I have not seen this movie, and base my critique on just the shorts that I have seen, but that is enough for me to despise it. I doubt that I could sit through these politically correct deconstructions without exhibiting toxic masculinity, radiating it in all directions, like a skunk, but proud of it.
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Bms6Hba-3A
  https://www.dailyherald.com/entlife/20190726/art-of-self-defense-examines-satirizes-toxic-masculinity

This movie, like almost everything excreted by Hollywood today, has a politically correct N. W. O message, this time that, masculinity is toxic. Thus, a weak male goes to learn karate to defend himself from thugs, but the entire self- defense scene is toxic masculinity. There are females involved in it, but pass over it, they are all oppressed by the patriarchy too. Conveniently, the karate sensei is white, and there would have been a bit of a racism paradox if Hollywood had taken an Asian sensei, but they never make things hard for themselves, just like all criminals are white Nordics, with the lighter the phenotype, the eviller. “Director Riley Stearns says he didn't realize he was making a perfect movie for 2019 when he started writing "The Art of Self-Defense" four years ago. But his darkly comedic riff on toxic masculinity starring Jesse Eisenberg as a timid and "weak" man who takes up karate just kept becoming more relevant. The Harvey Weinstein allegations broke during the shoot in 2017 and the #MeToo movement became a phenomenon. "It was kind of weird that this idea that I had been feeling was very personal to me was really starting to spread into a direct discussion," Stearns said. "More and more people are relating to the film in ways that I originally wouldn't have intended, which is hugely humbling and very interesting to see."

     Kiss your tasty steak goodbye, because it simply consumes too many resources, and to keep the Third World population numbers exploding, food will need to be distributed according to the Marxist principle of equality.
  https://edition.cnn.com/2019/07/17/health/beef-environment-resources-report/index.html

“Americans will need to cut their average consumption of beef by about 40% and Europeans by 22%, for the world to continue to feed the 10 billion people expected to live on this planet in 2050, according to a new report. That means each person could have about a burger and a half each week. This calculation comes from the World Resources Institute, a global research nonprofit that supports better use of natural resources to sustain a growing population. Its research looks at agriculture, the climate crisis, poverty and gender, among other topics. Its final "Creating a Sustainable Food Future" report released Wednesday takes a closer look at the gaps in food production and global demand and makes several concrete recommendations on how to prevent a catastrophe. Eating less beef is one such suggestion in the 568-page report. About 9.8 billion people will live on the planet by 2050, that's up from 7 billion people in 2010. Demand for food is projected to outpace population growth, increasing by more than 50% as people's incomes in the developing world are expected to increase, according to the report. The demand for meat and dairy is expected to rise even faster, by nearly 70%. The global demand for ruminant meat, meaning beef, sheep and goat, is expected to be even higher, at 88%. But to keep up with food demands overall, the report predicts farmers are going to have to produce 56% more crop calories than in 2010 -- and that means that land nearly twice the size of India will be needed. Closing these gaps is "harder than often recognized," according to the report. The authors suggest there are several ways to keep people from starving and to keep the climate crisis at bay, but the most impactful way to do this may be to cut the consumption of ruminant meat.”

     Affirmative Right site has some occasionally good articles, but a lot that I disagree with. On the positive front, there has been a series arguing that monogamy is needed as the foundation for society, for Western civilisation to survive. Beyond the usual conservative argument centred around the production of children, there is also the aspect of sexual satisfaction, and not a lot of this occurs under the feminist regime:
  https://affirmativeright.blogspot.com/2019/07/monogamy-and-survival-of-west-part-four.html#more
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7LN14IpVy0
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eB7qKbZWoWk
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WMuzhQXJoY

“Is there a fundamental right to monogamy? The male desire for sex and female companionship is a natural biological instinct, like eating or sleeping. If a man is unable to satisfy this fundamental impulse, he loses his powers of concentration and becomes unproductive. Eventually, he is forced to drop out of society or lash out. A growing underclass of unmarried men will inevitably lead to massive civil strife and social disruption, including bloodshed. Expecting these men to just exercise self-control is both unreasonable and absurd. Lifelong celibacy has never worked, not even for the Christian church, which degenerated morally and intellectually because of it. Imagine the agony of the inferior male, who is forced to endure a life of unwanted bachelorhood, his libido mercilessly titillated by a liberal society that allows women to dress as scantily-clad ****** in public. In reality, it is only the liberal totalitarians who must practice self-control; their nihilist and self-destructive obsession with feminism, multicultural policy and immigration from the Third World are more akin to the dancing and flagellation manias of the Middle Ages than the beliefs of rational men. If it is in society's best interest to ensure that all men reach their full innate potential, then society must provide the necessary conditions allowing men to exercise their right to monogamous family life whenever they so choose.”

