the Warrior

Peace in Every Moment

Love vs Need

Reminder of Priorities

Pain and Suffering

Blockchain Technology

Throughout much of rural America, internet access lags behind current technology, but things are about to change, courtesy of the emerging 5G wireless network technology being pushed by the current administration. Once implemented, “No matter where you are, you’ll have access very quickly to 5G,” President Trump said, noting estimates that the new standard could be 100 times faster than existing networks. Internet access will be remarkably faster, but what the president has in mind is more than just so that people can stream better, or shop online faster, or communicate on social media with greater efficiency.

What the president has in mind for transitioning to 5G is the wide-scale implementation of blockchain technology to effect dramatic change in the lives of everyday people in an epic way. In order for blockchain to work, the speed of 5G network technology will be necessary. Essentially, blockchain with its intrinsic security will allow all transactions to be carried out in a safe, transparent, yet non-infringing manner.

The president stressed that the American 5G networks will be “private-sector driven and private-sector led” but touted government “incentives” to encourage U.S. companies to sprint into the 5G era before China does. “We cannot allow another country to out-compete the United States in this powerful industry of the future,” Trump said. "We are leading by so much, in so many different industries of that type, and we just can’t let that happen. The race to 5G is a race America must win. And it’s a race, frankly, that our great companies are now involved in. We’ve given them the incentive they need.”

But what is blockchain? Undeniably an ingenious invention – blockchain is the brainchild of a group known by the pseudonym, Satoshi Nakamoto. Since its creation, it has evolved into something far more powerful and useful than originally designed. Originally devised for the digital currency Bitcoin, the tech community has gone on to find other potential uses for this innovative technology.

By allowing digital information to be distributed but not copied, blockchain technology created the backbone of a new type of internet. A blockchain is, in the simplest of terms, a time-stamped series of immutable records of data that is managed by a cluster of computers not owned by any single entity. Each of these blocks of data (i.e. block) are secured and bound to each other using cryptographic principles (i.e. chain).

So, what is so special about it and why are they saying that it has industry disrupting capabilities? The blockchain network has no central authority — it is the very definition of a democratized system. Since it is a shared and immutable ledger, the information in it is open for anyone and everyone to see. Hence, anything that is built on the blockchain is by its very nature transparent and everyone involved is accountable for their actions.

A blockchain carries no transaction cost. (An infrastructure cost yes, but no transaction cost.) The blockchain is a simple yet ingenious way of passing information from A to B in a fully automated and safe manner. One party to a transaction initiates the process by creating a block. This block is verified by thousands, perhaps millions of computers distributed around the net. The verified block is added to a chain, which is stored across the net, creating not just a unique record, but a unique record with a unique history. Falsifying a single record would mean falsifying the entire chain in millions of instances. That is virtually impossible. Bitcoin uses this model for monetary transactions, but it can be deployed in many others ways.

Think of a railway company. We buy tickets on an app or the web. The credit card company takes a cut for processing the transaction. With blockchain, not only can the railway operator save on credit card processing fees, it can move the entire ticketing process to the blockchain. The two parties in the transaction are the railway company and the passenger. The ticket is a block, which will be added to a ticket blockchain. Just as a monetary transaction on blockchain is a unique, independently verifiable and unfalsifiable record (like Bitcoin), so can your ticket be. Incidentally, the final ticket blockchain is also a record of all transactions for, say, a certain train route, or even the entire train network, comprising every ticket ever sold, every journey ever taken.

But the key here is this: it’s free. Not only can the blockchain transfer and store money, but it can also replace all processes and business models which rely on charging a small fee for a transaction. Or any other transaction between two parties.

Here is another example. The gig economy hub Fivver charges 0.5 dollars on a 5 transaction between individuals buying and selling services. Using blockchain technology the transaction is free. Ergo, Fivver will cease to exist. So will auction houses and any other business entity based on the market-maker principle.

Even recent entrants like Uber and AirBnB are threatened by blockchain technology. All you need to do is encode the transactional information for a car ride or an overnight stay, and again you have a perfectly safe way that disrupts the business model of the companies which have just begun to challenge the traditional economy. It is not just cutting out the fee-processing middle man, we are also eliminating the need for the match-making platform.

Because blockchain transactions are free, you can charge minuscule amounts, say 1/100 of a cent for a video view or article read. Why should I pay The Economist or National Geographic an annual subscription fee if I can pay per article on Facebook or my favorite chat app. Again, remember that blockchain transactions carry no transaction cost. You can charge for anything in any amount without worrying about third parties cutting into your profits.

Blockchain may make selling recorded music profitable again for artists by cutting out music companies and distributors like Apple or Spotify. The music you buy could even be encoded in the blockchain itself, making it a cloud archive for any song purchased. Because the amounts charged can be so small, subscription and streaming services will become irrelevant.

It goes further. Ebooks could be fitted with blockchain code. Instead of Amazon taking a cut, and the credit card company earning money on the sale, the books would circulate in encoded form and a successful blockchain transaction would transfer money to the author and unlock the book. Transfer ALL the money to the author, not just meager royalties. You could do this on a book review website like Goodreads, or on your own website. The marketplace Amazon is then unnecessary. Successful iterations could even include reviews and other third-party information about the book.

In the financial world the applications are more obvious and the revolutionary changes more imminent. Blockchains will change the way stock exchanges work, loans are bundled, and insurances contracted. They will eliminate bank accounts and practically all services offered by banks. Almost every financial institution will go bankrupt or be forced to change fundamentally, once the advantages of a safe ledger without transaction fees is widely understood and implemented. After all, the financial system is built on taking a small cut of your money for the privilege of facilitating a transaction. Bankers will become mere advisers, not gatekeepers of money. Stockbrokers will no longer be able to earn commissions and the buy/sell spread will disappear.

How does blockchain work? Picture a spreadsheet that is duplicated thousands of times across a network of computers. Then imagine that this network is designed to regularly update this spreadsheet and you have a basic understanding of the blockchain.

Information held on a blockchain exists as a shared — and continually reconciled — database. This is a way of using the network that has obvious benefits. The blockchain database isn’t stored in any single location, meaning the records it keeps are truly public and easily verifiable. No centralized version of this information exists for a hacker to corrupt. Hosted by millions of computers simultaneously, its data is accessible to anyone on the internet.

The reason why the blockchain has gained so much admiration is that: It is not owned by a single entity, hence it is decentralized; the data is cryptographically stored inside; the blockchain is immutable, so no one can tamper with the data that is inside the blockchain; the blockchain is transparent so one can track the data if they want to

Who will use the blockchain? As web infrastructure, you don’t need to know about the blockchain for it to be useful in your life. Currently, finance offers the strongest use cases for the technology. International remittances, for instance. The World Bank estimates that over $430 billion US in money transfers were sent in 2015. And at the moment there is a high demand for blockchain developers.

The blockchain potentially cuts out the middleman for these types of transactions. Personal computing became accessible to the general public with the invention of the Graphical User Interface (GUI), which took the form of a “desktop”. Similarly, the most common GUI devised for the blockchain are the so-called “wallet” applications, which people use to buy things with Bitcoin, and store it along with other cryptocurrencies.

