System Failure

The lads open up this show with a discussion of RFK Jr.’s Super Bowl commercial, which leads them into an update on the looming 2024 Presidential Election. After that, Brian brings up Michael Benz’s suggestion that democracy—for the elite—has come to mean consensus among powerful entities like BlackRock and Wall Street Journal. Next, famous footage of KGB agent Yuri Bezmenov sparks a discussion of the untold story of Russian-American relations; a history that is largely unknown to the American Public.

The boys lost another episode to technical issues last week, but now they’re back with a fresh one. Brian starts off the show by bringing up Jonah Hill’s recent film about a Jungian psychologist. Like Christianity and magic, the ideas of Carl Jung are descended from Platonism. And, of course, those ideas always pop up during times of major economic collapses. From that springboard, Nate argues that rising debt volumes are caused by labor’s waning relevance to the production process. Finally, the lads suggest that the mounting border crisis is a sign that the world order established in 1648 with the Treaty of Westphalia is coming apart.

In this episode, the lads recap their recent visit from The Captain and Nate gets on his soapbox to complain about live music. With the primary season well underway, the boys then share their hopes and fears for the 2024 presidential election. The current trajectory of American society leads to a rousing discussion of socialism versus capitalism, which in turn gives way to a commentary on the recent Oppenheimer movie. Finally, a recent appearance by Diana Walsh Pasulka the Joe Rogan Experience ignites commentary about a possible connection between UFOs and economics.

In an exciting first for the System Failure podcast, we have a guest! Infamous friend of the show “The Captain” joins the boys on this episode. And he wastes no time launching into an impassioned defense of altered states-of-mind. He even admonishes the lads for daring to advocate for the virtues of sobriety. This topic leads, inevitably, into a discussion of the possibility of psychedelic origins for Christianity. After all, it would hardly be a System Failure podcast without a spot of blasphemy to season the stew. After that, there is much reflection on the journey from religion to atheism back to spirituality. And finally, Nate frames up a case for the importance of magic from an economic perspective.

In this episode, Brian and Nate give a brief recap of their holiday. That inevitably segues into that classic System Failure canard: the decline of society with which we are being confronted. Brian then describes a late-night encounter at a local watering hole, in which the concept of hypernormalisation was invoked. After that, Nate recounts the despair of his fiancée at the collapse of her favorite junk peddlers, Home Goods. These two tales provide a platform to discuss the US economy in terms of a rising tension between corporate profit and common good. There is no stopping the lads once they get going. As they set the stage for what’s sure to be a wild 2024, democracy is prescribed as the antidote.

The lads start out this holiday edition of System Failure by running down the list of modern Christmas traditions that arise from old psychedelic rituals. Then, talk of the subversive anti-banking parables A Christmas Carol and It’s A Wonderful Life gives way to lamentations about the recent closure of the boys’ favorite barbecue joint. The main idea in this episode is that bankers have blown out the cost of housing to the point that small businesses can no longer afford workers who need $2,000 for rent every month. This is what has brought us the “no one wants to work” phenomenon that’s broadly affecting American society.

At the top of the pod, Brian recounts his recent trip to Pittsburgh for NFL football and Magic cards. The inflating price of those cards sparks a commentary about inflation and Modern Monetary Theory. That in turn blossoms into a broader discussion about the religious aspects of economics. Next, the boys the pitfalls of using pornography. Nate compares it to the Palantir of Saruman and Brian suggests that, like weed, it’s detrimental at a deep philosophical level. Next up, the lads discuss Alex Jones being reinstated on Twitter and the overall state of online discourse. Finally, Nate revisits the ancient notion of the Alchemical Journey, and the guys relate it to the practice of meditation.

In this episode, Nate recounts a disappointing mushroom trip. Then, Brian plays clips of Elon Musk grappling with Twitter advertisers over a supposedly antisemitic tweet. From there, the lads speculate about the relevance of that incident to the broader trajectory of society. And that leads them, inevitably, into RFK Jr and Jeffrey Epstein territory. The boys go on to suggest that the peculiar disinterest of corporate media outlets—previously the mainstream media—in these topics is a part of the damming up of the river of history.

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The boys start off with a few more thoughts on last week’s topic: the notion of the Alchemical Journey. Next, they turn their guns on a recent, hair-raising Joe Rogan Experience in which former Air Force intelligence official David Grusch credibly claims that the US government is in possession of off-world craft and biological remains. Brian augments the discussion by bringing up Eric Hekker and his claims of remote viewing, directed energy weapons, and weather manipulation. All in all, it’s a reality-bending conversation. Finally, Nate waxes poetic about the majesty of calculus and manages to link that to the signing of the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648.

Be sure to email the show at [email protected]!

Show Links:

The 1561 Nuremberg Woodcut

Carl Sagan on Dimensionality

At the top of this episode, the boys recount a wild night out on the town. Then, inevitably, they do another round on the Israel-Hamas conflict that’s dominating the news. Next, the lads draw a crucial distinction between so-called cultural Marxism and actual Marxism and try to make sense of the recent election of Argentinian president Javier Milei. And finally, the lads elaborate on the eternal concept of the Alchemical Journey. The likes of Homer, Odysseus, Virgil, Aeneas, and Dante are invoked and connected to the tragic trajectory of history. https://www.theguardian.com/info/2023/nov/15/removed-document"This page previously displayed a document containing, in translation, the full text of Osama bin Laden’s 'letter to the American people', which was reported on in the Observer on Sunday 24 November 2002. The document, which was published here on the same day, was removed on 15 November 2023."https://www.foreignaffairs.com/israel/what-palestinians-really-think-hamas

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