John Shirley Blog

“If you think this universe is bad, you should see some of the others.” — Philip K. Dick

Took a nap, what a bad dream! Trump got elected, and the Senate was taken over by GOP! Like an alternate world! I mean, a rapist felon in the WH, a Senate that would work with Trump to make sure they can’t be voted out–that could never happen.

What? No. Come on. No don’t tell me that. I said no.

But yes. Remember 2016, when Trump was elected and we all looked dazedly at one another and said, “What alternate universe have we slipped into?”

We clawed our way back to our native universe, and stayed for four years. Now we’ve slipped into a worse universe. It’s worse because disinformation and voter shallowness has led to the GOP taking over the Senate too. And from here it looks like they’ll also get control of the House. With those tools–and yes they’re tools, aren’t they–Trump can remake America from the ground up, for Project 2025 and for the benefit of Big Oil and Big Chemical and for the evangelical-theocratic far-right.

Let’s get real. Not only will women’s rights continued to be suppressed…not only will our aid to Ukraine be halted, leading to Trump’s sugar-daddy Putin taking Ukraine and becoming emboldened to take more of Europe…not only will they repeal the Affordable Care Act–Obamacare–and whittle away at Social Security, and Medicare, and quite possibly entirely end Medicaid…not only will they end federal projects and treaties to deal with climate change, accelerating its damage to the world as we know it…Not only will Trump install RFKjr in a post that will enable the crippling or ending of federal support for vaccines, inevitably leading to a wave of pandemics…Not only will protections for gays and trans be erased…Not only will immigrants be targeted–some legal as well as illegal, especially the brown skinned ones; they’ll be rounded up, put into camps where misery and sickness will proliferate, then dumped across the border willy-nilly if they live that long…

But also–the erosion of civilized standards will extend into every federal bureau:

We can expect the privatization of the US Post Office, IRS, the FAA, and FEMA. As extreme weather will only get more extreme (especially as the new Senate and White House will end efforts to ease climate change), FEMA will be constantly challenged. You’ll have to subscribe to the new FEMA corporation: Gold memberships, silver memberships, basic memberships in FEMA. Basic memberships mean they’ll toss you some paper towels as they drive past your house. (Only slightly joking about that last.)

The new regime will radically weaken the FDA and HHS, and eliminate the EPA. Toxins in your food will proliferate and so will bacteria. Many chemicals, found to be extra dangerous, were banned. None will be banned hereafter. Ingredient listings on foods will go away. Protect yourself accordingly.

The act creating the EPA will be repealed. So will the Clean Air and Clean Water acts–inconvenient to the billionaire oligarchy. Air pollution will visibly increase; you’ll smell it more often, and it’ll burn in your lungs. Banned pesticides will be allowed, new pesticides and herbicides and other materials, normally checked for toxicity, will be no longer vetted. Expect a consequent generational increase in cancer and neurological disorders in the general population, but especially in areas already known for exposing minorities to industrial waste.

In a year or two, the Senate/House GOP and WH will create a bureau to monitor media, and eliminate “antiChristian” and “unpatriotic” media, “False characterizations of US history” (which means actual history), and media that “promotes homosexuality and trans lifestyles”. Real censorship. Maoist levels. Stalinist levels. Orwellian in scope. Hard-right “Christian” in its fixations.

With the Senate and House working with Trump, federal oversight of public schools will end, and evangelical Christianity will be imposed on public schools. Many public schools will shutter, to be replaced by private schools run by corporations and megachurches. The sciences, of course, will be largely cast aside–except for the ones useful to the corporations: chemistry, engineering, physics…But evolution? Gone. Astronomy? How does that make the multinationals any money? Gone. Zoology? Ditto–makes them no money, so…gone. NASA will be cut back to military usages and whatever profits Elon Musk. He may well be put entirely in control of it–it’d just be a sort of subdivision of his holdings.

And speaking of zoology, endangered animals won’t be endangered anymore–all protections will be removed. They won’t be endangered, they’ll be doomed.

