Thanks for the counterpoint to Shryock's BS article. I was appalled at how much positive feedback that guy received. Oh well.
And on another note about JW Powell... yes, he did say that the desert lands of the American west would not support heavy settlement,. However, his solution was to advocate for CLEAR-CUTTING the entire Western Slope of the Rocky Mountains, because those pesky pine trees sucked up all the water and snow melt. Think of it... the ENTIRE western slope, denuded.
Powell envisioned making Utah and northern Arizona into green paradises, by using all that "wasted" runoff from the western slope. In many ways, by today's standards, the man was a bigger nutcase than this guy Shryock.
Thanks for the balance. best, --je
(PS: here's a simple reference, done in a hurry. But there are many more to support it):
But it helps if a person like Shyrock...what a name...has the LOOK of a generally accepted authority figure (older, white male, huge beard...OR young, pretty, "look like a person I can score with."..someone the "common folk" will pay attention to) for them to get traction.
If he had just written "I have a teenage daughter/granddaughter, and I'm deeply concerned about where all this is headed and think we should be getting ready for the worst" that would've been a nice article. But alas...
It’s especially bad to read that kind of an article at midnight…you can swing right into Amazon and wake up the next day to remember that you bought 100 pounds of lentils before you went to sleep. Seriously, though, I do think we aren’t prepared for the high prices and the shortages. Parts of Asia are already rationing fuel and shortening work weeks so people don’t have to drive.
The US is awash in gasoline. The gas companies are making a ton of money. Fertilizer and other commodities won’t be so easily replaced. On the upside, I think this “war” has done a better job prompting support for renewable energy than the Green New Deal.
I agree with you. We're in for a bad time, and it doesn't have to reach famine levels to hurt or even kill the most vulnerable Americans. I have no problem with stocking up on lentils. We have a whole system of dry goods with enough to share, and we donate regularly to food pantries. I believe in being ready for prolonged disasters, but there's definitely practical and sustainable ways to do it.
After I read that article, when I got back to the home page, Substack asked if I wanted “more like this”. I hesitated, because I love reading preparedness and prediction articles. But I said “No”. I draw the line at Shryock’s rot. I’ve never felt like you exaggerate, or give disingenuous advice. Thank you for your thoughtfulness and your generosity, you deserve the followers you have.
I'm glad we're on the same page. It's sad that algorithms will probably lump the work of real preppers in with that fearmongering stuff, and it's another good example of how much harder it makes the job for those of us actually committed to realism.
My kundalini rose when I saw that you said Mr. Shryock, the mystic, reports hundreds of thousands of views for an article with 194 likes. So let's say hundreds of thousands of views = 100,000 views and not one more.
I'm not particularly good at math, and I don't trust AI, so I whipped out my trusty calculator and determined that if his article received hundreds of thousands of views (100,000, to be exact), that means only .002 percent of the people who read his article "liked" it.
I probably shouldn't make fun of other people's kundalini, but that's not very much enlightenment getting registered for all those views. Also, I consider his use of the word "kundalini" kundalini appropriation in a Substack article that reminds me more of a Taboola ad than the stuff I enjoy here.
I might be being too harsh. I'm not getting any younger, so I sometimes say mean things.
In fact, I'm old enough to remember a whole lot of other imminent empty shelves during many other events out of our control. The aftermath of the Covid pandemic among them, when the supply chain was legit broken because ports couldn't handle the backlog of ships waiting outside of port.
I'm also old enough to remember the early warnings about climate change in 1969 by Paul Ehrlich and many others, all ignored.
I would have liked those warnings to have been heeded, and because they weren't, there will indeed be consequences, but I don't think we fully understand what those will be quite yet. They're shaping up as we type away at our keyboards, asking ChatGPT to suck more water out of the ground to tell us exactly when all this horrific stuff will happen.
Summary: It’s hard to know with likes/reads, but the article with 3K likes definitely got far more positive attention than it deserved. I agree that, at least, a lot of us see this stuff for the bs it is. (I deleted the other comments, because there’s no need to keep that out there.)
