Posted on by The Rumination Compilation

America’s Warpath Towards Corporate Control

Do you feel it shifting yet?
It is subtle, but unmistakable. The United States is stepping beyond ordinary economic support, slipping into direct ownership of private enterprise. Owning ten percent of Intel is not a bailout, it’s a strategic maneuver.
The Intel chip foundry, powering every drone, missile system, satellite and cyber-defense operation is now partially tethered to Washington. This is the war economy coming alive again.
Let us walk this through.
(Cue the Battle Hymn of the Republic)

Intel as the New Arsenal

On August 22, 2025, the administration converted federal CHIPS Act grants into a ten-percent equity stake in Intel. The stake carries no voting rights, yet it signals Intel’s further integration into the national defense apparatus; chips are now synonymous with weapons.
While the government claims this move will not interfere with day-to-day operations, history shows that ownership (even without governance) aligns strategic interests with influence.
Consider SkyWater Technology, a U.S.-based semiconductor foundry specializing in radiation-hardened chips for high-altitude craft and satellites. With deep collaborations with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, it stands as the only American-owned pure-play foundry of its kind, making it a likely candidate for future government equity. If Intel is the visible fortress of U.S. semiconductor capacity, SkyWater may be the shadow arsenal woven into defense.
This is not mere industrial policy, it is war economy logistics; the state is embedding itself into the supply chains critical for military readiness.

A Repeating Playbook

In both World Wars, the U.S. government nationalized railroads, seized control of the telephone system and created the Defense Plant Corporation to build and lease munitions factories. These assets were returned or privatized in peacetime and the pattern has been repeated: wartime central planning, privatization in peace. Today, semiconductors are the new artillery; Intel’s stake could be the new assembly line.
Likewise, the Department of Defense’s $400 million investment in MP Materials, the only significant rare-earth mining company in the U.S., mimics wartime strategy: securing magnet supply chains for guidance systems, drones and missiles.

What Industries Are Next?

Semiconductors were just the opening salvo. The war economy model is poised to extend into:
• Rare-earth elements and strategic metals: MP Materials already shows the model.
• Battery minerals such as lithium, graphite, and cobalt: critical for advanced munitions and energy systems.
• Oil and natural gas infrastructure: needed to sustain fleets, aircraft, and command centers.
• Advanced manufacturing for aerospace, hypersonics, and AI systems.

Silver’s Role in Military Tech and Munitions

Silver is indispensable in modern warfare for its superior conductivity and reliability. It features prominently in military electronics from radar and guidance systems to circuit boards.
• Conservative estimates put cruise missiles silver usage at about 15 per missile.
• Defense contractors manufacture silver-zinc batteries for missile families such as Patriot, Tomahawk, Hellfire, THAAD, and JDAM to power guidance, telemetry and control systems.
This demand makes silver a strategic resource and yet supply remains volatile. It is likely to become a target for government safeguarding or supply-chain oversight. If not from a military perspective, the government may involve themselves in the industry solely to manipulate cost of acquiring the metal for all industrial use.

U.S.–Ukraine Minerals Partnership

On April 30, 2025, the United States and Ukraine signed a landmark minerals agreement establishing a United States–Ukraine Reconstruction Investment Fund, equally managed by both governments. Ukraine retains ownership of its subsoil and resources, while 50 percent of new project revenues (across rare earths, lithium, titanium, uranium, graphite, oil, and gas) will flow into the fund. U.S. military aid counts as contributions and there are no debt provisions on past aid.
Ukraine’s parliament has since ratified the deal, envisioned as both a reconstruction and strategic investment vehicle. However, actual economic benefits are projected to take a decade or more due to damaged infrastructure, outdated geological data, and active conflict zones as many resource-rich areas remain under Russian control.

Strategic State War Economics

This is not European-style dirigiste planning in peacetime, it is America preparing its economy for conflict. From railroads and refineries to rare-earth mines, semiconductor fabs, critical minerals and silver-dependent munitions. The pattern is clear: when the United States identifies a threat, it turns not merely to regulation or subsidies but to ownership and control.

Ownership as Armament

America is once again rewiring capitalism for conflict. The Intel stake may feel disconcerting because it is not a standard industrial policy, it is war economy policy.
Will this be temporary, like past wartime interventions, or permanent like the Tennessee Valley Authority? That is the question.

In some respects, these recent developments from our government resembles a form of economic warfare conducted in the open but rarely acknowledged as such. The factories, the mineral rights, the intellectual property, they have all become fields of contest rather than fields of commerce. A document that circulated decades ago, Silent Weapons for Quiet Wars, framed the notion that a population could be subdued not by force of arms but by systems of policy, scarcity and control. Ignoring whether it should be viewed as allegory or leaked strategy, the thesis lingers: today’s corporate stakeholdings and mineral seizures may not be silent weapons in the literal sense but they echo the idea that war has shifted into quieter, more pervasive forms. If the weapon is silent and the war is quiet, how would we recognize we are even at war at all?

For more insight as to how likely it is the U.S. is prepping for a major conflict, see Critical Minerals: The Silent Tell of a War Economy.

© 2025 Zakariyas James. First shared here at theruminationcompilation.wordpress.com.

Posted on by The Rumination Compilation

Offspring Offsetting an Inherited Carbon Footprint

I can’t say for certain when, or even if, the things I will write about in this post will happen; admittedly I hope I’m dead wrong overall but deep-down, I see this becoming our future.

I don’t think it’s necessary to be reiterating the approaching global carbon footprint system but for those unaware: in due time, our consumer practices, all objects purchased & accounted for, will come with notations on the receipts of not just how much legal tender was used to procure the objects but how much carbon was released to create the objects & how much carbon is ultimately released to physically get them to you, the consumer. My favorite real-life example of this burgeoning system is the DO Black card from MasterCard that came out in 2019 but there’s a slew of others already available for public use & others on the way.

Though it seems to be a newfangled form of accounting & a tool for conscious conservation efforts on a personal scale, the question of “what are you doing to reduce your carbon footprint” is hardly a novel inquiry & a plastic card with a monthly carbon limit is not the sole solution we will be propositioned with.

