This article is based on a comment that was on one of my forums. In it, the person suggested that what he has read about China, from MM, reminds him of the society as depicted within the science fiction story “Starship Troopers” by Robert Heinlein. I have to admit that this is a profound observation. And I agree with him. Here, we will dissect this observation and add some of my personal comments to it.
The book
The book is well worth the read. I have it available in glorious and easy to read HTML here…
Starship Troopers.
Starship Troopers Comparisons
Starship Troopers is perhaps the best-known novel of science fiction master Robert A. Heinlein. Unlike many science fiction novels, the longevity of Starship Troopers’ reputation has at least as much to do with controversies over its themes as the quality of the writing and storytelling.
I am afraid there is no getting around using the f-word here—there is significant debate as to whether Starship Troopers, which glorifies martial virtues and a highly authoritarian political constitution, is fascist.
This debate is muddied by the 1997 movie based on the book, which the filmmakers intentionally used as an artistic opportunity to engage in a reductio ad absurdum of militaristic culture.
Putting the movie aside, I want to explore the political economy of the novel itself.
My claim is simple: Starship Troopers is not fascist. Instead, it is an exploration of certain sociopolitical truths that, if ignored, doom a civilization to self-parody by the hemorrhaging of civic virtue.
The novel, told from the perspective of infantryman Juan “Johnnie” Rico, primarily depicts the transformation of a civilian into a soldier. But it is also a commentary on the qualities of a political structure that result in a durable social order.
The novel is set centuries into the future, where earth is part of a polity called the Terran Federation, a spacefaring civilization that extends humanity throughout the galaxy.
In this civilization, all high school students are required to take a course titled “History and Moral Philosophy,” which must be taught by a veteran of the armed services. Johnnie’s teacher, retired Lt. Col. Dubois, recounts to his students how the “twentieth century democracies” gradually experienced a breakdown in domestic law and order.
This occurred as these polities continued to grant more and more rights to their citizens, but did not impose accompanying responsibilities.
One result was a spike in crime, such that public spaces were no longer safe at nighttime and many were not safe during the day.
Later in the novel, we learn that international military disaster accompanied domestic political disorder.
A vaguely described war—between the “Chinese Hegemony” and an alliance of the United States, Britain, and Russia on the other—so exhausts the Western polities that they lose the ability to even maintain order within the armed services.
With the breakdown in social order, veterans of this war eventually take the law into their own hands. They form gangs to police their towns and cities, imposing martial law without any civilian oversight—of which it is unclear there could be any, given the previously mentioned political atrophy.
At first, this is unmistakably nothing more than vigilante justice.
But through sheer force, they are capable of maintaining a rudimentary peace. The order of martial law is a low form of order; no great civilization can flourish with a boot on its neck.
But eventually, not through any formal grant of legitimacy via democratic processes but a gradual acceptance of the new ad hoc regime, regularity returns to the social world.
On-the-spot justice gives way to regular procedures for ascertaining guilt and assigning punishment to perceived criminals.
As these practices become institutions, civilization shifts from one sociopolitical equilibrium to another.
With regularity comes justified expectations of future behavior by the new government, and along with it the rule of law, and the return of some semblance of democratic and parliamentary governance.
The chief difference is that society is now quasi-Spartan: only those with a military background can participate in the governance of the polity; key civilian positions are reserved by law for veterans; and those who do not perform at least two years of federal service cannot exercise “sovereign franchise.” That is, they cannot vote.
At various points in the novel, this narrative is referred to in order to point out two important truths about governance.
These truths are explored through the interplay of Johnnie’s character development and his eventual comprehension of his society’s governance structures.
The first of these truths has to do with the nature of sovereignty.
In the real world, we tend to view sovereignty in ethical terms. We answer “Who rules?” by asking, “Who ought to rule?” This is how we continue to affirm democratic legitimacy even though it is obvious that the will of the people has little to do with how modern Western polities are actually governed.
In contrast, the characters in Starship Troopers have no truck with romantic theories of governance that have no basis in reality.
At its root, sovereignty is power, which means force.
The quasi-military government of Starship Troopers exists because the founders of the Terran Federation, back when they were little more than a vigilante mob, were willing to impose themselves on others.
As it became clear that nobody could oppose them, they became the new de facto government, and eventually the new de jure government. The essential truth of sovereignty, in terms of who actually rules, is that sovereignty is inevitable and, in a higher sense, arbitrary.
Why do veterans govern the Terran Federation?