Transactions online are closely connected to the processes of identity verification. It is easy to imagine that wallet apps will transform in the coming years to include other types of identity management.

The Trump administration, in collaberation with the Chinese and Russians, is overseeing the demise of the worldwide Central Banking economic model and the transition to a People-based economic model. Fiat currency that is not backed by real assets will be replaced by secure digital transactions through an established network of 5G blockchain technology, bypassing all middlemen. All of this will likely happen within the next five years without an economic collapse or significant disruption in the way we transact day to day business. The banking slave/debt economic paradigm is in its death throes as run by powerful Cabal interests and there is nothing they can do to avert the loss of their control or advantage. The times, they are a changing... for the good of us all.

Steve Jobs' Epiphany

“When you grow up you tend to get told that the world is the way it is and your life is just to live your life inside the world. Try not to bash into the walls too much. Try to have a nice family life, have fun, save a little money. That’s a very limited life. Life can be much broader once you discover one simple fact: Everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you. And you can change it, you can influence it. Once you learn that, you’ll never be the same again.”

the Worst Part About Having a JOB

Once upon a time as a school teacher I was told by an incompetent supervisor that if I thought I knew better than him I should go out on my own and prove it. So I did. And that has been the difference in my happiness and success in life.

Most people have at some point worked for a bad boss. In fact, when it comes to the performance of managers and leaders, the norm is incompetence rather than competence. This is why so many people are disengaged, looking for other jobs, and ditching traditional employment to work for themselves instead.

Businesses struggle to accept this. After all, they are in charge of selecting effective bosses, and admitting that their leadership choices are self-destructive is perhaps a step too far. And yet, only 20% of boards of directors see their leadership identification and development practices as effective, while 70% of employees report that the worst part of their job is their direct line manager.

Since it is safe to assume that businesses are interested in getting results, and high-quality leaders are the biggest single driver of results, why is there is so much tolerance for incompetent leaders. What stops businesses from simply replacing them with more talented people who will enable their teams to go from boredom, burnout and alienation to inspiration, pride and productivity?

Three things. The first is a general inability — or unwillingness — to actually measure the performance of their leaders. Unlike in professional team sports where leaders are carefully scrutinized based on how their teams perform (and the rules of the game are well-defined), businesses tend to lack robust metrics to compare the performance of their leaders and evaluate how they impact their teams, business units or the organization as a whole.

At times, they do of course inspect key performance indicators, such as team revenue, profit, net promoter scores, customer satisfaction ratings and turnover. But it occurs too infrequently, and even then, data are noisy and conflated by a range of hidden or unmeasured variables.

The most common scenario is to simply inspect how leaders are rated by their own bosses, which explains why leaders are so busy managing up — when good leadership is about managing down.

The second is the influence of toxic politics. In the absence of clear-cut performance data, leadership is reduced to a popularity contest, a political game in which Machiavellian and manipulative leaders will thrive. This also explains why incompetent leaders will reproduce: the more inept and corrupt a manager is, the more detrimental his or her hiring decisions will be. Moreover, such managers will go to great lengths to sabotage the career prospects of talented and ethical employees focused on helping organizations rather than pleasing their bosses.

The third and final reason is a failure to understand leadership potential. This can take many shapes, but the overarching theme is the tendency to ignore the science of leadership at the expense of flawed leadership models and unreliable evaluations of leadership potential. For example, organizations put too much emphasis on candidates’ past performance, but many great individual contributors aren’t really able to manage people, and they will see a “promotion” into a leadership role as punishment. What is the logic of moving people away from a job they were doing well, to put them in one they can’t do?

Companies also focus on the wrong soft skills, selecting leaders on confidence rather than competence, charisma rather than humility, and narcissism rather than integrity. These flawed criteria explain not only why the majority of leaders are incompetent, but also why they are male — as men generally have more of these toxic traits than women. The result is a pathological system that rewards leaders for their incompetence while impeding more talented and competent individuals from rising to the top.

Luckily, the solution to our leadership problems is simpler than people may think. First, organizations should pay attention to the science and focus on the qualities proven to make people better leaders: competence, humility and integrity. Competence is a function of experience, knowledge and intelligence. Detecting it is not that hard so long as those tasked to detect it are themselves competent and have subject matter expertise in the field. Humility and integrity can be assessed with science-driven psychometric tests (like the NEO-PI-R personality assessment or Hogan’s Dark Side assessment) and 360-degree feedbacks.

Second, organizations — and especially HR leaders — must learn to distrust their instincts. Unlike in nuclear physics or organic chemistry, people often assume that intuition is a valid tool in the social and behavioral sciences. But there is a science to understanding and predicting human behavior, just like there is a science to nuclear physics and organic chemistry. Using data and predictive assessments — even when the results run counter to one’s intuition — will help organizations detect true leadership potential and select the right people.

Third, don’t lower the bar when selecting female leaders, but elevate it when selecting male leaders so not to be blinded by their confidence, swagger and charisma. Select more on substance rather than style. In other words, the best approach to get more women in leadership is to follow the same approach we would follow if we wanted to improve the quality of our leaders: focus on talent rather than gender.

Earth's Cooling Trend

A recent NASA study shows strong evidence that ice is accumulating in Antarctica. Satellite measurements show a recent 82-112 gigaton-a-year net ice gain. That’s 82-112,000,000,000 tons of new ice per year! Not only is the Antarctic Ice Sheet growing, NASA admits that the growth is actually reducing sea-level rise. Antarctica contains 90 percent of the earth’s ice. If the Antarctic Ice Sheet is growing, wouldn’t that mean that more than 90 percent of the world’s glaciers are growing, not shrinking?

NASA says that the increase in Antarctic snow accumulation that began 10,000 years ago is currently adding enough ice to the continent to outweigh the increased losses from its thinning glaciers. The research challenges the conclusions of other studies, including the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) 2013 report, which says that Antarctica is overall losing land ice.

According to the analysis of satellite data, the Antarctic ice sheet showed a net gain of 112 billion tons of ice a year from 1992 to 2001. That net gain slowed to 82 billion tons of ice per year between 2003 and 2008. “We’re essentially in agreement with other studies that show an increase in ice discharge in the Antarctic Peninsula and the Thwaites and Pine Island region of West Antarctica,” said Jay Zwally, a glaciologist with NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and lead author of the study, which was published on Oct. 30 in the Journal of Glaciology. “Our main disagreement is for East Antarctica and the interior of West Antarctica – there, we see an ice gain that exceeds the losses in the other areas.” Zwally added that his team “measured small height changes over large areas, as well as the large changes observed over smaller areas.”

Scientists calculate how much the ice sheet is growing or shrinking from the changes in surface height that are measured by the satellite altimeters. In locations where the amount of new snowfall accumulating on an ice sheet is not equal to the ice flow downward and outward to the ocean, the surface height changes and the ice-sheet mass grows or shrinks. The study analyzed changes in the surface height of the Antarctic ice sheet measured by radar altimeters on two European Space Agency European Remote Sensing (ERS) satellites, spanning from 1992 to 2001, and by the laser altimeter on NASA’s Ice, Cloud, and land Elevation Satellite (ICESat) from 2003 to 2008.

