Vox Day: DARKSTREAM: Free Trade is Evil

This is the livestream wherein Vox Day laid out his position on Free Trade. If you want to focus upon the argument itself, watch until he takes questions.

There is an accompanying blog post which I recommend you to go. Read the Comments.

I'd been mulling this over, imagining how this plays out, and he's on to something here. The implications, if played out, justify the abolition of Free Trade policies of all kinds- including "internal" trade such as between the States. Turns out that Protectionism is Godly.

Frame Game Radio: A Master of Narrative Warfare

Frame Game Radio is one of the more relevant channels on YouTube right now, as he explains how and why SJWs (and their masters, the Thralls of Empire) do what they do. As his channel title says, it's how you frame the narrative that allows you to win the fight before you make a single argument. While his Twitter feed is where he drops a lot of wisdom, here's one of the videos making plain what SJWs deliberately obscure in bullshitting their way to victory.

Many of his original works are examples of the principles he lays out in videos like this, either as things being done to us or as proposed courses of action, and his mirroring of Murdoch Murdoch shitpost videos are hilarious absurdities masking painful truths on how the real world actually works. No one explains the mechanics behind the mindfucking of the Socjus Death Cult better than this man does. Follow him on Twitter and the other socials, subscribe to his channel, and learn how to defend yourself rhetorically before you even get to the point of argument- nevermind violence. Take your allies when and where you find them.

The Thralls of Empire's Fear of a US-Russia Alliance Manifests

All this anti-Russia hysteria since the Ascension of the God-Emperor sure seemed overdone, and now we're seeing why. Anonymous Conservative nailed it in this post here. Allow me to quote it so we can get to the point:

K-strategists like K-strategists, even when they are competitors facing each other. Whether they are soldiers, fighters, or just conservative Americans and conservative foreigners, they see things in each other.

Russia is a fierce competitor we need to be careful with. But as radical Islam threatens to take over Europe, having these two leaders leading the two dominant superpowers and having both seeing it is in their interests to not let that happen, means the West is in an incredibly strong position. That they get along so well means we may see a powerful alliance, and a lot of behind the scenes moves to save Europe from itself.

All that needs to happen is the migrants need to be suppressed to the point they cannot achieve McRaven’s concept of Relative Superiority, in terms of numbers, organization, preparations, or genetic contamination, prior to the Apocalypse. They need to be kept as separate and isolated as possible, as low in numbers as possible, as disorganized as possible, and as disarmed and unprepared as possible.

Do that, and let the Apocalypse hit, and things will resolve themselves spontaneously. With Trump and Putin leading the two most powerful nations on earth, and united behind the same cause, it should be easy as pie.

In truth, I half suspect this is why the left is terrified of a Trump-Putin alliance. It threatens their plan to Islamize the West.

It's no surprise that I find r/K Theory to harmonize with my own concept of Empire. Empire is r-selection to its extreme, and the history of its influence reliably maps to Anon's presentation of how r-selection works. He's coming at it from the effects using both biology and psychology. I came at it from a historical perspective, informed by mythology, but our results are nothing more facets on the gem. We're talking about the same thing. Likewise, what I call "Civilization" is what he deems K-selection.

And if there is one thing Empire hates and fears, it is Civilization. Real, proper Civilization is K-selection taken to maturity: a world of competing nations, each dwelling in their own states (ethno-states/nation-states), using full knowledge of competition to maintain best-possible peaceful conditions. That doesn't mean an end to war, but merely the mitigation of it- and it sure as hell means cooperating against Empire.

The Wolf Age means that lines will be drawn, sides taken, and conflict will go from cold to hot. That's unavoidable now, and so is the exposure of traitors in our midst. Now that we see that Putin and Trump do get along, and will--come Hell or high water--act upon mutual policies against mutual enemies for mutual benefit the traitors in the American, Russian, and European Establishments (i.e. the Thralls of Empire therein) will have to come forth and do openly what they would rather do covertly. Why? Because open treason is the lesser of the stressors on their brainmeats, and Thralls (being r-selected) will also go with the least resistant path to relieving that stress. Now it is crystal clear why Empire wants the Muslims and the Left to cooperate in destroying Civilization. Therefore, now is the time to destroy them.

Larken Rose - Five Bogus Excuses for Opposing Freedom

This video is Larken's response to A response to "5 Reasons Why I'm not An Anarchist," by Austin Petersen. (In turn, Larken's basis for his position is explained at length in his book: The Most Dangerous Superstition.