The only possible answer is because they can.
To be clear: This is not a claim that social order requires violence. It is the claim, as historically robust a truth as can be found, is that someone, somewhere, will wield the sword.
To the extent that our political constitutions can be founded on “reflection and choice,” our choice is not power versus self-governance.
Instead, it is responsible versus irresponsible power.
Now we see why so many worry about the glorification of fascism in Starship Troopers. Heinlein had the audacity to explore a world where Sparta works, and is durable.
Understandably, this puts our Western (American) Athenian sensibilities on Red Alert.
The novel’s justifications for franchise restrictions, perhaps the ultimate blasphemy in our egalitarian-democratic age, highlight a second sociopolitical truth:
Any society that decouples rights and responsibilities thereby enables irresponsible power.
…
Eventually, Johnnie is recognized as officer-caliber material.
He is sent to the Terran Federal Service’s equivalent of officer candidate school, which if anything is more grueling than basic training, both physically and mentally.
Chapter 12 of the novel illustrates the intimate link between rights, responsibilities, and a well-governed society in the form of a dialogue between a grizzled officer-instructor and a naïve cadet.
The instructor asks the cadet for “a reason—not historical nor theoretical but practical,” for limiting the franchise to discharged veterans.
The cadet goes through several incorrect explanations—that veterans are higher-quality beings, “picked men,” or that they are “more disciplined”—before he, along with Johnnie and the reader, are enlightened.
The instructor begins by wryly asserting,
“I handed you a trick question. The practical reason for continuing our system [of limited franchise] is the same as the practical reason for continuing anything: it works satisfactorily.”
This is a repeated emphasis on the fundamentals of sovereignty.
The instructor then goes through the restrictions on voting, or the exercise of political power more generally that have existed throughout history, and in what respect the restrictions of the Terran Federation differ.
The answer:
“Under our system every voter and officeholder is a man who has demonstrated through voluntary and difficult service that he places the welfare of the group ahead of personal advantage…. He may fail in wisdom, he may lapse in civic virtue. But his average performance is enormously better than that of any other class of rulers in history.”
The instructor takes a realistic, and hence grim, view of political power—again, remember the truth of sovereignty!—when he continues,
“To vote is to wield authority; it is the supreme authority from which all other authority derives…the franchise is force, naked and raw, the Power of the Rods and the Ax. Whether it is exerted by ten or by ten billion, political authority is force.”
Next the instructor singles out Johnnie to complete the narrative. He asks what the necessary complement to authority is, and Cadet Rico answers “Responsibility.”
This pleases the instructor, who finishes explaining why the political system of the Terran Federation has been both successful and stable:
Authority and responsibility must be equal—else a balancing takes place as surely as current flows between points of unequal potential. To permit irresponsible authority is to sow disaster; to hold a man responsible for anything he does not control is to behave with blind idiocy. The unlimited democracies [of the twentieth century] were unstable because their citizens were not responsible for the fashion in which they exerted their sovereign authority…. No attempt was made to determine whether a voter was socially responsible to the extent of his literally unlimited authority. If he voted the impossible, the disastrous possible happened instead—and responsibility was then forced on him willy-nilly and destroyed both him and his foundationless temple (emphasis added).
There you have it: The stark recognition that the right to vote is the right to rule, and that the right to rule without the responsibility of bearing the consequences of one’s decisions is a recipe for infantilism writ large.
One may dispute whether this specific form of civic virtue is the safest foundation on which a limited franchise rests.
But the key point, that there is such a thing as better and worse voters, and that empowering the latter is a sure path to gradual erosion of social cooperation, is sound.
It’s also one we desperately need to hear today.
And now, the inevitable caveats. There is some truth to the claim that, on its own, Starship Troopers is a dangerous form of social commentary.
Martial glorification is an inherently slippery slope, as any historian of Wilhelmine Germany can attest.
Furthermore, the kind of mind sympathetic to highly hierarchical governance is at risk of mistakenly thinking a whole society can be run like a barracks.
These impulses must be tempered by exposure to insightful commentary on what happens when power is, despite everybody’s best intentions, exercised irresponsibly, an unfortunately all-too-common occurrence. But all of these caveats do not diminish the wisdom that Starship Troopers conveys, all the more remarkable for being a work of fiction.
If we are unwilling to find a way to structure our political institutions such that rights are firmly coupled with responsibility, we will continue to see a ballooning of the former and an erosion of the latter.
The result will not be pretty, and we will deserve it.
