities.
At the same time, never before has the word "community" been thrown around so much. Only its definition has changed from "people having to live together" to "people sharing some trait or desire". Similar thing has happened to "identity".
I agree it has a lot to do with the death of local community, which was killed. First they came for the community, then they came for the family, and now we are all atomized individuals prey to manipulators.
I think too it has a lot to do with our distance from nature, from our origins and foundations. A simple attention to mammalian biology tells us there are two sexes/genders. We are all to a degree refugees of nature, become bastard children of civilization utterly dependent.
If rebuilding community is key, so is healing our relationship to the earth.
There are feedback loops. Cut them short anywhere you can creatively operate.
Thanks for all the thought provoking
articles Matthew. I realized like everyone here that gender dysphoria is being massively promoted and sanctified, but I never thought to contrast it with how anorexia is treated.
I also didn’t know about pro-anorexia groups. It ties is well with the mind virus concept that is clearly manifesting in numerous ways.
As an aside, I have read over a thousand articles since mid June 2021 and one of my all time favorites is your article about the FDA formula that makes vaccine safety signals disappear. I only understood it when I plugged in numbers in a spreadsheet, but I was stunned. I only recently looked at it on Substack and couldn’t believe the sophistry of some fellow statisticians who were criticizing your simple, obvious conclusion about it.
I feel like i read that FDA formula, but now can't recall.
Enjoying your thought provoking work and your style of presenting ideas.
Much appreciated.
Same here. It is a little like listening to Bach. Lesser composers would squeeze their best ideas dry. Bach presents an idea once and moves on (but hidden variations are playing in the background).
That's so much greater than what I can imagine I deserve. I have to start saving these. Maybe one day my reviews can be cobbled together to form a fullish looking resume.
Oh, if you think that's too much I might add that I prefer the early Bach to the one-cantata-per-week Leipzig one. :) Sure, the latter is impressive from an intellectual point of view, but it is the early cantatas I am always returning to.
Maybe coincidence, but your notion of broken communities was still on my mind when this popped up.. if we need more evidence of social collapse as a contributing problem.
https://www.sott.net/article/467273-Antidepressant-prescription-sales-spike-in-US
Sad.
If the average American takes four pills a day, but some of us take none...the combination of online and pharmaceutical fragmentation may be widespread destruction.
I think the pills affect family relationships and local community building, insofar as they do change people's personalities, and sometimes for the worse when the pills numb one's ability to feel interpersonal pain and take one's foot off the gas accordingly. The pills snip a feedback loop somehow.
Ouch.
An additional qualifying conundrum as to causal genomics via a personal experience:
I was diagnosed as Bulmarexic ( I think they've ditched this term now...but back in the 90's, this meant someone with both anorexic and bulemic episodes) back in the stone age.
Since then it has been heavily correlated to OCD. And yeah, anorexics have incredibly strong minds. But OCD?? I thought that was hogwash...until I realized that I ' count things'. And then I learn that my Mom was much worst about OCD counting, and how sad it was that I took after her purging .( I never knew...) Then my son told me a couple months ago that his Dr believes he is OCD. He sometimes gets very agitated about doing things Right Now, in This Order.
Maybe it's not autism, or maybe they have common genetic predecessors...
Just throwing that out there.
Thank you for sharing your story.
I think that there are branches to these kinds of disorders, and I would not presume to think there is one cause or that I understand it.
But I do want to explore whether part of it could be environmentally controlled.
No, absolutely! I think life itself is too complex for any one thing to be the cause of ..well..just about anything within us!
Very informative and thought-provoking article on a tender subject. Thank you.
We can still approach these issues with empathy and avoid turning mental health disorders into something that looks attractive because it makes someone look/feel special, sets them apart from the norm. This is where activist fail. They aren’t being compassionate but opportunistic.
For the record, I’ve never seen He-man so I thought I was watching the opening credits until the whole ‘tittie’ thing.
That's a song from the South Park guys before they were the South Park guys. I probably shouldn't have included it, but it still makes me laugh, and I thought it might make some others laugh.
But their best pre-famous movie is still Cannibal: the Musical.
Never heard of it but will check it out! Catching up on years of American pop culture...
It's a spoof of Oklahoma that is based on an actual story about a guy named Alfred Packer who was accused of eating his traveling companions. The court testiomony in the movie is apparently verbatim from the actual court transcripts.
It was Trey Parker and Matt Stone's worst budget and maybe best idea.
Sounds hilarious.
We have to be careful. If, indeed, we're in a war, then we need to focus on active tactics and strategies that are happening right now.
For example: the recent spate of unfortunate accidents at food processing plants. Is that real? If real, is it statistically possible that these are all accidental? If real, then is this part of changes that Schwab has said will come on us "like a tsunami"?
What's our strategy? Are they winning by keeping large numbers captive through the MSM? Should our essential strategy be freeing those prisoners? Is the nature of the war this time around information warfare?
