A Ghost in the Machine by Daniel D

How does the Muslim World see America? Check out this episode for the second part of my two-part conversation with Ahnaf Ibn Qais, a.k.a., the “Doom Merchant,” author of The Annals of America and The Fall of the West on Substack! This is part two, so if you haven’t already done so, listen to the first part of this interview with Ahnaf Ibn Qais <here>!

You can also follow The Doom Merchant on Twitter/X at twitter.com/HabibAhnaf9784.

Speaking of Twitter/X, connect with Daniel D there as well at twitter.com/DanielDHumor.

And if you’re on Telegram, join my all resurrected, all new, and totally improved channel at t.me/AGhostInTheMachine.

A Ghost in the Machine is a reader and listener supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

How does the Muslim World see America? Check out this episode (and the next) for a two-part conversation with Ahnaf Ibn Qais, a.k.a., the “Doom Merchant,” author of The Annals of America and The Fall of the West on Substack! This is part one of two, so be sure to also listen to the second part of this interview with Ahnaf Ibn Qais <here>!

You can also follow The Doom Merchant on Twitter/X at twitter.com/HabibAhnaf9784.

Speaking of Twitter/X, connect with Daniel D there as well at twitter.com/DanielDHumor.

And if you’re on Telegram, join my all resurrected, all new, and totally improved channel at t.me/AGhostInTheMachine.

A Ghost in the Machine is a reader and listener supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Greetings and salutations, fellow weirdos, misfits, and heterodox thinkers! Welcome to another episode of A Ghost in the Machine, the Podcast. This time I discuss two excellent posts, Against the Psychologization of Philosophy, by L.P. Koch, and The Autism Horseshoe, by Richard Hanania. These two essays complement each other quite well and raise some interesting issues. Why do we think the way we do? What do our beliefs, attitudes, and mental habits say about us? And is being neuro-atypical (a.k.a., a “weirdo”) actually a blessing in disguise?

Are the causes of our beliefs psychological or logical? Well, obviously it can be both, and it probably depends on the belief in question, but those beliefs that are attached to a narrative with which we identify are likely to be more deeply rooted in our own psychology than we may care to admit.

As Bob Mayer points out in Who Dares Wins , it can be instructive to approach incidents from our own past the way a detective might approach a crime scene, looking for clues about the type of person who would act (or react) the way we did. If we’re rigorously honest with ourselves, the results of that investigation can be eye opening — perhaps painful to admit, but potentially transformative in a profoundly beneficial way.

Richard Hananiah has conducted just such an investigation into his own life, coming to terms with the way his autism has influenced and even, ultimately, improved his understanding of social dynamics. If you’re on the spectrum yourself, you can no doubt relate to things Hananiah says about his own journey of self-discovery.

Hananiah’s essay raises some intriguing questions about the nature of autism. If you’re “on the spectrum” you know your mind works differently from the average Joe or average Jane. This, in turn, makes it challenging to form a predictive “theory of mind,” since the default is to project one’s own inner state of mind onto others and proceed from there. This is especially true of children. Without even being aware that this is what you are doing, you try to make sense of what another person says and does by imagining what would motivate you to speak or act similarly in the same situation. For the average Joe or average Jane, this method works more often than not, so they probably never even think about it. But for someone who is “neurodivergent,” this method can easily lead to misunderstandings and frustration (and to humorous perspectives on social situations, like what you get from comedians like Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David). For those with sufficient determination and intelligence to take a trial-and-error approach (like a scientist) to social interaction, however, you can overcome this difficulty and end up with more self-awareness and a deeper understanding of human nature than the average person has (which is what Hananiah appears to have done). Of course, it helps to have enough humility to learn from your own mistakes and to seek insights from others.

My own recommendation for “neuro-divergent” young people who want to improve their social functioning is (1) read and seek to apply lessons from Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People , and (2) get a job that requires you to interact with the public and make a favorable impression on them, like waiting tables.

Anyway, check out both of these excellent posts and, if you are so inclined, the books I referenced as well. (The above links to those books are Amazon affiliate links that kick a few cents my way, at no additional cost to you, if you buy them — or if you buy something completely unrelated that you were planning to get anyway.) And of course, if you have not already subscribed to this most excellent podcast, don’t forget to do so, so you don’t miss out on any future spectrum-y weirdness from yours truly!

