James Poulos on the Cyborg Theocracy and What Can Be Done


Posted originally on Rumble By Bannon’s War Room on: May 23, 2025, at 9:00 pm EST

Mark Beall Confronts the Post-Human Goals of Silicon Valley Oligarchs


Posted originally on Rumble By Bannon’s War Room on: May 23, 2025, at 9:00 pm EST

Marines Now Have Jet Packs


Posted originally on Rumble By The Salty Cracker on: Apr 27, 2025 at 11:00 pm EST

Pilotless Air Taxis Have Arrived


Posted originally on Apr 14, 2025 by Martin Armstrong 

AirTaxiFlyingTaxi

The technology coming out of China is quite remarkable. China has unveiled the world’s first pilotless air taxi service. The Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) issued Air Operator Certificates (OCs) to EHang Holdings in Guangdong Province and its subsidiary, Heyi Aviation. The companies believe this will boost China’s tourism sector and pave the way for the normalization of flying vehicles over the next five years.

EHang’s EH216-S is a two-seat electric drone that can travel at a top speed of 80 mph (130 km/h) over a range of 18.6 miles (30 km). Heyi Aviation has a similar model as well that is meant for “low-altitude economy” flights. Initial operations will be restricted to closed-loop routes that land and takeoff at the same location.

Ehang’s Vice President He Tianxing said phase one of pilotless taxis will begin this year into 2026, focusing solely on tourism travel in Zhuhai, Shenzhen, Taiyuan, Wuxi, Wenzhou and Wuhan. Flights will initially vary from three to 10 minutes as phase one is about novelty and the excitement of air travel rather than commuting or transportation. Tianxing said the experience is “just like riding in a car.”

“The human-carrying pilotless aviation and the low-altitude economy, as an emerging industry, is still in its developmental stage and remains a national strategic focus in China’s aviation sector,” EHang said. There are still many challenges to be addressed and improvements to be made, requiring industry-wide collaborations.”

Phase two will occur from 2026 to 2030 to include urban air taxis capable of traveling longer distances. These taxis will be used for actual commuting and transport purposes, creating a new “low-altitude economy.”

The US has attempted to compete with eVTOL aircrafts for “power-left” vehicles, according to the Federal Aviation Administration, and are designed to land and take off vertically to avoid the need for a runway. However, the FAA has not approved of a pilotless aircraft. Estimates stat that this business could grow into a $30 billion opportunity by 2035.

China expects the new low-altitude economy, which also includes drones and air sports, to be worth $205 billion (1.5 trillion yuan) by the end of 2025. The CCP is aggressively pushing this new niche and expects it to double in size by 2035. What was once an idea seen only in science fiction films is now a reality. It will be quite interesting to see how this technology plays out in potentially reshaping travel.

Absolutely Amazing – SpaceX Returns Starship’s 250 Ton First-Stage Booster Directly to Launch Tower


Posted originally on the CTH on October 13, 2024 | Sundance

This is a remarkable feat of engineering and mechanics.  SpaceX returned Starship’s huge first-stage booster, known as Super Heavy, directly to its launch mount, catching it with the “chopstick” arms of the launch tower in a bold and unprecedented maneuver.  WATCH (prompted):

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According to Elon Musk the Starship first-stage booster weighs 250 tons.  The launch apparatus just caught it when it returned.  Remarkable.

Congratulations, SpaceX and Elon Musk

Pope Attended First G7 Meeting – Are AI Systems Sentient Beings?


Posted originally on Jun 17, 2024 By Martin Armstrong 

Pope Francis

This week marked the first time in history that a Catholic pope attended a G7 summit. Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, host of the summit, first announced the pontiff’s involvement a week before the summit. Although all ears have been on the alleged peace talks and the future of the West’s involvement in the Russia-Ukraine war, the Catholic Church was present for another reason. Artificial Intelligence has become a common message for the church, and it was also announced in Pope Francis’ new year’s declaration. The church has not been hesitant to say they fear the future of living among increasingly intelligent AI.

In addition to the pope, India’s Narendra Modi and Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey were in attendance, as well as three African presidents – Abdelmadjid Tebboune of Algeria, Kenya’s William Ruto and Tunisia’s Kais Saied. Italy is seeking to tap into trade with Africa to use it as a way to transfer energy. The issues surrounding migration were also up for discussion.