Mark Passio - De-Mystifying The Occult Seminar - Manchester, CT

[Bonus Post] Mark Passio - The True Meaning And Purpose Of The 2nd Amendment

In this presentation, Mark breaks down the entire 2nd Amendment in depth, explaining what each word and term in it means, as well as emphasizing its true intended purpose. Filmed on February 10th, 2015, at the monthly Philadelphia Liberty On The Rocks meetup.

A Free Man Tells His Own Story

So, what's your story?

Such a simple question, right? No, it's not, and you know it because it's not the right question.

The right question is "So, who's telling your story?" If you truly are a free man, then the only proper response is "I am, and I alone."

In history, journalism, and political science we use the word "narrative" to mean "the story that a party tells to explain their perspective with regard to a given matter". Political campaigns are, for all intents and purposes, struggles over which narrative is more compelling to those who decide upon what to do or whom to elect with regards to those matters. Control over that narrative, therefore, means control of what story gets told and how it's presented. This is why politics is about illusion and perception, not reality.

Empire, as a toxic meme--or, as John Lash puts it, the "archonic infection"--requires the manipulation of one's paradigm in order to operate; as a fundamental, existential requirement it comprehends the need (as one comprehends the need to breathe to stay alive) to subvert, seize, and thereby control the narrative. Empire needs to tell the story of your life--of Mankind's life--in order to lay the foundation necessary for latter-order levels of dominance and control.

In more plain speech, we're talking about myth. No, not myth as a synonym for "lie" or "false", but the way that Joseph Campbell revived the term: "the narrative that a nation tells itself to explain how it relates to the environment wherein it exists". Those that control the mythology of the nation control the nation's narrative, and thereby exert control over the individual narrative of that nation's people. By shaping the very ground wherein battle is joined, those who control the narrative control the very language used--the symbols employed, and the meanings they convey--by all parties, constraining what is even conceived of in the minds of the combatants long before any conflict ensues. This is, in a very real sense, what ancients such as Sun Tzu meant by defeating an enemy first, and then joining battle to expand a victory.

If someone else tells your story, then they are dictating to you what you are to yourself. They tell you what your world is, and how you relate to it, and they exert real power over you by doing this because they con you into accepting their claims and thus subordinate your beliefs against you for their benefit. Belief is a very powerful thing; that which is not permitted within one's mind due to belief cannot ever be considered, let alone acted upon, so if you believe that you are weak and powerless then you shall conform to that belief- and that belief always stems from a myth that someone else foisted upon you when you were too weak in fact to resist it.

Slaves are chained, first and foremost, by the myths told to them about them by others. Empire is a slaver; it wants you to believe the myths told to you about you by it--it wants to control your narrative--and it cannot rely upon the physical, objective reality wherein facts exist and can be independently and universally verified to support its toxic mythologies. If you, on the other hand, build your own mythology upon that very same reality--the one with gravity, chemistry, physics, etc.--then your mythology will be stronger than anything that does not rely on that same foundation. A free man's mythology is self-made, builds upon the real world, and is told by no one but himself. He alone controls his narrative.

So, will you tell the myth of how you made Empire fall? No one else can. No one else will.

The State is Out of Date: We Can Do It Bettter, an interview with Gregory Sams

On Property

The anarchist community remains divided over the question of property. The more visible Anarcho-Capitalist wing is all about private property, unaware or unwilling what that term means in practice, while the Anarcho-Socialist (etc.) wing doesn't really unpack that term properly and thus gets tripped up when attempting to argue for their form of anarchism.

I will attempt to unpack that term.

"Property" is the word, in English, that we use to refer to items or locations of a discrete nature that can be accounted as belonging to one specific individual or group. The laptop I'm using to compose and publishing this post is property. The blog that I published this post at is property. The body I used to transmit my thoughts from my mind to this post is also property. The house I reside in, the food that I consume, the books that line my shelves, and so on- all of this is property.

"Private" is the word, in English, that we use to refer to items or locations that are specific to an individual or group and not available without pause to the population at-large. The above property? Private, all of it. The roads I travel on, however, are public property. The airwaves over which I'm using WiFi is also public property. So are the parks I live nearby, and visit as I wish, and so are the libraries.

The issue is not "public" vs. "private". The problem is "personal" vs. "private."