They also used information on snow accumulation for tens of thousands of years, derived by other scientists from ice cores, to conclude that East Antarctica has been thickening for a very long time. The extra snowfall that began 10,000 years ago has been slowly accumulating on the ice sheet and compacting into solid ice over millennia, thickening the ice in East Antarctica and the interior of West Antarctica by an average of 0.7 inches (1.7 centimeters) per year. “The good news is that Antarctica is not currently contributing to sea level rise, but is taking 0.23 millimeters per year away,” Zwally said.

What Our Sons and Daughters Learn at University

Universities in the 20th century were dedicated to the advancement of knowledge. Scholarship and research were pursued, and diverse opinions were exchanged and argued in the “marketplace of ideas.”

This is no longer the case. Particularly in the social sciences, humanities, education, social work, and law, a single political ideology has replaced scholarship and research, because the ideology presents fixed answers to all questions. And, although the most important thing in universities today is the diversity of race, gender, sexual practice, ethnicity, economic class, and physical and mental capability, there is no longer diversity of opinion. Only those committed to the ideology are admitted to academic staff or administration.

Universities have been transformed by the near-universal adoption of three interrelated theories: postmodernism, postcolonialism, and social justice. These theories and their implications will be explored here.

There Is No Truth; Nothing Is Good or Bad

Postmodernism: In the past, academics were trained to seek truth. Today, academics deny that there is such a thing as objective Truth. Instead, they argue that no one can be objective, that everyone is inevitably subjective, and consequently everyone has their own truth. The correct point of view, they urge, is relativism. This means not only that truth is relative to the subjectivity of each individual, but also that ethics and morality are relative to the individual and the culture, so there is no such thing as Good and Evil, or even Right and Wrong. So too with the ways of knowing; your children will learn that there is no objective basis for preferring chemistry over alchemy, astronomy over astrology, or medical doctors over witch doctors. They will learn that facts do not exist; only interpretations do.

All Cultures Are Equally Good; Diversity Is Our Strength

Our social understanding has also been transformed by postmodern relativism. Because moral and ethical principles are deemed to be no more than the collective subjectivity of our culture, it is now regarded as inappropriate to judge the principles and actions of other cultures. This doctrine is called “cultural relativism.” For example, while racism is held to be the highest sin in the West, and slavery the greatest of our historical sins, your children will learn that we are not allowed to criticize contemporary racism and slavery in Africa, the Middle East, and the equivalents in South Asia.

The political manifestation of cultural relativism is multiculturalism, an incoherent concept that projects the integration of multiple incompatible cultures. Diversity is lauded as a virtue in itself. Imagine a country with fifty different languages, each derived from a different culture. That would not be a society, but a tower of babble. How would it work if there were multiple codes of law requiring and forbidding contrary behaviors: driving on the left and driving on the right; monogamy and polygamy; male dominance and gender equality; arranged marriage and individual choice? Your children will learn that our culture is nothing special and that other cultures are awesome.

The West Is Evil; The Rest Are Virtuous

Postcolonialism, the dominant theory in the social sciences today, is inspired by the Marxist-Leninist theory of imperialism, in which the conflict between the capitalist and proletariat classes is allegedly exported to the exploitation of colonized countries. By this means, the theory goes, oppression and poverty take place in colonies instead of in relation to the metropolitan working class. Postcolonialism posits that all of the problems in societies around the world today are the result of the relatively short Western imperial dominance and colonization. For example, British imperialism is blamed for what are in fact indigenous cultures, such as the South Asian caste system and the African tribal system. So too, problems of backwardness and corruption in countries once, decades ago, colonies continue to be blamed on past Western imperialism. The West is thus the continuing focus on anti-imperialist and anti-colonialist sentiment. Your children will learn that our society is evil, and the cause of all the evil in the wider world.

Only the West Was Imperialist and Colonialist

This ahistorical approach of postcolonialism ignores the hundreds of empires and their colonies throughout history, as well as ignoring contemporary empires, such as the Arab Muslim Empire that conquered all of the central Middle East, North Africa, southern Europe, Persia, Central Asia, and northern India, and occupied them minimally for hundreds of years, but 1400 years in the central Middle East and North Africa, and occupy them today. China, once the Communists took power, invaded Inner Mongolia to the north, Chinese Turkestan to the west, and Tibet to the south. Once in control, the government flooded these colonies with Han Chinese, in effect ethnically cleansing them. Postcolonialists have nothing to say about any of this; they wish to condemn exclusively the West. Your children will learn to reject history and comparisons with other societies, lest the claimed unique sins of the West be challenged.

Western Imperialism Was a Racist Project

Postcolonialists like to stress the racial dimension of Western imperialism: as an illustration of racism. But postmodernists are not interested in Arab slave raiding in “black” Africa, or Ottoman slaving among the whites in the Balkans, or the North Africans slave raiding of whites in Europe, from Ireland through Italy and beyond. Your children will learn that only whites are racist.

Israeli Colonialists Are White Supremacists

A remarkable example of this line of thinking is the characterization of Israel as a settler colonialist, white supremacist, apartheid society Allegedly white Israelis are oppressing Palestinian people of color. The (non-postmodern) facts make this a difficult argument to sustain. As is well established by all evidence, Jewish tribes and kingdoms occupied Judea and Samaria for a thousand years before the Romans invaded and fought war after imperial war against the indigenous Jews, and then enslaved or exiled most of them, renaming the land “Palestine.” Then, five centuries later, the Arabs from Arabia invaded and conquered Palestine, going on to conquer half of the world. The Jews returned to “Palestine” after 1400 years; most were refugees or stateless, so not colonists from a metropolis. Almost half of Israelis are Jewish Arabs thrown out of Arab countries, not to mention the Ethiopian and Indian Jews. Furthermore, Arab Muslims and Christians make up 21% of Israeli citizens. So to characterize multicolored Israelis as “whites” oppressing “Palestinian people of color’ is an imaginary distinction.

Canadian? You Have No Right to Stolen Native Land

If indigenous Jews are deemed to have no claim to their ancient homeland, then Euro-Canadians, Asian Canadians, African Canadians, and Latin Canadians are colonialist settlers without even an excuse. You have stolen Native land. The only moral course, according to postcolonialism, is to give everything back. At the very least, in order for “decolonization” to be implemented, the First Nations must be ranked above the interloping settlers, must be given special preference in all benefits, the law must make special exceptions for them. First nations must receive ongoing grants, pay no taxes, be given special reserved places in universities and government offices, and they have a veto over any public policy and be ceremonially bowed to at every public event.

As we are guided by postcolonialism rather than by human rights, we can disregard the human right of equal treatment before the law. That is just a rule of foreign settlers anyway. And the cities and industries and institutions built by the settlers, so the decolonialization story goes, really should belong to the natives, even though they lived in simple settlements or were nomads, depending upon simple shelters, with limited hunting or cultivating subsistence economies. There was no civil peace among the many Native bands and tribes, with raiding, enslavement, torture, and slaughter common.