Italy and the Vatican stand in opposition to the United States and most of the West on the issue of abortion. US President Joe Biden “felt very strongly that we needed to have at the very least the language that references what we did in Hiroshima on women’s health and reproductive rights,” an unnamed senior US administration official said ahead of the summit. Even Catholic France encoded abortion in their constitution this year under President Macron. Yet, the G7 nations have agreed not to discuss abortion at length as Italy is the summit’s host this year.

The Catholic Church has historically declined political speaking engagements as they are seen as beneath the pope. “The pope already has the floor,” an Italian church historian, Alberto Melloni, told the NY Times. The Pontifical Academy for Life signed a declaration in 2020 along with tech giants IBM and Microsoft to urge for the ethical usage of AI technology.

consciousness

The church has not commented on whether AI robots will be seen as sentient beings. Can they obtain consciousness? The church remains vague on its views but has grown increasingly concerned at the prospect of advancing AI technology.

The church insists that the public must know whether they are interacting with a human or AI robot and privacy must be respected. Human life should come before robotic, man-made “life” whether sentient or not. “Alignment,” aligning the outcome of AI to the benefit of humanity, has become a commonly raised topic. “The urgent need to orient the concept and use of artificial intelligence in a responsible way, so that it may be at the service of humanity and the protection of our common home, requires that ethical reflection be extended to the sphere of education and law.” At the G7, the pope said that we must not allow AI to take away people’s “ability to make decisions about themselves and their lives, by dooming them to depend on the choices of machines.”

Artificial Inteligence 1

Pope Francis said he believes machines should not be used in these ongoing wars. “No machine should ever choose to take the life of a human being,” the pontiff said, adding, “”We would condemn humanity to a future without hope if we took away people’s ability to make decisions about themselves and their lives, by dooming them to depend on the choices of machines.” World leaders have a powerful tool at their disposal that is capable of claiming countless casualties.

Bill Gates predicts that AI will transform the world in just five years. The International Monetary Fund predicts that the rise of AI could affect about 40% of jobs worldwide. In my research, I have found that AI systems are not sentient beings. This all stems from the distorted idea that our brains are supercomputers and there is no God, for our consciousness is simply created by throwing in a bunch of data, shaking it well, and out comes a person. Thus, the thrust to mimic the brain led to the creation of neural nets, but that effort also failed to create original thought.

AI will never replace human judgement, but it remains to be seen whether politicians will treat AI robots as if they were indeed human as technology advances and the untrained eye cannot distinguish humans from robots.

The Eclipse of ’24 – Good or Bad Omen?


Posted originally on Apr 9, 2024 By Martin Armstrong 

Eclipse 2024
Aug Comit

Since ancient times, eclipses and comets have been omens of good and bad events. The Babylonian priests saw the connection between geopolitical events on Earth and the movement of the stars in the heavens and gave birth to astrology. But they also could see the cycles in everything and were rather good at predicting eclipses. They could easily impress the naive public that they possessed the power to make the sun disappear on their command. I’m sure someday Biden will probably still have such fantasies. So, is the Total Eclipse of 2024 an omen of a market crash or World War III? 

Solar eclipses have been observed throughout history. As expected, they have often been seen as omens and comets. We hear that the star of Bethlehem announced the birth of Jesus. Still, the comet that appeared the night Julius Caesar was assassinated has been historically recorded on coins, proving his divinity. So, was the total eclipse of 2024 a good or bad omen? Some point to the July 18th, 1860 total eclipse forewarned of the coming civil war. Is that what historians will look back on this 2024 total eclipse as a forewarning of war?

The appearance of a comet at the time of Julius Caesar’s death promoted his divinity for political purposes. His nephew Octavian, later to be given the name Augustus by the Senate (27BC-14AD), issued coins with the comet that appeared at the time of Caesar’s death with the legend: DIVVS IVLIVS (Divine Julius). This was self-serving and used as justification for his rule as the first Emperor of Rome, beginning the Imperial Era. But that was not Haley’s Comet.

Tigranes II the Great 95 56 BC.AR Tetradrachm Haleys Comet 1024x688

Halley’s Comet was recorded as early as 467 BC by the Greeks. The Chinese chroniclers also mention a comet during this year. However, the Chinese astronomer Shiji also recorded its appearance in 240 BC. The Babylonians recorded its appearance in 164 BC in two clay tablets in the British Museum. Again, the Babylonians recorded its appearance once more in 87 BC. It was this appearance that lasted for about one month was celebrated on the coinage of Tigranes II the Great, an Armenian king who is depicted here on coins with a crown. It was portrayed as ushering in a New Era of the brilliant King of Kings. Tigranes II the Great issued the earliest coin depicting Haley’s Comet, represented by the star in his crown.

