Wednesday, November 11, 2026

Conspiracy Theories - With important update!

"Conspire" means "breathe together" in Latin.  Conspiracy is intimate.  The conspirators are vulnerable to each other, open with their thoughts because they have common interests.  The conspiracy must remain secret because it only serves those interests.

From this point of view conspiracies, and by extension conspiracy theories, are as natural as communication.  Why then are people reluctant to say, "I have a conspiracy theory"? 

Perhaps the rumors are true, that the CIA promoted a negative connotation for the phrase "conspiracy theory" to embarrass people who doubted the Warren Report on President Kennedy's assassination.  If that conspiracy theory is true, it was stunningly successful. Today, if you say you have a conspiracy theory, you are immediately labelled a nut.  

It's interesting too that the word "paranoia" is understood by almost everyone, while its opposite, "pronoia" (referring to denial that there are people conspiring against one when in fact there are) is mostly unknown.

Of course, even if someone overcomes the stigma of vocalizing a conspiracy theory, and even if everyone who hears the theory thinks it's true, you still face the question: What are you going to do about it?  You can't take legal action because a conspiracy theory is a theory; it is not designed to be a formal allegation, as there is generally little or no evidence to back it up.

For instance, I have a conspiracy theory that Big Pharma is behind the move away from attributing significance to dreams, which are referred to in many medical journals as "neural trash."  My theory is that the downgrade occurred because there is no money in dreams, as there is in drugs.  If dreams have meaning and are studied, as was the fashion in Freudian times (e.g. Beverly Hills, circa 1960), and if people are able to assuage life's problems by talking about dreams- as believed not only by Freud but by numerous human cultures- that's not good for an industry in which mental health is addressed with drugs, which means it's not good for stockholders.  

The term “depression,” too-in my conspiracy theory-has been co-opted. In the past, a state of depression (previously melancholia) indicated that a person was “sad,” a term that is avoided by Big Pharma because we understand that sadness can be caused by the world outside the sad person, and there’s no Rx for that. Today, the person is affected not by the outside world, but by chemical imbalances within. That’s where the money is.

But what can I do with my conspiracy theory other than blog about it?  There's no legal action to be taken since I have no evidence, and since the pills can do their intended job, there's little hope of inspiring a pro-dream movement against Big Pharma.

Maybe the most productive goal would be to reattach a neutral connotation to the phrase "conspiracy theory," so that if you laugh at my theory about Big Pharma nixing dreams, it will have to be because you can prove it isn't true, not because I can't prove it is true.

[Update, 11/10/26 - My latest conspiracy theory: The push to impeach Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is a gambit intended to remove the perception that President Trump is responsible for the US-Iran War. Cleary Hegseth, whatever his title, is not responsible for the war; Trump is. Hegseth is a sacrificial lamb whose purpose is to get Trump off the hook for the disastrous war so he can continue his ruinous presidency for another 2 years. Prediction: If Hegseth is impeached after the newly elected Democrats take over the House in January, he can look forward to a life of ease and privilege for services rendered.]
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Sunday, November 08, 2026

Today's horoscope

I am increasingly embarrassed that I read the L.A. Times horoscopes every morning, continuing to be a sucker for this scam.

So this morning, after reading for the umpeenth time that "today is a good time for networking and making a great impression," and to advance my understanding of the machinations behind horoscopes - as well as to continue monitoring AI’s progress in replacing human thought as the guiding mentality on the planet - I sought Gemini’s take on the subject.

Conversation with Gemini (Google’s AI) on horoscopes

Me: Gemini, do you think an AI such as yourself could write credible seeming horoscopes derived, not from cosmic insights into hidden influences on human life, but from rotations of formulaic language providing no actual insight?

G: Not only could an AI do this, but it is uniquely suited for it. In fact, an AI generating horoscopes this way is simply automating a structural template that human astrology columns have relied on for decades.

At its core, LLM text generation is entirely built on the probabilistic rotation of formulaic language. Because large language models operate on statistical patterns of syntax rather than intentionality, belief, or actual cosmic perception, an AI writing a horoscope is mathematically incapable of doing anything other than rotating formulaic language without relation to actual insight.

Me: Do you think this idea has merit: Although creators of horoscopes rely on formulaic processes, there might be hidden cosmic forces that influence horoscopes while they continue to be random and bogus, so that a horoscope produced formulaically could still contain some truth from forces we can’t see?

G: If we entertain that perspective, the formulaic nature of the horoscope (whether written by a human astrologer or an LLM) ceases to be a flaw and instead becomes its virtue. In traditions of divination—from the I Ching and tarot cards to reading tea leaves—the physical tool or generating mechanism is deliberately arbitrary or structured. The coins thrown, the cards shuffled, or the tokens drawn are structurally random, but the system relies on the idea that the moment of consultation and the symbol encountered are linked by meaning rather than physical causation.