Okay, but I had just explained how nobody listens to me. And if you had actually done what I said, and read or even skimmed the articles in the links, or reread the paragraph, then you would've understood.
And now two people have liked your post, explaining to me how I'm wrong and exaggerating the situation. You see, this happens to me a hundred times a day, and it's why Mr. Famine gets 3K likes and people freak out over empty shelves while ignoring airborne diseases, and writers like me get squat. And over what? A slightly misplaced pronoun? I guess it tracks.
But to your broader point, yes, it would've been nice for the early warnings to be taken seriously.
I think there's a disconnect here, and it's my fault because I haven't explained myself well. I was trying to reinforce your opinion with the numbers I suggested. The numbers are also bad for the article with more views.
3,253 "likes" for an article with 100,000 views (the minimum number to qualify as hundreds of thousands that Shyrock is claiming) is still only 3%.
But hundreds of thousands suggests at least 200,000, which translates to 1.6%. I'm challenging Shyrock's gaudy numbers claim here, not you, not you in any way. I completely agree with you. I am suggesting by these numbers that other people agree with you, too. Obviously, not everyone who agrees with a Substack article "likes" it. That's definitely not the case. But I think Shyrock is bragging about something that isn't there.
Even if his view numbers are real, my contention is that, most likely, many of those who read his stuff came to your conclusion as well.
I think I haven't explained myself well, though, so apologies for that. I don't disagree with anything you've said.
To be clear: I don't think you're exaggerating at all. I think Shyrock is, but that isn't meant to be dismissive of your concern that an article like his gets 3,500 likes. That's a lot of likes for something like that.
As for reading his articles, I read most of them. But I will miss stuff because I had a stroke that screwed up my eyes. Nothing I can really do about that. Let's be friends. I like your work.
I appreciate the context. I see what you're saying. It's hard to know one way or the other regarding likes/reads. I just know that 3K likes on an article in less than a week dwarfs anything I've ever posted on here, and it's up there in Robert Reich territory. Far too much positive attention and praise, even if a lot of us see that article for the B.S. it is. Yes, we're friends.
Thank you Jessica for your common sense and for reading and critiquing Shyrock's piece I didn't bother to finish. I am too old and crotchety to read claptrap,especially when reality is sobering enough. The economic system based on cheap readily available fossil fuels is disappearing thanks to the middle East war. We need to prepare for a world where more may need to be done by hand and expensive fossil fuels are used for important things which cannot easily be done by hand. This kind of preparation takes time and thought.
I am an intuitive, and I also practiced medicine for 15 years as a PA. So I love data and science, and I also love my spiritual practice. Unfortunately, mystics are no different than doctors. There are great ones who have their ego in check and there are those who most certainly do not. The original article you cited is wrought with ego. For me, that’s an automatic red flag. Thank you for calling this out, and please know that there are plenty of intuitives out there who really do good work. You just don’t see them writing poorly cited and victimy articles.💜
Thanks for the counterpoint to Shryock's BS article. I was appalled at how much positive feedback that guy received. Oh well.
And on another note about JW Powell... yes, he did say that the desert lands of the American west would not support heavy settlement,. However, his solution was to advocate for CLEAR-CUTTING the entire Western Slope of the Rocky Mountains, because those pesky pine trees sucked up all the water and snow melt. Think of it... the ENTIRE western slope, denuded.
Powell envisioned making Utah and northern Arizona into green paradises, by using all that "wasted" runoff from the western slope. In many ways, by today's standards, the man was a bigger nutcase than this guy Shryock.
Thanks for the balance. best, --je
(PS: here's a simple reference, done in a hurry. But there are many more to support it):
https://tinyurl.com/PowellReference
Oh jeez. Thanks for the extra context. I guess we're just a country full of nutjobs.
Without nutjobs, America wouldn't exist!
So true!
But it helps if a person like Shyrock...what a name...has the LOOK of a generally accepted authority figure (older, white male, huge beard...OR young, pretty, "look like a person I can score with."..someone the "common folk" will pay attention to) for them to get traction.