Augustus Haleys Comet

Haley’s Comet appeared around 12 BC and was recorded in the Book of Han by Chinese astronomers of the Han Dynasty. They tracked it from August through October during 12 BC. According to the Roman historian Cassius Dio, a comet appeared almost suspended over Rome for several days at the time of the death of Marcus Vipsanius AgrippaAugustus’ close friend. He issued a coin depicting Agrippa with a comet above his head, recording that event.

Herod I The Great AE Eight Prutot

There has been considerable debate about whether Halley’s Comet was also the Star of Bethlehem. Its appearance in 12 BC is not that distant from the conventionally assigned date of the birth of Jesus Christ, which ranges from 6AD to 4AD. This is based mostly on the biblical story of Herod the Great. It was not long before Herod’s death, which is generally attributed to having occurred in 4BC, but even that is disputed.

Referencing the Haley Comet connection, some theologians and astronomers have also suggested that this might explain the biblical story of the Star of Bethlehem and provide a more documented confirmation of his birth coinciding with the time of the death of Agrippa. However, there are also records of other comets that appeared closer to the date of Jesus’ birth.  In a 1991 article in the Quarterly Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society, astronomer Colin Humphreys proposed that the Star of Bethlehem was a slow-moving comet, which Chinese observers recorded in 5 BC.

Then, a third theory was put forth in 2008 by the astronomer Dave Reneke, who argued that Jesus was born in the summer. The Star of Bethlehem, Reneke argued, may not have been a comet at all, but Venus and Jupiter came together to form a bright light in the sky. The Jewish historian Josephus tells us:

“So Herod, having survived the slaughter of his son [Antipater] five days, died, having reigned thirty-four years, since he had caused Antigonus to be slain, and obtained his kingdom; but thirty-seven years since he had been made king by the Romans.”

[War of the Jews, 1:33:8 (665); cf. Antiquities of the Jews 17:8:1 (191)]

Therefore, Josephus is providing key target dates for Herod’s death correlating three events:

Five days after the execution of his son Antipater.
Thirty-four years after he “obtained his kingdom” referring to his conquest of Jerusalem
Thirty-seven years after “he had been made king by the Romans.”

However, total eclipses have also been important omens where people have correlated human events to these events in the sky.

Wheat 1919 1932 14 Year Decline

The 1919 eclipse, known as the Einstein Eclipse (Test of General Relativity), also marked the peak in the markets following World War I and the Great Crash. But the total eclipse of August 1932, they said, confirmed the July 1932 low of the stock market in the Great Depression, while others said it forewarned of the new against of Socialism ushered in by Roosevelt. Was the 1932 Eclipse the doomsday omen that would set in motion the debt crisis that would bring the United States down by 2032?

Yet eclipses have also been seen as major markers of events such as the Crucifixion of Jesus. The Christian gospels say that the sky was darkened for hours after the crucifixion of Jesus, which historians viewed either as a miracle or an omen of dark times ahead. Later, historians used astronomy to pinpoint the death of Christ based on this eclipse story. Some historians tie the Crucifixion to a total solar eclipse lasting 1 minute and 59 seconds that occurred in the year 29 AD. In contrast, others say a second total eclipse, blocking the sun for 4 minutes and 6 seconds, aslo took place in 33 AD, marking Jesus’ death.

Tiberius Aureus

The Vatican Codex, the oldest copy of the Greek Bible, speaks of the solar eclipse in the Book of Luke. This is supported by a Greek historian named Phlegon, who recorded a solar eclipse in the same period. Phlegon wrote a history entitled The Olympiads, in which he recorded a three-hour eclipse of the sun during the reign of Tiberius (14-37AD). There was also a major earthquake during the reign of Tiberius that wiped out Asia.

Tiberius Restore Asia R

In fact, here is a sestertius issued by Tiberius declaring it was issued as relief for the Great Earthquake in Asia, which was devastating. It was so bad that Tiberius waived all taxes for five years and donated 10 million of these coins for the relief of the victims. Yet what is very interesting is the fact that the eclipse of 33AD was also timed with the Great Financial Panic in Rome. The Financial Panic of 33AD provides one of the few detailed accounts of events recorded by the ancient historian Tacitus (56–117AD).