But is China really like this?
As someone who has lived 40 years in America from birth, and then an additional 20+ years inside of China, I am positively affirm that Chinese society is very, very similar to the society that was depicted in the book.
Similar.
No, it’s not the evil “Communist regime” that the onslaught of anti-China Western propaganda spews daily in your “news” feeds.
It’s something else entirely.
But China is not Sparta. Nor is it like the Western “democracies”. It is a new social system that has never been seen before on the world. And the closest illustration of what it is, by far, is through the book “Starship Troopers”.
The tenants of the society depicted within the book
Let’s break down some of the core points in the book and how they manifest within China.
And I am going to tell you all, right off the bat, that this is information that you will not find in the American or “Western” press or “news”. They (the media) all are well-funded propaganda mills that actually believe their echo-chamber nonsense.
We will look at these tenants listed in the movie;
- Only those with a military background can participate in governance.
- At all levels discipline is required for success.
- Sovereignty is power, which means rule by force.
- Responsible versus irresponsible power.
- Rights and responsibilities are intertwined.
Only those with a military background can participate in the governance of the society.
Well, let’s begin with the understanding that not all things military resembles marching armies.
In America we have the Coast Guard, the Department of Homeland Security, The Civilian Conservation Corps, and The Peace Corps. What all these organizations possess is that the participants are volunteers that risk their lives, devote their time and careers, towards the betterment of society.
- Coast Guard = Working to protect society.
- Civilian Conservation Corps = Working to protect societies environment.
- Peace Corps = Working to support other societies for the good of all.
So if we use this model and expand “the military” to include “organizations that support the growth and maintenance of society” you can say…
Yes. Absolutely!
In China if you want to vote in the “democratic process” you must be a member of the “Party”, and to be a member, you must contribute and participate.
Service grants citizenship.
Those that do not participate; that do not excel in school; that do not help and volunteer, and those that do not join The Pioneers when in elementary, middle and high schools cannot participate in government within China. Period.
In China, not everyone can vote.
It is a meritocracy. The ability to vote requires that you, throughout your life, contribute to the good of society and do what ever is needed at any time of the day or night.
If the government asks you to help rebuild a dam, then you leave you job and do so. If the government asks you to build a hospital over night, then you do so. You don’t complain. You do it.
That is participation. That is a society that only allows contributors to participate in governance.
At all levels discipline is required for success.
Discipline is taught at a young age. And from Kindergarten on up, the students obtain daily discipline training, education on civic society, military behaviors and pure military field rife and combat training.
Here’s some videos that I collected. Some are training films. Some are recruitment films. Some are just studies. Some are personal videos. All in all a good mix. It will give you all a great idea about the Chinese military capability.
Discipline – Elementary Echool Soldiers
Young Pioneers and elementary children going through mandatory military training.
Some of the films have children in it going through training. These are the elementary-school Pioneers (the Chinese cub scouts). Everyone in China gets full military training. Those older kids, are in middle school. They are the ones wearing blue slacks with the white line training and shooting AK-74’s.
You will see closeups of the various electronic weapons systems, and the state of the art Chinese SEAL and Special Forces troops as well. You will see some videos about how Japan came into China and killed off so many innocent civilians. And note that now that every civilian can fire a gun, and fight, that is never going to happen ever again.
You can download the Video Archive HERE.101MB.
Discipline – Middle School Soldiers
It starts off with some more middle school assault weapon training.
Next is the elementary school pioneers who undergo physical obstacle course training. Notice that they do it while carrying a full military rifle. Also note that it’s both boys and girls. No one gets a pass. VIDEO.
The third video is the reservists. China has an active military and the reserves that meet every few weeks. VIDEO.
Training, training, training.
Fourth video is for the young Pioneers. For inspiration and training. Very, very interesting. If you don’t watch any of these videos here, you MUST at least watch this one.
China will NEVER allow a repeat of the “Rape of Nanjing”.
Watch this video.
So many interesting videos. Watch them all in this massive collection. You can download the Video Archive HERE. 257MB.
Discipline – The “Kitchen Sink”
Here’s another group. HERE. 381MB
Of course there are all sorts of interesting things in these videos.
Discipline – Learn about Chinese Society
Here we have some first grade students demonstrating their skills in front of the rest of the school in assembly. Note that all students not only learn English, but also get weekly lessons in military warfare, strategy, and operations. VIDEO.
And here are how a Pioneers assembly looks like. These are all first grade students around 6 years old. VIDEO.