White Men Are Evil; Women of Color Are Virtuous

Social justice theory teaches that the world is divided between oppressors and victims. Some categories of people are oppressors and other are victims: males are oppressors, and females are victims; whites are oppressors, and people of color are victims; heterosexuals are oppressors, and gays, lesbians, bisexual, etc. are victims; Christians and Jews are oppressors, and Muslims are victims. Your sons will learn that they are stigmatized by their toxic masculinity.

Individuals Are Not Important; Only Category Membership Is

Social justice theory has taken university life by storm. It is the result of the relentless working of Marxist theory, adopted by youngsters during the American cultural revolution of the 1960s, then brought to universities as many of those youngsters became college professors. Marxism as an academic theory was explicitly followed by some in the 1970s and 1980s, but it did not sweep everything else away, because the idea economic class conflict was not popular in the prosperous general North American population. The cultural Marxist innovation that brought social justice theory to dominance was the extension of class conflict from economics to gender, race, sexual practice, ethnicity, religion, and other mass categories. We see this in sociology, which is no longer defined as the study of society but has for decades been defined as the study of inequality. For social justice theory, equality is not the equality of opportunity that is the partner of merit, but rather equality of result, which ensures the members of each category at equality of representation irrespective of merit. Your sons will learn that they should “step aside” to give more space and power to females. Your daughters, if white, will learn that they must defer to members of racial minorities.

Justice Is Equal Representation According to Percentages of the Population

As there is allegedly structural discrimination against all members of victim categories, in order for equality of result to prevail, representation according to percentages of populations must be mandated in all organizations, in all books assigned or references cited, in all awards and benefits. Ideas such as merit and excellence are dismissed as white-male supremacist dog whistles; they are to be replaced by “diversity” of gender, race, sexual preference, ethnicity, economic class, religion, and so on. (Note that “diversity” does not include “diversity of opinion”; for only social justice ideology is acceptable. Any criticism or opposition is regarded as “hate speech.”) Academic committees now twist themselves into pretzels trying to explain that “diversity is excellence.”

Members of Oppressor Categories Must Be Suppressed

Of course, the requirement of representation according to population applies only one way: to members of victim classes. If whites, men, heterosexuals, Christians, etc. are underrepresented, that is fine; the fewer the better. For example, females now make up 60% of university graduates, although in the general age cohort males are 51%. There is no social justice clamoring for males to be fully represented. Members of disfavored oppressor categories are disparaged. The classics of Western civilization should be ignored because they are the work, almost exclusively, of “dead white men.” Only works of females, people of color and non-Western authors should be considered virtuous. So too in political history. The American Constitution should be discarded because its writers were slaveholders.

Victims of The World Unite!

“intersectionality” is an idea invented by a feminist law professor. It argues that some individuals fall into several victim categories, for example, black, female lesbians have three points in the victim stakes, as opposed to male members of the First Nations who receive only one point. Further, on the action front, members of each victim category are urged to unite and ally with members of other victim categories, because sharing the victim designation is the most important status in the world. This leads to some anomalies. Black victims of racism are urged to unite with Arab victims of colonialism, even though Arabs have been and still are holders of black slaves.

Female victims of sexism are urged to support Palestinian victims of “white” colonialism, even though Palestinian women have always been and continue to be subordinated to men, and are subjected to a wide range of abuse. Your children will learn that to be accepted, they must assume victim status or become champions of victims, and ally with other victims.

Being Educated Is About Being on The Right Side

As Karl Marx said, “The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways. The point, however, is to change it.” The objective of a university education today is to ensure that students chose “the right side” in changing the world. The idea that it probably makes sense to try to understand the world before attempting to change it, is rejected as outmoded, modernist empiricism and realism, now superseded by postmodernism and social justice. If there is no Truth, and whatever one feels or believes is one’s truth, then trying to gain an objective understanding of the world is futile. Anyway, Marxist social justice offers all the answers anyone needs, so no inquiry or serious research is required. Be confident that at university your children will learn “the right side” to be on, if little else.

By Philip Carl Salzman, September 4, 2018, MindingtheCampus.org

What We See and What We Don't See

We see the obvious and visible consequences of crises in our world, not the invisible and less obvious ones. The media makes sure of that in their "news" reporting. Yet it is the unseen consequences that can be, and generally are, more meaningful.

Take a look at Hurricane Katrina in 2005. It received a tremendous amount of media attention and politicization on television. Moved by the images of the devastation and pictures of angry victims made homeless, politicians made promises to rebuild the community, a noble gesture on their part to do something humanitarian, to rise above the abject selfishness of the day-to-day.

But did they promise to do so with their own money? Of course not; it was to be funded by public money. Any funds used would have to be re-allocated (taken away) from somewhere else - from something that would be less mediatized - say, like cancer research, or efforts to curb diabetes. No attention would be paid to victims of cancer lying lonely in a condition of un-televised despair. Most of these cancer patients would likely be dead before the next ballot was cast anyhow, so they were not deemed consequential enough to have their plight broadcast over the televised airwaves.

More cancer patients die each day than died during the entire Katrina tragedy. Perhaps they are the ones who need us more - not just our financial support, but our attention and kindness. Yet they may very well have been the ones from whom the money was redirected away from - directly or indirectly. If they died as a result of inadequate financial support, it will be a crime for which there shall be no air time, no regret, no apology... no after-thought ever again of the tragedy within the tragedy.

Beginners Luck

Ever hear of beginners luck? I was in Las Vegas just a week ago and was thinking about the crowds wandering through the busy casinos. There is a belief among gamblers that beginners are nearly always lucky. If you look at the evidence, this statement is actually true, confirming that gamblers do, in fact, generally have lucky beginnings. But so do stock market speculators. So, does this mean that each of us should take up gambling, at least for awhile, to take advantage of this finding, then stop before our luck changes?

Definitely not. The evidence is an evidentiary illusion, at best. Among all beginning gamblers, some will be lucky and some will not, The casinos generally make sure more do not have beginners luck. It is the lucky ones, who feel that they have been specially selected by destiny, who generally continue gambling, while the unlucky beginners generally are discouraged at their initial losses and have no incentive to continue.

The lucky few will never forget their early success. The unlucky will no longer be a part of the surviving gamblers community and go on to find some other distraction in life. As gambling is more a matter of statistical chance than luck. the casinos still have no appeal for me.

Life on Planet Earth: Easy Come, Easy Go

Life is a great deal more fragile than we give it credit for. Many, many species go extinct each year. Regrettably or not. But this does not mean that we humans should feel guilty about the many extinctions that happen on the planet; nor does it mean we should necessarily take drastic measures to stop life forms from disappearing by offering special protection for them. Species were coming and going long before we started to impact the world, and will continue to do so - with or without us.

Our planet is a silent cemetery of species that we forget have come and gone before us, some leaving a fossil record, some not. The earth's biodiversity over time is far greater than we may imagine. It is estimated that of all the living species that have called earth home at some point, close to 99.5% of them are extinct. They are gone, hardly any of which was the result of humans messing up the environment. Caring about other living species and our potential impact upon them is considerate, but there is no need as a species to feel morally responsible for every single organism on the endangered species list. That's nothing more than posturing for political correctness.