Immediately following the advent of the climate movement & all rhetoric revolving around personal carbon emissions, a consensus was beginning to form in academia, politics, economics & in the bedroom: that children are the worst emitters of carbon.

In 2009, statisticians at Oregon State University published a paper titled, “Family planning: A major environmental emphasis” wherein the first paragraph suggests having one less child will combat climate change on a personal level. Saturated with negative sentiments of western lifestyles, lines like, “[u]nder current conditions in the U.S., for instance, each child ultimately adds about 9,441 metric tons of carbon dioxide to the carbon legacy of an average parent – about 5.7 times the lifetime emissions for which, on average, a person is responsible” are strung together & culminate in a passive-aggressive suggestion that the west forgo rearing children for the sake of…other children, I guess.

But it was well-received; faculty from other universities wrote their own papers with the same topics & arguments, non-government organizations reposted the article on their blogs & even comedians were referencing the paper itself, as seen in a bit done by Doug Stanhope a little over ten years ago now:

He cusses a good amount fyi.

The idea of restricting & reducing creation for the sake of conservation has slowly evolved from academic assertions, comedic input & political banter to just about an every day conversation for just about every single thing.

One of the articles I find most interesting & equally alarming comes from the online publication “Science Alert” where the concept of a digital carbon footprint is discussed & detailed as a remnant of corporate & civilian impact on the environment by way of data storage & use of memory space. The very last paragraph in the article says, “[y]ou can even make a start yourself by deciding which photos and videos you no longer need. Every file stored on the Apple iCloud or Google Photos adds to your digital carbon footprint,” which leads the ultra-cynic in me to believe they are slowly advocating for the self-induced destruction of self-documentation & digital relics of our families: “delete your family photos & family history for the environment or pay an inflated rate to compensate others for your narcissism” is really all I see that turning into, up to a point.

Though, here in California, like we always do, we took this idea a step further & started to run with it.

It was only a few months ago when a Smithsonian Magazine article came out with the title, “California Has Legalized Human Composting” & a subheading saying, “By 2027, Golden State residents will have the choice to turn their bodies into nutrient-rich compost”.

Though it seems conscientious & admirable to willingly forego a traditional form of burial or even cremation (which I’ve already seen ridiculed online as the “worst method” because of carbon release) I doubt this option has anything to do with ecological efforts & has everything to do with the next generation of children.

Imagine, a couple in America give birth to a child in 2030 & successfully provide the child the resources & nutrition they need until 18 years of age. Imagine, the parents die on the day after the 18th birthday, successfully leaving behind a small portion of liquid cash & a negative carbon footprint; surely, the IRS & any presiding authorities will tax the cash transferred from estate to beneficiary but how will the child offset the increased carbon footprint they inherited from their parent’s knowing the value of the footprint was exacerbated by the child’s existence?

Will little Sally, Sarah, Sue, Simon, whatever they may be called, have the option of cremating their parents to reduce the inherited carbon footprint? Will little Jack & Jill have the option of purging data centers & servers of their parents digital documents & photos of themselves as infants to reduce the inherited carbon footprint?

Today, the question of “what are you doing to reduce your carbon footprint?” is almost entirely presented to adults & in scenarios wherein the adolescent members of society are queried the same way, the answers are predetermined & practiced in school settings ie recycling, reusing, excessive hand sanitizer use in lieu of washing hands with water & soap; today, the answers from adults vary between “being conscious of where my consumables come from”, “cutting back on using this/that resource”, or the big one, “not having kids”.

Examples from Reddit:

Another example:

In 20-30 years, the question of “what are you doing to reduce your carbon footprint?” will be presented to kids that grew up in a world where they were told that they themselves are the problem; that their parents selfish decision to give them life is what will ruin the rest of ours & they will have evidence of this sentiment almost everywhere they look. From legislative & authoritative bodies like the UN & the WEF, all the way to regular people online, the children of today will have incontrovertible evidence that their existence was called into question by those who were never going to raise them or impact their lives in any positive way…and they will act in kind when asked, “do you think this life has value when considering how much carbon their lifestyle creates, or created?” Just in case anyone read it wrong, they will not act kindly – they will reciprocate these public calls for the extermination & restriction of specific life-forms; they will look to their predecessors & see a precedent that allows them to view life & death as parts of a financial equation that may or may not provide them financial gain. Maybe they’ll know there’s nothing to gain from this admittedly prematurely postulated position I’ve posed but maybe they’ll act accordingly just to spite the ones that started this game of hating the next generation, a sort of “treat others the way they treated me” mentality.

All I know is we are on a slippery slope of involving & equating the external adjudication of postmortem affairs with climate change narratives & finances in a way we have not thoroughly grasped or even imagined.

Do what you will in this life but remember: future generations will know what was done unless something is done to hide the truth. In 20-30 years, what will be the truth? That we’re doing all of this for the next generation? That we’re doing all of this for the environment? We’ll see.

Thanks for reading.

Works Cited:

Akristersson, A. (2019, April 30). Do black – the world’s first credit card with a carbon limit. Mastercard Newsroom. Retrieved October 23, 2022, from https://www.mastercard.com/news/europe/sv-se/nyhetsrum/pressmeddelanden/sv-se/2019/april/do-black-the-world-s-first-credit-card-with-a-carbon-limit/

Family planning: A major environmental emphasis. Life at OSU. (2017, October 5). Retrieved October 24, 2022, from https://today.oregonstate.edu/archives/2009/jul/family-planning-major-environmental-emphasis

YouTube. (2010). Voice of America – Abortion Is Green. YouTube. Retrieved October 23, 2022, from https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=YkgDhDa4HHo.

Jackson, T., & Hodgkinson , I. R. (2022, October 2). ‘dark data’ is leaving a huge carbon footprint, and we have to do something about it. ScienceAlert. Retrieved October 23, 2022, from https://www.sciencealert.com/dark-data-is-leaving-a-huge-carbon-footprint-and-we-have-to-do-something-about-it

Kuta, S. (2022, September 21). California has legalized human composting. Smithsonian.com. Retrieved October 23, 2022, from https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/california-has-legalized-human-composting-180980809/

© 2022 Zakariyas James. First shared here at theruminationcompilation.wordpress.com.

