As someone from a cow farm in New Zealand, the Ardern policy was just virtue signalling. Offshore purchase of our land has increased under Ardern. The office supposed to monitor this does not keep records of how much land is owned by foreign entities. Farmland grabs + displacement for Carbon Credits Pine Tree Plantations are a problem for us all in the global south, driven by World Bank and IMF policies.
Cameron and his militant vegan wife used their influence to bash New Zealand pastural cow farms and cow farmers, this in turn influenced regulators to put more and more restrictions on farming and birthed a hostile vegan activist movement in the cities (pastural farming has the most potential for carbon storage). The Camerons own more than one property and I am sure they weren't just trying to drive down the cost of land. Cameron's can't get workers because people will work hard on their own land, but they will not be serfs - which is essentially the model the Camerons want for local kiwi's.
There is a way to farm vegetables with minimal animal imputs - Will Bonsall from Scatterseed Project details this - I am just saying, taking land that had been a cow farm for nearly 100 years and depleting the nutrients within it in under a decade, Camerons were not farming in any sort of healthy way, not that NZ press will detail this.
Auckland NZ has a stabbing a day, one month there were 42 shootings in the city since C19. Dramatic economic reforms in the 1980's emboldened a violence in New Zealand society that has only increased. Cameron + other rich people may believe NZ to be a haven, but what we have is only a veneer of civility.
Aug 14, 2022·edited Aug 14, 2022Liked by Mathew Crawford
Wow, thanks for this article. Having arrived here/now by traveling in time from a simpler era (the 1950’s), I can see that I made no mistake in forsaking “pop culture” along the way if this is indeed where it ended up.
But as to your thesis that Hollywood “knew”, I would agree that these “cultural” (and it saddens me to call them that) artifacts seems a little beyond coincidence.
Personally, I’m somewhat convinced that we’re seeing the death throes of a vapid and materialistic civilization; the WEF types know it’s ending and are trying to control the outcome to their own benefit, but are only seeing through their own lenses blotted with the ink of materialism — a world in which economic output clearly is the supreme value (that value from which all others are derived), given that they quite obviously recognize no qualitative values.
But they’re profoundly mistaken. That’s not where it’s going in the longer term. They’re doomed to fail. They may cause untold human suffering as they flail around pursuing their dystopia, but their artificial “industrial revolution” will founder on the rocks of reality.
People are beginning to reject the premise that the expression of the worth of their lives has a dollar sign in front of it. A supreme value that is better and more serviceable in the pursuit of human happiness and fulfillment than is the dollar is slowly entering the collective consciousness. While it’s only little wavelets here and there at the moment, these little wavelets can and will eventually coalesce into a tsunami that will sweep aside this bogus industrial revolution and all those who have tied themselves to it.
Probably not in my lifetime, and maybe not in yours. Although who knows?
Wow, Matthew your work has been a desperately needed breath of fresh air for me. In an Orwellian time of ever tighter controlled propaganda and the frustration of witnessing the sheer naivety on display everywhere, your integrity and honesty to dig for the nuggets of truth are one of the few things that are helping to keep me sane!! The silver lining of the dark clouds during the plandemonium has been finding Substack and those who are willing to fight for the truth like yourself, thank you so much!! Keep up the good fight! 🙏
Aug 14, 2022·edited Aug 14, 2022Liked by Mathew Crawford
Great article once again Mathew. I've been wondering if the sudden dark tone of cinema over the last couple decades (batman films, bond films, etc) has been less about a reflection of the times and culture and more an overt conditioning for people to accept dismal realities. The Last Airbender film was the biggest leap for me; taking a brilliant kids show with humor and optimism and giving it to M. Night Shyamalan.
There is a long history of prescience in creative projects of all kinds so it is hard to know what is purposeful and knowledgeable, what has to do with the nature of the right brain and the imagination and possible theoretical future understandings of the nonlocal nontemporal and its relationship to consciousness (a paradigmatically tarred and feathered and run out of town on a rail topic, but that might just be Kuhnian dynamics), and what is just resonance and extrapolation, and what is something involved in the mysterious ways the cosmos works, which, ala Godel, our invisible gorilla brains can't ever hope to grok. Cool article!!
I thought it such a coincidence, at the beginning of the scamdemic, that it was American sweetheart Tom Hanks who declared very publicly from Australia to being infected with the virus. Kind of like, "Let the games begin!" Another great post Mathew!
Also, as many others have stated ... this post was captivating - but when I think about it ... I'm a little freaked out that I'm not more freaked out by taking in material like this ... in all seriousness, thanks for helping keep people (me for one) sane and connected amidst the Nonsense ... much appreciation!!!
Someone mentions a game of GO in the comments - anyone here aware of Tom Luongo - he views what has been going on as a galactic game of GO (my words and my hyperbole but he does put forth a well crafted, compelling narrative bringing in the analogy of a GO game). Wondering if Matthew (and others) are familiar with Tom (of Gold, Goats & Guns "fame") ... a very different lane than you Matthew - but a worthy ally in the good fight against the giant squids out there :-)
I'll have to give Utopia another try. The preview so utterly grossed me out, comrade John Cusack and his brainwashed do-gooder kids just looked like a typical leftist family, so I missed the "dark comedy."🤣
As someone from a cow farm in New Zealand, the Ardern policy was just virtue signalling. Offshore purchase of our land has increased under Ardern. The office supposed to monitor this does not keep records of how much land is owned by foreign entities. Farmland grabs + displacement for Carbon Credits Pine Tree Plantations are a problem for us all in the global south, driven by World Bank and IMF policies.