The Sticky World We Live In

I came across a provocative statement that listening to the radio each day or watching the nightly news is worse than reading the news in a weekly magazine, because the longer interval between installments of information allows to it be filtered better. We live in an age of information overload. The more input we receive, the more ideas we end up formulating along the way. The problem is that with so much information bombardment, we make less effort to be as discerning to sort what is noise from what is accurate.

Add to that the matter that the ideas we each generate are "sticky"; once we formulate an idea about one matter or another, we are not likely to change our minds. It turns out that those who delay settling on new ideas are ultimately better off. When you develop opinions on the basis of weak or insubstantial evidence or outright propaganda, you will have difficulty interpreting subsequent information that contradicts those opinions, even if the new information is obviously more accurate. As creatures of habit, we are subject to the tendencies of confirmation bias and belief perseverance, the tendencies to consider valid only those ideas that are supportive of your own and hold to ideas even though you suspect or know they are wrong. We all treat ideas like our possessions and have a hard time parting with them.

Looking at the stark divide in ideology within the United States, I suspect much of it is the result of overload in our information age and known human tendencies rather than actual differences in outlook and expectation. In the end, we all pretty much want the same things out of life and share more in common than political and media agitators would have us believe.

Solutions Looking for a Problem

Americans are great at building toys (tools). Some of those toys (tools) change the world. Engineers very often develop tools (toys) just for the pleasure of developing tools (toys). While all this tinkering certainly keeps idle engineers off the street, their often wild creations bring us ultimately more knowledge and often induce nature to give up its secrets.

Tools lead to unexpected discoveries, which in turn lead to other unexpected discoveries, most often without ever working as originally intended. It is the engineer's pure passion for creating some new tool or toy that contributes to the augmentation of our knowledge. Knowledge generally does not progress from tools designed to verify or support theories, but rather the opposite.

Computers were not built to allow us to speed up mathematical computations nor to create fantastic visual media; they weren't invented so that you could chat with your friends on the other side of the world nor to have access to endless research and information. None of these did its military designer have in mind.

The laser was not created with any particular application in mind. Its creator Charles Townes was just playing around with splitting light beams, nothing more. In fact, Townes' colleagues teased him quite a bit about the irrelevance of his discovery. It was all just fun stuff. Yet, it was another one of those "solutions looking for a problem". Consider its many uses today - compact discs, eyesight correction, microsurgery, data storage and retrieval - all unforeseen applications that gained relevance over time.

Leaving Afghanistan

President Trump has ordered that the military finally withdraw all troops from Afghanistan, after 2300 Americans, of the 100,000 soldiers deployed there, lost their lives, and after a trillion dollars of tax payer money has been wasted there since 2001. There is much resistance to this action on the part of members of the Deep State and its controlled media outlets. Why did we go there in the first place after 9/11? And what is the Deep State's motivation for not wanting to finalize an endless war?

For nearly 30 years through the presidencies of Bush, Clinton, Bush, and Obama, the United States military and CIA have had a controlling interest in the Middle East. President Trump is closing this ugly chapter of American interventionalism, against aggressive resistance. Why were we there in the first place? Plain and simple, it was about plundering - plundering the natural resources of Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Ukraine, and Libya - their gold was looted, their oil was looted, their people and societies were decimated - so that the global syndicate, the puppet masters, the Rothchild/Rockefeller cabal, those pulling the strings of these four presidents, could profit.

So what resource did the dirt-poor nation of Afghanistan have for the West to plunder? Why would the United States deploy troops to a country with no strategic objective. The answer is their poppy fields. When you hear that grandpa George H.W. Bush Sr, (41) was affectionately referred to as "Poppy" Bush by his admiring family, think again - think Afghanistan, think about its poppy fields. Afghanistan was all about the CIA (which George H.W. Bush had previously been director) taking control of the drug trade there. The tragedy of 9/11 and its faux blame was only an excuse for Sonny Boy Bush returning to the Middle East after Bush Sr.'s initial failed engagement with Saddam Hussein.

At the time of the US incursion into Afghanistan in 2001, the poppy fields were being decimated by the Taliban. The drug business was viewed by the Taliban as destructive to the people and culture of Afghanistan. They sought to destroy it all and kill the drug trade. The CIA could not stand by idly, losing a major revenue stream, and let that happen.

Opium poppy cultivation in Afghanistan supplied 90% of the global heroine supply. Putting things in perspective, by the numbers, in the year 2000, before the war, 82,000 hectares of land were utilized in Afghanistan for opium poppy production. The Taliban were drastically reducing that number so that by the time the war began in 2001 it was down to only about 800 hectares. After only three years of American intervention, fighting back the nasty Taliban, by the end of George W. Bush's first term in 2004, the amount of land devoted solely to opium was expanded well beyond its previous mark to 131,000 hectares. Again, why were we there? American troops were deployed to Afghanistan to protect the poppy fields and their supply lines. Plain and simple.

By the end of Bush's second term in 2008 that number was up further to 157,000 hectares. At the end of Obama's first term in 2012, it had stabilized at about 154,000 hectares, but grew in his second term to reach 201,000 hectares by the beginning of 2016; in his final year, by the time he left office in early 2017, it reached a stunning 320,000 hectares. So, from when we first went there to when we left, the opium poppy fields went from 800 hectares up to 320,000 hectares by stopping the Taliban from destroying the poppy crop and restoring production to unseen levels. In Obama's final year in office a record high of 9000 tons of opium was produced in Afghanistan.

After President Trump took office it was the first time that F-15 fighters and B-52 bombers were used to destroy opium labs and fields. The powers that be who were profiting are not happy with Trump, needless to say. By 2018, production fell to 6400 tons. Still too much. What the president is doing by getting us out of Afghanistan is that he is getting us out of the drug trade. He is trying to starve a major revenue source for the global syndicate in their supply line of the drug industry.

This is also what the border issue is about - to destroy the lucrative drug trade in addition to putting an end to human trafficking. In addition to plundering natural resources like oil and poppies, the global syndicate has always plundered human resources in the form of women and children. The Wall is simply a means of cutting off the revenue supply lines of the Deep State to shut down their trafficking and drug trade. Its another means of starving the Deep State.

The president is going after the big three sources of revenue that have funded and weaponized the Deep State's global initiative. This is the war that the president is fighting on multiple fronts. The president is intent on winning the war by cutting off their supply lines further. The resistance by the Lame Street Media, owned by the Deep State, has been so vicious because the powers that be do not want the public to know about the plundering that has gone on for decades. A lot is at stake for the Deep State. They are not going to just roll over in this war.

Understanding the New Left

The next time a Martian visits Earth, try to explain to him why those who favor allowing the elimination of a fetus in the mother's womb also oppose capital punishment. Or try to explain to him why those who accept abortion are generally favorable to high taxation but against a strong military. And why do those who prefer sexual freedom seem always to be against individual economic liberty?

 

Parsing Pence

Why did Donald Trump choose the Neo-Con Michael Pence to be his running mate in 2016? It's just not a good ideological fit. Despite appearances, I question his loyalty, and am curious to see if Trump keeps him in play as his 2020 running mate. My guess is that he will keep a known adversary close and keep him on. Someone like General Michael Flynn would have been a more appropriate running mate. The answer has to be backroom politics, as usual. Compromise to get where you want to go.