One way to win a war with less bloodshed and sacrifice is to deprive the enemy of soldiers.
Of course, that's a bonus to encouraging healthy human development, which ought to be a primary goal at all times.
"There are many food and beverage processing establishments (plants) in the United States—36,486, owned by about 31,401 companies in 2017, according to the most recent comprehensive data in the Census Bureau's 2017 Economic Census."
i.e. I think they'll run out of matchsticks before food.
That said, supply-side chains and economics continue to get ragged around. I worked in logistics for 2 years and we poured so much effort into smooth running of everything. I can't begin to imagine the multifaceted ramifications of the lockdowns... it'll take a while to smooth out again.
Good to know!
"One way or another, we know that sex-related disorders and neurological/nervous disorders are related. I would suggest that so too is "community disorder" as we see those seeking alternative communities quickly crossing boundaries between their various disorders, perhaps depending on their chosen identity and coping mechanism."
I think you've definitely hit the nail on the head. I look forward to part 3.
"I wager that a minimum of 100% of [the girls] know what 'matriculate' means when they take the SAT."
It means to be enrolled into a community of learners. Roughly.
But do the girls know the etymology...?
From the Latin matricula < matrix < mater = mother. Man, I love words. Maybe we need to come up with a definition for patriculate.
Anyhow, I wager that most of the girls who are gender dysphoric are resisting matriculation into a community of learners learning how to best live the life of an adult woman equipped with a womb with which she can carry a brand-new human to birth and to living life outside of the womb.
I think that the communities bifurcate strongly enough to feel like enemy rivals rather than offerings that can mingle. We have headed further and further along that vector for decades now, and there is no need for it. Worse: it seems in many ways intentional.
I know anecdotes aren't scientific but, my BFF's wife of six years recently realized she was a man, and she was never actually attracted to men. She said what helped her realize this was a video on tiktok.
She then spent a few weeks in a remote cabin to meditate. Eventually she realized she actually is a woman and she is attracted to men.
As José Silva said, "If you don't learn to control your mind, someone else will." Meditation is essential. Too bad they don't teach that in school.
A light just went off in my head. I think you’re onto something. Many linking issues between transgender & anorexia mentally & what can fuel it.
I’ve never made the link before but so many character traits apply to both parties.
Interestingly enough and anecdotal for sure, but I know more men of my age (I'm Gen X) who transgendered to become women (I'm in the physical sciences so could be a biased sample), whereas in my children's generation (currently teens, boy 18 , girl 13) most of the transgenderism that I am aware of are girls wanting to be boys. To put some numbers on it, amongst the acquaintances of my teens, that I know of, there were 2 boys who transgendered to girls but at least 8 girls transgendered or want to, to boys, and 2-3 girls that don't want to identify as either gender (so want to be referred to they/them). At least one has flipped back to being a girl again in her later teens. Also, one of my nieces is now a nephew and did a complete transgender (masectomy) along with hormone treatment in their mid to late 20's and is now over 30.
I wasn't sure myself if there is something in the water/air, or whether it is attention-seeking behavior (as it is cool to be transgender in our woke community and gender issues are talked about a lot amongst teens), or something else. I get admonished all the time for forgetting who is what - not on purpose of course - I just forget. One of the girls who now identifies as a boy appears to have depression and mental issues and recently went to a live-in mental health clinic at least twice for a few days. I also wondered about whether this was related to puberty and girls not wanting to have their periods or bodies changing during puberty. I can understand that, particularly if you were pushed to take the jab and now have massively heavy and long ones. Most of the kids in our community have been jabbed, and most 12+ 3x already!
I've tried to figure out a way to dovetail with public opinion but cannot. So. If matters came down to survival and "gender dysphoria" or the sexual flavour of the week the fence sitters will choose survival every time. I think we as a modern society have too much luxury to sit around and obsess about our externally suggested weaknesses and fanciful fits of social victimization while ignoring the more important things in life. Like those besides ourselves.
It is because civilization or what ever has "moved up" that they cannot move on. Society permits this. They pin themselves to some garish carousel of self loathing and obsessive examination to the point of mental illness. All the while trying to impose on everyone else their mental affliction.
Those who have more to worry about than their vaporous sexuality wouldn't let it cross but would instead work out their survival. Something far more important to cohesive and intelligent society. Raised in the sixties we were taught us to despise this kind of lewd and self indulgent weakness and now after 50 years of modern indoctrination I can finally see why. It was not until I had read this article this very day that I realized I had been fighting a natural and perfectly academic reaction to such stupefying madness. Society depends on it. To entertain and even promote such mental illness is a passport to social adversity and suffering. It's delusional. It's not mean, it is compassionate in protecting a natural lifestyle and purpose that builds and strengthens a society, not divide and weaken it. This occult sexual illusion has severely weakened western society and to our lasting shame. To ignore it is unforgivable and to accept it ultimately destructive.