Discipline. Merit. Training.
Sovereignty is power, which means rule by force.
Ah. This is the common anti-China narrative. But the reality is that China does not rule by force. Instead, they rule by compliance.
In China, everyone is expected to comply with the law. The entire nation is wired up with AI monitored video, audio and systems, and boy oh boy is that driving the American CIA bonkers! China knows who is doing what, where and why. It’s sort of like that Tom Cruse movie where you can follow a person’s movements from when they wake up in the morning throughout the day. That is China today.
It is invasive?
No, not really, with 1.6 billion people there is no way for people to monitored gulag style. Instead, AI monitors and flags dangerous behaviors. A social credit scorecard is used to connect individual behaviors to society hierarchy. If you are a dick, a bad person, a skank, you will be low on the hierarchy. But if you are good, helpful and volunteer, you will go up higher. It’s all merit driven.
And that is a great thing.
Responsible versus irresponsible power.
In Washington, DC, a tribunal of nine men and women spoke with one voice to affirm that the government and its henchmen can literally get away with murder and not be held accountable for their wrongdoing. -John Whitehead
One of the core tenants of the book “Starship Trooper” was that only the responsible would be in the position of power to govern. that really riled up the sensibilities of many a free wheeling, casual, “good time Charlie” lover. And responsibility comes with wisdom, experience, effort and merit. You are not just “responsible” at birth. It is a learned behavior.
If you are not to be responsible, you become irresponsible. Not just to yourself, but to those around you. You need discipline, behavioral training, and coaching.
While the book refers to this trait on a personal level, the key point is that it applies throughout society. There is a real problem when you live in a family with an irresponsible parent. The entire household becomes dysfunctional.
Its even worse when an irresponsible person takes over the reins of government. And that must be prevented.
[1] At the system level
The system must screen for dangerous people.
The system that brings in leadership, and directors must be solid, substantive, rugged and robust. It must be such that all the problematic personalities; the greedy, the psychopathic, the sociopath, the narcissistic and the evil be forever barred from positions of power and control. This system is inherent inside the operation of the Chinese communist party. It is very, very difficult to join, and the requirements to do so are maintained by service-to-others (SEO) committees.
[2] At the operation level
The leadership must constantly be policed.
This is the bane of most societies and only in the last ten years has this changed in China. China has set up the “Corruption Police” and they have made “earth shattering” changes to all levels of government. The days of graft, vice, abuse of power are all gone. (Well, in the process of going away. There are always hold outs.) This “Corruption Police” are an elite group of SEO officers and agents that root out corruption at every level and work to functionally make the Chinese society a well-run meritocracy.
Rights and responsibilities are intertwined.
America talks and talks about Rights. There are no Rights in America. Every single (so called immutable Rights) now come with exceptions. And there are so many of these exceptions that they render the Rights useless.
While in China, the Rights of the people are maintained, policed and enforced. No wonder the Chinese have a 95% approval rate for their government.
But inside the ruined has-been nation of America, the story is quite different. With only a mere 15% of the population trusting the United States government, with a margin of error around 15%. Which means that somewhere between 0% and 30% of the United States citizenry trust the American government.
John White head said it best…
“We can zip our lips and bind our hands and shut our eyes.
In other words, we can continue to exist in a state of denial. Yet there is no denying the ugly, hard truths that become more evident with every passing day.
- The government is not our friend. Nor does it work for “we the people.”
- Our so-called government representatives do not actually represent us, the citizenry. We are now ruled by an oligarchic elite of governmental and corporate interests whose main interest is in perpetuating power and control.
- Republicans and Democrats like to act as if there’s a huge difference between them and their policies. However, they are not sworn enemies so much as they are partners in crime, united in a common goal, which is to maintain the status quo.
- The lesser of two evils is still evil.
- Some years ago, a newspaper headline asked the question: “What’s the difference between a politician and a psychopath?” The answer, then and now, remains the same: None. There is virtually no difference between psychopaths and politicians.
- More than terrorism, more than domestic extremism, more than gun violence and organized crime, the U.S. government has become a greater menace to the life, liberty and property of its citizens than any of the so-called dangers from which the government claims to protect us
- The government knows exactly which buttons to push in order to manipulate the populace and gain the public’s cooperation and compliance.
- If voting made any difference, they wouldn’t let us do it.