Trump picked Pence in July and by October the Globalists (DEMs, RINOs, Never Trumpers, etc) were in a panic because Trump was actually gaining ground on the Globalist pick – Hillary Clinton. Time was running out and their options were limited. So Pence and House Speaker Paul Ryan came up with a plan for hijacking the presidential election in the event Trump actually won over Clinton.

There were a lot of Neo-Cons in the cabinet from the outset (Pompeo, Coats, Haley, Perry, Cohn, Preibus, and more brought on later). I used to wonder why. All of them resulted from what has become known as the Pence/Cleveland Deal. Speaker Paul Ryan was about to change the rules to allow delegates to vote however they wanted on the first ballot at the Convention. Had this been permitted, Trump would never have been nominated. Never. So how could Ryan alone change it? The rules had to be voted on by delegates. And they would have voted for it had Ryan allowed it to come to a vote. But he did not because of a leveraged backroom deal. This Cleveland Deal included Mike Pence and Paul Ryan being able to subsequently pick Trump’s initial cabinet should he win.

Pence and Ryan were never on the Republican ballot so it is a wonder why they would be discussing hijacking the election. It might be because they already knew some of their past sins as Globalists were well known and discussed by the Trump election team. By this time, they were already aware Hillary’s lead was slipping dramatically and that most Bernie Sanders fans were not about to vote for Hillary.

What options did they have to sway voters and insure the globalist plan continued to move forward as many of their financial backers insisted? As the election nominee process evolved on the Republican side, the RINOs and Never Trumpers were apoplectic at the thought Trump might actually win the nomination, and with General Flynn as a VP they knew their days would be numbered in single digits. So Trump ended up with Mike Pence, a Globalist, as his running mate, and a Cabinet full of Neo-Con's, all in a hedged trade for Ryan not changing the rules in the Cleveland Deal made just before the Republican National Convention.

Trump was elected and the Neo-Cons kept both feet in the White House... at least at the beginning.

My Next Toyo

Toyota filed a patent last year for a personalized fragrance dispenser system. Fairly straightforward, when the car recognizes someone as an authorized user, it can spray their favorite scent. But if the car gets broken into, it can give the driver a noxious blast of tear gas. Toyota’s patent is the first attempt to personalize, or weaponize, fragrance dispensers.

Toyota’s new patent describes a system that can detect when someone is walking up to them and spray their favorite scent in advance and deodorizing the car after they leave. While Apple recently patented facial recognition technology that would let cars recognize people and automatically unlock as they approach, Toyota’s patent relies on signals sent from a paired smartphone. Should Toyota choose to implement this patent into any future vehicles, it’s likely that we’ll see the upgraded fragrance system without tear gas first.

Personalized aromas sound like a pleasant way to take the pain out of a rough commute. But loading a literal canister of tear gas into the ventilation system of the cars that we use to transport our friends, children, and ourselves may be a real tough sell.

Celery Juice

Celery juice may be the most powerful medicine of our times. It may be the missing link to get a healthy life back. We're hearing more and more about celery juice because it’s saving lives as it restores people’s health, one symptom at a time. From celebrities posting about their daily celery juice routines to people from all walks of life sharing pictures and testimonials of their dramatic recovery stories, celery juice is revealing itself to ignite healing when all odds seem against it. What began decades ago as a quiet movement has become a global healing revolution.

Why drink celery juice? A quick listing of many of the benefits of celery juice include: Critical for healing chronic acid reflux; Fights autoimmune disease, including Hashimoto’s, Lyme disease, lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, and every other autoimmune condition; Incredible for constipation and all digestive issues; Helps restore the adrenals; Contains mineral salts that are critical for the central nervous system; Helpful for depression, anxiety, brain fog, confusion, bipolar disorder, memory loss, Alzheimer’s disease, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), poor focus and concentration; Important for skin conditions such as acne, eczema and psoriasis; Flushes toxins and pathogenic byproducts from the body; Helps stabilize blood pressure; Helps eradicate strep bacteria; Fights Epstein-Barr and Shingles viruses; The ultimate gallbladder rehabilitator; Eliminates mucus; Restores bile production and potency; Celery’s natural sodium draws toxic salts out of the body; Powerful weapon against SIBO; Inhibits viruses, bacteria, and fungus; Enhances the immune system; Helps repair damaged ligaments and bones; Highly anti-inflammatory; Powerful way to alkalize the gut; Celery juice raises hydrochloric acid; Supports and calms the central nervous system; Helps the liver produce bile; And many more!

Celery juice is most powerful when you drink it solo. While it’s great to consume other green juices or vegetable juices and add in items like spinach, kale, parsley, cilantro, or apples, drink those mixed juices at a different time than your straight celery juice. These blends function differently than what is recommended as the greatest tool for recovering your health: pure celery juice taken on an empty stomach. If you drink your celery juice first thing in the morning, it will also strengthen the digestion of foods you eat for the rest of the day.

If people knew all the potent healing properties of celery juice, it would be widely hailed as a miraculous superfood. Celery juice is teeming with powerful anti-inflammatory properties. This means it’s highly beneficial for people who suffer from chronic and mystery illnesses, including conditions labeled “autoimmune.” Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, rheumatoid arthritis (RA), fibromyalgia, myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), Lyme disease, migraines, vertigo, celiac disease, irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), diabetes, psoriasis, eczema, acne, lupus, Guillain-Barré syndrome, sarcoidosis, Raynaud’s syndrome, Ménière’s disease, gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), gout, bursitis, bloating, intestinal cramping, distention, acid reflux, vertigo, constipation, restless leg syndrome, tingles, numbness—all of these symptoms and illnesses are mysteries to medical communities, even though they have names. Their true causes are not yet known by medical research and science.

Celery is perfect for reversing inflammation, because it starves the pathogens, including unproductive bacteria and viruses such as Epstein-Barr (EBV), that create it. These pathogens lead to hundreds of different symptoms and conditions that go misdiagnosed. Celery is able to starve pathogens, plus it contains a multitude of undiscovered mineral salts that act together as an antiseptic. When these powerful mineral salts make contact with viruses such as Epstein-Barr, HHV-6, and shingles; bacteria such as Streptococcus; and other pathogens—troublemakers responsible for chronic illness—the salts begin to break down the pathogens’ cell membranes, eventually killing and destroying them.

If you’re worried that the sodium in celery is a problem because you’ve heard that “salt is salt,” know that the sodium in celery is not just salt or the basic mineral sodium. Medical research and science have not yet discovered the different varieties of sodium in celery, nor how beneficial they are. Celery’s naturally occurring sodium actually helps stabilize blood pressure, bringing it down when it’s too high and up when it’s too low. Further, it won’t dehydrate your organs—instead, it clings to toxic, dangerous salts from poor-quality foods and helps draw them out of your body while replacing them with undiscovered cluster salts.

These subgroups of sodium bond together as one and are infused with celery’s other critical chemical compounds and information that’s highly active in healing the body. Science has not yet deconstructed or studied these cluster salts. Eventually, research will reveal that these cluster salts work symbiotically and systematically to flush out toxins, dead pathogens such as viruses and bacteria, and pathogenic neurotoxins and debris from every crevice of the body.

