THE NEW RASPUTINS Anti-science mysticism

Ben Fordam meets Lord Nelson 

                 Horatio Nelson

THE NEW RASPUTINS

Anti-science mysticism is enabling autocracy around the globe. In its new incarnation, the far right began to resemble the old far left. In some places, the two began to merge. When conspiracy theories and nonsense cures are widely accepted, the evidence-based concepts of guilt and criminality vanish quickly too.

Replace dark forces with the deep state, and how different is that story from ours? Like the Russians in 1917, we live in an era of rapid, sometimes unacknowledged, change: economic, political, demographic, educational, social, and, above all, informational. We, too, exist in a permanent cacophony, where conflicting messages, right and left, true and false, flash across our screens all the time. Traditional religions are in long-term decline. Trusted institutions seem to be failing. Techno-optimism has given way to techno-pessimism, a fear that technology now controls us in ways we can’t understand. And in the hands of the New Obscurantists—who actively promote fear of illness, fear of nuclear war, fear of death—dread and anxiety are powerful weapons.

For Americans, the merging of pseudo-spirituality with politics represents a departure from some of our deepest principles: that logic and reason lead to good government; that fact-based debate leads to good policy; that governance prospers in sunlight; and that the political order inheres in rules and laws and processes, not mystical charisma. The supporters of the New Obscurantism have also broken with the ideals of America’s Founders, all of whom considered themselves to be men of the Enlightenment. Benjamin Franklin was not only a political thinker but a scientist and a brave advocate of smallpox inoculation. George Washington was fastidious about rejecting monarchy, restricting the power of the executive, and establishing the rule of law. Later American leaders—Lincoln, Roosevelt, King—quoted the Constitution and its authors to bolster their own arguments.

By contrast, this rising international elite is creating something very different: a society in which superstition defeats reason and logic, transparency vanishes, and the nefarious actions of political leaders are obscured behind a cloud of nonsense and distraction. There are no checks and balances in a world where only charisma matters, no rule of law in a world where emotion defeats reason—only a void that anyone with a shocking and compelling story can fill.

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Trump Media to Sell Faster Access to President’s Social Posts

New service will let traders and investors pay for real-time feed of Truth Social posts

President Trump broke with tradition by posting near-constant policy decisions and market-moving news on his social-media platform.

Now his media company wants traders and investors to pay for instant access to his Truth Social posts, the latest example of the first family mixing its business interests and White House affairs.

Postings for the chief of staff job more than doubled last year, with salaries that can reach $400,000.
The chief of staff role is part confidante, part concierge and part consigliere, and gives a CEO breathing space by amplifying their vision and spearheading strategic projects.
The demands of the role are incessant and vary widely, ranging from administrative tasks to strategic and operational duties, and require skills like judgement,
communications and influencing others that are tough to automate.

A growing number of corporate leaders, buckling under the stress and uncertainty of the AI age, are looking for a very human solution: A chief of staff. 

Postings for the job more than doubled last year, according to Revelio Labs, with salaries that can reach $400,000. And the number of professionals in North America now holding the title has more than tripled since 2021, according to Live Data Technologies, with the increase especially noticeable in the tech and financial services sectors.