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Chapter 5: The Axe that Never Was

By Rusty Guinn | 17 Comments

Our brains evolved to tell stories before they evolved to speak.

This has fundamental implications for our susceptibility to communication in the networked age.

Why Am I Reading This Now? 12.23.24

Recent major media stories that feel to us like they’re part of a larger narrativ‌e campaign.



Why Am I Reading This Now? 12.16.24

Recent major media stories that feel to us like they’re part of a larger narrativ‌e campaign.



Why Am I Reading This Now? 12.09.24

Recent major media stories that feel to us like they’re part of a larger narrativ‌e campaign.



Why Am I Reading This Now? 12.02.24

Recent major media stories that feel to us like they’re part of a larger narrativ‌e campaign.



Why Am I Reading This Now? 11.25.24

Recent major media stories that feel to us like they’re part of a larger narrativ‌e campaign.



Men of God in the City of Man is a nine part series about a narrative virus that infected the charismatic and Pentecostal churches in the United States. It isn't a story about Christian Nationalism. It isn't a story about January 6th. It isn't a story about why people voted for Trump. It is a story about a story. It is a story about the language that created a self-sustaining movement defined by its unwavering belief in a fundamentally corrupt electoral system.

Recent Notes

Narrative and Metaverse, Pt. 2: Gain of Function

By Ben Hunt | February 2, 2022

Big Tech, Big Media and Big Politics are engaged in a widespread program of gain-of-function research on the linguistic entities of the metaverse.

It’s more dangerous than any virus.

Getting to War

By Ben Hunt | January 28, 2022

The international “negotiations” over Ukraine are 100% designed for domestic Russian consumption. They are as necessary a part of successfully invading Ukraine as mobilizing troops and tanks.

Narrative and Metaverse, Pt. 1: The Living Word

By Ben Hunt | January 18, 2022

The past, present and future of human freedom is not determined in the macroverse but in the metaverse, and it is here where we must make our stand. First we will write the words to see the metaverse. Then we will write the songs to change it.

Clear Eyes. Full Hearts. Can’t lose.

An Inconvenient Truce Revisited

By Rusty Guinn | January 3, 2022

Polarization often isn’t an accident. It is the result of intentional narrative construction – constructions designed to make us believe that we are sane and unfairly judged, and that our opponents are insane and hypocritical.

Understanding how to recognize and respond to these constructions in the wild is now an indispensable skill of the citizen.

An Inconvenient Truce

By Rusty Guinn | January 3, 2022

Polarization often isn’t an accident. It is the result of intentional narrative construction – constructions designed to make us believe that we are sane and unfairly judged, and that our opponents are insane and hypocritical.

Understanding how to recognize and respond to these constructions in the wild is now an indispensable skill of the citizen.

RIP, Expertise

By Ben Hunt | December 30, 2021

This is an unedited thread from the ET Forum that I’ve republished in close to its entirety and put outside the paywall. It’s just one example of why the ET Forum is the best thing on the Internet today … thousands of posts across hundreds of threads, written by truth-seekers from all over the world and all walks of life, speaking to each other with respect and curiosity. If this is your Pack, join us!

Inflation and the Common Knowledge Game

By Ben Hunt | December 8, 2021

At whatever point in time you think inflation will start to fade, you are being too optimistic.

Why? Because common knowledge.

Where do we go from here? To a Man With a Plan, I think. And war.

The Medium is the Message

By Rusty Guinn | November 30, 2021

Social media is not just a delivery mechanism for content.

The delivery of content through social media IS the content.

Defund the World Health Organization

By Ben Hunt | November 29, 2021

Skipping the Greek letter Xi in naming the latest Covid variant is ridiculous, not dangerous.

What’s dangerous is WHO leadership placing Chinese political interests ahead of global health interests.

Critical State Theory

By Ben Hunt | November 24, 2021

This note is about the narrative process that makes it so politically difficult to say that yes, parents are responsible for their children’s education AND yes, our children should be taught the fact of embedded racism in our nation’s history.

And why it’s so important that we do so, anyway.

The NFL Has a Gambling Problem

By Rusty Guinn | November 15, 2021

The outcomes of NFL games are inordinately influenced by officials relative to other sports. This is not new. The narrative environment faced by the NFL in 2021, however, IS new.

I’m not sure they’re ready for it.

The Mandarin Class

By Ben Hunt | October 22, 2021

I don’t think there’s anything illegal in how Fed governors trade their personal accounts.

No, I think it’s much worse than that.

When Narrative Takes Flight

By Rusty Guinn | October 14, 2021

We find ourselves together now at the stage of the Widening Gyre in which your political identity now determines the reality you wish to accept about three days of moderate operational difficulties at the ninth largest global airline, as measured by passenger-miles.

The Uncontained Spark

By Ben Hunt | October 1, 2021

There is an uncontained spark in the financial world today, a spark that emerged from the unlikeliest of places, a federal courthouse in Florida.

It’s a spark with the potential to light a searing bonfire under Robinhood and Citadel.

#BITFD

Whitestone Bridge

By Ben Hunt | September 11, 2021

In 1937, in the midst of a Great Depression, we started building a mighty bridge, not for a war effort, but for a popular movement based on wonder and progress.

We really did that.

Can we do it again?

The Green Protocol: A New Vision for Crypto, Pt 2

By Ben Hunt | September 8, 2021

The Green Protocol is a set of rules for the tokenization of symbolic betting markets in positive social good.

I think this is how crypto saves the world.

Our first step on this new path? Let’s plant one billion new trees in North America over the next ten years.

Afghanistan and the Common Knowledge Game

By Ben Hunt | August 23, 2021

When the State Department announced on August 12th that it was removing all remaining non-essential personnel from Kabul within 3 days and was considering a relocation of the US embassy to the more defensible airport, the fall of the Afghani government became common knowledge.

And that’s when everything fell apart.

The Afghanistan Narratives

By Rusty Guinn | August 17, 2021

We are in the very early innings of the narrative formation around responsibility for the outcome in Afghanistan. Steel yourselves for weeks of gaslighting from every angle. Hooray.

ET Podcast #13 – Wanting

By Ben Hunt | August 17, 2021

It’s the only question that really matters here in the Age of Nudge: why do we want what we want?

A conversation with Luke Burgis, author of “Wanting: The Power of Mimetic Desire in Everyday Life”.

How a Narrative Goes Viral

By Rusty Guinn | August 10, 2021

It is a fact that migrants here illegally have spread, are spreading, and will spread Covid-19.

It is also a narrative. A dangerous, seductive, rapidly spreading narrative that will cause many of us to shut off our minds to other facts, which is what narratives DO.

How do we parse the two?