- America’s shadow government—which is comprised of unelected government bureaucrats, corporations, contractors, paper-pushers, and button-pushers who are actually calling the shots behind the scenes right now and operates beyond the reach of the Constitution with no real accountability to the citizenry—is the real reason why “we the people” have no control over our government.
- You no longer have to be poor, black or guilty to be treated like a criminal in America. All that is required is that you belong to the suspect class—that is, the citizenry—of the American police state. As a de facto member of this so-called criminal class, every U.S. citizen is now guilty until proven innocent.
- “We the people” are no longer shielded by the rule of law. By gradually whittling away at our freedoms—free speech, assembly, due process, privacy, etc.—the government has, in effect, liberated itself from its contractual agreement to respect our constitutional rights while resetting the calendar back to a time when we had no Bill of Rights to protect us from the long arm of the government.
- Private property means nothing if the government can take your home, car or money under the flimsiest of pretexts, whether it be asset forfeiture schemes, eminent domain or overdue property taxes. Likewise, private property means little at a time when SWAT teams and other government agents can invade your home, break down your doors, kill your dog, wound or kill you, damage your furnishings and terrorize your family.
- We now find ourselves caught in the crosshairs of a showdown between the rights of the individual and the so-called “emergency” state, and “we the people” are losing.
- All of those freedoms we cherish—the ones enshrined in the Constitution, the ones that affirm our right to free speech and assembly, due process, privacy, bodily integrity, the right to not have police seize our property without a warrant, or search and detain us without probable cause—amount to nothing when the government and its agents are allowed to disregard those prohibitions on government overreach at will.
- If there is an absolute maxim by which the federal government seems to operate, it is that the American taxpayer always gets ripped off.
- Our freedoms—especially the Fourth Amendment—continue to be choked out by a prevailing view among government bureaucrats that they have the right to search, seize, strip, scan, spy on, probe, pat down, taser, and arrest any individual at any time and for the slightest provocation.
- Forced vaccinations, forced cavity searches, forced colonoscopies, forced blood draws, forced breath-alcohol tests, forced DNA extractions, forced eye scans, forced inclusion in biometric databases: these are just a few ways in which Americans continue to be reminded that we have no control over what happens to our bodies during an encounter with government officials.
- Finally, freedom is never free. There is always a price—always a sacrifice—that must be made in order to safeguard one’s freedoms.
We cannot remain silent in the face of the government’s ongoing overreaches, power grabs, and crimes against humanity.
Evil disguised as bureaucracy is still evil. Indeed, this is what Hannah Arendt referred to as the banality of evil.”
But this is not the case in China.
In China if you want a Right, you must earn it, and then show responsibility for it. If you do not, then it will be withheld from you. On the day to day, practical level, this manifests as the Social Credit Scoring system.
To give a good example of this, consider the laws that require parents to be responsible for the bad things their children do. China’s parliament will consider legislation to punish parents if their young children exhibit “very bad behavior” or commit crimes.
Yeah it is the parents’ responsibility to take care of their children, whether the child is good or bad depends on the parents, educate the child in the path he should follow, and even when he is older he will not depart from it.
it’s called RESPONSIBILITY.
Conclusion
But China is Communist! They scream!
China says it’s a Social Democracy based on traditional Communist Values. While America calls itself an exceptional democratic republic.
He says. She says. Who cares?
China today is something that cannot be easily explained in tight, narrow, traditional political definitions. While America is simple. It is a classic oligarchy ruled military empire.
Part of the problem with trying to solve or fix a problem is defining what the problem is. America is broke. It is broken, smashed, and a walking cluster fuck. That’s a fact Jack. If you cannot see it, then you must be mentally ill.
Meanwhile, China is the absolute opposite of it.
There are many, many similarities between the Chinese society and that of the society as depicted within the book “Starship Troopers” by Robert A Heinlein.
On a whole, I believe that China is doing things right.
They should be applauded for it. This system raised over a billion people out of poverty. This system has created a great “level playing field” for the vast bulk of Chinese society to have a moderate successful life, and this system is rocking the world with scientific discoveries, help, and innovation.
China is taking the world by the hand gently and moving it forward. I for one applaud it, and you should too. Do not fear that the billionaires can only become thousandaires, or that “‘ma freedoms to a vote in a democracy” would be restricted. Those are fears intentionally generated to make you fear what the world is becoming.
Do not fear.
Instead…
Look at what America has become. When you are ruled by the psychopathic in society, the society becomes ill, distressed and dysfunctional.
Here is America today…
The cities are inhabited by zombies. They really are. Video.