States rights? The west coast being a refuge for progressive life? No. The new federalization–completely ignoring the previous postulates of conservatives–will be imposed over California, Oregon, Washington.

Unions? The GOP Senate and House and Trump will extend so-called “right to work” conditions to the entire nation. From there, unions will be weakened–and it’s possible they’ll be banned entirely, after the “right to work” stage. Unions being famously combative, Trump’s regime may have a military round-up of union leaders on the same day the ban is implemented.

What about the military? It’ll take some time for Trump to remove all the disloyal top brass. But he’ll install his own people. Then the purges can begin. Then come the special new federal prisons–privatized, profitable for some, of course–you can expect around 2028. It’s likely Trump will set up a special militia or branch of the Secret Service that is hardcore loyal to him alone.

You’re thinking, perhaps, that we’ll all see what’s happening and we’ll vote these people out. Why suppose that will be allowed? Consider the steady drumbeat, for years now, of Republican gerrymandering and other schemes for suppressing inconvenient voters. If they’ll do that, why wouldn’t they take this opportunity to change the Constitution? Trump has said he would like a third term. Why stop there? Voting will likely come to resemble what it’s become in Putin’s Russia. And Trump will have his third term–or President Vance will have his first and second, and third and fourth. All this in a world now diving deeper into the existential threat of climate change repercussions…

All that and more–I’ve only described the fetid scum at the top of the bubbling cauldron of societal toxins 52% of American voters have given us…

[I wrote this article in 2012. Just rediscovered it. I wish to share it.]

When I was much younger I was at a reception, speaking to an Orthodox priest: a bearded man who was quite evidently very self-contained and aware; it seemed to me he was constantly making small conscious choices, inwardly, as to how he responded to people. Anytime the choice was between his own vanity, some self indulgence, or listening to someone else, he always turned toward concern for the other. He did this without being a show-off, without being demonstrative about it, out of a kind of sincerity that seemed intrinsic to him. I was impressed by this sincerity, which was almost a palpable thing, and found I wanted to impress him in turn. So I said something flattering to him about how he demonstrated goodness rooted in self honesty—and he immediately changed the subject, turning it away from himself. Though he was never unfriendly, I not only noticed his rejection of the flattery, somehow I could feel it, within myself, as though he’d literally expelled my flattery from him. It was as if my attempt to flatter him—something I did, really, so that he would like me better—simply bounced off him. There was a quality about his awareness of himself that made me more aware of myself. And when that came about, I saw myself, for a moment—I saw my flattery, my shallowness, for what it was.

All in a flash, I saw something about myself I’d never seen before. I saw that I was in the habit of using flattery to “get around” people, that I’d been doing it for years, that it was protective—that it was a function of my fear of other people. I saw that I would smile at them, chat wittily with them, but all the time I was afraid of them.

Somehow I knew that little lightning stroke of self-knowledge was valuable; that it was a flash of light illuminating a moonless, nighttime landscape normally invisible to me.

I kept watch in myself for this tendency, and learned to be aware of the impulse, the desire to do it. Gradually I weeded out this tendency to flattering others —though occasionally it crops up when I’m in an unusually insecure mood.

But eliminating a bad habit isn’t the point; the real value of seeing the bad habit, and the shallowness it was a part of, was in the realization that there must be much more about myself– about my behavior, my habitual responses–that I wasn’t seeing. Since I frequently struggled with self destructive impulses, I was very interested in seeing myself as I really was. After that insight, I was roused to work harder at that basic building block of consciousness, self-observation.

“If we remember that there are many people who understand nothing at all about themselves, we shall be less surprised at the realization that there are also people who are utterly unaware of their actual conflicts.” That’s Carl Jung telling us, once again, about the part of ourselves we choose not to see, usually without knowing we made the choice.

But there’s a particular hurdle to real self-observation. We have to be willing to leap into the unknown—to leap into areas we’re afraid to explore. Self-observation takes courage. It takes bravery to see oneself as one really is.

