The Coronavirus

[Eric the Green]

Darwin = survival of the fittest, turning Nature into a dead machine

[David Horn]

(12-24-2021, 12:50 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: Darwin = survival of the fittest, turning Nature into a dead machine

Quite the opposite.  Being a survivor is not perpetual.  Today’s survivor may be overtaken tomorrow … or not.  In any case, the activity is fully dynamic.

[Eric the Green]

(12-24-2021, 09:11 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(12-24-2021, 12:50 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: Darwin = survival of the fittest, turning Nature into a dead machine

Quite the opposite.  Being a survivor is not perpetual.  Today’s survivor may be overtaken tomorrow … or not.  In any case, the activity is fully dynamic.

Nature is, indeed. But Darwinism is not. It explains life through death.

[Bob Butler 54]

(12-24-2021, 03:43 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(12-24-2021, 09:11 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(12-24-2021, 12:50 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: Darwin = survival of the fittest, turning Nature into a dead machine

Quite the opposite.  Being a survivor is not perpetual.  Today’s survivor may be overtaken tomorrow … or not.  In any case, the activity is fully dynamic.

Nature is, indeed. But Darwinism is not. It explains life through death.

Darwinism as a scientific theory is hard to argue with.  Species thrive to the extent that they fit their environment.  Darwinism as a moral philosophy and practical tool is something else.  When you start meddling with the environment to make it fit better with your group and less well with other groups, you loose me right quick.  It rapidly becomes a justification for immorality.

[Bob Butler 54]

I had a dream last night about a panicked attempt to build a sterile network as an attempt to combat a Covid variant that produced... zombies.

[Eric the Green]

(12-24-2021, 05:41 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(12-24-2021, 03:43 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(12-24-2021, 09:11 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(12-24-2021, 12:50 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: Darwin = survival of the fittest, turning Nature into a dead machine

Quite the opposite.  Being a survivor is not perpetual.  Today’s survivor may be overtaken tomorrow … or not.  In any case, the activity is fully dynamic.

Nature is, indeed. But Darwinism is not. It explains life through death.

Darwinism as a scientific theory is hard to argue with.  Species thrive to the extent that they fit their environment.  Darwinism as a moral philosophy and practical tool is something else.  When you start meddling with the environment to make it fit better with your group and less well with other groups, you loose me right quick.  It rapidly becomes a justification for immorality.

Evolution is how life adapts to its environment and unfolds it potential through time. We need better theories than Darwin's basic attempt to explain it, since by itself that explanation snuffs out our awareness of what lives. And these revisions are indeed appearing, and deserve our attention. But the moral imperative to adapt to and fit into rather than destroy our environment for our own narrow purposes is a positive interpretation of evolution.

[David Horn]

(12-26-2021, 06:19 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: I had a dream last night about a panicked attempt to build a sterile network as an attempt to combat a Covid variant that produced... zombies.

Quick!  Pitch the story to Hollywood before someone else thinks of it.  

[David Horn]

(12-26-2021, 02:25 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(12-24-2021, 05:41 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(12-24-2021, 03:43 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(12-24-2021, 09:11 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(12-24-2021, 12:50 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: Darwin = survival of the fittest, turning Nature into a dead machine

Quite the opposite.  Being a survivor is not perpetual.  Today’s survivor may be overtaken tomorrow … or not.  In any case, the activity is fully dynamic.

Nature is, indeed. But Darwinism is not. It explains life through death.

Darwinism as a scientific theory is hard to argue with.  Species thrive to the extent that they fit their environment.  Darwinism as a moral philosophy and practical tool is something else.  When you start meddling with the environment to make it fit better with your group and less well with other groups, you loose me right quick.  It rapidly becomes a justification for immorality.

Evolution is how life adapts to its environment and unfolds it potential through time. We need better theories than Darwin's basic attempt to explain it, since by itself that explanation snuffs out our awareness of what lives. And these revisions are indeed appearing, and deserve our attention. But the moral imperative to adapt to and fit into rather than destroy our environment for our own narrow purposes is a positive interpretation of evolution.

The concept is 'survival of the fittest', and that still applies.  Dinosaurs were the fittest in their day ... then they weren't.  Adaptability gets species a long run, but not an infinite one.

[pbrower2a]

(12-26-2021, 04:31 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(12-26-2021, 02:25 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(12-24-2021, 05:41 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(12-24-2021, 03:43 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(12-24-2021, 09:11 AM)David Horn Wrote: Quite the opposite.  Being a survivor is not perpetual.  Today’s survivor may be overtaken tomorrow … or not.  In any case, the activity is fully dynamic.

Nature is, indeed. But Darwinism is not. It explains life through death.

Darwinism as a scientific theory is hard to argue with.  Species thrive to the extent that they fit their environment.  Darwinism as a moral philosophy and practical tool is something else.  When you start meddling with the environment to make it fit better with your group and less well with other groups, you loose me right quick.  It rapidly becomes a justification for immorality.

Evolution is how life adapts to its environment and unfolds it potential through time. We need better theories than Darwin's basic attempt to explain it, since by itself that explanation snuffs out our awareness of what lives. And these revisions are indeed appearing, and deserve our attention. But the moral imperative to adapt to and fit into rather than destroy our environment for our own narrow purposes is a positive interpretation of evolution.

The concept is 'survival of the fittest', and that still applies.  Dinosaurs were the fittest in their day ... then they weren't.  Adaptability gets species a long run, but not an infinite one.

The dinosaurs (aside from the avian ones that have since evolved into the creatures who dominate the skies) were simply living at the wrong time to be alive for any large creature. Man would not have survived the Chixculub disaster. Small, burrowing creatures and animals born small in nests (turtles, alligators and crocodiles) that need little parental care once hatched survived even if their parents did not.

[David Horn]

(12-26-2021, 07:09 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: The dinosaurs (aside from the avian ones that have since evolved into the creatures who dominate the skies) were simply living at the wrong time to be alive for any large creature. Man would not have survived the Chixculub disaster. Small, burrowing creatures and animals born small in nests (turtles, alligators and crocodiles) that need little parental care once hatched survived even if their parents did not.

Yet even the smallest of the land dinosaurs perished, while equally small mammals managed to survive.  Perhaps it was their less than perfect stewardship of the eggs they laid, with the protobirds being better at that task, but it's unlikley we'll ever know for certain.  What is certain: they're gone and the mammals remain.