A Ghost in the Machine is a reader (and listener!) supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

In this episode (and in time for MLK Day), we revisit the “Jewish Question,” the “Black Question,” and the “Neanda Question,” and via airtight logic and unimpeachable evidence we arrive at the inexorable conclusion that Mike Benz should be our next President and that Candace Owens should be Vice President. (And George Soros, Fanni Willis, and Joe Brandon should be given the most “cruel and unusual punishments” imaginable for their crimes.)

Side note: when discussing the upcoming election, I use the first-person plural possessive with you, dear reader and listener, because I want to give you the benefit of the doubt that you are a fellow American — if you are not, this is no doubt due to a moral failing on your part or on the part of your ancestors, but since you are “doing the work” by listening to my podcast, I will extend grace and overlook this flaw in your otherwise noble character and consider you as an honorary American (Lord knows anyone and everyone who wants to waltz across our wide-open southern border is permitted by our catamite government to seize the label “American” for themselves).

If you are listening to this on a podcast app or streaming platform, don’t forget to visit https://aghostinthemachine.substack.com/p/mike-benz-candace-owens-2024 to share your thoughts in the comment section. If you enjoyed this episode, I’d really appreciate it if you’d “like” this post on Substack and share it with a friend, and if you’re listening on Apple or Spotify, please be a pal and leave a glowing review there (even if you have to make up great things to say about it)!

If you want to check out the classic Richard Jeni bit (from A Big Steaming Pile of Me) I reference in this episode, you can do so here:

When it comes to understanding the issues involved in the “Jewish Question,” I cannot recommend highly enough Brian Mowrey’s series on the Holocaust and its cultural significance in the post-WWII West (beginning with the the first in the series: “Transed and Nationless: the Post Hitler West (Introduction)”), which is about as fair, nuanced, and comprehensive an examination of this difficult topic as is humanly possible to do on an internet blog (hopefully Mowrey will expand this series into a book). Neoliberal Feudalism’s post “The complicated relationship between the central bank owners and the Jewish people” is also excellent. And while you’re at it, check out L.P. Koch’s extremely insightful and nuanced essay about the Rorschach Blot that is pre-Cold War German history, and especially the years of The Mustachioed Maniac: “Hitler, the Ultimate Rorschach Test.”

As for the black/white issues, John Psmith’s review of “South Africa's Brave New World” provides a powerful and concise warning about what happens if the race communists win: rapid regression from an advanced and prosperous First-World country, to a dystopian and dysfunctional Third-World shit-hole. Guaranteed. Chose wisely, America! We can follow the wise counsel of Thomas Sowell, or indulge the childish folly of that clownworld con-artist Ibram X Kendi. The choise is ours! (Though with the rise of race communism since the advent of the Obama administration — some “post-racial President” he turned out to be! — we have already been sliding down that slippery slope for several years now.)

And finally, for the Neandas who can be so terrified of being called “racist” or “antisemitic” or “xenophobic” or “Islamophobic” or “misogynistic” or whatever else that they would rather suffer silently under crime and corruption than confront it, Mark Bisone has a great post on “toxic empathy” called “Colossus of Troy.” It should be required reading before you can vote. Also, Gaius Baltar has several excellent posts on the relationship between toxic empathy and narcissism and how it impacts our civilization.

Oh, and one more “finally:” if you have not already done so, you absolutely, positively need to read Grant Smith’s essay, “Power without Accountability Is Tyranny.” The title really says it all!

Oh, and one final “finally:” the “Tonic crew” and I (though I be the least tonic among them) did a podcast episode on “The Declaration of Military Accountability” that Grant and other current and former servicemembers are part of. You can watch the video on YouTube or listen to the audio on Spotify or whatever podcast platform you use.

And that’s the last “finally!” We are finally done! Oh wait — as you were — there is one more “finally:” subscribe to this Substack (if you haven’t already done so), so you can get even more of my blog posts and audio podcasts!

And with that final “finally” out of the way, we are now officially and finally done.

A Ghost in the Machine is a reader and listener-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

In this podcast episode, we discuss living well amidst a culture of death. Here’s the TL;DL (Too Long; Didn’t Listen):

* Politics is downstream of Culture, and Culture is downstream of Metaphysics (or Spirituality);

* While it may be helpful, or even necessary, to treat symptoms of an illness, treating the symptoms is no substitute for treating the underlying illness itself;