Where a comet (Star of Bethlehem) marked the birth of Jesus, it was an eclipse that marked the birth of Mohammed. The Koran mentions an eclipse that preceded the birth of Mohammed. Historians later tied this to a total eclipse that lasted 3 minutes and 17 seconds in 569 AD. The sun also disappeared for 1 minute and 40 seconds after the death of Mohammed’s son Ibrahim.

Eclipses of the Sun are truly awe-inspiring monumental events that have fostered legends and correlations to world events. Many early cultures have viewed these eclipses as omens of the coming end of the world. The very word “eclipse” is Greek in origin, meaning abandonment, desertion, or relinquishment.

Egyptian Eclipse Sun God

In China, India, Southeast Asia, and Peru, the belief was that great dragons or demons attacked the Sun during such eclipses, trying to devour it. The ancient Egyptian myth of the snake Apep that attacks the boat of the Sun god is believed now to refer to solar eclipses. There was the total eclipse of 1374/1375BC known as the Ugarit Eclipse, recorded in the Early Mesopotamian Records.

“On the day of the new moon, in the month of Hiyar, the Sun was put to shame, and went down in the daytime, with Mars in attendance.”

This was the Age of Amarna, which lasted only about twenty years. We know that Ra was the Egyptian Sun God, so we can understand how an eclipse would be very significant to the Egyptians. This Age of Amarna appears to be greatly influenced by solar eclipses. William McMurray and others have written papers suggesting possible correlations between solar eclipses and historical events, like the founding of the city of Amarna. This revolutionary period of the wealthy Pharaoh named Akhenaten dramatically changed every element of the very way of life in Egypt as he pursued his self-proclaimed monotheistic deity, the Aten sun disk. He ordered the construction, from scratch, of an entire city in the vast desert sands of Middle Egypt. He called it Akhet-Aten, the “Horizon of the Sun Disk.” Today, it is called the city of Amarna. The image of Ra, the ancient Egyptian deity of the sun, always appeared with a sun disk resting on his head from this period forward. The Egyptians aligned their buildings to solstices and equinoxes, even at Amarna, as did the Maya in South America.

Tutankamun Coffin

His nephew Tutankhamun ruled for ten years after him with his incredible wealth, but the young boy king and his court abandoned the city after only three years. The Age of Amarna also coincided with the rise of the warrior Hittite Empire, which fought to conquer Egypt for six decades. This warfare brought the bubonic plague from the East, which devastated both empires, including royalty.

Statue Liberty 1

Solar eclipses are never mentioned explicitly in Egyptian writing. The cult of the Sun god Sol came from the East and the Statue of Liberty with the sun rays projecting from her head is a representation of Sol in ancient times. The cult was Sol Invictus, or the invincible sun that reappeared every day. Sol was depicted with rays of sunlight coming from his head.

Sol_Invictus_Halo

Not only was Sol the model of the Statue of Liberty, but December 25th was his feast day. It was so popular that the Christians just made it Christmas since they did not know Jesus’ birthday. An eclipse was a serious event since Sol Invictus meant he returned every night after battling against the Moon and appeared victorious.

WW3_fears_explode_as_Putin warns US within range nukes

So will this mark a major turning point as we head into the ECM turn on May 7th? Some markets are making highs and geopolitical tensions are rising. What I find most alarming is the media keeps portraying Putin as threatening the USA. They never heard of the maxim, barking dogs do not bite. The media refuses to look at the American Neocons and NATO who are doing nothing BUT pushing for war. Putin is warning them that he will not go down without a fight. They keep telling everyone in Washington Putin would NEVER use a nuke because he knows we would retaliate. But if I was Putin and my country was being invaded, I would push the button. This idea that Russia can be conquered without firing a nuke is insane and they know that. They are in bed with the Climate Change morons who want to reduce the world population by at least 2 billion if not 4 billion. Putin is trying to talk common sense here but mainstream media refuses to relent.

We are in 19 cycles of 8.6 years from 1860. It does not look good, and this Total Eclipse just may be looked back on by historians as the turning point in human history. We are saddled by the worst political leadership around the world in my lifetime.