"Personal", in English and referring to things, means that the item or location is particular to a specific individual or entity. In practice, we use this word to refer to items that one holds, wears, uses, or occupies. Anything more abstract in terms of ownership trends over to "private", in practice, as we see when talking of patents, copyrights, trademarks, offices, and so on.

What all anarchists agree upon is that personal property is a self-evident thing. One can, and usually does, own those items that one holds, uses, wears, or occupies. The clothes that I wear are my personal property. The laptop I'm using is my personal property. The knives I carry and use are also my personal property, so is the bed that I sleep upon. Therefore, what these two camps fight over is not about personal property. They fight over what is beyond the personal; they fight over what is "private" property.

In short, they're fighting over what is otherwise deemed "capital". They're fighting over mills, kitchens, workshops, hospitals, laboratories, and other places where work is done--something is made or a service provided--as well as the tools (including abstract ones, like theorems and algorithms) used to make that work possible. It's a fight over what is actually personal and what is actually public, for all intents and purposes; it's a fight over those goods and services, and the systems used to distribute and administer them- specifically, over an individual vs. collective paradigm of anarchy and how to make it work.

The problem, as I see it, is that both sides are ignoring their respective fatal flaws. The An-Capitalists want a system that, whenever it arises (and it has, albeit unknowingly so most of the time), inevitably produces a new feudalism; this is the experience of American colonialism in what is now the Southern Atlantic states (including Florida, eventually) as well as Carribean colonies. Because power and influence, in practice, stems from wealth and that is derived from ownership of private property it means networks of socio-economic tension between haves (landowners, ultimately) and havenots (everyone else). This leads to the creation of a State by the haves to create a barrier between them and the havenots. The An-Collectivists want a system that, whenever it arises, turns into a snitch-cum-police state as a body inevitably arises to "adminster" things and that becomes a power base in itself; the "anarchist" society becomes Statist when this body reaches critical mass and uses propaganda and leg-breaking to enforce conformity.

In short, the former produces Facism or Inverted Totalitarianism. The latter creates classic Totalitarianism. (Or, if you will, Abusive Father-as-State vs. Abusive Mother-as-State; both are toxic and democidal.) Neither of these creates a sustainable anarchy. The fight over property, quite frankly, that they do cannot end any other way. That doesn't mean that there isn't another way out.

Acknowledge the difference between "personal" and "private". Personal property is self-evident manifestations of Natural Law. Private property is the fiction shat out of Man's ass, and inevitably requires the creation and perpetuation of the State to keep the illusion up and running; it has sweet fuck all to do with Natural Law. A strict individualist stance on what property is, and therefore how to deal with it, is how you navigate these seas between Scylla and Charybdis. Disavowal of both Capitalist and Collectivist ideas will go a long way towards putting down the problems that exists in Anarchism right now; instead, stick to the personal- "If you don't hold it, then you don't own it." is a very useful guideline to follow.

Working towards an alternative paradigm for when Empire falls.

Origins and Adaptations II, Peter Joseph, March 15th 2014, ZDay, The Zeitgeist Movement

Tom Secker Interview, Alt Media Series, Trans Resister Radio

It more of Tom Secker from SpyCulture.com, this time as a guest on another podcast (which you can find here), and here's what Tom says about it: "In the final episode of Aaron Franz's alternative media interview series we discussed the present and the future, the good and the bad of the alt media and my hopes for what the truth movement could turn into as it matures.".

Why Do People Believe Stupid Things? - BFP Roundtable #04

Another BoilingFrogsPost Roundtable: "From the official story of 9/11 to the drug war narrative to Omidyar's hope and change, people allow themselves to believe the most transparent lies and propaganda. But why? On this edition of the BFP roundtable, James Corbett, Guillermo Jimenez and Sibel Edmonds ask (and attempt to answer) the question of why people believe stupid things."

Corbett Report: The Well-Read Anarchist - An Introduction to Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

As he puts it: "In this inaugural edition of The Well-Read Anarchist podcast, we explore the life and work of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. From his humble origins to his bold proclamation of anarchism to his brief political career, his imprisonment and exile, and his posthumous banishment to the fringes of the canon, we take a look at the thoughts and ideas of the first self-proclaimed anarchist. Joining us to do this are Shawn Wilbur, an independent scholar and Proudhon translator, and Dr. Alex Prichard, a lecturer in international relations at Exeter University and author of Justice, Order and Anarchy: The International Political Theory of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon."

