The Woke Have Confused Sword and Sorcery

It’s really incredible to realize that about 100 year’s ago people knew how almost everything they had actually worked. Today very few have any idea of how anything works. The few who really do understand and can actually fix stuff will be very successful and prosperous. The rest will be at a loss and at the mercy of those who do.

An excellent find, OP. Thank you for posting.

A very excellent elucidation of the irrationality that underpins modern public “thought.” I will add: if the public does not like the sorcerers, then the sorcerers can replace that public with a new public imported from third world countries in limitless numbers.

FTA: "Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man." Imagine a time when people were largely scraping by, displaced by drought and wind carrying sand, destroying their croplands, forcing them into new lands. Both my parents were Depression children, one on a dairy farm, the other in a city. Both worked at ages that would be incomprehensible today to increase a farm's productivity a few paltry points, or selling newspapers that allowed him to keep a penny for each one sold. Their contributions went to support their family. Contrast that poverty with today's version...it's a life of swimming pools and movie stars by comparison, and without true want or contribution. Air conditioning was an open window. An electric fan then was a dream. Electricity was a fantasy on the farm. My parents didn't spend money they didn't have. They didn't ask the government to forgive their debts. They didn't ask for "free sh-tuff". And no one considered themselves oppressed. They taught us the value of thrift. Their discipline, as I told my mother jokingly, would earn them jail time these days. Life is too easy for literally everyone. Kids don't earn. Parents live well in deep debt "paycheck-t0-paycheck". And that is one root of the social problem. Kids also cannot form friendships, particularly with those of the other sex. They have trouble committing to relationships, perhaps another "family tradition". It's just a sad state of affairs. It will only get worse.

A nation full of people who know how to work things ... And none who know how things work.

I know someone who pretty much always makes a mountain out of a molehill. She takes forever to finish a task, or she just scraps the whole thing and tells you to go out a buy a new whatever. This is kind of what I understand about the Woke culture. They seem to want to make things more important than they really are. I bet they do not believe in an afterlife because somehow this world is going to get better and better so who needs to ever get off it? I really do not understand the whole Woke thing. So I am believing that "Eye has not seen and ear has not heard what God has in store for those who love HIm." I can wait.

I read all of Robert Heinlein's books starting as a teen. I'm not nearly as fond of his later works, but his early and middle works were excellent. Great way to examine the functionality of the world is to write about mythical places and times which have different rules. FTA, Wretchard quotes one that I read and remember well. “Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded — here and there, now and then — are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty. This is known as “bad luck.” — Robert Heinlein We have huge numbers of wealthy, powerful, arrogant, very dangerous idiots today who are in the process of destroying the modern world. Musk is right.

Re #1, I have made a point to understand how almost everything in the modern world works, at minimum, the basic principles. I obtained the education and experience to do this from much schooling and private study. And, after many years of learning, I can repair the great majority of it. I have always been appalled at how completely disinterested so many people are in even, even approximately, how the various parts of their world work, let alone even roughly how to fix any of it.

And those who quote this, often don't know the source....."An armed society is a polite society." The source is author Robert Heinlein, in his book "Beyond this Horizon" which, IMO, explored the concepts of armed self defense a good bit, including the personally beloved US Army Model of 1911 pistol design, in the far distant future with blaster weapons. I didn't find the overall book terribly memorable, and forget the overall plot line half a century later but remember the basic concept of males self selecting whether they would fight if challenged or not, with a distinctive chest brassard identifying, IIRC, the non-combatants. A bit like the TV version of the Old West, that never much existed. The slightest perceived social slight could be cause for calling out a fighting male for a duel, there on the spot. One character, instead of the ubiquitous hand blaster, has a weapon he saw in a museum, an ancient chemically powered projectile weapon, remade and ammunition manufactured for it. His friend is astounded at the "thunder clap" when fired....I remember the line "It's a terror weapon, too!" The description is a Colt 1911 .45 ACP handgun, which in Heinlein's day were almost exclusively made by Colt, and today there are about 25 companies making the design. So, the book has interesting basic concept for a society sketched out....but I forget the rest of the story. And this was long before I had ever handled a 1911 pistol, let alone owned and competed with them for 35 years, and carried one daily for self defense for over a decade.

My favorite Heinlein quote: "A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects." As it has always been, magic is all about illusion. Do not depend upon being educated, educate yourself. Programming a computer is just as easy as fixing a bicycle or tuning a car - if you find the right book.

In Salt Lake City on Friday afternoon, we had a 9 car pileup with one death on a 40 mph commercial street with a street light every two to three blocks. This is the digital, button-pushing "magicians" trying to navigate the Newtonian, analog, physical world. When Rand wrote "Atlas Shrugged" I don't know that she could have foreseen that the inciting cause her cultural dystopia was the cell phone app.