     According to news we can “trust,” The New York Times:

“Two forces convulsing American politics found each other at President Trump’s rally in North Carolina this week: a sense of anxiety among white voters about their standing in a country that is growing more diverse, and a politician intent on stoking those worries. Surveys show fears among some white people that they are losing status in America, and those holding such views are increasingly aligned with the Republican Party. These voters perceive anti-white discrimination. A growing share say the nation risks losing its identity because of openness to foreigners. And many are concerned about what it will mean when non-Hispanic whites lose majority status, as demographic projections suggest will happen around 2045. A large if not majority share of white voters, and a majority of Republicans, say this change will threaten American customs and values — a prospect that they say makes them anxious, even angry. …”

     Civilisations collapse when the elites become self-destructive in their greed and evil. This is a theme common to much of the reporting at this blog. Is it true? A scholarly book explores the same theme:  Anne Glyn-Jones, Holding Up a Mirror: How Civilizations Decline, (Imprint Academic, Thorverton, 1996). There is also a very good video about this which can serve as Collapseology 101, an introduction to this topic by Paul Joseph Watson, who argues that almost every factor that led to the collapse of past civilisations, can be found in the West, and there are more as well, generating a situation of over-determination:
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELoFwPwIQm0

     First, on the Glyn-Jones book, there are informative remarks given in an interview, saving us time in reading the book:

     Big Tech is trying to depict Donald Trump as an evil paedophile in the Epstein saga, completely false, while they cover up the involvement of Demo-rats like old  Billy Goat Clinton:
  https://www.naturalnews.com/2019-07-23-big-tech-trying-to-cover-ties-between-epstein-and-democrats.html

“As the “pedo island” scandal continues to unfold, tech giants like Google are frantically trying to purge all posts and search results that threaten to expose ties between Jeffrey Epstein and Democrats like Bill Clinton, and instead implicate President Trump as somehow being one of the perpetrators. Paul Sperry from Investor’s Business Dailybroke the news in a recent tweet, explaining that photos of Clinton with Epstein are being actively scrubbed from Google’s image search results, and replaced with images of Trump – the suggestion being that Trump is the one who flew in Epstein’s private jet at least 26 times, when it was actually Clinton who did this. In truth, Trump was actually the one who blew the whistle on Epstein, having back in the day banned the sexual predator from his Mar-a-Lago resort “because Epstein sexually assaulted an underage girl at the club,” official court documents reveal. But instead of standing up for these sexual assault victims, Google is instead trying to cover for the real perpetrators, which include Clinton and a host of other leftist Democrats. According to Bradley Edwards, an attorney for Epstein’s alleged victims, Trump was actually the only person who willingly came forward when being probed about these allegations, Trump’s full and transparent cooperation with attorneys further reinforcing his innocence. “The only thing that I can say about President Trump is that he is the only person who in 2009, when I served a lot of subpoenas on a lot of people, or at least gave notice to some pretty connected people that I wanted to talk to them – he is the only person who picked up the phone,” Edwards is quoted as saying.”

     Oh boy, socialists have really got a thing or billion ready for us when it comes time to cook us. Here is a good revision summary article of some of the genocide that they have got up to. The socialist has an end justifies the means “morality,” or lack of it, and is quite prepared to do what it takes to impose their perverse, unnatural worldview upon us all.
  https://metallicman.com/laoban4site/what-the-progressive-liberals-have-in-store-for-conservatives/

“One of the keys in socialist and Marxist control of a region is to get the citizenry to comply to their rules. They lie. They tell falsehoods. They set up false senses of security. They use children. They use the media. Do not believe any of it. Historically speaking, the lies will result in people dying. The outcome is absolute. Historically, with the exception of China (with the SJW uprisings), most progressive socialist movements eventually take over the reigns of government and mold it to their will. Those whom follow the traditional and often “old Style” of political discourse are eventually overwhelmed. Once they gain power, they take over the government and mold it to their will. Suddenly the traditional symbols of government are co-opted and remolded into other purposes. This leads many traditionalists confused. This confusion sets up a perfect environment for the FULL implementation of their agenda. When the new progressive socialist government takes control, one of the first things that they do is hunt down and slaughter their opposition. Historically, that has been the conservative and traditional elements of the society. I am sorry to say this, but this is the historical truth.”