Buzzsaw: Debt Illusion and Free Market Manipulation with Dr. David E. Martin

This is Sean Stone's latest interview. (The regular episode is due on Friday as usual.) Here's how they describe it: "Corruption of capitalism and the free market tailspin is discussed with special attention paid to currency manipulation, debt traps and how to subvert the status quo--here with Dr. David E. Martin. Raw materials, the root of the debt illusion, and buying influence in the modern system of finance are all explored, along with the possibility of reform and redirection of the economy, in this Buzzsaw interview hosted by Sean Stone."

Mark Passio: From Suppression to Manifestation - Free Energy, Nikola Tesla, the Hidden History of Their Suppression AND HOW TO FIX THIS SHIT

On January 11th, Mark Passio gave this presentation. This is a further add-on to his Natural Law and Cosmic Abandonment seminars. If nothing else, watch from 5:00-8:30 because he lays out how practical mind control really works (and it has nothing to do with demons, drugs, psychic powers, electro-shock or other traumatic abuses; it's simple, easy, and very effective- and you'll quickly grok why he's right when you see it). If you're game for that, continue and see him lay out the oh-my-Dog-this-is-so-obvious explanation for how said mind control is still be used today. By then, you should be good for the rest of the presentation.

"Pattern Recognition Time" by Arthur Capozzi (Natural Law Seminar Introductory Presentation)

This week, all week, I'm posting the videos for Mark Passio's Natural Law Seminar. These are from the Tragedy & Hope YT Channel. Then, on Friday, I'm going to post Passio's follow-up Cosmic Abandonment presentation. (All this in addition to things like New World Next Week, Buzzsaw, etc. that are both relevant and timely.)

This is T&H's description: "On October 19th, 2013 Mark Passio presented his seminar "Natural Law: The REAL Law of Attraction" at the Yale Omni, organized by Arthur Capozzi & Christopher Capozzi, and produced for distribution by Tragedy and Hope dot com. This is the introductory talk as offered by Arthur Capozzi, which will be followed in this playlist by the 3 parts (morning, afternoon, and evening) of Mark's seminar."

Welcome to 2014! Larken Rose Wants YOU to be Free, in Heart and Mind

Here's what Rose says about the video below: "In between all the philosophizing going, it's worth mentioning some very encouraging things happening on a more instinctive, gut level, in a whole lot of people. There are lots of emotional sparks out there who just need a little intellectual fuel to become beacons of true freedom."

Peter Joseph on Stefan Molyneux: "The Art of Nonsense" - Pathology or Con-Artistry?

This is enough for me. Stefan Molyneux and his videos will no longer appear here. He's not an honest actor, and I regret ever giving him attention.

Violence and Force Defined

Mark Passio emphasizes in his work that force and violence are not the same thing. They may look like it, but there is a key difference and that comes from the root of "violence" as a word; it is the same as the root for "violation", and it means the trespassing or infringement of others' inherent rights for unjust reasons or objectives. To do physical harm to another without a lawful reason is to violate the physical body of another, so that is violence; to do physical harm to another if they attempt to do so first upon you (again, without a lawful reason) is force. Summarized, this is the Self-Defense Principle: an individual has an innate, inherent Natural Law right to use whatever force is required to put down a threat to that individual's property (especially his body), dependents or any other violation of his other rights. Coupled with the Non-Aggression Principle (do not violate the rights of others, i.e. no coercion of any sort to get what you want), these are the Sacred Masculine and Feminine (respectively) and make up the twin pillars of a lawful--and therefore healthy--individual as well as any collection thereof, something that scales up infinitely. This is why man-made rules are total wastes of time.

If read Passio correctly, this is an accurate depiction of that position. Therefore, a change in my use of language is in order, something I will follow through on in future posts.

Wong is Wrong: 6 Kind Corrections to "6 Harsh Truths"

On December 17th of 2012, David Wong published an article at Cracked titled 6 Harsh Truths That Will Make You a Better Person. Read it for yourself if you haven't; he makes a valid argument underneath a lot of less-than-polished writing, and it deserves to be heard. I originally posted this response to my personal journal, but decided to repost it here as it does deal with an aspect of this 'blog's mission: to counter the toxic memology that Empire uses to keep us enslaved.

Caught up? Good. Now, on with it:

• #6: The World Only Cares About What It Can Get From You
  
  So. Fucking. What.
  