Neurotoxins, by the way, are created by viruses such as EBV feeding on toxic heavy metals, including mercury and aluminum. Medical science and research are not yet aware that viruses feed on certain fuel, let alone that they produce neurotoxins as waste. Neurotoxins create neurological symptoms, including burning skin, twitches, tremors, spasms, cold hands and feet, balance issues, vertigo, erratic heartbeat, insomnia, and body jerks, that confound doctors.

Now that you know that pathogens like EBV are responsible for chronic illness, you can understand just how critical the antiseptic function of celery’s cluster salts truly is. Your white blood cells use these cluster salts as both shield and weapon to go after viruses and unproductive bacteria - and that translates to relief from the numerous symptoms and conditions they cause.

Mineral salts are critical for our bodies to function optimally. They keep your kidneys and adrenals functioning and raise your gut’s hydrochloric acid so your body can break down and assimilate what you eat - while they balance your pH as well as cleanse and repair your stomach, the rest of your digestive tract, and, most importantly, your liver. They also allow information to travel throughout your body so it can keep itself in balance no matter what’s occurring.

The mineral salts specifically in celery are instrumental in the electricity that governs the body - they’re building blocks for neurotransmitter chemicals, they ignite electrical impulse activity, and they support neuron function. A brain with weak electrical impulses and weak neurotransmitters shuts down and goes into “low battery” mode—which makes celery juice, a battery charger for the brain, an answer to stop this from happening. Mineral salts keep the heart pumping and create the neurotransmitters needed to take information from point A to point B, that is, from neuron to neuron. (Picture a thought as a boat and mineral salts as the ocean: if the ocean dries up, the boat can’t go anywhere.)

That celery’s mineral salts are such an important support for the central nervous system means they are extremely healing for people who are struggling with depression, anxiety, brain fog, confusion, bipolar disorder, memory loss, Alzheimer’s disease, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), as well as people who have difficulty with focus and concentration.

Celery can really enhance the ability of supplemental GABA, glycine, and magnesium L-threonate to be absorbed by the brain and aid in neurotransmitter performance for sleep support. Celery also improves methylation, that is, the proper absorption and utilization of hundreds of nutrients, including B12 and zinc.

The electrolytes in celery hydrate on a deep cellular level, lessening your chances of suffering from migraines, anxiety, panic attacks, and more. Celery also stabilizes and supports the adrenal glands, offers stress assistance, and repairs damaged cells inside the liver.

And since celery’s mineral salts are antibacterial, they kill bacteria such as strep, and that encourages a healthy environment for “good” bacteria. Low-grade strep infections are often the actual cause of urinary tract infections (UTIs), chronic sinus infections, acne, IBS, and small intestinal bacterial overgrowth (SIBO), though at this time medical communities aren’t aware that strep infections are involved in these conditions. Now you know that celery juice and its antibacterial properties can help heal all of these conditions, too.

If you suffer from a thyroid condition, take note: celery has the ability to cleanse the thyroid of toxins and bolster production of the thyroid hormone T3. For more on the unknown true cause of thyroid problems like Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, Graves’ disease, thyroid nodules, cysts and tumors, enlarged thyroid, parathyroid disease, and much more, refer to Thyroid Healing.

Celery’s ability to break down and flush out viruses is life-changing news for anybody who has been told they have an autoimmune disease. Pathogens such as viruses, including EBV and shingles, are the true cause of the inflammation that’s mistakenly considered an autoimmune condition. Medical communities just aren’t aware of the real cause yet.

The prevailing autoimmune theory is that the immune system is mistaking a part of the body for an invader and has begun attacking it, causing inflammation. This belief developed because by the 1950s, the medical world had become frustrated with not having an explanation for why conditions such as Hashimoto’s, Graves’, lupus, RA, Crohn’s disease, celiac, ulcerative colitis, and multiple sclerosis (MS) were leaving people ailing or even crippled. Close observation of some patients’ blood work revealed the presence of antibodies. A theory took off that the body had become confused and created antibodies to attack itself. It’s vital to remember that this was just one out of dozens of theories—it was never a definitive answer. The whole premise was an unproven hypothesis that the medical establishment came up with because they didn’t have the real answers for people’s suffering. So they pointed the blame at people’s bodies, which took the blame off of medical research and science, and unfortunately, the theory has stuck and become law.

The autoimmune theory is not true. It’s critical to know what’s really happening with autoimmune issues: antibodies are present because your body is fighting a pathogen that scientific testing can’t detect yet. For example, in the case of Hashimoto’s, if antibodies are present, it’s because your body is going after the Epstein-Barr virus. It’s not that your body created antibodies that are attacking your thyroid gland.

Again, contrary to current thinking, the body does not attack itself or turn against you. Your body only goes after pathogens, and only two factors cause inflammation: injury and invasion. Pathogens cause both. They’re invaders—foreign bodies in your body—and can also be injurers, sometimes damaging tissue in their travels through your system. (It doesn’t always take both factors to cause inflammation; for example, if you break your leg and it swells up, that’s solely an injury. It does always take at least one of these two causes.)

Sadly, the popular, incorrect autoimmune theory holds people responsible for their sickness. It leads people to believe that their body has betrayed them, turned against them, let them down. When you’re leaving the doctor’s office after being told that your body is attacking itself or attacking a specific organ, it can be emotionally damaging, and that belief itself hinders your immune system. Your body is loyal to you. It’s doing it’s very best to help you be whole and healed. It loves you unconditionally. Your own immune system will never harm you, it only works for you. Knowing this truth can kick-start the healing process for someone who previously believed their body was against them.

The autoimmune confusion is one of the greatest mistakes in modern medicine. It’s a prime example of why more than 250 million people in the U.S. alone are living with or suffering from mystery symptoms and conditions with no real relief. Which brings us back to why celery juice is such a big deal. As celery ushers pathogens out, your body will be much better able to handle whatever life throws your way.

Why is it so beneficial that celery juice strengthens hydrochloric acid in your gut? Because hydrochloric acid is critical to digestion and to keeping your digestive system alkaline. Although we can hear the word “acid” and think “bad,” gastric acids, including hydrochloric acid, are critical, helpful acids, not to be confused with having an acidic digestive system, which is detrimental to health. When you eat, food quickly travels down to your stomach to be digested with the help of hydrochloric acid. Although science hasn’t discovered this yet, hydrochloric acid isn’t just one acid—it’s actually a complex blend of seven acids. If hydrochloric acid levels are out of balance or low, your food won’t be sufficiently digested in your stomach. That means the food won’t break down enough for your cells to access the nutrients, and instead the food will just sit there and rot, causing bad acids to develop.

This gut rot, or putrefaction, creates ammonia gas, which has the ability to float, ghost-like, out of your digestive tract and directly into your bloodstream. It can also cross into organs such as your liver and brain. This is what is called ammonia permeability.

So how do we prevent ammonia permeability, a major contributing cause of ill health? Millions of people walk around with digestive health problems, and one of the contributing factors is ammonia permeability, along with underlying sluggish liver issues. (The truth about ammonia permeability hasn’t yet been discovered. Similar though mistaken concepts are often referred to as “leaky gut syndrome” or “intestinal permeability.”)