[Eric the Green]

(12-26-2021, 04:31 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(12-26-2021, 02:25 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(12-24-2021, 05:41 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(12-24-2021, 03:43 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(12-24-2021, 09:11 AM)David Horn Wrote: Quite the opposite.  Being a survivor is not perpetual.  Today’s survivor may be overtaken tomorrow … or not.  In any case, the activity is fully dynamic.

Nature is, indeed. But Darwinism is not. It explains life through death.

Darwinism as a scientific theory is hard to argue with.  Species thrive to the extent that they fit their environment.  Darwinism as a moral philosophy and practical tool is something else.  When you start meddling with the environment to make it fit better with your group and less well with other groups, you loose me right quick.  It rapidly becomes a justification for immorality.

Evolution is how life adapts to its environment and unfolds it potential through time. We need better theories than Darwin's basic attempt to explain it, since by itself that explanation snuffs out our awareness of what lives. And these revisions are indeed appearing, and deserve our attention. But the moral imperative to adapt to and fit into rather than destroy our environment for our own narrow purposes is a positive interpretation of evolution.

The concept is 'survival of the fittest', and that still applies.  Dinosaurs were the fittest in their day ... then they weren't.  Adaptability gets species a long run, but not an infinite one.

There's more to Darwinism than survival of the fittest. But even as usually conceived, the concept does not account for the cooperation and the mutual dependence and aid that plays such a large role in life and evolution. The life of Nature certainly involves the occasional death of species and predation, but predation in the right balance; and predation is not what drives the system. Life happens and evolves because it wants to; because it desires to unfold. It can't be explained from outside itself only. Life is self-moving. It is not a mechanism; it's an organism. And that's different. Life expands and grows from within outward all at once. Machines are made or put together by humans from without inward. But Darwinism is mechanical. It is based on the science that was given permission by Descartes to view everything except the religious realm according to a fully-automatic model. But the model is a false myth.

Is the coronavirus a challenge to the survival of the human species? So it seems; and climate change too. But whether we are fit to survive depends on whether we use the abilities that we certainly have to deal with these situations.

There are species on the planet today who have survived since the earliest paleozoic eras. I imagine they will continue, and if we use our abilities we will survive and transform ourselves into post-humans right up to the time when the Sun gets too hot for life. By then, a billion years from now, we need to realize our spiritual nature and move on up into the Other Side, and also retain our ability to come onto this side wherever in the universe we wish.

I believe the Celestine Prophecy! As I understand it, but is not often explained outside the Redfield books, is that this is what we are destined to achieve if we fulfill it. This book I haven't read yet, but I read the first two: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secret...th_Insight

We should not limit the horizons of what evolution is leading us to, by how we think we got to where we are today. Just as early hominids, or our shrewlike ancestral survivors of the asteroid, could not have conceived of cathedrals, symphonies, missions to Mars and the worldwide web.

Our fundamental notions of how we westerners view the world influence us more strongly than we realize. These are the two main "myths" or images through which we understand the world. They are both inadequate, even according to current science. Explained by Alan Watts.

[TatteredGenX]

(12-28-2021, 05:16 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(12-26-2021, 04:31 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(12-26-2021, 02:25 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(12-24-2021, 05:41 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(12-24-2021, 03:43 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Nature is, indeed. But Darwinism is not. It explains life through death.

Darwinism as a scientific theory is hard to argue with.  Species thrive to the extent that they fit their environment.  Darwinism as a moral philosophy and practical tool is something else.  When you start meddling with the environment to make it fit better with your group and less well with other groups, you loose me right quick.  It rapidly becomes a justification for immorality.

Evolution is how life adapts to its environment and unfolds it potential through time. We need better theories than Darwin's basic attempt to explain it, since by itself that explanation snuffs out our awareness of what lives. And these revisions are indeed appearing, and deserve our attention. But the moral imperative to adapt to and fit into rather than destroy our environment for our own narrow purposes is a positive interpretation of evolution.

The concept is 'survival of the fittest', and that still applies.  Dinosaurs were the fittest in their day ... then they weren't.  Adaptability gets species a long run, but not an infinite one.

There's more to Darwinism than survival of the fittest. But even as usually conceived, the concept does not account for the cooperation and the mutual dependence and aid that plays such a large role in life and evolution. The life of Nature certainly involves the occasional death of species and predation, but predation in the right balance; and predation is not what drives the system. Life happens and evolves because it wants to; because it desires to unfold. It can't be explained from outside itself only. Life is self-moving. It is not a mechanism; it's an organism. And that's different. Life expands and grows from within outward all at once. Machines are made or put together by humans from without inward. But Darwinism is mechanical. It is based on the science that was given permission by Descartes to view everything except the religious realm according to a fully-automatic model. But the model is a false myth.

Is the coronavirus a challenge to the survival of the human species? So it seems; and climate change too. But whether we are fit to survive depends on whether we use the abilities that we certainly have to deal with these situations.

There are species on the planet today who have survived since the earliest paleozoic eras. I imagine they will continue, and if we use our abilities we will survive and transform ourselves into post-humans right up to the time when the Sun gets too hot for life. By then, a billion years from now, we need to realize our spiritual nature and move on up into the Other Side, and also retain our ability to come onto this side wherever in the universe we wish.

I believe the Celestine Prophecy! As I understand it, but is not often explained outside the Redfield books, is that this is what we are destined to achieve if we fulfill it. This book I haven't read yet, but I read the first two: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secret...th_Insight

We should not limit the horizons of what evolution is leading us to, by how we think we got to where we are today. Just as early hominids, or our shrewlike ancestral survivors of the asteroid, could not have conceived of cathedrals, symphonies, missions to Mars and the worldwide web.

Our fundamental notions of how we westerners view the world influence us more strongly than we realize. These are the two main "myths" or images through which we understand the world. They are both inadequate, even according to current science. Explained by Alan Watts.

Quote:Is the coronavirus a challenge to the survival of the human species? So it seems; and climate change too. But whether we are fit to survive depends on whether we use the abilities that we certainly have to deal with these situations.

Agreed. Just had a discussion about this somewhere else. 
What we do now have great bearing on whether any of us will be here come the 22nd century. We do at present have great power at the tip of our fingers. We have technology, we have brilliant scientists, we have humanitarians, we have climatic event forecasts, engineers, new materials, etc. 

We seem to lack the will however. This is what concerns me. 

Also let me say, I found the Fourth Turning book after reading both of yours Eric. Then found this forum, where I have been lurking for awhile. 