I was lucky to encounter that priest, a man of that depth of character, in just that circumstance—he held up a mirror between himself and me, which reflected my falseness back at me. I was in a fairly receptive mood—and I saw what was in the mirror. But normally, I don’t have access to someone who can compel me to see myself. Most of the time, if I hope to become more conscious, I have to have the courage, all on my own, to look where I would normally fear to look.

In Ouspensky’s classic, In Search of the Miraculous, he provides a simple drawing of “divided attention”, which is part of the process of self-remembering. The drawing is simply a line with two arrowheads, one on each end; one end represents attention directed outward, the other arrowhead represents attention pointing inward; the two arrowheads are linked by the line. It’s a simple drawing of a simple process—but keeping this inner spotlight on, keeping this attention shining inward while maintaining a solid connection with what is extrinsic, is hard to do. Our habitual state resists it. The process requires persistence, and courage.

In a spiritual group, I heard a teacher remark, “…but don’t you find self- remembering to be exquisitely uncomfortable, at times? I do.”

Why should being more fully aware of oneself ever be “exquisitely uncomfortable”? Of course, we’re talking about taking in feelings, emotions, impulses, sensations of the body, all experienced actively, in the present moment. Perhaps it’s like stepping out of a dark room into the glare of noon—naturally I blink, and recoil a bit, at first, with all that light coming at me. Facing that plain discomfort can require courage. But for my money, there’s another aspect of advancing consciousness that takes even more courage: psychological self-knowledge.

Seeing myself as a shallow flatterer—well, it’s not flattering. It’s painful for me to think of, even now. Like everyone else, I am still prone to mindless reaction, to a kneejerk impatience with those around me—if I look at myself actively while interacting with people, even people I love, I see that negative reactivity in myself. And just seeing it is painful. It takes courage to really see it, and to bear it.

Self-flagellation over perceived faults is itself cowardly, an avenue of escape from the reality of the perception. It’s a way out. It’s playing a sort of game with oneself, using a projected inner parent to go through a little drama, a passion play of histrionic penance. “I was bad, I punish myself, and I can forget about it now”. And then I leave that particular drama, free to go back to sleep—to slip back into an unconsciousness of the Shadow side of myself, because I’ve dutifully played out the psychological drama.

Buffering the dark side away, being asleep to it, is more than easy—it’s reflexive, automatic. It’s much harder to simply remain “in front of” an insight, some grim little epiphany, and integrate it into the overall knowledge I have of myself. Eventually, if I have the courage to remain with it, it finds a place in me, it is just another jigsaw part, and the feeling of putting a jigsaw piece in its right slot is pleasing. There, that’s where it belongs…and I see how it’s part of the larger picture.

When I consider the process of trying to become more conscious, it all pivots on attention, and where I direct attention, in myself. It seems to me that when I sit, and occasionally reach a degree of real mindfulness—when I sense and feel without surrendering to some narcoticizing fantasy—that the movement of attention really is like a spotlight, a directed arrow. Only after awhile, it’s as if there are many arrows pointing in many directions, a cluster of arrows all pointing outward from one center, from a unity. Esoteric writers sometimes use the analogy of going from the duality of two parallel lines, to a triangle, to a square, to a pentagram, to the six pointed star–the Seal of Solomon.

But it’s a long road from the parallel lines to the Seal of Solomon. Anyone who pretends that consciousness expands without effort, without discomfort, without courage, is misleading those of us who wish to achieve more consciousness. When I sit and turn my attention inward and outward, both, completing that circuit, there is always a resistance. Something in me knows that while this effort is going to be rewarding, while it can be relaxing and liberating, it can also be “exquisitely uncomfortable” at first; it can turn my attention to aspects of myself I’ve spent years turned away from. And that is going against the grain that I’ve grown into. I have to create a new “grain”—and that means looking at myself with a bracing sincerity, without self-judging but also without looking away. The animal part of me naturally turns away. It resists. The horse bucks when you put the saddle on it—and who can blame the horse? Prepare to be bucked off, and to get back on, somewhat bruised…

It takes courage to get back in that saddle; it takes courage to face inner resistance. It takes courage on a second-by-second basis, because the resistance will be a sharp feeling, like an inner prod, that will keep trying to tilt me, push me off balance, back into my daily habitual state of self-hypnosis. When I have the courage to include that resistance in my sphere of attention—including it, reconciling with it, a little more consciousness becomes possible.