* The symptoms of illness we see in our politics are a product of the spiritual sickness ravaging our culture — our culture is under the sway of a Spirit of Nihilism, and to quote Walter Sobchak from The Great Lebowski (when he compared Nazism to Nihilism), “Say what you want about the tenets of national socialism, dude, at least it’s an ethos” — the illogical, inconsistent, ever-changing ideology of the Globohomo American Empire (GAE) and its Marxcissist apparatchiks is just a smokescreen to conceal a black hole of bottomless nihilism — their utopia has to be impossible, their revolution can never be completed, because if they ever ran out of things to “fix” in the world, they would have nothing and no one left to blame but themselves, and this is a reality they will avoid at all costs — they would rather destroy the entire world than deal with who and what they actually are;

* Though our culture is in the terminal stage of this spiritual cancer, it has been sick for so long, nobody alive today really remembers a time when our civilization was spiritually cancer-free — given the state our culture was in 50 years ago, or 100 years ago (or who even knows how long ago?), even then it was inevitable that we would reach our current state of accelerating decay and collapse — in other words, there’s no going back to some romanticized vision of a past that didn’t even exist;

* Those with eyes to see are recognizing that something big is happening — for a couple of good examples from Twitter, check out «this» and «this» — it’s like the charged atmosphere right before a lightning strike, where everyone’s hair is standing on end and you can feel the energy building up dangerously around you;

* In Romans 7:21-25, St. Paul distinguished between the Law of God and the “law of sin and death,” and that distinction provides a helpful conceptual framing or metaphor for the spiritual conflict underlying our cultural and political conflicts;

* Think of how an American embassy or military post can be located within the territory of another nation, yet operate under the Law of the USA, as an analogy to St. Paul’s discussion about the Law of God — you can be in Kuwait, but if you are within the boundaries of Ali Al Salem Air Base, you are under the Law of the USA;

* Our civilization is clearly under the law of sin and death, the law of nihilism, the law of suicide and murder, whatever you want to call it — on a civilizational level, things are heading very quickly in a very bad direction;

* If we are in a culture that is subject to the law (or logos or tao) of nihilism, but it is possible for us to connect with God and reorient our consciousness and lifestyle towards Life rather than death, then we can be in an analogous position to the personnel at Ali Al Salem Air Base in Kuwait, who are in Kuwait but not of Kuwait — we can change the governing principle (or logos or tao or law) of our lives from nihilism to Life, from separation from God (and alienation from ourselves and each other) to communion with God (and inner healing and healthier relationships with others);

* In a world of nonstop lies and manipulative propaganda, where institutions and historical records have been corrupted by duplicitous men with malicious intent and then amplified by millions of unwitting dupes and true believers, it can be extremely difficult to know what is of God and what is not, but a helpful heuristic can be abstracted from the words of Jesus in John 10:10:

The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.

* If something brings more abundant life (i.e., greater health, increased strength, more joy, more peace of mind, stronger family relationships, more friendship and camaraderie, more good will towards others, etc.), then it is probably of God; if it causes the loss of these things, then it is probably not of God (but a good character is needed to discern the difference reliably, and of course this highlights a chicken-and-egg problem which is unavoidable);

* Another helpful heuristic can be abstracted from the distinction between Truth (which sets you free) and deception (which enslaves you) — if we catch someone intentionally lying to us, especially if they are doing so to influence our decisions, such a person is operating under the law of sin and death (see, John 8:31-44); and

* Life entails continual growth, whereas stagnation means decay and death; therefore, another good habit to foster is setting good goals and working towards them; Lafayette Lee had an excellent post on Twitter about this (with some insightful follow-on comments): https://twitter.com/Partisan_O/status/1728537075459244306.

In this episode, I also mention the ongoing troubles in Ireland, where the government is actively trying to destroy and replace its own citizens and the citizens are fighting back; John Carter has an excellent post about this, entitled The Day the Irish Snapped. Morgoth’s post on this topic is also definitely worth reading. In Ireland, you see a regime dropping the psychopath’s mask of sanity and openly manifesting the law of sin and death. Ireland is not unique in this — every Western nation is under the same regime, effectively — it’s just that Ireland’s government is behaving more clumsily and trying to push its nihilistic agenda even farther and even faster than most other nations’ governments are comfortable doing right now, but it is precisely the same spirit governing Ireland that also governs the rest of the West. This is what we’re up against, and this is why we must be intentional about choosing a Spirit of Life, because in our world, the default is the spirit of death.