By way of introduction, I'm nobody special. Not an economist, historian, scientist, or astrologer. Just a history & astrology obsessed person living through our times & seeking to make sense of it.

I like this forum. Important things are being discussed. 

Eric--astrologically speaking, and also using the Turnings; when do you think this virus thing will have ran its course? 


PS: Nice to meet everyone

TatteredX ?

[pbrower2a]

"Survival of the fittest" is now as much a philosophical position as a scientific one. It can extend to institutions, firms, and political entities. As businesses Sears and K-Mart, both once-impressive entities are moribund. They failed to adapt to a changing environment. I'm not certain that business entities (unless mom-and-pop outfits that die when the heirs find some easier way of making a living) have a set lifetime. Political entities? The United States is one of the oldest of the existing ones, and if I am to make a guess of what political system now intact will still be much the same a thousand years from now, the USA should be one of the most likely. The USA has proved as flexible as it is imposing.

But be at the wrong place at the wrong time, and you will be struck down. Become old and inflexible, and you become irrelevant fast. "Earth" itself was the wrong place to be when the asteroid hit at Chixculub. Size is usually good for winning fights with other creatures (elephants, hippos, and rhinos are rarely on some predator's menu), but not with facing hurricane-force winds of extreme heat. The seas were not safe havens. No large dinosaur had the stability to avoid dying when tossed into a tree. We wouldn't, either.

[Eric the Green]

(12-28-2021, 10:37 PM)TatteredGenX Wrote:

(12-28-2021, 05:16 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: There's more to Darwinism than survival of the fittest. But even as usually conceived, the concept does not account for the cooperation and the mutual dependence and aid that plays such a large role in life and evolution. The life of Nature certainly involves the occasional death of species and predation, but predation in the right balance; and predation is not what drives the system. Life happens and evolves because it wants to; because it desires to unfold. It can't be explained from outside itself only. Life is self-moving. It is not a mechanism; it's an organism. And that's different. Life expands and grows from within outward all at once. Machines are made or put together by humans from without inward. But Darwinism is mechanical. It is based on the science that was given permission by Descartes to view everything except the religious realm according to a fully-automatic model. But the model is a false myth.

Is the coronavirus a challenge to the survival of the human species? So it seems; and climate change too. But whether we are fit to survive depends on whether we use the abilities that we certainly have to deal with these situations.

There are species on the planet today who have survived since the earliest paleozoic eras. I imagine they will continue, and if we use our abilities we will survive and transform ourselves into post-humans right up to the time when the Sun gets too hot for life. By then, a billion years from now, we need to realize our spiritual nature and move on up into the Other Side, and also retain our ability to come onto this side wherever in the universe we wish.

I believe the Celestine Prophecy! As I understand it, but is not often explained outside the Redfield books, is that this is what we are destined to achieve if we fulfill it. This book I haven't read yet, but I read the first two: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secret...th_Insight

We should not limit the horizons of what evolution is leading us to, by how we think we got to where we are today. Just as early hominids, or our shrewlike ancestral survivors of the asteroid, could not have conceived of cathedrals, symphonies, missions to Mars and the worldwide web.

Our fundamental notions of how we westerners view the world influence us more strongly than we realize. These are the two main "myths" or images through which we understand the world. They are both inadequate, even according to current science. Explained by Alan Watts.

Quote:Is the coronavirus a challenge to the survival of the human species? So it seems; and climate change too. But whether we are fit to survive depends on whether we use the abilities that we certainly have to deal with these situations.

Agreed. Just had a discussion about this somewhere else. 
What we do now have great bearing on whether any of us will be here come the 22nd century. We do at present have great power at the tip of our fingers. We have technology, we have brilliant scientists, we have humanitarians, we have climatic event forecasts, engineers, new materials, etc. 

We seem to lack the will however. This is what concerns me. 

Also let me say, I found the Fourth Turning book after reading both of yours Eric. Then found this forum, where I have been lurking for awhile. 

By way of introduction, I'm nobody special. Not an economist, historian, scientist, or astrologer. Just a history & astrology obsessed person living through our times & seeking to make sense of it.

I like this forum. Important things are being discussed. 

Eric--astrologically speaking, and also using the Turnings; when do you think this virus thing will have ran its course? 


PS: Nice to meet everyone

TatteredX ?

Thanks for reading my books, and coming to the forum

At a lecture on Jan.10th in San Francisco, I did predict that the big planetary lineup in March 2020 portended a health crisis for the USA. I didn't predict it would last this long, but the crisis and our varied responses to it fit the picture of a fourth turning crisis period. I thought in general that the economy would be on an upswing in the 2020s, which is at odds with the views of many concerned people, including other astrologers. That seems to be happening, but the pandemic rolls on.

I don't seem to have any further astrological insights now about just exactly when it will end, or at least die down to a steady nuisance rather than a crisis. The main reason for this though was predictable, and in general, I predicted it, and that is the divided state of our nation in which at least 40% have become hooked on false ideologies and follow a mad cult leader. The pandemic has been politicized by those who follow the cult, and this has resulted in too many people refusing to get vaccinated. They are mostly the ones getting sick during this new surge. This despite that the cult leader, who actually got the vaccines going anyway, is now saying that he recommends vaccination-- although not mandates.

The division of the country is the main trait and the main crisis in this 4T, as I have said all along. Only when this "red state" or red-county cult is sufficiently defeated politically will the 1T develop and at least an exhausted consensus unfold. The name of this 4T has largely been settled on as "the cold civil war," and now the question is how hot will it get before it ends in about 2029. Given the stubbornness of the resistance to vaccines among the cult, it may be then before the pandemic will be considered to be over. But I think it will decline this year.

The virus is more contageous as it develops variants, and also during the winter when more people are indoors and celebrating holidays. Refusal to require the drug companies to make the vaccines available worldwide is a big problem, because it means that more variants will appear-- as they already have.

[TatteredGenX]

(12-29-2021, 03:55 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: "Survival of the fittest" is now as much a philosophical position as a scientific one. It can extend to institutions, firms, and political entities. As businesses Sears and K-Mart, both once-impressive entities are moribund. They failed to adapt to a changing environment. I'm not certain that business entities (unless mom-and-pop outfits that die when the heirs find some easier way of making a living) have a set lifetime. Political entities? The United States is one of the oldest of the existing ones, and if I am to make a guess of what political system now intact will still be much the same a thousand years from now, the USA should be one of the most likely. The USA has proved as flexible as it is imposing.