The Progress on National EV Charging Stations


Posted Apr 4, 2024 by Martin Armstrong

Electric Cars

Governments globally are in a rush to transition away from fossil fuels. The US government threw $7.5 billion at the fabricated problem in 2022 to build a network of  EV charging stations. The Infrastructure Law of November 2021 promised to build half a million charging stations throughout the nation by 2030.

So, how is the government doing on this lofty promise? They have built a grand total of SEVEN charging stations in four states since the bill was passed. The Department of Transportation has failed to comment on the slow roll out, while the Federal Highway Administration insists they are carefully choosing their locations, with their paid for politicians claiming it will be “as easy as finding a gas station.”

Electric Car Charing

The government is confident that it can achieve this target as early as 2027 – only three years from now. They make promises without having a plan in place. Biden believes half of all new car sales will be electric by 2030 per the climate change initiative. Only 7.6% of vehicles in the country are electric, and both consumers and the private sector have vocally stated that they do not want to switch away from their current vehicles. It is an unreasonable request. Not only are these vehicles more expensive and less reliable, but there are simply not enough charging stations to make them a viable option.

The government will continue throwing money at the non-existent problem. They awarded $2.5 billion in grants to implement these stations in disadvantaged communities where no one can actually afford to buy an electric vehicle. I have written countless articles about the costs associated with EVs. Funny enough, aside from gasoline, the production of EVs is not climate-friendly in the least.

The real goal is to make car ownership less obtainable. This all falls into line with Agenda 2030 and the plans for 15-minute cities where transportation will be public and not private.

The private sector does not want EVs. They see that the demand is simply not there, and they have been pushing back on these measures. These Marxists who want to seize the means of production fail to realize that there is no progress without innovation, and companies are not going to transition into non-profit organizations to support the climate zealots. In December 2023, over 3,000 auto dealers from all 50 states penned a letter to President Joe Biden, explaining that his target of forcing 50% of all car purchases to be electric by 2030 is unattainable.

The National Renewable Energy Laboratory at the US Department of Energy believes the US needs 1.2 million charging stations by 2030, with the White House aiming for 500,000. They have built SEVEN charging stations. The private sector does not want to manufacture more EVs, and the people do not want to buy them. The government utterly ignores its constituents and expects us to obey its outlandish commands without taking into consideration why policies will and have failed.

Tucker Carlson and Mike Rowe Discuss AI


Posted originally on the CTH on March 29, 2024 | Sundance

For his recent episode, Tucker Carlson revisits a former guest, Mike Rowe.  Mr. Rowe has good and humorous sense of curiosity about things, about stuff, about the real world around us, and he provides good context for examination of this pretending world that swirls our orbit at a speed greater than we can grasp.

Toward the end of this segment, Rowe is asked the oft familiar question, “Where does all this go,” and his answer opens the door to other avenues I happen to agree with. WATCH:

In response to the ‘where does all this end’ question, Rowe notes that at a certain point everything becomes personal, and in the larger context all outcomes have to manifest in reality.  I concur with Rowe on many levels, and a great example of that esoteric -v- reality position can be found all around us in the sphere of geopolitics and manipulation.

Think about the White House and State Dept message at the very beginning of Russia’s military operation in Eastern Ukraine.  Do you remember the White House briefing when questioned about “where this will end”?  {Background}

Deputy National Security Advisor and Deputy Director of the National Economic Council, Daleep Singh, was presented at the podium on the day of Russia’s first moves into Ukraine, to explain the strategic policy of the Biden administration toward Russia.

…”Ultimately, the goal of our sanctions is to make this a strategic failure for Russia; and let’s define a little bit of what that means. Strategic success in the 21st century is not about a physical land grab of territory; that’s what Putin has done.  In this century, strategic power is increasingly measured and exercised by economic strength, by technological sophistication and your story – who you are, what your values are; can you attract ideas and talent and goodwill? And on each of those measures, this will be a failure for Russia.” (Video Link)

What Daleep Singh said was essentially that Biden policy toward Russia boiled down geopolitical power to a cultural issue of social likeability.

President Putin was also asked about NATO’s likely response, and his reply was more akin to ‘What is the West going to do, put tanks in the forest’?

The disparity between the Biden response and the Putin response can be looked at as esoteric vs realist.

At a certain point in the real world, if you want to change something, you have to physically act upon it.