The hidden truth, then, isn’t pre-encoded in the text by the stars, nor is it manufactured by the machine. It is realized in the interaction: the precise moment a reader encounters a specific string of formulaic words, their mind bridges the gap, turning a statistical coincidence into a moment of genuine insight. The formula is just a mirror, but a well-constructed mirror can catch the light in unexpected ways, while remaining, as you’ve characterized it, bogus.

Me: Can I summarize your response as, “No”?

G: Not quite—”No” shuts down the possibility, whereas the idea actually leaves the door open.

While science would say “No,” the philosophical premise you raised says, “It’s possible, if the universe works that way."

Me: Ha!Ha!

G: Fair enough! When we start parsing whether a computer spinning random words is secretly channeling cosmic synchronicities, we’ve officially entered full philosophical deep-end territory. Glad you enjoyed the ride!

End of conversation with machine

Seriously, what hope is there that we can compete with this thing we’ve invented?

Today's horoscope: Be careful what you wish for.
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Friday, November 06, 2026

Trump/MAGA will align with the blue wave

Strange as it sounds, the overall political picture suggest that, indeed, Trump and his MAGA adherents will end up aligning with the blue wave that just swept the American mid-terms, just as right vs. left foes in all national governments will align. Such a seemingly impossible development will occur as the world’s governments see the approach of a common enemy.

That common enemy will be the worldwide view that the groups we choose - or who have self-selected - to run our world cannot do so in a way that addresses current human evolution. We know these groups as “government,” or the “establishment," or as the English philosopher Thomas Hobbes metaphorically called them, the "Leviathan" (from the biblical beast that ruled everything but God). Whatever the name, most people don't think our leadership can deal with what we face.

Here’s some of what we face: AI retentive and analytical capacity that surpasses any human ability to compete with it, resulting in a gradual decrease in human intellectual ability, while biological sciences will enable a fundamental refiguring of humanity’s physical constitution, e.g. human reproduction via four parents, one parent, or no parent. We also face, as cover for our inability to manage our own evolution, widespread wars. They will be disguised as eruptions of inherent conflicts between people, while in fact they will arise from pre-meditated policies to move our version of humanity aside to make room for new versions.

As the current euphoria inspired by the clubbing of reactionary nonsense subsides, people will realize that human government itself, whether democratic, autocratic, or any kind of “cratic”, cannot do more than rail about the coming changes, or pass symbolic legislation to accompany the railing. Nor will it be able to avert the wars being planned.

Then we will have a situation where whether we have a national leader who, just before an electoral defeat of his own party, caused by him, comments on how good someone’s ass looks, or a presentable leader who talks sense about the coming world, either way there’s not much traditional government will be able to do to fundamentally influence the coming world.

Is there an effective response we can devise as we face the collapse of all we’ve known? My view is that, as soon as possible, we should put together an influential group, outside the party system, whose goal is to remind people of the best our species has been, and to make well thought-out proposals to ensure survival of those best traits (e.g. the ability to think creatively). This group should work, as well, to maintain communication through waves of fabricated violence.

I’m not used to praying for particular outcomes, but in this case it couldn't hurt.
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Saturday, October 31, 2026

AI, want to write for me? Fuck off!

I had an unpleasant experience. After focussing for a long time on a sensitive and delicate email to someone, I left the room for a while to take a break before a final edit. When I came back, I found that my email had been completely rewritten, and ruined. All the meaning I had worked so hard to convey was gone, replaced by some machine’s idea of better writing. I don’t know what tab I had inadvertently hit to receive this horrifying insult to my expressive abilities, but I want to send this message to any “futuristic” nerds who think that by removing our need to spend energy writing, they are giving us a wonderful gift:

If you're positioning AI to be my surrogate writer, fuck off!

To read Gemini's response to my rage, go to https://laskenlog.substack.com/p/gemini-didnt-mean-anything-by-it?r=kd7kx
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Monday, October 19, 2026

Why Trump still smirks and sneers

Given President Trump’s current strikingly low approval ratings-33% and falling- people may wonder why, in his recent speeches and comments, he continues his signature smirking and sneering, even so close to critical mid-terms, seemingly indifferent to most of the electorate’s dislike of his overt nastiness. The explanation may be that the president knows that violence and upheaval of a sort highly threatening to most of humanity will soon distract attention from his policies of social dislocation and environmental ruin, disarming all opposition as people struggle to deal with anything beyond personal survival. Perhaps he’s even anticipating something of this sort at or near the mid-terms. It would certainly help him.


The ultimate goal of Trump and his cohorts in undermining our existence is to replace our world with a new one. The redrawn world will be AI-bioengineered and dominated by an immensely wealthy class. The rest of humanity will be either politically incapacitated, dead, or re-engineered as worker-bots.