Well, not all the cities are inhabited by zombies.
You have a bunch of people walking around in “freedom”, “doing their own thing”. Such as this fine upstanding “pillar of the community” here. VIDEO.
There is no alternative. China is the future.
China is the future!
Just like in the movie “Starship Troopers”…
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Outstanding ! Power is the source of sovereignty & responsibility (ability to response) is the source of power which grants sovereignty, another name for freedom. Discipline & Responsibility…
Hmm. A wild thought appears! This might actually be a representation of the Domain wouldn’t it. China and the Domain might have many characteristics in common, it would seem.
Sorry MM, this is where we part ways. Your naked worship of authority and blind acceptance that a lasting social order is in anyway beneficial to anyone but the order itself is a line too far. I appreciate the teachings your site has provided, they were inspirational.
Not blind obedience. Rather measured historical comparisons. There’s a significant difference.
Thank you very much for lining out the essence of Starship Troopers!
I read the book first now some 30 years ago, It had (and still has) a profound impact on my sentience.
Wonderful sumup of what the movie is, by the way –
“reductio ad absurdum” Best way to charecterize this, lol!
I have read numerous sci-fi novels at that time, starting of with “The Forever War” by Joe Haldeman, IMHO another all time classic. These two books feel like two sides of the same coin to me. ST the book has more of the implications of society, while TFW focuses more on the personal implications of responsibility (and the futility of war in general)
I could talk hours on this!
—
It took a long time for me to find other books which resonated with me in this way.
[I have read a lot, but they all had other implication vectors on me than the aforementioned]
Most notably that is the “Remembrance of Earth’s Past“-trilogy by Cixin Liu (a chinese author, btw.):
and “The Fourth Realm”- Trilogy by John XII Hawks:
Both these trilogies may or may not give you more insights for our missions
if you feel so inclined.
Do you know these books?
Would love to hear your thoughts on them.
—
One more thing:
You say that china is the future. No.
It seems more like China is the present – all other societies are of the past, now.
—
Best regards,
MT
Loved the article. Fear and hate are powerful tools, especially when “The Other” is so easy to paint in a certain light with no rebuttal. Nothing is ever easy, nor should it be. Insights from the other side are always invaluable!
@congjing yu, You really did this article well. I found the links you provided equally edifying. Since I’m a “regular” here, I’ve seen most of the amazing videos you’ve provided as well. I’m really kind of envious of the Chinese characteristics form of governance. It certainly is above and beyond anything we in the US could ever hope for. So many cluttered and confused minds here. All your topics (and contributors) are a mental breath of fresh air. Thank you for being yu.
You bring up many things here worth discussing. I’m a big fan of Heinlein, I’ve read all his work, most of it more than once. But I’d like to take a different tack, and share something hardly anybody knows about, which bears on the real issues behind what you have been saying rather than their surface form, and reveals what the Anglos’ real “secret” advantage was and implies why other rulers, or their functionaries anyway, don’t copy it.
China would benefit from higher trust, which requires more honesty, which requires honesty not being punished. It also requires putting substance over form, moving from a shame (external face) to a guilt (internal conscience) culture; recognizing, respecting and rewarding merit over age or position. Chinese say they trust each other, but they don’t trust the infant formula, the tap water, the cleanliness of dishes or vegetables, etc. etc.. In truth, saying what is socially expected to save face is so much a part of the culture that Chinese don’t understand the word “trust” or “honesty” as Westerners do.
In 1650, Westerners, or to be more particular, the British, just coming out of a civil war didn’t at all have the attitudes they do today, they had: cronyinsm and factionalism, courts corrupt and executing people for anything, mere pretenses of promises, haggling over every price, bad products passed off constantly, no industry, no credit except person-to-person, cheating and lying all over the place — but offend the “honor” of one of the ruling class by pointing out the truth, and you’d likely be killed by the court, or in a duel, or at best starved in a jail.
What changed that? In a word: Quakers. A tiny sect, never more than 100,000 people, usually far less, was responsible for totally changing the culture, bringing respect for the truth, and the resulting science, industry and broad prosperity that put Britain ahead of the rest of the world within 150 years. The fixed-price shop, clocks and scientific instrument making, most mining in Britain (iron, lead & associated silver, coal), mass production of iron, iron rails, railroads, passenger rail, cast steel, the atomic theory of chemistry, the wave theory of light, interchangable parts (ploughshares), antiseptics, and more were largely or entirely the invention of Quakers. Banking for industry and shops (rather than for the landed gentry) was their greatest success — Lloyd’s Bank started as an ironmonger’s warehouse, Barclay’s as a goldsmith which, after consolidation with other Quaker banks around 1900, had become the most powerful corporation in “The Network of Global Corporate Control” by 2011 (appendix p.18)
(I should mention Pennsylvania and milk chocolate among their other contributions.)