     Here is a powerful article by Paul Craig Roberts, summing up the plight of the West. The article speaks for itself:
  https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2019/07/09/the-obituary-for-western-civilization-can-now-be-written/

“Here is a video of one of the migrant gangs that have been welcomed into Europe sticking a pistol’s barrel into the mouth of a male Swedish teenager and ordering him to dance.  Having been taught that it is racist, and perhaps a crime, to oppose … the Third World, instead of fighting back the Swedish teenager complies and accepts, like a good European male, the humiliation.

     Wow, the joys of mental decline; typing my name now, I ended up with “Pyjamas,” following Word’s suggestions, but I like it and will stick with it for today. Now that leads me to the issue of the corruption of Australian society, and it seems that Oz is getting even more rotten:
  https://www.smh.com.au/national/australia-becoming-more-corrupt-warns-former-judge-20181113-p50fsp.html?fbclid=IwAR3Bls4VUSXRgpIFWUct5Wk6jpcOHKKOJmZl0LG2wdxBAAiJzb-PxwKn_U0

“Australia is becoming more corrupt because successive federal governments have failed to create an effective national anti-corruption body similar to the NSW Independent Commission against Corruption, a leading jurist has argued. Writing in support of a national anti-corruption body, David Harper, a former Court of Appeals justice at the Supreme Court of Victoria, noted that in 2012 Australia ranked seventh in Transparency International’s global corruption index, but that today we were ranked 13th. “The lack of a federal anti-corruption agency remains a reason why we have never come close to being corruption-free,” he has written in an opinion piece for the Herald. Mr Harper writes that the lack of an effective federal anti-corruption watchdog had allowed corruption to flourish undetected and, in turn, allowed federal politicians to hide behind the myth that the federal sphere is free of corruption.”

     We here, to relieve the high tensions of journalism, deadlines and all that exciting stuff at the bullpen, to get the freshest, juiciest articles to you, sometimes need to cool our brains down. So, we send each other logical and mathematical puzzles, to rattle the old neurons, and shake off the mental rust:
  https://www.news.com.au/finance/work/careers/the-threequestion-iq-test-fewer-than-one-in-five-people-can-answer-correctly/news-story/68086e096a7650356a3f87bebd134c2c
  https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/089533005775196732

(1) A bat and a ball cost $1.10 in total. The bat costs $1.00 more than the ball. How much does the ball cost? _____ cents?

(2) If it takes 5 machines 5 minutes to make 5 widgets, how long would it take 100 machines to make 100 widgets? _____ minutes?

(3) In a lake, there is a patch of lily pads. Every day, the patch doubles in size. If it takes 48 days for the patch to cover the entire lake, how long would it take for the patch to cover half of the lake? _____ days?

To The Australian        Henry Ergas, in methodically demolishing some of the latest arguments in favour of Aboriginal constitutional recognition ("This voice would have us shouting over the walls", 26/7), warns that enactment of the proposed "voice to Parliament" could "set off a dynamic whose effects are starkly at odds with its supporters' objectives." Well, yes and no, for while some of the advocates for the cause are good-hearted and well-intentioned, others, as can be seen from their words and actions in recent years, are not. They positively want trouble in order to further their cause of cleaving Australia in two. Ergas foresees unpleasant consequences if the government of the day rejects claims by this putative new body: resentment, fury and a damaging row. That negative behaviour will also manifest if the government finally concedes that the idea of constitutional recognition is unjust (which it is) or fated to lose any referendum. Australians generally must brace themselves with courage to face unpleasantness no matter what course the government adopts.
It would be better to face the music now, before it gets louder!
  Nigel Jackson, Belgrave, Vic

To The Age        Rachel Perkins quotes former chief justice Murray Gleeson's claim that the dispossession of our Aboriginal tribes "underwrote the development of the nation" ("Saluting a Liberal who understands", 25/7). That is a contestable assertion. It can as truly or more truly be affirmed that the Aboriginals' loss was caused by their failure to defend their territory and that the subsequent development of Australia resulted from the knowledge, skills and efforts of the newcomers. She wants "constitutional reforms" to "empower" her people and give them their "rightful place" in "their own country". What this means for other Australians (97%) is changes for the worse giving a very small and ill-defined group unfair advantages that might lead eventually to the establishment of a separate Aboriginal nation. Any "sense of estrangement" really felt by Aboriginals needs to be addressed in a wiser fashion than constitutional change.
  Nigel Jackson, Belgrave

