Wes, that was some of the finest writing I've read in a long time. You should consider expanding it into a novel. Reading this immediately brought to mind the 1992 book by Michael Crichton, "Rising Sun". That one gave me some sleepless nights as will this piece.
Pretty much on a daily basis I wonder about what future historians will think about the trump years. I think you've nailed it perfectly.
Thanks John. I’ll take your compliments gracefully so as not to grow my ego any larger or my wife might evict me. I don’t know how much the president is willing to push the constitutional crisis when and if the time comes. That’s a big unknown. January 6th could have been much worse if Trump had been willing to go for broke. But he backed down. About future historians, one thing for sure, it will be remembered as a self-inflicted wound that damaged the United States financially, morally, intellectually, and who knows what else. How much or how little damage may never be fully understood.
Heavens! Famous YouTuber, Substacker, US veteran whose former ride was destroyed by Iran with Trump’s friend’s help, attorney and now a budding famous author.
We’re both drinking Lake Huron water but you must add vitamins to it. LOL
Thanks Scott. But I’m not an attorney yet. Let’s just say I enjoyed the bar exam so much that I decided I wanna take it a second time this coming February.
Seriously though, I didn’t really put in the effort to study because I was building my writing business. But I need to take it seriously this time.
Edit: I should probably expand on this bombshell 😆. I kept the results to myself when they were released earlier this year. I used to be the guy who could take a test with moderate study and score a solid B- Just a good test taker I guess. So I studied as much as I could, but consciously prioritized making YouTube videos and writing because that stuff pays the mortgage.
(By the way, I missed the score to practice in my state by only four points I believe. Which is frustrating.)
Next time, I will be devoting a lot more time and energy into prep. I actually need to hire a video editor. This alone would give me back many hours during the week.
...and then, up in Montana, Zefram Cochrane invented the warp drive which caught the attention of some Vulcans passing by.
Sorry, Wes, I needed to add a ray of hope to your story. What you have offered seems all too possible in the way things are going. Well written but incredibly dire.
This is an exceptionally well-done and terrifying series of scenarios, fleshing out why Trump’s narcissistic behaviour is actually so, so, so dangerous. It’s because it induces a systematic lie with the core US government, and puts his personal interests above all else, meaning his vanity and hold on power. This essay will definitely cause me to lose sleep at night and make me redouble what some have called my Trump Derangement Syndrome.
I wrote the whole thing and then said to myself, shoot, I forgot to talk about AI. So, I added that bit at the beginning otherwise it would have been weird. lol
The tone and long-term perspective of this short piece hits the mark perfectly. This follows in a long tradition practiced by several of my favorite writers who make strong anti-utopian arguments illustrating very disturbing and uncomfortable future worlds. These stories work exactly because they are negative, plausible and scary. This genre includes very powerful and memorable books by George Orwell (twice), H.G. Wells, Philip K. Dick (at least twice), Anthony Burgess, Neal Stephenson and—not to overlook the obvious—Franz Kafka. I also admire the work of Albert Camus, who wrote “The Plague” long before COVID-19 happened IRL.
For our Substack friends who are turned off--fair enough, please look away; because thinking hard and honestly about future risks is definitely messy and worrisome, and not for everybody. Each of us should carry whatever burdens of responsibility that we can manage, but not more.
For the rest of us, many of whom want to sometimes be motivated to look deeply and try to understand and anticipate the uncertain and dangerous options that face us—while there might still be time for course correction, or to at least do whatever we can do now. Ordinarily, when talking with many of my friends, I keep all conversations comfortable and safe, because that’s how most of those relationships are structured. But when I want to really learn about the world, for me, those social comforting blinders must come off.
I feel the same way (blinders off), for example, when I use the wonderful privilege of flying small planes. My US pilot certificate was granted only after proper study and practice, many years ago. But each time I use that privilege, I take private pilot responsibilities seriously. With each flight, I carefully rate my own knowledge and skills, being honest about my health, flying abilities and limitations, equipment and limitations of the aircraft, weather and more. (The weather, implacable and global, seems analogous to global politics, war and economics, in that we cannot change it, but pilots who ignore it do so at their peril.) With these flights, in which just one or two poor choices can easily lead to misery and death, I raise my personal standard of excellence out of respect for the lives and health of my passengers or friends or family on board and innocent civilians I might fly over.