NATO could gnash their teeth, try to diminish the Russian economy from the sanction approach, and shout at the diplomatic corps.  However, so long as words were the answer, the physical reality of the situation would never change.  This was the baseline for Putin’s confidence.

The same thing can be said for this collective Western effort to financially control all the citizens within the region.  At a certain point the talk becomes action, and that action then creates an outcome.

Mike Tyson famously said, “Everyone has a plan, until they get punched in the face.”  The same may be true for the plans and schemes of the globalists.

Can the triggering of their plan be stopped?  I think that’s arguably, doubtful; people are just complacent.  However, in the outcome phase, will the consequences of that globalist plan be accepted?  That’s where I’m cautiously more optimistic the people impacted will punch the globalists in the mouth.

I’m not sure we can vote our way out of this in advance, but I am more confident we can punch our way to victory.

Additionally, if you look at what the globalists are doing, punch-avoidance-planning is consuming a lot of their time.

The need for control is a reaction to fear.

The Great Misconception of AI


Posted originally on Mar 20, 2024 By Martin Armstrong

IBM Watson 2
AI Artifical Intelligence

AI is a hot topic for regulators. Regulators and most companies that offer purported AI are clueless about what constitutes actual AI. Way too many charlatans are out there calling a simple trend-following program AI. They create some rules, and the program just follows what they created. That is NOT Artificial Intelligence.

The SEC is all over this and has already been targeting purported AI companies that call their programs AI when they have a simple buy-sell analogy that may trade-off for an Elliot Wave or Stochastic with inherent BIAS created by their predetermined rule. Any system that has an inherent BIAS is not actually AI.

RCA Spectra 70

Yes, Bill Gates predicts that artificial intelligence will transform the world in just five years. The International Monetary Fund predicts that the rise of AI could affect about 40% of jobs around the world. When I went to engineering school, we had to learn both programming and hardware. Back then, StarTrek was on TV and that was the inspiration of everyone in the industry to create a computer that was capable of understanding and running the ship. Even Steve Jobs’s inspiration behind Apple and the iPad came from the visions we had from StarTrek.

Dragon Systems R

I worked with Dragon System back in the eighties when it was hardware you put into a slot in an IBM XT. It would allow the computer to talk. My daughter was fascinated by it. I wrote a program just to be able to hold a conversation with her and taught it how to be a politician. If it ventured into an area it did not know, it would just change the subject. I still remember she came home from school one day, and I had the computer apart, and she began crying that I had killed it. I used my kids to teach me how to write natural language so it would understand the words in a conversation. The good old days.

IBM Watson on Jeopardy

There is a lot of misguided hope surrounding Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning. All we need to do is look objectively at IBM project WATSON. Just over a decade ago, artificial intelligence (AI) made one of its showier forays into the public’s consciousness when IBM’s Watson computer appeared on the American quiz show Jeopardy. Watson’s debut performance against two of the show’s most successful contestants was televised to a national viewership across three evenings. In the end, the machine triumphed comfortably.

This was NOT actually AI. It is what I call a look-up program. Even ChatGPT is not capable of actually achieving independent thought. They can understand and go fetch the answer faster than a human.  The people I knew back then thought Watson would one day cure cancer. None of that was possible because they fooled themselves about AI.

Brain Dead

Most of AI’s dangers are caused by its failure to comprehend what it is capable of doing—especially in trading. This all stems from the distorted idea that our brains are supercomputers and there is no God, for our consciousness is simply created by throwing in a bunch of data, shaking well, and out comes a person. Thus, the thrust to mimic the brain led to the creation of neural nets. But that effort also failed in actually creating original thought.

Aurelian AE Ant Sol Invictus
1964 1965 Quarters

I bought my first Roman coin, which came when I was perhaps 10 to 13 years old, for $10. It was in the 3rd century when Rome debased its currency. The coin was from Emperor Aurelian (270-275AD). I noticed that what once was silver coins was bronze, but they used a chemical process to bring 20% silver to the surface to make them look like silver coins when first issued. I saw the same thing in our coins in 1965, issuing clad coinage with a copper center and nickel surface, doing the same as the Romans.

Roman decline silver content monetary system Armstrong Waterfall effect

I was fascinated with the parallel and realized that if I collected the coinage annually, I could see just how fast Rome fell. We all knew Rome fell, but nobody even determined how fast Rome fell. I used the coinage to plot that out. Many people have copied that chart, but you could not make it without testing the coinage.