But be at the wrong place at the wrong time, and you will be struck down. Become old and inflexible, and you become irrelevant fast. "Earth" itself was the wrong place to be when the asteroid hit at Chixculub. Size is usually good for winning fights with other creatures (elephants, hippos, and rhinos are rarely on some predator's menu), but not with facing hurricane-force winds of extreme heat. The seas were not safe havens. No large dinosaur had the stability to avoid dying when tossed into a tree.  We wouldn't, either.

Hi Pbrower. Sorry for the very late reply. 
Neither Safari or Chrome likes this forum on my phone, for replying. I gave it one shot then decided I'd best be on a computer, then plum forgot about it. 

Good point on the world of business. 
I was thinking more of the 6th extinction, the way we have destroyed earth, that the world seems more and more primed for war, and that the seeming majority of people seem to not care. 

It seems to me that we need to start caring, or this will not end well. Our ecosystems and the cycles that support them are a pretty complex piece of machinery. We have tampered with the mechanism without a clue as to what will happen. Even our scientists have stated they do not know what all is involved, or what will happen. 

I keep hanging onto the hope that the masses can convince the few that action needs to happen. 
The Fourth Turning book was most interesting in this aspect--with the same archetypes showing up again and again. 

I have high hopes for the Homeland Generation, and the one yet to be born. 
My own generation needs to buck up and come to grips with that we aren't in the 1920's Speakeasies any longer, the fun of robbing merchants and cooking booze has come to an end and it is 1939 now.

[TatteredGenX]

[quote pid='79946' dateline='1640749047']
[quote pid='79941' dateline='1640729771']

Quote:Eric the Green
Thanks for reading my books, and coming to the forum  

At a lecture on Jan.10th in San Francisco, I did predict that the big planetary lineup in March 2020 portended a health crisis for the USA. I didn't predict it would last this long, but the crisis and our varied responses to it fit the picture of a fourth turning crisis period. I thought in general that the economy would be on an upswing in the 2020s, which is at odds with the views of many concerned people, including other astrologers. That seems to be happening, but the pandemic rolls on.

I don't seem to have any further astrological insights now about just exactly when it will end, or at least die down to a steady nuisance rather than a crisis. The main reason for this though was predictable, and in general, I predicted it, and that is the divided state of our nation in which at least 40% have become hooked on false ideologies and follow a mad cult leader. The pandemic has been politicized by those who follow the cult, and this has resulted in too many people refusing to get vaccinated. They are mostly the ones getting sick during this new surge. This despite that the cult leader, who actually got the vaccines going anyway, is now saying that he recommends vaccination-- although not mandates.

The division of the country is the main trait and the main crisis in this 4T, as I have said all along. Only when this "red state" or red-county cult is sufficiently defeated politically will the 1T develop and at least an exhausted consensus unfold. The name of this 4T has largely been settled on as "the cold civil war," and now the question is how hot will it get before it ends in about 2029. Given the stubbornness of the resistance to vaccines among the cult, it may be then before the pandemic will be considered to be over. But I think it will decline this year.

The virus is more contageous as it develops variants, and also during the winter when more people are indoors and celebrating holidays. Refusal to require the drug companies to make the vaccines available worldwide is a big problem, because it means that more variants will appear-- as they already have.

[/quote]

[/quote]


Hi Eric. Thank you so much for your insights. 
LOVE your books. Hope you will write another one soon.
Thinking on how to phrase things, as I too look at life more with an astrological lens; albeit an amateur version. 
With that lens--but still keeping the turnings in firm mind--I keep looking at early this year (Pluto) and 2025/26. 

One thing I have not been able to glean--is the Pandemic aspect. It flew straight past me in April 2020 as well. I knew something was up, (every planet and their dog in conjunction in Cap), but would never have guessed. 
I keep up on international news quite a bit. Would love it if this pandemic--as horrible as it is--serves as the sole ramp-up to finish off this 4T. I grew up in Europe, firmly connected to WWII, and there are things brewing. It looks to me that something else may well have additional impact; Russia / China comes to mind, along with the large set of Eurasian countries which now have large authoritarian movements.

Thoughts on that?

Agree completely about the division being the core issue driving this 4T, and on a global scale. I'm glad to see you think it will be 2029, rather than later. I know it is 8 years away--but it beats sitting in this situation until 2036. 

I keep looking at the years 500 through the 1700's for parallels to this pandemic. While there is zero reason for it to reach the magnitude of the Bubonic Plague--I wonder.  I know grand cycle wise we are not there (many many thanks for the spreadsheet), and I take great comfort from that, however 1 million infections per day coupled with massive climate change has me drawing connections to Krakatoa and the rats that caused the plague. I have not gone as far as looking at the saeculum and the turnings for that era yet.
Perhaps I 'enjoy' scaring myself, but not that much.

That said--you and Tarnas got me through 2020. By the time I started to understand, I felt much calmer. Looking at the BIG picture is good. 
PS: 

Is there somewhere else on the internet you frequent, where I could ask you all the things that would be off-topic for this forum? 
I love the socio-political angle of the 4th Turning, the fact it was written by economists, and thoroughly enjoyed learning about the archetypes. It is a great book for sure. 

And I must confess--I devour Mundane Astrology books. 


If there isn't, that's fine too, I will just do my level best to stick tight to the archetypes and the saeculum. 

So nice to get to talk to you. 

EDIT: Full HTML edit anywhere? I "killed" the quotes.

[nguyenivy]

(01-11-2022, 01:11 AM)TatteredGenX Wrote:

(12-29-2021, 03:55 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: "Survival of the fittest" is now as much a philosophical position as a scientific one. It can extend to institutions, firms, and political entities. As businesses Sears and K-Mart, both once-impressive entities are moribund. They failed to adapt to a changing environment. I'm not certain that business entities (unless mom-and-pop outfits that die when the heirs find some easier way of making a living) have a set lifetime. Political entities? The United States is one of the oldest of the existing ones, and if I am to make a guess of what political system now intact will still be much the same a thousand years from now, the USA should be one of the most likely. The USA has proved as flexible as it is imposing.

But be at the wrong place at the wrong time, and you will be struck down. Become old and inflexible, and you become irrelevant fast. "Earth" itself was the wrong place to be when the asteroid hit at Chixculub. Size is usually good for winning fights with other creatures (elephants, hippos, and rhinos are rarely on some predator's menu), but not with facing hurricane-force winds of extreme heat. The seas were not safe havens. No large dinosaur had the stability to avoid dying when tossed into a tree.  We wouldn't, either.