And so, in daily life on the ground, when I read stories about the future of world events, I sometimes want to think through the hard options and ask myself if I am doing what I should and what I can to make this world better than the miserable worlds depicted in anti-utopian speculative fiction. 68 years of life taught me to hope for the best, but make at least some reasonable plans for the worst. A little bit of this genre goes a long way—but avoiding such stories entirely feels unwise and unsafe to me. So, Wes, Thank You! Bring on more content like this, please!
This is an extraordinary fine and utterly disturbing piece. Sometimes, fiction is the best means for disclosing truth, as is seen (in a strongly complimentary comparison) in Kurt Vonnegut's "Slaughterhouse Five." Yeah, Wes; this piece is really that good.
I love the turn that the presumably American (or Canadian?) professor had migrated to Australia for his survival. And the best — and worst! — part is how reasonably all of the events follow a realistic sequence that may not necessarily come true, but that we should strive to avoid.
Fiction allows playing with uncertain but realistic possibilities in ways that become impossibly pedantic and hard to follow under more formal analysis. Wreaks my day in a good way. Well done!
Interesting way of forecasting. The professor is 91 then, a little old, but maybe the pension ages have changed? Anyhow definitely a possible scenario. Unfortunately. And a good read.
Look at the positives: Global warming, reversed by nuclear winter. Life extension technologies, enhanced through AI-enabled medical advances. Toledo (my old hometown), washed clean away.
Ugh, too realistic.
A warning, perhaps. It's not too late to change course.
Unfortunately, I can see all that happening. 😥
Very true, but unfortunately trying to get past the gatekeepers to stop it happening is going to be very difficult.
Wes, that was some of the finest writing I've read in a long time. You should consider expanding it into a novel. Reading this immediately brought to mind the 1992 book by Michael Crichton, "Rising Sun". That one gave me some sleepless nights as will this piece.
Pretty much on a daily basis I wonder about what future historians will think about the trump years. I think you've nailed it perfectly.
Thanks John. I’ll take your compliments gracefully so as not to grow my ego any larger or my wife might evict me. I don’t know how much the president is willing to push the constitutional crisis when and if the time comes. That’s a big unknown. January 6th could have been much worse if Trump had been willing to go for broke. But he backed down. About future historians, one thing for sure, it will be remembered as a self-inflicted wound that damaged the United States financially, morally, intellectually, and who knows what else. How much or how little damage may never be fully understood.
Heavens! Famous YouTuber, Substacker, US veteran whose former ride was destroyed by Iran with Trump’s friend’s help, attorney and now a budding famous author.
We’re both drinking Lake Huron water but you must add vitamins to it. LOL
Thanks Scott. But I’m not an attorney yet. Let’s just say I enjoyed the bar exam so much that I decided I wanna take it a second time this coming February.
Seriously though, I didn’t really put in the effort to study because I was building my writing business. But I need to take it seriously this time.
Edit: I should probably expand on this bombshell 😆. I kept the results to myself when they were released earlier this year. I used to be the guy who could take a test with moderate study and score a solid B- Just a good test taker I guess. So I studied as much as I could, but consciously prioritized making YouTube videos and writing because that stuff pays the mortgage.
(By the way, I missed the score to practice in my state by only four points I believe. Which is frustrating.)
Next time, I will be devoting a lot more time and energy into prep. I actually need to hire a video editor. This alone would give me back many hours during the week.
Chillingly plausible.
...and then, up in Montana, Zefram Cochrane invented the warp drive which caught the attention of some Vulcans passing by.
Sorry, Wes, I needed to add a ray of hope to your story. What you have offered seems all too possible in the way things are going. Well written but incredibly dire.