Thanks for listening, and please let me know your thoughts in the comment section below — or if you’re listening to this on a podcast app or streaming platform, you can comment on the Substack post for this episode at https://aghostinthemachine.substack.com/p/living-well-amidst-a-culture-of-death

A Ghost in the Machine is a reader and listener supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

The American ship of has hit the iceberg — or more like a series of icebergs. The CIA-backed coup in 1963 (i.e., the assassination of JFK and the installation of LBJ), the cultural revolution of the 1960s, and Vietnam. The financialization of the economy following whatever the fuck happened in 1971. NAFTA, and all of Ross Perot’s warnings that came to pass in its aftermath. 9/11 and 20 years of GWOT, ending in a disastrously embarrassing withdrawal under Joe Brandon (after which the Taliban emerged stronger and more fully in control of Afghanistan than they had been on 9/11). A fraudulent Iraq War, with trillions of dollars down the drain and thousands of lives needlessly sacrificed, leaving American and the Middle-East less safe and less stable than before. A financial meltdown, to which our bankster-occupied government responded by printing a shit ton of money and giving it all to the very banksters that caused the whole mess, while doing absolutely nothing to help the regular Americans whose livelihoods had been wrecked by the economic cataclysm. The scamdemic, and all the lies and tyranny of psychopathic public officials eager to capitalize on a manufactured crisis. Weaponized federal law enforcement and Soros DAs unleashing anarcho-tyranny with one hand and politically-motivated prosecutions of the regime’s opponents with the other. And now that the military has been thoroughly degraded in terms of its weaponry and personnel, and now that the strategic petroleum reserve has been depleted —not for a national emergency, but for Joe Brandon’s short-term political benefit, the psychopathic war pigs in DC are clamoring for World War III, trying desperately to provoke a fight with Russia and Iran. We are in worse shape than we have ever been — economically, militarily, industrially, culturally, spiritually, physically, etc. — and the next Black-Swan event will reveal the full extent of all our self-destruction over the past several decades . . . and that Black-Swan event could happen anytime (indeed, our governing elites seem hell bent on causing one to occur). With escalating geopolitical tensions, indicators of a looming financial crisis, and all the craziness that the upcoming 2024 election cycle will bring, the collapse phase will probably accelerate sooner rather than later.

So what should we do in light of all this? How should we spend our remaining time before the impending (and inevitable, at this point) collapse? Who deserves our loyalty? And who does not? How do we prepare? Is there a silver lining in all this apparent doom and gloom? Such are the topics of discussion in this podcast episode.

If you’re listening to this on a podcast app or streaming platform, be sure to visit this episode’s post on Substack to join in the conversation via the comment section!

A Ghost in the Machine is a reader (and listener!) supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

You’ve no doubt seen the viral video of the Gen Z woman crying about working 9 to 5. In this podcast episode, we discuss that video and the reactions it has provoked, as well as the larger issues relating to Human Nature and the spiritual void at the heart of our culture. To paraphrase Nietzsche, "She who has no 'Why' cannot bear with any 'How'!"

Here’s the video:

(You can also watch it via Libs of TikTok’s Twitter/X post )

Compare that Gen Z video to this video below of a Baby Boomer Woman singing happily about how awesome working 9 to 5 is:

Here are links to the Substacks, blog posts, books, and movies Referenced in this episode:

Femlosophy by Aly Drummond:

(Aly is also on YouTube and Rumble.)

Twilight in Margaritaville by Yakubian Ape, which discusses (among other things) the existential emptiness in our culture and how that void has been papered over with consumer-friendly “identities”, such as the beach-bum lifestyle brand that Jimmy Buffet so expertly marketed and monetized:

Here’s a review of the late, great David Graeber’s book about Bullshit Jobs: https://davidgraeber.org/david-graeber-i-would-like-this-book-to-be-an-arrow-aimed-at-the-heart-of-our-civilisation/

Here is the core argument of the book: we are no longer living under “Capitalism“. We are living under a system Graeber calls “Managerial Feudalism”, where most of the money comes from either “rents” or “debt”, precisely like in the days of feudalism proper. In other words, the “FIRE” sector: finance, insurance, real estate.

(That paragraph reminds me of Grant Smith’s excellent essay on our Late Stage Bureaucracy, and when people from opposite sides of the political spectrum converge upon a similar critique, you know they’re really onto something!)

Here’s a podcast episode (Hidden Brain) featuring Graeber discussing this theory about Bullshit Jobs (embedded from Spotify):

Here’s an article about Viktor Frankl’s book Man’s Search for Meaning and the method of “Logotherapy” that he developed based on both his research and his lived experiences: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/hide-and-seek/201205/mans-search-meaning

And here are some clips from Office Space, Mike Judge’s viral video about working 9 to 5 back in the 90s:

If you’re listening to this on a podcast app or streaming platform, be sure to visit the podcast episode’s post on Substack at aghostinthemachine.substack.com/p/gen-z-women-working-9-to-5 to join in the conversation via the comment section (as well as to see any videos and other embedded content that don’t display properly in podcast apps or on streaming platforms)!