While their history is complex, it should be noted that only the silent-meeting variety, far smaller in numbers (about 50k in the US & UK) can be regarded as real Quakers, and about 90% of them are not from old Quaker families. (The “evangelical” or “pastoral” Quakers are basically protestant Christians.) They have virtually no religious dogmas (except: non-violence, that there is “that of God” in every person, referred to as the “inner light”; strict honesty, and acting on one’s conscience), no priests or pastors, do everything by consensus. How then did this peculiar group, barely even a religion by most definitions, gain such power?
By (virtually) always speaking the strict truth, even when it was highly inconvenient.
Asked: “how are you”, they would not automatically say they were doing well, but might instead say “much as I often am”, or ” I think I may say that I am well”. They would not swear any oaths, saying that that would make it seem that they might not tell the truth under all conditions. They would not even swear allegiance to the King, though they would state their loyalty — and so thousands were imprisoned, and the rest forbidden entry into the universities and from holding any office. The insistence of the authorities for the form of the oath over the substance of honesty and trustworthiness cost them the service of many of their very best citizens. China should avoid doing similarly.
Before the Quakers introduced fixed-price shops, every transaction involved bargaining, those with less skill or connections to the shop-keeper paid more. One couldn’t send a child down to the shops to get something and expect a fair bargain. Quakers objected to telling one customer one price and another customer a different price for the same amount of the same item, so set their prices at a consistent fair level without trying to take advantage of anyone. This was revolutionary, and soon all shopkeepers were forced to follow suit. Not trying to take advantage, treating even strangers well, within a short time made Quakers the preferred source of everybody for everything. (Only somewhat of an exaggeration, but that really is how they got rich.)
Now China is trying to achieve similar results, but in trying to it via automatically-calculated scores, which are subject, like all such metrics to being “gamed” and to becoming an end in themselves rather than an effective means to inculcate popular virtue, it is missing a vital piece: personal virtue from individual conscience, which acts towards the good even when it is not being measured and even when it is penalized by incorrect measurement.
No system of performance metrics will work for long.
“I don’t care what metric you use. Give me any metric and I will make it my mission to figure out how to game it so I look good. I don’t care how long it takes, I’ll figure it out. …. “It is only a matter of time before a metric will be gamed. Once a metric has been gamed, you can no longer rely on the data it provides and it must be retired.” -Tim Scheer, regarding computer programmers
“The more any quantitative social indicator is used for social decision-making, the more subject it will be to corruption pressures and the more apt it will be to distort and corrupt the social processes it is intended to monitor.” – [Donald T.] Campbell’s Law
Nor will any “packer” / quantity productivity / procedure-following mindset ever be able to substitute for the “mapper” / quality integrity / conscientious-intuition mindset in achieving social virtue. The former are the majority everywhere. The US still has a few people with the latter mindset, maybe not enough to sustain itself much longer.
China must cultivate its “mappers” and “Quakers” better to achieve its goals.
Very good comment, EHX. I had not heard that before.
Wow, another amazing article. Great comments. Some pints 1. Hey ohio guy I havent forgotten ur vaccine question. BUTthe answer is already given in this article. 2. Evryone who is about to enter into the nexr step in the metamorphosis of humanity will encounter personal challenges wherever you are. Those who are not prepared and have fully eaten the Deathporn and Fakeporn about the putridness and horror of the New World Order will either thru fear or hopelessness lose the will to live or resist against the evolving system that comes out of chaos; net result non survival…. 3. Those who resist the propaganda and see thru the TELL provided by MM in this very revealing article, and implement MMs tools are most likely to survive and thrive in the next phase of SUPERHUMANITY. ONE WORLD. ONE PEOPLE. ONE GOVENING STRUCTURE. ALL WHO LIVE WILL BEIVING RESPONSIBLY…. 4. Are you understanding what you NEED to understand? Your IQ is definitely high enough. You have to drop your pre conceived values, and Trust MM and the Majestic people behind him. 5. Trust me. THE FULL ANSWER HAS BEEN GIVEN TO YOU IN THIS ARTICLE and many other TELLING articles here. 6. GET READY FOR THE NEXT PHASE. May the GPU bless everyone who draws spiritual sustenance here, and do make it to Superhumanity. It will be a great place on earth…then.