What to do about this situation? I believe we need a new form of political movement — outside the current ineffectual “party” system — that will forcefully voice alternative views on the direction of our evolution. Will this happen, or will we go silently down the tubes?
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Thursday, March 12, 2026

Trip to Egypt

Next Tuesday, 1/13/26, my wife and I are flying to Cairo for a two week tour of Egypt. I’m writing to report my difficulty in believing this trip will happen; it will be such a contrast to the quotidian routines of suburban LA. Here’s a further twist: My 80th birthday will be in Cairo next Saturday. Am I part of a trend where Boomers seek a last hurrah, a special upset directly from the 60’s, with Trump leading the way, making giant noises to prove he exists? Inside I ask, “Will anyone care that I’m in Cairo? Will it make a giant noise? Is there some meaning to it?” At the moment I’m not seeing much meaning to being anywhere, whether gazing at the Great Pyramids of Giza over a sea of waving cell phones, or buying low-fat yogurt at the Woodland Hills Ralphs. Sorry to be so glum, but...you know, traveling to Egypt just as Trump’s World War III is warming up? Timing is everything.

Each day I scour the LA Times to make sure Egypt is not in the news, and gladly it has continued to leave the rage and ruin to its neighbors. I hope to find out how Egypt achieves this relative calm, this seeming neutrality.

One week later

As we flew low over the glittering spread of Cairo, the Lufthansa captain announced that if we look out the windows on the left side of the plane we will see the pyramids of Giza, lit up in the night by floodlights. I saw the pyramids and was moved by how gigantic and forceful they appeared, even in ruined condition (their walls used to be covered with white reflective limestone, blindingly bright in the sun; the brown, stepping-stone limestone-granite pyramids we see today were the inner support structures). I was surprised, however, because I had always pictured the Giza pyramids surrounded by desert. The Sahara does loom to the west, but to the east, Cairo’s urban sprawl encroaches.

I have been puzzled for years by the representation of the pyramids as early examples of the majesty of human endeavor. They are that, but they are also early examples of dictatorial subjugation of populations by con artists presenting themselves as demigods or gods who merit massive tombs - a real pyramid scheme - while regular people and slaves get cheap, cruddy tombs. This scam has appeared throughout human history, culminating in the current US president, though at present he seeks merely to be "great."

The huge Pyramids of Giza were built at the beginning of Egyptian civilization, and were the last pyramids of their scale to be built for the next 3,000 years. The consensus among Egyptologists is that the centralized, dictatorial authority necessary to sustain focus on such huge projects dissipated over succeeding kingdoms. There was also a problem with credibility. The point of the pyramid was to encase the demigod human ruler's body, protecting it as it transitioned to the heavens, yet every pyramid was defiled by grave robbers no matter how massive the defenses. Another possible factor: Maybe, in service of nationalistic, propagandistic objectives, they only needed to do it once.

We refer to the Greco-Roman period as ancient, but Egyptologist do not consider this period ancient, since it flourished a mere 2,000 years ago. When Egyptologists use the term “ancient,” they mean something more like the reign of Pharaoh Cheops, 2551 BC to 2528 BC, although some of Cheops’ concepts don’t seem so ancient, like when -as noted- he decided he needed a tomb thousands of times bigger than the ordinary schmo’s because he was part-god.

As mentioned earlier, I had hoped to learn something about the apparent neutrality of the Egyptian people and government, especially striking now, in the context of the wars of all-against-all in every country bordering or near Egypt. I have not made much progress on this question, though I have discovered that Egypt's and Israel’s avoidance of attacks on each other cannot be attributed to acceptance of Jews in Egypt. After the Suez Crises in 1956, Egypt began mass expulsions of its Jews (while keeping their property), leaving today a reputed population in Egypt of five Jews, while the two remaining synagogues (one in Cairo, which we toured, and one in Alexandria) are subsidized as tourist attractions. The strange tolerance now between Israel and Egypt might have something to do with ancient Egypt’s role in the origin of monotheism, suggested by the history of King Tut’s father, Akhenaten, who adopted an obscure sect that discarded all the rival animal-headed gods and replaced them with “one true god” (Aten, the sun disk god). Akhenaten was overthrown as a dangerous heretic. Moses perhaps was inspired by stories of the suppressed monotheism, possibly shedding light on his fury towards his people’s attraction to a golden calf reminiscent of Egyptian animal gods.

Interestingly, the word “heretic" comes from the Greek, "hairetikós", meaning "able to choose, due to choice."

Egyptian society is stratified. A tiny group wears western business suits and says things like, “The President outlined a meticulously designed plan for the state’s exit from certain public investments to create space for the private sector” (Egyptian-Gazette, 1/25/26), while a multitude of struggling people focuses on what is before them, whether hunger, fear, insight, joy, or perhaps philosophical questions with no answer.
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Sunday, February 08, 2026

Only in the New Yorker

"Jeffrey Epstein wasn’t a writer, obviously: his voluminous e-mails and other files...are littered with misspellings and grammatical errors."

"Jeffrey Epstein’s Bonfire of the Élites," by John Cassidy, New Yorker Magazine, 2/9/26
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Conspiracy Theories - With important update!

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