Hi Pbrower. Sorry for the very late reply. 
Neither Safari or Chrome likes this forum on my phone, for replying. I gave it one shot then decided I'd best be on a computer, then plum forgot about it. 

Good point on the world of business. 
I was thinking more of the 6th extinction, the way we have destroyed earth, that the world seems more and more primed for war, and that the seeming majority of people seem to not care. 

It seems to me that we need to start caring, or this will not end well. Our ecosystems and the cycles that support them are a pretty complex piece of machinery. We have tampered with the mechanism without a clue as to what will happen. Even our scientists have stated they do not know what all is involved, or what will happen. 

I keep hanging onto the hope that the masses can convince the few that action needs to happen. 
The Fourth Turning book was most interesting in this aspect--with the same archetypes showing up again and again. 

I have high hopes for the Homeland Generation, and the one yet to be born. 
My own generation needs to buck up and come to grips with that we aren't in the 1920's Speakeasies any longer, the fun of robbing merchants and cooking booze has come to an end and it is 1939 now.

What is (was?) this century's analogue of the 1920s Speakeasies, etc?

[Bob Butler 54]

(01-11-2022, 01:11 AM)TatteredGenX Wrote:

(12-29-2021, 03:55 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: I have high hopes for the Homeland Generation, and the one yet to be born. 
My own generation needs to buck up and come to grips with that we aren't in the 1920's Speakeasies any longer, the fun of robbing merchants and cooking booze has come to an end and it is 1939 now.

What is (was?) this century's analogue of the 1920s Speakeasies, etc?

My father was a GI, and told a little about growing up in the 20s and 30s.  In that time alcohol was the drug of choice, consumed in gatherings of men, and kept apart from family.  There is no equivalent today.  Oh, the making and distribution are still by organized crime, the old gangsters equivalent to the modern pushers and their suppliers.  Today, both sexes participate and partake with better isolation.  

Before that, in medieval and colonial times, with drugs like henbane and witch's weed, the women had better blood absorbing genitals and the guys could not partake.  The result was hangings and witch burnings.  I am not in favor of any abuse of mind altering substances, but of the three the modern approach is to be preferred.  Some things are not cyclical, do not repeat with the S&H periods.

Dad also mentioned that in the shoe making country around Brockton, Abington and Rockland Massachusetts, the wage earner just had to live within reasonable road streetcar distance of the family.  The time was after the horse but before the car.  Without modern appliances, you still needed a full time homemaker.  The result was that a kid with a few extra dimes could wander all over the south shore.  Streetcars were everywhere.  

Also dad's father never had a bank account or took a bank loan.  If someone were sick or something came up which required cash, he would go to the guy running the local gambling house.  Today, everybody has to use a credit card.

In looking at history, I will use turnings, ages of civilization, and competition between civilizations.  All three perspectives are meaningful.  Focusing too much on one results in incompleteness.  Turnings predict cyclical repetitions.  Ages predict advancement and progress.  Civilizations suggest things happen at different times.  All this occurs together.  You have to dance between the three.

[pbrower2a]

(01-11-2022, 05:45 PM)nguyenivy Wrote:

(01-11-2022, 01:11 AM)TatteredGenX Wrote:

(12-29-2021, 03:55 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: "Survival of the fittest" is now as much a philosophical position as a scientific one. It can extend to institutions, firms, and political entities. As businesses Sears and K-Mart, both once-impressive entities are moribund. They failed to adapt to a changing environment. I'm not certain that business entities (unless mom-and-pop outfits that die when the heirs find some easier way of making a living) have a set lifetime. Political entities? The United States is one of the oldest of the existing ones, and if I am to make a guess of what political system now intact will still be much the same a thousand years from now, the USA should be one of the most likely. The USA has proved as flexible as it is imposing.

But be at the wrong place at the wrong time, and you will be struck down. Become old and inflexible, and you become irrelevant fast. "Earth" itself was the wrong place to be when the asteroid hit at Chixculub. Size is usually good for winning fights with other creatures (elephants, hippos, and rhinos are rarely on some predator's menu), but not with facing hurricane-force winds of extreme heat. The seas were not safe havens. No large dinosaur had the stability to avoid dying when tossed into a tree.  We wouldn't, either.

Hi Pbrower. Sorry for the very late reply. 
Neither Safari or Chrome likes this forum on my phone, for replying. I gave it one shot then decided I'd best be on a computer, then plum forgot about it. 

Good point on the world of business. 
I was thinking more of the 6th extinction, the way we have destroyed earth, that the world seems more and more primed for war, and that the seeming majority of people seem to not care. 

It seems to me that we need to start caring, or this will not end well. Our ecosystems and the cycles that support them are a pretty complex piece of machinery. We have tampered with the mechanism without a clue as to what will happen. Even our scientists have stated they do not know what all is involved, or what will happen. 

I keep hanging onto the hope that the masses can convince the few that action needs to happen. 
The Fourth Turning book was most interesting in this aspect--with the same archetypes showing up again and again. 

I have high hopes for the Homeland Generation, and the one yet to be born. 
My own generation needs to buck up and come to grips with that we aren't in the 1920's Speakeasies any longer, the fun of robbing merchants and cooking booze has come to an end and it is 1939 now.

What is (was?) this century's analogue of the 1920s Speakeasies, etc?

To avoid confusing the decade with the century I am calling the first decade of the twenty-first century the "Double-Zero Decade". Some moniker is appropriate, and I so far know of no other. If I were in media or academia I would push it, and I might be successful. 

1. The ultimately-failed war on marijuana was a good analogue to the war against alcoholic beverages. It failed for loss of support. To be sure, the anti-drug crusade continues against other drugs far more dangerous and destructive (heroin, cocaine, meth, fentanyl). People as hostile as I am to drugs recognize that law enforcement is wiser to set priorities other than marijuana. I recognize that the War on Drugs has practically become a War on Addicts who are as much victims as offenders. 

2. The celebrity circus of the 1920's has an obvious parallel in the Double-Zero decade. To be sure, the entertainment business has been replete with flagrant narcissists who strut their ability to live better than the rest of us despite making money at something that does not seem like numbing drudgery.  When inequality peaks, they may be the only ones who get away with lavish spending on frivolity.

3. A generally pro-business political life with weak political leaders predominating on the conservative side. Dubya was a weak President whose ideal was to let the plutocrats do whatever they want with no resistance. See also the dreadful Warren Gamaliel Harding and President Calvin Coolidge who fostered a climate of greed. 