Posted on by The Rumination Compilation

Virtues in a Virtual Reality

I believe, we as modern humans, exist in a virtual reality based upon codes of rulers & the minds of a million writers, dead & alive. Through the use of the written word & other innovations, we have created a “scripted” reality where things begin in the mind & eventually become reality, if allowed by regulatory powers of an ancient, yet ever evolving code.

Academically speaking, a malleable collection of qualities set us apart from the other fauna of Earth:

⁃ abstract thinking

⁃ blade technology

⁃ creating & working with fire

⁃ dancing

⁃ making music

⁃ symbolic behaviors like art or ornamentation.

The malleability arises out of occasional dissenting opinions on theories like the Upper Paleolithic Revolution on either the basis that it is anthropocentric at the foundation & thereby flawed due to examples like the “Stone Age Chimps” or criticized as inherently dismissive of archeological sites across the Middle East & Africa & thereby flawed in relation to timeline construction.

Once one watches enough of those David Attenborough nature documentaries, it becomes clear a few species provide examples of conscious application of musicality, dancing during mating rituals & exhibiting traits of observable grief over death like seen in elephants. To a degree, I agree the consensus is flawed but primarily by simply overlooking the magick of that is the written word.

The first technological advancement that truly separated us from the rest of nature & reality itself was the written word. Though the vocalized form of communication we possess is impactful, for the nature of this post, consider the fact that even though I’m not aware of the exact structure of the language my two cats employ between each other – I am aware it exists solely by observation of their interactions. That said, they possess no ability to transcribe & place ideologies nor information outside of themselves in a physical form for other members of their species – this is where humans are distinctly different & where the focus of this piece lies.

Much like other animals that exist in systems wherein large populations of the species can coexist by self-determined structure (matriarchal bees & ants, lion pride hierarchy, etc) humans have had some form of communication available to them that allowed a level of societal structure. Flimsy as it was, it was/is there.

Summarily, prior to the advent of technologies that accelerate the means of communication, communication itself was solely a tool employed to determine the course of public affairs & sustain order.

The first level by which humans can surpass this simple function is through psychological time travel & plane-jumping – a true culmination of the powers of abstract thinking & language exemplified by the written word. Across the globe we see examples of cultures that in varying degrees live in ways that dismiss time as a concept or overall concern; regardless, they still have social order & essentially confirm the prior statement regarding communication as a function for public affairs. Where there is no consideration of time, a language will not exist around time & this is a necessary aspect of the first level.

As humans began to transcribe ideations from their psyche onto the walls of caves & mountainsides, we were scratching at the surface of the virtual reality. Through art & lexical lacerations in runic & hieroglyphic form, our ancestors were practicing how to properly transcend their personas & perspectives across time & space. Consensual determinations of symbolic choices over generations gave rise to inherited meaning & understanding that exists outside of the present moment – early on we were writing a code for our personas to exist in a fixed virtual plane where our sentiments & ideologies would be catalogued in ways that support maximum fungibility. Not only for self-expression but the continuous regimentation of social order throughout time.

The basis of this premise lies in the assertion that written language was a necessity for continuity of social order by way of coded law & epitomized by the discoveries of the Codes of Ur-Nammu & Hammurabi, two social contracts between masters, free folk & slaves all more or less based around “if, then” statements. These were the first examples of humanity using the written word to design the future & transcend time itself; over time itself, the codified laws would evolve to meet the needs of the preferred social order or limit specific actions in a social setting.

Thousands of years after the reign & coded structures of Sumerian & Mesopotamian design that still solely attempted to sustain order, further coding developed by the Roman counterparts in the gradual formation of the “res publica” (the republic) introduced a new concept that exists in a reimagined fashion today in countries across the globe: the virtue & virtual man.

In 509 BC, the last king of Rome lost power & out of this vacuum of control eventually came the “Conflict of the Orders” – a political bout between the upper class & the lower class in regards to political equality. One of the first lasting outcomes of this conflict was the creation of the “Laws of the Twelve Tables” in 449 BC which was essentially a formalized documentation of the rights & the duties of the citizens of Rome in the public & private spaces of life posted in the town centers for all to read. In the 60 years between the end of a kingdom & the creation of a republic, ideations of public good & the correlated self began to swirl amongst the populous giving birth to the Latin word “virtus”, the root of both virtue & virtual.

Virtus applies solely to one’s behavior in the public sphere as it relates to political action & the public good; private matters, in Roman society in the context of the republic, had no bearing on one’s social standing & was not a space where one could rise through the ranks of society with conscious efforts. Bearing in mind the basis of all social order thus far in society was economic in nature given all codes related to property rights related to land & slavery or varying allowances afforded by a master class, the concept of virtus was revolutionary & magical all at once. It implied that merit determines the value of an individual, not their heredity; their social standing would be a reflection of their public services or lack thereof & that with enough public conformity to the legalized standards of right, one could achieve a greater status in the public realm.

Ages ago, ideal individuals were imagined & described through engravings on varying mediums; following the proliferation of these virtues, such individuals began to exist in the physical realm. As I mentioned in a long-winded manner throughout “Ramparts & Revolution”, many of the qualities we inherit from our ancestors are remnants of coded determinations of what an amicable member of society is & what our roles/limitations are within the society. The original authors & philosophers that promulgated the concepts of public good & elevated social order may be dead & gone but they are immortalized by their success in time-traveling & plane-jumping as millions still adhere to their written words.

In this realm where ancient code dictates current & future actions & ultimately the nature of our social existence, the authors themselves are the original “avatars” in this virtual reality – they are the first “profiles”. From the base models they described in the manuscripts pertaining to the proper person in relation to politics, we find the framework for not only politicians but all common folk in the scripted reality known as political theater.

With the innovation of mass printing & the gradual expansion of conscious members of the virtuous framework called “the law”, a level even further separated from reality was established by transporting ideologies & codices outside of their original space & time; by removing the need for a centralized space of reception originally required by the likes of Ancient Rome, the “forum” of political discourse is equally tangible & intangible, ultimately blurring the lines between public & private.