     Refugees, a generation of super-brained workers, who are mostly rocket scientists, and who would have paid for boomer pensions, want to leave the northern socialist country of Denmark. Why? Is it racism? It is always racism. No, it is welfare cuts:
  http://www.thepolitics.online/2019/07/were-leaving-refugees-are-outraged.html?m=1&fbclid=IwAR31jnXNM7vzSLKO138hwbQtGuGVZ1lQ5Z4smUoUThlRKvNnWzAbbM8Gt_c
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmqbtyfQ3f8

     Never mind, the rocket scientists will be flying their rockets to Sweden which welcomes the world. Good for you, Sweden.

     Here is a revealing article by Eric Margolis who moved in intelligence circles who makes comments about the Epstein paedophilia honey pots, arranged to capture rich and powerful people on film, for blackmail, financial extortion and political control purposes. Australians should be interested in this affair because probably on a smaller scale, the same principle has been used to con your lower level elites, such as politicians, not that they would really need much by way of threats to keep them in line:
  https://ericmargolis.com/2019/07/the-honey-trap-on-e-71st/

“I’ve had many strange experiences in my decades of covering intelligence affairs. These run from being invited to KGB HQ in Moscow, Chinese intelligence in Beijing, US intelligence in Virginia, Libyan intelligence in Tripoli, South African intelligence, and even Albanian intelligence in Tirana. But none was odder than the day I was invited to lunch in New York City with the by now notorious figure Jeffrey Epstein. The golden boy of Manhattan and Palm Beach society now sits in a grim jail cell accused of having sex with underage girls. He’s been doing this in plain view since the early 1990’s but, until recently, he seemed bullet-proof. Soon after I walked into the entrance of Epstein’s mansion on E 71st Street, said to be the city’s largest private home, a butler asked me, ‘would you like an intimate massage, sir, by a pretty young girl?’ This offer seemed so out of place and weird to me that I swiftly declined. More important than indelicacy, as an old observer of intelligence affairs, to me this offer reeked of ye old honey trap, a tactic to ensnare and blackmail people that was old when Babylon was young. A discreet room with massage table, lubricants and, no doubt, cameras stood ready off the main lobby. I had arrived with Canada’s leading lady journalist who was then close to Epstein’s sometime girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell and, it was said, procuress – something Maxwell denies. Bizarrely, Maxwell believed that I could get KGB Moscow Center to release satellite photos that showed the murder on his yacht of her father, the press baron Robert Maxwell, who was a well-known double agent for Israel and KGB, and a major criminal. …

     In my excitement, I upgraded my name, but not to worry, as in my state of mental decay, I am doing that when I get excited. And who would not be excited when they have their diatribes against the vile and filthy universities confirmed by a former antifa member:
  https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2019/07/18/former-antifa-member-college-breeds-far-left-radicals/

“Former Antifa member Gabriel Nadales argued this week that American colleges breed far-left radicals in an interview with Tucker Carlson. Former Antifa member Gabriel Nadales appeared on Tucker Carlson Tonight this week to discuss the rise of far-left violence. Nadales, who joined Antifa when he was 16 years old, is now a conservative activist. Nadales described the evolution of Antifa as a far-left activist group. “I was in Antifa when I was just 16, almost 10 years ago. Back then it was just a group that went down to go protest against what we thought were fascists. However, Antifa is far more violent today than it ever was,” Nadales said. “This is not a laughing matter,” he continued. “People are being attacked because of Antifa. We have to be able to hold Antifa accountable.” Nadales argued that Antifa activists are born on colleges campuses all around the United States. He cited various professors that have endorsed political violence for the purpose of advancing far-left politics. One professor, Mark Bray of Dartmouth. To really understand Antifa, we have to go to the college campuses. Throughout the country, we have a lot of different professors who are advocating for violence,” Nadales said. “We have Mark Bray from Dartmouth [College] where he praises and advocates for political violence. More recently…we had a professor from Colorado State University who said that she was done talking to people on her opposition, that she was ready to punch them in the neck. Unfortunately, we are seeing a resurgence of political violence by the left.” “So you believe Antifa is being incubated on college campuses…by professors?” Carlson asked. “I think so. I think that’s where they are getting a lot of their philosophy from,” Nadales finished.”