4. Religiosity was strengthening in influence among the middle-aged (Boomers were middle-aged  throughout the Double-Zero Decade) but losing influence among youth and young adults. 

5. Economic inequality intensified in a social order that saw speculation as one of the more honorable and effective ways of enriching oneself. Labor Unions were at their weakest since the 1920's as more people ended up in jobs in which a union could do little good.  But as many prominent people lionized the speculative frenzy the financial markets became increasingly corrupt and reckless, creating rip-offs that would prove catastrophic by the end of the decade.

6. Inflation was low. People thought the time prosperous, but it was prosperous largely to those well connected. The economic activity did not lead to pay increases that might have gotten more people out of poverty. If people made more real income than in the prior two decades, then it was because people had to work two or more jobs to make ends meet. Low inflation depends heavily upon super-cheap labor that creates or serves wealth without participation in the bounty of the consumer society. 

7. Productivity was rising due to the adoption technological innovations. In the 1920's such was the electrification of manufacturing processes; in the Double-Zero decade, the internet made much of the economic activity more efficient. Productivity rose, but wages didn't.

8. The system generally pushed entertainment (which included gambling) at the expense of learning. Maybe it is easier to numb people with cakes and circuses than to encourage people to use their minds and think between the lines. Although there are measures to promote new forms of gambling because it is profitable, gambling is a dumb way to spend time and money. 

9. Minority groups intensified their participation in American culture. The 1920's were the time of the Harlem Renaissance and the rise of Jewish influence upon American cultural, academic, and political life. The Negro (the polite word in that time) occasionally entered the lucrative realm of entertainment and did well. Jewish influence, almost entirely benign, became so pervasive that in 1925 a hack writer and cult leader in Germany lamented the "Jewification" and "Ni88erization" of American life. I hate using such bastardized, vile language, but that is exactly what one gets from this purported masterpiece -- at least to cranky people full of hate:  

 

an image of the original dust-jacket whence came such observations that I attribute to their author. (Oh come on! The Harlem Renaissance sounds like great fun, and as someone about half German and Swiss I recognize the Ashkenazim as my cultural brethren and as a nominal Christian I recognize Christian morality as Jewish morality with a dish of mindless prudery on the side.  

10. The novel Babbitt (Sinclair Lewis) that so well described the 1920's became an absurdity after the Great Stock Market Crash and a period piece until it became all-too-relevant in the Double-Zero Decade. 

11. The generational constellations were much alike, which is extremely important to this site. Picking the end of a near-middle year of both decades (the "4's") one gets:
 
The Gilded (born Reactive, but acting much like a Civic Generation after the end of the Civil War) were quite old (82-101)  compare at the end of 1924 to the GI's, aged 80-103 at the end of 2004. Oliver Wendell Holmes, William Rehnquist. We are speaking of the end of the year in all cases. 

The Progressive generation, clearly Adaptive, was 65 to 81 in 1924 and generally passing retirement age. They still had influence over the culture, journalism, and politics. The Silent were much the same, aged 63 to 79. To be sure, people have been living longer due to better habits of the elderly, which includes people staying active and participating fully in public life since the GI Generation set that pattern that holds at the least for the Silent and so far Boomers. Generational theory suggests the same for the Millennial Generation, and we shall see whether Generation X follows the same pattern. Watch Obama as one of the most prominent and influential to see if the pattern holds. Yes, Obama is approaching old age. But I digress here. Theodore Roosevelt, Joe Biden. 

The Missionary Generation was becoming dominant in 1924, having taken over the Presidency. Not very well with their first President -- you know who. They were then 44 to 64. In 2004 Boomers ranged from  44 to 61. This is the usual peak for political life, membership in the executive elite of Big Business, and peak presence in media and entertainment. Depending on your taste, Warren "Mister Corruption" Harding and Donald Quisling Trump. (Obviously I can't get over my abomination of Donald Trump. The man is rich in vices and short in virtues.  For a brighter side I can't yet pick an analogue for Franklin Delano Roosevelt as no late-wave Boomer has yet become President, but Amy Klobuchar looks like the most-likely last expression of Boomer politics as President. I can imagine her, like FDR, being the Gray Champion of this time.

The Lost were barely getting out of childhood (ages 24 to 41) and at that point not very impressively. Much was the same rap about Generation X (ages 23 to 43). Some were starting some impressive political careers that few could yet figure out, like Harry Truman and Barack Obama. They exemplify what I call the "Mature Reactive", someone who sees political power solely as a great trust to be used for the general good and not for enriching themselves or settling scores. The contrast must be to the "Immature Reactive" who uses power for corrupt gain, self-indulgence, settling scores, bloating their egos like Hitler, Beria, Quisling, Mao Zedong, Szalasi or Rakosi (fascist or Commie it is much the same), or a raft of capi di tutti capi  of the Sicilian and Jewish Mafias or drug kingpins today 

 As Reactive/Nomad types they got the rap for much that older generations saw wrong among themselves. I'm not going to go into the mobsters and drug kingpins. Maybe the best of them learn quickly enough that they can do much good by turning against the rogues in their own midst. That is itself a great service to Humanity. 

Just starting to enter adulthood, but most still children, were the GI generation (just being born to 23) and the  Millennial Generation (last date of birth unclear, but the oldest  also 23). The youngest to get early recognition include the pro athletes. As a long-time fan (although lapsed in recent seasons) of the Detroit Tigers  I can name Charlie Gehringer and Justin Verlander. They let their bats and their fielding or their excellent pitching do the talking. Justin Verlander will likely be the first Millennial enshrined in the Baseball Hall of Fame. 

The political figures have yet to really show themselves. 


11. The Big One: The Crashes of 1929 and 2008. History repeats itself to a large extent because the people who learned the lessons the hardest way  and shape the political debate in a way that precludes much the same behavior that those geezers associate rightly and wisely with dreadful consequences. The arch-conservative economist Friedrich Hayek (1898-1992) recognized the cause of much of the boom-and-bust cycle: the bubble economy in which people fall for the illusion of easy gain from speculative activities that underpin the bubble. People are speculating instead of investing. The tax system fails to take a bite from paper profits, so speculative activity is an excellent way of creating illusory wealth that one gets without starting a small business, investing in job-creating plant and equipment, doing valuable innovation, creating 'intellectual property', or developing vocational skills or professional qualifications -- all of these are more difficult and require dedication or investment. Speculative booms devour capital without creating it. At some point such a bromide as "Invest in real estate; the Good Lord isn't making any more land" gives way to the reality that anything can be priced out of reach so that there is no new buyer. The speculative boom requires new buyers paying more for what is out there, and when there are no new buyers, the object of speculation collapses. All of a sudden people realize that investing in a speculative boom has transformed capital into $#!+. It's like feeding lobster to a dog and expecting what comes from the other side of the dog to be precious because it was lobster because your dog is precious. 