Through this degradation of perceived parameters between private & political spaces, a variety of imaginary & borderline disingenuous avenues of political discourse are made available to both common folk & the presiding political parties.

The original, probably the most impactful yet least defined, is the form of doublespeak; by intentionally providing the possibility of misinterpretation on the listener’s end, fraudulent activity is excused & oftentimes conflated with near-successful or fully successful attempts at gaining or maintaining virtue through false honesty or shifting of blame. Though more often utilized by governing bodies or entities within, citizens can parrot talking points or expand upon them at will in their own areas of influence. Through this creation of near-truth, another layer of virtual existence is added to the coded world we already live in.

Another tactic often employed to maintain a public perception of obvious effort to positively impact the public good is the action of donation or charity. In US history, the first observable form of charity as a tactic to maintain social standing was in reaction to the public opinion in 1889-1892 regarding the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club, comprised of over 50 wealthy steel, coal & railroad investors/owners like Andrew Carnegie (owner of Carnegie Steel). On May 31st of 1889, a pre-existing public dam that was purchased & hastily redesigned solely for the construction of a private lake resort for the South Fork Club broke & resulted in the deaths of over 2,200 people & property damage of about $17 million (today that’s over half a billion). The dam itself was built by members of the community as they were employed under the monopoly (or “vertically integrated” as the doublspeakers would say) Andrew Carnegie created through Carnegie Steel; to brush aside this obvious conflict of interest & evidence of guilt in legal proceedings that would happen in 1892 (you should research why it was postponed on your own), Andrew Carnegie visited Johnstown on November 28th, 1889 & donated $54,000. Following the donation, Carnegie created multiple foundations, spread philosophical concepts related to philanthropy through self-authored books in libraries he built across New England & sold his companies in 1901 to J.P. Morgan, the business mogul of hell who affects American lives to this day, even in death.

Following Carnegie’s efforts to shape public opinion in light of wrongdoing using an interplay of legal tender (written money) & the mass media news networks, variations of this tactic described with examples of “greenwashing”, charities outed as tax-havens, etc began to appear with increasing regularity. Today, the tactic is essentially overused as public opinion is now wary of this avenue due to the propensity of tax-free groups being tied to laundering operations or other morally questionable events.

Finally, the most recent, innovative & interactive tactic lies with virtue signaling; clearly defined as: “the action or practice of publicly expressing opinions or sentiments intended to demonstrate one’s good character or the moral correctness of one’s position on a particular issue” virtue signaling, in my opinion, is the culmination of the written word, doublespeak & the attempt to create charity through commentary to elevate one’s social standing in our coded virtual reality. This is not to say that virtue signaling is the highest level of altered communication in a fabricated system, although some may have made or may eventually make this argument, I’m not aware of such stances nor do I share them.

Though as novel as the concept & action of virtue signaling is, I will admit that the veracity & overall impact of the tactic may evolve & progress either naturally or by design, especially considering it is built upon the framework of digital social media.

I often wonder, given the fact that humanity exists in this state of temporal haziness regarding predetermined valuations of the self & the group, if technology progresses to a point where digital reality is indistinguishable from physical reality, will there be a clashing of digital computer code, ancient legal code & the human lexicon?

Will there be a new level of falsifying & reshaping reality with the spoken & elaborately written word?

Will there be a transparency afforded to the masses for the first time in a situation where cognition & computation intersect & interact on a level we can’t even comprehend at the moment?

Will the concept of virtues, individuality & public good shift to more synthetic attributes as technology & humanity meld into one or will the concepts themselves be completely re-coded?

We all repetitively state that time doesn’t stand still, yet the written word, the essence of a writer, steps outside of this rule & imparts upon readers tales of old, potential futures, present guidelines & creates rules of its own. This act of writing with the intention of transcending space & time is what sets us apart from all other publicly observable beings – the magicks of time-travel & teleportation are available to those fortunate to be literate; those in control of the nature of political discourse are able to simply shape reality by “spelling it out” in coded law. Ultimately, the laws passed under the cover of the night by governing bodies & international committees without public input are the actual occult & dark magicks of the world, the statements & actions thereafter are the added illusions & extra spells to control & contort reality.

Truly, this is why the greatest obsession of any tyrant is the free person’s mind; if they can’t physically restrain or restrict, the next best & admittedly preferred option from the onset of any fear & terror campaign is mental subversion & control.

Be wary of the words you see on the screens & be critical of the means by which a party seeks to achieve your public appreciation. Write with intent & rest assured that even after you begin your eternal rest, an aspect of your self remains in the written world that exists outside of celestial space-time. As a member of the public, it is our duty to determine what are the true values & virtues needed for the public good, not the corporations or some currently prevailing party; should we forfeit the ability & the right to help shape the predetermined best qualities of a citizen of the earth & digital planes we create hereafter, we will be subject to coded terms set by rulers in a virtual reality forevermore.

Thanks for reading

Works cited:

Gibbons, A., 2022. The Chimpanzee Stone Age. [online] Science.org. Available at: <https://www.science.org/content/article/chimpanzee-stone-age&gt; [Accessed 31 July 2022].

Parker, L., 2022. Rare Video Shows Elephants ‘Mourning’ Matriarch’s Death. [online] Animals. Available at: <https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/elephants-mourning-video-animal-grief&gt; [Accessed 31 July 2022].

Mantri, V., 2022. Cultures Without The Concept Of Time – Wanderlust. [online] Oss.adm.ntu.edu.sg. Available at: <https://oss.adm.ntu.edu.sg/vishaka1/cultures-without-the-concept-of-time/&gt; [Accessed 31 July 2022].

Gormandy Wright, M., 2022. Examples of Doublespeak. [online] Examples.yourdictionary.com. Available at: <https://examples.yourdictionary.com/examples-of-doublespeak.html&gt; [Accessed 31 July 2022].