  What Wong does not address is that this is a two-way street. If the rest of the world only cares about what you can do for it, then there's no fucking reason to give a shit about a world that has nothing for you either. This, therefore, a completely toxic meme that cannot help but to demonstrate its own fallacious nature- and we are indeed seeing this come to pass now, again, as it has several times before in acknowledged history.
  
  Wong's half-right in that what matters is the relationship between you and the world you live in, but gets it wrong in that it is not an abusive co-dependency affair where you're only together due to being unable to fulfill your own needs independently (and yes, that's what "...only cares about what it can get from you." means; it's exploitation, in the same way that slavery is exploitation, and therefore inherently an act of wrong-doing that never ends well).
  
  No, the world is not a heartless soul-sucking beast that's concerned (because this is not any reasonable form of caring) only with what it can gain from you. It wants you to show that you can participate as a full, equal and competent partner in the creative collaboration that is a healthy and vital civilization. (Which, I must clarify, is NOT what we have now- not yet.) As it is for the world in general, so it is with individual relationships, as we'll get to below.
  
  
• #5: The Hippies Were Wrong
  
  Wong's actual point--that what matters is what others see that you do for them (not necessarily your job), and not what you say that you are--has merit. If it weren't buried under references to Glengary Glen Ross, and his false claim that the world is a sociopathic entity (no, it isn't; nature is not a sociopath, and our environment is not the world), then I doubt that I would be making this post because there would be no error to correct here.
  
  That didn't happen. What did happen is that he made the claim that your worth is equal to your total useful skills, and then doubled-down on the inherent sociopathic world claim. This isn't correct.
  
  What is correct is that this is (a) a matter of perception and (b) a moving target. "Useful skills" varies by time and place, and that variation can happen instantaneously, and the definition of "useful" is NOT synonymous with "increases your income, wealth, prestige or other sign of desirability or respect in the community" because that is a moving target. The needs of others, quite frankly, does not define what is or is not useful; the circumstances do, and those ALONE do so. Since this is not reliably predictable, it is fallacious to claim (as Wong does) that what matters is what you can do to meet others' demands (not "needs", because "needs" are rather easy to handle oneself; he means "wants", and those are demands).
  
  This comes down to "you are nothing more than what economic provisions you provide", and as we all know through first-hand experience this is utter bullshit; true needs are not those of economic demands, but existential requirements, and if one seeks "useful skills" then those which satisfy such requirements are actually the ones that you ought to master- and, as noted below, this is NOT what Wong thinks that they are.
  
  
• #4: What You Produce Does Not Have to Make Money, But It Does Have to Benefit People
  
  The summary is useful. It's unfortunate that Wong then goes on to make this about Nice Guys failing to find girlfriends, because by doing so Wong loses the plot.
  
  Wong argues that by being someone that a woman would want to be with, by being able to show a talent or skill that marks a man as interesting and therefore a concrete demonstration of any claimed qualities, this is proof that (a) one has to produce and (b) it has to benefit people.
  
  This is, quite frankly, utter bullshit.
  
  This is a confused section, and the other way to tackle it--by going after the Nice Guy thing--is worthy of a post to itself so I won't do that here. Instead, I'm going to go after what Wong should have done, but didn't: actually building on his summary.
  
  First: due to the accelerating rate of automation in all sectors of society, more and more people don't need to produce a god-damned thing anymore. It's hard to quantify "useful skills" in an environment when what those skills are changes frequently, and often in the way of reduction as well as complexity; today's well-educated, well-trained profession is tommorow's McJob due to de-skilling and the day thereafter is turned over to a self-replicating machine with self-coding software. Talk of "what do you have to offer", in such terms, is thus a complete waste of time and so is talk of "producing". By extension and consequence, so is all talk of "benefiting other people" in such terms. Again, the correct response focuses on the existential requirements of life and not on economic demands (that are already yanked out of most of the population).
  
  Second: define "benefit" in terms other than retail economics, and preferably without referring to economics at all, and you'll actually hit upon the answer to what that word actually means in terms all can comprehend. The engineer who works to replace our current system of burning fuel for power is someone that provides a benefit to others; the engineer who just makes a new way to burn fuel does not, and will soon find out just how not-useful he is when the technology becomes both technically obsolete and politically untouchable.
  
  In the personal sphere, the "jerk" (because that too is a misleading label when talking about the Nice Guy matter) also has a short shelf life because he too thinks in too small a frame of time- he's the guy who becomes the engineer focused on how to burn fuel instead of replacing all need to burn fuel entirely. In other words, what he "offers" is nothing of actual worth; there's no "there" there, and like a foolish pro athlete he soon squanders his true wealth and find himself penniless on fields he once strode through as a conquerer. Compared to that, the one who avoided doing harm but otherwise stayed out of the way is the superior man (i.e. did "nothing").
  