This is an exceptionally well-done and terrifying series of scenarios, fleshing out why Trump’s narcissistic behaviour is actually so, so, so dangerous. It’s because it induces a systematic lie with the core US government, and puts his personal interests above all else, meaning his vanity and hold on power. This essay will definitely cause me to lose sleep at night and make me redouble what some have called my Trump Derangement Syndrome.
Well, at least AI didn't get us first, so there's that. . . .
I wrote the whole thing and then said to myself, shoot, I forgot to talk about AI. So, I added that bit at the beginning otherwise it would have been weird. lol
The tone and long-term perspective of this short piece hits the mark perfectly. This follows in a long tradition practiced by several of my favorite writers who make strong anti-utopian arguments illustrating very disturbing and uncomfortable future worlds. These stories work exactly because they are negative, plausible and scary. This genre includes very powerful and memorable books by George Orwell (twice), H.G. Wells, Philip K. Dick (at least twice), Anthony Burgess, Neal Stephenson and—not to overlook the obvious—Franz Kafka. I also admire the work of Albert Camus, who wrote “The Plague” long before COVID-19 happened IRL.
For our Substack friends who are turned off--fair enough, please look away; because thinking hard and honestly about future risks is definitely messy and worrisome, and not for everybody. Each of us should carry whatever burdens of responsibility that we can manage, but not more.
For the rest of us, many of whom want to sometimes be motivated to look deeply and try to understand and anticipate the uncertain and dangerous options that face us—while there might still be time for course correction, or to at least do whatever we can do now. Ordinarily, when talking with many of my friends, I keep all conversations comfortable and safe, because that’s how most of those relationships are structured. But when I want to really learn about the world, for me, those social comforting blinders must come off.
I feel the same way (blinders off), for example, when I use the wonderful privilege of flying small planes. My US pilot certificate was granted only after proper study and practice, many years ago. But each time I use that privilege, I take private pilot responsibilities seriously. With each flight, I carefully rate my own knowledge and skills, being honest about my health, flying abilities and limitations, equipment and limitations of the aircraft, weather and more. (The weather, implacable and global, seems analogous to global politics, war and economics, in that we cannot change it, but pilots who ignore it do so at their peril.) With these flights, in which just one or two poor choices can easily lead to misery and death, I raise my personal standard of excellence out of respect for the lives and health of my passengers or friends or family on board and innocent civilians I might fly over.
And so, in daily life on the ground, when I read stories about the future of world events, I sometimes want to think through the hard options and ask myself if I am doing what I should and what I can to make this world better than the miserable worlds depicted in anti-utopian speculative fiction. 68 years of life taught me to hope for the best, but make at least some reasonable plans for the worst. A little bit of this genre goes a long way—but avoiding such stories entirely feels unwise and unsafe to me. So, Wes, Thank You! Bring on more content like this, please!
Thanks John. You put me in the company of giants.
Wow. Brilliantly done.
Thanks for reading, Rebecca.
This is an extraordinary fine and utterly disturbing piece. Sometimes, fiction is the best means for disclosing truth, as is seen (in a strongly complimentary comparison) in Kurt Vonnegut's "Slaughterhouse Five." Yeah, Wes; this piece is really that good.
I love the turn that the presumably American (or Canadian?) professor had migrated to Australia for his survival. And the best — and worst! — part is how reasonably all of the events follow a realistic sequence that may not necessarily come true, but that we should strive to avoid.
Fiction allows playing with uncertain but realistic possibilities in ways that become impossibly pedantic and hard to follow under more formal analysis. Wreaks my day in a good way. Well done!
W
You are a rather wonderfully brilliant journalist.
If I may, I feel it important to eulogise; this, your enduring work and indeed your career.
Thank you for bringing Mr Orwell’s warnings up to date with modern syntax.
We are so often failed in this endeavour by the protagonists in the mainstream media.
слава Україні
Regards
P
Interesting way of forecasting. The professor is 91 then, a little old, but maybe the pension ages have changed? Anyhow definitely a possible scenario. Unfortunately. And a good read.
Look at the positives: Global warming, reversed by nuclear winter. Life extension technologies, enhanced through AI-enabled medical advances. Toledo (my old hometown), washed clean away.
Monthy Python rules of course