From that author's description of the how and why he was "chosen" to spread that drivel, I strongly suspect he's of an evangelical bent. Just my take.
If he had just written "I have a teenage daughter/granddaughter, and I'm deeply concerned about where all this is headed and think we should be getting ready for the worst" that would've been a nice article. But alas...
It’s especially bad to read that kind of an article at midnight…you can swing right into Amazon and wake up the next day to remember that you bought 100 pounds of lentils before you went to sleep. Seriously, though, I do think we aren’t prepared for the high prices and the shortages. Parts of Asia are already rationing fuel and shortening work weeks so people don’t have to drive.
The US is awash in gasoline. The gas companies are making a ton of money. Fertilizer and other commodities won’t be so easily replaced. On the upside, I think this “war” has done a better job prompting support for renewable energy than the Green New Deal.
I agree with you. We're in for a bad time, and it doesn't have to reach famine levels to hurt or even kill the most vulnerable Americans. I have no problem with stocking up on lentils. We have a whole system of dry goods with enough to share, and we donate regularly to food pantries. I believe in being ready for prolonged disasters, but there's definitely practical and sustainable ways to do it.
Yup!
Excellent writing. The real scientists who predict trends based on evidence are the prophets who are ignored.
Btw anyone who visits Palm Springs or Phoenix should immediately get what Powell predicted. It is so evident how dry
the land naturally is. Instead we built tons of golf courses.
I just figured it was an old white guy. The kind that has a garage full of nothing but toilet paper.
Au contraire! Old white guys don't hoard toilet paper. They hoard guns, ammo, and MREs.
Sure, but I was having so much fun. God knows what I’m gonna do with 1200 rolls of paper towels…
Send them to Mar-a-Lago marked, "For your next trip to Puerto Rico."
I'm sorry. I'll pack up my things and leave now.
lol
Brings to mind for me Floyd Crow Westerman's song, "They Didn't Listen" (to me). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ReDLMLbQ5zM
After I read that article, when I got back to the home page, Substack asked if I wanted “more like this”. I hesitated, because I love reading preparedness and prediction articles. But I said “No”. I draw the line at Shryock’s rot. I’ve never felt like you exaggerate, or give disingenuous advice. Thank you for your thoughtfulness and your generosity, you deserve the followers you have.
I'm glad we're on the same page. It's sad that algorithms will probably lump the work of real preppers in with that fearmongering stuff, and it's another good example of how much harder it makes the job for those of us actually committed to realism.
This was worth a sub. Thank you. I was really deep into depression over that article
I'm really glad it helped. I deal with some very dark stuff, etc, but I try to offer some perspective on it and not leave people in depression.
Preparedness for any emergency is never wasted. Use common sense … something that seems to be lacking for a vast segment of the population.
My kundalini rose when I saw that you said Mr. Shryock, the mystic, reports hundreds of thousands of views for an article with 194 likes. So let's say hundreds of thousands of views = 100,000 views and not one more.
I'm not particularly good at math, and I don't trust AI, so I whipped out my trusty calculator and determined that if his article received hundreds of thousands of views (100,000, to be exact), that means only .002 percent of the people who read his article "liked" it.
I probably shouldn't make fun of other people's kundalini, but that's not very much enlightenment getting registered for all those views. Also, I consider his use of the word "kundalini" kundalini appropriation in a Substack article that reminds me more of a Taboola ad than the stuff I enjoy here.
I might be being too harsh. I'm not getting any younger, so I sometimes say mean things.
In fact, I'm old enough to remember a whole lot of other imminent empty shelves during many other events out of our control. The aftermath of the Covid pandemic among them, when the supply chain was legit broken because ports couldn't handle the backlog of ships waiting outside of port.
I'm also old enough to remember the early warnings about climate change in 1969 by Paul Ehrlich and many others, all ignored.
I would have liked those warnings to have been heeded, and because they weren't, there will indeed be consequences, but I don't think we fully understand what those will be quite yet. They're shaping up as we type away at our keyboards, asking ChatGPT to suck more water out of the ground to tell us exactly when all this horrific stuff will happen.
