As IF Times

As most are keenly aware, it’s summertime in the northern hemisphere.  As should be evident, there will always be days of uncomfortably high temperatures in summer as there are stretches of uncomfortably cold and or wet conditions in the winter.  Is this abnormal?  What is abnormal?

The answer is; it depends who you ask. You will find ‘studies’ from all and sundry parties invoking their views on this.  But all that is irrelevant.  The salient thing to know, is that we can moderate our environment to make these weather swings habitable.  It’s called technology.  It’s called human progress.

The advance and harnessing of new technologies and discoveries has made previously hostile environments, habitable.  It has enabled humans to create, to build and to advance their societies. It is what separates the human species from the rest of the animal world who are entirely at the mercy of their environment.  The fact that this self-evident reality is disavowed by so many in our time is emblematic of just how pervasive mental disorders have affected populations.

Of course there are societies which eschew to a large part, the advances of modern technology. The Amish and Mennonites prefer to remain attached to their ways of doing things, preferring to live in the same fashion as their ancestors, ignoring most modern machinery and devices. The Amish take it more seriously as they don’t even use electricity.  These are choices these societies make to live in their way.  The Muslim world have their own, much more oppressive dictates for their people.  As closed societies within a larger free society, they can do as they wish.

In the larger society, people are less likely to be as principled.  They prefer to benefit from the conveniences created by technology in order to live more comfortably…which is the whole point of technological progress.

At the moment, an oppressive heat wave has enveloped much of Europe as temperatures soar to over 110 degrees Fahrenheit for extended periods.  Unlike North America, European cities are not generally equipped with air conditioning, thus, living is not only uncomfortable, it’s dangerous for much of the elderly and the very young.  More than 1300 deaths have been attributable to excess heat in this particular heat wave according to the WHO.

It would make sense that those who purport to value human lives would find some means to stop these preventable tragedies. And you’d be wrong.  Governments there are doing the exact opposite.  In the UK, people are being fined for using their air conditioners.  In France, your neighbors need to agree to allow you to install an air conditioner for your flat.  The social media post above shows the mentality of those who are so bereft of common sense that death is preferable to comfort.

Somehow, the acceptance of self-destructive behavior in the guise of social awareness has officially crossed the line into mental illness.  In any free society, people are allowed to inflict self harm…as supposedly free thinking individuals.  Heck, in Canada, it’s officially supported by the government.

When the urge to impose your views on others or worse to mandate them as government policy, then the society is no longer free.  It has then devolved into a giant HOA with self righteous ninnies making the rules. We all witnessed this on a global scale with the COVID fraud.

The existence of people eager to impose their will on others is not a new phenomenon.   Every society has their own rules of expected conduct and behavior.  Every religion has their codified standards of social interaction.  Every bikers’ club, every bowling league can make up their own rules.

None of this is odd.  What is odd is that in our lifetime, people feel that they have the right to coerce others NOT in their group to abide by rules made up by them.   What’s more odd is that people fall in line. The line graph of ‘tolerance’ for other communities has gone from urging people to wear pride buttons to now requiring them under duress of ostracization.  We’re now at the point of the graph of not letting people get relief from deadly heat because, you know, the planet.  Peak absurdity is that people in a society are encouraged to meekly accept the behavior of aggressive ideologues against their very existence…with the support of governments.  We now even witness white people protesting…against white people!

We now experience alien cultures imposing their views on their host nations going as far as demanding, demanding that host nations bend to their values.  There has been no instance in history of any civilization willingly ceding their sovereignty and culture without a fight, though many European nations now aspire to break that pattern.  Men would defend their societies, to the death if necessary to preserve what they hold dear.  Only male sensibilities will preserve a nation.  In fact, the founding of an entire nation, the most successful one ever, America, was founded on this very principle.  What’s changed in our lifetime is not the emergence of  tyrants of all stripes;  it’s the emergence of the meek and effete in host societies.  It’s the acceptance of surrender to long held values created by people attuned to reality. There has never been a successful society governed by the meek.  Any society unwilling to push back against threats to their very existence is unsustainable.

Source: New ‘Wearable Chair’ Allows You to be a Sit Down Slave at All Times – Summit News

Ingenuity and inventiveness are traits peculiar mainly to the human species. Most other living animals simply make do with what they have available and exist as well as their environment allows them.  The human species has managed to leverage the use of opposable thumbs to create all kinds of life aiding devices throughout our history.  Well, let’s say most of the species.  There are still those for whom living in a hut with a dirt floor is a big deal. For most of mankind however, starting from the time when someone figured out that fire made food taste better, created more comfortable homes and repelled wild animals, the path was set to discover and create new things to further enhance the experience of living.  As an aside, imagine if patent laws were in existence back then.  That guy would be getting royalties from all fires ever in existence.

Fast forward through generations of human history to our present day and we observe that the advance of technology continues to enable all kinds of ingenious inventions.  The TV remote comes to mind as does the mute button for watching certain news channels. On the other hand, we also see inventions that are created in dire search of an actual  need or that serve very questionable ones. Coloring book apps are an example.  Also the ones that superimpose cartoon features on a photo; they’re amusing for 12 seconds, sort of like a shiny light to a kitten. However, the market for phone apps continues to be robust beyond the essential map function that is probably by far still the most useful application.   Nowadays, there is an ‘app’ for most everything that purportedly makes living easier for us.  The smartphone has become the default resource for answers to any and all of life’s questions.  You can even talk to it, somewhat reminiscent of the HAL computer from the film, 2001 A Space Odyssey.

It has supplanted even the need for personal interaction.  Next time you are at a gathering of your friends, observe how many are glued to their phone screens even as conversations are occurring around them. It’s not just an affliction of the young; people of all ages are mesmerized by that little 3-1/2 by 5 inch bit of screen. The phone has transcended from being an information device to become a surrogate for social interaction.

And why not?  Phone apps are available now to serve virtually every need of modern people.  You can order food, hail a ride, book tickets, order maid service, turn off your home lights, check football scores, watch the front door and get a date for Saturday night, all with a few flicks of the finger.  We didn’t realize how crude and base our lives were before these apps. Laziness is at a new all time high.  Ironically, having all problems solved for you reduces one’s necessity to be creative. All of these ‘advances’ in the human experience may seem harmless, but there is a very dark side to this device dependency apart from the zombie like hold they have on people.

That of course  is groupthink.  Being a passive consumer of information that is anointed by mass consensus on these devices creates the real risk of dulling people’s individual initiative to think critically and objectively about big issues.  Their opinions and worldview are shaped unwittingly to reflect those conveyed on their phones.  As in all things, there is always a vanguard of those that set the tone for everyone else, people of influence for whatever reason or circumstance.  They set the narrative and everyone accepts it. We can cite numerous examples of this, including just recently with the explosion of support for a 16 year old girl barely articulate enough to order a hamburger who magically became a renowned authority on the weather.

We will continue to see ridiculous narratives getting support purely because of originators having the ability to press their message virally to the accepting  masses no longer inclined to think for themselves.  As critical thinking atrophies in humans, we risk devolving as a species and become like most other animals; subject to the random vicissitudes of life or worse, to the whims of those more in command of their conciousness.  Life may be made more convenient by the use of some inventions and apps, but the risk of losing the human experience is very real.