Photo cred: Photo by Markus Spiske: https://www.pexels.com/photo/green-and-white-line-illustration-225769/

© 2022 Zakariyas James. First shared here at theruminationcompilation.wordpress.com.

Posted on by The Rumination Compilation

A Thought about Trees

I was on a walk recently & I began to think of awareness & the lack thereof in the form of a tree.

In my mind, the phrase, “the root of the problem”, poetically asserts that the true issue of any problem is often obscured by internal & external awareness & negligence. To get to the truth of a matter, using this backdrop of forestry, one must dig deep & rummage through sediments & sentiments that lead to the true obstacles – the “root” of our problems.

Yet, are we safe in assuming that we begin our journeys of knowledge near the earth itself-grounded & steadfast in determination to see the truth? Or are we somewhere near the apex of the tree – branched & segmented away from truths that are upholding our existence regardless of our acknowledgement?

Accounting for malicious mechanisms that attempt to distract & dilute truths like paywalls & measured misinformation, can one be certain that they know anything for certain? That they know the root of a thing? Where it came from? Where it leads to?

In this world of marketed extravagance & flashing lights, our conspicuous consumption requires a certain willingness to be blinded by our innate need for immediate gratification & easy answers. To be blinded by the choice between digging deeper or accepting what is on the surface or simply presented as the truth.

This blinding existence, as bright as the sun at times, expresses the duality of the state of truth when imagined as being a part of a tree: the subterranean critters, the excavators of the “roots” of an issue are hardly exposed to the jarring lights of fanaticism & idolatry & would not be naturally sustained in the light of these external truths; contrarily, the branches, the leaves, the fleeting sky dwellers that perch there are accustomed to the enticing quality of the presented half-truths & the lights that shine upon them.

In the simplest of ways, the tree is the living example of the lie. Above the soil, we find the trunk, the beginning of the path towards the truth. Upon the first large branch closest to the ground, protruding smaller branches are the first lie & the multitude of smaller branches & leaves, along with all the fauna thereafter are the individuals that find sustenance from a half-truth or blatant lie.

The second large branch just a bit higher along the trunk is the second lie, the second layer of malicious marketing for good measure. The branches & leaves from this section, in my mind, are the individuals that will inevitably find sustenance in the lower branch but they aren’t all that concerned with finding the truth anyways, they’d rather bask in the blinding lights like the apex of the tree many branches further up, almost unaware of the existence the lower branches have as they are sustained by completely different truths.

The further down the tree, closer to the trunk, closer to the truth, is the darkest part of the tree, excluding the root system; much like in our collective pursuit for the truth, we encounter periods of depression, sadness, hopelessness & all the various feelings of darkness while those sustained by a falsehood live in a state of blissful, blinding ignorance. The dance & the space between this dark & light is another way of perceiving komorebi (pronounced koh-mo-reh-bi, click for the definition).

What are the root of our problems? What things are distracting us from realizing the truths? Is there an optimal space to inhabit along the tree or is it all more or less the same if one is sustained where they are at?

I think the quote, “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants” by Thomas Jefferson imparts new understanding from this perspective; some want to hear nothing but the truth, some are in no way concerned with the truth & there’s always someone who’s trying to hide the truth. Nothing is more liberating than the truth & those who fight to obscure truths do not wish you or I to be free, whether it be through mental slavery or physical.

Find your truths, hold onto them & assess from where they came. Dig deeper & get to the root of the problem the next time a salesman, a politician or some regular passerby says that you need what they’re offering; do you really need what they’re selling? Do you think there’s anything they’re not telling you?

Get to the bottom of it before all the trees are gone & all truth is gone or only accessible post-purchase.

Thanks for reading.

A nice song about the trees:

© 2022 Zakariyas James. First shared here at theruminationcompilation.wordpress.com.

Posted on by The Rumination Compilation · 1 Comment

“Ramparts & Revolution”

Nature & nurture or design & downloads?

In the spirit of the times, I’d like to discuss revolution. Though it is one of the most human activities, in this instance, for the sake of clarity & successful generalized speculation, I’ll compare the human mind & spirit as general components of a computing system. In doing so, I hope to outline innate flaws & fortuitous features in the battle for freedom both physically & mentally.

The mind, agreed upon by addicts, philosophers & most high school football coaches, is the greatest obstacle. The body itself can be manipulated – broken to a point. Yet, the mind, the intangible byproduct of this intricate vessel, is moreso susceptible to manipulation & damage, oftentimes beyond repair.

I view the mind, individual & hive-kind, as systems in which necessary informations, or those that are time sensitive, are subject to the tendencies of a hard drive & a RAM drive.

Within this imagined “hard drive” lies the things we’ve patiently & earnestly considered; the information we hold of such high value that it lies stored in the back of the mind ready to be called at-will. This information spurs on the basic action we display with our body: if one truly believes “might is right” on this deep a level, their physical mannerisms & corporeal presentation will reflect in kind: athletic prowess, brute force, checked or unchecked ferocity. Contrarily, if a mindset values peace through inaction or “turning the other cheek” to a comparable degree, we see events like Thích Quảng Đức’s self-immolation where “as he burned he never moved a muscle, never uttered a sound, his outward composure in sharp contrast to the wailing people around him”.

The “basic truths” we all hold are inherited from older generations or our peers, oftentimes in close proximity. Stewardship, privacy, acknowledgment, control, freedom; there are a number of basic driving concepts, diverse as the number of lives one can lead. The energy of these concept stem from older generations (downloading, so to speak) but “update” as needed; 2,000 years ago, the same basic driving concepts existed but were in different stages of application – different times, different operating systems ie governments, prevailing social orders. Freedom today, in most nations, is vastly different than freedoms described centuries ago; privacy, by the day, diminishes in real life but creates more energy, more drive in some to achieve it (and for that we look to Julian Assange for our barely-living example). I see these “basic truths” as things we deeply appreciate across lifetimes, those things whose absence causes a depression of the energy in us all to do whatever we set a healthy & determined mind to. When a computer shuts off, the hard drive still holds all the pertinent information; we may fall asleep, but even in our dreams we are drawn to what we yearn for most & battle that which we fear the most.