A Ghost in the Machine is a reader (and listener) supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

In this episode, I share my thoughts about the situation with Israel and Palestine, as well as what I believe America’s response should be. Here’s the TL;DR (or too long; didn’t listen):

* Israel’s 10/7 is a lot like America’s 9/11: if you’re an American, remember how you (and everyone around you) felt that day, and how your feelings were manipulated by power-hungry psychopaths to advance their interests at your expense;

* Remember also all the red flags and anomalies that subsequently cast doubt on the official narrative, leading (for many people) to a growing belief that certain high-level officials in our own government knew what was coming and allowed it to happen, effectively sacrificing thousands of their own people in order to get the forever wars and surveillance state that they wanted (but couldn’t have pulled off before 9/11);

* I fully expect those same patterns to emerge with Israel’s 10/7 — it seems inconceivable that the Mossad had no prior knowledge of Hamas’s plans and that hundreds of Hamas fighters were able to cross one of the most militarized borders on the planet (in an over-the-top theatrical way) without triggering an immediate response from the IDF, and that they were able to rampage through Israel for as long as they did without facing any resistance from military or police;

* America should not be a party to this conflict; even if we felt our intervention was justified, we need to use our resources and manpower to get our own house in order;

* Images of Hamas brutalizing young Israeli women truly do shock the conscience, as do images of black terrorists brutalizing white farmers in South Africa and images of black street criminals brutalizing pretty much everyone in America’s big cities — saying we should not intervene on behalf of Israel in this conflict does not mean that we should support Hamas — there’s a reason why ANTIFA and BLM supporters are also Hamas supporters — Israel is fully capable, without our help, of doing to Hamas what America should do to ANTIFA/BLM rioters;

* The Israelis and the Palestinians are like the Hatfield’s and the McCoy’s: the only way for a third-party (like America) to win in this conflict is not to get involved;

* America’s “friendship” with Israel has been one-sided and ruinously expensive for America and her people;

* If America’s public officials cared half as much about protecting the interests of the American people as they care about the interests of Israel and Ukraine, we’d have a completely different country, fewer international enemies, and a fraction of the debt;

* Americans are justified in questioning the true allegiance of any public official who demonstrates more concern for foreign peoples than they do for Americans — if (for example) Victoria Nuland demonstrates a reckless disregard for the well-being of Americans while pursuing foreign policy objectives that align more closely with the interests of Israel, Americans should see her as a snake and a quisling and treat her accordingly;

* This also goes for pro-Palestinian, pro-Islamist Bolsheviks, like Ilhan Omar and the rest of her Squad — if we had a healthy civilization, Omar and her ilk would have been deported long ago;

* The people of a nation are distinct from their government — and especially from the “inner ring” that holds the real power within their government: this is true for America, and it’s also true for Israel — and even for the Gaza strip;

* The “friend/enemy” dichotomy is overly simplistic; different groups of people and different nations have different interests, with varying degrees of alignment or conflict based on their interests and how they prioritize those interests;

* In some rare cases — such as George Soros and the ADL — the conflicts of interests are so severe (they want our people dead or enslaved) that they rise to the level of being an enemy, with whom no compromise or accommodation can be made; such enemies are demons who must be destroyed;

* But it is also important to remember that George Soros and the ADL are not the same as “the Jews” — “the Jews” include various sub-groups with competing interests: reform/atheist Jews are often, but not always, aligned with the banksters and the Bolsheviks, but Orthodox Jews are mostly right-wing in their political beliefs and cultural norms and are among the most vocal opponents of the Bolshevik cultural revolution that is currently being promoted by Soros and the ADL;

* The pro-Israel camp also includes lots of Christians, especially Evangelicals and Pentecostals, who are probably more fervent Zionists than most Jews, and these Christians are also vocal opponents of the Bolshevik cultural revolution;

* The pro-Palestinian side includes almost all the non-Jewish Bolsheviks, as well as a few Jewish Bolsheviks, whose Conformmunist identity is more important to them than their religious or ethnic identity;

* Basically, the issues and parties involved are a complex web of historical grievances, religious traditions, geopolitical alliances, etc., and American interests are best served by staying out of this family feud between the Semitic peoples of Judea, and focusing instead on securing our own border, deporting invaders from our own country, bringing predatory criminal animals to heel, and completely overhauling the parasitic financial sector;

* We should identify what our interests are and form ad hoc alliances based on those interests, which will frequently mean joining forces with essentially Zionist evangelical Christians and Orthodox Jews on issues unrelated to Israel (even though these groups’ good-faith support of Israel is often exploited by bad-faith neo-con-artists), because …

* The ongoing Bolshevik cultural revolution here in America (and the rest of the West) is absolutely the biggest threat to us and to everything that makes our lives worth living, and evangelical Christians and Orthodox Jews are absolutely on the right side of that culture war.