The tranced state, our sleep as we move through life, seems so much safer, so much more comforting, to the part of me that is afraid of my real inner reality…

All humanity lives at the bottom of a seven-story building shaped like a seven-stroked lightning bolt. This crooked building is made of unbreakable walls, and is without egress except at the top. Most of humanity occupies the bottom floor. Here the light is dim, because the only light at this lowest level is reflected, diminishing with each level, from eight mirrors. The top mirror on the roof catches the light from a sun that never sets. This light is strongly reflected through a blurred pane of glass, to the seventh floor. Another mirror on the seventh floor catches this light, and reflects it downward through another glass pane into the sixth floor, but this light is dimmer than the light hitting the roof. A similar mirror on the sixth floor reflects the light downward to the fifth floor, but this light, on reaching the fifth floor, is dimmer than the light on the sixth floor. And so it goes, level by level, to the bottom floor, where the light is very dim indeed.

Most people on this first, lowest floor deny there is any better light. They shuffle about and make do, and contrive comforting mythologies. They live and die on the lowest level and their bodies sink into the floor, vanishing into it, becoming part of it A few people on the first floor actively look for a way upward, and then find one. They cannot interest most of the others, who have fallen into a kind of trance, in that way upward. It’s rather hard to get through it and they deny it goes anywhere.

This small group on the bottom floor, who have found the entrance, climb with difficulty to the second floor. Here there is a little more light, and it helps them to look actively about, and after a long time, working together, they find the way up to the third floor. But the way upward from here is difficult, so some remain behind.

And so it goes, with fewer and fewer making their way upward, until at last two climbers reach the seventh floor. Here there seems no way to the top. But the light here is brighter than any they’ve known before, and this light encourages them, and nourishes them, and they wait.

When they die, they find they’ve risen to the roof, where they are bathed in the light of the sun that never sets, and are able to ascend from there, effortlessly levitating, in awe at what they see on this final journey to the solar level.

“Despite fake news about my having been removed, Bobby and I remain intimate. We have a symbiotic relationship. He feeds me and I inspire him. The decision to endorse Trump for President came from both of us. I don’t want to say I’m as influential as my great ancestor Wormtongue, but when I squirm and whisper–RFK listens.”

HOW *YOU* CAN MANAGE CLIMATE-CHANGE RISKS!

Of course we want to avert the worst of climate change by radically reducing our carbon output, ending the tyranny of oil / coal corporations and the pollution they wreak, and building up alternative power and transportation sources. But most experts are clear that at this point–having failed to take significant steps to moderate the climate change threat–civilization everywhere is going to have to deal with at least some serious level of climate change consequences. So…Hence…Thus…You’re wondering…

What’s coming for you, personally, in the climate-changed future? Here are some initial thoughts on how to plan for it.

When I think about adapting to climate change, I think of the following climate-change outcomes:

Increased risk of house fire. When temperatures are consistently unusually high, trees and brush dry out–and so do houses. They all become more combustible. But some neighbors still insist on burning trash or setting off roman candles for July 4–and the danger of that becoming a spreading fire, going from house to house, will be high. Lightning strikes on houses and nearby trees will be be more frequent because climate change means extreme weather. Insurance companies are going to be more reluctant to cough up the goods for house-fires because there’ll be so many. They may drop housefire coverage entirely. What can you do? Monitor wooden elements of your house, replace where you can with fire-resistant elements, buy or rent houses with more brick and stone, have a fire extinguisher in every room, clear brush away from house. Start implementing this now!