Yay us.
Summary: It’s hard to know with likes/reads, but the article with 3K likes definitely got far more positive attention than it deserved. I agree that, at least, a lot of us see this stuff for the bs it is. (I deleted the other comments, because there’s no need to keep that out there.)
I honestly wasn't trying to correct you. I based my "calculations" on this sentence:
"Read this one, too. The author himself told us it got hundreds of thousands of views just over its first couple of days. "
Where, "this one" linked to this:
https://markashryock.substack.com/p/i-am-a-mystic-here-is-the-data
Either way, I agree with you. It's all just clickbaity stuff.
Okay, but I had just explained how nobody listens to me. And if you had actually done what I said, and read or even skimmed the articles in the links, or reread the paragraph, then you would've understood.
And now two people have liked your post, explaining to me how I'm wrong and exaggerating the situation. You see, this happens to me a hundred times a day, and it's why Mr. Famine gets 3K likes and people freak out over empty shelves while ignoring airborne diseases, and writers like me get squat. And over what? A slightly misplaced pronoun? I guess it tracks.
But to your broader point, yes, it would've been nice for the early warnings to be taken seriously.
I think there's a disconnect here, and it's my fault because I haven't explained myself well. I was trying to reinforce your opinion with the numbers I suggested. The numbers are also bad for the article with more views.
3,253 "likes" for an article with 100,000 views (the minimum number to qualify as hundreds of thousands that Shyrock is claiming) is still only 3%.
But hundreds of thousands suggests at least 200,000, which translates to 1.6%. I'm challenging Shyrock's gaudy numbers claim here, not you, not you in any way. I completely agree with you. I am suggesting by these numbers that other people agree with you, too. Obviously, not everyone who agrees with a Substack article "likes" it. That's definitely not the case. But I think Shyrock is bragging about something that isn't there.
Even if his view numbers are real, my contention is that, most likely, many of those who read his stuff came to your conclusion as well.
I think I haven't explained myself well, though, so apologies for that. I don't disagree with anything you've said.
To be clear: I don't think you're exaggerating at all. I think Shyrock is, but that isn't meant to be dismissive of your concern that an article like his gets 3,500 likes. That's a lot of likes for something like that.
As for reading his articles, I read most of them. But I will miss stuff because I had a stroke that screwed up my eyes. Nothing I can really do about that. Let's be friends. I like your work.
I appreciate the context. I see what you're saying. It's hard to know one way or the other regarding likes/reads. I just know that 3K likes on an article in less than a week dwarfs anything I've ever posted on here, and it's up there in Robert Reich territory. Far too much positive attention and praise, even if a lot of us see that article for the B.S. it is. Yes, we're friends.
Which, unfortunately, was a misreading of the prior text.
It’s okay to say “sorry”.
As soon as he said “even when the AI models I work with said I was wrong”, I clicked off.
I hate to admit I fell for his rant. And such a public admission.
I believe it is because I am isolated in a state where most of my neighbors do not align with my values.
For whatever reason, I feel foolish, and do not like it. Nonetheless, I was wrong.
Thank you for this article.
Thank you Jessica for your common sense and for reading and critiquing Shyrock's piece I didn't bother to finish. I am too old and crotchety to read claptrap,especially when reality is sobering enough. The economic system based on cheap readily available fossil fuels is disappearing thanks to the middle East war. We need to prepare for a world where more may need to be done by hand and expensive fossil fuels are used for important things which cannot easily be done by hand. This kind of preparation takes time and thought.
I am an intuitive, and I also practiced medicine for 15 years as a PA. So I love data and science, and I also love my spiritual practice. Unfortunately, mystics are no different than doctors. There are great ones who have their ego in check and there are those who most certainly do not. The original article you cited is wrought with ego. For me, that’s an automatic red flag. Thank you for calling this out, and please know that there are plenty of intuitives out there who really do good work. You just don’t see them writing poorly cited and victimy articles.💜