If you are listening to this on a podcast app or streaming platform, visit AGhostInTheMachine.substack.com (or AGhostInTheMachine.page if you’re on Twitter) to subscribe and to share your thoughts in the comment section!

A Ghost in the Machine is a reader (and listener) supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

How reassuring it is to see that our ruling class cares so very deeply about protecting the vulnerable from sexual predation! I had begun to think they weren’t concerned, given their “ho hum” indifference towards the scandals surrounding Jeffrey Epstein’s questionable friendships with Bill Gates, Bill Clinton, Prince Andrew, and other global elites; given their antipathy towards the movie Sound of Freedom (“Don’t see it! It’s just a Q-Anon conspiracy film!”); given their full-throated support of “child-friendly drag shows” and the idea that it’s okay for government officials to secretly counsel 12-year-old children to get mutilated in order to pretend to be a different gender; etc. But suddenly, just when you thought they didn’t care, they miraculously do care, and they want YOU to care, that Russell Brand did some allegedly bad things to vulnerable women 15 to 20 years ago. What a relief!

I’m sure the regime’s newfound commitment to fighting against sexual exploitation has nothing whatsoever to do with Russell Brand’s very public criticism of the high-level corruption around COVID, Ukraine, etc. I’m sure the ruling elites would never try to get someone removed from public life merely because they find his message threatening to their interests. Not like they would ever do such a thing — well, aside from that time with Tucker Carlson getting fired from Fox. Oh, and that time they tried to smear Joe Rogan as a racist (which is one of the few mortal sins left in this postmodern cultural wasteland) because he was getting too loud about the holes in the mainstream narrative surrounding COVID. And I guess they kind of are doing this presently to the former President of the United States and the chief political rival of the current President. And I suppose they did do that to the Canadian Trucker Convoy protestors. And . . . well, okay, so I guess they do this sort of thing a lot, but that is absolutely NOT what’s happening now. This is 1000% on the up and up, completely and entirely because the powers-that-be are now very concerned about protecting the vulnerable from sexual harm and exploitation — unless those vulnerable people happen to be schoolchildren in the State of California. But otherwise, yes, the regime is very concerned. And so should you be!

If you are listening to this on a podcast app or streaming platform, visit AGhostInTheMachine.substack.com (or AGhostInTheMachine.page if you’re on Twitter) and subscribe, so you don’t miss out on any future fun!

A Ghost in the Machine is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

The movie Memento features the strange story of Leonard Shelby, a man who cannot form new short-term memories after a traumatic injury. Leonard relies on a bizarre system of record-keeping to remember who he is and what his goals are. He gets by with a little help from his friends, but his “friends” may be lying to him and manipulating him to serve their own agendas. Moreover, Leonard may even be lying to himself. All of these lies have consequences, sometimes fatal.

In many ways, we are all like Leonard Shelby, relying on inaccurate and incomplete memories and historical records to construct our narratives that help us to understand who we are and what we’re about. And of course, that makes us susceptible to deception from others and even from ourselves.

Maybe we are what we remember, for better or worse? So how do we make the most of our lives, given those limitations? And how do we minimize our risk of being conned?

If you haven’t seen Memento — or if you haven’t seen it recently — I highly recommend it. It is a classic and definitely one of Nolan’s best (maybe even the best, though Inception could also take that title). You can stream it for free on Tubi: https://tubitv.com/movies/100007690/memento

Here is the Wikipedia article about Memento: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memento_(film)

And in case you’re interested, here is the Wikipedia article on Anterograde Amnesia, the condition that afflicts Leonard Shelby: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anterograde_amnesia

If you’re listening to this on a podcast app or streaming platform, be sure to subscribe and join the discussion in the comment section at https://aghostinthemachine.substack.com/p/you-are-what-you-remember! Thanks for listening!

A Ghost in the Machine is a reader (and listener) supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.