  Now, Wong's not entirely wrong; as said above, it is useful to cultivate masteries that show your quality as an individual, but not because they benefit others alone. Rather it is useful because it benefits you first and foremost as a way to develop yourself into a fully-actualized and mature adult; by doing this internal development, what others see--the external--transforms their opinion of you and what you once sought will become drawn to you without effort on your part. This, in truth, is what "having something to offer" really means; you made yourself into a quality individual, for reasons that are purely internal to you, and the external thus becomes a reflection of your inner quality. They want to be with you because of who you are, not because of what you do.
  
  
• #3: You Hate Yourself Because You Don't Do Anything
  
  Not true. You don't do anything because no one bothered to explain to you, in no uncertain words, why you should do anything. If the world offers you nothing, and there's nothing internal driving you to act, then why do anything?
  
  The answer is to find something--anything--specific to you that will drive you to act, to do something and then to keep at it until you master it. Wong's missing this critical point and again using economic arguments that don't win people over; anything that requires the falsification of one's self is not worth doing, and that's what his argument here is actually pushing for. No wonder he gets so much crap for it; he's Doing It Wrong. He's so focused on the external that he doesn't perceive the relationship between the internal and the external; people don't need things the way that he claims. People have existential requirements, and no about of fakery--and that is what he's pushing for here--can fulfill those requirements. It's fraud, and he ought to know better.
  
  No, the proper response is to sit down with that individual and start finding out what internal processes are fulfilled by his pursuits. There's no point is trying to turn a duck into a platypus; you're doing serious harm to him, making yourself a criminal, and doing damage to the community when the faking inevitably comes out (because you will be thrown under the bus for it). Instead, you help that individual become the best damned duck that he can be; once he's got a reason, something true to who he is, to act then he won't need to be pushed to do it and he sure won't resent you for it either. Get inside his head, find what drives him, show it to him, show him how this can get him from here to there (CRITICAL ELEMENT!), and then point him in the right direction. The rest resolves itself.
  
  
• #2. What You Are Inside Only Matters Because of What It Makes You Do
  
  He's got this backwards. What you do matters only because of what you are inside. He's so fixed on the external--his "fruit" point--that he again loses the plot. If you're not driven to do it, if what inside is irrelevant, that shows up in what you do and all competent employers know this; this is why the best workplaces are holarchic in nature, staffed one and all by people who want to be there because they believe in the work and enjoy total fulfillment in it. Having witnessed the difference many times, I cannot believe that someone who claims to be an example of it gets it so completely backwards; it makes me doubt Wong's sincerity in writing this article as it undermines his credibility to be so wrong about such a load-bearing pillar of his argument. If you don't want it, then what you do is irrelevant as it is not inside you.
  
  
• #1: Everything Inside You Will Fight Improvement
  
  Almost correct. He's got the point about needing to modify your social environment to remove toxic connections and other obstacles, especially the internal ones, but that again misses the real point: if you want it, then inside and outside will become in accord and you will WANT to remove all obstacles to your improvement.
  
  The other error here is that, as he did above, he dismisses the possibility that the world has nothing to offer to you. If there is nothing out there to get, then there is no need to make improvements; what you have is enough, and all you need to do is ensure that the logistics will endure. He makes no allowance for contentment; for most people, "good enough" really is good enough. This is not a bad thing.
  
  His position presumes that status-seeking is healthy, that exploitation is normative as well as sustainable and desirable, and that the only benefits are those that feed into a short-term sort of economic thinking. None of this is true, as those of us who've been paying attention see quite clearly. Wong's so close so often that I'm a bit dismayed at how wrong he is with this article; had he paid greater respect to the spiritual dimensions of this matter, he would have nailed it time and again.

So, a summary: the real truth is that this life seeks competent co-creators, and therefore what you need to bring to the table is an array of demonstrations of that competency; these can only come from an honest assessment of who you are, fueled by an earnest and honest passion that can be mistaken for naivety by the damaged and predatory out there, and that results in masteries of a sort that mere economic thought can never achieve. If these are present, difficulties will melt like butter; if not, you can never be more than a shadow of your true self, unable to participate fully in what this life has to offer. Ignore this spiritual core of existence at your peril.