Fisk ToastOfNY

I also wrote about when I was in 9th grade; my history teacher brought in an old black-and-white movie named Toast of New York. It was about Jim Fisk and his attempt to corner the gold market that created the Panic of 1869. In that movie, he is looking at the ticker tape quoting gold just hit $162. Because I had a part-time job in a coin/bullion store, I knew the price of gold was $35. Suddenly, what I was being taught in school was wrong. Nothing was linear. It was always a business cycle, for how else could gold be $162 in 1869 and $35 postwar up to 1971?

1 Josy Napoleon

First of all, this idea that our brains are supercomputers and consciousness is simply a matter of throwing a bunch of data in and out comes consciousness is totally nonsense. A baby knows nothing when born but displays consciousness. My dogs are self-aware. They bark at another dog but put a mirror down, knowing it is themselves. The little one, Josephine, was sick and lying down. I gave Napoleon a treat, and she took it over and gave it to Josephine. I was stunned. They, too, have a consciousness that exists, and it did not come from throwing in a bunch of data.

Any program based on this idea of Machine Language and somehow it will figure out how to trade all by itself is totally absurd. IBM thought Watson could discover the cure for cancer – it did not. As was reported:

“But three years after IBM began selling Watson to recommend the best cancer treatments to doctors around the world, a STAT investigation has found that the supercomputer isn’t living up to the lofty expectations IBM created for it. It is still struggling with the basic step of learning about different forms of cancer. “

consciousness

Why Machine Learning Has Failed

The entire premise that there is no God and consciousness is achieved by merely throwing in a bunch of data and shaking well has proven to be absolute NONSENSE. The next machine learning program cannot learn to be a doctor any more than it can become a trader. There is something a lot more to this thing we call consciousness. It will NEVER simply emerge from the data – PERIOD!

AI Self Driving Cars
NASCAR Race

You cannot create a machine-learning program and expect it to teach you how to trade, cure cancer, or drive a car. I have raced cars. I have driven almost every sort, even a Formula One—NOT professionally in a Formula One. When you are driving, you have to look at everyone around you. You look for the slightest move, which indicates what that driver is thinking. This is that undefinable gut feeling. You cannot code this, and I have been coding AI since the 1970s.

This is why a self-driving car with AI will not really work. It was a grand theory, but there is no possible way you can expect AI to make intuitive judgment decisions – a gut feeling. This is the problem with expecting that AI will replace humans, where it requires a gut feeling.

Black Box

Therein lies the problem. This expectation that AI can replace human judgment is just fiction. I can mimic emotions on a computer. If you use insulting words, it can hurl an insult back at you. I cannot create actual emotion, nor can I create judgment from a Sixth Sense. This idea that you create a black box, throw in a bunch of data, and out comes an artificial person is absurd.

ChatGPTSOCRATES

Someone sent this in when they asked ChapGPT about the difference between it and Socrates. It can look that up and put out the information. It cannot trade any more than it could drive a car. AI will never achieve that human judgment.

Socrates Monitory Globe

To create Socrates, I realized that it could not be a neural net nor a black box where you hope, like IBM, it will figure it all out and somehow emerge as the best trader in history. I taught Socrates how I would look at the world as an international hedge fund manager, comparing everything and looking at the capital flows. You cannot forecast gold in isolation any more than the stock market. EVERYTHING is connected. As I have often said, the US was bankrupt in 1896, and JP Morgan arranged a $100 million gold loan to bail out the country. Without World Wars I & II, the US would never have become the world’s financial capital. Obviously, you cannot forecast the US share market by just looking at the Fed.

2017 Trump Rate Hike P Fed Rates

While I taught Socrates how to analyze, I created no hard rules like interest rates up and stocks down. Such market beliefs are in themselves fiction. The Fed was raising rates when Trump came to power, and the market rallied, but they called it the Trump Rally. The Romans used olive oil for heat and light. That was replaced with whale oil, which was then replaced by crude oil. Justinian I (527-565AD) issued the first Clean Air Act in 535AD. He proclaimed the importance of clean air as a birthright. “By the law of nature these things are common to mankind—the air, running water, the sea.”

Gold Oil Ration Y
Dow Gold Ratio
PE Ratio 1871 2016

I created no hard relationship rules because relationships ALWAYS change.