This part of the mind is malleable but rather fixed as these inherited ideals, the downloaded desires are replicants, reiterations of past dreams; if they remained so for a millennia, they will probably remain so. The other side, the “RAM” parts, this is where the battle lies.

Here, in the hyperactive front of the mind, the Random Access Memory drive is where external coercion (stress) creates chaos. Comparatively, a RAM drive is the temporary storage space to the constant storage space of a hard drive; too much power is required to recall all information simultaneously, thus we have the limitations of awareness, focus & stress exemplified by the RAM drive.

This part of the mind exists in a state that initially resembles amnesia; upon further observation though, it is better described as the part of the mind directed & detailed by distraction & external commands.

External commands, the keystrokes that request specific files from the hard drive, are the stressors in life that cause us to hyper-fixate on an obstacle, a miscalculation. It’s in these moments we lose sight of the bigger picture; through the same electric shocks that trigger the mechanical response to have the RAM drive retrieve a specific file, we can view the “shocking” material on mainstream media as a mechanism by which the content creator seeks to retrieve a specific file, a specific reaction from the content consumer.

It’s possible, similarly, to frame these symbolic keystrokes in an authoritative light: as the tools of propaganda become more cutting-edge with the advancement of technology, the gradual human interfacing & censorship thereof online will only better serve to discuss the individual mind & the hive-mind as the computers of social order. Even as governments simply add legislation that illicit trigger reactions in any notable demographic under its authority, the correlation will suffice as misrepresentation on the governing scale can be jadedly termed as the moment the computer screen says “Error 404: File Not Found” as we’ve seen in the instances where FOIA requests are disgraced with black space.

The primary matter of this entire text is to analyze how this specific part of the mind, using a computing framework as lenses, disables revolution. In a sense, the remaining discussion requires a sustained recognition that those in power wish to stay in power; otherwise this ensuing text is for naught-a ruler indifferent to maintenance of power would not operate in the same ways, their hard drive is filled with different information.

The regimes of old, present & yet to be all have a persistent fixation upon the malleable nature of the RAM drive part of the mind where it concerns language & stress.

Moderation of public discourse by way of censorship is the foundation of this manipulation of the RAM drive. Through selection of approved key commands (talking points), those in control of information can either choose to outright “delete” sections of public sentiment & ideologies or saturate the available pool of information (noise) with state-sponsored sentiments & ideologies so the average citizen in the current & future generation inherits this information & essentially “copy & paste”s it until the original native information in the hard drives of the masses is replaced with the new.

Essentially, this would be described as integrative propaganda-that which the narrative controllers wish to see the citizenry slowly accept as reality & convince others of, to download & disseminate.

Agitative propaganda, that which seeks to place the RAM in overdrive, is most commonly found in instances that illicit emotional responses or those that compel an individual to act in an irregular way, or we’ll say “glitch”. In one fashion, narrative controllers can cause this agitation through information suppression; citizens kept in the dark through periods of strife become demoralized at the lack of actionable intel & eventually submit or commit violent acts in a disoriented manner incomparable to prior examples of the group or individuals demeanor-this is the hacking process in a human.

Soon, people will be singing “o’er the ramparts we watch,” & there will be varying meanings; some will imagine physical barriers between free speech, unencumbered travel & freedom of expression. Some will be imagining chat boards, blog sites & stages across the globe affected by double-speak & key commands, wondering what new ways they’ll be able to hack you & I & anyone plugged in, consciously or not.

Hold fast to what you’ve inherited but assess the source; changing our minds sometimes takes a considerable force. Countless campaigns continue attempting to convince future generations that the desires of the past should be left in the past, that they are barbaric due to antiquity. Should we continue down a path that allows the human mind to be manipulated as a computer, I fear our minds will be tormented & left as hollow receptacles of mandated iniquity.

Thanks for reading.

P.S. check out this art this guy I follow on Instagram made; I seriously love his content.

Check out his stuff!

© 2022 Zakariyas James. First shared here at theruminationcompilation.wordpress.com.

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The Volumes on Vitality: Part Three

Platforms of Mobility

Even the Rain

Growing up, I’d heard that someday there would be water wars. Conflicts centered around physical domination of a resource that is already depleting or diminishing in value/utility. I’d heard this from immediate family members, those I’d randomly encounter over the course of a day & the a few forms of content available on the web like this NPR piece from a while back that’s always stuck in my mind.

Though I accept this unfortunate possibility of nations warring over waterways & dams, I often wonder to myself, “what’ll lead up to that? What will the economics of water look like over the course of my lifetime & further on?”

Along the way, going through life with these random thoughts, I’ve come across tidbits of innovation & determinations that I believe paint an abstract picture of what the economics of & around water could look like.

At the moment, the CME Group, the largest financial derivatives exchange in the world, has been offering futures contracts where the underlying asset is water since December of 2020 when California’s entire water market was valued at $1.1 billion. The speculated water spans “across the five largest and most actively traded regions in California. Water entitlement transactions from the surface water market and four adjudicated groundwater basins-the Central Basin, the Chino Basin, the Main San Gabriel Basin, and the Mojave Basin Alto Subarea are included in the index.”

As far as California goes, around 65%, give or take seasonal changes, of the surface water available is in Northern California, hence the mentioning of the basins in the NQH20 index. Most of that water is pumped from the north to south or transported by other means; the rest of the water needed in the south is pumped from groundwater basins regulated by the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act of 2014 & other legislative actions.

To do a bit more in depth research & also try my hand at trading the NQH20 contracts, I contacted the CME Group & one of their registered brokers to open an account but was told I do not possess the capital required to participate in the market. I guess I should cry a river & then trade futures on that supply of water.

In all seriousness, not just because my humor lacks refinement by any standard of the word, I bring this up to echo the sentiment Pedro Arrojo Agudo made when he said, “water is increasingly being treated as a mere commodity and even as a financial asset, undermining the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation and the sustainability of the environment.” at the UN General Assembly on October 20th, 2021. If I myself, a “middle-class” citizen, can’t access the potential profits from a water market, what sort of hope or outlook should I hold for my future financial status & the mobility of my money? Will it stretch worse in a world where water prices are speculated on by those who won’t even drink that exact water? Or will those gains “trickle down” too & it’ll all be okay?