Now what was different?

There have been many political, cultural, institutional, and technological changes since the 1920's and those have their roles in shaping life. America is much more prosperous than it was in the 1920's, and the only thing that I could imagine being better for most people in the 1920's was much-cheaper real estate. One could work on the waterfront and live in a place with a view of the river, lake, bay, or ocean. Today one has a long commute from a place with a view, most likely of some other slum that the promoters call a "luxury apartment home". Of course you may already know that I see the word "luxury" as one of the most common Orwellian lies in American economic and political life (the valid meaning is "waste", "ostentation", or "excess"), and the word "home" to describe a dwelling being sold as a commodity. Other than that, both poverty and ethnic or religious discrimination are much less severe now than then. Such is technological, commercial, social, and moral progress. 

1. Minorities are far better off. Catholics and Jews are now part of the Establishment instead of being on the outside looking in. Give credit where it is due to other minorities for formal education, dedicated work, skill-development,  avoidance of crime, and establishment of businesses.  I need not be black to find Donald Trump taking credit for "black progress" when such is mostly the result of personal achievement that depends little upon political decisions. Interracial marriage, once a violation of criminal statute in some states, is lawful.  

2. Sexism is far weaker. Women have shown competence at much that used to be nearly male-only areas such as law, medicine (in contrast to nursing, and many of those nurses would have been better used as physicians), politics, engineering, and research science. Women at the lower levels of the economic order still have things rough. Poverty has never been easy, and the high level of poverty in America despite all the investment, technological progress, and formal education seems to be the consequence of political decisions to impose poverty as a means of keeping people more scared and helpless so that they will do unpleasant work for low wages  under despotic management. 

3. We obviously have technologies unimaginable in the 1920's. These allow more freedom for creating and disseminating new stuff, and putting ideas into public view. Even what looks like an aging and even moribund technology such as the automobile is far safer, more durable, and more reliable. Human nature as it is, people are doing much the same things as they did in the 1920's, if with more sophistication. E-mail and telegraphy are obvious parallels, and much of what is on the Internet is basically either television or radio recapitulated.

4. We have easier access to culture, high and low... and with the Internet, such applies even to the high culture (maybe not so much the low culture) of a century ago. It is far easier to get an Internet download of images from great art and veritable  concerts of music from the 1920's (this was so in the Double-Zero Decade, so that has not changed). It is far easier to listen to what I consider the most important musical work of the twentieth century, Igor Stravinsky's Le sacre du printemps (1913) today off YouTube than it was to attend a live concert in the 1920's. A live performance in the concert hall is still usually superior to listening to a recording (barring an inept performance), but I can assure you that even regular subscribers to the symphony listen to more recorded than live classical music. I can say the same of folk and pop. 

5. We have more formal education. Obviously much of what passes for education is "pearls before swine", but one must offer it to anyone who seems ready for it  -- and some who seem unlikely to get anything out of it. It's hard to see diminishing returns to genuine learning. In our time and soon afterward we will need more educational sophistication just to deal with the plethora of choices in life. More productivity and more creation means more stuff that can hurt one or damage vulnerable people exploited in their creation. We are not richer for more IED's, WMD's, street fentanyl, or child pornography. If the Bad guys are getting more sophisticated, then so must we.

6. Lifespans are now longer. Malnutrition used to shorten the lives of poor people in even the most advanced countries well into the 1920's. Medical miracles fend off diseases that until a century ago killed off millions in epidemics. We have antibiotics to fight infections beginning with a laboratory curiosity called penicillin. Because of Social Security and some generous pensions many old people can stay healthy and active until their bodies literally wear out. This allows us Americans, for good or ill, to have octogenarian politicians that may keep some pols in their 30's from bringing their agendas to the fore. The Progressive generation was off the scene well before the Pearl Harbor attack, and the Silent Generation has the likes of Mitch McConnell, Nancy Pelosi, and President Joe Biden at analogous times in a Crisis. This said, there are limits; the GI's were largely off the political scene as the destructive frauds of the real-estate hustle of the Double-Zero  went on.

7. By 2024, the world had eighty more years of historical example. Ideas within the dust-jacket of vile tome shown above led to the most destructive war in history and some of the most heinous treatment of people ever. One can be ten years old today and see the images of bodies stacked like cordwood or ditches full of people who had recently been alive but who had just been raked with machine-gun fire. Bad ideas when carried to their conclusion get horrible results. History happens. 

8. In the 1920's the USA had a dangerous fascist clique, one bigger and for a time more promising of pure evil than the contemporaries in Germany. That was the second (1915) Klan. I have much cause to believe that had it achieved total power that it would have done large scale genocide much like the Nazis did in reality. Instead the Klan disintegrated due to a scandal involving one of its leaders. America got (under FDR) what Abraham Lincoln called "a new birth of freedom" and generously gave that new birth of freedom to nations that thought the United Statees damned of its degeneracy. Such a threat still exists, but it can now operate only on a small (but still unconscionable) level -- like mowing down the congregants in a synagogue. Such a threat says such garbage as "Jews will not replace us!". I can understand why many of them have no wives or children. I'd be delighted to see any ethnic or religious minority replace those fascists.   

9. Gay rights. Need i say more? Homosexuals were once seen as unalloyed evil, and now they are accepted.

[pbrower2a]

Guess what he died of!