Another condition that worsens low hydrochloric acid and creates ammonia permeability is a sluggish, stagnant, fatty liver. Underlying liver conditions are extremely common. Medical communities don’t yet know how prevalent they really are or what’s behind these issues in the first place. A sluggish, stagnant, fatty liver causes lower bile production, which means the body can’t break down and disperse fats easily, and that also contributes to gut rot, causing even more ammonia permeability. It is vital to understand how to support your liver as almost everyone today has a sluggish liver which is at the core of countless symptoms, illnesses and premature aging and death.

Thankfully, there are simple ways to support your liver’s health. Here’s where our heroic celery juice comes in: It effectively rebuilds the stomach’s complex balance and supply of hydrochloric acid. It also strengthens the digestive system by helping to heal the liver, which leads to an increase in bile production, easing constipation and bloat. Plus by lowering levels of pathogens such as bacteria and viruses and invaders such as fungus and mold, it leads to strengthened intestinal linings. Celery juice is one of the most profound ways, if not the most profound way, to restore digestive health. It is that powerful.

We tend to hold a lot of fear in our guts. Nervousness causes those sensations we know as tummy flips or butterflies in the stomach, and anxiety can run deep through the nervous system, putting our guts in knots. By restoring the entire digestive system, celery juice puts our minds and hearts at ease, too. Use it for its calming effects when you are feeling frightened, panicky, shocked, fretful, nervous, threatened, unsure, afraid, or defensive.

There are benefits from drinking celery juice for all manner of ills—mental, physical, spiritual, emotional. Celery juice is alkalizing, enzyme-rich, electrolyte-enhancing, liver-repairing, blood-sugar-balancing, antiseptic, and more. Don’t let the simplicity of humble celery mask it’s strength—it’s often the simplest of measures in life that gracefully work wonders in the most complex situations. Celery juice truly is a miracle juice. It’s one of the greatest healing tonics of all time.

Adapted from Anthony William

Adapting to Disruptive Technology

What happens when evolution shapes an animal for tribes of 150 primitive individuals living in a chaotic jungle, and then suddenly that animal finds itself living with millions of others in an engineered metropolis, their pockets all bulging with devices of godlike power?

The result, it seems, is a modern era of tension where archaic forms of governance struggle to keep up with the technological advances of their citizenry, where governmental policies act like constraining bottlenecks rather than spearheads of progress.

Simply put, our governments have failed to adapt to disruptive technologies. And if we are to regain our stability moving forward into a future of even greater disruption, it’s imperative that we understand the issues that got us into this situation and what kind of solutions we can engineer to overcome our governmental weaknesses.

Many of the greatest issues our governments face today come from humanity’s biologically-hardwired desire for centralized hierarchies. This innate proclivity towards building and navigating systems of status and rank were evolutionary gifts handed down to us by our ape ancestors, where each member of a community had a mental map of their social hierarchy. Their nervous systems behaved differently depending on their rank in this hierarchy, influencing their interactions in a way that ensured only the most competent ape would rise to the top to gain access to the best food and mates.

As humanity emerged and discovered the power of language, we continued this practice by ensuring that those at the top of the hierarchies, those with the greatest education and access to information, were the dominant decision-makers for our communities.

However, this kind of structured chain of power is only necessary if we’re operating in conditions of scarcity. But resources, including information, are no longer scarce.

It’s estimated that more than two-thirds of adults in the world now own a smartphone, giving the average citizen the same access to the world’s information as the leaders of our governments. And with global poverty falling from 35.5 percent to 10.9 percent over the last 25 years, our younger generations are growing up seeing automation and abundance as a likely default, where innovations like solar energy, lab-grown meat, and 3D printing are expected to become commonplace.

It’s awareness of this paradigm shift that has empowered the recent rise of decentralization. As information and access to resources become ubiquitous, there is noticeably less need for our inefficient and bureaucratic hierarchies.

For example, if blockchain can prove its feasibility for large-scale systems, it can be used to update and upgrade numerous applications to a decentralized model, including currency and voting. Such innovations would lower the risk of failing banks collapsing the economy like they did in 2008, as well as prevent corrupt politicians from using gerrymandering and long queues at polling stations to deter voter participation.

Of course, technology isn’t a magic wand that should be implemented carelessly. Facebook’s “move fast and break things” approach might have very possibly broken American democracy in 2016, as social media played on some of the worst tendencies humanity can operate on during an election: fear and hostility.

But if decentralized technology, like blockchain’s public ledgers, can continue to spread a sense of security and transparency throughout society, perhaps we can begin to quiet that paranoia and hyper-vigilance our brains evolved to cope with living as apes in dangerous jungles. By decentralizing our power structures, we take away the channels our outdated biological behaviors might use to enact social dominance and manipulation.

The peace of mind this creates helps to reestablish trust in our communities and in our governments. And with trust in the government increased, it’s likely we’ll see our next issue corrected.

A study found that 59 percent of US presidents, 68 percent of vice presidents, and 78 percent of secretaries of state were lawyers by education and occupation. That’s more than one out of every two people in the most powerful positions in the American government restricted to a field dedicated to convincing other people (judges) their perspective is true, even if they lack evidence.  And so the scientific method became less important than semantics to our leaders.

Similarly, of the 535 individuals in the American congress, only 24 hold a PhD, only 2 of which are in a STEM field. And so far, it’s not getting better: Trump is the first president since WWII not to name a science advisor.

But if we can use technologies like blockchain to increase transparency, efficiency, and trust in the government, then the upcoming generations who understand decentralization, abundance, and exponential technologies might feel inspired enough to run for government positions. This helps solve that common problem where the smartest and most altruistic people tend to avoid government positions because they don’t want to play the semantic and deceitful game of politics.

By changing this narrative, our governments can begin to fill with techno-progressive individuals who actually understand the technologies that are rapidly reshaping our reality. And this influence of expertise is going to be crucial as our governments are forced to restructure and create new policies to accommodate the incoming disruption.

As exponential technologies become more ubiquitous, we’re likely going to see young kids and garage tinkerers creating powerful AIs and altering genetics thanks to tools like CRISPR and free virtual reality tutorials.

This easy accessibility to such powerful technology means unexpected and rapid progress can occur almost overnight, quickly overwhelming our government’s regulatory systems.

Uber and Airbnb are two of the best examples of our government’s inability to keep up with such technology, both companies achieving market dominance before regulators were even able to consider how to handle them. And when a government has decided against them, they often still continue to operate because people simply choose to keep using the apps.

Luckily, this kind of disruption hasn’t yet posed a major existential threat. But this will change when we see companies begin developing cyborg body parts, brain-computer interfaces, nanobot health injectors, and at-home genetic engineering kits.

For this reason, it’s crucial that we have experts who understand how to update our regulations to be as flexible as is necessary to ensure we don’t create black market conditions like we’ve done with drugs. It’s better to have safe and monitored experimentation, rather than forcing individuals into seedy communities using unsafe products.

If we hope to be an animal that survives our changing environment, we have to adapt. We cannot cling to the behaviors and systems formed thousands of years ago. We must instead acknowledge that we now exist in an ecosystem of disruptive technology, and we must evolve and update our governments if they’re going to be capable of navigating these transformative impacts.