About a week ago or so, my fiancé brought to my attention a startup company called FreeWater based in Austin, Texas that markets aluminum bottles & paper-based cartons of “free” water “paid for by ads that are printed directly onto eco-friendly cans and cartons. Ten cents per beverage is donated to charity.”

The 10¢ per beverage is donated to WellAware a non-profit based out of Austin, Texas as well that “fund[s] and implement[s] lasting clean water systems to drive development and empower communities in East Africa.” After a bout of equal parts boredom & being nosey, I perused their IRS audits from 2017 & 2020 & noticed the non-profit WellAware, pays a for-profit company called WellBeyond, which is owned by the same individual, also based in Austin, for “project consulting and execution services for the Organization’s program services in Kenya” to the tune of “$237,460 in paid expenditures and $124,823 of in-kind contributions and expenses,” in 2020.

Through pessimistic lenses critical of foreign conglomerates granted unilateral rights of a resource or location, I look at this “free water” scenario as a possible foundational step towards a future where the 1999-2000 water wars of Cochabamba, Bolivia are replayed with new characters. The protests over the wells & water costs inspired a film called (in English) “Even the Rain” that I saw some years ago now; as summer is upon & droughts continue, various scenes from the film cross my mind as of late, especially so when I think of the creeping normalization of water as a commodity.

FreeWater, in their FAQ section, says they’ll be launching “a new type of utility tokens called the FreeWater token.” Ignoring the application of a currency not scrutinized by external securities aspect (hello crypto), I’ve sat wondering how many energy resources will someday have respective “utility tokens” created by large conglomerates; I eventually wonder, will there be tokens or other company-based credit systems for electricity too? Mastercard already has a card in Sweden with a company based there that “not only helps users track and measure CO2 emissions associated with their purchases, but also puts a limit to the climate impact of their spending with a carbon footprint limit.”

Hear me out, I’m not saying blockchain currencies won’t be a part of the future with my jab earlier towards cryptocurrencies in a general way. Earlier this week, Shell Corp., American Express Global Business Travel & Accenture announced a joint partnership to create a company called Avelia Solutions, that facilitates a “blockchain powered book-and-claim solution that provides you with fully traceable environmental attributes of SAF (sustainable aviation fuel) to help decarbonise your air travel.” I see these continued applications of blockchain pay systems & corporate tokens to be indicative of the fact that they’ll be the norm at some point.

As far as innovation besides blockchain tokens & the like goes, technology related to water & other liquids necessitates further discussion on the levels of access & uses of water.

Over the last decade & change, the desalination industry has made improvements in technology & production costs to combat the decreasing level of access of freshwater, researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder have developed a method using microbes to clean both organic contaminants and salts from hydraulic fracturing wastewater, while producing renewable energy & countless other examples can be given but my favorite comes from even further back in time: MagnetoHydrodynamics (MHD).

Popularized by a few Tom Clancy books, MHD systems can be found discussed & funded at length by parties like the US Dep of Energy’s National Energy Technology Laboratory, NASA & the HIT-SI lab, part of the William E. Boeing Department of Aeronautics & Astronautics at the University of Washington.

I’d wager, if this technology that utilizes water as a fuel component becomes widespread with multiple applications (as far vehicles go) water will become even more scarce but truly live up to its designation of “platform of mobility”. In a way, it’s like we might go from ancient, disconnected seafaring peoples that eventually learned flight to evolving into spacefaring peoples that will use water as much as our ancestors did before us, maybe even more.

In my mind there’s a war between all these thoughts; possibility versus possibility, only settled by time passed. Hopefully, we enter a future ultimately lacking in strife that is abundant with the needed resources for us all to equally enjoy the gift of life. I hope we all someday look at a glass completely full, instead of bicker about the determined or perceived volume.

Thanks for reading.

P.S. leave a comment! Tell me of your goals, expectations, concerns for 2022; I hope to create an area where it can all be hashed out.

P.P.S. are there water restrictions where you live too?

Links to ponder:

https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-the-southwest/the-water-wars-come-to-the-suburbs

Added on 8/16/22:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/08/16/colorado-river-bureau-of-reclamation/

© 2022 Zakariyas James. First shared here at theruminationcompilation.wordpress.com.

Posted on by The Rumination Compilation

A Somber Scot Pine

For the past year & change, I’ve been attempting to develop multiple Scot Pine saplings for various bonsai projects as a hobby.

Recently, one of my Scot Pine saplings in a group planting I put together passed away. Rather than remove the lasting image of the error on my part, I’ve opted to remove the bark down to the cambium & appreciate the final step all living things happen upon: death.

Dealing with death is an exhausting matter; cerebral & poetic, discussions of death deal in recollections of past events & postulations of what could’ve been, often intangible.

Maybe it’s a childlike hope that reflecting on a perished pine will help me appreciate the things around me that are still alive & worth caring for. Maybe it’s the appropriate thing to do.

Either way, I’ll leave this somber Scot pine settled in the soil to see a sign of what used to be & what will come to be.

Thanks for reading

© 2022 Zakariyas James. First shared here at theruminationcompilation.wordpress.com.

Posted on by The Rumination Compilation · 3 Comments

The Volumes on Vitality: Part One

The Summer Solstice

For the next few posts, I’ll be devoting time to discussing water in a multi-part series we’ll call “The Volumes on Vitality”.

In the Northern Hemisphere, where I’m writing this from, the first day of summer starts tomorrow!

When I was really young, my mother made a point to use my summer breaks from school in hotter-than-hell Arizona to take trips to Ethiopia as that’s where she’s originally from; she would always say it’s a trip to see extended family & to see how the rest of the world lives with my own eyes.

Even though it lies north of the equator, due to large mountain ranges & high elevation most of Ethiopia is subject to two rainy seasons: a short one that lasts from February to April, and a longer one that lasts from mid-June to mid-September. I essentially skipped the summer season over five times just by traveling to a place where the four season schematic is not descriptive of the climate-I jokingly call this a life hack from time to time.

