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Here comes Rod Dreher. He just saw the future. Being a dilettante martyr awaiting his due martyrdom that may come after his death, he was more than happier to be confirmed in his own predictions of social collapse — to invite you once more and live with god in a little corner of the universe, under a Benedictus rock. There, awaiting for the rightful resurrection, unless it’s the final seventh judgement (Armageddon/Revelations) during which the sinners are turned into a Hell-paste for eternal sufferance, we would gloat at the prospect of having been right all along, like a traditional clock is on time twice a day, when stuck at 12 o'clock… 

Here comes Rod:

The other night, a friend in Kansas said that I should watch the new Apple TV take on Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series of novels, because it sounds like the Benedict Option. I did, and really liked the first episode. Then yesterday, a friend in Texas texted to tell me that I should read those Asimov books to explain the Ben Op to people. Well, obviously I haven’t had time to read the books, but the first episode of the Apple series tells me a lot. Let’s talk about it for a moment.

This Wikipedia summary is accurate, and covers most of what you learn in the first episode of the Apple TV series:

The premise of the stories is that, in the waning days of a future Galactic Empire, the mathematician Hari Seldon spends his life developing a theory of psychohistory, a new and effective mathematical sociology. Using statistical laws of mass action, it can predict the future of large populations. Seldon foresees the imminent fall of the Empire, which encompasses the entire Milky Way, and a Dark Age lasting 30,000 years before a second empire arises. Although the inertia of the Empire’s fall is too great to stop, Seldon devises a plan by which “the onrushing mass of events must be deflected just a little” to eventually limit this interregnum to just one thousand years. To implement his plan, Seldon creates the Foundations—two groups of scientists and engineers settled at opposite ends of the galaxy—to preserve the spirit of science and civilization, and thus become the cornerstones of the new galactic empire.

The Ben Op tie-in, obviously, is that Hari Seldon (played by Jared Harris in the new series) foresees the Empire falling, and wants to preserve its knowledge in these Foundations settlements — scientific monasteries. In the show, the Emperors (they are a triad) do not want to hear this bad news, because they are correctly afraid that it would demoralize the imperial population. Seldon and his protege barely escape with their lives.

Watching the show, and taking note of the parallels, it struck me that “the inertia of the Empire’s fall is too great to stop” is exactly the way I would put it regarding our own Empire. I believe that we are headed for a very nasty crash, and that it’s probably too late to stop it. If we hope to stop it, we are going to have to live in ways that few people are willing to live. Therefore, we are going to fall. It might not take place in my lifetime, but it is going to happen.

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Poor Rod Dreher… I think he thinks he is the Christian Hari Seldon, the keeper of the formula… like cavemen used to hold on to the fire-stick as a sacred object.

It seems Rod lives with delusions of his own righteousness as if he was the martyr of the future. Note that The Asimov’s Foundation series is NOTHING like Rod’s Benedict Option, apart from some characters leaving the main social network to hide in a cave awaiting for a wind change that will never happen — with “knowledge to build upon”. 

The empire may crash a bit, but the people running it will turn it swiftly into another gamble in which the large proportion of the people will carry on as if NOTHING HAPPENED, apart from a bit of grit in the corner of your eyes when those annihilating galactic explosions come at us from darken skies. 

The whole Foundation thing is just a simplistic entertaining story, with no sense of prediction except the predictions within, in which 10,000 years is like a blimp between yesterday and tomorrow…The technology of the Apple Foundation show is computerised wizzery/bangery — many notches above the old stained glass windows of churches used to bamboozle the masses into believing in god. In our modern digital times, the illusionary sauce is fantastic, in the true sense of the word: fantasy. Mind you, the social context of the dialogue is 100 per cent pure crass and full of the clichés of doom/gloom/hope, we’ve heard since Abraham was coaxed by god to kill his son. 

— So what’s the plan?

— The empire will fall…

— It’s almost a certainty

— Charlatans and false messiahs…

— 1,000 worlds reduced to cinders…

— The only story...

— Nail another Christ on the barbie…

I made up the last one. It’s not in the “Foundation” series. But it may as well be. The music and the images are pumped up to buggery to make us swallow an impossibility. Nothing new. We love the impossible because we're pedestrians, dreaming of the great crossing into the sky.

The dudes like Rod and the futurologist scientists like Hari Seldon, stuck in their monkeries will stay there, cooped up forever, until they die and desiccate awaiting the fifth coming of the resurrection of reality, with trumpets. Yes it might not happen in Rod's lifetime (f*ck, Rod is a young kid compared to Gus), nor in mine — and it’s likely it will never happen. The only thing that can happen is some Earthly mad general president pressing the red nuclear button and, whether one is in a religious cave or in a scientific monkery, they would suffer as much as the other idiots, us, in broad daylight.

We’ve already mentioned Asimov on this site before (what haven’t we mentioned?) at https://yourdemocracy.net/drupal/node/37508… We’re working at restoring the connection to the pictures…

Meanwhile, China is demonised for managing the freedom of its citizens by “evil” means and I think “we’re not doing this in the West, are we?")… Excuse my sarcasm that is making me sick… This is why I was weirdly thinking the other day that we’re like Britney Spears wanting to show our bum to the world, but our naughty daddy controlling government is stopping us doing so, or collects the cash every time someone looks… We’re not allowed to challenge vaccinations for example. Should we not be wearing a mask, we could be fined 5,000 bux!… But apart from this we’re allowed to believe in whatever approved religious shit — except the Taliban which is crazy. We have got more cameras at street corners than of people standing while awaiting for the pedestrian green light. 

Yes the Empire is a pest, but it won’t go away until we die…or kill it ourselves, softly.

So Rod, take it easy and enjoy the Apple sauce, but as you see an exciting parallel, the only thing to see is that Asimov's Foundation is as crazy as your Benedict option… Good luck...

Gus Leonisky

Atheist in a rabid situation

FREE JULIAN ASSANGE NOW !!!!!!!!!!!