     The battle is on, with a leading jurist saying that an indigenous voice to parliament would not undermine the power of parliament:
  https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/gleeson-defends-indigenous-voice-proposal/news-story/d7d0ab0f0968b6395c253cf4ea65bf82?utm_source=The%20Australian&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=editorial&utm_content=BreakingNews

“Former High Court chief justice Murray Gleeson has declared a new indigenous “voice to parliament” could be created through legislation — with only minimal references in the Constitution — without eroding the power of the nation’s politicians. Mr Gleeson, one of Australia’s pre-eminent legal figures, said the proposal for an indigenous voice — set out in the Uluru Statement from the Heart — would succeed if it maintained “parliamentary supremacy”. Rejecting suggestions by opponents that the voice could act as a “third chamber” of parliament, Mr Gleeson said the proposed new advisory body was a “worthwhile objective” to help governments draft policies that affected indigenous people. “It is difficult to see any objection in principle to the creation of a body to advise parliament about proposed laws relating to indigenous affairs,” Mr Gleeson said. Speaking in Sydney last night, Mr Gleeson, who was appointed chief justice by John Howard, said it was possible to give the new body constitutional status as an “appropriate form of indigenous recognition”. He said a successful model should not be constructed as a “one-line bill of rights”, warning that could “diminish the lawmaking power of the parliament”. The Constitution already gave the federal parliament powers to create special laws specifically for indigenous Australians. He said it should not offend anyone that a new representative body be established to advise the parliament on those laws. The proposal for a voice to parliament had the advantage of being “substantive and not merely ornamental”, suggesting it could be “constitutionally entrenched” but “legislatively controlled”. “Only the federal parliament can initiate a referendum. It has shown little appetite for proposals to limit its own power; and rightly so,” Mr Gleeson said. “Parliamentary supremacy is one of the essential safeguards of our liberal democracy. It is unlikely that parliament will propose a change to the Constitution in aid of indigenous recognition if the effect of the change will be to curtail its own legislative power. “That appears to have been well understood by the supporters of the voice. What is proposed is a voice to parliament, not a voice in parliament.”

     The world suffers from commodity fetishism, where everything has been converted to a money value, and where the money power controls everything. Some may feel that some things escape this net, such as air, but the global warming nonsense shows that even air will be reduced to a monetary value, and we will pay for air:
  https://washingtonsblog.com/2019/07/predatory-green-capitalism-is-monetizing-the-air-and-its-going-to-cost-you.html
  http://charleshughsmith.blogspot.com/2019/07/predatory-green-capitalism-is.html

“You asked, "What's left to monetize? It appears the answer is 'very little.'" I respectfully disagree. The Biggest Enchilada of all is left. Air. Specifically carbon dioxide, CO2. We just have to figure how to get the yokels to agree to pay for that which was formerly free. Got it! First we browbeat them into believing its evil and that we have to tax it to save all life on Earth. Then, following in the finest traditions of the degenerate late medieval Catholic Church, we'll commission sellers of "Indulgences" to allow sinning at ever rising prices. a/k/a "Carbon Credit trading". This doesn't require any value added and the profits on "buy zero sell high" are limitless. This is the specific outline and the very same agencies that so love financialization of all kinds, $2 trillion dollar student debt to sustain obscenely paid college administrators and academics, endless academic credentialism and huge Hipster Cities sitting on container ports and mediating the China Trade, are all promoting this financialization of CO2 as hard as possible. This is why a nullity like the Paris Climate Accords continues to be pushed even after its proven every way possible that a) the biggest emitters like China and India won't adhere to them and b) even if they did the prescribed regimes will do nothing anyway. And its why I "don't believe" in it. Or rather, its why I believe its just the next and biggest financial scam.

     If the average white British person got into legal trouble, one would be foolish to think that the state would help out, or that there would be any pro bono lawyers lending their services. But add some colour, and oh boy, it is a different story:
  https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1155103/rotherham-grooming-gang-scandal-brothers-legal-aid-victims-sammy-woodhouse-child-sex-abuse