Ever More wildfire air pollution. Wildfire smoke has been found to be especially ruinous to the lungs–and it can cause cognitive problems. Fire fighters call it “smoke brain”. It can increase your risk of stroke and heart attack because it means your heart is working harder. It’s especially dangerous for the elderly and people with lung disease. What can you do? Monitor air quality at local government websites, and stay inside when you can. Get an effective hepa type air filtration device for every room. Get gas masks with good filters and other kinds of filtration masks for the most extreme conditions. Move to areas less prone to wild fires. Start implementing this now!

Collapse of the electrical grid. This one is very dangerous in times of extreme heat or cold. The general population’s electric heaters and AC, in day after day of extreme cold or heat, burden the electrical grid so that it becomes overwhelmed. A catastrophic failure of the grid would lead to an end to AC, which could lead to health crises and deaths of elderly and disabled folk, and small children, and people suffering from illness. What can you do? Set up alternate means of powering your AC. Generators are expensive and only as good as the fuel you have for them. But they might save someone’s life. Better would be equipping your home with solar power. It can be expensive. The subsidy isn’t large. Possibly sell that bloated oversized absurdly obese pick-up truck, if you have one, and use the money to pay for solar power…Start implementing this now! Another option is to work out the route and transport to someplace cool enough to survive till the season’s change. A permanent move, in advance, to a place where the grid is not likely to be so burdened by sudden usage could work too, but moving house is expensive and onerous. More on American climate migration later.

Climate change’s extreme weather conditions: freezing and flooding and hurricanes in places that haven’t had them before. The dangers are fairly obvious, with respect to hurricanes or floods. You could lose your house, and your life. Sudden, unprecedented freezes could knock out powerlines, and cut off electricity to your household, as happened across Texas a few years back. If electricity is your source of heat, its loss could subject you to sudden extreme cold. If you’re elderly or otherwise weakened, too much heat or cold could be an existential threat. What can you do? Prediction is your friend. Take reports of major storms very, very seriously. For storms, you can prepare by reinforcing your house’s substructure as best you can, setting up trenches and sandbags, if extreme weather is predicted. You can work up evacuation routes ahead of time and use them in advance, taking with you what you practically can. People who have RVs or vans can more easily get out, carrying vital items with them! Start implementing this now! As time goes on we’ll see more and more housing that’s heavily protected and newly designed to resist hurricane level winds. It’ll tend to be largely underground, and will only have one story above ground, and that one will have rounded edges, like a fast car to shed wind resistance. It’ll have thick walls of concrete or new materials, and steel-shuttering windows. Yes, it’ll be rather like a bunker.

Sea level rise from melting polar and Antarctic ice. Dealing with this will take the cooperation of entire communities; cities, states, nations. Dikes will be built, stilt communities and floating communities organized, canals will be dug. But what can you do, besides support these efforts? In many areas, after all, these methods of adaptation won’t come to fruition in time. And it’s as simple as moving inland. But inland is going to be getting a bit crowded, so pick somewhere…way inland. Just think about doing it in advance. Watch for the signs. Keep asking the questions. How much has coastal water risen near you? How far is it from encroaching on your community?

FAMINE IN THE USA and EUROPE and other nations who haven’t known it in modern times. What can you do? Climate change is already driving increased hunger in many places around the world. Oxfam has released a new study that in ten countries the number of hungry people has already doubled as a result of climate change. More droughts than ever before; more extreme weather than ever before–the first one makes agricultural all but impossible, the second makes the work of agriculture frequently untenable even if you have good growing conditions. Climate-change droughts are showing themselves in the USA–bigtime. Climate change has further altered the natural pattern of droughts, making them more frequent, longer, more severe. The US Geological Survey reports: “Since 2000, the western United States is experiencing some of the driest conditions on record. The southwestern U.S., in particular, is going through an unprecedented period of extreme drought. This will have lasting impacts on the environment and those who rely on it.” And that’s in recent years–what about in the future? There’ll be more and more of it as average temperatures continue to go up; as extreme wind-force drives dust storms and creates dust bowls. It’s naive to suppose it won’t happen here. What can I do about this? I can stock up food, of course, in freeze dried form, and canned. I can try to raise my own crops in a greenhouse. (Might be undoable outside…) I can advocate for community food sharing and ending food waste…Start implementing this now!