Big thanks for that. Strangely I have had numerous negative response to it. (Which I did not post, obviously.) Pretty much saying “America is exceptional”, “Glorifying of fascism”, “China is not like that”, “freedom is independent of discipline”. Etc. Etc. Etc.
DEAR MM, and in my books you are one of the most important personalities who have shaped my life, and I am not exaggerating, you know that I fully support you and your mission. And quite seriously, its ok for ppl to disagree with me, and you. A lot of meaning can go between you and me without a spoken word, as you know reality unlike any human being out there, and I am privileged to come here abd comment now and then. You know what Im saying, and I also know what you mean without your explanation. Once a man develops the ability to see within ones heart and the hearts of others he has acquired a special gift of humanity. And the final revelation that makes me who I am today, is a gift from you and of course, the Majestic people. I am in your debt forever. You truly know what I am saying. GPU bless all of us….
Before a new building is built in an already built up area, that area must first be fully demolished, all trace resources thrown away, the land must be swept virtually clean before a NEW foundation is poured, then a new better, more modern building is built. All vestiges of the old decrepit building must first be swept away, before a good new building can be built.
WHAT DO YOU NOT STILL UNDERSTAND, my brothers and sisters? The choice is truly yours whether you exhibit behavior and values that are condistent with materials that makeip the old decrepit building, or the new stronger, more efficient building that is designed to dynamically last a millennium.
THE CHOICE IS YOURS. MAKE IT AS THE END TIMES APPROACH.
I think I might have asked the vaxx question, Rob. And boy did I get an answer. Much food for thought, as always. As for the article above, I personally would accept that future scenario as nothing less than self-evident and either materializes over the next few decades, or we descend into absolute global chaos. But something tells me the former is more likely based on what I know from experience, and from reading Metallicman and contributors such as your good self here and elsewhere. Corrupt local politics is a problem for immediate address, obviously, but it’s clear those muppets are no longer really calling any shots– and the unveiling to all but the most cretinous in Normie-Land now of their obvious decrepitude, I think, is indeed part of an overall Plan to usher them into the historical trash can once and for all. Let’s hope it happens sooner rather than later. Although consent to a pharmaceutical product as a means to qualify oneself for something truly better and greater remains to me a problematic proposition– and in the absence of more information I’ll remain a passive observer for now. Level 2 or 3 science could also be involved, of course. In which case were talking a whole new ball game.
Best as always,
U.
Dear Ultan, Sorry for getting ppl and identities
ppl messed up, must be dyslexic… I dont need to say more as ppl will find me over tge top. Everyone who comes to MM has special gifts and a date with destiny. WE all have the prerogative of free will, that.is tge generosity of the WAPP and their reps. All the answers have been clearly given by MM and the Majestic ppl here. You just need to open your heart and have BLIND FAITH in MMs suggeted tools. IT WILL COME TO PASS, and the best of us will have redemption and then transform into Better human beibgs. YOU GOTTA BELIEVE THIS TO WANT IT, AND BY WANTING IT, THE GPU WILL GRANT IT TO YOU if you take tge path that MM has provided with the tools that take you can taje you there. No guarantes of course. Open your hearts. FEEL THE OPTIMISM THAT CAN COME WITH A BETTER FORM IF HUMANITY. Trust it will happen.
It is all about fear, isn’t it?
To be vaxed or not to be vaxed? –
That is the question, dear Watson, and it is the wrong one. – but the short answer, patience, and wait.
Fear and the pithiness of humans to think of their physical existence as something of importance. not to go into extremes, it is important, but normally, good people die and bad seems to survive and live ling lives, and many do it while controlling the rest of the humanity to hate each other. Bush sr. or Kissinger, Brzezinski, Soros or Rockefeller, prince Philip and other loved ones.
A change, and everything political, as we all know comes from power, you need to obtain power, you need to be in a position of power, and this can not be done only by thought, and writing and reading, these are important phases. In the end, one needs to act.
As in the brilliant book, it is hard to see any change coming not from people who can make a change happen, meaning they have an access to power. that is life.
Or, as most cases, after a collapse or defeat by other great power.
I prefer the first, it would be a great script for a movie, the citizens of the US reclame their republic back, as they don’t care dying for the cause. But I will go with the second.