“THREE "pure evil" brothers have received up to £500,000 in legal aid after raping children in Rotherham - while dozens of their victims have yet to receive any compensation. Arshid, Basharat and Bannaras Hussain - known as Mad Ash, Bash and Bono - formed a violent, gun-toting, drug-dealing gang. They pleaded poverty despite running a petrol station, takeaways and an egg farm that supplies supermarkets, alongside owning a number of properties. A Freedom of Information request has revealed they were awarded £370,000 in legal aid for their costs in the 2016 crown court trial. This does not include other magistrates hearings and family court battles which experts say could tot up to £100,000 more. Survivors last night called the payout "outrageous" and "immoral". One top solicitor revealed that of the 86 victims he represents, 70 have not yet received any compensation payout. Dozens of others have received sums as low as £2,000. The Hussain brothers, who poured petrol over their victims, are said to have "owned" the South Yorkshire town for more than 10 years. Some girls were just 11 years old when they were raped, tied up and tortured and passed between abusers. Ringleader Arshid, 42, was jailed for 35 years, Bannaras 19 years, and Basharat was given 25 years. Sammy Woodhouse, 34, one of their 50 victims, said: "This is completely outrageous and immoral. "They have probably received 25 per cent more money than what the survivors of their abuse have had in total as compensation. "Something needs to be put in place to stop these people just laughing at the system and milking the taxpayer dry." Former youth worker Jayne Senior MBE, who helped expose the scandal, said: "I'm totally shocked and horrified.This is terrible. "These rapists and abusers are pure evil but they've had almost half a million pounds spent on them, yet these poor girls get nothing. "It feels like the judicial system is not set up to protect victims of some of the most horrendous crimes of abuse, torture and trafficking this country has ever seen."

     When I speak about conservativism, I think of John Howard as the modern example. This is not classical conservativism, which was a position, as in Burke, that saw the limits of all adventurous and radical social programs, and went instead to support tradition. The modern conservatives are not about conserving anything other than money for the elites. That is why they are big on the Great Replacement, which they see as a winner for the masters of the Universe.
  https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/07/amy-waxs-critics-unfairly-smeared-her-but-shes-wrong/

“Last week at the National Conservatism Conference, University of Pennsylvania law professor Amy Wax stirred up controversy with a comment about immigration that, yanked out of context, seemed clearly racist. In context, it’s not racist. It’s just wrong. And the reason it’s wrong should help us understand a vital truth: American civilization is now quite clearly distinct from European civilization, and that’s a good thing indeed. First, here’s what Wax said about immigration and race (via Vox’s Zack Beauchamp, with the most controversial elements highlighted): Here’s the argument in a nutshell. Immigration policy should take culture into account, and the culture that most closely matches our own comes from Europe and the “First World.” Depending on how you define the “First World” (lots and lots of people live in China and Japan), that region is mostly white. So, proper immigration policy will result in more white immigrants even if the intentisn’t to bring in more whites. She derides contrary arguments, including the idea that immigrant populations from all regions assimilate well into American culture, as the “happy fantasy” of “magic dirt” — the idea that mere presence in America transforms immigrants into productive members of the American civilization.”

     I like crystal balls and all of that hocus pocus. It takes one back to youth, to days at the carnival, with weird people doing fantastic things, like predicting economic collapse, my obsession:
  https://www.news.com.au/finance/economy/world-economy/futurist-who-predicted-911-and-the-gfc-says-there-will-be-a-global-crash-by-the-end-of-next-year/news-story/1cbfb302a172303db20ab62fe6251ac6

“Chillingly, within the next three years, a popular world leader will be assassinated using autonomous drone technology, sparking an international outcry. Those are just some of the predictions of futurist Dr Richard Hames — who correctly foresaw 9/11 and the GFC, two of the biggest world events of the past two decades — but they’re not his “craziest”. “My craziest prediction is that within the decade we’re going to see almost a revolutionary change in how we think about politics, social enterprise and the economy,” Dr Hames said, citing climate change and the widening gap between rich and poor as key catalysts. “Governments will seriously consider how they can put a cap on personal wealth, thus challenging the capitalist framework. We will shift our thinking away from growth at all costs to how humanity thrives without growth and even negative growth. Economists will say that’s impossible, but it isn’t if you look at more things than just the economy.” To promote his tour of the country, Dr Hames has come out with a number of headline-grabbing pronouncements — including that a second financial crisis is just around the corner. “Since the global financial crisis none of the structural dynamics have changed, in fact I think they’re getting worse,” Dr Hames said. “There is going to be a global crash by the end of next year.” On President Trump’s 2020 prospects, he argues that “a lot of his base is actually falling away but in a number of ways the economy is going better in the US than anyone expected”. “The Democrats are in disarray, that’s a big part of it,” he said. “They’re fighting each other. I’m saying with almost 100 per cent certainty that he’s going to get back in.”