WHAT ABOUT MOVING TO PLACES LESS IMPACTED BY CLIMATE CHANGE? There are two factors in choosing where to emigrate to, in order to avoid climate change disasters. One is the necessity of a place that’s well organized, civilized, reasonably friendly to outsiders–it’ll need those qualities to do with emigres, food shortages and rising seas. A consensus seems to center on Scandinavia as the best choice. (I can imagine Scandinavians reading this, shouting, “No no! Don’t send them here!”) Quartz suggested that the NE United States, New England, would suffer less climate change impact than many other areas of the country. Better do it soon, if you can relocate to these places, as everyone’s going to have the same thought when things get really bad…Start planning for this now!

What did I forget? Tell me! Make a comment by registering and using our form. You won’t receive any spam from us–but we’ll let you know when there’s a new issue of Instant Future! We won’t give out your information.

Meanwhile think about supporting political candidates who want to push for a sustainable society–who’ll lead real efforts to avert the worst of climate change’s effects. In the USA, the Democratic Party is the best we have in this department.

Even after the Emancipation Proclamation, even after the Civil War, even after Civil Rights laws…

Racists enslave, undermine Reconstruction, create Jim Crow conditions; racists resist integration, good schools, good jobs for Blacks for 170 years. Racist suppression creates slum conditions with poor education, emotional misery, broken homes, crime, gangs. Racists: “See, that’s how Blacks are.”

“Now, proposals to divert carbon dioxide from smokestacks to vast subterranean wells are regarded…as crucial to any hope of meeting the world’s climate goals. The Biden administration’s plan to zero out emissions from the power grid by 2035 hinges on the success of colossal carbon capture…” – The Washington Post today.

If congress had forced the energy industry or if industry chose to make a difference they could’ve spent the money to radically (and successfully) reduce emissions through developing new scrubbing technology. But they cheaped-out. Now they want to do this dodgy sequestration stuff. How long can that go on?

Biden is between a rock and a hard place. He doesn’t have the authority to just order industry to install new scrubbers, and to shift over to clean energy. He doesn’t have the political power to get new laws done. He’s pushed his EPA and he’s gotten what he could get done in congress. The carbon sequestration “solution” is outright desperation.

The power brokers fouling air and water, the greedy thugs behind the catastrophic greenhouse effect, cheerfully rationalize their unsustainable industry; most of them believe their own lies. They cultivate self-deception and rationales, they polish excuses till they’re blinded by them, hypnotized by them. They rationalize us into cancer and climate change. They bask in lies as in a tub of warm water.

The water will begin to seethe, and will cook them in time…

In STORMLAND:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7yvTx9yf6i4

“Look! I told AI to put a unicorn horn on an image of my boyfriend! And I said, add Pegasus wings to him, and it did! I’m an artist!”

“Look, I told AI make the queen of England have a fly’s mouth and it did! I’m an artist!”

“Look! I told AI make flowers with 5 kindsa petals and now I’m an artist!”

Good music can be AI-imitated well enough so that many people will be fooled, but *very* good music and really truly earthy music that has *that certain feel* of the human experience in life will not, imo, be duplicable.

AI will find the imitation of banal music, and banal art, to be easy prey.

I use the word ‘prey’ regarding the art, music and writing that AI sucks up and imitates. I do not use the word with imprecision. I assert that chatGPT and Suno and Udio, et al, are essentially shapeshifters, like the pod-people in movies who take you over, and use your form, destroying the original person in the process. AIs of this kind are designed to predate. They are designed to devour and digest. The predator leaves the bones of creators behind, within its scat.

SEE: https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/udio-ai-music-chatgpt-suno-1235001675/

I have a pet monkey. Not a chimp or bonobo, but it resembles them: it’s my body. My body, with much of my brain, is a largely primitive primate; hunting about, acting on impulse–if I let it. I have the poor thing mostly trained, after fifty years trying. I have compassion for it. I give it treats. I say things to it, to comfort it. It is not me, but it provides the simple firmware I use to support the vehicle I now move around in.