Olavo Luiz Pimentel de Carvalho GCRB (29 April 1947 – 24 January 2022)[1][2][3] was a Brazilian polemicist, self-promoted philosopher,[4][5][6] political pundit, former astrologer, journalist, and far-right conspiracy theorist.[7][8] From 2005 till his death, he lived in Richmond, Virginia, US.[9][10][11][12]

While publishing about politics, literature and philosophy since the 1980s, he made himself known to wider Brazilian audiences from the 1990s onwards, mainly writing columns for some of Brazil's major media outlets, such as the newspaper O Globo. In the 2000s, he began to use personal blogs and social media to convey his conservative and anti-communist ideas.[13][14][15] In the late 2010s, he rose to prominence in the Brazilian public debate, being dubbed the "intellectual father of the new right"[16] and the ideologue of Jair Bolsonaro,[17] a label that he came to reject.[18]

As a polemicist, Carvalho was praised for not complying with political correctness and criticized for often resorting to obscene ad hominem attacks.[19] His books and articles have spread conspiracy theories and false information,[20][21][22][23][24] and he has been accused of fomenting hate speech[25] and anti-intellectualism.[26] He positioned himself as a critic of modernity. His interests included historical philosophy, the history of revolutionary movements, the Traditionalist School[27][28] and comparative religion.[29] His views were generally rejected by philosophers.[30][31][32]

Carvalho was widely known as a polemic figure in Brazil for supporting several controversial views.

Carvalho propagated controversial information about prominent ideas and figures of modern science.[59][60] He contested ideas of physicists Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein, and mathematician Georg Cantor. He said Newton introduced a self-contradictory thesis and spread the virus of "formidable stupidity".[61] Olavo also said Einstein's theory of general relativity was plagiarized.[62] Carvalho criticized Georg Cantor's work on transfinite numbers, accusing him of confusing "numbers with their mere signs", seeing his work as a "play with words" and a "false logic".[63]

He also said that there are no proofs of heliocentrism[64] and that geocentrism was as valid as heliocentrism "since you can use different points of reference."[65] In 2018, on Facebook, he stated that he had no "definitive answer" to many "questions", such as whether the Earth is spherical or flat.[66]

Carvalho also spread the hoax of Pepsi using cells from aborted fetuses to sweeten soft drinks.[67][68]

Carvalho claimed that global warming is a hoax produced by a global conspiracy. He based his claims on the Climategate episode in which hackers, on the eve of the Copenhagen Conference, disseminated thousands of e-mails from University of East Anglia climatologists in order to undermine the credibility of the conference. Carvalho claimed Climategate to be the work of a conspiracy led by the Rockefeller family, the Council of Foreign Relations, the Bilderberg Club, and the New World Order, indicating them also as leaders of the "global abortion and gay [...] campaigns of the new bionic global religion, and of the Obama administration's proposal for universal control of the movement of capital."[69]

In a 2016 Twitter post, Carvalho stated, citing Dr. Carlos Armando de Moura Ribeiro, that "vaccines either kill you or drive you crazy. Never vaccinate your children."[70]

He falsely declared that AIDS does not pose a risk to heterosexuals, basing his arguments on journalist Michael Fumento's book The Myth of Heterosexual Aids.[71][69]

On 22 March 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, a disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, he stated during a livestream in YouTube that there was no confirmed case of death from the virus in the world and that the pandemic would be "an invention" and "the most extensive manipulation of public opinion that has ever happened in human history".[72][73] At that date, according to the World Health Organization, there were more than 294,000 cases of the disease and 12,784 deaths from it.[74]

Carvalho spread the debunked conspiracy theory that Barack Obama was not born in the United States.[75] Furthermore, he claimed that Foro de São Paulo "is the largest political organization that has ever existed in Latin America and undoubtedly one of the largest in the world."[76] He also made up the fake information that a book written by Fernando Haddad, the opponent of Jair Bolsonaro during the 2018 Brazilian general election, promoted incest.[77]

On 17 March 2019, Carvalho criticised the presence of military personnel in Bolsonaro's administration, stating: "He didn't choose two hundred generals. Two hundred generals chose him. Those people want to restore the 1964 regime under a democratic aspect. They're ruling and using Bolsonaro as a condom [sic]. I'm not saying that it is the reality, but it is what they want. Mourão said that they would return to power democratically. If it is not a coup, it is a coup mentality."[78]

Sleeping Giants started a campaign to reduce his influence on Brazilian politics and convinced advertisers to remove their media buying from his online newspaper and YouTube channel. Also PayPal decided to cancel their contract and removed their services from his online seminars due to violation of terms of use.[79]

On a January 2021 interview, Carvalho falsely claimed that election fraud took place in the 2020 American presidential election, stating "Everything in this election has been fraudulent.” During the same interview Carvalho falsely asserted that Joe Biden had Parkinson’s disease and that Biden and Kamala Harris were working for the Chinese government.[80]

Carvalho advocated a revisionist view of the Inquisition, claiming it is a myth spread by Protestants.[81][82]

In 2020, Carvalho was ordered to pay 2.8 million Brazilian reais in libel charges after accusing musician Caetano Veloso of sexual crimes against children.[83][84]
 
Views on science

Olavo strongly criticized several figures who occupy a prominent place in the history of the sciences, such as Isaac Newton, and Giordano Bruno, who according to him "did not make any discoveries... He did not even study modern sciences, physics, astronomy, biology or mathematics, he was not condemned for defending scientific theories, but for practicing witchcraft, which at the time was a crime".[63] The criticism extends to Galileo, of whom he writes:

Quote:A background of charlatanism appears to have already been introduced into physics by Galileo, when he proclaimed that he had overturned the notions of ancient science, according to which an object not propelled by an external force stands still—an illusion of the senses, he said. In fact, he pontificated, an object in such conditions remains stationary or in uniform and rectilinear motion. But, after having thus overthrown the old physics, he discreetly clarified that rectilinear and uniform movement does not really exist, but is a fiction conceived by the mind to facilitate measurements. Now if the object not moved from without stands still or has a fictitious movement, it means, strictly speaking, that it stands still in every case, just as ancient physics said, and that Galileo, by means of a new system of measurements, could only explain why it stands still. That is to say, Galileo did not dispute ancient physics, he merely invented a better way of proving that it was correct, and that the testimony of the senses, being true enough, does not have in itself proof of its veracity, which was well known since the time of Aristotle. It was this episode that inaugurated the craze of modern scientists to take simple changes of methods as if they were "proofs" of a new constitution of reality.[63]

Olavo's family announced his death on social media, on January 24, 2022, eight days after he tested positive for COVID-19.[3] His family's statement did not specify his cause of death, but his daughter Heloísa said that it was from coronavirus.[1][2] His personal doctor stated officially that his death was caused by respiratory stress associated with emphysema, heart failure, bacterial pneumonia, and a generalised infection, not covid.[57] Olavo de Carvalho was known for his skepticism about vaccination against the virus and often questioned the severity of the pandemic, even reaching the point of spreading misinformation about the virus on his social media.[58]

You guessed it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olavo_de_Carvalho