On the other hand, my father’s side of the family is from a tiny town called Wardell, Missouri of about 390 people per the last U.S. census where “natural gas [came]…in 1966 or 1967 and a sewage system was installed in 1976. Although public water had been available since 1962, each individual had to install his own cesspool or septic tank,” as Eva Welch wrote in “History of Wardell”. (The Mr. & Mrs. W.O. James mentioned at the end of paragraph 6 are my great grandparents.)

When I review my ancestral roots, I always marvel at the similarities my two families displayed in regards to their experiences with water even though they were genuinely worlds apart, 7,858 miles to be exact.

On one side, I see Amharas walking with jugs of water on their backs for miles & on the other, I see Americans doing the same thing; the only real difference is the timeframe in which these events took place.

Large bodies of water are prevalent aspects of both parties & their stories of success, failure & demise. Wardell itself lies about 10-14 miles from the Mississippi River & Ethiopia itself is home to the Nile River; both are foundational in the formation of various cultures to date like the people of Egypt & the people of the Sioux nation in America & both have storied histories of both floods & droughts.

This summer, besides moving from one state to another with my fiancé & two cats, I plan on being a bit more aware of water & the things water accompany. This blog aside, I’ve been finding myself in a recurring position where I utilize water & begin thinking about these molecules strung together perfectly that create this world we inhabit, in all its variety. A repetitive motion of, “water my plant, think about water, realize I have other plants to water, repeat process” that admittedly hasn’t done much other than help me recall memories where I’m at a body of water with family & friends or I think about humanity in general.

I encourage whoever is reading, the next time you use water, think about the water for a bit. “Where has it been?” “Where will it go?” The next time you take a sip, think to yourself, “what else did it give further life to, before me?”

Thanks for reading.

P.S. leave a comment! Tell me of your goals, expectations, concerns for 2022; I hope to create an area where it can all be hashed out.

P.P.S. are there water restrictions where you live too?

Links to review: https://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/san-diego-county-water-authority-proposes-5-2-increase-citing-inflation-and-energy-costs/2957211/

© 2022 Zakariyas James. First shared here at theruminationcompilation.wordpress.com.

Posted on by The Rumination Compilation

The New Three R’s:

Rates, Restrictions & Representation

I’m a product of the mid-90’s; a measured concept of early education at that time was “reading, writing & arithmetic”. Admittedly, I’m a novice writer, an impatient reader that skims more than I should & mathematics are a language I don’t understand all too often-calculators are translators in my eyes.

But I think there are new ideological frameworks available as rubrics from here on out.

Economically, on, June 13th, 2022, “The S&P 500 slumped nearly 4%, entering a bear market territory, meaning the broad benchmark index has now dropped more than 20% from its most recent high. The S&P 500 had briefly entered a bear market last month but was able to pull back, a feat it was unable to accomplish this time around.”

Obviously, it is now more than safe to say “rates” will be on many minds as life with a dollar that doesn’t stretch like it used to starts to feel like the body not stretching the same it way did last year either, just sad all around.

Socially, we’re at a point now where the social credit system is more than simply a TV trope or a concept far away in “the East”; within the last year or so, I’ve watched, with others, the slow refinement of how consumers can interact with creators on various platforms.

From removing the option to like/dislike content, to flooding spaces with bots that can mimic a genuine account & up/downvote content enmasse (at the least) & outright removing creators from platforms or removing consumers from platforms, our ability to have meaningful interaction unencumbered with rules outside of the framework of the language itself will dissipate faster than the pennies pinched & dollars stretched.

On another hand busy trying to make ends meet since the last recession, both economically & socially, the concept of rate of infection is now at the forefront of policymakers, market makers & the commonwealth’s mind, no matter how much we try to focus on any other issue, pertinent or not. Like many others, I have built an irregular habit of staying up-to-date on various diseases of elevated concern as determined by the World Health Organization. How long will I & others find themselves looking at case rates & articles upon articles of issues close in proximity & far outside our scope of contact?

Lately, I’ve been restricting myself in ways more than likely concerning or amusing for an outsider looking in; from being painfully mindful of spending habits while looking at the impulse aisle goodies to skipping certain sources of protein in lieu of elevated zoonotic disease spreading across the continental U.S.

Self-imposed restrictions are always subject to scrutiny by the masses; how often do we find content online or in mainstream media demeaning or berating individuals for fasting, abstaining from sex, going gluten free, etc. even the abstinent voter is still in 2022 admonished at a rate greater than the corporations who time & time again find themselves indisposed indefinitely during tax season. Sure, we as the commonwealth griped a bit here & there to no avail but I dare you to buy a “I didn’t vote” sticker this weekend & see how that goes.

State-imposed restrictions are another matter.

To date, a number of governing bodies are exercising emergency powers either challenged as excessive by way of unlimited scope of control through ambiguous language or excessive due to social determinations that the powers are no longer needed. The average Joe can complain about the ruling Joe’s orders all day & night but there is no true amount of scrutiny involved in this process, as we have seen thus far considering emergency powers from 2001 still abide.

In a world of staggering uncertainty, I question how well you & I are represented & considered in the determinations & processes that spur on action. Very often, regardless of external circumstances, I question how well I represent myself given the fact that I learn more about my goals, dreams, fears, desires as I age or they simply shift with experience & preference.

Will we be better represented in this coming world or will we find our representation by authoritative & legislative bodies simply shift with experience & preference?

P.S. leave a comment! Tell me of your goals, expectations, concerns for 2022; I hope to create an area where it can all be hashed out.

Links to ponder that’ve come out since posting this:

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/06/24/roe-v-wade-overturned-by-supreme-court-ending-federal-abortion-rights.html

https://www.dw.com/en/water-scarcity-eu-countries-forced-to-restrict-drinking-water-access/a-62363819

https://www.england.nhs.uk/london/2022/08/25/routine-hiv-testing-rolls-out-to-all-emergency-departments-in-london/

© 2022 Zakariyas James. First shared here at theruminationcompilation.wordpress.com.