Cameron and his militant vegan wife used their influence to bash New Zealand pastural cow farms and cow farmers, this in turn influenced regulators to put more and more restrictions on farming and birthed a hostile vegan activist movement in the cities (pastural farming has the most potential for carbon storage). The Camerons own more than one property and I am sure they weren't just trying to drive down the cost of land. Cameron's can't get workers because people will work hard on their own land, but they will not be serfs - which is essentially the model the Camerons want for local kiwi's.
There is a way to farm vegetables with minimal animal imputs - Will Bonsall from Scatterseed Project details this - I am just saying, taking land that had been a cow farm for nearly 100 years and depleting the nutrients within it in under a decade, Camerons were not farming in any sort of healthy way, not that NZ press will detail this.
Auckland NZ has a stabbing a day, one month there were 42 shootings in the city since C19. Dramatic economic reforms in the 1980's emboldened a violence in New Zealand society that has only increased. Cameron + other rich people may believe NZ to be a haven, but what we have is only a veneer of civility.
Mathew, this is one of my favorite articles of yours, and that's a tough competition! Thank you for thinking out loud without fear.
Wow, thanks for this article. Having arrived here/now by traveling in time from a simpler era (the 1950’s), I can see that I made no mistake in forsaking “pop culture” along the way if this is indeed where it ended up.
But as to your thesis that Hollywood “knew”, I would agree that these “cultural” (and it saddens me to call them that) artifacts seems a little beyond coincidence.
Personally, I’m somewhat convinced that we’re seeing the death throes of a vapid and materialistic civilization; the WEF types know it’s ending and are trying to control the outcome to their own benefit, but are only seeing through their own lenses blotted with the ink of materialism — a world in which economic output clearly is the supreme value (that value from which all others are derived), given that they quite obviously recognize no qualitative values.
But they’re profoundly mistaken. That’s not where it’s going in the longer term. They’re doomed to fail. They may cause untold human suffering as they flail around pursuing their dystopia, but their artificial “industrial revolution” will founder on the rocks of reality.
People are beginning to reject the premise that the expression of the worth of their lives has a dollar sign in front of it. A supreme value that is better and more serviceable in the pursuit of human happiness and fulfillment than is the dollar is slowly entering the collective consciousness. While it’s only little wavelets here and there at the moment, these little wavelets can and will eventually coalesce into a tsunami that will sweep aside this bogus industrial revolution and all those who have tied themselves to it.
Probably not in my lifetime, and maybe not in yours. Although who knows?
Wow, Matthew your work has been a desperately needed breath of fresh air for me. In an Orwellian time of ever tighter controlled propaganda and the frustration of witnessing the sheer naivety on display everywhere, your integrity and honesty to dig for the nuggets of truth are one of the few things that are helping to keep me sane!! The silver lining of the dark clouds during the plandemonium has been finding Substack and those who are willing to fight for the truth like yourself, thank you so much!! Keep up the good fight! 🙏
Great article once again Mathew. I've been wondering if the sudden dark tone of cinema over the last couple decades (batman films, bond films, etc) has been less about a reflection of the times and culture and more an overt conditioning for people to accept dismal realities. The Last Airbender film was the biggest leap for me; taking a brilliant kids show with humor and optimism and giving it to M. Night Shyamalan.
Seneff*
Killer last sentence. Killer article. So thrilled someone sharp made a deep dive into these connections, especially Watchmen.
Btw, from the 2013 British Utopia:
https://youtu.be/87F2jX5Qk2Y
“ like yet another vacuous, culture-cool series designed to babysit high school students between their compulsory lobotomy sessions”
😂 I am so enjoying this post!!! Enjoying it with a (not my first) cup of coffee while thE kids are napping.
Of course they knew. Remember the face masks as fashion trend in 2018?
https://hypebeast.com/2018/1/face-mask-trend-fall-winter-2018
I’m still thinking there’s some sort of Truman Show ending. Excellent piece!
There is a long history of prescience in creative projects of all kinds so it is hard to know what is purposeful and knowledgeable, what has to do with the nature of the right brain and the imagination and possible theoretical future understandings of the nonlocal nontemporal and its relationship to consciousness (a paradigmatically tarred and feathered and run out of town on a rail topic, but that might just be Kuhnian dynamics), and what is just resonance and extrapolation, and what is something involved in the mysterious ways the cosmos works, which, ala Godel, our invisible gorilla brains can't ever hope to grok. Cool article!!
I thought it such a coincidence, at the beginning of the scamdemic, that it was American sweetheart Tom Hanks who declared very publicly from Australia to being infected with the virus. Kind of like, "Let the games begin!" Another great post Mathew!
I think it's harder for people to really grasp how the powerful exert influence across the world when it's portrayed as fiction on TV and in films.
Also, as many others have stated ... this post was captivating - but when I think about it ... I'm a little freaked out that I'm not more freaked out by taking in material like this ... in all seriousness, thanks for helping keep people (me for one) sane and connected amidst the Nonsense ... much appreciation!!!
Someone mentions a game of GO in the comments - anyone here aware of Tom Luongo - he views what has been going on as a galactic game of GO (my words and my hyperbole but he does put forth a well crafted, compelling narrative bringing in the analogy of a GO game). Wondering if Matthew (and others) are familiar with Tom (of Gold, Goats & Guns "fame") ... a very different lane than you Matthew - but a worthy ally in the good fight against the giant squids out there :-)
I'll have to give Utopia another try. The preview so utterly grossed me out, comrade John Cusack and his brainwashed do-gooder kids just looked like a typical leftist family, so I missed the "dark comedy."🤣